I’ve hesitated writing about this story because I don’t have any reliable sources (discounting the Post & Email Blog, or WorldNetDaily) to know how much is true and how much is posturing.
Nonetheless, it appears that Obama denialist attorneys Leo C. Donofrio and Stephen Pidgeon have joined forces to represent some Chrysler dealers that lost their franchises as the result of the Chrysler bankruptcy. The dealers may have a difficult time proving that they suffered harm as the result of government action (since they would have lost their dealerships in a bankruptcy whether or not the government had intervened), but it’s a start.
They will file in the DC Federal District Court asking: by what right does President Obama hold the office, that heads the government, that administered the TARP, that bailed out Chrysler, that disenfranchised the dealers, that lived in the house that Jack built? This is what is called a quo warranto (Latin for “frivolous”) lawsuit.
Putting the silliness aside for a moment …
Leo Donofrio has claimed for some time that the only way to remove President Obama from office (short of the constitutional mechanism of impeachment) is a quo warranto action in DC. (Orly Taitz tried quo warranto, but not in DC, the only place where it can be filed.) The scant news coverage names no plaintiffs and no actual lawsuit appears to have been filed yet as of today, December 10, 2009.
We’ll just have to wait to see if the Supreme Court hands Leo his hat again.
[OK, tell me the truth. Did I overdo the hyperlinks?]
ftw!!
and, as conservapedia demonstrates, you’ve still got some ways to go before being found guilty of abusing links and footnotes.
but you might be guilty of time-traveling (“… today, january 10”).
The Doctor sees far.
I had never read an article in conservapedia. I will from here on out call it absurdapedia.
The mere existence of “conservapedia” is quite telling. Only those that cannot accept living in reality would be so upset with every other encyclopedia reporting those “darn facts” that they would have to create their own ideological version of everything in order to seek comfort and protect themselves from the outside world.
What is even more telling and more sad are those that are now trying to create a more “conservative” interpretation of the Bible.
Which is also extremely ironic, because those involved in coming up with their own edits and interpretation seem to be the same type of people who hold deep convictions that the Bible text is “the literal and infallible word of God”.
Doc!
You have created a paragraphic work of Art!
“They will file in the DC Federal District Court asking: by what right does President Obama hold the office, that heads the government, that administered the TARP, that bailed out Chrysler, that disenfranchised the dealers, that lived in the house that Jack built?”
Solid Gold! I christen “Doc it!” as a new legal expression signifying the artful common sense elimination of a constipated legal premise!
Appreciatively,
Benji Franklin
What’s so scary about your lunatics is their ability to organize.
Thanks. It’s one of those sentences that just seemed to build itself.
There have been more liberal versions (translations of the Bible) of the Bible (NRSV) and more conservative versions (NIV) for a long time. Marcion, in the mid-second century, cut and pasted the Gospel of Luke to fit his own notions. Thomas Jefferson made his own edited Bible removing its supernatural parts and gave copies to every member of Congress. Some of the variation passed down to us in New Testament manuscripts themselves is due to copyists “softening” hard sayings, or harmonizing contradictory ones.
Somebody was telling me the other day that the Bible defined “natural born citizen”. I wish I could remember the passage.
Odd a bird as Leo Donofrio is (He hand-carried his SCOTUS petition to Washington D.C., traveled by bus so he wouldn’t have to give his name, and changed his appearance so he couldn’t be recognized. Despite these efforts, Leo thought federal agents were alerted when an RFID tracker detected the passport he carried in his shoe. No kidding — he wrote it up.) what’s more surprising is that car dealers would be choose to be represented by Stephen Pidgeon.
Stephen Pidgeon’s stated opinion is that Obama wants to turn the United States into Zimbabwe, and be permanent dictator. Pidgeon likes to link Obama’s policies to Robert Mugabe. I’m not extrapolating, nor interpolation, nor exaggerating, and I’m not cherry-picking African names out of many others. Check out Pidgeon on Blog Talk Radio and you can hear it in his own voice.
I read that the named plaintiff in this action is still in business selling other makes. Does he realize who he has signed up with? What happens if his customer base finds out?
Correction
Quo Warranto is Latin for ‘what warrant’ or ‘by what warrant’, not, as you reported, ‘frivolous.’
When Barack Obama was born in Honolulu he inherited British and Kenyan statuses through his British and Kenyan father. The Constitution provided an exception for folks similarly situated (such as G. Washington) but only if they were born before the adoption of the Constitution. Unfortunately, Barack Obama is ineligible for this exemption and as a restult he is ineligible to the presidency.
If the current situation is OK with the Constitution, that is, if Barack Obama is eligible according to the intent of the framers, consider this. Prince William of Wales, a British subject, marries an Anglican American woman who bears his son in New York. That child would both be the future King of England AND would be eligible to be president of the United States. However improbable this scenario sounds, it’s technically possible. There’s no way the framers of the Constitution intended for this to happen, which is why it cannot happen according to the Constitution.
Ask yourself this question: Why does the Constitution provide the exception for those born before the adoption of the Constitution?
Conventional wisdom says that it’s to allow George Washington (and others) who were born in British America (before the US was founded) to serve as president. But this analysis is flawed because it discounts those who were not born in British America but were nevertheless citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Take for example William Paterson, born in Ireland, brought to British America at age 2, represented New Jersey at the Constitutional Convention, signed the Constitution, served as US Senator from NJ, served as Governor of NJ, served as Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court until his death. William Paterson qualified to serve as US president even though he was born in Ireland. Therefore, the founders were much less (if at all) concerned with PLACE of birth but were totally concerned with divided ALLEGIANCE at birth. A natural born citizen of a country is a person who has no other allegiances at the moment of birth. Barack Obama was born in HOnolulu and he gained both British and Kenyan statuses through his father. He requires the Constitutional exemption which is unavailable to him because he was born after 1787.
If the Constitutional exemption to NBC was only for those born in British America – that is, jus soli – then it would have been written so. It could have been ‘or those born in territory that became the United States upon the adoption of the Constitution’. But it was not so written.
Before you label me a ‘birfer’ or a right wing wacko, may I make two things clear. I believe Barack Obama was born in Honolulu. I don’t care to see any of his birth certificates or newspaper announcements. I believe John McCain was born with Panamanian citizenship as a result of being born in Colon, Panama, as it is stated on his BC, and he too is ineligible to the presidency.
Allegiance at birth? Have you ever seen a newborn? The ONLY allegiance any newborn has is to their mother’s breast (or the bottle).
You know, there’s this blog that has posted article after article debunking everything you just posted. Maybe you should read it before you post here. Let me see if I can remember the name:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org
Just as very quick point, it has long been understood that natural born included everyone born within the borders of a country except the children of sovereigns, ambassadors or invading armies.
I mean, come on! Before you can pretend to pontificate on the meaning of “natural born citizen” you’re going to have to explain why the founders chose the phrase “natural born,” which had a specific meaning (born in the country except to sovereigns, ambassadors or invading armies), then, having chosen that specific phrase, chose to have it mean the exact opposite. Then, having chosen to have it mean the exact opposite, why did they choose not to tell anyone!
Oh, and you’re a birther. And a right-wing whacko. Just because you don’t, now, demand a birth certificate doesn’t mean you aren’t committing malpractice on the US Constitution.
I could be wrong, but wouldn’t Prince William need to abdicate to marry an American?
Perhaps this phraseology will please: … allegiance derived from the circumstances of birth.
Pride of heritage is a strong draw upon a person’s loyalty. Look at the gravity of St. Patrick Day parades; look at other organizations that promote the heritage and cultures of the lands of our ancestors (Mexicans, Italians, among many others.) In our federal government service, contact with foreign nationals is heavily scrutinized (and must be reported) for employees with access to sensitive information. The Constitution intended to exclude from the presidency anyone whose tie to another country was derived from birth status.
The Catholic faith is not a citizenship nor is it transmitted to a child at birth. But that didn’t stop serious and sincere questions of John Kennedy about his allegiance to Pope, who is a foreign sovereign. (And perhaps rightly so.)
This may all be true, but it is wholly irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Obama was born in HI, further of a parent who was also a US citizen. Either fact makes him a native born citizen. That’s all he needs to be eligible to run for President.
Further, he was properly elected.
Further, the election was ratified by Congress.
So he IS the lawful President of the United States.
Further, Congress, not the Judiciary, is the branch entitled to remove him from office, should that become necessary.
Further, you have a clear remedy: campaign for Sarah Palin in 2012.
Good luck!
You will note that the “serious questions” about JFKs “allegiance” were not of a legal nature, but rather of a political nature, that is, whether good Protestants should vote against him because of his supposed “allegiance” to the Pope.
The same applies here. If you feel that anything in his background calls the President’s allegiance into question, feel fre to vote against him in 2012.
Legally he is eligible and is serving as President.
The Irish, Mexicans, Italians and others are all eligible to be President if they are born here, regardless of whether their parents were citizens or not. Even black men are eligible to be President if they were born here, regardless of whether their parents were citizens or not.
This “national security” nonsense runs smack-dab into the simple fact that the founders chose a very specific phrase – natural born. That phrase had a very specific meaning – born within the borders of the country without regard to the citizenship of the parents. It had meant that since the 1300s. It had meant that when the American colonies were founded. It was used in the Constitutions and Charters of the original 13 colonies.
Why did they Founders choose that term?
Why did they change the meaning of that term?
Why didn’t the Founders tell anyone they were changing the meaning of the term?
The Founders changed the meaning of other common-law terms, for example, treason. When they did so, they explicitly explained what they were doing. British Common Law Treason included thinking bad thoughts about the King. American Treason required ACTS. They explained that in the Constitution.
Other common-law terms were not changed. They were simply used in the Constitution with the assumption that everyone reading the Constitution would understand what they meant – Letters of Marque, anyone?
So, the Founders knew what British Common Law said. They knew how to make changes to the British Common Law.
Why didn’t they explain they were changing the meaning of “natural born?”
Apparently, when it came to “natural born,” the Founders became morons.
Because the Founders were morons, you can’t find a single legal scholar saying that the term “natural born citizen” meant anything different than “natural born” in British Common Law until more than 50 years after the writing of the Constitution. By contrast, you find half a dozen scholars writing that “natural born” meant the same as “natural born” meant in British Common Law as early as the 1790s.
When the scholars start saying, 50+ years after the founding of the nation that “natural born” meant something different, they were uniformly smacked down. Lynch v. Clarke was based on the definition of “natural born.” Wong Kim Ark was based on the constant and unchanged definition of “natural born.”
Imagine a scale. On one side is all the evidence that “natural born” did not change from its original meaning. On the other is all the evidence that “natural born” was changed by the Founders to mean the exact opposite when used in the Constitution from when used in the common law.
There’s a ton of evidence on the first side, and an ounce of evidence on your side of the scale. And if you look at your evidence, you’ll find that it’s dried up and shriveled dicta, quotes out of context and random philosophers quoted out of their area of expertise.
“The Catholic faith is not… transmitted to a child at birth.’
Really? I must stop down at St Rita’s and tell Father O’Malley to stop baptising newborns. Then I’m off to Temple Israel to tell Rabbi Goldberg that he must throw out 5,000 years of Jewish law and stop considering the children of Jewish mothers as Jews. You are being absurd to pretend that people don’t inherit a religious tradition at birth and, with the exception of the Native American creeds, all of the religions practised in the US today involve allegiances to foreign people, places and ideas. Of course, people can acquire new religious beliefs later in life, but the same is true of citizenships.
When people call those who argue as you do rascist, perhaps they are being unfair. More correctly, the implications of your policies is nativist-to question those with ethnic or religious ties to other countries. You feel more certain of the loyalty of those whose ancestors arrived many generations ago-people like Aldrich Ames, the Walker family, Robert Hansen…
Why not simply limit the Presidency to those with NO ties to other countries? Why not a Chippewa, Sioux, Iroquois or other REAL American?
Dear Biker,
Technical allegiance does equate to loyalty especially magically transferred gender-favoring allegiance. For example, your bizarre interpretation of the Framer’s intent would have allowed any male U.S. citizen of their era to marry a British Queen in New York, and woo woo her into producing a Article 2 eligible U.S. “Natural Born Citizen” child about 9 months later. Patriotic loyal parenting produces allegiance. You insult the Constitution most when you try to turn it into a hangman’s racist noose.
Benji Franklin
You’re correct on two counts: Obama is a native born citizen of the US. Congress is the branch entitled to remove a sitting president.
However, native born is not the same as natural born and it’s not the standard required by the Constitution.
Congress enacted the Quo Warranto statute to delegate thier authority to challenge the eligibility of any federal office holder whose office is in the District of Columbia. Quo Warranto is in the DC Code, and has been used before. All of the Orly Taitz cases in other jurisdictions have been correctly dismissed. When Judge Carter dismissed one of her cases he cited the Quo Warranto and the US District Court in DC as the only venue with jurisdiction for this action.
Neither elections nor acts of Congress amend the Constitution. Congress often passes laws that are found to be unconstitutional.
This isn’t about Barack Obama. It’s about the unsettled question of constitutional law.
You said it: BAPTISM
The faith is not transmitted at birth, but requires an official act by the Church and by the parents.
The questions around Kennedy were his allegiance to the Pope. They were good questions, but unfounded questions because being Catholic is not a citizenship and it’s not a from-birth circumstance.
Quo Warranto has never been used to remove a President. Congress cannot delegate their power to impeach the President via the Quo Warranto statute.
The court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark said that Wong Kim Ark was just as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen. The court did not say that Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 was passed by the first Congress which included 17 members who signed the Constitution and was signed into law by President Washington, who also signed the COnstitution. NA1790 says, “…and the children of US citizens who are born beyond the seas shall be considered as natural born citizens.”
The first Congress was less concerned (if at all) with PLACE of birth, and fully concerned with allegiances at birth.
Later, this language was amended so that those same children were US citizens, not natural born citizens. Since NA 1790 there have been NO statutes in US code to use the term natural born citizen.
There is no evidence in all of US code and in any SCOTUS opinion that natural born citizen was solely dependent upon PLACE of birth. Perhaps children born in the US are natural born citizens without regard to any status they may inherit from a parent, but no court or code has ever said so. Why, then, should we make the leap rather than being cautious.
William Paterson was a natural born Irishman. He was a natural born Irishman regardless of his parentage. He was eligible because he was a citizen (naturalized) of the United States at the writing of the Constitution.
Those who were born here before the Revolution became natural born citizens of the United States at its founding, because the nation was born at that date. There are Supreme Court cases about those folks. They were citizens regardless of their parentage.
Those who were born here after the Revolution and before the writing of the Constitution were natural born citizens by virtue of the colonial charters and state constitutions. Regardless of their parentage.
Those who were born here after the writing of the Constitution were natural born citizens. Regardless of their parentage.
How does the exception for naturalized citizens at the time of the writing of the Constitution give any evidence that the term natural born changed in any way?
And why would the Founders be so cryptic? They knew what the common law said, and they knew how to change it when they needed to?
Through his father, Barack Obama was born under the protections and the allegiance of the British Crown. According to his website fightthesmears.com, his status was governed by the British Nationality Act of 1948. This is not what the framers of the Constitution intended.
I believe Barack Obama was born in Honolulu and has been a US citizen from the moment of his birth. While he serves as president his actions are legitimate and binding. But he is an usurper and should be removed from office by the Congress through quo warranto.
As I have also said before, John McCain is not a natural born citizen because he was a citizen of Panama when he was born in Colon Hospital in Colon, Panama.
Bully for you. Who cares?
Are Jews baptized, John?
Good question or not, the question of a President’s religion is not a constitutional question. Just as the nonsense about two citizen parents is not a constitutional question.
You know, there are countries that do not recognize the naturalization of their citizens. Thus, they believe that the children of their “former” citizens are still their natural born citizens. So, our citizens can give birth to children that other nations believe they have a claim on.
Our country decided, long ago, to not let other countries dictate who could be our president. If you’re born here, we’ll decide at the voting booth whether your father’s nationality or citizenship matters. We’ll decide at the voting booth whether the fact that you’re a Catholic or a Muslim or a Mormon matters.
In 1844, the Court in New York (Lynch v. Clarke) said it was universally understood that a political candidate’s parents’ citizenship was never a concern in elections. And, it wasn’t a concern in this election, either. No one asked if Michael Dukakis’ parents had obtained US citizenship when he was born in 1933, nor did they ask whether his parents had renounced their Greek citizenship. Taking US citizenship does not extinguish Greek citizenship, and anyone born to a Greek citizen, anywhere in the world, is a Greek citizen. If they had renounced their citizenship, Dukakis could have received Greek citizenship upon the filing of an application to the Greek government.
DCBiker – you talk about “allegiance derived from the circumstances of birth” and essentially say that anyone who has any kind of a tie to another country should be excluded. I’ll leave some of the legal arguments and give you this hypothetical:
Two people, a man and a woman, are born in another country, a country where speaking English is not the norm. However, they grow up speaking English very fluently. The man’s relatives worked for a British company. Both of them get into an MBA program, even though the woman is one of the few women in the program. When they meet each other, they are very “American” for their country – for example, she wears American clothes, he is a drummer in a Beatles cover band. They marry and have some kids, some of them born in the foreign country, one of them born in the U.S. They only speak English to their kids – in fact, the kid born in the U.S. doesn’t even initially know the proper name of their native language, and hasn’t been back to the “mother country”. The child born in the U.S. doesn’t know how to speak the language. They have now been living in the U.S. for decades. Now, tell me, leaving aside the fact that the case law doesn’t differentiate between native-born and natural-born, does the child born in the U.S. in this hypothetical have ANY allegiance or ties to the “mother country”?
Very good points (as usual) Dr. Conspiracy!
You are correct that the Bible has been interpreted and edited many times in the past and yes, political motivations were often behind it.
However, many are arguing that the folks at Conservapedia, who are behind the latest “edits” are taking such political /ideological editing to a whole new level. (Which I find both extremely ironic (as I posted above) plus fairly sinister.
Here are some good links to articles on the issue:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/1207/p09s04-coop.html
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/10/conservatizing-the-bible.html
http://www.alternet.org/rights/143126/conservative_bible_project_aims_to_delete_%27liberal_bias%27_from_the_bible/
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2009/12/04/2009-12-04_conservative_bible_project_aims_to_rewrite_scripture_to_reflect_conservative_val.html
Personally, I find their need to “Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning ” to be the most bizarre and entertaining need to somehow co-opt corporate GOP strategies into their Biblical worldview.
You must not have read Wong Kim Ark, then. Judge Gray spends at least 10 pages (pp. 655-666) discussing the descent of our citizenship laws specifically the constant and unchanged meaning of natural born. Take that out, and the decision doesn’t stand up.
Let me break it down for you:
Part II of the decision – “The fundamental principle of the common law with regard to English nationality was birth within the allegiance, also called “ligealty,” “obedience,” “faith,” or “power” of the King.” The principle embraced all persons born within the King’s allegiance and subject to his protection. Such allegiance and protection were mutual — as expressed in the maxim protectio trahit subjectionem, et subjectio protectionem — and were not restricted to natural-born subjects and naturalized subjects, or to those who had taken an oath of allegiance, but were predicable of aliens in amity so long as they were within the kingdom. Children, born in England, of such aliens were therefore natural-born subjects.”
Part III of the Decision – “The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
Are you unclear on what rule we’re talking about? The Court wasn’t unclear in US v. Rhodes:
It’s this unchanging definition of natural born that makes Wong Kim a citizen. The court doesn’t say natural born citizen for the simple reason that it, unlike you, was not operating under the delusional misapprehension that there was some third type of citizen – neither natural born, nor naturalized – those born here but not natural born citizens. Everyone involved in the case realized that if WKA was a citizen, he was a natural born citizen. That’s why the losing side argued, as their capstone argument, that allowing him to be a citizen would allow him to run for President!
And, just in case you’re curious, in Part IV of the case, Justice Gray demolishes your argument that natural born was meant to mean those born to American citizens. The losing side in that case argued that the Founders were concerned with the parents’ citizenship (jus sanguinis).
The law of 1790 added to the definition of natural born. It is not evidence that the Founders looked to parental citizenship more than place of birth, in fact, it is stronger evidence for the counter position.
But, anyway, another clue that you haven’t actually read Wong Kim Ark is that you are parroting Leo’s misquote of the Court’s holding:
That’s actually not what they said. Here’s what the court really said:
Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States. His allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, 7 Rep. 6a, “strong enough to make a natural subject, for if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject;” and his child, as said by Mr. Binney in his essay before quoted, “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.“
When you actually get around to reading Wong Kim Ark, you’ll see there is no possible conclusion to draw other than that the court DID say that WKA was a natural born citizen. It did so by saying, explicitly, that natural born whether prefacing subject or citizen means exactly the same thing, that WKA would have been a natural born subject under British law, and therefore, he’s a natural born citizen under American law, by operation of the same principle!
It’s not, as some have suggested, dicta. Dicta is something you can excise from a case and still have a decision. This is ratio decidendi – a reason for the decision!
It would be like me arguing:
If A, then B
If B, then C
If C, then D
A, therefore D
Take out any of those terms and the validity of the argument goes away. If natural born citizen weren’t the functional equivalent of natural born subject, WKA is still an alien.
You are correct, native born would include children born to ambassadors or invading military, which are typically omitted from the definition of natural born.
The Courts do not advise on Constitutional Law unless there is a case or controversy. There is none.
Congress attempted to enact Quo Warranto to remove an elected President and failed, arguing that Quo Warranto cannot be used constitutionally to remove an elected President.
Your turn
The president’s religion is not a constitutional question. Kennedy’s allegiance (or lack thereof) to the Pope, a foreign sovereign, was rightly questioned. He was not born under the protection of or with that allegiance to that sovereign, and therefore was Constitutionally qualified to be president.
The First Circuit Court opinion Lynch v Clarke (1844) must be viewed in light of the subsequent Supreme Court opinion Minor v. Happerset (1874). The Supreme Court said children born in a country of parents who are its citizens are citizens BECAUSE they are natural born citizens. Throughout history lesser authorities have made claims about the definition of natural born citizen, but Minor v. Happerset is the only SCOTUS opinion that provides an operative definition. The Supreme Court did not declare Wong Kim Ark to be a natural born citizen. There are no statutes in US code that use the term natural born citizen (after the NA1790 was amended). Perhaps others are natural born citizens too, but SCOTUS has yet to declare it so.
Michael Dukakis’ parents were widely known to have been naturalized US citizens. If you have ANY evidence to the contrary, please, please submit this. Naturalization in the United States requires, “renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince…”
Michael Dukakis was not at birth a Greek citizen. He inherited no protection or allegiance from Greece upon his birth to two US citizens.
Even if Dukakis had applied to the Greek government for citizenship, it would not have changed the fact that he was a natural born citizen of the United States. Perhaps the voters might have found it unseemly, but his Constitutional qualification would have been unchanged.
To the contrary, Chester Arthur went to great lengths to hide his father’s Irish citizenship when Chester was born. He destroyed family documents, lied about his date of birth. Only recently has it been learned that Chester Arther did not naturalize as a US citizen until years after Chester was born. Chester Arthur was not a natural born citizen – but no one knew it at the time, except Chester.
If two foreigners have a child, presumably that child would at least be born under the protection and allegiance of the foreign sovereign, regardless of the place of birth. If born in the US, the child would be a US citizen from birth. I cannot find any interpretation of the Constitution that leads me to conclude that those children would be natural born citizens of the United States. Perhaps they would be, but this SCOTUS has yet to say so. This is very similar to the unsettled question of Constitutional law that surrounds the eligibility of Barack Obama, who was born in Honolulu under the allegiance of the British Crown. (See fightthesmears.com)
Let’s cut through the nonsense, John:
The point of an election is to air everything good and bad about the candidates and let the VOTERS decide. Then in the case of the President there is the additional layer of the Electoral College and Congressional validation. Barack Obama went through all that and is the legitimate President. If you think anyone who matters is about to overturn all that on the basis of FACTS THAT WERE WELL KNOWN BEFORE THE ELECTION, you must have fallen off your bike and hit your head (sans helmet). Ain’t gonna happen. I will gladly bet a Benjamin that it won’t happen but I have yet to find anyone on your side who believes their own nonsense enough to take my bet. What say you Johnnie-boy? Put your money where your mouth is???
Naturalization of Greek citizens in the United States does not destroy the Greek citizenship. A child born to a US citizen who has not affirmatively renounced his/her Greek citizenship is born a dual citizen – US and Greek. And the renunciation in the oath of US citizenship is not enough – the Greek Government has to accept the renunciation! (And they uniformly reject the renunciations made in rote oaths, just as the United States rejects renunciations of its citizenship made in oaths of allegiance to other countries.)
Greeks who gain other citizenships do not lose their Greek citizenship
And you’re just wrong about the effect of WKA. Minor v. Happersett never says that Mrs. Minor is a natural born citizen. It says that women, in general, born to citizen parents are natural born citizens.
Minor’s definition of NBC is not central to its holding that voting is not essential to citizenship. It is pure dicta.
WKA defined natural born citizen to be exactly the same as natural born subject! It was a central holding of the case, without it, WKA doesn’t become a citizen of any sort. It was not dicta!
WKA didn’t say, explicitly, that WKA was a natural born citizen because it didn’t feel it needed to. No one thought there was some third type of citizen!
In your fantasy-land, there is a subset of citizens who are born here but are ineligible to be President because they are not natural born citizens.
There is simply no evidence that this third subset existed. You and Leo keep pointing to the “as much a citizen” part of the decision and you torture the English language to come to the conclusion that this implies that third category. Well, Justice Gray was intimately familiar with Binney’s pamphlet that he was quoting (he even pointed out that the part he was quoting was not in the version printed in the law journals). It’s Binney’s pamphlet that this “as much a citizen as,” language comes from. But, reading the pamphlet, one finds that not even Binney thought there was a third category of citizen:
There are two, and only two, types of citizen: Naturalized and Natural Born.
WKA was not a naturalized citizen. He was a citizen.
You want to create a new class of citizen, and there is simply no evidence that any authority, ever, has imagined this class!
As Greg and others have so kindly pointed out, case law such as U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark has said birth and allegiance are intertwined and that just like those born in the realm of the English King are natural born subjects, those born within the U.S. are natural born citizens (with a few exceptions not relevant here).
In any case, note that I was leaving aside legal/Constitutional discussions. I focused solely on the fact that you went on and on about Obama’s lack of allegiance because his father was Kenyan – even though Obama barely met him. I was simply pointing out one of the many situations where U.S.-born citizens have ultimate allegiance to this country, and no ties to another country, even though their parents are foreign-born. The Founders were not stupid men, and they knew this to be true as well.
British citizens, British Overseas Citizens and British Overseas Territorial Citizens do not lose their citizenship if they take a new country’s citizenship. (Even if that country has an oath that requires renunciation of other citizenships.) Therefore, even if Obama’s dad had naturalized here, Obama would have been born a dual citizen.
In the past, this jus sanguinis extended to grandchildren, so Obama’s children could also have been considered dual citizens, even though there is no question that both Obama and Michelle are citizens.
Other countries extend jus sanguinis citizenship indefinitely – to infinite generations. So, a child could be born to 7th generation US citizens and still be a dual citizen.
Oh, and in addition President obama wasn’t born under the allegiance of the British crown, as he wasn’t technically a British citizen until he walked into a British consulate, renounced his American citizenship and became a British citizen. It was only an option available to him, an option he never executed. He officially renounced his “British allegiance”. As has been stated multiple times, case law also suggests that birth and allegiance are linked – considering that President Obama was born in the U.S. and not in England, using the reasoning of the courts he would have allegiance to the U.S. and not England.
You’re correct, Rita. For the purposes of Wong Kim Ark, allegiance is simply born here.
Since “born here” means allegiance for the 14th Amendment, WKA is a citizen. And since “born here” means allegiance for the definition of natural born citizen, WKA is a natural born citizen. So is Obama, regardless of whether other countries consider him a citizen, too.
DCBikerJohn- first of all its is apparent that you are not a true Birther- because you can spell and write complete sentences. I disagree with you, but I appreciate that you are polite and write clearly.
On to the points:
“it’s technically possible. There’s no way the framers of the Constitution intended for this to happen, which is why it cannot happen according to the Constitution.”
Framers intent is a scary road to go down. I am confident that the framers of the Constitution did not intend for any Black man to be considered a Natural Born Citizen, nor that any woman would be eligible to be President.
Aside from that, this whole dual allegiance issue is not and has not been the generally accepted definition of Natural Born Citizen. It isn’t what I was taught in school, and clearly isn’t what the majority of voters understood when they elected the President.
Far from being an “ursurper”, President Obama is the legally elected and confirmed President of the United States. Elected by voters, voted in by the Electoral College, confirmed by Congress and sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Why is it do you think that you have the true understanding of what the Constitution means by “Natural Born Citizen”, rather than 60 million voters, the Electoral College members, Congress and Chief Justice Roberts?
Your efforts is just one of many attempts to not only remove our first African American President from office, but to discredit him by labelling him ‘foreign’.
If your issue was the only issue being raised to attempt to remove the President, I might give some credence to your motives, but yours is just one of many theories- all designed to remove that Black man from the White House. Lets list some of them:
a) where is the BC?
b) born in Kenya
c) dual allegiance
d) adopted in Indonesia- became a child Indonesian citizen
e) 2 U.S. citizen parents required.
f) born in Canada
g) mother too young to confer citizenship.
h) father was a defacto diplomat(one of my personal favorites).
For me, this is indicative that people who just can’t accept that a Black man with a Muslim/African name is in the White House or is a “true American”
“wouldn’t Prince William need to abdicate to marry an American?”
See the Duke Of Windsor, and Wallis Simpson.
Actually not so much. Many of the folks I know will not go near this. One person I talked with was interested but when they realized passages and verses would be deleted they became quite negative. People who hold these deep convictions, will I believe, hold to them.
DCBikerJohn, I think you are right.
Before the 14th amendment, some states did not allow a child born in the US of a transient alien to be a citizen of the State, and they were therefore not a citizen of the United States. How does the argument that everyone born in the US was always a natural born citizen hold up to that fact?
“Minor’s definition of NBC is not central to its holding that voting is not essential to citizenship. It is pure dicta.”
Minor claimed that as a citizen, she had the right to vote.
Minor was born before that passage of the 14th amendment, so the court had to determine if she was a citizen or not, before they could address the voting issue. That she was indeed a citizen, and a natural born citizen because she was born in the country of parents that were citizens, is part of the holding of that case.
Here is an interesting article regarding the 1961 birth announcements of President Obama….From all places the “Post and Fail” site by our buddy John Charlton…
“(Dec. 11, 2009) — The Post & Email has just received PDF files from a highly credible source, establishing that the birth annoucement in the Star Bulletin Edition of Aug. 14, 1961, for Barack Hussein Obama, is authentic.”
So they finally come around to believing that the birth announcements are real…Of course that comes with caveats…Especially regarding the President’s mother…
“One thing is certain about Obama: the verification of the authenticity of the birth annoucment now establishes with greater certainty the legal paternity of Barrack Hussein Obama, Sr., over the child Barry. It does not provide evidence, in-and-of-itself, as to who the mother was, or whether the birth was recorded on account of a filing made by a hospital in the regular course of activities, or was triggered by an at-home-birth filing by Obama’s natural parents or relatives.”
And then that leads to the usual mis-statement of facts that Charlton likes to push on his site….
“The confirmation that a British subject was the legal, declared father of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., establishes more firmly the charge that he is ineligible for office, since to be president the U.S. Constitution requires that one be a natural born citizen, and no natural born citizen can have a foreigner as a parent.”
http://www.thepostemail.com/2009/12/11/obamas-birth-announcement-in-1961-confirmed/
And of course the comments are the most entertaining…
12th Generation AMERICAN says:
December 11, 2009 at 12:24 PM
Can Maya Soetoro pass the DNA test as Barry/BarackJr.’s half sister?!?! This would answer one BIG question as to whether Ann Dunham is Barry’s real mother. Fair question I believe given the doubts brought forth so far?!?!!?
The validity of the annoucement only goes to further prove Obama’s ineligibility on the grounds of not being a natural born citizen?!!??
Really? Or this one…
syc1959 says:
December 11, 2009 at 8:40 AM
Being born in Hawaii is NOT the issue. Obama is not qualified as a Natural Born Citizen’ as required by the United States Constitution. The newspaper announcement are not proof that he was even born in Hawaii, just that a birth took place, not to where or when. Just like the forged COLB, there is no witnesses, doctor, or other vitals.
It is good to see our buddy Steve Cee,(or Christensen), aka Sync1959 is still pushing his forgery theory….Or this one…
P. Barnett says:
December 11, 2009 at 4:16 AM
I won’t believe it until it is testified to in court that it is authentic … I can go by Berkely myself.. thanks for letting me know that it is there.
Like you said though, it doesn’t really matter because the announcement could have been triggered by the grandma filing paperwork for a foreign birth.. Who knows if Ann Dunham was his bio mother… Obama looks exactly like his brother living in China who supposedly has a different mother.
Also, remember that there is an affidavit out there that states the Obama’s (Ann and Barrack Sr.) weren’t living at the address according to a neighbor that said she would have remembered a bi-racial couple and baby next door.
Good old Pam Barnett is still one unhappy lady…The birthers are a small core group of unhappy people…
If you read the article this is how Leo explains why he things he has a case…After reading that it is obvious that he doesn’t have a clue…To think that the court will allow him to demand what authority was used and parlay that into an ability to compel documentation from the President is ridiculous. Leo is delusional…
As part of the demand for information about the authority used, Donofrio confirmed, there will be questions about Obama’s eligibility to be president. Donofrio contends that since by Obama’s own admission his father never was a U.S. citizen, Obama was born a dual citizen. The framers of the Constitution, he argues, did not consider a dual citizen to be a “natural born citizen” as required for the presidency.
The burden, then, would shift to Obama and his administration officials to document their constitutional authority for their decisions and their handling of taxpayer money.
If the president cannot document his eligibility to occupy the Oval Office, his presidential task force had no authority to act at all, the case contends.
Pidgeon told WND the plaintiffs in the case are the former Chrysler dealers, and their interests will be paramount.
The goal is “to get them restored,” he said, and “put them back where they were before their contracts were rejected.”
“Our clients are not in this action as birthers,’” he said, citing a term used for people who question Obama’s constitutional eligibility. “Our clients are here to seek redress for wrongs.”
But the case may open doors that have been closed in other disputes over Obama’s eligibility. Most previous cases, at one point or another, have been dismissed because the plaintiffs do not have “standing” – they have not suffered direct injury for which they have a reasonable expectation of seeking redress.
In the case of the dealers, they have suffered financial loss because of circumstances that developed with the government’s intervention in the auto industry.
No he wouldn’t need to abdicate to marry an American. Just if she was a divorcee. Church of England rules.
No, it was not in dispute that she was a citizen.
The only issue before the court was whether voting was a central part of citizenship. The court did not need to determine that she was a natural born citizen, versus “just” a citizen.
Maybe you should bone up on the difference between dicta and holding.
Here’s a clue, the case would not have come out any differently if she had been a naturalized citizen.
What I love about all of these doubts about everything, is how they cherry pick what they want to doubt.
They don’t doubt that Barrack Obama Sr. was the father but do doubt that Ann Durham was the mother. They propose a DNA test on Obama’s half sister to determine whether Obama’s mother is really an American, but wouldn’t doubt that Maya is Ann Durham’s mother.
And most importantly, they don’t believe any documentation, yet somehow blindly accepted that Bush and Clinton were eligible to be President.
“Before the 14th amendment, some states did not allow a child born in the US of a transient alien to be a citizen of the State, and they were therefore not a citizen of the United States. How does the argument that everyone born in the US was always a natural born citizen hold up to that fact?”
Don’t understand your point. Are you suggesting that the states could change the definition of natural born citizen and we would have mulitple different meanings? For the original understanding of the definition of NBC, you need to look at state law at the time of the founding where all states followed the english common law rules. It wasn’t until much later than some authorities argued the common law excluded transient aliens. This was never a majority view. Regardless, no authorities I am aware of thought the states could change the definition of natural-born american citizenship. For example, the leading pre-14th amendment cases on the issue. Lynch v. Clark and Dred Scott specifially rejected the notion that state law could define national citizenship. The 39th congress did not disagree with this as they thought they were codifying existing law and no one in the debates that I am aware of thought the states could define national citizenship.
Greg- I just re-read your post- extremely well written and you made several points I had never considered or known about.
Thanks
The first part of your statement does not lead to the second part of your statement. Prior to the 14th Amendment, State and Federal citizenship were two separate beasts. See for example, Dred Scott, which held that regardless of what a state ruled about slaves, people of African descent could not be Federal citizens.
It was the 14th Amendment which collapsed state and Federal citizenship into the same notion.
“Natural born,” had a specific meaning at the founding. The Founders knew what those words meant. They knew how to change the meaning of words they didn’t like (treason) and there were words we know they didn’t change (Letters of Marque).
That a person could be born in California and be a natural born (Federal) citizen but not a California citizen meant only that he was not eligible for the privileges of California citizenship.
In part, it was this discrepancy which the 14th Amendment was written to address.
This is the fundamental history of citizenship and the 14th amendment. If you’re going to argue about the meaning of the Constitution and the 14th amendment, you should probably know some of this!
It is difficult to measure a person’s allegiance to a foreign sovereign. The framers of the Constitution knew one objective test: allegiance at birth.
The framers did not intend a situation where a British subject at birth would be eligible to the presidency, except those who were born before the adoption of the Constitution. Those born after the adoption of the Constitution who were British at birth are ineligible.
President Obama may have renounced his British allegiance. That does not change the circumstances of his birth.
The Court said that Mr. Wong was as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen. The Court did not say that Mr. Wong was a natural born citizen of the United States. The two are hardly the same.
DCBiker- I find your contention that other countries laws govern who can be U.S. President. You assert that anyone who is by circumstances of birth born both a U.S. citizen and a foreign citizen is not a natural born citizen.
Under your interpretation of the Constitution, a country such as North Korea, that fundamentally disagrees with the United States form of government could simply pass a law making anyone born in the United States a citizen of Korea, and within a generation or two there would be no American citizen eligible to be President.
Again the point being- under your interpretation other countries would determine who was eligible to be a U.S. citizen, not U.S. voters. Somehow I think the writers of the Constitution didn’t intend for that.
DCBikerJohn:
so,
2 + 3 is as much as 3 + 2
but
2 + 3 ≠ 3 + 2
hardly the same. got it, everybody?
hardly an original argument.
“Church of England rules.”
I like house rules in a French restaurant better. (bada-bing)
That’s all, folks.
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny-I noticed you ducked my offer to bet $100. It seems you aren’t confident that your arguments will prevail. Probably wise, my friend, as the election is OVER and no one, neither judges nor courts is going to re-open it. They, unlike you poor birthers, are looking forward, not backward.
All your arguments are like rehashing a call the umpires made in some World Series from your childhood. A diversion on a cold winter night, but it ain’t gonna change the outcome. Nope, this ball game is OVER.
@DCBikerJohn:
Read this: http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/likely-scenario.html
I used to live in Gaithersburg, and I ride a Rebel. You make me embarrassed on both counts. Outside of Montgomery County, Fairfax County, and Arlington, DC is a wasteland.
The point that the Court made in Wong (and this applies to your three comments) is that the jurisdiction of the United States is absolute within its borders, and so Wong, even though the Emperor of China might have claimed him as his subject, was completely under the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore a citizen. The rest of the argument and citations in Wong make it clear that the language natural born citizen also applies.
So Spiro Agnew (Vice President) was likely a dual citizen at birth.
DCBikerJohn: I cannot find any interpretation of the Constitution that leads me to conclude that those children would be natural born citizens of the United States.
Your lack of research is not evidence. Go read this:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/the-great-mother-of-all-natural-born-citizen-quotation-pages/
DCBikerJohn: Minor v. Happerset is the only SCOTUS opinion that provides an operative definition.
But it did not provide a definition. If I were to say “everyone born before 1860 is dead today”, I am not defining “dead today”, only identifying one class of persons who are dead today. The same is true of your so-called “definition” from Minor.
Your comment about Chester Arthur, “Chester Arthur went to great lengths to hide his father’s Irish citizenship when Chester was born” is historically false. He said he was ONE YEAR younger than he really was (how does that hide his father’s citizenship???) and burned personal papers just before he died (not when he was running for office). There is evidence that the naturalization status of Arthur’s father was known at the time. Can you give any evidence that it was not known?
I think you should do some independent research (and I emphasize independent). As I read your comments, I see things that are repeated from other web sites that are flat not true. You made a remark about Chester Arthur. How many Arthur biographies have you read? I read one. How many contemporary New York newspaper articles have you read? I spent an afternoon at the library reading microfilm. How many original sources have you read? I got Arthur opponent A. P. Hinman’s book through interlibrary loan because there was no copy on the Internet, and scanned it and put it on this web site. How many books on the history of American citizenship have you read? I read a very thick one.
I spent literally days scanning results from WestLaw searches on every mention of “natural born citizen” in the federal court system. I poured over old colonial laws for hours on end.
If you want to talk sense, and speak with some authority, don’t come in here parroting some birther web site. Go take a month off and learn what you’re talking about. There are a few hundred well-researched articles on this site, not to mention the commentary by lawyers who frequent here, but I wouldn’t ask you to take my word for anything. Go read for yourself.
The key concept is the difference between “necessary” and “sufficient”. What the 1790 Act says is that a US citizen father is sufficient to be a natural born citizen. It does not say that it is necessary. The Act extended natural born citizenship to children born overseas to citizens. That is citizenship was extended beyond place.
You seem to have a habit of citing that one sentence from Wong. I suggest you read the rest of it SLOWLY.
DCBikerJohn: They were good questions, but unfounded
This is the essential error of birthers: they think foundationless questions are good.
It depends on how old he was when he ran for president.
A. The court did not say that. They quoted Binney who said that. They quoted Binney in a longer sentence, out of which, and out of context you have taken the “as much a citizen as” part:
You have to take the Binney and the Lord Coke quotes together. The child of an alien becomes a citizen the same way here in the United States as in England, by birth and becoming a natural born citizen.
B. There is no evidence that anyone thought there was a third category of citizen. Binney, where the “as much a citizen as” quote comes from certainly didn’t think there were three types of citizen. You’d know this if you read what I’d written.
WKA was declared a natural born citizen. He was only a citizen because “natural born citizen” meant the exact same thing as “natural born subject.” Since WKA would have been a natural born subject, he is therefore a citizen. Since he was not a naturalized citizen and there are only two types of citizen, he is a natural born citizen.
What you fail to realize is that a child can elect which birth right citizenship he will continue. Obama clearly chose his US natural born status.
Speaking of Spiro Agnew, in the 1968 Presidential election, you had Humphrie and Muskie versus Nixon and Agnew.
Edmund Sixtus Muskie was the son of Stephen Marciszewski who emigrated from Poland at the age of 18. Poland is a strict jus sanguinis country that does not recognize dual citizenship. Citizens of Poland can only lose their citizenship with a petition of the government with extensive documentation. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
Children of people who used to be Polish who go to Poland won’t be protected by their home nation’s consulate unless there is a treaty specifically on that point. The US negotiated such a treaty with Poland in 1972. Under that treaty, people who travel to Poland with a US passport will for the time the visa is valid be considered US citizens.
So, in the 1968 election we had a VP candidate who was definitely a dual citizen (US/Polish) and one who was probably a dual citizen (US/Greek). One of the VPs would have been unable to access the US consulate in Poland and could have been required to serve in the Polish military.
Yes, but they were white. Important difference.
The dealers may have a difficult time proving that they suffered harm as the result of government action (since they would have lost their dealerships in a bankruptcy whether or not the government had intervened.(This is wrong as Chrysler would have to deal with each states franchise laws with each dealership and would have been required to pay each dealer according to each states laws.This was not simply a federal case but would have had to have been done in each state they had franchise contracts in.
Greg and ballantine,
The Founders knew that the States had and would have their own laws on how they defined their own citizens. They also knew that the States had their own laws on how they naturalized aliens. United States v. Rhodes, 27 F.Cass. 785, 791 (1866). They also knew that these citizenship and naturalization laws were not uniform among the several States. The Founders in Article I, Sec. 8, cl. 4 gave Congress the power to make uniform the laws of naturalization. Naturally, the Founders also wanted a uniform definition of what a national “citizen” and “natural born Citizen” would be. The Framers abandoned state law as a basis to define in the future national citizenship in the new nation and substituted in its place a uniform national law. Both Lynch v. Clarke, 1 Sand.Ch. 538 (N.Y. 1844) (a state law case involving inheritance rights in the State of New York) and Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856) confirm this in that both decisions specifically rejected the notion that state law could define national citizenship and therefore recognized that national citizenship is defined by federal law and not by any other conflicting state law.
In Scott v. Sanford, the United States Supreme Court explained:
“In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. For, previous to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State had the undoubted right to confer on whomsoever it pleased the character of citizen, and to endow him with all its rights. But this character of course was confined to the boundaries of the State, and gave him no rights or privileges in other States beyond those secured to him by the laws of nations and the comity of States. Nor have the several States surrendered the power of conferring these rights and privileges by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an alien, or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description of persons; yet he would not be a citizen in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, nor entitled to sue as such in one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in the other States. The rights which he would acquire would be restricted to the State which gave them. The Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and this right is evidently exclusive, and has always been held by this court to be so. Consequently, no State, since the adoption of the Constitution, can by naturalizing an alien invest him with the rights and privileges secured to a citizen of a State under the Federal Government, although, so far as the State alone was concerned, he would undoubtedly be entitled to the rights of a citizen, and clothed with all the rights and immunities which the Constitution and laws of the State attached to that character.
It is very clear, therefore, that no State can, by any act or law of its own, passed since the adoption of the Constitution, introduce a new member into the political community created by the Constitution of the United States. It cannot make him a member of this community by making him a member of its own. And for the same reason it cannot introduce any person, or description of persons, who were not intended to be embraced in this new political family, which the Constitution brought into existence, but were intended to be excluded from it.”
Id. 60 U.S. at 405-06.”
As we can see from the above quote, the Supreme Court in Dred Scott stated that the several states after the adoption of the Constitution did not have the authority to define national citizenship in the new nation. Hence, what the Supreme Court stated in Dred Scott also shows that the holding of Lynch v. Clarke is limited only to the State of New York and does not and cannot define national citizenship. In fact, notwithstanding that Lynch recognized that national citizenship was defined by an unwritten uniform national law, Lynch explained that because there was no express New York State legislation on the question of who are aliens and who are citizens, the court went ahead and relied on the old English common law to declare what the New York State law was on the subject. The court ruled that Julia Lynch, born in New York to alien parents who were temporarily sojourning there and were therefore not permanent residents thereof and who took the infant child back to Ireland with them, was “by the law of the United States” (by inference it decided that that law was the old English common law that prevailed in the colonies) and for purposes of inheriting land in New York a “natural born citizen.” It should be noted that after the Lynch case was decided, the New York State legislature overruled it by passing a statue that provided:
“Political Code of the State of New York (1860)
Sec. 5. The citizens of the state are:
1. All persons born in this state and domiciled within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien public ministers and consuls;
2 All persons born out of this state who are citizens of the United States and domiciled within this state. http://tiny.cc/NewYorkCode”
Dred Scott also recognized that the law of nations provided uniformity to national citizenship and defined the rights that attached to it. Indeed, the law of nations provided the Framers with those definitions which were also accepted by other civilized nations and which allowed them to establish a standard for national citizenship that would be incorporated and become part of U.S. national law. Hence, in order to achieve uniformity in the law of national citizenship, the Framers abandoned the state definitions for citizenship based on English common law and replaced them with new uniform definitions based on natural law and the law of nations which they adopted as the law that defined national citizenship. This new national law or federal common law and not the English common law therefore defined both what a national “citizen” and a “natural born citizen” was following the adoption of the Constitution.
Throughout American history, there has never been any doubt as to what a national “natural born Citizen” was under this new federal common law. Because of the doubts regarding what a “citizen of the United States” was, and especially because of how those doubts caused blacks to be denied that citizenship as Dred Scott ruled, the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. The Fourteenth Amendment changed the constitutional rule adopted by Dred Scott that blacks, free or otherwise, were not members of the Founding society and therefore could not be “citizens of the United States.” This amendment only defined born and naturalized “citizens of the United States.” These were the same “citizens of the United States” which the Framers grandfathered to be President in Article II. Hence, after the Fourteenth Amendment, we still had two classes of citizens as we did at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, “citizens of the United States” found in Article I, II, III, IV and “natural born Citizens” found in Article II. The Fourteenth Amendment did not intend to nor did it alter or amend the federal common law definition of what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is. As we have seen, that definition, as confirmed by several United States Supreme Court cases, was a child born in the country to citizen parents. This is an objective status acquired at birth and cannot be gained later in life regardless of one’s subjective circumstances. There is not one United States Supreme Court case or Congressional Act which defines a “natural born citizen” in any other way. There was also no need for the Framers to provide this definition in the Constitution or to even announce to the world that they were using that definition because under all principles of law– whether natural law, law of nations, public law, civil law, or English common law– the children born in the country of citizen parents were “natural born citizens.”
Yes, Mario is actually citing Scott v. Sanford, better known as the Dred Scott Decision. It was overturned by 14’th Amendment and subsequent rulings, and is widely regarded as the worst U.S. Supreme Court decision ever.
Why would anyone want the lawyer who lost Kerchner v. Obama to define “natural born citizen” when they can simply look it up in Black’s Law Dictionary, as a competent lawyer would do.
“Natural born citizen. Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government, i.e. in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens temporarily residing abroad.” — Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition
“Yes, Mario is actually citing Scott v. Sanford, better known as the Dred Scott Decision…and is widely regarded as the worst U.S. Supreme Court decision ever.”
Hey Mario: There’s been an accident on the Jersey Pike.
It’s statements like this that convince me that either you haven’t read Lynch or are deliberately misrepresenting it.
Lynch did not rely on the “old” English common law, it explicitly found that the old English common law was the common law of this nation. It had been adopted by each and every of the 13 colonies.
It wasn’t limited by Dred Scott to New York alone because its reasoning applied to all of the colonies. It discovered the common law of the United States, not just the common law of New York.
You are right that there was no need for the Supreme Court to explicitly expound on the definition of natural born citizen, it had, since the 1300s been clear what it meant. Natural born was a standard phrase.
Born here, regardless of parental citizenship.
There is not one United States Supreme Court case or Congressional Act which defines “natural born citizen” in any different way.
There is not one United States Supreme Court case or Congressional Act which suggests there can be another type of citizen – born here but not natural born.
To suggest otherwise is pure fantasy.
(As to your citation of Dred Scott about the impact of state laws on Federal citizenship, that is exactly what I said to red red rose. I’m not sure why you think that helps your case – prior to the 1850s there was not a single state that forbade citizenship to the children of aliens.)
As I explained to red red rose and DCBiker, the key to Wong Kim Ark was the unchanging definition of natural born citizen. WKA cited US v. Rhodes:
All persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens.
What does “in the allegiance” mean? Go to the oft-mis-quoted (by Donofrio) paragraph that ends “as much a citizen as…”
Being here, not even permanently, but simply domiciled (living) here, is sufficiently within our jurisdiction. Was Obama Sr. living in the States? He rented an apartment. He was a student here. He had a domicile here.
There has been no question since WKA that much less connection to the US than Obama Sr. exhibited is sufficient to confer status – it is now universally accepted that anyone born here to parents who are legal aliens is a natural born citizen. (The vast majority of legal scholars are also convinced that natural born sweeps in all those born of illegal aliens – thus the phenomenon of anchor babies and the attempts to amend the Constitution and the misguided attempts to redefine natural born via Congressional action.)
Further, there is nothing in WKA that suggests a requirement of two citizen parents. The fact that Obama’s mother was a citizen would be sufficient to make him a natural born citizen even if his father were a diplomat or sovereign or illegal alien.
I keep saying that Mario is doing all this to advance the KKK’s (or like-minded organizations) legal agenda, and I think this goes a long way to prove it.
Mario is nothing but a poseur. He sits here on a message board arguing outdated and discredited rulings. Meanwhile, while Mario was diddling himself, only a month ago a real court, the Indiana Court of Appeals, actually did what all the birthers claim they want-defined natural born citizen. Unfortunately for them, it did so as the majority of us here would have predicted. By the way, Indiana is hardly a bastion of wild-eyed liberalism. Now Mario’s excuse is that the case involved pro se plaintiffs (though if you read their brief it actually made the bogus “citizen parent” case no more foolishly than Mario’s own postings). So why doesn’t Mario hop on the next flight out of Newark to Indy and see if he can get admitted pro hac vice to appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court? He could maybe even get tickets to a Colts game while he’s there. No he’d rather waste his time arguing with us here, rether than lose another one in court
Or perhaps he knows the truth-that like the determination of whether an official committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” with regard to impeachment, it is Congress that decides whether a particular President-elect is qualified. In that decision they consider a number of factors, including whether he actually won the vote and his eligibility. In Barack Obama’s case, without objection they agreed he was. And that decision, like impeachment, is not reviewable by the courts. Poor, poor Mario, his “case” became moot almost a year ago and he missed the news….
“…and the attempts to amend the Constitution and the misguided attempts to redefine natural born via Congressional action…”
Jackpot!
I keep saying that’s exactly what Mario’s not so hidden agenda is (with zero likelihood of success IMHO) — it the agenda of white / christian supremacist organizations.
The Indonesians have just erected a statue of 10-year-old Obama in a spot near where his old high school used to be:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/09/obama-statue-erected-in-j_n_385434.html
Note the delicate addition of a crumpled birth certificate in young Obama’s right hand, and the soaring pose suggesting than any child from NotWhitestan can grow up to become President of the United States.
The panting you hear in the b.g. is Mario having an orgasm.
“As we have seen, that definition, as confirmed by several United States Supreme Court cases, was a child born in the country to citizen parents.”
Meaning that one citizen parent is enough.
And BTW, Vattel said “children” (plural) not “child” (singular), so by your logic no single child could even be a NBC; it would have to be “children”, i.e.: twins.
Your use of the Law of Nations to bolster your ridiculous argument is pathetic.
I thought that was the Indonesian passport he used to get into Pakistan!
The inscription even starts “A boy named Barry..”
All kidding aside, I think it is a lovely little statue.
brygenon,
You are a fool!
Lupin,
Why do you continue to hide behind your extreme political views? Why do you not just for once make a cogent legal argument?
misha,
Yes, I know. You were DWI (dumb-witted intellectual).
He’s an Indonesian Refugee traveling with US Documents.
His grandmother took custody of him when he was presented to the US State Department as an orphaned or abandoned minor in Indonedia with a grandmother in the U.S.
The US State Department provided assistance to his grandmother because she was a US citizen. Thus, Barry received expedited travel documents, transportation and an adult escort back to the US.
It’s documented in the US State Department archives.
Sorry, but I feel another musical interlude coming on. This time it’s the still-very-much-with-us James Taylor:
Country Road
Take to the highway won’t you lend me your name
Your way and my way seem to be one and the same
Mamma don’t understand it
She wants to know where I’ve been
I’d have to be some kind of natural born fool
To want to pass that way again
But I could feel it
On a country road
Now, my question is when Mr Taylor uses the term “natural born fool”, I understand it to mean that he was born a fool, irrespective of the foolishness of his parents.
He’s a space alien.
He’s 150,000 years old.
He was born to two aliens who had crashed landed on Pangaea in what would become the United States.
He is the original natural born citizen.
He is the same guy who became President as Calvin Coolidge, Alexander Hamilton and Richard Nixon.
It’s all documented in the archives at Area 51.
Lupin’s exegesis of the French in Vattel’s Law of Nations has pretty effectively eviscerated your argument that it can be used to support the two citizen parents theory.
Why do you not make a cogent legal argument against it?
And therein lies the problem…
Greg,
I know how you and your people here worship at the alter of Lynch v. Clarke and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. I can understand that because those two cases are really the only hope that you have to support your arguments. What your group (strange that none of you are willing to fess up to being lawyers, and forgive me if there is at least one of you who has and I know you have one scientist “nbc” who is out of work on board) does not have in law it supplies in ridicule and ad hominem attacks. I used to play chess with a friend of mine when I was a child. Sometimes he tried to cheat me but I always caught him. He used to say, “cheat a little, win a little.”
But really, Greg, on Lynch, what is a state court–that is deciding a state issue of whether someone should inherit some land located in the State of New York, who was fortuitously born in New York to alien parents who were temporarily visiting the United States and then who took the less-than-one-year-old baby child back to their foreign country with them where the child continued to live with her parents even up to the time of the inheritance in question, which issue arose because of the common law that was in effect in New York in 1845 which provided that aliens were precluded from inheriting lands in New York–doing finding the common law of the United States (or what it believed was that law) rather than the common law of New York and then applying that “national common law” in a way so as to allow that person to inherit that land in New York. But then, oh, by the way, the court just adds for those who may be interested that not only can this foreigner inherit that New York piece of real estate but she can also be President of the United States. While I am actually making myself laugh while writing this, I do not think the Founders would feel the same.
The Founders were not around to take any action. But I guess we know what the People of the State of New York thought of the Lynch decision. They tossed it.
Not if she were undivorced Рthe reason why the Edward VIII had to abdicate to marry Wallis Simpson was that she was a divorc̩e.
A similar situation pertains with Camilla, Princess of Wales – there was some talk at her marriage to Prince Charles that it would be a morganatic marriage, although this rather petered out. They were married in a civil ceremony, though, which negated (at least for the time being) the possible Constitutional crisis of their marriage.
Her status should Charles ever ascend to the throne will certainly be up for debate, though – there is and was some discussion that in that event she be given a title along the lines of Princes Consort or similar, not unlike the discussions regarding Prince Philip prior to the 1957 Letters Patent which formally denoted his title.
I don’t worship any court cases. I think the people ought to be able to choose the President with oversight by their elected representatives. I believe that lawyers and judges get one vote like everybody else and sleasy lawyers who try to overturn elections after the fact should be slapped down hard.
The problem there is that Chrysler would have been liquidated if the government hadn’t stepped in. After secured creditors were paid with Chrysler’s assets, how much would have been left to pay dealers?
There already have been a number of lawsuits filed by pension funds, etc. which made similar arguments about the government using TARP funds, and to date all of them have been tossed.
Cry hard, loser!
Say, remember early on — shortly after your attempt to stay President Obama’s inauguration failed but well before the Court dismissed your suit — you and your client were talking about what a nightmare it would be if you did not get Obama out of office before he appointed a Supreme Court Justice. How are you guys enjoying your nightmare?
Mario, most of us prefer arguments that *win* in court. In other words, not yours.
It’s called precedent, Mario. It’s what we have and you don’t.
We keep citing Wong Kim Ark because it is so well-established.
Do you not worship at the Altar of the Swiss Philosopher Emmerich de Vattel?
But you forget, and perhaps you are not familiar with these concepts, that in law, precedent guides how the Courts should interpret the law and the Constitution. As such, the findings in Wong Kim Ark, where the Supreme Court clearly explained how natural born refers to the location of birth regardless of the status of the parents, help us understand how this term should be interpreted in a legal context.
Even Vattel would accept that a child born on US soil to a US citizen, is a natural born US citizen, who when reaching the age of majority can decide whether to continue his natural born citizenship.
We know that the New York conference on the Constitution replaced natural born with native born to avoid the confusing meaning of natural to refer to manner of birth.
The legal precedents just do not support any of your musings.
And the skillful people at ObamaConspiracy expose your position as lacking.
Quite annoying isn’t it.
Wow, Mario, your skills surely are impressive…
I understand why you attack Lupin rather than the extremely relevant analysis presented by him that destroys your adherence to Vattel.
We understand dear Mario… We surely do.
“To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation, and what were afterwards admitted to membership.”
“It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.”
“In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her. That she had before its adoption.”
The court established her citizenship.
More nonsense.
“Dred Scott also recognized that the law of nations provided uniformity to national citizenship and defined the rights that attached to it.”
No, one Justice cited Vattel and he was not defining who was a natural born citizen. Another Justice defined natural born citizen by the English common law rule. The latter was cited by the majority of the supreme court in Wong. The former was cited by no one.
“Throughout American history, there has never been any doubt as to what a national “natural born Citizen” was under this new federal common law.”
You are delusional. Name one court that has ever stated that a natural born citizen required parents to be citizens. There are none. Cite one treatise or legal dictionary. There are none. Have you actually done any research. They have all told us to look to the English common law. Trying to claim the common law rule really means Vattal is really pathetic. Point out one authority that says the common law required citizen parents. Doesn’t exist. Have you actually read Wong Kim Ark. The court expressly states that the English common law was our common law and such English rule not only defined “natural born citizen” under the original constutution but also defined the 14th amendment. Can you point to one legal treatise of legal dictionary that disagrees?
For example, here is what the Heritage Foundation says:
“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are “natural born citizens” and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are “natural born citizens” eligible to serve as President …”In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court relied on English common law regarding jus soli to inform the meaning of “citizen” in the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the natural-born-citizenship requirement of Article II, and noted that any right to citizenship through jus sanguinis was available only by statute, and not through the Constitution. ” Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005)
I can list authority here all day conforming to this definition. Can you cite any authority at all to support your theory other than claiming cases citing Vattel for issues unrelated to who is a natural born citizen or citizenship at all somehow represents authority?
A treatise on the law of citizenship in the United States
By Prentiss Webster (1891)
http://tiny.cc/CitizenshipLaw1891
“Their inseparable nature renders the rule necessary, that the child follows the citizenship of the parent, until he reaches the age at which he may elect to remain of the same citizenship as the parent or abandon the parent’s citizenship. This is the rule which naturally and of necessity governed in the United States prior to 1836, and by which those children of citizens of the United States became citizens.” Page 84
“To repeat what has already been set forth as the rule prior to 1836, it must be affirmed that neither jus soli nor allegiance in the English sense and meaning had any thing whatever to do with the acquisition of citizenship in the United States.” page 94
nbc,
Where is scientist?
I have much more than just Vattel to support my arguments.
Wong Kim Ark is not a precedent for the proposition that a child born in the U.S. to one or none U.S. citizen parents is an Article II “natural born Citizen.” That is just your wish. Wong Kim Ark only declared Wong a “citizen of the United States” under the 14th Amendment given that his alien parents were legal and permament residents of the United States. Remember that the Framers grandfathered “citizens of the United States” to be eligible to be President in Article II. But the grandfather clause has long been obsolete.
On those “skillful people” at this site, are they lawyers?
Mario, I am a lawyer. And here’s what Justice Gray said about Lynch v. Clarke.
Total nonsense, the Court looked at the meaning of natural born citizen and found that it was defined in the Common Law of this country. Following the same logic the Court would establish the meaning of natural born to be found in Common Law practices not your imagination.
You have no foundation for your claims, and your insistance that we ignore WKA is quite telling, and explains why, at least for a while, you attempted to have it considered a poor ruling.
The 14th Amendment, per those who voted on it, just put in words that which already was part of the Constitution, by declaring that anyone born on US soil is a US, natural born citizen.
I have no idea if these skillful people are lawyers. I have found that lawyers can occasionally be skillful when they are not forced to a conclusion presented to them by their client.
What I do find fascinating is that many of the people here have no problem disseminating and rebutting your ‘arguments’.
Just imagine how quickly a judge would dismiss your claims. We already have an example in the recent state Court ruling about NBC.
Bummer indeed Mario.
History and reality are just not on his side.
Mario Apuzzo Your attempts to dovetail in and out of Vattel as the standard for American definition of NBC looks quite tortured even to the untrained legal mind. Similarly you try to make Wong Kim Ark fit YOUR interpretation. It is a play on the same meme as the Sovereign Citizen crowd and an attempt to create a sub class of citizen born in this country. What makes your entire argument even weaker is your insistence to revisit the illogical theory that Obama wasn’t really born here at all. That last argument you need to lose altogether, because it just looks like you’re throwing a handful of sticks against the wall.
I guess you continue to ignore these skillful people’s arguments, having come to understand how you continue to believe that there was a ban for travel for US citizens to Pakistan…
Perhaps you have no choice given that it was a certified complaint?
Is that how things work?
Perhaps Mario has no choice here. Remember, he is bound to argue what is best for his client, not necessarily what is most logical or reasonable.
nbc,
You just love to hear yourself talk and quickly pat yourself on the back for whatever you may say. Your smuggness can work on this pro-Obama site but it will not work in a court of law. You and scientist must know each other.
And do not tell me about how the court dismissed the Kerchner case. We know that dismissal was on standing and political question and not on its merits which is what we are arguing here.
nBc-Mario’s “client”? You mean this guy Kerchner? How are any of Mario’s arguments helping him? He and Mario need to accept that the election was over more than a year ago, that Congress validated the results, Obama is the President and the matter is closed (at least until 2012). Living in a birther fantasy world where some magical court of Tinkerbelle and the Tooth Fairy are going to descend from the sky and remove that evil Mr Obama in 30 days is not healthy for grown adults.
Gordon,
I did not create any subclass of citizens. That is a figment of your imagination and your attempt at appealing to the public’s sense of fairness and justice. But there is nothing unfair or unjust in my position. From what the Framers said in Article II, we know that they envisioned “citizens of the United States” and “natural born Citizens.” The former were grandfathered for the Office of President and the latter were to be eligible for that office after the adoption of the Constitution. Today, the grandfather clause is obsolete. I have maintained that Obama may be a “citizen of the United States,” if he was born in Hawaii. I have also said that he is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen.” Where is my subclass of citizens?
Mario, the grandfather clause does nothing to suggest there is a class of citizen that is born here, gains their citizenship by dint of that citizenship, yet cannot become president. Everything in the constitution is consistent with the idea that there are TWO types of citizen – not three – natural-born and naturalized.
There is no case in 200 years that suggests someone could be born here, become a citizen because of that birth, and not be eligible for the presidency.
As for Justice Gray not calling WKA a natural born citizen, you seem to be unclear on the subsidiary conclusions that led Gray to conclude that WKA was a citizen. It would be like an argument going like this:
A = B
B = C
C = D
Conclusion: A = D
I haven’t actually said that A = C, but it’s a necessary conclusion of the argument. Gray didn’t say that WKA was an NBC, but it’s a necessary conclusion of his argument.
Greg,
In Lynch and Wong Kim Ark, the issue was whether the person was a “citizen of the United States,” not whether the person was an Article II “natural born Citizen.” They are two different things as can be seen by the plain language of the Constitution and from the numerous Congressional Acts passed over the course of American history.
By the way, did Lynch really have to decide national citizenship or just citizenship in the State of New York?
What does the New York legislature’s citizenship statute cancelling the Lynch decision out tell us of the intended effect and scope of the decision?
scientist,
You are true to form. Keep up your valuable contributions to this erudite forum.
I do realize how our adherence to facts and reason may appear to some as smuggness (sic).
Kerchner’s merits would fare not much better my dear Mario.
There is really one issue: Is a child born on US soil, a natural born citizen, regardless of the status of his parents. And the answer is yes, and an even more resounding yes when one of the parents is in fact a US citizen.
Simple
You believe that there are citizens who are born on US soil who are natural born, article II citizens and those who are just 14th amendment citizens. And then there are naturalized citizens. The courts however have consistently found that there are naturalized citizens and natural born citizens, and not some imaginary third class. Heck even the 14th Amendment did not create any new citizens, as much as restated what the Constitution already had stated, while rejecting the aweful Dred Scott interpretation.
Not soon thereafter SCOTUS found much the same in WKA when realizing that in order to understand the meaning of natural born citizen, one had to look at common law practices which clearly considered anyone born on US soil, regardless of the status of the parents, a natural born citizen. Especially when one already is a US citizen.
Simple facts.
I realize why you are now backing away from your three classes. Bouncing back and forth between two untenable positions. Tick, Tock Tick, Tock…
So you are stating that the Court, which carefully showed the meaning of natural born citizen, somehow should be ignored?
There have never been article II citizens who are born on US soil. You are attempting to create a 3rd class of citizen where even the history of the 14th amendment does not support such a revision.
You are denying the obvious my dear pal. Now desperately trying to state that the courts need not have addressed the natural born part, even though it was crystal clear that born on US soil makes one a citizen and a natural born one, the two are connected.
Oh the irony my poor friend, the irony. Have you no idea?…
At least Kerchner appears to be a paying customer and money does talk. Although talk can be cheap.
While it doesn’t make sense to say “Article II citizen” (since Article II neither makes nor defines citizens), it does make sense to say “14th Amendment citizen” because not all people born citizens are made so by, and have the protection of, the 14th Amendment.
Are you sure Mario isn’t paying Kerchner?
Mario misses the point
And used the term natural born which was commonly understood to refer to born on US soil, regardless of the status of the parents.
You are arguing a strawman here. The issue is that the term natural born is not defined in the Constitution and thus has to be found in common law practices.
And that dooms your argument
Mario Apuzzo: We know that dismissal was on standing and political question and not on its merits which is what we are arguing here.
To the extent that an argument is what is going on here, I don’t see how it will ever go anywhere. I don’t find your arguments persuasive and unless you come up with some new evidence or some new chain of logic, nothing is going to change. It is possible, particularly in the run up to the 2012 election, and some case may get decided, and if it does, I would anticipate a fast track to the US Supreme Court.
But here is a question for you: if the Supreme Court ruled specifically and favorably on President Obama’s eligibility, would you concede that you are mistaken?
Citizen is the term that encompasses natural born and naturalized citizens. There is no court case and nothing in the Constitution that suggests any other type of citizen. Wong Kim Ark was not a naturalized. He was a citizen. By process of elimination….
While I will certainly look deeper at your citations, what I see here is a Boston lawyer making two assertions rather than citing cases and authorities. What Mr. Webster said is directly at odds with what the Supreme Court would say a few years later in Wong. I am trying to find out some information on just who Prentiss Webster is (without much success), and what his qualifications are as an expert commentator. I found this review of “A treatise on the law of citizenship in the United States” in the Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1891), pp. 737, showing what one academic contemporary thought of the work:
Sounds like birther material to me.
No, he is ethically bound to refrain from advancing frivolous arguments, and to so advise any client who wants to retain him.
And in any case, he’s got no obligation to argue his case with strangers on an online blog. I don’t know of any respectable lawyers who do that.
This is pretty rich. Want to count the Mario originated ad hominems just on this page? I count 9.
Mario Apuzzo: Naturally, the Founders also wanted a uniform definition of what a national “citizen” and “natural born Citizen” would be.
I continue to object to conflating the definitions of natural born citizen with the qualifications for a natural born citizen. But reading your argument, this is the first pothole, because you can’t produce any EVIDENCE that the Founders wanted any such thing and the fact that the Constitution didn’t provide any language furthering such a goal is pretty strong evidence that it wasn’t true. You have a mature, mostly college educated crowd with several attorneys here. You can’t get away with potholes in your argument here and you darned sure can’t get away with such with a judge.
Ok, if this is true, explain to me how the” government action” bypassed all those state laws. Do you think the executive branch can wave it’s magic wand and make contracts and state laws go away? No, it can’t, but a federal bankruptcy judge can, and that’s why your comment is nonsense.
I agree with Dr C that there is no particular reason to treat this as other than Mr Webster’s opinion, which along with $3 will get you a coffee at Starbucks. That said, applying those words to Barack Obama, he would follow “the citizenship of the parent”. Since the 2 parents had different citizenship, the question is which one? The case is certainly stronger to follow that of the custodial parent in whose home country he lived all of his life other than a few years, as opposed to following the citizenship of the parent he only saw briefly a couple of times and in whose home country he never spent more than a few weeks.
nbc,
My pal, your argument is twisted and nonsensical. Then at the end you make your grand finale which gets no support from what you say.
Also, this statement makes no sense: “There have never been article II citizens who are born on US soil.” Are you serious?
The quality of your work has really gone downhill.
Greg,
You say that “citizen” encompasses “natural born.” Then would you be so merciful and explain to me why “Citizens” were grandfathered to be eligibile for the presidency by Article II and “natural born Citizens” were the new standard after adoption of the Constitution. If the two categories meant the same thing as you want people to believe, why did the Framers grandfather only “Citizens” and select only “natural born Citizens” to be President eligibile after the adoption of the Constitution?
Greg,
How short our sight is. You get as you give.
nbc,
I guess the cat had your tongue.
Expelliarmus,
I thought this forum was to educate the public. Are you telling me that I cannot join you in that endeavor?
Dr. Conspiracy,
The United States Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott. Was Dred Scott mistaken?
“Natural Born Citizen” is stated in the constitution and defined by the Supreme Court. The article below explains the 4 cases decided by the Supreme Court which defines “Natural Born Citizen” – Put the kool-aid down for just a minute and read what the Supreme Court has to say below:
4 Supreme Court Cases define “natural born citizen” IRREFUTABLE AUTHORITY HAS SPOKEN
by John Charlton
Emmerich de Vattel, c/o Online Library of Liberty
(Oct. 18, 2009) — The Post & Email has in several articles mentioned that the Supreme Court of the United States has given the definition of what a “natural born citizen” is. Since being a natural born citizen is an objective qualification and requirement of office for the U.S. President, it is important for all U.S. Citizens to undertsand what this term means.
Let’s cut through all the opinion and speculation, all the “he says”, “she says”, fluff, and go right to the irrefutable, constitutional authority on all terms and phrases mentioned in the U.S. Constitution: the Supreme Court of the United States.
First, let me note that there are 4 such cases which speak of the notion of “natural born citizenship”.
Each of these cases will cite or apply the definition of this term, as given in a book entitled, The Law of Nations, written by Emmerich de Vattel, a Swiss-German philosopher of law. In that book, the following definition of a “natural born citizen” appears, in Book I, Chapter 19, § 212, of the English translation of 1797 (p. 110):
§ 212. Citizens and natives.
The citizens are the members of the civil society: bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. . . .
The French original of 1757, on that same passage read thus:
Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays de parents citoyens, . . .
The terms “natives” and “natural born citizens” are obviously English terms; used to render the idea convyed by the French phrase “les naturels, ou indigenes”: but both refered to the same category of citizen: one born in the country, of parents who were citizens of that country.
In the political philosophy of Vattel, the term “naturels” refers to citizens who are such by the Law of Nature, that is by the natural cirumstances of their birth — which they did not choose; the term “indigenes” is from the Latin, indigenes, which like the English, “indigenous”, means “begotten from within” (inde-genes), as in the phrase “the indigenous natives are the peoples who have been born and lived there for generations.” Hence the meaning the the term, “natural born citizen”, or “naturels ou indigenes” is the same: born in the country of two parents who are citizens of that country.
Vattel did not invent the notion “natural born citizen”; he was merely applying the Law of Nature to questions of citizenship. In fact the term first appears in a letter of the future Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, to George Washington during the Constitutional Convention, where the Framers were consulting 3 copies Vattel’s book to complete their work (according to the testimony of Benjamin Franklin).
Let take a brief look, now, at each case. For each case I include the link to the full text of the ruling. The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)
The first was decided in A.D. 1814, at the beginning of the republic, by men who were intimately associated with the American Revolution. In that year the following men sat on the Supreme Court:
Bushrod Washington, (b. June 5, 1762 — d. Nov. 26, 1829), served Feb. 4, 1799 til Nov. 26, 1829.
John Marshall (b. Sept. 24, 1755 — d. July 6, 1835), served Feb. 4, 1891 til July 6, 1835.
William Johnson (b. Dec. 27, 1771 — d. Aug. 4, 1834), served May 7, 1804, til Aug. 4, 1834.
Henry Brockholst Livingston (b. Nov. 25, 1757 — d. Mar. 18, 1823), served Jan. 20, 1807 til March 18, 1823
Thomas Todd (b. Jan. 23, 1765 — d. Feb. 7, 1826), served May 4, 1807 til Feb. 7, 1826.
Gabriel Duvall (b. Dec. 6, 1752 — d. Mar. 6, 1844), served Nov. 23, 1811 til Jany 14, 1835.
Joseph Story (b. Sept. 18, 1779 — d. Sept. 10, 1845), served Feb. 3, 1812 til Sept. 10, 1845
Nearly all these men either participated in the American Revolution, or their fathers did. Joseph Story’s father took part in the original Boston Tea Party. Thomas Todd served 6 months in the army against the British; and participated in 5 Constitutional Conventions from 1784-1792. During the Revolutionary War, Henry Brockholst Livingston was a Lieutenant Colonel in the New York Line and an aide-de-camp to General Benedict Arnold, before the latter’s defection to the British. William Johnson’s father, mother, and elder brother were revolutionaries, who served as statesman, rebel, or nurse/assistant to the line troops, respectively. John Marshall was First Lieutenant of the Culpeper Minutement of Virginia, and then Lieutenant in the Eleventh Virginian Continental Regiment, and a personal friend of General George Washington; and debated for ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the Virginian General Assembly. Bushrod Washington was George Washington’s nephew and heir.
Being witnesses and heirs of the Revolution, they understood what the Framers of the Constitution had intended.
The Venus case regarded the question whether the cargo of a merchantman, named the Venus, belonging to an American citizen, and being shipped from British territory to America during the War of 1812, could be seized and taken as a prize by an American privateer. But what the case said about citizenship, is what matters here.
WHAT THE VENUS CASE SAYS ON CITIZENSHIP
In the Venus Case, Justice Livingston, who wrote the unanimous decision, quoted the entire §212nd paragraph from the French edition, using his own English, on p. 12 of the ruling:
Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says:
“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.
“The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are strangers who are permitted to settle and stay in the country. Bound by their residence to the society, they are subject to the laws of the state while they reside there, and they are obliged to defend it…
Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)
In 16 years later the Supreme Court heard the case regarding the dispute over the inheritance received by two daughters of an American colonist, from South Carolina; one of whom went to England and remained a British subject, the other of whom remained in South Carolina and became an American citizen. At the beginning of the case, Justice Story, who gave the ruling, does not cite Vattel per se, but cites the principle of citizenship enshrined in his definition of a “natural born citizen”:
Ann Scott was born in South Carolina before the American revolution, and her father adhered to the American cause and remained and was at his death a citizen of South Carolina. There is no dispute that his daughter Ann, at the time of the Revolution and afterwards, remained in South Carolina until December, 1782. Whether she was of age during this time does not appear. If she was, then her birth and residence might be deemed to constitute her by election a citizen of South Carolina. If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country. Her citizenship, then, being prima facie established, and indeed this is admitted in the pleadings, has it ever been lost, or was it lost before the death of her father, so that the estate in question was, upon the descent cast, incapable of vesting in her? Upon the facts stated, it appears to us that it was not lost and that she was capable of taking it at the time of the descent cast.
Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)
This case concerned Mrs. Happersett, an original suffragette, who in virtue of the 14th Amendment attempted to register to vote in the State of Missouri, and was refused because she was not a man. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in that year, wrote the majority opinion, in which he stated:
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.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
In this case, Wong Kim Ark, the son of 2 resident Chinese aliens, claimed U.S. Citizenship and was vindicated by the court on the basis of the 14th Amendment. In this case the Justice Gray gave the opinion of the court. On p. 168-9 of the record, He cites approvingly the decision in Minor vs. Happersett:
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.
On the basis of the 14th Amendment, however, the majority opinion coined a new definition for “native citizen”, as anyone who was born in the U.S.A., under the jurisdiction of the United States. The Court gave a novel interpretation to jurisdiction, and thus extended citizenship to all born in the country (excepting those born of ambassadors and foreign armies etc.); but it did not extend the meaning of the term “natural born citizen.” CONCLUSION
Finally it should be noted, that to define a term is to indicate the category or class of things which it signifies. In this sense, the Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.
Hence every U.S. Citizen must accept this definition or categorical designation, and fulfil his constitutional duties accordingly. No member of Congress, no judge of the Federal Judiciary, no elected or appointed official in Federal or State government has the right to use any other definition; and if he does, he is acting unlawfully, because unconstitutionally.
The grandfather clause allows people who weren’t born here but nobly served their country during the revolution to become President, if they had naturalized before the signing of the Constitution.
“Citizen” is not the same as “natural born,” since “citizen” includes both natural born and naturalized.
Are you implying that the Founders did not grandfather in citizens who were naturalized before the signing of the Constitution?
Ray, come on. Don’t just copy and paste nonsense that we’ve debunked here on this website a thousand times before.
Ray, I’m not all that fond of you posting other web sites content here. If you have something to say yourself, feel free. Let
Generally, what “Charlton” says is crap (falsehoods and misrepresentations). If you buy into Charlton, then all 50 state secretaries of state were wrong, the majority of the voters were wrong, the entire Congress was wrong and the entire Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice who swore Obama in to boot. What vaulted arrogance!
Typical Apuzzo, answer a question with a question.
While I can read an answer into your question, I would prefer for you to answer it plainly. Then we can get to your question (which you already know the answer to).
Hey, Dr. Conspiracy, what causes some of the posts to be invisible to me? For example, right now, in this thread, I can’t read your most recent post, which starts, “Typical Apuzzo…” nor can I read Mario’s comment about Dred Scott or his response to Expelliarmus.
I can be dense but does this 14th amendment definition Ray swears by limit the rights of those folks like African Americans who were not citizens before that? Is this just a way to reinvent Grandfather laws by another name. Since the demographic of this country is changing, it almost seems to me that these folks want to set up some class of citizen with fewer rights. Am I crazy? Does this go beyond President Obama? I may have read something like that here before, as I am this minute recalling. Help.
brygenon,
Patience my boy, patience.
brygenon,
Youth and immaturity are often the reason for poor thinking.
ballantine,
After reading your response, I think I understand why you call yourself ballantine.
New Englander and Yale review, Volume 15 (1857)
http://tiny.cc/NewEnglanderYaleReview1857
“To the proposition that the original citizens of the United States contained free negro citizens as well as white citizens, we add another that the present body of citizens of the United States is made up in part of the descendants of these original citizens, both white and black. The children of the original citizens were born citizens, and the same is true of their descendants down to the present time. This is a principle of public law, and the Constitution takes for granted the operation of this principle in speaking of the class of natural born citizens. We have, then, natural born negro citizens as well as natural born white citizens, descendants of the original citizens of the United States.” page 489
A treatise on the law of citizenship in the United States
By Prentiss Webster (1891)
http://tiny.cc/CitizenshipLaw1891
“It cannot be denied, however, in this connection that the term “native born” was and is in use; its application was not and is not with the same reason therefore, as is found in the English common law. Its use was and is, purely in imitation as a term, of the same term, in the English law. Strictly interpreted its meaning was and is, partus sequuntur patrem, i.e., the child follows the citizenship of the parent.
The rule was well laid down by Vattel sections 216-220: “By the law of nature alone children follow the condition of their fathers and enter into all their rights. The place of birth produces no change in this particular; for it is not naturally the place of birth that gives rights but extraction.”
page 85
Dr. Conspiracy,
I am happy to learn that we have some smart people reading these comments.
So you want me to accept that the Framers wanted a uniform definition for naturalization but not one for “natural born Citizens?”
Its a giant leap to suppose chrysler would have been liquidated. After reading these comments it is easy to to see obama bias while ignoring the facts yes facts that are easily understood by anyone that Mario Apuzzo has lain for all. If anyone believes that that a saudi national and his wife while visiting the U.S. deliver a child that that child would be a natural born U.S. citizen is nuts.
nbc,
Since you love that Pakistan travel so much:
In 1981, Pakistan was characterized by martial law, civil war, U.S. Embassy attack, all resulting in loss of life.
HARVARD HUMAN RIGHTS JOURNAL
Before September 11, 2001, the United States characterized the Pakistani government as an unstable regime with a tarnished history of corrupt dictators, military coups, and territorial violence along its borders.[1] Following the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, Pakistan became a leading partner in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, thrust into a position to bring “international criminals” to justice and to act as a hero for the “civilized” world.[2] Indeed, one of the lessons of September 11 is that exigencies often spur credulity. United States concerns with Pakistan’s human rights problems lost significance once Pakistan agreed to stand with the United States against terrorism.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/khan.shtml#Heading7
Pakistan, with martial law and a civil war going on, did not sound like a place to which Americans would so freely travel to in 1981, although there were probably some who did go. You will have to ask Obama why he decided to go there under such conditions.
And by the way, do not forget to ask him what passport he used to travel there. You keep insisting that you want proof of a “travel ban” to Pakistan. The real issue is what passport did Obama use for his travel there. The “travel ban” is a red herring. I have yet to see anyone answer this question. Rather, you and your supporters avoid answering that question and rather respond by just repeating the same old thing about there being no “travel ban” to Pakistan.
Still no travel ban and the passport is likely to be the same passport he used to return form Indonesia: His US passprot.
Do you have any evidence to the contrary? Of course not
Where in the archives? Oh right, you’ve never given any real proof. So by your own standards, that makes you a lying usurper.
Why do you hate the Constitution, Sven?
So Mario “Aggrieved by an uppity negro? I’ll fight for you!” Apuzzo is now resorting to citing Dred Scott? Really?
Dude, I know the KKK pays well, but they’re still calling you a f’n’ guido behind your back.
Dual Citizenship, Birthright Citizenship, and the Meaning of Sovereignty (2005)
http://tiny.cc/allegiance270
Historically, the language of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which the 14th Amendment was intended to constitutionalize, makes very clear that all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power are declared to be citizens of the United States.
The authors in the legislative history, the authors of that language, Senator Lyman Trumbull said, “When we talk about ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,’ it means complete jurisdiction, not owing allegiance to anybody else.” Senator Jacob Howard said that its “a full and complete jurisdiction.”
It looks like the ones that were voting on it were saying that anyone born in the US with a foreign allegiance was not a US citizen.
Where?
Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S. 9 Wheat. 738 738 (1824)
http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/738/case.html
“A naturalized citizen is indeed made a citizen under an act of Congress, but the act does not proceed to give, to regulate, or to prescribe his capacities. He becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the Constitution, on the footing of a native.”
Holmes v. Jennison, 39 U.S. 14 Pet. 540 540 (1840)
http://supreme.justia.com/us/39/540/case.html
“…was a native citizen of the United States, having been born in the State of New Hampshire.”
Perez v. Brownell, 356 U.S. 44 (1958) from dissent
http://supreme.justia.com/us/356/44/case.html
“But we made it when we adopted the Fourteenth Amendment and provided that the native-born is an American citizen. Once he acquires that right, there is no power in any branch of our Government to take it from him.”
Schneider v. Rusk, 377 U.S. 163 (1964)
http://supreme.justia.com/us/377/163/case.html
“We start from the premise that the rights of citizenship of the native born and of the naturalized person are of the same dignity, and are coextensive. The only difference drawn by the Constitution is that only the “natural born” citizen is eligible to be President. While the rights of citizenship of the native born derive from § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment and the rights of the naturalized citizen derive from satisfying, free of fraud, the requirements set by Congress, the latter, apart from the exception noted, “becomes a member of the society, possessing all the rights of a native citizen, and standing, in the view of the constitution, on the footing of a native.”
The two types of citizens are native born (born in the US) and naturalized (born elsewhere). A natural born citizen is a native citizen that had two US citizen parents at the time of birth.
Why did Obama decide to go to Pakistan in 1981? Maybe he read the New York Times travel piece about traveling there!
LAHORE, A SURVIVOR WITH A BITTERSWEET HISTORY
By BARBARA CROSSETTE; BARBARA CROSSETTE IS AN ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Published: June 14, 1981
History has dealt the lovers of Lahore more than their share of broken hearts. This graceful and cultured city, with a history that stretches by some accounts back into the days of the epic Ramayana, passed through many conquering hands – Hindu, Mogul, Persian, Afghan, Sikh and British -on the way to becoming an intellectual center of the Indian subcontinent, only to be relegated with the partition of British India to the status of a provincial Pakistani capital.
What passport did he travel on? There is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that he needed anything other than the US Passport that got this NY Times Journalist into Pakistan! There’s not a hint of ANYTHING that could lead any thinking person to suspect that he traveled on a non-US passport!
What possible basis do you have for suspecting that Obama traveled on a non-US passport?
I have yet to see you answer this question! Instead, you keep repeating the same nonsense about how it just does not seem like a great place to travel to. “De facto” travel ban. Martial Law.
Sorry, bud, the New York Times disproved this red herring on June 14, 1981!
Because Pakistan is an Islamic nation, most tourist attractions and all mosques are closed to visitors on Fridays. The Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (with an office in the Faletti’s Hotel complex and information publications available at major hotels) maintains up-to-date lists on museum opening hours, as well as on city tours.
For more information write to Pakistan International Airlines, 551 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017 (212-949-0477) or to the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations, 12 East 65th Street, New York, N.Y. 10021 (212-879-8600).
Yeah, it was a truly scary place. With a tourism development corporation.
Greg,
Perhaps you can’t see them too well because Doc is transparently right and Mario is transparently wrong!”
Opaquely,
Benji Franklin
The Sheriff,
Does it really matter?
Hmm. Public law? Where have I heard that before?
Wong Kim Ark:
Part IV of WKA. You might want to read it.
There is, therefore, little ground for the theory that, at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, there was any settled and definite rule of international law, generally recognized by civilized nations, inconsistent with the ancient rule of citizenship by birth within the dominion.
Gee Mario,
When Vattel says: “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” you parse the “or” to mean “also called”, thereby claiming the two terms are equivalent, presumably arguing that his “redundancy” was purposeful to make sure the reader understood the two classes named were being treated as one.
But when the Constitution says, “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” you parse the “or” to mean a delineation of two different pathways to eligibility, when the same language can be reasonably parsed as the Framer’s explicitly defining “Natural Born Citizenship” as “statutory citizenship equivalent to that extant in the colonies at the time of the writing of the Constitution.”
A little consistency please in parsing the word “or”. Do you want us to believe you’re just being “Mario” OR stupid?
Benji Franklin
Professor Eastman is advancing a theory rejected by the court in Wong Kim Ark. You can read the briefs in the case and see the same arguments being raised. They were rejected. His organization (The Claremont Institute) advanced the same arguments in an amicus brief (with him as counsel) to the Supreme Court in the Hamdi case, arguing that Constitutional rights should not be extended to him because his parents were guest workers here temporarily when he was born. Again, the Supreme Court rejected those arguments!
I guess the third time’s the charm? We’re supposed to pick up this losing argument and run with it?
James C. Ho did a pretty good job of putting those out-of-context quotes of Professor Eastman back into context and shows how the writers of the 14th Amendment meant no such thing. I encourage you to read his article because he did the historical research that Eastman did not.
What you lack in legal response, you make up for in ad hominem.
“New Englander and Yale review, Volume 15 Article VII: the Negro Race” is about the justices’ opinions in Dred Scott. The paragraph is pulled from the middle of an academic discussion about whether the status of free Negreos as citizens existed in the US. There are pages of laws from the early colonists on who gets to be a citizen. (All saying mere birth in the US, BTW)
The authors in that paragraph are trying to prove that free negroes in most states have been citizens from the beginning, and are now. It’s limited to citizenship discussion on that narrow point, and they choose the narrow example to prove their point. (The paragraph quoted is one of the few spots in the article where ancestry even comes up.) They are saying that unlike Justice Taney found in his decision, Free Negroes existed at the founding and became citizens, and since their children are also citizens, (and so on) that free negroes in 1857 were also natural born citizens of the states. There’s also a discussion on whether or not states could pick and choose who got to be citizens, and whether the US could. This was before the 14th amendment said that a citizen of a state was a citizen of the US.
They didn’t need to complicate it with naturalization, or intermarriages, or manumission, or any other way of obtaining citizenship.
Do you think that child is a citizen but just not able to be President?
That’s what Mario’s arguing. The Claremont Institute at least had some cajones and stuck to their guns, saying that that child would not be a citizen at all.
Chrysler would have been liquidated. There simply was not enough financing available for them to enter restructuring.
HAMDI et al. v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE, et al.
http://supreme.justia.com/us/542/507/case.html
“Does it really matter?”
It should.
“You were DWI (dumb-witted intellectual).”
Mario, as a counselor, you should be more precise in your use of language.
“Dumb” is an archaic term for mute. You meant “dim witted,” which I am assuredly not. It’s like the time you called me “a jerk and a fool.”
Jerk: “Slang. a contemptibly naive, fatuous, foolish, or inconsequential person.”
Fool: “a silly or stupid person; a person who lacks judgment or sense.”
So first, you were being redundant, and second, a lawyer should not be using slang, which is imprecise.
I think of myself as the classic fool: “a professional jester.” And by noting how many times I got your goat, I have succeeded.(bada-bing)
Don’t forget to tip your waitress, and drive safely.
You forgot to add he’s a Flying Dutchman.
“Where in the archives?”
The archives are permanently preserved by the Galactic Federation. I thought it was common knowledge.
“I guess the cat had your tongue.”
No, Max bites my hands.
“Why do you not just for once make a cogent legal argument?”
Oh the irony!
Bis repetita placent.
I note with interest that Mario, who is prompt to refute many other arguments, has repeatedly NOT denied my contention that he is in effect working to further some extreme right wing organization’s legal agenda.
I am not worthy! 🙂
“I have much more than just Vattel to support my arguments.”
I’m glad you do because really Vattel doesn’t support your argument.
Me, I stay away from all the discussions on Lynch, WKA, etc. because I freely admit that’s not my field at all. I enjoy reading them but I can’t offer a learned opinion.
I can on Vattel, however, and I wish you’d stop using him. Makes me wonder what else you’re misrepresenting.
Mario:
“I have maintained that Obama may be a “citizen of the United States,” if he was born in Hawaii.”
Not conceding an inch, are we, even in front of overwhelming evidence.
I know you’re not being truthful here, because you do know that Obama was, in fact, born in HI, but you’d rather come across as a lunatic for your cause, I suppose.
Mario:
“I have also said that he is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen.””
Thereby creating a mythical third class of citizen out of very thin air.
What this is is of course the thin end of the edge, reflecting the legal agenda of your ideological predecessors such as Gordon.
First we disenfranchise a whole class of not-white, not-christian, vaguely-foreign people by making them not-NBC.
Second, we expand the positions barred to them beyond the Presidency, like: “oooo can we trust a NOT-NBC to be Secretary of State?” “oooo can we trust a NOT-NBC on the supreme Court?”
(I ‘d bet good money that if you polled “should someone who is not a natural-born citizen of the United States be appointed to (say) the Supreme Court?” you’d get 30% to 40% who’d say no.
Last word go to Mario:
“But there is nothing unfair or unjust in my position.”
I rest my case.
Please kill me now.
“If anyone believes that that a saudi national and his wife while visiting the U.S. deliver a child that that child would be a natural born U.S. citizen is nuts.”
Careful, your bedsheets are showing.
Mario is KKK-lite, using what used to be called during the Cold War the salami technique (ie: the Russians taking over West Germany one town at a time).
Mario thinks he can succeed by targeting a very narrow focus. Thin end of the wedge as i said.
The Claremont Institute and other even more radical right wing organizations want to cut to chase and disenfranchise non-white, non-christian, etc. people.
There you are, refighting your Civil War in 2010.
It is exceedingly clear that Vattel used the plural parents meaning anyone parent; in the same fashion as he used the plural children when he also meant a child.
Mario’s logic would lead one to assume only twins or triplets or quadruplets etc could be NBCs.
Regarding the passport we know now that Obama visited Provence at about the same time, where he was identified as an American, hence he used an American passport.
Type of response from someone who has no argument. I’ll ask again, please provide any of the following:
(1) One case in history that says a natural born citizen requires citizen parents,
(2) One authority from the founding era defining natural born citizen or native with your definition,
(3) Any authority that there was a federal common law adopting your definition,
(4) Any authority that a 14th amendment citizen or native born citizen is different that a natural born citizen.
You can make assertions and mistread case law all you want, but you are not convincing anyone. The rest of the world knows what the common law rule was and see that all early legal authority points towards this rule. Your attempt to redefine the common law does no impress anyone.
red red rose: The two types of citizens are native born (born in the US) and naturalized (born elsewhere). A natural born citizen is a native citizen that had two US citizen parents at the time of birth.
Your conclusion doesn’t follow from the citations you listed. No one doubts that the phrase “native born citizen” exists, and that the courts use it. What you didn’t provide was any citation where a court or used “native, naturalized and natural” as three distinct classes. Your citation from Schneider shows just the opposite–natural and native used as equivalents. The courts frequently used native born and natural born interchangeably (for example in your own citation from Schneider).
1) Can you find one example in all the history of the United States where someone born a citizen outside the United States was called “naturalized” by a court?
2) Can you find precedent in all the history of the United States where someone born a citizen of the United States in the United States was designated a quality of citizen differently because of the status of the parents?
I leave you with this from Minor v Happersett:
and this from Luria v. United States, 231 U. S. 9 (1913) where “native citizen” is used as the presidential qualification.
even Emerich de Vattel (in translation) makes native and natural equivalent:
red red rose: It looks like the ones that were voting on it were saying that anyone born in the US with a foreign allegiance was not a US citizen.
The law of the land (the 14th Amendment) says “jurisdiction”. The courts have already decided that those born in the United States (ex. ambassadors) are fully under the jurisdiction of the United States. That is a settled question.
Hundreds of thousands if not millions of US citizens today have parents who are not citizens. What’s your point? Obviously (and the case was made in the Wong opinion at length) having foreign national parents does not make one not subject to the jurisdiction of the Unites States.
Yea, but US Citizens could still pick up a 30-day visa for free at the airport. So what’s your point.
I hear the sort of nutty idea that Obama would have been “safer” in Pakistan traveling on a non-US passport (which doesn’t seem to be true based on the NY Times travel articles). But US Citizens travel overseas today all the time on US passports, but pretending to be Canadians. Traveling around with a US passport hidden in one’s belt wallet doesn’t constitute a “kick me” sign on the back.
chufho: Its a giant leap to suppose chrysler would have been liquidated
Since that’s exactly what the bankruptcy court did, I would say not even a step is required, much less a leap.
chufho: If anyone believes that that a saudi national and his wife while visiting the U.S. deliver a child that that child would be a natural born U.S. citizen is nuts.
You’re wrong. Ask any immigration lawyer.
Mario Apuzzo: So you want me to accept that the Framers wanted a uniform definition for naturalization but not one for “natural born Citizens?”
That’s an interesting question. If, as you suggest, the Framers wanted a uniform definition for non-naturalized citizens and they didn’t provide for it, then I guess the felt that there was no need to change the status quo. Naturalization procedures varied widely between the states, justifying the Framers’ concern over uniformity. Citizenship for those born in the states, was however, universal and never required citizen parentage. Demonstrating that Congress wanted to go further, they passed the 1790 Act to extend citizenship to the children of citizens born overseas and even called those “natural born” too (in contradiction to your precious de Vattel).
The concept of a citizen parent requirement for the status of “natural born citizen” is simply not there when you look at the Framers.
OK, you have proved that there were bigots in history.
A lot of this stuff is comes from anti-immigration groups.
The “test widget” is broken. If a comment doesn’t appear on the first page, the link to it won’t work. I’ve been pestering the author to fix it. If you just page through the comments with the Older Comments link, you will see them eventually — not the best of solutions.
“Its a giant leap to suppose chrysler would have been liquidated.”
No one knows for certain, but pretty much everyone involved in the process thought that neither GM or Chrysler would be able to secure private debtor-in-possesion financing if they had to file prematurely. Thus, without a bailout or post-filing government financing, no one involved in the process thought they could survive as going entities. Can find plenty written on this from google.
Alexander Porter Morse was the attorney who signed an amicus brief at both the appellate level and at the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark arguing that citizenship in the US was jus sanguinis.
He lost.
Undaunted by his loss, in 1904, he published an article in the Albany Law Journal entitled “Natural-Born Citizen of the United States: Eligibility for the Office of the President.” It was in this article, as far as I can tell, that the first attempt at theorizing a class of citizen born here who would not be eligible for the Presidency.
The article was essentially unsourced and self-contradictory. It argued, for example, that natural-born must include those born abroad to US citizen parents because historically the phrase natural born subject included those children. Why should children of aliens born here be excluded when the ancient phrase natural born subject more clearly included them than those born abroad to citizen parents? Morse doesn’t really say.
So, that’s where it comes from. Morse’s original briefs in WKA were more coherent than Mario’s, but they tread the exact same ground. The folks who wanted to limit the rights of children born to aliens tried in Lynch v. Clarke. They tried in the California Chinese cases (in re Look Ting Sing, WKA, etc.). They lost.
The birthers are recycling tired retreads of the Know-Nothings.
Everything I’ve read says the meaning of “natural born” was universal at the Founding. Naturalization might have been different between the different states, but “natural born,” was universally understood.
Born here, regardless of parental citizenship.
Bailouts were started by Nixon, with Lockheed – so it was Republicans who started this whole concept. Second, the Swedish government is not going to rescue Saab. So much for socialism.
And Chrysler was formed from the bankruptcy of the Maxwell Motor Company. No Iaccoca to the rescue this time.
I went to Israel when there was a travel advisory from the State Department. As my friends and family said “only you would go to a war zone for a vacation.”
But I did travel with a Galactic Federation passport. I didn’t want them to know I was American.
Mario Apuzzo says:
Pakistan, with martial law and a civil war going on, did not sound like a place to which Americans would so freely travel to in 1981, although there were probably some who did go. You will have to ask Obama why he decided to go there under such conditions.
Mario,
Are you serious? You incorporated the “Pakistan travel ban” into your Complaint and you didn’t even bother to do some basic research about why Obama made the trip?
It’s all there, in Jake Tapper’s report of April 8, 2008:
In 1981 — the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University — Obama visited his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia. After that visit, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. The Obama campaign says Obama was in Pakistan for about three weeks, staying with his friend’s family in Karachi and also visiting Hyderabad in Southern India.
So Obama went to Pakistan with a college friend whose family was from there. How sinister! How improbable!
Are you familiar with the history of the Philippines? Did you know that in the late sixties and seventies the Philippines was facing a Communist insurrection and that the country was under martial law from 1972-1981? Yet Americans freely visted the country, and in fact thousands of retired American servicemen chose to make their homes there.
And quit trying to weasel out about the supposed travel ban. You know perfectly well that there would be no questions about Obama’s passport but for the claim that there was a travel ban. For once in your life, man up and admit that you were wrong.
Leo’s and Mario’s “audience” are the type of travelers, if they have a passport and have ever traveled outside the US at all, who go to Europe on a tour, wear their white Nikes, Ohio State sweatshirts and billed caps, want to know where to find some real food, and wonder why everyone knows they’re an American. Those are the “targets” for anti-Americanism overseas.
To those who do not read the discussion, it may indeed appear such.
Complete jurisdiction means that one is not protected by for instance diplomatic immunity from being held bound by the local laws.
Understanding of context helps.
More on allegiance and Trumbull
furthermore in WKA, r. Justice Story stated the reasons upon this point more at large, referring to Calvin’s Case, Blackstone’s Commentaries, and Doe v. Jones, above cited, and saying:
Understanding these terms helps resolve these issues quite easily.
Let me see if I can simplify this. The debates and various statements, in and out of context are all very interesting, but the actual words incorporated into the 14th Amendment are what is determinative. The key clause reads “and subject to the jusrisdiction thereof”. Now supposing one really wanted to exclude the children of aliens and dual citizens. One could accomplish that by inserting a single 4-letter word so that the clasue would read -“and subject to the SOLE jurisdiction thereof”. Then the clause would be clear; if you fall under any other jurisdiction (as would most children with even a single alien parent), sorry, no automatic citizenship for you.
But the clause of course doesn’t say “SOLE jurisdiction”, it simply says “jurisdiction”, meaning that the child can have multiple other citizenships by birth without impacting their US citizenship by birth (natural born citizenship). Whatever the intent might have been, you are stuck with the actual words that made it into the final version. Thus, in order to restrict US citizenship by birth (natural born citizenship) and forbid birthright US citizens from holding other citizenships would require amending the 14th Amendment.
It’s really that simple. The 4-letter word that isn’t in there.
Seems that Mario has caught a mistake on my part to avoid arguing the matter. That’s a common approach when the facts do not support one’s argument.
So let’s rephrase:
The Constitution mentions “natural born citizen” but does not define its meaning. As such the Courts have ruled quite consistently that one has to look at common law of those days to understand its meaning. The meaning was found in WKA to be guided by English Common law which was largely used to determine citizenship. As such, anyone born on US soil was not only a citizen, but also a natural born citizen. The same logic which led the court to determine that WKA was a citizen leads to the other inevitable conclusion that such a citizen could in fact run for president.
Courts and legislative and legal opinions all clearly support this.
In other words, the 14th Amendment merely clarified the meaning of terms used in Article II that
Subject to the jurisdiction has to be interpreted by realizing that this was added to specifically exclude children born to foreign dignitaries, invading military and Indians not taxed.
Jurisdiction and allegiance go hand in hand with location of birth.
Mario’s question is a foolish one as it ignores the purpose of the grandfather clause and of course, as Greg so skillfully explains, citizens include natural born as well as naturalized so they are not equivalent. A logical flaw on Mario’s part well exposed.
Mario is delightfully self-contradicting
Sven, it is good to see you are bringing back your ridiculous refugee status argument….What about your consular passport theory? You bringing that one back also? Did you forget when it was eviserated back when you originally presented it? You’re a funny guy…
Sven is back to make Mario look reasonable 🙂
I would just add that Obama’s college friend was quite wealthy. This is quite typical: wealthy foreigners send their children to be educated at US colleges… poor families can’t afford to do so.
So when the friend extended the invitation it probably quite attractive — in the sense that Obama was being invited to visit an exotic locale with very comfortable accommodations.
The question isn’t why he would go — the question is why any young person would ever pass up such an opportunity if it came their way?
And of course Obama would have traveled on his US passport — it would have been pretty tough to obtain any other sort of passport at that time. Indonesian passports expire after 5 years, so even in the unlikely event that Obama could have held an Indonesian passport at age 10, it would have long since expired when he went to Pakistan.
And we know that Obama returned as a US citizen from Indonesia, which presumes a US passport.
Mr. Apuzzo:
I am licensed to practice law and read and agree with the majority of posters here.
I have found it is generally not a good idea to discuss litigation strategy on a public forum. Thus, while you might enjoy the banter here (and I certainly do), it does not serve your client well.
I continue to wonder if this is really Hyderabad in Southern India or Hyderabad in Pakistan.
S. R. 511
Secretary Chertoff. My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen.
Chairman Leahy. That is mine, too. Thank you.
Rickey,
The only ones weaseling are those on this site who insist to talking about a travel ban. Really, do you think people raising this issue care about the travel ban. It’s the passport, stupid!
misha,
Is that all that you have to say for yourself?
Benji Franklin,
I hope the real Benji Franklin had more brains than you did.
I guess the Framers just did not tell us what to call all those millions of people to be born in the future.
misha,
I hear the place is quite pleasant? Were you well received?
Hey nbc,
Now I understand how Obama did it. He used his “passprot.’ HaHaHaHaHa
You know what they say about people in glass houses.
Greg,
Hey, really. The guy read a piece in the New York Times and got on a plane a checked the place out. Get a life.
Benji,
I take that to mean you are a little Benjamin.
I do not know if I ever met a person that I liked who started any sentence with “Gee Mario.” Wow, what does that say about you?
Obama has a US Passport.
We know that he had a US Passport at age 10.
We know that he has a US passport now.
So what’s the point? Clearly he could have and did travel to Pakistan in 1981 with his US Passport.
Dr. Conspiracy,
I know who difficult it is for you and your flock here to follow simple points. Its the passport, not the travel ban. Cut the crap!
Rickey,
Yea, he said to his friend, “let’s go and get our butts shot.
rigs,
Thank you for your opinion. Now can you provide me with the factual and legal foundation for it.
Mario Apuzzo: I know who difficult it is for you and your flock here to follow simple points. Its the passport, not the travel ban. Cut the crap!
I find such petty insults beneath someone who claims to be a professional. I would think a lawyer with your tenure wouldn’t have such a thin skin.
It is you who made a false statement in a certified complaint. The fact that you continue to dodge and weave and refuse to admit this fact in the light of conclusive evidence to the contrary is beyond any rationale I can think of.
The passport is just a diversion. There is no hint of any reason to think Obama had anything but a US Passport. To continue suggesting something without reason is, well, it’s irrational.
Thank you for continuing to provide bunk to fuel this debunking website.
Mario Apuzzo: It’s the passport, stupid!
Did you lie about that in the Kerchner complaint too?
While I agree with Secretary Chertoff and Senator Leahy, that understanding is far from universal. (If this were the case, then there would have been no need for a hearing or a Senate resolution supporting Senator McCain’s candidacy.)
I presume that by making the citation, you are suggesting that the meaning of the statement is as if it read “only if you are born of American parents” which is not what it says, nor what what either intended. For example, Senator Graham voted for SR 511, but he wrote to a constituent:
Well said
Oh, the beautiful irony of it all.
Do you agree or disagree Mario? And what does your client think of this?
Golly, Mario!
You confessed:
“I do not know if I ever met a person that I liked who started any sentence with “Gee Mario.”
How sad. I’ll bet your sainted mother started many sentences with precisely those words.
But I didn’t; look again, Mario. It wasn’t the beginning of a sentence. It was a congenial salutation meant to comfort you in your season of public embarrassment.
No footnotes in the history books for you, Mario. Racial hatred is not enough by itself. With a hapless legal strategy, and cloaked in incompetence, you’re a Lee Harvey Oswald without the courage or the rifle.
Thankfully,
Benji Franklin
rigs: Thus, while you might enjoy the banter here (and I certainly do), it does not serve your client well.
I don’t know how much you have followed the extra-legal aspects of the Kerchner case. The legal briefs are only a sideshow. The real intent is the publicity, evidenced by newspaper ads in the Washington Times by Mr. Apuzzo’s client, the most recent of which shows a chimpanzee with the label “courts”.
Kerchner v. Obama is a smear campaign, dressed up as a lawsuit. It is as fake as the allegations it makes.
Kerchner is not a happy dude.
Rewriting history again?
Dr. Conspiracy,
Do not tell me about the high moral ground. You and this site need many lessons on that score. You are the epitome here of hate, riducule, prejudice, racism, and extreme politics. You just do not have it in your natures to carry on a civil debate about an important subject.
Expelliarmus,
If he had all these U.S. passports, why hasn’t one surfaced with all the requests that have been made to see at least one?
The only thing that I see on this site as evidence of any U.S. passport is that “he must have had one.”
This is not difficult.
Dr. Conspiracy,
You just don’t like to lose, do you?
Dr. Conspiracy,
Now you hit a nerve talking about rewriting history. You and your flock here and others are great at it, even trying to write Vattel out of U.S. history. You and your sheep have some nerve calling him some Swiss philosopher who wrote some book. Why don’t you call for a live debate between me and you so that we can really lay the cards out on the table?
Again Mario is entertaining us with his incredible ironic comments.
Does he have no idea how descriptive these are of his own musings?
Because a passport is protected by privacy laws?
Just an educated guess.
So you ‘argument’ amounts to: given the lack of evidence this must be seen as evidence of lack of a passport?
Is that it?
Hilarious
Unlike you, Dr C has yet to experience what losing is really about…
You stand no chance my dear friend. No chance at all.
Since Mario started with his inane quip abour “passprot” above…
Mario: “You are the epitome here of hate, riducule, prejudice, racism, and extreme politics…”
I’ll stand for “riducule” (whatever that is). That sounds fun. Mario can have the rest.
I return again to the truth behind Mario’s shenanigans.
His actions (not just the suit but the surrounding publicity, etc) are the thin end of the edge, reflecting the legal agenda of ideological predecessors such as George Gordon.
(I have quoted chapter and verse from The Precepts here, which Mario has not denied.)
The tactic appears simple:
First disenfranchise a whole class of not-white, not-christian, vaguely-foreign people by making them citizen but not Natural Born Citizens.
Second, expand the positions (arguably) barred to them beyond the Presidency, like: Secretary of State or a seat on the Supreme Court.
Does anyone here want to bet that if Rasmussen polled the question: “Should someone who is not a natural-born citizen of the United States be appointed to the Supreme Court?” (for example) you’d get 30% to 40% of noes?
This is not about Obama’s eligibility, which is a convenient lever to move the prejudiced masses. This is far more toxic than that.
Wow.
Mario, you’re projecting so much we could use you to set up a drive-in movie theater.
What’s your next source, Mario? The Protocols? Mein Kampf?
Well, obviously you do like losing.
What I don’t get is the desire to bask in your losses. Most lawyers would prefer not to have their failed cases so well publicized.
I’m too busy just right now to find the link to the copy of Gordon’s Precepts (the founding text of the KKK) which I found on Google Books (as the appendix to a book on the KKK) and posted here a couple of weeks ago.
(Perhaps Dr. C could find and archive that link somewhere?)
The entire notion of redefining “natural-born citizen” not simply as someone born within the US (known exceptions excluded) and limiting it, in effect, to white, christian people of “American” ancestry (ie WASPs) (the irony being that Mario himself would not be a NBC under such rules) is clearly detailed and hammered in there.
If there is a common spring from which Mario and Donofrio’s rhetoric flow, it is not Vattel but Gordon’s Precepts.
Definitely worth a read.
I wonder if Mario would provide straight and direct answers to a few questions:
1. Obama announced his candidacy in January 2007. His father’s citizenship was a matter of public record at that time. By fall 2007 it was clear that Obama had a serious shot of winning and after the Iowa caucuses in January 2008, his odds of getting the nomination were at least 50:50. So, where were you all that time Mario? If you had real concerns and were a true patriot, surely you would have wanted to spare the country the trauma of electing an “ineligible” candidate and then having to go through the long drawn out process of trying to remove him post hoc. If there really were an ineligible candidate, it would be far better to remove him from the ballot BEFORE the election, no? Yet during all that time between January 2007 and November 2008, where was Mario?
2. Mario says the courts should rule on a definition of “natural born citizen”. Of course one court (the Indiana Court of Appeals) has, though not the way Mario would like. Unless appealed, the ruling stands. So I ask again, where is Mario? Why is he not in Indy appealing to the Indiana Supreme Court?
3. I have on many occasions offered a friendly wager to birthers on numerous sites that Barack Obama will complete his term (or terms) untroubled by anything related to his birth circumstances. Never has any birther been confident enough in their position to accept. So I ask again, where is Mario?
The book is “Precept” by George W. Gordon, a Confederate Army officer, and one Klan’s first members. I did not find the text on Google Books.
I don’t like to see irrationality win over rationality, logic over illogic, and revisionist history over history. Personally while I have a mild distaste at losing, I am certainly mature enough to accept it when I do.
I didn’t start this web site to support a particular point of view, just to debunk whatever was bunk. It just turns out that one side in this debate is mostly bunk, which makes it appear that I’m in an advocate’s role.
I have also asked Mario to provide us with any information whatsoever (articles, blog postings, briefs, etc.) indicating that he has ever cared about any constitutional issues, even bogus ones (e.g.: income tax is unconstitutional), prior to him being hired as a mouthpiece / sock puppet litigator by what is clearly some kind of right-wing / white supremacist movement.
He has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the issue while maintaining his transparently meretricious position.
Mario reminds me of the wonderful MURPHY BROWN episode where Wallace Shawn (the Siciian from PRINCESS BRIDE) played a guy who got elected to congress by appealing to every wacko right-wing conspiracy nut/racial supremacist in Arizona (I think?), and then found himself faced with actually preaching the message that had got him into office.
He was being interviewed on TV by Murphy, and had a little pile of index cards outlining “his” positions. Every time Murphy would ask him a question, he’d shuffle through the cards and find out what his opinion was. Every time, it was worse than the last.
He got this wonderful progressively queasy look every time he’d find out his position on some topic (a sort of “oh, god — I have to say THAT?” look).
The climax was something like:
Murphy: “But what you’re suggesting sounds like SLAVERY!”
Stuart: (shuffles through deck, winces…) “Slavery is such an ugly word…”
There was also a wonderful exchange that went:
Murphy: “You can’t possibly believe these things!”
Stuart: “Apparently… I do.”
At least, Wallace Shawn’s character had scruples; Mario, evidently, has none.
Otherwise it’s exactly the same thing.
Debate a professional advocate live? Surely you jest.
But speaking of history, I would be quite interested in yours. How did you happen to hook up with Mr. Kerchner. It has been reported that you are representing him for no fee, and one wonders what your motivation was to accept the task and how the relationship got started.
So who’s ideas do you think were more influential to the founding of America, de Vattel, Locke or Hume?
No one is trying to write de Vattel out of American history, just to follow the historical record as to what his influence was, and in the matter of citizenship, it appears that he was out of line with the British common law heritage of the American colonies and not at all influential except where certain persons of your anti-immigrant predilection go to find support for your ideas.
Here is the link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=6O_XYBMhNYAC&lpg=PA38&ots=fMf0ocKh3O&dq=George%20Gordon%20Prescript%20Order%20Klan&pg=PA409#v=onepage&q=&f=false
(Actually it’s under PRESCRIPT, not PRECEPTS. My bad.)
Those interested in researching the KKK’s definition of “Natural-Born Citizen” (and by extension Mario’s) should check the following passages:
APPENDIX B.
P. 421. Qualifying interrogatories.
P. 428.
P. 429. Prerequisites to Citizenship in the invisible empire.
P. 430. Article II. Object & Purpose.
P. 431. Article IV. Membership.
I can’t cut and paste since it’s a pdf doc. I think it would be worth archiving this somewhere.
The guy who cites Dred Scott freely has nothing to say for himself on that either.
I hope Kerchner’s money is worth it, ’cause it really has to suck not having any pride in one’s own self.
Next up: Doc taking the Losing Attorney on his offer, and to have Kapo Mario duck out like a coward then somehow still claim victory.
Same as it ever was.
1.) Throw bombs.
2.) Play the victim card when bombs are thrown back.
3.) …
4.) Show yourself to be a gigantic thin-skinned tool who has no pride in himself or his law degree.
Wait, no, that’s not how it went in South Park…
And just so we’re clear, saying that “if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” does NOT imply the reverse – that if you are NOT born of American parents you are not a natural-born American citizen.
Not only am I a lawyer, I tutored future lawyers on the LSAT. This is LSAT 101.
“If A then B” means the same as “If NOT B then NOT A.”
If you are NOT a natural-born American citizen, then your parents were not American.
“If A then B” does NOT mean the same as “If NOT A then NOT B” nor does it mean the same as “If B then A.”
A. If you study, you’ll get an A.
B. If you did not get an A, you did not study.
C. If you do not study, you will not get an A.
D. If you got an A, you must have studied.
If A is our statement, then B is the only proper conclusion you can draw from it. C and D are logical fallacies.
Using SR 511 to say anything about Obama’s citizenship is a logical fallacy.
You’re the paid legal advocate arguing that Pakistan was SO terrible a place to travel to in 1981.
My citation to the New York Times article was to show just how horrible and terrible and scary Pakistan was in 1981. So horrible, terrible and scary that they wrote a travel article about it.
That the other side did not move to strike these parts of your “verified” complaint and sanction you for failing to do the basic research required by Rule 11 it is proof positive that Obama has NOT spent millions on these issues.
You’re lucky, Mario, that they JUST moved to dismiss the complaint for failing to state a claim.
Perhaps you should get a copy of the rules of civil procedure?
If he was traveling to Mexico, France, Germany, would you be asking what passport he traveled on?
What possible reason do you have to doubt that he traveled on a US passport?
The NY Times article from 1981 proves that it was not that unusual or difficult or weird for Americans to travel to Pakistan on a US Passport!
Simple logic, Mario. If Pakistan isn’t that difficult to travel to, then there is no reason to doubt that Obama traveled on a US Passport.
That’s why YOU put the travel ban in YOUR “verified” complaint.
I call for a live debate between you and me so that we can really lay the cards out on the table.
I don’t even need the New York Times. I know personally an American who travelled to Pakistan on a US passport in the early 80s. In those days, other than Peshawar and a few parts of Karachi, Pakistan was much safer than many neighborhoods in New York City.
The first part of Leahy’s comments make it clear that this is about NBC status by NOT being born on US Soil.
“Chairman Leahy. We will come back to that. I would mention one other thing, if I might, Senator Specter. Let me just ask this: I believe–and we have had some question in this Committee to have a special law passed declaring that Senator McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal, that he meets the constitutional requirement to be President. I fully believe he does. I have never had any question in my mind that he meets our constitutional requirement. You are a former Federal judge. You are the head of the agency that executes Federal immigration law. Do you have any doubt in your mind–I mean, I have none in mine. Do you have any doubt in your mind that he is constitutionally eligible to become President?
Secretary Chertoff. My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen.
Chairman Leahy. That is mine, too. Thank you.”
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html
That was the full extent of the “Hearings” held on McCain’s eligibility.
I know that there are comments where the widget will send me to the last page and I can find the comment by clicking back through the older comments.
There are others, however, where I cannot find the comment within any of the older comments.
Your comment talking about “Typical Mario…” for example, does not show up on any of the older comments pages. I’m wondering if there’s an issue with the nesting – you had mentioned that sometimes your comments can be outside the normal limits of the page.
Your comment “Debate a paid advocate live…” also is not visible to me. I’m pretty sure that’s a nesting thing, since Mario’s comment doesn’t allow me to respond directly.
Like the New York Times travel writer said “I think I’ll write an article about how beautiful and calm Pakistan is so that Americans will go there and get their butts shot?”
Why do you keep stating that Pakistan was a terrible place to go while ignoring the New York Times travel article?
Vattel was in influential Swiss philosopher who influenced the Founders on international law. There is no evidence he influenced them on citizenship.
In one of your recent articles, for example, you cite Thomas Lee’s article, “The Safe-Conduct Theory of the Alien Tort Statute” for Vattel’s influence:
(Emphasis Added) I don’t think anyone here would dispute Vattel’s influence on international law. And with the exception of the partial dissent in The Venus (about domicile), a concurrence in Dred Scott, and the dissent in Wong Kim Ark, all of the Supreme Court’s citations to Vattel are confined to international law.
Indeed, when you go to Professor Lee’s article, you find a view of Vattel more in line with our view than yours:
Of course, we know that Blackstone was not silent on the issue of citizenship. He expounded the common law view. And we know that citizenship is never an international law issue. It is always the domestic law that controls. Defining citizenship is one of the principle features of national sovereignty.
You want to rewrite history to make Vattel more important than he was and infinitely more influential on the issue of citizenship. You want to rewrite history to make Vattel’s view of citizenship more universally accepted than it really was at the founding. You wrote, in that same recent article:
In fact, at the time of the founding, most “civilized” nations operated on the same principle of jus soli as England.
At the time of the founding, England granted citizenship to all those born within its borders, without regard to their citizenship. France granted citizenship to all those born within its borders, without regard to citizenship. Robert Joseph Pothier wrote in his treatise on French Citizenship, that “Les citoyens, les vrais et naturels Français, suivant la definition de Bacquat, sont ceux qui sont nes dans l’etendue de la domination francaise…” In other words, the true and natural citizens of France are those born within its borders. It was, in fact, the law of almost all European nations that citizenship was jus soli.
Even by the time of the passage of the 14th Amendment, it was not a universal understanding of nations that “natural born citizenship” required birth in the nation to two citizen parents. Only Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway imposed Vattel’s rule. Holland, Denmark and Portugal applied jus soli and France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece and Russia allowed the children of aliens to get the full rights of the natural-born if certain conditions were met. For example, France, Denmark, Portugal and Holland considered the child of aliens to be a citizen unless that child declined French citizenship before coming of age.
Not only were the nations not uniform in their understanding of citizenship, the writers about the “law of nations” were not uniform in their description of this supposedly universal law. First, Vattel appears to require only that the father make an intention to reside permanently in a nation (and it’s not clear that he requires two citizen parents). Pufendorf appears to be silent on the issue, while other prominent writers on the law of nations, Schmier, Domat, Burlamaqui, subscribe to some modified form of jus soli.
That’s why Justice Story wrote in his treatise on the Conflict of Laws
A reasonable qualification of the rule would seem to be, that it should not apply to the children of parents who were in itinere in the country, or who were abiding there for temporary purposes, as for health, or curiosity, or occasional business. It would be difficult, however, to assert, that in the present state of public law, such a qualification is universally established.
Story’s Conflict of Laws, 47, § 48
You and history are not on speaking terms, Mario. So, I don’t think history needs you to defend it against our alleged rewriting.
Greg,people with longer fingers are better at math also a dove is a pidgeon but a pidgeon is not a dove, you are overlooking the conclusion reached in the statement.Otherwise no conclusion would have been concurred.
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a `natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. -110th Congress, S
Breaking news with Leo Donofrio
http://www.examiner.com/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2009m12d14-Americas-Two-Unconstitutional-Presidents
This doesn’t help Leo’s case if he ever decides to file it…
The Supreme Court will not hear Indiana Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/orders/courtorders/121409zor.pdf
09-285
IN POLICE PENSION TRUST, ET AL. V. CHRYSLER LLC, ET AL.
The motion of Washington Legal Foundation, et al. for leave to file a brief as amici curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit with instructions to dismiss the appeal as moot. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36 (1950).
Because it’s a Christmas tree and because it’s a fir, we can conclude that it’s an evergreen tree.
Does that mean that both of those things are required to conclude that a tree is an evergreen?
Does that mean that only firs that are Christmas trees are evergreens?
Nothing new here. Collins btw was the losing lawyer in Wong Kim Ark. That he attempted to save face is not very remarkable.
Collins made many of the same arguments Donofrio and others are making and lost overwhelmingly at the SCOTUS hearing.
As I said, old news
Not breaking and not news. This is just a recapitulation of Leo’s basic Arthur thesis.
Of course, there is no evidence that Arthur hid his father’s naturalization status. There is no evidence that it would have mattered to anyone. George Collins argument was soundly rejected by the Court in Wong Kim Ark – he was the signing attorney on the amicus brief filed in that case.
This is just more of the same. This time with a picture.
Yawn.
Sven, there is nothing to see here in regards to this article….It is rehashed crap from Leo.
This paragraph is hilarious…
“A lawyer and scholar by the name of George D. Collins Esq. wrote an article regarding citizenship during Arthur’s term, that had the President seen it, would have concerned him. “Are Persons born Within the United States Ipso Facto Citizens thereof?” was published in the American Law Review in Sept. /Oct. 1884. Collins thesis reverberates through history: “… are persons born within the United States, whose fathers at the time of such birth were aliens, citizens there of?” Collins relies on two sources in particular for his answer.”
The writer is so disingenous that she fails to mention that Collins was the LOSING attorney in the Wong Kim Ark case. So his argument was already heard and dismissed. There is nothing new here. Leo must be getting desperate….
Then this part of the article was just misinformation….
“Barack Obama has hidden the truth right in the open, it has never been an issue of where he was born, it was who he is the son of. A British, Kenyan National. In the instant when Citizenship is decided, birth, he was British, Kenyan, and American. By definition, a person cannot be a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America while at the instant of their birth also being the citizen of any other Nation. A citizen? Yes, but not one that is solely native, solely natural, to the United States, and the United States alone.”
The writer obviously does not understand what a natural born citizen is. She must be John Charlton’s secret persona…
And finally we get to the actual point of the article, which is just a rehash of the previous articles…
“Barack Obama has hidden the truth right in the open, it has never been an issue of where he was born, it was who he is the son of. A British, Kenyan National. In the instant when Citizenship is decided, birth, he was British, Kenyan, and American. By definition, a person cannot be a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America while at the instant of their birth also being the citizen of any other Nation. A citizen? Yes, but not one that is solely native, solely natural, to the United States, and the United States alone.”
Again nothing new. The birthers must be getting desperate because they are rehashing the same debunked information. However the dismissal by the SCOTUS of the pension fund doesn’t really help Leo. And when is he actually going to file this case? When Nathan Deal actually gets around to mailing his letter to the President?
A commenter to the article had the best response…
Mr. Left says:
quo warranto is just a birther wet dream
one good thing, it keeps the wing nuts preoccupied so they don’t cause any real trouble.
My response above was for this so called article…The reply should be here…
Collins wrote his article in 1884.
This was 2 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. It was in defense of this that Collins wrote his article:
The same year as this article, 1884, In re Look Ting Sing was decided by Justice Field. This case was the death knell of Collins’ theory. It was the most influential of the Chinese cases. Justice Field was on the Supreme Court at the time and was riding circuit when he wrote that opinion. He was on the Court when it heard the case of Wong Kim Ark, but retired before the decision came out, making it a 6-2 decision.
And, of course, this article does not make the case that Arthur would have been ineligible for the Presidency, it makes the case that he would have not been a citizen.
There are only two options in Collins’ view for those born here – alien or natural born citizen.
That is, of course, the view of the Founders. None would have imagined a third class of citizen – born here but ineligible for the Presidency. We don’t see that possibility until after Wong Kim Ark, when Collins and other internationalists (like Alexander Porter Morse) retrenched and, in the face of their loss in that case, argued that natural born was only operative in the Presidential qualification clause, therefore, WKA didn’t make a natural born citizen, but just a citizen.
This view, of course, was counter-factual and a novel interpretation. Before WKA there was nobody who thought that there could be someone born here, become a citizen because of that birth, but not be eligible for the Presidency.
Does the Court know you’ve dismissed Leo’s case?
Yes. When Chief Justice Roberts swore Obama in that was what is called in poker a “tell”. It showed that he and his colleagues considered all birther cases nonsense and that all of them were rendered moot when Congress accepted the election results without objection.
Unfortunately Leo is not even a good enough poker to read such an obvious tell. Nor, obviously, are you.
Did I say that Leo’s case had been dismissed? No. Is that article about any breaking news in Leo’s case? No. It’s a recap of Leo’s theory of Chester Arthur. BS that’s been debunked here and elsewhere numerous times.
It’s not that Leo’s “case” has been dismissed, rather an overview of why Leo’s arguments fail. As to the “case” there are worse problems to deal with than the eligibility argument. Getting standing in a bankruptcy proceedings, will be incredibly unlikely. Arguing the constitutionality of President Obama’s actions is so indirect that it will be rejected as well.
Since Quo Warranto does not apply to the President, as legislative history so clearly shows, I have to ask you “what case”?
Lupin,
The Framer’s definition of a “natural born Citizen” is not discriminatory. Under the Framer’s definition of a “natural born Citizen,” i.e., a child born in the country to citizen parents, any person born in the United States to citizen parents is a “natural born Citizen,” regardless of race, color, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or physical condition.
The law saying that no one could marry outside their race was not discriminatory. No one could marry outside their race, regardless of race, color, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or physical condition.
Maybe you’re too old to have studied this sort of thing in law school.
Even pretending for a second that the Framers had this in mind, do you really think this view, which would say that two citizens, one born to an American mother and alien father couldn’t be President, and the other born out of wedlock to an American mother and alien father could be President, would constitute equal protection under the 14th Amendment?
But, regardless, that wasn’t the Framer’s definition of “natural born citizen.” That’s your definition of “natural born citizen.”
Generally, when legal scholars say that X is the Framer’s definition, they can point to something written by a Framer saying, “this is our definition.”
You, by contrast, have nothing of the sort.
You have a set definition of “natural born,” more than 400 years that the Framers must have known about since they used common law terms throughout the Constitution.
You have a distinct absence of the Framers detailing any changes to the term “natural born.”
You have half a dozen or more contemporaries of the Framers saying they did not intend a change in the term.
You have an influential state court case (cited numerous times in the Supreme Court and in other state and federal cases) tracing the unchanged meaning of the term.
You have a Supreme Court case explicitly finding that the term did not change.
Against this you have a Swiss philosopher quoted numerous times for his views on international law and almost never for his views on citizenship. (And the times he’s cited on citizenship it’s as often to say that citizenship follows the father as it is to say that citizenship requires both parents to be citizens.)
As they used say in some circles, “Your karate is weak, Mario.”
Greg, would an artificial christmas tree still be an evergreen
chufho: Do you have to be hit on the head in order to get it? The election is OVER, FINISHED, DONE and Obama won. He is President. Your liking or not liking it doesn’t change the fact. Like any President his actions (not his holding office) can be challenged in court. In the Chrysler case they were and the plaintiffs lost-also over, finished, done.
This is no different than Cindy Sheehan suing over the Iraq War because Bush didn’t win Florida. That election too was over, finished, done. You would have laughed at that case, I’m sure. This is even more frivolous. since at least in Cindy’s case human lives were involved.
“I have not yet begun to fight”
I believe the Florida election was visited by the supreme court as should the eligibilty issue
BEFORE Congress certified the results and the President was inaugurated. They were candidates Bush and Gore, not President. And the Congress could have over-ruled the court and thrown out the Florida electoral votes. Of course the Congress was Republican then, so that wasn’t going to happen.
Once Congress certifies and certainly after inauguration, courts have no jurisdiction. Read the decisions of Judges Carter, Land, etc. You can try again in 2012 when he becomes candidate Obama again. Till then, you’re just wasting your time (which I don’t care about) and the court’s time (which I do).
Mario- as everyone here knows- you are wrong- but wrong in the way of your usual lies.
I accidentally clicked on your name and went to your webstie and saw your Dec 6 list of lies and smears. How can you really sleep at night spewing forth that what you know is either a lie or intended to mislead? I was going to copy some of them, but the biggest loser of them all is asking why President Obama didn’t make his Grandmother availible for press interviews in February of 2008. The sad history of you- and the birthers- is that if she had sworn on a bible in front of reporters that Barrack Obama was born in Hawaii- you and the rest would be impugning her truthfulness.
The long list of the multiple reasons why you think President Obama was not eligible is ample evidence that this is not a constitutional issue for, its that you want that uppity black man out of the white house. You call the President the ursurper, but in reality, you are the one advocating Courts overthrowing a legally elected President. If anyone should be called a traitor, its you and your ilk.
I used to have some minimal respect for your posts, but your website just took care of it for me.
Would anyone born on a US military base be a natural born citizen?
Would McCain have been a natural born citizen if he had been born in California and not on a military base?
The same logical fallacy that says the Senate Resolution on McCain makes Obama a non-natural citizen can be used to say that only those born abroad on US military bases are natural born citizens.
Logic is hard, I understand, but the Senate is not saying that only those with 2 citizen parents are natural born citizens. They are saying that when talking about people born abroad, we can say with certainty that those born to two citizen parents and on a US Military base are natural born citizens.
If I say that all men are alive, that doesn’t imply that all women are dead. Except to idiots.
Mario, if the Founders adopted Vattel’s definition of natural born citizen, why did they:
1. Reject the equivalence between the words “native-born” and “natural-born?” We’ve pointed to dozens of cases which state that those born here to alien parents are native born citizens, yet you make a distinction between the two concepts.
2. Reject the other categories put forward by Vattel. As I’m sure you are aware, in section 212 of Vattel’s book, he states that those born here to aliens do not become citizens of any sort, at best, per section 213, they become perpetual inhabitants. Apparently, according to you, the Founders adopted Vattel’s “natural born citizen” but did NOT adopt his “perpetual inhabitants.” And the writers of the 14th Amendment did not speak, either, of “perpetual inhabitants,” but, again, according to you, made those children of aliens into “citizens.” Just not the same sort of citizen as a natural born citizen, enjoying all the perks of citizenship except being able to run for President.
In short, it appears that the Founders read Vattel very poorly, since they only adopted his definition of natural born citizen. They left the rest of his citizenship distinctions in the ashcan of history.
Greg: Logic is hard
Actually, the two logic courses I had in college were about the easiest classes I ever took.
SFJeff: Mario… How can you really sleep at night…?
You should look at what time of the night Mr. Apuzzo posts some of his messages.
I swear I didn’t go looking for this; it just popped into a drop-down list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_in_New_Jersey
Does the face in the cartoon look familiar?
Oh crap.
I sent this email to the author:
A bit of a thread jack, my collage roommate’s girlfriend’s parents had a home in the Barbados. Beach house with servants (not part of my upbringing). Spent 4 years there over winter break. I did travel there with my US passport.
Mario- you are quite a piece of work.
You put a claim in a law suit that there was a travel ban on travelling to Pakistan and therefore Obama must have been travelling on a non-U.S. passport there.
When it is pointed out that there was no ban- defacto or not- you then try to protest that the issue is the passport not the travel ban. But your travel ban claim is the only way you had to establish any doubt that he used his U.S. passport. No that the travel ban claim has been thoroughly refuted, do you admit your mistake?
Nope. You now claim he should show his passport just ‘because’.
Mario- your website if full of lies and innuendo. You have no moral high ground at all. Lies and innuendo are your stock in trade.
Oh and by the way- in the 1980’s you couldn’t get a better passport to travel on than a U.S. passport. It was almost embarressing to show my U.S. passport and be whisked through Customs ahead of folks from pretty much anywhere else. A U.S. passport was golden. There was no worries about terrorists or negative feedback. The worst that ever happened to me was my buddies Greek mother who yelled about the American’s in Lebanon.
Scientist- you should know by now that Mario is highly allergic to straight answers.
“Under the Framer’s definition of a “natural born Citizen,””
I missed that- where in the Constitution do they define NBC again Mario?
SFJeff,
I’m sorry if you feel that way, Jeff. But in a debate, there are always at least two sides. My essays are my side. I do not just make the things up. We will just have to agree to disagree.
And I ignore the questions from others who point out the gaping holes in your arguments
About Madelyn Dunham, you cite this article. WTF? It doesn’t have a thing to do with her. How does this article, which relates an interview with Stanley Dunham’s classmate, show that Obama refused to make Madelyn Dunham available to the press?
And, I’m sorry, but do they practice law differently in New Jersey? About Minor, you write:
Where I practice law, when the court says “For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts” that means they have not solved these doubts and it would be considered lying to the court to say, for example, that the case said that natural born citizenship required two citizen parents or that the Founders would have defined it as such.
This isn’t a difference of opinion, Mario. The Court said:
For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.
It is not simply another “side” in the debate to represent Minor that way, it’s a lie. Do they define lie differently in New Jersey?
Mario Apuzzo says:
The only ones weaseling are those on this site who insist to talking about a travel ban. Really, do you think people raising this issue care about the travel ban. It’s the passport, stupid!
You’re not only a weasel, you’re pathetic and disingenuous.
Everyone knows that your evidence-free conclusion that Obama traveled to Pakistan on a foreign passport flows directly from your evidence-contradicted premise that there was a travel ban on Americans traveling to Pakistan in 1981. The supposed travel ban is the only reason anyone would have to suspect that Obama did not travel on a U.S. passport.
Your premise has been definitively proven to be flawed, so it follows that your conclusion is flawed. You know this to be the case, which is why you obstinately refuse to admit that your premise is a lie.
You don’t get to see Obama’s passport for the same reason that you can’t see my passport and I can’t see your passport. Whether you are the president or a publicity-seeking ambulance chaser, you are protected by the same privacy laws.
Greg,
1. I have stated that during the Founding “native born citizen” meant the same as “natural born citizen.” I also said that it is not until later that to distinguish persons who were citizens by being born on U.S. soil from citizens by naturalization that the word “native born citizen” took on a more loose meaning, i.e., it no longer meant “natural born citizen” but rather a person who was a U.S. citizen by simply being born in the U.S. without any reference to the person’s parents.
2. After the Constitution was adopted, per the Founders and early Congresses, the children born in the U.S. to alien parents were not citizens. They had to naturalize, just as their parents did. When their parents naturalized, they automatically naturalized if they were minors. Wong Kim Ark changed this but did not change the definition of “natural born Citizens,” for it only changed the meaning of a “citizen of the United States” which is only the first step in the journey of those “citizens of the United States” parents being able to create a “natural born citizen.” Hence, Vattel’s view that “perpetual inhabitants” were not full citizens and that their children followed their condition was accepted by the Founders and early Congresses. I am sure that you know that today we have persons who are called “legal permanent residents” who are not U.S. citizens. They carry a “green card.” These are today’s “perpetual inhabitants.” These individuals can be prohibited from entering the United States or even be removed from it under conditions specified in our immigration laws.
In short, the Founders not only read Vattel very clearly but also adopted his main views on citizenship.
Mario, some questions for you:
1. If it was clear by the time of Wong Kim Ark that there was a distinction between “citizen” and “natural born citizen” such that everyone reading the decision at the time would realize that Wong could not run for President, why didn’t George Collins, the preeminent thinker on this topic, make that point in his amicus brief? Instead, he argued that Wong, if he was a citizen, would be eligible to run for President.
2. If it was clear that WKA made Wong only a citizen, why did the dissent in the case not realize it? They wrote:
3. If it is clear that Wong Kim Ark did not make children of aliens eligible to become President, why did the dissent in that case think that it did? In arguing that the children of our citizens born abroad should be considered natural-born citizens, the dissent writes:
What is the dissent talking about if it is clear that those born of aliens would never be eligible for the Presidency?
Mario Apuzzo: In short, the Founders not only read Vattel very clearly but also adopted his main views on citizenship.
They were just ashamed to admit it in public. Mario, I’m sure you know that the Ku Klux Klan was formed after the Civil War, not the Revolutionary War.
1. So, what’s the dividing line. When is the first case that says X is a native born citizen, but really means “citizen born here but not a natural born citizen?”
2.
Factually untrue.
As pointed out in Wong Kim Ark, it wasn’t until around 50 years after the founding that anyone doubted that the children of aliens were anything other than citizens.
Name one state or colony or Congressional act before 1835 that said that the children of aliens were not citizens.
As to naturalization, that’s not the same as perpetual inhabitants. Vattel deals with naturalization separately from perpetual inhabitants. And if those green-card holders have a child, they don’t also become green-card holders. They become citizens. In Vattel’s view, they would become green-card holders, and have the same right of “perpetual inhabitation” as the parents.
So, I guess if someone is here on an H-1B visa as a software engineer and they have a child, that child, in Vattel’s United States would also be a software engineer?
This is also an opinion from Munroe Smith.
‘Birther material’ Dr. C is what I called oposing material.
explain quo warranto
only that this was not the case. Some states adopted jus sanguinis and some other jus soli at the time of the original constitution. Not all states were following the British natural born subject doctrine.
Lupin,
You left out world domination.
I felt the same way when I took various logic classes in college too. However, I was quite surprised by how many of my classmates completely struggled in those same classes. I honestly think that a lot of people, for whatever reason, really have a difficult time grasping how logical structure and logical analogies work.
Greg , you seem to have a hard time staying focused we are looking at the tree not the forest, no one infered that anyone born on a military base is a nbc and yes maccain would have been a nbc if born california the answer you seek is the fact he was born to u.s. citizens. but you have maybe struck gold in a premise for a game show (read a fact than twist it around)or fast and loose
“explain quo warranto”
An excellent question. Quo warranto would be invoked, for example, when I trim my cat’s nails. He vocally, and physically, rebels against my insistance in cutting down his talons. So, an animal rights lawyer like Mario, Leo, or Orly will take him as a plaintiff and bring a lawsuit against me for violating his civil rights.
I will contact the ACLU, since I am entirely within my rights as his guardian and benefactor.
It’s really a simple case, but those three attorneys insist on making a federal case of it. Hence, quo warranto as opposed to a simple warrant.
If you have any more legal questions, I would be more than happy to explain them, such as why a legitimately elected president should be hounded out of office.
SFJeff,
Is that what you would tell the U.S. Supreme Court? Evidently, your knowledge of how constitutional law works is quite shallow.
“Evidently, your knowledge of how constitutional law works is quite shallow.”
As is yours.
Your wrong
The common law writ of quo warranto: a right under the Ninth Amendment which was understood and presumed by the Founders, and which affords the only judicial remedy for violations of the Constitution by public officials and agents.
“Your wrong”
No, you’re wrong.
Irony alert… My Goodness Mario, have you no sense of humor…
Remind us again, what is the Framers’ definition of NBC again? Or is it the Mario’s definition?…
Scientist,
I like how you finish your argument by showing the compassionate side of you. Your argument becomes more convincing that way.
Scientist,
You really are a good American. You even care about the court’s time.
If that is the case (I don’t have any learned opinion on what your Founders said or thought), then surely Obama is a Natural-Born Citizen, since one of his parents is a citizen.
The only possible loophole you can exploit is to state that citizenship is transmissible ONLY by the father, not the mother. Which you don’t.
Therefore you don’t have a case, even if your premise is true.
Yes, avoid the issue as usual.
When you’re not projecting your faults on others, you refuse to answer in straightforward matter.
Do you deny being associated with right-wing supremacists? A simple yes or no will do.
By simply trivializing the importance of quo warranto you are invoking a disservice to the foundation of the great free country in which you reside
British Nationality Act 1948
Citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies.
Citizenship by descent.
5.—(1) …a person born after the commencement of this Act shall be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies by descent if his father is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at the time of the birth…
You wanna give it a try? It might work.
But I doubt it
why a legitimately elected president should be hounded out of office
if you make a purchase in good faith and find out you have been misled you should be intitled to a remedy it takes both parties to make a legal transaction if one portrays oneself as medical dr. and then is later found fraudulent they then face legal ramifications
“By simply trivializing the importance of quo warranto you are invoking a disservice”
By dismissing the trauma to my cat, you are doing a disservice to animal rights.
“if one portrays oneself as medical dr. and then is later found fraudulent they then face legal ramifications”
Like Orly portraying herself as a lawyer, or Leo portraying himself as anything other than a mediocre poker player. Or Mario portraying himself as anything other than an ambulance chaser.
Greg,
You said you were so good in logic and even taught LSAT courses to future lawyers. Well let’s follow your Wong logic. You say:
1. The Dissent and Collins said if Wong is a “citizen” he is also a “natural born citizen.”
2. The Majority knows that the Dissent and Collins said that if it finds that Wong is a “citizen,” then he would also be a “natural born citizen.”
3. The Majority found Wong to be a “citizen.”
4. Therefore the Majority agreed that Wong is not only a “citizen” but also a “natural born citizen.”
Surely you do not believe that number 4 necessarily follows from numbers 1, 2, and 3?
guardian and benefactor
if you think the goverment is my guardian and benefactor than you are mistaken the goverment is my servant
where have you accumulated your logic
White supremacist attorney Mario Apuzzo would like us to believe that, according to the Founders, a person cannot be a Natural Born Citizen of the United States of America while at the instant of their birth also being the citizen of any other Nation.
This twisted interpretation would of course disenfranchise every child from non-citizen Latino parents born in this country.
“This twisted interpretation would of course disenfranchise every child from non-citizen Latino parents born in this country.”
Which is exactly their goal. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Gee, yesterday it was “name one act before 1860″…. did someone find something?
A Treatise on the Law of Citizenship in the United States
By Prentiss Webster (1891)
http://tiny.cc/CitizenshipLaw1891
WHO WERE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1836?
“The citizens of the United States, at this period, were the children of such former English subjects as had optated to become citizens, and such foreigners as had become legally naturalized.” page 88
“The first generation descended from the founders of the government and born in the United States were now in full age, enjoying full rights and privileges of citizenship, as the children of parents who were citizens by choice under the treaty of 1783. The second generation were born, and by virtue of birth of citizens of the United States, were following the citizenship of their parents under the rule of extraction.
When the first generation became of age each person so descended of a citizen of the United States, expressly or impliedly, himself became a citizen of the United States, or emigrated and became a citizen elsewhere.” page 88,89
Not so fast.
You are assuming that Bayard (and Hinman) thought that a child born to an alien parent on US soil was a native citizen. Bayard’s definition of a *native* citizen (and natural born citizen) was a child born on US soil to citizen parents.
Thomas F. Bayard was a US Senator from Delaware between 1869 and 1885, which includes the Chester Arthur administration (1881 – 1885). Bayard became Secretary of State in 1885.
In 1885, Secretary Bayard decided that the son of a German subject, born in Ohio, was not a citizen under the statute or the Constitution, because “he was on his birth ’subject to a foreign power,’ and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ “.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19579587/Nation-Article-Bayard
He never would have considered Arthur a “native citizen” or a “natural born citizen” only because he was born on US soil. Citizen parents were required.
Well, why did Hinman ask if the naturalization of Arthur’s father could make Arthur a natural born citizen?
Did I say that they followed from 1 and 2? No. Reading comprehension is ALSO tested on the LSAT.
I am asking why the dissent, who were there when the case was argued, who, presumably participated in the oral argument, who read the opinion, thought the opinion decided Wong was made a natural born citizen?
How did the dissent miss what is obvious to a DWI lawyer 100 years removed from the case?
Do you plan on answering the questions?
A. The judiciary can remedy violations of the Constitution by public officials in many other ways. If you don’t like the Obama bankruptcy actions, present a case that THEY violate the Constitution. They will be overturned.
B. Quo warranto is NOT a remedy allowed to attack the validity of a sitting president. The methods of removing a President are listed in the Constitution.
C. 8 USC 1401 – (written in 1952) – “The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” – Obama was born a natural born citizen of this country, by OUR laws. Whether he was the citizen of another country by THEIR laws is irrelevant.
In 1995, Obama wrote a book, Dreams from My Father, in which he told, in explicit detail, of his father. It has sold millions of copies and has been translated into at least 9 different languages.
In 2004, Obama gave a speech that was watched by 38 million people. In it, he stated, right at the front, that his father was a foreign student born in Kenya.
Who misled you? The dozens, if not hundreds of law professors and legal scholars who think that the citizenship of Obama’s dad is irrelevant to his status as a natural born citizen?
Chufho, please. Pay attention. You pointed to that sentence as requiring 2 citizen parents. It does not. Your logic is flawed. You’re pretending that all evergreens are fir trees because fir trees are evergreens.
Mario-Did you miss my challenge for a $100 bet that Obama completes his term(s) untouched by any of these cases or are you so lacking in confidence in the rightness of your position that you’re afraid to put your money where your mouth is? If the latter, that would be the one sensible position you’ve taken in the last year.
Some of us have real clients with real injuries, Mario. Every minute you waste with a case that is, in my opinion, sanctionably groundless, is a minute the court can’t be hearing a real case. The child rapist case. The death case. The personal injury case.
Yeah, the court’s time is a really trivial thing to worry about.
Now I can’t see red red rose’s response to me that starts, “Greg: Name one state or colony or Congressional act…” It should be comment 29962, but I can’t find it anywhere. I looked backwards and forwards through the comments. I looked at the post it was responding to.
I can’t see it either in the public UI. This is the comment:
So now you want courts to enforce campaign promises as a legal contract? Please, take a pill (or several) and go lie down.
red red rose, You miss my point entirely.
I don’t care what Bayard’s opinion was, only that he was addressing the true situation of Arthur’s father in a reply to Hinman’s question, from which we may draw the conclusion that Hinman knew it.
That is, knowing the true facts of Arthur’s father’s naturalization, Arthur opponent Hinman did not raise the issue in a 100-page book, from which one can infer that he didn’t think it was relevant (which it wasn’t). Hinman and Arthur were both New York lawyers and surely at least one of them was aware of the New York Chancery Court’s opinion from 40 years before stating that the children of aliens born in the United States are natural born citizens.
There was no coverup.
Mario Apuzzo: 1. The Dissent and Collins said if Wong is a “citizen” he is also a “natural born citizen.”
To which I add:
2. President Obama is a citizen
3. Therefore the Dissent in Wong and Collins would say he is a “natural born citizen”.
I was in the 95th percentile in the GRE math exam.
chufho: By simply trivializing the importance of quo warranto
If a court ever accepts such a case against Obama, we’ll give it front page coverage.
That is one article that birthers have been promoting for some time.
If you look at the entire article itself, you will see that they also claim the preceding Secretary changed his mind somewhere between 1881 and 1883. So, between 1883 (or 1882 – and Bayard’s answer to Hinman dates from January 1881)) and the decision in Wong Kim Ark, the Secretaries of State (note: not the courts, and that is in the article as well) interpreted “under the jurisdiction of the US” as meaning anyone with another nationality. Actually, that is what this article asserts, and I wonder if that is 100% the truth, because I have read somewhere (cannot trace it back) that the father of that “German subject, born in Ohio” was not present in the US at the time of his son’s birth. If they really changed their mind, I suspect it is easy to guess why: they were afraid of the repercussions of the 14th Amendment on the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The whole problem with your argument is that the Doctor is not saying that Bayard knew about Arthur’s British nationality, but THAT HINMAN KNEW. Why else would he have asked a question about naturalization of the father during the minority of his son – and the language of the response suggests Bayard did not know the question was about Arthur.
I would also like to point out to whoever it may concern that DAVID Eisenhower was born before Wong Kim Ark was decided. So were all his German forefathers, of course. Are we now arguing that Ike was not even a US citizen when born?
Actually, I have come to know Leo a little bit better. He is a failed lawyer – said so himself. He is a less than mediocre poker player. How good he still is at chess, is different to ascertain, since he has a habit of leaving tournaments when it looks like staying on would cause his ELO (I kid you not) rating to go down. He also thinks he is the Paraclete. Kibbitzer at law, poker, chess and religion.
However, as a natural born Italian, he does have some musical skills. So, Leo, here is to you, from the Alps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FbqFkICtjI
(“Everybody comes running, when you mention Leo”)
Hear, hear! Bravo!
Take 2 Xanax, and call me in the morning.
Given that Mario has been spectacularly the loser in every instance so far, from court to this blog’s comments, I’d say it is the other way around…
One fact about the Wong Kim Ark case which seems to have been overlooked is that the district court decision which the government appealed to the Supreme Court apparently did in fact declare that Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen. From the government’s Supreme Court brief:
The question presented by this appeal may be thus stated: Is a person born within the United States of alien parents domiciled therein a citizen therof by the fact of his birth? The appellant maintains the negative, and in that behalf assigns as error the ruling of the district court that the respondent is a natural-born citizen, and on that ground holding him exempt from the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act and permitting him to land.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23965360/Wong-Kim-Ark-US-v-169-US-649-1898-Appellants-Brief-USA
Thus, even the government conceded that the district court ruling said that Wong Kim Ark was a natural-born citizen, in spite of the fact that neither of his parents were citizens. Since the district court ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court without modification, it follows that the Supreme Court also ruled that Wong Kim Ark was a natural-born citizen.
“if you make a purchase in good faith and find out you have been misled you should be intitled to a remedy”
Luckily for you, the Constitution does have remedies. Any President can be impeached and convicted by Congress.
“if you think the goverment is my guardian and benefactor than you are mistaken the goverment is my servant”
Guardian: Armed Forces, Coast Guard, FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, U.S.D.A., FDA
Benefactor: Social Security, Medicare, the Interstate Highway System, The Park Service.
Servant: The government is the servant of THE People, not a person. As a person, you cannot ‘fire’ the President. As the people, we through our elected representatives can ‘fire’ the President.
His father did not domicile in the U.S., so the answer is no.
So you are saying President Obama is not a citizen?
Well, not under WKA ruling.
Domicile. Big word. Do you know what it means? Did you know that you cannot determine a domicile by looking retrospectively at a person’s actions, but must determine that person’s intentions at the time of the event in question.
So, what evidence do you have about Obama Sr.’s intentions when his son were born? I think the fact that he had gotten married and had a child give a pretty strong indication that at the time of his child’s birth, he had formed the requisite intention to stay in the country to have formed a domicile.
Anyway, what is it with you guys and failing to read any of the reasoning of the case. Wong’s citizenship didn’t hinge on his parents’ domiciling in the country, it hinged on his parents allegiance to the country. Where did that allegiance come from? By their simple residence in the country!
The law isn’t just about finding the holding of the case, it’s about figuring out what reasoning went into that holding and whether that reasoning will apply to the next set of facts.
Greg,
You can throw that LSAT stuff around all you want. It’s not going to get you any medals or make you any smarter.
You were trying to convince people that Wong Kim Ark did find that Wong was a “natural born Citizen.” You used the dissent’s and Collins’ position that Wong would then be eligible to be President if the Court ruled that he was a citizen to prove your point. You might fool others on this site but you do not fool me.
Poor misha, resorting to cat tales.
misha,
How do you stand yourself?
Greg,
You forgot about his place of birth. It would be nice to have some transparency on that score.
Scientist,
You finally said something funny.
Lupin,
Do your fans a favor and learn how to write a sentence that makes sense.
Poor Mario, resorting to a Constitutional poseur.
Rickey,
The holding of a case gets its life from what the court said not what you assume it thought.
Just think, my wife lives with this 24/7.(bada-bing)
Actually, our Taiwanese neices think I’m a riot.
Let that be your first lesson Mario…
Honolulu Hawaii as his COLB states.
Whats the matter your cat got your tongue and I mean no disrespect to the cat
I am an animal lover
After you.
Mario,
The district court ruled that Wong Kim Ark was a natural born citizen.
The Supreme Court upheld the district court ruling.
What part of that do you not understand?
misha,
An advocate is someone who is everything he or she has to be. We are all advocates at one time or another, including you and Dr. Conspiracy.
These exist in sevice to we the people
No, but I got your goat.
Dear Mario,
You wrote: “You forgot about his place of birth. It would be nice to have some transparency on that score.”
What a vacuous complaint! From someone who endlessly claims he can see right through Obama’s C.O.L.B.
Here’s a score for you, Mario; fifty some ODD cases to NOTHING!
Translucently,
Benji Franklin
Actually I was quoting verbatim (but without quote marks), cut and paste, your sock puppet from the Columbia Examiner!
You fell right for it!!!
Of the irony!
White supremacist sock puppet litigator Mario, when repeatedly confronted with absolutely incontrovertible evidence that he is factually wrong on a specific issue, will simply not respond and move on to some ad hominem attack.
“When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.” Al Gore.
“What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith…”
Like this
Which, if true, I suppose, would definitely bar him from being a NBC? Is that your point?
To paraphrase your former Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen, one can’t be too careful about the Macacas.
@chufho:
And your point is?
So, when the court said in Section II of the case (pp. 655-658) that natural born subject meant born in England regardless of the parents’ citizenship and in Section III of the case (pp. 658-666) that the US phrase “natural born citizen” meant the exact same thing, that’s what gives the holding its life?
And, when in Section IV of the case (pp. 666-675) where the court rejects the notion of citizenship following the condition of the parents, that gives the holding its life? And in Section V (pp. 675-694) where the court says the 14th Amendment did not limit the definition of natural born citizenship, that is part of the life of the case?
Then, why do you only ever pay attention to the holding, Mario?
Let me speak slowly, Mario.
Yes, I was trying to convince people that WKA found Wong a natural born citizen. I did not, however, say that Obama’s eligibility followed from the opinions of the dissent or Collins.
My point, which is reinforced by your refusal to understand my simple question, is that you have misread Wong Kim Ark. My point is that if yours is such a common-sense interpretation of the case then the dissent or Collins would have figured it out.
My simple question is if your interpretation is right, why didn’t the dissent or Collins figure it out?
Are you back to place of birth? Given up on Vattel?
nbc,
Oh, how the rats scuttle to claim victory!
That’s kind of harsh, I don’t think you’re a rat!
Actually, I think we can all answer the question I posed.
You only pay attention to the holding in Wong because to do otherwise would eviscerate your case. In order to represent your client, you feel you have to misrepresent Wong. Since there is no way to distinguish the reasoning of Wong, you think you have to pretend that the reasoning didn’t happen.
So, when the Supreme Court said in Luria v. US:
Under our Constitution, a naturalized citizen stands on an equal footing with the native citizen in all respects, save that of eligibility to the Presidency.
That implies that the “native citizen” is eligible for the Presidency, right?
Can we agree, then, that “native” was synonymous with “natural” at any time before Luria was written in 1913?
Greg,
You seem to have forgotten about due process.
Also, you say you are so concerned about the court’s time. Why do you not support the idea that Obama simply produce his birth certificate? Would that not be a great savings in court time, money, and aggravation?
Mario-All birther cases were rendered moot by the following Supreme Court ruling in January 2009.
http://www.reobama.com/images/12PM_InauguralAddress_SwornIn_ChiefJustice_JohnRoberts_Reuters.jpg
But Mario aren’t you also pushing the ridiculous Vattel theory that Obama is ineligible because both of his parents were not citizens at the time of his birth so he is not a “natural born citizen”? So how could releasing his BC solve anything? In other words the BC is just a strawman for the untimate prize, which for you is removing the rightfully elected President of the US.
You have no due process right to bring cases without any grounding in fact. 60+ cases have been dismissed because the plaintiffs involved, including Kerchner, weren’t injured in the case.
Why doesn’t Obama just release his birth certificate?
Have you read your complaint recently? Your case would not go away with the release of the birth certificate.
You sued Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, the Congress, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and Nancy Pelosi. Your complaints against every non-Obama defendant is based on their failure to verify his birth certificate.
In addition, you allege he is not qualified based on his father’s citizenship, his alleged adoption by his step-father, and his alleged travel on a foreign passport.
For non-lawyers, you can look at Phil Berg’s long, long list of requested documents from the DNC, Obama and others for a glimpse of why no sensible defendant would ever accede to this sort of legal blackmail. “Just release this one document, and this will all go away.” Or consider that Paula Jones lawsuit against Clinton was on-going for the entirety of his Presidency.
Finally, remember that standing is an important doctrine. Obama won’t be President forever, and this isn’t the only issue that affects all Americans that people will want to sue on. By what right do you seek to petition our courts, what injury was suffered? And how do you distinguish Kerchner’s injury from the injury I suffer when taxed for a plan I don’t agree with?
Mario,
Just keep making stuff up without citing any authority.
“I also said that it is not until later that to distinguish persons who were citizens by being born on U.S. soil from citizens by naturalization that the word “native born citizen” took on a more loose meaning, i.e., it no longer meant “natural born citizen” but rather a person who was a U.S. citizen by simply being born in the U.S. without any reference to the person’s parents.”
Name one early authoriy defining “native born” in accordance with your definition. There are none. It was without exception defined by place of birth by all early authority and even in the constitutional convention. I suggest you read Kent, Bouvier, Duer, Hilliard, Pomeroy, Townsend, McCreery’s Lessee v. Somerville. And exactly what later authority distinguishes these terms? Wong Kim Ark certainlty doesn’t.
“After the Constitution was adopted, per the Founders and early Congresses, the children born in the U.S. to alien parents were not citizens.”
Cite one early case or scholar that supports this. Again there are none. Since you clearly have not done much research on this I suggest you look at the following which all disagree with you:
Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. At 120 and McCreery v. Somerville, 9 Wheat. 354, 356 (1824)); Horace Binney, Alienigenae of the United States, 2 Amer. Law Reg.193, 203, 204 (1854); Lynch v. Clark, 3 N.Y.Leg.Obs. 236, 246 (1844), Garder v. Ward, 2 MassJames Madison, The Framers’ Constitution Volume 2, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2, Document 6 (1789). A partial list of other early authorities Gray could have cited as evidence of the continuance of the rule of Calvin’s Case in the United States would include Zephaniah Swift, A system of the laws of the state of Connecticut: in six books, In Six Book, pg. 163,167 (1795), St. George Tucker, supra, at 365, William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 86 (1829), William Duer, Outlines of the Constitutional Jurisprudence of the United States, pg. 165 (1933), American Jurust and Law Magizene, supra, pg. 251, Bouvier Law Dictionary, pg. 265 (1843), George Washington Paschal, The Constitution of the United States Defined and Carefully Annotated, pg. 274 (1868), George Bancroft, History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent: The American Revolution., pg. 439 (1866); Ainslie v. Martin, 9 Mass. 454, 456, 457 (1813), Amy v. Smith, 11 Ky. 326, 340 (Ky. 1822), Leake v. Gilchrist, 13 N.C. 73 (N.C. 1829), Jacksons v. Sanders, 2 Leigh 109 (1830), Barzizas v. Hopkins, 2 Randolph, 276 (1824); Crandall v. State, 10 Conn. 339 (1834), Trezevant v. Estate of Henry Osborn, 3 Brev. 29, 30 (S.C. 1812) and West v. West , 8 Paige. 433 (NY 1840).
“Wong Kim Ark changed this but did not change the definition of “natural born Citizens,” for it only changed the meaning of a “citizen of the United States” which is only the first step in the journey of those “citizens of the United States” parents being able to create a “natural born citizen.”
It is clear you’ve never actually read Wong Kim Ark. The court held that thet 14th amendment was declaratory of the law that existed before its adoption and that law was the english common law. The court did not change anything and all early authority supports its view.
Also, you can keep saying that the court did not define “natural born citizen” all you want bbut for those who can read like the Indiana appeals court, the court clearly states that “natural born citizen” should be defined by the english common law and that the english common law rule that made children of aliens contined to prevail after the revolution and under our consitution. The court then cites authority specifically defining natural born citizen in accordance with the english common law. Not really that difficult to understand if one doesn’t have an agenda. The fact that the court didn’t call him “natural born” means nothing after the court made clear that the 14th amendment and the Art II. were both defined by the same common law rules.
He has… That has not stopped other from coming up with imaginative ideas about natural born citizenship.
I get it now. That’s a hilarious joke, Mr. Vattel!
Don’t be too harsh on yourself Mario…
Chufho, your muslim faith is immaterial. I would imagine that, and the fact that he doesn’t know you is why John McCain hasn’t talked about it.
Dear Greg,
Thanks. Mario is not too stupid to know that you have eviscerated him on each and every point. He hangs around here because he likes us more than he likes his embittered clients! He blushes to us for stooping so low by hinting that he is nobly baring the burden of non-judgmental advocacy. He has traded advocating for the unjustly accused for advocating for the unjust accusers. Oh how he dances to avoid answering your substantive questions. He would run from facing you in court on these subjects; he’d have no where to hide!
Thanks again for your monumental contributions here!
Sincerely,
Benji Franklin
“if you think the goverment is my guardian and benefactor than you are mistaken the goverment is my servant”
“These exist in sevice to we the people”
These exist to guard the people of the United States and to benefit the people of the United States- not you the person object to.
The government, in order to lawfully protect the people of the United States may do things that you.
As an example- the CPSC might rule that an item that you manufacturer violates Child Safety rules and order a recall of all of your product. You as the individual may suffer, but the CPSC is acting legally to protect “we the people”. This is the compact we make with our goverment.
“why a legitimately elected president should be hounded out of office”
A good example of how a legitimately elected president should be hounded out of office is Richard Nixon. He abetted the breaking of the law for political purposes, and obstructed justice of an actual crime. As EVIDENCE emerged pointing towards President Nixon’s culpability, the political pressure increased upon him and Congress to act. If he had not resigned he would have been impeached.
Of course, in Nixon’s case there was both evidence and actual public interest. I don’t remember anyone ever asking Nixon to prove that he wasn’t at the Watergate Towers that night.
Someone posted the following comment from our good buddy Leo…From reading it you can tell he believes that he is a legend in his own mind…No wonder why he and Mario could not get along…Their massive egos along with their misreading of Wong, there was probably no room for anything else to be acomplished…
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/further-analysis-of-the-scotus-decision-for-in-re-chrysler-dated-dec-14-2009/
“…I admit, none of this analysis seems equitable, fair or even possible. But there is a trend in law and government now where important issues are based on tongue twisting complex interpretations of statutory construction which appear to obviously say one thing but which – under an intense microscopic review of the technicalities – actually say something vastly different and in a language written in Martian legalese and translated by intellectual harbingers of tidy chaos preaching esoteric unholy scripture based upon what the meaning of is isn’t…”
Of course, Obama’s religious beliefs aren’t relevant to anything regarding his eligibility, but chufho unsurprisingly took Obama’s slip of the tongue out of context. Obama was being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and he immediately corrected himself.
Mario Apuzzo: Why do you not support the idea that Obama simply produce his birth certificate? Would that not be a great savings in court time, money, and aggravation?
I think this little remark, and it’s millions of replications on the Internet and in chain emails is the single greatest factor in the persistence of Obama conspiracy theories. It works because it is simple and caters to the frequent acceptance of the adage: “where there is smoke, there is fire.”
However, this argument only works on the ignorant. I know of only one case (Essek v Obama) where perhaps production of a birth certificate would have resolved the case; however the judge dismissed the case before Obama even had the opportunity to offer the certificate.
And the argument only works on people who do not really believe in the American principle of innocent until proven guilty. Sometimes when “there is smoke” it’s just somebody blowing smoke.
In my other secret identity, I am an advocate for truth, justice, and the American way.
Mario Apuzzo: You forgot about his place of birth. It would be nice to have some transparency on that score.
Clean your glasses.
Yes, legends in their own minds. Before I practiced law, I thought I was so clever in coming up with novel, inventive interpretations of legal authority and actually thought someone would care. Didn’t take long to find out that judges have little patience for such amateur antics. They can read and know the limits of honest interpretation. The twisted, tortured interpretations from these amateurs just ensures they will not be taken seriously by any court, as the record shows.
“Oh, how the rats scuttle to claim victory!”
Are you going to represent them?
I lived through that. I was being sarcastic about Obama and Clinton. I think Clinton was payback for Nixon.
Of course, Agnew was shaking down contractors. I still remember the newspaper account of one contractor, who said he drove in from Baltimore, and gave Agnew $5K cash in his Executive Office building chambers.
And I remember, when the story first broke, how Agnew said it was a smear campaign by the media and liberals!
Ah yes, the nattering nabobs of negativism.
ballantine,
Let us ask ourselves who is doing the “twisted, tortured interpretations.” You and your supporters tell us that a British feudal and monarchial “natural born subject” is the same thing as a Constitutional Republic U.S. “natural born Citizen.” You would like to read Article II “natural born Citizen” out of the Constitution. You are happy with just the 14th Amendment. Then you take the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and say it means only being physically present on U.S. soil when in any event you have got to be physically present on U.S. soil in order to be born here. I can keep on going but this is enough for now.
It’s not just us, Mario. It’s the Supreme Court and other courts. The term “citizen,” as understood in our law, is precisely analogous to the term “subject” in the common law, and the change of phrase has entirely resulted from the change of government. The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the collective body of the people, and he who before as a “subject of the king” is now “a citizen of the State.” That’s the Supreme Court in Wong quoting the Supreme Court of North Carolina. And Wong quoting Kent: “Subject and citizen are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives, and though the term citizen seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, subjects, for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.”
Nope. The 14th Amendment is declaratory of what was in Article II. It’s just that YOU are reading Article II incorrectly.
I’m sorry that you don’t like the law of Wong Kim Ark. It says, “It can hardly be denied that an alien is completely subject to the political jurisdiction of the country in which he resides…”
The law’s against you. I hold out hope that this is just posture for your client. But accusing us of a “twisted” interpretation of the law, when we are, in fact, quoting from the cases is an assault on common sense.
Of course, your replies are just the same old insults with no legal authority to back them up as we all know you have no legal authority. Maybe that works in DWI cases, but it is not very useful in constitutional cases. Let us look at your latest nonsense:
“Let us ask ourselves who is doing the “twisted, tortured interpretations.” You and your supporters tell us that a British feudal and monarchial “natural born subject” is the same thing as a Constitutional Republic U.S. “natural born Citizen.”
Of course, that is what all early authority, without execption, says. Please cite any authority to the contrary. Of course, you cannot. It is clear you have done no research but I assume you can read. Let’s just look at Wong kim Ark, for example:
“All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England.”
Gee, Natural Born Subject has the same meaning as Natural Born Citizen. Let’s look further:
“The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words “citizen of the United States,” and “natural-born citizen of the United States….The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution….The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.”
Pretty clear that “natural born citizen” is to be defined by the English common law if you can read english.
“therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
Gee, the rule that made children of aliens natural born subjects continued after the declaration and prevailed under the original constitution. Is it really the case that you can’t read?
I keep challenging you to produce one early authority defining natural born citizen in accordance with your definintion. You can produce none. The same can be said of your definition of “native born,” your defintion of the “common law” or your claim that citizenship descended from parents rather than from place of birth. If you want, I can cite a multitude of authority on each of these points.
You are once again forgetting the logic involved: The Constitution leaves the term natural born citizen undefined and thus the Supreme Court has ruled that one has to look at common law to understand how the term was used. In the prevailing common law, the fact was that anyone born on US soil was a natural born citizen.
Subject to jurisdiction thereof was added to exclude a small group of people who did not fall under the jurisdiction, such as children born to ambassadors, invading military, Indians not paying taxes and born on foreign ships.
It’s all so simple Mario, I cannot comprehend why you are still struggling with these simple facts.
PS: There is no common law history that the child follows the status of the father…
Ouch…
Excellent points, Mario lacks support in facts. But his fiction is marvelous… But why spin such a fallacious story? What’s the intent?
Again this is in service to we the people
are you unable to care for yourself
let me tell you all your tap dancing does not change the fact that obama refuses to show his birth certificate and all of your critical thinking does not surpass that a natural born citizen which is very easily understood to be born to to two US citizens
the courts will confer to think anything other than this shows a lack of honor if anything you should be asking these same questions, early someone posted that illegal aliens would be disinfranchised by the finding that obama is not a natural born citizen and before any of you reply read all of everyones post you seem to focus on only a small portion and then it makes you look stupid thats right stupid by the way ben nelson has casterated himself by trying to pull something to gain for nebraska he is out classed by the chicago style politics,
thats right use of the bat works everytime
“intellectual harbingers of tidy chaos” would make a good title for a comic-book.
I love comics but I don’t think that writing like Stan Lee helps his case.
Mario: “You and your supporters tell us that a British feudal and monarchial “natural born subject” is the same thing as a Constitutional Republic U.S. “natural born Citizen.””
Would it be incorrect to state that, if I were to replace “British feudal and monarchial “natural born subject”” in the preceding quote by “child born on US soil of Mexican parents” your reasoning would be exactly the same?
This is why your definition of “natural born citizen” (which is actually the white supremacist definition) is profoundly racist.
you need to practice a hell of a lot more you have no clue what a judge thinks you are still in the bush leagues
@chufho: Is English your native language, or do you write in birther speak?
Coming from the side that is 0-60 in cases that have gone before judges.
“PS: There is no common law history that the child follows the status of the father…”
I assume the claim with respect to the common law relates to Ludlam v. Ludlam, 26 NY 356 (1863) and its progeny. Ludlam looked to the English common law to define citizenship under the Constitution (sound familiar). However, the court held that the English common law included citizenship by descent (jus sanguinis) as well as by locality of birth (jus soli). This position was clearly contrary to almost all English and american authoritities on the common law. Kent, for example, called such a “dormant and doubtful” principle. Several later cases cited Ludlam for this proposition but neither Ludlam nor any of these cases ever challanged the validity of the basic common law principle of locality of birth. Wong Kim Ark, by the way, rejected the notion that the common law included citizenship by descent.
Elsehwere, Orly’s first smart move has been to hire a lawyer to appeal Judge Land’s sanctions.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24233365/RHODES-v-MacDONALD-et-al-APPEAL-E-Brief-Tendered-Appellant-PCRQHR4P
Mr. Levy also is a graduate of William Howard Taft University, but his brief is a model of legal scholarship compared to the nonsense which Orly routinely spews.
http://lawyers.law.cornell.edu/lawyer/dr-jonathan-harris-levy-166507
“Again this is in service to we the people
are you unable to care for yourself”
Exactly my point- the government serves the people- not you the person. The government protects we the people, and provides benefits to we the people that we(as individuals) would not have.
So the government is not YOUR servant, it is our collective servant. We the people elected the President, and we the people, through our elected representatives can remove him. You, the individual, propose to ursurp the rights of We the People, by negating the results of our vote.
Chuffo- you are becoming more and more amusing.
President Obama has shown his birth certificate. Who else should he be showing it to? Does he have an obligation somewhere in the Constitution to provide a copy to every citizen personally?
“that a natural born citizen which is very easily understood to be born to to two US citizens”
First of all- if you really believe this- why do you care about the Birth Certificate? If you really think his father being Kenyan disqualifies him, then what could the Birth Certificate show that would be meaningful? Clearly you are just concerned about getting the President out of office, not whether he is really eligible or not.
Secondly- you have been shown very clearly that there is nothing in the Constitution that says both parents must be citizens. This has all been made up by Mario and his Birther brethren. There are no courts or legal scholars or anyone else with any gravitas that believes this to be true.
The rest of your post frankly is incomprehensible.
no one but a birfer can take birfers seriously with such a spotless record of cosmic fail — because being a birfer means being never right but always certain.
Typo on page 5. This is much more interesting that most of the stuff we get. I’ll be waiting to see what the appeals court says.
chufho: let me tell you all your tap dancing does not change the fact that obama refuses to show his birth certificate
Obama showed his birth certificate in June of 2008. [Image of first monkey with eyes covered comes to mind.]
chufho: natural born citizen which is very easily understood to be born to to two US citizens
the courts will confer to think anything other than this shows a lack of honor
To the extent that I understand this mangled sentence fragment, I believe that you are saying that you are the authoritative judge of the Constitution and the courts are wrong if they disagree with you.
Now let me leave you with a concept you may find useful: punctuation.
I noticed that the appeal brief doesn’t address the fact that Orly accused Judge Land of treason, but of course Levy wants to downplay or ignore Orly’s most outrageous statements. I will give him credit for recognizing that this appeal is not the place to re-argue the underlying case. Remember when the birthers were chirping that this appeal would open the door to discovery about Obama? It was never going to happen and Levy isn’t even going to try.
Dear NBC,
That’s the giveaway – Mario’s story is WAY too fallacious for him to believe. He’s too smart. It’s more likely that he’s just enjoying having sport with those of us who actually passionately care about the Constitution. His amoral high ground, entitles Him to serve his client’s Obama damaging desires by reducing the Constitution to a bizarrely apprehended, purpose-built piece of toilet paper. It’s to our credit that we don’t recognize it right away, as just another sociopath’s art form. He never expects to have a trial. Anti-Obama newspaper adds depicting all the controlling legal authorities as monkeys? That’s just to guarantee him his Klan discount. As to why he keeps coming back here to get eaten alive? Read the drivel spouted by the crowd he’s representing – hated filled dullards all – and you can see why he’s here hoping to get petted; he likes us a lot more!
Benji Franklin
I notice that most of the Obama supporters on this site have their “common laws” confused.
Wong Kim Ark (1898) rejected the notion that the common law included citizenship by descent. Clearly, such a position cannot be reconciled with Minor v. Happersett (1875) which declared that the “common law” definition of “natural born citizen” was born in the country to citizen parents. If one did not notice, this is Vattel’s natural law and law of nations definition. Furthermore, Alexander Hamilton, relying on natural law, told us and the court so ruled in Rutgers v. Waddington (1784) that the law of nations was part of the common law and that Vattel was the standard to follow when defining what the law of nations said. Even the Founders use of the word “native” to describe a citizen does not exist in English common law.
Hence, we can see that during the Founding, there was English common law and American common law. The two were not the same. When it came to defining citizenship which impacted significantly the relations among nations, the Framers did not use for the new Constitutional Republic the outdated feudal and monarchial English common law which was not the standard among civilized nations. Rather, the Framers chose American common law which had its origins in natural law and the law of nations to define an Article II “natural born Citizen.” This was Vattel’s definition of a “native, or natural-born citizen.” Wong Kim Ark only used the English common law to declare Wong a “citizen of the United States” under the standard that applied to the original citizens before the adoption of the Constitution. This was the same analytical approach that Lynch v. Clarke took in 1844. But since we know that the Framers in Article II grandfathered “Citizens of the United States” to be eligible for the Presidency and called for only “natural born Citizens” to be so eligible after the adoption of the Constitution, and the Third Congress in the Naturalization Act of 1795 took “natural born citizen” and made it just “citizen,” we can reasonably conclude that to the Framers and Founders the two classes of citizens were not the same. Hence, the definition that defined what a “citizen of the United States” was during the Founding did not define what a future Article II “natural born Citizen” was. While the former may have been defined by English common law, the latter was defined by American common law that followed the Vattel natural law and law of nations definition. Obama is not eligible to be President because he does not and cannot meet the original definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen,” a definition that has been confirmed by several Supreme Court cases and which to this day has never been changed by our Supreme Court.
If it can’t be reconciled, it means that Minor v. Happersett was overruled (or modified) by Wong Kim Ark, and Wong Kim Ark is the governing case law.
That’s how it works Mario: If you have a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1875, and then 23 years later the Supreme Court comes along and says something else — the most recent holding governs. Everything and anything that is inconsistent in a previous case must be either reconciled or discarded.
Mario Apuzzo:Minor v. Happersett can be more narrowly be defined as a woman’s suffrage case, not a case that in any real way defines citizenship. Neither the Constitution nor the fourteenth amendment made all citizens voters.
The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had. I’m surprised you cited it in as an NBC issue. It’s generally only cited for the proposition that the Constitution does not confer the right to vote. However, as the decision relates to women’s suffrage in particular, it is no longer good law. The Nineteenth Amendment dealt with that issue quite nicely.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0088_0162_ZS.html
Levy’s bio says he writes in Russian. If he understands Russian that will be a major help the The Oily One, who can write her briefs in a more coherent manner in her native language, to be translated by Levy.
Hey, it was Apuzzo to was claiming (falsely) that Minor defined the term natural born citizen. However, it was an essential part of the decision that Mrs. Minor was a citizen. The argument affirms that that there are only two kinds of citizens, natural born and naturalized.
As I have said from the start, the only way for the denialists to use these court cases to their advantage is to argue that President Obama is a naturalized citizen. This is consistent with de Vattel who specifically called children born of aliens in England “naturalized.” However improved their legal chances from this tack, it is so counter intuitive to the general public as to be useless for smear purposes.
Mario Apuzzo: Alexander Hamilton, relying on natural law, told us and the court so ruled in Rutgers v. Waddington (1784) that the law of nations was part of the common law and that Vattel was the standard to follow when defining what the law of nations said.
But citizenship in the United States is not a component of the law of nations (international law).
Mario Apuzzo: during the Founding, there was English common law and American common law. The two were not the same.
However, when we look at the colonial and early state legislation what do we find? Citizenship was always granted based on place of birth, and occasionally extended in cases of parentage (which is basically the English common law then, and the law of the United States today).
Mario Apuzzo: Framers chose American common law which had its origins in natural law and the law of nations to define an Article II “natural born Citizen.” This was Vattel’s definition of a “native, or natural-born citizen.”
And this is an assertion without foundation or evidence, a statement of what you wish were true, not what you can show. Rather what was true, which we know from the most important early commentator on the Constitution, William Rawle (as cited by the US Courts in various cases):
Or like is in fashion today with birthers, ” There are natural born citizens and then there are natural born citizens for Article II, Section 1 purposes and only “we” decide who fits that category, on a case by case basis of course” Which has also proven to be so convoluted as to be useless for smear purposes.
We don’t need any of that to conclude that “citizen” and “natural born citizen” are different.
Citizen = natural born + naturalized citizens.
There is no THIRD class of citizen.
You have not a scintilla of evidence that there is.
Minor would have been decided the same if the woman in question had been a naturalized citizen. This means that the definition of natural born citizen is dicta. If it found a non-English common law basis for the definition of “natural born citizen” that was rejected by Wong Kim Ark. It was rejected explicitly!
And don’t try to pretend that he rejected it only for the “citizen” and not for the “natural born.” His reason for rejecting it was because “natural born” did not include citizenship by descent.
Now that we’ve established, conclusively, that Wong rejected the notion that natural born contained jus sanguinis in any sense, we can conclude that Obama DOES meet the definition of natural born as it exists in the law today.
Her citizenship may have been essential, but neither side argued that she was NOT a citizen. The reasoning of the case, that voting was not an essential part of citizenship, would not be disturbed if Minor was a natural born or naturalized citizen. It’s definition of natural born, then, is dicta.
Because it wasn’t briefed or argued by either side, in fact, it was admitted by the pleadings that she was a native-born citizen, the definition of natural-born was not subjected to any scrutiny. That makes citing the definition especially troubling.
The fact that Minor explicitly refused to answer the question of children of aliens means the definition can be classified as obiter, or “mere,” dicta. What it did state, that children of citizens born here are, without a doubt, citizens, is more on the order of a tautology than a definition. What else could they be? In America, there are only citizens (naturalized and natural born) and aliens. Except for slaves, there was no third group.
Mario-All of your outdated sources might be of historical interest. But trying to use them today would be like a modern astronomer quoting ancient astronomers to try to convince us that the Sun orbits the Earth, while ignoring Copernicus, Galileo and every modern source.
Here is something from 2008, from the prestigious Michigan Law Review, by Gabriel J Chin, Chester H. Smith Professor of Law, Professor of Public Administration and Policy, University of Arizona.
http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/fi/107/chin.pdf
The relevant passage reads as follows:
Those born in the United States are uncontroversially natural born citizens. There is also a strong argument that those obtaining citizenship at birth by statute are natural born citizens, well articulated by Charles Gordon in Who Can be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma.
I will repeat so maybe you will get it: “Those born in the United States are uncontroversially natural born citizens.”
So this “controversy” is simply made up nonsense propounded for purely political motivations.
White supremacist attorney Mario Aouzzo says: “…Minor v. Happersett (1875) which declared that the “common law” definition of “natural born citizen” was born in the country to citizen parents. If one did not notice, this is Vattel’s natural law and law of nations definition.”
If by “parents” you mean either parent (or failing that, the father), you’re correct.
If you mean both parents, that’s not what Vattel says.
Keep pretending though. It’s amusing.
Remember when Mario was arguing that the common law could not be as described in Lynch v. Clarke because the New York Assembly changed the law (16 years after Lynch)?
The New York Assembly passed a resolution condemning Rutgers v. Waddington. It was an extremely unpopular opinion at the time.
Even Vattel acknowledged that citizenship is something that nations can vary on.
and:
In Vattel’s view, the Law of Nations is divided into necessary laws, voluntary laws, conventional (treaty) law, and customary law. Only the first is an immutable and inviolable law. Obviously, since there is no outrage in Vattel’s work toward Britain’s naturalization at birth of the children of aliens, it cannot be a “necessary” law of nations.
But, anyway, this is all part of Mario’s attempt to make Vattel the end-all-be-all of interpreting “natural born.” This is complicated, of course, by the fact that the Constitutional Convention debated what was meant by “law of nations.” At no point did they mention that they were changing the commonly understood term, “natural born” to accord with the law of nations.
That’s kind of a big oversight!
Mario,
So much nonsense I don’t know where to begin.
“Wong Kim Ark (1898) rejected the notion that the common law included citizenship by descent. Clearly, such a position cannot be reconciled with Minor v. Happersett (1875) which declared that the “common law” definition of “natural born citizen” was born in the country to citizen parents. If one did not notice, this is Vattel’s natural law and law of nations definition.”
Pretty simple to reconcile. The dispositive question for Obama is whether children of aliens are natural born citizens. Minor declines to address such subject. It doesn’t say they are not and doesn’t say the common law didn’t follow jus soli. It just says there was some doubt whether locality of birth alone “without reference to citizenship of parents” confers “natural born” status. Of course, the English common law never confered natural born status without reference to the parents as there were exceptions to the general rule and much debate on the exception in America. You grasp onto this orbital dicta in Minor that makes no definitive statement and ignore the page after page of Wong Kim Ark specifically defining the common law in this country soely in accordance with jus soli.
“Furthermore, Alexander Hamilton, relying on natural law, told us and the court so ruled in Rutgers v. Waddington (1784) that the law of nations was part of the common law and that Vattel was the standard to follow when defining what the law of nations said.”
He says it is part of the common law, not that it replaced it. The law of nations was international law and dealt with issues such as war, neutrality, trade. The common law was municipal and national law dealing with real estate, inheritance, contracts, and eligiblity for office holding. They are entirely different spheres of law. Hamilton and others meant the law of nations supplemented the common law as on international issues there was no common law rule. You can cite no authority saying Vattel’s rule with respect to citizenship became our common law. Can you not comprehend the authority after authority cited in Wong saying the english common law rule was our rule?
“Even the Founders use of the word “native” to describe a citizen does not exist in English common law.”
Fact free statement. You have not cited one example of the founders using the word “native” other than its meaning under the commmon law. Why do you make stuff up.
“Hence, we can see that during the Founding, there was English common law and American common law.”
Not really. All the states adopted the common law that existed in the colonies before the revolution. This was substantially the same as the English common law with minor differences as our local precedent was not followed in England. All early authority shows the English common law rules with respect to citizenship were followed in this country and you can cite no authority to the contrary.
“Rather, the Framers chose American common law which had its origins in natural law and the law of nations to define an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
Another fact free assertion you can no authority to back up.
“Wong Kim Ark only used the English common law to declare Wong a “citizen of the United States” under the standard that applied to the original citizens before the adoption of the Constitution.”
Again, it appears you have not read the case. It said “natual born citizen” should be defined by the English common law, it said the English common law defined citizenship before adoption of the 14th amendment, and said the 14th amendment itself was declaratory of the Englisch common law. It is not ethical to misrepresent cases in the manner you do.
“But since we know that the Framers in Article II grandfathered “Citizens of the United States” to be eligible for the Presidency and called for only “natural born Citizens” to be so eligible after the adoption of the Constitution, and the Third Congress in the Naturalization Act of 1795 took “natural born citizen” and made it just “citizen,” we can reasonably conclude that to the Framers and Founders the two classes of citizens were not the same. Hence, the definition that defined what a “citizen of the United States” was during the Founding did not define what a future Article II “natural born Citizen” was.”
This doesn’t even make sense. Obviously a naturalized citizen is generally not seen as “natual born.” How does that help you definition of “natural born?” Besides if you actually research the issue, pretty much all scholars say the grandfather clause was added to apply to the foreign born founders like Hamilton. For example.
“It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honours in their adopted country….” Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1472–73 (1833)
“The idea then arose that no number of years could properly prepare a foreigner for the office of president ; but as men of other lands had spilled their blood in the cause of the United States, and had assisted at every stage of the formation of their institutions, the committee of states who were charged with all unfinished business proposed, on the fourth of September, that ” no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the tune of the adoption of this constitution, should be eligible to the office of president.” George Bancroft, History of the formation of the Constitution of the United States of America pg 346 (1884)
“The necessity of citizenship by birth, precludes this, by rendering it impossible for any foreigner ever to be a candidate. The exception as to those who were citizens at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, was justly due to those men who had united themselves with the fate of the new nation, and rendered eminent services in achieving its independence ; and is, necessarily, of limited continuance.” James Bayard, A brief exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 96 (1833)
“Why was this exception then made ? From gratitude to those distinguished foreigners who had taken part with us during the Revolution.” John Seely Hart, A Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 71 (1860)
“The exception in favor of such persons of foreign birth as were citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, is now practically extinct. The distinguished patriots who had so faithfully served their adopted country during the revolutionary struggle, and out of respect and gratitude to whom this exception was introduced into the Constitution, have all passed away. No one, therefore, but a natural born citizen can now be elected to the office of President.” Henry Flanders, An Exposition of the Constitution of the United States pg. 170, 1885
“The exception to the “natural born” qualification was the Convention’s way of paying an extraordinary compliment to Alexander Hamilton and James Wilson, two distinguished members of the Convention who were foreign born. Of course, any other foreign- born citizen having the other qualifications would have been eligible, but the clause was drawn in favor of the two statesmen here mentioned.” Edward Waterman Townsend, Our Constitution: Why and how it was Made – who Made It, and what it is pg 186 (1906)
In the end, you cannot cite any early authority to back your position. Your whole argument seems to try to pretend Minor says something it doesn’t, to pretend Wong and the multitude or authority contradicting you doesn’t exist or trying to say they say the opposite of what they really say. When you see us cite authority after authority or read Wong citing authority and authority saying you are wrong, do you just block it out?
Expelliarmus,
No, it does not work that way when one case defines one thing and another case defines something else.
The two are easily reconcilable: First of all Minor was still about location but expressed some concerns about born to aliens since the issue of allegiance and jurisdiction was still being developed.
Wong Kim Ark recognized that common law did not distinguish between born to us parents or alien parents.
Calling it irreconcilable does not make it so Mario.
Of course, when one is committed to a position chosen by one’s client, it’s often hard to apply the necessary logic.
Just saying.
PS: When SCOTUS overrules itself, as you seem to imply erroneously, the former ruling has to be rejected as precedent.
Surely you can grasp this?
The idea that the US common law was based on descent lacks, as usual any foundation in reality. All Mario can do is point to Vattel who himself accepts that when it comes to citizenship, the law of Nations is not absolute and depends on local customs and laws.
The concept that descent played a role in US citizenship
Which is of course correct, even in England, the Jus Sanguini parts were not common law but enacted in statutes. The same in the US when it was attempted to include foreign born children born to US citizen father as natural born.
It’s important to distinguish between common law and statutory law my dear counsel.
Again Mario is confusion common law and laws of nations. That the law of nations may be part of common law does not mean that it guides the citizenship issues, in fact even Vattel observes that when it comes to citizenship, the Law of Nations has little power and relevance.
For obvious reasons because citizenship is determined by municipal law while law of nations describes how nations interact.
Of course, what Hamilton said is hardly precedent, as he was arguing in favor of his client (a familiar concept Mario?).
The Judge was careful to rule while avoiding a clear precedent and the New York Assembly was quick to reject the ruling and the case was settled.
So to call this ‘precedent’ is somewhat on flaky grounds.
You’re so close and yet, bound to support his client’s position, you fail to reach the obvious conclusion. That’s too bad.
You are almost correct, except for the introductory part. Because of these Supreme Court cases Obama is a natural born citizen.
All the data is there and yet, forced to reach his client’s conclusion, Mario twists and turns…
Of course, citizen and natural born are not the same, as most of us know that citizens include naturalized citizens. However non-naturalized citizens are in most cases natural born. Certainly anyone born on US soil is a natural born citizen, by birth on US soil.
Such is the clear common law interpretation.
The attempt of early congress to extend citizenship to foreign born children indicates that there is no Vattel principle to be found in common law and statutory law was needed. As such, foreign born children require, unlike under Vattel, to be designated natural born or foreign born.
All this is of course undermining the concept that Vattel’s citizenship principles were part of common law tradition as both the UK and US felt it necessary to spell this out in statutory law and in case of the US, the natural born part was quickly removed.
All this of course serves to severely undermine your position Mario.
Did you even realize this?
Of course, in true Mario fashion, he fails to present ANY relevant evidence to support his claims and his claims were rejected by the Courts and is contradicted by the state Constitutions and rulings of those days. If, as Vattel accepts, citizenship is a common law/municipal law issue and not a Law of Nations issue, then we have to accept the obvious conclusion.
Mario is wrong per Common Law tradition, per legal rulings, per legislative actions, per historical background and per Vattel.
As Nolu Chan explains
Ouch…
Most of Mario’s ‘arguments’ were raised by the appellants in the case and rejected by the Supreme Court.
It’s not just what the Court found but what it rejected that should settle the case for Mario
Wong Kim Ark is controlling.
Either it can be reconciled with Minor v. Happersett or it can’t.
If it can’t — which is YOUR claim — then the MORE RECENT Supreme Court controls. That’s just the way the law works.
The main holding of Minor was legislatively overruled with the passage of the 19th Amendment in any case – so its a disfavored case to be viewed and cited with caution. You know you are on a weak footing if you have to rely on cases expressing a view that has been long since rejected through a Constitutional Amendment.
It occurs to me that Mario’s interpretation of “natural born citizen” would exclude Americans who were adopted at birth and do not know and cannot learn the identity of their birth parents.
I have a friend in Texas who adopted an infant who was given up for adoption at birth. The boy’s birth certificate shows that he was born in Texas, but the mother’s name is redacted and the father is listed as “unknown.” Texas law protects the identity of the birth mother. The only way they will reveal her identity is if they can locate her and get her permission.
How could the boy possibly prove to Mario’s satisfaction that he is a natural born citizen? Even if he could learn the identity of his birth mother, how could he prove that his birth father was a U.S. citizen?
Of course, even if my friend’s son one day runs for president, Mario will never raise an objection because the boy is white and has an anglo surname.
Expelliarmua: You know you are on a weak footing if you have to rely on cases expressing a view that has been long since rejected through a Constitutional Amendment.
Recall that Mario’s other big citation came from Dred Scott. Is there a pattern here? It seems that historically in those rare cases where the court’s ideas align (however tangentially) with Mario, the people have found the result repugnant and taken action to correct the problem.
To the extent that Kerchner and Apuzzo’s views represent others in history, they are those that have not prevailed.
The arguments made over parental citizenship not only fail on the basis of law, they fail on the basis of common sense and science. It goes even beyond adoption. Anyone who has ever watched daytime TV knows that while maternity is pretty easily established paternity is always open to question. Are we to require DNA testing of Presidential candidates to ensure that the father named in the birth certificate is indeed the sperm donor? And if he isn’t, how do we prove that the unknown father is indeed a US citizen? What about where the father is dead, do we dig him up for DNA? What if he was cremated? When do we settle these questions, before or after the election?
At the root of the birthers arguments is a kind of neo-Lamarckian theory of genetics. They have to postulate a natural born citizen gene (NBC) that has yet to be identified in the human genome. How the US allele of this gene differs from the Canadian or Nigerian or Thai allele is a mystery. Yet, whatever this gene is, it can be altered in a heritable fashion by the simple expedient of a citizenship oath.
Since the high water mark of Lamarckian genetics was the work of Lysenko in the USSR under Stalin, I can only conclude that the birthers are nothing but a bunch of commies.
Speaking of children following the condition of their parents, especially the father, Horace Binney observed in his paper Alienegenae that
Binney observes that only through statutory law, the common law principle was extended to include children born to native parents born abroad. In the US, it was through an act of Congress that Children born abroad to a US father would still be regarded a natural born US citizen. Congress later removed the “natural born” part, perhaps aware that it could not extend natural born status through statutory provisions.
It is thus clear, that contrary to the musings of some, that there is no foundation for the concept that the child follows the condition of the father, at least not in common law prevailing in England and the United States.
In Minor v Happersett the Court observed that Common Law practices were necessary to understand the definition of Natural Born. Clearly rejecting the jus sanguini thought, the Court observed that
In other words, a child born to one or more US citizens on US soil would definitely be considered a natural born citizen, while the issue surrounding children of aliens was less well established.Of course, the Court clearly establishes in its dicta that it is not necessary to resolve this question.
The question itself was resolved in Wong Kim Ark where the Court clearly established how Common Law supports that any child born on US soil is a natural born citizen, as long as it is born under full jurisdiction of the United States, excluding thus children born to foreign dignitaries, invading military, Indians not paying taxes.
Ending any and all confusion the Minor Court also observed that
Showing that there are two and not the mythical three kinds of citizens.
Mario cannot appeal logically to Minor to support his position and his confusion that Minor is contradicted by Wong Kim Ark is one of his own design.
Blackstone similarly observed in Commentaries 372
Rickey Martin,
McCain was white with an anglo surname. I believe there were law suits filed against him on the question of whether he was a “natural born Citizen.”
Keep up the brilliant work.
To Various Commentators,
You state that Minor v. Happersett’s discussion on the citizenship status of Minor is dicta. Dicta is that part of a judicial case which is not necessary for the court to reach its central decision which we call the holding. Such statements or opinions are merely informative or explanatory. Being extraneous material, they do not directly address the specifics of the case. They are not authoritative or binding because of the circumstances by which a court makes those statements or gives those opinions, for the court usually offers them without having gone through a deliberative process that is characterized by reflection, argument, examination, or full consideration of an issue. As we can see from a close examination of the Court’s decision, the Court’s opinion or statements regarding Mrs. Minor being a “natural born Citizen” is not dicta.
The question the court had to determine was whether Minor had a constitutional right to vote under the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV which applies only to “Citizens of each State.” Hence, the Court had to first determine whether Minor was a “citizen of the United States” which would also make her a citizen of the State of Missouri, the state wherein she resided. The Court declared that Minor was a citizen under the federal common law and being a “person” was also a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment.
With regard to finding Minor a citizen without reliance upon the Fourteenth Amendment, the court resorted to American common law which had its basis in natural law and the law of nations and not in feudal and monarchial English common law. It explained that the nation was a political community made up of people who joined in political associations for their own general welfare. It said that these people were the nation’s members and therefore its citizens who received protection from the nation and in return they gave their allegiance to the nation. The Court explained that in a nation with a republican form of government, these members are called citizens and that being called a citizen connotes nothing more than being a member of the nation. The court explained that whoever was a member of one of the original States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution became “ipso facto a citizen” or a member of the nation created by the adoption of the Constitution. As one will note the court referred to the United States as a “political community” populated by members with political rights. We know that such political rights include voting which historically distinguished republican citizens from crown subjects. The Court made no mention of being born in the allegiance of any one individual which is what the English common law provided when it said that “natural born subjects” were born in the perpetual allegiance of the King. Indeed, “[s]ubjects are members of the commonwealth, under the king their head.” Jacob’s, Williams’, and Cunningham’s Law Dictionaries.
The Court explained that the Constitution provided for three classes of citizens: “natural born citizens,” “citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution,” and naturalized citizens. Hence, it found that future citizens after the adoption of the Constitution would come about by birth or naturalization. It said that “natives, or natural-born citizens” were those children born in the country to citizen parents. It added that some authorities go further and include as “citizens” children born in the United States without reference to the citizenship of their parents. I recognize that many commentators have provided on this site many of these other authorities mentioned by Minor. It then said that as to the first class, there has never been any doubts that they were citizens. But as to the second class, there have been doubts. Let us keep in mind that this is the United States Supreme Court speaking and not a lower court or some commentator.
The Court found that citizenship in the United States did not depend on the gender of the person and therefore, as Minor was born in the United States to United States citizen parents, the Court declared her without any doubt a “natural-born Citizen.” These citizenship concepts as expressed by the Minor Court had their origins in natural law and only applied to a republican form of government and not to a monarchy. These natural law concepts can be easily found in Samuel Pufendorf’s, The Whole Duty of Man According to the Laws of Nature (William Tooke trans., Ian Hunter & David Saunders, eds., Liberty Fund 2003), Book II, Chapter 6 (1691)(“Moreover, Citizens are either Originally so; that is, such as are born in the Place, and upon that Account claim their Privileges: Or else Adscititious; that is, such as come from Foreign Parts. Of the first Sort, are either those who at first were present and concerned in the forming the said Society, or their Descendants, whom we call Indigenae, or Natives.”) and Vattel’s, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Sections 211-212 (1758 French edition, 1759 first English translation). The Court added that if she had been born in the United States of alien parents, there would have been a doubt if she was even a “citizen.” Note that Vattel at Section 214 stated that in England, “the single circumstance of being born in the country naturalises the childen of a foreigner.” Given the Court’s explanation as to who were the original citizens of the new nation, we can understand why the court had doubts on whether if Minor was born in the United States to alien parents she was even a citizen, for her parents would not have been members of the United States and by her being simply born on its territory did not carry with it any indicia of adherence and commitment to the nation and therefore did not make her a member thereof. Hence, by what the Court said regarding being born in the country to alien parents, we can see that if Minor had been born in the United States to alien parents, it had no doubt she would not have been a “natural born Citizen.” As to whether she would have been even a citizen, the Court left that question for another day. The Court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment was neither needed to make Minor a citizen nor did it change the citizenship rules it espoused.
Wong Kim Ark answered the question that Minor left open for another day. It decided in 1898 that a child born in the United States to alien parents who were permanent residents and not working in a diplomatic capacity was a “citizen of the United States.” But the Wong Court only decided that under the old English common law that prevailed in the colonies Wong deserved to be a member of American society as were those persons who were, without any reference to the citizenship of their parents, simply born in the colonies during the colonial period and adhered to the Revolution. Recognizing and confirming Minor’s definition of a “native, or natural-born citizen” to be a child born in the country to United States citizen parents, it did not declare Wong to be a “natural born Citizen.” Wong also did not say that it was overruling Minor’s definition of a “natural-born citizen.” Wong did not say that in defining a “natural-born citizen,” the citizenship of the child’s parents is irrelevant.
As we can see, the Court’s decision that Minor was a “natural born citizen” is an indispensable part of its decision. The Court’s statement as to Minor’s citizenship status was necessary because the Court had to apply the privileges and immunities clause which only benefits citizens. The Court spent a good part of the case analyzing the history of citizenship in the United States and explaining what a “natural born Citizen” was. Hence, the statement was a necessary part of its final decision that Minor, even though she was a “natural-born citizen,” did not have a constitutional right to vote and could be prevented under Missouri’s constitution and laws from voting because she was a woman. Finally, any discussion of the Nineteenth Amendment in this connection is not relevant and only a red herring.
Really, your posts are making less and less sense. Minor held that even if one was a citizen, it didn’t give the right of sufferage. The discussion of “natural born citizen” is completely extraneous. You can keep pretending Minor defined “natural born citizen.” Of course, for those who can read know that declining whether the term applies to a class of people means it is not defining the term.
It is pretty simple, the sole issue with respect Obama is whether children of aliens are natural born and Minor declines to look at such question. Thus, claiming the case is authoritative with respect to Obama is simply unethical. Of course, for those of us who practice law, Minor really devastates you case, as it tells us to look to the common law and you cannot cite any authority that the common law every required citizenship parents. Minor doesn’t say that nor does you Hamilton quote. He doesn’t say the law of nations replaced the common law and such makes no sense as they are completely different spheres of law.
Your comments on Wong make no sense whatsoever. You can keep pretending that Wong didn’t define natural born citizen but you are apparently the only one on the planet who can seem to read basic english.
“The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words “citizen of the United States,” and “natural-born citizen of the United States….The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution…The interpretation of the Constitution of the United States is necessarily influenced by the fact that its provisions are framed in the language of the English common law, and are to be read in the light of its history.”
Seriously, my five year old would understand that the court is stating that “natural born citizen” is to be defined by the english common law. The court goes on:
“and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.”
What don’t you understand the english common law rule regarding children of aliens continuing after the declaration and prevailing under our constitution.
Let’s look at some authority the court cites:
“All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England…”
Our common law is the same as England. Pretty clear. Natural born citizen the same as Blackstone’s definition of natural born subject. Pretty clear.
“The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, “a natural-born citizen.” It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.”
A rule based upon “place of birth.” Where did I hear that. Seriously, do you just pretend these quotes don’t exist”
Let’s look at the court’s other citations to the common law:
“The doctrine of the common law is that every man born within its jurisdiction is a subject of the sovereign of the country where he is born, and allegiance is not personal to the sovereign in the extent that has been contended for; it is due to him in his political capacity of sovereign of the territory where the person owing the allegiance as born.”
“that a man born within the jurisdiction of the common law is a citizen of the country wherein he is born. By this circumstance of his birth, he is subjected to the duty of allegiance which is claimed and enforced by the sovereign of his native land, and becomes reciprocally entitled to the protection of that sovereign, and to the other rights and advantages which are included in the term “citizenship.”
“Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States. This is the rule of the common law, without any regard or reference to the political condition or allegiance of their parents, with the exception of the children of ambassadors, who are in theory born within the allegiance of the foreign power they represent.”
“And if, at common law, all human beings born within the ligeance of the King, and under the King’s obedience, were natural-born subjects, and not aliens, I do not perceive why this doctrine does not apply to these United States, in all cases in which there is no express constitutional or statute declaration to the contrary.”
“The common law principle of allegiance was the law of all the States at the time of the Revolution and at the adoption of the Constitution, and, by that principle, the citizens o the United States are, with the exceptions before mentioned, such only as are either born or made so, born within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States or naturalized by the authority of law…”
Gee, without exception, the court’s mention of common law in this country meant the english common law. Where is mention of your new federal common law in this case or any legal authority in our history?
The court then specifically rejected Vattel’s rule of descent.
“Here is nothing to countenance the theory that a general rule of citizenship by blood or descent has displaced in this country the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within its sovereignty.”
The court then affirms that the 14th amendment adopted the english common law rule:
“the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.”
Hence the Wong’s court’s discussion of natural born citizen is important to it’s holding that thet 14th amendment was declaratory of existing law and such law was the english common law that continued to define citizenship in this country after independance.
I really am sorry as I don’t like to be nasty, but your your reading of these cases is dishonest and will be laughed out of any court.
There is not much sense left in Mario’s arguments.
Sadly so
What a miserable interpretation of what the Court really said.
Making things up do not make them so my dear confused Mario.
GREAT list… are these incorporated in The Great Mother of All pages?
But not by you, I believe.
Obviously you and/or your white supremacist client(s) didn’t care so much about McCain’s eligibility.
You only file suits to disenfranchise children born (on US soil) from “non-white” people.
Am I correct in believing that discriminating between father and mother would be unconstitutional?
(ie: born of a mother-citizen, not OK; born of a father-citizen, OK.)
white-supremacist attorney Mario continues to state that: “It said that “natives, or natural-born citizens” were those children born in the country to citizen parents.”
Perhaps.
But where on Earth do you get to interpret this as meaning BOTH parents instead of A parent? (As anyone would normally interpret a sentence like this.)
Can you quote an actual source that says BOTH parents.
Is there any such source?
Even Vattel doesn’t agree with you on this.
If you can’t, your entire argument falls apart just there.
I have no problem being nasty.
The way I see it, Mario is a willing mouthpiece for old fashioned white supremacist theories which have long been rejected.
As someone pointed out, he is obligated to support his client’s beliefs in the matter, but unlike, say, the lawyers who DEFENDED the Nazis at Nuremberg, in this case Mario is prosecuting to promote an appalling agenda. That is rather repulsive IMHO.
Lupin: Am I correct in believing that discriminating between father and mother would be unconstitutional?
No. Current law distinguishes between fathers and mothers when determining the citizenship of children born overseas to one US Citizen parent.
http://travel.state.gov/law/info/info_609.html
This was affirmed (5-4) by the Supreme Court in TUAN ANH NGUYEN V. INS.
Not yet.
Apuzzo: I believe there were law suits filed against him on the question of whether he was a “natural born Citizen.”
There are at least two lawsuits about McCain’s eligibility that I know of, the most notable being Hollander v. McCain. My suspicion is that both Hollander and Berg were defrauded by con artists with fake documents (McCain “birth certificate” is a clumsy forgery, and the Shuhubia affidavit certainly smells like a fraud), resulting in their lawsuits. All the other birthplace lawsuits are more or less are copycats. The other big factor is the raft of smear books about Obama that came out before the election by folks like Jerome (swiftboat) Corsi.
Interesting. But the different treatment appears to apply only to children born out of wedlock. I can understand the distinction being made in that case.
But I see not differences for children born in wedlock, right?
Lupin,
Did you ever consider that I did not file any lawsuits againt McCain because being born to U.S. citizen parents who were serving the military interests of their county he is a “natural born Citizen?”
You really do need to get off your race and white supremacist soap box. You are making a mockery of yourself.
Lupin,
As usual, you are wrong again. No one is making any distinctions between mothers and fathers. That is all in your imagination.
ballantine,
You go on and on and on and miss the point. Wong’s English common law only applied to determine if Wong should be a “citizen” as existed before the adoption of the Constitution. The ENGLISH common law does not apply to define who shall be President of the United States. Can you just imagine what the Founders would think of your theory?The law that defines the eligibility requirements to be President is our own AMERICAN federal common law that got its life from natural law and the law of nations.
P.S. Mr. Ballantine, does your little brain have the capacity to make an argument without adding personal attacks and ridicule?
Which shows your “jus soli + jus sanguinis” theory of citizenship is a convenient fiction.
Mario, the Founders were, in your universe, morons who chose a term, “natural born,” which meant jus soli, – and in the opinion of Wong, only jus soli! You would have us believe that all the evidence that “natural born” did not change meaning before the Constitution or after is all to define citizenship, but none of it goes to define “natural born” citizenship?
Where, exactly, does Wong say that there is a class of citizen that is born here, but not eligible for the Presidency?
Pretty funny for you to talk about personal attacks as most of your posts on this site consist of little else.
“Wong’s English common law only applied to determine if Wong should be a “citizen” as existed before the adoption of the Constitution.”
You clearly didn’t read the quotes I cited. The court held the 14th amendment was declaratory of the existing law which was the English common law that continued after the revolution and prevail under the original constitution. This is after it said that natural born citizen was to be defined by the english common law and quoted multiple authroities defining it by scuh common law. These were important predicates to its holding that the 14th amendment incorporated the English common law. It is the most substantial authority on the issue of whether a child of aliens is natural born as Minor declined to address the issue and can’t be cited as authority on such issue.
“The ENGLISH common law does not apply to define who shall be President of the United States.”
Don’t you feel silly at this point saying the same thing over and over with no quthority to support it. Take a look at the string of quotes below from all the leading early authorities who somehow didn’t get your memo.
“Can you just imagine what the Founders would think of your theory?”
I think you need to do more research on the founders. The founder’s defined allegiance by place of birth and no one in the convention raised parentage or Vattel on these issues and many founders didn’t fear foreigners at all. In their generation and for decades following, you cannot cite one person defining “natural born” or “”native” by your definition.
“The law that defines the eligibility requirements to be President is our own AMERICAN federal common law that got its life from natural law and the law of nations.”
Amazing that you say the same thing over and over without being able to cite one authority. When you look below and see quote after quote defining our commmon law and our rules of citizenship by the english common law or see Wong Kim Ark base it’s holding on the fact that our commmon law was the english common law do you just block it out? Again, name one authority saying the our common law or citizenship was different that the english common law of citizenship.
On the contrary, the term natural born was left undefined and thus had to be found as used in common law. There it was clear that it meant born on US soil to any parents.
Your continued assertions that American Common Law relevant to citizenship came from natural law and law of nations is contradicted by courts, history, legislative history and more.
Time to learn a history lesson or two my dear Mario and perhaps show how it was law of nations that guided citizenship law when this was explicitly rejected.
In Mario’s imagination
Not per common law tradition my dear friend. Per Common Law tradition, such children were born aliens.
Which is why Congress had to explicitly add the birth of such people to be covered by statutory law.
If your argument were that US ‘common law’ came from natural law and law of nations, then the addition of statutory law would have been unnecessary.
And why would Congress have to declare in a non binding decision that McCain was natural born?
It does not make sense.
But then again, nothing much makes sense when not constrained by one’s client’s requirements.
Cat bit your tongue Mario 🙂
I understand, Facts an be soooo disturbing.
PS: In fact the Court was hearing objections to the lower court finding that Wong was a natural born citizen.
Wong Kim Ark’s equivocation of natural born and citizen at birth further shows how these concepts are basically equivalent.
There are two kinds of citizens: natus or datus, born or granted.
Yes, it’s a fallacy that the former colonies suddenly rejected English Common Law. While surely there may not have been one Common Law since the states had their own variants, it is clear that in order to appreciate the meaning of the term natural born, one has to look at English Common Law practices. Remember how for instance in the New York Constitution, the term natural born was replaced with native to avoid confusion as to the manner of birth.
Native and natural born: born on US soil regardless of the status of parents under full US jurisdiction
The latter, jurisdiction and allegiance are often misinterpreted. All it means that one is under full protection of the law, which excludes children born to foreign dignitaries, invading military and Indians not paying taxes.
It’s that simple…
Pretty devastating.
The English common law is the source for what was meant by the phrase “natural born Citizen” when place in the Constitution, to the extent that there is any uncertainty of meaning. The Framers knew what that phrase meant — if it didn’t have a commonly understood meaning, they would have defined it.
nbc,
Now that we know about my imagination, let us explore yours. The Constitution has three classes of citizens, “natural born Citizens,” “citizens of the United States,” and naturalized citizens. May we have the benefit of your most powerful intellect and ask that you kindly define for our listening audience each class as the Framers envisioned it.
Mario Apuzzo says:
Rickey Martin
Is addressing me that way supposed to be an insult? Does that make you a homophobe as well as a racist?
McCain was white with an anglo surname. I believe there were law suits filed against him on the question of whether he was a “natural born Citizen.”
None filed by you, I’ve noticed. Did you ever demand that McCain show his birth certificate? I didn’t think so.
That’s like saying that there are three kinds of chess pieces, white, black and ‘chess pieces’ when in fact there are only two:
Citizens: Natus and Datus, natural born and given/naturalized
Hope this clarifies this really simple issue.
ballantine,
I note that you did not include Minor v. Happersett, an 1875 decision of the United States Supreme Court, in your string of “authorities.” Remember that the Minor Court said that “some authorities” maintain that a child born in the country of non-citizen parents was a “citizen” and that it had doubts about such a proposition. I am sure the Minor Court was well aware of all of the pre-1875 “authorities” you cite and discounted them as the final word on who may be a “citizen” of the United States.
Other than citing and commenting upon Wong, you do not cite any U.S. Supreme Court cases which support your theory that the Framers used ENGLISH and not AMERICAN common law to define who would be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military of the new Constitutional Republic. I have cited several but you never mention them other than to say that I have misinterpreted them or that what they say is dicta. I like how you tell everybody what Wong allegedly says about “natural born Citizen” but of course in your mind that is not dicta.
I also like how you and others here equate an Article II “natural born Citizen” with a Fourteenth Amendment born “citizen of the United States,” in effect ignoring and thereby nullify critical parts of the Article II presidential eligibility clause, i.e., the words “natural born.” Also, Wong only defined what a “citizen of the United States” is. When referring to a “natural born Citizen,” it cited and quoted from Minor v. Happersett. Hence, if anyone has a vivid imagination, it is you and your supporters here.
The best for you that I can say about your string of citations is that they support the definition of a “citizen of the United States” that existed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, as explicated by Wong Kim Ark. They do not support the definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen” that came into being after the Constitution was adopted. You will note that the commentators cite no authority when they refer to “natural born Citizen.” Rather, they only offer their own personal opinions regarding the meaning of that term. Rawle is a great example of one who offers his personal opinion on the definition of a “natural born Citizen” without any cited authority to support it. In addition to the commentator’s personal circumstances, it would be interesting to know what social, economic, and political forces where at work when these commentators made these statements.
Finally, may I ask you why you and your followers would support a theory of who may be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military which only weakens our nation? Remember that John Jay wanted a “strong” check on foreign influence creeping into and invading the Office of Commander in Chief of the Military. Why would you and your supporters opt for a theory on who is Article II eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military which does not give specifically to those singular and all-powerful offices and generally to the United States the most protection possible from foreign influence? I do not believe that your theory on who may be President and Commander in Chief of the Military is consistent with what the Framers wanted for the new nation.
Matio-The “foreign influence” argument is a complete red herring. The US-born child of US citizens dating back to the Mayflower could be the bought and paid for agent of a foreign power or powers. The child of 1 or even 2 non-citizens could be the most loyal of Americans. That’s why we have campaigns where the candidate’s opponents get to critique their record and we get to look at them up close and personal. I trust that process a lot more than allowing skeezy lawyers to come in after the fact and file suits.
Let me do a reductio ad absudem on your position. An American girl, Josie, marries a doctor from Spain, Jose, and gets pregnant. He studies for his citizenship exam, passes with flying colors and they are on the way to the swearing in when she goes into labor. They detour to the hospital where she gives birth. He goes to the judge the next day, explains the situation and is sworn in. Mario says the child can’t be President. But if they go to the ceremony and he gets sworn in and she goes into labor on the way home, no problem. The child is the same, the parents are the same. Anything that produces a ridiculous result is bad law.
By the way, Mario, nothing you ever cite is <130 years old. You and your sources are outdated. In science, we don't cite Aristotle's long diproven speculations on the geocentric universe or homunculi as guiding our present knowledge. When old ideas are superceded by more recent discoveries and ideas, we discard them. And so, I discard you and yout quaint theories.
Mario, if there are THREE categories of citizen, tell us, this part of the constitution:
So, ONLY those who are born here, but ineligible for the Presidency can be Senators?
In my opinion, Mario, this proves that “Citizen of the United States” is a group of citizens which includes natural-born and naturalized.
If “Citizen of the United States” are those born here, but ineligible for the Presidency, then the “nine years” a Citizen of the United States doesn’t make sense.
Dear Mario,
When obscure phrasing is “explained” in great detail, as proving exactly what a novel argument needs it to prove, the literal parsing standards (interpretation of the written words) should not reverse their perspective to serve the needs of a favored meaning being argued for by the person doing the explaining.
You have inconsistently AND selectively parsed similarly articulated passages from Vattel and the U.S. Constitution, to create “phantom” support for your particular point of view. They are identically comma-separated series of phrases, employing the key word “or”.
In the following quote from Vattel’s “Law of Nations”, I agree it seems obvious that Vattel intended the “or” to mean “also known as” (synonymous with “in other words”.)
“The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”
Let’s try the substitution: The natives, (in other words) natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.
He seems to be saying that the two are equivalent; they define each other. In Vattel’s era, the savages of North America are natural born citizens. We can have confidence in that interpretation because the words make sense and there are no competing alternatives that would drastically change the literal inference we have chosen in deciding what the translator meant.
Now let’s apply the same construction to the following passage from Article 2 in the U.S. Constitution which states:
“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…..
Let’s try the substitution: “No person except a natural born citizen, (in other words) a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible…..
Aha! They TOO are saying the two are equivalent; they define each other. The Framers want future readers of their words to know that this new term “Natural Born Citizen” means “citizenship” as it existed in the U.S. at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. THEY CLEARED UP THE DEFINITION within Article Two itself!
Your competing interpretation, makes no sense AT ALL! Why would the Framers leave the definition of such an important specification (NBC) in dispute from the very beginning? It is apparent that they didn’t, once your self-serving, and Framer-demeaning parsing is rejected. Your deception asks us to believe that the framer’s couldn’t grandfather themselves and chew gum with the same words.
Not so! By viewing the phrases as explanatorily establishing unity between “Natural Born Citizen” and ” citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution “, we see that the grand fathering STILL TAKES PLACE for the original colonial and foreign born Patriots and the new term of art is defined for it’s American debut. Your need for un-specifically differentiating between them, by arbitrarily invoking the “opposing” sense of the word “or”, insults the Framer’s composing skills by throwing the interpretation of their words up for grabs, and then suggests we “catch” their meaning by reference to a Vattel quotation that you insist must be parsed oppositely!
Happily,
Benji Franklin
Mario, George D. Collins argued that if we let Wong Kim be President, then the evil Chinese could be President.
Wong’s answer was pretty compelling. Paraphrasing, if the second coming of Confuscious ran for President and convinced the American people that he was the best for the job, then it says more the American people than the so-called “evil” Chinese.
In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton talked about how to curb the dangers of foreign influence. You know what he talked about? How we spread the election of the President among the people, the electoral college, and then the legislature. He didn’t mention “natural born.”
Anyone who thinks about the natural born citizen clause for more than 5 minutes realizes that it is an anachronism that, even properly interpreted serves no function these days. Bob Hope was not a natural born citizen. I can think of no one who epitomizes American values more, however. Madeleine Albright, Arnold, Granholm, Kissinger. We have ways of dealing with foreign influence that are MUCH better than wondering whether the accident of birth makes these people more likely to favor the country they happened to be born in. Subject them to the scrutiny of a national election.
That’s when the clause is properly interpreted. When it is misinterpreted by nut-jobs and whackaloons, it leaves the realm of anachronistic and becomes downright asinine! Obama is going to be more sympathetic to the nation his father was from, even though his father left him when he was 2, he grew up in an third country, and never had any significant contact with his biological father – and didn’t much care for him after the little contact they did have?
This is a lie, and I don’t know why you keep repeating it, since no one here is buying it. It said there was no doubt about X, and it did not have to figure out Y. When a case says that about Y, it is a nullity on the question of Y. It did not address Y. It does not concern itself with Y. It cannot be cited as precedent for Y. It is as if it did not happen when talking about Y.
An example:
Did I say that only squares could be rectangles? Did I even say that I had doubts that other objects could also be rectangles? No. I left it open.
When Wong discussed Minor, it pointed out that it did not answer Y, and moved on to the ONLY case that required distinguishing – Elk.
You know WHY Wong quoted Minor? It quotes it twice, once to show that common law must be sought to define “natural born,” and then cites Smith v. Alabama:
Later, it cites Minor to prove that Slaughterhouse did not and could not have decided the issue of “natural born,” because the same Justice who wrote Slaughterhouse wrote Minor, which left the issue OPEN!.
Right. Everyone used the term “natural born,” to mean one thing, but the Founders chose the exact same phrase to mean something else, and didn’t tell anyone. When commentators talk about “natural born,” they really mean “Citizens of the United States,” a phrase that THEY didn’t use, but the Founders did, meaning “natural born,” which they had used for a different meaning, all without telling anyone.
The more you talk, Mario, the less sense you make.
Mario, you just keep proving over and over how poorly you have read Wong Kim Ark.
The case is divided into 7 sections. Each section is headed with a Roman numeral. Roman numeral III discusses how American common law was, on the definition of natural born – EXACTLY THE SAME!
It cites:
The Charming Betsy
Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor
Blackstone’s Commentary
Doe v. Jones
Shanks v. Dupont
Story’s Conflict of Laws
McCreery v. Somerville
Levy v. McCartee
Dred Scott
United States v. Rhodes
Garder v. Ward (1805)
Kilham v. Ward (1806)
State v. Manuel (1838)
Lynch v. Clark, (1844)
Kent’s Commentaries
Binney – Alienigenae of the United States
You are again letting your beliefs affect the facts of the Minor decision which did not discount anything other than by observing that it did not need to address these issues. In Wong Kim Ark, the Court finally addressed these issues and found that any child born on US soil, regardless of the status of the parents was, by English Common Law, which guided US Common Law, a natural born citizen.
Hence, the rejection of naturalized citizens.
Your ‘arguments’ are becoming quite ‘begging the question’ Mario. What is the problem? Too hard to address the facts?
Figures.
How unable Mario is to read Wong Kim Ark. But we should not be too hard on him. He has the duty to argue his client’s position, regardless of the facts.
Mario, it’s a simple question. Does voting become an essential part of citizenship if Minor was a naturalized citizen? If she was, what you claim is a third type of citizen – the “Citizen of the United States?”
No – voting is, according to Minor, not a part of citizenship, neither natural born, naturalized or other.
Therefore, defining natural born with respect to Minor is dicta, pure and simple.
Hear hear
His duty to zealously advocate for his client does not trump his duty of candor to the court. And even in New Jersey, lawyers are bound not to knowingly “make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person.”
His representation of what Minor said is objectively false and he must know it by now.
Of course, his ethical troubles probably started long ago.
I don’t see how anyone could claim to “reasonably” believe what Mario is putting out. Reasonableness is an objective standard – what would the average lawyer do with this? Would they ignore a hundred plus years of clear jurisprudence? And is there a “good faith” argument for modifying the law as it stands? He clearly hasn’t presented one, since he won’t acknowledge that the law is different from what he is advocating.
Scientist,
You are really out doing yourself.
Let me do a reductio ad absudem on your position. A Mexican girl, Josie, marries a doctor from Spain, Jose, in Mexico. She gets pregnant in Mexico. About 8 months later they decide to take a vacation to the United States. They are just about ready to cross the border from Mexico into the United States when she goes into premature labor. They detour to the hospital where she gives birth to the child in Mexico. Scientist says the child can’t be President. But if they crossed the border and Josie had the child in the United States, no problem. The child is the same, the parents are the same. Anything that produces a ridiculous result is bad law.
Scientist,
You are starting to get boring.
Mario seems to believe that if he counter with a ridiculous scenario that it somehow makes the one provided above irrelevant.
Poor Mario as logic may not be his strongest suit.
You’re a funny dude Mario… I guess you find anyone who shows the level vacuity in your arguments to be boring.
I do understand why you avoid dealing with the real issues…
Figures…
Benji Frankin,
I will answer you in two ways, one based on logic and one based on historical interpretation:
1. Children born in 1800, 1810, 1820, to the present, were not a “natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution.” I guess no one can be President.
2. St. George Tucker, (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses (March 4, 1815-March 3, 1819); chairman, Committee on District of Columbia (Fourteenth Congress), Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings (Fifteenth Congress); author of Tucker’s Commentaries and of a treatise on natural law and on the formation of the Constitution of the United States and State senate, 1819-1823; chancellor of the fourth judicial district of Virginia 1824-1831) said in his “Treatise on the Constitution” (1803):
“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. It was by means of foreign connections that the stadtholder of Holland, whose powers at first were probably not equal to those of a president of the United States, became a sovereign hereditary prince before the late revolution in that country. Nor is it with levity that I remark, that the very title of our first magistrate, in some measure exempts us from the danger of those calamities by which European nations are almost perpetually visited. The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.”
St. George Tucker, Treatise on the Constitution (1803)
3. Justice Story also maintained in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States that permitting a citizen, other than a natural born citizen, to be President of the United States was an exception to “the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties.” III J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States Section 1473 (Boston: Little, Brown: 1833).
In his works Volume 3, Section 1472-73 of The Founders Constitution: Commentaries on the Constitution’ originally published in 1833, Story writes of the eligibility requirements for the office of President under Article II and explains how foreign influence should normally be kept out of that office:
Ҥ 1472. Considering the nature of the duties, the extent of the information, and the solid wisdom and experience required in the executive department, no one can reasonably doubt the propriety of some qualification of age. That, which has been selected, is the middle age of life, by which period the character and talents of individuals are generally known, and fully developed; and opportunities have usually been afforded for public service, and for experience in the public councils. The faculties of the mind, if they have not then attained to their highest maturity, are in full vigor, and hastening towards their ripest state. The judgment, acting upon large materials, has, by that time, attained a solid cast; and the principles, which form the character, and the integrity, which gives lustre to the virtues of life, must then, if ever, have acquired public confidence and approbation.
§ 1473. It is indispensable, too, that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States; or a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, and for fourteen years before his election. This permission of a naturalized citizen to become president is an exception from the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties. It was doubtless introduced (for it has now become by lapse of time merely nominal, and will soon become wholly extinct) out of respect to those distinguished revolutionary patriots, who were born in a foreign land, and yet had entitled themselves to high honors in their adopted country. A positive exclusion of them from the office would have been unjust to their merits, and painful to their sensibilities. But the general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman. It cuts off all chances for ambitious foreigners, who might otherwise be intriguing for the office; and interposes a barrier against those corrupt interferences of foreign governments in executive elections, which have inflicted the most serious evils upon the elective monarchies of Europe. Germany, Poland, and even the pontificate of Rome, are sad, but instructive examples of the enduring mischiefs arising from this source. A residence of fourteen years in the United States is also made an indispensable requisite for every candidate; so, that the people may have a full opportunity to know his character and merits, and that he may have mingled in the duties, and felt the interests, and understood the principles, and nourished the attachments, belonging to every citizen in a republican government. By “residence,” in the constitution, is to be understood, not an absolute inhabitancy within the United States during the whole period; but such an inhabitancy, as includes a permanent domicile in the United States. No one has supposed, that a temporary absence abroad on public business, and especially on an embassy to a foreign nation, would interrupt the residence of a citizen, so as to disqualify him for office. If the word were to be construed with such strictness, then a mere journey through any foreign adjacent territory for health, or for pleasure, or a commorancy there for a single day, would amount to a disqualification. Under such a construction a military or civil officer, who should have been in Canada during the late war on public business, would have lost his eligibility. The true sense of residence in the constitution is fixed domicile, or being out of the United States, and settled abroad for the purpose of general inhabitancy, animo manendi, and not for a mere temporary and fugitive purpose, in transitu.”
Justice Joseph Story, Volume 3, Section 1472-73 of The Founders Constitution: Commentaries on the Constitution’ originally published in 1833 provided online by University of Chicago.
nbc,
Hence, not rejection of naturalized citizens but rejection of foreigners. Children born in the country to non-citizen parents were foreigners. They needed to be naturalized.
Mario-You completed that task some time ago.
Of course, there’s not a scintilla of evidence of that, Mario. In fact, Lynch v. Clarke and Wong Kim Ark present evidence that that had never been the case – that no child of a non-citizen born in this country had ever “needed to be naturalized.”
I keep telling you, that if you want to be “true to de Vattel” and at the same time stop ignoring the elephant in the room (British common law), you will have to call Obama a “naturalized citizen”. De Vattel wrote:
You’d still be wrong, but the inconsistencies would be fewer. You wouldn’t have to explain away all those cases where the court talks about two kinds of citizens: natural born and naturalized. You wouldn’t have to overturn Wong Kim Ark. All you would have to do is convince the public that what they always knew was wrong, and you have already had remarkable success in that already.
It is the inclusion of these citations that reveals how you think, that a child born and raised (except for 4 years) in the United States is a “foreigner” because of the genes from a father who he hardly knew. This is very much the same kind of an argument a white supremacist makes.
Nonetheless, that is what the law is. If you think the law is bad then there are options available to you to try to change it. Falsifying history is not one of them.
A reductio ad absurdem argument only works when an impossible result is reached, not one that you choose to ridicule. The conclusion of a logical argument in which one of the premises is just your opinion, is just your opinion.
Show me the citizen gene. What chromosome is it on? And how the heck does it become mutated by virtue of a citizenship oath? Inquiring scientists want to know…
And under the rules you stated, Mario, a child born to a natural-born American mother and a father who became a citizen a week before the child’s birth would be eligible, but had that child been born a few weeks premature, he or she could never be president.
The line gets drawn somewhere, and Mario, the important legal principle you are missing is more basic: You don’t always get your way. You are free to call our system “bad law”, but it has no effect on President Obama’s title.
In losing Kerchner V. Obama you tried to argue that if the Court did not step in with a mandamus order to Congress, then no redress was available. Your lead client likes to say that Congress did not do its job. Wrong. Congress did its job; you just didn’t get your way. As the judge told you:
“The Court acknowledges Plaintiffs’ frustration with what they perceive as Congress’ inaction in this area, but their remedy may be found through their vote.
”
Not only is there no authority that such children were foreigners or needed to be naturalized, such chilren could not be naturalized for “naturalization” was a common law term of art that only applied to the foreign born. One of the reasons that the Civil Rights Act was thought to be unconstitutional was that the power of naturalization did not include the power to make citizens of native-born blacks.
According to one of the most influential treatises of the 19th century:
“But what is naturalization? It is the removal of the disabilities of alienage… Congress has power ” to establish an uniform rule of naturalization….An alien naturalized is “to all intents and purposes a natural born subject…The power is applicable only to those of foreign birth. Alienage is an indispensable element in the process. To make one of domestic birth a citizen, is not naturalization, and cannot be brought within the exercise of that power. There is an universal agreement of opinion upon this subject.” George Washington Paschal, The Constitution of the United States defined and carefully annotated, note 274, (1968)
“I maintain that a negro can not be made a citizen by Congress ; he can not be made a citizen by any naturalization laws, because the naturalization laws apply to foreigners alone. No man can shake the legal truth of that position. They apply to foreigners alone; and a negro, an Indian, or any other person born within the United States, not being a foreigner, can not be naturalized; therefore they can not be made citizens by the uniform rule established by Congress under the Constitution, and there is no other rule. Congress has no power, as I said before, to naturalize a citizen. They could not be made citizens by treaty. If they arc made so at all, it is by their birth, and the locality of their birth, and the general operation and effect of our Constitution.” Sen. Davis, quoted in History of the thirty-ninth Congress of the United States, William Horatio Barnes, pg. 208, (1868)
“Mr. Madison did not think that Congress, by the constitution, had any authority to readmit American citizens at all. It was only granted to them to admit aliens.” Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856: From Gales and Seatons’ Annals of Congress; from their Register of debates; and from the official reported debates, by John C. Rives, pg. 556 (1860)
No evidence of your interpretation exists. Children born in the Country, regardless of the status of the parents, were natural born.
Of course, that makes sense, given the US interest in migration.
Does it not bother you that there is NO a scintilla of evidence for your position? Early cases all point to the opposite of your position.
You’re lucky that your case never really made it past standing.
Cheers.
Wow, even in face of explicit references to the facts, Mario is still insisting otherwise.
Shows you how much damage a predefined position can do to one’s credibility.
Dear Mario,
Your answer reinforces my argument that your arguments require nearly blind parsing of all of your own cites, or deceptively selective quotations to make your points out of hole (sic) cloth. You are arguing with yourself, not me, when you retorted with logic that ignores the premise of my interpretation; recall that in my post to you, I’m suggesting the word “or” in the Constitution’s Article Two Clause, means “in other words” (as you recognize it to mean in the Vattel “Natural Born” cite), not “or” in the opposite sense meaning, “one of these two different things”. Your answer dodges my question by immediately substituting back into the discussion, your “differentiating” interpretation of “or” for my suggested “unifying” interpretation of “or”, and then claiming that when I hit the bulls eye, I missed your barn.
You wrote:
“1. Children born in 1800, 1810, 1820, to the present, were not a “natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution.” I guess no one can be President.”
“Guessing” has not served you well so far in interpreting the Constitution, but “fools hold forth most authoritatively when they partner with only their own approximate expertise”.
The Constitution said: “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…..”
I suggested it could mean: “No person except a natural born citizen, (in other words) a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible…..
And I further suggested it could mean that “the Framers want future readers of their words to know that this new term “Natural Born Citizen” means “citizenship” as it existed in the U.S. at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.” That interpretation would allow all children born thereafter until the present to be “Natural Born Citizens” if they met any definition of citizen as it existed in this country at the time of the Constitution’s adoption. You dodged my premise by substituting your own interpretation of the word “or” before applying your “logic”.
Strike ONE!
The irony of your “Historical Interpretation” arguments, is that they again prove my point about your parsing being self-serving to the point of blindness, seeking support for your theories, and not even noticing that your own cites devastatingly refute those arguments.
Your St. George Tucker quotation savages your essential “Natural Born Citizen” definition COMPLETELY, starting with the first sentence:
“That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a NATIVE-BORN CITIZEN (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague.
Tucker here says in the plainest English imaginable that it is because Article Two’s “Natural Born Citizen” requirement means “native-born” citizen, that we therein have a “happy means of security against foreign influence…” He goes on to laud the Framers for realizing this total exclusion of the defined ineligible foreigners, (those not native born) from the Presidency, was a wise and necessary Constitutional guard against such foreigner’s influence. Tucker was in a DEFINING mood and mode; he clarified “Natural Born Citizen” IN ARTICLE 2 meant “Native-Born”, PERIOD. He did not say “Natural Born” also required birth to U.S. citizen parent(s).
You cannot magisterially expand Tucker’s admonition that the, admission of foreigner’s cannot be too much guarded against, to a purpose-built interpretation aimed at trimming Obama’s hair just short of eligibility by the reckoning of a foreign country’s nationality laws or marital status. Tucker was congratulating the Framers on, and not questioning, their handling of this issue. And he was defining said foreigners as those born outside the U.S.
Consequently, STRIKE TWO!
And, further proving my “selective parsing” accusation, you repeat your self-immolation with YET ANOTHER prestigious testament by the not-too-late Joseph Story about whom you wrote:
” 3. Justice Story also maintained in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States that permitting a citizen, other than a natural born citizen, to be President of the United States was an exception to “the great fundamental policy of all governments, to exclude foreign influence from their executive councils and duties.” ”
Precisely, Mario, and that’s how we know you will continue to accept his authority when you find out that he also wrote in compliance with that point of view:
” It is not too much to say, that no one, but a NATIVE citizen, ought ordinarily to be entrusted with an office so vital [the presidency] to the safety and liberties of the people. But an exception was, from a deep sense of gratitude, made in favor of those distinguished men, who, though NOT NATIVES, had, with such exalted patriotism, and such personal sacrifices, united their lives and fortunes with ours during the Revolution….” Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, pg. 167 (1842 ed.)”
Another of your expert witnesses, counselor, confirming that “NATIVE” citizen is what Article Two’s term of art more familiarly means, and reaffirming that the foreigners contemplated by the wording, are those who are “not natives”.
Strike Three! YOU’RE OUT!
Is it not ironic, Mario, that in your haste to side with the most common historical interpretation of the “grand fathering” clause, you make an incompetent argument, and then call two authoritative witnesses to testify against your own case’s vital misinterpretation of “Natural Born Citizenship”?
All I wanted you to do was appropriately castigate me for not siding with nearly every historical interpretation of the grand fathering clause, so that I could castigate you in turn for not siding with nearly every historical interpretation (so convincingly listed here by Greg, Ballantine, et al) of “Natural Born Citizen”!
My real point remains; your parsing of all the Historical cites relating to “Natural Born Citizen” is as tortured as my alternative parsing of the grand fathering clause was.
Understandingly,
Benji Franklin
“I do not believe that your theory on who may be President and Commander in Chief of the Military is consistent with what the Framers wanted for the new nation.”
I am fairly certain that the Framers did not want a man with African blood to be President. Do we look at every candidate in light of what the Framers would want? Or do we rely upon that marvelous framework of laws that they devised- that framework which has allowed laws even more just than those that they dared to envision.
Again, so much nonsense, i don’t know where to begin.
“Remember that the Minor Court said that “some authorities” maintain that a child born in the country of non-citizen parents was a “citizen” and that it had doubts about such a proposition.”
Actually, the Minor Court said that there were doubts that children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents were natural born. Of course, I think everyone would have doubts about such a proposition as pretty much all authority agreed that there were exceptions to the locality of birth rule under the common law for certain parents and there was much debate about such exceptions in America at such time.
“I am sure the Minor Court was well aware of all of the pre-1875 “authorities” you cite and discounted them as the final word on who may be a “citizen” of the United States.”
Gee, that’s a persuasive argument. The court rather said it was not looking into the issue. The citations above only include the most famous and influential scholars, treatises and judges of the early republic. Good luck arguing they didn’t get the memo. We are still waiting for you to cite one early authority that contradicts them.
“Other than citing and commenting upon Wong, you do not cite any U.S. Supreme Court cases which support your theory that the Framers used ENGLISH and not AMERICAN common law to define who would be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military of the new Constitutional Republic.”
Wong is the only case that thoroughly looked at the issue and hence is the ultimate authority. You can also see the opinions of Justice Story, Curtis and Swayne above. I also could have cited Chief Justice Marshall defining persons born in the US as citizens or McCreery v. Somerville calling children of aliens native born citizens. If you actually read Supreme Court decision you would know that the court looks to all such early authority to determine the original understanding with some of the persons cited above amongst the most frequently cited.
“I have cited several but you never mention them other than to say that I have misinterpreted them or that what they say is dicta.”
Sorry, none of the cases you have cited even remotely support your theory. Are you still citing cases that cite Vattel on issues totally unrelated to native american citizenship and claim they have some significance? Do you still make these claims after it was pointed out the same Justices cited elsewhere specifically looked to the English common law view with respect to native citizenship. That is a good way to get sanctioned. Are you still claiming the citation of Vattel by one Justice in Dred Scott is meaningful when another Justice in the same case embraced the English common law and it was that Justice who was later cited by the 39th Congress and a majority of the court on such point. Not only have we seen no supreme court opinion that supports your theory, we have seen no authority at all other than the view of one congressman long after the federal convention, one dissenting opinion and a law review article that was rejected by the legal mainstream.
“I like how you tell everybody what Wong allegedly says about “natural born Citizen” but of course in your mind that is not dicta.”
Whether dicta or not, it is the only Supreme Court majority that directly addresses the application of natural born status to the children of aliens which is the only relevant question with respect to Obama. It is thus the most substantial authority we have.
“I also like how you and others here equate an Article II “natural born Citizen” with a Fourteenth Amendment born “citizen of the United States,” in effect ignoring and thereby nullify critical parts of the Article II presidential eligibility clause, i.e., the words “natural born.”
Wong and the legislative history make clear that the 14th amendment was simply defining “natural born.” The court, if you actually read the decision, makes clear they mean the same thing.
“Also, Wong only defined what a “citizen of the United States” is.”
No, it defined “natural born citizen” and cited authority specifically defining “natural born citizen.” I see that when a court has quoted Vattel you claim the court takes ownership of all of such quote. Accordingly then, you must agree that Wong takes ownership of its quotes of Justice Curtis and Swayne which unambiguously define natural born citizen. Also, Wong’s tells us the English common law rules governed citizenship both before and after the 14th amendment and under such common law any citizen at birth was by definition “natural born.” You really need to do more research on this.
“When referring to a “natural born Citizen,” it cited and quoted from Minor v. Happersett.”
I think you should actually read Wong. It cited Minor first for the proposition that “natural born citizen” should be defined by the common law (which it later made clear was the English common law about 12 times). It also cited Minor to point out that the Slaugherhouse Court, largely the same court as Minor, did not mean to abandon the common law interpretation. The Wong court had already defined natural born citizen and the common law rule by that point in the decision in accordance with the English common law.
“The best for you that I can say about your string of citations is that they support the definition of a “citizen of the United States” that existed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, as explicated by Wong Kim Ark.”
Actually, many of them specifically defined “natural born citizen” in accordance with the English common law. What these citations actually say is that every court, scholar and treatise by the most influential legal authorities in the early republic support our English common law interpretation. If you actually read Supreme Court cases, you would know that this is exactly the authorities the court will look to to determine the original understanding. We are still waiting for you to cite one early authority to support your theory, other than your misrepresentation of cases that have nothing to do with native citizenship.
“You will note that the commentators cite no authority when they refer to “natural born Citizen.”
Actually, many of them do if you read their works. However, just because a famous scholar who lived through the revolution and was a respected expert on all relevant law in the early republic doesn’t cite authoritiy doesn’t mean their opinion isn’t substantial legal authority as the early treatises most cited by the Supreme Court seldom cite such authority. I guess you will stop citing Bingham and Minor since they don’t cite authority. I guess you should stop citing Vattel since he doesn’t cite authority for his opinion.
“Finally, may I ask you why you and your followers would support a theory of who may be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military which only weakens our nation?”
Your issue is with the founders themselves as it is clear from the convention that most delegates, and the most important founders, were not very concerned about foreign influence and no one in the convention raised parentage or Vattel. If you actually look to the citiations above, you will see that Madison, Kent, Story, Bouvier and every other legal authority in the early republic, without exception, defined allegiance by place of birth. Accordingly, the founding generation did not consider any native born to be foreigners. If you don’t know this, you need to do a lot more research.
On the other hand, your attacking the legitimacy of our duly elected president with a fringe theory that is contrary to every constitutional treatise, court case or legal dictionary pretty much in our history may lead people to seriously question your patriotism.
After explaining why absent GOP members who did not vote for the Department of Defense spending bill was tantamount to a “no” vote, Senator Whitehouse went on to say that Republicans and their supporters just want to “break” the momentum of President Obama.:
“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.
They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”
It looks like misha, lupin, and Senator Whitehouse must be reading from the same playbook.
Scientist,
Where are those genes and chromosomes in any of our citizenship, naturalization, and immigration laws?
Thanks for confirming Scientist’s position 😉
Indeed, they are… At any and all cost. Funny or should this be ironic?
Mario Apuzzo says:
Children born in the country to non-citizen parents were foreigners. They needed to be naturalized.
I challenge you to provide one example of a person born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents who then had to go through the naturalization process to establish U.S. citizenship (children of foreign diplomats excluded, of course). Just one.
If you want to fund the project, I’ll be happy to look for the citizenship gene. If I find it, then your wacky theories might have some support. As it is, they have none.
I warn you though, if such a gene exists, I’m pretty certain Obama has it.
SFJeff,
Your comment is really bad. The “natural born Citizen” clause as written by the Framers is not discriminatory. Historical development has paved the way of equality for blacks, Indians, women, and people of all colors, ethnicity, religions, sexual orientations, and physical conditions. They can all be President, provided they meet the eligibility requirements of Article II. Where do you get all of you African blood nonsense?
Oh Mario… When the Framers wrote their clause, were there any black people who could have run for the Presidency? What about women? Indians not paying taxes? Chinese?
Of course, the Natural Born Clause when written down excluded countless people. Let’s not revise history
Oh Mario… When the Framers wrote their clause, were there any black people who could have run for the Presidency? What about women? Indians not paying taxes? Chinese?
Of course, the Natural Born Clause when written down excluded countless people. Let’s not revise history
SF Jeff is right… Let’s not undermine your credibility any further by denying that which is so obvious.
If the bits about “foreign influence” (straight out of Gordon’s) and the example about the Mexican child born on this side of the border being a sub-class citizen do not convince everyone here that Mario is a sock puppet for some kind of white supremacist movement, I don’t know what will.
One useful thing about this discussion (perhaps the only one) is that it has forced Mario to show his bedsheets.
nbc,
You forget to remind me that the Framers did not have electricity in their homes.
Actually, I don’t care much about your President’s policies, and right now, I feel rather sorry for your country, but that’s another discussion.
I do care that you advocate long-discredited white supremacist theories.
I note that you have steadfastly refused to deny that you are associated with such movements.
I also care that you continue to purposefully distort what Vattel wrote, thereby fooling less knowledgeable people.
I keep returning to the fact that there is a line between being a strong advocate and a liar, and I feel you ought to be sanctioned accordingly.
My “playbook” in this matter would be your profession’s Code of Conduct.
Here’s what cinches the case that Mario and his pals are nothing but scam artists. Obama announced his candidacy in January 2007. By that point it was already public knowledge that his father was a foreign student from Kenya. No teams of high-priced investigators were needed. Just a copy of Dreams From My Father. A responsible, patriotic attorney would certainly not want to put the country through the process of electing an “ineligible” candidate and then the lengthy and uncertain course of trying to remove them post hoc. No, said, responsible, patriotic attorney would have immediately filed suits with the various Secretaries of State to keep this “ineligible” person off the ballot. They would have tried to spare the country the uncertainty and trauma and given us a race between Hillary and McCain or Hillary and some other Republican, if you consider McCain to also be “ineligible”.
Only an unpatriotic, irresponsible person would wait until close to or after Election Day to bring forward arguments that could have been brought forward from the day Obama announced.
hey, let’s be fair — hoocoodanode the nig– … um, i mean the kenyan … would actually win?
As I pointed out before, there is nothing in Mario’s past that indicates the least interest in constitutional matters. Not even a blog post ranting about income tax. NOTHING.
Mario is a paid shill (and a poor one at that) hired by white supremacist folks — a fact which he has not bothered denying.
True. But by Jan 08 he was over 50% on InTrade. Being a gambler you would have thought at least Donofrio would have gotten off his butt and filed a few ballot challenges. You wouldn’t need all 50 states-a few big states would be enough to deny the nomination.
No, the fact is these clowns only woke up around October, when even a blind person could see Obama was going to win. Then, starting from the premise of “I hate this guy” they began concoting their b.s.
Well, you snooze, you lose. Try again in 2012 (with no better results).
Some law professors starting wondering about McCain’s eligibility back in the first part of 2008. (One of the articles that came out of this wondering even told how to go about challenging eligibility – state-level action is the only way.) The Senate took up the issue in May. Berg filed his birthplace suit in August.
But those who think the Constitution clearly forbids an Obama Presidency didn’t realize what was going on until way too late in the game. Maybe, perhaps, it isn’t quite so clear? Maybe basing your whole theory of Constitutional interpretation on a Swiss philosopher no one’s heard of might be a clue that the clarity of your position won’t be an easy sell?
Oh, and you didn’t even need Obama’s book. His 2004 DNC keynote speech started with talking about his Kenyan father.
The law doesn’t reward those who sleep on their rights.
Mario, you mean the book of common sense? At least it is not fantasy like the stuff you happen to write.
Well look at what Mario wrote in his last posting on his site. Can anyone count the number of incorrect statements in his posting. It is rife with innuendo and made up crap. I like his use of GIGO (Garbarge in, Garbarge out), which is what I thought of when I read this crap. Either way I was up to at least 5 outright lies at first check….
From Mario’s site…
Obama is a usurper. Obama is an unconstitutional illegal putative president. See the above linked to issues of the Washington Times National Weekly edition. To be a “natural born Citizen” as is required in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, the person must be born in the country to parents who both are Citizens of the country when the child was born. Obama’s father was a British Subject when Obama was born in 1961. Obama’s father was never a U.S. Citizen nor was he even an immigrant to the USA. We are a nation of immigrants but Obama Sr. was not one. And under the British Nationality Act of 1948 and international law, Obama (Jr.) was also born a British Subject and thus is a dual-citizen Citizen to this day, if he was born in Hawaii as he claims. To date, he has not conclusively proved exactly where he was born to any investigative controlling legal authority. Photoshop’d digital images and pictures of computerized summary data put on the internet proffered by Obama proves nothing. Computerized records say his birth was “registered” in the Hawaii birth system. That computer data registration record could have been based on false birth location registration testimony by a family member using a simple mail-in form available in 1961. GIGO – false location of birth registration into a data base yields false data out today on a computer print out. The original “ribbon copy” long-form birth records with the names and signatures of medical attendants and of witnesses, if any, to the alleged birth in Hawaii must be examined by experts as well as all his other hidden and sealed records of his early life. If he was born in Kenya as his relatives and news account there claim, then Obama could even be an illegal alien since his mother was not old enough under U.S. laws at that time to convey U.S. citizenship to her child born of a foreign father if the child is born in a foreign country. Obama had dual allegiance at birth if he was born in Hawaii – British via his father and U.S. via his mother. How can a person born a British Subject and a dual-citizen ever be considered a “natural born Citizen” of the USA with sole allegiance to the USA per the intent of our nation’s founders and framers, to Constitutional standards, for the office of the Presidency? He cannot. See the 3 enablers who have allowed this trampling of our Constitution and who will allow our Liberty to be destroyed if we do not put an end to this usurpation by Obama. Let others know about this. Pass this on to friends and family. Send it to your Congress person. Write letters to the editors of your newspapers. And if you personally know any federal Judge anywhere in your neighborhood, in your club, or at your church, use your 1st amendment freedom of speech while you still have it. Tell them what a disgrace the federal judicial system has become in this matter in not allowing a simple fact-finding trial on the merits of the charges and to uncover the hidden original birth record information that Obama has sealed along with all his other early life records. What is Obama hiding and using the Department of Justice lawyers and taxpayer’s money to help him hide it? Show them the current new ad above and this quote by Chief Justice John Marshall ad too and other ads in our series. Synergy at work! If we all do a little, together we will accomplish a lot! The truth and our Constitution will win in the end if we all do our part. If not, the future of our nation is in great danger.
It occurs to me that Mario’s claim that “Children born in the country to non-citizen parents were foreigners. They needed to be naturalized.” is ludicrous on its face. Consider the requirements for obtaining a U.S. passport:
When applying for a U.S. passport in person, evidence of U.S. citizenship must be submitted with Form DS-11. All documentation submitted as citizenship evidence will be returned to you. These documents will be delivered with your newly issued U.S. passport or in a separate mailing.
Primary Evidence of U.S. Citizenship (One of the following):
Previously issued, undamaged U.S. Passport
Certified birth certificate issued by the city, county or state*
check box Consular Report of Birth Abroad or Certification of Birth
Naturalization Certificate
Certificate of Citizenship
A certified birth certificate has a registrar’s raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar’s signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar’s office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Please note, some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.
I have never seen a birth certificate which lists the citizenship of the parents. Therefore, the State Department has no way of knowing the citizenship status of the applicant’s parents. This means that the State Department accepts a birth certificate as proof of citizenship, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. The only conclusion one can draw from this is that birth in the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship, regardless of the citizenship of one’s parents.
Yeah- I had some small modicum of respect for Mario until I went to his actual site and saw the garbage he puts on there- now I know him to be a liar and a slanderer.
“Tell them what a disgrace the federal judicial system has become in this matter in not allowing a simple fact-finding trial on the merits of the charges and to uncover the hidden original birth record information that Obama has sealed along with all his other early life records.”
Exactly what is a ‘fact-finding’ trial? Is this where the Defendent must prove his case, rather than the Filer of the law suit? If I suspect that Mario is a scam artist, can I file a law suit and demand that the court determine whether he is a scam artist?
Mario is among the traitors who seek to ursurp the Constitution by seeking a judicial coupe against the President. Who knows what enemies of the Constitution, foreign or domestic he is employed by.
He is starting to piss me off.
That’s what the appellee in WKA pointed out as well, pointing out the obvious implications of such a position.
Mario has nothing
Merry Christmas dear counsel…
Mario Apuzzo: Where do you get all of you African blood nonsense?
I think it was right after you started citing Dred Scott as an authority.
Jeff, I agree with you…When I read that over at Mario’s and knowing that there is no evidence to support any of his accusations, it made me lose what little respect I had for him…
Dr. Conspiracy,
You and some of your supporters here are to be commended for all the research and thinking that you have done on the Obama eligibility issue. I have tried to have a civil and intelligent debate with you and your supporters here. Many times that has not been possible. On the contrary, the personal attacks and insults continue unabated. Now some of your people even go as low as accusing me of being a White Supremacist and of working for the KKK. You know how absurd that is.
Nevertheless, all of that does not change that we cannot have a person be President and Commander in Chief of the Military who is born with multiple allegiances (British/Kenyan and maybe U.S.), which carry with it the potential for divided and conflicting loyalty, foreign entanglements, military and political claims made from more than one nation, incompatibility with the obligations of American citizenship and the Office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military, and lack of full and absolute attachment to the United States. We are not talking about a private citizen whose potential dual allegiance problems would probably not be any serious threat to anyone. The all powerful and singular Office of President and Commander in Chief, which is not subject to a security clearance, is too powerful and too important to the survival and safety of the nation to expose it to such risk.
Mario Apuzzo says:
I have tried to have a civil and intelligent debate with you and your supporters here. Many times that has not been possible. On the contrary, the personal attacks and insults continue unabated.
That’s rich, coming from you. Here’s a quick list of the personal attacks and insults which you have made in this topic alone:
1. You are a fool!
2. After reading your response, I think I understand why you call yourself ballantine.
3. You were DWI (dumb-witted intellectual).
4. I hope the real Benji Franklin had more brains than you did.
5. You are the epitome here of hate, ridicule, prejudice, racism, and extreme politics.
6. Mr. Ballantine, does your little brain have the capacity to make an argument without adding personal attacks and ridicule?
And then there is the note where you addressed me as “Rickey Martin.”
Talk about people living in glass houses!
I read you requested and were given a 15 day extension to file brief and appendix in your appeal. You insist the risk is so serious to survival and safety of the nation. A constitutional crisis. Yet you need extensions to get your filings done but you have had time to banter on this blog day after day? Who do you think you’re kidding?
That was not much of an effort. And when provided with reasoned discussions as to where you were wrong, you often ignored, or attempted to trivialize the facts.
Why you insist on removing a duly elected and eligible President is beyond me. Appealing to people’s ‘patriotic’ sentiments hardly serves to further your arguments and shows a more sinister side.
You are making many unfounded assertions, attempting to turn your case into one related to national security because at birth, President Obama had dual allegiance. Of course, at the same time as he was born a natural born US citizen, he also followed, temporarily, the condition of his father, which caused him to lose his British attachment and gain a temporary Kenyan attachment which he lost when he reached the age of 23. In the mean time, President Obama not only maintained his natural born, birthright citizenship, but also continued to show attachment to the United States.
There is nothing that suggests that President Obama is not with full attachment to the United States, and as American Jurisprudence has shown, anyone born on US soil is considered to be a natural born citizen and thus can run for President.
Hiding behind these concerns’ is not going to further your case. I understand that when facts lack, one can attempt to appeal to sentiments but that’s quite an ugly route imho.
Let me ask you a question: “How patriotic is it to insist that a duly elected President is removed from office”? Certainly, I doubt that the Founders would have supported such a position and in fact, while discussing a very similar topic, Congress made some powerful arguments that once elected, a President can only be removed through a single process: that of impeachment and the Courts lack any standing in these matters. Neither Quo Warranto nor other fanciful legal theories can stand here. In other words, even if you were correct, it’s too late to do anything about it. Of course, given US Jurisdprudence, your concerns have to be rejected as lacking in logic, reason and historical and legal precedent.
The Founders were concerned that certain factions in Europe could quickly obtain a US citizenship and run for President. However, it would never have occurred to the Founders to reject natural born citizens as opposed to naturalized citizens, to run for President.
You have argued that there are three kinds of citizens: Citizens, natural born and naturalized. But that is like saying that there are three kinds of chess pieces: Chess pieces, white and black. It is clear that the category of citizen consists of naturalized (aka datus) and natural born (aka natus). There is no mythical third category. There is no evidence of such a mythical category and there is insurmountable evidence to the contrary.
If you believe Obama’s actions to be treason, then I suggest that you get Congress to impeach the President for his crimes’, otherwise, you will have to abide by the choice of the electorate, the certification of Congress and the wisdom of the Founders that President Obama is a duly elected and eligible President.
“that we cannot have a person be President and Commander in Chief of the Military who is born with multiple allegiances (British/Kenyan and maybe U.S.)
And here is where your prejudices come out. You are willing to believe the weakest of theories to disqualify the President after the fact, yet unwilling to accept actual evidence that would be accepted in a court of law. You have a dozen theories why the President is not eligible. One theory and I might think you were sincere. A dozen and you are just seeking to overthrow the President.
“The all powerful and singular Office of President and Commander in Chief, which is not subject to a security clearance, is too powerful and too important to the survival and safety of the nation to expose it to such risk.”
If this is the case- and the risk is so extreme- then the damage is already done. According to your theory, President Obama must have already turned over the keys to U.S. nukes to Kenya. Anyone notice any particular favors the President has shown Kenya lately?
Really Mario, given the garbage that you spew on your website, coming here and trying to pretend that you are some concerned moderate rather than a schill trying to overthrow a President- a President mind you who was elected as per the Constitution, elected by voters who knew his father was Kenyan, confirmed by an electoral college that knew his father was Kenyan, confirmed by a Congress that knew his father was Kenyan, and sworn in my the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who knew he was Kenyan. Mario- you are seeking to ursurp the votes of the American People. Do I know what enemy of the Constitution you work for? No, but it is clear to me that you are seeking a judicial coupe of our elected President, and will use any lies, innuendo(Pakistan travel ban!) and methods necessary to achieve it.
ROTFL
Of course, nothing is going to sway the courts when standing is so clearly lacking.
Mario said: “… we cannot have a person be President and Commander in Chief of the Military who is born with multiple allegiances (British/Kenyan and maybe U.S.)”
Mario continues to equate multiple citizenship to multiple allegiances. This is not a logical conclusion. The President’s British citizenship was automatic and he has never demonstrated one iota of allegiance to the crown during his lifetime.
Thousands of US citizens hold dual citizenship but hold allegiance only to the US. The President was a natural born US citizen and has publicly sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States before the largest group of people ever assembled to watch a President take said oath. If that isn’t enough for you on the question of allegiance then it is your problem and not ours.
The construction that automatic citizenship equates to allegiance is one of the more bizarre birther inventions.
Well I’d like to see a little less baiting from all sides, but then I would also like to win the lottery. We just don’t always get what we want.
I haven’t called you a racist. What I have observed is that you cite racist court decisions, and that you have a paternity-based belief system on allegiance, as exemplified by the comment to which this reply is directed.
It would seem to me that you are an extremely vigorous advocate for your position, and in a rational world, extreme advocacy must stem from a perception of an extreme right or wrong. Now I think that everyone would agree that in the case of Barack Obama, the influence of his father on his life, views and personal development is extremely small. So I cannot rationally connect extreme advocacy against a tiny theoretical bit of foreign influence. Yours is what I would call an overreaction, unless…
The one and only thing that Barack Obama Sr. contributed in large part to President Obama is 50% of his DNA, and in particular what makes make his skin dark. In that respect, and in no other measurable way, does the President’s father influence who he is. So yes, the issue of racism continues to suggest itself as the most reasonable (if not the only reasonable) explanation for the extreme rhetoric of the two-citizen parent eligibility faction.
So how do you explain the unanimous approval of the “usurper’s” election and him being sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? I know the answer from some of your tribe: the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate and the federal court system are all idiots, cowards, and traitors. And then there are the voters. How would you characterize the American electorate that elected Obama? (It’s a shame we can’t hear what went through you head when you read that one.)
While I’m speculating here, which will happen first: President Obama will show his long form birth certificate, or Mario Apuzzo will declare that the black race is in no way inferior to the white race?
The Constitution still stands. Elections do not amend it. Congress does not amend it. Political parties do not amend it. All the blog comments in cyberspace do not amend it. In a Constitutional Republic, the minority is protected by the rule of law. You cannot preclude a consitutional issue raised by a minority simply because a majority voted a certain way. What would your approach have done to the civil rights movement?
On allegiance, those are not my words but those of scholars, commentators, jurists, political philosophers, and religious leaders of the so-called civilized world since time immemorial.
We will just have to agree to disagree and allow a higher authority to resolve our differences.
As we said in law-school, the gloss you put on the NBC clause is over- and under-inclusive if this is its intention.
Because your gloss (BS, by the way) is that citizen parents are required to be NBC, and does not consider what other countries do, there will still be people who are born of citizens but have multiple citizenships. There will also be people born here to aliens who are born with only an allegiance to the United States.
If a nation does not respect our naturalization, then they may impose jus sanguinis citizenship on the children you claim are “natural born citizens.” If they denaturalize their expatriates on less than naturalization in another country, a child of an alien (by US standards) would be born with only a single allegiance.
So, your notion of single allegiances is BS. It’s probably a symptom of having chosen a term that had a meaning irrespective of the nationality of the parents and attempting to shoehorn it into some new usage. You simply do not like Obama, so you have attempted to twist a term that had 500 years of history behind it when the Founders chose it for use in the Constitution. They didn’t, as they could have, chosen to make it clear that only children with one citizenship could be President, but they chose a term that meant born here, regardless of parental citizenship.
Quit making ahistorical, unsupported arguments, Mario, although on second thought, that’s all you have going for you.
Cool, so you accept the words of these scholars who all seem to find that natural born means, born on us soil, regardless of the status of the parents.
As to letting a ‘higher authority’ resolve these differences. There are a few problems for your position 1) they have already provided us how to interpret the term natural born citizen 2) they will refuse to hear your case due to lack of standing.
But I am not saying that we should ignore a Constitutional issue just because a majority has voted. I am stating that once a majority has elected the President and the President has been certified by Congress and sworn in, he can only be removed through the process of impeachment.
That’s the Constitution my dear friend. So please explain why you seem to insist that we should ignore the Constitution because of some fiction on your part?
You have no argument, you have no supporting facts, you have no supporting commentary or scholars.
You have been lucky that the Courts have found your client to lack standing, as your arguments were argued in WKA and clearly rejected.
So now it has been reduced to a ‘patriotic’ argument that since you believe that President Obama may lack sufficient attachment to the United States, that he should be removed as a duly elected President.
I believe there is a legal term for that.
As is the majority when the rule of law is on their side.
So far the Courts have consistently granted protection to the side of the law here. What is it? 61 – 0 now?
mario:
actually congress did. 27 times and counting …
… or were you referring to the constitution as you imagine it to be?
mario:
actually congress did. 27 times and counting …
… or were you referring to the constitution as you imagine it to be?
aarrgghh,
I do not know what you have been counting.
Will you please show me in the Constitution where it says that Congress can amend the Constitution. May I suggest you do some reading on the constitutional debates.
That’s like saying Congress cannot pass bills because the President needs to sign it and can veto it.
On allegiance, those are your words, or the words of scholars twisted out of context until those who wrote them would find them unrecognizable. Or, they’re the words of legal minds whose ideas were tested before the Supreme Court and found wanting.
The Constitution has not changed, Mario, and “natural born,” still means the same thing as it did in 1350.
Oh, and the Constitution doesn’t change because you’ve got a loyal group of blog-followers who blow smoke up your … Nor does the fact of your notoriety among a vocal minority give you standing to challenge the President. Your client was not injured in any redressable way.
So, there will be no higher authority who will resolve our differences in a way that will satisfy you. The best you can hope for is state-level decisions like Ankeny, which will, obviously, find, like Ankeny, that you’re full of it!
“On allegiance, those are not my words but those of scholars, commentators, jurists, political philosophers, and religious leaders of the so-called civilized world since time immemorial.”
Making stuff up again. Please cite one early American authority stating that allegiance was based upon anything but birth in the America. You cannot. Have you really not read any American legal authority on this issue or are you just dishonest? With respect to your opinion that the president cannot have multiple allegiances, we note that is your opinion, but an actual court would like to know what early legal authority or founder agrees with you. If you actually look to the debates of the convestion, there is no evidence anyone agrees with you which is why no court will ever give your fringe theory the time of day.
mario:
i can’t describe how shocked, just shocked i tell you, that the constitution mario imagines himself defending seems to have amended article v right out of it.
I believe that Mario may be somewhat confused as to who may amend the Constitution and who gets to vote on the Amendments.
Another source showing that natural and native born are equivalent and that there exist only one other class of citizen, the naturalized one.
Cyclopedia of American government, Volume 1
By Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin, Albert Bushnell Hart
Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at its …, Volume 4
By American Society of International Law. Meeting
Congressional actions are subject to judicial review in most but not all cases. Two major exceptions are:
1. Deciding whether an official has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” that merit impeachment. No court has ever defined the term. Congress must decide for itself whether the acts in question meet that test.
2. Qualifying the President and Vice President. Congress decides whether the person in question is a “natural born citizen.
I come back to my earlier point. Your protestations as to the importance of this matter are dis-ingenuous. If it was so all-fired important, you should have filed your case when Obama announced in January 2008, or, at the latest, in January 2009, when he showed he had a serious chance of winning. All the fact you deem relevant were known at that time.
I therefore must call you a fraud. Not an ad hominem at all, but a deduction based on observed behavior.
Edward McPherson The political history of the United States of America during the Great Rebellion … Philp & Solomons, 1865
In Colored Men as Citizens, Opinion of Attorney General Bates, 1802
The political history of the United States of America during the Great …
By Edward McPherson
Mario: If you want people to stop calling you a racist, or at the least, an objective ally of racists, stop promoting a racist agenda.
(Your “Mexican” baby born on US soil post was particularly odious.)
Simple. Effective.
And under the rules you stated, Mario, a child born to a natural-born American mother and a father who became a citizen a week before the child’s birth would be eligible. On the other hand, had that child been born a few weeks premature, so his father was not yet a U.S. citizen, that child can never be president.
The line gets drawn somewhere, and Mario, the important legal principle you are missing is more basic: You don’t always get your way. You are free to call our system “bad law”, but it has no effect on President Obama’s title.
In losing Kerchner V. Obama you tried to argue that if the Court did not step in with a mandamus order to Congress, then no redress was available. Your lead client likes to say that Congress did not do its job. Wrong. Congress did its job; you just didn’t get your way. As the judge told you:
“The Court acknowledges Plaintiffs’ frustration with what they perceive as Congress’ inaction in this area, but their remedy may be found through their vote.
”
It’s worth stating that “high crimes and misdemeanours” as a term does have an existing meaning prior to the writng of the COTUS – it was used as a charge by Parliament against various Ministers of State under Charles I.
The list of what constitutes a high crime or high misdemeanour is long and rather involved, but it can effectively be boiled down to crimes against the state committed in an official capacity, especially positive misprisions – that is, derilictions of trust and office, that style of thing. They usually fall short of treason, which raises an interesting point – if a POTUS were found unequivocably to have committed treason, would he have a criminal trial or be impeached?
“The Constitution still stands. Elections do not amend it. Congress does not amend it. Political parties do not amend it. All the blog comments in cyberspace do not amend it. In a Constitutional Republic, the minority is protected by the rule of law. You cannot preclude a consitutional issue raised by a minority simply because a majority voted a certain way.”
Mario,
As usual, you dodge the truth. You say that the Constitution says President Obama was not eligible. We noted that every voter and every authority who had the responsibility for electing him and confirming him thought otherwise. You novel theory runs counter not only to popular understanding of what a “natural born citizen” is, but contrary to what all authority with gravitas says it is.
If the “Kenyan” father issue was your only attack on the President’s eligibility, I might consider you to be sincere. But since you have thrown out dozens of reasons and embraced practically every whacko theory of why the President was inelegible the evidence shows you just want the removal of the President by any means- you want a coupe- you want to ursurp the a valid, legal election for your own purposes.
I don’t know how anyone could be more of an enemy of the Constitution.
“if a POTUS were found unequivocably to have committed treason, would he have a criminal trial or be impeached?”
Easy answer- “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”
he would have to be impeached(and convicted) to be removed from office and then he could be tried for treason. Or wait until he resigned or his term ended, and then he could be prosecuted.
Oh and I don’t know how anyone could be found unequivocally to have committed treason before a trial.
oh and left this out:
“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. ”
Every time I read the Constitution I am more impressed by those who wrote it.
Mike-That may have been the original meaning, but we have had a President impeached for lying about sex in a private lawsuit regarding conduct unrelated to his presidency. I don’t think it came even close to the intent of the Constitution, but, had the Senate convicted him, he would have been out and had no right to contest it in court.
Similarly, Congress could, if it chose, find an indisputably non-natural born citizen (say Schwarzenegger) as qualified and there would be no judicial recourse.
Of course in Obama’s case he is indisputably a natural born citizen under current law, even if Mario might wish the law would be otherwise.
Well, I was thinking being videotaped in the act, sort of thing. Then again, as you’ve correctly said, I completely forgot about the other bit, rendering the question moot. 🙂
Just read Apuzzo’s blog which shows in depth the vacuity of his arguments and of his client Charles Kerchner.
Mike: if a POTUS were found unequivocably to have committed treason,…
You mean something like giving the plans to the Marine I helecopter to Iran? No, wait that happened while Bush was president; we just found out about it after Obama took office.
The only fringe theory that I see is that the Framers decided to look to the English common law to decide who would be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military of the new Republic.
Scientist,
I guess you are also going to tell me that Obama is eligible to be our President and Commander in Chief because the English common law says so. How hilarious.
Your failure to comprehend or accurately represent the arguments is one of the reasons why people have come to reject your claims and arguments. Whether by ignorance or by rhetoric, you continue to misrepresent the actual argument which is simple:
1. The term natural born citizen is not defined in the Constitution
2. Thus the definition needs to be found in common law tradition
3. Common Law tradition regarding citizenship in the US was guided by English Common Law principles where location of birth and not descent determined who was and was not a citizen.
Your continued refusal to accept these simple facts, combined with your continued ignorance show the cost of having to argue the cause of one’s client, when the facts do not fit…
I do pity you Mario but your choice to continue to argue these in a public forum are more troublesome.
If your case were ever to make it beyond the standing issue, and the chances are slim, your arguments will be quickly rejected by the facts.
Combine this with the lack of supporting facts, statements, legislation, legal precedents and one wonders why you even bother.
Do you care to explain?
Misrepresenting the arguments again? Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence that indeed, the Framers, like so many States of those days, decided to continue much of the history of English Common Law.
What is far more ridiculous is the unsupported belief that the Framers somehow used a term, clearly defined in English Common Law and early common law in the States, to refer to the work of Vattel.
Of course even Vattel’s position undermines your own arguments.
The emperor has not clothes Mario… And you do not even realize it.
Now that is hilarious and a bit sad.
Mario, Obama is our President and Commander in Chief.
It’s apparently news to you, but he has been our President and Commander in Chief since January 2009.
It has long since been determined by the powers that be that he is eligible.
Unless you have a time machine, its too late. Your train left the station a very long time ago.
Mario Apuzzo: I guess you are also going to tell me that Obama is eligible to be our President and Commander in Chief because the English common law says so. How hilarious.
No, you silly person. Obama is eligible to be our President and Commander in Chief because the Electoral College and the Congress said so. Don’t you read the papers?
i think he might prefer this one.
*sniggers*
Mario-Where did I mention English common law? I would state the case a bit differently than NbC. The term “natural born citizen” is indeed undefined, just like “high crimes and misdemeanors”. Congress is the body that, under the Constitution, must decide whether the facts of a particular case meet THEIR definition of those terms. They can look to whatever sources they choose in making their decision, including, but not limited to: English common law, Supreme Court cases, the opinions of legal scholars, common sense, polls, constituents, whatever. The process was designed to be a mixture of law and politics. Once made, that decision is irrevocable and not open to court challenge (as the courts are telling you).
If you feel that your Congressional representatives mishandled the case, then vote your convictions or run for Congress yourself But the courts cannot and will not help you. Why don’t you listen when they tell you that?
Where did this guy come from. A scam artist is to good a title for him.
The Confederate States of America Constitution? It says:
“Dr. Conspiracy” and his “friends” obviously do not possess the mental capacity and/or the legal knowledge required to comprehend the applicable laws and rulings with regard to the legal definition of “natural born Citizen”, therefore they cannot reach meet and proper conclusions on the issue. Obama ABSOLUTELY does NOT meet the legal standard required to attain the status of “natural born Citizen”, thus he is NOT legally the president. Before you even get started with your propaganda and lies, I am an Attorney at Law, a life-long Democrat, and I am black.
“Racist” is a totally meaningless “politically correct” term employed solely by those of extremely low intellectual capacity, who can nether face facts, nor confront reality. Said term was designed to prevent or stop meaningful, honest, and open discussion. I’m black and I’m very tired of ignorant folks screaming “RACIST” every time they do not get their way! How pathetic!
Dear Anonymous-Black-LifelongDemocrat-AttorneyatLaw
Thanks for clearing up absolutely everything for everyone through your extensive posting of well-documented facts to support your position.
Sincerely,
Anonymous-Whitey-LifelongCoffeeDrinker-Accountant
Your “fascinating” usage of “quotation” marks to “solidify” your intelllectual “prowess” is “intriguing”.
Few have “ventured” forth to “boldly” combine CAPITALIZATION with “quotation marks”. “This” marks you as a “true” beacon of “reasoning” and “virtue”.
“Pshaw” to those who “merely” trot out “facts” and “reality” as “support” for their “positions”. Such “moral turpitude” shall not go unchallenged by “you” – “good show” sir, “good show” indeed”.
Mockery – it’s good for the soul.
“Ho Ho Ho”
And why should I trust you? Where’s your birth certificate and school records? What are you hiding, Cletus?
Where’s your birth certificate, Cletus? Aren’t you late for your “religious-themed bonfire in front of the bungalow of a colored couple”?
“The Sheriff’s A Ni-” – Pardon me for pointing out the obvious (again), but I am neither president, nor seeking election to said office, therefore my birth certificate, parentage, and “natural born Citizen” status are not relevant issues. You folks who know nothing of the laws, yet blindly support the notion that Obama is legally qualified to hold office, are quite literally insane and completely out of touch with reality.
“Ima Foreigner” – Yours is but an empty ad hominem attack and it is totally devoid of any legal facts whatsoever. It is very odd that those of you who blindly believe Obama is a “natural born Citizen” either quote no laws or court rulings, or attempt to twist, turn, and distort irrelevant laws and court rulings to suit your position, which is invariably born of ignorance and deception.
What is it with birthers not knowing what irony means. Seriously – how can you manage to accuse anyone else of ad hominem attacks and not quoting a legal basis for their views?
It is with breathless anticipation that I await your listing of laws and court rulings to support your position.
Given that eww iz a law-yur, this should be a “piece of intellectual cake” for you and yer big brainz!
Joseph, I am an Attorney at Law, a life-long Democrat, and my wife and father-in-law are black. I disagree that Obama is not eligible for the Presidency based on the definition of “natural born citizen.” I think you clearly have not read the applicable laws and rulings.
Sort of like saying:
“Dr. Conspiracy” and his “friends” obviously do not possess the mental capacity and/or the legal knowledge required to comprehend the applicable laws and rulings with regard to the legal definition of “natural born Citizen”, therefore they cannot reach meet and proper conclusions on the issue.
A parallel argument to the ad hominem argument (don’t buy this argument because so-and-so is a [racist/stupid/democrat]) is the appeal to authority. Buy this argument because I’m black, a life-long democrat and an attorney-at-law.
Cite me some sources, esquire, and we’ll be off and running. Let’s whip it out and compare. I think my sources are better than yours. And I’ll put my legal analysis up against yours any day of the week!
Why Joseph insists on arguing from authority rather than facts is beyond me.
<Mario is getting quite desperate
That’s what happens when you are bound by your client’s conclusion…
The audacity to argue that these cases support his position and that even WKA supports his case is hilarious were it not such an act of desperation.
I stand amazed at the level of self deception exhibited here.
“Ima Foreigner” – Are you a licensed attorney? You are simply attempting to divert attention away from the actual topic. You would swear any rulings and laws I might cite are in error. I’m not a sucker for your lies. No sale.
[I have edited the following comment replacing “Greg” with “Joseph”, since it makes no sense as it was. Doc C.]
GregJoseph,I am not an attorney, but I do possess a JD. I have seen evidence enough to convince me that the president is eligible for the office he holds. I have seen and followed the cases offered by Taitz, Breg, and others, and I agree with the judges who ruled in every case. I attended a good law school, and not a single professor would have challenged the president’s eligibility. There exist no Court decisions that would cast doubt on Obama’s eligibility. The SCOTUS, which contains a majority of conservatives and Republicans, denied cert. to Birther suits. Of course, Congress is the only branch of government with the authority to remove a sitting president, and even the most conservative members of Congress have not attempted to do so.
So,
GregJoseph, you know something that has eluded the Congress, the judiciary, and the vast majority of Americans. Just what do you know, and how did you learn of it? Please don’t trot out that old discredited claim that the president was born in Kenya or that both one’s parents must be US citizens for an individual to be a NBC. Just state some real evidence, and then I suggest you forward it to the Minority House Leader. I am sure he would be very willing to spread your evidence across the nation.“Greg” – Kindly cite your “C.V.” and prove your legal knowledge, otherwise you are irrelevant and simply looking to waste my time.
“NbC” – Mario Apuzzo is quite competent and very correct.
“You folks who know nothing of the laws, yet blindly support the notion that Obama is legally qualified to hold office, are quite literally insane and completely out of touch with reality.”
Hmmmm- yes, the majority of voters, the Electoral College, Congress and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court are all ‘quite literally insane’.
At a certain point- when you think everyone else is insane- you might want to re-consider your definition of insanity.
“AuBricker” – No court has yet heard a suit on its merits, therefore you’re simply “puffing”.
Merry Christmas all!
Santa Claus is coming tonight. This is believed by more people in the United States than believe President Obama is not eligible.
I wish everyone a Merry Christmas or enjoyable legal holiday, as applicable.
“SFJeff” – Please cite any legal authority which has rendered a binding written legal decision declaring Obama is a “natural born Citizen”.
By the way Joseph- you haven’t even given a reason why you don’t think President Obama was not eligible when he was sworn in.
Which of Mario’s dozen or so theories of disqualification do you believe?
And you did of course file your law suit objection to his qualifications prior to the November vote right- good lawyer with Constitutional concerns that you are.
Joseph,
Long time reader…..long time giggler
Please, are you able to articulate, via such mundane means as case law, standing, statute etc the basis of you interesting belief.
Specifically how you and yours are factually able to demonstrate your belief of the illegitimacy of the current POTUS.
For example, actual law that states that a child born in the USA is not a real gosh darned, honest to God real citizen with ALL of the privileges, responsibilities and rights associated.
Real, actual law that somehow articulates how said child needs one or two US citizen parents to partake of this inherent right.
Real, genuine law that supports your thesis of ….well get get the gist.
So far I;m seeing heavy of belief, light in the area of the actualite.,,
“SFJeff” – Kindly cite the source of your information. You appear delusional to the majority of sane persons in this nation.
“SFJeff” – Your “C.V.”?
“Please cite any legal authority which has rendered a binding written legal decision declaring Obama is a “natural born Citizen”.”
First of all Joseph- i don’t have to cite anything. The President is sitting in the Oval Office, duly elected by the majority of voters, validated by the Electoral College, Confirmed by Congress and sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Your wholly unsubstantiated theory that President Obama was not eligible is at this point moot. He is President, and only the Congress can remove him.
I am no lawyer, but so far I have written more documented facts than you have.
The legal authority to determine the eligibility of President is Congress. Its in the Constitution. I like the Constitution.
Oh and tell me “Joseph”- what legal authority determined that President Bush was a Natural Born Citizen? What legal authority determined Reagan was? Clinton?
I rely on the same authorities for Obama as I did for those Presidents.
None of the sources you cite possess the legal authority to determine who is and who is not a “natural born Citizen”, which proves you are simply very ignorant of the law.
“SFJeff” – Stop making a complete ass of yourself and just admit you have no legal training (being a “jail house lawyer” doesn’t count) and you don’t actually know what the law says with regard to the “natural born Citizen” issue.
Joseph, please cite your C.V., and prove your legal knowledge. So far, all I’ve seen is you try to claim that you are a lawyer, without any sort of evidence to back it up.
So, please, provide us with your C.V.
At least one court has ruled directly on the merits of the case. I provide a link here.
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/11120903.ebb.pdf
Also, read Judge Land discussion of the merits of Rhodes suit filed by Orly Taitz. His decisions also state the claim has no merit. You can find them online at Scribd.
No documentation. So I was right in my knowledge that you were in fact an unemployed racist cracker and a liar on top of yet another birther loser. Gotcha.
All “Joseph” has is his beliefs. His belief that Obama isn’t really President, that he’s really an articulate successful black man, his belief that the chicks all dig him, and his belief that Santa Claus will give him presents for insulting people over the Internet.
In the end, he’ll die poor, lonely, and having missed all the cool stuff, but in the grand scheme of things is that really all that horrible?
Joseph: None of the sources you cite possess the legal authority to determine who is and who is not a “natural born Citizen”, which proves you are simply very ignorant of the law.
Folks like SFJeff and other regular readers and commenters have read and participated in a mammoth discussion and are familiar with a huge corpus of legal material and argument on citizenship. Vacuous drive by comments will get no traction here.
Joseph: You appear delusional to the majority of sane persons in this nation.
So somewhere upwards of 150,000,000 people think SF Jeff is delusional? With name recognition like that, he should run for office.
I suppose that what you mean is that most Americans think President Obama is not eligible to be president, which is of course delusional (proved by the results of the last election).
So far SF Jeff seems better informed that you. Care to present your argument?
There you go again, undermining your own credibility.
There is ruling in a State Court which has made such a decision, it’s legal, binding, and written.
Ankeny v Daniels
Happy now?
Ankeny v Daniels, COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA, November 2009
Blacks can be racists as well Joseph, or ill informed, ignorant, or lacking in fact, reason and logic.
So far I have seen little that establishes your credentials beyond some empty claims.
Ankeny v Daniels…
You are wrong…
furthermore, the case clearly lacks in merits in light of Wong Kim Ark.
Use Wong if you wish. By the decision handed down in that case, Obama is still a natural born citizen.
However, your claiming otherwise does not change the fact that in the case I cited, a court ruled on the merits of the Birther claims and ruled accordingly.
NBC,
Should you take the time to read the case I cited, you will find it indeed rules the Birther claims on their merits and finds none.
As for Wong Kim Ark, it demonstrates that the citizenship of Obama’s father has nothing to do with Obama’s natural born status. It goes against the Birthers’ claims.
Joseph: “Greg” – Kindly cite your “C.V.” and prove your legal knowledge, otherwise you are irrelevant and simply looking to waste my time.
Joseph, you are certainly wasting your time posting here unless you have something substantive to say. But frankly, whether you waste your time or not is not my concern. My concern is that you waste the time of the many guests here with your insults and comments devoid of substance. After counting 14 insulting and/or vacuous comments by you, I have moderated you to prevent your wasting other people’s time. If you have anything to say other than a demand or an insult, I’ll approve it. Differing viewpoints are welcome here; trolls are not.
AuBricker,
I believe that NBC’s comment was directed at Joseph, not at you. It can be confusing at times.
Aubricker, it seems we agree on Ankeny v Daniels. Sorry for the confusion.
I am not an attorney nor black, nor a member of any political party, but I watched Congress validate the election of Obama and I saw the Chief Justice swear him in, with the other Justices watching http://www.reobama.com/images/12PM_InauguralAddress_SwornIn_ChiefJustice_JohnRoberts_Reuters.jpg
So, you’re saying they approved and swore in the wrong guy? Well, my understanding is that the Constitution requires that the office of President be occupied at all times. So, if Obama is not the President, who is??? Is Bush still President? McCain? Biden? None of them seem to believe they are President. They aren’t standing at the White House gates demanding to be let in. So who exactly is President if not Obama?
alan keyes seems to think he should be president.
not that anyone cares.
… and how could we forget susan herbert!
Joseph it is Christmas Eve. Go sit down and enjoy some good stuff, take a deep breath and give us all a break from you.
Is there anyone here who actually believes that “Joseph” is a Democrat and/or African-American? I sure don’t.
Me either. Who is he? He sounds like someone else who has commented here. Or are all these people so much alike.
Joseph…
U.S. v. Rhodes. (1866 Kentucky Circuit Court, written by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice riding Circuit)
Lynch v. Clarke. (1842ish, New York State Supreme Court)
Ankeny v. Daniels (2009 Indiana Court of Appeals)
Perkins v. Elg (1933 D.C. Circuit, later affirmed in the U.S. Supreme Court)
And finally…
U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (United States Supreme Court).
Now, please hit me with your list.
Give us your C.V., Joseph.
You keep on asking for ours, when your the one that’s making the claim that over 100 years of binding precedent is actually wrong.
“just admit you have no legal training”
Joseph- I noted earlier in this thread that I am not a lawyer. I actually have a small amount of legal training but not really relevant to this subject.
Anyway, you refuse to actually state a reason why you think our President wasn’t eligible, and you just ask everyone else to prove their qualifications. So my last comment to you. I have no legal qualifications. I am only a concerned citizen and responsible voter who has read the constitution. I am against those such as yourself who would ursurp an elected President for nefarious purposes. I am against those who would destroy the Constitution while protesting that they are trying to protect it.
My biggest concern is not legal. You and your kind haven’t succeeded, nor will you succeed in court. I am worried that your ranting will provoke the feeble minded to attempt violence to overthrow our government. I am worried that people may get hurt or killed because of your irrational fears.
My last post in response to you. I have a busy Christmas ahead of me. I look forward to hearing of the wonderful Christmas the Obams family has, their first, but not their last, in the White House.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, Good night
Any legal thoughts on the following lawsuit brought by Leo and Pidgeon? I see that they did not use any sort of QW statute or go after the President, but since the legal remedy is almost absolute in a Chapter 11 filing, I was wondering if anyone thought that this case had a chance of winning….
“Following up on a continuing story regarding the Chrysler bankruptcy rulings, attorneys Leo Donofrio and Stephen Pidgeon filed a Rule 60 Motion to Reconsider on behalf of 21 Chrysler dealers on December 25:
The documents are listed in the docket as representing “South Holland Dodge”, but in the papers Island Jeep (James Anderer) is listed as lead Movant. 21 dealers are listed in the actual papers filed with the court.”
http://www.therightsideoflife.com/2009/12/29/chrysler-bankruptcy-motion-to-reconsider-filed/#comments
From our buddy John Charlton the Post and Fail….
“The case involves the disputed bankruptcy proceedings of Chrysler automotive corporation, known formally as Chrysler LLC. The many cases regarding the dissolution and sale of Chrysler are being heard before the Honorable Robert J. Gonzalez, United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Federal Court, Southern District of New York.
http://www.thepostemail.com/2009/12/26/donofrio-pidgeon-file-motion-for-reconsideration-in-chrysler-case/
While the issue of Obama’s illegitimacy as President makes the dissolution and reorganization of the corporation by Obama and at his behest, one of the glaring crimes of his regime; the creditors in the case are not questioning his eligibility, but rather the nature of the corporate dissolution and reorganization.
Moreover, while Attorneys Donofrio and Pidgeon did not originally represent any of the claimants in the case, the nature of the bankruptcy proceedings has provided an opening where by any of the latter might make objection with their own counsel, to specific aspects of the Bankruptcy court’s decisions.”