The occasional open thread: do you know where your birthers are?

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Dr. Conspiracy

Please leave your Obama conspiracy comments here that don’t apply to the current articles.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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388 Responses to The occasional open thread: do you know where your birthers are?

  1. gorefan says:
    July 11, 2011 at 11:05 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Painfully condescending and wrong

    If that were the only poll numbers, then yes that might be condescending. But the entire McClatchy-Marist poll also says that the majority of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthest Americans (64%), and not cut Medicaid and Medicare (80%). Are Republican/Tea Party also being condescending?

  2. G says:
    July 12, 2011 at 12:04 am  (Quote)

    Hey Doc,

    I just finished watching The Colbert Show and the last segment today was an author talking about his new book on conspiracy thinking. Sounds like a good one for you to add to your summer reading list:

    “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths” by Dr. Michael Shermer

  3. J. Potter says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:28 am  (Quote)

    I second that nomination. Ironically, The Believing Brain hit the shelves just ahead of WTBC?, I read them at the same time. It’s far more accessible than the other titles the Doc has described. Covers more than conspiracy theories; irrational / faulty thinking of all kinds.

    G:
    Hey Doc,

    I just finished watching The Colbert Show and the last segment today was an author talking about his new book on conspiracy thinking.Sounds like a good one for you to add to your summer reading list: “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths” by Dr. Michael Shermer

  4. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 6:57 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: (It was his response to the question from the reporter who asked what he thought about 69% of Americans who say we shouldn’t raise the debt limit)

    With all due respect to you and that 69%, here is the reality:

    http://nationalpriorities.org/resources/federal-budget-101/budget-briefs/federal-discretionary-and-mandatory-spending/

    Of the $ 3.68 trillion in the 2012 budget, $ 2.44 trillion (66%) is mandatory. The bulk of that is Social Security and Medicare. About $ 0.24 trillion (6.5%) is interest on the debt.

    Only the remaining 34% of the budget is so called discretionary spending and about 70% of that is defense.

    Currently, the federal government is borrowing about 40% of what it spends. If the debt ceiling is not raised, and no new revenues are found, then spending has to fall 40% overnight. What do you propose cutting? Cut all Social Security checks in half? Stop paying soldiers? Shut the Border Patrol, FBI, close federal prisons and release prisoners? Even if you did all that, it wouldn’t be enough.

    I’m sorry, but those who say “Don’t raise the debt ceiling” and also say “Not a penny more in taxes” need to put up-specify what exactly they expect to stop paying for-or shut up.

    By the way, not a single one of those numbers changes in the slightest depending on where the President was born.

  5. Pastor Charmley says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:05 am  (Quote)

    I was at first surprised to read about black Birthers. After all, I reasoned, isn’t one reason people become Birthers a repressed racism? But then it hit me – Obama’s American mother was white. His black father was an African. Therefore he did not share the black American experience – he was foreign. and how better to express that feeling than to express the thought that he really IS foreign!

    His ancestors were not slaves in America, therefore he is not (as the reasoning goes) ‘one of us.’ So the persuasion that Obama is ‘foreign’ comes first, but is expressed as the suggestion he wasn’t born in the US. In fact the real feeling that underlies the thought is that he wasn’t born into ‘the black experience’.

    And when the Birthers come along claiming that he wasn’t even born in the US, then everything seems to make sense.

  6. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:12 am  (Quote)

    Obama’s father is from Kenya. Herman Cain experienced the real thing growing up in the south having to use the “black” water fountain,ect..

  7. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:37 am  (Quote)

    Gorefan,

    The fact that he didn’t line up with the 69% poll opinion wasn’t the condescending part .. it was his response about (paraphrase) how the common American is too ignorant to understand these complicated financial factors and decisions must be entrusted to the elite ruling class of professional politicians … that was the condescending part.
    Certainly a direct quote would serve better here, but that is pretty close to the gist of what he was communicating. Did you watch?
    No I don’t find the tea party to be consistently disparaging of the average american like the President is.

    gorefan: If that were the only poll numbers, then yes that might be condescending. But the entire McClatchy-Marist poll also says that the majority of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthest Americans (64%), and not cut Medicaid and Medicare (80%). Are Republican/Tea Party also being condescending?

  8. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:38 am  (Quote)

    marshman508: Obama’s father is from Kenya. Herman Cain experienced the real thing growing up in the south having to use the “black” water fountain,ect..

    Are you pretending that there was not racial segregation in colonial Kenya? Seriously???

    Perhaps you should read up a bit before shooting your mouth off…

  9. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:41 am  (Quote)

    Birthers are trying their hardest to get Obama up to speed with Cain and others as to how much racism they have faced.
    Bless their hearts.

  10. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:45 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: I know it’s off topic, but just a further note on the real-world consequences of not raising the debt ceiling. Immediately, on Aug 3, the US would be in the situation that only 60% of the government’s bills would get paid and 40% would not. Who would decide which ones get paid? That would be an executive decision made by the President and the Treasury Secretary.

    So the interesting consequence of the Tea Partiers’ irresponsible actions would be to effectively give dictatorial powers over the nation’s finances to the President. Maybe he would suspend any payments to anyone who reads WND, for example?

  11. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:45 am  (Quote)

    Ok … I’ll admit up front this is not my area of expertise … I was commenting more on the demeanor and attitude of the president than the substance. I am not an economist (but I do read it), but my opinion (of little worth) is that is why the “Mandatory” entitlement programs need to be part of the discussion and restructured. I am also not opposed to major Defense cuts–I suggest we get out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and most of the other areas around the world. However, the bottom-line is we don’t need a bigger, more expensive, ever-expanding government, with people powerlessly dependent on it. We people to get the governement off of their backs and let them stand up and excel by working hard and producing. The more government encroaches … the less people produce. We are going down the same failed experiment of socialism that country after country before us has proved a failure.
    You’ve been wanting me to dive into the political debate since I first posted on here … so there you have it 🙂 (Oh, and I am unlikely to “recover” from this philosophy … it is not a 6 month funk in mental illness like the other [birtherism] but a lifetime philosophy that is solid)

    Scientist: With all due respect to you and that 69%, here is the reality:http://nationalpriorities.org/resources/federal-budget-101/budget-briefs/federal-discretionary-and-mandatory-spending/Of the $ 3.68 trillion in the 2012 budget, $ 2.44 trillion (66%) is mandatory. The bulk of that is Social Security and Medicare. About $ 0.24 trillion (6.5%) is interest on the debt.Only the remaining 34% of the budget is so called discretionary spending and about 70% of that is defense.Currently, the federal government is borrowing about 40% of what it spends. If the debt ceiling is not raised, and no new revenues are found, then spending has to fall 40% overnight. What do you propose cutting? Cut all Social Security checks in half? Stop paying soldiers? Shut the Border Patrol, FBI, close federal prisons and release prisoners? Even if you did all that, it wouldn’t be enough.I’m sorry, but those who say “Don’t raise the debt ceiling” and also say “Not a penny more in taxes” need to put up-specify what exactly they expect to stop paying for-or shut up.By the way, not a single one of those numbers changes in the slightest depending on where the President was born.

  12. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:47 am  (Quote)

    Scientist,
    Maybe I am so “reformed” that I would trust the president to do the right thing on that one … like no payments to anyone who read wnd is probably a good choice, although I doubt there are many of its readers dependent on the governement.

    Scientist: joyeagle: I know it’s off topic, but just a further note on the real-world consequences of not raising the debt ceiling. Immediately, on Aug 3, the US would be in the situation that only 60% of the government’s bills would get paid and 40% would not. Who would decide which ones get paid? That would be an executive decision made by the President and the Treasury Secretary.So the interesting consequence of the Tea Partiers’ irresponsible actions would be to effectively give dictatorial powers over the nation’s finances to the President. Maybe he would suspend any payments to anyone who reads WND, for example?

  13. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:57 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Maybe I am so “reformed” that I would trust the president to do the right thing on that one … like no payments to anyone who read wnd is probably a good choice, although I doubt there are many of its readers dependent on the governement.

    I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the readership of WND skews heavily towards the over 65 demographic (hence Social Securiity and Medicare recipients) and is rather low income (hence dependent on those payments). One certainly doesn’t see a lot of ads for high-end goods on WND.

    It’s interesting that the average WND reader would actually benefit more from Obama’s positions on the issues than from his opponents’ positions.

    And I actually think giving the President and the Treasury Secretary, regardless of who they are, dictatorial powers over the nation’s finances is a terrible idea. Budgets should be passed by Congress, signed by the President and all obligations created under that budget need to be met. That is what full faith and credit means.

  14. Bovril says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:06 am  (Quote)

    We are returning to the squirelly Venn diagram of Birther — Racist — Bigot — “conservative” — race.

    All Birthers are bigotted in some manner (Obama’s race, upbringing, politics etc etc)
    Some Birther bigots are racist, some are not
    Almost all Birthers are “conservative”
    Only a small number of “conservatives” are birthers
    Many “conservatives” are white
    Some “conservatives” are black

    As such you will always find a very small number of bigotted, racist, black, “conservative”, Birthers and variants therof.

  15. Thrifty says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:49 am  (Quote)

    You really think a debt deal won’t be reached? Pshaw! The extension on Bush tax cuts happened at the last minute. The budget which averted the government shutdown happened at the last minute. This too will happen at the last minute. It’s just another game of public policy chicken. Someone always swerves.

  16. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:52 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Just to clarify, after re-reading my comment it didn’t come off as sarcastic/humorous as I had intended. Obviously I want our separation of powers to work. cheers

    Then you have to join the grown ups and break with the 69% (or whatever the actual number is) and ensure that the US pays ALL its bills in full and on time. Otherwise, like it or not,, the President will pick and choose which ones he wants to pay and which ones he doesn’t.

    Reality bites…

  17. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:59 am  (Quote)

    Thrifty: You really think a debt deal won’t be reached? Pshaw! The extension on Bush tax cuts happened at the last minute. The budget which averted the government shutdown happened at the last minute. This too will happen at the last minute. It’s just another game of public policy chicken. Someone always swerves.

    There will likely be a deal, but there is a non-negligible risk that there won’t be and the consequences would be grave. Either way, this is no way to run a country, especially one that happens to have (for now) the global reserve currency.

  18. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:04 am  (Quote)

    “do you know where your birthers are?”

    After such a fall as this, birthers should think nothing of tumbling down stairs.

    (apologies to the descendants and admirers of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)

  19. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:10 am  (Quote)

    “Herman Cain”

    Why would birthers openly support a candidate who admits to being the head honcho of a huge organized crime syndicate?

    “If you don’t like anchovies, you’ll be sleeping with the fishes.”

    😛

  20. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:13 am  (Quote)

    Scientist: I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the readership of WND skews heavily towards the over 65 demographic (hence Social Securiity and Medicare recipients) and is rather low income (hence dependent on those payments). One certainly doesn’t see a lot of ads for high-end goods on WND.

    It’s interesting that the average WND reader would actually benefit more from Obama’s positions on the issues than from his opponents’ positions.

    P. T. Farah could make a killing refurbishing irony meters.

  21. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:31 am  (Quote)

    marshman508: ect..

    Swampy:

    Unless you meant ectoplasm, the word is et cetera or etc.

    ORIGIN Latin, from et and’ and cetera the rest’

    You’re welcome.

    And the water fountains, restrooms and public sections such as buses, waiting rooms and restaurants were labeled “colored”. For example, public restrooms were labeled “Men”, “Women” and “Colored” or just “White” and “Colored”. However, more often than not, signs just said, “WHITES ONLY”. Occasionally, places like diners would have a sign that read, “We Serve Colored Carry Out Only”. They still had to make a buck, right?

    This comes from firsthand knowledge from living in the southeastern U.S. in the 1960s.

  22. Pastor Charmley says:
    July 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm  (Quote)

    My point is perception, not reality. If one perceives Obama as somehow ‘foreign’, then one is, ipso facto, more likely to believe stories that claim he actually IS a foreigner. The fact that the experience of colonization is different from that of descendants of slaves (not better, just different) adds to the perception that he somehow ‘had it easy’.

    Add to that the fact that Obama’s father was a nominal Muslim, just as his mother was a nominal Christian, and you have another bit of ‘foreignness’. Incidentally, the Muslim charge has morphed in some Christian circles into ‘Nation of Islam’, which is of course to Islam as the Christian Science Church is to Christianity.

  23. Rickey says:
    July 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    Obama’s father is from Kenya. Herman Cain experienced the real thing growing up in the south having to use the “black” water fountain,ect..

    How do we know that Herman Cain was born in Tennessee? Have we seen his birth certificate? Were both of his parents U.S. citizens when he was born? His father was a chauffeur and his mother was a cleaner. How did he afford to go to a private college and go to graduate school on their incomes? He graduated college in 1967 – how did he avoid military service? What is he hiding? We know nothing about this guy except that he makes lousy pizza.

  24. Pastor Charmley says:
    July 12, 2011 at 12:20 pm  (Quote)

    On a related matter, it’s interesting that, despite the ‘it’s forged’ comments on the Hawaii certificate, Birthers do seem to be re-focusing on the question of the ‘two citizen parents’ idea. Again, it is the fear of the foreigner coming into play, leading to a re-definition of who is really a citizen.

    What we have here is not racism per se, but the fear of the foreigner, the dislike of the unlike.

  25. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 2:12 pm  (Quote)

    I think the release of the long form birth certificate and it’s broad support in the media has made it very unlikely that the “born in Africa” rumors are going anywhere. While the hard-core birther believes Obama the long form is a fake, there’s not much anticipated return to continuing to beat that drum.

    Pastor Charmley: it’s interesting that, despite the it’s forged’ comments on the Hawaii certificate, Birthers do seem to be re-focusing on the question of the two citizen parents’ idea.

  26. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 2:26 pm  (Quote)

    You’ll have to excuse the President; he didn’t have his teleprompter. But seriously…

    I didn’t hear the speech, but I will say that in my life I’ve seen a lot of folks who expect simple answers to complex questions. Another thing that I have learned is that complex systems do not always behave in the way that one intuitively thinks they should. I’m probably in the top 80% in intelligence and education in the country. I wouldn’t trust myself to make a decision about how to fix the economy. Maybe the politicians aren’t a lot better — but they have access to those who are.

    joyeagle: common American is too ignorant to understand these complicated financial factors and decisions must be entrusted to the elite ruling class of professional politicians … that was the condescending part.

  27. gorefan says:
    July 12, 2011 at 2:33 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Certainly a direct quote would serve better here, but that is pretty close to the gist of what he was communicating. Did you watch?

    Here is the direct quote:

    Q Thank you, Mr. President. You said that everybody in the room is willing to do what they have to do, wants to get something done by August 2nd. But isn’t the problem the people who aren’t in the room, and in particular Republican presidential candidates and Republican Tea Partiers on the Hill, and the American public? The latest CBS News poll showed that only 24 percent of Americans said you should raise the debt limit to avoid an economic catastrophe. There are still 69 percent who oppose raising the debt limit. So isn’t the problem that you and others have failed to convince the American people that we have a crisis here, and how are you going to change that?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me distinguish between professional politicians and the public at large. The public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury option goes. They shouldn’t. They’re worrying about their family; they’re worrying about their jobs; they’re worrying about their neighborhood. They’ve got a lot of other things on their plate. We’re paid to worry about it.

    I think, depending on how you phrase the question, if you said to the American people, is it a good idea for the United States not to pay its bills and potentially create another recession that could throw millions of more people out of work, I feel pretty confident I can get a majority on my side on that one.

    And that’s the fact. If we don’t raise the debt ceiling and we see a crisis of confidence in the markets, and suddenly interest rates are going up significantly, and everybody is paying higher interest rates on their car loans, on their mortgages, on their credit cards, and that’s sucking up a whole bunch of additional money out of the pockets of the American people, I promise you they won’t like that.

    Now, I will say that some of the professional politicians know better. And for them to say that we shouldn’t be raising the debt ceiling is irresponsible. They know better.

    And this is not something that I am making up. This is not something that Tim Geithner is making up. We’re not out here trying to use this as a means of doing all these really tough political things. I’d rather be talking about stuff that everybody welcomes — like new programs or the NFL season getting resolved. Unfortunately, this is what’s on our plate. It’s before us right now. And we’ve got to deal with it.

    So what you’re right about, I think, is, is that the leaders in the room here at a certain point have to step up and do the right thing, regardless of the voices in our respective parties that are trying to undermine that effort.

    I have a stake in John Boehner successfully persuading his caucus that this is the right thing to do, just like he has a stake in seeing me successfully persuading the Democratic Party that we should take on these problems that we’ve been talking about for too long but haven’t been doing anything about.

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/11/press-conference-president

    I don’t find the answer particularly condescending. But I imagine it depends on the bias you start with.

  28. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 2:56 pm  (Quote)

    Thanks for finding the direct quote … did I do a good paraphrase 🙂 Sure it depends on your political bias, as every act of politics is judged through that lens. I reacted to it immediately, and wasn’t surprised to see the pundits in print and on screen framing out that answer and seeing it the same way as I did … a Castro-like dictator telling his children to just trust his wisdom and leave the thinking to him. Insulting.
    I won’t trust him. I’ll trust the tea-partiers like Allen West and Herman Cain … not because Obama wasn’t born in america, but because his basic philosophy is foreign. I was enjoying reading the threads in another section here and can’t remember who was wanting to dissolve the “18th century constitution” … and maybe a parliamentary system would be better. I think, the US is dividing further and further that I wonder if a separation is not the most logical if not inevitable end. USSR did it … mostly peacefully. We could split into the divided nations of CA/NY and those who want to join them, and Texas and all the states wanting to join them. The one could pursue their philosophy without the constraint of the other. For instance, CA/NY and theirs could be completely centralized national govt with no distinguishing statehoods, strict democracy and/or parliamentary. They could outlaw heterosexual marriage, outlaw nuclear weapons and power, run up their debt with no limit/ceiling, and teach a revised history with a strong socialist/progressive slant–and mandate every child be raised in public schools by the state. Texas and its federation could retain the constitution, have a variety within the empowered states of its union, base its laws on judeo-christian morality, maintain the Nuclear weapons and put up fences around our new borders to keep CA out, and allow true science to flourish un-constrained by religion (evolution).
    OK, so I say that all mostly tongue-in-cheek, but it makes awful more sense than the continual debate that loses ground on “things that unite us” each and every day.

  29. gorefan says:
    July 12, 2011 at 3:04 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: but because his basic philosophy is foreign

    I find that a strange point of view since nothing that the President has done is new or unique to the actions of past Presidents. President Obama is closer in action to President Reagan then to President Roosevelt.

  30. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 3:20 pm  (Quote)

    Gorefan,
    Sure. No president has increased the debt anything close to what he has done, and sees as his sole focus to expand further … see … I am still not convinced he doesn’t want to destroy the economy/government in order to execute the fundamental change he campaigned on … that of wealth distribution that he champions … that of his circle of friends who invoke Mao as their political inspiration. Obamneycare is something new … socialized medicine, and he has been clearly on record as this is the first step towards more and more govt takeover of healthcare (first step to single payer etc). His championing the “america apologizes” world tour could not be more opposite of Reagan’s American exceptionalism philosophy.
    OK … I’ll give you this … they were both equally wrong for taking America to war without congressional approval … and at least there Reagan stayed within the limits of war resolutions act. This president ignores the congress on this, and has hinted that he may do the same thing with extending the debt.
    When Reagan took government control out of the airline industry, that couldn’t be more opposite of the Obama adminstration taking federal ownership of car companies and banks.
    Reagan standing up to the illegal striking air traffic controllers could not be more opposite of the actions of Obama who uses federal thugery to block the Boeing plant in South Carolina. The two are poles apart. I am not a political writer or researcher … that is just examples from the top of my head. Did you mean that as a serious comparison, or were you just trying to get me spun up?

    gorefan: I find that a strange point of view since nothing that the President has done is new or unique to the actions of past Presidents. President Obama is closer in action to President Reagan then to President Roosevelt.

  31. Joey says:
    July 12, 2011 at 3:20 pm  (Quote)

    This is not an “either/or” situation with the hard core birthers, it;s a “both”. Anyone who reads the birther blogs can quickly discern the birther position that the Obama Hawaii Long form is forged and altered AND the second birther position that Obama was born outside of the US, in Kenya, or in Canada and is not eligible.
    It’s only a matter of degree as to which of the positions is the strongest with any individual birther.

  32. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 3:52 pm  (Quote)

    @ rickey If Cain’s parents where not born in the us then he should not be able to run for president.

  33. gorefan says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:01 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Obamneycare is something new

    Obamacare was based on a 1993 Republican proposal.

    President Reagan raised taxes 7 times in his administration, including the largest corporate tax increase in US history.

    President Reagan granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants.

    As for bailouts – since the 1960’s most bailouts came from Republican administrations. The Reagan Administration received 80% share of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company when it was deemed “to big to fail”. The first time that phrase was used.

    But the very first bailout in US History occurred in the administration of President Washington. Hamilton convince the Congress to assume the Revolutionary War debt of the 13 states. The Virginia leislature was not happy, and for reasons you may appreciate. They said it was not fair since Virginia had already taxed its citizens to pay its debt, why should they have to bear the burdern of other states.

    President Washington signed the act into law.

    Somethings never change.

  34. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:12 pm  (Quote)

    @Joey The birthers feel Obama is hiding something by not showing his BC. So we do not trust him. We want him to show the original, not some “patched” up junk he put out. If the original is the same then he has nothing to hide. Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all? I would love to see him do it and i would admit that the non birthers where correct. Just have the courts analyze the BC he put around april 29 and should it be proving that it is the real thing it would be fine with me. Can someone please explain why the a in alvin has a c or e (smiley face) under it? Why does it say “txe” and not “the”? Did they get a new stamp that was screwed up or something? If yes then why did no one notice it?

  35. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:26 pm  (Quote)

    Actually, to the hardcore birther NONE of the Obama lies are either/or. They believe them all, even the ones that are contradictory.
    Obama’s real father is: Malcolm X? Check.
    Obama’s real father is: Frank Marshall Davis? Check.
    Whichever lie hurts Obama more at that point in the narrative they are spinning. But they are all true.

  36. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:38 pm  (Quote)

    OK, sure President Reagan wasn’t perfect … but still a lifetime of opposite from President Obama. The whole philisophical foundation of empowering people vs empowering govt is the bottomline. Probably, the benefit of our governement that takes so much to change anything prevents either philosophical extremes from having full way and expression in policy. Fortunately the office of president is not extraordinarily powerful. That is why there is extra sensitivity with us who are concerned about the basic philosphy when we see measures that exceed presidential authority.
    Does noone agree with my proposal for a shake hands and separate our own ways countries?

    gorefan: Obamacare was based on a 1993 Republican proposal.President Reagan raised taxes 7 times in his administration, including the largest corporate tax increase in US history…. The Virginia leislature was not happy, and for reasons you may appreciate. They said it was not fair since Virginia had already taxed its citizens to pay its debt, why should they have to bear the burdern of other states.President Washington signed the act into law.Somethings never change.

  37. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:44 pm  (Quote)

    Gorefan,
    And you are right about Republican growth of government plans (higher taxes, 1993 health bill, etc) not being signifcantly different from Democrats … that is why I (like many other tea partiers) are more libertarian and independent leaning than Republican. It just so happens the Republicans are listening right now, and spurting the right words/actions, but there is little trust/loyalty to the Repbulican brand by many of us anymore.
    Out of curiousity, is your moniker have to do with GW’s opponent in 2000?

  38. Thrifty says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:51 pm  (Quote)

    There’s some lawyers here, so I guess I should ask something I’ve wondered for a while. What is the bar exam like? I always envision it a lot like those essay tests I took in high school, only with many more questions. I get the feeling that the answers would be longer too. I would write a paragraph or two for each question, and I envision answers to questions on the bar as being a page or two long.

    Can any of the resident lawyers shed any light on this?

  39. Rickey says:
    July 12, 2011 at 4:55 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    @ rickey If Cain’s parents where not born in the us then he should not be able to run for president

    Have you demanded that Herman Cain show his birth certificate and the birth certificates of his parents? If not, why not?

    Are you aware of the fact that we have had Presidents whose parents were not born in the U.S.?

  40. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:01 pm  (Quote)

    Any opinions on Marco Rubio’s eligilibity for president (which means VP eligibility also)? Or for that matter Bobby Jindal? Both were made in america, but neither parents were.

  41. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:03 pm  (Quote)

    I think Obama is working on the easy stuff first, like the national debt.

    marshman508: Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all?

  42. Thrifty says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:07 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all?

    Because he’s bound by the First Amendment, which prohibits him from having you killed for your lies and delusions.

  43. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:15 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: Can someone please explain why the a in alvin has a c or e (smiley face) under it?

    For the same reason people saw a human face in the explosion of the World Trade Center: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

    “Why does it say “txe” and not “the”?

    It’s called a smudge. Calling it anything else is called paranoia.

    “Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all?”

    Because the grand plan is to turn all of the birther bigots like yourself into complete stark raving mad, babbling lunatics.

    And as Bush would say, “Mission accomplished”.

    Check the coins in your pocket. You’re being tracked, you know.

    If you don’t want to be ridiculed, don’t be ridiculous.

  44. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:15 pm  (Quote)

    No one here can explain the a in alvin that has a c or e in it (smilely face) or the “txe”. I think this may be changing the minds of some non birthers.

  45. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:16 pm  (Quote)

    Thrifty: Because he’s bound by the First Amendment, which prohibits him from having you killed for your lies and delusions.

    Good answer!

  46. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:21 pm  (Quote)

    Marshman508, to determine if Obama’s LFBC was authentic, the court would ask the issuing body, which is the Hawaiian DOH.
    The State of Hawaii is already on record confirming it’s authenticity. Your court investigation would end right there. Why can’t you wrap your head around this fact?

    It’s no different than trying to determine if a $100 bill was genuine. If the U.S. Treasury gave you a certification that is was genuine, and documented when they printed it, you will have no luck bringing your suspicions of counterfeiting to law enforcement.
    Same situation.

  47. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:24 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    No one here can explain the a in alvin that has a c or e in it (smilely face) or the “txe”. I think this may be changing the minds of some non birthers.

    Yes, I did. You’re not paying attention.

    It’s a birther obsession over irrelevant minutiae which is typical for birther b.s.

  48. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:24 pm  (Quote)

    @majority will Smudge, give me a break! How can you smudge a h into a x? If they would just take the original on file in Hawaii and have the courts look at it to see if it was not forged, then this would do it and be fine for probably 80% of the birthers out there.

  49. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:25 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: I think . . .

    No, you’re not.

  50. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:27 pm  (Quote)

    Look at the hi-res scan of the LFBC. I don’t see the “TXE” anymore, it us clearly a smudged “THE”.
    Can you explain what is the insidious meaning behind the “TXE” that you think you see in low quality versions? What are you getting at? What would be the insidious purpose behind the misspelling? Do you think Hawaii forged it and didn’t use their good stamp?
    What the he’ll are you even claiming it means?

  51. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:27 pm  (Quote)

    The lack of explanation is due to your laziness in looking for it, not my lack of providing it.

    http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2011/06/long-form-artifacts-vanish-at-higher-resolution/

    marshman508: No one here can explain the a in alvin that has a c or e in it (smilely face) or the “txe”. I think this may be changing the minds of some non birthers.

  52. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm  (Quote)

    Marshman508,
    Hey. I came in here as a birther a week or so ago. I came looking for explanations of “legitimate” questions about the BCs and eligibility. I was pleasantly surprised to find i got a lot (nearly overwhelming) information of substance and sense, with only occasional jabs … vice the other forums where there was mostly name-calling and little information substance exchange. Several of them pointed out that a quick tour around this forum will answer many of your questions before answering. I had an open mind and found their arguments in here to be convincing. It felt like I began step 1 of our 12 step program, admitting I was wrong and coming out of denial. I am still very conservative/libertarian, and they don’t like that much here, but it is a fun place to exchange ideas. Welcome to the forum.

  53. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:30 pm  (Quote)

    The smiley face is seen for what it is in the higher quality scan as well.
    The Face On Mars.

    Marshman508, if you want to have a serious discussion about forgery allegations, first tell us which one you think is forged- the paper copy or the PDF.

  54. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:31 pm  (Quote)

    I bet, from my recent experience being worried about the TXE, it all goes to the overall amatuer forger theory, since the president couldn’t put out an add for professionals. Of course, that whole theory gives way when you read the authenticating letters from DOH and realize all of them would have to be “in on it” too.

    Obsolete: Look at the hi-res scan of the LFBC. I don’t see the “TXE” anymore, it us clearly a smudged “THE”.Can you explain what is the insidious meaning behind the “TXE” that you think you see in low quality versions? What are you getting at? What would be the insidious purpose behind the misspelling? Do you think Hawaii forged it and didn’t use their good stamp?What the he’ll are you even claiming it means?

  55. JoZeppy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:32 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: The birthers feel Obama is hiding something by not showing his BC.

    He did show it. All the way back in 2007. This past April, he even asked the State of Hawaii to make a special exception, and provide him with a certified copy of the long form. That didn’t work either. Just admit it. You’re a bunch of malcontents that will never be satisfied.

    marshman508: We want him to show the original, not some “patched” up junk he put out. If the original is the same then he has nothing to hide.

    And how, pray tell do you suggest he does that? Perhaps he should take a break from doing the less important stuff, like keeping the country from going into default, try to fix the economy, and waging a war, and personally go door to door with it on some cross country tour? He did it the best way we know how provide access to millions of people. Scan it, and put it up on the internet. Did that solve anything? Nope. Big suprise. A long line of people who don’t know what they’re talking about claiming it’s “some ‘patched’ up junk.”

    marshman508: Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all? I would love to see him do it and i would admit that the non birthers where correct.

    Because birthers are malcontents for whom facts don’t matter, and will never admit they are wrong.

    marshman508: Just have the courts analyze the BC he put around april 29 and should it be proving that it is the real thing it would be fine with me.

    Court’s don’t “analyze” documents. The closest thing you would get is it being offered as evidence as a self authenticating document, and prima facie evidence of the facts of his birth. The court would then ask if the opposing side has any evidence as to why this document should not be relied on. You would have to say, “no your honor” because you have none. The court would then say, evidence amitted, the facts of President Obama’s birth are considered proven. The problem with that, you would actually have to have a case in order to admit it to as evidence. Which you don’t. Perhaps you should brush up on your civic and find out what courts actually do?

    marshman508: Can someone please explain why the a in alvin has a c or e (smiley face) under it? Why does it say “txe” and not “the”? Did they get a new stamp that was screwed up or something? If yes then why did no one notice it?

    It’s a low quality scan of a document that consists of a copy of an original composed of a form, typewritten portions, and hand written portions, and a rubber stamp on the copy. Because of this, not everything shows up as it would if you just generated on your computer directly into pdf. Not everything is equally clear which leads to the occassional anamoly. It’s simply a limitation of the technology. Is that so hard to understand.

  56. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: The whole philisophical foundation of empowering people vs empowering govt is the bottomline.

    I have never seen the dichotomy between people and the government (which consists of people). If “people” want to solve a problem, they should do it. Take health care. The US has by far the most expensive health care system in the world and despite spending almost twice the % of GDP of any other country still leaves a huge chunk of the population uncovered.

    Where is the private organization or company that is willing to contract to provide everybody in the US with care for the 10% of GDP that every other country spends, rather than the 17% that the US spends? If some private entity would step up to the plate, I would happily let them do it and i will bet that Obama would too. Who wants the headaches oof Medicare and Medicaid? Why don’t you start such a group and come up with a plan and put the government out of business???

  58. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:37 pm  (Quote)

    @Obsolete Obama should give permission to Hawaii to have the courts look at it. He is not bringing America together ,he is doing the opposite.

  59. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:40 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    @Obsolete Obama should give permission to Hawaii to have the courts look at it. He is not bringing America together ,he is doing the opposite.

    That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

  60. JoZeppy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:41 pm  (Quote)

    Thrifty: There’s some lawyers here, so I guess I should ask something I’ve wondered for a while. What is the bar exam like? I always envision it a lot like those essay tests I took in high school, only with many more questions. I get the feeling that the answers would be longer too. I would write a paragraph or two for each question, and I envision answers to questions on the bar as being a page or two long.
    Can any of the resident lawyers shed any light on this?

    Each state is a little different, but pretty much all states (except for California and Delaware) it is a two day text. (Cal and Del are 2.5). One day is essay (usually specific to the state you are taking, although some have opted for a general common law essay exams as has DC and NH), the other state is the multiple choice “multi-state exam (although Florda does have some multiple choice questions on their “essay day”). I took the Maryland bar. Morning of day one consisted of a half dozen or so essays based on Maryalnd law. It came out to 22 minutes to read and answer each question. The afternoon you had 3 more essays and 2 longer questions where they provided the materials, and based on those you either had to draft a motion, memo, or some other type of legal document, solely based on those documents (it was not based on any actual law, state or otherwise, but you had to stick to the materials they defined, even if the real world law was different). Next day was the multi-state exam, which was I think 3.5 hours in the am and 3.5 in the afternoon of multiple choice questions of general con law, crim law, torts, evidence, property, contracts (it think that covers the subjects).

  61. JoZeppy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:45 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: @Obsolete Obama should give permission to Hawaii to have the courts look at it. He is not bringing America together ,he is doing the opposite.

    Learn what courts do, and you won’t make such nonsensical statements

  62. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:46 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    I bet, from my recent experience being worried about the TXE, it all goes to the overall amatuer forger theory, since the president couldn’t put out an add for professionals.Of course, that whole theory gives way when you read the authenticating letters from DOH and realize all of them would have to be “in on it” too.

    Which is why I’ve repeatedly asked birthers why the state of Hawaii would forge its own documents.

    It’s a self-referential contradiction and it makes as much sense as the Treasury Department counterfeiting U.S. currency.

    And to accuse anyone or any state agency of fraud and malfeasance without any credible evidence is reprehensible.

  63. Nathanael says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:47 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all?I

    A question many of us have been asking for a long time. Obama has twice now met birther demands in producing first the COLB and then the LFBC. Both times birthers reneged on their promise to shut up. There’s absolutely no reason to believe they’d shut up after seeing the original either.

    marshman508:
    Just have the courts analyze the BC he put around april 29 and should it be proving that it is the real thing it would be fine with me.

    Hawaiian state officials have vouched many times for the authenticity of the certificates Obama has already produced. Onaka and Fuddy, just to name two, have issued statements swearing what’s on the website, and what Obama showed at the April release, were consistent with the original on file in the DOH.

    Birthers regularly either ignore Hawaiian pronouncements or accuse Fuddy, et al., of lying and complicity. If birthers don’t believe the officials’ sworn statements, they’re not going to believe some document those same officials claim is the original.

    marshman508:
    Can someone please explain why the a in alvin has a c or e (smiley face) under it? Why does it say “txe” and not “the”? Did they geta new stamp that was screwed up or something? If yes then why did no one notice it?

    These claims have been debunked so many times — including right here on the site — one can only conclude you just haven’t bothered looking for the answers.

    Both the alleged smiley face and the “TXE” are simply artifacts of the optimization process. If you look at a higher-resolution image (looky-looky, there’s one right here on this site! — just click on the “Obama Certificate of Live Birth – Press” link right at the bottom of this page), you’ll see there is no smiley face.

    But let’s just suppose for a moment that Onaka is some sort of jokery were who actually does draw smiley faces on his signature. What, exactly, would that prove? I have a niece who dots her “i”s with sweethearts. Is there a law somewhere that says ornamentations invalidate signatures? Ditto the “TXE”. How does that invalidate the legality of the stamp?

  64. Thrifty says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:50 pm  (Quote)

    Nathanael: But let’s just suppose for a moment that Onaka is some sort of jokery were who actually does draw smiley faces on his signature. What, exactly, would that prove? I have a niece who dots her “i”s with sweethearts. Is there a law somewhere that says ornamentations invalidate signatures? Ditto the “TXE”. How does that invalidate the legality of the stamp?

    My 11th grade chemistry teacher would deduct points for ornamentation on your signature. She was a real crab.

  65. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 5:58 pm  (Quote)

    @ DR. After seeing your link i would agree that it most likley was missing ink that made the x. Still looking at the a in alvin. You could be correct here to. i am not a pdf expert so we should still have the courts deside this. There has to be a way that Obama can get the courts to show everyone the original and to have it analyzed. Look ,the important thing here is to shut the birthers up so we can move on!!

  66. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 6:05 pm  (Quote)

    @nath You dont have to be a wise*** about it. I am new to this site. There is a lot of stuff in archive. To all you haters on this blog, you should work with the birthers and educate them not insult them. Some of you should be put in moderation!!

  67. gorefan says:
    July 12, 2011 at 6:17 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: That is why there is extra sensitivity with us who are concerned about the basic philosphy when we see measures that exceed presidential authority.

    Can you list some of these measures?

    What I object to in the tea parties and the libertarians is the attempt to coop the Constitution and especially the Founders.

    The Founders had some very different ideas on the nature of government. Hamilton wanted a strong central government. Jefferson not so much. I see much of the debate going on today as being not that different from the debate between the Federalists and the Jefferson Republicans.

    Have you ever read Jefferson’s 1796 letter to Philip Mazzei?

    “The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which carried us triumphantly thro’ the war, an Anglican, monarchical and aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over us the substance as they have already done the forms of the British government. The main body of our citizens however remain true to their republican principles, the whole landed interest is with them, and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the Executive, the Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all of the officers of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants and Americans trading on British capitals, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds a contrivance invented for the purposes of corruption and for assimilating us in all things, to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England. In short we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve them, and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors”

    Hamilton, Washington, Jay and Adams are the “Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council”.

    As to the moniker, I wouldn’t read to much into it.

  68. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 7:21 pm  (Quote)

    Obama is also different from Reagan in that Reagan’s decision to cut ‘n’ run in Beirut after terrorists attacked us weakened the perception of the US worldwide, and led to terrorists attacking us many more times over the years with the expectation that they could push us out of whatever troubled country we were involved in.
    Reagan’s two-faced bargaining with terrorists also made the U.S. look foolish. He was lucky to escape impeachment for the very real crimes of the Iran-Contra scandal. (Compare this to all the non-existent “crimes” birthers accuse Obama of)
    Not one Republican candidate vowed to persue Bin Laden into Pakistan. Obama took fire over his vow to due that. Obama has projected the tough facade against terrorism overseas that Reagan only play-acted for American voters.

  69. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 7:31 pm  (Quote)

    Yes, there is a lot in archive, 1,480 articles to be specific. The birthers and the anti-birthers both shovel a lot of abuse towards the other side. I’ve been making a conscious effort to take a more objective view towards the other side, as found in my Understanding the birthers series.

    According to the Wikipedia article on conspiracy theories:

    Conspiracy theorists on the internet are often dismissed as a “fringe” group, but evidence suggests that a broad cross section of Americans today—traversing ethnic, gender, education, occupation, and other divides—gives credence to at least some conspiracy theories.

    But I must say that from the beginning, the focus of this site has been on education. However, the educational effort has been generally ineffective, something that leads to frustration, and to some harsh words.

    One of the problems with a site like this is that there are so many articles, that it’s hard for any single article to stand out. This is why I made my Debunker’s Guide to Obama Conspiracy Theories (link on the right sidebar, in the welcome block) and with my identification of “featured articles.”

    http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/?cat=24

    I think I’m going to expand the drop-down list of conspiracies back to a full listing, as this topical index is an important educational feature of the site.

    marshman508: I am new to this site. There is a lot of stuff in archive. To all you haters on this blog, you should work with the birthers and educate them not insult them. Some of you should be put in moderation!!

  70. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 7:37 pm  (Quote)

    In this country, courts aren’t investigative bodies, and the federal courts don’t issue advisory opinions. In order for what you suggest to happen, somebody with standing has to bring a controversy before the court that involves actual harm to a particular individual directly connected to Obama’s birth certificate. So far, no one has succeeded in doing that.

    It’s possible that a friendly lawsuit could be brought in a state court during the next primary season and something could be decided. But it would be totally at odds with history to suggest that anything a court said would shut the birthers up.

    Remember that the Indiana court of appeals stated that Obama was eligible because he was born in Hawaii, regardless of the citizenship of his parents. Did that shut up the birthers who put forward the two-citizen theory? No, they just dismissed the court as wrong, or not the Supreme Court or something else. Conspiracy theorists in general consider proof against them as evidence of a larger conspiracy. It’s not a battle that can be won.

    marshman508: There has to be a way that Obama can get the courts to show everyone the original and to have it analyzed. Look ,the important thing here is to shut the birthers up so we can move on!!

  71. JoZeppy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 7:41 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: @nath You dont have to be a wise*** about it. I am new to this site. There is a lot of stuff in archive. To all you haters on this blog, you should work with the birthers and educate them not insult them. Some of you should be put in moderation!!

    You have to understand that every day, a new birther shows up, repeats the same long debunked theories, and 9 times out of 10, resorts to rants that President Obama is determined to destroy our country, before repeating the earlier debunked theories (how many times was it point out that what’s his name was quoting Calvin’s case out of context, and chopping sentances?). Now there is the very rare exception to that rule. If you are one of those rare exceptions, people will generally very quickly become civil. But again, you are not the first person to appear here with a laundry list of claims that have been repeatedly discussed here. Sad as it may be, you must suffer a little for the sins of those who came before you.

  72. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 7:44 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508: Look ,the important thing here is to shut the birthers up so we can move on!!

    Last I checked, no law, regulation, moral stricture or anything else prevents the birthers from shutting up. Most folks don’t need a court decision to stop saying iidiotic things; they just do it all by themsellves.

    As far as moving on, everyone already has. The birthers are non-factors. No one cares what they think. Do you see anything about it on the news anymore? Nope. It’s over. Finished. Have you noticed the feverish negotiations over the debt ceiling? Have you heard McConnell and Boehner, tallking about the President? Who do you think they are referring to?

  73. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:02 pm  (Quote)

    Obsolete: Obama took fire over his vow to due that. Obama has projected the tough facade against terrorism overseas that Reagan only play-acted for American voters.

    Reagan would be drummed out of today’s Republican party. He raised taxes several times after realizing that his original cuts produced insufficient revenues. Today’s Republicans believe that a default, a possible worldwide Depression and giving absolute fiscal power to the President and Treasury Secretary is preferable to even a penny in tax increases.

    I am looking for the holy book that says taxes can never, ever go up, no matter what the circumstances and how bleak the alternatives, but I can’t find it.

  74. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:07 pm  (Quote)

    Gorefan,
    I greatly enjoyed that quote from Jefferson, thanks. Seems like political hyperbole has been around for awhile?
    Measures that extend presidential power and authority:
    One measure that comes to mind right away is the Libyan conflict beyond the war powers resolution. Secondly would be the EPA enactment of Cap and Trade when it didn’t pass through congress. The president exercising “executive power” by ordering BP to surrender money. Exceeding constitutional authority in Mandating health insurance on citizens. Exceeding his authority in unilaterally deciding a previously passed law is unconstitutional, and no longer enforcing the law (DOMA). That’s just from the top of my head … and then there is the whole czar-i-fying federal agencies (do we get to make up words here?)

    gorefan: Can you list some of these measures?

    What I object to in the tea parties and the libertarians is the attempt to coop the Constitution and especially the Founders.

    The Founders had some very different ideas on the nature of government.Hamilton wanted a strong central government.Jefferson not so much.I see much of the debate going on today as being not that different from the debate between the Federalists and the Jefferson Republicans.

    Have you ever read Jefferson’s 1796 letter to Philip Mazzei?

    “The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us. … the good side is so great as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which succeeded our labors”

    Hamilton, Washington, Jay and Adams are the “Samsons in the field and Solomons in the council”.

    As to the moniker, I wouldn’t read to much into it.

  75. jamese777 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:11 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    @JoeyThe birthers feel Obama is hiding something by not showing his BC. So we do not trust him. We want him to show the original, not some “patched” up junk he put out. If the original is the same then he has nothing to hide. Why can’t he just shut us birthers up once and for all?I would love to see him do it and i would admit that the non birthers where correct. Just have the courts analyze the BC he put around april 29 and should it be proving that it is the real thing it would be fine with me. Can someone please explain why the a in alvin has a c or e (smiley face) under it? Why does it say “txe” and not “the”? Did they geta new stamp that was screwed up or something? If yes then why did no one notice it?

    If you really, truly absolutely MUST see President Obama’s original birth certificate, you should know that Hawaii law allows a person with a court order to get a copy of the original. Just go to your friendly neighborhood judge and get a court order (a subpoena is NOT a court order) and you will be able to get a copy of Barack Obama’s original birth certificate. Isn’t it strange that in the four years since President Obama first announced that he was running for president, no one has gone to a judge and got a judge to issue a court order?

  76. marshman508 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:16 pm  (Quote)

    @ jamese777 I dont think just anyone can get a copy of it.

  77. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:19 pm  (Quote)

    That is why I say there is a FUNDAMENTAL difference in our view of the purpose of government. In my view, government has no responsibility or business in being in health care. People can take care of themselves. It is no ones responsibility to “provide everybody in the US with care”. That is why we hear comments like this from you all and think “my God there trying to take over the country with communism where the government provides everything!!” We have the best healthcare in the world through free market principles. Noone in there right mind wants to follow the way of Britain and Canada in healthcare … but liberals do.

    Scientist: I have never seen the dichotomy between people and the government (which consists of people).If “people” want to solve a problem, they should do it.Take health care.The US has by far the most expensive health care system in the world and despite spending almost twice the % of GDP of any other country still leaves a huge chunk of the population uncovered.

    Where is the private organization or company that is willing to contract to provide everybody in the US with care for the 10% of GDP that every other country spends, rather than the 17% that the US spends?If some private entity would step up to the plate, I would happily let them do it and i will bet that Obama would too.Who wants the headaches oof Medicare and Medicaid?Why don’t you start such a group and come up with a plan and put the government out of business???

  78. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:24 pm  (Quote)

    The “holy book” that taxes should never go up is a philosophy–you either want to grow government bigger for more control, or you think government should be/do less. Every time government raises taxes is an admission that either government got less efficient or more control … or most likely both. One issue that we should all be able to agree on is that a Fair Tax would fix most of the ills in our tax code … that is not a liberal nor a conservative issue. It would take away ALL of the loopholes and special interest. So let’s all agree to vote for Herman Cain 🙂 Plus they found his rocking gospel album in the news today.

    Scientist: Reagan would be drummed out of today’s Republican party.He raised taxes several times after realizing that his original cuts produced insufficient revenues.Today’s Republicans believe thata default, a possible worldwide Depression and giving absolute fiscal power to the President and Treasury Secretary is preferable to even a penny in tax increases.

    I am looking for the holy book that says taxes can never, ever go up, no matter whatthe circumstances and how bleak the alternatives, but I can’t find it.

  79. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:30 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle- Let’s take your points one at a time:

    1. There are reasonable arguments on both sides regarding Libya. Congress has the power to vote $0 for the operation and then Obama would have to stop. They would rather complain than do that, so they don’t get much credibility.

    2. The EPA has NOT, repeat NOT, put in cap-and-trade for CO2 though they have had a cap-and-trade for sulphur in place for more than 20 years that no one objects to. The Supreme Court ruled that EPA has a duty to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act. How they will do so remains to be seen. Congress could write laws regarding this if they chose to. Again, they would rather complain than act.

    3. BP agreed to compensate the Gulf residents. Do you think they shouldn’t? You ought to check out BP’s record overall-the Houston refinery explosion, the Alaska pipeline. Shameful. The appropriate questtion is why the entire management isn’t being criminally prosecuted.

    4. As I’m sure you know, the health care mandate is before the courts. One appeals court has ruled it unconstiitutional and one (two?) has ruled it constitutional. The Supreme Court will have its say. You are completely incorrect that this is a presidential action,though. It’s a law passed by Congress.

    5. The Presdient is just as entitled to his opinion of the constitutionality of DOMA as you or anyone else is. Do you think he is obliged to defend a law he believes violates the Constitution? I don’t.

    6. Czars have been around since at least Reagan. Can you show me specific actions they have taken that violate the law? The auto resuce saved a couple of million jobs and has made a profit for the Treasury; not a bad deal (and it was started by Bush).

    I’m glad I could hellp you with these issues…

  80. jamese777 says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:35 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    @Obsolete Obama should give permission to Hawaii to have the courts look at it. He is not bringing America together ,he is doing the opposite.

    Concerns about the President’s birthplace or birth certifiate do not show up in the top fifteen issues that Americans are concerned about at the preseent time..
    Only a fringe group of people care about this issue at all. It is not the President’s job to “bring America together.” We have a two party political system (with third parties and independents in the mix) for a reason, to see which political philosophy will prevail in the marketplace of ideas.
    The President is well aware of the fact that no one who is concerned about his place of birth would be voting for him in 2012 anyway, so he’s done all he’s going to do on this issue. He released a copy of his COLB in 2008 and he released a copy of his long form in 2011. That’s it.
    If that isn’t enough transparency for you, vote against him in 2012. Don’t you ever wonder why Congress has held ZERO hearings on the President’s eligiblity? Don’t you ever wonder why the president has prevailed in more than 100 different lawsuits challenging his eligiblity?

  81. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:44 pm  (Quote)

    I find it funny that tea party folks are up in arms over “czars” calling them more proof of evil commie influence. To equate “czar” and “communist” shows that history was generally not the tea partiers best subject at school.
    (Why was it OK for Reagan and both Bushs’ to have czars?)

  82. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:46 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: We have the best healthcare in the world through free market principles.

    That is simply not true. Stop with platitudes-the facts say otherwise. And by the way i have lived in both Canada and France and received heallth care in both places. Your statement is simply nonsense.

    joyeagle: People can take care of themselves

    Show me how a 75 year old diabetic can “take care of themselves”. Who will insure them at any price they could possiibly pay? You may be a nice enough fellow, but you haven’t a clue about the real world in all honesty. Not a clue…

    joyeagle: The “holy book” that taxes should never go up is a philosophy–you either want to grow government bigger for more control, or you think government should be/do less.

    How about this-I don’t care what size governmment is, I want problems to be faced and dealt wiith. If the private sector wants to step up to the plate and deal with them, super! If corporations hadn’t dumped toxins into the air and water there would have been no need for laws and regulations.. They could have cleaned up their act without the government, but they didn’t.

    joyeagle: One issue that we should all be able to agree on is that a Fair Tax would fix most of the ills in our tax code … that is not a liberal nor a conservative issue. It would take away ALL of the loopholes and special interest. So let’s all agree to vote for Herman Cain

    My understanding of the Fair Tax is it is a VAT. I will agree the US probably needs a VAT, but to replace the income tax it would have to be at least 35%. Imagine the price of everything going up 35%. I would support a modest VAT (like 10%) to replace the payroll tax, let’s say, but there is no way a 35% VAT is happening annd no way it will replace the income tax. I am for a fair tax reform that removes preferences (and I benefit greatly from many preferences so I say that agaiinst my own self-interest).

    As for Herman Cain, his “pizza” is truly the worst, nausea-inducing, awful pizza in the enntire Universe, so my only reaction to him is stomach cramps.

  83. Obsolete says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:47 pm  (Quote)

    Btw- BP was happy to agree to the “shakedown” as it gave them some much needed good publicity in a sea of bad.

    Why does the Tea Party always seem to side with the corporations and the rich over the common man?

  84. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:47 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: 6. Czars have been around since at least Reagan. Can you show me specific actions they have taken that violate the law? The auto resuce saved a couple of million jobs and has made a profit for the Treasury; not a bad deal (and it was started by Bush).

    U.S. executive branch czars – The earliest known use of the term for a U.S. government official was in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt (11 with czar title).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars

  85. dunstvangeet says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    The “holy book” that taxes should never go up is a philosophy–you either want to grow government bigger for more control, or you think government should be/do less.Every time government raises taxes is an admission that either government got less efficient or more control … or most likely both.One issue that we should all be able to agree on is that a Fair Tax would fix most of the ills in our tax code … that is not a liberal nor a conservative issue.It would take away ALL of the loopholes and special interest.So let’s all agree to vote for Herman Cain Plus they found his rocking gospel album in the news today.

    Or it’s an admission that things cost more than they do, or that more people are being served by the program, or that revenues have dropped off due to a recession, or anything else. You cannot just say that it’s government wanting more control. Imagine a system that serves the poor. If more people are poor, would you agree that more money would be needed to serve those people? Would you also agree that if more people are poor, than the

    As far as the “fair tax”. That tax is nowhere near “fair”. It is a consumption tax, which is a very regressive tax. It’s a way for the Rich to put the tax burden on the poor. For instance, take Washington State, which relies solely upon a consuption tax to fund it’s government. The poorest 20% pay on average about 18% of their income in state and local taxes. The richest 1% pay about 3% of their income.

  86. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm  (Quote)

    Obsolete: (Why was it OK for Reagan and both Bushs’ to have czars?)

    And Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Clinton.

  87. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 8:58 pm  (Quote)

    we are quite a bit off-topic now … the good Dr doesn’t mind, does he? I embedded my responses–hope it isn’t confusing if anyone else is looking in.

    Scientist:
    joyeagle- Let’s take your points one at a time:

    1. There are reasonable arguments on both sides regarding Libya.Congress has the power to vote $0 for the operation and then Obama would have to stop.They would rather complain than do that, so they don’t get much credibility.

    I agree–congress is a bunch of wimps … but the point is Obama is extending his powers beyond ever exercised in the past.

    2. The EPA has NOT, repeat NOT, put in cap-and-trade for CO2 though they have had a cap-and-trade for sulphur in place for more than 20 years that no one objects to.The Supreme Court ruled that EPA has a duty to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act.How they will do so remains to be seen.Congress could write laws regarding this if they chose to.Again, they would rather complain than act.

    I agree … congress is a bunch of wimps in this (although that may be due to the fact that Obama owns one house and with his Veto power nothing will get past his desk). The point being, the president in his branch plans to extend his power without congressional oversite with no concern for the american economy/jobs.

    3. BP agreed to compensate the Gulf residents.Do you think they shouldn’t?You ought to check out BP’s record overall-the Houston refinery explosion, the Alaska pipeline.Shameful.The appropriate questtion is why the entire management isn’t being criminally prosecuted.

    Regardless of BP culpability, the point being is the approach of the president to unilaterally step in and mandate how much money BP must set aside rings of dictatorial powers vice constitutional government–it is an attitude thing.

    4. As I’m sure you know, the health care mandate is before the courts.One appeals courthas ruled it unconstiitutional and one (two?) has ruled it constitutional.The Supreme Court will have its say.You are completely incorrect that this is a presidential action,though.It’s a law passed by Congress.

    I am aware of the court cases, and you are right in that I went off-topic on this measure … because it wasn’t unilateral presidential power extension like I was suggesting for the rest–just a measure of him and his party when they had full control of government–so I chalk this one up to a point for you 🙂

    5. The Presdient is just as entitled to his opinion of the constitutionality of DOMA as you or anyone else is.Do you think he is obliged to defend a law hebelieves violates the Constitution?I don’t.

    So the president/executive branch no longer needs to enforce public law if the president personally disagrees. If president Bush disagreed with higher taxes he should have pulled the IRS off of audits? If he disagreed with abortion, he should have pulled DOJ off of prosecuting those who killed abortion doctors? If the next president (obviously will be a republican) disagrees with Obamneycare, he can eliminate enforcement of it unilaterally without court rulings or congressional changes. How about if a pacifist like Kucinich became president, he could unilaterally stop paying soldiers? The execute branch enforces federal law, not interprets. Sure it is fine for him to have an opinion … but to direct DOJ to ignore the law is extending the measure of power of his office never seen before.

    6. Czars have been around since at least Reagan. Can youshow me specific actions they have taken that violate the law?The auto resuce saved a couple of million jobs and has made a profit for the Treasury; not a bad deal (and it was started by Bush).

    Sure, Reagan had a Drug Czar as did H.W. … both confirmed by the Senate. Not only has Obama expanded Czars exponentially, none of his have gone through Senate confirmation and the issue isn’t, as he claims, whether he can appoint advisers to give him advice, rather it is whether these czar advisers exercise improper authority over Senate-confirmed cabinet officials and other members of the administration, who are duly authorized under the Constitution to execute the laws passed by Congress. The Congress did act to restrict this in the most recent budget negotiations that passed for this fiscal year … and then Obama said basically–yeh I know you passed that and I signed it into law–but I’m ignoring that part. Extending power beyond given.

    I’m glad I could hellp you with these issues…

    So, if I am honest and not using political hyperbole (difficult for any of us) he is not within 3 steps of turning our nation into his dictatorship … ok … but it is the path that is troubling.

  88. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:08 pm  (Quote)

    I think we should get the government out of the helping the poor business–they rather enslave them. If the government took less money from the taxpayer, society would take care of their poor–and do more to get them on their feet again. But, as most of the founders suggested, our form of government relies on a moral people.
    A fair percentage is a fair percentage. That IS fair. Don’t penalize the wealth producers because they are successful .. that is socialism/communism … hyperbole … that is the road to socialism/communism.

    dunstvangeet: Or it’s an admission that things cost more than they do, or that more people are being served by the program, or that revenues have dropped off due to a recession, or anything else.You cannot just say that it’s government wanting more control.Imagine a system that serves the poor.If more people are poor, would you agree that more money would be needed to serve those people?Would you also agree that if more people are poor, than the

    As far as the “fair tax”.That tax is nowhere near “fair”.It is a consumption tax, which is a very regressive tax.It’s a way for the Rich to put the tax burden on the poor.For instance, take Washington State, which relies solely upon a consuption tax to fund it’s government.The poorest 20% pay on average about 18% of their income in state and local taxes.The richest 1% pay about 3% of their income.

  89. J.Potter says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:12 pm  (Quote)

    As an extreme example of “Fair” Tax fantasy, see this statement from a potential independent candidate (which i discovered via a link on WND):

    http://therothshow.com/2011/07/is-this-the-time-for-a-real-independent-to-run-for-president/#more-1735

    She proposes a 2% “consumption tax” (sales tax / VAT) to replace all other taxes (including property taxes–what the fed govt have to do with those?!?) and states such a tax would raise $10-20 trillion!!! Like to see those numbers … she is saying consumer’s spend $500 trillion to $1 quadrillion annually. Someone must be buying a whole lot more groceries than I do. The 100% range in her estimate is also odd. According to the World Bank, the World’s GDP for 2009 was $58.26 trillion. So, so long as we’re buying the entire world 17 times over each year, we’ll be in the money with a 2% VAT.

    Goes to show there’s a lot of bad info out there.

    This would be the most regressive tax possible … well, short of taking our current income tax, dropping all the credits and exemptions and flipping the rates and doubling them, so the first dollar you earn is taxed at 70%. If you think welfare undermines work ethic, let’s see how the Regressive Tax plays out ;-P

  90. gorefan says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:13 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Exceeding his authority in unilaterally deciding a previously passed law is unconstitutional, and no longer enforcing the law (DOMA).

    This is not new.

    “George H.W. Bush administration, the Justice Department refused to defend a federal law providing affirmative action in the awarding of broadcasting licenses — a law subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court by a narrow 5-4 vote.”

    http://www.npr.org/2011/03/01/134132526/u-s-defends-doma-despite-dropping-support

  91. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:14 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Not only has Obama expanded Czars exponentially, none of his have gone through Senate confirmation

    That’s not true. G.W. first expanded czars “exponentially” (to borrow your hyperbole) and did you not bother to look at the link I provided?

    It lists the czars appointed and Senate confirmed including the positions confirmed by the Senate for President Obama (e.g., weapons czar, technology czar, chief technology czar, science czar, regulatory czar).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars

    Would WND ever publish an honest list like that?

  92. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:20 pm  (Quote)

    I think we can discuss actual issues now because birtherism is dead…

    1. Look, I think Congress should declare wars like they used to do. That hasn’t happened in at least 50 years. Every President in that time has taken military actions without Congress and sometiimes against the will of Congress. There is nothing new in what Obama has done that Reagan didn’t do in Grenada or Bush I in Panama or Clinton in Kosovo. I must have missed your complaints then (well, you probably complained about Clinton..)

    2. Did you miss the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts vs EPA? They said that greenhouse gases fall under the Clean Air Act. That means that EPA MUST come up with a way to regulate them unlless Congress passes a law otherwise. You are wrong, wrong, wrong on this.

    3. The President didn’t mandate anything. He told BP what he expected and they agreed. They could have gone to coourt. Why didn’t they? Because they knew they didn’t have a leg to stand on.

    4. Yes, you were wrong on that. It’s a law passed by Congress.

    5. Your analogies are faulty. The DOMA issue involves private lawsuits challenging the law. Just as prosecutors have discretion in which cases they prosecute, the Attorney General has discretion in how to proceed in lawsuits agaiinst the government. Government attorneys (unlike private attorneys) are constrained to seek justice, not just to fight every case that comes their way. Prosecutors sometimes drop charges in the interests of justice. Attorneys General sometimes decline to defend unjust laws. This happens at the state level too by the way.

    6. i honestly don’t get your point…

  93. gorefan says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:22 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Exceeding constitutional authority in Mandating health insurance on citizens.

    Did you know the first mandate for health care was signed into law by President John Adams.

    “In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.”

    http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

  94. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:25 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Don’t penalize the wealth producers because they are successful

    The wealth producers benefit from the strength of the society in which they live. If Herman Cain thinks otherwise, perhaps he would like to take his lousy pizza to Somalia and see how he does there.

    The bottom line is that in order for the rich to be rich, there has to be a strong middle class.

    .

  95. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:27 pm  (Quote)

    That is simply not true. Stop with platitudes-the facts say otherwise. And by the way i have lived in both Canada and France and received heallth care in both places. Your statement is simply nonsense.
    JOYEAGLE : My wife and I and family have been treated in Japan and Belgium. People do travel to our country for the best care. We probably have different definitions of “best care” … yours is most people covered under insurance/govt? Mine is the best treatment available.

    Show me how a 75 year old diabetic can “take care of themselves”. Who will insure them at any price they could possiibly pay? You may be a nice enough fellow, but you haven’t a clue about the real world in all honesty. Not a clue…
    JOYEAGLE: OK … maybe I’m clueless … maybe I have a different view of government and self-reliance. A 75 year old doesn’t wait until he is 75 years old to either get insurance, save for retirement funds, or get a network of friends and family to support him. Who needs society and relationship and planning, and productive people if the government is going to cover every need from birth to death. Your society becomes productive like the soviet union was.

    How about this-I don’t care what size governmment is, I want problems to be faced and dealt wiith. If the private sector wants to step up to the plate and deal with them, super! If corporations hadn’t dumped toxins into the air and water there would have been no need for laws and regulations.. They could have cleaned up their act without the government, but they didn’t.

    JOYEAGLE: Sounds like a disney movie … business is evil, humans are evil, hunters are evil … sure there is morsels and anecdotes of truth in all of them.

    My understanding of the Fair Tax is it is a VAT. I will agree the US probably needs a VAT, but to replace the income tax it would have to be at least 35%. Imagine the price of everything going up 35%. I would support a modest VAT (like 10%) to replace the payroll tax, let’s say, but there is no way a 35% VAT is happening annd no way it will replace the income tax. I am for a fair tax reform that removes preferences (and I benefit greatly from many preferences so I say that agaiinst my own self-interest).

    I don’t think the proponents of the FAIR tax would describe it as a value added tax, but I am not a tax expert/economist. But common sense says you take the special interest out of it and you lose most of the power-play politicking that goes on both sides of the aisle. And the fair tax has proponents on both sides of the aisle. They, by the way suggest 23% is sufficient I believe–but may be based on what govt is responsible for and not, and particular savings obtained through less govt oversite needed.

    As for Herman Cain, his “pizza” is truly the worst, nausea-inducing, awful pizza in the enntire Universe, so my only reaction to him is stomach cramps.
    JOYEAGLE: Can’t say I’ve ever been a big fan of Godfather’s pizza, of course he rescued some BK franchises and led the National Restaurant Workers assoc, was on the KC Reserve board and several other successes in life besides Godfathers–not to mention his Gospel album that was discovered today … but I’m guessing I won’t win you over to a Herman Cain vote anytime soon. By the way, since there is no one running primaries on Demo side, do you vote in a state with open primaries where you can vote in the R side and will you? There was a time a few weeks ago when I was still birther that I thought Obama wouldn’t last and Hillary would be representing your side by 2012.

  96. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:29 pm  (Quote)

    No … very interesting. I will read those links shortly. Thanks

    gorefan: Did you know the first mandate for health care was signed into law by President John Adams.

    “In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.”

    http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

  97. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:38 pm  (Quote)

    I moved a number of comments from the Grief Cycle article here to the open thread. Generally discussion of Obama policies and how good a job the President is doing are off topic for this web site. It’s a huge topic and could easily overwhelm what the site is here to discuss.

    I will just comment that a lot of how birthers view the world is based on bad information. You hear birthers parrot long-disproved rumors as if they were consensus views. What folks should realize is that similar talking points about other political issues also form the basis for political views, and in particular how well Obama is or is not doing as President.

    Every political claim should be subject to the same level of scrutiny that we give layers in the birth certificate PDF. We are fortunate to have some organizations that do a good job checking these claims, such as FactCheck.org.

  98. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:43 pm  (Quote)

    OK … I think in philosophy we agree on point 1 … whew. But to further distinguish, I think none of the others, to include President Clinton, exceeded the 60/90 day window without congressional approval. I think W. was wrong for going into either Afghan or Iraq without a declaration of war from Congress … that would have assured public support. The framers were smart beyond their years on this point.

    OK … out of ignorance on point 2 I secede that to you.

    OK … on point 3 I am not arguing legal as much as attitude … depends on perception.

    OK … I think someone else in this forum gave a concrete example on point 5 for you. I am getting tired tonight.

    OK … point 6 is probably just talking points from Hannity and Huckabee … I am not well versed enough in that to argue anymore. I am going to sleep.

    Thank you all who indulged my political rant for helping me sharpen my political, rhetorical and philosophic skills. I’ll keep at it later.

    Scientist:
    I think we can discuss actual issues now because birtherism is dead…

    1. Look, I think Congress should declare wars like they used to do.That hasn’t happened in at least 50 years.Every President in that time has taken military actions without Congress and sometiimes against the will of Congress.There is nothing new in what Obama has done that Reagan didn’t do in Grenada or Bush I in Panama or Clinton in Kosovo.I must have missed your complaints then (well, you probably complained about Clinton..)

    2. Did you miss the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts vs EPA?They saidthat greenhouse gases fall under the Clean Air Act.That means that EPA MUST come up with a way to regulate them unlless Congress passes a law otherwise.You are wrong, wrong, wrong on this.

    3. The President didn’t mandate anything.He told BP what heexpected andtheyagreed.They could have gone to coourt.Why didn’t they? Because they knew they didn’t have a leg to stand on.

    4. Yes, you were wrong on that.It’s a law passed by Congress.

    5. Your analogies are faulty.The DOMA issue involves private lawsuits challenging the law.Just as prosecutors have discretion in which cases they prosecute, the Attorney General has discretion in how to proceed in lawsuits agaiinst the government.Government attorneys (unlike private attorneys) are constrained to seekjustice, not just to fight every case that comes their way.Prosecutors sometimes drop charges in the interests of justice.Attorneys General sometimes decline to defend unjust laws.This happens atthe state level too by the way.

    6. i honestly don’t get your point…

  99. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:45 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: People do travel to our country for the best care. We probably have different definitions of “best care” … yours is most people covered under insurance/govt? Mine is the best treatment available.

    I have worked at some of the top hospitals in the US (ever heard of Johns Hopkins?) and worked with docs at those places and at comparable hospitals overseas. The “best” treatment depends on the particular disease and status of the patient-in some cases a particular US hospital might be the best, in other cases it might be one in Europe or Canada or Japan. Looking at life expectancy and a number off other markers, the US health care system doesn’t do all that well The one absolutely indisputable thing is it costs 50% more. Now, if you truly believe in freedom, we should all have a choice-we should be able to have the same quality of health care that those countries have at the same prices they pay. And, those who want to pay extra for “US health care”, if they truly think it’s better should be free to do so. Now that’s freedom!!!

    joyeagle: OK … maybe I’m clueless … maybe I have a different view of government and self-reliance. A 75 year old doesn’t wait until he is 75 years old to either get insurance, save for retirement funds, or get a network of friends and family to support him

    Most Americans get their insurance through their jobs. The insurance stops when they retire or have to quit because of poor health. If they try to get insurance on their own, no one cares that they had insurance all those years. The insurance companies only care that they are old and sick. Savings? Wiped out the first time in hospital. Family and friends? Wonderful, but can they do a heart bypass?

    Now if you want to talk about the wonderful world of Disney, you are in it, my friend.

  100. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:53 pm  (Quote)

    OK … thanks for letting us take the ride tonight. Lots of fun and learning along the way.

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    I moved a number of comments from the Grief Cycle article here to the open thread. Generally discussion of Obama policies and how good a job the President is doing are off topic for this web site. It’s a huge topic and could easily overwhelm what the site is here to discuss.

    I will just comment that a lot of how birthers view the world is based on bad information. You hear birthers parrot long-disproved rumors as if they were consensus views. What folks should realize is that similar talking points about other political issues also form the basis for political views, and in particular how well Obama is or is not doing as President.

    Every political claim should be subject to the same level of scrutiny that we give layers in the birth certificate PDF. We are fortunate to have some organizations that do a good job checking these claims, such as FactCheck.org.

  101. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:55 pm  (Quote)

    Points well taken. I just wanted to say, if the disney came off as personal, I apologize. I don’t doubt your intelligence or sincerity. And, in fact, am honored that you indulged me in this discussion/debate.

    Scientist: I have worked at some of the top hospitals in the US (ever heard of Johns Hopkins?) and worked with docs at those places and at comparable hospitals overseas.The “best” treatment depends on the particular disease and statusof the patient-in some cases a particular US hospital might be the best, in other cases it might be one in Europe or Canada or Japan.Looking at life epectancy and a number off othher markers, the US health care system doesn”t do all that well The one absolutely indiputiible thing is it costs 50% more.Now, if you truly believe in freedom, we should all have achoice-we should be able to have the same quality of health care that those countries have at the same prices they pay.And, those who want to pay extra for “US health care”, if theytruly think it’s better should be free to do so.Now that’s freedom!!!

    Most Americans get their insurance through their jobs.The insurance stops when they retire or have to quit because of poor health.If they try to get insurance on their own, no one cares that they had insurance all those years. The insurrance coommpaniiesonly care that they are old and sick.Savings?Wiped out the first time in hospital.Family and friends?Wonderful, but can they do a heart bypass?

    Now if you want to talk about the wonderful world of Disney, you are in it, my friend.

  102. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:57 pm  (Quote)

    I read about her today … the percentages didn’t make sense to me either … I was tempted to believe it like I was tempted (and gave in) to the birther conspiracy … but I knew better 🙂

    J.Potter:
    As an extreme example of “Fair” Tax fantasy, see this statement from a potential independent candidate (which i discovered via a link on WND):

    http://therothshow.com/2011/07/is-this-the-time-for-a-real-independent-to-run-for-president/#more-1735

    She proposes a 2% “consumption tax” (sales tax / VAT) to replace all other taxes (including property taxes–what the fed govt have to do with those?!?) and states such a tax would raise $10-20 trillion!!! Like to see those numbers … she is saying consumer’s spend $500 trillion to $1 quadrillion annually. Someone must be buying a whole lot more groceries than I do. The 100% range in her estimate is also odd. According to the World Bank, the World’s GDP for 2009 was $58.26 trillion. So, so long as we’re buying the entire world 17 times over each year, we’ll be in the money with a 2% VAT.

    Goes to show there’s a lot of bad info out there.

    This would be the most regressive tax possible … well, short of taking our current income tax, dropping all the credits and exemptions and flipping the rates and doubling them, so the first dollar you earn is taxed at 70%. If you think welfare undermines work ethic, let’s see how the Regressive Tax plays out ;-P

  103. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 9:59 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: OK … I think in philosophy we agree on point 1

    It’s a miracle!!! Yes, i am not totally comfortable with the premises of the Libyan thing. After all, Assad is just as bad as Ghaddafi by any reasonable standard, so why not Syria too?

    However, my understanding is that the US combat role is largely over and the Europeans are flying the actual missions these days, so the legalitiies are unclear..

    Anyway, good night..

  104. Nathanael says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:00 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    @nathYou dont have to be a wise*** about it. I am new to this site. There is a lot of stuff in archive. To all you haters on this blog, you should work with the birthers and educate them not insult them. Some of you should be put in moderation!!

    Wow, two in the same week. Doc, that’s gotta be some kinda record.

    Marshman: Unfortunately, the vast majority of birthers are drive-bys — they show up, spew their arguments — all the standard ones like you did — then disappear into the digital ether without bothering to wait for answers. Nearly all the rest — those who come back — prove impossible to reason with. Unfortunately, it leads those of us here to become a bit jaded.

    The fact that you are even bothering to click on the links makes you almost an anomaly amongst birthers. That you then go further and actually interact with the arguments — we haven’t seen a birther like that since … well, since joyeagle showed up last week. And before her, perhaps never.

    Therefore, if you are truly interested in answers, I congratulate you, welcome you to the site, and sincerely apologize for my snark.

  105. Scientist says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:06 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Points well taken. I just wanted to say, if the disney came off as personal, I apologize. I don’t doubt your intelligence or sincerity. And, in fact, am honored that you indulged me in this discussion/debate.

    Thank you. There is usually some truth on all sides (except birthers).

  106. Majority Will says:
    July 12, 2011 at 10:26 pm  (Quote)

    marshman508:
    @nathYou dont have to be a wise*** about it. I am new to this site. There is a lot of stuff in archive. To all you haters on this blog, you should work with the birthers and educate them not insult them. Some of you should be put in moderation!!

    Golly gee.

    It might be a little difficult to take someone seriously who came here slinging insults at the regulars and then continued trolling determined to start a flame war:

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 5:07 pm #
    OBAMA IS A FRAUD!!! HE WILL BE IMPEACHED!!

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 5:29 pm #
    @RICHCARES– ALL OBAMA DOES IS CREATE MORE TAKERS THAN MAKERS!! PEOPLE ON THIS SITE MUST BE GETTING ALL KINDS OF FREE STUFF FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 5:47 pm #
    PEOPLE ON THIS SITE MUST HATE THE FACT THAT IT SAYS HIS FARTHER WAS FROM KENYA. THAT MEANS BAMBI CAN NOT BE PRESIDENT. NOT IN 2012 ANYWAY.

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 6:18 pm #
    RICH– LEARN HOW TO SPELL!!

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 6:48 pm #
    You guys are all libs. All you do is name call. Obama is a empty suit and you guys know it. I think he will loose in the next election.I think you may be brainwashed about the truth!! At least my posts have no name calling.

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 7:05 pm #
    Know that i got you guys fuming, have a good day!!!

    Brilliant.

    And by the way, since you might be also new to the intarwebs, all caps is considered yelling.

  107. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:23 pm  (Quote)

    Which is, of course, why the Marshwiggle is in moderation. It has a calming effect on trolls.

    Majority Will: Golly gee.

    It might be a little difficult to take someone seriously who came here slinging insults at the regulars and then continued trolling determined to start a flame war:
    …

    marshman508 June 26, 2011 at 7:05 pm #
    Know that i got you guys fuming, have a good day!!!

  108. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:26 pm  (Quote)

    Remind me never to use the word “donut” in an article again.

  109. dunstvangeet says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:51 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    I think we should get the government out of the helping the poor business–they rather enslave them.If the government took less money from the taxpayer, society would take care of their poor–and do more to get them on their feet again.But, as most of the founders suggested, our form of government relies on a moral people.
    A fair percentage is a fair percentage.That IS fair.Don’t penalize the wealth producers because they are successful .. that is socialism/communism … hyperbole … that is the road to socialism/communism.

    That’s actually false. As incomes go up, charitable giving actually goes down as a relation to income. Furthermore, there is no evidence that charity, by and whole, was taking care of these things before the government actually stepped in. For instance, with Social Security, the elderly poverty rate plummeted. There is no great evidence that charity was taking care of the poor with health care in any significant market. Usually, they’re overwhelmed by that.

    When the United States gets upto 10% of their income into charity, I might actually believe you. However, right now, they’re only about at 2-3%. And there is absolutely no evidence that getting rid of social services will mean that people will give more to charity in order for charity to pick up those social services.

  110. joyeagle says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:54 pm  (Quote)

    OK … now that has got to be the most interesting link I have read in a long, long time. Thanks for sharing it.

    gorefan: Did you know the first mandate for health care was signed into law by President John Adams.

    “In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.”

    http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/01/17/congress-passes-socialized-medicine-and-mandates-health-insurance-in-1798/

    joyeagle:
    No … very interesting.I will read those links shortly.Thanks

  111. Nathanael says:
    July 12, 2011 at 11:54 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    We have the best healthcare in the world through free market principles.

    (Free market? Are medicare and medicaid free market?)

    Is there a polite way to say BS? As Scientist has already pointed out, by no objective metric is US healthcare the best in the world. The US has consistently trailed other countries (including those with “socialized healthcare”) in nearly every category but one: cost. US health care is amongst the most expensive. Thank the “free market” for that.

    My personal definition of the “best” healthcare includes accessibility. How can any healthcare I can’t access possibly be the “best” for my family?

    I am an American who has spent half my post-college years living outside the US. In every country I have lived in save one — my own — I have had low-cost access to health care, provided through government mandate. As a husband and father whose chief responsibility is the welfare of my family, it would be utterly irresponsible of me to relocate my family to any place where adequate health care is either unavailable, unaffordable, or tied to the tenuosity of gainful employment. Where my family’s welfare is at stake, I’ll take “adequate but accessible” over “best but unaffordable” any day of the week.

    Some eight years ago, on a visit to the US, my wife developed floaters in one eye, necessitating a visit to an ophthalmologist. A single office visit cost us $150, plus $75 for the eye drops he prescribed. That same $225 would have bought me seventy five hospital or doctor visits where I’m living now.

    joyeagle:
    People can take care of themselves.

    Health costs are amongst the leading causes of personal bankruptcy in the US. Tens of millions of Americans are un- or under-insured, and sans insurance only the very rich can afford American healthcare. How do you propose those tens of millions of Americans “take care of themselves”?

    joyeagle:
    Noone in there right mind wants to follow the way of Britain and Canada in healthcare … but liberals do.

    I am no liberal. But I’d choose Canada or GB over the US in a hearbeat, precisely because of healthcare. Even in “communist” China my family had health coverage, thanks to government mandate. I would never endanger my family’s health by living in the US.

    I jumped into this conversation because there are two reasons I will not consider moving back to the States. Healthcare is one of them. Where my family is concerned, I will just not take that risk.

  112. gorefan says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:04 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: OK … now that has got to be the most interesting link I have read in a long, long time. Thanks for sharing it.

    I don’t know if anyone answered your previous question, but yes Jindal and Rubio are natural born citizens for Constitutional purposes.

  113. misha says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:59 am  (Quote)

    Scientist: Assad is just as bad as Ghaddafi by any reasonable standard, so why not Syria too?

    No oil.

  114. J. Potter says:
    July 13, 2011 at 2:26 am  (Quote)

    Would make a nice land bridge between Iraq and Israel. Completing a potential “toll zone” bisecting the “crossroads of the world”. We could go all imperialist and hold a ton of pipelines hostage. *cough*

    misha: No oil.

  115. J. Potter says:
    July 13, 2011 at 2:30 am  (Quote)

    Awesome link, Gorefan! And what a beautiful bill, barely more than a single typed page!

    Even Herman Cain can get behind it! 😉

    gorefan: Did you know the first mandate for health care was signed into law by President John Adams.

    “In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed – “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.”

  116. Keith says:
    July 13, 2011 at 8:06 am  (Quote)

    Rickey: Have you demanded that Herman Cain show his birth certificate and the birth certificates of his parents? If not, why not?

    Are you aware of the fact that we have had Presidents whose parents were not born in the U.S.?

    Who gives a sh*t about his parents? Its the grandparents that are the critical issue here. If they weren’t born in America, then Cain is ineligible. And by God, we had better not find out they were slaves. Or black. Or… oh wait a minute…

  117. Keith says:
    July 13, 2011 at 8:20 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: We have the best healthcare in the world through free market principles.

    No, actually we don’t. You need to make a very very narrow definition of ‘best healthcare’ in order to even pretend believe that statement. Your assertion is fundamentally wrong from top to bottom.

    Thinking of health care as a market is a fundamentally flawed point of view (IMHO).

  118. Scientist says:
    July 13, 2011 at 8:20 am  (Quote)

    Nathanael: Very interesting comments. Where have you lived besides China? You are of course correct that access is a sine qua non of a good health care system, without which all the “quality” in the world is useless.

    Now for the morning rant: All the “big government vs small government” talk is a false dichotomy. The reality driving all of this, not just in the US, but in most of the world, is demographic. As the population ages, that means more people drawing retirement benefits and using the health care system. If the number of Social Security recipients goes from 40 million to 80 million, the amount of money spent will double. But, that isn’t “bigger government”; Social Security isn’t doing more, it just has more recipients due to the inexorable laws of demographics. This is the reality of the next 30 years as the mouse of the baby boom works its way down the snake, Europe and Japan are a few years ahead of the US and Canada and China is few years behind (and may be the worst-off of all, due to the one child policy).

    There are only two solutions I can see that don’t leave seniors starving in the streets or cause a global debt collapse:

    1. We all suck it up and accept higher taxes. The continued Republican mantra that cutting taxes will shrink government despite the laws of demographics hasn’t worked in 30 years. Holding to it brings to mind the words of Einstein that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. Obama is somewhat more sensible, but even he isn’t totally realistic when he says that only the rich will have to pay more. The fact is that everyone will have to pay more, whether through a VAT or the income tax or both. Eventually, the mouse will pass through the snake and then tax cuts can be back on the table. Do I like higher taxes? Hell, no! But, I don’t like getting older and dying either, though they will happen regardless of my preferences.

    2. Allow much higher levels of legal immigration, bringing in young people who will work to support seniors. Australia has 22% foreign born and Canada has 19% and both are fiscally in much better shape than the US (which has only 11%). The argument that immigrants drive down wages is poppycock-based on the assumption that the number of jobs is somehow fixed. Those immigrants consume goods and services just like the native born and someone has to supply those. They also buy houses-imagine what that might do for depressed US housing markets. Legal immigrants don’t compete unfairly-they have the same rights as US citizens and pay taxes on every cent they earn.

    So, Mr (or Ms) joyeagle, deny the realities all you want, but that doesn’t change them. And for our birther friends, none of these realities changes in the slightest depending on where a President was born of who his/her parents were. Nor does chanting “Constitution, Founding Fathers, rah, rah, rah!”

  119. Keith says:
    July 13, 2011 at 8:23 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Every time government raises taxes is an admission that either government got less efficient or more control … or most likely both.

    So there is not such thing as filling a market need that is not being met by the ‘free’ market? Or creating a market that that private investment has no appetite for? Or responding to inflation for ‘basic’ service provision?

  120. Keith says:
    July 13, 2011 at 8:41 am  (Quote)

    Scientist: My understanding of the Fair Tax is it is a VAT. I will agree the US probably needs a VAT, but to replace the income tax it would have to be at least 35%. Imagine the price of everything going up 35%. I would support a modest VAT (like 10%) to replace the payroll tax, let’s say, but there is no way a 35% VAT is happening annd no way it will replace the income tax. I am for a fair tax reform that removes preferences (and I benefit greatly from many preferences so I say that agaiinst my own self-interest).

    The problem is that everyone is for a fair tax. But “Fair Tax” is a loaded code word for something that is, on the face of it NOT fair. As you say is seems to be a form of VAT, but VAT is inherently unfair. 10% of a $100 shopping basket is significant to someone on $15,000 a year, but unnoticed to someone on $150,000 a year.

    And you suggest VAT could replace the payroll tax. Maybe so. The Australian version (called GST) was supposed to do just that, and transaction stamp duty, and two or three taxes as well. It didn’t. So is it going to replace State and local Sales Tax as well? Is the “Fair Tax” a conspiracy to further bankrupt the States?

    I am continually amazed at the cheek of the libertarian mind that says that the Feds have not reason to be in this service or that service because the States should be doing it, but then further kneecap the States ability to provide any service at all.

    The obvious case in point is Education. We know that the Libertarian’s poster boy doesn’t want the feds to have any thing to do with education in any way shape or form, including setting national standards (which is basically all the DoE does) so that peoples education is actually consistent throughout the country. But at the same time there has been a 30 year campaign to destroy the education system at the State level, which has to a greater or lesser degree succeeded. California and Arizona’s (and many other State’s) once world standard systems are now basket cases thanks directly to this insidious campaign.

  121. Bovril says:
    July 13, 2011 at 8:43 am  (Quote)

    I love it when folks talk of how the “free market” is some good and wonderful thing.

    The actuality is that the “free market” is a mythical and fictional beast as it is populated by meat entities, each with their own sets of principles, ethics (or lack thereof), morals (or lack thereof), needs, wants and desires etc.

    A truly free “free market” would be akin to the Amazonian jungle and be populated on a pure “Fight, Feck or Eat” basis with no regard to anything or anyone.

    True commercial free markets should be more akin to an English country garden with elements of manicured lawns, pockets of wildness, carefully cultivated and nurtured tender species, vigorous application of weeding and pruning only as required and a light but very observant overviewing eye. Something available to all at a manageable costs, sizeable to fit enyone and any budget.

    The US market, particularly in health care is more akin to a golf course in Nevada, false support, a monoculture of grass requiring the consumption of ever increasing scarce resources, available to only the few at ever increasing costs with the ruthless application of herbicides and artificial fertilizers to kill any possible vegetative interlopers.

  122. Keith says:
    July 13, 2011 at 9:00 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle:we are quite a bit off-topic now … the good Dr doesn’t mind, does he? I embedded my responses–hope it isn’t confusing if anyone else is looking in.

    You’re cool. This is an open thread. How can you get off-topic in an open thread?

    So the president/executive branch no longer needs to enforce public law if the president personally disagrees.

    Please refer to Richard Nixon who refused to enforce several laws through various means of passive resistance because he personally disagreed.

    In the case of DOMA however, it has nothing to do with whether or not the President personally disagrees with the law. He might very well agree with it. It is, however, on the face of it, patently unconstitutional, and any 8th grade social studies student can recognize it as such (perhaps that is why Libertarians hate education so much?). I refer you to Article IV Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America: to wit:

    Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

    Congress cannot abridge the right of one state to have its acts, including marrying people, given full faith and credit, it can only establish the standards by which those acts are proved to have been taken place.

    By refusing to enforce an obviously unconstitutional law, Obama is saving the States and the Government the trauma of years of litigation, divisive controversy, and millions of dollars.

  123. Keith says:
    July 13, 2011 at 9:11 am  (Quote)

    Majority Will: It lists the czars appointed and Senate confirmed including the positions confirmed by the Senate for President Obama (e.g., weapons czar, technology czar, chief technology czar, science czar, regulatory czar).

    I don’t see the “bl0w j0b czar” (Ken Starr, 94-99, or is he still on payroll? ) in that list.

  124. Majority Will says:
    July 13, 2011 at 9:31 am  (Quote)

    Keith: I don’t see the “bl0w j0b czar” (Ken Starr, 94-99, or is he still on payroll? ) in that list.

    Brenda Starr had more credibility.

  125. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 13, 2011 at 9:33 am  (Quote)

    I don’t see much difference between belief in the benevolent invisible hand of the free market and belief in the malevolent invisible hand of a group of powerful international financiers.

    Bovril: I love it when folks talk of how the “free market” is some good and wonderful thing.

  126. Majority Will says:
    July 13, 2011 at 9:35 am  (Quote)

    Keith: You’re cool. This is an open thread. How can you get off-topic in an open thread?

    Comments were shifted from another thread to here by Doc C. It was a legitimate question.

  127. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 13, 2011 at 9:50 am  (Quote)

    I should remind folks that in 1950, the year I was born, the marginal income tax rate on the top income bracket was 91%. Top bracket rates were 70% as recently as 1981. Under Ronald Reagan, rates were cut from 70% to 28% and the deficits skyrocketed.

    http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

    Scientist: The fact is that everyone will have to pay more, whether through a VAT or the income tax or both.

  128. joyeagle says:
    July 13, 2011 at 10:03 am  (Quote)

    Keith, thanks for your inputs. If you read from the top, the thread mostly between scientist and I started with a statement I made about the overreach of the executive branch under President Obama. He challenged that concept, and I gave 6 examples off the top of my head, and he worked to shoot each one down, point by point. So, DOMA was not the point, it was whether or not choosing not to enforce passed law was extending the power of the executive. Gorefan pointed out that GW acted likewise on a broadcasting law. DOMA on the merits–I agree with you and Ron Paul … leave it to the states.

    Keith: You’re cool. This is an open thread. How can you get off-topic in an open thread?

    Please refer to Richard Nixon who refused to enforce several laws through various means of passive resistance because he personally disagreed.

    In the case of DOMA however, it has nothing to do with whether or not the President personally disagrees with the law. He might very well agree with it. It is, however, on the face of it, patently unconstitutional, and any 8th grade social studies student can recognize it as such (perhaps that is why Libertarians hate education so much?). I refer you to Article IV Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America: to wit:

    Congress cannot abridge the right of one state to have its acts, including marrying people, given full faith and credit, it can only establish the standards by which those acts are proved to have been taken place.

    By refusing to enforce an obviously unconstitutional law, Obama is saving the States and the Government the trauma of years of litigation, divisive controversy, and millions of dollars.

  129. Scientist says:
    July 13, 2011 at 10:14 am  (Quote)

    Keith: The problem is that everyone is for a fair tax. But “Fair Tax” is a loaded code word for something that is, on the face of it NOT fair. As you say is seems to be a form of VAT, but VAT is inherently unfair. 10% of a $100 shopping basket is significant to someone on $15,000 a year, but unnoticed to someone on $150,000 a year.
    And you suggest VAT could replace the payroll tax. Maybe so. The Australian version (called GST) was supposed to do just that, and transaction stamp duty, and two or three taxes as well. It didn’t. So is it going to replace State and local Sales Tax as well? Is the “Fair Tax” a conspiracy to further bankrupt the States?

    Canada has a GSTas well. It has not replaced the income tax, nor the payroll taxes for retirement or health care. The provinces still have their sales taxes, though many have “harmonized” with the federal GST so you only see one line on a sales invoice, rather than 2. The regressive impact on low income people is handled through refundable credits when you file your income tax. Low income people get a check that compensates for the GST and provincial sales taxes they pay during the year. More than anything else, the GST is responsible for the Canadian deficit being small relative to the US.

    As Doc has pointed out, US tax brackets were once much higher and the economy didn’t seem to suffer. Some combination of a 5% VAT and modestly higher income taxes (like say they were in the 1990s) would completely close the deficit. I challenge the libertarians to make the case that the Clinton-era tax rates killed entrepreneurship and jobs (23 miillion jobs created during the Clinton years). Come on, I dare you…

  130. Patrick McKinnion says:
    July 13, 2011 at 12:39 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    Any opinions on Marco Rubio’s eligilibity for president (which means VP eligibility also)?Or for that matter Bobby Jindal?Both were made in america, but neither parents were.

    Are they born in the United States? Yes? Then they’re eligible.

    The question of if they’re electable I’ll leave up to the voters.

  131. Patrick McKinnion says:
    July 13, 2011 at 12:47 pm  (Quote)

    Obsolete:
    Why does the Tea Party always seem to side with the corporations and the rich over the common man?

    Because many of them are Ayn Rand “Greed is Good” worshippers who believe that only the “producers” have value and the workers are parasites dragging them down.

  132. joyeagle says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:00 pm  (Quote)

    They are both likely picks for VP, which must meet same eligibility … if either is picked, then they will be in same situation as BO in terms of non-citizen parents. That’s all.
    Thanks for your insight. I know there are pages and pages of debate over natural born citizen requirements as it relates to parental citizenship.

    Patrick McKinnion: Are they born in the United States? Yes?Then they’re eligible.

    The question of if they’re electable I’ll leave up to the voters.

  133. joyeagle says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:05 pm  (Quote)

    I don’t think that is an accurate assessment. It is not rich vs poor as the administration and you wants to pit it … most tea party subscribers like myself are anything but rich. It is an understanding of job creation capitalism as a far superior system overall for a society than underproductive socialism … that is part of what made America great … our drifting from that is what is driving us in decline. You all seem to epitomize Reagan’s pithy suggestion that “the left just wants it all to be equal, even if it means we are all equally worse off” (paraphrase not quote).

    Patrick McKinnion: Because many of them are Ayn Rand “Greed is Good” worshippers who believe that only the “producers” have value and the workers are parasites dragging them down.

  134. joyeagle says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:19 pm  (Quote)

    It is Mr by the way. I hesitated on my first post a couple of weeks ago when typing my typical username (joyeagle) and decided not to disclose it … not knowing what I was getting into. It was an instant in my typing decision where I had started to type it and stopped after the ‘y’ and left it at joy. It didn’t catch my attention how that led folks to believe I was a female with name of joy. I apologized for the misleading monicker about a week ago, and eventually switched over to the full joyeagle.
    I don’t see any problem with expanding legal immigration as you suggest in point 2.
    On point 1 I don’t think we have “Science”. I am not convinced that experience and data have shown that higher tax rates equal higher revenues. Obviously this is a huge debate that has been going on for a long time. Lowered rates, which spur economic investment, added jobs and a higher producing economy produces more revenue. Higher taxes, which lower investment and job growth can often lower actual revenues. You know this too. Obvious there is an optimum number that no one knows. Obviously rates reduced too low brings in diminishing returns as well as rates raised too high. We can’t just pull out The Reagan years, or the Clinton years, or any other years because none of them had tax rates as the sole factor on the economy. There has been a fluctuating energy sector, disruptions from other economic sectors removed from tax rates (S&L crisis etc) and most importantly, foreign factors to include attacks and wars. No one ever gives due credit to the impact the 9/11 attack and subsequent govt control and DOD buildup, war cost, effect on the economy. So, I won’t cede that higher taxes mean higher revenues … that is too generic, simplistic and unsubstantiated (like many of my earlier shooting from the hip “principles).

    Scientist:
    Nathanael: Very interesting comments.Where have you lived besides China?You are of course correct that access is a sine qua non of a good health care system, without which all the …

    So, Mr (or Ms) joyeagle, deny the realities all you want, but that doesn’tchange them.And for our birther friends, none of these realities changes in the slightest depending on where a President was born of who his/her parents were.Nor does chanting “Constitution, Founding Fathers, rah, rah, rah!”

  135. Scientist says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:22 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: It is an understanding of job creation capitalism as a far superior system overall for a society than underproductive socialism … that is part of what made America great … our drifting from that is what is driving us in decline

    You don’t have a clue what you are talking about. What leads you to believe that anyone here is a socialist?? I am a capitalist; I have worked for multinational pharmas, small biotechs and started my own company. I am heavily invested in the stock market. I have likely forgotten more about capitalism than you have ever learned.

    Business needs infrastructure to prosper-roads, railways, a healthy, educated workforce and collaborations with the public sector in groundbreaking fields that are not yet ripe for commercial exploitation. Ever hear of the Internet? Who do you think developed it? Microsoft? Google? Sorry, the US government and CERN (funded by EU governments). What company would have funded early work on DNA? None. Biotech wouldn’t exist withoout NIH.

    Taxes have nothing to do with socialism; in fact socialist countries like the USSR and the East Bloc didn’t collect a lot of taxes because the government owned everything. Taxes are how we pay for the infrastructure that makes the US a prosperous country. You can always try countries where no one pays taxes, like Somalia or Afghanistan, and see how business (other than drug and weapons smuggling) prospers there.

  136. joyeagle says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:39 pm  (Quote)

    Nathanael,
    Thanks for your comments, A personal story always trumps statistics, philosophy and logic in a debate. That is hard to counter.

    I may be somewhat idealistic too … guilty. My question is : when in the history of mankind did healthcare become an individual right. And what are societies willing to give up in order to provide it? Once again, it comes down to simple philosophic differences in the purpose and limits of government. I’d rather live in america my whole life without guaranteed healthcare than be a slave of the communist republic of china and have healthcare … personal preference.

    Nathanael: (Free market? Are medicare and medicaid free market?)

    Is there a polite way to say BS? As Scientist has already pointed out, by no objective metric is US healthcare the best in the world. The US has consistently trailed other countries (including those with “socialized healthcare”) in nearly every category but one: cost. US health care is amongst the most expensive. Thank the “free market” for that.

    My personal definition of the “best” healthcare includes accessibility. How can any healthcare I can’t access possibly be the “best” for my family?

    I am an American who has spent half my post-college years living outside the US. In every country I have lived in save one — my own — I have had low-cost access to health care, provided through government mandate. As a husband and father whose chief responsibility is the welfare of my family, it would be utterly irresponsible of me to relocate my family to any place where adequate health care is either unavailable, unaffordable, or tied to the tenuosity of gainful employment. Where my family’s welfare is at stake, I’ll take “adequate but accessible” over “best but unaffordable” any day of the week.

    Some eight years ago, on a visit to the US, my wife developed floaters in one eye, necessitating a visit to an ophthalmologist. A single office visit cost us $150, plus $75 for the eye drops he prescribed. That same $225 would have bought me seventy five hospital or doctor visits where I’m living now.

    Health costs are amongst the leading causes of personal bankruptcy in the US. Tens of millions of Americans are un- or under-insured, and sans insurance only the very rich can afford American healthcare. How do you propose those tens of millions of Americans “take care of themselves”?

    I am no liberal. But I’d choose Canada or GB over the US in a hearbeat, precisely because of healthcare. Even in “communist” China my family had health coverage, thanks to government mandate. I would never endanger my family’s health by living in the US.

    I jumped into this conversation because there are two reasons I will not consider moving back to the States. Healthcare is one of them. Where my family is concerned, I will just not take that risk.

  137. dunstvangeet says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:40 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    I don’t think that is an accurate assessment.It is not rich vs poor as the administration and you wants to pit it … most tea party subscribers like myself are anything but rich.It is an understanding of job creation capitalism as a far superior system overall for a society than underproductive socialism … that is part of what made America great … our drifting from that is what is driving us in decline.You all seem to epitomize Reagan’s pithy suggestion that “the left just wants it all to be equal, even if it means we are all equally worse off” (paraphrase not quote).

    That’s not true anywhere out of the way. The capitalistic system that you worship is exactly the system that almost brought down our entire economy to where we’d be lucky to be a 3rd world economy. A good portion of the United States Economy is in the banking sector, and it affects so many other sectors that the unregulated free market that was the Credit Default Swaps, and the Mortage Back Securities almost brought down the entire market. That is what a true free market, without any governmental regulation is. It’s people making money whatever way they can, and screw the larger economy, or long-term crisis.

    But most tea partiers don’t know what they actually stand for. There’s an example of a tea partier standing with a sign that said something along the lines of, “Don’t let the government into Medicare.” There are other examples such as the tea party groups complaining that the Washington D.C. Public Transportation system was inadequate to get them to and from the rally, despite them rallying all the time to cut the very services that they were saying were inadequate. Most tea partiers are basically just uninformed masses. They think they know what they want, but they don’t actually. They have contradictory views, just as everybody else. They want the government to be cut drastically, but then they also don’t want the services that they benefit from cut. In fact, they’re quite happy with the socialistic governmental services that they do have, such as Medicare and Social Security.

    A lot of the Tea Party venom on the health care actually had nothing to do with the actual health care law. It was because the Republicans told them that the Democrats were cutting Medicare.

  138. dunstvangeet says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:43 pm  (Quote)

    And Joyeagle, we’re not talking about the difference between China and the United States. We’re talking about the difference between Germany, France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. And frankly, every single one of those countries has a better health care system than the United States does. And in fact, the only thing that even starts to resemble the good health care system is actually systems that are run by the United States Government (namely Medicare and the VA).

  139. Scientist says:
    July 13, 2011 at 1:48 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Lowered rates, which spur economic investment, added jobs and a higher producing economy produces more revenue. Higher taxes, which lower investment and job growth can often lower actual revenues. You know this too. Obvious there is an optimum number that no one knows.

    True. No one knows the optimum number. However, here is a graph of % of GDP taken in by the federal government.

    http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/

    While there was a small drop produced by the Reagan tax cuts, revenue recovered quickly. There was a much bigger drop caused by the Bush cuts. Yes there was 9/11 and a mild recession, but note the 1991 recession had little effect. Then revenues really crashed with everything else in 2008. They are now the lowest they have been in the post-war period, below 15%. No one is saying that we have to go back to 1950s rates. But we do have to get revenues back up towards 20% of GDP, because with an aging population and the demands on Social Security and Mediare I don’t see how the country can get by on less.

    Would it be great to get the revenue up by growth? Sure. But the history of financial crises like we had in 2008 suggests that growth is going to be sluggish for the next 10 years (read Rogoff and Rinehart). The idea that tax cuts will somehow cause the economy to boom when there is already plenty of excess capacity is not tenable.

    reality bites once again…

  140. Scientist says:
    July 13, 2011 at 2:01 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: My question is : when in the history of mankind did healthcare become an individual right. And what are societies willing to give up in order to provide it? Once again, it comes down to simple philosophic differences in the purpose and limits of government. I’d rather live in america my whole life without guaranteed healthcare than be a slave of the communist republic of china and have healthcare … personal preference.

    When 1948, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt. Article 25 states:
    ” Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

    As for slavery vs healthcare, that is an absurd statement. Do you think that citizens of Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Spain, Norway, Holland, etc. are slaves? What about Americans who work a job they detest under wretched conditions to have health insurance? Perhaps, they are slaves too.

    How come everytime you seem to be reasonable you have to make a totally dumb-ass statement???

  141. joyeagle says:
    July 13, 2011 at 2:11 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: “How come everytime you seem to be reasonable you have to make a totally dumb-ass statement???”

    Because I get all spun up and start typing too fast and thinking too slow. I do need to take some time and look up some of these references now, and those graphs you linked.

  142. JoZeppy says:
    July 13, 2011 at 3:01 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Nathanael,
    Thanks for your comments, A personal story always trumps statistics, philosophy and logic in a debate. That is hard to counter.

    The stats are pretty damning as well….US ranks 43rd lowest in infant mortality. We were 12th in 1960, and 21st in 1990. Countries that rank better than us…besides all of western europe, Cuba, Slovenia, and Hong Kong. We rank 47th in life expectancy. We do however, pay nearly twice as much per capita for our health care than anywhere in the world, and one third of that money goes to overhead costs (our health insurance companies doing paper working to find a reason not to provide coverage)/ Anyone proclaiming we have the best health care in the world is pretty just engaging in “the US is best at everything” jingoism.

    joyeagle: I may be somewhat idealistic too … guilty. My question is : when in the history of mankind did healthcare become an individual right.

    It’s not just a question of it being an individual right, it’s a question of it becoming a drain on our economy. Every year, health care costs go up faster than the rate of inflation, and consume a larger, and larger portion of our GDP. People who spend all their money on health care, don’t have any money to spend on anything else. No money to spend on anything else, and the economy comes crashing down. Also, foreign companies are less likely to invest in manufacturing in the US. Why would they build in the US when they can build in Canada, where they don’t have to carry the burden of obscene US health care costs. And with NAFTA, it’s just as good as manufacturing in the US. Quite simply, our economy cannot afford this ever growing drain on our spending. That’s not socialism. It’s comes down to captialism.

    joyeagle: Once again, it comes down to simple philosophic differences in the purpose and limits of government. I’d rather live in america my whole life without guaranteed healthcare than be a slave of the communist republic of china and have healthcare … personal preference.

    You do realize that Communist China is not the only place that provides it’s people with health care. In fact, the US is the only industrialized country in the world that does not. So why make it an option of our current system versus Communist China? Why not Canada (whose economy wasn’t hit nearly has hard as ours in the down turn, and has already rebounded), Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, UK, etc….you know, all those countries that rank better than us in infant mortality and life expectancy.

  143. Bovril says:
    July 13, 2011 at 3:14 pm  (Quote)

    Hell,

    At least oraganizations like the NHS in Great Britain are allowed to push for bulk purchase discounts, Medicare is prohibited by STATUTE from negotiating the same discounts you would get at Costco (guess which party pushed this one through).

  144. Expelliarmus says:
    July 13, 2011 at 3:17 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: My question is : when in the history of mankind did healthcare become an individual right. And what are societies willing to give up in order to provide it?

    It’s a ‘right’ in the US whenever someone shows up bleeding and mangled in the emergency room, whether they can pay or not. The problem is that for years, we payers have been stuck bearing the costs of the nonpayers — the hospitals bill those who have insurance or who are able to pay directly for services at hugely inflated rates to cover the costs of those who don’t pay.

    I would have preferred to see single payer coverage rather than the individual mandate, mainly because there’s nothing in the mandate to prevent my health insurance company from continuing to raise my rates. Also, the current employer-provided system creates havoc for people who lose their jobs or who are unable to change jobs because of reliance on whatever their employer provides — in fact, I’ll bet if a single payer or public option plan had been passed, job numbers would be way up by now. Why? because the money that employers pay for health coverage is HUGE and really increases an employer’s costs when hiring new employees.

    I wouldn’t object to tax increases or an increased payroll deduction to pay for public health care — in the same way that medicare is financed — because that amount would be far less than what I currently pay in health care premiums. I mean, to me, its money out of my pocket whether it goes to the government or to the insurance company, but at least in theory the government is more accountable to me. I at least have a vote, something I don’t have with the insurance company.

    I’ve had health care abroad in a country with a single payer system, and the care was much better than anything I had ever experienced in the US, simply in term of the availability and promptness of care, and degree of personal attention. Much shorter wait time in the urgent care clinic, to start with.

    Even if it wasn’t superior, I’d have to factor in costs. That is, maybe I’d rather have reliable, consistent, B+ quality affordable medical care than the option to get A+ quality care at extraordinary cost. I mean, I always fly coach on planes — and definitely not because I think that the coach seats are just as good as the first class seats. But the cost differential just isn’t worth the extra money in my mind. Same with health care — why should a procedure which costs a few hundred dollars in another western country with clean and modern facilities cost me tens of thousands?

  145. Rickey says:
    July 13, 2011 at 3:23 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    I know there are pages and pages of debate over natural born citizen requirements as it relates to parental citizenship.

    And ever since this debate began, we have been asking those who subscribe to the alleged “two-citizen parent requirement” to cite a single history, civics, social studies, or legal textbook which states that a natural-born citizen must have two U.S. citizen parents.

    I personally have asked this question repeatedly, and the response has always been deafening silence.

    If having a non-citizen parent disqualifies a candidate from being President, why was it never brought up during the 2008 campaign? It was well-known that Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen. Obama even wrote a book in which he describes his father’s background in great detail – a book which was published in 1995.

    The fact of the matter is that no one ever heard of the “two-citizen parent requirement” until Leo Donofrio dreamed it up in the fall of 2008. And he cited no legal authority for his claim.

    http://www.thefogbow.com/index.php/download_file/view/39/105/

    And most of what you need to know about Donofrio can be found here:

    http://www.thefogbow.com/birther-claims-debunked1/birther-cast-and-crew/lawyers/leo-donofrio/

  146. Rickey says:
    July 13, 2011 at 5:52 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: When 1948, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written under the chairmanship of Eleanor Roosevelt.

    Even earlier – Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 6, 1941, his “Four Freedoms” speech:

    “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

    The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

    The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

    The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

    The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.”

    70 years later, and we still have a long way to go.

  147. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 13, 2011 at 6:19 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: Now for the morning rant: All the “big government vs small government” talk is a false dichotomy. The reality driving all of this, not just in the US, but in most of the world, is demographic. As the population ages, that means more people drawing retirement benefits and using the health care system.

    In Western Europe, they invented the Aging savings index: what percentage of the value of the gross national product needs to be saved (or, with the deficits governments are now running up, it could mean “needs to be used to reduce the national debt”) today to take care of the future cost of aging that can be deduced from today’s demographics.

    The good news (in Belgium at least, and we do not often have good news) is that it was 6.4% last year and is only 5.9% now. Main reason for this: recent immigration (even though it slowed down this year) of young, ready-and eager-to-work and classified East Europeans, which also led to an increase in the birth rate. A minor reason for the ASI decrease is slightly lower prices for certain medical treatment – contrary to what most people think, not all advances in medical technology lead to more expensive treatment, sometimes new technological advances replace expensive operations with cheap pill intake (stomach ulcers) and costly examinations can often be avoided if you add a few items to check in regular blood tests. Some people also claim that lower prices in medical care could be caused by more competition as a result of the economic crisis.

    However, the evolution of the birth rate (and migration) is the main factor that decides how the ASI will evolve. Countries which used to have high birth rates, but now have very low ones (Poland and Italy, to a lesser extent Romania and Bulgaria) are in a worse position than Germany, where the birth rate went down much earlier, but remained at the same low level for 15-20 years and is actually rebounding slightly today.

    There is a wonder drug that will cure the ASI troubles for the duration of one generation at least, however: have people work longer, pensions at 67 rather than at 65. People at 67 are now typically much healthier than their 65 year old forefathers in the 19th century – and medical care is to blame.

  148. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 13, 2011 at 6:19 pm  (Quote)

    Rights are relative to what you believe. I’m a Christian and because of that I believe that I should love my brother as myself and letting my brother suffer from illness necessarily is something I am obligated to try to prevent. Jesus himself ran a free health clinic.

    In my professional life I worked in healthcare information technology. From that experience I learned quite a lot about how insurance works (or fails to work). I’ve also talked to Canadians who wouldn’t trade their health system for anything.

    And of course there is the inalienable right to “life,” a founding principle of our nation.

    joyeagle: My question is : when in the history of mankind did healthcare become an individual right. And what are societies willing to give up in order to provide it?

  149. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 13, 2011 at 7:59 pm  (Quote)

    I would like to call your attention to the article Tea Party Nation Goes Full Birther by Ed Brayton at Science Blogs.

  150. Nathanael says:
    July 14, 2011 at 12:23 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    Nathanael,
    Thanks for your comments, A personal story always trumps statistics, philosophy and logic in a debate.That is hard to counter.

    But of course. Statistics are fine if you want to understand the length or breadth or depth or extent of a thing. But they suck at teaching us morality. Statistics are numbers; numbers are inhuman (as Stalin famously said, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”). They can help us make the most efficient, or most cost-effective choice, but rarely can they help us make the moral choice. That’s what our humanity is for, and nothing humanizes statistics than a good anecdote.

    joyeagle:
    I’d rather live in america my whole life without guaranteed healthcare than be a slave of the communist republic of china and have healthcare … personal preference.

    I have lived in both the US and China, and on a day-to-day basis I was hard-pressed to see a difference. But I would never sacrifice my family’s welfare on the altar of my personal idealism. That is my personal preference.

    And, BTW, anyone who thinks China is a communist country doesn’t know much about either communism or China.

  151. Nathanael says:
    July 14, 2011 at 12:31 am  (Quote)

    Rickey: And most of what you need to know about Donofrio can be found here:

    http://www.thefogbow.com/birther-claims-debunked1/birther-cast-and-crew/lawyers/leo-donofrio/

    I’d long had my doubts about the profile up on Fogbow. The Donofrio pieces they linked to struck me as almost performance-artish — the adoption by Donofrio of a persona, which one wise not to take too seriously.

    Then Donofrio published this on his own blog. Not only did it confirm my suspicions, it’s a whole lot more interesting besides.

    http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/im-not-who-you-think-i-am/

  152. Rickey says:
    July 14, 2011 at 12:46 am  (Quote)

    Nathanael:

    Then Donofrio published this on his own blog. Not only did it confirm my suspicions, it’s a whole lot more interesting besides.

    Leo has on several occasions claimed that he was “moving on” but he keeps turning up.

    The truly relevant thing about him is that he his legal experience, such as it is, does not qualify him as an expert in anything related to the Constitution.

  153. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 14, 2011 at 12:50 am  (Quote)

    Based on the comments to the article, it appears that the birthers will accept anybody, just so long as he says Obama is ineligible. Can you imagine what the birthers would say if an Obot described themselves like that? As we say in the South, they’d be like a duck on a June bug.

    Nathanael: Then Donofrio published this on his own blog. Not only did it confirm my suspicions, it’s a whole lot more interesting besides.

    http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/im-not-who-you-think-i-am/

  154. Nathanael says:
    July 14, 2011 at 12:50 am  (Quote)

    Scientist:
    Nathanael: Very interesting comments.Where have you lived besides China?

    In order by continent: US, Grenada, Brazil, Antarctica (Anvers Island – Palmer Station), France, Congo and Zaire, Australia, China, Taiwan. I think that covers it. And I misspoke. My health care when I was in Antarctica was provided by my employer not the government.

  155. Steve says:
    July 14, 2011 at 1:06 am  (Quote)

    Coach Semanko says all we do is hate and call people names.

    http://coachsemanko.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/lies-deceptions-half-truths-and-hatred/

  156. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:02 am  (Quote)

    The Coach appears (like Corsi) to be a fan of prior restraint. I looked at a couple of articles, but no comments. The one I left is in moderation.

    I’ve added the Coach to my Bad links below. His blog seems to be a pure birther site.

    Steve: Coach Semanko says all we do is hate and call people names.

  157. Suranis says:
    July 14, 2011 at 7:53 am  (Quote)

    Kind of off topic, but I learned today that the British government is going to use Lord Coke’s ruling that an alien on British soil is subject to British law, to compel Rupert Murdoch to to attend a committee meeting on the Phone hacking scandal.

    Paging MichealN! RUPERT NEEEDS YOU AND YOUR LEGAL ADVICE!!!

  158. Bovril says:
    July 14, 2011 at 7:56 am  (Quote)

    As anyone who has ever seen Prime Ministers Question Time can attest, MP’s when they get the bit between their teeth WON’T treat the Dirty Digger with kid gloves.

    Hopefully it will be broadcast live form the BBC, it’ll be like bull fighting but really really mean…. 😎

  159. Scientist says:
    July 14, 2011 at 8:07 am  (Quote)

    Nathanael: In order by continent: US, Grenada, Brazil, Antarctica (Anvers Island – Palmer Station), France, Congo and Zaire, Australia, China, Taiwan. I think that covers it. And I misspoke. My health care when I was in Antarctica was provided by my employer not the government

    Fascinating! Are you a geologist?

    Nathanael: And, BTW, anyone who thinks China is a communist country doesn’t know much about either communism or China.

    Poor joyeagle is easily misled. Would you prefer to call China’s system state capitalism or Confucian or some gemisch? But there is little doubt old Karl Marx would have a heart attack if dropped into Shanghai.

    Sorry, I have to go now and help free the slaves in Sweden or Canada or Belgium or one of those other Communist countries with universal health care…

  160. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 8:54 am  (Quote)

    Nathanael: Statistics are fine if you want to understand the length or breadth or depth or extent of a thing.

    There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. – Mark Twain

  161. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:11 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: And what are societies willing to give up in order to provide it?

    Israel has universal health care, and it’s socialized too: the government owns all the hospitals and ambulances. Physicians receive a government salary, as do nurses. They have not given up one iota of personal freedom. I know; I’ve lived there.

    The practice of medicine there is equal to ours, and in some cases better.

  162. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:21 am  (Quote)

    dunstvangeet: They want the government to be cut drastically, but then they also don’t want the services that they benefit from cut. In fact, they’re quite happy with the socialistic governmental services that they do have, such as Medicare and Social Security.

    Social Security is pure socialism. Roosevelt got the idea from von Bismarck. Bismarck got the idea from Karl Marx.

  163. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:37 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: underproductive socialism

    Michele Bachmann personally received $250 in farm subsidies.

    Anti-socialist Bachmann got $250K in federal farm subsidies:

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/1209/Antisocialist_Bachmann_got_250k_in_federal_farm_subsidies.html

  164. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:39 am  (Quote)

    misha: Michele Bachmann personally received $250 in farm subsidies.

  165. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:41 am  (Quote)

    misha: Michele Bachmann personally received $250 in farm subsidies.

    Oops. That should be $250K.

  166. J.Potter says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:43 am  (Quote)

    This coach fellow is quite the comedian:

    “He just happens to be the same man that wrote the book about John Kerry, that exposed his lies.” [my emphasis]

    As if it’s a coincidence, LOL! I guess this statement is, to that audience, an endorsement. I prefer my slightly different emphasis, completely different meaning, noting that yes, Corsi is indeed a wannabe pro assassin.

    Dr. Conspiracy:

    I’ve added the Coach to my Bad links below. His blog seems to be a pure birther site.

  167. misha says:
    July 14, 2011 at 9:55 am  (Quote)

    joyeagle: than be a slave of the communist republic of china

    I have lived in mainland China and Taiwan. Know why they are superior to us? There is zero anti-semitism. At one time, the only place in the world where Jews were safe was Shanghai.

    http://www.gluckman.com/ShanghaiJewsChina.html

  168. Bovril says:
    July 14, 2011 at 11:53 am  (Quote)

    Welllllll, to be a little more exact

    There’s no anti-semetism per-se as in general the Chinese still have a big old large chunk of the whole “We’re the Middle Kingdom, we’re so special and everyone else is in the same bucket of Not Us”

    (Worked there)

    Similar for Japan altough the nuances are rather more Japanese -> Everyone else but with the grading Europeans -> Americans -> China -> Asian (non Chinese) and Arab -> African and Korean fighting for the bottom

    (Worked there)

  169. Lucas D. Smith says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:26 pm  (Quote)

    Dear dolts,

    I have a new 07.14.2011 blog report!

    Please review and support it and like it!

    “Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.”

    [This is the correct URL, Doc]

  170. Wile E. says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:35 pm  (Quote)

    Lucas D. Smith:
    Dear dolts,

    I have a new 07.14.2011 blog report!

    Please review and support it and like it!

    “Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.”

    http://www.WasObamaBornInKenya.com/blob

    Which format did Kenya use when they stamped your passport?

  171. AnotherBird says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:40 pm  (Quote)

    Lucas D. Smith:
    Dear dolts,

    I have a new 07.14.2011 blog report!

    Please review and support it and like it!

    “Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.”

    http://www.WasObamaBornInKenya.com/blob

    This is what we can call “beating a dead horse.” There is no credibility in a Kenya birth certificate for Obama.

  172. Bovril says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:42 pm  (Quote)

    Curious, just like Lucas D Whateverhis name is…..it doesn’t actually exist, no page, no information. no stuff.

  173. JoZeppy says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:45 pm  (Quote)

    Lucas D. Smith: Dear dolts,I have a new 07.14.2011 blog report!Please review and support it and like it!“Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.” http://www.WasObamaBornInKenya.com/blob

    “Dear dolts”?

    Seems our resident convicted forger/admitted child molester is getting a touch hostile. Mr. Smith, I really don’t understand you need to defend this pathetic rag of yours. It really serves no purpose. Even if it wasn’t wroght with errors, even if didn’t look nothing like any birth certificate anyone has ever seen come out of Kenya, even if you could produce any evidence that you ever stepped foot anywhere on Africa, much less Kenya, even if you didn’t try to pass off a video wandering through a Carribean slum as Kenya, even the first thing you tried to do with the “certificate” wasn’t to pawn it on ebay, there is still an uncermountable mountain for you to climb. The fact that it is a document, with no reliable chain of custody, and questionable origin, is being offered by a convicted forger/serial criminal/admitted child molester. Even if it was a decent forgery of an actual Kenyan birth certificate, you would be the document’s biggest obsticle. It would never see the inside of a court room, to a great extent, because of you. And then, on the other hand, we have a document, bearing the seal of the state of Hawaii, making it a self authenticating document, that states it is prima facie evidence of the details of birth contained on it, further vouched for by various Hawaiian government officials…..Hmmmmm….why again would I even waste my time on the details of the “document” offered by the convicted forger/serial criminal/admitted child molester?

    So quibble all you want about the details. Perhaps it’s because you don’t want to admit that either you’re a lousy forger, or that you were taken for a sucker for such a bad piece of garbage. In the end, you are the reason why the document isn’t worth the time to give it the slightest bit of consideration.

  174. AnotherBird says:
    July 14, 2011 at 2:54 pm  (Quote)

    Bovril:
    Curious, just like Lucas D Whateverhis name is…..it doesn’t actually exist, no page, no information. no stuff.

    It is always important to write blog with the four letter as a “b”. That way you can make sure that people can find your “definitive proof” quickly.

  175. Judge Mental says:
    July 14, 2011 at 3:16 pm  (Quote)

    “Blob” may well be a more accurate description.

  176. Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross) says:
    July 14, 2011 at 3:41 pm  (Quote)

    Lucas D. Smith: Dear dolts,I have a new 07.14.2011 blog report!Please review and support it and like it!“Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.” http://www.WasObamaBornInKenya.com/blob

    Nothing moves the blob!!!!

    http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/6673/0023z.png

  177. Bovril says:
    July 14, 2011 at 3:45 pm  (Quote)

    You really are going to have to do better than that you sad little man,

    Here is where I told you to FOAD, which sparked yout infantile tirade

    Bovril July 11, 2011 at 3:01 pm Bovril(Quote) #
    Purely as a matter of interest Lucas, what pray tell does some purported commercial paper date format from the Domican Republic have to do with Kenyan government official paperwork date formats?

    Hint, the answer is nothing, whatsoever.

    Not even a passable strawman argument, come back and attempt to use the argument when you have examples of contemperaneous, offical, governmental paperwork from Kenya showing differing date formats.

    What part of CONTEMPERANEOUS don’t you grasp..?

  178. Lucas D. Smith says:
    July 14, 2011 at 3:54 pm  (Quote)

    Bovril: You really are going to have to do better than that you sad little man,Here is where I told you to FOAD, which sparked yout infantile tiradeBovril July 11, 2011 at 3:01 pm Bovril(Quote) #Purely as a matter of interest Lucas, what pray tell does some purported commercial paper date format from the Domican Republic have to do with Kenyan government official paperwork date formats?Hint, the answer is nothing, whatsoever.Not even a passable strawman argument, come back and attempt to use the argument when you have examples of contemperaneous, offical, governmental paperwork from Kenya showing differing date formats.What part of CONTEMPERANEOUS don’t you grasp..?

    Dear Sir,

    It appears that you are talking about an older blog report that I issued some time ago. Its always better to do a bit of reading before going on jealous rage-filled rant with capital letters and bold letters.

    The new blog report is from today. Its official from Kenya.

    “Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.”

    http://www.wasobamaborninkenya.com/blog/barrack-obama-eligibility/definitive-and-categorical-proof-that-kenya-uses-two-different-numeric-date-formats-ddmmyyyy-and-mmddyyyy/

    Take care dear Sir.

  179. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 14, 2011 at 4:11 pm  (Quote)

    Ah, yes that web site. I thought I had written about that a long time ago, but it appears that I didn’t make an article. I’ll do it now.

    This is sort of the “big lie” approach. When the evidence is poor it becomes “definitive” and when the precedent is not applicable, it becomes “binding.”

    Birthers, however, eat up language like that.

    Lucas D. Smith:
    Dear dolts,

    I have a new 07.14.2011 blog report!

    Please review and support it and like it!

    “Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.”

    [This is the correct URL, Doc]

  180. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 14, 2011 at 7:44 pm  (Quote)

    Here’s an article, quite negative about Obama, that explains his refusal to release records not as an attempt to hide ineligibility to hide his true character. For a negative piece, it’s not so outrageous as I’m used to:

    http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1852/article_detail.asp

  181. Bovril says:
    July 14, 2011 at 8:51 pm  (Quote)

    Contemperaneous, you do understand what the word means…don’t you?

    Come back and show us CONTEMPERANEOUS official Kenyan government documents to the POSFKBC you manufactured.

    Whllst you’re at it where or where are the visa stamps..?

  182. US Citizen says:
    July 14, 2011 at 10:27 pm  (Quote)

    In regards to the currently hyped “Birther Summit”, Dean Haskins postulates that since birthers will not be heard individually, they will come together and be heard en masse.
    See: http://www.birthersummit.org/news/12-we-will-not-be-heard-individually.html

    Dean writes “With a sufficiently large crowd, there will be no way for the members of Congress to ignore the political and legal ramifications….”

    There’s a few problems with his logic, however, as his argument can also work the other way around.
    In other words, those that voted for Obama and all the politicians ignoring birthers, being the greater number, have a greater right to completely ignore them.
    Our republic is run democratically, after all.
    Birthers are the minority and not responsible for many votes.
    They truly are, as they claim, ignored by everyone.

    As we’ve seen time and time again, these “get togethers” always state there will be (or were) thousands of people in attendance.
    But there have never been thousands in attendance.
    A “sufficiently large crowd” will never form.
    Even in the largest rallies seen early on, there were never big numbers, just big mouths with one vote each.
    Their votes will not multiply simply because they huddle together.

    So opposite to Haskin’s intentions, what these misguided individuals will end up exhibiting, en masse, is just how little mass they actually have.

    “Individual doesn’t work, so together it must.”
    Yours is faulty logic, Dean.
    This isn’t an “or” logic truth, it’s an “and” logic truth:
    You won’t be heard individually AND you won’t be heard as a group.
    You’ll cast the same number of votes either way.
    Coming together will only serve to show how few birthers there really are.

    So I say, bring on your birther summit, Dean!
    Continue your unbroken string of failures for the amusement and folly of We the People.
    Bullshit in, bullshit out.
    The form doesn’t matter, the mass and content are still the same.

  183. Nathanael says:
    July 15, 2011 at 5:01 am  (Quote)

    Scientist: Fascinating!Are you a geologist?

    Good guess, but no. As an undergrad I spent my junior year abroad in Paris, as part of a French minor. After completing a Masters in linguistics, I spent 2+ years in central Africa with the Summer Institute of Linguistics doing computational linguistics, followed somewhat later by six months as the computer guy at Palmer Station in Antarctica. I currently live in Asia where I teach ESL.

    Scientist: Poor joyeagle is easily misled.Would you prefer to call China’s system state capitalism or Confucian or some gemisch?

    I’m no economist, so I couldn’t pontificate on the subtle shades of capitalism. Perhaps what China has isn’t pure capitalism, but to my untrained eye it was doing a pretty darn good imitation of it.

  184. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 15, 2011 at 5:37 am  (Quote)

    Lucas D. Smith: The new blog report is from today. Its official from Kenya.

    “Definitive and categorical proof that Kenya uses two different numeric date formats: DD/MM/YYYY and MM/DD/YYYY.”

    So what else is new?
    http://www.communication.go.ke/

    They use Kenyan Swahili MM/DD/YYYY in the right panel, and British English DD/MM/YYYY in the main window.

    You’ve been told bout this ambiguity long time ago. What is the extra value of a video if anyone can google gov.ke websites and get the same result (well, apart from the fact that birfers seem to prefer videos to written text – perhaps because videos are easier for the alphabetically challenged, their real target group).

    After independence, Kenya went through a period of Kenyanization, they changed the name of their regional divisions, they even changed the pronunciation of the name of the country from keen-yah to kennyah.

    The date system change was part of this drive. In recent years, Kenya has gone through de-Kenyatta-ization. The name of the regional subdivision has been changed back, and while Swahili still uses MM/DD/YYYY, most Kenyans returned to DD/MM/YYYY. So now both systems are used and may appear on the same web page.

    As a few people here already told you, you still haven’t shown evidence Kenyan documents used MM/DD/YYYY in 1961.

    And you know why I mention the name of the subdivision, right?
    http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2011/03/dr-conspiracys-first-fake-kenyan-birth-certificate/#comment-100030

  185. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 15, 2011 at 12:48 pm  (Quote)

    Suranis: Kind of off topic, but I learned today that the British government is going to use Lord Coke’s ruling that an alien on British soil is subject to British law, to compel Rupert Murdoch to to attend a committee meeting on the Phone hacking scandal.

    Paging MichealN! RUPERT NEEEDS YOU AND YOUR LEGAL ADVICE!!!

    Murdoch

    “for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a newspaper or TV channel, and publish a birth announcement there, the child Shirley is not a natural born subject as it was not born within the full jurisdiction of the King of England”

    Now all the birfers need to do is to prove that both Hawaiian newspapers that ran Obama’s birth announcements were property of a foreigner.

  186. misha says:
    July 15, 2011 at 1:21 pm  (Quote)

    Paul Pieniezny: the child Shirley

    Don’t call me Shirley.

  187. Sef says:
    July 15, 2011 at 10:36 pm  (Quote)

    As reported on ThinkProgress, Sister Sarah had the premier of her little documentary last night. For the showing in Orange County, CA only one person showed up. Another Epic (maybe even Epoch) Fail. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/15/270498/sarah-palin-premier-empty/

  188. misha says:
    July 15, 2011 at 11:02 pm  (Quote)

    Sef: For the showing in Orange County, CA only one person showed up.

    Let me guess: it was Orly.

  189. Daniel says:
    July 16, 2011 at 12:18 am  (Quote)

    Dr. Conspiracy: I’ve also talked to Canadians who wouldn’t trade their health system for anything.

    I’ve been working up here in Canada for a few years now, off and on, and I’ve never heard a Canadian say “this hurts a lot, but I can’t afford to go to the doctor.” I’ve heard that a lot in the states.

    I’m a fiscal and social Conservative, but I’m not a fool. In Canada, poor people don’t die of things that rich people get cured.

    That’s not something we can say… and it shames us.

  190. Sef says:
    July 16, 2011 at 9:19 am  (Quote)

    misha: Let me guess: it was Orly.

    Guess again.

  191. misha says:
    July 16, 2011 at 9:54 am  (Quote)

    Sef: Guess again.

    Yeah, I read it was a film critic.

  192. misha says:
    July 16, 2011 at 10:56 am  (Quote)

    Daniel: I’m a fiscal and social Conservative

    How can a Wiccan be a social conservative? I’m Jewish, and was invited to join the Philadelphia Witches Circle. They are given the most miserable time by conservatives in general.

    Ted Haggard and his New Life Church: “He sent teams to pray in front of the homes of supposed witches—in one month, ten out of fifteen of his targets put their houses on the market.” http://www.rickross.com/reference/fundamentalists/fund196.html and http://www.word-detective.com/soldiers%20of%20christ.pdf

    At Sarah Palin’s church, “Bishop” Muthee prayed that Sarah be protected from witchcraft, and he boasted how he incited a mob against a woman he accused of witchcraft.

    “after six months of prayer, research, and “spiritual mapping,” they came to believe that a woman known as “Mama Jane” was a witch, and thereby caused traffic fatalities, traffic accidents, crime, and spiritual oppression in the area. Muthee publicly declared, “Mama Jane either gets saved and serves the Lord, or she leaves town! There is no longer room in Kiambu for both of us!” Soon after his followers began to pray that God would either save or oust Mama Jane, three young people died in another apparent accident in front of Mama Jane’s house, according to Muthee’s account. Angry townsfolk wanted to stone Mama Jane in retaliation for the traffic accidents…she left town, according to some accounts.

    Muthee also said that he believed that Christians should influence education…”We will not have in the curriculum, witchcraft and sorcery.” Muthee prayed over Sarah Palin…asking God to “bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of Jesus… Use her to turn this nation the other way around and to keep her safe from every form of witchcraft.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Muthee

    BTW, Anton LaVey was Jewish: LaVey was born as Howard Stanton Levey in Chicago, Illinois. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_LaVey

  193. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 17, 2011 at 10:16 pm  (Quote)

    Sorry about the down time. My hosting company had a problem with the hardware.

  194. misha says:
    July 17, 2011 at 10:23 pm  (Quote)

    Dr. Conspiracy: My hosting company had a problem with the hardware.

    I checked. It was the flux capacitor.

  195. Keith says:
    July 18, 2011 at 3:21 am  (Quote)

    US Citizen: Dean writes “With a sufficiently large crowd, there will be no way for the members of Congress to ignore the political and legal ramifications….”

    I recall that after the 1964 election, Goldwater supporters came up with the bumper sticker “26 million people can’t all be wrong”.

    It never ceased to amaze me that these folks never noticed that Johnson got 43 million votes, and that “43 million people can’t all be wrong” even more.

  196. Scientist says:
    July 18, 2011 at 7:35 am  (Quote)

    Daniel: I’m a fiscal and social Conservative, but I’m not a fool. In Canada, poor people don’t die of things that rich people get cured.

    Daniel is not at all inconsistent to be a fiscal conservative, yet support single payer health care. Fiscal conservatism does not means being against governnment programs; it means demanding that the programs be efficient and be paid for out of tax revenue, not borrowing, The Canadian health care system is paid for and Canada has the lowest debt and deficit as a % of GDP of any G-7 country. The Conservattive government which has been in power since 2006 and recently won a majority has no intention of changing the single payer system (or they would never have won). Polls asking whether Canadians would like a US-style health system show about 95% against.

  197. Thrifty says:
    July 18, 2011 at 4:24 pm  (Quote)

    My Truther uncle just blew back into my life on Saturday when he responded to an E-Mail I sent him 32 months ago. After that, I got on his mailing list, and he sent out a link to some video claiming the WTC towers were brought down by thermite. I sent a Reply-All that went something like this:

    A few points:

    1) This is bullshit.
    2) Your convincing anyone of this grants no benefit to anyone, so why should we care?
    3) The collapse of the towers had less to do with steel melting and a whole lot more to do with the steel being damaged when a big plane hit them. It’s astonishing how people miss this obvious point.
    4) I’ve dealt with birthers enough to know that arguing with conspiracy theorists is useless. Confirmation bias and positive reinforcement are powerful emotional tools.
    5) For decent information discussing this nonsense, see http://www.debunking911.com/

    Responses were mixed. My slightly saner Truther aunt (his sister) said something that I didn’t really pay attention to backing him up in another Reply-all. Those two are pretty close, so it makes sense she would do this.

    My mom (his sister) gave a big long response stating that it made no sense to dwell on 9/11 and that what’s done is done, we should focus on addressing the evils of today. Then she gave a sort of concilliatory “I’m willing to concede that 9/11 might have been an inside job.” My mom is not stupid or crazy; I think she was just saying this last thing to be polite.

    Another uncle (his brother) sent a brief “Good for you.” in a reply just to me. This I too understood because from what my mom tells me, the Truther uncle has been bombarding them with Truther crap for years and I think it frustrates him.

    Truthers are harder to deal with than Birthers. A lot of the science stuff involved in debunking Trutherism just goes over my head. With Birthers, you just look at some pretty plain facts and the outright absurdity becomes apparent. I should study up on Trutherism more. Popular Mechanics seems to have a pretty comprehensive, well organized, simple English debunking guide.

  198. charo says:
    July 18, 2011 at 6:56 pm  (Quote)

    FYI

    http://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/1961-hawaii-department-of-health-registrar-identified/

    An entry in the 1961/62 Polk directory reads:

    LEE Verna K L Mrs. clk State Dept of Health r1228 a 16th av

  199. Judge Mental says:
    July 18, 2011 at 7:33 pm  (Quote)

    charo: FYIhttp://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/1961-hawaii-department-of-health-registrar-identified/An entry in the 1961/62 Polk directory reads:LEE Verna K L Mrs. clk State Dept of Health r1228 a 16th av

    Interesting, but not sure why the blogger apparently thinks that “computer experts” would be able to explain why Mrs Lee wrote the letter V in her signature in such a way that it resembles the letter U.

    We’ll now stand by for the most imaginative and creative of all the reasons that birthers will now come up with as to why this new info is more indicative of the bc being fake than genuine, when in reality it is, if anything, the opposite.

  200. charo says:
    July 18, 2011 at 7:58 pm  (Quote)

    Judge Mental: Interesting, but not sure why the blogger apparently thinks that “computer experts” would be able to explain why Mrs Lee wrote the letter V in her signature in such a way that it resembles the letter U.

    We’ll now stand by for the most imaginative and creative of all the reasons that birthers will now come up with as to why this new info is more indicative of the bc being fake than genuine, when in reality it is, if anything, the opposite.

    I have no idea what the blogger has in mind. Another comment showed that Lee’s husband’s signature appears on another birth certificate form around that time. I haven;t followed the history on that.

  201. Judge Mental says:
    July 18, 2011 at 8:17 pm  (Quote)

    charo: I have no idea what the blogger has in mind. Another comment showed that Lee’s husband’s signature appears on another birth certificate form around that time. I haven;t followed the history on that.

    I’ve asked her, it’s in moderation, so we’ll see if there’s a reply.

    I don’t see anything about her husband (named James Lee according to the blog) having signed bc’s. There was a Richard Lee who was Health Director and who would have signed at the bottom of many certified copies in that capacity, but there is nothing to indicate that he was her husband. Lee is quite clearly a common name in Hawaii.

    It was mildly interesting that the aforementioned Health Director Richard Lee appears to have co-authored publications with an Eleanor Nordyke.

  202. Rickey says:
    July 18, 2011 at 11:36 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: Daniel is not at all inconsistent to be a fiscal conservative, yet support single payerhealth care.

    Agreed. It actually makes sense for a true fiscal conservative to support single payer health care. Health care in Canada costs about 10% of GDP; in the U.S. health care costs 16% of GDP.

  203. Black Lion says:
    July 19, 2011 at 7:47 am  (Quote)

    Judge Mental: Interesting, but not sure why the blogger apparently thinks that “computer experts” would be able to explain why Mrs Lee wrote the letter V in her signature in such a way that it resembles the letter U.We’ll now stand by for the most imaginative and creative of all the reasons that birthers will now come up with as to why this new info is more indicative of the bc being fake than genuine, when in reality it is, if anything, the opposite.

    The birthers keeps showing how pathetic desperate they are. They attempt to prove forgery by using some ridiculous theory…And their picture evidence is crap at best….These people are so delusional that it is really disturbing….

  204. Sunshine49 says:
    July 19, 2011 at 7:54 am  (Quote)

    This is my first time visiting this blog. I’ve been arguing the “natural born” meaning on another blog for the past three months, which caused me to do a lot of research.

    My impression from all that I’ve read is that there is a difference between 14th Amendment citizenship and natural-born citizenship. Congress has the power through the Constitution to make immigration and “naturalized citizenship” laws. They did not need to make laws about “natural-born” citizens because it has always been understood that children who are born in the country where their parents are citizens are natural-born citizens of that country as SCOTUS stated in Minor vs Happersett.

    One of the main issues of the debates in Congress over the 1866 Civil rights Act and the 14th Amendment was not so much nationality, but the allegiance of the parents to the U.S. Still today, to become a naturalized citizen, a person has to swear complete allegiance to the U.S. and give up any other allegiances to other countries.

    To say that the U.S. gives natural-born citizenship to children of foreign parents with NO allegiance to the U.S. just because they were born on U.S. soil makes a mockery of our citizenship laws.

    During the debates in Congress, Senator Cowan of Pennsylvania asked Senator Trumbull of Illinois whether or not the 1866 Act wouldn’t have the effect of naturalizing the children of Chinese and Gypsies born in this country. Senator Trumbull answered “Undoubtedly”

    The purpose of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment was to give “naturalized” citizenship not only to children born to blacks, but to other nationalities that some States denied “naturalized” citizenship. The Wong decision did the same thing because the U.S. was denying “naturalized citizenship” to Chinese.

    Logically, if the parents are already naturalized and have sworn allegiance to the U.S., their children are “natural-born” citizens and do not need to be naturalized.

    As stated by Supreme Court Justice Noah Haynes Swayne : “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…since as before the Revolution.” United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Cas. 785 (1866).

    I don’t remember where I read it, but even under English Common Law there was a difference between children born of “subjects” and those born of foreigners, even though they were all considered “subjects” of the king.

    You can’t separate the allegiance of the child from the allegiance of the parents. If that was the case, there would be NO dual citizenship. If the parent owes allegiance to another country, their child will also owe allegiance to that country from birth. The U.S. does NOT refuse the child’s right to give up U.S. citizenship for citizenship in the country of their parent or parents when they come of age. If the child owes allegiance to another country through the parent, they do NOT owe complete allegiance to the U.S. — which is required to become a “naturalized” citizen. The country where they are living is the one who has jurisdiction over them at the time. The U.S. does not have jurisdiction over the child when they go to the country of their parents like they do over natural-born U.S. citizens.

    So, technically, a dual citizen is not even a full citizen of the U.S. until they reach legal age and swear total allegiance to the U.S. ONLY like a naturalized citizen. A naturalized citizen is NOT a natural born citizen!

    Maybe because I’m older, I’ve always thought that natural-born meant being born of citizen parents. It seems that the meaning has been “changed” in the last few years from what I was taught when I was in school.

  205. misha says:
    July 19, 2011 at 8:10 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: I’ve always thought that natural-born meant being born of citizen parents. It seems that the meaning has been “changed” in the last few years from what I was taught when I was in school.

    What school?

    I’ve always thought that natural born meant any birth other than cesarean.

  206. Keith says:
    July 19, 2011 at 8:22 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Maybe because I’m older, I’ve always thought that natural-born meant being born of citizen parents. It seems that the meaning has been “changed” in the last few years from what I was taught when I was in school.

    Exactly the opposite, actually.

    Natural Born has always meant born ‘on the soil’. It is only in the last 18 or 24 months that some people have tried to make it mean born to two citizen parents.

    The challenge has been issued to find a civics text book from before, say 2005 (to pick an arbitrarily late date ) that says differently. No one has been able to meet that challenge.

    Your essay is quite wrong and rebuttals for each and every one of your points can be found with a little research on this site (start with the quick reference at the bottom of the page and the Features menu at the top). Others will pile on shortly with more pointed rebuttals.

    Welcome to the blog, but always remember the unofficial motto: if you don’t want to be ridiculed, don’t be ridiculous.

  207. Judge Mental says:
    July 19, 2011 at 8:56 am  (Quote)

    Well maybe you’ll be the first to be able to actually come up with the name of any school text book or other civics class book used to teach you or anyone else that natural born required being born of US citizen parents…..or even come up with any other kind of reference material from your schooldays which suggests that happened.

    So please post the details of the school or civics class text books or anything else to substantiate your memories of what you were taught as soon as you find them because you will be unique if you can do that. Many in the past have made a similar claim as regards what they were taught at school, on here and elsewhere, but no-one yet has ever been able to back it up. The records have been scoured for any text book teaching this yet not one book which taught what you claim to have been taught has surfaced, though hundreds have been examined and been shown to have taught the opposite.

    By the way, your comment that the U.S. does not have jurisdiction over a US born child when they go to the country of their parents “like they do over natural-born U.S. citizens” is not only untrue, it would be somewhat irrelevant to the role that the jurisdiction element has to play in determining whether someone is nbc or not, even if it were true.

    All US citizens, whether they have an entitlement to dual nationality of the other country concerned or not, are under the jurisdiction of the country they are in while they are in it, Likewise all foreign nationals (with two exceptions) are quite clearly under the jurisdiction of the USA while they are in the USA.

    You seem to be confusing and mix and matching the allegiance argument with the jurisdiction issue.

    Obama Sr was most definitely under the jurisdiction of USA while he was living in USA, because he wasn’t a diplomat or a member of an invading army, which are the only two categories of parent who the constitution considers to be not under the jurisdiction of the USA at the time of their USA born child’s birth.

  208. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 8:59 am  (Quote)

    It is true that “children who are born in the country where their parents are citizens are natural-born citizens of that country” but it is also true that it has also been generally understood that children born in the country whose parents are NOT citizens, are also natural born citizens. (Not always true, such as in the case of the children of slaves.) In the New York case of Lynch v. Clarke, Vice Chancellor Sandford wrote that this was a universal opinion, and that the children of alien parents were eligible to become President. The Court in Minor says that there existed somewhere (doesn’t say where) a doubt about the citizenship of the children of aliens born in the US. That doubt was cleared up by a later court in US v Wong. I suggest you read it.

    I don’t know how “older” you are (I’m 61) but I don’t think your age has anything to do with your opinion on citizenship. I would suggest that your memories of a parental requirement for the presidency are false memories. I say that because if it were true, you could find a textbook or something else from before Obama that supports that view. There isn’t anything.

    The mistake you make reading the 1866 debates stems from two things: 1) not reading the whole debate and 2) not understanding the legal community’s understanding of the word “allegiance.”

    Another error you make is confusing US law with the laws of other nations. Any country can make citizens of whomever they want, but we should not allow other countries to control who is eligible to be our President. You seem to want them to be able to do that.

    If you care at all about what the truth of this is, read here:

    http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/category/citizenship/

    It might take you a few days, but you’ll get an education.

    Sunshine49: They did not need to make laws about “natural-born” citizens because it has always been understood that children who are born in the country where their parents are citizens are natural-born citizens of that country as SCOTUS stated in Minor vs Happersett.

  209. Judge Mental says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:00 am  (Quote)

    Sorry, the other rebuttals must have appeared while I was (slowly) typing, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered.

  210. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:08 am  (Quote)

    You misremember. The Supreme Court said, in UNITED STATES V. WONG KIM ARK, 169 U. S. 649 (1898):

    Children, born in England, of such aliens [those in amity – friendship], were therefore natural-born subjects. But the children, born within the realm, of foreign ambassadors, or the children of alien enemies, born during and within their hostile occupation of part of the king’s dominions, were not natural-born subjects, because not born within the allegiance, the obedience, or the power, or, as would be said at this day, within the jurisdiction, of the king.

    Under the concept of the English Common Law, Barack Obama Sr. would be considered an alien in amity. This is a very important citation because it brings together all the elements you’ve been talking about, the common law, allegiance, jurisdiction and “natural born.” One can make citations for a long time, but this is the kernel and the reason the Obama eligibility deniers are wrong.

    Sunshine49: I don’t remember where I read it, but even under English Common Law there was a difference between children born of “subjects” and those born of foreigners, even though they were all considered “subjects” of the king.

  211. Scientist says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:17 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: So, technically, a dual citizen is not even a full citizen of the U.S. until they reach legal age and swear total allegiance to the U.S. ONLY like a naturalized citizen. A naturalized citizen is NOT a natural born citizen!

    I know quite a few people who were born in the US but hold other citizenships (or the rights to claim other citiizenships) and not a single one has ever had to swear anything in order to be a US citizen, receive a US passport, etc. This is not a new thing. In fact, I challenge you to show me even a single case of anyone born in the US, whether to 2, 1 or 0 citizen parents, who ever had to swear an oath in order to be a US citiizen (barring a few children of diplomats).

    PS-I am “older” too (and getting more so every day). Reading posts like yours is adding years to my life. Please stop it and try to spend your remaining time on Earth doing something more constructive. Thank you.

  212. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:33 am  (Quote)

    I’ll just address this one point, because it stood out as particularly off-base. Many people are born with “dual citizenship”, as we cannot control the citizenship laws of other nations.

    NONE of those supercede our own laws over our own citizens. Quite a few of these “dual citizenship” offers from other countries expire after a certain age if the person entitled to it does not do something to “claim” that citizenship by that time.

    Those expired citizenships do not make that individual any less American, nor any less natural born American if they were born here.

    No person BORN in the US has to take an “oath of allegieance” to the US. Neither do people born with dual citizenship – not when they are born; not when their other citizenship rights might expire; not when they still hold the rights to claim those other citizenships.

    Therefore these people have NEVER been “naturalized” citizens – PERIOD. What the 14th Amendment does make quite clear is that we only have TWO classes of citizenship in the US – born and naturalized.

    Only naturalized US citizens have to take any oath to *become* an American citizen, after passing through our naturalization process and renouncing some previous other citizenship they held prior.

    Sunshine49: So, technically, a dual citizen is not even a full citizen of the U.S. until they reach legal age and swear total allegiance to the U.S. ONLY like a naturalized citizen. A naturalized citizen is NOT a natural born citizen!

  213. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:33 am  (Quote)

    The problem with saying that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 “naturalized” blacks is that the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision said that the Congress did not have the power to naturalize anyone born in the country. The 14th amendment came from concerns over this. However, the 14th amendment doesn’t say anything about naturalizing persons born in the country. It says that any one born in the jurisdiction of the country is born a citizen.

    The Supreme Court in US V Wong stated that the children of aliens were born in the jurisdiction. One cannot read Wong and say that the Court declared Wong a naturalized citizen — that goes against all the logic and argument of the decision.

    After the Wong decision, Chinese still could not be naturalized citizens, but they were natural born citizens if born here. The court said everything but that Wong was a natural born citizen, but the district court (whose opinion the Supreme Court affirmed) describes Wong’s claim as that he was a natural-born citizen. The district court then referenced Lynch v Clarke (NY – 1844) among others in support of its decision:

    After an exhaustive examination of the law, the vice chancellor [Sandford] said that he entertained no doubt that every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States, whatever the situation of his parents, was a natural-born citizen; and added that this was the general understanding of. the legal profession, and the universal impression of the public mind.

    Sunshine49: The purpose of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment was to give “naturalized” citizenship not only to children born to blacks, but to other nationalities that some States denied “naturalized” citizenship. The Wong decision did the same thing because the U.S. was denying “naturalized citizenship” to Chinese.

  214. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 9:49 am  (Quote)

    Some perspective on Obama and Alinsky: old Washington Post article:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/24/AR2007032401152.html

  215. John Reilly says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:20 am  (Quote)

    Folks who claim a memory of learning the two parent requirement are just making stuff up. Other than the odd debate about George Romney or some such, there was no education about the natural born citizen clause. Learning about the clause required 5 minutes in a civics class. What was there to say? There wasn’t even public discussion, until 2003 or so when a whole bunch of people, mainly Republicans, suggested repealing the requirement so that Gov. Schwarzenegger could run for President, despite his Father’s Nazi background. Only when Pres. Obama came on the scene did these false memories emerge. They are just an attempt to justify racism, as we all learned in school that a Black man could not be President [except for General Powell] because [fill in blank.]

  216. Arthur says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:36 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:

    So what do you think . . . did the responses to your post make sense? Did they precipitate any change in your argument? Did they provoke additional questions or inspire a rebuttal? Most of the time, when someone’s argument is questioned, the original poster either repeats his argument in slightly different form without responding to specific objections, or he accuses the responders of being deluded puppets and offers nothing but insults and ridicule.

  217. J.Potter says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:37 am  (Quote)

    “… there is a difference between 14th Amendment citizenship and natural-born citizenship ….” Argh. Not again. Certain “special interest” groups have been pushing that non-starter for 145 years, mainly Southerners intent on disenfranchising blacks. Declaring that federal citizenship and state citizenship are different, etc., etc. One thing I keep wondering about this “two-citizen parents” and 3-, 4-, even 5-classes* of citizenship garbage …. is that no one addresses which of these imagined types of citizen the parents must be. Only seems logical (well, in the mindset of the argument) that the parents would also have to be natural-born citizens in order to pass on this special citizenship by blood…? And if they go there, why, then natural born citizenship just became a super-special hereditary club! The only way to prove you’re a real citizen would be to trace a chain of NBC parents back to the Revolution.

    I don’t think anyone is making this argument … explicitly … yet. Maybe it’s Phase II, to be advanced when the ideologues behind the Birther movement reveal themselves and their true intentions …. Muahahahaha. It just seems unthinkable that if someone is going to require a kid to have two “citizen” parents in order to be a NBC, because said someone is unwilling to accept that a child of aliens is a NBC, that just any old type of citizens would do. Why would they accept the child of naturalized citizens as a natural born citizens?

    Funny thing is, if this next step was taken, we’d have a really, really short list of people “allowed” to run for President. Plenty of the bithers would lose out to. Ancestry.com would become an arm of the FEC, or some new agency. I will not go Godwin and make any comparison to any racial purity laws Germany may have passed around 1935, German Blood Certificates, mischlinge, reinrassigeren ….. oh, drat, nevermind. Anyway, this is all about citizenship and legal status, it has nothing at all to do with racial issues or fantasies of homogeneity. Not a bit.

    At some point, this post became satire. Here’s hopin’ it stays that way.

    * Puzo is up to 5 last I noticed. Anyone willing to go 6? Do I hear 6? Going once ….

  218. Arthur says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:42 am  (Quote)

    John Reilly:
    Other than the odd debate about George Romney or some such, there was no education about the natural born citizen clause.

    I learned about the natural-born citizen clause in third grade because I was an avid reader of the Sunday comic, “Dondi.” In one strip, Dondi, who was brought to the U.S. as a war orphan, learned that he could never become president because he wasn’t born on U.S. soil. He could only be a naturalized citizen. I was heartbroken for the little guy. Other than that, I don’t remember hearing about this issue in school.

  219. joyeagle says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:43 am  (Quote)

    Hey … I’ve been out of town for a while (and out of the thread) … but of all the comments I generated, I wanted to respond to this one first.
    You are exactly right … rights are relative to foundational beliefs. Our Countries founding documents “contracted” what those were for us … our inalienable rights … and healthcare was not one of them. FDR’s initiation of socialism in this country does not establish that as an inalienable right either (someone else argument, not yours).
    Christians are certainly on both sides of this issue. I am also a follower of Christ. I believe it is my obligation to care for those in need. That does not oblige me to endorse a Government to go the way of socialism which has been proven over and over to be less beneficial to society as a whole. My personal opinon is that the reason the preponderance of lefties wants socialism “for the betterment of society” is to force other peoples money to be used to assuage their own conscience, rather than personally being involved themselves. Socialism does take away the moral obligation of “helping your neighbor in need” because that becomes the job of government instead. That is not a judgement on you … I couldn’t possibly know your motives.

    Dr. Conspiracy: Rights are relative to what you believe. I’m a Christian and because of that I believe that I should love my brother as myself and letting my brother suffer from illness necessarily is something I am obligated to try to prevent. Jesus himself ran a free health clinic.In my professional life I worked in healthcare information technology. From that experience I learned quite a lot about how insurance works (or fails to work). I’ve also talked to Canadians who wouldn’t trade their health system for anything.And of course there is the inalienable right to “life,” a founding principle of our nation.

  220. Judge Mental says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:45 am  (Quote)

    Judge Mental: I’ve asked her, it’s in moderation, so we’ll see if there’s a reply.

    I don’t see anything about her husband (named James Lee according to the blog) having signed bc’s. There was a Richard Lee who was Health Director and who would have signed at the bottom of many certified copies in that capacity, but there is nothing to indicate that he was her husband. Lee is quite clearly a common name in Hawaii.

    It was mildly interesting that the aforementioned Health Director Richard Lee appears to have co-authored publications with an Eleanor Nordyke.

    Well the blogger’s answer was that I must be an Obot to not have immediately joined the choir, so I am therefore banned…..after which she went on a tirade of (completely wrong as it happens) assumptions about my politics, (completely wrong) assumptions about my location, (completely wrong) assumptions about my motivation for interest in this subject and some weird rants about other things which don’t have the first thing to do with the question of Presidential eligibility.

    Apparently she has concluded that the three known examples of Mrs Lee’s signature on birth certificates are similar therefore one or all of them have probably been lifted from one place and transplanted, including on to the fake birth certificate. For some strange unexplained reason she seems to think that bcause they are only similar and not exactly the same this somehow makes it more likely that one of her signatures has been been copied and transplanted……yeah…stumps me too!

    It seems to be akin to proposing mas murder of babies to suggest that by far the most likely reason for a Mrs V K L Lee, a documented local registrar employee of The Health Authority in 1961, having her signature on Obama’s ertified copy long form bc, to be that she signed his originally issued long form bc in 1961.

  221. JoZeppy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:46 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: My impression from all that I’ve read is that there is a difference between 14th Amendment citizenship and natural-born citizenship.

    And that impression has been shot down repeatedly for ages. Before Obama and bogus questions about his eligibilty, there were tax protestors and those who claimed “sovereign citizenship.” Needless to say, their arguments didn’t impress the courts then, they’re no more impressive now. There are two types of citizens. Naturalized, and natural born. No one ever born on US soil, and not to diplomat parents has ever needed to be naturalized.

    Sunshine49: Congress has the power through the Constitution to make immigration and “naturalized citizenship” laws. They did not need to make laws about “natural-born” citizens because it has always been understood that children who are born in the country where their parents are citizens are natural-born citizens of that country as SCOTUS stated in Minor vs Happersett.

    I really don’t understand how one can point to a decision that clearly states they are not defining the boundries of what a natural born citizen because they don’t have to, as providing a definition. Did you actually read the decision, or even the whole paragraph that birther quote? I can’t help but doubt it, because even those with a rudamentary grasp of English would have to admit there is no clear defintion of natural born citizen in Minor…..Oh…and btw, you’ll also note that Congress has never passed any laws regarding the citizenship of anyone born on US soil….perhaps because those born on US soil are NBC?

    Black Lion: One of the main issues of the debates in Congress over the 1866 Civil rights Act and the 14th Amendment was not so much nationality, but the allegiance of the parents to the U.S. Still today, to become a naturalized citizen, a person has to swear complete allegiance to the U.S. and give up any other allegiances to other countries.

    I think you need to read a little more of the debates…and another thing, legislative history is of limited value (just ask Scalia). The langauge of the amendment is pretty clear, so there is no need to go any further….and what a naturalized citizen has to do is irrelevant to the discussion. The Constitution explictly gives power to Congress to make rules for naturalization. They can put any requirements or restrictions they want, so this is irrelevant to a discussion of Natural Born Citizenship, which flows from the Constitution and Common law.

    Sunshine49: To say that the U.S. gives natural-born citizenship to children of foreign parents with NO allegiance to the U.S. just because they were born on U.S. soil makes a mockery of our citizenship laws.

    I love it when people resort to calling an interpretation they don’t like a mockery, even though they are entirely wrong. Needless to say, your understanding of the use of the term “allegiance” in this matter is what is a mockery, not the clear understanding that the entire legal community embraces of the term Natural Born Citizen.

  222. joyeagle says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:52 am  (Quote)

    dunstvangeet: Even in “communist” China my family had health coverage, thanks to government mandate. I would never endanger my family’s health by living in the US.

    I was only responding to Nathanael’s comparison: “Even in “communist” China my family had health coverage, thanks to government mandate. I would never endanger my family’s health by living in the US.”

  223. Ballantine says:
    July 19, 2011 at 12:24 pm  (Quote)

    More ignorance on display today. Will any birther actually look up the definition of “naturalization?” Let’s look at the only interpretation of the Civil Rights Act:

    “But what is naturalization? It is the removal of the disabilities of alienage… Congress has power ” to establish an uniform rule of naturalization….An alien naturalized is “to all intents and purposes a natural born subject…The power is applicable only to those of foreign birth. Alienage is an indispensable element in the process. To make one of domestic birth a citizen, is not naturalization, and cannot be brought within the exercise of that power. There is an universal agreement of opinion upon this subject.” Justice Swayne, United States v. Rhodes, 1 Abbott, US 28 (Cir. Ct. Ky 1866)

    Accordingly, the court would not find the Act constitutional under the naturalization clause since naturalization only applies to the foreign born. How about the Supreme Court:

    “The right of naturalization was therefore, with one accord, surrendered by the States, and confided to the Federal Government. And this power granted to Congress to establish an uniform rule of naturalization is, by the well-understood meaning of the word, confined to persons born in a foreign country, under a foreign Government. It is not a power to raise to the rank of a citizen any one born in the United States, who, from birth or parentage, by the laws of the country, belongs to an inferior and subordinate class.” Chief Justice Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. at 417

    “It appears, then, that the only power expressly granted to Congress to legislate concerning citizenship, is confined to the removal of the disabilities of foreign birth.” Justice Curtis, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 478 (1857)

    The only thing the majority and dissent agreed on in Dred Scott. Persons born in the US cannot be naturalized. Such point was made over and over in the 14th Amendment Congress. No legal authority in history has called someone born in the United States a naturalized citizen.

  224. Majority Will says:
    July 19, 2011 at 12:32 pm  (Quote)

    Judge Mental: Apparently she has concluded that the three known examples of Mrs Lee’s signature on birth certificates are similar therefore one or all of them have probably been lifted from one place and transplanted, including on to the fake birth certificate. For some strange unexplained reason she seems to think that bcause they are only similar and not exactly the same this somehow makes it more likely that one of her signatures has been been copied and transplanted……yeah…stumps me too!

    Signature stamps have been quite common for decades especially in civil service positions.

    And when a stamp wears out, (surprise) a new stamp is issued.

    This sounds like the same meaningless tripe concerning typewriters.

    It’s easy for birthers to find a conspiracy when they start with a conclusion.

  225. Ballantine says:
    July 19, 2011 at 12:38 pm  (Quote)

    You can’t separate the allegiance of the child from the allegiance of the parents. If that was the case, there would be NO dual citizenship. If the parent owes allegiance to another country, their child will also owe allegiance to that country from birth. The U.S. does NOT refuse the child’s right to give up U.S. citizenship for citizenship in the country of their parent or parents when they come of age. If the child owes allegiance to another country through the parent, they do NOT owe complete allegiance to the U.S. — which is required to become a “naturalized” citizen. The country where they are living is the one who has jurisdiction over them at the time. The U.S. does not have jurisdiction over the child when they go to the country of their parents like they do over natural-born U.S. citizens.So, technically, a dual citizen is not even a full citizen of the U.S. until they reach legal age and swear total allegiance to the U.S. ONLY like a naturalized citizen. A naturalized citizen is NOT a natural born citizen!Maybe because I’m older, I’ve always thought that natural-born meant being born of citizen parents. It seems that the meaning has been “changed” in the last few years from what I was taught when I was in school.

    Unfortunately, everything you said is wrong. No American legal authority has ever said the allegiance of the parents matters. While some countries may follow such rule producing dual citizenship, it simply has never been the rule in the United States. There never has been a requirement to owe complete allegiance. Another birther myth. Many US citizens were born British subjects. US policy was to ignore foreign claims of allegiance and maintain that our citizens only owed allegaince to us. They passed a resolution to such effect in 1868 stating that we would protect all our native and naturalized citizens from all claims of foreign allegiance. And now since you have done no research on the definition of allegiance, maybe this would help:

    “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.” James Madison, The Founders’ Constitution Volume 2, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2, Document 6 (1789)

    “The people are considered as aliens, born in some foreign country, as inhabitants of some neighbouring state in the union, or natural born subjects, born within the state. It is an established maxim, received by all political writers, that every person owes a natural allegiance to the government of that country in which he is born. Allegiance is defined to be a tie, that binds the subjeft to the state, and in consequence of his obedience, he is entitled to protection… The children of aliens, born in this state, are considered as natural born subjects, and have the same rights with the rest of the citizens.” Zephaniah Swift, A system of the laws of the state of Connecticut: in six books, Volumes 1-2 of A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut: In Six Book, pg. 163,167 (1795)

    “that a man born within the jurisdiction of the common law is a citizen of the country wherein he is born. By this circumstance of his birth, he is subjected to the duty of allegiance which is claimed and enforced by the sovereign of his native land, and becomes reciprocally entitled to the protection of that sovereign, and to the other rights and advantages which are included in the term “citizenship.” Garder v. Ward, 2 Mass. 244 (1805).

    This claim of the commonwealth to the allegiance of all persons born within its territories, may subject some persons who, adhering to their former sovereign and residing within his dominions, are recognized by him as his subjects, to great inconvenience, especially in time of war, when two opposing sovereigns may claim their allegiance. But the inconvenience cannot alter the law of the land. If they return to the country of their birth, they will be protected as subjects.” Ainslie v. Martin, 9 Mass. 454, 456, 457 (1813).

    “Natural allegiance is the consequence of being born within the jurisdiction of a particular sovereignty : conventional allegiance is implied, when an individual goes within the jurisdiction of a sovereignty, for the purpose of residing a longer or shorter time as suits his convenience : and Conventional allegiance is expressed, when there is a positive contract between the sovereign or subject, made by the intervention of an oath of allegiance.” Willima Charles Jarvis, The Republican: or, a series of essays on the principles and policy of free states, pg. 71 (1820)

    “Allegiance is nothing more than the tie or duty of obedience of a subject to the sovereign under whose protection he is, and allegiance by birth is that which arises from being born within the dominions and under the protection of a particular sovereign. Two things usually concur to create citizenship: first, birth locally within the dominions of the sovereign, and secondly, birth within the protection and obedience, or, in other words, within the allegiance of the sovereign.” Justice Story, concurring opinion, Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155,164. (1830)

    “The common law principle of allegiance was the law of all the States at the time of the Revolution and at the adoption of the Constitution, and, by that principle, the citizens of the United States are, with the exceptions before mentioned, such only as are either born or made so, born within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States or naturalized by the authority of law, either in one of the States before the Constitution or, since that time, by virtue of an act of the Congress of the United States. The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute.” Horace Binney, American Law Register, 2 Amer.Law Reg.193, 203, 204, 206 (February 1854)..(cited in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark,169 U.S. 649, 665 (1898)

    “Citizens are either natives or naturalized aliens. Natives are all persons born within the jurisdiction and allegiance of the United States; 2 Kent’s Com. 37. And this, whether born of alien parents or not; Lynch v. Clark, 1 Sandf. Ch. 583. ” John Duer, Benjamin Franklin Butler, John Canfield Spencer, The law of real property of the state of New York, pg. 22 (1855)

    “Alligience”: It is natural, acquired, or local. Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the United States; acquired allegiance is that which is due by a naturalized citizen. It has never been decided whether a citizen can, by expatriation, divest himself absolutely of that character. Bouvier Law Dictionary pg. 100 (1843)

    NATURAL ALLEGIANCE. In English law. That kind of allegiance which is due from all men born within the king’s dominions, immediately upon their birth ; which is intrinsic and perpetual, and cannot be divested by any act of their own. 1 Bl. Com. 370, 371. “2 Kent’s Com. 42. In American law. The allegiance due from citizens of the United States to their native or adopted country, and which, it seems, cannot be renounced without the permission of government, to be declared by law. 2 Kent’s Com. 43 — 49. Alexander Mansfield Burrill, A new law dictionary and glossary, pg 736 (1851)

    “Birth binds man by the tie of natural allegiance to his native soil, and such allegiance gives, by the principles of universal law, to the country in which he was born rights unknown to mere voluntary or statutory allegiance.” Tobin v. Walkinshaw, Circuit Court, U. S., July Term, 1856

    “The honorable Senator from Kentucky…forgets this general process of nations and or nature by which every man, by his birth, is entitled to citizenship, and upon the general principle that he owes allegiance to the country of his birth, and that country owes him protection. That is the foundation, in my understanding, of all citizenship…” Senator Morrill, Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Congress, pt. 1, pg. p. 570 (1866).

    “It is a rule of universal law, adopted and maintained among all nations, that they who are born upon the soil are the citizens of the State. They owe allegiance to the state, and are entitled to the protection of the State. Such is the law, whether you put it into this bill or nor. So far as this declaration of the bill is concerned, it is but reiterating an existing and acknowledged principle of law.” Rep. Thayer, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong. 1st Sess. 1152 (1866)

    “As a positive enactment this would hardly seem necessary….What is a citizen but a human being who, by reason of his being born within the jurisdiction of a government, owes allegiance to that government?” Congressman Broomall, Cong. Globe, 1st Sess. 39th Congress, pt. 1, pg. 1262 (1866).

    “How is it that every person born in these United States owes allegiance to the Government? Every thing that he is or has, his property and his life, may be taken by the Government of the United States in its defense, or to maintain the honor of the nation.” Senator Trumbull, William Horatio Barnes, History of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States, pg. 255 (1868)

    In the great case of Lynch vs. Clarke, it was conclusively shown that in the absence of all constitutional provision or congressional law declaring citizenship by birth, “it must be regulated by some rule of national law coeval with the existence of the Union” it was and is that “all citizens that children born here, are citizens, without any regard to the political condition or allegiance of their parents.” Rep. Lawrence, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 1832 (1866)

  226. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:04 pm  (Quote)

    Respectfully, the premise of your argument, trying to point out that “healthcare” was not mentioned specifically by the Founders is really a silly one when looked at with perspective.

    You are talking about founding documents put together in the latter part of the 18th century. Most of the realities and abilities of our modern day world not only didn’t exist back then but could hardly be expected to be predicted by men of that time. There was no modern medicine. You really didn’t have insurance as we know it (some “fire insurance” (but that was about it and very different from any application of modern day insurance these days…hint – you primarily paid for the right for a private insurance owned water brigade to show up and put out the fire on your property)). Nor did you have any form of modern communications, electricity, automobilies, planes, computers, internet, etc. etc. etc.)

    What I’m getting at is the argument becauses rather silly because civilization has changed extensively due to advancements since then, which completely drive both how we live, where we live, how we eat, drink, shelter and take care of ourselves and communnicate to one another. If your whole premise is some wistful desire to go back to some pre-industrial world…well, unless you either want to become Amish or live off the grid in a secluded cabin somewhere – then good luck with that.

    In any simple, common sense and pragmatic view of things, as society and civilization increase in size and complexity, the needs and means of attending to the citizenry and maintaining a healthy population increase in relation. Very similar to Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs applied to civilizations and societies.

    In terms of what the Founders did want – the Preamble of the Constitution clearly talks about Promoting the General Welfare of the people as a purpose for the government.

    Reasonable arguments can be made to point to that principle in looking at the needs of the people in the 21st century, which can include access to medical treatment and good healthcare.

    joyeagle: Hey … I’ve been out of town for a while (and out of the thread) … but of all the comments I generated, I wanted to respond to this one first.You are exactly right … rights are relative to foundational beliefs. Our Countries founding documents “contracted” what those were for us … our inalienable rights … and healthcare was not one of them. FDR’s initiation of socialism in this country does not establish that as an inalienable right either (someone else argument, not yours).Christians are certainly on both sides of this issue. I am also a follower of Christ. I believe it is my obligation to care for those in need. That does not oblige me to endorse a Government to go the way of socialism which has been proven over and over to be less beneficial to society as a whole. My personal opinon is that the reason the preponderance of lefties wants socialism “for the betterment of society” is to force other peoples money to be used to assuage their own conscience, rather than personally being involved themselves. Socialism does take away the moral obligation of “helping your neighbor in need” because that becomes the job of government instead. That is not a judgement on you … I couldn’t possibly know your motives.

  227. Rickey says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:04 pm  (Quote)

    Wow. Sunshine49 has been doing “a lot of research” for three months and still manages to get almost everything he says wrong.

    As has been repeated here many times, the government’s SCOTUS brief in the Wong Kim Ark case conceded that if Wong Kim Ark was a citizen, he was a natural-born citizen who was eligible to be President.

    For more than two years (at least) birfers have been searching for the elusive textbook which asserts that a natural-born citizen must have two U.S. citizen parents. They will never find it, because it does not exist. As John Reilly has pointed out, this was covered in a few minutes in Civics class in elementary school. With a few exceptions, born in the USA=natural born citizen.

  228. Scientist says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:18 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Our Countries founding documents “contracted” what those were for us … our inalienable rights … and healthcare was not one of them.

    The rights enumerated in the Constitution were never intended to be the ONLY rights that anyone could ever claim for the remainder of time. They are the minimum rights, a floor, not in any way a ceiling. Surely you have actually read the debates at the time and are aware of that? The writers of the Constitution were forward-looking people, who very much hoped that human kind would progress. It is a criminal shame, in my opinion, that some today who claim to admire them attempt to portray them as narrow-minded folk who wanted the world to remain as it was in 1788 for eternity.

  229. joyeagle says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:35 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist,
    I am just beginning my endeavor to study the founding documents and the people. I do think moving around as a child I missed that in my education, or else it was just treated to lightly. My adult education focused on the technical rather than the liberal. I’ve read a few so far, and plan to pick up “The Original Argument” next. Did you have a recommendation on the topic to read?

    Scientist: Surely you have actually read the debates at the time and are aware of that?

  230. JoZeppy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:42 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: The purpose of the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment was to give “naturalized” citizenship not only to children born to blacks, but to other nationalities that some States denied “naturalized” citizenship. The Wong decision did the same thing because the U.S. was denying “naturalized citizenship” to Chinese.

    There is so much wrong with this. First, States have no power to naturalize anyone. The Constitution grants that solely to Congress. Secondly, Wonk Kim Ark did nothing of the sort. No one was naturalized. There is no discussion of naturalization in the decision. It was whether Wong was a citizen due to the fact that he born on US soil. Thirdly, Congress does have the power to deny naturalized citizenship to whomever they want. The Constition give Congress power over passing rules of naturalization.

    Sunshine49: Logically, if the parents are already naturalized and have sworn allegiance to the U.S., their children are “natural-born” citizens and do not need to be naturalized.

    No one ever born on US soil has ever needed to be naturalized. End of story.

    Sunshine49: As stated by Supreme Court Justice Noah Haynes Swayne : “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…since as before the Revolution.” United States v. Rhodes, 27 Fed. Cas. 785 (1866).

    This actually undermines your whole point. You just don’t understand the underlying common law to realize it. Everyone on US soil (minus diplomats and invading armies) owe at least temporary allegiance to the US, thus anyone born on US soil is a natural born citizen. You will also note they point to the common law of England, which is also unquestionably jus soli.

    Sunshine49: I don’t remember where I read it, but even under English Common Law there was a difference between children born of “subjects” and those born of foreigners, even though they were all considered “subjects” of the king.

    Probably a birther site. It’s simply wrong.

    Sunshine49: You can’t separate the allegiance of the child from the allegiance of the parents.

    You don’t have to. If the parents are on US soil at the time, they owe temporary allegiance to the US while they are here.

    Sunshine49: If that was the case, there would be NO dual citizenship.

    You will have dual citizens so long as different countries are free to make their own citizenship laws. My daughter was born on US soil to two US citizen parents, and is still a dual citizen.

    Sunshine49: If the parent owes allegiance to another country, their child will also owe allegiance to that country from birth. The U.S. does NOT refuse the child’s right to give up U.S. citizenship for citizenship in the country of their parent or parents when they come of age. If the child owes allegiance to another country through the parent, they do NOT owe complete allegiance to the U.S. — which is required to become a “naturalized” citizen. The country where they are living is the one who has jurisdiction over them at the time. The U.S. does not have jurisdiction over the child when they go to the country of their parents like they do over natural-born U.S. citizens.

    All a bunch of bunk. What is required of a naturalized citizen is irrelevant. Congress has the Constitutional authority to make whatever rules on naturalization it pleases. They do not have that power over natural born citizens. And quite honestly, a nation has rather limited jurisdiction over its citizens while traveling abroad. Just ask Jose Medellin.

    Sunshine49: So, technically, a dual citizen is not even a full citizen of the U.S. until they reach legal age and swear total allegiance to the U.S. ONLY like a naturalized citizen. A naturalized citizen is NOT a natural born citizen!

    And where exactly do you pull this swearing allegiance b.s.? No one born on US soil has ever been required to do anything of the sort. Once again, no person born on US soil has ever been required to be naturalized or jump through any additional hoops for their citizenship.

    Sunshine49: Maybe because I’m older, I’ve always thought that natural-born meant being born of citizen parents. It seems that the meaning has been “changed” in the last few years from what I was taught when I was in school.

    I think this memory comes from the same place as your mistaken memory about reading about the common law. If this was the case, why has no one ever been able to show a single civics book that ever mentioned parents as having anything to do with NBC?

  231. Ballantine says:
    July 19, 2011 at 1:49 pm  (Quote)

    I think this ememory comes from the same place as your mistaken memory about reading about the common law. If this was the case, why has no one ever been able to show a single civics book that ever mentioned parents as having anything to do with NBC?

    There are hundreds of civics books on google books that define Presidential eligibility. Birthers are welcome to search such books but, of course, they can’t find a single book that supports their silly theory. The fact is that outside a few racists in the late 19th century who wanted to deny citizenship to blacks, Chinese aliens and indians, no one supported the 2-parent theory in our history.

  232. Majority Will says:
    July 19, 2011 at 2:12 pm  (Quote)

    JoZeppy: Just ask Jose Medellin.

    Not without a Ouija board.

  233. Rickey says:
    July 19, 2011 at 2:18 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    FDR’s initiation of socialism in this country does not establish that as an inalienable right either (someone else argument, not yours).

    Actually, FDR saved capitalism, which was on the verge of self-destruction. Ironically, one of the most blatant examples of real socialism is the state-run liquor store, It is ironic because most (but not all) state-run liquor stores are in red states such as Alabama, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. yet you never hear a peep of complaint from tea partiers about this government intrusion in the free market.

    I believe it is my obligation to care for those in need.That does not oblige me to endorse a Government to go the way of socialism which has been proven over and over to be less beneficial to society as a whole.

    Why was Medicare established in 1965? Because senior citizens by and large could not buy health insurance on the open market, and private charities were not up to the task of filling the need.

    Feeling obligated to care for those in need is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills when a poor person shows up at the emergency room. Sick people need medical care right away and not have to wait for a Good Samaritan to come forward for them.

    The reality is that in Canada, which has a single-payer system of health care and everyone is covered, health care costs consume approximately 10% of GDP. In the United States, where 50 million people had no health insurance as of last year, health cares costs consume approximately 16% of GDP. The U.K. spends even less on health care than Canada, approximately 8% of GDP. Yet both Canada and the U.K. rank higher than the U.S. in health care effectiveness. So how are the health care systems in Canada and the U.K. less beneficial to society as a whole?

  234. Majority Will says:
    July 19, 2011 at 2:28 pm  (Quote)

    Rickey: Feeling obligated to care for those in need is nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills when a poor person shows up at the emergency room. Sick people need medical care right away and not have to wait for a Good Samaritan to come forward for them.

    “I’m BLEEDING to death!”

    “Well, bless your heart. That looks really painful. I’m sure someone will be along to help. You take care now. And I mean that sincerely.” (end scene)

  235. Judge Mental says:
    July 19, 2011 at 2:51 pm  (Quote)

    Majority Will: Signature stamps have been quite common for decades especially in civil service positions.And when a stamp wears out, (surprise) a new stamp is issued.This sounds like the same meaningless tripe concerning typewriters.It’s easy for birthers to find a conspiracy when they start with a conclusion.

    All absolutely true of course MW but in these cases it’s pretty clear that these aren’t signature stamps and she isn’t alluding to signature stamps. They each appear to be individual handwritten signatures, in the same way as the doctors signatures immediately above them are, which makes her position even more absurd.

    She is also making a big deal out of the fact that Mrs Verna K L Lee doesn’t sign with her full christian names, only the initials. Honestly, these people get nuttier by the minute. It was a pretty good bit of research work by her site to find out that it would have been a registrar called Mrs Verna K L Lee who signed and not some anonymous Mr Ukelele, which new information to any sane and rational objective person would if anything, tend to support the veracity of the document even more than before. That good research is then ruined by the absurd reasoning that this somehow makes the document less credible! Beam me up.

  236. charo says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:15 pm  (Quote)

    Rickey: It is ironic because most (but not all) state-run liquor stores are in red states such as Alabama, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. yet you never hear a peep of complaint from tea partiers about this government intrusion in the free market.

    The tea party movement is strong in Pennsylvania:

    http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/research/detail/dozens-of-tea-parties-coming-to

    Commonwealth Foundation Toasts Turzai Liquor Freedom Bill

    HARRISBURG, Pa., July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Commonwealth Foundation toasted House Majority Leader Mike Turzai today for unveiling House Bill 11, a law that would privatize the wholesale and retail sales operations of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

    http://news.yahoo.com/commonwealth-foundation-toasts-turzai-liquor-freedom-bill-183608597.html

  237. Bovril says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:20 pm  (Quote)

    Joyeagle,

    With regard to your item about healthcare and Constitutionally, would you agree that

    a. Regarding the meaning of the Constitution it cannot be argued that the Founding Fathers opinions on this matter are heavily weighted

    b. That the senators and congressman of the first Congresses were led by, governed and imbued with the knowledge of the principles of he FF’s and the Constitution

    c. That as such any acts passed by the above were by their nature likely to have the full agreement and approval of the meaning of the Constitution

    As such

    “Our Founders realized that a healthy work force was essential to our economic health and growth. It was for this reason that, in July of 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law an act “For the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” establishing the Marine Hospital Service.

    This Federal government socialized healthcare insurance was funded by a tax that was withheld from the sailor’s pay, and then turned over to the government by the ship’s owner. This first payroll tax amounted to slightly over 1% of the sailor’s wages. An injured or sick sailor would make a claim, his record of payments would be confirmed, and he would be given a “chit” for admission to the local hospital. Some of these healthcare facilities were private, but in the larger ports Federal maritime hospitals were built.

    A year later, in 1799, the hospitals were opened to members of our Navy, until its own were established. (In 1936 the Merchant Marines were declared an auxiliary of the Navy during times of war and emergency, until then, they were always private employees.)

    As America grew, this system was expanded to the inland ports along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and others. It eventually became our Public Health Service, led by the Surgeon General.
    ”

    Seems they had no issue at all.

  238. Majority Will says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:30 pm  (Quote)

    Judge Mental: All absolutely true of course MW but in these cases it’s pretty clear that these aren’t signature stamps and she isn’t alluding to signature stamps. They each appear to be individual handwritten signatures, in the same way as the doctors signatures immediately above them are, which makes her position even more absurd.

    She is also making a big deal out of the fact that Mrs Verna K L Lee doesn’t sign with her full christian names, only the initials. Honestly, these people get nuttier by the minute. It was a pretty good bit of research work by her site to find out that it would have been a registrar called Mrs Verna K L Lee who signed and not some anonymous Mr Ukelele, which new information to any sane and rational objective person would if anything, tend to support the veracity of the document even more than before. That good research is then ruined by the absurd reasoning that this somehow makes the document less credible! Beam me up.

    Yikes.

  239. joyeagle says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:39 pm  (Quote)

    I am not actually arguing the constitutionality of Healthcare. Gorefan already sent me the link concerning the Sailors healthcare act. So yes, obviously the Founding Fathers had no problem with subsidized and/or mandated healthcare for a segment of commerce that the country depended on to survive.
    My “argument” was more of a response to those that not only advocate mandatory healthcare, but argue it as though it were an inalienable right … that has developed in the progress of our country. That every modern country recognizes that it is self-evident God-granted right.
    They also want to argue cost-effectiveness based on % of GDP in comparison of our country to others–I’m not sure I trust the numbers, but I do trust the people I’ve met that have come down from Canada to get treatment for conditions that they would have died waiting for in Canada. I do trust the stories of those who are refused treatment by government panels in the UK. And healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP is so esoteric as to be meaningless. Certainly we can lower cost of healthcare as a percentage of GDP by running doctors out of our country and denying procedures to old people and wnd readers and the like … it is just such a meaningless statistic.
    I know there are large numbers of people in our country who cannot afford certain levels of healthcare. I know it is super expensive. But a big part of the cost is malpractice insurance.

    And, bottom-line, sure we can afford to pay for everyone to have ultimate healthcare in this country, without anyone having to work and produce, and it will last for a few years befor the country collapses under the cost. That doesn’t seem to bother the socialists who are its proponents.

    Bovril: Joyeagle,With regard to your item aboiut hetahcare and Constitutionaliy, would you agree thata. Regarding the meaning of the Constiton it cannot be argued that the Founding Fathers opinions on this matter are heavily weighted … Public Health Service, led by the Surgeon General.”Seems they had no issue at all.

  240. JoZeppy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:39 pm  (Quote)

    charo: The tea party movement is strong in Pennsylvania:

    You mean the state that has voted for the democrat in every presidential election since 1988?

    And how exactly does your link show that the tea party is “strong” in PA? I think you’re reading a lot more into that blurb than there actually is.

  241. charo says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:48 pm  (Quote)

    I came across the link below while reading comments about the Canadian health care system. The message I got is not that the Canadian health care system lacks quality care, but that there are not enough doctors to handle cases such as angioplasty without a wait time. This hit close to home for me because my husband was had two angioplasties. He is a non-smoker and not overweight, just bad genetics. Two years ago, he went to the cardiologist after experiencing some symptoms while running. Because he had just aced a routine stress test a couple of months before, the doctor was not overly concerned but ordered a catheterization because of my husband’s worries. Result: blocked artery. I am very much troubled by the issue of pre-exising conditions (I strongly agree they should not be a reason to deny insurance altogether) yet I can’t see how the health care law, as it stands now, will not lead to wait times and rationing. My husband will likely need another angioplasty, maybe more, in his lifetime. The thought of walking around with a blocked artery is not very pleasant.

    http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/21/canadians-crossing-the-border-for-u-s-health-care/

  242. misha says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:58 pm  (Quote)

    charo: The tea party movement is strong in Pennsylvania:

    Not here in Philly. The city is 75% registered Democrats, like me. We now have a Republican governor, but before him we had 2 terms of Ed Rendell, who is Jewish and as liberal as can be. He got the minimum wage in PA raised to $8/hr.

    BTW, the same crowd that is screaming Obama is not NBC, wanted to amend the Constitution so Arnold could run for pres. Yeah, race has nothing to do with it.

  243. charo says:
    July 19, 2011 at 3:58 pm  (Quote)

    JoZeppy: You mean the state that has voted for the democrat in every presidential election since 1988?

    And how exactly does your link show that the tea party is “strong” in PA?I think you’re reading a lot more into that blurb than there actually is.

    The state is now controlled by Republicans. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia generally have a large impact of presidential elections. I think it may be closer in PA this time around, but will go for Obama.

    The tea party foundation heavily promoted the liquor law. I am not a tea party member but I know people heavily involved in the movement, well educated and motivated. They are attending school board meetings and organizing community events, etc. for the agenda they support.

  244. Rickey says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:17 pm  (Quote)

    charo:

    HARRISBURG, Pa., July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Commonwealth Foundation toasted House Majority Leader Mike Turzai today for unveiling House Bill 11, a law that would privatize the wholesale and retail sales operations of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

    I wouldn’t call Pennsylvania a red state, but if that law passes it still leaves 18 states which control or monopolize the distribution and sale of liquor.

    The larger point is that many aspects of our society are “socialized” but are not demonized by tea partiers. Why is government-run health care fine for veterans and active duty military but not for civilians?

  245. Scientist says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:24 pm  (Quote)

    charo: I am quite familiar with the Canadian system, having many friends and relatives in Canada (including doctors), not a single one of whom has ever come to the US for medical care, so I can make a few comments:

    1. The Canadian system is not perfect and few Canadians would claim it is. Wait times for elective procedures have generally been acknowledged as being longer than they should be in some cases. There has been a concerted effort to reduce them, and they have been reduced considerably, but perfection has not yet arrived. Ask yourself this though, “What would be the wait time for an angioplasty for an uninsured American”?

    2. The Canadian system is run by the provinces (with cost shared with the federal government) so what is true in Ontario is not necessarily true in every province.

    3. Canada spends 10% of GDP for a very good system that covers everyone, while the US spends 17% for a very good system that leaves about 20% of the population uncovered. Canada could increase spending to 12 or 13% and probably eliminate wait tiimes and sttill have a less expensive system than the US.

    4. The Canadian system is not the only model for universal health care. The key to me is to cover everyone at a reasonable cost. I have no objection to having the private sector play a part. Germany, Holland and Switzerland have excellent systems that cover everyone with many covered through private insurance, which is fine with me, . The recent health care law here is modeled on those more than on the Canadian system,

    5. Despite its imperfections polls show that Canadians are generally satisfied with their heallth care, much more so than Ameriicans. When asked if they would liike a US-style system, fewer than 5% say yes.

  246. misha says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:25 pm  (Quote)

    charo: My husband will likely need another angioplasty, maybe more, in his lifetime. The thought of walking around with a blocked artery is not very pleasant.

    Let’s see what conservatives have to say about your medical problems:

    “The problem is that these are all goods and services, though of varying importance, and goods and rights are not the same things…good health in nature is rare…What the fine print reveals beyond disputation is that health care is a good, not a right…Goods are not rights. Pensions and access to health care remain social goods that a decent society will try to provide to its people. But goods are not rights, and the old model, which claimed that they are, is broken. We need a new one, which provides sustainable ways to convey social goods to those who most need them.”

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/fling-welfare-state_576909.html

    When I was in Anchorage for the Iditarod, a woman who belonged to the Anchorage AoG – Palin belongs to the Wasilla AoG – told me Jewish people “deserve to suffer.”

  247. charo says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:27 pm  (Quote)

    Rickey: I wouldn’t call Pennsylvania a red state, but if that law passes it still leaves 18 states which control or monopolize the distribution and sale of liquor.

    The larger point is that many aspects of our society are “socialized” but are not demonized by tea partiers. Why is government-run health care fine for veterans and active duty military but not for civilians?

    I’m not for demonizing, but rational discussion of the pros and cons of the issue. The problem is in human nature. The reason we have so many skilled physicians in specialty fields is because they can make lots of money. Would that be my primary motivation if I were skilled in that way? No. I believe that you can’t make people be good to others. That will fail. Yet some kind of compromise is needed. That is a sloppy response, but I think you get the idea.

  248. charo says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:30 pm  (Quote)

    Not that we have an overabundance of skilled physicians, but we have more than other countries like Canada. Take away the financial incentives, the field shrinks.

  249. dunstvangeet says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:40 pm  (Quote)

    And there seems to be a myth of Canadians crossing the border in droves to get healthcare. That all it is, a myth.

    In fact, in a survey of 18,000 respondents, only 0.5% had gotten healthcare in the United States in the prior year. Further, only 0.11% (20 out of 18,000) said that they had gone specifically to the United States to get healthcare, whether or not it was publicly covered.

    http://cthealth.server101.com/myth_canadians%27_use_of_healthcare_in_the_u_s_.htm

  250. Scientist says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:42 pm  (Quote)

    charo: Not that we have an overabundance of skilled physicians, but we have more than other countries like Canada. Take away the financial incentives, the field shrinks.

    charo, the queen of the unsupported statement.

    The US is #42 in the world in physicians/10,000 population. Yes, Canada, is a bit lower, but countries like Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands are quite a bit higher.

    http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/data/topic/map.aspx?ind=74

    From personal experience living in France, we could usually call our pediatrician in the morning and get in to see him before lunch or right after (lunch, of course, being sacred in France). I have never been able to get a same day (or even next day) appointment in the US; If it’s urgent they send you to the Emergency.

  251. joyeagle says:
    July 19, 2011 at 4:47 pm  (Quote)

    Nice quote/link … I guess we should strive to obtain to the top of the list … like Cuba, Greece, and Russia. 🙂

    Scientist: charo, the queen of the unsupported statement.The US is #42 in the world in physicians/10,000 population. Yes, Canada, is a bit lower, but countries like Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands are quite a bit higher.http://www.globalhealthfacts.org/data/topic/map.aspx?ind=74From personal experience living in France, we could usually call our pediatrician in the morning and get in to see him before lunch or right after (lunch, of course, being sacred in France). I have never been able to get a same day (or even next day) appointment in the US; If it’s urgent they send you to the Emergency.

  252. Daniel says:
    July 19, 2011 at 5:07 pm  (Quote)

    misha: How can a Wiccan be a social conservative? I’m Jewish, and was invited to join the Philadelphia Witches Circle. They are given the most miserable time by conservatives in general.

    You are confusing social conservatives with people who mis-use the phrase to hide religious theocratic delusions.

  253. JoZeppy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 5:15 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: Nice quote/link … I guess we should strive to obtain to the top of the list … like Cuba, Greece, and Russia.

    Well out of the three examples you picked two have lower infant morality rates, and one has a higher life expectancy. We could go down the rest of the list and see how our rank of 34 in infant mortality rates and 36 in life expectancy hold up against the 41 countries ahead of us in that list.

    You certainly can pick off coutries ahead of us that have their issues….but considering we rank rather low on all these lists, it’s really not much of a chore, is it?

  254. Rickey says:
    July 19, 2011 at 5:52 pm  (Quote)

    charo:
    I came across the link below while reading comments about the Canadian health care system.The message I got is not that the Canadian health care system lacks quality care, but that there are not enough doctors to handle cases such as angioplasty without a wait time.

    The situation in the article you linked to had nothing to do with wait times. It is a fact of life that most of Canada – particularly in the north and west – is sparsely populated. Consequently, much of Canada has insufficient need for angioplasties to justify maintaining specialists and facilities for the procedure. People in those areas have to be transported to a hospital which can perform the procedure, and if the nearest one is in the United States, so be it. Even so, 64% of Canadians live within an hour of a Canadian hospital which performs angioplasties.

    When that article was written, neither hospital in Windsor, Ontario was equipped to perform angioplasties. That has since changed, as the procedure is now done at Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor.

    Since the patient in the article lived four hours from Toronto, it obviously made more sense for him to take a 20-minute ride to Detroit. The salient point is that the procedure was covered.

    As for rationing, it exists in the United States now. It is rationed according to a patient’s ability to pay for it and by insurance companies which decide whether to cover it. In Canada, it made no difference how long the patient had the condition, It made no difference whether he was employed.

    Do you really believe that doctors and hospitals will disappear in the U.S. if we went to a single payer system? In case you have missed it, hospitals have been closing left and right in the U.S. under the present system. Eight hospitals have closed in New York City in the past four years alone (17 have been closed since 2000), and five more are in danger of being shut down. Welcome to the free market.

  255. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:04 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle:
    My “argument” was more of a response to those that not only advocate mandatory healthcare, but argue it as though it were an inalienable right … that has developed in the progress of our country.

    Yes, I’ve heard those that would *like* to see healthcare become mandatory or who view that it *should* become a right and make an argument for that. However, I’ve never run into anyone who actually claimed it was always a right…

    Anyways, I don’t see anything wrong with, in trying to find a valid solution to a very serious problem, that issues and ideas are up for mere discussion and debate and weighed properly on the overall merits what their benefits and concerns will be. I worked in insurance for 13 years, so I know where the argument comes (from the private sector, mind you) of WHY various types of insurance should be mandated (house, car, etc) as a cost-containment strategy. The theory of “spread of risk” was always considered a traditionally conservative strategy and one that was pro-business. Funny how propaganda has tricked people into viewing it so differently today. I’m open to hearing the argument and seeing the figures, but I’m also open to hearing alternatives of how you can make the system succeed without mandates. In the end, reality rules the day and some realities require things that might seem distasteful to me on the surface until I understand why they had to be done that way.

    joyeagle:
    That every modern country recognizes that it is self-evident God-granted right.

    What? Who on earth has ever said that? I think you are just being hyperbolic and making things up with that claim. That sounds like nothing but a fake Straw-man meme.

    joyeagle:

    They also want to argue cost-effectiveness based on % of GDP in comparison of our country to others–I’m not sure I trust the numbers,

    Valid point here. I’m not sure that some of those statistics are all that valuable. Obviously, there is a lot of context and perspective that any of these numbers have to be assessed against, but I agree that too often statistics can be pulled out to stretch an argument beyond what the numbers themselves actually express.

    For example, that # of doctors per 10K people chart we all saw on this thread – on the surface, that sounds like a reasonable thing to measure…under the assumption that more doctors = more access to healthcare. But more doesn’t necessarily mean better, nor does the number in any way translate to facilities and capabilities that the doctors have at their disposal. So arguments on quality cannot be measured from a statistic like that at all.

    joyeagle:

    but I do trust the people I’ve met that have come down from Canada to get treatment for conditions that they would have died waiting for in Canada. I do trust the stories of those who are refused treatment by government panels in the UK. And healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP is so esoteric as to be meaningless. Certainly we can lower cost of healthcare as a percentage of GDP by running doctors out of our country and denying procedures to old people and wnd readers and the like … it is just such a meaningless statistic.

    I’m going to have to be a bit skeptical of your claim here, as this is a common FOAF meme claim that people make that usually turns out to be nothing more than passing on an urban legend instead of personal experience when you investigate it.

    I disagree that healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP are so esoteric as to be meaningless. In terms of how macroeconomics work, these high level comparison statistics are consistently the type of measurement indicators that are used to identify correlative trends. Now, I agree that you can’t just stop with that stastistic – but it is the starting point to dig deeper into the cause/effect relationships of health care costs & systems across various nations.

    The big problem here is that people keep confusing ACCESS to healthcare via INSURANCE to actual health care facilities, capabilities and expertise. All that does is create confusion and setup more false strawmen arguments where people talk past each other and don’t actually look at or address the problems.

    There is little dispute that the US has a large quantity of top-notch hospitals & health care facilities, skilled physicians and a fair number of leading edge procedures. (True: there are other countries now catching up). But much of this has to do with our past success of being the richest country in the world and that people came here to practice & develop solutions because of our drive for innovation and higher education. We’re sadly starting to slip and slack on those fronts now too… But we should still have top notch facilities and people for years to come.

    HOWEVER, that has nothing to do with the KEY issue of WHO has access to health care, which in this country either means being able to afford insurance and medical care (and often insurance dictating who you can see) or being forced to go to the emergency room, where people cannot be turned away (and where you don’t get to pick/choose your doctor,etc) but the COSTS are passed back on to all of us. Our current system is highly ineffective and broken.

    So yes, we have more facilities and often better facilities than a certain large country with a relatively small and sparse population to our North. However, they have much better access and lower costs for receiving coverage and treatment for all their citizens.

    Two completely different issues.

    joyeagle:

    I know there are large numbers of people in our country who cannot afford certain levels of healthcare. I know it is super expensive. But a big part of the cost is malpractice insurance.
    And, bottom-line, sure we can afford to pay for everyone to have ultimate healthcare in this country, without anyone having to work and produce, and it will last for a few years befor the country collapses under the cost. That doesn’t seem to bother the socialists who are its proponents

    .

    I agree about the malpractice insurance issues. That is another area where a serious, adult conversation needs to happen, without the “special interests” blocking reform. Part of the solution most definitely involves “tort reform”…but that is not a magic bullet to this issue either. Trust me, again this is an area where the insurance companies ALSO have a large part of the blame and use the issue as an excuse to gouge doctors. Finally, a careful balance must be struck to reduce frivolous suits or make doctor’s afraid to take necessary risks with the need to protect patients from very real and very serious (and often preventable) cases of real malpractice, neglect and abuse.

  256. Joy says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:14 pm  (Quote)

    G, you always have very well reasoned and backed up arguments (like scientist and unlike me much of the time). I appreciate your thoughtful, critical response. I will take some time to research and consider.

    G: Yes, I’ve heard those that would *like* to see healthcare … Finally, a careful balance must be struck to reduce frivolous suits or make doctor’s afraid to take necessary risks with the need to protect patients from very real and very serious (and often preventable) cases of real malpractice, neglect and abuse.

  257. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:18 pm  (Quote)

    As is Ohio, which is fairly similar (at least to Western PA). I would say PA is bluer overall and even more so on its eastern front, but like many areas it is the large cities that carry the weight and make it blue and the less populated rural areas where it usually runs more red. Re: The Tea Party – I just want to point out that the article link you provided was from 2 years ago…so it doesn’t really tell us anything about where the movement’s strength is today – one way or the other.

    There are significant “Tea Party” and “9/12 Beckhead” contingencies where I live too. Currently they’ve been a real pain in the butt at City Council meetings and in the local paper’s editorial page and have really been annoying the rest of the community with their antics. Lately, they’ve demonstrated a habit of making up a complete false rumor about some City Council agenda item and passing it to their membership who gets all riled up and then shows up in force (with 3/4 of the group coming actually from outside our City) and being loud and obnoxious in the meetings and causing very little to actually get done. We have a very Republican city, so the major & City Council (mostly GOP) treat them with kid gloves even though they are the targets of this nonsense and are nearly exasperated by it. So far, for the past several of these occurances, the whole issue they were riled up about was NEVER even part of the agenda (which is published and a matter of public record) in the first place and the meeting bogs down to them shouting and interrupting normal business and Council members repeatedly saying that there is no truth to any of their claims and that these issues were never topics for the meeting at all. Sadly, this just means that less and less gets done at these meetings.

    You would think that they’d show some shame at constantly being proven as wrong, gullible or liars on this stuff…but they aren’t. The next step is that their leader who started the rumors writes a shameless article in the editorial pages proclaiming “victory” that if it wasn’t for them and their protests, issue X would have occurred and that the Mayor and City Council are just “scrubbing” the records and afraid to show the true agenda to cover their tracks. In other words, about a bizarro-world fictional nonsense as the Birthers…

    charo: The state is now controlled by Republicans. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia generally have a large impact of presidential elections. I think it may be closer in PA this time around, but will go for Obama. The tea party foundation heavily promoted the liquor law. I am not a tea party member but I know people heavily involved in the movement, well educated and motivated. They are attending school board meetings and organizing community events, etc. for the agenda they support.

  258. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:32 pm  (Quote)

    Thank you joy/joyeagle. (Question: is that a native american moniker…just curious). The reason I’ve always considered myself more of a pragmatic moderate instead of either liberal or conservative (and on various individual issues I’m clearly liberal, libertarian or conservative in my position…no doubt about it) is because the generalized overall viewpoints in our current binary breakdown never seem to actually match up well with reality. A lot of bumper sticker sloganeering and idealistic notions that sound good on paper or might work in the very short term, but often don’t solve anything in the long term at all. There is too much labelling and shouting past each other and ideological posturing instead of really sitting down to discuss and think things through or seriously consider the consequences of actions, policies and statements. The real world is full of constant choices where often the right decision isn’t fun nor easy nor something we prefer (or even like) to do, but something that is necessary. Sadly, that seems to have become lost on most people and many of our problems just continue to deepen and worsen as a result.

    Joy: G, you always have very well reasoned and backed up arguments (like scientist and unlike me much of the time). I appreciate your thoughtful, critical response. I will take some time to research and consider.

  259. Arthur says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:35 pm  (Quote)

    I hate to interrupt the flow here, but I thought folks might find this interesting. As you probably all know, a film about Sarah Palin called “The Undefeated” opened recently. In California, a writer for the “Atlantic”, Conor Friedersdorf, went to see a midnight premiere and then wrote a blog post about his experience called, “Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in Orange County.” His post earned the ire of Palin supporters, one of whom created a conspiracy theory that sought to discredit Friedersdorf, and the conspiracy was picked up and amplified by none other than Andrew Breitbart.

    The article that details this incident appeared in today’s edition of Salon, and is an interesting account of the birth and spread of a conspiracy theory that is only a few days old.

    http://www.salon.com/news/politics/sarah_palin/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/07/19/kay_palin_movie

  260. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:39 pm  (Quote)

    Again, let’s be careful not to confuse the issues of skill, facilities and quality of care avaialble with the issues of health insurance and ability to access it.

    Health insurance companies are NOT the ones paying the physician’s salaries, so there is no little threat to their pay by working to lower health insurance costs….except in the area of negotiation of what the pay rate is for services…which that fight exists just as much in the private industry and what they are willing to pay as with Medicare or anything else.

    If anything, uncontrolled costs in health insurance (and malpractice insurance) are a huge dilemma and hindrance for physicians and facilities too. Further, if more people can pay to see a professional when they need treatment (through affordable, reasonable coverage for most or all), then you’ve increased the paying client pool…

    charo: Not that we have an overabundance of skilled physicians, but we have more than other countries like Canada. Take away the financial incentives, the field shrinks.

  261. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:45 pm  (Quote)

    Again, this seems to be a fear born myth as opposed to anything actually in the bill. Point to me anywhere in the ACTUAL ACT that will lead to wait times or rationing.

    There simply isn’t any rational justification or correlation between what that Act actually does and the fearmongering that people have been sold.

    charo: yet I can’t see how the health care law, as it stands now, will not lead to wait times and rationing. My husband will likely need another angioplasty, maybe more, in his lifetime. The thought of walking around with a blocked artery is not very pleasant.

  262. G says:
    July 19, 2011 at 6:52 pm  (Quote)

    Hey, I’m all for well-paid highly skilled people in all professions and trying to develop and maintain those quality folks right here in the good old U.S. of A.! That applies not just to physicians, but also teachers, scientists, etc, etc, etc. I really don’t see where anyone else is arguing against that…

    charo: I’m not for demonizing, but rational discussion of the pros and cons of the issue. The problem is in human nature. The reason we have so many skilled physicians in specialty fields is because they can make lots of money. Would that be my primary motivation if I were skilled in that way? No. I believe that you can’t make people be good to others. That will fail. Yet some kind of compromise is needed. That is a sloppy response, but I think you get the idea.

  263. dunstvangeet says:
    July 19, 2011 at 7:14 pm  (Quote)

    As far as malpractice insurance, I think that we need to be very careful on that. Ultimately, if we’re going to keep our system where the dollar is the almighty king, we have to be extremely careful on Tort Reform, and not create a situation that we’ve had in the past.

    In the past, we’ve actually had situations where the company has determined that it is cheaper to pay the costs of the lawsuit, than it is to fix the problem that causes the lawsuit in the first place. The Firestone Tires case to mind, where there was actual documented evidence of them knowing about the problem, but did a cost-benefit analysis, and determined that a voluntary recall of the defective product would cost more than the lawsuits that would result from the defective product, and therefore didn’t issue a recall until it was forced to by the government.

    So, with tort reform, most reforms usually involve capping non-actual damages.

    So, let’s go with a situation. You have a sick child who will die within 6 months without a procedure that costs $5 million dollars. The cost of the hospital for those 6 months, say, is $50,000. The cost of the maximum amount of the lawsuit is $500,000. So, the insurance company will literally save about $4,450,000 by denying the procedure which it should have covered, and just covering the plaintiff in paperwork until their lawyer just settles the lawsuit for $300,000.

    Like I said, I expect nothing from companies but their eternal quest to maximize profits. Part of this maximizing profits will invertiably come down to a cost-benefit analysis that tort reform in most of their current settings will make even easier to do.

  264. Scientist says:
    July 19, 2011 at 7:33 pm  (Quote)

    dunst: I think you’re conflating denial of a procedure with malpractice. Malpractice is where a procedure is done, but done in a negligent fashion.. In general, injuries resulting from medical errors could be handled by a no-fault mechanism, as is currently done for vaccines. Under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program any child who develops a set of symptoms close in time to a vaccination is compensated for medical care and any special services they need. No judgement that the vaccine is defective is required-the goal is simply to get the child the care they need without going through years of legal battle. The program is funded throiugh a tax on every vacciine dose. Such a system could be set up for injuries caused as a result of medical procedures. Along with that would have to be more vigilant enforcement to put the truly incompetent doctors-and believe me there are some- out of the profession.

    As far as insurance not paying for certain procedures, here all is not black and white. In many cases these hugely expensive and often painful and dangerous proceduures have not proven beneficial. A good example is bone marrow transplants in breast cancer. Whether care is paid for by private insurance or the government, it is not always the case that more is better. Sometimes more is just more.

  265. Scientist says:
    July 19, 2011 at 8:03 pm  (Quote)

    joyeagle: My “argument” was more of a response to those that not only advocate mandatory healthcare, but argue it as though it were an inalienable right … that has developed in the progress of our country. That every modern country recognizes that it is self-evident God-granted right.

    i don’t know if it is God-ganted or inalienable or self-evident but if you are sick, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are rather meaningless unless you can get treatment.

    joyeagle: I do trust the people I’ve met that have come down from Canada to get treatment for conditions that they would have died waiting for in Canada.

    Sorry, I call b.s. I am willing to bet a good sum of cash that you have met no such people. As I said I
    have many friends and relatives in Canada not a single one of whom has ever left Canada for medical care.. I live a few hours from a large Canadian city in a city with a good teaching hospital, and they don’t get many Canadian patients. The ones they get are those who get injured on the ski hills or have an accident on the highways while visiting.

    joyeagle: I do trust the stories of those who are refused treatment by government panels in the UK.

    A huge chunk of the money spent in the US is spent in the last 3 months of a patient’s life. That figure tells you that those treatments were not successful. In many cases such treatments cause needless suffering. Ask anyone who has sat at the bedside of a terminally ill loved one.

    Why is keeping an 80 year old alive on a respirator for a few moths a better moral choice than providing basic prenatal care to very pregnant woman or well baby visits?

    joyeagle: And, bottom-line, sure we can afford to pay for everyone to have ultimate healthcare in this country, without anyone having to work and produce, and it will last for a few years befor the country collapses under the cost. That doesn’t seem to bother the socialists who are its proponents.

    i’m struggling very hard to see a connection between making sure that everyone has access to basic health care and “anyone having to work and produce”. Is there a place where no one works and produces? Please direct me there. Thanks..

  266. dunstvangeet says:
    July 19, 2011 at 8:44 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist, malpractice is also not doing a procedure, when in every concievable condition, the procedure can be done. Malpractice doesn’t just include the doing of a procedure in a negligent way. It also includes the not doing of a procedure that

    It also includes not diagnosing an illness, when the standards of care basically make it routine to diagnose that illness. Imagine a doctor who is convinced that symptoms are one thing, so he doesn’t run the tests, or do the things that would actually diagnose that. Or imagine that there’s a insurance company that is just looking for their bottom line. By them not providing the procedure that they’re required to, that is malpractice. Trust me, any law that you would try to do, even if you limited it to the medical field, would cover insurance companies as well.

  267. Rickey says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:18 pm  (Quote)

    G: I worked in insurance for 13 years, so I know where the argument comes (from the private sector, mind you) of WHY various types of insurance should be mandated (house, car, etc) as a cost-containment strategy.The theory of “spread of risk” was always considered a traditionally conservative strategy and one that was pro-business.Funny how propaganda has tricked people into viewing it so differently today.

    Some people have floated the idea of raising the minimum age for Medicare coverage from 65 to 67, a counter-productive “solution” if I ever heard one. Raising the age of the average Medicare beneficiary might temporarily yield some savings, but long term it would likely raise costs. It’s too bad that Joe Lieberman killed the proposal to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55 (something which he used to support). That would have gotten more relatively healthy people into the system and would have lowered (or at least helped to contain) the cost of Medicare per beneficiary.

    As things stand now, the people who don’t have health insurance are people who can’t afford and young, healthy people who don’t believe that they need it. The latter situation is analogous to allowing safe drivers to opt out of buying auto liability insurance on the grounds that they are unlikely to be at fault in accidents. Of course, if only bad drivers were required to buy auto insurance, it would be so expensive that no one could afford it.

    I disagree that healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP are so esoteric as to be meaningless.In terms of how macroeconomics work, these high level comparison statistics are consistently the type of measurement indicators that are used to identify correlative trends.

    Agreed – the numbers don’t tell the whole story, but I don’t believe that anyone seriously doubts that the United States has the most expensive healthcare system in the world.

    I agree about the malpractice insurance issues.That is another area where a serious, adult conversation needs to happen, without the “special interests” blocking reform.Part of the solution most definitely involves “tort reform”…but that is not a magic bullet to this issue either.

    “Tort Reform” in the area of medical malpractice has mostly consisted of placing caps on damages, an approach which has proven to do nothing to bring down malpractice premiums. The documentary “Hot Coffee,” which is currently airing on HBO, makes the case that malpractice premiums have actually increased faster in states which have enacted damages caps than in states which have no caps. In addition, it shows how seriously injured plaintiffs whose recoveries were limited by caps are now looking to the taxpayers to pay for their ongoing care. A boon for the insurance companies, but a tragedy for everyone else.

  268. Majority Will says:
    July 19, 2011 at 10:59 pm  (Quote)

    “Man’s call for Obama assassination is free speech, not crime, court rules”

    “A La Mesa man who posted racial epithets and a call to ‘shoot’ Barack Obama on an Internet chat site was engaging in constitutionally protected free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in overturning his criminal conviction.”

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/07/online-call-to-shoot-obama-was-free-speech-not-a-crime-appeals-court-rules.html

  269. RetiredLawyer says:
    July 20, 2011 at 2:37 am  (Quote)

    Re malpractice and malpractice insurance.

    1. The cost of malpractice insurance is relatively low compared to the gross revenue of medical practices. Approximately 5% of gross for general practitioners, less for specialists. (Specialists pay more, but their gross income is much higher.)

    2. The secondary affect of malpractice is that it serves as a fig leaf for excessive and unneeded medical procedures and the use of the latest drugs. “I’m afraid that I might get sued so I’m going to use the latest (and most expensive) procedure.”

    3. Most of the actual payment to the patient is for the cost of future medical expenses. Even more in those states that have capped non-economic special damages like general pain and suffering. These will, of course, vanish once the ACA goes into full effect, as there will be no restrictions on pre-existing conditions and no increase in premium cost for pre-existing conditions.

    4. Lastly, most of the expense of malpractice insurance carriers in in the “transaction costs”, primarily their own attorney’s fees and costs. The victim, of course, pays his attorney out of his share, about 20% in CA, a bit more in other states.

  270. Sunshine49 says:
    July 20, 2011 at 4:33 am  (Quote)

    Folks who claim a memory of learning the two parent requirement are just making stuff up. Other than the odd debate about George Romney or some such, there was no education about the natural born citizen clause. Learning about the clause required 5 minutes in a civics class. What was there to say? There wasn’t even public discussion, until 2003 or so when a whole bunch of people, mainly Republicans, suggested repealing the requirement so that Gov. Schwarzenegger could run for President, despite his Father’s Nazi background. Only when Pres. Obama came on the scene did these false memories emerge. They are just an attempt to justify racism, as we all learned in school that a Black man could not be President [except for General Powell] because [fill in blank.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    My mother is 88 years old now. Her parents came over from Europe as teenagers in the very early 1900s and had to be naturalized. She also remembers being taught that a “natural born” child was born of two American parents. Her father wouldn’t even teach the children his native language because he said — “we are American and we will only speak English”. My grandfather died when I was only two and my grandmother died when I was a teenager. I remember that shortly before she died she told me that her father and brothers were put up against the farm wall by the Bolsheviks — shot and killed! I questioned my mother and other family about this later, but they said that my grandparents never talked about their lives before they came to America. I do know that my grandfather escaped from Siberia (where he was a slave) when he was 17 and worked his way over to America where he met my grandmother. She was sent over by her family when she was 15 and she used to tell me about working on the farm when she was young before they sent her to America. They always said they were German, but I found Grandpa’s birth certificate a few years ago and it just said Russia — no city or province. I think it was something they gave him when he went through Ellis Island.

    My point here is that my understanding of what it means to be American comes from my family’s experience. My father’s parents came over from Holland when they were children, met and married here. I was told that my father’s grandfather raised 17 children here on less than $20 a week. My father’s parents started out on a dirt floor farm in Minnesota. They had nine children and only six survived. America was a totally different world back then and what they were taught and believed was different too.

    What I was “taught” about American citizenship probably comes more from my “naturalized” grandparents then it does from anything I was taught in school, but then I also graduated before the “central” government took over the school system and started “changing” the textbooks to suit a PC agenda. I did not have “civics” classes. I went through American history class and loved it!

    I grew up in a time when it wasn’t politically incorrect to discuss politics or religion. Back then you could have a difference of opinion without being called all sorts of names or told to shut up and sit down.

    Extra note to Dr. Conspiracy: I did read the whole Wong decision — including the dissent. Did you take note that Justice Gray said they were NOT going to use the debates in Congress over the 14th Amendment to give meaning to the words of the Amendment? What? How could SCOTUS know what the framers meant when they wrote it if they weren’t going to allow the debates to give meaning to those words?

    There have been several “white” men who have had their eligibility questioned for the presidency. The assumption that this is new just because Obama’s black is ridiculous. Even McCain’s eligibility was questioned. It was decided that since he was born of TWO CITIZEN PARENTS — he was eligible! Now where in the world would they get such a silly notion if the citizenship of the parents DOESN’T matter?

    In the debates in Congress, when I read words like “NO foreign allegiance” or “the COMPLETE jurisdiction and allegiance” to the U.S., I take that to mean NO FOREIGN PARENTS for automatic birthright citizenship. Especially foreigners who are just passing through and NEVER swear any allegiance to the U.S.

    Somehow, I just can’t accept in my mind that the Founders meant just anyone with foreign parents could be President just because they had a child here when they were passing through. I don’t buy that English Common Law, automatic allegiance garbage either. We are NOT England! Did the terrorists that was tried as a U.S. citizen (born of Saudi parents passing through) fit the description of a natural born citizen with parents who had complete allegiance to the U.S.? I don’t think so! But according to everyone here — that terrorist was eligible to be our President just because he was born on U.S. soil! He wasn’t raised here. He had no idea what it meant to be a U.S. citizen. How could he be commander and chief of OUR armies when he hated us so much? Can’t you see how ridiculous it is to say that just ANYONE can be President just because they were born on U.S. soil.

    Another point is that England has a sovereign (ruler) that is at the head of the country. They are NOT elected to the office of King or Queen. England doesn’t have to worry that a foreigner will end up “ruling” their country unless it is taken over by another country!

    Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Washington that they could NOT go by English Common Law when writing the Constitution because the State run church was part of the common law. According to English Common Law — once an English subject, always an English subject. They were NOT allowed to change allegiances like our citizens are allowed to do. Check out why we went to war with them in 1812. It’s because they were taking American citizens off of our ships as born English “subjects”! Not everyone in the States became automatic U.S. citizens when we won our independence from England. People were given a CHOICE if they wanted to swear ALLEGIANCE to the U.S. or stay English “subjects”!

    Considering everything this Republic went through in the beginning, HOW can anyone think that we decided our citizenship rights by “English” Common Law? Until the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 1868 14th Amendment — States decided who could be citizens and who couldn’t. It didn’t matter if you were born in that state or not if your “father” hadn’t sworn allegiance to that state, you weren’t a “citizen” of that state and therefore not a citizen of the United States! The framers of the 14th Amendment knew how the States felt about citizenship. Do you really think they jumped from the States deciding citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil was automatically a “natural born” citizen even if the parents were foreigners just passing through and had NO allegiance to the U.S.? They DIDN’T according to the debates in Congress. That’s why Justice Gray went by English Common Law and skipped the debates in Congress to give Wong citizenship! That’s also why he stressed that Wong’s PARENTS were permanently domiciled here and had a business here and that they were as much under the allegiance and jurisdiction of the U.S. as they were “allowed” to be. It’s because it took COMPLETE allegiance and jurisdiction by the U.S. of the parents (as only citizen parents could have) for the child to receive citizenship by birth on U.S. soil according to the framers of the 14th Amendment.

    This is the conclusion I have come to from everything I’ve read, which only reinforced my belief that “natural born” means TWO AMERICAN CITIZEN PARENTS!

    I thank everyone for their intelligent comments even though they do not “change” my mind!

  271. J. Potter says:
    July 20, 2011 at 5:15 am  (Quote)

    Just wanted to thank the participants for the finest discussion of healthcare I have ever come across. Perspectives from all over the economic spectrum, various professions, and all over the world.

    An odd place to find it, but that doesn’t undermine its worth!

  272. Bovril says:
    July 20, 2011 at 6:09 am  (Quote)

    Sorry Sunshine,

    I’m afraid yuour mother is wholly mistaken, tell you what, turn up ONE single civics book, government naturalization instruction document etc from the last 100 years that states what you belive your mother believes she was taught.

    So far every Birther who has been asked to put up or shut up has gone silent as said “proof” simply doesn’t exist

  273. Majority Will says:
    July 20, 2011 at 6:41 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Somehow, I just can’t accept in my mind . . .

    That’s the only thing you needed to admit.

    And I find that terribly, terribly sad.

  274. Northland10 says:
    July 20, 2011 at 7:05 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: but then I also graduated before the “central” government took over the school system and started “changing” the textbooks to suit a PC agenda. I did not have “civics” classes.

    I sense some bias beginning here. I have looked for 1920s textbooks that give the definition you believe. I have come up short.

    There have been several “white” men who have had their eligibility questioned for the presidency.

    The few that may have been questioned such as McCain were not born in the US. Thus, the question was not Born Here but born elsewhere with citizen parents. Obama was born the US so the 2 citizen question is mute.

    Somehow, I just can’t accept in my mind that the Founders meant just anyone with foreign parents could be President just because they had a child here when they were passing through.

    You may not be able to accept it, but that does not make it any less true. It appears your belief is clouding your ability to understand the various proof that others have provided here. Ballantine gave you a large list of statements for the founders and others that supports birth alone is sufficient. You may not like that the founders and all of American history allowed birth on US soil to be enough, but that does not change it.

    HOW can anyone think that we decided our citizenship rights by “English” Common Law?

    All of the founders were Englishmen. Common law is mentioned in the Constitution and in many other of the states constitution.

    States decided who could be citizens and who couldn’t. It didn’t matter if you were born in that state or not if your “father” hadn’t sworn allegiance to that state, you weren’t a “citizen” of that state and therefore not a citizen of the United States!

    You really have not read the Constitution, have you? Do you think states got to determine who would be naturalized and how? I should mention, you are picking up arguments such as the “14th Amendment citizens” that are favorites of various white supremacy groups. I can only imagine you are unaware of the connection so I point it out so you have an understanding of the history. You may wish to reconsider your argument.

    I cannot quite figure how your grandparents coming from Russia in the early 1900s somehow makes your argument stronger. Does this mean I understand US History and civics less because my father’s family first arrived in Virginia around 1650?

  275. Majority Will says:
    July 20, 2011 at 7:11 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: But according to everyone here — that terrorist was eligible to be our President just because he was born on U.S. soil! He wasn’t raised here. He had no idea what it meant to be a U.S. citizen. How could he be commander and chief of OUR armies when he hated us so much? Can’t you see how ridiculous it is to say that just ANYONE can be President just because they were born on U.S. soil.

    Timothy McVeigh, a United States Army veteran, was a natural born citizen and had he not been executed would have been eligible to run for President of the United States of America. Ted Kaczynski, an American and PhD from the University of Michigan and Robert Hanssen, a former American FBI agent, would also have been eligible. Do you know those names?

    Your statement reeks of bigotry and the inane and vapid illogic of an absurd, fear mongering hypothetical scenario.

    It says nothing of the exhaustive vetting process of candidates by the media and the populace, who ultimately decide in the voting booth, the ethics, mettle and patriotic intent of all candidates for the office of President.

    I don’t really care that we can’t change your mind.

    I care that you’re intent on spreading revisionist, ignorant and ludicrous lies about our history.

  276. Ballantine says:
    July 20, 2011 at 7:36 am  (Quote)

    >In the debates in Congress, when I read words like “NO foreign allegiance” or “the COMPLETE jurisdiction and allegiance” to the U.S., I take that to mean NO FOREIGN PARENTS for automatic birthright citizenship. Especially foreigners who are just passing through and NEVER swear any allegiance to the U.S.

    You have to read the context of such quotes. They were talking about indians who were deemed to be born in a foreign nation with a foreign allegiance in territory we didn’t have complete jurisdiction over. The people who made those remarks both said the President must be a native born citizen and the jus soli was not just the american rule, but the universal rule.

    Somehow, I just can’t accept in my mind that the Founders meant just anyone with foreign parents could be President just because they had a child here when they were passing through. I don’t buy that English Common Law, automatic allegiance garbage either. We are NOT England! Did the terrorists that was tried as a U.S. citizen (born of Saudi parents passing through) fit the description of a natural born citizen with parents who had complete allegiance to the U.S.? I don’t think so! But according to everyone here — that terrorist was eligible to be our President just because he was born on U.S. soil! He wasn’t raised here. He had no idea what it meant to be a U.S. citizen. How could he be commander and chief of OUR armies when he hated us so much? Can’t you see how ridiculous it is to say that just ANYONE can be President just because they were born on U.S. soil.Another point is that England has a sovereign (ruler) that is at the head of the country. They are NOT elected to the office of King or Queen. England doesn’t have to worry that a foreigner will end up “ruling” their country unless it is taken over by another country!Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Washington that they could NOT go by English Common Law when writing the Constitution because the State run church was part of the common law. According to English Common Law — once an English subject, always an English subject. They were NOT allowed to change allegiances like our citizens are allowed to do. Check out why we went to war with them in 1812. It’s because they were taking American citizens off of our ships as born English “subjects”! Not everyone in the States became automatic U.S. citizens when we won our independence from England. People were given a CHOICE if they wanted to swear ALLEGIANCE to the U.S. or stay English “subjects”!Considering everything this Republic went through in the beginning, HOW can anyone think that we decided our citizenship rights by “English” Common Law? Until the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the 1868 14th Amendment — States decided who could be citizens and who couldn’t. It didn’t matter if you were born in that state or not if your “father” hadn’t sworn allegiance to that state, you weren’t a “citizen” of that state and therefore not a citizen of the United States! The framers of the 14th Amendment knew how the States felt about citizenship. Do you really think they jumped from the States deciding citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil was automatically a “natural born” citizen even if the parents were foreigners just passing through and had NO allegiance to the U.S.? They DIDN’T according to the debates in Congress. That’s why Justice Gray went by English Common Law and skipped the debates in Congress to give Wong citizenship! That’s also why he stressed that Wong’s PARENTS were permanently domiciled here and had a business here and that they were as much under the allegiance and jurisdiction of the U.S. as they were “allowed” to be. It’s because it took COMPLETE allegiance and jurisdiction by the U.S. of the parents (as only citizen parents could have) for the child to receive citizenship by birth on U.S. soil according to the framers of the 14th Amendment.This is the conclusion I have come to from everything I’ve read, which only reinforced my belief that “natural born” means TWO AMERICAN CITIZEN PARENTS!I thank everyone for their intelligent comments even though they do not “change” my mind!

    It doesn’t really matter whether you can imagine whether we adopted English common law. It is simply a fact that we did, whether want to accept it or not. All the states adoped the English common law after the revolution so parentage was clearly irrelevant to state citizenship. Hence, all early case law on citizenship and allegiance was based upon English case law. the cases are there if you want to read them. There is a whole body of law interpreting English statutes regarding natural born subjects. Jefferson wrote a statute that provided anyone born in virginia was a citizen and all early virginia case law on citizenship was based upon English law. It was even the majority position in the United States that we adopted the English doctrine of pertetual allegiance and such doctrine was not officially abandoned until 1868. Wong Kim Ark does not say one needed domiciled parents. It says we adopted the common law which included domiciled residents. There is really no historical authority to require domicile and such point was specifically rejected when brought up in the 14th amendment Congress. So, I guess you can listen to you mother or you can see what the framers, all early scholar and all courts that have addressed the issue have said.

  277. Keith says:
    July 20, 2011 at 7:45 am  (Quote)

    McCain’s situation was examined precisely because he was not born on U.S. soil. Had he been born on U.S. soil there would have been no question. Since he was not born on U.S. soil, his status was determined by the statutory provision that children born overseas to citizen parents are themselves considered citizens (and in most cases this makes them dual citizens!).

    In my opinion, this means that McCain is technically not eligible (his citizenship is granted by statute, and is therefore NOT ‘natural’); while at the same time it is preposterous that he should be denied because his parents were serving the country on official business. The authors of the Constitution did not anticipate a standing Army or Navy serving overseas and made no provision for that exception. Today’s reality is different from yesterday’s reality.

    It is exactly because such a denial is preposterous that overseas birth to citizen parents are legally considered to confer natural born citizenship; this is known as a ‘legal fiction’, and is a perfectly reasonable response. It does not change the fact of the overseas birth, but relies on a statute to deem the child a ‘natural born citizen’ under those circumstances.

    I’ll repeat that for emphasis: McCain’s ‘two parent citizens’ only came into play because he was born overseas. Obama was not born overseas and therefore his parent’s citizenship status is 100% irrelevant.

    Because McCain’s status as a natural born citizen is a ‘legal fiction’, it is subject to challenge, and could conceivably be overturned should someone so challenge. That is exactly why the Congress unanimously passed the non-binding resolution that ‘declared’ McCain to be a natural born citizen. They were not really passing judgment on McCain’s citizenship, they were reporting their intention that should McCain win the election, no Congressman would challenge that election based on his technically failing the natural born citizenship standard.

    Congress was acknowledging the preposterousness of McCain being denied because his parents chose to serve their country and since they are the sole Constitutional arbitrator of eligibility, they announced their intentions not to challenge to ensure the issue could not be used to confuse the public during the campaign. Again IMO, this is probably one of the better things a Bush era Congress did.

    Sunshine49: Even McCain’s eligibility was questioned. It was decided that since he was born of TWO CITIZEN PARENTS — he was eligible! Now where in the world would they get such a silly notion if the citizenship of the parents DOESN’T matter?

  278. Northland10 says:
    July 20, 2011 at 7:53 am  (Quote)

    On the US archives, I found and interested state department telegram responding to a question of Mexican adoptive parents of a natural born US citizen child. I do not have enough time at the moment to research section 212 further but I thought I might drop the info here for others. it sounds like immigration has, at least in the past, had regulations for dealing with non-citizen parents of a natural born US citizen. If both parents must be citizens, as the birthers claim, why the need for regulations?

    E.O. 11652: N/A
    TAGS: CVIS, MX
    SUBJECT:APPLICABILITY OF SEC. 212(A)(14) IN CERTAIN
    SITUATIONS
    REF: MONTERREY 0261
    THERE ARE NO LIMITATIONS TO PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP
    IF VALIDLY ESTABLISHED UNDER SECTION 101(B)(1)(E) OF ACT.
    CONSEQUENTLY, IF ADOPTION MEETS ALL REQUIREMENTS OF THIS
    SECTION, MEXICAN PARENTS OF ADOPTED U.S. CITIZEN CHILD
    WOULD BE EXEMPT FROM SECTION 212(A)(14) ON SAME FOOTING
    AS PARENTS OF NATURAL BORN U.S. CITIZEN CHILD. RUSH
    UNCLASSIFIED

    http://aad.archives.gov/aad/createpdf?dt=2474&rid=230667&dl=1345

  279. Ballantine says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:05 am  (Quote)

    Professor Chin pointed out that, technically, McCain wasn’t even born a citizen. From the earlierst naturization statute on, it has been recognized that one born outside of the United States can only become a citizen by naturalization statute. When there was no such statute, scholars and Congress pointed out that children of citizens born overseas were aliens. The same rule as England. The court has repeatedly said this. For example, according to Justice Scalia:

    “Petitioner, having been born outside the territory of the United States, is an alien as far as the Constitution is concerned, and “can only become a citizen by being naturalized, either by treaty, as in the case of the annexation of foreign territory; or by authority of Congress.” Id., at 702—703; see also Rogers v. Bellei, 401 U.S. 815, 827 (1971).” Miller v. Allbright 523 US 420 (1998)

  280. Scientist says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:16 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Another point is that England has a sovereign (ruler) that is at the head of the country. They are NOT elected to the office of King or Queen. England doesn’t have to worry that a foreigner will end up “ruling” their country unless it is taken over by another country!

    Really? I am even less impressed by your knowledge of English history than I am by your knowledge of American history.

    Wiilliam of Orange (William III)- brought over from Holland to be King of England in place of the Catholic Stuarts (who were Scottish, not English).

    The Hanoverians-George I was brought over from Hanover, Germany to be King of England. It is not even clear that he spoke English. The current Queen is descended from him, though the family adopted the name “Windsor” during World War I, so as to seem English, rather than German.

    Sunshine49: This is the conclusion I have come to from everything I’ve read, which only reinforced my belief that “natural born” means TWO AMERICAN CITIZEN PARENTS!

    So, if I were to conclude and believe that gravity does not exist, could I jump from the top of the Empiire State Building and fly like a bird?

  281. John Reilly says:
    July 20, 2011 at 9:23 am  (Quote)

    Scientist, you left out William 1, the Conqueror, who was a Norman, descended from the Vikings who laid siege to Paris. Not English.

    The Act of Settlement of 1701 provides that only Protestants (leaves me out) descended from Sophia of Hanover (left out again) may be King or a reigning Queen of England. Hanover is in Germany. Sophia would have become Queen of England but for dying a few weeks before Queen Anne died. Thus, Sophia’s son, George, became King. There are currently over 5000 descendants kept on a list in the order in which they are eligible, including the current monarchs of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, etc. The English monarch need not be born in England, speak English, drink tea, or understand cricket.

    Now we are not the English. We actually require our leader to be born here. We have never cared about whether our President had two American parents until folks decided they did not like President Obama, and tried to back into reasons why he was not eligible other than the simple fact that he is Black. Since that is not socially acceptable, some Moldavians or DUI lawyers announced that we must have been taught something that was simply never taught in school. If it was, someone would have produced a book, lesson plan, study guide, Cliff’s notes or something which said two citizen parents.

  282. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 20, 2011 at 11:20 am  (Quote)

    Either your mother is wrong, or you are lying. I don’t insult people’s mothers.

    Sunshine49: My mother is 88 years old now. Her parents came over from Europe as teenagers in the very early 1900s and had to be naturalized. She also remembers being taught that a “natural born” child was born of two American parents.

  283. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 20, 2011 at 11:32 am  (Quote)

    The only reason that I was able to retire at age 60 was that my wife’s employer allows their management employees to retire at 60 and stay in the company group health plan (employee pays all the cost). The plan ends at age 65 when Medicare kicks in. Just buying into a retail insurance plan at my age (and everybody has SOME pre-existing condition) was just too expensive.

    I think letting folks buy into Medicare (paying the full premium cost) at age 55 is a brilliant idea, totally brilliant, which why it didn’t happen.

    My parents had Medicare and a fairly inexpensive Blue Cross supplement policy. It worked beautifully.

    For others, medical expenses is the number one cause of bankruptcy (even for those who have private insurance).

    Rickey: Some people have floated the idea of raising the minimum age for Medicare coverage from 65 to 67, a counter-productive “solution” if I ever heard one. Raising the age of the average Medicare beneficiary might temporarily yield some savings, but long term it would likely raise costs. It’s too bad that Joe Lieberman killed the proposal to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55 (something which he used to support). That would have gotten more relatively healthy people into the system and would have lowered (or at least helped to contain) the cost of Medicare per beneficiary.

  284. dunstvangeet says:
    July 20, 2011 at 1:41 pm  (Quote)

    Look, Sunshine49, we go by English Common Law, because that is what the United States Supreme Court has constantly. Read Smith v. Alabama, which directly says that terms in the constitution are defined by English Common Law. The constitution doesn’t go into each definition that they use, but ultimately they’re defined by English Common Law, because that is exactly the law system that the founders were familiar with. That was quoted by Gray in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

    Imagine what you are suggesting. You’re suggesting that the founders took a term that had literally 400 years of history in the system that they were the most familiar with (“Natural Born”). You’re suggesting that they redefined it, and didn’t specify their redefinition in the Constitution (like they did with “Treason”). Then they didn’t tell anybody about it, until 200 years later someone secretly found out about the founders true intent.

    While it is true that other Presidential Candidates had his eligibility questioned, no other President had it questioned because they were born to a foreigner, despite having a multitude of candidates that had this be the option. In fact, in the one case where it was questioned, it was basically rejected uniformly. The first Republican Presidential Candidate (John C. Fremont) had a well-known past. He was born to a French indentured servent and the lady of the house that the father was serving in. Those two ran off together and had the baby. I seriously doubt that they cared that his father was an indentured servent who ran off, when he ran.

    Chester A. Arthur’s political rivals were trying by any means necessary to get Chester Arthur off of the ticket for Vice President. They went so far to suggest that he was born in Canada, not in Vermont like what he said. They even wrote a letter to the Secretary of State before he was inaugerated to make sure that you could not retroactively make a Natural Born Citizen by having the father naturalized. This strongly suggests that they knew his father was not naturalized when he was born. The response came a full 3 months before he was sworn in as Vice President. So, given that they knew that the Vice President had to be eligible for the Presidency, and given the fact that they knew that Chester A. Arthur’s father was not a citizen at the time of his birth, why didn’t they try to throw him off the ticket for the thing that they could prove, rather than the thing that they had no documented proof? Could it be because they never considered someone born to foreign parents to be anything less than a Natural Born Citizen?

  285. dunstvangeet says:
    July 20, 2011 at 1:47 pm  (Quote)

    And furthermore, Sunshine49, your phrase that you rely upon of “No foreign allegiance” has no bearing. Someone can be born to 0 U.S. parents, and still not be the citizen of another country. Someone can be born to 2 U.S. parents and still be the citizen of another country, therefore, as you put it, owing foreign allegiance. It all depends upon how foreign laws work.

    For instance, take a look at the Italian laws. Italy grants citizenship to anybody who is born a citizen. Furthermore, they do not require you to denounce other citizenships to continue with your Italian Citizenship, and neither does U.S. citizenship. So, you have someone who was born to an Italian parent who was not naturalized. They, for the duration of their life, have both U.S. and Italian citizenship. Furthermore, whent hey have children, their children, for the duration of their lives, have both U.S. and Italian citizenship. I hope that you’re not suggesting that foreign law actually determines whether or not someone is eligible to be President of the United States.

  286. JD Reed says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:15 pm  (Quote)

    It’s simple, Sunshine: Show documentary proof that shows people were taught at some point in time in the long-ago past that two citizen parents were required for natural born citizenship. Something dating from that period, not anyone’s recent “remembrance.” As for the notion that a terrorist born in the U.S. can be elected president, just how much credit do you give the American people? Just because a particular iindividual is eligible for the presidency by law doesn’t mean he/she has a ghost of a chance of actually BECOMING president. Someone who grows up in another country and returns to the US as an adult would have a mighty tough time convincing the American public that he or she is a LOYAL citizen, even if legally a citizen. Especially if that person is found to have associated with anti-American elements before returning.
    Which, of coourse, is behind the myriad attempts to try to associate Mr. Obama with foreigners, radicals and terrorists.

  287. Majority Will says:
    July 20, 2011 at 3:38 pm  (Quote)

    JD Reed:
    It’s simple, Sunshine: Show documentary proof that shows people were taught at some point in time in the long-ago past that two citizen parents were required for natural born citizenship.

    It might be in a Stormfront or an old Klan pamphlet.

  288. JoZeppy says:
    July 20, 2011 at 4:02 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: What I was “taught” about American citizenship probably comes more from my “naturalized” grandparents then it does from anything I was taught in school, but then I also graduated before the “central” government took over the school system and started “changing” the textbooks to suit a PC agenda. I did not have “civics” classes. I went through American history class and loved it!

    Thanks for sharing all the personal background. My folk fled communist Poland in the 1960s. It’s all pretty irrelevant when it comes down to the definition of a natural born citizen…except of course, I remember when they were studying for their citizenship, during those “PC” days of the Reagan administration, and funny thing, all they were under the impression that all it took was being born in the US to qualify for the Presidency. However, despite that, I still relied on my private school education up through high school, my BA in political science, and my JD to come to my understanding of the defintion of a natural born citizenship, and all it ever required was bith on the soil. Funny thing, do you have any evidence of this supposed “change” to some PC agenda? Even an iota of proof that at any time in the past 100 years a single text book carried the defintion you claim?

    Sunshine49: There have been several “white” men who have had their eligibility questioned for the presidency. The assumption that this is new just because Obama’s black is ridiculous. Even McCain’s eligibility was questioned. It was decided that since he was born of TWO CITIZEN PARENTS — he was eligible! Now where in the world would they get such a silly notion if the citizenship of the parents DOESN’T matter?

    He was questioned because he wasn’t born on US soil therefore doesn’t fall under the normal definition of NBC, and his citizenship is dependant on a statute, and actually a statute passed after he was born. You see, there is an actual debate in the scholarly legal community whether those who rely on a statute are actually natural born citizens, or merely “naturalized at birth” as well as there being a question directly related to McCain as to whether he can be a NBC since he wasn’t a citizen at birth, but had a statute retroactively applied to him. And that silly notion of 2 citizen parents comes from a US Statute written after McCain was born. That’s where that silly notion comes from just as an fyi.

    Sunshine49: In the debates in Congress, when I read words like “NO foreign allegiance” or “the COMPLETE jurisdiction and allegiance” to the U.S., I take that to mean NO FOREIGN PARENTS for automatic birthright citizenship. Especially foreigners who are just passing through and NEVER swear any allegiance to the U.S.

    And this is the problem when lay people try to real legal documents. They apply lay definition to legal terms of art. The short and long of it is your readings are incorrect. Jurisdiction and allegiance in these uses merely applies being fully subject to US laws, which merely excludes diplomats.

    Sunshine49: Somehow, I just can’t accept in my mind that the Founders meant just anyone with foreign parents could be President just because they had a child here when they were passing through

    What you accept is meaningless. People don’t get to decide for themselves what they want the law to mean.

    Sunshine49: I don’t buy that English Common Law, automatic allegiance garbage either. We are NOT England!

    See above. No, we are not England, but we share a common legal history.

    Sunshine49: Did the terrorists that was tried as a U.S. citizen (born of Saudi parents passing through) fit the description of a natural born citizen with parents who had complete allegiance to the U.S.? I don’t think so! But according to everyone here — that terrorist was eligible to be our President just because he was born on U.S. soil! He wasn’t raised here. He had no idea what it meant to be a U.S. citizen. How could he be commander and chief of OUR armies when he hated us so much? Can’t you see how ridiculous it is to say that just ANYONE can be President just because they were born on U.S. soil.

    Yes, he did fit the defintion of a natural born citizen. Was he eligible to be president? Probably not, since by your description he lacked the residency requirements. Then of course, there is that minor hitch of having to go before the American people and actually get elected. And speaking of terrorists, by your defintion, John Walker Lind is qualified to be president. So what exactly is ridiculous again?

    Sunshine49: Considering everything this Republic went through in the beginning, HOW can anyone think that we decided our citizenship rights by “English” Common Law?

    Because that’s what they knew, and it made perfect sense to them. Not that difficult a concept.

    Sunshine49: That’s why Justice Gray went by English Common Law and skipped the debates in Congress to give Wong citizenship! That’s also why he stressed that Wong’s PARENTS were permanently domiciled here and had a business here and that they were as much under the allegiance and jurisdiction of the U.S. as they were “allowed” to be. It’s because it took COMPLETE allegiance and jurisdiction by the U.S. of the parents (as only citizen parents could have) for the child to receive citizenship by birth on U.S. soil according to the framers of the 14th Amendment.

    Actually, the parents of WKA are only mentioned in the recitiation of facts, not in the rationale, so no, the parents had nothing to do with the decision (this is where knowing how to read a judicial opinion comes in handy). J. Gray went the Common Law route because that’s how we define terms in the Constitution. Courts generally don’t look toward legislative history if they can avoid it. There’s nothing nefarious there. Just ask J. Scalia about that.

  289. Rickey says:
    July 20, 2011 at 4:48 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:

    What I was “taught” about American citizenship probably comes more from my “naturalized” grandparents then it does from anything I was taught in school, but then I also graduated before the “central” government took over the school system and started “changing” the textbooks to suit a PC agenda. I did not have “civics” classes. I went through American history class and loved it!

    They taught you wrong, then.

    I attended private schools, so the “central government taking over the school system” canard has no application to me. But did you know that even conservative textbooks teach that there is no difference between a natural-born citizen and a native-born citizen? I have one in front of me – “The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution” by W. Cleon Skousen, founder of the right-wing National Center for Constitutional Studies. It was published in 1985 and was marketed to Christian schools and home-schoolers. Here is what it has to say about Article II, Section 1:

    “To be a candidate for President of the United States, a person must be a natural-born citizen, or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. This provision gave the American people the right to have a President who would always be one of their own native-born fellow citizens.” (p. 528) [emphasis mine]

    Get it? There is no difference between a natural-born citizen and a native-born citizen. And the textbook says nothing about the citizenship of the parents.

    Since you didn’t take Civics classes, I challenge you to find us a single history textbook which was being used while you were in school which says that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents. Heck, just find a lesson plan, or a history teacher who actually taught that to you.

    It was decided that since he [McCain] was born of TWO CITIZEN PARENTS — he was eligible! Now where in the world would they get such a silly notion if the citizenship of the parents DOESN’T matter?

    Nowhere in the non-binding Senate resolution does it say that both of McCain’s parents had to be citizens. It merely reiterated the fact that both of them were citizens. The resolution also states that McCain was born on a Navy base. Does that mean that only people born on Navy bases are natural-born citizens? Of course not. The questioning of McCain’s eligibility had nothing to do with who his parents were. The questioning was due to the fact that he was not born in the United States.

  290. J.Potter says:
    July 20, 2011 at 5:12 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49 is either a sincere case of selective memory, or an overwrought effort at disinformation. Desired realities are very powerful, but taking it to the point of rewriting your own life story? Hmmm.

  291. Obsolete says:
    July 20, 2011 at 6:25 pm  (Quote)

    An interesting point I read elsewhere-
    There have been attempts throughout history to propose Constitutional amendments to allow naturalized citizens to be President.

    Yet nobody has ever proposed a Constitutional amendment to allow people born on U.S. soil without two citizen parents to be President.
    Why not?
    😉

  292. misha says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:48 pm  (Quote)

    Obsolete: nobody has ever proposed a Constitutional amendment to allow people born on U.S. soil without two citizen parents to be President.
    Why not?

    Why not? Because we’ve never had a president before whose father was Kenyan, that’s why.

  293. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 20, 2011 at 8:59 pm  (Quote)

    In the meantime, in France, Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate of the racist Front National, has claimed in an interview on Luxembourg Television that the green candidate, Eva Joly has not been French long enough to be considered good enough for the presidency.

    French Presidents need not be “des naturels”, they may even be naturalized. Giscard d’Estaing was born in Germany, Eva Joly was born in Norway.

    This is where Wikipedia and the Internet can help. Marine Le Pen was born in France in 1968, but Eva Joly was naturalized in 1967, so she has been French for a longer time than Le Pen.

    Foreign attachments? Come on, we all know it is race they are referring to.

    The uproar in the French press about it has been so pervasive that nobody really noticed Le Pen also proposed the annexation of Wallonia to France.

    It is like Tim Pawlenty in an interview with a Mexican newspaper claiming that Marco Rubio is not a natural born citizen and that British Colimbia should be attached to the United States,

  294. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 20, 2011 at 9:48 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: George I was brought over from Hanover, Germany to be King of England. It is not even clear that he spoke English.

    He almost certainly did not speak any English until a few years later. But he did know something about English law, and had his mother and himself natuarlized as subjects by an Act of parliament in 1705 (so, MichaelN’s assertion that monarchs in England had to be foreigners is basically, er, wrong).

    The fact that certainly in the first five years he had to rely heavily on his Prime Minister Robert Walpole (whom he talked to in French) is traditionally seen as the onset of the democratization of Britain and the start of the decline of royal power.

  295. John Reilly says:
    July 21, 2011 at 12:06 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Another point is that England has a sovereign (ruler) that is at the head of the country. They are NOT elected to the office of King or Queen. England doesn’t have to worry that a foreigner will end up “ruling” their country unless it is taken over by another country!

    Wrong, Sunshine. A little research would reveal that lots of foreigners could become King or reigning Queen of the United Kingdom.

    Here is an article on the person last in succession to the British throne a few years back. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704889404576276502793788310.html

    She is German, and lives in Rostok.

    The requirements to be King or reigning Queen of the UK are that you are a Protestant and a descendant of Sophia of Hanover. While the rule is that you can not be a Roman Catholic, no one has ever been excluded on these grounds, so we don’t know what would happen if Charles, for example, converted tomorrow and then converted back to Anglican a few days later, or if Charles converted but his children did not. There is no requirement that you be English, Scots, Welsh or Irish. In fact, in the first hundred in line for the throne are the Nowegian royal family, the Romanian royal family, the Yugoslavian royal family, some Hapsburgs, and then you get to Russians, who fill out spot 100 to 200 or so. John Goodman is not on the list.

    Now since you are wrong about the requirements to be King of England (which is one of the parts of the UK), do you think you might just be wrong about the requirements to be President of the United States, or are we still relying on an imaginary memory of a non-existant civics lesson?

  296. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 21, 2011 at 8:13 am  (Quote)

    John Reilly: the rule is that you can not be a Roman Catholic

    No, the Monarch must be a Protestant (on the level of Great Britain, Anglicanism counts as a Protestant religion, like the Kirk in Scotland). The Lord Chancellor in the old days (the law was changed by Margaret Thatcher, I believe) could not be a Roman Catholic – meaning there was no problem if (s)he was a Jew, a Muslim, an Orthodox Chritian or a pagan.

    The reason why the Monarch has to be a protestant, is that (s)he is also the head of the Church of England. This actually underscores the fact that no one had any problem with a foreigner becoming the Monarch, since the Church of England is basically a British phenomenon and therefore you cannot expect a foreigner to be an Anglican.

    You are right that there is no problem with foreigners inheriting the throne of the United Kingdom, but there is a little snag: in 1705, the future George I, understanding the many incapacities English law put foreigners under (there were far more than than now, and the European Union is doing its best to eliminate what remains) and unwilling for his nephews born in Germany to hear on the death of their father that they could not inherit because their father being only the second, third … son of the monarch was not deemed to be English, and therefore could not pass on either English nationality or property in England to his son, got a special Act passed in Parliament to bestow English nationality on his mother Sophia and on all her issue, born and unborn.

    So, until 1948, all descendants of Sophia, born and baptized Protestant, automatically had British citizenship. All descendants not baptizeed Protestant, got British citizenship when they formally converted to Protestantism. The law was repealed in 1948 by the new British nationality act.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Naturalization_Act_1705

    So, if the Crown passed on to the Yugoslav or Russian lines, rather than the Scandinavian or Dutch ones, before 1948 the pretender would not have been a British national. Since he or she would have had to convert to Protestantism anyway to claim the throne and conversion meant automatic British citizenship, the Monarch would never have had any legal incapacities. But his descendants, if and when settled in Great Britain without converting, would have experienced some problems at the time.

    The British Nationality Act of 1948 means of course that there is now again a distant possibility of the new Monarch one day being a foreigner, but the problems that would cause are virtually non-existent now. Only religion remains a major problem. The Belgian royal family is usually excluded from the list because of the staunch Roman Catholicism of Leopold III and Baldwin I, but the present Prince Laurent has on some occasions hinted that he does not consider himself a Roman Catholic and … he married an Englishwoman. (he was born in 1963, so is not entitled to British citizenship). Some Church of England bishops have in the past suggested breaking the link between the Monarch and the Church, to allow non-Protestants on the throne.

    Another issue would be the question of the descendants of the many bastard children in Sophia’s line. The use of the word issue hving been interpreted to mean that being Roman Catholic or Orthodix did not take away the right to citizenship of your children if they converted to Protestantism, I think a broader interpretation would be in order here. Meaning the American descendants of eg Benedict Swingate Calvert would be entitled to British citizenship if born and Protestant before the passing of the BNA of 1948.

    In Birfers’ eyes, that would make those people ineligible for the Presidency of the United States.

    Funny also that here we now have a birther who bases his assertions on Obama not being a natural born citizen on the mistaken belief that the Monarch of the United Kingdom must be British. MichaelN based his assertions on Obama not being a natural born citizen on the mistaken belief that the Monarch of the United Kingdom had to be a foreigner.

    It is a bit like the PDF of the BC. It is a fraud because the letters are too different from each other. But it is also a fraud because the letters are too similar to each other.

  297. John Reilly says:
    July 21, 2011 at 9:26 am  (Quote)

    Paul, note the irony that The Sophia Naturalization Act purports to make people citizens (natural born citizens?) of the UK without their knowledge. Thus, the King of Norway has dual citizenship. Does this affect his standing in Norway? Especially when he is descended from Danish royalty who moved to Norway in 1905? So maybe the King has triple citizenship. Does anyone in Norway care about his lack of singleminded devotion to things Norwegian? I hear he has a secret passion for Danish pastry. What about King Haakon VII, Norway’s wartime King, who lived for 4 years in England during the war. He had, according to this analysis, triple citizenship and did not even live in Norway. Did the Norwegians know this when they erected statues to him?

    As to being a Protestant, a KIng or reigning Queen must take Anglican communion. Part of being head of the Anglican Church and Defender of the Faith, etc.

    But, as we know, whatever the rules are in the UK, it means that President Obama is ineligible to be President. Heck, the rules in the NBA mean President Obama is ineligible.

  298. J.Potter says:
    July 21, 2011 at 10:05 am  (Quote)

    I was idly wondering at the apparent stillbirth of Prooferism (it doesn’t seem to have survived a single news cycle), and came across an article on slate about contemporary conspiracies, and why they never die. They may never die, but at least they don’t all gain traction (?). The article contains many thoughts applicable to many conspiracies including birtherism … just replace “bin laden” with “birth certificate”:

    “…photos of bin Laden, surely, could become the grist for brand new conspiracy theories. There’s really no way out of this.”

    http://www.slate.com/content/slate/blogs/weigel/2011/05/05/the_rise_of_prooferism.html

  299. Sunshine49 says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:51 am  (Quote)

    Northland10: You really have not read the Constitution, have you? Do you think states got to determine who would be naturalized and how? I should mention, you are picking up arguments such as the “14th Amendment citizens” that are favorites of various white supremacy groups. I can only imagine you are unaware of the connection so I point it out so you have an understanding of the history. You may wish to reconsider your argument.

    I don’t read anything from supremacy groups, so I have no idea what they say.

    Grandpa wasn’t born in Russia. He was made a slave and he escaped from Siberia to come to the U.S. He went through naturalization here. They always said they were German before they became American. My father’s side was Dutch.

    I have read law professors and consititutional scholars who agree that natural born means two citizen parents. Even SCOTUS in Happersett said that children born of TWO citizen parents were natural born — about this there was NO DOUBT. The citizenship of others born of foreign parents had DOUBT!

    Did you know that women fly in from other countries right before they have their babies just to have the child get American citizenship and then take the baby back to their home country to be raised. There is NO ALLEGIANCE to the U.S. How can anyone in their right mind think that a foreign child like this (because that is what they are) should be allowed to be America’s president? To me that means the exact opposite of what John Jay wrote to George Washington when he wrote: “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the commander
    in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.”

    To me, the President of the United States should be born and raised in America by parents who have allegiance to America! Foreigners just passing through do NOT have allegiance to this country! Obama’s father NEVER had allegiance to this country and his mother was a self-proclaimed Marxist/Atheist who spent the majority of her adult life in foreign countries because she hated everything America stood for. Why should I believe that Obama has any love for this country?

    I believe the Founders put “natural born” in the Constitution because they wanted anyone who was President to be dedicated to this country ONLY — NOT some “citizen of the world” with allegiances to other countries!

    Why do you want people with foreign allegiances to be OUR President?

  300. BatGuano says:
    July 22, 2011 at 1:42 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:

    I have read law professors and consititutional scholars who agree that natural born means two citizen parents.

    can you name or link to any of these?

    in the years i’ve been following this there has been no evidence, from birther or obot, of a single constitutional scholar or law professor agreeing with the “2 parent” argument.

    obama’s father’s nationality was not a secret before the election. do you honestly believe that every person that had studied the US constitution just didn’t bother to speak up?

  301. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 1:42 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: I have read law professors and consititutional scholars who agree that natural born means two citizen parents.

    Name them, the books they have written, and court rulings in their favor.

    Sunshine49: Did you know that women fly in from other countries right before they have their babies just to have the child get American citizenship and then take the baby back to their home country to be raised.

    It happens hundreds of times along the Texas-Mexico border. I wrote about it here:
    http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/likely-scenario.html

    That’s the way our Constitution is written. Don’t like it? Start an amendment drive.

    Sunshine49: his mother was a self-proclaimed Marxist/Atheist

    Golda Meir was a Marxist. David Ben Gurion was a committed socialist. My primary care physician is an atheist. I was a kibbutznik for a year. Everyone at the kibbutz was secular. The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is a Jewish atheist. I’m a Jewish agnostic. Also, provide a link to where Obama’s mother made that declaration.

    The kibbutz is the foundation of Israel, and it is pure communism. The kibbutzim are also a raucous democracy. Social Security is pure socialism. Roosevelt got the idea from von Bismarck. Bismarck got the idea from Karl Marx.

    I suggest you lay off the coffee, and stop listening to Glenn Beck – especially since Beck never denied being involved in a rape and murder in 1990.

  302. Sunshine49 says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:03 am  (Quote)

    Majority Will: Your statement reeks of bigotry and the inane and vapid illogic of an absurd, fear mongering hypothetical scenario.
    It says nothing of the exhaustive vetting process of candidates by the media and the populace, who ultimately decide in the voting booth, the ethics, mettle and patriotic intent of all candidates for the office of President.

    Congress admits now that they did NOT vet Obama. The media was in the tank for him and called anyone “racist” who dared to question anything about Obama. 96% of black voters voted for Obama. The question should be whether or not people would have elected him if he had pushed his white heritage instead of his black heritage. I seem to remember the media even calling the Clintons “racists” during the campaign. If race wasn’t an issue, why did the left and the media keep using the race card?

    What people voted for was an undefined “hope and change” in the way government had been running this country. People didn’t bother to read the fine print before they signed on the dotted line. Obama’s “fundamentally transforming” America is not what a lot of people thought they were getting. It’s called buyer’s remorse.

    You are right of course that being “natural born” does not guarantee that someone is going to be a good president, but the less foreign influence a president has in his life, the more likely he will be dedicated to America ONLY.

    It may have been wrong, but it wasn’t bigotry when Wilson had Germans rounded up and put in camps during W.W.I and FDR had Japanese rounded up in W.W.II.

    How can any president make clear decisions if we go to war with the home country of his parents? The Founders were English born, but on American soil. They were dedicated to America over England. Even if they weren’t born here, they swore allegiance to THIS country over all others. I believe this is the kind of dedication they wanted from every future president this country had and that they didn’t believe that someone with FOREIGN allegiances through their parents would be that kind of person!

    That’s why I believe that they meant two CITIZEN PARENTS when they put the “natural born” clause in the Constitution.

  303. BatGuano says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:14 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: 96% of black voters voted for Obama.

    that’s only a 4-6% difference between the number of black votes for kerry, gore and clinton.

  304. BatGuano says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:16 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Congress admits now that they did NOT vet Obama.

    are you saying that obama’s father’s citizenship was not well known before the election?

  305. dunstvangeet says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:35 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine, let me give you two examples.

    Mr. and Mrs. Smith, right before Mr. Smith gets a job in England, and moves there. They do not Naturalize, but live in England. On a visit home, his wife has a child. They leave the day afterwords, and naturalize later that day and become British Citizens. They then live the remainder of their years in Britain, raising their son. Their son, on his 21st birthday, moves back to the United States, and claims his citizenship. He lives in the United States for the next 14 years, and runs for President when he turns 35. Under your rule, this person would be eligible for the Presidency. He was born to 2 United States Citizens, within the United States. What happens after that fact does not change the fact that he would be a Natural Born Citizen (see Perkins v. Elg).

    Mr. and Mrs. Solis immigrate legally to this country. They have a child, and naturalize one day after their child is born. They raise this person to love the country that they immigrated to, and they were raised. This person came to realize that America is the Land of Oppertunity. When he is 35, he files to run for the Presidency. He’s lived in America for all his life, and was grown up being taught to love America, the adopted country of his parents. But yet, according to your rule, this person would not be eligible for the Presidency.

    Tell me, which one is more American?

  306. obsolete says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:06 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49,
    Everyone knew before the election that Obama’s father was not an American. He wrote a book about it in 1995. John Roberts knew that Obama’s father was not an American, why did he swear him in?

    The Constitution only requires living in the United States for 14 years, yet you have to be 35 to be President. Why were the founders OK with a President living most of their life outside the U.S.? Why didn’t they make a requirement that you had to have NEVER lived outside the U.S. to be eligible?

    Sunshine49: That’s why I believe that they meant two CITIZEN PARENTS when they put the “natural born” clause in the Constitution.

    You can believe it all you want. It is not the law.

    Remember, there is no law baring felons or even people currently in jail from being elected President. Even Charles Manson is eligible.
    The point is, Manson wouldn’t actually win. But he is eligible. Believing differently won’t change that.

    Under your “belief” of what the law is, many people adopted, or children of rape victims, or people who never knew for sure who their father was could not run for President. Never before has a Presidential candidate had to supply proof of their parents citizenship. Being born in the U.S. is all that it takes.

  307. obsolete says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:12 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49, you may have missed this as well-

    Here is a link to hundreds of books and textbooks on Google books that list the requirements of “natural born” citizenship.
    Not a single one mentions the citizenship of parents as a requirement.

    “BOOKS ON GOOGLE BOOKS THAT DEFINE “NATURAL BORN CITIZEN”
    http://naturalborncitizenshipresearch.blogspot.com/2010/10/view-of-constitution-of-united-states.html

    Birthers have not been able to find a single book published before 2008 that confirms their “two citizen parent” theory.

    Not one.

  308. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:36 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:
    I have read law professors and consititutional scholars who agree that natural born means two citizen parents. Even SCOTUS in Happersett said that children born of TWO citizen parents were natural born — about this there was NO DOUBT. The citizenship of others born of foreign parents had DOUBT!

    Yeah, right. Like who? Sounds like you are just reading birther sites and gullibly swallowing every bit of nonsense they just made up within the past 3 years.

    Why don’t you provide some names of these so-called scholars, etc. that aren’t just birthers and that ever made any claims like that prior to 2008?

    Further, saying that someone born of TWO citizen parents IS natural born is not the same as saying that someone MUST have two citizen parents to be natural born. This is a really simple concept. Please tell me that you can understand that easy distinction.

    Sunshine49:
    Did you know that women fly in from other countries right before they have their babies just to have the child get American citizenship and then take the baby back to their home country to be raised.

    Wow. That sounds like another urban legend. Do you have any actual evidence of this? Links please.

    Honestly, people do lots of crazy things, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a there was a person or two who’ve done something silly like this in the past…but in a country of over 300 million people in a world of nearly 7 billion, there would have to be a sizeable pattern of this activity occurring for it to have any cause of concern or significance.

    Bottom line, I think you fall for stuff that sounds scary to you that just really doesn’t happen. You’ve been had by bogus storylines and now you are passing these fictions along as if they are real.

    Sunshine49:
    There is NO ALLEGIANCE to the U.S. How can anyone in their right mind think that a foreign child like this (because that is what they are) should be allowed to be America’s president? To me that means the exact opposite of what John Jay wrote to George Washington when he wrote: “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the commanderin chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.”To me, the President of the United States should be born and raised in America by parents who have allegiance to America! Foreigners just passing through do NOT have allegiance to this country!

    *rolls eyes*. Ok, sounds like you are just irrationally afraid of people you consider “foreign”. Look, get serious for a moment and think about what it takes to get elected to office in this country.

    Someone has to run a very expensive and lengthy campaign and convince the population to vote for them.

    WE elect our leaders. Someone who truly is “not qualified” or came across anti-American is not going to get the votes of the majority of the populace. You create these strawman bogeyman fears that are simply meaningless. The Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) was born American NBC. He could file to run for President…but nobody is going to vote for him. Casey Anthony is American NBC. She could attempt to run for President once she turns 35…but nobody is going to vote for her either. Do you understand this?

    Sunshine49:
    Obama’s father NEVER had allegiance to this country

    So what? No requirement that he had to. Obama’s father wasn’t running for President here, so he’s irrelevant. That his father was a Kenyan national here on a student visa who impregnated his mother while here and then left her soon after and returned to Kenya was well established public knowledge during the campaign and long, long before that. Obama’s father was barely in the picture and didn’t raise his son. There is no law against that. Who cares. Obviously the American voters didn’t, as they overwhelmingly voted to elect Obama. The vote wasn’t even close. More people voted in 2008 than any other Presidential election before that and over 9.5 million more Americans voted for Obama than his nearest rival McCain. The all important electoral college victory margin was even more decisive than that. You are just ranting about meaningless and irrelevant issues.

    Sunshine49:

    Sunshine49:
    and his mother was a self-proclaimed Marxist/Atheist who spent the majority of her adult life in foreign countries because she hated everything America stood for.

    Wow. That went beyond just having an opinion to being an outright disgusting slander of someone’s mother who is dead and who you’ve never met and don’t even know. That’s pretty sick.

    Look, she simply married a foreign national and then as the records have shown, his Visa was not extended and he had to return to Indonesia…despite trying to use his marriage as a reason to stay here. She simply decided to live with her husband and followed him there. Once there, she developed an interest in helping the people there and did what has been documented as laudable work in microfinance in helping the people she worked with there.

    Many American citizens live abroad in foreign countries due to work, marriage or what they consider to be good causes in helping others. Some of them do so for many, many years…even decades. They are still American citizens and entitled to vote here and many of them do. That doesn’t make them any less American and certainly doesn’t mean they “hate” what America stands for. There is NOTHING unusual or wrong about people doing things like this.

    There is also no religious test in America nor is there any consistent political or societal spectrum view that is solely “American” either. We are a nation full of people of various religions and beliefs on how this country should best move forward. It is one thing and fully fine for you to have different beliefs or disagree with the views of others, but to accuse them of “hating America” just because they think differently than you is disgusting and frankly, you just come across like a bigoted A-hole. You really need to reflect and examine your own soul, as there is obviously some rot within.

    Sunshine49:
    Why should I believe that Obama has any love for this country?

    I don’t care what you believe. You’ve made it quite obvious that you don’t like the man or agree with him, so for your simple mind, you must portray him as “evil”. Personally, I think that is just sad, but then again, that is your right and you don’t have to vote for him. Simple as that.

    Your personal prejudices against him blind you and cause you to ignore every positive statement he has made about this country and his love for it, including his oath and service to it. There is no point arguing with someone who just sticks their fingers in their ears and ignores everything they don’t want to hear. No matter what he says or does, you will just dismissively discount it if it doesn’t reinforce your negative bias against him. I find that to be just sad and petty.

    Sunshine49:
    I believe the Founders put “natural born” in the Constitution because they wanted anyone who was President to be dedicated to this country ONLY — NOT some “citizen of the world” with allegiances to other countries!

    You can believe that the moon is made of green cheese too. Doesn’t matter what you believe, only what our laws actually say and how our world operates in reality. You seem stuck on bumper-sticker sloganeering clap-trap that has no practical meaning and all this “allegiances to other countries” nonsense is nothing more than a made-up interpretation and conclusion within your own head and based on your own prejudices against someone you don’t like.

    Sunshine49:
    Why do you want people with foreign allegiances to be OUR President?

    I don’t. Nor have I ever seen any evidence of such.

    Nobody has said that they want that, so stop making up fictional and bogus strawman arguments that are nonsense and insulting and have no basis in reality. You invent bogeyman in your own head that don’t exist.

    Simply put, I don’t see any of these “foreign allegiances” in any of our candidates or officials serving in US government offices – whether President, Congress or otherwise. All I see are people with different viewpoints who are Americans and love this country and someone like you who is completely intolerant of people whose ideas, views or religious beliefs differ from you.

  309. Majority Will says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:50 am  (Quote)

    G: Yeah, right.Like who?Sounds like you are just reading birther sites and gullibly swallowing every bit of nonsense they just made up within the past 3 years.

    Why don’t you provide some names of these so-called scholars, etc. that aren’t just birthers and that ever made any claims like that prior to 2008?

    Further, saying that someone born of TWO citizen parents IS natural born is not the same as saying that someone MUST have two citizen parents to be natural born.This is a really simple concept.Please tell me that you can understand that easy distinction.

    Wow.That sounds like another urban legend.Do you have any actual evidence of this? Links please.

    Honestly, people do lots of crazy things, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a there was a person or two who’ve done something silly like this in the past…but in a country of over 300 million people in a world of nearly 7 billion, there would have to be a sizeable pattern of this activity occurring for it to have any cause of concern or significance.

    Bottom line, I think you fall for stuff that sounds scary to you that just really doesn’t happen.You’ve been had by bogus storylines and now you are passing these fictions along as if they are real.

    *rolls eyes*.Ok, sounds like you are just irrationally afraid of people you consider “foreign”.Look, get serious for a moment and think about what it takes to get elected to office in this country.

    Someone has to run a very expensive and lengthy campaign and convince the population to vote for them.

    WE elect our leaders.Someone who truly is “not qualified” or came across anti-American is not going to get the votes of the majority of the populace.You create these strawman bogeyman fears that are simply meaningless.The Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) was born American NBC.He could file to run for President…but nobody is going to vote for him.Casey Anthony is American NBC.She could attempt to run for President once she turns 35…but nobody is going to vote for her either.Do you understand this?

    So what?No requirement that he had to.Obama’s father wasn’t running for President here, so he’s irrelevant.That his father was a Kenyan national here on a student visa who impregnated his mother while here and then left her soon after and returned to Kenya was well established public knowledge during the campaign and long, long before that.Obama’s father was barely in the picture and didn’t raise his son.There is no law against that.Who cares.Obviously the American voters didn’t, as they overwhelmingly voted to elect Obama.The vote wasn’t even close.More people voted in 2008 than any other Presidential election before that and over 9.5 million more Americans voted for Obama than his nearest rival McCain.The all important electoral college victory margin was even more decisive than that.You are just ranting about meaningless and irrelevant issues.

    Wow.That went beyond just having an opinion to being an outright disgusting slander of someone’s mother who is dead and who you’ve never met and don’t even know.That’s pretty sick.

    Look, she simply married a foreign national and then as the records have shown, his Visa was not extended and he had to return to Indonesia…despite trying to use his marriage as a reason to stay here.She simply decided to live with her husband and followed him there.Once there, she developed an interest in helping the people there and did what has been documented as laudable work in microfinance in helping the people she worked with there.

    Many American citizens live abroad in foreign countries due to work, marriage or what they consider to be good causes in helping others.Some of them do so for many, many years…even decades.They are still American citizens and entitled to vote here and many of them do.That doesn’t make them any less American and certainly doesn’t mean they “hate” what America stands for.There is NOTHING unusual or wrong about people doing things like this.

    There is also no religious test in America nor is there any consistent political or societal spectrum view that is solely “American” either.We are a nation full of people of various religions and beliefs on how this country should best move forward.It is one thing and fully fine for you to have different beliefs or disagree with the views of others, but to accuse them of “hating America” just because they think differently than you is disgusting and frankly, you just come across like a bigoted A-hole.You really need to reflect and examine your own soul, as there is obviously some rot within.

    I don’t care what you believe.You’ve made it quite obvious that you don’t like the man or agree with him, so for your simple mind, you must portray him as “evil”.Personally, I think that is just sad, but then again, that is your right and you don’t have to vote for him.Simple as that.

    Your personal prejudices against him blind you and cause you to ignore every positive statement he has made about this country and his love for it, including his oath and service to it.There is no point arguing with someone who just sticks their fingers in their ears and ignores everything they don’t want to hear.No matter what he says or does, you will just dismissively discount it if it doesn’t reinforce your negative bias against him.I find that to be just sad and petty.

    You can believe that the moon is made of green cheese too.Doesn’t matter what you believe, only what our laws actually say and how our world operates in reality.You seem stuck on bumper-sticker sloganeering clap-trap that has no practical meaning and all this “allegiances to other countries” nonsense is nothing more than a made-up interpretation and conclusion within your own head and based on your own prejudices against someone you don’t like.

    Nobody has said that they want that, so stop making up fictional and bogus strawman arguments that are nonsense and insulting and have no basis in reality.You invent bogeyman in your own head that don’t exist.

    Simply put, I don’t see any of these “foreign allegiances” in any of our candidates or officials serving in US government offices – whether President, Congress or otherwise.All I see are people with different viewpoints who are Americans and love this country and someone like you who is completely intolerant of people whose ideas, views or religious beliefs differ from you.

    Nicely said but I’m willing to bet Rainstorm won’t comprehend one bit of it.

    Yes, it’s very sad there are such gloomy, obstinate, xenophobic, close minded bigots.

  310. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:35 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: his mother was a self-proclaimed…Atheist

    United States Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3: no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

  311. Majority Will says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:38 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Congress admits now that they did NOT vet Obama.

    Like most of what you are spewing, that’s a steaming load of crap. You might be suffering from severe Rushitis.

    “To me, the President of the United States should be . . . ”

    Outstanding. Your prize is . . . . (drumroll) . . . one vote for your perfect American choice on election day.

    Psst. Guess what?

    I get one vote too and I fully support our American President, a natural born citizen of the U.S., and his run for re-election.

    One day Sasha or Malia might run and that would be wonderful!
    Their father is from the state of Hawaii and their mother from the state of Illinois.

    That must really grind your gears.

  312. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:01 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Congress admits now that they did NOT vet Obama.

    What a load of meaningless nonsense and a twisting of what the word means in terms of how Presidents are vetted and elected according out our laws.

    The only requirements for running for President are the age, residency and NBC requirements as listed in the Constitution. The rest of the qualifications we chose to desire in a President are all a matter of individual choices and opinions. Candidates campaign to introduce themselves and their ideas to the public. WE “vet” the candidates by weighing what we hear and VOTING.

    The electoral college and Congress “vet” the winner by casting their ballot and issuing any objections. THERE WERE NO OBJECTIONS.

    Bottom line, our entire process was followed legally, from casting of ballots through swearing in of the President, just as it always is. There were NO objections. That is it and the end of it. That is the ENTIRE extent of official “vetting” required and built into our process.

    Congress did their job in accordance with rules and procedures.

    You are just whining and come across as a sore loser ranting about an election that was decisively decided over 3 years ago, because it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. Welcome to reality.

    Sunshine49:
    The media was in the tank for him and called anyone “racist” who dared to question anything about Obama.

    Oh, puh-lease! Spare me! More generalized strawmen claptrap that translates into nothing more than sore-loser whining from you. The “media” is quite a broad and diverse set, which includes Fox News and Right-wing radio, which seem to spend all of their time, both then and now doing nothing but slandering and attacking Obama on everything. They are most certainly not in “the tank” for him. From the way you talk, those are probably the only sources you actually listen too…so I find your statement of what you hear in “the media” to be quite ironic. If you actually watched other news stations or non-Conservative papers during that time period, you would have found that throughout the campaign, ALL candidates had commentators and bloviating pundits talking about them and their backgrounds and positions, both FOR and AGAINST. Nothing new under the sun. Obama had his share of praise and criticism throughout.

    You just chose to selectively filter and imagine a fictional history of what happened because your own preconceived bias wants to. Obama has always been criticized on many accounts by many people (as are all politicians…again, nothing new under the sun) and those criticized were not called “racist” for doing so. The only times “racist” criticisms came up is because there were ACTUAL incidents of racism that cropped up from time to time….in which calling out racism for what it is is perfectly normal and legitimate too. *duh*.

    Your silly claims of “racist” charges on non-racist criticisms is just another false and tired meme that sad and resentful people like you make up as an excuse.

    Sunshine49:
    96% of black voters voted for Obama.

    Um, you do realize that traditionally, roughly 90% of black voters have been voting for the Democratic candidates instead of the GOP candidates for the past few decades, right? Ooooh…a few percentage points more…big fricking deal.

    Sunshine49:
    The question should be whether or not people would have elected him if he had pushed his white heritage instead of his black heritage.

    What? What a bunch of utter BS and nonsense! He did NOT emphasize his “black heritage” during the campaign over his “white heritage”. What was repeatedly commented upon during the actual campaign was how intentionally his campaign DID NOT focus on race issues.

    I notice a pattern here…YOU are the one who seems hung up on his race and who keeps bringing it up… …what does that say about you…

    Sunshine49:
    I seem to remember the media even calling the Clintons “racists” during the campaign. If race wasn’t an issue, why did the left and the media keep using the race card?

    *yawn* Ah, the old “race card” canard. The Clinton campaign *did* have a few instances, particularly leading up to the South Carolina Primary where they did make some cynical statements that were intentionally race-based. Yes, they were called out by certain folks in “the media” for doing so.

    When people actually make race-based statements and are called out on it…that IS a legitimate . If you focus on race or use racist dog-whistles, expect to be rightly be called out upon it. Only defensive racists when caught being racist would call that “playing the race card”.

    Sunshine49:

    What people voted for was an undefined “hope and change” in the way government had been running this country. People didn’t bother to read the fine print before they signed on the dotted line. Obama’s “fundamentally transforming” America is not what a lot of people thought they were getting. It’s called buyer’s remorse.

    *Yawn*. Spare me. More concern trolling criticisms and whining from someone who never voted for Obama in the first place, is obviously completely biased against him, and wouldn’t be unlikely to voting for him in 2012 under any circumstance.

    Face it, most successful candidates win by running on a positive message and plan for the future. Reality hits when they are in office and never are they able to achieve many of the things they campaigned on. Talking about what you want to do or complaining about what you are against is easy when you are on the outside looking in. Actually governing is hard. It is not easy for anyone to get things done in Washington and ALL Presidents approvals drop during their terms, as the promissory rhetoric fades into the reality of what they can actually accomplish in office.

    Your same criticism could be said of EVERY person who has ever held that office in modern times…so your just whining for the sake of whining and merely pissing in the wind. There is also nothing unusual about people who voted for a candidate who gets elected to be critical or even disappointed in certain decisions or progress that person makes as President. Every president makes decisions or fails to accomplish things that will upset various factions of his voting base or the public as a whole. Again, welcome to reality.

    In regards to your “buyer’s remorse”… funny that polls consistently show a strong continued support percentage from those who voted for him last time to vote for him again in 2012 so far… So you FAIL there. You can’t have “buyer’s remorse” if you weren’t one of the people who made that “purchase” in the first place, so I could care less that people who voted for someone else are snipping from the sidelines.

    Sunshine49:
    You are right of course that being “natural born” does not guarantee that someone is going to be a good president, but the less foreign influence a president has in his life, the more likely he will be dedicated to America ONLY.

    Well, you’ve expressed your opinion, but then the whole notion of “foreign influence” seems to be something based on your own internal fears and in your head and has no actual examples in reality. I simply see a non-existent issue that you keep incessantly wailing on about and no reason for any real concern taking place anywhere. Every President I’ve seen through current has been fully dedicated to America. I may not always agree with what their vision for America is, but I accept that they love this country and put it first in terms of how they see it.

    As usual, you make these strange rants, yet you cannot cite any concrete examples to support your worries. That is because they are only figments of your fearful imagination.

    Sunshine49:

    It may have been wrong, but it wasn’t bigotry when Wilson had Germans rounded up and put in camps during W.W.I and FDR had Japanese rounded up in W.W.II.

    Your entire argument has been railing on worries of a President exhibiting “foreign influence” that would put other interests over ours. These examples you gave has nothing to do with your premise – in fact it is the reverse – where a US President during wartime clearly put the defense of America first and took questionable actions to guard against foreign influence of others.

    The only thing in common these examples have with anything you’ve talked about is that it shows you have some fearful obsession with what you perceive as “foreigners”…

    Sunshine49:
    How can any president make clear decisions if we go to war with the home country of his parents?

    Another silly and fake straw man argument. Or are you seriously worried that we might go to war against Kenya? *rolls eyes*

    Does your argument apply to just parents or how far down the line of ancestry do you want to go…because America is still a very young country and other than the Native Americans, ALL of the rest of us have ancestors that came from one or more foreign country…

    My grandfather was a proud WWII vet in service of America. He had no problems going to war against Germany, the country his parents came from… Same story is true for many American families.

    Sunshine49:
    The Founders were English born, but on American soil. They were dedicated to America over England. Even if they weren’t born here, they swore allegiance to THIS country over all others. I believe this is the kind of dedication they wanted from every future president this country had and that they didn’t believe that someone with FOREIGN allegiances through their parents would be that kind of person!

    And ALL US office holders swear allegiance to America, especially the President! By your very own statement about the Founders (in bold above), you have the answer that applies to ALL of our Presidents and US office holders, Obama INCLUDED!!! You have just appropriately negated the whole “foreign allegiance through” parentage argument with clear example right there (and rightly so)!

    Sunshine49:
    That’s why I believe that they meant two CITIZEN PARENTS when they put the “natural born” clause in the Constitution.

    All your belief in this is just your personal emotional fears and opinions and NOT at all based in law or fact. You may wish it were different, but that doesn’t change our laws being what they are. Sorry.

  313. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:01 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: his mother was a self-proclaimed…Atheist

    Obama’s father was raised as a Mulsim, and became an atheist.

    I suggest you read Hitchens God is not great – how religion poisons everything.

  314. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:07 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: his mother was a self-proclaimed…Atheist

    Montesquieu: More blood has been shed for the kingdom of Christ, than for any other kingdom.

  315. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:13 am  (Quote)

    Oops. I messed up the blockquoting on that one. I’ll correct & repost and ask Dr. C to delete the messed up version.

  316. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:13 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Congress admits now that they did NOT vet Obama.

    What a load of meaningless nonsense and a twisting of what the word means in terms of how Presidents are vetted and elected according out our laws.

    The only requirements for running for President are the age, residency and NBC requirements as listed in the Constitution. The rest of the qualifications we chose to desire in a President are all a matter of individual choices and opinions. Candidates campaign to introduce themselves and their ideas to the public. WE “vet” the candidates by weighing what we hear and VOTING.

    The electoral college and Congress “vet” the winner by casting their ballot and issuing any objections. THERE WERE NO OBJECTIONS.

    Bottom line, our entire process was followed legally, from casting of ballots through swearing in of the President, just as it always is. There were NO objections. That is it and the end of it. That is the ENTIRE extent of official “vetting” required and built into our process.

    Congress did their job in accordance with rules and procedures.

    You are just whining and come across as a sore loser ranting about an election that was decisively decided over 3 years ago, because it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. Welcome to reality.

    Sunshine49:
    The media was in the tank for him and called anyone “racist” who dared to question anything about Obama.

    Oh, puh-lease! Spare me! More generalized strawmen claptrap that translates into nothing more than sore-loser whining from you. The “media” is quite a broad and diverse set, which includes Fox News and Right-wing radio, which seem to spend all of their time, both then and now doing nothing but slandering and attacking Obama on everything. They are most certainly not in “the tank” for him. From the way you talk, those are probably the only sources you actually listen too…so I find your statement of what you hear in “the media” to be quite ironic. If you actually watched other news stations or non-Conservative papers during that time period, you would have found that throughout the campaign, ALL candidates had commentators and bloviating pundits talking about them and their backgrounds and positions, both FOR and AGAINST. Nothing new under the sun. Obama had his share of praise and criticism throughout.

    You just chose to selectively filter and imagine a fictional history of what happened because your own preconceived bias wants to. Obama has always been criticized on many accounts by many people (as are all politicians…again, nothing new under the sun) and those criticized were not called “racist” for doing so. The only times “racist” criticisms came up is because there were ACTUAL incidents of racism that cropped up from time to time….in which calling out racism for what it is is perfectly normal and legitimate too. *duh*.

    Your silly claims of “racist” charges on non-racist criticisms is just another false and tired meme that sad and resentful people like you make up as an excuse.

    Sunshine49:
    96% of black voters voted for Obama.

    Um, you do realize that traditionally, roughly 90% of black voters have been voting for the Democratic candidates instead of the GOP candidates for the past few decades, right? Ooooh…a few percentage points more…big fricking deal.

    Sunshine49:
    The question should be whether or not people would have elected him if he had pushed his white heritage instead of his black heritage.

    What? What a bunch of utter BS and nonsense! He did NOT emphasize his “black heritage” during the campaign over his “white heritage”. What was repeatedly commented upon during the actual campaign was how intentionally his campaign DID NOT focus on race issues.

    I notice a pattern here…YOU are the one who seems hung up on his race and who keeps bringing it up… …what does that say about you…

    Sunshine49:
    I seem to remember the media even calling the Clintons “racists” during the campaign. If race wasn’t an issue, why did the left and the media keep using the race card?

    *yawn* Ah, the old “race card” canard. The Clinton campaign *did* have a few instances, particularly leading up to the South Carolina Primary where they did make some cynical statements that were intentionally race-based. Yes, they were called out by certain folks in “the media” for doing so.

    When people actually make race-based statements and are called out on it…that IS a legitimate . If you focus on race or use racist dog-whistles, expect to be rightly be called out upon it. Only defensive racists when caught being racist would call that “playing the race card”.

    Sunshine49:

    What people voted for was an undefined “hope and change” in the way government had been running this country. People didn’t bother to read the fine print before they signed on the dotted line. Obama’s “fundamentally transforming” America is not what a lot of people thought they were getting. It’s called buyer’s remorse.

    *Yawn*. Spare me. More concern trolling criticisms and whining from someone who never voted for Obama in the first place, is obviously completely biased against him, and wouldn’t be unlikely to voting for him in 2012 under any circumstance.

    Face it, most successful candidates win by running on a positive message and plan for the future. Reality hits when they are in office and never are they able to achieve many of the things they campaigned on. Talking about what you want to do or complaining about what you are against is easy when you are on the outside looking in. Actually governing is hard. It is not easy for anyone to get things done in Washington and ALL Presidents approvals drop during their terms, as the promissory rhetoric fades into the reality of what they can actually accomplish in office.

    Your same criticism could be said of EVERY person who has ever held that office in modern times…so your just whining for the sake of whining and merely pissing in the wind. There is also nothing unusual about people who voted for a candidate who gets elected to be critical or even disappointed in certain decisions or progress that person makes as President. Every president makes decisions or fails to accomplish things that will upset various factions of his voting base or the public as a whole. Again, welcome to reality.

    In regards to your “buyer’s remorse”… funny that polls consistently show a strong continued support percentage from those who voted for him last time to vote for him again in 2012 so far… So you FAIL there. You can’t have “buyer’s remorse” if you weren’t one of the people who made that “purchase” in the first place, so I could care less that people who voted for someone else are snipping from the sidelines.

    Sunshine49:
    You are right of course that being “natural born” does not guarantee that someone is going to be a good president, but the less foreign influence a president has in his life, the more likely he will be dedicated to America ONLY.

    Well, you’ve expressed your opinion, but then the whole notion of “foreign influence” seems to be something based on your own internal fears and in your head and has no actual examples in reality. I simply see a non-existent issue that you keep incessantly wailing on about and no reason for any real concern taking place anywhere. Every President I’ve seen through current has been fully dedicated to America. I may not always agree with what their vision for America is, but I accept that they love this country and put it first in terms of how they see it.

    As usual, you make these strange rants, yet you cannot cite any concrete examples to support your worries. That is because they are only figments of your fearful imagination.

    Sunshine49:

    It may have been wrong, but it wasn’t bigotry when Wilson had Germans rounded up and put in camps during W.W.I and FDR had Japanese rounded up in W.W.II.

    Your entire argument has been railing on worries of a President exhibiting “foreign influence” that would put other interests over ours. These examples you gave has nothing to do with your premise – in fact it is the reverse – where a US President during wartime clearly put the defense of America first and took questionable actions to guard against foreign influence of others.

    The only thing in common these examples have with anything you’ve talked about is that it shows you have some fearful obsession with what you perceive as “foreigners”…

    Sunshine49:
    How can any president make clear decisions if we go to war with the home country of his parents?

    Another silly and fake straw man argument. Or are you seriously worried that we might go to war against Kenya? *rolls eyes*

    Does your argument apply to just parents or how far down the line of ancestry do you want to go…because America is still a very young country and other than the Native Americans, ALL of the rest of us have ancestors that came from one or more foreign country…

    My grandfather was a proud WWII vet in service of America. He had no problems going to war against Germany, the country his parents came from… Same story is true for many American families.

    Sunshine49:
    The Founders were English born, but on American soil. They were dedicated to America over England. Even if they weren’t born here, they swore allegiance to THIS country over all others. I believe this is the kind of dedication they wanted from every future president this country had and that they didn’t believe that someone with FOREIGN allegiances through their parents would be that kind of person!

    And ALL US office holders swear allegiance to America, especially the President! By your very own statement about the Founders (in bold above), you have the answer that applies to ALL of our Presidents and US office holders, Obama INCLUDED!!! You have just appropriately negated the whole “foreign allegiance through” parentage argument with clear example right there (and rightly so)!

    Sunshine49:
    That’s why I believe that they meant two CITIZEN PARENTS when they put the “natural born” clause in the Constitution.

    All your belief in this is just your personal emotional fears and opinions and NOT at all based in law or fact. You may wish it were different, but that doesn’t change our laws being what they are. Sorry.

  317. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 6:09 am  (Quote)

    I have read law professors and consititutional scholars who agree that natural born means two citizen parents. Even SCOTUS in Happersett said that children born of TWO citizen parents were natural born — about this there was NO DOUBT. The citizenship of others born of foreign parents had DOUBT!Did you know that women fly in from other countries right before they have their babies just to have the child get American citizenship and then take the baby back to their home country to be raised. There is NO ALLEGIANCE to the U.S. How can anyone in their right mind think that a foreign child like this (because that is what they are) should be allowed to be America’s president? To me that means the exact opposite of what John Jay wrote to George Washington when he wrote: “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the commanderin chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.”To me, the President of the United States should be born and raised in America by parents who have allegiance to America! Foreigners just passing through do NOT have allegiance to this country! Obama’s father NEVER had allegiance to this country and his mother was a self-proclaimed Marxist/Atheist who spent the majority of her adult life in foreign countries because she hated everything America stood for. Why should I believe that Obama has any love for this country?I believe the Founders put “natural born” in the Constitution because they wanted anyone who was President to be dedicated to this country ONLY — NOT some “citizen of the world” with allegiances to other countries!Why do you want people with foreign allegiances to be OUR President?

    Show us such treatises and Constitutional scholars. Aside from a few racists in the late 19th century trying to keep non-white people from citizenship, I am aware of none. I can cite hundreds of scholars and treatises if you would like.

    Your are again showing your ignorance of law by citing Minor. Minor said natural born is defined by the common law. If you don’t know what the common law was at this point, you are hopeless. Minor tells us that it didn’t need to address the status of children of aliens but everyone who has done any research knows what the court would have found if it did research the common law as there simply is no authority that the common law required citizen parents. Of course, Wong Kim Ark would spend 20 pages telling us what the common law meant. Anyone still citing Minor after Wong resolved the question is an idiot.

    You may not like anchor babies, but such is the problem with defining the Constitution on the views of two centuries ago. The notion of mothers flying in to have babies obviously was not on their minds. You can imagine what you want, but the facts are that no one in such period would have thought a baby born one our soil to British parents owed allegiance to anyone other than the United States. Even England didn’t claim such baby owed allegiance to England. You may not like that, but such are the facts. Hence, the framers only talked of place of birth when discussing eligiblity and such was the only relevant question pertaining to citizenship during such period. You are free to believe otherwise but are simply being dishonest.

    And, Congress has never vetted any President. They simply passed a meaningless resolution for McCain with no debate, hearing or research. Simply supporting their colleague for which there is a serious question about eligiblity. No member of Congress would question Obama as Congress is full of actual lawyers, from actual law schools, who understand the law. Indeed, they would think the two-parent thoery to be “wacky,” as Professor Tribe called it.

  318. Sunshine49 says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:35 am  (Quote)

    JoZeppy: And this is the problem when lay people try to real legal documents. They apply lay definition to legal terms of art. The short and long of it is your readings are incorrect. Jurisdiction and allegiance in these uses merely applies being fully subject to US laws, which merely excludes diplomats.

    Your remarks are interesting to say the least, but this one stuck out to me. So you are saying that when a tourist comes here on vacation we could draft him (when we had a draft) into the service like any American citizen? How about jury duty? Can they vote in our elections? When any foreigner commits a crime in the U.S., they have the right to consul from their own country and we have treaties with other countries on what we are allowed to do to their citizens. Since you are the legal scholar, I would expect you to know all this.

    When foreigners are on our soil, they are under a temporary jurisdiction and allegiance to the U.S. It is NOT complete jurisdiction and allegiance like what is expected of U.S. citizens or all the same rights. They may not be immune to our laws like a diplomat, but they are only subject to our jurisdiction as much as their country allows them to be through treaties. Very similar to “native” born indians not taxed until 1924. The income of certain indian tribes is still not taxed because they never signed a treaty with the U.S.

    I also wonder why our immigration laws demand that a foreigner give up all other “allegiances” to become a “naturalized” citizen if foreign “allegiance” doesn’t mean anything? According to what you are saying, just being on U.S. soil should be enough.

    Another question is if the Founders wrote the Constitution for the American people, WHY would they write it in terms the average “lay” person doesn’t understand? Lawyers write up contracts today like that to either cheat people or keep themselves in business — the idea that everybody has to hire an attorney to go to court because they are too stupid to understand the “law”! Isn’t that the kind of garbage that the Dems did with the health care bill?

    I have no problem in understanding what I read unless it is deliberately written to deceive. That may be true of what has come out of Congress for the past hundred years, but I don’t believe that was true of the Founders.

    How am I supposed to interpret these comments according to you?

    James Madison, Jr. (March 16, 1751– June 28, 1836) our fourth President and the man called the Father of our Constitution wrote to George Washington concerning the progress of the convention.

    “What can he mean by saying that the Common law is not secured by the new Constitution, though it has been adopted by the State Constitutions. The common law is nothing more than the unwritten law, and is left by all the constitutions equally liable to legislative alterations. I am not sure that any notice is particularly taken of it in the Constitutions of the States. If there is, nothing more is provided than a general declaration that it shall continue along with other branches of law to be in force till legally changed.

    What could the Convention have done? If they had in general terms declared the Common law to be in force, they would have broken in upon the legal Code of every State in the most material points: they wd. have done more, they would have brought over from G.B. a thousand heterogeneous & antirepublican doctrines, and even the ecclesiastical Hierarchy itself, for that is a part of the Common law. If they had undertaken a discrimination, they must have formed a digest of laws, instead of a Constitution.”

    John McLean (March 11, 1785 – April 4, 1861) American jurist

    It is clear there can be no common law of the United States. The federal government is composed of twenty-four sovereign and independent states, each of which may have its local usages, customs, and common law. There is no principle which pervades the union and has the authority of law that is not embodied in the Constitution or laws of the union. The common law could be made a part of our system by legislative adoption. WHEATON V. PETERS, 33 U. S. 591 (1834)

    Another founding father, George Mason IV (December 11, 1725 – October 7, 1792) a delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, who is called the “Father of the Bill of Right,” had said during the debate on ratification in Virginia that Constitution was not founded on English common law through a single example on treaties, bluntly stated that English common law was not the common law of the United States.

    Though the king can make treaties, yet he cannot make a treaty contrary to the constitution of his country. Where did their constitution originate? It is founded on a number of maxims, which, by long time, are rendered sacred and inviolable. Where are there such maxims in the American Constitution? In that country, which we formerly called our mother country, they have had, for many centuries, certain fundamental maxims, which have secured their persons and properties, and prevented a dismemberment of their country. The common law, sir, has prevented the power of the crown from destroying the immunities of the people. We are placed in a still better condition — in a more favorable situation than perhaps any people ever were before. We have it in our power to secure our liberties and happiness on the most unshaken, firm, and permanent basis. We can establish what government we please. But by that paper we are consolidating the United States into one great government, and trusting to constructive security. You will find no such thing in the English government. The common law of England is not the common law of these states. I conceive, therefore, that there is nothing in that Constitution to hinder a dismemberment of the empire.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    The foundation of our laws may have come from English Common Law, but we did NOT adopt their laws as OUR laws and that includes the natural born “subject” rule! The States decided who they were going to allow to be a citizen of their State until the 1866 Civil Rights Act and then the 14th Amendment.

    What colleges have been teaching for years is Supreme Court law and NOT Constitutional law.

  319. Northland10 says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:51 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: To me, the President of the United States should be born and raised in America by parents who have allegiance to America

    Obama was raised in Hawaii by an American mother and grandparents, except for a couple of years, had very little contact with his father and never visited Kenya until he was an adult. How would he have a allegiance from his father? Is this some sort of genetic thing?

    And before you mention the few years in Indonesia, I would point out, do you believe all exchanges students should be ineligible?

    You may not believe that Obama has, as you call it, “allegiance” and you may think that children of parents with beliefs you do not agree with should not be eligible. However, in America, we leave that decision to voters, as long as he was born here. The founders had great faith in the people to decide their representatives, and, through the electoral college, their President. This, above almost anything else, is what makes America different.

  320. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:55 am  (Quote)

    >The foundation of our laws may have come from English Common Law, but we did NOT adopt their laws as OUR laws and that includes the natural born “subject” rule! The States decided who they were going to allow to be a citizen of their State until the 1866 Civil Rights Act and then the 14th Amendment.What colleges have been teaching for years is Supreme Court law and NOT Constitutional law.

    Wrong again. Mason and Henry were arguing that we should adopt the English common law in the Constitution. They said we had no common law unless we adopted the English common law. He didn’t mean we had a different common law.

    You simply don’t seem to understand that just because we didn’t adopt the common law in whole in the Constitution does mean that many parts of it were incorporated into the Constitution which any idiot can see with the multitude of terms and provisions of the Constitution that come from the common law as I pointed out above. You can keep repeating the framers agreed with you but cannot cite any evidence to support you fantasy.

    Why do you hate the father of our Constitution? The real one, not the fantasy in your head. Madison was against any restrictions on eligibility in the Convention as he apparently believed in democracy. Madison told us that in America we defined allegiance by place of birth and therefore everyone was a citizen of the community he was born in. Madison thought there was no authority under the Constitution or the law of nations to deport aliens from nations we were at peace with. No, Madison did not share wingnut hatred. Why do you hate our Constitution? The real one as interpreted by the Supreme Court, not the fantasy in your head. Why does someone with no knowledge of law think he knows more than the Supreme Court? Sorry, but people who really love this country know the Supreme Court is the final word on the Constittuion and failing to acknowledge they have said the law is simply anti-American.

  321. Keith says:
    July 22, 2011 at 8:09 am  (Quote)

    misha: United States Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3: no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

    And his mother isn’t running for office anyway.

  322. Keith says:
    July 22, 2011 at 8:34 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Your remarks are interesting to say the least, but this one stuck out to me. So you are saying that when a tourist comes here on vacation we could draft him (when we had a draft) into the service like any American citizen? How about jury duty? Can they vote in our elections?

    Of course not.

    They are not citizens. They are never-the-less subject to the laws of our country, and must obey the draft laws, the jury duty laws, and the election laws. Since all of those laws specify that only citizens can be drafted (maybe permanent residents too, dunno), only voters can be on jury duty, only citizens can vote, they are obeying those laws by not being drafted, not serving on jury duty, and not voting.

    Please remember the unofficial motto (that I unilaterally declared on the sites behalf and have absolutely no authority to do so 😎 ), and someone else came up with but I forgot who now, sorry) of this site: if you don’t want to be ridiculed, don’t be ridiculous.

    When any foreigner commits a crime in the U.S., they have the right to consul from their own country and we have treaties with other countries on what we are allowed to do to their citizens. Since you are the legal scholar, I would expect you to know all this.

    And how does this affect their status as being under the jurisdiction of U.S. Legal system?

    Citizen or foreign national, every accused person has the right to the council of their choice. If they cannot afford council, one will be appointed for them by the court. There is no distinction between citizen and non-citizen in this manner.

    What treaties do we have that restrict what we are “allowed to do” to non-citizens? There are certainly treaties that define how the extradition process works between us and other countries; so if they want someone we have in custody, there is a defined process for determining if they can be handed over (and vice versa). But where is there anything that restricts the legal process dealing with a non-citizen arrested in the US for a crime committed in the US?

  323. John Reilly says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:34 am  (Quote)

    We have no treaties that limit what we can do to a foreigner arrested and charged with a crime in the United States (other than diplomats) except that we have a treaty which obligates the federal government to allow a foreigner to consult his embassy. The Supreme Court made clear two weeks ago that the treaty was not in effect as to state-charged crimes, so Texas was able to execute a Mexican national even though Mexico does not have the death penalty, and Texas did not tell him about his treaty rights.

    President Obama was vetted more thoroughly than any other President. He survived every court challenge to his eligibility. The electoral college (remember, the entity in the Constitution?) voted for him. When it came time to count the electoral college votes, no one challenged his victory. Congressman had challenged President Bush in the House, so folks know how to do it. If your theories about two parents, or Ms. Dr. Taitz’s theories about social security numbers, had any traction whatsoever some Congressman would introduce an impeachment motion, but the folks with your views cannot even get one person out of the 435 who matter to share their views.
    People with your views are an embarassment to the Republican Party and are not helpful in seeking to elect a Republican in 2012. I intend to vote for someone other than President Obama, just like I did last time. However, I have no doubt that he is eligible to be President and that he is a loyal patriotic American. He should be replaced for sound policy reasons, and not because he is Black. And down deep, folks still harping on his eligibility are hung up over the fact that there is a Black man in our White House.

  324. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 10:34 am  (Quote)

    Every nation is sovereign within its borders and English and American law provided that everyone under the protection of the sovereign owed allegaince whether it be termporary of permenant. “Allegiance” meant “obediance” and it was due in exchange for the sovereign protection. Hence, if an Englishman came to the United States and was drafted, England might protest appealing to notions of international law or teaties, but without going to war, there was little they could do. During the Civil War, the United States drafted aliens after giving them notice to leave it they didn’t want to be drafted. British subjects appealed to England for protection but England had no ability to do so. British subjects who were born on US soil (and hence natural born citizens) were told they owed allegiance to the United States.

    Focuing on the allegiance of the parents is fool hardy as Lord Coke made clear the termporary allegiance of the perents was sufficient for the children to be natural born. Focusing “complete jurisidiction” is silly as the Constitution does not say “complete jurisdiction” and the people who try to cherry pick such quote from the indian debates in the 14th Amendment are simply dishonest as such comment had nothing to do with aliens. It they are curius what such Congress thought about children of aliens, they should look to the part of the debate where they talked about that and where they rejected the notion that termporary residents were excluded.

  325. JoZeppy says:
    July 22, 2011 at 10:47 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Your remarks are interesting to say the least, but this one stuck out to me. So you are saying that when a tourist comes here on vacation we could draft him (when we had a draft) into the service like any American citizen? How about jury duty? Can they vote in our elections? When any foreigner commits a crime in the U.S., they have the right to consul from their own country and we have treaties with other countries on what we are allowed to do to their citizens. Since you are the legal scholar, I would expect you to know all this.

    We treat even different catagories of our own citizens differently. We don’t draft women, many states forbid felons from voting, and there are many limitations as to who can sit on a jury. Are these people not under the jurisdiction of the US? There are treaties that also regulate how we treat our own citizens. Does that change the jurisidiction and alliegiance to the US? Certainly not. And on to the foreigners that commit crimes on US soil. So what do you think happens when a foreigner commits a crime on US soil, is not told of his right to have consular assitance in violation of treaties signed by the US, gets a cr@ppy public defender that screws up, gets sentanced to death, at which point his home country finds out and complains? Perhaps you should ask Jose Ernesto Medellin and Humberto Leal Garcia. Oh yeah…as someone else pointed out earlier…you’ll need a ouiji board to do that.

    Sunshine49: When foreigners are on our soil, they are under a temporary jurisdiction and allegiance to the U.S. It is NOT complete jurisdiction and allegiance like what is expected of U.S. citizens or all the same rights. They may not be immune to our laws like a diplomat, but they are only subject to our jurisdiction as much as their country allows them to be through treaties. Very similar to “native” born indians not taxed until 1924. The income of certain indian tribes is still not taxed because they never signed a treaty with the U.S.

    Again, you are absolutely wrong. I’d tell you to ask Jose Ernesto Medellin and Humberto Leal Garcia, but despite Mexico taking the matter up to the ICJ who found in their favor, and even the SCOTUS, who both found the state of Texas violated their rights under treaty, the state of Texas proceed to execute them. The home country has no power to dictate the level of jursidiction the US exercises over them. It is complete. Only diplomats are immune. Native Americans are an entirely different story because their reservations are considered not technically part of the US. It’s apples and oragnes.

    Sunshine49: I also wonder why our immigration laws demand that a foreigner give up all other “allegiances” to become a “naturalized” citizen if foreign “allegiance” doesn’t mean anything? According to what you are saying, just being on U.S. soil should be enough.

    How many times do I have to say that is irrelevant? The Constitution grants Congress the complete power to regulate the rules of naturalization. If they wanted, they could say no Irish people can be naturalized. Congress has no power to alter the terms of Natural Born Citizenship, short of a Constitutional amendment.

    Sunshine49: Another question is if the Founders wrote the Constitution for the American people, WHY would they write it in terms the average “lay” person doesn’t understand? Lawyers write up contracts today like that to either cheat people or keep themselves in business — the idea that everybody has to hire an attorney to go to court because they are too stupid to understand the “law”! Isn’t that the kind of garbage that the Dems did with the health care bill?

    Because a good chunk of the Founders were actually lawyers, and fully understood the Common Law. So when they set about drafting a legal document that would be the foundation of a new nation, they used terms that they were all familiar with. And I’ll point out this two parent citizen garbage was actually created by a sometime lawyer/professional poker player. And before he came along, the average lay person knew exactly what it meant to be a natural born citizen.

    Sunshine49: I have no problem in understanding what I read unless it is deliberately written to deceive. That may be true of what has come out of Congress for the past hundred years, but I don’t believe that was true of the Founders.

    So your definition of being deceptive is to take a term that had a very long history, and whose definition was well known, and use it exactly for what it is known to mean…but to use that term, change it’s definition, and not tell anyone at all, is being open and honest? Yeah….I can see that.

    Ballentine does well enough to address your quotations, so I won’t bother repeating them.

    Sunshine49: What colleges have been teaching for years is Supreme Court law and NOT Constitutional law.

    Ahh yes….again. I love it when some average shome on the internet claims he knows better than everyone who actually formally studied the law. Yes. You know better than all the Supreme Court Justices that ever sat on the bench. Every every judge, scholar, lawyer, or hell, better than anyone who even bothered to go to law school. You don’t need all that formal schooling. You just know better on your own. Afterall, you’ve got the internets. You are truely wise beyond all.

  326. Thrifty says:
    July 22, 2011 at 10:54 am  (Quote)

    Some long responses to Sunshine I see. I kinda filtered it all out into this, like I do with most birthers.

    Birther: *string of xenophobic and racist lies*
    Obot: Your statements are lies and here’s why, you racist pig.
    Birther: Obots have no arguments so they mock us and call us racist!

  327. Thrifty says:
    July 22, 2011 at 11:00 am  (Quote)

    The level of retconning in Birthers, when they’re not being conspiratorial, is amazing. It’s like “I don’t like Obama and he doesn’t fit the usual mold of white guy born and raised in the United States. Here’s all the convoluted reasons why he is tainted by ‘foreign influence’ and not eligibile to hold office.” This boogeyman of “foreign influence” is like a form of HIV which makes someone somehow unable to be loyal to the United States.

    That and the ridiculous “Everyone was always taught that you needed 2 citizen parents to be a natural born citizen.”

  328. gorefan says:
    July 22, 2011 at 11:00 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Constitution was not founded on English common law through a single example on treaties, bluntly stated that English common law was not the common law of the United States.

    James Mason wrote a pamphlet, outlining his objections to the Constitution. He had refused to sign it and he actively campaiged against its ratification.

    “Nor are the people secured even in the enjoyment of the benefit of the common law, which stands here upon no other foundation than its having been adopted by the respective acts forming the constitutions of the several states” James Mason

    And James Iredell responded:

    “2. As to the common law, it is difficult to know what is meant by that part of the objection. So far as the people are now entitled to the benefit of the common law, they certainly will have a right to enjoy it under the new Constitution until altered by the general legislature, which even in this point has some cardinal limits assigned to it. What are most acts of Assembly but a deviation in some degree from the principles of the common law? The people are expressly secured (contrary to Mr. Mason’s wishes) against ex post facto laws; so that the tenure of any property at any time held under the principles of the common law, cannot be altered by any future act of the general legislature. The principles of the common law, as they now apply, must surely always hereafter apply, except in those particulars in which express authority is given by this constitution; in no other particulars can the Congress have authority to change it, and I believe it cannot be shown that any one power of this kind given is unnecessarily given, or that the power would answer its proper purpose if the legislature was restricted from any innovations on the principles of the common law, which would not in all cases suit the vast variety of incidents that might arise out it.” James Iredell

    And the letter that James Madison wrote to Washington is also a response to Jame Mason’s objections.

    “What can he mean by saying that the Common law is not secured by the new Constitution, though it has been adopted by the State Constitutions.”

    The person that Madison is referring to is James Mason.

    If you read the Constitution, you find dozens of terms taken from the English legal system,

    “ex post facto”, “pardon”, Bills of Attainder, “high crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Corruption of Blood” are a few..

    “Natural born” was also from the English legal system and was a well define concept.

    The Framers would not have changed such a fundamental legal definiton without explain the change. In fact, whenever the Founders and Framers made deviations from English Common Law, they told us what the changes were.

    For example, the Constitution outlaws “ex post facto” laws and “Bills Of Attainder”, both of which were legal in England.

    So why didn’t they explain the change in the meaning of the term “natural born”?

  329. Thrifty says:
    July 22, 2011 at 11:30 am  (Quote)

    Bravo to John Reilly for showing what we all knew; you don’t have to be an Obama supporter to think Birthers are dead wrong.

  330. Thrifty says:
    July 22, 2011 at 11:43 am  (Quote)

    I like it when smart people match wits against stupid people. The intellectual curb stomp is exciting. Two smart people create intelligent conversation that I usually get bored with and/or have trouble following. Two stupid people is a daytime talk show.

  331. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:02 pm  (Quote)

    Yes. And in fact, even though there is currently no draft, virtually all male aliens are required to register for the draft.

    http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/selective-service-registration.html

    Tourists on temporary visas aren’t required to register for the draft, but that is only because the law makes exception for them. We COULD require even tourists to register because the US is sovereign within its borders and can do whatever it pleases.

    Sunshine49: So you are saying that when a tourist comes here on vacation we could draft him (when we had a draft) into the service like any American citizen?

  332. BatGuano says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:10 pm  (Quote)

    Thrifty:
    I like it when smart people match wits against stupid people.

    i don’t think sunshine is a stupid person, but i do believe she is incredibly biased and she allows that bias to dictate what what information she will accept.

    sunshine, you’ve said that multiple constitutional scholars and legal professors have agreed with the “2parent” theory but you’ve shown no evidence of this. you’ve also stated, or at least implied, that the “2parent” theory was taught in school at some point in the last 100years but we can find no text book or lesson plan to support this.

    can you accept that, to date, there has been no evidence provided to support your position on these two points?

  333. Rickey says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:26 pm  (Quote)

    Keith:
    Since all of those laws specify that only citizens can be drafted (maybe permanent residents too, dunno)

    Most resident aliens, whether legal or illegal, are subject to a draft.

    http://www.sss.gov/MUST.HTM

    Howard Stringer, the CEO of Sony, emigrated to the U.S. in 1965 and was drafted six weeks later. He didn’t become a U.S. citizen until 1985,

  334. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 12:55 pm  (Quote)

    Thrifty: Two stupid people is a daytime talk show.

    Two Russians is a revolution.
    Three Russians is the Kremlin.
    Four Russians is the Budapest String Quartet.

  335. Rickey says:
    July 22, 2011 at 1:36 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49 is proving to be yet another concern troll, claiming to have been taught the “two-citizen parent requirement” in school, but unable to identify a single textbook which says that; claiming to have read “law professors and constitutional scholars” who agree that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents, yet unable to identify them; and when given enough rope, allows not-so-subtle racism come to the fore.

    Birthers such as Sunshine49 have no concept of what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means. It means having to obey the laws of the country. It does not require that every law of the country apply to you. There is no difference between “temporary jurisdiction” and “complete jurisdiction,” terms which Sunshine49 simply made up.

  336. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 1:45 pm  (Quote)

    This is actually a pretty complex subject that has little to do with who is natural born.

    What happened during the civil war was the US decided it would draft aliens, England protested that such violated international law, we said “tough luck,” but we’ll give them time to leave before we draft them, England dropped its protest. The opposite happened when we protested England’s drafting our citizens into their navy 50 years earlier. They ignored our appeals to international law as international law was not binding law on anyone, only something to look to in conflicts with foreign powers that would might avoid war. Of course, there were many disagreements as to what were the true principles of international law so it often had little impact.

    There was no generally accepted principle of international law limiting the allegiance of native born children to the land of their birth. In fact, most English and American authorities thought jus soli the rule of international law including the most important members of the 14th Amendment Congress (something partisan nativists like Prof. Eastman never mention). The diplomatic correspondence during the war illustrates this as England at least tried to protect its subjects that were born in England. However, it told children of british subjects born in the United States, though technically british subjects by statute, that US law superseded UK law and they could not offer them the protection of british subjects. The United States generally followed the same rule in the 19th century for citizens born oversees.

  337. J.Potter says:
    July 22, 2011 at 1:55 pm  (Quote)

    Ballantine, isn’t there a difference between “impressment” in international waters and ports and a military draft on sovereign soil? Both practices are terrible, but not equal. I believe part of the objection over the continutaion of impressment was that Britain considered men born British subjects but now American citizens to still be legitimate targets for impressment.

    Ballantine:
    This is actually a pretty complex subject that has little to do with who is natural born.

    What happened during the civil war was the US decided it would draft aliens, England protested that such violated international law, we said “tough luck,” but we’ll give them time to leave before we draft them, England dropped its protest.The opposite happened when we protested England’s drafting our citizens into their navy 50 years earlier.They ignored our appeals to international law as international law was not binding law on anyone, only something to look to in conflicts with foreign powers that would might avoid war. Of course, there were many disagreements as to what were the true principles of international law so it often had little impact.

    There was no generally accepted principle of international law limiting the allegiance of native born children to the land of their birth.In fact, most English and American authorities thought jus soli the rule of international law including the most important members of the 14th Amendment Congress (something partisan nativists like Prof.Eastman never mention). The diplomatic correspondence during the war illustrates this as England at least tried to protect its subjects that were born in England. However, it told children of british subjects born in the United States, though technically british subjects by statute, that US law superseded UK law and they could not offer them the protection of british subjects. The United States generally followed the same rule in the 19th century for citizens born oversees.

  338. Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross) says:
    July 22, 2011 at 1:58 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine is also wrong about the termination of previous citizenships while being naturalized. There has never been an enforcement for official terminations of previous citizenship. Many naturalized citizens still retain their original citizenship

  339. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:14 pm  (Quote)

    J.Potter: Ballantine, isn’t there a difference between “impressment” in international waters and ports and a military draft on sovereign soil? Both practices are terrible, but not equal. I believe part of the objection over the continutaion of impressment was that Britain considered men born British subjects but now American citizens to still be legitimate targets for impressment.

    I think so. My point was that in both cases an appeal was made to international law as was usual in disputes between nations. It rarely settled the issue. England didn’t dare try to impress our citizens on our soil, but they maintained the right to do so if such were still British subjects. On the open seas, we could do little to stop them. After the Civil War, the attitude of England changed dramitically as when they tried to charge naturalized American citizens for treason, they took our protests much more seriously. They had noticed the number of men the US had put in arms dwarfed anything they had ever done and the fact that a little navel battle in Cheasapeeke Bay had render their great fleet obsolete was not lost on their leaders. England maintianed the feudal notion of perpetual allegiance into the 19th century because they didn’t think they could maintian their navy without it. Similar concerns were expressed in the US until expatriation was formally recognized after the Civil War. There is no such thing as a law of treason if one can expatriate anytime one wants.

  340. Scientist says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:39 pm  (Quote)

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross): Sunshine is also wrong about the termination of previous citizenships while being naturalized. There has never been an enforcement for official terminations of previous citizenship. Many naturalized citizens still retain their original citizenship

    Unless their birth country automatically takes away their citizenship for naturalizing in the US (which most countries don’t) they are all dual citizens and often their chiidren and grandchildren are too. Few, if any, bother to formally renounce their birth citizenship at a consulate or embassy. Why would they? It’s a hassle, may cost money and being a dual citizen carries few disadvantages and may even have advantages.

    Now sunshine will say, but what about their oath of naturallization; don’t they foreswear other allegiances? Yes, but that has no effect under the laws of their birth country, just as a US ciitizen doesn’t lose their citizenship automatically if they naturalize in another country. They have to go to a consulate and renounce.

  341. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 2:55 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Your remarks are interesting to say the least

    I don’t know who you are, nor do I care. I am re-posting this because of the ridiculous assertions you have made.

    When I was in Israel, I was asked to serve in the IDF. There is a proviso that serving in a foreign military can cause loss of US citizenship. I went to the US embassy in Tel Aviv, and spoke with a legal affairs officer.

    He told me the only way I could lose US citizenship, is if I renounced it in writing. I returned to the States on my US passport.

    Obama will be re-elected, and Cory Booker will follow. Better get used to it.

  342. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:00 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Obama’s father NEVER had allegiance to this country and his mother was a self-proclaimed Marxist/Atheist who spent the majority of her adult life in foreign countries because she hated everything America stood for. Why should I believe that Obama has any love for this country?

    Wow, a lot of insinuations here and that is indeed what they are.

    1) the father of George Washington, whom you mentioned, died before the USA was founded. He only had love for Great Britain.

    2) the father of Woodrow Wilson, whom you mentioned, actually swore allegiance to another state when his son was still a child, and served in the army of that state

    3) Thomas Jefferson, whom you mentioned, one of the Founders obviously, actually had French nationality when he was President of the United States. Unlike Agnew (born dual Greek and USA), Eisenhower (born dual German and USA), Obama (born dual British Overseas and USA) and various other US Presidents who were born with potential French citizenship(like FDR whom you mentioned), Thomas Jefferson seems to have used his French citizenship before becoming President.

    By the way, introducing a rule that a candidate for the US Presidency should not be an atheist or have an atheist mother is going to fail because of Campbell’s Law, the Hawthorne Effect, Poe’s Law on Fundamentalism and the US Constitution.

    The Indonesian constitution will have no problem with it.

  343. J.Potter says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm  (Quote)

    It started out as such a quaint little tale, a great American story …. a little prodding later, and the bile and phobia comes gushing out. It would be refreshing to comes across a birther who truly was merely misinformed, rather than misanthropic.

  344. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:20 pm  (Quote)

    Scientist: Unless their birth country automatically takes away their citizenship for naturalizing in the US (which most countries don’t) they are all dual citizens and often their chiidren and grandchildren are too. Few, if any, bother to formally renounce their birth citizenship at a consulate or embassy. Why would they? It’s a hassle, may cost money and being a dual citizen carries few disadvantages and may even have advantages.Now sunshine will say, but what about their oath of naturallization; don’t they foreswear other allegiances? Yes, but that has no effect under the laws of their birth country, just as a US ciitizen doesn’t lose their citizenship automatically if they naturalize in another country. They have to go to a consulate and renounce.

    All very true. England and other European nations didn’t care if one renounced their citizenship on a stack of bibles, it simply didn’t count under their laws. As such, most naturalized American citizens were dual citizens in the eyes of foreign powers. The US ignored such claims and maintained the US citizens owed allegiance only to the US, but their assertions with respect to naturalized citizens were luke warm at best as such stance got our Capital burned down. We would grow bolder over the years. One interested in this subject should read the debates of the Expatriation Act which was passed a few days before ratification of the 14th Amendment. The purpose of such act was to formally declare that we would finally protect our naturalized citizens from claims of foreign allegiance to the same extent we had always done for our native born citizens. No one could read such debates without understanding that it would be absurd to think the US ever thought we recognized any native born citizen owed a foreign allegiance. Rather, they were declaring that we would finally provide the same protection to our naturalized citizens. Of course, members of such Congress pointed out that England and Prussia wouldn’t care about our grand proclamation, but we felt strong enough to make it anyway.

    Interestingly, the more aggresive US position would force England to re-assess its position. A Royal commission studied the issue and Parliament would debate it. It would be pointed out that while children of British subjects born in the United States were never deemed to owe allegiance to England unless they went back to England, the claim of perpetual allegiance of British born subjects could no longer be sustained against a more powerful United States. Hence, a treaty would eventually be negotiated to deal with the issue.

    Of course, no birther is aware that England in the 18th and 19th century would never claim a child of a British subject born in US soil owed allegiance to England or had any rights of a British subject unless they went back to England.

  345. Scientist says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:30 pm  (Quote)

    In fact, I believe sunshine said his grandparents were naturalized citizens. Depending on the laws of the country they were born in, they may have remained citizens of that country despite their naturalization and passed that citiizenship on to sunshine’s parents, who, again depending on the laws of that country, may have passed it down to sunshine.

    Sunshine may be a dual citizen and not even know it. So, if sunshine ever became President, the US would cease to exist.

  346. dunstvangeet says:
    July 22, 2011 at 3:57 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine, answer this one question…

    Who has less foreign influence?

    1. A person who was born in the United States, to 2 U.S. Parents, but was taken 1 day after he was born to a foreign country, raised by parents that naturalized there 1 day after his birth, and then spent all but 14 years of his life there…

    Or,

    2. A person who was born to 2 parents who naturalized 1 day after he was born. Raised in the country, and never set foot outside of the country.

    According to your rule, the 2nd person has too much foreign influence to be President. However, the first person, who spent 21+ years outside of the United States, doesn’t have the foreign influence that would disqualify him for being President.

    Just answer the simple question. Which one out of these two have more foreign influence?

  347. Ballantine says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:44 pm  (Quote)

    Of course, back in the world of reality, the framers had no great fear of foreign influence. What did Frankin say when a native birth requirement was suggested for office holders:

    “When foreigners, after looking about for some other country in which they can obtain more happiness, give a preference to ours, it is a proof of attachment which ought to excite our confidence and affection.”

    Madison:

    “He thought any restriction, however, in the Constitution, unnecessary and improper: — unnecessary, because the national legislature is to have the right of regulating naturalization, and can by virtue thereof fix different periods of residence, as conditions of enjoying different privileges of citizenship; — improper, because it will give a tincture of illiberality to the Constitution; because it will put it out of the power of the national legislature, even by special acts of naturalization, to confer the full rank of citizens on meritorious strangers; and because it will discourage the most desirable class of people from emigrating to the United States.”

    More Madison:

    “There was a possible danger, he admitted, that men with foreign predilections might obtain appointments; but it was by no means probable that it would happen in any dangerous degree. For the same reason that they would be attached to their native country, our own people would prefer natives of this country to them. Experience proved this to be the case. Instances were rare of a foreigner being elected by the people within any short space after his coming among us. If bribery was to be practised by foreign powers, it would not be attempted among the electors, but among the elected, and among natives having fun confidence of the people, not among strangers, who would be regarded with a jealous eye.”

    Hamilton:

    “Col. HAMILTON was in general against embarrassing the government with minute restrictions. There was, on one side, the possible danger that had been suggested. On the other side, the advantage of encouraging foreigners was obvious and admitted. Persons in Europe of moderate fortunes will be fond of coming here, where they will be on a level with the first citizens. He moved that the section be so altered as to require merely ” citizenship and inhabitancy.” The right of determining the rule of naturalization will then leave a discretion to the legislature on this subject, which will answer every purpose.”

    What about WIlson. From McHenry’s notes:

    “Mr. Maddison was against such an invidious distinction. The matter might be safely intrusted to the respective legislatures. Doctor Franklin was of the same opinion. Mr. Willson expressed himself feelingly on the same side. It might happen, he said, that he who had been thought worthy of being trusted with the framing of the Constitution, might be excluded from it. He had not been born in this country. He considered such exclusing as one of the most galling chains which the human mind could experience. It was wrong to deprive the government of the talents virtue and abilities of such foreigners as might chuse to remove to this country. The corrup[t] of other countries would not come here. Those who were tired in opposing such corruptions would be drawn hither, etc. etc.”

    Not happy. More Wilson:

    “Mr. WILSON said, he rose with feelings which were perhaps peculiar; mentioning the circumstance of his not being a native, and the possibility, if the ideas of some gentlemen should be pursued, of his being incapacitated from holding a place under the very Constitution which he had shared in the trust of making. He remarked the illiberal complexion which the motion would give to the system, and the effect which a good system would have in inviting meritorious foreigners among us, and the discouragement and mortification they must feel from the degrading discrimination now proposed. He had himself experienced this mortification. On his removal into Maryland, he found himself, from defect of residence, under certain legal incapacities which never ceased to produce chagrin, though he assuredly did not desire, and would not have accepted, the offices to which they related. To be appointed to a place may be matter of indifference. To be incapable of being appointed is a circumstance grating and mortifying.”

    Gee, I think those are the most inflential framers. After Wilson said he would be mortified to be excluded from the government he helped create due to his foreign birth, Morris suggested a grandfather clause. Gee, Sunshine why did our most important founders hate America so much that they weren’t even worried about the dangers of the foreign born and, of course, did not even mention any danger of foreign parentage? Of course, keep telling yourself they wanted sole allegiance or some other nonsense they never said.

  348. Paul Pieniezny says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:45 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: The foundation of our laws may have come from English Common Law, but we did NOT adopt their laws as OUR laws and that includes the natural born “subject” rule! The States decided who they were going to allow to be a citizen of their State until the 1866 Civil Rights Act and then the 14th Amendment.

    The “natural born citizen” clause, which you call a “rule” is in the US constitution, but explained or defined nowhere. In Wong Kim Ark, the supreme Court ruled that a definition must therefore be found in unwritten law, in the common law. In agreement with the writers of the 14th Amendment, they decided that the amendment was just a re-statement of what had been the intent of the Founders, but now made colour-blind – excepting the native Indian tribes however, which is why the Amendment says ‘subject to the jurisdiction”. Logically, they then held that the definition of the terms under discussion (both jurisdiction and “natural born citizen”, since Wong could not be naturalized) must be found in the common law as it existed when the colonists came to America.

    This is why they ended up with Lord Coke. If you have a problem with Coke, or English common law of the 17th century, you should know that the exception phrase “except for children of diplomats and invading armies” is also derived from Coke.

    Another way of saying it:
    “Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude 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. Just as a person “born within the British dominions [was] a natural-born British subject” at the time of the framing of the U.S. Constitution, so too were those “born in the allegiance of the United States [] natural-born citizens.”

    Sunshine49: What colleges have been teaching for years is Supreme Court law and NOT Constitutional law.

    So, are you a states righter or an originalist? You do realize, do you, that originalists too will need some authority to explain their definition of “natural born citizen” and will not be allowed to use the Tardis to get it from a Swiss, er, Prussian philosopher who in any case meant something completely different.

    There were no illegal immigrants in the United States in 1787, there were none in 1868 – though, of course Chinese immigrants who because of a treaty could not be naturalized get rather close.
    (see the argument at:
    http://www.pennjcl.com/issues/11/11.5/11-5%20Rodriguez.pdf )

    Originally, the Bill of Rights was not supposed to apply to the States, who could put up laws limiting the freedom of religion (to the point of actually establishing a state religion), speech, the press and heaven forbid the right to bear arms.

    You have to thank the Supreme Court for being able to write here.

  349. Thrifty says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:49 pm  (Quote)

    misha: Obama will be re-elected, and Cory Booker will follow. Better get used to it.

    You’ve been saying this an awful lot. I get who Cory Booker is. I mean, I know who he is via a simple Wikipedia search, but why do you keep saying with such confidence that he will be the next President? Don’t you think it’s a little premature to make those kinds of prognostications?

  350. Scientist says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:52 pm  (Quote)

    Ballantine: If bribery was to be practised by foreign powers, it would not be attempted among the electors, but among the elected, and among natives having fun confidence of the people, not among strangers, who would be regarded with a jealous eye.”

    Yes, if one really wants to act against so-called “foreign interests” how about banning any payments from foreign governments or corporations. or lobbyists for such entiities in the 5 years preceding and following your term in office. Apply it to the President, Cabinet, agency heads and Congress,

  351. Thrifty says:
    July 22, 2011 at 4:54 pm  (Quote)

    I’ve noticed the extreme right has this oddball almost worship of the Founders. Like they’re these divine creatures who drafted the Holy Constitution, and the courts and legislators in all subsequent generations (after the Founders died off), were nothing but filthy lawyers and politicians. It’s especially apparent in Sunshine49’s odd statement that law schools are teaching “Supreme Court law” instead of “Constitutional law”.

    It’s so weird that they could hold such utter contempt for the lawyers and politicians of today, but completely forget that the Founding Fathers were just lawyers and politicians of the 18th century.

  352. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:03 pm  (Quote)

    They were all white.

    Thrifty: It’s so weird that they could hold such utter contempt for the lawyers and politicians of today, but completely forget that the Founding Fathers were just lawyers and politicians of the 18th century.

  353. J.Potter says:
    July 22, 2011 at 5:22 pm  (Quote)

    Nostalgia and sentimentalism writ large. Oh, and escapism. Inability to cope with change. It’s fundamental to fundamentalism, haha.

    Thrifty:
    I’ve noticed the extreme right has this oddball almost worship of the Founders.Like they’re these divine creatures who drafted the Holy Constitution, and the courts and legislators in all subsequent generations (after the Founders died off), were nothing but filthy lawyers and politicians.It’s especially apparent in Sunshine49′s odd statement that law schools are teaching “Supreme Court law” instead of “Constitutional law”.

    It’s so weird that they could hold such utter contempt for the lawyers and politicians of today, but completely forget that the Founding Fathers were just lawyers and politicians of the 18th century.

  354. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 6:01 pm  (Quote)

    Thrifty: why do you keep saying with such confidence that he will be the next President? Don’t you think it’s a little premature to make those kinds of prognostications?

    An excellent point. Living literally across the river (living in a van down by the river), I speak with a lot of people from Jersey, especially in my photography workshop. Gloria and I go to the Mt. Laurel Costco and Wegmans every week. Everyone I talk with is convinced he is going to run in ’16, and he has a Facebook page with hundreds exhorting him to run.

    Obama proved a black man can win, even against a white war hero. Obama got 80% of the popular vote in Philly and Pittsburg, and 78% of the nationwide Jewish vote.

    Wilson Goode (Wharton School) was Philly’s first black mayor. After him was Ed Rendell, who is Jewish. All mayors since have been black.

    I believe a similar pattern has been established. Because Penndot revoked my license after the stroke, someone from the workshop picks me up and drops me off. I will not give you his name, because he works for the IRS, keeping their computers running. He and his wife are black, and they are also convinced Booker will run, and be elected.

    “After Stanford, Booker earned a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he was awarded an honours degree in modern history in 1994. While at Oxford, he became friends with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and became President of the L’Chaim Society, the local chapter of Chabad, and brought together a diverse community there.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

    The wild card is Christie. I doubt he has nationwide appeal. The locals here call him “governor sandwiches.” He is abrasive and obese.

    I am not pulling something from the air, and writing it down. Remember, I wrote “I believe a similar pattern has been established.” It’s a belief, not a fact. A black man is president, and some people are going nuts, so I am turning up the gain (volume).

  355. J. Potter says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:22 pm  (Quote)

    I suggest tossing in a latino President, preferably one with Mexican heritage, if you really want to exercise* the demons.

    *Not a typo.

  356. Sef says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:30 pm  (Quote)

    J. Potter:
    I suggest tossing in a latino President, preferably one with Mexican heritage, if you really want to exercise* the demons.

    *Not a typo.

    Maybe someone born in PR & really get this NBC stuff resolved.

  357. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:35 pm  (Quote)

    I agree with both of you and suspect the same. Sadly, Sunshine49 seems to be exhibiting the all too familiar pattern we’ve seen in so, so many Birther Concern Troll’s in the past. I was hoping that we actually were moving to a streak of sincere questioners appearing… but apparently, that was too much to hope for…

    Rickey: Sunshine49 is proving to be yet another concern troll, claiming to have been taught the “two-citizen parent requirement” in school, but unable to identify a single textbook which says that; claiming to have read “law professors and constitutional scholars” who agree that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents, yet unable to identify them; and when given enough rope, allows not-so-subtle racism come to the fore. Birthers such as Sunshine49 have no concept of what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means. It means having to obey the laws of the country. It does not require that every law of the country apply to you. There is no difference between “temporary jurisdiction” and “complete jurisdiction,” terms which Sunshine49 simply made up.

    J.Potter: It started out as such a quaint little tale, a great American story …. a little prodding later, and the bile and phobia comes gushing out. It would be refreshing to comes across a birther who truly was merely misinformed, rather than misanthropic.

  358. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 7:51 pm  (Quote)

    I’ve always viewed it as Misha’s signature tag line. 🙂

    Thrifty: You’ve been saying this an awful lot. I get who Cory Booker is. I mean, I know who he is via a simple Wikipedia search, but why do you keep saying with such confidence that he will be the next President? Don’t you think it’s a little premature to make those kinds of prognostications?

    misha: I am not pulling something from the air, and writing it down. Remember, I wrote “I believe a similar pattern has been established.” It’s a belief, not a fact. A black man is president, and some people are going nuts, so I am turning up the gain (volume).

  359. Obsolete says:
    July 22, 2011 at 8:20 pm  (Quote)

    Misha,
    In my vast hours reading news and blogs on the Internet every day (one to three hours, minimum) I have never come across the name Cory Booker except in your posts.
    It is five years before he will run ( if you are right). I knew who Obama was in 2003, and had read several articles on him. In 2004, I was distributing his Senate campaign literature & flyers.
    I just don’t think enough people know who Cory Booker is in time for him to be elected President in 2016. I’ll let you know on here when I actually come across any article on him in the course of my normal reading.

  360. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 8:31 pm  (Quote)

    Agreed with both of you! J. Potter hit it on the mark – it is the same thing as literalist fundamentalism, where people in the past are not just people, but “idols” they worship as if divine and any writings are viewed as “infallable”.

    Another important connection – like many of what are referred to as “Bible Thumpers” – the “Constitutionalists” spout off about that document all the time (and often even carry it around), but the stuff they say shows they clearly haven’t actually read it…and of what they have read, they really don’t understand it either…

    I view it as a conformist and restrictive cult mentality of people who are unable to see the shades of gray and complexity in the real world and can only think in the most binary black/white good/evil, etc. terms…

    J.Potter: Nostalgia and sentimentalism writ large. Oh, and escapism. Inability to cope with change. It’s fundamental to fundamentalism, haha.

    Thrifty: I’ve noticed the extreme right has this oddball almost worship of the Founders. Like they’re these divine creatures who drafted the Holy Constitution, and the courts and legislators in all subsequent generations (after the Founders died off), were nothing but filthy lawyers and politicians. It’s especially apparent in Sunshine49′s odd statement that law schools are teaching “Supreme Court law” instead of “Constitutional law”.It’s so weird that they could hold such utter contempt for the lawyers and politicians of today, but completely forget that the Founding Fathers were just lawyers and politicians of the 18th century.

  361. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 8:56 pm  (Quote)

    J. Potter: I suggest tossing in a latino President, preferably one with Mexican heritage, if you really want to exercise* the demons.

    I wrote about it here: http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/likely-scenario.html

  362. misha says:
    July 22, 2011 at 9:08 pm  (Quote)

    misha: “After Stanford, Booker earned a Rhodes Scholarship and studied at The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he was awarded an honours degree in modern history in 1994. While at Oxford, he became friends with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and became President of the L’Chaim Society, the local chapter of Chabad”

    We Jews do not control everything. I found this article proving it:
    http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-jew-feels-left-out-of-worldwide-jewish-consp,809/

  364. G says:
    July 22, 2011 at 10:37 pm  (Quote)

    Just out of curiosity, how many people have ever ran for President directly from being mayor? Mayor of NYC several times, sure…but then again, that is a city more populous than some states. Not sure if any other city mayors…

    Wouldn’t it make more sense for Cory to first become Gov of NJ before shooting for the WH?

    misha: Start here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cory-Booker-for-President/118104714937854http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/cory-bookerwe-want-you-to-run-for-president-in-2016/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY3xrQljaBAhttp://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/17/want-to-see-obama-s-future-take-a-look-at-cory-booker.htmlhttp://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/mayor-booker-declares-newark-obamatown/

  365. dunstvangeet says:
    July 23, 2011 at 1:50 am  (Quote)

    G:
    Just out of curiosity, how many people have ever ran for President directly from being mayor?Mayor of NYC several times, sure…but then again, that is a city more populous than some states.Not sure if any other city mayors…

    Wouldn’t it make more sense for Cory to first become Gov of NJ before shooting for the WH?

    Only one that comes to mind recently is Rudy. James Griffin (Buffalo, NY) apparently ran in 1996. Larry Agran (Irving, CA) in 1992, John Lindsey (New York, NY) in 1968 and 1972…

  366. Keith says:
    July 23, 2011 at 4:55 am  (Quote)

    G: Agreed with both of you! J. Potter hit it on the mark – it is the same thing as literalist fundamentalism, where people in the past are not just people, but “idols” they worship as if divine and any writings are viewed as “infallable”.

    Except that they ignore the writings of these idols when it is pointed out to them that they don’t support the particular crank theory they are trying to support.

    Or they completely come up with a 100% fake quotation that is completely opposite to the views of some person they want to attribute it to, and then sneek it into poorly read rubish books and papers that they can try quoting from authority 5 years later. A prime example of this is the fake Jefferson quote about democracy and mob rule that appeared in 2003 I think, and has been floated up onto some of the internet quotation search sites where it is almost impossible to remove.

  367. J. Potter says:
    July 23, 2011 at 6:39 am  (Quote)

    LOL, nice, Misha. Back in mid-May, when the Corsi fans were going hot and heavy on Amazon and pounding their Vattel drums, I lobbed a grenade into one forum with a short post: “The thought of an anchor baby president disturbs you?” The gnashing of teeth and howling went on and on. Typing skills of the respondents suddenly degraded as well!

    misha: I wrote about it here:http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/likely-scenario.html

  368. misha says:
    July 23, 2011 at 7:23 am  (Quote)

    J. Potter: “The thought of an anchor baby president disturbs you?” The gnashing of teeth and howling went on and on.

    Piyush Howdy Doody Bobby Jindal and Michelle Malkin were anchor babies.

  369. G says:
    July 23, 2011 at 8:40 am  (Quote)

    That is the problem with fundamentalist belief systems – the individual’s belief is based on intentionally interpreting things to be what they emotionally and deep down WISH them to be… reality doesn’t really matter in their equation. To them, reality is some malleable entity that all they have to do is believe hard enough in something for it to be true and that perversely, their belief is the unshakeable and unbendable fundamental “truth” for them…. I think that is how they justify to themselves changing history to conform to their beliefs…

    Keith: Except that they ignore the writings of these idols when it is pointed out to them that they don’t support the particular crank theory they are trying to support. Or they completely come up with a 100% fake quotation that is completely opposite to the views of some person they want to attribute it to, and then sneek it into poorly read rubish books and papers that they can try quoting from authority 5 years later. A prime example of this is the fake Jefferson quote about democracy and mob rule that appeared in 2003 I think, and has been floated up onto some of the internet quotation search sites where it is almost impossible to remove.

  370. G says:
    July 23, 2011 at 8:57 am  (Quote)

    Thanks for that! I also found this interesting and highly recommended article on the topic:

    http://myhistorycanbeatupyourpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-york-mayors-and-presidency.html

    There is no mention of James Griffin, but they do cite De Witt Clinton (NYC) in 1812.

    According to the article:

    By announcing his intention of running for President as a former mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani is now one of just three individuals in 218 years to formally go from having what one New York City Mayor called “The Second Hardest Job in the World”, and to then officially try to secure what must be, to follow that logic, the First Hardest Job. In the entire history of the Presidency and the Mayorality of America’s largest city, which actually has a longer history than the office of the American President, the paths of these two great offices, these jobs of great responsibliity, headaches, control over the lives of citizens and jobs, have not often crossed, though there’s been a few moves in that direction.

    There is also a fascinating accounting there of Fernando Wood, NYC mayor around the time of the Civil War who actually advocated for NYC to secede and become a “free city”…

    Looking up Griffin, I don’t know how serious of a candidate to even consider him. From Wiki they mention the NH Democratic Primary only…so I’m not sure if he even was registered to run nationally or was just a gimmick one-state candidate…

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_D._Griffin

    In 1996, Griffin entered the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary election, finishing well behind incumbent Bill Clinton, and even garnering fewer votes than perennial candidate and satirist Pat Paulsen.

    There is more info available on the 1992 candidacy of Larry Agran and 1972 one of John Lindsay that were interesting reads:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Agran

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lindsay

    dunstvangeet: Only one that comes to mind recently is Rudy. James Griffin (Buffalo, NY) apparently ran in 1996. Larry Agran (Irving, CA) in 1992, John Lindsey (New York, NY) in 1968 and 1972…

  371. Sunshine49 says:
    July 23, 2011 at 10:18 am  (Quote)

    This link is to an ad that everyone should listen to who believes that Obama and the Democrat policies are pulling us out of this depression.
    http://finance.moneyandmarkets.com/reports/SMR/4349/vsp-smr.php?s=p446&e=4351456

    Does it matter if he’s natural born or not when his socialist ideology is destroying America?

    Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?

    You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may “save” Obama’s natural born status and sacrifice America in the process.

  372. G says:
    July 23, 2011 at 10:29 am  (Quote)

    Simple answer: defense of American laws.

    All the rest of your post shows that you have a lot of internal issues and hang-ups. Maybe that is why you assume others do as well, but hate to tell ya, that is just you projecting your way of thinking on others.

    Sunshine49: This link is to an ad that everyone should listen to who believes that Obama and the Democrat policies are pulling us out of this depression.http://finance.moneyandmarkets.com/reports/SMR/4349/vsp-smr.php?s=p446&e=4351456Does it matter if he’s natural born or not when his socialist ideology is destroying America?Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may “save” Obama’s natural born status and sacrifice America in the process.

  373. John Reilly says:
    July 23, 2011 at 10:43 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: I take it from your latest post that you now concede that Presdent Obama is a natural born citizen; all you now want to do is to use not too subtle code words, i.e., socialist, as a reason not to support him. Of course, it would be nice if you wrote back and agreed that most of the specific factual assertions you made were easily proven false, so you are reduced to name calling.

    A number of people who visit this site, including me, did not vote for President Obama and likely will not next year. However, he is not a socialist, marxist, communist or any other pejorative you want to throw. The casting of these aspersions impresses only those who have already made up their minds, and demonstrates your lack of any real analysis or thought.

  374. dunstvangeet says:
    July 23, 2011 at 10:56 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine, I see nothing in the Constitution that prevents someone from being a socialist and holding office. However, Obama is not a socialist. Most of his policies actually came from Republican Ideas…

    For instance, Obama Care is nowhere near Socialism. It does nothing to have the government own the means of production. In fact, it specifically makes that didn’t happen. But Obama-care was based upon the Massachusetts health plan that Governor Mitt Romney pushed through. That, in turn, was based upon a 1994 Republican response to Hillarycare. So, are you actually saying that Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are Socialists?

    The surest way to get a Republican to flip-flop on anything is to get Obama to support it.

  375. Ballantine says:
    July 23, 2011 at 11:10 am  (Quote)

    Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may “save” Obama’s natural born status and sacrifice America in the process.

    We don’t need an agenda to tell you what our courts, our framers and every significant scholar in history says the law is. The real question is why you question his status when you obviously know little about law and can point to no authority to back your silly assertions. What is the basis of your hatred. It is his race? His roots? That he is not a wingnut? Your hatred of hatred of Obama has you now defaming our courts, our scholars and the framers themselves for not sharing your distorted view of or history and legal heritage.

  376. Northland10 says:
    July 23, 2011 at 11:46 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Does it matter if he’s natural born or not when his socialist ideology is destroying America?

    Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?

    You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may “save” Obama’s natural born status and sacrifice America in the process.

    For me, it is a simple answer. In this place, I stand in defense of American laws and the Constitution. Whether the President’s policies are good or bad for the nation will be determined by the people in 2012, as we have always done.

    Your comment displays your true concern, not whether he is eligible but that you say hate him and what you think his policies are, but that you want him out, without waiting for an election. What could be more un-American?

    There are those, birthers among them, that believe that we are in the darkest time America has ever experience. What a display of arrogance. For even in our lowest hour, when the very existence of our union hung in the balance, a regular scheduled election still took place. American has been through wars, economic turmoil that far overshadow our current condition, and internal strife that threatened to split our community. Our time now may be difficult and uncertain, but if we stick to our values, laws and our foundations such as seen in our Constitution, we can live in hope that American now, as before will continue to be the light of liberty.

  377. Scientist says:
    July 23, 2011 at 11:56 am  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: This link is to an ad that everyone should listen to who believes that Obama and the Democrat policies are pulling us out of this depression

    An ad? That’s the best you can do? An ad from some “financial advisor” peddling his services?

    You are a joke…

  378. Majority Will says:
    July 23, 2011 at 12:31 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?

    Since you seem to be obsessed with despising people even when you couldn’t possibly actually know them, here are more people for you to blindly hate and teach the awesome power of your fear, mistrust and suspicions:

    http://www.republicansforobama.org/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_and_conservative_support_for_Barack_Obama_in_2008#Republican_elected_officials_who_endorsed_Obama

    Also, since you despise socialism, I’d like to vote for discontinuing your 911 service immediately. I don’t want my tax dollars paying for a service that might save your life or property since you think socialism is evil and destructive. Please stay off our highways and don’t use money, our water or sewer system, natural gas or electrical grid. I’ll also vote for you to stop paying taxes but you’ll be cut off permanently from Social Security or Medicare.

    Since our society, the social order, our general welfare and the socialism fundamental to the federal system our Founders established are inextricably linked, from now on you can consider yourself no longer part of “We the People” as in:

    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
    do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

  379. James M says:
    July 23, 2011 at 12:33 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:

    Does it matter if he’s natural born or not when his socialist ideology is destroying America?

    If you had to, would you be able to define “socialist ideology” in specific and verifiable terms?

  380. Daniel says:
    July 23, 2011 at 12:38 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49: Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?

    I’m a Republican. I didn’t vote for Obama, and I won’t next time. I don’t particularly like most of Obama’s policies.

    The idea that non-birthers are all liberals and Democrats, and that birthers are Conservative, is a myth designed to make birthers feel like they’re more than just the lunatic fringe minority.

    We Republicans detest birthers, probably more than Democrats. If we lose the next election it will be in no small part due to the way you birthers have made the Republican party look like a party of whackos and lunatics.

    If you really want to help get Obama out of office, the best thing you could possibly do is shut the hell up.

  381. BatGuano says:
    July 23, 2011 at 12:45 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:

    Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?

    american laws. thanks for asking.

    sunshine, are you attacking obama’s NBC status because of american laws, because you dislike his policy OR…….. just because he’s a democrat and part black?

    my views on NBC are consistent regardless of the president. in my mind we are discussing “president x”. are your views the same sunshine? if they are then why haven’t you spoken up earlier over the likes of ralph nader, michael dukakis, spiro agnew, chester a authur………???

  382. Bovril says:
    July 23, 2011 at 12:50 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshire dearies,

    We’re not “defending” the President, as Trump found out the hard way, he’s more than capable of doing that himself.

    We’re making mock and expsoing to the antispetic light of ACTUAL facts and ACTUAL law the the seditious, bigotted, evil minded, racist scum that are Birthers, biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig difference

  383. Majority Will says:
    July 23, 2011 at 12:50 pm  (Quote)

    Daniel: I’m a Republican. I didn’t vote for Obama, and I won’t next time. I don’t particularly like most of Obama’s policies.

    The idea that non-birthers are all liberals and Democrats, and that birthers are Conservative, is a myth designed to make birthers feel like they’re more than just the lunatic fringe minority.

    We Republicans detest birthers, probably more than Democrats. If we lose the next election it will be in no small part due to the way you birthers have made the Republican party look like a party of whackos and lunatics.

    If you really want to help get Obama out of office, the best thing you could possibly do is shut the hell up.

    Well said.

  384. BatGuano says:
    July 23, 2011 at 1:08 pm  (Quote)

    Daniel:
    If we lose the next election it will be in no small part due to the way you birthers have made the Republican party look like a party of whackos and lunatics.

    which, as an independent, is why i find the birther factor so fascinating in the next election. it’s no great secret that to win a nomination you have to appeal to a party’s core base but to win the election you must appeal to independents and the undecided. any support of the birthers will lose the indie vote instantly but to shun the birthers runs the risk of angering a small but very vocal percentage of the base. a nice little catch-22 scenario.

    not sure how 2012 will play out ( got my popcorn ready tho ) but if the birthers are a factor in the election i believe we will see bizarre paranoid conspiracies become a regular part of american politics. welcome to the brave new world of the interwebz.

  385. Dr Kenneth Noisewater (Bob Ross) says:
    July 23, 2011 at 1:21 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:
    This link is to an ad that everyone should listen to who believes that Obama and the Democrat policies are pulling us out of this depression.
    http://finance.moneyandmarkets.com/reports/SMR/4349/vsp-smr.php?s=p446&e=4351456

    Does it matter if he’s natural born or not when his socialist ideology is destroying America?

    Are most of you defending his being “natural born” because of your defense of American laws OR just because he’s a Democrat and part black?

    You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may “save” Obama’s natural born status and sacrifice America in the process.

    There is no socialist ideology. I hardly call giving into Republican demands on tax cuts, saying you’re willing to make cuts to medicare to appease republicans, not pitching a single payer option or public option as being socialist. In fact he’s quite the capitalist. We’re defending American law, something you and your ilk seem to have a problem with.

  386. Dr. Conspiracy says:
    July 23, 2011 at 2:33 pm  (Quote)

    I don’t doubt that at all.

    Daniel: We Republicans detest birthers, probably more than Democrats.

  387. Rickey says:
    July 23, 2011 at 3:27 pm  (Quote)

    Sunshine49:

    You are cutting off your nose to spite your face. You may “save” Obama’s natural born status and sacrifice America in the process.

    I would respond to that, but first I am waiting for you to:

    (a) Identify the textbooks which state that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents.

    and

    (b) Identify the “law professors and constitutional scholars” who agree that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents.

    Until you do that, I have to assume that you made those claims up and that nothing you say can be considered to be trustworthy.

    Prove me wrong, if you can.

  388. J. Potter says:
    July 23, 2011 at 4:07 pm  (Quote)

    I am surprised this discussion has gone on this long without a single use of the term “unamerican”. sunshine49 seems to be dancing around it. It always slips out eventually.

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