Now look who's getting grilled over eligibility

BORN IN THE USA?

'Natural born' citizenship questions go beyond Obama to GOP potential

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By Joe Kovacs
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

PALM BEACH, Fla. – Is potential Republican candidate Donald Trump eligible to run for U.S. president?

Donald Trump

The question comes in the wake of high-profile statements by the billionaire developer and Palm Beach resident who has suggested Barack Obama's presidency could be "illegal" if he does not release his long-form, hospital-specified birth certificate to prove he's constitutionally qualified to occupy the White House.

"To be honest with you, I want him to have a birth certificate," Trump said on Fox News, "because [otherwise] that would mean that his presidency was, I guess you'd have to say, illegal. You have to be born in the United States."

Help get TV commercials on the air to bust Obama's eligibility wide open!

Trump this week released two copies of his original birth certificates, one from the Jamaica Hospital in Queens, N.Y., and the other long-form, official government document from the New York Department of Health, confirming Trump's birthplace at Jamaica Hospital on June 14, 1946.

Donald Trump's official birth certificate – for full image, including certifying note from registrar, click here (courtesy ABC News)

But some have still wondered if Trump can be considered a "natural born citizen" as the Constitution requires since his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, was born in Stornoway, Scotland, thus giving her British citizenship at her birth in 1912. Donald's father, real-estate mogul Frederick Christ Trump, was an American by birth in New York City in 1905.

Donald Trump's mother Mary Anne MacLeod, shown in 1932, was born in Stornoway, Scotland

AOL News contributor Mara Gay suggested one of the reasons why Donald Trump may be pushing the eligibility issue is because "he's trying to deflect attention from his own shady, Scottish origins."

Columnist Ben Smith at Politico jokingly wrote, "Trump's mother, it should be noted, was born in Scotland, which is not part of the United States. His plane is registered in the Bahamas, also a foreign country. This fact pattern – along with the wave of new questions surrounding what he claims is a birth certificate – raises serious doubts about his eligibility to serve as president of the United States."

While the Constitution itself does not provide a definition of natural-born citizen, those challenging President Obama have asserted that it requires not only a birth having taken place on U.S. soil, but also that both parents of the child have to be U.S. citizens at the time of the child's birth. Only Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a U.S. citizen when Obama was born, while his father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was a British subject, having been born in Kenya.

Now the Birthers.org website, which has been among those questioning Obama's eligibility, reports that Trump's mother did indeed become a U.S. citizen before the birth of Donald. It displays a small image of a signed naturalization receipt for Mrs. Trump on March 10, 1942, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, four years before Donald was born.

WND found a larger image of the document in the National Archives, showing details for Mary Anne Trump, including her home address of 175 24 Devonshire Rd. in Jamaica, N.Y. and her age of 29 at the time of the record.

Receipt in National Archives of Mary Anne Trump's naturalization dated March 10, 1942, four years before she gave birth to Donald Trump.

"Donald Trump is a natural born American citizen, above the age of 35 and a resident of the United States of America longer than 14 years," declares Birthers.org. "He has provided sufficient documentation attesting to his place of birth, and upon research of his parents it is determined that they were both American citizens at the time of his birth. ... There is no doubt that at his birth his natural allegiance for the United States of America was and still is unalienable. ... Congratulations Donald, you are the first prospective presidential candidate to qualify as a natural born citizen."

The founder of Birthers.org, Teo Bear, told WND, "I am 99.999 percent certain Donald Trump meets the definition of a natural-born citizen as our founding fathers understood it to mean. Once Donald authorizes the release of his mother's naturalization, I will move to 100 percent."

He said the confusion for this issue rests with a weak education system in America.

"We have as a nation become dumbed down in understanding our heritage. We look for the simplest answers, so 'natural born' became 'born on the soil,'" Bear said.

"As it stands now, according to Obama's supporters, if [al-Qaida mastermind Osama] bin Laden were captured and one of his many wives came to America for his trial while carrying his child, and if that child were born in the United States, that child would be eligible to be president in their view. That, my friend, is the result of an education system that promotes politically correct thinking in place of critical thinking."

Mary Anne Trump, a philanthropist who supported various charities near her home in New York, died in August 2000 at age 88. Fred Trump passed away in June 1999.

Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is defending is his client's natural-born citizenship, telling Britain's Daily Mail: "I don't think anyone's going to question whether Donald Trump is or was not born in New York."

Cohen pointed out there are hospitals named after Trump's family in New York, but the only ones named after Obama are in Africa.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh called that comment "priceless" today, adding, "I don't know that his brother's hut has a name."

When asked by a caller if Trump or Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., had a better shot at the presidency at this point, Limbaugh said it was "too soon to say," but then added, "You'd have to say Trump just on name recognition alone. At this stage, you'd have to say that. Far more people, many more people know who Trump is than Michele Bachmann."

Limbaugh also played a parody song to the tune of Bruce Springsteen's hit "Born in the USA," performed by Obama soundalike Paul Shanklin.

The opening lyrics state:

Born down in that Hawaiian town
They were too busy to write it down
Trump and others, they think too much
They say I got something to cover up
Born in the USA
I was, born in the USA
I was, born in the USA
Not somewhere far away

A video parody was also posted today on YouTube, featuring a fictional edition of Trump's TV program "The Apprentice" with an episode titled "Eligibility Edition" with WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi included:

Karl Rove, the former adviser to President George W. Bush, told Bill O'Reilly of Fox News tonight that he thought Trump's promotion of the eligibility issue could hurt the entrepreneur.

"This is a mistake. It will marginalize him," Rove said. He claimed the right-wing base of the party is "not in love with the issue," and added "Barack Obama wants Republicans to fall into this trap."

Meanwhile, potential Republican presidential candidate, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is blasting Trump's call to see Obama's birth certificate, claiming it has already been made public, at least according to some news agencies.

"The news reports from CNN and others have said they've seen the birth certificate," Pawlenty told Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel last night.

"Never trust CNN," Hannity interjected.

Pawlenty continued, "I watched it myself. CNN reported they saw the birth certificate. So, you got to either believe that they didn't [see it] and they're lying, or there's something else going on."

For its part, CNN is continuing to report false information on its website about the controversy.

This paragraph posted on its site yesterday by CNN producer Alexander Mooney has numerous errors: "It should be noted that CNN and other news organizations have thoroughly debunked the rumors about the president's birthplace. Hawaii has released a copy of the president's birth certificate – officially called a 'certificate of live birth' – and the hospital where he was born took out ads in two Hawaiian newspapers in 1961 announcing the birth."

The first error is that rumors about the president's actual birthplace have not been debunked. The precise birthplace, including the city and hospital of birth for Obama, is still a matter of conjecture because no long-form, hospital-specified birth certificate has ever been produced officially documenting them, and no hospital has ever gone on the record to confirm Obama was born at its facility.

Secondly, the state of Hawaii has never verified any of the president's purported birth-certificate images that have been displayed online. Former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claimed he personally put an image of the short-form certification of live birth on the Internet, not the long-form certificate of live birth, but the state of Hawaii has refused to confirm its authenticity as well as one examined by Factcheck.org.

This short-form "certification of live birth" released by the Obama campaign in 2008 does not have the name of the hospital or an attending physician, which would be included on a long-form "certificate of live birth," which has never been produced by Obama.

CNN also mistakenly claims "the hospital where he was born took out ads in two Hawaiian newspapers in 1961 announcing the birth."

Birth announcements from the Star-Bulletin (left) and Honolulu Advertiser (right), with Barack Obama's announcement marked

Once again, the hospital of Obama's birth remains unconfirmed, and as WND has reported, it was not the hospitals that took out newspaper ads about births, but rather the Hawaii Department of Health that provided information to newspapers based on certifications of live birth, meaning someone reported the birth of a child. Such certifications could be issued for children not even born in Hawaii.

Additionally, Obama's parents did not even live at the address published in the Hawaiian newspapers. His grandparents actually lived there.

How Hawaiian papers published announcements

WND discovered the following in previous discussions with the two Honolulu newspapers:

• Neither newspaper had an editor to vet birth announcements;
  
  
• Neither newspaper independently checked the truthfulness or accuracy of birth announcement information derived from Hawaii Department of Health vital statistics records;
  
  
• Both newspapers merely published birth announcements, as received, from information published in Hawaii's Department of Health vital statistics announcements.
  
  
• Hawaiian hospitals did not report to newspapers any birth information;
  
  
• Hawaiian certifications of live birth do not typically list the hospital of birth or attending physician;
  
  
• Errors and misstatements in birth announcements published in the two Hawaiian newspapers have been documented, stemming from incorrect information recorded by the Hawaiian Department of Health.

Trump injected new life into the debate over Obama's eligibility last week during an appearance on ABC's "The View," demanding to see Obama's long-form birth certificate.

"I want him to show his birth certificate! There's something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like," Trump said.

"The other thing. If you go back to my first grade, my kindergarten, people remember me. Nobody from those early years remembers him. If you're going to be the president of the United States, it says very profoundly that you have to be born in this country."

Trump noted his skepticism of evidence proffered thus far about Obama's life history, stating, "I grew up in New York. Wall Street was a big part. I have seen fraud and I have seen scandal and I have seen a lot of things that people don't see. I've seen people take a $100 bill and make it a $1,000,000 bill. The point is, I can't rely on some newspaper [birth announcement] that they showed [to prove the president's eligibility]. I want him to show his birth certificate!"

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Beck: “I stand with Israel”

Tuesday, Mar 29, 2011 at 5:55 PM EDT

Glenn gave a passionate condemnation of US foreign policy on tonight’s TV show. As the Middle East continues to burn, the United States – and most of the world for that matter – have not taken a firm stance in alliance with Israel. Instead, the administration has been silent as groups like the Muslim Brotherhood start to work their way into power in Egypt and other countries.

Glenn makes a compelling argument, noting that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that shares American values. They are constantly provoked and attacked, yet despite having a heavy nuclear arsenal they have not launched a single one. In Israel, unlike most other Middle Eastern countries, women are treated equally and people aren’t stoned for their sexual orientation. Nevertheless, the United States has – at it’s best – remained silent.

But as Glenn also noted, there are those high up in the administration that would stand against Israel, such as Samantha Power (Mrs. Cass Sunstein), who has argued that the United States should shift their support from Israel and focus on the creation of a Palestinian State. They use the doctrine of a “Responsibility to Protect” to say the US and its allies should move against Israel in support of the Palestinian State, the same doctrine that President Obama used to move against Libya without congressional approval. You can see her make the argument in this video:

But Glenn used his opening monologue to take a stand for Israel. “You have to do what you feel is the right thing, because the times call for it.” He made his stand tonight, and he called for viewers to take account of their lives and figure out where they stand on these issues and the other issues facing the country and the world. World leaders may be silent – or worse, standing on the wrong side of history – and its up to the individuals in America to stand on the side of good.

Libya bombing an attempt to create 'New World Order'?

WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS

Shock admission by author of doctrine used by White House to justify attacks

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By Aaron Klein

Ramesh Thakur

JERUSALEM – The author of a military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya recently advocated for a "global rebalancing" and "international redistribution" to create a "New World Order."

The author, Ramesh Thakur, is a fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, which is in partnership with an economic institute founded by philanthropist billionaire George Soros. Thakur is also closely tied with other Soros-funded initiatives.

WND was first to report last week that Soros is also a primary funder and key proponent of the global organization that promotes the military doctrine "Responsibility to Protect," cited by the White House as allowing the use of force to attack Gadhafi's forces.

The joint U.S. and international air strikes targeting Libya are widely regarded as a test of Responsibility to Protect – a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege but a responsibility that can be revoked if a country is accused of "war crimes," "genocide," "crimes against humanity" or "ethnic cleansing."

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The term "war crimes" has at times been indiscriminately used by various U.N.-backed international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, or ICC, which applied it to Israeli anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip. There has been fear the ICC could be used to prosecute U.S. troops.

Now WND has learned that Thakur, one of the principal authors of and original commissioners of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine," argued recently for a global realignment.

In a piece last March in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, "Toward a new world order," Thakur wrote, "Westerners must change lifestyles and support international redistribution."

He was referring there to a United Nations-brokered international climate treaty in which he argued, "Developing countries must reorient growth in cleaner and greener directions."

In the opinion piece, Thakur then discussed recent military engagements and how the financial crisis has impacted the U.S.

"The West's bullying approach to developing nations won't work anymore – global power is shifting to Asia," he wrote.

"A much-needed global moral rebalancing is in train," he added.

Thakur continued: "Westerners have lost their previous capacity to set standards and rules of behaviour for the world. Unless they recognize this reality, there is little prospect of making significant progress in deadlocked international negotiations."

Thakur contended "the demonstration of the limits to U.S. and NATO power in Iraq and Afghanistan has left many less fearful of 'superior' western power."

Soros fingerprints on Libya bombing

Thakur's International Governance Innovation Centre is in partnership with the Institute for New Economic Thinking, or INET, for which Soros is a founding sponsor.

The philanthropist agreed to provides $25 million over five years to support INET activities.

Just last week, INET was in the news for its announcement of its annual four-day economic symposium to be held next month in the mountains of Bretton Woods, N.H.

The gathering of economic giants will take place at Mount Washington Hotel, famous for hosting the original Bretton Woods economic agreements drafted in 1944. That conference's goal was to rebuild a post-World War II international monetary system. The April gathering has a similar goal in mind – a global economic restructuring.

Reporting on last year's event, the Business Insider related, "George Soros has brought together a crack team of the world's top economists and financial thinkers."

"Its aim," continued the business newspaper, "to remake the world's economy as they see fit."

Thakur, meanwhile, serves on the advisory board of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading champion of the military doctrine.

Activist Gareth Evans, who sits on the global group's advisory board, is widely regarded as the other founder of the Responsibility to Protect principle along with Thakur.

Soros' Open Society Institute is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.

Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.

Annan once famously stated, "State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are ... instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa."

During his tenure as Australia's foreign minister, Evans served as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term "responsibility to protect."

In his capacity as co-chair, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to "sovereignty as responsibility."

Evans presented Responsibility to Protect at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.

Soros: Right to 'penetrate nation-states' borders'

Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article entitled "The People's Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World's Most Vulnerable Populations."

In the article, Soros said "true sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments."

"If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified," Soros wrote. "By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states' borders to protect the rights of citizens.

"In particular, the principle of the people's sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states, and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict."

Evans sits on multiple boards with Soros, including the Clinton Global Initiative.

Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a "crisis management organization" for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.

WND previously reported how the group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, where longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was recently toppled.

Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

WND also reported the crisis group has also petitioned for the Algerian government to cease "excessive" military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.

Soros' own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.

Power pushes doctrine

Doctrine founder Evans, meanwhile, is closely tied to Obama aide Samantha Power, who reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the decision to bomb Libya. Power is the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights.

Evans and Power have been joint keynote speakers at events in which they have championed the Responsibility to Protect principle together, such as the 2008 Global Philanthropy Forum, also attended by Tutu.

In November, at the International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Power, attending as a representative of the White House, argued for the use of Responsibility to Protect alongside Evans.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott

Atlas Shrugged: Part I Rubs Capitalism in Hollywood's Face

by Jarrett Stepman

April 15 is a miserable day for American taxpayers, but it’s the perfect release date for the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged.

The ultimate taxpayer’s revolt movie, which has been in production for nearly two decades, will capitalize on the confluence of current issues that strike at the heart of the book’s message.

The marketing campaign has been small because the movie didn’t have a big budget. One of the producers, Harmon Kaslow, said at a Heritage Foundation prescreening of Atlas Shrugged: Part I—the movie is only the first part of an ongoing saga—that he wanted the marketing effort to be “grassroots,” The other producer, John Aglialoro, has been the CEO of several large companies and is a former U.S. poker champion. Both are complete neophytes in the movie-making industry.

Unlike the typical Hollywood story line of scientists, environmentalists, and government officials fighting against greedy, profit-seeking corporations, Atlas Shrugged: Part I turns the formula on its head.

The villains are instead members of society who try to leech off the hard work of others. Their only skill is in using government machinations to plunder from their fellow man. The list of villains includes incompetent CEOs, government bureaucrats, and altruistic pinheads.

The storyline of Atlas Shrugged: Part I generally follows two main protagonists.

The first is Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling), who is the vice president of the railroad company Taggart Continental. She deftly handles the day-to-day business of the company while her brother, James Taggart, is the incompetent CEO whose only real skill is using political influence to gain governmental favors.

The other main protagonist is a brilliant metal inventor, Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler). He is a hardworking entrepreneur who has created the world's strongest, but untested, metal. Unfortunately he is married to a cold and decadent wife who ungratefully spends all of his money on herself.

The plot of Atlas Shrugged: Part I revolves around the complex partnership between Hank and Dagny. Both need each other professionally. Dagny needs Hank's revolutionary new metal to revive her families company, and Hank needs the contract with Taggart Continental to build his budding young company. As the story moves along, however, their relationship extends far beyond the professional.

The subplot of talented workers, entrepreneurs, and businessmen disappearing eventually becomes the focus of the movie. A phrase used sarcastically over and over again, usually before someone disappears, is “Who is John Galt?” This is the character who symbolizes the power and the glory of the human mind. As the world is falling apart, the only people who can save it are either being attacked for being successful, or are simply leaving.

While the theme and message of Atlas Shrugged: Part I are sure to resonate with Tea Partiers, libertarians, and conservatives, some elements of the film remain noticeably lacking.

Despite an impressive first scene of a roaring locomotive racing toward its spectacular doom, there is a definite lack of visuals. The set design could have certainly used a bit more artistic flair.

Another problem is that many of the characters' performances are wooden and stiff. Because the film is not visually spectacular, there was an even greater need for powerful character performance, and it really just isn’t there. Some individual performances stand out, including Taylor Schilling's portrayal of Dagny Taggart, but many of the characters simply don’t mesh well.

So Atlas Shrugged: Part I doesn’t have the best visuals or character performances, but it does have a number of memorable scenes. The portrayals of the government bureaucrats, in their brief time on screen, are well-done and humorous. And there is no lack of particularly detestable characters, such as super lobbyist Wesley Mouch.

Atlas Shrugged: Part I certainly has its flaws, and the lack of a major marketing campaign will probably hurt its chances of success, but it is a movie that goes against everything Hollywood is known for. That alone makes it worth seeing.

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Jarrett Stepman is a graduate of UC Davis, where he studied Political Science. He is currently an intern for HUMAN EVENTS through the National Journalism Center.

Holder ignores demands for NAACP-influence data

LAW OF THE LAND

'Who is running Justice Department? That is what we're trying to find out'

By Bob Unruh

A lawsuit has been filed against President Obama's Justice Department fNew Black Panther Partyor refusing to release details about how agency officials decided to abandon a voter intimidation case that staff members had brought – and won – against members of the .

The lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch, the public interest organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, over a refusal by the federal agency to provide information about the decision.

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At issue in the case is whether the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People "improperly influenced" the Justice Department, the nation's highest law enforcement agency, "to drop a lawsuit against members of the Black Panthers who allegedly threatened and intimidated white voters outside a polling station during the 2008 election."

Because Kristen Clark, of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, reportedly met with Justice Department officials to discuss the case just before the agency announced plans to dismiss the action, questions arose about the influence that may have been exerted. Judicial Watch in November 2010 filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records of communications between the agency's Civil Rights Division and the NAACP. Under federal requirements, Attorney General Eric Holder's agency was supposed to have responded by Dec. 3, 2010.

"However, to date, no documents have been produced," the Judicial Watch announcement said.

"Who is running the Justice Department? That is what we're trying to find out with this lawsuit. I find it outrageous that leftist special interest groups seem to be directing the activities of the nation’s top law enforcement agency," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a prepared statement about the case.

"The Obama Justice Department has made a mess of the Black Panther lawsuit. We already know the Justice Department's decision to drop the case was tainted by politics and racism. There is something amiss in the Holder Justice Department. And its casual violations of the freedom of information law highlight this administration's contempt for transparency and the rule of law."

According to the lawsuit, "As of the date of this complaint, defendant has failed to produce any records responsive to the request or demonstrate that responsive records are exempt from production. Nor has it indicated whether or when any responsive records will be produced. In fact, defendant has failed to respond to the request in any manner."

WND previously reported on the Philadelphia case, which was documented on video.

The Justice Department originally brought the case against the organization and several individuals who witnesses say derided voters with catcalls of "white devil" and "cracker" and told voters they should prepare to be "ruled by the black man."

One poll watcher called police after he reportedly saw one of the men brandishing a nightstick to threaten voters.

"As I walked up, they closed ranks, next to each other," the witness told Fox News at the time. "So I walked directly in between them, went inside and found the poll watchers. They said they'd been here for about an hour. And they told us not to come outside because a black man is going to win this election no matter what."

He said the man with a nightstick told him, "'We're tired of white supremacy,' and he starts tapping the nightstick in his hand. At which point I said, 'OK, we're not going to get in a fistfight right here,' and I called the police."

Subsequently, former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that the Voting Section of Holder's organization is dominated by a "culture of hostility" toward bringing cases against blacks and other minorities who violate voting-rights laws.

Further, two other former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys later corroborated key elements of the explosive allegations by Adams.

One of Adams' DOJ colleagues, former Voting Section trial attorney Hans A. von Spakovsky, told WND he saw Adams was being attacked in the media for lack of corroboration. He said he knew Adams was telling the truth, so he decided on his own to step forward.

It was Adams who had been ordered by his superiors to drop a case prosecutors already had won against the New Black Panthers. When they were ordered to stop prosecution, Adams and the team of DOJ lawyers had already won the case by default because the New Black Panthers declined to defend themselves in court. At that point in the proceedings, the DOJ team was simply waiting for the judge to assign penalties against the New Black Panthers.

The latest FOIA action is part of Judicial Watch's comprehensive investigation of the New Black Panther Party scandal. It previously found information that top political appointees played key roles in the decision to dismiss the case.

That information "directly contradict[s] sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that no political leadership was involved in the decision," Judicial Watch said.

Is it America’s duty to intervene wherever regime change is needed?

George F. Will
Opinion Writer

Is it America’s duty to intervene wherever regime change is needed?
By George F. Will

The missile strikes that inaugurated America’s latest attempt at regime change were launched 29 days before the 50th anniversary of another such — the Bay of Pigs of April 17, 1961. Then the hubris of American planners was proportional to their ignorance of everything relevant, from Cuban sentiment to Cuba’s geography. The fiasco was a singularly feckless investment of American power.

Does practice make perfect? In today’s episode, America has intervened in a civil war in a tribal society, the dynamics of which America does not understand. And America is supporting one faction, the nature of which it does not know. “We are standing with the people of Libya,” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, evidently confident that “the” people are a harmonious unit. Many in the media call Moammar Gaddafi’s opponents “freedom fighters,” and perhaps they are, but no one calling them that really knows how the insurgents regard one another, or understand freedom, or if freedom, however understood, is their priority.

But, then, knowing is rarely required in the regime-change business. The Weekly Standard, a magazine for regime-change enthusiasts, serenely says: “The Libyan state is a one-man operation. Eliminate that man and the whole edifice may come tumbling down.” And then good things must sprout? The late Donald Westlake gave one of his comic novels the mordant title “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” People who do not find that darkly funny should not make foreign policy.

In Libya, mission creep began before the mission did. A no-fly zone would not accomplish what Barack Obama calls “a well-defined goal,” the “protection of civilians.” So the no-fly zone immediately became protection for aircraft conducting combat operations against Gaddafi’s ground forces.

America’s war aim is inseparable from — indeed, obviously is — destruction of that regime. So our purpose is to create a political vacuum, into which we hope — this is the “audacity of hope” as foreign policy — good things will spontaneously flow. But if Gaddafi cannot be beaten by the rebels, are we prepared to supply their military deficiencies? And if the decapitation of his regime produces what the removal of Saddam Hussein did — bloody chaos — what then are our responsibilities regarding the tribal vendettas we may have unleashed? How long are we prepared to police the partitioning of Libya?

Explaining his decision to wage war, Obama said Gaddafi has “lost the confidence of his own people and the legitimacy to lead.” Such meretricious boilerplate seems designed to anesthetize thought. When did Gaddafi lose his people’s confidence? When did he have legitimacy? American doctrine — check the Declaration of Independence — is that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So there are always many illegitimate governments. When is it America’s duty to scrub away these blemishes on the planet? Is there a limiting principle of humanitarian interventionism? If so, would Obama take a stab at stating it?

Congress’s power to declare war resembles a muscle that has atrophied from long abstention from proper exercise. This power was last exercised on June 5, 1942 (against Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary), almost 69 years, and many wars, ago. It thus may seem quaint, and certainly is quixotic, for Indiana’s Richard Lugar — ranking Republican on, and former chairman of, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to say, correctly, that Congress should debate and vote on this.

There are those who think that if the United Nations gives the United States permission to wage war, the Constitution becomes irrelevant. Let us find out who in Congress supports this proposition, which should be resoundingly refuted, particularly by Republicans currently insisting that government, and especially the executive, should be on a short constitutional leash. If all Republican presidential aspirants are supine in the face of unfettered presidential war-making and humanitarian interventionism, the Republican field is radically insufficient.

On Dec. 29, 1962, in Miami’s Orange Bowl, President John Kennedy, who ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion, addressed a rally of survivors and supporters of that exercise in regime change. Presented with the invasion brigade’s flag, Kennedy vowed, “I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.” Eleven months later, on Nov. 2, 1963, his administration was complicit in another attempt at violent regime change — the coup against, and murder of, South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem. The Saigon regime was indeed changed, so perhaps this episode counts as a success, even if Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City.