Obama '08?

I thought, as a businessman and an amateur economist, that there were some signs of a bottoming in the past few months. But now I am not at all sure about that.

Three judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are beginning to review a case that alleges Barack Obama is not eligible to be president and may not even be American.

The federal court case, brought by attorney Mario Apuzzo on behalf of plaintiffs Charles Kerchner and others, had been dismissed at the district court level.

Arguments earlier had been scheduled for June 29 in the dispute, but a court order recently canceled the hearing and instead announced the case would be decided based on the merits of the legal briefs submitted by attorneys.

A document from court clerk Marcia Waldron said the case will be decided by Judge Dolores Sloviter, who was appointed by Jimmy Carter; Maryanne Trump Barry, appointed by Bill Clinton; and Thomas Hardiman, appointed by George W. Bush.

But if this article is true, it would seem to lend some semblance of legitimacy to the birthers arguments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Nationality_Act_1948

The complaint also asserts "when Obama was born his father was a British subject/citizen and Obama himself was the same." The case contends the framers of the U.S. Constitution, when they adopted the requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen," excluded dual citizens.

WND also has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.

It looks like this is their argument joe

Quote:

The complaint also asserts "when Obama was born his father was a British subject/citizen and Obama himself was the same." The case contends the framers of the U.S. Constitution, when they adopted the requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen," excluded dual citizens.

First, they argue that the Founders' and Framers' definition of a "natural born Citizen" may be found in the law of nations as commented on by Emer de Vattel in his highly influential treatise, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns (1758 French edition, 1759 first English edition) and not in the inapplicable English common law. The Framers adopted the “Law of Nations” as part of Article III’s “Laws of the United States” but did not so adopt the English common law. We also know that under Article VI, the “Laws of the United States” which are made in pursuance of the Constitution “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” Under the law of nations, a “natural born citizen” was a child born in the country to citizen parents, meaning both mother and father. Vattel, Sections 212-33. The Kerchner plaintiffs maintain that under the law of nations, Obama is not eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the military because, being born with conflicting allegiance to Great Britain which he inherited from his non-United States citizen father and possibly to the United States if he was born in Hawaii as he claims but has not shown, he cannot meet the Founders’ and Framers’ constitutional definition of an Article II “natural born Citizen,” which requires the President and Commander in Chief of the Military to have unity of citizenship and allegiance from birth only to the United States which status is acquired at birth only if the child is born in the United States (or its equivalent) to a citizen mother and father.

Second, they also argue that Obama has not conclusively proven that he was in fact born in Hawaii or any other place in the United States and that even if he were born in the United States, at most he is a Fourteenth Amendment born "citizen of the United States" but not an Article II "natural born Citizen."

I hate to bring up a dead topic,

I'm surprised they haven't noted that we have never seen Obama's green card.

The phrase "the United States" was originally treated as plural—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865. It became common to treat it as singular—e.g., "the United States is"—after the end of the Civil War. The singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom "these United States".[15]

Article II. Section 1., 5th paragraph
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

I don't know if there's any actual substance to the charges made about his birth, but I don't really care. He was fairly, though foolishly, elected, and if, by some strange circumstance he doesn't qualify as a natural born citizen, it's not that big of a deal.

If there is any proof that's he's not natural born, it will have to be absolutely rock solid in order for any action to even be considered.

And if such should ever happen, I think the blame falls squarely upon the liberal press that has not done its homework and continues not to do their homework in regard to Democrats.