Rejection of Obama by Electoral College
Winner, 332 to 206
REJECTION OF OBAMA BY THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
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That rather silly woman, with respect, Anne Applebaum, has
had another go at the so-called ‘birthers’ in her typically ill-informed
column in today’s Daily Telegraph. She regards the views of those who
believe that Barack Hussein Obama was born in the United States as
rational. By implication she also criticises the many Republicans who
consider that Obama was born in what is now Kenya for rejecting the
legitimacy of his claim to the presidency.
For a view to be rational it must be based on the evidence. Like
most pro-Obama commentators Applebaum does not condescend to consider
the evidence, indeed I have not seen rational discussion of the issue
anywhere in the mainstream media. For a serious consideration of the
issue you have to go online, onto reputable websites like Veterans
Today.
The competing theories may be shortly stated. President Obama and
the Democratic Party claim that he was born in Honolulu in the State of
Hawai’i on August 4
th 1961. They have been consistent about
the date but not the place. Two different hospitals were put forward at
different times in the 2008 election (I have been tracking this issue
since Obama first came on my radar, as a state senator in Illinois,
about ten years ago). The President and the Democrats have now settled
on the Kapio’lani Maternity Hospital in Honolulu. Mainstream media
commentators like Anne Applebaum are seemingly unaware that two
different US birthplaces have been put forward by the President and his
supporters. They tend to take the latest White House position as fact.
The Kenya theory, supported by many Republicans, a broad swathe of
the international intelligence community (behind the scenes) and, in the
public domain, by the entrepreneur Donald Trump, asserts that the
President was born in or near Mombasa in what is now Kenya. Within this
group there are five main sub-groups – those who say that the date of
birth is correct but not the place, those who put the birth in 1960,
those who say that the claimed maternal relationship is true but not the
paternal relationship, those who put it the other way round and those
who accept the claimed parentage but not place of birth. There is of
course cross-over between these groups on the date of birth.
The CIA, semi-publicly, accepted maternity but challenged paternity.
Two names for the father, including the radical black activist ‘Malcolm
X,’ were privately circulated by ‘sources close to the CIA’ in 2010 and
2011. The CIA’s true position, supported I am told by a DNA test, is
that the claimed paternity is correct but not maternity. Their official
position is of course the White House line, i.e. that President Obama
is eligible to be sworn in as President on January 21
st.
The CIA were actually quite slow to get to grips with the issue. So far
as I know no work was done on it until I briefed them in, in 2007.
Both MI5 and MI6 held out on them for some months afterwards, indeed I
don’t think MI6 made full disclosure of their position until CIA had the
DNA test done (I am told they used wine and water glasses, with the DNA
swabs verified by fingerprints). Homeland Security are said to agree
with the CIA’s internal assessment. They of course have access to the
immigration and passport records, which have never been disclosed
publicly and are apparently troubling for the Democrats.
The Mossad, DGSE, BND, SVR, MI5 and MI6 go with Mombasa, although
there is some disagreement between the agencies about date of birth.
SVR are rumored to favour 1961, e.g., whereas MI6 and Mossad are said to
go with 1960. MI5 have a file because the colonial internal security
files came over from Nairobi in 1963. Since Obama’s father and
grandfather were both linked to the Mau-Mau terrorist organization they
were very properly made the subjects of intelligence and police
surveillance.
There is actually very little evidential support for the Honolulu
theory. The document the media refer to as a ‘birth certificate’ is
nothing of the sort. It is an electronic facsimile, unsupported by
matching Hawai’i file entries, which are sealed. I respectfully
associate myself with the criticisms of this document by the forensic
specialists who examined it at the behest of Arizona lawman Sheriff Joe
Arpaio. It consists of multiple layers and appears to have been
generated by software. It is not an original, nor even a photocopy of
an original.
It does not take the case very much further, save that its production
is damaging to the White House’s credibility, as was the production of a
shorter-form purported certificate in 2008, which was denounced at the
time as a forgery by a Hawai’ian official, although the state then
backtracked, under intense political pressure. The older fabrication
was a two-dimensional computer file, which appeared to have been
photo-shopped. The purported official seal lacked depth, a common
mistake by forgers.
There is a self-serving entry in the
Honolulu Advertiser,
which again takes the case no further, since it has always been clear
that the ‘parents’ were claiming the birth of a baby boy named Barack in
Honolulu on 4
th August 1961. The address in that advertisement was not real however, an odd feature.
There are some surprising lacunae in the evidence produced. The
claimed mother’s medical records, e.g., have never been released. That
calls for comment, since in the US there would have been an attending
physician. One would expect to see some reference in the medical records
for a teenage girl undergoing her first pregnancy. There are no
photographs showing Ann Dunham whilst pregnant, and no evidence that she
took ‘her’ child with her to Washington State, after she left school in
Honolulu. There are no photographs of Barack Obama in the US before
the age of about two.
Neither of the alleged places of birth has a record of Ann Dunham
being admitted in the first week of August 1961, hospital admission
records being something investigators have been calling for over four
years. There are no supporting records from the attending physician,
whose name was suppressed for some three years after the issue started
to gain traction. There are issues over the numbering of the long form
birth certificate produced, which does not appear to be in sequence.
The relevant immigration records are sealed, something which troubled
Sheriff Arpaio, an experienced lawman, and his investigating posse. I
know some have challenged the sheriff’s good faith, but I see no reason
to question it. He is a man of the highest integrity - we are not
talking Thames Valley Police here.
The passport records are relevant, because President Obama cannot
have visited Pakistan during the al-Huq dictatorship on a US passport.
On what basis was he issued a passport by another state? If Indonesian
what was said to the Indonesian authorities about his date and place of
birth?
The President’s college records are relevant because he appears to
have received scholarship funding for which he would not have been
eligible had he been born in the USA. It is also a valid point that he
took no steps to correct a book-cover bio describing him as Kenyan-born,
a fact of which Anne Applebaum seems to be unaware.
Article 2 of the US Constitution seems to me to be clear enough. To
be eligible for the presidency a candidate presented to the Electoral
College has to be an American Citizen, born in the United States. It is
a matter entirely for them but I see no reason why the Electors could
not ask for evidence of Barack Obama’s eligibility. That applies to all
candidates of all races from all parties by the way.
I don’t accept that Senator McCain was eligible to be sworn-in, as in
my opinion he was born in a hospital in downtown Colon, in Panama. It
wouldn’t matter if he were born on Coco Solo Marine Corps Air Base, as
he claims, as that was not in the United States. Quite where on the
base he was born is a moot point, since the hospital was not built for
another five years. I don’t accept that Senator Goldwater qualified for
the presidency either – his eligibility was queried at the time, as he
was born in a territory, not a state.
If I am right in my conclusion that President Obama was born in what
is now Kenya (it was then the Coastal Protectorate) he cannot have been
born to Ann Dunham, as there is no evidence she was in Kenya in 1960 or
1961. Since she is his route to US citizenship (a somewhat doubtful
route at best, since his father was already married and the form of
ceremony of marriage between Ann and Barack Hussein Senior was bigamous)
birth in the Protectorate would also take down his US Citizenship. He
has never naturalized and is not in my opinion a US Citizen by birth
(jus soli) or descent (jus sanguini).
If those conclusions are right Vice-President’s Biden suitability to
be President might be called into question, on the ground that he either
knew or ought to have known that the President was ineligible, although
that would more properly be a matter for Congress on impeachment, not
the Electoral College, as I read the US Constitution, not least as some
states bind their electors to follow the popular vote.
We might see the House Speaker as President before next year is out.
He might want to look out his birth certificate, a document the
Democratic Party could have called for before nominating Barack Obama in
2008 (it’s odd that there is almost no due diligence on presidential
candidates, but there is for presidential nominees once they’ve been
elected).
9
th November 2012
An election for President and Commander in Chief of the Military must strive to be above reproach. Our public institutions must give the public confidence that a presidential candidate has complied with the election process that is prescribed by our Constitution and laws. It is only after a presidential candidate satisfies the rules of such a process that he/she can expect members of the public, regardless of their party affiliations, to give him/her the respect that the Office of President so much deserves.
