BY LINDA BENTLEY | APRIL 20, 2011

The Donald giveth, the governor taketh away

Brewer vetoes presidential eligibility bill

SURPRISE – Mikki Booth, a community activist from Oklahoma flew in to Arizona on Saturday to work with a group of people, including Jeff Lichter, who along with Rep. Carl Seel, R-Dist. 6, met with real estate mogul Donald Trump regarding Seel’s presidential candidate qualifications bill (HB 2177), to explain the birth certificate and eligibility issue that has dogged Obama now for over three years.

On Friday, HB 2177, after passing both the House and Senate, was transmitted to Governor Jan Brewer with the expectation it would be signed.

Booth arrived wearing a Terry Lakin Action Fund T-shirt to remind people that Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, a former army doctor, is currently serving a six-month prison sentence and was stripped of all benefits from his stellar 18-year military career for asking the same questions about Obama’s constitutional eligibility that Trump has miraculously brought to the forefront.

Lakin spent a year going through the proper channels in an effort to obtain answers about Obama’s eligibility and invited his own court martial before he was to be deployed to Afghanistan by disobeying orders.

When Lakin was asked to bring a copy of his birth certificate when he showed up for deployment, Lakin asked to see Obama’s birth certificate to ensure the president was constitutionally eligible to hold office and issue orders as Commander in Chief.

As an officer, Lakin’s oath was to the Constitution.

Yet Obama allowed Lakin to be stripped of his military service benefits and go to prison rather than present a $10 document to satisfy not only Lakin’s curiosity, but, according to a World Net Daily poll conducted in February 2011, 51 percent of registered Republicans who don’t believe Obama was born in the United States, along with another 21 percent who say they are not sure.

Booth thought she understood Hawaiian birth certificates full well, as her husband Fred, son Alan, and her father-in-law were all born in Honolulu. Her husband and son were both born at the Kapiolani Hospital, the same hospital where Obama generally claims he was born.
Booth has copies of various family members’ and others’ original long-form and newer short-form birth certificates, spanning from 1919 to 1995.

What we initially thought, after Booth explained the differences in the variety of documents that have been issued as proof of birth in Hawaii, was anyone born in a hospital in Hawaii was issued a “Certificate of Live Birth.”

That apparently is not the case, as Capt. Pamela Barnett, who was a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Obama’s eligibility, has recently learned.

Barnett obtained a copy of a long-form “Standard Certificate of Live Birth” from a friend who was born in 1940 at St. Francis Hospital in Honolulu, plus a short form, called a “Certification of Live Birth” issued to the same person in May 2006, containing minimal information, just like the document Obama produced, only on different colored stock.

What we have learned, however, is the state of Hawaii has been forever changing the document it produces when a request is made for a certified copy of a birth certificate.

The form for requesting a certified copy of one’s birth certificate has also changed. It used to provide an option for obtaining either the long-form record or the short form. That is no longer an option.

The Hawaii Department of Health now claims it only issues the short form document, which is now titled Certificate of Live Birth, although it appears to contain information inadequate to even obtain a passport.

When Alan Booth requested a certified copy of his birth certificate in March 2010 and again in April 2011, he received the short form document titled “Certificate of Live Birth.”

The certificates included both his mother’s and father’s state/country of birth, which is absent from Obama’s Certification of Live Birth document.

It’s not clear who has authorized all the recent changes to the birth certificate documents emanating from the Hawaii Department of Health, from the name of the document to the information it contains.

What is clear, however, is the document continues to morph to look more and more like the document Obama has produced as evidence of being born in Hawaii, while shakeups in personnel at the Hawaii Department of Health continue, which began with the departure of former Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino, who has issued obfuscating statements regarding Obama’s birth certificate for the past few years.

Fukino issued the following statement on Oct. 31, 2008 pertaining to Obama’s birth certificate: “… I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics … 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.”

Many misconstrued this to say Fukino has seen Obama’s actual birth certificate, while it was a very carefully crafted statement saying otherwise.

On April 18, angering constituents who insist presidential candidates should have to prove their constitutional eligibility before appearing on the ballot in Arizona, Brewer vetoed HB 2177 stating, “As a former secretary of state, I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically-motivated decisions.”

She also said the inclusion of early baptismal or circumcision certificates in the list of documents a presidential candidate could present in lieu of a long form birth certificate was “a bridge too far.”