obama: born out of wedlock?

www.BlueMassGroup.com
BMG Exclusive: Scott Brown thought maybe Obama was born out of wedlock
by: David
Sat Jan 16, 2010 at 13:11:20 PM EST

(Bumped. This is getting some attention. TPM, New Republic, Washington Monthly, Washington Independent, Digby, Americablog, MyDD, heck even the Herald, all have posted the video and/or linked here. UPDATE (Sunday morning): YouTube just informed me by email that "Your video 'Scott Brown wonders if Obama was born out of wedlock' has become popular on YouTube." - promoted by David)

Born out of wedlock? Really??

Well, yes. During (or maybe shortly after) the 2008 Republican convention, Brown was on a panel discussion (aired on the now-defunct CN8 cable news channel) about Sarah Palin. He defended her pretty strongly, as you'd expect. But then, in the course of discussing Bristol Palin, Scott comes up with this:

Wow. Just to reiterate, in case you can't see the video: in response to the statement that Obama's mother was married when she gave birth, Scott says, "well, I don't know about that." Then he chuckles. "Uh huh huh."

Here's hoping that someone who might actually get an answer out of him (I would not include BMG in that category, so I don't think we'll bother) will ask Scott what was in his mind when he wondered aloud whether President Obama might have been born out of wedlock. UPDATE: TPM: "When contacted by TPM, Brown spokesperson Felix Browne provided this response: 'This is a non-issue. Scott's comments are being distorted by supporters of Martha Coakley who are trying to tear him down.'" No Felix, Scott's comments are being reported, not distorted. There's a difference.

I mean, maybe Brown really didn't know, and was just expressing the fact that he was unsure whether Obama's mother was married. But why would that possibility even be in his head? I took a little tour of the wingnuttosphere to find out who'd been saying what on that topic. Join me on the flip.
David :: BMG Exclusive: Scott Brown thought maybe Obama was born out of wedlock
Turns out that a number of fringey folks, including one Andy Martin and prominent wingnut Jerome Corsi (of "Unfit for Command" fame) have been assiduously peddling the theory that Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr. never actually got married. Said Martin, in July of 2008 (not long before Brown taped the interview posted above):

Barack Obama, Senior, and Anne Dunham never married. Obama knows this fact. This is also why he keeps his white grandmother a virtual prisoner; she knows too, and she won't lie.

Through the past several decades Obama has pretended he 'didn't know' the facts about his illegitimate birth. He thought he could get away with the big lie. And he almost did get away with it....

His mother was promiscuous and had a child out of wedlock, in 1961, when that was still scandalous behavior. Is this Obama's idea of 'family values?' Obviously, he has been deceiving the American people and hoping his advertising lies could overcome the truth. He has failed.

Corsi, for his part, has been keeping the faith even post-election. This post at World Net Daily, "Was Obama's birth out of wedlock?", is from September of 2009:

Was President Obama born out of wedlock in 1961? ... As WND has previously reported, the only documentation for Ann Dunham's marriage to Barack Obama, Sr., comes from their divorce documents that list the marriage date as Feb. 2, 1961.... No wedding certificate or photograph of a ceremony for Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. has ever been found or published.

Etc. etc. Oh, and one more thing about World Net Daily: there, the Brown campaign actually is running advertising. It's got the "Paid for by the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate Committee" logo on it, and it's not a Google ad (though those are present on the page as well). If you want WND's full birther rundown, with Scott's ad running alongside it, here ya go (screenshot here). I was wrong about the other one; I'm not wrong about this.

In addition, there were some very complicated (and, needless to say, quite peculiar) theories floating around back in 2008 to the effect that, even if Obama's parents did get married, the marriage might have been invalid. Here's one of them, from August 11, 2008, just a couple of weeks before Brown taped the above interview:

When he was 18, Barack Obama Sr. married a woman named Kezia and had four children with her. Two of them later returned to Kenya from the United States. He never divorced her. In the US, polygamy is illegal. If you are already married, regardless of where you got married, all subsequent marriages are invalid. This is the case with the marriage of Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. in February 1961. Barak Obama Jr. was born out of wedlock.

One amusing irony of this particular "out of wedlock" theory is that its creator is actually using it to argue that Obama is eligible to serve as president. In a nutshell, the incredibly convoluted theory is that even if Obama was born in Kenya or somewhere else, the fact that his mother was not legally married when she gave birth to him means that, under U.S. law in effect at the time, Obama nonetheless acquired U.S. citizenship at birth by virtue of his mother's American citizenship. Whereas, if she had been legally married to Obama Sr. but gave birth out of the country, Obama Jr. wouldn't have been a "natural born citizen" because a different law would have applied. Whew.

Did Brown know about any of this stuff? Did he take it seriously? Is that why, when someone else says that Obama's mother was married when she gave birth to him, Brown says "I don't know about that"? And if not, then what?

Stonewalled In Hawaii – Where’s World Net Daily On This Issue?

from The Betrayal by David-Crockett

Leo Donofrio published

Last week I published a report which established that Hawaii Attorney General Mark Bennett was invoking “attorney client privilege” as to the opinion issued to Department of Health Director Fukino wherein the AG reviewed and approved the July 27, 2009 press release which stated to the world that President Obama was born in Hawaii and is a “natural-born American citzen”.

Is there no story here? Attorney client privilege was applied to a public statement? How is that possible? The statement was issued in a press release. No privilege applies.

In part 3 of my UIPA report, I detailed the legal statutes and case law in Hawaii that demand the Attorney General opinion be made public.

Parts 1 and 2 of that same report explained how the Hawaii Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA) gives “any person” standing to challenge in court the failure of a Hawaii state agency to release records which the public are entitled to.

Furthermore, I also detailed – here and here – how DoH Communications Director Janice Okubo has been running interference by failing to answer proper UIPA requests as is required by OIP administrative rules.

I am preparing a follow up on all of this which illustrates Okubo’s continued failure to answer UIPA requests under OIP administrative rules which has the effect of stopping all research. Additonally, my appeals to the OIP have gone unanswered.

WHERE IS WND?

They are allegedly in possession of a petition with half a million names on it in support of political leaders investigating Obama’s POTUS eligibility. My question to WND is – why don’t you investigate his eligibility by using the very simple devices listed in the UIPA?

All WND must do is write up a copy of the same questions we have asked… email it to Janice Okubo and then follow up with an OIP appeal and a judicial branch appeal (to be expedited to the front of the litigation calendar by statute).

I have always found the WND reporting on eligibility to be very convenient to the Obama administration. They have chosen to focus on the sensational conspiracy theory aspects of the issue rather than the genuine legal problem he faces in that he was a British citizen at birth. But if WND want to genuinely establish themselves as true investigative reporters on the issue of Obama’s eligibility, all they have to do is make an effort to use the public disclosure laws available to “any person”.

I would be happy to write model UIPA requests, model appeals to the OIP and model judicial complaints to be filed in Hawaii Circuit courts for World Net Daily to act upon and to gather information. Not only is Obama’s COLB available for discovery right now via these laws, but so is the Attorney General opinion which guided Fukino’s infamous July 27th press release as well as the original vital records she viewed which allowed her to state that Obama was born in Hawaii.

There’s no reason to be groping around in the dark looking for these documents in federal court rooms by people who have no chance of garnering standing. Standing is granted to “any person” in Hawaii. WND and all the other attorneys involved in POTUS eligibility should be using the UIPA laws in Hawaii, along with the OIP administrative rules and judicial precedent to get the information necessary for the country to have closure on Obama’s place of birth.

If Okubo tries to stonewall WND the way she stonewalls the rest of the public, then she can see her face and her replies spread over the front pages of WND. And WND certainly has the resources to take this fight to the judicial branch in Hawaii.

Hawaii officials appear unwilling to work with me under their laws. I will be filing law suits. But I don’t see why WND and other interested attorneys continue to ignore the UIPA, OIP and judicial branch in Hawaii where standing is not an obstacle. If your fight is to see the Obama birth records, then these laws make that possible.

I see a pattern emerging where the UIPA is ignored and the federal Quo Warranto statute is not followed properly. It feels like a big attempt to keep public eyes away from true legal solutions while impossible exotic suits are brought in federal courts which have no subject matter jurisdiction for plaintiffs with undeniable standing issues.

The solutions are there, America. It’s just that there’s no publicity allowed for those of us trying to use the right solutions. And without publicity, Okubo continues to stick her thumb in your eye. The UIPA was intended to remove that thumb and we’ve already seen her be forced on more than one occasion to admit that she issued misinformation. If we had vigilance on this from the media, nothing would be hidden from view.

Why isn’t WND covering the UIPA investigations.

Why isn’t WND pursuing a UIPA investigation of its own?

I would be happy to provide model inquisitions.

Leo C. Donofrio, Citizen Attorney