Utterly expectable. Monckton is quite the.. ahhh.. character. The quality of the “talk” is irrefutably worse than that of the video itself. Lurkers, spare yourselves of the minutes you will lose seeing this video, those will never come back to you.
Such a blatant advert for the bookstore – do you think they paid him?
“Birther” is a test of IQ, or maybe sanity.
Luis Dias –
I should have taken your advice. I only watched the first minute but it was SO painful.
I’ll endeavour to forget I made the mistake of watching it.
Louise–
I don’t know if they paid him. You could ask Monckton who paid for his flight out, his lodgings, food and whether he received an honorarium for that. Also, ask him if he chose that shirt himself and whether it was given to him.
Somehow they should’ve gotten Vermin Supreme in there, singing Randy Newman’s Rider in the Rain.
Shouldn’t that shirt be the Union Jack ? There seems something vaguely suspect about someone who claims to be British nobility wrapped in the Stars and Stripes. Isn’t that some sort of diplomatic faux pas ?
Artifex–
Isn’t that some sort of diplomatic faux pas ?
Prior to 1976 lots of people got bent out of shape about people wearing the flag. During 1976, lots of people wanted to wear the flag. Now a days, it’s so commonplace that I don’t think American’s are going to bat an eye about a Brit visiting a dude range wearing a flag.
That said: That particular shirt is pretty amazing even for the “I’m wearing the flag” genre. He looks a bit like he’s pretending to be a country western singer or a rodeo rider. Most people chose shirts that are a bit more tame even on the 4th of July.
I believe that in the USA people would be horrified to see underpants made from the national flag but that is quite common here in the UK (using the Union Flag that is, not the Stars and Stripes although that too is probable. We’re just not that precious about flags).
If the guy looks like this people who don’t like it will probably won’t make nasty comments in earshot
American flag bikinis for women are pretty common.
Some people do get upset over american flag clothes, but it’s a bit like language peeving over things like split infintives. Most people don’t care anymore. But when I was young, quite a few did. Things change.
Lucia – Well, I suppose I could let him escort me to the beach if my regular escort (my 62 year year old husband) was unavailable, but I’d prefer him in Union Flag underwear/swimwear. Got to keep ones end up you know, what what!
Flag colors alone do not a flag make. If the clothes were made from an actual flag that had flown on a flagpole, that might be different. After all, Captain America wears stars and stripes in the comics and the movies and, AFAIK, no one complains about that.
lucia (Comment #96525)
As all my female friends and relatives will tell you that guy in the picture is showing off, but it is not the flag.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #96530)
I do not know why, DeWitt, but your comment about Captain America got me to laughing. I definitely think it is ok to wear a flag as long as you remove it from the pole before wearing it.
Is it gay pride already?
Lucia, here is a little on fMRI, which in my carefully considered neurochemists opinion is one of the crappiest tools for investigating the brain and produces ‘very pretty rubbish’.
The ‘we need better magnets’ boys (they are almost universally bald or balding males) will show images of chocolate, look for the change in signal and then write a ‘we have found the brains chocolate centers.
eeemmmmmmm! chocolate centers
…now filled with genuine fMRI.
Doc–
That’s interesting. But what triggered the topic of “fMRI”?
Maybe we could use an fMRI to find out?
It was the parallel with the fitters and modelrs. As everyone’s brain is a different size and shape they have a standard sized model brain and shoehorn everyone’s brains into this 3D representation; then average. They ignore the temporal resolution, they use questionable signal/noise processing, discard post hoc image sequences that are ‘wrong’ and always ask for more money.
Some of us still abide by US Code 36 Ch 10.
Section 176 states specifically “No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America …”
Section 176(d): “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.”
Politicians of all political flavors frequently disregard this one (which irks me to no end):
Section 176(i): “The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.”
Section 176(j): “No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.”
The underwear shown clearly isn’t a flag since the star pattern isn’t one ever used by the US flag although I still question the wisdom of anyone wearing that. Monckton’s shirt on the other hand looks too close for my comfort. Wear red-white-and-blue all you want, throw in star and stripe patterns if you want but IMO it should be stylized so it’s clear the object in question wasn’t literally made from US flags.
Having said that, the ultimate goal is that stated right up front in the first sentence in Section 176 — don’t show disrespect to the flag — and the greater tolerance of the American public today is largely based on that innate understanding. People don’t object because MOST people wearing apparel that looks like the US flag are clearly not intending any disrespect, quite the opposite.
One may be tempted to deride Monktons involvement here but the case for the forged documents is pretty conclusive. You as a computer buff should recognise that Lucia.
bushy–
I think the probability that Obama is not a natural born citizen is less than 1%. I might also suggest that a first time commenter with an UK IP address, what appears to be a disposable email address and things that being a ‘computer buff’ tells me much about this issue isn’t likely to have great insight into this constitutional issue.
Lucia, I have been following your blog for ever and those of Steve Mc, Anthony Watts etc. I also follow USA / world politics as all these things affect all our futures. Please do not write me off ( Real Climate style) as unqualified to have an informed opinion.
I will however agree with you that Bush is unlikely in the extreme to have been born in Ireland, LOL.
Ok you corrected that after I posted.
Quite so Lucia, in fact the case that his rival, John McCain, was not a natural born citizen was stronger! The Senate got around that by passing a resolution stating that he was, as I recall the term is not well defined and has never been ruled on by the Supreme Court.
Yes Bushy.
I realize you may have been following my blog as well as those of others. I have also noticed that visitors who use fake or disposable email addresses tend to be uninformed. If you do, indeed, follow my blog, you will be aware that I moderate disposable and obviously fake email addresses. I will be adding the stem on yours to my list.
Phil.–
I think you are correct; SCOTUS has not ruled. But I also think there is absolutely no doubt that someone born on US soil is a natural born citizen. The likelihood that Obama was not born in Hawaii and his family began faking this waayyyyyy back and succeeded in doing so seems pretty dang slim.
I was born outside of US soil. So… image if my parents wanted to somehow fake this. Is the theory going to be they don’t register me with anyone at all, then somehow trundle me to the US in luggage? Then… somehow to travel back and forth to the US and other countries when I’m too large to fit in a suitcase (as Obana did), having no paperwork at all, they get me a US passport? Or they hire someone to fake a birth certificate then? Or what? The online scan may have weird features– but they can be explained by someone using weird settings when scanning– but I need to hear someone suggest a theory of how they managed to move Obama back and forth without creating any traces that he was not American way back when he was 6 years old!
Ok Lucia this email address (chuckaway) has been used for more than 10 years now but you can of course moderate me, no offense – your blog.
Phil, as a natural sceptic and suspicious/aware of political shenanigans it would not take too much imagination for me to conjure up a few senarios that may hold water. It also appears that High Court Justice Parker finds the evidence would raise serious questions.
I have no axe to grind with Obama and assume that is is no better or worse than any other President (how much real power do they wield in reality when moderated by congress etc.)
However, the severe embarrasment that would ensue if such a fraud were uncovered would be extreme. I think that I myself in that position would be tempted/compelled to cover it up if possible.
Is Monckton licensed to open carry that gun?
“Manchurian Candidate”. ROFLMAO.
bugs–Is the gun real?
Who needs enemies when you have friends like Christopher…
I suspect Monckton is trying to be funny… News flash: it doesn’t work. I wounder if he can possibly imagine just how bad he looks in that shirt? Probably not.
.
Bugs: if the gun is real, then he would have to carry it in a concealed fashion to be in violation of laws in most places. In Arizona, I rather suspect that the gun laws are less restrictive than in most places. Monckton is clearly concealing very little with that outfit, and certainly not the gun.
When I met with Monckton in Sacramento at his address to the state assembly, he emailed later that he was taking up this issue. I told him in no uncertain terms that it would be a huge mistake to do so.
Like Lucia, now that I see this, “words fail me”.
I will post this on WUWT though. Maybe I’ll find some words then.
“words fail meâ€
– – – – – –
The words ‘hey pardner’ and ‘hee haw’ surfaced temporarily.
Then disappeared quickly with a mighty chuckle. I’ll be singing the ‘yellow rose of Texas’ all afternoon now but with a British accent. : )
John
I’m fairly certain it isn’t required one have a license to hold a gun in any state, district or territory of the United States. As SteveF says, carrying a concealed weapon requires a license, but that’s it.
lucia:
The likelihood that Obama was not born in Hawaii and his family began faking this waayyyyyy back and succeeded in doing so seems pretty dang slim.
I was born outside of US soil. So… image if my parents wanted to somehow fake this. Is the theory going to be they don’t register me with anyone at all, then somehow trundle me to the US in luggage? Then… somehow to travel back and forth to the US and other countries when I’m too large to fit in a suitcase (as Obana did), having no paperwork at all, they get me a US passport? Or they hire someone to fake a birth certificate then? Or what? The online scan may have weird features– but they can be explained by someone using weird settings when scanning– but I need to hear someone suggest a theory of how they managed to move Obama back and forth without creating any traces that he was not American way back when he was 6 years old!
I don’t see why any of this would be necessary. It could be far simpler. Obama could have been born outside the United States, then flown in. Once here, his parents could have registered him as having been born here. That would give him a real birth certificate, just one he legally shouldn’t have been able to get.
Of course, that doesn’t really help the people who argue the birth certificate is a fake. I think there are legitimate issues raised by “birthers,” as I discussed here, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe the birth certificate itself was faked.
(That link also shows one of the many incidents which led to bad feelings between Keith Kloor any myself.)
Brandon
Obama could have been born outside the United States, then flown in.
When I fly in on a commercial flight that lands at an international, I have to pass customs and immigration. What mechanism are you suggesting for avoiding customs and immigration?
Once here, his parents could have registered him as having been born here.
Is it easy to do this with a 3 year old? 1 year old? I haven’t registered a kids birth. So… could someone clarify how it might be easy to register a not-newborn? I’ve always assumed it’s easy to register if a witness like a doctor or cab driver sees the kid emerge etc. But mightent it be a big challenging to register a kid who magically appears at the age of 2?
I would conclude that with a sitting liberal president who is now overwhelmingly supported by the liberal media, that an unrestricted viewing of all aspects of the story of Obama’s birth place will only be available to discuss openly in the wider public venue well after Obama is out of office. By well after I mean like a decade. Invested liberal interests can pull liberal media levers on short timescales, but not on longer timescales. I do not think the liberal media even attempts to hide that kind of role. I am not being cynical.
John
lucia (Comment #96589)
May 29th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Brandon
Obama could have been born outside the United States, then flown in.
When I fly in on a commercial flight that lands at an international, I have to pass customs and immigration. What mechanism are you suggesting for avoiding customs an immigration?
– – – – – – –
lucia,
It is well recognized in recent times that many illegals enter the US constantly by many methods.
50 years ago it probably would have been much easier than today.
So, Brandon’s point wasn’t specifically flying as the means to enter Hawaii illegally . . . . although I am sure it is not impossible to illegally enter Hawaii by flying even these days.
I am not suggesting in any way that I know or suspect Obama was carried into Hawaii illegally, just saying Brandon’s point has some validity and could be considered as adding to a discussion of the range of possibilities.
John
lucia:
When I fly in on a commercial flight that lands at an international, I have to pass customs and immigration. What mechanism are you suggesting for avoiding customs an immigration?
I wasn’t intending to suggest one, though I’m sure there are a number of possibilities. One of the first which comes to mind is, how closely would officials have looked at a newborn baby fifty years ago (especially if the parents were citizens)?
Once here, his parents could have registered him as having been born here.
Is it easy to do this with a 3 year old? 1 year old? I haven’t registered a kids birth. So… could someone clarify how it might be easy to register a not-newborn? I’ve always assumed it’s easy to register if a witness like a doctor or cab driver sees the kid emerge etc. But mightent it be a big challenging to register a kid who magically appears at the age of 2?
An announcement of Obama’s birth was published nine days after his birthday. Unless his birthday is also a lie, this means he was registered shortly after being born. That makes it much easier than if he were being registered as a three year old.
As for how easy it is, that’s hard to say. I imagine things have changed in the last fifty years, so how easy it is now may not be applicable. I do know a baby as young as Obama would have been at the time can currently get a birth certificate with just the testimony of a couple people. I think a midwife and parent is all that is needed, though a witness might also be required.
By the way, I’ve wondered if it would be possible to construct a scenario like this where the parents didn’t intentionally deceive anyone. For example, imagine a mother who recently had a baby flew to the United States. She goes to a hospital for general care of her and her baby, and in the process of filling out paperwork/talking to doctors/getting treatment, somebody thinks she needs to register the baby. The mother doesn’t think much about it (and perhaps doesn’t even realize what exactly is being done), and she gets a birth certificate. A few days later, the newspapers announce her baby was born at the hospital. At some point the mother realizes what happened, but she doesn’t have any reason to speak up.
It doesn’t seem likely, but I can imagine something like that happening due to confusion/oversights/miscommunication.
John Whitman,
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.
John–
I recognize that Obama would have to be brought in illegally. But if I’m not mistaken, according to this theory, a child who could almost certainy be brought in legally would have to be brought in illegally. I’m not saying it could not be done– but why would it be done? In anticipation of a black child some day running for president? And when would it be done? Yes, lots of people come illegally– but do they manage to obtain US birth certificates? And why hasn’t anyone in Kenya stepped forward (assuming that’s where he is purported to have been born?) If the family was ready to go to all this trouble to sneak him in, why not just have the mother be in Hawaii at the time of birth? Also– in this theory, does Obama himself know he wasn’t born in Hawaii?
I don’t like to argue by asking questions, but the theory that Obama was born elsewhere, snuck in and his family got him a birth certificate leaves open a huge number of questions relating to how they might do it and why they wouldn’t just do something much simpler– make sure his Mom was in Hawaii when he was born.
I was born in El Salvador and evidence that I was born there began accumulating right away. El Salvadoran birth certificate, baptismal certificates, photographs of parents in El Salvador around the time of birth and so on. If my parents has absolutely wanted me born on US soil, Mom would have flown to Staten Island and stayed with her parents during the last trimester.
To demonstrate why I think a situation like what I describe is reasonably plausible, I’ll provide an example from my own life. I moved a while back, and in the process, I lost a lot of documentation, including my birth certificate and social security card. Shortly after, the only photo ID I had expired.
In the process of trying to get a driver’s license in Illinois, I found out I would need a birth certificate and social security card (and proof of residency). To get either, I was told I’d need to prove my identity. This put me in a strange situation, and I wasn’t sure how I’d resolve it.
As it turns out, I managed to order my birth certificate online, and I did so without providing any proof of my identity. I then got hospitalized for about a week, and they accepted me without proof of identity. The records from that stay then allowed me to get a social security card. That means I was able to get everything I needed to get an ID without ever having any proof of my identity.
Should that have been possible? No. But it was. And things like that happen all the time, often without anyone intending anything inappropriate.
Brandon Shollenberger,
Its also possible that Obama spontaneously apparated from another dimension shortly after his birth and was registered illegally. However, given that evidence exists for neither of these scenarios it doesn’t seem particularly useful to spend time weaving webs of speculation.
Zeke:
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
It’s quite possible to suppress something without intending to do so. If you find something laughable, and you mock anyone who discusses it, you effectively suppress it. Look at the link I provided a couple posts back for an example of how it happens.
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.
You say he has “to realize how silly this whole discussion is,” but really, what’s so silly about it? Saying Obama wasn’t born in the United States would be silly, but it isn’t silly to discuss how something could possibly happen, then look at whether or not it may have.
Zeke:
Its also possible that Obama spontaneously apparated from another dimension shortly after his birth and was registered illegally. However, given that evidence exists for neither of these scenarios it doesn’t seem particularly useful to spend time weaving webs of speculation.
So? It doesn’t seem particularly useful to bet on ice levels or temperatures either. We just do it because we find it interesting.
People shouldn’t be mocked just because they choose to discuss something which isn’t useful. Especially not if they raise valid points, like at least one government official acted in an illegal manner during this saga.
Brandon
One of the first which comes to mind is, how closely would officials have looked at a newborn baby fifty years ago (especially if the parents were citizens)?
Are you thinking he could be passed off as another baby? Or that they might mistake him for a canteloupe for football? I’m not trying to be coy here– but I need to know whether you are suggesting someone smuggled him in or whether you think customs agents won’t notice a baby.
American babies needed papers to pass through US customs when my family moved back to the US in 1962.
We later moved back to El Salvador and then back again.
Early on we flew with my mother’s passport. We have a cute passport picture of Mom with all four kids. Because the laws at the time permitted some people’s passports to be yanked (for reasons later declared unconstitutional) and my sister’s god-mother and father’s friends’ citizenship was yanked, I got a passport in my own name by the time I was 6. My brother Peter had a passport at the age of 2– and used it.
So any “with passport” theory requires someone who has a kid and a passport with a kid of the right age to lug Obama across the border. It can’t be Obama’s mom– because she can’t get him listed on her passport without admitting he exists and was born elsewhere. Also, Obama’s family has to find a mule who is willing to substitute the Obama for their own infant. Plus– if they are coming from Kenya, the parents of the Kenyan kid had to get a visa.
And they have to do this miracle of getting a visa for the other infant in less than 6 days.
Not saying it’s impossible — maybe if they start planning when she’s 3 months pregnant it could be done. I’m just asking what’s the motive?
That makes it much easier than if he were being registered as a three year old.
I don’t see how it’s remotely easier. There’s hardly time to get paper work for the other kid done in 6 days. (Maybe they get a woman who has a 1 month old and hope customs can’t tell. But still– it’s often not easy to get entry visas to the US!)
For example, imagine a mother who recently had a baby flew to the United States.
She get her baby through customs without paperwork from the US government. She might be able to get him in coming from Canada or Mexico where the border guards didn’t ask for papers. (We never carried our passport when we drove to Buffalo by way of Canada).
Seriously, I think the flew Obama in before he was 6 days old presents serious logistics challenges if planned and is impossible if accidental.
lucia (Comment #96572)-“someone born on US soil is a natural born citizen.”
Just to begin with a preface that should be unnecessary: Obama is a citizen. That being said, Lucia, the statement you have made is not quite accurate, at least if one cares about the intent of those who wrote/supported the passage of the 14th Amendment that established “birth right citizenship” after the pre-civil war Supreme Court had said blacks couldn’t be citizens. To begin with, the purpose of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was to protect the 1866 Civil Rights Act from court strike down. That act: “granted U.S. citizenship to all persons born in the United States, as long as those persons were not subject to a foreign power” Thus why the phrasing is “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” (emphasis added). Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan—the author of the Citizenship Clause—indicated that he believed that the content of it and the 1866 act was the same. He and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lyman Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act, disputed the claim of Senator James Rood Doolittle of Wisconsin that the language would make “Indians” citizens. Howard said that the act also excluded “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” Trumbull and two others, and President Andrew Johnson, all agreed that the Amendment and Act confered citizenship on non-naturalized resident’s children if they were not subject to a foreign power as dipolomats are. No Senator contradicted this.
“I think you are correct; SCOTUS has not ruled.”
Also not true:
Elk v. Wilkins “The Supreme Court held that Native Americans who voluntarily quit their tribes did not automatically gain national citizenship.”
United States v. Wong Kim Ark “The Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment a man born within the United States to Chinese citizens who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are carrying on business in the United States—and whose parents were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power—was a citizen of the United States.”
So there have been decisions. Of course, again, Obama does meet these definitions. But not everyone born here.
Zeke (Comment #96595)
May 29th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
John Whitman,
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.
= = = = = =
Zeke,
Hey, thanks for your comment.
In recent years we see the liberal media not broadly reporting certain news and info wrt to skepticism in climate science. They can do that for the short term but not for extended periods. Why does that not apply to a potential derogatory issue with a sitting liberal president? It just is the modern situation . . . . look at the BBC in England who openly says it won’t be balanced on certain issues even when they are required to do so by law. Do you think there is any reason to think the US liberal media is any different?
I think the US liberal media is proud they have the power to control the dialog wrt Obama. : )
John
lucia:
Are you thinking he could be passed off as another baby? Or that they might mistake him for a canteloupe for football? I’m not trying to be coy here– but I need to know whether you are suggesting someone smuggled him in or whether you think customs agents won’t notice a baby.
It’s much simpler than that. You say:
American babies needed papers to pass through US customs when my family moved back to the US in 1962.
I’ve seen plenty of cases where what was “needed” didn’t actually get required. For example, before the terrorist attacks on September 11th, I saw people get through airport security without being checked, at all. The fact something shouldn’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t. I believe it’s possible someone could have cleared immigration when they shouldn’t have because an official was lazy/incompetent/sympathetic/whatever.
But really, do we even know Obama wasn’t included on his mother’s passport? How would him being on it prevent him from getting a birth certificate? I doubt Hawaii’s health department (or the hospitals) routinely checked with immigration before issuing birth certificates.
Andrew_FL–
I stand corrected. You are right. Children born to Diplomats granted immunity and a child hypothetically born to parents who might in future invade and occupy parts of the US would not be granted citizenship under the 14th amendment.
was a citizen of the United States.â€
But the argument is over “natural born” rather than just citizen. I don’t think a specific dispute over this term which I think is used no where other than when describing qualifications to hold presidential office has been specifically adjudicated. (I predict Obama v. Someone will not be the first case.)
But really, do we even know Obama wasn’t included on his mother’s passport?
To be included, they need a photo with the baby present. To take the photo, the baby has to have already been born. Six days is record time. It also has to be registered at the American consulate– which can only happen after birth. I haven’t personally checked at the American consulate– but I would need something more than a rhetorical question to believe a that these papers exist but no one has unearthed them.
For example, before the terrorist attacks on September 11th, I saw people get through airport security without being checked, at all.
Airport security is not customs and immigration. Sure, airport security was not heavy prior to 9/11. It wasn’t required to be heavy.
I have never, ever, ever gotten through immigration the US without my passport being looked at. Never.
The fact something shouldn’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t.
It means you can’t plan on it happening.
The idea that the energetic Ann Obama gives birth, rushes to the embassy, gets paper work filled out in record time, rushes to the photographer, gets her photos developed (quickly for the 60s) gets to the passport office, gets a passport with little Barack on it– in record time, gets airline tickets, takes a probably 2 day flight from Kenya to Hawaii? This is already absurd on so many levels. (The risk of running out of diapers and infant formula would be enough to dissuade most new mothers from giving this a try.)
The alternative that she skips the paperwork, planning to smuggle him in is even more absurd. In that scenario, she has to worry about being caught at ever turn.
First, she tries to hops in the plane with a kid with no papers? (Absurdity one– Emigration normally checks. Airlines don’t like their passengers being sent back when the arrive in the US.) But that magically succeeds.
Then after a 2 day flight, she arrives in HI and tries to get through customs with an undocumented infant? This means she risks arrest for smuggling and and get turned back with a 2-6 day old infant? Absurdity two.
The whole while, she has to feed, diaper etc. Barack?
But, somehow after all this she manages to get Barack past customs and immigration (who screened our chihuaha when we brought him from El Salvador)? They somehow fail to notice the 6 day old infant? And the diapers? And formula? Coming off a flight from Kenya? Absurd.
“I am here dressed up looking like someone escaped from a Dude Ranch….” 🙂
I think some of you are lacking in a sence of humor.
His point of the sheriff beIng investigated as a raceist because of his questions on the birth certificate is to the point.
We are back to the idea that if you are opposed to BO, you are, by definition a “raceist”. Total bunk.
As I’ve said multiple times, I’ve never thought Obama was born outside the United States. I’ve been interested in this topic because I’ve seen enough crazy things happen that I didn’t rule out the possibility out-of-hand. That, combined with the poor response to the controversy, made me think it was worth paying attention to.
However, over the last year I forgot about an important fact. After years of people talking about it, Barack Obama did release the full version of his birth certificate. It clearly states the place of birth, as well as the attending doctor. Short of something like bribery, I don’t see how that could have happened. Had Obama been presented as being born in country, but not at the hospital, there is no way it would have been filled out like that (much less been signed within two days of the birth).
So while I still stand by my position that something like what I described could have conceivably happened without any nefarious intent, I don’t think there is any reason to believe it did. I think the White House handled the situation poorly (especially with not being clear about types of birth certificates), and it should have released the full version much sooner, but that’s not a very interesting topic.
And I really doubt anyone cares that the head of Hawaii’s Department of Health broke the law by releasing public statements discussing Obama’s birth certificate, violating confidentiality. Still, I find it incredibly strange Obama’s people said they couldn’t get the full version because it was confidential, yet they had no problem quoting someone breaking that confidentiality…
I suspect that US border controls at airports are close to UK controls….when travelling with my one-year-old child, the officials made sure to inspect the contents of the buggy. Sneaking a baby through immigration is not a straightforward matter.
Oh– Also 6 day old Barack would probably also need to be up to date on immunization to be let in. And yes, immigration used to check to require American’s to be up to date on smallpox vaccines before letting them back into the country. If Ann Obama was planning to get little Barack through immigration, she’d either have to have his certificate or hope that for some unusual reason, immigration didn’t check people arriving on a flight from Africa!
lucia:
I would need something more than a rhetorical question to believe a that these papers exist but no one has unearthed them.
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Obama’s mother’s passport from that time may still exist, and someone may have it. If so, we could know whether or not Obama was included on it, and if he was, when he was added.
As for believing it, I wouldn’t believe it unless I had strong evidence for it. But whether or not I believe something has little to do with my ability to discuss what it would be.
Airport security is not customs and immigration. Sure, airport security was not heavy prior to 9/11. It wasn’t required to be heavy.
I probably wasn’t clear enough. I was referring to people managing to bypass the security which was there. If security can be at an airport and get bypassed in a way I can observe, it’s hard for me to believe that never happens with immigration.
The idea that the energetic Ann Obama gives birth, rushes to the embassy, gets paper work filled out in record time, rushes to the photographer, gets her photos developed (quickly for the 60s) gets to the passport office, gets a passport with little Barack on it– in record time, gets airline tickets, takes a probably 2 day flight from Kenya to Hawaii? This is already absurd on so many levels.
It’s pretty unbelievable, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I also don’t think it’s quite as unreasonable as your tone suggests. No rushing would be necessary, there’s no reason the paper work would need to be filled out in record time, and a photographer could come to her (or someone else could take the baby to him).
I get it sounds absurd, so it’s easy to word things to make it sound more absurd, but it’s kind of inappropriate.
Monckton gave it the full birther works at Heartland. Did not exactly get booed off stage either. Chris has form on his random quackery, he has publicly claimed to be able to cure AIDS in the past. The guy is a grade A crank of von Daniken proportions.
To be fair Lucia seen him coming a mile off. But few in the contrarian comunity did. For someone not prepared to invest large amounts of time to pick up the nuances in the various positions it is difficult to seperate the Morano’s, Watt’s, Monckton’s and Heartland’s form those who do have more informed and consistant criticisms like your Judy Curry’s. The loudness of your Moncktons and Morano’s mean many find the contrarians nothing but loud mouthed fools with an agenda…..
Hence outside of America and Australia the idea that climate change is a major issue is taken seriously by most socities.
With the likes of Heartland and Monckton able to be such a big part of the debate in America and the like I dont see what the stratagey is to move this from blogs grumbling about nitpicks over Yamal or whatever to something that more science savey countries like Germany or France are going to take seriously.
That said, its no skin of my nose. Americans are locked in their American culture war paradigms the rest of the world is taking mainstream science seriously.
E2A
Edit feature is great……
diogenes:
I suspect that US border controls at airports are close to UK controls….when travelling with my one-year-old child, the officials made sure to inspect the contents of the buggy. Sneaking a baby through immigration is not a straightforward matter.
I have the disadvantage of being young and of knowing about security. Being young means 1961 was decades before I was born, so I have little personal experience which relates. What I do know is security has improved a great deal in the last ten years, so I instinctively think security must have been even worse further back.
Knowing about security means I know just how terrible security often is. When you constantly see security not implemented properly (if at all), you tend to become cynical. When you look at how computer networks get misused (it’s often unintentional), you start to look at how other things could be “broken into.” That might give me a warped view.
Still, I’ve never mistaken anything as suggesting Obama actually wasn’t born in the United States. I’ve just considered possibilities as to how it could have happened.
Incidentally, lucia brings up an important point I hadn’t considered, that of immunization. That definitely was a serious concern, and it makes it much less likely for a baby to slip through.
I admit that anecdotal mevidence evidence is no more than anecdotal and random but…last June, I took 2 US citizens (mother and son) from the Uk to France. The border officials scrutinised the passports; checked the contents of my car; interrogated me as to when those Americans were going back to the USA. The same level of scrutiny happened on our return to the UK.
M<aybe I was twice unlucky in attracting anally-retentive border officials. maybe things were more lax back in the day. But it is a big risk to take, nonetheless. at somepoint you have to look at the probablilities of this freak border event becoming the POTUS.
Seriously folks, this birther exchange boarders on insanity. Obama’s mother could not have anticipated some future constitutional conflict over her son becoming president some day if he had actually been born outside the USA, (and there is NO evidence that he was!). Seriously. She would have absolutely no motivation to rush back to Hawaii to fake little Barrack’s birth certificate, since she could have registered him as a US citizen by birth at any time. The children of US parents really do automatically receive citizenship if they are registered at any time until their their 18th birthday. The birthers and now Monckton are wasting their time, and everyone else’s too. For goodness sakes, let it go!
Brandon
But whether or not I believe something has little to do with my ability to discuss what it would be.
Sure. But at a certain point its merely boring. We could also discuss theories that GHW Bush wasn’t really natural born because what really might have happened was that GW Bush had an affair with some female relative of Barbara’s and got her pregnant. That woman went overseas to have the kid, but then GW Bush persuaded Barbara they should raise his love child and then through some implausible series of events, they got the kid over to the US, filed a birth certificate and so on. It gets even more boring to discuss this especially if every possible reason why we believe GHW Bush really was natural born is presented with some other widly implausible possibitlity for which there is not one iota of evidence.
No rushing would be necessary, there’s no reason the paper work would need to be filled out in record time, and a photographer could come to her (or someone else could take the baby to him).
Of course rushing would be necessary. The time lag isn’t her filling out a form. The time lag is others processing it — getting a photo developed– presenting it in person at the passport office (you have to do this). Getting the person there to decide it looks like you and meets the requirements for white space, full face on for mother and kids. (I’ve had photos rejected and had to go back to get new ones. Pre-digital, it took longer. Also, if he travels on her passport, they both have to be in the picture together. )
Then if they let you submit, you have to wait for this to be sent to an office where they do heaven knows what and then the send you a new passport.
Currently, routine service is 4-6 weeks; expedited is 2-3 weeks. See: times.
Also, Ann would have to have her passport in hand leaving Kenya. If Barack was 6 days old when his birth certificate was filled out, and it took two days to fly, that means she got an updated passport in less than 4 days after Barack was born. This would would be very fast to get a passport even if you are in the US, have your birth certificate in hand, and old passport in hand and merely need to renew.
By the way, it used to take more time to get your passport — not less. This is because people had to dig up various records, make sure you don’t have another passport, haven’t been applying for 5 passports a year and so on. It used to take longer to dig up records. It’s not like getting a drivers license.
Mind you– the time mentioned at the passport office is the time after you have all other paperwork required to file in hand and you submitted your request.
In Ann Obama’s case, she couldn’t submit the paperwork for the passport for Barack until after she has her “birth to child born to American parents” form filed and returned to her. She needs that document to before submitting her modification request for her passport. I don’t know what’s involved in getting that– my parents did that when I was born. But I suspect that also wasn’t like getting your driver’s license back then either. People are going to have to present proof of citizenship– which means the US citizen(s) appearing in person at the consulate and presenting their documents to a human being at the consulate who would look at Ann’s passport in Ann’s presense (someone else can’t do this), look at Barack and want to see other documents related to the birth. No one is going to go to the hospital to check all these things out for her.
So yes, rushing would be required. Rushing would be required on the part of a lot of people none of whom would be motivated to rush.
I get it sounds absurd, so it’s easy to word things to make it sound more absurd, but it’s kind of inappropriate.
It sounds absurd because it is absurd.
dorlomin
Is Monckton’s talk online? Did you see it? I didn’t. As soon as I saw him staging to speak I left. I just couldn’t.. couldn’t….. But I know at least two security guards thought he was funny and I know they thought whatever he said about the Hawaiian birth certificate was funny because two of them told me so.
Edit feature is great……
Yep!
What I do know is security has improved a great deal in the last ten years, so I instinctively think security must have been even worse further back.
Border controls at airport were not bad in the 60s. It’s not the same as cyber security or bomb security. But also: there is a difference between people trying to break into a computer where the consequence of failing is…. failing…. and someone hopping on a plane with a 4 day old baby and the consequence of failing is… what? Getting arrested and sent back? It’s not that hypothetically customes could never ever ever slip up. I’m sure customs slips up every day. But a person deciding to buy tickets and hop on the plane with an infant is going to think twice about this.
On vaccinations: they used to check for vaccinations quite stringently. Small pox was very scary. People coming from Africa not being checked? No way. Even at 6 yo I remember border people leafing through my vacinnation record. That worried Mom much more than the passport!
The border officials scrutinised the passports; checked the contents of my car; interrogated me as to when those Americans were going back to the USA. The same level of scrutiny happened on our return to the UK.
During the early 80s going from the UK to france with an American passport was a snap. It was going from France to the UK where you got checked up and down. France to Brussels– sometimes they didn’t even check if you had a train ticket!
France to the US– customs and immigration checked.
When I was a kid, the US Canadian border was permeable. You could get through without a passport check– easy. They just asked your nationality. If the parents instructed the Guatemalan visitor to keep quite, no one checked. Especially not if the Guatemalan was blonde. (Oddly, she was also American because she was born in the US when her Dad was in med school. But we knew if she opened her mouth they’d check. So Maria de Lost Angeles Ramirez was told to keep quiet.)
Brandon
I think the White House handled the situation poorly (especially with not being clear about types of birth certificates), and it should have released the full version much sooner, but that’s not a very interesting topic
BTW: I think the discussion of how the WH handled the issue is leaps and bounds more interesting that speculating about wildly improbable ways Ann in particular might has smuggled Obama in particular into the country. It’s still not interesting enough to spend much time on– but more interesting than the wild speculation.
It would also be more interesting to talk about how a person today might evade security today. That conversation would be useful, but actually, if you have any good ideas on how it should be done, it should not be discussed on a blog. And so, I would discourage it.
SteveF:
Seriously folks, this birther exchange boarders on insanity.
When you say “this birther exchange,” do you mean the exchange going on in the comments of this page? If so, I think you’re way off-base.
Obama’s mother could not have anticipated some future constitutional conflict over her son becoming president some day if he had actually been born outside the USA, (and there is NO evidence that he was!).
I’ve given an example scenario in which absolutely no intention to deceive would exist, much less an intention to deceive in order to allow Obama to become president. It seems strange to dismiss everything with a comment which couldn’t possibly address some of the things you’re dismissing.
With the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate, I don’t think there is any reason to doubt his place of birth, but the fact people are wrong doesn’t mean everyone criticizing them are right. You can make faulty arguments for a correct position, and it appears that’s what you’re doing here.
lucia:
Sure. But at a certain point its merely boring.
Of course. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if people were uninterested in the discussion. However, the point I made went directly to the entire portrayal you were giving, so it was obviously worth mentioning, even if it bores people.
Of course rushing would be necessary.
She could have leisurely strolled down to the embassy (assuming it was within walking distance), casually filled out the paperwork, and then gone somewhere and laid down to rest, at which point the photographer could come over. The fact she only had a few days in which to do these things doesn’t mean she had to rush about during the day, which is what you implied.
So yes, rushing would be required. Rushing would be required on the part of a lot of people none of whom would be motivated to rush.
When I said no rushing would be required, I was obviously referring to the rushing you had mentioned in the quote I provided. I wasn’t referring to rushing from people you hadn’t mentioned to do things you hadn’t talked about. It’s fine to bring up other types of rushing, but you shouldn’t imply they somehow dispute my remark.
It sounds absurd because it is absurd.
The point is something being absurd doesn’t mean any portrayal which makes it sound absurd is automatically correct. It’s no different than the fact faulty arguments can be made in support of correct positions.
there is a difference between people trying to break into a computer where the consequence of failing is
There’s also a difference between people trying to break into a computer and people simply misusing the network. The reason I referred to it often being unintentional (and put quotation marks around broken into) is most security with computers is not designed to prevent intentional harm, but rather, inadvertent damages.
The subject matter itself may be uninteresting, but watching Lucia Liljegren and Brandon Shollenberger try to out-parse each other’s parsings is kinda compelling drama.
It’s like the Alien vs. Predator of parsomatics.
PDA–
Huh? Expressing a difference of opinion on whether it easy or difficult for a woman to get a passport for a newborn born overseas in 4 days or whether it is easy or difficult to sneak a infant past customs is not “word parsing”.
PDA,
Heh, you had to remind of the movie Predator 2. In my opinion one of the worst movies of all time.
Lucia, my comment was intended as a gentle tease. You don’t have to find it funny, but I get a lot of comic relief from extended disputations on what the specific referent of the word “rushing” was… and replying to a joke about parsing by parsing the meaning of the word “parsing.”
My comment was in no wise meant to express disapproval. By all means, please continue.
Earle:
Heh, you had to remind of the movie Predator 2. In my opinion one of the worst movies of all time.
Alien vs Predator was worse, no matter how you parse it. ^.^
Lucia
It doesn’t look like the officials were too security conscious with Obama’s mother http://www.wnd.com/2010/08/187813/
When Obama’s mother returned to the U.S. Oct. 20-21, 1971, she entered with State Department forms allowing her to travel with the passport she used in 1967 to go to Indonesia, even though it had expired.
End
Don’t forget Obama’s mother was an American citizen,your parents were not.
Wouldn’t it be recorded on her passport if she travelled from Kenya to Hawaii after Obama’s birth?
As there is not,it looks like he was born in Hawaii.
Brandon–
If Barack was born in Kenya, the notion that Ann got Barack added to her passport in time to fly into Hawaii and then either accidentally or intentionally had him registered as born in Hawaii within 6 days of birth is absurd. It doesn’t just sound absurd. It is absurd.
Noelene and Lucia, I’ve been able to enter the US without a passport. After 9/11.
Sometimes it can be faster (like LAX) than having the proper paperwork.
(They send you to an office where they check over your other documentation, grill you, profile you, lecture you about remembering your passport, then send you on your way…all in about 1/10th the time it takes to go through the line at LAX.)
Nolene
she entered with State Department forms allowing her to travel with the passport she used in 1967 to go to Indonesia, even though it had expired.
Yes. The State Department sometimes permit US citizens to fill out paper work and get permission to travel with an expired passport. This would happen most especially if a US citizen who had not kept their passport renewed got caught overseas during a period of unrest. It would happen even more frequently if the State Department advised everyone to leave. Border control is not entirely about security and not letting Barack in without a passport or papers would not have been entirely about security.
This is not the same as customs permitting an undocumented baby to enter the country with no forms of any kind simply because it was carried off an airplane arriving from Kenya.
Don’t forget Obama’s mother was an American citizen,your parents were not.
Are you telling me my parents were not US citizens? My parents are both US citizens. Had they not been they would not have filed the “child born to American Citizen overseas” papers when I was born and I would not have gotten American citizenship.
Wouldn’t it be recorded on her passport if she travelled from Kenya to Hawaii after Obama’s birth?
Maybe. Maybe not. When I was a kid, I got entry and exit stamps leaving the US and El Salvador. Seems to me the european countries didn’t always do it. (We found this disappointing.) I don’t know what Kenya did. So, I can’t be sure.
As there is not,it looks like he was born in Hawaii.
I think he was born in Hawaii. Absolutely. Out of curiosity, do you actually know if she even had a passport in 1961 and whether it was stamped? That would be interesting (but not interesting enough for me to try to hunt down.)
Carrick,
Alien vs Predator was worse, no matter how you parse it. ^.^
I don’t doubt it. Never saw that sludge though. Perhaps I was being a bit dramatic, but I stumbled onto Predator 2 on cable a while back. I didn’t realize my movie tastes had matured so much. Special effects were OK, but script and acting stunk. This from a guy who thinks Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension was high art. Ah well, where do I get my codger membership card?
PDA–When I replied to you, I actually hadn’t seen Brandon’s reply that Ann didn’t have to rush to the photographers specifically. So I thought you were calling our dispute about whether it’s possible to get a passport in 4 days “parsing”. I agree that disputing whether Ann would specifically have had to rush to the photographer either is or borders on parsomatics.
Carrick–
Yes. but you have one.
When we leave the country, we put photocopies of our passport numbers on the dining room table so your families can locate those should we get pick-pocketed or something. But if you never even got one and have no proof of citizenship whatsoever, I think you’d find things a bit more difficult.
lucia,
Out of curiosity, do you actually know if she even had a passport in 1961 and whether it was stamped?
July 19, 1965
Stanley Ann Dunham is issued Passport No. F777788 by U.S. Department of State (passport application destroyed by State Department in 1980s). It is unknown whether Dunham had a U.S. passport prior to 1965, because the State Department claims her passport records prior to 1968 were destroyed in the 1980s in accordance with unspecified “guidance†from the General Services Administration.
That’s as much hunting as I’m interested in doing on this. 🙂
Sorry
I thought your parents were not American.I followed a link from the article I posted as they were quoting her travels,I assumed the records existed,seems they don’t. http://www.wnd.com/2010/08/187825/
Stanley Ann Dunham is issued Passport No. F777788 by U.S. Department of State (passport application destroyed by State Department in 1980s). It is unknown whether Dunham had a U.S. passport prior to 1965, because the State Department claims her passport records prior to 1968 were destroyed in the 1980s in accordance with unspecified “guidance†from the General Services Administration.
End
Whether he is a US citizen does not really matter now.It is not in the American interest to prove he is not.That would render every action he has taken as president illegal,wouldn’t it?That would be a nightmare,best let sleeping dogs lie.He was obviously American enough for the ones who voted for him.
We could all benefit from having a clear record on the people we vote for.Maybe it should be a requirement that every aspect of their lives are open to the public,apart from the personal side.Birth certificate,school records(without the personal assessments,just the facts)military service,passport,career..all laid out so there can be no confusion.
lucia:
If Barack was born in Kenya, the notion that Ann got Barack added to her passport in time to fly into Hawaii and then either accidentally or intentionally had him registered as born in Hawaii within 6 days of birth is absurd. It doesn’t just sound absurd. It is absurd.
I’m not sure this responds to anything I’ve said, but for what it’s worth, I agree. Me saying “I get it sounds absurd” in no way was meant to imply I thought it wasn’t absurd. It was merely to indicate I was discussing the impression given, regardless of the underlying reality, for that particular sentence as that sentence was discussing impressions.
(My agreement is why in the previous paragraph I said the idea is “pretty unbelievable.”)
Noelene:
Whether he is a US citizen does not really matter now.It is not in the American interest to prove he is not.That would render every action he has taken as president illegal,wouldn’t it?
I don’t think every action would be considered illegal, especially not if they were made in good faith (such as Obama being unaware of the deception). I think the fact his authority was almost universally recognized would probably be enough to defend the legality of his decisions. I seem to recall that being the decision made by courts in some cases (on much smaller scales, of course), but none come to mind at the moment.
Lucia – You may think it at least “borders on parsomatics,” but I think it is perfectly appropriate to point out when someone misrepresents my remarks. I also think it’s appropriate to point out it is wrong to say one person would have to rush if in reality it is other people who would have to rush.
I get the impression parsomatics is considered a bad thing (I haven’t been able to find a definition). If so, I disagree with the label.
Lucia:
Carrick–
Yes. but you have one.
Actually, they didn’t check the passport ID at all (copies or otherwise), they took my word for it and they just looked at my other forms of identification (e.g., state issued drivers license, which doesn’t have anything on it about nationality and as I said clearly profiled me … as an absent minded academic).
I’m not as clever as some to remember to notify the state department when I travel and keep updated copies of my passport with me.
I didn’t have any proof of citizenship on me, though maybe my SS card helped.
(Back story: I got on the plane leaving the US knowing that I had forgotten my passport, didn’t have time to return to my home to pick it up, and couldn’t afford to miss the flight—would have missed my talk. I was more worried about reentry to the US than entry to the foreign country, though obviously that would have worked out eventually)
The recently discovered bio from 1991 that says Obama was born in Kenya, suggests strongly that this info was provided by Obama himself in order to get more “street cred”, and preferential treatment and/or scholarships in Harvard, Occidental, etc. Those records, however, are conveniently sealed.
At least Monckton has the ability to identify the crazies here.
Carrick–
Wow!
I don’t notify the state department when I travel either! Was there any checking of databases? Or anything?
Diego,
Student records are routinely sealed. That’s just the way it is.
FWIW–
This is a US embassy page explaining what American parents do to register their kids when they are born overseas.
I don’t notify the state department when I travel either! Was there any checking of databases? Or anything?
I don’t recall anything other than asking me questions like where I was born, etc. There wasn’t even a computer in the room. Just three guys (no bright lights either). If I had been a second-generation American with a residual accent things might have gone differently.
Zeke (Comment #96595)
May 29th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
“John Whitman,
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.”
Actually, Zeke I believe, since the birther nonsense is a political plus for Democrats and Obama, the MSM has given it considerably more attention than it deserves. Note the recent Trump/birther/Romney connection that has been a major MSM topic.
I wonder what the polling numbers would be on whether one thought John Kennedy’s assassination was an inside job. Oliver Stone and the movie he made about it was never widely laugh at or condemned.
There was a recent flap about Obama’s birthplace in an old biography of Obama at Harvard Law stating he was Kenyan born. The article stated that it believed that Obama was a US citizen born in Hawaii. It did not say whether this notion came from Obama. Since Elizabeth Warren running for the old Kennedy senate seat made claims of being part Cherokee and it became part of her Harvard biography, one wonders whether some of these politicians have worked at making their biographies more interesting. We have a senator from IL, Mark Kirk, who embellished his military record and I recall another politician from, I believe Pennsylvania and a States Attorney there who also lied about his military record and was immediately reelected.
Nolene–
You’re not required to know my parents are American. But they were and that’s why I know about the forms American’s fill out at the consuls office when their kid is born overseas. (You aren’t absolutely required to fill it out– but you do need to if you want to get a passport for them.)
Department claims her passport records prior to 1968 were destroyed in the 1980s in accordance with unspecified “guidance†from the General Services Administration.
End
I think you are supposed to turn in your old passport when you get a new one. I think the purpose is to make forgery more difficult. The destruction of old passports themselves would make sense in this context, but I’m a bit surprised “records” that might be on file would be destroyed. OTOH, it’s not something I’ve ever tried to learn anything about.
That would render every action he has taken as president illegal,wouldn’t it?
Actually, I don’t know. The constitution doesn’t specifically say what happens in the event of a slip up.
Brandon–
On rushing– I think Ann hauling herself and the baby to the consul office immediately after giving birth would be “rushing”. I concede she might be able to get the photographer to come to her and that would decrease the amount of rushing. I said “bordering on” because…. well… it’s a quibble about whether the need to get the photographer (as opposed to all the other things she needs to do) would contribute to her need to rush when the main issue is: Does it make any sense that Ann would do this?
It seems you agree it makes no sense to suggest she did all these things. So, I don’t think an argument over the degree of rushing is going to change that. I also don’t think an argument over whether an argument about exactly what constitutes rushing is useful!
parsomatics
It’s a “willard” term. He seems to do it all the time and accuses others of it and seem to think it’s a bad thing.
Neither parsing nor parser are bad things. Parsing is necessary for communication. And sometimes people do have to clarify what they meant. Sometimes people do need to infer meaning from how words and phrases are put together.
But it is also true that sometimes excess clarification or jumping on what amounts to picky details can make communication more difficult, not less.
How surprising that the same crew that believe AGW a hoax also doubt President Obama’s place of birth.
Not.
And with the “Bilderbergers” meeting this weekend there’s a whole new level of nut-jobness taking place.
Not speaking for willard, who coined the term as far as I know, but yes: if I were to parse ‘parsomatics,’ I would parse it as “excess clarification or jumping on what amounts to picky details.”
One would have to parse willard just right to love him. If one can parse the difference between playing with semiotics and ontological relativity on the one hand, and parsing to win an argument on the other, one stands an even chance.
If one finds the first more charming than the latter, then it’s a lock.
But de gustibus non est disputandum.
‘de parens citoyens’.
================
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875). Justia in time.
===================================
There is nothing but parsing and reparsing. Its part and parcel of the infinite explanatory regress. The only way out of parsing is what Morse peckham called ultimate sanctions. Language leads to more language and laguage about language until somebody puts a stop to it. by force of some sort. By non linguistic behavior.
Say uncle.
A birhter thread.. by way of Monkcton, no less. Amazing.
The issue is not made less complex by Obama’s self-written bio he provided for his first book agent. I think he was born here and is a citizen, but his lying in his own bio about something basic as where he was born is creepy. As to travel and pregnancy: Until the last 28 years or so, it was not uncommon for late-term pregnant women to be denied on long air flights. An infant, by the way, of an American mother would not be given much trouble at immigration once the provenance, so to speak was established.
The interesting thing is to think about why the current President would be so unwilling to do what most Presidential candidates do as a matter of course: release lots of personal stuff. After all, it is very unusual for a medicore small college student to get accepted not only to Columbia but Harvard. One would think someone who turned their life around from stoner marginal student to head of Harvard Law Review would want people to see as much of what he did as possible.
Instead, Obama seems downright bashful.
on the Natural Born Citizen front you may want to read this article on Minor v Hapersett which actually established PRECEDENT. The wiki entry is a mess this should help clear up.
“Since the Court in Minor specifically avoided construing the 14th Amendment as to citizenship, it is clear that Justice Gray’s statement – concerning the citizenship passage by Justice Waite in Minor – was clearly erroneous. The Supreme Court in Minor chose to construe Article 2 Section 1 instead of the 14th Amendment. As such, Minor is the only US Supreme Court case which has directly construed the Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizen clause. Therefore, Minor’s construction below creates binding legal precedent:
“Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,‘ and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.“ (Emphasis added.)”
also
“The 14th Amendment specifically confers only “citizenshipâ€. In Minor, the US Supreme Court directly recognized that natural-born citizens were a class of citizens who did not need the 14th Amendment to establish citizenship. The class of natural-born citizens was perfectly defined in the Minor case.”
and
“The Minor case has been severely misconstrued in the Ankeny opinion issued by the Indiana Court of Appeals. That court quoted Minor’s natural-born citizen language, then stated:
“Thus, the Court left open the issue of whether a person who is born within the United States of alien parents is considered a natural born citizen.â€
False. The Minor Court did not leave that question open. Nowhere in the Minor opinion does it state that the class of persons who are natural-born citizens is an open question. The Ankeny Court has it backwards.
The Supreme Court in Minor stated that the “citizenship†of persons who were not natural born citizens was an open question.”
You may want to read the rest for further clarification on how the issue became so confused and the seemingly conflicting statements in other decisions.
I guess it would be good if I gave you the link to read the rest:
KuhnKat–
Reading, it looks to me that reading what you quoted, Minor was correctly interpreted. Minor says a child born of to American parents on US soil is obviously a natural born citizen. But that leaves open the question that others may also be. They even specifically say they don’t need to resolve that question to make their present ruling and don’t.
That means, the question of whether a child born of alien parents is natural born is “open”– as Ankeny observed.
Are you saying the opposite?
Kuhnkat
Nowhere in the Minor opinion does it state that the class of persons who are natural-born citizens is an open question.
Yes it does. It discusses that for some people, there are “doubts”, but the says this:
For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.
This is exactly how the court leaves a question “open”. A certain portion of the class is certainly natural born. Other people may also be contained in the class, and the question about them is open.
Brandon,
I still think it boarders on insanity. People spend their time on lots of things I find crazy; Monckton is in this group, along with many others.
And I spread the same dezinformatsiya, to be fair.
PDA–
If you understood what the dezinformatsiya is supposed to be you understand willard-speak better than I do.
lucia.
it would appear that they are still stinging over questions asked about the IPCC owning a copyright. Stupid Eli and stupid willard said some nonsense. I’m betting neither have spent much time around the field.
@ Nick 96745,
Yes Nick, the bio was written by Obama. The agency’s policy is to have its clients write a third person bio for publication.
And do please show where any promotion or talent agency is giong to simply fabricate a bio without the input of the client.
One to think about Obama’s pre-Presidential bio is to ask: was Obama lying then or now?
I think he was fibbing then, claiming to be Kenyan born, because it helped, in his opinion, his narrative.
Here is what another client of that same firm has to say about who does what wrt bio’s: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/The-Vetting-Barack-Obama-Literary-Agent-1991-Born-in-Kenya-Raised-Indonesia-Hawaii
“All material she used in our proposals came directly from me and my writing partner. She edited our rough-draft proposals and gave us feedback, but the final versions were all ours. Our final versions, bio included, were then simply photo-copied, by us, and distributed to potential publishers. This was back in the pre-Google days, recall.
I was asked to write the bio in the third person.”
And do note that the agent only claims it was a “fact checking error”. She does not claim to have written it, she does not claim it was her error.
Now why would Obama pretend to be born in Kenya when he was not in fact born there? I really don’t know, but like I said I find his actions and attitude regarding this and his academic history to be rather creepy.
“If Barack was born in Kenya, the notion that Ann got Barack added to her passport in time to fly into Hawaii and then either accidentally or intentionally had him registered as born in Hawaii within 6 days of birth is absurd. It doesn’t just sound absurd. It is absurd.”
If the Hawaii birth cert. is a phony, the date of birth ain’t necessarily correct. He could have been a toddler when he landed with his mom in Hawaii 🙂
I don’t see why, at the time of Barry’s birth, his family would have thought it a good idea to lie about where he was born. It’s unlikely that Barry was able to get away with correcting an accident of birth so long after the fact, but it is really weird that he didn’t make a credible effort to clear this up long ago. Even now he could authorize the Hawaii authorities to allow inspection of the original documents in their files. Taken together with his refusal to release other documentation on his history just makes it look like Barry got something to hide.
Don-
If the Hawaii birth cert. is a phony, the date of birth ain’t necessarily correct. He could have been a toddler when he landed with his mom in Hawaii
Of course. This is why, much earlier, I asked those who wanted to advance their theories to describe them in some detail. We were discussing a branch where the certificate is not fake, but somehow, Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii. Of course the reasons why those theories don’t make sense are different from the theories that the birth certificate was faked.
The fact that no theory is concrete, there is no evidence etc. is what ultimately makes these discussion pointless and boring (and borderline insane.)
I think I told Brandon that if someone says the issue might have been handled better by Obama, I agree. But many presidents handle somethings well and somethings poorly. I don’t think handling this less than perfectly is evidence of much of anything.
Actually the IPCCs position is clear that they own the copyright on the reports and not any individuals.
You think different. Sue em
————————
Thank you for your message. Please note that the material covered in the IPCC reports cannot be attributed to one single author and therefore the issue of individual copyrights is not relevant.
Eli–
We’ve been over this.
a) The “issue of individual copyrights” doesn’t resolve the questions people have about IPCC copyright.
b)The IPCC does not have the authority to write US copyright laws.
c) There is plenty of reason to believe the IPCC may be misinterpreting US copyright law.
What are you suggesting someone sue the IPCC about? As far as I am aware no one has grounds to sue the IPCC for something like “writing confusing, misleading or utterly inaccurate claims about copyright”. I don’t think that’s any sort of cause of action. (Is that the term?)
The situation is that if someone copies and the IPCC doesn’t like it, the IPCC have have to sue. If the person sued is eager for engagement, it might go to court. Depending on circumstances, the IPCC might lose — big time. And since copyright is one of the causes of action that permits the defendant to sue for costs, the IPCC might have to pay$$
But this is all hypothetical. Because so far as I know, the IPCC hasn’t sued anyone for copyright violations in the US courts.
lucia
So, I don’t think an argument over the degree of rushing is going to change that. I also don’t think an argument over whether an argument about exactly what constitutes rushing is useful!
I agree. I never thought it was important. It just seemed like you were exaggerating things slightly, so I pointed that out. My expectation was you’d either read it, accept the view, and say nothing, or you’d say something like, “Maybe, but I don’t think it matters.” Either way, it would have been over. The only reason I said anything more was you responded about other cases of rushing, offering them as though they were what I was talking about. I don’t like leaving misrepresentations unanswered.
To be fair, I may have over-interpreted your comment. When you said “rush,” my mind interpreted that as to travel quickly since you also said she had to fill out paper work in “record time.” To me, this gave the impression you were suggesting she’d be running around with hardly any time in her day, and that is what seemed excessive. I suppose “rush” could have been read differently though?
But it is also true that sometimes excess clarification or jumping on what amounts to picky details can make communication more difficult, not less.
I agree with this too. I even think I’m guilty of it at times. However, I don’t think a sentence or two to clarify something is generally a problem. And if it becomes one, I’m always willing to have someone tell me to shut up about meaningless things!
I think I told Brandon that if someone says the issue might have been handled better by Obama, I agree. But many presidents handle somethings well and somethings poorly. I don’t think handling this less than perfectly is evidence of much of anything.
I’d have been less surprised if it was just Obama’s reaction which was poor. However, I kept coming across other things. For example, the Hawaiian governor announced he’d get the birth certificate then later was forced to admit he couldn’t find it. Then I found out the head of the state’s Department of Health publicly discussed the document even though the same department had supposedly told Obama’s staff he couldn’t get a copy of it because it was confidential. It’s not “evidence of much of anything” (aside from a government official apparently breaking the law), but it also didn’t inspire much confidence.
PDA – Thanks for your interpretation. That was the impression I got from the term, but it’s hard to tell with words I don’t know (especially with things from willard).
Steven Mosher – I have told people to tell me to shut up if I ever get “stuck” on points of clarification which don’t matter. Few ever take me up on it, but when someone does, it seems to work pretty well. On the internet I do get trollish cases of it, so it’s less effective, but still…
I forgot one other thing which I kept coming across. I repeatedly heard/saw the announcements of Obama’s birth in newspapers as being independent evidence of his place of birth. The problem was I knew this “independence” was the same sort of “independence” found in multiproxy studies which constantly rely on much of the same data.
Those newspapers just published whatever birth announcements the hospitals sent them. That made them evidence Obama’s birth certificate wasn’t created in this century, but they were constantly offered as more than just that.
Misrepresenting evidence in order to make snide comments and dismiss people’s claims out-of-hand always makes me wonder.
Eli (Comment #96769):
Your answer from the IPCC is not the smoking gun you think it is. Instead, review this link to a report on joint ownership of copyright (page 87 in particular) http://www.copyright.gov/history/studies/study12.pdf
I think you will see that if joint persons, together create a work of joint authorship, then absent an obligation to assign their joint contribution to another entity, the joint work is jointly owned by the joint authors.
Another way of saying that all the authors who contributed to the joint IPCC report, jointly own the copyright.
All the IPCC is saying is that there is no individual work of authorship – not that the IPCC owns the joint work of authorship.
lucia,
Not to beat a dead horse (but your reply invited me to take another whack), if he was not born in Hawaii, how can the birth cert. be genuine, since it states he was born in Hawaii? Please feel to
consider that a rhetorical question, and move on. Let Brandon continue on his own quest for semantic perfection 🙂
On second thought, I withdraw the question. It makes me sound like Brandon 🙂 I am more concerned with the story that Barry has his barber flown to DC from Chicago every couple of weeks, on our dime. That is the kind of crap I would expect out of a King, not a President.
Don–
It’s not my theory. Brandon suggested a scenario. I think it goes that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii but the birth certificate — filled out at or near 6 days after birth–is legit in the sense that it is not forged. It would have been filled out near the time of birth by officials in Hawaii who thought they were filling out an accurate birth certificate.
In contrast, other people advance the theory the document is forged. Obviously, evidence for one theory is generally going to differ drastically from the other.
If it’s true that he was born in Hawai’i, why did he lie about it, or did he simply tell an untruth?
If it’s true he was born in Kenya, why did he lie about it, or did he simply tell an untruth?
If it’s true he had Indonesian citizenship, why did he lie about it, or did he simply tell an untruth?
====================
Eli still doesnt get it.
Asking a question does not amount to making a claim
1. Does the IPCC own a copyright?
does not amount to a claim that they do not.
Making a claim, does not establish a fact.
2. Yes the IPCC do own one, because they said so.
Settling the matter would require more than words.
but here today all we have is words. So we discuss.
Rabbets of course dont like to discuss.
lucia correctly shows kuhnkat that the meaning of ‘natural born’ is open. It is worth noting that the term is only used in qualification for Presidential election, and was used instead of ‘native born’, used elsewhere and presumably with a different meaning. lucia and I differ in our interpretation of the meaning of the term ‘natural born’ as used by the founders in the writing of the US Constitution. I believe they meant ‘naturelles’ or citizens born of ‘parens citoyens’. lucia is not of that belief.
More than two centuries have passed and the question is not adjudicated. Pretty well insulated from alien influence are we, eh? Well, the insulation weakens at a critical juncture. Will the heat shield survive the return flight?
==============
==========
lucia, your description is accurate. Something being genuine doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
By the way, that doesn’t have any meaningful relation to semantics, so even if I do have such a quest, it isn’t relevant. In fact, I don’t even see how semantics would come up in the matter.
kim–
I know we are never going to see eye to eye on that.
But I am happy to read that wikipedia has at least one professor who thinks I am natural born. I grew up thinking I couldn’t be president.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause
“G. Edward White, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, states the term refers to anyone born on U.S. soil or anyone born on foreign soil to American citizen parents”
I’d be the latter.
Lucia,
OK, let’s do this in detail as you apparently are not reading what an ATTORNEY had to say and would rather argue it with non-attorneys:
““The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.“ (Emphasis added.)”
The area in dispute is apprently this:
“Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. ”
Notice that the statement is “include as citizens” and NOT “include as natural born citizens”. It further talks about “As to this class there have been doubts…”.
He is NOT talking about the class of Natural Born citizenship when he says there are doubts. He is talking about whether the class of regular citizens can even be claimed by those not born on the land of two citizens!!!!!
I agree with KuhnKat’s point now. Lucia invokes Wikipedia and he invokes the Constitution, and other precedent ‘At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, its citizens also. These were natives, or natural born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.’
=======================
hunter: “I find his actions and attitude regarding this and his academic history to be rather creepy”
IMO that sentiment applies to almost any politician or any other sociopaths.
Have you really stopped engaging in tedious semantic quibbling, Brandon?
Well Lucia John McCain was born on foreign soil of US parents. The senate avoided the possibility of his status being queried by passing a resolution declaring him to be a natural born citizen.
Phil.–
Yes. But that hadn’t happened yet when I was growing up! I think they voted because this was considered an open question. (And it’s true whether he “natural born” was considered worth discussing and voting on even if Kim favors the views of an obscure Swiss advisor from way back as obviously governing our interpretation of “natural born citizen”. )
Eye to eye, lucia, I concede that the Founder’s dependence on natural born to prevent the machinations of a usurper are almost absurdly pusillanimous, but they would have worked in this case.
Heh, and review the meaning of obscure, a word you apply to a man whose ideas and words were not obscure.
================
kim–
Yes. He was obscure. That a bibliophile who wanted to buy all books in existence, make them available should someone want to read them and archive them bought his book does not make the guy less obscure. Eventually, the bits that discussed issues related to the Monroe doctrine had influence. And now, there are people dredging up translations written much after the writing of the constitution.
But that doesn’t make this guy prominent in the sense that Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton etc were prominent with respect to defining and writing the Constitution.
Heh, they were reading him, though, and not in later translations. Often they did so in French.
========================
kim–
You don’t know they were reading him. And though you claim they did, I don’t know why you even begin to imagine the people I listed we reading him. Certainly, there is little evidence they agreed with everything they read, and as far as I am aware zero evidence they were influenced by his notions on citizenship. (Those basically echo the law as it stood in Switzerland. It was a universal view at the time– and he was Swiss.)
As for whether there is reason to believe the people I listed were reading it or that their notions were influenced by the section on citizenship: There is not much. The book was not on all their shelves– not even most. I’m pretty sure it’s not discussed in the Federalist papers– and so on. Of course it’s possible they read those bits but didn’t mention that fact– but the fact is, the founders didn’t all speak French and some who spoke French didn’t speak or read it at all well.
And so does the WMO. Gee, so the IPCC which is an agent of the WMO and the UN must think that it also holds copyright on its documents. How wrong they are.
Eli–
Please alert me when either the UN or IPCC sues someone for copyright violations on the multi-author IPCC reports or drafts written by numerous authors including US government employees and wins in the US copyright office.
lucia, I believe the founders were more current than you do with this simple, widespread, notion of ‘natural born’ citizenship. Particularly those framers of those words, specially limiting Presidential eligibility with words unique in American governance, were very likely familiar with the idea and the specific wording. This was a matter of immediate and practical importance in a small nation beset with numerous powerful and competing alien interests.
I particularly like the irony that their remedy, ‘natural born’ survived the infancy and weakness of our nation and now seems to be failing as maturity lengthens.
========================
“…I believe the founders were more current than you do”.
Sure. But it would be nice if you provided one iota of evidence to support what you believe. I get that you believe what you believe because you believe it. But that’s not a persuasive position to convince others.
Possibly that’s not your goal– but I’m not going to invest my time assembling some sort of “rebuttal” to your non-argument supported by non-evidence. I’m more interested in looking at other issues.
Eli Rabett (Comment #96898):
None of your links shed any light on the issue.
Unless the joint authors were under an obligation to assign their copyright to the IPCC (UN), they still jointly own the copyright in the report.
Now, if the chapter authors were employees (I don’t think they are employees of the UN), then their employment agreement would no doubt provide the obligation to assign.
However, I thought of them as volunteered (by their Universities), so I doubt they could be considered “employees” of the UN.
The next question (assuming they would not be considered employees – which create a work for hire situation) would be whether they signed a document when they agreed to be an author, which assigned their copyright to the IPCC (UN).
I don’t know the answer to this question.
However, what I do know is that your links do not provide any information as to whether the authors of the joint work either assigned their copyright or are under a legal obligation (contract) to assign their copyright.
Lucia,
First I will state that Jefferson and Franklin had copies of Vattel’s Law of Nations and the Constitution and other writings heavily leaned on his ideas. It was also documented that Washington as President referred to it. Both Samuel and John Adams specifically referred to Vattel’s. In Federalist Paper #78 Alexander Hamilton reiterated their comments without specifically referencing Vattel but using the same phrasing. Hamilton also quoted liberally from Vattel’s. It would seem that the founders WERE familiar with Vattel’s AND there were translations available and COngress used it according to Franklin!!!
“There is no doubt that the Founding Fathers did not exclusively use the English translation, but relied upon the French original. On December 9th of 1775, Franklin wrote to Vattel’s editor, C.G.F. Dumas, “ I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the Law of Nations. has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting. Accordingly, that copy which I kept has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author.†”
Next I ran into something new to me and certain to be quite controversial. As it fits my bias I completely agree with it of course!!! 8>) Apparently the Law of Nations IS specifically mentioned in the Constitution meaning that everything in it is available to Congress!!!!
The Congress shall have Power…To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations”
Note the capitalization of Law of Nations. He claims there was no other book or writing named this at the time so must refer to Vattel’s. Here is his full article supporting the idea the Vattel’s Law of Nations is actually referred to in the Constitution!!!!
“U.S. Constitution and Vattel’s Law of Nations: The Answer has been there All the Time!
…
It seems that the answer to Barack Obama’s eligibility to be President may just have been right under everyone’s noses. Unless repealed in a subsequent Amendment, ratified by the States, the Constitution (1) requires the President of the United States to be a “natural-born citizenâ€, and (2) defines that requirement.
Many scholars have said that “natural-born†is not defined in the Constitution, but that we must look to the laws that subsequently developed. However, this is a wrong premise. The Constitution actually does define the requirement, by incorporation of the Laws of Nations. Vattel’s Laws of Nations is referenced in the Constitution, and through legalese, the precepts of the Laws of Nations are incorporated into the Constitution.
Greg Goss wrote:
The Constitution and de Vattel’s Law of Nations has the answer to any questions regarding citizenship abroad and any laws crossing national boundaries:
EXCERPT 1. U.S. Constitution, Article II, §1:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
EXCERPT 2: de Vattel’s Law of Nations circa 1758 Book 1, Chapter XIX, § 212:
The natives, or NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens…The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.
Finally, the main item in the Constitution that ties both together:
EXCERPT 3: U.S. Constitution, Article I, §8:
The Congress shall have Power…To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations
Yes, Law of Nations is CAPITALIZED, meaning our framers were citing a proper name. There was only one Law of Nations in 1787 officially declared. And yes, Congress has the power to create and enforce ANY LAW mentioned in the Law of Nations written by Emmerich de Vattel! It was sitting right under our noses the entire time.”
Phil,
as usual Congress overreached. Can they pass a law that tells us that blacks are not human or equal to the rest of us??
What is written in the Constitution is NOT amenable to Congress. Unfortunately it CAN be perverted by Judges reinterpreting what is said. The idea that Congress can decide McCaint is actually a Natural Born Citizen if he does not meet the definiton shows how far this country has gotten from a rule of LAW and into a rule by petty tyrants.
In general the Constitution allows the States the power to decide who are Citizens. As was shown in Hapersett there are two classes. Natural Born and Naturalized citizens. While McCaint is obviously a Citizen based on his parents citizenship his Natural Born status is not open to reinterpretation by states naturalization laws. The Constitution did NOT parcel out that authority.
We can argue all we want as to whether the 14th Amendment MEANT or INTENDED to change the requirements of Natural Born Citizenship. Lacking ANY evidence that this was the actual intent we must accept that there has been NO change in this.
Don Monfort, this is probably the best they will ever have and proves nothing.
This is a great post and will fuel much speculation as to the Kenyan Birth theory.
As my posts above have shown, it really doesn’t matter where he was born unless his father is shown to be an American Citizen!!! In other words, if his father was Frank Marshall Davis or Malcolm X then his birthplace would be relevant. 8>)
KK, I knew she was out on an emotional limb when she called de Vattel an ‘obscure Swiss adviser’, and I thank you for the saw. However, I don’t buy the Capitalization Argument. The founders capitalized lots of things we don’t anymore, and I’m unconvinced that their ‘Law of Nations’ was a proper name, and I don’t buy the following argument.
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Phil,
McCain was born on US territory- the Panama Canal Zone.
According to US law since 1790, this makes him a natural born US citizen:
“Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship, the First Congress in 1790 passed a measure that did define children of citizens “born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born.†But that law is still seen as potentially unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation that omitted the “natural-born†phrase.
Mr. McCain’s citizenship was established by statutes covering the offspring of Americans abroad and laws specific to the Canal Zone as Congress realized that Americans would be living and working in the area for extended periods. But whether he qualifies as natural-born has been a topic of Internet buzz for months, with some declaring him ineligible while others assert that he meets all the basic constitutional qualifications — a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age with 14 years of residence. ” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html
And it also means, I believe, that no matter where Obama was born he is also a natural born US citizen.
Which makes the games Obama has played regarding this even stranger.
Excellent, Hunter, except your last belief. The definition of ‘natural born’ and the location of birth determine whether or not Obama is natural born. Many believe what is Constitutional is what de Vattel wrote ‘de parens citoyens’.
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It’s also useful to remember that ‘natural born’ was unique terminology, and it makes sense that these men, most vulnerable to concerns of alien influence, would use the most restrictive term for the most powerful executive position.
Again, the irony: This weak defense against the machinations of a usurper would have worked in the instant case.
========================
KuhnKat–
All of those are stretches.
Franklin’s thank you note: Gracious People and Politicians write nice thank you Notes ands say things like they “are always going to use that Tchotke someone sent them.”
Note the capitalization of Law of Nation
Yes, Law of Nations is CAPITALIZED, meaning our framers were citing a proper name.
Oh. Let’s look:
…To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations
Note the capitalization of Piracies, Felonies Offenses and Seas.
It’s silly to think Law of Nations is a book when that capitalization follows a convention applied to every noun in the rest of the sentence.
All these types of things are stretches.
KuhnKat:
as usual Congress overreached. Can they pass a law that tells us that blacks are not human or equal to the rest of us??
What is written in the Constitution is NOT amenable to Congress. Unfortunately it CAN be perverted by Judges reinterpreting what is said. The idea that Congress can decide McCaint is actually a Natural Born Citizen if he does not meet the definiton shows how far this country has gotten from a rule of LAW and into a rule by petty tyrants.
This doesn’t mesh with what Phil said:
The senate avoided the possibility of his status being queried by passing a resolution declaring him to be a natural born citizen.
Resolutions are not laws. They have no force of authority. A Senate resolution may work to bind the Senate, and it could be used to show intent for case law, but it has no actual bearing on the nation’s laws.
How funny. US citizens who don’t understand their own constitution.
Obama admits his dad was a British subject at birth. Therefore Obama is not qualified the be President of the US.
Presidents have to be over 35, lived in the US for 14 years, and be natural born citizens, (that is born on US territory the child of two US citizens). See Vattel “Law of Nations” from which this requirement is drawn, and also:
“Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1875) (decided after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 and holding that “all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners”). What Minor said about a “natural born Citizen†was confirmed in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (acknowledging and confirming Minor’s American common law definition of a “natural-born citizen†but adding based on the English common law that since “‘[t]he child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [birth in the country]’†(bracketed information supplied), a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United Statesâ€). This American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen†has never been changed, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment (only uses the clause “citizen of the United States” and does not mention “natural born Citizen”) or Wong Kim Ark, and therefore still prevails today. Both those U.S. Supreme Court cases define a “natural born Citizen” as a child born in a country to parents who are citizens of that country.”
Mark– your interpretation of Minor is confused. Our citizenship laws are not based on Vattel.
Lucia, this is not about citizenship law, it’s about the Constitutional requirements of a President. Natural born citizen is only applied to the President cos the framers didn’t want any divided loyalty in a President. Seemples.
MarkR–
Lucia, this is not about citizenship law, it’s about the Constitutional requirements of a President.
Who is or is not a “natural born citizen” is about citizenship laws.
Natural born citizen is only applied to the President cos the framers didn’t want any divided loyalty in a President. Seemples.
But irrelevant: your interpretation of Minor, Kwak etc. remains confused.
No, MarkR’s right about Minor v. Happersett. De Vattel’s views were those of the framers. Lucia just won’t believe. I’ve seen this kind of faith everywhere.
===================
Lucia, we’ll leave it there. The matter will hopefully be decided in due course. However, I hope that everyone will learn from the mistakes in Climate Change and Natural Born Citizen matters. One way or another one groups world view will be untenable.
KuhnKat,
The area in dispute is apprently this:
“Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. â€
Notice that the statement is “include as citizens†and NOT “include as natural born citizensâ€. It further talks about “As to this class there have been doubts…â€.
He is NOT talking about the class of Natural Born citizenship when he says there are doubts. He is talking about whether the class of regular citizens can even be claimed by those not born on the land of two citizens!!!!!
The inference is problematic for several reasons, including at least the following:
1. On its face, the alleged definition in your quote can be just as reasonably interpreted to require only one citizen parent as two.
2. Since J. Waite made it clear that he was focused on the distinction between natural born citizens and aliens, it cannot be reliably inferred that “include as citizens” was meant to exclude those born of alien parents from natural born citizenship.
3. Waite further opined that ‘[u]nder the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, provided “that any alien, being a free white person,” might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens. [n8] These provisions thus enacted have, in substance, been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since.’
That last sentence is problematic for those who insist that two citizen parents are required, since the 1790 act – which itself only required one citizen parent – was superseded 5 years later by an act with similar provisions, but in which the phrase “natural born” is nowhere to be found. Now if Waite was somehow unaware of the 1795 act, such an oversight raises the possibility that his failure to refer to those born in country of alien parents as “natuarl born” citizens was also an error*; but if not, his assertion would be consistent with the idea that he did not distinguish between “natural born” and “by birth” citizenship.
4. The Court obviously believed Mrs. Minor was a natural born citizen, yet there is no mention of her parentage in the opinion; and since I’ve been unable to find any info about it, the possibility remains in my mind that she was known to have only one citizen parent.
* I’d say he erred in any case, if only by stating that Congress in 1790 had authority under the naturalization clause to confer natural born citizenship on anybody.
De Vattel’s views were those of the framers.
Then why did the Naturalization Act of 1790 require only one citizen parent for natural born citizenship?
Then why did the Naturalization Act of 1790 require only one citizen parent for natural born citizenship?
[irony]Clearly, between 1789 and 1790, the founders drank a whole lot of koolaid and forgot it was their intention to implement the Vatells notions when writing the constitution. [/irony]
If a serious challenge to Obama’s eligibility to have run for President ever reaches the Supreme Court that court I am confident will apply the rights of the individual states to determine eligibility and I am not so sure that the 14th Amendment would get in the way. Regardless, even if Obama were determined ineligible to run for President in accordance with the Constitution, but in actuality did run (and get elected) because evidently all the states agreed that he was eligible, that ruling would not result in him being removed from office or for that matter prevent him from standing for reelection.
It would be settled law for the next President and would probably lead eventually to a Constitutional amendment to allow citizens not naturally born to run and be elected President. The worry at the time of the writing of the Constitution was no doubt about loyalties to England and on doing the revolution.
The Supreme Court has been petitioned to review this matter four times, as I have heard, and four times the required agreement of four judges was not met.
Heh. So, by the birther argument, if we DNA tested a sitting president, and it turned out that their mother had had a little fling with a visiting foreigner, would we then kick that president out?
I think not.
The plain english reading of “natural born citizen” is that it is a citizen that was born that way, in opposition to a naturalized citizen. Of course, the Constitution didn’t fully define that… but it seems case law has determined that either being born on US soil or being born of two citizen parents is sufficient to be born a citizen.
lucia (Comment #97009)
June 3rd, 2012 at 8:17 pm
“Then why did the Naturalization Act of 1790 require only one citizen parent for natural born citizenship?”
It didn’t. The words are “considered as natural born citizens”. The Act recognised that those mentioned were not natural born citizens, but should be treated as if they were.
MMM (Comment #97013)
June 3rd, 2012 at 9:14 pm
“The plain english reading of “natural born citizen†is that it is a citizen that was born that way, in opposition to a naturalized citizen.”
No.
Citizen=Born to a US citizen OR on US soil
Naturalised citizen=deemed to be a Citizen as above
Natural Born Citizen=born to US citizens AND on US soil
They are all legally different
MarkR–
citizen=Born to a US citizen OR on US soil
Naturalised citizen=deemed to be a Citizen as above
Natural Born Citizen=born to US citizens AND on US soil
There is absolutely no statute, legal ruling or constitutional language that says there are 3 different types of citizen.
Lucia, Citizen, and Naturalised Citizen are all well defined, but “Natural Born Citizen” is used only once in the US Constitution, and that is in connection with the qualification to be President.
“Natural Born Citizen” is clearly different to the other two. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) is the controling legal authority:
“…it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth,….natural-born citizens.”
MarkR–
“Natural Born Citizen†is clearly different to the other two.
No. There is language in the constitution, statute or court ruling that has said “Natural Born Citizen” is anything different from any citizen granted citizenship by virtue of circumstances surrounding their birth.
It may be that courts would rule there are 3 types, but it has never been done. And– at least while I was growing up– people thought the touchiest case was citizens by birth who were born outside the country. That would be me and John McCain. Not Barack Obama.
She won’t believe. Chant ‘Minor v. Happersett’ alternating with ‘de parens citoyens’ whenever in her presence. Under no circumstances remind her that ‘natural born’ is unique Constitutional language for a unique Constitutional role, language better understood at the time than the role was.
============
Lucia, I think you meant “There is NO language…”
Natural Born Citizen is clearly different to merely “Citizen”, and the legal definition of Natural Born is given in Minor v. Happersett above.
Sadly, neither you nor McCain could ever have been qualified to be be US President. In fact of the current Presidential possibles, probably only Gingrich is qualified, Romney’s dad possibly wasn’t a US citizen at Mitt’s birth, Santorum’s dad was Italian at the time of Rick’s birth, and Obama is a complete usurper. Not qualified by parentage, forged his birth certificate and his Selective Service Registration, can’t certify his date of birth, or hospital of birth, sealed all his other “records”…..
Of course “natural born citizen” was unique language at the time. Under the English monarchy, people were “natural born subjects“. To the Crown. Which the colonies that became the US broke with. Our common law was based on British law.
Here is how British law (Blackstone) stood:
Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.
We broke away from a monarchy and so the word “subject” no longer applied. The word “citizen” was substituted.
It is ridiculous to believe that the fact that Ben Franklin wrote a gracious thank you note to someone who made him a present of a book written in French by a Swiss that the Founders ( at least some of whom would never have read it) collectively and quite magically were so inspired by a French phrase that they would develop collective amnesia about their own common laws and suddenly believe “natural birth X” followed the novel concepts of a Swiss gentleman who (while claiming to describe natural law) was writing a tome to advice the Swiss!
Had they meant to change the meaning of “natural born” from common law, they would likely have been more clear on the matter. They might have thought it useful to inform those where were going to be asked to ratify the new document containing an important change from common law.
In contrast, following existing common law tends to involve less clarity and discussion because it doesn’t occur to anyone they are changing anything. The pre-existing common law considered “natural born subject” to be based on place of birth not parentage. And it is most natural to suppose that “natural born citizen” was parallel to “natural born subject” with citizen replacing subject.
But– as I previously noted– there has been no legal ruling on this.
MarkR
Natural Born Citizen is clearly different to merely “Citizen”, and the legal definition of Natural Born is given in Minor v. Happersett above.
This is bunk. If the two were “clearly” different and your interpretation of Minor and Happersett meant what you think it means, John Roberts would not have sworn in Obama.
At best you might argue you have some sort of coloreable argument for your position. But I don’t think there is much color in there. Good luck when you present it to a court– any court.
Heh, she meant ‘no language’, but there it is: ‘natural born’, in the Constitution, and the last I checked those two words constitute language.
Rational as she is, lucia is not rational about this issue. Actually, very few people are. Almost all react with their gut and their past, as she does with the anecdote about herself and McCain.
=================
lucia, one of the Supreme Court justices has said that the Court is dodging the issue. Your invocation of Roberts’ action as proof of your interpretation of Minor v. Happersett is not up to your usual standards of proof.
============
kim–
Sigh….
I’m not going to waste my time on this anymore. To say your theories are tenuous is to overstate their strength. But I know this is a waste of time — and it’s not even a topic that particularly interests me. So, I’m just going to ignore further loopy constitutional theories.
Your Blackstone is so out of context as to be nonsensical. Your presumption of the meaning ‘natural born’ is not as well grounded historically as my presumption of the meaning of ‘natural born’. I understand we could cite alternating historians by the hour instead of chanting.
Let’s return to another thought. Did Obama lie about being born in Kenya or did he merely tell an untruth?
Did Obama lie about being born in Hawai’i or did he merely tell an untruth?
If he’s defeated this November, it won’t be about his birthplace, it will be about all the lies.
====================
Sorry, lucia, not the least bit loopy. Arcane, perhaps.
===========
Lucia. “…John Roberts would not have sworn in Obama.” Well I never saw that, cos Roberts and Obama got the words wrong at the inauguration. What was said in secret remains just that, but we do know that no Bible was present during the retake of the inauguration, so it seems the Usurper never took the Oath.
Still, I’m sure you’ve more important things….
Heh, ‘he wrote it to advise the Swiss’. Not, lucia, but I see your ears are stopped up. Everything gets so ‘obscure’ that way.
================
Re: MarkR (Comment #97023) 
June 4th, 2012 at 6:58 am
Natural Born Citizen is clearly different to merely “Citizenâ€, and the legal definition of Natural Born is given in Minor v. Happersett above.
I’ll risk stepping into this fairly idle debate to point out something contained in your own earlier citations, both from (Comment #96999):
“Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1875) (decided after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 and holding that “all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreignersâ€).
Here it is established that “all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens becomes themselves…citizens also,” a point most will find reasonable. The question is, what about children born in a (country) of non-citizens? They are not explicitly mentioned in the passage, and only two distinct categories are named as choices: “natural-born citizens” and “aliens or foreigners.” Which are they?
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (acknowledging and confirming Minor’s American common law definition of a “natural-born citizen†but adding based on the English common law that since “‘[t]he child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [birth in the country]’â€
From this passage, it would appear the child of an alien is, in the eyes of the law, equal in standing to the natural-born child of a citizen. Notice also that the comparison here is between a “child of an alien, if born in the country” and a “natural-born child of a citizen” (not between the former and a “natural-born citizen.” Clearly, viewed from the standpoint of Minor v. Happersett, the child of the alien is “distinguished from aliens or foreigners†and thus seems to fulfill the intention behind the term “natural-born citizen.”
Oliver (Comment #97034)
Could you refer to my earlier post?
MarkR (Comment #96999)
Re: MarkR (Comment #97035)
I thought I did explicitly refer to your (Comment #96999). Could you explain what you are asking for?
Oliver, this bit: “What Minor said about a “natural born Citizen†was confirmed in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (acknowledging and confirming Minor’s American common law definition of a “natural-born citizen†but adding based on the English common law that since “‘[t]he child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [birth in the country]’†(bracketed information supplied), a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United Statesâ€). This American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen†has never been changed, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment (only uses the clause “citizen of the United States†and does not mention “natural born Citizenâ€) or Wong Kim Ark, and therefore still prevails today. Both those U.S. Supreme Court cases define a “natural born Citizen†as a child born in a country to parents who are citizens of that country.â€
An interesting but rather long discussion of original context vis “natural born citizen”
The distinction between citizens and subjects is reflected in Chief Justice John Jay’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, the first great constitutional case decided after the ratification of the Constitution of 1789: ” [A]t the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects . . . .”
This conceptual distinction may be relevant to the original understanding of the American constitutional phrase “natural born citizen,” which was used instead of the English legal phrase “natural born subject.” The notion of a natural born subject may reflect a feudal understanding of political obligation: Those born in the kingdom owed a natural duty of allegiance to their king and were his natural subjects. Given a republican theory of popular sovereignty, citizens are sovereign, and the notion of a “natural born subject” would be anathema. This leaves a gap in the theory of citizenship-a gap that the Constitution fills with the concept of a natural born citizen.
One interpretation of the new term of art, “natural born citizen,” is that its content is identical to the content of the old phrase, “natural born subject,” with the purely nominal difference in the term (“citizen” versus “subject”) used to refer to members of the political community. This could result in the interpretation suggested above-which would limit natural born citizens to persons born of American parents on American soil.
Those leaned in English law, however, understood another aspect of the concept of “natural born subject.” Children of the sovereign were natural born subjects wherever their birth occurred. The issue of the king owed a natural obligation to their father; likewise, the children of the king’s ambassadors were deemed to owe a similar obligation to their parents’ monarch. But in republican theory the people are sovereign, suggesting that the republican conception of natural born citizens would naturally treat the children of citizen-sovereigns as equivalent to the children of a monarchical sovereign or king.
This understanding may have been reflected in the first naturalization act of 1790 “An Act to Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization,” which provided “the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” Because the First Congress passed this act, it arguably reflects the original understanding of “natural born citizen” as encompassing those born of the citizen-sovereigns on foreign soil. On this interpretation, John McCain would be a natural born citizen of the United States (at least for the purposes of eligibility for the presidency) because the original meaning of that phrase includes all persons born to American citizens.
As I said, it is rather long but I would recommend reading it.
bob
Please see MarkR (Comment #97015)
MarkR, related question, doing you have any legal training?
(Just a yes or no please.)
If so, does any of that involve constitutional law?
(Yes, no or not applicable please.)
I mean these questions respectfully, I’m just trying to get a better understanding of your background here.
Re: MarkR (Comment #97038)
Oliver, this bit: … “Both those U.S. Supreme Court cases define a “natural born Citizen†as a child born in a country to parents who are citizens of that country.â€
MarkR,
I read the statement of Apuzzo’s conclusion. What I am pointing out that the quoted passages don’t necessarily support his conclusion.
@kim (Comment #96924)
Kim,
sorry about the late reply.
“Natural Born” now means, thanks to the constitution, anyone born either/or in the US or of an american parent.
However you are correct:
the issue is not about qualifications for Presiednet regarding place of birth. It is about qualifications regarding someone who is creepy and dodgy with the truth.
A vigorous press would have found the phonied up bio on Obama in 2007, well before the election, and forced him to deal with his conflicted biography. A truly vigorous press would not have accepted the bluster he offers on his academic history and would have forced him to disclose his transcripts, like any other candidate. Instead we have a suppine oligarchy of fat cat journalists.
Oliver (Comment #97043)
“What I am pointing out that the quoted passages don’t necessarily support his conclusion.”
Necessarily?
Of course they do.
Maybe you’d rather they didn’t.
Here. Try this one for size.
“What does the eligibility requirement of Article II, Section 1 that a President be a “natural born Citizen” mean? That question has never been directly answered by a federal court; though the considered weight of the legal scholarship on that issue persuasively concludes it means: (i) born in the United States, (ii) of two United States citizens. Clearly, Mr. Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen. Ergo, Mr. Obama is not eligible to be President. ” http://amoprobos.blogspot.co.uk/
Carrick–
If you want to know additional relevant items about MarkR’s background you could ask:
1) Are you a US citizen yourself?
2) Were you required to take a US constitution course and pass a US constitution test in high school? (And if yes, in which US state or territory did you take this you take this?)
3) If you are a US citizen and naturalized, did you have to pass a US constitution test for the purpose of being naturalized?
4) Without googling, do you know who wrote the Federalist Papers? (Name at least 2.)
BTW: MarkR’s IP is in England.
Re: MarkR (Comment #97045) 

Oliver (Comment #97043)
“What I am pointing out that the quoted passages don’t necessarily support his conclusion.
â€Necessarily?

Of course they do.

Maybe you’d rather they didn’t.

Here. Try this one for size.
MarkR,
Linking to people who have an certain opinion doesn’t actually demonstrate that the previous Supreme Court decisions support their opinion. I explicitly pointed out why I think the quoted passages do not necessarily support their conclusion. “Of course they do” is not much of a rebuttal. Nor does the snarky attitude help you prove your point.
“What does the eligibility requirement of Article II, Section 1 that a President be a “natural born Citizen†mean?…” http://amoprobos.blogspot.co.uk/
Jun 4 2012 Petition DENIED.
Apparently the courts didn’t find the linked opinions compelling, either.
Oh dear, seems some are reduced to falling back onto the “if you’re not a qualified climate scientist, you can’t have a valid opinion” type defense.
The MarcR’s of the world are at least mildly entertaining, even if a bit disconnected from reality. The documentary evidence of birth in Hawaii is overwhelming. The suggestion a US citizen born of one US parent in Hawaii is not eligible to serve as present is laughable on its face. I hope the raging of the lunatic fringe stops when it becomes clear that no court will hear the case.
MarkR:
Oh dear, seems some are reduced to falling back onto the “if you’re not a qualified climate scientist, you can’t have a valid opinion†type defense.
Good dodge. It works on stupid people.
The answer to question one is “no”. The answer to question two is “not applicable”.
Thanks, that’s all I was looking for.
The documentary evidence of his birth in Hawai’i is hardly overwhelming, SteveF.
I believe he was probably born in Hawai’i. I also believe he hasn’t got the documentation to support it, else surely we’d have seen it. I also believe he’s used an Indonesian passport.
It is sure, not just my belief, that he has lied about his past.
=====================
Playing the man, not the ball, works on stupid referees, too, Carrick.
============
SteveF (Comment #97054)
“The suggestion a US citizen born of one US parent in Hawaii is not eligible to serve as present is laughable on its face..”
It certainly is.
Carrick (Comment #97056)
This is all very revealing. Warmists are just as deluded about Obama as they are about climate. Clearly it’s a general mindset problem.
Do you think the founders would have intended that a US President could be the son of a foreign British, Kenyan, Marxist, Muslim?
MarkR
“present”
Damned auto-complete.
Still, substituting the intended word ‘president’ for ‘present’ makes the claim the Mr. Obama is not eligible no less laughable.
.
The case will never be heard by a US Federal Court. Mr. Obama will remain in office unless he is defeated in the November election. You can count on it. You should find something more useful to spend your time worrying about.
kim (Comment #97058) ,
You seem to have a peculiar way of looking at documentary evidence. ‘Nough said.
Ok… can’t help myselfl
Do you think the founders would have intended that a US President could be the son of a foreign British, Kenyan, Marxist, Muslim?
1) Wow.
2) That looks suspiciously like a rhetorical question. Even if I’ve decided engaging this is a waste of time, remember the rule about trying to argue by asking rhetorical questions as that forces people to have to guess what point you are trying to make. For example: I have no reason to suspect the founders would have anticipated the contents of “The communist Manifesto” and suspect they gave no more thought to the possibility of “a Marxist” being president than they gave the thought about whether the government should fund a program to send men to the moon” or whether we should fund the Manhattan Project during WWII.
I’m willing to permit you, kim and others to post your thoughts– but I’m not going to a strict interpretation of “rhetorical questions”.
3) That said, my answer to your rhetorical question as I understand it is “Yes”.
hunter (Comment #96923)
June 2nd, 2012 at 12:19 am
Phil,
McCain was born on US territory- the Panama Canal Zone.
That is a matter of some debate since his documentation isn’t clear on exactly where he was born. However the Canal Zone wasn’t US territory when he was born, it was an ‘unincorporated US territory’ and children born there were US nationals not citizens! The law was changed in 1937, after his birth. USC TITLE 8 (Aliens and Nationality) Chapter 12, Subchapter III, Part 1, section 1403a, dated 27th June 1952, under which John McCain was ‘declared to be a citizen of the United States’.
Lucia, it’s about allegiance. The framers wouldn’t have wanted anyone who bowed to a Saudi King, as Obama did, or assured a Russian President that he would be more compliant after his election, as Obama did.
Found another good source that spells it out:
1. Constitutional Convention – “Citizen†v “Natural Born Citizen”:
When developing a new U.S. Constitution for the United States of America, Alexander Hamilton submitted a suggested draft on June 18, 1787. In addition, he also submitted to the framers a proposal for the qualification requirements in Article II as to the necessary Citizenship status for the office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
Alexander Hamilton’s suggested presidential eligibility clause:
No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.
Many of the founders and framers expressed fear of foreign influence on the person who would in the future serve as President of the United States since this particular office was singularly and uniquely powerful under the proposed new Constitution. This question of foreign influence was elevated when John Jay considered the additional power granted to the Presidency during times of war, that is when he serves as Commander in Chief of the military. Jay felt strongly that whoever served as President and Commander In Chief during times of war must owe their sole allegiance to and only to the United States.
Because this fear of foreign influence on a future President and Commander in Chief was strongly felt, Jay took it upon himself to draft a letter to General George Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, recommending/hinting that the framers should strengthen the Citizenship requirements for the office of the President.
John Jay was an avid reader and proponent of natural law and particularly Vattel’s codification of natural law and the Law of Nations. In his letter to Washington he said that the Citizenship requirement for the office of the commander of our armies should contain a “strong check†against foreign influence and he recommended to Washington that the command of the military be open only to a “natural born Citizenâ€. Thus Jay did not agree that simply being a “born Citizen†was sufficient enough protection from foreign influence in the singular most powerful office in the new form of government. Rather, Jay wanted to make sure the President and Commander In Chief owed his allegiance solely to the United States of America. He wanted another adjective added to the eligibility clause, i.e., ‘natural’. And that word ‘natural’ goes to the Citizenship status of one’s parents via natural law.
Below is the relevant change to Hamilton’s proposed language detailed in Jay’s letter written to George Washington dated 25 July 1787:
Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
See a transcription of Jay’s letter to Washington at this link.
Upon receiving Jay’s letter, General Washington passed on the recommendation to the convention where it was adopted in the final draft. Thus Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the fundamental law of our nation reads:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of U.S. Constitution as adopted 17 September 1787:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation and the answer.
Hamilton’s suggested presidential citizenship eligibility requirement was that a Citizen simply had to be ‘born a Citizen’ of the USA, i.e., a Citizen by Birth. But that citizenship status was overwhelmingly rejected by the framers as insufficient. Instead of allowing any person “born a citizen†to be President and Commander of the military, the framers chose to adopt the more stringent requirement recommended by John Jay, i.e., requiring the Citizen to be a “natural born Citizen“, to block any chance of future Presidents owing allegiance to other foreign nations or claims on their allegiance at birth from becoming President and Commander of the Military.. Therefore, the President of the United States must be a “natural born citizen†with unity of citizenship and sole allegiance to the United States at birth. [SOURCE CREDIT] http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html
What documents, SteveF? Contemporary mention in a Hawai’ian newspaper for 1961 is the best legitimate documentation I’ve seen. Everything else is photoshopped or not what it’s claimed to be. Perhaps I should introduce you to Sheriff Joe, of Arizona.
And if Obama has real documentation, let us see it.
==================
I agree with SteveF that this has been an entertaining and amusing diversion.
Having looked at both the Minor and Wong Kim Ark decisions, I really think MarkR is reading way more into them than is there. Wong Kim Ark merely states that a person born of foreign parents on US soil is a US citizen based primarily on 14th amendment grounds. It in no way either confirms or denies that such a person is a “natural born citizen”
As to Minor, the court clearly ruled that a person (this one being a women) born in the US to parents that were US citizens was a natural born citizen. However, it says that some have put forth that other people, such as those born of foreign parents, may also be natural born citizens. However, since Minor was born of two parents that were citizens, it didn’t need to address those questions. In other words, while Minor definitely included a persons born on US soil to two parents that are also US citizens as “natural born citizen”, it did not affirmatively exclude children born on US soil with one or both parents being foreigners from being “natural born citizens”. Lucia is correct that the definition of “natural born citizen” has not been adjudicated.
Kim – you may think that the evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii is scant, but it certainly better than the virtual lack of any evidence that he was born elsewhere.
Finally, Brandon, while your hypotheticals on getting Obama from Kenya to Hawaii when he was 6 days old were amusing, they certainly were not plausible. Not only for the many reasons given by Lucia, but for the simple fact that flying was considered a BIG DEAL back in 1961 and no one would have flown with a less than one week old infant absent a compelling emergency. I am not sure that the airlines would have even allowed a less-than-week old infant on board. Further, I wonder how oftern there were commercial flights from Nairobi to presumably London, thence to the mainland US and thence to Hawaii in August 1961. Probably a fair bit fewer than today and it would have taken a fair bit of time just to arrange the flights.
@ 11:34 Lucia drifts off the reservation. The Founders were highly concerned about alien influence, and they did their best, in a rather pusillanimous fashion, to prevent usurpation by a pretender.
Again the irony; weak as their defense was, it would have worked in the instant case. It needed a curious populace, though, and that the Founders couldn’t guarantee.
========================
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #97010) June 3rd, 2012 at 8:29 pm
If a serious challenge to Obama’s eligibility to have run for President ever reaches the Supreme Court that court I am confident will apply the rights of the individual states to determine eligibility
It’s worth noting that this is not 10A territory. State elections officials have a responsibility under the elegibility clauses to exercise due diligence in ensuring that only eligible candidates appear on the ballot, not a sovereign right to determine eligibility.
Regardless, even if Obama were determined ineligible to run for President in accordance with the Constitution, but in actuality did run (and get elected) because evidently all the states agreed that he was eligible, that ruling would not result in him being removed from office or for that matter prevent him from standing for reelection.
Then the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land. You comfy with that?
And if Obama has real documentation, let us see it.
Why should he produce it for you?
He makes you guys look likes loons by withholding it, and I’d do the same, even though I’m not a sociopathic politician (I know, redundant) like him.
Yes, MarkR, the crux of the issue is and always has been, allegiance. Simply put, Obama is not ‘American’, he’s at heart a transnational. Why he pretends to be American, and hides the transnational impulses in his heart, is a matter between him and his deity, and, oh yes, the American People.
===================
Carrick, that has long been a suggested ploy. Whatever happened to ‘Show Me’? The underlying attitude of skepticism still shifts votes, and playing games with ‘now you see it now you don’t’ documentation may be amusing to you and others, but it is unpersuasive.
===================
MarkR (Comment #97015) June 4th, 2012 at 1:39 am
lucia (Comment #97009)
June 3rd, 2012 at 8:17 pm
“Then why did the Naturalization Act of 1790 require only one citizen parent for natural born citizenship?â€
It didn’t. The words are “considered as natural born citizensâ€. The Act recognised that those mentioned were not natural born citizens,
Perhaps you could see your way clear to lending me the decoder ring you presumably used to extract this bit of information from the statute.
but should be treated as if they were.
Then an elections official in 1792 would have been obligated under the statute to treat a candidate for the Presidency who was born abroad of one citizen parent just like a candidate born in country of two citizen parents. Right?
kim, there is enough other evidence already. There’s such as thing as having too open of a mind, wherein your brain falls out.
You’ve produced a strawman, Lucia, a ghost one, with the two things you don’t find in Jay’s letter. The letter does support MarkR’s point that Jay wanted an exclusive requirement for the Chief Executive.
I suppose it comes down to an argument among historians and legal scholars as to the state of mind and knowledge of the Founders.
Nonetheless, my irony; their ploy would have worked in the case of Obama, and may still, though through the polling stations rather than the Halls of Justice.
==================
===============
So, Carrick, suppose you show me the evidence you claim is ‘out there’.
==============
Amusing how kim demands documentary evidence of this and that, but claims perfect knowledge of what is in a man’s “heart.”
Roosevelt and Truman got us into the UN. Bush I took us to war under its auspices. Many – if not all – Presidents have signed various foreign treaties. Which of these have “transnational hearts,” and what are the criteria for determining such, specifically?
Most important, perhaps: where is the lack of this specific cardiac transnationality enumerated in the Constitution as a requirement for Presidents?
PDA, it is up to the American people to discern what is in his heart, and they are discerning.
=============
Hyperbole overcomes you, PDA. I ask, not demand, documentary evidence of Obama’s eligibility for office. It’s the least I should do.
I also do not have perfect knowledge of what is in Obama’s heart. Deceitful as the man is, I doubt that even he has perfect knowledge of what is in his own heart.
==================
Who has “perfect” knowledge of their own heart? We are an intellectual culture. We parse and define and categorize things into rubrics.
The human heart is subtle: an undiscovered country with no constitution.
Now I’m with you, PDA.
===============
yguy (Comment #97088)
June 4th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
You say: “Perhaps you could see your way clear to lending me the decoder ring you presumably used to extract this bit of information from the statute.”
It’s called comprehension. The Statute doesn’t say they are natural born citizens, but that they should be considered as such. If citizens were the same as NBC, the act wouldn’t have needed to make that stipulation.
Then the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land. You comfy with that?
The law is what the courts says it is with the Supreme Court having the final say if they want to, not what you think the Constitution says. You won’t even get a ruling from the Supreme Court unless a lower court says you have standing to bring a case and your case has merit. Although you might make a case that since the President likely qualifies as a Public Minister, that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction under Article III, clause 2:
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
Good luck getting any Federal court to take your case, though. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. I believe one of William F. Buckley’s favorite words applies to this discussion: nugatory.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #97106)
The problem is that apparently a breach of the US Constitution is not justiciable by the US Supreme Court, due to lack of “standing”, or it allegedly being a “political” matter. The Supremes avert their eyes. Now apparently, the son of Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Ayatollah Khomenei, born to a US mother on US soil, can be US President.
Do you see how ridiculously dangerous that is?
MarkR, you should search out the video of Justice Thomas admitting that the Supreme Court is dodging the issue. It’s a scream.
=======================
Hi kim. Yes, have seen it, thanks. I think it’s very dangerous for them to do that. It could make them party to misprision of treason.
18 USC § 2382 – MISPRISION OF TREASON
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
Wow MarkR, Wow! All of sudden we go to the Supreme Court justices being party misprison of treason for not taking a case. Where in the heck is the treason? I am not sure that, even it were decided, that Obama is not a natural born citizen that any treasonous acts have been committed.
the son of Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Ayatollah Khomenei, born to a US mother on US soil, can be US President. Do you see how ridiculously dangerous that is?
No, not particularly.
Is it that you think that murderous despotism is somehow genetic?
Kim Il-Sung?
Author: James Madison aka “The Father of the Constitution”. That is: The Founder who also happens to be credited as the primary author of the US Constitution.
It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.
I’m not going to suggest this particular founders view is dispositive particularly as he was discussing Article 1 and not Article 2. But this passage suggests Madison thought allegiance was more strongly tied to place of birth than to lineage.
MarkR (Comment #97105) June 4th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
yguy (Comment #97088)
June 4th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
You say: “Perhaps you could see your way clear to lending me the decoder ring you presumably used to extract this bit of information from the statute.â€
It’s called comprehension.
I beg you pardon. Since when is “comprehension” a synonym for “pharisaical parsing employed to extract a convenient conclusion”?
The Statute doesn’t say they are natural born citizens, but that they should be considered as such. If citizens were the same as NBC, the act wouldn’t have needed to make that stipulation.
I note you failed to answer my question WRT the practical legal effect of that “stipulation” on prospective presidential candidates who meet the requirements of the provision. Why is that? Hmmmm?
DeWitt Payne (Comment #97106) June 4th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
The law is what the courts says it is with the Supreme Court having the final say if they want to,
The popularity of this misconception seems to be approximately equal to its toxicity to the American body politic, which reveals itself the moment one stops to realize that it implies five unelected people can override the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the Fourteenth Amendment, confirms the construction the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction while speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866:
” … I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents [plural, meaning two] not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…”
#97110 “Do you see how ridiculously dangerous that is?”
Oddly enough, Stalin does have a granddaughter, Olga, who was born in the US of US citizen parents.
it implies five unelected people can override the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
And yet, somehow, they never do this.
Look: We have a certain system. Other countries have other systems. None of the systems are perfect and certainy, hypothetical dangers exist.
In our system, when there are disputes, they eventually get elevated to the courts and SCOTUS. If the dispute has to do with a statute or tort, the whole 3/4 of the states claim is neither here nor their. If it’s a constitutional issue, and the wording of the constitution was such that SCOTUS ruled in a way that 3/4 of the states really disagree with the ruling, they can amend the constitution taking care that the wording of the amendment is such that SCOTUS will not misinterpret what the will the states wish to express.
I should add that if SCOTUS overuled the clearly expressed will of 3/4 of the states, we would experience a constitutional crisis. We’ve survived one of those. It was called “The Civil War”.
Stalin does have a granddaughter, Olga, who was born in the US of US citizen parents.
She has the “dictator gene,” unfortunately, and is prohibited by the 32nd Amendment from holding office.
This is bad news for Abe Hitler, Billy Mao and Karl Khomeini, all of whom were planning a run in 2016.
Lucia, you say: “If it’s a constitutional issue, and the wording of the constitution was such that SCOTUS ruled in a way that 3/4 of the states really disagree with the ruling, they can amend the constitution taking care that the wording of the amendment is such that SCOTUS will not misinterpret what the will the states wish to express.”
The current situation is where a usurper is able to buy or threaten individual States, for example Georgia, deterring them from taking Obama off the ballot by letting them build nuclear power plants.
The system of government has been subverted.
MarkR @ 5:01. That is a suspected but unproven quid pro quo. Watch Judge Terry Lewis in Florida on June 18. He has asked Obama lawyers to cite the authority on which they base their argument that it isn’t necessary to have two citizen parents to be a Natural Born Citizen.
==============
PDA (Comment #97126)
June 4th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
I see you’re OK with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Khomenei etc having influence.
How about King George III of England, or Queen Elisabeth II having their offspring as President? Or Louis XIV?
Think the founders intended that?
PDA–
I believe the test for the “dictator gene” involves opening up their chest cavity and extracting cells from the inside of a ventricle and checking the DNA against the DNA records of their dictator male ancestors. This is how we know that the condition affects their heart and is hereditary and falls in-line with what the founders envisioned. We know this based on de Vatell. The details are in the supplementary materials written in French and available behind a paywall.
MarkR: quick update.
It’s 2012.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Khomeini have been dead for decades.
Just FYI.
Heh, it’s not a gene, it’s a ‘way’. My favorite story from Chicago is the taxi dispatcher who wanted to know if ‘The Chicago Way’ was an address or a business.
============
A lot of psychosis is clearly evident on this thread.
.
Lucia: A small suggestion. Just as Steve McIntyre has prohibited the discussion of “thermodynamics makes back-radiation from CO2 impossible” on his blog, perhaps you would consider a prohibition on nut-cake birther claims about Obama. Nothing can come of any such discussion; DeWitt’s point of it all being “nugatory” is completely correct. No Federal court will ever hear the case; it has already been dismissed, and will continue to be. Jeez!
MarkR–
Louis XIV’s son Louis XV died in 1774 and would have been barred from presidential office on the basis of the unstated but generally accepted provision that the dead may not assume office. Are you worried that some other one of Louis XIV’s children might have qualified? I suspect any number might have if they’d immigrated to the colonies, taken on citizenship, managed to avoid dying before 1789 when the constitution was ratified.
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
SteveF–
Unfortunately, it’s my fault for running the video with Monckton. I mean…. he does seem to have gone birther.
I’ll close this thread tomorrow. It’s just over…
Lucia and MDA. The principle you espouse is that a person without complete loyalty to the USA by Jus sanguinis (Latin: right of blood), and Jus soli (Latin: right of the soil), can be President.
Epic fail.
What does loyalty to the USA have to do with ‘blood’ and ‘soil?’
Timothy McVeigh was a US citizen by right of jus soli and jus sanguinis.
So is Aldrich Ames.
lucia (Comment #97122) June 4th, 2012 at 4:34 pm
it implies five unelected people can override the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
And yet, somehow, they never do this.
Actually they’ve done it several times in this century that I know of – Wickard, Roe and Lawrence all come to mind.
In our system, when there are disputes, they eventually get elevated to the courts and SCOTUS. If the dispute has to do with a statute or tort, the whole 3/4 of the states claim is neither here nor their. If it’s a constitutional issue, and the wording of the constitution was such that SCOTUS ruled in a way that 3/4 of the states really disagree with the ruling, they can amend the constitution
Sure they can; and if SCOTUS has the final say, it can effectively render that amendment null and void.
taking care that the wording of the amendment is such that SCOTUS will not misinterpret what the will the states wish to express.
There is no way to write a legal provision that cannot be misinterpreted.
lucia (Comment #97123) June 4th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
I should add that if SCOTUS overuled the clearly expressed will of 3/4 of the states, we would experience a constitutional crisis.
Which I believe is why Mark Levin says we live in a “post-constitutional republic”.
yguys
Actually they’ve done it several times in this century that I know of – Wickard, Roe and Lawrence all come to mind.
Huh? When did 3/4 of the states pass any amendment to the US constitution forbidding abortion etc.?
Over-riding express language would have involved something like overriding prohibition during the period where the Constitution prohibited it or refusing to recognize citizenship of former slaves after passage of the 14th.
The fact that you might not like Wickard, Roe or Lawrence doesn’t mean that they overrode the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
Mark Levin says we live in a “post-constitutional republicâ€.
If that’s what Mark Levin says, then I believe he is simply wrong.
Mark Levin says we live in a “post-constitutional republicâ€.
I don’t know what the context was of Levin’s remarks, and I lack the heart to Google. However, I think that undeclared wars, targeted assassinations and digital eavesdropping suffice to give the idea some justification.
[Sorry, Lucia, but since we’re in massive topic drift already with an expiration date already on the thread, I figured: let’s go ahead and drift.]
PDA–
No problem. I wish I had a plugin that would just close comments after a certain time. But my current plugin over-rides that when people comment. So…. tomorrow, I’m going to cut it off. Until them, everyone including me, can post our musings.
Lucia,
“I’ll close this thread tomorrow. It’s just over…”
Agreed, long over. And whatever shred of credibility Monckton may have had… that’s over too. I feel like we have been trying to communicate on this thread with the type of folks who wander the streets with a shopping cart, talking to, well, the imaginary individuals surrounding them. The best description is frightening.
SteveF:
I feel like we have been trying to communicate on this thread with the type of folks who wander the streets with a shopping cart
There’s no “feel like” about it.
lucia, it shocked me when Monckton alluded to a belief that the ‘birther’ business in the US was a more dangerous scandal than the CAGW one. That’s pretty heavy, especially from him.
So what do you think is the reason for the dearth of definitive documentation of his eligibility? For four years we’ve been treated to the spectacle of speculation that he’s witholding documents in order to ridicule and marginalize his opponents. I concede that this would speak fundamentally to his unseriousness, first to consider such a tactic, and secondly for sticking to it as it manifestly fails.
But I don’t think that is the case, particularly since he has made two pitifully inadequate attempts to show authentic documents. So why won’t he ‘show me’ and all the rest of us?
Carrick and SteveF still don’t demonstrate the evidence that they think is ‘out there’ for Hawai’ian birth. Do they disdain, or can they not find it?
=====================
lucia (Comment #97141) June 4th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
yguys
Actually they’ve done it several times in this century that I know of – Wickard, Roe and Lawrence all come to mind.
Huh? When did 3/4 of the states pass any amendment to the US constitution forbidding abortion etc.?
WRT Roe that’s the wrong question, as both it and Lawrence violated 10A by infringing on the right of a state to make immoral practices like murder and sodomy illegal within its jurisdiction; and of course there was no amendment involved in the key holding in Wickard, which was based on an outrageous distortion of the commerce clause.
The fact that you might not like Wickard, Roe or Lawrence doesn’t mean that they overrode the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
And just why else do you imagine I “dislike” them in the first place?
Mark Levin says we live in a “post-constitutional republicâ€.
If that’s what Mark Levin says, then I believe he is simply wrong.
I encourage you to give him a call and tell him why. 😉
WRT Roe that’s the wrong question,
You seemed to bring it up on a list of as examples where the court overuled the expressed will of 3/4 states. Now you are appearing to conceded it is not an example of that. In fact, you seem to be conceding that none of the three cases are examples of the court overruling expressed wills of 3/4 the states.
And just why else do you imagine I “dislike†them in the first place?
Because you seem to be bringing them up as examples where the courts over ruled the expressed will of 3/4 of the states when clearly they are not. I’ll admit I’m trying to guess why you would suggest they were what they are not– and I’m guessing it is merely that you do not like them and want to fling them around.
You now seem to be wanting to change the discussion to entirely different objections to court rulings on those cases. But that’s straying of onto some other tangent about every court ruling someone might not like. So you’ll just have to find someone else to discuss your gripes over Roe, Wickard and Lawrence (preferably in some other venue.)
I encourage you to give him a call and tell him why.
You mentioning this person I am not familiar with in comments doesn’t create any interest in my part to hunt down his phone number and call him. Heck, I’m not even interested in phoning him if you post his number! If you want him to discuss this with me, suggest he stops by in comments.
No, wait, I’ve figured it all out! Don’t close the comments yet!
See… we know the Founders were literate men. And therefore, they would have been familiar with good ol’ Will Shakespeare. And everyone knows that the Scottish play has this bit about being “born of woman”, which is a clever allusion to “natural born”, ie, “not c-section”. So, the Founders were clearly setting up a scene in which the President would be about to be coronated, when a brave tea-partier would leap upon the stage with photographic evidence of the President’s c-section, thereby disqualifying her and saving the nascent democracy from unnatural rule!
Followed thereafter, I’m sure, with the tea-partier being reunited with her long-lost twin who had been disguised in drag as a Supreme Court justice in order to avoid paying a debt to a Jew who had recently imprisoned a fairy spirit within the Washington monument, before the spirit was released by a drunken Falstaff. Or something like that.
“Louis XIV’s son Louis XV died in 1774..”
Actually he wasn’t his son. Although XIV died just before his 77th birthday, he had outlived not only his children, but his grandchildren too. Louis XV was his great grandson.
Carrick:
Why should he produce it for you?
He makes you guys look likes loons by withholding it, and I’d do the same, even though I’m not a sociopathic politician (I know, redundant) like him.
I don’t agree with what you say the effect of not releasing it is, but the simple reality is, Obama did release the documentation people demanded. This means you’d apparently be less open than Obama has been.
BobN, I don’t believe I ever indicated I felt those hypotheticals were plausible. I was interested in figuring out what was possible, and how likely it might have been, but I never believed Obama was not born in Hawaii.
Brandon, you’re right. I might well be less open than Obama. Especially if a) it didn’t benefit me to be open, and b) it made my enemies look foolish.
(Don’t worry there’s zero chance I’ll ever be Obama’s advisor.)
Brandon, on a previous birther thread my very first comment was that the issue won’t be settled until forensic document examiners have looked over his documents. You do understand that the so-called ‘long form’ birth certificate he released last year is an apparent forgery, don’t you?
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Carrick, I’d like to hope someone promoting openness in science would be more open than that if they were in the political realm, but I suppose many would consider me a fool for it. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Obama would have released his long-form birth certificate if he and his staff believe as you do. At a certain point,* refusing to disclose something minor just starts seeming suspicious.
kim, that depends on what you mean by “apparent.” If by “apparent” you mean, “Some straws can be grasped at to support a preconceived notion,” I agree. If you actually mean apparent, I disagree.
*The trick is to wait as long as you can before reaching that point so you can make opponents seem as foolish as possible while still appearing reasonable.
Brandon, check out Sheriff Joe’s expose. That ‘long form’ certificate was constructed rather than scanned. Bring on the forensic document examiners.
=======================
Brandon, politics is a different playing field than science, and it operates by different rules. That’s where the danger (and damage) comes from in politicizing science.
*The trick is to wait as long as you can before reaching that point so you can make opponents seem as foolish as possible while still appearing reasonable.
Yep, I agree. That’s why I had “a) it didn’t benefit me to be open”.
I think people like Dennis Kucinich and Jimmy Carter who operate in politics like it follows the same ethics that you might use among friends make lousy, ineffective leaders. The smart, effective ones are the ones who allow their opponents to underestimate them, and not to play their own cards before they have to.
Huh. I just saw an odd link in a Google search. It claims a White House lawyer admits the birth certificate is a forgery.
I would check the videos it provides to examine that claim (I expect they misrepresented the lawyer’s comments), but my internet is acting up, and I can’t. I assume other people will, or have already though.
lucia (Comment #97154) June 4th, 2012 at 8:04 pm
WRT Roe that’s the wrong question,
You seemed to bring it up
No, that was entirely your doing.
on a list of as examples where the court overuled the expressed will of 3/4 states. Now you are appearing to conceded it is not an example of that. In fact, you seem to be conceding that none of the three cases are examples of the court overruling expressed wills of 3/4 the states.
You may rest assured that I am at a complete loss as to how anyone would get that impression.
And just why else do you imagine I “dislike†them in the first place?
Because you seem to be bringing them up as examples where the courts over ruled the expressed will of 3/4 of the states when clearly they are not.
Well there’s your problem: you are operating under a premise which is the exact opposite of the truth.
I’ll admit I’m trying to guess why you would suggest they were what they are not–
Which, given the above, is a complete waste of time.
You now seem to be wanting to change the discussion
From what?
to entirely different objections to court rulings on those cases. But that’s straying of onto some other tangent about every court ruling someone might not like. So you’ll just have to find someone else to discuss your gripes over Roe, Wickard and Lawrence (preferably in some other venue.)
Ma’am, I was responding to a comment from Payne, and you objected to that response. I am responding to that objection, at least insofar as it is intelligible. Now if you honestly want to know why I said what I said, I am perfectly capable of demonstrating that I know exactly what I’m talking about in this regard; and because I have, I can say without the slightest trace of arrogance, a superior understanding of fundamental constitutional principles, I know when a question can only lead to an intellectual desert.
Carrick:
Brandon, politics is a different playing field than science, and it operates by different rules. That’s where the danger (and damage) comes from in politicizing science.
Politics is that way because people make it that way. I don’t think there’s any inherent necessity for it to be that way. In fact, I think a truly honest politician could easily be more effective than most politicians are. But that’s a subject probably way too off-topic, even for this thread.
So lets just say I’m full of foolish hope.
Brandon:
Politics is that way because people make it that way
I don’t think so.
I think politics is like it is because that’s how we’re wired. That’s not necessarily bad—You can be honest and still play cards well.
You just can’t show the other players all your cards and expect to win whether it’s poker or politics.
That’s a different issue than wishing for more transparency in government or arguing that politicians should lie to us about how they are spending our tax money. Initiatives like this come to mind.
So what do you think is the reason for the dearth of definitive documentation of his eligibility?
What do you think is the reason for the sudden focus on the need for “documentation” to be “definitive?”
After four years of “when did you stop beating your wife,” Obama comes out with a document saying “Obama never beat his wife” and birthers are all “OK wait, the notary’s signature is too far to the left.”
Somehow we managed to elect 43 presidents – six of whom (Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson, Chester Arthur, James Buchanan, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson) had foreign parents – without people insisting they had to have “definitive” birth certificates.
What, one wonders, is different about Barack Hussein Obama II?
Yeah, Brandon, that link isn’t quite the admission it appears to be. I’ve forgotten just what mistake that young lawyer did make, but I remember she got yanked and replaced by the head of the firm after that day.
============
PDA, it is all about allegiance. It’s also about four years of playing games with the populace about his eligibility. And some people still think that was a clever tactic.
=====================
Carrick, Obama had said the documentation existed. Telling people that, but not providing the documentation, is not merely holding one’s cards “close to the chest.”
If he hadn’t used that documentation’s existence as an argument, I’d agree with you. But he did, repeatedly, while refusing to show it. I don’t think that’s acceptable.
kim:
And some people still think that was a clever tactic
Yes I do.
It won’t affect (negatively) how anybody votes for him and make those who act adversarially towards him look like loons.
What’s not to like? (As political maneuvers go.)
Brandon:
If he hadn’t used that documentation’s existence as an argument, I’d agree with you. But he did, repeatedly, while refusing to show it. I don’t think that’s acceptable.
As long as he’s not lying about the document existing and isn’t breaking a promise by not showing it, I don’t see the problem.
I think politics is like it is because that’s how we’re wired. That’s not necessarily bad—You can be honest and still play cards well.
Yes and no. History is full of wheeler-dealer leaders, princes, ministers, politicians; this epoch, however, has really made it a competitive disadvantage to play it straight.
The money game of (at least US) politics, along with the 24-hour news cycle, the art of the sound bite, and the culture war are new developments in human history.
Mr. Smith would not Go To Washington today. The whole national boys’ camp thing would be on YouTube and he’d be “spending time with his family” before Leno came on.
Carrick:
As long as he’s not lying about the document existing and isn’t breaking a promise by not showing it, I don’t see the problem.
We’ll just have to disagree on that then.
four years of playing games with the populace about his eligibility.
It’s not a new trick. “When did you stop beating your wife” is so blatant that it’s pretty much Vaudeville at this point. It’s not convincing. People – even people who really don’t like Barry Soetoro Hussein Osama Obama – understand that.
PDA:
Yes and no. History is full of wheeler-dealer leaders, princes, ministers, politicians; this epoch, however, has really made it a competitive disadvantage to play it straight.
I don’t accept your portrayal as very accurate, but rather than dwell on that, here’s an alternative point. Modern developments have made it far easier to get accurate information and verify details. This gives people far more ability to examine politician activities and positions. A reduction in unmonitored decisions would necessarily shift the political climate in the opposite direction from what you discuss.
Modern developments have made it far easier to get accurate information and verify details.
That detail, Carrick, is the only genuine piece of evidence offered so far, and it happens to be a large part of why I believe he was born in Hawai’i. But it is hardly definitive as to birthplace.
Bring on the forensic document examiners to inspect the long form birth certificate, which should be in the records, if your ‘detail’ means he was born in Hawai’i.
========================
What’s loony, Carrick, is to hide some details of your past, invent others, and then try to bluff the American people for four long years about it and never show your cards. Now why would he do that?
==============================
The birthers are the best case to reelect him, I’ve seen.
How does it hurt him with those who would possibly vote for him? How does it hurt him with those who never would vote for him regardless?
How would anything he does help him with these loons? No matter what evidence he gives, time machine, etc, they’ll invent another reason why it’s a fake.
Why bother? Buy popcorn, sit back, watch the show.
That’s what I’d do in his shoes.
Not everybody in the world is insane, but I get to laugh at those who are, at my discretion.
She should stick to documents created by the program (Adobe Photoshop) she writes L. User books for.
I have laughed now, at my discretion. Auf.
Carrick, we could fling document examiners and Adobe experts at each other all night long, none of whom have seen the original. Why haven’t they?
I’d be satisfied with real forensic document examiners examining a putative birth certificate under the auspices of a court of law. That might settle the birthplace issue, but four years of jacking us around will still leave some people suspicious. Then there is the natural born argument, which is too arcane to capture the imagination of the people. So, yes to the popcorn.
Doubts and questions about Obama’s past were suppressed four years ago, but they’ve had a while to percolate. I don’t think you have an accurate finger on the pulse of the electorate about Obama’s dubiousness. He’s just told too many lies.
================
Hah, hah, Carrick, your 12:09 link is to an Adobe expert debunking the debunking, and your 12:20 link is to someone claiming it isn’t Adobe at all. Get your stories straight, and then we’ll talk about popcorn.
====================
Watch Arpaio’s press conference showing how there is probable cause that not only was Obama’s birth document forged, but also so was his selective service registration record.
Obama and the Warmers can’t produce genuine data to back up their claims.
The Warmers have people like Mann who uses an algorithm which is designed to produce hockey sticks and keeps his work in directories marked censored and refuses to show his workings or data, people who “hide the decline”, people who have an agenda that they will stick with no matter what.
Obama forges some of his records and hides the others, and his supporters laud him as being “clever”. He has spent millions of dollars preventing the legal questions from being adjudicated.
Mr. Obama was recently represented by Alexandra Hill of the firm of Genova, Burn & Giantomasi of Newark, New Jersey. She conceded that Obama won’t rely on the photoshopped birth certificate as evidence in Court:
She did so stipulate, agreeing that both the court and the Secretary of State cannot rely on the internet birth certificate as evidence of Obama’s place of birth and that Obama has produced no other evidence to the court regarding his place of birth. She also argued that Obama has no legal obligation to produce any such evidence to get on the primary ballot. Judge Masin then took the issue under advisement. Having produced absolutely no evidence of his eligibility for the Office of President, Judge Masin will decide whether as a matter of law Obama has a legal duty to produce such evidence before he may be placed on the New Jersey ballot in light of the pending objection filed against him. http://www.teapartytribune.com/2012/04/11/nj-ballot-access-challenge-hearing-update/
The reason she concede was to prevent testimony under oath by a document specialist, that the document was forged, from being put on the court record.
Kim, um… lay off the marley, it’s jiggerin’ up your synapses. Zebest writes books for Adobe Photoshop L. Users.
This document is not an Adobe Photoshop document. It’s an Adobe Acrobat document.
They’re different programs for those who can’t figure that out from the title. 😆
Zebest got it wrong. It’s not a forgery, read the commentary if you can follow the explanations, it’s perfectly clear. No colors of gray on this one, just wrong.
As lies go, facts speak for themselves, they don’t need politicians on either side to tell us what we are supposed to think or how to interpret them.
Don’t worry about the popcorn, I’m on to the wine and cheese now. And here?? I’m out!
I promised I’d close this today. 288 comments is enough! Closed.
Utterly expectable. Monckton is quite the.. ahhh.. character. The quality of the “talk” is irrefutably worse than that of the video itself. Lurkers, spare yourselves of the minutes you will lose seeing this video, those will never come back to you.
Such a blatant advert for the bookstore – do you think they paid him?
“Birther” is a test of IQ, or maybe sanity.
Luis Dias –
I should have taken your advice. I only watched the first minute but it was SO painful.
I’ll endeavour to forget I made the mistake of watching it.
Louise–
I don’t know if they paid him. You could ask Monckton who paid for his flight out, his lodgings, food and whether he received an honorarium for that. Also, ask him if he chose that shirt himself and whether it was given to him.
Lucia – I thought he already has access to the best shirts money can buy?
http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/in-hope-that-its-manufacturer-will.html
Somehow they should’ve gotten Vermin Supreme in there, singing Randy Newman’s Rider in the Rain.
Shouldn’t that shirt be the Union Jack ? There seems something vaguely suspect about someone who claims to be British nobility wrapped in the Stars and Stripes. Isn’t that some sort of diplomatic faux pas ?
Artifex–
Prior to 1976 lots of people got bent out of shape about people wearing the flag. During 1976, lots of people wanted to wear the flag. Now a days, it’s so commonplace that I don’t think American’s are going to bat an eye about a Brit visiting a dude range wearing a flag.
That said: That particular shirt is pretty amazing even for the “I’m wearing the flag” genre. He looks a bit like he’s pretending to be a country western singer or a rodeo rider. Most people chose shirts that are a bit more tame even on the 4th of July.
I believe that in the USA people would be horrified to see underpants made from the national flag but that is quite common here in the UK (using the Union Flag that is, not the Stars and Stripes although that too is probable. We’re just not that precious about flags).
Louise, What a bummer, so to speak.
Louise–
You can get American Flag underwear on ebay
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=american+flag+underwear
If the guy looks like this people who don’t like it will probably won’t make nasty comments in earshot
American flag bikinis for women are pretty common.
Some people do get upset over american flag clothes, but it’s a bit like language peeving over things like split infintives. Most people don’t care anymore. But when I was young, quite a few did. Things change.
Lucia – Well, I suppose I could let him escort me to the beach if my regular escort (my 62 year year old husband) was unavailable, but I’d prefer him in Union Flag underwear/swimwear. Got to keep ones end up you know, what what!
Flag colors alone do not a flag make. If the clothes were made from an actual flag that had flown on a flagpole, that might be different. After all, Captain America wears stars and stripes in the comics and the movies and, AFAIK, no one complains about that.
lucia (Comment #96525)
As all my female friends and relatives will tell you that guy in the picture is showing off, but it is not the flag.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #96530)
I do not know why, DeWitt, but your comment about Captain America got me to laughing. I definitely think it is ok to wear a flag as long as you remove it from the pole before wearing it.
Is it gay pride already?
Lucia, here is a little on fMRI, which in my carefully considered neurochemists opinion is one of the crappiest tools for investigating the brain and produces ‘very pretty rubbish’.
http://the-brain-box.blogspot.com/2012/05/tale-of-two-evils-bad-statistical.html
The ‘we need better magnets’ boys (they are almost universally bald or balding males) will show images of chocolate, look for the change in signal and then write a ‘we have found the brains chocolate centers.
eeemmmmmmm! chocolate centers
…now filled with genuine fMRI.
Doc–
That’s interesting. But what triggered the topic of “fMRI”?
Maybe we could use an fMRI to find out?
It was the parallel with the fitters and modelrs. As everyone’s brain is a different size and shape they have a standard sized model brain and shoehorn everyone’s brains into this 3D representation; then average. They ignore the temporal resolution, they use questionable signal/noise processing, discard post hoc image sequences that are ‘wrong’ and always ask for more money.
Some of us still abide by US Code 36 Ch 10.
Section 176 states specifically “No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America …”
Section 176(d): “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.”
Politicians of all political flavors frequently disregard this one (which irks me to no end):
Section 176(i): “The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard.”
Section 176(j): “No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.”
The underwear shown clearly isn’t a flag since the star pattern isn’t one ever used by the US flag although I still question the wisdom of anyone wearing that. Monckton’s shirt on the other hand looks too close for my comfort. Wear red-white-and-blue all you want, throw in star and stripe patterns if you want but IMO it should be stylized so it’s clear the object in question wasn’t literally made from US flags.
Having said that, the ultimate goal is that stated right up front in the first sentence in Section 176 — don’t show disrespect to the flag — and the greater tolerance of the American public today is largely based on that innate understanding. People don’t object because MOST people wearing apparel that looks like the US flag are clearly not intending any disrespect, quite the opposite.
One may be tempted to deride Monktons involvement here but the case for the forged documents is pretty conclusive. You as a computer buff should recognise that Lucia.
bushy–
I think the probability that Obama is not a natural born citizen is less than 1%. I might also suggest that a first time commenter with an UK IP address, what appears to be a disposable email address and things that being a ‘computer buff’ tells me much about this issue isn’t likely to have great insight into this constitutional issue.
Lucia, I have been following your blog for ever and those of Steve Mc, Anthony Watts etc. I also follow USA / world politics as all these things affect all our futures. Please do not write me off ( Real Climate style) as unqualified to have an informed opinion.
I will however agree with you that Bush is unlikely in the extreme to have been born in Ireland, LOL.
Ok you corrected that after I posted.
Quite so Lucia, in fact the case that his rival, John McCain, was not a natural born citizen was stronger! The Senate got around that by passing a resolution stating that he was, as I recall the term is not well defined and has never been ruled on by the Supreme Court.
Yes Bushy.
I realize you may have been following my blog as well as those of others. I have also noticed that visitors who use fake or disposable email addresses tend to be uninformed. If you do, indeed, follow my blog, you will be aware that I moderate disposable and obviously fake email addresses. I will be adding the stem on yours to my list.
Phil.–
I think you are correct; SCOTUS has not ruled. But I also think there is absolutely no doubt that someone born on US soil is a natural born citizen. The likelihood that Obama was not born in Hawaii and his family began faking this waayyyyyy back and succeeded in doing so seems pretty dang slim.
I was born outside of US soil. So… image if my parents wanted to somehow fake this. Is the theory going to be they don’t register me with anyone at all, then somehow trundle me to the US in luggage? Then… somehow to travel back and forth to the US and other countries when I’m too large to fit in a suitcase (as Obana did), having no paperwork at all, they get me a US passport? Or they hire someone to fake a birth certificate then? Or what? The online scan may have weird features– but they can be explained by someone using weird settings when scanning– but I need to hear someone suggest a theory of how they managed to move Obama back and forth without creating any traces that he was not American way back when he was 6 years old!
Ok Lucia this email address (chuckaway) has been used for more than 10 years now but you can of course moderate me, no offense – your blog.
Phil, as a natural sceptic and suspicious/aware of political shenanigans it would not take too much imagination for me to conjure up a few senarios that may hold water. It also appears that High Court Justice Parker finds the evidence would raise serious questions.
I have no axe to grind with Obama and assume that is is no better or worse than any other President (how much real power do they wield in reality when moderated by congress etc.)
However, the severe embarrasment that would ensue if such a fraud were uncovered would be extreme. I think that I myself in that position would be tempted/compelled to cover it up if possible.
Is Monckton licensed to open carry that gun?
“Manchurian Candidate”. ROFLMAO.
bugs–Is the gun real?
Who needs enemies when you have friends like Christopher…
I suspect Monckton is trying to be funny… News flash: it doesn’t work. I wounder if he can possibly imagine just how bad he looks in that shirt? Probably not.
.
Bugs: if the gun is real, then he would have to carry it in a concealed fashion to be in violation of laws in most places. In Arizona, I rather suspect that the gun laws are less restrictive than in most places. Monckton is clearly concealing very little with that outfit, and certainly not the gun.
When I met with Monckton in Sacramento at his address to the state assembly, he emailed later that he was taking up this issue. I told him in no uncertain terms that it would be a huge mistake to do so.
Like Lucia, now that I see this, “words fail me”.
I will post this on WUWT though. Maybe I’ll find some words then.
“words fail meâ€
– – – – – –
The words ‘hey pardner’ and ‘hee haw’ surfaced temporarily.
Then disappeared quickly with a mighty chuckle. I’ll be singing the ‘yellow rose of Texas’ all afternoon now but with a British accent. : )
John
I’m fairly certain it isn’t required one have a license to hold a gun in any state, district or territory of the United States. As SteveF says, carrying a concealed weapon requires a license, but that’s it.
lucia:
I don’t see why any of this would be necessary. It could be far simpler. Obama could have been born outside the United States, then flown in. Once here, his parents could have registered him as having been born here. That would give him a real birth certificate, just one he legally shouldn’t have been able to get.
Of course, that doesn’t really help the people who argue the birth certificate is a fake. I think there are legitimate issues raised by “birthers,” as I discussed here, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe the birth certificate itself was faked.
(That link also shows one of the many incidents which led to bad feelings between Keith Kloor any myself.)
Brandon
When I fly in on a commercial flight that lands at an international, I have to pass customs and immigration. What mechanism are you suggesting for avoiding customs and immigration?
Is it easy to do this with a 3 year old? 1 year old? I haven’t registered a kids birth. So… could someone clarify how it might be easy to register a not-newborn? I’ve always assumed it’s easy to register if a witness like a doctor or cab driver sees the kid emerge etc. But mightent it be a big challenging to register a kid who magically appears at the age of 2?
I would conclude that with a sitting liberal president who is now overwhelmingly supported by the liberal media, that an unrestricted viewing of all aspects of the story of Obama’s birth place will only be available to discuss openly in the wider public venue well after Obama is out of office. By well after I mean like a decade. Invested liberal interests can pull liberal media levers on short timescales, but not on longer timescales. I do not think the liberal media even attempts to hide that kind of role. I am not being cynical.
John
lucia (Comment #96589)
May 29th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Brandon
Obama could have been born outside the United States, then flown in.
When I fly in on a commercial flight that lands at an international, I have to pass customs and immigration. What mechanism are you suggesting for avoiding customs an immigration?
– – – – – – –
lucia,
It is well recognized in recent times that many illegals enter the US constantly by many methods.
50 years ago it probably would have been much easier than today.
So, Brandon’s point wasn’t specifically flying as the means to enter Hawaii illegally . . . . although I am sure it is not impossible to illegally enter Hawaii by flying even these days.
I am not suggesting in any way that I know or suspect Obama was carried into Hawaii illegally, just saying Brandon’s point has some validity and could be considered as adding to a discussion of the range of possibilities.
John
lucia:
I wasn’t intending to suggest one, though I’m sure there are a number of possibilities. One of the first which comes to mind is, how closely would officials have looked at a newborn baby fifty years ago (especially if the parents were citizens)?
An announcement of Obama’s birth was published nine days after his birthday. Unless his birthday is also a lie, this means he was registered shortly after being born. That makes it much easier than if he were being registered as a three year old.
As for how easy it is, that’s hard to say. I imagine things have changed in the last fifty years, so how easy it is now may not be applicable. I do know a baby as young as Obama would have been at the time can currently get a birth certificate with just the testimony of a couple people. I think a midwife and parent is all that is needed, though a witness might also be required.
By the way, I’ve wondered if it would be possible to construct a scenario like this where the parents didn’t intentionally deceive anyone. For example, imagine a mother who recently had a baby flew to the United States. She goes to a hospital for general care of her and her baby, and in the process of filling out paperwork/talking to doctors/getting treatment, somebody thinks she needs to register the baby. The mother doesn’t think much about it (and perhaps doesn’t even realize what exactly is being done), and she gets a birth certificate. A few days later, the newspapers announce her baby was born at the hospital. At some point the mother realizes what happened, but she doesn’t have any reason to speak up.
It doesn’t seem likely, but I can imagine something like that happening due to confusion/oversights/miscommunication.
John Whitman,
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.
John–
I recognize that Obama would have to be brought in illegally. But if I’m not mistaken, according to this theory, a child who could almost certainy be brought in legally would have to be brought in illegally. I’m not saying it could not be done– but why would it be done? In anticipation of a black child some day running for president? And when would it be done? Yes, lots of people come illegally– but do they manage to obtain US birth certificates? And why hasn’t anyone in Kenya stepped forward (assuming that’s where he is purported to have been born?) If the family was ready to go to all this trouble to sneak him in, why not just have the mother be in Hawaii at the time of birth? Also– in this theory, does Obama himself know he wasn’t born in Hawaii?
I don’t like to argue by asking questions, but the theory that Obama was born elsewhere, snuck in and his family got him a birth certificate leaves open a huge number of questions relating to how they might do it and why they wouldn’t just do something much simpler– make sure his Mom was in Hawaii when he was born.
I was born in El Salvador and evidence that I was born there began accumulating right away. El Salvadoran birth certificate, baptismal certificates, photographs of parents in El Salvador around the time of birth and so on. If my parents has absolutely wanted me born on US soil, Mom would have flown to Staten Island and stayed with her parents during the last trimester.
To demonstrate why I think a situation like what I describe is reasonably plausible, I’ll provide an example from my own life. I moved a while back, and in the process, I lost a lot of documentation, including my birth certificate and social security card. Shortly after, the only photo ID I had expired.
In the process of trying to get a driver’s license in Illinois, I found out I would need a birth certificate and social security card (and proof of residency). To get either, I was told I’d need to prove my identity. This put me in a strange situation, and I wasn’t sure how I’d resolve it.
As it turns out, I managed to order my birth certificate online, and I did so without providing any proof of my identity. I then got hospitalized for about a week, and they accepted me without proof of identity. The records from that stay then allowed me to get a social security card. That means I was able to get everything I needed to get an ID without ever having any proof of my identity.
Should that have been possible? No. But it was. And things like that happen all the time, often without anyone intending anything inappropriate.
Brandon Shollenberger,
Its also possible that Obama spontaneously apparated from another dimension shortly after his birth and was registered illegally. However, given that evidence exists for neither of these scenarios it doesn’t seem particularly useful to spend time weaving webs of speculation.
Zeke:
It’s quite possible to suppress something without intending to do so. If you find something laughable, and you mock anyone who discusses it, you effectively suppress it. Look at the link I provided a couple posts back for an example of how it happens.
You say he has “to realize how silly this whole discussion is,” but really, what’s so silly about it? Saying Obama wasn’t born in the United States would be silly, but it isn’t silly to discuss how something could possibly happen, then look at whether or not it may have.
Zeke:
So? It doesn’t seem particularly useful to bet on ice levels or temperatures either. We just do it because we find it interesting.
People shouldn’t be mocked just because they choose to discuss something which isn’t useful. Especially not if they raise valid points, like at least one government official acted in an illegal manner during this saga.
Brandon
Are you thinking he could be passed off as another baby? Or that they might mistake him for a canteloupe for football? I’m not trying to be coy here– but I need to know whether you are suggesting someone smuggled him in or whether you think customs agents won’t notice a baby.
American babies needed papers to pass through US customs when my family moved back to the US in 1962.
We later moved back to El Salvador and then back again.
Early on we flew with my mother’s passport. We have a cute passport picture of Mom with all four kids. Because the laws at the time permitted some people’s passports to be yanked (for reasons later declared unconstitutional) and my sister’s god-mother and father’s friends’ citizenship was yanked, I got a passport in my own name by the time I was 6. My brother Peter had a passport at the age of 2– and used it.
So any “with passport” theory requires someone who has a kid and a passport with a kid of the right age to lug Obama across the border. It can’t be Obama’s mom– because she can’t get him listed on her passport without admitting he exists and was born elsewhere. Also, Obama’s family has to find a mule who is willing to substitute the Obama for their own infant. Plus– if they are coming from Kenya, the parents of the Kenyan kid had to get a visa.
And they have to do this miracle of getting a visa for the other infant in less than 6 days.
Not saying it’s impossible — maybe if they start planning when she’s 3 months pregnant it could be done. I’m just asking what’s the motive?
I don’t see how it’s remotely easier. There’s hardly time to get paper work for the other kid done in 6 days. (Maybe they get a woman who has a 1 month old and hope customs can’t tell. But still– it’s often not easy to get entry visas to the US!)
She get her baby through customs without paperwork from the US government. She might be able to get him in coming from Canada or Mexico where the border guards didn’t ask for papers. (We never carried our passport when we drove to Buffalo by way of Canada).
Seriously, I think the flew Obama in before he was 6 days old presents serious logistics challenges if planned and is impossible if accidental.
lucia (Comment #96572)-“someone born on US soil is a natural born citizen.”
Just to begin with a preface that should be unnecessary: Obama is a citizen. That being said, Lucia, the statement you have made is not quite accurate, at least if one cares about the intent of those who wrote/supported the passage of the 14th Amendment that established “birth right citizenship” after the pre-civil war Supreme Court had said blacks couldn’t be citizens. To begin with, the purpose of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was to protect the 1866 Civil Rights Act from court strike down. That act: “granted U.S. citizenship to all persons born in the United States, as long as those persons were not subject to a foreign power” Thus why the phrasing is “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” (emphasis added). Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan—the author of the Citizenship Clause—indicated that he believed that the content of it and the 1866 act was the same. He and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lyman Trumbull, the author of the Civil Rights Act, disputed the claim of Senator James Rood Doolittle of Wisconsin that the language would make “Indians” citizens. Howard said that the act also excluded “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” Trumbull and two others, and President Andrew Johnson, all agreed that the Amendment and Act confered citizenship on non-naturalized resident’s children if they were not subject to a foreign power as dipolomats are. No Senator contradicted this.
“I think you are correct; SCOTUS has not ruled.”
Also not true:
Elk v. Wilkins “The Supreme Court held that Native Americans who voluntarily quit their tribes did not automatically gain national citizenship.”
United States v. Wong Kim Ark “The Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment a man born within the United States to Chinese citizens who have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States and are carrying on business in the United States—and whose parents were not employed in a diplomatic or other official capacity by a foreign power—was a citizen of the United States.”
So there have been decisions. Of course, again, Obama does meet these definitions. But not everyone born here.
Zeke (Comment #96595)
May 29th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
John Whitman,
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.
= = = = = =
Zeke,
Hey, thanks for your comment.
In recent years we see the liberal media not broadly reporting certain news and info wrt to skepticism in climate science. They can do that for the short term but not for extended periods. Why does that not apply to a potential derogatory issue with a sitting liberal president? It just is the modern situation . . . . look at the BBC in England who openly says it won’t be balanced on certain issues even when they are required to do so by law. Do you think there is any reason to think the US liberal media is any different?
I think the US liberal media is proud they have the power to control the dialog wrt Obama. : )
John
lucia:
It’s much simpler than that. You say:
I’ve seen plenty of cases where what was “needed” didn’t actually get required. For example, before the terrorist attacks on September 11th, I saw people get through airport security without being checked, at all. The fact something shouldn’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t. I believe it’s possible someone could have cleared immigration when they shouldn’t have because an official was lazy/incompetent/sympathetic/whatever.
But really, do we even know Obama wasn’t included on his mother’s passport? How would him being on it prevent him from getting a birth certificate? I doubt Hawaii’s health department (or the hospitals) routinely checked with immigration before issuing birth certificates.
Andrew_FL–
I stand corrected. You are right. Children born to Diplomats granted immunity and a child hypothetically born to parents who might in future invade and occupy parts of the US would not be granted citizenship under the 14th amendment.
But the argument is over “natural born” rather than just citizen. I don’t think a specific dispute over this term which I think is used no where other than when describing qualifications to hold presidential office has been specifically adjudicated. (I predict Obama v. Someone will not be the first case.)
To be included, they need a photo with the baby present. To take the photo, the baby has to have already been born. Six days is record time. It also has to be registered at the American consulate– which can only happen after birth. I haven’t personally checked at the American consulate– but I would need something more than a rhetorical question to believe a that these papers exist but no one has unearthed them.
Airport security is not customs and immigration. Sure, airport security was not heavy prior to 9/11. It wasn’t required to be heavy.
I have never, ever, ever gotten through immigration the US without my passport being looked at. Never.
It means you can’t plan on it happening.
The idea that the energetic Ann Obama gives birth, rushes to the embassy, gets paper work filled out in record time, rushes to the photographer, gets her photos developed (quickly for the 60s) gets to the passport office, gets a passport with little Barack on it– in record time, gets airline tickets, takes a probably 2 day flight from Kenya to Hawaii? This is already absurd on so many levels. (The risk of running out of diapers and infant formula would be enough to dissuade most new mothers from giving this a try.)
The alternative that she skips the paperwork, planning to smuggle him in is even more absurd. In that scenario, she has to worry about being caught at ever turn.
First, she tries to hops in the plane with a kid with no papers? (Absurdity one– Emigration normally checks. Airlines don’t like their passengers being sent back when the arrive in the US.) But that magically succeeds.
Then after a 2 day flight, she arrives in HI and tries to get through customs with an undocumented infant? This means she risks arrest for smuggling and and get turned back with a 2-6 day old infant? Absurdity two.
The whole while, she has to feed, diaper etc. Barack?
But, somehow after all this she manages to get Barack past customs and immigration (who screened our chihuaha when we brought him from El Salvador)? They somehow fail to notice the 6 day old infant? And the diapers? And formula? Coming off a flight from Kenya? Absurd.
“I am here dressed up looking like someone escaped from a Dude Ranch….” 🙂
I think some of you are lacking in a sence of humor.
His point of the sheriff beIng investigated as a raceist because of his questions on the birth certificate is to the point.
We are back to the idea that if you are opposed to BO, you are, by definition a “raceist”. Total bunk.
As I’ve said multiple times, I’ve never thought Obama was born outside the United States. I’ve been interested in this topic because I’ve seen enough crazy things happen that I didn’t rule out the possibility out-of-hand. That, combined with the poor response to the controversy, made me think it was worth paying attention to.
However, over the last year I forgot about an important fact. After years of people talking about it, Barack Obama did release the full version of his birth certificate. It clearly states the place of birth, as well as the attending doctor. Short of something like bribery, I don’t see how that could have happened. Had Obama been presented as being born in country, but not at the hospital, there is no way it would have been filled out like that (much less been signed within two days of the birth).
So while I still stand by my position that something like what I described could have conceivably happened without any nefarious intent, I don’t think there is any reason to believe it did. I think the White House handled the situation poorly (especially with not being clear about types of birth certificates), and it should have released the full version much sooner, but that’s not a very interesting topic.
And I really doubt anyone cares that the head of Hawaii’s Department of Health broke the law by releasing public statements discussing Obama’s birth certificate, violating confidentiality. Still, I find it incredibly strange Obama’s people said they couldn’t get the full version because it was confidential, yet they had no problem quoting someone breaking that confidentiality…
I suspect that US border controls at airports are close to UK controls….when travelling with my one-year-old child, the officials made sure to inspect the contents of the buggy. Sneaking a baby through immigration is not a straightforward matter.
Oh– Also 6 day old Barack would probably also need to be up to date on immunization to be let in. And yes, immigration used to check to require American’s to be up to date on smallpox vaccines before letting them back into the country. If Ann Obama was planning to get little Barack through immigration, she’d either have to have his certificate or hope that for some unusual reason, immigration didn’t check people arriving on a flight from Africa!
lucia:
It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Obama’s mother’s passport from that time may still exist, and someone may have it. If so, we could know whether or not Obama was included on it, and if he was, when he was added.
As for believing it, I wouldn’t believe it unless I had strong evidence for it. But whether or not I believe something has little to do with my ability to discuss what it would be.
I probably wasn’t clear enough. I was referring to people managing to bypass the security which was there. If security can be at an airport and get bypassed in a way I can observe, it’s hard for me to believe that never happens with immigration.
It’s pretty unbelievable, but I don’t think it’s impossible. I also don’t think it’s quite as unreasonable as your tone suggests. No rushing would be necessary, there’s no reason the paper work would need to be filled out in record time, and a photographer could come to her (or someone else could take the baby to him).
I get it sounds absurd, so it’s easy to word things to make it sound more absurd, but it’s kind of inappropriate.
Monckton gave it the full birther works at Heartland. Did not exactly get booed off stage either. Chris has form on his random quackery, he has publicly claimed to be able to cure AIDS in the past. The guy is a grade A crank of von Daniken proportions.
To be fair Lucia seen him coming a mile off. But few in the contrarian comunity did. For someone not prepared to invest large amounts of time to pick up the nuances in the various positions it is difficult to seperate the Morano’s, Watt’s, Monckton’s and Heartland’s form those who do have more informed and consistant criticisms like your Judy Curry’s. The loudness of your Moncktons and Morano’s mean many find the contrarians nothing but loud mouthed fools with an agenda…..
Hence outside of America and Australia the idea that climate change is a major issue is taken seriously by most socities.
With the likes of Heartland and Monckton able to be such a big part of the debate in America and the like I dont see what the stratagey is to move this from blogs grumbling about nitpicks over Yamal or whatever to something that more science savey countries like Germany or France are going to take seriously.
That said, its no skin of my nose. Americans are locked in their American culture war paradigms the rest of the world is taking mainstream science seriously.
E2A
Edit feature is great……
diogenes:
I have the disadvantage of being young and of knowing about security. Being young means 1961 was decades before I was born, so I have little personal experience which relates. What I do know is security has improved a great deal in the last ten years, so I instinctively think security must have been even worse further back.
Knowing about security means I know just how terrible security often is. When you constantly see security not implemented properly (if at all), you tend to become cynical. When you look at how computer networks get misused (it’s often unintentional), you start to look at how other things could be “broken into.” That might give me a warped view.
Still, I’ve never mistaken anything as suggesting Obama actually wasn’t born in the United States. I’ve just considered possibilities as to how it could have happened.
Incidentally, lucia brings up an important point I hadn’t considered, that of immunization. That definitely was a serious concern, and it makes it much less likely for a baby to slip through.
I admit that anecdotal mevidence evidence is no more than anecdotal and random but…last June, I took 2 US citizens (mother and son) from the Uk to France. The border officials scrutinised the passports; checked the contents of my car; interrogated me as to when those Americans were going back to the USA. The same level of scrutiny happened on our return to the UK.
M<aybe I was twice unlucky in attracting anally-retentive border officials. maybe things were more lax back in the day. But it is a big risk to take, nonetheless. at somepoint you have to look at the probablilities of this freak border event becoming the POTUS.
Seriously folks, this birther exchange boarders on insanity. Obama’s mother could not have anticipated some future constitutional conflict over her son becoming president some day if he had actually been born outside the USA, (and there is NO evidence that he was!). Seriously. She would have absolutely no motivation to rush back to Hawaii to fake little Barrack’s birth certificate, since she could have registered him as a US citizen by birth at any time. The children of US parents really do automatically receive citizenship if they are registered at any time until their their 18th birthday. The birthers and now Monckton are wasting their time, and everyone else’s too. For goodness sakes, let it go!
Brandon
Sure. But at a certain point its merely boring. We could also discuss theories that GHW Bush wasn’t really natural born because what really might have happened was that GW Bush had an affair with some female relative of Barbara’s and got her pregnant. That woman went overseas to have the kid, but then GW Bush persuaded Barbara they should raise his love child and then through some implausible series of events, they got the kid over to the US, filed a birth certificate and so on. It gets even more boring to discuss this especially if every possible reason why we believe GHW Bush really was natural born is presented with some other widly implausible possibitlity for which there is not one iota of evidence.
Of course rushing would be necessary. The time lag isn’t her filling out a form. The time lag is others processing it — getting a photo developed– presenting it in person at the passport office (you have to do this). Getting the person there to decide it looks like you and meets the requirements for white space, full face on for mother and kids. (I’ve had photos rejected and had to go back to get new ones. Pre-digital, it took longer. Also, if he travels on her passport, they both have to be in the picture together. )
Then if they let you submit, you have to wait for this to be sent to an office where they do heaven knows what and then the send you a new passport.
Currently, routine service is 4-6 weeks; expedited is 2-3 weeks. See: times.
Also, Ann would have to have her passport in hand leaving Kenya. If Barack was 6 days old when his birth certificate was filled out, and it took two days to fly, that means she got an updated passport in less than 4 days after Barack was born. This would would be very fast to get a passport even if you are in the US, have your birth certificate in hand, and old passport in hand and merely need to renew.
By the way, it used to take more time to get your passport — not less. This is because people had to dig up various records, make sure you don’t have another passport, haven’t been applying for 5 passports a year and so on. It used to take longer to dig up records. It’s not like getting a drivers license.
Mind you– the time mentioned at the passport office is the time after you have all other paperwork required to file in hand and you submitted your request.
In Ann Obama’s case, she couldn’t submit the paperwork for the passport for Barack until after she has her “birth to child born to American parents” form filed and returned to her. She needs that document to before submitting her modification request for her passport. I don’t know what’s involved in getting that– my parents did that when I was born. But I suspect that also wasn’t like getting your driver’s license back then either. People are going to have to present proof of citizenship– which means the US citizen(s) appearing in person at the consulate and presenting their documents to a human being at the consulate who would look at Ann’s passport in Ann’s presense (someone else can’t do this), look at Barack and want to see other documents related to the birth. No one is going to go to the hospital to check all these things out for her.
So yes, rushing would be required. Rushing would be required on the part of a lot of people none of whom would be motivated to rush.
It sounds absurd because it is absurd.
dorlomin
Is Monckton’s talk online? Did you see it? I didn’t. As soon as I saw him staging to speak I left. I just couldn’t.. couldn’t….. But I know at least two security guards thought he was funny and I know they thought whatever he said about the Hawaiian birth certificate was funny because two of them told me so.
Yep!
Border controls at airport were not bad in the 60s. It’s not the same as cyber security or bomb security. But also: there is a difference between people trying to break into a computer where the consequence of failing is…. failing…. and someone hopping on a plane with a 4 day old baby and the consequence of failing is… what? Getting arrested and sent back? It’s not that hypothetically customes could never ever ever slip up. I’m sure customs slips up every day. But a person deciding to buy tickets and hop on the plane with an infant is going to think twice about this.
On vaccinations: they used to check for vaccinations quite stringently. Small pox was very scary. People coming from Africa not being checked? No way. Even at 6 yo I remember border people leafing through my vacinnation record. That worried Mom much more than the passport!
During the early 80s going from the UK to france with an American passport was a snap. It was going from France to the UK where you got checked up and down. France to Brussels– sometimes they didn’t even check if you had a train ticket!
France to the US– customs and immigration checked.
When I was a kid, the US Canadian border was permeable. You could get through without a passport check– easy. They just asked your nationality. If the parents instructed the Guatemalan visitor to keep quite, no one checked. Especially not if the Guatemalan was blonde. (Oddly, she was also American because she was born in the US when her Dad was in med school. But we knew if she opened her mouth they’d check. So Maria de Lost Angeles Ramirez was told to keep quiet.)
Brandon
BTW: I think the discussion of how the WH handled the issue is leaps and bounds more interesting that speculating about wildly improbable ways Ann in particular might has smuggled Obama in particular into the country. It’s still not interesting enough to spend much time on– but more interesting than the wild speculation.
It would also be more interesting to talk about how a person today might evade security today. That conversation would be useful, but actually, if you have any good ideas on how it should be done, it should not be discussed on a blog. And so, I would discourage it.
SteveF:
When you say “this birther exchange,” do you mean the exchange going on in the comments of this page? If so, I think you’re way off-base.
I’ve given an example scenario in which absolutely no intention to deceive would exist, much less an intention to deceive in order to allow Obama to become president. It seems strange to dismiss everything with a comment which couldn’t possibly address some of the things you’re dismissing.
With the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate, I don’t think there is any reason to doubt his place of birth, but the fact people are wrong doesn’t mean everyone criticizing them are right. You can make faulty arguments for a correct position, and it appears that’s what you’re doing here.
lucia:
Of course. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if people were uninterested in the discussion. However, the point I made went directly to the entire portrayal you were giving, so it was obviously worth mentioning, even if it bores people.
She could have leisurely strolled down to the embassy (assuming it was within walking distance), casually filled out the paperwork, and then gone somewhere and laid down to rest, at which point the photographer could come over. The fact she only had a few days in which to do these things doesn’t mean she had to rush about during the day, which is what you implied.
When I said no rushing would be required, I was obviously referring to the rushing you had mentioned in the quote I provided. I wasn’t referring to rushing from people you hadn’t mentioned to do things you hadn’t talked about. It’s fine to bring up other types of rushing, but you shouldn’t imply they somehow dispute my remark.
The point is something being absurd doesn’t mean any portrayal which makes it sound absurd is automatically correct. It’s no different than the fact faulty arguments can be made in support of correct positions.
There’s also a difference between people trying to break into a computer and people simply misusing the network. The reason I referred to it often being unintentional (and put quotation marks around broken into) is most security with computers is not designed to prevent intentional harm, but rather, inadvertent damages.
The subject matter itself may be uninteresting, but watching Lucia Liljegren and Brandon Shollenberger try to out-parse each other’s parsings is kinda compelling drama.
It’s like the Alien vs. Predator of parsomatics.
PDA–
Huh? Expressing a difference of opinion on whether it easy or difficult for a woman to get a passport for a newborn born overseas in 4 days or whether it is easy or difficult to sneak a infant past customs is not “word parsing”.
PDA,
Heh, you had to remind of the movie Predator 2. In my opinion one of the worst movies of all time.
Lucia, my comment was intended as a gentle tease. You don’t have to find it funny, but I get a lot of comic relief from extended disputations on what the specific referent of the word “rushing” was… and replying to a joke about parsing by parsing the meaning of the word “parsing.”
My comment was in no wise meant to express disapproval. By all means, please continue.
Earle:
Alien vs Predator was worse, no matter how you parse it. ^.^
Lucia
It doesn’t look like the officials were too security conscious with Obama’s mother
http://www.wnd.com/2010/08/187813/
When Obama’s mother returned to the U.S. Oct. 20-21, 1971, she entered with State Department forms allowing her to travel with the passport she used in 1967 to go to Indonesia, even though it had expired.
End
Don’t forget Obama’s mother was an American citizen,your parents were not.
Wouldn’t it be recorded on her passport if she travelled from Kenya to Hawaii after Obama’s birth?
As there is not,it looks like he was born in Hawaii.
Brandon–
If Barack was born in Kenya, the notion that Ann got Barack added to her passport in time to fly into Hawaii and then either accidentally or intentionally had him registered as born in Hawaii within 6 days of birth is absurd. It doesn’t just sound absurd. It is absurd.
Noelene and Lucia, I’ve been able to enter the US without a passport. After 9/11.
Sometimes it can be faster (like LAX) than having the proper paperwork.
(They send you to an office where they check over your other documentation, grill you, profile you, lecture you about remembering your passport, then send you on your way…all in about 1/10th the time it takes to go through the line at LAX.)
Nolene
Yes. The State Department sometimes permit US citizens to fill out paper work and get permission to travel with an expired passport. This would happen most especially if a US citizen who had not kept their passport renewed got caught overseas during a period of unrest. It would happen even more frequently if the State Department advised everyone to leave. Border control is not entirely about security and not letting Barack in without a passport or papers would not have been entirely about security.
This is not the same as customs permitting an undocumented baby to enter the country with no forms of any kind simply because it was carried off an airplane arriving from Kenya.
Are you telling me my parents were not US citizens? My parents are both US citizens. Had they not been they would not have filed the “child born to American Citizen overseas” papers when I was born and I would not have gotten American citizenship.
Maybe. Maybe not. When I was a kid, I got entry and exit stamps leaving the US and El Salvador. Seems to me the european countries didn’t always do it. (We found this disappointing.) I don’t know what Kenya did. So, I can’t be sure.
I think he was born in Hawaii. Absolutely. Out of curiosity, do you actually know if she even had a passport in 1961 and whether it was stamped? That would be interesting (but not interesting enough for me to try to hunt down.)
Carrick,
I don’t doubt it. Never saw that sludge though. Perhaps I was being a bit dramatic, but I stumbled onto Predator 2 on cable a while back. I didn’t realize my movie tastes had matured so much. Special effects were OK, but script and acting stunk. This from a guy who thinks Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension was high art. Ah well, where do I get my codger membership card?
PDA–When I replied to you, I actually hadn’t seen Brandon’s reply that Ann didn’t have to rush to the photographers specifically. So I thought you were calling our dispute about whether it’s possible to get a passport in 4 days “parsing”. I agree that disputing whether Ann would specifically have had to rush to the photographer either is or borders on parsomatics.
Carrick–
Yes. but you have one.
When we leave the country, we put photocopies of our passport numbers on the dining room table so your families can locate those should we get pick-pocketed or something. But if you never even got one and have no proof of citizenship whatsoever, I think you’d find things a bit more difficult.
lucia,
Related link to what Neolene provided above at http://www.wnd.com/2010/08/187825/ has a timeline with the following observation:
That’s as much hunting as I’m interested in doing on this. 🙂
Sorry
I thought your parents were not American.I followed a link from the article I posted as they were quoting her travels,I assumed the records existed,seems they don’t.
http://www.wnd.com/2010/08/187825/
Stanley Ann Dunham is issued Passport No. F777788 by U.S. Department of State (passport application destroyed by State Department in 1980s). It is unknown whether Dunham had a U.S. passport prior to 1965, because the State Department claims her passport records prior to 1968 were destroyed in the 1980s in accordance with unspecified “guidance†from the General Services Administration.
End
Whether he is a US citizen does not really matter now.It is not in the American interest to prove he is not.That would render every action he has taken as president illegal,wouldn’t it?That would be a nightmare,best let sleeping dogs lie.He was obviously American enough for the ones who voted for him.
We could all benefit from having a clear record on the people we vote for.Maybe it should be a requirement that every aspect of their lives are open to the public,apart from the personal side.Birth certificate,school records(without the personal assessments,just the facts)military service,passport,career..all laid out so there can be no confusion.
lucia:
I’m not sure this responds to anything I’ve said, but for what it’s worth, I agree. Me saying “I get it sounds absurd” in no way was meant to imply I thought it wasn’t absurd. It was merely to indicate I was discussing the impression given, regardless of the underlying reality, for that particular sentence as that sentence was discussing impressions.
(My agreement is why in the previous paragraph I said the idea is “pretty unbelievable.”)
Noelene:
I don’t think every action would be considered illegal, especially not if they were made in good faith (such as Obama being unaware of the deception). I think the fact his authority was almost universally recognized would probably be enough to defend the legality of his decisions. I seem to recall that being the decision made by courts in some cases (on much smaller scales, of course), but none come to mind at the moment.
Lucia – You may think it at least “borders on parsomatics,” but I think it is perfectly appropriate to point out when someone misrepresents my remarks. I also think it’s appropriate to point out it is wrong to say one person would have to rush if in reality it is other people who would have to rush.
I get the impression parsomatics is considered a bad thing (I haven’t been able to find a definition). If so, I disagree with the label.
Lucia:
Actually, they didn’t check the passport ID at all (copies or otherwise), they took my word for it and they just looked at my other forms of identification (e.g., state issued drivers license, which doesn’t have anything on it about nationality and as I said clearly profiled me … as an absent minded academic).
I’m not as clever as some to remember to notify the state department when I travel and keep updated copies of my passport with me.
I didn’t have any proof of citizenship on me, though maybe my SS card helped.
(Back story: I got on the plane leaving the US knowing that I had forgotten my passport, didn’t have time to return to my home to pick it up, and couldn’t afford to miss the flight—would have missed my talk. I was more worried about reentry to the US than entry to the foreign country, though obviously that would have worked out eventually)
The recently discovered bio from 1991 that says Obama was born in Kenya, suggests strongly that this info was provided by Obama himself in order to get more “street cred”, and preferential treatment and/or scholarships in Harvard, Occidental, etc. Those records, however, are conveniently sealed.
At least Monckton has the ability to identify the crazies here.
Carrick–
Wow!
I don’t notify the state department when I travel either! Was there any checking of databases? Or anything?
Diego,
Student records are routinely sealed. That’s just the way it is.
FWIW–
This is a US embassy page explaining what American parents do to register their kids when they are born overseas.
http://seoul.usembassy.gov/acs_report_of_birth.html
It seems to require at least two visits to the embassy. Some details would have differed in 1961.
Lucia:
I don’t recall anything other than asking me questions like where I was born, etc. There wasn’t even a computer in the room. Just three guys (no bright lights either). If I had been a second-generation American with a residual accent things might have gone differently.
How to Concede that P
Zeke (Comment #96595)
May 29th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
“John Whitman,
Ahh, yes, if only the liberal media would stop suppressing legitimate debate about Obama’s birth certificate…
No offense, but you have to realize how silly this whole discussion is. I wouldn’t quite elevate it to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, since its not nearly as distasteful, but its pretty out there.”
Actually, Zeke I believe, since the birther nonsense is a political plus for Democrats and Obama, the MSM has given it considerably more attention than it deserves. Note the recent Trump/birther/Romney connection that has been a major MSM topic.
I wonder what the polling numbers would be on whether one thought John Kennedy’s assassination was an inside job. Oliver Stone and the movie he made about it was never widely laugh at or condemned.
There was a recent flap about Obama’s birthplace in an old biography of Obama at Harvard Law stating he was Kenyan born. The article stated that it believed that Obama was a US citizen born in Hawaii. It did not say whether this notion came from Obama. Since Elizabeth Warren running for the old Kennedy senate seat made claims of being part Cherokee and it became part of her Harvard biography, one wonders whether some of these politicians have worked at making their biographies more interesting. We have a senator from IL, Mark Kirk, who embellished his military record and I recall another politician from, I believe Pennsylvania and a States Attorney there who also lied about his military record and was immediately reelected.
Nolene–
You’re not required to know my parents are American. But they were and that’s why I know about the forms American’s fill out at the consuls office when their kid is born overseas. (You aren’t absolutely required to fill it out– but you do need to if you want to get a passport for them.)
I think you are supposed to turn in your old passport when you get a new one. I think the purpose is to make forgery more difficult. The destruction of old passports themselves would make sense in this context, but I’m a bit surprised “records” that might be on file would be destroyed. OTOH, it’s not something I’ve ever tried to learn anything about.
Actually, I don’t know. The constitution doesn’t specifically say what happens in the event of a slip up.
Brandon–
On rushing– I think Ann hauling herself and the baby to the consul office immediately after giving birth would be “rushing”. I concede she might be able to get the photographer to come to her and that would decrease the amount of rushing. I said “bordering on” because…. well… it’s a quibble about whether the need to get the photographer (as opposed to all the other things she needs to do) would contribute to her need to rush when the main issue is: Does it make any sense that Ann would do this?
It seems you agree it makes no sense to suggest she did all these things. So, I don’t think an argument over the degree of rushing is going to change that. I also don’t think an argument over whether an argument about exactly what constitutes rushing is useful!
It’s a “willard” term. He seems to do it all the time and accuses others of it and seem to think it’s a bad thing.
The terms “parsing” and parser pretty well defined and discussed at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing
Neither parsing nor parser are bad things. Parsing is necessary for communication. And sometimes people do have to clarify what they meant. Sometimes people do need to infer meaning from how words and phrases are put together.
But it is also true that sometimes excess clarification or jumping on what amounts to picky details can make communication more difficult, not less.
How surprising that the same crew that believe AGW a hoax also doubt President Obama’s place of birth.
Not.
And with the “Bilderbergers” meeting this weekend there’s a whole new level of nut-jobness taking place.
Not speaking for willard, who coined the term as far as I know, but yes: if I were to parse ‘parsomatics,’ I would parse it as “excess clarification or jumping on what amounts to picky details.”
One would have to parse willard just right to love him. If one can parse the difference between playing with semiotics and ontological relativity on the one hand, and parsing to win an argument on the other, one stands an even chance.
If one finds the first more charming than the latter, then it’s a lock.
But de gustibus non est disputandum.
‘de parens citoyens’.
================
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875). Justia in time.
===================================
There is nothing but parsing and reparsing. Its part and parcel of the infinite explanatory regress. The only way out of parsing is what Morse peckham called ultimate sanctions. Language leads to more language and laguage about language until somebody puts a stop to it. by force of some sort. By non linguistic behavior.
Say uncle.
A birhter thread.. by way of Monkcton, no less. Amazing.
The issue is not made less complex by Obama’s self-written bio he provided for his first book agent. I think he was born here and is a citizen, but his lying in his own bio about something basic as where he was born is creepy. As to travel and pregnancy: Until the last 28 years or so, it was not uncommon for late-term pregnant women to be denied on long air flights. An infant, by the way, of an American mother would not be given much trouble at immigration once the provenance, so to speak was established.
The interesting thing is to think about why the current President would be so unwilling to do what most Presidential candidates do as a matter of course: release lots of personal stuff. After all, it is very unusual for a medicore small college student to get accepted not only to Columbia but Harvard. One would think someone who turned their life around from stoner marginal student to head of Harvard Law Review would want people to see as much of what he did as possible.
Instead, Obama seems downright bashful.
Obama’s self-written bio
Self-written?
Lucia,
on the Natural Born Citizen front you may want to read this article on Minor v Hapersett which actually established PRECEDENT. The wiki entry is a mess this should help clear up.
“Since the Court in Minor specifically avoided construing the 14th Amendment as to citizenship, it is clear that Justice Gray’s statement – concerning the citizenship passage by Justice Waite in Minor – was clearly erroneous. The Supreme Court in Minor chose to construe Article 2 Section 1 instead of the 14th Amendment. As such, Minor is the only US Supreme Court case which has directly construed the Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizen clause. Therefore, Minor’s construction below creates binding legal precedent:
“Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,‘ and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.“ (Emphasis added.)”
also
“The 14th Amendment specifically confers only “citizenshipâ€. In Minor, the US Supreme Court directly recognized that natural-born citizens were a class of citizens who did not need the 14th Amendment to establish citizenship. The class of natural-born citizens was perfectly defined in the Minor case.”
and
“The Minor case has been severely misconstrued in the Ankeny opinion issued by the Indiana Court of Appeals. That court quoted Minor’s natural-born citizen language, then stated:
“Thus, the Court left open the issue of whether a person who is born within the United States of alien parents is considered a natural born citizen.â€
False. The Minor Court did not leave that question open. Nowhere in the Minor opinion does it state that the class of persons who are natural-born citizens is an open question. The Ankeny Court has it backwards.
The Supreme Court in Minor stated that the “citizenship†of persons who were not natural born citizens was an open question.”
You may want to read the rest for further clarification on how the issue became so confused and the seemingly conflicting statements in other decisions.
I guess it would be good if I gave you the link to read the rest:
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/us-supreme-court-precedent-states-that-obama-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/
KuhnKat–
Reading, it looks to me that reading what you quoted, Minor was correctly interpreted. Minor says a child born of to American parents on US soil is obviously a natural born citizen. But that leaves open the question that others may also be. They even specifically say they don’t need to resolve that question to make their present ruling and don’t.
That means, the question of whether a child born of alien parents is natural born is “open”– as Ankeny observed.
Are you saying the opposite?
Kuhnkat
Yes it does. It discusses that for some people, there are “doubts”, but the says this:
This is exactly how the court leaves a question “open”. A certain portion of the class is certainly natural born. Other people may also be contained in the class, and the question about them is open.
That leave the question “open”.
Where it is shown that Lucia is spreading desinformation
Brandon,
I still think it boarders on insanity. People spend their time on lots of things I find crazy; Monckton is in this group, along with many others.
And I spread the same dezinformatsiya, to be fair.
PDA–
If you understood what the dezinformatsiya is supposed to be you understand willard-speak better than I do.
lucia.
it would appear that they are still stinging over questions asked about the IPCC owning a copyright. Stupid Eli and stupid willard said some nonsense. I’m betting neither have spent much time around the field.
@ Nick 96745,
Yes Nick, the bio was written by Obama. The agency’s policy is to have its clients write a third person bio for publication.
And do please show where any promotion or talent agency is giong to simply fabricate a bio without the input of the client.
One to think about Obama’s pre-Presidential bio is to ask: was Obama lying then or now?
I think he was fibbing then, claiming to be Kenyan born, because it helped, in his opinion, his narrative.
Here is what another client of that same firm has to say about who does what wrt bio’s:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/The-Vetting-Barack-Obama-Literary-Agent-1991-Born-in-Kenya-Raised-Indonesia-Hawaii
“All material she used in our proposals came directly from me and my writing partner. She edited our rough-draft proposals and gave us feedback, but the final versions were all ours. Our final versions, bio included, were then simply photo-copied, by us, and distributed to potential publishers. This was back in the pre-Google days, recall.
I was asked to write the bio in the third person.”
And do note that the agent only claims it was a “fact checking error”. She does not claim to have written it, she does not claim it was her error.
Now why would Obama pretend to be born in Kenya when he was not in fact born there? I really don’t know, but like I said I find his actions and attitude regarding this and his academic history to be rather creepy.
“If Barack was born in Kenya, the notion that Ann got Barack added to her passport in time to fly into Hawaii and then either accidentally or intentionally had him registered as born in Hawaii within 6 days of birth is absurd. It doesn’t just sound absurd. It is absurd.”
If the Hawaii birth cert. is a phony, the date of birth ain’t necessarily correct. He could have been a toddler when he landed with his mom in Hawaii 🙂
I don’t see why, at the time of Barry’s birth, his family would have thought it a good idea to lie about where he was born. It’s unlikely that Barry was able to get away with correcting an accident of birth so long after the fact, but it is really weird that he didn’t make a credible effort to clear this up long ago. Even now he could authorize the Hawaii authorities to allow inspection of the original documents in their files. Taken together with his refusal to release other documentation on his history just makes it look like Barry got something to hide.
Don-
Of course. This is why, much earlier, I asked those who wanted to advance their theories to describe them in some detail. We were discussing a branch where the certificate is not fake, but somehow, Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii. Of course the reasons why those theories don’t make sense are different from the theories that the birth certificate was faked.
The fact that no theory is concrete, there is no evidence etc. is what ultimately makes these discussion pointless and boring (and borderline insane.)
I think I told Brandon that if someone says the issue might have been handled better by Obama, I agree. But many presidents handle somethings well and somethings poorly. I don’t think handling this less than perfectly is evidence of much of anything.
Actually the IPCCs position is clear that they own the copyright on the reports and not any individuals.
You think different. Sue em
————————
Thank you for your message. Please note that the material covered in the IPCC reports cannot be attributed to one single author and therefore the issue of individual copyrights is not relevant.
Eli–
We’ve been over this.
a) The “issue of individual copyrights” doesn’t resolve the questions people have about IPCC copyright.
b)The IPCC does not have the authority to write US copyright laws.
c) There is plenty of reason to believe the IPCC may be misinterpreting US copyright law.
What are you suggesting someone sue the IPCC about? As far as I am aware no one has grounds to sue the IPCC for something like “writing confusing, misleading or utterly inaccurate claims about copyright”. I don’t think that’s any sort of cause of action. (Is that the term?)
The situation is that if someone copies and the IPCC doesn’t like it, the IPCC have have to sue. If the person sued is eager for engagement, it might go to court. Depending on circumstances, the IPCC might lose — big time. And since copyright is one of the causes of action that permits the defendant to sue for costs, the IPCC might have to pay$$
But this is all hypothetical. Because so far as I know, the IPCC hasn’t sued anyone for copyright violations in the US courts.
lucia
I agree. I never thought it was important. It just seemed like you were exaggerating things slightly, so I pointed that out. My expectation was you’d either read it, accept the view, and say nothing, or you’d say something like, “Maybe, but I don’t think it matters.” Either way, it would have been over. The only reason I said anything more was you responded about other cases of rushing, offering them as though they were what I was talking about. I don’t like leaving misrepresentations unanswered.
To be fair, I may have over-interpreted your comment. When you said “rush,” my mind interpreted that as to travel quickly since you also said she had to fill out paper work in “record time.” To me, this gave the impression you were suggesting she’d be running around with hardly any time in her day, and that is what seemed excessive. I suppose “rush” could have been read differently though?
I agree with this too. I even think I’m guilty of it at times. However, I don’t think a sentence or two to clarify something is generally a problem. And if it becomes one, I’m always willing to have someone tell me to shut up about meaningless things!
I’d have been less surprised if it was just Obama’s reaction which was poor. However, I kept coming across other things. For example, the Hawaiian governor announced he’d get the birth certificate then later was forced to admit he couldn’t find it. Then I found out the head of the state’s Department of Health publicly discussed the document even though the same department had supposedly told Obama’s staff he couldn’t get a copy of it because it was confidential. It’s not “evidence of much of anything” (aside from a government official apparently breaking the law), but it also didn’t inspire much confidence.
PDA – Thanks for your interpretation. That was the impression I got from the term, but it’s hard to tell with words I don’t know (especially with things from willard).
Steven Mosher – I have told people to tell me to shut up if I ever get “stuck” on points of clarification which don’t matter. Few ever take me up on it, but when someone does, it seems to work pretty well. On the internet I do get trollish cases of it, so it’s less effective, but still…
I forgot one other thing which I kept coming across. I repeatedly heard/saw the announcements of Obama’s birth in newspapers as being independent evidence of his place of birth. The problem was I knew this “independence” was the same sort of “independence” found in multiproxy studies which constantly rely on much of the same data.
Those newspapers just published whatever birth announcements the hospitals sent them. That made them evidence Obama’s birth certificate wasn’t created in this century, but they were constantly offered as more than just that.
Misrepresenting evidence in order to make snide comments and dismiss people’s claims out-of-hand always makes me wonder.
Eli (Comment #96769):
Your answer from the IPCC is not the smoking gun you think it is. Instead, review this link to a report on joint ownership of copyright (page 87 in particular) http://www.copyright.gov/history/studies/study12.pdf
I think you will see that if joint persons, together create a work of joint authorship, then absent an obligation to assign their joint contribution to another entity, the joint work is jointly owned by the joint authors.
Another way of saying that all the authors who contributed to the joint IPCC report, jointly own the copyright.
All the IPCC is saying is that there is no individual work of authorship – not that the IPCC owns the joint work of authorship.
lucia,
Not to beat a dead horse (but your reply invited me to take another whack), if he was not born in Hawaii, how can the birth cert. be genuine, since it states he was born in Hawaii? Please feel to
consider that a rhetorical question, and move on. Let Brandon continue on his own quest for semantic perfection 🙂
On second thought, I withdraw the question. It makes me sound like Brandon 🙂 I am more concerned with the story that Barry has his barber flown to DC from Chicago every couple of weeks, on our dime. That is the kind of crap I would expect out of a King, not a President.
Don–
It’s not my theory. Brandon suggested a scenario. I think it goes that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii but the birth certificate — filled out at or near 6 days after birth–is legit in the sense that it is not forged. It would have been filled out near the time of birth by officials in Hawaii who thought they were filling out an accurate birth certificate.
In contrast, other people advance the theory the document is forged. Obviously, evidence for one theory is generally going to differ drastically from the other.
If it’s true that he was born in Hawai’i, why did he lie about it, or did he simply tell an untruth?
If it’s true he was born in Kenya, why did he lie about it, or did he simply tell an untruth?
If it’s true he had Indonesian citizenship, why did he lie about it, or did he simply tell an untruth?
====================
Eli still doesnt get it.
Asking a question does not amount to making a claim
1. Does the IPCC own a copyright?
does not amount to a claim that they do not.
Making a claim, does not establish a fact.
2. Yes the IPCC do own one, because they said so.
Settling the matter would require more than words.
but here today all we have is words. So we discuss.
Rabbets of course dont like to discuss.
lucia correctly shows kuhnkat that the meaning of ‘natural born’ is open. It is worth noting that the term is only used in qualification for Presidential election, and was used instead of ‘native born’, used elsewhere and presumably with a different meaning. lucia and I differ in our interpretation of the meaning of the term ‘natural born’ as used by the founders in the writing of the US Constitution. I believe they meant ‘naturelles’ or citizens born of ‘parens citoyens’. lucia is not of that belief.
More than two centuries have passed and the question is not adjudicated. Pretty well insulated from alien influence are we, eh? Well, the insulation weakens at a critical juncture. Will the heat shield survive the return flight?
==============
==========
lucia, your description is accurate. Something being genuine doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
By the way, that doesn’t have any meaningful relation to semantics, so even if I do have such a quest, it isn’t relevant. In fact, I don’t even see how semantics would come up in the matter.
kim–
I know we are never going to see eye to eye on that.
But I am happy to read that wikipedia has at least one professor who thinks I am natural born. I grew up thinking I couldn’t be president.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause
“G. Edward White, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, states the term refers to anyone born on U.S. soil or anyone born on foreign soil to American citizen parents”
I’d be the latter.
Lucia,
OK, let’s do this in detail as you apparently are not reading what an ATTORNEY had to say and would rather argue it with non-attorneys:
““The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.“ (Emphasis added.)”
The area in dispute is apprently this:
“Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. ”
Notice that the statement is “include as citizens” and NOT “include as natural born citizens”. It further talks about “As to this class there have been doubts…”.
He is NOT talking about the class of Natural Born citizenship when he says there are doubts. He is talking about whether the class of regular citizens can even be claimed by those not born on the land of two citizens!!!!!
I agree with KuhnKat’s point now. Lucia invokes Wikipedia and he invokes the Constitution, and other precedent ‘At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, its citizens also. These were natives, or natural born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.’
=======================
hunter: “I find his actions and attitude regarding this and his academic history to be rather creepy”
IMO that sentiment applies to almost any politician or any other sociopaths.
Have you really stopped engaging in tedious semantic quibbling, Brandon?
Well Lucia John McCain was born on foreign soil of US parents. The senate avoided the possibility of his status being queried by passing a resolution declaring him to be a natural born citizen.
Phil.–
Yes. But that hadn’t happened yet when I was growing up! I think they voted because this was considered an open question. (And it’s true whether he “natural born” was considered worth discussing and voting on even if Kim favors the views of an obscure Swiss advisor from way back as obviously governing our interpretation of “natural born citizen”. )
Eye to eye, lucia, I concede that the Founder’s dependence on natural born to prevent the machinations of a usurper are almost absurdly pusillanimous, but they would have worked in this case.
Heh, and review the meaning of obscure, a word you apply to a man whose ideas and words were not obscure.
================
kim–
Yes. He was obscure. That a bibliophile who wanted to buy all books in existence, make them available should someone want to read them and archive them bought his book does not make the guy less obscure. Eventually, the bits that discussed issues related to the Monroe doctrine had influence. And now, there are people dredging up translations written much after the writing of the constitution.
But that doesn’t make this guy prominent in the sense that Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton etc were prominent with respect to defining and writing the Constitution.
Heh, they were reading him, though, and not in later translations. Often they did so in French.
========================
kim–
You don’t know they were reading him. And though you claim they did, I don’t know why you even begin to imagine the people I listed we reading him. Certainly, there is little evidence they agreed with everything they read, and as far as I am aware zero evidence they were influenced by his notions on citizenship. (Those basically echo the law as it stood in Switzerland. It was a universal view at the time– and he was Swiss.)
As for whether there is reason to believe the people I listed were reading it or that their notions were influenced by the section on citizenship: There is not much. The book was not on all their shelves– not even most. I’m pretty sure it’s not discussed in the Federalist papers– and so on. Of course it’s possible they read those bits but didn’t mention that fact– but the fact is, the founders didn’t all speak French and some who spoke French didn’t speak or read it at all well.
Strangely enough the United Nations thinks it owns its own copyrights. Obviously they never talked to Steve or Lucia.
And so does the WMO. Gee, so the IPCC which is an agent of the WMO and the UN must think that it also holds copyright on its documents. How wrong they are.
Eli–
Please alert me when either the UN or IPCC sues someone for copyright violations on the multi-author IPCC reports or drafts written by numerous authors including US government employees and wins in the US copyright office.
lucia, I believe the founders were more current than you do with this simple, widespread, notion of ‘natural born’ citizenship. Particularly those framers of those words, specially limiting Presidential eligibility with words unique in American governance, were very likely familiar with the idea and the specific wording. This was a matter of immediate and practical importance in a small nation beset with numerous powerful and competing alien interests.
I particularly like the irony that their remedy, ‘natural born’ survived the infancy and weakness of our nation and now seems to be failing as maturity lengthens.
========================
Eli Rabett (Comment #96898):
None of your links shed any light on the issue.
Unless the joint authors were under an obligation to assign their copyright to the IPCC (UN), they still jointly own the copyright in the report.
Now, if the chapter authors were employees (I don’t think they are employees of the UN), then their employment agreement would no doubt provide the obligation to assign.
However, I thought of them as volunteered (by their Universities), so I doubt they could be considered “employees” of the UN.
The next question (assuming they would not be considered employees – which create a work for hire situation) would be whether they signed a document when they agreed to be an author, which assigned their copyright to the IPCC (UN).
I don’t know the answer to this question.
However, what I do know is that your links do not provide any information as to whether the authors of the joint work either assigned their copyright or are under a legal obligation (contract) to assign their copyright.
Lucia,
First I will state that Jefferson and Franklin had copies of Vattel’s Law of Nations and the Constitution and other writings heavily leaned on his ideas. It was also documented that Washington as President referred to it. Both Samuel and John Adams specifically referred to Vattel’s. In Federalist Paper #78 Alexander Hamilton reiterated their comments without specifically referencing Vattel but using the same phrasing. Hamilton also quoted liberally from Vattel’s. It would seem that the founders WERE familiar with Vattel’s AND there were translations available and COngress used it according to Franklin!!!
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2010/05/thomas-jefferson-founder-of-our-nation.html
“There is no doubt that the Founding Fathers did not exclusively use the English translation, but relied upon the French original. On December 9th of 1775, Franklin wrote to Vattel’s editor, C.G.F. Dumas, “ I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the Law of Nations. has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting. Accordingly, that copy which I kept has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author.†”
http://birthers.org/USC/Vattel.html
Next I ran into something new to me and certain to be quite controversial. As it fits my bias I completely agree with it of course!!! 8>) Apparently the Law of Nations IS specifically mentioned in the Constitution meaning that everything in it is available to Congress!!!!
http://james4america.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/u-s-constitution-and-vattels-law-of-nations-the-answer-has-been-there-all-the-time/
“U.S. Constitution, Article I, §8:
The Congress shall have Power…To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations”
Note the capitalization of Law of Nations. He claims there was no other book or writing named this at the time so must refer to Vattel’s. Here is his full article supporting the idea the Vattel’s Law of Nations is actually referred to in the Constitution!!!!
“U.S. Constitution and Vattel’s Law of Nations: The Answer has been there All the Time!
…
It seems that the answer to Barack Obama’s eligibility to be President may just have been right under everyone’s noses. Unless repealed in a subsequent Amendment, ratified by the States, the Constitution (1) requires the President of the United States to be a “natural-born citizenâ€, and (2) defines that requirement.
Many scholars have said that “natural-born†is not defined in the Constitution, but that we must look to the laws that subsequently developed. However, this is a wrong premise. The Constitution actually does define the requirement, by incorporation of the Laws of Nations. Vattel’s Laws of Nations is referenced in the Constitution, and through legalese, the precepts of the Laws of Nations are incorporated into the Constitution.
Greg Goss wrote:
The Constitution and de Vattel’s Law of Nations has the answer to any questions regarding citizenship abroad and any laws crossing national boundaries:
EXCERPT 1. U.S. Constitution, Article II, §1:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, OR a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
EXCERPT 2: de Vattel’s Law of Nations circa 1758 Book 1, Chapter XIX, § 212:
The natives, or NATURAL-BORN CITIZENS, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens…The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.
Finally, the main item in the Constitution that ties both together:
EXCERPT 3: U.S. Constitution, Article I, §8:
The Congress shall have Power…To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations
Yes, Law of Nations is CAPITALIZED, meaning our framers were citing a proper name. There was only one Law of Nations in 1787 officially declared. And yes, Congress has the power to create and enforce ANY LAW mentioned in the Law of Nations written by Emmerich de Vattel! It was sitting right under our noses the entire time.”
Phil,
as usual Congress overreached. Can they pass a law that tells us that blacks are not human or equal to the rest of us??
What is written in the Constitution is NOT amenable to Congress. Unfortunately it CAN be perverted by Judges reinterpreting what is said. The idea that Congress can decide McCaint is actually a Natural Born Citizen if he does not meet the definiton shows how far this country has gotten from a rule of LAW and into a rule by petty tyrants.
In general the Constitution allows the States the power to decide who are Citizens. As was shown in Hapersett there are two classes. Natural Born and Naturalized citizens. While McCaint is obviously a Citizen based on his parents citizenship his Natural Born status is not open to reinterpretation by states naturalization laws. The Constitution did NOT parcel out that authority.
We can argue all we want as to whether the 14th Amendment MEANT or INTENDED to change the requirements of Natural Born Citizenship. Lacking ANY evidence that this was the actual intent we must accept that there has been NO change in this.
Don Monfort, this is probably the best they will ever have and proves nothing.
http://thedailypen.blogspot.com/2012/03/ins-doc-found-us-certificate-issued-to.html
This is a great post and will fuel much speculation as to the Kenyan Birth theory.
As my posts above have shown, it really doesn’t matter where he was born unless his father is shown to be an American Citizen!!! In other words, if his father was Frank Marshall Davis or Malcolm X then his birthplace would be relevant. 8>)
KK, I knew she was out on an emotional limb when she called de Vattel an ‘obscure Swiss adviser’, and I thank you for the saw. However, I don’t buy the Capitalization Argument. The founders capitalized lots of things we don’t anymore, and I’m unconvinced that their ‘Law of Nations’ was a proper name, and I don’t buy the following argument.
=====================
Phil,
McCain was born on US territory- the Panama Canal Zone.
According to US law since 1790, this makes him a natural born US citizen:
“Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship, the First Congress in 1790 passed a measure that did define children of citizens “born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born.†But that law is still seen as potentially unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation that omitted the “natural-born†phrase.
Mr. McCain’s citizenship was established by statutes covering the offspring of Americans abroad and laws specific to the Canal Zone as Congress realized that Americans would be living and working in the area for extended periods. But whether he qualifies as natural-born has been a topic of Internet buzz for months, with some declaring him ineligible while others assert that he meets all the basic constitutional qualifications — a natural-born citizen at least 35 years of age with 14 years of residence. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html
And it also means, I believe, that no matter where Obama was born he is also a natural born US citizen.
Which makes the games Obama has played regarding this even stranger.
Excellent, Hunter, except your last belief. The definition of ‘natural born’ and the location of birth determine whether or not Obama is natural born. Many believe what is Constitutional is what de Vattel wrote ‘de parens citoyens’.
==================
It’s also useful to remember that ‘natural born’ was unique terminology, and it makes sense that these men, most vulnerable to concerns of alien influence, would use the most restrictive term for the most powerful executive position.
Again, the irony: This weak defense against the machinations of a usurper would have worked in the instant case.
========================
KuhnKat–
All of those are stretches.
Franklin’s thank you note: Gracious People and Politicians write nice thank you Notes ands say things like they “are always going to use that Tchotke someone sent them.”
Oh. Let’s look:
Note the capitalization of Piracies, Felonies Offenses and Seas.
It’s silly to think Law of Nations is a book when that capitalization follows a convention applied to every noun in the rest of the sentence.
All these types of things are stretches.
KuhnKat:
This doesn’t mesh with what Phil said:
Resolutions are not laws. They have no force of authority. A Senate resolution may work to bind the Senate, and it could be used to show intent for case law, but it has no actual bearing on the nation’s laws.
How funny. US citizens who don’t understand their own constitution.
Obama admits his dad was a British subject at birth. Therefore Obama is not qualified the be President of the US.
Presidents have to be over 35, lived in the US for 14 years, and be natural born citizens, (that is born on US territory the child of two US citizens). See Vattel “Law of Nations” from which this requirement is drawn, and also:
“Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1875) (decided after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868 and holding that “all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners”). What Minor said about a “natural born Citizen†was confirmed in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (acknowledging and confirming Minor’s American common law definition of a “natural-born citizen†but adding based on the English common law that since “‘[t]he child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [birth in the country]’†(bracketed information supplied), a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United Statesâ€). This American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen†has never been changed, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment (only uses the clause “citizen of the United States” and does not mention “natural born Citizen”) or Wong Kim Ark, and therefore still prevails today. Both those U.S. Supreme Court cases define a “natural born Citizen” as a child born in a country to parents who are citizens of that country.”
http://puzo1.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/natural%20born%20citizen
Mark– your interpretation of Minor is confused. Our citizenship laws are not based on Vattel.
Lucia, this is not about citizenship law, it’s about the Constitutional requirements of a President. Natural born citizen is only applied to the President cos the framers didn’t want any divided loyalty in a President. Seemples.
MarkR–
Who is or is not a “natural born citizen” is about citizenship laws.
But irrelevant: your interpretation of Minor, Kwak etc. remains confused.
No, MarkR’s right about Minor v. Happersett. De Vattel’s views were those of the framers. Lucia just won’t believe. I’ve seen this kind of faith everywhere.
===================
Lucia, we’ll leave it there. The matter will hopefully be decided in due course. However, I hope that everyone will learn from the mistakes in Climate Change and Natural Born Citizen matters. One way or another one groups world view will be untenable.
KuhnKat,
The inference is problematic for several reasons, including at least the following:
1. On its face, the alleged definition in your quote can be just as reasonably interpreted to require only one citizen parent as two.
2. Since J. Waite made it clear that he was focused on the distinction between natural born citizens and aliens, it cannot be reliably inferred that “include as citizens” was meant to exclude those born of alien parents from natural born citizenship.
3. Waite further opined that ‘[u]nder the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, provided “that any alien, being a free white person,” might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens. [n8] These provisions thus enacted have, in substance, been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since.’
That last sentence is problematic for those who insist that two citizen parents are required, since the 1790 act – which itself only required one citizen parent – was superseded 5 years later by an act with similar provisions, but in which the phrase “natural born” is nowhere to be found. Now if Waite was somehow unaware of the 1795 act, such an oversight raises the possibility that his failure to refer to those born in country of alien parents as “natuarl born” citizens was also an error*; but if not, his assertion would be consistent with the idea that he did not distinguish between “natural born” and “by birth” citizenship.
4. The Court obviously believed Mrs. Minor was a natural born citizen, yet there is no mention of her parentage in the opinion; and since I’ve been unable to find any info about it, the possibility remains in my mind that she was known to have only one citizen parent.
* I’d say he erred in any case, if only by stating that Congress in 1790 had authority under the naturalization clause to confer natural born citizenship on anybody.
Then why did the Naturalization Act of 1790 require only one citizen parent for natural born citizenship?
[irony]Clearly, between 1789 and 1790, the founders drank a whole lot of koolaid and forgot it was their intention to implement the Vatells notions when writing the constitution. [/irony]
If a serious challenge to Obama’s eligibility to have run for President ever reaches the Supreme Court that court I am confident will apply the rights of the individual states to determine eligibility and I am not so sure that the 14th Amendment would get in the way. Regardless, even if Obama were determined ineligible to run for President in accordance with the Constitution, but in actuality did run (and get elected) because evidently all the states agreed that he was eligible, that ruling would not result in him being removed from office or for that matter prevent him from standing for reelection.
It would be settled law for the next President and would probably lead eventually to a Constitutional amendment to allow citizens not naturally born to run and be elected President. The worry at the time of the writing of the Constitution was no doubt about loyalties to England and on doing the revolution.
The Supreme Court has been petitioned to review this matter four times, as I have heard, and four times the required agreement of four judges was not met.
Heh. So, by the birther argument, if we DNA tested a sitting president, and it turned out that their mother had had a little fling with a visiting foreigner, would we then kick that president out?
I think not.
The plain english reading of “natural born citizen” is that it is a citizen that was born that way, in opposition to a naturalized citizen. Of course, the Constitution didn’t fully define that… but it seems case law has determined that either being born on US soil or being born of two citizen parents is sufficient to be born a citizen.
lucia (Comment #97009)
June 3rd, 2012 at 8:17 pm
“Then why did the Naturalization Act of 1790 require only one citizen parent for natural born citizenship?”
It didn’t. The words are “considered as natural born citizens”. The Act recognised that those mentioned were not natural born citizens, but should be treated as if they were.
MMM (Comment #97013)
June 3rd, 2012 at 9:14 pm
“The plain english reading of “natural born citizen†is that it is a citizen that was born that way, in opposition to a naturalized citizen.”
No.
Citizen=Born to a US citizen OR on US soil
Naturalised citizen=deemed to be a Citizen as above
Natural Born Citizen=born to US citizens AND on US soil
They are all legally different
MarkR–
There is absolutely no statute, legal ruling or constitutional language that says there are 3 different types of citizen.
Lucia, Citizen, and Naturalised Citizen are all well defined, but “Natural Born Citizen” is used only once in the US Constitution, and that is in connection with the qualification to be President.
“Natural Born Citizen” is clearly different to the other two. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875) is the controling legal authority:
“…it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth,….natural-born citizens.”
MarkR–
No. There is language in the constitution, statute or court ruling that has said “Natural Born Citizen” is anything different from any citizen granted citizenship by virtue of circumstances surrounding their birth.
It may be that courts would rule there are 3 types, but it has never been done. And– at least while I was growing up– people thought the touchiest case was citizens by birth who were born outside the country. That would be me and John McCain. Not Barack Obama.
She won’t believe. Chant ‘Minor v. Happersett’ alternating with ‘de parens citoyens’ whenever in her presence. Under no circumstances remind her that ‘natural born’ is unique Constitutional language for a unique Constitutional role, language better understood at the time than the role was.
============
Lucia, I think you meant “There is NO language…”
Natural Born Citizen is clearly different to merely “Citizen”, and the legal definition of Natural Born is given in Minor v. Happersett above.
Sadly, neither you nor McCain could ever have been qualified to be be US President. In fact of the current Presidential possibles, probably only Gingrich is qualified, Romney’s dad possibly wasn’t a US citizen at Mitt’s birth, Santorum’s dad was Italian at the time of Rick’s birth, and Obama is a complete usurper. Not qualified by parentage, forged his birth certificate and his Selective Service Registration, can’t certify his date of birth, or hospital of birth, sealed all his other “records”…..
Fraud, a lot like the Warmists. See a pattern?
kim–
If you keep chanting ‘de parens citoyens’, I’ll make a tape recording that chants back “les fondateurs Americains n’étaient pas Suisses”. Minor v. Happersett does say what you think it says.
On your unique langauge reasoning:
Of course “natural born citizen” was unique language at the time. Under the English monarchy, people were “natural born subjects“. To the Crown. Which the colonies that became the US broke with. Our common law was based on British law.
Here is how British law (Blackstone) stood:
We broke away from a monarchy and so the word “subject” no longer applied. The word “citizen” was substituted.
It is ridiculous to believe that the fact that Ben Franklin wrote a gracious thank you note to someone who made him a present of a book written in French by a Swiss that the Founders ( at least some of whom would never have read it) collectively and quite magically were so inspired by a French phrase that they would develop collective amnesia about their own common laws and suddenly believe “natural birth X” followed the novel concepts of a Swiss gentleman who (while claiming to describe natural law) was writing a tome to advice the Swiss!
Had they meant to change the meaning of “natural born” from common law, they would likely have been more clear on the matter. They might have thought it useful to inform those where were going to be asked to ratify the new document containing an important change from common law.
In contrast, following existing common law tends to involve less clarity and discussion because it doesn’t occur to anyone they are changing anything. The pre-existing common law considered “natural born subject” to be based on place of birth not parentage. And it is most natural to suppose that “natural born citizen” was parallel to “natural born subject” with citizen replacing subject.
But– as I previously noted– there has been no legal ruling on this.
MarkR
This is bunk. If the two were “clearly” different and your interpretation of Minor and Happersett meant what you think it means, John Roberts would not have sworn in Obama.
At best you might argue you have some sort of coloreable argument for your position. But I don’t think there is much color in there. Good luck when you present it to a court– any court.
Heh, she meant ‘no language’, but there it is: ‘natural born’, in the Constitution, and the last I checked those two words constitute language.
Rational as she is, lucia is not rational about this issue. Actually, very few people are. Almost all react with their gut and their past, as she does with the anecdote about herself and McCain.
=================
lucia, one of the Supreme Court justices has said that the Court is dodging the issue. Your invocation of Roberts’ action as proof of your interpretation of Minor v. Happersett is not up to your usual standards of proof.
============
kim–
Sigh….
I’m not going to waste my time on this anymore. To say your theories are tenuous is to overstate their strength. But I know this is a waste of time — and it’s not even a topic that particularly interests me. So, I’m just going to ignore further loopy constitutional theories.
Your Blackstone is so out of context as to be nonsensical. Your presumption of the meaning ‘natural born’ is not as well grounded historically as my presumption of the meaning of ‘natural born’. I understand we could cite alternating historians by the hour instead of chanting.
Let’s return to another thought. Did Obama lie about being born in Kenya or did he merely tell an untruth?
Did Obama lie about being born in Hawai’i or did he merely tell an untruth?
If he’s defeated this November, it won’t be about his birthplace, it will be about all the lies.
====================
Sorry, lucia, not the least bit loopy. Arcane, perhaps.
===========
Lucia. “…John Roberts would not have sworn in Obama.” Well I never saw that, cos Roberts and Obama got the words wrong at the inauguration. What was said in secret remains just that, but we do know that no Bible was present during the retake of the inauguration, so it seems the Usurper never took the Oath.
Still, I’m sure you’ve more important things….
Heh, ‘he wrote it to advise the Swiss’. Not, lucia, but I see your ears are stopped up. Everything gets so ‘obscure’ that way.
================
Re: MarkR (Comment #97023) 
June 4th, 2012 at 6:58 am
I’ll risk stepping into this fairly idle debate to point out something contained in your own earlier citations, both from (Comment #96999):
Here it is established that “all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens becomes themselves…citizens also,” a point most will find reasonable. The question is, what about children born in a (country) of non-citizens? They are not explicitly mentioned in the passage, and only two distinct categories are named as choices: “natural-born citizens” and “aliens or foreigners.” Which are they?
From this passage, it would appear the child of an alien is, in the eyes of the law, equal in standing to the natural-born child of a citizen. Notice also that the comparison here is between a “child of an alien, if born in the country” and a “natural-born child of a citizen” (not between the former and a “natural-born citizen.” Clearly, viewed from the standpoint of Minor v. Happersett, the child of the alien is “distinguished from aliens or foreigners†and thus seems to fulfill the intention behind the term “natural-born citizen.”
Oliver (Comment #97034)
Could you refer to my earlier post?
MarkR (Comment #96999)
Re: MarkR (Comment #97035)
I thought I did explicitly refer to your (Comment #96999). Could you explain what you are asking for?
Oliver, this bit: “What Minor said about a “natural born Citizen†was confirmed in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (acknowledging and confirming Minor’s American common law definition of a “natural-born citizen†but adding based on the English common law that since “‘[t]he child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle [birth in the country]’†(bracketed information supplied), a child born in the United States to domiciled alien parents was a Fourteenth Amendment “citizen of the United Statesâ€). This American common law definition of a “natural born Citizen†has never been changed, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment (only uses the clause “citizen of the United States†and does not mention “natural born Citizenâ€) or Wong Kim Ark, and therefore still prevails today. Both those U.S. Supreme Court cases define a “natural born Citizen†as a child born in a country to parents who are citizens of that country.â€
An interesting but rather long discussion of original context vis “natural born citizen”
The distinction between citizens and subjects is reflected in Chief Justice John Jay’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, the first great constitutional case decided after the ratification of the Constitution of 1789: ” [A]t the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects . . . .”
This conceptual distinction may be relevant to the original understanding of the American constitutional phrase “natural born citizen,” which was used instead of the English legal phrase “natural born subject.” The notion of a natural born subject may reflect a feudal understanding of political obligation: Those born in the kingdom owed a natural duty of allegiance to their king and were his natural subjects. Given a republican theory of popular sovereignty, citizens are sovereign, and the notion of a “natural born subject” would be anathema. This leaves a gap in the theory of citizenship-a gap that the Constitution fills with the concept of a natural born citizen.
One interpretation of the new term of art, “natural born citizen,” is that its content is identical to the content of the old phrase, “natural born subject,” with the purely nominal difference in the term (“citizen” versus “subject”) used to refer to members of the political community. This could result in the interpretation suggested above-which would limit natural born citizens to persons born of American parents on American soil.
Those leaned in English law, however, understood another aspect of the concept of “natural born subject.” Children of the sovereign were natural born subjects wherever their birth occurred. The issue of the king owed a natural obligation to their father; likewise, the children of the king’s ambassadors were deemed to owe a similar obligation to their parents’ monarch. But in republican theory the people are sovereign, suggesting that the republican conception of natural born citizens would naturally treat the children of citizen-sovereigns as equivalent to the children of a monarchical sovereign or king.
This understanding may have been reflected in the first naturalization act of 1790 “An Act to Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization,” which provided “the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” Because the First Congress passed this act, it arguably reflects the original understanding of “natural born citizen” as encompassing those born of the citizen-sovereigns on foreign soil. On this interpretation, John McCain would be a natural born citizen of the United States (at least for the purposes of eligibility for the presidency) because the original meaning of that phrase includes all persons born to American citizens.
As I said, it is rather long but I would recommend reading it.
bob
Please see MarkR (Comment #97015)
MarkR, related question, doing you have any legal training?
(Just a yes or no please.)
If so, does any of that involve constitutional law?
(Yes, no or not applicable please.)
I mean these questions respectfully, I’m just trying to get a better understanding of your background here.
Re: MarkR (Comment #97038)
MarkR,
I read the statement of Apuzzo’s conclusion. What I am pointing out that the quoted passages don’t necessarily support his conclusion.
@kim (Comment #96924)
Kim,
sorry about the late reply.
“Natural Born” now means, thanks to the constitution, anyone born either/or in the US or of an american parent.
However you are correct:
the issue is not about qualifications for Presiednet regarding place of birth. It is about qualifications regarding someone who is creepy and dodgy with the truth.
A vigorous press would have found the phonied up bio on Obama in 2007, well before the election, and forced him to deal with his conflicted biography. A truly vigorous press would not have accepted the bluster he offers on his academic history and would have forced him to disclose his transcripts, like any other candidate. Instead we have a suppine oligarchy of fat cat journalists.
Oliver (Comment #97043)
“What I am pointing out that the quoted passages don’t necessarily support his conclusion.”
Necessarily?
Of course they do.
Maybe you’d rather they didn’t.
Here. Try this one for size.
“What does the eligibility requirement of Article II, Section 1 that a President be a “natural born Citizen” mean? That question has never been directly answered by a federal court; though the considered weight of the legal scholarship on that issue persuasively concludes it means: (i) born in the United States, (ii) of two United States citizens. Clearly, Mr. Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen. Ergo, Mr. Obama is not eligible to be President. ”
http://amoprobos.blogspot.co.uk/
Jun 4 2012 Petition DENIED.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/11-1185.htm
The rule of law in the US just ended.
Carrick–
If you want to know additional relevant items about MarkR’s background you could ask:
1) Are you a US citizen yourself?
2) Were you required to take a US constitution course and pass a US constitution test in high school? (And if yes, in which US state or territory did you take this you take this?)
3) If you are a US citizen and naturalized, did you have to pass a US constitution test for the purpose of being naturalized?
4) Without googling, do you know who wrote the Federalist Papers? (Name at least 2.)
BTW: MarkR’s IP is in England.
Re: MarkR (Comment #97045) 

MarkR,
Linking to people who have an certain opinion doesn’t actually demonstrate that the previous Supreme Court decisions support their opinion. I explicitly pointed out why I think the quoted passages do not necessarily support their conclusion. “Of course they do” is not much of a rebuttal. Nor does the snarky attitude help you prove your point.
Apparently the courts didn’t find the linked opinions compelling, either.
Oh dear, seems some are reduced to falling back onto the “if you’re not a qualified climate scientist, you can’t have a valid opinion” type defense.
The MarcR’s of the world are at least mildly entertaining, even if a bit disconnected from reality. The documentary evidence of birth in Hawaii is overwhelming. The suggestion a US citizen born of one US parent in Hawaii is not eligible to serve as present is laughable on its face. I hope the raging of the lunatic fringe stops when it becomes clear that no court will hear the case.
MarkR:
Good dodge. It works on stupid people.
The answer to question one is “no”. The answer to question two is “not applicable”.
Thanks, that’s all I was looking for.
The documentary evidence of his birth in Hawai’i is hardly overwhelming, SteveF.
I believe he was probably born in Hawai’i. I also believe he hasn’t got the documentation to support it, else surely we’d have seen it. I also believe he’s used an Indonesian passport.
It is sure, not just my belief, that he has lied about his past.
=====================
Playing the man, not the ball, works on stupid referees, too, Carrick.
============
SteveF (Comment #97054)
“The suggestion a US citizen born of one US parent in Hawaii is not eligible to serve as present is laughable on its face..”
It certainly is.
Carrick (Comment #97056)
This is all very revealing. Warmists are just as deluded about Obama as they are about climate. Clearly it’s a general mindset problem.
Do you think the founders would have intended that a US President could be the son of a foreign British, Kenyan, Marxist, Muslim?
MarkR
“present”
Damned auto-complete.
Still, substituting the intended word ‘president’ for ‘present’ makes the claim the Mr. Obama is not eligible no less laughable.
.
The case will never be heard by a US Federal Court. Mr. Obama will remain in office unless he is defeated in the November election. You can count on it. You should find something more useful to spend your time worrying about.
kim (Comment #97058) ,
You seem to have a peculiar way of looking at documentary evidence. ‘Nough said.
Ok… can’t help myselfl
1) Wow.
2) That looks suspiciously like a rhetorical question. Even if I’ve decided engaging this is a waste of time, remember the rule about trying to argue by asking rhetorical questions as that forces people to have to guess what point you are trying to make. For example: I have no reason to suspect the founders would have anticipated the contents of “The communist Manifesto” and suspect they gave no more thought to the possibility of “a Marxist” being president than they gave the thought about whether the government should fund a program to send men to the moon” or whether we should fund the Manhattan Project during WWII.
I’m willing to permit you, kim and others to post your thoughts– but I’m not going to a strict interpretation of “rhetorical questions”.
3) That said, my answer to your rhetorical question as I understand it is “Yes”.
hunter (Comment #96923)
June 2nd, 2012 at 12:19 am
Phil,
McCain was born on US territory- the Panama Canal Zone.
That is a matter of some debate since his documentation isn’t clear on exactly where he was born. However the Canal Zone wasn’t US territory when he was born, it was an ‘unincorporated US territory’ and children born there were US nationals not citizens! The law was changed in 1937, after his birth. USC TITLE 8 (Aliens and Nationality) Chapter 12, Subchapter III, Part 1, section 1403a, dated 27th June 1952, under which John McCain was ‘declared to be a citizen of the United States’.
Lucia, it’s about allegiance. The framers wouldn’t have wanted anyone who bowed to a Saudi King, as Obama did, or assured a Russian President that he would be more compliant after his election, as Obama did.
Found another good source that spells it out:
1. Constitutional Convention – “Citizen†v “Natural Born Citizen”:
When developing a new U.S. Constitution for the United States of America, Alexander Hamilton submitted a suggested draft on June 18, 1787. In addition, he also submitted to the framers a proposal for the qualification requirements in Article II as to the necessary Citizenship status for the office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
Alexander Hamilton’s suggested presidential eligibility clause:
No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.
Many of the founders and framers expressed fear of foreign influence on the person who would in the future serve as President of the United States since this particular office was singularly and uniquely powerful under the proposed new Constitution. This question of foreign influence was elevated when John Jay considered the additional power granted to the Presidency during times of war, that is when he serves as Commander in Chief of the military. Jay felt strongly that whoever served as President and Commander In Chief during times of war must owe their sole allegiance to and only to the United States.
Because this fear of foreign influence on a future President and Commander in Chief was strongly felt, Jay took it upon himself to draft a letter to General George Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, recommending/hinting that the framers should strengthen the Citizenship requirements for the office of the President.
John Jay was an avid reader and proponent of natural law and particularly Vattel’s codification of natural law and the Law of Nations. In his letter to Washington he said that the Citizenship requirement for the office of the commander of our armies should contain a “strong check†against foreign influence and he recommended to Washington that the command of the military be open only to a “natural born Citizenâ€. Thus Jay did not agree that simply being a “born Citizen†was sufficient enough protection from foreign influence in the singular most powerful office in the new form of government. Rather, Jay wanted to make sure the President and Commander In Chief owed his allegiance solely to the United States of America. He wanted another adjective added to the eligibility clause, i.e., ‘natural’. And that word ‘natural’ goes to the Citizenship status of one’s parents via natural law.
Below is the relevant change to Hamilton’s proposed language detailed in Jay’s letter written to George Washington dated 25 July 1787:
Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Command in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.
See a transcription of Jay’s letter to Washington at this link.
Upon receiving Jay’s letter, General Washington passed on the recommendation to the convention where it was adopted in the final draft. Thus Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the fundamental law of our nation reads:
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of U.S. Constitution as adopted 17 September 1787:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation and the answer.
Hamilton’s suggested presidential citizenship eligibility requirement was that a Citizen simply had to be ‘born a Citizen’ of the USA, i.e., a Citizen by Birth. But that citizenship status was overwhelmingly rejected by the framers as insufficient. Instead of allowing any person “born a citizen†to be President and Commander of the military, the framers chose to adopt the more stringent requirement recommended by John Jay, i.e., requiring the Citizen to be a “natural born Citizen“, to block any chance of future Presidents owing allegiance to other foreign nations or claims on their allegiance at birth from becoming President and Commander of the Military.. Therefore, the President of the United States must be a “natural born citizen†with unity of citizenship and sole allegiance to the United States at birth. [SOURCE CREDIT]
http://www.art2superpac.com/issues.html
What documents, SteveF? Contemporary mention in a Hawai’ian newspaper for 1961 is the best legitimate documentation I’ve seen. Everything else is photoshopped or not what it’s claimed to be. Perhaps I should introduce you to Sheriff Joe, of Arizona.
And if Obama has real documentation, let us see it.
==================
I agree with SteveF that this has been an entertaining and amusing diversion.
Having looked at both the Minor and Wong Kim Ark decisions, I really think MarkR is reading way more into them than is there. Wong Kim Ark merely states that a person born of foreign parents on US soil is a US citizen based primarily on 14th amendment grounds. It in no way either confirms or denies that such a person is a “natural born citizen”
As to Minor, the court clearly ruled that a person (this one being a women) born in the US to parents that were US citizens was a natural born citizen. However, it says that some have put forth that other people, such as those born of foreign parents, may also be natural born citizens. However, since Minor was born of two parents that were citizens, it didn’t need to address those questions. In other words, while Minor definitely included a persons born on US soil to two parents that are also US citizens as “natural born citizen”, it did not affirmatively exclude children born on US soil with one or both parents being foreigners from being “natural born citizens”. Lucia is correct that the definition of “natural born citizen” has not been adjudicated.
Kim – you may think that the evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii is scant, but it certainly better than the virtual lack of any evidence that he was born elsewhere.
Finally, Brandon, while your hypotheticals on getting Obama from Kenya to Hawaii when he was 6 days old were amusing, they certainly were not plausible. Not only for the many reasons given by Lucia, but for the simple fact that flying was considered a BIG DEAL back in 1961 and no one would have flown with a less than one week old infant absent a compelling emergency. I am not sure that the airlines would have even allowed a less-than-week old infant on board. Further, I wonder how oftern there were commercial flights from Nairobi to presumably London, thence to the mainland US and thence to Hawaii in August 1961. Probably a fair bit fewer than today and it would have taken a fair bit of time just to arrange the flights.
@ 11:34 Lucia drifts off the reservation. The Founders were highly concerned about alien influence, and they did their best, in a rather pusillanimous fashion, to prevent usurpation by a pretender.
Again the irony; weak as their defense was, it would have worked in the instant case. It needed a curious populace, though, and that the Founders couldn’t guarantee.
========================
It’s worth noting that this is not 10A territory. State elections officials have a responsibility under the elegibility clauses to exercise due diligence in ensuring that only eligible candidates appear on the ballot, not a sovereign right to determine eligibility.
Then the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land. You comfy with that?
The letter Jay actually wrote is silent on Jay’s definition of “natural born american” or “foreigner” and says nothing about de Vatell and so on:
http://www.kerchner.com/images/protectourliberty/johnjay1787lettertogeorgewashington.jpg
kim:
Why should he produce it for you?
He makes you guys look likes loons by withholding it, and I’d do the same, even though I’m not a sociopathic politician (I know, redundant) like him.
Yes, MarkR, the crux of the issue is and always has been, allegiance. Simply put, Obama is not ‘American’, he’s at heart a transnational. Why he pretends to be American, and hides the transnational impulses in his heart, is a matter between him and his deity, and, oh yes, the American People.
===================
Carrick, that has long been a suggested ploy. Whatever happened to ‘Show Me’? The underlying attitude of skepticism still shifts votes, and playing games with ‘now you see it now you don’t’ documentation may be amusing to you and others, but it is unpersuasive.
===================
Perhaps you could see your way clear to lending me the decoder ring you presumably used to extract this bit of information from the statute.
Then an elections official in 1792 would have been obligated under the statute to treat a candidate for the Presidency who was born abroad of one citizen parent just like a candidate born in country of two citizen parents. Right?
kim, there is enough other evidence already. There’s such as thing as having too open of a mind, wherein your brain falls out.
You’ve produced a strawman, Lucia, a ghost one, with the two things you don’t find in Jay’s letter. The letter does support MarkR’s point that Jay wanted an exclusive requirement for the Chief Executive.
I suppose it comes down to an argument among historians and legal scholars as to the state of mind and knowledge of the Founders.
Nonetheless, my irony; their ploy would have worked in the case of Obama, and may still, though through the polling stations rather than the Halls of Justice.
==================
===============
So, Carrick, suppose you show me the evidence you claim is ‘out there’.
==============
Amusing how kim demands documentary evidence of this and that, but claims perfect knowledge of what is in a man’s “heart.”
Roosevelt and Truman got us into the UN. Bush I took us to war under its auspices. Many – if not all – Presidents have signed various foreign treaties. Which of these have “transnational hearts,” and what are the criteria for determining such, specifically?
Most important, perhaps: where is the lack of this specific cardiac transnationality enumerated in the Constitution as a requirement for Presidents?
PDA, it is up to the American people to discern what is in his heart, and they are discerning.
=============
Hyperbole overcomes you, PDA. I ask, not demand, documentary evidence of Obama’s eligibility for office. It’s the least I should do.
I also do not have perfect knowledge of what is in Obama’s heart. Deceitful as the man is, I doubt that even he has perfect knowledge of what is in his own heart.
==================
Who has “perfect” knowledge of their own heart? We are an intellectual culture. We parse and define and categorize things into rubrics.
The human heart is subtle: an undiscovered country with no constitution.
Now I’m with you, PDA.
===============
yguy (Comment #97088)
June 4th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
You say: “Perhaps you could see your way clear to lending me the decoder ring you presumably used to extract this bit of information from the statute.”
It’s called comprehension. The Statute doesn’t say they are natural born citizens, but that they should be considered as such. If citizens were the same as NBC, the act wouldn’t have needed to make that stipulation.
Re: yguy (Jun 4 12:09),
The law is what the courts says it is with the Supreme Court having the final say if they want to, not what you think the Constitution says. You won’t even get a ruling from the Supreme Court unless a lower court says you have standing to bring a case and your case has merit. Although you might make a case that since the President likely qualifies as a Public Minister, that the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction under Article III, clause 2:
Good luck getting any Federal court to take your case, though. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. I believe one of William F. Buckley’s favorite words applies to this discussion: nugatory.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #97106)
The problem is that apparently a breach of the US Constitution is not justiciable by the US Supreme Court, due to lack of “standing”, or it allegedly being a “political” matter. The Supremes avert their eyes. Now apparently, the son of Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Ayatollah Khomenei, born to a US mother on US soil, can be US President.
Do you see how ridiculously dangerous that is?
MarkR, you should search out the video of Justice Thomas admitting that the Supreme Court is dodging the issue. It’s a scream.
=======================
Hi kim. Yes, have seen it, thanks. I think it’s very dangerous for them to do that. It could make them party to misprision of treason.
18 USC § 2382 – MISPRISION OF TREASON
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
Wow MarkR, Wow! All of sudden we go to the Supreme Court justices being party misprison of treason for not taking a case. Where in the heck is the treason? I am not sure that, even it were decided, that Obama is not a natural born citizen that any treasonous acts have been committed.
the son of Stalin or Hitler or Mao or Ayatollah Khomenei, born to a US mother on US soil, can be US President. Do you see how ridiculously dangerous that is?
No, not particularly.
Is it that you think that murderous despotism is somehow genetic?
Kim Il-Sung?
Author: James Madison aka “The Father of the Constitution”. That is: The Founder who also happens to be credited as the primary author of the US Constitution.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_2s6.html
I’m not going to suggest this particular founders view is dispositive particularly as he was discussing Article 1 and not Article 2. But this passage suggests Madison thought allegiance was more strongly tied to place of birth than to lineage.
I beg you pardon. Since when is “comprehension” a synonym for “pharisaical parsing employed to extract a convenient conclusion”?
I note you failed to answer my question WRT the practical legal effect of that “stipulation” on prospective presidential candidates who meet the requirements of the provision. Why is that? Hmmmm?
The popularity of this misconception seems to be approximately equal to its toxicity to the American body politic, which reveals itself the moment one stops to realize that it implies five unelected people can override the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, considered the father of the Fourteenth Amendment, confirms the construction the framers used in regards to birthright and jurisdiction while speaking on civil rights of citizens in the House on March 9, 1866:
” … I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents [plural, meaning two] not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen…”
#97110
“Do you see how ridiculously dangerous that is?”
Oddly enough, Stalin does have a granddaughter, Olga, who was born in the US of US citizen parents.
And yet, somehow, they never do this.
Look: We have a certain system. Other countries have other systems. None of the systems are perfect and certainy, hypothetical dangers exist.
In our system, when there are disputes, they eventually get elevated to the courts and SCOTUS. If the dispute has to do with a statute or tort, the whole 3/4 of the states claim is neither here nor their. If it’s a constitutional issue, and the wording of the constitution was such that SCOTUS ruled in a way that 3/4 of the states really disagree with the ruling, they can amend the constitution taking care that the wording of the amendment is such that SCOTUS will not misinterpret what the will the states wish to express.
I should add that if SCOTUS overuled the clearly expressed will of 3/4 of the states, we would experience a constitutional crisis. We’ve survived one of those. It was called “The Civil War”.
Stalin does have a granddaughter, Olga, who was born in the US of US citizen parents.
She has the “dictator gene,” unfortunately, and is prohibited by the 32nd Amendment from holding office.
This is bad news for Abe Hitler, Billy Mao and Karl Khomeini, all of whom were planning a run in 2016.
Lucia, you say: “If it’s a constitutional issue, and the wording of the constitution was such that SCOTUS ruled in a way that 3/4 of the states really disagree with the ruling, they can amend the constitution taking care that the wording of the amendment is such that SCOTUS will not misinterpret what the will the states wish to express.”
The current situation is where a usurper is able to buy or threaten individual States, for example Georgia, deterring them from taking Obama off the ballot by letting them build nuclear power plants.
The system of government has been subverted.
MarkR @ 5:01. That is a suspected but unproven quid pro quo. Watch Judge Terry Lewis in Florida on June 18. He has asked Obama lawyers to cite the authority on which they base their argument that it isn’t necessary to have two citizen parents to be a Natural Born Citizen.
==============
PDA (Comment #97126)
June 4th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
I see you’re OK with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Khomenei etc having influence.
How about King George III of England, or Queen Elisabeth II having their offspring as President? Or Louis XIV?
Think the founders intended that?
PDA–
I believe the test for the “dictator gene” involves opening up their chest cavity and extracting cells from the inside of a ventricle and checking the DNA against the DNA records of their dictator male ancestors. This is how we know that the condition affects their heart and is hereditary and falls in-line with what the founders envisioned. We know this based on de Vatell. The details are in the supplementary materials written in French and available behind a paywall.
MarkR: quick update.
It’s 2012.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Khomeini have been dead for decades.
Just FYI.
Heh, it’s not a gene, it’s a ‘way’. My favorite story from Chicago is the taxi dispatcher who wanted to know if ‘The Chicago Way’ was an address or a business.
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A lot of psychosis is clearly evident on this thread.
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Lucia: A small suggestion. Just as Steve McIntyre has prohibited the discussion of “thermodynamics makes back-radiation from CO2 impossible” on his blog, perhaps you would consider a prohibition on nut-cake birther claims about Obama. Nothing can come of any such discussion; DeWitt’s point of it all being “nugatory” is completely correct. No Federal court will ever hear the case; it has already been dismissed, and will continue to be. Jeez!
MarkR–
Louis XIV’s son Louis XV died in 1774 and would have been barred from presidential office on the basis of the unstated but generally accepted provision that the dead may not assume office. Are you worried that some other one of Louis XIV’s children might have qualified? I suspect any number might have if they’d immigrated to the colonies, taken on citizenship, managed to avoid dying before 1789 when the constitution was ratified.
SteveF–
Unfortunately, it’s my fault for running the video with Monckton. I mean…. he does seem to have gone birther.
I’ll close this thread tomorrow. It’s just over…
Lucia and MDA. The principle you espouse is that a person without complete loyalty to the USA by Jus sanguinis (Latin: right of blood), and Jus soli (Latin: right of the soil), can be President.
Epic fail.
What does loyalty to the USA have to do with ‘blood’ and ‘soil?’
Timothy McVeigh was a US citizen by right of jus soli and jus sanguinis.
So is Aldrich Ames.
Actually they’ve done it several times in this century that I know of – Wickard, Roe and Lawrence all come to mind.
Sure they can; and if SCOTUS has the final say, it can effectively render that amendment null and void.
There is no way to write a legal provision that cannot be misinterpreted.
Which I believe is why Mark Levin says we live in a “post-constitutional republic”.
yguys
Huh? When did 3/4 of the states pass any amendment to the US constitution forbidding abortion etc.?
Over-riding express language would have involved something like overriding prohibition during the period where the Constitution prohibited it or refusing to recognize citizenship of former slaves after passage of the 14th.
The fact that you might not like Wickard, Roe or Lawrence doesn’t mean that they overrode the expressed will of 3/4 of the states.
If that’s what Mark Levin says, then I believe he is simply wrong.
I don’t know what the context was of Levin’s remarks, and I lack the heart to Google. However, I think that undeclared wars, targeted assassinations and digital eavesdropping suffice to give the idea some justification.
[Sorry, Lucia, but since we’re in massive topic drift already with an expiration date already on the thread, I figured: let’s go ahead and drift.]
PDA–
No problem. I wish I had a plugin that would just close comments after a certain time. But my current plugin over-rides that when people comment. So…. tomorrow, I’m going to cut it off. Until them, everyone including me, can post our musings.
Lucia,
“I’ll close this thread tomorrow. It’s just over…”
Agreed, long over. And whatever shred of credibility Monckton may have had… that’s over too. I feel like we have been trying to communicate on this thread with the type of folks who wander the streets with a shopping cart, talking to, well, the imaginary individuals surrounding them. The best description is frightening.
SteveF:
There’s no “feel like” about it.
lucia, it shocked me when Monckton alluded to a belief that the ‘birther’ business in the US was a more dangerous scandal than the CAGW one. That’s pretty heavy, especially from him.
So what do you think is the reason for the dearth of definitive documentation of his eligibility? For four years we’ve been treated to the spectacle of speculation that he’s witholding documents in order to ridicule and marginalize his opponents. I concede that this would speak fundamentally to his unseriousness, first to consider such a tactic, and secondly for sticking to it as it manifestly fails.
But I don’t think that is the case, particularly since he has made two pitifully inadequate attempts to show authentic documents. So why won’t he ‘show me’ and all the rest of us?
Carrick and SteveF still don’t demonstrate the evidence that they think is ‘out there’ for Hawai’ian birth. Do they disdain, or can they not find it?
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WRT Roe that’s the wrong question, as both it and Lawrence violated 10A by infringing on the right of a state to make immoral practices like murder and sodomy illegal within its jurisdiction; and of course there was no amendment involved in the key holding in Wickard, which was based on an outrageous distortion of the commerce clause.
And just why else do you imagine I “dislike” them in the first place?
I encourage you to give him a call and tell him why. 😉
You seemed to bring it up on a list of as examples where the court overuled the expressed will of 3/4 states. Now you are appearing to conceded it is not an example of that. In fact, you seem to be conceding that none of the three cases are examples of the court overruling expressed wills of 3/4 the states.
Because you seem to be bringing them up as examples where the courts over ruled the expressed will of 3/4 of the states when clearly they are not. I’ll admit I’m trying to guess why you would suggest they were what they are not– and I’m guessing it is merely that you do not like them and want to fling them around.
You now seem to be wanting to change the discussion to entirely different objections to court rulings on those cases. But that’s straying of onto some other tangent about every court ruling someone might not like. So you’ll just have to find someone else to discuss your gripes over Roe, Wickard and Lawrence (preferably in some other venue.)
You mentioning this person I am not familiar with in comments doesn’t create any interest in my part to hunt down his phone number and call him. Heck, I’m not even interested in phoning him if you post his number! If you want him to discuss this with me, suggest he stops by in comments.
No, wait, I’ve figured it all out! Don’t close the comments yet!
See… we know the Founders were literate men. And therefore, they would have been familiar with good ol’ Will Shakespeare. And everyone knows that the Scottish play has this bit about being “born of woman”, which is a clever allusion to “natural born”, ie, “not c-section”. So, the Founders were clearly setting up a scene in which the President would be about to be coronated, when a brave tea-partier would leap upon the stage with photographic evidence of the President’s c-section, thereby disqualifying her and saving the nascent democracy from unnatural rule!
Followed thereafter, I’m sure, with the tea-partier being reunited with her long-lost twin who had been disguised in drag as a Supreme Court justice in order to avoid paying a debt to a Jew who had recently imprisoned a fairy spirit within the Washington monument, before the spirit was released by a drunken Falstaff. Or something like that.
“Louis XIV’s son Louis XV died in 1774..”
Actually he wasn’t his son. Although XIV died just before his 77th birthday, he had outlived not only his children, but his grandchildren too. Louis XV was his great grandson.
Carrick:
I don’t agree with what you say the effect of not releasing it is, but the simple reality is, Obama did release the documentation people demanded. This means you’d apparently be less open than Obama has been.
BobN, I don’t believe I ever indicated I felt those hypotheticals were plausible. I was interested in figuring out what was possible, and how likely it might have been, but I never believed Obama was not born in Hawaii.
Brandon, you’re right. I might well be less open than Obama. Especially if a) it didn’t benefit me to be open, and b) it made my enemies look foolish.
(Don’t worry there’s zero chance I’ll ever be Obama’s advisor.)
Brandon, on a previous birther thread my very first comment was that the issue won’t be settled until forensic document examiners have looked over his documents. You do understand that the so-called ‘long form’ birth certificate he released last year is an apparent forgery, don’t you?
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Carrick, I’d like to hope someone promoting openness in science would be more open than that if they were in the political realm, but I suppose many would consider me a fool for it. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Obama would have released his long-form birth certificate if he and his staff believe as you do. At a certain point,* refusing to disclose something minor just starts seeming suspicious.
kim, that depends on what you mean by “apparent.” If by “apparent” you mean, “Some straws can be grasped at to support a preconceived notion,” I agree. If you actually mean apparent, I disagree.
*The trick is to wait as long as you can before reaching that point so you can make opponents seem as foolish as possible while still appearing reasonable.
Brandon, check out Sheriff Joe’s expose. That ‘long form’ certificate was constructed rather than scanned. Bring on the forensic document examiners.
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Brandon, politics is a different playing field than science, and it operates by different rules. That’s where the danger (and damage) comes from in politicizing science.
Yep, I agree. That’s why I had “a) it didn’t benefit me to be open”.
I think people like Dennis Kucinich and Jimmy Carter who operate in politics like it follows the same ethics that you might use among friends make lousy, ineffective leaders. The smart, effective ones are the ones who allow their opponents to underestimate them, and not to play their own cards before they have to.
Huh. I just saw an odd link in a Google search. It claims a White House lawyer admits the birth certificate is a forgery.
I would check the videos it provides to examine that claim (I expect they misrepresented the lawyer’s comments), but my internet is acting up, and I can’t. I assume other people will, or have already though.
No, that was entirely your doing.
You may rest assured that I am at a complete loss as to how anyone would get that impression.
Well there’s your problem: you are operating under a premise which is the exact opposite of the truth.
Which, given the above, is a complete waste of time.
From what?
Ma’am, I was responding to a comment from Payne, and you objected to that response. I am responding to that objection, at least insofar as it is intelligible. Now if you honestly want to know why I said what I said, I am perfectly capable of demonstrating that I know exactly what I’m talking about in this regard; and because I have, I can say without the slightest trace of arrogance, a superior understanding of fundamental constitutional principles, I know when a question can only lead to an intellectual desert.
Carrick:
Politics is that way because people make it that way. I don’t think there’s any inherent necessity for it to be that way. In fact, I think a truly honest politician could easily be more effective than most politicians are. But that’s a subject probably way too off-topic, even for this thread.
So lets just say I’m full of foolish hope.
Brandon:
I don’t think so.
I think politics is like it is because that’s how we’re wired. That’s not necessarily bad—You can be honest and still play cards well.
You just can’t show the other players all your cards and expect to win whether it’s poker or politics.
That’s a different issue than wishing for more transparency in government or arguing that politicians should lie to us about how they are spending our tax money. Initiatives like this come to mind.
What do you think is the reason for the sudden focus on the need for “documentation” to be “definitive?”
After four years of “when did you stop beating your wife,” Obama comes out with a document saying “Obama never beat his wife” and birthers are all “OK wait, the notary’s signature is too far to the left.”
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/loaded-question
Somehow we managed to elect 43 presidents – six of whom (Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson, Chester Arthur, James Buchanan, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson) had foreign parents – without people insisting they had to have “definitive” birth certificates.
What, one wonders, is different about Barack Hussein Obama II?
Yeah, Brandon, that link isn’t quite the admission it appears to be. I’ve forgotten just what mistake that young lawyer did make, but I remember she got yanked and replaced by the head of the firm after that day.
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PDA, it is all about allegiance. It’s also about four years of playing games with the populace about his eligibility. And some people still think that was a clever tactic.
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Carrick, Obama had said the documentation existed. Telling people that, but not providing the documentation, is not merely holding one’s cards “close to the chest.”
If he hadn’t used that documentation’s existence as an argument, I’d agree with you. But he did, repeatedly, while refusing to show it. I don’t think that’s acceptable.
kim:
Yes I do.
It won’t affect (negatively) how anybody votes for him and make those who act adversarially towards him look like loons.
What’s not to like? (As political maneuvers go.)
Brandon:
As long as he’s not lying about the document existing and isn’t breaking a promise by not showing it, I don’t see the problem.
Yes and no. History is full of wheeler-dealer leaders, princes, ministers, politicians; this epoch, however, has really made it a competitive disadvantage to play it straight.
The money game of (at least US) politics, along with the 24-hour news cycle, the art of the sound bite, and the culture war are new developments in human history.
Mr. Smith would not Go To Washington today. The whole national boys’ camp thing would be on YouTube and he’d be “spending time with his family” before Leno came on.
Carrick:
We’ll just have to disagree on that then.
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/loaded-question
Really.
It’s not a new trick. “When did you stop beating your wife” is so blatant that it’s pretty much Vaudeville at this point. It’s not convincing. People – even people who really don’t like Barry Soetoro Hussein Osama Obama – understand that.
PDA:
I don’t accept your portrayal as very accurate, but rather than dwell on that, here’s an alternative point. Modern developments have made it far easier to get accurate information and verify details. This gives people far more ability to examine politician activities and positions. A reduction in unmonitored decisions would necessarily shift the political climate in the opposite direction from what you discuss.
We’ll just have to disagree on that then.
Like this detail?
The absurdity of it all. pffft.
That detail, Carrick, is the only genuine piece of evidence offered so far, and it happens to be a large part of why I believe he was born in Hawai’i. But it is hardly definitive as to birthplace.
Bring on the forensic document examiners to inspect the long form birth certificate, which should be in the records, if your ‘detail’ means he was born in Hawai’i.
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Then there were two.
See my comment about the long form. Proving who is a loon is more fun.
Two doesn’t mean twice as good. Still not definitive as to birthplace. Show us the certificate.
Is this all the evidence ‘out there’?
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No, I won’t show you the birth certificate, even if I had a copy.
Ha ha ha ha. /manicallaugh
Obvious forgery.
🙄
What’s loony, Carrick, is to hide some details of your past, invent others, and then try to bluff the American people for four long years about it and never show your cards. Now why would he do that?
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If you want to get snoopy about it, or maybe wear a tin hat. This is a nice one.
Or just read the trilogy, it’s a better use of your time.
kim, why wouldn’t he?
The birthers are the best case to reelect him, I’ve seen.
How does it hurt him with those who would possibly vote for him? How does it hurt him with those who never would vote for him regardless?
How would anything he does help him with these loons? No matter what evidence he gives, time machine, etc, they’ll invent another reason why it’s a fake.
Why bother? Buy popcorn, sit back, watch the show.
That’s what I’d do in his shoes.
Not everybody in the world is insane, but I get to laugh at those who are, at my discretion.
Blasting Mara Zebest’s analysis was like swatting a fly.
She should stick to documents created by the program (Adobe Photoshop) she writes L. User books for.
I have laughed now, at my discretion. Auf.
Carrick, we could fling document examiners and Adobe experts at each other all night long, none of whom have seen the original. Why haven’t they?
I’d be satisfied with real forensic document examiners examining a putative birth certificate under the auspices of a court of law. That might settle the birthplace issue, but four years of jacking us around will still leave some people suspicious. Then there is the natural born argument, which is too arcane to capture the imagination of the people. So, yes to the popcorn.
Doubts and questions about Obama’s past were suppressed four years ago, but they’ve had a while to percolate. I don’t think you have an accurate finger on the pulse of the electorate about Obama’s dubiousness. He’s just told too many lies.
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Hah, hah, Carrick, your 12:09 link is to an Adobe expert debunking the debunking, and your 12:20 link is to someone claiming it isn’t Adobe at all. Get your stories straight, and then we’ll talk about popcorn.
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Carrick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1wiGDYPALI
Watch Arpaio’s press conference showing how there is probable cause that not only was Obama’s birth document forged, but also so was his selective service registration record.
Obama and the Warmers can’t produce genuine data to back up their claims.
The Warmers have people like Mann who uses an algorithm which is designed to produce hockey sticks and keeps his work in directories marked censored and refuses to show his workings or data, people who “hide the decline”, people who have an agenda that they will stick with no matter what.
Obama forges some of his records and hides the others, and his supporters laud him as being “clever”. He has spent millions of dollars preventing the legal questions from being adjudicated.
Mr. Obama was recently represented by Alexandra Hill of the firm of Genova, Burn & Giantomasi of Newark, New Jersey. She conceded that Obama won’t rely on the photoshopped birth certificate as evidence in Court:
The reason she concede was to prevent testimony under oath by a document specialist, that the document was forged, from being put on the court record.
Kim, um… lay off the marley, it’s jiggerin’ up your synapses. Zebest writes books for Adobe Photoshop L. Users.
This document is not an Adobe Photoshop document. It’s an Adobe Acrobat document.
They’re different programs for those who can’t figure that out from the title. 😆
Zebest got it wrong. It’s not a forgery, read the commentary if you can follow the explanations, it’s perfectly clear. No colors of gray on this one, just wrong.
As lies go, facts speak for themselves, they don’t need politicians on either side to tell us what we are supposed to think or how to interpret them.
Don’t worry about the popcorn, I’m on to the wine and cheese now. And here?? I’m out!
I promised I’d close this today. 288 comments is enough! Closed.