I've always maintained that there is a COLB, and that the Obama team was dangling it as a rope-a-dope that no one picked up on. However, now that he's been elected why is he not releasing it? That is quite suspicious if you ask me. Secondly, I've also been wondering why people in the GOP are not making an issue of it. Some FReepers have said it's because they don't want to be labeled racist (I say 'so what' to that, since as a citizen ...particularly one that was elected to serve the nation ...you should be willing to lay down your life in the service of the nation, and you should not let someone who is not eligible to take the most powerful seat in that nation just because you don't want to be 'called names'). However, we've hashed that out with other FReepers many times, and there is no need to bring that into this thread (although I do fervently believe that, in the same way 19 year old soldiers are willing to lay down their lives for their country, 60 year old politicians should also be willing to lay down their POLITICAL CAREERS for their country. One should not expect people who cannot legally drink to make the ultimate sacrifice, yet politicians are not willing to risk being called names).
Anyways ....no need to drag that here.
The main thing, as far as I am concerned, in regards to this thread is this: reading it I noticed that a lot of the cases and scenarios are from the late 1800s. Is that not an Achiles heel that any adept lawyer on the Obama side can pick on? All the cases regarding citizenship only being confered by the father alone, and those statements being made in the 1800s, does not seem like it would stick in modern-day America.
Ping!
Not, IMHO, if he's a bastard.
Because of the recent drive toward equal rights for men and women, I believe the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the union between Stanley Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama will have some bearing on this.
As is well known at this time, Barack Hussein Obama "Sr." was already married to at least one woman in Kenya, and already the father of one or more children, when 17-year-old Stanley became pregnant.
However, Kenya, being British Territory at the time, that earlier marriage may have been unrecognized by the Crown as a so-called "Tribal Marriage."
Logically, if Stanley Dunham were not legally married at the time of the Chosen One's birth, wouldn't that tend to make the bastard a citizen? And if indeed, it happened in Hawaii, wouldn't he automatically be a "Natural born" citizen, no matter what his mother's status at the time? Somewhat tangentially, children born in California to single ... or married ... Mexican citizens in this country illegally, are counted as "Natural Born American Citizens," are they not? OTOH, if they were born anywhere else in the world, they would be Mexican Citizens. This seems to be entirely "unconstitutional," and hallowed by some sort of immigration rules tradition, rather than strict law.
If Stanley Dunham was a natural-born American Citizen legally visiting Kenya (one assumes), wouldn't that make any illegitimate offspring solely hers, and passing to them her American citizenship? Whether the bastard could then be considered a "natural born citizen," if born in another country, is certainly an entirely appropriate question!
If Stanley were legally married to BHO, Sr., their child would be a dual citizen, no matter where it happened, right? BHO, Sr. never accepted American citizenship, and so would pass his rights as a British Subject, and then a Kenyan Citizen, onto his legitimate son.
Since all of this is enough to make anyone's head hurt, I shall not go into the Indonesian Chapters. Let SCOTUS clerks field that foul ball.
So many questions. So little time. And I believe perhaps giving new life to that off-color expression, "Lucky Bastard."
Not, IMHO, if he's a bastard.
Because of the recent drive toward equal rights for men and women, I believe the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the union between Stanley Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama will have some bearing on this.
As is well known at this time, Barack Hussein Obama "Sr." was already married to at least one woman in Kenya, and already the father of one or more children, when 17-year-old Stanley became pregnant.
However, Kenya, being British Territory at the time, that earlier marriage may have been unrecognized by the Crown as a so-called "Tribal Marriage."
Logically, if Stanley Dunham were not legally married at the time of the Chosen One's birth, wouldn't that tend to make the bastard a citizen? And if indeed, it happened in Hawaii, wouldn't he automatically be a "Natural born" citizen, no matter what his mother's status at the time? Somewhat tangentially, children born in California to single ... or married ... Mexican citizens in this country illegally, are counted as "Natural Born American Citizens," are they not? OTOH, if they were born anywhere else in the world, they would be Mexican Citizens. This seems to be entirely "unconstitutional," and hallowed by some sort of immigration rules tradition, rather than strict law.
If Stanley Dunham was a natural-born American Citizen legally visiting Kenya (one assumes), wouldn't that make any illegitimate offspring solely hers, and passing to them her American citizenship? Whether the bastard could then be considered a "natural born citizen," if born in another country, is certainly an entirely appropriate question!
If Stanley were legally married to BHO, Sr., their child would be a dual citizen, no matter where it happened, right? BHO, Sr. never accepted American citizenship, and so would pass his rights as a British Subject, and then a Kenyan Citizen, onto his legitimate son.
Since all of this is enough to make anyone's head hurt, I shall not go into the Indonesian Chapters. Let SCOTUS clerks field that foul ball.
So many questions. So little time. And I believe perhaps giving new life to that off-color expression, "Lucky Bastard."
I also think it's odd that no actual record of marriage between Stanley and the polygamous, drunken, violent Harvard man, and Luo intellectual has been made public.
We could be seeing ground-breaking new legal tactics here ... The Bastard Gambit!
Obviously after Obama gets elected and its been proven that he got there by ignoring the explicit requirements of the Constitution AND endorsed by the SCOTUS it then sets a president that future Presidential nominees need not be US citizens.
Schwarzenegger can be elected, a former head of the USSR can be elected, an Italian porn star can be elected, by not enforcing it NOW it opens the door for every clown dog and pony show on earth to take turns sitting in the Oval Office.
This is a very well thought out argument and I tip my hat to the author. Except for a couple of points it seems irrefutable. The argument says you must be a citizen by nature and not by law, and explains this as descending from the citizenship or allegiance of ones father. As an example he states that if my father were a British citizen, my mother an American citizen and I was born in the United States, then I would be a British citizen. It sounds very logical including the part that says by law my father could repatriate me to the UK at his will. He says this makes me a British citizen by nature.
If that is true then many of our founders were not eligible for the presidency. One can say that laws were passed specifically giving exception to those living in the United States at it's inception. But isn't that citizenship by law, not nature and does it not contradict the authors whole argument.
Secondly, there is no such thing as a citizen by nature. Citizenship is not a biological function whereas birth is a natural biological function. It takes a law to say you are a citizen of the country of your biological father. If it were natural, why not the mother? It is simply obfuscation to say that citizenship has anything to do with nature. Citizenship is purely a construct created by law, not nature.
Like these words from Justice Gray?:
"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. Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here, is within the allegiance and the protection, and consequently subject to the jurisdiction, of the United States."
How can you determine who are citizens by act of law if you do not first define by law who are not? In otherwords, how can you legally define a naturalized citizen without first defining who is a natural born citizen? And that is what Congress has done over the years, defining citizens at birth as opposed to naturalized citizens. So why shouldn't their definition apply to presidential candidates?
Hmmm. Pretty much sounds like. Now.