Not even the U.S. Supreme Court can kill the dispute that has developed over Sen. Barack Obama's eligibility to occupy the Oval Office based on questions raised over his birthplace and citizenship and his steadfast refusal to provide documentation on the issue.
The high court today denied a request to listen to arguments in a case, Donofrio v. Wells, from New Jersey that addressed the issues. But literally within minutes, the court's website confirmed that another conference is scheduled for Friday on another case raising the same worries.
The case of Leo C. Donofrio v. New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells claimed Obama does not meet the Constitution's Article 2, Section 1 "natural-born citizen" requirement for president because of his dual citizenship at birth.
The new case, Cort Wrotnowski v. Susan Bysiewicz, Connecticut secretary of state, also makes a dual citizenship argument. It had been rejected by Justice Ruth Ginsburg Nov. 26 but then was resubmitted to Justice Antonin Scalia. There was no word of its fate for about 10 days, then today the court's website confirmed it has been distributed for Friday's conference, a meeting at which the justices consider whether to take cases.
Donofrio, whose case was rejected today, said he's hopeful Wrotnowski's complaint will find a more receptive panel.
"It includes a more solid brief and a less treacherous lower court procedural history," Donofrio writes on his Natural Born Citizen blog. "I must stress that [Wrotnowski] does not have the same procedural hang up that mine does."
The website explained an appeals judge in New Jersey had incorrectly characterized Donofrio's original complaint as a "motion for leave to appeal" rather than a "direct appeal."
"If Cort's application is also denied then the fat lady can sing," the website stated. "Until then, the same exact issue is before SCOTUS as was in my case. Cort's application before SCOTUS incorporates all of the arguments and law in mine, but we improved on the arguments in Cort's quite a bit as we had more time to prepare it."
Besides the plaintiffs for these two and about a dozen other legal actions that challenge Obama's eligibility in courts around the country, there are tens of thousands of people who are alarmed by the unanswered questions about Obama.
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The campaign included 6,682 packages of nine letters each delivered to the court on the case about Obama's eligibility under the "a natural born citizen" requirement.
"If we didn't do everything possible to let the Supreme Court justices know what a concern this is to millions of Americans, I would feel like I was letting down the Constitution and the men who framed it – not to mention every citizen of the United States living now and in the future," Joseph Farah, WND's founder and editor, said of the campaign. "This constitutional eligibility test has become a key issue with me because if the plain language of the Constitution is no longer taken seriously by our nation's controlling legal authorities, we have become an outlaw nation – no longer under the rule of law but under the rule of men."
A petition drive Farah launched also has collected about 174,000 signatures – so far – from people who want to know the truth.
Last month WND reported worries over a "constitutional crisis" that could be looming over the issue of Obama's citizenship. The concerns were raised in a lawsuit in California asking state officials to prevent Electoral College members from voting for Obama until they investigated his eligibility, a case being handled by the United States Justice Foundation.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi had gone both to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject. A one point a Kenyan ambassador said Obama's birthplace in Kenya already was being recognized.
Among the plaintiffs in the California case is presidential candidate Alan Keyes.
"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the office of president of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the president of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.
Wrotnowski's case challenges the courts to review allegations of election fraud, suggesting the Connecticut secretary of state should not have placed Obama's name on the ballot without verification of his eligibility.
After state courts refused to take the case, he said the point was, "this document has not been produced."
"I'm not the first, not the last, just among a growing number of people across the country who've become distressed about the lack of disclosure,"
Donofrio had alleged that Obama's dual citizenship disqualifies him. Obama's campaign said the British citizenship expired, leaving him with "natural-born" U.S. citizenship.
Obama's Fight the Smears website confirms Donofrio is correct about the Democrat's citizenship at birth.
Donofrio's case originally was denied a conference of the judges by Justice David H. Souter, but Justice Clarence Thomas agreed to bring it back for consideration last week. To go forward, from conference to a full hearing, the case needed the approval of four of the Supreme Court's nine justices.
Also, the "certification of live birth" posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, critics allege.
"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," according to reports. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."
Critics also raise the circumstances of Obama's time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama's mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.
Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be "naturalized," not "natural-born."
OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
Eligibility dispute, Part 2, scheduled by Supremes
Court rejects claim challenging candidacy, schedules another for Friday conference
Posted: December 08, 2008
8:54 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
WND's petition is available online, and more information is available at this link.
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