Obama’s Judgement Day Coming

U.S. Supreme Court confers on Obama eligibility

By Brian Fitzpatrick, WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON – Is this the case that will break the presidential eligibility question wide open?

The Supreme Court conferred today on whether arguments should be heard on the merits of Kerchner v. Obama, a case challenging whether President Barack Obama is qualified to serve as president because he may not be a “natural-born citizen” as required by Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.

Unlike other eligibility cases that have reached the Supreme Court, Kerchner vs. Obama focuses on the “Vattel theory,” which argues that the writers of the Constitution believed the term “natural-born citizen” to mean a person born in the United States to parents who were both American citizens.

“This case is unprecedented,” said Mario Apuzzo, the attorney bringing the suit. “I believe we presented an ironclad case. We’ve shown standing, and we’ve shown the importance of the issue for the Supreme Court. There’s nothing standing in their way to grant us a writ of certiorari.”

If the Supreme Court decides to grant the “writ of certiorari,” it may direct a federal trial court in New Jersey to hear the merits of the case, or it may choose to hear the merits itself. The court’s decision on the writ could be announced as early as Wednesday.

(Story continues below)

If any court hears the merits of the case, Apuzzo says it will mark the “death knell” for Obama’s legitimacy.

“Given my research of what a natural-born citizen is, he cannot be a natural-born citizen so it’s a death knell to his legitimacy. What happens on a practical level, how our political institutions would work that out, is something else,” Apuzzo told WND.

Mario Apuzzo

Apuzzo observed it is “undisputed fact” that Obama’s father was a British subject.

A hearing on the merits “is also a death knell because it would allow discovery so we would be able to ask him for his birth certificate, and we don’t know what that would show,” according to Apuzzo. “We might not even get to the question of defining ‘natural-born citizen.’ If he was not born in the U.S., he’d be undocumented, because he’s never been naturalized. We don’t even know what his citizenship status is. Hawaii has said they have his records, but that’s hearsay. We have not seen the root documents.”

Another attorney who has brought Obama eligibility cases to the Supreme Court, Philip Berg, agrees that discovery would sink Obama’s presidency.

“If one court had guts enough to deal with this and allow discovery, Obama would be out of office,” Berg told WND. “We would ask for a lift of Obama’s ban on all of his documents. The last official report said Obama has spent $1.6 million in legal fees [keeping his papers secret], and the total is probably over $2 million now. You don’t spend that kind of money unless there’s something to hide, and I believe the reason he’s hiding this is because he was not born in the United States.”

“The Supreme Court has never decided to hear the merits of an eligibility case,” Berg added. “If the Supreme Court would decide to hear a case, Obama would be out of office instantly. If Congress decided to hear a case, Obama would be out of office.”

“They’re taking a different approach, arguing that both parents must be citizens,” Berg noted.

Apuzzo is arguing the “Vattel theory,” which asserts that the term “natural-born citizen” as used in the Constitution was defined by French writer Emer de Vattel. Vattel, whose work, “The Law of Nations,” was widely known and respected by the founding fathers, used the term to mean an individual born of two citizens.

According to Apuzzo, Congress and the courts have addressed the question of who can be an American citizen, for example regarding former slaves, Asian immigrants, and American Indians. However, the term “natural-born citizen” has never been altered.

“The courts and Congress have never changed the definition,” said Apuzzo. “The founding fathers understood that the commander-in-chief of the armed forces needed to have two American citizens as parents so that American values would be imparted to him.”

Apuzzo said the Supreme Court had clearly accepted Vattel’s definition of “natural-born citizen” in “dicta,” or statements made in opinions on cases addressing other matters. He cited Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the 1814 “Venus” case, in which Marshall endorses Vattel’s definition.

Apuzzo also cites the writings of founding father David Ramsay, an influential South Carolina physician and historian who used similar language to Vattel.

Previous cases challenging Obama’s eligibility have all been rejected on technical grounds. Numerous courts have decided that the plaintiffs do not have “standing” to bring a suit against Obama because they have failed to prove they are directly injured by his occupation of the Oval Office.

“To me that’s false,” said Berg. “The 10th Amendment refers to ‘we the people.’ If the people can’t challenge the president’s constitutionality, that would be ridiculous.”

“My clients have a right to protection from an illegitimately sitting president,” said Apuzzo. “Every decision he makes affects the life, property, and welfare of my clients.”

Apuzzo said the founding fathers had good reason to require the president to be a natural-born citizen.

“They were making sure the President had the values from being reared from a child in the American system, and thereby would preserve everybody’s life, liberty and property in the process.

“They made that decision, so my clients have every right to expect the president to be a natural-born citizen. It goes to all your basic rights, every right that is inalienable. The president has to be a natural-born citizen.”

November 24, 2010 | 10 Comments »

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10 Comments / 10 Comments

  1. Now I see the difference. You want to know his length and weight to see if he was born short and fat or long and skinny.. You want to see the doctor’s name, the clerk’s name, I think I know why Obama released the short form. You want more information to ridicule him or harass someone who might still be alive. Ole bad breath Rush would be broadcasting jokes about every conceivable thing on it. I’m sure the longer one exists also, or you are accusing Hawaii of being a criminal state.

    Obama is wise to the birthers’ cheap petty, junior high behavior.

    A baby born in the U.S. is a citizen even if none of his parents are. Get over it. You make yourselves look stupid.

  2. Catarin,

    Short form (Obama’s, modified):

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BarackObamaCertificationOfLiveBirthHawaii.jpg

    Long form (sample):

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/1961_Hawaii_Certificate_Of_Live_Birth.jpg

    There is a considerable difference, the most important being that the long form is a signed, witnessed (and therefore LEGAL) document, whereas the short form is not. Obama has intentionally witheld disclosing the legal (long) document, and the only reason he would do such a thing is that it does not exist.

  3. THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT- Nobody cares!!!!!!!!

    What we care about.

    Jobs
    Housing
    high debts
    deficits
    Unwillable wars
    overseas jobs
    wall street bailouts
    fraud in high places
    crime in the streets
    drugs everywhere
    addicted kids
    broken homes
    suicides
    massive govt corruption
    poor transportation systems

    ETC. ETC. ETC.

  4. Bull. I have never heard of a short and a long form of a birth certificate. You just make noise. Please post your long form birth certificate.

  5. America was founded because of its religious freedom and separation of church and state, summed up as TOLERANCE. Obama forfeits these key American values, is tolerant of, indeed appeases the EXTREMELY INTOLERANT Muslims who follow or use the guise of a religion in the Koran’s goal of world domination. Obama is hypocritical, denying the right of Jews to build or own land in their country while welcoming the building of the Cordoba Initiative Mosque that in Muslims’ eyes commemorates their victory in 9/11, bowing to the Saudi king, and ignoring illegal Arab building in Israel and in Jerusalem. The media and elites have become so politically correct that they sweep all Obama’s incongruities under the rug. Has anyone seen an actual, original birth certificate to prove where he was born? The Vattel argument should lead Catarin to read Obama’s book revering his anti-colonialist father’s dreams that Obama clearly wants to make real. The father in whose footsteps he wants to follow HAD NO AMERICAN VALUES, the key to the argument that a President must be a “natural born citizen” and have American citizens for both parents to impart those critical values. Hasn’t Obama violated enough U. S. laws by funding terrorists to be impeached if not tried for treason. And how can anyone forget the Jewish struggle against colonialist, imperialist England violating its Mandate to encourage close settlement of Jews to their Homeland? Restitution is in order.

  6. Obama’s “long form” birth certificate has never been made public. It would be a simple matter so to do, rather than spending $2 milliion on legal fees, if there was nothing to hide.
    Even in Hawaii, the short form certificate is not legally acceptable for certain matters such as inheritance.. Yet it is the only one that has been shown.

    Bill O’Reilly argues that a birth announcement appeared in the contemporaneous Hawaii newspaper. That is hot legal evidence; certainly not of the citizenship of his parents. Nor do we have a chain of evidence indicating that this old announcement indeed applies to the present person.

    I am not a birther, but rationally speaking Obama has not yet proven he meets the Constitutional requirements for the Presidency. There are vast vested interests behind suppressing the full information; the only thing that might change things is that given the vast unpopularity of Obama and his programs, Democrats in the Senate might go along with Republicans in the House to rid themselves of this threat to Democratic reelection in 2012.

  7. This Appuzo guy is a down and out idiot. Obama is a natural born citizen having been born in one of the 50 states. This is harassment, and the Supreme Court will kick this case out.

    The vital records department in Hawaii quit sending out copies of Obama’s birth certificate because they said it was the same people requesting it over and over. If America takes a fall it will be because of these idiots, all who should get cancer because they don’t have enough to worry about.

    David Brook’s column in the New York Times recently said Americans had lost the good sense of the Founding Fathers and the colonial frontier. Many of our citizens no longer practice self restraint. The equilibrium which had held forth has been reduced to a battle between those who see themselves as pure and virtuous against the interests or elites who they think stand in the way of their happiness. These people would like to start a civil war over religion, as if the history of England and France for several centuries isn’t lessons enough.

    These are ignorant stupid barely human thinkers who are descended from the witch burners of colonial times. These are the people who should lose their citizenship, after they are tarred and feathered and run out of town. A Pox upon them!

  8. Ted,

    Need I say, I’m getting a little weary of seeing these lawsuits get dashed to the ground, one after another? I think the Supreme Court has made it perfectly clear that it wants the issue squashed like a bug — and the Constitution and the American people along with it. I’m not surprised to see that WND are the only ones publishing this. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I’m trying to prepare mentally to getting stripped and groped by Federal goons at the airport when I go to visit my daughter. Maybe we’ll get some relief. Thank God for death, taxes and elections — They can be motivators.