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Appeals court: We're listening to eligibility case
Judges grant permission for lengthy filing in case challenging Obama
Posted: February 23, 2010
11:08 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
An appeals court has indicated it is listening to arguments in a case that challenges Barack Obama's occupancy in the Oval Office with a ruling that gives special permission for an extra-long document to be filed in the case.
WND has reported on the case brought by attorney Mario Apuzzo in January 2009 on behalf of Charles F. Kerchner Jr., Lowell T. Patterson, Darrell James Lenormand and Donald H. Nelson Jr.
Named as defendants were Barack Hussein Obama II, the U.S., Congress, the Senate, House of Representatives, former Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The case alleges Congress failed to follow the Constitution, which "provides that Congress must fully qualify the candidate 'elected' by the Electoral College Electors."
The complaint also asserts "when Obama was born his father was a British subject/citizen and Obama himself was the same." The case contends the framers of the U.S. Constitution, when they adopted the requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen," excluded dual citizens.
According to a posting on Apuzzo's website, the rules of procedure for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals provide that an appellant's opening brief is not to exceed 14,000 words.
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However, Apuzzo wrote, "because of the extraordinary nature and complexity of the question of whether putative President Barack Obama is an Article II 'natural born citizen' and therefore eligible to be president, whether my clients … have standing to bring an action against Obama and Congress in which they maintain that Obama is not a 'natural born citizen' and that Congress failed to meet its constitutional duty to protect my clients by assuring them that Obama is a 'natural born Citizen…' I was compelled to file a brief which contained 20,477 words."
"By order dated February 22, 2010, the Honorable Circuit Judge Michael A. Chagares on behalf of the Motion's Panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of appeals granted plaintiffs' motion for leave to file the overlength brief."
"This is great news because the case will now continue forward as scheduled," he said. "Obama's and Congress's opposition brief was initially due on Feb. 22, 2010. The Department of Justice obtained a 14-day extension to file that brief, making the new due date March 8, 2010.
"After they file their opposition brief, I will then have 14 days within which to file a reply to that brief," he said.
He said his background information in the case confirms that two U.S. Supreme Court decisions reveal the definition for "natural born citizen" is found not in the Constitution but in common law.
"We maintain that Obama is not an Article II 'natural born citizen' because he lacks unity of citizenship and allegiance from birth which is obtained when a child is born in the United States to a mother and father who are both United States citizens at the time of birth," he said.
"Obama's father was only a temporary visitor to the United States when Obama was born and never even became a resident let alone a citizen. Not being an Article II 'natural born citizen,' Obama is not eligible to be president and commander in chief," he said.
He also argues that Obama has failed to prove that he was born in Hawaii by revealing his documentation.
"If he fails to do so, the alleged fact is not proven, even if the opposing party produces no further evidence," he said.
On Apuzzo's website, a forum page participant said, "It will be interesting to see how Mr. Obama's legal team stretches, 'We have nada!' into 14,000 words."
The lead plaintiff, Kerchner, has posted an online statement: "This is not going to go away until Obama stops hiding ALL his hidden and sealed early life documents and provides original copies of them to a controlling legal authority and reveals his true legal identity from the time he was born until the time he ran for president.
"Obama at birth was born British and a dual citizen. He holds and has held multiple citizenship during his lifetime. He's a citizenship chameleon as the moment and time in his life suited him and he is not a 'natural born citizen' with sole allegiance … to the USA as is required per the Constitution," he said.
The appeal further challenges that not only might Obama not be a "natural born citizen," he might not even be in the United States legally.
"If Obama was not born in the United States, there exists a possibility that Obama could be an illegal alien," it states.
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.
Demand the truth by joining the petition campaign to make President Obama reveal his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!
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. And still others contend he holds Indonesian citizenship from his childhood living there.
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.
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 490,000 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.