Jerome Corsi, author of two “best-selling” anti-Obama books including the latest block bluster bomb Where’s the Birth Certificate, made a very curious remark published by tabloid web site WorldNetDaily.
We’re gonna press to hold Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal to the same standards we’re gonna hold Barack Obama to. This is not a personal attack on Obama. I don’t necessarily even dislike him. In fact, I’d like him to stay around a bit longer and I’ll write more books."
Unlike your run-of-the-mill birther who believes that it is imperative that Obama removed from office immediately to save the country from imminent ruin, Corsi is not in such a hurry.
The remark about Rubio and Jindal refers to the crank legal theory that US Presidents must be born to US Citizen parents. Our very first President, George Washington, was the child of a British subject, and his state, Virginia, had not yet ratified the Constitution when it was adopted.
Corsi know where his bread is buttered. If there’s a Republican in office, he loses his gravy train. As long as Obama is there he can keep writing his screed and get people to click that PayPal button.
Some of the “firebrand conservatives” are truly conservative. Others are super marketers of themselves as a brand and their conservatism is less important tha the brand – and know that said brand is less valuable – in terms of direct dollars into their pockets – when theres no “Enemy” to point at and rally the troops against.
Doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d rather keep that going. Corsi is about Corsi the brand, not electing conservatives. And since neither Jindal or Rubio is running he doesn’t have to worry about backing up his smack talk so he’s free to say whatever he wants (although Rubio is considered as a strong vice presidential candidate – but that’s a year from now).
The pimp is Farah. Corsi is his boy toy on a leash with a spiked collar. Their safety phrase is “gay muslims”.
“Our very first President, George Washington, was the child of a British subject, and his state, Virginia, had not yet ratified the Constitution when it was adopted.”
This statement has been mentioned for some time now, but the available evidence does not support it. Here are the relevant dates:
September 17, 1787 Constitution ADOPTED by Constitutional Convention
June 21, 1788 New Hampshire, the 9th state, RATIFIES the Constitution
June 25, 1788 Virginia, the 10th state, RATIFIES the Constitution
April 30, 1789 George Washington sworn in as 1st President
May 29, 1790 Rhode Island, the 13th state, RATIFIES the Constitution
As you can see, the statement only has some relevance if it is assumed that all 13 colonies needed to ratify the Constitution before it was in effect. Actually, only 9 were needed. And you can see that Virginia ratified the Constitution before Washington was sworn in. But the really relevant fact is the difference between ADOPT and RATIFY. Thus the important date is Sept 17, 1787. NO state had RATIFIED the Constitution at that time.
“We’re gonna press to hold Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal to the same standards we’re gonna hold Barack Obama to. ”
Notice he doesn’t say they are going to hold any of the actual Republican candidates for President to the same standards.
Hypocrisy- thy name is WND
We seem to be looking at the same thing differently.
The Presidential eligibility clause says:
Article VII says:
I read that to say that the Constitution was adopted, i.e. established when Rhode Island ratified it on June 21, 1788 and so Washington was not a citizen of the “new” United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. He missed it by 4 days.
Some would argue that Washington was a “citizen of the United States” under the Articles of Confederation; however, the US Constitution was not an amendment to the Articles of Confederation and it’s creation and adoption were not pursuant to any provision of the Articles and so I would argue that the United States under the Constitution was not the same country as existed under the Articles. Indeed, when the Constitution went into effect, it had different states than the old United States under the Articles.
Now I am not arguing that Washington was ineligible. I consider Washington a natural-born citizen because he was born in Virginia. When Virginia became a state, all natural born citizens of Virginia because natural born citizens of the United States. That didn’t work for Washington’s father, though, because he died the revolution.
Remember that John Jay in his letter to Washington suggested that the Commander in Chief be a natural-born citizen, with no mention of citizens at the time of adoption. This shows that Jay considered Washington to be a natural-born citizen even though his father lived and died a British subject.
World Net Daily is in the business of selling advertising on their web site. Their rates, I am sure, are tied to traffic. Controversy drives traffic to their web site. Follow the money…
Natural born means having two US citizen parents. Rubio and Jindal do not qualify. It’s as simple as that.
You liberal fascists need to read your constitution.
Heck, if you did, then you wouldn’t be liberals anymore.
ROTFLMAO!!!!
If they weren’t natural-born citizens, why didn’t they have to go through a naturalization process?
Can you cite legal precedent and accepted scholarly articles which agree with that opinion?
Not according to the people who were alive in 1787, for example,
William Rawle,
“Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity.”
And later in the same paragraph,
“Under our Constitution the question is settled by its express language, and when we are informed that, excepting those who were citizens, (however the capacity was acquired,) at the time the Constitution was adopted, no person is eligible to the office of president unless he is a natural born citizen, the principle that the place of birth creates the relative quality is established as to us.”, A View of the Constitutio of the United States, 1825
Place of birth determines the quality of “natural born”.
Rawle was a prominent lawyer in Philadelphis, personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, he was offered the position of United States Attorney General by President Washington but turned it down for personal reasons. He latter accepted President Washington’s request that he take on the position of U.S. District Attorney for Pennsylvania.
But, according to Doc C’s latest thesis anything before June 21, 1788 was a different country.
No, mainly because it’s not true. The argument was made tongue-in-cheek against literalist insistence of perfect purity in the allegiance of the President.
Indeed, Article VI suggests that it is the same country.
However, I could relocate citations that say that the “citizen at the time of adoption” was never intended for people born in the United States, e.g., Washington. It was there for folks who were not born in what became the United States, e.g. Hamilton.
The word “parents” is not in the Constitution. And for the record, the stereotype is that conservatives are fascists; liberals are socialists.
There is a law review article examining the claim about Washington. It is tongue-in -check as well. Also shows the commas in the NBC clause show no one is eligible today.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/takingtextandstructurereallyseriously.pdf
You’ve gotta get those snark tags working.
It would be as simple as that if Leo Donofrio, the inventor of that fallacy, had authority to override 200+ years of judicial and scholarly opinions to the contrary. Fortunately for America and Americans, a crank lawyer wannabe failure like Donofrio doesn’t get to invent law or history at a whim.
Sux for him, and you, though…
Ummmm…… you do realize that one cannot, by definition, be a liberal AND a fascist at the same time, right?
Then again, considering that you’re a birther, AND you hold to this “citizen parents” delusion…. I suspect you probably are completely unaware of the paradox your description suggests.
Of course I am not a liberal, nor a fascist. I am is a conservative. I have also read the Constitution, but the one that applies to the United States of America, as opposed to whichever one you’re reading from.
IN our Constitution, there is no mention, whatsoever, of parentage as a requirement for the office of POTUS.
Perhaps if you could tell us which country’s Constitution you are referring to, we could better help you understand the differences.
The “Father of the Constitution” and the “Father of the Bill of Rights” disagreed with your opinion:
“It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will therefore be unnecessary to investigate any other.” Representative James Madison, May 22, 1789
It’s good to have James Madison on your side on this issue. That’s probably why no Court in the land and no Justice of the Supreme Court will go near this issue. Who’s going to mess with James Madison, he WROTE the Constitution!
Actually, His Lordship is correct on this one. Jindal and Rubio are not currently eligible for the Presidency or Vice Presidency right now. In fact, the only 2 guys who are eligible today are Barack Obama and Joe Biden. You see, you have to actually be elected to hold the office, as detailed in Article II, and updated in the 12th and 20th Amendments and neither Jindal nor Rubio have done that. However, should they run and win, Jindal and Rubio would take office just like all the others before them.
Further, I will point out that the 12th Amendment states “The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President,” Not might be President or possibly be President or if Lord Basil approves, but SHALL BE PRESIDENT.
It’s as simple as that, as His Lordship noted.
And, of course, the interesting point about this is that, even if the entire Electoral College and all the members of Congress know that someone does not meet the Constitutional qualifications they can still elect him and he WILL BE PRESIDENT
The notion that George Washington considered that his parents were British, or Adams considered his, or Jefferson considered his to be British is largely a conservative/birther viewpoint. I recently visited a graveyard in Massachusetts where I saw the grave of a man who had been killed in the French and Indian Wars.
He had died long before the Declaration of Independence, and yet I noted that he had the flat honoring him as an American veteran. We consider that he fought for America, not for Britain.
We also know that other nations that have become independent from Britain consider that the persons born in those countries before Independence were Indian or Irish or Australian citizens, not British.
And there is the evidence of this quotation, which indicates that Americans at the time of the writing of the Constitution considered that people born in a state (and apparently it refers to a colony as well) were Natural Born Citizens due to their place of birth:
“Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. …St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)
I haven’t checked, but I assume that Washington’s parents were born in Virginia.
Yes, Washington’s parents were born in Virginia. However, there is a story that was floating around a few hundred years ago, that Washington’s mother took a boat to England for the first President to be born there, then the baby was whisked back to Virginia to have him baptized there, creating a false paper trail.
And lest you think that I’m joking, let me assure you that such a story really appeared in the papers.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2011/05/was-george-washington-really-born-in-america/
wasn’t that the plot twist ( secret invisible writing on the constitution ) to “National Treasure II”?
Funny how there really is nothing new under the sun, isn’t it?
Amazing the silly things people say when they are relieved of the burden of actually supporting their statements with any type of citation or precident.
I’ve read my Constitution several times….it says nothing about parents in it. Perhaps you’ve wandered here by mistake. We are discussing the US Constitution, not whatever country you may have sprung from.
Opposite words:
Liberal and Fascist (sort of like Capitalist and Marxist)
Similar words:
Moron and Idiot
I suspect his Lordship did not do well on the standardized test portion that went: Orange is to Red as Green is to ________. Reading comprehension may have also been a challenge.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 29, 1938
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
Wow. That quote needs to become a rallying cry for what is going on these days…
You are talking to a former kibbutznik. Liberalism and fascism are mutually exclusive.
I’ve noticed that conservatives and RWNJ are basically semi-literate. Thanks for proving that.
Long live Lenin: http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/03/blog-post.html
Errr, blue?
HE SAID BLUE!
we all know that blue is the coliour of those democrats, and that they´re all followers of hitler and marx and commies, not only that, they´re hommersekshuls and they´re ungodly atheists as well and could be WITCHES!!!
BURN THE WITCH!
damn, sorry doc. i gotta stop reading WND articles. it´s destroying my mental state.
This is why intelligence tests must take different cultures into account. What kind of blue do you mean?
Oh, and my answer was Yellow, and, in my universe, it is also correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_G._Biv
But, is it really, really true that Violet gives willingly?
“I consider Washington a natural-born citizen because he was born in Virginia.”
Where do you get this idea from, Dr. C? Why would they even bother to put “or a citizen of the United States at the time of adoption of this Constitution” if they understood GW to be a NBC? Clearly this line refers to the fathers of the revolution.
I’m always mystified why you ignore obvious facts and conclusions based on very simple logic.
Did you ever hear of Alexander Hamilton, born on the island of Nevis? Pull out a $10 bill if you want to see a picture of him. The grandfather clause was to allow him and others in his situation to become President. Hamilton would very likely would have become President had he not been killed by Aaron Burr in a duel in Weehawken, NJ.
I’m always mystified why you ignore obvious facts and conclusions based on very simple logic
I had actually considered this. Multiple choice allows for keeping possible appropriate responses out of the way so the learning only has to worry about the appropriate one of the list. However, this also allows him play “multiple guess” and, instead of thinking of the answer, they are thinking of eliminating incorrect choices. In some cases, think investigating, learning to eliminate impossible options can be helpful (especially for birthers).
In my thinking, the Doc is correct with Blue as it is all about the Yellow.
I’m mystified that people talk about things they know nothing about. The grandfather clause arose in the convention after James Wilson was offending that there was a discusssion of limiting office holders to the native born. Wilson pointed out that he and other members of the convention were born outside of the states. It was then that someone suggested grandfathering current citizens. No one questioned the eligiblity of people born in the states. Madison made clear that people owed allegiance to the community they were born in, i.e., their state.
While many people believe the clause was there to avoid having to wait for 35 years to have someone who was eligible, this was probably not true.
Let’s use some logic here. There is also a reidency requirement – and the exception clause for citizens at the time of adoption does NOT apply to that requirement: “and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States”.
Now, George Washington became President on 30th April, 1789. So where was he 14 years before?
The formal signing of the Articles of Confederation by the Maryland delegates took place in Philadelphia at noon time on 11 March, 1781. The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.
We must therefore assume that the Founding Fathers believed that the United States existed before the Declaration of Independence. If they were born in New York, Virginia, … they considered themselves natural born citizens of the United States.
The clause was there to give eligibility to thjose who were born elsewhere but had, by fighting for independence, shown themselves to be real Americans (though naturalized). Alexander Hamilton was the main reason
First we have to prove that he is a witch! Get me a duck and a pair of giant scales!
Of course, we can ask the local village idiot whether or not he was turned into a newt, but that doesn’t seem scientific enough.
Lord Basil is too dumb to even be a good birther…..
Why is it that anytime someone else does something stupid, you people want to burn us Witches?
Because you weigh as much as a duck, and that’s just not natural!
Plus, you turned me into a newt. But I got better…