The Birther movement has progressed from claiming that other people are involved in an elaborate hoax, to promoting a hoax of its own. The leader of the Birthers, Orly Taitz, has produced what she claims is a
birth certificate proving that Obama was born in Kenya.
Debunking of the document has already begun. For instance, skeptics note that "Kenya was a Dominion the date this certificate was allegedly issued and would not become a republic for 8 months."
Also, the name of the registrar listed on the document is "E.F. Lavender." Maybe this is someone's real name, but it also seems to be the name of a type of detergent (Earth Friendly Lavender).
But all that analysis isn't really necessary, because the first thing a document expert would ask is what is the provenance of the document. i.e. Where did it come from?
As far as I can tell, the document came from someone called Ed Hale who, in turn, said he paid a woman named Shirley $1000 for it. That doesn't seem like a very reliable source.
Comments
Or it could if it mentioned George Bush...
She sounds like a kettle...
My mother's name is Shirley!
For all this time, Mom never once mentioned that she was sitting on Obama's real birth certificate. I wonder why she took so long to go public with it.
Nobody seems to be denying that, wherever he was born, Barack Obama's natural mother was Stanley Ann Dunham. At the time of his birth, Stanley Ann (who was born in Kansas) was a U.S. citizen and had lived all her life until then (about 18 years) in the U.S. Under the laws effective at the time, this was unambiguously sufficient to confer automatic U.S. citizenship on Barack Obama II from birth. Therefore he is a "natural-born citizen" and eligible to be President. The exact same thing is true of John McCain, who was born in Panama to U.S.-citizen parents.
-- Posted by Big Gary
Well. . .actually, that wouldn't work if he really was born outside of the US.
According to the US State Department:
Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent in Wedlock: A child born abroad to one U.S. citizen parent and one alien parent acquires U.S. citizenship at birth under Section 301(g) INA provided the citizen parent was physically present in the U.S. for the time period required by the law applicable at the time of the child
I've lost my annotated copy of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the relevant law), so I can't cite the exact place in the statute that this is mentioned, but I know that this is the case because when I was an immigration paralegal, I dealt with several cases where this came into play.
All this refers to the law in effect in 1961; the rules have been changed since then, but for citizenship by birth the law as it was on the day the person was born is controlling.
Rather like all the folks who for eight years insisted that the last president cheated in the elections and therefore wasn't legitimate? 😉
And I don't see any overall reason why at some point the requirements for being President couldn't be changed. The Constitution is what set the requirements, and the people who wrote the Constitution were mindful of the fact that times change. And so they set the Constitution up so that it can be amended and changed. If enough people decide that the requirements should be changed, then why not change them?
I've heard mention in passing of the idea of amending the Constitution to make things easier for Arnold S., but I don't know if anyone is serious about it (especially anyone in Congress, which is who matters for this purpose).
I recall that in my youth, there were people who wanted to amend the Constitution so that Nixon could have a third term as President (shudder) and some who also wanted to change the "natural born citizen rule" so Henry Kissinger could be President (shudder, shudder, shudder). Needless to say, neither of these Amendments were adopted.
Really, D.F. Stuckey? Naturalized citizens in New Zealand actually get preference over citizens from birth? In the U.S. it's illegal to discriminate one way or the other (that is, favoring any applicant either because he/she is a "natural" citizen or a "naturalized" citizen is illegal). You do have to be a U.S. citizen (either from birth or naturalized) for most Federal government jobs, though. Legal residents who are foreign nationals don't qualify for most Federal jobs (the big exception is the U.S. military, which accepts Lawful Permanent Residents who are not citizens).
I can see the argument, though. In the U.S., to become a naturalized citizen you have to show you have good moral character, demonstrate that you can understand, speak, read, and write English, pass an exam on history and government, and swear or affirm that you will defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If you were born within our borders, on the other hand (or, as we were saying, in most cases if you were born abroad with at least one U.S.-citizen parent), all you have to do is show a birth certificate.
Then again, as my last boss also pointed out ( He was an ex-British Army wallah ), there are other reasons to employ foreign nationals here - They work like machines because they've never heard of unions or associate them with communists, and they are just grateful that nobody is shooting at them that you can ask them to do anything and they do it.
* Defintely NO handshakes; Despite there being less than 20 000 of them, peopel are terrified of Freemasons infiltrating and taking over companies in this country. One religious group that owns several large companies makes a point of publically saying so, and has even got involved in behind the scenes control of a political party to make sure such corruption doesn't occur.