Right now I regret using the joke headline Superior Court Judge rules: Obama on the ballot in Georgia because I’d like to have written a similar one today: “Judge rejects Welden Appeal.”
That one would be true, only not true about a Superior Court judge in Georgia (yet). In fact, the crank natural born citizen argument that David P. Welden raises through his attorney Irion has been widely rejected by judges and election officials.
The following have rejected birther claims that US natural born citizens must have US citizen parents:
- David J. Dyer – Indiana judge in Ankeny v. Governor
- Elaine B. Brown – Indiana Court of Appeals judge in Ankeny v. Governor
- Terry A. Crone – Indiana Court of Appeals judge in Ankeny v. Governor
- Judge May – Indiana Court of Appeals judge in Ankeny v. Governor
- Michael Malihi – Administrative Law Judge in Georgia in Farrar, Swensson, Welden, and Powell cases
- Brian Kemp – Georgia Secretary of State
- John A. Gibney, Jr. – United States District Judge for the Eastern District for Virginia, in Tisdale v. Obama
- Jim Tenuto, Hearing Officer – Illinois State board of elections in the case of Jackson v. Obama and Freeman v. Obama
- Steven S. Sandvoss – General Counsel, Illinois State board of elections in the case of Jackson v. Obama and Freeman v. Obama
- Illinois State Board of Elections: William M. McGuffage, Jesse R. Smart, Harold D. Byers, Betty J. Cofrin, Ernest L Gowen, Judith C. Rice, Bryan A. Schneider and Charles W. Scholz in the case of Jackson v. Obama and Freeman v. Obama
You missed the most important people of all, 69 miillion voters and 538 members of Congress, who are the ultimate judges of presidential elligibility.
I wonder if anyone saw this poll from last week, which came from WND, of all places. Approximately 20% of Republicans are leaning towards voting for Obama against any of those running on the GOP ticket. It is obvious that if Obama gets even close to that, he is a shoe-in, since he won easily with 9% of Republicans last time. http://www.cafemom.com/group/115890/forums/read/15963208/20_of_republicans_voting_Obama_in_2012
Some of that is likely due to the execrable quality of the Republican candidates, but I would like to think that some is due to our birther friends and the over-the-top rhetoric of Glenn Beck and others of his ilk. After all, if you are made to think that someone is a Kenyan Marxist Alinsky radical and he turns out to be a moderate Democrat or Rockefeller Republican, you are likely to see him in a favorable light.
Birther John’s hands will be sore from spanking so many judges…
Scientist, you claim that “69 miillion voters and 538 members of Congress … are the ultimate judges of presidential elligibility.” I guess if we were simply a “democracy” then you would be correct and we could make up the rules as we go along, or ignore them altogether, but as a constitutional republic, we have to follow the rules, and the Constitution itself is “the supreme law of the land”.
Please note that when a person who is ineligible for office is “elected” he is still NOT qualified or eligible for office. Clearly both the 12th and 20th Amendments to the US Constitution recognize that eligibility and qualification for office to the Presidency and Vice Presidency ARE NOT accomplished merely by election.
12th Amendment – Last sentence:
“But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
20th Amendment – Section 3:
“If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”
Shouldn’t voters have a right to know whether or not candidates they vote for are eligible for office and if they are not properly “vetted” by party leaders, election officials, the Congress or the courts or by the voters themselves, the WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT? How can we ignore the Constitution and still remain a nation of laws?
You are missing that the process is defined and exists for confirming a President-elect, leading to the eventual inauguration of said person as President.
The electoral college votes and the process exists to cast objections. None were made. The process was followed and he was duly sworn in.
You also fail to grasp Scientist’s point about the populace voting overwhelmingly in favor to elect him. Had there been real questions about his eligibility, then that would have come out during the campaign process. If someone seriously had those concerns or doubts, they would not have cast their vote for him.
You have to be in utter denial to seriously believe that neither HRC’s campaign nor McCain’s wouldn’t have brought up the issue of his eligibility, had there been any REAL doubt about such. Folks from McCains campaign are even on the record stating that they looked into such rumors and found no basis for them. If there was even the slightest hint of something being “suspect”, rest assured that his opponents would have seized upon the opportunity to use that to their advantage and to cast doubts.
Face it, you’ve simply been had. Birtherism is nothing but a sham and a bunch of myths, merely made to develop excuses to try to explain away an overwhelmingly clear election result that certain folks just can not bring themselves to accept.
“WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT?” is super (loud) secret birther bigot code for “HOW DO WE KEEP COLORED PEOPLE OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE?”.
Properly “vetted”, indeed.
Of course they should, no argument.
Images of his birth certificate were published months before the election and the press was invited to inspect the actual document. That document gave his birth date and place of birth which established his eligibility beyond any doubt.
That document and 2 very popular books, published years before the election, reported the that his father was a Kenyan, it was not a secret, exactly the opposite. If there was any way that that fact was an impediment, the electorate had every chance to take it into account.
Obama established his eligibility beyond any other candidate in history. So yes, “69 miillion voters and 538 members of Congress” made their evaluation of that ‘evidence’ and gave their affirmative, definitive, binding, and Constitutionally proper decision.
And you are just blowing smoke.
They make Congress the judge of eligibility. Congress may judge in accordance with your beliefs or not. The same is true of courts. Congress judged Obama to be eligible (as he is), and that is their right and duty. Courts agree they judged correctly.
Simple. If you feel your Congressperson did something you don’t approve of, you should vote against them. Heck, run against them if you want. Good luck to you.
No one is ignoring the Constitution. It’s just that the voters and the members of Congress don’t share your interpretation of it. Did I miss where you were appointed as sole and final interpreter of the Constitution?
Virtually every jurisdiction, whether federal, state or municipal has antiquated/foolish laws on their books.
http://www.dumblaws.com/
A few examples:
In Maine, after January 14th you will be charged a fine for having your Christmas decorations still up.
In Oklahoma, cars must be tethered outside of public buildings
In New York, a person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in his/her pocket.
I’m going to bet that if you were prosecuted under one of those laws you would be pretty angry. I will also bet that if you got a ticket for going 66 mph in a 65 mph zone, you would be pretty angry. So no, all laws are not always followed and that’s probably a good thing.
and, if birfers had their way, that little problem could be fixed as well …
I think two separate things are being conflated here: election and taking office.
We already have constitutional mechanisms in place to insure that our Presidents are eligible. The Congress has that role. All it takes is one House member and one Senate member filing an objection to trigger an investigation. I think that is a remarkably low standard to trigger an investigation. That is what the Constitution says and the extent of what its rules say and this process has never been known to fail.
The other question is whether individuals “have a right” to vote for eligible candidates. The Constitution doesn’t guarantee that in any direct way because it doesn’t even envision political parties. Generally elections are run by the states with federal limitations. So to answer that question, the Constitution does not guarantee a right to vote for an eligible candidate in so many words (maybe you can make an argument, but it’s not in Article II).
In a practical sense (under the general principle: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”) the free press has the responsibility to inform the public about candidates for office and should a candidate be ineligible, it will be reported and folks can and will largely vote for the other candidate who is, and political parties have sufficient incentives to field only eligible candidates for this reason. No matter how popular he is, Schwarzenegger is not going to be fielded by a major political party for President because he could never take office.
It has been the case that certain minor parties, who had no chance of winning, have fielded ineligible candidates, but that didn’t inconvenience any voter who wanted to vote for an eligible candidate.
Now some might argue that “it is broke” based on the number of Birthers out there who challenge Obama’s eligibility. This, however, cannot be fixed. No amount of court decisions would make any difference. Look at Ankeny v. Governor and how much good that did. Birthers don’t want Obama’s eligibility determined; they want him determined ineligible. Since that will never happen, Birthers will never be satisfied.
Wow, he just disenfranchised the entire military and retired military (and those were disabled fighting for diogneseLamp’s freedom to vote).
I used to live in a rural county where, in many cases, the Republican primary was the election as many went unopposed in the general. Yet, the amount of our students on free and reduce lunch neared 50%. In the land of various militia types, we had a fair amount of government assistance. This is the annoying fact the freeper ignores.
Of course, he is using “government paid” reference as code to whom he believes should not be allowed to vote.
Northland
I believe the hidden phrase is “BLACKETY, BLACKETY, BLACK, BLACK, BLACKS”
They have me in moderation over at the Free Republic.
Some quality concern trolling there. It isn’t illegal to run for an office you aren’t qualified or eligible for, unless you commit fraud as part of the attempt.
Voters have a right to vote for whomever they wish, regardless of qualification or eligibility. Their votes might not be counted … for instance, no write-ins are allowed in Okieland. It is also the duty of every voter to be informed. You ough to be asking how can we ensure voters are better informed, and that quality information is available? But that isn’t your concern, is it?
Since having an unqualified or ineligible candaidate win an election would be a waste of everyone’s time, as they could not hold office, there are mechanisms in place for vetting and challenging. They were in use in 2007-08, and are in overdrive now. That your desired result has not come to pass does not indicate their inadequacy.
Do you have a link for the thread to which you’re trying to post?
Not surprisingly, birther bigots other fear mongering hypocrites are whining for dictatorial control over who can vote for whom.
And so are some Republicans:
http://news.yahoo.com/schurick-sentenced-robocalling-md-vote-suppression-history-reviewed-220700516.html
Voter IDs, robocalls, deceptive ads and fliers . . . why let voters decide for themselves?
We are a nation of laws to be respected and enforced but only the “right” guy wins?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceptive_Practices_and_Voter_Intimidation_Prevention_Act
OF COURSE they do, and well they should! You will be banned in no time flat for making much too much sense and confusing the birthers with indisputable facts!
It would be great if there was a steady stream of rational people posting on the natural born citizen threads over there. There are a few rational, intelligent conservatives who do take on the birthers but they get banned or overwhelmed by the birther zealots.
Doc. C is post #90 in the “Appeal of Obama Eligiblity Decision Filed Yesterday” thread in the “Natural Born Citizen” forum.
wingnuts have a habit of not being careful what they wish for. like cutting off federal aid programs or disenfranchising people they hate or purging the only competition in a two-party system or outright secession. especially when data they dismiss as moonbat propaganda tells us the “red moochers” would suffer the most if any of their flying ponies ever came home to roost.
Yeah, the modern GOP seems to have become quite egregious at trying to invoke voter suppression and intimidation and raise the specter of “voter fraud”, yet quite inept at being able to manage a process of counting and reporting votes accurately themselves.
This GOP Presidential Primary cycle has been an utter debacle, when it comes to counting votes. Three Caucus state contests have already come under extreme criticism and clouded by suspicion and doubt because of the ineptitude and shenanigans around counting the votes. Considering that Caucus contests carry a low turnout in the first place and are broken down into various fairly small individual voting districts, it is extra baffling that the GOP can’t even manage to get it right.
The results of IA had to be overturned from initial reports of Romney to Santorum. The IA GOP chair had to resign as a result.
The NV caucuses were tainted by numerous errors, delays and reports of mismanagement of the process, including some charges of disenfranchisement.
The ME caucuses now seem to be the biggest debacle of the three. In a weird process where different precincts caucus to vote on different days over the course of an entire month (Feb 4 through March 3rd) – Romney was crowned the winner on Feb 11, when only 84% of precincts were reported as having even voted yet and with only an 194 vote difference between him and Ron Paul.
Since then, it has emerged that numerous districts within Waldo county, Portland county and Kennebeck county inexplicably had their results reported wrong, or counted as zero within that initial Feb 11th tally. The caucuses of Washington County are happening today – as they were part of a “snow delay” from the previous week. When the delay was announced, they were originally told that their votes would still be counted as part of the initial results…
So, the entire situation in ME has become the biggest botched bungle yet, and many of the explanations and excuses offered make the situation look even more suspicious and inept as reporters have started to dig into the story. When things are all said and done, this is yet another state in which the actual “winner” might flip and turn out to be different that what was initially “officially reported”.
Most of these Caucus contests actually allocate delegates at a later time (and in an “unbound manner”…which is a whole bigger issue of being able to diverge from voters intent). However, the official “win” of a state from accurately counting the people’s ballot votes is important, regardless. It is one of the key factors that drives the dynamic of momentum for candidates as the race progresses from one state to the next. So, to get it wrong and to declare one person a winner…and then reveal weeks later that someone else actually won the popular ballot can really be a manipulative way to throw a monkey wrench into the larger momentum and perception dynamics in the race.
The bottom line here is that the party that seems to complain about “voter fraud” concerns all the time seems to be the same party that seems to be the source of all the REAL problems taking place, when it comes to counting votes properly…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Republican_caucuses,_2012