Sorry, nothing much to write about. Orly’s birthday is next week (August 30). Station KTAR contradicts WorldNetDaily. Our sometimes contributor. A. R. Nash has published a couple of articles here and here.
I look around the Birtherverse and all I see is crap, crap and more crap.
Well I’ve often heard it said that August is traditionally a slow news month.
Meanwhile, over at the The Daily Caller, the natives are getting restless over Senator Rubio and the possiblity of a run for the Presidency/Vice Presidency. It is amazing how quickly the “Minor v. Happersett is precedent” crap is filtering through the Birtherverse. Almost like crap through a goose.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/24/coming-soon-rubio-birthers/
“It’s not even interesting crap.”
“It’s the crap that bores the crap out of crap. “
I wonder if any of you have seen this?
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gheen-floats-military-coup-and-arrest-remove-obama-office-soon-possible
What do you think? More hot air and demagogue blustering? Or something more serious?
The thing that amazes me about the Minor “precedent” spreading so fast is the fact that when you simply read the case it’s clear that it doesn’t any anything like they claim…yet they go ahead claiming it anyway by ignoring every part of it that disagrees with their predetermined conclusion.
As amusing to me is their logic changes from case to case depending on whether it agrees with their desired conclusion.
For example, the Minor case where it says “Someone with two parents is a NBC but others may be too” and they say the second part should be disregarded. Why? No reason other than if you don’t disregard it Obama might be eligible. But in the “Senate Resolution” argument they make, where they say Obama signed onto the two-parent theory by voting for it, the resolution says “Because McCain was born of two citizen parents in Panama, he is NBC” and despite the wording claim that only re two parents matters and they can disregard the Panama comment. It’s pretty unreal. Disregard any and all words that disagree with their chosen premise.
Yeah…on Politicalforum, a genius linked to that article and claimed that liberals were going to be claiming Rubio wasn’t eligible- he also linked to WND and Kerchner.
And the usual free for all ensued, with some self proclaimed conservatives agreeing that Rubio wasn’t eligible, and all the liberals saying he was.
Nothing will help more cement Latino- and Asian loyalty to the Democratic party than for conservatives to be linked to this nonsense.
If you want the straight line to go through your “good” data points you have to throw out the chaff.
One more step on the road to terrorism
Apparently he’s too impatient to wait for the Birther Summit. C’mon, man, these things take time 😛
The North American Union stuff is pretty nutty, but also very misinformed. The Founders invaded Canada (sort of…), tried to get them to join the Revolution. We did invade Mexico, but decided we only wanted the good parts. The South had dreams of taking over more of Mexico and the Caribbean. Even if there were plans to realize a NAU, it would just be the continuation of old policies by other means, haha.
There’s always something happening, Doc, although it does all sound the same, doesn’t it?
Haskins continues to look silly wherever he can, and has widened his “challenge”
http://www.birthersummit.org/news/44-birther-summit-broadens-candidate-pool-for-15000-challenge.html
And posted a video for Colin Powell:
http://www.birthersummit.org/video2.html
On Powell’s behalf I would respond: ” Geeeeez.”
Elsewhere, birthers are pre-emptively attacking another not-white-enough, not-yet-candidate, Marco Rubio. The tone is quite revealing …. in the case of a Republican, they are quite apolegetic about alleging he’s not a NBC. If this is truly a blind standard, has nothing to do with politics, then why the difference? Why treat a Democrat with such militancy? “See, it’s not just Obama, Rubio’s ineligible, too. It’s the constitution, man” Except it isn’t and he is, and it isn’t. Just another lame attempt to legitimize their illegitimate eligibility lunacies.
The Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162(1875) case that the birthers
believed to be the “be all and end all” of case law in defining who is a natural born citizen misconstrued Chief Justice Waite’s language reference to natural born citizens. The birthers assumed that Chief Justice Waite’s opinion about natural born citizens was germane or crucial to the case. However, this assumption is misplaced since the status of Ms. Minor’s citizenship had nothing to do with her seeking the right to vote under the 14th Amendment.
In fact, Chief Justice Waite noted that Ms. Minor “ has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship.” Id at 170. Moreover, Chief Justice Waite made no reference as to the citizenship status of Minor’s parents.
Therefore, Chief Justice Waite’s gratuitous comment about “natural born citizenship” had absolutely nothing to do with the decision of the court. In fact, he himself remarked “[f]or the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts [citizens children born without reference to citizenship of their parents].” Id at 168.
In other words, even Chief Justice Waite himself admitted that for the purposes of deciding whether or not Ms. Minor had the right to vote as a citizen under the 14th Amendment that he didn’t need to solve these doubts as to the status of citizen children born to parents other than citizen parents.
That is why Chief Justice Waite’ language regarding natural born citizen is dicta because it was not necessary in determining that citizen women did not have the right to vote under the 14th Amendment.
Chief Justice Marshall long ago cautioned against reliance on dicta:
“It is a maxim not to be disregarded, that general expressions, in every opinion, are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question actually before the Court is investigated with care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it, are considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other cases is seldom completely investigated.” Cohens v. Virginia 19 U.S. 264, 399-400, 6 Wheat. 264, 399-400 (1821)
That’s the point, isn’t it? It all sounds the same. I find it hard to get the creative juices flowing in response to the same old crap. I guess I have now fully internalized the truth that “birthers don’t matter.”
Yep. They are bringing little (anything?) new to the table. Imagine how the SPLC and ADL feel, reporting on new twists on the same old garbage decade after decade.
In my hobby of trying to make the case that birtherism is a new face on old way of nativist ways of thinking (racism/xenophobia/anti-immigration), I take note of this new attack against Rubio. Seems, unintentionally perhaps, to be taking the particular case against Obama back to the general anti-immigration roots.
I have also come across anti-birther work from recent history (1996), Gerald Neuman’s Strangers to the Constitution. Touches on all the favorite cases, attempts to “revisionize” the 14th Amendment. Chapter on birthright citizenship. From the book description: “Finally, in regard to whether children born in the United States to illegally present alien parents should be U.S. citizens, he concludes that the Constitution’s traditional shield against the emergence of a hereditary caste of “illegals” should be vigilantly preserved.”
Unfortunately, it is a pricey, OoP tome.
And, in digging through the usage of Vattel through the years, still plenty of Southern Apologia. No holy grail yet tho. Vattel is mainly used as a reference on international law, there is a subset there of state’s righters using Vattel to justify the South. And then there’s a history of using Vattel’s one note on citizenship very creatively. Can connect all the dots except for the jump to a specific mention of Presidential eligibility.
What can I say, I’m just not ready to credit a birther with original thought 😉
Atticus Finch, (Love your screen name BTW; one of my favorite fictional characters.)
It isn’t that birthers misconstrue the Minor case; it’s that they deliberately distort it. What you say about dicta, and Chief Justice Waite’s words is all so true, but the point is that with birthers, they fall on ears stopped up with fingers jammed deep into the ear canals. They’re just deliberately deaf, or blind –whichever metaphor is most apt — and there’s no changing them.
JD, I think the term you’re looking for is “wilfully ignorant”