Posted on 09/16/2009 9:48:30 AM PDT by vikk
U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land today tossed out a complaint by an Army captain fighting deployment to Iraq by questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama.
Land also put attorney Orly Taitz, who represents Capt. Connie Rhodes and is a leader in the national “birther” movement, on notice by stating that she could face sanctions if she ever files a similar “frivolous” lawsuit in his court.
“(Rhodes) has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as president of the United States,” Land states in his order. “Instead, she uses her complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the president is ‘an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.’”
Rhodes, who filed her complaint Sept. 4 in the Columbus Division of U.S. District Court, argued that some facts point to Obama not being naturalized or possibly an illegal immigrant.
“This plaintiff cannot in good conscience obey orders originating from a chain of command from this merely de facto president,” Rhodes’ complaint states. “This plaintiff cannot be lawfully compelled to obey this de facto president’s orders.”
In his order, Land states in a footnote that Obama defeated seven opponents in a “grueling” primary campaign that cost the contenders more than $300 million. Obama then moved on to the general election, where he faced Sen. John McCain, who Land states got $84 million to wage his campaign.
“It would appear that ample opportunity existed for discovery of evidence that would support any contention that the president was not eligible for the office he sought,” Land says.
The judge adds that Congress hasn’t started impeachment proceedings against Obama, appears satisfied that he can hold the office and has rejected the suggestion he isn’t.
BTTT
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
Natural born, native born and naturalized are distinct.
Only natural born can be POTUS. Natural born is not a statutory definition but a condition of birth commonly understood by the founders to mean citizenship of both soil and blood without any foreign blood. The 14th did not repeal the natural born provision and Wong only concerned citizenship on US soil, not by blood. Wong was not made a natural born citizen and eligible to be POTUS by the Wong decision.
So the argument is frequently made. If you read Fuller's dissent in Ark, it's clear that he thought that the practical implications of the majority decision would make Wong eligible for the office of President. I personally believe that the original intent of the framers would have excluded Obama, but the 14th and the Ark case go quite some ways in nullifying that intent.
Be that as it may, there's been no adjudication of "natural born", there's been no definition codified in US legislation, nor is there any definition of "natural born" available in the Constitution itself. Even if challenges would have been brought at the state level to Obama's name being placed on state ballots (which would have been the best opportunity to tackle this "standing" dilemma), it's not a forgone conclusion - at all - that SCOTUS would have heard the case based on such an argument. After all, we are over 233 years into this thing, and no court (at any level) and no legislative session has shown any appetite to address this issue, not even in the run-up to, or the aftermath of Chester Arthur's presidency.
The only place "natural born" appears in Wong Kim Ark is in a footnote. Wong was ruled a citizen, not a natural born citizen. That footnote makes a distinction between "child of aliens" and "natural born child of citizens", but only to say they are equally citizens.
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.
This was quoting "Mr. Binney, in the second edition of a paper on the Alienigenae of the United States, printed in pamphlet at Philadelphia, with a preface bearing his signature and the date of December 1, 1853".
The fourteenth amendment did not change the definition of natural born, it did make citizens of all born in the United States, similar to statutes which make various classes of people citizens at birth, even though born outside the US, even to a foreign citizen parent and a US Citizen parent, rather than two US citizens, with conditions of course. Conditions which Obamam's mother failed, if he was born outside the US.
I'm not challenging them, I'm saying they are rules, not statute law. I also said that the statute law authorizes the courts to make such rules, which also implies the power to change them.
Try out US Code, Title 28, PRT 5, CHPTRS 111-123 - or thereabouts. Let me know what you come up with.
I already cited 18 USC Chapter 131, which is the part of the statute law that gives the courts power to make the rules (§ 2071) and defines what the rules can and cannot cover.
No where in Rule 81 does it say, "Hey, you can ignore all the aforementioned rules to get to that just, speedy and inexpensive determination, now does it?
Why would it, Rule 1 already gives the rule about how the other rules are to be *construed* and administered. That would be redundant.
The US justice system isn't - in any way - about the delivery of justice, it's about the application of US law - nothing more, nothing less.
As a law professor of mine once said, "If you want to pursue a search for truth, talk to your priest. If you want to understand the law, you've come to the right place."
The Constitution is the law too, who is applying that?
I guess you and your law professor would agree that the US Justice System is misnamed?
But you make my earlier point much better than I could.
Neither is one where the Constitution is used for so much toilet paper one which I care to live in. With only the emanations from it's penumbra being vigorously enforced.
Sounds like a judgment call to me. That's what they pay judges for.
But such facts *were* alleged, an apparant Kenyan Birth Certificate, a piece of paper with signature and seal, and the best they could do with an affidavit about it's origins.
I would have left out all that other cr, er stuff, as well. It wasn't germane to the main issue, eligibility to the office of President.
Ms Taitz could tone it down a notch or too, at least this early in the process, and with no jury involved. Later...well they let Edwards channel dead babies in court, so I guess a little hyperbole and emotionalism when going before the jury would be OK.
Perhaps because that is the real test, that is the father's nationality. What some other country considers a person to be is of no importance. It's the parent's citizenship when the child is born, not the child's "dual" citizenship, if any. Even if the parent's country doesn't consider the child one of it's nationals, the child may not be a natural born citizen.
We are seeing what happens to anyone, Hillary, Bill, tea party participants, who challenge The One. They are termed Racists, and beat about the head and shoulders incessantly in the press.
If you think of that time period, between 9/21/01 and 12/21/01, President Bush could have nominated (and in retrospect maybe should have) absolutely anyone he wanted and that person would have been approved quickly with a voice vote.
This wasn’t a strong case from what little I was able to understand of it, but the opinion is just as bad.
Chester Arthur’s non-citizen father was not discovered until just this year by Donofrio and his sister! Arthur was only suspected of being born in Canada.
It is Arthur’s appointee to SCOTUS who wrote Wong. Some (Donofrio) suspect an attempt to cover for Arthur’s secret non-citizen father. In that decision Wong was deemed a citizen at birth due to his permanent resident parents under the jurisdiction of the US with the same rights as a natural born citizen, not the same as a natural born citizen. Obama’s father was not a permanent resident, only a student, and was “governed by” Britain, as was Obama as stipulated against interest by agents of Obama during the campaign.
Citizen rights are distict from status at birth. All citizen rights are equal, but not all citizen status at birth is equal.
Fuller’s dissent misstates the Wong Opinion, according to Donofrio.
This appears to me to be a deliberate attempt to call Obama’s eligibility into question even if discovery were to show that either there was no legal marriage recorded in HI or the marriage was bigamous.
However, absent a legal marriage between Obama’s parents, Stanley Ann was a single US citizen mom and the 1948 BNA would not have made Obama a dual citizen. No foreign sovereign would have any claim over Obama, as the founders stated to be their concern at the time of the drafting the natural born citizen language.
It's not so much claims of foreign sovereigns that the founders were worried about, but actually loyalty to foreign nations and/or their sovereigns. Of course at the time the US was almost unique in not having a sovereign. Switzerland, IIRC, also did not have one at that time.
She failed to sign them again I see.
Orly must have lost her internet connection the day her "law school" covered justiciability. It's already been well-established that she missed the class on the subject of the locus standi.
I agree with the “ample opportunity” part of his statement.
We all told anyone who would listen, and many who wouldn’t. That, especially, included John McCain!
Sarah set up the play, majestically, and McManiac threw the ball out of bounds. Wisconsin, Oct, 2008.
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