Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Latest Obamaudacity - Berg will file an emergency injunction today

The Latest Obamaudacity
I don't get it.

President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic National Convention have let a Dec. 1 deadline slip by without responding to Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg's petition for writ of certiorari demanding Obama produce a legitimate birth certificate to document his eligibility for office.

While the Federal Election Commission waived its right to respond to the complaint on Nov. 18, the solicitor general's office is refusing to say whether the waiver was also filed on behalf of Obama and the DNC.

A very good place to watch the happenings - or non-happenings, as the case may be - is the blog of legal writer and reporter, Jeff Schreiber. It's called America's Right.

Early this morning (even by my standards), Schreiber posted that Berg will file an emergency injunction today.

One day after the deadline set by Supreme Court Justice David Souter for Barack Obama and the DNC to respond to attorney Philip Berg's Petition for Writ of Certiorari has passed without an answer, Berg is filing a motion in the Court in an attempt to further prevent Obama from taking office in January as the 44th president of the United States.
From what I could gather, the emergency motion for immediate injunction contains two main parts -- in filing the motion, Berg is looking for the Court (1) to prohibit the certification of electors by the governors of each individual state in order to stay the Electoral College from casting votes for Obama on December 15, and (2) to stay the official counting of any votes for Obama by Vice President Dick Cheney, the House of Representatives and United States Senate on January 6, 2009, pending any decision on his appeal.

"As I've said over and over and over again, we're headed toward a constitutional crisis, and it is absolutely imperative that we find out now, before he is sworn in, whether Obama is qualified under the United States Constitution to be president," Berg said.

"It is my firm belief, my one thousand percent firm belief," he said, "that he does not meet the natural born qualifications, that he should not be voted for by the electors, and that he should not be sworn in this January unless he shows his credentials ... which he of course cannot, simply because he does not have them."

The motion comes one day after Obama and the DNC were directed to respond to Berg's Petition for Writ of Certiorari (the parties, however, are allowed two more days for mail service).

On Wed., Nov. 19, the Federal Election Commission formally waived its right to respond to Berg's petition and, while such waiver is not necessary, neither is any such response to a petition. Like the FEC, Obama and the DNC could essentially bank on the low odds that any one matter will be heard by the Court ... or rely on arguments already made that Berg lacks standing to sue at all.

While he recognizes that Obama and the DNC were not obligated to file an answer, Berg believes that the lack of response could be rooted less in procedure and more in audacity....

"If they were going to respond, I get the feeling that it would have been in there by now," Berg said. "The feeling may be that, if they respond, they could hold themselves out for perjury later on when we're successful. That's why, in the lower court, they just relied on a motion to dismiss based on standing. Here, they may not want to file an actual, specific response in the Supreme Court for fear they'll be held to it later."

http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2008/12/the-latest-obam.html

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