Guest Editorial
BY PAUL R. HOLLRAH | FEBRUARY 8, 2012
Lady Justice has died
Historians might have viewed the events of Thursday, January 26, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia, as one of the singular events of American history, along with landmark events such as Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation; Lee’s surrender at Appomattox; the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; and the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. On that day, a trial was held in an Atlanta courtroom that would have a longstanding impact on state-federal relations, reversing the long downward trend toward the accumulation of power at the federal level, at the expense of the states. It was a trial in which ordinary citizens once again defended the concept that, in the United States, it is the people who rule, not the political elites.
The Atlanta trial became an event of major national significance on January 3, 2012, when The Hon. Michael M. Malihi, Deputy Chief Judge of the Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings, issued a ruling denying Barack Obama’s motion to dismiss four cases alleging that he is not eligible to serve as President of the United States.
Since 2008, nearly 90 court cases have been filed, challenging Obama’s eligibility. All have fallen victim to either political correctness or political chicanery; none have been successful. However, at least one of the cases allowed to proceed in the Georgia court… David P. Welden v. Barack Obama… was different in that it was simple and straightforward. It challenged Obama at his weakest point, his inability to qualify as a “natural born Citizen.” Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
In his complaint, Welden stipulated that Obama was born in the United States, that he is an American citizen, and that he was eligible to serve in the United States Senate. It did not mention Obama’s alleged Indonesian citizenship, his missing college records, his missing passports and visas, or his alleged stolen Social Security number.
In his challenge, filed with Georgia Secretary of State Brian P. Kemp on November 15, 2011, Welden asserted that: “Pursuant to O.C.G.A. (Official Code of Georgia Annotated) §21-2-5, I hereby challenge the eligibility of Barack Obama to appear on the March 6 Democratic Presidential Preference Primary Ballot and/or on the November 6, 2012 general election ballot for President of the United States.”
The Georgia statute provides that, “Every candidate for federal and state office who is certified by the state executive committee of a political party or who files a notice of candidacy shall meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought.”
The statute provides that either the Georgia Secretary of State, or any registered elector in the state, may challenge the qualifications of any candidate, federal or state, who seeks access to the Georgia ballot.
Welden proceeded to outline five specific allegations against Obama:
The official state certified birth certificate proffered by Barack Obama contains a factual inconsistency and other anomalies that calls into question the veracity of the rest of the information contained within said document.
Welden was correct in his assertion that the Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) released by Obama on April 27, 2011 contained a “factual inconsistency.” For example, Obama claims to have been born at the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu on August 4, 1961. The COLB released by Obama was registered with the Hawaii Department of Health on August 8, 2011 and contains the registration number 151-61-10641. However, the mother of the Nordyke twins, Susan and Gretchen, born at the same hospital on August 5, 1961, has produced birth certificates bearing registration numbers 151-61-10637 and 151-61-10638, respectively. The birth certificates of the Nordyke twins were registered with the Hawaii Department of Health on August 11, 1961, three days after Obama’s COLB was registered.
Barack Obama has not adequately proven that he was born a natural born citizen of the United States.
Under long-standing Supreme Court precedent [Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875)] the term “natural born Citizen” is defined as follows: “…(A)ll 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...”
The precedent established under Minor v. Happersett has not been altered or superseded in the 137 years since it was handed down. It is established law and it applies to Barack Obama just as it does to every other citizen.
Barack Obama’s alleged father, Barack Obama, Sr., was never a citizen of the United States and, at the time of his son’s birth, was not a permanent resident of the United States.
Consequently, Barack Obama was born to only one parent who was a U.S. citizen or U.S. permanent resident.
In 1866, John A. Bingham, chief framer of the 14th Amendment, wrote as follows: “Every human being born within the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty (emphasis added) is, in the language of the Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
In order for Barack Obama to qualify as a “natural born Citizen,” it is necessary that both parents must have been U.S. citizens, either native born or naturalized, at the time of his birth.
By his own admission, and under the British Nationality Act of 1948, Barack Obama was born a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and from 1963 until at least 1984 was a citizen of the Republic of Kenya.
Barack Obama was born with dual US-British citizenship by descent from his Kenyan father and his American mother. Part 2, Section 5(1) of the British Nationality Act of 1948 reads, in part, as follows: “Subject to the provisions of this section, a person born after the commencement of this Act (Barack Obama, Jr.) shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father (Obama, Sr.) is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth.”
Obama lost his dual US-British citizenship on December 12, 1963, the day on which Kenya won its independence from Great Britain. However, Chapter VI, Section 87[3] of the 1963 Kenyan Constitution provided as follows: “(1) Every person who, having been born in Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Barack Obama, Sr,)… shall become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December 1963… (2) Every person who, having been born outside Kenya, is on 11th December, 1963 a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (Barack Obama, Jr.)… shall, if his father becomes, or would but for his death have become a citizen of Kenya by virtue of subsection (1), become a citizen of Kenya on 12th December, 1963.”
Obama held dual US-Kenyan citizenship from December 12, 1963 until August 4, 1984, his 23rd birthday. However, he became a Kenyan “citizen by birth” on August 4, 2010, the day on which Kenya adopted a revised constitution. Chapter 3, Section 14 of the 2010 constitution provides as follows: “A person is a citizen by birth if on the day of the person’s birth, whether or not the person is born in Kenya, either the mother or father of the person is a citizen (of Kenya).”
Due to his dual citizenship with the United Kingdom and with Kenya, Barack Obama was born with dual allegiances to foreign nations other than the United States of America.
The official U.S. government policy regarding dual citizenship is found in publications of the Consular Affairs Division of the U.S. Department of State, as follows:
“The concept of dual nationality means that a person is a citizen of two countries at the same time. Each country has its own citizenship laws based on its own policy. Persons may have dual nationality by automatic operation of different laws rather than by choice…
“The U.S. Government recognizes that dual nationality exists but does not encourage it… because of the problems it may cause. Claims of other countries on dual national U.S. citizens may conflict with U.S. law… However, dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are required to obey the laws of both countries(emphasis added)…”
It is incomprehensible that any person who holds, or has held, allegiance to any foreign sovereignty should be allowed to serve as President or Vice President of the United States. It is precisely why the Founding Fathers limited access to the U.S. presidency to those who
are “natural born” citizens of the United States.
In the days leading up to the trial, Obama’s attorney, Michael Jablonski, tried every conceivable tactic to derail the proceedings. In a January 25, 2011 letter to Secretary of State Brian Kemp, Jablonski demanded that the hearing request be withdrawn. He said, “We await your taking the requested action, and as we do so, we will, of course, suspend further participation in these proceedings, including the hearing scheduled for January 26.”
Although previous presidents have been subjects of subpoenas, none have ever responded as if they were immune to the orders of the courts. For the first time ever, an American president has snubbed a court order, denying the authority of the courts.
In a packed courtroom in Atlanta on the morning of January 26, and in a nationwide closed-circuit TV audience, viewers waited patiently for the 9 o’clock hour to arrive. Then, promptly at 9 a.m., a bailiff announced from the bench that Judge Malihi wished to see all of the attorneys in his chambers. And as the attorneys rose from their chairs and filed out of the room, an audible gasp arose across the nation as viewers immediately assumed that, once again, the courts had been corrupted and Obama had escaped justice.
It was later learned that the reason for Judge Malihi’s desire to meet with the attorneys was to inform them that, in the absence of the defendant, Barack Obama, and/or his attorney, he was prepared to issue a default judgment on their behalf. However, the attorneys refused to take yes for an answer. Instead, they insisted that, in the interest of justice, they be allowed to place all of their relevant evidence on the record, in open court. The judge acceded to their request and the trial was allowed to proceed. At approximately 9:25 a.m., the attorneys filed back into the courtroom and took their places. Moments later the judge appeared and the trial was allowed to begin.
As witnesses were called and sworn, the plaintiffs’ attorneys laid out a carefully crafted case, providing irrefutable evidence leading to only one conclusion: that Barack Hussein Obama does not meet the “natural born Citizen” standard of Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
What was at stake in the Georgia court was far more than Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as President of the United States. Equally as important, in the minds of those who believe in our federal system and the rule of law, was the continued viability of our system of justice and the question of whether or not one man, Barack Obama, would be allowed to hold himself above the law.
In the end, Judge Malihi was unable to withstand whatever political correctness previous judges have found so irresistible. The very same judge who was prepared to issue a default judgment on behalf of those who challenged Obama’s eligibility has proven that he too has feet of clay. The law is clear and the evidence is irrefutable, yet Judge Malihi becomes just another in a long list of jurists who have soiled their robes. Yes, January 26, 2012 was a red-letter day in American history. It was the day on which justice died a painful death in an Atlanta courtroom. The hearts of patriots are broken. An immediate appeal is in order.
Paul R. Hollrah is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute, a contributing editor for Family Security Matters and a number of online publications.
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