I am reduced to writing about the internal squabbles at Gerbil Report™ and re-hashing the old lies of Mike Zullo and his imitators. So I ask you, the reader of this non article, if there is something you think deserves investigation or commentary? Do you have a paper you would like published?
I should add that while I’m not writing blog articles much, I am spending a huge amount of time with OARPA technical projects. The new server is supposed to arrive March 8 with possibly 3 more by the end of the year.
Here is a tidbit of history some of you might find of interest.
The birthers at Gerbil Report tm were recently up in arms about Ted Cruz, the issues of dual citizenship, allegiances, loyalty, etc, conveniently ignoring or refusing to consider James Madison’s precedent of being granted & welcoming French citizenship, which I have often mentioned here.
(I won’t provide the links again.)
Well, it turns out that James Monroe, who was then US Ambassador to France, when the Decree of 16 August 1791 was passed, conferring French citizenship (but not explicitly HONORARY French citizenship which did and still does not exist) was upset because it seemed to him that this challenged the principle of exclusive American citizenship which he thought should be the case.
Paine replied that this French citizenship was only honorific and “does not
require any transfer of allegiance from my American citizenship to France. Out there (ie in the US), I am a true citizen, paying taxes; here (ie in France) I am a volunteer friend, temporarily offering my services. (my translation)
Source: Memorial to James Monroe, 09.10.1794, in William Van der Weyde (ed)’s The Life and Works of Thomas Paine, New Rochelle, NY, Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925.1925, vol. 5, p. 77-83.
On a related note, after the French citizens of Louisiana were made into US citizens according to the terms of the Treaty:
Les habitants des territoires cédés seront incorporés dans l’union des États-Unis, et admis, aussit’t qu’il sera possible, d’après les principes de la Constitution fédérale à la jouissance de tous les droits, avantages et immunités des citoyens des États-Unis, et en attendant, ils seront maintenus et protégés dans la jouissance de leurs libertés, propriétés, et dans l’exercice des religions qu’ils professent.
The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States , and meanwhile, they will be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and in the exercise of religion they profess. (My translation)
Some were eventually able to reclaim their French citizenship by petitioning the french Government through the French Consulate in New Orleans. Interestingly enough, it was the only way for a white man to legally marry a black woman, as such an union was not permissible in the US at the time.
I could provide more info on this rather unique situation if anyone is interested, at least from the French angle. I wonder if any of these new citizens were treated by US Law as naturalized or natural-born.
ce n’est pas une pipe
Apuzzo has written a few blog posts recently
I would like to see some theoretical posts about the nature of birthism, its comparisons to other conspiracy theories, the reasons for birthism’s current sad predicament, the dim future of birthism.
I know you state Doc. C. this blogs closes when President Obama leaves office in 2017. But the professionalism of this blog and I know the hours of personal enjoyment reading and posting I propose a new blog in 2017 simply to debunk all RWNJ conspiracy theories (which of course is part of the Republican platform).
Crazy old Shurf Joe appeared in Joe Miller’s radio show yesterday. When asked about the so-called Service Card application forgery he said “We’re not pushing that”. He also directly contradicted Mike Zullo and said they did not know the identity of the forger. He didn’t say anything about any coming news conferences. Not one peep.
http://thefogbow.com/forum/topic/5594-carl-gallups-big-plan-a-this-is-it-really-for-sure-this-time/page-375#entry623582
“I know you state Doc. C. this blogs closes when President Obama leaves office in 2017. But the professionalism of this blog and I know the hours of personal enjoyment reading and posting I propose a new blog in 2017 simply to debunk all RWNJ conspiracy theories (which of course is part of the Republican platform).”
It would be nice to have a place to discuss other conspiracies. Doc C could become like the Amazing Randi of the conspiracy world.
“That’s not an article, this is a knife!”, Post concussion Crocodile Dundee.
Doc, the problem is that there just isn’t any new material to talk about. Hasn’t been since July, 2012 when A/Z conducted their last press conference found nobody gave a rip about what they had to say. Birthers are stuck with rehashing old news and hyperventilating over every and any nuanced public comment that they can remotely associate with Obama’s birth certificate. They’re quite pathetic really. I almost feel sorry for them.
Once Obama finally turns over the reins to the next President in 2017 I would hope you would keep this website up and running for research and historical purposes.
Re-post the timer for the end of our President’s term…as a reminder…
Wikipedia has a list of persons granted HONORARY French citizenship during the revolution.
Yes, we touched upon this before. The problem is:
(1) the decree did NOT mention that it was an honorary citizenship, just plain citizenship (hence James Monroe’s concern; Thomas Payne’s explanation notwithstanding).
(2) There has never been such a thing as a French Honorary citizenship. the category simply does not exist, any text of law whatsoever. In other words, you or I may feel with some justification that it was Honorary — the grant certainly was meant to honor these folks –, but there is zero evidence that they were ranted anything else but genuine, full-blown citizenship.
Had one of their male descendent gone before a Court in France to claim a privilege connected with citizenship (as one of the descendent of the Marquis de La Fayette did in New York during WWII) there is virtually no doubt that he would have prevailed.
Thanks, I wanted to get your full statement on that.
I disagree in part. There have been events related to birther lore that have nothing to do with the A/Z “investigation”, just think of Loretta Fuddy’s death (which birthed a whole new bunch of related conspiracy theories).
Yeah, there needs to be a History of Birther Civilization. The early city-states of various attorneys, the rise and fall of Taitz Empire, the Zullo-Arpaio Renaissance, the March non-Reveal Catastrophe, the many Birther Civil Wars,,, this is truly a goldmine for a historian.
just want to highlight an exchange at wingnut love-in cpac during the ted cruz segment of sean hannity’s checklist for conservative orthodoxy. (video at the link.)
notice how hannity needed to stick “liberal” in front of “birthers” because without it, he’d be referring to the majority of the wingnut base.
make no mistake, if ted runs, any birthers coming after him won’t be liberal.
Birthers (at least those on Gerbil Report ™ are generally to the right of Genghis Khan.
They all strike me as the servile and mildly incompetent sidekick to the main villain in the classic Disney films.
The inmates at Gerbil Report are throwing a walleyed fit over what Cruz said. Hehehe.
Not exactly, Ted. It’s a little bit more complicated than that. Was your father an alien national? Did your mother live continuously in the U.S. for a period of at least five years if your father was not an alien national? Did your mother live in the U.S. for a year prior to your birth if you father wasn’t an alien national?
I am confident that Ted Cruz IS a natural born citizen, qualifying under one of the two clauses that I describe above (U.S. Code, Title VIII, Section 1401 (d) or (e) but, Ted seems to think all he has to do is have one parent (either mother or father) who is a U.S. citizen whom could have never spent any actual time in the U.S. and he would qualify. That’s not true at all. LOL Hmmm!
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1401
I’ve gotta hand it to the posters at BR for one thing, they are not buying into ObligedRacist’s stupidity either. Good for them on that, anyway.
Oh, I don’t doubt that they’re of a similar mindset as he, they just don’t want to publicize it. I think they fear it would damage their non-existent credibility.
Whoops, I said “(d) or (e)” I meant (d) or (g) as (e) pertains t being born in a U.S. possession, of which Canada surely is not.
My bad and I am correcting my error.
Yeah, I had that thought too. I never said they weren’t racist, but least they aren’t going there.
Well of course not; this is a demonstrative.
They quite often have no compunction towards hiding a long list of stupid views. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think they have had a long history of demonstrating they are crazy.
Uh, that too.
Trying to define an 18th-century term by the use of an etymological dictionary is bizarre, particularly when the relationship between the words “kind” and “natural” was already archaic by then. Not to mention the fact that the relationship between “kind” and “natural” only referred to the adjective “kind.” So he was applying an archaic definition of an adjective to a noun to reach his twisted conclusion. Under his theory Ronald Reagan was not a natural-born citizen because his paternal great-grandfather emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in 1856.
But of course his real argument is that white people are a superior and different kind of people than blacks, Asians, etc.
I got a big kick out of reading Reagans_Ghost’s comments about physicist Bob Lazar, UFO’s, Area 51, and Element 115.
UnUnPentium (115 protons; Uup-289 is the most stable isotope) is real, but the Wikipedia page is BORE-ing! They totally ignore the Reticulan angle and how they use Uup as a fuel for their spaceships. A much more entertaining account can be found here:
http://www.gravitywarpdrive.com/Element_115.htm
So forget that 220 millisecond half-life, suspend your disbelief, and enjoy. Oh man, if I didn’t have so much work to do today, I would totally devour that Web site. It’s science, it’s fiction, it’s got antimatter reactors and star field wallpaper. It’s…. beautiful.
Hey Doc,
I’m wondering if you have seen more of the tweets on BR from Charles C Johnson and more of the info he is “hinting” at? Some of it is just a re-hash, but some of the others I have not heard of; quite possibly you have already covered some or all of it. A few of the items include: Obama Sr. not coming to Hawaii in 1971, Pres. Obama joining a ‘gay club’ while at Occidental, and other claims about the President’s grandfather having an FBI file (which doesn’t prove a damn thing).
Alan Jones was on Peter Boyles’ show this morning; they briefly mentioned Doc Conspiracy.
Congrats!
Speaking of Boyles, Terry Lakin was also on there and 4 years later he still is a birther despite it destroying his life.
http://peterboyles.podbean.com/e/peter-boyles-show-feb-27-2015-hr-2/
Jeez, I’ve only posted three times at BR, and I’m already automatically deleted by the admin. I have to say doc, it is clear who is running the website more open to debate and dialogue. On the other hand, BR is still the best comedy website out there.
Yes, I’ve seen them. He thinks all of the Obama family photos are fake. The fake photo argument did’t hold up with I looked at it. As for Obama Sr. not being in Hawaii in 1971, the only source for that is someone Johnson claims to have talked to, who might not have known. I take trips that my children don’t know about all the time. The published immigration files I have seen don’t cover that time period.
Doc did you know your one step removed from Alvin Onaka according to the Peter Boyles show?
I think he talked to Mark Obama. Barack Sr. married his mother in December, 1964 so he would have been six or seven in 1971.
Another son of Obama Sr. mentioned the 1971 trip in his book about his father.
I was about to place notice of this little ironic item in the open thread when it occured to me that there may be a germ of an article for you.
Richard Mack, Founder of CSPOA Wants You to Pay His Health Care Bills
Haven’t ‘we’ run across Richard Mack before? And wasn’t the CSPOA one of the groups of “VIP”s that the fraud evidence was put in front of?
I’m thinking that there might be an article discussing not just CSPOA, but some of the fringe groups that birthers have been relying on as ‘impartial authority’ in their quest to pretend they have a legitimate grievance.
Anyway, I the article describes a big time irony: Obamacare opponent tells needful to eat poop and die if you can’t afford to pay your medical bills, then has a heart attack and puts his hand out.
Keith,
Mack is mentioned in this thread.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2014/04/banned-birther-breaks-the-br-censorship-barrier-part-2/#more-27663
Just took a look at the gofund for Shurf Mack and there are a lot of $5 and $10 donations coming in now from all those ‘liberal’ haters out there. Good for them, but I think I’ll pass. It will be truly ironic that the people he railed against the most will be the ones who actually get him to the $30K goal.
Sheriff Mack is a hypocrite. Being self employed is a reason for not taking personal responsibility to buy health insurance? I’m sorry about his medical bill payments, but he should have planned ahead for his family and himself.
Reading his bio it looks like he is 62 years old which means he may be eligible for early SS retirement. There is also SS disability.
On top of that he was probably in the peace officer retrement programs in Utah and Arizona and, as I recall, they have provisions for people like him.
It would be interesting to know how much insurance would cost he and his wife under ACA. My guess is it would have been pretty minimal given the subsidies for people like him.
Looks to me like he has options…..other than begging.
i think an interview with lakin would make for a great article. even an article on trying to contact lakin could be interesting ( if lakin was contacted and refused to do an interview i think that would speak volumes about his commitment and character ).
Lakin did an interview on the Peter Boyles radio show yesterday.
http://peterboyles.podbean.com/e/peter-boyles-show-feb-27-2015-hr-1/
i know. it’s one of the reasons i’d find it interesting to get an interview with lakin now from a non birther-friendly source.
Here’s something that may deserve an article, spotted in the comments section on one of GR’s Youtube videos about Cruz:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/401/815/case.html
It’s a Warren Court case which upheld a decision to deny citizenship to a foreign-born son of an American mother and a foreign father because he hadn’t met some of the requirements of the INA. What makes it particularly interesting is that it’s post-Wong Kim Ark, and that one of the dissenters explicitly said that statutory citizenship for the foreign-born is a form of “naturalization”. I didn’t see that mentioned explicitly when I skimmed the majority opinion, but it does appear that that principle was part of their reasoning, since my understanding is that taking away “born” citizenship is absolutely forbidden in the U.S..
The person who posted the comment argues that the circumstances of birth are the same as Ted’s, so he should be considered “naturalized”, rather than “born”. You can read the discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAtV1aVM2Ws&google_comment_id=z12jy5cwqrvpgt5wa04ccvkicyj0y3g4fsg0k
If anyone checks out the thread, I’d appreciate your letting me know whether you see any comment(s) from me on it. Something weird has been happening with GR videos lately: my replies show up in the reply count, and other people have seen and replied to them, but I can’t see them. This doesn’t seem to be happening on videos posted by others. It looks kinda like GR has banned me, but there’s a bug in the ban-checking code.
Has Zullo actually said that? I remember a GR video from last fall with a (typical) false title claiming Gallups said “We know who the forger is”, but he didn’t: he actually said something like “we’re very close”, and “Imagine knowing who did it”. I posted some snarky comments on Youtube about the issue, because Arpaio was simultaneously using “We know the what and the why, but don’t you want to know the who?” as an excuse for not doing The Big Reveal™.
Early SS retirement doesn’t mean early Medicare eligibility. The only way he can become eligible for Medicare before age 65 is if he were to get SS disability, and I doubt that a heart attack would be enough to qualify him.
As I approach my 68th birthday I am intimately familiar with Social Security and Medicare.
My thought regarding the Sheriff is that depending on how much SS credit he has an early retirement could help pay their bills.
I misunderstood you then. I thought that you were suggesting that he would be eligible for Medicare if he took his Social Security early.
Doc, I think you and the readers would be very interested to read what I’ve linked below.
It contains a wonderful letter written by Thomas Jefferson that sets forth in great detail his recommended course of study for the practice of law. You may be especially pleased to see how much emphasis he places on the study of mathematics (among other things) as a prerequisite.
The letter appears–both handwritten and typed–at the end of the linked law review commentary. Wonderful stuff!
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5832&context=penn_law_review
I’m quickly getting the impression that I’m the young whippersnapper in this group. 😉
Were you alive when Truman was President?
I have a part time job at a local supermarket (wife wanted me out of the house!) and I work with mostly 20-somethings.
Last night one of the fellows and I were talking about concerts and I said, “Gee, the last concert I remember attending was Olivia Newton John at the Hollywood Bowl.”
Yep, you guessed it: “Who is she?”, he asked.
He had heard of Elvis.
Here’s some fun: What song was number 1 on your birthday?
The most recent concert I attended was Neil Young at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.
My first ever was The Doors at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson.
Mam’selle by Art Lund.
Yeah I forgot to put mine didn’t I?
Come on-a My House by Rosemary Clooney
Last night in Tucson I went to see Buster Keaton’s “The General” with an original score composed and performed by some friends of mine. That was outa sight.
I just turned 67 on the 1st of Feb.. I was born in 48. “Ballerina by Vaughn Monroe and His Orchestra”
First concert I remember was.. The Osborne Brothers (a blue-grass band) playing at a drive-in theater on top of the concession building sometime in the mid fifties.
Lonely Boy by Paul Anka
Been reading a lot of history about the civil rights era of the 1950s and ‘60s.
One name that is now obscure to the public, but not to historians and legal scholars, is John Minor Wisdom. An unusual name, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Wisdom had a marked effect on U.S. history in at least one way, and possibly another. The possible is his role in swinging the Republican presidential nomination to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. Scholars including Jack Bass of the College of Charleston and Joel William Friedman cite Wisdom’s presenting an airtight case that the Taft delegation from Louisiana was the result of blatant illegality. As a result even some Taft-leaning delegates from other states voted to seat most of the insurgent slate led by Wisdom rather than be caught, with the whole country looking on, sanctioning obvious skullduggery.
So Eisenhower delegates from a handful of Southern states were seated by the convention over rival Taft delegates, tipping the nomination to Taft – who had a lead on the eve of the convention.
This raises a lot of what-ifs: What if Taft had won the nomination and the election? Who would he have picked for vice president? Recall that Taft died in the middle of the first year of the new presidential term.
Who would Taft’s heir have chosen for Chief Justice? Would that person have handled Brown v. Board of Education as deftly and CJ Earl Warren did?
What if Taft had won the nomination but lost the election? He wasn’t as warm a personality as Eisenhower, nor his match as a national hero.
Same what-ifs for a Democratic President Adlai Stevenson.
And how else would the history of the 1950s turned out differently under any different president than Eisenhower?
The way that Wisdom unquestionably helped shape history was in his role as judge of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. His pro-African American rights decisions, usually in concert with Judges Richard Rives, John Brown or Elbert Tuttle on three-judge panels, were crucial to the (albeit tardy) implementation of Brown v. Board of Education. He authored the United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education decision in 1966, which the Supreme Court upheld and used as a benchmark for ruling on school desegregation cases. The result was, according to scholars, the snails-pace desegregation of schools in the South kicked into high gear.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s dictum in the 1955 Brown II decision – that school desegregation must proceed with “all deliberate speed” — Wisdom wrote:
“The clock has ticked its last tick for tokenism and delay in the name of ‘deliberate speed.’ ”
And: “The only school desegregation plan that meets constitutional standards is one that works.”
The Supreme Court, influenced by the Jefferson County opinion written by Wisdom, displayed a renewed aggressiveness in enforcing desegregation in a 1968 case from Virginia, Green v. County School Board of New Kent County.
Wisdom may have paid a huge price for his zeal for equal rights. As a scholar, writer and judge with a reputation for integrity and superior legal workmanship, his stature appeared to fully in keeping with that of the highest court in the land. The 1970s were prime time for any shot Wisdom had for achieving that exalted tribunal. But the man who most influenced then-President Nixon’s Supreme Court nominations, his Attorney General John Mitchell, was quoted regarding Wisdom: “That crazy son-of-a-bitch? He’d be worse than Earl Warren.”
Now, as to what’s in a name. You’d think that a parent might choose to name him John Major Wisdom, rather than Minor. But turns out Minor was an ancestral family name.
He was a collateral – not direct – descendant of Virginia Minor. Yes, the same Virginia Minor whose unrequited quest for female voting rights led to the 1874 case of Minor v. Happersett, now the linchpin of a birther subset’s bogus claim that any natural born citizen comes into the world boasting two citizen parents.
Wonder what Virginia Minor and her great-great grand-nephew – both ardent champions of equal rights – would have to say about the irony of a case brought to further human rights, being twisted in an attempt to deprive someone – an African American, at that – of his political right — to serve in the office to which strong majorities of his fellow Americans twice elected him?
I meant tipping the nomination to One.
The #1 song on my birthday was “Manana (Is Soon Enough for Me)” by Peggy Lee. It was #1 from March 5 until May 9.
Does he and his “Castro is my Maestro” father care enough about America to back off knowing full well he is NOT qualified to be President?
No, of course not.
Reagan In. Castro/Cruz/Escobar (Hispanics) Up. Walsh (English-Speaking Americans) Down.
Sorry Nancy — No court is going to rule Cruz ineligible, though this is irrelevant because (I think anyway) Republicans won’t let Cruz anywhere the nomination. I suppose someone who isn’t really seeking to be elected president could file anyway as a Republican just to force a test case. This would almost certainly fail in its purpose because the test case would die on the vine without making it to a Supreme Court review.
This isn’t surprising that he would make such a mistake despite stories of his massive ego from those in school with him. Cruz waited years to renounce his Canadian citizenship which isn’t surprising considering his father only applied & received his U.S. citizenship within the past 10 years or so. We’ll have to take his word regarding his patriotism while he disgustingly lies about President Obama’s lack of the same for the U.S. Rafael Cruz apparently didn’t find it necessary to become a U.S. citizen until a career in politics appeared imminent for his son. Just imagine the outrage among the RW’ers if Barack Obama, Sr. had been in the same position, waiting until his son decided to run for the Senate before he applied for citizenship.
While birthers have no qualms in their hypocritical stance in finding Ted Cruz eligible, anti-birthers will not suddenly turn birthed. Almost all have agreed since day one that Cruz has always been and will be eligible for the Presidency,
There’s also the problem that Nancy in the other thread claimed Ted Cruz was Adam Walsh whom she previously claimed to kidnap and kill so now Adam was somehow born in Canada? The stupidity from her just keeps growing.
The former is certainly not true: I don’t know what the percentage is, but there’s a substantial segment of birthers who consider Cruz ineligible, and accusations of “treason” for not admitting it are common at Gerbil Report.
The latter may also turn out to not be true: as mentioned earlier in the thread, I’ve recently seen a citation of a SCOTUS case which suggests that statutory citizenship at birth may be considered a form of “naturalization”, rather than “natural born”. There’s already been some doubt expressed about whether he’s included in Wong Kim Ark, and the courts may find that he’s not.
Cruz case is not covered by WKA, nor by the 14th Amendment.
WKA was born in the USA; Cruz was not.
Where did I say ALL birthers believe Cruz eligible? Nowhere, so I still consider them to be hypocrites. You also won’t see them making up stories about his parentage, where he was born, etc. He’ll be treated quite differently whether he is considered to be eligible or not despite his claims that he’s eligible. I’ve yet to hear one birther complain about how his father didn’t obtain his U.S. citizenship until his son became active in politics. From what I read on Freeper and except for a few on BR, they believe Cruz eligible and many will vote for him, whether they believe him to be or not, because of the alleged precedent set by President Obama.
My sister, a U.S. citizen, and brother-in-law live in the U.K. (he’s a citizen of the U.K. only) and both their children were born there, received their U.S. passports from the Embassy and are considered NBC according to those at the Embassy. I’ll take their word for it over all the b.s. that has started since President Obama ran for office. We have two types of citizens, natural born and naturalized but I still don’t believe in this concept of “naturalization” at birth but not natural born. I’ve always been of the opinion that if it were anything other than what has been applied by the courts, our founding fathers would have specified it in their writings at the time the Constitution was written.