Granted, butterdezillion, this thread began as a birth certificate issue, but your comment seems surprisingly naive, not to mention, wrong. In a “low-information” society, pundits tread carefully to protect their comfortable incomes. The information has been clearly presented, yet the discussions continue. Barack Obama told everyone he was born a “subject of the British Commonwealth”, because his father was British. He told everyone he was “a native-born citizen of the US”, which is the language of the naturalization amendment, the 14th. Obama told us, perfectly clearly, that he is a naturalized citizen and not a natural born citizen, and that he was born British. He confronted our Constitution while campaigning, the mark of a true confidence man, asserting his violation as if there were nothing wrong. It was very clever, and depended upon few of us ever having thought about Article II Section 1, or about the different classes of citizen. Once Obama owned the justice department, and supermajorities, it was too late. Once the Republicans were comlicit, in order to pay off the old war horse McCain, it was too late.
Wong Kim Ark was a famous naturalized citizen, born, like Barack, in the US, and to domiciled Chinese parents. The application of the 14th amendment made Wong Kim a Citizen, and decidedly not a naturalized citizen. The Supreme Court Case cited Minor v. Happersett and quoted the definition, the precedent which affirmed the natural law definition, “...born on our soil to citizen parents”, from Minor v. Happerset.
Every US Senator signed his and her agreement with the statement made by Senator Patrick Leahy in April 2008 “Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that senator McCain is a ``natural born Citizen’’. I recently asked Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, a former Federal judge, if he had any doubts in his mind. He id not.”
Leaving out the sophistry deployed by Senator Leahy, every Senator was aware of Senator Obama’s birth to an alien father, a father who decididly did not meet 14th Amendment author Congressman John Bingham’s clarification of who were natural born citizens, and how they differ from naturalized citizens - “ of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty.” Obama does not meet the Constitutional requirements to be president, but then, he doesn't believe the Constitution is relevant, and has his regulatory czar Cass Sunstein lobbying for an alternative Bill of Rights (the title of a Sunstein book), essentially a new Constitution, now that Obama has been reelected (or declared so without any verifiable evidence for how many voted or for what their choices were).
The birth certificates may be phony, and probably are. But that is why Obama and his campaign chair, Clair McCaskill submitted SB 2678 to try to pass a law making McCain eligible. It failed to pass in February 2008. It was called “The Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act.” Since it failed McCaskill and Leahy rolled out Senate Resolution 511, getting all Senators on the record that, while there may be no legal basis, they all thought McCain, with his sterling record, a war hero, should be deemed natural born. Then they all kept quiet, lest the old issues around McCain's eligibility muddy the waters, thus protecting Obama from any scrutiny.
For those new to the facts, that is a brief summary. Next time someone tries to tell you “because it wasn't defined in the Constitution”, ask them to give you a term that is defined in the Constitution. (There is one modification to a definition necessary because were were no longer a monarchy.) That is known as a red herring. The Constitution's framers were careful and analytical. The definitions used in the Constitution needed to come, as Chief Justice Waite cited, and Madison explained, from the common language and law familiar to its framers. The definitions for words change over time. The Constitution was intended to be an eternal document, based as it was upon natural law. The definition, cited as “Dictum” in The Venus by Chief Justice Marshall, is just what was used, and necessary to the decision, by Chief Justice Waite in Minor v. Happerset, and has never been amended - “Born on our soil parents who were citizens.”
Yes, that is all true.
But none of it has a legal evidentiary basis. Obama can SAY whatever he wants about his birth but he was not old enough to be a legal witness to it. He can say that his birth certificate says his birth facts are such and such, but now we know that Hawaii doesn’t consider those claims to be worth dog doo-doo, legally speaking. Something about the way that the claims were made to Hawaii makes them legally non-credible. And if it’s non-credible in the eyes of HAWAII you know it’s got to be bad!
My point was that everybody acted on the basis of what Obama said, but LEGALLY we have no idea what his birth facts are, because the people who could have LEGALLY testified to the facts didn’t do so in a legally convincing way, according to the HI state registrar. And because of the 4 (so far) known Aug 1961 BC#’s that have been altered from what they were in 1961, we know that the claims that are on the White House forgery are the claims on a FABRICATED BC created by the HDOH at the request of law enforcement. So we don’t even know what claims were on the non-valid BC Obama had before that.
So we’ve got 2 layers of garbage to go through (the forgery of the fabricated BC, and the HDOH’s genuine fabrication) before we can even get to the NON-VALID birth record, and Hawaii statute says that doesn’t mean anything legally until it’s been presented as evidence to a judicial or administrative official or body so that the evidence can all be gathered and a determination of probative value and birth facts made.
Unfortunately, Congress, all the state SOS’s, and all the judges have been unwilling to dig into any LEGAL reality and have piddled about taking Obama as if he could legally be a witness to his own birth facts.