October 28, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

A Pennsylvania lawsuit alleging that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” of the United States took an unusual twist this week, after a federally mandated deadline requiring Obama’s lawyers to produce a “vault” copy of his birth certificate expired with no response from Obama or his lawyers.

The lawsuit, filed by former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Philip J. Berg — a self-avowed supporter of Hillary Clinton — alleges that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus “ineligible” to run for president of the United States. It demands that Obama’s lawyers produce a copy of his original birth certificate to prove that he is a natural-born U.S. citizen.

Berg’s suit and allegations have set off a wave of Internet buzz and rumors, though Obama could easily have put the matter to rest by providing the federal court with the basic documentation proving he is eligible to take the oath of a president. But Obama has apparently decided to deny the court and the public that documentation.

The Constitution provides that any U.S. citizen is eligible to become president if the person is 35 years of age or older and is a natural-born citizen; that is, born in the territorial United States.

By failing to respond to the Request for Admissions and Request for the Production of Documents within 30 days, Obama has “admitted” that he was born in Kenya, Berg stated this week in new court filings.

Berg released a long list of “admissions” he submitted to Obama’s lawyers on Sept. 15, and asked that they produce documents relating to Obama’s place of birth and citizenship.

Instead of responding, lawyers for Obama and the DNC asked the court to dismiss the case. But Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has issued no ruling in the case that would have given Obama’s lawyers more time.

“There are lots of legal ways to stonewall,” a well-placed Republican attorney told Newsmax, who was not authorized to comment officially on the case. “But failing to respond is not one of them.”

“The first thing they teach you in law school,” he added, “is don’t put a complaint like this in a drawer. That’s how a nuisance case can become a problem.”

The 30-day deadline for defendants to comply with a discovery request is set forth in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures.

“It all comes down to the fact that there’s nothing from the other side,” Berg said after he filed a motion on Thursday for summary judgment.

“The admissions are there. By not filing the answers or objections, the defense has admitted everything. [Obama] admits he was born in Kenya. He admits he was adopted in Indonesia. He admits that the documentation posted online is a phony. And he admits that he is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president of the United States.”

In a contentious case, lawyers on both sides will haggle over the production of documents, and will frequently go beyond the deadlines, several lawyers told Newsmax.

“The rules are more often complied with in the breech rather than the observance,” a senior trial attorney who has close ties to the Democrat Party, but is not involved in the current case, told Newsmax.

“Lawyers frequently do not return telephone calls or meet discovery deadlines because of sheer inadvertence. Therefore, we do not consider a failure to respond as a ‘violation,’” he said.

Allegations surrounding Obama’s place of birth have been swirling for months. Earlier this year, the Obama campaign sought to put down the rumors by making available a computer-generated Certification of Live Birth, issued in 2007 by the State of Hawaii. [See the Certification of Live Birth — Click Here.]

Respected conservative blogger Ed Morrissey called the Berg lawsuit a “conspiracy theory” that had been put to rest by the Obama campaign over the summer but ”has arisen like a zombie yet again to suck the credibility out of the conservative blogosphere.”

However, the 2007 document produced by the Obama campaign omits key information that normally appears on birth certificates in the United States, including the name of the hospital where he was born, the size and weight of the baby, and sometimes the name of the doctor who delivered him.

In addition, the critics of the 2007 document note that Obama’s father is described as “African,” a term used today. The formal language in official documents at the time — 1961 — would have identified his race as “Negro” or “Colored.”

The Web site snarkybytes.com has produced a vault copy of a Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth from 1963, issued by the Hawaii Department of Health. [See the vault copy — Click Here.]

In addition to naming the hospital and more details about the baby, the 1963 vault copy also includes the “usual residence of the mother,” and the “usual occupation” of the father. None of this information appears on the 2007 Live Birth certificate produced by the Obama campaign.

Berg has been a perennial political candidate in Pennsylvania, having run in Democrat primaries for attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor, and other offices without success. He served as deputy attorney general of the State of Pennsylvania from 1972-1980.

His credibility was tarnished by work he did for the far-left “9/11 for the Truth” campaign, which alleged in a federal lawsuit that the collapse of the twin towers in New York was caused by “controlled demolition” ordered by the president of the United States.

Nevertheless, in recent weeks, lawsuits have been filed in seven additional states demanding that Barack Obama produce an original vault copy of his birth certificate, to dispel the rumors that he is not a natural-born United States citizen.

The latest suits have been filed in state and federal courts in Hawaii, Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Connecticut to compel Obama to release his birth records.

Lawsuits in Washington and Georgia are seeking state superior courts to force the states’ secretary of state, as the chief state elections officer, to require Obama to produce original birth records from Hawaii, or else decertify him as a candidate for the presidency.

Ironically, Obama mentions his birth certificate in passing on Page 26 of his 1995 memoir, “Dreams of My Father.” “I discovered this article, folded away among my birth certificate and old vaccination forms, when I was in high school,” he wrote.

Lawyers for Obama and the DNC did not return calls for comment on the current status of the case, or explain why the Obama campaign did not simply put to rest the whole controversy by releasing the birth certificate that Obama apparently cherished as a teenager.

In the past, questions about Sen. John McCain’s legal status have arisen. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone at a U.S. Army hospital. McCain had legal experts vet his constitutional qualifications, and he also disclosed a copy of his birth certificate.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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October 28, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

http://election.newsmax.com/obama_laraza.html
 

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October 28, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

“One of the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement is that it failed to lead to income redistribution in the United States,” Barack Obama appears to state in an audio excerpt of a Chicago public radio program recorded in 2001.

Obama, who then was an Illinois state senator, also stated that people continue to “suffer” because there is no government program to take money from the rich and redistribute it to Americans who are less well off.

The excerpt, posted on YouTube.com, has set the blogosphere abuzz.

It also caught the attention of GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who is using it to help drive home the Joe the plumber theme. McCain states that Obama’s plan to “spread the wealth around” amounts to income redistribution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck&eurl=http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_spread_wealth/2008/10/27/144493.html

The YouTube excerpt attributes the post to a Sept. 6, 2001 interview on Odyssey, an issues-oriented interview program that formerly aired on Chicago public radio station WBEZ-FM. On Monday afternoon, a WBEZ blog listed the actual date of the program, titled “The Court and Civil Rights,” as Jan. 18, 2001. Obama’s remarks came in the context of a somewhat professorial discussion of the Supreme Court’s impact on the Civil Rights movement. In the YouTube excerpt, Obama begins by stating that the strategy of relying on litigation during the Civil Rights movement brought both “victories and failures.”

Where it succeeded, Obama states, “was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order, and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be OK.”

Then Obama adds, “I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power throughout which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways, we still suffer from that.”

The audio post, which has been edited heavily, also includes Obama’s response to a caller who asks whether it’s too late to enact a program of income redistribution in America, and whether the Supreme Court could initiate it.

Obama replies, in part, “The court’s just not very good at it, and politically it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard, so I mean I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”

The McCain campaign issued a statement offering a pointed response Sunday to Obama’s 2001 remarks.

“The American people continue to learn more about Barack Obama,” said McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin. “Now we know that the slogans ‘change you can believe in’ and ‘change we need’ are code words for Barack Obama’s ultimate goal: ‘redistributive change.’

“In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench — as insurance in case a unified Democratic government under his control fails to meet his basic goal: Taking money away from people who work for it and giving it to people who Barack Obama believes deserve it.

“Holtz-Eakin’s statement concluded: “Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change.”

Obama also was a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago law school at the time of the interview. The Odyssey program, which Gretchen Helfrich hosted, apparently wasn’t profitable, and the station canceled it in September 2005.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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September 18, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

The National Transportation Safety Board said a Metrolink train that slammed head-on into a freight train Friday did not apply its brakes, according to preliminary data from the investigation. Investigators use stand-in engines on Tuesday to study what happened in Friday’s train crash near Los Angeles. The freight train, operated by Union Pacific, did hit its brakes, said a member of the NTSB assigned to the investigation, on Tuesday. She said that the data was collected from recorders aboard each train and physical examinations of the brakes but investigators were seeking additional data from two other damaged recorders. Investigators also found that the train operators had only 4 to 5 seconds to react before impact, she said. The Metrolink was traveling at 42 mph in a 40 mph zone at the time of the collision.

 Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/16/california.train.collision/index.html?eref=rss_us

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September 18, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

A former manager in the District of Columbia tax office admits she cut more than 200 fraudulent property tax refund checks in a scheme that drained more than 48 million dollars from the city’s treasury over almost two decades. The woman has pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and tax evasion. The agreement calls for her to serve from 15 to 18 years in prison and to pay restitution. A federal judge has accepted the plea provisionally, but has not set a sentencing date. Nine other people have pleaded guilty in the tax scam. Source: http://www.kgan.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/3b56768e-www.kgan.com.shtml

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September 18, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

The Federal Reserve Board late Tuesday confirmed it would authorize the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend as much as $85 billion to American International Group Inc., which has unraveled in the face of mounting losses related to insurance on complex financial instruments and credit downgrades that forced the company to raise billions in capital. The New York insurance company is the largest in the world. Bailing out a private company not under its direct purview is an extraordinary and historic move for the Federal Reserve, whose primary roles include setting United States monetary policy and banking supervision and regulation. In a statement, the Federal Reserve said, “The Board determined that, in current circumstances, a disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility and lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth and materially weaker economic performance.”

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2008/09/15/daily22.html

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September 18, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

The U.S. Air Force still plans to award Boeing Co. or Lockheed Martin Corp. a contract worth billions of dollars this fall to build a group of advanced military communications satellites, the general in charge of Air Force Space Command said on Tuesday. The general told reporters that the future of the Transformational Satellite program for which both companies are bidding was entwined with that of another program, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite program, run by Lockheed.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUSN1642167820080916

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September 18, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) members’ tentative endorsement of several new rules last week and last month may garner the attention of several states as they look to regulate the ongoing energy boom in the American West, the head of the agency said Friday. The acting director of the COGCC said several states may look to Colorado about how to regulate that energy boom after the commission’s initial endorsement of several rules that he said “mark some new approaches on some issues.” The rules he cited would mandate that companies inform the state of which chemicals are being used at a drilling location, encourage operators to use a comprehensive drilling plan, and require companies in three counties in northwest Colorado to use green completion techniques. That is a process that recovers gas that would otherwise be vented or flared during the completion phase of a natural gas well. Colorado’s oil and gas commission has given tentative approval to about 80 rules during five hearings in August and last week. Two more days of hearings will be held on September 22 and 23. That is when commissioners are expected to begin deliberation on wildlife and waste pit rules. Source:

http://www.postindependent.com/article/20080915/VALLEYNEWS/109159995/1083&ParentProfile=1074

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September 16, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

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September 15, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

Much of Houston and the surrounding areas still lack electricity as of 15 September 2008. The process of completely restoring power to the city could take weeks. A curfew will remain in effect from 2300 to 0600 local time until 20 September 2008. Some grocery stores, retailers and building supply stores have reopened throughout the city. There have been long lines at the scattered gas stations that are open. Energy companies are in the process of moving additional fuel and generators to key locations. All production in the Gulf of Mexico has been halted, but energy companies are in the process of resuming normal operations.

Access to Galveston Island will be restricted to law officers and emergency services personnel until further notice. Although most homes on the island have reportedly survived the storm, authorities have told those who evacuated they will not be allowed to return until water, power and natural gas has been restored.

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