“This will be the first time ever, since this whole thing began, that it will be looked on, on merit.” Carl Swensson, Republican Party Chairman of Clayton County, Georgia, spoke those words regarding the forthcoming judicial hearing of the case against the eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to be President.

Although attorneys representing the President moved for a pretrial dismissal, Deputy Chief Judge Michael Malihi in the Office of State Administrative Hearings denied that motion to dismiss the complaint filed to keep Obama’s name off the state ballot during the March presidential primary. An impartial hearing on the issue is scheduled for January 26 in Fulton County, Georgia.

In the many cases previously filed challenging the President’s status as a “natural born citizen,” the plaintiffs were denied standing and the constitutional question has never been fully considered.

One report discusses what made this latest case different from the others:

Unlike many other states, Georgia has a statute requiring just that. For Swensson’s part, he had “resolved that I would not let anyone on the ballot who is not demonstrably qualified to hold that office.” That would appear to be part of his job as party official and it is the job of Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brian Kemp (R) to assure election law is justly carried out. Swensson relates, “We have been hounding him at hearings he’s been having across the state.”

And so it came to pass that Kemp after some delay, followed due process and called forth the court designated by Georgia law, to hear such a case. This particular case was brought by Swensson and co-litigant, Kevin Richard Powell, attorney: J. Mark Hatfield, judge: Michael M. Malihi.

Bob Unruh, a journalist who has pursued this story with extraordinary tenacity, described at WND.com his analysis of the Georgia decision:

While Obama’s attorney, Michael Jablonski, had argued that the requirements didn’t apply to candidates for a presidential primary, the judge said that isn’t how he reads state law.

“Statutory provisions must be read as they are written, and this court finds that the cases cited by [Obama] are not controlling. When the court construes a constitutional or statutory provision, the ‘first step … is to examine the plain statutory language,” the judge wrote. “Section 21-2-1(a) states that ‘every candidate for federal and state office’ must meet the qualifications for holding that particular office, and this court has seen no case law limiting this provision, nor found any language that contains an exception for the office of president or stating that the provision does not apply to the presidential preference primary.”

The case filed by Swensson is one of those cases mentioned by Unruh. Unruh continues:

The decision from Malihi came as a result of a series of complaints that were consolidated by the court. They were brought against Obama’s inclusion on the 2012 election primary ballot by David Farrar, Leah Lax, Cody Judy, Thomas Malaren and Laurie Roth, represented by attorney Orly Taitz; David Weldon represented by attorney Van R. Irion of Liberty Legal Foundation; and Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell, represented by J. Mark Hatfield.

Judge Malihi’s decision appears to accept the plaintiffs’ standing to defend the requirements for President set forth in Article II: Both the Secretary of State and the electors of Georgia are granted the authority under the Code to challenge the qualifications of a candidate. The challenge procedures are defined in Code Section 21-2-5(b), which authorizes any elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate to challenge the qualifications of the candidate by filing a written complaint with the Secretary of State within two weeks after the deadline for qualifying. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-5(b).

In order to aid the plaintiffs in pursuing their quest to have the qualifications listed in the Constitution enforced, a so-called Super PAC has been formed to accept donations from those supporting the effort nationwide.

What follows is a brief exposition of the possible source and appropriate interpretation of the “natural born citizen” qualification:
 
At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, a person born subject to the British Crown could hold “double allegiance,” a concept similar to “dual citizenship” as understood today.
 
Our own Founding Fathers, nearly every one of whom was born in some outpost of the British Empire, feared the damage that could come from such divided loyalty. They instituted the “natural born citizen” qualification in order to avoid what Gouverneur Morris described during the Constitutional Convention as “the danger of admitting strangers into our public councils.”
 
As famed jurist St. George Tucker, a contemporary of Morris, explained:

That provision in the constitution which requires that the president shall be a native-born citizen (unless he were a citizen of the United States when the constitution was adopted) is a happy means of security against foreign influence, which, wherever it is capable of being exerted, is to be dreaded more than the plague. The admission of foreigners into our councils, consequently, cannot be too much guarded against; their total exclusion from a station to which foreign nations have been accustomed to attach ideas of sovereign power, sacredness of character, and hereditary right, is a measure of the most consummate policy and wisdom.

In fact, as indicated in early records of the naturalization process, men applying for American citizenship were required to make two renunciations of all fealty to foreign powers before swearing allegiance to the Republic of the United States.
 
As a matter of fact, the possibility of any legal acceptance of divided allegiance was explicitly rejected in a report issued by the House of Representatives in 1874: "The United States have not recognized a 'double allegiance.' By our law a citizen is bound to be 'true and faithful' alone to our government."
 
The practical effect of that proclamation is that in order to be a “natural born citizen” of the United States, one would have to be free from a competing claim for allegiance from another nation.
 
An important aid in accurately defining the term “natural born citizen” is found in the 14th Amendment. The relevant clause of the 14th Amendment reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the States wherein they reside."
 
The principal architect of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was Michigan Senator Jacob Merritt Howard, a Republican representing Detroit. Senator Howard crafted much of the language that was eventually ratified as part of the 14th Amendment. 

During the debates that embroiled the Senate in the years following the Civil War, Senator Howard insisted that the qualifying phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” be inserted into Section 1 of the 14th Amendment being considered by his colleagues. In the speech with which he proposed the alteration, Howard declared:

This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.

How could a person “born in the United States” be simultaneously a citizen and a “foreigner” or “alien” if the mere fact of nativity settled the question of citizenship?

This overwhelmingly persuasive historical evidence makes one thing clear: When applied to the case of the current President, the principles of constitutional law and interpretation set forth above casts genuine doubt on the question of Barack Obama’s qualification for President. Not even his staunchest defenders can argue that at the time of his birth (regardless of the location), his father was not an American citizen — and thus the President is the child of a person with legal allegiance to a foreign sovereignty and so does not conform to the accepted legal definition of "natural born citizen."

Photo of a young Barack Obama,with his father: AP Images

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Stan said:

Thanks, TNA... ...for picking up on this extremely important story. It's appalling that this issue was not dealt with at the time of the elections in 2008, to nip this travesty of constitutional proportions in the bud. One has to wonder: Where on Earth was the Republican Party at the time?? They were, are, the opposition political party; it was their job, their duty to call the Democratic Party on this illegality. One wonders if a deal was struck, as far back as the primaries in that year: 'You don't call our potential candidate on his 'technical' ineligibility for the office, and we won't call your potential candidate on tehnicalities regarding his candidature.' I know that the Senate passed a resolution accepting the 'natural born citizen' qualification of McCain (which both Hillary and Obama voted for); but (1) a resolution does not have the weight of law, and (2) there actually continues to be a question regarding McCain's eligibility, and the Democrat honchos may have gotten wind of that. (It turns out that he may not have been born on the U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone, but on the hospital in town. Not 'jus solis'.) This whole thing is murky beyond belief. The bottom line: Obama is not a 'natural born citizen', IF his father was, indeed, Barack Obama 'Sr.' And that's part of the murk. Both of the copies of his birth certificate released to the public have proven to be forgeries, by the scrutiny of a number of experts (available all over the Internet). Therefore, he has something to hide about his birth, regarding his true parentage. And the higher echelons of the Republican Party are sitting on all this. Why. What a dastardly situation. This is not just about a 'technicality'. As I say: This is a travesty of constitutional proportions. That means the rule of law is being breached. The result of such activity? Potential despotism (unless reversed). And revulsion by the people, for how the office of the presidency of their United States is being so cavalierly dealt with. It's time and past to clean up this mess. Let's hope that this court case will go some way to doing so. Or all patriots who love their country have much to fear. Can anybody say: Martial Law??

January 09, 2012

jonathan hunt said:

... You dumb bastards are still trying to start something. Be careful what you ask for you might get it

January 23, 2012