You do a disservice to your readers and the country by publishing Lawrence Sellin’s Guest Editorial unless you publish the other side. Put bluntly, Sellin’s article is nonsense. There is no constitutional scholar, no civics text book, and no court decision that supports his claim that persons born citizens on US Soil must in addition have US citizen parents to be President of the United States.
Sellin relies on the US Supreme Court decision in Minor v. Happersett, but a judge in your own State of Arizona, in Allen v. Obama (2012), ruled:
Most importantly, Arizona courts are bound by United States Supreme Court precedent in construing the United States Constitution, Arizona v. Jay J. Garfield Bldg. Co. , 39 Ariz. 45, 54, 3 P.2d 983, 986(1931), and this precedent fully supports that President Obama is a natural born citizen under the Constitution and thus qualified to hold the office of President. … Contrary to Plaintiff’s assertion, Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874), does not hold otherwise”
In fact, no fewer than 11 court decisions since 2008 have said the same thing.
But it is more than Sellin just being wrong; he is also trying to trick the reader, for example, when he says:
Why has every President since Martin van Buren been a US citizen at birth of two citizen parents except Barack Obama and Chester A. Arthur, who lied about his personal history?
He is leading the reader to think that Arthur lied about his father’s citizenship, but that is not true. President Arthur never said or even hinted anything relating to his father’s citizenship. (Arthur apparently lied about his age by one year.) The scant information available about Arthur suggests that his opponents were aware of his father’s naturalization status, and didn’t think it an issue. In Arthur’s own state the New York Chancery Court had previously offered the opinion in the case of Lynch v. Clarke (1844):
The term citizen, was used in the constitution as a word, the meaning of which was already established and well understood. And the constitution itself contains a direct recognition of the subsisting common law principle, in the section which defines the qualification of the President. “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,” … The only standard which then existed, of a natural born citizen, was the rule of the common law, and no different standard has been adopted since. Suppose a person should be elected President who was native born, but of alien parents, could there be any reasonable doubt that he was eligible under the constitution? I think not.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, produced a comprehensive report on presidential eligibility, in response to queries from members of Congress. That’s where one should go if they want authoritative information on this topic, not to some guy on the Internet:
Qualifications for President and the ‘Natural Born’ Citizenship Eligibility Requirement
Lest anyone claim the CRS report is some modern political revisionism, I would point you to the book, A View of the Constitution, by William Rawle, the first civics textbook in the United States, used at the US Military Academy at West Point. Rawle is a noted jurist and historian, and was appointed by George Washington as US Attorney for Pennsylvania. Rawle wrote in 1825:
Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural-born citizen within the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity….
Under the Constitution the question is settled by its express language, and when we are informed that, excepting those who were citizens, (however that capacity was acquired,) at the time the Constitution was adopted, no person is eligible to the office of the president unless he is a natural born citizen, the principle that the place of birth creates the relative quality is established as to us.
Sellin is the one trying to rewrite history.
Sincerely,
Kevin Davidson
Further related reading at Obama Conspiracy Theories:
- Donofrio claims more Internet scrubbing
- Obots in HISTORY! William Rawle (1759 – 1836)
- Recent court rulings on presidential eligibility
- The Great Mother of all Natural Born Citizenship Quotation Pages
- Chester A. Arthur: Rest in Peace
- The Assassination of Chester A. Arthur
- Lawrence Sellin, PhD, spreads disinformation about presidential eligibility
- John McCain eligibility links
- John McCain – natural born citizen
Nice.
Good job! Any indication from them whether they’ll publish it or not?
I sent it to their editorial email address and have had no reply yet.
My guess is that they will not publish it.
Well it’s not like they’re an actual news agency. They really are just the local version of World Nut Daily.
I suspect you are correct.
Excellent piece. Don’t hold your breath that your letter will be published. They’re in the same world of delusion that the rest of them reside.
Readers? Of Sonoran News? You made a funny, Doc. The readership consists mostly of parrots and parakeets. The Sonoran News is one of those free 10-page newspapers with lots of shopping coupons that is thrown onto the driveways of homes in the Phoenix area each week. For most homeowners the issues go either directly to recycling receptacle or the bottom of the bird cage.
Never heard of the Sonoran news. I hope commenters here don’t fall over with my next statement.
I have a personal believe that if you are born on US soil in one of the 50 states, you are a natural born citizen regardless of who your parents are. I am not a constitutional scholar so I do not know what the original intent of our forefathers was, or, how it will eventually be interpreted. It should be resolved legally though in my opinion.
it has. ankeny v daniels.
And that wasn’t the first time. This has been settled law for 120 yrs.
Should you want to transition from “personal belief” to “informed opinion” then I suggest that you read the Congressional Research Service report linked in the article and these court decisions.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/bookmarks/lawsuits/recent-court-rulings-on-presidential-eligibility/
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
April 10, 2008
Mrs. McCaskill (for herself, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Obama, Mr. Coburn, Mrs. Clinton, and Mr. Webb) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
April 24, 2008
Reported by Mr. Leahy, without amendment
April 30, 2008
Considered and agreed to
RESOLUTION
Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.
Whereas the Constitution of the United States requires that, to be eligible for the Office of the President, a person must be a “natural born Citizen” of the United States;
Whereas the term “natural born Citizen”, as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;
Whereas there is no evidence of the intention of the Framers or any Congress to limit the constitutional rights of children born to Americans serving in the military nor to prevent those children from serving as their country’s President;
Whereas such limitations would be inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the “natural born Citizen” clause of the Constitution of the United States, as evidenced by the First Congress’s own statute defining the term “natural born Citizen”;
Whereas the well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders;
Whereas previous presidential candidates were born outside of the United States of America and were understood to be eligible to be President; and
Whereas John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936: Now, therefore, be it
That John Sidney McCain, III, is a “natural born Citizen” under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.
Pesky historical facts.
Is there a point here?
barack obama
got to go
guy on the web
told me so
burma shave
He was probably trying to trumpet the 2 american citizens part. Unfortunatly if you believed that, then strangely it was eisier to be an NBC in the PMC than on the home soil of the USA
From Wikis article on the PMC
So people in the PMC could be NBCs with just one citizen parent, but Birthers insist on 2 for the mainland US, Alaska and Hawaii. How odd.
I like the part where Sellin hilariously claims “We can handle the truth”.
Although I suppose it could be intended to say, not “We are capable of accepting the truth”, but “Our propagandists are already working on ways to distort it so it doesn’t upset the false beliefs of our sheep-ish followers”…
(Am I remembering incorrectly that I’ve seen a lot of birfer links to the “Sonoran Desert News”?)
House of Representatives Resolution 593 (2009) 111th Congress passed on a vote of 378-0.
H.RES.593 — Whereas August 21, 2009, marks the 50th Anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s signing of Proclamation 3309, which admitted Hawaii into the Union in compliance with the Hawaii… (Engrossed in House [Passed House] – EH)
HRES 593 EH
H. Res. 593
In the House of Representatives, U. S.,
July 27, 2009.
Whereas August 21, 2009, marks the 50th Anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s signing of Proclamation 3309, which admitted Hawaii into the Union in compliance with the Hawaii Admission Act, enacted by the United States Congress on March 18, 1959;
Whereas Hawaii is `a place like no other, with a people like no other’ and bridges the mainland United States to the Asia-Pacific region;
Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961;
Whereas Hawaii has contributed to the diversity of Congress in electing–
(1) the first Native Hawaiian to serve in Congress, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana`ole;
(2) the first Asian-American to serve in the Senate, Hiram Fong;
(3) the first woman of color to serve in Congress, Patsy T. Mink;
(4) the first Native Hawaiian to serve in the Senate, Daniel Kahikina Akaka; and
(5) the first Japanese-American to serve in the Senate, Daniel Ken Inouye;
Whereas Hawaii is an example to the rest of the world of unity and positive race relations;
Whereas Pearl Harbor is a strategic military base for the U.S. in the Pacific and also a historical site for the Nation, being the location of the December 7, 1941, surprise Japanese aerial attack that thrust the Nation into World War II;
Whereas Hawaii is home to 1/4 of the endangered species in the United States;
Whereas Hawaii has 8 national parks, which preserve volcanoes, complex ecosystems, a Hansen’s disease colony, and other sites of historical and cultural significance;
Whereas Kilauea ranks among the most active volcanoes on Earth;
Whereas President Bush nominated the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Centre for consideration to the World Heritage List;
Whereas Hawaii has produced musical legends ranging from traditional favorites such as Alfred Apaka, Don Ho, and Genoa Keawe, to Hawaii renaissance performers such as Eddie Kamae, Raymond Kane, Gabby Pahinui, Israel Kamakawiwo`ole, the Brothers Cazimero, and the Beamer Brothers, and continuing on to contemporary stars such as Keali`i Reichel, Ledward Kaapana, Jake Shimabukuro, and Raiatea Helm;
Whereas Hawaii is culturally rich, as the Hawaiian culture has been protected through Hawaiian language immersion schools, hula competitions such as the Merrie Monarch Festival, canoeing voyages undertaken by vessels like the Hokule`a, and the continuing historic preservation of Hawaiian traditions;
Whereas the Hawaii Statehood Commission has held a Joint Session of the Hawaii State Legislature in honor of statehood and will be celebrating this milestone with a public discussion and with the arrival of the USS Hawaii; and
Whereas for all of these reasons Hawaii is a truly unique State: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives recognizes and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the entry of Hawaii into the Union as the 50th State.
Attest:
Clerk.
You are so right, my friend.
The only problem – it has already been resolved. So the question is not, how it will “eventually” be interpreted. Your SCOTUS (as every constitutional scholar) have already interpreted in the way you feel. You are safe.
I have a mind to take what you wrote, reword it and send it to the Arizona Republic with some background on you sending this letter to the Sonoran News and just setting the record straight.
How can one honestly send a letter to the Sonoran News when it’s not….news, that is. 🙂
I’d venture to say that the Sonoran News will protect their readers from the truth just as BR, protects their readers from the truth.
A three judge appeals court panel unanimously agreed with your position in the court decision that is cited most often regarding Barack Obama’s eligibility:
Ankeny v Daniels, Indiana Court of Appeals: “Based on the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the United States are ‘natural born citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”–November 12, 2009
I have a personal belief that the holocaust probably did happen, but it should be resolved historically in my opinion.
Pardon me, but I do not understand your holocaust analogy related to my statement? Show me the SCOTUS decision on the natural born citizen definition? From what I have seen, some state cases have defined it, the congress defined it, but where is the SCOTUS ruling?
To jump to the holocaust is a perverted twist of my statement. Do I think the holocaust happened, yes I do. Do I think 6 million Jews died because of it, yes I do. Was it a crime against humanity, yes it was. Should we as a society learn from this crime against humanity, yes we should. Am I Jewish, no I am not, but, my first wife was. Did I divorce her because she was Jewish, no I did not, she was a bitch and it was not because she was Jewish. I have a child with her, a daughter, I love her and she is Jewish.
I have no idea where your comment came from but I will tell you this, I am Christian, but I will defend any and all people against persecution because they are of the Jewish faith. So take your bigoted religious statements somewhere else. Stick to the topic, which by the way has nothing to do with the holocaust.
Seems to be suffering from Analogy Deficit Disorder. Is there a vitamin for that?
@truth
Have you read the opinion, briefs, and dissent in US v Wong Kim Ark?
No I have not, that is why I have asked for information. I will check it out. Thanks.
So the holocaust is relevant to a natural born citizen? And I need a vitamin? Troll somewhere else.
@The Truth: You stated that the issue should be “resolved legally”–the overwhelming majority of legal disputes are resolved in the lower courts in this country. Even most constitutional cases don’t require or involve SCOTUS, so why do you think that this issue does necessitate a SCOTUS ruling?
(Technically, SCOTUS has made their opinion known. They’ve refused cert on every eligibility case that has come before the court, which means they think the issue has already been resolved legally too.)
That’s what brygenon was getting at: the definition of natural-born citizen has already been resolved legally, even as the facts of the Holocaust have been resolved historically.
@truth
I think Doc has them here, NBC used have them and so did Jack Ryan. Doc has links to their sites.
@truth
If you are interested in reading them, I would suggest starting with the lower court ruling, then the briefs, Supreme Court opinion, and the dissent.
I read some of the case from 1898. I do agree with the ruling at a personal level. Some now say that if someone is born on US soil to illegal immigrants they are not natural born citizens. My opinion on that is, if the United States cannot control illegal aliens entering the country, it is not the fault of the child born, therefore I feel they are still a natural born citizen. I was not aware of that case, thanks for the information.
It has been. Numerous commenters have referred you to the case law which does so.
You have been referred to Ankeny and to Wong Kim Ark. To pretend that you have not been shown the case law is dishonest on your part.
Now, because your MO includes repeated goalpost-moving, you are going to claim that these rulings do not count, because they were not SCOTUS decisions. Except that Wong Kim Ark was a SCOTUS decision, and it determined that, with a very few exceptions, none of which apply to The President, those born on U.S. soil are natural born citizens by the constitutional definition.
Becasue you are a goalpost-mover, you are going to demand that the SCOTUS hand down a decision in this particular case. Except that they have had numerous opportunities to reverse the hundreds of lower-court decisions which would allow them to make such a ruling, which means those lower-court decisions are affirmed. Regardless of what you may believe, the SCOTUS is not required to hear every case that you think they should.
In this case, your “personal belief” happens to be in accord with the law and with reality; Barack H. Obama was born in Hawai’i, one of the 50 states, in 1961. This has been certified by the State of Hawai’i, the controlling legal authority in this instance. So, by your own statement above, you agree that this matter is settled.
ETA: of course, slash beat me to it, and said it better.
Wong Kim Ark will resolve this. Read up on why Why Kim Ark is important here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark
Also, read the decision: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649
Also, check the status of who is a citizen at birth in U.S. Title 8 section 1401 where subsection “a” states that the first person who is considered a citizen at birth is anyone born on U.S. soil: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401
Those seem to be the defining criteria for a “Natural Born Citizen”.
I clearly asked for anyone that had information on legal precedence, and I got a reference to the holocaust. I don’t see the humor in it, nor do I see any relationship from one to the other. There are plenty of opportunities for humor, the holocaust is not one of them.
WTF are you talking about? Do you have a clue? Get a life and troll somewhere else. I asked for a precedence and I got it, I read it and I agree. If your mission in life is to attack me that’s fine, but you should really find other recreation because life is short.
Your question about whether a child born in the U.S. is a natural born citizen if they have two non-American parents (in this case, illegal immigrants, although they could be aliens from space and it wouldn’t matter) smacks of those who say the holocaust never happened. You seem to agree that the holocaust did happen, so I think you can agree that those who claim it didn’t happen are ridiculous. Your question about whether babies born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants are natural born citizens is just as ridiculous to those of us who know the answer. That is the connection.
You were given the links to the various rulings (including the SCOTUS ruling on Wong Kim Ark) less than 80 minutes after you first asked; over 20 hours later, you were still pretending that no one had told you that the SCOTUS ruled on this over 100 years ago.
Because you are dishonest.
Ask Mommy for a binky and a nap. You’re a very crabby Snowflake.
Should I apologize for having a life and not responding for 20 hours? This thread is not the only thing I have going on in my life. You are an ass, and I am being polite. I doubt you have even seen a snowflake but it sounds good right? Troll somewhere else, you are very very boring. Try something new and add links or research to the blog instead of personal attacks, you may feel better about yourself.
Smacks of not believing the holocaust happened? You are assuming way beyond your mental capabilities if that is how you associate the two totally different subjects. .
There are holocaust deniers and there are natural born citizen deniers. Do you not agree that both ideologies exist?
All I can say is that it is a good thing my working and backup irony meters were wrapped in heavy duty tin foil or I would be SOL.
Your response was not required; I daresay no one would miss you if you never responded again.
But when you did respond, you pretended that no one gave you the information you requested. Because you are dishonest.
Your concern for my self-esteem, and your opinion of me, have been noted, and will be given all the concern they deserve.
Now, off for your nap!
I am Jewish. I understood brygenon’s comment. I am not offended by the analogy because I’m not thin-skinned like you.
I do find your idiotic, vile and baseless smears of the president’s deceased mother to be extremely tasteless and asinine. And I’m astounded by your incredible and continued laziness in not using the resources available at the top and bottom this page. It doesn’t get much easier.
Your words:
“I have my passports also. If Obama does have his, why would he not prove his identity? He blocks every attempt to discover who he really is. he has spent millions of dollars in attorney fees both personally and at tax payers expense to block evidence. All he has to do is produce evidence and the whole issue will go away. The birth certificate he posted on the WH site has been proven to be electronically altered, any person with an average IQ can study the evidence and realize someone tampered with it.”
(http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2014/03/giving-up-commenting-at-birther-report-for-lent/)
That’s delusional birther drivel. Any person with an average IQ? You’re not special. Over the years, many birther trolls pushing the same debunked lies with zero comprehension of credible evidence have slimed through here.
You’ve been trolling here for awhile. Your whining and repeated admissions of ignorance are not helping your case.
“Get a life and troll somewhere else.” You sure can dish out but you can’t take it. What’s the word for that? Do you need help looking it up?
There are also those who believe aliens exist, that bigfoot exists, and that 911 never happened. How does the holocaust and a natural born citizen compare? Your questions is at best loaded and irrelevant. Do you deny the fore mentioned ideology exist? This is completely irrelevant to the thread, I apologize for indulging in this ridiculous comparison.
I can’t seem to keep a good irony meter around any more. I do keep stocked up on fire extinguishers.
Perhaps being thin-skinned is this birther’s idea of transparency?
And, like holocaust deniers and Birfers, they are all delusional a-holes. Just like you!
Except that we can’t rule out aliens. There’s just no evidence.
Yet.
I am glad you are proud to proclaim being Jewish, that is an honorable trait. As far as Obama, that is not a part of this thread but if you insist, I still stand behind my statements. He is a liar, a deceiver, and promotes corruption. He in my opinion will go into history as the worst president history, and he has serious competitors. If you don’t like my opinion of Obama, I really don’t care. And, if you were concerned about Israel you better pay attention to what Obama’s policy is for the Jewish state. But that is off subject, where is the moderation?
I am planning to convert to the organic irony meters. When fed sufficient irony they undergo mitosis. One of the resulting meters can then be exposed to the full irony blast while the other is kept “under wraps”. They are a bit more expensive, but cost effective in the long run.
The White House released Obama’s passport in 2010.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2010/08/white-house-releases-obama-passport/
So now that Obama has proven his identity according to your criterion, I’m sure we’ll head no more doubts about Obama’s identity from you.
So you believe in aliens? That helps me to understand you a little better. Maybe they will come down and save this country because Obama will not.
Not really.
“We can’t rule it out” =/= “I believe in it.”
We’ll add that to the list of things you don’t understand.
ETA: just remembered who I was dealing with!
“=/=” means “does not equal.” Don’t pretend you don’t understand that. I just explained it to you.
People’s opinions about Obama are really not the subject of this site. I am aware of those who don’t like Obama and still understand that he is a natural born citizen. Personally I think he has been a wonderful president (not perfect, but I don’t expect perfection) and I don’t agree with your assessment at all. Still, I don’t discuss that here because it is not the subject of this website at all. I think your opinion of Obama clouds your assessment of whether he can be a natural born citizen and that’s a shame.
Shorter Snowflake: “Aha! Will quoted something I said about Obama, which means IT’S SLAM OBAMA TIME!”
With all due respect, if you had a comment on the passport it should have been on that thread, This one has nothing to do with it. But apparently that doesn’t matter as long as you agree with what an irrelevant to the topic commenter posts? I had respect for your blog as you seemed to stay relevant to the topics, what has changed? You wont moderate out some holocaust BS, and you allow some to never post links or evidence and just demean posters with rhetoric. So, what is this site, pro Obama and liberal agenda or is it a legitimate research and fact site? In some cases you have proven your case, in others I have seen just a biased approach. If you really want to change things and make a difference you need to see both sides fairly, even if one side is more correct than the other.
Ooooh! Wait, you guys, I need popcorn.
New irony meters, all around! Put it on my tab!
This site does not take a stance on Obama. It is merely about conspiracies surrounding him as a president.
So you believe in treating lies as equal to the truth? Lies should not be treated equally.
Show me evidence. Or do you believe the government is covering it up? Oh no, you cant admit the government covers things up, that would hurt your theories.
Teach the controversy! Teach the controversy! Teach the controversy!
Seriously? So you obviously believe there are aliens at Area 51? There’s your problem right there. No evidence exists, that is why it can’t be ruled out. You can’t rule anything out without evidence that the thing doesn’t exist.
Exactly! Crazy.
Pumpkin, did you miss the part where I said
You are very, very dishonest. Immediately after I told you that “not ruling something out” does not mean “I believe in it,” you pretend that they mean the same thing.
I am beginning to believe you’re some sort of performance artist. But I believed that of Orly and of Victoria Jackson, so I can’t be trusted on such matters.
There is a higher probability that Mt. Rushmore will quantum tunnel intact to China than that a birther will “see the light”.
We’re gonna need a bigger boat.
I realize this. Thank you. That’s an interesting vision though.
If you are looking for the Supreme Court to weigh in again, you’re going to have a long wait. SCOTUS only takes on genuine controversies, and there is no genuine controversy about President Obama, only a made-up controversy.
The reality is that no one ever heard of the mythical “two-citizen parent” requirement until Leo Donofrio dreamed it up shortly before the election in 2008. Barack Obama exploded upon the national scene at the 2004 Democratic convention. He announced his candidacy for President on February 10, 2007. At that time it was widely known that his father was never a U.S. citizen, yet there was never a suggestion that he wasn’t eligible to be President because of his father’s citizenship. At no point during 2007 was it brought up. At no point during the primaries was it brought up. At no point during the election was it brought up, until Donofrio filed his lawsuit. Even Jerome Corsi’s book “The Obama Nation” makes no mention of Obama being ineligible because of his father. Corsi, with his PhD. in Political Science, hadn’t heard of the “two citizen parent” requirement at the time he wrote the book.
As Doc has pointed out, there is not a single Constitutional law text, history text, or civics text which says that a natural-born citizen must have two citizen parents, or even one citizen parent. There is no evidence that the “two-citizen parent” requirement has ever been taught in any school in the United States. Consequently, there is no genuine controversy about it, so there is nothing for the Supreme Court to rule on.
We have been treating both sides fairly. One side is based in facts, the other side is based upon lies, innuendo, and a bunch of other propagandist tactics. There are not two sides to every issue.
If one side says, “The world is Flat” and one side says, “the world is round” do we need to say that there is a controversy? Or is one side of it correct, and one side not correct? Should we give equal time to idiots who state that the world is flat in order to your entire thing of “treating both sides fairly”. Just because one side has a basis in facts, and one side does not, it is not treat the other side unfairly by pointing out that they are a lunitical fringe who concepts do not align with reality.
If this site is Obama conspiracy only, where does all the holocaust and other BS come from? Get serious, many people on here wait to pounce on racism, that’s the crutch, there is also no lack of anti republican sentiment. I haven’t picked a political side, I have pointed out issues on both parties. The fact is, the majority of the people on here support Obama, which is fine, however they are now in the minority of the population. Its a shame, when he was elected he had a nation believing in him, including me.
As long they’re not GMO, am I right? 🙂
Are you still pretending that you don’t understand that analogy? How utterly dishonest.
You’ll get a cramp, clutching your pearls so hard.
That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying there is no proof Obama is a fraud…yet.
As long as they don’t cross pollinate to an adjacent field.
No, I don’t see the analogy. Its not even close, the alien theory is much closer.
You should totally start a blog, dude; you know just how it should be done! I would read it every day, I promise!
I’m guessing that you haven’t been watching Cosmos. The reality is that we are barely scratching the surface of what mankind will eventually know about the universe, and it is certainly possible that there is intelligent life elsewhere.
That doesn’t mean that I believe in aliens. It means that I believe that it is possible that there are aliens.
BTW, this great country of ours does not need saving. It was saved from the brink of an economic catastrophe in 2009, but that is another story.
Well I did notice any thread I comment on has more than 10-20 comments. It surely keeps you busy.
From trying to get you to understand how utterly ridiculous your question about SCOTUS relitigating settled law is?
We don’t talk about parties here. You are sadly mistaken. I’ve been on this site for years and have never seen any discussion about political parties. I think you have this site mixed up with somewhere else.
Not really, his term average to date according to Gallup is 48%, which seems to be closely in line with political party affiliation. – http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx
But, I will state that “teaching the controversy” is exactly why Obama’s approval ratings are questioned at all. Many people believe a bunch of lies that affect that approval rating, including whether he’s actually eligible to be president. There is the reason why your “treat both sides fairly” suggestion is wrong.
Yes! Quantity of comments means you must be onto something! You HAVE to start a blog! You OWE it to your fans!
I will not comment on the truth about the US economic situation, I tried before and was moderated out. I will say this, before the end of 2016 you will see the effects of current policy.
Unfortunately most of my comments are responding to ridiculous comments like the holocaust and aliens. God my life must be getting boring, why do I bother commenting? I was accused earlier of not answering a post for 20 hours, maybe I am missed? Nah, I think its just sarcasm as usual.
But SCOTUS relitigating settled law isn’t ridiculous to you? LOL
Thank you for pointing out Obama’s approval rating is in the minority, at least you admit that. I am not even going to bother with your political comment, I have seen it many times, read anything I comment on, I hear about Bush, Cheney, blah blah, you know, someone else is always at fault, not Obama. Yeah people do believe lies, most of which has come from Obama. Once again, I would provide links to prove Obama lies but they get moderated out so not much use trying to prove it on here.
Shame on the people who force you to respond to Internet commenters.
Because you’re a narcissistic troll. That one was easy.
Why on Earth would you post something so transparently dishonest in the same thread that proves you a liar?
The actual point, of course, was that in less than 80 minutes, you were given the answers you asked for, but still pretended, 20 hours later, that you hadn’t yet been given the information. Absolutely no one cares if you ever respond here again.
No one.
But when you do, though, it’s so easy to rip your lies to shreds, and so fun to watch you flail.
You amuse me, Pumpkin. But I shan’t miss you when you’re gone.
Our current policies are affected by what is happening in Congress where they have tightened the belt, thereby squeezing those who are jobless and aren’t creating jobs. Sorry, any reflection in 2016 will be on Congress, not on this president. Obama isn’t getting the chance to utilize his agenda.
Should I assume you cannot read? I was one of the first commenters asking if SCOTUS had ruled on it because I didn’t know. Pretty ridiculous to ask I guess.
Because you are queering the thread with information that is not related to this site.
And then, when you were given the answer, you continued to “not know.”
It’s a pattern with you, Pumpkin.
Yes, I guess it is, when there is a whole lot of information contained on this site about such. You could have just gone to the search box and searched for it. You seemed to agree that a citizen born in the US is a natural born citizen but questioned whether a citizen born to illegal aliens is also. That question has been answered on this site numerous times. There are resources to finding such.
Then why have a president? The fact is, he is not capable of compromise or leading a country period. He is inexperienced and doesn’t have a clue what he is doing, way over his head.
You are again getting into politics, but I will state that if you go back and look at the numerous attempts by Obama to compromise, you will see he has tried over and over again (if you look with an unbiased eye). There are many in Congress who are uncompromising. Start here: http://swtimes.com/sections/news/womack-look-mirror-find-cause-uncompromising-congress.html
In brief:
* Your belief is correct. If you are born in the United States, then you are a natural born citizen and therefore eligible to be elected President. It does not matter whether your parents are citizens or not.
The historical exceptions to this are if your parents are ambassadors from some other country, or foreign royalty, or members of an invading army. But unless they fall into one of those very narrow categories, it doesn’t matter in the least whether they’re citizens or not.
In other words, Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, didn’t need two citizen parents to be eligible to be elected President. He didn’t even need one citizen parent. He was born in the USA, and was therefore constitutionally eligible.
And that was the original intent of the Founding Fathers.
The above is settled law. That’s why the Supreme Court won’t hear a case on it. In spite of birther claims to the contrary, it’s settled, and has been for a very long time. As someone else said, around 120 years or so.
* If someone is born a United States citizen overseas, because he or she had one or more US citizen parents, that person is also a natural born citizen, and is eligible to be elected President.
This has never been explicitly ruled on by the US Supreme Court, but it’s the opinion of the Congressional Research Service, and pretty much everyone with any credibility who has really studied the issue and the intention of the Founding Fathers.
The First Congress (which had a bunch of Founding Fathers in it) passed a law declaring that the children born overseas of US citizens were natural born citizens.
Since the only thing a “natural born citizen” could do that any other citizen can’t is be elected President, it’s clear that the First Congress (which, again, was full of Founders) believed that people born US citizens overseas should be (and were) eligible to be elected President when they reached age 35.
So people born on US soil are natural born citizens, no matter whether their parents were citizens or not, and it also seems clear that the Founding Fathers intended that people born US citizens overseas because one or both parents were citizens, are also natural born citizens and eligible to be elected President.
Can one say with 100% certainty that this is how the Supreme Court would rule? No. But given the weight of scholarship, history, and legal opinion, any other ruling would be very surprising.
That being the case, all that’s required to be a “natural born citizen” is that you be born a United States citizen, rather than made a citizen through a naturalization process after birth.
Ok, then no need in commenting on a blog right? No need in asking questions right? If the cases would have been mentioned in the initial blog post by the Dr. I wouldn’t need to ask. Hmm, the next time I talk to my children I will tell them, when you go to school don’t ask questions, look up the answer on the internet for yourself. Oh my, I just saved the country trillions of dollars in education, no more questions!!!
Or, to condense all of that to the simplest form:
“Natural born citizen” = “a person who was born a United States citizen.”
See, this is how you earned your nickname: information is all around you, but you insist on being spoon-fed answers, which you then refuse to believe.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much this clause depresses me…
Thanks for the input. I would assume that the natural born citizen stipulation in the constitution was written so someone born and raised a foreigner could not come to this country and become president because they may not have the best interest of this country at heart. Would that be your assumption also?
How long before he pretends you just called him a queer?
Now you insult my family? Kiss my ass.
Ask questions after you learn the facts. You brought up a point of contention that has already been addressed here numerous times and refused to go to the source first, and then suggested that SCOTUS relitigate it.
There’s no need to assume such a thing; it was a deliberate decision for exactly that reason, on the advice of John Jay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause#Constitutional_Convention
I GAVE YOU A LINK AND DID RESEARCH FOR YOU, DO YOU LOVE ME NOW?
I can’t answer for Publius, but I think he would agree with that.
You are a despicable excuse for a human being. I hope it makes you feel good with all of your personal derogatory comments towards me. Then people wonder why violent comments are made?
It is much more important for a child to learn how to find answers than to have a few. The “Further Reading” list at the end of the article was included for for the convenience of those persons who are interested and capable of a little initiative. Indeed this site is designed as much as a research tool as a topical news site.
The Bookmarks menu has extensive links to sources of information. In addition there are searches by topics and compilations, all indexed and highlighted. It is not designed for the indolent.
There is no requirement that commenters here agree with what is said in the articles, but there is an expectation that they dispute responsibly, doing a minimum of work to ascertain the facts. People who ask questions solely because they are too lazy or because they enjoy wasting other peoples’ time quickly wear out their welcome here.
Oh, hell no. I was insulting you. Your children are blameless, Pumpkin.
But do tell us more about the President’s mother, your accusations are fascinating.
This website is NOT a school.
OK, no problem. I’ll put you in moderation.
That’s works for me. I will not return. I wish you luck in your blog and your adventures. Goodbye.
Well, I told you that.
Well, you’ve deliberately misinterpreted at least three very clear statements by commenters just in this thread. So I extrapolated. Not sorry.
Yes, we’re quite aware that you believe that violent comments are OK if someone is mean to you on the Internet, or moves next door to someone. You really are that transparent.
Well, he is more gracious than most trolls. That’s different.
I peed a little. Nicely done, Doc.
You had better clean that up.
When he comes back, I hope his new name will be less ironic and his new persona less contentious.
Because he will be back.
Oh, no question about it.
Of course he will. He hasn’t got this much attention since he brought peanut butter to the dog park.
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
And he is going to have universe-shattering information about Subud which he must share with us.
I direct your attention to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CvhXkBpwEk
O.o
She seems nice.
Teaches Sunday School.
The problem was that you demanded an answer to a question 20 hours after it had been answered.
You don’t have to post every 5 minutes or even every 20 hours, couldn’t care less. The time period is totally irrelevant. Nobody, not one person here, is complaining about that
But when you ask a question and go away for a long period, check to see if someone has answered you before you whinge about not getting your answer. That is what they are complaining about – you refused to acknowledge the fact that you had been answered and continued to complain that you didn’t get an answer.
Folks here have SEEN EVERY ‘question’ about Obama eligiblity over the last 6 years, and the DOC has documented it all. It is all on this site, the chance that you have an issue that is new and unique is just about the same that an extraterrestrial alien will land on the White House lawn tomorrow before breakfast – not zero but darn close to it.
At the top of the page is a link to the ‘Debunker’s Guide’; at the bottom is a ‘Quick Reference’ with links to lots of great stuff. They are there for YOU to read; feel free to browse to your hearts content. Doc is a very magnanimous guy to make this available, it would be churlish of you to reject it.
I know you have trouble with analogies, but I am reminded of the guy who, when confronted by a self-service salad bar (are these still allowed in the US?) demanded someone serve him. When the manager served the guy the salad he then complained that he wanted the rice salad not the garbanzo beans, and what is that quinoa stuff? Meanwhile all the other salad bar customers were yelling at him to just get on with it already, they want to eat too.
Please stop bellyaching. If you have a reasonable question, first see if it is answered in one of those places, then ask it by all means, but don’t be surprised if some people get snippy because they’ve answered it a million times before.
Because Congress legislates (its the ‘LEGISLATIVE Branch’), and the President executes (its the ‘EXECUTIVE branch’).
For example, Congress might pass a law that says (for whatever reason) National Parks must be closed when public safety cannot be assured due to lack of Staff. Congress might also pass a law that says that if Government employees cannot be paid, they must not work. So when Congress then refuses to allocate funds to pay Park Service Staff, the President has no choice but to close the Parks.
See how that works? The Congress makes the laws, which the President executes.
In other countries the executive and the legislative body may be the same – that is called a ‘Parliamentary system‘. Australia and the U.K. both have Parliamentary Systems and their laws are executed by the Prime Minister, who is a member of Parliament and by tradition the leader of the political party that holds the most seats in Parliament. The Prime Minister’s Cabinet is also drawn from the elected Parliament. However, America has a ‘Presidential System‘ where the Executive is separated from the Legislative. There is nothing particularly better or worse about either system, its just how we roll here.
There is a term for the relationship between the Congress and the President (and the Judiciary) – ‘separation of powers‘.
Generally, when Congress passes a law they give the President room for him to implement that law as the President sees fit, within the bounds of the intent of the law. So if Congress refuses to pass a law allocating funds to pay Government employees in general, but does pass a law authorizing the President to keep employees who provide ‘essential services’ at work, then the President can decide which employees provide are ‘essential services’ like say, Air Traffic Controllers or National Park Rangers.
There is more to the relationship than that of course.Sometimes a Congress passes a law that the President doesn’t want to implement, or at least not the way the Congress foresees it being implemented. When that happens the President is allowed to ‘veto’ the law, and then the Congress has to modify the law to make it acceptable to the President, or override the veto with a 2/3rds vote. In a Parliamentary system there is no possibility of a veto – theoretically the Queen could refuse to sign a bill in Britain, but there would be holy hell to pay and the Monarchy would be kicked out immediately.
Americans used to learn all this stuff in elementary school, I know I did. Of course it is anathema for libertarians for citizens to understand how the American system works, and they have been making strong inroads into destroying the education system across America over the last few decades, so I suppose its possible you might have missed this stuff. I’m pretty sure that your local Community College will be able to provide you with remedial civics classes to make up for it. I recommend you check it out; there is a lot more to ‘the way things work’ than my brief explanation.
Just for emphasis:
ASKING questions is NOT the problem.
IGNORING the answers is the problem.
So that was a very odd exchange. Our friend “The Truth” appears to have entered into the conversation intent on baiting the regulars here. I had this uncomfortable feeling from the very first post that he or she wasn’t being entirely honest with us. That may be unfair of me to suggest, but it’s clearly how I reacted to this individual’s remarks.
That, and they didn’t want some foreign royalty coming and taking over. Apparently there was a history of some of this in Europe.
They wanted the President to be someone with a bona-fide attachment to the country. They considered being born here enough, and they considered being born to US citizen parents enough.
Now, it’s possible to split some hairs over whether they foresaw all the implications of that. For example, in those days, if you were born in the United States you were less likely to leave the country, because there wasn’t as much travel. However, it also works the other way around as well: If a person was born in Paris to US citizen parents, he was more likely to be raised there. He could still come to the US on reaching adulthood, make his life here, and become President, even though he would’ve been raised to adulthood in France.
But that possibility doesn’t seem to have bothered them.
Nor does the possibility that someone could’ve been raised in some ingrown immigrant enclave in the United States. There were people born and raised here who were out of the mainstream of our society.
All in all, it seems to me that the potential issues of loyalty and attachment, between then and now, are different in type, but probably not terribly much different in degree.
In other words, they intended for potential candidates for President to have some attachment to the country. Even though times and circumstances have changed, I think the rule they set up back then still works about as well now as it did a couple hundred years ago.
Not capable of compromise? Have you been sleeping for the last 5 years? The whole stimulus package was a compromise consisting of about half of it being tax cuts. The ACA was a republican proposal from the 90s which the liberal members of his own party were grumbling about because there was no public option. The whole sequestration was a compromise with the GOP because Obama gave most of what Boehner wanted and in the 11th hour Boehner pulled out of the deal. The majority of his first term was compromises with the GOP that earned him nothing. So sorry if I scoff at your poor recollection of history.
What exactly is stopping you from using the search function on this site to get the answer you needed?
Oh, and I agree with the advice that there’s a ton of information and reading out there, and interested parties are encouraged to research for themselves.
But if you want to know the bottom line, it is:
A “natural born citizen” is really just a person who was born a United States citizen.
Umm what? How do you go from one to the other? So you feel personally insulted and you think this is an excuse for violent comments?
I hope this one is a little better at pretending to be someone else than our friend traderjack/helen/cavitekid/etc
Well, this was a fascinating exchange to read over breakfast.
I was getting that
sanesame impression.Freudian slip?
No – “natural born citizen” = “a person who was a citizen as they first popped out of their mother”
That includes all babies born in the U.S. under the jurisdiction of the U.S. (which excludes invading armies and diplomats), but it also includes people like Ted Cruz, who was a U.S. citizen at birth (and a Canadian citizen, and possibly a Cuban cotizen too).
hmm .. not seeing the difference. when does “born” not equal “first pooped out of their mother”?
And later, when challenged on it, he brushed it off with “I had to so many things to say, I couldn’t say them all” – and simply ignored that it was absolutely not credible to have deliberately left out something this important (“he’s not just a bad president, he’s not eligible at all!”) in favour of general criticism of Obama’s political abilities/goals.
That’s like claiming an NBA team would contest the result of a playoff game based on the other side not saluting the flag before the game and totally ignoring they had nine players on the field the whole time.
Think C-section.
I heard this morning that less than 33% of students in Tennessee graduate high school. I fear for this country’s future.
Bgansel9, without looking it up I can assure you that far more than 33 percent of Tennesseans graduate high school. Whether most graduate with a solid grasp of civic knowledge is of course a different matter. The same doubts can legitimately be raised about other states.
So, I guess MacDuff would not be a natural-born citizen of Scotland?
AWWWW poor cupcake. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya, champ.
And nothing of value was lost.
Concern Trolls can’t help themselves. He’s JUST ASKING QUESTIONS, don’t ya know.
Bizarre. Sort of like saying, “no, water isn’t water, it’s H2O.”
You are correct that the number is higher than 33%, I must have heard it wrong, but, Tennessee is having a drop out crisis: https://www.tn.gov/education/safe_schls/dropout/doc/TennesseeDropoutPolicyScan.pdf
According to this site, the graduation rate in Tennessee high schools is 80.4%, two percentage points above the national average.
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/high-school-graduation-rate-at-highest-level-in-three-decades/
At what point in the whole birther history did the two-citizen-parent thing come up?
The first time I heard about birthers was in the fall before the 2008 election when I was listening to Art Bell and he had Philip Berg on as a guest. At that point, the only thing I had heard were some suggestions that Obama was not born in the U.S.
Later, in January of 2009, I started to hear about the Indonesian thing. It wasn’t until later that I heard about the two-citizen-parent thing.
As best I can tell, the two-citizen-parent thing was basically a fallback argument that birthers came up with later on, when it became obvious to at least some of them that any situation where Obama could have been born in Kenya and had the birth registered in Hawaii was kind of far-fetched to say the least and they needed to latch on to something to keep the argument going.
For all they talk about how Obama has “hidden” much of his past, he has never made any secret of the fact that his father was not a U.S. citizen. One would think at some point during the 2008 campaign somebody would have brought that up, but the first I’d heard of it was after he was in office.
Yet proved comically easy to bait.
I believe the anti-birther hive-mind has given the honor of inventing the 2-citizen parent meme to Leo Donofrio, poker player/lawyer/paraclete in Donofrio v. Wells.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/two-kinds-of-citizen/
One of the funniest claims of early Vattelism was that Obama himself engineered the birth certificate issue to deflect from the “real” issue, the lack of two citizen parents. This was when “hiding in plain sight” became the mot du jour in Birtherstan. (Actually, it was “hiding in plane site” because we all know how well birthers can handle homonyms…)
His first and second posts to this board essentially boiled down to “come at me, bro!” The rest of his lamentable time spent here was occupied with whining about what a victim he was.
I think you are confused. He was aiming at getting someone here to admit that American born children of illegal aliens are not natural born citizens. Where did he end up accomplishing that?
Exactly.
“Dreams From My Father” was published in 1995 and Obama made no attempt to pretend that his father was ever a U.S. citizen.
Obama became a national figure and came under media scrutiny when he gave the keynote address at the Democratic Convention on July 27, 2004.
He announced his candidacy for President on February 10, 2007. No one ever suggested that he was ineligible because of his father’s citizenship until Leo Donofrio filed his lawsuit, Donofrio v. Wells, in New Jersey on October 27, 2008. I have been unable to find any record of anyone bringing up the mythical “two-citizen parent” requirement prior to then.
Some birthers used to argue that they were taught the “two-citizen parent” requirement in school, but they have never been able to produce a textbook or syllabus which supports their claim – because none ever existed.
OK, so it came up kind of late in the campaign.
If the two-citizen-parent requirement were true and common knowledge and Obama was the liar the birthers claim he is, it makes no sense that he would have been truthful about his father’s citizenship.
Because it was an act of desperation.
I’ve often said that the very fact they have fallback arguments proves they have nothing. If there were any truth to any one of the birther claims, they’d put all their eggs in that basket and make that case.