Posted on 07/28/2009 5:29:21 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Pres. Barack Obama has a birthday coming up, a week from Tuesday. We hope he takes the day off—or even the whole week, the briefest of respites from his busy schedule of truncating our liberties while exhausting both the public coffers and our patience. The president’s birthday comes to mind because we recently spent some time looking at a photograph of his birth certificate, being held by Joe Miller of Factcheck.org, who took the time to examine it. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m, in Honolulu County, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. The serial number on his birth certificate is 010641. Baby Barack’s birth was not heralded, as some of his partisans have suggested, by a star in the east, but it was heralded by the Honolulu Star, as well as the Honolulu Advertiser, each of which published birth announcements for young Mr. Obama.
Much foolishness has become attached to the question of President Obama’s place of birth, and a few misguided souls among the Right have indulged it. The myth that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president represents the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of his election and presidency disappear. We are used to seeing conspiracy theories from the Left, for instance among the one in three Democrats who believe that 9/11 was an inside job conducted with the foreknowledge of the Bush administration. We’ve seen everything under the sun blamed on Dick Cheney and Halliburton, and Rosie O’Donnell has given us much mirth with her metallurgical expertise, while Andrew Sullivan has beclowned himself and tarnished the good name of The Atlantic with his investigation into the “real” parentage of Trig Palin. Most notable, the Iraq War summoned the craziness in a big way, and there are those who still shudder over their espressos at the mention of the Carlyle Group. And there is a fair amount of crossover between those fixated on Obama’s birth certificate and the 9/11 “truthers” — lawyer Phil Berg, for instance, is a player in both worlds. There is nothing that President Obama’s coterie would enjoy more than to see the responsible Right become a mirror image of the loopy Left circa 2003.
The birth-certificate business is not a uniquely conservative phenomenon; the allegation that Obama was born in Kenya seems to have originated with a Hillary Clinton supporter at a blog called The Blue State. Either way, this fantasy is not particularly widespread within the conservative movement, but it has attracted enough interest that it needs to be addressed.
The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his “real” birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.
If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing “your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.” The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced—the document is formally known as a “certificate of live birth”—bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate—which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well.
The attention paid to President Obama’s place of birth is not unprecedented. In fact, it may be the only thing President Obama has in common with Pres. Chester Arthur, whose opponents whispered that he had been born in Canada. A number of unsuccessful presidential candidates—George Romney, Barry Goldwater, and Lowell Weicker among them—actually were born outside of the United States (in Mexico, the Arizona Territory, and Paris, respectively) to American parents and thereby into American citizenship. If the conspiracy theorists have evidence that President Obama went through the naturalization process, let them show it. But there is no such evidence, because this theory is based on unreality, as two minutes’ examining the claims of its proponents reveals. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is that a lack of evidence for the theory is taken as yet more evidence for the theory. Indeed, the maddening thing about dealing with conspiracy hobbyists of this or any sort is the ever-shifting nature of their argument and their alleged evidence: Never mind the birth certificate, his step-grandmother said he was born in Kenya! (No, she didn’t.)
One of the unfortunate consequences of this red-herring discussion is that there are plenty of questions about Obama’s background and history that we would like to have answered. In spite of two books of memoirs, there remain murky areas in his biography. And when it comes to those college transcripts, count us among those who’d love to know whether Dr. Bailout ever took an advanced economics class and how he performed in it.
Barack Obama may prefer European-style socialized health care. He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth and sometimes address his audiences as “people of the world,” as though he were born not in another country but on another planet. Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A.
I didn’t say that.
The paper notification doesn’t say he was born in Hawaii.
It simply says so and so had a child, something grandparents often do in their home town to let their friends know their child had a baby. Not where they had the baby.
Now as another note, the address given as to where they lived was wrong. The Obama’s and their relatives never lived at the address published in the newspaper.
I will end with this. The terminology used by Hawaii is fine. From 48 years ago there should be an Obama "Certificate of Live Birth". That certificate would show what was certified to by authorized personnel in 1961, including a doctor or midwife, with some signatures.
But, the "Certification of Live Birth" issued in 2008 contains no signatures, or even names of who certified what back in 1961. So, this is why the term certification is appropriate, because it is the state of Hawaii that is making all the certifications on the 2008 computer printout.
The terms are fine, but much confusion has come about in the discussions because people frequently use the terms interchangeably, when they properly mean different things. Even that "National Review" article switched the terms and said Obama has provided a "Certificate of Live Birth?, which he didn't.
But, the old certificate shows who certified what. The new certification printout is the certification made by the state of Hawaii.
That is a definition, but it is probably not the correct definition. Until Barack Obama ran for President, every definition of US citizen I ever ran across only mentioned two catagories:
Natural born citizens, who got their citizenship at birth
Naturalized citizens who got it after they were born.
The both parents must be US citizens definition appears to come from a French legal text and is, to me, not relavent.
I’m a strict constructionist. The plain meaning of “natural born” means having that condition at birth. If someone is described as a natural born athlete, it means they were born that way. It does not mean that both of their parents were athletes and that they were born in a stadium.
"Of course our man is a citizen, True Red White and Blue."
"But is your man a "Natural Born Citizen?"
"Well, harrumph harrumph ... he was born in Hawaii. Yadda YAdda YAdda
But is Obama a "Natural Born Citizen?" After all the putative paternal unit was a Kenyan Subject of the Crown.
"Well, harrumph harrumph ... he was born in Hawaii. Yadda YAdda YAdda
"Well, harrumph harrumph ... he was born in Hawaii. Yadda YAdda YADDA ad nauseam
And you are kinda nutty asking this question because "Well, harrumph harrumph ... he was born in Hawaii. Yadda YAdda YAdda.
Hawaii ain't no help to confused and conflated haoles either. There is the
Naturally Team Obama has managed to absolutely confuse and hornswoggle everyone in the media and not a few otherwise stalwart chaps on this site. "We posted the Birth Certificate!" Well, no, you didn't. and that's the truth.
"Well, harrumph harrumph ... he was born in Hawaii. Yadda YAdda YAdda" The papewrwork presented sure is interesting, but it doesn't prove he was born in Hawaii (1), and (2) it sure as heck doesn't help me believe he is a "Natural Born Citizen," but I don't exactly know what that is, and neither does anyone else.
The President and Team Obama have shucked and jived us on this one and we can't seem to get it to court for a ruling. And if youse guys think POTUS gonna fess up and admit this, I gotta nice bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
Hey - One of the earliest sites I was pointed to was the naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com blog. At first it seemed pretty damning, until I started finding out about what natural born citizen has historically meant.
As it is - keep in mind our friend and former president Chester A. Arthur - born to a british father and vermont mother. The supreme court, in 1873, in the case McCREERY’S lessee v. SOMERVILLE., found that daughters of a foreign born father were native born citizens. As I posted in our private commuciation, a federal appeals court used the term natural born citizen to apply to a man with two foriegn born parents. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson all left notes behind as to what they meant by the term.
I was around... and, I completely agree. All he had to do was fire a few people, and apologize...
No actually you were wrong about the Minor case.
“In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the Supreme Court said that, if you were born in the United States and both of your parents were U.S. citizens at the time of your birth, you are, without doubt, a natural born citizen. In the same case, the Supreme Court also said that, if you were born in the United States and one of your parents was not a U.S. citizen when you were born, your natural born citizenship is in doubt. So far, the Supreme Court has not resolved this doubt because, until now, there has never been any need to do so. “
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm
“In 1874, in the Minor v. Happersett case, the Supreme Court affirmed the definition of natural born citizen which had appeared in the 1797 English translation of Vattel’s Law of Nations:
…it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. (Minor v. Happersett, 1874)”
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
Unlike you and your little weasels, most of us can focus on more than one thing at a time.
Then why spend so much money hiding the true birth certificate? As well as his entire past? We know NOTHING about this thing we call TOTUS.
That is the problem with you people.......we know he is hiding something. Most of us “birthers” believe he is hiding his lack of natural born status, which the CONSTITUTION requires.
If not that, then it is something. This fool needs to bring it out in the open once and for all.
Fair enough. I'm by nature a skeptical person. So I've been a bit derogatory at times of people who positively assert that Obama was born in Kenya, etc. I don't see one shred of evedence to prove that. But neither do I buy that there is nothing going on here. What you have are a lot of very good questions, and the Obama team refusing to address them. I don't see any chance of getting it resolved either. So the question is, how much time and energy should conservatives put into this, and what are the dangers of appearing to be kooks at a time when there is a huge opportunity for a conservative political comeback based on the issues?
I think having this issue alive, casts doubts on the transparency of Obama, and his idealistic followers are forced to defend that, instead of promoting his agenda. If you ask me, we are actually using their dumb Alinsky rulebook, in reverse...if you ask me.
This is a good point: i.e., that the BC controversy underscores what is indisputably BHO's truly bizarre proclivity for obsessive secrecy about himself, helps create a background buzz which in turn can drive public doubts about who this man really is & undercut his personal support.
This is surely true and I think having the issue out there in the background could help on some level.
But what I've begun to realize is that, like it or not & possibly due to its very peculiar nature, actively agitating on & publicly promoting this particular issue actually hurts the conservative cause more than it helps it - at this moment. (I can however actually imagine a time under certain circumstances where it might help - it's just not now.)
The BC issue - such as it is considered erroneously by most people as arcane & irrelevant & such as it's easily portrayed by the BHO-loving media as a wacky-fringey-righty scam - is not only a clunker, it's a real turn-off for most of the American people whose support we need in rejecting this WH's liberal-fascistic & anti-American agenda NOW!
It doesn't help that many of the people promoting it the most vocally are on the questionable fringes (both on the left & right, btw.) giving the media the opportunity to put the issue in the worst light.
Not that it matters, but my intuition is that Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii to an American mother, but either the BC has something else embarrassing on it which doesn't jibe with the narrative he's already put out there, or concealing it just helps him too much right now by letting him paint all of his opposition on health care, Israel, spending, taxes, abortion et al ad infinitum as petty & strange, frankly.
That's not what I think - I don't think that officeholders should be exempt from satisfying the requirements of their office any more than I am exempt from producing my birth certificate to attend university or get a passport. And I think that POTUS' clever manipulation of the BC controversy has exposed a serious flaw in our system in that there is no formally defined mechanism to determine whether or not candidates for & the winners of that office satisfy all the constitutional requirements. That's outrageous & needs to be changed, clearly!
But those of us clinging to the fantasy that we can get this guy thrown out of office on a technicality are way off-base. By the time he can even be served with papers to be forced to produce proof he has satisfied the requirement, the un-Godly damage he intends to do to this country will already have been done. And it will have been achieved with the gullible help of those Americans who are at this very moment being manipulated by the WH & their friends in the media to take offense at the suggestion this POTUS is ineligible & who would be inclined to give him a pass on his agenda just out of revulsion for conservatives who are being (unfairly) painted as mean ol' racist bullies for even suggesting such a ridiculous (to them) absurdity.
In other words, it's a legitimate issue to a certain extent, but it's also unfortunately one which, strategically speaking, just happens to work directly against the conservative cause - indeed against the American cause - because the WH can play it so deviously in their own favor. At the moment, at least.
I had sent this to you privately, but I might as well do this here, too, since you posted the same in our other communication.
Thanks for the link - I had encountered that article before. Two things:
1. Despite what the linked article said, Chester Arthur was well known to have a father who was british - this was a controversy at the time. If necessary for you to believe that, start Googling. You’ll find it was reported in both the local press, the national press, and was enough of a controversy for both the secratary of state and the attorney general of new york to issue opinions on the side of Mr. Arthur. He is by no means the only politician to fall prey to the controversy - look at John Calhoun or Charles Curtis - both Vice Presidents, as Arthur was before ascending to the presidency after the assasination of Garfield.
2. Onto the main piece: Here is the whole applicable citation from Minor:
To determine, then, who were citizens of the United States before the adoption of the amendment, it is necessary to ascertain what persons originally associated themselves together to form the nation and what were afterwards admitted to membership…
Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides that
“No person except a natural-born citizen or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution shall be eligible to the office of President, ”
and that Congress shall have power “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Thus, new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words “all children” are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as “all persons,” and if females are included in the last, they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact, the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
This case actually proves is my point - there are two, and only two types of citizens, native born and naturalized. This also recognizes congress’s right to clarify who is and is not a citizen by birthright, which they did in the US Code I quoted earlier. The part about doubts is directly contemplating the law as it existed prior to the adoption of the 14th ammendment - the case concerning Wong I sent earlier defined it afterwards - namely - that a child with two foreign born parents is still a natural born citizen, provided he was born on american soil.
Want something that’ll blow your mind - From Lynch V. Clarke - where the court talks about the natural born status of a person with two alien parents becoming president. The link to the case is here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ERgvAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA251&dq=%22alien+parents%22#PPA247,M1
Obama’s long form Certificate of Live Birth is all we’re asking for (for the moment), but he continues to withhold this vital information from the American public.
I don’t think I can remember a single US president in my lifetime who’s life has been such a closed book, as Obama’s is. From his birth, until his time in the US Senate, there’s hardly a public record on this man that can be viewed or inspected by anyone.
This is simply unprecedented in our history. All Americans who love their country should be demanding that he unlock his past for our inspection. If he’s got nothing to hide, then he’ll do it. So far, he hasn’t, which says to any fool that he’s got skeletons in his closet that dare not come to light.
No, the actual definition of the term, "Natural Born Citizen" is not in the US Constitution, but neither is the definition of the word, "is".
You have to consult legal documents, letters, and writings of the period to ascertain the exact definition of the term, as used by the Framers of the Constitution. They exist, and they are voluminous.
Read this:
http://federalistblog.us/2008/11/natural-born_citizen_defined.html
Fourteenth Amendment
Whatever might had been the correct understanding of “natural-born citizen” prior to 1866, the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment certainly changes the view because for the first time we have a written national rule declaring who are citizens through birth or naturalization. Who may be born citizens is conditional upon being born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States - a condition not required under the common law. The legislative definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was defined as “Not owing allegiance to anybody else.”
This national rule prevents us from interpreting natural-born citizen under common law rules because it eliminates the possibility of a child being born with more than one allegiance.
The primary author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob M. Howard, said the “word jurisdiction, as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”
United States Attorney General, George Williams, whom was a U.S. Senator aligned with Radical Republicans during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, ruled in 1873 the word “jurisdiction” under the Fourteenth Amendment “must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment.” He added, “Political and military rights and duties” do not pertain to anyone else.
Essentially then, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means the same jurisdiction the United States exercises over its own citizens, i.e., only citizens of the United States come within its operation since citizens of the United States do not owe allegiance to some other nation at the same time they do the United States. This makes a great deal of sense for the time because there was a great deal of controversy over conflicts arising from double allegiances. In fact, Congress issued a joint congressional report on June 22, 1874 that said the “United States have not recognized a double allegiance.”
Just as a person cannot be naturalized and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States while owing allegiance to another nation, neither can anyone born. Why would “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” be any different with persons born since this jurisdiction equally applies to persons born or naturalized? In other words, the words do not exempt persons born from the same allegiance requirements of persons naturalized.
It is worth noting that wives and children were never naturalized separately but became naturalized through the father/husband.
Because “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” requires not owing allegiance to any other nation, and because the nation does not recognize double allegiances that can be created at common law, narrows the possibilities to what “natural-born citizen” can mean.
Natural-Born Citizen Defined
One universal point most all early publicists agreed on was natural-born citizen must mean one who is a citizen by no act of law. If a person owes their citizenship to some act of law (naturalization for example), they cannot be considered a natural-born citizen. This leads us to defining natural-born citizen under the laws of nature - laws the founders recognized and embraced.
Under the laws of nature, every child born requires no act of law to establish the fact the child inherits through nature his/her father’s citizenship as well as his name (or even his property) through birth. This law of nature is also recognized by law of nations. Sen. Howard said the citizenship clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was by virtue of “natural law and national law.”
The advantages of Natural Law is competing allegiances between nations are avoided, or at least with those nations whose custom is to not make citizens of other countries citizens without their consent. Any alternations or conflicts due to a child’s natural citizenship are strictly a creature of local municipal law. In the year 1866, the United States for the first time adopted a local municipal law under Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised Statutes that read: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.”
Rep. Bingham commenting on Section 1992 said it means “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.” (Cong. Globe, 39th, 1st Sess., 1291 (1866))
Bingham subscribed to the same view as most everyone in Congress at the time that in order to be born a citizen of the United States one must be born within the allegiance of the Nation. Bingham had explained that to be born within the allegiance of the United States the parents, or more precisely, the father, must not owe allegiance to some other foreign sovereignty (remember the U.S. abandoned England’s “natural allegiance” doctrine). This of course, explains why emphasis of not owing allegiance to anyone else was the affect of being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James F. Wilson of Iowa, added on March 1, 1866: “We must depend on the general law relating to subjects and citizens recognized by all nations for a definition, and that must lead us to the conclusion that every person born in the United States is a natural-born citizen of such States, except … children born on our soil to temporary sojourners or representatives of foreign Governments.” The phrase “temporary sojourners” referred to those in the country for purposes of work, visiting or business and who had no intention of taking the steps to become citizens, or incapable by law.
The constitutional requirement for the President of the United States to be a natural-born citizen had one purpose according to St. George Tucker:
That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted,) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to he dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to, attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom. … The title of king, prince, emperor, or czar, without the smallest addition to his powers, would have rendered him a member of the fraternity of crowned heads: their common cause has more than once threatened the desolation of Europe. To have added a member to this sacred family in America, would have invited and perpetuated among us all the evils of Pandora’s Box.
Charles Pinckney in 1800 said the presidential eligibility clause was designed “to insure … attachment to the country.” President Washington warned a “passionate attachment of one nation for another, produces a variety of evils,” and goes on to say:
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation, of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill- will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.
And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
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, thus, making such a citizen indistinguishable from a naturalized citizen.
Therefore, 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. A person who had been born under a double allegiance cannot be said to be a natural-born citizen of the United States because such status is not recognized (only in fiction of law). A child born to an American mother and alien father could be said to be a citizen of the United States by some affirmative act of law but never entitled to be a natural-born citizen because through laws of nature the child inherits the condition of their father.
UPDATE: I came across this interesting speech by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Langdon Cheves, in February of 1814:
The children have a natural attachment to the society in which they are born: being obliged to acknowledge the protection it has granted to their fathers, they are obliged to it in a great measure for their birth and education. … We have just observed that they have a right to enter into the society of which their fathers were members. But every man born free, the son of a citizen, arrived at years of discretion, may examine whether it be convenient for him to join in the society for which he was destined by his birth.
Cheves is obviously drawing on the works of Emer de Vattel, Law of Nations. Not something you would expect from the Speaker of the House of a Nation that supposedly adopted England’s common law.
UPDATE II: Rep. A. Smyth (VA), House of Representatives, December 1820: When we apply the term “citizens” to the inhabitants of States, it means those who are members of the political community. The civil law determined the condition of the son by that of the father. A man whose father was not a citizen was allowed to be a perpetual inhabitant, but not a citizen, unless citizenship was conferred on him.
According to the laws on the books at the time of Obama's birth, a woman had to have lived in the US for a period of no less than 10 years, 5 of which had to be after the age of 14 in order to convey simple US citizenship to her offspring.
Stanley Ann Dunham was 18 at the time of Barack Obama Jr.'s birth, so was not legally capable of conveying even simple US citizenship to him, let alone Natural Born Citizen status.
I don't have the citation handy, but it's been posted here on FR hundreds of times. Perhaps someone else will post the exact citation and text of that law for you.
I think this is the one in question:
The effect is the same, is it not?
“and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate”
and
“In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy.”
....................
Why not produce the “permanent state records, “the so-called vault copy?”
If this were in court, and the issue at hand were the authenticity of what Hawaii calls a Birth Certificate but which is in fact a secondary document produced from a primary document called the Original Birth Certificate (http://www.adoptioninformation.com/Original_birth_certificate) the Court would require the production of the Original immediately. And since “Hawai’i’s Health Department confirmed yesterday that it has President Obama’s original Aug. 4, 1961, birth certificate in storage” http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090728/NEWS01/907280345/Hawaii+officials+confirm+Obama%E2%80%99s+original+birth+certificate+still+exists, no problema, PRODUCE IT.
But please National Review, don’t treat us like morons. You must have a lawyer on staff who can explain to you that certain vital records’ authenticity, like Birth Certificates and Wills, must be produced in the ORIGINAL.
What did the birth announcement say?
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