Peeks in cautiously, looking for ambushes and booby traps.
Been gone for a while. Not sure if I am allowed back in, but someone forgot to lock the “Teh Management” entrance.
What have I been doing? Well, I unretired, then re-retired. I have been busy with various TEA Party activities, including 3 campaigns by our people; one for state representative, one for District Attorney, and one for County Commissioner. We lost the state rep. battle at the convention, but the other two look good for November. And at our TEA Party Preparedness Breakfast, I today presented a field expedient solar cooker I designed and fabricated. From the reaction, I suspect more will be made.
So why am I sticking my head back in? Well, there has been a bit of controversy for the last 3 ½ years. It is about the background of the pResident of the United States. We have not been allowed to know his background, other that what has been released, and that is … not exactly verifiable. The “Birth Certificate” that he has released was a) not the proper document, being the current standard form and not what was being used when he was born. And b) was obviously done in layers with Adobe Illustrator. There is the classic list of things about himself, that are classified, of which this is only a part:
His votes as a state legislator.
His undergraduate school records.
His graduate school records.
His friends and associates in college and grad school [NO ONE in his class year, and his major remembers him. And there are NO people claiming to have known him before he was elected; no friends, study partners, drinking buddies, girlfriends (the “girlfriend” in his two pre-accomplishment autobiographies has been revealed recently to be a “composite”)].
And all of that feeds into the ongoing controversy and court battles over his eligibility to occupy his current position in the government. That controversy has turned, in part, on the constitutional provision that the President be a “Natural born” citizen. The claim has been that the term has never been officially defined.
That claim has now been disproved.
There is a court case being heard in Florida, claiming that Barack Hussein Obama does not meet the constitutional qualifications to be on the ballot in Florida [and by extension elsewhere]. And the plaintiff, Michael Voeltz’ attorney has just offered into evidence MINOR v. HAPPERSETT, 88 U.S. 162 (1874) 88 U.S. 162 (Wall.). This is a US Supreme Court case. And in it the Supreme Court defines “Natural born” citizen.
Here is the case:
It is important because it involves a specific discussion of what constitutes citizenship. Short form, the case itself involves a woman [Virginia Minor] who sued demanding the right to vote, based on US citizenship. This was in 1874 BEFORE women were granted the right to vote. That set the court off on a long discourse on the nature and definitions of citizenship. Read the whole thing, by all means, but here are the key paragraphs, with the definition we are dealing with boldfaced:
Looking at the Constitution itself we find that it was ordained and established by ‘the people of the United States,’3 and then going further back, we find that these were the people of the several States that had before dissolved the political bands which connected them with Great Britain, and assumed a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth,4 and that had by Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, in which they took the name of ‘the United States of America,’ entered into a firm league of [88 U.S. 162, 167] friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attack made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. 5
Whoever, then, was one of the people of either of these States when the Constitution of the United States was adopted, became ipso facto a citizen-a member of the nation created by its adoption. He was one of the persons associating together to form the nation, and was, consequently, one of its original citizens. As to this there has never been a doubt. Disputes have arisen as to whether or not certain persons or certain classes of persons were part of the people at the time, but never as to their citizenship if they were.
Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the United States in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. This is apparent from the Constitution itself, for it provides6 that ‘no person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President,’7 and that Congress shall have power ‘to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.’ Thus new citizens may be born or they may be created by naturalization.
The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [88 U.S. 162, 168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words ‘all children’ are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as ‘all persons,’ and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
This is not a matter or Supreme Court decision of no import. The case itself is still cited as the first judicial notice of the equal citizenship status of women in this country. It is a formal Supreme Court holding, in a case that turns on the definition of citizenship, on the nature of US citizenship. It is stare decisis , it is precedent.
For a more detailed discussion, see here.
There are, of course, implications to all this. Implications as to the current status of Barack Hussein Obama, of his acts, and his future status and acts. And to the duties of all those who have sworn the Oath to “preserve, protect, and defend”. It would behoove all those with such duties to keep an eye on Mr. Voeltz’ case in Leon County, Florida. Judge Terry Lewis has scheduled a hearing on June 18 on whether Obama should be on the ballot in Florida. And perhaps it would be wise to keep in mind that if barred from the ballot, that Obama may take other actions.