The Liberty Tree Lantern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A California judge has dismissed a complaint challenging President Obama’s eligibility to be president citing the “birth certificate from the state of Hawaii” that apparently refers to an Internet image of a “Certification of Live Birth” released during Obama’s campaign.

The ruling came this morning from Judge David Carter who as WND reported last night apparently recently hired a law clerk out of the law firm that has been paid nearly $1.7 million to defend Obama from eligibility challenges.

A Wikipedia page has been cited by dozens of bloggers after it listed Siddarth Velamoor as one of the newest law clerks for Carter – who today released his ruling dismissing the complaint in the Barnett v. Obama case in the Central District, Southern Division Court in Santa Ana, Calif.

Velamoor is also listed in the Martindale lawyer database as an associate of international law firm Perkins Coie, the same law firm of Robert Bauer – top lawyer for Obama, Obama’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s Organizing for America – and the same Washington, D.C., lawyer who defended President Obama in lawsuits challenging his eligibility to be president.

As WND has reported, Federal Election Commission records for “Obama for America” show that the lobby organization has paid Perkins Coie $1,666,397.01 since the 2008 election.

Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation confirmed immediately that his clients – two of about four dozen in the case – would be filing an appeal. California attorney Orly Taitz, representing the rest of the clients, also promised not only an appeal of the decision but of future cases that will be filed.

“This [opinion] looks like it was written by the defense,” she told WND.

She described the fight against Obama as “very tough.”

“He has more power than anybody, unlimited financial resources, and a lot to hide,” she said.

“Plaintiffs argue that despite the fact that President Obama has produced a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii, there is evidence to show that the president was actually born in Kenya, thus making him ineligible to be president,” Carter wrote.

However, Obama’s long-form original birth certificate has remained under seal. The image posted by his campaign on the Internet is a different document, a “Certification of Live Birth,” that apparently is computer generated and has been challenged by a number of critics over its authenticity.

In fact, the authenticity of the “Certification of Live Birth” has been a focal point of numerous court challenges to Obama’s eligibility, and Taitz earlier submitted to Carter a copy of what purported to be a Kenyan birth certificate for Obama, asking for permission to verify its authenticity.

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama’s status as a “natural born citizen.” The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, “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.”

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama’s American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama’s citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Further, others question his citizenship by virtue of his attendance in Indonesian schools during his childhood and question on what passport did he travel to Pakistan three decades ago.

Adding fuel to the fire is Obama’s persistent refusal to release documents that could provide answers and the appointment – at a cost confirmed to be at least $1.7 million – of myriad lawyers to defend against all requests for his documentation. While his supporters cite an online version of a “Certification of Live Birth” from Hawaii as his birth verification, critics point out such documents actually were issued for children not born in the state.

The ultimate questions remain unaddressed to date: Is Obama a natural born citizen, and, if so, why hasn’t documentation been provided? And, of course, if he is not, what does it mean to the 2008 election or the U.S. Constitution if it is revealed that there has been a violation?

WND also has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.

Because of the dearth of information about Obama’s eligibility, WND founder Joseph Farah has launched a campaign to raise contributions to post billboards asking a simple question: “Where’s the birth certificate?”

“Where’s The Birth Certificate?” billboard at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip

The campaign followed a petition that has collected more than 475,000 signatures demanding proof of his eligibility, the availability of yard signs raising the question and the production of permanent, detachable magnetic bumper stickers asking the question.

The “certification of live birth” posted online and widely touted as “Obama’s birth certificate” does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same “short-form” document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true “long-form” birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.

Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a “natural born citizen,” no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama’s claim to a Hawaiian birth.

Carter’s dismissal revolved around his determination that the plaintiffs lacked “standing” to bring the complaint, including those plaintiffs who were third-party candidates in the 2008 presidential election.

“The court is troubled by the idea that a third party candidate would not have standing to challenge a major party candidate’s qualifications, while the opposing major party candidate may be able to establish standing because he or she has a better chance of winning the election,” he said.

He warned, “Defendants’ argument encourages the marginalization of the voice of a third party in what is a dominantly two-party political system and would require the court to pass judgment that plaintiffs are such unlikely candidates that who they are running against would not make a difference.

“This argument also ignores the tremendous effect that a third-party candidate can have on the presidential election. In 2000, many political commentators opined that should Green Party candidate Ralph Nader not have run for presidential office and received less than three percent of the popular vote, Al Gore would have won the election instead of President George W. Bush. Even when third-party candidates themselves may not have a chance of winning, which candidates they compete against can certainly have an effect on the election results,” he said.

But he also said once Obama was sworn into office on Jan. 20, the question no longer was over a potentially ineligible candidate but of the removal of a sitting president.

Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, hours before the complaint was filed. However, Obama also took the oath of office the next day, on Jan. 21, after the complaint was filed, because he stumbled over the words during the Jan. 20 event.

“In order to cure plaintiffs’ perceived injury, the court would need to wade deep into the waters of the president’s official duties – in fact, it would have to declare that the president could no longer perform any official duties. The separation of powers concerns implicated by this request are grave,” Carter wrote.

He also cited the separation of powers doctrine and the Constitution’s assignment of the power of impeaching a sitting president to Congress.

Carter cited Kreep’s arguments that Obama never met the constitutional requirements to run for president.

“There may very well be a legitimate role for the judiciary to interpret whether the natural born citizen requirement has been satisfied in the case of a presidential candidate who has not already won the election and taken office. However, on the day that President Obama took the presidential oath and was sworn in, he became president of the United States. Any removal of him from the presidency must be accomplished through the Constitution’s mechanisms for the removal of a president, either through impeachment or the succession process set forth in the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.”

WND reported several days ago on a separate challenge to Obama’s eligibility that also was taken to the appellate level.