Posted on 12/01/2008 6:04:32 AM PST by pissant
Controversy continues to surround President-elect Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as president, and a case involving his birth certificate waits for its day before the U.S. Supreme Court. A constitutional lawyer said were it to be discovered that Mr. Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, it would have grave consequences for the nation.
According to the Constitution, a president must be a natural born citizen of the U.S. Mr. Obama's critics have failed to force him legally to produce his original birth certificate, and Mr. Obama has resisted any attempt to make him do so. Currently, only Hawaii Department of Health officials have access to Mr. Obama's original records.
Some of Mr. Obama's critics have said he was born in Kenya and have claimed he is a citizen of Kenya, Indonesia, or even a British subject.
Edwin Vieira, a constitutional lawyer who has practiced for 30 years and holds four degrees from Harvard, said if it were to be discovered Mr. Obama were not eligible for the presidency, it would cause many problems. They would be compounded if his ineligibility were discovered after he had been in office for a period of time.
"Let's assume he wasn't born in the U.S.," Mr. Vieira told The Bulletin. "What's the consequence? He will not be eligible. That means he cannot be elected validly. The people and the Electoral College cannot overcome this and the House of Representatives can't make him president. So what's the next step? He takes the oath of office, and assuming he's aware he's not a citizen, then it's a perjured oath."
Any appointments made by an ineligible president would have to be recalled, and their decisions would be invalidated.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebulletin.us ...
At the time he was just a student.
"Sovereign" can also mean "Independent" [Webster's Dictionary], thus one not under the authority of the laws of the US.
The term for that would be foreign national.
My poor memory - I think we are both correct - it states that the person with the most AND A MAJORITY is president and if no one has a majority then it goes to the house. As majority can only be achieved currently with greater than 269.
“The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice.
Why isn’t every citizen concerned that the Constitution be upheld in such an important instant? And why would you believe the GOP has any importance if a fundamental aspect of the Constitution can be casually disregarded
Certain aspects of the Constitution have not been followed for many years. To think these "cases" are going to make the government/courts uphold the constitution anymore than usual is wishful thinking at best, and to think Osama Obama is going to be disqualified because of this is even more wishful thinking. I hope I'm wrong, but unfortunately, I'm living in reality.
Further more, if Obama is not a naturalized citizen and has made it this far in a Presidential election, it would mean our government has failed us. Do you realize the amount of government agencies, not to mention Political players that would have failed in their job? Do you realize how big of a conspiracy and how many hundreds of thousands of people would be involved? Do you realize it would involve people from every Political party?
This is just more wishful thinking. OSAMA OBAMA beat us, and beat us bad because of numerous reasons, reasons we are refusing to identify and fix.
When a president or soon to be president elect has the support of more than a majority of the population, they get away with all sorts of garbage. (Think Bill Clinton) I have as much faith about Obama being disqualified as I had Bill Clinton was going to be removed from office.
And why would you believe the GOP has any importance if a fundamental aspect of the Constitution can be casually disregarded?
Reality says the constitution has been disregarded at times throughout history depending on the circumstance. This could be through an interpretation by a judge/elected official (which is a whole another problem), or someone found a sneaky way to get around certain aspects of it. Most the time the problems fix themselves, but at times, a way is permanently found to get around the constitution.
In any case it is bull crap!!! I believe strongly in the constitution, and believe strongly in following it the best we can without interpreting it for ones own political gains/reasons.
Americans still vote. Americans as a whole still feel the major political parties have importance.
Americans as a whole voted in Obama ... sigh ....
I have to agree with you. Rather than try and entangle the Obamanation with this legalese and constitutional voodoo, we ought to just let him into the Oval Office and watch as he and the entire democratic party self destructs. Yes, they will do an ungodly amount of damage to the nation in the process, maybe even irreparable damage, but at least it will be self inflicted. The time to have nailed him with this objection to his candidacy was back when he won in Iowa, not as he stands ready to assume the office. Besides, all of this is obviously God's will and happening according to HIS timetable in accordance with the various prophesies of the endtimes. Step back and let God work.
Congress determines the validity of electoral votes and may have no choice but to disqualify any cast for an ineligible candidate.
Yeah, the power to have full constitutional rights.
No they don't. Votes can be challenged but both the House and Senate would have to uphold the challenge. With 58 Democratic Senators and around 256 Democratic Congressmen what chance to you think there is that that will happen?
Most of us do not condemn skeptics out of hand. But those who do not even want this addressed are another matter. Them I will strongly condemn.
And almost all are willing to accept the word of the Court that they have seen a valid BC. I do not have to even see it, in case there is something embarassing to Zero. I don’t care about National Inquirer type gossip.
My only concern is that a direct demand of the Constitution not be violated.
One reason the Heroes of the Right are not cheering this on is so that a negative finding for Zero cannot be blamed on the vast Right Wing Conspiracy. It is not a political issue as much as a judicial one not subject to popular opinion their field of expertise.
His argument against McCain is straight out of Bizzaro land and makes me doubt everything about him. If valid it would make injustice justice.
Levin’s opinion of Scalia’s “weakness” is not a fact just his opinion. I respect him but do not believe the Court will punt on this without any information.
Since the constituted authorities in Florida were overturned by the Florida Supreme Court the US Courts became involved. It became a controversy within the Law and the USSC is the final arbiter thereof.
There were several issues on which they ruled.
Irrespective of the past I do not believe the Court could afford to undermine the very basis of its existence and will point to a solution if this is really a problem.
I would say that the Court has the highest reputation of any element of government (and it should) and was designed to be above politics. Certainly it is the least affected if not entirely impervious to politics. There is hope that it will work as our Founders intended and not throw itself into political corruption.
If it does then the US as a constitutional republic is finished. Say hello to the People’s Republic.
There is a big difference in your opinion that the constitution has been violated by rulings which were interpretations and the ignoring of a violation of a DIRECT DEMAND wrt the highest office in the land. The latter would mean the Court destroys the very basis of its existence.
There was no great a priori conspiracy here. It may well turn into a huge ex-post facto one. Even one who despises the Party of Treason/Treason Media as much as I never believed they would try something as brazen as this.
Right Congress does have the power to invalidate or not accept Electoral Votes. Typically in a challenge I would say you are right and it would be a completely political decision but this is a horse of a different color since it would require the ignoring of a direct demand of the Constitution affecting the highest office in the land.
And the sessions of the Houses would be televised I believe.
The Court did not hesitate to order Nixon to turn the tapes over even though it forced the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War.
This could be high drama on the order of Shakespeare.
Everyone involved in this case is a nobody. These lawsuits are not going to amount to anything. They are a wasted effort. If there was direct proof Obama was not eligible for President, it would have been presented already ... We have nothing.
If Obama is truly a non eligible candidate for President of America, then there was a huge conspiracy by everyone involved in the election for hiding that fact.
I'm done discussing this matter, at this point if you feel there is a chance of Obama being disqualified, you are either living on false hopes, or not living in reality at all.
WE NEED TO SPEND OUR ENERGY ON WINNING THE TRUST BACK OF THE POPULATION.
If the Electoral College elects Obama as President and Biden as VP and Congress counts the votes and accepts them, and later (but before the Inauguration) the courts declare Obama not to be a natural-born citizen (and hence not to meet the constitutional qualifications), then there would be a vacancy in the office of the president and the new VP (Biden) would succeed to the presidency immediately upon being sworn in as VP; since Obama would be unable to qualify for the presidency at a later date (given that the qualification he would lack would not be one that could be cured with time, such as would have been the case had he been, say, just under 35 years old or a resident of the U.S. for a bit less than 14 years), Biden would serve as president for the entire term.
If the Electoral College elects Obama president and Biden VP and Congress refuses to count votes for Obama because it deems him not to meet the constitutional qualifications, then no candidate for president would have received 270 EVs and the House would elect the president from among the candidates with the three highest number of EVs, with each state delegation getting one vote. If McCain is the only constitutionally qualified candidate to receive EVs, then the House can either elect McCain or elect no one, and since Democrats control a majority of House state delegations they may elect no one so that Biden serves as president for the entire term (I’m assuming that if less than a majority of members of a state delegation votes for McCain it won’t be deemed as a vote for McCain by such state delegation, and so the Democrats could keep McCain under 26 votes). However, if just one of the Democrats in the Electoral College votes for Hillary (or some other Democrat for president), then she would be eligible for election by the House (assuming that she finishes among the top three candidates). Of course, the GOP could counteract this by having its electors cast a bit over 1/3 of its votes for McCain and a bit less than 1/3 for each of, say, Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney, so the top-3 legal candidates would be Republicans even if a few Democrat electors cast votes for Hillary, but that would take quite a bit of foresight and planning and I don;t think the GOP thinks that the scenario I described above could possibly occur.
If Obama is deemed by the courts to be constitutionally unqualified prior to the Electoral College meeting, then Obama and the Democrats would likely hold a conference call with the 365 Democrat presidential electors and instruct them to vote for Hillary or whomever it is that would be their preferred replacement, and such person would be elected president when the Electoral College meets. Either that or Obama and the Democrats will choose to ignore the Supreme Court and insist on Obama’s eligibility, and the Electoral College will elect him, the Democrat Congress will count the votes for Obama, some notary will sewr Obama in as president and we’ll have a bona fide constitutional crisis in our hands.
One scenario I didn’t mention above was that the courts declare Obama not to be a natural-born citizen after he has already taken office. That would also result in a constitutional crisis even if Obama agreed to resign from the presidency, since the legal status of his appointments and the bills that he purportedly signed into law would be questionable at best.
Someone remind one of the Democrat electors to cast a single "protest" electoral vote for Hillary. Then she will be one of the top three vote getters.
Interesting thought, if we had the elections over, Hillary only SUSPENDED her campaign when Obama got the nominee. Does this mean anything? Just thinking she might try running again.
I don’t see how we would have a “do-over” election, but if Obama was declared ineligible before the Electoral College meets, Hillary would surely try to get the Democrat electors to elect her president. Heck, she might try to get one or more Democrat elector to vote for her in case Obama is declared unqualified when Congress counts the votes (which would allow her to be elected president by House Democrats assuming that she finished in the top-3 in electoral votes).
You can live in your world of Assumptions. I prefer to examine things and see how they work out. And there is no question that something is very wrong here from behavior of the Obama camp/media. Apparently you have no curiosity and just accept whatever bilge the Treason media is handing out.
There is no chance of winning anyone back if the Constitution is used as toilet paper. As long as the Treason media is able to put a possibly illegal alien into the White House you are sunk.
Yep. In the election of 1824 no candidate had a majority and it was thrown into the House which had to choose between Jackson, William Crawford and John Quincy Adams. Jackson had received the most votes and Adams the least but the House choose the latter.
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