On February 2, all challenges to the validity of President Obama’s petition for the Illinois Democratic Party presidential primary were defeated or withdrawn. Two challenges had said President Obama does not meet the constitutional qualifications to be President, but the hearing officer accepted the President’s birth certificate and did not even comment about the allegation that a “natural-born citizen” can only be someone whose parents were U.S. citizens.

The third challenge claimed that Obama’s petition did not have 3,000 valid signatures, but it was withdrawn before the merits were reached.

The Pottstown, Pennsylvania newspaper, the Mercury, has this op-ed about the messy consequencees for Pennsylvania state legislative candidates, due to the invalidation of the state’s new legislative district boundaries. The petitioning period for candidates seeking a place on the primary ballot is only three weeks long, and has already started.

The op-ed even suggests that the true motive of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for invalidating the redistricting plan is that the Court is miffed at the legislature for not raising judicial pay. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link.

The Columbia Missourian has this story about the Libertarian presidential primary in Missouri, which is being held on February 7. Anyone could have got on that ballot by paying a filing fee of $1,000, but the only person who did so is James Ogle of California, so the article is about him. The article doesn’t explore the question of who else is seeking the party’s nomination at its national convention in May in Las Vegas, or why no one else filed for the primary.

The Columbia Missourian is published daily, both on paper and electronically. It was founded in 1908 as the nation’s first newspaper published by a School of Journalism, and also in 1992 became one of the first periodicals to put content on the web.

The link works, but it takes about 30 seconds to load after one clicks on it.