None of the documents we've seen from the passport office say anything that would suggest that Obama was not born in the USA in 1961, and none of them have any bearing on NBC status.

Obama's public tax return has no bearing on NBC status.

Obama's SSN has no bearing on NBC status.

As the commission pointed out, they've got no jurisdiction to address anything other than ballot eligibility. If Obama is using a forged SSN, that's a matter for a prosecutor or for impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. Even if every single word in every one of those documents was correct, the President would remain eligible for the Indiana ballot. They've got zero relevance to the issue in front of the commission. They're useless to the commission. They're trees killed for no reason.

What if Orly had submitted 'evidence' that 9/11 was caused by Dick Cheney using hand grenades? Or that the moon is made of cream cheese? Or that the Plutonians have landed and taken over all the cats? (Okay, that last one is true.) In this eligibility hearing? Would the Commissioners have been 'biased' to not go through a charade of parsing her arguments and responding with civility to each point?

IANAL, but I don't think there's a gray area, where a challenger can just babble nonsense, and just because their speech is sprinkled with vaguely applicable terms like "candidate" and "eligible," they have to be accorded some predetermined level of 'due process.'

Sometimes the 'process' that is 'due' is simply GTFOOMC (and optionally, seek help).

Documents from the passport office: These must be authenticated by a custodian of records from the State Department. None was present. Even if they had been, that person cannot testify as to the reason for the crossed off name, nor to what it means. The one person who could explain that (Stanley Ann Dunham) is dead.

Obama's public tax return: These would have to be authenticated by the IRS, and then, the IRS could only testify that they are true and accurate documents, filed for tax reasons, i.e. if Orly wanted to establish how much money he made or how much he paid in tax, that might work. The IRS agent could state that the tax record shows a certain SS# in the copy actually filed. Even presuming that the hearing officers took "judicial notice" of the public document, the rest of her SS# "evidence" is inadmissible, so all the tax document would do is establish that he did once use that SS#, which no one has questioned. That by itself does not come close to establishing that he used it fraudulently.

E-Verify: To introduce the e-verify search, she would need to have a custodian of the e-verify system testify as to how that works and what the search response means, in terms of their data and process. If he is no longer using that SS#, a "not found" (or whatever it was) message would make sense. If he is the President, and his records are locked, it would make sense. Orly making wild conclusions as to what it means is irrelevant.

The problem you seem to have is that you take a few scattered documents that are presumably accurate documents, and assume the hearing officers must examine them and admit them as evidence. But the entire basis of her accusations are flawed, so the few bits and pieces of actual documents mean nothing.

Edited for clarity.

Also, due process involves things like evidentiary rules.

Just as Orly can't be convicted of treason based on inadmissible hearsay, she cannot carry her "plaintiffs'" burden of proof with inadmissible garbage.

It's an OK response, perhaps not the best one but really, what do Orly's claims about fake SSN have to do with President Obama's eligibility? Nothing. The committee should not have led itself be caught in a back and forth with Orly and after the recess they recovered from their initial follies. Even if Orly had solid evidence of SSN fraud, this would still have NO relevance to the eligibility of President Obama. None... Nada... Niente, Nichts, zip...

You gotta be kidding. We saw the hearing this morning, we know (within reason) what "evidence" was presented, and many of us are lawyers (though not I) who understand what the word evidence means.

Do you really think it's helpful to drag in a ridiculous hypothetical?

Deal with the facts. We all agree on what they are.

Is it not funny that Orly is willing to accept the layers in the IRS document as evidence of the veracity of the SSN but sees the existence of layers in the COLB as reason to reject the document?

She is so inconsistent...

The documents that you listed as potentially admissible don't even represent a rational challenge to Obama's identity.

Passport stuff - there's a single word "Soebarakah" that's crossed out in one place on one of them. Even if the document is accepted as authentic, there's no rational reason to assume that it means anything that would suggest that the President isn't who he says he is.

Tax Returns - likewise. They reveal only the SSN.

E-Verify - demonstrates, at most, that the SSN that appears on the President's tax return is returning an error message. It does not give any clues as to why, and the system is known to be less than accurate.

Even if all that material is accepted, there's nothing there that would create rational doubt about Obama's identity.

Anonymous slips of paper like that have been used by erstwhile illegal immigrants to "prove" that they were in the country by that time. I agree that it looks like Barry Soetoro equals Barack Obama, but without another source it means nothing, nada, tidak apa-apa, nic. And the people who consider this a valuable "document" are the same ones who disregard a certified birth certificate confirmed by two extraneous sources: the birth announcements in the local Hawaiian newspapers.

Even if this slip of paper were to be authenticated, it would not have any legal traction other than proving that Obama was once at that school. Proof that he changed his name? Of course not. Proof that he was Indonesian? Certainly not. It does not prove he was born in Honolulu either, unfortunately.

Because we can reasonably assume that the person who wrote that down, was not an agent of the Indonesian government legally competent to establish the veracity of those data.

Only in Orly's Birferobijan or Leo's Donofridonia do hospitals issue birth certificates and schools issue passports.

(And yes, even if the data were all correct, which I doubt very much, it would not change the fact that Obama is NBC)

That is not a FALSE hypothetical in the sense that I just ginned it up out of thin air. That is the real GOOFY hypothetical that the Birthers are pushing. That Obama isn't really Obama, or that he was born who knows where, or even that he is Bari Shabazz. That is one of the real Birther Issues, as dumb as it is. Within that context, my hypothetical is very much to the point.

Wait? So the Indiana Elections Board, as well as every other board where the birthers travel, have to basically consider and debunk everything in Corsi's book, and everything that WND has used to slime the POTUS?

A 12 hour hearing at each stop while the birthers smear the President?

Bring the kerning guy, and the layers guy, and the whole birther circus?

I just don't get it.

It might not be the President. Who exactly came from Indonesia.

Yes, the Chair admitted that it was regrettable that they got into excessive colloquy.

They then adopted the method of the Ninth Circuit, shrouding Orly and allowing her 10 minutes to screech insanely. They had no obligation to do even that, and could have without violating anyone's rights excluded her entirely from the proceeding, as what she was doing was the unauthorized practice of law, thinly disguised with the fig leaf of being a "witness." Even letting her participate at all was an indulgence.

A total imaginary scenario that has no relevance to the hearing. The SSN clearly has no relevance, even if Orly could actually prove fraud. The identity of the candidate may have some relevance if there is any evidence that indicates that the President's identity is fake. Again, there is NO evidence of this, and certainly nothing that overcomes the standards of evidence or the burden of proof. If Orly or the birthers could at least make an attempt to introduce some relevant evidence but they have NOTHING.

It makes a court challenge of the committee's findings even less likely to succeed. They cannot claim that she was not given an opportunity to be heard, even though most of those listening had to turn down the treble levels, lest they wanted to risk damage to their hearing and glass containers or displays.

WHERE is relevant for certain state offices, because there are statutory requirements regarding living in a certain district. That gives the hearing officers authority to hear testimony about it. The statutory requirements for president (which Congress is entrusted with ensuring) are (1) Natural Born Citizen (see Ankeny); (2) 35 years of age; and (3) a resident for 14 years. At best, the hearing officers could hear testimony about those statutory requirements.

I am truly confused about your second paragraph, but it is irrelevant to the subject at hand. If that were the case, Congress would take impeachment action, and it is doubtful he would run for re-election, so any ballot issue would be moot. Such a candidate would have no chance of winning an election. It's an absurd hypothetical. This hearing board has no authority to entertain speculative garbage.

Nonsense. Your concluding remark was "Now, do you really think that Bari is going to be on the ballots in November 2012?"

Your hypothetical turns on the question, "What if the story is true?"

And the answer is, it's your story, prove it, because if it's the nonsense it appears to be, it's nothing but depravity to obsess on what would happen if it were true. What we are talking about in this thread is whether Orly did anything whatsoever to prove it this morning.

You seem to think she did. Why?

At the end of the proceeding, Mr. Swineheart appears to say "hope you have a great Judgment Day," in that benevolent and forgiving Christian tone so characteristic of these nutters.

The problem is proof. They don't have any, and neither does your hypothetical.

He didn't call it false. He called it ridiculous. You called it goofy. I think we're all in agreement here.

One thing: whatever you think "that context" is (presumably this Fogbow discussion), it most certainly is not the same context within which the electoral board members were operating. In THAT context, goofy hypotheticals have precisely no place.

Unless the Democratic party chooses another candidate, yes. I don't think that he could be kicked off the ballot in those circumstances (he would still be a natural born citizen). The appropriate avenues to address that would seem to me to be impeachment and not reelecting him in November. On what grounds do you think he could be kicked off the ballot in this hypothetical?

Er, I was starting from the premise that this was indeed a form used at that school. But you are using the term I was looking for to describe the legal info on that paper: hearsay. I would even go so far as to call it double hearsay. From the stepfather to the school attendant.

Wow, amazing video, thanks Grey! The part where the first challenger snorts "It's FRAUD" and huffily gets up to walk out

Definitely the best. Orly. Smackdown. On video. EVAR.

Mike Dunford: Even if all that material is accepted, there's nothing there that would create rational doubt about Obama's identity.

Of course. Tons of evidence is presented every day in courts across the land which does not prove anything. Bob is accused of robbing a bank. Ten people see him and he is coated in red dye. His fingerprints are on the stolen money. Girlfriend swears he was with her, and there is a receipt from the liquor store across town from the bank, timestamped at the time of the robbery.

Girlfriend's testimony and the receipt are both "evidence", and will be accepted. You don't pre-weigh the evidence to determine if is going to win the case. It simply gets into the record to be weighed against the other evidence.

I think the when the lady asked if Orly was licensed to practice law in Indiana and she said that she was not and that her "client" misspoke" the board was done with her. They knew she was a lying asshole. She then tried to dance around the rules by becoming a fake witness just like she did in Georgia. I wish they would follow up on this and the other crap.