1 I don't think anyone around here expects the man to be disqualified but it simply can't stand that this particular individual be allowed to flout the rules of the game when it suits him (or her, in Hillary's case).

2 Can I be the first to say I don't give a flying fuck about Dear Leader's citizenship status? The absolute LAST thing I was worried about during the election was if His Affirmative Actioness's legal birth papers were in order. It was all the screwed up, warmed over Socialism and Munich Pact hugger-mugger he was blathering about that had me worried. Can we stop worrying over the Donk version of Dubya's DUI and  worry about some of the concrete policy objectives of the upcoming administration?

3 "...and the Congress is not even attempting a superficial fix of the situation by repealing the pay raise her Congress authorized for the Secretary of State."

I thought there was a precedent here, that a previous SoS solved the issue by accepting the position at the former rate (pre-raise) of pay.

Or was I really hitting the valu-rite at that time...?

4 And to get what accomplished? The inauguration of President Joe Biden?

*shudder*

I don't know what the endgame is here.

I'm of the mind that it's just much easier to show that BO is a dishonest hack by looking at, well, nearly everything he's done and said of the past two years since he began his descent from Heaven to this Earth.

5 >>>I thought there was a precedent here, that a previous SoS solved the issue by accepting the position at the former rate (pre-raise) of pay.


yes but that Nixonian precedent stinks. The constitution speaks of the congress raising pay rates (emoluments). To even be close to a superficial compliance, congress would ave to rescind that pay-raise, so that one could say that the Congress Hillary was part of did not actually raise the pay.

Of course they DID raise it, but then at least we can argue if you raise it and then lower it if you're "net raised" it at all.

the Nixon-era Saxby precedent of just taking less pay is not even close to genuine compliance, and I don't even here Hillary talking about doing that.

6 If Barry can pick which laws he wants follow and which he wants ignore, than the rest of us are free to do the same.

This scenario does not end well, which is a really good reason not to start it.

7

As per usual, ace misses the point -

the question is not whether Obama *is* qualified to be President per the Constitution ... that's such a narrow issue to consider as to make it not worth the effort at all.  No, the issue is whether Obama thought he was qualified to be President.

So long as Obama thought He was born in Hawai'i, that's all that's necessary.

The only smoking gun here is if Obama claimed to be Kenyan during a Semester Abroad trip in order to score some European ass. 

Or if he did so at Vasser.

8 This Congress has a limited amount of time to comply. They can comply. They've just apparently decided it's no big deal.

9 If this is allowed to go through without the SCOTUS stepping in either way, I'm not sure how they could EVER disqualify someone from becoming president, regardless of their age/nationality. And I disagree that the Congress can just up and redefine what "natural born" means. They can't decide to just claim that "natural born" should apply to everyone on the planet, since we are all "international citizens". The definition of "natural born" is up to the SCOTUS.

In any case, on the McCain point, he was found to be natural born because he was born with 2 citizen parents on sovereign US soil (the canal zone military base). Essentially, it says a US citizen born in an embassy or military base is considered "natural born". If Obama is found to not have a Hawaiian long-form birth certificate, the two cases would be worlds apart.

10 So, does this mean Joe-Bob and Jose' don't have to show their birth certificate or green card to de-beak pullets at Tysons?

11

I have no idea whether or not he is natural born or not. I just think it is bizarre that he has refused to just show his birth certificate like I have to do when I get a passport.

Your point about political fallout is more important to me, I beleive we should cause it whenever we can. Otherwise he is going to have a blank check to fuck this country up like only a true amature can.

12 He should just produce the damn birth certificate to make the rightsters look stupid. Doesn't look like he wants to and therefore we have the foundation for illegitimacy that will spark the sale of "He's Not My President" bumper stickers.

13 >>>And I disagree that the Congress can just up and redefine what "natural born" means. They can't decide to just claim that "natural born" should apply to everyone on the planet, since we are all "international citizens".

They can't make up any definition, no, but they can certainly rule in or out various corner-cases.

Like being born outside the us to us citizens. If you're seeing family in Italy and your eight month pregnant wife gives birth unexpectedly, the kid's not "natural born" a US citizen? Congress would hardly be crazy to include such children as "natural born."

14 I'd also like to add that the swift rally of conservatives like Allah and MM to the defense of Obama is quite sickening. If this issue is allowed to finish like this, the Obama PR machine will continue to paint every criticism of Dear Leader as a troofer conspiracy theory, and apparently, Allah, MM and the like will be quick to carry his water.

Thank you, ace, for at least giving this a fair rundown.

15 I guess then "Arnold" will be eligible.

16 I guess then "Arnold" will be eligible.

Uh, let's not go there.  I mean, it seems like it would be a good thing, due to his popularity, but just look at how he's governed California.

17 For the same reason I insist upon Obama proving his qualifications for office. I don't expect him to be disqualified. I insist upon it because it's in the Constitution and it's rather bad precedent for presidents to begin deciding which parts of the constitution they'll respect.

Yeah, and this from the same people who were insisting BUSH TRASHED TEH CONSTITUTION, MAN by adhering to a different interpretation of the emanations of penumbras, and yet here we have clearly worded text that's just being ignored.

I hope I live long enough to see this living constitution bite them in the ass.

18 >>>Like being born outside the us to us citizens.

Well what I'm saying is, and I think you touched on this, is that no one knows if that's what the Constitution means when it says "natural born". It's a matter of Constitutional interpretation, which is the SCOTUS's job. In the McCain case, the Senate just confirmed that his status fell into the definition of "natural born", but I'd still love an official definition of what that is.

Oh and, if Obama's US citizenship was renounced when he attended Indonesian public school, does that mean that he lived here, for a time, as an illegal alien? Does that also mean that Reagan's amnesty made him a US citizen again? Wouldn't that be interesting to find out?

19 Since it requires four of the nine justices to agree to hear a case like this, I would be very interested to know who did and did not want to hear it, and on what merit, etc.

20 ...for now had been divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome.

-Tacitus, The Histories

21 No wonder I read this blog all the time!

22

I agree!  I have been making this point.  It won't disqualify him.  At the very least, they will try to tie themselves in knots arguing that he was natural born.  At the most they will try to pass a law ex post facto.

The point for me is simply that we cannot again have a major candidate for the presidency avoid such scrutiny and the irony would be thick if this man managed to get elected without achieving even the most rudimentary qualifications for the office.

23 Barry has produced nothing of his past, and things we know for sure (he's a racist; he is friends with a bastard that tried his best to kill fellow Americans; he feels the constitution needs a fundamentally good changin'...hey! Wait a minute! He's changin' it as we speak!) are disgusting. His not producing his actual BC is not arrogance. Arrogant people for the most part still follow the rules. They just don't see why thy have to.

"Found" that missing piece of the tape yet, "Ace"? You won't, because it does not exist. I'm sure you'll cut and paste something, but you know it's not true.

Why on earth would I say something like that about a woman I admire and will vote for if she runs? I would not and DID not.

24 Uh, let's not go there.  I mean, it seems like it would be a good thing, due to his popularity, but just look at how he's governed California.

Arnold tried to do a lot of good things when he was first elected.  He tried to implement some kind of sane redistricting system.  He tried deal with the economic hole we're in.  California has been paying off bonds with new bonds for decades now.

But the governor of California is an almost ceremonial position with very little real power.  The only way he could actually get anything accomplished was to take his policies directly to the people in the form of an initiative, and his initiatives were voted down.  When that happened he seemed to just kinda give up and go with the flow.

The real problem in California is hard decisions need to be made, but the voters don't want to hear it.

25 It all boils down to the principle, or the lack thereof, IMO.

26

He is not legitamate and that means the Armed forces cannot recognise him as CIC, they are the abiters of last resort.

Why do we know almost nothing about him and what we do know is bad, manchrian candidate if there ever was one, not to mention the astoundingly illegal millions in overseas donations.

 

Its a take over, McCain should have blasted him on this over and over.

We are now in God's hands and He is mad at at least half this country

 

27 Off Topic, but Crazee Andi gets pwned on his own blog while he's away on vacation. http://tinyurl.com/5wbpsz

I DEMAND(!!1!!) Ace show us some the Power Glutes to celebrate this epic fail.

28 He really is running for president of the world so I don't see how this applies.

29 What bugs me is that even if Obama does meet the letter of the law (and I'm one of those "nutjobs" who suspects he doesn't), he violates the whole spirit of what the Founding Fathers were desperately trying to guard against: a chief executive whose loyalties are divided, who does not have deep, deep roots in the United States of America. Obama was sired by a Kenyan father, raised in Indonesia by an Indonesian stepfather, etc. His "roots" are somewhere between Hawaii and Indonesia. He was in Indonesia until the age of 10, and didn't live in the continental U.S. until he was 18 years old. A person's most formative years are the first ten years of life, and Obama spent those in a culture very alien to that of the United States. All those things that we imbibed like mother's milk--freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly; separation of powers; federalism; representative democracy--Barack Obama did not imbibe at an early, formative age, because the culture that formed and shaped him did not have those things.

In addition, his geographic rootlessness has had a very real and significant effect on his ideology and worldview, just as the Founding Fathers feared. Obama, a self-described "citizen of the world," has said that "if the political winds should turn, I will stand with the Muslims." He "campaigned" in Berlin, he wants to hand over a huge chunk of U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations, and one of his first major speeches as President is to be given on the other side of the planet in the world's most populous Muslim country. He is obsessed with how other peoples see America and panders to their preferences. Simply put, he does not hold America's best interests deeply in his heart.

I think it's a tragedy. And all because of media manipulation. How I despise those fucking sycophants!

30 "We are now in God's hands and He is mad at at least half this country."

We were always in His hands. Where is your hope? We don't have Romans ruling us. Just a short time from now the mask will begin to slip and the real Obama will begin to be known. Can not be all things to all people without your wife getting mad. Poor Michelle.

31

 U.S. for ten years, five of which were after the age of 14. Ann Dunham was only 18 when BHO was born

but she resided in the US for more than one additional year after his birth, does that offset the 1 year lacking at time of birth?

32 Posted by: Kathy from Kansas at December 08, 2008 09:09 PM

Careful Kathy, you're making sense.

33 I was going to post something on the meaning of the phrase 'natural born' re: the U.S. Constitution but Kathy in Kansas has it completely nailed.

34 The Nationality Act of 1940 would not apply to someone born here in the United States, as far as I can tell. It'd only apply to someone who *immigrated* here (i.e., someone who was naturalized).

There is no reason at all to suspect that Obama is anything other than a child of Hawaii the Hippie State, and hunting for technicalities that don't exist in law is counterproductive to our stature as the "intelligent" party.

Gabe's the legal beagle here, though, so hopefully he'll write another one of his legendary articles to get this all cleared up...

35 Kathy the media are beginning to dig into your past as we speak. Kathy the______ is not really a ______.

36 XPOST from the last thread -

- BLUF -

It's because Obama does not even know who he is.

204 But, even more interesting would be why his mother took him to Indonesia during the Year(s) of Living Dangerously (when the muslims were running amok killing commies, foreigners, and christians), married another muslim, then enrolled him in a religious school... make a great movie... no wonder he doesn't have much affinity for his mother's side.

Posted by: Druid at December 08, 2008 09:12 PM (o/N4X)

Obama's Mamma is American, he's natural born, never renounced US citizenship after he was 18, but he is not sure who he is.

HMMM, looks like Kathy (above) is getting inside his head too...

37

Gabe's the legal beagle here, though, so hopefully he'll write another one of his legendary articles to get this all cleared up...

Punch yourself in the face brian.

38 JS@23: 
he is friends with a bastard that tried his best to kill fellow Americans

Thanks, JS. That bastard Bill Ayers is going around trying to charm Good Morning America, New York Times, and everybody else, spewing a bunch of bullshit about how he never injured anybody. Why doesn't someone NAIL HIM on the Fort Dix plan? He bloody well INTENDED to kill a couple hundred soldiers and their girlfriends.

And remember those choice little comments about "eliminating" 25 million Americans? Oh what a cuddly sweet guy.

Ayers just may be the only man I fear and loathe more than Obama himself.

39 @pinto

*smack* *smack* *smack* *smack*

There - happy?

40 Gabe's the legal beagle here, though, so hopefully he'll write another one of his legendary articles to get this all cleared up...

That's the sound of the non-gay, non-lawyer, non-retarded AoSHQ readership loading their guns. Could someone please send Gabe on a sandwich making run for the next six months? Please? And Thank you.

41 JS@23:
he feels the constitution needs a fundamentally good changin'

I've been wondering:  How does Obama justify, in his own head, swearing an oath to defend, protect and uphold something he regards as "fundamentally flawed"?

Maybe he feels it's OK because he's only swearing on a Bible---and he's been listening to Rev. AmeriKKKa twist and shred that book for the last 20 years....

42 harder brian.

43 Is it too much to ask that people have a semblance of an understanding about Nationality Law before stirring themselves into a frenzy?  We all realize that you can be born outside of US territory and still be naturally-born a US citizen, right?

44 *THUD*

Ndw Im zeeing ervthing in 4s. Iz dis a gud ting?

45

The reason I think he has not released the documents has nothing to do with whether he was born in Hawaii but who his real father is. I believe he was born in Hawaii and is a natural born citizen but I seriously doubt his father is Barack Obama Sr. He does not look like Sr. or have the facial features of his alleged tribesmen or relatives in Africa but does bear an uncanny resemblance to Malcolm X. There are also questions about where his mother lived when she was imprgnated, Washington or Hawaii. That in and of itself would damage his supposed heritage and narrated life story quite a bit.

If excitable Andy can fret about Trig's maternalism we can fret about Obama's paternalism.

46 fair enough brian.

47 Kathy @ 41: Oh that's easy.  According to the Living Constitution Theory(tm), the Constitution means whatever you want it to mean.  So when he swears on the Bible to uphold the Constitution, he is rewriting it in his head as he goes!

48 I insist upon it because it's in the Constitution and it's rather bad precedent for presidents to begin deciding which parts of the constitution they'll respect.

I thought we had already established a bad precedent with a Presidential candidate getting away with campaign donation fraud, voter registration fraud and voter fraud, not to mention establishing his career in politics training the very people who participate in this fraud... and getting away with all of it scot-free.

So that precedent has already been set. So who cares if we add another bad precedent with ignoring Constitutional law in addition to campaign laws.

49 So Obama's mom was seduced by Malcolm X while on a slow boat between Washington and Hawaii?  Were they in international waters at the time, or US territorial waters?  It's important!!!!!

50 While we're ignoring laws around here, I wonder if Obama wouldn't mind if I decided to ignore tax laws on April 15 next year.  Because, you know, he wouldn't want to be a hypocrite or anything.

51 chemjeff, if the ship was flying a US Ensign it's sovereign US territory.

52 We all realize that you can be born outside of US territory and still be naturally-born a US citizen, right?
Posted by: cadetwithchips2

If you are born to two citizens and on American business, IIRC.

53

Ace: 

McCain was not born on "foriegn soil" he was born in the United States Panama Canal Zone, which was deeded in perpetuity (well at least until Jimmy Carter came along) to the United States.  At the time Mac was born, it was U.S. Territory.  Similar to Guam, the Virgin Islands, hell even Hawaii and Alaska at the time.  So a quick dismissal of those challenges of Mac were waranted. 

Now as for Obama, the guy has represented he was born in Hawaii.  Every indication is that is the case.  So while a legitmate challenge needs to be met, I can see the courts bitch slapping plaintiffs in cases like this. 

Hillary and the Sec of State job is different.  That conflict on congressional action and salary is clearly an issue.  It should be dealt with--perhaps with Hillary agreeing to work for $1 a year (or more likely) for the old salary.  Hell, Hillary might be hoping a serious challenge is made so she can accept, get bumped and still have the freedom to run in 2012. 

So while I agree with you, I also have to nit pick your arguments. 

54 I know what it's like to be in the shit. I've watched Platoon 17 times and Apoc apco apokalps...that movie with the helicopters where they say it smells like napalm in the morning..that one I've seen 11 times, even the Mother doesn't approve.

55 I Don't Understand Goy's Point... Since, as I understand it, two non-citizen illegal immigrants can come to the US and have a child here and it will be a "natural born" citizen, how can it be that an American citizen can have a child here and it's not a natural born citizen?

Congress actually re-wrote the law to allow WWII servicemen to transmit citizenship to their children born to Englishwomen.  At the time, most would not have been old enough to transmit.  Yes. the laws are still intact.

The two laws at work here are:

JUS SOLI- Law of place.  Anyone born in the US, and is subject to US law is a citizen (a diplomat has immunity, so his son born in the US is not a US citizen)

and

JUS SANGUINIS- Law of blood.  Citizens can pass on citizenship to their children, provided that residency requirements are met.  These vary depending on which version of the law was in place at the time of birth.  Even using the official hand-dandy training charts, there are so many exceptions to exceptions, that its all very confusing.  Suffice it to say that the easiest way to transmit your citizenship to a child born overseas, is to be an unwed US citizen mother.

56

It's going to strike a lot of people as a very legalistic, technical ticky-tack thing which is basically unfair and doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the first place.

Depends on the meaning of the word "is".

57 Who cares?  We're fucked whether it is Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, etc.  Main goal is to keep the press honest.  What ever did happen to OPERATION PIPEWRENCH???  I'm sure the new host taking over Tim Russert's show has something in the closet.

58 And to get what accomplished? The inauguration of President Joe Biden?
 No......how about keeping the constitution intact?
 Or how about this? If this is allowed to stand what is going to stop *shudder* California's fearless governor from running for president?
 Nada my friends....nada.
I do not think that chairman zero is a natural born citizen. I don't think he is eligible to be president. If he were he would have already coughed up the cert. period.
 Occam's razor applies here...,..
 And who knows that he's not qualified better than obama himself? So for the people that keep saying inane things like "you can't disenfranchise all those voters who [stupidly] voted for him" I say  bullshit and bollocks. The courts/ government wouldn't be cheating them...obama committed that crime when he ran knowing full well he wasn't qualified.
The most laughable excuse for him not disclosing his birth certificate I have read so far was that there is something embarrassing to him on the cert like his mother wasn't married when she had him. Good grief...we all already know she was way ahead of her time in the tramp department.
 Naked photos of her taken by a well known perv and America hating socialist....check.
 Sleeping with someone of another race when it was really really uncool socially....check.
 Living your life for the maximum shock value to your elders...check.
 Being a totally self absorbed and lousy parent who always put herself first...check.
 Sheeesh...what else could there be ...really?
 Seriously...if it were disclosed that Malcolm X was his real father the left in this country would erupt with great cheers...we all know there is absolutely nothing in that birth certificate that would harm him in any way except cold hard proof that he isn't eligible to be president. Which may explain the rush for him.
 What better window of opportunity to slip by without getting vetted than to do it  after 8 years of Bush?

59

Obama might be a Manchurian, but Biden is retarded.  WORST VP IN HISTORY!

It's like John Kennedy making Rose Kennedy the Secretary of Education (if the office existed then)

60 Biden may be retarded...but he's an American retard. I'll take that over chairman zero any day.....

61

Living your life for the maximum shock value to your elders...check.
 Being a totally self absorbed and lousy parent who always put herself first...check.
 Sheeesh...what else could there be ...really?

He was born as a girl.

62 If Obama is Malcolm X's bastard son that would throw a serious wrench into his relationship with Farrakan and the Muslim Brotherhood that watches over his neighborhood.

63 Biden may be retarded...but he's an American retard. I'll take that over chairman zero any day.....
Posted by: christmasghost

Exactly. Joe Biden may be a slobbering idiot...OK, there is no may be involved. He IS a slobbering idiot, but the constitution matters more.

64 To confuse the blessed place out of this, Hawaii had some jurisdiction (and still does) over the (then active) Pacific Trust Territory - Maybe Obama was born on Yap?

65 Plus if Obama father is not Obama SR. it would expose the complete lie that Jr has built of his life story.

66 Travis...exactly.The constitution matters more than any one man.
 And thank you Ace for talking about this and not joining the "anyone who doubts the great one's citizen ship is crazy" club.Too many mega bloggers are jumping on the do-not-ask-any-questions bandwagon.
 And they are sell outs.....

67 #64.

Born in a place subject to US jurisdiction (or would become US jurisdiction) gives you citizenship

68 Is it too much to ask that people have a semblance of an understanding about Nationality Law before stirring themselves into a frenzy?  We all realize that you can be born outside of US territory and still be naturally-born a US citizen, right?

Posted by: cadetwithchips2 at December 08, 2008 09:33 PM (PoUlE)

Yes but there's a corollary. There are only really two cases where you can be born within the US and not be a natural born citizen (children of accredited diplomats and foreign occupiers). Otherwise according to United States v. Wong Kim Ark (189, you are a citizen from birth.

As far as my non-legal mind goes, Congress can add people qualified to be considered natural born citizens but it can not carve out people who were born here (with the above exceptions).

So if you accept that Obam was born in Hawaii, then he's eligible to be President. All this other statatory stuff (two parents, the age of his mother, etc) is dependent upon his being born outside the US.

69

I don't really care so much if Obama is or isn't constitutionally unqualified.  I am more curious why there is NO mechanism for establishing that qualification.

Every candidate should have a simple qualification process to go through to get on the ballot.  How the hell is something so important just never done? 

70 "Plus if Obama father is not Obama SR. it would expose the complete lie that Jr has built of his life story."
 Uh huh...and we should care about his fake narrative why?
 The constitution should be shredded to protect his lies why?
 Everything about this guy is a lie. Everything. Watch him and his "wife" sometime and you realize that marriages of convenience aren't just for Clintons anymore.....
 I'm sure other women have noticed this too.

71 Born in a place subject to US jurisdiction (or would become US jurisdiction) gives you citizenship

I do not doubt that, but Obama himself has only released a "COLB" he invalidated by blacking out a field... As Kathy has been getting into a bit, I do not believe that even Obama knows who he is. (for example, his webpages call him "JR" when his colb lists him as "II" - not the same.)

Lots of red meat for headshrinks... and as I said before, a docudrama on his years of living dangerously in Indonesia.

72

Biden is a hairball the democrats hacked up.  He would make a very amusing president!  However, I really really want Obama?Soetoro? to have to prove he's natural-born.  I think he is, even if it turns out he was born in Kenya -- but I want to know what the heck else he's hiding. 

I bet that's mostly what the people filing the suits want, too, but to make their cases fly they have to go for broke.

I'm guessing that Obama?Soetoro? kept and used his Indonesian citizenship (and maybe his Kenyan one, too) at the same time as his US one as an adult.  I suspect that's a crime of some sort.  Identity fraud, maybe.  Anyone know?

73 Bahahahaha.  Drew got caught by the 0) again.

74 He couldn't have gotten into Pakistan when he did with a US passport....could he?
 But an Indonesian one...different story.

75 Very well put, Kathy!

And Ace, I agree with your reading on the whole thing.  Including the ridiculous minutae it would come down to regarding how many consecutive years Ann Dunham spent in the U.S. before giving birth.

But, like you, there's still the . . . STILL.  The basic expectation that someone applying for the job of President should produce his qualifications, not hide them.

It stops me every time.  The consequences of allowing a pass on this are too far-reaching.

76 Er...

77 Posted by: Ace's liver at December 08, 2008 10:12 PM (LtIsn)

What the hell causes that?

I hate those things.

78 If Barack Obama was born on American soil, then he is definitely an American citizen from birth.  It's in the Constitution or something.  After the whole slavery/civil war thing, the post-Civil War re-framers of our Constitution wanted to avoid a permanent American underclass.  The children of slaves were slaves.  The amendments to our Constitution changed that: slavery was outlawed and the children of people here automatically became citizens.  It made sense at the time.

If Obama was born outside of the US, apparently that means he was not an American citizen as of birth (and may not be an American citizen at all).

Practically, I agree with you (Barack Obama WILL be our next president, no matter what the outcome of the Nirth Certifikit controversy, but if it's shown he's not a US citizen, that would reflect badly on him and the liberal media for not digging it up/reporting it.)

I think his game now is to play chicken.  If he really is forced to show the real Birth Certificate (and not the "Certificate of Live Birth," which is NOT the same document nor an equivalent) then Obama will show it, he will be shown to have been born in Hawaii, and everyone who forced him to show it will look like an idiot.

79 An "8" followed by a ")".  No cites to cases between 1997 and 1999.

80 Posted by: christmasghost at December 08, 2008 10:12 PM (aUut1)

Why couldn't he have used a US passport to get into Pakistan?

81 #68.  Impressive!  Not familiar with the case, but you are correct.


#71  The field that was blacked out was the serial number.  Indicates conspiracy?  ..or doesn't want it- nor his social security number- floating around?

82 I looked at the Cornell Law library and found
TITLE 8  > CHAPTER 12  > SUBCHAPTER III  > Part I  > § 1401

Subsection G has this:

(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years:

As far as I can tell, this is the statute in effect 24 December 1952. The 10/5 rule is not true - it's 5/2.

I looked through the change page and couldn't find a reference discussing specific changes that didn't refer back to the 1401 page (making me assume this is the change it referenced, so if anyone has a better reference, please post).

If this is it, even if he were born outside the US, he's still be determined to be "natural born".

FWIW, Section 1408 further determines who is a "national" and not a citizen.

83

 I am more curious why there is NO mechanism for establishing that qualification.

I agree completely, it's only a constitutional mandate, why can people be coerced with lies into polygraph examinations (they can) why can people be coerced into giving biological testimony through DNA (if the 5th doesn't include my very body, when it doesn't apply to my wife, I don't get it) why can't a constitutional mandate be applied?

This is a simple thing, I had to produce two forms of ID to prove my age to enter a college dorm (not gonna tell the story) after curfew.

But the man who is gonna be president doesn't have to produce any proof that he meets constitutional requirements?

Thats insane!  Thats like defending yourself against statutory rape by questioning the validity of the prosecutions assumption of age.  Just challenge your own birth certificate, and BAM!  cleared on all charges.

84

#70, he is a natural born citizen so the Constitution is not being violated. He is embarrased to be a true bastard and that is the extent of it so he manufactured and exquisite lie about his heritage to make up for it.

#72, neither Kenya nor Indonesia recognize dual citizenship besides at the time I believe both were still British colonies.

85 " Sleeping with someone of another race when it was really really uncool socially....check"

Wow, this is the most blatantly racist thing I've ever read on this site. Not even trying to hide it...well, I'll be damned. Hang me from a tree and call me a spook.

86 ".....he will be shown to have been born in Hawaii, and everyone who forced him to show it will look like an idiot."
 You can get your dignity back, but you can't get your integrity back once you have sold it out so you won't "look stupid".
 Looking "stupid" is for one day....no integrity is forever.
 Besides...ask yourself this: if he is a citizen and won't show us his birth cert. which just happens to be a qualification for the job, then how responsible is he? What kind of man would put himself so above everyone else, the countrymen he wants to lead, with this kind of an attitude?
 Uh huh......

87 Like I said in the other thread, Daryl, I don't mind "looking like an idiot."

That so many do is disturbing.

Besides, it is impossible to look like an idiot because of demanding documentation.  Because it doesn't matter what is on the documentation; what matters is that we have it.

88 I didn't read all of the comments.  Just wanted to get my position in here.  I think, like Ace, that Obama should meet the Constitutional requirements.  I also think that the distinction between natural born citizen, native born citizen and citizen should be codified, either via statute or SCOTUS opinion. 

I don't think they will, nor do I want, the SCOTUS to overturn an election on the basis of the meaning of a phrase such as natural born citizen.  What I would like to see is Obama having to cart his long form (vault copy) birth certificate around to 50 Secretaries of State and show them that he is entitled to be on the ballot in each and every one of their states.  Now that would be something!

I also would like all of this fuss to mean something.....something like a vetting process for elibibility via the state legislatures and standing codified or some mechanism in place for challenging eligibility.  It needs to be a state by state grassroots movement.

89 Posted by: Jeff Weimer at December 08, 2008 10:16 PM (1Mn8Z)

That's all fine but it's based on the proposition that Obama (or anyone) was "born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions".

If Obama was born in Hawaii (and all the evidence says he was) then none of those formulations come into play.

Unless someone has some evidence that Obama was born outside the US, this is all moot.

90

Druid: Hawaii has NO jurisdiction over the Pacific Trust Terratories.  Most of the administration during the early days after WWII was from the Navy in Guam.  Anyway, Yap is indie now (so is Ponepei, Palau, Chuck (Truk), etc.). 

 

 

91

After the whole slavery/civil war thing, the post-Civil War re-framers of our Constitution wanted to avoid a permanent American underclass.

Oh that's a complete load of bullshit.  The "re"-framers were a bunch of racists who simply thought slavery was a moral crime.  But by no means did they think blacks and whites were equal, and they certainly didn't think in Marxist class-based terms.

92 A man with integrity wouldn't call out a man's dead mother for being a tramp and sleeping with a person of a different race, Christmasghost. You should take a look in the mirror before making yourself look like a complete and total fucking moron asshole.

93 Does anyone know if this has ever come up before?

I mean did George W. Bush or Bill Clinton release any sort of documentation about their birth certificates?

Is there some sort of unofficial way this has been handled or has it just not come up?

94 " Sleeping with someone of another race when it was really really uncool socially....check"

Wow, this is the most blatantly racist thing I've ever read on this site. Not even trying to hide it...well, I'll be damned. Hang me from a tree and call me a spook.

 Rusty...do you read? How is stating the patently true facts racist? It was a racist attitude they had back then, but it was what it was. I did not say that I thought it was right did I?
 Reading comprehension skills this low? Really?
 Or are you just another obama shill?

95

neither Kenya nor Indonesia recognize dual citizenship

According to Obama's own website, briefly, Obama had dual citizenship until he was (I wanna say 24) but was lost once he failed to give oath to kenya.  So clearly Obama had dual citizenship and likely more than one passport, which lends to the nervous faith in Obamas dedication to the US.

BTW, I think this would all end with obama being a citizen, which I think he is, but Nixon who was never impeached, lost control over his own information 30 years ago, but obama doesn't have to provide proof of a constitutionaly required qualification.

Theres something fucked up with that.

18 minutes is common, but COLB isn't?  Thats fucked up.  Obama is the blankest page ever to take pretty much any office.

96 Alana @ 87: Oh I don't mind looking like an idiot.  In fact one might argue that I do it on a daily basis.   I do mind, however, if my entire side of the political spectrum allows itself to be mischaracterized as a bunch of lunatic fringe nuts and therefore compromises our ability to stop Obama in his socialist agenda.

97

Unless someone has some evidence

That is the problem.  Why is it up to anyone to find evidence he is NOT qualified, rather then up to the candidate to provide eveidence he is? 

98

Posted by: DrewM. at December 08, 2008 10:15 PM

Because at the time of his visit Pakistan did not allow US tourists. He could have snuck in with the help of his friend's family. That is one of the still hanging questions out there.

99 ``#72, neither Kenya nor Indonesia recognize dual citizenship besides at the time I believe both were still British colonies.''

Kenya gained its independence in 1963; I'm old enough to remember reading about it in the newspapers.

Indonesia was never British: it was run by the Dutch, occupied by the Japanese during WWII (where the Japanese made themselves about as popular as they did everywhere else in the Pacific) and was independent by the end of 1945. 

And I'm with Alana: there's nothing shameful about demanding documentation.  I'm perfectly willing to believe that Obama was born in Hawaii but I can't understand why he has to play Keep Away with his birth certificate.  

And even if there's a different surname on it - so what?  My birth certificate shows my maiden name, which I stopped using thirty years ago. 

100 Posted by: Jeff Weimer at December 08, 2008 10:16 PM (1Mn8Z)

His mother was unwed at the time, as far as we know.  That means that his mother had only lived in the US for 365 straight days before giving birth.

101 So because it was against social norms at the time makes her a bad person and a TRAMP for doing so? It was once against social norms to drink a beer too, but does that make every person who did so a morally reprehensible person?

I never claimed to not know that yes, it was once in fact socially unacceptable to have sex with a black person. I choose not to recognize it as a measurement with which to judge a person's character.

102 Rusty...first off I'm not a man. Sorry to disappoint you, second.. no matter what all the 60's losers say there is an actual definition of a tramp and his mommy fits it.
 Deal.

103

#6 Adriane gets it.  This is the next step the puppet masters behind the stupid Dems want to take us to... the rule of men, rather than laws.

It does not matter whether I think Obama was born in Hawaii, or you do, anybody does.  Nor does it matter whether I am a right-winger or a left-winger, or black, white, or green.  I am a citizen of the United States, and I have a legal right to know if Obama is qualified to be President of the United States, whether you happen to think I am being paranoid, or unfair, or not.  It is that simple, and nothing more need be said to justify it.

104

Rusty,

Did you come here purposefully to get outraged?  Really.  This is stupid.  It's sad to see someone deliberately work himself into an early heart attack.

105 I do mind, however, if my entire side of the political spectrum allows itself to be mischaracterized as a bunch of lunatic fringe nuts and therefore compromises our ability to stop Obama in his socialist agenda.

Well, chemjeff, that's why the other blogsters and various conservative talking heads are making such a frantic argument that we shouldn't be asking these questions, and that is where they are indeed serving as useful idiots.

But neither I nor other ordinary American citizens are worried too much about how the Republican party "looks," when questions this basic are at hand.

They can worry about that, and some of us can worry about this.  Anyway, nobody said we couldn't multi-task.

Besides, it doesn't matter.  Nothing will stop his socialist agenda.  Just think of all the OTHER things we have already been expected not to mention:  Ayers, the LATimes tape, Odinga, you name it.

There IS nothing that we are allowed to mention, so we might as well mention this, which is a valid concern.

106 Wicked Pinto, when did England release Kenya from its protectorate?

107

When you are 16 how do you get your 6 points of identification?

I got my liscense with a birth certificate (3 points), a transcript(2 points) and a statement by my mother signed and notorized (2 points and 15 bucks)

How did obama get a liscense without showing a birth certificate, and how did he get his other ID's without a birth certificate?

My parents had to produce a birth certificate for me to get into kindergarten.

It took more PROOF! for me to enter kindergarten than it takes obama to become president.

108 90

Druid: Hawaii has NO jurisdiction over the Pacific Trust Terratories.  Most of the administration during the early days after WWII was from the Navy in Guam.  Anyway, Yap is indie now (so is Ponepei, Palau, Chuck (Truk), etc.). 

 Posted by: Point of Order at December 08, 2008 10:27 PM (ruCsm)

Pacific Trust Territory was never a US Territory, but was under US Jurisdiction, mostly dissolved now.

NEGATIVE, bits and pieces, Kwaj and Enowetok (as of couple of years ago) were under HRS, as in people going to prison if they violated Hawaii State law.

POSITIVE, FSM (Yap, Ponepei, Chuuk, and Kosrae), Palau, and RMI are, sorta independent now, though they have free entry into the US proper, and are kinda-sorta co-joined with the US Dept of Interior and Defense. Northern Mariannes is a Commonwealth.


Other Pacific digs -American Samoa - Nationals, not Citizens.

And everybody thought GITMO was a legal blackhole.

109 goat?  I don't know, but obama's own fight the smears site listed him having dual citizenship.  I can dig up the old link but I don't feel like it, cuz it's just modified, and I don't know how to grab the screen cap.  I think Gatewaypundit has a link and screencap.

110 I know that disqualifying him won't do the country any good (President Hair Plugs anyone?), so that isn't my goal. I want him to be shown as the liar that he is. I want to be able to shove this in the face of every lefty that spent the last 8 years telling me how Bush/Cheney shit all over the Constitution.

111 OH GOOD GRIEF....
"So because it was against social norms at the time makes her a bad person and a TRAMP for doing so? It was once against social norms to drink a beer too, but does that make every person who did so a morally reprehensible person?

I never claimed to not know that yes, it was once in fact socially unacceptable to have sex with a black person. I choose not to recognize it as a measurement with which to judge a person's character."
 You really are a live moonbat aren't you? you choose not to recognize it [imagine him stamping his wee little foot here] and so it didn't/doesn't exist?

 Let me clear this up for you. Yes she was a tramp. Yes she was a lousy mom. Yes she was incredibly selfish.Yes, she chose to be all of the above..no one made her do it. Does that make you a bad person?
 Last time I checked that would be yes.
 There are absolutes in this world you know.
I suppose in your world Billy 'the bomber" Ayers was just a misguided little trust fund baby that liked loud noises and the NYT is completely honest.
 Take your moral equivalency and shove it peckerhead.

112 Two points:

1) The head of the vital records department of the state of Hawaii has vouched for the validity of The One's birth certificate.

2) There was an item in the Honolulu newspaper announcing his birth. 

Ya think maybe somebody used the Time Tunnel to go back and plant that news item?

I didn't vote for him, he's a pompous ass and a stereotypical Chicago machine politician, but I'm willing to wait and see what he does after he's actually sworn in.

113 Also,  TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER III > Part III > § 1481

states that you have to be 18 in order to give up citizenship by mundane reasons (foreign naturalization, taking oath, getting a government job)  except for formally renouncing it to a US consular official, the Attorney General (in wartime), by enlisting in a hostile foreign military (or serve as a commissioned or NON-commissioned officer otherwise) or by performing acts of treason. As far as I know, he hasn't done any of the last 3, and he was too young to be held accountable for what his stepfather *ostensibly* had him do to obtain an Indonesian passport. It simply doesn't count!

114 Drew, the current mechanism for establishing eligibility is a state form filled out by the candidate that states he/she is qualified.  That is the state vetting process - I saw the one from Arizona that Obama filled out.  Supposedly the "Party" vets the candidate and he/she affirms with the party that he/she meets the Constitutional requirements.

The various answers from the Secretaries of States that have been sued (I think there are 18 cases) range from "Not my job" to "The Party certified him".  Need to press the vetting process from the state level.

115 #20 Dead Career: Brilliant. Thank you so much. You are a scholar.

116
Screw all the courts and lawyers.

There's a much simpler test: does he weigh as much as a duck?

117 2) There was an item in the Honolulu newspaper announcing his birth. 

Ya think maybe somebody used the Time Tunnel to go back and plant that news item?

I didn't vote for him, he's a pompous ass and a stereotypical Chicago machine politician, but I'm willing to wait and see what he does after he's actually sworn in.
Posted by: Steffan

The newspaper clippings are automatically generated from the birth registry. If a birth is registered the info is sent to the papers. No time machine needed.

118 116
Screw all the courts and lawyers.

There's a much simpler test: does he weigh as much as a duck?

Posted by: Tinian at December 08, 2008 10:51 PM (Ohodx)

Well, that makes more sense than asking nine male oracles in black dresses.

119 Posted by: Jeff Weimer at December 08, 2008 10:45 PM (1Mn8Z)

I thought that was in there someplace, but hadn't managed to find it.... thanks for the legwork!

120 Posted by: goat at December 08, 2008 10:31 PM (UNM/i)

Do you have any cite for that?

Googling around I see no proof and as many people saying they went at the time as people saying it was banned.

121 "...and everyone who forced him to show it will look like an idiot." Yeah, right. And every cop feels like an idiot each time they pull over some smart-ass buffoon who tries to make an issue about not having to show their drivers license. Obama is the one proving himself to be a major jerk, not those asking him to show some ID.

122

Tinian is funny!

As far as I know,

EXACTLY Jeff, we know NOTHING of this man.  I think he's a natural born citizen, I just don't like the precendence of his blatant indiference towards sharing information.  How can he offer a transparent leadership, when he himself is opaque (not a melanin joke) in all things about himself.

If you wanna learn about obama buy his book, seems to be the answer.

123 The newspaper clippings are automatically generated from the birth registry. If a birth is registered the info is sent to the papers. No time machine needed.

Posted by: Travis at December 08, 2008 10:51 PM (3osMN)

NOW, I am really fucking confused -
- newspaper articles about births are automagically generated as they occur, but if one were to request a day, a week, or years after birth, it is protected by 'privacy laws'.

WOW, give me a glass of that kool-aid, or better yet, the crayola up the nose will do better yet.

BUT, seriously, Hawaii is one of Obama's primary templates. That and Illinois...
The privacy laws mean that your State files are private and nobody can have them - including YOU.

Want a copy of your birth certificate? OK, OK, but privacy laws, it has to be released by the MD who signed it... Oh?, now it has to be released by the nurse who witnessed it... WELL, we do have to respect their privacy, it's the law...

SERIOUSLY!

124

Does "Natural-Born" in article II equal the  "Born" in 14th Amendment or are they different terms?

Article II Sect1: 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; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

14th Amendment Sect1: 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.

Do these passages create at least 3 levels of US citizenship, or are "natural-born" and "born" really the same?
1) Natural-born
2) Born
3) Naturalized

Secondly, does Dual-citizenship at birth prevent or impede a 'natural-born' citizenship? 

I think this is the core of Donofrio, and now the Wrotnowski SCOTUS challenge.

Directly related to that is who decides what this means, and then who applies it to a candidate? Hence he sued the NJ State Secretary of State (who certifies NJ State elections).

125

93 Does anyone know if this has ever come up before?

I mean did George W. Bush or Bill Clinton release any sort of documentation about their birth certificates?

Is there some sort of unofficial way this has been handled or has it just not come up?

---

To my knowledge, I don't think there has ever been a President to flat out refuse to give permission for his birth certificate being made available by the proper authorities to the proper authorities. For that matter, we've never had a president refuse to show alot of his background documents like all college records and medical information. Him posting it on his own website is like Nixon "confirming" there were no shenanigans to watergate.

126 The real problem is the uncertainty and appearance of impropriety that not producing the documents provides.

Imaging this scenario, two years from now, things aren't going well between the US and Kenya.  Obama's murdering thug kin, back channels a threat to produce his Kenyan birth certificate, mothers' immigration details, and hospital records unless they get what they want.  They could all be forgeries - but would be official Kenyan documents. Without the truth on this end, it would ruin Obama's Presidency.  What about Obama's conduct to this point gives you confidence he would take the high road?

Same deal with Indonesia and Pakistan, to a lesser degree.

His lack of transparency has suborned the Office of the President to three very questionable states.

Don't get me started on the problems if Ayers did or didn't pass Obama's name along to Cuban intelligence as a trusted comrade during their time together in NYC and the Weatherman aparthied bombings.  Another example where a lack of transparency about a questionable relationship boxes in him and thus our nation.

127

93 Does anyone know if this has ever come up before?

I mean did George W. Bush or Bill Clinton release any sort of documentation about their birth certificates?

Is there some sort of unofficial way this has been handled or has it just not come up?

~~~~~~~~

Donofrio claims that Chester Arthur may have hid his past, and might have done this before. I say claims, i dont have the time to be a historian, and the fucking time machine in the basement broke this morning. Now i cannot even find enough time to even put on my pants.

128

Alana @ 105,

Look, I'm not in it for the glory of the Republican Party.  I'm in it to see the advancement of conservative principles and values.  And since this country already has a lot of socialism present, and since this country recently decided to elect a real socialist as president, we have a lot of work to do.  So I suggest that we manage our scarce resources carefully and pick our battles wisely.  OF COURSE everyone here is in favor of upholding the Constitution.  As Drew has pointed out, it all boils down to whether Obama was born on American soil, because the only two exceptions for a person being born on American soil and NOT being a 'natural born citizen' don't apply to Obama.  The evidence is very strong that he was.  An Occam's Razor analysis in this case would conclude that if the Hawaii Department of Health has in its files Obama's Certificate of Live Birth, which is MOST OF THE TIME just as good as a birth certificate, then he was in fact born on American soil.  Furthermore, the fact that NONE of the 50 state Secretaries of State found a compelling reason to investigate the matter further before placing Obama's name on the state's ballot also suggests to me that there is no case here.  So I don't view this battle as a particularly wise one to pursue.  I'm not asking you to shut up about it.  All I ask is that we behave smartly on this issue, and know when it is time to go all in and know when it is time to fold.

129

In the late 1980's, I had to prove that my children, born abroad of a natural-born US citizen (me) and non-US-Citizen (their mother), were legitimate (born to a legally-married man and woman) in order for them to be recognized as American citizens "from birth", which I interpret to mean "natural born".  In order to do that, I had to:

1. Produce their original birth certificates to a Notary, have the copies of them certified as authentic, and forward them to the US embassy.

2. Prove that their mother and I were legally married at the time they were born, by submitting certified copies of not only our marriage license, but also a certified copy of a prior divorce degree, which I had to obtain from another jurisdiction, in another country, and have sent directly to the embassy.

Re-ead the above facts carefully. My statements are not speculation, they are based on direct experience in a completely analogous situation.

Now, I assert that if Obama was not born in Hawaii, it is beyond belief that Mrs. Obama met these conditions, the requirements of her US residency notwithstanding.  This is the essence of the issue with respect to the physical location of Obama's birth.

130

I think his game now is to play chicken.  If he really is forced to show the real Birth Certificate (and not the "Certificate of Live Birth," which is NOT the same document nor an equivalent) then Obama will show it, he will be shown to have been born in Hawaii, and everyone who forced him to show it will look like an idiot

---

So why pay a team of lawyer to try and get every case dismissed? There is no valid reason to justify not allowing the vaulted copy to see the light of day if there is nothing to hide in the first place. There's no valid reason to refuse to show any and all college records. There's no valid reason to refuse to show medical records, not the 1 page document he showed in the summer that said he hadn't seen in doctor in many, many months. He's hiding something with all this refusal to show basic stuff, minor in some cases.

131

"Since, as I understand it, two non-citizen illegal immigrants can come to the US and have a child here and it will be a "natural born" citizen, how can it be that an American citizen can have a child here and it's not a natural born citizen?"

 

That may well be the crisis case of the next generation -- not about Obama, whose birth status long ago lost interest for me, but millions of people who have been given every reason to believe they were 'natural born' citizens, but it hasn't been tested in court -- since there are TWO requirements for such 'birthright citizenship', not merely cartographical concatenation. And the growing Supreme Court fascination of moving US law into line with 'world law' is the engine -- no other country in the world seems to grant citizenship to somebody merely for the fact of birth within its borders. There are MORE requirements -- as there are in the Constitution. It could be a terrible time bomb.....

132 Jean

Those are some very good points, I hadn't considered before. The possibility of the Presidency being influenced by bogus intelligence documentation is very real if the situation is left as ambiguous as it currently is.

133 Not being a natural-born citizen just means you can't be President. Now at six years of age that may be a devastating revelation, but adults are aware that they are probably gonna be flipping burgers for the rest of their sad pathetic lives.

134

Those are some very good points, I hadn't considered before. The possibility of the Presidency being influenced by bogus intelligence documentation is very real if the situation is left as ambiguous as it currently is.

This is the "slippery slope" the Dems have us on.  We have allowed them to transition from scofflaws to election riggers to a campaign financing criminal enterprise.  Now they will pull us down with them.

135 My opinion is that the courts are going to avoid this issue.  The Constitution provides a mechanism to validate a President; it is the electoral college and special assembly of the House sitting as a body of states - one vote per state.  Neither body will do anything unless there is more blood in the water then there is now.  So, Obama just has to wait it out.

I would like to hold out hope that Justice Roberts refuses to swear him in without seeing the documentation, but I don't recommend anyone else holding their breath with me.

136 Posted by: Cromagnum at December 08, 2008 11:05 PM (j5MnB)

This guy Donofrio doesn't seem to have heard of a case called United States v. Wong Kim Ark. It clearly holds that anyone born within the US is a citizen (with the exception of foreign sovereigns, the children of diplomats and foreign invaders).

Here's a short part of the Court's conclusion

The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.

This idea that there are different levels of citizens when it comes to people born in the United State is just fucking stupid.

137

Does "Natural-Born" in article II equal the  "Born" in 14th Amendment or are they different terms?

Different terms.  You must be born as an American citizen. Certain adoptions, however are retroactive to birth.

------

Do these passages create at least 3 levels of US citizenship, or are "natural-born" and "born" really the same?

Essentially.  My guess is just "natural born" and "naturalized" next to each other is too confusing.  The amendment was also written several decades later.

------

Secondly, does Dual-citizenship at birth prevent or impede a 'natural-born' citizenship? 

A child born to an American , and say, a Brit technically have dual citizenship.  Often, the child would either have to take up residence in the US before a certain age, apply for a passport. In other words, an affirmative act.  But this is what the Citizenship and Immigration Service is paid to decide, and they get to make the call.

138

The qualifications clauses are the qualifcations clauses.

looks like this might be the least qualified executive branch ever, seeing as how they don't seem to qualify as defined by the constitution.

139 I agree. The court will likely take a pass, and the rest of the courageous leadership will pass the buck as well. Sorta brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it.

140 Travis, it is obvious that there are no real obstacles to success in life or business to a "naturalized" citizen as compared to a "natural born" citizen, except that the very highest political office(s) are proscribed to them, just as they are in many countries.  Look around you at the millions of successful and even wealthy immigrants.  You attempt to conflate the status of "naturalized" with "illegal".

141 Posted by: sherlock at December 08, 2008 11:14 PM (8V5Ut)

You were married at the time.  That makes it more difficult to transmit, believe it or not. One of those quirks in the law

142

I was not born in Texas.

 

GOOGLE IT!

143 Posted by: Dave in Texas at December 08, 2008 11:36 PM (eiOZw)

Does that mean you can't be Governor or more importantly head coach of the UT football team?

144 goat@45:  he does bear an uncanny resemblance to Malcolm X

Why would that be a negative? If anything, that would seem to give Obama MORE cred, esp. among blacks. After all, Obama Sr. was from a tribe that historically SOLD other Africans into slavery! Whereas Malcolm X is the ultimate in radical chic.

145

This idea that there are different levels of citizens when it comes to people born in the United State is just fucking stupid.

What else is stupid - the two-term limit on the Presidency, perhaps?  And who decides?  Sorry, I really don't want to start down that road to becomeing Venezuela.

146 Why doesn't he just produce the official official birth cert. and get this idiocy over with.  That's what bugs me...if you've got nothing to hide then don't act like you do!

147

...if you've got nothing to hide then don't act like you do!

The obvious answer is... he does.

148 Jean@126:
Holy shit, I never even thought about all the blackmail possibilities!
Great. One more thing to worry about with this guy.
As if we needed any more.

If this were a novel, no publisher would buy it. They'd say the plot was much too unbelievable.

149 Basically,

If Obama was born in Hawaii, he was a Natural Born citizen.

The presence of a birth certificate on file in Hawaii, the birth registry in the paper, and the much touted "Certificate of Live Birth" do not mean he was born in Hawaii.  They mean his birth was registered in Hawaii.  At that time, an infant of you to one year could have his or her birth registered by affidavid.

Only the full birth record, currently under seal in Hawaii, would have that information.  It, in and of its self, may not be conclusive.  For example, it could annotate a birth in a private residence with no witnesses.  Given the rumors from Kenya, this would cause a problem.

The adoption by a foreign national and various travel records are intriguing but I don't know where they lead.  Nor, without the cooperation of reputable states, not Indonesia and Pakistan, what evidence could be compelling.

The interesting thing is the actions by Obama's Senate supporters to pass legislation affirming his qualification, when McCain had his affirmed.  The Obama attempt was blocked in the Democratic controlled Senate, by Hilary (I believe).

150 you = up to

151 You attempt to conflate the status of "naturalized" with "illegal".

Posted by: sherlock

Sorry Sherlock, I don't recall mentioning illegals at all. Just pointing out that there is no reason to getting uptight about not being natural-born.

152 Posted by: Jean at December 08, 2008 11:46 PM (HVRSA)

Birth certificates remain prima facie evidence of natual-born citizenship.  End of story.

His unwed mother had resided in the US for a period of 365 days before his birth. End. Of. The Damned. Story.

153 I take an interest in all issues that are of interest to me, chemjeff. 

My Oxcam's Razor doesn't show what yours does.

154 Thank the DNC again. They fielded a presidential candidate without producing the simplest of, constitutionally mandated, documents. I think they knew this was an issue but electing The One was too important to them. Now it's too late. SCOTUS won't touch it and neither will the two parties. No one wants this on their hands now. Mel Martinez sent a letter to a reader at another blog. Google it!! He basically says that it doesn't matter. The electorate decided regardless of proof of citizenship. I think he knows something that we don't. And if so, no one wants to be the one who brings down The One. This sets a bad precedent for our constitutionally protected nation. Thanks again DNC.

155

 Posted by: cadetwithchips2 at December 08, 2008 11:28 PM (PoUlE)

Secondly, does Dual-citizenship at birth prevent or impede a 'natural-born' citizenship? 

A child born to an American , and say, a Brit technically have dual citizenship.  Often, the child would either have to take up residence in the US before a certain age, apply for a passport. In other words, an affirmative act.  But this is what the Citizenship and Immigration Service is paid to decide, and they get to make the call.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hadn't considered the Citizenship and Immigration Service being the judge or Vetting Agency of Presidential dual citizenship. I wonder if they are named in any of the dirty dozen + lawsuits or being FOIA-ed?

156 Jean..."Imaging this scenario, two years from now, things aren't going well between the US and Kenya.  Obama's murdering thug kin, back channels a threat to produce his Kenyan birth certificate, mothers' immigration details, and hospital records unless they get what they want.  They could all be forgeries - but would be official Kenyan documents. Without the truth on this end, it would ruin Obama's Presidency.  What about Obama's conduct to this point gives you confidence he would take the high road?"
 Exactly! Which is why he could not possibly qualify for secret clearance either. and yet, he's got it. he isn't qualified...and yet he is going to be president. this is so wrong on so many levels....
Jeff.... "born on American soil and NOT being a 'natural born citizen' don't apply to Obama.  The evidence is very strong that he was.  An Occam's Razor analysis in this case would conclude that if the Hawaii Department of Health has in its files Obama's Certificate of Live Birth, which is MOST OF THE TIME just as good as a birth certificate,"
 Okay....what evidence? There is no evidence. Hawaii issues birth certs. to people that aren't even born there.
 This could all be an alinsky style psych so chairman zero could say later "remember when all those nuts thought...." but I don't think so. He has spent ,now, almost a million dollars on lawyers to keep this a non issue.What happens when the media gets pissed at him and starts digging a year or two from now, if not a foreign government. What? You think Putin doesn't already know more about our soon to be leader than we do?
 He does...count on it.Why do you think he's smiling?

 As for citizenship...my older sister was born in Libya. At the start of the Gulf war the feds contacted her and basically said "choose".. America or Libya....which was a complete surprise for all of us as we all thought of her as an American naturally. My dad was an officer in the military there and that's why she happened to be born there.
 My point is that the feds actually took the time to look up a woman born in 1950 to make her choose sides. These are the same feds that can't be bothered to ask the next president of the united states for his birth certificate.
 Yup a real thinker............

157 152  Cadet,

Maybe if this were an ordinary court case - but this is politics. 

If, after all of this time, that certificate on file is problematic, then the Obama administration starts off with enormous legitimacy problems - assuming the House just rubber stamps him and Chief Justice Roberts accepts him.

(I also think your wrong in equating a unique Presidential qualification, specifically designed by the founder to limit foreign influence, with an ordinary act of bestowing citizenship.)

158 Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.

I'm pretty sure we are about to get a new President who was not constitutionally qualified to seek the Office.

Obama could come out tomorrow and announce to the whole world that he was born in Kenya and he was never entitled to run for President, and he would still take the Oath in January.
Does anybody have a notion as to how to prevent that? A court ruling? An injunction? Justice Roberts refuses to swear him in? Can you imagine the upheaval it would generate if anyone did anything to prevent Obama from taking the Oath?

This issue was resolved, in a way, years ago when no one dealt with it properly, when there was still time.

We are stuck with this clown.

159 christmasghoast @ 156: The COLB sent out by Obama and the letter from the Hawaii Department of Public Health saying that they have the records on file.

160 Posted by: Cromagnum at December 08, 2008 11:58 PM (j5MnB)

Only those delegated by the AG or Sec of DHS are authorized to determine citizenship.  Can the Courts usurp that power?  Probably.  Still, the Federal Election Commission would be the first place I would look as a Vetting Agency of any Federal Election.


Posted by: Jean at December 08, 2008 11:59 PM (HVRSA)
Birth certificates do not "bestow" citizenship. its evidence of it.  Even if he were born overseas, his mother meets residency requirements to transmit. 

161 jeff....yes, they stated that they had seen his birth cert. but as i already stated hawaii issues birth certs. to people not actually born there. if he was born in kenya [likely] then his mother could have just gone in and gotten him registered. it's just common sense at this point. why hide something if there is nothing to hide? no one knows a damn thing about this guy and anyone that thinks they do is fooling themselves...... and there isn't even one hospital that has any record of him or his mother ever being there. do you have anyone in your family that doesn't know what hospital he was born in?

162 @100:  His mother was unwed at the time, as far as we know.

This is OT, but is anyone besides me a little chagrined at Obama's total tone-deafness to irony?
I mean: His mom was a teenage unwed mom impregnated by a black man--i.e., a person who in our own day and time, many folks would be urging to get an abortion. Obama is ALIVE today because his mother did not abort him.

Yet he would deny that same right--the right to not be murdered--to millions of other people. The guy is just fuckin' MEAN.

163 his mother could have just gone in and gotten him registered.
Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 12:10 AM (aUut1)


...yes, because she is a citizen, and transmitting her citizenship to her son, irrespective of where he was born.

Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguines

164 160  Cadet, she may meet the current residency requirements - but not those in force at the time.  She would have had to of been 19 years old, she was not.

165 she was unmarried at the time.  illegitimate children of US citizen mothers must have only resided in the US for 1full year any time prior to the birth.

166 Cadet  Jus Sanguines is a legal concept - not the letter of the law.

 In the vast majority of cases it is applied by the letter of the law.  But, it is not in the case of an young American, under 19 years of age, having a child with a foreign spouse outside of US territory in 1961.

167 kathy....i wonder if she would have had an abortion if it were legal then? shoot, the one time abortion would have been a good thing.

 cadet....that doesn't apply to natural born for the office of the presidency i don't think. and as jean pointed out, his mother wasn't old enough. for all we know he could have been born two years or more before that and his mother could have been the 14 year old that "frank"was having sex with and that is his real father...hence the embarrassment.
 the point is none of us know where he was born, when he was born.
 maybe he was just hatched under a rock....nothing would surprise me at this point.

168 i wonder if she would have had an abortion if it were legal then? shoot, the one time abortion would have been a good thing.

Lovely. Daily Kos type thinking moving to the right.

Obama Derangement Syndrome is hitting early.

169 So your arguing his parents American marriage was bigamous and invalid due to his Father's pre-existing Kenyan marriage - thus he is qualified as natural born.

If it ever gets to that point, Obama is going to have to prove she resided in the US for that fateful year.  I believe she also was domiciled in Canada in that time frame, so it will be a mess.

170 it is not in the case of an young American, under 19 years of age, having a child with a foreign spouse outside of US territory in 1961.


Not according to Chart #2: Illegitimate Children of United States Citizen Mothers. 

As of Christmas Eve, 1952, Children born to an unwed mother who had at any time lived for 1 year in the US, is a US citizen.  Show me where I am wrong on this.

171 Steffan@112:  The head of the vital records department of the state of Hawaii has vouched for the validity of The One's birth certificate.

WRONG. That is very misleading, because they only said that there IS one, and that they had seen it and could vouch that it is indeed in the vault. What they conspicuously did NOT reveal is WHAT that birth certificate SAYS--such as WHERE the hell he was born.

172 Posted by: Kathy from Kansas at December 09, 2008 12:29 AM (Prdx7)

So let me get this straight. The one in the vault may say he was born in say, Kenya or somewhere other than Hawaii. They also know that their department issued a COLB that said he was born in Hawaii but they are just going to ignore the fact that one is obviously wrong even though they are the two people legally responsible for maintaining the integrity of the state's vital records.

Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that one but thanks.

173

Upshot: Those looking for a very technical statutory disqualification are overlooking the fact that the Congress could, at any time, redefine "natural born" to include Obama -- so even if you "win," you lose.

Actually, while changing the law would allow him to be elected in four years, his original election to president would be invalid given the whole ex post facto thing. Of course, that assumes there's truth to the rumors and that said truth wouldn't be more or less ignored by those involved. Both things being pretty unlikely.

174 Congress could, at any time, redefine "natural born" to include Obama

This would require a Constitutional Convention.  Then the issue would be whether the rules could be changed to accomodate a living person, as most nationality law changes do not.  Even messier.

175 hey drew...i was kidding. sheesh...lighten up you boob. it should have been a clue when i said the one time...don't you think?
 

176

honestly people, doesn't the "I'm a little bit embarrased" explanation work for you at all?

 

sheesh.

177 Drew, 

The COLB does not say where he was born.

Just where his birth was registered.  Hawaii, at that time, was a state that issued birth certificates on the submission of a witness statement.  That statement did not have to say where you were born and could be submitted up to one year after the child's birth.

Those State officials are specifically bound by Hawaii's privacy laws to say no more, they can not comment on - and may not have actually seen the contents of the file.

178 What if he's a citizen, but the father listed is ...   One might understand the desire to keep the info private... 

179 Re: The Hillary Emolument Problem:

I don't know if that would wholly solve the problem, but at least it would be gesture in the direction of compliance with the Constitution.

The Assholes Elected to Congress = The Actual Assholes of the Assholes Elected to Congress

The Constitution = Toilet Paper

180 Drew...."So let me get this straight. The one in the vault may say he was born in say, Kenya or somewhere other than Hawaii. They also know that their department issued a COLB that said he was born in Hawaii but they are just going to ignore the fact that one is obviously wrong even though they are the two people legally responsible for maintaining the integrity of the state's vital records."

Drew, have you ever met any politicians or bureaucrats?
 Yeah...they are all about integrity....wow, you don't get out much do you?

181 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 12:39 AM (aUut1)

Ah, the old botched joke defense because saying someone should have been aborted is always teh funny!

ha.

182 Posted by: Dr Fred at December 09, 2008 12:41 AM (JbxXM)

Thats what Ive been thinking all along. At this point, what does it matter?  Is it damaging, or embarrassing (or one in the same)?

183  Yeah...they are all about integrity....wow, you don't get out much do you?
Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 12:46 AM (aUut1)

Yeah but see this is where people who sell this stuff start to sound like crazy conspiracy nuts...an awful lot off people suddenly have to be in on it.

Just to add to the fun, you do know that the Director of the Department of Health in Hawaii is serving in a Republican administration, right? And not just any Republican but a governor who spoke at the RNC convention on behalf of her friend Sarah Palin.

184 Okay, so let's say Obama wakes up, decides he really wants to go square, and releases the original birth certificate.  Who would declare it to be valid or invalid for eligibility? the Citizenship and Immigration Service, Federal Election Commission?  The Supreme Court?  Every community in the country where he was on the ballot?

185 Yes Drew, the Republicans in Hawaii - unlike their counterparts in Ohio - acted properly, they protected Obama's privacy, and sealed the file.

186 Good grief Drew...give it a rest. It. Was. A. Joke.
 Okay a bad one, but still a J-O-K-E.
 Where do you think you are playing anyway? Mr. Rogers neighborhood?
 Don't go and look at the gay sick day thread...you might politically correct yourself to death...
 Hey, I'm just trying to help you here.

187 184 Cadet, Prior to certification of the electoral college by the House sitting as a committee of states; that evidence would have to be considered by the electors themselves and then by the House.  Justice Roberts role is a little vague.

Afterwards, affirming a false oath would seem to be an impeachable offense - but the House would have to act.

188 Done here ...

189 No doubt would be an interest development for Our Republic. Recalling the Impeachment, didn't the Chief Justice act as Speaker?  Long long time ago, and Im too lazy to look it up

190 Yeah but see this is where people who sell this stuff start to sound like crazy conspiracy nuts...an awful lot off people suddenly have to be in on it.
 You don't think obama isn't counting on people saying exactly what you just did? So predictable. you forget his allies....alinsky -ites all.

Just to add to the fun, you do know that the Director of the Department of Health in Hawaii is serving in a Republican administration, right? And not just any Republican but a governor who spoke at the RNC convention on behalf of her friend Sarah Palin.
 And your point is? What don't you get about the word politician? Have you noticed that no one ever talks about what swell people they are unless they are working for them or under their thumbs? Have you forgotten that Sarah took on the GOP ?

 Drew......you obviously don't know any politicians personally do you? [you lucky dog, you]
 The reality is they would kill their own mothers if it meant getting ahead....and they would rationalize why they just had to do it. There are very few that are any different from that.
 I worked on, and succeeded in overturning a crooked election...once.And it was an uphill battle all the way with the very people that were supposed to be protecting the voting process. The elected officials.

191

Well, another four to however many years of this long-term fight to the political bottom.

And the pathetic part is the core of the Democratic party deserves to get a dose of their own medicine so badly that I ain't ever going to put water on the they've been lighting for the past 40 years. I'd rather burn with them than further enable it.

*cues Ride of the Valkyries*

So while I'm never officially joining the club myself,  bring on the ODS groupies! Chickenhawk! Chickenhawk! No war for affirmative action! No sweat for union slobs!

*fades away*

192 christmasghost@167:
Sorry, my sense of humor does not extend to abortion, which is wrong always and everywhere. I just can't make jokes about it.

More on the irony thing:  One of the most fervent pro-abortion women I've known was born 14 weeks prematurely, i.e. she was born at 26 weeks. She was in the hospital's neonatal unit for months. Othere than being deaf in one ear, she suffered no long-term damage and grew up to be brilliant, articulate---and in favor of letting women abort babies even at 26 weeks....

Go figure.

193

Y'know, future elections are won or lost in the court of public opinion. And to anybody not absolutely disgusted by Obama already, this LOOKS like crazy conspiratorial whining.

It doesn't even matter if Obama is, in fact, unqualified to be President! We don't live in times where that matters. We live in times when securing your base on substantive policy proposals, then pulling in the political dilettantes with clear sensible explanations of those proposals wins elections. Whiny bullshit like this just puts people off who may consider voting for our candidates in the future.

But knock yourself out. Hey, we got Clinton thrown out of office for perjury, didn't we? I'm sure this will work just as well.

194

Posted by: DrewM. at December 08, 2008 11:28 PM (hlYel)

This guy Donofrio doesn't seem to have heard of a case called United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

-------------------------

Yes he has.  He talks about this case quite a bit on his site.

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/

His case isn't nearly as complicated as folks try to make it.

195 Posted by: Mary Beth at December 09, 2008 01:56 AM (JPEqm)

Cool, I just finishing reading his submission to the Supreme Court.

You guys that like this Donofrio guy do realize he wants to have McCain thrown off the ballot too, right?

In fact he makes a stronger case for getting him off the ballot than he does Obama (keep in mind 'stronger' is a very, very relative term here). It's certainly longer (he spends about 3 or 4 pages on McCain and only 1 and half or so on Obama).

I can't believe that Thomas actually distributed this crap.

196 kathy...yes, it was a bad joke on my part....really bad. and i'm so sorry because i feel the same way you do about abortion.
 and yes, i had a "friend" in college that used abortion as a birth control method because it was just "so easy and free thanks to PP". she made it rhyme.she was a sickening creature that was then  shocked to find out that since she had had SIX abortions she couldn't conceive when she got married.
i also have several east indian women friends and one of the saddest parts of the abortion saga is that it isn't always a woman's "choice", every single one of them has had at least one abortion because the first babies were girls.....even my friend who is an MD folded when her husband said "abortion or divorce".as she said "you find out you are pregnant and then you wait to get an ultra sound to see the sex of the baby. many prayers are not answered."
 this is what monsters like obama are bringing us. a culture of death.
 abortion is as valid as an iron lung. we have so many birth control methods and all these bullshit stories about them not working is just that. i should know...my husband used to laugh that i could walk by a maternity store and get pregnant.
 we are a fertile bunch....but guess what? even for really fertile women like my sisters and i, birth control always worked. and if it doesn't for you there is always the ultimate birth control. restraint.
 but i guess that would be out as it would involve taking personal responsibility....
 

197 I Don't Understand Goy's Point... Since, as I understand it, two non-citizen illegal immigrants can come to the US and have a child here and it will be a "natural born" citizen, how can it be that an American citizen can have a child here and it's not a natural born citizen?

Ace, that cite was offered in the context of Obama having been born in Kenya. The question was, if he WAS actually born there, wouldn't he still qualify as a natural born Citizen based on Ann Dunham's status.

The answer is no - at least strictly based on the law at that time - as cited. I don't think it would matter if the law had changed since, would it? The status would be determined by the existing law in 1961.


Drew - you wore me out. But it was good exercise.

G'Nite Folks.

198 Okay, let's say somewhere along the line a mistake was made, and Obama is not a natural born citizen.  Let me make it clear I don't know, and reading all the above comments makes it clear that right now NOBODY knows for sure.
So, they find he's not.  And the government lets it slide, despite the clear requirement that the President be a natural born citizen.
Then....
How can they enforce any of the other requirements (age, etc)? 
Anyone?

199 Drew, this is the best I could find on the oft cited travel restrictions in Pakistan circa 1981:

Southwestern Asia was a risky place for a Westerner to visit in 1981, although it is unclear whether travel to Pakistan was actually restricted. (The U.S. government at the time advised against visits to Afghanistan and had recently lifted a ban on travel to Iran.)
 
Two years earlier, the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan; the Islamic revolution toppled the Shah in Iran; a frenzied mob attacked the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, setting it on fire and killing a U.S. Marine and two Pakistanis; and military ruler Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq hanged former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – Benazir Bhutto’s father – whose government he had ousted in a 1977 coup.
 
Pakistan in 1981 was under martial law, with opposition politicians incarcerated, judges sacked, media censorship enforced and anti-government strikes underway.

Kathy in Kansas perfectly expressed what I was going to say about Obama's divided loyalties. When you consider how our modern Presidents, even Billy-Jeff had childhoods that included learning the Pledge of Allegiance, proper etiquette for the National Anthem, going to church, being boy scouts, baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and etc. etc.....and compare that to a boy who spent first - fifth grade in Indonesia apparently being raised as a Muslim - enrolled as a Muslim in school....it's unsettling.

Moreover, he was Indonesian citizen for those years so his U.S. Citizenship status would have been revoked, since Indonesia had no dual-citizenship provision with the U.S.A. No, he had no control over where he lived as a child, but he's all grown up now, and if he perpetrated a fraud on the electorate, I think we have a right to know.

Two and a half years ago, a law firm is based in Chicago, Kirkland & Ellis LLP worked to have the Natural Born Citizen clause removed from the Constitution because it was "stupid", "unAmerican", and "discriminatory". (sounds like a good description of our "fatally flawed" Constitution ). PDF here.

Bruce I. Ettelson, P.C. (aka PARTNER), is a Member of the finance committees for both U.S. Senators Barack Obama and Richard Durbin.

The question of why he hasn't released any of his school or medical records should also arouse ample amounts of suspicion, too.

I'm so sick of this bullcrap. It stinks to high heaven, and the people asking questions are being castigated by even those on the right for doing so.

200 The point Goy made about his mothers age and length of residence is relevant only if Obama was born outside the United States.  Any child born in the USA is a citizen, regardless of how long his parents have been resident or whatever their legal status or citizenship may be.  As Obama was in fact born in Hawaii, he qualifies.

As for not showing his birth certificate, that's false.  He has done so.  It doesn't matter if it’s the long or short form, because they both have to give his place of birth.  

Let me repeat this:  The form Obama has shown is a real birth certificate.


The short form is acceptable as proof of citizenship to get a US passport or join the US Army.  By Hawaiian law, that has to be the real place of birth, even if this were an amended certificate.  If his mother had got him a certificate for an out-of-state birth, it would have shown his place of birth as Nairobi or where ever it is supposed to be.  Obama's paperwork specifically says his "Island of Birth" was "Oahu" and his "County of Birth" was "Honulolu". Should this ever get to a court-room, Obama will have to jump through the same hoops to get the long form accepted as evidence as the short form.  It is better for him and the court system that the case is quashed as early in the process as possible.

Presenting the long form won't shut up the birth certificate zealots any more than Troofers (like Philip Berg) been silenced by the conclusive evidence that they're looney-tunes.  For that matter, few if any of those who think he should release the long form will vote for him or his party in 2010 and 2012, so your complaints don’t matter.  The media, and even sane Conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin, will not make this an issue because they know it's bogus.

As for his real father, the short form shows his father just as the long form does.  It says the father of Barak Hussein Obama. II was Barak Hussein Obama.  No issue on his long form certificate could disqualify him now, and by 2012, you'll have four years of infinitely more relevent grounds to judge whether he should be re-elected or not.

It is not illegal under US law to hold and use another citizenship (with some exceptions that do not apply to Obama - he's never been an officer in someone else's army or held a senior policy making job with a foreign govrenment).  He can use an Indonesian passport if he is legally entitled to one without it affecting his American citizenship.  While Indonesian law doesn't recognize dual citizenship, US law does.  Unless Obama, as an adult, renounced his US citizenship in writing to a representative of the US government, he never lost it.

201

Well maybe Obama can be the first president to be impeached over his birth certificate.  A lot can happen in two years.

202 See, this is the kind of stuff that makes it smell like nothing more than a crazy ass conspiracy theory...

From Donofrio's site...

Tomorrow, Dec. 9 - Cort Wrotnowski will submit a supplemental brief concerning the newly discovered ineligibility of twenty-first President Chester Arthur due to his having been born as a British subject.   This is relevant to the case at hand in that Justice Gray - who wrote the seminal opinion in United States v. Wong Kim Ark - was appointed by Chester Arthur.

Ohhhhh, the judge who wrote the case saying the 14th Amendment guaranteed birthright citizenship was appointed by a President the cranks say was ineligible to be President. 

Well, US v Ark was decided in in 1898 and Arthur left the White House 14 years earlier in 1885 (and died in 1886). But they still trumpet this as a major connection!!!! Why it obviously proves...well I'm not sure what but something damn it!!!!11!!!!

It's all layers people! Or plastics or something. 

What's the theory? Arthur was ineligible to be President so all his appointments and their decisions are retroactively invalid?

Seriously people, is this a road you want to go down?

203 Citizenship doesn't matter anymore. AH-NULD for prez 2012!

204 What's the theory? Arthur was ineligible to be President so all his appointments and their decisions are retroactively invalid?

Actually, if I had continued reading before posting I would have seen that's exactly their theory.

So much crazy to poke at but it's late and I must sleep.

But please people, I really beg you to consider if this is who you want to line up with. If this were being trotted out against McCain (and as I point out above it is), we'd be ripping these people new assholes. Just because they are going after Obama (mostly and only because he won) doesn't make it any more palatable.

BTW-does anyone have a link to Wrotnowski submissions? I can't fine one. I have to see what the hell Scalia was looking at.

205 Ace, That's one of the best posts I've read on the subject.  I agree most of the lawsuits are "ticky tack" and even proven true would not resonate with the American public.  The only two scenerios that I think would outrage the public, (hopefully) would be if Berg is right (He is born in Kenya and his original birth certificate, which he is hiding, shows that) or He took advantage of his Indonesian connections, obtained a passport and travelled to Pakistan on it at age 21 or 22 and obtained college financial aid bytaking advantage of his "Indonesian" citizenship.  Those are the only two issues that would personally piss me off and I think a large segment of teh public as well.  If this is indeed some elaborate precendent setting ruse, then he is just another jerkoff politician for wasting the taxpayers money and the court's time by not producing his documents.  But we've dealt with those in the past and survived.

206 A person's most formative years are the first ten years of life, and Obama spent those in a culture very alien to that of the United States. All those things that we imbibed like mother's milk--freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly; separation of powers; federalism; representative democracy--Barack Obama did not imbibe at an early, formative age, because the culture that formed and shaped him did not have those things.

In addition, his geographic rootlessness has had a very real and significant effect on his ideology and worldview, just as the Founding Fathers feared. Obama, a self-described "citizen of the world," has said that "if the political winds should turn, I will stand with the Muslims." He "campaigned" in Berlin, he wants to hand over a huge chunk of U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations, and one of his first major speeches as President is to be given on the other side of the planet in the world's most populous Muslim country. He is obsessed with how other peoples see America and panders to their preferences. Simply put, he does not hold America's best interests deeply in his heart.

I think it's a tragedy. And all because of media manipulation. How I despise those fucking sycophants!

Well done.

207 Sorry , the above was Kathy #30

208 69

I don't really care so much if Obama is or isn't constitutionally unqualified.  I am more curious why there is NO mechanism for establishing that qualification.

Every candidate should have a simple qualification process to go through to get on the ballot.  How the hell is something so important just never done? 

Posted by: PHenry at December 08, 2008 10:04 PM (ddSIz)

Exactly. How the HELL did Calero, the NICARAGUAN citizen get allowed on the ballot in a half dozen states?????

209 Furthermore, the fact that NONE of the 50 state Secretaries of State found a compelling reason to investigate the matter further before placing Obama's name on the state's ballot also suggests to me that there is no case here.  So I don't view this battle as a particularly wise one to pursue.  I'm not asking you to shut up about it.  All I ask is that we behave smartly on this issue, and know when it is time to go all in and know when it is time to fold.

Posted by: chemjeff at December 08, 2008 11:13 PM (vkmUf)

See my above about Calero before you trust 50 SOS!

210

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” - Barry Goldwater

Quoted in Atlas Shrugs

211

Rules are rules. If Obama is unqualified to be president, that's it. Obama himself was a stickler for the rules in Chicago when he managed to throw his Democrat rivals out of an election on a technicality.

Obama and his campaign haven't exactly been forthcoming about all this. They clearly have something to hide. A President Biden will be much easier to beat in 2012!

Look, do I think we can get Obama out of the White House? No, of course not. But we should continue to irritate him with this. Make the libs squirm. They refused to accept Bush after Florida 2000 even though Bush really did win and really IS a US citizen. Why can't we give them a little payback? It'll be fun. And we need cheering up.

212

Presenting the long form won't shut up the birth certificate zealots any more than Troofers (like Philip Berg) been silenced by the conclusive evidence that they're looney-tunes.

Actually I'd be happy to shut up after seeing his birth certificate. From my point of view there is a question of law in regards to where he was born and seeing the original would erase the doubt.

Why waste millions on lawyers when you could just present the paperwork?

Something just doesn't pass the smell test.

213 My guess is that the photostat of the original has gone "missing."

214 The best comment on this subject has been by cedarford on the pajamasmedia story on this subject:

" Who is gaining anything positive from a needless, ongoing, time and money-consuming controversy?

Obama and the Democrats, even moderate Republicans.
All who are taking great pleasure in watching the Right Wing damage their already tattered public image by behaving like a pack of hysterical, deranged assholes."

215

A statute provided that those born on foreign soil to servicemen or diplomats serving overseas were still "natural born," for example -- which is what makes John McCain "natural born."

Actually, I believe McCain is OK because he was born of US parents in the Canal Zone which was a US territory.  There are provisions for children born of servicemen abroad, however, they are not considered "natrural born" for these purposes.  My son was born in these circumstances, so I speak from experience.

Congress could easily solve this by passing laws delineating exactly who is "natural born."  Then, they could establish an Election Qualifications Commission.  Anyone running for a Constitutional office would apply to them for clearance by providing any necessary documentation.  One cleared, they could then file for office.  Any challenges would go to them for research.  Since they would be a government commission, everytihng would be FOIA-able, so there would be less chance for shenanigans.

216 I wonder how many people still have a copy of their original birth certificate.  I still have mine, which is a miracle considering how much I've moved over the years.  I also still have my original Social Security card.  I was the forth child, and when I was a couple of years old a family friend gave each of us 4 kids $100.  My parents applied for Social Security cards for all four of us at the same time and then opened bank accounts for all of us to deposit the $100.  ( I cashed it out when I was 18.  I forget what I used it for.  It wasn't a lot of money.)

 I was born in 1959 and my birth certificate looks like a real birth certificate.  It's on parchment paper and has fancy caligraphy.  It's even got a cut out in it for a baby picture.  Of course, mine has no baby picture.  My parents eventually had 6 kids, and aside from my oldest brother there are no baby pictures of any of the rest of us.  We once found an entire album of baby pictures and they were all of my brother.  His first smile.  His first burp.  I'm surprised they didn't capture his first shit.  But I guess the novelty wore off after they had him because there are no pictures of any of the rest of us until we started school. 

My daughter was born in 1993 and all I have for her is a plastic card.  It does have a seal so I guess that's what birth certificates are like now.  It doesn't look real, though, so I guess she should never run for office.  If getting proof from the state isn't enough to satisfy nutjobs with too much time on their hands isn't good enough then seeing the real thing would send them into fits of dementia.

Oh, and by the way.  Until my mother gave me mine when I moved out on my own at the age of 23, I had no idea my middle name was spelled Jayne.  I'd been spelling it Jane my whole life.  When I saw it I asked my mother why she'd never bothered to tell me I was spelling my own name wrong and she said "who cares?".

217 Ace - I apologize for missing this post until very late. Arm-wrestling with Drew into the wee hours in the preceding thread was distracting. Imagine my surprise to see my name mentioned. Please see above for clarification on the Nationality Act question. Dave AAA has provided additional info.

For the record, and what it's worth, I'm no "conspiracy theorist, crank" or "Truther". And I resent being labeled "deranged" by a true crank like Rick Moran simply because I refuse to take a known serial prevaricator and fraud at his word.

That said, and since you mentioned me specifically herein, FWIW, your post here fairly precisely sums up my thoughts and expectations on this matter. And it's important (to me, anyway) to note that pretty much all of the discussion I've engaged in that folks like Drew label "conspiracy claptrap" here and at PJM goes to my reason for suspicion - not to proof that BHO is ineligible.

The reason for suspicion is entertaining to discuss, because it exposes what people are willing to overlook or accept in the context of such a monumental question. The results are not encouraging. However, the only absolute PROOF that he is eligible is being guarded by a small army of attorneys, at great expense.

One can claim that I have no "standing" to demand that he produce that proof. I simply disagree. I've taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and I will do so as I personally see fit, and can justify in my own heart. As such, I don't think it's too much of an imposition for BHO to do exactly what McCain did. Anything less is accepting a double standard, which is one of the road signs on the way to the Hot Place.

I disagree with DaveAAA on the CERTIFICATION image BHO has released, simply because - as I understand it - Hawaii itself will not accept a short-form Certification of Live Birth as proof of (Hawaiian) natural born citizenship. The things Dave discusses using it for do not require proof of natural born citizenship. And it's absolutely irrelevant who I plan to vote for in 2010 or 2012. I'm happy to be shown wrong on this, but until that time comes it's ludicruous to think the federal government should accept this sloppy JPG as proof of natural born citizenship in the context of the most important question being asked right now.

With that, however, I'm happy to agree - as you've stated here - that even if it turns out BHO was born in Kenya, the legislature can and will  pass a resolution, or something, to validate him. Again, I would dearly love to see them forced to do this, because it would expose the gaping, glaring hole in the electoral process that allowed for all this speculation in the first place. They NEED to FIX it.

Anyway, from my site - here's what I think (edited):

I’m perfectly happy to be proved wrong on any or all of this, by the way. I’d prefer that, in fact. The prospect of a President Biden is horrific enough knowing he’s already a heartbeat away from the office. Three things gall me, however:

1. That the media has never pursued this in any real way. While they were a lost cause long ago, and the Fourth Estate has now firmly established itself as a Fifth Column, much of the heartache we’ve experienced these past 8-10 years - and all of the ‘crisis’ talk - would have been avoided if the media had any actual integrity anymore. Jerks like Rick Moran should be attacking them, not fellow conservatives.

2. That the letter of the Constitution is not being followed in BHO’s case when it was in McCain’s.

3. That self-righteous assholes like Rick Moran have the stones to label someone who doubts BHO’s word as ‘deranged’. I don’t mind Johnson or anyone else not wanting to discuss the matter, though it’s a mystery to me what he thinks could possibly be valid OR compelling about BHO’s ‘CERTIFICATION’ JPG image. Malkin’s attitude is closer to Moran’s (her “fortune-teller” snark indicates she hasn’t really thought through any of this). Just don't have the audacity to tell other people to shut up about it because it may make THEM "look bad". You can shove that crap.

The ones hysterically shrieking “Truther!” and “Conspiracy Theorist!” all appear to have jumped onto some sort of bandwagon collectively aimed at discrediting “conservative nutjobs” - as if maybe that’ll explain (part of) why we lost so significantly last month. I think that’s lame. They can disagree all they like, but don’t fall back on Alinksy’s Rule 5 and ridicule someone for being suspicious of a known, serial liar and fraud on something this significant - especially when resolving the issue is so trivially easy: just release the original, long-form COLB and any serious speculation will cease.

The courts can easily decide, thereafter, whether or not BHO lost his citizenship while in Indonesia. I WANT them to have the opportunity to make that determination. I DON’T want the country to have to address this down the road at the behest of the U.N. in response to some piss-ant islamist radical regime claiming our government isn’t legitimate.

Thanks for doing what you do.

218

 Until my mother gave me mine when I moved out on my own at the age of 23, I had no idea my middle name was spelled Jayne.  I'd been spelling it Jane my whole life.  When I saw it I asked my mother why she'd never bothered to tell me I was spelling my own name wrong and she said "who cares?".

You  just discredited anything you have to say.

219

DrewM, has it been established yet that BHO's grandmother and other relatives were/are stupid fucking liars?

It'd be funny if the neo-Nazis were correct for once - that Africans (in this case, Kenyans) are pathological liars.

I don't know which one is worse, neo-Nazis being correct or Obama's relatives being correct. Either way we are royally screwed and it doesn't look like there's another Reagan coming over the horizon to save our asses. Republican politicians and pundits are too interested in making Dem buddies and sweeping shit under the rug to do what's right anymore.

220 Does the name Barack Obama sound American to anyone?  I'd feel better if his name was Jamal, or Rufus, or Brian.  But fucking BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA...  I'm sorry, I need some credentials there Mr. Hope and Change.  It's absolutely bullshit that McCain was even asked about his citizenship, but Mr. Obama gets a free pass.  I'm sorry.  There is somethign wrong here somewhere.  I want to some fucking papers.  Not somebody who can SAY he was born in the states.  I want it on paper.  This isn't the equivialant to the wacked left bitchign about a DUI 20 or 30 years ago.  This is a very serious question, and Barack is holding up his middle finger to the country.  What a great start.    Fuck him

221 Look, when this whole thing started this summer, I was interested in it for two things:

1) This picture looks like a fake -- it sure doesn't look like a scanned document -- and it's being put out there by kos himself.

2) Why won't anyone in the media ask to see the printed copy? This thing has no date on it, no official seal and no signature, and the numbers are blacked out. How hard is it to just ask to see the printed copy? (These things were "found" long after PolitiFact had declared it to be absolutely genuine, without ever having looked at the printed copy.)

Here's the conspiracy theory I believe in -- it was put out in the form and manner that it was in order to gauge the depth of the media's in-the-tankedness for Obama. It came out a time when the Obama train was gathering momentum. It's like poker -- Obama pushes in a bet just to see if anyone calls. If someone calls, she shows his hand (the printed birth certificate); if no one calls his bluff, he confirms that the media is in the bag.

And, personally, I believe that the media's inaction on this was what gave the green light to the Obama campaign to flout the campaign finance laws by shutting off the credit card verification. No one asked questions about the birth certificate, so it stood to reason that no one would ask questions about the torrent of laundered money.

222 So those of you who are 'just asking questions' aren't worried that you could substitute Trig and Sarah Palin for Obama in a lot of your questions?

Um, okay.

I get many of you have 'questions' but how come nothing approaching an allegation supported by evidence has made it out or into any of the legal documents filed by the people most ardent to actually prove this?

223

of all things to view pragmatically and let pass, THIS issue is not one.

at the very least, for a nation at war with the very people who - and let us not be namby pamby about it - share name and cultural origin with this demonstrably anti-American candidate;  who has also sealed from the nation his entire life portfolio and has/is paying nearly a million dollars to keep said records sealed...

to allow such a cypher to lead said warring nation without comment or serious examination is ludicrous beyond belief.

it is one thing to amend the Constituion of the United States for such sweeping political and moral shifts such as inclusion of all peoples in this Republic with all the rights and responsibilities previously denied, but quite another to invoke Constitutional Amendments to micro-manage any current political tempest.

224 Im a citizen of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA im not a citizen of the NORTH AMERICAN UNION and im not a subject of EMPORER PALPATINE OBAMA  and from a defiant ol shorebird SIC SEMPTER TYRANUS

225 222 So those of you who are 'just asking questions' aren't worried that you could substitute Trig and Sarah Palin for Obama in a lot of your questions?

Um, okay.


The question I had really had to do with the media. This is a piece of paper we're talking about here, not someone's baby. It's a piece of paper that you have to show if you want a passport or if you lose your drivers' license. It should never have been that big a deal for a reporter to ask to see it.

When PolitiFact declared it to be "genuine," I wrote them an email that said they could not logically make that conclusion. Unless you see the seal, the signature, the date stamp, etc. -- unless you can see the unaltered real thing you can't logically conclude that you're seeing something that is genuine. There's a reason that government agencies who demand to see your birth certificate won't accept a copy that doesn't have those things. Those things are what make it genuine.

For me, it's not about Obama's Dad and Kenya and Indonesia and all that stuff. Reporters love to pound their chests and talk about how skeptical they are and "if your mother says she loves you, check it out," but not one of them had the nards to call up the Obama campaign and say "Okay, got the picture of the certification of live birth, but I'm a skeptical journalist so I'd like to drop by the office some time to have a look at it, just to be thorough." What that was about was not wanting to cross the incoming Obama administration. Not wanting to be the one reporter who makes waves -- which is the complete opposite of the image they continue to delude themselves into believing.

226 Posted by: Brewdog at December 09, 2008 11:36 AM (jg+Fr)

So the people at FactCheck.org who have seen and held the certificate and say it does have a raised seal, etc are what? In on it?

Look, I'm not going to deny that the media is in the tank for Obama but I'm pretty sure that there are legitimate reasons for them not to ask those questions. Namely, they don't want to be seen as cranks.

Have you been to that guy Donofrio's site? There's a comment in one of the threads that alleges both Bush 41 and 43 were born in Germany. Should that cause reporters to run off and demand to see their birth certificates? Cause you know, that'd just be 'asking questions'.

227

DrewM wrote:

So those of you who are 'just asking questions' aren't worried that you could substitute Trig and Sarah Palin for Obama in a lot of your questions?

I'll worry about that when one of Trig's grandparents and two of his siblings say that Bristol gave birth to him. In other words, no. I'm more worried that you can't possibly get your head around the fact that someone is lying to us about Obama's birth, it's just a matter of who.

Barry and his sycophants' actions, along with the strange ambiguity of which exact hospital he was born in, suggest that it's not his Kenyan kinfolk who are lying.

228 So the people at FactCheck.org who have seen and held the certificate and say it does have a raised seal, etc are what? In on it?


No, that's not it at all. I should have been more clear. I wanted to point out that this incident spoke volumes about the media before FactCheck got to see it -- long before. I'm not disagreeing with you.

My objection was that PolitiFact declared it to be absolutely genuine without having seen and held the certificate (and therefore without having seen any of the authenticating marks, etc.) and the media declared the story done and over with. That was weeks before FactCheck got to see it.

It's real, and I have no doubt that it's real. And yet that was the Obama campaign's gambit -- if a reporter asks to see it, we win (we show that we were telling the truth all along and we humiliate the reporter); if no reporters ask to see it, we win (they're so deep in the tank they won't even cross the street to ask to see simple document, so long as we tell them that it's real).

229 Look, I'm not going to deny that the media is in the tank for Obama but I'm pretty sure that there are legitimate reasons for them not to ask those questions. Namely, they don't want to be seen as cranks.

I totally get your point. But here is why I think some honest reporter should have at least asked the question:

1) There are all these questions circulating -- all wacky conspiracy crank stuff -- so the Obama campaign releases a scan of the certificate.. to dailykos? I remember when that story came out, and every news organization was linking to the post on kos, like kos was the new New York Times or something. WTF? Kos' fingerprints on this alone should have been enough for someone to want to see the real thing.

2) But most importantly, it's just a scan of a document. The Obama campaign has the document. It's not like asking the question would mean that they would have to go to Hawaii and produce documentation, etc. It's a simple matter of, "Hey, you know that document that you just scanned and emailed to me? Since it's obviously right there in your office anyway, could I just drop by and have a look at it?"

230 The original docment may read "Barry Dunham".

231 Posted by: angryoldfatman at December 09, 2008 11:56 AM (2hted)

This is your 'proof' of that I suppose?

A prideful grandmother says 'Barack is a son of this village' and you take that as a reasonable basis to think he was born in Kenya?

You've never heard a politician referred to or refer to themselves as 'a son of Italy' or 'a son of Ireland' before, have you? No that never happens.

Hey, John Kennedy said he was a Berliner...maybe we should have checked his birth certificate! Or, or maybe that's why they had him killed. Oooooooh.

232

The State of Hawaii says Obama was born there, but some people say if there is no birth cirtificate, it doesn't matter what other evidence exists. They insist that Obama produce the proper papers, or he is not eligible to be president. Absurd. I'm pretty sure that the constitution does not mention "birth cirtificates".  

And why in the world would the USSC take a case where the law is not in question, only the evidence?

233 229 Look, I'm not going to deny that the media is in the tank for Obama but I'm pretty sure that there are legitimate reasons for them not to ask those questions. Namely, they don't want to be seen as cranks.

Just asking to see it -- that's the kind of simple, practical legwork that reporters are supposed to do. And that they endlessly congratulate themselves for doing.

Reporters and editors will break their arms patting themselves on the back, talking about how skeptical and thorough they are. "If your mother says she loves you, check it out!" They're always supposed to want to see the documents. Follow the money. Get the facts.

So my argument there is, if the Obama campaign is willing to email to you a copy of a government-issued document (forget that it's a certification of live birth for a second, just factor that out of this argument) and it is clearly, plainly incomplete on its face.. why not just ask to see the real, solid, 3-dimensional thing? Is there really any harm in that?

234 christmasghost@196:
Sorry to be OT again, but I just have to correct these errors when I see them. Actually, every form of birth control does have a failure rate--including the Pill, which has a 1-2% failure rate even when used absolutely correctly. Plus, the Pill prevents pregnancy in three different ways, and one of them is abortifacient. To reduce the side effects from the old formulations, current formulations have a much lower dosage that actually allows ovulation in about 1 in 10 monthly cycles. (They call this "breakthrough ovulation.") But the Pill alters the uterine lining so that any embryo conceived cannot implant in the uterine wall, and therefore dies and is passed out of the body (i.e., a very early abortion) without the woman ever even knowing she was pregnant.

The only method with as low a failure rate as the pill (1-2% when used correctly) AND morally acceptable is Natural Family Planning. It does work. And FWIW,
I speak from experience.

Hmmm....how to not get caught by the OT police--how to somehow tie this back to Obama? Well, Obama's beloved FOCA will take away doctors', nurses' and pharmacists' freedom-of-conscience rights. So, for example, the new totally pro-life pharmacies that have opened up shop in the last few years (pharmacies that do not sell ANY contraceptives, such as Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy, you can google it) would be forced by federal law to start selling contraceptives or else be shut down. Doctors who instruct their patients in Natural Family Planning--at the patients' own request--would have to start offering contraception, or else lose their license to practice medicine. And all of this is not even to mention abortion--which every hospital would have to allow, every OB/GYN would have to perform or refer for, every medical student would have to receive training in, and virtually every health professional would have to be implicated in in one way or another.

235 Posted by: gdonovan at December 09, 2008 05:36 AM

Actually I'd be happy to shut up after seeing his birth certificate.

But you have.  There is no significant difference between the long and short forms.  They both list time, date, and place of birth as well as parents' names.

Why waste millions on lawyers when you could just present the paperwork?

How showing his long form certificate to the public save any money?  It won't stop the birth certificate troofers, and he would have to bring in the same people into court to verify the provenance of the long form as the short one.  He will need to have someone swear that the cerificat4e is the true copy and someone who will testify that where it says born in the County of Honolulu on the Island of Oahu (as does the short form) that's exactly what they mean.  Hawaiian birth certificates, long and short, by law must show the true place of birth.

Even showing the long form to the troofer lawyers at discovery won;t stop them.  They'll insist on going to court.  It's cheaper for him, and less publicity for the troofers, for Obama to stop this as early as possible

236 Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 10:03 AM (BCIGN)

That the media has never pursued this in any real way.

IN this case, they're right.  Note that even Conservative new media like LGF and Michelle Malkin think this is nonsense - it isn't a left-wing conspiracy to supress scandal.

what he thinks could possibly be valid OR compelling about BHO’s ‘CERTIFICATION’ JPG image

It's more than a JPG as it has been seen and verified by people and confirmed by the Republican government of Hawaii.

The things Dave discusses using it for do not require proof of natural born citizenship

If a birth certificate says Nairobi rather than Honolulu, both the State Departmern and the US Army will require additional proof that an individual has been naturalized, so yes, it is proof of natural born citizenship.

The ones hysterically shrieking “Truther!” and “Conspiracy Theorist!” all appear to have jumped onto some sort of bandwagon collectively aimed at discrediting “conservative nutjobs” - as if maybe that’ll explain (part of) why we lost so significantly last month

Republicans lost because the economy tanked, Congressional Repubicans are nort notably more honest than Democrats, the incumbant Republican President was so unpopular., and probably because the needed extra percentage points they normally would have got from the African-American community went to the favourite son   Debunking silliness like this is worthwhile for its own sake.

The courts can easily decide, thereafter, whether or not BHO lost his citizenship while in Indonesia.

They could if someone could present some evidence that he had done anything that would have endangered his citizenship.   Taking Indonesian citizenship or using an Indonesian passport does not.

237 And why in the world would the USSC take a case where the law is not in question, only the evidence?

That is a terrific point!

It is also a fact that the burden of proof is on the govt to prove he is not a citizen, not Obama's burden to prove he is.

238 Brewdog, I can't believe we are fighting about this.  It's pretty clear to me Obama has many things to hide and this is one of them.  Drew how DARE you equate us to Leftwing shitbags.  You have spoken very condescendingly to brewdog and frankly you are being a turd about this whole thing.  You saw how the media JUMPED at the McCain birth crap.  Barack's name alone should set off a flag in our minds.  Lets see, Kennedy, Bush Clinton, Reagan   OBAMA 

One of these things is not like the other.

239 @211:
Look, do I think we can get Obama out of the White House? No, of course not. But we should continue to irritate him with this. Make the libs squirm.

Amen to that! Hey, Obama's already looking at 200 executive orders he wants to sign right out of the gate. Anything that plants a big enough seed of doubt in enough Americans' minds--anything that erodes his legitimacy or "mandate"--is a useful tool for our efforts to keep our precious, fragile, constitutional representative democracy from being flushed down the tubes over the next few years.

By the way, is there anything to prevent the new President Obama (there! the first time I've actually put those two words together--I'm trying, finally, to prepare myself) from signing an executive order on January 21 that would ban all sales of shotgun ammo?

Executive orders are as unconstitutional as the IRS, but there they are. A reality that we have to deal with. As far as I can tell, no matter who's in the Oval Office, we the people have to just basically trust in his/her sanity and good will in hopes that he/she won't use executive orders to basically turn us into Venezuela. What exactly is there to prevent presidents from signing any kind of executive order they can dream up? Lawsuits? Fear of insurrection? Anybody know?

Anyhow, if people are really questioning The Zero's legitimacy, it will make EVERYTHING more difficult for him. Executive orders will be resisted and disobeyed, judge and justice appointments will be fought tooth and nail, the Senate could be essentially paralyzed for the next four years by one filibuster after another.....oh, it IS fun to think about, isn't it?

Let's roll!

240 Barack's name alone should set off a flag in our minds.
Posted by: Melodic Metal at December 09, 2008 01:15 PM (0TU9n)

Yeah, you see small minded jackassery like that pretty much marks you as someone not worth paying attention to.

Like it or not you are no better than the fools on the left when it comes to this crap.

241 Melodic Metal let's play a game....

Lets see, Kennedy, Bush Clinton, Reagan, OBAMA  JINDAL.

One of these things is not like the other.

How's that workin' for ya buddy?

242 @220: Barack is holding up his middle finger to the country.

Yeah, he likes to do that.
As McCain and Hillary can tell you.

What a guy. Such a class act.

So what if he went to Columbia and Harvard, he's still a sleazy Chicago thug who hangs out with commie cop-killers.

243 232
The State of Hawaii says Obama was born there

What I'm aware of is a press release from the State official certifying that she has seen the birth certificate for Obama that is in the State of Hawaii's possession, not what the contents of that birth certificate are. I haven't seen an official release of the contents from a neutral party. Is there one?

I haven't been tracking this closely, but it seems to me that if Obama authorized Hawaii to release the birth certificate that they have in their possession for examination by a court and for dissemination (via facsimile obviously) through the media, this would all be over.

244 To reiterate, I was picking on the media. I do think Barry's papers are all in order.

The conspiracy theory I believe in goes like this -- the Obama campaign figures its time to release the certificate, but they realize that this is an opportunity. An opportunity to see just how deep in the tank their media friends really are, and to lock down some favors for later.

So they put out the certificate -- a half-assed scan, incomplete, emailed to kos and posted on their own website, really sloppy -- and wait to see if anyone bites.

No one bites. So, we show the media an incomplete, shaky looking document, and no one says boo. Perfect. The fix is in. So now if we turn the credit card verification off the donations website, who's going to say anything about that?

But what if someone does bite? Even better. Way better. We call the reporter in for a little sit-down and explain how we're going to save their career by showing them the real document and not letting it get out to their media colleagues that they're digging for troofer type conspiracy theories. Tell them, look, we're going to be in power for the next 8 years, and we assume that you would like to continue to be employed as a journalist, right? So now we've done you a favor, and maybe someday in the near future, you can do one for us.

That is really what I think this has been about from the beginning.

245 Posted by: Dave AAA at December 09, 2008 12:40 PM (aI1PG)

Thanks, Dave -

- It's more than a JPG as it has been seen and verified by people and confirmed by the Republican government of Hawaii.

Cite? Just want to add it to my bookmarks for reference.

Their claims that it's "verified" are fine as far as they go. But have they confirmed that what's on the published short-form is exactly what's on the original long-form? I haven't seen evidence of this and, in fact, don't believe they could have, because pursuant to §338-18 state officials aren't legally allowed to give out that level of detail for an individual record. So the fact that they've seen and verified it doesn't speak to whether or not it was ever legally amended, pursuant to §338-17.7. If it was, there's a sealed original stored along with the documents that explain the change.

When I can find some statute that supports your claim that the place of birth can't possibly be amended with sufficient supporting documentation, I'll let you know. So far - nothing. If you know where it is, please post.


- Debunking silliness like this is worthwhile for its own sake.
You obviously haven't read Moran's self-serving article at PJM. It goes far beyond debunking (in point of fact, doesn't actually debunk anything) and strays into ridicule, false moral equivalence and laughable armchair psychoanalysis. Sorry - that's as bad or worse that so-called "Trutherism" in my book.


- If a birth certificate says Nairobi rather than Honolulu, both the State Departmern and the US Army...

But my point is that if a certified copy of the current record is provided in a case that doesn't require natural born citizenship, this issue doesn't arise - even (especially) if the current record is an amendment.

I'm given to understand that one example of where a "Certification" is not sufficient is in relation to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (1920). There may be others.

If you check here, you'll find a list of the documents Hawaii considers sufficient to qualify under this Act. Below is an exerpt:

-----------------------------------

Primary Documents

The primary documents used to show you are of age and a qualified native Hawaiian are:

A certified copy of Certificate of Birth;A certified copy of Certificate of Hawaiian Birth, including testimonies; orA certified copy of Certificate of Delayed Birth.

You will need the certified birth certificates for:

YourselfYour biological father; andYour biological mother

The state Department of Health, (DOH), Vital Records Section, records documents by island and district (geographically) and by the date of the event (chronologically).

If your biological parents' documents don't clearly prove that you have at least 50 percent Hawaiian ancestry, you will also need certified birth certificates for:

Your biological father's parents; andYour biological mother's parents.

In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.

-------------------------------------

I'm looking for additional cites on this. But, as indicated above, if a short-form Certification document is insufficient to prove native-born eligibility under this Act, that is, if the State of Hawaii doesn't even consider it sufficient for this purpose, then it'll take some fancy lawyerin' to show how it qualifies for a 'higher' authority, i.e., Article II.


- Taking Indonesian citizenship or using an Indonesian passport does not [endanger his citizenship].

I'd love to just take your word as authority on that Dave, but... :-)

246 Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 01:59 PM (BCIGN)

I understand your  point this type of document can't be used in that specific program.

Based on your understanding, could Obama take that COLB as is and get a US passport?

247 Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 02:07 PM (hlYel)

- I understand your  point this type of document can't be used in that specific program.

Yes, but more specifically, it can't be used for this program because it's considered insufficient by the State of Hawaii to prove native-born Hawaiian status.


- Based on your understanding, could Obama take that COLB as is and get a US passport?

Don't have a clue. Forced to guess I'd say, "probably". But does one need proof of natural born citizenship to get a passport? Or would proof of naturalized citizenship suffice. I believe it's the latter, at a minimum, so I'm not sure why you're asking the question.

248 The primary documents used to show you are of age and a qualified native Hawaiian are...

This is for people looking to prove Native Hawaiian blood, and not whether they were physically born in the State of Hawaii.  It is not the same issue.

As evidenced by this:

You must be a native Hawaiian, defined as "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778."

Wholly separate, unrelated issue.

249 Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 02:29 PM (BCIGN)

Again, to my mind this is where you go off the rails.

If the State Department accepts the COLB (let's just say they do), that means the federal government accepts that Obama was born in Hawaii. If he has acceptable proof he was born in the US (which is what the State Department would be saying by accepting that) then he is a natural born US citizen.

That COLB would be de facto proof of citizenship according to the State Department.

You are saying, maybe it was changed. Well, to me that's a charge you need to prove not one he needs to disprove.

250 DrewM.:

From the Passport Officetravel.state.gov)


*A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar’s signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Please note, some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.

So, I suppose it's possible that it wouldnt pass muster.  However, did he have a passport prior to his installation as Senator?  He would have to present some sort of proof of citz.  Now,what was it?

251 #250
stupid icons!

252 Posted by: cadetwithchips2 at December 09, 2008 02:39 PM (PoUlE)

So we don't know if it's acceptable. Oh well.

253 Depends if a CLB is considered a "short-form" document. What's on a BC thats not on a CLB?  Don't know.  Anyone?

254 Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 02:35 PM (hlYel)

- Again, to my mind this is where you go off the rails.

You say 'off the rails', I say 'on with the details'... :-)


- If the State Department accepts the COLB (let's just say they do), that means the federal government accepts that Obama was born in Hawaii.

Okay, that's interesting. Let's think that through, because it's very close to the situation on which I responded to Dave, above.

If they accept the computer-generated short-form for a passport, what are they accepting? They're accepting proof of citizenship, because - other than one's actual identity - that's the only question at issue when applying for a passport.

In this case, however, they are doing so based on a possibly amended Certification of Live Birth. If amended, then absent evidence to the contrary - which I'm honestly looking for but haven't found - the original could still show a different place of birth. But the State Department wouldn't care if the Certificate had ever been amended, since the short-form COLB certifies what they need certified: citizenship.

So let's say YOU are the passport processing dweeb down in Norwalk and you've accepted this COLB as evidence in an application for a new passport. Your supervisor comes up to you saying they have CNN on the line, and asks, "hey, does that COLB you have in your hand prove that the applicant was born in the place of birth listed on the document?" If you answer, "yes," then you're assuming the document you have represents a record that was never amended, and that there's no original in Hawaii that shows a different place of birth. If it turns out you're wrong, then you'll most likely be out "Spreadin' Wealth for Obama" next year as part of the new WPA for the recently unemployed.

So the bottom line is that this situation doesn't speak to the Article II requirement at all.

255 Factcheck says the form Obama released complies with the passport requirement. They link to the online application for a passport (pdf) which says proof for US citizenship must include the following:

a. APPLICANTS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES: Submit a previous U.S. passport or certified birth certificate. A birth certificate must include your full name,
the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such
records.

It seems that the COLB that Obama released meets these criteria.

256 If they accept the computer-generated short-form for a passport, what are they accepting? They're accepting proof of citizenship, because - other than one's actual identity - that's the only question at issue when applying for a passport.

goy @ 254

They are accepting that he was born in the US making him a natural born US citizen. You can not refute that the rule is if you are born in the US, you are a natural born citizen (unless you are the child of a foreign sovereign, a minister of a foreign sovereign or foreign occupier).

In this case, however, they are doing so based on a possibly amended Certification of Live Birth.

See my post above. It's acceptable for a passport. Do you think they check everyone (or any) they get for possible amendments? Answer...no.

Again, he has provided a document the US government accepts as proof of natural born citizenship. You are hinting darkly that it may have been altered. You offer no proof it was. The burden is on you, not him.

257  Posted by: cadetwithchips2 at December 09, 2008 02:33 PM (PoUlE)

- This is for people looking to prove Native Hawaiian blood, and not whether they were physically born in the State of Hawaii.  It is not the same issue.

Completely agree, cadet. I'm not asserting they're the same issue. I'm pointing out that the State of Hawaii doesn't consider this document to be sufficient to completely resolve one's birth record.

Based on your subsequent, the State Dept. probably wouldn't accept it either. Thanks for finding that.

258 No, it doesnt prove what race you are, not your birth

259 I'm pointing out that the State of Hawaii doesn't consider this document to be sufficient to completely resolve one's birth record.

goy, that's not at all what cadet said. His point was they don't accept it because it says nothing about his ethnic heritage when it comes to a program based on how much native blood a perspective participant has.. Here's a hint...neither does yours or mine. No one's does, that's not what birth certificates are for.

260 Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 03:01 PM (hlYel)

- Do you think they check everyone (or any) they get for possible amendments? Answer...no.

Of course not. And the reason is simple: they don't care if it was amended. That's the point.

All they care about is whether or not it's current, and it fits the description on the application form. The reason they don't care is that they are not certifying natural born citizenship when they issue a passport. Since issuance of a passport doesn't certify natural born citizenship, then it's not equivalent to fulfillment of Article II. The statement by FactCheck is just a red herring: qualification for a passport is not the same as proving natural born citizenship.


- They are accepting that he was born in the US...

No. They are recognizing the fact that he has a current, valid US birth certificate that lists his correct identity and shows he's a U.S. citizen eligible for a passport. If the place of birth listed on the COLB was Nairobi, because the parents were on holiday there when the birth occurred, they would still issue the passport. So accepting the COLB for passport is completely orthogonal to the actual place of birth.

261 The Birth Certificate is ultimately a MacGuffin, anyway.

1. An unwed US citizen
2. Who was physically present in the US for any 365 consecutive days
3. Gives birth on/after Christmas Eve, 1952
4. Anywhere on Earth, Omicron Persei 8, you name it,
Has borne an American Citizen.

Generally speaking.

262 So let me get this straight. The one in the vault may say he was born in say, Kenya or somewhere other than Hawaii. They also know that their department issued a COLB that said he was born in Hawaii but they are just going to ignore the fact that one is obviously wrong even though they are the two people legally responsible for maintaining the integrity of the state's vital records.

Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that one but thanks.

This is one of the arguments that makes me think he was born in Hawaii.

263 The reason they don't care is that they are not certifying natural born citizenship when they issue a passport.

That's not true. If you are a naturalized citizen or are  you have to provide a shit load more (here are the two theoretically relevant categories from the link above):

2) If You Claim Citizenship Through Birth Abroad To One U.S. Citizen Parent: Submit a Consular Report of Birth (Form FS–240), Certification of Birth (Form
DS–1350 or FS–545), or your foreign birth certificate, proof of citizenship of your parent, your parents’ marriage certificate, and an affidavit showing
all of your U.S. citizen parent’s periods and places of residence/physical presence in the United States and abroad before your birth.

3) If You Claim Citizenship Through Birth Abroad To Two U.S. Citizen Parents: Submit a Consular Report of Birth (Form FS–240), Certification of Birth (Form
DS–1350 or FS–545), or your foreign birth certificate, parents’ marriage certificate, proof of your parents’ citizenship, and an affidavit showing all of
your U.S. citizen parents’ periods and places of residence/physical presence in the United States and abroad before your birth.

The  COLB could not and would not be accepted if for a non-US territory birth.

If the place of birth listed on the COLB was Nairobi, because the parents were on holiday there when the birth occurred, they would still issue the passport.

But it doesn't say that, does it? No, it says Honolulu.

Now you'll say, but it could have been amended.

A-It's up to you to prove that

and

B- As I pointed out last night, you need to show evidence for something when you have your certificate amended, you can't just fill in whatever you want. So now your theory isn't just that it may have been amended but that Obama also provided false information to cover up his alleged foreign birth.

Not only do you have nothing approaching proof of any of this but you don't have anything that approaches the level of generating reasonable suspicion.

264 Those State officials are specifically bound by Hawaii's privacy laws to say no more, they can not comment on - and may not have actually seen the contents of the file.

On the other hand, that's true, too.

265 Brewdog@225:  What that was about was not wanting to cross the incoming Obama administration. Not wanting to be the one reporter who makes waves

I agree. But what these suck-ups never seem to get is that Machiavellian political honchos (such as our new Chicago-Thug-in-Chief) see right through the brown- nosing and ass-kissing. They either laugh at how pitiful these dupes are--or they just despise them and hold them in contempt lower than garden slugs. Either way, the suck-ups are just pawns to be manipulated---very useful idiots.

But it's not only journalists. What about the politicians?

In fact--forgive me for asking this, but--is it possible that John McCain himself succumbed to this? Meaning: He figured out there was no way he could win, and so he started looking out for his future in the Senate, where he could be really punished if he burned all bridges with Obama? That could sure explain some of his maddening wussiness, such as declaring Rev. AmeriKKA off limits.

266 Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 03:08 PM (hlYel)

- His point was they don't accept it because it says nothing about his ethnic heritage...

Well, if that was his point, then he's wrong. The ethnic heritage determined by the combined documentation listed in the requirements (parents' docs, etc.). The ultimate goal in this particular case is to determine the applicant's Hawaiian lineage. As you say, no birth record - of itself - will prove that.

So, what the State of Hawaii is effectively saying here is that the Certification is not of high enough quality to make this determination, and that if one decides to use that, they're just going to have to go look up the related, original long-form COLB anyway, so you may as well provide that to start with.

The reason they judge it of insufficient quality is because the Certification may have been amended, but the short-form document itself won't reflect that. For instance, for the purposes of this Act, you might have been adopted by genuine Hawaiian natives, which isn't something the short-form Certification will indicate. Your long-form COLB, however, will be annotated regarding the amendment for the adoption and the original on file may show that you're not native born. So it's not moi hinting darkly at anything - it's the inherent nature and quality of the documentation itself. The quality of the document is the issue, not the specific use it's being put to. This is why I assert that it's a fair comparison - not apples vs. oranges.

My assertion - which you're certainly welcome to argue - is that there's no reason not to require this same standard of quality for proving natural born citizenship per Article II. In fact that's the minimum standard we should require. That is, if you only provide the Certification, we're just going to have to go look up the original, long-form COL... OOPS! BHO has that original under lock and key and protected by multiple law firms. So there's a problem.

267 The reason they judge it of insufficient quality is because the Certification may have been amended, but the short-form document itself won't reflect that.
Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 03:40 PM (BCIGN)

No, it's insufficient for that program because no birth certificate tells you anything about the ethnic heritage of the parents. It can tell you about their race but they aren't the same.

268 Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 03:27 PM (hlYel)

- Not only do you have nothing approaching proof of any of this but you don't have anything that approaches the level of generating reasonable suspicion.

Sorry Drew, the State of Hawaii doesn't have to provide anything that approaches the level of generating a reasonable suspicion in order to require a document that is of the level of quality of the original, long-form COLB in order to determine the circumstances of one's birth absolutely - for purposes that are (IMHO) far less important than Article II qualifications to be President. So to my way of thinking, this entire line of reasoning is a blind alley. I don't need to accuse BHO of wrongdoing or substantiate "reasonable doubt" to demand that he comply with Consititutional requirements to the very best of his ability. He has the ability to release the best evidence available, and he should be compelled to do that.

I've never asserted that BHO's records were ever even amended. The point - per the State of Hawaii's opinion on the quality of the documentation - is that it could have been. That's why THEY require the original long-form COLB as the best evidence available for purposes like the Homestead Act. So I'm going on their opinion, not just making up an arbitrary standard.

If your contention is that we can ignore the legal opinion of the State of Hawaii, and that we don't need that level of quality for Article II qualification, then I'm happy to concede the point completely - on the basis that you don't really give a shit what the actual requirements are. Otherwise, we need to see the best evidence available: the original, long-form COLB, which we know exists and which BHO has the power to release with the almost trivial effort.

269 - No, it's insufficient for that program because no birth certificate tells you anything about the ethnic heritage of the parents.

Neither the short nor the long form does this, so you're arguing a point that is not relevant here.

In the case of the Act I cited, the entire package of documents is required to determine ethnic heritage. One item is the applicant's birth record. For this item, a computer-generated, short-form Certification is not considered of high enough quality to process the application. This is plainly stated in the excerpt. The reason is because it won't reflect any amendments. Only the original, long-form COLB will have that.

270 goy,

Did you demand that Bush or Clinton release their birth certificates?

Personally, I've seen more evidence and reporting that Obama is a native born citizen than I have with either one of them. He's produced a document that meets the US State Departments criteria for determining native born citizenship. I've never seen any such documentation about any former president.

Now, I have no doubt that Bush, Clinton, et al were qualified to hold the office but I'm wondering why Obama, who has provided more than any of them, is still thought to have not provided enough. There must be some basis for your suspicion of him and not them.

Personally, I don't think presidents, even ones I don't like, should have to respond to every crackpot charge made on the internet (and yes, I think morning zoo radio show inteviews and truther translations of proud grandmothers qualify as crackpot compared to legally accepted documents).

Unless you can show something wrong (not maybe wrong or possible wrong or could be wrong if....but actually wrong) with  the document he's provided, then I have to say it's nothing more than a wacko conspiracy theory.

271

After a conversation with some friends, we came to a speculative conclusion.

Those who are fighting to keep O's cert under wraps think there's something amiss.  But to discover it now would throw the nation into turmoil of huge proportions.

Thus, it's better not to know.  So even conservatives take up the unusual--for conservatives--tactic of ridicule. Because they have nothing else.

Imagine a Biden regency.  The cabinet stuffs him into the Oval Office and unplugs the phones.

272 Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 04:08 PM (hlYel)

- Did you demand that Bush or Clinton release their birth certificates?

Do you know that they didn't? I do know that BHO didn't. Did they hire an army of attorneys to hide the information? I do know that BHO did. I know that McCain's documentation was demanded. And I know he produced that. Since we're not discussing any of those folks, does this question have some relevance?


- ... I don't think presidents, even ones I don't like, should have to respond to every crackpot charge ...

Ditto. But then I don't view the Article II requirement, or BHO's solemn responsibility to meet it to the absolute best of his ability, as a crackpot... anything.


- Unless you can show something wrong (not maybe wrong or possible wrong or could be wrong if....but actually wrong) with  the document he's provided, then I have to say it's nothing more than a wacko conspiracy theory.

Your opinion, Drew. Not very well supported or compelling, arbitrary as it is, but you're certainly within your rights to hold it. IMHO, what's wrong with the document he's provided is already determined by the requirements of the State of Hawaii, which I've already clearly outlined.

273

Posted by: DrewM. at December 09, 2008 12:11 PM (hlYel)

This is your 'proof' of that I suppose?

LOL! No, you suppose wrong. But thanks for that video link, it'll help convince some of our more literacy-challenged friends out there.   Anyway, the real evidence is a recorded phone conversation where Obama's grandmother unequivocally says she was present in the delivery room for his birth in Kenya. Unfortunately I think she is speaking Swahili at the time, so it could just be an interpreter dicking around with us.   As far as his half-brother and half-sister go, all I've seen are news reports referring to Berg's suit. Berg felt confident enough to mention their testimony in his suit, where any other lawyer (including Obama's sharks) could shoot it down, but nobody has picked up the gauntlet. Either he's a liar with balls the size of Phobos and Deimos, or he's got something real.  
Hey, John Kennedy said he was a Berliner...maybe we should have checked his birth certificate! Or, or maybe that's why they had him killed. Oooooooh.
LOL! You're so cute when you're pissed off. Stupid and likely to have a massive stroke, but cute.

274 Posted by: angryoldfatman at December 09, 2008 04:29 PM (ZtI4m)

If you came though a Port of Entry claiming your citizenship is evidenced by your grandmother's say-so on phone recording, you would find yourself stuck on the outside looking in.

275 Posted by: angryoldfatman at December 09, 2008 04:29 PM (ZtI4m)

You haven't read Berg's suit?  Before you put your faith in his confidence, you really should. Blindly staking your argument on a guy who cites wikipedia in his lawsuit might lead you to beclowing yourself and we wouldn't want that.

Actually it's too late for that isn't it?  You haven't even read the original source materiel you find so convincing and yet you're convinced it's right and people who have read it and debunked it are wrong. That's awesome!

FTR- It's here, have fun. Read it and tell me if you are still convinced Berg is where you want to hang your hat.

276 Kathy ...."Hmmm....how to not get caught by the OT police--how to somehow tie this back to Obama? Well, Obama's beloved FOCA will take away doctors', nurses' and pharmacists' freedom-of-conscience rights. So, for example, the new totally pro-life pharmacies that have opened up shop in the last few years (pharmacies that do not sell ANY contraceptives, such as Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy, you can google it) would be forced by federal law to start selling contraceptives or else be shut down. Doctors who instruct their patients in Natural Family Planning--at the patients' own request--would have to start offering contraception, or else lose their license to practice medicine."

 Okay you totally lost me. Are you saying that selling contraceptives is a bad thing?
 Personally, I don't think pharmacists should be able to decide what drugs they sell. Doctor's prescribe, pharms. fill. Period.
 No one is going to catch contraceptive cooties from going into a pharmacy that sells them. If you don't want them, don't use them....but seriously pharmacies that play "church" should lose their licenses. The whole concept sounds more like something you would see in Iran frankly. And the stats you use for birth control pills are stats the pharma companies use to legally cover their butts.Trust me, this I know as I do business with them week in and week out.....
 How many women do you know personally that actually took the pill as prescribed but became pregnant anyway? I'll bet the answer is zero.
 This is the same argument that pro abortion people use only they talk about coat hangers in dark alleys......
 Red herring is the general term for it...

277 Oh, and Drew...you are a real ass.

278 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 04:45 PM (aUut1)

Considering some of the crap you've written on this thread, I'm just going to take that as a compliment.

279 okay drew...i'll bite. name that crap!

280 Posted by: Y-not at December 09, 2008 01:52 PM (dC8te)

What I'm aware of is a press release from the State official certifying that she has seen the birth certificate for Obama that is in the State of Hawaii's possession, not what the contents of that birth certificate are. I haven't seen an official release of the contents from a neutral party. Is there one?

FactChect is about as neutral as you're going to find.  As for Hawaii, one would think that far from trying to tone down the controversy, a republican Administration would be demanding charges be laid if Obama was disseminating a forged State-issued document.

I haven't been tracking this closely, but it seems to me that if Obama authorized Hawaii to release the birth certificate that they have in their possession for examination by a court

No court has asked for it, so why would they?

and for dissemination (via facsimile obviously) through the media, this would all be over.

It wasn''t over when they released the short form for media examination, so why would it be if they released the long form?

281 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 04:58 PM (aUut1)

Let's see, a quick search shows several posts about Obama's mom:

Posted by: christmasghost at December 08, 2008 09:46 PM (aUut1)
Posted by: christmasghost at December 08, 2008 10:42 PM (aUut1)

Sure the language can get rough here at AoS HQ but you just sound like a bitch going after a dead woman you never actually met.  You are entitled to your opinion of her, just as I'm entitled to my opinion of your posts as 'crap'.

You also never got around to providing a link that would back up your assertion that Obama couldn't have traveled to Pakistan on an American passport. That's generaly how trolls act. I'm not saying you're a troll but it adds to the 'crap' factor.

And of course, your botched abortion joke.

I didn't see many, if any, links in your comments pointing to any actual facts, just a lot of ranting.  This issue obviously upsets you a lot but you haven't actually added any facts to the debate. You seem to confuse bluster for argument, so I'm going to stick with my description of many of your comments as 'crap'.

282 Birth certificate posts are great for comments aren't they.

I am positive the Obama's long form BC in Hawaii list his birthplace as Honolulu. There may be some stupid thing on it he wants hidden but it's not his place of birth.

Obama can not under law give up his citizenship until he is 18, so it does not matter what he or his step father did in Indonesia as a kid. If he used a Indonesian passport in college it might make him a dual citizen, but even then the constitution does not exclude dual citizens and that would be one tough thing to prove.

283 Eh, let me offer a preemptive apology. I shouldn't have said you 'sound like a bitch'.

I've been trying to cut down on my personal attacks (with varying degrees of success) and slipped there.

I'm sorry for that.

284 drew...nothing i wrote could even come close to this laughable point by you:
 "So the people at FactCheck.org who have seen and held the certificate and say it does have a raised seal, etc are what? In on it?"

 FactCheck Drew, seriously? Bwaaa haaaa haaaa
Didn't you get the memo? They should change their name to FatChance.....if you want truth that is....
 You sure do spend a lot of time carrying obama's water when all it would take is for him to man up and show his birth certificate. As one poster already pointed out, it's beyond appalling that Mr.all i's dotted and all t's crossed when it comes to his political opponents wouldn't see the absolute dishonesty he is committing by not releasing his cert.
 After all do you really think one of the main jobs for the next president of the United States is to worry the citizens unnecessarily?
 Hardly.....and it's not like we are asking for something out of the ordinary....it's a requirement for the job.
 But it seems it will be cake for him after all...he has dishonest jackasses like you covering his flabby ass.

285 Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 01:59 PM (BCIGN)

When I can find some statute that supports your claim that the place of birth can't possibly be amended with sufficient supporting documentation, I'll let you know. So far - nothing. If you know where it is, please post.

Have you actually checked out the entire Statute?  Let me know which part states one can change the place of birth rather than just registering it in Hawaii.

http://tinyurl.com/5g5nge

As you see from this part, if a certificate is given for a foreign birth, the foreign location is the one used, not Hawaii:

http://tinyurl.com/5q9eeb

I'd love to just take your word as authority on that Dave, but... :-)

If you think I'm mistaken, you can look it up.  It's easy to find, indeed I;m surprised you haven;t done so.  Check the State Department's website.

http://tinyurl.com/5wu9y2

http://tinyurl.com/2256gw

I find it amazing that people haven't made these elementary checks themselves.  The entire Hawaii law was a little hard to find, but not overly so, and a simple Google search found the State information immediately.

Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 03:15 PM (BCIGN)

If the place of birth listed on the COLB was Nairobi, because the parents were on holiday there when the birth occurred, they would still issue the passport.

Providing that the applicant proved he was a citizen through an additional bit of paperwork.  Of course in Obama's case, the COLB says Honolulu so that point is moot.

286 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 05:29 PM (aUut1)

Gee, where did I ever get the idea that you post link and fact free rants that make accusations with no supporting evidence?

How could I have been so blind to your meticulous sourcing and reasonable debate skills?

287 Posted by: dave aaa at December 09, 2008 05:30 PM (4baXc)

Uh, Dave? This link http://tinyurl.com/5g5nge goes to some section about the disposal of dead bodies.

Was there a cut and paste error or something?

288 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 05:29 PM (aUut1)

all it would take is for him to man up and show his birth certificate

To whom?  No court has asked for it and FactCheck, while not without bias, is as reliable, or more so, than any MSM outlet.  Besides, as I noted above, had Obama been uttering a forged document, then the Republican government of Hawaii would have taken note rather than try to defuse the controversy.  If they gave the vault copy to the Wshington Post, we'd hear the same cry's of forgery and conspiracy.

Besides the deranged and malicious who are filing frivolous suits, who does Obama need to convnce?  Those others who support this are a minority even among conservative like those here who generally think Obvamna is a crypto-Socialist influence peddlar who's soft on Islamist terrorism.  Quite frankly, you have no influence or traction among the Right, let alone among moderates and the Left.  He and his people couldn't care less about your opinions.

289 Gosh Drew, I must have missed all the "facts" you have presented here.
 And I would rather be an honest bitch than a dishonest ass any day....
 "Sure the language can get rough here at AoS HQ but you just sound like a bitch going after a dead woman you never actually met.  You are entitled to your opinion of her, just as I'm entitled to my opinion of your posts as 'crap'."
 amusing...to say the least. tell me what is "going after" a dead woman? or is it really just calling it what it is?
 do you really think she was canonized after she died and now everything is all sweetness and light? sure we all make mistakes in life....we are about to be burdened with her biggest one, and yes, you're damn right i am pissed about that. everyone should be.i was hoping that this election cycle would slap down the 60's losers once and for all....but nooooo, now we are stuck with the retread poster child.and all thanks to his creepy entitled do-whatever-you-want-and-to-hell-with the-consequences mother.and the consequences of the 60's shitheads always fall on everyone but them....

290 287 Posted by: dave aaa at December 09, 2008 05:30 PM (4baXc)

Uh, Dave? This link http://tinyurl.com/5g5nge goes to some section about the disposal of dead bodies.

Was there a cut and paste error or something?

Possibly.  It's my first try with tinyurl.  Try this one:

http://tinyurl.com/5q9eeb

291 dave @288.......
 "FactCheck, while not without bias, is as reliable, or more so, than any MSM outlet. "
 god, thanks for that laugh .....it's actually pretty tough to be less reliable than the MSM don't you think?
 but then this:
 "Quite frankly, you have no influence or traction among the Right, let alone among moderates and the Left.  He and his people couldn't care less about your opinions."
 dave...just exactly who are his people? now if i were drew i would be screaming racist, but i am assuming that you mean the people he surrounds himself with, right?
 did you hear? he was just elected by the functionally illiterate to lead the entire country....so as a citizen of that country i will state i don't give a rip what his people think. okay? we do not exist to amuse him, we are not subjects, he is our employee. perhaps everyone should try and remember that point.

292 I must have missed all the "facts" you have presented here.
Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 05:41 PM (aUut1)

Then I guess we need to add 'poor reader' to your list of short comings.

Off the top of my head I recall discussing US v. Wong Kim Ark quite a bit. There was the discussion of what the State Department requires in a birth certificate to prove citizenship, the Deonfrio lawsuit and laughable translations of Obama's grandmother alleging that Obama was born in Kenya (complete with links and all).

What exactly, beyond hysterical fact free rants and gratuitous insults of people you don't know have you provided again?

293 So what you're saying is, even if laws were/are broken, his hOliness is too big to fail? Tht's respect for the rule of law right there, that is. A fine Democrat respect, anyways. No thanks, if politicians aren't qualified by law for the office, they cannot assume the office. Almost as clear as 'shall not be infringed'. THAT is all.

294 Oh wow...how could I have missed all that? sarc/off.
"Off the top of my head I recall discussing US v. Wong Kim Ark [are you a constitutional lawyer drew? no?] quite a bit. There was the discussion of what the State Department requires [work for the state department? no?] in a birth certificate to prove citizenship, the Deonfrio lawsuit and laughable translations of Obama's grandmother alleging that Obama was born in Kenya (complete with links and all)."
All this is nothing but your opinion based on your take on the issue and your obvious desire to have your head as far up obama's backside as possible.You think it's laughable...most of us don't.
"Then I guess we need to add 'poor reader' to your list of short comings."
"What exactly, beyond hysterical fact free rants and gratuitous insults of people you don't know have you provided again?" See the irony yet?
   So Drew, after spending hours telling anyone and everyone that has serious doubts about the birth cert. how stupid they are, how invalid their worries and opinions are you make these statements?Now that is funny...pot meet kettle.
 I am interested in the truth in this matter, you are not.
You seem to be interested in covering obama's ass and your own [WAH! I don't want to look silly....]

295 So Drew, after spending hours telling anyone and everyone that has serious doubts about the birth cert. how stupid they are, how invalid their worries and opinions are you make these statements?
Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 06:17 PM (aUut1)

No, I've not said their worries are invalid but there understanding of the relevant laws is wrong and their 'proof' never seems to amount to much more than vague allegations they can't actually substantiate.

Let me ask you this, in post 161 you say, "if he was born in kenya [likely] (sic) ", what actual evidence do you have, or even reasonable basis to suspect, that he was likely born in Kenya?

296 Drew......what reason or proof do you have that he wasn't born in kenya?
 Seriously now, if you were obama and you were born in this country would you be paying lawyers [granted it's not like it's out of his pocket or anything] vast sums of money to keep your birth cert. away from the people you wish to "lead"?
 Common sense has to kick in here drew.
 And just because I am such a bitch I will take your ""if he was born in kenya [likely] (sic) ",
 And raise you a "No, I've not said their worries are invalid but there[sic] understanding of the relevant laws is wrong and their 'proof' never seems to amount to much more than vague allegations they can't actually substantiate. ."
 Can you substantiate that obama was actually born on US soil? No you cannot....
 So what is it that makes your argument more valid than anyone else's again?

297 Besides, as I noted above, had Obama been uttering a forged document, then the Republican government of Hawaii would have taken note rather than try to defuse the controversy.

Ok, now you're just being silly. Hawaii is hardly a red state, Gov. Lingle notwithstanding. There's no evidence that any political Republican operative has even seen or been given access to Obama's birth certificate, so stop acting like this document has been vetted by the loyal opposition just because Hawaii has a Republican governor.

If you read Dr. Fukino's statement she makes it really clear that just she and the Registrar of Vital Statistics have viewed the document... and she also makes a point of citing state law prohibiting release of the document "to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record." If Obama told them to release it, they would.

The whole point of the lawsuits is that many people are bothered by this apparent loophole in the constitution (or the courts' interpretation of it) that seems to prohibit anyone from requesting verification of a POTUS candidate's (or POTUS elect's) eligibility for office under the natural citizenship requirement. Obama's lawyers are fighting any/all requests so far to release this document.

298 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 07:00 PM (aUut1)

I admit I was wrong about something, you are a troll.  I ask you a direct question about a proof you have to substantiate your charge and you play a stupid game of challenging me to prove something.

Add that to making unsubstantiated claims and yeah, troll.

299 oh drew...good grief. do you always call people who disagree with you names?
 what i was trying to make you see [obviously without success] is that you don't have any more "proof" that he is a US citizen than i do that he isn't.
 if calling you on your silly assumptions and pompous know-it-all attitude about things you really know nothing about [ or at least no more than the rest of us know] makes me a "troll' and a "bitch" then so be it.
i'm down with that. at least i'm not a whiny bitchy ass of a 'guy'.

 by the way this parting shot of yours was hysterical "making unsubstantiated claims"
 me? you cannot be serious! you are the idiot claiming to be the oracle that witnessed obama's birth on US soil aren't you?

300 do you always call people who disagree with you names?
Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 07:19 PM (aUut1)

Says the person who showed up out of nowhere today and called me an asshole. Heh.

So which side of this debate should I come down on?

Let's see, there's a valid state document that says he was born in Hawaii, along with contemporaneous evidence indicating he was born there.

On the other hand there's you and a bunch of people who say he was born in Kenya. Not only do you offer no evidence to support your claim but you ignore every attempt to get you to provide any. I also need to consider that the leading proponent of the born in Kenya theory is a 9/11 Truther (nice company you keep there ghost).

There's also a group of people who say that even if he was born in the US he's not a natural born citizen because he father was a Kenyan. Obviously these people can't actually read the Supreme Court decision that refutes that position.

So, where do I come down? On the side of the evidence or the screaming people who have offered no proof?  Alas, since I'm not a mindless fool, I'll have to go with the evidence available. If that alienates me from a genius like you christmasghost, I'll just have to bear that burden.

301 "Says the person who showed up out of nowhere today and called me an asshole."
 wow...really, i did? where? i believe i called you an ass but accuracy is obviously not your thing.... neither is intellectual honesty.
 but it shows an important flaw in people's thinking today. you have to establish that you are a valid individual in a certain community before the truth you speak will be recognized as truth. that's just sad, and i'm sure the founders of this country are spinning in their graves at attitudes like these. consider the source ...sure.dismiss the source because of childish and petty i was here before you-itis? bullshit!
"Let's see, there's a valid state document that says he was born in Hawaii, along with contemporaneous evidence indicating he was born there.'
 another absolutely untrue statement from you. does the actual truth matter to you at all?
 and "On the other hand there's you and a bunch of people [do you write harry reid's press releases by any chance?] who say he was born in Kenya. Not only do you offer no evidence to support your claim but you ignore every attempt to get you to provide any. I also need to consider that the leading proponent of the born in Kenya theory is a 9/11 Truther (nice company you keep there ghost)."
 and just how am i keeping company with berg? talk about reaching. i'll bet you'll tell me i'm just like hitler next because i once did watercolors and sold them....
 all you are trying to do is shut down the discussion. you know damn well there is no document that says he was born in Hawaii...not that anyone has seen. and i would be willing to bet you quite a bit of money that it's because there isn't one.
 drew, can you tell me where he was born absolutely?
 no you can not. period.
 so to recap...DrewM's little agenda is to pretend to be michelle malkin at all times and shut down the discussion of whether or not obama is actually eleigible to be president.
 

302 dismiss the source because of childish and petty i was here before you-itis? bullshit!
Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 08:04 PM (aUut1)

No genius, I meant there was an going discussion today. Your first communication to me was to call me an 'ass'.

And what the hell do you think you are a 'source' of? My whole point is all you provide is unsourced rantings. Provide some damn proof for your nutter theories and I'll be happy to deal with them.

I don't know if Berg is a truther or not but Jerome Corsi is and he's the leading proponent of the Obama was born in Kenya theory (which you say is likely), so yeah, I'd say you two have a little more in common than your artistic habits.

No, I can't tell you exactly where he was born (since it was several years before I was born) but I do know that there is a legally accepted document that says he was born on August 4, 1961 at 7:24pm in Honolulu, Hawaii.

What do you got about where he was born?

303 Posted by: dave aaa at December 09, 2008 05:30 PM (4baXc)

Thanks Dave...

- Let me know which part states one can change the place of birth rather than just registering it in Hawaii.

Ok, lessee... the section on amendment process doesn't restrict the items that can be amended. It just discusses the procedure for  establishing a new version and says what has to happen to the original version and accompanying documentation explaining the update. That's this section - §338-17.7  Establishment of new certificates of birth:

http://tinyurl.com/6krbye


http://tinyurl.com/5q9eeb  ^(corrected)

As you see from this part, if a certificate is given for a foreign birth...

Hmmm... this is for adoption after a foreign birth, i.e., "... a person born in a foreign country and for whom a final decree of adoption has been entered ...". I think the section you were looking for was this - [§338-17.8]  Certificates for children born out of State:

http://tinyurl.com/5e7tpd

There's no stipulation in this section that addresses the location component. Presumably, the place of birth is recorded as wherever it occurred outside the State (of Hawaii). The section only specifies residency requirements for the parents, which it looks like BHO Sr. and Ann Dunham would have met.


- If you think I'm mistaken, you can look it up.  It's easy to find...

Do tell. I have looked. Good luck finding a controlling statute for BHO's convoluted circumstances. There's a specific reference here which reads "Section 1487, act June 27, 1952, ch. 477, title III, ch. 3, § 355, 66 Stat. 272, related to loss of American nationality through expatriation of parents." That is labeled "Repealed" wherever I find it, however. There's a somewhat related SCOTUS case -  Mandoli v. Acheson - but that discusses what happens if a minor continues to live in a foreign country beyond the age of majority after being expatriated by virtue of his parents' expatriation. Doesn't apply to BHO, but if the writ is granted, this might come into play if there isn't anything closer. If you find something that specifically relates to his circumstances, I'd like to read it.


- I find it amazing that people haven't made these elementary checks themselves.

Maybe that's because, as it turns out, it's not elementary in BHO's case. One parent's a U.S. Citizen, one's a foreign national. She was expatriated (to Indonesia). Indonesia has its own laws regarding citizenship, adoption, etc. Once living there as a minor Indonesian citizen (by virtue of adoption by Lolo Soetoro - evident since BHO took his name: Barry Soetoro), what's the controlling statute at that point? U.S. law or Indonesian law? And is there a U.S.-Indonesia treaty that addresses this? Can't find one. And the law references available on line don't appear to fit their specific circumstances. All of this is precisely why I'd prefer to see the SCOTUS sort it out.


- Of course in Obama's case, the COLB says Honolulu so that point is moot.

That's precisely my point on this issue. Qualification for a passport doesn't require being born in the U.S., which is why the passport office doesn't care if your BC is an amended one. So a cert's fitness for a passport doesn't necessarily prove that one is natural born, regardless of the place of birth listed. The two are orthogonal.

304 drew...once again there is no document that states he was born in hawaii that anyone has seen. hawaii registers births of children born elsewhere...or used to anyway.
 for you to throw out "truther" is beyond the pale. so basically what you are saying is that if a citizen wants proof that barack hussein obama is an actual natural born US citizen and so qualifies for the presidency then they are nuts like the people that said "the jews did it"?
 wow. that's beyond a reach...that's just creepy.
 "so yeah, I'd say you two have a little more in common than your artistic habits."
 and now i'm like hitler too?
 actually drew, my sweet, you fired the first shot at 168....when you accused me of having obama dreangement syndrome. so if you can't take the bullets don't shoot at people....that's a pretty common bit of knowledge even for someone like you.
 and by someone like you i mean useful idiot in training.
 perfect example: drew says..."My whole point is all you provide is unsourced rantings. Provide some damn proof for your nutter theories and I'll be happy to deal with them."
versus your 'sourced' rantings natch...oh wait except there aren't any sources except your fucking opinion.
 drew...you know who the crazy one here is? the one that keeps claiming he has seen a document that doesn't exist....and that would be you. now go lick malkin's hand....

305 christmas' - it basically comes down to whether or not you put faith in the computer-generated, short-form Certification of Live Birth document, which is the only tangible thing BHO has released that addresses his eligibility. That document has been deemed 'valid' in its own right, for what it's worth.

If one accepts that the computer-generated short form is equivalent to the original, long-form COLB on file with the Office of Vital Statistics - for the purposes of absolutely determining circumstances of birth - then one is comfortable that he was indeed born in Honolulu. So when someone says, "I've seen proof: an image of the validated birth certificate," that's what they're referring to, and why.

However, the State of Hawaii itself has specifically stated that they don't consider the computer-generated, short-form valid for the purposes of absolutely determining the circumstances of one's birth. They state that the original, long form COLB is required for that. Based on their statement, it's objectively clear that the short form is also not sufficient for the purposes of absolutely determining natural born citizenship status - especially when that status will determine the elegibility of someone who wants to play Leader of the Free World.

A court might see all this differently based on some legal precedent I'm not aware of, and while arguing the point here may be intellectually stimulating, for the purposes of actually resolving the issue itself, it's, well... pointless, because it comes down to either ignorance or a subjective choice. Most folks are ignorant of the fact that the State of Hawaii looks askance at the short form for more sensitive purposes like native Hawaiin ethnicity, so they blunder along assuming it's conclusive proof. Others - like Drew, et al., here, apparently - don't care what the State of Hawaii says, or don't accept that what they say applies in this case. Again: subjective choice.

The first half of the real problem here is with Hawaii's whacky birth certification documents. If there was only one document - like, say, NV where I was born - then there wouldn't be a "short-form" version to confuse the issue and none of this speculation could have occurred unless the document BHO produced specifically indicated that it had been amended. Then it would come down to what was amended, and why.

The second half of the real problem is that, given the current circumstances, we're not being allowed to make that determination, so nothing has been proved conclusively. There is no statutory definition that specifies how Article II eligibility is determined. Ultimately, I believe it comes down to the determination of the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS. If s/he deems the President-Elect eligible, it's on with the festivities. If not, well then things come to a screeching halt. I don't see the latter as likely, for reasons Ace has enumerated in the original post above.

Earlier today someone at PJM pointed out a facet that's been staring me in the face for a week or so, but which I'd simply been skipping over: the place of birth listed on Barry Soetoro's Indonesian school registration form is... Honolulu, USA.

The only conceivable way that could be wrong is if Lolo Soetoro lied about it (can't think of a reason why he would) or if BHO's original COLB was legally amended to change his place of birth to somewhere other than where he was actually born. Since I don't believe that occurred, I'm not going to speculate on what that might have entailed. But if it did occur, and that certificate had been provided when BHO was expatriated to Indonesia, "Honolulu, USA" would have simply been copied over without question, since Indonesia wouldn't care where he was actually born and - just like the passport situation - would have no reason to question it because it was a non-issue.

So given that, the preponderance of existing evidence indicates that BHO was born in Honolulu. I mention all this simply to point out that the actual place of BHO's birth is absolutely not the issue here. What is the issue is that BHO hasn't been compelled to provide evidence deemed sufficient by no less than the State of Hawaii to absolutely prove the circumstances of his birth and, thus, prove his citizenship status per Article II. As a Constitutional lawyer and former resident of Hawaii, BHO undoubtedly knows the State's view on the short form, and it's (again) his arrogance in assuming he can ignore that which is troubling.

And oh, before I forget, letting Drew get under your skin is also a subjective choice. :-)

306 goy.......ah....so on the indonesian papers it states that he was born in hawaii. hmm, i can't think of any reason for that to be a lie either unless there were something to be gained by having both mother and son be US citizens. perhaps there is...but let's face it we will never know.
 here we are dealing with the person who on jan. 20th will be the most powerful man on the planet and we don't know squat about him. i think that is what is bothering most people.....it's sure what is bothering me.
 and the fact that he isn't an american. i don't mean from the birth standpoint although it's definitely a possibility, i mean from the american life point of view. the only "america" he knows are the twisted worlds of the universities and chicago. god help us all.and he's a monster. capitol M monster...lies, infanticide tendencies,uber creepy friends that are all dishonest and or just plain murdering criminals.
 and then there is his upbringing. you know it really does matter how you were raised and where you were raised because it's the basis for your viewpoint on life in general.and when you read his books...!
i don't know about you, but the sheer magnitude of the ego and bullshit and how he brags about "playing" people worries me greatly.
 there are very bad times ahead and anyone that thinks otherwise is a fool.
 thanks for the comment about drew...but really drew didn't get under my skin so much as he brought out the stubborn american in me. when people like drew spend all their time trying to stop people from having their own ideas about things...well, that just isn't right.and ,i might add, it's what got us in this pickle in the first place. hasn't anyone noticed that everything drew was saying was basically "shut up and be politically correct because i don't want to look uncool for associating with you"?
 at one point when drew was especially annoying one of my employees tapped on my door and i waved for them to come in. they saw the look on my face i guess and asked if our numbers were down and i just said "nope, just a jackass annoying me" which made him laugh and he was smiling as he went out the door.and then he brought me a nice cup of tea....the total suck up. naw, actually it was really nice and i have drew to thank for that...in a way.
 besides people like drew are always there yapping in the background in any crisis and if things go really south they will be the ones selling everyione else out so they can be "popular".
 however they make really good targets.... ;-)

307 Posted by: christmasghost at December 09, 2008 05:50 PM (aUut1)

291 dave @288.......

You may want to clean the spittle off your screen before reading further.  I'll wait.




Ready?

it's actually pretty tough to be less reliable than the MSM don't you think?

In other words, there probably isn't a media outlet you'd trust should Obama release the vault copy.  I note particularly that you haven't offered an alternative set of people to whom he should present that document.   It's a good thing for him, then, that his job doesn't depend on your personal approval.

dave...just exactly who are his people? now if i were drew i would be screaming racist,

You're not Drew.  I've been lurking here long enough, though, to get the impression Drew is not likely to do so.  If I'm wrong, then I dare say Drew can scream for himself.  If he does, I'll resond to him.  

did you hear? he was just elected by the functionally illiterate to lead the entire country

No I didn't actually.  Can you cite anything to that effect?  Even if true, it doesn't matter.  Their votes count just as much as anyone elses.

as a citizen of that country i will state i don't give a rip what his people think. okay?

And given your lack of influence, the feeling is mutual - or would be if they cared enough to worry about what some guy posting on Ace thinks.

we do not exist to amuse him, we are not subjects, he is our employee.

And the consensus among his employers is that they are sufficiently convinced he is Constitutionally qualified enough for the job. The "proofs" presented that he is not are nowhere near compelling enough for about ninety-plus percent of his employers to make Obama do more  to satisfy them.  Demands that he "must" release the vault copy, to satisfy that tiny minority of a minority can be safely ignored.

308  Crazy's still going on? Sweeet.

309 Whether or not Obama was born in Hawaii...there's something on that birth certificate Obama doesn't want seen - or he wouldn't have taken the time and expense to keep it hidden.

When McCain's citizenship was questioned, he quickly produced his birth certificate, 'issued by Canal Zone health authorities, recording his birth in the Coco Solo "family hospital."'

Obama hedged for months and finally had the questionable certification posted at Daily Kos (?!) And then finally gave it to Factcheck,org to examine. I think I speak for many when I say that Factcheck.org shouldn't be the arbitor of what is  valid and constitutional proof of citizenship for the leader of the free world.

 Obama's spent an obscene amount of money on 3 law firms, (including Sandler, Reiff, and Young, who also represent CAIR) to avoid producing the vault COLB, and more lawsuits are appearing every other day. He could end it all very easily, but he doesn't.

Why this doesn't bother you, Drew, is beyond me.

Some might say that it's just something embarrassing, like his mother's marital status...but it could be any number of things... And if it's something that is  inconsistent  with the life story he's sold us, I think we should know that.

310 305 Posted by: goy at December 09, 2008 11:07 PM (G3AZj)

However, the State of Hawaii itself has specifically stated that they don't consider the computer-generated, short-form valid for the purposes of absolutely determining the circumstances of one's birth.

That's somewhat disengenuous.  The only issue for which they do not accept a short form COLB is to determine whether one is an aboriginal Polynesian Hawaiian.  It's quite good enough to determine simple date and place of birth, the only relevant issues here.

The first half of the real problem here is with Hawaii's whacky birth certification documents.

The confusion only exists in your mind.  You have made the claim that Hawaii will put a fraudulent place of birth on a birth certificate without backing it up.

The second half of the real problem is that, given the current circumstances, we're not being allowed to make that determination,

"We" didn't get to make the determination as to whether any president was born in the United States. It seems that the fifty states separately are provided with sworn declarations that a candidate meets the requirements.  You can bet that if there were any doubt, a candidate's political opponents would do the legwork.  In Obama's's case, I'm willing to bet that the Clintons did their homework at least a year ago and found nothing.

 What is the issue is that BHO hasn't been compelled to provide evidence deemed sufficient by no less than the State of Hawaii to absolutely prove the circumstances of his birth and, thus, prove his citizenship status per Article II.

See above.  That's flat-out wrong.

311 309 Posted by: Nice Deb at December 10, 2008 12:41 AM (/YynU)

He could end it all very easily, but he doesn't.

If he released a copy to the media, folks like christmasghost would say it doesn't matter because the media would willingly be complicit in committing fraud.  The same people who have been nit-picking a form they know little about would be claiming that the copy being released (the actual certificate isn't going to be passed around a news conference - he'll get a photcopy) is a forgery or is really an amended form and thus invalid, or some such sophistry.  The Bergs and others will still persue their frivolous and malicious cases.

312 One more thing.

Obama, with his.. non-typical...background, his associations with Communists, terrorists, radicals, and assorted douchbags...his quick rise to the top of the thoroughly corrupt Chicago political machine, and his well documented propensity to lie whenever it suits him...doesn't exactly inspire  confidence in many of us.

The MSM covered McCain's eligibility issue last spring more thoroughly than they have the Obama issue, and I find that extremely offensive when you consider McCain's personal history of service and sacrifice for this country v.s. Obama's.

313 If he released a copy to the media, folks like christmasghost would say it doesn't matter because the media would willingly be complicit in committing fraud.

 I would prefer that he produce the original, and think that would go a long way toward removing the doubts, myself, for most people, given that it isn't Daily Kos, or something like that he releases it to.

314 daveaaa....what are you? drew's more evil twin?
 "folks like christmasghost would say it doesn't matter "
oh really? you know this how?
 all obama has to do is release the actual birth cert. to the media so that we could all see it. at this point it would be better if the supreme court looked at it, but hey i ,just like a lot of other normal citizens want to know that he is actually eligible to serve.
 when was the last time you got a job with huge responsabilities and didn't have to prove you were qualified?
 "And the consensus among his employers is that they are sufficiently convinced he is Constitutionally qualified enough for the job."
 this comment of yours is assinine to say the least.
 tell you what...if you think that winning a popularity contest without any accomplishments under your belt at all, a complete record of failing at everything you do out of sheer laziness and then not even proving that you meet the most basic requirements for the job is just swell then the next time you need surgery be sure to go and find a gardener to do it for you.
 why use a doctor? it doesn't matter remember? and you wouldn't want to look all kooky and non inclusive either right?
 and that surgery will only affect you.
 this crap that obama is going to bring down will screw us all...so forgive me if i don't take your word for it, okay?

315 Why this doesn't bother you, Drew, is beyond me.

Deb,

I'm not saying there aren't a lot of things about Obama that don't bother me, there are. The basic difference I have with goy and many others is about the value of what he has already produced.

Based on what I've been able to find out, his COLB is what the state of Hawaii issues when you request a birth certificate (we've discussed extensively why and why that may not be enough but that's where I come down). Just because you and I would like to see the original document, doesn't mean there's any basis to compell him to provide it.

As for the lawsuits, I don't think he should have to respond to what has been filed thus far (with the possible exception of Keyes'). I've read Bergs filing, I've read Denofrio's filing and I've read an overview of the Connecticut suit and I think they are crap. I don't like Obama but if leftwingers filed that kind of shit against Bush or any Republican (and the Denofrio suit spends more time on McCain than Obama) conservatives would be ripping them new assholes.

Again, my assumption has been that there's something embarasing on the original certificiate but to me that's not a legally enforcable issue. To my mind he has provided sufficient evidence of his Article II elegibility.

316 I think I speak for many when I say that Factcheck.org shouldn't be the arbitor of what is  valid and constitutional proof of citizenship for the leader of the free world.

As far as I can tell from reading the Berg and Donofrio suits, neither of them are charging that the COLB is forgered or asking to see it, Berg flat out says Obama was born Kenya and Donofrio says it doesn't matter where Obama was born since his dad wasn't a US citizen Obama can't be a natural born citizen.

As I said, I haven't read Keyes' suit, so that maybe different but the ones that have reached the Supreme Court don't even address the legitiamcay of the COLB.

No one has legally asked any court to examine it.

317 For those still interested,  I found the Keyes suit here.

He's clearly got the strongest case of the three. The CA Secretary of State did reject someone for not being old enough so they can't claim that it's not their job to check these things, though that was in 1968 so CA law may have changed since then (and for those scoring at home, one of my first comments on the other thread was that an elector or Secretary of State would have standing to challenge Obama).

I do wish that Keyes hadn't incorporated some of Berg and Donofrio's nuttier claims into his suit. I think it makes him look like a crank, well an even bigger one than I think he is already.

318 Posted by: Dave AAA at December 10, 2008 12:48 AM (6P49S)

Dave,

- That's somewhat disengenuous.  The only issue for which they do not accept a short form COLB ...

It's not the least bit disingenuous. What's disingenuous is claiming that a person can't possibly lose their nationality and then telling someone else to go find the proof, which doesn't clearly exist in BHO's unique case as far as I can find anywhere in USC Title 8.

No, as I've indicated above, you've made the subjective choice simply not to agree with the line of rationale I've outlined. This is likely not the only issue where the short-form restriction holds. I've identified a case where the quality of the short form is, by Hawaii's standards, not sufficient for the increased level of sensitivity involved. You reject it - it doesn't matter why, but it's clear to me that in the context of this discussion, it's because you have a larger agenda to uphold. Either way, it's clear that no matter how much time I were to spend identifying additional cases, it would be all too easy to simply make the same subjective choice and dismiss them as well. I'm not predicting that you will, just asserting that you could. That's why this is a matter for the courts to decide, based on relevant legal precedent, not your or my personal sensibilities on the issue.


- The confusion only exists in your mind.

Again, no. The confusion is clearly indicated in the documentation on the State of Hawaii's own website - which I linked to and excerpted, and which you've undoubtedly now read - where they're forced to clarify WHICH document to use for a specific purpose. If that point weren't confusing, such clarification wouldn't be required.


- You have made the claim that Hawaii will put a fraudulent place of birth on a birth certificate without backing it up.

No. That's a lie. I've made no such claim. What I wrote was that a short form Certification of Live Birth could effectively represent an original, on file, which had been legally amended (i.e., not "fraudulent", as you're now misrepresenting). There's nothing I've found in the Hawaii statutes that says an amendment (i.e., "new birth certificate") can't include a change in place of birth if sufficient documentation is provided**. I checked, and I provided you with the links, Dave.

[** Note that this is the only point open to you for rebuttal. That is, if the original was legally amended with documentation accepted by the State of Hawaii, then one is ostensibly correct in assuming that a short form proxy is accurate.

As indicated by the Home Stead ethnicity requirements, however, the problem arises in the current situation, where the significance of the fact being ascertained (i.e., natural born citizenship to fulfill Article II eligibility) is of such a sweeping and critical level of importance that the legally registered amendment and any supporting documentation would require secondary analysis and assessment to ascertain their validity beyond all reasonable doubt, in this larger and far more sensitive context. The rationale there is based on the possibility that a bureaucrat in the Office of Vital Statistics may have erred and accepted fraudulent or simply erroneous documentation.

This would be the highly scientific process known in my day as "dotting all the 'i's and crossing all the 't's". In this case the motivation would be to prevent anyone from tying up the U.S. government with some wild but technically plausible claim that it has never been proven legitimate. The burden of proof would be on the government, not the party raising this observation, because the observation is self-evident if the amendment was never verified beyond any reasonable doubt.

Tangentially, this is why I don't need to provide "reasonable doubt" or "accuse" BHO of some wrongdoing to raise the observation that - absent a determination by qualified legal authority that his short-form proxy is sufficient to attest to it, despite the State of Hawaii's position that it's not good enough even for a purpose that is far less critical - his eligibility remains undemonstrated and unproven.

Again, you may subjectively choose to disagree, which is why this is something that should be determined by qualified legal authorities based on existing legal precedent.]


- "We" didn't get to make the determination as to whether any president was born in the United States.

Read it again. That's precisely my point. Since we seem to be entering into an era where - as a society - we are no longer going to accept that politicians lie about everything BUT their eligibility to hold office, then this is a gaping hole in the electoral process that must be filled. And soon. BHO's case seems the perfect one to address this, since his origins, early life and current status are so very unique.

319 Posted by: DrewM. at December 10, 2008 09:44 AM (hlYel) 

- I do wish that Keyes hadn't incorporated some of Berg and Donofrio's nuttier claims into his suit.

BTW Drew - I noticed in Berg's petition for writ that he changed the Wikipedia cites in his original filing to the periodicals that the wiki text was originally drawn from.

Generally speaking, this is my frustration with Wikipedia. There's no denying its usefulness as a resource. And there's no denying its unreliability as a resource.

320 Posted by: goy at December 10, 2008 09:48 AM (BCIGN)

I suppose that's something but I find the original sources less than impressive as well. In different interviews (one was with the newsletter for Obama's old school) Obama's younger half-sister gives different names for the hospital where Obama was born. Now his sister is younger than he is and was born and raised in Indonesia (she is definitely not eligible to be President!) so this doesn't exactly surprise me or strike me literally as grounds for a federal case.

I have a younger half-brother and sister and I guarantee you they don't know the name of the hospital where I was born.

So yeah, original sources are better but they still need to be judged.

And on an unrelated note, may I just say how much I hate this fucking link filter? Every time I copy goy's "Posted by" information and forget to remove the url in his name the filter kicks in. FRACK!

321 Posted by: DrewM. at December 10, 2008 10:00 AM (hlYel)

Drew - I tend to agree. I can only surmise that he added that stuff to raise the point that various members of BHO's family have given different accounts at different times regarding his place of birth, which would have motivated an investigation into what the deal actually was. One plays the cards one's dealt, I suppose. In any case, I think his petition reads better than the filing you linked to the other day (which, by the way, I had not realized was not the petition - so my apologies for claiming you didn't realize I'd already posted a link to it twice).


On the other thing - I tried to change my URL to a tinyURL... just for you. Then I got the following error message:
"Your website (tinyurl.com) has been banned. If you feel this is in error, please contact the blog owner by email."Talk about lame. I've shortened it to just the base domain - hopefully that'll fix it.

For the record, I find the comment widget here frustrating in the extreme overall; especially in that it doesn't survive browser refreshes or Back/Forward "accidents" as others do (my page FWD/BACK are the buttons on the side of my mouse). Most frustrating of all, however, is the BS restriction on URL length, which I can't say I've ever seen anywhere on any other blogging package or service.

322 For the record, I find the comment widget here frustrating in the extreme overall;

Ah...the sweet sensation of common ground!

323 Posted by: DrewM. at December 10, 2008 11:01 AM (hlYel)

- Ah...the sweet sensation of common ground!

Posted by: DrewM. at December 10, 2008 09:44 AM (hlYel)

- He's clearly got the strongest case of the three.


Drew, if by that you're referring to the merits of his case as well as his chance of overcoming the lack of standing issue, then we have more common ground than might be apparent. At least regarding just this one issue. On everything else I've been reading here over the past year+, we see pretty much eye-to-eye (I haven't commented much because, er, I frelling hate the comment widget).

Anyway, Keyes' arguments cover much of the same ground I've been arguing here and in the other thread. Paragraphs 65, 67, 68 and 73-75 all discuss pretty much what I've been asserting, especially 75:

"The vault (long Version) birth certificate, per Hawaiian Statute 883.176 allows the birth in another State or another country to be registered in Hawaii. Box 7C of the vault Certificate of Live Birth contains a question, whether the birth was in Hawaii or another State or Country. Therefore, the only way to verify the exact location of birth is to review a certified copy or the original vault Certificate of Live Birth and compare the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor against the birthing records on file at the hospital noted on the Certificate of the Live Birth."

I find that pretty interesting in that I hadn't seen his writ until you posted the link.

324 Drew, if by that you're referring to the merits of his case as well as his chance of overcoming the lack of standing issue, then we have more common ground than might be apparent

goy,

At the risk of ruining a good thing...

I'm not 100% convinced Keyes has standing (my preference would be an elector or State Secretary of State), though I do know courts have used far more elastic standards than this would require so I wouldn't argue if he were granted it.

As for the merits, if his position was everyone who is on the ballot should have to pony up the same kind of birth certificate to ensure they all meet Constitutional muster, I'd say that was reasonable and might have a chance at winning.

I think we agree on that point.

You and I simply disagree on the validity of the COLB (and I don't think either of us want to rehash that). I'm also not convinced he has offered any sort of reasonable suspicion (to use a term that doesn't really apply to civil cases) to demand it.

My concern remains he singles out Obama because of the stuff Berg, Corsi and Donofrio have thrown out there to form a good chunk on his argument. To me, none of that rises to a level of legitimcacy to require Obama to do anything more than anyone else.

Anyway, I'm glad you overcame your aversion to new comment thingy and will continue to chime in on other threads in the future. I often wonder how to get lurkers to participate, I'm not sure pissing them off is a winning strategy but whatever works I guess.

325 Posted by: goy at December 10, 2008 09:44 AM (BCIGN)

It's not the least bit disingenuous.

Unless I've missed something in over three hundred posts, you've posted nothing to show that a Hawaii short form COLB is not fully acceptable as proof of citizenship for US government purposes. Ethnicity is completely irrelevant.  This last has been pointed out to you, hence the "disengenous" comment.  You have also posted nothing to show that Hawaii will change the place of birth  Whether such a change would be criminally fraudulent, or just conversationally so, I'll  leave for lawyers.


this is a gaping hole in the electoral process that must be filled. And soon.

In over two hundred years, this issue has got to this point exactly once, and even that is clearly frivolous.  Whatever the process is for verifying a candidate's age and place of birth, they've been quite adequate so far.

326 Posted by: Dave AAA at December 10, 2008 01:03 PM (YRncP)

- Unless I've missed something in over three hundred posts, you've posted nothing to show that a Hawaii short form COLB is not fully acceptable as proof of citizenship for US government purposes.

Since I agree that it IS acceptable for that purpose - for instance, I've agreed that it's sufficient to procure a passport - I would also agree that you haven't missed anything. Few people are arguing that BHO hasn't proved he's a US citizen.  I'm not, at any rate.

The purpose - I have stressed over and over again - that the short form is not sufficient for all by itself is to absolutely determine the circumstances of one's birth. I'm in agreement with the State of Hawaii on this point. And just as it's the first step necessary to absolutely determine one's native ethnicity, that determination is also the first step necessary to absolutely determine one's natural born citizenship status, which is the matter in question here.


- Ethnicity is completely irrelevant.

I agree. So does the State of Hawaii. This won't be clear until you recognize that the State of Hawaii won't accept the short form OR the long form COLB - by itself - to determine one's ethnicity. This means they deem the difference between these two documents to be a function of their respective intrinsic reliability. Since they won't accept either document alone as sufficient evidence to prove ethnicity, they're judging this difference independently of what the document is being used to ascertain, either alone or as part of a collection of records. Keyes actually outlines this difference in intrinsic reliability fairly clearly in his petition:

"... the report does not say whether the birth certificate in the “record” is a Certificate of Live Birth or a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth. In Hawaii, a Certificate of Live Birth resulting from hospital documentation, including a signature of an attending physician, is different from a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth. For births prior to 1972, a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth was the result of the uncorroborated testimony of one witness and was not generated by a hospital. Such a Certificate could be obtained up to one year from the date of the child’s birth. For that reason, its value as prima facie evidence is limited and could be overcome if any of the allegations of substantial evidence of birth outside Hawaii can be obtained. The vault (long Version) birth certificate, per Hawaiian Statute 883.176 allows the birth in another State or another country to be registered in Hawaii. Box 7C of the vault Certificate of Live Birth contains a question, whether the birth was in Hawaii or another State or Country. Therefore, the only way to verify the exact location of birth is to review a certified copy or the original vault Certificate of Live Birth and compare the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor against the birthing records on file at the hospital noted on the Certificate of the Live Birth." [emph. added]


- You have also posted nothing to show that Hawaii will change the place of birth.

Not necessary. The statute that covers birth record amendments - the link to which I have posted - doesn't place any restrictions at all on what can be changed. I'm sure this is by design, since anything else would open up a debate on why one element could be changed but not something else, different standards of documentation for different elements, etc.


- Whatever the process is for verifying a candidate's age and place of birth, they've been quite adequate so far.

You know what they say about the first time for everything: there's always one. The world changes, Dave. As it gets smaller and increasingly corrupt, and situations like BHO's become more prevalent (and I'm speaking on several levels here), this gaping hole needs to be filled so it never comes up again.

327 Posted by: DrewM. at December 10, 2008 12:50 PM (hlYel)

- I'm not sure pissing them off is a winning strategy but whatever works I guess.

lol - typically I don't expend the effort unless I think SOMEone's going to try to piss me off. Does that make me passively confrontational? Anyway, what's the point of a discussion if everyone's going to be in happy-happy, joy-joy agreement?

328

326  Posted by: goy at December 10, 2008 02:05 PM (BCIGN)

the short form is not sufficient for all by itself is to absolutely determine the circumstances of one's birth.

But only for things that aren't of any importance to the matter at hand.

This won't be clear until you recognize that the State of Hawaii won't accept the short form OR the long form COLB - by itself - to determine one's ethnicity

From this I take it you re pretty much unfamiliar with the entire concept of "irrelevant".

The statute that covers birth record amendments - the link to which I have posted - doesn't place any restrictions at all on what can be changed.

As I said, only one of the contingencies provided for, witness protection, might require a change in date or place of birth.   You can repeat your claim that place of birth can be changed more or less at whim as much as you wish, but that doesn't make it so.

this gaping hole needs to be filled so it never comes up again.

So what never comes up again?  Frivolous lawsuits and some exited discussion in chat rooms?  Asking a candidate to submit a birth certificate to some official, assuming they don't already, isn't going to stop that.

329 Sorry, missed putting this in:

allows the birth in another State or another country to be registered in Hawaii. Box 7C of the vault Certificate of Live Birth contains a question, whether the birth was in Hawaii or another State or Country.

Or at least that's Keyes claim.  The Certificate of Hawaiian Birth stuff mayb be intersting to some, but has no bearing here.  We're talking of a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth, the official title that state gives a birth certificate.  As for Box 7C, please be advierted to box 6a.  Note that it says "Place of Birth: City Town or Rural Location", not Place of Registration or some other circumlocution.  

http://tinyurl.com/4rnudo

The onus is now on you to show that a short form COLB will artbitrarily change the place of birth.

330 Dave, your responses are slowly devolving into one side of a pissing contest, I'm afraid. My bladder's currently empty, so I'll pass. I've already addressed the points you've raised (again) and I'm tired of pointing out the same facts over and over. You haven't presented anything new, only claimed an element is 'irrelevant' here or 'has no bearing' there. These are merely arbitrary opinions and not supported with any factually-based rationale detectable in your comments - like a link to a statute that explicitly lists Place of Birth as non-amendable, when the only statute available clearly indicates that the entire certificate is amendable.

The bottom line is that BHO has never proved his citizenship status beyond a reasonable doubt. This fact is self-evident. Very credible doubts have been raised about the authenticity and validity of the only documentation he's produced, and those who've claimed the document is 'valid' have not addressed the inconsistencies whatsoever.

You can make the subjective choice to simply ignore those consistencies, but it would have to be based on something like "BHO would never release a fraudulent birth certificate, so the inconsistencies must be bogus" or some such assumption. If so, just recall that at one time we used to let pretty much anyone simply walk into this country and get training on flying a 747 because many people assumed that fanatic islamist hijackers would never fly a commercial airliner into a building (let alone two or three or four). We know how well that assumption worked out. So if you choose to believe the DoH officials in the face of these inconsistencies, that's your prerogative, but you have no authority to demand that others do the same. That goes as well for folks like Rick Moran, Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans - not just the few "nutters" you're comfortably assuming - believe reasonable doubt exists as to BHO's origins. Over 150,000 people have signed WND's petition alone, and of those over 60,000 have paid to have letters FedEx'ed to the SCOTUS demanding a resolution of the issue. That's just WND, which you're certainly welcome to denigrate to your heart's content, but it won't change the numbers. If the demonstrably retarded fuckwits who didn't even know which Party controlled Congress can have their chosen candidate elected, then those who recognize this reasonable doubt, and who don't trust a known liar and fraud, are justified in requesting that the courts resolve the matter legally. Our differences on the value of a short-form aside, Drew has pointed out that the main sticking point there is in coming up with a petition sufficient in its legalese to motivate the SCOTUS to do that.

The bottom line is this: the matter can be simply resolved by releasing BHO's original, long-form COLB, which is a trivial process. My one and only assertion here is that the determination of whether or not it should be resolved in that manner is a job for the courts, not public opinion, as hacks like Mel Martinez would assert. Arguing all these ancillary questions (like Hawaii's view of the short form) is entertaining while there's someone who has a rational opposing viewpoint, and is willing to work to support it. But at this point it's just getting boring. Sorry.

331 Posted by: goy at December 11, 2008 11:55 AM (BCIGN)

The bottom line is that BHO has never proved his citizenship status beyond a reasonable doubt.

I very much disagree.  Nothing presented has raised a reasonable doubt.  The certificate has been seen by at least one reasonably independent body and found to be genuine.  The State of Hawaii has seen the original, issued a statement to the effect that the issue is nonsense, and very pointedly has taken no action against what would be a serious fraud.

based on something like "BHO would never release a fraudulent birth certificate,"

That argument is a strawman.  I haven't made it, and I don't think anyone here is making it.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans

Out of three hundred million. In other words, by your own admission, less than a third of one percent.  Yep.  If I were Obama, the thought of so few people whose main media champion is an obscure lunatic fringe website and who don't vote Democrat anyway, being upset would not have me worried.

The bottom line is this: the matter can be simply resolved by releasing BHO's original, long-form COLB,

Which of course, will then be claimed to be forged, incorrect, or amended. Additional proofs will be demanded ad infinitem, ad nauseum.  If a valid short form won;t do it, the long form won't either. 

like Hawaii's view of the short form

And more to the point, the view of the State Department of the United States of America.

332 - Additional proofs will be demanded ad infinitem, ad nauseum.

You were saying...? About straw man arguments, that is? This is the core of the error in your position.

- If I were Obama...

Be thankful you're not. None of the officials you cite have addressed the inconsistencies in the document they've validated. Neither have you. None of them have testified, let alone proved that the information on the document matches the information on the original, long-form COLB represented by the document. Neither have you. None of them have testified, let alone proved, that the original, long-form COLB has never been amended or, if so, why. Neither have you. These are the facts controlling the determination of eligibility and, as they presently stand, eligibility is not yet demonstrated, irrespective of your personal opinion on the document or your opinion on how the State Department might or might not wish to overrule the originator and final word on the value of the document.

The popular consensus seems to be that these inconsistencies can be dismissed by simply labeling them "fringe" or "crank" without actually addressing them directly. That's the same Rule 5 tactic being used to ignore anyone who believes BHO has never demonstrated his eligibility. Appeal to ridicule may be attractive, but it's not valid argument, whether or not BHO has reason to be "worried" about the number of people who might concur.

You (and many) seem to want to erroneously apply the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" here when it's a question of ineligible until proven eligible. The only available proof of eligibility is being held under legal lock and key.

333

332 - Posted by: goy at December 11, 2008 01:27 PM (BCIGN)

None of the officials you cite have addressed the inconsistencies in the document they've validated. Neither have you.

Because there aren't any.  A short form Hawaii COLB shows the true date and place of birth so far as can be reasonably determined.  There are no reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the one that has been presented is a forgery.

The popular consensus seems to be that these inconsistencies can be dismissed by simply labeling them "fringe" or "crank" without actually addressing them directly.

Mind you, that isn't what I'm saying.  I'm saying there are no inconsistencies and that there is no compelling legal or political reason for Obama to release the long form COLB.  Satsfying the tiny percenytage of  kooks, sore losers, and people who post on internet boards is not such a reason.

334 - Because there aren't any.

Dave, that's your apparently uninformed opinion. The flaws in this document have been widely reported. They've yet to be explained by those who claim it's 'valid'. But that's only part of the issue. See the rest. I've already demonstrated how a document like this can reference a legally amended original, rendering it useless for the purposes of absolutely determining natural born citizenship status - you simply choose to ignore it.


- ... so far as can be reasonably determined.

Qualifiers abound these days, don't they. Define "reasonably". Wait... no... the legal definition. When you eventually find it, you'll discover that it's relative to circumstances. The circumstances surrounding this particular issue are extraordinary and lack any compelling precedent. They have been so since 1960. So based on the term you've chosen to use, it's not excessive to apply strict standards on the issue of eligibility which leave no room whatsoever for reasonable doubt.

One additional thought that's tangential to the above. Assuming you could pursue the "innocent until proven guilty" ploy here, despite it's lack of applicability, what you'd be requiring is for someone to prove something while at the same time denying them access to the only tangible evidence that might provide proof. Hardly rational.


- Mind you, that isn't what I'm saying.

Excuse me?? Did I edit your comment to include the "lunatic fringe" bit? I hate to be the one to make you aware of this, my friend, but something like "lunatic fringe" is in the eye of the beholder.


- ... tiny percenytage of  kooks, sore losers ...

There you go again, Dave. Rule 5. You don't even realize when you're doing it. ;-)

335 goy....it seems both dave aaa and drew m are having a [not so] secret bromance with you-know-who.....
 my god, next they are going to tell us all that just because EVERONE obama knows and has done business in chicago and elsewhere are crooks, syrians, crooks, liars, cheats,bombers,and did i mention crooks[?] he is as pure as the "driven snow".
 yeah sure...but, the rest of us want to know who's been doing the "driving".....
 obama is an american and oprah only weighs 120 pounds.
 oh wait...that isn't true either....

336 - ... a [not so] secret bromance ...

Gee, that's not at all as bad as Dave's unconscious use of Rule 5.

Oh wait - yes it is!

See why we get nowhere on issues like this? One side calls people names, the other constructs a new straw man (e.g., 'next they are going to tell us...', etc.). Boring.

Anyone interested in another view of this topic might consider Randall Hoven's recent American Thinker article. Again, since I'm not an attorney I can't vouch for his legal reasoning. But it's head and shoulders, thoughtfulness-wise, over anything written by Moran, Malkin, Johnson, Horowitz or anyone else who's been jumping up and down demanding that the rest of us STFU.

On that note, by the way, I have to say how ironic I find it that LGF is littered with incessant whining about how Creationism is destroying the fabric of society. I'm sure MM has her own boogeymen as well. All I'm sayin' is they don't have a lot of room to talk, relatively speaking. Everyone has an issue they find fascinating and/or critical. Labeling those who don't agree with your own priorities as "Truther", "lunatic fringe", "True believer", etc. is lame 'reason' (at best). If one thinks the topic is a dead end, there's so much ELSE out there to argue about. This is why I know their motivation is to 'clean house' of the conservatives they think are adversely affecting their ability to wrest back the reins of power.

337 The thing about block 7c on a 1960's Hawaiian birth registration form stems from a stream of false statements about Hawaiian birth registration in the Alan Keyes lawsuit in California.

The certificate pictured just above this is a later version from 1978, but it still shows that row 7 is Mother's information. The Location of Birth is block was block 6a in 1961 (4b in the form on this page), and has no label about State or Country on either.

The whole 1960's Hawaiian Birth Registration thing is as false as block 7c being a place of birth.

338

I get a lot of rappelz rupees and the rappelz rupees are very important for me. Some of the rappelz gold is given by my friends who buy rupeesrappelz money to let me happy. Thanks for my friends and the cheap rappelz rupees.

 

 

339

I always heard something from my neighbor that he sometimes goes to the internet bar to play the game which will use him some Atlantica online Gold，he usually can win a lot of Atlantica Gold，then he let his friends all have some cheap Atlantica online Gold，his friends thank him very much for introducing them the Atlantica online money，they usually buy Atlantica online Gold together.

 

340

Yesterday, my boyfriend gave me a lot of Asda Story gold and I buy Asda Story Gold as the gift to return him. The Asda Story money is attractive and I have plenty of the cheap Asda Story gold.

341

Welcome to our company which sells all kinds of cabal online alz, very cheap cabal alz, and the more cabal gold. If you have to buy cabal alz, please come to our company, we can give you the best service for you to buy cabal money.

342

I am so glad to receive some wow gold and the World of Warcraft Gold is as my birthday gift. Some of the warcraft gold is very important for me that I will buy wow gold to go into the net game freely because the cheap wow gold is the key to the game.

 

343 Wedding Dresses

344 Some people like LV handbags,Some people like Chanel handbags,but most popel have been keeping an eye on cheap fashion brand handbags .we often talk about all kinds of designer handbags with my friends,most of my friends also like cheap fashion brand handbags.We admire cheap fashion brand handbags designer who often be able to design so many stylish handbags.We want to be a handbag抯 designer in the future too. In our store online，you can buy all series of cheap fashion brand handbags，include: Louis Vuitton,LV Luggage,LV Wallets,LV Agendas,LV Belts,LV Shoes,LV Accessories,Gucci,Gucci Wallets,Gucci Shoes,Marc Jacobs handbags,Marni handbags,Miu Miu handbags,Mulberry handbags,Prada handbags,Thomaswylde handbags,TOD handbags,Bottega Veneta handbags,D&G handbags,Dior handbags,YSL handbags,Coach handbags

345 UGG Boots Sale
ugg shoes
ugg classic
cheap ugg
UGG UK
bape shoes
bape shoes sale
cheap bape shoes
UGG UK
UGG boots sale
UGG Classic
discount UGG
UGG Bailey Button
UGG Amelie Suede
UGG Bailey Button
UGG Classic Cardy
cheap UGG Cardy
UGG Classic Crochet
UGG Classic Mini
UGG Classic Short
UGG Classic Tall
UGG Coquette Casual
UGG Gypsy Sandal
UGG Halendi Sandal
UGG Hammond Slipper
UGG Infant's Erin Baby
UGG KnightsBridge
UGG Layback Slipper
UGG Lo Pro Button
UGG Matala Sandal
UGG Napoule Sandal
UGG New Arrival 5389
UGG New Short Boots

346 Discount Boots
Womens UGG
UGG Shoes
UGG Australia
UGG UK
UGG USA
discount ugg boots
cheap ugg boots

347 buy Discount Boots
Womens UGG
UGG Shoes
UGG Australia
UGG UK
UGG USA
discount ugg boots
cheap ugg boots
air force 1 shoes
nike air force
air force 1 mens
air force 1 boots
air force onefrom usa

348 Come to our website for shopping with high quality and best service! There have new products,MBT M. Walk
and MBT Lami,Welcome everybody to buy it.

349 Buy discount ugg shoes
cheap ugg shoes
cheap ugg
ugg rainier
buy ugg
ugg usa
discount ugg boots
ugg 5825
ugg shoes sale
ugg sundance
ugg shoes
cheap ugg boots
ugg 5815
ugg sale
ugg uk
ugg knightsbridge
womens ugg boots
ugg boots
ugg australia
ugg 5819free shipping

350 buy [url=http://www.reviewups.com/]discount ugg shoes[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]cheap ugg shoes[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]cheap ugg[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/ugg-coquette-casual-shoes-c-22]ugg rainier[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]buy ugg[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg usa[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]discount ugg boots[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/ugg-classic-short-c-1]ugg 5825[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg shoes sale[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/ugg-sundance-c-5]ugg sundance[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg shoes[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]cheap ugg boots[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/ugg-classic-tall-c-3]ugg 5815[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg sale[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg uk[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/ugg-knightsbridge-c-27]ugg knightsbridge[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]womens ugg boots[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg boots[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/]ugg australia[/url]
[url=http://www.reviewups.com/ugg-classic-cardy-c-2]ugg 5819[/url]from usa

351 Fake Watches | Fake Watches | Replica Watches | Replica watches | Replica Cartier | Blancpain Fake Watches | Emporio Armani Watch Replica | Patek Philippe Replica Watches | Swiss Fake Watches | Replica Daniel Roth Watch | Alain Silberstein Watch | Replica Ebel Watches | Michele Replica | Girard Perregaux Replica Watch | Jacques Lemans Watch

352 Fake Watches | Replica watches | Replica Rolex | Replica watches | Replica watches | Swiss Chanel Ceramic Replica Watches | Replica Vacheron Watches | Girard Perregaux Replica Watch | Piaget Fake Watches | Girard Perregaux Watch Replica | Fake IWC Watches | Porsche Design Fake Watches | Piaget Watch | Gerald Genta Replica Watch | Fake Hublot Watches

353 Fake Watches | Replica watches | Replica Breitling Watches | Replica Omega | soccer jersey wholesale | Fake Cartier Watches | Breitling Replica Watch | Omega Watch Replica | Replica Girard Perregaux Watch | Replica Hublot Watches | Replica Aigner Watch | Replica Jacques Lemans Watches | Replica Hermes | Luxury watches | Omega Replica Watches

354 Replica Cartier | Replica Watches | replica soccer jersey | Replica Cartier | Replica Watches | Fake Versace Watches | Fake Bvlgari | Replica Movado | Cheap Chopard Fake Watch | best replica watches | Cheap Omega | Oris Wristwatch | Louis Vuitton Watch Replica | Fendi Watches | best replica watches

355 mbt cheap
mbt sale
mbt uk
mbt shoes cheap
buy mbt shoes
shoes mbt sale

356 The proper function of man is to live, but not to exist.ugg classic cardyConquer fear of death and you are put into possession of your life. ugg classic tallThere is a time to speak and a time to be silent. ugg knightsbridgefree shippingmbt cheap
mbt sale
mbt uk
mbt shoes cheap
MBT M.Walk

357 hot news for brand shoes online store ,do you want to win more discount ?and popular for younger,and nike air maxwith top quality A ,come on all air max shoes with lowest price for highest quality !

358 We supply authentic discount Lacoste Shoes
Lacoste Trainers
New Lacoste
Lacoste Sale
Mens Lacoste
camden lacoste trainers
lacoste trainers shoes
lacoste camden retro
camden lacoste trainers
lacoste carnaby shoes
lacoste carnaby retro
lacoste shoes sale
New Lacoste shoes
Lacoste shoes online
cheap Lacoste shoes
Lacoste shoe
mens lacoste shoes
Lacoste Shua Lace
Black Lace shoes
white Lace shoes
lacoste swerve shoes
White Lacoste shoes
Lacoste shoes sale
Cheap Lacoste shoes
Lacoste Women Shoes
Women Lacoste Shoes
Lacoste Shoes online
on line, cheap price,Top quality,Free shipping!

359 Plating Bangle Wholesale | Casting Earring Yiwu | Casting Pendant Fashion | Corrosion Bracelets Luxury | Plating Cufflink Cheap | Plating Bracelet Wholesale | Corrosion Bracelet Yiwu | Wholesale Stainless Steel Rings Jewelry | Tiffany Rings Yiwu | Cutting Pendant Fashion | Rubber Necklaces Cheap | Plating Tungsten Bracelet Best | Wholesale Stainless Steel Rings Jewelry | Corrosion Bracelets Luxury | Laser Rings | Casting Rings Wholesale | Jewelry Tool Best | Watches | Stainless Steel Earring Luxury | Laser Rings Wholesale

360 Jacques Lemans Fake Watches | Replica Seiko Watches | Replica Oris Watches | Watches Gucci Fashion | Louis Vuitton Replica Watches | Replica Swiss Watches | Franck Muller Fake Watches | Parmigiani Replica Watches | Panerai Fake Watches | Watches Panerai Fashion | Louis Vuitton Replica Watches | Richard Mille Fake Watches | Philip Stein Replica Watches | Porsche Design Fake Watches | Watches Omega Fashion | Patek Philippe Replica Watches | Watches Zenith Fashion | Replica Hamilton Watches | Watches Panerai Fashion | Replica Emporio Armani Watches

361 Best Cartier bags | Luxury Jacob & Co. handbags | Longines Fake Handbags | Replica Juicy Couture Handbags | Replica Fashion Oris handbags | Swiss Fake Handbags | Replica Montblanc Handbags | Best Richard Mille bags | Replica Fashion Graham handbags | Luxury Vacheron Constantin handbags | Raymond Weil Fake Handbags | Replica A Lange & Sohne Handbags | Luxury Tag Heuer handbags | Luxury RADO handbags | Bulgari Fake Handbags | Luxury Louis vuitton Belt handbags | Replica Michele Handbags | Luxury IWC Schaffhausen handbags | Roger Dubuis Replica bags | Glashutte Fake Handbags | Replica Fashion Bedat & CO handbags | Replica Fashion Breguet handbags | Oris Fake Handbags | Replica Porsche Design Handbags | Replica Tissot Handbags

362 Gucci Replica bags | Chanel Replica bags | Christian Dior Fake Handbags | Replica Chanel Handbags | Luxury Hermes handbags | Replica Fashion MiuMiu handbags | Luxury Balenciaga handbags | Best Marni bags | Luxury Hermes handbags | Best Gucci bags | Replica Fashion Louis Vuitton handbags | Replica Fashion Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore handbags | Luxury Louis Vuitton Sport handbags | Fendi Replica bags | Luxury Balenciaga handbags | Best Christian Dior bags | Best Marni bags | Replica Fashion Louis Vuitton Monogram Multicolore handbags | Louis Vuitton Belts Fake Handbags | Luxury Chanel handbags | Gucci Leather Replica bags | Replica Louis Vuitton Monogram Denim Handbags | Chanel Watches Replica bags | Replica Louis Vuitton Monogram Denim Handbags | Replica Miu Miu Handbags

363 Un total de once comunidades autnomas estn este jueves en alerta naranja Christmas gift ugg tall boots (riesgo importante) por nevadas y bajan las temperaturas en toda Espa09a, segn la Agencia Estatal de Meteorologa (AEMET). En concreto, se Christmas gift ugg napoule sandal trata de Aragn, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalu09a, Christmas gift timberland classic boots Madrid, Navarra, Comunidad Valenciana, Galicia, Pas Vasco, Asturias y Murcia. La cota de nieve bajar a menos de 200 metros en el CantbricoLa Pennsula Ibrica est bajo dos borrascas y un anticicln que crearn un pasillo que permitir el paso de una corriente de aire muy fro, como la que est provocando un temporal de fro glaciar en Europa, aunque es esperan que el fro que suframos no sea tan intenso como en otros pases. An as, se espera que las bajas temperaturas se mantengan hasta el domingo. La cota de nieve baja en el Cantbrico a menos de 200 metros

364 Gowns Wedding Gowns, Wedding Gowns Dresses

365

The H4 replica watches took replica watches Harrison a massive 13 years to replica watches construct-but this was only the end of a lifetime's work. His genius was clear from the very beginning. Unfortunately many astronomers such as Nevil Maskelyne were convinced that a mechanical solution replica watches would not work and that only astronomy could solve the replica watches longitude problem. The fact that Harrison was from a working class family and had little replica watches formal education probably didn't help his prospects.Solving the longitude problem through horology meant designing a timepiece that could work accurately at sea. When you watch consider the rolling waves, changes in replica watches temperature and generally adverse replica watches conditions the dificulty of this task becomes apparent.The H1 was completed in 1735 and proved replica successful at sea. However the Board of Longitude demanded a full a transatlantic wholesale watch voyage. They gave Harrison a grant of 500 pounds with which he began work on the H2 watches.

366 Certainly watches are Replica Watches used to help people record rolex Watches time, but rolex watches nowadays its functions have enlarged. Replica watches are now tag heuer Watches not only objects that tag heuer watches can tell you what time it is, they are also a status symbol. You should not feel strange when you find someone wearing a watch on his wrist, but use the cell phone to tell time. In that situation, the watch is just showing its luxurious function cartier watches. It is normal and cartier watches perhaps also happens to you. .If asked that among the watches of various brands, which one can suit your taste? There is no doubt that most people will choose Rolex. Whichever social class you are in, it is naturally Rolex was known breitling Watches and cherished breitling watches for a long time. However, the elements do not usually enter the market alone, always come with the price tag up to the hand. For this reason, many people, especially men, their dreams of luxury Rolex watches are buried in omega Watches his heart omega watches. What should I do? Rolex watches are simply stunning worn by the rich and famous, right? No, this world is not the world's richest men, is the world of each. All are equal before the search of luxury and be men's watches respected. Within men's watches, the law, when consumers are in the market, women's watches they should women's watches receive the same treatment. This is the real reason why replica Rolex watches are ladies watches ladies watches more welcome than Rolex. Because in this world are not difficult to understand that the rich are much less than people with low income, you agree with me? You are forced to nod and say with certainty that is the reality. These low-income people do not have enough money to save every month. They can not afford such luxury Rolex watches