/yawn
I'm going to go ahead and trust constitutional scholars like Mark Levin on this, and ignore the birther brigades who lose in court over and over and over and over again.
The cases lost in court are all over “standing” not over legal definition of NBC.
The current courts will not touch the legal side of this issue.
No, trust Constitutional scholars who wouldn't lose their business if they honestly addressed the issue like Chief Justice Morrison Waite, who wrote the Minor v. Happersett decision, or Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who, in 1939, wrote the decision which clarified that Marie Elg, born to immigrant citizen parents in New York, but taken back to Sweden and raised there, could return to the US because she was born on our soil to citizen parents, and her form of citizenship, unlike a child born to one or more non-citizens, could not be taken away by Congress; it was given by nature. Or, while our pundits, including Obama, act as if Chief Justice John Marshall didn't really understand what he was talking about when he cited 'Law of Nations' in The Venus, and clarified the common-law for natural born citizen, or when he established the primacy of Judicial Review in Marbury.
But do give Levin credit for explaining, in Liberty and Tyranny, p37, that our framers intentionally left definitions of terms out of the Constitution, as Madison explained in a letter, the meanings of words change over time. As Justice Waite pointed out in Minor, “At common-law, and in the language understood by our framers...”.
Jindal, Rubio, and Obama are all ineligible, but only for the presidency. The reason Obama was not vetted was the McCain too was ineligible, but for a very different reason, written about extensively beginning with McCain's 2000 campaign. That is why Democrats to such pains to try to cover for McCain, by sponsoring two actions, S.2678. Feb 2008, by Obama and McCaskill, “A Bill To Make Foreign Born Children of Military Citizens Natural Born Citizens”, and Senate Resolution 511. Apr 2008, which rested upon McCain's two citizen parents and did handwaving about what our framers might have meant, and passed in 1790, repealing in the 1795 Nationality Act, a bill to make natural born citizens of the foreign born children of Citizens. S.2678, in Feb failed to leave the Senate.
There were at least twelve other actions to attempt to amend Article II Section 1 between 2003 and 2008, three alone by John Conyer, and one by Orrin Hatch, whose bill was aimed at making Schwarzenegger eligible. Conyer’s efforts seem likely to have been aimed at laying the groundwork for Obama, but never got out of Congress.
Most people on FR know these facts, but for those who don't, we are all learning the realities of an independent judiciary, and how much the Constitution really means when people's incomes/power are at stake.
Precedent, and Leo Donofrio explained to us lay people, is nonbinding. Minor v. Happersett made common law into positive law, but that wouldn't prevent the court from redefining it. Their approach has been to ignore the law, both common and precedent.
“I’m going to go ahead and trust constitutional scholars like Mark Levin on this, and ignore the birther brigades who lose in court over and over and over and over again.”
Longbow, I always enjoy your posts as a voice of reason above the din.
But...
Let’s consider for a moment...
Suppose, just suppose, a couple from Mexico sneak across the border. The woman has her baby in an American hospital, then the couple goes back across the border to Mexico. Their child is raised “as a Mexican”. Yet all he has to do after age 18 is walk into the American embassy, present his birth certificate, and claim his American citizenship, which will be granted to him as an adult. He can then go back to being a Mexican, until, around age 30, he returns to the United States, AS A NATURAL-BORN CITIZEN. Preposterous as it may seem, he could then run for president, meeting all the “Constitutional requirements”, even though he had never lived “in country” until a year or two previous.
As unlikely a scenario as this may seem, I predict such a scenario will occur later in this century. It may not be a Mexican, but it will happen. A “boutique baby”, of Chinese parents, perhaps?
And the amazing thing is, there wil be nothing which distinguishes the birth of this Mexican or Chinese baby from a Bobby Jindal or a Marco Rubio. Any and all of them were born to non-citizen parents while on American soil.
That’s why the “natural born citizen” issue must be resolved (probably by the Supreme Court). It’s a bomb waiting to go off. Perhaps it’s already blown, with Obama....
I rely on MY OWN brain and research. Cases are mostly NOT HEARD in court. It is just more evidence how corrupt our courts are.