Arizona gives 'birthers' a dim flicker of hope
How 'bout that Arizona legislature? Demonstrating that the best political myths have half lives that rival some radioactive isotopes, the state House of Representatives advanced legislation that would require future presidential candidates -- say, Barack Obama in 2012 -- to prove that they are citizens before their names can appear on the state's ballot. The proposal, which must still be considered by the state Senate, would require national political parties to submit "documents that prove that the candidate is a natural-born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for president of the United States as prescribed in Article II, Section 1, Constitution of the United States." It goes on to give the Arizona secretary of state the discretion to keep a candidate's name off the ballot if he or she has "reasonable cause" to believe the candidate doesn't meet those requirements.
Open season, "birthers"! The proposal -- which was an amendment to a bill modifying how candidates' names appear on Arizona's ballot -- came from state Rep. Judy Burges of Skull Valley, a sparsely populated ranching community in the central part of the state. Evidently Burges missed the memo from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in January that characterized the citizenship issue as a loser for GOP candidates. Meanwhile, mainstream Republicans in California seem to be distancing themselves from birthers -- witness how organizers at a huge "tea party" rally in Pleasanton on April 15 rescinded their invitation to birther litigant Orly Taitz after complaints from the GOP candidates who were scheduled to share the stage with her.
I hope Arizona enacts Burges' proposal, just so birthers could sue the secretary of state in 2012 for refusing to disqualify Obama. (I'm assuming that Arizona's secretary of state at the time will be rational; the current one certainly seems to be, but his term ends this year.) They'll no doubt argue that the certificate of live birth Obama has already made public isn't sufficient proof (or is fictitious), or that a "natural-born citizen" cannot have a Kenyan citizen for a father. See Philip Berg's futile challenge to Obama's election for more potential birther arguments.
Chances are the federal courts would toss out the law for being an unconstitutional imposition of state eligibility requirements on federal candidates. But if they didn't, we might actually get a federal judge to say in more convincing fashion what Snopes.com laid out clearly a year and a half ago. Not that birthers would give up, mind you. Anybody who can read the 14th Amendment and argue that someone born in the United States to a U.S. citizen isn't a citizen just won't take "no" for an answer.
-- Jon Healey
Has ANYONE seen his birth certificate? Crickets chirping.
Has ANYONE seen his education grades? Crickets chirping.
Posted by: smokehouse | April 20, 2010 at 08:43 AM
Author's legal analysis ("Chances are the federal courts would toss out the law for being an unconstitutional imposition of state eligibility requirements on federal candidates.") is trivially absurd. The law would not add a state eligibility requirement, but simply enforce compliance with existing federal eligibility requirements that are explicitly stated in the Constitution.
Posted by: Ezekiel | April 20, 2010 at 08:54 AM
Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in the state of Hawaii. That was the week the Berlin Wall went up.
Coincidence? I wonder.
This evil, subversive plot has been in the making for damned near forty-eight years! By all evidence, since the moment of Obama’s birth! Here is a question that all good and decent Americans should demand an immediate answer to: Was the newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser, in on the scheme when they printed little Barack’s bogus birth announcement on August 9, 1961? Just where the hell does that paper lean editorially? To the hard Left, I strongly suspect. Wouldn’t that just figure!
The NAACP, in coercion with the American Communist Party, Democracy NOW and Ed Asner, concocted this evil plot deep in the basement of Norm Chomskey’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the midst of a week-long peyote mushroom binge. The elevation of this dangerous and subversive man to the highest office in this grand and glorious land of ours is only the first step in their dastardly plan. Their next objective will be to force our daughters – our little personifications of patriotism and purity – to court and co-mingle with NEGROES.
Before very long our children – your children – will be physically forced to memorize whole chapters of James Baldwin’s “Native Son” and “The Autobiography Of Malcolm X”. Trust me, it’s only a matter of time.
They must be stopped. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the country that we all hold so dear to our freedom-loving hearts. America is falling; victimized by forces who would put a foreign-born A-Rab in the seat that was once held by the sainted Ronald Reagan – RONALD REAGAN, I TELL YOU!
My friends, now is not the time for the faint-of-heart. It a time for boldness and stoutness of mind and spirit. Only our collective intestinal fortitude will defeat the Liberal cabal – those nattering nabobs of negativism – who would burn our beloved country down. The time has come to give America back to the real Americans. My fellow citizens, you ignore me at your own peril….
And one more thing we must never ever forget: Barack and Michelle Obama named their two daughters, “Sasha” and “Malia”. What’s that all about?
Of course, what you just read is meant as satire. Only a complete and utter fool could possibly take any of it seriously. The really disturbing thing, however, is the fact that there are millions of people out there who would read those last eight paragraphs and wouldn’t even come close to getting the joke. While there is plenty of satirical gold to be siphoned from the bottomless mine that these lunatics have provided us with, they have created a dangerous atmosphere that is enabling the nuttiest angels of the American nature. That is something that would do us all well to think about.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Posted by: Tom Degan | April 20, 2010 at 09:02 AM
@Ezekiel -- Forgive me for being terse. I thought the link to the AZ secretary of state's remarks would suffice. But here's a longer explanation.
The 12th Amendment and federal law lay out how disputes over a presidential candidate's qualifications are to be resolved, to wit, by Congress when electoral votes are tallied. See Robinson v Sec'y of State Debra Bowen, et al. (http://lat.ms/bQOhmE), which dealt with a challenge to John McCain's eligibility for the presidency. States have no authority on this issue. Zero. Nada. None.
Burges' proposal would give a single Arizona politician -- the secretary of state -- the power to decide whether a candidate had provided adequate proof of his or her eligibility. Imagine what would happen if the secretary of state shared commenter Smokehouse's views about the adequacy of Obama's official certificate of live birth. ("Has ANYONE seen his birth certificate?") IMHO, that amounts to adding a state eligibility requirement, one that would vary according to whoever was secretary of state at the time of the election. Again, state officials simply do not have the power to make that call.
Posted by: Jon Healey | April 20, 2010 at 10:07 AM
Mr. Degan, you are threading in dangerous ground, just rememeber when The Onion published a satire of Harry Potter being a plot from lefty satanist bent in corrupting young christian americans...there was a good number of right wing Christians who actually believed the satire to be truth and factual...you sir are inciting riots and carnage
Posted by: Jcuenca | April 20, 2010 at 12:01 PM
Birther movement started by, who? Hillary Clinton camp during Dem election. Facts. Provide the bc Obama, and while your at it let's see your medical records and school records? What are you hiding? What we know, you're an affirmative action baby.
Posted by: jefcostello | April 20, 2010 at 12:37 PM
Funny, California has 1 person setting pollution standards for cars for the whole country.
Posted by: Ex-la | April 20, 2010 at 01:22 PM
Anybody who can read the 14th Amendment and argue that someone born in the United States to a U.S. citizen isn't a citizen just won't take "no" for an answer.
----------
Actually, that's not what it says. Being born here is not enough.
You have to be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof". So, someone who is
say a child of a diplomat, with the child being granted diplomatic immunity at
birth, would not be a citizen (as an example.)
The supreme court has not ruled on the status of children of illegal aliens.
It did rule that children of people who are here LEGALLY are indeed citizens.
So, those people who fly here on a legal visa to give birth, do, for now, endow
those children with citizenship.
Since illegal aliens have not properly submitted themselves to the jurisdiction,
given that they did not follow our laws with regards to entry into the US, it
can reasonably be argued that those children may not be citizens.
The intent on the 14th amendment was to protect the newly freed slaves and
their descendants. It is likely that a change needs to be implemented to
preserve the value of the US citizenship and not allow it to be passed around
like party favors by whoever is currently trying to bolster their power base.
To wit, a child is a citizen if born to a citizen or born to someone who is
currently in the process of becoming a citizen while being legally here.
I guess that may require DNA tests if there citizen in question is a father since
the mother is not in doubt.
I mean, what other countries grant citizenship simply by being born there?
Posted by: Richard | April 20, 2010 at 01:25 PM
Why doesn't he release all of these records? What is he hiding? A "natural-born citizen" when the Constitution was ratified meant that both parents have to be citizens; BHO's dear dad was a British Subject. Dearest mom was only 18 and had to be at the age of at least five-year period after age 14 to bestow citizenship upon her child...she was not in compliance as she did turn 19 until after the baby's birth. She arrived in Hawaii to give birth and then went back to school in Washington State within a month of the blessed event. Grandma Obama stated he was "birthed" in Mombasa at the Regional Hosp...who is lying? The 14th Amendment is of no help to this situation; I checked. Equal Protection and Due Process is what that guaranteed---to indigenous Americans and slaves. Ewwww---what if we birthers are right?
Posted by: Concerned | April 20, 2010 at 01:40 PM
@Richard -- Please reread what you quoted. I wrote, "Anybody who can read the 14th Amendment and argue that someone born in the United States *to a U.S. citizen*...." The highlighted clause specifically addresses the "subject to the jurisdiction of" issue.
Posted by: Jon Healey | April 20, 2010 at 01:48 PM
"Has ANYONE seen his birth certificate? Crickets chirping."
Hey, idiot, there's a link to it right in the story. God, you conspiracy nuts are just astoundingly stupid.
Posted by: JamesP | April 20, 2010 at 01:56 PM
The truth always comes out. It is just a matter of time. We know less about this president than any other in our history. His first act in office was to seal his birth certificate, passport records, school records and his law records. So far, he has spent 2 MILLION dollars to seal a $10 birth certificate. Some folks say he is being picked on because he's black. Hmm, oh really? No other president has sealed their entire life records. It is alleged a wealthy arab paid tuition at Harvard and was responsible for getting him accepted. Add in the people he associates with that are criminals and socialist/communists, and you can see where Americans are very concerned. The truth will set you free.
Posted by: Stephen | April 20, 2010 at 02:09 PM
@Ex-la -- Uhh, no, you're way off the mark. California's emissions standards were mandated by the state legislature (AB 1493 in 2002), not some bureaucrat. And they've became the basis for tailpipe standards nationwide because of a deal President Obama struck last year with the major automakers, who didn't want to have to comply with a patchwork of state rules.
Posted by: Jon Healey | April 20, 2010 at 02:11 PM
@Stephen - In the interest of setting you free, I refer you to these sites -- http://factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
-- for some truth.
The executive order you're referring to has nothing to do with Obama's personal records, just the paperwork generated by a president during his or her time in office. It revoked an order that President George W. Bush signed a few months after the World Trade Center attacks that increased the powers of former presidents and vice presidents to keep their records secret long after they left office. Again, you should actually read the two orders in question -- Obama's is here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/obama/presidential.html and Bush's is here: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo/eo-13233.htm -- to enjoy the full feeling of liberation.
Posted by: Jon Healey | April 20, 2010 at 02:27 PM
Lt. Col. Lakin is a surgeon and a highly decorated, 18 year military veteran who questions Obama's Presidential eligibility and, therefore, the lawfulness of his orders. LTC Lakin has refused to report for deployment to Afghanistan. He is putting his honorable, 18 year military career on the line for his principles. His defense through the Supreme Court will be expensive.
58% of Americans want to see Obama's birth certificate. I don't often donate to causes but I am one of those 58% and I just donated $5 to LTC Lakin's defense fund. If all 58% did the same, it would a.) easily cover Lakin's defense fund and, b.) send a powerful message to Washington! Put that idea on Facebook and all the other social networks. Get it on the blogs. Make it happen!
Lt. Col. Lakin’s defense fund can be found at: http://www.safeguardourconstitution.com/
Posted by: prsmith | April 20, 2010 at 02:47 PM
Foolish as this may sound, it's for the best, as doing so can defeat the fringe groups before they get started. As for the current birthers, don't go away mad, just go away!
Posted by: Tim Bowman | April 20, 2010 at 04:00 PM
The delicious irony of all this is that Obama will win the presidential election in 2012 and will carry Arizona.
Posted by: DB | April 20, 2010 at 05:52 PM
Where do these guys get the money to keep going? http://hubpages.com/_pepperdine/hub/Are-We-Under-Attack
Posted by: The Dix View | April 20, 2010 at 07:57 PM
This "birther" stuff wipes out any hope that John McCain could be President of the United States. He was born in Panama (you could look it up.)
Posted by: fibber mcgee | April 20, 2010 at 08:04 PM
I mean, what other countries grant citizenship simply by being born there?
Are you being facetious? Most of them do. Certainly my friends who were born in Paris to US citizens resident there at the time had the right to choose French citizenship when they turned eighteen. They chose to remain US citizens, but French citizenship was an option for them.
The US is also one of the few countries that doesn't permit dual citizenship.
Posted by: Fabrisse | April 20, 2010 at 08:14 PM
So does that leave John McCain out? Suspiciously he was born in Panama. I always knew he wasn't a real American.
Posted by: Marge | April 20, 2010 at 08:18 PM
Here are the requirements for a U.S. Passport:
http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/first/first_830.html
*A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar's signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Please note, some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.
Note the registrar's signature is missing. If the actual certificate (as shown in the linked image) were submitted with his U.S. Passport application, Obama would be rejected for a U.S. Passport. If its not enough to obtain a U.S. Passport its not enough to prove he is who he says he is, and not enough to prove he is a natural-born citizen. IMHO.
Posted by: Gary | April 20, 2010 at 08:45 PM
Well, Gary, why don't you just go out and grab Obama's passport, which he probably had decades before Sister Sarah Palin even heard of one.
Posted by: Grabit | April 20, 2010 at 09:01 PM
How do you know it's a myth? No one has been permitted to see the original birth certificate, only electronic copies of it, other than someone who worked for the hospital and said she'd seen it. Hearsay, in other words. I saw a UFO - can you write a story about that? Is saying I saw it the same as having evidence? Even if I swear up and down and say so in court? Where is the evidence? What is the big problem with the evidence that no one can produce it? Was the birth certificate filled out by the attending physician, or mailed up to a year later by his father, as Hawaiian law permits? Or does your paper just say, "Well, we know because somebody said so and we're going to take her word for it?" I voted for Obama, was one of the first to donate to him the night he entered the race, heard him speak, supported him on health care and jobs bank reform and gays and whatever. That doesn't impose any obligation on me to take anyone's word for evidence of his birthplace. I believe he was born in Hawaii. I believe he's a real American. But you and Hawaii and me and the rest of the world cannot prove it by saying "We said so."
Biy, if I was the doctor at Obama's birth, I'd be yelling it from the rooftops. We don't even know the ophysician's name - so he was born in the hospital, or at home? This is a constituional threshhold one must cross, and it has not yet been crossed. The media's deference to the President on this is cowardly at best.
Posted by: Joe Shea | April 20, 2010 at 09:03 PM
Joe, three comments, respectfully, since you voted for Obama:
1. Why should Obama lower himself to a bunch of kooks?
2. Try getting your original birth certificate. You won't.
3. The attending physician at Obama's birth is probably long-dead.
Posted by: Grabit | April 20, 2010 at 09:12 PM
The right wing/conservatives prove they only believe in democracy when they win the election.
Posted by: hf2hvit | April 20, 2010 at 09:56 PM
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr was a Kenyan-born subject of the British crown with no allegiance to the United States. Therefore his son is by definition not a “natural born” citizen of the US. He does not meet the Constitutional qualification for the office of Presidency. His place of birth and his current citizenship are irrelevant to the question; his presidency is illegitimate.
Posted by: Diogenes | April 20, 2010 at 09:56 PM
smokehouse: The crickets you hear chirping are coming from inside your empty skull.
Tom Degan: You are such an insane gibberish spewing joke, I feel no need to respond to you at all. Your own foaming at the mouth speaks for itself.
jefcostello: I barely understand your semi-literate ramblings. Take and English Comp. course before attempting public discourse again.
Richard: See above, but substitute "reading comprehension" for English Comp.
Stephen: Any evidence to back any of your claims? Sounds like gibberish you or the guy on the talk radio show you listen to made up.
prsmith: Great. Why don't you and colonel nutjob start your own mercenary corporation like Blackwater, since you don't want to be part of America anymore.
joeshea: If everyone who wanted to was allowed to see the 'non-copied, non-electronic' version of Obamas proof of live birth (which for you birther dopes is WHAT HAWAII CALLS A BIRTH CERTIFICATE) it would have to be on tour of every museum in America for the next twenty years. Brilliant argument there, Kripke.
Posted by: az66 | April 20, 2010 at 10:03 PM
[...] The delicious irony of all this is that Obama will win the presidential election in 2012 and will carry Arizona. [....] Posted by: DB
Posted by DB... hmmm, I didn't know that Doctor Bizzaro does business as DB as well -
Posted by: misanthropicus | April 20, 2010 at 10:29 PM
"a dim flicker of hope" ... for WHAT?
Posted by: nacinla | April 20, 2010 at 10:35 PM
[...] This "birther" stuff wipes out any hope that John McCain could be President of the United States. [...] Posted by: fibber mcgee
Fibber, you mental giant - you sure know how to press conservatives and republicans in the folds of despondency!
Lord! and how these guys feverishly pray and fight to have McCain in a second presidential run!
Man, you sure can decipher minds and situations -
Now what they gonna do, those bitter white guys, whith McCain's candidature ruined by Orly Taiz?
Terrible, terrible situation - and I simply can't see how 70 seats in Congress gained by Reps this November can alleviate the blow done to the GOP by Orly, Farrah & Cie -
Thanks Fibber - you are really somethin' -
| April 20, 2010 at 08:04 PM
Posted by: misanthropicus | April 20, 2010 at 10:36 PM
Grabit, but not that fast -
[...] 2. Try getting your original birth certificate. You won't. [...]
Yes, you will - it's yours - the authorities have it in custody only -
And you are a liar -
[...] 3. The attending physician at Obama's birth is probably long-dead. -...]
So what? On any BC, the name of the hospital and of the attending phisicial is clearly spelled out -
Where are these entries on the paper parlayed by Daily Kos and Fact Check?
Grabit = sorry loser -
Posted by: misanthropicus | April 20, 2010 at 10:41 PM
I truly love to see how far off the deep end these neocons have fallen.
It brings me much joy and laughter.
Posted by: Dirk | April 21, 2010 at 12:00 AM
The author's assertion that this bill is somehow out of order and violates Federal Law is wrong and ironic.
For someone choosing to opine on a specific subject with such vehemence and self-assuredness, the writer is strangely unaware that each Secretary of State is responsible for certifying the ballot eligibility of the Presidential candidates and then attempts to deride this as somehow unfair. I think the expression is "weak sauce".
This also shows a startling lack of knowledge of the critical lawsuit in the obama eligibility irregularities, Keyes, that speaks directly to the issue of requiring faithful execution of the duty to vet the eligibility of candidates. The criteria are contained in the Constitution, as repeated in the AZ law. The CA Secretary accepted an affidavit, a letter asserting compliance, without requiring any actual documents. That seem professional to you? Candidates, but not citizens, appear to have standing to sue, hence added importance.
This type of law forestalls the argument currently being used by obama that the CA Secretary of State is not required to carry out the duties of her office. Now that is silly.
The measure is necessary to preclude such political tampering in ballot eligibility decisions. CA could benefit from such a measure that requires affirmatively that the CA Secretary of State must confirm that the candidates for President comply with the requirements of the Federal Constitution. To argue that this is silly, is just silly.
And, what is it about "birther" haters that gets them so confused between "citizen" and "natural born citizen"? You don't suppose that they put those extra words in the Constitution just 'cause? I doubt they had something against C-Section babies... or were they looking ahead to test-tube lab babies?
You'll need to dig a lot deeper and get the details correct to really be
THE BEST IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA OPINION JOURNALISM. Would you like to really learn or is dismissive ignorance sufficient?
As for me, I want to know that there is SOME recourse against officials who could corrupt the electoral process by either accepting unqualified candidates or rejecting qualified candidates. There must be some mechanism of legal recourse to election fraud. Please seriously consider what I just said; read this paragraph again.
I hope Keyes wins and the Courts rule that the Secretary of State has the obligation to faithfully uphold the law, and in the demonstrated failure to do so, the Courts can enforce compliance. Voting Rights ARE Civil Rights.
Proper candidate qualification is a cornerstone of free elections. Looked at in this light, obama's unwarranted refusal to produce his long form document is damaging our nation and dividing the people. The President needs to do better.
Posted by: Sashland | April 21, 2010 at 01:08 AM
Has anyone seen Obama's college transcripts? Crickets again
Has anyone seen Obama's college papers? Crickets again
Has anyone seen Obama's passport he used for '81 Pakistan trip?
Has anyone seen Obama's financial aid info? More crickets
Has anyone ever even heard of a past girlfriend? Nope
Has anyone ever seen his Ill. senate schedules or logs? Nope
Has anyone seen his record of baptism or parent's marriage certificate? Nope
Where is this man's paper trail? We know nothing about him and it has basically been proven that Ayers wrote at least one of his books for him. Wake Up people.
Posted by: Jimmysimpson | April 21, 2010 at 01:20 AM
http://sites.google.com/site/obamabirth/Home/obama-short-form-birth-certificate
There you go.
Posted by: Marty McDonald | April 21, 2010 at 04:38 AM
Ignorance is bliss. Yep, an article like this brings out all of the crazies and conspiracy theorists. It is nonsense like this that degrades a persons respect for their elected officials. It also adds credence to that old saying -- people deserve the Government they elect. The masses of uninformed, gullible, ignorant goofballs keep perpetuating nonsense like this and the slimy politicians play right into this ignorance and get re-elected on bogus issues like the "birthers movement", a candidate is a closet-socialist, or "they are taking our guns away".
Posted by: John Griffith | April 21, 2010 at 04:45 AM
First seven presidents of U.S. were not born in U.S. To educate those who may not know, they were born in British colonies. In the larger political scheme of things the colonies where they were born were no different than British colonies in Africa or Asia.
Posted by: Bob | April 21, 2010 at 05:14 AM
I didn't vote for Obama and I don't like him (didn't vote for McCain and don't like him, either -- I'm an anarchist).
That said, I'd like to know how many people within eyeshot have, in their possession, their *original* birth certificate with their parents' signatures, etc. Because I don't, and my husband doesn't, and we were both born in Pennsylvania. ALL WE HAVE is the kind of birth certificate Obama has produced. This is what the State of Pennsylvania gave both of us when we requested copies of our birth certificates from them; in both our cases, the originals had been lost literally DECADES before. These certificates are *all we needed* to obtain driver's licenses, for me to have my name legally changed, and to do anything else we've needed to do where a birth certificate was required.
If y'all demand that everyone produce a copy of a document that I strongly suspect few people have (I suspect John McCain couldn't have produced this document, either), almost nobody is going to qualify to be on the ballot for President.
Then again, as an anarchist, that makes me chuckle.
Posted by: Nightcrawler | April 21, 2010 at 06:07 AM
Yes "smokehouse" I've seen his birth certificate. So has everyone else. Your inability to accept the fact that he was born in this country suggests severe mental problems on your part.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | April 21, 2010 at 06:24 AM
On behalf of the sane people of the State of Arizona, I apologize to readers of the LA Times, and everyone across the US, for the Neanderthals in the AZ State legislature. Think there is a connection between Arizona's rankings in pubic education (49 and dropping) and the mental capacity of our legislators?
Posted by: John Germaine | April 21, 2010 at 06:57 AM
Jon, you write that "I hope Arizona enacts Burges' proposal, just so birthers could sue the secretary of state in 2012 for refusing to disqualify Obama." For myself, I hope Arizona does disqualify him because the Hawaii COLB isn't good enough. I want to see Arizona telling Hawaii that its official forms are inadequate. I want to see Rep. Burges questioning whether being born in Hawaii really makes you a "natural born" citizen, since Hawaii isn't a really real state (like Arizona), being all out there in the middle of the ocean and everything. I want to see birthers demanding to see Hawaii's statehood papers and trying to prove that it didn't really become a state until 1962 and all the earlier newspaper stories were plants.
You're not thinking big enough.
Posted by: Jake | April 21, 2010 at 07:23 AM
I give my full respect to Jon Healey for taking on these nutjobs. **Many but not all** Americans really are the most deluded and idiotic people on the planet. Political disagreement is one thing. This is just blatant conspiratorial delusion -- oh and say it with me --- RACISM.
Posted by: Sophie | April 21, 2010 at 07:28 AM
The writer here has no clue about law.States can regulate their own elections and requirements for being given permission to be placed on the states ballots.Read more with the incredible work of a DEMOCRAT LAW PROFESSOR (google jbjd+ states elections laws).
Obama is a usurper whether the rebellious teenagers operating the media and press want to acknowledge it or not. Article II requirements for POTUS can only be scrutinized through original intent. The Framers did not want foreign infiltration which might alter singular loyalty to USA. The phrase NBC is an extended term UNLIKE the requirements for senator or rep.which merely state "citizen". The Founders chose "Natural born citizen" for a reason. Please stop and think.STATUTORY LAW can deem anyone a citizen who wears pink panties or serves in the military once CONGRESS passes such legislation. This is NOT SO in the case of CONSTITUTIONAL LAW which requires far greater concensus to pass or alter the CONSTITUTION. The FRAMERS wanted the head of the executive branch to be BORN INTO IT if you will not LEGISLATED INTO IT!ONe must have two citizen parents at birth + born on US soil. get it yet?
Posted by: noislamocommie | April 21, 2010 at 08:03 AM
Anyone who considers themselves a 'birther' should be held for treason, as should (and probably will) the knee-jerk fools that parade around the country calling themselves 'tea-baggers'. It is exactly the freedoms that have been fought for, in which hundreds of thousands have died, that allow for these idiots to loiter and disrupt life as usual all over the country in the effort to quash these very same freedoms. The right to free speech, the right to assemble, etc, are the only ideals that keep those morons safe from execution, or similar fates that would befall them in other areas of the world! Why do the birthers and tea-bag-grime want to kill the country that they call home? The first rule of dissention, is don't crap where you eat. Arizona, I think you ought to succeed, and invite all of the dissenters from around the US to move there and join you. But wait-you can't do that, because all of the unemployment checks, welfare checks, and social security checks that the majority of you live on are checks issued by the same government that you want to destroy! Maybe Rush and Beck and Sarah, Plain and Stupid will support y'all while you get settled.
Posted by: snappingfish | April 21, 2010 at 08:05 AM
Gee - my kid was born in Hawaii, and Obama's birth certificate looks just like hers. That is how they look. And yeah, the 1961 Honolulu Advertiser announcement is a fake???
So - isn't the real reason behind this birth certificate nonsense the fact that he's BLACK? Isn't this *really* just racism? Otherwise, why aren't people screaming about McCain? Under their logic, he isn't an American citizen either.
Posted by: We won, get over it | April 21, 2010 at 08:11 AM
Seems like proving citizenship should be required by all 50 States. I have no problem with this, and actually would have a problem with anyone willing to just take someone's word on it.
Posted by: Yogi | April 21, 2010 at 08:16 AM
While I am impressed that Ms. Taitz no longer looks like a bewildered panda, she still fosters off-the-wall ideas that cannot be taken seriously. Even a conservative website of some repute, namely WorldNetDaily, confirms the birth certificate is accurate. Enough is enough. The "birthers" need a new target and should stop talking their neo-racist blather.
Posted by: Jeff | April 21, 2010 at 08:16 AM
Uh, guys, you seem to forget that John McCain, while born in Panama, he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which at the time was considered US territory because the US built the canal and part of that agreement with Theodore Roosevelt was that it would be US controlled territory until such time as the US opted to surrender control, which it did under President Jimmy Carter in 1978. So in effect it would be no different that had he been born on Guam or in Puerto Rico. As for 0bama's citizenship, the US Code has final say on this and because his mother was a US Citizen, he could have been born on Jupiter and he would still be a US Citizen. The whole reason for the birther movement is because unlike any of his past predecessors, B. Hussein 0bama has fought tooth and nail to keep people from seeing his credentials whereas every other presidential candidate has openly and willingly produced the necessary documentation. Why do you think that is? If he's a citizen, then what harm is there in just showing the proof? Personally, I think it's part of an entitlement mentality that he doesn't think he has to follow the rules. I can't blame the birthers for their demands, but in the end, the law is not on their side.
Posted by: DECarson | April 21, 2010 at 08:19 AM
Poor Rep. Judy Burges, just desperate to get her 15 minutes of fame.
Posted by: TKelly1 | April 21, 2010 at 08:23 AM