Guess Essay by tes, reprinted by permission.
I was playing around on Westlaw last night and found a few more federal and state court cases either noting, or directly addressing, the nature of citizenship of children born to foreign parents and/or citizenship by birth. So, I’m summarizing them here just as FYI. Note that I believe that there are actually dozens (and dozens) of more cases like this – I just didn’t have the time to go through the several hundred cases that were returned by my search. However, this is just a smattering of interesting ones that caught my eye. Links are provided where I could find a publicly accessible version of the case.
Mustata v. US Dept. of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017 (6th Cir. 1999) (children born in US to two Romanian citizens described as “natural born citizens” of the US):
Petitioners Marian and Lenuta Mustata are citizens of Romania. At the time of their petition, they resided in Michigan with their two minor children, who are natural born citizens of the United States.
DeTomaso v. McGinnis, 970 F2d 211 (7th Cir. 1992) (equating “natural born citizen” with “native born citizen” for purposes of presidential eligibility):
DeTomaso is “eligible” to be President of the United States if he is “a natural born Citizen … [who has] attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” Art. II § 1 cl. 5. A 35-year-old native does not have a property interest in the presidency.
Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156 (7th Cir. 1983) (child born in US to Mexican citizen is “natural born citizen” of US):
Petitioner, Sebastian Diaz-Salazar, entered the United States illegally [from Mexico] in 1974 and has been living and working in Chicago since that time. *** The relevant facts which have been placed before the INS, BIA, and this court can be summarized as follows: The petitioner has a wife and two children under the age of three in Chicago; the children are natural-born citizens of the United States.
Nwankpa v. Kissinger, 376 F. Supp. 122 (M.D. Ala. 1974) (child born in US to two Biafra citizens described as “natural born citizens” of the US):
The Plaintiff was a native of Biafra, now a part of the Republic of Nigeria. His wife and two older children are also natives of that country, but his third child, a daughter, is a natural-born citizen of the United States.
Liacakos v. Kennedy, 195 F. Supp. 630 (D.D.C. 1961) (holding that where evidence supported contention that person was born in US (to two citizens of Greece), he was a “natural born citizen of the US):
The plaintiff claims that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States, having been born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on July 14, 1900. He claims that when he was two or three years of age his parents returned to their native Greece… ***
The Court is of the opinion that, weighing the evidence on both sides, the plaintiff has established by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States, and the Court so finds.
Nyman v. Erickson, 170 P. 546 (Wash. 1918) (child born in the US to Russian citizen was “natural born citizen” of US):
Appellant was therefore, as correctly decided by the General Land Office and the Department of the Interior, not an heir of the deceased entryman, while at the time of the final proof at least the grandchild Esther Gustafson undoubtedly was. She was born in a state of the United States, and whether her parents were naturalized or not, under the Constitution she is a natural-born citizen of the United States entitled to the benefits of all the laws of the United States and of the state. U. S. Const. Amend. 14, § 1.
State ex rel. Carroll v. Sup. Ct. of Washington, 193 P. 226 (Wash. 1920) (holding that there are two (and only two) paths to citizenship and that natural born citizenship depends upon location of birth):
According to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States there are two methods by which a person may become a citizen: (a) By birth in the United States; and (b) by naturalization therein . A natural-born citizen’s right to vote depends upon his place of birth, and this is the fact to be established. A naturalized citizen’s right to vote depends, not upon his place of birth, but on a judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, declaring either him or his ancestor a naturalized citizen.
Aw, you’re spoiling all the fun. But wait, were these cases planted by Obama’s confederates?
He IS from Chicago. I say get Orly Taitz on this right away. And I’d like to hear from Mario. I’m sure he can find time away from ERs and the Jersey Pike.
BTW, how much is Obama’s bagman paying you?
Great! now I have more cases to throw to Lucas Smith’s face, he still think Obama is not a natural born citizen!
He said he is waiting for his “Kenyan” bc to be authenticated! lol!
This guy is delusional!
I wonder if the good dentist will claim that the all the judges in these cases were and are involved in a century -long conspiracy to bring about the eventual dictatorship of Barack Obama. She could call on her minions to get involved with investigating them all and then produce dossiers.
I wonder if Mario and Donofrio have seen these cases. Hmmmm…
At least two of them have been sitting on my “Great Mother…” page for almost a year! Mario Apuzzo, at least, probably knows about some of them.
But I am sure he choose to ignore it. I mean Mario still thinks there was a travel ban on Americans to Pakistan in 1981….
Throwing dicta these kinds of cases around is almost as bad as what the birthers do. The fact of the matter is that no court has ever decided the question of presidential eligibility. (In my view, no court ever will, because it is a political question). That doesn’t mean the answer to the question isn’t clear, but this really isn’t helpful, as none of the cases are on point.
*IF* we were presenting dicta as law, that would be *just* as bad (not almost as bad) as what the birthers do. However, the information is clearly identified. I.e., the intro expressly states: ” … few more federal and state court cases either noting, or directly addressing, the nature of citizenship of children born to foreign parents and/or citizenship by birth. …”
Then, each paranthetical expressly identifies the context in which the issue came up — whether as part of a description (which is neither dicta nor holding), or as part of a holding. E.g., “…child born in US to two Biafra citizens *described as*…”; or “*holding* that where … person was born in US (to two citizens of Greece), he was a “natural born citizen of the US.”
That’s the difference – honest descriptions of cases.
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-cats-kenyan-birth-certificate.html
and
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-authentic-kenyan-birth-certificate.html
and
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-kenyan-birth-certificate.html
and
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/another-kenya-birth-certificate-for-my.html
and
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/here-we-go-again-another-kenya-birth.html
Dear Ted,
You wrote: “Throwing dicta these kinds of cases around is almost as bad as what the birthers do.”
No, Ted, it’s nowhere near as bad as what the birthers do. To whatever extent the term of art “Natural Born Citizen” remains ambiguous after over two hundred years, these scattered examples of indirect evidence or hints as to what the term was intended to mean, serve to validate the wisdom of inferring a less restrictive meaning more inclusive of assumed sets of circumstances that provide Article 2 eligibility. The concept of sufficiency being encompassed by birth in the country alone, as at least one of the sets of personal birth circumstances that qualifies for eligibility, is the example for which overwhelming historical evidence has been presented here.
What the birthers do which is so different, is to purpose build formulas for eligibility that Obama is (often just) claimed to have not met. They effectively say that Natural Born Citizen has never been ambiguous, but that to any extent that it remains unclear, that ambiguity must, after being tolerable for over 200 years, now be IMMEDIATELY resolved, but ONLY in a way which will unseat the first elected Black President.
The evil that brought slavery to America was the evil that triggered a civil war, and the EXACT SAME evil carelessly resides in the loathsome hearts of these hateful birthers.
I hope any social embarrassment these cross-generational racists experience in finding themselves eventually wailing shoulder-to-shoulder with their sociopathetic ancestry, will be appropriately mediated by the new commonality which will eternal bond them, Hellfire.
Keep in touch,
Benji Franklin
Mr. Nail, meet Mr. Coffin. 🙂
Ted, I take strong exception to your comment.
Folks like P. A. Madison use citations and misrepresent the context. Others say a comment in Minor v. Happersett “defines” Natural Born Citizen. This is misrepresentation, plain and simple. In this article, the citations are placed in accurate context, and no overblown claims are made about them.
What these citations do show is that there is a consistent opinion among American jurists that those born in the country, even to illegal aliens, are natural born citizens. This is the same opinion that was declared universal by Vice-chancellor Sandford in Lynch v. Clarke way back in 1844.
[The immediate context of the preceding citation is about citizenship, but in the larger context it applies to natural born citizenship.]
The purpose of this web site is to inform. It is a mistake to take everything said here as if it were claim of proof for some implied thesis.
From a black man (some on this forum seem to think issues of Constitutionality are racial…), Alan Keyes:
I and others like me do not take the position that we know that Obama is not eligible for the presidency. We have simply observed that there is a positive constitutional requirement that he be a natural born citizen of the United States, and that the evidence thus far available does not establish that he is. We have asked that the courts or the Congress fulfill their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution, and that they pursue an authoritative investigation of the facts and issues involved in order to reach a substantive decision that addresses the constitutional requirement. Thus far they have refused to do so. Some, including both Democrats and Republicans, have responded to public concern by arguing that the majority will expressed in the 2008 election makes the constitutional issue irrelevant.
But if it’s correct to argue that, when the outcome of an election warrants it, the winners have a mandate simply to ignore questions of constitutionality, then the struggle for political power trumps respect for the provisions of the Constitution.
The result: Once power has been obtained by electoral means, it is no longer subject to constitutional limits.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121267
What evidence established the natural born citizen status of any other President? What investigations were done?
Absolutely not. Any decision Obama makes as President can be challenged as was the case for every other President. His powers are no greater than any other holder of the office. Pretending he is a dictator is simply ridiculous. His eligibility could have been challenged when he put his name on the ballot (the challenges would not have succeded, but they would have been heard). Mr Keyes was asleep and time is of the essence as in all legal issues.
lester, in denial:
this may be news to you, but alan keyes doesn’t have much of a following, much less a black following.
from judge carter’s dismissal, barnett v obama (keyes v obama):
keyes isn’t a spokesman for anyone but himself.
He’s a con-man more than he’s delusional. Convicted forger. But con-men often begin to believe their own BS to some extent.
I like how Lester had to mention the race of Keyes, like that is supposed to mean anything. For the people that are defenders of the law, the race of President Obama is irrelevant. Keyes is entitled to his opinion. However he is wrong and was proven to be wrong in court. Just because he believes that the President has not proven his eligibility does not mean he has not. The electoral voters were satisfied. The 100 senators, 435 Congresspeople, and 9 SCOTUS jurists were satisfied. Even former VP Cheney was satisfied. I think that they are a bit more important than the pompus Alan Keyes…
Isn’t Keyes a BINO, I mean if we are to use Conservative standards?
Anyway, I don’t remember any of y’all asking for such proof from any previous president.
Perhaps you can enlighten us as to what is the appropriate time to ask whether someone qualifies as being a natural born citizen? Because on the surface, it would appear that you only ask that question of Black men after they have successfully been elected President.
black lion roars:
i think it’s fair for lester to mention race if, as i suspect, he’s trying to deny the slimy racist underbelly of birfoonism.
but lester’s just silly if he thinks a lonely crank like keyes helps him refute it.
Keyes is psycho, and he is still licking his wounds from the lopsided senate race.
He lost badly, after carpetbagging from Maryland, and he won’t let go. Did you hear him in their “debate”? You could write a textbook.
One the problems with “Natural Born” citizen is that is just a legal theory at this point. This is not to say it not valid but because it has never been litigated. The term “Natural Born” citizen is used only once in Constitution under Article II Section 1. This section has one purpose and one purpose only, it provides for the strong security against FOREIGN INFLUENCE of our POTUS. When birthers like Mario, Orly and others speak of “Natural Born” citizen they speak in context of Article II Section 1. Birther have it nailed because they interpretating “Natural Born” Citizen in its proper context. Obots and it appears the courts have constitently interpretated “Natural Born” citizen in the wrong context. They attempt to intepretate in way of RIGHTS rather in the context of Presidential Eligibility and in the context of FOREIGN INFLUENCE. Obots can cite all the cases they want but they are unable to cite any case of “Natural Born” citizen in the context of Article II Section 1 (As far as SCOTUS is concerned.) This is a critical distinction because the POTUS although a citizen must be treated differently than that of ordinary citizen because of powers endowed to the POTUS such being Commander In Chief. It critically important that the POTUS be free of foreign influence and “Natural Born” citizen but interpretated in that context.
John, there’s nothing in the Constitution about Article II having “one purpose and one purpose only.” You just made that up. There is a citation from one of the framers of the Constitution, who explained it this way:
Now exactly how you have special knowledge of what the Constitution means better than someone was there at the constitutional convention, and while admitting “courts have constitently [sic] interpretated [sic] ‘Natural Born’ citizen in the wrong context”, is beyond my understanding. Would you explain how it is that you know the Constitution better than the framers and the consistent interpretation of the courts? And while you’re at it, you might explain how it is that you know better than the unanimous vote of the Congress in joint session who certified the election.
“Would you explain how it is that you know the Constitution better than the framers and the consistent interpretation of the courts?…you might explain how it is that you know better than the unanimous vote of the Congress in joint session who certified the election.”
He read the 3 Stooges’ blogs, and lapped up all the swill. Then he regurgitates it on blogs like this, thinking we are sheep like him. Simple really.
Congress is corrupt. Vote them all out in 2010.
john laments:
’tis a shame, really.
to think that the birfers could actually win a case if only it weren’t for the entire body of american caselaw.
This means anyone who disagrees with you. I suggest you contact someone of the stature of Robert Bork. I am assuming you believe your dentist friend has superior experience, education and understanding.Check into Mr. Bork and his credentials. Now check the dentists credentials. Enough said.
He is…Everytime one points out the inherent racism in the birther movement the birthers come back with Keyes or the Reverend Manning like that is supposed to explain away the racism. Aarrgghh is right on point…
I always like how the birthers think that they know more about Constitutional law then actual experts and jurists. Or how they claim that they know what the founding fathers intended. They are delusional. And when you point out that there are no Constitutional experts that agree with them, they say that they are all wrong or everyone is corrupt…It could never be because they are just plain wrong…
You mean the untra conservative Bork? What did he say?
You are a fool, but we will have to suffer you for a while.
Happy New Year.
And yet the Courts have indicated, time after time that natural born means born on US soil regardless of the status of the parents
You fool.
Note the lack in any references to law, facts, history… John is at his wits end, or is it beginning?
It provides for stupid security against babies who are born in foreign countries.
It assumes, stupidly, that a child born in England is going to be more English than one born in Iowa.
Well, Bob Hope was born in England. Benedict Arnold was born in America.
Strong protection, my left foot!
Morons!
Now what we need is the uber-string cite. You know, the 3-page long footnote that shows that every Federal circuit court of appeals, every federal district court and every one of the 50 states that has had occasion to opine on the definition of “natural born citizen,” has said that it means born here, even to aliens. At the end, there will be a cf cite for three cases which provide tangential support for the contrary position and the one scholarly article from 1904.
And, you know, when you birthers complain that no court has interpreted “natural born citizen” in a case that involves the President, you’re missing a step. There’s got to be something somewhere (other than your fevered imagination) that says that “natural born citizen” means something different when used in Article II!
If any of you birthers ever become lawyers, use this as a contract drafting point. Don’t use a word that has a common usage and expect that we’re just going to get that you meant something else! Use a different word! Or put a definition section in there! Or something! Hell, parol evidence gets in often anyway, so, just write it down somewhere!
black lion roars:
… especially when it’s so laughably easy to find damning up-to-the-minute counterexamples of birfer boorishness practically every single passing hour.
from the this morning’s latest birfer thread at top rightwing watering hole free republic, broadcasting top birfer scribe joe farah’s latest editorial screed in his top birfer rag worldnetdaily, “hawaiian? or lyin?”:
#3)
#4)
#8)
the sheer crushing weight of the ongoing evidence for birfer racism is simply beyond refutation. lester’s weak protestations prove only that he’s a blind fool.
Also, I think we’ve been around this bend already.
“FOREIGN INFLUENCE” used in the birthers’ context = excluding Jews, Greeks, Mexicans, etc.
“One the problems with “Natural Born” citizen is that is just a legal theory at this point. This is not to say it not valid but because it has never been litigated.”
Just because there has not been a specific holding by the supreme court does not mean there isn’t law. There are plenty of provisions on the constitution that there has never been a specific holding on. Until there is one, we have dicta from the supreme court and other courts that are substantial authority. Not all dicta is treated equally, the dicta in Wong Kim Ark on the subject was necessary to the court’s holding that the 14th amendment was declaratory of existing law, as it thus became necessary to define existing law which obviously include the definintion of native citizenship in the constitution. Unfortunately for the birthers, the supreme court will not waste their time with an issue in which there has been no dispute in our history amongst courts or scholars.
“When birthers like Mario, Orly and others speak of “Natural Born” citizen they speak in context of Article II Section 1. Birther have it nailed because they interpretating “Natural Born” Citizen in its proper context.”
This is nonsense. Words have meanings and “natural born citizen” was uniformaly defined by the common law in the founding era and early republic. The context it was used does not change its meaning. If they had intended a different meaning, they would have used different words. Unless, birthers can find someone in such period defining the term in their manner, no court will give them the time of day.
Mario and Orly are not interpreting, they are speculating and courts are no interest in speculation. They do not have a shred of evidence to support their two-parent theory. In the convention itself, the framers who feared foreign influence only proposed office holders be born in America, no one raised parentage. If the birthers studied the era, they would know that the native born were not considered foreigners, as allegiance was uniformly defined by place of birth. In the period generally, in congress and the political arena, the nativists of such time only wanted to limit rights of the foreign born, not the native born.
Dr. Conspiracy, Greg, & Company,
The cases cited by tes only mention “natural born citizen” as part of the recital of the facts of the cases. The references to “natural born citizen” are not part of any legal issue in the cases. The courts in these cases were not asked to define what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is. The courts did not analyze the question of what the Framers meant by the term when they included it in Article II. These courts did not engage in any legal analysis concerning the meaning of the clause. Given that these courts simply included the reference to “natural born Citizen” as part of their recital of the facts of the case, what the courts said in reference thereto does not even rise to the level of dicta.
Also, I see that you and your team are still trying to convince everyone that the Framers used English common law to define an Article II “natural born Citizen” and to therefore determine who would be eligible to be President and Commander in Chief. You have no evidence that the Framers used English common law to define nationality in the new nation. Simply presenting how the English common law defined a “natural born subject” in the colonies/states before the Constitution was adopted does not prove what the Framers meant when they wrote the “natural born Citizen” clause in Article II. On the contrary, the legal and historical evidence is that the Framers did not use English common law to define nationality and actually rejected it in that regard. Given the needs of the new Constitutional Republic, including but not limited to sole and absolute loyalty to the new nation, respect among nations, and uniformity of laws, the Framers simply would have had no reason to use the English common law for such a purpose. Nationality and citizenship were not local issues (like contracts, property, inheritance, torts, marriage, criminal procedure, etc.) tied to the individual states. Rather, they were matters that were national and international in scope.
The Framers had the task of constituting a new nation after having just won a Revolution against the English Crown. Having just won that Revolution, the Framers would not have constitutionalized the English common law, especially as a guide on who could be President and Chief of the Military forces. Rather, they had the opportunity to and did write on a tabula rasa. The Framers were well educated in religion, the Greek and Roman classics, world history, natural law, and the law of nations. They knew that natural law and the law of nations defined nationality and citizenship. They accepted those definitions for the exact purposes that they needed. Those purposes were to define who the current members of the new society were and who were going to be the future members and guardians of the Republic and its Constitution. The law of nations served them well in this and many other regards and it became a part of and was incorporated into American common law. The Framers even went further and incorporated the law of nations into the Constitution at Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4. They did not mention the English common law anywhere in the Constitution as a set of laws that would guide the new federal system.
All your case citations, including your favorites of Lynch v. Clarke and United States v. Wong Kim Ark, do not prove anything as to what the Framers thought the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen” was. Providing without more what some authorities many years later believed was the meaning of “citizenship” does not prove what the Framers believed was the meaning of an Article II “natural born Citizen” in the context of Presidential eligibility. You have to consider that the battle for citizenship following the adoption of the Constitution was for recognition of some classes of persons (blacks, Asians, and American Indians) as members of American society and therefore “citizens.” The issue was never whether these persons were Article II “natural born citizens.” You fail to provide any evidence linking this subsequent legal development regarding who was an American “citizen” with what the Framers believed to be an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
Your reliance on the 14th Amendment is also misplaced. That Amendment in no way amended the meaning of a “natural born Citizen” as that term is used in Article II. If the framers of the 14th Amendment meant to amend Article II, they would have told us about it, especially since amending the Constitution is such a serious and solemn undertaking. Additionally, there does not exist one case which holds or even suggests that the 14th Amendment amended the “natural born Citizen” clause of Article II. Hence, treating a 14th Amendment “citizen” as though an Article II “natural born Citizen” does not exist and using those terms interchangeably as you are all so well at doing is nothing but obfuscation.
Your group’s constant injection of race into the question of whether Obama is a “natural born Citizen” is nothing but an attempt at avoiding having to address the issue on an intelligent and legal basis and at winning the issue by appealing to unjustified sympathy and prejudice.
Finally, your attacking the wisdom and continuing relevancy today of the “natural born Citizen” clause is nothing but your feeble attempt at serving your political ends and avoiding having to address the issue of what the Founders meant by the term when they included it in Article II as one of the eligibility requirements that a would-be President and Commander in Chief of the Military such as Obama must satisfy before he may legitimately occupy and be vested with the great powers of those offices.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
mario, beating a dead horse:
as i’ve said before, you don’t have to convince anyone here — you have to convince a court of law.
0-62 says you can’t.
Mr. Apuzzo,
I studied mathematics in college, in a curriculum that encouraged a high degree of rigor in mathematical argument. When someone’s argument was incomplete at a point (and the theorem was not truly proved) we called it “hand waving, ” referring to waving hand gestures made to distract the listener at the point where the argument left out a step.
The comment you posted here is completely devoid of any evidence, and hence nothing but hand waving. It is not a legal argument at all and if it has any appeal it would be to “sympathy and prejudice.”
As far as I recall, no one on this forum has made any novel argument supporting President Obama’s eligibility, but in fact do nothing more than repeat the historical survey and analysis of the courts themselves in cases like Lynch and Wong, or the analysis of US Attorneys General.
While you have not said so in as many words, your thesis is the same as that of the other commenter here, John, who said that the courts throughout our history have consistently misunderstood the context of the presidential eligibility clause. John has the intellectual integrity to admit that the court decisions are against him even though he does not agree with them.
Mario’s argument is convincing. However, it is never been litigated so it remains to be seen on whether the courts will ever make a ruling on “Natural Born” citizen in the context of presidential eligiblity and Article II Section 1 of the US Constitution.
But I think Minor Vs. Happersat says it all in a few short sentences:
“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.”
Mario – there’s been an accident on the Jersey Pike. Stop spending time at your computer. Hurry.
What Mario continues to ignore, is that the term natural born citizen was not defined in the Constitution and thus its meaning has to be found in Common Law. That the Common Law of those days was based on English Common law where the term natural born citizen has a clear meaning of a child born on soil, regardless of the status of the parents, resolves the meaning of the term.
Courts have continued to hold this consistently and Mario has no arguments other than to let his dislikes of Obama guide him to a ‘novel interpretation’ which was explicitly rejected by Wong Kim Ark.
Yes, Minor v Happersett said it correctly but did not address the latter part. In Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court finally settled the matter, destroying Mario’s ‘argument’
Why you continue to rely on Minor which does not support Mario’s position in any manner, is beyond me.
Wong Kim was never dclared a “Natural Born” citizen. Wong Kim was declared as much as a citizen in RIGHTS to that of “Natural Born” citizen.
Also Obama Sr. was not a permanent resident as was Wong Kim’s parents. Obama Sr. while under juristication of US law still had allegience to Kenya and was still under juristication of Kenya. After Obama Sr. recieved his degree at Havard, Obama Sr. was recalled by the Kenyan Government back to Kenya. How could Kenya do that if Obama Sr. was supposely under US juristication?
john, parsing air:
much shorter john:
The Kenyan government offered Obama Sr a position and he chose to take it. He was under US jurisdiction until his airplane left US airspace. Anyway, it’s Obama Jr who is President, not Sr. I don’t know what country you live in John, but in America, people are not judged or denied opportunity based on who their parents were.
By the way, this case doesn’t have to be ligated. It was already decided by a jury of 130 million voters and is over until that jury reconvenes in November 2012.
And here is a press conference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_cdbByTeNE
We don’t live in a mob rule democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. Regarding Obama Sr., I am not sure what would have happend to him if Obama Sr. had committed a crime such as murder or robbery. He wasn’t a US citizen so maybe he would have just been deported back.
What should I do when my cat bites me?
The people choosing their leaders is not mob rule. Who do you think has that right? Leo Donofrio? Some judge? That is a dictatorship-like in Iran where the mullahs selected the President and the people be damned.
The leaders once chosen have their power limited by the Constitution, but if you think the Constitution would stop the American people from installing a dictator if that’s what they wanted, you are living in a fool’s paradise. The Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union both had perfectly good Constitutioons and they were no barrier to totalitarianism. I would much rather trust in the good sense of the American people than in a piece of paper.
As to your question ANYONE in the US who commits a crime is liable for prosecution, whether citizen, permanent resident, student, tourist or illegal alien. The prisons are full of non-citizens. The only exception are diplomats with diplomatic immunity, which Obama Sr was not.
By the way, John, here is some information on the Guardian Council, the 12 mullahs who rule the Islamic Repiblic of Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_Council
They “vet” Presidential Candidates and decide which ones can run (and win) and overturn laws that don’t meet their religious beliefs. Everything I read about the birthers reminds me of them-just substitute Christian Republic of America for Islamic Republic of Iran.
1. No one is arguing they changed the meaning of natural born citizen, we’re arguing that the meaning had always been the same.
2. You are alleging the Framers changed the meaning of “natural born” from what everyone in the nation understood without once telling us about it. Your argument boils down, plainly and simply, to your desire that NBC mean what you want it to mean. Not once did any Framer take a second to hint that they intended to change the meaning. As you say of the 14th Amendment, that’s a big oversight.
3. The words of the Framers of the 14th Amendment support the view that they understood their amendment simply enshrined the meaning of “natural born,” i.e. born here regardless of parentage, into the Constitution and said it couldn’t be abridged by race. See the statements about Gypsies and the Chinese.
Your whining about race is an attempt to avoid addressing the legal and historical facts that have been marshaled against your cause. Look again at this post, Mario. It cites cases. It is a legal argument. In response to it, do you cite a single case? Nope. You’ve become wedded to this issue, Mario, and it has made you intellectually dishonest and cowardly. You cannot address the fact that your arguments are hollow and empty and so you simply repeat your whinging.
Why don’t you read the entire case, as opposed to the part that Donofrio has quoted. The case says, explicitly, that “natural born citizen” has the exact same meaning as “natural born subject.”
Wong would be no citizen if Gray hadn’t found him a “natural born citizen!”
Obama Sr. also wasn’t called Wong, like Wong’s parents!
The facts of the case aren’t what’s important, it’s the law of the case.
I’m tired of explaining how the law works to high school drop-outs!
Why are you speculating about Obama Sr? Yes, we are a Constitutional Republic. We have elections that are certified by Constitutional rules. Those rules also state we have elections, right? Let’s talk about mob rule. People who use spacing techniques to spread themselves around meetings. Their numbers appear larger. Then they shout down speakers and demand only THEIR voices be heard. A little tactic borrowed from the likes of? Look it up John you might learn something. These are the mobs I see, John.
Thank you for commenting with this.
Of course, Cases like Wong Kim Ark are no[t] unimous. Obviously, there is distention in the courts on any implied meaning of “Natural Born” citizen.
Anyway it really doesn’t matter, as Obama was born a British subject and that the BNA of 1948 controlled his citizenship.(As did the US)
Just like a conservative to cede our sovereignty to the British.
We fought a revolution, John, and you want them to be able to decide who can run for President.
Conservative surrender-monkeys!
It was a 6-2 decision. It has been cited more than 250 times since. Its reasoning has not been called into question by any court in the years since.
Interestingly, the dissent in Wong knew that the case made Wong eligible for the Presidency. They clearly read the case more closely than you did.
If you think there has been “distention” (upset tummies?) since, why don’t you find it and cite it.
Dear Mario,
You wrote:
“The cases cited by tes only mention “natural born citizen” as part of the recital of the facts of the cases. The references to “natural born citizen” are not part of any legal issue in the cases. The courts in these cases were not asked to define what an Article II “natural born Citizen” is. The courts did not analyze the question of what the Framers meant by the term when they included it in Article II. These courts did not engage in any legal analysis concerning the meaning of the clause. Given that these courts simply included the reference to “natural born Citizen” as part of their recital of the facts of the case, what the courts said in reference thereto does not even rise to the level of dicta.”
No, it rises far above the level of dicta, because by the frequency and consistency with which these unbidden references to “natural born citizen” accumulate against the interpretation of “Natural Born Citizen” which you tortuously infer by cobbling together the most selectively chosen and parsed cites NEVER assembled for us by the Framers, they pummel your claims to the floor under the weight of what was obviously and continuously over the years, the nearly ubiquitous acceptance of native birth in the legal community as sufficient to create the required Natural Born Citizenship. You are fond of saying that the Framers didn’t need to define the term because “everybody knew what it meant” with the proviso that you get to be the sole mind-defining reader. Well you were half right, smart guy; everybody knew what it meant all right. And every time they spoke of it, you now have to say that they were wrong! Why else would every school child for over two hundred years in this country be taught that being born in the country was enough? Do you really think you’d every bluff your way to the end of a trial without confronting and being buried under a two century inventory of NBC explanations in textbooks at all levels in this country? ANSWER: “No, I just need to get to discovery! ” I’ll bet you were the one who cheated ay checkers, Mario – not your alleged “friend”.
You also wrote:
“You have no evidence that the Framers used English common law to define nationality in the new nation.”
And Mario, you likewise have no evidence the framers didn’t intend for the expression “Natural Born Citizen” to encompass whatever the patriots of each generation thought were predictably the most reliable loyalty-safeguarding characteristics of citizenship. The Constitution’s longevity is wholly the result of the deliberate ambiguity left residing in so many of its provisions. As such, there is generically more evidence that they bestowed in perpetuity its precise definition upon the body politic, most recently expressed in the results of a Presidential election, than that they simply forgot to name you as their post-scriptive prophet.
Your intellectually obnoxious stance on interpreting the Constitution is: Mario’s interpretation of the Constitution is confirmed by the failure of the Framer’s to say that they agreed with Mario in plain English , that failure inexplicably becoming PROOF in Mario’s mind, that they MUST have been relying on a widely held contemporary version of Mario’s own current Natural Born Citizen interpretation. Mario’s interpretation gets all of its evidence from the lack thereof. Competing ideas for Mario’s interpretation? Oh! THOSE NEED written confirmation from the framers! You see, when the framers disagree with Mario, – that’s the only time that they have to say so!”
The sanctity with which you would have us believe that the Framers thought fidelity to your interpretation of Natural Born Citizen would guarantee loyalty in a potential article two eligible candidate, is nowhere denied as exquisitely as in the right you would argue each framer had to wed a Queen of England stepping off the boat in Boston Harbor, impregnate her on the dock, and have her present the country 9 months later with a natural Born citizen son WITH NO DIVIDED ALLEGIANCES!
Your puppet, Master,
Benji Franklin
A fully validated and constitutionally legal election, proven 62 times (and counting), equals ‘mob rule democracy’.
Your lack of respect for our duly elected government and your fellow Americans is most telling.
Greg,
I disagree with you in how you are attempting to gloss over the importance of the facts of the Wong Kim Ark decision when applying that case today. Facts give rise to the applicable law. Once we have identified the applicable law, that law is not applied in a vaccum devoid of the facts. On the contrary, in applying that law, the facts are critical to how we arrive at our decision. Hence, once having properly identified the applicable nationality and citizenship laws, the facts become critical in how we apply those laws, for it is the facts which determine the legal result.
We must make a decision when we are confronted with a case that has different facts from a case that has already been decided. The decision is whether how the two cases differ factually is enough of a difference to compel the conclusion that we now have a different political, social, or economic problem which may require that we not follow the result reached in the first case. Hence, we must analyze each factual element of a case and determine what social consequences flow from them and what policy decisions we want to make concerning those consequences. The policy decisions are what motivate and create the ultimate legal rule. This is the process by which the law is made. We must also remember that the courts are supposed to interpret and apply the applicable law to a given set of sufficiently proven facts and the legislature is supposed to make it. It is in this light that Wong Kim Ark must be analyzed and considered today.
Shorter Mario: “I want the courts to re-define citizenship downward.”
Not really, the US Constitution guides his citizenship and he was born a US citizen. As such he is thus eligible.
What a fool…
Mario, you LOST your case. You went to court and should have given it your best shot, and your case was thrown out BECAUSE the court said it has no merit.
Now you are on appeal. That is your right. But the vast majority of trial level decisions are sustained on appeal, especially if the judgment favors the defendant. More than 80% of the time, the judgment will be sustained. See: http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=234470
So you’ve lost once, you probably wouldn’t place a bet on a horse if the odds of winning were as poor as the odds of prevailing on appeal in a case like yours — and there are at least 61 other cases nationwide where plaintiffs such as yours have been laughed out of court.
You have every right to present your argument. But anyone reading it would have to be a fool to give it much credence. At best you have something that might be interesting footnote material for a historian or someone writing a law review article, only because it is considered good scholarship to dig up materials presenting contrasting points of view.
Scientist,
America is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. In America, the rule of law puts a check on the majority and prevents it from trampling upon the constitutional rights of the minority. This means that in America, in order to avoid disruption of our society, we are supposed to resolve our constitutional problems in a court room wherein the predetermined process of the rule of law is applied to fairly arrive at a legal decision. We do not immediately resolve such problems in a voting booth wherein the rule of the majority however created is determined. I qualified my statement by saying “supposed to resolve” because resolving such a constitutional problem in a court room assumes that the court will accept the job of deciding the case. I also qualified my other statement by saying “immediately resolve” because if the majority is not happy with the results of how the court applied the rule of law, they can change the constitutional rule thereby created by way of a constitutional amendment or replace their political leaders and eventually their judges but only at great social, political, and economic expense.
Scientist,
You said: “The Weimar Republic and the Soviet Union both had perfectly good Constitutioons [sic] and they were no barrier to totalitarianism.”
The question is what happened in those constitutional societies to allow totalitarianism to take control? What institutions in those societies did not do their job to allow that to happen? How did you determine that the “American people” have “good sense” that the people of Germany and the Soviet Union did not have?
By the way, our Constitution that you call “a piece of paper” is the social compact by which the free People gave limited powers to the federal government in return for its protection of the free People.
Expelliarmus,
Where you a marble counter when you were a child?
Why — do you need help counting all the ones you lost?
P.S. You mean “were”, not “where”.
I disagree with how you are trying to ignore the law of Wong. I especially disagree with these high-school drop-outs parroting you and Donofrio’s simple recitation of a single factual distinction between Wong and Obama as if that one factual distinction, in a vacuum, is worth a hill of beans.
John cannot explain why the factual distinction should result in a different outcome.
And, Mario, since you continue to think that Wong was made a citizen because of the meaning of citizen in the 14th Amendment, I’m convinced that you do not understand the case.
Not all Constitutional disagreements are for the court to decide, Mario. It’s not about “accepting” their role, it’s about some things simply not being justiciable.
That’s why you are appealing your case and not trying it.
That’s also why your appeal is futile.
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations
Book 4, Chapter 5 of Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England” is called Of Offenses Against the Law of Nations.
Vattel’s book never once mentions the word “offenses,” much less “offenses against.”
The word “Offenses” is capitalized in the Constitution.
Seems more likely that the Framers incorporated Blackstone’s view of the Law of Nations into the Constitution!
Ayatollah Mario: No one is disputing a central role for the courts in protecting the rights of minorities-free speech, free religion, impartial justice, freedom from unwarranted invasions of privacy. Even the staunchest Obama supporter would support the courts slapping him down, as they would any President, if he violates those rights.
But elections (outside places like your beloved Iran) are about determining the majority will. No one has a Constitutional right to see their candidate win and no one’s rights are violated when their choice loses. The US spent well over a $ 1 billion on the 2008 presidential election. It dragged on for well over a year. There were countless opportunities for any of Barack Obama’s opponents in the primaries or the general election to challenge his eligibility in debates, speeches or in court. Yet none did. Why? I suggest to you that the experienced legal professionals on their staffs looked at the evidence and arguments and saw no merit.
And where was Mario? Ballot access is controlled by states. Where during all that time was Apuzzo vs. Sec State of New Jersey? We have seen from the Indiana case that state courts can and will hear such challenges. Of course they will rule against you, but that’s life. So you could have had your case heard on the “merits” had you filed in the proper venue at the proper time. And as a legal professional you are supposed to know that time and venue are of the essence of the law. I doubt in one of your DWI cases you would allow the DA to miss filing deadlines and file in the wrong court. So why should the defendants in your birther “case” accept that?
I am coming to believe that you are pursuing a deliberate strategy here. Had you filed in the proper court at the proper time, you would have had a hearing, lost and that would have been it. I think you deliberately filed too late and in the wrong courts so that you would be denied a hearing (correctly) and then could go on the internets and complain for the next 4 years.
Mario Apuzzo: We must make a decision when we are confronted with a case that has different facts from a case that has already been decided
You are welcome to present the argument showing at what point the decision in Wong rested on the parent’s domicile.
Mario, would you concede that any person born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother and a British student, could take a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth and a Driver’s License and get a US Passport that says they are a United States citizen?
George Washington was born a British subject too. It turned out all right.
Some of the birthers seem to think they have mob rule, with their fake grand juries and visions of storming the White House and dragging Obama out.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/the-angry-mob/
John: After Obama Sr. recieved [sic] his degree at Havard [sic] , Obama Sr. was recalled by the Kenyan Government back to Kenya. How could Kenya do that if Obama Sr. was supposely [sic] under US juristication [sic]?
Good question. The distinction is that Kenya (which wasn’t even a sovereign country at the time) could not enforce such a recall without the permission of the United States. The jurisdiction of the United States is absolute within its borders.
Obama is a citizen of the Galactic Federation. When do we invade Mars?
A would you consider running for office a right?
“Where you a marble counter when you were a child?”
You chased bicycles as a child.
Greg,
The point is the Law of Nations, not the offenses or Blackstone. How we miss the little things in life.
Justice Gray explained in Wong that the Law of Nations had not settled on the definition of “natural born” as anything other than jus soli at the time of the Founding.
What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deliberately misrepresent the findings of Wong Kim Ark!
Dr. Conspiracy,
You said: “Mario, would you concede that any person born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother and a British student, could take a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth and a Driver’s License and get a US Passport that says they are a United States citizen?”
Under usual and normal circumstances, I would concede the point and add that there probably would not be a need to inquire further into that person’s identity. But with Obama, we do not have a usual and normal situation.
First, we have a legal question. Obama is supposed to be a legitimate President. As such, he has to have had satisfied, among other things, Article II’s “natural born Citizen” clause. Satisfying the 14th Amendment’s born “citizen of the United States” clause is not sufficient for Presidential eligibility. I maintain that because he was not born to a mother and father who were both citizens at the time of his birth, regardless of the place of his birth, he cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen.” I have provided my supporting legal arguments on this topic and will not repeat them here. Rather, at best and only if he was born in the United States, he can be a 14th Amendment born “citizen of the United States.” If he was not born in the United States, then he has no legal status at all in the United States, for neither the 14th Amendment nor any Congressional Act applies to give him any citizenship status in the United States.
Second, we have factual questions. Obama has yet to release to the public any “Certificate of Live Birth” (BC), for he only released a computer-imaged scan of a Certification of Live Birth (COLB).
Obama has also not released any information as to what passports he has held and used in the past.
Additionally, there are too many unanswered questions and conflicting stories regarding Obama’s background on which I have already written and which I will not repeat here. Just to mention a few, Obama has refused to release his records regarding his birth, education, work, and travel. Regarding his birth certificate, he has allowed his right to privacy to prevent the hospitals in Hawaii from releasing pertinent information to the public and thereby has effectively thwarted the public from learning information which would shed a great beam of light on the issue of his place of birth.
Moreover, Obama has run for and is presently sitting in the Office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.
Hence, with Obama, as Senator Schumer so aptly stated, we are talking about “running for the Office of President which is such an important job.” As Senator Schumer again so correctly stated without qualification, “the need of the public to know supersedes” a Presidential candidate’s “right to privacy.” What I do not understand is why Senator Schumer sought to apply that standard to McCain but not to Obama? The double standard is also so much more blatant and shocking when we think that there was only a question of whether McCain should publicly release his medical records documenting his cancer where Obama has refused to release his records regarding his birth, education, work, and travel. Our political, media, and legal institutions’ handling of the Obama election has got to be the greatest violation of the American People’s Right to Know ever perpetrated upon them.
Here is the YouTube link which you can use to listen to Senator Schumer’s statement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ6iLuyCAx0
Obama released his COLB which shows him born on US soil. The DOH of Hawaii confirmed his location of birth, making him a natural born citizen.
The End.
It seems clear now that Mario’s ‘arguments’ are at best political as they have no foundation in law or our Constitution.
Senator Harry Reid was also asked the question as was Senator Schumer: “What is the relevance of John McCain’s cancer to this election?” Echoing what Senator Schumer said, he responded:
“When we are talking about the President of the United States . . . I think there should be total transparency when a person is running for President of the United States…”
You can hear Senator Reid at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU2U-R_C6M4&NR=1.
The question is why did both Senator Schumer and Reid not apply the same standard to Obama? When they were referring to the Office of President as applying to McCain, they emphasized the critical importance of that office. While they did not articulate it, their statement includes their unspoken belief that for the sake of national security all pertinent information about the person who is running for the Office of President must be made known to the public. They were concerned about national security when it came to McCain but they were not also so concerned when it came to Obama. Why did they not also press Obama for his pertinent information? Why did they not have the same national security concern for Obama as they did for McCain? Are we to conclude that when it came to their own Obama, the two Senators were ready, willing, and able to risk the safety of the American people and the future of the nation for the sake of party politics and winning an election?
I agree with Mario. Under ordinary circumstances someone presenting a Hawaii COLB as proof of a Hawaiian birth would be fine and it would end there. However, these are hardly ordinary circumstances. There are just too many questions, loose ends and circumstancial evidence to simply take Obama’s COLB as proof of his Hawaiin proof. Obama should be compelled to present 100% unquivocal proof that he was born in Hawaii. A document submitted by the State of Hawaii having a doctor’s signature and estalishing Obama’s birth in a hospital would certainly satisfy any such questions about Obama’s questional Hawaiin birth. To date we have not received this and we do not know the derivative of Obama’s COLB which can tell us with 100% certainty that he was born in Hawaii.
Ayatollah Mario: Since all this “information” and “arguments” were available to you in January 2007 when Obama declared his candidacy and were still available in January 2008 when he showed himself a serious contender by winning the Iowa caucuses and in May 2008 when he clinched the nomination and in September 2008 when he accepted the nomination, what exactly were you doing? You were sleeping and allowed this dangerous agent of Kenyan power to take office, rather than acting in a timely manner to protect your country. Now the arsenal of the United States is under full control of the Nairobi cartel and the missiles have rained down on the Tanzanian enemy.
What’s that you say? Obama hasn’t nuked Dar Es Salaam? Oh, well, never mind…
John – good catch. I found another Kenyan (Obama’s?) birth certificate that’s right here!
When did Kerchner hire Mario to represent him in his case? And although a lawyer has a duty to provide the best services to his client, he also has a duty to the law of this country. Especially when filing a certified complaint.
misha,
When are you going to say anything that has any value to the real issues regarding Obama’s eligibility question? You have a way of always getting in the way of those who want to conduct an intelligent discussion of the subject.
Scientist,
There are two ways to deal with problems, right and might. Which one do you use?
“When are you going to say anything that has any value to the real issues regarding Obama’s eligibility question?”
After you.
“You have a way of always getting in the way”
Just think – my wife emigrated from China, and has to live with me 24/7. Of course, our neices on her side think I’m a riot.
Fool: “a professional jester.”
And thank you for letting me get your goat – metaphorically speaking, of course.
Interesting anecdote: Walter Taylor, of Bully Hill fame, once printed bottle labels with a line drawing of a goat, named Agnes. Below the picture it said “They got my name, but they didn’t get my goat.” The Taylor Wine Company, and its parent Coca Cola, went ballistic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/02/dining/wine-talk-a-farewell-to-the-baron-of-bully-hill.html
John: There are just too many questions, loose ends and circumstancial [sic] evidence to simply take Obama’s COLB as proof…
I discount questions because a question need have no basis in fact. A question may be nonsense, and a thousand questions may be a huge pile of nonsense. I think one of the essential errors in thinking infecting the denialists is the idea that if there are lots of questions, or if there are lots of people asking questions, there must be something to it (beyond a smear campaign). But I don’t know what circumstantial evidence there is that leads one to suspect the COLB.
At one time the argument was made that the address on the birth announcement was wrong, but then an entry in the city directory from 1961 proved it correct. Then “Polarik” argued that the certificate number was wrong, but he retracted that claim. There was the grandmother tape, but listening to the whole thing (not the edited version) proved that Obama’s step grandmother actually said that she was present in Kenya when Obama was born in Hawaii. All the fake Kenyan birth certificates have been proven forgeries. Every bit of circumstantial evidence has turned out to be fake or misrepresented.
In fact, there is a total of one bit of evidence that is real in the whole issue, and that is the Indonesian school record. However, one of the writers here called the Indonesian Embassy early on and was told that President Obama was never a citizen of Indonesia. That is consistent with Indonesian law.
What is left is rumor, persistent rumor, and not a grain of anything else.
By publishing on his campaign web site both his birth certificate, and the text of the FactCheck.org statement about his dual citizenship at birth, I fail to see any lack of transparency on the part of candidate Obama.
While it might suit your cause to try to create the illusion of a lack of transparency, there is not one in fact.
Interesting, but Obama Crimes has elaborated on the Grandmother Tape and the Lucas Smith Obama BC has not yet been deemed a forgery. Many have tried, but that certificate seems to withstand scrunity. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing if is in fact genuiene or not because the Kenyan Government has refused to coorporate and no court will allow any such cooporation to take place.
From Obama Crimes ——
Now, badfiction raises the issue of the interview with Sarah Obama, Soetoro/Obama’s grandmother. We received the tape of the conversation and the translation of the Interview with the phone records from Bishop Ron McRae, as well as Affidavits from Bishop Ron McRae and as noted in the affidavits Brother Kweli Shuhudia, who conducted the actual interview. There is no reason Bishop Ron McRae would not tell the truth and we have not been given any reason to doubt him I undesrstand badfiction obtained the audio and transcript from other locations, however, I am disturbed at the fact that the link is NOT of the transcript provided to us and we have NO idea who the person is that transcribed the one on the scribd link nor what audio was used for the transcription. This is concerning because it is not honest for anyone to state that this “supposed” translation on scribd is of the actual audio of the telephone interview. The scribd link referred to by badfiction is based on speculative statements of the supposed “translator” used in the document and again we do not know what audio was used. The audio says otherwise. The person this scribd linked document has as “Ogombe” is actually another grandson of Sarah Obama, of course this was left out. In the audio after Sarah Obama said yes that Soetoro/Obama was born in Kenya and she was present for the birth, there is scuffling in the tape and you can NOT hear what is being said, nor can you understand it. Next, Sarah Obama’s grandson who is helping with the interview translation states “no no no Obama born in America” there is other statements made by this grandson that are very difficult to hear. It was NOT Sarah Obama making those statements and the “shock” was due to the fact that Sarah Obama told Bishop Ron McRae of Soetoro/Obama’s real birth place in Kenya. That is why Bishop Ron McRae stated when he went out to Kenya in December he wanted to meet with Sarah Obama and see the birth place of Soetoro/Obama. You may also recall, after this interview, police were stationed at Sarah Obama’s house and no one was allowed to interview her.
I always prefer to have both on my side. Since have neither, you should look for another battle.
Yes, Mario, reality does manage to always get in the way of birther arguments. I can see how disheartening that can be.
Obama Crimes has sucessfully proven their case that Obama was an Indonesian Citizen:
http://obamacrimes.com/?p=423
While there is a lot of irrelevant material in response, I presume what you say concedes that US v Wong would have declared Wong a citizen even if one of his parents were not domiciled in the US, or put another way, Obama is a US Citizen if he was born in Hawaii under the generally accepted scenario of his birth.
Your reservations seem to be limited to verifying the “facts” of the scenario. Good luck trying to impeach the COLB in court (that was intended to be sarcastic).
Well, If Obama wasn’t an Indonesia citizen they I guess he won’t mind us looking at his school records from Occidential College.
His school records are none of your business. I would be disappointed if the President set a standard that allowed fishing expeditions into the private lives of individuals. And, yes, that includes the complete military records and the business records of President Bush.
Sure, why doubt hearsay? Why doubt hearsay that has been contradicted by the grandmother in question? Why doubt hearsay that falls within none of the exceptions to the hearsay rule?
Here’s a quote from an article in today’s Washington Post reiterating a few basic principals about financial aid and international students:
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/08/AR2010010803584.html
Mary Brown,
What do you think about Senators Schumer and Reid saying that candidates running for the critical office of President do not having any privacy rights?
You lost all credibility when you mentioned “Obama Crimes” as your site for your information. First of all the woman on the tape is not Obama’s grandmother. It is his step-grandmother. And if they can’t get that simple issue right, what else have they not be able to get right…
Not even close….They are entirely wrong…
Why? What does his college records have to do with Obama being eligible to be President? Can you tell us that? And since we have already shown you that a minor cannot lose his US citizenship, how could the possibility that Obama may have received some scholarship funds as a so called Indonesian student take away from the fact that Obama is a US citizen no matter what kind of registration he had as a student in college? Plus the Indonesian record you like to reference states that he was born in Honolulu? How do you explain that?
Most Americans would disagree Mario? Just like we did not care about President Bush’s college records why should we care about President Obama’s. Would that make a difference regarding eligibility? And if so how? I don’t recall seeing anything about college in regards to Presidential eligibility.
And John, what would that prove? How would that affect Presidential eligibility?
Meaning can you explain how that theory works with the fact that a minor renouncing his US citizenship is next to impossible? I know Sven likes to post that it is possible but he neglects to mention that any consular official taking a renunciation from a minor would have to do more than just take the minor’s word for it. And can you explain how that works with the ruling in Perkins v Elg?
Mario,
Back in 2008, were you calling for the release of John McCain’s records from Annapolis? Public release of his entire medical records? Release of his entire Navy service record, including his fitness reports?
The latter two would have had at least some relationship to McCain’s fitness to be president, but they were protected by the same privacy laws which keep your nose out of Obama’s college records.
Mario Apuzzo: What do you think about Senators Schumer and Reid saying that candidates running for the critical office of President do not having any privacy rights?
Barack Obama is not a candidate for President. When my Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s I got him one of these big radio-controlled clocks that shows the time and the date and the month and the year. If you got one of those and put a sticky note on it with the date Obama was elected, you might be able to keep these things straight.
Occidental College is not in Indonesia.
I absolutely disagree with the Senators. The current celebrity culture, of which birtherism is a particularly sick manifestation, is not one I subscribe to.
I’m just curious though. I issued a challenge a few days ago whether any of the birthers could tell me with a straight face that if there were irrefutable proof that Obama were born in Hawaii to 2 citizens you would then support him. The answer of course is that you would all still hate him.
So who cares what you think?
Just wait until the really BIG California earthquake.
I only know of two audio transcripts, the short form and the long form. Links to the full audio tape, and transcripts filed in Berg v. Obama, and the independent transcript of Greg Doudna are all here. An Obama family friend and native Luo/Swahili speaker said in an interview on the Post and Email, that the step grandmother said that she was present in Mombasa when Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.
McRae heard nothing more than we hear in the recording. Shuhubia is a fake name.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/03/sarah-obama-speaks/
Nothing Obama could share with us could affect his eligibility. So, you just want to fish around in the paperwork so you can smear him.
If you think he’s a hypocrite, why don’t you get other voters to agree with you in 2012?
Dear Mario,
I don’t think the good senators have any authority to take away any peacefully abiding U.S. citizen’s rights to privacy. Do you pick and choose which of their pronouncements you feel should be implemented or do you just always servilely bask in the security of their omnipotence?
Benji Franklin
Lol. What Obama Crimes has proven is that Paralegal cannot read and cannot do legal reasoning!
A male cannot acknowledge a child that is not his son, and cannot acknowledge a child that has not been born out of wedlock. Paralegal gets around this by claiming that Lolo must have lied. The question then becomes what effect does a fraudulent acknowledgement have on citizenship? Is it a void or voidable grant of citizenship? Is citizenship a rebutable presumption or irrebutable?
School records are not acceptable papers to prove citizenship in Indonesia. Obama could not use them to get an Indonesian passport. Or join an Indonesian little league.
Why should we accept them as citizenship proof if Indonesia won’t?
Why won’t Indonesia accept the documents if we’re supposed to?
Citation?
C’mon, this is child’s play. Here’s the rule. In the law, if there’s no cite, it’s a lie!
Sorry. The Hague Convention does not trump the Constitution. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says that the Constitution is Supreme. It trumps even treaties.
And WND found that the parents of Ann lived there, and that the Obamas probably rented the place out back.
Keep up, paralegal!
Of course, there’s no evidence the government checked any of that!
No, that’s not what I said. I was addressing the claim by them that there is no paperwork exhibiting a name change from Soetoro back to Obama. There doesn’t have to be, because the majority opinion in the United States is that names can be changed simply by usage. It’s called a common law name change.
Paralegal asked if I’d confirmed that Indonesia recognized it. A non-sequitur.
I wondered what the legal effect of a name change in Indonesia would be on common law name changes in the United States if Hawaii never knew of the name change. If Hawaii did not know of the name change, how could it have any effect? Regardless, there still doesn’t need to be any paperwork to change back from Soetoro, since it could simply be a common law name change.
Paralegal amazingly, refuses to see the problem with her citations. The Constitution and the Chapter 13 law give a right to education it does not forbid foreigners from attending school.
Here’s how it would be worded if foreigners could not attend school:
“Foreigners cannot attend public schools.”
When she finds that we can talk about how she’s proved anything. Until then, she’s just repeating her nonsense syllables.
Because the DHHL is attempting to prove heritage and for the Presidency we’re only concerned about citizenship!
How is this a hard question?
If you want to become a Daughter of the American Revolution, you need to give them an entire family tree going back to the Revolution. A birth certificate isn’t sufficient.
That a birth certificate isn’t sufficient to prove that you’re Hawaiian enough or eligible for the DAR isn’t going to tell us whether you are a natural born citizen!
Nothing in the booklet she quotes suggests that the reason the DHHL ever thought there was something wrong with the COLB or that it was inaccurate, it just wasn’t helpful to prove heritage.
That’s just a smattering of the problems in this latest nonsense from Paralegal
When you are running for office or have been elected to PUBLIC office, privacy rights go right out the door. Your whole life is an open book. The people have the right to EVERYTHING. This especially important for the POTUS since the POTUS has special powers that affect the very country. The POTUS can’t even go to bathroom without having someone very close by. The whole notion that the POTUS has right to privacy is shaky at best. If the people want to see the POTUS’s school records, then he coughs them up. It is critcal for people to know who is that their putting in office. Addition, any records attached to POTUS basically be a matter of historic record. The only records that should be concealed are records that of a security matter. The POTUS’s school records and birth certificate don’t fall into this category.
That’s quite a silly notion. Certainly not a legal one.
As a self described lawyer, I am sure that Mario realizes that statements by Congressmen are hardly equivalent to legal arguments. In fact, these statements are in no way binding on the Courts.
Geez…
Now that’s ironic Mario
You mean the one when California breaks off? It will just bump against Hawaii, and miss Indonesia.
So next time he and Michelle do the nasty it should be live on YouTube?
John says:
When you are running for office or have been elected to PUBLIC office, privacy rights go right out the door. Your whole life is an open book.
If that were true, John McCain should have released his entire medical records, his entire Navy service record, his Annapolis records, etc. Sarah Palin should have released her childbirth records and she should have allowed me to go through her lingerie drawer.
When the 2012 presidential campaign comes around, I want to see the Republican candidate’s birth certificate, the hospital records of his or her birth, sworn statements from the physician and nurses who were present, and an affidavit from the hospital orderly. I also want a DNA test to prove that the candidate’s parents really are his or her parents, and I want proof that the parents were U.S. citizens. Then I want school records from kindergarten to college, summer camp records, bank accounts, records of inoculations, driving records, vehicle registration records, credit reports, credit card statements, records of mortgages and liens, business records, bank accounts, loan applications, and a copy of every photograph ever taken of the candidate. I’d also like to know the name of last known address of every boyfriend or girlfriend the candidate ever dated.
Does that sound reasonable to you? We the people demand it!
Who wants to bet that John here didn’t say word one about George W. Bush’s military records or Trig Palin’s birth records?
I think I might have found the source of the “foreigners cannot go to public school” meme.
From the State Department website:
This is from 2002. I have sources from the 1970s, however, saying only that priority was given to citizens in public schools.
Also, a wayback look at the expat website from 2001 contradicts the state department:
The birthers also conveniently forget that Obama attended a private Catholic school the first couple of years he was in Indonesia.
This simply provides the motive as to why Lolo, and Indonesian, would have filled out a school form stating that his step-son, Barry, was Indonesian and using the last name Soetero. Since he had the legal right to enroll his OWN children in schools, it probably was simply a matter of filling out a school form in the way required, and no questions would be asked.
I really think that this is no different than the very common practice in the US of putting false information on school forms in order to allow students to enroll in preferred districts. That is, the parents don’t want the kid to attend the neighborhood school but prefer that the kid attend school where a grandparent or other relative lives, so they fill out the forms using the grandparent’s address.
Mario wrote:
Satisfying the 14th Amendment’s born “citizen of the United States” clause is not sufficient for Presidential eligibility. I maintain that because he was not born to a mother and father who were both citizens at the time of his birth, regardless of the place of his birth, he cannot be an Article II “natural born Citizen.”
If this interpretation was true, or was to become accepted, this would of course prevent a whole slew of citizens (primarily first generation Latinos) from being eligible to become President in the future.
It would then be a relatively easy, uberpatriotric and xenophobic step to extend that same eligibility concept to other key positions: VP of course, Secretary of State, Supreme Court Justice.
What you see here is the thin end of the wedge of a white supremacist agenda.
Everything else is mostly smoke and mirrors.
That is exactly their agenda. See my article:
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2009/10/likely-scenario.html
and
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/
Which happened to a classmate of mine. She lived in one city, but attended school in my town. Her father listed her grandparents’ address as her’s. They felt the schools were superior.
It happens all the time. If no one figured that out here in the States, it would be far easier in Indonesia.
“I think there should be total transparency when a person is running for President of the United States”
Note he said “running” for President. As in so voters can have the information that they want in order to vote. The President has run, the voters have spoken.
a photocopy as you know is not a legal document in this case
DR. respectfully many questions remain and should be made avaliable to the public view you know the list of questions and the more I read on your blog further strengthens the need for disclosure and if takes a court action to be able to see the unavailiable documents then it does, when both sides seem to be so sure of thier opinions then like civilized people we should sit down and figure away to get what is sought.
I am not afraid of being wrong !
It was not a photocopy but rather the original document, with raised seal and signature which was both scanned and photographed
Lupin and Misha,
Do you believe that a naturalized United States citizen should be eligible to be President? Please explain your answer and do not avoid answering it by going off on some racist argument.
It is good that you are not afraid of being wrong. But you are. If you look at things there are not 2 sides to this argument. There is really one side, the side of the President, and the birther side that doesn’t agree with over 100 years of jurisprudence, a certified COLB from the state of HI, and a statement from the HI Director stating that Barack Obama was born in HI. In the past year not one piece of admissibe evidence has ever been submitted. You parse a statement from Dr. Fukino to try and make it mean something else. Before the birthers, when someone official stated that someone was born in HI, that was it. But not for the birthers. You imply that she was influenced/threatened and had no right to make the statement. Yet you believe in convicted felons like Lucas Smith and his obvious forgery. You can seek all you want, but the courts have decided and will continue to decide otherwise. The only people with questions are the people like you that refuse to believe facts. And you can agree with Mario all you want. Once he refused to admit that he was wrong in regards to his so called ban on Americans traveling to Pakistan, he lost whatever credibility he may have had.
Seems you are confusing proof with speculation again.
What a fool.
It doesn’t matter what we believe because only individuals born in the US or born to citizens abroad are eligible to be President as per the US Constutution. It would take an amendment to the Constitution for naturalized citizens like Arnold to be eligible to be President. I can’t see that happening.
Mario: thank you for being rational. Yes, I believe that a naturalized citizen should be able to ascend to the presidency.
Kissinger, Albright and Arnold all have the highest level SC, and function as shadow presidents. John Walker Lindh is NBC. Anwar al-Awlaki is NBC. Jonathan Pollard is NBC. The Rosenbergs were NBC. See, I’m bashing Jews too.
I believe, after 20 years, a naturalized citizen is eminently suitable. Our Constitution also calls for 14 years residency, but it does not specify consecutive or cumulative.
Hoover’s and Eisenhower’s years were cumulative, and it has not been addressed by the courts.
So yes, I believe there should be an amendment. Just look at Israel. Few PMs were born there.
Ben Gurion – Poland
Golda Meir – Ukraine
Begin – Russia
You know, maybe we should have a requirement that our president should be born in Eastern Europe. Those three are far better than GW Bush, or Reagan.
Who would you rather have: Vaclav Havel, a playwright, or GW Bush, an alcoholic affirmative action war monger? Spiro Agnew was NBC, and he merely shook down everyone in Maryland for bribes. He took $5K cash, in the Executive Office Building. Very patriotic.
Can I answer as well? I think naturalized citizens should be eligible for the President.
If the natural born citizen clause were proposed today, it would not pass Constitutional muster. Its alleged purpose is to provide a check against foreign influence. However, it is a poorly crafted tool to ferret out and eliminate foreign influence.
Using citizenship at birth as a proxy for foreign influence tends to exclude entirely loyal Americans who would make great Presidents while doing nothing to exclude disloyal Americans who were born here.
A system that makes Bob Hope ineligible, but Benedict Arnold (born in Norwich, CT) eligible cannot be said to be a good, or strong check on foreign influence.
See also the allegations of Chinese influence on Clinton’s administration or Bush’s cozy relationship with the Saudis. Too often, these days, loyalty is measured in dollars and cents, rather than national ties, something not addressed by the natural born citizenship clause.
The American people are smart, and it is insulting to our nation to think that they cannot judge for themselves whether a naturalized citizen is sufficiently loyal to the country.
Greg: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/111/293457625_10b568f7c7.jpg
Technically, there is no “case.” Nothing is before the court.
So, what is a “legal document” in the court of public opinion?
Do you want Obama to provide you, personally, a copy of the document?
And, let’s consider the likelihood of forgery:
1. It was a campaign in which more than a billion dollars were spent, millions of which were spent on opposition research. If caught forging a document like this, Obama would lose utterly.
2. The press spent millions covering the election.
3. Alvin Onaka is a real person, he’s the name on the back of the certification, who attests, by his signature, that the document is a true copy or abstract of the records maintained by the DOH of Hawaii. If someone posts a copy of my signature in the most expensive Presidential campaign in history, I might check my records to see if I had actually signed the document in question.
4. The Governor of Hawaii is a Republican. The Director of the Department of Health is a Republican-appointee. That means that dozens of people on the staffs of both individuals are also Republicans. None of them came forward to say, “This is a forgery.” Not all of them could have been bought off by McCain. Indeed, the idea that McCain would have bought them off discounts the fact that a forgery of a state document is much more serious than the purely legal arguments against McCain’s eligibility.
5. The Director of the Department of Health has confirmed, again, that the information in the COLB is correct. Obama was born in Hawaii, she says.
If the COLB is a forgery that the long form would contradict, we’d know about it by now. If both the COLB and the long form are forgeries, then why wouldn’t the Obama campaign simply release the long form?
Question for Dr. Conspiracy as well as those seeking the “long form” – If a state has totally retooled all of its computers and systems to print the COLBs only, and has destroyed all blank copies of the “long form,” how difficult would it be to print a one-off long form just for the President?
I believe that the natural born clause is well overdue for a revision to allow any US citizen with proper qualifications (age and residency) to run for the Presidency.
The suggestion that somehow US born citizens are not eligible, however, remains untenable in history, reason, logic and legal precedent.
I completely agree with Greg. I will add that no other country has such a restriction. Any citizen of the UK or Canada or Australia can be Prime Minister. Any French citizen over 23 can be President. Now I know that even mentioning other countries is a sore point with many Conservatives, so yes, the US is not required to follow other countries. That said, if you get on the highway and all the other cars are going a different way from you, it would be wise to give strong consideration to the possibility that you are wrong, not them.
At root, Mario’s position relies on the Founders being incomparably smarter than all living humans. Not even necesarily a majority of the Founders, since the NBC clause per se was never put to a vote. Many who might have preferred to kill the NBC clause may have considered it not worth voting down the whole Constitution. Despite what the birthers say, it was really a peripheral matter at the Constitutional Convention. And even if a majority of the Founders did support it and they were all geniuses, that still doesn’t mean they could forsee everything that was coming 250 years later.
Unless Obama is involved, in which case, the laws of Britain, Kenya and Indonesia must all first be exhausted before our Constitution will be consulted!
I am personally fine with the current and real interpretation of Natural Born Citizen. I don’t think its necessary, but I am very, very reluctant to enable changes to the Constitution. So yes, I think that Kissinger or Bob Hope would have been just as loyal as George Bush, but that is not sufficient reason to change the Constitution.
On a related note: I really, really hope that some of the strong Conservative Republicans pick up on the ‘two citizen’ parents thing- nothing will alienate the latino base as much as telling them that their children will never be eligible to be President. A strong Republican push on the “two citizen” will result in big gains for the Democratic party.
Here’s a nightmare for the birthers. Newsweek believes that if Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination in 2012, he will choose Bobby Jindal to be his running mate.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/11/absurdly-premature-2012-watch-vol-6-whither-jindal.aspx
I don’t see the Republicans jumping on the birther bandwagon to any significant degree. Those who are current members of Congress would have to explain why they didn’t challenge the Electoral College votes when they had the right (duty if one believes the nonsense the birthers spout) to do so. It’s not like the birthers have uncovered any new “facts” or law in the past year.
Even Deal is playing coy-he hasn’t released his letter to Obama, nor called a press conference, not gotten any other member to support him.
Besides which, no one (not even the birthers) really cares about this issue. All the birthers would hate Obama even if there was video of him being born in Times Square and proof positive that his father was a 14th generation American.
Please let it happen.
Can I answer too? Even though I haven’t really been part of this argument.
If a constitutional amendment were on the ballot right now, and I was in the voting booth and I had to decide, I think that I would vote for it. I’d have to give it a little more thought, but at first impression I don’t see that it’s a very useful restriction, especially in today’s trans-border world. Fortunately, before such a thing actually happened, I’d have plenty of time to consider it.
I would not support the attempt to put the amendment on the table at present, though, primarily because I think we have much more important things to worry about. I also tend to be cautious about consitutional amendments. Furthermore, it would just add more fuel to the fire for those who have doubts about Obama, which would just be painful.
In the absence of such an amendment, no. Even if it only came to light after the election.
From the Green Bag obituary of Horace Gray:
May I say that I too believe that a naturalized citizen should be eligible. I see no useful purpose in that discrimination, unless, say, the age limit which at least requires a certain amount of experience.
The notion that a citizen born on US soil should NOT be eligible because his parents (even one of them) are not citizens is, however, entirely despicable.
“Self-described lawyer”… Ouch 😀
Black Lion,
Do you really believe that you have the right to be telling people how to act rightous? You do not even have the basic decency to admit that Obama has not even publicly released his birth certificate. You who go around making every possible excuse for all of Obama’s refusals to release his documents to the public. You go around ridiculing all those who assert their right to know who their President is. Your whole being and cause is one big lie and you want to tell me about credibility. I suggest you take a good hard look at yourself.
Mario, Obama released his birth certificate in June of 2008.
YOU are the one who doesn’t have the decency to admit that fact.
See: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/has_obamas_birth_certificate_been_disclosed.html
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
Mario,
If you write to the State of Hawaii and ask for a birth certificate, you get a certification of live birth like the one that Obama posted online. Honolulu Advertiser:
So, he’s posted online the birth certificate one gets when one writes to the state and asks for a birth certificate. What, exactly, is your problem?
That he didn’t post the “long form?” That he hasn’t given you a copy of his COLB?
Long form – So, for the President, the State of Hawaii should go back and find a form they don’t issue any more, and just this one time re-create a long form just to satisfy you?
(Question: If the state creates a non-standard birth certificate just for the President, does that satisfy the requirements to be admissible?)
Mario, your whole being and cause is one big lie. You have zero credibility – you’ve spent what little credibility you had in aggressively misrepresenting the law on point. You have thrown in with forgers and felons. You have filed a verified complaint filled with easily debunked assertions.
If you think you see a lack of credibility in Black Lion, I’d suggest you are seeing through that mirror darkly.
Mario Apuzzo: You do not even have the basic decency to admit that Obama has not even publicly released his birth certificate.
No, it is you who do not have the basic decency to admit that Obama has publicly released his birth certificate in June of 2008.
Mario Apuzzo: You who go around making every possible excuse for all of Obama’s refusals to release his documents to the public.
Actually I don’t see that there is any significant amount of excuse making. We just point out the facts that the requests are unreasonable (contrary to reason).
Mario Apuzzo: You go around ridiculing all those who assert their right to know who their President is.
No, we go around ridiculing people who tell lies, make misleading statements, attempt to rewrite history, and lack the critical thinking skills to tell the difference between fact and rumor.
Mario Apuzzo: Your whole being and cause is one big lie and you want to tell me about credibility.
Actually, that lawsuit filed on behalf of Kerchner (at least the first half) is well categorized as “one big lie.” I, on the other hand, have not knowingly present any false information on this blog, and when any errors are pointed out they are quickly corrected.
Excuse me, Ayatollah Mario, where in the law is such a “right to know”? In fact it doesn’t exist. I suppose Congress could pass a law requiring Presidential candidates to release certain specified personal records. I don’t know whether such a law would pass Constitutional muster, but even if it did, it could not be applied retroactively.
In the absence of such a law, all you have is your individual right as a voter to withhold your vote from any candidate that didn’t disclose what you consider to be necessary personal information.
But in the interests of further discussion, what is the specific list of information that you feel all candidates ought to make public. Of course fairness demands that this list apply to all candidates, whether their name is Smith, Spinelli, Sanchez or Sung, right? And just so we know Mario, can you enlighten us as to which candidates in 2008 (or any previous election) met this standard? And assuming none did, I assume you left your ballot blank, right Mario?
MArio, I do have the right. You go on about the President not releasing his COLB, yet cannot show any of us where “releasing his COLB to the public” is required in order to be President. 69 million people know who their President is. Only legal lightweights such as yourself think otherwise. Your case is a loser. You continue to include so called “evidence” in your case that has been debunked such as the Pakistan travel ban. And I will continue to call you on that because in your hubris you cannot even have the common decency to admit that you were wrong. I am not making any excuses for the President. He has met the requirements of the US Constitution. If you can show me McCain’s BC, then you can talk. He never released a thing, but not a peep from you. You have no credibility. You case was dismissed and your filings are full of incorrect information. And you attempt to call yourself a lawyer and constitutional expert. You might want to take a long look in the mirror yourself.
Who is Steve Dunham ?
Mario,
You and your pals can believe whatever you want. You are entitled to believe the Earth is Flat, or that the Income Tax is Unconstitutional or the U.S. caused 9/11, but your believes in whacko theories doesn’t mean we have to give respectful deferance to them.
Provide some actual evidence for one of your many, many theories trying to discredit the President and the evidence will be considered.
Barring that, its all either whacko theories or lies and I can’t really tell with you which is which.
chufho asks in his best birther voice:
Who is Steve Dunham ?
The answer is someone that does not exist. Of course John Charlton over at the Post and Fail thinks that this person exists, but as usual provided no evidence to support his wild and usually inaccurate screeds. Charlton thinks that that is the real name of the President. I guess the so called Barry Soetero nonsense is losing traction…Birther 101…Since there is no evidence,lets just make stuff up and then defend it even when faced with evidence to the contrary. Or is that the Mario Apuzzo approach to law…I always get those mixed up…
Funny post from Orly’s blog…
Henry Tisdale
January 12th, 2010 @ 3:15 pm
I also phoned 3 senators and emailed Reid and Pelosi reminding them he was not their boss and get behind Deal. I also requested the same from every Rep in Florida and also Boeman, the Rep leader in the House. If they all stick their heads in the sand, then we had best fall in love with Obama as he leads his sad, sick puppies around on his twisted vine leash.
I have an email which pretty much describes America’s greatest problem. Barack Obama is not our number 1 problem, we will get over him one way or the other. The main problem is the huge number of Americans who voted for him and are likely to do it again. America defeated by Americans.
So now the question arises, America defeated by Americans?
The birthers are pathetic. This guy doesn’t even know that the name of the Republican leader in the House is John Boehner, not Boeman. Or is he thinking of Michelle Bachmann? I can believe that birthers think that she is the Republican lead in the House.
Black Lion,
You can at least be a little original rather than copy my arguments back to me.
As far as credibility, you and this whole site have no credibility. Just look at the name, “Obama Conspiracy Theories.” Your claim to fame is that anything negative that is said about Obama is a “conspiracy.” Do you call that intellectual honesty?
You and all your followers are nothing but political hacks, maybe even hired. You only address what you want to address. You love the easy stuff so that you can just pile it on with all your little jokes. But when you have to address something that is damaging you give the appearance as though you answered the point but you really do not address the matter and only avoid doing so.
Your biggest lie is hiding behind a computer image of a Certification of Live Birth (COLB) and telling all your readers that Obama released to the public his original birth certificate knowing darn well that a computer image of a COLB is not the same thing as an original birth certificate (BC). As a subpart of that biggest lie, you add another lie and say that poor Obama just cannot release an original birth certificate because poor Hawaii just does not have one to release. Who are you kidding?
Your second biggest lie is telling people that Obama has been transparent because he released his COLB to the public when you darn well know that he has not released countless other pertinent documents (birth, education, work, medical, and travel) which are relevant on the question of his character and identity.
Also, since you have so much to say about me being a lawyer, why do you not tell me what kind of work you do so that I can tell you what I think about that, too?
Just keep patting yourselves on the back. That might take you far on this blog but no where in the real world and in real battle.
Mario,
What do “questions” about Obama’s character have to do with his eligibility to be president under the Constitution?
Has any other president in the history of our great country been asked to produce his birth certificate? Or his kindergarten records or his travel records? No, I didn’t think so. Only Obama, our first African-American president. Coincidence?
Besides, if your “two-citizen parents” theory is correct, why do you need ANY documents from Obama? He stipulates that his father was not a U.S. citizen, so take that ball and run with it, if you can.
Orly’s site is infected with Trojan virus, be careful. I went there and got hit with two different ones. Trojan Script 7583 and Trojan Downloader.Bredolab.CG Thankfully my virus protector snagged them both and quarantined them! So watch out!
Mario: calm down; you’re losing it. You know very well, our system of justice is based on the burden of proof is the plaintiff’s. And that’s the case, criminal or civil. Obama, does not have to prove anything to you. He has shown, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be qualified. In a campaign that lasted 2 years, no one of stature found anything.
“Your claim to fame is that anything negative that is said about Obama is a “conspiracy.”
And your stock-in-trade is solely to peddle crank arguments, which are dismissed by everyone except malcontents. Your legal practice is based on bottom of the barrel, garbage miscreants. Don’t leave me openings like this.
“You and all your followers are nothing but political hacks”
This from a law hack.
“But when you have to address something that is damaging you give the appearance as though you answered the point but you really do not address the matter and only avoid doing so.”
I repeat: what is your win/loss DWI record? How many constitutional cases have you taken to trial? You have never answered in the past.
“Your biggest lie is hiding behind a computer image of a Certification of Live Birth…”
Plus official statements. Plus newspaper records.
“you add another lie and say that poor Obama just cannot release an original birth certificate because poor Hawaii just does not have one to release.”
Which is true. Since digitizing, all states only issue abstracts. To issue what you and your coterie want, is to discredit all COLBs, from all states. It won’t happen.
“he has not released countless other pertinent documents (birth, education, work, medical, and travel) which are relevant on the question of his character and identity.”
And when did GWB, or McCain, or Palin, or Romney, or Jindal release theirs? GWB has a misdemeanor conviction. Talk about character.
“Also, since you have so much to say about me being a lawyer, why do you not tell me what kind of work you do”
I made a career as a licensed optician, NYS and VA. I have 2 degrees, and a paralegal cert. from Old Dominion University. I am literate in Mandarin, Hebrew, and of course English. Since an aneurysm and severe hemorrhage, I have been working on freelance photography, which was my second major.
Before the stroke, I was working on a book of my motorcycle travels, like “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” I have been around the world, twice. I have lived in Taiwan, and on a kibbutz.
“Just keep patting yourselves on the back.”
Which is what you and your coterie do 24/7.
Thanks, but I’m not surprised. She’s a grifter.
Mario Apuzzo: As far as credibility, you and this whole site have no credibility. Just look at the name, “Obama Conspiracy Theories.” Your claim to fame is that anything negative that is said about Obama is a “conspiracy.”
This web site was named back in 2008 before Leo Donofrio invented the two-citizen parent requirement to be president. The site has articles discussing the title and the issue of what is and what is not a “conspiracy theory.” The “born in Africa” meme is really a silly rumor rather than a conspiracy theory; however, when it branches out to claim that Hawaiian officials are engaged in a coverup, the rumors cross over to conspiracy theory.
This site has never called denialist views of the definition of “natural born citizen” a conspiracy theory; they are not. They are crank legal views; they rely on misinformation and misrepresentations; they are not belief in a conspiracy theory EXCEPT when folks start calling judges traitors and claiming a government cover-up and congressional complicity because of fear. That’s full-blown conspiracy thinking.
All that said, a site needs a snappy title and I got a good one.
Mario Apuzzo: You and all your followers are nothing but political hacks, maybe even hired.
Petty insult, there Apuzzo. I am certainly not a “political hack” since I’m not involved in politics beyond commenting on the Internet and voting. Well, I gave Obama $50 for the campaign. But of course this blog is a labor of love (feel the sarcasm). The Visitors’ Guide explains all of this, and there are other articles exploring my motivations (check out older articles under Lounge).
Mario Apuzzo: Your biggest lie is hiding behind a computer image of a Certification of Live Birth (COLB) and telling all your readers that Obama released to the public his original birth certificate knowing darn well that a computer image of a COLB is not the same thing as an original birth certificate (BC).
The COLB is prima facie evidence of what it says, Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961. I have written quite a bit on the difference between Hawaiian birth documents, such as:
A dilligent reader here will know quite a bit about birth certificates and vital records.
Mario Apuzzo: Also, since you have so much to say about me being a lawyer, why do you not tell me what kind of work you do so that I can tell you what I think about that, too?
Don’t you know? I make computer-printed birth certificates for a living! :rofl:
“Don’t you know? I make computer-printed birth certificates for a living!”
Touché
Mario,
Obviously you must be having another bad day, because here again we have one of your tantrum tirade posts that comes off more like a monkey flinging poo than what should be an adult lawyer. You decided to sling some absurd insults that make you seem like a fool and obviously have no idea what the term “lie” means, because you misuse it badly in your post. I have tried to be fair and kind to you in the past, even though I disagreed. Here, you just really come off pathetic and your statements are full of utter BS, so I felt compelled to respond to such accusatory nonsense. I think you sometimes just get really angry and lash out emotionally and don’t realize how foolish you come off when you just spout off in a foul mood.
Let’s break down some of the inanity in your post:
Mario says: “As far as credibility, you and this whole site have no credibility.
G says: Really Mario, how is your record or the entire “birther” lawsuit record on credibility here? 0-and how many? Yeah, that’s right. Seems like reality is on the side of this site. You have no room to speak on this issue and your silly attack here is laughable. Your statement is ironic at best and nothing more than mere projection. I think the credibility of this site is just fine, thank you.
Mario says: “Just look at the name, ‘Obama Conspiracy Theories.’ Your claim to fame is that anything negative that is said about Obama is a ‘conspiracy.’ Do you call that intellectual honesty?”
G says: Mario, this site focuses on exactly what it claims to – bizarre claims about Obama, many of which easily fall under the category of “conspiracy theory” and which often have no factual or legal basis and no actual evidence to back them up. Sorry that you, as a lawyer pandering to the conspiracy folk, don’t like that we point out your flaws and make fun of ridiculous birther theories, but that is the stated and intended purpose of this site. There are many things said negative about Obama that are policy position type issues, which usually aren’t focused on here, because, duh, the focus of this site is the “conspiracy” crap, just as the site says.
Mario says: “You and all your followers are nothing but political hacks, maybe even hired.”
G says: Mario, it is statements like this that make you sound pathetically foolish. Really, stooping to mouthing moronic claims that people are “paid operatives” is really beneath you and is one of the most laughable juvenile claims of fiction of the paranoid mind out there. People post on blogs because they have some sort of interest in a topic, nothing more.
Mario says: “You only address what you want to address. You love the easy stuff so that you can just pile it on with all your little jokes.”
G says: See answer above re: why this site is titled “Obama Conspiracy Theories”. Hence, why that is the topic focused on and addressed here, duh. Pretty simple, that. And yes, because the birther claims are so weak or outlandish, it is pretty “easy stuff” to dismiss and just cries out to be mocked.
Mario says: “But when you have to address something that is damaging you give the appearance as though you answered the point but you really do not address the matter and only avoid doing so.”
G says: Way to make a total “waaah” baseless attack without anything to back it up, Mario. I can’t even hazard a guess as to what you are complaining about here. Maybe in your mind, some issue hasn’t been addressed to your satisfaction, but I challenge you to come up with *anything* that is “damaging” as you call it. All of seen from the birthers are pure speculation, interesting legal theories not supported or in practice in current law, and outright fraud.
I really hate when posts get too long, so I’ll address your ridiculous “lie” claims in a followup post.
Mario –
Obviously, you are either being deceitful here or truly have no understanding of what the word “lie” means. A “lie” is when someone knowingly tells a patent falsehood. Your claims of “lies” on this site do not meet that definition by any sense of the term, so when you knowingly make such malicious accusations that don’t meet the definition, you are the one who loses credibility. A lawyer that can’t even use simple terms properly is not much of a lawyer. Let’s take a quick look at the “lies” you are claiming, shall we?
Mario says: “Your biggest lie is hiding behind a computer image of a Certification of Live Birth (COLB) and telling all your readers that Obama released to the public his original birth certificate knowing darn well that a computer image of a COLB is not the same thing as an original birth certificate (BC).”
G says – Wow Mario. Going with the stupid meme that just because the president put his COLB online for all to see that all he has is a “computer image” has always been one of the weak attacks by the birthers. As if it somehow indicates that all he has is a computer generated image. Not only does that not match the facts of the story when his campaign put his birth certificate online for all to see, but it also is a disingenuous attack.
Gee Mario, let me ask you a reasonable question – if you were to post your birth certificate for the world to see, how would you do it? Hmmm…would the easiest way be to scan the document you have and post it online? Of course. And what would that result in, dear Mario….*gasp*…a “computerized image” of the document! But then again Mario, you and the birthers seem to live in a fantasy land of your own imagination, so maybe in “your universe” you have “WonkaVision” computers and can magically put your birth certificate in your computer and think that people on the other end can magically pull the original document right out of theirs and lick it and taste it and wipe their ass with it to their hearts content! LOL!
But back in the real world…
I seem to recall that at the time of the birth certificate release and the press coverage around the release of the online scan is that the campaign proudly also stated that the ORIGINAL DOCUMENT from which the image was scanned and posted was AVAILABLE for anyone in the media to come and see for themselves at his Chicago campaign HQ.
Did you bother to go there yourself and look into the truth Mario? Did any of your fellow “birthers”? NO. And gee, you and all the others and all of his campaign opponents had many MONTHS to do so during the campaign…but I wonder why you didn’t. Is it because your sides claims are nothing but “lies” and actual investigation would only reveal that you are all full of BS? Wouldn’t want to take away your ability to make up false attacks and claims, now would we?
Well, Fact Check and others in real media did look at it. And touch it. And turn it over. And photo it. And post their findings, which have been well documented and discussed enough here and other places already that the only “lie” would be to deny that these events happened. After the first few stories, was there much follow-up after that? No, but why would there be. When there is no “there” there for a story, reasonable people don’t need to revisit the issue.
So, what we have then is a document, released by Obama as a presidential candidate during a heated campaign against rivals that desperately wanted to beat him and repeatedly demonstrated that they weren’t above using negative innuendo and attack campaign adds at every turn to try to win over him.
And the only people that claim the document is fradulent? A small handful of anonymous posters on online fervent anti-Obama sites using handles instead of real names, claiming that they were “forensic experts”. That same small group that seemed to quickly become discredited and mocked and their so-called “analysis” torn apart by actual forensic experts who weren’t afraid to post their real names and credentials online?
Oh, and then there is the state of Hawaii backing up that the president was born there, as it says on the online version of the BC that all of us saw and verifying that the format we saw IS what the state of HI provides.
So, let’s review. We have a candidate running for president, who has published 2 books on his life, stating he was born in HI; who has held prior public offices in his life – both as an IL state Senator and as a US Senator; who as part of his committee responsibilities must have fairly high government security clearance; who obviously owns a US passport as he has traveled abroad during the time of holding such offices; who has owned cars here in the US (thus must have obtained and renewed a US drivers license).
This same candidate then scans and releases his birth certificate online, something that is not required and which has not been done by any prior candidate for that office.
That document clearly states born in Honolulu, HI.
The state of HI, under republican leadership stands by it – repeatedly. Two separate newspaper articles, backing up his birth are found in archives of local HI newspapers from the time.
THEREFORE, the default position for any reasonable person to conclude, is that there is no good reason to question that his COLB is anything other than what he claims it to be.
When all the credible evidence seems to support his being born in HI, where do you get off trying to call anyone a liar, just because they don’t see any reason to question the evidence already provided?
Just because a few misguided and/or malicious fools like you are paranoid, suspicious, or just don’t want to trust anything Obama says or does, what evidence do you have?
You know the law, Mario. If you make accusatory claims, the burden of responsibility lies on you to produce sufficient evidence to refute and prove your case. Which so far, the entire birther movement, including you, has utterly failed to do.
“You…maybe even hired.”
It’s true. Here is proof of my employer!
G,
Thank you for enlightening us with your grandfatherly wisdom. And thank you for being so king to me in the past. I do not know what I would have done if you did not give me such a break.
You statement about who is or is not a political operative is nonsense. Do you want me to believe that you know everyone who posts on here? All the names are anonymous, including your one-letter identification (maybe you should be using just empty space). How could you know who everyone on this site is? Maybe you would care to explain.
About all your gibberish about conspiracies and the birthers, you fail to mention that not one law suit has yet to be granted discovery. Oh, you really think that you are so smart, faulting people for not having evidence at the same time that you would deny them the means to discover the truth. And spare me your “duhs” and your remark about long posts. It’s all condescending.
G,
All very nice, what you say. But I am interested in what you did not say and everything that Obama did not do. Your whole factual presentation is nothing but an apology. It is devoid of substance.
Mario says: “As a subpart of that biggest lie, you add another lie and say that poor Obama just cannot release an original birth certificate because poor Hawaii just does not have one to release. Who are you kidding?”
G says: No Mario, who are you trying to kid. The state of HI has both repeatedly stated in regards to this issue that the “short form”, matching what Obama released, is ALL they provide and ALL that they have been providing for a number of years now. They have clearly stated that their records are now electronic. Their official statements have said this. All of their website documentation, including FAQ sections clearly state this. They are the ones who maintain and provide these records. There is also this little law known as HIPPA, which protects the privacy of individual records – not just in HI but all throughout our country. It is not a new law, Mario. It has been around for awhile now. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with it.
So, to recap: Somehow you call us “liars” for pointing to the official sources for these documents and records and their official statements on the matter?
You really, really don’t have a clue what the word “lie” means, do you? You seem to confuse it with the truth…and maybe that is your whole problem. To make such a stupid and backwards statement, I can only hope you are the one who is kidding, but I realize that I keep trying to give you too much credit.
Unlike you, G is actually presenting known facts. I am not surprised that you fail to recognize this.
Devoid of substance is one of your own trademarks Mario, do not dilute it..
nbc,
It’s going to take more than your empty remarks to help out G.
“But I am interested in what you did not say and everything that Obama did not do…It is devoid of substance.”
You and your coterie have made serious claims and accusations, which become more strident every day. The burden of proof is on you, as you know very well.
Foreign influence? He MIGHT show concern for Kenya. GWB wins the sweepstakes. Nothing like the Bush family becoming wealthier every time the price of oil climbs. Nothing like Bush, with his wacko evangelical beliefs invading Iraq, so his buddies could get their hands on oil. Or giving the Israeli right wing carte blanche, so Israel will be here for the Second Coming. Or kissing some Saudi, whose family was installed by the British, to sit on oil. Talk about homo erotic, masquerading as concern for an ally. Puhleez.
Prove your claims, or zip it.
Mario says: “Your second biggest lie is telling people that Obama has been transparent because he released his COLB to the public when you darn well know that he has not released countless other pertinent documents (birth, education, work, medical, and travel) which are relevant on the question of his character and identity.”
G says: Again, where is the lie here Mario?
FACT: Obama released his COLB to the public. No other candidate has done such, nor is such action required for office. Therefore, by definition, that is providing more transparency on this issue than has been done in the past.
Just because YOU and a few others somehow feel that these other documents you are asking for are “relevant on the question of his character and identity”, does not make them so to everyone, NOR is there ANY requirement to produce such information.
You can validly state that you would like to see such information on any candidate for office to help make that judgment about them.
That is a valid opinion and no one here is disputing this.
However, there is NO requirement that candidates have to provide such information or even that it would be relevant to their ability to hold office.
People and media requesting such information from candidates for office have every right to ask for it. However, candidates have every right to choose not to reveal personal information they don’t feel is relevant as well.
If you feel that not providing such information should disqualify them, then you have every right as a voter to not vote for them on this basis, as does every voter in making their personal choice at the ballot box.
However, the whole issue is moot here, because we had such an election well over a year ago and the voters clearly and unequivocally made their choice and decided to elect Barack Obama by a decisive margin:
52.9% (69,456,897 votes) for Obama – only 45.7% (59,934,814 votes) for McCain, his closest opponent.
A win by a margin of 6.3% and over 9.5 Million people is *huge* in American politics and is quite decisive and definitive.
He carried 28 states (plus DC & NE-02) vs. McCain’s 22 states, for a crushing and overwhelming 365 to 173 Electoral Vote victory, which is how we elect a president here in the U.S.A.
Such background curiosity that people might have had during a campaign is no longer relevant at this time, as the voters spoke and he was sworn in as President almost an entire year ago.
Such curiosities during a campaign are also really only going to matter or make a difference to people who are undecided on choosing between candidates that they don’t feel they know enough about based on all other factors and information available. Such notions, if they were “legit” concerns would only matter if they gave additional insight to those trying to hazard how someone might govern, once in office.
Once elected, that person actually “governs”, so these trivial inquires about their personal past really lose any valid relevance, as a sitting President is going to be judged based on what they do during their term in office.
Therefore, such silly requests for these other documents from his past will hold even less value or relevance in 2012, when he campaigns for re-election, as it will be his record in office up until then upon which he is ultimately judged.
In summary Mario, you keep throwing around the word “lie” and attaching it to examples which in no way support such a definition. Either you yourself are nothing but a liar Mario, or else you have such a poor grasp of the English language that you shouldn’t even be trusted with being able to order food for yourself at a restaurant.
Mario, if I was condescending, it was because you deserved it. It is one thing for you to say you disagree with something or that you find the preponderance of existing evidence sufficient. Calling others liars and so inappropriately using the term “lie” is another matter, and therefore, you deserve what you get in being called out on it.
And yes, Mario, making baseless claims that people must be “paid operatives” is ridiculous and is often the quick retort of the weak mind and fragile ego, which must shelter itself from reality when others disagree with them, having to resort to telling themselves that “yeah, they are only disagreeing with me because ‘someone’ must be paying them too…yeah, that’s the ticket!”
You yourself in your own retort, pointing to the very fact of anonymity of internet posting, undermine your own argument. You DON’T know what we do, so to make such accusations as if they are some matter of fact, when you have no basis or knowledge to back it up is just blatant and speculation on your part, with malicious intent. You made a direct accusatory statement, which you cannot back up, which I’m calling you out on as well.
I don’t know that you don’t screw barn animals in your free time. Let’s try a little exercise where I take your sentence and turn it back on you with such an unfounded claim against you, and see if you think that is fair:
Mario said: “You and all your followers are nothing but political hacks, maybe even hired”
Restated: “Mario, you and all your followers are nothing but deviants, maybe even into practicing beastiality”
Do you now get it? Do you see how wrong that would be to say that. Actually, I do very much respect that you are willing to post here (even though I disagree with your positions) and often I think you are able to write quite well and make adult arguments. But every so often, you tend to go off in wild immature tirade that I can only assume is mood-driven and you come off saying really silly and offensive stuff.
For the record, the rude example of barn animals I used was only for making an extreme point, to try to get through to you. I do not really think (nor care to know) that you would do such things and I apologize for even having to make such an offensive statement towards you or any of your followers.
Mario,
And yes, I get the *snark* directed towards me in the other portions of your post, and I don’t mind that at all and believe it or not, I actually appreciate when you display your sense of humor. I also get and respect your point that you don’t appreciate that I came off condescending towards you, which I obviously did.
I apologize to you as a fellow human being for being so harsh in making my counter points, but sometimes it seems that the only way to get through to you is to push back at your level. My statements were directed to the words you posted and I feel were justified in light of your claims, so I don’t apologize for what I said, but only for offending you in the process.
You are absolutely right that not a single birther lawsuit has been granted discovery. I don’t dispute your position or frustration with that at all, particularly since you are a “birther lawyer” and discovery is what you claim to be after.
However, as a lawyer, you should have complete understanding of the concepts of “jurisdiction” and “standing” and other such requirements in the process required before “discovery” can ever happen in a case. These are legitimate parts of the legal process which you should very well understand and respect, even if you don’t always agree with how a court may apply them.
At best, you are pleading weak cases based on “novel” theories, unsupported by case law or empirical evidence, with little hope of ever passing the tests of “standing” and such in order to ever get to a “discovery stage”. You know this. The overwhelming 60+ dismissed suits ALL back this up. You also know full well that this is how the legal system works.
At worst, these cases are completely frivolous and moot (and yes, this is where my personal opinion lies). You as a lawyer should also understand that dismissing cases deemed frivolous or moot is also a standard part of our legal process and such cases do NOT get “discovery”.
I respect your right, as a lawyer for your client to passionately plead your case to the best of your ability and to not give up and to follow the appeals process through all the legal steps you have.
I just wish you would be honest enough to admit that you are fighting an overwhelmingly uphill battle and that the odds of your case being heard at any point are not in your favor.
I just wish that you would be honest and admit that what you are pleading for is to create a new interpretation of the NBC term and its use, other than how it is being applied today.
And as a lawyer, you know better that in order to bring a case, your entire argument cannot be based on a “fishing expedition” of speculation, in hopes of finding something to support your theories.
The burden of proof is on you as the accuser to have sufficient evidence to back up your claims and bring a case in the first place.
You will never get discovery if you don’t already have enough solid evidence to back up the need for a case to go forward. If you cannot admit that, then you are the one refusing to be honest here.
Actually, I read on the internet that Glenn Beck may have raped and murdered a girl, in 1990. I’m not saying he did, but it never got to discovery, so what is he hiding? And is Beck still using junk? Does he ever fall off the wagon? Limbaugh is a junkie, too.
I also heard that barnyard animals become skittish when Joseph Farah is around. I don’t know why, but he never addressed it.
I also never saw Mario Apuzzo’s NJ law license, so who knows. And what was his class ranking? What was his LSAT percentile? I think that is pertinent.
And we still don’t know his win/loss DWI record.
Oh, the cases that did get to court: Orly has wrecked the careers of two people so far. Quite a track record.
Keep it up.
Okay Mario, here you make a meaningless argument and want me to play your silly game of trying to disprove a negative.
What I did not say or he did not do? I’m calling you out again, Mario. If there is something you want to know, ask for it directly instead of being so meaninglessly vague and obtuse.
Obviously, I am not afraid to give you full point-by-point replies, so either ask a direct question or back off your empty retorts.
Your only game is to try to be dismissive when presented with facts or when pushed back upon by claiming “gibberish” or “devoid of substance”. BS and you know it.
What you really are trying to say in a very immature way is that those facts are not enough for you.
If you would honestly just say something like that, I would not be giving you such hassle. My only response would be that I highly suspect that no amount of evidence would ever be enough for you or most of the rest of the birthers. But I would fully accept and acknowledge that you personally don’t find the existing evidence sufficient.
You cannot seem to meaningfully dispute the facts and points that I and others have presented, without having to resort to being dishonest or immature. I would hope that you know better and act more like an adult when you are actually in court.
Obviously, Mario feels he needs to try to “act tough” and puff his chest when challenged.
Trust me Mario, I’m doing just fine and don’t need any help in debating you, particularly when you keep making yourself such an easy target. But thanks for the props, NBC!
Honestly Mario, I’d rather have intelligent debate with you and respectfully disagree with you than have to slap you down and mock you. But that is up to you.
“in 2012, when he campaigns for re-election, as it will be his record in office up until then upon which he is ultimately judged.”
Obama will be re-elected, and Cory Booker will follow. Get used to it.
The Mario (to reuse John’s vernacular) is hectoring us on “intellectual honesty” and being “hacks”.
Oh, the irony.
This from a bottom-feeding lawyer being paid to act as the sock puppet of some white supremacist folks in order to spread lies and misinformation, all in the service of some odious, racist agenda.
Mario, just answer this one question…
Spiro Agnew, the 39th V.P. of the United States, and born to you guessed it: 2 FOREIGNERS in the United States. The 1920 Census clearly states that Spiro Agnew’s father was born in Greece, and was an alien during the 1920 census.
By the 12th Amendment, the Vice President must meet all the same constitutional requirements as the President. So, how do you explain this one away? Did Spiro Agnew hide his hertiage? Did Spiro Agnew fraudulently occupy the office of the Vice President? And I have never seen any proof of his father legally changing his name from Anagnostopoulos to Agnew. Have you?
So, how could this person actually occupy the office of the Vice President, when he, according to your own definition, is clearly ineligible?
Actually, Agnew’s father was a Russian Jew named Agnewsky.
“So, how could this person actually occupy the office of the Vice President, when he, according to your own definition, is clearly ineligible?”
International Jewish Conspiracy™
And you, my dear Mario, are beyond help. Of course, when you lack a coherent argument, it’s tempting to accuse others…
G has facts on his side, something you appear to be lacking.
What’s the name of your client again Mario?
Fascinating how some tend to accuse others so easily…
Mario, Mario, Mario… If you lack the reason and logic to argue your (or is it Charles’s) case in a coherent manner, then it does not come as a surprise to many that one would make silly accusations.
Did you not the claim in your certified complaint that Obama traveled to Pakistan when travel to that Country was prohibited for instance…
Your best argument so far has been with Donofrio, when you pointed out that Quo Warranto would lead nowhere… Just like your case or is it Charles’s?
Dr Conspiracy and many of the commenters here, have done well in exposing your arguments as lacking in fact, and reason.
The ruling against Charles includes the observation that the 1st amendment does not grant a right to be answered by the Government, just a right to petition them freely.
Understanding these foundations of Constitutional Law would have been helpful…
Similarly the court observed, somewhat with dripping with sarcasm, that one does not cite state cases in a Federal Court.
Basic law 101 really.
Similarly, the court observed that Article III standing was denied by plaintiffs’ own arguments
Good job arguing so craftfully against standing…. Makes the job of the court so much easier..
And although the arguments by the Plaintiff showed that it lacked standing, the Court also observed that even with article III standing, the plaintiff’s claims would have been a political question since the
Furthermore, the generalized grievances against the legislative branch are considered to be the Court to be best addressed through the political process of voting…
What a ruling that was… And with the precedent of Berg v Obama in the 3rd Circuit…
The Courts have done an excellent job at exposing the flawed reason and logic in this case and how the plaintiffs’ own filings were helpful in reaching their conclusion. Dr Conspiracy and others are just ‘icing on the cake’.
Yummy…
“As the Supreme Court has explained, “Nothing in the First Amendment or in this Court’s case law interpreting it suggests that the rights to speak, associate, and petition require government policymakers to listen or respond to individuals’ communications on public issues.”
One wouldn’t think that anyone who went to law school would need a court to state this. Do these clowns even think through how stupid this is. Do they really think a court is going to order congress to respond to their complaints? Mario’s other claims are equally frivolous claiming such nonsense as being denied feeling secure without due process of law or failure of congress to investigate candidates equally violates equal protection. Just making stuff up. I guess he missed to class on separation of powers or the speech and debate clause. Don’t know why people put such made-up nonsense in their complaints. When I was a federal clerk, I pretty much stopped reading a brief when I saw such crap.
Black Lion,
You can at least be a little original rather than copy my arguments back to me.
As far as credibility, you and this whole site have no credibility. Just look at the name, “Obama Conspiracy Theories.” Your claim to fame is that anything negative that is said about Obama is a “conspiracy.” Do you call that intellectual honesty?
____________________________________________
Mario, would you like cheese with your whine? Lets be honest, even you should know that the best way to win a debate or a case is to dismantle your opponents argument and to make them look foolish. Which is what many people here, including myself have done.
You claim to be this legal expert yet your briefs were filled with wrong information. No self respecting lawyer, or professional, would do that. And when called on your incorrect information, instead of being a stand up individual, you continue to attempt to perpetuate your lie and attack people for pointing out that lie to you.
The only political hack is you. It is obvious this is lawsuit is part of a partian attack job against the President. Why? I don’t recall you making any arguments about natural born prior to 2008 or having a problem with John McCain running for President. He wasn’t even born in the US.
And regarding the President’s COLB. Pleas show us where any other president released that sort of information to the public. He in good faith released a picture copy of his COLB to eveyone. And instead of respecting that, you political hack take unsubstantiated analysis from frauds like Polarik to try and imply that it is a fraud.
And as far as attacking your profession, that is definately not true. I have a lot of respect for the legal profession, when it is being used by a proper professional. So far you have not shown us that.
So if you want to go and attack Dr. C’s blog because unlike your moderated blog where you don’t allow dissent, go right ahead. Don’t post here if you are afraid of the truth. Go ahead and show us your legal prowess by having your so called lawsuit dismissed by the Appeals court. As Bill Parcells said, “you are what your record says you are”, and since you have not won your so called case against the President, we know right now who you are.
That’s exactly what Mario seemed to be arguing although he claimed that he had somehow resolved the redressability problem. If only the Court were to allow Mario discovery then all would resolve itself, somehow, somewhere.
Since however, as the Court pointed out, it’s Congress who has been tasked by the Constitution with this, it seems rather illogical that there is redressability…
Filing extensive amended complaints is not going the change the fact that there are no gold coins to be found in the mud…
ballantine,
You should be ashamed of yourself telling the public that you were a law clerk and you stopped reading someone’s brief because “you” thought it was beneath you. I’m sure your judge would not appreciate your telling that to the public. If you are such a “man,” or “woman,” why do you not tell us what Judge you clerked for? Let’s see what you are made of.
nbc,
I know where I can find those gold coins.
Ballantine didn’t stop reading briefs because they were “beneath [him/her]” but because they contained lies and fictional legal doctrines.
Do you think any judge reads much of briefs that are facially BS?
I guess you just keep digging deeper and deeper.
Also, you don’t know whether Ballantine is a male or female but you know why he/she stopped reading briefs. This is getting like a circus on here.
Mario-Since the entire subject matter of your “case” has been moot for over a year, my suggestion as a taxpayer and lover of trees is that the clerks take your brief to the bathroom and use it to (well, you can imagine)….
Mario,
Obviously you never clerked, which is obvious from your legal specialty. The clerks job is to determine what the law is, not to read frivolous nonsense in frivolous briefs. If a brief helps, great, if not, they are ignored. In appellate cases, there might be a dozen briefs and the that are not serious are treated as such. Like it or not, when you make up frivolous claims out of whole cloth or mis-state what cases actually say, your pretty guarantee your brief will not be taken seriously. The clerks and judge will determine themselves what the law is and rule accordingly.
Excellent and well cited post, nbc!
I firmly believe that Apuzzo’s was not filed to win–he had to know better. The purpose of a federal lawsuit is to provide legitimacy to otherwise silly claims and to persuade the legally naive.
Earlier you said that as the judge’s clerk at some point you stopped reading the briefs. How do you know “if a brief helps” unless you read it? How do you know if a brief is “serious” unless you read it? How do you know that the attorney has made “frivolous claims out of whole cloth” or that the attorney has “mis-state[d] what cases actually say” unless you read the brief? Finally, I cannot imagine in any case the clerk and judge not determining themselves what the law is and the judge [hopefully not the clerk, especially if its ballantine] ruling accordingly.
In short, your comment neither explains nor justifies your statement that at some point as the judge’s law clerk you stopped reading the briefs.
Mario-If you can tear yourself away from repeating the same points over and over again, perhaps you or a fellow birther could give me an answer to the following:
When you guys say Obama is a “usurper”, the implication is that somewhere there exists a “real President” with a better claim on the office than him. So who is this “President-in waiting”? Biden? McCain? Keyes? Who????
You guys seem to forget that there are TWO criteria to fulfill to become President:
1. Meet the Constitutional requirements (including NBC).
2. Get the most Electoral votes.
Now, I’m very confident that Obama fulfills both. But let’s pretend for the sake of argument that there is a question about #1. But there can be no doubt as regards #2-Obama won a solid electoral vote victory. So, assuming you have a President-in-waiting who fulfills #1, he cannot possibly have fulfilled #2. So your guy won’t really be a legitimate President either. So, even if I try to take your side, I’m stuck arguing that we should remove a possibly illegitimate President only to replace him with a definitely illegitimate President. And that makes absolutely NO SENSE.
Is his name Charlie?
You seem to think that there is some requirement for clerks to read every brief in total. If a judge assigned you the task of reading all the briefs in total, you would read them. If the judge asks you to do research on an issue, the briefs are merely a reference and yes there is only so much crap you can read. How many pages of frivolous nonsense do you think clerks will read before moving on? If you think that clerks and judges read every brief submitted in total, you are wrong.
A usurper merely reflects a situation where there is no clear title to the office. Of course, Obama, having followed the Constitutional process, has been found qualified after a valid election, and sworn in. No usurper…
“This is getting like a circus on here.”
I just spit coffee all over my keyboard and desk.
Really Mario, do you leave such openings to plaintiffs in the course of your practice? Really. Does the irony escape you? When you clicked ‘submit,’ did you realize what would be the reaction? Really. I was an English major, and I would have difficulty crafting such irony. Really.
I am truly impressed. Really.
As part of my paralegal training, I spent some time in a law office. The moment I read how the president has been replaced by a space alien, it was trashcan.
Would you continue reading?
Got it?
“usurp: 1. To seize and hold (the power or rights of another, for example) by force or without legal authority.
2. To take over or occupy without right: usurp a neighbor’s land.
3. To take the place of (another) without legal authority; supplant.
4. To seize another’s place, authority, or possession wrongfully.”
So this applies to Obama? Tell me more.
“[Y]et your briefs were filled with wrong information….”
How would you know that?
misha,
What was the best paper that you wrote in college English class?
But if there is no clear title, then whichever non-Obama person is put in has the same problem. So you make a big stink, put the country through a long-drawn out process and still have a President with questionable title. So even were I to accept all the birther’s arguments (of coutse I don’t, but I’m trying to follow the logic, here), it would seem that the best thing would be to leave things alone and settle this in 2012, no?
Every authority you list in your brief should be cited in a table of authorities at the front of the brief. A capable legal professional will check and those authorities [b]before[/b] reading the briefs, so as not to have their time wasted when if the briefs mis-cite or misconstrue those authorities. For example, anyone who had already read the Wong Kim Ark case would know that it does not say what many birthers claim it says.
Scientist,
The replacement can be accomplished under either the 20th Amendment or 25th Amendment. Under either one, the Vice President becomes President. The former is more user friendly.
misha,
I thought you were an English major. Would your literary genius not want to at least keep reading so you could learn how the president was replaced by a space alien? How do you expect to be any kind of real English major without any imagination?
That’s why Congress when debating these issues came to the inevitable conclusion that Quo Warranto against an elected president, even if later found to be ineligible, cannot be permitted.
The impact of QW under any condition would lead to chaos.
A parody of a papal Bull. Really.
My professor said it was so good, he passed it around the entire department. The non-Catholic students also made great fun of the Index.
Of course, the replacement as well as the determination if the President is qualified lies per Constitution with Congress.
That’s where your adventure in legal ‘theory’ ends.
By comparing them to known facts.
Mario- I give you 1 point for that answer. I’m sure you know, however, that most of your fellow birthers are unwilling to accept Biden. They have twisted themselves into a pretzel with some unconstitutional nonsense about a special election. Looks like dissention in the ranks.
Regarding reading briefs, I can’t speak from experience in the legal area, but I can tell you how it works with scientific papers. The journal editor will take a quick look, and if the paper is unintelligible nonsense, will reject it without sending it on to peer reviewers. no point wasting their time with crap.
“What was the best paper that you wrote in college English class?” A parody of a papal Bull.
“Would your literary genius not want to at least keep reading so you could learn how the president was replaced by a space alien?”
Unfortunately, it was a law office, not a literary agent’s. So they did not have the time to plow through letters like that. If I was working at Prentice Hall in Jersey, I might have continued reading.
So no.
Dear Mario,
For once I disagree with Black Lion when he says your briefs are full of wrong information. At least Orly’s briefs were full of Charles Lincoln the 3rd. Your obsessive need to topple a President argues that your little briefs aren’t full of anything.
sincerely,
Benji Franklin
Scientist,
The law works a little different. In the law, when he/she is the trier of fact, the judge has to make a decision that makes the correct findings of fact and of law. The judge wants to make the right decision because he/she does not want to be overturned on appeal. Hence, the court has to take the time to learn a party’s position, no matter how much “crap” it can be. The court is accountable to higher ups and the law so it is motivated to want to render a correct decision.
Which is why the defendants get to reply as well, allowing the Judge to focus on the arguments and why they fail…
Did I not notice some overlap between the excellent reply brief and the Judge’s ruling in Charlie’s case?
I know what Ballantine said, since it was written in English. I was correcting your misinterpretation of it.
Your reading comprehension is failing you again Mario.
Making your case by Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner, p. 13
Rule 6. Never overstate your case. Be scrupulously accurate.
You’ll harm your credibility–you’ll be written off as a blowhard–if you characterize the case as a lead-pipe cinch with nothing to be said for the other side. …
Scrupulous accuracy consists not merely in never making a statement you know to be incorrect (that is mere honesty), but also in never making a statement you are not certain is correct.
P. 97
p. 99
p. 59
If your brief is dishonest, misstating the law, if it’s making the judge’s job harder, don’t expect it to get much more than a cursory glance. The judge will use the trial court record and his own legal research to figure out the facts and the law.
AS OF NOVEMBER 12, 2009 in Ankeny v. Indiana. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed that Barack Hussien Obama is a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN OF THE USA!
But but but….
You seem to be confusing two different subjects. A legal brief should state what its argument is, what the proposed outcome should be and proof that the argument is valid.
Reading a brief that talks about how the President was replaced by a space alien is legal nonsense. Rather like Orly Taitz or Phillip Berg’s briefs. Comparing it to an English composition is kind of weird and not even close to the subject of legal briefs.
Actually, the Judges decision in Ankeny V Indiana, page 18, footnote 16, addresses this question quite well.
The Judge noted that “Chester A Arthur, the twenty-first U.S. President, was born of a mother who was a United State citizen and a father who was an Irish Citizen.” “During the election of 1880, there arose a rumor that Arthur had been born in Canada, rather than in Vermont as he claimed, and was thus constitutionally ineligible to become the Chief Executive.”
The fact that Chester A Arthur had one parent who was not a U.S. Citizen never entered into the equation because it didn’t matter legally.
This is the form that the State of Hawaii issues now. They have for quite some time. You don’t get to choose which form a state issues vital records on. As long as it is State Certified, it is legal proof of citizenship. Period.
Nor does he need to. That is not one of the criteria that the US Constitution specifies.
As with the passport, they are not needed to satisfy the criteria that the U.S. Constitution specifies. Plus, the passport and what you have listed above are not public documents. For anyone other than Obama to release them is illegal.
Actually, what is preventing it is the HIPPA law, and it’s not up to Obama to release or not release them. About the birth certificate, all you need to know is that he is a NBC, which means that he was born in the U.S. Anything else you want to know is just curiosity.
My cousin went by his step-father’s last name up until High School, when they demanded he use his birth name. But until then, he was known by his step-father’s name. This was not uncommon at the time, and my cousin is only 3 years younger than Obama.
My cousin was never adopted by his step-father, he simply started going by his last name so that he didn’t feel different from the rest of the household.
Today, with the emphasis on documentation, this would never have been possible. But it happened a lot then.
Quite simply, you are wrong. The public is not entitled to anything other than what is specified in the US Constitution.
I was very pleased when Obama just ignored all the calls for so much private information about him. It seems like with each election, the public asks more and more. And the plain and simple fact is that they do not have the right to it.
Obama didn’t make a big deal about it, he just ignored the calls for anything other than what was already public information. I hope that this trend continues.
Ayatollah Mario-I’m ecstatic that you are acknowledging those Amendments and the incontrovertible fact that there is only one legitimate successor if a President is removed for any reason whatsoever-the Vice President. That alone places you in the top percentile of birther ranks since most of them attempt to deny that because they are unwilling to see the end results of their labors as being President Biden carrying on President Obama’s wise policies.
But have you actually read those Amendments? The 20th makes crystal clear that questions of Presidential qualifications are to be resolved BEFORE the Inauguration and that the decision made at that time is final, whether the Birther Guardian Counsel likes the decision or not. The 25th was drafted after the Kennedy assassination and was designed to cover a situation of a President on life support. In any event it vests the power to remove the President in the Vice President and the Cabinet.
What you are doing, and what I find highly objectionable, is that in your quest to defend one clause in Artcle II from a perceived threat (one that is unsupported by any actual evidence), you are advocating ignoring or twisting the Impeachment clauses of Article II and the 20th and 25th Amendments. Like the Generals in Vietnam, you are advocating destroying the village in order to save it.
Terri: Actually, what is preventing it is the HIPPA law, and it’s not up to Obama to release or not release them.
Actually it is. Under HIPAA, a patient may sign an authorization for the release of a medical record. However, after all this time, there may not be much left, and that in and of itself would create another denialist firestormof protest over “what happened to the records?”
The Pakistan Travel Ban that you always seem to forget about…And you wrote prohibited from entering Pakistan…No Americans were prohibited from entering Pakistan so that was wrong information in your legal filing…
This is where I disagree with Dr. C. Donofrio’s crank legal theory requires an even bigger conspiracy than the born-in-Africa theory. Everyone but cave-dwellers knew Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen. The speech that started the buzz about Barack Obama as a future president was his address at the 2004 Democratic convention. The third sentence of that speech was, “My father was a foreign student.”
For over a hundred years American legal references have uniformly acknowledged that children born in U.S., with a few specific exceptions, are natural-born citizens. What — they were all wrong and no one said anything? That would take a massive, nation-wide, century-long conspiracy.
According to the Left, Obama has satisfied his burden of proof that he is a natural born citizen with just his posted Certification of Live Birth. Can anyone tell me which burden of proof was used to draw this legal conclusion? By a preponderance of the evidence, by clear and convincing evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt?
@Robert: are you clinically insane, or does it just look that way?
robert, testing a new angle:
the posted colb was offered as evidence in the court of public opinion and was ruled sufficient by a demonstration of preponderance of votes, in a clear and convincing election victory that left no reasonable doubt that a majority of voters found the birfers’ charges wanting.
@Robert: one more thing: Obama will be re-elected, and Cory Booker will follow. Better get used to it.
aarrgghh-Actually Robert’s post is interesting. According to him, anyone who believes Obama is a legitimate President (whether or not they support his positions on the issues) is on “the Left”. Well, 53% voted for him and according to the polls 50% approve of his job performance. I think it’s reasonable to assume that the large majority of those who disapprove of Obama’s performance do so not because of birther issues, but because of legitimate disagreements with his policies. So that means that according to Robert, at least 75% of the country (probably higher) is on “the Left”. Wow!
Beyond a reasonable doubt. And I use that phrase very deliberately because the doubts raised are not “reasonable”.
One often refers back to the photos of the COLB published by FactCheck.org; however, I think that the article in which they appear is just as valuable. Here’s the link:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
“According the the Left”? Quite a few of us here don’t consider ourselves to be on the “left”. Nor from a statistical perspective could the excuse of the “left” explain Obama’s undeniably sizable election numbers and margin over his opponent.
I think you would be more accurate in rephrasing your message as such:
“According to common sense, the voters felt that Obama had satisfied his burden of proof that he is a natural born citizen beyond a reasonable doubt”.
There. FIXED.
This is easy. The burden of proof is on those who would challenge him. Under standard principals election law, candidates are presumed eligible unless proven otherwise; and office-holders are entitled to an even greater presumption.
So where’s your evidence to prove he’s not eligible?
And still the question remains, as we are still arguing it now a year after his corenation.
Take it to court, address the facts.
He cant wait it out forever.
As stated above, we may all be damned for this violation of the constitution.
SD
If you want to take the name of Cincinnatus, please have the decency to spell it properly.
SD (or Cinncinnatus Dogood) says:
“And still the question remains, as we are still arguing it now a year after his corenation.”
No. No question remains for anyone who was serious and honest about looking into it. Nor does any question remain for those who felt sufficient to vote him President.”
People like you obviously have to just keep telling yourself this to reinforce your fictional worldview, because you can’t accept the reality of his election. Keep sticking your fingers in your ears and closing your eyes and shouting at the wind… after all, sadly that’s all you seem to have going for you.
“Take it to court, address the facts.
He cant wait it out forever.”
Yeah…and how’s that working out for you? 0 and 60+ attempts….many tossed with clear and strong language calling them frivolous. So yeah, good luck with that and keep dreaming.
“As stated above, we may all be damned for this violation of the constitution. SD”
Hmmm…don’t seem to see any violation of the Constitution anywhere here. As to whether or not you yourself are damned, that is obviously a possibility, but not one I care to waste speculation on.
Birthers are the failblog.org of the legal community!
Just because we’re talking about you doesn’t mean you’re winning!
I think the following article will help give meaning to the phrase “natural born citizen,” and thus who is eligible to be President of the United States of America. Entitled “Natural (Native) Born Citizen Defined: Before and After the Fourteenth Amendment,” it is clear and engagingly written. The author is Dan Goodman. It can be found at these links:
http://citizenoftheseveralstates.webs.com/nativeborncitizenii.htm
(This website has the best summary of the article)
http://www.australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1695
http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=7e38c1c6-6eb2-427b-ad79-e0cb25e204fb
To Saint James, at 39, I read the case of Ankeny v. Indiana. I found it very interesting that the court concluded, on page 17, “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 the parents;” when at Footnote 14 on the same page, the court wrote: “We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a ‘natural born Citizen’ using the Constitution’s Article II language is immaterial. . . . The issue addressed in Wong Kim Ark was whether Mr. Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States on the basis that he was born in the United States. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. at 705, 18 S.Ct. at 478.” In addition, before the Fourteenth Amendment, the term “citizen of the United States” appeared in the Constitution with the term “natural born citizen” at Article II, Section 1, Clause 5; not Clause 4, Clause 3 remains, however, it is to be shown that it was modified. It appears the Judge missed a class in law school.
Words in the Constitution are chosen carefully. To have two terms describe the same thing would be unacceptable in drafting a constitution. The answer is, therefore, a distinction exists between them. In the article which I referred to at the beginning of this reply Dan Goodman shows the distinction before and after the Fourteenth Amendment.
Words in the Constitution are chosen carefully. To have two terms describe the same thing would be unacceptable in drafting a constitution.
That’s fair, except that “citizen” and “natural born Citizen” do not have the same meaning. “Citizen” describes all those who have citizenship, while “natural born Citizen” refers to, at the very least, nearly all persons born on U.S. soil.
Warren Hathaway: It appears the Judge missed a class in law school.
The judge? It was three judges, Sloviter, Fuentes and Hardiman, who decided this appeal (the opinion was written by Sloviter).
I think that it is a rather cavalier thing for someone to read something on the Internet and then say that appeals court judges “missed a class in law school”. Me thinks Mr. Hathaway didn’t attend any classes in law school at all, nor does it appear that he actually read the opinion in US. v. Wong, or he would have known that it was the lengthy chain of reasoning in Wong that inevitably leads to the conclusion that birth in the country alone makes a natural born citizen.
I do not see that Mr. Goodman’s paper in any way contradicts the appeals court in Ankeny.
It is amazing that so many birthers have not read Wong Kim Ark or simply have no reading comprehension. The case held that the 14th amendment was declaratory of the existing law that existed under the orignal constitution. Thus, the court then told us that “natural born citizen” in Art. II was defined by the English common law like every other court that has ever addressed the issue and that it had the same meaning as the 14th amendment. I guess all these judges didn’t go to law school. Whether you want to call the discussion of Art. II in Wong dicta, it was necessary for the holding of the case and is the most authoritive statement we have on the issue from the Supreme Court, though there have been a multitude of lower court cases on the subject.
Warren Hathaway says:
We note the fact that the Court in Wong Kim Ark did not actually pronounce the plaintiff a natural born Citizen’
Not specifically, but it did not need to because the lower court ruling did declare that Wong Kim Ark was a “natural born citizen” and the Supreme Court decision upheld that ruling without exception. Indeed, the government’s Supreme Court brief in the Wong Kim Ark case specifically acknowledges that if Wong Kim Ark were to be ruled a citizen, he would be eligible to be president.
The question presented by this appeal may thus be stated: Is a person born within the United States of alien parents domiciled therein a citizen thereof by the fact of his birth? The appellant maintains the negative, and in that behalf assigns as error the ruling of the district court that the respondent is a natural born citizen…
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23965360/Wong-Kim-Ark-US-v-169-US-649-1898-Appellants-Brief-USA
I’d still like a birther to read Wong and tell me exactly how Gray came to the conclusion that Wong was a citizen without deciding first that natural born citizen meant exactly the same as natural born subject.
The court didn’t call Wong a “natural born citizen,” because there was no question that a person who gets their citizenship by birth is a natural born citizen.
This notion that someone could be born here, gain citizenship because of that birth here, yet still not be eligible for the presidency was never conceived of by anyone until 2008 when Obama was looking like he’d win the Presidency.
The court never specifically says that Wong’s parents weren’t space aliens, either. As the court pointed out in their footnote,
Did you know you left that part of the footnote out, Warren? Why would you do that?
Also, Warren, how can you find it “interesting” that the Court found the way it did when it explained exactly what it was doing in the six previous pages? They walk you through exactly how they are relying on Wong to determine that Obama is a natural born citizen.
How about this, why don’t you summarize the reasoning in the Ankeny decision. Prove to us you’ve read the case.
Dear Warren,
You wrote: “Words in the Constitution are chosen carefully. To have two terms describe the same thing would be unacceptable in drafting a constitution.”
The first sentence is a maxim that holds generally true; the second is a canard parroted only by persons who have no knowledge of how constitutions, and in particular, the U.S. Constitution, ever survive the political processes that could so easily keep them from ever being ratified after they are written.
Take a course or read a college-level pre-birther era book about the writing of our Constitution. You will discover that profound ambiguity written into the clauses, is credited as one of the only reasons it ever got ratified; disagreeing factions on particular issues could both interpret the language as allowing their preference, and the Framers were happy at the prospect of having the issue interpreted post-ratification by the courts, just to get the country started.
The Presidency was worked on near the end of the convention and delegates were unconcerned about the language (very little debate or discussion) because George Washington was anticipated to be the first POTUS and delegates thought his trusted precedents would establish any crucial unspecified requirements.
The use of an unorthodox term of art like “Natural Born Citizen” provides enough ambiguity to have each of MORE prospective ratifying voters in the colonies, imagine regardless of his state’s particularly worded citizenship definitions, that HIS son would arguably be eligible to be president someday.
18th Century Constitutions were not literary examples of precisely written specifications penned in idyllic settings by philosophically inspired saints; they were rough libertarian essentially-organized dreams, rebounding from emerging civilizations eras of tyranny, written in whatever language could get them accepted as a basis for law in a country trying to maximize individual liberty for (almost) everyone.
You appear to be another one of the new frightening class of drive-by “students” of the U.S. Constitution. That’s the class that thinks the only reason to read the Constitution, is to see if you can find a phrase ambiguous enough to say that it unambiguously requires that our Black President be removed from office.
Benji Franklin
Dr. Conspiracy,
Your choice of words are clever. Of course, United States v. Wong concluded that one born in a country makes that one a natural born citizen. However, in the United States, the United States government and the several State governments are separate and distinct sovereignties. This is shown in Dan Goodman work, “Natural (Native) Born Citizen Defined: Before and After the Fourteenth Amendment,” at Footnote 6, which states:
“The general government, and the States, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the States within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the tenth amendment, reserved,’ are as independent of the general government as that government within its sphere is independent of the States.” Collector v. Day: 78 U.S. (Wall. 11) 113, at 124 (1870).
Because of this, then, since the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States government has its own citizens and the several State governments have their own citizens. In his work, Dan, identifies them as a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the several States (not the same a citizen of a State). Each, by birth, is under the (territorial) jurisdiction of the respective sovereign and each, owes allegiance to their respective sovereign. This is shown at United States v. Cruikshank:
“We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect.” United States v. Cruikshank: 92 U.S. 542, at 549 (1875).
In addition, a citizen of the United States, by residing in a State, is legally under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of a State also. Though under the territorial jurisdiction of the State, the citizen of the United States, however, owes allegiance to the State, too. The citizen of the United States is still under political jurisdiction to the United States government.
In Ankeny v. Indiana, the court concludes with no legal authority that a citizen of the United States is the same as a native born citizen. In United States v. Wong, however, the Supreme Court states at pages 654 through 655:
“The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted, uses the words ‘citizen of the United States,’ and ‘natural-born citizen of the United States.’ By the original Constitution, every representative in Congress is required to have been ‘seven years a citizen of the United States,’ and every Senator to have been ‘nine years a citizen of the United States.’ and ‘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 Fourteenth Article of Amendment, besides declaring that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,’ also declares that ‘no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ And the Fifteenth Article of Amendment declares that ‘the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.’
The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of these words, either by way of inclusion or of exclusion, except insofar as this is done by the affirmative declaration that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.’ In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution.”
The Supreme Court, like me, still makes a distinction between a citizen of the United States and a native born citizen, even after the Fourteenth Amendment.
Uh. No. Any common law precepts regarding the alleged distinction between US and State citizenship have been put to rest by the 14th – Common law rules only in the absence of statute. There is no distinction except on the basis of residency – one cannot become a citizen of a particular State without first becoming a citizen of the United States, which is the paramount citizenship.
Warren Hathaway: In Ankeny v. Indiana, the court concludes with no legal authority that a citizen of the United States is the same as a native born citizen. In United States v. Wong, however, the Supreme Court states at pages 654 through 655
I guess my confusion over the point you are trying to make centers on the sentence above. The Court in Ankeny did not say this in any shape or form. Obviously naturalized citizens are citizens of the United States but not native born citizens (or natural born citizens) and everybody on every side of this Obama business knows this and the court in Ankeny knows this. So the extensive citations you give us are fine, but not on point since no one is claiming what you object to. This footnote in Ankeny makes it quite plain that the Indiana appeals court made a clear distinction between citizen of the United States and natural born citizen:
The decision in US v Wong was that Wong was a citizen of the United States, and if that were all there was to Wong it would be of minor interest to us; however, after reading the Wong opinion in its entirety it becomes evident that the Supreme Court also concludes that Wong was a natural born citizen (a person born in the United States to non-citizen parents) and this is the “guidance” that US v Wong provided to the court in Ankeny–not the decision, but the opinion. The opinion by the court of appeals in Ankeny, far from having “no legal authority” has lots of legal authority, and you might do well to start with the list of cases and authorities cited in Wong.
Suggested reading:
Lynch v Clarke
US v. Wong Kim Ark
Ankeny v Daniels
And read the whole thing.
I had trouble understanding Goodman’s point of view. Is this sovereign citizen territory? Or am I missing something?
Of course, United States v. Wong concluded that one born in a country makes that one a natural born citizen.
Thank you for acknowledging that Obama is a natural born citizen.
Dan Goodman work, “Natural (Native) Born Citizen Defined: Before and After the Fourteenth Amendment”
Who is Dan Goodman, and why should anyone care what he thinks? What are his credentials? Is this the same Dan Goodman who last year made the specious argument in this forum that someone born in the District of Columbia is not a natural born citizen? We’re supposed to take seriously anything he says?
In Ankeny v. Indiana, the court concludes with no legal authority that a citizen of the United States is the same as a native born citizen.
No, that’s not what the court concluded. The court concluded that anyone born in the United States, with a couple of specific exceptions, is a natural born citizen.
The Supreme Court, like me, still makes a distinction between a citizen of the United States and a native born citizen, even after the Fourteenth Amendment.
As does everyone else. A natural born citizen is a citizen, but a citizen is not necessarily a natural born citizen. Nothing new or controversial about that.
To Mike,
In my response to Dr. Conspiracy, I made it clear that a citizen of the several States was not the same as a citizen of a State.
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are designated at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States:
“The intention of section 2, Article IV (of the Constitution), was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions. Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, at 113 thru 114 (1890).
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of a State are to be found with the individual State constitution and laws:
“. . . Whatever may be the scope of section 2 of article IV — and we need not, in this case enter upon a consideration of the general question — the Constitution of the United States does not make the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the citizens of one State under the constitution and laws of that State, the measure of the privileges and immunities to be enjoyed, as of right, by a citizen of another State under its constitution and laws.” McKane v. Durston: 153 U.S. 684, at 687 (1894).
A citizen of the several States is also a citizen of a State:
“There can be no doubt that Balk, as a citizen of the State of North Carolina, had the right to sue Harris in Maryland to recover the debt which Harris owed him. Being a citizen of North Carolina, he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, one of which is the right to institute actions in the courts of another State.” Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905).
A citizen of the United States, by residing in a State, is legally under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of a State also.
Therefore, there are two state citizens, one who is a citizen of the several States, and, one who is a citizen of the United States:
“Because the ordinance and specifications, under which the paving in this case was done, require the contractor to employ only bona fide resident citizens of the city of New Orleans as laborers on the work, it is contended, on behalf on the plaintiff in error, that thereby citizens of the State of Louisiana, and of each and every State and the inhabitants thereof, are deprived of their privileges and immunities under article 4, sec. 2, and under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It is said that such an ordinance deprives every person, not a bona fide resident of the city of New Orleans, of the right to labor on the contemplated improvements, and also is prejudicial to the property owners, because, by restricting the number of workmen, the price of the work is increased.
Such questions are of the gravest possible importance, and, if and when actually presented, would demand most careful consideration; but we are not now called upon to determine them.
In so far as the provisions of the city ordinance may be claimed to affect the rights and privileges of citizens of Louisiana and of the other States, the plaintiff in error is in no position to raise the question. It is not alleged, nor does it appear, that he is one of the laborers excluded by the ordinance from employment, or that he occupies any representative relation to them. Apparently he is one of the preferred class of resident citizens of the city of New Orleans.” Chadwick v. Kelley: 187 U.S. 540, at 546 (1903).
A citizen of the United States is not the same as a citizen of the several States:
“We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this [the Fourteenth] Amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section (first section, second clause), which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those of citizens of the several states. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs, rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74 (1873).
Therefore, one can be a citizen of a State, without being a citizen of the United States:
“The act was considered in Johnson v. United States, 160 U.S. 546, 16 Sup. Ct. 377, and we there held that a person who was not a citizen of the United States at the time of an alleged appropriation of his property by a tribe of Indians was not entitled to maintain an action in the Court of Claims under the act in question. There was not in that case, however, any assertion that the claimant was a citizen of a State, as distinguished from a citizen of the United States. . . . [U]ndoubtedly in a purely technical and abstract sense citizenship of one of the States may not include citizenship of the United States . . . Unquestionably, in the general and common acceptation, a citizen of the State is considered as synonymous with citizen of the United States, and the one is therefore treated as expressive of the other. This flows from the fact that the one is normally and usually the other, and where such is not the case it is purely exceptional and uncommon.” United States v. Northwestern Express, Stage & Transportation Company: 164 U.S. 686, 688 (1897).
The reason being that there is another citizen under the Constitution of the Untied States since the Fourteenth Amendment; that citizen is a citizen of the several States, at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, who is also a citizen of a State.
Legal authority for this reply was taken from Dan Goodman’s work, “Natural (Native) Born Citizen Defined: Before and After the Fourteenth Amendment.”
There are certainly many who would put the decision in the Slaughterhouse cases on the list of the Supreme Court’s greatest blunders when it gutted the privileges and immunities clause, but what relevance does that have in Ankeny v Daniels?
Mr. Hathaway, you claim: “Therefore, one can be a citizen of a State, without being a citizen of the United States.” Could you give a particular example of such a person and why they are not a citizen of the United States?
I think Hathaway is claiming that there are three different citizenships: Citizen of the United States, Citizen of the Several States, and Citizen of a particular State. So one could be a Citizen of Texas and of the Several States, but not of the United States. (That’s why I asked about sovereign citizen.)
Mr. Hathaway — is this a correct reading?
(continued from above)
From Goodman’s essay: Citizen of the several States (legally defined)
(Usage)
I am a citizen of the several States and not a citizen of the United States.
http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/DG14CitizenOfTheSeveralStatesLegallyDefined.pdf
Hello Whatever4,
I think I might be of help to you regarding Dan Goodman’s work. This is what I got.
Before the Fourteenth Amendment, a natural (native) born citizen was one who was born in a State of the Union; that is, a citizen of a State. A native born citizen of a State, when outside the United States of America, was considered a native born citizen of the United States, under international law.
This changed somewhat with the case of Dred Scott. After Dred Scott, citizenship of the United States became a reality under the Constitution. So one who a native born citizen of a State became under the Constitution of the United States a native born citizen of the United States.
One born in a State (of the Union) was thus a citizen of a State and also a citizen of the United States.
In the Slaughterhouse Cases, the Supreme court held citizenship of a State to be separate and distinct from citizenship of the United States, “[t]hat a citizen of a State was separate and distinct from a citizen of the United States.”
Because the government of the United States and the several State governments are still considered separate and distinct sovereignties, then each now have because of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Slaughterhouse Cases, citizens of their own.
For purposes of international law, a citizen of a State was made also a citizen of the several States under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution. See my response to Mike (April 9, 2010 at 9:38 pm)
And a citizen of the United States, by residing in a State, is legally under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of a State also.
Now, because of the Fourteenth Amendment, a native born citizen under the Constitution is one who is born in a State of the Union, that is a citizen of a State. A citizen of the United States is not, since such citizen is not born in a State. A citizen of the United States is no longer one of the People of the United States. Minor v. Happersett: 88 U.S. 162, at 166 (To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the [Fourteenth] amendment, . . . “). A citizen of the several States is one of the People of the United States. Blake v. McClung: 172 U.S. 239, 256 through 257 (“It has never been supposed that regulations of that character materially interfered with the enjoyment by citizen of each state of the privileges and immunities secured by the constitution to citizens of the several States. The constitution forbids only such legislation affecting citizens of the respective states as will substantially or practically put a citizen of one state in a condition of alienage when he is within or when he removes to another state, or when asserting in another state the rights that commonly appertain to those who are part of the political community known as the People of the United States, by and for whom the government of the Union was ordained and established.) this link: http://openjurist.org/172/us/239 , at 36.
Hello Whatever4,
(This is in reply to your entry April 9 2010 at 11:18 pm about three citizenships)
You are correct. There are three citizenships.
Two of them, citizenship of the United States and citizenship of the several States are located and designated in the Constitution of the United States.
Citizenship of the United States can be found at Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Citizenship of the several States is at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States.
Citizenship of a State is under the Constitution and laws of the individual State.
A citizen of the United States, under Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment can become legally a citizen of a State also. A citizen of a State is now under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution a citizen of the several States.
So you are right, one could be a citizen of Texas and of the several States, but not of the United States. Also, one could be a citizen of the United States and of Texas, but not of the several States. Two cases which illustrates this is the Supreme court case Whitfield v. Ohio (297 U.S. 431; 1936) and Harris v. Balk (198 U.S. 215):
“As applied to a citizen of another State, or to a citizen of the United States residing in another State, a state law forbidding sale of convict made goods does not violate the privileges and immunities clauses of Art. IV, Sec. 2 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution if it applies also and equally to the citizens of the State that enacted it.” {Syllabus} Whitfield v. State of Ohio: 297 U.S. 431 (1936).
“The court below proceeded upon the assumption that petitioner was a citizen of the United States; and his status in that regard is not questioned. The effect of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as applied to the facts of the present case, is to deny the power of Ohio to impose restraints upon citizens of the United States resident in Alabama in respect of the disposition of goods within Ohio, if like restraints are not imposed upon citizens resident in Ohio.
The effect of the similar clause found in the Fourth Article of the Constitution (section 2), as applied to these facts, would be the same, since that clause is directed against discrimination by a state in favor of its own citizens and against the citizens of other states. Slaughterhouse Cases (Live-Stock Dealers’ & Butchers’ Ass’n v. Crescent City Live-Stock Landing & Slaughter-House Co.), Fed.Cas. No. 8,408, 1 Woods 21, 28; Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 16 Wall. 130, 138.” {Opinion} Whitfield v. State of Ohio: 297 U.S. 431, 437 [1936].
“There can be no doubt that Balk, as a citizen of the State of North Carolina, had the right to sue Harris in Maryland to recover the debt which Harris owed him. Being a citizen of North Carolina, he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, one of which is the right to institute actions in the courts of another State.” Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905).
Yes, at state level there is also a citizenship which has really little relevance to the eligibility issue. At a federal level there are two forms of citizenship: natus and datus. Born and granted by statute.
Native or natural born, two mostly if not totally overlapping concepts versus those who are naturalized.
it’s quite simple really and focusing on State citizenship is meaningless.
That’s untenable given the ruling in Wong Kim Ark. All that is needed is birth on US soil, regardless of the status of the parents. Since there are several states which have restricted State citizenship to a narrower subset, one cannot argue that state citizen requires one to be a citizen of a state.
Novel but untenable.
Funny how such a simple case like Wong Kim Ark leads people to still make such silly claims that the Ankeny court made its ruling with no legal authority.
Fascinating… the level of denial.. Not to mention the misunderstandings of what Ankeny really stated.
Where do they get this nonsense from?
Duh… The former includes naturalized citizens.
Such foolishness…. Is that all you have to argue is that you, like the Supreme Court understands that not all citizens of the US are natural born since some of them are naturalized?
Sigh..
Dr. Conspiracy,
(This is in reply to your entry April 9, 2010 at 9:55pm about my claim)
You asked “Could you give a particular example of such a person and why they are not a citizen of the United States?”
To answer the first part of your question, here is a case from the Supreme court of the United States:
“As applied to a citizen of another State, or to a citizen of the United States residing in another State, a state law forbidding sale of convict made goods does not violate the privileges and immunities clauses of Art. IV, Sec. 2 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution if it applies also and equally to the citizens of the State that enacted it.” {Syllabus} Whitfield v. State of Ohio: 297 U.S. 431 (1936).
“The court below proceeded upon the assumption that petitioner was a citizen of the United States; and his status in that regard is not questioned. The effect of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as applied to the facts of the present case, is to deny the power of Ohio to impose restraints upon citizens of the United States resident in Alabama in respect of the disposition of goods within Ohio, if like restraints are not imposed upon citizens resident in Ohio.
The effect of the similar clause found in the Fourth Article of the Constitution (section 2), as applied to these facts, would be the same, since that clause is directed against discrimination by a state in favor of its own citizens and against the citizens of other states. Slaughterhouse Cases (Live-Stock Dealers’ & Butchers’ Ass’n v. Crescent City Live-Stock Landing & Slaughter-House Co.), Fed.Cas. No. 8,408, 1 Woods 21, 28; Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 16 Wall. 130, 138.” {Opinion} Whitfield v. State of Ohio: 297 U.S. 431, 437 (1936).
To answer the remaining part of your question, the reason a citizen of a State is separate and distinct from a citizen of the United States is that the government of the United States and the several State governments are still considered separate and distinct sovereignties. Collector v. Day: 78 U.S. (Wall. 11) 113, at 124 (1870). Thus, the United States government is sovereign over the citizen of the United States. The several State governments sovereign over its own citizens (citizen of a State). The United States government does not have political jurisdiction over a citizen of a State, an individual State government does. And, an individual State government does not have political jurisdiction over a citizen of the United States, the United States government does.
Consider the Fourteenth Amendment makes a citizen of the United States a citizen of a State. If the several States were not separate and distinct sovereignties, then why include these words in the constitutional provision.
nbc,
(This is in reply to your entry April 10, 2010 at 12:26 am about state citizenship is meaningless)
I think you are not grasping the situation between state citizenship and being eligibile for President of the United States of America. I think the reason is that you think that one who is born in a State of the Union is a citizen of the United States. Not so, one who is born in a State of the Union is a citizen of a State, entitled under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, to privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States.
So, if a citizen of the United States is not a citizen of a State by birth, then what place of birth establishes citizenship of the United States. There is the District of Columbia, as that area does not constitute a State under the Constitution of the United States. Also, there are the territories and possessions of the United States government, including what are called federal enclaves. In these areas, the United States government is sovereign and would have political jurisdiction over one born in them.
So, does a citizen of the United States qualify to be President of the United States of America? I do not think so.
Of course not, naturalized citizens are excluded but others are clearly eligible.
Since States can narrow the definition of state citizenship State citizenship cannot be sufficient for deciding who is a citizen of the United States.
Citizens may limit who are citizens of their State but these limitations do not affect who are citizens of the United States.
While originally, citizenship as far as naturalization was a state issue, the Federal Government realized the follies here and established a uniform rule of citizenship of the US.
I will admit Warren that I am too tired and sick to try very hard to follow your argument. But I think I get what you are trying to say is that there are three citizenships in the United States:
Citizens of the United States
Citizens of a State.
Now most of us understand this. I am a citizen of the United States and I am technically a citizen of California.
Then you make a distinction of “a citizen of the several states”.
What exactly do you think that means? Myself- being no lawyer- just an ordinary joe- I think that means in context when they are talking in general about state citizens- of the several states of the United States. Not a seperate citizenship but talking of the multiple states and the citizens thereof.
So explain exactly what you think a ‘citizen of several states’ is? Do they carry seperate passports? Do they vote in specific elections seperate from Federal or state elections?
See, I think this is one of those elaborate arguments intended from the beginning to reach a conclusion that no other rational person would conclude.
“I think the reason is that you think that one who is born in a State of the Union is a citizen of the United States”
yes- I think that someone who is born in a state of the Union is not only a citizen of the United States but a natural born citizen.
I am curious- if someone does not get citizenship in the United States by being born in a state of the Union- does that mean I have been fraudently voting in federal elections- well me and the majority of voters- for the last 30 odd years?
Wierdly interesting argument but I don’t buy it, and I don’t think you can find any actual evidence that anyone else believes it.
To SFJeff,
In my response to Dr. Conspiracy, I made it clear that a citizen of the several States was not the same as a citizen of a State.
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are designated at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States:
“The intention of section 2, Article IV (of the Constitution), was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions. Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, at 113 thru 114 (1890).
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of a State are to be found with the individual State constitution and laws:
“. . . Whatever may be the scope of section 2 of article IV — and we need not, in this case enter upon a consideration of the general question — the Constitution of the United States does not make the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the citizens of one State under the constitution and laws of that State, the measure of the privileges and immunities to be enjoyed, as of right, by a citizen of another State under its constitution and laws.” McKane v. Durston: 153 U.S. 684, at 687 (1894).
A citizen of the several States is also a citizen of a State:
“There can be no doubt that Balk, as a citizen of the State of North Carolina, had the right to sue Harris in Maryland to recover the debt which Harris owed him. Being a citizen of North Carolina, he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, one of which is the right to institute actions in the courts of another State.” Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905).
A citizen of the United States, by residing in a State, is legally under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of a State also.
Therefore, there are two state citizens, one who is a citizen of the several States, and, one who is a citizen of the United States:
“Because the ordinance and specifications, under which the paving in this case was done, require the contractor to employ only bona fide resident citizens of the city of New Orleans as laborers on the work, it is contended, on behalf on the plaintiff in error, that thereby citizens of the State of Louisiana, and of each and every State and the inhabitants thereof, are deprived of their privileges and immunities under article 4, sec. 2, and under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It is said that such an ordinance deprives every person, not a bona fide resident of the city of New Orleans, of the right to labor on the contemplated improvements, and also is prejudicial to the property owners, because, by restricting the number of workmen, the price of the work is increased.
Such questions are of the gravest possible importance, and, if and when actually presented, would demand most careful consideration; but we are not now called upon to determine them.
In so far as the provisions of the city ordinance may be claimed to affect the rights and privileges of citizens of Louisiana and of the other States, the plaintiff in error is in no position to raise the question. It is not alleged, nor does it appear, that he is one of the laborers excluded by the ordinance from employment, or that he occupies any representative relation to them. Apparently he is one of the preferred class of resident citizens of the city of New Orleans.” Chadwick v. Kelley: 187 U.S. 540, at 546 (1903).
A citizen of the United States is not the same as a citizen of the several States:
“We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this [the Fourteenth] Amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section (first section, second clause), which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those of citizens of the several states. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs, rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74 (1873).
Therefore, one can be a citizen of a State, without being a citizen of the United States:
“The act was considered in Johnson v. United States, 160 U.S. 546, 16 Sup. Ct. 377, and we there held that a person who was not a citizen of the United States at the time of an alleged appropriation of his property by a tribe of Indians was not entitled to maintain an action in the Court of Claims under the act in question. There was not in that case, however, any assertion that the claimant was a citizen of a State, as distinguished from a citizen of the United States. . . . [U]ndoubtedly in a purely technical and abstract sense citizenship of one of the States may not include citizenship of the United States . . . Unquestionably, in the general and common acceptation, a citizen of the State is considered as synonymous with citizen of the United States, and the one is therefore treated as expressive of the other. This flows from the fact that the one is normally and usually the other, and where such is not the case it is purely exceptional and uncommon.” United States v. Northwestern Express, Stage & Transportation Company: 164 U.S. 686, 688 (1897).
The reason being that there is another citizen under the Constitution of the Untied States since the Fourteenth Amendment; that citizen is a citizen of the several States, at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, who is also a citizen of a State.
Legal authority for this part of my reply was taken from Dan Goodman’s work, “Natural (Native) Born Citizen Defined: Before and After the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Regarding a citizen of the several States, its designation is at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States:
“The intention of section 2, Article IV (of the Constitution), was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship.” Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, 113-114 (1890).
The privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are described in Corfield v. Coryell decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823:
“In the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, this is quoted from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. Cir. Ct. 371, 380.” Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at page 15 (1906).
You are correct. There are three citizenships.
Two of them, citizenship of the United States and citizenship of the several States are located and designated in the Constitution of the United States.
Citizenship of the United States can be found at Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Citizenship of the several States is at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States.
Citizenship of a State is under the Constitution and laws of the individual State.
A citizen of the United States, under Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment can become legally a citizen of a State also. A citizen of a State is now under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution a citizen of the several States.
One can be a citizen of a State and of the several States, but not of the United States. Also, one can be a citizen of the United States and of a State, but not of the several States. Two cases which illustrates this is the Supreme court case Whitfield v. Ohio (297 U.S. 431; 1936) and Harris v. Balk (198 U.S. 215):
“As applied to a citizen of another State, or to a citizen of the United States residing in another State, a state law forbidding sale of convict made goods does not violate the privileges and immunities clauses of Art. IV, Sec. 2 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution if it applies also and equally to the citizens of the State that enacted it.” {Syllabus} Whitfield v. Ohio: 297 U.S. 431 (1936).
“The court below proceeded upon the assumption that petitioner was a citizen of the United States; and his status in that regard is not questioned. The effect of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as applied to the facts of the present case, is to deny the power of Ohio to impose restraints upon citizens of the United States resident in Alabama in respect of the disposition of goods within Ohio, if like restraints are not imposed upon citizens resident in Ohio.
The effect of the similar clause found in the Fourth Article of the Constitution (section 2), as applied to these facts, would be the same, since that clause is directed against discrimination by a state in favor of its own citizens and against the citizens of other states. Slaughterhouse Cases (Live-Stock Dealers’ & Butchers’ Ass’n v. Crescent City Live-Stock Landing & Slaughter-House Co.), Fed.Cas. No. 8,408, 1 Woods 21, 28; Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 16 Wall. 130, 138.” {Opinion} Whitfield v. State of Ohio: 297 U.S. 431, 437 (1936).
“There can be no doubt that Balk, as a citizen of the State of North Carolina, had the right to sue Harris in Maryland to recover the debt which Harris owed him. Being a citizen of North Carolina, he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, one of which is the right to institute actions in the courts of another State.” Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905).
Typical anti-tax insanity. The courts have rejected the notion repeatedly that one could be a citizen of a state, but not a citizen of the US. See the ADL’s Idiot Legal Arguments.
Warren: I refer you to Greg’s comment for my response.
Furthermore, in order to be as dismissive of your legal whittering as possible, I also decline to state a full argument, but will simply mention the 14th Amendment and the Supremacy clause.
*Whew*, it’s not me being confused then. I believe that when the courts say “citizens of the several states”, they aren’t talking at all about a third category, it’s the plural of “citizen of a state”.
“Citizens of the states” would be the same as “citizens of the United States”. To talk about citizens of Texas plus citizens of Utah plus citizens of Florida etc, the form is “citizens of the several states”.
Is that his argument that one can be a citizen of a state but not of the United States?
Hilarious…
Warren,
I can only assume that by re-pasting your post in response to my questions rather than actually answering them that you really have no answer to my questions.
You can’t in simple terms answer whether I am entitled to be voting in federal elections.
You can’t identify in simple terms the distinct rights and responsibilities of your imaginary ‘several states citizen’.
You refuse to identify a person who is a citizen of a state, but not a citizen of the United States.
Can a person be a citizen of your imaginary “several states” and not be a citizen of the United States?
Your whole argument is a tortured construct that frankly no rationale American citizen would accept.
And you haven’t dropped the other shoe to explain how this makes President Obama illegible as opposed to say President Bush or President Reagan.
Oh I just had to do a quick google search on Dan Goodman. Here is what I found- he has posted the exact same argument all over the web- and I really love this- citing his own articles. My favorite is when he responds to a 2007 post about Ron Paul- in February 2009 explaining his theory on ‘several citizens’.
This whole “several citizens” thing is Dan Goodman’s(whoever he is) own special theory, that he started promoting in 2009.
This totally seems to the claptrap fodder of “soverign citizen” & anti-tax protester movements (really the same groups, in terms of the basis, so I’ll just lump them all under the “sovereign citizen” category).
I’ve now read through all of Warren’s posts & the replies to date, along with spending some time browsing through this Goodman’s stuff (and yes, it does seem that he often circular references himself as a source).
Outside of trying to mostly cite old court cases that predate the 14th Amendment or the Civil War, Goodman’s authority seems to come from no place except himself and the other typical “sovereign citizen” clap trap, which has consistently failed to go anywhere or hold any water in today’s modern US and court system.
All these specious arguments fall in along the same lines with those that use terms like “secession” and “nullification”.
Sorry, they don’t. The Civil War settled that issue quite definitively and conclusively. Even the most conservative of the justices on our current Supreme Court have stated as much.
The problem with these folks is they are trying to re litigate the past, based on the fact that there were some legitimate questions as to the role of the central (Federal) government over being a loose collective (federation) of states in the early years of our country’s founding, as it struggled to identify itself and find its foothold in the world.
As we have grown, matured and modernized, many of these old arguments have been settled and there really is no going back.
Bottom line, the issue of whether someone has citizenship of a particular state at the state level is not relevant to the federal level, where ANY citizen of any of the states in the US has US citizenship.
At the federal level, there are only 2 types of citizenship, as clearly stated in the 14th Amendment – natural (those that get it at birth) & naturalized (those that apply & are approved for citizenship). The only distinction of functionality between the two is that the office of POTUS requires the former (Natural Born).
The states within the US are clear sub-entities of the US. If someone has citizenship in one state of the US, they obviously have full US citizenship as a result.
While states retain their constitutional rights to do things their own way within limits, the key thing is those rights are limited and superseded on any issues where the Federal Government’s authority is supreme (such as in determining citizenship).
I realize there is a whole group of people fawning after these sovereign citizen arguments, but in the end, they are just deluding themselves and trying to harken back to a different time, that is long since past and has no chance of coming back.
We live in 21st Century America now. We are no longer just a small loose federation of colonies/states banded together for a common purpose.
We are one solid, centralized nation, which contains a number of states and territories as components of the whole. The central federal government has pretty strong authority for governance, defense and standards applicable to the good of the country.
Neither individual states nor “several” states can decide to go their own way anymore.
G says:
If someone has citizenship in one state of the US, they obviously have full US citizenship as a result.
Absolutely. It is possible to be a citizen of the U.S. and not be a citizen of a state (someone who lives in Puerto Rico, for example), but it is not possible to be a citizen of a state and not be a citizen of the U.S.
SF Jeff: “a citizen of the several states”
Recall that the Constitution gives the federal government the authority to naturalize citizens, but it did not say anything about defining citizenship for those born citizens; that was left to the states. The Smith / Ramsay controversy came about because South Carolina’s constitution didn’t define who was a citizen either (South Carolina relied on the Common Law).
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 made the former slaves citizens, but there was some question as to whether Congress had such authority, leading to the 14th amendment two years later which defined citizens of the United States and for all intents and purposes removed the right for a State to say who was and who was not a citizen of the United States.
nbc: the Federal Government realized the follies here and established a uniform rule of citizenship of the US
I think it more accurate to say that the States realized the follies here and ratified the 14th Amendment that established a uniform rule of citizenship of the US at the federal level.
Warren Hathaway: To answer the first part of your question, here is a case…
I did not ask you for a case. I asked you for an “example of such a person” who is a citizen of the United States but is not a citizen of a state. A person is an individual with a name. You provided no particular person, and you did not answer my question.
However upon consideration, I suppose that someone born overseas could be a citizen of the United States and not a citizen of a state until that person moved their residence to a state. Such persons have consular birth certificates, not state birth certificates. But I still don’t know why we are discussing this on the Obama Conspiracy Theories blog, since President Obama was a natural born a citizen of Hawaii and of the United States.
Good point
Unless I am mistaken Doc, it would be pretty easy to be a citizen of the United States but not a citizen of a state- anyone born in DC, Puerto Rico, Guarm for instance.
However I don’t know of any way someone could be a citizen of a state, without being a citizen of the United States.
I agree, SFJeff.
Puerto Rico is an excellent example. As of 1917, those born there are granted US NBC status, but they can not vote if they live in Puerto Rico, because it is a territory and not a state. However, if someone born in Peurto Rico moved to one of the 50 States, then they could cast a vote. Therefore, Puerto Ricans are an interesting case, as they are born as NBCs of the US, but have limited rights & privileges as US Citizens, due to the status of living in a territory.
However, even more interesting is that someone born in Puerto Rico could run for US President.
SFJeff: However I don’t know of any way someone could be a citizen of a state, without being a citizen of the United States.
I don’t really know if this is ever the case, but certainly a state could define a citizen of their state, and allow that person to vote in state and local elections, and have any number of other state privileges, but that person would not be a citizen of the United States, since only Congress has the power to legislate naturalization.
Dr. C –
I’m racking my brain to even think of a scenario where this would be plausible…can you think of one? I sure can’t.
Really, it sounds like a stretch to even think this could ever legally happen and someone would end up with state citizenship but somehow NOT US Citizenship.
My view is definitely not a probable hypothetical at all.
g, brains racked:
when doc said:
i think by “could” he means “not impossible” rather than “probable” or “plausible”.
Dr. Conspiracy says:
I don’t really know if this is ever the case, but certainly a state could define a citizen of their state, and allow that person to vote in state and local elections, and have any number of other state privileges
Theoretically that might be possible, but it would be an administrative nightmare. Imagine election day on even years – there would have to be two sets of ballots, one for voters eligible to vote for candidates for federal, state and local offices and another for those eligible to vote only for candidates for state and local offices.
It’s hard for me to imagine a scenario in which a state would want to grant state citizenship to a person who is not a U.S. citizen. And wouldn’t such a person potentially be subject to deportation, like any other alien? The more relevant question might be, why would anyone want to be a state citizen but not a U.S. citizen?
aarrgghh,
I totally understand that.
I’m just asking for more. If not impossible, I’d like an idea of a realistic hypothetical scenario in which this could play out that way. I can’t come up with one. Otherwise, there’s not much point in even pointing out that it’s not impossible.
g, asking for more:
when one desires to be scrupulously fair, as i believe doc attempts to be, one does not call impossible an outcome that is only highly improbable.
I think it is impossible. Congress is given exclusive power over naturalisation, for one, and Articles V and VI would seem to suggest that the primacy of Federal power in this instance would overrule it.
IOW, even if States had previously had the ability to alter or grant citizenship to foreigners, it was less that they had the ability to do so, but more that nobody in previous years had actually corrected the situation Federally – State citizenship had always been primary and had entailed Federal citizenship in ius soli circumstances, prior to the 14th Amendment, as opposed to post-14th Amendment America, in which State citizenship is consequential and secondary.
The whole thesis of “state” citizen versus/complementary with US citizenship is basic bollocks I’m afraid.
If this was in any way a realistic scenario what about these two example categories.
I know of several retired couples who have sold up, bought an RV and basically move with the sun throughout the year.
No fixed state so who gets to grace them with their functionally useless “State citizenship”. Or do they get denied the right
Then there is the fact that you can be a legal resident of more than one state simultaneously, do they get get a “State citizenship” from each of their legal states, flip a coin..?
Never mind the whole birther sub genre of how the Usurping Mofo can’t be President because of some nebulous dual nationality. Basic (very inarticulate) thesis is that dual nationality somehow prevents loyalty to the USA. By reasonable analogy the issue wold be identical with US and State….how could you “know” the loyalties of the incumbent…..
To Greg, Mike and nbc;
Regarding the fact that one can be a citizen of a State and not a citizen of the United States, here is a United States Supreme court case:
“As applied to a citizen of another State, or to a citizen of the United States residing in another State, a state law forbidding sale of convict made goods does not violate the privileges and immunities clauses of Art. IV, Sec. 2 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution if it applies also and equally to the citizens of the State that enacted it.” {Syllabus} Whitfield v. Ohio: 297 U.S. 431 (1936).
“The court below proceeded upon the assumption that petitioner was a citizen of the United States; and his status in that regard is not questioned. The effect of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as applied to the facts of the present case, is to deny the power of Ohio to impose restraints upon citizens of the United States resident in Alabama in respect of the disposition of goods within Ohio, if like restraints are not imposed upon citizens resident in Ohio.
The effect of the similar clause found in the Fourth Article of the Constitution (section 2), as applied to these facts, would be the same, since that clause is directed against discrimination by a state in favor of its own citizens and against the citizens of other states. Slaughterhouse Cases (Live-Stock Dealers’ & Butchers’ Ass’n v. Crescent City Live-Stock Landing & Slaughter-House Co.), Fed.Cas. No. 8,408, 1 Woods 21, 28; Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 16 Wall. 130, 138.” {Opinion} Whitfield v. State of Ohio: 297 U.S. 431, 437 (1936).
And, another United States Supreme court case referred to in my prior reply:
“The act was considered in Johnson v. United States, 160 U.S. 546, 16 Sup. Ct. 377, and we there held that a person who was not a citizen of the United States at the time of an alleged appropriation of his property by a tribe of Indians was not entitled to maintain an action in the Court of Claims under the act in question. There was not in that case, however, any assertion that the claimant was a citizen of a State, as distinguished from a citizen of the United States. . . . [U]ndoubtedly in a purely technical and abstract sense citizenship of one of the States may not include citizenship of the United States . . . Unquestionably, in the general and common acceptation, a citizen of the State is considered as synonymous with citizen of the United States, and the one is therefore treated as expressive of the other. This flows from the fact that the one is normally and usually the other, and where such is not the case it is purely exceptional and uncommon.” United States v. Northwestern Express, Stage & Transportation Company: 164 U.S. 686, 688 (1897).
Looks like I get the last laugh.
Warren,
I fail to see where the cases you cite support you in this regard.
In the very first one, you cite, Whitfield v. Ohio, your own quoted text states: “The court below proceeded upon the assumption that petitioner was a citizen of the United States; and his status in that regard is not questioned. ”
That is a pretty crystal clear statement that regardless of where the individuals State citizenship was, they were a de facto US Citizen as a result.
Your second case is intriguing, but the quotes you state also reinforce that such a scenario is “purely exceptional and uncommon”. This whole case scenario cited had to do with citizenship of a Native American in an 1897 court case.
At that time, such an “exceptional and uncommon” scenario for Native Americans was possible, as it was not until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act that ALL Native Americans in the US were granted US citizenship.
Therefore, such an exception loophole as you cited was closed nearly 86 years ago and no longer applies today.
So, sorry, but you’re a bit premature on laughing, as your cases FAIL to demonstrate a plausible scenario that could happen today, or even for that matter, at the time of Obama’s birth.
Seems Warren may be suffering from some reading comprehension problems. These cases hardly support his claims.
Hilarious…
Idiot legal arguments:
Dunham v. CIR (2/9/98) TC Memo 1998-52 (“Petitioner reported that he was not a US citizen… that he was ‘a domiciled inhabitant of an American State’ and that his ‘tax home was within an American Union State’.” — misuse of the IRS form 1040NR penalized as fraud)
US v. Nichols (WD Okl 1995) 897 F.Supp 542 (Terry L. Nichols, an Oklahoma City bombing conspirator, “disclaimed US and Michigan citizenship and has declared himself in writing to be ‘Foreign’ and a ‘Non-Resident Alien’.” – He evidently had also done this in an attempt to evade his child support responsibilities, cf. M. France, Homegrown Scholars Treat Framers’ Work as a Bible, National Law Jrnl, 26 June 1995; a 1992 letter and a 1994 affidavit by Nichols to this effect can be found on the internet); (“We have held before that this belief is simply wrong.“)
J.M. Anderson v. State of Michigan (WD Mich unpub 3/18/93); )c;ao,ed tp ne “not a citizen of the US” and thereby exempt from taxes, “As proof of his non-resident alien status, he attaches affidavits stating that he was born in Texas and maintains his domicile in Wyoming.”
M.H. Cotton v. US (10th Cir unpub 10/14/94) 39 F3d 1191(t), 74 AFTR2d 6778 (“All citizens of the US are liable for income taxes and every person born in the US is a citizen of the US.”)
Curry-Bey v. US (Fed Claims Ct unpub 6/22/95) 76 AFTR2d 5148, 95 USTC para 50604; (altho perps admitted that the IRS can tax non-citizens residing in the US, they denied being either US citizens nor resident aliens but “state citizens of Missouri (not State of Missouri)” and presented their homemade oaths of “Abjuration of Citizenship” and “pledge of allegiance to the Missouri Republic”)
There are dozens, and dozens of similar cases. Racists and tax-evaders. In short, losers in life and in court.
Warren Hathaway says:
Looks like I get the last laugh.
Sorry, Warren. As Greg has pointed out, this “I’m citizen of a state, not a citizen of the U.S.” argument has been floated many times by income tax protesters, and each time the courts have rejected the notion.
Even your own quotes refute your point. Nobody in the Whitfield case was arguing that the petioner was a citizen of a state and not a citizen of the U.S.
In United States v. Northwestern Express, the Court said that “in a purely technical and abstract sense citizenship of one of the States may not include citizenship of the United States…” It was then possible in a “technical” sense because, as G pointed out, the case was decided in 1897 and many native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924.
However, by 1961 the law was unambiguous and applied equally to people of all races and colors. Virtually everyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen at birth (the exceptions being the children of foreign diplomats and the children of occupying forces), and anyone who is a U.S. citizen at birth is a natural born citizen.
G (Greg),
It appears you did not read the whole quote to Whitfield v. Ohio:
In the Syllabus, it states: “As applied to a citizen of another State, or to a citizen of the United States residing in another State . . . .”
And, the second paragraph to the Opinion it is written: “The effect of the similar clause found in the Fourth Article of the Constitution (section 2), as applied to these facts, would be the same, since that clause is directed against discrimination by a state in favor of its own citizens and against the citizens of other states.”
Regarding the other case, the United States Supreme court refers to the claimant in the case of Johnson v. United States. Such person was not an Indian, but a resident in the territory of Utah (at the time of the claim arising) whose property have been taken by the Ute Indians.
The Syllabus is not part of the case. It is not cited. It is not precedential. By citing it, you expose your ignorance of the law.
There is nothing in the language of Whitfield that implies that someone can be a citizen of a state and not be a citizen of the United States.
G (and we are different) explains the only time this could have occurred.
Warren,
It appears that you haven’t read Johnson v. United States.
The issue of state citizenship v. United States citizenship never came up in that case. The only issue there was whether Johnson could file a claim against the Ute tribe for unlawfully taking his property. Johnson, by his own admission, did not become a U.S. citizen until seven years after his property was taken. The court ruled that since he was not a U.S. citizen when his property was taken, the courts had no jurisdiction over his claim.
The case therefore has no relevance to your points.
If you are going to cite Supreme Court decisions as precedent, you have to do more than just cherry-pick the occasional phrase which arguably reinforces your position. You have to look at the issues which were before the court and take note of whatever unique facts were applicable to the case. Sometimes, particularly when an appellate court ruling is upheld, you also have to look at the appellate court decision to see precisely what the Supreme Court is upholding.
But, in Johnson, as the SC makes clear, they were not considering the situation where one could be a citizen of a state, but not of the United States, the only way that could happen was addressed in the case you cited, United States v. Northwestern Express. In that case, the court said, in dicta:
While, undoubtedly, in a purely technical and abstract sense, citizenship of one of the states may not include citizenship of the United States, this does not meet the question which we are to construe, which is, what is the meaning of the words ‘citizens of the United States,’ as used in the statute?
That purely technical and abstract sense was described by G.
Are we talking about a person who was born and died before 1924? No, then there is no way to be a citizen of a state and not of the United States.
SFJeff,
To your first issue, citizenship and voting are separate and distinct things. See Minor v. Happersett (88 U.S. 162 1874). However, I am aware of the Amendment 15 of the Constitution.
To your next issue, I did identify the rights and privileges for a citizen of the several States. I will quote and give the cite to the case again for you:
“The privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are described in Corfield v. Coryell decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823:
‘In the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, this is quoted from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. Cir. Ct. 371, 380.’ Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at page 15 (1906).”
So the answer to this question is Corfield v. Coryell.
The answer to your last question is in the Slaughterhouse Cases:
“We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this [the Fourteenth] Amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section (first section, second clause), which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those of citizens of the several states. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs, rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74 (1873).
About Obama I will address that question later.
Warren –
As Greg has pointed out, he & I are two totally different people.
As for the rest of your points, Greg & Rickey have completely explained the issue in response to you and I fully concur with them.
Bottom line, there is nothing in the full context of these cases that support anything you have been trying to say here.
Sorry, but if someone is a citizen of a State of the US today, they are a US citizen. It is as plain and simple as that.
You are doing nothing more than struggling to selectively cherry-pick phrases out of context to support your prejudged conclusions and even on those, your own citations undermine your cause and demonstrate that you are either being intentionally disingenuous or that you have failed to fully read or comprehend the legal documents to which you refer.
To Greg,
(reply to entry April 21, 2010 at 11:18 Syllabus)
My apologizes to you and G.
I am aware the Syllabus to a United States Supreme court case is not a part of the opinion to the case. I included the Syllabus in this court case as is in harmony with the opinion itself. However, at the state level, in some of the several States, the syllabus is considered to be a part of the opinion, just like the statement of facts is considered a part of the opinion in a Supreme court case, the reason being it is written by a Justice (or more) of the Court.
Since you do not believe that Whifield v. Ohio shows that one can be a citizen of a State and not a citizen of the United States (which it does), here is another one. I will say before you read it that no where in the opinion is the averment of citizenship in the bill filed with the circuit court quoted or presented.
“The bill filed in the circuit court by the plaintiff, McQuesten, alleged her to be a citizen of the United States and of the State of Massachusetts, and residing at Turner’s Falls in said state,’ while the defendants, Steigleder and wife, were alleged to be citizens of the State of Washington, and residing at the City of Seattle in said state.’ Syllabus, Steigleider v. McQuesten: 198 U.S. 141 (1905). “The averment in the bill that the parties were citizens of different states was sufficient to make a prima facie case of jurisdiction so far as it depended of citizenship.” Opinion, Steigleider v. McQuesten: 198 U.S. 141, 142 (1905).
Then there is the following:
Under Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, a citizen of the United States by residing in a State, can legally become a citizen of a State also. As such one would have privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States plus privileges and immunities of a citizen of a State.
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of a State are to be found with the individual State constitution and laws:
“. . . Whatever may be the scope of section 2 of article IV — and we need not, in this case enter upon a consideration of the general question — the Constitution of the United States does not make the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the citizens of one State under the constitution and laws of that State, the measure of the privileges and immunities to be enjoyed, as of right, by a citizen of another State under its constitution and laws.” McKane v. Durston: 153 U.S. 684, at 687 (1894).
A citizen of a State is also a citizen of the several States:
“There can be no doubt that Balk, as a citizen of the State of North Carolina, had the right to sue Harris in Maryland to recover the debt which Harris owed him. Being a citizen of North Carolina, he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, one of which is the right to institute actions in the courts of another State.” Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905).
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are designated at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States:
“The intention of section 2, Article IV (of the Constitution), was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions. Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, at 113 thru 114 (1890).
A citizen of the United States is not the same as a citizen of the several States:
“We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this [the Fourteenth] Amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section (first section, second clause), which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those of citizens of the several states. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs, rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74 (1873).
Therefore, you have two state citizens, one who is a citizen of the United States, and one who is a citizen of the several States:
“Because the ordinance and specifications, under which the paving in this case was done, require the contractor to employ only bona fide resident citizens of the city of New Orleans as laborers on the work, it is contended, on behalf on the plaintiff in error, that thereby citizens of the State of Louisiana, and of each and every State and the inhabitants thereof, are deprived of their privileges and immunities under article 4, sec. 2, and under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It is said that such an ordinance deprives every person, not a bona fide resident of the city of New Orleans, of the right to labor on the contemplated improvements, and also is prejudicial to the property owners, because, by restricting the number of workmen, the price of the work is increased.
Such questions are of the gravest possible importance, and, if and when actually presented, would demand most careful consideration; but we are not now called upon to determine them.
In so far as the provisions of the city ordinance may be claimed to affect the rights and privileges of citizens of Louisiana and of the other States, the plaintiff in error is in no position to raise the question. It is not alleged, nor does it appear, that he is one of the laborers excluded by the ordinance from employment, or that he occupies any representative relation to them. Apparently he is one of the preferred class of resident citizens of the city of New Orleans.” Chadwick v. Kelley: 187 U.S. 540, at 546 (1903).
Since there are two state citizens, then you can have a citizen of the United States; who is also a citizen of a State under Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and a citizen of a State; under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution, who is a citizen of the several States.
Thus, one can be a citizen of a State without being a citizen of the United States.
Warren –
Although you directed your reply to Greg (and thanks for recognizing that we are 2 different people), I’d like to respond too.
My question on your latest case examples is where do either of them claim that the individual involved does not have US Citizenship? You claim that as your main point, but I fail to see that.
In the second case, I see where you are pointing out that they are making a distinction between citizen of a State and citizen of several states.
However, nowhere in what you provided is there anything that claims that individual is not a US Citizen as well.
Are you contending that this statement is the same as saying that the defendants were NOT citizens of the U.S.?
It is not the same.
Incorrect. I’ve bolded the word that makes this sentence incorrect. Read the 14th Amendment and meditate on the issue.
Anyway, the rest of your post is near incomprehensible gibberish – warmed over tax-avoider/white supremacist sovereign citizen BS. Repeating it, ad nauseum, doesn’t make it better, it just makes it more annoying!
The Supreme Court could not have been clearer in the case you cited:
While, undoubtedly, in a purely technical and abstract sense, citizenship of one of the states may not include citizenship of the United States…
It is obvious from that case what the PURELY TECHNICAL AND ABSTRACT SENSE they were talking about – Native Americans.
That narrow exception has been closed.
The Fourteenth Amendment states:
Everyone born in the U.S. or naturalized in the U.S. is a citizen of the U.S. AND a state. What are the ways that someone could become a citizen of a state?
Naturalization – only the Federal Government can naturalize. Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Wheat. (15 U.S.) 259, 269 (1817); United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 701 (1898). Anyone naturalized by the Feds becomes a citizen of the U.S. AND a state.
Birth w/in the U.S. – Duh, citizen of the U.S. and the state in which they reside.
Birth abroad to U.S. parents – a non-14th Amendment citizen by birth. As long as they reside abroad, they are U.S. citizens, but not a citizen of any state. If they move to the U.S. they automatically become a citizen of the state in which they reside.
What other ways are there to become a citizen of a state?
G explained the only other way, which is closed off, now. Birth within a Native American Tribe, and then incorporation by the state into their citizenship.
PURELY TECHNICAL AND ABSTRACT SENSE
Have you noticed that the only case you can find that clearly says that one can be a citizen of a state but not of the U.S. says it is a PURELY TECHNICAL AND ABSTRACT thing and describes a condition that is no longer in existence?
When internet cranks can only come up with near quotes, I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s admonition:
Find me a court case that says, explicitly, what you are claiming. Or, in the alternative, a real legal scholar.
Warren, you keep requoting the same quotes…but you are still unable to simply answer my questions.
Is it because you don’t really have any idea what you are quoting? Because if you do, please synthesize for me, because I read your quotes the first time(not the remaining four or five times) and I still have no idea of what would be the actual rights and responsibilities of the citizen’s of “several states” as opposed to Federal or state citizenship.
Warren Hathaway: About Obama I will address that question later.
Well get to it, or go away. This web site is about Obama and the cranks who challenge his eligibility to be president, not other kinds of cranks.
Warren is now just cutting and pasting the nonsense he has gleaned from Goodman’s ramblings. It is obvious that Warren has not actually ready the cases he is citing. Or, if he has read them, he doesn’t understand them.
Warren is now just cutting and pasting the nonsense he has gleaned from Goodman’s ramblings. It is obvious that Warren has not actually read the cases he is citing. Or, if he has read them, he doesn’t understand them.
To Greg,
(reply to entry April 13, 2010 at 2:01 am Mark Twain)
Here is a statute which should end this discussion on the point of one being a citizen of a State and not a citizen of the United States. As I wrote in an earlier reply birth in a State makes one a citizen of a State, not a citizen of the United States. Here is the statute:
California Government Code Section 241
The citizens of the State are:
(a) All persons born in the State and residing within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien public ministers and consuls.
(b) All persons born out of the State who are citizens of the United States and residing within the State.
(See also Section 242)
SFJeff
(reply to April 10, 2010 at 2:45 pm About Obama)
About Obama
It is claimed that Barack H. Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in the State of Hawaii. If correct, then Barack H. Obama would be eligible to be President of the United States of America.
However, being born in the State of Hawaii, would make him a citizen of a State by birth: (see for example, California Government Code Section 241 which reads:
http://law.justia.com/california/codes/gov/240-245.html
The citizens of the State are:
(a) All persons born in the State and residing within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien public ministers and consuls.
(b) All persons born out of the State who are citizens of the United States and residing within the State.
See also Section 242)
and a citizen of the several States under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States.
“There can be no doubt that Balk, as a citizen of the State of North Carolina, had the right to sue Harris in Maryland to recover the debt which Harris owed him. Being a citizen of North Carolina, he was entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, one of which is the right to institute actions in the courts of another State.” Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905).
“The intention of section 2, Article IV (of the Constitution), was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions. Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, at 113 thru 114 (1890).
However, the legal document of birth for Barack H. Obama is a Certification of Live Birth and not a Birth Certificate. Two problems are possible.
Problem one concerns the date of birth. The actual date of birth should be on the Birth Certificate. If he was actually born before August 21, 1959, then Barack H. Obama would have been born in the Territory of Hawaii. As such, he would be ineligible to be President of the United States of America. Even though he would be a citizen of the United States, under 8 U.S.C. 1405 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1405.html, he would not be a natural (native) born citizen, since he was not born in a State of the Union.
Problem two deals with the place of birth. “For a person born in a foreign country who has been legally adopted in the State of Hawaii an amended birth certificate will be prepared upon receipt of a certified copy of the adoption decree or the certificate of adoption, and payment of fees. (State of Hawaii, Department of Health, “Who is Eligible to Apply for an Amended Certificate of Birth?” http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/newbirthcert.html). In this case the Certification of Live Birth may not show that Obama was born in say for example, Kenya.
There is another situation possible. It is called the concept of dual registration. This is cover in the following article, again, written by Dan Goodman, entitled “Obama Born in the Territory of Hawaii?” at this link:
http://australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=324
So the problem of Barack H. Obama’s eligibility to be President of the United States of America can be solved with the presentation of a Birth Certificate, in this case, from the State of Hawaii.
How is that not trumped by the 14th Amendment?
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside.
SFJeff
(reply to April 13, 2010 at 4:21 am rights and responsibilities)
The rights and responsibilities for a citizen of a State would generally be found in the declaration of rights (or bill of rights) in the individual State constitution, and its laws. What they are depends upon which State you are in.
The rights and responsibilities for a citizen of the United States arise “out the nature and essential character of the Federal government, and granted or secured by the Constitution” Duncan v. Missouri: 152 U.S. 377, 382 1894. For some of these rights and responsibilities refer to the Slaughterhouse Cases ( 83 (16 Wall.) U.S. 36 1873) and Maxwell v. Dow (176 U.S. 581 1900) .”
The rights and responsibilities for a citizen of the United States are those described in Corfield v. Coryell. To read more about privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States click this link (sec 244 through sec 256): http://books.google.com/books?id=EOY9AAAAIAAJ&ots=48CNT594oF&dq=Federal%20Procedure%20at%20Law%2C%20Chrisenberry%20Lee%20Bates&pg=PA220#v=onepage&q&f=false
I hope I answer your question.
SFJeff
(reply to April 13, 2010 at 4:21 am rights and responsibilities)
I had a mistake in my second to last paragraph. It should read:
The rights and responsibilities for a citizen of the several States are those described in Corfield v. Coryell. To read more about privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States click this link (sec 244 through sec 256): http://books.google.com/books?id=EOY9AAAAIAAJ&ots=48CNT594oF&dq=Federal%20Procedure%20at%20Law%2C%20Chrisenberry%20Lee%20Bates&pg=PA220#v=onepage&q&f=false
14th Amendment makes anyone born within the United States a citizen of the United States.
Find me a single case where the issue has been decided because someone was a citizen of a state and not of the United States. Hasn’t happened, because it cannot happen (except in the very narrow case described by G – Native Americans born before 1924).
Warren Hathaway: So the problem of Barack H. Obama’s eligibility to be President of the United States of America can be solved with the presentation of a Birth Certificate
The Certification of Live Birth is a certified copy of information from the birth certificate. You say: “Problem one concerns the date of birth.” Unless you are quite blind, you should know that the COLB says 1961 on it. End of story. Then you say “Problem two deals with the place of birth” and then spout some state regulation about adoptions without bothering to read the actual law involved. The law says: “The new certificate of birth shall show the true or probable foreign country of birth, and that the certificate is not evidence of United States citizenship for the child for whom it is issued or for the adoptive parents.” http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0020_0005.htm
So in summary, your objections are stupid.
Warren speculates the following…
“However, the legal document of birth for Barack H. Obama is a Certification of Live Birth and not a Birth Certificate. Two problems are possible.
Problem one concerns the date of birth. The actual date of birth should be on the Birth Certificate. If he was actually born before August 21, 1959, then Barack H. Obama would have been born in the Territory of Hawaii. As such, he would be ineligible to be President of the United States of America. Even though he would be a citizen of the United States, under 8 U.S.C. 1405 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/8/1405.html, he would not be a natural (native) born citizen, since he was not born in a State of the Union.
Problem two deals with the place of birth. “For a person born in a foreign country who has been legally adopted in the State of Hawaii an amended birth certificate will be prepared upon receipt of a certified copy of the adoption decree or the certificate of adoption, and payment of fees. (State of Hawaii, Department of Health, “Who is Eligible to Apply for an Amended Certificate of Birth?” http://hawaii.gov/health/vital-records/vital-records/newbirthcert.html). In this case the Certification of Live Birth may not show that Obama was born in say for example, Kenya.
There is another situation possible. It is called the concept of dual registration. This is cover in the following article, again, written by Dan Goodman, entitled “Obama Born in the Territory of Hawaii?”
Warren, your attempt to mislead is amazing. First of all for legal purposes there is no difference between a “birth certificate” and a “certificate of live birth”. So when the COLB states that the date of birth is 8/4/61 and the place of birth is Honolulu, HI, then all of your so called “problems” are moot. A COLB is the pertinent information regarding birth. Which in the US is DOB, place of birth, and names of parents. All of you birthers that are requiring hospital names and doctor names are ridiculous. Not once have you ever shown that this is a requirement. Most COLB’s issued this decade don’t contain this information because it is unnecessary. By virtue of Mr. Obama being born in HI in the year 1961, his is a natural born American citizen. All of the speculation by you (mainly rehashing the misguided fiction of Goodman) is meaningless….This again proves why no one involved in the birther movement has any knowledge of the law. If you did you would not make such ridiculous and easy to counter arguments…
More nonsense. VP Charles Curtis was born in Kansas Territory before it became a state. Barry Goldwater, candidate for President in 1964, was born in Arizona Territory before it became a state. Al Gore was born in Washington, DC — not a state.
Warren- so this whole thing about ‘citizen of several states’ has nothing to do with Obama? Why did you raise that issue?
Warren: “However, the legal document of birth for Barack H. Obama is a Certification of Live Birth ”
This may be a problem for you- but it wasn’t for the voters, or Congress or the Electoral College, or Chief Justice Roberts. The Certification of Live Birth is what you get from Hawaii when you request a copy of the the BC. It is legal in any court.
You have doubts about the accuracy of his birth date? Then do the research and prove he was born earlier. You guessing he might have been born earlier is meaningless.
You speculate he could have been ‘adopted’ from a foreign country- but this could have been true about any previous president. Do you know for sure that Bush wasn’t born in China? That Clinton wasn’t born in Canada? The answer of course is no one cared about the BC’s of those white guys who were elected President.
About your third case- “dual registration’-if you can’t explain it, I certainly am not going to try to figure it out.
Warren: “To read more about privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States click this link ”
Warren- I keep asking you- what are the rights and responsibilities of your imaginary(as in distinct from state citizens) citizens of several states? If you cannot distil in your own words what those rights and responsibilites are- then you must not understand them yourself.
And you still haven’t explained what this has to to do with President Obama.
G,
(reply to entry April 13, 2010 at 1:43 individual not a U.S. citizen)
A person who is a citizen of a State/ citizen of the several States is not a citizen of the United States because the United States government is a separate and distinct sovereignty from any one of the several State governments as well as the several States collectively:
“The general government, and the States, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the States within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the tenth amendment, reserved,’ are as independent of the general government as that government within its sphere is independent of the States.” Collector v. Day: 78 U.S. (Wall. 11) 113, at 124 (1870).
This is also shown in the following case:
“We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect.” United States v. Cruikshank: 92 U.S. 542, at 549 (1875).
In addition; Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that a citizen of the United States can legally become a citizen of a State, by residing in a State. However, there is nothing in the Amendment itself which makes a citizen of the United States, a citizen of the several States also. At Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, a citizen of a State is entitled to privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States (Cole v. Cunningham). However, nothing in this provision of the Constitution grants to a citizen of a State the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States.
These legal references also explains why a citizen of the United States is not a citizen of the several States.
A citizen of the United States, because of Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, can become legally a citizen of a State also, by residing in a State. Without this provision, this would not be legally possible, again because the United States government is separate and distinct sovereignty from an individual State government.
Greg,
(reply to April 14, 2010 at 6:48 find me a single case
Here is a court case:
“The language of the Fourteenth Amendment declaring two kinds of citizenship is discriminating. It is: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ While it thus establishes national citizenship from the mere circumstance of birth within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States, birth within a state does not establish citizenship thereof. State citizenship is ephemeral. It results only from residence and is gained or lost therewith.” Edwards v. People of the State of California: 314 U.S. 160, 183 (concurring opinion of Jackson) [1941].
This is in harmony with the statute I cited to you in my prior reply; that is, California Government Code Section 241, which states:
The citizens of the State are:
(a) All persons born in the State and residing within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien public ministers and consuls.
(b) All persons born out of the State who are citizens of the United States and residing within the State.
To Black Lion and SFJeff,
Yes Black Lion, there is no difference between a “birth certificate” and a “certificate of live birth.” However, the legal document of birth for Barack H. Obama is a “certification of live birth” not a “certificate of live birth.”
There is a difference between a “certification of live birth” and a “certificate of live birth.” To see the difference, click this link: http://theobamafile.com/ObamaCOLB.htm
The issue of being a citizen of the several States, SFJeff, has everything to do with being eligible to be President of the United States of America. If Obama was born in the State of Hawaii, he would be a citizen of a State. And, under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution would be entitled to privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States (Cole v. Cunningham, Harris v. Balk). Are you saying that Obama is a citizen of the several States, and thus, eligible to be President of the United States of America?
Regarding researching, I refer you to the link I gave to Black Lion. Here it is: http://theobamafile.com/ObamaCOLB.htm . I do not have to do the research, others have done so. At the bottom, or near the bottom if new entries are posted, is the following post:
” ‘Obama’ not on Hawaii Birth Database Document”
I would check this out.
Also there is the following, a little further up on the webpage:
“Hawaii confirms Obama’s vital records have been amended”
To Black Lion and SFJeff,
(I have this reply in another location, sorry about that)
Yes Black Lion, there is no difference between a “birth certificate” and a “certificate of live birth.” However, the legal document of birth for Barack H. Obama is a “certification of live birth” not a “certificate of live birth.”
There is a difference between a “certification of live birth” and a “certificate of live birth.” To see the difference, click this link: http://theobamafile.com/ObamaCOLB.htm
The issue of being a citizen of the several States, SFJeff, has everything to do with being eligible to be President of the United States of America. If Obama was born in the State of Hawaii, he would be a citizen of a State. And, under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution would be entitled to privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States (Cole v. Cunningham, Harris v. Balk). Are you saying that Obama is a citizen of the several States, and thus, eligible to be President of the United States of America?
Regarding researching, I refer you to the link I gave to Black Lion. Here it is: http://theobamafile.com/ObamaCOLB.htm . I do not have to do the research, others have done so. At the bottom, or near the bottom if new entries are posted, is the following post:
” ‘Obama’ not on Hawaii Birth Database Document”
I would check this out.
Also there is the following, a little further up on the webpage:
“Hawaii confirms Obama’s vital records have been amended”
I read Warren Hathaway’s comments. All I can say is they are a perfect illustration of clinical insanity.
Got a question for you, Warren: why is Obama not eligible to be president, but George Bush is?
Specifically, what “tests” does George meet, that Obama does not? As far as I can tell, the circumstances around their births are identical.
Warren Hathaway: There is a difference between a “certification of live birth” and a “certificate of live birth.” To see the difference, click this link: http://theobamafile.com/ObamaCOLB.htm
Are you trying to suggest that The Obama File web site is some kind of an authority? As far as the things you mention: “Obama not on Hawaii Birth Database” and “Hawaii confirms Obama’s vital records have been amended”, these are willful misrepresentations and misreadings of the facts. That web site is not research, it is the vomit of someone who hates President Obama. Is intentional distortion and misinformation. The facts are, and you can read both of these on the Hawaii department of health web site, a) Barack Obama is listed in the birth index and b) Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. So the question is: are you too stupid to see what TheObamaFile is doing, or are you knowingly spreading their lies?
Doc, Warren shows his true colors by citing the Obama file as some sort of reference. It is obvious that even if Obama did produce this so called “long form” it would not be enough for Warren. He has tied in the ridiculous citizen of a state but not the US nonsense as some sort of defense, but has never showed us where a court has ruled that you can be a citizen of a state but not a citizen of the United States. And then ignoring the fact that the state of HI has stated on numerous occasions that they only issue COLB’s, he attempts to somehow diminish that by using a biased website to attack the document. I can tell you for sure that the state of NY only issues COLB’s, and all that is on them is DOB, city of birth, and the names of the parents. There is no hospital or doctor. Most people recognize that and accept the COLB. It is only the people that hate Obama, and in turn refuse to believe anything positive about him, are willing to not accept the facts of the COLB and the statement from HI stating that Barack Obama was born in HI.
Edwards v. California is not a case about a person who is a citizen of a state but not a citizen of the United States. It is a case about a citizen of Texas and the United States.
Last I checked, Oklahoma was a state.
You cannot be a citizen of a state without being a citizen of the United States.
“The issue of being a citizen of the several States, SFJeff, has everything to do with being eligible to be President of the United States of America.”
Okay explain this slowly for me. Because so far you have lost me. I warn you- if you post again court case quotes I will ignore them. Can you explain to me simply how this ‘several states’ fiction would affect Obama if it existed?
“If Obama was born in the State of Hawaii, he would be a citizen of a State. And, under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution would be entitled to privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States (Cole v. Cunningham, Harris v. Balk).”
Since Obama was born in Hawaii, he is a citizen of the United States.
“Are you saying that Obama is a citizen of the several States, and thus, eligible to be President of the United States of America?”
I am not saying President Obama is “a citizen of the several states”- I still think this is a legal fiction- that the ‘several states’ as mentioned does not mean a seperate third citizenship status within the United States. But yes, President Obama, by virtue of having been born within the United States is a natural born citizen and therefore eligible. If you disagree- explain how a person born within a state wouldn’t be eligible?
And if that is the case, apply that same reasoning to the last three Presidents and explain whether they were or were not eligible.
Greg,
Here is another United States Supreme Court case:
“There is no inherent right in a citizen to thus sell intoxicating liquors by retail. It is not a privilege of a citizen of the state or of a citizen of the United States.” Crowley v. Christensen: 137 U.S. 86, at page 91 (1890).
Interestingly, this case also involves the State of California, just as the prior two legal sources I gave.
Greg,
And here is another United States Supreme Court case:
“As in the case of the authority of the United States over its absent citizens (Blackmer v. United States, 284 U.S. 421), the authority of a state over one of its citizens is not terminated by the mere fact of his absence from the state.” Milliken v. Meyer: 311 U.S. 457, at page 463 (1940).
Warren, do you even understand what you’re arguing?
Quit giving me cases that point to a distinction between US and state citizenship. Yes, they are different. I know that.
You cannot be a state citizen without also being a US citizen.
Repeatedly giving me cases that prove a distinction does zip to prove that one can possess the one without the other.
To misha,
(Barack H. Obama) (George W. Bush)
I did not say Barack H. Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States of America. I did say that because of Obama’s Certification of Live Birth, there are at least two problems. One concerning the date of birth. One concerning the place of birth.
I will repeat, that if Barack H. Obama was born in the State of Hawaii on August 4, 1961, then he would be eligible to be President of the United States of America.
I will not comment on George W. Bush, as this webpage deals with “Obama Conspiracy Theories.” However, I did a little research online and found the following:
“Democrats Demand Bush Produce His Birth Certificate”
http://electivedecisions.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/democrats-demand-bush-produce-his-birth-certificate/
“George W. Bush Born In Oxford”
(image of certificate of birth provided)
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/23676.html
As it stands George W. Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut on July 6, 1946. Since Connecticut is a member of the Union, in fact one of the original thirteen colonies, the issue of being born before the adoption of the Constitution is unreasonable to consider since this is the year 2010 and the Constitution of the United States took effect in 1789. Unless one can prove or show that George W. Bush is at least 223 years old, then one may have a case. The Constitution of the United States was adopted in 1787, Connecticut became a State in 1788, The Constitution took effect in 1789. In this case George W. Bush would not qualify to be President of the United States of America since he would not be a “Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution” (Article II, Section 1, Clause 5). This leaves place of birth. If the Oxford certificate of birth is valid, then Bush would be ineligible to be President of the United States of America since he was born in a foreign country.
Warren Hathaway: I will repeat, that if Barack H. Obama was born in the State of Hawaii on August 4, 1961, then he would be eligible to be President of the United States of America.
If the moon were made of green cheese, mice would be happy there.
What’s your point? I already proved your two objections were impossible.
Warren Hathaway: “Democrats Demand Bush Produce His Birth Certificate”
Uhhh, that was supposed to be a joke. Haven’t you ever heard of SATIRE? You think Nancy Pelosi really said: ““If he was born in Texas—like I think he was—then he’s certainly unqualified to be President of the United States. Texas is a whole other country.” What a maroon!
Warren, you’re a troll or astonishingly dumb. The Elective Decisions website is clearly and obviously parodying birthers – it couldn’t be any clearer unless it actually had a large blinking sign marked “DO NOT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY”, and the S,N! post is also not in a serious vein.
If you’re so easily fooled by so obvious a parody as the first site, then perhaps you’re not the best person to be commenting on, well, anything.
More evidence that Sarah Palin is really a Canadian
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/is-she-one-of-us-palin-trumpets-nhl-olympics-canadiana/article1536280/
To Greg,
“A person who is a citizen of the United State is necessarily a citizen of the particular state in which he resides. But a person may be a citizen of a particular state and not a citizen of the United States. To hold otherwise would be to deny to the state the highest exercise of its sovereignty – the right to declare who are its citizens.” State of Louisiana v. Fowler: 6 S. 602; 41 La.Ann. 380 (1889).
“A person may be a citizen of a state but not of the United States.” Harding v. Standard Oil Company et. al.: 182 F. 421, 424 (1910); State of Montana v. District Court of Seventeenth Judicial District: 80 P.2d 367, 369 (1938).
To everyone,
As I just showed to Greg at April 17, 2010 at 4:33 am on the matter of one being a citizen of a State and not a citizen of the United States:
“A person who is a citizen of the United State is necessarily a citizen of the particular state in which he resides. But a person may be a citizen of a particular state and not a citizen of the United States. To hold otherwise would be to deny to the state the highest exercise of its sovereignty – the right to declare who are its citizens.” State of Louisiana v. Fowler: 6 S. 602; 41 La.Ann. 380 (1889).
“A person may be a citizen of a state but not of the United States.” Harding v. Standard Oil Company et. al.: 182 F. 421, 424 (1910); State of Montana v. District Court of Seventeenth Judicial District: 80 P.2d 367, 369 (1938).
In addition, there is the following Supreme Court of the United States cases:
(Before Slaughterhouse Cases)
“On the trial in the court below, the validity of the discriminating provisions of the statute of Virginia between her own corporations and corporations of other States was assailed. It was contended that the statute in this particular was in conflict with that clause of the Constitution which declares that ‘the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States,’ and the clause which declares that Congress shall have power ‘to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States.’ The same grounds are urged in this Court for the reversal of the judgment.
The answer which readily occurs to the objection founded upon the first clause consists in the fact that corporations are not citizens within its meaning. The term citizens as there used applies only to natural persons, members of the body politic, owing allegiance to the State, not to artificial persons created by the legislature, and possessing only the attributes which the legislature has prescribed.” Paul v. State of Virginia: 75 U.S. 168, at 177 (1869).
(After Slaughterhouse Cases)
“We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect.”Cruishank v. United States: 92 U.S. 542, at 549 (1875).
As can be seen there were citizens of a State before the Slaughterhouse Cases and there are citizens of a State after the Slaughterhouse Cases. The reason being that in the Slaughterhouse Cases the Supreme Court of the United States held citizenship of a State to be separate and distinct from citizenship of the United States. That a citizen of a State was separate and distinct from a citizen of the United States.
As Warren has shown, with legal authority, a citizen of the United States can become also a citizen of a State under Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. And as he has shown, with legal authority, a citizen of a State under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States (of America) is also a citizen of the several States.
So you have a person who can be a citizen of the United States AND a citizen of a State; and a person who can be a citizen of a State AS WELL AS a citizen of the several States. AND is emphasized since the United States government and the several States governments are separate and distinct sovereignties. AS WELL AS is used here to show that Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution now treats the several States as one sovereignty as well as individual sovereignties for purposes of citizenship. As Warren has shown citizenship of the several States was established for the purposes of international law.
Regarding the legal concept of a citizen of the several States being a “special theory of mine”, SFJeff, Warren has provided you with a link to a legal reference. That link was to Federal Procedure at Law; A Treatise on the Procedure in Suits at Common Law in the Circuit Courts of the United States, by C. L. Bates, of the Bar of San Antonio, Texas, 1908. I, like Warren, have the link here to Section 244 thru Section 256. Section 244 is headed as followed: “Sec 244. Privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several states under the constitution.” The link is:
http://books.google.com/books?id=EOY9AAAAIAAJ&ots=48CNT594oF&dq=Federal%20Procedure%20at%20Law%2C%20Chrisenberry%20Lee%20Bates&pg=PA220#v=onepage&q&f=false
In addition, I will give another link to another legal reference. Entitled The Constitution of the United States; Its History, Application and Construction, Volume II, by David K. Watson, LL.B., LL.D., of the Columbus, Ohio, Bar, 1910. Prior to giving the link here is the relevant parts:
Page 1205
‘The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.’
Page 1210
“The rights which the clause was intended to secure are those of the citizens of the States. It does not undertake to confer any right, privilege or immunity on any one not a citizen of a State, as distinct from citizens of the United States.”
My Note: The term citizen of the states is equivalent to the term citizen of the several states. To see, click here: http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/DG15CitizenOfTheStatesLegallyDefined.pdf
Page 1211
“This clause refers only to privileges and immunities of citizens of the States.
The privileges and immunities embraced by this section are those belonging to citizens of the States.”
Page 1213 thru 1214
(Corfield v. Coryell, quoted on privileges and immunities.)
“These privileges and immunities are: first, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; second, the right of a citizen of one State to pass through, or reside in, any other State, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; third, to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; fourth, to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; fifth, to take, hold and dispose of property; sixth, exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State; seventh, the elective franchise as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised. They are fundamental and arise from the fact of citizenship and nothing else, and belong to the citizen as of right. The list does not, however, include all privileges and immunities which citizens of the States were entitled to at that time, for the opinion says, ‘There were many others which might be mentioned,’ and the number has since been greatly enlarged, for it must appear self-evident that a great and powerful people, living in the broadest current of national life and activity, in the course of almost a century would of necessity create new privileges and immunities, so that the number would increase with the development of national resources, growth and strength. These new privileges and immunities of citizens of the States are no less fundamental than those mentioned in Corfield v. Coryell.
Page 1218
“In the Slaughter House Cases, Mr. Justice Miller approved the definition of privileges and immunities as given by Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell. . . .
‘The constitutional provision did not create those rights, which it called privileges and immunities of citizens of the States. It threw around them in that clause no security for the citizen of the State in which they were claimed or exercised.’
The clause established a general citizenship among the citizens of the several States.–In Cole v. Cunningham, the court said:
‘The intention of section 2 of article 4 was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions.’
In Blake v. McClung, Mr. Justice Harlan after having reviewed the above cases, said:
‘. . . . So, a State may, by a rule uniform in its operation as to citizens of the several States, require residence within its limits for a given time before a citizen of another State who becomes a resident thereof shall exercise the right of suffrage or become eligible to office. It has never been supposed that regulations of that character materially interfered with the enjoyment by citizens of each State of the privileges and immunities secured by the Constitution to citizens of the several States. The Constitution forbids only such legislation affecting citizens of the respective States as will substantially or practically put a citizen of one State in a condition of alienage when he is within or when he removes to another State, or when asserting in another State the rights that commonly appertain to those who are a part of the political community known as the People of the United States, by and for whom the Government of the Union was ordained and established.’
Here is the link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Oj0vAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22David%20K.%20Watson%22%20The%20Constitution%20of%20the%20United%20States%2C%20Vol%2011%201910&pg=PA1205#v=onepage&q&f=false
My theory, no! Law, yes!
Dan Goodman: Maybe I’m missing something. I live in New York and would like to meet even a single one of the 20,000,000 residents who is a citizen of New York, but not a citizen of the United States. Where, pray tell, might I find them? Since they are ineligible for a US passport, can they get a New York passport? Which department do they apply to? I can’t find anything on the state web site.
Thanks for your assistance…
Dan, did you notice that none of those were supreme court cases?
The Supreme Court has said: “in a purely technical and abstract sense citizenship of one of the States may not include citizenship of the United States…”
That purely technical and abstract sense was Native Americans before 1924. Is it after 1924? Then there is no more purely technical and abstract way that someone can be a citizen of a state and not of the U.S. (as long as we’re talking about human-beings).
Louisiana claims this:
Well, that’s exactly what the 14th Amendment did. States wanted to declare that blacks couldn’t be citizens, so the 14th Amendment took that power away. If you are born or naturalized in the United States, you are a citizen of the state in which you reside.
Tax-evaders and racist sovereign-citizen proponents have been trying this “citizen of the state but not of the United States” for a couple of decades now. They lose, over and over again. See When Law Risks Madness by Susan Koniak, 8 Cardozo Stud. L. & Literature 65, 1996.
The claim that one can be a citizen of a state, but not of the United States, has been tried by tax-evaders and white-supremacists and rejected. Terry Nichols tried it.
Here are just a quick sampling of the cases in which it has been tried and failed:
US v. Greenstreet (ND Tex 1996) 912 F.Supp 224; Barcroft v. CIR (1/2/97) TC Memo 1997-5 app.dismissed (5th Cir unpub 12/17/97) 134 F3d 369(t), 81 AFTR2d 453, 98 USTC para 50157; US v. Sloan (7th Cir 1991) 939 F2d 499 cert.den 502 US 1060; Greenstreet v. Heiskell (Tex.App 1997) 940 SW2d 831 reh.den 960 SW2d 713; Dunham v. CIR (2/9/98) TC Memo 1998-52 (“Petitioner reported that he was not a US citizen… that he was ‘a domiciled inhabitant of an American State’ and that his ‘tax home was within an American Union State’.” — misuse of the IRS form 1040NR penalized as fraud); Onkka v. Herman (D Neb unpub 9/19/97 & 10/17/97) 80 AFTR2d 6860; Kish v. CIR (1/13/98) TC Memo 1998-16; LaRue v. US (7th Cir unpub 9/8/97) 124 F3d 20AA4(t), 97 USTC para 50703, 80 AFTR2d 6275 cert.den 523 US 1096; Shrock v. US (7th Cir unpub 7/22/96) 92 F3d 1187(t), 78 AFTR2d 5792; McKeague v. The Corporate United States Govt of Washington DC (D. Haw unpub 10/9/97) 97 USTC para 50866; US v. Nichols (WD Okl 1995) 897 F.Supp 542 (Terry L. Nichols, an Oklahoma City bombing conspirator, “disclaimed US and Michigan citizenship and has declared himself in writing to be ‘Foreign’ and a ‘Non-Resident Alien’.” – He evidently had also done this in an attempt to evade his child support responsibilities, cf. M. France, Homegrown Scholars Treat Framers’ Work as a Bible, National Law Jrnl, 26 June 1995; a 1992 letter and a 1994 affidavit by Nichols to this effect can be found on the internet); (“We have held before that this belief is simply wrong.“) US v. Ross (7th Cir unpub 4/13/95) 52 F3d 329(t); (using this ploy in a drug prosecution, evidently thinking that non-citizens can smuggle and sell narcotics with impunity) US v. Norris (4th Cir unpub 2/20/98) 135 F3d 771(t); denied being “a person” and therefore not subject to taxation. M.J. Olson v. US (Fed Claims unpub 8/26/98) 82 AFTR2d 6174; K.L. Anderson v. CIR (7/8/98) TC Memo 1998-253; Dorris v. CIR (9th Cir unpub 4/29/96) 89 F3d 845(t), 77 AFTR2d 2084, 96 USTC para 50306; (ditto, evidently by a forced misreading of “person” in 26 USC secs. 7203 & 7343) US v. R.J. McDonald (9th Cir unpub 10/4/90) 919 F2d 146(t) cert.den 499 US 928; US v. Rhodes (MD Penn 1996) 921 F.Supp 261 aff’d (3d Cir 1996) 101 F3d 693(t) & (3d Cir 1997) 107 F3d 9(t); (“being of Freeman Character”, domiciled in “Kansas territory in Stafford County” which is, however, “foreign to County of Stafford” and trying to sue “foreign defendants” such as the Stafford County sheriff, county attorney, county judge, et al., asking the court in Kansas to exercise admiralty jurisdiction) Snyder v. District Court of Stafford County (D Kan unpub 4/8/96) aff’d 98 F3d 1350(t); (“a natural being, non-resident and alien to the corporate govt United States, State of Michigan, and any and all corporate political subdivisions”, sued to block application of car registration laws) J.M. Anderson v. State of Michigan (WD Mich unpub 3/18/93); )c;ao,ed tp ne “not a citizen of the US” and thereby exempt from taxes, “As proof of his non-resident alien status, he attaches affidavits stating that he was born in Texas and maintains his domicile in Wyoming.” M.H. Cotton v. US (10th Cir unpub 10/14/94) 39 F3d 1191(t), 74 AFTR2d 6778 (“All citizens of the US are liable for income taxes and every person born in the US is a citizen of the US.“) Cox v. CIR (10th Cir unpub 10/28/96) 99 F3d 1149(t), 78 AFTR2d 7015, 96 USTC para 50598; ditto US v. Lyman (10th Cir unpub 12/24/98) 166 F3d 349(t), 99 USTC para 50199, 83 AFTR2d 354; (claimed to be a citizen of “of the country of Nevada USA” and claimed “the benefits of a US income tax treaty with the foreign country of Nevada“) Reese v. CIR (6/5/95) TC Memo 1995-244; (claimed to be immune to taxation as “a Moorish-American Aborigine of Cherokee Indian Descent, a Free Regnatrix National Continental United States Citizen, Legitime Immunis Person“) Curry-Bey v. US (Fed Claims Ct unpub 6/22/95) 76 AFTR2d 5148, 95 USTC para 50604; (altho perps admitted that the IRS can tax non-citizens residing in the US, they denied being either US citizens nor resident aliens but “state citizens of Missouri (not State of Missouri)” and presented their homemade oaths of “Abjuration of Citizenship” and “pledge of allegiance to the Missouri Republic”) Erwin v. CIR (10/17/95) TC Memo 1995-498; (repudiating his US citizenship one reason that court would not allow Terry L. Nichols, in the Oklahoma City Bombing trials, to get bail or pre-trial release) US v. Nichols (WD Okl 1995) 897 F.Supp 542; (failing to comply with court orders on the pretext “that he had not ‘elected’ to be treated as a US citizen and was not born ‘subject to the Internal Revenue tax” punished with a contempt order) US v. Graber (8th Cir unpub 1/2/98) 98 USTC para 50134, 81 AFTR2d 429. claim to be civilly dead: US v. Verlin (D Kan 1997) 979 F.Supp 1334; (crank presented a document purporting to be a Social Security notification of his own death in 1942, and now sues a multitude of hospitals, doctors, and public officials for his own wrongful death) D.N. Mohammed v. Wilson (ND Cal unpub 9/27/96)
So, how do you plan on using your discredited theory? Tax evasion?
To Warren Hathaway –
Just catching up here, after being away for a few days, so I’m posting just a summary response to your additional responses and case citations.
Although you seem to write well, all your cases only make distinctions between different states or individual states & “the several states” etc. Nothing unusual there. Saying that one group of states is separate from another group or TX and OK are distinct individual states with their own state constitutions, distinct rights & citizenship rules, etc. – pretty standard stuff and nothing unusual there.
However, NONE of those cases (other than the Native American issues, which I’ve already addressed and which that “remaining gap” was closed in 1924) support the claim you keep trying to say they make – that somehow one can be a citizen of a US state or of a designation under “the several states” of the US, WITHOUT ALSO HAVING US CITIZENSHIP.
You seem to fail to grasp that any individual US state or any combination being applied as “the several states” are nothing more than SUB-ENTITIES underneath the overarching United States as a whole.
If this was a Venn Diagram of all these issues, you would have one large overall circle which represents the US as a WHOLE at the federal level and all other sub-circles representing any combination of individual states or “several states” would be FULLY CONTAINED WITHIN that overall boundary.
Overlap and intersection between the sub-entities exist, but none of them exceed the overarching boundary of the US.
Therefore, if someone has legal citizenship within ANY US state or use of “several states”, they have US Citizenship as well.
If an individual state or “several states” entity tried to create a new class of citizenship that was broader than what is provided at the federal level, I’m sure it would lead to court challenges at the federal level. Nothing I’ve seen from you shows any evidence of that.
Furthermore, in the other direction, this would be even more true – if any state or “several states” entity tried to impose a definition of citizenship that was more restrictive than how such is classified at the federal level (other than by mere territorial boundary restrictions of saying someone must be from or live within their jurisdiction)- such would definitely be unconstitutional and struck down at the federal level.
Dan Goodman- the man who posts his theory of “citizen of several states” all over the internet. And yes I do call it your theory because I can’t find anyone else- other than you and Warren who espouse it.
First- I have no argument that there exists state citizenship and U.S. citizenship. I have no argument that a person can be a U.S. citizen without being a state citizen. However none of your lovely references convince me that there is a way to be a state citizen without being a U.S. Citizen- show me a contemporary example- say within the last 50 years.
Second your reference “Federal Procedures at Law”- I read the part you referenced and a little more- and its clear to me that the discussion on the ‘several states’ refers to the rights and responsibilities of citizens of one state, in another state. The author quotes Justice Field “It was undoubtedly the object of the clause in question to place the citizens of each state upon the same footing with citizen’s of other states”
Finally, even assuming your theory had some validity- the fact that neither you nor Warren can simply describe what the practical effect of such a convoluted interpretation suggests to me that neither of your understand yourselves what that means.
Oh and I can’t find where Warren somehow described how several citizens was for international purposes- unless it was within his mass of quotations.
Anyway- thanks for coming here. In your mind- does your theory have any relevance to whether President Obama is ineligible to have been elected our President, and if so, explain please.
Warren Hathaway says…
But the COLB provided by the state of HI (which some call the “short form”) provides info that comes DIRECTLY from any “long form” that exists. Therefore, while such a “long form” would contain ADDITIONAL information, there would be NO DIFFERENCE between the two on the fields that are provided on both forms. Put simply, the COLB provides a SUBSET of data that comes directly from the original document.
Obama’s COLB clearly states his date of birth.
Therefore this is not in question in anyway and so your whole “Problem 1” is completely moot. Obama’s birth year is clearly listed as 1961, so your whole diatribe about births in 1959 are completely irrelevant.
Second, the place of birth is clearly provided on the COLB as well – HONOLULU, HI.
Therefore, your whole issue of foreign birth is meaningless and moot as well. If you actually look at the DOH website information about foreign births being registered in the state of HI, they are quite clear that any foreign birth would CLEARLY LIST the actual birth place of origin. Therefore, the COLB will ONLY state HONOLULU, HI for people ACTUALLY BORN in HONOLULU, HI.
So once again, your speculative scenarios are meaningless and not applicable here.
Therefore, all that remains is the conclusion that you yourself started out with, so I’ll end by requoting your own words:
QED
I’d argue something different…
There are two, and only two ways to become a citizen.
1. Naturalization: Article 1 gives Congress the authority to establish a uniform law of Naturalization. I don’t think it’s ever been held that a state has a separate ability to Naturalize citizens (even of their individual state).
2. Birth: This would be the only way this would be able to happen were for someone to be born within the state. Anybody born within the state would also be born within the United States.
So, maybe while the state and municipalities might give voting rights to some non-citizens, they cannot be considered citizens.
Warren –
This is a response to your reply to Misha:
1. As I already addressed in another post today, your 2 issues about Obama’s birth certificate are 100% moot, as you question the year he was born and where he was born, both of which are clearly answered and stated on the birth certificate he provided, which the State of HI has repeatedly backed up.
2. Do you even bother to read what you cut & paste as links? Your whole reply re: George W. Bush & the 2 links you provide about his birth certificate are both SATIRE! So, no, there is no GWB birth certificate (unless you are foolish enough to believe the fake copy you liked to which says Oxford in England).
Bottom line, the joke is on you. Next time, learn to do actual research & read before you just do a cheap google search and cut/paste.
You make yourself look utterly foolish and you further undermine your credibility as this is just further evidence that you aren’t thinking for yourself but are just being gullible and buying into / regurgitating any “Sovereign Citizen’s” biased crap that you read on the internet and citing court cases that you obviously don’t properly comprehend.
As Greg & SFJeff have pointed out, none of these situations provide for a situation in which someone has citizenship of either a US state or of “the several states” but does not ALSO have US Citizenship.
All you are arguing is about distinctions between sub-entities of the US. So what.
None of these distinctions provide citizenship where US citizenship does not also exist.
Therefore, I too conclude that although you write well, neither of you (Warren & Dan) properly understand what you are saying and quoting.
wow. that was just………… wow.
Dan:
I can’t find the state cases online.
State of Louisiana v. Fowler: 6 S. 602; 41 La.Ann. 380 (1889)
Harding v. Standard Oil Company et. al.: 182 F. 421, 424 (1910)
State of Montana v. District Court of Seventeenth Judicial District: 80 P.2d 367, 369 (1938)
I like to chek context, and to see if the cases were appealed. Can you provide links?
SFJeff,
I will answer this comment first “I am not saying President Obama is a ‘citizen of the several states’ – I still think this (that is citizenship of the several states) is a legal fiction.”
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (of America) took effect on July 28, 1868. See Holden v. Hardy: 169 U.S. 375, at 382 (1918). The Slaughterhouse Cases was decided on April 15, 1873.
After the Fourteenth Amendment taking effect and before the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Slaughterhouse Cases there was the following case decided in federal court.
In The Insurance Company v. The City of New Orleans (1 5th. Jud. Cir. 85, 1870) at pages 86 through 88, Judge Woods examined if a corporation is a citizen of the several States, under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States or if it is a citizen of the United States under the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. He writes:
“The first question presented for adjudication is: Admitting the tax to be unequal, is the ordinance providing for its levy and enforcement in violation of the 1st section of the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States, especially the last clause of the section? The section reads as follows: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privilege or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The complainant, to be entitled to the protection of this constitutional provision, must be either a citizen of the United States or a person in the sense in which that term is used in this section.
It has been repeatedly held, by the supreme court of the United States, that corporations were not citizens of the several states in such sense as to bring them within the protection of that clause in the constitution of the United States (section 2, article IV), which declares that the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens OF the several states;’ Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Peters, 586; Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wallace, 177. (See Note)
Are corporations citizens of the United States within the meaning of the constitutional provision now under consideration? It is claimed in argument that, before the adoption of the 14th amendment, to be a citizen of the United States, it was necessary to become a citizen of one of the states, but that since the 14th amendment this is reversed, and that citizenship in a state is the result and consequence of the condition of citizenship of the United States.
Admitting this view to be correct, we do not see its bearing upon the question in issue. Who are citizens of the United States, within the meaning of the 14th amendment, we think is clearly settled by the terms of the amendment itself. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.’ No words could make it clearer that citizens of the United States, within the meaning of this article, must be natural, and not artificial persons; for a corporation cannot be said to be born, nor can it be naturalized. I am clear, therefore, that a corporate body is not a citizen of the United States as that term is used in the 14th amendment.”
(Note: “But in no case which has come under our observation, either in the State or Federal courts, has a corporation been considered a citizen within the meaning of that provision of the Constitution which declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens OF the several States.” Paul v. State of Virginia: 75 U.S. 168, 178 (1868) Decided, December 1868.)
After the Slaughterhouse Cases there is this case from the Supreme Court of the United States:
“And (in Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168) it was also decided that a corporation did not have the rights of its personal members, and could not invoke that provision of Section 2, Article IV, of the Constitution of the United States, which gave to the citizens of each state the privileges and immunities of citizens OF the several states. See also Pembina Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U.S. 181; Ducat v. Chicago, 10 Wall. 410. And it has since been held in Blake v. McClung, 172 U.S. 239, and in Orient Insurance Company v. Daggs, 172 U.S. 557, that the prohibitive words of the Fourteenth Amendment have no broader application in that respect.” Waters-Pierce Oil Company v. Texas: 177 U.S. 28, 45 (1900).
A citizen of the several States is not a legal fiction, it is a legal reality. And note that a citizen of a State; under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution, is entitled to the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States.
To the rest of this comment:
The fact there is three citizens, with two sets of privileges and immunities under the Constitution of the United States (of America) is shown in the Slaughterhouse Cases themselves:
”. . . Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a State, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it . . . .
It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual. . . . .
Of the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the United States, and of the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the State, and what they respectively are, we will presently consider; but we wish to state here that it is only the former which are placed by this clause (first section, second clause) under the protection of the Federal Constitution, and that the latter, whatever they may be, are not intended to have any additional protection by this paragraph of the (Fourteenth) amendment. . . . .” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74 (1873).
And:
“We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this [the Fourteenth] Amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section (first section, second clause), which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those (privileges and immunities) of citizens of the several states. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs, rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same. . . . .
Fortunately we are not without judicial construction of this clause of the Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1). The first and leading case of the subject is that of Corfield v. Coryell, decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823.
‘The inquiry,’ he says ‘is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States? . . .
This definition of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States is adopted in the main by this court in the recent case of Ward v. The State of Maryland.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74, 76 (1873).
One thing we do agree on is that if Obama was born in the State of Hawaii, he would be, in general, a natural born citizen. What we differ on is that would he be a citizen of the several States or a citizen of the United States. As I (and Warren) have stated, the United States government is a separate and distinct sovereignty from the several States as well as an individual State. Being born in a State of the Union, one now would be a citizen of a State (as well as a citizen of the several States under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution). This is because the individual State government would be sovereign, not the United States government. [Also, in the Slaughterhouse Cases the Supreme Court of the United States held that citizenship of a State was to be separate and distinct from citizenship of the United States. That a citizen of a State was separate and distinct from a citizen of the United States.] Warren gave the following case from the Supreme Court of the United States, Collector v. Day. I will add the following; at Section 1, Clause 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, it states:
“No State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
On this point further there is the following from the Supreme Court of the United States:
“Upon the admission of a State into the Union, the state doubtless acquires general jurisdiction, civil and criminal, for the preservation of public order and the protection of persons and property throughout its limits, except where it has ceded exclusive jurisdiction to the United States. New Orleans v. United States 35 U.S. (10 Pet.) 662, 737; 9 L.Ed. 573, 602 (other citations ommited)” Van Brocklin v. State of Tennessee: 117 U.S. 151, 167-168 (1886).
So an individual State government has exclusive jurisdiction over its territory. The United States government does not unless, the individual State government cedes (that is, transfers) exclusive jurisdiction to the United States government. When this is done, the area is generally called a federal enclave, since it is a territory of the United States government within the territory of a State.
In other words, the individual State government is sovereign over its territory, not the United States government. So one born in the territory of an individual State, under the jurisdiction of the individual State, is a citizen of that State. That is because the individual State is sovereign. The person born in an individual State owes that State allegiance. This Warren showed with reference to United States v. Cruishank.
I will now explain all of this to you without the legal authority included. With regards to Barack H. Obama, if he was born in the State of Hawaii on August 4, 1961, he would (in general) be a natural born citizen, since he was born in a State of the Union. Being born in the State of Hawaii, he would be a citizen of the State of Hawaii. Under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, he would be entitled to privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States. As such he would be eligible to be President of the United States of America.
Under these circumstances, Barack H. Obama, would not be a citizen of the United States, because he was born in a individual State. The State of Hawaii would be sovereign and have exclusive jurisdiction over the territory. The United States government would not:
“We conclude, however, that no such hearing is required in this case. We are of the view that the ‘equal footing’ clause of the Joint Resolution admitting Texas to the Union disposes of the present phase of the controversy.
The ‘equal footing’ clause has long been held to refer to political rights and to sovereignty. See Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 179 U. S. 245. It does not, of course, include economic stature or standing. There has never been equality among the States in that sense. Some States, when they entered the Union, had within their boundaries tracts of land belonging to the Federal Government; others were sovereigns of their soil. Some had special agreements with the Federal Government governing property within their borders. See Stearns v. Minnesota, supra, pp. 179 U. S. 243-245. Area, location, geology, and latitude have created great diversity in the economic aspects of the several States. The requirement of equal footing was designed not to wipe out those diversities, but to create parity as respects political standing and sovereignty.” United States v. State of Texas: 339 U.S. 707, at 715 thru 716 (1950).
“. . . It is clear that Congress, as a legislative body, exercises two species of legislative power; the one, limited as to its objects, but extending over all the Union; the other, an absolute, exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia.
. . . It cannot be denied that the character of the jurisdiction which Congress has over the District (of Columbia), is widely different from that which it has over the States; for over them, Congress has NOT exclusive jurisdiction. Its powers over the States are those only which are specifically given, and those which are necessary to carry them into effect; whilst over the District it has all the powers which it has over the States, and in addition to these, a power of legislation exclusive of all the states.” Cohens v. Virginia: 19 U.S. (6 Wheaton) 264, 434, 438-439 [1821].
(Oh I lied about providing legal authority)
There is a situation where one born in a State of the Union would not be eligible to be President of the United States of America. This is shown (Warren provided this) in the following statute:
“California Government Code Section 241
The citizens of the State are: (a) all persons born in the State and residing within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien ministers and consuls.”
The reason one is to be a citizen of the several States (as well as a citizen of a State) in order to be President of the United States of America is that this citizen can only be a natural (native) born citizen. A citizen of the United States can not be for such citizen is not born in a State.
As Warren stated to Misha (entry April 16, 2010 at 12:36 am) “I will not comment on George W. Bush (and the two prior presidents of the United States of America) as this webpage deals with “Obama Conspiracy Theories.”
Children of foreign ambassadors are also excluded from US Citizenship status.
Your sovereign citizen stuff is nothing more than novel theory that I feel you misinterpret greatly.
The states are sub-entities of the greater whole known as the United States of America. Although they retain their own state constitutions and rights, those rights are constrained to be subservient to federal law where federal law applies. Your examples above of legal cases dealing with the rights of citizenship on corporate entities have no bearing on Obama’s citizenship.
Any natural born citizen of any of the 50 states of the US is NBC of the USA. Plain and simple and you have yet to show any modern situation applicable which would contradict this. (We’ve already addressed Native American nationality and why that no longer became an issue as of 1924).
Obama was born in Honolulu, HI in 1961. There is no example of law applicable as of that time period that anyone has come up with that in the slightest would deny that his situation results in NBC of USA.
Dan,
Apart from demonstrating an ability to copy and paste irrelevant information, what in simple terms have you proved.
The answer is……nothing.
There are precisely two categories of citizen, NBC and Naturalized, your bizarre tirade on corporations etc does not affect that in any way, means or form.
And just to it goes through the paper thin skull, “The several states” is a term from the founding period that relates to the USA as a whole excluding territories which had not been subsumed into the USA.
You had the various “several” (indeterminate number but expected to increase) states and the rest, which as part of “Manifest Destiny” would later become a part of the “several” states
The only POSSIBLE relevance in the real world of now is in relation to Puerto Rico and if an NBC of PR could run for President.
No relation to Obama, so kindly go and peddle your “Sovereign Citizen” cack on a forum that gives a rats arse.
I guess it was only a matter of time until the junk law of tax protester/sovereign citizen nuts met up with the NBC Obama conspiracy nuts.
Dan- once again rather than just simply answering me, you repasted the quotes you posted before.
I really don’t know whether you are trying to be disingenious, or can’t answer my questions, but not going to try to wade through that wall of text again.
My feeling is if you can’t explain simply exactly how your theory affects President Obama, I am not going to bother to try to figure it out.
Oh and yes as far as I am concerned- your third citizenship is a legal fiction.
To Scientist,
(April 17, 2010 at 8:15 am passport)
Before the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress passed on August 18, 1856 “An act to regulate the diplomatic and consular system of the United States.” At Section 23, it stated that the Secretary of State of the United States was authorized “to grant and issue passports, and cause passports to be granted, issued and verified in foreign countries by such diplomatic or consular officers of the United States, and under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe, for and on behalf of the United States, and no other person shall grant, issue, or verify any such passport; nor shall any passport be granted or issued to or verified for any other persons than citizens of the United States.”
A citizen of the United States at this time was a citizen of a State:
“. . . [I]n examining the form of our government, it might be correctly said that there is no such thing as a citizen of the United States. But constant usage – arising from convenience, and perhaps necessity, and dating from the formation of the Confederacy – has given substantial existence to the idea which the term conveys. A citizen of any one of the States of the Union, is held to be, and called a citizen of the United States, although technically and abstractly there is no such thing. To conceive a citizen of the United States who is not a citizen of some one of the States, is totally foreign to the idea, and inconsistent with the proper construction and common understanding of the expression as used in the Constitution, which must be deduced from its various other provisions. “ Ex parte Frank Knowles: 5 Cal. 300, at 302 (1855).
A citizen of the United States was also a citizen in the several States:
“By the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, it is provided that ‘new States may be admitted by the Congress into the Union.’ and the second section of the same article directs that ‘the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.’ It is impossible to give to the provisions of these two sections their effect, in the opinion of the counsel for the motion, without recognizing, as a constitutional principle, the position that, on the admission of a new State into the Union, its citizens, the members who compose it, become ipso facto entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, consequently to those of citizens of the United States. Desbois’ Case: 2 Martin 185 (1812). And,
“In Desbois Case, 2 Mart. (La.) 185 (decided in 1812) one Desbois, of French birth, applied for a license to practice as a counsellor and attorney at law in the Superior Courts of Louisiana, and by one of the rules of the court the applicant could not be admitted unless he was a citizen of the United States. Desbois conceded that he had no claim to citizenship by birth nor by naturalization under the acts of Congress to establish a uniform rule on that subject, but he contended that there was a third mode of acquiring citizenship of the United States, namely, the admission into the Union of a State of which he was a citizen. . . .
Judge Martin . . . delivered the opinion of the court. . . .
And after an able discussion of the subject, he concluded that the applicant must be considered a citizen of the State of Louisiana, and entitled to all the rights and privileges of a citizen of the United States. Boyd v. State of Nebraska: 143 U.S. 135, at 164 thru 165 (1892).
On May 30, 1866, Congress passed “An act to repeal Section twenty-three of Chapter seventy-nine of the Acts of the Third Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress, relating to Passports. Containing only one section, the last sentence read:
“And hereafter passports shall be issued only to citizens of the United States.”
The Fourteenth Amendment went into effect on July 28, 1868.
No change was made with respect to citizenship and granting, or issuing, or verifying a passport until June 14, 1902. On that date, Congress passed an act which at section 2 provided:
“No passport shall be granted or issued to or verified for any other persons than those owing allegiance, whether citizens or not, to the United States.”
This provision is now at 22 United States Code section 212.
The change in wording in this statute was to reflect the Fourteenth Amendment which established citizenship of the United States, and thus a citizen of the United States.
So from July 28, 1868 to June 14, 1902 the provision of law, established on August 18, 1856, relating to the granting, issuing, and verifying passports relating to citizens of the United States was in effect. A citizen of a State was also a citizen of the United States, under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1. However, the Fourteenth Amendment established a citizen of the United States.
Thus, there were two citizens of the United States, for purposes of passports; a citizen of the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment, and a citizen of the United States under Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution. One was born in the United States, the other born in a State.
Apparently, the change in the statute was made from the following decision of the Supreme Court of the United States:
“We have in our political system a government of the United States and a government of each of the several States. Each one of these governments is distinct from the others, and each has citizens of its own who owe it allegiance, and whose rights, within its jurisdiction, it must protect.”Cruishank v. United States: 92 U.S. 542, at 549 (1875).
Allegiance is the distinction. So from June 14, 1902 on, the United States government stopped granting, issuing, or verifying a passport for a citizen of the United States who owe no allegiance to the United States government.
Therefore the several States are now responsible for granting, issuing, or verifying a passport for a citizen of the United States (now a citizen of the several States, Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) U.S. 36, at 74 (1873); Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, at 113 thru 114 (1890); Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at 15 (1906); and Harris v. Balk: 198 U.S. 215, at 223 (1905)). As support:
“. . . As in case of the authority of the United States over its absent citizens (Blackmer v. United States, 284 U.S. 421), the authority of a State over one of its citizens is not terminated by the mere fact of his absence from the state.” Milliken v. Meyer: 311 U.S. 457, at 463 (1940).
I found the following website: http://www.unitedpassports.com . However, these passports are souvenirs not legal documents.
I am aware of one person who obtained a passport from the State of Nebraska Secretary of State. This can be read at the following link: http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/01-11-04/discussion.cgi.69.html. The year was 2004. I have not been able to confirm this.
Dan Goodman:
Thank you for the lengthy non-answer. You must have skipped the line in Shakespeare that said “Brevity is the soil of wit”.
I guess I will answer my own questions:
1. No, there is not a single person of the 20,000,000 New Yorkers who is a citizen of New York and not a citizen of the United States.
2. No, New York does not issue passports. Even if the states mentioned in your citation issued the letters claimed (doubtful), they are useless, since no country would accept such as a legal travel document, as they signed international conventions on passports with the US, not with 50 different states. Would the US accept a letter from the Governor of Sinaloa (a state of the United States of Mexico) in lieu of a Mexican passport?
G
You are saying that an individual State, the several States collectively, are a sub entity to the United States?
I have to conclude that you have not read your Constitution, as you would know that the Congress (or the United States government) is one of enumerated powers. A State of the Union also is not the same as the District of Columbia, or the territories and possessions of the United States government, also in the Constitution. The difference:
“. . . It is clear that Congress, as a legislative body, exercises two species of legislative power; the one, limited as to its objects, but extending over all the Union; the other, an absolute, exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia.
. . . It cannot be denied that the character of the jurisdiction which Congress has over the District (of Columbia), is widely different from that which it has over the States; for over them, Congress has NOT exclusive jurisdiction. Its powers over the States are those only which are specifically given, and those which are necessary to carry them into effect; whilst over the District it has all the powers which it has over the States, and in addition to these, a power of legislation exclusive of all the states.” Cohens v. State of Virginia: 19 U.S. (6 Wheaton) 264, 434, 438-439 [1821].
And,
“The general government, and the States, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the States within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the tenth amendment, reserved,’ are as independent of the general government as that government within its sphere is independent of the States.” Collector v. Day: 78 U.S. (Wall. 11) 113, at 124 (1870).
Did the Fourteenth Amendment changed this? No:
“Notwithstanding the adoption of these three amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments), the national government still remains one of enumerated powers, and the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,’ is not shorn of its vitality.” Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at 16 (1906)
So:
“Upon the admission of a State into the Union, the state doubtless acquires general jurisdiction, civil and criminal, for the preservation of public order and the protection of persons and property throughout its limits, except where it has ceded exclusive jurisdiction to the United States. New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. (10 Pet.) 662, 737; 9 L.Ed. 573, 602 (other citations ommited)” Van Brocklin v. State of Tennessee: 117 U.S. 151, 167-168 (1886).
And:
“We conclude, however, that no such hearing is required in this case. We are of the view that the equal footing’ clause of the Joint Resolution admitting Texas to the Union disposes of the present phase of the controversy.
The equal footing’ clause has long been held to refer to political rights and to sovereignty. See Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 179 U. S. 245. It does not, of course, include economic stature or standing. There has never been equality among the States in that sense. Some States, when they entered the Union, had within their boundaries tracts of land belonging to the Federal Government; others were sovereigns of their soil. Some had special agreements with the Federal Government governing property within their borders. See Stearns v. Minnesota, supra, pp. 179 U. S. 243-245. Area, location, geology, and latitude have created great diversity in the economic aspects of the several States. The requirement of equal footing was designed not to wipe out those diversities, but to create parity as respects political standing and sovereignty.” United States v. State of Texas: 339 U.S. 707, at 715 thru 716 (1950).
So a State of the Union, unlike the District of Columbia, or the territories and possessions of the United States government, is a sovereign, separate and distinct from the United States.
Dan- you once again demonstrate you cannot answer anything succinctly, nor can you answer on point.
You still haven’t succintly- without copying and pasting- identified how your novel citizenship theory has anything to do with Presidential eligibility.
And regarding state sovereignty- well the Civil War pretty much demonstrated that each state is not sovereign and distinct from the United States. You may interpret the Constitution and the court cases otherwise, but Lincoln pretty much laid out our current situaton- which by the way I approve of. The alternative is a weak balkanization of mini-states
Whatever4
It took a while, however, I was able to find links to two of the three court cases I cited.
They are:
State of Louisiana v. Fowler: 6 S. 602; 41 La.Ann. 380 (1889).
Harding v. Standard Oil Company et. al.: 182 F. 421, 424 (1910).
Before I give them I want to reproduce here my response to G at April 20, 2010 at 2:44 am); the reason being to give background to the case of State of Louisiana v. Fowler on the issue of sovereignty of a State.
(G
You are saying that an individual State, the several States collectively, are a sub entity to the United States?
I have to conclude that you have not read your Constitution, as you would know that the Congress (or the United States government) is one of enumerated powers. A State of the Union also is not the same as the District of Columbia, or the territories and possessions of the United States government, also in the Constitution. The difference:
“. . . It is clear that Congress, as a legislative body, exercises two species of legislative power; the one, limited as to its objects, but extending over all the Union; the other, an absolute, exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia.
. . . It cannot be denied that the character of the jurisdiction which Congress has over the District (of Columbia), is widely different from that which it has over the States; for over them, Congress has NOT exclusive jurisdiction. Its powers over the States are those only which are specifically given, and those which are necessary to carry them into effect; whilst over the District it has all the powers which it has over the States, and in addition to these, a power of legislation exclusive of all the states.” Cohens v. State of Virginia: 19 U.S. (6 Wheaton) 264, 434, 438-439 [1821].
And,
“The general government, and the States, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the States within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the tenth amendment, reserved,’ are as independent of the general government as that government within its sphere is independent of the States.” Collector v. Day: 78 U.S. (Wall. 11) 113, at 124 (1870).
Did the Fourteenth Amendment changed this? No:
“Notwithstanding the adoption of these three amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments), the national government still remains one of enumerated powers, and the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,’ is not shorn of its vitality.” Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at 16 (1906)
So:
“Upon the admission of a State into the Union, the state doubtless acquires general jurisdiction, civil and criminal, for the preservation of public order and the protection of persons and property throughout its limits, except where it has ceded exclusive jurisdiction to the United States. New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. (10 Pet.) 662, 737; 9 L.Ed. 573, 602 (other citations ommited)” Van Brocklin v. State of Tennessee: 117 U.S. 151, 167-168 (1886).
And:
“We conclude, however, that no such hearing is required in this case. We are of the view that the equal footing’ clause of the Joint Resolution admitting Texas to the Union disposes of the present phase of the controversy.
The equal footing’ clause has long been held to refer to political rights and to sovereignty. See Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 179 U. S. 245. It does not, of course, include economic stature or standing. There has never been equality among the States in that sense. Some States, when they entered the Union, had within their boundaries tracts of land belonging to the Federal Government; others were sovereigns of their soil. Some had special agreements with the Federal Government governing property within their borders. See Stearns v. Minnesota, supra, pp. 179 U. S. 243-245. Area, location, geology, and latitude have created great diversity in the economic aspects of the several States. The requirement of equal footing was designed not to wipe out those diversities, but to create parity as respects political standing and sovereignty.” United States v. State of Texas: 339 U.S. 707, at 715 thru 716 (1950).
So a State of the Union, unlike the District of Columbia, or the territories and possessions of the United States government, is a sovereign, separate and distinct from the United States.)
The two links are:
“A person who is a citizen of the United State is necessarily a citizen of the particular state in which he resides. But a person may be a citizen of a particular state and not a citizen of the United States. To hold otherwise would be to deny to the state the highest exercise of its sovereignty – the right to declare who are its citizens.”State of Louisiana v. Fowler: 6 S. 602; 41 La.Ann. 380 (1889)
http://books.google.com/books?id=PIA7AAAAIAAJ&dq=editions%3AHARVARD32044103146833&lr&pg=PA602#v=onepage&q&f=false
“A person may be a citizen of a state but not of the United States.”Harding v. Standard Oil Company et. al.: 182 F. 421, 424 (1910)
http://books.google.com/books?id=EkM4AAAAIAAJ&dq=editions%3AUCALB3555557&lr&pg=PA424#v=onepage&q&f=false
To Dan Goodman:
Again, the loophole exclusion was closed in 1924, granting Native Americans US Citizenship. At that point, there no longer remained any situation where someone could be a citizen of a state and not of the US.
You aren’t very good at understanding the language of the cases you yourself cite.
Re-read your own Collector v Day case citation, particularly the part you cite that reads: “The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme”
The former being the Federal Government. What you 10th Amendment folks fail to grasp is you overreach the power of the 10th Amendment, which today is in effect just a “catch all” assigning any rights that aren’t allocated to the federal level to the states or individuals respectively. It merely covers what is left for rights that don’t fall under the “supreme” jurisdiction of the Federal government.
States cannot exceed their authority to violate federal authority when an issue appropriately falls under federal purview.
US Citizenship at the federal level is such a case.
Again, as myself and others have repeatedly pointed out, you cannot provide one single modern scenario that could happen today, or indeed even happen in 1961 in which someone could have state citizenship but not US Citizenship as well.
To Dan Goodman –
As you just cut/paste & said the exact same thing in response to Whatever4 above, see my followup reply to you there.
Short summary: NO – a state is not truly sovereign, separate and distinct from the US. It is a sub entity and only retains “sovereign” authority in matters upon which its jurisdiction is not superseded by federal authority. This old argument, which tax protesters & Lost Causers try to re-litigate was conclusively put to bed after the Civil War. The states cannot “nullify” federal jurisdiction matters (nor can they secede if they disagree)
And again, as all your posting is meaningless sideshow and distraction, back to the matter at hand and point of such issues as it relates to this website:
Simply put, you cannot cite a single modern day example of how someone could be a citizen of a state yet not also be a citizen of the US. Not today, not even in 1961. Therefore, your arguments have no merit to the issues discussed in these forums.
Agreed. Simply put, the US is one master entity. The concept of being just a loose federation of individual states went out the window a long time ago – first with replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution (for the exact reason that a stronger, centralized union was needed) and then conclusively and definitively post Civil War.
To SFJeff,
Third Citizenship a Legal Fiction? No, its Law!
The fact there are three sets of privileges and immunities in this country is shown in the Slaughterhouse Cases:
”. . . Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen of a State, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it . . . .
It is quite clear, then, that there is a citizenship of the United States, and a citizenship of a State, which are distinct from each other, and which depend upon different characteristics or circumstances in the individual. . . . .
Of the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the United States, and of the privileges and immunities of the citizen of the State, and what they respectively are, we will presently consider; but we wish to state here that it is only the former which are placed by this clause (first section, second clause) under the protection of the Federal Constitution, and that the latter, whatever they may be, are not intended to have any additional protection by this paragraph of the (Fourteenth) amendment. . . . .” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74 (1873).
And:
“We think this distinction and its explicit recognition in this [the Fourteenth] Amendment of great weight in this argument, because the next paragraph of this same section (first section, second clause), which is the one mainly relied on by the plaintiffs in error, speaks only of privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and does not speak of those (privileges and immunities) of citizens of the several states. The argument, however, in favor of the plaintiffs, rests wholly on the assumption that the citizenship is the same and the privileges and immunities guaranteed by the clause are the same. . . . .
Fortunately we are not without judicial construction of this clause of the Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1). The first and leading case of the subject is that of Corfield v. Coryell, decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823.
The inquiry,’ he says is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States? . . .
This definition of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States is adopted in the main by this court in the recent case of Ward v. The State of Maryland.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 74, 76 (1873).
The three sets of privileges and immunities are: privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States; privileges and immunities of a citizen of a State; privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States.
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States are located at Section 1, Clause 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment:
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”
Privileges and immunities of citizen of a State are located in the constitution and laws of an individual State:
“. . . Whatever may be the scope of section 2 of article IV — and we need not, in this case enter upon a consideration of the general question — the Constitution of the United States does not make the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the citizens of one State under the constitution and laws of that State, the measure of the privileges and immunities to be enjoyed, as of right, by a citizen of another State under its constitution and laws.” McKane v. Durston: 153 U.S. 684, at 687 (1894).
Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are those described in Corfield v. Coryell decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823:
“In the Slaughter House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 76, in defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States, this is quoted from the opinion of Mr. Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. Cir. Ct. 371, 380.” Hodges v. United States: 203 U.S. 1, at page 15 (1906).
The location for these privileges and immunities are Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution:
Fortunately we are not without judicial construction of this clause of the Constitution (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1). The first and leading case of the subject is that of Corfield v. Coryell, decided by Mr. Justice Washington in the Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania in 1823.
The inquiry,’ he says is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States? . . .
This definition of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States is adopted in the main by this court in the recent case of Ward v. The State of Maryland.” Slaughterhouse Cases: 83 (16 Wall.) 36, at 76 (1873).
Corresponding to these three sets of privileges and immunities are three citizenships; citizenship of the United States, citizenship of a State, and citizenship of the several States.
Citizenship of the United States is located at Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
Citizenship of a State is recognized at the following provisions of the Constitution:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States (of America)
Citizenship of the several States is designated at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States (of America):
“The intention of section 2, Article IV (of the Constitution), was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship.” Cole v. Cunningham: 133 U.S. 107, 113-114 (1890).
Thus, for a citizen of the United States:
its privileges and immunities are located at Section 1, Clause 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment and its citizenship is located at Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
For a citizen of a State:
its privileges and immunities are to be found with the individual State’s constitution and laws, its citizenship is to be found with the individual State’s constitution and laws and to be found at Section 1, Clause 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment and Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States (of America).
And for a citizen of the several States:
its privileges and immunities are designated at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution (Hodges v. United States), its citizenship is designated at Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution (Cole v. Cunningham).
The privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States arise “out of the nature and essential character of the Federal government, and granted or secured by the Constitution.” Duncan v. State of Missouri: 152 U.S. 377, 382 (1894).
The privileges and immunities of a citizen of a State are to be found with the individual State’s constitution and laws. McKane v. Durston
The privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are those described in Corfield v. Coryell by Mr. Justice Washington. Hodges v. United States.
So there are three citizenships!
Dan,
Oh, please explain to me scenarios where someone would be a “citizen of the several states” today, as opposed to a citizen of the US.
Just what would be the “several states” these days as opposed to the full entity of the United States, pray tell?
And don’t just cut/paste antiquated court case citings. Show me that you can actually think and articulate your thoughts and put forward a real world example that would be applicable today.
You do realize that “citizen of the several states” in nothing but an archaic term at this point, right?
It of course had meaning at the time of our founding, when we had 13 states, plus almost all of the territory east of the Mississippi river. It still had a lot of meaning as we pursued “manifest destiny” and pursued further territory westward.
Today, when national boundaries and continental territories have been settled and we have 50 total states…the term really has no valid, practical meaning anymore.
G
In my reply to Greg (April 17, 2010 at 4:33am) I cited three cases. However, in my reply to Whatever4 (April 22, 2010 at 10:07pm) I found links online to two of them.
The one I could not find a link to was to:
State of Montana v. District Court of Seventeenth Judicial District: 80 P.2d 367, 369 (1938).
The year for this case is 1938. So much for the loophole theory of 1924.
If I can find this case online I will provide a link to it. For now you will have to find the case at an appropriate source, like a law resource center (or a law library).
Dan –
The only reference you have ever made so far to this Montana case, is when you are actually trying to quote the “Harding v. Standard Oil Company et. al.: 182 F. 421, 424 (1910)” citation.
So, unless you can give more specific context and explanation of just how you think that Montanta cases in 1938 is providing for state citizenship BUT NOT US Citizenship, I just don’t see it.
You’ve shown that you can type in a search word and just cut/paste from court cases. What you haven’t shown is that you can grasp and contextualize what those cases are actually saying as relevant to the issues of this forum and the specific questions we repeatedly keep asking you here.
I will ask again: If you really have any understanding of what you are saying, please EXPLAIN in your own words and provide a viable example of how someone TODAY could possibly be a “citizen of the state” BUT NOT a US Citizen as well.
Again, I will tell you that it can’t happen and I can’t think of any possible scenario or example of such that would be applicable today, or for that matter, even back in 1961 when Obama was born.
Nothing you have said has had any relevance that shows otherwise and I’m still trying to respectfully ask you to provide a relevant answer.
First of all Dan- I have yet to see anybody- with gravitas or not- who agrees with your theory. You have posted on multiple sites your theory and the silence has been deafening. To me that is clear that your theory is not considered credible by anyone else.
Second- no there are not three citizenships, there is only your misinterpretation. Let us review somethings you cite:
1)Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States are located at Section 1, Clause 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment:
2)Privileges and immunities of a citizen of the several States are those described in Corfield v. Coryell…The location for these privileges and immunities are Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution:
So it is your contention that before the 14th Amendment, U.S. citizens had no rights or privileges?
Lets go on and look at how the Constitution uses the term “several states”:
“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”
If, as you contend, “several states” represents a distinct seperate division, then the Constitution is very confused here. The people of the ‘several states’ chosing their representatives? No the people of a state chose their representatives- several states is clearly meant to talk of the individual states as a group.
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union,”
This makes pretty clear to me that when the Constitution refers to “several states” it refers to the states which belong to the United States individually.
Lets look at the article you quote:
Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. (this section follows with this:)
A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
Again- this seems very clear to me that when the Constitution speaks of the “several states” it speaks of the multiple individual states- not some mythical third citizenship.
Finally- since this site is about Obama conspiracy theories- even this mythical third citizenship wouldn’t affect the President, because the Consitution clearly refers to U.S. Citizens when it comes to eligibility.
The bottom line is that there are only 2 types of citizens, natural born or naturalized. And Obama being born to SAD in HI makes him natural born. Even born outside of the US makes that the case. This citizens of several states crap is just nonsense….
INA: ACT 309 – CHILDREN BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK
Sec. 309. [8 U.S.C. 1409]
(a) The provisions of paragraphs (c), (d), (e), and (g) of section 301, and of paragraph (2) of section 308, shall apply as of the date of birth to a person born out of wedlock if-
(1) a blood relationship between the person and the father is established by clear and convincing evidence,
(2) the father had the nationality of the United States at the time of the person’s birth,
(3) the father (unless deceased) has agreed in writing to provide financial support for the person until the person reaches the age of 18 years, and
(4) while the person is under the age of 18 years-
(A) the person is legitimated under the law of the person’s residence or domicile,
(B) the father acknowledges paternity of the person in writing under oath, or
(C) the paternity of the person is established by adjudication of a competent court.
(b) Except as otherwise provided in section 405, the provisions of section 301(g) shall apply to a child born out of wedlock on or after January 13, 1941, and before December 24, 1952, as of the date of birth, if the paternity of such child is established at any time while such child is under the age of twenty-one years by legitimation.
(c) Notwithstanding the provision of subsection (a) of this section, a person born, after December 23, 1952, outside the United States and out of wedlock shall be held to have acquired at birth the nationality status of his mother, if the mother had the nationality of the United States at the time of such person’s birth, and if the mother had previously been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year.
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.f6da51a2342135be7e9d7a10e0dc91a0/?vgnextoid=fa7e539dc4bed010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=fa7e539dc4bed010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCRD&CH=act
I’ve been trying to make sense of Dan’s theories, and it just doesn’t work. “Citizens of the several states” clearly means citizens of the states, at the state-level not federal. Citizens of Arizona + Maine + Texas … + etc. The term only shows up when the rest of the text is talking about the collective citizens of state A plus citizens of state B, etc.
And I also can’t see how someone could be a citizen of a state and not the USA. There are plenty of cases where only state law is of interest and federal law doesn’t apply, but that doesn’t mean that the state citizen isn’t also a federal citizen.
Sorry, I tired to wrap my head around it, but the concept makes no sense.
Whatever4 says:
I’ve been trying to make sense of Dan’s theories, and it just doesn’t work.
It appears that his theories originally were framed in the context of tax protesting, the idea being that someone could be a citizen of a state but not a citizen of the United States, thereby supposedly exempting that person from having to pay Federal taxes. Of course, that argument doesn’t make sense either, because you don’t have to be a U.S. to be liable for Federal taxes.
What I would like to see is Dan or Warren give us a concrete example of someone who is a citizen of a state but not a citizen of the United States, rather than inundate us with all of their cut and paste nonsense.