(Exactly what the Colorado Senate needs! – promoted by Colorado Pols)
Conservative talk radio is all aflutter about a trial underway in Florida to determine whether President Obama is eligible to appear on the election ballot there.
A Georgia law requires all candidates to prove they’re eligible for office, and this means presidential candidates must prove they’re U.S. citizens.
Such laws, now on the books in a handful of states, are the cutting edge tactic of the dregs of the birther movement, which will not accept that Obama is a U.S. citizen.
The case has a local connection in the name of John Sampson, a former immigration officer who retired in 2008 and also a candidate for Colorado Senate District 25, facing Sen. Mary Hodge.
Sampson told his story to an adoring audience on KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado on Friday.
Sampson said on the radio that he was retained by a leader of the birther movement, Orly Taitz, whom he met in Lake Charles Illinois in November 2009, to investigate President Obama’s Social Security number, and he determined that Obama’s Social Security number was issued to a Connecticut resident in March of 1977.
Sampson tried hard but can’t find evidence that Obama was a citizen of Connecticut, ever.
“Why is [Obama] utilizing a Social Security number that was issued to somebody who was apparently living in Connecticut at the time it was issued?” Sampson asked on KLZ Friday.
Sampson flew to Georgia to present his evidence at the administrative court hearing, compelled, he says, by a subpoena to do so. He testified in court that there is “credible evidence to warrant further investigation” into Obama’s Social Security number and birth certificate. He also testified that he’d investigate Obama’s passport history.
Sampson was in court when another person who was subpoenaed failed to appear. That would be Obama, whose lawyers contend the President is under no legal obligation to testify.
As a souvenir for his trip to Georgia, Sampson got his photo in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a step up from the publicity he’s used to getting in the birther underground. He makes an appearance in Jerome Corsi’s Where’s the Birth Certificate, for example, he said on the radio. (See a video of Sampson testifying in Georgia here.)
Asked on Grassroots Radio Colorado why the birth certificate released last year by Obama did not put the matter to rest, Sampson responded by saying another expert at the hearing said birth certificate was fake.
Sampson also said his own research raised “concerns” about the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate, as well as Obama’s Social Security number.
“I’m not prepared to tell you whether he was born in the United States, not born in the United States,” Sampson stated on KLZ. “I’m not what you would consider a birther, per se. This is an issue of constitutionality. This is an issue of whether or not the provisions of the Constitution requiring a natural-born citizen to be President of the United States have been violated or not.”
Hmmmm. I wondered what he meant when he said, “I’m not a birther, per se.” But the radio hosts weren’t thinking along the same lines, and KHOW’s Peter Boyles, who’s sharp as a knife on this issue, and proud of it, wasn’t there to clarify things.
In any case, Sampson explained on the radio that the Georgia hearing continued without Obama. The administrative law judge is scheduled to rule Feb. 5 on whether the sitting President meets Georgia’s citizenship requirements, and at that point, the Georgia Secretary of State will determine if he’s eligible to appear on the ballot–again.
Asked by a caller, who turned out to be yet another conservative talk show host, Jimmy Sengenberger, whether the birth-certificate issue was worth raising, with unemployment and other issues plaguing the country, Sampson pointed out he was hired to investigate the Social Security number and subpoenaed.
Sampson also said: “I am a very firm believer in the Constitution. In June of 1981, I raised my right hand for the first time of many and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And to paraphrase what Lt. Col. Allen West has said, that oath did not come with a statute of limitations or with an expiration date. And that’s the only reason I’m involved in this. I have not and do not have sufficient evidence that would warrant me to make a statement as to whether or not he is eligible or not eligible.”
This satisfied Sengenberger and the Grassroots Radio guys, who told Sampson he was 100 percent behind him. The hosts seemed to be satisfied that Sampson is not one of those nutty birthers, who pissed off Ken Buck.
But would you be satisfied? I thought a birther was someone who doesn’t believe Obama is a citizen. That’s what Sampson believes, even if he says he’s not a birther per se, when he testifies that he doesn’t know if the President is a citizen. Same thing. A birther.
I mean, the entire birther movement is about not being satisfied with the citizenship documentation provided by Obama. Where’s the birth certificate?
And when the birth certificate is produced, you have to guess, though we don’t know for sure, that Sampson, like his fellow birthers, will find some other reason not to know for sure if Obama is one of us.
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The court case was streamed live and they now have a
video of the proceedings. The proceedings were before an administrative judge who put into the record for the first time, evidently, all the “evidence” that Obama is not eligible to be on the Georgia ballot. Because the President’s lawyer decided not to appear at the proceedings, the judge entered a default decision for the plaintiffs… Orley tate and some georgia guy. The recommendation goes to the Georgia Secretary of State who could keep Obama off the Georgia ballot. The Secretary of State of Georgia could rule at any time.
The arguments were:
1) To be a “natural born” citizen, both of one’s parents must be US citizens. This would automatically disqualify Obama.
2) The birth certificate is fraudulent
3) The SS# is fraudulent.
Obama’s lawyer wrote to the Secretary of State of Georgia and in refusing to participate in the proceeding said that the fact that Hawaii verified that Obama was born in Hawaii was sufficient to prove his citizenship under the “full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.”
Boyles is going bananas over this. The one thing that I found sickening was that Silverman was on the boyles show and never mentioned, while I was listening, the full faith and credit clause of the constitution….just did his do si do act…..
SO. If you are going to report on the renewed birthed controversy, Son, you are going to have get up early in the morning and catch boyles or read the website to get the whole picture.
Barring a lawyer for the President making an argument, must a judge accept the irrational arguments of one side just because they were not refuted by someone else? Is the Judge not allowed to consider his own knowledge of the Constitution and US Code?
The US Code Title 8, Chapter 12, Sub III, Part I:1401 defines a citizen at birth in several ways including(emphasis mine):
(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years
So, even if you assume that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, the fact that a) ONE of his parents was an American citizen who b) lived in the US for about 18 years (I believe she was about 4 months shy of 19 when he was born) and c) at least two of those years were after she turned 14, he could have been born on Mars and he would still be a natural born citizen. (And it doesn’t say “consecutive” or “immediately preceding” so presumably she could have moved to Kenya on her 16th birthday and President Obama’s citizenship would have been established.
The issue I am responding to is not the legal one, it is the political one. Jason did not present the whole story which is that an administrative judge in Georgia allowed the question of the President’s eligibility to be litigated.
One of the great fallacies among so-called “progressives” is to assume that if you present a logical argument in a friendly forum, that the issue is resolved. It is not.
What I do not want to contribute to are parallel universes: on this blog we have endless legal arguments proving that the birthers are crazy and on the radio we have thousands of people being indoctrinated into the birther lie that the President is illegitimate.
Jason was attempting to bridge the gap by at least reporting HERE what was being said THERE. My point was his reporting was incomplete.
I listened to some of boyles last week, and I didn’t realize he’d also talked to Sampson too, and he’s talking to him today, for his take on why the judege ruled against the birthers friday.
My piece was mostly about the local connection, which was Sampson.
… that if Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or some other white guy’s original birth certificate happened to be missing – perhaps due to a fire, or it just got lost – this wouldn’t be an issue?
The judge sounds like a total ignoramus. He could have let Taitz rant all she wanted and then simply ruled “Full faith and credit. Next case.”
If he’d had any balls, he would also have said that not only are there both the Hawaii original and official birth certificates, but also the microfiche birth announcement. That’s proof enough.
Boyles? He’s just in it for the publicity. Just like Pete the huckster did with Tancredo, and JonBenet, and Wade Churchill.
See above,