[Vision2020] Tax Activist's Ad Challenges Obama's Eligibility for Office

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (December 3, 2008) Chicago Tribune -

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Tax activist's ad challenges Obama's eligibility for office
The Tribune examines allegations about president-elect's 'natural born 
citizen' status
By Sara Olkon and James Janega

Tribune reporters

December 3, 2008

An anti-tax activist from upstate New York who is questioning whether 
President-elect Barack Obama is a "natural born citizen" eligible for the 
nation's top job said Tuesday that his non-profit group spent "tens of 
thousands of dollars" to get his message across in ads in the Chicago 
Tribune this week.

Robert L. Schulz, 69, chairman of We The People Foundation, took out ads 
Monday and Wednesday to raise questions about whether Obama's Hawaii 
certificate of live birth is authentic.

The ads echo accusations circulated online by some Obama opponents before 
the election. Cases challenging Obama's citizenship have been tossed out 
of courts in several states, and Hawaiian officials have vouched for the 
authenticity of Obama's birth certificate, which is locked in a state 
vault. The Obama campaign likewise has always dismissed the accusations.

Nevertheless, some critics remain dubious.

Here are the allegations raised in Schulz's ad, and some relevant facts:

•The birth form released by Obama was "an unsigned, forged and thoroughly 
discredited" live birth form, Schulz says. 

Last summer, Obama's campaign presented a digital copy of his certificate 
of live birth. After critics questioned its authenticity, staff at 
FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the 
University of Pennsylvania, said they had seen, held and examined the 
actual birth certificate.

•"Hawaiian officials will not confirm" that Obama was born in their state, 
Schulz says.

Initially, Hawaiian officials said that privacy laws prevented them from 
releasing a copy or confirming that Obama's copy was authentic. But in 
late October as questions persisted, Hawaii's health director and head of 
vital statistics reviewed Obama's birth certificate in the department's 
vault and vouched for its authenticity.

•Schulz says that legal affidavits state Obama was born in Kenya.

The affidavits that Schulz refers to are filings by the Obama critics 
themselves in the court cases challenging Obama's citizenship.

•Obama's paternal grandmother is recorded on tape saying she attended 
Obama's birth in Kenya, Schulz says.

The group's Web site posted what it says is a transcript of a long-
distance phone conversation in Swahili and English from late October 
between a questioner in the United States and Sarah Hussein Obama, in her 
Kenyan home. The translator said he was one of two interpreters conducting 
the interview in a crowded hut during a celebration, over a speaker phone 
that dropped the call three times. A copy of the recording was not 
provided by Schulz.

• Schulz says that "U.S. law in effect in 1961 [the year of Obama's birth] 
denied citizenship to any child born in Kenya if the father was Kenyan and 
the mother was not yet 19 years of age."

If a child is born in the United States—as Hawaiian officials state that 
Obama was—that child is a U.S. citizen regardless of his or her parents' 
nationalities. If born to an American parent outside the U.S., the law at 
the time would require the U.S. citizen parent to be at least 19, which 
Obama's mother was not. The provisions of this law were subsequently 
loosened and made retroactive for government employees serving abroad and 
their families. It appears that this would not apply to Obama's mother. 
The matter would seem to be academic: Hawaiian officials vouch for Obama's 
birth certificate.

•Schulz says that in 1965, Obama's mother relinquished whatever Kenyan or 
U.S. citizenship she and Obama had by marrying an Indonesian and becoming 
a naturalized Indonesian citizen.

U.S. law lists the specific acts and formal procedures necessary to 
relinquish U.S. nationality. The statute requires the acts be performed 
voluntarily and with the intention of relinquishing one's nationality. In 
many instances, one must be 18 to renounce one's citizenship. Obama moved 
to Indonesia in 1968 and moved back to Hawaii while still in grade school. 
There is no indication that Obama renounced his U.S. citizenship.

Schulz supports his argument with a reproduced Indonesian school document 
that states Obama's citizenship at that time as "Indonesian." But the same 
document also lists Obama's birthplace as " Honolulu, Hawaii."

Schulz, interviewed by the Tribune on Tuesday, said his concern about 
Obama's citizenship is not partisan.

"We never get involved in politics," he said of We The People. "We avoid 
it like the plague."

Tax debate is fair game, however. The Queensbury, N.Y., man has been 
active on tax issues for nearly 30 years. Last year, a senior judge in the 
Northern District of New York ordered Schulz to shut down a Web site that 
sold advice on avoiding taxes.

Asked about the case, Schulz said the government has tried to silence him.

He hopes the Tribune ads bring his group prominence.

Schulz said his group also considered a similar ad in USA Today, but said 
the cost was prohibitive. He said his group considered both the Chicago 
Sun-Times and the Tribune, but said his group settled on the Tribune 
because of the size of its pages and its larger circulation. He would not 
specify how much his group spent on two days of full-page ads except to 
say they cost tens of thousands of dollars and were paid for by donations 
from supporters.

A Tribune advertising spokesman said the newspaper has standards for what 
ads it will accept and that the ad met those standards.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapse Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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