{"id":344,"date":"2008-12-05T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2008\/12\/05\/north-country-man-challenges-president-obamas-american-citizenship\/"},"modified":"2008-12-05T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-05T15:30:00","slug":"north-country-man-challenges-president-obamas-american-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2008\/12\/05\/north-country-man-challenges-president-obamas-american-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"North Country man challenges President Obama’s American citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"

(See the update at the bottom)<\/p>\n

Bob Schulz from Queensbury — a self-described tax protester and head of the We the People Foundation — has taken out full page advertisements in the Chicago Tribune this week.<\/p>\n

He’s demanding that President-elect Barack Obama produce an original birth certificate to prove that he’s an American citizen. <\/p>\n

Schulz told the Glens Falls Post-Star that the ads cost “tens of thousands” of dollars. Here’s the paper’s treatment:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Schulz earlier ran afoul of the federal government by distributing an informational packet detailing how to avoid federal tax withholding on paychecks.<\/p>\n

He recently attempted to stop the bailout of Wall Street firms by suing on the grounds that the plan was unconstitutional. <\/p>\n

He has also taken on local causes, such as opposing the project to dredge the Hudson River and the ill-fated proposal to create a sewer district in Lake George.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can view the full ad here<\/a>. It basically questions whether Obama is “a Natural Born Citizen of the U.S.”<\/p>\n

“Are you legally eligible to hold the Office of President?”<\/p>\n

Claims about Obama’s citizenship have been thoroughly debunked — he was born in Hawaii — but Schulz’s campaign has drawn a lot of interest.<\/p>\n

In addition to local press coverage, he’s been interviewed by Slate, Politico, and had a treatment by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Here’s our coverage<\/a> of Mr. Schulz’s battles with the IRS.<\/p>\n

Update: “Anonymous” argues that I’m wrong to suggest that Mr. Schulz’s allegations have been thoroughly debunked. (See his comment below.) <\/p>\n

Anonymous is simply wrong. The St. Petersburg times and Politifact pursued this question tirelessly and independently.<\/p>\n

Here’s what they found:<\/p>\n

On June 13, 2008, Obama\u2019s campaign finally released a copy [of his birth certificate]<\/p>\n

When the birth certificate arrived from the Obama campaign it confirmed his name as the other documents already showed it.<\/p>\n

Still, we took an extra step: We e-mailed it to the Hawaii Department of Health, which maintains such records, to ask if it was real.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,\u201d spokesman Janice Okubo told us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When conspiracy theories continued to bubble up, about the document being forged, Politifact then asked more questions. <\/p>\n

When the official documents were questioned, we went looking for more answers.<\/p>\n

We circled back to the Department of Health, had a newsroom colleague bring in her own Hawaii birth certificate to see if it looks the same (it\u2019s identical).<\/p>\n

But every answer triggered more questions.<\/p>\n

And soon enough, after going to every length possible to confirm the birth certificate\u2019s authenticity, you start asking, what is reasonable here?<\/p>\n

Because if this document is forged, then they all are.<\/p>\n

If this document is forged, a U.S. senator and his presidential campaign have perpetrated a vast, long-term fraud.<\/p>\n

They have done it with conspiring officials at the Hawaii Department of Health, the Cook County (Ill.) Bureau of Vital Statistics, the Illinois Secretary of State\u2019s office, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois and many other government agencies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a journalist — and a citizen — that’s good enough for me.<\/p>\n

–Brian Mann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(See the update at the bottom) Bob Schulz from Queensbury — a self-described tax protester […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}