Free Republic

Staff Half of Panama’s population of children under the age of five is in grave danger of death from malnutrition. The country’s staggering 40 percent poverty rate is one of the worst in Central America. The late Wilson Lucom reportedly left $50 million to a trust intended to aid these starving children according to a secret will revealed upon his death in 2006. Lucom’s Panamanian wife Hilda and her children from a previous marriage are contesting the will and over two years of legal haggling between the two parties has not resulted in the resolution of the case. So far...

Saturday, January 17, 2009 MINDBOGGLING CONSPIRACY BY McCAIN, OBAMA, McCASKILL, LEAHY, CLINTON AND COBURN TO CIRCUMVENT ARTICLE TWO, SECTION ONE OF THE US CONSTITUTION ********** In this article, originally posted in the blog of the same name, "Zapem" breaks a report of the history of sidestepping, skirting, and attempted Constitutional tinkering on behalf of unnatural born Citizen, John McCain -- thereby, an attempt to pave the way for Barack Obama.If one were to look at the activity on Capital Hill during the campaign, there would be no question in their minds that both McCain and Obama were sweating the “natural...

PANAMA CITY – Conservative supermarket magnate Ricardo Martinelli won Panama's presidential election in a landslide Sunday, promising to guide the country through the world economic crisis and an ambitious expansion of the Panama Canal. The win by Martinelli, of the opposition Alliance for Change, marked a rare center-right election triumph in a region that has seen a wave of leftist leaders. Electoral Tribunal President Erasmo Pinilla called Martinelli the "indisputable winner" after preliminary results showed him with 61 percent support and governing party candidate Balbina Herrera with 37 percent. Former President Guillermo Endara was a distant third. The winner was...

The excavation and dredging works to enlarge the Panama Canal are being carried out in different levels of execution, as part of a process that should conclude in 2014. The first dry excavation stage, has been fulfilled by almost 90 per cent. The second part of the contract, work has been executed by 60 per cent. The third is still in its initial stage. According to available reports the value of the already agreed contracts reached about 339.4 million dollars in December. The programme consists of the construction of two lock complexes, with three levels each, together with the widening...

Just two days after US President Barack Hussein Obama shared a controversial and landmark handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released a study analyzing the flowering alliance between the increasingly anti-Western Latin America and the virulently anti-Israel Iran. The study was conducted at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), a non-governmental organization dedicated to Israeli intelligence and terrorism issues. According to the study, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using anti-Western Hugo Chavez as a springboard into several Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, and...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/2009/nyc031909.html U.S. Announces Indictment of Heads of Colombia's D.M.G. Group for Money Laundering MAR 19 -- JOHN P. GILBRIDE, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York Field Division (“DEA”), LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, RAYMOND W. KELLY, Police Commissioner of the City of New York (“NYPD”) and HARRY J. CORBITT, Superintendent New York State Police (“NYPD”) announced today the unsealing of an Indictment against DAVID EDUARDO HELMUT MURCIA GUZMÁN, 28, MARGARITA LEONOR PABON CASTRO, a/k/a "Margarita Castro Pabon," 35, WILLIAM SUÁREZ‑SUÁREZ,...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg19.htm February 10, 2009 tg-19 Treasury Targets Financial Network of Fernando Zevallos Gonzales Washington, DC -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated 26 companies and 14 individuals tied to Peruvian drug kingpin Fernando Zevallos Gonzales. This financial network, based in Peru, Panama and the British Virgin Islands, is now subject to financial sanctions pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act ("Kingpin Act"). "Our action demonstrates the importance of following the changing networks of major drug kingpins, like Fernando Zevallos," said OFAC Director Adam J....

A Russian warship was set Friday to sail through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II in a symbolic challenge to US influence in the region. The large anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko is scheduled to traverse the waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, the Russian embassy in Panama said. "The only time such an event took place was in 1944 during the Second World War, when four Russian submarines passed through" the canal, said the embassy in a statement. At that time, when the waterway was under...

The enigmatic phrase “natural born citizen” poses a series of problems for contemporary originalism. New Originalists, like Justice Scalia, focus on the original public meaning of the constitutional text. The notion of a “natural born citizen” was likely a term of art derived from the idea of a “natural born subject” in English law—a category that most likely did not extend to persons, like Senator McCain, who were born outside sovereign territory. But the Constitution speaks of “citizens” and not “subjects,” introducing uncertainties and ambiguities that might (or might not) make McCain eligible for the presidency.

The 2008 election cycle has been a busy one for legal disputes over the qualifications of presidential candidates, with federal cases having been filed to challenge both major candidates’ eligibility under the “natural born Citizen” clause. These cases unquestionably present vital questions of constitutional law, touching on matters of self-evident national importance. It is doubtful, however, that they are justiciable in lower federal courts. Standing requirements and the political question doctrine make it unlikely that a federal court will reach the merits in cases of the type filed to date.

175 Alleged Gulf Cartel Members and Associates Arrested in Massive International Law Enforcement Operation "Project Reckoning" Leads to the Seizure of $60 Million and More Than 40 Tons of Illegal Drugs From One of Mexico's Largest Drug Trafficking Cartels NEW YORK - Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced that 175 individuals were arrested on Sept. 16, 2008, on charges related to an international drug trafficking cartel in a coordinated enforcement action by hundreds of international, federal, state and local law enforcement officials throughout the United States and Italy. Including the operations announced today, a long-term investigation of one of Mexico's...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking to remove John McCain from the California ballot because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.</p> <p>U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled late Tuesday that the law at the time of McCain's birth automatically granted citizenship to offspring of U.S. citizens.</p>

<p>A San Francisco federal judge ruled Tuesday that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's claim of U.S. citizenship is strong enough that a lawsuit challenging his placement on the California ballot should be dismissed.</p> <p>Northern District of California Judge William Alsup ruled in the case of Robinson v. Bowen, filed by an elector pledged to third-party candidate Alan Keyes seeking an injunction to keep McCain off the November ballot. Two other challenges claiming that McCain's birthplace in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 disqualifies him under the Constitution have been dismissed on standing grounds. But Alsup evaluated the merits of the claim in a hearing last week and in an order issued Tuesday.</p>

This morning President Bush met with General David Petraeus in the Oval Office of the White House. After serving as the Commander of Multi-National Forces in Iraq for 19 months, General Petraeus was promoted to Commander of Central Command (CENTCOM). The President congratulated the General for his successful mission in Iraq. (Transcript) General David Petraeus was asked to do a very difficult job and he did it with distinction and honor. He was a part of the planning for the surge; he implemented the surge, along with a lot of other brave people; and the United States and the world...

CONCORD – A federal judge dismissed Thursday a Nashua man's legal challenge that Republican presidential nominee-to-be Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was ineligible because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.

Natural Born Citizen Clause The clause of the U.S. Constitution barring persons not born in the United States from the Presidency. [Black’s Law Dictionary, Eighth Edition] [cf. Natural Born Citizen Clause] Greetings, The analysis below is indeed helpful, but it is erroneous and/or misleading on several important points which do deserve further clarification, as follows: (1) there are two (2) classes of citizens under American laws never repealed, not one (1) class: http://www.supremelaw.org/rsrc/twoclass.htm (see all links at the very end) Federal citizens aka "citizens of the United States" were not even contemplated with Article III -- and hence Article II...

Trade deals with Colombia, Korea, and Panama, all rife with political import, are stalled in Congress. In the meantime, some U.S. exports lag In its Decatur (Ill.) factory, Caterpillar (CAT) assembles a line of the heaviest-duty off-highway trucks, behemoths specialized for use in mining, quarry, and construction operations. One model, the $1.2 million, 163,089-lb. 777F truck, can hit a top speed of 40 mph even while carrying 100 tons of dirt, enough to fill 350 wheelbarrows. Caterpillar has seen a robust market in recent years for these monster trucks, but is worried that companies in other countries will start to...

Here they go again: Today the New York Times ran yet another flaky story questioning the presidential eligibility of John McCain, born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, where his Navy father was stationed. Back on February 28, Congressional reporter Carl Hulse wrote a big story on the "controversy," even though Hulse himself admitted little was likely to come of it. The Senate later approved a resolution declaring McCain eligible for the presidency. Law reporter Adam Liptak's story today, which led the paper's National Section, ran under the hopeful headline, "A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth...

Disqualifying Obama from Presidency. Many here (and in Kook World) think we can disqualify Obama for the presidency with a claim that he not a natural born citizen of the U.S. Here’s how we can do it! First, Obama has no responsibility to “prove” he is a citizen. If we want to disqualify him, we would have to bring civil suit asking for a declaratory judgment that he does not meet the constitutional requirements and therefore must be disqualified. We have a few problems here. USC Title 8 provides many other ways than being born within the bounds of the...

Presumptive Republican nominee's birth location revives debate over the constitutional requirement that limits the presidency to 'natural born' citizens. By Eunice MoscosoWASHINGTON BUREAU Saturday, July 05, 2008 WASHINGTON — Is Sen. John McCain a natural born citizen? Or is he ineligible to be president? The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was born Aug. 29, 1936 — not within the 50 United States, but in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father, a Navy officer, was stationed. His birth location has revived a long-standing debate over the constitutional requirement that limits the presidency to "natural born" citizens. The problem is that the...