Presidential eligibility of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal challenged at Supreme Court

MMDNewswire ^ | February 4, 2015

[DiogenesLamp]

There is nothing more that I need to say on that point.

Well sure, if you don't have any point to make, you've certainly succeeded in not making one.

[DiogenesLamp]

President Woodrow Wilson’s father served as a chaplin for the Confederate Army. Wilson’s mother was born in England and received derivative naturalization, meaning she never had to apply in order to become a citizen.

As has been gone over about a thousand times, there is no need to have parents who are "natural born" citizens. Any sort of US Citizenship will do.

You know that none of your opposition has ever said that "natural born citizen" is necessary to have "natural born citizens." They simply say "citizenship" is necessary to produce a "natural born citizen."

It's like a family name. If you have it, you can pass it on. If you don't have it, you can't. Even if you are adopted (naturalized) into a family, you can pass on the family name.

As for the rest of your comment, I know all that, but what's your point in bringing it up?

[Nero Germanicus]

Donofrio v. Wells
In October 2008, Leo Donofrio filed suit against Nina Mitchell Wells, the New Jersey Secretary of State to challenge the eligibility of Obama, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and the Socialist Workers Party candidate Roger Calero.

Donofrio asserted that all three candidates were ineligible: Obama due to having dual U.S. and British nationality at birth (the latter via Obama’s father), McCain due to being born in the Panama Canal Zone, and Calero due to allegedly still having Nicaraguan citizenship.

Donofrio was not among those who claimed Obama might have been born outside Hawaii. Also, Donofrio did not challenge the fact that Obama is a U.S. citizen and instead challenged only whether Obama is a natural-born citizen.
An application for emergency relief was denied by the New Jersey Superior Court, Appeallate Division.
An application for a stay was denied by the New Jersey Supreme Court.
And application for a stay of the Electoral College vote pending the filing of a Writ of Certiorari was denied by Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
The application was resubmitted to Justice Clarence Thomas.
The application was then referred to the full Supreme Court by Justice Thomas. The application reached the United States Supreme Court on December 8, 2008, and the Court declined without comment to grant it.
The Electoral College voted on December 15, 2008 and elected Barack Obama and Joseph Biden. Both Houses of Congress certified the votes of the electors without objection on January 8, 2009.

[DiogenesLamp]

Okay, you are really starting to worry me. I looked at the message (# 262) to which your message is a response, and if there is a connection between the two, I certainly can't see what it is.

Are you getting at something, or are you just citing meaningless stuff?

[Nero Germanicus]

I’ll spell out the point for you since you are choosing to play dumb.

You said (and I quote) “If you think anyone back then would have regarded former slaves as ‘natural born citizens’ or Indians as ‘natural born citizens’ or Texan Nationals as natural born citizens’, you have got a screw loose.
In the case of Slaves or Indians it is a virtual certainty that there would be no natural affinity for the nation and no love lost for it. You think the founders would be okay with American Hating people in the office of the Presidency? It seems to me that this is the very sort of thing that article II was intended to prevent.” Those were your exact words.

I then pointed out that your words were a racist gross over-generalization and that both slaves and freemen plus entire American Indian tribes fought with the colonists in the Revolution. You then backpedalled as fast as your feet can pedal backwards.
The estimates are that approxmately 6% of Washington’s Army at Valley Forge were black soldiers. The famed First Rhode Island regiment composed almost entirely of blacks and Indians fought under General Washington’s command. The U.S. Army was not to be racially integrated again until the Korean War.
You got it now?

[Nero Germanicus]

Still playing dumb, I see.

The point made by the real life example that I posted is that the issue of Barack Obama’s natural born citizenship has been thoroughly and completely adjudcated since 2008, all the way to the Supreme Court. Twenty seven appeals have reached the highest court in the land and in every instance, the Supreme Court Justices saw no reason to even hear oral arguments on lower court rulings which they have allowed to stand.

On two occasions in 2009 and again in 2013, both Houses of Congress certified Obama’s electoral votes without a single objection from any of the 535 members. By law it only takes one Representative and one Senator to submit a written objection to the President of the Senate for both Houses to adjourn to separate chambers and consider the objection.

[DiogenesLamp]

You then backpedalled as fast as your feet can pedal backwards.

In your mind.

You got it now?

No, not really. You are somehow reading something into it that *I* didn't put in there. I'll tell you what I do get out of it. Something in there has struck a nerve with you, and that lends some insight into where you are coming from. You are apparently sensitive to issues of race, and you also apparently do not want to face the fact that for much of our History, our populace and our governance was blatantly racist.

As a matter of fact, this response makes it clearer why you have been so persistently trying to cover for Obama. You see this as a racial issue, and that's where I think your concerns lie.

You see, My best friend through High school and for much of my life was Black, (I just went to his mom's funeral two weeks ago. He lives in another state, so we don't get to talk much anymore.) and his favorite topic was race and race issues. It was all he wanted to talk about, and we had a lot of conversations on this topic.

One of the things i've learned from these conversations is that the best thing you can do is to ignore race, and look at people as just humans; Judge them on their own capabilities and their own History. This is where many defenders of Obama go wrong. They refuse to judge him on his own merits and his own history, and insist on judging him as a "race" first, and a man second.

They are the racists. Being afraid to criticize a man because of his race *IS* racist. It is treating him differently on the account of race. It is defacto discrimination. An Honest man calls a fool a fool even if he is Black. A Dishonest one shies away from speaking the blunt truth.

By any reasonable standard, Obama is a complete screw up, and his background is totally nebulous and shaky. Had he been a Bill Clinton with this same pile of crap in his background, do not think for a minute that we would have been any less strenuous in maligning him and trying to get him kicked out of office. You didn't have access to my commentary during the Clinton Administration, but I assure you I said some very nasty things about that Treasonous, Dope smoking draft dodging, greasy, lying sack of Sh*t that was "Bubba" Clinton.

But you need to stop chasing "boogeyman."

[DiogenesLamp]

The point made by the real life example that I posted is that the issue of Barack Obama’s natural born citizenship has been thoroughly and completely adjudcated since 2008, all the way to the Supreme Court.

No it hasn't. It's been deflected all the way to the supreme court. It has never been addressed on the merits. It has been pushed off because of one technicality excuse or another, and the legal system has simply brushed it off because they don't want to deal with it.

We aren't impressed by legal procedure, we are impressed by reason, logic and actual facts. We have long mocked the Judiciary for their nonsensical rulings and methodology. They would be a comedy act if the consequences weren't always so dire.

On two occasions in 2009 and again in 2013, both Houses of Congress certified Obama’s electoral votes without a single objection from any of the 535 members. By law it only takes one Representative and one Senator to submit a written objection to the President of the Senate for both Houses to adjourn to separate chambers and consider the objection.

That so many people were wrongly taught, and therefore believe something, does not make them correct. You are pushing the fallacy of popularity.

But then you always have.

[Nero Germanicus]

Nice try at pulling a slick one but most folks lurking or posting here will know that appellate courts don’t deal with merits. The facts are argued in original jurisdiction courts and appellate courts, including states’ and the federal Supreme Court address errors of law and lower court legal and constitutional interpretations exclusively.
Appellate judges assume that everything the appealling party alleges is factually true. Should they overturn based on original jurisdiction court error?

It is a FACT, an undeniable fact that Congress unanimously certified Obama’s electoral votes in 2009 and in 2013. Once they did that, according to the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, Obama became the President of the United States. The 12th Amendmnt says: “...shall be the president.”
No civil lawsuit can remove a president from office. A president can only be removed from office via conviction in a Senate trial on the guilty votes of two-thirds of the Senators present for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, or via resignation or if his cabinet deems him incapacitated/unable to serve and he fails to submit a letter stating that he is fit to serve.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nice try at pulling a slick one but most folks lurking or posting here will know that appellate courts don’t deal with merits.

That is some funny stuff right there. Like I said, we would look at the courts as a comedy act if the consequences weren't so dire. You are right, they don't deal with merits. They deal with ritual, and whether or not someone did or did not follow the proper incantations when weaving their lawyerly spell.

Again, they might as well be a church given how stuck they are on precedent and procedure at the expense of reason and facts. Their modus operandi is "Well, we've always done it that way before..."

The courts, their methods, rituals, and procedures, are left overs from our original Monarchical based governance. ("Your Honor", "Robes", "The Court", "Pleading", the "Throne" they sit on, etc.) It's a shame they weren't upgraded to something more befitting a Republic back in 1787.

[FreeAtlanta]

Although I like these men and think they would make much better presidents than the current clown, I wonder why we can’t produce native born candidates out of all the millions of people born in our nation.

Both Republican and Democrat have to go to the edge of legitimacy to find candidates? It is a sad statement of affairs.

[mlo]

“Rubio and Jindal were born in the United States...”

[mlo]

"That so many people were wrongly taught, and therefore believe something, does not make them correct. You are pushing the fallacy of popularity."

Yes, but cut the Birthers some slack. They read it on the Internet.

[DiogenesLamp]

Do you have something to contribute other than gratuitous insults directed at people who know more about the subject than you do?

Something like an argument better than "Our betters tell us what to believe"?

[Nero Germanicus]

I give you Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush! :-)
Or perhaps Mike Huckabee and Elizabeth Warren.
Chris Christie and Joe Biden, anybody?

[mlo]

"Do you have something to contribute other than gratuitous insults directed at people who know more about the subject than you do?"

Do you?

"Something like an argument better than "Our betters tell us what to believe"?"

Strange. That doesn't sound like anything I've ever said.

[DiogenesLamp]

Do you?

I'm pretty D*** sure that I do. I've been studying it for ~ seven years, and i'm still finding out new information on this topic. There is a lot of stuff in history that seriously conflicts with what is the current official court position.

Strange. That doesn't sound like anything I've ever said.

When you say that we should just accept whatever the courts says instead of researching it and learning where the courts took a wrong turn, it amounts to the same thing.

[mlo]

"I've been studying it for ~ seven years, and i'm still finding out new information on this topic."

There are people spending years studying the faked moon landings too. People make up their mind and then spend years finding evidence that supports them. See "Confirmation Bias".

"When you say that we should just accept whatever the courts says..."

I didn't actually say that did I? However, when you are talking about a legal issue citing what the court says is directly relevant and important. This is a legal question. One various courts, including the Supreme Court, has already written about. And it really isn't that hard. As the Supreme Court has already ruled, "natural born citizen" carried the same intent as "natural born subject". All the "studying" that birthers engage in is ultimately just a strenuous effort to deny that obvious fact.

Ultimately it's a complete waste of effort. You aren't ever going to win this argument. The courts that have bothered to address it do not agree with you. That is not going to change. All you will ever accomplish is sitting at home telling anyone that will listen how you are right and everyone else is wrong. Good luck with that.

[Radix]

Unfortunately you are correct.

This of course puts all Constitutional edicts or constraints into shadowy terrain.

Effectively, we have a system unfettered by its founding principles.

Worse, we have a system based on nothing else but what is permitted by those who swore to uphold that very system which they ignore and which they undermine regularly.

[DiogenesLamp]

There are people spending years studying the faked moon landings too. People make up their mind and then spend years finding evidence that supports them. See "Confirmation Bias".

And you don't think those people arguing that mere birth on our soil constitutes a claim on citizenship have no confirmation bias?

I didn't actually say that did I? However, when you are talking about a legal issue citing what the court says is directly relevant and important. This is a legal question. One various courts, including the Supreme Court, has already written about. And it really isn't that hard. As the Supreme Court has already ruled, "natural born citizen" carried the same intent as "natural born subject".

So you say you didn't say it, and here you are saying it again. "Don't look at contrary evidence, just accept what the Court says. " Well my friend, contrary evidence exists, and I say we should look at it. The Court has been wrong many times in the past, and this is just another area where the court is wrong.

All the "studying" that birthers engage in is ultimately just a strenuous effort to deny that obvious fact.

And this is *YOUR* confirmation bias. I can give you a page from a legal book from Pennsylvania (1817)that absolutely contradicts your theory. It explicitly says we do not follow English Common law, and the prototype for the American Citizen is *NOT* the English Subject, but will you look at it? I doubt it. You want to believe what you want to believe.

Ultimately it's a complete waste of effort. You aren't ever going to win this argument. The courts that have bothered to address it do not agree with you.

So I take this to mean that you are a supporter of Homosexual marriage? The *COURT'S* have spoken, and all your arguments apply, so is it safe to say that as far as you are concerned, Homosexual marriage is correct, and all us out here who think otherwise are just wrong?

That is not going to change. All you will ever accomplish is sitting at home telling anyone that will listen how you are right and everyone else is wrong. Good luck with that.

The truth is not subject to consensus. I am aware that a lot of people believe nonsensical things, but this does not compel me to also believe nonsensical things. You may say it is futile to shine some light on the truth, but you are entitled to your opinion.

I think we should do what we believe to be right even if others tell us it is wrong and futile. You may believe differently.