There are just some things in the world that are discouraging: the number of unemployed, the number of children hungry, the number of people dying of preventable diseases, war, pain and birthers.
On a bad day it feels like the inmates are running the asylum. One can hardly find a political forum without birthers dumping stupid stuff on it. It appears that the Republican party is now the Republican Birther Party based on polls that indicate that more than half of them are birthers. That idiot Donald Trump flies around in his private 727 saying ridiculous and false things about Obama’s origins. Jerome Corsi, who is nothing but a hack propagandist, will most likely have yet another a best-selling book out shortly spreading misinformation about Obama and, I learned today, Chester A. Arthur. That’s right; he’s going to dig up the body of President Arthur and assassinate him.
Even if Barack Obama were to release his long form birth certificate, and the Supreme Court were to declare him a natural born citizen, it would make no difference.
It all just erodes my faith in my fellow countrymen. I understand a little better why Lincoln went to the theater so much — to escape the insanity.
Corsi’s first book was a best seller because they were being bought in bulk by a right wing organization.
Bottom line is, they ended up at the 99c Only store.
That’s a little bit of good news, but I still feel the Doc’s pain…
I got my copy of “Dude, Where is My Country?” by Michael Moore for 99c too. But then Al Franken’s book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” was a #1 national bestseller, as was his book “Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.”
I buy books by people I detest, but only used copies. 👿
A little off topic, but dealing with hoaxes. I’m a HUGE Beatles fan. I’ve read countless books and seen lots of documentaries. One of the most interesting snippets of the Beatles phenomenon is the myth that Paul is dead. The more crazed fans look for clues, they find them, which to me is quite similar to birtherism.
I was looking through my Neflix online movies and there’s a documentary called “Paul McCartney Really is Dead.” It’s about a video production company in LA that said they received an unsolicited package containing a mini tape recorder tape claiming to be George Harrison’s last testament. They started playing the tape and I roared in laughter. It sounded like a crystal-clear (zero background noise) studio recording of someone doing a bad George Harrison impression. I’ve heard George enough to know what he sounds like.
But this is the world we live in. Propaganda and hoaxes.
And for good reason, there are situations where a person might lose his cool when confronted with a vexatious conspiracy theory idiot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOo6aHSY8hU
Sorry to deviate but there seems to be no appropriate open thread…….I’d really appreciate if Doc or one of the site lawyers could point me towards a concise explanation of the argument which refutes the contention that everything Obama signed into law would become null and void were he to be found ineligible.
Thanks in advance guys.
Awsome clip Will! The Moon Hoaxers (Moonies?) were the first conspiracy theorists I got interested in (followed by the truthers and then the birthers).
In my opinion, Buzz is the patron saint of debunkers – someone with personal knowledge that the debunkers are wrong (he was, after all, ON THE FREAKING MOON!) who responded appropriately to someone questioning his integrity – I’d like to see President Obama punch some birthers in the schnoz for some of the vile things they say (especially about his mother…). Conspiracy theorists never seem to realize just how despicable the things they say are – a consequence of never for an instant considering that they might be wrong…
The birthers will eventually have a very negative effect on Republican chances. Most independent voters will not support or vote for a candidate who makes this an issue. It seems to me that some of these people, Mrs. Bachmann included, live in an Alice in Wonderland world. The real problem is that Republican leaders are unwilling to take on their base. As a side not I would encourage those who are Catholic to look at the Wisconsin Synod(Lutheran group) and its beliefs about Catholics. Mrs. Bachmann is a member.
I would have loved for the moonie to have taken Buzz to court for assault – I think the jury would find his claim that we landed on the moon credible… 😉 (and I’m sure they would have found his actions restrained under the circumstances…)
D’oh!
WELS is the most right-leaning among the tribes of Lutherans.
It’s called the ‘de facto officer doctrine’. Google is your friend!
Thanks! I call them Lunar Ticks.
Here is one of them relaxing at home without his human disguise.
That’s it, thanks, brain had locked up, birthers sometimes have that effect.
Do you think it holds up well, in the context of a highly unusual and possibly unique Presidential ineligibility context ,as a reason why it is likely that all Obama’s actions would not be null and void?
Obviously I’m talking about the theory here and not the actual practicality (zero?) of actually implementing any decision to render everything null and void. Equally obviously I’m also aware that there is virtually no chance of any Obama ineligibility contingency in any case.
This is one of those cases where it would be nice if probabilities could go negative.
Take it from the other side, what precedent would there be to make them null and void? Who exactly would annul them? Senators (including the great Henry Clay) and Representatives served while below the specified minimum age. Their votes still counted.
And how would you annul the President’s actions post facto? Suppose Ghaddafi falls-would the birthers propose re-instating him?
In the end, under the 20th Amendment, if Obama was ineligible, Biden should have been President. He could simply declare that everything Obama did is exactly what he would have done.
Oooh, I like that, too! (besides, ‘Moonies’ already refers to another cult…)
Simple question. Have laws ever been declared null and void based on the disqualification / removal of an elected official?
Thats a good question- Birthers like to tout some Governor that was removed from office for being ineligible(somehow avoiding that little detail that a Governor is removed per state rules while the President only by the Constitutional rules)- but were any laws signed by that governor? If so, bet they were all considered valid
Dr. C
I understand that you are frustrated with Trump. He brought the issue into the main stream media. However, his question is very simple – where is the birth certificate?
You should be familiar with the following quote:
“The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide”
It’s you who doesn’t understand – the birther issue is gold for the president. It’s a wedge that drives independents to him. If you’d like to pin your hopes to Donald Trump, feel free, but when your seditious aspirations are one more thing he’s bankrupted, don’t say we didn’t warn you…
Not that your seditious aspirations were worth much to begin with…
He has shown the certificate moron. That’s not a very conservative position for you that everything should be revealed no matter what. The truth is Obama is the legally and lawfully elected president of the united states and you’re still a loser
Where is Trump’s? If he provides it how will he do so? Will he send a paper copy to all 300 million Americans? Or will he post a pdf? Will the New York City Health Dept answer a whole passel of questions about it from members of the public or does the Donald have privacy rights too? Do we really know everything about his multiple marriages, divorces and extramarital affaiirs? What about his business deallngs?
What about the fact that Trump’s mother was born in Scotland? Was she a US citizen when he was born? Did she renounce UK citizenship? Is the Donald a dual citizen?
We know much more about Obama than about Trumpp.
Can I please have a list for the previous 5 years of all your bank transactions, credit card charges, all calls made/received by you? You have nothing to hide, right? Do you?
Well, that is called a quote mine and it’s dishonest. Fact is, Obama already posted his birth certificate online and it’s a valid document. Donald Trump has no plans of being President, nor does he care about a birth certificate. He cares about keeping Obama from having a 2nd term and can afford to say nutty things. Do you really think he cares if his kindergarden teachers still remember him? If he did, he’d do some research.
No, Donald, we’re not laughing with you. We’re laughing at you.
They really like to put the President up on a pedestal. A President cannot make law, only signed into law bills that have been passed by Congress. To declare everything null and voids dependent upon the status of the President usurps the constitutional powers of Congress.
Do the birthers want to give Obama more power than he actually has?
And of course the President’s signature is not required for a law to go into effect. There are two ways in which laws passed by Congress can go into effect without the President’s signature.
You should support efforts to pass state laws that would force ALL presidential candidates to disclose information proving eligibility for office.
That would include giving standing to a regular person to challenge candidate’s eligibility.
If such law passes in your state you will be able to challenge Trump’s qualification if his name appears on the ballot.
Let me guess – you are against such a law.
What public good is served by doing such a thing?
This isn’t the first time you’ve peddled this nonsense. You have been asked then and now and you still haven’t answered WHY you think this would be a good idea.
I don’t see ANY reason why any regular person should have “standing” to challenge a candidate’s eligibility and you have so far failed to provide any convincing argument for it.
What you recommend is complete chaos, where any deranged nut or person with a mere grudge or bias can challenge anything they want, for any reason at all.
What you propose is a complete tie-up of the courts with any frivolous challenge anyone can come up with and wasteful delays. You truly wish for complete lawlessness and an utter waste of taxpayer’s money, don’t you?
Yes, I am absolutely against such a law.
Again, on what basis or authority do I or any other general person have a right to challenge Trump’s qualification or anybody else’s, for that matter? Am I an official agency or in charge of such matters? NO. Did I witness his birth? NO.
Voting is a choice. If I don’t feel he’s sufficient as a candidate, I simply don’t have to cast a vote for him. It is as easy as that.
Why do you use different criteria when judging images posted on the web by two liars (Lukas Smith and Obama)?
As long as President Obama’s job approval rating is at or near 50% approval and as long as his personal favorablity ranking is near 60% favorable, there is absolutely no political motive for the President to release any additional personal data.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_fav.htm
It is a check against corrupt public officials who refuse to do their job.
In 1968 Eldridge Cleaver was booted off the presidential ballot in CA for not meeting eligibility criteria.
In 2008 Secretary of State in California refused to check Obama’s eligibility.
If government officials won’t do their job we need to have an avenue to take care of problem ourselves.
I agree completely with you, G, but, unfortunately, that language is in the AZ bill. We’ll see what happens in their Senate & subsequent court cases. It’s another example of idjits not thinking things through.
What different criteria? Be specific?
Seems to me it’s not the criteria for examination/investigation of the certificates that are different, it’s only the rational conclusions which the results of those examinations point any logical objective person towards that are different.
I see no evidence that an ineligible candidate has ever been elected president, so why should we amend the Constitution to enable frivolous lawsuits to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?
To get on a ballot, candidates ONLY need to disclose appropriate information to meet eligibility requirements to the authority in charge of election requirements. That is generally the SOS of each state. That is one of the stated purposes of such offices. That is what they do and have been doing. The general public has no special “authority” or expertise in such matters…that is WHY we have such offices, like the SOS to address these things on our behalf.
Same as when you get your license or passport, you need to disclose your eligibility info to THAT OFFICIAL ORGANIZATION. That is their purpose. NOT to the public at large. You have NO right to see or access my personal documents on my passport or license application nor to challenge their authority. You have NO right to that info when I provide it to that agency for application NOR do you have any right to that info AFTER my license and passport has been issued to me. You have NO right to see my license or passport that has been issued as a result.
NOR should you ever be given such access to any of that info.
That rule of protection of personal info and having eligibilty validation addressed by only officials who are both experienced and have the express authority to address such matters holds as true for me as it does for any person who is either running for or holding a political office.
They don’t lose their rights, just because any spiteful ignoramous like you is curious and demanding. Tough cookies, nc1. No magical unicorn for you.
Your premise is false and full of accusatory and unsubstantiated correlations. Therefore your question cannot be answered in its present form. Please resubmit a valid question when you can talk like a reasonable adult.
FAIL.
Just because tools like you are gullible enough to buy into an incompetent nut-job like Orly’s warped view of the world doesn’t make it true.
You have no actual evidence that the CA SOS didn’t follow eligibility laws as prescribed.
Your whole argument fails, because it is based on unsubstantiated and baseless conclusions which are driven by nothing more than bias and ignorance and have no basis in reality.
It helps that the person in charge of birth certificate in Hawai’i said that that looks like a genuine Hawai’in Birth cert AND that it corroborates whats in the vital records (Obama was born in Honolulu) and that the person in chard of birth certs has said that does NOT look like a Kenyan birth cert and that it does NOT corroborate whats on the vital record. Oh yeah and he didn’t sign it.
Independent verification from another official source. One has it, the other does not.
But then you would believe a guy dressed as Chewbacca if he said he gave birth to Obama so hey.
Quiz: And who booted her off that ballot? Please show your knowledge on such matters and explain the full detail that addressed that situation. What was the process followed and show your sources to prove it.
We have a check against corrupt public officials not doing their job and it is called the ballot box. In addition, most states can impeach/remove an official and have done so (such as Illinois) and others can recall officials (that pesky ballot box again). Apparently, California voters are satisfied that their Secretary of Sate is doing her job.
Of course, doing their job is defined by you as “doing what I want.” Maybe you should petition for a special council/group to determine if the candidates are qualified, like a guardian council.
Where is your actual proof and solid evidence that government officials “won’t” do their jobs?
Your premise is a false scenario with no real basis behind it.
Therefore, you have utterly FAILED to provide any argument to support taking “care of problem ourselves”.
If anything, your suggestion sounds like an unlawful mob solution, more suited to 3rd world banana-republic dictatorships and with no place in a modern, stable democracy.
We can cross discussing that bridge IF they ever actually pass that proposed language and it gets signed into law by the AZ governor.
Until then, it is just another loopy and legally unsupportable piece of proposed legislation. That type of craziness happens all the time in all states… but it is much rarer when the nonsense actually passes and becomes law, so I’m not really that concerned.
Further, since they are trying to impose a state law with extra-Constitutional requirements onto a process under the explicit domain of federal law (Presidential eligibility), I won’t even be that concerned if AZ or some other state does so.
Such a law would be quickly challenged and struck down the first time they tried to enforce such a premise.
Different criteria? I use the same criteria. Lucas Smith had a misspelled administrator who wasn’t administrator at the time the certificate was issued. There was nothing or no one to back up the certificate Lucas had, no proof of travel. Now Obama’s had the right administrator, right seal, was vouched for by the issuing entity, had the newspaper announcements to back it up and had the birth index to further back it up. Now why is it you have different criteria depending on who is President?
Congress is a check against corrupt public officials. Again you’re asking for extraconstitutional means to do something that isn’t in the constitution. You have no proof that the Secretary of State of California refused to check anyone’s eligibility.
Cleaver was taken off the ballot because he was underage. Obama is 35 or older, lived in the US for 14 years and was born here. Obama meets the requirements
Obama is the only candidate so far who ever has The fact that you don’t llike the information does not affect the fact that: 1. He disclosed it (the web is how we disclose things these days, whether that suits you or not); 2. It’s information, 3. It proves he’s eligible.
The voters have a sovereign right to decide for themselves who is and isn’t eligible. Not government officials or judges. It’s called democracy. You should have gone to Iran instead of the US. There, the Guardian Council of Mullahs vets candidates. Here the people do. And before you give me Schwarzenneger, yes the people have a right to elect him and let Congress sort it out.
I’ve explained this before, but let me repeat. Aside from the fact that Smith is a conviicted forger and Obama isn;t, Obama’s story makes sense. His mother gave birth where she, her parents and her husband lived, where excellent medical care existed. The idea of her travelling to Kenya to drop a baby is completely riidiculous. I don’t need any documents to know that story is absurd, just my very large and extremely powerful brain.
Perhaps you could care to give me a rationale for Ms Dunham to go to Africa to have a baby, because in the 3 years since the story began I have yet to heareven a semi-coherent one. Don’t forget to include how she got the baby back here.
I don’t think that would be a problem at all. The problem arises when the bill adds Presidential qualifications. If the bill required a “long form” birth certificate, it’s quite clear Obama would comply. But this adds requirements to Presidential eligibility. You see, Obama’s COLB shows he was born in the US and is older than 35. A long form wouldn’t aid in determining eligibility, just curiosity, and fresh meat to add a spin to. Did you notice that every piece of information about Obama is tagged with a spin?
Simple. Lucas Smith is a 5-time felon forger with a document with no one or thing backing it up. Obama’s COLB is supported by Hawaii’s Dept of Health, two 1961 birth announcements and a 1967 State Dept. memo in his Stepdad’s visa paperwork.
You first must have evidence there is corruption in the first place. You can’t just assume corruption because you don’t like someone’s complexion.
Correct. So the defintion of liar can be applied to Lucas Smith, because forgery is a concrete “lie” – it is clear falsification of information with an intent to deceive. His felony conviction for such makes the term “known liar” a factual statement about him.
However, there is no supported evidence of Obama lying, so it is improper to be lumping him with Lucas Smith in a comparison or calling him a liar.
Just further proof that nc1 doesn’t understand the english language and what words mean very well.
Although I could say that calling nc1 a liar would be an evidence-based statement and proper use of the term, as a lie is knowingly telling a falsehood. nc1 has repeated the same false information and myths over and over and over again, even after repeatedly being corrected and being provided with correct information. Therefore, it is fairly conclusive that nc1 can’t merely be ignorant or gullible on such matters. It is one thing to get something wrong. Everyone does that. However, once you’ve been provided the correct information you are now aware of the truth. To keep repeating the same debunked statements and concern trolling line of thought in light of such contradictory evidence is a clear intent to lie. Therefore, nc1 is also a proven and unrepentant liar. Quite likely even a pathological liar, based on the history of her posts.
The general practice in all elections is that the candidate, or their party. submits a statement or affirmation of some sort attesting to their qualifications. For example, if the candidate is running for local office which requires that a person be a resident of the district in which they a running, they might submit a statement stating that fact, such as “I certify that I have been a resident of such-and-such district for more than 30 days” — or whatever the law requires.
The statement is presumed to be accurate — the burden shifts to challengers to come forward with evidence to negate it. For example, when Rahm Emanuel said he was a resident of Chicago, that was enough to get on the ballot — the burden was on his challengers to go to court to provide evidence that he wasn’t. Once in court, he then defended the action by coming forward with both evidence and legal argument to establish that he was. (And happened to win).
Going back to Eldridge Cleaver — the paperwork that Cleaver filed at the time probably showed, on its face, that he was under the requisite age. So the Secty of State didn’t have to do an investigation, or ask to see the guy’s birth certificate — the actual paperwork filed wasn’t sufficient, under the law at the time, to get on the ballot. If I want to be Mayor of Mudville, and the law requires that I live in Mudville in order to run, and I file paperwork that says that I live in Hogsville — well, I won’t get on the ballot. On the other hand, if I live in Hogsville and say that I live in Mudville, using a phony address, I’ll probably get on the Mudville ballot, but an opposing candidate could try to knock me off the ballot, and if the paperwork was signed under penalty of perjury, then I could also face criminal charges down the line for lying under oath.
Obama says he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. That’s good enough to get on any ballot.
It also happened to be good enough for every Republican Senator and Congressman attending the joint session in January 2008, so in the end it was good enough to be President.
It’s too late for you do do anything about that. But if you can prove that Obama was born at a different time and place, and that he had actual knowledge of that — then perhaps you will be able to keep him off the 2012 ballot. But the burden is on you… not him.
1. How can ordinary citizens vet a candidate when government officials hide the public information?
The DoH refuses to answer a simple question whether they issued COLB to Obama on June 6, 2007. FOIA request for his mother’s passport record was initially ignored, only after the lawsuit they released a partial information (2 years later). They are still hiding most important part of her passport information. What does your large brain tell you about the motivation for not releasing the registration number as part of the birth index data?
And so on, there are multiple examples of hiding the information that is supposed to be in public domain. How are we supposed to make an intelligent decision while being fed government propaganda.
Google term “journOlist” to see what is going on in US media.
2. If the official birthplace story were true, Abercrombie would have found the long form birth certificate – he would not have described it as something “actually written down”.
Why would a presidential candidate born in Hawaii hide the original birth certificate – as a self-professed uniter he should have released it even before the first lawsuit was filed challenging his eligibility for office.
How do you know they didn’t find it after he made this statement? And because it cannot be released he has not commented any further?
1. The political parties in the race vet candidates because they have the most to lose. Notice they throw the kitchen sink at each candidate to either get them out of the race, or create enough propaganda to sway voters (like the swift boaters). Obama made it past these phases and right into the White House.
Hawaii’s Dept of Health did mention that they in fact issued the COLB posted on fightthesmears.com.
The process of requesting information for a FOIA is very slow. The information missing was simply due to a purging of old records in the 80’s to save space (this is well documented.)
Give an example of hiding the information that is supposed to be in public domain. I don’t think you want to make an intelligent decision. I think you want to make one based on a gut feeling. And your gut tells you Obama is a bad, evil Black man.
2.Save your breath on Abercrombie. Linda Lingle already took care of this a while back. She had the Dir. of the Health Dept. check to make sure Obama’s birth certificate was on file and in order. It was. And she was campaigning for Obama’s opponent.
Obama is not hiding his original birth certificate, you just don’t have access to it. Big difference. And he did release his standard issue birth certificate before the election, you just don’t like that one.
And the California Supreme Court’s decision in Keyes v. Bowen makes it clear that the State of California had no authority to do that.
In 2008 Secretary of State in California refused to check Obama’s eligibility.
There you go again.
Debra Bowen didn’t “refuse” to check Obama’s eligibility. As the California Supreme Court has ruled, she had no duty or authority to check Obama’s eligibility.
Another nc1 lie.
Abercrombie wasn’t looking for the long form birth certificate. He was looking for something else, something which he could legally release to the public. He has no authority to release the long form birth certificate, so why would he be looking for it? What would he be able to do with it?
Ask them what would change if Ronald Reagan were found to be ineligible.
So what is you motivation for not showing he was born elsewhere? You claim they hide, yet you have absolutely no evidence he was born anywhere but in Hawaii. What are you hiding? Are you to lazy to find your evidence? Or is it, you have nothing (except the great fear of a black man as President).
As an ordinary citizen you are entitled to 1 vote.
If you are not satisfied with a candidate for any reason, then you should refrain from voting for that candidate.
in this particular case, you were outvoted.
This is a democracy. We elect our presidents, good or bad, via popular referendum, filtered through an electoral college system that gives voters in sparsely populated states more power than voters in heavily popular states. In 2008, Obama won. The next election will take place in 2012.
And once again, assuming you are qualified to do so, you will be able to vote. Once.
Facts are irrelevant to nc1. She has made her political and racial motivations abundantly clear. For hardcore birthers like her and Taitz, Apuzzo, Smith, Corsi and Farah, et al., lying is a justifiable means to an end. She has no conscience.
See it’s a good thing the Founding fathers were a lot smarter than you and already thought of this. You vet candidates with your vote. If you don’t like the candidate, don’t vote for him. You’re basically saying that a small group of fringe dwellers should be able to decide who gets on the ballot simply because they won’t accept a candidate is qualified even though he’s shown his birth certificate to more people than his republican challenger, has birth announcements to back him up, has the department of health to back him up and the birth index to back him up. You’re basically saying we should throw everything out the window just because you don’t like the candidate.
The DOH has already confirmed that they issued that birth certificate to Obama 3 separate times but you don’t like it. You want confirmations of confirmations confirming something that is already confirmed.
You never had any right to Ann Dunham’s passport records in the first place. You’re on a fishing expedition. Birthers like you have never been able to prove that she left the US in 1961 to have a child. There is no proof of that and they’ve released records but you don’t think that’s enough. You have no proof that Ann dunham even had a passport in 1961. If they have no records from then to release how can they release the records you want that may not exist?
The registration number is meaningless. It doesn’t confirm anything as its most likely an internet number. So far you haven’t been able to prove you even know what the number is used for and why it would mean anything to a birther.
So what you have so far is birthers being paranoid and asking for stuff they are not entitled to.
The journalist is something you fringedwellers blow out of proportion and know nothing about.
2. Abercrombie never said he was looking for the long form. This is something you birthers put in his mouth. For the 3,000,000th time Hawaii no longer releases long form certificates. Just as Arizona no longer issues long form certificates to anyone born after 1989. Most states have phased out the long forms.
The individual states have no authority to rule on the eligibility of a candidate for President. Only Congress has that authority.
I have no problem with a state requiring a candidate to provide a certified copy of his or her birth certificate, as well as an affidavit affirming that he or she has lived in the United States for 14 years, as part or the filing process for getting on the ballot. Anything beyond that, however, is clearly unconstitutional. Furthermore, provided the birth certificate is an official state document bearing the issuing state’s seal, no state can reject it or declare it insufficient.
I would think that a requirement to prove ‘natural born citizenship’ (with HOW to do that left open) would be the best approach – if you actually wanted the courts to rule on the issue…
She has already admitted to being a Vattel birther so her inane, obsessive, compulsive records dysentery is just pointless mocking of people (as if there ever was any point) who don’t despise the President and dark skinned people.
I have no doubt she is an infinite birther as in all reason and facts proving the eligibility of our President to her are irrelevant. She will never recognize the legitimacy of President Obama under any circumstances.
Hawaii Revised Statute 338-18(b)(9) allows a confidential birth record to be released to “a person whose right to inspect or obtain a certitied copy of the record is established by an order of a court of competent jurisdiction.”
Additionally, any chairperson of a congressional committee can issue a congressional subpoena for any of Obama’s records if any members of Congress are concerned about the president’s eligibility.
The fact that no one has sought a subpoena and no congressional subpoena has been issued speaks volumes to the illegitimacy of the entire “birther” movement.
There are certain cases where that may not be true. Of course there are the older Puerto Rico BCs, which became theft targets because schools and other organizations that needed them for birth verification insisted on keeping them in their files. I’ve heard of several being targets where only the BCs were the only things of value taken. Has Puerto Rico finally invalidated older ones? I heard that they kept on pushing the deadline because of how long it was taking to issue new BCs.
Then there are the California abstracts being discontinued around 2001 with existing (legitimate) ones pretty much mistrusted. I’ve heard Dr C stating that there were various reasons for it. I’ve heard maybe there weren’t adequate certification marks, although the best explanation I’ve heard is that the form itself was so insecure that there were some pretty convincing forgeries out there. This article has a photo of one confiscated forgery that a gang member used to change his identity:
http://www.policemag.com/Blog/Gangs/Story/2010/08/False-Documents-and-Gangs.aspx
I was reading about people using their BCs for ocean-going cruises as proof of citizenship. I thought a passport (or passport card) would be a better document because of the photo, but I guess this is the norm in that industry. I’d certainly hate for someone to lose a BC and it becomes used for fraudulent purposes; seems almost like a potential problem like Puerto Rico had. One discussion I found on a travel message board included a mention that a cruise line employee opened up a book of various BC examples in case there was a question of authenticity.
Simple. Each voter uses their judgement. You obviously don’t like Obama and have the right to never vote for him. Others have a different conclusion. You aren’t better, wiser or more important than anyone ese. You cannot deny them the right to vote for the candiidate of their choice.
“I am a uniter, not a divider”, George W Bush. Did he ever release his birth certifiicate, even up to today? Did you call upon hiim to do so? Please don’t give me, “His father wasn;t from Kenya.” Your statement and the law don’t depend on where someone’s father was from.
Be pono, Doc C. Yes, it is trying for you, to have to address so many idiots who think that they are like other Americans. Racist traitors think that they are the norm. So…the fact that Obama is the POTUS, just shakes their world?
From my viewpoint in Hawaii, Birthers sometimes make me really angry. But, then, again, Birthers also really give me some great laughs!
That right already exists by laws in every one of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Any voter can challenge any candidate’s right to be on the ballot. So why would we need the extraneous laws you propose?
“Standing” relates to subject matter jurisdiction of FEDERAL courts. No state can enact any law that grants its citizens standing in the federal courts. The state legislature can only provide for standing in the courts of the state. And as noted in the previous paragraph, that already is the case.
LMAO Many birthers are Independents and some are even Democrats. Hell, the first birthers WERE democrats. The fact is Obama is losing more and more Independents by the day. You silly obots are the nutty people. You defend the indefensible. You radicals represent what, 20% of the Democrat party? If even that… LMAO
“Many birthers are Independents and some are even Democrats.” “The fact is . . .”
Many and some are and the fact is. . . . Hmmm.
Well, that certainly is a steaming pile of worthless opinion from someone frightened enough to feel compelled to post without a shred of evidence, a credible citation or anything except obviously mindless drivel.
It’s funny and sad how birthers lack basic logic and comprehension skills.
Birthers must be getting more desperate every day.
Obama/Biden 2012. That’s a fact. Please keep LYAO until then. Thanks!
The first birthers were Obama opponents and that is still the case with the vast majority of them. But it’s not numbers that I’m concerned with here; it’s facts. When it comes to facts, I hold all the cards. All you have is doubts.
See this comment from greg:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/07/comment-for-michael-patrick-leahy/#comment-15272
That is the case with ALL of them. As you know, I have searched diligently for even one pro-Obama birther and come up empty. Sure, Doc, a single example will disprove the case, but untii one comes along I retain my position.
A. A President can’t be found retroactively ineligiible. The courts have no such power (read Judge Carter’s opinion for one), nor does Congress once he’s inaugurated (they must make their eligibility determination before that). Who, then, would make such a finding, the Tooth Fairy?
B. Laws don’t require a President’s signature. They become valid unless he vetoes them. As far as I know, Obama has not yet issued any vetoes.
C. Most actions in the real world (as opposed to the fictional world birthers live in) can’t be taken back. Can you undrop bombs dropped on Libya? Can you unspend money spent?
D. Executive orders could always be cancelled by a new President, but this is the case any time a new President takes office.
Scientist has been trying to find the mythical birhter who likes President Obama’s policies but wont vote for him unless the president ‘releases his long form’ – do YOU qualify? Since I doubt you do – just like I doubt there exists such a beast – there is likely no political upside for President Obama to release any information (he doesn’t gain any votes by doing so and may be seen as ‘caving to the birhters’ if he does). On the other hand, by doing nothing (other than cracking a joke from time to time), he forces his opponents to ‘go birther’ (either overtly or by dog whistle), affirm President Obama’s legitimacy, or ignore the issue.
Let’s look at each of these choices:
1) Ignore the issue: this riles up the birthers (and the much larger ‘whackjob’ wing of the conservative movement to some extent) which makes the president more sympathetic to moderates and independents (as the target of hateful bigots) while putting pressure on the person to switch to one of the other two tactics… More importantly, I can’t identify anyone who’s vote this buys (certainly not enough to offset the votes it loses…).
2) Support the president’s legitimacy – saying good things about your opponent is a classy thing to do (watch one of Coach K’s press conferences some time – he always mentions the opposing team and always says good things about them) – and there is no evidence of a classy Republican politician who is also currently alive so we don’t need to consider anyone coming out and saying, ‘President Obama is a natural born citizen due to his birth on US soil and eligible for the US Presidency – now let’s move on to a substantive debate over workable solutions to the many serious problems that plague our country…’. The half-hearted ‘there are more important things (not to a delusional birther there aren’t…) or the luke-warm ‘the COLB is good enough for me’ tend to rile up the base even more than #1…
So that leaves us with:
3) Go birther. This can be done to varying degrees ranging from ‘dog whistle’* to ‘full Orly’** The ‘dog whistle’ approach will only satisfy the birthers for a short while and is not as covert as people think (i.e. it is a short-term solution which may, ultimately, cost as much as a more overt strategy in terms of moderates) and the ‘full Orly’ is guaranteed to drive voters into the President’s camp in droves.
*saying something like ‘there are legitimate questions’, for example…
**saying something like ‘a young, newly married, pregnant white girl undertook the arduous journey to go thousands of miles to the country where her husband’s first wife lived (leaving her husband in Hawai’i attending summer classes…) where she could give birth in a city hundreds of miles away from her husband’s village and the nearest international airport with much poorer medical facilities than she had left behind after which she proceeded to (with the help of her mother in Hawai’i) smuggle her newborn son into the US while having his birth fraudulently registered with the Hawai’i DOH (and that the President was told all about these crimes that were committed to obtain the citizenship that he would have been entitled to had his mother just stayed home at some point), but that doesn’t matter because even if the president was born in Hawai’i he isn’t a natural born citizen anyway because of a phrase that I’ve cherry-picked out of an English translation of a treatise by a Swiss philosopher even though it was published AFTER the ratification of the Constitution and it’s only SCOTUS citation on the topic of citizenship is from the majority of what is universally perceived (except among racists) to be the worst SCOTUS decision ever and was subsequently overturned because it’s title is a phrase that is used in the Constitution and that trumps 200 years of settled US jurisprudence as well as another 200 years of settled English jurisprudence before that…’ without pausing for breath.
So, in light of all this, please explain to me how the birther movement does anything but help the president get reelected…
I have also trying to find the mythical birther who cared about Vattel, the definition of “natural-born citizen”, etc. before a black man was elected to the White House.
Although I suppose you could make a case that the “Clinton murdered Vince Foster” crowd was just as mentally deranged, and probably the two subsets are very close.
You could write a good conspiracy thriller on the premise that Corporate America wants a compliant President with an appealing outward persona, and in order to get Obama elected without fail turned the Republican Party into an assemblage of freaks and lunatics. Hence the rest of the population has no choice but vote for Obama.
And the ravings frothing loons make sure to remind you what the alternative is like.
When you find him he will be carrying his mythical Civics book that said a natural born citizen has to have two citizen parents.
> I, Barack Obama, was born at 2 different hospitals:
I assume this particular birther is the same who already amused us with other names of similar structure in the last two weeks. So predictable.
1. You ought to change your alias from scientist to something more appropriate. You seem to be more interested in opinion than facts. Without verifiable facts voters cannot properly vet a candidate.
2. Why should I ask for Bush’s birth certificate? I have never heard of anyone claiming that he was born outside the USA. There were no lawsuits chalenging his eligibility to run for office.
There were many Bush haters out there – not a single one called for verification of his birthplace.
keep dancing nc1, just keep dancing…
Either there is a requirement that a President prove their eligibility, or there is not. Birthers generally claim that there is, and complain that the various SOSes and Congress didn’t do their job by requesting that proof. If there is, then you should be calling for every candidate to release their birth certificates, and that also means that every Congress that has ever certified a President has been derelict in its duty. If there is not, then you have to at least admit that there is not requirement at all that Obama release his (although he did, and you refuse to accept it).
If there is actually, as birthers claim, a Constitutional requirement to prove eligibility, than the fact that people didn’t challenge Bush’s shouldn’t matter – they should be calling for all candidates to meet the same standard. Generally, they don’t. Also, the claim that people didn’t question Bush therefore there’s no problems – the people that matter when certifying a President, i.e. Congress, didn’t question Obama either. They were satisfied as to his eligibility. So legally, the question is settled. Random people don’t get to invalidate said election – that would lead to chaos.
What facts would change your mind about Obama?
I claim he was born in Montreal, Canada. It’s easily reached in about 7 hours by car from where his parents lived in New Haven CT and has excellent medical care. Tens of thousands of Americans visit there every year. That makes much more sense than going to Kenya. I plan to file suit tomorrow to have everything Bush did overturned. Now you will ask for his b.c., right?
nc1: Here’s a question that you owe us an answer to. You have expressed support for the putative candidacy of Donald Trump. You have also expressed that you consider a natural born citizen must have 2 US citizen parents. Putting aside the fact that you haven’t seen his birth certificate, are you aware that Trump’s mother was born in Scotland and was thus a UK ctiizen? Do you know for a fact that she naturalized before Donald was born? Even if she did, he may very well be a dual US/UK citizen-does that possibility concern you or do you only care in Obama’s case?
And you ought to stop telling people you have a functioning brain. Voters did properly vet the candidate. What’s next you want to know if he wears boxers or briefs if he ever got into a fight on the playground? Your endless line of questioning is ridiculous and shows you don’t exist in the realm of reality.
2. George W. Bush had a criminal lawsuit against him for the forced drugging and rape of Margie Shroedinger while he was Governor of Texas. Does that mean he should have been totally investigated and thrown out of office?
Once again you make a total idiot of yourself because you’ve already stated that the birth certificate does not matter to you since you already think he’s not eligible because of his father’s status. So your whole questioning of verifications of verifications is dishonest. Your opinions are not facts.
Hey slart I’ll be your ghostwriter if you provide me with plenty of materials for your thriller
As long as I don’t have to do any actual writing… 😉
You just need to dictate the ideas
They also didn’t spent 50 million dollars of taxpayers money investigating a land deal where the Clintons actually lost money, which mysteriously turned into boring the ass out of the entire world with lurid stories about stains on a blue dress.
That’s easy – you just follow the logical implications of the birther’s theories…
Rethugs only care if someone is getting something that they are not getting.
Didn’t Lewis Carroll already write that book?
I don’t care who writes it, wrote it, or will have written it, as long as it’s not me…
If Trump decides to run for POTUS, his eligibility will be examined with a microscope. I am sure we will find out whether his mother was a naturalized US citizen at the time of his birth. If she was not – her son is not eligible to run for POTUS.
If she became US citizen prior to giving birth to Donald he would be a natural born citizen – born without allegiance to a foreign country. The only thing that would disqualify him in that case would be his own decision, as an adult, to obtain a UK citizenship. Only in that case he would be considered a dual citizen.
So you question Thomas Jefferson’s allegiance because he accepted foreign citizenship as an adult?
Really? So far he seems to be running all over the place and hasn’t shown squat. If he does post a pdf of his certificate, will you call it a fake? Will you harass the NYC DOH and demand that they confirm everything on it, includiing the registration #? Fair is fair after all. He doesn’t deserve different treatment because he is white and has an anglo name does he?
How? How will you verify the information?
Under Britiish law he is eligible to apply for Britiish nationality as the child of a UK citizen, which his mother was even if she naturalized in the US You don’t lose UK ciitiizenship by naturaliziing in another country). How do you plan to find out if he ever applied for and was granted British citizenship? If asked, the UK government wiil almost certaiinly refuse to say, since Britain has privacy laws at least as strict as the US.
Of course I don’t consider Trump a serious candidate. But…
Donald Trump was born June 14, 1946 in Queens, NY. His mother was Mary Anne MacLeod (b. 1912). The 1930 Census lists her as a US citizen. So that issue can be put to rest.
Until the birthers realize he’s white, then it won’t matter.
You don’t find it troubling that his mother was a dual citizen? Didn’t that fact give him allegiance to the U.K.?
The only thing that would disqualify him in that case would be his own decision, as an adult, to obtain a UK citizenship.Only in that case he would be considered a dual citizen.
So your theory is that someone born a natural born citizen can lose NBC status by later obtaining dual citizenship? Can you cite some legal precedent for that conclusion?
I’m operating on the assumption that the birth certificates would be issued directly from state to state (i.e., Hawaii DOH would send it directly to a Secretary of State). If I were a candidate, that is how I would want it to be handled, in order to prevent birthers from arguing that my campaign tampered with it.
Admittedly, how this would play out in real life remains to be seen. Regardless, I am convinced that individual states have no authority to rule on the eligibility of a candidate for President.
We know from James Madison that in the United States, place of birth not parentage is the most certain criteria of allegiance.
The one thing you can say with absolute certainty about Donald Trump is that the
ONLY allegiance he has is to Donald Trump.
Did she lose British citizenship? Most likely she did not. Therefore she and her son are dual citizens. Though as noted above, Donald has no allegiances at all other than to himself.
nc1, there are millions of Americans who were born to 2 American Citizens, but still have Dual Citizenship. Your understanding of Dual Citizenship is sufficial.
All Dual Citizenship means is that two countries, by the virtue of their laws, claim that you are a citizen. I can name 2 United States Supreme Court Justices who are likely dual citizens, because their ancestors immigrated from Italy. We’ve had 9 Presidents who have been born with dual citizenship, because of the interaction of foreign law: Ulysseus S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, and Barack H. Obama
I’ve, personally, never been one to claim that foreign law trumps U.S. Law on who can and cannot be President, but you’re the one who is claiming that a full 20% of our Presidents are usurpers. Funny how nobody ever brought this up before the scary black man ran for the Presidency.
I don’t believe that a challenge to one of the proposed state birther laws would ever lead to a ruling on whether a candidate for President is a natural born citizen.
Lets assume that the Arizona Secretary of State reviews Obama’s documents and decides that he is not qualified. Obama sues in Federal Court, which rules that Arizona has no authority to make an eligibility determination. And with that we’re back where we started.
The definition of “natural born citizen” is a Federal question, not a state question. The only way I see this getting to a court issuing a definition of NBC is for someone who has lost to a supposedy ineligible candidate to file suit in Federal court – and even that could be decided narrowly and not get to an actual definition.
How about a ruling on the definition of natural born citizen? If, say, a state law required proof of natural born citizenship (without specifying the nature of such proof), President Obama submitted a certified copy of his COLB to comply with the law and a birther candidate was found to have standing to object that President Obama hadn’t proved his status wouldn’t this force the court to eventually rule that he either had or had not done so, implicitly ruling on whether or not the president is a natural born citizen? Is my scenario unreasonable in any way?
Totally incorrect as usual. Donald would have had UK citizenship at birth because of his mother’s citizenship. Once again you show how uneven you are. Because Donald is white you don’t hold him to the same standard.
The jurisdictions that can issue BCs varies from state to state. In California a few cities have their own vital records offices. All counties have them. The state also issues vital records. It’s possible to get an otherwise identical certified BC issued separately by the city, the county, and the state. Any of them should be sufficient. I don’t know how they get mailed though. I would suppose due to costs it would be with an ordinary envelope without any particular security measures.
I don’t know what they look like. I do have some experience with college transcripts though. I’ve received a few that came in envelopes with a special seal that remains unbroken for the final recipient (supposedly to show it hasn’t been tampered).
Most of the birther bills I’ve read say that the documents are to be delivered to (regardless of title) the state elections officer although it doesn’t say how. I always assumed that they would be delivered in person. If the requirement is a “long form” from a jurisdiction that no longer issues them, then having them mailed is probably not an option.
I always figured if President Obama needed them, he would just order up a hundred or so. It would get rather tedious if he had to sign several BC applications such that they each get sent to a separate address.
According to Hawaiian Revised Statute HRS338-17.8 Hawaii issued COLBs to people born out of state.
So it appears that the image of an alleged official certification of live birth, (that was posted on the web and ‘verified’ by two nobodies from a democrat partisan web-site), if an image of a genuine official issue, does not prove birth in Hawaii or USA.
Internet images prove nothing & even genuine certifications noted as “Date Filed” of people born out of state do not prove birth in Hawaii.
HRS
“[§338-17.8] Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.”
Interesting that the image attributed to Obama, has the notation “Date Filed by the Registrar”, but there are other COLbs for other people, dated before and after that of Obama’s that have the notation “Date Accepted by the State Registrar”
See them in posts 9,18 & 31, which includes an image of a REAL birth certificate, here …..
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2304917/posts
Michael, Michael, Michael
You brought up that BS (amongst much other BS) over at Fogbow.
You conveniently forgot to mention that said COLBC has to include the PLACE OF BIRTH WHICH IS NOT HAWAI’I
Now off you trot back to Orly’s to fail at tracking IP addresses down for her as well as being roundly ignored by all and sundry.
Hell, even The Pest regulars regard you as at best a joke
> Interesting that the image attributed to Obama, has the notation “Date Filed by the Registrar”, but there are other COLbs for other people, dated before and after that of Obama’s that have the notation “Date Accepted by the State Registrar”
Why would it be “filed” if it wasn’t “accepted”?
> Hawaii issued COLBs to people born out of state.
Then why can’t any of you birfoons produce even a single Hawaiian COLB for someone not born in Hawaii that states “place of birth: Honolulu”?
You can produce Hawaiian COLBs showing “place of birth: Tokyo” all day long, that won’t help your argument. Are you too stupid to understand that or are you deliberately glossing over this important distinction? And if the latter, why are you doing that? Because you know your argument is bogus?
> Internet images prove nothing
No, but testimony by the Hawaiian DoH officials and governor proves a lot. You just keep ignoring that.
Arguing that the “internet images” are allegedly “court-proof evidence” is a straw man.
> wouldn’t this force the court to eventually rule that he either had or had not done so, implicitly ruling on whether or not the president is a natural born citizen?
It might also result in the court simply deciding the state law is unconstitutional.
Any way this plays out, the birthers’ reaction is predictable 100%.
If the court rules the law is unconstitutional, birthers birthers will whine it kicked out the law despite “obvious ineligibility”.
If the court rules Obama has “sufficiently proven” he is a natural born citizen, they will try to twist that into “the court only said the Hawaiian document is enough on principle but didn’t rule it actually is stating the correct facts”, i.e. “the court said a Hawaiian COLB proves natural born citizenship but not that the COLB is authentic”.
If the court rules Obama is a natural born citizen (or denies standing altogether), they will whine it is part of the conspiracy.
‘Place of birth’ on a ‘Date Filed’ COLB = what the person who reported the birth, stated without proof.
The Magic M March 28, 2011 at 6:27 am The Magic M(Quote) #
> Interesting that the image attributed to Obama, has the notation “Date Filed by the Registrar”, but there are other COLbs for other people, dated before and after that of Obama’s that have the notation “Date Accepted by the State Registrar”
Why would it be “filed” if it wasn’t “accepted”?
———————————————————
Same as a law suit can be filed but not accepted.
The Magic M March 28, 2011 at 6:27 am The Magic M(Quote) #
> Internet images prove nothing
No, but testimony by the Hawaiian DoH officials and governor proves a lot.
———————————————————————————————
No one has ‘testified’, it hasn’t been before the court for testimony to be given.
You are referring to press releases.
What is interesting is that HDOH has not verified that the image posted on the internet of an alleged official HDoH document, is in fact an image of a genuine official certification.
At best, the Hawaiian DoH officials and governor have made ambiguous comments in their press releases, which has proven nothing.
Fact remains, that Obama has not proven birth in Hawaii or USA.
Same as posting your drivers licence on the internet, does not prove you actually have been oficially issued a drivers licence.
Same as Lucas Smith’s alleged Kenyan birth certificate proves nothing, but as far as images on the internet go, it sure is a more convincing image of what might be an actual document than that of an unverified Hawaiian COLB that may be that of a person born in a place other than the issuing country or state.
Thanks to Trump, we finally get some reluctant partisan media coverage of the matter, and in the absence of positive congressional, senatorial and media action, the people of US at large will be woken from their slumber.
Thank you Donald Trump for your patriotic common sense.
Hey, Michael, where is Trump’s birth certificate?
One would think that Mikey boy would get tired of recycling the same debunked nonsense….I think the birthers really think that if you keep saying the same lies that somehow magically they would become true….Now Donald Trump is some sort of hero because he is parroting the same birther nonsense? Really? The fact is that all of the credible evidence has determined that the President was born in HI. All you have is the obviously fake Lucas Smith BC, some ambigious statements by some Kenyan officials, and one of the most unbelievable 1961 travel schedules ever to support your ridiculous claims…
WRONG. And you know it. You cannot possibly have paid any attention to anything to do with the subject and not understand this, unless of course you only read the closed circuit birther sites… oh… wait… anyway…
Funkino has TESTIFIED, UNDER OATH that the image posted by the President’s campaign was an image of his genuine birth certificate issued by her department.
Court’s are not the only place where sworn testimony is heard. Congress also hears sworn testimony. State legislatures also hear sworn testimony. Fukino testified under oath to the Hawai’ian State Senate.
You have been informed. Please don’t repeat the lie again.
Just like a true birther, Mikey can’t help himself. No honesty. No conscience.
> What is interesting is that HDOH has not verified that the image posted on the internet of an alleged official HDoH document, is in fact an image of a genuine official certification.
Even if that were true, what does it matter if the HDOH has already confirmed Obama was born there?
This is like saying “I’ve got a cheque here signed by The Magic M and he is clearly saying he signed it, but I want him to confirm that the scan I posted on the internet is authentic, too, before I accept that my original cheque is genuine”.
> At best, the Hawaiian DoH officials and governor have made ambiguous comments in their press releases, which has proven nothing.
They have not made any “ambiguous” statements. Your attempts at turning a clear “yes” into a clear “no” (or an indirect “no” or an implicit “I dunno really”) are pathetic, dishonest and stupid.
Even if the HDOH used the magic words you obviously think they have to use, another birther will come up with a complaint why these magic words are not the magic words he
wants to hear. It makes no sense continuing this charade with your ilk.
> ‘Place of birth’ on a ‘Date Filed’ COLB = what the person who reported the birth, stated without proof.
Then why does the DOH give out certified copies of data it has not accepted? What sense does that make (and no, “it’s all a huge conspiracy” does not count as argument among sane people)?
> Same as a law suit can be filed but not accepted.
A birth certificate is not a lawsuit. Besides, do you think the courts keep “not accepted” lawsuits on file? Do the courts issue certified copies of “not accepted lawsuits” to people?
How can a lawsuit be filed but not accepted? The analogy is doubly false.
How can one get a birth certificate for a birth that wasn’t filed or wasn’t accepted? One can’t.
I don’t know what you mean by “prove.” Certainly all of those certificates over at FR are prima facie evidence in court for birth in Hawaii, and would constitute “proof” in a legal sense unless someone could provide evidence to impeach them, which birthers don’t have. The Freepers are mistaken that a home birth results in a Certificate of Late Birth, since Barack Obama’s birth was filed only 4 days after his birth, and current Hawaiian law defines a late birth as one year late. I don’t actually know what the title is on the form for a delayed birth, but that’s not relevant to our discussion.
Finally the law you cite didn’t exist in 1961 and even if it did, that law doesn’t authorize the state to issue birth certificates that say someone was born in Hawaii when they weren’t.
All in all, your comment is essentially worthless at best, and more likely that of a provocateur and propagandist, since you certainly know all ready what I have said.
If we want to play silly semantic games, I suppose I could go down to my local courthouse and drop off an unsigned lawsuit, which the court would not accept. I could also “file” an unsigned tax return, which the IRS would not accept. in either case, the “filing” would be in my own mind only and would have no legal validiity. I certainly could not get the court or the IRS to issue a certifiicate based on my “filing”.
It’s quite telling that Michael and his cohort are reduced to arguing that a certificate is not a certificate and doesn’t mean what it says.
Prof Charles Gordon wrote in his 1968 Maryland Law Review paper, WHO CAN BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: THE UNRESOLVED ENIGMA:
The well-known birther Danae who reguarly posts at Freerepublic was born in Hawaii in 1969. Her COLB looks exactly like the President’s and also says ‘Date filed”
According to you, someone born in Lima, Peru can go to Hawaii and get a certified birth certificate that says they were born in Honolulu, Hawaii. LOL
That would explain all the peruvian flute bands in Hawaii 😛
I see you cut off the full part of that law which shows at the end of it that it was enacted in 1982. 21 years after Obama was born in Hawaii. There is a year cut off for that law from the time a child is born. It also would show on the certificate where the child was born.
When one is faced with arguing a demonstrably false proposition, one’s options are limited.
It’s in Hawaii.
And that is precisely why Steven Lee Craig’s latest case is going nowhere.
I was going to point out that whether or not someone has British nationality is determined by British law and that being naturalised in the US does not necessarily change their status under British law.
However, it turns out that the British nationality law in force as of 1946 was the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914. Under s. 13 of that Act, someone who was voluntarily naturalised in a foreign state did lose his or her status as a British subject. Thus, it happens that Donald Trump’s mother was not a British British when he was born if she had been naturalised by then. (I say “subject” rather than “citizen” because the British nationals were not described as citizens in UK law until 1948. For the avoidance of doubt, I also note that such autonomous dominions as Canada and Australia were not regarded in British law as “foreign” and even to this day citizens of Commonwwealth countries normally do not have the term “foreign” used to describe them in law even though they are usually subject to immigration control in the UK.)
Regardless of whether Donald Trump or his family members happened to be British at the time of birth, I would like to repeat my previous observation about the inherent problem with treat dual nationality as a disqaulification to the US Presidency: It makes Presidential eligibility at least in part a function of foreign law. Any country is, subject to its own constitution and laws, free to make any person one of its nationals at birth or at any other time. Nothing (other common sense of MPs or fear of public anger) would have stopped the British Parliament from passing a law to make every US citizen a British national. The British Parliament is free to pass a law today declaring all Americans to be British nationals and the North Korean government is free to pass a law declaring everyone born in the US to be a North Korean citizen.
I do, as long as those laws are fair and sane and constitutional. Hasn’t Doc Conspiracy come out in favor of certain eligibility laws that made sense, such as one that merely required a birth certificate? You know, proof of eligibility in the constitutional sense, rather than proof of irrelevant things like “born of 2 citizen parents” or “never ever had dual citizenship”.
I am staggered by the twist of logic that Barack Obama is the only president who has ever shown his birth certificate, yet there is a huge movement to say “Barack Obama, show us your birth certificate.”
I have this vision of being pulled over by a birther cop. The cop says, “May I see your license, registration, and proof of insurance?” Then after I show him these three documents (the first two issued by the state of Delaware and the last by Progressive Insurance), he becomes belligerent and says “No, show me your REAL license, registration, and proof of insurance. Show me the long form license and registration that tell me which DMV branch they were printed at and the DMV clerk who issued them and the inspector who did your vehicle inspection. Also, I need a receipt for the transaction in which you paid for these documents.”
It’s like filling out an I-9 (employment eligibility) form. An employer can’t specify which forms of ID will be accepted. If someone goes in with a passport (list A item), then the employer can’t insist on a drivers license (list B item) and US birth certificate (list C item).
For most legal purposes a passport should be prima facie proof of birth.
I recall President Kennedy was harassed by a crazy woman who claimed he was stalking her (thought they didn’t use that term for it in those days), making obscene phone calls to her, and taunting her that no one would believe her story – as indeed, no one did. She was nuts. Under nc1’s proposal, this crazy woman, ANY crazy person or individual with an axe to grind would be able to impede our national elections. The only people who could possibly think that’s a good idea are the mentally ill and those who seek to harm our country by bringing its system of elections to a standstill.
Why do you hate America so, nc1?
Donald Trump was on Fox & Friends spewing his birther nonsense this morning. According to the write-up in TPM this morning, he has an explanation for how Obama’s birth announcement wound up in two Honolulu newspapers:
“When asked if he thought Obama was born in this country, Trump replied: ‘I am really concerned.’ He also suggested that since the birth announcement was placed in the paper ‘days after [Obama] was born],’ he ‘could have come into the country and [placed the ad] for social reasons.'”
For “social reasons”? These birther theories are getting more detached from reality every day.
Hey Michael, I corrected your comment and made some notes… (I took it out of the blockquotes for formatting reasons – Michael’s comments are in normal type, my corrections are in italics, and my comments are in bold.
MichaelN:
According to Hawaiian Revised Statute HRS338-17.8 Hawaii issued COLBs to people born out of state but only after 1981 and even then they would have given the correct place of birth – i.e. NOT Hawai’i.
This is a clear lie of omission – were you ignorant or dishonest?
So it appears that the image of an alleged official certification of live birth which was verified by the sworn testimony of the custodian of said record, (that was posted on the web [true] and ‘verified’ by two nobodies from a democrat partisan web-site in Michael’s opinion), if an image of a genuine official issue, does not prove birth in Hawaii or USA… which is to say that an image on the web doesn’t prove anything – a certified copy of the official document is prima facie proof of birth in Hawai’i in any legal proceeding.
Internet images prove nothing (although posting an image on the internet is the only reasonable way to ‘release’ a document…) & even genuine certifications noted as “Date Filed” of people born out of state do not NOT prove birth in Hawaii [This assertion was pulled fully formed from Michael’s nether regions – the only way it could be corrected was with a double negative…].
HRS
“[§338-17.8]Certificates for children born out of State.(a)Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.” [I believe that this statute was enacted 20 years after President Obama’s birth was registered… Nothing new for Michael to dissemble by taking quotes out of context.]
It’s not very [i]nteresting that the image attributed to Obama, has the notation “Date Filed by the Registrar”, but there are other COLbs for other people, dated before and after that of Obama’s that have the notation “Date Accepted by the State Registrar” [Doc’s already completely covered this molehill you’re trying to make into a mountain… Once again you prove yourself ignorant or dishonest.]
Don’t waste your time looking at posts 9,18 & 31, which includes an image of a REAL (actually [Michael has] no evidence establishing this as ‘real’ and an enormous amount of evidence that the president’s BC is genuine, but he’s bigoted against President Obama for some reason…) birth certificate, here …..
[Two links to Freeperville deleted]
Michael, I have a challenge for you – can you make a single post in which you are neither dishonest nor willfully ignorant?
This is a comment from a known liar, stated without proof (or evidence of any sort…).
And exactly how can a lawsuit be filed but not accepted? (I fear a truthful answer will destroy your straw man analogy…)
Was she from eastern Europe? If so, you may have discovered nc1’s mother.
Thanks for the info, Doc! The idea of getting an adverse state court ruling to set up a federal declaratory judgement is interesting – if that happened in President Obama’s case the birthers’ reactions would be priceless (with their jubilation at the state verdict turning to ashes and seditious allegations when it was stricken down…).
Don’t even joke about Peruvian flute bands – do you want to be overrun by Guinea dinosaurs?
George W. Bush was born in Finland.
There. I said it. Now you have all you need to demand to see his birth certificate, apparently.
hahah that was the reference i was alluding to. my wife is peruvian so i made her watch that episode
There are 18443 towns/cities/villages/etc in the United States. So if we wanted to do things the MichealN way, since Obamas campaign team wanted to show each and every one of the electorate his birth cert, assuming the “see the birth certificate” van stopped in each town for a day (including public holidays, weekends and Christmas day) to allow everyone to examine it, it would take 50,49418 years to show the birth certificate to everyone.
Or they could scan it and put it up on the interwebs in 10 minutes.
What would you do…
I’m not that good at refuting birthers. At first I thought maybe it was because I wasn’t smart enough, but now I’m coming to the realization that birther arguments just have an adverse effect on my brain. I hear an arguement like “The COLB on the Internet is just an image, the birth certificate hasn’t been released.”, and the birther is saying that because he hasn’t seen the physical piece of paper with his own two eyes that it apparently doesn’t count.
Or the birther says “Show me a receipt of the transaction where Obama bought his birth certificate.”
And I think, “Real people don’t say things this stupid. The birthers must be saying something else.” So I reflexively give them the benefit of the doubt, assuming they said something less stupid than was actually said. Sort of a reverse-strawmanning I guess.
Then my brain short circuits because it’s just so overrun with stupid that it can’t figure out how to process it.
My great uncle was born in the USA to two non-citizen parents, and according to the Selective Service, as they noted on his draft registration, he’s a natural born citizen. So the federal government disagrees with your lay(lame) man interpretation of the law.
> If she became US citizen prior to giving birth to Donald he would be a natural born citizen – born without allegiance to a foreign country. The only thing that would disqualify him in that case would be his own decision, as an adult, to obtain a UK citizenship.
You are, as all birthers, able to contradict yourself within two consecutive sentences. If “NBC = born without foreign allegiance”, obtaining another citizenship *afterwards* cannot disqualify him as he’d still be an NBC by your own definition in the first sentence.
And you wonder why nobody takes you serious. You couldn’t even convince yourself what your definitions are.
Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross) March 28, 2011 at 10:17 am Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross)(Quote) #
MichaelN: According to Hawaiian Revised Statute HRS338-17.8 Hawaii issued COLBs to people born out of state.So it appears that the image of an alleged official certification of live birth, (that was posted on the web and ‘verified’ by two nobodies from a democrat partisan web-site), if an image of a genuine official issue, does not prove birth in Hawaii or USA.Internet images prove nothing & even genuine certifications noted as “Date Filed” of people born out of state do not prove birth in Hawaii.HRS“[§338-17.8] Certificates for children born out of State. (a) Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.”Interesting that the image attributed to Obama, has the notation “Date Filed by the Registrar”, but there are other COLbs for other people, dated before and after that of Obama’s that have the notation “Date Accepted by the State Registrar”See them in posts 9,18 & 31, which includes an image of a REAL birth certificate, here …..http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2304917/posts
I see you cut off the full part of that law which shows at the end of it that it was enacted in 1982. 21 years after Obama was born in Hawaii. There is a year cut off for that law from the time a child is born. It also would show on the certificate where the child was born.
————————————————————————————————————
Obama’s (alleged official) COLB shows ‘filed’ in 1961(by granny?) and it was issued in 2007.
Date of enactment is irrelevant in this instance.
Where the child is born is merely the advice tendered by the person (an adult or parents – probably granny) who lodged the notice – where the child was born has not necessarily been determined by the director of health at the time of issue, hence ‘Date Filed’
‘upon application’ of an adult or legal parents & provided proof of residency of the parents for one year prior to the birth, is ALL that is needed for the ‘birth certificate’ to be issued, apparently without ANY proof of birth anywhere.
Then the director may require more information to or not, at his/her discretion.
Makes it extreemely easy for anyone to get a Hawaiian ‘birth certificate’ and a subsequent COLB marked ‘Date Filed’ but not ‘Date Accepted’, even if not born in Hawaii or USA, doesn’t it?
Fact – Obama’s (alleged official) COLB does not prove birth in Hawaii.
Fact-I SCIENTIFICALLY PROVED right on this blog that Obama could not have been born outside the US and brought into the country in time for his mother to be in Seattle in late Auugust 1961 as testtified to by eyewitnesses. He could ONLY have been born in the US, though i can’t rule out one of the other 49 states. Doesn’t matter, though.
Fact, fact, fact..
So an official birth certificate, officially issued by the State of Hawaii, and confirmed by the official officials of the State of Hawaii (Governor Lingle, the Dept. of Health Director, and the Registrar) is not sufficient to prove what it clearly says, that President Obama was born in the State of Hawaii?
Y’know, I have noticed that there are basically three kinds of people who are involved in the birther conspiracy movement: Scoundrels, lunatics, and fools. Donald Trump is a scoundrel, Orly Taitz is a lunatic, and you, sir, are a fool.
That sounds like an interesting read. Do you have a link?
MichaelN, you got a severe spanking in this thread, one that will stand and be viewed for years and years. Quit while your ass is bright red and save yourself further humiliation.
I’m sorry Michael but contrary to your delusions laws like this can’t work retroactively. The law is specific. Registrations must be made within a year of the child being born. You have no proof that “granny” filed it. An at home registration would still require a physician to see the child and seeing as it was done within 3 days this was not a delayed registration. The proof of residency one year prior only took place in the law in 1982 not in 1961 so there is no time travel exclusion built into the 1982 law.
I got a question Michael how many years have you worked in the department of Health in any of the states in the United States?
It was from earlier today, but I can’t find it right now. Basically, it stems from the fact that even an infant needs a passport to travel from Kenya to the US. It takes a month or more after recording a birth to get a birth certificate, and a month or more from when you get the b.c. to get a passport. Add in tiime to ship from the US to Kenya (pre-FedEx) and you are looking at close to 3 months. Yet, Ms Dunham and her baby were in Seattle in late August,3 weeks after the birth. Not possible unless he was born in the US.
This applies whether you get a US passport with a Hawaiian b.c. or a UK and Colonies passport with a Kenyan b.c.
The math for a birth abroad doesn’t work, barring time travel/teleportation. If a birther wants to claim the Hawaiian b.c. is fake, then the only conclusion is he was born in another US state. He’s still eligible.
Actually we know he was born in Hawaii, but he COULD NOT have been born abroad even under birther rules.
Not that I take stock in it, but I think the fantasy contention of the birthers is that he could have been brought into Hawaii while he was weeks old, but that the professed date of birth given to Hawaii was after the fantasy “original” birth. I’m thinking any doctor checking out the child would be on to the fact that he wasn’t 1 or 2 days old when signing off on the affidavit.
There are rumors that Tom Cruise adopted Suri and had a hospital sign off on a BC while she was a few weeks old. I don’t necessarily believe it, but I suppose birthers have the same fantasy about Obama’s birth.
From a scientific point of view, we have two theories:
1) President Obama was born in the US
2) President Obama was born outside the US
Scientist is claiming (and is justified to do so) that he can falsify any hypothesis that is consistent with (2) and inconsistent with (1). When you add to that the mountain of evidence that President Obama was born in the US (and in Honolulu, in particular) his statement that he has ‘scientifically proven’ that President Obama was born in the US is reasonable hyperbole. Personally, I would avoid using the term ‘scientifically proven’ (science doesn’t really prove anything), but that’s probably just my prejudice as a mathematician…
No need to be so dramatic – court verification of candidate’s birth certificate is not a rocket science. There would be no stalled elections if sombody challenged candidate’s eligibility.
I would like to see a government document declaring someone as a natural born citizen.
nc1, if Obama provided his COLB to a court along with the existing statements issued by the Hawaii DOH, do you think the court would consider his Hawaiian birth a verified fact?
hint: Of course it would.
Did your theory take into acount a possibility that US had a consulate in Kenya in 1961?
> Actually we know he was born in Hawaii, but he COULD NOT have been born abroad even under birther rules.
Since they make up the rules as they go, they would be able to find another theory.
So even if at some point they would have to admit he was born “in” Hawaii, they’d just claim he was probably born on a boat cruise outside Hawaiian waters, at least until proven otherwise. *sigh*
No, the court would have to receive an official confirmation from DoH.
Actually on a second thought, there was a judge who mentioned that case was twittered enough prior to dismissing it. Perhaps an Obot judge would accept images and posts on the web as a proof.
That is a valuable lesson about judicial system in the USA – it is much more corrupt than I could have imagined.
No, you’re just much more delusional than anyone could have imagined…
You are a clown; not one of the nice funny ones either, but a David Lynch clown.
One wonders how you can perform in everyday’s life and how many “car wrecks” you cause around you.
Another day, another few dozen idiotic, pointless lies and fallacious, unsupported mental farts from Naturalized Citizen.
Of course. Are you saying the birth was registered as a US citizen born abroad? OK, then he’s a natural born citizen, just like John McCain or George Romney. And then why fraudulently register the birth in Hawaii? That’s absurd,
Or are you saying the registration was refused because of the mother’s age? But let’s look at the timeline:
1. Stanley Ann calls her mother in Hawaii and asks her to register the birth. It was registered in Hawaii Aug 8. But you don’t receive a birth certificate upon registration. It takes a few weeks to get the actual paper. We’re now in late August.
2. Then you take the b.c and apply for a passport. This could be done by the senior Ms. Dunham in Hawaii. That would take 4-6 weeks. Now it’s late September/early October. Then you send the passport to Kenya, which takes at least a week (no FedEx in those days) , Definitely October now..
And there is a problem. The baby, supposedly born in the US 2 months ago, is returning to the US with a brand-new, unused passport with no entry stamps. Raises a lot of questions…
3. The alternate is that the Sr Ms Dunham sends the b.c to Kenya. Again this takes at least a week so it’s September by now. Stanley Ann takes it and goes to the consulate and asks for a passport. But the consulate will wonder, “How did this baby, born in Hawaii, get here to Kenya with no passport?”. So that doesn’t work. Even if it did, we’re well into September by now.
4. Get UK and Colonies passport. Birth is also registered in Kenya (Lucas Smith). But do you think the highly efficient bureaucracy there issues a certificate quicker than Hawaii? They don’t.. So you still have to wait to get the actual certificate. Then you have to apply for the passport. Again, it will take at least a few weeks. Now the baby is entering the US not as a US citiizen but as an alien coming to live here with its parent. So they need a US visa. Add in a trip to the US Consulate and another few weeks to get a visa. So it’s definitely October.
There is no scenario in which you could get a b.c. issued, get a passport issued, have them sent where they need to be and get visas if you need them in time to be in Seattle by late August. In fact, you would be lucky to get there by mid-October.
The timelline for a birth in Kenya simply DOES NOT WORK. Only a birth in the US works. Therefore, even if the Hawaiian certtificate were a complete out-and-out forgery, all that would mean is that the birth took place in one of the other 49 states. And that has no effect on eligibility. And why fraudulently report a birth in Hawaii if it really took place in Washington or Kansas? Makes no sense.
You can spin all you like, but you are defeated by logic and science.
> there was a judge who mentioned that case was twittered enough prior to dismissing it
Again, since you can’t possibly be *that* stupid, you are distorting the facts to fit into your propaganda.
The judge has observed that the citizenship issue was part of public debate (thus underlining that it is, in his correct opinion, a political question and not a legal one). Then he observed that the plaintiff (Hollister) thinks it’s a legal question.
That’s all.
The judge did not “dismiss the case because it has been twittered”.
Then again, since you have the unique capability of turning a clear “he was born in Hawaii and is a natural born citizen” into a clear “we have no idea where he was born and are just talking out of our rear ends”, it’s no wonder you have no problems distorting what the judge actually said and meant into what fits your purpose.
In other words, your credo is “Once you’ve shown black is white and up is down, showing that the moon is made of cheese is an easy task”.
If the ship was registered in the US, it’s considered born on US soil.
> If the ship was registered in the US, it’s considered born on US soil.
And birthers will demand proof of the ship’s registration even if they had no real evidence pointing to even the existence of such a ship. And they’re going to want to see *all* of the papers to prove it didn’t smuggle Mao bibles in from China…
In the scenario described, the court would have an official confirmation from DoH. The signed and sealed COLB – a self authenticating document.
Brilliant analysis. I wonder why is it that nobody elese could figure it out for the past 2.5 years?
Now, could you explain why Abercrombie mentioned that Obama’s birth registration was “actually written down”?
Why does DoH refuse to confirm that registration number 10641 belong to Obama? They refused to answer the direct question about birth registration index in case when the request contained both: name Obama and that number.
No you idiot. The judicial system in the U.S. operates on the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”. Birth certificates are not forgeries until proven inauthentic. They’re authentic until proven forgeries.
My mind is returning to the birther cop. After I show him my license, he tells me I have to go to court to prove that it is a valid license, with sworn testimony from officials at the DMV.
Just spitballing ideas here, but maybe it’s because Obama’s birth registration is actually written down. As in, some sort of ink, or possibly graphite, was used to make impressions in the shapes of English letters and numbers on a piece of paper, and make these shapes fit together in a pattern so as to form words and numbers which detail the facts of Barack Obama’s birth.
I noticed that you didn’t actually address any of the points in Scientist’s analysis, choosing instead to open with an insult and follow it up with two non-sequitirs.
I think most people already knew it and didn’t bother to develop the idea. Now I have spelled it out very clearly. It’s impossible for Obama to have been born outside the US and to have been in Seattle with his mother as reported by several witnesses in late August 1961. Many important discoveries look obvious once they are explained.
All records are in 3 forms: electronic, written and within human memory. Electronic records were not generally used in 1961. The humans who were actually present at the birth and would have reason to remember it are all deceased (some medical personnel who were there could still be alive, but would have no reason to remember the event). That leaves written records.
It’s immaterial, since I have proven Obama could only have been born in the US. If you wish to believe he wasn’t born in Hawaii, you have 49 other states. Get to work.
You obviously have very little experience with insane pro se plaintiffs. They’re already wasting precious court resouces, and you think if they actually had standing that would somehow make things go faster?
Or perhaps the valuable lesson is that you know very little about the court system and the rules of evidence?
Most of us had. It’s just the loonies taht keep fighting it.
Are you saying that his original birth records aren’t “actually written down”? Are they cared in clay tablets? His ambiguous statement can mean much of anything. We all know you’ll twist the most obvious statements to mean something nefarious, so I wonder how you will interpret something vague?
Because they don’t have to. How simple is that. Ask them to confirm anyone else’s registration number, and I’m going to guarentee you’ll get the same non-response. They are under no obligation to tell you anything about the registration numbers. How many times have you been told this?
nc1, actually read the Federal Rules of Evidence, especially Rule 902(1). Here, I’ll give it to you:
Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to admissibility is not required with respect to the following: (1) A document bearing a seal purporting to be that of the United States, or of any State, district, Commonwealth, territory, or insular possession thereof, or the Panama Canal Zone, or the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, or of a political subdivision, department, officer, or agency thereof, and a signature purporting to be an attestation or execution.
Get it, Barack Obama’s birth certificate is self-authenticating. The Court does not have to go to the Hawaii Department of Health to get it authenticated, because the Hawaii Department of Health has already authenticated it with the “I certify that this is a true copy or abstract of the record on file at the Hawaii Department of Health. Alvin T. Onaka, Ph.D. State Registrar” Barack Obama doesn’t need to do anything further to authenticate his birth certificate to get it admitted into the court of law. And neither does the court.
So, in your mythical scenario of a court
Have you given any thought to going back to wherever you came from? Perhaps you should, since you have such contempt for the institutions of the United States.
nc1, actually read the Federal Rules of Evidence, especially Rule 902(1). Here, I’ll give it to you:
Extrinsic evidence of authenticity as a condition precedent to admissibility is not required with respect to the following: (1) A document bearing a seal purporting to be that of the United States, or of any State, district, Commonwealth, territory, or insular possession thereof, or the Panama Canal Zone, or the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, or of a political subdivision, department, officer, or agency thereof, and a signature purporting to be an attestation or execution.
Get it, Barack Obama’s birth certificate is self-authenticating. The Court does not have to go to the Hawaii Department of Health to get it authenticated, because the Hawaii Department of Health has already authenticated it with the “I certify that this is a true copy or abstract of the record on file at the Hawaii Department of Health. Alvin T. Onaka, Ph.D. State Registrar” Barack Obama doesn’t need to do anything further to authenticate his birth certificate to get it admitted into the court of law. And neither does the court.
So, in your mythical scenario of a court appearance, Barack Obama would just have to take the document that he scanned, and photographed, and just present it. The court admits it into evidence, and says that he was born in the United States. That’s it. No call to the Hawaii Department of Health. No calling of any officials up to authenticate it. Nothing. It’s already been authenticated.
Why do you hate America so much?
He is referring to the “handwritten” index books. After Kapiolani sent the BC over to the DOH. The clerk enters the info into the index book. In 1961, the index book was handwritten.
nc1: I’m going to give you an opening here to get beyond your fixation with the registration #. Let’s assume that the birth was fraudulently registered in Hawaii on August 8, 1961. According to you, baby Obama was in Kenya on that day. How did he get to Seattle by late August? Keep in mind that we OBots can answer that question very simply-he and his mother were in Hawaii and got on a plane with no need for a passport. But it will be very entertaining to hear you take a stab at this.
Probably something like this: http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_view.aspx?Id=2061478&Type=Birth
So you want the federal government to hire tens of thousands of new government employees to verify the circumstances of every birth?
There is no difference between a “Citizen of the United States at birth” and a natural born citizen. The US Code clearly spells out who is a Citizen of the United States at birth and if there is ever a question about who qualifies, any court of law can apply what’s in the US Code to any individual circumstance.
Probably very similar, except the left-hand column would be certification numbers.
Every document President Obama has signed as President is a government attestation that he is NBC.
Now here we have a good point. Here in Ireland, we actually write bith records into the air with ailen technology. In Sweden they actually use water memory to store borth records, and in England they have a hole dug into the hollow earth so that birth records are actually written UP in the underside of the earths crush. The thought of actually writing records down is so archaic.
> That’s it. No call to the Hawaii Department of Health. No calling of any officials up to authenticate it.
I suppose birthers rather dream of the FBI raiding the Hawaiian archives searching for “proof of the conspiracy”.
You know, because saying “the official documents are lying” has always worked so well in every court of the nation…
Is that like Dr. K(h)ate’s magic water?
Polywater!
Polywater cracker?
Nice try. However, the DoH claims that they have no original handwritten birth index in their possession:
http://butterdezillion.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/hdoh-response-re-handwritten-1961-birth-index/
We are back at square one – what does Abercrombie consider as “actually written down” birth registration.
What are you talking about? You wrote a comment not checking the context of the discussion.
There was a claim that Selective Service declared somebody’s uncle a natural born citizen. I asked to see the document that explicitly mentions this phrase.
Actually, that is the case today, and has been the case for many years.
Since we are a Representative Democracy, every regular person has the right to challenge every candidates eligibility through the appropriate representative elected democratically to represent the regular person in exactly that manner.
It is a political question. Your remedy is at the ballot box, NOT in the courts.
I thought she was a Scot? Your questions assumes that Scots somehow have allegiance to the UK. Haven’t met many Scots from the olde country ha’ ye?
All you had to do was ask politely. Click here.
What is it with you people and the truth? You and MichealN and the rest of you haters LOVE to shove links in peoples faces, but its obvious that none of you ever actually read the links you wave around, just trust what other liars tell you are on them.
You know, NC1, for someone that loves calling everyone else a liar you are pretty much a liar yourself. If you look at the link you gave, Handwritten writen are not mentioned anywhere. So mentioning handwritten records is fraud and lying.
I’ll quote what the letters in your link DOES say.
“This is in response to your request sent April 8, 2010. The department has no records responsive to your request as there are no “original copies or microfilms” of birth index data from 1961. The “original copies or microfilms” from which birth index data is compiled consist of vital statistics records that are restricted from disclosure under Hawaii Revised Statutes 338-18. All birth index data is stored electronically, therefore, birth index data is available to the public in the form of pages generated by a computer. ”
So, you focusing on “handwritten” records shoves you back to square one. And since Governor Ambercombie said that were written down, not handwritten, you are back at square zero. And Ambercombie never used the phrase “actually written down” either so stop putting that in quotes. Plus your very quote tells you that the data you want is restricted by Hawai’in statute.
I’m sorry that your big scoop turned out to be a damp squib AGAIN. But hey don’t worry, you will be right back lying tomorrow.
Also here: See page 38 of 97
This document is discussed by the good Doctor here: Government investigation into Barack Obama’s citizenship (Updated)
It’s so nice of nc1 to show up and then duck the question I asked it directly. So I will repeat:
How did Baby Obama, supposedly born in Kenya, get a passport in time to be in Seattle in late August 1961?
Since the timeline excludes a birth outside the US, he could only have been born INSIDE the US. Therefore, registration numbers and anything else Hawaii might hold are totally irrelevant and nothing but a silly attempt to divert from the plain reality that nc1 attempts to obscure.
In all of the cases, dismissed due to standing and later appealed, I do not recall much of an attempt to actually argue against the reasons for dismissal, the issue of standing. Most of the filings were statements about Obama’s eligibility (and SSNs) with only a brief mention that they should have standing or that the court would have jurisdiction. If they really wanted to get a case tried on it’s merits, I would think they would have focused to the issue at hand, standing, and create a convincing argument for the court. Instead, they did not even try.
Of course, it is clear, the birthers do not want to debate but only declare. They live in their highly censored blogs to avoid having to convince others that they are right. Instead, like a political commercial, they wish to only trumpet their points. To win in court, as in a debate, requires an approach that is quite different. Judge Land even tried to be so helpful as to point this out to Orly. It fell on deaf ears.
Many state courts have given standing to “regular people” to challenge candidates’ eligibility. One in Indiana gave it to a guy named Ankeny. Unfortunately for the birthers. the decision wasn’t one they like, so they have pretended it never happened.
> Of course, it is clear, the birthers do not want to debate but only declare.
And they don’t want their “merits” tried by a court. The Ankeny decision was a dirty surprise for them; they expected the usual “no standing” denial and got an “Obama is an NBC” thrown in on top. No wonder they didn’t appeal that one, of all 80+ cases they tried.
They’re like the scam artists who just threaten people with lawsuits but never risk having their shady business model looked at by a court.
Just that they’re trying to get all cases thrown out on issues like standing because they can’t risk a court decision (much less a SCOTUS decision) putting their pseudo arguments to rest once and for all.
“The courts won’t touch the issue” is something they can sell. “The courts ruled unfavourably to us” is much harder to sell – remember they can’t even admit that the “Obots” believe they are right (and claim we’re actually agreeing with them and just won’t admit it) because they cannot accept/admin that the opposing opinion has any weight or value.
So they can’t allow their followers to question “hm, maybe the court’s arguments do carry some weight”.
Or do you really think the people behind the birther movement couldn’t hire a proper law firm to carry their cases and have these crackpot sixth-degree lawyers file their “my granny can do it better” lawsuits – if they really wanted to?
The problem with hiring a proper law firm is that pretty much every non-birther lawyer on the face of the planet is competent and ethical, and knows that such a lawsuit is doomed to failure. Despite getting paid by the hour no lawyer worth his salt would waste time on a case that literally has no chance of success.
It was gorefan’s claim that Abercrombie found the original handwritten birth index.
It is not nice that you called gorefan a liar and a “damp squib”. He is your fellow Obama supporter. Be nice to him.
Well, that and every competent lawyer is familiary with Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, and knows he has to do the most basic of reseach to support his claim before he signs his name on a document filed with the court, and failure to do both the most basic of factual and legal research would subject one to sanctions (Mario barely dodged that one). Not only do most competent lawyers know their claims are doomed to failure, but we know filing their claims exposes us to court sanctions.
LOL. If Obama was born abroad the record would be added to his mother’s passport. There would be no need to wait for a separate passport to be issued to him.
Passport records for Obama’s mother (prior to 1967) are hidden from public. No need to speculate – just release the damn records. Why is this information hidden from public?
You must be joking – Obama’s COLB image is a governmemnt document that specifically mentions the “natural born citizen” phrase?
And your link does not disprove what he said in the slightest. NOR does it prove The Governer said “actually written down”, funny you ignored it when I pointed out that lie.
Indeed, handwriting birth indexes were very common in 1961, worldwide. Heres a link to New South Walses registry history that shows the way they did it.
http://www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/familyHistory/historyofRegistrysRec.htm
There is no reason to suppose Hawai’i was any different.
That NSW link the kind of research you can do when you are not focused on lying about that people say and picking apart single words to mean something that they never said, like the Governer saying that there was only a couple of notes in the registery for example which is another stupid lie I’ve seen. All you have is links to butterdezillions opinions, not facts.
Whatever is in the registry, it says that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961. That’s what an abstract copy means, that the information on it it agrees with the information in the records. If that’s what the COLB says, that’s what the stuff “written down” in the records says. That’s all.
Sorry, you are still a liar.
And your link does not disprove what he said in the slightest. NOR does it prove The Governer said “actually written down”, funny you ignored it when I pointed out that lie.
Indeed, handwriting birth indexes were very common in 1961, worldwide. the New South Walses registry history website shows thats shows the way they did it. There is no reason to suppose Hawai’i was any different.
Thats the kind of research you can do when you are not focused on lying about that people say and picking apart single words to mean something that they never said, like the Governer saying that there was only a couple of notes in the registery for example which is another stupid lie I’ve seen. All you have is links to butterdezillions opinions, not facts.
Whatever is in the registry, it says that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961. That’s what an abstract copy means, that the information on it it agrees with the information in the records. If that’s what the COLB says, that’s what the stuff “written down” in the records says. That’s all.
Sorry, you are still a liar.
So why are you ignoring the link to Lolo Soertos government records which describes both His wife and her 6 year old son the same way, “United States Citizen,” also provided by the same person?
Go on, ignore the question like you have all others.
Now that’s an interesting answer. Children could be included on a parent’s passport in those days (not anymore). However, only a US citizen child could be added to a parent’s US passport. If the consulate did that then they were acknowledging the child as a US citizen. In that case, there was no need to file a fraudulent birth certificate in Hawaii.
Do you have some source for this simple addition process, or did you just dream it?
There’s a memo from the State Department written in 1967 stating that Obama is a citizen because he was born in Honolulu. How is it that the State Department missed the record on his mother’s passport in making this determination?
Only happens with US Citizen children. According to birthers he could not be a US Citizen if born overseas and so being included on his mother’s passport wouldn’t have happened. There would have been a separate passport. You are speculating that passport records actually exist for Stanley Ann Dunham before 1967. No birther has been able to prove she travelled overseas prior to 1967.
Alas poor “Mrs.” Taitz wasn’t so lucky…but it was pretty amusing watching the birthers try to spin that one.
Let nc1 continue Doc…I’d love to hear the “what ifs” that follow on from this beauty.
Ok nc1….she’s had the baby in Kenya, she’s got a Kenyan birth certificate for him and she’s gone to the US Consulate, shown them the birth certificate etc to prove it’s her baby, explained her predicament and invented some urgent need to get back to USA quickly and somehow convinced them to add a baby, new born in Kenya, to her passport so she could get the baby out of Kenya and into USA.
At this point, the US Consulate and the office in USA from whom the Consulate would at a very minimum have had to get permission before doing something highly irregular like that, all now know that a Kenyan born baby has been added to her passport and an appropriate record of that has been created in all her files.
It’s reasonable to assume that at an absolute minimum, they would have required her to advise her date and (air)port of intended arrival in USA and they would have informed the immigration department of what to expect. It’s also reasonable to assume that they would have required her to undertake to contact them within ‘x’ days of arrival back in USA in order to sort out her entitlement to have a Kenyan born baby in her passport (or the removal of it from her passport) in a more permanent manner as there is no way they could simply leave it hanging like that.
She gets back to USA and continues with the fraudulent scheme hatched by her and her grandmother and obtains the fraudulent Honolulu birth registration. She now has a US passport master file, probably an immigration file and her passport book which all contain notations that she has a baby boy born in Kenya. She has two birth certificates, one from Kenya and one from Hawaii.
What happens next nc1? Better make it good, Hollywood awaits.
It’s obvious. Ann Dunham, master of espionage that she is, simply breaks into the locked super-secret vault (birthers love vaults) that contains her passport records and steals them. Because there will be no record anywhere else that she already has a passport, all she has to do is wait until 1967, then apply for a passport as if she didn’t already have one. She then presents the fortuitously forged Hawaiian birth certificate (they’re so easy to get) for little Barack and he’s added onto her new passport just as if he was a real American, all white and Christian and stuff. Because Ann Dunham, in addition to being involved in porn and vital records fraud, was the world’s foremost expert on passport records (and getting welfare benefits.)
And she would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those darned pesky birfers.
Whew, I think I’m getting a migraine. Thinking like a birther hurts.
In case nc1 wants to claim that the infant was added to his father’s UK and Colonies Passport, let’s head that one off at the pass. A UK Coloniial would need a visa to enter the US-his father’s student visa didn’t include dependents. So now you have to go to the US Consullate and get a visa, creating a record of a visa issuance and US entry as a Kenyan-born UK Colonial. Kind of a problem when your mother later applies to add you te her passport as a Hawaiian-born US citizen.
Folks, the voyage to and birth in Kenya is a wildly unlikely tale. But the return to the US is downright impossible.
But I hear tell they had an extraordinarily large hand baggage allowance in 1961.
You are moving the goalpost again.
You didn’t ask for ” a governmemnt document that specifically mentions the “natural born citizen” phrase”.
You askded “to see a government document declaring someone as a natural born citizen.”
The link I provided contains several images of a document that declares someone as a natural born citizen.
You are correct that it doesn’t use that phrase, it does however, certify that he was born in Hawai’i. That is unambiguously declaring him to be a natural born citizen.
There are no ifs or buts about it. The document which is imaged is a government document that declares that Obama is a natural born citizen, and Obama is most definitely “someone”.
nc1 is temporarily indisposed due to over indulging in the contents of a crack pipe. I’ll be substitute for the moment….
Aaaah but why won’t Hawaii confirm that they’ve confirmed that Obama is someone?
I find it fascinating that the Dunhams are portrayed by the birthers as a reckless crime family guilty of multiple frauds, forgeries and who knows what else. Yet, in their lifetimes, none of them were, as far as I know, accused of even a single crime, let alone convicted. Stanley Ann was a respected anthropologist, a profession that isn’t the first that comes to mind when “criminal mastermind” is mentioned. Her mother had a long career as a banker, working her way up from teller to Vice President, without the slightest suspicion cast on her for fraud or embezzlement. Yet we are to believe these people would casually forge birth records, falsify passport applications and who knows what else.
And the accusations are thrown arlound by people like:
– A convicted forger (who also admits to sex wiith an underage chiild and bribery of foreign officials)
– A guy who, it seems, has misused the SSA database and issued a fraudulent 1099
– A lawyer who is a positive menace on the highways of Southern California
– A disgraced military deserter
– Various other loons well-known to law enforcement
Quite a contrast, indeed
Anyway, until nc1and its pals can get Stanley Ann and baby Barack from Kenya to Seattle by late August 1961, I fear there isn’t much left but to sit back and laugh. Pass the popcorn.
The law of the land uses the term “Citizen of the United States at Birth” instead of “natural born citizen” but no court of law has ever found that there is a difference between a “Citizen of the United States at Birth” and a “natural born citizen”:
TITLE 8, CHAPTER 12,SUBCHAPTER III, Part I, Sec. 1401. Nationals and citizens of United States at birth
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;
The 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama II qualifies as a “natural born citizen” under the law of the land stated above because he possesses a record of his birth certified by the state of Hawai’i.
But the 707’s had small overhead compartments.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Trans-World-Airlines/Boeing-707-331B/0077147/L/
Although in some books I read, the anthropologist unwittingly stumbles onto the criminal mastermind’s plot and figures it out, typically alongside some former paramilitary good guy with eyes that she can never forget.
If you ever visit the cesspool known as FreeRepublic, you can read all sorts of stomach churning lies, racism, and alleged crimes directed at Obama’s family. To them, his mother was a communist grifter who posed for underage nude photos and had “jungle fever” They are casually accused of almost every crime in the book.
The posters at FreeRepublic have no souls- they are empty shells.
You know birthers always twist their arguments depending on how it suits them.
To descredit the “United States Citizen” on Lolo’s papers they would have to say “but Indonesia does not have the authority to decide who is a US citizen”.
To keep up their NBC theory, they have to say “but England has the authority to decide who can (not) be US President”.
Always funny to watch a birther squirm and dodge… 😉
In 1790 the first Naturalization Act in US history was passed. The children born abroad to US citizen parents were declared as natural born Citizens. This is the only law in US history (aside from the Constitution) where the nbC phrase was used.
In 1795 the law was modified and the children born abroad to US citizen parents were declared as citizens (at birth).
It is obvious that early legislators made a distinction between a citizen (at birth) and a natural born Citizen.
Stop living in the past. It is 2011. The laws as they are currently in place are what matter.
The key thing is the 14th Amendment, which makes clear that there are ONLY 2 types of US citizens – born & naturalized. Those who are born are NBC. Simple as that.
I hope you are working on how Stanley Ann got her baby home. Your story has more holes than a warehouse full of Swiss cheese (not to mention Swiss philosophers).
You mean zombies??
> In 1790 the first Naturalization Act in US history was passed. The children born abroad to US citizen parents were declared as natural born Citizens.
Aren’t you birfers the ones claiming a simple law cannot define what the Constitution means? Yet here you’re taking something that says the opposite as proof of your argument?
They may have been making such a distinction, but it is certainly not obvious. The 1795 law was not a modification of the 1790 law. The 1790 law was repealed and replaced in its entirety by the 1795 act; the particular section dealing with the children of citizens born overseas was substantially rewritten. So it is possible that they considered the two phrases equivalent and didn’t intend to change anything, or that they considered them different.
In the latter case they may well have thought that the Congress had no power to create natural born citizens and that the 1795 act created naturalized citizens. If this is the case then perhaps they intended that foreign-born citizens were not eligible to be President. There is some scholarly debate on this point. However, the fact that persons born in the United States of alien parents were considered citizens in 1795, and that there was no law that made them so leads us inexorably to the conclusion that they were made citizens by birth solely under the Constitution and/or common law — and hence they are natural born citizens. There is no scholarly debate on this conclusion, nor any disagreement among early authorities (such as Rawle, Sandford and Bates).
At least zombies are intellectually honest and consistent….BRAINS….there’s the mission statement, the goal and the return.
Birfoons however……… 8-(
You really ned to be a svolotch to get from A) the case was twittered and discussed all over the internet (as said by the first “Obot judge” who dismissed a birfer case) to B) the judge accepted images and posts on the internet as proof.
What about the chance that the guy may actually have had a look at FactCheck? Come on, it would have been the same googling driving him there.
But of course FactCheck is corrupt, both governors of Hawaii and all their employees are corrupt as are all the judges in all the 70+ cases who dismissed this case. And of course, the three judges in Ankeny were even corrupter than the rest, since they actually said Obama was an NBC.
How lucky you are not to live in a country which takes contempt of court outside the court house serious. Not even talking about lese-majeste.
First off, you’re assuming something you have no evidence to support. Perhaps you could go get the floor debates, and show us that it even came up? It’s not like the only thing they changed was to substitute “citizens (at birth)’ for “natural born citizen.” It could just as easily be seen that they saw the terms as synonomous, so while substantially re-writing the statute, they saw no issue in swapping to equal phrases.
Secondly, it doesn’t really matter. Even if they did consider the two to be different, in the intervening 200 years, there is no evidence that the two terms were understood to cover different sets of citizens (by either the legislature or courts). You’re going to have an uphill battle convincing a court that it should adopt a definition that was abandoned shortly after the adoption of the constitution, over one that has been understood and accepted for over 200 years. You’re not even going to get a Scalia vote on that one.
Thirdly, this is all fine and dandy if you’re going to argue about McCain being an NBC, however, it’s really does nothing to alter the core meaning of Natural Born Citizen. You know, those people who don’t need a Naturalization Act to become a citizen….you know…like the current President.
You know that Hamilton’s proposal for POTUS eligibility used phrase citizen (at birth), don’t you?
However, John Jay’s version “natural born Citizen” was adopted.
> And of course, the three judges in Ankeny were even corrupter than the rest, since they actually said Obama was an NBC.
And yet birthers keep appealing to SCOTUS which they have already denounced far and wide as “treasonous”. Talk about consequence!
(Of course they didn’t appeal Ankeny out of fear SCOTUS would confirm that Obama is an NBC.)
Like every good crank, every court that rules against them is corrupt, every court that rules in their favour is honest.
They’re like spoiled children saying “I love daddy because he lets me play with fire, and I hate mommy because she tells me not to”.
However they’ve lost the chance for a publicity stunt long ago. No significant number of people will buy into the “it’s all a big conspiracy” theory. They’re only still around because some con artists love to make money off them.
(The Pest and eFail is revving up to go “members only”, you bet they will try to charge…)
And I would say that the evidence of the 1790 and 1795 acts seems to argue that the citizens excluded by that change were (at least some of) those born overseas – i.e. those without jus soli allegiance.
One more birhter argument hoist on its own petard…
Since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 there have been only two categories of United States citizenship for “all persons:” born citizenship and naturalized citizenship. Since Barack Hussein Obama II was born after 1868 and he is not a naturalized US citizen, he’s a born US citizen or legally, “a citizen of the United States at birth.”
If he were naturalized, there would be a public record of the date of issuance of his Certificate of Naturalization.
A phrase long used in English common law. Rather than the phrase used in contemporary translations of Vattel “indigenous”
Is there an argument in here somewhere that what I wrote previously is incorrect based on this comment? If so, I don’t see it.
I am, of course, familiar with Hamilton’s proposal since I wrote about it almost 2 years ago here:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/04/alexander-hamilton-on-presidential-eligibility/
The fact of the matter is that no explanation of the origin or purpose of the presidential qualification clause appears anywhere in the recorded deliberations of the Convention. And the fact is that no authority disputes that persons born citizens in the United States are natural born citizens.
And I wonder which defintion that Jay, a lawyer since the 1760s, was thinking of when he wrote that letter?
Are you talking about that judge in PA who condemned those juveniles to prison in that “Kids for Cash” scheme? http://abcnews.go.com/US/mark-ciavarella-pa-juvenile-court-judge-convicted-alleged/story?id=12965182 Yes, that was sick. Do you have any other examples of similar things that should be reported?
“Even if Barack Obama were to release his long form birth certificate, and the Supreme Court were to declare him a natural born citizen, it would make no difference.”
A point well made also by Ryan Witt:
“The facts and fiction on ‘birtherism’ and the Obama birth certificate”
http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/the-fact-and-fiction-on-birtherism-and-the-obama-birth-certficate
Check out the serial birther troll in the comments section who lists San Marcos High with his avatar.
Some of you will understand why that is extremely creepy.
JoZeppy-With all due respect to you and John Jay it doesn’t matter. First, all cases depend on exact facts and circumstances. Neither Jay nor Hamilton were asked what they thought of a US-born President with one citizen parent and one non-citizen parent. We can guess what they might have said, but we can’t know. However, 69 million voters, the Electoral College and Congress were all asked that exact question and they said, “By all means!”. The Supreme Court was offerred mulltiple opportunities to say otherwise and refused to. That is now the established law for anyone in the same circumstances, whether Jay, Hamilton, Washiington and ncc1 like it or not.
Second, originalism is, at least in my opinion b.s.. It’s quite discongruous to sit on the Internet and muse over what some fellow in a wig and breeches wrote with a quill pen. I’m sure you heard about Judge Scalia being ticketed for a minor accident the other day. You may have see the joke making the rounds, which is that he will refuse to pay, on the grounds that the Founding Fathers didn’t have cars.
So much nonsense.
From the legislative history, it is clear that the 1790 Act was copying English naturalization statutes that used “natural born subject.” Further evidence that they were following English law. There was no debate at all on the language of the 1795 Act so any statements about it are speculation but the lack of debate makes clear that no one thought the distinction important.
Hamilton’s proposal was never presented to, or rejected by, the Convention. Under English law at the time, a subject at birth was called “natural born” whether one gained such status from the common law or from statutes. Hence, it is not likely that the framers would not have seen a distinction.
Jay doesn’t define “natural born citizen” so I don’t understand why people cite him. He wanted a “strong check” against foreigners. In the Convention itself, the term “foreigners” was used solely with respect to the foreign-born and foreigners were repeatedly distinguished from the native-born. The facts are that the people actually in the Convention that feared election of foreigners only suggested a native-birth requirement similar to the requirements for sitting in Parliament in England at the time.
The term “native” was conflated with “natural born” by both Blackstone and Vattel ( at least in later translations of Vattel) with different definitions. Of course, in the Convention itself, “native” was used repeatedly and it was Blackstone’s meaning that was used.
Oh, I certainly agree it doesn’t matter. I am no fan of originalism, and I think this path of trying to pick Jay’s mind would be more reprehensible to the great saint of originalism, our esteemed J. Scalia. However, I still do get a kick out of pointing out that even the birthers’ go to arguments, don’t actually support their claims, and infact do just the opposite.
I do, however, take issue with the conention that the votes of 69 million people really matter in this question. We’re a nation of laws, not mob rule. I would hope that before an obviously ineligible candidate was sworn in, an opposing candidate with standing would have brought suit, and the courts would have acted. I also would hope that a majority of voting Americans wouldn’t cast a ballot for an obviously ineligible candidate. However, their votes don’t make a de facto amendment of the Constitution. If a sworn in President was ever found to be ineligible, I would hope he would resign, Congress remove, or a court block his re-election. Fortunately we’ve never faced that situation.
Oh…I do believe that in a gray area like McCain, votes would trump. I just don’t see the black robes wading into that mess and being seen as dictators in black, picking who can be President. They tried that once, and the Court still has a black eye over it.
I’m not necessarily accusing you of this, but there is a misconception in birther circles, that Hamilton’s draft came first and that it was rejected in favor of draft with the “natural born” clause. In fact Hamilton’s draft was never put before the Convention, he just gave a copy to Madison at the end of the Convention. His plan that was submitted to the Convention in June of 1787 did not have a Presidential eligibility clause, mostly because the plan didn’t have a President.
I’m not advocating that the voters should vote for a clearly ineligible candidate, nor that, if they did, Congress shouldn’t strongly consider rejecting that choice. I just don’t see that the courts should play a role in picking Presidents. As you note, that was tried once and didn’t do so well. In my opinion, if the Congress lets the results stand, then that is the end of the matteo.
As far the opponents of said ineligible candidate, unless the eligibility issue was unknown until after the election, their duty was to raise the issue loudly and clearly during the campaign. After all that is what a campaign is for but to bring relevant issues before the voters. To ignore it and then cry to a court after the election is nothing but being a sore loser.
As for a President who was found ineligible while in office, I think it depends. If he lied or covered up material facts, then of course he should resign or be impeached. But what if he in good faith believed himself to be eligibl? Imagine that McCain had won and took office, believing he was eligible (as I am positive he did) and 1 year later a court ruled that he wasn’t. I’m not sure whether he ought to resign nor whether Congress should impeach him, since he wouldn’t have committed any wrongful act. Declining to run for re-election would probably be the right thing to do, though (realistically he would have a hard time winning anyway).