Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
how so? what is the exact significance, in your opinion, of the report being released now as opposed as a week/month/year ago ( or a week/month/year from now )? also keep in mind that this is the second report the CRS has released on the subject.
Actually... it's the third. But let's not quibble.
As to the timing, the CRS does not pick when to research what. They respond to requests from Congress. This report was written because somebody in Congress asked them to write it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wrecking ball
for anyone interested the report directly addresses and shoots down all the birther legal arguments on eligibility ( vattel, "subject to jurisdiction", dual-citizenship, etc ).
i doubt that it will stop the birther madness but if there is anyone that truly has any questions about the topic i recommend reading the report.
It really is an excellent piece of scholarship in which Maskell not only did the heavy lifting of deep legal and historical research but he also proves to have worked hard to actually understand the Birther claims. Often in a work of this sort, the position being analyzed is not taken seriously so the author gets subtle bits wrong. Maskell did not fall into that trap.
Any hope Birthers ever had of getting favorable Congressional action on their theories died with this white paper. And since only Congress has the Constitutional power to remove a sitting President, Birthism itself is now officially dead.
Oh, and PS: This paper gives the green light to Rubio and Jindahl too.
we still are waiting on the results from arpaio's cold case posse ( early january? ), fall-out over the NH ballot commission hearing*, orly's unorthodox hawaiian appeal, more attempts to remove obama's name from state ballots..... there is plenty of comedy gold still to come.
* in a bizarre footnote NH state rep harry accornero has apologized to the NH speaker of the house...... but not the people he insulted.
"Speaking on Monday, Accornero — who later added that he will not resign and may run again in 2012 — said he has apologized to House Speaker Bill O’Brien about the Nov. 18 incident that followed a hearing of the Ballot Law Commission and said that, if directed by O’Brien, he also would apologize to the commission whose members Accornero verbally blasted as “traitors.”
"Irey concedes that John Woodman has found some major flaws in his original analysis. Namely, Woodman demonstrated that many of the letters that Irey chose to blow up for comparison are from a vertical section of the document where it appears that the copier or scanner caused a distortion. Irey concedes that Woodman is correct. Irey also said that he has sent an email to Orly Taitz, Jerome Corsi, Doug Vogt, and others advising them of the problems with his analysis and asking them not to use it."
...... and yet orly still includes irey's analysis in her court briefings and corsi/WND has yet to print a correction/retraction concerning the errors.
It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
Natural born = born on the SOIL of your country.
Obama was born in Hawaii, a state in the United States. Your parents mean nothing to US citizenship
This quote from WKA says nothing about US citizenship.
It is simply an observation of the English law as it applied to aliens who by local allegiance, were subjects and as such, their native born children (aka born in the realm) were natural born subjects.
The same rule (meaning native-birth to a subject) made the children of US citizens natural born citizens.
Lord Coke - Calvin's case (THE benchmark case relied on by US Supreme Court Chief Justice Horace Gray in the Wong Kim Ark case)
Quote:
And it is to be observed, that it isnec coelum, nec solum,neither the climate nor the soyl, but ligeantia and obedientiathat make the subject born: for if enemies should come into the realm, and possess a town or fort, and have issue there, that issue is no subject to the King of England, though he be born upon his soyl, and under his meridian, for that he was not born under the ligeance of a subject, nor under the protection of the King.
It can be seen that per English law the subject status of the parents was the paramount quality amongst others, in determining natural born subject status.
Lord Coke - Calvin's case
Quote:
There be regulary (unlesse it be in special cases) three incidents to a subject born.
1. That the parents be under the actual obedience of the king.
2. That the place of his birth be within the king’s dominion.
And 3. the time of his birth is chiefly to be considered;
It's for sure, according to the English law that there are at least TWO qualities that make a "subject born" aka "natural born subject".
Lord Coke - Calvin's case
Quote:
There is found in the law four kinds of ligeances: the first is, ligeantia naturalis, absoluta, pura, et indefinita, and this originally is due by nature and birthright, and is called alta ligeantia and he that oweth this is called subditus natus.
Calvin the Plaintiff naturalized by procreation and birth right,
Ergo: In the case of alien parents, English law required native-born children to be "born under the ligeance of a subject", for that child to be a natural born subject.
The Framers had the important responsibility and imperative to protect the office of POTUS from the least foreign influence, loyalty, allegiance, persuasion, coercion and claim as they could possibly achieve and in so doing, they chose a term best to describe the POTUS eligibility as "natural born Citizen".
It was not an eligibility criteria to US citizenship.
It was the eligibility criteria for a born US citizen to qualify as POTUS, so besides being a native-born US citizen, there was that extra quality of being born to US citizen parents, where the word "natural" was used, and this was the best that could responsibly be done to achieve the imperative, i.e. born in the country to parents who were citizens of that country, i.e. born completely in the allegiance of the US republic without any foreign ties.
What better means to achieve the highest possible allegiance than to require those who would be eligible for POTUS and commander in chief to be native-born US citizen AND natural born to US citizen parents?
This alone should be enough to convince anyone, that the notion that native-birth sufficed to give eligibility for POTUS is absurd to the extreme.
The English term "natural born subject" was merely used to describe a lowly subject to a monarch and qualify the subject for property rights, etc; it was not an eligibility for high office.
Interesting to note, that had the Framers taken guidance from the English law per Lord Cokes' report of Calvin's case, then for a native-born in US to be a natural born citizen, then that child would by necessity have to be "born under the ligeance" of US citizen parents.
It is notable that SCOTUS Chief Justice Horace Gray, in his decision on the Wong Kim Ark case, quoted Horace Binney where Binney said.....
Quote:
The right of citizenship never descends in the legal sense, either by the common law or under the common naturalization acts. It is incident to birth in the country, or it is given personally by statute. The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.
As is easily observed, Binney recognized TWO TYPES of BORN US CITIZENS,
1) "The child of an alien if born in the country"
2)"the natural born child of a citizen"
It is also notable that in Binney's recognition of two types of US born citizens, the word "natural" is tied to PARENTS and not to place.
This is consistent with the English law and furthermore, Chief Justice Gray along with the majority of the Wong Kim Ark court made no objection to Binney's comment, thus the court virtually was of the opinion that there were two types of born US citizens.
The decision of the WKA court reflected this opinion, be affirming Wong to be a "citizen" ONLY and not a "natural born citizen", for Wong was merely "the child of an alien, if born in the country" but not "the natural born child of a citizen", Wong was "not born under the ligeance of a subject".
In the prior SCOTUS case of Minor v Happersett, the court made reference to "common law" which gave the court reason to hold that a natural born citizen was one who was native-born in US to US citizen parents, yet the court introduced doubts that a child native-birth in US sufficed to qualify such a child as a "citizen" (nothing to do with natural born), the court giving merit to those doubts by stating that those doubts had yet to be solved.
In so doing, the SCOTUS virtually held that a native-born child to alien parents, was in fact an alien-born.
(i.e. if such a child was not yet a citizen, then he could only be an alien-born until such time as being ruled a citizen, otherwise he would remain alien-born)
This quote from WKA says nothing about US citizenship.
It is simply an observation of the English law as it applied to aliens who by local allegiance, were subjects and as such, their native born children (aka born in the realm) were natural born subjects.
The same rule (meaning native-birth to a subject) made the children of US citizens natural born citizens.
Lord Coke - Calvin's case (THE benchmark case relied on by US Supreme Court Chief Justice Horace Gray in the Wong Kim Ark case)
It can be seen that per English law the subject status of the parents was the paramount quality amongst others, in determining natural born subject status.
Lord Coke - Calvin's case
It's for sure, according to the English law that there are at least TWO qualities that make a "subject born" aka "natural born subject".
Lord Coke - Calvin's case Ergo: In the case of alien parents, English law required native-born children to be "born under the ligeance of a subject", for that child to be a natural born subject.
The Framers had the important responsibility and imperative to protect the office of POTUS from the least foreign influence, loyalty, allegiance, persuasion, coercion and claim as they could possibly achieve and in so doing, they chose a term best to describe the POTUS eligibility as "natural born Citizen".
It was not an eligibility criteria to US citizenship.
It was the eligibility criteria for a born US citizen to qualify as POTUS, so besides being a native-born US citizen, there was that extra quality of being born to US citizen parents, where the word "natural" was used, and this was the best that could responsibly be done to achieve the imperative, i.e. born in the country to parents who were citizens of that country, i.e. born completely in the allegiance of the US republic without any foreign ties.
What better means to achieve the highest possible allegiance than to require those who would be eligible for POTUS and commander in chief to be native-born US citizen AND natural born to US citizen parents?
This alone should be enough to convince anyone, that the notion that native-birth sufficed to give eligibility for POTUS is absurd to the extreme.
The English term "natural born subject" was merely used to describe a lowly subject to a monarch and qualify the subject for property rights, etc; it was not an eligibility for high office.
Interesting to note, that had the Framers taken guidance from the English law per Lord Cokes' report of Calvin's case, then for a native-born in US to be a natural born citizen, then that child would by necessity have to be "born under the ligeance" of US citizen parents.
It is notable that SCOTUS Chief Justice Horace Gray, in his decision on the Wong Kim Ark case, quoted Horace Binney where Binney said.....
As is easily observed, Binney recognized TWO TYPES of BORN US CITIZENS,
1) "The child of an alien if born in the country"
2)"the natural born child of a citizen"
It is also notable that in Binney's recognition of two types of US born citizens, the word "natural" is tied to PARENTS and not to place.
This is consistent with the English law and furthermore, Chief Justice Gray along with the majority of the Wong Kim Ark court made no objection to Binney's comment, thus the court virtually was of the opinion that there were two types of born US citizens.
The decision of the WKA court reflected this opinion, be affirming Wong to be a "citizen" ONLY and not a "natural born citizen", for Wong was merely "the child of an alien, if born in the country" but not "the natural born child of a citizen", Wong was "not born under the ligeance of a subject".
In the prior SCOTUS case of Minor v Happersett, the court made reference to "common law" which gave the court reason to hold that a natural born citizen was one who was native-born in US to US citizen parents, yet the court introduced doubts that a child native-birth in US sufficed to qualify such a child as a "citizen" (nothing to do with natural born), the court giving merit to those doubts by stating that those doubts had yet to be solved.
In so doing, the SCOTUS virtually held that a native-born child to alien parents, was in fact an alien-born.
(i.e. if such a child was not yet a citizen, then he could only be an alien-born until such time as being ruled a citizen, otherwise he would remain alien-born)
now you'll just need to get past ankeny v daniels:
"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."
This quote from WKA says nothing about US citizenship.
You really are late to the game:
Quote:
It thus clearly appears that, by the law of England for the last three centuries, beginning before the settlement of this country and continuing to the present day, aliens, while residing in the dominions possessed by the Crown of England, were within the allegiance, the obedience, the faith or loyalty, the protection, the power, the jurisdiction of the English Sovereign, and therefore every child born in England of alien parents was a natural-born subject unless the child of an ambassador or other diplomatic agent of a foreign State or of an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
Wong Kim Ark did establish what Natural born citizen means, by explaining how we derived it through English Common Law, something that our four fathers, who many were lawyers, practiced and understood.
Quote:
It is simply an observation of the English law as it applied to aliens who by local allegiance, were subjects and as such, their native born children (aka born in the realm) were natural born subjects.
Apparently you never read the following:
III. The same rule was in force in all the English Colonies upon this continent down to the time of the Declaration of Independence, and in the United States afterwards, and continued to prevail under the Constitution as originally established.
It means that we observed that citizenship, derived from birth on our soil, even those who are aliens to the country.
Quote:
The same rule (meaning native-birth to a subject) made the children of US citizens natural born citizens.
Funny, there is nothing in that passage that mentions birth to subjects or citizens. It mentions children born to aliens (meaning non-citizens, non-subjects) were also natural born subjects.
I don't know what Wong Kim Ark ruling you're reading, but I've copied the relevant passage above. Please point out where it says birth to subjects or citizens are natural born (subjects) citizens.
The rest of your diatribe is unsubstantiated nonsense.
Quote:
In so doing, the SCOTUS virtually held that a native-born child to alien parents, was in fact an alien-born.
No SCOTUS ruling after Wong Kim Ark supports this.
now you'll just need to get past ankeny v daniels:
"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."
The judiciary in the Indiana case, were quite simply in error.
I don't need to get past anything, Indiana State doesn't get to make a binding decision on the definition of Article II "natural born Citizen", nor decide who is eligible for POTUS.
The "guidance" from the Wong Kim Ark case was that Wong was a "citizen of the United States".
The opinion of US Supreme Court in Minor v Happersett case was not changed by the Wong Kim Ark court and certainly can't be changed by any state court.
The judiciary in the Indiana case, were quite simply in error.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
