Thread: Barack Obama's citizenship questioned

Birther BIll Offered to Nebraska Legislature

Nebraska News Service

February 04, 2011

Nebraska has joined several other states in introducing a "birther" bill, a piece of legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship from candidates for the nation's highest political offices.

The 14-page bill, sponsored by District 44 State Sen. Mark Christensen of Holdrege, would prohibit placing presidential and vice presidential candidates on the state's ballot unless they provide a certified, long-form version of their birth certificate to Nebraska's secretary of state.

Christensen's bill would also require candidates to provide their parents' certified long-form birth certificates. If a person's birth father is unknown, Christensen said a candidate would have to file an affidavit with the state, stating that they have no reason to believe their father is not a U.S. citizen.

The Nebraska Vital Records website contains no option to request a long form birth certificate. Christensen said he had not talked to Nebraska Vital Records staff, but modeled the bill's language after what has been used in other states.

Similar legislation has been proposed in other states, including Arizona, Texas and Connecticut.

Christensen said he was motivated to sponsor the bill after receiving two or three e-mails from constituents who are concerned about the persistent rumors that President Barack Obama is not a citizen. During the 2008 presidential election, some of Obama's political opponents contended that he was born outside of the United States and is ineligible to be president.

"Whenever you have a large amount of citizens who have doubts, it hurts our government. It hurts the integrity of the government," Christensen said.

While Christensen said he "absolutely" believes Obama is a United States citizen, he has doubts about the citizenship of Obama's parents at the time of the president's birth.

"This (bill) would remove that doubt," he said. "I think that it hurts Americans when we think we can't trust our leaders."

John Gruhl, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor who specializes in constitutional law, called Christensen's bill "puzzling."

"Parents don't have to be citizens for their children to be citizens," Gruhl said. "So what's the point of this provision? To embarrass a candidate whose parents aren't citizens? To discourage a candidate from running in the first place, so his parents aren't exposed?"

Currently, Nebraska does not require proof of citizenship for candidates to appear on the presidential and vice presidential ballot, said the Nebraska Secretary of State's office.

Instead, candidates must complete an application with basic information, turn in a petition with 2,000 registered voter signatures and pay a filing fee.

Discussing the bill could make the public more confident in their elected officials, increase voter turnout and make a better nation, Christensen said.

"For me, it's about following the Constitution and bringing trust into the process and getting people to trust the process so we actually maintain being a republic run by the people," Christensen said.

A hearing for Nebraska's bill has not yet been scheduled.

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/di ... c252a06571

Originally Posted by Mayday

Birther BIll Offered to Nebraska Legislature

Nebraska News Service

February 04, 2011

Nebraska has joined several other states in introducing a "birther" bill, a piece of legislation that would require proof of U.S. citizenship from candidates for the nation's highest political offices.

The 14-page bill, sponsored by District 44 State Sen. Mark Christensen of Holdrege, would prohibit placing presidential and vice presidential candidates on the state's ballot unless they provide a certified, long-form version of their birth certificate to Nebraska's secretary of state.

Christensen's bill would also require candidates to provide their parents' certified long-form birth certificates. If a person's birth father is unknown, Christensen said a candidate would have to file an affidavit with the state, stating that they have no reason to believe their father is not a U.S. citizen.

The Nebraska Vital Records website contains no option to request a long form birth certificate. Christensen said he had not talked to Nebraska Vital Records staff, but modeled the bill's language after what has been used in other states.

Similar legislation has been proposed in other states, including Arizona, Texas and Connecticut.

Christensen said he was motivated to sponsor the bill after receiving two or three e-mails from constituents who are concerned about the persistent rumors that President Barack Obama is not a citizen. During the 2008 presidential election, some of Obama's political opponents contended that he was born outside of the United States and is ineligible to be president.

"Whenever you have a large amount of citizens who have doubts, it hurts our government. It hurts the integrity of the government," Christensen said.

While Christensen said he "absolutely" believes Obama is a United States citizen, he has doubts about the citizenship of Obama's parents at the time of the president's birth.

"This (bill) would remove that doubt," he said. "I think that it hurts Americans when we think we can't trust our leaders."

John Gruhl, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor who specializes in constitutional law, called Christensen's bill "puzzling."

"Parents don't have to be citizens for their children to be citizens," Gruhl said. "So what's the point of this provision? To embarrass a candidate whose parents aren't citizens? To discourage a candidate from running in the first place, so his parents aren't exposed?"

Currently, Nebraska does not require proof of citizenship for candidates to appear on the presidential and vice presidential ballot, said the Nebraska Secretary of State's office.

Instead, candidates must complete an application with basic information, turn in a petition with 2,000 registered voter signatures and pay a filing fee.

Discussing the bill could make the public more confident in their elected officials, increase voter turnout and make a better nation, Christensen said.

"For me, it's about following the Constitution and bringing trust into the process and getting people to trust the process so we actually maintain being a republic run by the people," Christensen said.

A hearing for Nebraska's bill has not yet been scheduled.

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/di ... c252a06571

Again, the lines are intentionally being blurred between 'citizen' and 'natural born citizen', the latter being a Constitutional requirement for holding the office of POTUS.

While it still does not verify natural born Citizenship, the Nebraska bill is vastly better than all the others. They merely require one document, the candidate's long form birth certificate. A LFBC verifies place of birth, but not each parent's citizenship at the time of the birth. That requires "additional documentation," although I know of no specific document that would prove a parent's citizenship.

A natural born Citizen is
1) a current citizen
2) born in the country
3) to citizen parents.

A properly phrased requirement would be,

"To be placed on the ballot, a candidate must provide to the state Election Officer:
1) proof of current citizenship;
2) a certified copy of a long form hospital birth certificate or a long form state Certificate of Live Birth, correctly signed and sealed, and filed as valid; and
3) additional documentation verifying each parent's citizenship at the time of this child's birth.

Would need something in place when there is no father on the birth certificate. Hard issue to resolve considering the current use of baby daddies who are out of the picture while abusing it at the same time. Sounds harsh but maybe requiring both parents to be eligible and if only have a mother tough crap.

Some may say its harsh but we could easily say the same thing about the age requirements for public office. After all why can't a 30 year old run for office of president especially with age discrimination laws.

Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

Would need something in place when there is no father on the birth certificate. Hard issue to resolve considering the current use of baby daddies who are out of the picture while abusing it at the same time. Sounds harsh but maybe requiring both parents to be eligible and if only have a mother, tough

That seems straightforward enough. The biological father and mother exist, whether they are both named on a birth document or not. Depending upon the birth parents, an orphan qualifies, but an adoptee may or may not.

A "natural born Citizen" is
1) a citizen by birth (not a naturalized citizen),
2) born in the country
3) to citizen parents, that is, both parents were U.S. citizens at the time of birth.

nbC doesn't require that either parent have a name, an identity, a mutual residence, or anything else in common with the child: only shared DNA and U.S. citizenship.

Yup but just look at how many birth certificates are out there without a father listed. Lots and lots out there.

I don't see any need in Nevada to have on their new law about specifying Natural Citizenship. Its already defined and they just see you don't qualify between the law and the Constitution so write you off and laugh. Don't need to really double specify and this may leave slight room for a lawsuit to define natural born citizen but then that opens up a huge pit against Obama to be dragged in. May be a good idea for the lawsuit hehe.

It should be no surprise that Abercrombie is doing everything he can to increase the visibility of birtherism in the run-up to the 2012 elections

February 06, 2011

Hawaii's Governor Manipulates Birthers

By Andrew Walden
99 Comments
Many links on this post; go to the link to view them

Hawaii's newly elected "DSA-er Democrat" Governor Neil "I am not a socialist" Abercrombie is the birthers' best friend -- and many commentators in Hawaii and across the nation are becoming increasingly annoyed by his antics.

In two recent interviews, with just a few anti-birthy words in December 24 and January 18 interviews magnified and distorted by the national and international media, Abercrombie has succeeded in raising birtherism from the dead. And both he and President Barack Obama are very pleased with the opportunity to shift political discussion away from the thumping Obama took in the November midterms.

After Abercrombie babbled about birthers to the NY Times and the LA Times on December 24, the reaction was swift and negative:

•Honolulu Star-Advertiser columnist David Shapiro wrote, "Obama birth flap born again after Abercrombie wades in."

•Star-Advertiser reporter BJ Reyes identified "Birthers Reborn" in the "Top Ten Flubs of the Year," pointing out that "[t]he issue of President Barack Obama's birthplace, seemingly close to running its course, is brought to the forefront by newly-elected Gov. Neil Abercrombie."

•Politico: Might Do More Harm Than Good

•USA Today: Talk about friends you don't need

•Huffington Post: Abercrombie on "a fool's errand"

•DBKP: Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie Adds Fuel to Obama Birth Certificate Fire

•Hartford Courant: Who's Abercrombie kidding?

•Sta Clarita Signal: "It was a Democrat who dredged up the whole sordid business"

•WaPo: Abercrombie "taking the pole position of political surrealism"
•FOX: Why do Democrats keep talking about the Birth Certificate?

It should be no surprise that Abercrombie is doing everything he can to increase the visibility of birtherism in the run-up to the 2012 elections. A substantial portion of Obama's electoral hopes lies in making his opponents seem even more discredited than he is. In a July 2010 CNN poll, birtherism is fully embraced by a paltry 11% of American voters -- as compared to 19% in a 2002 Fox News poll who entertained the possibility that Elvis is still alive. But like 9-11 truthers, the Ron Paul Campaign, and PUMA, birthers are very active on internet comment boards creating the illusion of numbers. The similarity is not coincidental: Birtherism originated with Hillary Clinton's PUMA supporters, and it has been carried forward by well-known 9-11 truthers.

Wingnuts author John Avalon rarely misses an opportunity to marginalize conservatives, but he was forced to admit last February that "the Birthers began on the left." Avalon traces the original August 21, 2008 Phil Berg birther lawsuit to the efforts of Texas Hillary Clinton supporter Linda Starr, described by Avalon as also being "a key source for CBS' discredited election year investigation into George W. Bush's National Guard records that led to Dan Rather's replacement after 24 years as the evening news anchor."

Berg is a prominent 9-11 truther who sued the Bush administration several times in an effort to prove that al-Qaeda was innocent. Another prominent Birther lawyer, Orly Taitz, is a $1,000 donor to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee. Her website has prominently featured the rants of 9-11 truther Devvy Kidd.

After Abercrombie deployed his first set of birther remarks Christmas Eve, Chris "Tingle Legs" Matthews was quick to boost birtherism with his December 27 comment: "Why has the President himself not demanded that they put out the initial documents?" That is to be expected from somebody who has already sacrificed the illusion of objectivity on the altar of Obama's ambitions. But Obama and Abercrombie have also received a lot of help from some who should know better.

In a January 18 Star-Advertiser interview, Abercrombie deployed his second set of birther-related remarks: "It was actually written, I am told. This is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down."

As a reaction, the same-day headline at World Net Daily (WND) distorted Abercrombie's remarks into the headline "Hawaii governor can't find Obama birth certificate." WND has been disorienting Obama's opponents with birtherism since 2008, so that was nothing new. But the next day, the "DSA-er Democrat" Abercrombie struck political paydirt. The UK Daily Mail January 20 yanked this latest birther lie out of its WND echo chamber, writing, "Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist." The WND and Daily Mail articles stayed up on the Drudge Report for days.

HotAir blogger AllahPundit was a key player in the debunking of Linda Starr and Dan Rather's forged George Bush National Guard documents. Three days after Abercrombie's second Star-Advertiser interview, he wrote "Dopey Hawaii governor figures out new way to tease Birthers":

What I think happened here is that this well-meaning doofus, who knew Obama's parents personally and who's indignant at the accusations about his citizenship, spoke up in anger with a vow to put them to rest. Which, entirely predictably to everyone except Abercrombie himself, kick-started a whole new round of excitement and expectations among Birthers, who'll never be satisfied no matter what document is finally presented.

AllahPundit is half-right. Abercrombie may act like a dopey doofus, but it is just an act. He has spent a lifetime in politics manipulating conservatives to unwittingly serve his agenda -- and he's proud of it.

Rush Limbaugh nailed it on his show January 21, pointing out:

This is just toying. He [Obama] knows that the birthers are a bunch of Looney Tune kook right-wingers, and he wants them illustrated as such. So he'll toy with them, sort of like Charlie Brown and Lucy and the football. And the media went along with that, "Oh, that's Obama. He's really politically smart, really crafty here. He's got these birthers looking like the Birchers that they are. He's got 'em looking like the biggest kooks on the face of the earth. ... "

Now, it's still entirely possible all this is a giant head fake. For me, ladies and gentlemen, the sophisticated political figure that I am, it's really hard for me to believe that Neil Abercrombie just one day woke up on his own and without consultation said, "This birth thing bugs me. I'm gonna call a press conference, and I'm gonna tell people I was there when he was born, and I knew his mom and dad, and he was born here and I'm gonna prove it." I said earlier, Abercrombie's no fool. ... it ratchets up and ratchets up and then a couple years down the road, year and a half down the road, guess what, the thing's found, and, oh, can you imagine the air that will be let out of people's sails then?

Now, you have to ask yourself, is this regime capable of that kind of trick? Yeah, they are. Are they capable of having the newly elected governor, a Democrat, replacing a Republican, Neil Abercrombie, start out this whole thing? Are they typical, capable of coming up with a program where Abercrombie embarrasses himself around the world on this and then all of a sudden ... voila, somebody finds the birth certificate right out in the open in some file in Hawaii. With this bunch the point is you just never know. ...

I'll tell you why I think Abercrombie may just be toying around with everybody on this to pull a political trick later on down the line.

The 'toying' continued even as Rush spoke. To keep the story rolling, a self-described Abercrombie friend, celebrity gossip reporter Mike Evans, on January 20 suddenly claimed that Abercrombie had told him that there are no records of Obama's birth. Birthers nationwide bit down hard on the story. Then, just as suddenly, Evans reversed himself and admitted that he made the whole thing up.

AP January 22 reported "Hawaii law bars release of Obama birth info." This old-news, story was falsely re-reported by birther operatives as "Abercrombie abandons quest to find birth certificate because of privacy law." Of course the reason Obama is able to keep his long form under wraps in the first place is because Hawaii has such a restrictive law. It is obtuse to claim that Abercrombie suddenly just discovered this law and therefore "abandoned" his plan to reveal the birth certificate -- and yet birther operatives made precisely that claim.

Two days later, Hawaii State Representative Rida Cabanilla (D-Ewa) -- famous mostly for knowingly employing a convicted child molester as her legislative office manager -- introduced the $100 birther tax in the Hawaii Legislature. This kept the media rolling in the aisles ridiculing Obama's opponents for another day.

The progressives are having almost as much fun with this as they did when a blogger made up a fake Kenyan Birth Certificate, got Orly Taitz to introduce it in court, and then revealed his hoax. Today, anyone with a computer printer can get his very own Kenyan Birth Certificate online. With a click of the mouse, you too can "prove" you were born in Coast General Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya. Even WND has debunked this and other forged "Kenyan Birth Certificates" which still float around the internet.

Summing up the success of progressives' information warfare strategy, Slate's David Weigel wrote "Fun new Birther Conspiracy based upon illiteracy." The progressives know they can get the birthers to do anything they want; they are having a ball, and they are discrediting Obama's opponents in the run-up to 2012.

Is Limbaugh right? Does Abercrombie have the ability to conceive of such a scheme -- or is he just a doofus, as AllahPundit says? The answer can be found in some of Abercrombie's recent comments.

For the most part, Hawaii's Democrat media carefully avoids quoting Abercrombie verbatim. That's because they want to keep a lid on Abercrombie remarks, such as his October 2010 characterization of supporters of his electoral opponent as "Nazis" bent on imposing a Christian theocracy on Hawaii. But sometimes the real Abercrombie slips through. In a verbatim Maui Time interview June 3, 2010, he makes it clear that he believes conservatives are easy to manipulate:

Q--On the subject of distrust of government, what's your take on the Tea Party movement and what impact do you think it'll have on this election cycle?
A--They'll have some [impact], not as much out here. But you can't institutionalize a mood. The Tea Party is a reflection of an atmosphere. It has no object, other than to say, 'We don't like this.' It is kind of a choked reaction to the idea that you've been shoved totally to the sidelines. You have no control over your life. Particularly when you're being propagandized all day long that you get to make choices, always variations on the theme of you as consumer of goods. And when politics takes on the same aspect, when you're just the consumer of whatever's being fed to you by cynical sociopaths who have no other purpose in life than to manipulate and maneuver you into doing what they want you to do, then you have a situation like the one we have now with the Tea Party. They don't like it, but they don't know what to do about it. ... They don't make the connections. [It's] an emotional reaction to being frozen out of participating in life. They feel their tax dollars are not well spent. They feel they're being tapped and tapped hard and often and deep and they're not getting out of it what they think they should. But the political consequence is that it dissipates into the ether. It's like a wave. All waves dissipate into the sand. No matter what kind of kinetic energy is associated with them, they dissipate into the sand.

The interview didn't work out too well. A few days after this it was published, 22 members of the Maui TEA Party crashed an Abercrombie campaign event, gave him a bumper sticker, and ate up all his tofu and sprouts. But for most of his career, Abercrombie has been very successful at manipulating his opponents -- with the help of an eager retinue of Democrat reporters. In his January 2011 State of the State speech, Abercrombie gleefully trumpeted his co-opting of the Vicar General of the Honolulu Catholic Diocese to work in his administration -- even as Abercrombie denounces Christians and imposes gay civil unions, and as Abercrombie's Democrats become the only legislative body in the nation to abolish the traditional invocation which previously opened sessions of the Hawaii State Senate.

Now, with just a few words in December 24 and January 18 interviews, Abercrombie has cynically manipulated the news cycle for several weeks to maneuver Obama's political opponents into doing what he wants them to do.

Andrew Walden edits HawaiiFreePress.com.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/ ... tes_b.html

This Andrew Walden "article" is a hodgepodge of half-truths, misdirections, and blatant lies. LIES... with a few well-known facts thrown in to confuse the simple. It does have some truth in the old admissions of obvious guilt of communists and other enemies of America.

I don't know why American Thinker would publish this kind of street b-ball trash-talk garbage; one would think AT would adhere to truth rather than pass along LIES that have been debunked in this thread from day 1 after the '08 elections. But I see no reason to have this collection of slurs, libels, insults, and propaganda posted in this space. Some Obot might mistakenly think that it is valid political comment by virtue of being posted here.

It's not. It's just flotsam from a usurpation shipwreck washing up on a Honolulu beach. It's what a house built on the sand looks like after the tide changes, exposes its non-existent foundation, and washes it out to sea.

Originally Posted by ReformUSA2012

Yup but just look at how many birth certificates are out there without a father listed. Lots and lots out there.

"The biological father and mother exist, whether they are both named on a birth document or not."

Forget about birth certificates for a moment. The criterion is the biological father and mother, not a birth document.

For transfer of power in the United States, the burden of proof is upon the claimant. There is no assumption of nbC until proved otherwise; nbC is not assumed until proved by the claimant.

Originally Posted by [url=http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1216821&page=3113

Hammering on this legal argument repeatedly at forums.hannity.com, Brianroy[/url]]Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644 (1929) @ 649-650
@ 649
"... Except for eligibility to the Presidency[*], naturalized citizens stand on the same footing as do native-born citizens. . . And, in order to safeguard against admission of those who are unworthy, or who for any reason fail to measure up to required standards, the law puts the burden upon every applicant to show by satisfactory evidence that he has the specified qualifications.
Tutun v. United States, 270 U. S. 568, 270 U. S. 578. And see United States v. Ginsberg, 243 U. S. 472, 243 U. S. 475.

• [* or the Vice-Presidency, by Amendment XII: "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."]

..."Citizenship is a high privilege, and when doubts exist concerning a grant of it, generally at least, they should be resolved in favor of the United States and against the claimant." - Pages 278-279, U. S. 650

In other words, if all Obama has is a scrawl and no birth certificate, the law requires that he be declared an ALIEN / FOREIGNER with no claim even as to a US Citizenship. That's what the Law says. Fine. By being unable to prove even a simple birth on US Soil via 533 US 53 @ 54, 62 with a hospital birth certificate and witnesses to the birth by the authority of 333 US 640 @ 653, Obama confesses by his actions de jure and de facto he is NOT even a United States Citizen at birth. That is what the significance of the Long Form Certificat[e] of Live Birth is. . . it is a legal means of reversing Obama and his entire Executive Branch influence by a legal Supreme Court VOIDANCE nullifying him and every act he has done from January 20, 2009, to whatever time he is placed under arrest for military tribunal. Ex Parte Quirin 317 US 1 (1942) @ 31 becomes relevant here,
http://supreme.justia.com/us/317/1/case.html
because without citizenship, he gets tried as a spy by the then empowered representatives of the US Government (by Congress and the US Supreme Court) to try him.

I have been reluctant to quote the above, because the court system is broken. In eligibility cases, the courts are not adjudicating by even the U.S. Constitution, much less by U.S. laws, U.S. Code, and Supreme Court precedents. But whenever due process in eligibility cases shall once again exist (or if due process in eligibility cases should ever again exist), the above legal argument will (or would) be valid for the removing of a fraudulent impostor usurping the Office of President, or any Federal Office.

The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868. Minor v. Happersett was decided in 1875, Wong Kim Ark in 1898, and Perkins v. Elg in 1939. Thereafter, did the recognition or verification of citizenship lie completely within Federal jurisdiction, even though it was originally within the purview of each individual state?

If citizenship was wholly a Federal matter after 1939, and if a grandmother registered her daughter's baby, born abroad in 1961, as born in Honolulu, Hawaii, that would not make the baby "U.S. born" except in the sight of the State of Hawaii. Right?

Would such a falsified registration make the foreign-born baby a U.S. citizen, prima facie, until proven otherwise?