Posted on 07/09/2010 4:03:53 PM PDT by curiosity
All you need to do is look at the original source for the rumor and use some common sense. They took all of his legal fees and assumed it was all spent on drafting a few memos related to the eligibility issue.
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I don't know why you would. Obama didn't. That rumor was debunked already.
BS! I've seen FAR too many reports of legal filings — in regular newspapers and from AP — FROM Obama’s lawyers over the last three years to tell be it was “debunked”. Maybe the amount is in question, but the fact he fought it in the courts is NOT under contention...that takes lawyers and lawyers cost money.
EVEN if the lawyers gave him their time and effort gratis -- why fight showing one's birth certificate...period.
Show me the link to where it was debunked!
Ok, the original question was “Does the government maintain passport records of Americans international travel destinations?”
And the answer to that question is No.
Furthermore, the reason such a question was posed was that some “Birthers” believed that they could gain information regarding Obama’s and his mother’s travel information by peeking into their Passport files.
And of course, they answer to that question is again “No” as you are somehow unable to provide data that would indicate that the government maintained any type of travel record prior to 20001.
It has not been 'debunk already'. Maybe in the puny minds of after-Birthers.
We know for a fact that the law firm Perkins & Coie was paid by the Obama campaign about 1.7 million dollars up to the summer of 2009 for services rendered.
The services rendered includes defending Obama in his eligibility suits.
We also know that Obama hired the After-Birther lawyer Robert Bauer from Perkins and Coie as his White House counsel.
We know for a fact that the law firm Perkins & Coie was paid by the Obama campaign about 1.7 million dollars up to the summer of 2009 for services rendered.
ALSO, While Obama was a CANDIDATE vying for the democratic nomination — the DEMOCRATS first challenged his citizenship (Hit-lary's organization). “Obama for America” had Lawyers fighting this as early as January, 2007.
McCain had to go through hearings — at the cost of about $500,000 — to clear up the challenges to his citizenship since he was born on an American military base in the Canal Zone.
NO ONE has offered even a SINGLE reason why it is a problem that he should show a certified copy of his FULL Birth certificate.
AS I have said, I am not a “Birther”, per se — but I am clearly positive that there is more than enough reason to believe that there IS something they don't want seen....not to mention the dozens of records he has hidden from through out his life.
The fact that obama has stated that his father was not a U.S. citizen is not admissable evidence in court. To hold obama in violation of Article 2 of the Constitution REQUIRES a CERTIFIED copy of his original birth record(long form). All the cases against obama was about getting a copy of his birth record , the court admissable evidence that he is not the legal President. obama is not a natural born citizen by his own admission, but you still have to prove it in court, fat chance without that certified birth certificate.
The fact that obama has stated that his father was not a U.S. citizen is not admissable evidence in court. To hold obama in violation of Article 2 of the Constitution REQUIRES a CERTIFIED copy of his original birth record(long form). All the cases against obama was about getting a copy of his birth record , the court admissable evidence that he is not the legal President. obama is not a natural born citizen by his own admission, but you still have to prove it in court, fat chance without that certified birth certificate.
Why do you hate America?
Unless you can prove every cent of these fees were related to these lawsuits, you can't really say Obama's spent $2 million to hide his birth certificate.
Maybe because he doesn't see any problem with it not being released. It's not like any court is going to make him, and it's not something other Presidents have done.
And your contention cannot be proved that NO money went to Perkins & Coie that defended Obama in his eligibility cases, which is absurd on the face of it.
It's hardly necessary to account for every penny. The absurdity of the claim can be demonstrated with public information and basic math.
If Obama's been paying Perkins Coie to defend against Birther suits, then obviously Perkins Coie attorneys must have entered appearances and filed documents in the cases they've defended. These documents are public record.
Now, while there have been at least 67 Birther suits brought, Perkins Coie attorneys did not participate in all of them, or even in a majority of them. Some were summarily dismissed without an Answer even being filed. Many were handled by state attorneys (e.g., Ankeny v. Daniels). Many more were handled by U.S. attorneys.
No case has survived past a Motion to Dismiss. Thus, the most any counsel has had to do in defending a single Birther suit is little more than 1) file an Answer, 2) file a Motion to Dismiss and Brief, and 3) attend a hearing or two. There's been some variation, but Birther suits have not been time-intensive ordeals for defense counsel.
That said, how many suits have Perkins Coie attorneys actually defended Obama in? A quick search turned up several of the bigger cases that do NOT appear to have had Perkins Coie counsel (i.e., Ankeny, Barnett v. Obama, Cook v. Simtech, Kerchner v. Obama, Taitz v. Obama).
Meanwhile, I found only two cases (notable or otherwise) that DID have counsel from Perkins Coie: Berg v. Obama, and Hollister v. Soetoro. (Both, incidentally, were filed before the inauguration and both have Obama himself as the primary defendant. I believe this may be common to all Perkins Coie Birther cases, but we'll need other examples to be certain.)
So that's just two confirmed cases where Perkins Coie represented Obama. Let's be really generous and say that there are another eight that I missed, for a total of ten cases.
Ten cases into $2 million is $200,000 PER SUIT. Given the minimal amount of work involved in getting each suit dismissed, let's be extraordinarily generous and say they billed 50 hours per case. That's $10,000 per hour.
For instance, in Hollister, Bauer appears to have filed only four documents in the trial court: an entry of appearance, an 8-page motion to dismiss and brief, a 3-page reply to plaintiff's opposition to the motion to dismiss, and a motion to substitute counsel. All in all, less than 20 pages of filed documents. The "Obama spent $2 million" folks would then have you believe that Obama must have averaged $10,000 PER PAGE. For pages that could have easily been written by a first-year associate and a paralegal. (And remember, that's still assuming there are another 8 cases as yet unidentified; if there are fewer than 8, that $10,000 goes UP.)
This may be why you never see Birthers actually specify which cases were Perkins Coie cases; because to do so would immediately indicate how patently ridiculous the $2 million claim really is.
Nothing is ‘patently ridiculous’ when it comes to Obama at spending money, especially other people’s money that he didn’t earn. We all see that it is a fact that the Obama campaign has paid Perkins & Coie millions of dollars. Barack Obama does not care that he crazily over-payed for services to defend his presidency even if it was 10 grand per page. Obama loves to spend. You only have to watch him spend and plan to spend tax payer’s money at rates not ever seen before.
LorenC,
Obama wasted the resources of the Department of Justice U.S. attorneys when he set these men and women on the task of hiding his origins a flew them around the county to stand before judges in American courts. These tax-payer funded attorneys are supposed to be getting the “bad guys” not hiding common documents!
Obama misused these U.S. attorneys at a time when plots were being laid to:
**Blow up Times Square
**Blow a Pittsburgh marathon
**Blow a civilian airliner out of the air over Detroit
**KILL and WOUND our soldiers in the bases and recruitment centers.
An honest, real, true blue, American man would **NEVER** do that!! A foreign usurper would!
A real American would be **HONORED** to promptly settle the matter with the best evidence.
A real American would be **HONORED** to prove to his troops and to the American people that, ( Yes, indeed!) he was a natural born citizen and eligible to be Commander in Chief and President of the United States of America!
Since it is all sooooooo straight forward why has Obama gone to so much effort and expense to prevent the release of these common documents? Would a real, true blue, American president do that??? Huh?
Oh!...And...Remember, please, that he used tax-funded U.S. attorneys to do this, (who, by the way, should have, instead, been out getting the “bad guys”.)
A fourth case (the seriously racist case The Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations of Missouri et al v. Obama et al) was sealed, and so Plaintiff's counsel is unknown. But let's go ahead and assume it WAS Perkins Coie. Every other case is specifically noted as NOT having Obama-paid counsel.
However, the counsel in Keyes v. Bowen was NOT from Perkins Coie. The attorney was from the California firm Strumwasser & Woocher. So anything he charged wouldn't be included in any payments to Perkins Coie. (And, in fact, he worked pro bono.)
So that's just three cases with Perkins Coie attorneys. At most. If, just to be generous, we go ahead and assume the existence of an unknown case where Obama paid for his own defense, that's a total of four cases.
Thus, the average expense per case becomes a whopping $500,000.00 per case.
Obama used U.S. attorneys in some of these cases ( all? maybe?). Why would any real, true blue, American president waste tax dollars to prevent the release of **common** documents? Only a usurper who was guilty of massive fraud would do that.
A real, true blue, American, natural born citizen president would **NEVER** do that!
A real true blue American president would be **HONORED** to promptly prove with the best evidence that he was a natural born citizen and eligible to be Commander in Chief and president of the United States of America.
Obama misused these U.S. attorneys ( when they should have been out getting the “bad guys”) at a time when plots were being laid to:
**Blow up Times Square
**Blow a Pittsburgh marathon
**Blow a civilian airliner out of the air over Detroit
**KILL and WOUND our soldiers in the bases and recruitment centers.
That's a different question.
The straightforward factual allegation was made that Obama paid Perkins Coie $2 million to represent him in birther-related cases. That would be at least $500,000 per case, and perhaps as much as $1 million per case. For cases that required only a few hours of work at most.
So before you change the subject to US attorneys, just answer: do you agree that the '$2 million to Perkins Coie for birther cases' claim is mathematically absurd or not?
I do not consider myself a birther but I've been fascinated by this matter.
For me, suspicions are valid because BO has just never released the bloody birth certificate. Here are some reasons:
1) There is no long form birth certificate issued by the state of Hawaii. State officials claim to have in their possession a "long form" BC but they are cute in not mentioning it to be a Hawaiian long form.
2) The BC has reference to Obama's religion as Muslim. Who knows, even though BHO Sr abandoned his mother, she was enough of an addle-brained liberal to put the baby's father's religion on the BC, just because it wasn't American.
I've always been fascinated by this little tidbit -- that one of BO's legal friends, back in 2006, prepared a law review article decrying the "natural born" birth requirement as being outdated and exclusive of many perfectly good American politicians. The article mentioned many names, including Governor Arnold S of California and the Governor of Michigan at the time, Jennifer Granholm, who was a Canadian at birth. Curiously, however, the article did NOT mention BHO, which is surprising since BHO had worked with that very law firm for years, and was already a United States Senator for the state of Illinois.
What does this mean? The attorney was inspired to write the law review article at BHO's request, perhaps with a sign because she thought he would never have the chance to run. Then, BHO was emboldened to run anyway, after getting the various institutions to help him with the shrouding of documents -- long form BC, college scholarship records, etc.
Sometimes, it's the little things that really make the most sense.
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