Orly Taitz, along with perennial Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes, filed a lawsuit contending that California Secretary of State Debra Bowen and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger shouldn’t be allowed to certify the presidential election results for electors until Obama or his supporters provide proof of his natural-born citizenship in the United States.

Conservative bloggers maintained during the presidential election that Obama was born in Kenya and had citizenship in other countries, thus disqualifying him from the presidency. This despite the fact that several groups, such as FactCheck.org and Snopes.com, investigated the claims and determined that Obama did have a valid birth certificate from Hawaii. FactCheck even found a birth announcement for baby Barack Obama in a 1961 Honolulu newspaper.

Tatiz, however, remains undaunted.

“He should have never been on the ballot because there has never been proof of his eligibility,” she said.

Taitz went on to say that even if she were to see the birth certificate, she would not be convinced.

“Once we have the birth certificate with the name of the hospital, we can then go to that hospital to see his birth records,” she said. “There should be a huge file there.”

This is not the first time the conspiracy theory surrounding Obama’s citizenship has been given prominent play on Mickelson’s afternoon program. On Oct. 17, he interviewed Phillip Berg, who brought a similar lawsuit alleging that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery and that the senator was in fact born in Kenya.

That suit was thrown out by a federal judge, saying Berg lacked standing to bring the case.

“I do not have an opinion on this subject,” Mickelson said, adding: “But what happens if their argument is true? What happens if they have a good case and Obama can’t demostrate that he’s a natural born citizen? Then what? Can you imagine what would happen in our culture if it happens and this is true and gets pushed to that point?”

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Guard Bureau, Washington, D.C., have ordered the 1133rd and 1168th Transportation Companies to federal active duty. The mobilization is part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism. The Soldiers will leave Iowa and report to Fort Bliss, Texas for additional preparation and training before departing for the Central Command theater of operation.

To honor the guardsmen, political dignitaries joined family and friends at the sendoff ceremonies in Audubon, Iowa City, Mason City, Perry and Marshalltown.

Audubon

Several hundred people crowded in to the Audubon High School to say goodbye to 65 members in Detachment 2 of the 1168th Transportation Company. They were joined by Gov. Chet Culver and U.S. Rep. Steve King, D-Iowa, who presided over the ceremony, the Caroll Daily-Times Herald reported.

“I’m here with a simple message,” Culver, a surprise guest, told the soldiers standing at attention in six ranks before him. “To thank the members of the Guard for your service to our country, to our state, and to join every Iowan in honoring you as you are deployed.”

“But as you depart, I want you to always remember you are not alone. We will always be here for you, and we will always be grateful for your service to the country that we love. Because our service members are Iowa’s heroes…”

King remarked that he was impressed by Thursday’s show of community support.

“I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when we came over the hill here today at Audubon,” he said, referring to the hundreds of vehicles parked outside.

“You come out, Audubon, Audubon County and the surrounding area. You come out to support our military men and women who have sent themselves up as volunteers to defend our freedom and promote freedom around the world. This is a powerful testimony to the best that America has to offer here in the heartland of America.”

Iowa City

Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, joined 25 members in Detachment 1, 1133rd Transportation Company at the Regina High gymnasium in Iowa City, commending them for being both members of a community and defenders of it, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

“You are true patriots and you represent the best of America,” Loebsack said. “You make Iowa and our nation proud.”

Not everyone was excited about the upcoming deployment, including Jennifer — the pregnant wife of Sgt. Nile Watkins-Schoening, who is preparing for his second deployment in three years.

Jennifer said she “was a little irate” when she heard her husband would deploy again. He also missed Eve’s [his 2-year old daughter] birth, returning when she was already 15 months old after serving with the Iowa Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry from September 2005 to July 2007.

Marshalltown

Hundreds of well-wishers gathered at the Babe Harder Gymnasium on the Marshalltown Community College campus in Marshalltown to say goodbye to 40 members in Detachment 1, 1168th Transportation Company, the Marshalltown Times-Republican reported.

Kaleb Morrow of Centerville, who was previously deployed from 2003 to 2004 to Iraq admitted that the second deployment was going to more difficult since he is leaving behind his two young daughters, including 2-year-old Emilia and 2-month-old Alexandria, and his wife, Bernadette.

“It’s going to be very rough to say goodbye,” he said before the ceremony.

Morrow said he feels they are better equipped this time around especially when it comes to more armor.

Mason City

Hundreds of family members and friends filled the Mason City High School gymnasium to help send off 115 members of the 1133rd Transportation Company, the Mason City Globe-Gazette reported.

Lt. Gov. Patty judge spoke on behalf of Culver:

“Once before you have traveled to Iraq to protect the people of America and Iraq,” said Lt. Gov. Patty Judge. “There isn’t an Iowan who isn’t grateful for your sacrifices.”

“On behalf of Gov. Culver, myself and our families, we want you to know that we will be thinking of you, following your work and you will be in our prayers every day,” she said.

Several of the soldiers are serving their second deployment, including Staff Sgt. Scott Dunning, whose wife is expecting their first child, a boy, on Sunday.

“I’m due on Sunday,” she said. “That’s in three days.”

Looking at his wife, Dunning’s voice cracked, saying, “It makes it very, very difficult to leave.”

Perry

A sendoff ceremony was also planned for 65 members in the 1168th Transportation Company Perry High School gymnasium in Perry.

University of Iowa Lecture Committee

Ellsberg argues the balance of power needs to be restored, and one way to accomplish this is by holding President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney accountable for their violation of the oath they took upon entering office. “They are bound by an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Ellsberg said. “The people in the executive branch who sincerely believe and act against this oath are domestic enemies of the Constitution.”

Ellsberg began his lecture by telling the audience that the Pentagon Papers introduced to the public the idea that presidents lie consistently and regularly. “Our Constitution is not based on trust,” Ellsberg said. “Our forefathers knew that power corrupts and had enough sense to include the idea of checks and balances and other accountability measures in the Constitution.”

Ellsberg made headlines around the world in 1971 when he risked a lifetime of imprisonment by releasing the Pentagon Papers through the New York Times and the Washington Post. While serving in the Pentagon under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1964, Ellsberg copied and safeguarded documents indicating that the plan for going to war in Vietnam had been in then works long before the Tonkin Resolution was passed in 1964. Ellsberg documents his experiences in his new book, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.”

Drawing from his experiences in Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers, and the subsequent battles with President Richard Nixon, Ellsberg argued that the Bush administration has used 9/11 and the ensuing “War on Terror” as a means of eroding the Constitution, in particular the balance of powers protected by the system of checks and balances. “President Bush has used his commander-in-chief responsibilities to declare an endless war, thus granting him unchecked powers,” Ellsberg said. “The president is operating under the umbrella of a wartime Constitution and can no longer be constrained by Congress.”

The real tragedy is that these guys have done this with the full consent of the Congress, Ellsberg noted. “Congress has pretty much given President Bush everything he has asked for, including the Patriot Act, the authorization to go to war with Iraq,” Ellsberg said. “And now, Congress is on the verge of broadening the president’s authority to expand warrantless wiretapping and laying the groundwork for a war against Iran.”

Ellsberg admitted that he was perplexed as to why Congress has been so complicit in enabling the Bush administration and violating their oaths to defend the Constitution against its domestic enemies. “We have a president who thinks he is a king, acts like a king, and Congress has let him be the king,” Ellsberg said. “They have pretty much given him the green light to attack Iran, including the vote by Hillary Clinton, which she has been rightfully criticized for.”

Ellsberg points out that Congress is not solely to blame for this dramatic shift in power, citing the media’s role in the current erosion of the Constitution. To help illustrate this, Ellsberg cited the media’s complicit role regarding the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping. “The New York Times had access to information that revealed the NSA (National Security Agency) had been conducting warrantless wiretaps for over three years, even before 9/11, but chose to sit on it for an entire year,” Ellsberg said.

The big question is why they sat on it for a year, Ellsberg asked. “The answer is quite simple,” Ellsberg said. “The White House asked the New York Times not to print the story, claiming it was a threat to national security. Had the Times went to the press when they had the information in October 2004, this would have affected whether we would have elected the incumbent in to the White House.”

“The Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretaps and bypassing the FISA courts totally violated the Fourth Amendment,” Ellsberg added. “Going to print with this could have turned the election, and by sitting on this information, the New York Times essentially gave us four more years of Bush.”

The New York Times, along with 18 other newspapers, faced a similar threat in 1971 when they had to decide to go ahead and print portions of the Pentagon Papers. “In the face of injunctions and possible criminal prosecutions, 19 newspapers defied the Nixon administration’s warning that printing another page of the Pentagon Papers would cause irreparable damage to national security,” Ellsberg said. “Nineteen editors did not agree, and in a wave of civil disobedience printed the documents and set a precedent we have not seen since.”

Ellsberg entertains questions from the audience after the scheduled question-and-answer period

Despite the obstacles and power gap standing between the public and the executive branch, Ellsberg did provide the audience with some advice and possible avenues of recourse. If he could tell people working in the government now, who are privy to information that may inevitably protect the Constitution or save lives, Ellsberg would tell them: “Don’t wait. Don’t do what I did in 1964, when I failed to turn over the Pentagon Papers. Don’t wait until thousands of people die,” Ellsberg warned. “Thousands of people in the Pentagon and in the State Department have information about the steps leading up to the Iraq war. They need to go to the press and tell the truth, rather than going to Congress, where they’ll bottle the truth up for another 22 months.”

Ellsberg ended his lecture by making a pitch to the younger people in the audience, whom he encouraged not to remain complicit, but he said he understands why they may feel overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable task of reclaiming the Constitution.

Citing the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which literally ended the Cold War, Ellsberg pointed out that we now have a generation that has no memory of the Cold War. “Young people have never seen an immutable situation change by the action of ordinary people in front of their eyes,” Ellsberg said. “Nobody foresaw these things as possible beforehand. And then the impossible happened. Change can happen.”

Saturday, the Clinton campaign announced their first Johnson County visit in two months: a 7:30 p.m. Monday stop in Coralville.  That’s the Monday night of finals week.  Last weekend, she held events in two neighboring small counties, Iowa and Washington… without an Iowa City event.

Clinton’s last Johnson County appearance was as the closing act at the Johnson County Democrats’ fall barbecue on Oct. 6.  None of the five candidates at the event took questions from the stage.  Clinton, who appeared with 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern, was the last speaker and spent close to 45 minutes greeting the crowd afterward. 

Iowa City caucus goers expect to ask the candidate a question, and usually not a soft one.  Clinton has sent top-level surrogates to campus to take questions, including her husband Monday and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.  But those are very different experiences than asking the candidate herself a question.

Senator Clinton’s only University of Iowa stop was in July, with the former president.  The event was attended by thousands, but she did not take questions.  This is only one campus, and we Iowans may set high expectations.  But compare this to the other leading candidates.  Virtually every John Edwards event, including several on campus, includes questions and answers.  He most recently spoke in Iowa City on Wednesday, at the close to campus public library.  And, while there was some grumbling from backers of other candidates that he hadn’t done it earlier, Barack Obama did a Q & A on the U of I campus on Oct. 3.  Obama also visited campus at a student-oriented Dec. 4 rally, bud did not take questions.  Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson have also, with varying frequency, done events with questions on campus or in downtown Iowa City at student-friendly times.

The last Iowa City event at which Hillary Clinton took a public question was on April 3, at a mid-day event at a hotel on the edge of town, attended largely by people who already supported her.

Perhaps students don’t fit the working mom and senior women target groups the Clinton campaign seems to be aiming for. Or perhaps there’s another concern.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.” — Hillary Clinton, February 17, 2007

That’s a general election statement, meant to make Clinton look tough like a Commander in Chief.  The vision of a woman taking the salute as she gets off the Marine One chopper is not yet battle-tested at the ballot box.  But the statement is classic Clinton 42 triangulation, and positions her between the Peace Freaks and Bush.

The University of Iowa is well-known as a peace-movement stronghold, and among the Democratic candidates, Clinton has drawn particular vitriol from the peace movement.  The Des Moines-based “Seasons of our Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project” (SODaPOP) group, with only enough willing to get arrested bodies to occupy two presidential campaign offices, chose Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.  Clinton might argue, as she has in debates, that she’s attacked because she’s ahead, at least nationally.  But a look at the schedule begs the question: is Hillary avoiding the bleeding heart of the People’s Republic of Johnson County?  Does she want to steer clear of a confrontational question or a raucous student protest?

Probably.  And from her campaign’s perspective, that’s not dumb.  Witness the robot who’s still mad about Sister Souljah who bothered Bill last week.  But the difference from other campaigns, and from John Edwards’ apology for his war vote, certainly needs to be pointed out.  The anti-war left, already mad that Congress hasn’t shut off war funding and started impeachment hearings, is not a sure thing for the “any Democrat is better than any Republican” argument.  Observers will note Green Candidate Cynthia McKinney making the rounds, and stopping where else but Iowa City.  Democrats needs a two to one win out of Johnson County to win statewide, and a few thousand peace protest votes could swing the state, and the nation.

A review of where the most presidential candidate appearances have taken place seems to confirm the notion that Iowa will be a key battleground for both Republicans and Democrats in 2008.  Iowa has had over 1,200 candidate appearances since January, more than double the number of the next-most-traveled state, New Hampshire.

Despite all of the attention, an overwhelming number of Iowans have not settled on a candidate to support.  Although many are leaning for one candidate or another, private campaign polls show that up to 80 percent of caucus-goers predict that they could change their minds about the race between now and January.  Polls have tended to show either a Clinton or an Edwards lead in recent weeks, but generally no leads are outside the margin for error.  And a Newsweek poll released today shows a narrow lead for Obama among likely caucus-goers, so it isn’t time to write any of the top three off.

Among the so-called “second tier,” Gov. Bill Richardson and Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, have all built momentum in Iowa of late.  Richardson has kept himself in double digits in Iowa polls, Biden has racked up an impressive number of state legislative endorsements, and Dodd has transferred more resources here, claiming to have almost 60 staffers on the ground.

The biggest surprise of the week came from Edwards, who announced that he would accept matching funds from the FEC for his campaign.  FEC rules will prevent him from spending as much money on media in Iowa as he might have otherwise, although campaign manager David Bonior told me he expected the state-by-state spending caps would not be an issue.  Still, Obama and Clinton are likely to spend significantly more than Edwards here.

On the Republican side, many presidential candidates were invited to a dinner hosted by the socially conservative Iowa Christian Alliance, known for carrying significant influence in the Republican caucuses, Saturday evening in Des Moines, although only one obliged.  Former Sen. Fred Thompson will be making his first appearance in front of the group.

But Rudy Giuliani wasn’t invited.  Steve Scheffler, organizer of the event and kingmaker among Republicans in the state, said “I think a lot of our base would rather wander in the wilderness for eight to 12 years than to vote for [Giuliani].”

Finally, the celebrities have also started coming to town.  “Sexy plumber” James Denton, star of the ABC series Desperate Housewives, is making a swing through Iowa for Edwards this weekend, and The Last King of Scotland’s Forest Whitaker will campaign on behalf of Obama next week.