US SUPREME COURT PRECEDENT STATES THAT OBAMA IS NOT ELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT.

[UPDATED: Dec. 15, 2011 – see update in RED below]

The title of this article is correct.  After having completed a more thorough review of the relevant US Supreme Court cases discussing the Constitution’s natural-born citizen clause, I have discovered precedent which states that a natural-born citizen is a person born in the jurisdiction of the US to parents who are citizens.  Read that again.  I said precedent, not dicta.  The precedent holds that Obama is not eligible to be President of the United States.

Up until the publication of this report today, all discussion of the natural-born citizen issue (from both sides of the argument) agreed there had never been a precedent established by the US Supreme Court, and that the various cases which mentioned the clause did so in “dicta”.

Dicta are authoritative statements made by a court which are not binding legal precedent.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines “precedent” as a “rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases“.

Precedent that must be followed is known as binding precedent.  Under the doctrine of stare decisis, a lower court must honor findings of law made by a higher court.  On questions as to the meaning of federal law including the U.S. Constitution, statutes, and regulations, the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents must be followed.

It can no longer be denied that there is controlling US Supreme Court precedent concerning the definition of a natural-born citizen according to Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution.  I predict satori will overcome those of you who have labored over this issue.  This is not a remote obscure reading.  It is, when revealed, a clear undeniable holding and binding precedent established by the highest Court of our nation which specifically defines an Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizen as a person born in the US to parents who are citizens.

Therefore, Obama – according to US Supreme Court precedent – is not eligible to be President.

PRECEDENT ESTABLISHED BY MINOR V. HAPPERSETT

The direct US Supreme Court precedent is stated in Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875).  Furthermore, the precedent stated in Minor is consistent with other US Supreme Court cases – both before and after Minor – which discuss the natural born citizen issue.  While that part of the holding in Minor regarding woman’s suffrage was superseded by the 19th Amendment – which Constitutionally established a woman’s right to vote – the rest of the case is good law.  [UPDATED Dec. 15, 2011 – The voting rights issue was not superseded by the 19th Amendment, and it remains good law today.  Please see JUSTIA.COM SURGICALLY REMOVED “MINOR v HAPPERSETT” FROM 25 SUPREME COURT OPINIONS IN RUN UP TO ’08 ELECTION. ]And the remaining precedent stated regarding the definition of “natural-born citizen” – with regard to Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution – is still binding upon all lower courts.

Therefore, lower court decisions – such as the holding in Ankeny v. Governor of the State of Indiana – which have misconstrued the US Supreme Court’s holding in Minor v. Happersett are wrong.  Below, we will review what the Indiana Court of Appeals had to say and explain why they got it wrong.  But first we must revisit Minor v. Happersett.

THE SUPREME COURT IN MINOR V. HAPPERSETT DIRECTLY CONSTRUED THE US CONSTITUTION’S ARTICLE 2 SECTION 1 NATURAL BORN CITIZEN CLAUSE

Before revisiting Minor, we must revisit Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) to review a clearly erroneous statement made by Justice Gray concerning the prior holding in the Minor case:

“In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said: ‘The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that.’ “  (Wong Kim Ark at 655.)

This unfortunate remark by Justice Gray contains a clearly erroneous statement.  The Supreme Court in Minor did not construe the 14th Amendment as to the issue of citizenship.  Gray is absolutely wrong.  The Court in Minor construed Article 2 Section 1, not the 14th Amendment.  For over a century, it has been wrongly assumed that the Court in Minor did construe the 14th Amendment, and that the holding of Minor was later superseded by Wong Kim Ark.  This is not correct.

A more careful reading of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Minor makes it clear that it did not construe the 14th Amendment with regard to the citizenship of the woman who wished to vote.  The question presented was whether, since the adoption of the 14th Amendment, women had gained the right to vote.  The Supreme Court in Minor held that nowhere in the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment, was anyone, man or woman, granted a right to vote.  And it was only this part of the Minor case which was superseded by the 19th Amendment.

The other issue decided by the Court in Minor required the Supreme Court to determine if the woman was, in fact, a US citizen.  As to this determination, the Court did not construe the 14th Amendment.  In fact, the Court specifically avoided construing the 14th Amendment with regard to her citizenship.  Instead, the Supreme Court in Minor chose to construe Article 2 Section 1:

“There is no doubt that women may be citizens. They are persons, and by the fourteenth amendment ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof ‘ are expressly declared to be ‘citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’ But, in our opinion, it did not need this amendment to give them that position …

“The fourteenth amendment did not affect the citizenship of women any more than it did of men. In this particular, therefore, the rights of Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship. The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and immunities as a citizen of the United States; but it did not confer citizenship on her. That she had before its adoption. If the right of suffrage is one of the necessary privileges of a citizen of the United States, then the constitution and laws of Missouri confining it to men are in violation of the Constitution of the United States, as amended, and consequently void. The direct question is, therefore, presented whether all citizens are necessarily voters.  (Emphasis added.)

There you have it.  The Court stops short of construing the 14th Amendment as to whether the woman in question was a US citizen.  The Court made a certain, direct determination that Mrs. Minor was a US citizen before the adoption of the 14th Amendment and that she did not need the 14th Amendment to be a US citizen.

The Court then, having determined that she was a US citizen, avoided any construction of the 14th Amendment as to her citizenship status.   Therefore, the holding in Minor is in no way superseded by Wong Kim Ark.

The Court in Minor went on to decide the issue of whether citizens are granted a right to vote by the Constitution, holding that it did not.  Again, this part of the holding was superseded by the 19th Amendment, but the determination that Mrs. Minor was a “natural-born citizen” is still controlling precedent.

Since the Court in Minor specifically avoided construing the 14th Amendment as to citizenship, it is clear that Justice Gray’s statement – concerning the citizenship passage by Justice Waite in Minor – was clearly erroneous.  The Supreme Court in Minor chose to construe Article 2 Section 1 instead of the 14th Amendment.  As such, Minor is the only US Supreme Court case which has directly construed the Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizen clause.   Therefore, Minor’s construction below creates binding legal precedent:

“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.”  (Emphasis added.)

Whether the holding here was influenced by Vattel is not truly important.  Sure, it looks just like Vattel’s definition, but Vattel does not make legal precedent – the US Supreme Court does.  All that matters here is what the Supreme court held.  So we must carefully examine the actual words stated by the Supreme Court.  We must not allow ourselves to be guided by what the Supreme Court did not say.  What the Court actually said is what makes law.

In the above passage, the Court noted that Mrs. Minor was born in the US to parents who were citizens.  The Court stated that such persons were “natural-born citizens”.  The Court also stated – as to such persons – that their “citizenship” was never in doubt.

By recognizing Mrs. Minor as a member of the class of persons who were natural-born citizens, they established her citizenship.  Establishing her citizenship was required before they could get to the issue of whether she had the right to vote.  In doing so, the Court in Minor directly construed Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution.

The Court also noted that some authorities include as “citizens” those born in the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of the parents.  The Court refers to these people as a different “class”.  The Court in Minor refused to comment on the “citizenship” of such persons since Mrs. Minor was not in that class.  They didn’t need to reach the 14th Amendment to determine if Mrs. Minor was a US citizen since the Court previously established that she was a “natural-born citizen”.  Read the following again:

“It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.“

This class is specifically defined as “natural-born citizens” by the Court.  The other class – those born in the US without citizen “parents” – may or may not be “citizens”.   But the Minor Court never suggested that this other class might also be natural-born citizens.  

It’s quite the opposite.   The Minor Court makes clear that this class are not Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizens.  If this other class were natural-born there would be no doubt as to their citizenship.

The Minor Court refrained from making a “citizenship” determination as to that class, but the Court did note that they were a different class.  Later, in 1898, the Court in Wong Kim Ark took the question on directly as to who is a citizen under the 14th Amendment, but that case did not directly construe Article 2 Section 1, whereas Minor did.

In order to avoid construing the 14th Amendment, the Court in Minor had to define those who fit into the class of “natural-born citizens”.  Mrs. Minor fit into that class.  Mr. Obama does not.

This is so very evident by the fact that the Minor Court specifically states that the “citizenship” of those who have non-citizen parents was historically subject to doubt.  Whether the 14th Amendment nullified those doubts was irrelevant to the Court in Minor, since Mrs. Minor was a natural-born citizen.

The 14th Amendment specifically confers only “citizenship”.  In Minor, the US Supreme Court directly recognized that natural-born citizens were a class of citizens who did not need the 14th Amendment to establish citizenship.  The class of natural-born citizens was perfectly defined in the Minor case.

Therefore, we have a direct determination by the US Supreme Court which defines a natural-born citizen as a person born in the US to parents who are citizens.  The citizenship of this class has never been in doubt.  The citizenship of the other class was in doubt.  But even if that doubt was erased – as to their citizenship – that they are not natural-born citizens was established as precedent by the Supreme Court in Minor.  In order for that precedent to be reversed, one of two things are necessary:

– a Constitutional amendment which specifically defines “natural-born Citizen” more inclusively than Minor did , or;

– a Supreme Court case which overrules the definition of natural-born citizen in the Minor case

We have neither.

Minor was decided seven years after the adoption of the 14th Amendment.  The Supreme Court in Minor did not consider anyone but those born of citizen parents on US soil to be natural-born citizens.  Later, in Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court stated that persons born on US soil to (some) alien parents were “citizens”, but that case specifically construed only the 14th Amendment.

Read again Justice Gray’s statement as to Minor, “In Minor v. Happersett, Chief Justice Waite, when construing, in behalf of the court, the very provision of the Fourteenth Amendment now in question, said…”  Nope.  Not true.  Gray was wrong in that Justice Waite did not construe the 14th Amendment in the quoted passage.  Chief Justice Waite construed Article 2 Section 1.  Whereas, Justice Gray construed the 14th Amendment.  Therefore, the two cases are not in conflict.

ANKENY V. GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF INDIANA

The Minor case has been severely misconstrued in the Ankeny opinion issued by the Indiana Court of Appeals.  That court quoted Minor’s natural-born citizen language, then stated:

“Thus, the Court left open the issue of whether a person who is born within the United States of alien parents is considered a natural born citizen.”

False.  The Minor Court did not leave that question open.  Nowhere in the Minor opinion does it state that the class of persons who are natural-born citizens is an open question. The Ankeny Court has it backwards. 

The Supreme Court in Minor stated that the “citizenship” of persons who were not natural born citizens was an open question. 

That is the most important sentence I’ve ever written at this blog.  So please read it again.

The “citizenship” of those born to non-citizen parents was a question that the Minor Court avoided.   But they avoided that question by directly construing Article 2 Section 1.  In doing so, the Supreme Court in Minor defined the class of persons who were born in the US to citizen parents as “natural-born citizens”.

Since Minor, no Amendment has been adopted which changes that definition, and no other Supreme Court case has directly construed Article 2 Section 1.

The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark only construed the question of who was a “citizen” under the 14th Amendment, it did not construe Article 2 Section 1.  Therefore, Minor and Wong Kim Ark do not compete with each other at all.  Minor is the standing precedent for construction of the natural-born citizen clause in Article 2 Section 1, and Wong Kim Ark is the standing precedent as to “citizenship” under the 14th Amendment.

WONG KIM ARK SPECIFICALLY DEFERRED TO PRIOR PRECEDENT REGARDING THE DEFINITION OF NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

That the majority opinion in Wong Kim Ark limited its holding strictly to the issue of 14th Amendment citizenship – and did not make any new determination as to Article 2 Section 1 – is evident from the following statement by Gray regarding the dissent by Justice Curtis in the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford:

“In Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) 19 How. 393, Mr. Justice Curtis said:

‘The first section of the second article of the Constitution uses the language, ‘a natural-born citizen.’ It thus assumes that citizenship may be acquired by birth. Undoubtedly, this language of the Constitution was used in reference to that principle of public law, well understood in this country at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, which referred citizenship to the place of birth.’

19 How. 60 U. S. 576. And, to this extent, no different opinion was expressed or intimated by any of the other judges.”

At first glance, Gray’s reliance upon the dissent’s passage in the Dred Scott case would appear to contradict everything I have written above.  But it doesn’t.  It actually confirms my analysis.

Justice Gray chooses his words carefully and so we must examine them carefully.  Note where Gray says, “And, to this extent, no different opinion was expressed or intimated by any of the other judges.”  Well, if we are talking only about “citizenship”, then – to this extent – Justice Gray is correct.  But if we are talking about the definition of a “natural-born citizen”, then Gray is grossly mistaken.

The Dred Scott majority may not have expressed a different opinion as to “citizenship”, but the majority’s definition of a natural-born citizen is vastly different than that of Justice Curtis in his dissent.  The majority opinion in Dred Scott, citing Vattel directly, stated:

“The citizens are the members of the civil society, bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or natural-born citizens are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. As society cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.”

Again:

“I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen, for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. The inhabitants, as distinguished from citizens, are foreigners who are permitted to settle and stay in the country.”

Vattel, Book 1, cap. 19, p. 101.

From the views here expressed, and they seem to be unexceptionable…”

Unexceptionable is defined as; ” not open to any objection or criticism.”  The Supreme Court majority, in the Dred Scott case, clearly states that a natural-born citizen is a person born in the US to parents who are citizens.  Therefore, Justice Gray’s reliance upon the dissent in the Dred Scott case is strictly limited to its discussion of “citizenship” by Gray’s very choice of the words, “to this extent”.

Since Gray stated that none of the other justices in the Dred Scott case expressed a different opinion than Curtis did in his dissent, it is obvious that Gray’s statement only applies to general citizenship, and not to the definition of those who fall into the class of natural-born citizens.  The majority in Dred Scott did, in fact, express a completely different opinion than Curtis on the issue of who was an Article 2 Section 1 natural-born citizen.

Gray’s use of the words, “to this extent” – with regard to the dissent by Curtis – indicates that the extent to which the holding in Wong Kim Ark applies is to the definition of “citizenship”, not to the definition of who is a natural-born citizen eligible to be President.  The precedent stated by the Court in Minor still stands to this day.

THE US SUPREME COURT DEFINITION OF PRECEDENT

In 1996, the US Supreme Court’s majority opinion by Justice Breyer in Ogilvie Et Al., Minors v. United States, 519 U.S. 79 (1996), stated that when the Court discusses a certain “…reason as an ‘independent’ ground in support of our decision”, then that reasoning is not simply dictum:

“Although we gave other reasons for our holding in Schleier as well, we explicitly labeled this reason an ‘independent’ ground in support of our decision, id., at 334. We cannot accept petitioners’ claim that it was simply a dictum.”

The Supreme Court in Minor specifically construed Article 2 Section 1 by defining – as natural-born citizens – those persons born in the US to parents who were citizens.

Again, the Supreme Court specifically avoided the 14th Amendment, by specifically construing Article 2 Section 1.

In order to determine whether Mrs. Minor had the right to vote, the Court first needed to determine if she was a US citizen.  They determined that she was a citizen because she was in the class of “natural-born citizens”.  And, in doing so, they made it clear that persons born of non-citizen parents were not natural-born citizens.

The Court left open the question of whether those born of non-citizen parents were “citizens”.  But the Court did not leave open their specific construction of Article 2 Section 1.  Their definition of a “natural-born citizen” was the core reason they found Mrs. Minor to be a citizen.   Therefore, the Minor Court established binding precedent as follows:

“…[A]ll 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...”

Please also note that the Court here makes specific reference to both aliens and foreigners as distinguished from natural-born citizens.  Aliens are just that, aliens.  They are not citizens.  But we have always had many foreigners in this country who were citizens.  Those who came here from foreign lands were foreigners naturalized as citizens.  Some who were born in the US with dual citizenship – like Obama – were also citizens of the nation of their parents.  These are citizens, but also foreigners.  The Court in Minor made the careful distinction that a natural-born citizen is not an alien or a foreigner.

CITIZENS MAY BE BORN OR NATURALIZED

A common misconception of those who argue in favor of Obama’s eligibility is that if one is, at the time of their birth, a US citizen, then that person is also a natural-born citizen.  False.  This was unequivocally established by the majority holding in Minor, which states:

“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 providesthat ‘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.”

Again, at first glance this appears to provide a neat little soundbite for Obama supporters.  But it doesn’t.  The quote above is taken out of context.  The Court’s opinion goes on to state:

“Under the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, provided…that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens.  These provisions thus enacted have, in substance, been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since.”

Here, the Minor Court cites the first naturalization act of 1790 to the effect that persons born of US citizen parents – outside the jurisdiction of the US – are “considered as natural-born citizens”.  So, here we can see that while the Minor Court only recognizes two paths to citizenship, birth and naturalization… it is clear that some persons who, at the time of their birth, are US citizens, require naturalization for such status.

So, it’s clear that while there are only two paths to US citizenship, birth and naturalization, those two paths sometimes merge.  But naturalized citizens are not eligible to be President.  (The Minor Court failed to mention that the words “natural-born” were repealed from the naturalization act of 1795.)

Additionally, the current US Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual, at “7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency“, comments on the 1790 act as follows:

“This statute is no longer operative, however, and its formula is not included in modern nationality statutes. In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes.”

This is most likely because the statute did not actually deem such a person to be a natural-born citizen, the act simply stated that such a person was to be “considered as” a natural-born citizen.

The Minor Court also noted that the “substance” of the 1790 act, which granted US citizenship at birth via naturalization, had remained as law up until 1875 when the Minor case was decided.  So, clearly, while citizens may either be born or naturalized, some born citizens are simultaneously naturalized at birth.  Naturalized citizens are not natural-born citizens.  Therefore, they are not eligible to be President.

I am not arguing that Obama was naturalized.  But Minor does establish that not all “born citizens” are “natural-born”.  Minor also gives an unequivocal definition of who fits into the class of natural-born citizens.  Obama does not fit into that class.  Born in the US to a citizen mother and a British/Kenyan father, Obama was born with dual nationality and dual allegiance, part US citizen, part foreigner.  Minor makes a clear distinction between natural-born citizens and aliens or foreigners.

No Constitutional amendment supersedes Minor by defining natural-born citizen in a more inclusive way.  No US Supreme Court case has overruled it.  Justice Gray’s statement that the Court in Minor construed the 14th Amendment in the passage quoted is wrong.  The Court in Minor directly construed Article 2 Section 1 while directly avoiding construction of the 14th Amendment.

The Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark directly construed the 14th Amendment and specifically avoided construction of Article 2 Section 1.  The two cases are not in contradiction.  They are consistent.

Wong Kim Ark is specifically limited to determining who is a citizen under the 14th Amendment.

Minor is specifically limited to determining who is a US citizen, natural-born.

According to the US Supreme Court precedent established by Minor, Obama is not eligible to the office of President of the United States.

Leo C. Donofrio, Esq.

Recent WND Inquiries Appear To Have Established Obama’s Birth In Hawaii.

I don’t know how this slipped below my radar, but back on May 9, 2011, World Net Daily published an investigative report entitled, “Bombshell: U.S. government questioned Obama citizenship“, which – in my opinion – conclusively established that Obama was born in Hawaii.  In that report, Aaron Klein revealed official documents stored in US immigration files which chronicle the troubles faced by Obama’s mother’s second husband, Lolo Soetoro, when he petitioned the US Government for a visa extension.

The WND report correctly notes that US officials expressed an interest in determining whether Soetoro’s step-son, President Obama, was actually a US citizen.  The US officials who were handling Soetoro’s Visa extension application made copious notes in the file and the official comments therein illustrate that these officials doubted some of Soetoro’s statements.  So, they decided to investigate the relationships listed in his application.

Below is the text of the relevant portion of the WND report:

One critical exchange is dated August 21, 1967, from Sam Benson, an officer at the Southwest Immigration and Naturalization Service office in San Pedro, Calif.

Benson’s query stated, “There is nothing in the file to document the status of the spouse’s son. Please inquire into his citizenship and residence status and determine whether or not he is the applicant’s child within the meaning of Section 101(b)(1)(B) of the Act, who may suffer exceptional hardship within the meaning of Section 212(a).”

The reference is to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which defined a “child” as an unmarried person under 21 years of age who, among other qualifiers, could be a “stepchild,” whether or not born out of wedlock, provided the child had not reached the “age of eighteen years at the time the marriage creating the status of stepchild occurred.”

A response to Benson’s inquiry came from one “W.L. Mix” of the central immigration office, who determined Obama was a U.S. citizen.

Mix replied: “Pursuant to inquiry from central office regarding the status of the applicants’ spouse’s child by a former marriage.”

“The person in question is a United States citizen by virtue of his birth in Honolulu, Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961. He is living with the applicants’ spouse in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is considered the applicant’s step-child, within the meaning of Sec. 101(b)(1)(B), of the act, by virtue of the marriage of the applicant to the child’s mother on March 5, 1965.”

The files do not state how the office determined Obama was born in Honolulu.

__________________________________________

So here we see the US Government looking into an application for Visa extension by Soetoro.  Further review of those documents reveal that the officials did not trust everything in Soetoro’s application.  Therefore, the Government officials wanted to establish whether Obama Jr. was truly a US citizen.  They made a direct inquiry on this very issue.   And they concluded that Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961.  Again, this was established by “W.L. Mix” of the central immigration office.

Having taken such an exhaustive look into Soetoro’s application, and especially considering the government’s examination of Obama’s citizenship, I don’t see how the government officials involved would have overlooked the fact that Stanley Ann Dunham would have been out of the US and far away in Kenya on the date W.L. Mix established as DOB for Obama – if Obama had been born in Kenya.

Furthermore, a report today by WND, “Documents show marriage of Obama’s parents a sham“, illustrates that a similar investigation as to Obama, Sr. was conducted when he was also applying for a Visa extension. Those official documents include a handwritten memo from the file, written by (presumed) INS official William Wood, which states that Obama Sr.’s son, “Barack Obama II”, was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961.

Moreover, in today’s WND article, Jerome Corsi concludes, as a result of reviewing all of the relevant INS documents, that if President Obama was born in Kenya, Dunham must have traveled there without Obama Sr., who was definitely in the US on August 4, 1961, according to these US Government records.  This analysis by Corsi is correct.  Obama Sr.’s presence in the US at the time of Obama’s birth is now sufficiently documented.  This fact alone adds very heavy weight to President Obama having been born in the US.

I don’t see how two sets of US government officials, independently investigating the relationships between Soetoro and Dunham on one hand, and Obama Sr. and Dunham on the other, could both fail to reveal that Dunham would have been in Kenya at the time of Obama Jr.’s birth.  The government officials would’ve had access to Dunham’s passport files.  The contents thereof were relevant to the investigations since she was married to both men, and the marriages were relevant to immigration status, as was the issue of children.

Those who persist in accusing Obama of not being born in Hawaii do so in light of official government investigations, between 1961 and 1966, which established his birth, to the satisfaction of inquisitive government immigration officials, as having taken place on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. 

As far as I’m concerned, the issue is settled with a massive presumption of authenticity.  I do not see how the information published by WND regarding US immigration official W.L. Mix’s investigation into Obama’s US citizenship flew so far below the radar. That is the single most important fact I have come across that establishes Obama’s birth in Hawaii.

CLOSURE IS POSSIBLE WITH REGARD TO BC ISSUE.

For those who insist on keeping the birther circus alive and kickin’ (despite the info listed above), I believe there is a simple way to settle the issue once and for all. I have found two references to the fact that the US Government keeps passport “issuance” records for all passports issued. The most recent is from Congressional testimony on the House floor from March 10, 1998:

“In addition, the committee on conference is aware that on weekends there is no Departmental procedure or mechanism to access the passport issuance records maintained by the Consular Affairs Bureau. The result is that when a foreign law enforcement authority inquires about the status of a person or passport on the weekend, the State Department does not or cannot respond. This is a clear deficiency in border security procedures.”  (See pg. 41/53 in the PDF counter.)

The second reference is to a US Government GAO report – written for the Secretary of State – that argued for the destruction of passport application materials. The destruction of such materials was the basis of more conspiracy theories as to Dunham’s various passport applications and renewals requested in a previous FOIA by Christopher Strunk.

Unfortunately, the FOIA request by Strunk, which has been well documented online, failed to request passport “issuance” records for Stanley Ann Dunham. Strunk only requested passport “application” materials. And the government’s reply to his FOIA request was specifically limited to passport “application” materials. Since Strunk didn’t specifically ask for passport “issuance” records, the government was not obligated to search for those records… but they do exist and they can be found.

The GAO report – which refers to passport issue cards – documents the destruction of passport application materials, but it notes that the Government retains all “old passport issue cards”:

“During numerous discussions with GSA about document retention periods, Department officials have presented many reasons for the continued storage of original passport applications. They have placed great emphasis in pointing out that old passport applications can be used to derive the citizenship of others…But other ways are just as reliable and effective… Should the Department need to verify if a parent was ever issued a passport, old passport issue cards have been microfilmed and can be referenced by the Department.”  (See pg. 44/70 in the PDF counter.)

Therefore, if Stanley Ann Dunham had been issued a passport prior to President Obama’s birth, there will be a passport issue card available with that information.  If no such card exists, Dunham did not have a passport prior to August 4, 1961, and Obama could not have been born in Kenya.  She would have needed a passport to be in Kenya.

It is my opinion that a proper FOIA request for passport issue cards (or copies thereof) will establish that Stanley Ann Dunham did not have a passport prior to August 4, 1961. Such a request must be SPECIFICALLY designed to eliminate all wiggle room.  I suggest the following wording:

Please forward all passport issue cards and/or microfilm or microfiche copies, or any other copies thereof – or any other documents – which reference the issuance of any passport for Stanley Ann Dunham.  To be perfectly clear in my FOIA request, please understand that I am NOT interested in passport application materials.  Please limit your response and documents to passport issue cards or copies thereof – as well as any other documents – which the government possesses for Stanley Ann Dunham that refer to her being issued a US passport.

Any FOIA request should NOT ask for more than the passport issuance materials.  I cannot stress enough how important it is that the FOIA be strictly limited as suggested above.  Such a FOIA should end this conspiracy theory with authority and finality.

I should note that I have come across a certain rabid Obama eligibility supporter who alleges to have done a proper FOIA request as to passport issuance materials.  I do not trust this source and I do not have access to the EXACT wording of the alleged FOIA request. Suffice to say that anyone who wants true closure on the place of birth issue should do a FOIA – strictly worded as I have suggested above – requesting passport issuance documents for Stanley Ann Dunham.

I nominate the folks at WND to take this on and make all aspects public since they are the main news resource for this issue.  They are invited to take the suggested FOIA request as written above (in red) and to run with it.

The fourth estate has the power and responsibility to see this through.  They should thoroughly document the exact wording of the FOIA request, and they should also document the stages of compliance by the government to such a request as is required by law.  Definitive documentation regarding whether Stanley Ann Dunham held a passport prior to August 4, 1961 is readily available to the public.

The Government is required to respond to the EXACT request made.  No mention of passport application materials should be forwarded by the government in response to a properly worded FOIA request for passport issuance cards (or other issuance documents).  We know the cards/documents exist and that they are necessary to the government as is proved by the GAO report and Congressional testimony.

The GAO notes in their report from 1981 that while passport application materials may be destroyed, “passport issue cards” are kept.  This is beyond dispute.

If no passport issuance documents can be found for Obama’s mother prior to his date of birth, then he could not have been born in Kenya.

I am not a person who needs to see anymore proof.  I believe now and have always believed President Obama was born in Hawaii.  But if you still have doubts, this line of inquiry is crucially necessary.

The BC issue and the birther circus surrounding it have served Obama well. Like Chester Arthur before him, the nation was thoroughly distracted by the place of birth faux conspiracy whilst the true legal question concerning his dual national status – despite place of birth – was obscured.

Everyone loves a big green juicy salacious conspiracy theory. That’s much more fun than a certified boring legal question, the answer to which was never in the hands of Obama, whereas the BC always was.  He who controls the game, controls the outcome.  (“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” – Johnny Rotten)

I am writing this to clear your attention spans for what will be the most authoritative and well documented analysis I have to offer on the dual national issue concerning Obama’s perpetual POTUS eligibility dilemma.  I do not want the circus to obstruct the law.  If you understand the importance of this post, you will pass it on far and wide so the attention of the nation can focus on the true Constitutional crisis.

Leo Donofrio, Esq.

Natural BornTruth.

Recently, I wrote an article wherein I condemned Professor Lawrence Solum, an esteemed Constitutional scholar, for tampering with an article he published in the Michigan Law Review (September 2008) which focused upon the issue of whether John McCain was eligible to be President despite his birth in Panama.  That article did not mention Barack Obama.

The opening paragraph of the article stated:

“What was the original public meaning of the phrase that establishes the eligibility for the office of President of the United States? There is general agreement on the core of its meaning. Anyone born on American soil whose parents are citizens of the United States is a ‘natural born citizen.’” (Emphasis added.)

Shortly after that report was published, Obama’s dual nationality issue started to get legs when I petitioned the US Supreme Court to review his eligibility (as well as the eligibility of John McCain and Roger Calero, the Nicaraguan born Socialist Workers Party Candidate) just before the 2008 election.  Up until that petition, Obama’s dual nationality issue wasn’t on the national radar.

Solum was caught in a rather delicate situation as the issue developed national awareness since he clearly indicated Obama was not a member of the class of persons whose eligibility fit within the “core meaning” and “general agreement” of the natural born citizen clause.  As a result of the attention, Solum scrubbed the two citizen parent reference.  You can read the whole sordid story in my previous report.

Solum’s original report had it right:

– all persons born on US soil to US citizen parents are – beyond question – eligible to be President

–  all persons who were not US citizens at the time of their birth are – beyond question – ineligible to be President

The eligibility of everyone else is questionable.

That was the truth when Solum first wrote the article.  And it’s the truth now.  And I always want to know the truth and to speak the truth.  So, having come down so hard on Solum, I recently challenged myself to go back and review the relevant judicial history to see if I had overlooked anything important that would help establish the case for Obama’s eligibility.  I also set my gaze upon searching for anything I might have previously overlooked which strengthens arguments against his eligibility.

NEW INSIGHTS

As a result of this effort, I’ve developed new insights and analysis which strengthen my opinion that the original meaning and intention of the natural born Citizen clause would exclude Obama from eligibility.

But I’ve also had an important insight which helps the case for Obama.

I have not seen this particular analysis discussed before.  I Googled the appropriate terminology, and there is nothing I can find that previously discerns this particular insight.  It appears both factions of the argument have been short-sighted as to this point.  It is new.  Therefore, I have an ethical duty to bring it to your attention.

There is a great body of historical, judicial, academic and journalistic evidence which indicates that only a person born in the US to parents who are US citizens is a “natural born Citizen” eligible to be President.  But the media, academia, Congress and a supporting circus of blogosphere attack dogs have tried – in vain – to marginalize anyone who speaks truthfully about the issue.  Hell, Solum marginalized his own reputation over it.

I never want to be rightfully accused of doing that – of twisting the legal evidence to fit a stubborn conclusion.  The very notion is sickening to my core.

These new insights are very technical and difficult to explain.  This is particularly true of the new analysis which helps the case for Obama’s eligibility.  The technicality involved certainly posed an ethical challenge.  If I just kept my mouth shut, it would probably remain obscured.  Who knows, it might remain obscured even after I discuss it.  But I will do my best to make it clear for posterity.

I am a lawyer who understands true ethics.  And such a lawyer is obligated to reveal cases and facts to the opposition which are damaging.  This is the way the Bar and the Bench should behave.  The truth must come before the desired outcome.  Unfortunately, that’s not the way it is in our judicial system.  But it will be the way of this blog.

Leo Donofrio Esq.

OBAMA Indicates Not All “Native Born” Are Eligible To Be President.

Unlike the more sensational conspiracy theory regarding Obama’s birth certificate and place of birth (I believe he was born in Hawaii… but I certainly do not believe he’s provided any legal document which passes forensic scrutiny which proves so), I am recognized for the legal argument that Obama is not eligible to be President because he was a dual citizen at the time of his birth.

Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution lists the requirements for President:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

The key phrase here is “born”.  Either – at the time of your birth – you were born as a US citizen, and you are eligible, or you are not.  It can’t be cured at a later stage.  The word “born” is unequivocal.  You must be a US citizen at the time of your birth… the moment you enter the world determines eligibility.

Obama fully admits that his birth “status” was governed by the United Kingdom.  I have always wondered how it is possible a person whose birth status was governed by the United Kingdom can be considered a natural born citizen of the United States?  I feel that is a very rational question to ask.  The contradiction is self evident.

Obama eligibility supporters seek to redefine the Constitutional requirement listed in Article 2 Section 1  – “natural born”  – to mean “native born”.   And Obama supporters would argue that all native born are natural born.  “No exceptions”. Their argument rests on a very simple claim:

If – at the time of your birth – you are born on US soil, then you are a US citizen at the time of your birth and therefore you are eligible to be President.

But President Obama does not agree with that simple definition.

Obama is on record as denying that all native born on US soil are – at the time of their birth – US citizens.  Perhaps you missed it, but Obama announced a new Constitutional requirement for President that is not contained in the actual Constitution.  According to President Obama, his supporters are wrong and it is not enough just to be born on US soil.  Obama requires more.

I am referring to Obama’s stand against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) back in March 2001 when he was a Senator in Illinois.  That act sought to grant equal protection under the law to all those born alive after an abortion attempt failed and the child was delivered into the world alive.  The BAIPA sought to recognize that such persons were US citizens deserving of equal protection under the law so that these infants could not be murdered after they were born.

Obama fought against those born alive from being recognized as US citizens.  He fought against them having equal protection under the law.  And in doing so, he therefore added a more stringent requirement to POTUS eligibility than is listed in the US Constitution.  According to Obama, if one is born into the world (“native born” on US soil) prior to being viable, then one is not a US citizen.  If one is not, at the time they are born, a US citizen, then one is not eligible to be President.

I know that both Obama and his supporters have sought to revise history regarding Obama’s statements on the Illinois Senate floor as to this issue.  And as much as I (and any rational person should) believe that he was advocating infanticide, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for the purposes of this report and will limit  my discussion and analysis of his statement to the ramifications of his testimony on Presidential eligibility.

OBAMA’S MARCH 28, 2001 ILLINOIS SENATE TESTIMONY

SENATOR OBAMA:

This bill was fairly extensively debated in the Judiciary Committee, and so I won’t belabor the issue. I do want to just make sure that everybody in the Senate knows what this bill is about, as I understand it. Senator O’Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was — is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the — the fetus or child, as — as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living. Is that correct? Is that an accurate sort of description of one of the key concerns in the bill?

PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Senator O’Malley.

SENATOR O’MALLEY:
Senator Obama, it is certainly a key concern that the — the way children are treated following their birth under these circumstances has been reported to be, without question, in my opinion, less than humane, and so this bill suggests that appropriate steps be taken to treat that baby as a — a citizen of the United States and afforded all the rights and protections it deserves under the Constitution of the United States.

PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR KARPIEL)
Senator Obama.

SENATOR OBAMA:
Well, it turned out — that during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman’s right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns that your — you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony. And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think it’ll make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute...

Obama makes these statements with regard to abortion, and partial birth abortion (which is an abortion that takes place when part of the child has already entered the world – a gruesome practice I firmly stand against with every fiber of my being).

Therefore, according to Obama, only those who are born AFTER full viability may be considered US citizens with equal protection under the law.  His exact quote above is “… a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution“.  Of course, this would include Article 2 Section 1.  Therefore, Obama has crafted a completely heretofore unknown POTUS requirement which states that not all of those who are “native born” in the USA are eligible.

To be President, one must be – at the time of their birth – a US citizen.

According to Obama, one is not “born” a US citizen unless they are able to survive on their own after being born.  Since Article 2 Section 1 requires the President to be a natural born citizen, only those who are delivered after a full term, are – at the time of their birth – US citizens.  Hence, it is not enough to be native born in the US to be President.  According to Obama, one must be native born after an appropriate time in the womb.  If one is born prior to that time period, one is not a US citizen according to Obama.

It may be the case that the federal BAIPA law and the various State BAIPA laws grant various human rights and protections to those born prior to a nine month term, but Obama has never renounced his statements on the Illinois Senate Floor from March 2001.  And, as far as I can tell, Obama – to this day – does not believe a person born before a full nine month term in the womb is a US citizen.

CAN OBAMA PROVE HE SPENT NINE MONTHS IN HIS MOTHER’S WOMB?

I ask this rhetorically because I know damn well that any child that comes into this world is a human being, not a “previable fetus”.  Notice how Obama says, “…where the — the fetus or child, as — as some might describe it…”  Count me in as one who describes it as a child.  (It’s hard to believe that these quotes are real and not part of some horror film.)

Please don’t go around making this argument as if it really would determine eligibility.  I’m not trying to make this a genuine issue.  There is a ton of sarcasm present.  Yet, these are the President’s own words, not mine.  The POTUS said this crap… freaks me out, people.

NO LEGAL DIFFERENCE TO OBAMA BETWEEN THOSE BORN EARLY WHO WERE WANTED AND THOSE WHO WERE ATTEMPTED TO BE ABORTED.

Now let’s look at this from one more angle.  Obama’s statements above from the Illinois Senate Floor, besides just being gruesome and insane… fail to take into consideration that the rights and protections being denied to those children are equally denied to children born prematurely to parents who desperately want them.  Obama and those who would deny US citizenship and equal protection to these, the most fragile among us, because they were born prematurely, make no distinction in their application of the law between those who were almost aborted and those who were miraculously saved via incubation.

If they did make such a distinction, then that too, according to Obama’s logic above, would lead to a restriction on abortion. If you are trying to bring a child into this world and there are complications… the child is born much too early, placed into incubation and given no chance to live… according to this psychotic logic, the child has no equal protection under the law.  Has anyone thoroughly discussed the horror which the law would condone if the prematurely born had no rights?

Either you are a native born US citizen when you enter this world, despite your chances of survival or this world is hell and Satan’s angels are running the place.  Kick them out next November.  I digress  (sort of…)

Meanwhile, Obama needs to prove he was in the womb for nine months.  If he’s not going to prove his nine months in the womb, then he ought to retract his ghoulish creepy testimony.  He claims to have been protecting the rights of women, right?  Well, what about those little baby girls delivered alive despite a failed abortion attempt?  Women’s rights don’t mean anything for them?

You can’t make make this crap up, people.  It’s dark out there.

Leo Donofrio, Esq.

I’m Not Who You Think I Am…

I have to get this off my chest.  Many of my readers seem to be under the false impression that I am a Republican pundit conservative.  I’m really sick of that.  I have absolutely no respect for either the GOP or the DNC.  The only political party I can relate to in any way is the Libertarian party, but I don’t agree with them on every point either.  I have a simple rule that works for me: I severely distrust all politicians all the time… always, every single one.

For those who wish to put me in a political right wing corner, who ask me to speak at political functions, who want me to join the tea party movement — stop.  You really don’t know me.  I’m not who you think I am.  So, let me update you on a few things.

I’ve just written and directed a feature film about two beautiful girls who fall in love in the post apocalyptic aftermath of a cellular apocalypse and who make a baby just by kissing.  Yes, it’s a lesbian film and I am one of those people who believes consenting adults should be able to marry each other regardless of sexual affiliation.

Whoops, there goes a bunch of support.  Lets see, what can we bring up next?  Oh yeah, as an artist I once wrote a journal called Onelovestory where I claimed the drummer from my favorite rock and roll band was the Messiah and that I was the Paraclete (aka the Holy Ghost).  That was a conceptual work of performance art.  Just Google it and I promise you will have a new opinion of me.  If some people think it was real, let them believe it.  That was the whole point — to mix up reality with fantasy and never let the audience know if you were taking the piss, or losing your mind.  Bwahahaha…

Oops, there goes a bunch of other readers.  Let’s alienate a few more people.

I don’t believe the official 911 story and I don’t trust the Government at all in that regard.

I think drugs should be legalized along with prostitution, all forms of gambling and driving while talking on your cell phone.  Meat helmets and scribes should also be back in vogue, but I’ll let Dr. Evil work that crowd.

Back when George Bush was President, I wrote a blog called “Citizenspook” (aka citizen spy) where I regularly argued that Bush administration officials should have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for Treason by outing our own spys in the Plame affair.  I was very disappointed that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald didn’t go the whole nine yards.  At that time, I  also wrote an article about the power of a “sitting” Federal Grand Jury to issue presentments which would bring illegal government activity to trial.

I don’t recall any democratic bloggers having a problem with that argument when Bush was President… but they sure do now.  Hypocrites abound.  I also believed that Plame and her husband helped out her own network when she went on Vanity Fair and put a face to the name thereby endangering field agents even more.  Non-partisan paranoid freak, that’s me. My Citizenspook blog was hacked on or about January 13, 2009 and I have no way of getting back into that blog.

When a bunch of freakers thought they could form their own grand jury lynch mobs to prosecute anyone they liked, I was blamed.  But it’s not my fault people didn’t read what I actually wrote.  The Constitutional power of presentment is only available to a grand jury that has already been impaneled by a US Federal Court.  When I wrote the article in 2005, it was hyped at Democratic Underground.  Yup, I was a darling blogger of that forum during my Treasongate infatuation when Bush was President.  Now the Dem blogs want to hang me for putting their guy through the same scrutiny.  Hypocrites abound, man.  Seriously.  Who do you think you are kidding?  Surely, not the Paraclete.  I got Holy Ghost power goin’ on here in mutant overload.

The Sex Pistols changed my life.  I am a punk rocker who distrusts everything “official”.  I sued to stop both John McCain and Obama from being President.   One was born in Panama and the other admits  his birth status was governed by the United Kingdom.  Since the most direct United States Supreme Court decision on this issue – Minor v. Happersett – states that a “natural born citizen” is one born in the US of parents who were citizens, I believed Obama not to be eligible and I petitioned the courts to review the issue… as to both candidates… prior to the election, before we knew who would win.  Non-partisan distrustful freak of nature… that’s me.

I’m not who you think I am.

While I do believe in Jesus with all of my heart, I don’t think you go to hell if you don’t believe in him… as long as you do believe in love.  If you’re in love, you’re in the stream.  And it’s not important to the source of the stream that you know who the source really is.  Just be in the stream of love.  But that’s not easy.  And it requires that you love your enemies.  I love mine.  I pray for them all the time.  I pray for Satan as well.  That’s probably why he hates me so much.

More readers gone?  Yup.

So, if you’re still reading… let me tell you this.  As for Obama, I don’t see his evils as being any greater than the evil doers residing in the White House before him.  They all suck to me.

The SCOTUS doesn’t care about Obama’s eligibility issue so the precedent now appears to be that a natural born citizen is one born in the US to at least one citizen parent.  I hope that goalpost does not move further to accommodate Rubio or Jindal, neither of whom had even one citizen parent at the time of their birth.

There goes a few more readers.  Please come back!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, despite Obama’s wacky weird and freaky birth document scans (cause that’s all he’s really provided – see what happens if you try to present a scan for a passport), I have always believed he was born in Hawaii and still do.  Ooops, there goes a bunch of readers again.

As it stands right now… as long as Obama doesn’t try to change the Constitution by running for a third term… and he doesn’t try to give US sovereignty away to world Government, or take my favorite rock drummer’s thrown as da Messiah… I do not care about this issue anymore.  I am moving on.  The issue is known and unknown.  But now I sound like Rumsfeld.

Bwahahahahaha…..

with love, Leo Donofrio (aka…  your Paraclete 🙂

PS:  After having taken off from poker in 2010, my return to the tables (in order to finish financing my film) is off to a good start, having just won event #10 at the Delaware Poker Classic.  I also came in 19th out of 544 players in event #2 for a modest $460 win,  Check out the Old testament beard shot… yowza!

Bon Appetit Birth Certificate…

UPDATED: May 1, 2011  9:10 AM – Apologies for my being tardy with comments.  I just posted 142 comments.  I’ve been away from home since last blogging. 

I predicted multiple times that President Obama would produce the original long form birth certificate when it best served him to do so. Today that prophecy was fulfilled. I have always maintained that the birth certificate issue was a red herring smoke screen protecting Obama from facing the true issue of his ineligibility – dual nationality.

Like Chester Arthur before him, Obama was protected from genuine questions regarding his birth status having been governed, as he admits, by the United Kingdom via the faux BC issue until October 27, 2008 when I instituted my law suit against the New Jersey Secretary of State alleging that neither Obama nor McCain were eligible.

I predicted over and again that when it served Obama best, he would feed you an original birth certificate on national TV. Bon appetit to those who allowed this conspiracy theory to take precedence over the genuine legal issue: how a person born owing certain allegiance to a foreign nation can be a natural born citizen of the United States?. Since the BC was played so perfectly by the Obama team, the genuine legal issue will now be more marginalized than ever.

They simply played a better game of chess. And due to this sick game, Obama now sets a precedent that anyone who hates this country, from Osama Bin Laden to Kim Jong Il, can have a child with an American woman and that child can be President. Obama’s defeat of the dual nationality issue, in both the courts and the media, means that the President’s parents do not have to be US citizens. If that is true, then the natural born citizen requirement in Article 2 Section 1 of the Constitution is basically rendered meaningless.

If a person born with dual allegiance can be President, then I don’t see the difference between a citizen and a natural born citizen. To become naturalized as a US citizen, one must at least swear an oath of allegiance to the US by renouncing all other allegiances. But a person such as Obama, who was born with dual allegiance is apparently not even required to renounce all previous allegiances under oath.

The BC was a conspiracy theory. The dual nationality issue is a legal question. Obama always controlled the issue of whether or not he would produce the BC. But the legal issue was never under his control. So he exercised as much control over it as possible by allowing the birth certificate to fester casting a huge shadow over his dual allegiance. Well played, sir.

by Leo Donofrio, Esq.

Justice Hugo Black in DUNCAN v LOUISIANA Indicates Obama Would Not Be Eligible: Ineligibility Echoed by Former Attorney General Jeremiah Black

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Hugo Black, in a concurring opinion in Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968), emphasizes his reliance upon the statements made by Representative Bingham and Senator Howard in Congress which pertain to the drafting and adoption of the 14th Amendment.  Justice Black stated that “it is far wiser to rely on” the words of Bingham and Howard when analyzing the 14th Amendment.

This is crucial to understanding that Obama is not eligible to be President as it provides the strongest Supreme Court statement – post Wong Kim Ark – indicating that the current occupant of the White House is not in legal possession of the office of President.

Here is the relevant statement by Justice Black:

“Professor Fairman’s “history” relies very heavily on what was not said in the state legislatures that passed on the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead of relying on this kind of negative pregnant, my legislative experience has convinced me that it is far wiser to rely on what was said, and, most importantly, said by the men who actually sponsored the Amendment in the Congress. I know from my years in the United States Senate that it is to men like Congressman Bingham, who steered the Amendment through the House, and Senator Howard, who introduced it in the Senate, that members of Congress look when they seek the real meaning of what is being offered. And they vote for or against a bill based on what the sponsors of that bill and those who oppose it tell them it means.” (Emphasis added.)

A few weeks ago, I published a report entitled, “The House of Representatives Definition of “Natural Born Citizen” = Born of Citizen Parents in the US“.  (Please review that report now as I have directly re-posted from it below.)

During a debate (see pg. 2791) regarding a certain Dr. Houard, who had been incarcerated in Spain, the issue was raised on the floor of the House of Representatives as to whether the man was a US citizen.  Representative Bingham (of Ohio), stated on the floor:

“As to the question of citizenship I am willing to resolve all doubts in favor of a citizen of the United States.  That Dr. Houard is a natural-born citizen of the United States there is not room for the shadow of a doubt.  He was born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day, he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of the United States by birth.” (The term “to-day”, as used by Bingham, means “to date”.  Obviously, the Constitution had not been amended on April 25, 1872.)

Notice that Bingham declares Houard to be a “natural-born citizen” by citing two factors – born of citizen parents in the US.

John Bingham, aka “father of the 14th Amendment”, was an abolitionist congressman from Ohio who prosecuted Lincoln’s assassins.  Ten years earlier, he stated on the House floor:

“All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.” (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862))

Then in 1866, Bingham also stated on the House floor:

“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))

According to Justice Black, Bingham’s words uttered on the floor of the House are the most reliable source.  Bingham made three statements, none of them challenged on the Floor, which indicate that a natural born citizen is a person born on US soil to parents who were US citizens.  Obama does not fit that description since, at the time of his birth, his father was a British subject.

Obama’s own web site, throughout the entire 2008 Presidential campaign, stated that his birth status was governed by the United Kingdom:

“As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.”

QUESTION: How can a person whose birth status was governed by the United Kingdom be considered a natural born citizen of the United States?

ANSWER: It’s not possible.

Such a person is born with divided allegiance.  Such a person is born owing fealty to the monarchy of the United Kingdom.

ATTORNEY GENERAL JEREMIAH BLACK

According to a July 18, 1859 official proclamation by former Attorney General Black (as reported in the New York Times on July 20, 1859), only those who never owed fealty to another nation may be President:

“Here none but a native can be President…A native and a naturalized American may therefore go forth with equal security over every sea and through every land under Heaven…They are both of them American citizens, and their exclusive allegiance is due to the Government of the United States.  One of them never did owe fealty elsewhere, and the other, at the time of his naturalization…threw off, renounced and abjured forever all allegiance to every foreign prince, potentate, State and sovereignty whatever, and especially to that sovereign whose subject he had previously been. “

 

Here again we see a person in high office stating that to be President one must never have owed fealty to another nation.  We see the true legal requirement that the President never owed allegiance to any foreign sovereign.  This clean natural citizenship is one which can only be present at birth.  Since the naturalized citizen can’t be President because he once owed allegiance to a foreign nation, the same goes for any other citizen who owed allegiance to a foreign nation.

Obama admits to having owed fealty, aka allegiance, to the United Kingdom at the time of his birth.  Therefore, upon the authority of Representative Bingham, Justice Black and Attorney General Black, Obama is not eligible to the office of President.

SENATORS HOWARD AND TRUMBULL AND REPRESENTATIVE THAYER

But there’s even more authority to be heard from regarding Obama’s unconstitutional occupation of the White House.  Justice Black also told us that we must consult with Senator Howard since he was Bingham’s counterpart in the Senate relating to the 14th Amendment.  Bingham and Howard are the two that ushered the 14th Amendment into the Constitution.

As to the meaning of the term “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment, Senator Howard stated:

“The first amendment is to section one, declaring that all “persons born in the United States and Subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside. I do not propose to say anything on that subject except that the question of citizenship has been fully discussed in this body as not to need any further elucidation, in my opinion. This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. (Congressional Globe, 39th Congress pg. 2890 (1866))

Notice that Howard lists several classes of persons who are not citizens under the 14th Amendment:

– foreigners

– aliens

– families of ambassadors or ministers

The statement was clarified a few days earlier when Howard stated:

“That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ What do we mean by ‘complete jurisdiction thereof? Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.” (Congressional Globe, 39th Congress pg. 2893 (1866))

Those who owed allegiance to “anybody else” are not natural born citizens of the United States. 

Examine the following statement by Representative Thayer from the same period:

“To accomplish this great purpose, the bill declares, in the first place, that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign Power, are citizens of the United States. Now, I do not regard that as the enunciation of any new principle. It is, in my judgment, but declaratory of the existing law. According to my apprehension, every man born in the United States, and not owing allegiance to a foreign Power, is a citizen of the United States.” – Rep. Thayer, March 2, 1866. (Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st Session, p. 1152 (1866))

The same sentiments were also uttered by Senator Trumbull who stated that it meant “Not owing allegiance to anybody else.”

Obama supporters cling to a desperate argument.  They claim that another country’s nationality laws should not have any bearing in the US.  But this is clearly false.  In a previous article entitled, “The State Department Has “Always” Recognized And Abided By Foreign Laws Concerning US Citizens Born With Dual Nationality“, I highlighted an official letter from Secretary of State Lansing to Senator Dodge wherein Lansing educated the Senator regarding the requirement of citizen parents so that children born here not be subject to foreign military duty.

If a child is born in the US to a father who owes allegiance to a foreign power, that child also owes allegiance to that foreign power.  This was always our law.  It was US law at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, at the time Obama was born, and it is US law today.  Nothing has changed.

Obama admits his birth status was governed by the United Kingdom.  I think it’s very important to note that Obama himself gave preference to the United Kingdom in his statement at Fight The Smears.  Notice that he didn’t say his birth status was governed by both United Kingdom and the US.  Obama chose to give preference to his father’s nationality by stating that his birth status was directly tied to his father and not his mother.

Read the quote from his web site again:

“As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.”

 

I will finish this report with a question:

Why did Obama feel compelled to state that his birth status was governed by the British Nationality Act of 1948 rather than the 14th Amendment?

Hat tip to reader Linda for Attorney General Black’s quote.
Hat tip to my infamous anonymous researcher for the Duncan v. Louisiana quote.

by Leo Donofrio, Esq.

IRLI Got Some ‘Splainin To Do.

UPDATE 2: 4:40 PM March 18, 2011: This issue is the top story at American Thinker right now with a link and hat tip to this blog.  The article, “Obama’s Puddles”, was written by longtime reader Sallyven.  Thanks to her and AT for the excellent work.

UPDATE: 4:02 PM  March 18, 2011:  Patrick J. Charles misquoted Bingham again in the BYU Journal of Public Law back in June 2010.  It’s the same exact misquote which has the words “of parents” omitted from Bingham’s statement on the floor of the House.  Not cool.

—–

Last week, a reader of this blog tipped me off to an incredible misquote of Representative John Bingham which appears in an amicus brief filed with the US Supreme Court by the Immigration Reform Law Institute – aka IRLI – for the Flores-Villar case.  Here is that tip in full:

“Sallyven Says:
March 9, 2011 at 4:54 PM e

In the Flores-Villar citizenship case currently being decided by SCOTUS, the Immigration Reform Law Institute submitted an amicus brief which included the Bingham quote from the 37 Congressional Globe. On page 34 of the brief, it includes the same section you quoted, indented and appearing to be the complete word-for-word quote, although the critical words: “of parents” are missing. More scrubbing?

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/flores-villar-v-united-states/

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/preview/publiced_preview_briefs_pdfs_09_10_09_5801_RespondentAmCuIRLI.authcheckd “

The comment was in response to articles I wrote – one which argued that the House of Representatives definition of “natural born citizen” requires a person to be born in the US to “parents” who are citizens – and the other highlighting the scrubbing of a Michigan Law Review article by a well known law professor which stated the same, but then was changed after the dual citizen issue began to haunt Obama.

My article concerning Rep. Bingham (aka father of the 14th Amendment) highlighted three statements made on the floor of the House which were not challenged by other Representatives.  One of the Bingham quotes from 1862 was this:

“All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.” (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862))

But the amicus brief filed by IRLI misquotes Bingham as follows:

The words “of parents” are mysteriously missing from the quote.  I held back on posting Sallyven’s comment until today because I wanted to contact IRLI and question them about the error.

I immediately phoned their office and was later contacted by a staff attorney (who shall remain nameless).  The staff attorney and I had a long conversation.  The relevant facts I need to relay are thus:

1. IRLI admitted the misquote after my call and then contacted the Supreme Court to inform them, but last I spoke to the staff attorney no supplemental brief correcting the quote had been submitted.

2. While the brief bears the name of Michael Hethmon, Esq., it was actually written by Patrick J. Charles.   Mr. Charles operates the Charles Law and History Blog.  Mr. Charles was made aware of the misquote by the staff attorney.  But as of this morning, despite his blog having one article entitled, “Representative Sandy Adams and Revisionist Founding Era History“, Mr. Charles has not addressed the misquote at his blog.

3. IRLI felt that even though the quote was incorrect, it did not change their position and therefore the misquote was not important in context.

I explained to the staff attorney that this misquote was very problematic to me and the readers of my blog since this “of parents” issue is the core topic of my blog.  I directed him to my blog.  At this point, I was prepared to let the issue go since I had been informed that the Supreme Court would be properly notified.   Although the misquote seemed a bit too “accidental”, I had nothing else to go on.  But after the staff attorney went to my blog, he suddenly recalled a message he received about this blog a couple of weeks ago.  I was then informed that…

IRLI WAS HEAVILY INVOLVED IN DRAFTING THE COMPACT BETWEEN STATES PERTAINING TO ARIZONA SENATE BILL 1308.

Remember my report on Arizona Senate Bill 1308?  That’s the compact between numerous states which slyly defines “natural born citizen” as a person born in the US to one citizen parent.

Well hey now.  What have we here?  The same people who misquoted Bingham, are responsible for sanitizing Obama’s eligibility.

The staff attorney was suddenly on the receiving end of… shall we say, many many difficult questions.  To his credit, he tried to defend the position of the compact as not having any direct legal effect on Article 2 Section 1.  I was informed that the compact was not intended to help Obama or to change the Constitution as to eligibility.  Obviously, that would take an amendment.  But the compact is a pseudo amendment in that it includes a bunch of states and it must be approved by Congress.

Should these compact bills pass, the public would not be able to tell the difference.  Intense damage would be done to the legal argument that a person not born of citizen parents isn’t eligible to be President.

I explained all of this to the staff attorney, and he agreed to send an email out to his superiors.

He continued to assure me that the words “natural born citizen” in Article I of the compact were only there to distinguish between “born citizens” and “naturalized citizens”.  I told him that they could have accomplished the same goal by deleting the word “natural” and just using “born citizens”.  I also told him that his superiors – should they truly care for the Constitution – must delete the word “natural”.  He told me that it wasn’t up to them.  It was up to each state.

He agreed that the compact could be changed, but that the states would have to agree on it.  He also told me that IRLI could suggest such a change.

The next day we had a similar conversation and while we were speaking he sent out a second email to his superiors on this issue.  At this point, despite my belief the staff attorney was not in on anything clandestine, I felt there was something rotten in Denmark.

The staff attorney promised to get back to me, but he didn’t.  Yesterday marked a week with no response.  I phoned him yesterday but didn’t receive a call back.

Something is very shady about this situation.  The misquote combined with the compact emits a dangerous radiation.  This radiation is covering our nation and it’s a symptom of disease.  The country is dying.  It is being killed from within.  If IRLI is not part of the disease, they should come forward and make both issues right.

If we accept that a person born with dual allegiance can be President, we are opening the White House to the potential children of despots who hate this nation.  Preventing this kind of foreign influence was the “strong check” John Jay warned George Washington of all those years ago when he introduced the “natural born citizen” requirement for POTUS.

by Leo Donofrio, Esq.

The Boston Globe: “native born” does not equal “natural born” for Presidential eligibility.

You may add The Boston Globe to the growing list of influential media sources who have expressed the opinion that simply being born in the United States does not qualify one to be President.  Recently, this blog pointed to a similar opinion in the New York Tribune.  These pre-dated Breckenridge Long’s similar opinion as stated in the Chicago Legal News.

Recently, one of my readers uncovered this crucially relevant article published in the Boston Globe on November 9, 1896 by Percy A. Bridgham, aka  “The People’s Lawyer“.  (Mr. Bridgham’s book, One Thousand Legal Questions Answered by the “People’s Lawyer” of the Boston Daily Globe, can be found in the Harvard Law School library.)

The People’s Lawyer, upon answering a reader’s question regarding the Constitution’s natural born citizen clause, stated:

“The fact that the Constitution says “natural” instead of native shows to my mind that the distinction was thought of and probably discussed.  A natural born citizen would be one who by nature, that is by inheritance, so to speak, was a citizen, as distinguished from one who was by nativity or locality of birth a citizen.  A child born to Irish parents in Ireland cannot become a citizen except by naturalization, while his brother born in the United States is a native born citizen;  the former is neither naturally nor by nativity a citizen, the latter is not naturally, but natively a citizen.”

It’s important to note that, while this article was written two years before the controversial decision in Wong Kim Ark, Bridgham adopts a similar conclusion as Justice Gray did in that case by stating that children born of aliens on US soil are citizens.  But Bridgham also states that while these children are “native born” citizens, they are not “natural born” citizens and therefore cannot be President.

Bridgham further states:

“A comparison of the meanings of native and natural as given by Webster bears me out in my opinion of the intent of the constitution.  The very definition of natural is “fixed or determined by nature,”…I do not find that our courts have ever passed upon the meaning of the word natural in connection with citizenship, so we must take its ordinary meaning.” (Link to full article.)

So, The People’s Lawyer (and the Boston Globe) can now be listed as “birthers”.

Your legislators continue to dodge the issue claiming that it’s a “distraction”.  The Constitution is a distraction?  Only to a traitor.  Everyone should note with very careful particularity the name of each elected official who refers to the Constitution as a distraction.  These are traitors to their oath of office.

The question we are raising is not something made up to deal with Obama alone.  As I have stressed many times throughout the history of this blog, those who are “native born” are not necessarily “natural born”.  The Boston Globe published this back in 1896.  In that same year, the New York Tribune echoed the sentiment with regard to the Labor Party Candidate, Johannes Schurmann.  And in 1916, former Assistant Secretary of State and Ambassador to Italy, Breckenridge Long, wrote the following in the Chicago Legal News:

“It is not disputed that Mr. Hughes is not a citizen of the United States, but if he had the right to elect, he must have had something to choose between. He was native born because he was born in this country, and he is now a native born citizen because he is now a citizen of this country; but, had he been a “natural born” citizen, he would not have had the right to choose between this country and England; he would have had nothing to choose between; he would have owed his sole allegiance to the government of the United States, and there would have been no possible question, whether he found himself in the United States or in any other country in the world, that he would be called upon to show allegiance to any Government but that of the United States.”

Recently, I published a report detailing the US State Department’s long standing rule of recognizing dual allegiance.  In that report, Secretary of State Lansing informed Senator Lodge that a US citizen – who was not born of citizen parents – could be forced into foreign military duty (even against the United States).  Long maintained that, as to such a citizen, the US had no diplomatic authority to demand his release.

Alternatively, Secretary of State Long stressed that if the child had been born of citizen parents, the child would be released to the US since the child would owe no allegiance to the foreign nation.

The issue of dual allegiance is not a joke and certainly no distraction (other than to those who disrespect our Constitution).  At the very least, those who support Obama should support the need for his eligibility to be reviewed by the US Supreme Court.  To leave the issue in perpetual limbo is to endanger the nation.

If Obama is eligible, so are the potential sons of foreign despots who hate this country.  Take your pick.  If Kim Jong Il or Osama bin Laden were to impregnate an American woman who gave birth in the US, that child could be Commander In Chief of the US Armed Forces based upon the precedent set by Obama.

Those states considering bills which would require Presidential candidates to prove they did not have dual allegiance at the time of their births are on the front lines of this battle.  I have come back to this blog in order to support their effort.  I hope there is at least one state in the union which has legislators who care enough about this nation’s future to risk the scorn of media propaganda.

Obama has admitted that his birth status was governed by Great Britain.  Therefore, he owed a dual allegiance to both the US and the monarchy.  This is not disputed.  The simple question we have raised, as have others throughout our history, is whether such a person, who at the time of his birth serves two masters, can be considered to be a natural born citizen of the US.

I don’t agree with everything Long stood for, and Bridgham’s thought process would have made McCain eligible, which I do not agree with.  Readers of this blog know that I don’t believe McCain was eligible.  The fact that he even ran for President, having been born in Panama, shows a cavalier and selfish attitude which was shared by his opponent.  True statesmen do not subject their nation to a crisis such as is now before us.  Thanks fellas.  Your self-importance is staggering.

History shows that Obama’s eligibility is, at best, questionable.  I don’t expect his supporters to back down, and I don’t even expect them to recognize the historical validity of the question.  To do so would be to admit that history does not provide a true foothold for Obama in the oval office.  His foothold depends upon ignoring, mocking and denying proven historical facts and debate.

Any legislator who thinks the Constitution is a distraction is an enemy of the Constitution.  Vote them out.

This nation was won by bravery and law.  I hope there is enough respect for those principles in state houses to get the job done because your federal legislators have sold you out.  Once again, it’s up to the states to get it right.  By enacting a bill which denies those born with dual allegiance to POTUS ballot access, the issue should end up at the doors of the Supreme Court.

by Leo Donofrio, Esq.

The House of Representatives Definition of “Natural Born Citizen” = Born of citizen “parents” in the US.

During a debate (see pg. 2791) regarding a certain Dr. Houard, who had been incarcerated in Spain, the issue was raised on the floor of the House of Representatives as to whether the man was a US citizen.  Representative Bingham (of Ohio), stated on the floor:

“As to the question of citizenship I am willing to resolve all doubts in favor of a citizen of the United States.  That Dr. Houard is a natural-born citizen of the United States there is not room for the shadow of a doubt.  He was born of naturalized parents within the jurisdiction of the United States, and by the express words of the Constitution, as amended to-day, he is declared to all the world to be a citizen of the United States by birth.” (The term “to-day”, as used by Bingham, means “to date”.  Obviously, the Constitution had not been amended on April 25, 1872.)

Notice that Bingham declares Houard to be a “natural-born citizen” by citing two factors – born of citizen parents in the US.

John Bingham, aka “father of the 14th Amendment”, was an abolitionist congressman from Ohio who prosecuted Lincoln’s assassins.  Ten years earlier, he stated on the House floor:

“All from other lands, who by the terms of [congressional] laws and a compliance with their provisions become naturalized, are adopted citizens of the United States; all other persons born within the Republic, of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty, are natural born citizens. Gentleman can find no exception to this statement touching natural-born citizens except what is said in the Constitution relating to Indians.” (Cong. Globe, 37th, 2nd Sess., 1639 (1862))

Then in 1866, Bingham also stated on the House floor:

“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))

No other Representative ever took issue with these words on the floor of the House.  If you read the Congressional Globe to study these debates, you will see that many of the underlying issues were hotly contested.  However, Bingham’s definition of “natural born citizen” (born of citizen parents in the US) was never challenged on the floor of the House.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s holding in Wong Kim Ark did not address Presidential eligibility, nor did it define “natural born citizen”.  It simply clarified who was a “citizen”.  Had the framers of the 14th Amendment sought to define nbc, they would have used the words “natural born” in the Amendment.  But they didn’t.

Do not allow the opposition to state this definition as “Vattel’s definition”.  Challenge that tactic every time.  Vattel didn’t make it up.  His text on the law of nations compiled known existing law.  Vattel was not a legislator.

It is proper to say, with regard to US Constitutional law, that this was the House definition as stated on the floor by Representative Bingham.  And this definition was never opposed on the floor.  And that is exactly where it should have been opposed if it were not the truth.

Debate upon issues of Constitutional law such as this belong on the House floor.  And when an issue this important comes before the nation on the floor of  “the people’s House”, and the issue is not challenged by any Representative of the people, then it’s certainly proper to infer that the House of Representatives, as a whole, agreed with that definition.  After all, our nation is governed by debate on the floor of the House.  But there never was debate on this issue because it was a proper statement of Constitutional law.

The definition of natural born citizen as stated on the House floor = born in the US to parents who are citizens.  It’s not like those cats were incapable of correcting each other’s mistakes.  Since no Supreme Court case ever stated a different definition of “natural born citizen”, and no Represenative ever challenged Bingham on this point, the House definition stands and officially remains unchallenged as of today.  If the House wants to change this definition, let them bring the issue to the floor now and properly debate it.

Until then, call it the House of Representatives definition as offered by the father of the 14th Amendment who was never challenged upon it.

Don’t let history be rewritten by propagandists.  The evidence is mounting on a daily basis that the current Commander In Chief is not eligible to hold the office of President.  You have a voice.  You have freedom of speech.  You have access to your federal and state representatives.

The courts don’t want to hear from you.

So find someone who must to listen to you and be heard.  The Constitution cannot survive unless you breath life into it. We are responsible to future generations.  Do something with that responsibility.  Use the law.  Obey the law.  Respect the law.  Fight for the law.

by Leo Donofrio, Esq.  (hat tip to my main researcher who shall remain anonymous for now…)