Media Pretends Georgia Eligibility Case Isn't Happening

In the past, every time another court dismissed a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president because he is not a natural born citizen, the mainstream media always weighed in with snarky coverage sprinkled with the obligatory name-calling of those behind the lawsuits as "birthers", "right-wing conspiracists" and garden variety racists who couldn't accept an African-American as president. When a judge down in Georgia considering a challenge to Obama's eligibility to appear on the state's presidential primary ballot refused to dismiss the case on standing grounds, as had occurred in every single lawsuit to date, the media took a different tact. It just decided the case wasn't newsworthy and ignored it.

A hearing in the case has been scheduled for this Thursday. Obama's lawyers attempted to quash a subpoena requesting Obama's appearance and seeking production of documents establishing his natural born citizenship status. Remarkably, Judge Michael Malihi denied the motion to quash the subpoena and commanded President Obama's appearance at the hearing. The judge's order seemed to reflect his disfavor with the disdain shown by the filings in opposition to the proceedings by Obama's attorneys. Judge Malihi wrote, in part:

Defendant fails to provide any legal authority to support his motion to quash the subpoena to attend. Defendant's motion suggests that no President should be compelled to attend a Court hearing. This may be correct. But Defendant has failed to enlighten the Court with any legal authority. Specifically, Defendant has failed to cite to any legal authority evidencing why his attendance is "unreasonable or oppressive, or that the testimony... [is] irrelevant, immaterial, or cumulative and unnecessary to a party's preparation or presentation at the hearing, or that basic fairness dictates that the subpoena should not be enforced."

In reading Judge Malihi's Order denying Obama's motion to dismiss the proceeding challenging him to prove he is a natural born citizen as required by the U.S. Constitution, you could detect a similar disfavor he was showing to the President's attorney's disdain towards the state proceedings:

In the instant motion, Defendant contends that Georgia law does not give Plaintiffs authority to challenge a political party's nominee for president in a presidential preference primary because Code Section 21-2-5 does not apply to the presidential preference primary.

Statutory provisions must be read as they are written, and this Court finds that the cases cited by Defendant are not controlling. When the Court construes a constitutional or statutory provision, the "first step . . . is to examine the plain statutory language." Morrison v. Claborn, 294 Ga. App. 508, 512 (2008). "Where the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous, judicial construction is not only unnecessary but forbidden. In the absence of words of limitation, words in a statute should be given their ordinary and everyday meaning." Six Flags Over Ga. v. Kull, 276 Ga. 210, 211 (2003) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Because there is no other "natural and reasonable construction" of the statutory language, this Court is "not authorized either to read into or to read out that which would add to or change its meaning." Blum v. Schrader, 281 Ga. 238, 240 (2006) (quotation marks omitted) . . .  

Accordingly, this Court finds that Defendant is a candidate for federal office who has

been certified by the state executive committee of a political party, and therefore must, under Code Section 21-2-5, meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought.

Despite the significance of the case playing out in Georgia, the state's newspaper of record, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has not filed one independent story on the case. Instead, it ran a brief, three-paragraph story filed by the Associated Press, the same story reported in some major newspapers and news organizations across the country. One Atlanta TV station ran a story claiming the persons behind the lawsuit contend that Obama is not a U.S. citizen, an often-repeated lie by the mainstream media throughout the country who count on the American people being too stupid to understand our constitution makes a distinction between ordinary citizens and natural born citizens when it comes to serving as president of the United Sates. Only the latter are eligible to hold the highest office in the land. The American Thinker's Cindy Simpson futilely tried to make the point of explaining the narrowly-drawn contention of the citizens filing the Georgia complaint against Obama in an earlier post:

The matter before this Court has nothing to do with the birth place of the Defendant, nor does it assert that he is not a citizen of the United States. In fact, limited to this challenged primary election, the Plaintiff will stipulate that the Defendant was born in Hawaii, that the Defendant is a U.S. Citizen, and that the Defendant was Constitutionally-qualified to serve as a U.S. Senator. The Plaintiff makes no assertion regarding the Defendant's passports, or social security number, or any other fact related to the Defendant, other than the one fact asserted at the beginning of this opposition: that the Defendant's father was not a U.S. citizen.

Contrary to the Defendant's assertions, the issue presented by the Plaintiff is grounded on one uncontestable fact, and one clear definition from the U.S. Supreme Court. See Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162, 167 (1875).

New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio has been doing yeoman's work researching the relevant law and history in an effort to teach people the true meaning behind the words, "natural born citizen" at his blog. Donofrio has filed a compelling amicus brief in the Georgia case that's well worth the read. You can view it here. Donofrio's brief makes clear the Minor v. Happersett decision is the only controlling case from the U.S. Supreme Court on the meaning of those words, a case that has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the court over the years. He also does a thorough job of explaining why the argument proffered by a number of legal observers that the U.S. adopted the British common law view on natural-born subjects simply doesn't hold water.

The American Thinker's Cindy Simpson reports that Obama has no intention of going anywhere near the Atlanta hearing on Thursday despite the court-ordered appearance. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Obama is above the law. Instead, he plans to promote his agenda for re-election in Las Vegas and Denver. Last week, the media melted when Obama sang a small line from Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" at New York's Apollo Theater. Simpson thinks the song "Georgia On My Mind" should be the song Obama is humming during his trip out west while the hearing in Atlanta proceeds in his absence.