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Obama taught Vattel at The University of Chicago

President Obama, when an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago Law School, taught a course  on Constitutional Law and one titled “Current Issues in Racism and the Law.” The New York Times published the syllabus for the latter back in July of 2008 in an article called “Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Slightly Apart.”

There are some interesting items in the reading list Obama gave his students. On the issue of the removal of Indians, he cited Vattel’s The Law of Nations. We don’t have the over 500-page reading packet itself, so we don’t know what the particular reading from Vattel was1. It is nevertheless instructive that then professor Obama picked such a source, which in modern times is rather obscure. Obama also included a reading about the Dred Scott case and the Slaughterhouse Cases (both having been cited in the Presidential eligibility debate). Of course no discussion of citizenships is complete without the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, both of which appear in the Obama syllabus.

While the Obama reading list is extensive, still it is remarkable that there is as much overlap between it and what we talk about on this site, and I do not think that this is a coincidence, because a discussion about racism is one of the practice of discrimination and exclusion and eligibility criteria are about the same thing.


1I suggest that the text might have been from The Law of Nations, Book 2:

§ 97 The savages of North America had no right to appropriate all that vast continent to themselves; and since they were unable to inhabit the whole of those regions, other nations might, without injustice, settle in some parts of them, provided they left the natives a sufficiency of land. If the pastoral Arabs would carefully cultivate the soil, a less space might be sufficient for them. Nevertheless, no other nation has a right to narrow their boundaries, unless she be under an absolute want of land. For, in short, they possess their country; they make use of it after their manner; they reap from it an advantage suitable to their manner of life, respecting which they have no laws to receive from any one. In a case of pressing necessity, I think people might, without injustice, settle in a part of that country, on leading the Arabs the means of rendering it, by the cultivation of the earth, sufficient for their own wants, and those of the new inhabitants.

Vattel, of course, had no notion of the vast size of the native population of the Americas before it was decimated by diseases from the European explorers.

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Things heat up for Monday face-off in Grinols

A hearing is scheduled for next Monday, April 22, in the case of Grinols v. Electoral College and the paperwork is arriving in advance of it. The subject of the hearing, according to Judge England’s order is to hear oral arguments on the motions to dismiss, and in particular to the questions:

  • Mootness
  • Standing
  • Political question doctrine
  • Speech and Debate Clause
  • Service of process on defendants

Yesterday, Plaintiff’s attorney Orly Taitz filed an Ex-parte Motion to Strike the Motion to Dismiss. Why ex parte? Because Taitz says she filed the motion too late to give the Defendants proper notice, and that would only be proper in an emergency and for some kind of temporary relief.

Emergency

Taitz does not justify her tardy filing, and I dare say Judge England will have some choice words for Taitz. His order from April 4 suggests that Taitz’s emergency maneuver is unnecessary. The present argument repeats Taitz’ earlier motion to recuse, about which England wrote in his order:

Plaintiffs’ “Motion to Recuse Counsel for Defendants and Motion to Expedite under Local Rule 144” (ECF NO. 102) currently set for April 18, 2013 is VACATED in light of the hearing on the motions to dismiss.

Meanwhile the California State Defendants have filed a brief in support of the motion to dismiss saying:

  • This case is moot as to claims concerning the reelection of Barack Obama.
  • This case presents a nonjusticiable political question.
  • Plaintiffs fail to state an equal protection claim for “invalid” registration.
  • Plaintiffs do not state a claim under 5 U.S.C. § 3328.

Just a word on that last one. Federal law says that people born after 1959 who did not comply with the draft registration cannot be appointed to a position in an “Executive agency.” The California Defendants point out that Obama was elected, not appointed. I would point out that the Office of the President is not an Executive agency. This contention has Taitz all upset, railing that California says Obama can get away with selective-service fraud [Link to Taitz web site]. Taitz is wrong. California didn’t say selective-service fraud is “OK,” just that Taitz is wrong on the law. A President can be prosecuted for fraud after leaving office.

On other fronts, Taitz is dabbling in rumors about the Boston Marathon bombing yesterday, emphasizing her themes of anti-Muslim bigotry and official complicity in crimes.

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Depressing

I went over to Obama Release Your Records this morning to check out something I saw from them about some teacher giving a homework assignment that mentioned “natural born citizen.” When I looked at the headlines on the site, it was depressing to see so much effort put into defaming the President, twisting events to suit a negative agenda, and generally pushing people towards the dark side.

  • President Obama’s plan for a socialist America…
  • Obama’s forged birth certificate…
  • Are we being compromised by Obama’s murky past?
  • Obama had Indonesian passport
  • Judge Schack A Socialist-Wonder Nutcase
  • Obama Identity Document Fraud Case Goes to Court of Special Appeals of Maryland
  • Obama Survival Guide
  • Analysis of Hawaii Department of Health Loretta Fuddy’s Financial Disclosure Form…fraudulent Long Form

Conspiracy theories I sort of understand: the brain works in particular ways that distort judgment. Trading good for evil, however, is something that is more fundamentally disturbing.

As for the article about the teacher, I did find it. The teacher, according to the article, may have followed a text book that said the qualification for President was a “native-born” citizen. Given that the Oxford English Dictionary gives the same definition for “native born” as “natural-born,” I don’t see what the big deal is—they see it as liberal indoctrination.

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Abhorrent Arpaio assassination attempt aborted

Still in the alliterative mode, we note that a maximum security prisoner named Samuel Matta has allegedly plotted kill Maricopa County County Sheriff, and birther conspiracy theorist, Joe Arpaio, with a high-powered rifle. Reports say that the attempt was in response to Arpaio being responsible for the deportation of members of Matta’s family, reports Fox Latino News.

OOPS

Sorry folks, that was last year’s attempt to assassinate Joe Arpaio. This time it was a bomb. Brietbart News (WorldNetDaily and the birther blogs) report that a bomb was intercepted in the mail to Arpaio. Fox News describes it as a “suspicious package containing explosives.” The device was neutralized by a water canon. One source said the package appeared suspicious because it was leaking gunpowder.

Arpaio, who gets lots of death threats, responded:

It’s the nature of the business.

This site does not condone sending bombs to people, nor death threats for that matter.

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100% verified

Mike Zullo, head of the Maricopa County, Arizona, volunteer Cold Case Posse, has made all sorts of claims about his activities arising from his attempts to discredit Barack Obama’s citizenship. Now in a recent interview, he say that all of the Cold Case Posse findings have been “verified.” He never says how they were verified, nor who verified them, leaving it to a matter of trusting Zullo’s word.

Around here, Mike Zullo’s credibility stands at somewhere to the south of zero after he was caught fabricating evidence in the form of a fake vital records coding manual and then lying about it. Has Zullo gotten any better?

In the same broadcast [link to podcast] where Zullo said he had “verified” the Cold Case Posse findings, he also related a story of a visit to George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, and a tour guide telling him that Barack Obama was the only President who had not visited Mt. Vernon. In a fine piece of investigative journalism, Reality Check has found that this isn’t true at all; lots of President’s haven’t visited there. (Good job, Rick!)

We don’t know if Zullo made up the story of the tour guide, whether he altered the story, or whether he just passed on information as fact that he didn’t check out. The end result is the same: It has been 100% verified that Mike Zullo is not a trustworthy source of information.

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Taitz deletes racially-tinged article, but why?

Commenter donna mentioned this article at the Taitz web site, but when I went looking, it was not there:

Error 404 on page http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=412112

It was once there [Google cached version, Before it’s News reprint]. It was a letter of support from the “East Oakland Counsel of Conservative Citizens.” They have a novel theory about why President Obama is ineligible:

We at the East Oakland chapter have been following your case for several years, and we agree that we have the wrong president; he’s ineligible and should be brought to justice. Anyone with any sense can see that just by looking at this impostor.

And lest there be any question about where they are coming from:

It would have been obvious to anyone who viewed the elections of 2008 and 2012, that Obama is a shill for other, more evil powers, and has been inserted in power to advance the goals of those who would institute a truly anti-American multicultural government who will work against the European heritage that we at COCC believe will tear apart this country even more than we’ve seen since the Obama “presidency” began.

So the COCC offered some fund raising, and to send a busload of supporters to Taitz’ court hearing on April 22 in the Grinols case, describing it as a trial and saying that people showing up will influence the Court.

All of that said, the article in question is gone, zapped and erased; it is an ex-article. Now the question is “why?” Could it be that he East Oakland Counsel of Conservatives Citizens never existed? Is this rather one in a long string of attempts to punk Orly Taitz? Is it real, but Orly Taitz upon reflection decided she didn’t want their support? Is it just a technical glitch, or something entirely different?

The article says that the East Bay Bible Church is the COCC meeting place. Is this photo from the church’s Facebook page a clue?

East Bay Bible Church with non-white face

Not finding anything on the web about the “East Oakland Council of Conservative Citizens, ” nor about Taitz’ title variant, “East Oakland Counsel for Conservative Citizens” except as derived from her article, I’d say it was a fake.

Punking the birthers – priceless

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Sven @ Orly

The character who posted here extensively under dozens of aliases, but that we most remember as Sven Magnussen, has turned up at the Orly Taitz blog to promote his unique theories of Barack Obama the abandoned child. I don’t intend to get into his alternate history since we did that in comments on this blog years ago and in great length, but what I want to focus on is a comment left on Orly’s blog [link to Taitz web site] about it:

I am not an enemy to one group or the other. That is the idea of the left to divide, so would it not be best to see the heart of those trying to get results rather than their methods? We are not working in a normal situation, at best. Anyone willing to stick their necks out deserves some credit. I will not go against anyone trying to get to the truth. I will NOT trust anyone group with the whole truth. I will make my own decisions on that when the time comes. The evidence weighs wholly in the favor of those proving this man is not eligible or fit to be in OUR White House and he should go. That is the bottom line for me, not which group is doing all the right moves and for what reasons that I do not see or are not privy to. I just know those mentioned and Orly are doing work that not many want to stick out their necks for. Let’s not turn this into an infight.

– Blackyb

I suppose lying,  filing frivolous lawsuits, fabricating evidence, forging documents, accessing databases illegally, flouting privacy laws and just plain making stuff up is not a problem for this commenter. It would seem that the goal is not fairness, due process, accuracy, evidence and much less truth, but rather the conclusion, that Obama is ineligible is what matters.

It doesn’t matter how crazy the story, and that there’s no evidence whatever to support it: Folks get credit for just making the claim. This is really a faith-based statement.

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