Long-time readers to my site will recall my taking The Politico to task with their take of the “birthers” — a pejorative intended to label those who question the President’s eligibility as being “fringe” or “inciteful”. Yesterday and today, two more articles were written about the eligibility saga, one from a story about a co-sponsor of Rep. Bill Posey’s (R-FL) HR1503, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, and another by a TownHall.com commentator, John Hawkins; the former is sympathetic to the issue, the latter is against it. I intend to once again correct the record by inserting my own commentary as appropriate.

From TimesRecordNews.com out of Wichita Falls, TX:

U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer’s support for the bill and comments about President Obama’s status as a natural born citizen drew fire from a liberal pundit who pronounced the congressman’s constituents “idiots” for electing him.

Does Neugebauer, who represents Young County and part of Archer County, doubt Obama’s U.S. citizenship?

“I don’t have the documentation one way or the other,” the Lubbock Republican said in a telephone interview. “And so my assumption is that he is a natural born citizen, that hopefully the appropriate people checked that.”

No, Congressman, there is no law that requires anyone seeking public office to have a background check…

Neugebauer and the bill’s author, Rep. Bill Posey of Florida, contend there’s nothing partisan or politically motivated about House Resolution 1503.

They pointed out that issues arose about both Obama and the Republican contender for president, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

“It’s not about President Obama,” Posey, a Republican, said. “It’s not about me. It’s not retroactive.”

A Texas government professor isn’t buying it.

“I think some of them are milking the situation for the upcoming election,” said Laurence “Casey” Jones of Angelo State University in San Angelo.

The frightening thing is lawmakers are legitimizing assertions of rightwing “birthers” who question Obama’s citizenship, said Jones, who teachers classes on the Constitution.

He sees no legitimate need for the bill.

“Anyone in Washington knows what’s already required to be president,” Jones said.

Intelligence officials conduct extensive background checks before presidents take office, he added.

Perhaps the good professor would be so kind as to provide the sourcing where presidential candidates have “extensive background checks.”

Wichita Falls’ congressman said he’s fine with setting up filing requirements for presidential, Senate and House candidates.

“For all three, there are requirements in the Constitution,” U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, said. “And so if you want to set up a documentary requirement for them, then I’m fine with that.”

Thornberry said he thinks the issue has partly been fueled by Internet rumors about Obama that turned out to be false.

I wonder what rumors those are or were…?

Posey said he’s building on his history of election reform begun as a Florida state senator after the rancorous 2000 presidential election.

Posey thought legislation requiring presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate would be a simple solution to citizenship issues.

“Most of the public thinks it’s the law now,” Posey said.

His bill has been referred to the Committee on House Administration.

A casual conversation on the House floor led to Neugebauer and two other Texas Republicans — U.S. Rep. John Culberson of Houston and U.S. Rep. John Carter of Round Rock — becoming co-sponsors.

Texans made up half of the bill’s six cosponsors Monday.

“The requirement is there in the law up front,” Carter spokesman John Stone said. “So all of our candidates in the future should respond and present the documentation up front, and then there can’t be any of these type of charges.”

Court cases challenging both candidates’ citizenship sputtered.

McCain was born to U.S. citizens on a military installation in the Panama Canal Zone. Obama was born in Hawaii, but rumors about his status haven’t died in spite of his Hawaiian birth certificate posted on the Internet.

That could be because World Net Daily and some conservative bloggers are still trying to raise doubts.

I have no problems if my bodaciously kewl blog is otherwise labeled as “some conservative bloggers.”

On the other side of the political spectrum, Posey said liberal bloggers have called him a “tin hat” and a “wing nut.”

Imagine that — a bill to hold future presidential candidates further accountable to the plain language of the Constitution is met with such disdain from the opposition.

“Some people have just taken it as an opportunity to create this warfare that I guess makes them look like a reporter or something, that they have created an issue,” Posey said. “But none of the articles that you read were objective.”

MSNBC “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann awarded Neugebauer a bronze “Worst Person in the World” award Wednesday.

“The people that elected you are obviously idiots,” Olbermann said on his show. “That does not mean everybody else is.”

Olbermann’s dander was up following Neugebauer’s answer to Lubbock radio host Chad Hasty’s query: Did the congressman believe Obama is a U.S. citizen?

“You know, I don’t know,” Neugebauer told Hasty last week. “I’ve never seen him produce documents that would say one way or the other.”

“Congressman Neugebauer has full confidence in the intelligence of the residents of the 19th Congressional District,” Neugebauer spokeswoman Michelle Ozanus said. “He knows they can make up their own minds regarding this legislation.

Jones said those who can, should diffuse a situation like that produced by the “birthers.”

He always tells his students they have rights to free speech.

But they also have a responsibility.

“Freedom’s not the right to do what you want, but it’s the power to do what you should,” Jones tells his classes.

And we, the People, are obligated to hold our federal officials accountable to every aspect of the Constitution, not just those parts that are politically en vogue at the moment.

Then we have the following from TownHall.com entitled, “3 Reasons to Stop Obsessing Over Obama’s Birth Certificate” (I promise that this one’s going to be fun to analyze):

Since it is a constitutional requirement that the President be born in the United States, it’s understandable that some people have been concerned about where Barack Obama was born. Furthermore, when you consider the fact that Barack Obama is a shameless liar, that he grew up in another country, and that there has been a lot of conflicting information out there, it’s easy to see why so many people have become concerned about where he was born.

All that being said: Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Granted, not everyone on the Right agrees with this assessment, but nevertheless, it’s so.

Based on what, Mr. Hawkins? Oh, wait — we’ve only started the commentary!

Of course, if Barack Obama was born in Hawaii as he says, you might have some very basic questions. For example, why hasn’t he bent over backwards to dispel the notion that he may have been born elsewhere? Well, why would he at this point? He has a significant number of conservatives wasting enormous amounts of time on a side issue that can never bear any fruit and, as an added bonus, it makes them look somewhat unhinged to many Americans. When your political enemies are making fools of themselves, why stop them?

We already know that there’s no legal requirement for enforcement of presidential eligibility. At the same time, if the Constitution speaks on such an issue (as it does via Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5) and there is no law enforcing that part, then it’s up to either federal or State officials or we, the People (via the 10th Amendment) to do something about it.

I’m not sure how the issue “can never bear any fruit:” is Mr. Hawkins suggesting that there is no way to conclusively determine Mr. Obama’s eligibility? Perhaps he’s never heard of background documentation, such as a 1961 birth certificate that is said to reside in Hawaii’s Health Department public records depository…?

As for the name-calling, I would have hoped that Mr. Hawkins could have been a bit more creative and actually come up with a rational defense instead of an irrational retort.

The other question that comes to mind is why are there prominent conservatives claiming Barack Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii? Here’s what you have to understand: conspiracies are traffic magnets. Other than sex, conspiracies are one of the best draws you’re ever going to run across. While some of the people still pushing this theory just don’t know any better, there are undoubtedly more than a few unscrupulous people on the Right who are beating the drum about Obama’s birth certificate solely to draw traffic.

Besides the fact that, for instance, my site does draw a nice amount of traffic, I’m not sure how someone can call something a “conspiracy theory” when the President’s background documentation is not only known to exist, but could be revealed if he so chose to unseal it (see my links at the bottom of this posting for more).

Remember the North American Union? According to much of the same crew that’s pushing this birth certificate bugaboo, George Bush was going to merge America, Canada, and Mexico together. They wrote books and articles, sent out newsletters, you name it — until George Bush left office. Then, the NAU was down the memory hole and they latched onto this issue. If people stopped buying into this, next it would be black helicopters or FEMA camps for conservatives or whatever other silliness draws traffic for these hucksters.

My understanding is that there are a number of bills that are brought before Congress that have to do with all sorts of issues. Just because the bills exist doesn’t mean they’ll pass, nor does it mean that debate cannot occur.

Now, let’s talk about why this whole obsession with Obama’s birth certificate is a waste of time.

1) Many people, including some experts, have claimed that the certificate of live birth released by the Obama campaign wasn’t legitimate. In all fairness to them, it can be difficult to judge some of the features needed to determine the authenticity of a birth certificate over the Internet. However, the people at FactCheck.org have seen the certificate of live birth provided from the state of Hawaii to the Obama campaign and it is genuine.

FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as “supporting documents” to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

So again, despite claims to the contrary, Barack Obama did provide a genuine copy of his birth certificate to the public.

Would the good folks at FactCheck.org kindly display the transaction that occurred — presumably in 2007 — to actually procure the certification of live birth?

Further, assuming that the certification of live birth is genuine, the presidential eligibility clause is not concerned over mere US citizenship; it speaks instead of natural born citizenship.

And, Mr. Hawkins, there is a definite difference between a birth certificate and certification of live birth; while a legitimate certification carries the same information as a birth certificate, it does not carry the complete record of the original long-form certificate.

2) Although Hawaii “state law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record,” the director of Hawaii’s Department of Health has certified that Obama does have a legitimate birth certificate on file in Hawaii.

Yes, it is true — they claim that HI’s DoH certifies that they have a birth certificate on file. They do not and, by law, cannot claim to have actually seen the document, per se, because that would be construed as arbitrary, governmental intrusion into private documents. So, it’s quite possible that while they believe that the original document states that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, they neither know this nor do they have the authority to conclusively say that any records in the State’s possession actually make Mr. Obama eligible for the presidency.

3) In a print copy of the 1961 Honolulu Advertiser, there’s a notice that Barack Obama was born. In and of itself, this is a game, set, match conversation-ender on this subject unless people want to argue that this isn’t genuine or that there was a conspiracy going all the way back to the day of Obama’s birth to make him President.

Aside from the fact that there is evidence that questions the genuineness of the entry, is Mr. Hawkins suggesting that something that is otherwise an arbitrary entry in a newspaper is authoritative in this matter? I think that any reasonable person must conclude that this is circumstantial and anecdotal evidence, at best.

Quite frankly, this evidence is as definitive as it gets. Obama has a legitimate birth certificate on file, he released a copy of it to the public, and there is a news clipping that confirms he was born in Hawaii in 1961.

In reality, the following is true:

1. The State of Hawaii has a legitimate birth certificate on file for Mr. Obama that is presumed to state that the President was born in Hawaii; however, since nobody can actually see the certificate except under strict conditions, we don’t know this for a fact;
2. Mr. Obama is presumed to have released a short-form certification of live birth to the public; we don’t know who actually made the request nor when the request was made;
3. News clippings in newspapers being used to substantiate a President’s eligibility has no basis in law.

The latest tactic of the Birthers is to demand that the Supreme Court rule on this issue, but I would suggest to you that if the evidence that has already been made publicly available on this issue hasn’t changed someone’s mind, then having the Supreme Court rule that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii wouldn’t do it either.

While Mr. Hawkins has every right to his opinion, the issue isn’t one of “having the Supreme Court rule that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii,” but rather of more thoroughly defining what it means to be a natural born citizen. After all, even the State Department currently has the following on record:

Ed. 7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)
a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.

Is asking for a more thorough definition being “unhinged” or “foolish?” I don’t think so.

WorldNetDaily reports that Mr. Obama’s being mum on his birthplace could prevent official recognition:

Is President Obama’s birthplace, wherever it is, destined to lie unrepaired and unrecognized in perpetuity? If the phalanxes of lawyers currently fighting a number of lawsuits seeking to open up detailed information about the president’s origins succeed that’s a distinct possibility, since the ordinary National Park Service recognition of presidents’ birthplaces does not even begin unless members of Congress or a president seek the distinction.

That’s according to Kathy Kupper, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, who was interviewed on the subject by Greg Corombos of RadioAmerica/WND.

“All 391 National Park Service sites are designated either by the president or by Congress. So it always is initiated by one of those entities,” Kupper said.

Right now, she said, work is being done on recognition of the birthplaces for both Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

The park service publicizes and profiles its sites, including presidential birth locations, both online and in published form. The sites are considered a part of the heritage of the United States.

Kupper confirmed that not every president so far has a National Park Service site, but many do, and the entire process hinges on instructions either from Congress or a president to begin work.

Under the law, presidents can declare national monuments, which sets sites aside just as national parks, which are set up by Congress.

But without that affirmative order, no site work is begun, she said. …

The location of Obama’s birthplace is central to many of the legal challenges that have been brought alleging he does not meet constitutional requirements to be president.

WorldNetDaily also reports that their now-$100,000 billboard campaign has its newest sign up in Waco, TX:

Rasmussen reports on the President’s latest personal approval rating:

Could it soon be time to audit the Federal Reserve? If the 245 cosponsors to Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) HR1207 have their way, the answer may soon be, “Yes:”

A couple dozen more members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors to a plan from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, that would subject the Federal Reserve to an audit, bringing to 245 the supporters so far.

That’s well beyond the 218 who constitute a majority in the U.S. House, yet the bill remains in the House Judiciary Committee, where it was introduced with just a handful of supporters.

Paul has told his fellow representatives that the damages from the actions of the Fed over the decades is incalculable. For one thing, he said, “It took less than two decades for the Federal Reserve to bring on the Great Depression of the 1930’s.”

Besides that decade-long economic turmoil, he said, “It has also inflated away the value of our currency by over 95 percent since its inception.

“It has invisibly stolen from the poor and given to the rich through this controlled inflation, and now openly stolen through recent bank bailouts. It has predictably exacerbated the very problems it was meant to solve,” he said.

The proposal calls for the comptroller general in the United States Government Accountability Office to audit the private organization and then report back to Congress.

“We need to know what they’re up to,” added Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who has indicated support for the plan.

The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee is Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who previously told Paul he would be willing to give the plan a hearing.

However, that hasn’t happened, despite its overwhelming support.

It was U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who a short time ago became the 218th co-sponsor of the bill, giving it technically majority support in the 435-member House. …

“To understand how unwise it is to have the Federal Reserve, one must first understand the magnitude of the privileges they have,” Paul wrote in a recent Straight Talk commentary. “They have been given the power to create money, by the trillions, and to give it to their friends, under any terms they wish, with little or no meaningful oversight or accountability.”

He’s even said Congress should “reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy.”

Besides the support in the U.S. House, a companion bill, S. 604, also now has been introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Bernard Sanders ofVermont. It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

The Constitution, Paul said, gives Congress, not the private Federal Reserve, “the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency.”

Paul explained his advocacy for the H.R. 1207 audit in the U.S. House:

“Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar,” the Texas Republican said. “Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy.

“How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation,” he said.

Paul called oversight of the Fed “long overdue.” …

Paul’s bill would also make the Federal Reserve’s funding facilities, including the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, Term Securities Lending Facility and Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility, subject to congressional oversight.

See the following links regarding the eligibility saga:

• Obama’s Presidential Eligibility: What You Need to Know
• Obama’s Sealed Background Documentation
• Obama Citizenship Facts
• The State Department and Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) Natural Born Citizen Resolution (April 10, 2008)
• Citizen Grand Jury Updates and Eligibility Lawsuit Listing

-Phil