If you can't beat Obama subpoena him

Yeah the weirdest story of the week in the Presidential race comes from Georgia, home state of Newt Gingrich.. It is there that Californian attorney and "birther" Orly Taitz has managed to get one justice to actually look at her one of her various lawsuits trying to ban Obama from the State Primary on 9th March. Others have failed.

The court hearing is scheduled for today and Georgia Deputy Chief Justice Michael Malihi has subpoenaed the President to appear before him today n the grounds that his filings to Georgia's secretary of state fail to show why his attendance would be "unreasonable or oppressive," or why his testimony would be "irrelevant, immaterial or cumulative."

I'm sure one of the documents that were passed on to Georgia was the following, issued by the State of Hawaii on 8 August 1961.

Of course the guy who he beat in 2008 was John McCain, born 29th August 1936 at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone.

One wonders what would have happened had his non-American parent not been black and African.

The presumptive Democratic nominee for President is actively campaigning today, but no in the State of Georgia.

Looking at the text of the 14th Amendment it is clear that he qualifies, through section one from the place of his birth. His mother being a natural born American from the State of Kansas he was not the child of an illegal immigrant. His mother and her parents are American. He was raised by them.

14th Amendment to the US Constitution (adopted 9 July 1868)

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Even if both his parents had not been native born American's the fact that he was would make Barack Obama a Natual Born Citizen. This was tested in the Supreme Court in 1898 by by Wong Kim Ark who was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. This ruled that Wong was a natural born citizen of the USA.

The birthers really do not have a legal leg to stand on in this case are are merely showing prejudice as well as being sore losers. But of course not being native born, McCain did qualify to run for President even though he wasn't born in the US because his parents were American. Strangely the birthers never challenged McCain's eligibility to run or serve as President.

Update: Reading the reports of what happened in court today it appears that the main thrust of the plaintiff's cliams are that because Obama's father is saying because he was not an American citizen, neither is the President. If that is the main thrust it is unconstitutional and should not be admissible in court, see the above.

Romney got owned by Gingrich

When Associated Press finally join the other news organisations a whole half hour after the pools close you know the exit polls had to be clear. CBS and Fox had taken all of 4 minutes, ABC and CNN eight.

As I write this with 85% of the results reported the result in South Carolina is (final result in red):

• Newt Gingrich 40.4% 40.4%
• Mitt Romney 27.1% 27.8%
• Rick Santorum 17.4% 17.0%
• Ron Paul 13.4% 13.0%

That is as much of an owning of a state result as Romney managed in New Hampshire. In fact it is more so. But then like New Hampshire the winner came from a neighbouring state.

So where does that leave the Republican party nomination race as they head to Florida.

First up Gingrich has the momentum, but as was pointed out in the coverage I heard he is not on every state's ballot at the moment. He says that if he is nominated he will challenge Obama to seven three hour dabates. He is talking like a winner after tonight, he is talking about taking on Obama not his opponents. 

Romney took a bit of a pasting here. Before his supporters knew the cameras were live you saw the frowns. He outspent Gingrich with $2.4m of ad buy to $612,000. So although he is getting his message out there one thing is lacking. The exit polls revealed that he had lost his lead in who do see most likely to beat Obama in November. That honour now goes to Gingrich, possibly because of the way he ended up swinging from the start of the debate on Thursday, when a week ago that was Romney. 

Romney also came out swinging at Gingrich saying that as he'd never run a state or a business. The counter punch came when Newt said he was the only speaker in the supporters' lifetimes that had supervised four consecutive balanced budgets. The fight is on.

Rick Santorum has done well enough to stay in the race. His speech was one that would allow him to be an asset to whomever happens to win this race. Indeed he opened in praise of his colleague in the House of Representatives. As I said earlier if he didn't put up a good position here he may as well pack up and head home. As it is he has done enough to keep on with the fight. He will be waiting to see if Romney and Gingrich manage to destroy each other in the crossfire they are aiming at each other, he may well be the man to pick up the pieces and be the compromise candidate if things get so nasty as to make both of them a political liability.

As for Ron Paul, this was Christian country and his liberal message may not have gone done well with some of these southerners. But he carried on and on and on in his speech with his economic vision. However, he is the only man left in the race who has not yet won a statewide poll.  He said he will carry on, there are some caucusing states coming up where he has done well. He will still have picked up delegates here and as he said in his speech, before giggling his giggle, winning delegates is the name of the game. Wow! How insightful.  

So all four are left in, nobody was knocked out yet and this race is far from over and may well get even nastier in the weeks ahead. If it does it could still stir things up even more. But tonight Romney was owned by Gingrich. At point I tweeted that the Romney gap was closing....but only between him and Santorum as Gingrich edged further ahead as the results mounted up.

Polling day in South Carolina

It's been a week that one candidate's ex-wife claimed he wanted an open marriage. Another seemed to either lack or have the business acumen that made him successful as he stumbled over his tax returns. One was no longer strong enough to carry on and you didn't need to go to church to know that. One was actually ignored by the moderator in a debate (though the crowd booed that oversight). The one who speaks Chinese bowed to the inevitable and stopped his campaign. The other may have been declared winner in Iowa and looked deeper into the issue of fundamentalist Islam in a more thoughtful way that most GOP candidates before him.

In South Carolina voting is under way is what is heating up to be a GOP race. There are only four men left Mitt Romney who won in Iowa and New Hampshire, Rick Santorum who came second first in Iowa but performed poorly in New Hampshire, Ron Paul has shown strongly in both and Newt Gingrich who has come close to winning some counties but hasn't done so...yet.

Since 1980 the winner of the GOP South Carolina Primary has gone on to be the Republican nominee for President. So what does today hold for them all?

Mitt Romney picked up the endorsement of Jon Hunstman when he stepped aside on the 15th. He is still seen as the one to beat by the others and is running neck and neck with one of his rivals this time Gingrich. However, in the debate on Thursday night there were yet again concerns that the successful business man is using off shore banking to keep his taxes below that of the average working American. While this may be shrewd business practise in the world of politics it is seen as tax evasion especially to the Reagan Democrats that he seems keen to bring back from the Obama fold.

Newt Gingrich  has ridden the wave of his marital issues. Of course his marital issues are not so much the problem as at the time his second wife said he was suggesting an open marriage he was calling for a special prosecutor into the affairs of the man at the White House, Bill Clinton. So it smacks of hypocrisy. But he is doing just what he needs to do to keep his hope alive, a win or strong second here will keep him in the race. He picked up the backing of Rick Perry when he dropped out and Sarah Palin, though he did promise her a position once she came out in support, which may smack against the constitution and a promise of appointment by candidate.

Ron Paul will no doubt by the end of today be saying that this year the trend since 1980 is there to be broken. Not least because there is proportionality in the delegates this time rather than winner takes all. In all possibility even if Gingrich wins here today he would still be second in the number of delegates. He's ticking along with his libertarian take on what is needed to beat Obama and his $1 Trillion cuts in Washington spending by slashing 5 Departments he sees as superfluous is gathering momentum with a certain electorate.

Rick Santorum  may well be wishing that the eight Iowa districts that forgot to call in their results in the caucus had done so before New Hampshire. Then he would have been taking on New England's son having already beaten him once. As it is he trailed in behind the other 3, if only just behind Gingrich. He hasn't gone for the full out blood path that Romney and Gingrich seem to be playing on each other and Ron Paul. maybe it is true that the nice guy can't win, especially in the GOP. However, the fact that he is still here after some of the former front runners Bachmann and Perry have dropped out shows there must be some fight in him somewhere. If he stays in for the next stops on the itinerary he will have to bring it to the table and get back to the top of the lists to stay in this race. Of course not everywhere can be won by shaking every hand like Iowa and he is lacking the big financial backers to allow him to compete on a  even footing.

So after today at least three if not all four will probably still be feeling they have a chance to win this thing, as we head off to the sunshine state of Florida, where there is a scheduled debate on Monday night.

Strong redrafted by Rick Perry

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our former speaker can’t celebrate an open marriage with his mistress in Washington as his wife at home. As President, I'm sure that Gingrich's war on Clinton will not stop him having sex with that woman, or that woman, or that woman. And I'll fight against liberal attacks on his sexual history of cheating on his wives. Faith made America strong. It can make The current Mrs Gingrich strong again. I’m Rick Perry and I approve Newt Gingrich.

The original ad is below.



Yeah believe it or not on the day that the second wife of Newt Gingrich revealed he wanted an open marriage when he confessed to his six-year affair, has suspended his campaign. This man of faith who doesn't think gays can enter monogamous marriage, or serve openly in the US Military, is backing the hypocrite who ordered the equiry into the Lewinski affair before saying goodnight to his wife while his mistress was beside him in his bed.

Now that is a strong choice, NOT!


Update Having just read that Newt Gingrich is offering senior appointments to GOP endorsers. Oops that is another contravention of the US Constitution after saying he will over rule the Supreme Court earlier. So Perry is endorsing a felon, see below:

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 29 > § 599§ 599. Promise of appointment by candidate

Whoever, being a candidate, directly or indirectly promises or pledges the appointment, or the use of his influence or support for the appointment of any person to any public or private position or employment, for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Not all the world speaks English (American) #GOP

Considering that Nick Clegg can speak Dutch, Spanish, German and French as well as English of course which while this polyglotism is astounding is not shunned by British voters the same is not the case it would seem in America.

First of all there was shocking adverts by a group supporing Ron Paul about the fact that former US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman might be able to communicate in Mandarin.



Now the fact that an American who spent 2 years in French in his youth can speak, shock horror, French has been attacked in this add from Newt Gingrich.



It is bad enough that most Brits think they should be able by with just English. I've spoken enough conversational Spanish, German and Russian to get by with greeting etc. but to use being able to speak to some of the 94% of the world who don't speak English as their first language, or some of the 75-90% who speak it as a second language is an atrocious sign of how little America and especially Newt Gingrich cares for foreign affairs.

The attacks on Chinese speakers of which 2 million existed in the 2000 US Census and French 1.6m shows that Gingrich and Paul are even not aware of the continuing diversity of the constituency that they wish to represent.

Dixville Notch call it a tie

Picture from CBS

The first vote in the New Hapmshire Primary is in. The small villgae of Dixville Notch right up against the Canadian border traditionally votes at midnight. It's 9 voters have made it a tie in the Republican nomination between Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman with 2 votes each. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich picked up a vote each. The other three votes went to President Obama.

The village has 2 registered Democrats and 3 registered Republics with 4 who do not declare a party.

The Maps of Iowa Counties and what they say about Romney and Santorum

Last night I stayed up, almost to the end of the Caucus results in Iowa, it was 99% declared and at that point we knew it was going to be no more than 100 in it either way, but I just ran out of stamina and fell asleep. In the end Mitt Romney won by 8 votes over Rick Santorum both on 25% of the Caucus.

I was sitting there with 10 taps open in Chrome including two maps. One from WYNC spliting the various counties by demographic and Google's in which you could drill down to see the strength of each candidate across the counties. In fact at times Newt Gingrich had the lead in two of the northern counties simultaneously (Winneshiek and Mitchell), Michele Bachmann held an early lead in Howard County and Rick Peryy held leads in four counties at various times of the evening. I was following a number of live feeds from the Guardian and BBC here in the UK to several stateside including a Cover It Live forum, plus of course all my friends on Twitter, following either Iowa or the hashtag #iacaucus was just impossible there were more people Tweeting that Republicans who Caucused* in Iowa.

One of the tabs I did have open was the webcast from KCRG the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Ia, nothing like getting the information straight from Iowans who knew where the significant counties were, had reporters at numerous of the caucus centres including the 63 precinct venue at the University of Northern Iowa's, Dome.

There was one point early on before too many votes had been declared (about 7:45pm local time) that they said that there were people in England and Denmark watching them and saying hi on Twitter. So I did. The end result was within minutes Northern Ireland got a name check, and not for the first time but twice more as they handed over to different news anchors I got bundled up with the other two nations again.

If you just looked at the map by who won each county you'd have thought Santorum had walked it. Of the 99 he won in 62 of them, Ron Paul in 18,  Romney in 17 and Rick Perry in 2.

But these heat maps showing the proportion of the top two's support helps to explain the story.

Santorum

Romney

What this shows is that in the big metroplitan areas like around Polk County (Des Moines and surrounding), Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Romney scored a lot better than Santorum. In the western metropolitan area around Sioux City even though Santorum did well so too did Romney. In other words Romney did well in the urban areas taking most of the most populace counties. Santorum who personally was in each county twice scored well in the smaller counties where the personal approach obviously worked for him.

I think I shall try and do it all again next Tuesday for New Hampshire though I wonder if it will be as exciting with the former Governor of neighbouring Massachusetts being Romney. However, as the Iowa born Bachmann now a Congresswoman in neighbouring Minnesota can't come better than 6th here you wonder how long she will stay in the race. Already Rick Perry who actually came ahead of her is considering his future in race with Santorum appearing to take up the mantel of the Christian right.

Update as I was writing this Bachmann announced she was suspending her Presidential campaign.

* Yeah through the night I heard or saw this used as a verb extensively.

Iowa what do the beans tell us

Well the first result from Iowa has been declared that of Hamburg Inn #2 Coffee Bean Caucus as I wrote about yesterday.

The results show a clear winner in Barack Obama (indeed polling 2,472 more than the Republicans combined), which in hardly surprising in this Democrat State. But what of the Republicans. Well Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Ricky Santorum have all stopped by while on the campaign trail. Yet only Bachmann seems to have benefited from her stop leading the poll. Santorum who is showing a last minute surge in the opinion polls to be in a tie with Romney and Paul is only the 6th best Republican in these parts.

So there you have it in the bean counters have been at their job and the result is in.

Hamburg Inn No. 2 COFFEE BEAN CAUCUS 2012 RESULTS
1: Barack Obama: 6,442
2: Michele Bachmann: 1,147
3: Mitt Romney: 850
4: Ron Paul: 724
5: Newt Gingrich: 548
6: Rick Perry: 295
7: Rick Santorum: 223
8: Jon Huntsman: 183

Iowa Caucus but what news from the Hamburg Inn's Coffee Beans

The Iowa Caucus tomorrow kicks off the race to select Presidential Candidates the polls are saying that Ricky Santorum is gaining on Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in what is statistically as three way tie (while the other Republicans are polling low). However, what many are asking is what is happening over at Hamburg Inn #2 in Iowa City. It has been held since the 80s and replicated in The West Wing. Here is a look at a report from the 2008 Election Campaign Caucus when both fields were wide open.



But what of 2012?

Well Hamburg Inn #2 has seen action from a Gay Robot before Christmas when Michele Bachmann turned up to try and up her jar of coffee beans. Although as you watch the following you'll see that a police officer seems to threaten the Gay Robot's First Amendment rights. He says, "If you go back in you will be facing some additional issues."



It didn't get any better for Bachmann as this next clip shows in the same venue.



As for the Coffee Beans the runes that seem to have been pretty accurate for Reagan, Clinton and Obama amongst others there is little news over the last few days there may be more later today, if so I will let you know. But 5 days ago they were saying it was close between Romney and Paul before the latest surge from Santorum.

Here is a song about the White House wannabes.



Of course the Iowa Caucus is not a great indicator of who is going to win. But it will be a good indicator to a few of the candidates that they are not going to win.

Don't let this woman near the White House

Michele Bachmann claims to stand up for family. But here latest utterances show contempt for women and men across America. I'm not just talking about those who are LGBT but actually those that she wants them to marry.

She was attending a cozy little Town Hall meeting only to be asked a question by Jane Schmidt who is head of her high school Gay Straight Alliance. The question was:

"What would you do to help protect GSAs in high school and protect the LGSBT community?"

The answer came back from the Republican chasing her party's nomination as Presidential Candidate:

"All of us have the same civil rights...There shouldn’t be any special rights or any special set of criteria. We all have the same civil rights."

The teen came back with a sharp follow up question:

"So, why can’t same-sex couples get married?"

The start of the congresswoman's response was shocking:

"They can get married..."

What? I though she was opposed to gay marriage saying things like "I do support a constitutional amendment on marriage between a man and a woman, but I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law."

but she carried on:

"...but they abide by the same laws as everyone else; they can marry a man if they’re a woman, or a woman if they’re a man."

Ah that sadly is more like her.

But hang on a cotton pickin' minute. What about those women who marry those gay men, or those men who marry those lesbians? What about them. Do they have rights to have a happy family life from the family loving Bachmann? Do they have the right not to have to deal with their spouse spending time at the gym or golf club or sewing circle or choir or whatever with their same sex friends without fretting about a relapse? Do they have the right not to have to deal the physiological issues of their spouse constantly denying who they are?

This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the considerations of the Lesbian or Gay individual that Bachmann is forcing to be Bisexual when they may not identify as that.

Forcing people to hide their sexuality and go into a marriage of convenience for the sake of fitting in is what people did before we accepted that is was natural for some of us to be attracted to those of the same sex; and desire to form a permanent sexual bound with that individual.

Surely Bachmann's proposal contravene the First and Eighth Amendments of the US Bill of Rights. The first is freedom of speech and expression, she is denying that expression through the right to assemble in the bedroom with the partner of their choice. The eighth surely inflicting this cruel and unusual punishment as excessive to be able to benefit from all the civil rights as she is advocating.

Below is the exchange captured on YouTube and note the lack of overwhelming applause for Bachmann's comments.

Rick Perry pre-empts Letterman Top 10

The one thing that Rick Perry knew when he made that gaffe in the latest Republican debate was that somehow it would end up in one of David Letterman's legendary top tens the following night. However, there is one way to ease the sting and that is what Rick Perry did, he delivered the top ten Rick Perry excuses himself live on the show.

The Rogue in not for Running

So she may have said she was Going Rogue in her book, seen by many as laying out her manifesto to be the Republican Presidential Nominee for 2012. She has been seen by many for the last three years as the one that everyone has to beat having been on  the ticket last time. But this evening in a press release from Alaska the former Governor Sarah Palin has announced that she will not be seeking the nomination for the Republican Party in 2012. Her statement reads:

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.
My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office – from the nation’s governors to Congressional seats and the Presidency. We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the “fundamental transformation” of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law.
From the bottom of my heart I thank those who have supported me and defended my record throughout the years, and encouraged me to run for President. Know that by working together we can bring this country back – and as I’ve always said, one doesn’t need a title to help do it.

I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables. We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.

Those will be our priorities so Americans can be confident that a smaller, smarter government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people can better serve this most exceptional nation.

In the coming weeks I will help coordinate strategies to assist in replacing the President, re-taking the Senate, and maintaining the House.
Thank you again for all your support. Let’s unite to restore this country!

God bless America.
– Sarah Palin

It means that those still in the race are Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachman, Texas Governor Rick Perry, previous runner and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former speaker of the House of Representative Newt Gingrich, former Governor of Utah and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr. and Radio Host Herman Cain.