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- Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
- Is Barack Obama's Birth Certificate a Fraud?
- One Electorate Under God?: A Dialogue on Religion and American Politics (Pew Forum Dialogues on Religion & Public Life)
- Our Friend Barry: Classmates' Recollections of Barack Obama and Punahou School
- Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement
- The Authoritarians
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- The Citizenship Debates: A Reader
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- The New Hate: A History of Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right
- The Paranoid Style in American Politics
- The Scapegoat
- The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory
- Them: Adventures with Extremists
Quick Reference
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- Donald, You're FIred! – FactCheck.org
- Hawaii Department of Health Obama FAQ
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- Jack Ryan document collection on Scribd
- Made in the U.S.A. – FactCheck.org
- Nordyke twins birth certificate
- Obama Certificate of Live Birth – Gurhrie Photo
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My Other Blogs
“A lot of Trump voters don’t think we should have Black History Month,” said
Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But given that a majority them
don’t know Frederick Douglass is dead, they might need it.”
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2017/PPP_Release_National_21017.pdf
The poll itself is appalling.
You mean the part that shows Americans are already evenly divided on whether we should impeach Trump?
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Or that by a 51/23 margin Trump voters say that the Bowling Green Massacre shows why Trump’s immigration policy is needed?
Or that only 47% of Trump voters know that Frederick Douglass is dead?
Sounds like birthers.
I’m torn on that. On the one had, Trump is unfit to be president. On the other hand, he may turn out to be so unfit that the Democrats will be able to retake control of Congress in two years. From a policy standpoint Pence would be no better, but he would seem better by comparison.
Yesterday I actually succeeded in convincing a few Trump supporters on Facebook that his suggestion about imposing a 20% tariff on imports from Mexico will never cause Mexico to pay for a wall, because it can’t. Tariffs are ultimately paid by the consumers of imports, not the manufacturers.
The odd thing is that these so-called conservatives know so little about conservatism. Every prominent conservative economist of the past 240 years, from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, has been opposed to tariffs because they distort the free market. In fact, tariffs are intended to distort the market – it used to be called protectionism.
And as much as I dislike Trump, I would not support impeachment–not without a high crime or misdemeanor. That might take a few more weeks.
It IS birthers.
Give it until April 15th.
Is anybody running a book on impeachment?
If the over/under is 28 months, I think I’ll take the over. I gotta go with my head on this one, not the heart.
OHHHH yes.
But more in terms of “yes” or “no.” Ladbrokes is currently giving about 48% odds of impeachment or resignation during the next 4 years.
The other part would be convincing the Republicans in Congress that he needs to be impeached. I don’t see that happening unless and until there is polling data that shows them in danger of losing control of the House and the Senate.
Here’s a chuckle from 10 years ago. The Shurf gets a mention.
Baa-aaaaaad News
Russian spies in the White House. https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-spies-white-house-secrets-130259265.html Wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out Trump’s Twitter machine has been hacked.
[a crab emerges from the depths to leave an offering, and then scurries back, muttering, “Justicedemocrats.com, Justicedemocrats.com…”]
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win
Department of Homeland Security report on 2016 Election Hack
https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/AR-17-20045_Enhanced_Analysis_of_GRIZZLY_STEPPE_Activity.pdf
I have removed the User Login link from the Site-Info menu, but you can still login by adding /wp-login.php after .org.
The site no longer accepts new user registrations, and the plug-in that restricted bots from doing that is removed.
Automatic tweeting of new articles is removed since there are no new articles, but should a new article ever appear, I will tweet it manually.
Dr. Con’s Leftist Propaganda Blog will tweet new articles there.
Reminds me of the WND article from October of 2009:
“Is it Time to Whisper the Word ‘Impeachment’?”
http://www.wnd.com/2009/10/112223/
Now I wonder why I didn’t add the login or the admin page to my favorites. It would have been quicker then scrolling up on my phone to select User Login.
Bye bye National Security Advisor Flynn, we hardly knew ye.
I’m shocked! Shocked, I tells ya!
Any bets on whom the Fearful Leader is going to blame for the Flynn debacle? Obama? Crooked Hillary? Pocahontas?
Any truth to the rumour that El Trumpo wanted Peter of England to head IMF?
Four Republican Senators (Murkowski, Collins, Issacson and Scott) say they will vote against the confirmation of Trump nominee Andrew Puzder as Secretary of Labor. It seems Mr. Puzder hired an illegal alien as his housekeeper. Republicans tend not to like that.
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The press aka “the opposition”.
I was a very active follower of the Watergate scandal in its day, at one point even traveling to D.C. to see what I could observe in person. (Answer — nothing of great significance, although I did manage to find my way into the gallery of Judge Sirica’s courtroom on Feb. 25, 1974, and got to watch Herbert Kalmbach plead guilty.)
Anyway, my memory is pretty clear about one thing. The initial reaction of Nixon and virtually all the Republicans was that the whole thing was purely a partisan issue, being at best exaggerated and at worst invented by Nixon’s “political enemies.” I could see that the end was finally approaching as I watched the Republicans come to realize that they were on the losing end, and his loss of support became an avalanche.
I find it interesting, and encouraging, that we seem to have passed that stage this time around. While some Republicans are trying to play down the importance of the Russian issue, there are relatively few full-throated defenders of Trump, and several powerful Republicans have made it clear that they will not close their eyes to what is happening.
It may be, at least in part, because they are also troubled by the clear signals that Trump and some of his key supporters take the position that his authority cannot be checked or even questioned. While some Republicans may believe in an imperial presidency, I don’t think many want to see that kind of power in Trump’s hands — they literally don’t know what he would do with it.
I had Flynn in the pool. Do I win anything?
I haven’t yet heard anyone use the phrase “there is a cancer on the Presidency”. John Dean shows up on talk/news shows every once in a while. Maybe he’ll resurrect it.
Sef: I haven’t yet heard anyone use the phrase “there is a cancer on the Presidency”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: “Your view of Hillary Clinton is irrelevant. Donald Trump is not a normal candidate. He is a cancer on American democracy. And that’s why I will vote against him next Tuesday.”
http://www.mediaite.com/election-2016/fareed-zakaria-your-views-of-clinton-are-irrelevant-trump-is-cancer-on-american-democracy/
Thanks for the update.
Brian Reilly’s comment that was removed from the NC Renegade blog has been reposted as a separate article. I won’t post a link because this blog is a cesspool of racist Teatards who want to fight the Civil War again. Why Brian cares about what these losers think is beyond me.
Adam Hills (Australian Comedian) gave a brilliant review of how to spot fake news on his British TV (Channel 4, I think) show “The Last Leg” a couple of days ago.
The Last Leg segment on Fake News
He takes a big shot at WND ( anybody ever read the disclaimer?).
Adam Hills was big on Aussie TV before he got ‘promoted’ to the ‘big time’.
I dunno if you can find “The Last Leg” on American cable somewhere, but it is worth chasing up.
Over at the P&E, Litcher relives his glory days.
And it looks like our friend Larry Klayman has filed an amicus brief in Washington v. Trump.
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/15/17-35105%20-%20Freedom%20Watch%20Inc%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf
Handy guide to Fake New Sites: Fake News Checker
The Lakin petition has only 5,412 signatures. It needs 94,588 signatures by February 20. Another birther fail.
Was Trump really a top student at Wharton?
Not so much.
http://www.thedp.com/article/2017/02/trump-academics-at-wharton
Trump got into Wharton as a special favor from a “friendly” admissions officer who knew Trump’s older brother, Freddy. The college’s admissions staff surely knew that Trump’s father was a wealthy real estate developer and a potential donor.
Quelle surprise!
“Attorney General Bob Ferguson declared victory in State v. Trump, in light of the U.S. Department of Justice’s filing in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today. Justice, on behalf of President Trump, represented to the court that: ‘the President intends in the near future to rescind the Order and replace it with a new, substantially revised Executive Order’ to eliminate constitutional concerns.”
AG’s statement here: http://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-president-trump-concedes-defeat, DoJ’s filing here: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/16/17-35105%20-%20Government%20supplemental%20brief.pdf
I had to crawl out from under my rock for this one, because I happen to know for a fact that Donald Trump knows exactly what his class rank was.
When my father-in-law – who also attended Wharton – was up for his first federal judgeship, he was required to disclose his class rank. When he called the school, the person on the line said, “Hey, what a coincidence! I have Donald Trump on another line, and he’s asking the same question.”
Looks like the comments have closed on the other posts. I wanted to say thanks to Kevin Vicklund. He was very helpful on the figuring out the Xerox Work Centre work flow for the Obama LFBC PDF and has done a fantastic job in general debunking Birthers everywhere. From what he has written I believe we re in the same line of work.
We’re into week five of the Trump Administration and he still hasn’t said a word about Obama’s eligibility. In fact, whenever he mentions him he makes a point of calling him “President Obama.”
Nor does he seem interested in investigating Hillary Clinton. I think he is too busy with his own scandals.
Trump International Golf Club is now open in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
“Trumps Thank Dubai For Love and Friendship”
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/sport/trumps-sons-eric-and-donald-jr-in-dubai-to-open-golf-club
In other “news,” Cody Robert Judy is asking for contributions to pay off his “campaign debt.”
He doesn’t comprehend that his supposed “new evidence” doesn’t entitle him to have his lawsuit reopened. As the Court of Appeals explained to him, “Even taking all his allegations as true and construing them in the light most favorable to his case, we see nothing even suggesting that he would ever be entitled to any sort of relief for President Obama’s (and the other Defendants’) supposed wrongdoing. Judy cannot point to a single case that construes any of these statutes in a way supporting his claims for relief.”
He still hasn’t pointed to a single case.
Ex-con Judy’s latest blog post focuses too much on Doc for taste.
Better there than here. Judy is one sick puppy. He is in a class with Lucas Smith.
Maybe if he wasn’t being such an unrepentant terrorist he could learn some web design skills.
The video highlights my attendance at the Civitan Club–Civitan being a charitable organization that focuses on research to help individuals with developmental disabilities. It also shows my activity supporting the Annual March of Dimes walk. Also two of my volunteer days with the Special Olympics are highlighted.
I was just explaining to someone a couple of days ago that asking questions can be innuendo, and that words have consequences. The consequence to Mr. Judy is a permanent ban at this web site.
Well that made my day.
He already did, at the Birther-Bloggar Sckool of Web Dezine.
Judy stole that video from Lucas Smith BTW.
Why. He hasn’t learned how to spell or write anything even remotely coherent in all the time I have been aware of him, and web design is even harder than writing a gibberish sentence, although that may be the way he does web design.
Montgomery Blair Sibley is petitioning the Supreme Court to have the order lifted that prevents him from disclosing the phone records of the “DC Madam.”
http://montgomeryblairsibley.com/library/ApplicationFinal.pdf
The inclusion of photos of your wife is beyond the pale.
And I’m guessing that it is a safe assumption that you have never met Alvin Onaka, not that it would be evidence of a conspiracy even if you had.
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/seth-meyers-trump-went-to-the-museum-of-african-american-history-to-find-obamas-birth-certificate/
I wouldn’t describe it as a “safe assumption,” but in fact I have never met Onaka. I had never heard of Onaka apart from the birth certificate business. I am the author of the Alvin Onaka Wikipedia article, but it is comprised (as are all Wikipedia articles) from public sources.
My company was a corporate member of NAPHSIS and Onaka was president of that organization. However, he wasn’t president any of the years when I attended their annual meetings.
Yes, it is. I had seen the video before, and if I recall correctly, it is a Lucas Smith production. Smith engaged in a doxing campaign against me for reasons he did not disclose and about which I can only speculate.
Judy apparently has filed a “Notice for Judgement and Affadavit [sic] of Plaintiff” in his doomed effort to reopen Judy v. Obama. His theory is that he is entitled to a judgment in his favor because no one has responded to his Motion for Relief of Judgement that he filed last month.
He still hasn’t figured out that even if he properly served the defendants, he can’t be granted anything because he hasn’t made a coherent argument (or any argument, really) that he is entitled to relief that the Court can grant.
One might think that by now he would have learned how to spell “affidavit,” but one thing that Judy demonstrates over and over again is that he is incapable of learning.
The OARPA.net web site has been deleted. It never had any content. A copy exists in the web archive.
Since none of the defendants were served or made an appearance in the original case, there is nobody to actually respond. Of course, as you mentioned, his latest attempt did not address any of the original defects so any “new evidence” is useless. Oh, then there is the out of time issue.
It is funny how ex-con Judy zooms from “relief from judgment” to “motion for judgment.” No trial, no evidence — just dreams of winning!
And somebody should tell him that the preferred spelling in the U.S. is “judgment.”
Kind of like that hot mess he filed with the Supreme Court that he claimed was a cert petition. Even if he’d actually followed the court’s rules and filed properly, it had nothing to do with what he was supposed to be appealing. So immediate and abject fail from the start. As has been previously pointed out, HE NEVER LEARNS.
He got his judgement.
Jeepers, you mean Judge Stewart wasn’t swayed by Judy’s new evidence from the Cold Case Posse? Say it ain’t so. Say it ain’t so.
Good morning! And Happy Fail!
And to top it off, Judy thought that Judge Stewart was retired because he was granted senior status.
I think this is old news.
Judy, as usual, a great too many days late and dollars short. And totally clueless in the bargain.
Yup: Over on Facebook, ex-con Judy wrote:
I infer this was ex-con Judy’s reaction to his latest “victory.” In ex-con Judy’s mind, he will always be the victim, the martyr.
Using one forged birth certificate to validate that another BC is forged is ludicrous. Obama’s BC is forged and so it the Johanna A’Nee. It’s a real hoot unless it’s being used as a test which is possible.
Does this mean we get Doc’s site back, too?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/24/theres-a-new-push-to-make-obama-president-again-this-time-of-france/?utm_term=.d7ef5519752a
Yes, he is having a sad today.
He is complaining that Judge Stewart didn’t give the defendants time to respond to his motion before denying it. He doesn’t comprehend that the defendants never made an appearance in the lawsuit, so there was no need for them to do anything.
As we discussed, Judy’s motion failed to respond to the reasons why his lawsuit was dismissed in the first pace, so Judge Stewart had no choice but to deny it.
On his blog he mentions that his “last wife” tearfully begged him not to run for president in 2008 (I picture her pleading with him, “Please get a real job”) and she filed for a divorce after he took what little money they had and drove to New York to testify at Manning’s fake trial.
He also says that he was served with an eviction notice by his landlord recently. Instead of trying to turn his life around by getting a steady job and paying his bills, he wasted countless hours posting on the Internet and filing frivolous lawsuits, and he wonders why no one feels sorry for him.
Just because an individual says that a birth record was forged and admits to committing the crime doesn’t make it so. Forgery must be proven in a court of law before a Trier (or Triers) of Fact. That has never happened nor will it ever happen since the five year Statute of Limitations on the federal and state crime of forgery ran out many years ago.
Barack Obama is fortunate that there has always been contemporaneous corroborating evidence of his birth date and birth place that was published in the “Health Bureau Statistics” articles of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser newspapers of August 13 and August 14, 1961.
Furthermore, there is no federal or state legal requirement that a presidential candidate or a president use a birth certificate to prove eligibility for office. For example President Obama was always able to use his U.S. Passport if his Article II, Section 1 eligibility had ever needed to be verified.
President Eisenhower was a home birth in Denton, Texas and he never had any official record of his birth until Ike was in his 50’s, and there was no such thing as a “birth certificate” for any president in the 18th and 19th centuries.
It was never intended to be proven because it was signed by a sheriff’s deputy from the same department that ZulloMoore and Arpaio work in which would have left the county open to some serious litigation. That’s why, before almost every show, ZulloMoore, Volin, and Gallups repeatedly state that they never knew each other before the birth certificate forgery became an issue which is a lie.
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Trashy and unforgivable; deplorable. And so birther-like. Call me old fashioned, but only a very dishonorable man would invade/disrespect the privacy of a woman that way,
Really great interview with my hero Malcom Nance, re Russia / Trump / Election stuff:
https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/835298516553588736
Chicken Schmidt Orange Piece of Feces is not going to attend the White House Correspondents Association dinner.
December poll on media credibility and fake news–Breitbart and The Onion equally credible.
https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/161201_topline_Brands_fakenews_genpop_v1_TB.pdf
Priceless. I’m sure some someone could forge a birth certificate for him.
Reagan skipped it too, but he had been shot.
The biggest difference is that la Rump doesn’t dare set foot in an arena he doesn’t totally control. His ego wouldn’t tolerate the result.
If a fake document is never used to deceive by the person who is named on the fake document then its existence is completely irrelevant. What Zullo, Arpaio or Gallups did for political reasons has nothing at all to do with former President Obama’s constitutional eligibility.
The state of Hawaii has the original, vault edition Obama birth certificate. It is stored in the office safe of the Hawaii Registrar.
There is still no state law or federal statute which mandates that a presidential candidate present a birth certificate to anybody, ever.
Not to mention that Nancy hasn’t proven that she has the ability to forge a picture of stick figures.
I also read that President Kennedy skipped it until they allowed women to be members of the WHCA. I was not able to verify that but I found a transcript of his remarks in 1962. As you would expect they were clever.
It’s déjà vu all over again.
Birther stupidity on Quora, with guest appearance by Tracy Fair–https://www.quora.com/What-would-occur-if-President-Trump-unseals-the-records-of-former-President-Obama-and-it’s-revealed-he-wasnt-born-in-the-USA
I have links in three articles to BSE’s Sandy Hook theories at memoryoleblog.com, currently infected by malware. Chrome will alert you.
Very interesting article about big data billionaire Robert Mercer, Steve Bannon, et al. in their strategic use of AI and media for psyops against populations to affect public opinion, elections, and more.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw
It’ll never happen for the simple reason that neither birth certificate was ever forged.
Till too stupid to understand that the records they claim are sealed cannot be unsealed by the current President (or even Obama since the records they want are protected, not ‘sealed’).
Though I have not made it too the link above, but I am rather certain that Tracy still has not read the Presidential Record EO issued by Obama.
Two “interesting” posts by ex-con Judy:
1. Ex-con Judy on the Facebook is unsurprisingly requesting the public to call the law clerk to the district judge who denied his relief of judgment motion. So the public can ask the clerk to consider ex-con Judy’s motion for judgment. (Not reposting ex-con Judy’s graphic because he uses the clerk’s name.)
Because harassing clerks has been such a winning strategy for birthers in the past.
2. Ex-con Judy also posted an “interesting” article on his blog. To summarize, ex-con Judy was doing his door-to-door meat salesman routine. A former LDS bishop answered a door ex-con Judy knocked on; the bishop recognized ex-con Judy (as shown by the bishop’s statements, and possibly also for reasons that can be inferred), and bought meat from him.
Ex-con Judy of course sees some sort of divine meaning in all this, as ex-con Judy is facing eviction and desperately needs the money. The reality is this was an act of charity. Done by a member of the church that ex-con Judy unflinchingly blames for all his woes. (N.B.: Ex-con Judy has been excommunicated from the LDS church.)
The Ninth Circuit has denied the Trump Administration’s request to hold in abeyance the appeal of the district court’s stay of the immigration order. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/27/17-35105%20-%20Motion%20Denied.pdf
The administration made the argument that there’s no point in ruling on the merits of the original case, since it is about to issue a new order intended to supersede the first one. But the state of Washington argues that this is a ruse — after all, if Trump doesn’t want the court to embarrass him with its decision on the merits of his order, all he has to do is withdraw it and focus on its replacement.
But Trump is too proud and stubborn to concede defeat, and he and his surrogates have made several statements to the effect that they still intend to win the original case.
The Ninth Circuit can apparently see through the ruse, and is proceeding with a slightly extended briefing schedule.
A similar request was made a couple of weeks ago to District Judge Robart, and as FoxNews reported ( http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/14/seattle-judge-says-trump-travel-ban-case-can-proceed-in-lower-court.html ), “Robart said he was ‘surprised’ by that statement, since the president had said he wants to ‘see you in court.'”
Sit down, this may be shocking: ex-con Judy is filing a a motion for reconsideration.
You can check out BSE’s lies about Sandy Hook at this site, which is free of malware. Both Doc and I left comments.
http://www.maxresistance.com/an-eerie-visit-to-sandy-hook-newtown-ct/
Judy apparently has been hawking steaks door-to-door since 2009, which helps to explain his chronic poverty.
Unsurprisingly, the registration for his business, USA Legacy Entrees LLC, expired in 2014 and has not been renewed. Complying with rules has never been Judy’s strong point.
I chuckle whenever I Google his name because two the top five hits inevitably are “Cody Judy leaves prison on parole – The Daily Universe” and “JUDY PLEADS GUILTY TO `BOMB’ THREAT | Deseret News.”
Chelsea Clinton, daughter of failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, tweeted Saturday her outrage over the birther conspiracy theory about former President Barack Obama, despite it being reportedly started by her mother’s 2008 presidential campaign.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/chelsea-clinton-tweets-outrage-birther-theory-mothers-staffer-admitted-starting/
That article is full of spin, as the context of her tweet shows she is not outraged. At most, it suggests she might have been outraged at one point.
Judy filed a Order to Show Cause, demanding that the defendants in his failed lawsuit should pay him $140 million. He is willing to accept it in installments of $10,000 per month.
Apparently math is not high on his list of skills or he would realize that it would take 14,000 months to pay off $140 million at $10K per month. Perhaps he believes that he is the reincarnation of Methuselah, but with a longer life expectancy.
He also believes that it is now the obligation of Obama and the DNC to disprove the “evidence” offered up by Arpaio and Zullo in December.
And of course he has still failed to explain why he has a legal claim for damages.
Of course the Clinton staffer who was fired never spread anything about birtherism. It was about Obama being a Muslim.
The concept of “Burden of Proof” is not one of Judy’s strong suits is it?
Reality IS NOT Judy’s long suit. Wonder how long it will take the judge to round file this round? Isn’t it about time for an order to the clerk to cease accepting filings on this dead and buried matter?
Federal Court Hearing Tuesday, March 7, in Clinton Email Case, Judicial Watch Seeking Answers on Abedin/Weiner Laptop Emails
http://www.military-technologies.net/2017/03/02/federal-court-hearing-tuesday-march-7-in-clinton-email-case-judicial-watch-seeking-answers-on-abedinweiner-laptop-emails/
Donald Trump claims Obama is behind the protests against him.
“President Trump has been saying of late that the protests against his presidency and demonstrations by angry constituents at some congressional town hall meetings across the country have been put together by his political enemies.
Now Trump has assigned a name to his blame game: Barack Obama.
In an interview Monday with (what else?) the Fox News Channel, Mr. Trump said that he believes his predecessor in the White House is helping to organize the protests.
“I think that President Obama is behind it because his people certainly are behind it,” Trump said. “In terms of him being behind things, that’s politics. It will probably continue.””
http://www.skyvalleychronicle.com/FEATURE-NEWS/President-Trump-s-latest-conspiracy-theory-br-i-Obama-is-behind-all-the-protests-against-me-i-2774662
TRUMP, PUTIN, AND THE NEW COLD WAR
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war
That’s a misnomer. The Cold War never ended.
On another Shabbat rant, Trump claims Obama wire tapped Trump tower:
Doesn’t Trump have access to FISA information (unless he is a target)?
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
6:35 AM – 4 Mar 2017
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
6:49 AM – 4 Mar 2017
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
6:52 AM – 4 Mar 2017
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
7:02 AM – 4 Mar 2017
And from our old friend Corsi:
Jerome Corsi @jerome_corsi 1h1 hour ago
Trump tweets EXPOSE OBAMA criminally WIRETAPPING TRUMP TOWER during election. Obama’s WATERGATE nightmare starts now
“It appears perhaps to be a response to a narrative in Breitbart.com, the right-wing website that was previously published by Steve Bannon, the president’s senior adviser.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/04/518478158/president-trump-accuses-obama-of-wire-tapping-provides-no-evidence
Obama spokesperson Kevin Lewis said: “President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen.”
OK, let me think… Who should I believe: Trump or Obama?
That said, I can believe that US intelligence does tap the Russians’ phones, so I guess they intercepted lots of Trump campaign calls. 👿
Well, or course, it’s got to be someone’s fault, and someone has to be organizing it, it couldn’t just happen spontaneously because no one likes him, so someone has to be organizing it. The man’s paranoia is beginning to make Nixon look placid by comparison.
—-
Yeah, but he’s too smart to waste time getting briefed . . . .
“[T]he president’s remarks alleging his phones were “tapped” are simply preposterous and reflect his complete ignorance of how the various surveillance authorities retained by the government over which he now presides actually work. The president cannot, on his own, authorize surveillance of a U.S. citizen. Whether for domestic criminal purposes or foreign intelligence purposes, a court order is required, either through a standard Article III court or the FISC.”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/trumps-wiretap-rant-betrays-ignorance-of-the-law-214870
Would it be out of place, or merely disconcerting, to point out that the current President of the United States is an effing nutjob?
The things I don’t understand are:
Why hasn’t Jerome Corsi been made Press Secretary yet?
Why hasn’t Sheriff Joe been pardoned and made Attorney General?
Why isn’t Vladimir Putin Secretary of State yet?
And when do we launch the full-scale government investigations into the Kennedy Assassination, Bush’s involvement in 9/11, the Roswell Incident, and find out where Jimmy Hoffa buried the real Paul McCartney?
Alabama congressman says Democrats are going “birther” over Senator Sessions’ contacts with the Russians.
http://www.al.com/news/montgomery/index.ssf/2017/03/aderholt_russia-trump_coordina.html
It seems that Trump’s rant is based on a Breitbart article that merely recounts and spins what had already been reported by legit news organizations over the last few weeks and months (rather than based on new information). So, why is Trump now freaking out at this particular moment in time? I think it is because he thinks his own conversations were overheard and he thinks he’s been busted.
This weekend Trump is reportedly at Mar-a-Lago with counsel, aides, and Jeff Sessions (who is recused on this!), and the press pool has been banished from the place. Maybe they are working on Sessions’ written follow-up answers to the Senate which are due on Monday.
J.D. Sue: Yeah, but he’s too smart to waste time getting briefed . . . .
Trump also decided to save $1million (while wasting $10 million to go to FL) and rejected ethics training for his staff.
“The documents suggest the program could have better prepared officials for working within existing laws and executive orders, and provided guidance on how to navigate Senate confirmation for nominees and political appointees, how to deal with congressional and media scrutiny, and how to work with Congress and collaborate with agencies — some of the same issues that have become major stumbling blocks in the early days of the administration.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-ethics-white-house-235586
If I were running an unethical administration, I too would reject ethics training for myself and my staff.
It has been previously alleged that Trump listens to staffers’ phone calls at Mar-A-Lago.
I submit that all headlines concerning Trump and staffers come with a “?”
Today, the NYT comes close with this headline: Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones
I would have posted “Trump alleges Obama tapped his phones?”
Garry Kasparov tweeted last night:
“The tradition of going after one’s predecessor in power is very familiar to anyone from an authoritarian regime. Purges, scapegoating, etc.”
“I warned Trump would never stop “running” against Obama (& Hillary) personally, not on policy. He needs big enemies & it riles his base.”
“It also fits the usual strongman pattern of never apologizing or defending, only attacking. Looks desperate to most, but base sees strength.”
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/838252158323732482
Agreed.
Why are so many Russians dying?
Alex Oronov, organizer of Russia-Ukraine blackmail plan sent to Donald Trump, dies suspiciously
https://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/alex-oronov-organizer-russia-ukraine-blackmail-plan-sent-donald-trump-dropped-dead/1785/
Last week, Andrea Mitchell had an outstanding interview with Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev which is suspiciously NOT posted online (but i recorded it): (Coming up on #AMR @ChrisCoons @rehemaellis @jpaceDC @JeanneCummings plus former Russian foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev on @MSNBC. Tune in!)
Kozyrev: “The first point that he (Kislyak) would report (to Russia) is that Sessions didn’t tell him to stop the hacking … to stop the interference into American domestic policies… that I was not even reproached by Sessions (being in the armed services committee) not to say you don’t do these things … America will retaliate with the full force to interference into our process and that’s the point which is missing in all the responses ,,, they should have started saying ‘I told him stop it …. I told him we will pay back’ … before hello and shake hands that’s what I would expect…. that’s the first thing I would report to my president back home”
Rachel Maddow connects the dots between a billionaire Russian oligarch and a bizarre Donald Trump deal
https://boingboing.net/2017/03/01/rachel-maddow-connects-the-dot.html
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who prepared the explosive Trump report, has been approached about testifying before the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the new President’s alleged links with Russia, The Independent can reveal.
(He has been in hiding ever since details of the dossier emerged.)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-russia-christopher-steele-dossier-us-senate-intelligence-hotel-british-spy-mi6-evidence-a7608456.html
This follows my reading of “Vattel for Dummies.” I see no support for “birthright citizenship” in English common law, the Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment. It is clear that the Framers intended Congress to have the power to determine naturalization, at least after 1808. It is highly doubtful that the Fourteenth Amendment changed that because its sole purpose was to “constitutionalize” the Civil Rights Act of 1866, of which the sole purpose was to insure that African slaves would have the rights of citizens. No consideration was given to the children of aliens who had slipped into the country unlawfully, and hence, this could not have been an object of either the Civil Rights Act or the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is unclear whether English common law was incorporated into the Constitution, but if it was, the issue of birthright citizenship is still not settled. English birthright citizenship depended upon the alien parents giving allegiance to the king. The children of enemies of the king born on English soil were not citizens. Further, under our system of government, the Constitution acknowledges that the People, not a king, own all plenary governing powers in fee, and so, by analogy, for the child of aliens born on American soil to be a citizen, the parents would need to give allegiance to the People and their Constitution. It is difficult to conclude that aliens who enter the country in violation of the People’s laws have given allegiance to either. I think we should not and cannot assume that children born, for example, to MS-13 violent thugs who are in the country to maintain a heroin distribution network become citizens by birth on our soil. Likewise, children born to Chinese couples who fly in on a fraudulent visa for the cynical purpose of taking advantage of assumed birthright also should not be citizens. If the rule were otherwise, America would have given up her “perfect right” (Vattel) to determine naturalization and maintain her sovereignty.
US v Wonk Kim Ark stands only for the proposition that a child born to aliens who are here legally is a citizen, and it seems clear, that if the People don’t like the rule established in that case, Congress can change it because the Constitution confers no “perfect right” on aliens here either legally or illegally to vest American citizenship on their children. And since the right to determine citizenship is a “perfect right,” Congress could apply the rule retroactively, unless SCOTUS exercises a dubious power to find some new substantive due process right that is violated by retroactive application. Alexander Hamilton, who was an avid student of Vattel, understood that the Constitution was not intended to protect rights that might infringe on the republic’s “perfect right” to exert its external sovereignty, “The authorities essential to the common defense . . . ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.” (Hamilton, A., Federalist No. 23, “The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union,” New York Packet, December 18, 1787).
Of course, none of this addresses the legitimacy of the Obama presidency, but I can’t resist putting in my two cents worth on the legitimacy of the Executive’s actions during Obama’s tenure. Historians likely will view President Obama as a leader who found the Constitution and Congress to be unnecessary inconveniences that interfered with his grand plans for the republic. He oversaw with approval unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who regularly used agencies to enforce ideology and exercise Article I legislative powers to circumvent Congress and the People. He pushed the false narrative that evil “gridlock” forced him to do it, when in fact, the Constitution elegantly engineers “gridlock” to protect rights until the People can agree, that is, to prevent “tyranny by the one, the few or the many.” Further, Obama’s reckless rush to diminish the exceptional nature of America’s First Principles, to open our borders and to subject American society to the will of global interests and authorities completely contravened Vattel’s immutable law of Nature that “the duties that we owe to ourselves being unquestionably paramount to those we owe to others, — a nation owes herself in the first instance, and in preference to all other nations, to do every thing she can to promote her own happiness and perfection. * * * When, therefore, she cannot contribute to the welfare of another nation without doing an essential injury to herself, her obligation ceases on that particular occasion, and she is considered as lying under a disability to perform the office in question.” (Law of Nations, Preliminaries, Section 14.) With some success, President Obama spread a contrary message with the result that many regard the slogan “America First” to be a fascist mantra and many think “populism” and “nationalism” are evil concepts. So the question is, were Grotius, Vattel and Hamilton evil fascists? Is President Trump a fascist? Or, as many believe, has President Trump done more for the freedoms of thought and speech than anyone since December 15, 1791. Hopefully, we can have an educated discussion of this issue that leads our society back to its First Principles, as elucidated by the preeminent thinkers of the Enlightenment and embodied in our Constitution.
More Kasparov:
“One of the fixed contradictions of the strongman ethos is that he and his followers must always play the victim, even when holding power.”
“To play the victim despite holding power, one needs dangerous enemies. If they don’t exist, they must be created or their threat inflated.”
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/838472636317462529
Why is Trump Returning to Birther-Style Attacks on Obama?
The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/a-wiretap-accusation-and-the-echo-of-birtherism/518643/
That is a significant misrepresentation of the holding in US v. Wong because it was EXACTLY an act of Congress, the Chinese Exclusion Act, that the Government argued made Wong not a citizen. US v. Wong made it clear that Congress could NOT pass a statute excluding the children of aliens from citizenship. The Court found support for birthright citizenship both in the English Common Law, and under the 14th Amendment.
David Loomis:
“President Obama spread a contrary message with the result that many regard the slogan “America First” to be a fascist mantra . . .”
————–
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/8098/9566486_2.jpg?v=8CCD7864B5EF0A0
—
Photo from an America First parade in the 1920’s:
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ku-klux-klan-stages-an-america-first-parade-in-binghamton-news-photo/514702614#binghamton-ny-ku-klux-klan-stages-an-america-first-parade-in-ny-picture-id514702614
A majority of voters and a majority of the Electors chose Barack Obama to be president, twice. Joint sssions of Congress in 2009 and again in 2013 certified Obama’s electoral votes without objection from any of the 535 members of Congress. Both state and feceral courts confirmed that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen. For example: Allen v Obama, Arizona Superior Court Judge Richard E. Gordon: “Arizona courts are bound by United States Supreme Court precedent in construing the United States Constitution, and this precedent fully supports that President Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitution and thus qualified to hold the office of President. Contrary to Plaintiff’s assertion, Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), does not hold otherwise.”–Pima County Superior Court, Tuscon, Arizona, March 7, 2012 and: Taitz v. Obama (Quo Warranto) “This is one of several such suits filed by Ms. Taitz in her quixotic attempt to prove that President Obama is not a natural born citizen, as is required by the Constitution. This Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills with her.”– Chief U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, April 14, 2010
In U.S. v Wong Kim Ark the government’s attorneys asked the Supreme Court to resolve the following question: “Are Chinese children born in this country to share with the descendants of the patriots of the American Revolution the exalted qualification of being eligible to the Presidency of the nation, conferred by the Constitution in recognition of the importance and dignity of citizenship by birth?”
“To hold that Wong Kim Ark is a natural-born citizen within the ruling now quoted, is to ignore the fact that at his birth he became a subject of China by reason of the allegiance of his parents to the Chinese Emperor. That fact is not open to controversy, for the law of China demonstrates its existence. He was therefore born subject to a foreign power; and although born subject to the laws of the United States, in the sense of being entitled to and receiving protection while within the territorial limits of the nation—a right of all aliens—yet he was not born subject to the ‘political jurisdiction’ thereof, and for that reason is not a citizen. The judgment and order appealed from should be reversed, and the respondent remanded to the custody of the collector.”
A 6-2 majority on the Supreme Court ruled in Wong: []An alien parent’s] allegiance to the United States is direct and immediate, and, although but local and temporary, continuing only so long as he remains within our territory, is yet, in the words of Lord Coke in Calvin’s Case, ’strong enough to make a natural subject, for, if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural-born subject’
“Subject’ and ‘citizen’ are, in a degree, convertible terms as applied to natives; and though the term ‘citizen’ seems to be appropriate to republican freemen, yet we are, equally with the inhabitants of all other countries, ’subjects,’ for we are equally bound by allegiance and subjection to the government and law of the land.’
“…every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject, unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign state, or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
The same rule was in force in all the English colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the constitution as originally established.”
Applying U.S. v Wong Kim Ark to Barack Obama’s eligibility to receive Indiana’s Electoral votes, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in Ankeny v. Governor Daniels, “Based on the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the United States are ‘natural born citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”–Indiana Court of Appeals, November 12, 2009
The first survey of more than 90 presidential historians and presidential scholars (including the librarians of all the presidential libraries) released since Barack Obama left the White House found him to be the 12th best president. That’s not too bad.
CSPAN conducts this survey every few years. The most recent previous survey was in 2009:
https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/
President Obama also left office with a 60% positive job approval rating while his predecessor, George W. Bush left office with a 43% job approval rating.
Nonsense. There was no possibility of any “aliens who had slipped into the country unlawfully” until the Page Act of 1875 was passed. There were no unlawful aliens in the United States when the 14th Amendment was ratified.
And Doc thought this was going to be all over as of 201701201200.00 -5.
Yep. That’s why I didn’t bother with the sad goodbyes. 😆
It’s also worth reiterating that the government’s appeal from the District Court ruling argued that if Wong Kim Ark were found to be a U.S. citizen it meant that he was eligible to be president.
The Congress apparently has agreed, as it has had nearly 120 years since 1898 to modify the 14th Amendment but has done nothing.
Gold Star father, American citizen, attorney Khizr Khan was scheduled to lecture and attend a luncheon in Toronto tomorrow. But this was cancelled because, without explanation, he was notified that his travel privileges are being reviewed.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/khizr-khan-forced-to-cancel-toronto-trip-after-being-told-his-travel-privileges-are-being-reviewed/
I suspect that it’s the same reason that his supporters post fake news stories on Facebook. They hear something which appeals to their confirmation bias and they automatically believe that it is true. No fact-checking is required.
This is a dangerous quality in a president and raises the frightening specter of Trump launching a military strike against a perceived enemy without first verifying the facts.
I heard the list of accounts Trump follows on Twitter. Besides his family and business, all the people I recognized were members the right-wing echo chamber.
I bought his book.
Shall we start with the Republican Senate’s refusal to hold hearings and vote on Obama’s appointment to the Supreme Court?
Obama and Trump: The ticktock of a truly bizarre relationship
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/06/obama-and-trump-the-history-of-a-truly-strange-relationship/?utm_term=.eb1a0e63df3e
Steve Bannon in 2013: Joseph McCarthy was right in crusade against Communist infiltration
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/06/politics/kfile-bannon-mccarthy/index.html
Trump’s mentor was Roy Cohn who helped make McCarthyism what it was by twisting the truth and making accusations he
knew to be false.
Cohn had visited the Oval Office on multiple occasions to see President Reagan. Cohn had referred the Reagan folks to Trump for office space during the first campaign. And Cohn reportedly used his influence with Reagan to get Donald’s sister, Maryann Trump Barry, appointed a federal judge. She is said to have called Cohn afterwards to thank him.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/05/donald-trump-reads-once-again-from-roy-cohn-s-mccarthyite-playbook.html
Is Bannon Trump’s brain or his brother by another mother?
In regard to US v Wonk Kim Ark, it is axiomatic that, unless otherwise expressly stated, Supreme Court holdings are narrowly limited to the facts before the Court. Dicta regarding the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Fourteenth Amendment, etc. may be persuasive in future cases, but they are by no means binding. The examples of this axiom are uncountable.
A future narrow reading of US v Wonk Kim Ark is likely in view of its failure to explain how those who ratified the Fourteenth amendment could have had anything on their minds but African slavery, its fatally flawed reliance on English common law, and its utter failure to reconcile its reading of the Fourteenth Amendment with continued viability of the Naturalization Act of 1795. Even if the Constitution incorporates English common law in general, no principled argument can be made that it incorporates any naturalization principles. From the beginning, American naturalization law and practice innovatively assumed that a free citizen of one country had the right to transfer his allegiance to another, if the latter allowed. Hence, the Naturalization Act of 1795 required the new citizen to “absolutely and entirely renounce” any previous allegiance. This essential element of the social-contract theory upon which the Constitution is based—that political communities are the free association of individuals to promote their mutual security and happiness—departs radically from English common law, as reflected by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. There, Blackstone held that the “natural allegiance” owed by all those born within the sovereign’s domain could not be “forfeited, cancelled, or altered” by any act of the subject himself, including moving to another country and “swearing allegiance to another.”
The Naturalization Act of 1795 was the direct progenitor of Section 337(a) in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which still provides that all applicants for citizenship shall take an oath that incorporates the substance of the following:
1. Support the Constitution;
2. Renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen;
3. Support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
4. Bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and
5. A. Bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; or
B. Perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; or
C. Perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.
Please explain how aliens who have not taken THIS oath should be entitled to designate citizenship for their children against citizens’ will.
Further, the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment repealed Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution (“The Congress shall have Power To…establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”) without some express statement of intent is not supportable under well-established rules of constitutional interpretation and construction. In fact, it is absurd. If, as you suggest, that US v Wonk Kim Ark stands for all of this, then the only conclusion to be reached is that it is bad law borne of a hard case and legal sophistry. It wouldn’t be the first time SCOTUS had become involved in politics and made bad law (See, e.g. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), which was the second case in history to find an act of Congress to be unconstitutional and which the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to protect against). It is beyond my mental capacity to understand why citizens of the United States should want to admit into their country, either by choice or involuntarily by force of some unwritten and philosophically insupportable law, aliens who may not be inclined to or capable of loving our people and republican form of government. In fact, under Vattel, citizens have a “perfect right” to exclude such people, and this natural right is immutable and both precedes and supersedes the Constitution and US v Wonk Kim Ark. Recall that I am responding to the many comments (some erroneous) made in your blog thread entitled “Vattel for Dummies.
So, I challenge YOU to make a principled argument based upon the preeminent philosophies of Grotius, Locke, Vattell, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, etc., to support unqualified birthright citizenship. Few powers are more fundamental to sovereignty than the control over immigration and the vesting of citizenship in aliens, and notably, one of the grievances that led the American colonists to break with Britain was the Crown’s “obstructing the Laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners.” (Declaration of Independence) Further, at the Federal Convention, there was virtually no opposition to moving the naturalization power from the states to the new national government, and in the ratification debates only a handful of Anti-Federalists even raised the issue. At the Federal Convention, James Madison acknowledged that “America was indebted to emigration for her settlement & prosperity,” but he qualified who should be allowed to migrate by expressing his wish “to invite foreigners of merit & republican principles among us.” Was he also a fascist?
You or your system marked my reply as “spam.” Any reason for this?
http://www.americanthinker.com/
is broken
This blog uses a 3rd party spam filtering service. Sometimes it makes a mistake.
As to your query: Shall we start with the Republican Senate’s refusal to hold hearings and vote on Obama’s appointment to the Supreme Court?
Nationwide elections of senators had consequences, one of which was properly to use the rules of the Senate, as previously acknowledged by both then Senator Biden and Senator Schumer, to give the People a chance to have a say in the Supreme Court nominee. It was a gamble made by representatives elected by plebiscites in fifty states. Do you contend the decision contravened republican principles?
In regard to US v Wonk Kim Ark, it is axiomatic that, unless otherwise expressly stated, Supreme Court holdings are narrowly limited to the facts before the Court. Dicta regarding the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Fourteenth Amendment, etc. may be persuasive in future cases, but they are by no means binding. The examples of this axiom are uncountable.
A future narrow reading of US v Wonk Kim Ark is likely in view of its failure to explain how those who ratified the Fourteenth amendment could have had anything on their minds but African slavery, its fatally flawed reliance on English common law, and its utter failure to reconcile its reading of the Fourteenth Amendment with continued viability of the Naturalization Act of 1795. Even if the Constitution incorporates English common law in general, no principled argument can be made that it incorporates any naturalization principles. From the beginning, American naturalization law and practice innovatively assumed that a free citizen of one country had the right to transfer his allegiance to another, if the latter allowed. Hence, the Naturalization Act of 1795 required the new citizen to “absolutely and entirely renounce” any previous allegiance. This essential element of the social-contract theory upon which the Constitution is based—that political communities are the free association of individuals to promote their mutual security and happiness—departs radically from English common law, as reflected by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England. There, Blackstone held that the “natural allegiance” owed by all those born within the sovereign’s domain could not be “forfeited, cancelled, or altered” by any act of the subject himself, including moving to another country and “swearing allegiance to another.”
The Naturalization Act of 1795 was the direct progenitor of Section 337(a) in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which still provides that all applicants for citizenship shall take an oath that incorporates the substance of the following:
1. Support the Constitution;
2. Renounce and abjure absolutely and entirely all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which the applicant was before a subject or citizen;
3. Support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
4. Bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and
A. Bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; or
B. Perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; or
C. Perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law.
Please explain how aliens who have not taken THIS oath should be entitled to designate citizenship for their children against citizens’ will.
Further, the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment repealed Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution (“The Congress shall have Power To…establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”) without some express statement of intent is not supportable under well-established rules of constitutional interpretation and construction. In fact, it is absurd. If, as you suggest, that US v Wonk Kim Ark stands for all of this, then the only conclusion to be reached is that it is bad law borne of a hard case and legal sophistry. It wouldn’t be the first time SCOTUS had become involved in politics and made bad law (See, e.g. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), which was the second case in history to find an act of Congress to be unconstitutional and which the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to protect against). It is beyond my mental capacity to understand why citizens of the United States should want to admit into their country, either by choice or involuntarily by force of some unwritten and philosophically insupportable law, aliens who may not be inclined to or capable of loving our people and republican form of government. In fact, under Vattel, citizens have a “perfect right” to exclude such people, and this natural right is immutable and both precedes and supersedes the Constitution and US v Wonk Kim Ark. Recall that I am responding to the many comments (some erroneous) made in your blog thread entitled “Vattel for Dummies.) So, I challenge YOU to make a principled argument based upon the preeminent philosophies of Grotius, Locke, Vattell, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, etc., to support unqualified birthright citizenship. Few powers are more fundamental to sovereignty than the control over immigration and the vesting of citizenship in aliens, and notably, one of the grievances that led the American colonists to break with Britain was the Crown’s “obstructing the Laws for the Naturalization of Foreigners.” (Declaration of Independence) Further, at the Federal Convention, there was virtually no opposition to moving the naturalization power from the states to the new national government, and in the ratification debates only a handful of Anti-Federalists even raised the issue. At the Federal Convention, James Madison acknowledged that “America was indebted to emigration for her settlement & prosperity,” but he qualified who should be allowed to migrate by expressing his wish “to invite foreigners of merit & republican principles among us.” Was he also a fascist?
Sorry, Charlie. That boat has sailed. This blog closed to new articles in January. There are many articles (around 70) on or related to birthright citizenship on this blog already, and I have nothing more to say than I have said. The particular article you mentioned, “Vattel for Dummies,” is rather old. Other articles are found here:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/tag/natural-born-citizen/
A principled argument is rather irrelevant at this point, since we have a Constitution. The only relevant argument is a legal one. You could say that the Constitution would be better if it said something other than what it does, but it reflects what the framers wrote, and what the states ratified. It is the law of the land. If you want to propose a Constitutional Amendment then have at it. Also, you seem to forget the 14th amendment.
Of those you mentioned, only Hamilton and Madison were involved with the writing or ratification of the US Constitution. For Hamilton’s views, you might look at his speech before the House here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=F8c4AAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA97&dq=%22established%20maxim%20that%20birth%20is%20a%20criterion%20of%20allegiance%22&pg=PA98#v=snippet&q=%22I%20think%20the%20merit%20of%20the%20question%22&f=false
from one of my articles.
Yes. The Constitution is quite clear who is the president. The president, not the Senate ,names Supreme Court nominees. The Senate could have constitutionally rejected Obama’s nominee, but not refused to decide.
You seem to try to rely on “principles” rather than law. Is this because you know the law is not on your side?
I’ll give you one from Madison, May 22, 1789:
“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.”
“Hopefully we can have an educated discussion of this issue that leads our society back to its First Principles, as elucidated by the preeminent thinkers of the Enlightenment and embodied in our Constitution.””– Dave Loomis
——–
I still choose to go with the point of view of “The Father of the Constitution,” James Madison who said: “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.”–House of Representatives, May 22,1789
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_2_2s6.html
Ha Rickey, it looks like two great minds thought alike!
I think it’s instructive to read Madison’e entire speech. While the quotation given makes the point, there’s a lot more in there as to Madison’s thinking.
I consider trying to insert Grotius and Locke and Vattel (none of whom were Americans) post ratification as an attempt to obfuscate the issue. The Framers looked at all of that, and what they decided would apply in the United States is what they wrote, not what those Enlightenment philosophers wrote.
Dave Loomis choses to ignore the following facts.
There were 226 original jurisdiction challenges to Barack Obama’s eligibility under Article II, Section 1. Additionally there were 120 state and federal appellate court rulings and 35 cert petitions or requests for stays and injunctions heard at the U.S. Supreme Court. Not one single court ruling ever found Barack Obama to be ineligible for the ofgice he sought or achieved. Well over 1,000 judges in those 381 total legal challenges had the opportunity to opine on Barack Obama’s natural born citizenship.
The Chief Election Officer, usually an elected Secretary of State in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia cleared Barack Obama for the states’ ballots in 2008 and again in 2012.
And finally, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency on February 10, 2007. For a decade now there has never been a single minute of congresdional hearing time or testimony spent on his eligibility. The Senate confirmed his appointees and both Houses sent him legislation to sign into law for eight years.
An argument based on that remark shows me that you really don’t know what you are talking about. Hint: “ratio decidendi.” If you think you’re going anywhere commenting on this blog with such drivel, you are mistaken, and wasting your time.
Dave Loomis appears to be unaware of the fact that the landmark Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship was U.S. v WONG Kim Ark not “Wonk” Kim Ark as he continually writes.
If Wong is “bad” case law then there has been 119 years to reverse it. That hasn’t happened. The Roberts Court alone had more than 20 opportunities to reverse or limit Wong just regarding Barack Obama. Under the SCOTUS tradition of “The Rule of Four,” the high court could never find four Justices who were interested in advancing an Obama eligibility challenge to oral arguments.
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Roy Cohn was one of the worst human beings ever — after he got the Rosenbergs executed (knowing Ethel Rosenberg was innocent) and he drove the McCarthy witch hunt as far as he could, he went into private practice as a brutal fixer in NYC (he was famous for, inter alia, using the press to slander and intimidate opponents). He was a Mob attorney. He was also Fred Trump’s attorney, and became young Donald’s attorney and mentor. Trump’s secretary said Roy and Donald were on the phone several times every day, for years. Then, Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS, so Donald completely dumped him like a hot potato. Birds of a feather. (Cohn even had a perpetual fake tan like Trump’s).
It’s a great source for arguing that Washington, Madison and native-born Americans like them were natural born citizens, for whom no allowance such as the original citizens exception was required, but it’s a bit challenging to cut down into bite-size.
Obiter dicta can be influential. One example in United States Supreme Court history is the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. A passing remark from Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, recorded by the court reporter before oral argument, now forms the basis for the doctrine that juristic persons are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Whether or not Chief Justice Waite’s remark constitutes binding precedent is arguable, but subsequent rulings have treated it as such.
In other instances, dicta can suggest an interpretation of law that has no bearing on the case at hand but might be useful in future cases. Notable instance of such an occurrence is the history of the famous Footnote 4 to United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938), which while rejecting use of the Due Process Clause to block most legislation suggested that the clause might be applied to strike down legislation dealing with questions of “fundamental right”. This obiter dictum is generally considered to have led to the doctrine of strict scrutiny (and subsequently intermediate scrutiny) in racial, religious, and sexual discrimination cases, first articulated in [the Executive Order mandating internment of Japanese Americans] Korematsu v. United States (1944).
Apparently!
And there is the fact that unless they were natural born citizens, no one was eligible to be president in 1789 because no one could have met the 14-year residency requirement.
So you are saying that all those born here have a natural allegiance to this domain that could not be forfeited, canceled or altered? That rather negates your entire argument.
On a side note, if you had read more about our dealings with citizenship and England during the 19th century, you would have noticed how we did not agree with Blackstone on this point. We had more than a few disagreements with England about the status of naturalized citizens. We felt that the citizens who naturalized no longer held any allegiance to their former home and that their former sovereign did not hold any jurisdiction over them.
Unless you start counting at the time of “by the rude bridge that arched the flood”.
I have little experience participating in blogs, but the “Vattel for Dummies” attracted my attention. So, I apologize if I am at the wrong place and time. I have no interest in promoting the “birther” issue. I observed it at a distance, and I have no deep knowledge of the “natural born” issue. So, I shall make some concluding remarks that respond directly to your comments and then return full time to the work I was doing when distracted by the high level of discussion seen in the original blog. Thank you for the interesting repartee.
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I could find no speech by Hamilton in section of the Debates of Congress you referenced, but I read Madison’s speech with interest. The question debated was whether William Smith met the Constitutional requirement of being a citizen for seven years to qualify for a seat in the House. He was born in South Carolina in 1758, but he lived abroad from 1770 to 1783. Thus, he was both a minor and absent from the land when it became a republic in 1776. However, his parents were born in and permanent residents of South Carolina, and “his ancestors were among the first settlers of [South Carolina].” Notably, Madison expressed regret that neither the Constitution nor South Carolina law gave any help determining citizenship in the new republic, which meant that he and his colleagues in the House were forced to “settle some general principle before we proceed to the presumptive proof arising from public measures under the law, which ten to give support to the inference drawn from such principles.” In other words, the House would need to rely on “principled arguments,” which I challenged you to make, and which you harshly dismissed in favor of the Constitution and laws.
So, this case involved a child born of parents who were born and permanently resided in a territory that was part of Great Britain and later became an independent sovereign state. At his birth, Smith was uncontestably a subject of the British Crown, but neither the South Carolina Constitution of March 26, 1776, which rejected authority of the Crown, nor any South Carolina law settled whether his absence from the territory during his minority somehow interfered with his citizenship in the new state. If he was not a citizen of South Carolina when the Declaration of Independence was issued, he could not be a citizen of the United States.
As you noted, Madison briefly reviewed some of the historical considerations made in determining citizenship and then baldly proclaimed that birthright was the way we did it in America. Except for the fact of the Revolution, the matter was pretty much a nothingburger. The case for citizenship was compelling without analysis, and no significant analysis, constitutional or otherwise, was offered. Therefore, it provides little force as precedent for conferring birthright citizenship in other circumstances not involving a minor absent from the territory during a change in sovereignties.
I revere James Madison as the father of the Constitution for his unprecedented mastery of organizing parliamentary compromise and resolution, but not because of any profound intellectual contributions he made to the text. You may recall from the journal and Madison’s own notes of the Federal Convention that Madison failed to persuade the other delegates to adopt many of the Virginia Plan’s resolutions that were most important to him, notably the inclusion of a council of revision in the Executive. So, in my view, Madison was just one remarkable voice among the brightest, best educated and most ingenious group of men ever to collaborate on anything. Though the 36-year-old figure was an intellectual powerhouse, he lacked the real-world experience of other delegates.
My focus on principles partially reflects my growing concern that the First Principles upon which the Constitution is based are being eroded to the point where the Constitution will no longer adequately defend against the human nature to enlarge and consolidate power in the central government, which will lead to tyranny in the form of a permanent oligarchy of establishment politicians and leviathan global corporations and other potentially destructive special interests that maintain an iron grip on those politicians’ power.
But you are also correct that I retreat to principles in respect to birthright citizenship. The legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment really could not be clearer; the children of illegal aliens born her are legally citizens. However, members of the 39th Congress could not have contemplated extending birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens because Congress did not generally restrict migration until well after adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Moreover, no one has EVER addressed the sub silentio repeal of Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution (“The Congress shall have Power To…establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization”) or the obvious conflicts with the tenor and content of the various prior and subsequent naturalization laws. The legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment shows that the opponents of the birthright clause made many of the important, logical, history-based arguments, but the unsophisticated, mob mentality response was, in essence, “So what, we don’t give a shit, this is how it’s gonna be. We’re gonna get this done, nobody’s gonna stop us, and we will leave not a scintilla of ambiguity that can be used later to challenge our intent.” The rudeness and total avoidance of intellectual honestly of the response leaps off the pages of the record. Part of the problem may have been that the pro-birthright citizenship contingent realized that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 didn’t unambiguously guarantee citizenship (“not subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign power” was changed in the Fourteenth Amendment to “subject to the jurisdiction of a state”), but I think the main reason for the response was the uber-heated controversy over slavery. While it is easy to understand how these emotions were driven by profound antipathy for the disgusting pall of disrepute slavery cast over the nation for many decades and the brutal loss of half a million citizens to the Civil War, it was not an admirable legislative moment. So, you are right, I resort to principles in that one case to avoid the law, and kudos for calling it out.
Nevertheless, I still stand by my analysis of the precedential value of US v Wong Kim Ark, and I was disappointed to see your harsh response to it. That case is not well-supported or well-reasoned. But if you wish further to bolster the case, you may wish to consider Plyler v. Doe (1982), in which the 5-4 majority relied upon it to hold that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to applies to children of illegal aliens because they are “within the jurisdiction” of the state.
“Ratio decidendi” is a glossy term with infinite applications. My experience is different from yours. In my view, SCOTUS has consistently gone to great lengths to render decisions that are as narrow as possible and in many instances, to review prior decisions as narrowly as possible to distinguish them from cases at bar.
The Constitution is mute about the Senate’s procedural duties in response to a Supreme Court nomination. The debates at the Federal Convention about who should nominate/appoint judges were intense. A major contingent insisted that the Senate should have sole power to appoint. Madison repeatedly and strenuously argued that the Executive should include judges to share a preemptive power to revise laws submitted by the legislature. No significant discussion addressed procedures to be followed by the Senate in exercising its negative power on nominations by the Executive. If the delegates wished to specify such procedures, they knew how to do it, as they did in limiting the Executive’s negative power to ten days. So, the Constitution is NOT clear on how the Senate is to proceed in response to a nomination, and a “pocket veto” is not precluded.
Your argument might have merit based on principles, but not on law.
No. I was attempting to show the contrast between the American and English systems.
Your criticism of my reliance on Grotius, Locke, Vattel and Jefferson is not well taken because the Constitution is terse, and I strongly believe that many of its features cannot be understood without knowing something of the philosophical sources upon which its framers relied for their ideas. A long time ago, I happened to read a letter Thomas Jefferson sent to Henry Lee in 1825, in which he said about the Declaration of Independence: “All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.” This was the beginning of my conviction that exposure to the sources was necessary, and I should have added many, many other names of preeminent thinkers to the list, especially Aristotle, Cicero, Algernon Sydney, Montesquieu, Machiavelli, Hume, Thomas More, Blackstone, Adam Smith, Polybius and Beccaria.
Again, thank you for allowing me to contribute to the conversation, however out of space/time it may be. The blog process could be seriously addicting, and I will look to see any responses you may have to my concluding comments, but I shall arduously resist for the moment any further participation because I have deadlines for my work. In the spirit of republican discourse, I shall leave you with three ideas that may merit further discussion in a future thread.
Justice John Roberts is a hero for (1) finding that ACA penalties are taxes duly originating in the House, and (2) orchestrating a 9-0 refusal to expand further the Commerce Clause to justify exercise of Congressional power.
Unelected, unaccountable, increasingly partisan Executive agencies that increasingly regard large factions of the People as “the enemy” more and more frequently unconstitutionally exercise non-delegable Article I powers of legislation to circumvent Congress and the People.
As Franklin Roosevelt believed, government employee unions pose an existential threat to the efficient and non-partisan execution of basic government functions and duties..
David Loomis’s original point was: “This follows my reading of “Vattel for Dummies.” I see no support for “birthright citizenship” in English common law, the Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment. It is clear that the Framers intended Congress to have the power to determine naturalization, at least after 1808. It is highly doubtful that the Fourteenth Amendment changed that because its sole purpose was to “constitutionalize” the Civil Rights Act of 1866, of which the sole purpose was to insure that African slaves would have the rights of citizens. No consideration was given to the children of aliens who had slipped into the country unlawfully, and hence, this could not have been an object of either the Civil Rights Act or the Fourteenth Amendment.”
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The 14th Amendment could have been written to be consistent with the 13th Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
But the 14th Amendment does not reference slavery or involuntary servitude. Instead it clearly states that “ALL persons BORN or naturalized…” The use of the word “ALL” flies in the face of the argument of Mr. Loomis.
From the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Elk v Wilkins 112 U.S. 94 (1884)
“The distinction between citizenship by birth and citizenship by naturalization is clearly marked in the provisions of the constitution, by which ‘no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president;’ and ‘the congress shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization.’ Const. art. 2, § 1; art. 1, § 8. By the thirteenth amendment of the constitution slavery was prohibited. The main object of the opening sentence of the fourteenth amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes, (Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393;) and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside. Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 73; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303, 306.
This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The evident meaning of these last words is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards, except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts; or collectively, as by the force of treaty by which foreign territory is acquired.”
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One of the things about a blog is that we can read what you wrote yesterday. What a difference a day makes.
Yesterday you challenged others to consider the “preeminent philosophies” of “preeminent thinkers” (including Madison) and to rely upon their stated “principles”. In response, commentators referenced Madison’s words, wherein Madison laid the foundation of his analysis with a general “principle”, based upon an “established maxim” applied in the United States.
Today, you seem to dismiss Madison as a parlimentary technocrat rather than a preeminent thinker. You say, “I revere James Madison as the father of the Constitution for his unprecedented mastery of organizing parliamentary compromise and resolution, but not because of any profound intellectual contributions he made to the text.” Today, you characterized Madison’s stated general principle, which expressly relied upon an established maxim, as a “nothingburger” with “little force as precedent.”
I gotta tell ya, that’s the first time I’ve heard an “established maxim” called a nothingburger with little precedential force.
Mr. Loomis wrote: “I revere James Madison as the father of the Constitution for his unprecedented mastery of organizing parliamentary compromise and resolution, but not because of any profound intellectual contributions he made to the text.”
——
I am rather surprised that Mr. Loomis doesn’t consider the Bill of Rights to be a “profound intellectual contribution” that James Madison made to the text. But to each his own.
The original discussion was about ANY Founder or Framer who supported birthright citizenship and James Madison’s words on the subject immediately came to mind.
Since Emer deVattel was not a Founder or Framer and never set foot in the United States, I consider his views on the subject of lesser import than those of a Revolutionary War officer, a Framer, a congressman and the 4th President of the United States.
I promised myself to avoid further involvement, but I cannot resist this one. Madison was a nominal Federalist who opposed the Bill of Rights for a variety of reasons. When it became apparent that the Constitution could not be recommended/ratified without guarantees of individual rights, Madison brilliantly negotiated a compromise that would involve the 1st Congress in the approval and recommendation of amendments guaranteeing specific rights. Madison, having negotiated the compromise, undertook to draft the bill. In organizing and penning the bill, Madison considered the many proposals from the states’ ratifying conventions, the Magna Carta, and he English Bill of Rights of 1689. But the greatest influences on Madison’s text were existing state constitutions, and particularly the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was drafted by Anti-federalist George Mason. The genius Madison exerted was to select rights that would satisfy the greatest number of Congress members and state legislatures. It is doubtful that Madison originated any of the text. So again, without Madison’s genius, it is likely that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would never have come into being, but not because of his original contributions to the text.
“One can not understand American government without an appreciation of James Madison, the architect of the Constitution and author of the Bill of Rights.”—Robert S. Leming, Director, The We the People Programs, Center for Civic Education
I was always taught that the three authors of the Federalist Papers were among the greatest political philosophers of early American history. It saddens me to see any American denigrate Madison’s intellectual contributions.
The Political Philosophy of James Madison by Garrett Ward Sheldon
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/political-philosophy-james-madison
Federalist Papers Authored by or co-authored by James Madison
FEDERALIST No. 10: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (con’t)
FEDERALIST No. 14: Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answered
FEDERALIST No. 19: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (con’t) (with Hamilton)
FEDERALIST No. 20: The Insufficiency fo the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (con’t) (with Hamilton)
FEDERALIST No. 37: Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government
FEDERALIST No. 38: The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed
FEDERALIST No. 39: The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles
FEDERALIST No. 40: The Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained
FEDERALIST No. 41: General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution
FEDERALIST No. 42: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered
FEDERALIST No. 43: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered (con’t)
FEDERALIST No. 44: Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States
FEDERALIST No. 45: The Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered
FEDERALIST No. 46: The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared
FEDERALIST No. 47: The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts
FEDERALIST No. 48: These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other
FEDERALIST No. 58: Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered
I’m not sure why Loomis felt the need to grace this blog with his minority belief that Wong Kim Ark was wrongly decided. And he fails to explain how his belief relates to what was the primary focus of this blog, i.e., discussing Obama’s natural-born citizenship.
* * *
Ex-con Judy posted something funny on his site: Ex-con Judy spammed his contacts with a plea to harass the law clerk working for the judge assigned to his still-dead case in the Utah federal district court. A contacted person responded by … sending ex-con Judy a link from Doc’s second chances article about ex-con Judy.
The contacted person, before blocking him, told ex-con Judy to seek psychological help. Ex-con Judy predictably responded by playing the victim and martyr.
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Me too. Seems he felt compelled to offer up this bull shite because Madison’s statement re citizenship didn’t support his proposition.
No one denigrated James Madison. No one said he was not a preeminent philosopher. No one denies his great contributions to the Federalist. No one called what he said was a nothingburger. I said that Ramsay v. Smith was a nothingburger case that required and received little analysis and discussion to decide.
The Framers, and particularly James Madison, would say that it is a mistake to idolize and worship any one statement any of them made, especially without considering the full context in which it was made and without considering if it reflected the enduring wisdom of the individual or the collective wisdom of the times.
You may have noticed that partisan promoters of one issue or another on the internet carelessly misuse quotations from the Founders because they sound like one thing, but mean another or have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue under consideration.
In the past 50 years, I have examined every installment of the Federalist a number of times, and each time, I marvel at the ingenious advocacy. But other writers having different views also published equally remarkable pieces. How do you decide who was smarter or more deserving of praise when comparing and contrasting James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason, James Wilson, George Washington, John Adams, John Jay, Robert Morris, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, John Dickinson, Nathaniel Gorham, Gouverneur Morris, Roger Sherman, Luther Martin, John Hancock, John Witherspoon, and the others. Do you rely on popularizations, or do you look to see what they actually said and did. Obviously, James Madison invested more time than most, and he displayed at least one remarkable talent that others did not enjoy in the same degree. On the other hand, Ben Franklin is underappreciated both as philosopher and for his contributions, including his invention from whole cloth of the paradigm for the American entrepreneur who with hard work, focus, and ingenious application of skill could rise from abject poverty to achieve wealth, social standing and national respect. He set the standard for a whole new unprecedented society in which every man could achieve his potential. His spirit and attitude, along with the founding First Principles, enabled the nation to become a dominant financial and philosophical power within 100 years of its founding. And every one of the persons named above were free and able to make an essential contribution to the society they founded. So, in your analysis of these men do you choose to be the acolyte of one or another, or do you conclude it would be profoundly shallow and arrogant to make such a determination. I highly recommend the latter. You may wish to consider using the innate intelligence that enabled you to earn that JD to listen more carefully, realize your own limitations and achieve a modicum of humility.
Again, I apologize for invading your conversation about the birther conspiracy. It was a unintentional newbie mistake. Many of you appear to enjoy high intelligence and good educations. I had fun here for a while, but I reached my limit on the petty insults. I’m done.
But we’re discussing the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, of course, was in France during the Constitutional Convention and had no say in its proceedings. Indeed, at one point he complained in a letter to Madison that the Convention was ‘shrouded in secrecy.”
David Loomis:
“Again, I apologize for invading your conversation about the birther conspiracy. It was a unintentional newbie mistake. Many of you appear to enjoy high intelligence and good educations. I had fun here for a while, but I reached my limit on the petty insults. I’m done.”
Two points:
First, since you mentioned the 1795 Naturalization Act, I was wondering what you thought of Congressman Hillhouse’s statement during the Congressional debate on the Act. He clearly believed that the children born in the US to aliens were natural born citizens.
Second:
Shortly after the Wong Kim Ark decision, two prominent lawyers said the decision made children born in the US to Chinese alien parents, eligible to be President.
One more time. David Loomis: “So, I challenge YOU to make a principled argument based upon the preeminent philosophies of Grotius, Locke, Vattell, Hamilton, Madison,…”
James Madison: “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.”
David Loomis: “I revere James Madison as the father of the Constitution for his unprecedented mastery of organizing parliamentary compromise and resolution, but not because of any profound intellectual contributions he made to the text.”
In my humble opinion the phrase “not because of any profound intellectual contributions he made to the text” is a denigration of James Madison’s direct influence on the political philosophy embodied in the Constitution.
What is confusing is that David Loomis listed James Madison as a political philosopher in his “principled argument” challenge.
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It is not about choosing who is smarter or more deserving of praise. It’s about the law.
The Ramsay case didn’t need a lot of analysis and discussion because it was based upon an established maxim already applied in the US.
Definition of “maxim”: An established principle or proposition. A principle of law universally admitted, as being a correct statement of the law, or as agreeable to natural reason. http://thelawdictionary.org/maxim/
That was before he was challenged with a quotation from Madison that crushes his arguments.
And now his feelings are hurt. Sad!
Maricopa County’s still paying for the most expensive sheriff in America–
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/03/maricop-county-assessed-fees-on-appeal-in-melendres-v-arpaio.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FnZuo+%28ImmigrationProf+Blog%29
Don’t confuse Loomis with facts. Why are we still talking about something that has been settled for 118 years?
Always interesting when people come here and essentially say they understand the Constitution better than people who were alive when it was drafted.
Speaking of facts, and alternative facts and all, there’s this “backfire” thing–
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2017/02/27/why-the-american-public-seems-allergic-to-facts/
Kind of old hat for anybody used to dealing with birthers.
The Department of Justice, with the consent of the State of Washington et al., has asked the Ninth Circuit to dismiss the appeal of the stay of the first immigration order. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/03/08/Motion%20to%20Dismiss%20Voluntarily.pdf
I don’t know if a similar move has been made in the original case before Judge Robart.
And in that 118 years no one has made a serious effort to overturn or modify the Wong Kim Ark decision. So many Constitutional scholars have lived and died during that time without grasping what is so obvious to Loomis.
…and the Ninth has granted the motion, the appeal is dismissed.
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/03/08/17-35105%20-%20Order%20to%20Dismiss%20Granted.pdf
I did not know this until today:
After the attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the United States into World War II, a group known as “The Sons of the Golden West” brought a court action in California seeking reconsideration and reversal of the Wong Kim Ark decision. The Sons of the Golden West were attempting to prevent children of Japanese ethnicity born in the United States from acquiring American citizenship. The lower federal courts adhered to the Wong Kim Ark doctrine, and dismissed the lawsuit. The Supreme Court, without a written opinion, declined to review the case.
Regan v. King, 49 F.Supp. 222, affirmed 34 F.2d 413 (9th Cir. 1943).
Here is an article about the case.
http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Regan_v._King/
The lower court ruling was quite short.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6032970096611219625&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
And more wonderful when these genius Constitutional scholars repeatedly refer to “Wonk Kim Ark.”
I’m convinced there’s an epidemic of Dunning-Kruger in the United States. It must be carried somehow in the water or through the educational system or entertainment channels.
Or maybe it’s an internet virus.
I think the answer is a combination of things as is true with most complex questions. I blame a good deal on poor education. When around 44% of the population believes the earth is less than 10,000 years old something is fundamentally wrong with our system (no pun intended). Home schooling and Christian schools teach this nonsense. Even public schools in many states are handcuffed and have to lie to kids that evolution and creationism are both only “theories”.
In Kentucky the state even helped creationist Ken Ham erect two giant monuments to stupidity, the Creation Museum and the Ark Experience.
I would guess that those 44% of non-thinkers make up a large majority of the Trump supporters. Then we have a majority of news outlets who reinforce their non thinking with fake news like Fox News, Breitbart, Newsmax, WND and AM radio, It is a vicious circle jerk.
To make it even worse our system of government is tilted in an undemocratic way to favor this particular mostly rural demographic and allow them to perpetually rule over the majority. Yes, it’s ugly and we are seeing it in raw form right now.
This is not an overture to continuing involvement in your discussions. It is a response to the comment that my analysis of US v Wong Kim Ark is “drivel,” and I offer it with the continuing hope that you can have principled discussions. It also may be useful to your thinking about the “birther” issue as it relates the President Obama.
The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment reads:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein they reside.”
The principal architect of this clause was Michigan Senator Jacob Merritt Howard, an abolitionist Republican representing Detroit. He crafted much of the language that was eventually ratified as part of the 14th Amendment.
During the contentious debates that embroiled the Senate in the years following the Civil War, Senator Howard insisted that the qualifying phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” be inserted. He declared:
“This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
The obvious question raised here is, how could a person “born in the United States” be simultaneously a citizen and a “foreigner” or “alien,” if the mere fact of nativity settled the question of citizenship?
Another radical Republican representative from Ohio’s 16th district (Wayne) involved in the debate, John Bingham, provided clarification of the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
“Every human being born within the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.”
No one in the 39th Congress registered any dissent to these interpretations. The House passed the bill with House Resolution 127 and sent it to the Senate. The Senate adopted amendments to Sections 2, 3 and 4, but not Section 1. The House agreed to the Senate’s amendments on June 13, 1866 by a vote of 138–36. President Jackson vetoed the law, but Congress overrode the veto, and the amendment was sent to the Executives of the Union states to initiate the ratification process.
As I mentioned in a previous comment, the Framers may have incorporated into our Consitution the language and spirit the British statutes, which made it clear that in order to be a “natural born subject” of the king, one’s father must have been a subject of that monarch at the time of the child’s birth. Otherwise, one could not be a natural born subject as defined in the law. One simply could not be a subject if the father was, at the time of the child’s birth, not a subject himself.
This all forms the basis for my conclusion that US v Wong Kim Ark was badly decided and can be limited to its specific facts, if not overruled.
Anyone committed to the Constitution and to the men who framed it, as many participants in this blog claim to be, must not look for convenient constructions or loopholes that serve either an ideology or a desire for power. I concluded that, under the foregoing analysis, neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney was disqualified to be President. Ted Cruz was another matter, and if President Obama had been born in Kenya, he would have suffered the same problem. You may also wish to consider another possible consequence from the legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship clause. District Court Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel who presided over the Trump University lawsuits is arguably not a citizen and not qualified to sit on the federal bench. Public records strongly suggest that Judge Curiel’s parents, Salvador and Francisca, were illegal aliens when Judge Curiel was born in 1953. Salvador’s death certificate identifies him as a Mexican citizen when he died on December 29, 1964. Francisca’s Certificate of Naturalization shows she became a U.S. citizen on July 22, 1969, sixteen years after Judge Curiel was born.
I’m certain that this last observation will provide great entertainment for some on this blog. But I earnestly urge you to eschew isolation, intellectual incest and adamantine ideology that blind and enslave the mind to filter facts and reach conclusions at odds with possible, supportable realities. In any event, please do continue to have fun.
Another person whose English language comprehension is not a strong suit.
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And under your thinking, would Judge Curiel’s children be citizens (supposing his wife had a similar background)?
No, the obvious question is “Why did you add the word “or” to the quotation from Senator Howard?”
I also point out that Senator Howard’s phrase “will include every other class of persons” demolishes your theory that the 14th Amendment was intended to apply only to freed slaves.
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As Bob might put it, “[or]” is doing a lot of work here.
Thanks for those. Since 2009 I have been incorrectly telling birthers that Wong had never been challenged! “NEVERMIND!”
And, as is often said, the imports do work that the natives won’t do.
David – in the lower court ruling on Wong Kim Ark, Judge Morrow held that Wong was a citizen by birth in the US. He did not refer to Wong as a natural born citizen. The US government’s appellant brief said that the lower court erred when it ruled that Wong was a natural born citizen. And later wrote that a ruling in Wong’s favor would make him eligible to be President.
In 1898, William Dameron Guthrie, a prominent lawyer, stated that the Wong decision made children born in the US to alien parents eligible to be President.
In 1903, Alexander Porter Morse, a prominent lawyer wrote that under a decision of the Supreme Court, children born in the US to alien parents was eligible to be President.
Apparently the Wong decision was viewed by those alive at that time differently than you.
Read the Calvin’s Case. An alien visiting England was deemed to have a temporary allegiance that “if he hath issue here, that issue is a natural born subject”.
Also apparently Thomas Jefferson disagreed with your analysis.
“So an Alien in England having a child born there, that child is a natural subject.” Jefferson in notes to Congress, 1783
This was clearly the understanding of people in the United States as the laws of Connecticut specifically said that the children of aliens born in the state were natural born (Swift, 1795).
And of course there is Congressman Hillhouse’s statement during the debates in over the 1795 Naturalization Act that an alien’s children born in the US were natural born citizens.
BTW, I suspect few people commenting on this blog believe that President Obama would have been eligible to be president had he been born in Kenya.
If the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause had said: “All persons previously held in slavery or involuntary servitude are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they resde…” then I would agree with David Loomis, but the Citizenship Clause states that “All Persons…” I am under the impression that “all” means everybody. Its not the persons posting here that have determined that, its 118 years of American jurisprudence that have determined that.
Section 5 of the 14th Amendment states that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
And indeed Congress has passed legislation defining precisely the qualifications for Citizenship of the United States AT BIRTH. Those criteria are currently found in Title 8 U.S.C. § 1401.
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/III/I/1401
Under the current law of the land, anyone who qualifies as a Citizen of the United States at birth also qualifies as a natural born citizen. Congress has the power to establish separate criteria for natural born citizenship from what is currently required to be a Citizen at birth but to date, no Congress has taken up that cause.
Congres also has the power to exclude the children of illegal aliens from birthriight citizenship but although bills have been introduced, none have passed.
Ted Cruz’s eligibility was tested in courts in five states, he was always ruled to be eligible.
Twisting Senator Howard’s words is taking a page from the right wing playbook.
https://mediamatters.org/research/2010/08/09/did-the-author-of-the-citizenship-clause-really/168957
Well, it wasn’t much of a challenge.
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Interesting that the next sentence in Senator Howard’s quote is: “It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States.”
One would think, Senator.
Damn. Now I need a new irony meter.
David Loomis “But I earnestly urge you to eschew isolation, intellectual incest and adamantine ideology that blind and enslave the mind to filter facts and reach conclusions at odds with possible, supportable realities.”
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” Physician, heal thyself.”
What most people here have done is simply cite to and comment on the legislative and judicial history of birthright citizenship.
For example: “The 1942-43 federal court case Regan v. King, which arose out of a lawsuit by the American Legion and the Native Sons of the Golden West to disenfranchise American citizens of Japanese origin, marked a landmark in legal struggles for civil rights.The court’s decision reaffirmed the principle of birthright citizenship of all Americans.”
The above is not isolated, intellectually incestuous or representative of any adamantine ideology, its simply stating a fact.
The Regan case was argued in Federal District Court in June 1942. The plaintiffs’ attorney, U.S. Webb told Judge Adolphus St. Sure that the case “involves the citizenship and right to citizenship of all peoples and all races who do not fall within the characterization or description of white people.” He then made an argument that rested on principles of white supremacy, stating that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made entirely “by and for white people.” On July 2, 1942, Judge St. Sure issued his decision in Regan v. King, rejecting the Native Sons’ plea by reference to Wong Kim Ark. Webb then appealed the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The case of Regan v. King was set down for oral argument before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on February 19, 1943. Plaintiffs’ attorney made a 30-minute presentation of his appeal. He again stated that “without committing treason” it was his contention that Wong Kim Ark had been “erroneously decided.”
However, once plaintiffs’ attorney finished his case, the judges engaged in a whispered conference on the bench. Speaking on behalf of the court, Judge Curtis stated, “It is not necessary for the court to hear further argument. The decision of the lower court is sustained.”
The plaintiffs made a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, on May 17, 1943, the Supreme Court officially declined to hear Regan. The case was dead.
The first criterion for being a Citizen of the United States At Birth is to be “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Illegal aliens can be deported and imprisoned for crimes precisely because they are subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. law.
Title 8, Section 1401 of the U.S. Code is a fact, not some ideological position held by a political zealot.
You may wish to reconsider your criticism of the Constitution’s “undemocratic way.” The Constitution elegantly guards against the fatal flaw of direct democracy: the tyranny of a majority faction that makes decisions against of the interests of other citizens or the society as a whole. The Founders knew that unbridled majority factions had caused all preceding republican governments to degenerate into tyranny or ochlocracy. Thomas Jefferson referred to those republics as “government of wolves over sheep.” James Madison explained the problem: “It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.” John Adams coined the term “tyranny of the majority” to discuss the problem, and he wrote, “There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Aaron Burr’s election as vice president spurred Alexander Hamilton bleakly to label “too much democracy” as a “disease” and “poison.” Modernly, direct democracy has been described as “four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”
In Federalist No. 10, Madison defines a “faction” as a number of citizens, whether a majority or minority, who are united and activated “by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” He describes in great detail how the causes of faction are “sown in the nature of man,” and lead citizens in direct democracies to “improper or wicked” projects such as “abolition of debts” and “equal division of property.” He reasons “that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.”
He explains how the Constitution creates a larger confederation of states under a representative form of government that would better control such effects. “The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.”
In Federalist No. 9, Alexander Hamilton identifies a number of new, revised and/or newly combined government features embodied in the Constitution that can act as a “barrier against domestic faction and insurrection.” Among them are “distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election,” as well as, a confederated, rather than centralized, design in which individual states retain “important portions of sovereign power” over local matters. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison further details the “Structure of the Government” democratically assembled and compartmentalized carefully to control the effects of faction.
You will need to include me in the dubious statistic that “44% of non-thinkers make up a large majority of the Trump supporters,” even though I am not religious and spent half of my career and retirement fund representing women and minorities, often pro bono, in employment discrimination cases. I would characterize members of the costal urban faction, without whom Clinton would not have come close to receiving a majority vote, as the uneducated non-thinkers. A well designed Pew poll shows that 40-plus percent of them view socialism favorably, notwithstanding the probable fact they have no clue what it is or that it requires a police state to enforce. I can testify competently that the urban education systems in California have promoted a favorable view of socialism, not by name, but by using the term “social justice” to promote government that forgives private debts and equally distributes income, if not property, to make members of our society “equally rich.” The Framers, and especially JAMES MADISON, understood that such governments make all people “equally poor” and ultimately result in an oligarchy that could infringe on personal liberties at will. They worked strenuously to create a government that would neither have such powers nor allow any faction to have them.
Your Trumpophobia ignores a number things. First, no dangerous, evil crackpot has EVER competed in highly competitive markets, such as real estate and construction, to create a multibillion dollar business. Second, no dangerous, evil crackpot has EVER raised four remarkable children who speak eloquently about libertarian and populist ideals (and drive D9s). Third, as Trump’s election shows, most people who work in the trades, who manage people working in the trades, or who serve in the enlisted corps of the military had no trouble interpreting Trump’s working-class Brooklyn dialect. We saw no hint of racism or misogyny in his words, but what we did see was a bunch of would-be, self-appointed elitist oligarchs who demagogically deconstructed his language to divide the people in a desperate attempt to retain power.
Many of these people are those who have seriously messed up our republic over the past few decades. The incompetence, ignorance, dishonesty and bad judgment of these self-appointed Political-Class oligarchs have given the People, inter alia, a $20 trillion debt that stifles economic growth and saps Middle Class prosperity; a $200 trillion plus fiscal gap that imperils our society’s viability; a Federal Reserve and HUD that tanked the economy by enabling and securitizing overpriced bogus mortgages that caused home prices to rise at three times GDP growth; an unregulated global casino where addicted gamblers traffic in $1 quadrillion of derivative contracts that threaten collapse of the world economy; a border that leaks half a million illegal aliens and at least $60 billion deadly drugs annually; a Border so porous that it invites a terrorist with a backpack of C4 to kill 100,000 citizens by breaching an unguarded chlorine railcar near the Capitol (from a Harvard study); a President and Congress that promised to use $900 billion of the People’s money to repair the infrastructure and then didn’t; inept regulations that cost the People more than housing and food combined; indolent, reckless Congressional abdication of legislative powers (e.g., power to tax) to unelected, unaccountable, partisan bureaucrats in regulatory agencies; speech suppressing political correctness and politicians limiting what we may or may not say; demonization of all citizens who disagree with the government; legitimation and empowerment of Iranian comply-or-die, nuclear-armed, terrorist hegemons; a Byzantine tax system that stifles production and saps middle class wealth; a politicized tax agency that lawlessly imposes or oppresses political ideology; an EPA that defies Congress and the Constitution to kill entire industries; a Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies with paramilitaries that raid companies under secret warrants solely for political reasons (e.g., Gibson Guitars); a Department of Justice that builds a huge slush fund for progressive Political Class cronies using bogus political criminal actions to extort billions from law-abiding companies (e.g., B of A); treasury-sapping-and-life-taking wars with no political follow-through to protect gains and promote interests; a healthcare system that bloats costs, slashes doctors, limits choices and surges bureaucrats at great expense to everyone’s freedom and middle class wealth; incompetent education systems that keep inner-city youth ignorant and dependent; an education system that promotes progressivism and socialism at great expense to individualism, freedom, and productivity; a scientific community that is so politicized it can’t be trusted; a Department of Justice that regularly lies to Congress and the courts to cover unlawful conduct of government officials and to protect unconstitutional ideological executive fiats; a Department of Defense that cooks intelligence books and lies about national security; a Department of Homeland Security that falsifies illegal immigration statistics and recklessly confers citizenship upon hordes of potential terrorists with deportation orders; and Congressional perks that elevate avarice above fealty to the People; top leaders and advisers who actually openly celebrate bamboozling the People; and much, much more.
Lastly, what I view as your unfounded fear of President Trump shows a lack of faith in the Constitution. Even if he proves to be everything you fear, he simply cannot do that much damage in 4 years. As you may have noticed, Speaker Ryan and Leader McConnell are clearly not mesmerized. The nuclear codes issue is makeweight demagogic twaddle. The Secretary of Defense must affirm an order to launch before it can be executed, and the Vice President with a majority of cabinet members can override it. (See the 25th Amendment) General Mattis is unquestionably one of the most stable and reliable men on the planet when judged by both his long public history of words and actions.
In my view, our republican form of government is working the way the Framers intended, except to the extent the Executive or Judiciary ignores the Constitution and our First Principles.
One last thing about Madision. He admitted, and his colleagues often observed, that he preferred “experience” to “theory.” The Virginia Plan, which he penned while waiting for a quorum to gather at the Federal Convention, outlines a government that was very similar to the Parliamentary Monarchy in Britain. He strongly promoted that a National Executive “be chosen by the National Legislature,” rather than by any form of republican vote of the people at large. If Madison had had it his way, we would have no popular vote at all.
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I’ll ask you again: Under this argument, would Judge Curiel’s children be citizens (supposing his wife had a similar background)?
Neither a District Court case (Regan v. King, 49 F.Supp. 222 (1942) which states few facts and offers no analysis, nor a per curium affirmation (Regan v. King, 134 F.2d 413) based upon a prior ruling of a higher court that may be wrongly decided adds any weight to the prior ruling. No case that baldly relies on US v Wonk Kim Ark, of which there are many, adds strength to it. This is especially true for a case like Regan v. King, which is devoid of both facts and analysis.
Is that the same system that has given us two terrible minority presidents in two decades? I am referring to George W. Bush and the current Pestilence.
As for the rest, TLDR
The Framers of the Constitution were prescient enough to make provision for any or all of their original thinking to be altered by Amendment. They never intended for the decisions made at the Constitutional Convention to be set in stone for all time.
For example, as I’m certain David Loomis knows, at the Constitutional Convention, James Wilson alone stood for popular election of Senators. The vote on that issue was 10 to 1 against. And yet in 1913 the 17th Amendment was ratified providing for direct election of Senators, expressly against the structure of the legislative branch that the Connecticut Compromise embodied.
The 14th Amendment does not alter the Framers’ thinking on natural born citizenship because there is no record of what their thinking was. Rather the 14th Amendment provides definition for citizenship and codifies two and two only types: born and naturalized.
The Constitution seeds to the judicial branch the responsibility of resolving cases and controversies that arise under the Constitution and when there is a case or controversy involving who is a citizen or whether a citizen is naturalized or a Citizen of the United States at birth, the courts have the constitutional authority to resolve that issue.
With regard to the issue being discussed on this blog, 381 state and federal adjudications have found zero rulings that former President Barack Hussein Obama, II did not qualify as a natural born citizen.
When a U.S. Army Captain sued the commandant at Fort Benning, Georgia over whether deployment orders to Iraq were issued by a legitimate Commander-in-Chief the court ruled:
Rhodes v MacDonald, U.S. District Court Judge Clay D. Land: “A spurious claim questioning the president’s constitutional legitimacy may be protected by the First Amendment, but a Court’s placement of its imprimatur upon a claim that is so lacking in factual support that it is frivolous would undoubtedly disserve the public interest.”—Judge Clay D. Land, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, September 16, 2009.
In my view, the omitted sentence ADDS weight to the preceding sentence. How does the observation that the issue is settled change the meaning of the prior sentence? In any event, it’s really sloppy to rely on media matters. There are GOOD arguments contained in the Congressional Record that support your position. I’ll let you use your professional talents to find them.
Wong Kim Ark (not Wonk) may not be good enough for the court of David Loomis but it has been good enough for real life Triers of Fact who ruled on Barack Obama’s eligibility.
To wit: “Based on the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the United States are ‘natural born citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”–Indiana Court of Appeals, November 12, 2009
Voeltz v. Obama John C. Cooper, Leon County, Florida Circuit Court Judge: “In addition, to the extent that the complaint alleges that President Obama is not a “natural born citizen” even though born in the United States, the Court is in agreement with other courts that have considered this issue, namely, that persons born within the borders of the United States are “natural born citizens” for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”—September 6, 2012
http://judicial.clerk.leon.fl.us
Purpura & Moran v Obama: New Jersey Administrative Law Judge Jeff S. Masin: “No court, federal, state or administrative, has accepted the challengers’ position that Mr. Obama is not a “Natural Born Citizen” due to the acknowledged fact that his father was born in Kenya and was a British citizen by virtue of the then applicable British Nationality Act. Nor has the fact that Obama had, or may have had, dual citizenship at the time of his birth and thereafter been held to deny him the status of natural born. It is unnecessary to reinvent the wheel here. The petitioners’ legal position on this issue, however well intentioned, has no merit in law. Thus, accepting for the point of this issue that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a ‘Natural Born Citizen’ regardless of the status of his father.” April 10, 2012
Tisdale v. Obama, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Gibney, Jr.: “It is well settled that those born within the United States are natural born citizens.”– U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia, January 23, 2012.
H. Brook Paige v. James Condos, Secretary of State of Vermont and President Barack Obama: Robert R. Bent, Presiding Judge
“While the court has no doubt at this point that Emmerich de Vattel’s treatise The Law of Nations was a work of significant value to the founding fathers, the court does not conclude that his phrase–“The natives, or natural born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”–has constitutional significance or that his use of “parents” in the plural has particular significance. Thus far, no judicial decision has adopted such logic in connection with this or any related issues. In fact, the most comprehensive decision on the topic, Ankeny v. Governor of Indiana, examines the historical basis of the use of the phrase, including the English common law in effect at the time of independence, and concludes that the expression “natural born Citizen” is not dependent on the nationality of the parents but reflects the status of a person born into citizenship instead of having citizenship subsequently bestowed. The distinction is eminently logical.”–Vermont Superior Court, November 14, 2012
Swensson, Powell, Farrar and Welden v Obama, Administrative Law Judge Michael Mahili, State of Georgia Administrative Hearings: “For the purposes of this analysis, the Court considered that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Therefore, as discussed in Ankeny, he became a citizen at birth and is a natural born citizen. Accordingly, President Barack Obama is eligible as a candidate for the presidential primary under O.C.G.A. under Section 21-2-5(b). February 3, 2012
Taitz v. Obama (Quo Warranto) “This is one of several such suits filed by Ms. Taitz in her quixotic attempt to prove that President Obama is not a natural born citizen, as is required by the Constitution. This Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills with her.”– Chief U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, April 14, 2010
I await Mr. Looms’s principled argument treatise listing the constitutional actions of any state or federal executive, legislative or judicial branch that have countered the rulings that I have listed above.
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Of course it does not change the meaning of the prior sentence. As already pointed out to you, the only thing that changed the meaning of the prior sentence is your inexplicable insertion of “[or]” in that prior sentence.
FYI, while I may have a different opinion than you about mediamatters, I don’t rely on it as a source.
p.s. I’ve twice asked you the question about the status of Judge Curiel’s children under your analysis, without a response.
Disagree completely. The power to determine who becomes a citizen or how he does it is historically and under the intended scheme of our Constitution a plenary power of external sovereignty that may be exercised ONLY by the political departments. Do you really want lawyers in robes enforcing full Constitutional rights for people who enlist in the military? Do you want lawyers in robes having the ability to decide that a war declared by Congress is unconstitutional? Do you really want lawyers in robes determining “who we are?” I believe such schemes are the definition of tyranny that infringe on the unalienable rights of self defense and conscience. Inviting aliens into our county with the understanding that any children they bear will be citizens, is PROFOUNDLY different from turning the whole decision over to them. Kinda eviscerates the whole concept of sovereignty. I find it impossible to conclude that the adopters and ratifies of the 14th Amendment intended to do that.
Rhodes v MacDonald supports my point about plenary powers of external sovereignty. I give no opinion about citizenship of President Obama. His mother was a citizen, and he has birth certificates from Hawaii. Besides, the whole issue is effectively moot.
James Wilson alone initially stood for popular election of senators, and experience proved a need to go along with his idea. So what? Is this supposed to suggest a rationale for your reading of the 14th Amendment?
I must have misunderstood your meaning. It seemed clear to me that you and your cohort relied on media matters to claim that I was twisting the meaning by omitting the last sentence. I inserted “or” into the sentence because it made a grammatically correct sentence, and it expressed the essential meaning. I don’t see how it changes the meaning.
Your question about Judge Curiel’s children is a good one. Perhaps we could have a rule granting citizenship to children born of aliens who had been in the country some number of years without violating laws other than entering the country, you know, or some such thing. But under your reading of the 14th Amendment, it seems doubtful that Congress continues to have power to set any standards for citizenship of anyone who can make it through the border.
Perhaps if Sue followed your lead and slipped in an extraneous conjunction or two, she could win the day, no? I’m not a lawyer, so I’m going to need you to explain how the child of an undocumented immigrant born on USA soil is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” And please, feel free to be as condescending in your reply as you have been with Sue.
By the way, I love your word-of-the-day choices, Mr. Loomis: “adamantine” and “ochlocracy” really knocked my socks off. But is it ochlocracy we should fear, or oligarchy? You seem to be all over the place. You must be aware of the cabinet that your sexually predacious, misogynist hero has assembled. Do you not smell the stench of oligarchy emanating from the White House? Here are a couple new triple-bonus words for you to chew on, sir: kleptocracy, kakistocracy. What we have here is not four wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner; it’s more like a wolf and four sheep, and the wolf just passed a paw-print ID law.
Finally, your lack of trust in scientists is duly noted. Please wow us with your knowledge of how the National Academy of Sciences is not to be trusted, and why we should instead put our faith in science hobbyists like Pat Michaels and Christopher Monckton. I do not have the knowledge to debate the Federalist Papers with you, but if you want to debate AGW, I’ll eat your lunch, so bring two.
I honor and respect the wisdom of the Founders and Framers in establishing three co-equal branches of government and the system of checks and balances that those 3 co-equal branches provide.
Yes, I definietely want “lawyers in robes” having a say in who we are. I say that knowing that Congress can write legislation and presidents can sign it into law that alters or renders moot those opinions of lawyers in robes.
There are currently 866 Article III judges. President Obama got 329 federal judges confirmed by the Senate.
Why do you think that those who challenged the natural born citizenship of Barack Obama used the judiciary nearly exclusively (more than 350 JUDICIAL challenges) and those challengers made few attempts to use any other branch or department of government.
There were also eligibility challenges in about 12 states via state Elections Boards. All were unsuccessful.
Also two states with conservative Republican elected Secretaries of State (Arizona and Kansas) were enlisted to verify Obama’s birth in Hawaii. Those Secretaries of State did so verify.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach “I have no doubts now,’ Kobach says of Obama’s birthplace”
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article1099175.html
“Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett satisfied Obama was born in United States”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/arizona-secretary-of-state-ken-bennett-satisfied-obama-was-born-in-united-states/2012/05/23/gJQAN1czkU_blog.html
I keep applying your statement to Barack Obama’s natural born citizenship because that is the overriding subject of this blog.
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Yes, you did misunderstand my meaning in my response to Reality Check about the last sentence of the Senator’s words — it wasn’t about you.
As for the Senator’s prior sentence that you edited: — The Senator’s words were grammatically correct in the original. The Senator’s meaning was clearly expressed in the Senator’s own words. The Senator’s words do not need your edits.
By editing the Senator’s words with your own “[or]”, you changed what he said and thus the meaning of what he said.
If you don’t already see how the “or” changes the meaning, then I suggest you re-read the Senator’s original words (without your edit) a few times — maybe you will see that your conclusion falls apart without your “or”.
Also, there are plenty of logicians on this site who could probably explain (better than me) what a difference an OR makes in a logical sentence.
As for Judge Curiel’s children, thank you for answering. I’ve considered your view and your suggestion about making a new rule, but I think I like the one we have now better. I prefer the rule articulated by Madison and the Supreme Court and the Senator.
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I don’t know where you got that from. We weren’t talking about people who “make it through the border.” We were talking about people born in the US.
The Constitution includes 3 co-equal branches of government, and judicial review was codified in one of the earliest decisions Marbury v Madison. You seem to love the founders’ wisdom except when it creates a branch you do not like. The Constitution gives the power to the courts.
As it is, Congress can overturn a ruling by proposing a Constitution amendment. The 14th Amendment did just that do the horrid Dred Scott ruling.
If you don’t want to believe Wong Kim Ark is law, then try:
So even without the court ruling, a person born here is a citizen, according to the laws passed by Congress.
As for, “subject to the Jurisdiction” anybody in the territorial borders of the United States who is not a diplomat (or invading army) of a foreign country is under jurisdiction of the USA.
Also Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/356/case.html
Over the last 20 years, there have been many bills introduced into Congress to change by law and to propose a Constitutional Amendment that requires a person born in the United States to have one citizen parent or an admitted alien that has done certain acts such as serving in the military. None of those bills every made it past being assigned to a committee.
Even if you feel the law and the courts are wrong, which is your right, there appears to be no interest in changing beyond the small minority who proposed the bills.
Ok… (with thanks to Ballantine)
14th Amendment Debates
“A citizen of the United States is held by the courts to be a person who was born within the limits of the United States and subject to their laws….. They became such in virtue of national law, or rather of natural law which recognizes persons born within the jurisdiction of every country as being subjects or citizens of that country. Such persons were, therefore, citizens of the United States, as were born in the country or were made such by naturalization; and the Constitution declares that they are entitled, as citizens, to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” Senator Howard (author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment), Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 2765-66 (1866).
“”I have always believed that every person, of whatever race or color, who was born within the United States was a citizen of the United States…The Senator says a person may be born here and not be a citizen. I know that is so in one instance, in the case of the children of foreign ministers who reside “near” the United States in the diplomatic language. By a fiction of law such persons are not supposed to be residing here, and under that fiction of law their children would not be citizens of the United States.” Senator Wade, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess.2768-69 (1866).
“If there are to be citizens of the United States entitled everywhere to the character of citizens of the United States, there should be some certain definition of what citizenship is, what has created the character of citizen as between himself and the United States, and the amendment says citizenship may depend upon birth, and I know of no better way to give rise to citizenship than the fact of birth within the territory of the United States, born of parents who at the time were subject to the authority of the United States.” Sen. Johnson, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2893 (1866)
“The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law [the Civil Rights Act]; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. Senator Conness, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2890 (1866)
“If the Indian is bound to obey the law he is subject to the jurisdiction of the country; and that is the question I desired the Senator to meet as a legal question, whether the Indian would be bound to obey the law which Congress in express terms extended over him in regard to questions within the jurisdiction of Congress.” Senator Hendricks, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2894 (1866).
“In one sense, all persons born within the geographical limits of the United States are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in every sense. Take the child of an ambassador. In one sense, that child born in the United States is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, because if that child commits the crime of murder, or commits any other crime against the laws of the country, to a certain extent he is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, but not in every respect; and so with these Indians. All persons living within a judicial district may be said, in one sense, to be subject to the jurisdiction of the court in that district, but they are not in every sense subject to the jurisdiction of the court until they are brought, by proper process, within the reach of the power of the court.” Senator Williams, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2897 (1866).
“Why, sir, what does it mean when you say that a people are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? Subject, first, to its military power; second, subject to its political power; third, subject to its legislative power; and who doubts our legislative power over the reservations upon which these Indians are settled?” Senator Doolittle, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2896 (1866).
“in which he states clearly that the Indians, though born upon our soil, owing us allegiance, are not citizens; they are our subjects; and that is the very word which is used in this amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States, declaring that if they be “subject” to our jurisdiction, born on our soil, they are, ipso facto, citizens of the United States.” Senator Doolittle, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 2896 (1866).
“The Constitution of the United States declares that no one but a native-born citizen of the United States shall be President of the United States. Does, then, every person living in this land who does not happen to have been born within its jurisdiction undergo pains and penalties and punishment all his life, because by the Constitution he is ineligible to the Presidency? Senator Trumbull, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 2901(1866).
Follow the link to see more arguments from the 1866 Civil rights debates and comments made outside of the debates.
http://naturalborncitizenshipresearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/quotations-from-39th-congress-relevant.html
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Indeed. They repeatedly insisted that they needed just one “honest” lawyer-in-robes to see it their way. When they lost their cases, they started insisting that only a new Supreme Court decision could settle the matter, i.e., could interpret the true Constitutional meaning of natural born citizen.
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And Congress has a lot of say re the establishment and jurisdiction and procedures of Article III courts. And every federal court judge was nominated by the executive branch, with the advice and consent of the Senate.
I consider your remark an example of the “poisoning the well” rhetorical fallacy. The MM article consists primarily of citations from the record. Do you deny the accuracy of the citations? if not, you have no legitimate complaint.
The topic of the debates on the 14th Amendment were discussed here years ago.
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Maybe the adopters and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment intended to do that because they actually believed the words of the Declaration of Independence. Maybe they thought it self-evident that children born here are all created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
What changes the meaning of the prior sentence is your addition of the word “or.”
Not that it matters, because Judge Curiel clearly was born in the United States while subject to its jurisdiction, but the judge’s brother says that their father came to the U.S. legally under the Bracero Program.
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/e-c-native-at-center-of-trump-controversy/article_1e02d8bf-d7d3-54f8-aac3-013678bb15e0.html
Loomis is typical of the RWNJs I see every day on Facebook. When confronted with fact-checking by Politifact, Snopes, factcheck.org, etc. they dismiss it with the claim that those organizations are biased – but they never cite any facts to debunk the debunkers.
The critical points here are that the amendment DOES NOT mention or say former slaves, it says VERY PLAINLY ALL, and the key word here IS NOT allegiance, which DOES NOT appear anywhere in the amendment, but JURISDICTION. The two words are NOT synonyms and do not carry the same meaning.
The moment you set foot in another country you are under their jurisdiction. The ONLY exceptions would be foreign diplomats and occupying troops. Therefore Loomis’ arguments are specious and pointless.
What Loomis chooses to believe or fantasized about is irrelevant to what the Supreme Court and the inferior courts believe and have repeatedly ruled. He can claim that green is red as long as he wants to but that does not make it so.
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Yes. I was playing out Loomis’ theory to it’s logical conclusion. It’s an endless loop. It reminded me of my grandparents’ experience in tsarist Russia. The family lived there for many many generations, but they were denied full citizenship because of who their parents were. And before that, their parents were denied full citizenship for the same reason. In other words, the family could live there 1000 years and still the children born there would not be recognized as full citizens. I prefer the American system.
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It’s the same syndrome as adding the word “or”. They feel free to edit the founders’ words, and get mad that we don’t agree with their edits. Sheesh!
Which is why I could pull together Ballentine’s collection of quotes, Yick Wo and various parts of the US Code in a short time before going to rehearsal. I have done it many times before.
So, is this Loomis guy a johnnie-come-lately or [and] is he a sock puppet for one of the earlier birther failureines?
That’s as far as I need to read. Honestly.
I haven’t been in on this discussion, or paid much attention to it, but it appears you’ve been drinking from the birther water trough, whether you’re a birther or not.
And I don’t know, and I don’t care. The fact is, at least in regard to the above quote, you’ve drunk deeply from the birther well.
Which means you’re like a dog in a museum. You see everything, but you do not understand.
The key there is that YOU INSERTED A WORD THAT IS NOT THERE.
There’s no “or” there. It doesn’t exist.
These were ORAL DEBATES. So the stenographer wrote down what people said. And when Jacob Howard said, “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers,” it’s clear that he was repeating the same class of people 3 times in a row.
It’s clear, for one thing, because there isn’t the slightest difference between “foreigners” and “aliens.”
Except for Native Americans (who were regarded as members of other nations sharing this continent with the United States, with their own tribal governments and not subject to US government to the extent that they kept to themselves and therefore not citizens of the United States), the ONLY people EVER born in the United States who were considered “foreigners, aliens” were those who were born to ambassadors, foreign ministers, and foreign royalty – if a member of foreign royalty ever had a child here, which I’m not sure about.
So to recap:
The only people born on US soil who weren’t US citizens were:
1. Children of foreign ambassadors, foreign ministers, foreign royalty – in accordance with the ancient rule of jus soli that applied continuously first in England, then in the Colonies, then in the United States after Independence.
2. Native Americans, because they were members of other nations, and were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. (By the way, whenever you see the words “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” or “not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” Native Americans are PRECISELY who they were talking about.)
3. Arguably, slaves and other African Americans. Native born free black Americans were arguably regarded as and accepted as citizens, especially in the northern parts, to the extent that anyone thought much about legal citizenship at all. In the South, certainly, African Americans both slave and free were denied any rights at all, as much as was possible.
The authors of the 14th Amendment generally believed that free blacks born in the United States were and always had been citizens. It was certainly the case with persons born in the United States of white, European race, whatever their nationality or the nationality of their parents. If German or Swedish or Scottish or Irish or Italian came over here and had a baby born here, THAT BABY WAS A US CITIZEN.
Unless, of course, the parents were clearly here as ambassadors, foreign ministers, or foreign royalty.
However, the Supreme Court in the 1857 Scott v. Sandford decision had declared otherwise. The Court had declared that black people were not and never could be US citizens, because they were members of an “inferior race.”
So the 14th Amendment was passed to clarify that injustice and restore the way things always had been.
Which is: If you’re born in the United States, with the sole exceptions of foreign ambassadors/ govt ministers/ royalty, and Native Americans (who were later also extended US citizenship), then you were and are a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.
The 14th Amendment affirmed that jus soli applied without regard to race or previous condition of servitude.
The Court in 1898 (Wong Kim Ark, not Wonk Kim Ark) further ruled that this applied even to children born here of settled parents who themselves were not, and could not legally become, US citizens.
On whether or not Illegal Aliens are actually subject to the Jurisdiction of the United States, the United States Supreme Court has already ruled on that issue. In the case of Plyler v. Doe specifically ruled that Illegal Aliens were protected by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. That, combined with the ruling of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, specifically gives the children of illegal aliens born within the United States a ruling that they are citizens, according to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
However, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark never relied upon the 14th Amendment of the Constitution for its ruling. The first half of the ruling basically said that the rule of citizenship within the country was jus soli. I’ll break down the ruling on you. And before you state, “That’s not appliciable to anybody but the Chinese Exclusion Acts”, you’re wrong. The ratio decendi is binding precedent on each and every citizenship case.
So, here’s the logic of U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.
I. The Constitution doesn’t define the words “Citizen of the United States” and “Natural Born Citizen” anywhere in the Constitution. So, we must look outside of the Constitution for their meaning. The first place we must look is to English Common Law, which the Constitution was written in the language of English Common Law, and must be read in light of its history.
II. In English Common Law, Citizenship law was Jus Soli.
III. This was the law in force in all English Colonies within this Continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally written.
IV. Some have suggested that the real law was the Roman Law of jus saguinis, but this was not the case. At the time of the Constitution, most European States actually were going by jus soli.
V. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution was just declaratory of the English Common Law, enshiring it in our Constitution. It really did not change anything.
VI. There is no exclusion for the Chinese in any of these documents that we have gone over.
VII. Mr. Wong did not do anything after his birth that would have given up his citizenship.
Therefore, Mr. Wong is a citizen.
——
Now, let’s take a look at any other alien race. Sections I – V. would still apply to any other citizen, any other law. It does not just apply to the Chinese. Just as McDonald v. Chicago did not just apply to Chicago, but across the United States. Just as Obergefeld v. Hodges did not just apply to the six specific cases (DeBoar v. Snyder, Obergefeld v. Hodges, Henry v. Wymyslo, Bourke v. Bashar, Love v. Bashar, & Tanco v. Haslam) that it overturned, but applied to each and every state’s gay marriage ban. Just as Brown v. Board of Education didn’t apply just to the Topeka School Board (or the other 5 cases it was combined with), but applied across the nation. Court precedent, which includes not only the decision itself, but the rationale to get to that decision, is binding. Otherwise, there would be no binding precedent, because every single case differs in some way.
I put it to you, Mr. Loomis that the sentence as written is grammatically correct, and perfectly understandable to anyone who is even trivially familiar with written American English of the 18th Century. You say you have been deeply involved withe the Federalist Papers for quite some time. Perhaps you don’t understand the grammar enough to understand the arguments presented.
If you really felt the need to clarify the meaning of the sentence, the correct way to go about it would probably have resulted in something like this sentence instead:
I think even you would agree that those edits, yours and mine, make for entirely different reading of the meaning. My edit does not, in fact, change the meaning, it only makes explicit what was never in question, while yours transforms it into something almost meaningless.
However correct, my minor explanatory edit is an unnecessary intrusion on the text. The original is perfectly understandable on its own. Just leave well enough alone.
Or perhaps even more ‘modernly’ with a parenthetical clause:
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a birther add or into the sentence to totally change the meaning. I suspect he got it from some birther site.
i don’t know if i’m missing something, but it appears trump has made a day 1 screwup.
i was looking at the executive orders he has passed, and it appears in his haste to `make america great again’ he has forgotten to sign the standard presidential records A.O!
his first A.O. seems to be the repeal of the ACA
this could be amusing 😀
Meanwhile…..
How Descendants of a Slave and a Supreme Court Justice Righted a 160-Year-Old Wrong
I toured the courthouse in St. Louis where the case was argued in district court. There is quite a bit of good information about the case on display there. It is within walking distance of the Gateway Arch.
That’s (not-so) surprisingly birther-esque. Let me show you how it is done: “President Obama is a natural-born citizen because he was born in Hawaii and birth in the United States is sufficient to confer natural-born citizenship.” See? A declarative statement supported by reasoning. Your turn.
* * *
In other news, (the person using) Malik Obama’s Twitter account yesterday posted Lucas Smith’s long debunked Kenyan “birth certificate.” (Some suspect that Malik handed his account over to Charles C. Johnson.)
Of course, if Senator Howard had intended to exclude all foreigners, it would have been sufficient to say “This will not, of course, include people born in the United States who are foreigners” and leave it at that. Families of ambassadors or foreign ministers are by definition foreigners, so it would have been redundant to mention them if Howard meant what Loomis believes he meant.
And we have Justice Swayne saying in U.S. v. Rhodes,
“All persons born in the allegiance of the king are natural born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. There are two exceptions, and only two, to the universality of its application. The children of ambassadors are in theory born in the allegiance of the powers the ambassadors represent, and slaves, in legal contemplation, are property, and not persons.”
Which was before adoption of the 14th Amendment.
I kept waiting for that one to appear, but I got tired of looking. I guess now with birthers who claim Obama sealed his own records, you can ask them where’s the new, improved Trump order un-sealing them?
Could he?
A conspiracy site with White House press credentials revives a debunked birther story
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/10/a-conspiracy-site-with-white-house-press-credentials-revives-a-debunked-birther-story/?utm_term=.6e769c908fd0
Malik Obama has apparently tweeted the POSFKBC:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4299872/Malik-Obama-tweets-Barack-s-forged-birth-certificate.html
WND says it’s a fake.
Looks like Orly showed up in the comments section: “This is Orly Taitz and Washington Post and Philip Bump owe me an apology for misrepresenting the truth and defaming my character. I provided the sworn declaration in question to the presiding judge only with a request for letters rogatory, meaning a letter to the government of Kenya to deny or verify the document. I never stated that it is authentic as I have no ability to authenticate is. However, it is interesting that corrupt Wash Post reporter, Philip Bump, is not reporting on the fact that Obama used in his tax returns that were posted on WhiteHouse.gov, a stolen CT Social Security number 042-68-4425, for which Obama should be prosecuted by AG Sessions and sent to prison. Moreover, corrupt, bought and paid for globalist media does not report on the file of 150 pages that I assembled, which shows multiple fabricated IDs used by Obama. See the file here Every law abiding US citizen is encourages to contact President Trump and AG Sessions and demand criminal charges against Obama, possibly, to be filed by a special prosecutor, CA attorney Orly Taitz”
Nancy Owens, The Obama Forger: Could He?
Heavy sigh. Where have you been for the last 8 years?
President Obama’s records were NEVER SEALED. They are confidential, not sealed. This is not rocket science.
Access to his (vault, original) birth certificate is controlled by laws of the State of Hawai’i, not by Presidential Executive Order or Federal Law. No President, not Obama, not Trump, can gazump that via Executive Order.
So, no. He cannot do that.
Ummm, the quoting function is broken?
Well, Orly Taitz ignored my testimony. She actually screamed at me and Mike ZulloMoore is using fake evidence. Anything that has the “Obama” name on it is fake including that fake Kenyan birth certificate.
Worked for me.
It’s hit and miss. Last night it wasn’t working, now it is.
Sorry about that triple post. I’m not sure how it happened.
Also David Farrar.
Judges and magistrates can seal public records and judges and magastrates can unseal them.
As you correctly stated, no public record of Barack Obama’s has ever been sealed by any court and as we all know, NO record is really confidential anymore; even America’s most top secret files can be hacked or leaked.
Anyone thinking that birtherism is dead should know that there are four new threads on freerepublic.com devoted to the Malik Obama/Lucas D. Smith “Kenyan Birth Certificate” and the latest Washington Post’s article.
Many of the classic freeper birthers have come out of the woodwork yet again!
As I said. They are controlled by the laws of Hawaii.
Omitted link:
http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/malik-obamas-kenyan-birth-certificate-for-brother-is-fake/