Obama called to Georgia court to defend primary eligiblity

[Warren Dew]

Thanks for the excerpts from the opinion.

I note that the opinion only holds that people with two U.S. citizen parents who are born in the U.S. are natural born citizens, but does not exclude others from being natural born citizens.

[FBM]

It may be worth arguing in court, but I don't think it's going to unseat the Prez or keep him from running.

It is important to keep in mind when reading 300 year-old discussions of citizenship to foreigners that all states required foreigners to renounce their allegiance to their country of origin and pledge their sole allegiance to the state as a condition of residency. Therefore, children born to these foreigners even though the father might not yet been a citizen himself were considered born into the allegiance of the state because of their father’s sole allegiance to the state and not simply because of locality.

http://www.federalistblog.us/2008/11/na ... n_defined/

[Audley Strange]

Hmm, doesn't the fact that the public voted for him kind of make where he was squeezed out, moot? I mean if such legal trivialities as not having enough votes to be named president doesn't matter, why should his birthplace?

I'll tell you, this reminds me of nothing more than arguments about trueblood Aryans as opposed to filthy quarter-jew (on the grandmothers side) scum

There is nothing more cowardly than a racist that does not have the courage enough of his convictions to admit it, because in their hearts they know they are wrong. I like the unapologetic ones who try and attack conventionally perceived wisdom at every opportunity nor do I think their day is done yet.

[Seth]

Thanks for the excerpts from the opinion.

I note that the opinion only holds that people with two U.S. citizen parents who are born in the U.S. are natural born citizens, but does not exclude others from being natural born citizens.

Minor says that there is no doubt that a child born in the US to two US citizen parents is a "natural born citizen," but note that it says "Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [88 U.S. 162, 168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first."

Note that the opinion uses two different terms: "natives, or natural-born citizens" and "citizens" born within the US without reference to the citizenship of their parents.

If you read the opinion as a whole, the Court makes specific reference to "natural born citizen" in the qualifications for President, and then goes on to say that at the common-law, children born of two citizen parents are "natural born citizens," and then the court goes on to distinguish yet another class of citizen, which is "citizen" and which arguably applies to children born inside the US without regard to their parents citizenship.

Thus, we see the three classes stated: Naturalized citizen, citizen, and natural born citizen.

If their are three classes, which is evident from both the Constitution and the opinion, then something must distinguish each of those three classes from one another, otherwise the words in the Constitution limiting presidential qualification to "natural born citizen" is meaningless, and as the amicus brief says, there are no meaningless words in the Constitution, and every word must be construed to have meaning.

Since all three phrases are used in various places in the Constitution, "naturalized citizen," "citizen," and "natural born citizen" there must be three classes of citizenship.

So, excluding "naturalized citizen" as being obvious in its definition, we have "citizen" and "natural born citizen" remaining.

So what distinguishes a "citizen" from a "natural born citizen?" Something must, otherwise the "natural born" part is surplusage, and we know that that cannot be.

If you read the amicus brief, you will see a carefully constructed rationale based on the roots of American law, which is English law, and the usages and understandings of the time.

It's an interesting look into history, and briefly it has to do with several important historical English cases in which the nativity of a subject, and that subjects parents, was discussed as it pertains to the English common and statutory law.

The upshot of the argument is that it's clear that the understandings and intent of the Founders in specifying "natural born citizen" as an eligibility requirement for President was to prevent a President from even potentially having divided loyalties as a result of having one parent (or two for that matter) who are not US citizens, but owe their allegiance to another nation and may therefore exert undue influence on the occupant of the highest and most powerful political office on earth in ways that might be harmful to the Republic and the People.

The heightened citizenship requirement was put in place precisely to prevent someone like Obama from becoming President, who has as a parent a self-professed Marxist and Socialist who was not a US citizen, had no allegiance to the US but rather had strong allegiance to Kenya and was involved in Kenyan independence from Britain and was a radical anti-imperialist, who, along with Obama's mother, subjected his son to Marxist teachings and influences antithetical to the Constitution and Republic, and indeed removed him from the US to spend a large part of his life living and going to school outside the US.

Obama is everything that the Founders sought to avoid by placing the "natural born citizen" requirement in the Constitution in the first place.

[Seth]

Hmm, doesn't the fact that the public voted for him kind of make where he was squeezed out, moot? I mean if such legal trivialities as not having enough votes to be named president doesn't matter, why should his birthplace?

Because the Constitution limits eligibility for the office to "natural born citizens," that's why. If he ran, or is again running under false pretenses and he is not actually qualified to hold the office, but has lied, obstructed, obfuscated and covered up his ineligibility, the People have a right to know this, and the law says that he may not hold office. Obama has worked very hard to conceal his birth certificate, the circumstances of his birth and other salient factors about his eligibility to hold the office, and that naturally raises suspicions about his honesty, candor, and agenda for America. Now the matter is finally making it to a court of law, after years of evading a trial through legal manuvering. If he's qualified, then he has nothing to be afraid of, does he? So why would he fight so hard not to have the question adjudicated unless he is afraid of the consequences of an adverse ruling? He could have chosen to release the original copy of his hospital-record birth certificate years ago and thereby settled the issue with finality. He didn't, and spent millions trying to cover it up and keep it from being revealed. This raised reasonable suspicions in the minds of the public and now the chickens are coming home to roost, and he'll have his day in court and the rest of us will get some real answers.

I'll tell you, this reminds me of nothing more than arguments about trueblood Aryans as opposed to filthy quarter-jew (on the grandmothers side) scum

Sorry, but it's hardly unreasonable to demand that the President of the United States actually be eligible to hold that office and that he submit to whatever level of scrutiny about his background is required to prove beyond any doubt that he is eligible.

There is nothing more cowardly than a racist that does not have the courage enough of his convictions to admit it, because in their hearts they know they are wrong. I like the unapologetic ones who try and attack conventionally perceived wisdom at every opportunity nor do I think their day is done yet.

There is one thing more cowardly, and that's someone who tries to obliquely smear someone else using the "your a racist" canard when the debate has nothing whatever to do with race and everything to do with citizenship and legal eligibility. That sort of cowardice is below scum-like. It's positively depraved and evil.

It's pure irrelevant happenstance that Obama is black, what matters is where he and both his parents were born and what their US citizenship status is or was. I'd no more let Arnold Schwarzenegger hold the office of President than I would any other person who does not meet the most basic qualification to be President: being a natural born US citizen.

If Obama is not afraid of what a court (and ultimately the Supreme Court I'm sure) will decide about the meaning of "natural born citizen" as it applies to the presidency, then why doesn't he cooperate fully and brief the court with his legal arguments? His three-plus years of legal obstructionism indicates to many that he has something to hide, which makes them all the more eager to ferret out information and get a ruling that says he's not qualified to run for office. So, he's got no one but himself to blame.

[Seth]

It may be worth arguing in court, but I don't think it's going to unseat the Prez or keep him from running.

It is important to keep in mind when reading 300 year-old discussions of citizenship to foreigners that all states required foreigners to renounce their allegiance to their country of origin and pledge their sole allegiance to the state as a condition of residency. Therefore, children born to these foreigners even though the father might not yet been a citizen himself were considered born into the allegiance of the state because of their father’s sole allegiance to the state and not simply because of locality.

http://www.federalistblog.us/2008/11/na ... n_defined/

And that is generally true, but there is a higher standard set for holding the office of President, and that decision was a deliberate and calculated one by the Founders, and if the terms "citizen" (meaning someone born in the US to alien parent or parents) is synonymous with "natural born citizen" then the term "natural born citizen" has no distinct meaning, and that is not a permitted interpretation of the Constitution. One of the first rules of statutory interpretation is that every single word has meaning and that there are no words that are "surplusage."

Because the term "natural born" is used in conjunction with "citizen" in only one place in the Constitution, where it specifies an additional or extra eligibility requirement for holding the office of the President, and that "citizen" is used in many other places in the Constitution regarding eligibility for holding other federal offices such as Representative or Senator, it cannot be countenanced that the two terms, and therefore the two classes of citizenship are synonymous.

Nor does your quote mean anything anyway, because Obama's father was never a US citizen at all, he was a British subject through his citizenship in Kenya, and he was here on a student visa when he impregnated Obama's US citizen mother. This is an undisputed fact.

[FBM]

Yes, I see the strength of your argument and I think someone could push that angle to require a Supreme Court ruling or whatever would be appropriate. In any event, the writers of the Constitution did not deem it necessary to define what they meant by "natural born."

Natural-born citizen

Who is a natural-born citizen? Who, in other words, is a citizen at birth, such that that person can be a President someday?

The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: "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." But even this does not get specific enough. As usual, the Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps. The Constitution authorizes the Congress to do create clarifying legislation in Section 5 of the 14th Amendment; the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, also allows the Congress to create law regarding naturalization, which includes citizenship.

Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"
•Anyone born inside the United States *
•Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
•Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
•Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
•Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
•A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.

Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President.

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html

[Animavore]

This story hasn't even made news. Not even if I Google 'obama' on the News Search do I get this story up. Even if I put in 'Georgia' it is way down the page with only a small couple of articles in mainly Republican papers.

Is this story really as serious as made out?

Google "judge georgia primary obama"

And it's no surprise that the left-stream media aren't covering it, is it?

But it's for real.

Left stream, right stream. None of them.

[Animavore]

Even Fox News aren't giving it much coverage. A blog post and one of the minor subsidiaries is about it.

[Seth]

This story hasn't even made news. Not even if I Google 'obama' on the News Search do I get this story up. Even if I put in 'Georgia' it is way down the page with only a small couple of articles in mainly Republican papers.

Is this story really as serious as made out?

Google "judge georgia primary obama"

And it's no surprise that the left-stream media aren't covering it, is it?

But it's for real.

Left stream, right stream. None of them.

I counted at least six major news outlets, including Huffpo and Fox News on page one alone. Maybe your search results are different outside the US.

[FBM]

Faux News has a brief blurb on it. http://nation.foxnews.com/president-oba ... pear-court

[Animavore]

Could be. I use Google.ie. What's the American em...thingy.

[Seth]

Yes, I see the strength of your argument and I think someone could push that angle to require a Supreme Court ruling or whatever would be appropriate. In any event, the writers of the Constitution did not deem it necessary to define what they meant by "natural born."

Natural-born citizen

Who is a natural-born citizen? Who, in other words, is a citizen at birth, such that that person can be a President someday?

The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: "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." But even this does not get specific enough. As usual, the Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps. The Constitution authorizes the Congress to do create clarifying legislation in Section 5 of the 14th Amendment; the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, also allows the Congress to create law regarding naturalization, which includes citizenship. (my emphasis)

Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"
•Anyone born inside the United States *
•Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
•Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
•Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
•Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
•A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.

Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President.

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html

Not really relevant. The term "citizen of the US at birth" and "natural born citizen" are not synonymous. And Congress cannot "create clarifying legislation" regarding the provisions of Article II, Section 1. The only thing that counts there is the original intent of the Founders when they drafted the provision.

The 14th Amendment does not address, at all the qualifications to be President. Yes, it specifies who may be a citizen, as opposed to a "naturalized citizen," but it says nothing about "natural born citizen."

[Seth]

Even Fox News aren't giving it much coverage. A blog post and one of the minor subsidiaries is about it.

And you think that the amount of press coverage affects the legal issues at the bar how, exactly?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, it's mostly just running in the right wing loony presses and blogs as any sort of 'serious' story. Some of the left blogs have commented, and noted that Obama is ignoring the judge's call.

abovetopsecret is lovin' it. Maybe we have one of their escapees here?