Thread: Judge rejects Montco lawyer's bid to have Obama removed from

[Note: Philly.com is the good old Philadelphia Inquirer, of long standing and a major paper. Montco means Montgomery County, a wealthy, leafy place to live.]

Judge rejects Montco lawyer's bid to have Obama removed from ballot
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN
Philadelphia Daily News

hinkelm@phillynews.com 215-854-2656

A federal judge in Philadelphia last night threw out a complaint by a Montgomery County lawyer who claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.
Philip J. Berg alleged in a complaint filed in federal district court on Aug. 21 against Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.

Berg claimed that the Democratic presidential standardbearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.

He alleged that if Obama was permitted to run for president and subsequently found to be ineligible, he and other voters would be disenfranchised.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick had denied Berg's request for a temporary restraining order on Aug. 22 but had not ruled on the merits of the suit until yesterday.

Obama and the Democratic National Committee had asked Surrick to dismiss Berg's complaint in a court filing on Sept. 24.

They said that Berg's claims were "ridiculous" and "patently false," that Berg had "no standing" to challenge the qualifications of a candidate for president because he had not shown the requisite harm to himself.

Surrick agreed.

In a 34-page memorandum and opinion, the judge said Berg's allegations of harm were "too vague and too attenuated" to confer standing on him or any other voters.

Surrick ruled that Berg's attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were "frivolous and not worthy of discussion."

The judge also said the harm Berg alleged did "not constitute an injury in fact" and Berg's arguments to the contrary "ventured into the unreasonable."

For example, Berg had claimed that Obama's nomination deprived citizens of voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton in November. (Berg backed Clinton in the primaries.)

Berg could not be reached for comment last night.

Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, and the campaign posted a document issued by Hawaii on its Web site, fight thesmears.com, confirming his birth there.

Berg said in court papers that the image was a forgery.

The nonpartisan Web site FactCheck.org examined the original document and said it was legitimate.

Further, a birth announcement in the Aug. 13, 1961, Honolulu Advertiser listed Obama's birth there on Aug. 4. *


www.philly.com

THE JUDGE HAS NOT RULED YET, ANYTHING STATING BERG WON OR LOST IS A WORK OF THE WRITERS DREAMS AND DESIRES

I will keep people posted on the following links, we have gotten so many I can't post on them all without it becoming a full time job!

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... 470#794470

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... 417#794417

I just do not believe the Judge will rule in favor of Berg.
Anything against Obama that would have made people across America seriously question any other Candidates qualifications for the Presidency has been swept under the rug, hushed up or just ignored.
What in the world is going on in our country?????

There are many good reasons to support or oppose a candidate. Such as his positions on issues, track record, plans, credentials. But if Obama has a birth record from Hawaii and the state of Hawaii doesn't repudiate it, the citizenship dog won't hunt and people will need to let go of it.

http://www.americasright.com/

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Lawsuit Against Obama Dismissed from Philadelphia Federal Court


The order and memorandum came down at approximately 6:15 p.m. on Friday. Philip Berg's lawsuit challenging Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president of the United States had been dismissed by the Hon. R. Barclay Surrick on grounds that the Philadelphia attorney and former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania lacked standing.

Surrick, it seemed, was not satisfied with the nature of evidence provided by Berg to support his allegations.


Various accounts, details and ambiguities from Obama’s childhood form the basis of Plaintiff’s allegation that Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. To support his contention, Plaintiff cites sources as varied as the Rainbow Edition News Letter … and the television news tabloid Inside Edition. These sources and others lead Plaintiff to conclude that Obama is either a citizen of his father’s native Kenya, by birth there or through operation of U.S. law; or that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia by relinquishing his prior citizenship (American or Kenyan) when he moved there with his mother in 1967. Either way, in Plaintiff’s opinion, Obama does not have the requisite qualifications for the Presidency that the Natural Born Citizen Clause mandates. The Amended Complaint alleges that Obama has actively covered up this information and that the other named Defendants are complicit in Obama’s cover-up.
A judge’s attitude toward the factual foundation of a plaintiff’s claims is an essential factor in understanding just who indeed has standing to sue. The question running to the heart of the standing doctrine is whether or not the plaintiff indeed has a personal stake in the outcome of the otherwise justiciable matter being adjudicated. As has been discussed before many times here at America’s Right, a plaintiff wishing to have standing to sue must show (1) a particularized injury-in-fact, (2) evidence showing that that the party being sued actually caused the plaintiff’s particularized injury-in-fact, and (3) that adjudication of the matter would actually provide redress.

In this case, Judge Surrick’s attitude toward the evidence presented by Berg to support his allegations figures in heavily because, while there is a three-pronged test to standing in itself, there is no definitive test by which the court can determine whether a certain harm is enough to satisfy the first element of that three-pronged test by showing true injury-in-fact. Traditionally, it hasn’t taken much to satisfy the need for an injury-in-fact, but as the plaintiff’s claimed injury is perceived as being more remote, more creative, or more speculative, the injury-in-fact requirement becomes more difficult to satisfy.

As it were, much of Berg’s basis for injury-in-fact could be considered threatened injury–he felt that the country was at risk for “voter disenfranchisementâ€

Berg, nonetheless, is disappointed by Surrick's decision and will issue a press release today detailing his plans to appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the United States Supreme Court.

"This is a question of who has standing to stand up for our Constitution," Berg said. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to ask whether or not the likely next president of the United States--the most powerful man in the entire world--is eligible to be in that office in the first place, then who does?"

Berg's not giving up. We shall have to wait and see.

Neither I or ALIPAC has an official opinion on this case. I do not contend on behalf of either party in this dispute.

After making that very clear, I would like to offer two comments about this article based on my experiences.

Many of us have become quite expert at observing and analyzing political and media biases.

Two issues jump off the screen at me about this article.

First, the rulings of the judge with regards to "harm and damages"

I'm not buying that because if the Constitution is not obeyed or if any particular candidate is not qualifed due to stipulations in the Constitution, the Constution is the superior document and not nuances of subservient court precedences or practices. Clearly, all Americans would be harmed if a candidate proceeded and was not allowed to run under the Constitution, especially those voters that voted for, donated to, or campaigned for an opposing Candidate! Clearly, there is much personal and national harm to go around if these allegations are true. So, I am not buying the tort that Berg cannot prove "harm or damages" and feel that the judge's ruling on that aspect is highly suspect.

Second, since this article is about a dispute or contention, the writer and editors should not have placed the definitive statement...

Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961, and the campaign posted a document issued by Hawaii on its Web site, fight thesmears.com, confirming his birth there.

This definitive statement is not in quotes and the article writer and paper take a clear stand asserting that Obama's Honolulu birth is incontrovertible fact. By doing so, the writers make it clear they wish readers to believe that this is true and it is not the job of the reporter or newspaper to try and persuade readers in the context of a news story.

The line should have read "According to the document posted by the Obama campaign and confirmed by fightthesmears dot com, Obama was born in Honolulu on Aug 4 1961.

It is the document provided by the Obama campaign, the newspaper ad, and the fact checking website that are making the assertion about Obama's birth details.

The way it is written, it is this reporter and this newspaper making that assertion and not the Obama campaign or provided document.


Again, I'm not saying that this story is true or not as I am in no position to really know more than anyone else, but my bullshitometer is going off of these two details observed in this article.

W

The way I read the birth announcement in the paper is that Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961 to his parents and his parents current address. We know he was born, but it does not state where he was born.

Anyone can put a birth annoucement in any paper in the world, when their child is born, does not mean the child is born in that location.

The announcement states the source of the information, at the head of the column. It was customary at the time to only announce local births from that source. If it was not a local birth, the family would have had to place the notice, but this notice was not placed by the family.

There is one thing that puzzles me is that the docket is allegedly current through 23:17 on the 24th. If the order was signed and released at 18:15 why is it not showing and why is Bergs site Obama crimes silent about this? If this was REALLY released last night, how come the conflicting headlines today? This mystery seems to get murkier and murkier.

I am not taking a position as to whether or not their in fact was an order until I see it on the docket. Too much is not adding up here.a

Does anybody have a link that shows a signed order?