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You are mistaken if you regard me as having any practical purpose in mind. This is entirely an academic discussion from my perspective.

That's helpful.

You are chewing on a problem (the constitutional meaning of the undefined term "natural born citizen") that is unlike a chemistry experiment. If you find yourself arriving at any kind of conclusion of which you feel certain, then you will know that either you don't fully appreciate the complexity of the problem or you need to think about it some more.

Pray tell what principle of English Law allows for Subjects to leave the King?

If you cannot, it is because the Precedent for it is Swiss, not English.

I can't tell you what I think of a comment like that. I say that, recognizing that my inability to understand the point you are trying to make is just further evidence for you that I am crazy.

If you want this country to adopt Vattelism (as it might relate to "natural born citizen") in the next election, you will need to make your pitch to the American voters and their electors. In the twenty-first century, most folks don't capitalize the words law, subjects or precedent and, without a very clear and compelling argument, won't look to some eighteenth century Swiss "philosopher" for instruction on how to pick a president. If you don't revise your pitch, you will be no more successful than you were in the last two elections.

Let's suppose for a moment that those who wrote the Constitution sat in some smoky back room and said, among themselves, "Ha! We don't mean here what most people understand "natural born citizen" to mean. We mean what this Swiss guy Vattel thought a citizen should be."

There's not the slightest SHRED of evidence that they did. But even if they had, the Constitution wouldn't mean what the writers said it meant, in some smoky back room.

It would mean what the people who VOTED IT INTO LAW believed it meant, and what they believed they were voting into law.

Justice Scalia agree with you on that point:

"The Second Amendment provides: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' In interpreting this text, we are guided by the principle that “[t]he Constitution was written to be understood by the voters; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning.” United States v. Sprague, 282 U. S. 716, 731 (1931) ; see also Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Normal meaning may of course include an idiomatic meaning, but it excludes secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation." - District of Colombia v. Heller (2008)

Vattel's twenty-first century fans got themselves into this mess by their felt need for a philosophical platform that would permit them to continue to believe that the United States doesn't really have a president. Vattelism is designed to discourage the rest of us from lumping together those who say, "there is no president" with those who say "there is no gravity" or "Elvis is not dead." The more interesting question is why some people are psychologically unable to just accept the reality that, like it or not, Obama is the president and that, on two separate occasions, the voters and their electors have chosen him and implicitly determined that he meets the constitutional qualifications.

If Cruz should run, all this crazy research will be passed on like a runner's baton to crackpots on the left who may even "improve" on it. But, those who actually choose our presidents (voters/electors) are not likely to be persuaded by any of this nonsense.

And, that's all that really matters.

You CAN'T Change the meaning of words in the US Constitution by voting on a NEW MEANING for them.

If there is a disagreement about the meaning of words in the US Constitution and their application to real live presidential candidates, how do you propose that the disagreement be resolved, if not by a vote? I suspect you think that presidential candidate qualifications should be judged by a private vote at the Supreme Court. I prefer that candidate qualifications be judged by a vote of the American people and by the electors that the American people select.

The text of the Constitution commits to the people and to their electors the power and duty to select our presidents. History and tradition (57 straight presidential elections) demonstrate our commitment to and satisfaction with our present constitutional process. The Supreme Court has never even hinted that it might attempt to claim a power to overrule the judgment of the American people and their electors that a particular candidate is qualified to serve as president.

If Bellei had perfected his "citizenship by birth" by residing in the United States for the requisite time period and had also met the age and fourteen year residency requirements in the Constitution and then run for president, he would in my opinion have been constitutionally qualified to run for president. Of course, I only have one vote as a voter and other people (like you) might disagree with me and all of us would be free to try to influence the opinions of other voters and their electors. However, if Bellei then received a majority of the votes of the electors in the electoral college, he would become president.

The Constitution grants to the voters and their electors the power and duty to judge the qualifications of presidential candidates. You may not always like the outcome of this American system for picking presidents, but you might not always like the outcome of any system that allows people other than yourself to participate in making decisions. The alternative Iranian system that has a small, elite group of people (the Guardian Council) screen presidential candidate "qualifications" is designed to protect a tyranny run by an elitist clique.

The SC tends to avoid political questions.. so wouldn’t the eligibility of the President as a Natural Born Citizen qualify as a political question?

Yes, you've summarized it all perfectly. However, in order to avoid committing themselves completely by admitting that the courts have no role in presidential selection, they tend to phrase it in terms of a lack of standing. The result is the same. The Supreme Court has never so much as hinted that it has the power to overrule a decision by voters and their electors that a presidential candidate is qualified.

The selection of a president is a political decision. The judiciary plays no role. Under our Constitution, the voters and their electors (and only the voters and their electors) have been entrusted with that decision.

In Iran, the qualifications of all presidential candidates must be approved by the Guardian Council. As we speak. the Guardian Council is hard at work to ensure that the Iranian people will not be given any meaningful choices in the next presidential election.

Do Americans want a Guardian Council to screen our presidential candidates? Do we need one? Do we really think that nine elitists in robes will be better than the rest of us at testing the qualifications of presidential candidates?

With the guidance of God, the voters and their electors have selected our presidents for 57 straight presidential elections. There is no need to change our system now.

President Joe Biden?

Well, we'll see, I guess. The House has the sole power to impeach and the GOP runs the House.

I say, impeach the bum no matter what the Senate might or might not do.

Some of them could very well hate Cruz.

However, some of them just trapped themselves with baloney about Vattel and Kenyan birth certificates. If Cruz gets the nomination, they will come around.

There will be nothing to prevent them from "discovering" Cruz's real [American] father and a Cincinnati birth certificate. Or, maybe there is a previously overlooked Vattel footnote.

Whatever it takes.

McCain cheated on his wife?

His wife thinks he has spent an unnatural amount of time with Lindsey Graham.

For 57 straight presidential elections, the voters and their electors have exercised their exclusive constitutional power to rule on the qualifications of the candidates. 2016 will be no different.

As always, the people will decide, with God's guidance.

Trust our Constitution. Trust the people. Trust God.

Thank you for the ping.

Yes, it's been firmly established that, for all but the fringe, "natural born citizen" means citizen at birth. Furthermore, the application of that standard is within the exclusive province of the voters and their electors. In this country, the people choose the president and they are not willing to turn that duty over to elitists in black robes. We are Americans, not Iranians!

There is no rational explanation for twenty-first century adults who go gaga over an eighteenth century proto-Marxist like Vattel. A free people cannot consider seriously political advice emanating from a man who believed that the state holds a first claim on every citizen's labor.

Fidel Castro says, "Viva Vattel."

Even Ariel Castro says, "Me gusta Vattel."

The man is just no good!!

her punishment needs to be as permanent

Yes, she should be permanently banned from Match.com. A suspension would be inadequate.

A man should keep his promises.

Is the universe really as old as we have been told?

If my memory is accurate, it is older than I am. More I cannot say. ;-)

Not a single word in the 844-page "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act" introduced by Senator Marco Rubio and the "Gang of Eight" addresses the controversial practice of "birthright citizenship."

Don't these guys read Vattel?

After more than 250 years of benign neglect, doesn't Vattel deserve something better than abuse like this??

First, they twist and distort Vattel and so eviscerate the one and only true meaning of the Natural Born Citizen requirement that it now seems to mean nothing more than Birthright Citizenship.

Second, they now want to grant Birthright Citizenship to the most worthless protoplasm and defective DNA, all of which was conceived elsewhere but illegally imported and harvested here.

Is there anyone present in this country who could be unqualified to be president under these new rules?

The first thing I thought of when I saw that picture is, “Looks like a ‘gay” wedding.” “Royalty” looks like some kind of homosexual bride. ;-)

Judicial treason!! ;-)

I think they can prove all they need to prove without using what he says during questioning. What he might say will probably reveal how young, dumb, plastic and naive he is at his age. So, what he might say might actually help him more than hurt him insofar as the death penalty is concerned.

Yeah, I guess the Swedes were a pretty belligerent bunch, back in the 1600's.

The Military History of Sweden

I think that the bombing in Boston is one of the least of problems for those who are proposing amnesty for illegals.

Sweden? War?

When is the last time Sweden declared war? As I recall, Sweden was even neutral during World War II.

Maybe someone will someday write the history of Swedish wars - on a postcard.

No one ever has to read Miranda rights to anyone and individual can be questioned without limitation. And, the information received can be used for any purpose except as evidence introduced against the individual at his trial.

So, this entire discussion is premature. If they give him his Miranda rights, fine. If they don't give him his Miranda rights, the only possible consequence is that the judge in his case might rule that the statements he makes in response to questions can't be used against him in his trial. Until that day comes, no one can be sure of what that judge will do at that time.

So, it's premature to worry about it today. We can't solve the problem today.

Documents obtained by the Dallas Morning News indicate that regulators didn't issue a permit for the facility until after it was already in use, and that they were well aware of its proximity to homes and a school. Columnist Tod Robberson writes that the incident should be a wake-up call to cities to zone dangerous businesses more carefully.

Boy, that sounds like something out of Mexico.

LOL. ;-)

With our rapidly aging population, we already have what amounts to be many driverless cars out there.

Is he::

a) Bill Clinton's lovechild;

b) A Kenyan spy in possession of Obama's Kenyan birth certificate; or

c) A structural engineer hired by the CIA to design FEMA concentration camps.

I guess we'll know soon enough.

Well, we may not agree on much, but I do appreciate your time and effort and I sincerely thank you for that. ;-)

I believe that I do understand what you've repeatedly said. I believe that what you're saying is that, in your opinion, Obama was hurt (and not helped) politically by the birther phenomenon. I have no doubt that you sincerely believe that and I have no doubt that you can find some polls somewhere that might appear to support your belief.

I don't share your belief. I believe that such an issue might have hurt Obama if there had been substantial believable evidence that he was born in another country. But, there wasn't. And, to this day, there just isn't.

Twice now the voters and their electors have decided that Obama meets the constitutional qualifications to be president. They won't be asked again. It's over.

I really think you ought to at least think about the question that I asked you in post 169. Obama won by a four percentage point margin last November. Your suggestion that he won by four points in spite of being politically hurt by the birther issue implies that Obama would have won by an even larger margin had there been no birther issue. Do you really believe that?

I don't.

Politically (if not financially) birtherism is dead. It died last November when the voters and their electors made their final decisions. People who want Obama to be removed from office early should shift their forcus to a demand for impeachment. I could join you in that kind of effort. ;-)

Sick. Just plain sick.

To gain public support or acceptance, birtherism needed something real to support it. Nothing ever came. It's too late now because the voters and their electors determined that Obama is qualified. Twice.

Assuming Obama stays healthy, the only way to get rid of him now is either impeachment/removal or the expiration of his term. Even if the Senate refuses to convict/remove him, an impeachment now would tie up all of Obama's resources for a long time.

Another pansified moocher.

Yes, indeed.

We're used to hearing the "gimme, gimme, gimme" speech from seniors, but it's very disappointing to hear this kind of talk from someone in college.

Last November, Obama got 51% of the vote and Romney got 47%. He won by four percentage points. You claim that Obama was hurt by the birther issue.

What do you think the percentages would have been without the birther issue? ;-)

Well, i hope that you now understand that convincing a court that a newspaper is indeed a newspaper (authentication) does not permit you to use the content of a newspaper as evidence that the content is true without getting past the hearsay objection.

Well, no one has yet showed me the "public record" that shows that Obama was born outside the United States. In what country does the "public record" state that he was born?

As I've said before, even if you could somehow prove that Obama was definitely not born in Hawaii, that would not prove that he was born in a foreign country.

Again, I honestly and sincerely believe that the birther issue hurt the GOP and thus helped Obama in his last two elections. I believe that that proposition is sufficiently obvious to ordinary people that it may be treated as an historical fact. If it helps you, you may limit your use of the word fact to the fact that I believe that Obama benefited from the birther issue. If you wish to get yourself all tangled up in opinion vs. fact or the fact that, as a matter of fact, someone might hold a certain opinion, that's up to you. It might be good for you to get out of the Vattel jungle for awhile and create for yourself another tangled playground. It doesn't matter.

Motive, intent - you know, it's often been argued that no one can prove the motives or intentions of someone else. However, there are folks busy doing that every day in courthouses across America. They believe, as it's been said, that "a person's state of mind is as much a question of fact as the state of his digestion."

It is a fact that I understand your opinion to be that birtherism has been damaging to Obama politically. It is a fact that my opinion differs.

It's really that simple. But, if you wish, go ahead and confuse yourself.

Hmmm. I really don't believe that wife or step-grandma is willing to appear in court and testify (based upon personal knowledge) that Obama was born in a foreign country. I just don't believe that.

However, you are entitled to believe that. ;-)

He DID write his bio saying he was born in Kenya. Breitbart broke that story. That bio was in place until 2007, IIRC.

The only public birth record presented to the public thus far has been a falsified 1960-64 birth index.

There are 2 letters of verification effectively confirming that Obama’s Hawaii BC is legally non-valid.

The library microfilms have been altered and the copies that are there now cannot possibly be the same ones that were there in 1961. There’s a lot of evidence of that but it’s too much to say here right now.

Bless your heart, I have no doubt that you believe all that and that you believe it all means something serious. Having read some of your posts in the past, I don't believe you are one of the folks who are making any money from any of this.

What you might ask of those who are making money from all this - with alll the money you have received to investigate these claims, why have you not found any admissible evidence that Obama was born in a foreign country?

I’ve talked in the past to people who were blind ideologues.

Yes, I'm sure you have.

One of things I'm suggesting though, is a lot of the birther industry is driven not by ideology, but by avarice.

Authentication and hearsay rules deal with different issues.

When you want to introduce into evidence any kind of object, including an newspaper, you must "authenticate" the object, i.e., offer evidence to prove that the object is what you claim it to be. If you authenticate a July 10, 1975 issue of the New York Times, you have only proved that the object is what you claim it to be, i.e., a genuine July 10, 1975 issue of the New York Times.

You run into the hearsay problem when you want to prove more than that it is a genuine copy of the newspaper. If you want to use what is written in the newspaper as evidence that what is said there is true, then the hearsay rule comes into play and you have to find an exception to the hearsay rule.

Let me run that by you again. If all you want to prove is that the piece of paper is a newspaper, then authentication is enough. If you want to also use the content of the newspaper as evidence that something it says is true, you have to overcome the hearsay rule.

Well, it's because there is no evidence of a foreign birth that Obama never had to fear birtherism in its original form - the claim that he was born outside the United States. And, it's because there is no evidence of a foreign birth that Obama was able to use this "issue" to his political advantage by casting birthers as kooks and nut who simply refused to face reality.. So, while you might see two different subjects here, they are grounded in the same persistent fact - there is no evidence of a foreign birth.

The absence of evidence of a foreign birth led some of the birthers to shift their focus from the "foreign born" claim (for which there exists no evidence ) to the claim that a natural born citizen status requires that both of a person's parents be citizens at the time of the person's birth. This claim, which might be known as the Vattel hoax, appears to be every bit as kooky and nutty as the foreign birth claim.

There are folks out there who have benefited financially from both branches of birtherism through fundraising, book sales, etc. However, when it comes to political benefits, no one (no one in the world) has benefited from birtherism more than Obama himself.

Thus, it was a win-win proposition for the birthers (at least some of them) and for Obama. Unfortunately, the losers were the American people.

I suppose the losers would also include those gullible souls who got sucked into becoming emotionally invested in the Birthermania craze. To this day, some of them still wonder why, why, why hasn't the Supreme Court intervened to correct this monstrous constitutional crime??? Why does the Chief Justice keep administering the oath to Obama when it's not required of him to do so? Why do the Justices keep showing up at Obama inaugurations?? Why do the courts punish the brave lawyers who so clearly demonstrate that the Constitution has been trashed like never before?? Why do people think we're crackpots???

Like I said, it will all fade away by 2016.

Well, if Obama ever wrote a bio in which he stated that he was born in Kenya, that would be persuasive, but I believe that if that existed, I would have heard about it and even read it many times by now. I doubt that he's ever written anything like that.

What i know is that Obama himself cannot remember where he was born. However, there is an exception to the hearsay rule that permits him to testify about the facts relating to his birth. So, his testimony is admissible. I also know that public birth records are also admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule. There will be a horse race as to the admissibility of the newspaper clippings, if they are even relevant at all.

So, what I know is that if there were to be a trial, there would be admissible evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii. Opponents might attempt to impeach that evidence by accusing the state government of manufacturing phony evidence, etc., but there would be evidence admitted that he was born in Hawaii.

I have never been made aware of any witness who will testify that they saw Obama born outside the country, whether in Kenya or Katmandu. Not one. It's easy to find people who are willing to just say that he was born in Kenya or Katmandu, but it is apparently impossible to find anyone who can say that their claim is based upon personal knowledge (i.e,. that they witnessed it).

By the way, even if you could somehow prove that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii, that would not be the same as proving that he was born in another country. I recognize it's difficult and I recognize that the rules of evidence may sometimes seem to be unfair, but there are good reasons for most of them.

The reality is that, where the parents are dead, proving fifty year old birth facts about anyone can be difficult without using records (government, medical) and without using the person's own testimony. You need witnesses.

Yes, the contemporaneous newspaper notices are indeed hearsay and inadmissible unless an exception can be found. If you're really interested in the admissibility of old newspaper articles and such, check out Dallas County v. Commercial Union Assurance Company. You should assert a hearsay objection to those old notices and you might be able to keep them out.

And, if as you say, the notices provide no information concerning location of birth, you should even assert an objection based on relevance.

So, your point is well taken. I'm not sure if a judge would admit those notices.

I think the more important problem, though, is proving that Obama was born somewhere outside the United States without any witnesses to that fact.

LOL. Is that your way of surrendering a point?

None of what I posted is considered hearsay.

Of course it is, but if you don't know the definition of hearsay, i suppose it's a bit unfair for me to use the term in discussing this kind of thing with you. So, I won't. Of course, that makes it kind of impossible for me to discuss the evidentiary aspects of this matter with you at all. So, I won't.

Show Obama’s 1991 bio that says he was born in Kenay,

Hearsay - inadmissible unless you can find an appropriate exception.

play the video of Michelle calling Kenya his home country

Hearsay - inadmissible unless you can find an appropriate exception. If you claim she can testify to witnessing his birth in Kenya, call her as a witness so that the court can hear her testimony.

and the stories where his step-grandmother said he was a “son of the soil” in Kenya.

Yep, you're right. That's also hearsay. Find an appropriate exception.

The best way to prove something happened is to find a witness who can testify that they saw it happen.

The point is the same one. it wasn't so much that the birther case was a bad case as that there was never any case at all. Thus, it never created any serious political risk for Obama. And, as time went on, it became increasingly easy to marginalize the birthers as folks who lived in their own fantasy world. With public records and contemporary newspaper notices, it was easy to make birthers look like kooks and nuts. And, since they had no evidence of a foreign birth, they had no way to seriously defend or redeem themselves.

It helps to have opponents like that, particularly if you can associate them with the opposing candidate.

Try to picture yourself in a courtroom, standing before a judge. He's asking you to prove your case, to put on your evidence that Obama was born outside of the United States.

What do you do?

Up until the release of the computer-generated fraudulent doc, the issue was actually hurting Obama.

No, most members of the voting public never thought that the state of Hawaii was producing phony records, or that the birth notices in the Hawaiian papers were phony. To believe all that requires a powerful motive to believe all that.

Had there ever been a serious, legitimate issue, serious, legitimate political competitors would have used it against Obama. Trump needed an issue like that to gain attention in the Republican primaries where the number of hard-core birthers might help create a significant base for a primary campaign. But, in the two general elections, his two general election GOP opponents wouldn't touch the issue. And, for good reason.

There are some who remain dependent upon this birther cause - some for political reasons, some for financial reasons and some for emotional/psychological reasons. For most of these people (for obvious reasons), it will just fade away in about 2016. But, as long as the fundraising and book sales continue, birthermania will not just "go away" until Obama goes away and then it just won't matter anymore.

As I've said, I was originally sort of an agnostic on all this stuff. However, the more I learned about it, the more evident it became that there is no case here. There are no provable facts about any foreign birth. Completely ignoring the Hawaiian records that support Obama, under our laws of evidence, Obama himself is permitted to testify that he was born in Hawaii. No one can competently testify that he wasn't. No one. No case, Period. Serious, legitimate politicians who wanted to face a general election knew there was no case. The issue was poison offered to them by Obama. They didn't drink it.

If Obama profited from the issue, why did he want it to go away?

Go away? How could it go away?

Trump was using the issue to gain traction in Republican polls. Others were using it as a basis for fundraising (i.e., making money). People were financially and politically benefiting from the issue. Why would any of them allow it to just go away? Everyone knew that there wasn't then and there isn't now any way to prove with absolute certainty where Obama was born or where anyone else his age was born for that matter.

Obama had to know that releasing more documents would not make the issue go away for people who had become dependent on the issue's existence. And, he was right. It didn't make the issue go away. What the release did do is make birthers appear (to most people) to be just that much more nutty and kooky.

If birthers were provided a courtroom to try this case tomorrow, who would appear as a witness to competently testify that Obama was born in Kenya or anywhere in the world outside the United States? There isn't anyone willing and able to do that. The problem with the case is that there is no case. There is fundraising, there are book sales and there are faux lawyers filing faux lawsuits, but there is no underlying case.

Hell, even the birthers who now believe that Obama may have been born in Hawaii haven't come home. Lots of them just shifted their focus away from his place of birth to the citizenship of the man they believe (but can't prove) was his father. In order to do that, they have gone so far as to imply that the ordinary citizens of our constitutional era were more or less uniformly conscious of and in agreement with the theories of citizenship written in another language by some Swiss philosopher named Vattel. All of it is of course baloney, but to the people who had wandered that far into the intellectual jungle that they created, nothing could ever make the birther issue "go away." Obama had to know that much. And, as you can see, he was right.

Tau Food, I ask you this, “Why has Obama spent millions in not doing exactly what I can do for less than a dollar?”

Well, first, I want you to consider the following political fact: during his two presidential campaigns, Obama was the primary political beneficiary of the birther "investigations."

Obama didn't want the birther activists to go away for the same reason that, in 1972, Nixon didn't want the long-haired, pot-smoking, hippie war protestors to go away.

At the time, I really had no idea whether the birthers were on to something serious or not, but as time went by it became increasingly clear that Obama was using the issue to paint his opponents as nuts and kooks. Like Nixon wanted to create associations between hippie war protestors and Democrat candidates, Obama wanted to create associations between birthers and Republican candidates. Most Republican politicians avoided the bait.