In this article, originally posted in the blog of the same name, "Zapem" breaks a report of the history of sidestepping, skirting, and attempted Constitutional tinkering on behalf of unnatural born Citizen, John McCain -- thereby, an attempt to pave the way for Barack Obama.
If one were to look at the activity on Capital Hill during the campaign, there would be no question in their minds that both McCain and Obama were sweating the “natural born citizen” issue.
How do we arrive at that conclusion? We take McCain’s ingrained, glib advice and “Look at the record, my friends“.
Doing just that, we find that back on February 28, 2008, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a bill to the Senate for consideration. That bill was known as S. 2678: Children of Military Families Natural Born Citizen Act. The bill was co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Sen. Thomas Coburn (R-OK).
Bill S. 2678 attempted to change article II, section 1, clause 5 of the Constitution of the United States with reference to the requirements of being a “natural born citizen” and hence; the entitlement to run for President of the United States. This bill met the same fate that similar attempts to change the Constitution have in the past. Attempts such as The Natural Born Citizen Act were known to have failed and the text scrubbed from the internet, with only a shadow-cached copy left, that only the most curious public can find.
Sen. McCaskill, her co-sponsors, fellow colleagues and legal counsel, contend that the Constitution is ambiguous in article II, section 1 and requires clarification. But does it? According to the framers and such drafters as John Bingham, we find the definition to be quite clear:
I find no fault with the introductory clause [S 61 Bill], which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen… . . - John Bingham in the United States House on March 9, 1866
From the days of James Madison to the present, the courts have held that the amendment process be justiciable in accordance with its constitutionality and not self-serving or political. But is that what happened here? Again, we must go to the record.
Within only five short weeks after Senate Bill 2678 faded from the floor, we find Sen. Claire McCaskill back again, making another attempt with Senate Resolution 511. On April 10, 2008, she introduced a secondary proposal in the form of a non-binding resolution, recognizing John McCain as a “natural born citizen” in defiance of the Constitution. Curiously, it contained the same identical co-sponsors, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
ABCNews.com reported:
“With questions - however serious - about whether Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is eligible to run for president since he was born outside U.S. borders on an American Naval base, Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. today introduced a non-binding resolution expressing the sense of the U.S. Senate that McCain qualifies as a “natural born Citizen,” as specified in the Constitution and eligible for the highest office in the land.
Co-sponsors include Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Barack Obama, D-Illinois; Leahy said he anticipates it will pass unanimously.”
One has to wonder — what dire urgency could there possibly have been in persisting with trying to legislate a candidate into being a “natural born citizen”? Certainly providing a birth certificate and reading the Constitution would be more than sufficient. Why did these candidates and their wishful nominees go to such lengths in the Senate when obviously, they had more pressing matters to attend to? And why were there two Senators co-sponsoring such an issue, twice, who were in direct competition with John McCain in the 2008 election?
One answer is that looking at John McCain’s long-form birth certificate reveals he was not a natural born citizen and Barack Obama hasn’t submitted his long-form at all. John McCain was born in an “unincorporated territory”, held by the courts to be not part of the United States for constitutional purposes. Barack Obama has submitted only a Certification of Live Birth, but Hawaii law will certify a live birth using that document for births that occurred even outside of the country. Furthermore, Barack Obama’s father was Kenyan and never an American citizen. Since the status of citizenship occurs at birth, this makes Barack Obama a citizen if born in Hawaii, but not a natural born citizen. One must have two citizen parents, at the time of birth, and be born on U.S. soil, to be deemed a natural born citizen and be declared eligible for the presidency. The Senate, for all their trouble, cannot legislate a person’s born status. It happens at birth, according to the law.
While Senate Bill 2678 fell to the wayside, Senate Resolution 511 was passed on April 30, 2008 as a non-binding resolution. However, S.R. 511 is not a law, but rather, a unanimous opinion. Technically, it means absolutely nothing what they’ve written as it’s not a law, nor did the matter reach the House for review. It’s a stepping-stone in the larger scheme of things that haven’t happened yet; the push to change our Constitution.
World Net Daily reported on November 13, 2008:
More than a half-dozen legal challenges have been filed in federal and state courts demanding President-elect Barack Obama’s decertification from ballots or seeking to halt elector meetings, claiming he has failed to prove his U.S. citizenship status.
An Obama campaign spokeswoman told WND the complaints are unfounded.
“All I can tell you is that it is just pure garbage,” she said. “There have been several lawsuits, but they have been dismissed.”
Perhaps someone should have informed Obama’s spokeswoman that many of these cases have not been dismissed at all, rather they are mounting, and her statements are in fact, pure “garbage”.
Then perhaps someone may prompt an answer from the Obama spokespeople as to why they were entertaining the thought of fiddling with the United States Constitution back in February and April of THIS YEAR? Perhaps because it was in the best interest of Sen. Obama.
Then what of Sen. Claire McCaskill? What possible interest could she have had in these proceedings and leading the charge with her proposals? Was it a bonafide Constitutional issue of judicial importance, or rather a political one?
Digging further into the record we find that according to Wikki and subsequent footnotes therein:
“In January 2008, Claire McCaskill decided to endorse Senator Barack Obama in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidential elections of 2008, making her one of the first senators to do so. She has been one of the most visible faces for his campaign.[14] McCaskill’s support was crucial to Obama’s narrow victory in the Missouri primary in February, 2008. She had been frequently mentioned as a possible vice presidential choice of Senator Obama in the 2008 run for the White House…”
So what we see is a definite political motive being dragged into the Senate for the purposes of legitimizing the 2008 candidates. But if these candidates were legitimate already, there would obviously be no reason for these proceedings.
So political was the motive of McCaskill, even Missouri’s Governor, Matt Blunt revealed that Sen. McCaskill was involved in the “abusive use of Missouri Law Enforcement“. This was dubbed as the “Truth Squad” during the election campaign by the media. The Truth Squad was comprised of Missouri officials and attorneys who set up shop on the streets of Missouri and threatened the public with criminal penalties and lawsuits if they engaged in critical speech against Sen. Obama. The Obama campaign also issued cease and desist letters to media station managers who carried advertisers who were unfriendly towards Barack Obama, namely, the NRA. Citizen outrage prompted this response from Governor Blunt:
“Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.
What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.”
Considering these facts and the judicial record, there is every reason to believe that Sen. McCaskill had no interest in resolving Sen. McCain’s eligibility, but Sen. Obama’s long-term. She manipulated the Senate and then threatened the media and the public thereafter, politically motivated at the prospect of becoming Obama’s Vice-Presidential pick. But it didn’t stop there.
Chairman Patrick J. Leahy entered into the Senate record a legal analysis of two high-powered attorneys hired by Sen. McCain - Theodore Olson and Laurence Tribe - both of whom are extremely politically active and biased, and attached that opinion to S.R. 511.
So controversial was that legal opinion, that it prompted a rebuttal by Professor Gabriel J. Chin of The University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, in a discussion paper #08-14 entitled, Why Senator John McCain Cannot Be President. Professor Chin points out clearly where Tribe-Olson sought to draw out implied theories in the law, which in reality, are simply not there and in fact have been decided by the courts already, in opposition to the suggestions offered by Tribe-Olson. Simply put, the attorneys hired by Sen. McCain attempt to fit the law into their agenda with contrived implications. Professor Chin brings the law back into focus, requiring no implied theories.
Legalities aside, in anticipation of the feared “Fairness Doctrine”, the whole of the main stream media has since acquiesced to the intimidation tactics of the Obama campaign and paraded the non-binding resolution known as S.R. 511 to the public with unfactual foolishness. S.R. 511 is neither a constitutional amendment nor legally binding in any way. Yet the media caved to political pressure and reported it to the public as Chairman Leahy dictated, giving the illusion to the pubic that said resolution was binding to the 2008 election. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The public responded, initially by way of lawsuits contesting the eligiblity of not only John McCain, but Barack Obama and Roger Calero as well, citing them all, with equal disqualifying merit, as being constitutionally ineligible to run for President of the United States. Later, netizens of the internet caught wind of the court actions and responded with their own explosion of blogs, forums, websites, chatrooms, emails, etc. In an attempt to quell the discord, the main stream media offered personalities such as Thomas Goldstein which only served to infuriate the public further. The public saw such maneuvers as deceitful and an attempt to embarrass the now educated public.
However, the greater proof is in the activity which originated in the Senate in early 2008 which was hidden from the public, that sought to change what our representatives knew to be unconstitutional from the start. The public really needs to look no further than this activity, for it speaks to the heart of the deals that went on beyond the Senate doors. Rather than trust the preservation model our founding forefathers wrote into our Constitution, these respresentatives, beholden of the public trust, saw fit to manipulate the clauses contained therein, for the sole benefit of their own political self-interests.
Perhaps our representatives, the United States Supreme Court and the main stream media would be interested in reflecting on these records and then start answering truthfully the questions which have so far been ignored. The public has been promised transparency, but to date has only been dealt scoffing, deceitful rhetoric, if they choose to address it at all.
While the public has been patient and eduring, the questions remain and refuse to be dismissed. We expect them to be answered, preferrably prior to January 20, 2009.
We the people, deserve an answer!
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Listing of 9 articles from the 110th Congress as entered.
1 . SENATE RESOLUTION 511–RECOGNIZING THAT JOHN SIDNEY MCCAIN III, IS A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN — Senate - April 10, 2008
2 . REPORTS OF COMMITTEES — Senate - April 24, 2008
3 . SUBMISSION OF CONCURRENT AND SENATE RESOLUTIONS — Senate - April 10, 2008
4 . JOHN S. McCAIN, III CITIZENSHIP — Senate - April 30, 2008
5 . MEETINGS SCHEDULED — Extensions of Remarks - April 21, 2008
6 . Daily Digest - Friday, April 18, 2008
7 . Daily Digest - Thursday, April 24, 2008
8 . Daily Digest - Wednesday, April 30, 2008
9 . Daily Digest - Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Sources:
http://thomas.loc.gov
(r:110)
←→Calendar No. 715
110th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 511
RESOLUTION
Recognizing that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=sr110-511
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-simple-resolution.htm
© "Zapem," of
Zapem's BlogThe views and statements expressed by Investigating Obama contributors, and in quotations and citations, are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Investigating Obama and Arlen Williams
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I personally checked 15 cases on the Pending Order's List myself and found those to be on the docket and fully visible from the database. I did not find any cases which were missing other than the eligibility contest cases as noted in this article.
The bottom line here is, while the Petitioners in these cases have been treated worse than second-class citizens, slandered on websites and belittled by the media without remorse, I find it ironic that no one seems to care if a President of the United States is held to the mere standard of Factcheck.org.