Dr. Conspiracy
Readers here may recall an article I published countering Leo Donofrio’s attack against FactCheck.org: Donofrio misfires. Donofrio had made the same mistake Mario Apuzzo made when he attempted to make Barack Obama into a current British Citizen through ignoring the repeal of portions of the British Nationality Act of 1948. One can see on the surface that the analysis is flawed because the conclusion is obviously something that the various British legislation did not intend. This is an application of the general principle: British legislators know their laws better than we do.
Nonetheless, I did make some mistakes in my analysis, pointed out by commenters here, and I hastily corrected my article, and did so several times, sometimes marked with [update] tags to indicate new material, and sometimes not.
Nobamas do not understand the concept of correcting mistakes, considering it somehow shameful (and this explains why they ignore contrary evidence and continue to push long-discredited speculation). Well, my corrections have come to the attention of the Betrayal blog who said:
Factcheck.org endorsed analyst caught scrubbing false data after original publication of this report.
There is a difference between “data” and “conclusions” (but I guess “false data” sounds worse.) I replied at The Betrayal, and we’ll see if it passes moderation:
You people are so totally silly. Commenters on my blog pointed out some errors and I fixed them. Duh. Has The Betrayal never corrected a mistake? (well maybe not…)
This isn’t a game of “gotcha”. You don’t get points when I make a mistake. You get points when you are right, and the final result is that Donofrio is wrong.
[Update!]
I do not know if The Betrayal copied Donifrio’s Natural Born Citizen blog, or whether it is the other way around, but I see now that Donofrio has this same story using the same “scrubbed” language. Donofrio actually shows before and after screen shots from my blog, essentially attempting through ad hominem argument to deflect criticism I made of his article based on its legal deficiencies. (Recall that he previously attacked President Arthur, Hawaii Health Director Fukino, the entire US Supreme court in addition to me.)
I will admit, however that I was hasty in publishing that article, posted a little after midnight while I was fighting the urge to fall asleep. I have a real job, and it took a while to find enough time to sort out some of the details. The article was updated several times. However, as it stands now, the article, I believe, is sound, and further it blows Donofrio out of the water as to his claims that President Obama retained any foreign citizenship options beyond his 23rd birthday.
Donofrio appears to view his web site somewhat differently than I do mine. In one sense he treats his as a true blog — a historical record of whatever he was thinking at a point in time. As such, he does not correct mistakes, except by writing new things that might supersede what was written before. He will sometimes leave an entire article full of misinformation sit there and add a one line note “looks like this is not going to happen” for example. It is for this reason, I suspect, that blogs like Donofrio’s explain why discredited stories keep making the rounds.
I view this site primarily as a reference site. As a reference site, articles that are wrong (and there have been a few) get corrected. From time to time I review old articles to make sure they reflect the latest information I have available. Therefore, I stand behind all 480 articles on this site. If you find something in error, just post a comment or use the contact form. I will deal with it if I agree.
When I started this web site, I had no idea it would still be running actively 9 months later. I have come to the realization that I do not have the time to provide encyclopedic coverage of everything that goes on in the Obama Conspiracy / Citizenship theories domain. I am greatly aided by the comments left by lawyers and paralegals here; this supports and expands the scope of what we can accomplish. Nevertheless, visitors will have to visit multiple web sites to get the full story of what’s going on.
To the NoBots, anything they can grasp, no matter how slim, is like a Supreme Court victory. In the end, all of these cases will be tossed for the frivolous tripe that they are.
Yo Doc! Third paragraph; you should say, “Nobamas do not understand the concept of correcting mistakes,”
And you’re right, they haven’t got a clue.
I think they are in destruct mode. They cannot construct truth from fiction so they decide to destroy. I think in their logic where errors are not corrected, anyone who corrects one has to be suspect. It is strange. But they won’t change. You just keep going.
Everything is a fricking cover-up to those whack jobs. If you’d not corrected the mistakes, they’d have attacked you for the mistakes. Mary is right. Birtherism is circling the drain, so their solution?: Attack, attack, attack. Like 2 year olds breaking their toys in a tantrum. Orly can’t get a single filing right, so what’s the answer? Attack the obots. It’s all our fault anyway. You Rock, Dr C. Keep the good stuff coming, and effem if they can’t follow your work.
Thanks. I think faster than I type, resulting in words and letters being omitted sometimes.
Heh Doc! Look what jtx had to say to Greg over there:
“Greg, you’d feel far happier to return to your trainer – the simple-minded looking guy in the farmer’s hat – that allows full range to you and your hateful nonsense.”
Oh, great jedi master…in the farm hat, train us, oh great one!
You mean like the way Dr. C. attacked them with the Cotton Mather analogy? Yup – childish – I agree.
“Donofrio is wrong.”….In your OPINION.
Funny how both you and Donofrio always state your opinions as facts.
It was really quite a good analogy.
It’s my opinion that 2+2 = 4. It’s my opinion that, tomorrow, the sun will rise in the east. We could get into a whole epistemological debate about what’s opinion, and what’s facts, but that doesn’t change the fact that Donofrio is wrong.
What’s funny about birthers is they can’t seem to understand about being wrong. They don’t like it, they can’t handle it. I think many of them must be from that generation of students younger than me for whom maintaining self-esteem was more important than getting all the spelling words right. “It’s OK Sally, you only got 2 of 10 spelling words right, but Good Job, you’re a good girl, you should feel good.” And yet many of them seem to be old enough to think that type-written card BC that Mom had in the baby book was the original.
I don’t even grasp their point. Do they object to DrC making the mistakes in the first place, or him correcting them?
In the past, I was involved in assisting people in getting either French or US citizenships, to which they were theoretically entitled, but in order to reach the goal (a certificate of decree of naturalization, then a pass[port) there were a number of conditions that had to me met, documents that had to be submitted, reviewed, approved, interviews that had to be taken, etc.
I’m unfamiliar with the UK procedures but I strongly doubt that anyone born from a British father in Honolulu can just go into a UK Embassy and say, “give me a passport, pronto!”
As I said, steps have to be taken to claim citizenship.
Since Obama presumably never took those steps, and never claimed British citizenship, he is NOT a British citizen. Perhaps he could be, if he wanted to, but he is NOT.
Some people including myself have pointed out that there are lots of US citizens who COULD theoretically claim another citizenship (Irish, Italian…) but they don’t. That does NOT make them dual citizens.
The whole issue of dual citizenship in this case is absurd, as any immigration lawyer could tell you.
The simple truth is that Obama is a US citizen (born in the US) and a Natural-Born Citizen (born of a US parent) as well.
They’re objecting that somone dare have a differing opinion to theirs. I, from personal experiece, can tell you that British Crown countries require a person to claim dual citizenship, you don’t automatically ‘get’ dual citizenship, you are just eligible for it in certain cases
I was reading Leo’s so called new approach and I can’t see how it is any different than his last approaches. He and Mario make these wild statements without any real case law or intentionally misinterpreting cases to support their theories. What I find even more amusing is that their followers never ask themselves if Leo or Mario were right, why can’t they get other Constitutional scholars to support their claims. Better yet why can’t they find actual case law that supports their theory?
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/
I checked that link, and now I have a slight taste of vomit in my mouth.
The first image under a post entitled:
“Let’s prove Obama Was Born In Hawaii So we Can Move Onto His British Birth.”
is that of a man-ape, an alleged big foot, a monkey man.
Oh, no, they’re not motivated by bigotry, racism, hatred of African-Americans, not at all, not in the least, no sirree.
The rest of the post after the picture is pure drivel. If this is the kind of rubbish Donofrio includes in his pleadings, I do so hope that he gets sanctioned and disbarred.
Lupin, but they would be quick to inform you that this is not about race. But as we recall this was never an issue before this country had it’s first President of color. Now if someone had come out and claimed that GW Bush was born in Canada how many people would have believed it? Not many. How many would have demanded that GW Bush release all of his documents since kindergarten? Not many? How many would have said such dispicible things about his mother? Not many. Their actions speak for themselves.
Additionally it is interesting how the so called “birthers” view themselves. It is an interesting read just from the standpoint of how wrong and misinformed they are. For instance;
“A Birther is a person who believes that a natural born citizen of the United States is at the moment of their birth free from foreign influences that would result in a claim of allegiance to a foreign power. A Birther accepts the intent of the Founding Fathers who wanted to remove the chance that a foreigner (that is person who owed loyalty to another country,) might control the military forces of the United States as the reason for the for the inclusion of the term “a natural born citizen” in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
The majority of Birthers subscribe to the belief that the definition presented by Emerich de Vattel in his treatise the Law of Nations is the most certain way of insuring that a child is born with no claims by a foreign power to the allegiance of that child. This definition is that a child born in the country, of parents who are citizens of the country are by birth a natural born citizen of that country.
Birthers believe that two conditions of birth are what determine citizenship at birth, and by extension allegiances owed at birth. Birthers call the legal mechanisms of these two conditions of birth, jus soli and jus sanguinis, which are born in the country and born of parents who are citizens of the country respectively. Birthers believe that it is the moment of birth when these two conditions are established are what determines the right to be called a natural born citizen. One lawyer, Mario Apuzzo, challenging the eligibility of Obama has called this principle “Unity of Citizenship at Birth.”
http://www.birthers.org/
“A Birther is a person who believes that a natural born citizen of the United States is at the moment of their birth free from foreign influences that would result in a claim of allegiance to a foreign power.”
Wouldn’t that rule out all Jewish Americans?
(A Jewish person, or a person with at least one Jewish grandparent, or a person who converts to Judaism, who makes aliyah to Israel will be an Israeli citizen in addition to their original citizenship, by operation of the Law of Return.)
I guess we can see from Leo’s own words what his plan is….
“[Ed. The BC issue and the British birth issue, due to no fault of my own, have been fused in the minds of the public by the media. It’s going to take some doing to cut that fuse and have the British birth issue stand alone. Also, I am alleging he was born in Hawaii and our investigation will attempt to prove that he was so we can move on. If your friends can’t see the relevance of that, I don’t know what to tell you. There are legit issues regarding the behavior of Hawaii officials which MUST be brought to light.
“Once I have properly exposed the communications of which I speak, I will resume the legal issue discussion. Read this blog from day 1 to the present and then come back and tell me you don’t think I’ve exhausted the topic thoroughly.]”
“[Ed. We will be giving Fukino’s statements the once or twice over, that’s for sure.]”
Which means he will be trying to discredit Dr. Fukino’s statement in some way or make it seem like she did not state that “President Obama was born in Hawaii”. I will be waiting to see how he twists those words…
Regarding Orly’s case….
“[Ed. I’ve provided the only tactical approach I believe has a chance for meaningful discovery. The underlying case is a loser. The pleadings ramble and they don’t do what pleadings are supposed to do…which is simply make a claim. The pleadings here are used to try the case and they contain so many things the court must ignore and they ignore many things the court must have before it. The plaintiffs have no standing so no pleadings can fix that.]”
“[Ed. Cheney was not protecting the US by imagining a future scenario where his failure to call for objections might help remove Obama. Cheney didn’t want objections and he doesn’t want Obama removed. They all play for the same team. ]”
Now here in an interesting response when someone mention the Perkins v Elg SCOTUS case…He makes no sense whatsoever…
“[Ed. been over it a million times. Ms Elg was natural born because her mother was also a US citizen due to derivative citizenship, this happened automatically when her Father was naturalized…Ms. Elg was born on US soil and so she is nbc.]”
And why he loves the Wong Kim Ark Case…
“[Ed. the precedent set in wong kim ark favors our position because the court indicated that wka – while being a citizen – was not natural born. i love wong kim ark for that reason.]”
And of course Leo makes his inherently false argument on how is will present his “so called case”….
“[ed. its not that simple. separation of powers. this is the problem. and we must find a way around it by acknowledging the courts will respect it. again and again i see people intent on making theoretical arguments about standing. you can do that all you like but at the end of the day the courts wont let you in. we are trying to find a way to bring a suit within the qw statute. the statute allows for trial by jury. thats all i can say right now.]”
I think the most telling reason why the birthers will never believe any evidence that is put in front of them is because after all of this time they still believe in debunked statements…See the following post to Leo…
“In light of Obama’s on line BC being declared a forgery (Polland & Lines),
Granma Hussein’s assertion she was in the delivery room,
Obama’s spending big bucks to keep his records under seal,
Ambassador Ogego’s statement that his birth place is “already an attraction,”
the Kenyan National Assembly declaring him “a son of the soil,”
Fukino’s carefully worded statement to tell the truth and still lie,
Obama’s half-sister not being sure which hospital he was born in,
Kapiolani hospital and the White House refusing comments on the letter Obama sent declaring Hawaii as his place of birth,
the recent surfacing of a Kenyan BC,
the hosptial Registrar who disclosed to Kweli Shuhubia that Obama’s records are in the Mombasa hospital (presumeably Coast Province),
and that Obama has never verbally said in any press conference, interview, etc. that he was born in Hawaii, I would think you would be more inclined to believe that he wasn’t born there.”
Lupin, they are not thinking in those terms…They are just trying to find a way to undo a legal election because they didn’t like the results…
There are so many things wrong with that statement:
As Lupin points out, claims of allegiance can arise despite the fact that the parents are citizens.
Actually, there are dozens of quotes of the founders defining “foreigner” as one born abroad, as distinguished from native/natural born citizens who are born here. Owing loyalty to another country doesn’t make you a foreigner, necessarily.
Is there anything in the founders statements that suggested it was a fear of foreign control over the military that fueled the natural born exclusion? That seems unlikely as the federal army was relatively small compared to the state militia’s. An extremely strong national army compared to the state militias is actually a relatively recent development, if I’m not mistaken.
Except, as it is entirely a local rule, it can do nothing to prevent other nations from claiming the allegiance of a child. The Founders lived in a world where other nations could and did claim allegiances regardless of the naturalizations of the parents. They would have known and understood, then, that nothing they said would have any impact whatsoever, on what allegiances other nations could claim. And that’s wholly apart from the total mis-translation of Vattel, and the fact that no other nation subscribes to this, and the fact that no other writer on the “Law of Nations” agrees with this bizarre rule.
Vattel’s rule, then, is under-inclusive, as it allows people to become President who have dual allegiances because other nations don’t recognize the naturalization of their citizens and it is over-inclusive, because, there are nations with stronger jus soli rules that don’t claim as citizens those born abroad (Brazil, for example, only claims as citizens those born abroad to citizens working for the government).
Which is confusing because the US does give natural born citizen status to those who fulfill the conditions of jus soli OR jus sanguinis. Note the disjunction.
What’s also confusing is that these are citizenship terms, but lawyers like Mario insist they’re not creating some super-citizen, but simply applying the conditions of eligibility to the Presidency.
Purely speculation, but I imagine quite a few who object to Obama wouldn’t be uncomfortable with a definition of NBC that excludes all Jews too.
Actually, that should read: “he is NOT a Kenyan citizen. Perhaps he could have been, if he had wanted to, but he is NOT.”
That is whay there is not much difference between the dual nationality of Chester Arthur and Barack Obama on the one hand, and that of Eisenhower (German at birth), US Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Taft and some others (potentially French at birth due the French Revolutionary Law on the Huguenots, 1790) on the other. None of them ever went up to the embassy of that foreign power and collected a foreign passport. But they all could have, and their attempts would have been successful. If Arthur, Obama or Eisenhower had visited that other country (Britain, Kenya and the German Empire) on a US passport and had got involved in some minor crime there, before they lost entitlement to that other nationality, it is probable that all three would have gone to jail rather than simply been deported (the French guys would have had to register as descendants of Huguenots at a French embassy first to be considered French).
As the place where Eisenhower’s forefather came from (Karsbrunn, now part of Grossrosseln, Saarland) became Prussian in 1815, and Prussian nationality law antedates that of most other German states, Eisenhower’s German nationality was almost surely governed by Prussian law, and thus he lost it when he joined the US army and thus came into the pay of the US government, which I guess was the day he graduated at West Point. So, like Obama, he was 23 when he lost dual nationality. Funnily, under Prussian law, the opposite was also true: one also became German when one started to work for the German government. Guess who became German that way: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einb%C3%BCrgerung_Adolf_Hitlers
No, actually they are thinking in those terms, because it will rule out Jewish candidates permanently. They all have dual loyalty, can’t trust ’em.
There’s a method to their madness.
a birther is someone who believes, with great melodrama, anything and everything, no matter how ludicrous, put before him that accuses the first black president of treason, and who will never believe a single fact, no matter how palpable, that attests his membership in the country club called america.
Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God, so I guess they are ruled out too.
One must point out that Donofrio’s case (Donofrio v. Wells) has already lost all the way to the Supreme Court.
True Dr. C. But Leo still believes in his ridiculous theory and has people that believe in it. From what I can tell he still is pushing this third class of citizen, people born in the US but not eligible to be a NBC.
It also excludes most Itilian Americans (Sorry Scalia, but you’re ineligible).
The scenario is as follows:
2 Italians immigrate to the United States, and have children before they Naturalize. Those children are entitled to Italian Citizenship for life. Furthermore, their children and all their descendent, because of this, are entitled to Italian Citizenship for Life.
Therefore, unless you can prove that your parents were not Italian Citizens at the time of your birth, then you might have dual loyalties to the U.S. and Italy!
Then it logically follows that you might have surrendered the U.S. Armed Forces to Benito Mussolini during WWII, and we’d all be living under German Rule right now!