Barack Obama Birth Certificate – Is President Barak Obama A U.S. Citizen?
I'm a sucker for political discussions. I try and stay as educated as possible on current political events. I wasn't a huge fan of either Presidential Candidate. It was another year where I was left voting for what I perceived as the lesser of two evils.
When I ran across this post, How Much Is NewsMax Spending On PPC over at Dan Thies' blog, I was sucked right in.
Dan's post is a good read. While we share some political similarities, it's clear we have some differences as well. Most of our differences revolve around Obama's birth certificate and whether or not he was truly born in Hawaii or Kenya as his grandmother stated.
Obama attempted to clear up this issue by posting a copy of his birth certificate on the internet. This only caused more controversy after a self-claimed document expert at Townhall.com raised some issues about Obama's birth certificate and claimed it was a fake.
Another issue is Obama's grandmother claims she was present at his birth in Kenya.
I'm not 100% convinced either way. I do find the birth certificate situation suspicious at best. Maybe it's just a hopeful suspicion. 🙂 If so, it really doesn't matter. The U.S. Supreme Court made the decision not to hear the case of Obama's birth certificate earlier this week.
Dan raised some good points in our discussion. One of the most influential was a link to this article.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jun/27/obamas-birth-certificate-part-ii/
Tags: barak obama, barak obama birth certificate, obama born in kenya, obama fake birth certificate
Suppose that you were Obama’s mother and had given birth to him in Kenya. I do not believe that she did, but one way to see how unlikely it was that she gave birth in Kenya is simply to put yourself in her shoes.
So imagine that you are Obama’s mother. You have given birth in Kenya and then returned to Hawaii. We know that she stayed in Hawaii and received a BA in 1967 and that she did not move to Indonesia with her second husband until 1970. So that is almost a decade between the time of birth and moving out of the country.
And she spent her later years in Hawaii as well.
We know also from her high school friends that she was a popular girl and probably continued to have many friends throughout her life.
But apparently she told no one about one of the most interesting experiences of her life, which was that she went to Kenya when she was only 18 and gave birth in a hospital in Kenya. This would be a very unusual thing for an American woman to not do (to discuss an unusual hospital stay), and it (the hospital in Kenya and the trip to Kenya) would have been a good topic of discussion throughout her life. It would be hard to resist talking about giving birth in Kenya, and for that matter, it would be difficult to not discuss a trip to Kenya at all in 1961.
Yet no friends of Obama’s late mother have come forward saying “I remember she told me about that trip, about the hospital, about how hot it was” or anything about such a trip. Yet, during the election, that fact would have been of interest, and surely one of them would have written a letter to an editor or called a newspaper to mention the fact that Obama’s mother had said she gave birth in Kenya. But no one did.
It is difficult to imagine that Obama’s mother never mentioned the trip to Kenya or the birth in Kenya to her friends.
For that matter, she did not mention it to her son. For surely if he had known that he was born in Kenya, he would have let that fact slip sometime when he was attending school in Hawaii, and if he did, one or more of his friends would recall that he did. But none of his friends have mentioned that “he told me he was born in Kenya.” At least none of them have called a news conference or sent a letter to the editor.
So, we have at least one logical reason why it was unlikely that Obama’s mother gave birth in Kenya: She would have had to keep it secret for the rest of her life, and why would she do that. Did she think that her child would be elected president in 2008? Hardly.
The next aspect of this is the registration of birth in Hawaii. There are a few “experts” who claim that the document they have seen on line is forged (though how they can when all they can see is the Web image of the document is hard to see).
But the fact of the matter is that the officials in Hawaii said that they looked into Obama’s file and found a birth certificate. There are anti-Obama bloggers who claim that they way that the officials made their statement it allows the possibility that there is a birth certificate from Kenya in that file. (This is actually not true. There have been a subsequent statement from the spokesman for the Hawaii department of health saying that what the officials meant was that Obama was born in Hawaii).
But we do not have to even know that. All we need to know is that you cannot get a birth document from the state of Hawaii that says “born in Hawaii” if you were born in Kenya. There have been blogs that say that there is a special law in Hawaii that allows the state to issue a certification of live birth to children of residents even if they were born outside of the state. YES, a Hawaii certification can be issued in such a case, but the resulting document would be along these lines: “Hawaii certification of live birth: Barack Obama, parents Barack Obama and Ann Obama. Date of Birth: Aug 4, place of birth: KENYA.”
How do we know that Hawaii does not issue certificates of live birth that say: “Born in Hawaii” to children born in Hong Kong or Tokyo or Sydney or Mexico City or Kenya? For the obvious reason that every time such a document was issued Hawaii would be creating a US citizen out of a child who was born abroad. Hawaii has no motive for doing that, and if it did do that, Hawaii’s birth documents would not be accepted by the US State Department for issuing passports, and we know that Hawaii’s birth documents ARE accepted by the US State Department for issuing passports.
Yet Obama’s birth document from Hawaii, the official certification of live birth, which is a modern document printed on a laser printer in 2007 or 2008, whenever he asked for a copy, says on it that Obama was born in Hawaii. (It says it three times under location of birth, island of birth and county of birth.)
So there cannot be a document in Obama’s file that says “born in Kenya” or the certification of live birth would be lying and the officials who looked into the file and said that they saw a birth certificate and used this fact as a way of confirming the certification of live birth would in effect be lying. Why would they lie?
However, there is still a possibility that they are not lying and yet Obama was born in Kenya. For that to be true, his parents would have had to return to Hawaii and then register his birth in Hawaii and make a false statement when they were asked for the place of birth. They would have to lie and say that he was born in Hawaii, when he was born in Kenya.
But why would they do that? Did they think that he would be elected president in 2008? But say that they had some motive for lying. Consider how unlikely that it would be that they lied on the statement, even if they had a motive for lying. The reason, of course, is that they traveled back to Hawaii from Kenya on a plane or a boat, and other people on the plane or boat would have seen the family. They would have arrived back in the USA from Kenya, and at their very first stop in the USA their passports would be checked by US immigration officials. There would have had to be travel documents for all three of them (so they would have had to get some kind of travel document, either US or British, for Obama).
So there would be a lot of people, travelers and officials, who saw the family traveling to Hawaii at a time when the child was so young that he might have been born abroad, and as far as the US Immigration officials at the airport were concerned, there was actual proof that he WAS born abroad. Yet, despite this, despite the reasonable probability that their lie would be found out, they return to Hawaii and make a false statement that Obama was born in Hawaii.
There is also the absence of photographs of the infant Obama in Kenya or his mother in Kenya. To be sure, if Obama plotted to conceal his birth in Kenya, he might have been able over the years to destroy all the photographs. But how likely is it?
Then the folks who claim that Obama was born in Kenya cannot show any official Kenyan documents to prove that he was born there or that his mother was in Kenya at the time of birth. This is explained by right wing blogs by the Kenyan government having sealed the files. But only right wing blogs and the “news agency” WND claims that the Kenyan government sealed the files. There is no confirmation of this from any reliable media, however.
Finally, there is the report that the grandmother said that Obama was born in Kenya. I listened to that tape and it is not clear that she, or the translators, understood the question to which she answer “yes.” And, if you listen to it, you will see that the person asking the questions never went on to ask confirming details, such as “what was the name of the hospital?”, “Do you recall the name of the doctor?”, “How long had Obama’s parents been in Kenya before the birth?” All these things would tend to confirm the truth of the claim that Obama was born in Kenya and at least confirm that Obama’s grandmother understood the question, but they were not asked. Why not? Because for the purposes of this interview, the interviewer only needed a “yes” and he did not need to be certain that the “yes” was said by a woman who understood the question.
The Web magazine Slate, a liberal publication to be sure, says this about the grandmother interview:
“None of that stopped Berg from stoking the conspiracy theorists. On Oct. 16, an Anabaptist minister named Ron McRae called Sarah Hussein Obama, the president-elect’s 86-year-old paternal step-grandmother, at her home in Kenya. Two translators were on the line when McRae asked if the elder Obama was “present” when the president-elect was born. One of the translators says “yes.” McRae contacted Berg and gave him a partial transcript of the call with a signed affidavit. He opted not to include the rest of the call, in which he asks the question more directly—”Was he born in Mombassa?”—and the translators, finally understanding him, tell him repeatedly that the president-elect was born in Hawaii.”
Getting back to the assertion that the Obama birth document that has been posted was forged. I have already discussed the claim that the facts that the document states are not true. As I said, the officials in Hawaii plus the illogic of having a Kenya birth document in the Hawaii files disprove the claim that the document was forged. And, the officials in Hawaii were sent images of Obama’s birth document by FactCheck and Polifact, and they confirmed that the document is authentic.
Yet some still believe it is forged. This fellow from Hawaii has an answer for that:
A posting from Andrew Walden, publisher of the Hawaii Free Press, a right-wing blog based in Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/92/Barack-Obama-Born-in-Hawaii.aspx
Barack Obama: Born in Hawai`i
by Andrew Walden
It is time to focus on REAL issues, not imaginary ones.
A fairly impressive internet industry has sprung up claiming that Obama was born in either Kenya or Indonesia. This is nonsense, which distracts from the broadly unexplored story of Obama’s upbringing. This kind of nonsense has emerged because the McCain campaign chose not to raise the many questions about Barack Obama’s numerous hard-left alliances. Barack Obama was born in Hawai`i, August 4, 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu.
Obama’s birth certificate posted online is exactly the same birth certificate everybody in Hawai`i gets from the State Department of Health. It is not forged. There is nothing unusual about the design or the texture. In addition to the birth certificate, the August 13, 1961 Honolulu Advertiser also carries an announcement of Obama’s birth. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin also carries the same announcement. Both papers require submission of a copy of the birth certificate to print a birth announcement.
End Quote
So, why do you think that Obama could have been born in Kenya?
Actually, the case that the Supreme Court threw out, the Donofrio Case, does not hinge on Obama’s place of birth. The Berg case does, and it is apparently still pending, but for it to win, ultimately a court has to be convinced that Obama was born outside of the USA. As discussed, this seems highly unlikely.
Excellent commentary and very convincing. There is nothing there I can disagree with. It makes me step back and question my own sources of news and political education.
If you tell enough people the sky is down and the ground is up for long enough, a significant portion of them will believe it. Evidently, I am one of them.
Great job.
What do
Barack Obama,
the first African-American President of the United States,
and
Sun Yat-Sen,
the first President of the Republic of China
have in common?
Yes, they were both born in Hawaii, or so they claim.
Click on this link to see Sun Yat-sen’s “Certificate of Hawaiian Birth” despite having been born in Guangdong, China.
All the more to suspect that Obama was born in Kenya yet obtained the same infamous “Certification” in Hawaii.
What a coincidence!
http://sites.google.com/site/obamabirth/
http://sites.google.com/site/obamabirth/Home/obama-short-form-birth-certificate
Scenario One: Barack was born in Kenya to a US citizen mother who was less than 19 years old and a father who was not a US citizen.
Status: Then Obama is NOT even a U.S. citizen at all, according to the law existing in 1961 his year of birth. (see full discussion below)
Scenario Two: Barack was born in Hawaii but his father was British anyway.
Status: Then Barack is a Citizen but NOT a Natural Born Citizen as defined by the US Constitution, law, and jurisprudence. (see full discussion below.)
This can be resolved in ten minutes if Barack Obama authorizes the release of a copy of his so-called LONG FORM (or “vault”) Certificate of Live Birth, that original document that shows where he was born, in what hospital, time and date, the attending doctor, name of parents, whose signatures appear in the document etc..
So far Obama has shown only the SHORT FORM (which is only an abstract and contains minimal information), which is a computer-generated “secondary” evidence that is derived out of the original source document. The legal probative value of this Short-Form is practically nil in the courts of law when the information on this document is challenged legally and the challenger demands the “best evidence” which is the LONG FORM. Of course, the original source document, the “primary evidence” document, is the LONG FORM COLB. See Wigmore’s definitive textbook on Evidence.
This is a legitimate legal issue that needs to be settled once and for all by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). But instead of a trial on the merits, the courts have raised technical issues of proper standing of the plaintiffs. For the lawyers out there, be aware that so far there has been no trial on the merits regarding Obama’s citizenship. If a citizen has no standing to protect the Constitution, then who has?
Barack Obama is on the ballot of every state. Certainly, this means that he filed his candidacy and made allegations in his candidacy in all these states that he is a natural born citizen. And certainly, the government agencies involved did not merely take him at his word but required his proof of natural born citizenship. Certainly, all these applications in each state have attachments proving the same. How old is he? Is he at least 35? Was he born of US parents on US soil? All these information are understood to have been given to all the government agencies who accepted his candidacy. So how come citizens are challenging Barack’s qualifications? Isn’t this the job of the government agencies to challenge the allegations of all candidates?
Answer:
This can only happen in the movies.
Incredibly, the answer is that all government officials and agencies have been gullible enough to accept everything written by any candidate without requiring proof.
Even a person like Roger Calero who is obviously, in plain sight, is not Natural Born (he was born in Nicaragua) managed to get his name on the ballots of five states. Incredible!
And now, that many citizens have been challenging Obama to prove his natural born citizenship, the government officials refused to do so on their own initiative, and even made representations in the court cases that they are not supposed to do it.
(The officials do not want to admit that they did not do their jobs of verifying Obama’s claim that he is a Natural Born Citizen! They could be in jail for malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance.)
This is a huge embarrassment for the most powerful nation in the world. That we are victims of a failure of the entire government machinery to verify statements made by candidates.
It’s a case of “somebody should have checked whether Obama’s claim to natural born citizenship is true but look, it’s not me who should be doing it” syndrome.
As you know, McCain posted his birth certificate from the Panama Canal Zone on line. Here it is: http://panamajohn.dominates.us/articles/McCain_Certificate_1_1936x2.jpg
It is nice that he did this and that he had the original birth certificate to post.
But ask yourself this question: Suppose that he had lost it. Say that his parents in all those moves on Navy business, had left the paper behind, or say that it was in a ship that was torpedoed, or whatever. The result would be that McCain would not have his original birth certificate. Where would he go to get a copy? It might have been impossible because the Panama Canal Zone Authority no longer exists.
Would we say that McCain would not have been eligible to be president because he could not produce his original birth certificate?
I believe that we would have given him a pass because the question in the election and confirmation of the electoral vote of the president is not whether there is definitive proof that someone is eligible (NO ONE has that kind of proof, and I’ll get to that in a minute), but whether we are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is eligible.
But before I get to that. Obama also has posted his official birth certificate. Yes, the document that he showed on his site, and in much more detail on FactCheck.org, (http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html) is the official birth certificate of Hawaii. Certainly, there are original birth certificates, which some people have because they saved it from the time of their birth, but unless they do, the only birth certificate that they can get is the official birth certificate that Hawaii sends out today. THAT turns out to be only the Certification of Live Birth, which is what Obama posted.
So all the questions about why doesn’t he post the long-form birth certificate have two simple answers:
(1) The Certification of Live Birth is THE official birth certificate, it shows that he was born in Hawaii, and it is legally sufficient to prove it; and
(2) Unless he has kept the original birth certificate and not mislaid it, all that he can post is what Hawaii will send him, which is only the Certification of Live Birth, which is what he has already posted.
Now, I suspect you will ask a the logical question, how do I know that Hawaii only sends out the Certification of Live Birth and will NOT send out original birth certificates even if you ask for it? The answer is that I asked them repeatedly, and the answer has always been: “We send out only the Certification of Live Birth.” You can check, by asking your own questions by e-mail at vr-info@doh.hawaii.gov.
So it turns out that Obama and McCain have done exactly the same thing, posted an official birth certificate, and in both cases it was the only birth certificate that was available to them.
The next question I suppose you may ask is: Is there some way around the law in Hawaii so that the State of Hawaii can certify that Obama (or anyone) was born in Hawaii when she or he or Obama was born somewhere else? The answer is NO. The laws that some cite that say that Hawaii can issue Certifications of Live Birth to children of residents of Hawaii even though they were born in New Jersey or Tasmania or Kenya WERE PASSED AFTER OBAMA WAS BORN IN 1961, and even if they had been passed before, the law is clear. It does NOT allow the Certification of Live Birth to lie about the place of birth.
In other words, you can get a Hawaii certificate, but if you are born in New Jersey, the Hawaii certificate or certification will have to say: “Born in New Jersey.” There is simply no way for the law to enable parents to select the location of birth—meaning the city and island within Hawaii as well as Hawaii itself—out of thin air, use this false place as the place of birth, and put it down on a Hawaii application for a birth document, and then Hawaii would issue a Certification that says he was born in Hawaii even if she or he wasn’t.
In other words, IF there were an original birth certificate in Obama’s file that said “Born in Kenya,” the Certification of Live Birth would have to say “Born in Kenya” too, but it doesn’t. It says born in Hawaii.
Most people would take this as both legal proof (since the Certification of Live Birth is a legal document that must be accepted in court unless there is sufficient legal proof that it is wrong), sufficient proof, and even absolute proof that he was born in Hawaii.
But there are those who continue to claim that he was born in Kenya.
This turns out to be based entirely on manufactured stories of his birth. There are no physical documents showing that he was born in Kenya, but the theorists explain this by saying that the Kenya government is part of the conspiracy and that it has blocked access to those documents. They say, however, that the Obama’s paternal grandmother said on tape that she was present at his birth in Kenya. However, this also turns out to be false.
There is a tape recording in which she apparently (you cannot hear her voice) says “yes” when she is asked was she present when HE (Obama or his father?) was born. But in addition to the question what He refers to, there is the question of how the phrase “present WHEN” can be translated into an African language. It may not be the same thing as “present WHERE” he was born.
So, to be sure, the interviewer later in the tape asks the obvious question: WHERE WAS HE BORN?
And the answer, you can hear her say in reply to a question, is Hawaii, and then the translator (who is also a relative) says repeatedly, “America, Hawaii, America.” And then he says that Obama’s father was a student in America at the time, which we know.
We do not know, and there is no proof of it, that he and his bride returned to Kenya for a visit, and it is extremely unlikely as well as there being no proof of it.
To hear the full recording of the Obama grandmother interview, go to: ?” http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/independent-grandmother-transcript/ (Click on full Sarah Obama Tape.)
There are quite a few recordings and transcripts that cut the tape at the five minute mark. It is important to go to the full recording, which runs about nine minutes. You might ask yourself why anyone would want to cut the tape at five minutes when the answer to the question WHERE WAS HE BORN is after five minutes. The answer, sadly, is that they are not anxious for people to make up their own minds, they want to create zealots who believe that Obama is not eligible. Why they want to do this I cannot tell, but frankly I am frightened. Not because these people will continue to pursue this case in court, which is their right, or that they will continue to argue the case, which is also their right, but that they will do something stupid.
Do not be stupid, I pray, check all the evidence. Use your own common sense and check it out.
For example, there is a lot of discussion on Right-wing blogs that Obama “lost his citizenship” when he was in Indonesia. (This could not be true because a US citizen cannot lose their citizenship due to actions taken by his parents when he was a child.) But it is NOT TRUE for a more basic reason than that. His parents never even applied for him to get Indonesian citizenship. How do I know? I called the Indonesian Embassy in Washington and asked them. You can too. The telephone number is (202) 775 – 5200. I would suggest that you ask for the Press Officer. The answer I got, if you trust me, was NO. NO, he was never an Indonesian citizen. NO, his family never applied. NO, he never had an Indonesian passport.
Did his parents lie and say that he was an Indonesian citizen to get him into Indonesian school. Most likely.
This document seems to show that they did. http://www.hyscience.com/obama%20indonesia.jpg But does their lying on an Indonesian document give him Indonesian citizenship? (NO). Does it take away US citizenship? (No.) Does it make him ineligible to be president? (No.)
I believe I said at the beginning: NO ONE has that kind of proof. Laying aside the numerous cases where birth records are destroyed in fire and floods (virtually all those of New Orleans, for example), there is the question whether a birth record is sufficient to make someone president. If you hold, as some do (but it is wrong) that to be eligible you have to have both parents be US citizens AND be born in the USA, then the proof that someone is born in the USA is insufficient. It may then be possible to prove that someone’s mother was a US citizen at the time of his birth. But his father? Ah. Short of DNA evidence, can anyone be absolutely certain who his father was? But you can say, his father by law is sufficient for this. And I would reply, really? Why? Who says that it can be his legal father?
Virtually all constitutional scholars say that being born in the USA is sufficient to make someone a Natural Born US Citizen, that in fact the term “Natural Born Citizen” is the US equivalent of the British “Natural Born Subject,” which was well understood in the USA before the time of the Constitution, and which merely referred to people who had been born in the British realm, regardless of the number of parents who were or were not subjects at the time of the birth (with the minor exception of the children of foreign diplomats).
suck my hairy balls mother_ucker
Interesting comment. I never expected someone named Stephanie to have hairy balls. I’d also like to apologize for what happened between me and your mother. You obviously found out about it.
I really think this issue was resolved along time ago, but the “birthers” won’t let go of it.
How was it resolved? He’s never released his official birth certificate. Even CNN ran a story on this shortly after he took office.
I posted an image of the actual birth certificate and you delete it? What a biased douche.
I didn’t delete anything moron. I’d love to see his birth certificate if you can find it. Please, don’t post that Certification of Live Birth that doesn’t contain a doctor’s signature. That’s not the birth certificate everyone is after. Maybe you can also post his college records?
Birth certificate or not, it’s becoming very clear how the American people feel about this socialist that has surrounded himself with tax cheats and communists.
“don’t post that Certification of Live Birth that doesn’t contain a doctor’s signature. That’s not the birth certificate everyone is after.”
Not “everyone” is after the original. Only the people who’ve already made up their own mind regardless of evidence presented, that Obama was not born in the US. If this printout from the Hawaii state records is not enough for people like you, then that’s fine. Just like creationists, you are entitled to your own made up standards, but it doesn’t change the facts.
And here is the definition of socialism;
Definitions of socialism on the Web:
* a political theory advocating state ownership of industry
* an economic system based on state ownership of capital
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Now, please explain how Obama advocates this.
“Just like creationists, you are entitled to your own made up standards, but it doesn’t change the facts.”
Ah great, I’m trying to argue logic with a guy that thinks life sprung up from crystals and monkeys. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. As soon as a tornado runs through a forest and randomly assembles a house, I’ll begin to accept that something as complex as human DNA was assembled with no designer.
As far as Obama’s citizenship, I haven’t made up my mind. I don’t have any facts that he isn’t a natural born US citizen, but I’ve seen nothing to prove that he is. It just makes me curious why he has gone to such great lengths to keep his college records sealed and why he will not allow a copy of his original birth certificate to be released. There is obviously something he doesn’t want us to see.
As far as socialism, have you been asleep for the huge investments in Fannie Mae, General Motors, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and the latest government program to compete against healthcare insurance companies. Maybe you were busy working on your crystals, to monkey’s, to humans theory.
You ARE a creationist! This is too rich.
Evolution:
Your version of evolution is a straw man argument. It’s well documented in the fossil record how modern day fauna descended from older orders, all the way back to simple single-celled organisms. It’s also understood by way of DNA and RNA, how natural selection guides this process (unlike the random “tornado” analogy you chose to use).
Obama’s Birth Certificate Records:
Well, I suppose if you think the Hawaii state records, at least 2 Hawaii newspapers (who announced his birth) are all in on this conspiracy, I don’t think anything will convince you. Then again, you are willing to ignore Geology, Paleontology, Biology, Anthropology, etc. in order to maintain a cartoonishly rhetorical notion of what evolution is, so no surprise there.
Socialism, and Fannie, and Freddie.
Once again, you ignored the actual definition of socialism and implied your own made up version. Re-nationalizing certain banks (so that they don’t fail and take countless private enterprises down with them, thereby allowing the market to function) and bringing about a public plan to compete with private health insurance companies (who make a profit by denying care to those who need it the most) is not the same as replacing private industry with state ownership. Unless of course libraries, law enforcement, fire departments, our military, etc are also socialist. But if that’s your idea of socialism, you’re living in the wrong country. Countries like Mexico and Haiti have much smaller governments. No doubt, they must be flowing equal rights, personal freedoms, and a flourishing economy (think how awesome it is, with little government in the way!).