PROPER.The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth. The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election.
Obama has made a big error by not simply bending backwards to show how silly this all is, but that's the way it goes.
He should have brought everything out in a 'you people are really out of your minds, but here it is' manner, but now, no doubt he has incurred a hard core mirror image of the crazies who believed Bush stole both elections in order to promulgate the 4th Reich.
At least one other appeal over Obama's citizenship remains at the court. Philip J. Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa., argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Obama says and Hawaii officials have confirmed.
Berg says Obama also may be a citizen of Indonesia, where he lived as a boy. Federal courts in Pennsylvania have dismissed Berg's lawsuit. Federal courts in Ohio and Washington state have rejected similar lawsuits.
Allegations raised on the Internet say the birth certificate, showing that Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, is a fake.
But Hawaii Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino and the state's registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, say they checked health department records and have determined there's no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.
THEY should have brought it all out as well.
Life is built on stupidity. These gavones have all acted to prolong the farce.
Obama was elected.
If he was not born in the USA and is ineligible to serve it would now be a conspiracy to equal the munitions secretly placed all over the WTC after the 'election was stolen'.
C'mon people.
Come back from ODS
22 comments:
Nah ..
1) I don't believe the COLB a forgery (His birth was ANNOUNCED in the Hawaiian newspapers!)
2) I don't believe the effort to prove it other than a forgery is anything other than an effort to overturn an election for political reasons
3) The supreme court, unless abundant evidence exists is not going to authorize a fishing expedition for the purpose of overturning an election
4) The resultant embittering sensation because Obama was stupid about this, Hawaiian officials were stupid about this, and partisan feelings are in granite endangers LEGITIMATE criticism which will be made over the years to come by making the critics into nuts in the public mind, little different from people who believe Bush stole the election. People we refer to as delusional moonbats.
People who believe otherwise are not stupid, but are in danger of not knowing which fight to pick because their FEELINGS run so high.
There will be plenty and they will require, if any success is to be had, that the makers are not delusional wingnuts.
We want to be (thru the mirror) Bob Beckel and Lanny Davis, NOT David Corn and Keith Olberman.
If interested, here's another opinion from American Thinker pretty much saying the Constitution says what it does for a reason & rebutting Horowitz. Am I a birth cert truther? Not really but it has raised a legit issue and he should address and put it to rest. Hell I had to provide a birth certificate to get my job. Anyway, the article:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/obama_derangement_syndrome.html
Look, it would be easy enough for Obama to authorize a release of a hard copy of his birth certificate.
that's all I'm saying.
I don't believe he's not a citizen. However, I also don't think it is becoming of the dignity of the office to which he has been elected for him to play coy in the face of this, especially when so many people are upset about it.
I thought we were working on uniting the people.
Epa, do you think Obama has tried, legitimately, to put this issue to rest?
This could be a non-issue (ie something to draw people away from a larger issue/s) and it is being done on purpose by Obama.
I personally think Obama is not releasing the COLB because the father listed is Frank Marshall Davis and not the Kenyan dad Obama claims.
"Epa, do you think Obama has tried, legitimately, to put this issue to rest?"
No his reaction has been - to all but Wright, arrogant silence while minions (successfully) portray critics as right wing fringe smear merchants.
Ayers anyone?
He should have dealt with it, Hawaii should have dealt with it.
If Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito are not inclined to go whole hog, that's good enough for me.
Pasto -- I read somewhere he spent nearly a million bucks beating this back. Cheaper and easier to release it.
I agree with Samenokami. I don't think citizenship is his issue for fighting this, I think it's the paternity.
SamenoKami said..."Obama is not releasing the COLB because the father listed is Frank Marshall Davis and not the Kenyan dad Obama claims."
If that were the case, how is it possible that Barack carries the "Obama" name legally?
It certainly appears there is something the president elect is determined to conceal permanently.
The "Obama" name gave the president elect opportunity to seek scholarship aid as a foreign national. His own websites clarification of a legal Kenyan legacy expiring leads one to believe this may be one of the issues since he also refuses to release college records which would explain how a Columbia graduate without honors would gain acceptance into Harvard with his limited funds.
His foreign legacy would also explain a second passport he may have used to travel to Pakistan during the period when US travel to Pakistan was severely restricted.
This president elect appears to be very well versed at 'using' government systems as well as recognizing/taking advantage of bureaucratic weaknesses for personal gain.
Good points, Anonymous at 5:32 PM.
"This president elect appears to be very well versed at 'using' government systems as well as recognizing/taking advantage of bureaucratic weaknesses for personal gain."
There is a philosophy that gaming the system is just as good as actually achieving things from scratch.
Considering that a recent poll showed the vast majority of HS students cheat, and that the vast majority are satisfied with their ethics, if Obama worked the system as someone who really knew the ins and outs, cynically in every way, virtually without shame, is there any surprise?
In another 25 years will anyone be left who understands the difference?
I would hope there will be, Epa. And more importantly, that they know why the difference matters.
Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right. You know that better than most.
If he's shady on this, for whatever reason, what else will he be shady on?
Hi Epa,
My friend Publius wrote the following in response to this ongoing discussion (which he observed in the other thread on this subject):
The people's full sovereignty is utilized in creating the Constitution, which then binds the sovereignty of majorities under the terms of the Constitution. Until the Constitution is amdended via super majorities it is authoritative. Simple majorities cannot simply ignore or throw off the Constitution.
The left get's it wrong coming and going. They tend to want popular majorities they agree with to override Constitutional forms. This is dangerous. Then, when they have popular majorities that they disagree with, they call on judicial oligarchy to manipulate the Constitution to override the popular will. Both serve to undermine written constitutionalism.
Conservatives such as Justice Scalia has it right in my opinion. Popular majorities should govern in normal politics and their will can only be overturned by clear violations of the Constitution (as opposed to mere judicial whim) only because the Constitution rests on a more deep, more fundamental, popular mandate. I would only add that the sovereignty of the people further rests in the moral principle of political equality that is rooted in "nature and nature's God" which in turn demands that certain "inalienable rights" must be respectd by majorities. For it is ultimatly the purpose of governments to "secure" these rights.
I think the following Tocqueville quote highlights the need for Constitutional forms and the natural tendencies of democracies to push against them...
"Equality awakens in men several propensities extremely dangerous to freedom, to which the attention of the legislator ought constantly be directed. I shall only remind the reader of the most important among them.
Men living in democratic ages do not readily comprehend the utility of forms: they feel an instinctive contempt for them, I have elsewhere shown for what reasons. Forms excite their contempt and often their hatred; as they commonly aspire to none but easy and present gratifications, they rush onwards to the object of their desires, and the slightest delay exasperates them. This same temper, carried with them into political life, renders them hostile to forms, which perpetually retard or arrest them in some of their projects.
Yet this objection which the men of democracies make to forms is the very thing which renders forms so useful to freedom; for their chief merit is to serve as a barrier between the strong and the weak, the ruler and the people, to retard the one and give the other time to look about him. Forms become more necessary in proportion as the government becomes more active and more powerful, while private persons are becoming more indolent and more feeble. Thus democratic nations naturally stand more in need of forms than other nations, and they naturally respect them less. This deserves most serious attention."
I was walking by the courthouse in Orange County today, and I passed a large wall emblazoned with a quote from Abraham Lincoln. Here is what it said:
"A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks, and limitations, is the only true sovereign of a free people."
Overturning an election will require absolute proof. I hope we all agree on that. Societally, it is UNWISE (especially right now) to create (and believe me except in certain quarters it is unnoticed) uncertainty 'just to find out' if there is proof that Obama is ineligible. If that proof exists it is the burden of those who make such an assertion to GET IT. To get it they must use those forms, as mentioned. But the responsibility for the FULL CONSEQUENCES rests with them as well. I am not talking about riots. I am talking about a different America. No logic (just as none with Ayers or Wright) on our part will change the result of that. The public will not blame Obama. If the COLB is valid ANYONE involved in this effort will be a nut.
Only negative conjecture exists. People ASSUME he has something to hide because he did not immediately act to satisfy his enemies' desire to quench THEIR need for him to be squashed. Beyond that, the online forms and screens I have seen are simply unconvincing to someone who knows all the software, all the graphic design and an appreciable amount of coding. ME.
That is the only 'proof' of this 'crime' there is. I wish he would yield up the documents, but to carry this forward with no other proofs but the on line conjecture I have seen is not acting to uphold the Constitution except as a correlative factor, it is an effort to overturn an election. And THAT is the difference between principle and practicality. That is the difference between observing the form and distorting it. That is the difference between accepting the will of the people and trying to subvert it.
This is not a letter about George Bush's Air Guard performance.
This is about what would be the most monstrous electoral crime in the nation's history. Is Barack Obama that guy? Is he THAT daring? (He'd have to go, but that quality is one that could make him a truly great prez...but I don't believe him to be anything other than coldly calculating and totally risk averse)
Here's scholar Volokh on the subject
What I am saying is that to hide behind a principle in one's favor on a fishing expedition of this kind without really knowing the answer to this question before hand is not acting in principle.
Better to PAY OFF the guy at the vault in Hawaii and SEE the COLB first. Then proceed.
We all agree on the principle. If he's not born here, here's out. PERIOD
In the meantime no matter what logic is used to proceed in this, even the American Thinker proceeds over the edge of fringe.
They are not, in fact, but who will believe them, and respect further thought from those whose obstinate opposition morphed into the kind of delusion we apply to people who think Bush's real FISA ballets were actually about subverting the constitution.
This will all be moot anyway.
I would agree with Volokh. As I've said before, I understand your argument when you put it as pragmatism, but when you go off an a high-falutin' idealistic argument that the Constitution does not support, then I throw my argument back at you.
I still don't think you are clearly distinguishing the two.
You are trying to make the argument that we should shut up, based upon Constitutional grounds. (Horowitz is doing this too), and that is wrong. According to the Constitution, if he is not a natural born citizen, then he can not be President. Pragmatism does not CHANGE truth. Now, of course, as a country, we can choose to forgo our adherence to the Constitution in the interest of pragmatism, as Lincoln did with Habeus Corpus.
"You are trying to make the argument that we should shut up, based upon Constitutional grounds"
Not really.
I am saying pursuit of this argument without KNOWING he is not qualified to a reasonable certainty will obliterate part of what is perceived as the right as reasonable opponents and that will be BECAUSE the constitution will be used as a canard to reverse an election. It is HANDY.
We will all be Cindy Sheehans with a rolled up parchment in one hand. Why would anyone give any notice to such people?
When Clinton got himself impeached it was pretty cleared he lied under oath
We will have forfeited credibility to reverse an election result thru nothing more than partisan suspicions. The vote of the people is less important than partisan drive to derail it on any legal grounds handy. THAT is very dangerous territory. It should be driven over with certainty one is right in one's conclusion.
What will be the next sine wave peak when the next republican is elected?
Who is responsible for climbing back off this ride?
Pursuit of this objective should be driven by the near certain knowledge that Mr Obama is not qualified. Don't you think? And if at all .. it had better be done in a way to minimize any second guessing ..OVER TIME.
"we can choose to forgo our adherence to the Constitution in the interest of pragmatism, as Lincoln did with Habeus Corpus."
Or ignoring the rulings of SCOTUS from the very start.
Lincoln's full quote...
"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people."
A little more complex than the courthouse's abbreviation, as is this situation
It's his First Inaugural...
read the relevant sections ..awesome
You like that, don't you?
I wonder if Lincoln would have taken the extra words back by the end of his life. They are superfluous, and needlessly confusing. If I were en editor, I would tell him to make sense, or to kill his darling.
I agree with you that the right is killing itself on this subject. You are right about that. And, you are right that this is not the hill we want to die on.
Please forgive the mental image this will forever leave with you. . .
He should just "put 'em on the glass" and be done.
MR,
Something tells me you don't really want to be forgiven for that.
LOL
Nope. It was just too easy ;>)
Take a break, wash this stuff from your brains and watch the 2 videos I linked last night. Turn it up and annoy the neighbors in the cubefarm nearest you.
The essence of Abe Lincoln, and why some constitutional scholars have a big problem with him.
However, his faith in america was justified. In that time. In that situation.
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