2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign Discussion Thread 13: Victory Lap

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CHANGING OF THE GUARD
'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location
Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see 'usurper' in Oval Office

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Posted: November 14, 2008
8:40 pm Eastern


By Bob Unruh


keyes.jpg




Alan Keyes
The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others.

The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama's status as a "natural-born citizen," a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.

..his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.





The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?


Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born, while a video posted on YouTube features Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya.

The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Alan Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.


California Secretary of State Debra Bowen

The petition is a request for the Superior Court of California in Sacramento County to issue a peremptory writ barring Secretary of State Debra Bowen "from both certifying to the governor the names of the California Electors, and from transmitting to each presidential Elector a Certificate of Election, until such documentary proof is produced and verified showing that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States and does not hold citizenship of Indonesia, Kenya or Great Britain."

It continues with a request for a writ barring California's electors from signing the Certificate of Vote until documentary proof is produced.



The popular vote Nov. 4 favored Obama over Sen. John McCain by several percentage points. But because of the distribution of the votes, Obama is projected to take the Electoral College vote, when it is held in December, by a 2-to-1 margin.

Named as defendants in the action are Bowen, Obama, vice president elect Joe Biden and the long list of California party electors.

Citing the constitutional requirement that a president be a "natural born" citizen, the case discusses other state and federal court cases regarding "aspects of lost or dual citizenship concerning Senator Obama. Those challenges, in and of themselves, demonstrate Petitioners' argument that reasonable doubt exists as to the eligibility of the Democratic Party’s nominee for President," the case said.

Get Brad O'Leary's blockbuster book detailing the agenda for the upcoming Obama White House, "The Audacity of Deceit."

"There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process," the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.

"Since [the Secretary of State] has, as its core, the mission of certifying and establishing the validity of the election process, this writ seeks a Court Order barring SOS from certifying the California Electors until documentary proof that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States of America is received by her," the document said.

"This proof could include items such as his original birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor, all of his passports with immigration stamps, and verification from the governments where the candidate has resided, verifying that he did not, and does not, hold citizenship of these countries, and any other documents that certify an individual’s citizenship and/or qualification for office.

"To this date, in this regard, SOS has not carried out that fundamental duty."

The case said a simple attestation from the candidate or his party isn't sufficient.

"Historically, California Secretaries of State have exercised their due diligence by reviewing necessary background documents, verifying that the candidates that were submitted by the respective political parties as eligible for the ballot were indeed eligible. In 1968, the Peace and Freedom Party submitted the name of Eldridge Cleaver as a qualified candidate for President of the United States. The then SOS, Mr. Frank Jordan, found that, according to Mr. Cleaver's birth certificate, he was only 34 years old, one year shy of the 35 years of age needed to be on the ballot as a candidate for President. Using his administrative powers, Mr. Jordan removed Mr. Cleaver from the ballot. Mr. Cleaver unsuccessfully challenged this decision to the Supreme Court of the State of California, and, later, to the Supreme Court of the United States."

Similarly, in 1984, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate Larry Holmes was removed from the ballot.

The "certificate of live birth" posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, the case alleges.

"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."
The case also raises the circumstances of Obama's time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama's mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.

Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be "naturalized," not "natural-born."

"Based on all of the above, it is the duty of the SOS to obtain proper documentation of Senator Obama's citizenship to confirm his eligibility for the office or the President of the United States," the case said.

Just this week.... more than half a dozen other legal challenges have been filed in federal and state courts demanding Obama's decertification from ballots or seeking to halt elector meetings, claiming he has failed to prove his U.S. citizenship status.

Among the states where cases are being tracked are Ohio, Connecticut, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Hawaii, and there were reports of other cases being developed in Utah, Wyoming, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Texas, California and Virginia.
 
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
'Constitutional crisis' looming over Obama's birth location
Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see 'usurper' in Oval Office

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The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Alan Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.
[/U][/B]

:rolleyes:

Do you know anything about Wiley S. Drake or Markham Robinson? Don't start your victory dance just yet.
 
But what value does it have for us if people in 30, 50 years or 150 years view Bush in a more positive light than people view him these days? We judge him by the current knowledge we have about him, in 50 years that knowledge will be much more filtered, influencing what people will have to say about him then.
Right now, he was a disgrace for this country.

As time goes on, the information available to accurately judge such events increases. Equally important, much of the bias of politics and the media gets filtered out which helps to give a more honest, objective, and accurate view of the situation.

People also tend to put the time into a historical perspective accurately comparing it to other periods. The difficulty of events a President had to contend with compared to other administrations gets more consideration. Also, the full impact and benefits of some policies are sometimes not felt until years later. Provided the United States does not withdraw prematurely from Iraq and successfully helps it develop over the next few years, the number of people claiming that it would have been better to leave Saddam in power in Iraq will continue to drop. Regardless of who you think is responsible for the basic macro-economic statistics over the past 8 years for the USA, the record there overall is actually very good, especially the poverty rate which has been the third lowest of any US administration in history.
 
Well, thats really a question that is better suited for the vast majority in here that tend to be on the left side of the fence and skip or ingore the tiny number of post that disagree with their political views.


Ok, you are now tied with Diamond on the "most ironic post of the year" award. Only a month and a half left, who will win?
 
I would laugh if Bush was, in the future, without the "political and media filters," looked upon with even less approval.

To say you're sure history will look at this failure of an administration as a success is a huge stretch. Is it possible? I suppose. Is it likely? Not at all.
 
I would laugh if Bush was, in the future, without the "political and media filters," looked upon with even less approval.

To say you're sure history will look at this failure of an administration as a success is a huge stretch. Is it possible? I suppose. Is it likely? Not at all.

After all, look at how other world leaders talk about him:

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr. Sarkozy told Mr. Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to [Sarkozy’s chief diplomatic adviser, Jean-David] Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr. Putin declared.

Mr. Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr. Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr. Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr. Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”
 
Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes

By Jesse Washington, AP National Writer | November 15, 2008

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.

Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."

"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."

If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.

Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.

The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."

Other incidents include:

--Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

--At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

--Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

--Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

--University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.

--Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

--Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

--A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

--In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.

"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."

"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'"

"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."
 
Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

See, this is what I don't get. How stupid these people are.

Your country was stolen by the (mainly white, some Jewish, some black - but the majority white) Bush neo-cons and they are too stupid to see it.
 
Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
WASHINGTON—African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind.
 
To say you're sure history will look at this failure of an administration as a success is a huge stretch. Is it possible? I suppose. Is it likely? Not at all.


I don't consider the removal of the Taliban regime and the Saddam regime from power to be failures but major foreign policy successes key to the security of the United States and the world. The transformation under way in both Afghanistan and Iraq while not without mistakes has been amazing especially given the difficult circumstances for development in each country. Only the ignorant and uninformed could look at the past 8 years of GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, national debt as a percentage of GDP, and poverty rate in the United States and lable it a failure.


Bush's approval rating, given the facts above and what we know happened historically with Lincoln, Truman and even Nixon on this issue, will definitely improve.
 
How terribly sad that people can be so hate filled towards another person. It just really shows the depth of viciousness human beings can reach.
I am slightly afraid that there will be an assasination attempt, and i'm just hoping that his secret service guys are like 100% on it, 24/7, because if anything way to happen to him, i think it would be the end of the USA as we know it.

I always remember reading after Sept 11th, how a few Sikhs were killed and assaulted because they wore turbans, and i just couldn't understand how people could do that to someone, but its becoming more apparant how easily it is to turn your hate towards someone who doesn't even deserve it, based on disgusting screwed up ideas.
 
As time goes on, the information available to accurately judge such events increases. Equally important, much of the bias of politics and the media gets filtered out which helps to give a more honest, objective, and accurate view of the situation.

People also tend to put the time into a historical perspective accurately comparing it to other periods. The difficulty of events a President had to contend with compared to other administrations gets more consideration. Also, the full impact and benefits of some policies are sometimes not felt until years later. Provided the United States does not withdraw prematurely from Iraq and successfully helps it develop over the next few years, the number of people claiming that it would have been better to leave Saddam in power in Iraq will continue to drop. Regardless of who you think is responsible for the basic macro-economic statistics over the past 8 years for the USA, the record there overall is actually very good, especially the poverty rate which has been the third lowest of any US administration in history.

This is a nut busting post from you. For example, Colin Powel, a respected member of the administration appeared on Meet the Press and discounted your positions on WMD in pre war Iraq. I posted his quotes, and you never responded.

Historically, we do not need much of a lens as of now, there are PLENTY of former members of this administration who have written the truth.

Only a few, cling to the lies.

Statistics, can be manipulated to say what one wants along with intelligence reports.
 
I don't consider the removal of the Taliban regime and the Saddam regime from power to be failures but major foreign policy successes key to the security of the United States and the world. The transformation under way in both Afghanistan and Iraq while not without mistakes has been amazing especially given the difficult circumstances for development in each country. Only the ignorant and uninformed could look at the past 8 years of GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, national debt as a percentage of GDP, and poverty rate in the United States and lable it a failure.

Only the ignorant and uninformed would say that an economy that fell into a terrible recession was a failure?

Also, it's "label."
 
Now now, as long as we are not ignorant and uninformed, we can spell words any way we chose. :hyper:
 
This is a nut busting post from you. For example, Colin Powel, a respected member of the administration appeared on Meet the Press and discounted your positions on WMD in pre war Iraq.

The only thing I said about Iraq above is that as the years go by, the number of people claiming that it would have been better to leave Saddam in power in Iraq will continue to drop. Colin Powell has never stated that it was a mistake to remove Saddam from power. When it comes to whether or not the United States should have used its military to remove Saddam from power in 2003, he still supports the move. He went on Barbara Walters show in 2005 and dispelled all the rumours that he did not support the invasion by stating that "when the President said it was not tolerable for Saddam to remain in violation of these UN Resolutions, I am right there with him on the use of military force".



I posted his quotes, and you never responded.

There are all kinds of things that get posted on this board that many never see and obviously don't get to respond to.

Historically, we do not need much of a lens as of now, there are PLENTY of former members of this administration who have written the truth.

There are certainly many knowledgeable people who don't need time and a lens to understand that removing Saddam from power was the right thing to do in 2003. It will take the majority of the general public though a little longer, just as it took it several years or decades to realize that US military intervention in Korea was not a mistake.

Only a few, cling to the lies.

No one lied. But its obviously going to take time for some to come to that conclusion as well.

Statistics, can be manipulated to say what one wants along with intelligence reports.

In the case of the Democrats on the issue of Iraq, that has certainly been the case.


US security concerns in regards to Iraq never rested solely on Saddam's mere technical capacity in regards to WMD in 2003, but also involved the potential of Saddam to increase what ever WMD and conventional military capacities or abilities he had at the time in the years to come, because of the weakness of sanctions and the embargo and the inability or difficulty in strengthening them. It also involved Saddam's long record on the issue of cooperation with the international community on WMD and the other issues surrounding his invasion of Kuwait and the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. The ability to deter Saddam in the future based on the record of the past 25 years he had been in power. The cost of acting now(2003) when Saddam would naturally be weaker as opposed to 5 or 10 years later when both his WMD and conventional military capabilities would be much stronger because of the weakness and the essential end of the sanctions regime and embargo, plus the increasing price of oil which would enrich Saddam's regime and allow him to acquire certain capabilities faster than he had been able to in the past. The other risk of waiting or not removing Saddam in 2003 was also that he could act against US interest before any action was taken to remove him.

Intelligence has never been perfect especially when it comes to detecting the storing and manufacture of WMD or WMD related activities. Its far more difficult than locating a tank platoon or a missile battery. The failures in intelligence only re-emphasize the fact that the only way to insure that Saddam did not have WMD, would not develop more WMD, and would never be a threat to the region again, was to remove him from power. The United States could not rely on its intelligence capacity alone to inform it when Saddam had or how far along he was on any particular area in regards to the production and development of WMD as time went on. Its been proven to be the case in the aftermath of what the US found in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and what it found in Iraq after Saddam was removed in 2003. If one believes it was a necessity to insure that Saddam would never again have any sort of WMD capability, and in light of Saddam's behavior on disarmament issues from 1991 to 2003, the fact that Saddam was found to have hid programs related to production of WMD from inspectors in 2002-2003, the only solution was to remove the Saddam regime from power and the sooner that could be done, the less costly the whole invasion and occupation would be. Waiting simply would have allowed Saddam to acquire more conventional and unconventional military capabilities that would have raised US, coalition, and Iraqi casualties during the invasion and in the occupation phase.
 
It is quite telling that the rather broad question of how people will view Bush in 50 years gets reduced to the need for Saddam to be removed (oh, and sometimes those economic figures). As if that was the only important thing at all that happened.

And even if time got more honest with what happened in the past, which is true when it comes to policies which effects we will only see long-term, there's no guarantee this will lead to a more positive view for Bush. So much stuff going during his administration was all but good, like the total disregard for the climatic change, utterly terrible environmental policies, undermining peoples' ability to hold the government responsible and all those violations of human rights during the "war on terror".
 
I watched it. It was excellent, and I almost think I'm dreaming sometimes when I realize we have an intelligent president again.:love: Barack and Michelle are a great couple. I can't wait to see them and the girls in the White House.:heart:
 
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