Posted on 12/26/2009 6:59:53 AM PST by westcoastwillieg
Attorney Philip J. Berg defends Obama birth certificate lawsuits
Editor's note: Philip J. Berg, former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania and an activist attorney who brought a lawsuit challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to become president of the United States, has written the following reply to Jamie Freeze's Dec. 22 RenewAmerica article "Facts are stubborn things: Obama is a natural-born citizen."
Jamie Freeze, a law student, has called any of us who question Soetoro/Obama's citizenship status and constitutional eligibility to serve as U.S. President --- a constitutional right of ours, of course --- incompetent idiots. Ms. Freeze, however, may want to continue her education. Part of being a lawyer, a very important part, is being able to comprehend what you read and to cite the correct law to collaborate it, something Ms. Freeze has clearly failed to do.
I will respond below to Ms. Freeze's allegations. My responses are in bold. I also want to make very clear to all readers that none of the eligibility cases have been heard, litigated, or dismissed based on the law pertaining to any of the issues raised. Instead, the eligibility cases have been dismissed on the basis of "STANDING" only.
(Excerpt) Read more at renewamerica.com ...
I will copy this and send it to my very STUPID Republican reps. RINOS without balls...ALL OF THEM! From Senator, House Rep, governor attorney general, and secretary of state down to dog catcher.
I've seen this said several times, but have never been able to find real evidence for any of it. Could you provide citations and/or links for the above? Specifically:
It’s more than embarrassing. It’s downright disgusting. It damages the credibility of FR when freepers spew unsubstantiated rumors as facts and make illogical assertions that don’t hold up under a cursory review of the evidence.
Exactly what legal paperwork had to be done after his election which is when most of the expenditures reported on the FEC web site were made? Just curious.
Okeee, so she claims to be a Republican... bet she has a card that says that too!!
“Here goes: If you believe that President Obama is NOT a natural-born citizen, then you are an incompetent idiot who is probably watching Glenn Beck while wearing a tin-foil hat. You probably think Obama’s a Muslim too.”
Is THIS the statement of most Freepers? Yes, never let FACTS be ignored on FR ImpBill. How many Freepers honestly do NOT believe Obama is a muslim? Not many I’d say.
If Ms. Freeze were merely stating her facts as to WHY she thinks Obama is a Natural Born Citizen, I’d believe more than she was a Republican. It’s that she can’t even write a legal paper without slamming Republicans/Conservatives numerous times that leads me to believe that she is not.
Berg too is either wrong, or is working for the Obama group. The constitutional definition, which Berg has assiduously ignored, is cited in at least four cases, from the beginning of the republic, and referred to in over one hundred, and has never been amended, though many attempts, twenty four, have been made to do so.
Chief Justice John Marshall in The Venus, 12 U.S. 253 on page 289 cites Vattel and repeats ‘...born in the country of parents who are its citizens’ in 1814, Chief Justice Waite repeats in Minor V. Happersett, its is cited by Gray in Wong Kim Ark., though the case is a mishmash, perhaps intentionally so since Gray was a Chester Arthur appointee, of irrelevent citations. (What does come clearly from Wong is that citizen and natural born citizen are distinct.)
There has never been another interpretation “though there have been doubts” from that provided by Marshall, who was a Minuteman, and Envoy to France, and clearly understood the meaning of jus sanguinis, because France one of the countries which based its citizenship definition upon the Roman legal theories from which jus sanguinis descends. You can bet that should either of the Kerchner or Donofrio cases get to the supreme court, the "about which there have been doubts" phrase is going to get lots of attention.
This issue may become very important as those covering for Obama see that the winds are turning. Ignoring the clear words of the founders, and even the clear words in 2008 of Senator Pat Leahy, Claire McGaskill, Hillary Clinton, in Senate Res. 511 http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200804/041008c.html
Note the clear quotation by former federal judge Michael Chertoff
“My assumption and my understanding is that if you are born of American parents, you are naturally a natural-born American citizen,” Chertoff replied.
“That is mine, too,” said Leahy.”
Read the wording of the Resolution. “Whereas the term ‘‘natural born Citizen’’, as that term appears in Article II, Section 1, is not defined in the Constitution of the United States;”
The weasel word is ‘whereas.’ Natural born citizen was in is a term of common law, derived both from Vattel’s Law of Nations, and from the ‘law of nations’ of the time. Britain's citizenship was based upon feudal principals, jus soli. France was a jus sanguinis, or citizenship-derived-from-parents nation. Waite, Joseph Story, James Kent, a number of our great legal minds have explained this point. The Constitution does not define most of the terms it uses. Does that mean we don't understand ‘felony’ because it is supported only by the common law?
Senate Res 511 means every senator understands natural born citizenship, since they all signed it. They would lose a rigorous legal argument if they were cornered. But they won't be, because they are protected. They were more afraid of the consequences of having to face the Obama legal and polical machine than of lying about a legal fact - what is is, or black is white.
The founders were perfectly clear. Berg may be working for Obama. Let the supreme court assert that John Marshall, Waite, John Jay, James Madison, Joseph Story, Alexander Hamilton ... didn't mean what they said when they cited by far the most quoted legal source on citizenship in the nineteenth century, Vattel’s Law of Nations. (See Alexandrowicz ‘Studies in the History of the Law of Nations, Volume 2 1972).
Motive of an assertion doesn't matter. People may be ignorant or devious in pursuit of an end. The words of our founders were clear. Their intent is clear; there is a long long discussion, thousands of years, on the meaning to societies of citizenship in its many shades. Chief Justice John Marshall is all you need to know. To assert anything else requires an amendment to the constitution.
“...born in the country of parents who are its citizens.”
Don't be confused. There is no law which can make Obama a legal president, which doesn't alter Marshall’s citation in The Venus. Those in power know they must ignore the Constitution. They started with Obama. He told us his father and he were British subjects at birth. Natural born in British or U.S. law means citizenship derived from the parents (or father, when women were property of the husband). No law could change the citizenship of Obama Senior. Obama was naturally - unchanged by law - the son of a British citizn. He is, by British law, a British subject (a confusing term - American indians were subjects, and not citizens at our founding). Our representatives let it happen, and, probably a weakness in the electoral structure, electors are required in most states to vote with the party which nominated them. Now we need to enforce our Constitution, or accept that it doesn't protect us unless the legislature decides it should. We are not a nation of the people, we are a nation of the progressive wing of the Democratic party with an unconstitutional president and commander in chief.
By "most" you mean half? $2.3m since January 2007. $1.3m from October 2008 to June 2009. In comparison, McCain has spent $1.4m from January 2007 to June 2009. If McCain has legal expenses from November 2008 to June 2009, it would be logical to assume that Obama has too, right? No, let's be emotional and assume that while McCain had campaign-related legal expenses after the election Obama could have ONLY eligibility lawsuit expenses. And let's ignore the fact that eligibility lawsuits filed since the election were handled by DOJ with taxpayer money.
People complain about the DOJ defending Obama with taxpayer money since the election and at the same time make the accusation that his legal expenses since the election were eligibility-related.
You do not answer the question. What campaign expenses has Obama had since the election? You claim that they are substantial. So what are they?
As far as my understanding of the issue takes me, I think you are entirely correct — Berg may very well be working for the Obama team. His posts here may simply be an attempt to throw the hounds off the scented trail.
There is, however, a simple solution to this issue, as duly noted by “taxcontrol” in Post 16, “...win the House back in the 2010 Congressional elections and open up a congressional investigation. Subpoena the Dept of Health in Hawaii for his long form birth certificate, likewise the admission records for all of his colleges and the Dept of State for his passport records.”
ex animo
davidfarrar
I thought intelligence was an immutable quality. One’s intelligence is like having blue or brown eyes, OR BEING NATURAL BORN!
With effort, proper study, and training one can learn to be meticulous or well-reasoned but intelligence is a fixed quality.
How the hell would I know what campaign-related expenses Obama has had since the election? I’m not privy to his legal documents.
Guess what? The same applies to you too. How do you justify the claim that “most” of his legal expenses were after the election and therefore eligibility-related? Do you claim that most of McCain’s legal expenses since the election were eligibility-related? If not, what legal expenses would McCain’s campaign have had that Obama’s would not?
Hint: The answer is we don’t know because that information isn’t detailed in the FEC reports. So it’s all speculation. We can’t say with any certainty what he spent the money on.
I called my Repulican Senators’ offices this week to complain about how poorly Obama was vetted by the Republican Party officials in my state and nationally.
I was literally **YELLED** at by the secretaries answering their phones. ( Really!) These secretaries in these REPUBLICAN senators’ offices yelled at me and used the **same** talking points as this naive writer, Jamiee.
Jamiee has her eyes closed and fingers in the ears chanting, “LA, LA, LA, LA,”, in the same way as my RINO senators! She is doing nothing more that repeating the “talking points” used by RINO representatives who have gonads the size of a dust mite.
The RINOS in the Republican Party want this issue to go away because not even ONE of them has the BALLS to do what is right and STAND UP TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION!
I can't stand any of them. ( Jamiee included!)
All law students think they know everything.
“HIs campaign has spent the money as a matter of public record.”
_____________
You make the claim, you present the proof.
I wrote insurance for several large firms in Atlanta and you are right. For that matter, the conversations I have had in my years has also produced some jaw dropping moments and I think “You passed the bar? The answers must have cost you a pretty penny because you are an idiot!”
Didn’t say it out loud of course. Just produced them with the laws disputing their ridiculous claims and generally never heard from them again.
As an aside, from my experience it seems most lawyers are used to blustering to get their way. Like the “I am an attorney” is so intimidating to folks that they just get all fluffed up and “prepared to file suit” and hope the person buys their bluff.
They have been posted on the internet.
A posting on the internet is NOT a document -- except in the bizarro world of Obamabots.
Really? Where is that “certification from the Hawaii Department of Helath that he has a valid birth certificate on file” and what exactly does that “valid birth certificate on file” say? Because Hawaii has a quirky little law that allowed people to have a “valid birth certificate on file” for those born outside of Hawaii.
So aside from being irrevelant, that whole “certification from the Hawaii Department of Helath that he has a valid birth certificate on file” is also an internet rumor.
At the conclusion of the October 5 hearing in response to Gary Kreep’s arguments regarding standing of the third party candidates, Judge Carter was not laughing when he stated “I haven't made up my mind” . I assure you that the DOJ lawyers and Obama were not laughing!
If Carter was reluctant to deprive candidates on the presidential ballot of the right to litigate the eligibility of another candidate on the ballot who has won, then the 9th Circuit judges may also have difficulty making up their minds and may come down on the side of Kreep’s plaintiffs. We just won't know until they rule on the appeal.
I tend to laugh at folks who claim to know how judges will rule!
I have made that point so often. One judge actually SAID that the President was vetted by “tweets and texts” and I’m thinking “Can I scan in a receipt to show I was somewhere else as an alibi?”
I doubt it and yet THIS issue it seems acceptable.
I also often claim (not had the need yet) that I am going to go in the DMV and request a copy of my license stating it’s lost. When they ask for my birth certificate and Social Security card, I will give them a URL of the scan.
Hell, it’s good enough to get the nuke codes, surely it would be ok to drive!
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