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Alan Keyes stokes Obama birth certificate controversy

The controversy over the validity of Barack Obama's birth certificate is back on a burner with firebrand conservative Alan Keyes making serious new charges.

In a video released Friday Keyes, who lost to Obama in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois that launched the new president's national political career, calls Obama a communist and usurper and says he refuses to acknowledge the validity of Obama's inauguration over lingering questions in the minds of many conspiracists about the 44th president's birth place.

The U.S. Constitution requires any president be born an American citizen.

In June, the Obama campaign released to The Ticket a copy of the then-senator's Hawaiian birth certificate (see the jump below and also here). But stubbornly persistent critics demand to see the original, which the state has refused to provide, citing personal privacy reasons.

And the critics, including Keyes explaining here, cite Obama relatives in Kenya as saying he was actually born there in his father's native land when his American mother was too young to pass on her U.S. citizenship.
Read entire article at LAT (blog) Top of the Ticket