Category: politics

Berg vs Obama: Response to Supreme Court due December 1

Many bloggers have been aware of the challenge to Barack Obama’s citizenship from Philip Berg, Hillary Clinton supporter and attorney from Philadelphia. I have not followed the situation much because to me, it seems improbable that any merit can be established for the claims. And recently, some blogs are reporting that Obama has until December 1 to produce his “real” birth certificate. What is accurate is that the Supreme Court via Justice David Souter has given President-elect Obama, the DNC and other defendants until December 1 to respond to the court case dismissed by the Third Circuit in late-October.
Here is the Docket entry from the Supreme Court website:

No. 08-570
Title: Philip J. Berg, Petitioner
v.
Barack Obama, et al.
Docketed: October 31, 2008
Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Case Nos.: (08-4340)
Rule 11
~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oct 30 2008 Petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment filed. (Response due December 1, 2008)
Oct 31 2008 Application (08A391) for an injunction pending disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Nov 3 2008 Supplemental brief of applicant Philip J. Berg filed.
Nov 3 2008 Application (08A391) denied by Justice Souter.
——————————————————————————–
~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioner:
Philip J. Berg 555 Andorra Glen Court, Suite 12 (610) 825-3134
Lafayette Hill, PA 09867
Party name: Philip J. Berg
Attorneys for Respondents:
Gregory G. Garre Solicitor General (202) 514-2217
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Party name: Federal Election Commission, et al.

I called the number listed on the Supreme Court website: Public Information Office: 202-479-3211, and asked the person who answered if the Obama camp had until December 1 to produce a birth certificate. She said she could not verify the specifics of the case but said Obama has until December 1 to produce a Brief in response to the Third Circuit case No. 08-4340.
UPDATE: Scott at the SCOTUS PIO recommended this document which provides the press with an understanding of stays and writs of certiorari. Most such applications are denied but this one is pending. From the document:

There are several possible scenarios for the disposition of an application:
• A Justice may simply deny without comment or explanation.
• If a Justice acts alone to deny an application, a petitioner may reapply to any other Justice of his or her choice, and theoretically can continue until a majority of the Court has denied the application.
In practice, applications usually are referred to the full Court by the second Justice to avoid such a prolonged procedure.
• A Justice may call for a response from the opposition before reaching a final decision. Such responses are usually due by a date and time certain. The Justice may grant an interim stay pending receipt of a response.
• A Justice may grant. If an application is granted by an individual Justice, or if the full Court acts upon one, its disposition is indicated by a written order or sometimes, an opinion. An order granting an application will indicate how long the order will remain in effect—usually until the Court acts on the petition for writ of certiorari. In fairly standard language, the order will often go on to state that if the petition is denied, the stay will automatically terminate, but if the Court grants full review, the stay will remain in effect until the Court hands down a decision on the merits and the mandate or judgment is issued.

Point three appears to be the category of this case. The Obama camp may or may not respond. If the court grants the writ of certiorari, then one might expect to see more reporting about this case.
UPDATE – 12/2/08 – Lisa Liberi from Philip Berg’s office wrote to say that the Solicitor General is only representing the Federal Election Commission. Obama, and the DNC have separate counsel but the Court has had no response from them. According to Liberi, SCOTUS was waiting a week in case the responses had been mailed. A conference date with the full Court regarding the certiorari petition will be scheduled after the week passes. She also noted that Berg has a petition in the works to prevent Electors from casting Obama votes in the Electoral College.
UPDATE: 12/8/08 – Berg today filed an application with the SCOTUS for a stay of the Electoral College vote. A quick check of the docket shows it reflects this filing.
UPDATE: 12/10/08 – Late yesterday, Justice Souter denied Berg’s request to stop the Electoral College from voting for Obama.
Related Posts
Berg vs Obama: A brief update
Berg vs Obama: Dept of Justice Waives Right to Respond to Petition
Berg vs Obama: Update and current status
Donofrio vs Wells: NJ Obama citizenship case slated for SCOTUS conference
UPDATE: 1/2/09 – Add the following events and planned SCOTUS conferences to the above docket:

Nov 18 2008 Waiver of right of respondents Federal Election Commission, et al. to respond filed.
Dec 1 2008 Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Bill Anderson.
Dec 8 2008 Application (08A505) for an injunction pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Dec 9 2008 Application (08A505) denied by Justice Souter.
Dec 15 2008 Application (08A505) refiled and submitted to Justice Kennedy.
Dec 17 2008 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 9, 2009.
Dec 17 2008 Application (08A505) denied by Justice Kennedy.
Dec 18 2008 Application (08A505) refiled and submitted to Justice Scalia.
Dec 23 2008 Application (08A505) referred to the Court.
Dec 23 2008 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 16, 2009.

Apparently, Berg will get his two days in court (1/9 & 1/16).

Bill Ayers speaks about the 2008 campaign

Late last week, Bill Ayers published an article with his reflections on the 2008 election in the far left In These Times.
The article raises more questions than it answers but hints that his relationship with Obama was minimal. He attacks McCain-Palin but doesn’t really address the issues they raised. He repeats the now questionable charge that someone at a Palin rally shouted “Kill him” about Obama.
He begins:

Whew! What was all that mess? I’m still in a daze, sorting it all out, decompressing.
Pass the Vitamin C.
For the past few years, I have gone about my business, hanging out with my kids and, now, my grandchildren, taking care of our elders (they moved in as the kids moved out), going to work, teaching and writing. And every day, I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice.
In years past, I would now and then—often unpredictably—appear in the newspapers or on TV, sometimes with a reference to Fugitive Days, my 2001 memoir of the exhilarating and difficult years of resistance against the American war in Vietnam. It was a time when the world was in flames, revolution was in the air, and the serial assassinations of black leaders disrupted our utopian dreams.
These media episodes of fleeting notoriety always led to some extravagant and fantastic assertions about what I did, what I might have said and what I probably believe now.

The victim card comes out – ‘I was just minding my own business and then all these people began fussing about me and bombing things.’ If the assertions are so fantastic, Mr. Ayers, then how about setting the record straight? I am not sure why he writes this stuff to In These Times readers since most of them know his background.

During the primary, the blogosphere was full of chatter about my relationship with President-elect Barack Obama. We had served together on the board of the Woods Foundation and knew one another as neighbors in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In 1996, at a coffee gathering that my wife, Bernardine Dohrn, and I held for him, I made a donation to his campaign for the Illinois State Senate.
Obama’s political rivals and enemies thought they saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest perception that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist who sympathizes with extremism—and they pounced.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) campaign provided the script, which included guilt by association, demonization of people Obama knew (or might have known), creepy questions about his background and dark hints about hidden secrets yet to be uncovered.
On March 13, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), apparently in an attempt to reassure the “base,” sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. McCain was not yet aware of the narrative Hannity had been spinning for months, and so Hannity filled him in: Ayers is an unrepentant “terrorist,” he explained, “On 9/11, of all days, he had an article where he bragged about bombing our Pentagon, bombing the Capitol and bombing New York City police headquarters. … He said, ‘I regret not doing more.’ “
McCain couldn’t believe it.
Neither could I.

How about the Annenberg Challenge? Perhaps, he didn’t intend this to be an exhaustive list of his affiliations with Mr. Obama. At any rate, he minimizes the connection as he leaves unanswered what attracted them to host a coffee for the young Illinois state Senator in the first place.
Ayers attacks Hannity but does not address the substance of Hannity’s narrative.
As close as he gets to a characterization of his relationship with Obama is here:

Obama has continually been asked to defend something that ought to be at democracy’s heart: the importance of talking to as many people as possible in this complicated and wildly diverse society, of listening with the possibility of learning something new, and of speaking with the possibility of persuading or influencing others.
The McCain-Palin attacks not only involved guilt by association, they also assumed that one must apply a political litmus test to begin a conversation.

I am sensitive the guilt-by-association tactic, as gay activists have played it against me in far less important battles. However, I think it is fair to ask questions about these relationships and expect that people will judge you by the company you keep when you are a relatively unknown quantity. And it is fair to provide an explanation of appearances. Obama’s initial explanation of his relationship with Ayers was not helpful (“just a guy in the neighborhood” “This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood…”), and he had to be forced by narrators like O’Reilly and others to extract more.
There is irony, some would say hypocrisy exposed in this article. On one hand, Ayers recounts the article on 9/11 where he says he should have done more to stop the war in Vietnam (more than bombing government buildings), and then calls the police to defend him against those who were upset by his lack of repentance. Bomb the police, call the police; is it all the same to Ayers?
He may well turn out to be a footnote on the campaign. Like so much about those who have recently taken power, we will have to wait to find out.

Obama's new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on Freddie Mac board during scandal

Well, (some of) the media remembered how to investigate. RE: Rahm Emanuel’s time on the Freddie Mac board, ABC reports:

President-elect Barack Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot “red flags,” according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com.
President-elect Barack Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot “red flags,” according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com. According to a complaint later filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Freddie Mac, known formally as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, misreported profits by billions of dollars in order to deceive investors between the years 2000 and 2002.
Emanuel was not named in the SEC complaint but the entire board was later accused by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) of having “failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention.”

When (if) the MSM report this story in depth, it will report that some in the GOP saw the problems early on but were blocked by the Democrats in leadership. I am looking for primary sources on this but a number of bloggers report that Emanuel blocked efforts to reform Freddie and Fannie. In 2006, Dems (who had won control of the Congress) were identified as standing in the way of reform:

Democrats are likely to block a Republican proposal to cut the $1.4 trillion combined mortgage assets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Republicans have pushed to scale back the investments of the government-chartered mortgage companies, arguing the holdings are so large they threaten to destabilize financial markets.
Frank’s View
Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, who is in line to chair the House Financial Services Committee, said discussions with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson may still produce a deal.
Any measure would have to include an increase in the share of profits the two mortgage giants must donate to a fund to help low-income people buy housing, Frank said in an Oct. 31 interview. “I am going to get as much as I can,” he said.
Frank also says he plans to push legislation to give company shareholders more power to review stock options and other bonuses for corporate executives.

The irony is that the recent banking/credit crisis derailed the McCain campaign and played a large role in the election outcome. The roots of the current bailout apparently go back at least to the Congressional transition in 2006 when Barney Frank held off a deal on Freddie and Fannie in order to give money to finance low income housing purchases (read: ACORN Housing, and other ways to finance home purchases, many of which were risky loans). And recall, that the first bailout package offered up by the Frank-Dodd-Paulson group included the same kind of mechanism, funneling money to support risky deals. Barney Frank said, “I’m going to get all I can.” And now the Dems have done a very skillful job of convincing many that the credit crisis was none of their doing.

In other words, the old politics is the new politics

“Obama the brand” says we need change in Washington; “Obama the man” picks Rahm(bo) Emanuel, a Chicago-trained, Washington insider as his first pick.
Details…
Rahm Emanuel was a board member with Freddie Mac. Via News Alert, the Chicago Sun-Times reported:

Political resume: 1980s, starts with Illinois Public Action Council: runs House Democratic field operations. Fund-raiser for Sen. Paul Simon, Mayor Daley campaigns. Launches alliance with media strategist David Axelrod, his key adviser.
1990s, starts his opposition research firm. 1991, joins the Bill Clinton presidential campaign, moves to Little Rock, Ark. Saves Clinton by raising millions while Clinton is dogged by the Gennifer Flowers scandal.
Clinton White House years: Rewarded with job as White House political director in January 1993. Demoted by June. Resurrected by taking on NAFTA (with Bill Daley), other policy projects. Escapes controversy during impeachment. Leaves White House in 1998, never having to hire a lawyer. Clinton loyalist.
Chicago: Returns to Ravenswood, makes millions as an investment banker in a few deals; tapped by Clinton for a plum spot on Freddie Mac board; Daley appointee on CHA board. Wins House seat in 2002 with help of Daley Machine. Daley loyalist.
Congress: Came in with a running start because he knew Dem leaders from Clinton White House and was seen as a fund-raiser who could work the elite donor network. Demands seat on Ways and Means Committee as price for taking on political job; chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The best quote: “He’s as cold-blooded as I need him to be to make the decisions.” — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Emanuel, May 27 National Journal.

Is there (pro)life after the Obama victory?

In a Christianity Today article yesterday, Sarah Pulliam wrote about how an Obama administration might impact abortion and pro-life objectives.

In 2007, Obama promised Planned Parenthood that he would sign an act removing all restrictions on abortion at the state and federal level. He has also said he would appoint justices that would uphold Roe v. Wade.
Obama appealed to evangelicals by emphasizing his desire to reduce unintended pregnancies by providing more resources for women to carry pregnancies to term. Today the number of abortions—1.2 million in 2005—is nearly the same as in 1976, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
“Barack Obama will be held accountable on a serious commitment to abortion reduction,” said Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners. “He called for that, his campaign platform said that, and he should be held accountable to that. He needs prayer and accountability, support and pushing, both at the same time.”

I was surprised but pleased to read this quote from Jim Wallis. As I am able, I will try to hold the evangelical left to his call to hold Obama accountable.
The pre-election argument against Wallis and other evangelicals who supported Obama was that there is little chance Obama can make good on that promise. Obama supports taxpayer funded abortions and the Freedom of Choice Act. Both proposals almost certainly will increase the numbers of abortions. Making financial support more accessible to low income women may act as incentive to keep some unwanted pregnancies. However, providing increased funding for abortion might offset any of these reductions. The Freedom of Choice Act would invalidate all current restrictions on abortion and would most likely add to the abortion numbers.
The pro-life movement was dealt a body-blow by the election of Obama along with the defeat of pro-life propositions around the country. One wonders what common ground, if any, can be found with an administration and a Congress who seeks abortion without limitation.