My sincere thanks to Mr. Lamb for providing a link to the January 15 video of his Alaska Supreme Court hearing at “360 North,” Alaska’s public affairs channel (with closed captions!) or download the audio file.
For more detail on what this case is about, see my article “Thomas Lamb 15 minutes of fame next week.”
An ipse dixit argument bereft of any legal citations. While a frivolous loser, on the whole better than anything Orly Taitz has ever done. (That’s not saying much.)
I found Lamb’s constant thumping of the lectern to be a really good way to detract from what he was saying.
Okay… I know it’s unfair to expect pro se plaintiffs (or Orly Taitz) to be great public speakers. But for god’s sake man. Write an outline.
he’s still pimping the “i’m a citizen taxpayer, everything he does affects me, therefore i haz standing” argument …
one of the basics birfers refuse to understand.
I honestly don’t think less thumping and a better outline would help much.
The real problem is that Mr. Lamb is — from beginning to end — simply wrong about the law (or perhaps I should say the “guidelines”).
Birthers most love them some Netflix, as its all reruns. Much like their court battles.
So his whole argument boils down to “’cause I want it”.
/facepalm.
watched it and……
think i heard the failboat about to dock
You could tell the court was obviously inclined to agree with him by how many questions they didn’t ask and how they didn’t press him for details about standing after he explained the complaint was general and not particularized.
Hopefully the Obama thugs don’t pressure them into dismissing it.
Did you catch the “Jack Ryan” for “Paul Ryan” slip?
Conceding it was a generalized grievance guarantees the dismissal. There’s nothing left to ask.
That wasn’t a slip. It was a reference to the Republican frontrunner in the 2004 Illinois Senate race. He dropped out of the race after the Chicago Tribune successfully sued to get Ryan’s divorce records released and they contained some salacious details about his sex life.
My bad.
Question: Can someone whose very citizenship is either non-existent or highly questionable be a natural born citizen?
Question: Does the 14th Amendment only require native-birth for citizenship or does it also require full subjection to U.S. political authority?
Question: If a baby is not born of parents who are subject, by what principle or mechanism is such a baby’s nationality determined? Natural Law or national law? If national law, then which national law? That of the parents? -or the country where the baby is born?
If that country requires full subjection passing by inheritance from and through the parents, and they are not subject, would their domestically-born child not be an alien? (a non-citizen)
Obama Sr. was not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and therefore he could not father a child that was subject through him, -he being the head of the family and the person through whom subjection flows.
If anyone wants to argue that subjection does not flow through the head of the family, then they need to elucidate exactly how it is judged to be present or absent.
The U.S. government knows the answers to these questions since they are revealed in U.S. law, -indirectly. Here’s the smoking gun as found in just one case.
Section 201, Public Law 402, 80th Congress
The White House April 5, 1951
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10232
AMENDING THE SELECTIVE SERVICE REGULATIONS
By virture of the authority vested in me by Title I of the Selective Service Act of `1948 (62 Stat. 604), as amended, I hereby prescribe the following amendments of the Selective Service Regulations prescribed in part by Executive Order No….
3. Section 1611.11 of Part 1611, DUTY & RESPONSIBILITY TO REGISTER, is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 1611.11 ALIENS WHO ARE NOT REQUIRED TO REGISTER. (a) A male alien who is now in or who hereafter enters the United States and who has not declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States SHALL NOT be required to be registered under seciton 3 of Title I of the Selective Service Act of 1948, as amended, and shall be RELIEVED from liability for training and service under section 4 (b) of said act provided: …
(6) He is a person who has entered the United States TEMPORARILY as a non-quota immigrant under the provisions of subdivision (e) of section 4 of the Immigration Act approved May 26, 1924, as amended…
(e) solely for the purpose of STUDY at an accredited school, college, academy, seminary, or university, particularly designated by him and approved by the Attorney General, and continues to pursue such purpose to the satisfaction of the Attorney General; or
(7) He is a person who has entered the United States temporarily pursuant to the provisions of section 201 of the United States Information and EDUCATION EXCHANGE Act of 1948 …and continues to pursue the purpose for which he was admitted.
~~~
Such students are GUESTS and not citizens or immigrants or permanent residents. THEY ARE NOT SUBJECT! THEY ARE EXEMPT! SUBJECTION DOES NOT FLOW THROUGH THEM.
THEY CANNOT FATHER AMERICAN CITIZENS ANYMORE THAN FOREIGN AMBASSADORS CAN!
Get the picture? Obama is not a U.S. citizen per the 14th Amendment and that means that he is not a U.S. citizen at all.
see: “WHAT THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD KNOW BUT DOESN’T” at obama–nation.com
Some goodies:
11:25 – lies by claiming Indiana court “found out fraud had been committed”
12:26 – claims Obama violated the Indonesian Constitution and that constitutes “fraud”
14:58 – makes a reverse burden of proof / fishing expedition argument by claiming he doesn’t say Obama is not American but that “the records would vet that out”
(Also I would assume that if college records were released and said nothing of foreign citizenship, he would immediately claim that this doesn’t prove anything.)
Not exactly impressive for his “big moment”.
Nonsense.
Sorry Nash but anyone residing within our borders is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Which is how we can try criminals who commit terrorist acts on our soil.
According to Orly, when they don’t ask questions they are showing respect. Uh No.
Of course. Natural born citizenship is a binary state, one either is or one is not. “Questionability” is irrelevant to that state. It refers only to the state of mind of the “questioner.”
It requires full subjection which, as we know from explicit Supreme Court decision, is conferred by simple presence on national soil. As we know from The Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, “The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. It is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. Any restriction upon it, deriving validity from an external source, would imply a diminution of its sovereignty to the extent of the restriction, and an investment of that sovereignty to the same extent in that power which could impose such restriction.” (emphasis added)
There is actually no such thing as “natural law” in any effective, rigorous or applicable sense. And since any individual can have multiple nationalities, each nation is in exclusive control of its own nationality law. These plural applications of nationality law are, in every case, completely independent of each other.
As a purely hypothetical question, yes, But as we have seen above, this is not the circumstance in this country.
Please reread the 14th Amendment. Note that the individual being considered is the born child exclusively. It is the subjection of the child, not their parents, that is considered by the 14th Amendment. Parents and their status are never mentioned.
See again the decision in The Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon.
There is no need for indirect anything. See again the decision in The Schooner Exchange v. McFadden.
Exemption has nothing to do with subjection. US law makes any number of distinctions (and exemptions) between the obligations of specific classes of person (male v. female, married v. single, adult v. child, etc.) without any concomitant distinction in their citizenship status.
Your reasoning here is a complete non sequitur.
Fail.
Of course jurisdiction is absolute on US soil. Even those with diplomatic immunity… what confers such immunity? US law. If the law says diplomats’ kids are not US citizens at birth, that’s the law. If Congress were to pass a new law saying they will be in future, THAT would be the law.
The claim that foreign students and foreigners generally are not under US jurisdiction while here is nonsense. But of course, Nash made the claim, so that’s a given.
There are no thugs pressuring judges. That would be headline news, on the order of Watergate. It’s just a pathetic, infantile excuse for explaining why the court ruled against you.
So we can add “foreign citizens can commit any crime they want and not be punished” to the list of birther “legal” claims that amount to “go on, North Korea, do what you want with us”?
It fits nicely with “foreign law trumps US law” (the “Indonesian Constitution” claim), “the military is committing war crimes if they do anything under Obama and must stop doing anything immediately” (the “no legitimacy without legitimate CIC” claim), “foreign laws determine who can be US President” (the “dual citizenship makes you ineligible” claim), “the Constitution can be ignored if it fits my desires” (the “Cruz may not be eligible but Obama set a precedent, so he’s OK” claim) etc.
All claims that no true patriot would make, but somehow most birthers would subscribe to all of them.
Again time to call them out for the traitors and foreign agents they are.
Thousands if not millions of U.S. passport holders whose father was a foreign student would disagree with you.
As well as any rational person.
I get the picture as you see it.
Anyone other than foreign diplomats, that is.
How did he manage to get a U.S. passport, then?
Obama SR is not a US citizen, but Obama Jr, by virtue of his birth, is. Poor Nash has focused on the wrong person…
A little reading comprehension goes a long way, the 14th applies to those born, not to their parents…
Hilarious…
And a Security Clearance?
And a Driver’s License?
And a Law License?
And….
So Adrien, are US nationals who are members of the family of a diplomatic agent forming part of his household subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? I’ve asked you that before and you’ve ducked the question.
I believe there was a case where the mother was a US citizen and the child was born while the parents were on diplomatic assignment (father) in DC. The child’s status required him to be naturalized, if I recall correctly
I’m talking about current law and practice, which is not what it has been in times past in that regard; just as transmission of US citizenship to a child born abroad to a US citizen mother and an alien father has not always been permitted.
Here you can learn a lot about those who are “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” and who are not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devyani_Khobragade_incident
No. No one in the 39th Congress said “full subjection” and such is not the language of the Amendment. Such distortion comes from the talk of “complete jurisdiction” when referring to Indians who were born in Indian nations we considered as foreign countries and over which we exercised at most a limited or partial jurisdiction. Everyone agreed when such Indians left the Indian nations and came within territory we had complete jurisdiction over, their children would be citizens even though the parents would remain aliens (they could not be naturalized under general naturalization statutes). This is the English rule the people who adopted the Amendment said over and over that they were following. Indeed, no one in the debates said that they thought children of Chines aliens would be excluded under the Amendment which is the reason one Senator opposed it. Can you get anything right?
Let’s ask the person who introduced the 14th amendment citizenship language to Congress (and some people say drafted it):
“A citizen of the United States is held by the courts to be a person who was born within the limits of the United States and subject to their laws…..They became such in virtue of national law, or rather of natural law which recognizes persons born within the jurisdiction of every country as being subjects or citizens of that country. Such persons were, therefore, citizens of the United States, as were born in the country or were made such by naturalization; and the Constitution declares that they are entitled, as citizens, to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” Senator Howard, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., lst Sess. 2765-66 (1866).
“But I held that in the sense of the Constitution every person born free within the limits of a State, not connected with a foreign minister’s family, is born a citizen whether he be white or black. Nativity imparts citizenship in all countries and that is sufficient for my purpose.” Senator Howard, Gong. Globe, 41st Congress, 2nd Sess., pg. 1543 (1870).
Gee, “natural law which recognizes persons born within the jurisdiction of every country as being subjects or citizens of that country”. I know, what the people who wrote the law doesn’t matter, only what you think matters. This is how delusional people think.
It has never been the law of this country, or any jus soli country, that subjection passed by inheritance from the parents. All court cases that have addressed the issue and every legal authority anyone has heard of prior to 1866 says you are wrong. There was some disagreement in the run-up to Wong Kim Ark that was resolved by the Court and not challenged since. I know that doesn’t matter to you as delusional people think they can simply make up their own law based upon voices they hear in their head. Children of aliens have always been subject to the draft both before 1866 and after. During the Civil War, no one claimed they did not owe their military duties to the United States. Alien parents were gnerallyexempted. Their native born children were not.
Of course, what you cite says nothing about children of aliens. Yes, most nations have agreed as a matter of comity to the principle that aliens should not be subject to the draft. Such has never applied to native born children of aliens who in any jus soli nation owed their natural allegiance and military obligations to the nation they were born in. Let’s ask the Secretry of State who entered office in the year of the Amendment’s ratification:
“The child born of alien parents in the United States is held to be a citizen thereof, and to be subject to duties with regard to this country which do not attach to the father. The same principle on which such children are held by us to be citizens of the United States, and to be subject to duties to this country, applies to the children of American fathers born without the jurisdiction of the United States, and entitles the country within whose jurisdiction they are born to claim them as citizen and to subject them to duties to it.” Secretary of State Fish, Opinions of the Executive Departments on Expatriation, Naturalization and Allegiance (1873).
Are you following?
You simply do not understand International Law. Even though the Amendment does not use the language “fully subject,” as HistorianDude pointed out, our Supreme Court, as well as all civilized nations, recognized that all persons within the territory of a nation are fully subject to its jurisdiction. As a matter of comity and custom, nations fail to exercise its full jurisidiction in certain manners such as military service, though the issue was often debated. However, such did not mean they did not have full jurisdiction. From perhaps the leading International jurist of the 19th century:
“To be resident within the territory of a Nation is to be subject to its Jurisdiction; but Nations, from considerations of mutual Comity, do not apply the same Laws in all matters to persons who are only temporarily resident, as to persons who are permanently resident within its territory. The discretion, however, of a Nation as to the particular Law which shall be administered in its Courts is absolute, and it may decline to allow its Courts to give any effect to Foreign Law: the other hand, if it allows its Courts to administer Foreign Law in disputes between foreigners, or otherwise, it adopts tacitly the Foreign Law as its own for the settlement of such disputes.” Travers Twiss, The Law of Nations, pg. 260 (1863)
Thus, such comity is discretionary, though nation generally follow notion of comity in fear of reciprical treatment. What is clear is all the world agreed that any alien was fully subject to the nation they were in:
“[e]very independent state has full and complete jurisdiction over all persons and things physically situated within its territorial limits, whether those persons and things are permanently or transitorily present.” John Norton Pomeroy, Lectures on International Law in Time of Peace, pg. 202 (1886);
“As a rule a nation has full jurisdiction and control over all persons and things within its boundaries…John William Dwyer, Leading Cases on Private International Law, pg. 47 (1904)
“a State has full and absolute jurisdiction over all persons who are found within the boundaries of a State.” Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy, First Platform of International Law, pg 175 (1876)
Not really that hard. Everyone within a nation’s territory is fully subject to its jurisdiction but, as a matter of comity, we don’t assert certain obligations on persons who are not born our citizens persuant to jus soli principles. I know, I know, just because all the world agreed to something doesn’t mean that everyone was wrong and you are right because you have some divinely inspired knowledge no one else has, as all delusion people think.
Yes, Supreme Court dumb, Nash smart. Every in history is wrong, you are right. Seriously, get help.
Nice reply, Dude!
Every anarchist like Nash, who thinks their take on “Natural Law” gives them the personal right to preeminently interpret and subordinate the Constitution, reminds us how both intolerant and intolerable, a monarchy could be.
Ballantine,
What a marvelous response. Thank you for sharing your research.
Ballantine continues to rock. What research can do for one’s argument…
Judicial Rulings explicitly finding that Barack Hussein Obama, II is a Natural Born Citizen and therefore qualified under Article Two, Section One to be President of The United States:
1) Allen v. Obama (Arizona)
2) Ankeny v. Daniels (Indiana)
3) Fair v. Obama (Maryland)
4) Farrar v. Obama (Georgia)
5) Freeman v. Obama (Illinois)
6) Galasso v. Obama (New Jersey)
7) Jackson v. Obama (Illinois)
8) Jordan v. Obama (Washington)
9) Judd v. Obama (California)
10) Kesler v. Obama (Indiana)
11) Martin v. Obama (Illinois)
12) Paige v. Obama (Vermont)
13) Powell v. Obama (Georgia)
14) Purpura, et. al. v. Obama (New Jersey)
15) Strunk v. New York State Board of Elections (NY)
16) Swensson v. Obama (Georgia)
17) Tisdale v. Obama (Virginia)
18) Voeltz v. Obama, et. al. (Florida)
19) Welden v. Obama (Georgia)
Judicial rulings finding that Barack Obama does not qualify under Article Two, Section One as a Natural Born Citizen:
NONE
From my experience, the “natural law” claim mostly comes from religious zealots who want to justify an end-run around man-made laws (including the Constitution) to claim “divine law” is superior.
Just like “Intelligent Design” is a veil for Creationism, “Natural Law” is a veil for “Biblical Law” or, worse, “God’s will” (which of course only the zealot really knows).
I know exactly what you mean! I’ve seen the “natural law” card being played by non-religious, self-described libertarians, but the concept works exactly the same, sans religious vocabulary. Invoking a ‘higher’ concept that can’t be trumped, that is conveniently …. whatever you want it to be.
Without God, this position is even more ludicrous … or at least, devolves into the ludicrous faster! But that doesn’t stop’em from going there.
If only they would say, “Because I say so.” It would be more respectable, more honest.
I have a friend who is extremely anti-religion, and he insists that it is illegal for the government to make religious accommodations for prison inmates. When I point out that the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the government must make reasonable accommodations for people to exercise their religious beliefs, like Nash he says that the Supreme Court is wrong. My friend likes the Establishment Clause but he is not so keen on the Free Exercise Clause.
I think it depends on a number of factors. For one, there are cases of diplomats who were either married to citizens or marry a citizen of the country in which they are received as diplomats. There are even diplomats who are dual-citizens of the sending and receiving state. Some diplomats have children out of wedlock with another parent who is a citizen of the receiving state. That must get interesting sorting that out.
I’ve also been following the differences in foreign service status. I found out that what we remember from Lethal Weapon 2 is incorrect. A consular officer is not accorded full diplomatic immunity but rather a limited consular immunity that may only apply to “official acts”. So smuggling or murder on the side isn’t exactly protected for a consul-general. And for that matter since they’re not legally diplomats, their children born in the US would be born as US citizens.
BTW do members of Congress enjoy some kind of immunity?
The German Constitution (Article 46 II) confers immunity upon members of our House (with an exception in case the person is arrested not later than the day following the crime) that needs to be explicitly lifted by a vote in the House.
Art. I, sec. 6, cl. 1 says that Congress members “shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
I’d forgotten about the wording of that clause. Jon Stewart is so-o-o screwed…