Judge soundly rejects Ga. birther claims

Judge soundly rejects Ga. birther claims

5:25 pm February 3, 2012, by Jay

Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi has rendered his judgment, breaking birther hearts all over the country: Barack Obama will remain on the 2012 primary and general election ballot in Georgia.

The judge’s written opinion all but drips with scorn for the absurd case presented to him by Orly Taitz and her colleagues:

“The Court finds the testimony of the witnesses, as well as the exhibits tendered, to be of little, if any, probative value, and thus wholly insufficient to support plaintiffs’ allegations…. None of the testifying witnesses offered persuasive testimony. Moreover, the Court finds that none of the written submissions tendered by plaintiffs have probative value. Given the unsatisfactory evidence presented by the plaintiffs, the court concludes the plaintiffs’ claims are not persuasive.”

In other words, the birthers finally got a judge to listen to their “evidence,” and even with no opposing counsel in the courtroom, the judge concluded that their case was total and complete bunk.

Judge soundly rejects Ga. birther claims | Jay Bookman

RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f19/obama-birth...cision-249320/

Friday, February 3, 2012

Judge Malihi Rules Against Plaintiffs: Says Obama Born In Hawaii Therefore Natural Born Citizen

ObamaRelease YourRecords on 1:33 PM http://img2.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mLNt9Z9QvN...udgeMalihi.png

Judge Malihi Rules Against Plaintiffs:
Says Obama Born In Hawaii Therefore Natural Born Citizen

We just spoke with plaintiff Kevin Powell and he reports Judge Malihi has ruled against the Plaintiffs and stated in his order that Obama was born in Hawaii and therefore Obama is a natural born Citizen.

Updates and Judge Malihi's order will be provided shortly....

UPDATE: Judge Malihi's Order now posted below......

UPDATE: Judge: Obama eligible to be Georgia candidate

A state administrative law judge on Friday flatly rejected challenges seeking to keep President Barack Obama from being a candidate in next month's Georgia primary.

In a 10-page order, Judge Michael Malihi dismissed one challenge that contended Obama has maintained a Hawaiian birth certificate that is a computer-generated forgery, has a fraudulent Social Security number and invalid U.S. identification papers. He also turned back another that claimed the president is not a natural born citizen.

Last month, Malihi heard testimony and took evidence in a hearing boycotted by Obama's lawyer.

With regard to the challenge that Obama does not have legitimate birth and identification documents, Malihi said he found the testimony presented by lawyers of the so-called "birther" movement and their evidence "to be of little, if any, probative value and thus wholly insufficient to support plaintiffs' allegations."

A number of the witnesses who testified about the alleged fraud were never qualified as experts in birth records, forged documents and document manipulation, Malihi wrote. "None of the testifying witnesses provided persuasive testimony," he wrote.

MORE HERE: http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/judge-obama-eligible-to-1330300.html

Note: An Article II Legal Defense Fund has been established to support legal actions to help reinstate a Constitutional Presidency, per Article II, Section 1. These actions may include civil or criminal complaints, lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions, including, but not limited to: direct eligibility challenges, ballot challenges, indirect suits against third parties, which would seek to clarify eligibility, or inhibit parties from supporting actions that benefit ineligible candidates and/or officials.

Please visit www.Article2LegalDefenseFund.com and consider making a secure donation to help cover legal costs associated with this GA ballot challenge.

ARTICLE II ELIGIBILITY FACTS HERE: http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html

Farrar/Welden/Swensson/Powell v Obama - Judge Malihi Final Decision - Georgia Ballot Challenge - 2/3/2012

So what did this judge get to see the real birth certificate? Something happened this week that we ain't getting to see!

Disappointed but Not really surprised...But considering the Big "O"'s complete defiance and disdain of the Judicial system and the Constitution, Perhaps we underestimate how powerful this man really has become and how weak the legislative and judicial branches are becoming under this Administration.

It would appear that the Indiana Court of Appeals, rather than the Supreme Court has defined "natural born"

Quote:

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Malihi said he was persuaded by a 2009 ruling by the Indiana Court of Appeals decision that struck down a similar challenge. In that ruling, the Indiana court found that children born within the U.S. are natural-born citizens, regardless of the citizenry of their parents. Obama "became a citizen at birth and is a natural-born citizen," Malihi wrote. Accordingly, Obama is eligible as a candidate for the upcoming presidential primary in March, the judge said. Judge: Obama eligible to be Georgia candidate *| ajc.com

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And yes, Steve,

Quote:

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Something happened this week that we ain't getting to see!

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To read the judge’s 10-page decision yourself, click here.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...hl=en_US&pli=1

CRAWFORD / Should President Obama be on the ballot in Georgia?

By Tom Crawford
Published:
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 10:50 PM EST

In other states, voters are trying to decide whether Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul will be the Republican nominee who runs against President Barack Obama in this fall’s election.

In Georgia, we are still trying to decide whether Obama should even be allowed on the election ballot. Our state has become the latest arena for a bizarre argument that has been going on since Obama first ran for president in 2008.

There are a group of people called “birthers” who espouse the belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of these United States and therefore is not eligible either to run or serve as president.

The evidence is overwhelming and widely accepted that Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 and is fully eligible to run for president. Among the birthers, however, hope springs eternal. They have filed numerous legal actions at the federal and state level trying to find a judge who will agree with them that Obama is not a citizen, but to no avail.

Several local birthers filed complaints about Obama late last year with Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Georgia’s chief elections officer. Kemp forwarded the complaints to an administrative law judge for a hearing on whether Obama’s name should be on the ballot for the presidential preference primary scheduled for March 6.

Judge Michael Malihi held a hearing on Jan. 26 for the birthers and their attorneys, who include California lawyer Orly Taitz. Neither Obama nor his Georgia attorney, Michael Jablonski, bothered to show up.

"It is well established that there is no legitimate issue here ��” a conclusion validated time and again by courts around the country," Jablonski wrote prior to the hearing.

That attitude did not sit well with Kemp, who warned Jablonski that if he and the president sat out the hearing, “you do so at your own peril.”

The hearing proceeded with Malihi taking testimony from assorted experts on forged birth certificates and bogus social security numbers. Exultant birthers were convinced that the judge would rule in their favor, especially after the disrespect Obama had displayed by boycotting the proceedings.

Late last week, the judge issued his findings: Obama’s name should remain on the Georgia ballot. “He became a citizen at birth and is a natural born citizen,” Malihi said.

His ruling was in line with the decisions of every other judge who has looked at the “evidence” and concluded that the president was born in Hawaii in 1961, which makes him a citizen just like every other human being who is born on American soil.

“The Court finds the testimony of the witnesses, as well as the exhibits tendered, to be of little, if any, probative value, and thus wholly insufficient to support Plaintiffs' allegations,” Malihi said in his decision. That’s a polite way of telling the birthers: “You got nothing.”

You might think that the judge’s decision would be the end of the affair, but you would be mistaken. The secretary of state, as it turns out, still has a role to play in this.

There was a similar election law controversy back in 2000 when Randy Sauder, a Republican member of the Legislature, decided on the last day of qualifying that he would switch parties and run for another term as a Democrat.

Republican Party officials said Sauder should not be allowed to run as a Democrat and some high-powered legal counsel was brought in to argue the case against him: former attorney general Mike Bowers.

An administrative law judge held a hearing and recommended to the secretary of state, Cathy Cox, that Sauder’s name be taken off the ballot. Cox rejected the judge’s recommendation, however, and ruled that Sauder would be allowed to run as a Democrat.

The name of that administrative law judge was Michael Malihi.

The current secretary of state has the same leeway to ignore Malihi’s latest finding, if he so chooses, and declare that Obama’s name cannot appear on the presidential primary ballot in Georgia. If he does that, of course, a federal judge most likely will step in and overrule him, but Kemp nevertheless has that option.

Whichever way Kemp rules, he will have to act quickly. March 6 will be here before you know it.

• Tom Crawford is editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report. Email: tcrawford@gareport.com.

The Blackshear Times | Blackshear, Pierce County, Ga. > Opinion > CRAWFORD / Should President Obama be on the ballot in Georgia?

Whitehall Man Aiming to Remove Obama from PA Ballot

Letter to the state secretary argues that Obama is not legally allowed to run for president.

By Robert Edward Healy, III
5:30 am

Barack Obama does not have the legal right to be President of the United States.

Such is the claim of Thomas Barchfeld, a Whitehall Borough resident from Glen Elm Drive and a member of the Whitehall Borough Republican Committee. And Barchfeld says that he has proof.

The 56-year-old former Democrat—he switched parties in 2011—has been going to the homes of registered Republicans in Whitehall (a Pittsburgh suburb) with a letter that he has written to Pennsylvania Secretary Carol Aichele claiming that Obama's natural-born citizenry is in serious question.

In fact, to Barchfeld, there is no doubt.

While Barchfeld does not directly question Obama's birthplace—the president was born in Hawaii in 1961—he instead focuses on Obama's parents. That's parents with an "s," and according to Barchfeld, that's extremely important.

Barchfeld points out that the U.S. Constitution requires the country's presidents to be "natural born citizens" (or citizens at the time of the adoption of the constitution) but that the document does not detail exactly what that means. While common understanding has held that those born in the United States qualify to be president, Barchfeld objects, pointing to an 1875 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Minor v. Happersett that has never been overturned in which the court ruled that a natural-born citizen can only be someone born in the United States to citizen parents.

As text from the Minor v. Happersett decision reads, "The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."

Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas, but his father, Barack Obama Sr., who was born in Kenya, was not a U.S. citizen at the time of his son's birth and never became one.

"The founding fathers never defined the term 'natural born citizen,'" Barchfeld argues, which he then says allows only for court precedent—such as the Minor v. Happersett case—to be used when determining the lawfulness of Obama's presidency.

"The Supreme Court defines it as both parents being U.S. citizens," Barchfeld says.

Barchfeld has been taking his letter around to residents in Whitehall's Third Precinct (the Snyder Park area, roughly, including Par and Southvue drives, among others) in hopes that Obama does not appear on Pennsylvania's presidential ballot in 2012. The letter is designed for each resident to sign his or her name on it and send it to Aichele.

Barchfeld is doing this as a private citizen, he says, not as a representative of the Whitehall Republican Committee.

A similar attempt to remove Obama's name from the presidential ballot in Georgia at a hearing in that state on Jan. 26 can be viewed on YouTube.

Neither the president nor his Georgia attorney, Michael Jablonski, showed for that Georgia hearing, but Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi, of the Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings, still ruled that Obama's name should be eligible for Georgia's ballot.

"He (Obama) became a citizen at birth," Malihi wrote in his decision on Feb. 3, "and is a natural born citizen."

That hasn't stopped Barchfeld, who says that he voted conservatively even when he was a Democrat, from trying in Pennsylvania.

"I don't like his policies," Barchfeld said of Obama, but he maintained that his personal feelings aren't as important as upholding the law. "It is a constitutional issue."

But Bruce Ledewitz, a professor for the Duquesne University School of Law for over 30 years, is not convinced.

"It doesn't matter," Ledewitz said. "Since the 1870s, we've treated people born here as citizens ... That's been the understanding."

Ledewitz was asked if Barchfeld's argument over the "natural born citizens" aspect holds any water.

"No," Ledewitz said. "And I'm not speaking about whether he's a good president or a bad president or anything else. It's just accepted law that people born in the United States are natural-born citizens. That's just been the understanding for a long time.

"It has nothing to do with Obama you understand. If you were born here, you're a natural-born citizen."

Barchfeld takes issue with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney running for the presidency, as well, since Romney's father, George Romney, was born in Mexico. (George Romney's parents, however, were both U.S. citizens. In fact, George ran for the U.S. presidency in 1968.)

Nevertheless, Barchfeld has not taken action on his concerns over Mitt Romney's candidacy as he has with Obama's.

The last paragraph of Barchfeld's letter (available in the media gallery near the top of this page) sums up his thoughts on Obama's candidacy in Pennsylvania.

"I am saddened that it seems very possible that the largest hoax in American history has been perpetrated on the people of America, undoubtedly this is just the tip of the iceberg in a very sordid tale. I am just a citizen of this State, and I only needed mere hours to find this information which is readily available. Now I call on each and every member of both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature as well as the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth to uphold the Constitution that you have sworn to protect."

Birther Movement: Pennsylvania Republican Seeks To Remove Obama From Ballot

Newt Gingrich Dismisses Birther Question From Orly Taitz

First Posted: 02/14/2012 12:50 pm Updated: 02/14/2012 2:21 pm

Orly Taitz took her anti-Obama birther crusade to GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday, only to come up empty-handed. Again.

At a campaign event in Pasadena, Calif., Gingrich took questions after delivering a stump speech blasting, among other things, "President Obama's war on the Catholic Church" and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently overturned California's same-sex marriage ban.

After answering concerns about the state of his campaign following a slide in recent polls and primary contests, Taitz came forward, suggesting that the birther issue could provide a "boost" to his candidacy if he made it a hallmark issue.

"Somebody who wouldn't be good enough, who wouldn't be certified to pick tomatoes or clean bathrooms is sitting in the White House," Taitz told Gingrich, reportedly to a mixed reception from the largely Tea Party audience.

"That's a project you should pursue," Gingrich responded. He went on to say that with ongoing economic issues and other mismanagement he saw in the president's agenda, he had "enough issues to debate Obama about."

Taitz, a California attorney and dentist, is one of the most outspoken members of the birther movement, whose adherents claim that Obama is ineligible to serve as president because he isn't actually a U.S. citizen. (In fact, the White House has released the president's long-form birth certificate, in hopes of quelling the conspiracy theories.) Taitz, who specifically believes that the president has forged his official documents, made something of a stir in Georgia last month when a judge subpoenaed Obama in a case her clients had filed attempting to bar Obama from the state's primary ballot. Obama's legal team ignored the judge's order, however, and the case proceeded without him. It was eventually dismissed by the judge, who determined that Obama was eligible to be on Georgia's primary ballot in March.

Newt Gingrich Dismisses Birther Question From Orly Taitz

Committee votes down birther bill

14-3 vote suggests House kill proposal

By Matthew Spolar / Monitor staff
February 15, 2012

Deterred by the "circus" surrounding the issue, a requirement that presidential candidates submit certified copies of their birth certificates was panned in the House Election Law Committee yesterday.

House Bill 1164 was sponsored by Republican Reps. Susan DeLemus of Rochester and Larry Rappaport of Colebrook, both of whom signed on to an effort last year to challenge President Obama's placement on the primary ballot because they doubt his Americancitizenship.

DeLemus said her bill does not take effect until January 2013, meaning it is not another attempt to keep Obama off the November ballot. The legislation initially required a certified copy of a candidate's original long-form birth certificate, but DeLemus said an amendment adopted yesterday reduced the requirement to a certified copy of a birthcertificate.

Still, the committee voted 14-3 to recommend the full House kill the bill when it comes up for a vote on the floor.

"If this is to be considered at a future time, it could be considered on the basis of its merits alone and not any association with the controversy we've experienced," said Election Law Chairman David Bates, a Windham Republican, who voted against the bill. "Quite frankly, with the circus that ensued around this more recently it's really impossible to adequately, objectively consider the policy merits of this with the fiasco the press made out of it."

In November, Attorney General Michael Delaney requested an investigation into "unruly" conduct by DeLemus and other Republican representatives after the state ballot law commission denied their appeal of Obama's primary eligibility.

Assistant Attorney General Matt Mavrogeorge said he and Assistant Secretary of State Karen Ladd locked themselves in an office in the Legislative Office Building out of fear for their safety.

Rep. David Pierce of Etna, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said he had concerns that requiring a birth certificate could disenfranchise citizens who don't have the document for various reasons, such as being born in a remote location or into a family that objects to birth certificates for religious reasons.

Pierce said the November incident also weighed on his decision.

"Voting for that, I think, would only encourage criminal activity like that," Pierce said. "I think it was criminal what they did."

Rep. Al Baldasaro, a Londonderry Republican, was one of the committee votes in favor of the bill. Baldasaro was one of the representatives named in Mavrogeorge's report upset about the decision to allow Obama on the ballot.

"It's no secret, of course, I was on board with some areas in the past with people coming into our state without any type of birth certificate," Baldasaro told the committee. "I just want to make sure you know this isn't for any political gain this year because it wouldn't go in until after the election."

DeLemus said she was unaware until she challenged Obama's citizenship that "there's no vehicle to uphold the requirements found in the Constitution" that a presidential candidate be a natural-born citizen.

"It's to shore up the Constitution and make sure we're sticking to the Constitution - that's the purpose of the bill," DeLemus said.

DeLemus said she knew the bill wouldn't be popular.

"It's so controversial, I think a lot of people shied away from it," she said.

(Matthew Spolar can be reached at 369-3309 or at mspolar@cmonitor.com)

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