Jones v Obama
Perhaps not the last, but Jones v Obama in the Central District of California is the only one of the scores of frivolous lawsuits filed over President Obama’s eligibility that is still alive in original jurisdiction. It was filed on February 12 of this year by Ruth Jones against Barack Hussein Obama II, Barry Soetoro and Barack Steve Obama. Since this lawsuit is filed against the President in his “presumed” official capacity, the US Attorneys office will defend. (Thanks RC for the case and JackRyan for the transcript — saved me $2.40.)
Jones alleges in her 64-page document that Obama is not the legitimate president because his born of a foreign father. The case is the usual “natural born citizen” stuff, John Jay, de Vattel, Law of Nations. You know the drill. However, Jones spends very little time with Apuzzo-style arguments on presidential eligibility, but takes the 2-parent rule for granted. For the most part she focuses on the court’s duty to carry out their oath to defend the Constitution. She has a rather naive view of standing, and in the most obvious ways lays out her claims of harm in the most general and universal way possible.
Jones weaves in some new themes like Obama winning the Nobel Prize and an Executive Order on INTERPOL However, Jones doesn’t say that Obama is Kenyan, American or British. Rather, she paints him a citizen of the ancient city-state of Troy, hiding in his White House “Trojan Horse.” She further alleges that the President has withheld his legal name from the people pointing out that Obama is quoted as saying his middle name was “Steve.” (I distinctly remember Obama disclosing his name when he was sworn in as President.) Jones is also afraid that Obama will declare “Marshall law” and put people in FEMA camps.
Alleges “horrific harm.”
As this document is filed, there is an unknown person who occupies the office of the U. S. Presidency with his own words he is a result of a birth of a foreign citizenship father. As a direct and proximate result Plaintiff has suffered fundamentally a specific harm identified as the the most horrific harm that can be filed under the jurisdiction of the U. S. federal courts of one named citizen of her U. S. Constitutional rights she has being violated by the Defendant. Nothing in this Land could be more of value and more a harmed right with a priority of mandate from Article VI the Supreme Law of the Land.
Jones has some peculiar ideas about the Constitution such as: “Article 2 section 1 clause 5 specifically forbids a person to hold the office of the U. S. presidency who was born to a parent of foreign birth.” Wow! I don’t know how many presidents and vice-presidents that would exclude. Hubert Humphrey immediately comes to mind. She thinks that “proof of eligibility” is written in the Constitution.
She also has an objection to Obama accepting the Nobel Prize money, which she thinks violates “Article 2, section 1, clause 7” a clause that forbids the President to receive “any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.” The Nobel Prize is not given by the United States or any US state. Later she cites a more on-point clause, but it still doesn’t apply.
A final twist is that she cites an executive order signed by Obama and claims that it places “INTERPOL above the FBI” (complaint Page 21 – court numbering), a theme to which she returns repeatedly throughout the rambling complaint. The December 17, 2009 executive order designates INTERPOL as a “public international organization” (which it already was). The President’s authority to make this designation is granted by statute (International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288). The Statue grants certain privileges and immunities to designated public international organizations.” Interpol has been granted such status since Executive order 12425 signed by Ronald Reagan in 1983. Reagan’s order placed some limitations in his designation, and Obama’s executive order removes these special limitations. Specifically Obama’s order amends 12425 by deleting from the first sentence the words “except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act” and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.” It appears that Obama is putting INTERPOL on the same footing as the International Cotton Advisory Committee and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Most likely Jones got this idea from some Internet commentary (also here and here) that made a big deal of it a while back. It does appear that the FBI cannot raid INTERPOL and confiscate their records unless the President says so. It does not give INTERPOL unbridled authority over US citizens. Here is an article from ABC News on the executive order with details.
Jones confuses INTERPOL, the Nobel Prize and the United Nations, alleging some kind of quid pro quo where the Nobel Prize Committee bribes Obama to grant immunity to INTERPOL and by way of thanks the UN makes Obama the chairman of the UN. Speaking of confusion, Jones in her zeal to defend the Constitution (what she calls the “Supreme Law”) ignore the entire section on presidential succession, and demands that the Court order Congress to call an emergency election.
We may be looking at another Joseph Farah brainwashing victim, as Jones cites the fake CIA operative report on westernjournalism.com. Quite a bit of her rhetoric comes straight from WND pages and copycat web sites, including the l0ng list of documents (kindergarten records, etc.) not available and the mention of “Where’s the birth certificate” billboards.
The complaint is typical illiterate denialist rant, beginning with a 7-page “short statement of the claim.” When one reads this, one can’t help but be reminded of Orly Taitz.
Ruth Jones is just a typical nut.
Her case reads like she took 1 part birther website gossip, 1 part failed birther lawsuit tripe, 1 part black helicopter fantasies and 1 part rejected SNL skit and put them all in a blender and then poured it all out all over her documents.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this one ends up with a very short 1 word “Denied” response as it doesn’t really merit further dignity than that.
The most amusing part is where she says that she was born in “a large hospital in the continental US and that her parents never, ever left the country.
Ruth refuses to face the truth, Refuses to realize that it takes 2 citizens to make a natrual born citizen,,He hasnt even proved that he is not a undocumated worker. Why have a constitution if we are not going to honor and protect it.
Oh Don, Don, Don…..(sad sigh)
Why have a Constitution if you’re not going to read it?
Why have courts and a rule of law if you’re going to persist in ignoring them?
Just as I want to hear your birfer brain go “pop”….
Did you know if Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro had a child by parthogenesis, delivered by Osama bin-Laden here in the USA, said child is an NBC and could run for President…?
Actually, no, he wouldn’t…
Hugo Chavez is a foreign head of state. He would not be under the jurisdiction of the United States, having Diplomatic Immunity. His family would also have Diplomatic Immunity.
Fidel Castro is also a foreign head of state. He would not be under the jurisidiction of the United States, having Diplomatic Immunity. His family would also have Diplomatic Immunity.
The child, under that scenario, would not be under the jurisdiction of the United States. He would not be a U.S. Citizen, because of the Diplomatic Immunity.
Oh so wrong….
Being a head of state has nothing to do with eligibility it’s the diplomatic status, invading army thing etc that does it.
Typical birther thought path
A head of state MAY have diplomatic immunity
Someone with diplomatic immunity may be a head of state.
It does NOT follow that a head of state will inevitably have diplomatic immunity.
Fidel Castro is NOT a head of state, his brother is, in addition if any member of the government of Cuba is in the US (outside of the environs of the UN) they have neither legal immigration OR diplomatic status
So the thesis remains wholly valid
Come on get with the facts Dunstvangeet
You need to study more. Under the english common law, which is the basis of our citizenship law, children of foreign heads of states, as well as ambassadors and occupying enemies, were not natural born.
Again with the fail Ballantine, it’s “Children of Diplomats”, be so good as to read was was written.
Ok, but in this upside-down Alice in Wonderland world, both parents need to be citizens, but can those parents be naturalized citizens or naturally born citizens?
The constitution doesn’t say and even though I’ve never read it, I’m certain it might say what it doesn’t mean maybe.
Regardless, what if an anchor baby of two people with dual citizenship had their baby in the US Virgin Islands?
Would Virginship of two dual citizens be enough to be natural born or would they need a C section delivery to counter it?
By the way, my new doctor upped my meds and I think they’re working… 🙂
It’s turtles all the way down.
Notice that although the main theme seems to be that Obama cannot be president due to the foreign birth of his father, the complaint spends a lot of time speculating on the actual place of birth. (Hawaii, Kenya, ???) Surely under her reasoning Obama’s place of birth should be irrelevant.
Another birthers and their crusuade…The Post and Fail is reporting the following regarding our friend Fitzpatrick and the so called oathkeepers going to TN to “support him”…
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/04/20/citizen-apprehended-en-route-to-fitzpatrick-hearing-in-tennessee/
“The travelers were approximately 15 minutes from their destination when an Oath Keeper was pulled over while driving lawfully. He has now been removed from his vehicle and is in the back of either a Sheriff’s car or a TN State Trooper’s vehicle. Two unmarked SUV’s are also on the scene. Carl Swensson, an eyewitness who was traveling behind in a separate vehicle, said that neither of them was driving unlawfully.
The eyewitness reports that the only difference between Swensson’s vehicle and the car in front of him was that the latter had a sign that said “Oath Keeper.” Swensson said the sign was not hand drawn but professionally made. It was Swensson’s opinion that the the police “must have been tracking them.”
Sounds like more of their black helicopter fantasies.
I suspect that either the story is being made up completely or if there actually was a police pull over of one of their vehicles, that there was a legitimate reason for such and what we’re getting here is nothing but exaggerated fiction masking the truth.
[The Post & Email]: He has now been removed from his vehicle and is in the back of either a Sheriff’s car or a TN State Trooper’s vehicle.
Maybe they stopped him for blogging while driving.
A great article from a 1997 New York University Law Review article. It was written by Christopher L. Eisgruber, provost of Princeton University and a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Not sure if you have already read it Doc, but it may be something you might want to review if you haven’t….
In the article he says that “The United States Constitution guarantees citizenship to almost every child born in the United States. Apart from an exception for children born to foreign diplomats, the Constitution’s birthplace principle applies without regard to the ethnicity or legal status of a child’s parents – so, for example, children born in the United States to illegal aliens are American citizens.”
Other excerpts from the article….
“The United States Constitution guarantees citizenship to almost every child born in the United States. n1 Apart from an exception for children born to foreign diplomats, n2 the Constitution’s birthplace principle applies without regard to the ethnicity or legal status of a child’s parents – so, for example, children born in the United States to illegal aliens are American citizens. This is an arresting rule. Until recently it has also been remarkably little known. Many lawyers (and some law professors) are surprised to learn that the Constitution confers citizenship upon the American-born children of illegal aliens. With few exceptions, n3 the vast literature on constitutional theory has largely ignored the principle. n4
Recently, however, politicians have discovered the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and have attacked it. A House of Representatives subcommittee has held hearings on an amendment that would deny citizenship to the American-born children of illegal aliens. n5 A similar proposal was temporarily included as a plank in the Republican Party’s 1996 presidential platform, n6 and anti-immigration groups mounted a substantial (albeit unsuccessful) campaign in California on behalf of an advisory referendum endorsing such an amendment. n7 Earlier, during the summer of 1993, California Governor Pete Wilson proposed a similar amendment. n8
The purpose of this Article is to investigate the theoretical foundations of the Constitution’s treatment of birthright citizenship. I will seek to answer two questions. First, what rule ought to govern birthright citizenship in the United States? I will defend the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthplace rule. Second, what consequences would follow if the Constitution were to depart from the birthplace rule for determining citizenship? I will argue that it would, in theory, be possible to quarantine the effects of an undesirable amendment, but that such quarantines are, in practice, fragile.”
“On other points, the jurisdictional proviso’s meaning is more clear. The Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that the Fourteenth Amendment conferred citizenship upon the American-born children of aliens resident in the United States. The case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, n37 involved children of parents legally present in the United States; the American government unsuccessfully contested the citizenship claim by invoking an 1868 treaty with China and later agreements which restricted the power of the United States to naturalize Chinese immigrants. Wong Kim Ark suggested that the jurisdictional proviso should be read narrowly. The majority was of the view that the real object of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, in qualifying the words, “All persons born in the United States,” by the addition, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words, (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government, unknown to the common law,) the two classes of cases – children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State – both of which … had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country.”
Sorry, link to the article is below….
http://famguardian.org/PublishedAuthors/LawReviews/NYUnivLawRvw/BRCitAndTheConst.htm
Does not matter!
ANY child born on US soil is a NBC and it does NOT matter who his parents were!
The two are largely unrelated unless history is defined by the US.