A question for Mr. Apuzzo
If left this over on Apuzzo’s blog. It’s currently awaiting approval.
Mr. Apuzzo,
Do you really believe that the E. de Vattel actually intended to say that his “natural born citizen” must be born in the country and have TWO citizen parents?
The French grammar, once cast into the plural, must continue in plural to the end of the sentence. Is it not clear from the context of the following chapters that de Vattel clearly meant ONE citizen parent, and specifically ONE CITIZEN FATHER?
It would not be correct to overlay our 21st century notions of equality of gender onto 18th texts. What de Vattel clearly meant to say was that the indigenous people are those who are born in the country to citizen parents [fathers].
[Update: Mr. Apuzzo has addressed this question on his blog]
Comment for Michael Patrick Leahy
Dr. Conspiracy
“to investigate without a reason is what I call a smear campaign”
I received an email from Mr. Leahy, directing me to a post on his blog and asking for my comments. Leahy (self-described Conservative author and grassroots new media strategist) raises a number of “questions” rhetorically posed to Hawaiian officials to dig into all the nits of what they did and said. Some of the questions are ones I might ask out of curiosity, but some presume long-discredited conspiracy theories, or would be unlawful to answer.
I replied to the email this way:
I think your “questions” can be categorized into three groups:
1. Questions which cannot by law be answered by the persons to whom they are directed.
2. Questions which have already been answered, deal with scenarios which are contrary to law or contain misstatements of law.
3. Questions which are irrelevant to the time and place of the President’s birth.President Obama’s Certification of Live Birth says on the face of it: Location of Birth: Honolulu. What exactly don’t you understand about that?
If there were ONE TINY FACT that contradicts Hawaiian birth for President Obama, perhaps raising questions would make sense, but to investigate without a reason is what we call a smear campaign. (more…)
Comment at the Ledger-Enquirer
Dr. Conspiracy
The Ledger-Equirer has become the epicenter of birther media through its coverage of the Cook v Good hearing. After reading some the birther remarks left there, I added the following to the article:
Sometimes racism is invoked to explain the unprecedented demands for every scrap of documentations about Obama’s life from kindergarten to his law practice, and I’m confident that’s true some of the time.
But what is unmistakeably racist is the implication that Hawaiians are complete fools insofar as their administrative processes in issuing birth certificates, and that their documents certifying the location of someone’s birth can mean anything one imagines them to mean.
When the signed and sealed Certification of Live Birth from Hawaii says Barack Obama’s “Location of birth: Honolulu” then you can be damned sure that it means what it says.
More at obamaconspiracy.org.
Dr. Conspiracy challenged by MommaE
I went over to BlogRadio.com to see the Chalice show; Phil Berg, Lisa Liberi and MommaE were on talking about their lawsuit against Orly. I joined the chat room. I said something against the nObama grain and you’d have thought that I was Frankenstein’s monster and they were the villagers. BAN THE OBOT!
It was an incredible experience to be beset by so many people, throwing out so much fake information, and claiming they had proved me wrong with little more than “you’re an Obot”. They were sure my web site was full of false statements without so much as every being here! I kept asking over and over, “why do you think that” (Obama was adopted by Soetoro, Indonesia was a police state so Obama had to be adopted, only Indonesian citizens could attend school, etc.) None of them had a clue for a source on what they so fervently believed–except MommaE.
She joined the chat room for a minute after the live broadcast was over. She had a source. She said Obama admitted to being adopted by Lolo Soetoro on page 26 of his book, Dreams from My Father. So I looked it up; I have a copy of the book here. Nothing about adoption, and I said so. Oh, she said, it was in the FIRST edition of the book, which “is impossibly expensive to get”.
Well, I will say that page 26 in my copy is just a couple of pages before Chapter 2 starts, the chapter on Indonesia. Not knowing what to look for, I’m not going to try to find what I didn’t see the first time I read it. My guess is that Obama calls Soetoro his “stepfather” at some point, which, of course, doesn’t imply adoption.
A Comment at the Natural Born Citizen Blog
I left the following comment on Leo C. Donofrio’s Natural Born Citizen blog.
Mr. Donofrio,
I am writing this comment to ask you to reconsider, in the light of new information, some statements made on this web site in regard to the late President Chester A. Arthur.
It has been said that 1) Chester A. Arthur knew he was ineligible for the office of Vice President when he ran in 1880 and 2) that statements made by Arthur so confused his opponents, that they were misdirected away from examining the naturalization status of his father.
A prior (1844) statement from the Supreme Court of New York in the case of Lynch v. Clarke states that the contemporary opinion both of the legal community and of the public at large was that Chester A. Arthur was eligible to be president. If true, one must infer from the Court’s statement that Arthur also believed that he was eligible.
Vice-chancellor Sandford, speaking for the Court said:
Upon principle therefore I can entertain no doubt but that by the law of the United States every person born within the dominions and allegiance of the United States whatever were the situation of his parents is a natural born citizen…the general understanding of the legal profession and the universal impression of the public mind so far as I have had the opportunity of knowing it… (more…)
The Betrayal blog attacks Dr. C (Updated)
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:
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:
[Update!] (more…)