Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Obama Birth Certificate Debate Not Dead Yet

An internationally-known document imaging expert has filed a 22-page complaint with the FBI charging that the long-form birth certificate of President Barack Obama released last month by the White House is a forgery. "I have irrefutably proven that the Certificate of Live Birth that President Obama presented to the world on April 27, 2011, is a fraudulently created document put together using the Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator programs, and the creation of this forgery of a public document constitutes a class B felony in Hawaii and multiple violations under U.S. Code section Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47, Sec.1028, and therefore an impeachable offense," Doug Vogt alleges in the complaint.

Vogt owns Archive Index Systems, Inc. in Bellevue, Washington, a company that sells scanning equipment and document imaging software. Vogt's expert credentials aren't detailed in the WND story or on his company's website. Vogt tells World Net Daily's Jerome Corsi the document presented as Obama's authentic long-form birth certificate is "an outrageous and obvious fraud." Corsi has a vested interest in keeping the issue alive since he just authored a new book, "Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible To Be President." The book is currently ranked in the top ten best sellers on the New York Times list despite President Obama's highly-publicized press conference last month at which he released to the world a long-awaited copy of his birth certificate. Vogt's claim rests on his belief the document is actually a composite of several original birth certificate forms. The analysis laid out in Corsi's story does raise a lot of interesting questions that I would like to see other established document experts refute or confirm to help ascertain the document's authenticity.

It seems incredible that the President of the United States would knowingly release a forged document to prove his natural born status. As I've pointed out previous times, the document whether real or forged arguably proves he is not a natural born citizen because it confirms his father was a Kenyan citizen. That made Obama a dual citizen at birth. My research of the natural born citizen eligibility requirement in the U.S. Constitution leads me to believe only a child born to U.S. citizen parents qualifies as a natural born citizen. Nobody can definitively say that though because the Supreme Court has never interpreted the meaning of the presidential eligibility requirement. Numerous lawsuits filed against both Sen. John McCain and Obama during and after the 2008 presidential campaign were dismissed without deciding that unanswered question. One thing that has always bothered me is how Obama mentions having his birth certificate in his book, "Dreams From My Father," written long before he ran for president, but he never released that document. Instead, both the COLB released in 2008 and the long-form birth certificate released last month were newly-generated documents.

While the Omedia seeks to discredit anyone who raises issues about Obama's natural born status, there are many questions that have never been answered. Even Obama acknowledged the facts and circumstances surrounding his parent's marriage was a bit murky. Newly-released government records on file with the Immigration and Naturalization Services suggest Obama's parents never lived together as husband and wife. In those documents, Obama told INS officials his wife lived with her parents at the time of his son's birth. She began attending classes at the University of Washington in Seattle within weeks of Obama's birth. In some documents his father filed with the INS while in the U.S. on a student visa, his father didn't even acknowledge his American-born son. A record of a marriage certificate issued to his parents in Hawaii has never been produced. His father was already married with children when he first came to the United States to begin classes at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. He later attended post-graduate studies at Harvard before he was forced to leave the country when Harvard and the INS refused to extend his student visa, at least partly out of concern for his playboy ways. His father got another young exchange student from Kenya pregnant while attending classes at Harvard. Another woman followed him back to Kenya and married him despite the protestations of her mother. An INS official questioned in one document whether Obama's marriage to Ann Dunham was bona fide. That observation is quite telling given that a marriage is presumed bona fide by the government if a child is produced as a result of it.

In order for the long-form birth certificate to be a forgery, you have to assume complicity, if not participation by, officials at Hawaii's Department of Health. Officials there have publicly stated the department's records confirm Obama's birth in the state. Corsi's book has raised questions about the out-of-sequence number assigned to Obama's birth certificate based on the birth certificate numbers issued to other Hawaiian-born children near the time of Obama's birth. Corsi theorizes a birth certificate number originally issued to another child that died a couple of days after birth was reassigned to Obama. It's unclear why Obama's name would appear as Obama in Hawaii records. School records in Indonesia indicate he was adopted by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro, and his name was changed to Barry Soetoro. Those same school records also indicate Obama was an Indonesian citizen, which raises even more doubts about his natural born status. Nonetheless, the Omedia has said there is nothing to see here, move along so I suspect that no amount of evidence to the contrary will move the media in a different direction. They have too much invested in the Obama narrative as recounted to the American people by Obama, notwithstanding ever-growing evidence contradicting much of it.

UPDATE: Vogt has published his detailed analysis here explaining why the long-form certificate released by the Obama White House is a fraud. It's well worth the read.

29 comments:

smrstrauss said...

When birther sites began to think that Obama would have his long-form birth certificate released, they began to discuss what they would do, and many of the posters said that whatever was released, they would say that it was forged.

And so, they have.

This is what they did on the short-form birth certificate. They said that that was forged too.

And it was birthers who developed the LIE that Obama's Kenyan grandmother said that Obama was born in Kenya, when she actually said repeatedly in the taped interview that he was born in Hawaii, and said in another interview that the first that her family in Kenya had heard of Obama's birth was in a letter from Hawaii.

So, now they dredge up people with apparent credentials to claim that Obama's long-form BC is forged.

The birth certificate was not forged. The director of health of Hawaii certified in writing that she had seen the document being copied and that the copy was exactly the same as the original. At least two Republican officials had stated that they had seen the original. So, if there were anything different between the original and what they saw, they could have said, and they said nothing.

And numerous document experts have said that the document was not forged:

For example:

Dr. Neal Krawetz (http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/428-After-Birth.html)

And the conservative National Review : http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/265767/pdf-l...

And:
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/04/29/fox-exp...

As for your fanciful definition of Natural Born Citizen, do you supposed that the 535 members of the US Congress would have voted to confirm Obama's election UNANIMOUSLY if even one of them had agreed with you on that definition.

Your definition is wrong. The original meaning of Natural Born Citizen used in AMERICA (not Switzerland) at the time that the original US Constitution was written in Philadelphia referred to citizenship due to the place of birth. ONLY the place of birth. Not the parents. Only the place of birth.

“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are "natural born citizens" eligible to serve as President ..."---- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]

Gary R. Welsh said...

And Ed Meese once argued that a President was entitled to give his own interpretation to statutory and common law, even if it conflicted with Supreme Court precedent. The birthers didn't create the lie about the Kenyan birth. Numerous news articles in Kenya that chronicled Obama's political career starting long before he ran for president identified him as Kenyan-born. The step-grandmother gave numerous interviews during which she claimed he was born there. It was only during one recorded interview where other handlers in the room objected to what she said that she changed her comments through an interpreter. The grandmother was also charging people for interviews. Obama originally said he was born in one hospital, which was noted in the national archives and reported in numerous news stories. He later changed it to a second hospital, and the national archives changed its records, along with the media's reporting on his birth. The Obama campaign trotted out a woman who said she knew the doctor who delivered him and she identified the doctor without any dispute from the Obama folks. When the birth certificate was finally released, there was a different doctor noted on it. She then changed her story to say he may have just been present at the hospital when the birth happened and didn't actually deliver the baby; she wasn't certain. There is no disputing the fact that this is not the birth certificate that Obama claimed to have when he wrote his book. Why he won't share that one is anybody's guess. I would not be surprised at all if the Obama folks would not actually take a genuine document and make it appeared forged simply to keep the issue alive in an attempt to marginalize those who raise the issue. It's a classic tactic employed by people like David Axelrod. Also, ask Karl Rove about how he set up Dan Rather. Yes, Bush's national guard records were cauterized when he became Texas governor to remove damaging information contained within them. Bush had a serious drug problem when he was in the guard, had been arrested and was forced to serve community service for his crime. He left the guard early under less than honorable circumstances. Somehow forged documents wound up in the hands of a guy who knew first-hand of Bush's troubles, who assumed they were authentic, only to make a fool of Dan Rather later when they were proven to be forged. There are many unanswered questions and Obama has only himself to blame for the doubts people have. His autobiography is chalked full of so many patent lies that it becomes difficult for people to discern truth from fiction.

smrstrauss said...

Re: "Kenyan born"

The Kenyan born story is entirely a lie.

First, it should be obvious that a child born outside of the USA requires either a US visa on a foreign passport or to be entered on the mother’s US passport to get to the USA. Those documents or the applications for them would still exist and would have been found easily IF Obama was born outside of the USA. But no such document has been found. (Neither Corsi nor WND has ever even tried to discuss this.)


Second, there were notices of Obama’s birth in the newspapers in Hawaii in 1961. And these were not ads placed by relatives. They could not have been ads because the Hawaii newspapers did not accept birth notice ads in 1961. They only took the official notices sent to them by the government of Hawaii, which only sent out the notices for births IN Hawaii. And, the government could not have been fooled by a claim of a birth at home because in those cases it demanded witness statements.

So Obama's parents would have had to have:

(1) traveled to Kenya or some other country late in pregnancy at high risk and high expense (particularly to Kenya);

(2) got the child back to the USA without either a visa or his being entered on his mother's US passport or somehow had the files of the document and the applications for the document all sealed;

(3) lied about the place of birth (which is also unlikely because when you have done something interesting like give birth in a foreign country you generally boast about it. And it is also unnecessary to lie since for all purposes but the presidency a naturalized child is as good as a natural born one);

(4) gotten away with the lie despite evidence that Hawaii demanded witness statements whenever there was a claim of a birth outside of a hospital;

(5) got three Republican officials in Hawaii to lie about the fact that the original birth certificate in Obama's files verified that he was born in Hawaii.

ALL of that would have had to have happened for Obama to have been born outside of the USA.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Actually, efforts were made to retrieve Ann Dunham's passport records. They ran into a small problem. Her records prior to 1968 had been destroyed by the government. As to Obama's passport file, it has never been released. We know employees from a firm ran by John Brennan, who oddly enough is now in charge of counter-terrorism for Obama, illegally accessed the file. It is believed they may have accessed the file to cauterize damaging information contained in it. A key witness in the investigation was found shot to death in Washington, D.C. Who knows what he had to tell. The newspaper notices are very easily explained. Obama's grandmother or the mother could have filed an affidavit of his birth with state officials days after his birth if he was not born in a hospital in Hawaii. That record would automatically generate a notice of the birth information recorded when state health department officials sent it to the local newspapers. The officials you cite only indicate there was a recording of his birth in Hawaii. They never attested to the specifics of what was in that recorded information. Gov. Abercrombie said there was simply a notation of his birth in the records, implying there wasn't a long-form birth certificate. What about the Democratic elections official who signed an Affidavit attesting to the fact that no document proving his birth in Hawaii existed?

smrstrauss said...

Re: Meese

Meese wrote for the Conservative Heritage Foundation.

Moreover, his view was not alone:

“Natural born citizen. Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government, i.e. in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens temporarily residing abroad.” — Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition

“What is a natural born citizen? Clearly, someone born within the United States or one of its territories is a natural born citizen.” (Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on OCTOBER 5, 2004)--Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT).

"Prior to the adoption of the constitution, the people inhabiting the different states might be divided into two classes: natural born citizens, or those born within the state, and aliens, or such as were born out of it. The first, by their birth-right, became entitled to all the privileges of citizens; the second, were entitled to none, but such as were held out and given by the laws of the respective states prior to their emigration. ...St. George Tucker, BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA. (1803)

"Therefore every person born within the United States, its territories or districts, whether the parents are citizens or aliens, is a natural born citizen in the sense of the Constitution, and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining to that capacity."---William Rawle, A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 2d ed. (1829)

That's just a few of the opinions, which stem from the key US Supreme Court ruling, Wong Kim Ark, which ruled that EVERY child born in the USA, except for the children of foreign diplomats, is Natural Born.

And there have been LOTS of lower-court rulings, all stemming from the Wong Kim Ark ruling, which have stated that the US-born children of foreigners are Natural Born Citizens, due to their natural birth, birth in America.

Mustata v. US Dept. of Justice, 179 F.3d 1017 (6th Cir. 1999) (children born in US to two Romanian citizens described as “natural born citizens” of the US):

“Petitioners Marian and Lenuta Mustata are citizens of Romania. At the time of their petition, they resided in Michigan with their two minor children, who are natural born citizens of the United States.”

Diaz-Salazar v. INS, 700 F.2d 1156 (7th Cir. 1983) (child born in US to Mexican citizen is “natural born citizen” of US):

“Petitioner, Sebastian Diaz-Salazar, entered the United States illegally [from Mexico] in 1974 and has been living and working in Chicago since that time. *** The relevant facts which have been placed before the INS, BIA, and this court can be summarized as follows: The petitioner has a wife and two children under the age of three in Chicago; the children are natural-born citizens of the United States.”

Nwankpa v. Kissinger, 376 F. Supp. 122 (M.D. Ala. 1974) (child born in US to two Biafra citizens described as “natural born citizen” of the US):

“The Plaintiff was a native of Biafra, now a part of the Republic of Nigeria. His wife and two older children are also natives of that country, but his third child, a daughter, is a natural-born citizen of the United States.”

AND there was Ankeny v. Gov State of Indiana, which ruled:

"Based upon the language of Article II, Section 1, Clause 4 and the guidance provided by Wong Kim Ark, we conclude that persons born within the borders of the United States are ‘natural born citizens’ for Article II, Section 1 purposes, regardless of the citizenship of their parents.”

That was appealed once, to the Supreme Court of Indiana, which turned down the appeal, leaving the ruling of the appeals court standing.

smrstrauss said...

Re: "Actually, efforts were made to retrieve Ann Dunham's passport records. They ran into a small problem. Her records prior to 1968 had been destroyed by the government."

You do tend to fixate don't you. I said that either the visa OR the application for it would exist. The application for a visa or to change Obama's mother's passport would have had to have happened IN KENYA.

There are files of applications for changes to US passports in Kenya and there are files for applications for visas in Kenya, and neither of these has to be only in the files of the individuals. In fact, they aren't. They are both in the files of the individuals and in the overall files of applications that were filed in Kenya in 1961.

IF there had been such a file, it would have been easy to find, but none has been found. The Republicans were in charge of the State Department for eight years until January 2009, and recent WND research shows that in fact they DID check on whether Obama was born in Kenya. AND THEY FOUND NOTHING.

KENYA also checked, and was unable to find even a document showing that Obama's mother had arrived at an airport in Kenya in 1961. It found NOTHING.

Now, Obama's mother's passport file. Thousands of applications for passports in passport files were scrapped in the 1970's. However, the passports and the records of them being issued WERE NOT SCRAPPED.

What happened was that the birther who filed the case DID NOT ASK to see the records of when the passport was issued or changes to it. He only asked to see the applications for passports and changes to them in Obama's mother's file. NOT THE ACTUAL PASSPORT ITSELF, OR THE CHANGES TO IT.

Why didn't he ask for that? Because if he did, and if the reply was "She didn't have a passport in 1961," the birther movement would collapse. In other words, not asking for the birth certificate itself or for changes to it, was another kind of a lie. Just asking for the applications in the file was safe, especially if the guy KNEW that many of them were scrapped.

In any case, the situation is that there is BOTH no evidence (USA or Kenyan, that Obama was born in Kenya or traveled in 1961 or that Obama's mother was in Kenya in 1961) AND there were notices of Obama's birth in Hawaii in 1961, which were issued by the government of Hawaii, and which did not issue those notices when births occurred outside of Hawaii, and which checked claims of births outside of hospitals.

What is the probability of BOTH of those happening? Probably less than winning two major lotteries on a single day.

Gary R. Welsh said...

You can dissemble all you want,strauss. That's what you're paid to do on behalf of Obama. The man is a proven liar who will never have my respect. He has spent millions fighting the release of basic information that would clear up this information, the first president in modern times to go to such lengths to prevent public access to his basic documents. Why? It's interesting you profess to know so much about a FOIA request made by someone else. Vattel's Law of Nations and a long line of other respected authorities ascribe the meaning I've applied to NBC. If an NBC was simply a person born on American soil, then they 14th Amendment would not have been worded as it was. The author of that Amendment made clear it did not alter what a natural born citizen meant, a term used but once in the Constitution as it pertains to presidential eligibility. That's why the 14th Amendment says all persons born within the U.S. are "citizens."

smrstrauss said...

Re: "He has spent millions fighting the release of basic information that would clear up this information.."

The "million spent" myth is also a birther creation. It is made up. There is no truth to it.

smrstrauss said...

Re: Vattel's Law of Nations.

That was written in French by a Swiss philosopher, and an English-language translation of it including the words Natural Born Citizen did not appear until TEN YEARS after the US Constitution was written.

So, what did the Natural Born Citizen come from? It came from the common law, of course, which is referred to about twenty times in the Federalist Papers, while Vattel is not even mentioned once.

And, in the common law, the meaning of Natural Born refers to citizenship due to the place of birth regardless of whether the parents were citizens or aliens (except for the children of foreign diplomats):

That is why Meese is right, and you are wrong:

“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are "natural born citizens" eligible to serve as President ..."---- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]

M Theory said...

I have watched this blog for 6 years, almost since its inception.

Never, not once, have I seen this mysterious new poster called smrstrauss comment here.

Then all of a sudden, voila, here he/she is today to dispute arguments about Obama's birth certificate.

Why is that? I have no doubt that smrstrauss is a paid operative.

Obama seems to be able to afford a whole lot of paid operatives.

Gary R. Welsh said...

This strauss character has appeared like clockwork in the past when I have discussed Obama's NBC status. Literally, he posts from afar within minutes of my posts being published. He was posting from California today. When he first started posting, he was logging in from Canada. I can't imagine a casual reader from afar being so concerned about what I write about Obama on this particular issue unless he is a paid operative of some sort.

Gary R. Welsh said...

The Betrayed blog offered this insight on who strauss is:

An individual using the tag smrstrauss has been an extraordinarily busy fellow and an annoying enigma on the internet since late 2008, but now his identity is known. Mr. smrstrauss has contributed countless hours, days, weeks, months, and thousands of comments to defend Barack Obama against everyone who questions the President’s eligibility. Smrstrauss sometimes writes long essay comments, and he often cites case law, so if you didn’t know better, you would be excused for thinking he’s an attorney. I can assure you he is not!

I also need to take this opportunity to backtrack on a supposition I previously made about the identity of this man. Based on the comments of another blogger who claimed to have researched the name smrstrauss, he concluded the person was D.C. Shadow Senator, Paul Strauss, who also happens to be a Democrat Superdelegate. After the in-depth research I have just done on smrstrauss, I now know he is not that person, and retract my comments suggesting otherwise.

Such intense activity by smrstrauss would make sense if Obama is paying him to confuse people about his eligibility to serve as President, but I have no way to confirm this without filing a Freedom of Information request of the administration.

If smrstrauss is not being paid by someone, then his efforts must be a labor of love, and for that President Obama may eventually consider bestowing the Presidential Citizens Medal upon this gentleman for his obsessive/compulsive determination to defend The One, irrespective of the truth.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Jefferson's Rebels blog added this about his identity:

SMRSTRAUSS: The Total Reveal & Their Tangled Web | by EricaThunderpaws
Posted by Erica

On February 11, 2010, I published Exposé: Obot SMRSTRAUSS Finally Unmasked! My article revealed the prolific commenting activities of an obot who was (and still is) papering virtually every conservative blog with repetitive disinformation. He is on a mission to defend Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as President of the United States against those who argue that Obama isn't qualified because of his dual citizenship with Britain and/or due to unanswered questions about Obama's place of birth.

A simple Google search for comments made by, to, and about smrstrauss today returns around 20,000 hits. In my first exposé, I did not reveal the full identity of smrstrauss, even though I knew who he was after extensive research. However, since publishing that exposé, smrstrauss has visited my blog again with more “cognitive infiltration,” likely following the suggestions of Cass Sunstein, who now head's Obama's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. smrstrauss was warned that another post would force my hand, and that warning was ignored on March 12, 2010. So, are you ready for the reveal?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Paul R. Strauss and his wife, Ann Fenlon Strauss, who work as a team of obots with a mission to defend Obama's eligibility to serve as President. Mr. and Mrs. Strauss live in Arlington, MA. Disclaimer: Although the names are similar, Paul R. Strauss is NOT Paul Strauss, the Shadow Senator representing Washington, D.C.

Paul R. Strauss (now 68) married Ann Fenlon Santomasso on June 16, 1984 in the bridegroom’s Manhattan apartment. At that time Ann was a senior research biologist at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and Paul was a financial editor of Data Communications. They were married by Rev. Louis Giola. Paul received his master’s degree in communications from American University, and Ann received her degree from the College of New Rochelle. Today the Strauss’s live in a 5,329 sq ft. home in Arlington, MA, presently valued at $496,400.

More recently, Paul appears to be retired, although in 2004 he worked for IDC Inc. as a Research Analyst. In 2004, Ann stated her place of employment as Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Click the symbol MLNM for the company's market performance). Considering Obama’s private deal with big pharma, Ann’s connection to a biopharmaceutical company says all that needs to be said about her motives for becoming an obot for Obama.

On January 25, 2010, smrstrauss (Paul R. Strauss) said on my blog, “ I am not Paul Strauss of Washington DC. I am Samuel Strauss of Cleveland, Ohio. And I have not been paid by the government. Just the reverse, I was a contributor to Obama's campaign.”

No records were found in Ohio to confirm his comment. However, from the very beginning I assumed that some portion of the moniker "smrstrauss" reflected the person’s real name, so I checked several campaign donor lists. I already knew from various ip addresses that smrstrauss lived somewhere in Arlington, MA. Thus I began my search using Strauss and the city and state as keywords, and voila! I found Paul R. Strauss, plus I found his wife, Ann, on the same page. As the contribution list below reveals, between 2004 and 2008 this couple donated $13,500 to Democratic candidates, so they are seriously involved in Democratic politics.

Cato said...

You and Strauss are permitted to quarrel, but do so properly. Who someone is and from where they're posting is always ad hominem, thus irrelevant to an argument.

smrstrauss said...

For what it is worth, I am not a paid operative. There is nothing wrong with being paid. That is what is known as being a professional.

But, I am not being paid, so I'm just an amateur.

However, IF I were paid, or you were paid, it still would not change the facts, which are that Obama was born in Hawaii, which has been shown overwhelmingly, and that the vast majority of Constitutional scholars agree with Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan's attorney general, that ALL US citizens who were born in America are Natural Born Citizens and only naturalized citizens are not Natural Born Citizens.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Some of your esteemed legal scholars insist John McCain isn't a natural born citizen even though he was born to two U.S. citizen parents who happened to be stationed in Panama while his father was serving in the Navy. Barry never made any sacrifices for this country, once held a foreign passport and has only used a claim of citizenship for his own narcissistic fulfillment.

smrstrauss said...

Re: "Some of your esteemed legal scholars insist John McCain isn't a natural born citizen even though he was born to two U.S. citizen parents who happened to be stationed in Panama while his father was serving in the Navy. "

First, McCain IS a Natural Born Citizen under the second of the two criteria listed by Black's law review (Obama falls into the first, the original one.)

Here is the quotation:

"“Natural born citizen. Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government, i.e. in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens temporarily residing abroad.” — Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition."

McCain was born of citizens temporarily residing abroad.

Second, Obama was certainly not one of the people who ever said that McCain was not eligible. He never said any such thing, and in fact he signed the resolution by the US Senate (which was JUST for McCain), which said that McCain was eligible due to his parents and birth at a US naval base--even though that base was not in the USA.

Third, it is MEESE, the conservative, who thinks that there might be a question about McCain's Natural Born Citizen status, but who agrees completely with Black's definition that Obama is eligible due to his birth in the jurisdiction.

“Under the longstanding English common-law principle of jus soli, persons born within the territory of the sovereign (other than children of enemy aliens or foreign diplomats) are citizens from birth. Thus, those persons born within the United States are "natural born citizens" and eligible to be President. Much less certain, however, is whether children born abroad of United States citizens are "natural born citizens" eligible to serve as President ..."---- Edwin Meese, et al, THE HERITAGE GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION (2005) [Edwin Meese was Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, and the Heritage Foundation is a well-known Conservative organization.]

Fourth, the fact that some liberals might agree with Meese that there was a question about McCain's NBC does not mean that there was a question about Obama. The fact that there were no hearings on Obama and that the US Senate did not pass a resolution was because there wasn't any need for hearings or to pass a resolution.

smrstrauss said...

Re Obama "once held a foreign passport."

Where did you get that from? He certainly never had an Indonesian passport because he was never an Indonesian citizen. You can call up the Indonesian Embassy and ask (ask for the press officer).

If you are thinking about the myth that Obama had to have a foreign passport to go to Pakistan in 1981--that is simply a birther fantasy. Pakistan was NOT on any "no travel list" in 1961, nor did it keep US citizens from visiting. It was eager to have tourists visit. So Americans could go using their US passports.

Gary R. Welsh said...

The very first immigration law enacted by Congress after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution expanded the definition of "natural born citizen" to include children of U.S. citizens born while temporarily abroad. Congress made it clear in its first definition natural born citizens could only be born to U.S. citizen parents. The idea that foreign enemies could impregnate women for the sole purpose of having them born in the U.S. to become rulers here is completely at odds with the purpose behind the inclusion of this requirement for the president only. Obama was a dual citizen. A dual citizen can never be a natural born citizen. You are naturally born a male or a female, not both. You cannot be born a citizen of two countries and be considered the natural born citizen of one of those countries.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. This president denies his own heritage as a Muslim--born and raised. The Indonesian government has much to gain by having the dirt on Obama with which to blackmail him. This man is an imposter who was manufactured by the most sinister elements of the shadow government that runs the US behind the scenes. Foolish people like you have been hypnotized by him. You ignore the illegal wars that he is prosecuting. You ignore how he sells out democratic-US friendly regimes in favor of extremist Muslims who want nothing more than to destroy the West and the values we hold dear. He is no different than Bush in foreign policy but you are too hypnotized to see that. The New World Order. You want, you can have it. I want no part of it.

Cato said...

Is the issue whether Obama is a Muslim or an American? Let's not conflate the two.

smrstrauss said...

Re: "A dual citizen can never be a natural born citizen. "

Actually, Thomas Jefferson was a dual citizen when he was president, having been made a full citizen of France (voting rights and the right to serve in the French government) by the French National Assembly.

This highlights the key problem with the dual citizen theory. It is based simply on whether a foreign law exists or does not exist. Mexico could pass a law that said that every child born in Texas was a citizen of Mexico. Would that deprive them of their Natural Born Citizen status? Hardly.

Re a foreign dictator could impregnate a US woman and have a child in the USA.

Answer: Yes.

The children of foreign dictators are sometimes like their fathers and sometimes not. (Svetlana Stalin, for example, was not like her father at all.) Who gets to determine whether they are or not in our system? The voters.

Re: Indonesia. First, Indonesia says that he was never a citizen. Second, the US State Department says that he was never a citizen of Indonesia.

smrstrauss said...

Re: "He is no different than Bush in foreign policy but you are too hypnotized to see that. The New World Order. You want, you can have it. I want no part of it. "

So vote against him.

I am not saying that there are no issues in which people cannot dislike Obama. If you think that he is a Moslem (he's not), and you personally dislike Moslems, then vote against him for that. Or if you think his foreign policy is bad, then vote against him for that. And, if you think that he hasn't worked hard enough to create jobs and/or used the wrong policies, then vote against him for that.

But none of this justifies running lies about his place of birth, "Indonesian citizenship" or that the US Constitution requires two US Citizen parents.

Gary R. Welsh said...

My point is that it is a fact he was born a Muslim by virtue of his father's religion, and he was raised as a Muslim during his younger years. The Omedia has aided and abetted Obama in the cover up of those undisputable facts. If he wants to say he underwent a conversion to Christianity, that's fine. Just don't deny who you are as he is. Barry Goldwater caught a lot of grief from the newsmedia when he ran for president for denying for the longest time his Jewish heritage and rightfully so. When he finally came to grips with who he really was--at the tail end of his political career, Goldwater's political views took a sharp turn in a different direction. Obama's public policies have been completely at odds with what he campaigned on as a candidate, particularly in the area of foreign policy. When a powerful political leader lies about the most basic things about himself, it manifests a pathological disorder that should trouble all of those subject to his governance.

smrstrauss said...

Re: "it manifests a pathological disorder that should trouble all of those subject to his governance."

So vote against him. Whether or not he is a Moslem and whether or not he has a pathological disorder are issues, like the economy. They are not illegal, things that can get a president impeached. They ARE issues, and you can say that you do not like him because of those issues.

But that is a lot different from claiming that his birth certificate was forged, that he was born in Kenya, that he became an Indonesian citizen, that he used a foreign passport, etc.

Gary R. Welsh said...

They forged his selective service registration record--that I'm convinced of. He has a social security number that was issued to a person living in Connecticut--that I know. It is not at all clear who is real father is. I'm not convinced the playboy from Kenya is his real father. He has played hide the ball with every basic bit of information about his life from his birth record to his school records, state legislative records, bar records and medical information. He hated his mother and refused to visit her while she lay dying of cancer in the hospital. He is not in the least bit transparent in anything he does. To admire him is to admire Lady Gaga. My instinct for detecting frauds is impeccable. This man is a fraud in every sense of the word. It is a major affront to the political process in this country that such a man of mystery who had accomplished so little in life could be placed in the most important elected position in the world. It's what happens when you succeed in taking the world's most educated population and turning it into a disinterested, detached population consumed by the trivial and the materialistic aspects of life. It all fits. It's over. It's only fitting that the most self-centered narcissist on the face of the earth is now our leader. It is sickening to the core that anyone could idolize this man. The US is falling fast and hard just like the Roman Empire. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. That truism, sadly, is playing out in living color.

smrstrauss said...

So, vote against him.

So, call your senators and congressmen and ask them to impeach Obama. (They will laugh at you, but it is your right.)

There is no PROOF that he forged anything, and the numerous SS numbers is because millions of people have numerous SS numbers due to millions of errors by the Social Security administration.

Gary R. Welsh said...

So the official Obama line on the social security number problem has changed, strauss? Earlier, Bill O'Reilly told his listeners the reason he was given for the Connecticut number was that Obama's father applied for it when he was a student at Harvard. They forgot that it was Yale that is located in Connecticut. Harvard is located in Massachusetts. Like anyone would actually believe his reputed father ever did anything for a son he met perhaps once by happenstance his entire life.

smrstrauss said...

There is no official explanation for the social security number. Bill O'Reilly is of course crazy.

The following is the LIKELY explanation:

The Connecticut SS number was caused by a data entry error. SS numbers were generated by the zip code of the applicant’s address. Obama’s address in Hawaii was in zip code 96814, and the zip code for Danbury, CT. is 06814.

Millions of people have multiple social security numbers caused mainly by data entry errors:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38678753/How_Many_Social_Security_Numbers_Do_You_Have

http://www.securityworldnews.com/2010/08/12/20-million-americans-have-multiple-social-security-numbers-associated-with-their-name/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20013733-501465.html


You might well ask why, if there is evidence that Obama has multiple SS numbers and that one of them came from Connecticut that NO committee in Congress wants to investigate? Why not?

Because it is not illegal to have mistakes in your SS files, and lots of people do. And there is no evidence that this is other than a mistake, or a lot of mistakes. Republicans would be GLAD to hold a hearing to show that there was a crime involved with Obama's SS number. But they KNOW that there is no evidence, and if they looked into their own files (I did to mine), they are likely to find multiple numbers in them.