Posted on 08/24/2010 6:37:15 PM PDT by RobinMasters
The State Department is maintaining a "counter-misinformation" page on an America.gov blog that attempts to "debunk a conspiracy theory" that President Obama was not born in the United States, as if the topic were equivalent to believing space aliens visit Earth in flying saucers.
However, in the attempt to debunk the Obama birth-certificate controversy, the State Department author confirmed Obama was a dual citizen of the U.K. and the U.S. from 1961 to 1963 and a dual citizen of Kenya and the U.S. from 1963 to 1982, because his father was a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born in 1961.
In a number of court cases challenging Obama's eligibility, dual citizenship has been raised as a factor that could compromise his "natural born" status under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. The cases argue dual citizenship would make Obama ineligible even if documentary evidence were shown the public, such as the hospital-issued long-form birth certificate that indicates the place of his birth and the name of the attending physician.
The entry "The Obama Birth Controversy" was written by Todd Leventhal, identified as the chief of the Counter-Misinformation Team for the U.S. Department of State. The office appears to have been established "to provide information about false and misleading stories in the Middle East," as described in a biography of Leventhal published on the U.S. Public Diplomacy website.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Contrary to those that believe otherwise, Obie isn't smarter than a fifth grader....and arrogant pathological liars think they never will get caught. Did he plan on running for President 14 years ago or did he change his mind since then?
Vattel didn’t even use the phrase “natural born citizen”. He used natives, or indigenous...not NBC. It wasn’t until 1797 that a translation of Vattel was made that substituted NBC...
Strict constructionist conservatives don’t depend on international law books for their points of view, the wording of the US Constitution is good enough.
1. Just because he published a book that outlined his dualie status, it does not mean that he didn’t commit a fraudulent act by signing the DNC document stating his eligibility for office! What twisted logic!!! In verity, the book could support the fraud argument as he admitted dual status and still said he was qualified! Let’s say he ‘didn’t know dualies weren’t qualified’ which is absurd, ipso facto, due to the Senate thing w/ McCain, It still does not fly. If one is running for office the onus to determine and ensure eligibility is incumbent upon the candidate. No one else.
2. Just because SCOTUS hasn’t shown an interest does not mean he hasn’t committed fraud and is qualified. That is amongst the worst straw-man arguments I’ve ever heard!
The Constitution says no such thing.
1. Just because he published a book that outlined his dualie status, it does not mean that he didn’t commit a fraudulent act by signing the DNC document stating his eligibility for office! What twisted logic!!! In verity, the book could support the fraud argument as he admitted dual status and still said he was qualified! Let’s say he ‘didn’t know dualies weren’t qualified’ which is absurd, ipso facto, due to the Senate thing w/ McCain, It still does not fly. If one is running for office the onus to determine and ensure eligibility is incumbent upon the candidate. No one else.
2. Just because SCOTUS hasn’t shown an interest does not mean he hasn’t committed fraud and is qualified. That is amongst the worst straw-man arguments I’ve ever heard!
Just because you think reality is a “straw man argument” doesn’t mean that the facts in evidence don’t speak for themselves. There will always be folks touting some conspiracy theory akin to “we never really went to the moon.”
“If Tea Party groups are to maximize their influence on policy, they must now begin the difficult task of disassociating themselves from cranks and conspiracy nuts. This includes 9/11 deniers, ‘birthers’ who insist Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and militia supporters espousing something vaguely close to armed rebellion.”
Karl Rove, February 17, 2010, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
That would mean that there were no "natural born citizens" born within the US until the generation born after the ratification of the Constitution grew to adulthood.
Strictly speaking, of course, he didn't use any of those words. He used "naturels." My command of 18th C. French isn't good enough to know exactly what connotations that may have had. I'd say "native" and "indigenous" were slightly different in modern English usage, and we don't use "the naturals" for much of anything.
NO, it wouldn’t matter.
Why?
Because Obama Senior acknowledged Obama Jr. as his son, he was married to Stanley Ann when she gave birth to Barry, and Barak H. Obama II is mentioned in the Hawaiian divorce decree AS HIS SON! That makes him the son of a Kenyan citizen.
There is not one shred of evidence Davis is Obama’s dad. NONE!
There is, however, a large amount of evidence that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya, compared to the evidence of Davis being Obama’s bio-father.
A French-English dictionary contemporaneous with Vattel defines Les Naturels François as "The French Natives."
I've seen no reason to believe anyone reading the original French version (or English translations available at the time of the drafting of the Constitution) would get "natural-born citizen" from Vattel's Law of Nations.
Vattel defined "naturels" as persons born within a nation to citizen parents. (The French "naturels" was apparently translated into "natural born citizens" when the English language edition of his work was published in London.)
That would mean there were no "natural born citizens" born within the US until the generation born after the ratification of the Constitution grew to adulthood.
Yes, you are correct. But the writers of the Constitution provided for this natural phenomenon (pardon the unintended pun) by allowing "a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution" to be qualified for the presidency. The first nine presidents qualified under that clause, the ones after that under the "natural born citizen" clause, but there is doubt as to Chester Arthur's status and now doubt again as to Obama's.
I know you’ve read this before and refuse to understand. But hopefully others will not be as blind as you.
The definition of the term, “natural born citizen”, was entered into the Congressional record of the House on March 9, 1866, in comments made by Rep. John Bingham on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment. He repeated Vattel’s definition when he said: “[I] find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen. . . . ” — John A. Bingham, (R-Ohio) US Congressman, March 9, 1866 Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866), Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes (1866).
In other words, anyone born in the U.S.A. to citizen parents is a natural born citizen.
Here is the true precedent from a most liberal professor:
In a recent Illinois Public Law & Legal Theory written by Professor Lawrence B Solum of the U of IL, College of Law, Chicago, Solum further explains why the English common law definition of ‘natural born subject was not the definition adopted by the Framers for the Sovereign citizens of the United States of America.
[Blackstone Commentaries (1765): When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s ambassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the ambassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband’s consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception;...]
[F.E. Edwards, Natural Born British Subjects at Common Law, 14 Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation 314 (1914): The pro- position that British Protectorates, and consequently any less interest of the Crown, should be excluded from our definition of the King’s protection, is supported by Sir William Anson, who declares that birth within such a region is not sufficient to found a claim for British natural-born status. The real test of whether a given territory is part of the British Dominions is that it must have passed openly, completely, and unequivocally into the possession of the Crown.]
[Solum: If the American conception of “natural born citizen” were equivalent to the English notion of a “natural born subject,” then it could be argued that only persons born on American soil to American parents would have qualified. This might lead to the conclusion that McCain would not be a constitutional natural-born citizen, because the Panama Canal Zone was not the sovereign territory of the United States, but was instead merely subject to its administrative control. Senator John McCain is a Citizen-by-Statute; he inherited his citizenship from his parents BUT was not born in the U.S.A. and IS NOT a natural born citizen.]
The language of the Constitution recognizes a distinction between the terms “citizen” and “subject”. For example, in Article III Section 2, which confers “judicial power” on the federal courts, “citizens” of the several states are differentiated from “citizens” or “subjects” of foreign states—corresponding to the distinction between diversity and alienage jurisdiction. In the framing era, these two terms reflected two distinct theories of the relationship between individual members of a political community and the state.
In feudal or monarchical constitutional theory, individuals were the subjects of a monarch or sovereign, but the republican constitutional theory of the revolutionary and post revolutionary period conceived of the individual as a citizen and assigned sovereignty to the people.
The distinction between citizens and subjects is reflected in Chief Justice John Jay’s opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, the first great constitutional case decided after the ratification of the Constitution of 1789: [T]he sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation, and the residuary sovereignty of each State in the people of each State…
[A]t the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects…]
As you can see, in England there are two very distinct meanings of ’natural born’ subject. In one hand there is the broader view & in the other there is the view of the laws of nations. What the liberal progressive constitutionalists use is the broader view and thus disregard the fact that at some point, even England used the law of nations. The Framers also knew of Englands use of the law of nations and were very aware of its importance when establishing a new nation. It has also been proven that the Law of Nations was in the hands of the Framers at the time of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.
And as pointed out above, please do not come back with the same old lame references to Blackstone & English common law, we know for a fact from the very 1st SCOTUS Justice Washington appointed, a Justice who was only 2nd to Madison in the drafting of the Constitution that the definition for US citizens was not derived from English common law, but on the law of Nations which is the law of nature: “The law of nature, when applied to states and political societies, receives a new name, that of the law of nations. This law, important in all states, is of peculiar importance in free ones. The States of America are certainly entitled to this dignified appellation…But if the knowledge of the law of nations is greatly useful to those who appoint, it surely must be highly necessary to those who are appointed…As Puffendorff thought that the law of nature and the law of nations were precisely the same, he has not, in his book on these subjects treated of the law of nations separately; but has every where joined it with the law of nature, properly called so…the law of nature is applied to individuals; the law of nations is applied to states.”
Supreme Court Justice Wilson, in his 1st commentaries, blasts Blackstone’s theory by citing that the definition of ’subject’ per English common law according to Blackstone was not the definition of ‘citizen’ as adopted by the framers of the US Constitution. A ’subject’ is ruled by an all powerful central government/monarchy and the under the new Constitution of the United States, the central government’s power is derived from the people, the citizens.
Wilson also wrote the very 1st SCOTUS decision in Chisolm which is cited to this day as to the powers of the central government. He also was no right-wing conservative where the limits of the central government were concerned. Wilson felt that the Constitution did not go far enough in giving broader powers to those in Washington, but he KNEW the premise of the Constitution and stood behind it in every decision he made, regardless of his political philosophy.
“And as pointed out above, please do not come back with the same old lame references to Blackstone & English common law, we know for a fact from the very 1st SCOTUS Justice Washington appointed, a Justice who was only 2nd to Madison in the drafting of the Constitution that the definition for US citizens was not derived from English common law, but on the law of Nations which is the law of nature...”
Except the Supreme Court disagrees, saying COMMON LAW is the source - and since the Law of Nations wasn’t translated with NBC until AFTER the Constitution (and poorly translated thus), it obviously was not the SOURCE of the phrase.
You can say what you will, but the Supreme Court made a decision that differs from yours, and it has stood unchallenged for 110+ years. That is why no one objected to him being placed on the ballot - not one state.
There was undoubtedly debate in the late 1700s & early 1800s, but the side that won out was the side of birthplace citizenship - “natural born citizenship”.
That is a possibility, maybe. He has never acted upon it. So the question is, would someone with Obama’s background be able to make a successful claim to UK citizenship in a British court? Until he were to actually try, or someone could show an actual case where the claim was successful, it is theoretical at best.
Anyone know a UK Solicitor with immigration and citizenship law experience?
If the prior reported statements are true (I too am cautious with Dr. Corsi, who claimed that a natural born citizenship meant being born on our soil, in the face of Marshall, Waite, Story, Hughes, Gray, and Congressman Bingham). Corsi's interpretation would enable the child of an illegal immigrant, anchor baby, to become president, but not Henry Kissinger or Schwarzenegger or Marc Steyn. If this statement is verified, the government seems to be saying to the courts, "Challenge him if you dare."
The Constitution never mentions "dual citizens." probably because it would have been unthinkable to have even considered citizenship for someone whose allegiance was not sole allegiance. Would that our military realized that allegiance to the Koran is a contradiction to allegiance to our Constitution; we would have eleven more living patriots and eleven intact families rather than families who know their government places a higher value on not offending nations who hate us than on the lives of its citizens.
A number of justices along with founder Dr. Ramsay and 14th Amendment author Bingham specify "sole allegiance" for citizenship, which is a super-set of natural born citizenship. If this state department memorandum is verified, many will look more carefully at the dicta (the comments which weren't essential to the judgment, such as John Marshall's famous citation of Vattel "born on the soil of citizen parents" in The Venus, 12 U.S. 253. (My latest count is twelve affirmations and no contradictions.) Since most of our Constitution rests upon our "common law" understanding of the meaning of words, the supreme court's evasion, as described recently by Justice Thomas, should end.
Remember Senator's Leahy and McCaskill in 2008, Senate Res. 511, saying “Because he was born to American citizens, there is no doubt in my mind that Senator McCain is a natural born citizen,” said Leahy. “I expect that this will be a unanimous resolution of the Senate.” It was! That was not an innocent statement. Yes,it was politcs, but let's leave that subterfuge for the moment. Leahy was citing his understanding. Every senator concurred, including Obama. That makes it part of common law. A a gray area remains because the common law interpretation has not been needed for a decision (though some expert might argue that it was in Perkin v. Elg, which I'll read again before commenting on). Leahy and every senator, albeit directed at the other candidate, McCain, repeated the 'jus sanguinis' part of the definition which was understood in most nations, and simply repeated in Vattel's Law of Nations. It is all about the allegiance of the parents.
Any parent will recognize the natural law origins of jus sanguinis - the inheritance of allegiance from parents. Through most of society a family examines the families of a marriage partner for their child before approving of a marriage. The parents, more than any other factor, tell about the beliefs, morals, ethics, and allegiances of the child. For the first nation to be built on ideas rather than bloodlines, ascertaining allegiance, as we are relearning the hard way, is critical to our survival. Credit to Charlie Rose and Tom Brokow for coming straight to the point with their now famous "What do we know about Barack Obama." Our Constitution required that we know that his parents swore allegiance explicitly, as naturalized citizens, or implicitly as native born citizens to our nation. Our nation, as Marshall explained, is a nation of laws, and not of men.
Where?
The "at the time" clause is there because they were founding the United States. NOBODY was natural born. Pretty obvious. It's got nothing to do with a definition of "natural born citizen".
"By it's very definition, a dual citizen at birth is not a Natural born citizen"
No, there is no such definition. That's not what it means.
"Hence the entire McCain/Senate Resolution as both parents were citizens but McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone."
Which is a completely different issue because he was born outside of the US proper.
We may have Imam Rauf and CNN to thank as well, since the questions about Imam Obama’s potential religious affiliation raise in some the question “Didn't’ our Constitution provide any guidelines to protect us from someone who doesn't like and might try to destroy our nation?” Who read John Jay's warnings in Federalist Papers 2 through 5, warning against foreign intrigue? Who knew the significance of Jay's ‘suggestion’ to Washington of the addition of “Natural Born Citizenship” to the presidential requirements just about the time he was writing those first essays for The Independent Journal.
I can’t believe anything Corsi has to say in regards to Obama. He has over-promised, under-delivered, and will burn us again and again.
I despise the man after his Kenya trip shenanigans and subsequent on-air promise to Hannity to expose blockbuster documents. You can only cry wolf for so long and Corsi has exhausted my patience.
FWIW, I appreciated his work with the swiftboat vets and “Unfit for Command” but it will never excuse the nonsense that followed it and continues to this day.
Idiots like him, his buddy Farah, and Orly Taitz have been the poster children for “crazy birthers” and helped to trivialize a serious constitutional crisis.
Such concise writing! It is becoming a pleasure, as I struggle with brevity and concision, to read examples of really excellent writing. And, of course, you are only reciting the truth.
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