Barack Obama's planned European tour might make a major whistlestop in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The candidate's schedule isn't set, but a Berlin appearance before the end of July looks likely.
Plans for a visit by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic candidate for President of the United States, have moved forward -- slowly -- in Berlin, where he may give a speech before the Brandenburg Gate this summer.
Germany's ambassador to Washington, Klaus Scharioth, has reportedly worked for weeks to convince Obama's campaign that the candidate's only large European appearance should take place in Berlin. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier talked to Obama by phone last April and learned that he might visit Germany. In the meantime, according to SPIEGEL sources, Steinmeier's staff has set plans in motion for an Obama appearance in the capital by the end of July.
Both Steinmeier and his boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, have expressed willingness to meet Obama. A member of Obama's campaign has already met with Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, and the Secret Service has reportedly started to investigate security questions surrounding a visit.
No location has been announced, but the Berlin Senate has reportedly been asked whether Obama can speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate, where former US President Ronald Reagan gave a famous speech in 1987. Reagan made a show of asking then-Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall.
The Brandenburg Gate has fresh significance for an American presidential candidate, since a large new US embassy officially opened there on July 4.
Former US President John F. Kennedy gave a famous Berlin speech of his own in 1963, but he appeared in front of the town hall in Schöneberg -- then the seat of government in West Berlin -- which lies several miles from the Brandenburg Gate.
The itinerary for Obama's summer tour includes France, Great Britain, Jordan and Israel. Berlin's Mayor Wowereit said, "It would be a good signal for German-American relations if the presidential candidate paid his respects in Berlin."
For all Senator Barack Obamas success raising money and generating excitement among voters, he faces a daunting challenge as he prepares to claim the nomination in August: a Democratic convention effort marred by costly setbacks and embarrassing delays.
With the Denver convention less than two months away, problems range from the serious upwardly spiraling costs on key contracts still being negotiated to the more mundane, like the reluctance of local caterers to participate because of stringent rules on what delegates will be eating, down to the color of the food. At last count, plans to renovate the inside of the Pepsi Center for the Democrats are $6 million over budget, which may force convention planners to scale back on their original design or increase their fund-raising goals.
The convention is being organized by the Democratic National Committee, which is run by Howard Dean, with his chief of staff, the Rev. Leah D. Daughtry, leading the effort. Only in the last month has the Obama campaign been able to take over management of the convention planning with the candidate claiming the nomination, and his aides are increasingly frustrated, as the event nears, at organizers who they believe spent too freely, planned too slowly and underestimated actual costs.
The Obama campaign has dispatched 10 people to Denver to help get a handle on the budget and make hard decisions about what has to be done and how to move forward, said Bill Burton, a campaign spokesman.
With Democrats seeking to use the convention to move past the bitterness of their bruising primary fight, the gathering in Denver Aug. 25-28 is likely to draw intense interest as the Obama forces try to show a once-divided party rallying around the nominee. And their convention comes a week before the Minneapolis gathering of the Republicans, whose convention efforts have been much smoother.
Some of the Democratic missteps started almost immediately after planning for the event began. The Democratic National Campaign Committee turned down a chance to get cheap office space and decided to rent top-quality offices in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to need less than half the space, which it then filled with rental furniture at $50,000 a month. And in a costly misstep, the Denver host committee, early on, told corporate donors that their contributions were not tax-deductible, rather than to encourage donations by saying that the tax-exempt application was pending and expected to be approved.
Overly ambitious environmental goals to turn the event into a green convention have backfired as only three states have agreed to participate in the program. Negotiations over where to locate demonstrators remain unsettled with members of the national news media concerned over proposals to locate the demonstrators with their loud gatherings next to the media tent.
And then there is the food: A 28-page contract requested that caterers provide food in at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white. Garnishes could not be counted toward the colors. No fried foods would be allowed. Organic and locally grown foods were mandated, and each plate had to be 50 percent fruits and vegetables. As a result, caterers are shying away.
An organically grown, union-produced, recycling-monitored, green-directed, rainbow-diet debacle; and that's without hippies and retro-reds rioting in the streets.
#1
And in a costly misstep, the Denver host committee, early on, told corporate donors that their contributions were not tax-deductible, rather than to encourage donations by saying that the tax-exempt application was pending and expected to be approved.
IOW - they should've lied to them?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2008 15:29 Comments ||
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#2
IOW - they should've lied to them?
Given how they lie everyday to the citizens of this nation, it probably would have more accurate to stipulate - Someone for once was actually honest!
This opinion article was written by me, Mike Sylwester
Barak Obama was born to an 18-year-old girl, Stanley Ann Dunham on August 4, 1961, supposedly in Hawaii. According to one of Stanley Ann's high school friends, Stanley Ann came with her baby to Mercer Island, Washington, during the month of August.
If Stanley Ann arrived from Hawaii to Mercer Island on the very last day of August, then Barak was only 26 days old.
If Stanley Ann arrived from Hawaii to Mercer Island in the middle of August, such as August 15, then Barak was only about 11 days old.
Stanley Ann had left Mercer Island against her will during the first months of 1960. She had wanted to graduate with her high-school class and then attend the University of Washington with some of her high-school friends. Her father, however, had forced her to leave Mercer Island and move to Hawaii, where he insisted that she attend the University of Hawaii. These events are described in The Seattle Times as follows:
Stanley Ann went to elementary school in Kansas before her father, a smooth-talking salesman, moved his family to Seattle in pursuit of work. The family rented an apartment in Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood in 1955 .... The Dunhams moved to Mercer Island in 1956 to get their daughter into the newly opened high school there. ....Dunham's father worked at the downtown Seattle furniture store Standard-Grunbaum and his wife commuted to Bellevue to work as an escrow officer ....
The 1950 census counted about 5,000 people, almost all white. Sanctioned deer hunts had stopped just a few years before the Dunhams arrived. ....
Dunham gravitated toward an intellectual clique. According to former classmate Chip Wall, she caught foreign films at Seattle's only art-house theater, the Ridgemont, and trekked to University District coffee shops like the Encore to talk about jazz, the value of learning from other cultures and the "very dull Eisenhower-ness of our parents."
"We were critiquing America in those days in the same way we are today: The press is dumbed down, education is dumbed down, people don't know anything about geography or the rest of the world," said Wall, who later taught at Mercer Island High and is now retired in Seattle. .....
One respite was found in a wing of Mercer Island High called "anarchy alley." Jim Wichterman taught a wide-open philosophy course that included Karl Marx. Next door, Val Foubert taught a rigorous dose of literature, including Margaret Mead's writings on homosexuality. Those classes prompted what Wichterman, now 80 and retired in Ellensburg, called "mothers' marches" of parents outraged at the curriculum. ...
"As much as a high-school student can, she'd question anything: What's so good about democracy? What's so good about capitalism? What's wrong with communism? What's good about communism?" Wichterman said. "She had what I call an inquiring mind." ....
But her father was restless. He found sales work in Hawaii, then newly a state. He insisted his daughter, who wouldn't turn 18 until November, attend the University of Hawaii, [Barak Obama's half-sister] Soetoro-Ng said. ....
Dunham hadn't had a boyfriend in high school, according to Maxine Box, her best friend at the time. So Box and others were stunned when Dunham wrote them to say she'd married the University of Hawaii's first African student, a Kenyan named Barack Obama. She gave birth to Barack Obama Jr. in August 1961. ....
Susan Blake, another high-school classmate, said that during a brief visit [to Mercer Island] in 1961, Dunham was excited about her husband's plans to return to Kenya. ....
By 1962, Dunham had returned to Seattle as a single mother, enrolling in the UW for spring quarter and living in an apartment on Capitol Hill. ...
Stanley Ann must have become pregnant at about the beginning of November 1960. Where was she and what was she doing at that time? Was she in Hawaii and attending the University of Hawaii, as her father had insisted she do?
Is there a record that she had enrolled at the University of Hawaii? Is there a record that the baby's father Barak Obama, Sr., had enrolled at the University of Hawaii?
According to a high-school friend, Stanley Ann and her baby passed through Mercer Island, Washington, on on their way to see Barack Sr. at Harvard in Boston ... Barack Sr. was not present at his sons birth.
But if Barak Sr. was a student at the University of Hawaii, then why was he not present at his son's birth in Hawaii, and why was he instead at Harvard University in Boston?
Was Barak Sr. a Harvard student who visited Hawaii during the summer of 1960? Did he meet Stanley Ann in Hawaii, and did she run away from home and follow Barak Sr. to Boston, where she became pregnant in November 1960? Did he tell her to get an abortion, and she refused? Did he then tell her to leave and go away? Did she then return to the state of Washington?
When the baby was due, did she decide to give birth to her illegitimate, mixed-race baby in progressive Canada, where there was not so much racial discrimination as there was in the USA in 1961? Did she perceive that her baby would live a better life if her baby always could claim Canadian citizenship later in life?
Canada is not far from Mercer Island. For example, Saanich, Canada, is only about 75 miles away. Vancouver, Canada is only about 100 miles away. A few days after the birth, she could easily and quickly travel from Barak's birthplace in nearby Canada to Mercer Island to show her new baby off to her amazed high-school friends.
.... Article Two, Section One of the Constitution ... requires that the President be a "natural born citizen" and not simply a naturalized citizen. The issue is whether there is proof that Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, the legal status of his mother at the time, and what exactly is written on the original birth certificate -- if it in fact such a certificate exists. .....
If Obama were born outside the United States, one could argue that he would not meet the legal definition of natural-born citizen -- because U.S. law at the time of his birth required his natural-born parent (his mother) to have resided in the United States for '10 years, at least [f]ive of which had to be after the age of 16.' ...
Ann Dunham, Obama's mother, was 18 when Obama was born "so she wouldn't have met the requirement of five years after the age of 16." According to FindLaw.com ... the requirements that were in force from Dec. 24, 1952 to Nov. 13, 1986, encompassing the time of Obama's birth, state, "If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least 10 years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." ....
In response to mounting media questions about the failure of the Barack Obama presidential campaign to produce the presumptive Democratic nominee's birth certificate, an official spokesman of the campaign has endorsed as genuine the image of a document purporting to be his "birth certificate." But some who have examined that image in high resolution claim inconsistencies and irregularities which suggest that the purported document is a forgery. Its high profile use by the campaign, they claim, suggests an attempt to conceal the truth of Obama's birth circumstances and citizenship qualifications from the American people.
The campaign has posted only a low-resolution image of that document, which it claims is his "birth certificate," on its "Fight the Smears" website .... On its face, this document does not even presume to be a copy of the original birth certificate -- contrary to the claims of the Obama campaign -- but rather a secondary Certification of Live Birth, which may be used when the original birth certificate can't be located, and can be produced after the fact with just the affadavits of a family member, or even the child himself. ...
The "birth certificate" claimed by the Barack Obama campaign is not certified as authentic and appears to be a photoshopped fake. The image, purporting to come from the Hawaii Department of Health, has been the subject of intense skepticism in the blogosphere in the past two weeks. But now the senior spokesman of that Department has confirmed to Israel Insider what are the required features of a certified birth document -- features that Obama's purported "birth certificate" clearly lack. .....
.... Daily Kos obtained the image from Photobucket, not the State of Hawaii, the Obama family, or the Obama campaign. Photobucket is not generally known as a credible supplier of official vital records for any of the fifty states, and the liberties that other Photoshoppers took with the certificates confirms this. .....
An authentic Hawaiian birth certificate for another Hawaiian individual has since surfaced which, using the same official form as the presumptive Obama certificate, includes an embossed official seal and an authoritative signature, coming through from the back. Obama's alleged certificate lacks those features, and the certificate number referencing the birth year has been blacked out, making it untraceable.
Janice Okubo, Director of Communications of the State of Hawaii Department of Health, told Israel Insider: "At this time there are no circumstances in which the State of Hawaii Department of Health would issue a birth certification or certification of live birth only electronically." And, she added, "In the State of Hawaii all certified copies of certificates of live birth have the embossed seal and registrar signature on the back of the document." .....
So if he were registered as being born in Hawaii, Barack Obama -- because only he or another member of his immediate family could by law request a "Certification of Live Birth" [COLB] -- must have a certified paper copy, with embossed stamp and seal, or he could request one. But what his campaign has put forward as genuine, according to the senior spokesman in the relevant department of the State of Hawaii, is not in fact a certified copy. It is not valid. .....
A senior official in the State of Hawaii's Department of Health, Director of Communications Janice Okubo, confirms that the image published and circulated by the Obama campaign as his "birth certificate" lacks the necessary embossed seal and signature. Backing away from a quote attributed to her that the image on the campaign site was "valid," she told the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times in an article published yesterday: "I don't know that it's possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents." .....
Jay McKinnon, who says he is 25-30 years old, operates a website called opendna.com and uses the opendna screen name on various web sites and blogs, including his comments and diary on The Daily Kos. In recent years he has divided his time between Long Beach, California and Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a Democratic political activist, frequent contributor to the left wing Daily Kos blog, and a fervent Barack Obama supporter.
opendna posted on his Photobucket album two versions of a "Certification of Live Birth" document image ... Both have a common visual signature (a dot that appears on all four images) with the images posted on the Daily Kos site image that the Obama campaign has endorsed as genuine on its "Fight the Smears" website .....
One image created and posted by opendna is what he describes as a "blank template" of a State of Hawaii Certification of Live Birth. Only two data fields are filled in: the ISLAND OF BIRTH ("Oahu") and the HOUR OF BIRTH (7:24 PM). ..... However, the ISLAND OF BIRTH and the HOUR OF BIRTH is identical on the "Haye I.B Ahphorgerie" and blank certificates as well as the purported "Obama birth certificate," which also claims 7:24 pm as the HOUR OF BIRTH and Oahu as the ISLAND OF BIRTH. The odds of an identical time occurring by chance in two certificates is 1440 to 1. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/05/2008 09:51 ||
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#1
This is a non-issue. Ms. Dunham was an American citizen, and gave birth in an American state, Hawaii. By the 14th amendment Barack Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
To demonstrate otherwise, you'd need convincing evidence that he wasn't born in an American state or possession. I know there's a kerfluffle out there in the die-hard Hillary blogs about whether or not the birth certificate that the Obama campaign has presented is legit, but it doesn't matter if indeed he was born in Hawaii.
Again: Hawaii in 1961 was a state. If you're an American woman and you give birth in any of the 57 50 states, you child is a natural born American citizen.
Best thing the Obama campaign could do is hold a press conference and have him wave his OBC to the crowd.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2008 12:28 Comments ||
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#2
As a second point: this issue may be all the rage in the die-hard Hillary blogs, but there's no reason for us to dive into it. The 48 hour rule applies with lots and LOTS of salt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/05/2008 12:29 Comments ||
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#3
Until he releases his bc this will keep up. Cause he's hiding something. Same with Clinton's med records.
#4
To demonstrate otherwise, you'd need convincing evidence that he wasn't born in an American state or possession.
It seems to me that he ought to have to prove that he was born in an American state or possession. That was never at issue up until his presidential run, since all other public offices are open to non natural-born citizens. No one's ever questioned him on it to the extent necessary to force documentation, but it's a real issue. Shouldn't there be an authority that vets presidential eligibility instead of relying on the candidate's assertions?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2008 14:32 Comments ||
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#6
The child of an American citizen is automatically an American citizen, no matter where born, is what I was told when pregnant in Germany with trailing daughter #2. However, if that child is not born in the U.S. or on American territory (including Armed Forces base hospitals abroad, as bases are considered U.S. territory), then its child must be born in the U.S. in order to gain that automatic right to citizenship. So unless something really wonky happened when he was born, both Barack Hussein Obama and his daughters are unblemished American citizens. Trailing daughter #2, however, must make sure to come back Stateside to bear her children, should she be abroad when they are conceived.
#9
This is stuff that the non-Obama liberals in particular want to talk about, IMHO, because they spent the last five years flooding the airwaves with Barack Obama's platform, and that anyone who voted for the war was either stupid, corrupt, or both. They did so in such a way as to make sure that an adult could not win either the nomination or the election.
Well, guess what Hillary did in 2003?
So basically, they're yentzed unless they can reveal that Obama is actually a reptilian parasite from the planet P3X-888. Or something like that.
#10
IIUC there are issues with his mother's age above age 16, yadda yadda, but...
IMHO there is no way the SCOTUS or anyone else would throw out his candidacy at this point. He should show his proof and then everyone shuts up. If he doesn't it'll be a continuing sore with bigger conspiracies and net rumors....
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2008 16:08 Comments ||
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#11
TW, the law in effect at the time required both parents to be citizens for the automatic birthright to kick in.
Thats why McCain and all others born of 2 US citizens abroad are "natural born".
The problem comes when only one parent is a citizen and the other is not.
Obama's father was NOT a citizen, and his mother was not a citizen of the us for 5 years post 16th birthday (she was only 18). So the "5 years post 16" rules as detailed above, disqualify that route for "natural born".
However, the birth in Hawaii, whcih was a state, means the "natural born" part applies under the 14th amendment.
Now, if they can prove he was born outside the US, then he is INELIGIBLE to stand for election for POTUS.
The Clinton "bitter end-ers" seem inclined to try that though, because if Obama is pushed out, then Hillary is in.
Myself, I do not understand why Obama is hiding his birth certificate, and allowing forgeries to be posted by his supporters.
He can end this by doing what McCain did, and thats showing his real birth certificate.
The fact that he does not is what keeps this going with the Clinton dead-end bunch and some on right vehemently opposed to Obama.
And that's what mystifies me about the whole thing - why not end all the flap?
Proving foreign birth would be pretty difficult, and I consider it to be a huge reach.
In all likelihood this is a tempest in a teapot, and maybe Obama is using it as misdirection to hide other dirt on him that he doesnt want uncovered, so as to "pre-discredit" critics on both sides.
#14
Another possibility is she travelled from Hawaii by ship (long distance by ship was still common at that time) and he was born on board, which I believe would make Barack a national of the ship's country of registery.
Gateway Pundit has the video:
Murtha: I think they have 17 or so guidelines and they've solved 4 or 5 of them.
(Actually they've completed 15 of the 18 benchmarks.)
Murtha: I think the short term it (the Bush Surge) has reduced incidents. I'm not sure if it's because the Iraqis are just worn out but certainly the way they are doing it today it makes a big difference. It used to be we broke down doors. We went in and we killed people inadvertantly. Now they're much more careful about it. this POS is the Dem Party face.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2008 09:37 ||
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Murtha is either playing hard to the anti-war crowd that is completely delusional, or he has gone what is medically known as "Bat-shit-bonkers".
I vote for the second theory and believe he should be put away for our safety and his.
#2
I'm voting for the "bat-shit-bonkers" alternative. We have age requirements for some federal jobs. We have requirements for concealed carry permits. We have requirements for driving a car. However, the requirements for Congress aren't very high or non-existent other than a belly button.
#8
It's bat-shit-bonkers. No question. This guy's been over the rainbow for quite some time. I wonder who ties his shoes for him? That's what you call enabling. Same as Rosalyn does for Jimmy.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/05/2008 12:31 Comments ||
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#9
Watch the Donks in his district go to fed court to get the corpse seated after he dies cause when he does the district is going to have zero seniority and earmarks. May they enjoy their obscurity for a generation, or two.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
For all Senator Barack Obamas success raising money and generating excitement among voters, he faces a daunting challenge as he prepares to claim the nomination in August: a Democratic convention effort marred by costly setbacks and embarrassing delays. 
