I though Hawaii was part of the US

[bigdarryl]

All this talk on Obama not being a natural born citizen where is this coming from and who is keeping this story alive.I understand that its even reached the US Supreme Court. Like we need them to get into the Presidential election AGAIN!!!!

[cali]

1. *sigh*

it's coming from the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts.s WorldNut Daily seems to be the central hub. And the SC will NOT grant cert. It's absolutely absurd to buy into this crap. There is NOTHING to worry about on this fromt.

Let it go.

[fasttense]

2. It is coming from sore losers who can't admit they were defeated

in the election.

But most repukes don't think Hawaii is America. They use to think the same thing about Alaska until the idiot turkey killing Sarah came along. Repukes will quickly contradict themselves for convenience sake. They now agree that Panama is part of the US too.

[RC]

3. And yet McCain was born in Panama and they have no problem with that.

News Flash! Panama is a foreign country. It wasn't even a US possession, let alone a territory. We were there by treaty, that was it.

[leftofcool]

5. But he was born on the military base which makes it our property

[gmoney]

6. no, born off base in Panama, not in the Canal Zone

Although his parents were stationed there.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. The point is he was born of American parents - makes him American,

no matter where you're born.

Also, if you have ONE American parent, you are American, no matter where you are born.

Obama's mother was American. End of discussion.

[RC]

18. Not "End of discussion"

"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."

McCain is not old enough to have been born before the Adoption of this Constitution.

Being born in Panama, he is not a "...natural born Citizen,..." McCain is a Naturalized citizen by virtue of having American parents, even though he was born in a foreign country.

[AZ Criminal JD]

24. "Natural born" does not mean you have to be born on American soil

You are natural born if you have American parents. There are only two types of citizenship - natural born and naturalized. If your theory was correct then McCain is not a citizen. The U.S. Senate, including Obama, unanimously rejected that theory.

[treestar]

26. McCain did not have to be naturalized

Only people who were once aliens can be naturalized.

McCain was born a citizen because he was born in the Canal Zone and the statutory law provides that people born in the Canal Zone of American parents were at the time McCain was born, citizens.

Obama was born in the U.S. and is therefore a natural born citizen, like all the rest of us born in the U.S.

[WinkyDink]

25. Not necessarily what "natural-born" means. It USED to mean "on American soil", IMHO.

[RC]

17. Not according to the United States Constitution.

[mitchum]

28. Some people say that McCain's mother went into premature labor in a restaurant...

that was not on the base and he was born amids wok pots and steaming pots of rice
There was a cover up involved. Some say.

[geckosfeet]

4. I thought that he was born in Kansas. No?

[mgc1961]

7. My little Hawaii-born brother is going to be disappointed to learn...

...that he's not an American.

[Hekate]

22. My two adult kids are also going to be a bit surprised. What would we ever do without wingnuts...

... for entertainment?

Hekate

[Blarch]

8. Welcome to America.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. There are conflicting arguments they raise

the most bizarre being that Obama's mother gave birth to him in Kenya. This ridiculous assertion, which assumes this couple flees TO a country that was still a British protectorate but was under a state of emergency due to a major rebellion for independence that was ongoing (where the independence finally occurred in 1963, 2 years after Obama was born when Kenyatta and his party took over the gov't), underscores the twisted thought-process that they are suffering through. To reconcile this nonsense, these nutjobs have concocted a theory that a vast left-wing conspiracy arose to ensure that records were doctored to show his birth in Hawai'i instead (which itself was a place undergoing a major transformation from territory to state, just 2 years before Obama was born, but was at least stable). They insist that the Hawai'ian State Health department, the hospital, and the major newspapers in print at the time in 1961, were all in on the subterfuge - back in 1961 - in preparation for the one who would become the President in 2009. :eyes: They also insist that the mother can throw away (renounce) her child's U.S. citizenship... just like that. They then weave in Indonesia's citizenship laws in effect at the time when he lived there (where the child of a male citizen would become one in a mixed marriage - although much of Indonesia's citizenship laws were addressing the ethnic Chinese population and Obama was not a blood relative but adopted, and was not born in Indonesia). Yet the contradictions and pretzel twists to make some argument go on and on.

Meanwhile, they had ignored McKKKlan's well-known birth in Panama (as a child of an Admiral and mother who was a U.S. citizen military wife stationed there) until recently, when they couldn't hold back from the hypocracy anymore.

Obama, by no fault of his own, is truly a worldly child - one with experience living among a number of cultures thanks to his jet-setting mother, and I expect this very much reflects on how he is and how he may govern.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. They're claiming he was born in Kenya.

:eyes:

[NYC_SKP]

11. Africa' is teh country of his birthplace' and it's economy's is in taters.

:rofl:

[whistler162]

13. Nope.... it is a group of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

GEEEZ.... don't you know anything!x( ;)

[Sebastian Doyle]

14. IF I CAINT GIT THERE IN MY TRUCK, ITS A GODDAM FORIN COUNTRY!!!111!!!!!

OF COURSE MY TRUCKS IN PRETY BAD SHAPE RITE NOW SO THAT MEANS MOST OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF THIS TRALER PARK IS FORIN!!!111!11

[PatGund]

Basically....

You have three groups of wingnuts. All tend to cross-breed to produce mutant spawn, but they are:

1) The people who believe that Obama was really born in Kenya, (Corsi, World Net Daily, Berg, a few others.)

2) The people who believe he was born in Hawaii, but lost his citizenship due to his mother marrying Lolo Soetoro and supposedly losing both her citizen and Obama's as a result. (Berg, "Judah Benjamin", Keyes, etc.)

3) The people that believe he was born in Hawaii, but because his father was not a US citizen, and since he had Kenyan citizenship as result, he may be a citizen, but not a "Natural Born Citizen" as per the Constitution. ("Judah Benjamin", Donofrio, etc.)

There's also a couple of other players, like anti-semite Andy Martin's claim that the "real" birth certificate will show his "real" father was Frank Marshall Davis, and others claiming his real father is Malcolm X.

Berg (Pennsylvania), Donofrio (New Jersey), and Wrotnowski (Connecticut) have all appealed their cases to the Supreme Court after being dismissed in the lower courts. Souter is handling Berg's, Thomas is handling Donofrio's, Ginsberg is handing Wrotnowski's

Martin is appealing his Hawaii case,

Cases in Ohio, Washington, Virginia are dead,

Cases in California (2), Georgia, North Carolinia, New York, and Texas are still active.

In most cases, they are "cookie cutter" clones of Berg's original lawsuit. (Alan Keyes lawsuit is a cookie cutter clone) Donofrio is the only one arguing the "natural born citizen" angle

[FloridaJudy]

19. Ferheavensake, RW: get over it!

If I can survive eight years of America's Dumbest White Boy as President, you can survive having a smart black man in that position.

[IndianaGreen]

15. You can blame Clarence Thomas for SCOTUS hearing anything about this

Another justice declined to even consider to have a hearing about having a hearing on the case.

[11 Bravo]

16. Yup, Slappy is still pissed at Biden over his confirmation hearing.

[onenote]

20. its not getting a "hearing"

Its being considered in conference. Around 7000 or so cert petitions are filed each year and cert is granted in less than 100 cases. Most cert petitions never get past the "cert pool" -- the petitions are doled out to the clerks of various justices who then make a recommendation as to whether the case should be discussed in conference. Even among the cases that are recommended for discussion, cert is denied in the vast majority of instances.

The situation at hand is a bit more muddled. No cert petition has been filed -- just a request for a stay pending the filing of a cert petition. That stay request was submitted to souter (I believe) and he turned it down. Under the SCOTUS rules, the petitioner could then go to another justice and make a new request, which is what happened. In theory, Thomas could've granted the request unilaterally. The fact that he didn't but did refer the matter to conference suggests that he is recommending that the request for stay be treated as and resolved as the cert petition itself. A justice may on occasion refer to conference a petition he/she doesn't believe should be granted but believes warrants discussion. In any event, its not unlikely that had the case come to the cert pool that the clerk assigned it might have, in an abundance of caution, directed it to conference where the justices could kill it themselves.

In other words, this is almost certainly much ado about nothing.

Disclosure: the information provided is not based on first hand experience, but is based on a conversation I had with a recent SCOTUS clerk that I know at another law firm.

[PatGund]

21. And it's possible.....

....that with all the other cookie-cutter Berg-clone cases coming to it, the SCOTUS is trying to do a pre-emptive strike to fail those as well.

[jberryhill]

33. I guess you've seen...

Where they want to not only challenge his election, but want to challenge every official act he makes after he is sworn in.

[PatGund]

36. Yep...

The apply named "Gary Kreep", who made a name for himself originally defending birth control clinic arsonists.

I suspect if he goes with that tactic, he's going to eventually get dinged as a "vexious litigator"

[IndianaGreen]

23. Thank you for clearing the air, onenote

I just found it ironic that it was Thomas who decided to run with this ball.

[PatGund]

27. The funny thing??

Thomas has put himself in a lose-lose situation.

The Cult of the COLB are so convinced that with Thomas putting it to a ROUTINE PROCEDURAL CONFERENCE, the fix is in because he's on their side and has an ax to grind.

Which means if and when it's dismissed from conference, (less than 1% of writ of cents are granted), the same people who claim he's on their side and the fix is in, will blame the dismissal on his race.

Lose-lose.

[jberryhill]

35. Every other nutjob is going to appeal his dismissals all the way up anyway

So, why not at least give every other court a "cert. denied" to cite.

[Poiuyt]

29. I thought the complaint was not where he was born, but that his father was a Kenyon citizen?

[gauguin57]

30. It's both ... because of immigration law that was in effect at the time Obama was born.

Here's what the Freepers are hanging their hopes on...

If Obama HAD been born outside the U.S., with an 18-year-old American mom and a Kenyan dad ... he may have had problems. His Mom had not lived in the U.S. for at least five years after the age of 16 by the time Obama was born (see immigration law below). But since we all know Obama WAS born in Hawaii, it's a moot point. Freepers think he was born in Kenya because some lameass claims to have a tape of an African grandmother (stepgrandmother? not sure) stating she was present at Obama's birth ... in Kenya. Because of the following immigration law, dealing with the number of years of residence of the one American parent, Freepers are saying Obama is not a "natural-born citizen" -- though what they fail to mention is that this piece of immigration law ONLY APPLIED TO THOSE BORN OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY.

U.S. Immigration law that applied from December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986 (applying to children of U.S. citizens born outside the country):

"If, at the time of your birth, both your parents were U.S. citizens and at least one had a prior residence in the United States, you automatically acquired U.S. citizenship with no conditions for retaining it.

"If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16. There are no conditions placed on retaining this type of citizenship. If your one U.S. citizen parent is your father and you were born outside of marriage, the same rules apply if your father legally legitimated you before your 21st birthday and you were unmarried at the time. If legitimation occurred after November 14, 1986, your father must have established paternity prior to your 18th birthday, either by acknowledgment or by court order, and must have stated in writing that he would support you financially until your 18th birthday."

Wingers are also throwing into the mix the fact that Obama Sr. had a tribal marriage in Kenya before he married Ann Dunham in the U.S. ... so was their marriage binding, or not? They seem to think that has some bearing on the situtation, but I don't really get that part.

[jberryhill]

32. Otherwise known as the "send your pregnant teen daughter to a foreign convent" act

The point was that if you sent your pregnant daughter to a convent in France, then the child would not be a US citizen.

[jberryhill]

34. That last part....

In order to get the last part, you have to get that some of these folks have legal ideas that can only be described as medieval. At one point, there was a camp which asserted if Barack was "illegitimate" if his parents weren't married, then he couldn't qualify to be president either. So in conjunction with "where is his birth certificate", they wanted the marriage certificate of Barack Sr. and Stanley Ann.

[gauguin57]

31. Here's info from the Constitution, and from the Naturalization Act of 1790.

Here's who can be prexy, according to Article II of the Constitution:

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 pertinent passage from the Naturalization Act of 1790:

The Act also establishes the United States citizenship of children of citizens, born abroad, without the need for naturalization: "The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens".