BREAKING -- Berg v Obama - Scheduled for SCOTUS Conference TWICE on Jan 16

US Supreme Court ^ | 12/23/08 | US Supreme Court

[BP2]

No. 08-570
Title:	Philip J. Berg, Petitioner v. Barack Obama, et al.
Docketed:	October 31, 2008
Lower Ct:	United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Case Nos.:	(08-4340)
	Rule 11

~~~Date~~~	~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oct 30 2008	Petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment filed. (Response due December 1, 2008)
Oct 31 2008	Application (08A391) for an injunction pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Nov 3 2008	Supplemental brief of applicant Philip J. Berg filed.
Nov 3 2008	Application (08A391) denied by Justice Souter.
Nov 18 2008	Waiver of right of respondents Federal Election Commission, et al. to respond filed.
Dec 1 2008	Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Bill Anderson.
Dec 8 2008	Application (08A505) for an injunction pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Dec 9 2008	Application (08A505) denied by Justice Souter.
Dec 15 2008	Application (08A505) refiled and submitted to Justice Kennedy.
Dec 17 2008	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 9, 2009.
Dec 17 2008	Application (08A505) denied by Justice Kennedy.
Dec 18 2008	Application (08A505) refiled and submitted to Justice Scalia.
Dec 23 2008	Application (08A505) referred to the Court.
Dec 23 2008	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 16, 2009.	---------------

No. 08A505
Title:	Philip J. Berg, Applicant v. Barack Obama, et al.
Docketed:
Lower Ct:	United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Case Nos.:

(08-4340)

~~~Date~~~	~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dec 8 2008	Application (08A505) for an injunction pending the disposition of the petition for a writ of certiorari, submitted to Justice Souter.
Dec 9 2008	Application (08A505) denied by Justice Souter.
Dec 15 2008	Application (08A505) refiled and submitted to Justice Kennedy.
Dec 17 2008	Application (08A505) denied by Justice Kennedy.
Dec 18 2008	Application (08A505) refiled and submitted to Justice Scalia.
Dec 23 2008	Application (08A505) referred to the Court.
Dec 23 2008	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of January 16, 2009.

[MHGinTN]

I'm tired, so here's the fencepost from someone else you can argue with:

Thomas Jefferson wrote Virginia’s birthright law of 1777 requiring the father to be a citizen.

“We can say with confidence that a natural-born citizen of the United States means those persons born whose father the United States already has an established jurisdiction over, i.e., born to father’s who are themselves citizens of the United States. “

~~~~~~~~~~~

The “natural born” Clause’s origins have been traced to a July 25, 1787 letter from John Jay to the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, George Washington. Jay wrote, “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.”

To be considered Natural-Born, both parents must be citizens, otherwise, we’ll have anchor babies running for POTUS in the future.

[MHGinTN]

False trail ... Obama is black, and if for instance clinton questioned his eligibility and had him disqualified, she could not win with zero black votes. Black people vote in block. But that was a nice try.

[little jeremiah]

1. Why 0bama has hidden/sealed/erased/made unavailable practically every single record of his entire life....

2. I don’t give a flying rat’s patootie about why prominent Repubs haven’t mentioned it. None of them (or precious few) have any spine, guts, fire or courage anyway. “Reaching across the aisle” appears to be the standard, and that’s why elections are lost. Conservative talkshow hosts? Aka political entertainers, with egos as big as their audiences? Keyes, when he ran against 0bama for Senator - a Senator doesn’t have to be a natural born citizen, can even be naturalized, so inapplicable.

3. Hillary? Probably because the rats all have tons of dirt on each other so it’s kind of MAD - mutually assured destruction - “If I go down, YOU go down - hahaha!” type of thing.

4. 0bama’s eligibility didn’t SLIP past anyone. It’s just that it wasn’t brought into public notice until this summer.

5. When the issue of birth certifacate surface, McCain showed his, I’ve seen it here on FR. How come 0bama went through the fake COLB song and dance, and didn’t pony up his real BC as did McCain? That’s the real question you should be asking.

[MHGinTN]

The author's original assertions were demonstrated to be incorrect ... I cannot agree with that sweeping assertion having read all the entries following Madison's essay and update. You may 'feel' his assertions were incorrect but your opinion holds no more wieght than mine. THAT is why this begs for a SCOTUS ruling.

[little jeremiah]

“And this is where Donofrio’s argument disintegrates into pure fantasy because nowhere, and I mean nowhere, is there any case law that recognizes this “three-tiered” (Natural Born, Naturalized, Regular) definition of U.S. citizen.”

So you say, others say different. It remains to be seen. But this is all predicated on his being born in Hawaii, or in the US in general, and he has not proved or given one bit of evidence that this is so.

Your argument over and over again is that “there is no controlling legal authority” for him to have to prove anything, which goes about as far as a two legged blind dog can run.

[MHGinTN]

I wasn't aware of the 'eating babies' crowd. Guess I'm too old to 'acquire new tastes'. But I was well familiar with the Obama defense of slaughtering Southside Chicago just born alive infants using induced labor for alive preemies, as a means to protect the leftists' Roe ritual of baby slaughter.

Obama is a wicked man, but then a majority of American voters, especially black American voters--judging by the numbers voting for the man--don't seem to care if he's wicked so long as he's their socialism sugardaddy black candidate. Thankfully, there is a seed of rational black thought which has not been bastardized. That's why I eagerly read Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams and the court rulings of Justice Clarence Thomas.

[Drew68]

Obama is black, and if for instance clinton questioned his eligibility and had him disqualified, she could not win with zero black votes. Black people vote in block. But that was a nice try.

That's a weak argument and you know it. Blacks would have voted for whoever had a 'D' next to their name and, in fact, supported Hillary over Obama in the beginning only shifting over to Obama when he started to look electable. Remember Obama being criticized by blacks for not being "authentically" black because his ancestors were never brought over as slaves?

Black support of Obama was not by default. Hillary had blacks in the beginning.

And Hillary would've hammered Obama over eligibility, reminding voters that, "It's sadly unfortunate that our Constitution, written by slave-owners, doesn't allow for such a fine, brilliant man like Barack Obama to aspire to the Presidency." You think Hillary would've passed that up?

And what about Keyes' Senate run? Obama was already being groomed for a future presidential run during Keyes' ill-fated contest. Keyes could have, at the very least, forced the issue. He didn't then. Now it's suddenly important?

McCain, Palin, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Limbaugh, etc. The roster of conservative voices silent on this issue starts at the very top and goes on from there. To embrace this conspiracy is to accept a whole laundry-list of convoluted arguments, each one falling perfectly in place for such a monumental ruse to succeed.

It just didn't happen.

[calenel]

"But what we are talking about are the “parents” of a single individual."

Not really. The phrase in question is 'children of parents' Multiple children of a single set of parents doesn't make any more sense, and arguably less in the context of citizenship of the mother acquired by marriage, than multiple children of multiple fathers. Also, any case where the number of objects involved is one or more, or simply unknown, the plural is used. For example, consider the question of 'How many people are in that car?' Well, if it is one then they might be excluded from the carpool lane, but we don't know unless we examine the specific case. 'How many miles is distance [x]?' It might be one, but the plural is used for any amount, be it fewer than, greater than, or exactly one, or even a fractional value, until we explicitly evaluate the case. So, if they meant either one or two parents they would have used the plural, and if they meant only the fathers of multiple unrelated children they would also have used the plural.

"There really isn’t much of an issue here except for those who want Obama to have inherited his citizenship through his mother, something that I can’t really find any Constitutional basis for since the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified."

Equal Rights Amendment considerations aside, she was not eligible by statute, but a reasonable Common Law argument could be made for Obama to have gained citizenship through his mother if there weren't an existing body of law that precluded it. As far as gender issues go, the 14th is gender neutral and all gender specific language had disappeared by the 1934 statute.

[calenel]

"Additionally, Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.” What better way to insure attachment to the country then to require the President to have inherited his American citizenship through his American father and not through a foreign father. Any child can be born anywhere in the country and removed by their father to be raised in his native country. The risks would be for the child to return in later life to reside in this country bringing with him foreign influences and intrigues."

Too bad nobody brought that up to John Bingham while he was doing such a poor job of framing the 14th. Or to any of the ratifying legislatures, state and federal. Suppose that the citizenships of Dunham and Obama Sr. had been reversed. Would what Charles Pinkney said have been applicable? Because then, substituting 'parent' for 'father' (which is how the SCOTUS would read it) that would be exactly what happened. Stanley Ann Dunham was no friend of the US, and Obama Sr. was not a major influence on Obama Jr. But Dunham was a citizen and it is only by the happy factor of Obama's possible birth outside of the US that he might not be eligible.

We have the Rule of Law in this country. That is one of the factors that makes the US the best nation, the best form of government, that God ever gave Man. But while we might be getting skewered by that very same Rule of Law, we also might be getting saved by it. That is why we must force the production of the BC. Either way. Obama, regardless of his eligibility, must not be allowed to skate, but at the same time we cannot abandon the principles that do, in fact, make us the greatest nation the world has ever seen.

[calenel]

Source?

[Gemsbok]

trumandogz,
The lineage and backgrounds of our former 42 presidents were well established. None have sealed and hidden all of their documentation from birth records, educational records, employment records, and even legislative schedules.

Only your candidate has been deceptive, deceitful, and secretive about his entire life. Please explain why there could be so much to hide. Why has he hidden even his kindergarten records? What could possibly be so terrible that he has been forced to erase his past?

A presidential museum dedicated to him would be an empty box. But likely funded with hundreds of millions of untraceable dollars, just like the campaign.

[calenel]

"Y’know it’s funny...the detractors of the NBC argument rely on a case that intermingles native and natural language but clearly admits one does not define the other, they rely on Hamilton’s objection to denying eligibility to Americans who had proved themselves during the Revolution (the other framers told him to sit in the corner and speak when spoken to), they rely on case law and statute that addresses citizenship but not NBC per se, they rely on some pinko liberal university scholar who abhores the exclusion of anyone (regardless of dual allegiances, patriotism, or belief in the Constitution as the guiding document), they rely on dictionary entries (and children’s books, CNN, poop smear editorials, whatever) if it remotely equates NBC to native or citizen, they rely on our lack of resolve to maintain reason and precedence is more important than wishful thinking and “will of the people”."

Perhaps you should address the issues and not resort to indirect ad hominem attacks, which still count as abuse if you weren't aware of that, and address the issues rather than the messengers. You previously attempted to somehow discredit me in the past by calling me a RINO, among other things, and calling attention to my political views which you disparaged and attempted to get others to disparage. I, at least, have the courage to put them up on my FR home page for the world to see, and I invited you to bring up any points on there or not on there that you felt were not addressed to your satisfaction. I reissue the invitation, to you or anyone else who wishes to engage in reasoned debate regarding anything I have written there. If you think I'm wrong, then challenge my opinions and logic, if you have the courage. All you demonstrate with posts like the one above is your abject intellectual poverty. As I said to you the last time you pulled this crap, "Well, come on, noobie. Take your best shot. Or are you going to run away, again?

[calenel]

"Can you show me where the previous 42 men that have been President have submitted conclusive proof that they were in fact natural born citizens?

Is there a place in the National Archives that holds the original 42 birth certificates?"

You know better. Only Arthur was seriously challenged and he was either legit or successfully pulled of his fraudulent usurpation. [I hold no opinion as to which case might be the true one] Obama hasn't proven his eligibility, nor has his fraudulent usurpation been thus far successful. Different principles, different technology, different era. The fact that it isn't fair doesn't mean we have to roll over for one fraud because another had a lower threshold to cross. You cannot create a precedent through fraud (at least not if they catch you).

[calenel]

Since you are apparently keeping an open mind, I will say "Fair enough." But there is no basis for the three types of citizen you describe. If you are a citizen then either you are born a citizen, or you are naturalized to become a citizen, right? No other mechanism exists in the Constitution. And no further subdivision of either of these two types exists in the COTUS unless you try to apply some special undocumented meaning to 'natural born.' All of the rights and privileges of citizenship belong to all citizens regardless of where or how that citizenship was acquired, with the sole exception of the ability to become President which is reserved to 'natural born' citizens. With this one exception, why bother to distinguish between citizens of any type when discussing said rights and privileges? The COTUS, in fact, does not. It uses the term 'Citizens' in every other place where it discusses citizens of any type, excepting only Article II where the qualifications for President are spelled out. This also applies to Amendments, specifically the 14th, where it describes who is a citizen, but does not subdivide 'born' citizens into any subcategories.

There have been any number of claims as to the intent of the FFs regarding 'natural born' status, but there has been no example cited of any discussion of the meaning of the phrase by FFs where they provided a definition other than the one found in the dictionary, which has been demonstrated to predate the COTUS by some two centuries (Random House Unabridged Dictionary: 1575-1585, Oxford English Dictionary: 1583) at least. So, either there is some other definition than the dictionary definition which the FFs agreed to by consensus without ever debating or discussing it, or they actually meant the dictionary definition. Incidentally, Oxford cites Blackstone as a source for its definition, so I dare say that the definition favored by Blackstone is the same one as found in the Oxford English Dictionary which agrees with the 'citizen at birth' definition cited. Therefore, all Article II says about it is that the President must have been a citizen at birth.

[calenel]

"I posted this yesterday is response to 'where is case law or statute defining NBC? Where is explained in the Constitution?' The answer was crickets chirping or a feeble equivelant."

That is an outright lie. You just didn't like the response.