Posted on 10/24/2008 7:31:37 AM PDT by presidio9
IF MONTGOMERY County lawyer Phil Berg has his way, Barack Obama won't be on the ballot on Nov. 4.
And if Berg's right, Obama could be struck from the ballot as soon as today.
Talk about an October surprise!
In August, Berg filed a federal suit alleging that the Democratic presidential candidate was not born in Hawaii, but in Kenya, and is not even an American citizen, but a citizen of Indonesia.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick has not ruled on the merits of Berg's suit, although he did deny Berg's request for a temporary restraining order.
This week Berg asked that his allegations against Obama be "admitted" since Obama had failed to respond within the 30-day time limit.
Berg's suit has been hot stuff in the right-wing blogosphere for a while.
Several similar suits have followed Berg's, including one in Washington state this week and one in Hawaii last week challenging that state's privacy law, which prevents officials from making the original birth certificate public.
Mike Finney, deputy clerk to Judge Surrick, says that their office has gotten a blizzard of phone calls about the suit.
"Within the past week the calls have instensified," Finney told us. "People from all across the country have been calling." He said we should expect a ruling soon.
Berg failed to return our calls, but he is no stranger to Clout.
In 1998, when he launched a run for governor against Tom Ridge, we offered this slogan: "Those who think Ridge is unsinkable should know there's a Berg up ahead."
He promptly printed it on campaign buttons, becoming the only politician ever to take advice from Clout. It was clearly a danger sign.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Berg established a Web site accusing the government of either planning the attacks or knowing about them in advance.
To fight the birth rumors, the Obama camp posted a document issued by Hawaii confirming his birth there. Critics call it a forgery, although the nonpartisan FactCheck.org examined the original document and declared it legit.
Also worth noting is a birth announcement in the Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961, Honolulu Advertiser listing Obama's birth there on Aug. 4.
Of course, it is possible that Obama's family, knowing he would seek the presidency one day, planted a false announcement.
And, if you enjoy conspiracies, isn't it interesting that Obama is cutting short his campaigning this week to visit his grandmother in Hawaii?
Is she really sick? Or is he trying to keep her quiet? Or is this silly stuff going to be kicked out of court forcing us to find better material next week?
Obama and the Phillies
Obama's declaration during the NL Championship Series that he was rooting for the Phillies prompted Todd Bernstein to produce the T-shirt you see on this page.
His inspiration goes back to 1992, when he was an aide to then-senator Harris Wofford, D-Pa., and they were campaigning for Bill Clinton in Colorado.
"In the Denver campaign office someone had a T-shirt that had Clinton-Gore with the Broncos logo and on the back, it said, 'Go Clinton! Go Broncos!' " Bernstein recalled. "I thought I'd like to do that back home when the time was right.
"It took 16 years for the stars to be aligned with Barack Obama and the Philadelphia Phillies."
Bernstein, who heads the Martin Luther King Day of Service project, made some up for his friends.
"Then more people started asking about it, so I made more, and then other people began hounding me and now I'm in the rag business," he said.
Bernstein is up to several hundred shirts by now, but says he doesn't want any more requests, which is why we're not printing his e-mail address.
Tayoun: Sales pitch
Obama's Pennsylvania political director, Kevin Washo, was sipping on a beer at the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee dinner Monday night, when someone introduced him to former Councilman and ward leader Jimmy Tayoun, now publisher of the weekly paper ThePublic Record.
"Will you guys buy a friggin' ad in my newspaper?" Tayoun said, as he shook Washo's hand. "Every committeeman in the city gets a copy of it."
We checked in with Tayoun at week's end, and he's still got zippo from the Big O.
Goo-goo: Street money is good
Ward leaders aren't the only ones who think Obama should pay "street money" to Philly's Democratic organization for Election Day turnout.
Marc Stier, a former City Council candidate and good-government type who's active in Neighborhood Network - a grassroots organization that many ward leaders regard as a threat - says that Obama should pay the machine.
"We're seeing an enormous number of Obama volunteers coming here who don't know the territory they're working," Stier said. "They don't know much about the voters they're talking to, and they don't know practical things, like where to rent a room for canvassers, something a ward leader can help with."
Stier said that it's true that most voters don't seek ward leaders' advice on presidential votes, but "in some parts of the city where voters may be a little uncertain, a word from a committee person they've known for years can make a difference."
O'Brien: A Repubmocrat?
When party chairman Bob Brady called Democratic candidates up to the stage at Monday's party pep rally, Clout did a double-take.
Is that House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, a Republican, up there?
Indeed.
Turns out that while running unopposed in the Republican primary in April, O'Brien also ran a successful write-in campaign to get on the Democratic ballot, too. So he's technically a Democratic candidate.
Does that mean O'Brien, who was also elected speaker with Democratic support, backs Obama? O'Brien would say only that he's "a proud Republican." *
I might be wrong but the more this stuff comes out, the more I think this whole thing is a Dem smoke screen to get us focused on going down a rabbit trail that leads to nowhere but losing if we continue to concentrate on this.
Watch grandma end up dying in the next day or two. Shades of Clinton.
somehow, i don’t see a resolution coming to this before the election. by that time, may be too late.
I have not heard this before - It would seem to make this lawsuit look silly.
Whether Berg is right or not, the information is damaging enough that voters won’t take a risk on voting in a possibly illegitimate President. Then we’d get flaplips Biden....hardly an improvement.
Am I the only ne that saw this posted briefly on FR a few minutes ago?
Now it is gone
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/pennsylvania/paedce/2:2008cv04083/281573/27/0.html
This will be the longest shower I’ve ever taken!!!
The problem with doing so now is that the DNC can send in Hillary, who gave some votes to McCain once he picked Sarah. If Hillary runs now, what will happen to those votes? Will McCain lose them back to Hillary? Will she keep all of Obama’s votes or will some go to McCain and make up the difference?
I wasn’t aware newspapers even did birth announcements back then. If that’s the case, I find this whole thing very, very silly. How hard would it be for someone to go look at the microfiche or something? I’ll volunteer to go to Hawaii if FR pays my way!!!
Berg is a Hillary Democrat, a DP operative for thirty years.
I can't stand mediots.
I agree. This will not be resolved by election day.
BUT, what it will do is create enough doubt with many voters in the middle not to take a chance on electing Hussein. This allong with allll the other stuff (Ayres, ACORN, Socialism, etc.) will stick and people will not vote fro Hussein.
Hmm. An order for Hussein to be removed from the ballot? One wonders why the Dems are ignoring this. Shouldn’t they be filing an emergency appeal to a higher court or even the SC?
Why, is there a statute of limitations on this, if proven true?
I agree that this line of attack will probably not succeed, and may divert from better arguments. I think the most effective line of attack is Obama’s lack of experience. In Biden’s own words (from when Biden was running for president), Obama is not ready to be president. Then Biden recently says Obama will face an international crisis to test his experience. Run these two Biden clips together from now until November 4, and I think you will see Obama’s numbers drop...a lot.
I agree. Even if this is true, someone down the line (Howard Dean) knew this and has successfully covered it up. You must be able to believe that they couldn’t ‘produce’ the necessary ‘documents’ Chicago Style. The Ultimate Punk on the USA.
All you really can argue is reality. Inform the voters of what his ‘plans’ mean for us. Cause when the sh*t hits the fan, reality stinks.
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