It's baaack! The plan to kill talk radio

Group advising White House wants to restore controversial policy

by Aaron Klein

inShare8

An organization that helped craft President Obama’s environmental policies has recommended the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, purportedly as a method of silencing critics of the theory of global warming.

The Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, last year released an extensive list of recommendations for the White House in a 75-page paper titled “Building the Obama Administration’s Climate Legacy.”

Primary among the PCAP’s recommendations is that the Department of Energy should join the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency in what is known as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

The Partnership, which distributes over $1 billion in grants, says it aims to “help communities nationwide improve access to affordable housing, increase transportation options and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment.”

Another key recommendation in the report is the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, a former policy of the Federal Communications Commission that required the holders of broadcast licenses to give equal time to opposing viewpoints, which effectively made political talk radio unsustainable for any local station.

Reads the PCAP report: “National discourse today is tainted – and in some cases poisoned – by unbalanced ideological use of the public airwaves… To improve and better inform public discourse, it is time for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.”

Critics charge the Fairness Doctrine is as an attempt to regulate news and talk radio that violates First Amendment rights.

The University of Colorado-based PCAP draws up climate-policy recommendations for the White House and has been working with members of the Obama administration.

Following Obama’s victory in 2008, the PCAP began working with John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama’s transition team, to help the incoming president formulate an initial 100-day environmental agenda. Podesta is president and CEO of the highly influential Center for American Progress.

William S. Becker, the PCAP’s executive director, confirmed to WND in a November 2009 interview that his group’s initial proposals received a “very positive reception from the moment we delivered (the 100-day proposal) last November to John Podesta, co-chair of Obama’s transition team.”

“We continue to work with some colleagues inside the (Obama) administration, as well as continuing to push for bold action from the outside,” he said at the time.

Becker said the White House “adopted quite a few of our recommendations or variations of them.”

He cited a few examples of the influence of the PCAP and other environmental groups on Obama’s policies:

The PCAP recommended that the U.S. reach a bilateral climate deal with China prior to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The U.S. has since signed several agreements with China to share technology that reduces greenhouse-gas emissions.

The PCAP recommended an executive order that removed the gags from federal climate scientists. It became one of Obama’s first actions on environmental policy.

The PCAP recommended an overhaul of federal energy management to beef up efficiency requirements for federal agencies and to restore absolute carbon reduction targets that had been rescinded by the Bush administration. The Obama administration issued a new federal energy management order in October, including a requirement that agencies develop absolute targets for greenhouse-gas reductions.

The PCAP recommended, as did many others, that the Environmental Protection Agency embrace California’s vehicle emission standards and begin the process of regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The EPA is doing both.

The PCAP recommended major budget increases for states and communities to engage in energy and climate actions and to weatherize the homes of low-income families. The recommendations were implemented in Obama’s stimulus package.

The PCAP describes itself as seeking to engage the “best thinking of America’s leaders in government, science and civil society to identify actions that will empower all elements of society to meet the challenges of energy security and climate change.”

The group actively promotes the theory of man-made global warming.

While the PCAP coordinates with the White House, WND previously exposed how Obama’s controversial former “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, is one of 20 members of the PCAP’s advisory board.

Jones’ name appeared on the group’s most recent recommendation paper.

Jones resigned in September 2009 after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Meanwhile, the PCAP is not alone in calling for the silencing of the critics of global warming theory.

As WND was first to report, just prior to his appointment as Obama’s so-called regulatory czar in 2009, Cass Sunstein wrote a lengthy academic paper suggesting the government should “infiltrate” social network websites, chat rooms and message boards.

Such “cognitive infiltration,” Sunstein argued, should be used to enforce a U.S. government ban on “conspiracy theorizing.”

Sunstein’s official title is administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Among the beliefs Sunstein classified in his paper as a “conspiracy theory” is that man-made global warming is a deliberate fraud.

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Aaron Klein is WND's senior staff reporter and Jerusalem bureau chief. He also hosts "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on New York's WABC Radio. His latest book is the N.Y. Times best-selling, "The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists."More ↓

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Romney judicial record: Liberals running wild

When GOP candidate had chance to influence bench, he appointed leftists

BOSTON – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has announced that he will appoint conservative judges to the federal bench if he wins the White House.

In a forum hosted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Romney said he likes “strict constructionists” on the federal bench.

“I’d like people who recognize that their job is to protect the Constitution and to follow the Constitution as it was written and intended,” he said. “And to follow the laws of Congress as written and intended, rather than the Supreme Court seeing its role as springing from or departing from the Constitution.”

That statement echoes what Romney said during a 2008 California debate.

“I would approve justices – I would have favored justices like Roberts and Alito, Scalia and Thomas,” he said. “I like justices that follow the Constitution, do not make law from the bench. I would have much rather had a justice of that nature.”

Political analyst Steve Baldwin contends that Romney’s constitutional rhetoric is the product of his quest for the White House.

“When Gov. Romney first started to prepare himself to run for the presidency in 2004, the Romney team initiated an effort to schedule media appearances and speaking engagements for the governor focused on a number of themes important to conservatives, including judicial philosophy,” Baldwin said. “Much of this PR blitz had to do with the defense of traditional marriage, an issue on which Romney also misled conservatives as has been written elsewhere.”

The Hillary Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health decision forcing the issue of homosexual marriage was announced in November 2003. In response, Romney wrote a commentary on judicial activism for the Wall Street Journal.

He fired his first salvo in the battle over conservative judges in his Feb. 5, 2004, Journal commentary piece, “One man, one woman.”

“Beware of activist judges,” he wrote. “The Legislature is our lawmaking body, and it is the Legislature’s job to pass laws.”

Romney extolled the virtue of the “balance of powers.”

“The Supreme Judicial Court decides cases where there is a dispute as to the meaning of the laws or the Constitution. This is not simply a separation of the branches of government, it is also a balance of powers,” Romney wrote.

“One branch is not to do the work of the other. It is not the job of judges to make laws, the job of legislators to command the National Guard, or my job to resolve litigation between citizens.”

He continued his “conservative blitz.”

Quoting Romney, Baldwin said, “On June 22, 2004, Romney spoke before the United States Senate and stated that the ‘real threat is not the constitutional amendment process, in which the states participate, but activist judges who disregard the law and redefine marriage.’”

Baldwin noted that Romney didn’t stop there: “At the 2007 Family Research Council’s Voter Values Summit, Romney said, ‘I’ll appoint and fight for justices who follow the law and the Constitution and who understand judicial restraint and who won’t legislate from the bench.’”

Romney’s campaign staff continued to press the theme in 2008, by the design of the campaign website. Baldwin said the site theme was the Constitution.

“Romney’s 2008 campaign website likewise featured conservative judicial themes. ‘The Bill of Rights are under constant assault from activist judges,’ And that, ‘Romney will appoint judges who respect the Constitution and the rule of law, and will not legislate from the bench,’” Baldwin said, adding that Romney’s campaign had solid input from conservative judges.

“Romney campaign surrogates were tasked with placing articles in conservative publications that boasted about his alleged conservative judicial views. One such surrogate was Pepperdine University Constitutional Law Professor Douglas Kmiec, a Romney adviser on judicial issues and co-chair of Romney’s ‘Advisory Committee on the Constitution and the Courts,’” he added.

Pepperdine constitutional Law professor and Romney legal adviser Douglas Kmiec wrote an Oct. 10, 2007, article for National Review Online trumpeting Romney’s promise to appoint judicial conservatives.

“Romney is pledged to name to the Supreme Court individuals with the intellectual qualities and philosophy of judicial restraint of Justice Scalia, Alito and Roberts,” Kmiec wrote.

He added a warning line: “We cannot afford a president who is only faking his attachment to conservative legal principle.”

Legal analysts say candidate Romney is different from Gov. Romney.

Liberty Counsel Action Vice President Matt Barber said Romney’s appointments were constitutional “living document” poster children.

“Many of Romney’s appointments were not only liberal, not only Democrats, but were radical counter-constitutionalists. How on earth can we expect that, as president, he would be any different?” Barber asked rhetorically.

“Actions speak louder than words, and Mitt Romney’s actions as governor scream from the rooftops that he cannot be trusted with this most important of presidential responsibilities.”

Barber cites two specific examples of Romney’s radical appointments.

“As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney not only failed in this regard, he appointed a number of very liberal, if not radical, ‘living, breathing’-minded judges to the bench,” Barber said.

“Two that come to mind were extreme homosexualists Marianne C. Hinkle and Stephen Abany,” he said. “They both had a long history of pro-gay activism, yet Romney didn’t hesitate to put them on the bench.”

“These are people who outrageously believe the postmodern notion that newfangled ‘gay rights’ trump our constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment rights,” he said.

Baldwin agreed, citing Romney’s statements about the two requirements he actually used when selecting judges.

“Romney did focus on two criteria: their legal experience and whether they would be tough on crime. In other words, the nominee could be a gay activist or a pro-big government, pro-quota, pro-gun control Democrat Party hack who detests every judicial principle treasured by our founding fathers,” Baldwin said. “But if he happens to be tough on crime and have prosecutorial experience, he gets past the Romney filter. Many of Romney’s nominees fit that description.”

Baldwin added that Romney did have some ideological criteria for many of his nominees:

“It was criteria commonly used by the left. For starters, his nominees were mostly pro-abortion. Indeed, while campaigning for governor in 2002, Romney told the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) that his judicial nominees would more likely protect abortion rights than would those of a Democrat Governor, according to notes from a person attending this meeting.”

Another Romney criteria, Baldwin explained, was “diversity.”

“The other criteria consistently emphasized by Gov. Romney in deciding judicial selections was ‘diversity.’ This is the silly notion that judgeships should reflect the population in terms of race and gender and even sexual orientation, regardless of a person’s judicial philosophy,” he said. “Clearly, the use of diversity quotas demonstrates Romney’s lack of a coherent conservative worldview.”

Barber agreed with Baldwin’s assessment, adding that Romney’s record while governor is reason for concern, because the next president may radically reshape the federal bench.

“Our next president has the potential to appoint two, possibly even three Supreme Court justices,” Barber said. “This will influence the trajectory of law and public policy for decades to come. We absolutely must have a president who can be trusted to appoint ‘originalist’ judges who will strictly interpret the Constitution in the context of the founders’ original vision.”

Barber concluded, “If the Constitution is a ‘living, breathing’ document as President Obama believes, then it is rendered meaningless.”

What happened at Obama-no-show trial

Sworn testimony reveals fake Social Security number, other gaps

by Jerome R. CorsiEmail | Archive

Georgia citizens today delivered sworn testimony to a court that Barack Obama is slam-dunk disqualified from having his name on the 2012 presidential ballot in the state, because his father never was a U.S. citizen, which prevents him from qualifying as a “natural-born citizen” as the U.S. Constitution requires for a president.

The historic hearing was the first time that a court has accepted arguments on the merits of the controversy over Obama’s status. His critics say he never met the constitutional requirements to occupy the Oval Office, and the states and Congress failed in their obligations to make sure only a qualified president is inaugurated. His supporters, meanwhile, argue he won the 2008 election and therefore was “vetted” by America.

Discover what the Constitution’s reference to “natural born citizen” means and whether Barack Obama qualifies, in the ebook version of “Where’s the REAL Birth Certificate?”

The hearing was before Judge Michael Malihi of the Georgia state Office of State Administrative Hearings. In Georgia, a state law requires “every candidate for federal” office who is certified by the state executive committees of a political party or who files a notice of candidacy “shall meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought.”

State law also grants the secretary of state and any “elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate” in the state the authority to raise a challenge to a candidate’s qualifications, the judge determined.

Citizens bringing the complaints include David Farrar, Leah Lax, Thomas Malaren and Laurie Roth, represented by California attorney Orly Taitz, who has handled numerous cases concerning Obama’s eligibility; David Weldon represented by attorney Van R. Irion of Liberty Legal Foundation; and Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell, represented by J. Mark Hatfield. Cody Judy is raising a challenge because he also wants to be on the ballot.

Several of the attorneys introduced passages from Obama’s own writings that Barack Obama Sr. was his father. They then introduced evidence that the man never was a U.S. citizen, that he was a citizen of Kenya at the time of junior’s birth and was therefore a subject of the United Kingdom.

His father’s citizenship, they said, precludes him from serving as president, since the Founders required that officer to be a “natural-born citizen,” not just a “citizen.”

The term is not defined in the Constitution, but evidence introduced included a passage from a 1875 Supreme Court opinion that states:”The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”

Weldon explained in his presentation that the 14th Amendment granting citizenship did not redefine Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which includes the requirement for a president to be a “natural-born citizen.”

The attorney argued also that another later court case referenced citizenship in the dicta, not the central holding in the case, and thus was not controlling.

Many of Irion’s arguments were echoed by Hatfield, a strategy that at least one constitutional expert, Herb Titus, said was sound.

Titus taught constitutional law, common law, and other subjects for nearly 30 years at five different American Bar Association-approved law schools. From 1986 to 1993, he served as the founding dean of the College of Law and Government in Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. Prior to his academic career, he served as a trial attorney and a special assistant United States attorney with the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, Mo.

He told WND the fact that Obama’s father was a Kenyan citizen should be sufficient.

“That is much stronger than the question of where he was born,” he said. “That alone is evidence. … They don’t need anything additional.”

Taitz argued multiple prongs of the case: that the birth certificate released by the White House is a forgery; that he probably has had several citizenships, such as when he was listed in Indonesia as an Indonesian citizen; and that he’s been known under the names Obama, Soetoro and Soebarkah.

She also had a private investigator, Susan Daniels, testify that it appears Obama is using a fraudulent Social Security number.

Documents and imaging expert Doug Vogt asserted the birth documentation released by the White House was a creation of a software program and not a scan of any original document. That would mean Obama’s documentation, despite what the White House released in April, is still under wraps.

Obama and his attorney boycotted the proceedings, issuing a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp that the judge was letting attorneys “run amok.” The statement came after Malihi refused to quash a subpoena for Obama’s testimony and his records, which effectively was ignored by the White House.

The judge is expected to review the evidence and make a recommendation to the state whether there is reason to be concerned about Obama’s name on the 2012 ballot.

He apparently will have no defense evidence, but Kemp had warned Obama about that.

Kemp said late last night in a response to a demand from Obama’s attorney that he simply order the hearing stopped.

“Anything you and your client place in the record in response to the challenge will be beneficial to my review of the initial decision; however, if you and your client choose to suspend your participation in the OSAH proceedings, please understand that you do so at your own peril.”

WND reported earlier on the stunning decision from Malihi, who refused to quash the subpoena even after Obama outlined his defense strategy for such state-level challenges, which have erupted in half a dozen or more states already.

“Presidential electors and Congress, not the state of Georgia, hold the constitutional responsibility for determining the qualifications of presidential candidates,” Obama’s lawyer argued. “The election of President Obama by the presidential electors, confirmed by Congress, makes the documents and testimony sought by plaintiff irrelevant.”

But the judge thought otherwise.

“Defendant argues that ‘if enforced, [the subpoena] requires him to interrupt duties as president of the United States’ to attend a hearing in Atlanta, Georgia. However, defendant fails to provide any legal authority to support his motion to quash the subpoena to attend,” he wrote in his order.

“Defendant’s motion suggests that no president should be compelled to attend a court hearing. This may be correct. But defendant has failed to enlighten the court with any legal authority,” the judge continued.

“Specifically, defendant has failed to cite to any legal authority evidencing why his attendance is ‘unreasonable or oppressive, or that the testimony … [is] irrelevant, immaterial, or cumulative and unnecessary to a party’s preparation or presentation at the hearing, or that basic fairness dictates that the subpoena should not be enforced,’” the judge said.

Jablonski also had argued that the state should mind its own business.

“The sovereignty of the state of Georgia does not extend beyond the limits of the State. … Since the sovereignty of the state does not extend beyond its territorial limits, an administrative subpoena has no effect,” the filing argued.

The image released by the White House in April:

Obama long-form birth certificate released April 27 by the White House

Titus said, “‘Natural born citizen’ in relation to the office of president, and whether someone is eligible, was in the Constitution from the very beginning. Another way of putting it; there is a law of the nature of citizenship. If you are a natural born citizen, you are a citizen according to the law of nature, not according to any positive statement in a Constitution or in a statute, but because of the very nature of your birth and the very nature of nations.”

If you “go back and look at what the law of nature would be or would require … that’s precisely what a natural born citizen is …. is one who is born to a father and mother each of whom is a citizen of the U.S. or whatever other country,” he said.

“Now what we’ve learned from the Hawaii birth certificate is that Mr. Obama’s father was not a citizen of the United States. His mother was, but he doesn’t qualify as a natural born citizen for the office of president.”

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Jerome R. Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D., has authored many books, including No. 1 N.Y. Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command." Along with serving as WND's senior staff reporter, Corsi is a senior managing director at Gilford Securities. Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in NYC providing financial services to institutional and retail clients, from investment banking and equity research to retirementMore

School to teacher: 'God's not allowed'

FAITH UNDER FIRE

Supremes asked to affirm Constitution's 1st Amendment

By Michael Carl

For 25 years, math teacher Bradley Johnson at Poway High School near San Diego took advantage of a 30-year school policy and hung patriotic posters with sayings such as “God bless America” in his classroom.

But then school officials ordered Johnson to take down the banners, even though other teachers were allowed to keep anti-religious slogans such as John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Buddhist prayer flags and images of Black Muslim leader Malcolm X.

So he went to court, and now the case is on its way to the highest court in the land.

The legal ordeal started in 2007 when school officials are alleged to have suddenly reversed the policy that allowed teachers to display banners, posters and signs that reflected their personal beliefs.

Poway officials told Johnson that his banners violated the establishment clause of the Constitution because they advocated a “Judeo-Christian worldview.”

Johnson pointed to what other teachers displayed, but the district dismissed his concerns.

Thomas More Law Center represented Johnson, and he won the first round in California federal district court, where Judge Robert Benitez said the teacher was within his First Amendment rights.

Benitez extolled the virtues of education while concluding Johnson doesn’t lose his liberties after walking through the school house doors.

“May a school district censor a high school teacher’s expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion? On undisputed evidence, this Court holds that it may not,” Benitez wrote.

Benitez also says that the federal courts should use restraint in dealing with local schools.

“Courts should not quickly intervene in the daily operation of schools and school systems, for that task is committed primarily to local school boards,” Benitez wrote.

But he said when a constitutional question is at the heart of the dispute, the courts have a valid role to play in the matter.

“The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools,” Benitez wrote.

The school took the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overturned appellate court in the nation, and Benitez’s ruling was reversed. That means Johnson has nowhere left to go but to the Supreme Court.

The Thomas More Law Center said the issue arose because of criticism from one of Johnson’s colleagues.

“The banners became a problem as a result of a complaint by one of Johnson’s fellow teachers,” the organization’s report said.

Johnson defended his banners because he says other teachers were apparently free to display religious signs. Thomas More said the school ordered Johnson to remove his banners because they believe they can.

“Basically, the school said, ‘we can tell teachers what to do.’ And school officials claim the use of the phrase ‘God’ in each of those phrases violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution,” a Thomas More spokesman said.

Buddha, on the other hand, is scientific, according to the district, the spokesman said.

“Additionally, they consider the image of Buddha to be more of a scientific interest than a religious symbol.”

The Poway district issued a statement saying school officials believe they were within their rights asking Johnson to remove the banner.

“The Poway Unified School District has believed from the beginning of this case that the removal of a teacher’s banners was consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution,” the statement said.

“On September 13, 2011, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that the district acted correctly, holding that public-school teachers do not have a First Amendment right to say anything they want when teaching to a captive student audience. A month later, the entire 9th Circuit denied the teacher’s request to rehear the appeal,” the statement said.

School system attorney Jack Sleeth Jr. said in the statement that he believes the 9th Circuit acted appropriately.

“We believe that the 9th Circuit properly followed the Constitution and Supreme Court case law in ensuring that all students have a proper environment for learning. The 9th Circuit correctly found that teachers have no First Amendment right to espouse their personal religious beliefs in the classroom,” Sleeth said in the statement.

Civil rights attorney and legal writer Rees Lloyd disagrees with both the school and the 9th Circuit opinion.

“This 9th Circuit decision represents a dangerous, discriminatory, secular-cleansing, anti-Christian precedent, as well as a travesty of justice,” Lloyd said.

“The decision is sure to be perceived for what it is – another monument to arrogant judicial tyranny, transforming the nation beyond all recognition from its founding,” Lloyd said.

“The 9th Circuit, the most liberal and most reversed circuit in the United States, has now held that government school bureaucrats may establish policies creating a right of teachers to express their personal points of view in the classroom,” Lloyd said.

“That includes political, atheist, agnostic, irreligious, non-religious, and religious points of view, except the expression of words and symbols associated with the Judeo-Christian values upon which the American nation was founded, which those school bureaucrats can censure and ban because they find that point of view unacceptable,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd added that the 9th Circuit’s opinion fails to address the issue of whether Buddhist displays may offend Christians.

“Nowhere in the 9th Circuit opinion is there any discussion of whether those displays (the Dalai Lama, etc.) might be offensive to Christians or Jewish students. It is only the American flag, and words associated with Judeo-Christian points of view, upon which the nation was founded, that the school bureaucrats, and the 9th Circuit judges find might give offense,” Lloyd said.

Obama accused of disrespecting court, state, Americans

CERTIFIGATE

'My belief is if Supreme Court held he was ineligible, he might simply ignore the ruling'

By Dave Tombers

One of the attorneys who fought a court case over Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court says he fears that even if the U.S. Supreme Court declared Obama unqualified, he’d simply ignore the ruling and continue issuing orders.

But those who observed a court hearing today in Atlanta say it could be the beginning of the end for the Obama campaign, because of the doubt that could surge like a tidal wave across the nation.

The comments came today from Leo Donofrio, who led the pack in filing lawsuits over Obama’s 2008 election and his subsequent occupancy of the White House.

He was commenting on today’s hearing before a Georgia administrative law judge on complaints raised by several state residents that Obama is not eligible to run for the office in 2012. That hearing went on after Obama and his lawyer decided to snub the court system and refuse to participate.

Discover what the Constitution’s reference to “natural born citizen” means and whether Barack Obama qualifies, in the ebook version of “Where’s the REAL Birth Certificate?”

A decision from the judge, Michael Malihi, is expected soon.

The Georgia residents delivered sworn testimony to a court that, among other things, Obama is forever disqualified from having his name on the 2012 presidential ballot in the state because his father never was a U.S. citizen. Because the Constitution’s requirement presidents be a “natural born citizen,” which is the offspring of two citizen parents, he is prevented from qualifying, they say.

The historic hearing was the first time that a court has accepted arguments on the merits of the controversy over Obama’s status. His critics say he never met the constitutional requirements to occupy the Oval Office, and the states and Congress failed in their obligations to make sure only a qualified president is inaugurated, while his supporters say he won the 2008 election and therefore was “vetted” by America.

In Georgia, the law requires “every candidate for federal” office who is certified by the state executive committees of a political party or who files a notice of candidacy “shall meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought.”

State law also grants the secretary of state and any “elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate” in the state the authority to raise a challenge to a candidate’s qualifications, the judge determined.

Citizens bringing the complaints include David Farrar, Leah Lax, Thomas Malaren and Laurie Roth, represented by Taitz; David Weldon represented by attorney Van R. Irion of Liberty Legal Foundation; and Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell, represented by J. Mark Hatfield. Cody Judy is raising a challenge because he also wants to be on the ballot.

Donofrio’s case – like all the others that have reached the Supreme Court – simply was refused recognition.

“That President Obama’s attorneys didn’t show respect for the court, the citizens, the secretary of state, and the statutes of Georgia reveals the true character of the administration as being completely and utterly against state’s rights,” Donofrio said. “The federal government is growing out of control with every administration and this action today is a loud announcement that this administration is going to do what it likes, and you can imagine that their response to this judiciary would be exactly the same if this had been the U.S. Supreme Court.”

He said if Georgia does decide to keep Obama off its state election ballots, he won’t appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, “because if he were to lose there, his entire administration would be void, including his appointments to the Supreme Court.”

“If Obama were to appeal in Georgia, only this election is in play, and only as to Georgia’s ballots, but if he loses in Georgia, appealing to the SCOTUS brings in his entire eligibility, and the legitimacy of his current administration,” Donofrio warned.

“My personal belief is that if the U.S. Supreme Court held that he was ineligible, he might simply ignore the ruling, and test the will of the nation, just as he is testing the will of the state of Georgia,” he said.

The White House today was absolutely silent about the issue. The Georgia case is far different from the lawsuits over the 2008 election, in which judges virtually unanimously ruled that they could not make a decision that would remove a sitting president, no matter the circumstances.

This hearing was about concerns being raised, as allowed by Georgia state law, that Obama is not eligible for the office of president and therefore should not be allowed on the 2012 election ballot.

“If the judge’s recommendation – and I’ve been told that it’s going to be to disqualify Mr. Obama as a candidate – is followed by the secretary of state, Mr. Obama has got a real problem,” said Gary Kreep, of the United States Justice Foundation.

His organization pursued several of the lawsuits over Obama’s occupancy of the Oval Office to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices simply decided they wouldn’t be bothered with such issues as the constitutional eligibility of a president.

“He’s thumbed his nose at the court. He’s thumbed his nose at the secretary of state in Georgia. He’s thumbed his nose at the people and said, ‘I’m above it all. I’m above the law,’” Kreep said.

Kreep’s cases have outlined out there is precedent in the U.S. for the removal of a sitting chief executive because of an issue over ineligibility.

Obama’s attorney, Michael Jablonski, had warned Secretary of State Brian Kemp yesterday that he needed to simply call off the hearing, and he and Obama would not participate.

Not only did Obama not participate, there also was no comment.

On a day when Obama was campaigning in Arizona and Colorado, he released formal statements about the retirement of Congressman Brad Miller, and the retirement of Gov. Bev Perdue.

But WND calls to the White House brought only the instructions to e-mail a question to the media affairs department. WND did but got no response. WND also contacted Obama’s campaign headquarters, to receive instructions to email a question. WND did again, but again got no response.

Jablonski, the Atlanta attorney representing Obama, also declined to return WND messages left at his office today.

Mario Apuzzo, who also shepherded a case to the Supremes, said Obama, by not showing, “actually failed to meet his burden of proof, to show that he is eligible and should be placed on the ballot.”

“For him to just ignore due process here is really telling a lot,” he said, noting, “This decision will have a ripple effect.”

“He’s not above the law. That’s a very important thing here. He’s a private person running for office, so he had no business not showing up. So the court can enter the judgment, and then the secretary of state does what he wants with it. And this will have a ripple effect for other secretaries of state, for other states, for the public. Also for any case that could be pending in the Supreme Court, where the issue of Mr. Obama’s eligibility is implicated,” he said.

“It’s a really important milestone that has been reached.”

Apuzzo warned that an administrative law judge certainly wields authority in such cases.

“We had a legitimate hearing in a legitimate court where this private person, Barack Obama, was asked to come there and satisfy the basic Georgia election law ballot procedure, and he doesn’t show up. Nor does he send an attorney. We don’t see this on television yet, but I can’t imagine this not being major news. It boggles the mind that a sitting president who is running for re-election doesn’t show up at a state’s legitimately constituted proceeding to make sure that he is indeed eligible to be on the ballot,” he said.

Charles Kerchner, on whose behalf one of those cases went to the Supremes, said, “Obama thinks he is a king and thus not subject to the election laws of Georgia and the United States Constitution. He will soon learn otherwise.”

He continued, “As the Georgia secretary of state said in warning Obama and his attorney if they did not show.up for the court hearing today … if they do that, they will do so at their own peril.”

Kreep, who has fought battles in both state and federal courts over the issue, said a ruling that would remove Obama’s name from the Georgia ballot would be a “tremendous victory for … America.”

“If the judge issues a default and rules that Barack Obama will not be on the Georgia ballot, and if the secretary of state upholds that, then Mr. Obama, having told the court to essentially stick it in their ear, he wasn’t going to participate, wasn’t going to recognize their power – he’s going to have a tough time convincing some other court to overturn the ruling, because he waived his right to object to it by not appearing,” he explained.

“That’s a big deal to judges. A judge may or may not agree with another judge’s ruling, but when one party waives their ability to object, judges are very reluctant to get involved, because the party has basically said, ‘We don’t care what you do, we’re not going to abide by it.’ Judges don’t like that. They don’t like to be blown off,” he said.

He said the election outcome also could be decided because of not being on a ballot in even one state. And he said there’s more to come.

“I can tell you from my own personal knowledge that there are challenges going on in other states. Van Irion has one in Arizona and one in Tennessee. We have one in Illinois that is has gone under the radar. We’re going to be filing similar challenges around the country. We’ll be filing one within a week and another right around the end of the month,” he said.

Rush: Obama speech a 'fantasyland' of lies

'General Motors, the No. 1 car company in the world again?'

Published: 22 hours ago

by Joe Kovacs Email | Archive

Joe Kovacs, executive news editor for WND, is an award-winning journalist and author of the No. 1 best-selling book "Shocked by the Bible: The Most Astonishing Facts You've Never Been Told."More ↓

PALM BEACH, Fla. – Radio giant Rush Limbaugh wasted no time today attacking President Obama’s State of the Union address, calling it a fantasyland packed with untruth.

“It was chock-full of lies. It was fantasyland. No, it didn’t soar. It was boring,” Limbaugh said.

“There was nothing to set it apart, nothing about it that’s going to be memorable in a positive way. General Motors, the No. 1 car company in the world again? It just isn’t true. None of the economic news is true. He did two things. He lied. He tried to paint the economy as back. We are back, except where we’re not back, and that’s Bush’s fault.”

During the president’s speech, Obama focused on what he claimed to be a massive turnaround for American carmakers, saying, “Today, General Motors is back on top as the world’s No. 1 automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.”

“I don’t believe this General Motors number,” Limbaugh said. “What an absolute crock. Anyway, after talking about all the wonderful, great, miraculous things he did with General Motors, then what did he say? ‘It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs. An America built to last, insists on responsibility from everybody.’ Now, maybe I’m a bitter clinger, but the car companies appear to have received a bailout to me. The UAW got a bailout to me, and the UAW was handed General Motors and Chrysler, if you ask me. Now, I don’t know what that is if it’s not a bailout. So he spends a whole speech talking about, ‘No more bailouts. We’re not gonna do that! No handouts, no cop-outs,’ and then he gives as his greatest example of American prosperity a company he bailed out! Who wrote this? This speech was an embarrassment.”

Limbaugh noted there were numerous facts Obama omitted from his address:

He didn’t talk about the 13.1 million unemployed Americans. He didn’t talk about the 5.6 million unemployed Americans who have been on unemployment longer than 27 weeks. He didn’t talk about 8.1 million involuntary part-time workers. He didn’t talk about the falling civilian labor-force participation rate was 64 percent. The number of jobs, the universe of jobs shrinking, didn’t bring that up. Didn’t talk about the national debt, $15.2 trillion, five trillion of which is his! Do you realize one-third of our entire national debt as a nation over 200 years, one-third of it is his, his alone. Of course he didn’t bring it up. He didn’t talk about the Keystone pipeline.

This speech was so filled with contradictions. He talked about teamwork is what made America great? Teamwork? Do you know, ladies and gentlemen, how wrong that is? Do you know what our founding documents are about? The rights and freedom of the individual versus government. There’s nothing about teamwork. There’s nothing about compromise, getting along and working together. The whole point of this government, the whole point of this country, the whole point of this founding was to champion the power and the rights and the civil rights and the freedoms and the liberty of the individual over government. I’m gonna tell you, if anybody on our side running for office anywhere – Senate, House, president – is on their game, this is an immediate, I mean they have just, Obama unwittingly has tossed a softball with the bases loaded.

This is worth two grand slams, this whole concept of teamwork, when this country was premised on the power, the rights of the individual, on the uniqueness of all of us, that we are different, that we all bring different things. Then there was this, whatever we do, we gotta have fairness. There must be fairness. That’s a code word for class warfare. Fairness is in the liberal dictionary, and it gives them the opportunity, the right, the power to redistribute wealth. That’s what fairness is. …

Actually it wasn’t a State of the Union; it was actually a Class Warfare Rally last night in the House chamber on every network. To put this in perspective. So the magic, the Messiah, the hope and change, all that, it’s gone. The magic, all that stuff, it’s gone. Last night was deadbeat city. It really was.