Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report | Western Journalism.com

Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report

Editors Note: In December ‘08 a retired CIA officer commissioned an investigator to look into the Barack Obama birth certificate and eligibility issue. On July 21, 2009 westernjournalism.com obtained a copy of the investigator’s report. Here is an unedited version of the report.

June 10, 2009 Report, updated July 18, 2009

The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii

I think that I now understand the legal background to the question of where Obama was born.

Let’s begin with the statement that Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health released on October 31, 2008. The television and print media used this statement as a reason to prevent and treat with contempt any investigation into whether Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii. But the language of the statement was so carefully hedged and guarded that it should have had the opposite effect.

“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

It is understandable that after such an apparently definitive statement most news outlets, whether conservative or liberal, would accept this as sufficient grounds to relegate the controversy to the status of a fringe phenomenon. Unless they happened to take the trouble to look into the “state policies and procedures” as laid down by the relevant statutes. If they had done so, they would have seen that Dr. Fukino’s press release was carefully hedged and “lawyered” and practically worthless. But the media in general should not be faulted. The statement seems to roll out with such bureaucratic certainty and final authority. I believed it to be significant until a Honolulu attorney mailed me the relevant statutes. I was so surprised that I laughed out loud.

Here is a summary of Hawaii’s “state policies and procedures” in 1961.

In the State of Hawaii, back in 1961, there were four different ways to get an “original birth certificate” on record. They varied greatly in their reliability as evidence. For convenience, I’ll call them BC1, BC2, BC3, and BC4.

BC1. If the birth was attended by a physician or mid wife, the attending medical professional was required to certify to the Department of Health the facts of the birth date, location, parents’ identities and other information. (See Section 57-8 & 9 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).

Actual long form Birth Certificate similar to one Obama refuses to release
Actual long form Certificate of Live Birth similar to one Obama refuses to release

BC2. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then all that was required was that one of the parents send in a birth certificate to be filed. The birth certificate could be filed by mail. There appears to have been no requirement for the parent to actually physically appear before “the local registrar of the district.” It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent’s signature to a form and mail it in. In addition, if a claim was made that “neither parent of the newborn child whose birth is unattended as above provided is able to prepare a birth certificate, the local registrar shall secure the necessary information from any person having knowledge of the birth and prepare and file the certificate.” (Section 57-8&9) I asked the Dept of Health what they currently ask for (in 2008) to back up a parent’s claim that a child was born in Hawaii. I was told that all they required was a proof of residence in Hawaii (e.g. a driver’s license [We know from interviews with her friends on Mercer Island in Washington State that Ann Dunham had acquired a driver’s license by the summer of 1961 at the age of 17] or telephone bill) and pre-natal (statement or report that a woman was pregnant) and post-natal (statement or report that a new-born baby has been examined) certification by a physician. On further enquiry, the employee that I spoke to informed me that the pre-natal and post-natal certifications had probably not been in force in the ‘60s. Even if they had been, there is and was no requirement for a physician or midwife to witness, state or report that the baby was born in Hawaii.

BC3. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, a “Delayed Certificate” could be filed, which required that “a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing or the alteration [of a file] shall be endorsed on the certificates”, which “evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.” The statute provided that “the probative value of a ‘delayed’ or ‘altered’ certificate shall be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence.” (See Section 57- 9, 18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).”

[In other words, this form of vault birth certificate, the Delayed Certificate, required no more than a statement before a government bureaucrat by one of the parents or (the law does not seem to me clear on this) one of Barack Obama’s grandparents. If the latter is true, Ann Dunham did not have to be present for this statement or even in the country.]

BC4. If a child is born in Hawaii, for whom no physician or mid wife filed a certificate of live birth, and for whom no Delayed Certificate was filed before the first birthday, then a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth could be issued upon testimony of an adult (including the subject person [i.e. the birth child as an adult]) if the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was satisfied that a person was born in Hawaii, provided that the person had attained the age of one year. (See Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961.) In 1955 the “secretary of the Territory” was in charge of this procedure. In 1960 it was transferred to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (“the lieutenant governor, or his secretary, or such other person as he may designate or appoint from his office” §338-41 [in 1961]).

Certification of Live Birth, released by Obama
Certification of Live Birth, released by Obama

In 1982, the vital records law was amended to create a fifth kind of “original birth certificate”. Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, “Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that the proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.” In this way “state policies and procedures” accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an “original birth certificate on record.” So it is even possible that the birth certificate referred to by Dr Fukino is of the kind specified in Act 182. This possibility cannot be dismissed because such a certificate certainly satisfies Dr Fukino’s statement that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.” If this is the case, Dr Fukino would have perpetrated so unusually disgusting a deception that I find it practically incredible (and I greatly doubt that anyone could be that shameless). On the other hand, if the original birth certificate is of types 2, 3, or 4, Dr Fukino’s statement would be only somewhat less deceptive and verbally tricky. I only bring up this possibility to show how cleverly hedged and “lawyered” and basically worthless Dr Fukino’s statement is.

Sections 57-8, 9, 18, 19, 20 & 40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act explain why Barack Obama has refused to release the original vault birth certificate. If the original certificate were the standard BC1 type of birth certificate, he would have allowed its release and brought the controversy to a quick end. But if the original certificate is of the other kinds, then Obama would have a very good reason not to release the vault birth certificate. For if he did, then the tape recording of Obama’s Kenyan grandmother asserting that she was present at his birth in Kenya becomes far more important. As does the Kenyan ambassador’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, as well as the sealing of all government and hospital records relevant to Obama by the Kenyan government. And the fact that though there are many witnesses to Ann Dunham’s presence on Oahu from Sept 1960 to Feb 1961, there are no witnesses to her being on Oahu from March 1961 to August 1962 when she returned from Seattle and the University of Washington. No Hawaiian physicians, nurses, or midwives have come forward with any recollection of Barack Obama’s birth.

The fact that Obama refuses to release the vault birth certificate that would instantly clear up this matter almost certainly indicates that the vault birth certificate is probably a BC2 or possibly a BC3.

It is almost certainly a BC 3 or even a BC 4 if the “Certification of Live Birth” posted on the Daily Kos blog and the fightthesmears.com website by the Obama campaign is a forgery. Ron Polarik has made what several experts claim to be a cogent case that it is a forgery. There have been a couple of attempts to refute his argument and Polarik has replied to the most extensive of them. I do not claim expertise in this area, but I think it would be best for journalists and politicians to familiarize themselves with the arguments on both sides before they casually dismiss Polarik’s position without taking the trouble to understand it.

Here are 2 of Polarik’s websites: http://bogusbirthcertificate.blogspot.com/

http://bogusbithcertificate.blogspot.com/

Because the disputants know far more about this subject than I do, I am an agnostic about Polarik’s argument. However, the likelihood that this computer-generated “Certification of Live Birth” was forged, is, I believe, increased by the fact that it has been pretty clearly established that Obama “either didn’t register for the draft or did so belatedly and fraudulently. The documents indicate that it’s one or the other.” http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/004431print.html The forgery of Obama’s selective service registration was necessary, because according to Federal law, “A man must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service. This applies only to men born after December 31, 1959.” http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/draft2.htm)

It is also very strange that Dr Fukino’s statement in no way attested to (or even addressed the issue of) the authenticity of the “Certification of Live Birth” (and the information that appears on it) that the Daily Kos blog and the Obama campaign posted on line. Dr Fukino merely stated that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”

If there is no hospital or physician record in the vault birth certificate, then he wasn’t born in a hospital in Hawaii. And a home birth or non-hospital birth can then be ruled out for the following reason.

When someone has a home birth or is not born in a hospital, this becomes a part of his family’s lore and is now and again spoken of by his parents. He and his siblings grow up knowing that he was born at home or his uncle’s house, etc. The fact that someone in the campaign told a Washington Post reporter that he was born in Kapioliani hospital and his sister said he was born at Queens hospital indicates that there was not and is not any Obama/Dunham family memory of a home birth or non-hospital birth in Hawaii.

And if there is no hospital record in the original vault birth certificate, then he was not born in a hospital in Hawaii.

Instead of the birth certificate on file at the Hawaii Dept of Health, the Obama campaign posted on the Daily Kos blog and the Fightthesmears website a “Certification of Live Birth”. The Certification of Live Birth is not a copy of the original birth certificate. It is a computer-generated document that the state of Hawaii issues on request to indicate that a birth certificate of some type is “on record in accordance with state policies and procedures”. And there is the problem. Given the statutes in force in 1961, the Certification of Live Birth proves nothing unless we know what is on the original birth certificate. There are several legal areas (involving ethnic quotas and subsidy) for which the state of Hawaii up until June 2009 did not accept its computer-generated Certification of Live Birth as sufficient proof of birth in Hawaii or parentage. Why should the citizens of the United States be content with lower standards for ascertaining the qualifications of their President?

If you combine an awareness of what the Certification of Live Birth posted on the internet really is with 1) a knowledge of the relevant statutes in 1961 and 2) Obama’s stubborn refusal to permit the release of the real birth certificate and his determination to fight any legal actions that would compel him to do so, it becomes clear that there is no logical explanation for Obama’s refusal without taking into consideration the relevant statutes. Then his behavior becomes clear. The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii is the missing piece of the puzzle.

Most people think of a birth certificate as a statement by a hospital or midwife with a footprint, etc. (That may be why some main-stream journalists have straight out lied about this. Jonathan Alter, senior editor at Newsweek magazine, for example, told Keith Olbermann on MSNBC on Feb 20, 2009 that “They [the Republicans] are a party that is out of ideas so they have to resort to these lies about the fact that he’s not a citizen. This came up during the campaign, Keith. The Obama campaign actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” But it is Alter who resorted to lying to the American people on television. “The Obama campaign” never “actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” On July 17, 2009 CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim lied when she stated that the Obama campaign had produced “the original birth certificate” on the internet and that FactCheck.org had examined the original birth certificate; whether it was forged or not, the Certification of Live Birth that was posted by the campaign and FactCheck.org is not, and by definition, cannot be the original birth certificate or a copy of the original birth certificate. There were no computer generated Certifications of Live Birth in 1961, the year Obama was born. Obama’s original birth certificate (whether it was filed in 1961 or later) was a very different document from the Certification of Live Birth on FactCheck.org. On the FactCheck.org web site, the claim is made that “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.” So FactCheck.org is lying about this as well.

FactCheck.org gets its prestige from a reputation for objectivity. Why would those who run this site choose to tell so obvious a lie and so endanger the site’s reputation? The answer is in the date of the posting, August 21, 2008. It was in mid-August that questions about the Certification of Live Birth began to reach a critical mass and threaten to enter the public discourse. The mostly pro-Obama television and newspaper/magazine media had to be given an excuse and cover for their collective decision to dismiss or ignore the substantial questions about whether Obama met the qualifications for the office set forth in Article II section I of the Constitution. And those reporters and editors who were not in the tank for Obama had to be deceived. After Labor Day the swing voters would begin to pay attention to the Presidential campaign. The truth had to be killed. And with its lie about “how it examined and photographed the original birth certificate“, FactCheck.org killed it.)

Most people would not consider a mailed-in form by one of his parents (who could have been out of the country or whose signature could have been forged by a grandparent) or a sworn statement by one of his grandparents or by his mother or even a sworn statement by himself many years later to be sufficient evidence (when set next to the statements by his maternal grandmother and the Kenyan ambassador that he was born in another country). Unless the American people are shown the original birth certificate, all of these are possibilities. And if Obama refuses to allow the state of Hawaii to release the original birth certificate, it begins to look like he was not born in a Hawaii hospital or at home with the assistance of a doctor or midwife. A reasonable person would acknowledge that there are serious reasons to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. This is especially true because, if Obama was born in a foreign country, his family had a compelling reason to lie about it.

In 1961 if a 17 year old American girl gave birth in a foreign country to a child whose father was not an American citizen, that child had no right to any American citizenship, let alone the “natural born” citizenship that qualifies someone for the Presidency under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

In 1961, the year that Barack Obama was born, under Sec. 301 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Ann Dunham could not transmit citizenship of any kind to Barack Obama.

“ 7 FAM 1133.2-2 Original Provisions and Amendments to Section 301

(CT:CON-204; 11-01-2007)

“a. Section 301 as Effective on December 24, 1952: When enacted in 1952, section 301 required a U.S. citizen married to an alien to have been physically present in the United States for ten years, including five after reaching the age of fourteen, to transmit citizenship to foreign-born children. The ten-year transmission requirement remained in effect from 12:01 a.m. EDT December 24, 1952, through midnight November 13, 1986, and still is applicable to persons born during that period.

“As originally enacted, section 301(a)(7) stated: Section 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (7) 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 ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.”

The Immigration and Nationality Corrections Act (Public Law 103-416) on October 25, 1994 revised this law to accommodate “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”.

But in 1961, if Barack Obama had been born outside of the country, the Dunham family had no way of knowing that in 1994 Congress would pass a law that would retroactively make him a citizen. At that time, the only way to get citizenship for him would be to take advantage of one of the loopholes in the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act.

People can debate the meaning of the term “natural-born citizen” as long as they like but this is clear: If, in 1961, 17 year old Ann Dunham gave birth to a child on foreign soil whose father was not an American citizen, then the Immigration and Nationality Act at that time denied Barack Obama any right to American citizenship of any kind. Therefore if at the time of his birth Obama was ineligible for American citizenship of any kind, then he cannot be a “natural-born citizen”. This is true even if the Immigration and Nationality Act was changed 33 years after he was born. Even if the law was retroactively changed to grant citizenship (but not “natural-born” citizenship) to some of those who had at birth been denied it. If a person is not at the time of his birth an American citizen, he cannot be a natural-born citizen. Therefore, that person is ineligible under Article II, Section1 for the Office of President of the United States.

It is only by examining the 18th century usage and definition of a term that we can ascertain its meaning in the Constitution. In the 18th century, and at the time of the framing and ratification of the Constitution by the states, the term “natural-born” subject or citizen was always used or defined in such a way as to exclude the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen. No 18th century jurist would have thought the term “natural-born” citizen or subject could have been extended to the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen.

Here is Blackstone’s classic exposition in 1765 of the legal meaning of the term from the Commentaries on the Laws of England.

William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357–58, 361–62

1765

“Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.. . .

“When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king,…might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.” [The italics are Blackstone's]

The irresponsible confirmation in the Senate of the irresponsible tallying of votes in the Electoral College does not supersede the clear meaning of Article II, Section 1. If it is allowed to stand, disregard of the Constitution by all branches of the government would be openly established. To all who believe that the Constitution is the government’s basic law, that the Constitution is the only instrument that gives the enactments of Congress and the commands of the Executive validity, it will be clear that the rule of law in the United States is a fiction.

Journalists and politicians complain that we must avoid a Constitutional crisis, but there already is a Constitutional crisis. It has been caused by Obama’s refusal to take the simple step to clear the matter up. The power of the Executive branch has been compromised. Its right to collect taxes and sign Congressional enactments into law, in fact all of its powers, have become problematic. Since their validity under Section I is now doubtful, they depend on the illegal exercise of force. Since officers of the American military take their oath on commissioning to the Constitution and not the President, their obedience to the Commander-in-Chief has lapsed and, if they challenge or resist his authority, any courts-martial will also be an illegal exercise of force. The only way out of the present Constitutional crisis is for Obama to do as McCain did when he was confronted by far less pressing doubts about the circumstances of his birth. He must disclose his vault birth certificate. Since the document has been so suspiciously withheld for so long, it should be subjected to rigorous forensic tests. Then whatever is on it should be judicially assessed together with the claims that have been made that Barack Obama was born on foreign soil.

It should be added that “Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released this past July.

“The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.

“During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.

“Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to ‘cauterize’ the records of potentially embarrassing information.

“ ‘They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion,’ one knowledgeable source told Newsmax. ‘But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file.’

“At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign.

” ‘This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,’ Brennan’s company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public.

“The passport files include ‘personally identifiable information such as the applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number,’ according to the inspector general report.

“The files may contain additional information including ‘original copies of the associated documents,’ the report added. Such documents include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S.-born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.”

“The State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a 104-page report on the breach last July. Although it is stamped ‘Sensitive but Unclassified,’ the report was heavily redacted in the version released to the public, with page after page blacked out entirely.”

http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/brennan_passport_breach/2009/01/12/170430.html

The following may be relevant:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/

Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot

Saturday, April 19, 2008

“A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.

“Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

“Cmdr. Anzallo said a police officer was patrolling the neighborhood when gunshots were heard, then Lt. Harris was found dead inside the vehicle, which investigators would describe only as a blue car.

“Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

“City police said they do not know whether his death was a direct result of his cooperation with federal investigators.

“We don’t have any information right now that connects his murder to that case,” Cmdr. Anzallo said.

“Police say a “shot spotter” device helped an officer locate Lt. Harris.

“A State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment, saying the investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing.

“The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.

“One agency employee, who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after Lt. Harris told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.” “

There is a possibility that the breaches of the passport files associated with the “credit-card fraud scheme” were a cover for or associated with the breaches of the passport files by the employee of Brennan’s Analysis Corp. This certainly at least should be looked into.

July 11th Addendum to Report

1. Until June 2009, the reasonable doubts about where Obama was born could have quickly and finally been resolved if he had authorized the release by the Hawaiian Dept of Health of his original birth certificate or else applied for it himself and released it to the media. But as these doubts have increased and reached the point where they are no longer a “fringe” phenomenon, the Hawaiian state govt has recently taken certain steps that would create procedural and possibly legal barriers to a resolution of the controversy. Given the slipperiness that characterized the statements of Chiyome Fukino, the Dept’s Director, and Janice Okubo, the Dept’s spokesperson, to the media on this issue, it is, I think, also reasonable to regard these steps with suspicion.

A family that I am acquainted with has a child who was born in Hawaii 6 months ago. They filled out and mailed in a form to the Dept of Health, as did their doctor. In return the Dept sent them in the first week of June, 2009, the same abbreviated computer-generated form that last year on the Daily Kos and subsequently on the Obama campaign web site was called a “Certification of Live Birth”. The form that this family received this year is identical in format to the Certification of Live Birth on the Daily Kos web site with one exception: the title at the top of the form.

On June 12, 2008 the title for this abbreviated form was Certification of Live Birth. The title for the form that this family received in the first week of June 2009 is Certificate of Live Birth. I called The Dept of Health and confirmed that the title of the form had been changed. The bureaucrat that I spoke to said the change had been made “recently”, but could not or would not tell me when. Sometime between June 12, 2008 and the first week of June 2009 the Hawaiian Dept of Health changed the title of this abbreviated form from “Certification of Live Birth” to “Certificate of Live Birth“. Why?

The use of the word “Certificate” rather than “Certification” makes the form feel somewhat more like a traditional birth certificate than the “Certification of Live Birth” that the Daily Kos website and subsequently the Obama campaign posted on the Internet even though, like the “Certification“, it also lacks any information about the hospital, doctor, or midwife. There is no footprint etc. This renaming of the document will be very convenient for the Hawaiian Dept of Health in future stonewalling should any legal pressure be brought against them to produce Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth”. Instead of producing the original “Certificate of Live Birth”, they will produce the abbreviated “Certification of Live Birth” form that the Dept of Health has now renamed a “Certificate of Live Birth” and claim that they are doing so “in accordance with state policies and procedures” in the words of the Dept’s Director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino.

But whether it is called (as it was last year) a Certification or (as it is now) a Certificate of Live Birth this abbreviated document provides none of the probative information that was or wasn’t on Barack Obama’s original Certificate of Live Birth. Unlike the Certificate of Live Birth of the time when Barack Obama was born, this new Certificate of Live Birth provides no real evidence of where a child was born or indication of where such evidence might be found. It provides no information that would demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat. (As is permitted under Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii.)

2. On June 7, 2009, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health told a rather obvious lie (or engaged in a pretty transparent verbal deception) in another attempt to discourage further investigation into the issue of whether Barack Obama was born on Oahu. “The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past”, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “The department only issues ‘certifications’ of live births, and that is the ‘official birth certificate’ issued by the state of Hawaii, she said. ” [Honolulu Star Bulletin] http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html

This statement was false or deliberately very misleading. Here, from a Hawaii state document that was posted on June 10, 2009, is a description of how to apply for “the original Certificate of Live Birth” (the original birth certificate) as opposed to the Certification of Live Birth:

“In order to process your application [to prove native Hawaiian ancestry], DHHL [Department of Hawaiian Homelands] utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.

“Please note that DOH [Department of Health] no longer offers same day service. If you plan on picking up your certified DOH document(s), you should allow at least 10 working days for DOH to process your request(s), OR four to six weeks if you want your certified certificate(s) mailed to you.”

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl

Ms. Okubo’s statement gave the false impression that Obama could not gain access to or release “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, and that it was the DOH’s policy rather than his own reluctance that was responsible for the holding back of this Certificate. This was an obvious deception. The document at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands website indicates that at the time she made this statement it was false, and that a procedure was in place for application for “the original Certificate of Live Birth.”

Only the information on the original birth certificate, “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, can demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat.

3. On July 8, 2009 the web site World Net Daily reported that “The state, which had excluded the controversial document [the Certification of Live Birth] as proof of native Hawaiian status, has changed its policy and now makes a point of including it.”

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103408

Here is the new statement on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands web site [July 8, 2009]. “The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth [original birth certificates and the recently renamed abbreviated computer printouts] and Certifications of Live Birth [as the abbreviated computer printouts were up till recently called] because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth… Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.”

http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl

The web site theobamafile.com picked up this significant change in procedure on the Dept of Hawaiian Homelands website on June 18, 2009. http://www.theobamafile.com/_BogusPOTUS/20090608.htm#HawaiiRuleChange

Sometime between June 10, 2009 and June 18, 2009 the State of Hawaii changed its rule on what documents and data were necessary to prove Hawaiian ancestry, thereby upgrading the apparent status of the abbreviated Certification of Live Birth which it had formerly regarded as insufficiently probative. Why?

4. On June 6, Janice Okubo, the Dept of Health spokeswoman, also told the Star Bulletin that “The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests.” There is a troubling ambiguity in this statement. A sophisticated forensic investigation would probably be able to determine whether the original paper Certificate of Live Birth was forged, altered, or authentic. But if the data from the original paper Certificates of Live Birth has been transferred to an electronic record and then the original documents were discarded, part of the data could easily have been changed in the transfer or subsequently altered.
Why did the Hawaiian Dept of Health wait until June 6, 2009 to announce to the world that the original paper Certificates of Live Birth had been destroyed (presumably in 2001)? Shouldn’t this have been part of Dr Fukino’s statement on October 31, 2008 (right before the November election), a statement which deceptively implied the contrary:
“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
We know from a document posted on June 10, 2009 on the Department of Hawaiian Homelands website that, up until very recently, either the original paper Certificates of Live Birth or (as is now implied) scanned images of those paper certificates were maintained by the Dept of Health, and copies of them were provided to confirm claims of Hawaiian ancestry. But if in June 2009 the Department of Hawaiian Homelands has decided that it will no longer require the original Certificate of Live Birth as proof for special privileges and the Department of Health spokesman says firmly that they will no longer provide copies of these original certificates, is it possible that, in the midst of the controversy over where Barack Obama was born, the Hawaiian state govt has destroyed the original paper certificate of live birth? This seems almost incredible to me, but the authorities have been so deceptive and evasive on this issue, that it cannot be dismissed as impossible.
4. On June 6, Janice Okubo, the Dept of Health spokeswoman, also told the Star Bulletin that “The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests.” There is a troubling ambiguity in this statement. A sophisticated forensic investigation would probably be able to determine whether the original paper Certificate of Live Birth was forged, altered, or authentic. But if the data from the original paper Certificates of Live Birth has been transferred to an electronic record and then the original documents were discarded, part of the data could easily have been changed in the transfer or subsequently altered.
Why did the Hawaiian Dept of Health wait until June 6, 2009 to announce to the world that the original paper Certificates of Live Birth had been destroyed (presumably in 2001)? Shouldn’t this have been part of Dr Fukino’s statement on October 31, 2008 (right before the November election), a statement which deceptively implied the contrary:
“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
We know from a document posted on June 10, 2009 on the Department of Hawaiian Homelands website that, up until very recently, either the original paper Certificates of Live Birth or (as is now implied) scanned images of those paper certificates were maintained by the Dept of Health, and copies of them were provided to confirm claims of Hawaiian ancestry. But if in June 2009 the Department of Hawaiian Homelands has decided that it will no longer require the original Certificate of Live Birth as proof for special privileges and the Department of Health spokesman says firmly that they will no longer provide copies of these original certificates, is it possible that, in the midst of the controversy over where Barack Obama was born, the Hawaiian state govt has destroyed the original paper certificate of live birth? This seems almost incredible to me, but the authorities have been so deceptive and evasive on this issue, that it cannot be dismissed as impossible.

Thomas Sowell

Sept. 8, 2010 / 29 Elul, 5770
The Money of Fools
By Thomas Sowell

Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that words are wise men's counters, but they are the money of fools.
That is as painfully true today as it was four centuries ago. Using words as vehicles to try to convey your meaning is very different from taking words so literally that the words use you and confuse you.
Take the simple phrase "rent control." If you take these words literally-- as if they were money in the bank-- you get a complete distortion of reality.
New York is the city with the oldest and strongest rent control laws in the nation. San Francisco is second. But if you look at cities with the highest average rents, New York is first and San Francisco is second. Obviously, "rent control" laws do not control rent.
If you check out the facts, instead of relying on words, you will discover that "gun control" laws do not control guns, the government's "stimulus" spending does not stimulate the economy and that many "compassionate" policies inflict cruel results, such as the destruction of the black family.
Do you know how many millions of people died in the war "to make the world safe for democracy"-- a war that led to autocratic dynasties being replaced by totalitarian dictatorships that slaughtered far more of their own people than the dynasties had?
Warm, fuzzy words and phrases have an enormous advantage in politics. None has had such a long run of political success as "social justice."
The idea cannot be refuted because it has no specific meaning. Fighting it would be like trying to punch the fog. No wonder "social justice" has been such a political success for more than a century-- and counting.
While the term has no defined meaning, it has emotionally powerful connotations. There is a strong sense that it is simply not right-- that it is unjust-- that some people are so much better off than others.
Justification, even as the term is used in printing and carpentry, means aligning one thing with another. But what is the standard to which we think incomes or other benefits should be aligned?
Is the person who has spent years in school goofing off, acting up or fighting-- squandering the tens of thousands of dollars that the taxpayers have spent on his education-- supposed to end up with his income aligned with that of the person who spent those same years studying to acquire knowledge and skills that would later be valuable to himself and to society at large?
Some advocates of "social justice" would argue that what is fundamentally unjust is that one person is born into circumstances that make that person's chances in life radically different from the chances that others have-- through no fault of one and through no merit of the others.
Maybe the person who wasted educational opportunities and developed self-destructive behavior would have turned out differently if born into a different home or a different community.
That would of course be more just. But now we are no longer talking about "social" justice, unless we believe that it is all society's fault that different families and communities have different values and priorities-- and that society can "solve" that "problem."
Nor can poverty or poor education explain such differences. There are individuals who were raised by parents who were both poor and poorly educated, but who pushed their children to get the education that the parents themselves never had. Many individuals and groups would not be where they are today without that.
All kinds of chance encounters-- with particular people, information or circumstances-- have marked turning points in many individual's lives, whether toward fulfillment or ruin.
None of these things is equal or can be made equal. If this is an injustice, it is not a "social" injustice because it is beyond the power of society.
You can talk or act as if society is both omniscient and omnipotent. But, to do so would be to let words become what Thomas Hobbes called them, "the money of fools."

Sept. 15, 2010 / 7 Tishrei, 5771
The Money of Fools: Part II
By Thomas Sowell

Words are supposed to convey thoughts, but they can also obliterate thoughts and shut down thinking. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, a catchword can "delay further analysis for fifty years." Holmes also said, "think things, not words."
When you are satisfied to accept words, without thinking beyond those words to the things-- the tangible realities of the world-- you are confirming what philosopher Thomas Hobbes said in the 17th century, that words are wise men's counters but they are the money of fools.
Even in matters of life and death, too many people accept words instead of thinking, leaving themselves wide open to people who are clever at spinning words. The whole controversy about "health care reform" is a classic example.
"Health care" and medical care are not the same thing. The confusion between the two spreads more confusion, when advocates of government-run medical care point to longer life expectancies in some other countries where government runs the medical system.
Health care affects longevity, but health care includes far more than medical care. Health care includes such things as diet, exercise and avoiding things that can shorten your life, such as drug addiction, reckless driving and homicide.
If you stop and think-- which catchwords can deflect us from doing-- it is clear that homicide and car crashes are not things that doctors can prevent. Moreover, if you compare longevity among countries, leaving out homicide and car crashes, Americans have the longest lifespan in the western world.
Why then are people talking about gross statistics on longevity, as a reason to change our medical care system? Since this is a life and death issue, we need to think about the realities of the world, not the clever words of spinmeisters trying to justify a government takeover of medical care.
American medical care leads the world in things like cancer survival rates, which medical care affects far more than it affects people's behavior that leads to obesity and narcotics addiction, as well as such other things as homicide and reckless driving.
But none of this is even thought about, when people simply go with the flow of catchwords, accepting those words as the money of fools.
Among the many other catchwords that shut down thinking are "the rich" and "the poor." When is somebody rich? When they have a lot of wealth. But, when politicians talk about taxing "the rich," they are not even talking about people's wealth, and what they are planning to tax are people's incomes, not their wealth.
If we stop and think, instead of going with the flow of catchwords, it is clear than income and wealth are different things. A billionaire can have zero income. Bill Gates lost $18 billion dollars in 2008 and Warren Buffett lost $25 billion. Their income might have been negative, for all I know. But, no matter how low their income was, they were not poor.
By the same token, people who have worked their way up, to the point where they have a substantial income in their later years, are not rich. In most cases, they never earned high incomes in their younger years and they will not be earning high incomes when they retire. A middle-aged or elderly couple making $125,000 each are not rich, even though politicians will tax away what they have earned at the end of decades of working their way up.
Similarly, most of the people who are called "the poor" are not poor. Their low incomes are as transient as the higher incomes of "the rich." Most of the people in the bottom 20 percent in income end up in the top half of the income distribution in later years. Far more of them reach the top 20 percent than remain in the bottom 20 percent over the years.
The grand fallacy in most discussions of income statistics is the assumption that the various income brackets represent enduring classes of people, rather than transients who start at the bottom in entry-level jobs and move up as they acquire more experience and skills.
But if we are going to base major government policies on confusions between medical care and health care, or on calling people "rich" and "poor" who are neither, then we have truly accepted words as the money of fools.

Sept. 16, 2010 / 8 Tishrei, 5771
The Money of Fools: Part III
By Thomas Sowell

Among the many words that don't mean what they say, but which too many of us accept as if they did, are those staples of political discussion, "liberals" and "conservatives."
Most liberals are not liberal and most conservatives are not conservative. We might be better off just calling them X and Y, instead of imagining that we are really describing their philosophies. Moreover, like most confusion, it has consequences.
The late liberal Professor Tony Judt of New York University gave this definition of liberals: "A liberal is someone who opposes interference in the affairs of others: who is tolerant of dissenting attitudes and unconventional behavior."
According to Professor Judt, liberals favor "keeping other people out of our lives, leaving individuals the maximum space in which to live and flourish as they choose."
That is certainly in keeping with the dictionary definition of liberalism and with most contemporary liberals' vision of themselves. But, if we follow Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' admonition to "think things, not words" and look beyond the label to the tangible realities of the world, we find almost the exact opposite of what the word "liberal" is supposed to mean.
Most of us would probably regard the current administration in Washington-- both the White House and the Congress-- as "liberal," even though the word "progressive" may be more in vogue.
Does the sweeping legislation empowering federal officials to tell doctors, patients, hospitals, and insurance companies what to do, when it comes to medical care, sound like leaving individuals the maximum space to live their lives as they choose?
Communities that have had overwhelmingly liberal elected officials for decades abound in nanny state regulations, micro-managing everything from home-building to garbage collection. San Francisco is a classic example. Among its innumerable micro-managing laws is one recently passed requiring that gas stations must remove the little levers that allow motorists to pump gas into their cars without having to hold the nozzle.
Liberals are usually willing to let people violate the traditional standards of the larger society but crack down on those who dare to violate liberals' own notions and fetishes.
Our academic institutions are overwhelmingly dominated by liberals. They feature speech codes that punish politically incorrect statements. Even to apply to many colleges and universities, students must have spent time as "volunteers" for activities arbitrarily defined by admissions committees as "community service."
As for conservatism, it has no specific political meaning, because everything depends on what you are trying to conserve. In the last days of the Soviet Union, those who were trying to maintain the Communist system were widely-- and correctly-- described as "conservatives," though they had nothing in common with such conservatives as William F. Buckley or Milton Friedman.
Professor Friedman for years fought a losing battle against being labeled a conservative. He considered himself a liberal in the original sense of the word and wrote a book titled "The Tyranny of the Status Quo." Friedman proposed radical changes in things ranging from the public schools to the Federal Reserve System.
But he is remembered today as one of the great conservatives of our time. Great, yes. But conservative? It depends on what you mean by conservative.
Conservatism, in its original meaning, would require preserving the welfare state and widespread government intervention in the economy. Neither Milton Friedman nor most of the other people designated as conservatives today want that.
Liberals often flatter themselves with having the generosity that the word implies. Many of them might be shocked to discover that Ronald Reagan donated a higher percentage of his income to charity than either Ted Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nor was this unusual. Conservatives in general donate more of their income and their time to charitable endeavors and donate far more blood.
We are probably stuck with having to use words like liberal and conservative. But we can at least recognize them as nothing more than political flags of convenience. We need not accept these words literally, as the money of fools.

Sept. 17, 2010 / 9 Tishrei, 5771
The Money of Fools: Part IV
By Thomas Sowell

One of the many words that sound so attractive, to people who do not think beyond the word, is "disarmament."
Wouldn't it be better to live in a world where countries were not armed to the teeth, especially when they are armed with nuclear weapons? Of course it would.
But the only country we can disarm is our own. The only countries we might be able to persuade to disarm are countries that intend no harm in the first place. Those countries that do intend to harm others— and we know all too well that they exist— would be delighted to have all their victims disarmed.
What if we can just get nuclear disarmament?
Again, we need to think beyond the word to the realities of the world, so that we do not simply accept words as what Thomas Hobbes called the money of fools.
Had there been no nuclear weapons created during World War II, that would have given an overwhelming military advantage in the postwar world to countries with large and well equipped armies. Especially after the U.S. Army withdrew from Europe, following the end of World War II, there was nothing to stop Stalin's army from marching right across the continent to the Atlantic Ocean.
The American troops that remained in Western Europe were not enough to stop the Soviet army. But they were enough that their slaughter by the Russians would have risked nuclear war with the United States.
Western Europe has had one of its longest periods of peace under the protection of the American nuclear umbrella. Japan, one of the biggest and most cruel conquerors of the 20th century, has become a peaceful nation after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the real world, the question of whether nuclear disarmament is desirable or undesirable is utterly irrelevant because it is simply not possible, except in words— and we would truly be fools to accept such words at the risk of our lives.
Even if every nuclear weapon on the planet were destroyed— and how could we be sure that that had happened?— this would still not destroy the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons.
Those countries with aggressive intentions towards other countries need only choose the time when they would put their knowledge of nuclear weapons to use, and have the world at their mercy.
Once they had nuclear weapons, they could threaten annihilation to any other nation that started to produce offsetting nuclear weapons.
Why then is President Barack Obama pursuing an international nuclear disarmament agreement? It cannot be because he thinks it will work. Even if he were foolish enough to believe that, virtually anybody in the Pentagon can tell him why it won't.
His political advisors, however, can tell him how great that can be for him personally— if he doesn't already know that. It would be "historic" and an "achievement," just like ObamaCare.
His political base— the young, the left and the thoughtless— would be thrilled and energized. That can translate into money donated to his campaign coffers and people willing to walk the precincts to get out the vote for him in the 2012 elections.
It is by no means an irrational thing to do, from Obama's self-centered perspective.
But what does it say about those who take his words literally, who accept those words as, in Thomas Hobbes' words, the money of fools?
First of all, there may be more of such people today than in the past, as a result of the dumbing down of education and the politicizing of education at all levels with anti-nuclear propaganda, along with other propaganda of the left.
International disarmament has long been a favorite crusade of the left, before as well as after the age of nuclear weapons. The period between the two World Wars were full of popular disarmament agreements and renunciations of war.
In fact, such pious agreements contributed to the outbreak of war. Because some nations adhered to these agreements and others did not, the military advantage swung to the latter, who started the war— in which tens of millions of human beings died.
What a price to pay for accepting words as the money of fools.

Thomas Sowell - Politics versus gold

Politics versus gold

By Thomas Sowell

One of the many slick tricks of the Obama administration was to insert a provision in the massive Obamacare legislation regulating people who sell gold. This had nothing to do with medical care but everything to do with sneaking in an extension of the government's power over gold, in a bill too big for most people to read.

Gold has long been a source of frustration for politicians who want to extend their power over the economy. First of all, the gold standard cramped their style because there is only so much money you can print when every dollar bill can be turned in to the government, to be exchanged for the equivalent amount of gold.

When the amount of money the government can print is limited by how much gold the government has, politicians cannot pay off a massive national debt by just printing more money and repaying the owners of government bonds with dollars that are cheaper than the dollars with which the bonds were bought. In other words, politicians cannot cheat people as easily.

That was just one of the ways that the gold standard cramped politicians' style-- and just one of the reasons they got rid of it. One of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first acts as president was to take the United States off the gold standard in 1933.

But, even with the gold standard gone, the ability of private individuals to buy gold reduces the ability of the government to steal the value of their money by printing more money.

Inflation is a quiet but effective way for the government to transfer resources from the people to itself, without raising taxes. A hundred dollar bill would buy less in 1998 than a $20 bill would buy in the 1960s. This means that anyone who kept his money in a safe over those years would have lost 80 percent of its value, because no safe can keep your money safe from politicians who control the printing presses.

That is why some people buy gold when they lose confidence in the government's managing of its money. Usually that is when inflation is either under way or looming on the horizon. When many people start transferring their wealth from dollars into gold, that restricts the ability of politicians to steal from them through inflation.

Even though there is currently very little inflation, purchases of gold have nevertheless skyrocketed. Ordinarily, most gold is bought for producing jewelry or for various industrial purposes, more so than as an investment. But, at times within the past two years, most gold has been bought by investors.

What that suggests is that increasing numbers of people don't trust this administration's economic policies, especially their huge and growing deficits, which add up to a record-breaking national debt.

When a national debt reaches an unsustainable amount, there is always a temptation to pay it off with inflated dollars. There is the same temptation when the Social Security system starts paying out more money to baby boom retirees than it is taking in from current workers.

Whether gold is a good investment for individuals, and whether the gold standard is the right system for a country, are much more complicated questions than can be answered here. But what is clear is that the Obama administration sees people's freedom to buy and sell gold as something that can limit what the government can do.

Indeed, freedom in general cramps the government's style. Those on the left may not be against freedom in general. But, at every turn, they find the freedoms granted by the Constitution of the United States hampering the left's agenda of imposing their superior wisdom and virtue on the rest of us.

The desire to restrain or control the buying and selling of gold is just one of the many signs of the inherent conflict between the freedom of the individual and the left's attempts to control our lives.

Sneaking a provision on gold purchases and sales into massive legislation that is supposedly about medical care is just one of the many cynical tricks used to circumvent the public's right to know how they are being governed. The Constitution begins, "We the people" but, to the left, both the people and the Constitution are just things to circumvent in order to carry out their agenda.

Who are "We?"

President Barack Obama said in Turkey : "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation.

We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

I found this very interesting.
Do you know the Preamble for your state?


Alabama 1901, Preamble
We the people of the State of Alabama , invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution..

Alaska 1956, Preamble We, the people of Alaska , grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land.

Arizona 1911, Preamble We, the people of the State of Arizona , grateful to Almighty God for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution...

Arkansas 1874, Preamble We, the people of the State of Arkansas , grateful to Almighty God for the privilege of choosing our own form of government...

California 1879, Preamble We, the People of the State of California , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom...

Colorado 1876, Preamble We, the people of Colorado , with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of Universe....

Connecticut 1818, Preamble. The People ofConnecticut , acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy.

Delaware 1897, Preamble Through Divine Goodness all men have, by nature, the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences...

Florida 1885, Preamble We, the people of the State of Florida , grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty, establish this Constitution...

Georgia 1777, Preamble We, the people of Georgia , relying upon protection and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution...

Hawaii 1959, Preamble We , the people of Hawaii , Grateful for Divine Guidance ... Establish this Constitution.

Idaho 1889, Preamble We, the people of the State of Idaho , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings..

Illinois 1870, Preamble We, the people of the State of Illinois, grateful to Almighty God for the civil , political and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

Indiana 1851, Preamble We, the People of the State of Indiana , grateful to Almighty God for the free exercise of the right to choose our form of government.

Iowa 1857, Preamble We, the People of the St ate of Iowa , grateful to the Supreme Being for the blessings hitherto enjoyed, and feeling our dependence on Him for a continuation of these blessings, establish this Constitution.

Kansas 1859, Preamble We, the people of Kansas , grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious privileges establish this Constitution.

Kentucky 1891, Preamble.. We, the people of the Commonwealth are grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties..

Louisiana 1921, Preamble We, the people of the State of Louisiana , grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy.

Maine 1820, Preamble We the People of Maine acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity .. And imploring His aid and direction.

Maryland 1776, Preamble We, the people of the state of Maryland , grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty...

Massachusetts 1780, Preamble We...the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe In the course of His Providence, an opportunity and devoutly imploring His direction

Michigan 1908, Preamble.. We, the people of the State of Michigan , grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of freedom, establish this Constitution.

Minnesota, 1857, Preamble We, the people of the State of Minnesota, grateful to God for our civil and religious liberty, and desiring to perpetuate its blessings:

Mississippi 1890, Preamble We, the people of Mississippi in convention assembled, grateful to Almighty God, and invoking His blessing on our work.

Missouri 1845, Preamble We, the people of Missouri , with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His goodness . Establish this Constitution...

Montana 1889, Preamble. We, the people of Montana , grateful to Almighty God for theblessings of liberty establish this Constitution ..

Nebraska 1875, Preamble We, the people, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom . Establish this Constitution.

Nevada 1864, Preamble We the people of the State of Nevada , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, establish this Constitution...

New Hampshire 1792, Part I. Art. I. Sec. V Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.

New Jersey 1844, Preamble We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

New Mexico 1911, Preamble We, the People of New Mexico, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of liberty..

New York 1846, Preamble We, the people of the State of New York , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings.

North Carolina 1868, Preamble We the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for our civil, political, and religious liberties, and acknowledging our dependence upon Him for the continuance of those...

North Dakota 1889, Preamble We , the people of North Dakota , grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, do ordain...

Ohio 1852, Preamble We the people of the state of Ohio , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and to promote our common.

Oklahoma 1907, Preamble Invoking the guidance of Almighty God, in order to secure and perpetuate the blessings of liberty, establish this

Oregon 1857, Bill of Rights, Article I Section 2. All men shall be secure in the Natural right, to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their consciences

Pennsylvania 1776, Preamble We, the people of Pennsylvania, grateful to Almighty God for the blessings of civil and religious liberty, and humbly invoking His guidance.....

Rhode Island 1842, Preamble. We the People of the State of Rhode Island grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing...


South Carolina , 1778, Preamble We, the people of the State of South Carolina grateful to God for our liberties, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

South Dakota 1889, Preamble We, the people of South Dakota , grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties ...

Tennessee 1796, Art. XI..III. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their conscience...

Texas 1845, Preamble We the People of the Republic of Texas , acknowledging, with gratitude, the grace and beneficence of God.

Utah 1896, Preamble Grateful to Almighty God for life and liberty, we establish this Constitution.

Vermont 1777, Preamble Whereas all government ought to enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights, and other blessings which the Author of Existence has bestowed on man ..

Virginia 1776, Bill of Rights, XVI Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator can be directed only by Reason and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love and Charity towards each other

Washington 1889, Preamble We the People of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution

West Virginia 1872, Preamble Since through Divine Providence we enjoy the blessings of civil, political and religious liberty, we, the people of West Virginia reaffirm our faith in and constant reliance upon God .

Wisconsin 1848, Preamble We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, domestic tranquility...

Wyoming 1890, Preamble We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God for our civil, political, and religious liberties, establish this Constitution...

After reviewing acknowledgments of God from all 50 state constitutions, one is faced with the prospect that maybe, Obama, the ACLU and the out-of-control federal courts are wrong!

Canada Free Press - The Bottom Line on Natural Born Citizen

Not "native" or "naturalized" or "citizen," but only "natural born" citizens can hold the office of president.
The Bottom Line on Natural Born Citizen
By JB Williams Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I write this follow up in response to reader mail regarding my column DC Knows that Obama is Ineligible for Office. Even many conservative columnists and pundits seem confused on the issue of natural born citizen, even though the matter is really quite clear.

History answers the question of what “natural born citizen” means, and leaves NO wiggle room for debate or wishful agenda-driven interpretations.

The term was first used by the British Royal family. The question at the time was how to keep the Royal bloodline intact when members of the Royal family traveled abroad extensively, often giving birth to offspring while abroad, therefore bringing the issue of “native born” into question.

Native is a term relative to geography, where a person is at the time of birth. This issue came up as a challenge to John McCain during his 2008 bid for the White House, as he was born “off base” at a local hospital in Panama while his father was stationed on a Navy base in Panama.

As a diversionary tactic to lead obvious questions away from Barack Hussein Obama, some challenged McCain’s “natural born” status as a presidential candidate on the basis that he was not “native born” on US soil, or on US territory, the US Naval Base in Panama. Congress, therefore, passed a resolution proclaiming McCain a “natural born citizen” on the basis that he was the “natural born” son of two US citizens, more specifically, the natural born son of a US Naval Commander.

However, no such resolution exists for Barack Hussein Obama, and here’s why;

The term “native” relates to the geographic location of birth. But the term “natural” relates to the “laws of natural,” ergo family lineage or the bloodline of the father.

The term “natural born citizen” next appears in the Law of Nations, a treaty between nations which established certain universal standards, one of which being the term “natural born citizen.”
The related passage from Vattel’s book on the Law of Nations reads as follows;

“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”

Note the following text—“As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.”

Further clarification—“The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children;”

And the final blow to Barack Hussein Obama—“I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”

The subject of “natural law” found in the Law of Nations is entirely consistent with the Royal British purpose of the term “natural born citizen.” It keeps the family bloodline intact on the basis of the father’s blood, aka “natural law.” It is the source from which our nation’s Founding Fathers entered those words into the US Constitution, under Article II—Section I—Clause V;

“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;”

Not “native” or “naturalized” or “citizen,” but only “natural born” citizens can hold the office of president.

The matter is quite clear and it is on this basis that I have written that John Sidney McCain is indeed a “natural born citizen” of the United States, and the Barack Hussein Obama is not, no matter where in the world he might have been born.

A Hawaiian birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama solves nothing, other than curiosity. A “certification of live birth” means even less, as it only confirms that a child was indeed “born live”—with no reference as to where that birth took place, or who attended or witnessed that birth.

Some argue that the XIV Amendment altered the meaning of the term “natural born citizen.”

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States;” However, the XIV Amendment makes no mention of “natural born citizen” as it was written to address issues of “immigration” and “naturalization,”—which excludes any redress regarding “native” or “natural born” citizens of the Unites States. In short, “natural born” is the exact opposite of “naturalized.” They are two completely different subjects and as we know, “naturalized citizens” cannot hold the office of President, though they are indeed “citizens” with otherwise equal rights. As Barack Hussein Obama’s stated birth father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was at no time in his life a citizen of the United States, but rather a British subject and native citizen of Kenya, it is not possible for Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. to be a “natural born citizen” of the United States. It is therefore not possible for Barack Hussein Obama Jr. to be a constitutionally qualified resident of the people’s White House. Does it matter? Does the “will of the people” trump the US Constitution via the outcome of an election which happened as a result of fraud, in which the candidate concealed the fact that he is not a “natural born citizen?”
Only the people can decide…

But I submit to every American the idea that if Article II—Section I of the US Constitution is no longer worthy of protection and preservation, then nothing in that document matters anymore.

If we fail to uphold Article II—Section I of the US Constitution, then we have failed to uphold, protect, preserve or defend any part of the US Constitution or the American way of life.

If the US Constitution no longer stands, then the United States of America no longer stands.

Is there a more pressing issue on the table today?

Canada Free Press - The certification of constitutional qualification for the office of president DC Knows that Obama is Ineligible for Office By JB

The certification of constitutional qualification for the office of president
DC Knows that Obama is Ineligible for Office
By JB Williams Saturday, April 24, 2010

Members from all three branches of the Federal government already know that Barack Hussein Obama is ineligible for the office of President. National leaders, to include members of the US Supreme Court, already know that Barack Hussein Obama is not a “natural born citizen” of the United States of America, and therefore, is ineligible for the office he currently holds. (See JB’s new article on The Bottom Line on Natural Born Citizen)

What they don’t know is how long it will take for most Americans to figure it out, or what to do about it.

The diversionary search for an authentic birth certificate is ongoing and Obama has now spent in excess of $2 million in legal fees to keep that search alive.

Eric Holder’s Department of Justice continues to deploy taxpayer funded attorneys around the country to file dismissals on behalf of Obama, denying all American citizens access to the courts as a peaceful remedy, which only fuels the fire of discontent and the questions about Obama persist.

Michelle Obama states that Kenya is Barack’s “home country.” She knows, after twenty years with Barack. The Ambassador or Kenya has confirmed the same His family friends all know it, and are in fact quite proud of the fact that Americans had no hesitation in electing a “black man from Kenya” as President of the United States.

The US Supreme Court knows what the constitutional condition of “natural born citizen” means. Even the most far left member of that court, Justice Ginsberg, is on record proclaiming that a “natural born citizen” is a birth child of TWO legal US citizens.

Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knows that Barack Hussein Obama is not eligible for the office of president, which is why she refused to certify the following language when certifying Obama as the DNC candidate for president in 2008.

This is the normal language for certification of nomination for president and vice president, filed by the DNC only in the state of Hawaii…

This is the language filed by the DNC in the other 49 states, however…

Note that the language which certifies that Barack Hussein Obama meets all constitutional qualifications is missing in the DNC documents filed in 49 of the 50 states. The certification of constitutional qualification for the office of president was filed only in Hawaii. That text is missing in the DNC certification filings for all other states.

Whereas the RNC filed the exact same certification document, including the constitutional text for John McCain in all 50 states, Obama was technically certified in only one state, Hawaii. A mere inconvenient technicality, I’m sure…

The US Congress knows that Barack Hussein Obama is not constitutionally qualified for the office he holds. Although the congress passed a resolution proclaiming Senator John McCain a “natural born citizen” as the son of two US citizens, no such congressional resolution exists for Barack Hussein Obama.

The press knows that Obama is not a “natural born citizen,” having written on several occasions about the “Kenyan born” senator from Chicago. A number of citizens have already been arrested and jailed for asking these questions.

Over four-hundred law suits have been filed across the country asking the courts to force Obama to become the “transparent president” he promised to be, and all four-hundred are being dismissed before discovery, all on the basis that “no citizen has proper legal standing” to ask who and what their president really is…

Over a half-million citizens have now signed a petition demanding to see Obama’s birth records.

Numerous members of the US Military have refused deployment orders from Obama, on the basis that he refuses to evidence his constitutional qualifications to issue such orders. In most cases, the soldiers have simply been reassigned, so as to avoid any disciplinary action that could end in “defense discovery” which might finally force Obama to open up his files once and for all.

Now an eighteen year veteran flight surgeon and active Lt. Colonel faces court martial as he makes his demands for proof that Obama is constitutionally eligible to issue orders as Commander-in-Chief.
Obama’s entire domestic, foreign and national defense agenda has proven to be wholly anti-American

Obama’s entire domestic, foreign and national defense agenda has proven to be wholly anti-American on every possible level. Still, the answers concerning who and what Barack Hussein Obama Jr. really is remain elusive in the face of unprecedented efforts to ask the right questions.

No matter who asks, how they ask or where they ask, not one single individual in Washington DC or even state government seems willing to weigh in on the most important issue of our era. Who and what is the man sitting in the people’s White House?

How in the hell did we get an overtly anti-American resident of the people’s White House without so much as a simple birth certificate to prove who this person really is?

And why won’t a single elected representative of the people engage in the effort to force an answer to this question?

The answers to these and many more questions are likely very simple and equally chilling…
The Speaker of the House does not refuse to certify her candidate as “constitutionally qualified” in forty-nine of fifty states by accident

Nobody spends $2 million in legal fees to hide an authentic birth certificate. The Speaker of the House does not refuse to certify her candidate as “constitutionally qualified” in forty-nine of fifty states by accident. A press that knew he was the “first Kenyan born senator” didn’t forget that he was Kenyan born when he decided to run for president.

Most importantly, the people DO have a right (read - proper standing) to ask who and what their president really is, in any court, any time. And soldiers are court-martialed for refusing orders, unless those orders were issued by an illegitimate Commander-in-Chief.

DC knows what most Americans have yet to figure out…

Obama is NOT a natural born citizen no matter where he might have been born. Obama’s birth father was at no time an American citizen and on this basis alone, Obama cannot be a constitutionally qualified resident of the White House.

They know something else that the American people have yet to figure out…

The US Constitution no longer stands as the governing law of this land. Obama’s many unconstitutional policies, Czars, executive orders and statements provide the proof, and the fact that nobody in DC cares whether or not Obama is constitutionally qualified to be president of the United States should send a shiver down the spine of every red blooded American citizen, no matter their partisan agendas.

The people willing to ask the tough questions are deemed crackpots and conspiracy theorists, racists or bigots. But those tough questions should be obvious questions to all Americans and every president should have to answer those questions, no matter race, creed, color or party affiliation.

I fear that those questions will only be answered at the tip of pitch forks and torches one day. Sooner or later, the people will run out of patience with a system built to exclude them. When that day comes, I fear what methods will be employed and whether or not there will be a country left to save by then.

But sooner or later, one way or another, Obama will have to answer those questions. One day, the world will know who and what this man is and there will be a day of reckoning like no other in American history.

The longer it takes for that day to arrive, the more dangerous the situation will become. A man not even qualified to hold the office is using that office to destroy the greatest nation on earth. How much patience can the people be expected to display?

Obama is not eligible for the office he currently holds and everyone in a position to know - already know.

What they don’t know is how much longer they can keep it all a secret, or what will happen next.

Top 10 Failures of ObamaCare After Six Months - HUMAN EVENTS

Top 10 Failures of ObamaCare After Six Months
by Emily Miller
09/22/2010


President Obama today is proudly touting the success of the biggest disaster of his presidency: ObamaCare.

The trillion-dollar, government takeover of our health care officially kicks in tomorrow, but it has already had a destructive impact on our economy and health care system.

Obama’s crowing about his health care debacle shows how totally out of touch he is with the American people. Polls show that 56 percent of likely voters believe that ObamaCare is bad for the United States and 71 percent think the health care law will hurt the economy.

The facts speak for themselves, here are the top ten failures of ObamaCare after only six months:

1. Premiums Have Gone Up: Obama promised that families will pay less for their healthcare premiums under his plan. Quite the opposite has happened. Insurance companies are making double-digit rate increases to consumer premiums in anticipation of the cost of new mandates by ObamaCare. The estimated premiums rate increase for consumers is between 1% and 9%, a direct impact from the new regulations.

2. You Can’t Keep Your Current Plan And Doctor: Businesses will be forced to change their employees’ healthcare plans in order to meet the new regulations. An estimated 69% of businesses will be forced to change their plans, forcing countless millions of Americans to change plans and doctors.

3. National Budget Deficit Is Worse: Sixty-one percent (61%) of all voters nationwide say the healthcare law will increase the federal deficit.

4. More Children Are Uninsured: Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna Inc. and other insurance agencies are dropping child-only policies, citing huge, unexpected costs from ObamaCare. An estimated half a million children in the United States will be affected by the policies.

5. Small Business Taxes Increased: Small businesses—the engine of the U.S. economy—are suffering from increased tax filing regulations and anticipated healthcare mandates. Over 40 million small businesses will be required to file new tax reports for health care. The tax credit for the regulations only covers one-tenth of these business’s losses.

6. Small Businesses Health Care Burden Increased: Almost half of all smaller employers are anticipating “significant increases in healthcare costs in the short term.” These business owners are likely to cut back on hiring and expansion because they fear a new healthcare burden.

7. More Government Spending: The Congressional Budget Office has already adjusted the cost for ObamaCare since it passed, adding another $115 billion to the taxpayer’s tab. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has adjusted upwards its cost prediction since the bill took effect from 6.1% per year to 6.3%. By 2019, U.S. spending on health care will reach $4.6 trillion.

8. Senior Citizens Suffer from Medicare Cuts: The Medicare Advantage program which covers nearly a quarter of seniors will cut plans from $3-$5,000 per beneficiary. Doctors are refusing to take seniors because Medicare only covers part of their bills.

9. Minorities Get Worse Health Care: ObamaCare forces 16 million Americans into Medicaid, a poorly performing welfare program. The President considers moving Hispanic and blacks into Medicaid an improvement in their healthcare. No one else does.

10. Democrats Losing Elections: Current polls show that 61% of likely voters want the bill repealed and the Tea Party movement has demonstrated America’s anger toward ObamaCare. The primaries this summer have shown that Americans are voting for members of congress who will repeal Obamacare.

At the White House Rose Garden bill signing six months ago, Vice President Joe Biden told the President that Obamacare is a “big f---ing deal.” Biden was correct. ObamaCare is a big f—ing deal; it is the death-knell of this liberal presidency.

Miss Miller is a senior editor of HUMAN EVENTS. Previously, she served as the deputy press secretary at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration and the communications director to the House Majority Whip, Tom DeLay. Miller also served as an associate producer at ABC News and started her career at NBC News. Follow her on Twitter.

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A God Lesson

I was sitting at Telluride Blues and Brews, a concert festival in Telluride, Colorado, as dusk settled in watching a father follow his son, who was playing with a flashlight, so he didn't get in trouble or lost. It was getting dark and his father recognized the child's need to move about. He was there, just behind him, all the time but his son never really knew he was. His son was oblivious to the potential danger he could have gotten into without even thinking about it and his father allowed him plenty of leeway to do with as he pleased as long as he didn't cross the line and do something that would undoubtedly result in harm to his son.

Isn't that just the way we are with Jesus much of the time. We do as we please and go about our way without ever thinking or acknowledging that Jesus is there.

A little later, the father had taken control of the flashlight, then shining it on the ground and the small boy would chase after it trying to get in the light. Again, that is much like I envision God with us. On the one hand always there to protect us while giving us plenty of freedom and on the other showing us the way and wanting us to come into his light.

I don't know why God put that in front of me at the time, but I sure did enjoy it while it lasted. God is good and is always there whether we acknowledge him or not.

Peace

Is Barack Obama a socialist? No, he's worse than that | Mail Online

Is Obama a socialist? No, he’s worse than that

By Mary Ellen Synon
Last updated at 11:00 AM on 16th September 2010

Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express have roared right through the latest round of Republican Party primaries this week, rattling the party establishment and terrifying the Democrats.

For those of you who are trained in the fastidious ways of the British ‘liberalism’ and are therefore shocked and can’t think why the American Right is gaining such strength, here’s the reason: Barack Obama.
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy earlier this month

Americans are waking up to the fact that they have elected a man as president who is every inch an exotic creature. Which was rather fun at first.

The problem is, America is discovering that Mr Obama has brought more than just a foreign name and an interesting racial mix to the White House. He has brought a whole foreign way of thinking. And Americans don’t like it.

Millions of them now want national leadership with a more star-spangled way of looking at the world, which is why this week there is something else going on in America, a national debate on a story about Mr Obama in the business magazine, Forbes.

The story is called ‘How Obama thinks.’ Its conclusion is that he thinks like a 1950s East African anti-colonialist.

The article was written by Dinesh D’Souza, an academic and author who is as exotic as the US president. Mr D’Souza was born in Mumbai and immigrated to America as a student. He is now president of The King’s College in New York. He once served in the Reagan White House.

Many of Mr Obama’s critics claim he is a socialist. Certainly, as Mr D’Souza says: ‘Thanks to Obama the era of big government is back. He has expanded the federal government’s control over home mortgages, investment banking, health care, autos and energy.’

His critics explain this in two ways. ‘The first is that Obama is clueless about business. The second is that Obama is a socialist – not an out-and-out Marxist, but something of a European-style socialist, with a penchant for levelling and government redistribution.’

But ‘these theories aren’t wrong so much as they are inadequate. Even if they could account for Obama’s domestic policy, they cannot explain his foreign policy.’ (And what’s Mr Obama’s foreign policy? As the Weekly Standard put it, omnipotence at home, impotence abroad.)

According to Mr D’Souza, the real problem with Mr Obama is worse than socialism – ‘much worse.’

‘Here is a man who spent his formative years – the first 17 years of his life – off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa.’ With an early life like that, we must wonder what the President’s dream is. Is it the American dream?

Mr D’Souza says: ‘We don’t have to speculate, because Mr Obama has already told us himself in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father. According to Obama, his dream is his father’s dream.’

Barack Obama Senior was a Luo tribesman who grew up in Kenya and studied at Harvard. He was a polygamist and a drunk. According to one son, Mark Obama, he was also a wife-beater.

In one of his drunken car accidents, the President’s father killed a man and caused his own legs to be amputated. In 1982 he got drunk in a bar in Nairobi and drove into a tree, killing himself.

Yet to his son, the elder Obama was a hero who represented a great and noble cause, the cause of anti-colonialism. He had grown up during Africa’s struggle to throw off European rule.

Mr D’Souza knows something about anti-colonialism. He comes from the first generation of Indians born after their country’s independence from the British: ‘Anti-colonialism is the doctrine that rich countries of the West got rich by invading, occupying and looting poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America.’

Obama Senior was an economist. Mr D’Souza has found an article written by him in 1965 in the East Africa Journal. In it, he proposed that the state confiscate private land and raise taxes with no upper limit. He insisted that ‘theoretically there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100 percent of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed.’

As Mr D’Souza points out: ‘Remarkably, President Obama, who knows his father’s history very well, has never mentioned his father’s article.’ Yet the article is directly relevant to what the younger Obama is doing in the White House – especially since the president admits that, even though his father was absent for virtually all his life, ‘My father’s voice has nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval.’

Sarah Obama, the president’s step-grandmother, agrees. She said: ‘The son is realising everything the father wanted.’

What the father wanted was state appropriation of wealth for the political objective of repairing the damage allegedly done by colonialism. Only now, for the younger Obama, the colonial power is America. As he learned from Edward Said, one of his lecturers at Columbia University: ‘The United States has replaced the earlier great empires and is the dominant outside force.’

If Mr Obama shares his father’s anti-colonial crusade – and it seems he does – that explains why he wants Americans who are already paying close to half their incomes in overall taxes to pay even more. From a young age, Obama adopted his father’s position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder.

If he sees America’s military as a force of neo-colonial occupation – and it seems he does – that explains why he is determined to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan no matter what the consequences to America’s power.

Yet colonialism today is a dead issue. As Mr D’Souza says: ‘Emerging market economies such as China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labour advantage and growing much faster than the US.’

However, instead of readying America for the challenge, the man in the White House is ‘trapped in his father’s time machine. The philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realisation of his anti-colonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son.’

America is being run by the ghost of a dead Luo tribesman of the 1950s.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1312527/Is-Barack-Obama-socialist-No-hes-worse-that.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz0znDuhFz5