Posted on 01/26/2011 5:57:29 AM PST by Reaganite Republican
And since this one bit of Birther archaeology seems to have attracted some interest in proving my claim wrong, I think it would be a good idea to refresh everyone as to just what my claim actually was.
The EARLIEST I’ve found that argument showing up at FreeRepublic was in this November 19, 2008 thread. A Leo Donofrio thread, naturally. But that was pretty much just one poster saying that mid-thread, with some follow-up discussion about it. It wasn’t until December that the argument started gaining traction at FR. Here, for instance, is a December 4 thread that helped to spread it. And do you notice who isn’t invoked in the first several pages of that thread? Vattel. Vattel’s name didn’t start making the rounds until later. Again, you’ll notice, by the same poster, who apparently discovered Vattel in the interim days. Only then did the argument start to snowball and pick up adherents.Heck, start with June 2008, and you’ll see that posters were talking Obama’s eligibility for five full months before they started claiming that ‘natural born citizen’ requires two citizen parents. Before they started citing to Vattel. Like curiosity said, only after the election actually took place did that argument take off. And there was no reason NOT to make it, if it was a legitimate and widely accepted position. We've always known Obama's father wasn't a US citizen. And yet it wasn't until after election day that people began widely arguing that that lack of US citizenship was an absolute disqualification.
(And lest the issue be confused, 'natural born citizenship requires two citizen parents' is a different argument than 'natural born citizens cannot be born with dual citizenship.' A child can be either one without necessarily being the other. One concerns the child's citizenship, the other concerns the child's parents' citizenships. And if the matter was as simple and straightforward and obvious as 'he's disqualified because of his father's citizenship', you'd think someone would actually say that in the two years before the election. But they didn't.)...
And hey, if you actually find it being discussed earlier, let me know. Post the links, like I’ve done above. I’ve looked and I can’t find anything, but I won’t ignore links to actual, dated discussions that I’ve missed. It’s not like FR scrubbed all the threads that would contradict me. (Heck, I'd be interested in isolated instances that *didn't* lead to discussions like you say, and were just ignored or dismissed as wrong by other posters.)
So two things:
First, like I said above, I'm talking about one particular discrete eligibility argument. Not that Obama is ineligible because he was born outside the US. Not that he's ineligible because his mother was too young. Not that he's ineligible because he was adopted. Not that he's ineligible because he was born with dual citizenship. No, I'm talking about the assertion that the President must have two citizen parents.
Second, as I make clear in the final paragraph above, what I'm really talking about is discussions of this argument. Everyone seems interested in looking for random, isolated posts, and that's great and I'm interested in seeing any hits. Heck, it's possible that a prior mention could have been what inspired Leo Donofrio. He didn't cite any historical or legal authority for the claim in his pleadings, after all, and like I mentioned in a previous post, Berg borrowed most of his material from things he read online.
The web, and even FreeRepublic, is a large sprawling place, and I'm not adamantly concluding that no single person EVER posited this argument before November 2008. (I mean, I could probably find one person who claimed online that Obama was ineligible because he's black, or because he's an alien reptoid. Lone individuals can have wrong ideas that don't take off.)
I'm claiming that if it was made, that it wasn't taken seriously even by the birther community. It was ignored as wrongheaded, or actively rebutted as incorrect. No eligibility threads were started where posters agreed that the two-citizen-parent definition was right. Only in November 2008 did people do a 180 and start believing it, repeating it, preaching it, and suddenly claiming that they'd learned from childhood that the President needed two citizen parents.
Oh I get you now! If it didn’t happen on FR like you said it did then it never happened at all!!
Right.
Mkay... Just to tweak your nose, and I know it will, you have no access th freep mail, and I know that I have had many conversations in FRmail on many things that eventually make it to public threads, and many that neve went on the public boards.
You are nothing other than a loon tilting at windmills trying deliberately to make people WRONG. kind of like what happens on the gradeschool playground. You never progressed past 4th grade! Yep now I get you.
What’s your failed point anyway? You aren’t succeeding at doing anything. So what is driving you? The imperative drive to be right? Lol on something you can’t prove? You don’t have unlimited access to FR sonny, so why are you trying?
Meh, never mind. It’s obvious, you are trolling here to try and raise your credibility at some other site. Maybe du. Maybe firedoglake. Who cares? Only your audience, and we aren’t impressed by them anyway.
Bye LorenC. Don’t forget to pick your snack up out of the snackbox!
Agree.
And WTF is wrong with this website?
Heavy traffic, and heavier tracking. Consider this site a direct pipeline into the goverment's computers and as good a way of calling the White House as ever existed!
Close, but no cigar.
The post in question is dicussing whether he would need both parents to be citizens in order to qualify as a a natural born citizen IF BORN ABROAD.
The argument I am claiming was never made before Nov. 2008 is the argument that Obama isn't eligible even if BORN IN THE USA due to his father's lack of US citizenship.
No. He's saying that the argument didn't take off ANYWHERE until after the election. However, given how fast FR picks up virtually any popular meme within the conservative blogosphere, if you can't find it here, it likely doesn't exist.
Still, I have yet to see any evidence that ANY blogger was making the argument that Obama's is ineligible, even if born in the USA, because his father wasn't a US citizen.
Sorry this reply to your request has been so long in coming. I spent yesterday afternoon digging through piles of articles for a link, went to post it and our internet connection was down. Very frustrating. Mediacom sucks.
The link is : http://htmlimg3.scribdasseta.com/6s9m08i522igghs/images/1-3eb25e724b/00...
It’s a page from one batch of FOIA documents recently released. Specifically, it’s a page from the Hawaiian divorce of Stanley Ann/Lolo Soetoro. It was filed August 20, 1980, so Maya had just turned 10 and Barry had just turned 19.
From “Complaint For Divorce”:
2. The parties are lawfully married to each other.
3. The parties have 1 child[ren] below the age of 18 and 1 child[ren] above 18 but still dependent on the parties for education.
If Barry had not been adopted by Lolo Soetoro, he would not be considered by the court to be his child, nor would Lolo be included in being responsible for his education. Unless the biological [named on birth certificate] father has legally signed away his rights as parent, HE remains the father, legally - even though he may have been/be a totally absent parent.
This divorce document giving parent-designation to Lolo gives that much more weight and credibility to the Indonesian school record book stating that Barry was Barry Soetoro, and an Indonesian citizen.
I’m not a lawyer, so all should understand that my piecing together of puzzle parts is based on what seems to me to be logic, and on what is generally understood to be legal/not legal - either by personal experience or by research. I don’t live in Hawaii, so my knowledge of Hawaiian law and how it may change or evolve to suit Barry is just as limited as the next person who comments. I see our purpose to be working together in presenting information and ideas, with the goal being to find the truth regarding Barack Obama.
It’s a difficult task because, as I mentioned elsewhere, one question answered inevitibly unearths more questions.
If the link doesn’t work, just typing “Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro Lolo Soetoro divorce papers” [include the “” marks] will provide a list of sources. That’s how I found it, last year [before the FOIA release].
A tidbit - purely hearsay, though with realistic heft, considering the attribution: During the ‘08 campaign, Michelle Obama was, it is said, overheard blurting out: “I’ll be damned if an adoption is going to prevent my husband from being president!” Falls into the ‘take it or leave it’ category, but sure fits topic/personality.
Posted on Monday, November 17, 2008 10:23:32 AM by Amityschild
Don’t be distracted by the birth certificate and Indonesia issues. They are irrelevant to Senator Obama’s ineligibility to be President. Since Barack Obama’s father was a Citizen of Kenya and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of Senator Obama’s birth, then Senator Obama was a British Citizen “at birth”, just like the Framers of the Constitution, and therefore, even if he were to produce an original birth certificate proving he were born on US soil, he still wouldn’t be eligible to be President.
I haven't been out of the country or my computer shut down, however, this the first time I've read this!!!
Have I missed something. - Who, where, when did this take place, source???
What difference does it make when the argument regarding natural born citizen got legs? It doesn’t! The facts speak for themselves:
1. Obama has indicated himself who his parents are. His father was born in Kenya and was a British subject. His mother was an 18 year old who appears to have been too young to confer U.S. Citizenship on her son under the laws at the time of his birth. Obama has admitted that he had Kenyan and British citizenship, and if he was legally adopted he may have also had Indonesian citizenship. It is a fact that Obama at birth had at the very least divided loyalties based on his citizenship if his parents really are who he has told us they are, and if he was not born in the U.S. he may not have had any U.S. Citizenship at birth.
2. There are many questions surrounding his original long form birth certificate and his COLB, his certification as a Democratic candidate, his adoption records, his school records, his mothers marriage and divorce records, passport records for his mother and himself, his Selective Service registration, his social security records, his immigration record, etc. These questions can only be answered through the release of the records. Obama has refused to release any of these records to the public. Even the COLB was shown to a select group of people.
3. All these issues were raised prior to his election via the electoral college, and his swearing in as president.
4. The term “natural born citizen” as used in the constitution with regard to the qualifications for president has never been more clearly defined. There are at least 4 court cases that may have set some precedent because they have addressed specific cases of citizenship, however, none of these cases specifically address the term “natural born citizen” as it applies to the the eligibility for the office of the president.
5. It doesn’t matter if previous presidents or vice presidents or presidential and vice presidential candidates had issues with regard to the “natural born citizen” clause because the argument has never been settled.
6. The issue that needs to be addressed is whether or not Obama ever was and is now elibible to serve as president of the U.S. That issue is still up for debate as proven by the very fact that it is still being discussed today.
Gee, and when was the election? Oh wait, it was Nov 4, 2008. So the post you cited above was composed AFTER the election.
Or are you too dumb to know that Nov 17 comes after Nov 4?
It’s when the Electors vote that counts.
Which takes us right back to my point that there is no U.S. law addressing or even defining what constitutes dual citizenship. Even the state department only says that you're a dual citizen if another country claims you as a citizen. But there is no test, under American law, for when a U.S. citizen can be considered a citizen of another country. Or rather, there is nothing in U.S. law that would invalidate a claim of citizenship from another country over a U.S. citizen.
Until we define that, a law that disqualifies a candidate because of "dual-citizenship" is completely open to gaming by the other nations. Cripe, use your head here. I'm not disagreeing with the concept of what you want to do. I'm trying to tell you what must be done to effectuate it.
Personally, as a starting point, I think it should be a violation of U.S. law for someone to hold a U.S. passport while also having the passport of another country.
I am sorry, but you BOTH are making an assumption. That is, if it didn’t happen on the Internet, then it didn’t happen.
Well all you can prove is from what you can see on the net today, and thats problematic given the fact that HUGE volumes of information have been scrubbed from the net. We run into that all the time.
That’s a big problem, right there.
Second problem is that you do not have access to private conversations. I know for dead certain I was talking to my mother in law about it all in the summer of 08 because we got into quite a rif over it, and part of my argument was that we didn’t know who this guy was, and whats a man with a Kenyan father doing running for POTUS. Can I prove that, no. Can you DISprove that, no.
Even in that discussion, I didn’t put that much weight on that, because I had not done enough research on it at that point.
Now... What the HELL is the point of nitpicking this? It brings me to my third point. No matter what anyone said in the summer and fall of 08, NOTHING was stopping the Obama campaign, not even an ASTOUNDING move by the press to NOT report on the Rev. Wright scandal. A man sits in a pew listening to the guy who married him to his wife... for 20 years, spewing anti-American hate, death to America, reparation for slaves and all sorts of other simply racist ideological rants, and the press gave Obama a pass on it! It should have DESTROYED OholyO’s campaign! It should have destroyed ANY campaign! And rightly so!
No, if that didn’t stop Obama nothing would.
Be that as it may, fourth point, Obama did his best to OBFUSCATE the issue until it was far past too late. They posted his documented birth “was governed by the BRITISH Nationality Act of 1948” in order to make it appear that this was OK. After all, they published it willingly before anyone could ask about it. They knew that most people are sheep, and if someone publishes a fact like that, then it must be irrelevant, or OK, or something to that effect. Otherwise they would have hidden it. It’s called reverse psychology, or hiding the truth in the open. And it worked brilliantly. No where near enough people caught onto the fact that no, its NOT OK, or legal! that fact makes Obama ineligible for POTUS. He isn’t a Natural Born Citizen. he got away with it, and got elected anyway, with the truth out in the open. Disguised as “OK” the public sucked it up under the mistaken belief that it would not have been published if it wasn’t OK!
All he needed to do was to defer the question long enough to get elected, and the electoral college vote certified. After that, it would be impossible to stop, and he was right.
So what is your point here? Are you trying to illustrate how this act fooled so many people, by hiding the truth right out in the open?
There wasn’t enough time to make it a BIG enough issue to cause any hampering of the massive momentum propelling him into the Oval Office. Not even close. ONLY if the press had picked it up and broadcast it 24/7 would have made a difference, and they STILL had the race card to fall back on if that failed. They didn’t pick up Rev. Wright, they would not pick up on this either.
Beyond that, Obama had a lot of others also working to make sure that the eligibility issue didn’t bar him from POTUS. the biggest of which was Nancy Pelosi, who took care of the loose ends when Hawaii refused to certify him. Obama himself did everything he could to make certain that Hawaii didn’t let the cat out of the bag, including last minute trips to Hawaii - supposedly to see toots as she lay dying... I mean damn, who is gonna question that right?
Now WHAT IS YOUR POINT?
Nothing that was done, said discovered in the entire 2 year long campaign did a damn thing to stop Obama, Obviously. It’s water under the bridge at this point.
The question you and LorenC SHOULD be asking, is this: Now we know for CERTAIN he is not a Natural Born Citizen, he is Ineligible for the office he has usurped. Are we just gonna lie down and let that go on? We KNOW a crime is being committed at the highest level. Are we going to let it just go on? NO!
Thats the crux of the issue. We know he is ineligible. We MUST do what we can to push this issue to the forefront of American conscious and the media. The barrier now comes from those who think it is too big a massive headache to declare him officially an Usurper and remove him, and redo all the liberal crap that has been foisted on us during that illegal government, or do we take on that massive dirty job?
The RIGHT thing to do is to take on that massive dirty job and just GET IT DONE, because otherwise it will only happen again, and those in the circle of power will KNOW for certain that the constitution is broken and that the American People will NOT fight to defend it and keep it whole.
Now, which side of the damn fence are you on?
From what I can tell, you are with those who think we should just leave Obama alone to finish out his illegal Presidency. Because all you are doing is literally picking a nits - from the past! To NO POINT WHATSOEVER. The make wrong game is for children. This is no kiddie game, this is a massive issue, and it is happening right NOW, and you and lorenc are picking apart events from two years ago you cannot prove or disprove??? WTF?
As far as I am concerned, if THIS is what you and LorenC are all about, the make wrong game, then you are a part of the problem and no where near the solution. This might even make you an enemy of the constitution and an enemy of the state.
Now again, WHAT IS YOUR POINT? Why are you living in the past when our present contains the largest threat to the United States of America since the Civil War?
Ping to post.
It’s time to call curiosity and LorenC onto the carpet.
Okay, how's this: no one was making the two-citizen-parent argument until after the PUBLIC voted. Happy?
FYI, the electoral college vote is nothing more than a formality. Everyone knows how the electors are going to vote because they are selected by whichever candidate happens to win a given state. Most of them are even required by state law to vote the way they pedge they are going to vote.
Way past time! Will read above.
Okay, so all we can say is that it wasn't happening within the public domain. Our basic point still stands.
If it really were a common opinion that a person born in the USA needed two citizen parents to be considered natural born, lots of pundits would have been making that argument in public before the election.
But they weren't. That's a pretty good indication that someone just decided to make it once it became clear that the born-in-Kenya story wasn't gaining any traction.
Well all you can prove is from what you can see on the net today, and thats problematic given the fact that HUGE volumes of information have been scrubbed from the net.
First of all, FreeRepublic hasn't been scrubbed, and every birther argument that gains any traction at all on the blogosphere gets posted here within minutes. So if it wasn't posted here, it's pretty darned unlikely it was anywhwere in the public domain.
Plus, if you suspect it was posted somewhere else and then scrubbed, that's what a wayback machine is for.
I know for dead certain I was talking to my mother in law about it all in the summer of 08 because we got into quite a rif over it, and part of my argument was that we didn’t know who this guy was, and whats a man with a Kenyan father doing running for POTUS.
So why weren't you making the argument in public? Why weren't you on the birther threads pointing out that it didn't matter where he was born? It's pretty hard to believe that you would be getting into passionate arguments in private about it but for some reason not making the same argument here.
What the HELL is the point of nitpicking this?
The point is that we have a legal system based on precedent. If you want to interpret the Constitution a certain way, you need to show that intepretation has some history, that you didn't make it up out of whole cloth.
The fact that NO ONE in public was interpreting "natural born citizen" to absolutely require both birth in the USA AND citizen parents before Nov. 2008 suggets it is a false interpretation that was made up by someone around that time.
It matters because we have a legal system based on precedent. If you want to interpret a phrase of the constitution, say "natural born citizen," a certain way, at a minimum you have to show that your interpretation isn't new, that it is consistent with how it has been interpreted historically.
The fact that NO ONE before Nov. 2008 was interpreting "natural born citizen" to absolutely require that both parents be citizens if the child is born in the USA pretty much proves that interpretation was made up in Nov. 2008, and hence cannot be valid.
Sorry to be so delayed in answering your question - our internet service [Mediacom] was out of commission for about 12 straight hours yesterday/last night.
As far as Honolulu not being on the birth certificate as birthplace, it really wouldn’t make much difference overall because it would merely confirm his liar status on yet another topic.
Sorry to hear of internet problems.
I want his liar status confirmed on as many topics as possible. One thing, although I am convinced from reading the deep and extensive research posted on FR about the Founders’ intent and meaning of Natural Born Citizen, and therefore having a Kenyan father eliminates him right then and there, IMO many of the public and the spineless gutless capons in DC will need evidence of actual foreign birth before they take any action.
Quite a few years ago I served on a Grand Jury once a week for about 3 months. It was very educational. One of the many things I learned was that cops and DAs throw as many (probably getting the wrong word) charges against a perp as possible; knowing some might not stick - usually for technical reasons.
So I want as many crimes, offenses and lies made public on this perp. The whole book.
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