Stupidity is all some of these idiots have left and you want to take that away because it's stupid? You are a cruel man, Steve.

Otherwise these party goons would have to answer questions on their party's recent record for a strong economy, sound foreign and domestic policies or limited the number of catastrophically stupid wars that the US is involved in.

i thought that people who file nuisance lawsuits had to pay for the cost of the defense of those lawsuits.

if not there should be a law.

No doubt there will be commenters trying to dignify this insulting waste of time by invoking the Constitution's requirements for Presidential eligibility.
However, have we heard from these howling assholes when GWB repeatedly shat upon the Constitution?

No, of course not.

This case is actually more bizarre than that. Donofrio doesn't argue that Obama was born outside the US. He claims (from Steve M's blog): citizenship must be passed on by the constitutionally pertinent principle of natural law, which assumes that citizenship is inherited from one's father's citizenship

Let's tell the truth, Obama is disqualified because his father was black. Nothing more needs to be said about these racist clowns. I sure didn't hear them complaining about John McCain who was born on a Navy Base in Panama.

What just bill said. Surely there's something on the books somewhere to make this type of harassment of the judiciary illegal if not punishable?!

@Just Bill.

These are NOT nuisance lawsuits because they are Repubs initiating them and the fact that no big corporations were cruelly "picked" on by the "insignificant" "liars" who were claim to be "victimized" by them.

The cool thing about conspiracy theories is that every bit of evidence against them is evidence of just how far-reaching the conspiracy is. Birth notice in a Honolulu newspaper? They phoned it in from Kenya -- because they were thinking that far ahead.

May we now hear from Michelle Malkin, on the subject?

Her father and mother came to the US from the Philippines on a work permit. She was born in the US, so, she is a US citizen. However, she wants that law revoked for future births.

The huge profits made by defense and oil firms the past eight years will fund many conservative political machines for the next century.

They phoned it in from Kenya -- because they were thinking that far ahead.

Wow, can't wait until they go after the Honolulu Advertiser's phone records from back then. The fact that they've probably been destroyed -- and that Ma Bell didn't keep back up copies -- will be all the proof we need of a nefarious conspiracy!

The Supreme Court has refused to hear appeals of death sentences that were based on flimsier evidence than that which supports Obama's citizenship. The fact that Clarence Thomas thinks this is worthy of the Court's time is further proof of his incompetence to sit on the High Court.

I wonder what Scalia, Alito and Chief Judge think about this. It would be amazingly funny if they agreed with Thomas on this one.

If the far right Republicans had it in their DNA to pay attention to outcome for their actions, The Economy, WARS , foreign policy, education would not be in such a failed state.

I am tired of Boehner and his group bringing up such drivvle. Get Real!! Grow up!Pay attention to what you the neocons have caused. All America and the world has to pay for the Republicans greed.

Olbermann reported that one of the other justices, Souter, I think, refused to consider this, but never fear, we have Clarence Thomas to validate this nut job.

The fact that Clarence Thomas thinks this is worthy of the Court's time is further proof of his incompetence to sit on the High Court.

That's what I was thinking--was he obligated to distribute the appeal, or could he have turned it down himself?
Sorry if I'm a little suspicious of someone who conducted one of Rush Limbaugh's marriage ceremonies.

GHWB thought he was filling the Thurgood Marshall chair, with the "Most Qualified in the Land". However, he created the Queen of Hearts chair. Verdict first, then, find a rule of law to support the conviction.

So I just Googled this Donofrio guy. The sites I found scared the crap out of me. My heart is literally still racing. So much racism and hatred. I guess I naively believed that these people would go away after the election.

I cannot believe that this story has legs.

I'm surprised how quickly Obama Derangement Syndrome manifests itself.

Assuming the vote goes 9-0 or 8-1 in favor of Obama, Justice Thomas might be doing us all a favor by bringing about a 'judicial determination' of this nonsense. (If there were any more votes against Obama, well, FDR's 'court-packing' plan was perfectly legal, even if it was a political disaster, and somebody might write an article supporting it. Who will be the Justice Roberts, whose 'switch in time saved nine,' this time?)

Maybe if we're lucky these nuts will sue the SCOTUS for "failing to consider a legitimate grievance brought by the People of the United States of America."

It's the newspaper birth announcement that settles things. Not to sound tinfoil-hatty, but the birth certificate *is* sort of weird looking. The birth announcement exists in the paper's archives, and as other comments note it strains belief to imagine that it had been faked in case a newborn baby might want to run for President 45 years in the future.

"Ann's mother would have gone ballistic if her daughter had even mentioned traveling to Kenya in the final stages of pregnancy."

Absolutely. What kind of nut would take a long-distance airplane flight in the late stages of pregnancy? Surely members of your family -- not to mention your doctor -- would go ballistic if you even suggested it!

I have to ask...

If someone told me I had to prove *I* was an American citizen and I showed them my birth certificate and they told me that wasn't good enough...

What the hell else is there to do?

If you aren't Apache or Navajo, are we all foreigners? Arguably YES, but then, let's just acknowledge that argument, take back our beads and shells, and go "home." Obama will go back to his "native" Kenya and I'll be deported to Alsace-Lorraine. Seriously, isn't this the natural progression right wingers are pushing?

For the activists, the co-conspirators include election officials, the judiciary, mainstream news outlets, Obama's family (who apparently had the foresight to plant a bogus birth announcement 47 years ago), and officials in Hawaii, including its Republican governor.

Don't forget the State Department that issued him a passport without a valid birth certificate, the Social Security Administration that gave him a Social Security number without a valid birth certificate, and the Department of Education that gave him financial aid without checking to make sure he was a citizen.

You'd think that the larger the conspiracy grows, one would have to realize that it's becoming impossible, but apparently not.

I actually possess my original birth certificate, with raised seal, from Morris County, State of New Jersey, dating to the same time Obama was born.

It looks as flimsy and phoney as if I just created it with Photoshop...it is good enough to have gotten me a US Passport several times over, but god forbid I had it tested in court....

I believe comments may be unfairly critical of Justice Thomas. Petitioners have the right to sequentially petition three justices. Souter refused. If Thomas refused, it would have come back to a third justice. By referring it to entire court Thomas saved the item coming back a third time.

The Slate article mentions that one of the movers behind this whole thing is a conservative activist called Gary Kreep.

Oh, come on. What, would Bill Evilbastard have been too obvious? Ed Connivinglittlecreep? Tad Puppykicker?

Is there a way to bill these bottom feeders for the time and energy they cause the judicial system to waste??

What kind of nut would take a long-distance airplane flight in the late stages of pregnancy?

Sarah Palin?

I am not sure why it even matters if he was born in HI or not. I'm an American citizen. If I were working in Kenya and my Kenyan wife gave birth to a child, that child is a natural-born US citizen, right? He would be a citizen because I'm a citizen.

Is my thinking off here? Is there some legal definition of natural born citizen with which I am not familiar?

@ Larry Birnbaum: LMAO!!!! That was great!

> Not to sound tinfoil-hatty, but the birth
> certificate *is* sort of weird looking.

I have an old-fashioned "photostat" of my birth certificate circa 1960s that my mother ordered when I started school. You can see that the original document is torn and smuged, make out the doctor's handwriting, etc. But the last time I ordered an official copy (from Cook County Illinois) I received a crisp clean computer-printed version with a county seal stamped into it.

I don't know if the original paper document, or the microfilm copy of same, still exists in a dusty warehousehouse somewhere. But I do know that all birth certificates ordered from that county today will look exactly the same whether the birth occurred the day after the Chicago Fire or last week.

"The only reason Clarence Thomas referred it on to the other black robes is because he has a great sense of humor and knew they all needed a laugh."

Found this beaut at redstate.com
http://wordpress.redstate.com/erick/2008/12/04/the-birth-certificate-drama/

One fun response to these nuts would be to ask (if they're old enough to remember) their thoughts on George Romney's qualifications for president (of the US, that is).

Buffalonian,

It's complicated. If your child was born after 1986, he would be a dual citizen of Kenya and the U.S., because his Kenyan mother gave birth to him in Kenya. You would have to register the birth with a U.S. consulate or embassy in that country for your child to get a U.S. citizenship record. Otherwise, his citizenship would default to Kenya. If a child born of two U.S. parents is born abroad, it gets dual citizenship, but has to choose one or the other when it turns 18. Which is why John McCain is also a U.S. citizen even though he was born in Panama, because both his parents were U.S. citizens.

Why is it that white supremacists (which is what these people are, whether they admit it or not) always manage to prove the genetic inferiority of white people????

There is no sense in wasting *our* time talking about this. Let the far-right crowd waste their time on this; in fact I hope the Supreme Court hears the case for this very reason.

One of the striking things not yet mentioned about this frivolous suit is how unusual and expensive air travel was back in those days. It would have been expensive for anyone and expecially astounding for a heavily pregnant woman to take a series of commercial flights from Hawaii to Kenya -- I am guessing that BOAC was the only airline with regular flights to Kenya, and they probably weren't daily.

Then, using Kenya's no doubt not quite up to date telephone/teletype service, the mother would have had to call her parents in Hawaii to give them the info so they could "plant" the birth announcement (which is also ridiculous because the style of the info for the announcement shows that it pretty clearly came from the hospital where Obama was born). I am old enough to remember how tough it could be to make a phone call from France to the U.S. even as late as 1990.

This lawsuit gives mindlessness a new standard.

The subject is complicated, but most countries in the world are not like the U.S. and do not consider place of birth as determinative in conferring citizenship, and I mean, NOT AT ALL. Multiple generations of the children of immigrant guest workers live in places where they are still not citizens.

If either of your parents is a U.S. citizen when you are born, so are you. The issue is validation and documentation (particularly documentation of paternity), and there is a recent Supreme Court case on the issue.

tooweary: "If you aren't Apache or Navajo, are we all foreigners?"

Everybody knows 90% of Native Americans are fake. Call it the "Iron Eyes Cody Effect."

Buffalonian ...no you would not be eligible to run for President or VP. You have to be born here in the US. That's the definition of a natural born citizen. Kind of ironic becasue as someone earlier pointed out Michelle Malkin's parents were not US citizens but because she was born here in the US then she has the right to run for President even though US citizens born abroad do not. It's in the Constitution. You have to be 35 and a natural born citizen. Honestly I don't know why you have to be a natural born citizen ...it kind of means that there are two classes of citizens in the US..those who are naturalized and those who are natural born. The former group has all the rights of the latter except the Presidential/VP one. I guess they couldn't be Speaker of the House either because of succession laws. Anyway that's the way the founding fathers wanted it, I guess in case of foreign subversion.

Thomas is a dick! He's lucky his first name isn't John as that would no doubt confirm such a stature! (No certificate needed!) -Kevo

"You have to be born here in the US. That's the definition of a natural born citizen"

Wrong, wrong, wrong....you do not have to be born on US "soil; you have to be a citizen at birth as opposed to gaining it through naturalization...that is the only hitch....

Thomas will vote against. The 'patrilineal citizenship is the only real citizenship' argument is an attempt to set up a 'natural law trumps statute law' precedent, a point of view with at least two sympathizers on the Court.

It's ultimately about abortion. But then, when it comes to the Supreme Court, it's always about abortion.

Actually invalidating Obama's election would be lagniappe. They want the precedent, or at least a good, noisy dissent.

And yet the Right is always barking about frivolous lawsuits- like prisoners getting cable tv in prison. How about holding the US Taxpayer hostage by this? Shenanigans? We got bigger fish to fry!

Wrong, wrong, wrong....you do not have to be born on US "soil; you have to be a citizen at birth as opposed to gaining it through naturalization...that is the only hitch....

Except that there is considerable reason to believe (and some case law to suggest) that the only citizens-by-birth ("natural born citizens")in US law are those with Constitutionally-guaranteed birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment (those born in the United States). All others are citizens through naturalization under Congress' power to create a uniform rule of naturalization, even if the conditions by which Congress has created for citizenship under which that person qualifies attach at birth.

Kind of ironic becasue as someone earlier pointed out Michelle Malkin's parents were not US citizens but because she was born here in the US then she has the right to run for President even though US citizens born abroad do not.

So John McCain illegally ran for president? After all, he was born in Panama, while Obama was born in the United States.

But, as petey pointed out, this was resolved years ago by the passage of several laws clarifying what "natural born citizen" means. If your parents are Americans, you are an American citizen no matter where you're born. It gets trickier if only your father is a citizen because there's all kinds of proof that has to be presented, but if your mother is a citizen, you're pretty much home free since it's very difficult to fake maternity.

The former group has all the rights of the latter except the Presidential/VP one. I guess they couldn't be Speaker of the House either because of succession laws.

No, people can be in offices that are in the Constitutional line of succession without being eligible to the Presidency (they can't, in that case, actually succeed to the Presidency, they are skipped.) The only exception is the Vice Presidency, which has the same qualifications as the Presidency.

So John McCain illegally ran for president? After all, he was born in Panama, while Obama was born in the United States.

There's a pretty good argument that he is not qualified to the Presidency, but since no one has standing to challenge him appearing on the ballot (which is, after all, not a ballot for the Presidency but a ballot for pledged electors) -- it was tried, incidentally, against both McCain and Obama and in both cases challenges were dismissed for lack of standing -- its kind of a moot point. There wouldn't be a justiciable issue unless he were elected (arguably, until after he was elected by the votes of the electoral college counted by Congress, which may be a fatal flaw to the current challenge to Obama even without considering the rather dubious merits of the substantive -- loosely speaking -- claims made in that challenge.)

But, as petey pointed out, this was resolved years ago by the passage of several laws clarifying what "natural born citizen" means.

You can't adopt a statute to rewrite the Constitution, you can only do that with a Constitutional amendment. Any Act of Congress extending citizenship to particular persons (even if it is conditioned on circumstances at birth alone) is, quite arguably, an exercise of the naturalization power, even if it purports to designate people as "natural born citizens".

It would appear that it's a gray area to say the least. I guess one wouldn't know unless it was challenged and the Supreme Court ruled on it one way or another. I believe there was a move afoot by Orin Hatch in 2003 to amend the constitution that would have removed the conditions on naturalized citizen but it didn't go anywhere. I wonder what would the law say if 2 naturalized citizens of the US had a child abroad...would that child automatically be a natural born citizen or only a naturalized citizen. I'll bet that would be a murky case. It does seem to me that there are 2 classes of citizens in the US which seems inherently unjust. Kind of like treating adopted children differently from birth children. Food for thought.

You can't adopt a statute to rewrite the Constitution, you can only do that with a Constitutional amendment.

It's not a matter of amending the constitution, it's a matter of what "natural born citizen" means. There are British statues going back well into the Middle ages defining the term, and that sheds considerable light on what the foudners emant whe they sued it. Basically, it means anyone who is a citizen by birth and not by naturalization, and who is a citizen by birth gets to be defined by statute, subject to constitutional limitations (which, due to the 14th Amedment, are broader than they were at the time the Cosntitution was drafted.

If Obama had really been born in Kenya (which of courrse is nonsense), there would be an argument that he wasn't a citizen (note, not just that he wasn't a "natural born citizen") because of a loophole in the citizenship laws in effect at the time. Being only 18 years old at the time of Obama's birth, his mother hadn't lived in this country for 5 years after the age of 14. This provision, since amended, was designed to avoid legacy citizenships, in which generations of foriegners are technically US citizens due to ancestry, without ever having any real contact with this country.

It's not a matter of amending the constitution, it's a matter of what "natural born citizen" means.

Changing what the phrase "natural born citizen" means in the Constitution is a matter of amending the Constitution. (In fact, one center of debate on this issue in terms of Presidential qualifications is whether Amendment XIV must be viewed as controlling, in effect amending, the meaning of "natural born citizen" in Article II.)

-which assumes that citizenship is inherited from one's father's citizenship - rather sexist don't you think?
I read somewhere, that JM was born in a Panama hospital not on the military base, so wtf???

DXM says:

'natural law trumps statute law' precedent, a point of view with at least two sympathizers on the Court.

Two? Other than Thomas, who has an actual Natural Law jurisprudence? Alito? (although I would suggest his jurisprudence may not be formed enough to give it a label; maybe "Papist"? GOPist?)

Suppose the Supremes dismiss the case "with prejudice". Barristers here check me, but doesn't that mean the case can not be brought again in that jurisdiction? And isn't the jurisdiction of the Supremes the entire US?

You can't adopt a statute to rewrite the Constitution, you can only do that with a Constitutional amendment.

Except that they're not rewriting it, they're supplying a definition of "natural born citizen" since there isn't a definition of what that means in the Constitution.

I suppose someone could argue that the interpretation of "natural born citizen" should be different, but since there isn't a specific definition in the Constitution, it seems a little silly to claim that Congress can't supply that definition.

Contrary to some on this site, I don't think Justice Clarence Thomas is doing this out of retribution. I believe he is going through this motion to squash, once and for all, this nonsense. Afte all, once the Supreme Court decides this isn't worth their time because it lacks any real merit, then the issue is dead. Sure a few wingers will howl, but everyone else, even those who don't subscribe to liberal views, will be satisfied.

Remember when all the wingnuts wanted the Constitution changed so that Ah-nold could run for prez?

Heather: "I guess they couldn't be Speaker of the House either because of succession laws."

No, Speaker would be OK. We already have cabinet secretaries who are not "natural born" citizens; the line of succession simply skips over them.

More interestingly, the Speaker does not have to be a member of Congress. An ambiguity in the Constitution lets members of the House choose anybody. As it happens, though, by rule or statute the Speaker must be a member, if I'm not mistaken.

@zeitgiest:

Fr. Neuhaus certainly hoped in 2005 that Alito would swing that way....but discreetly, so as not to cause a fuss.

Presumably these people are eagerly anticipating the Joe Biden presidency...

"What kind of nut would take a long-distance airplane flight in the late stages of pregnancy? Surely members of your family -- not to mention your doctor -- would go ballistic if you even suggested it!"

Posted by: larry birnbaum on December 5, 2008 at 11:19 AM

How about: Sarah Palin! According to her words, her water started leaking on April 17 or 18 when she was in Texas, so she a) held a noontime speech at the rethug governors convention, b) flew over 11 hours with stopover in Seattle to Anchorage, and c) drove herself past several well-equipped hospitals to take care of e preemie babie for almost an extra hour to the tiny hospital in Wassilla, where she had a special-needs baby that was discharged with her the next day...

"Maybe if we're lucky these nuts will sue the SCOTUS for 'failing to consider a legitimate grievance brought by the People of the United States of America.'"

Don't worry -- They'll issue the decision in a courtroom where the flag has no gold fringes on it, so it's actually a non-act by the court. The true decision will take place after hours in a secretly called Star Chamber conference that will institute the Flying Spaghetti Monster presidency.

"So John McCain illegally ran for president? After all, he was born in Panama, while Obama was born in the United States."

I thought Congress passed a law JUST FOR JOHN MCAIN sometimes either this year or last year, so that he WAS actually 'legal' to run for president...

a friend of mine was a supreme court clerk. one tedious part of her job was to write the orders denying certiorari on many, many appeals from whackadoos with too much money and time. There was every reason in the book, from specious readings of the law or constitution all the way to full-blow mental illness.

I would presume good faith from Thomas on this. He's a dick, but these accusations have to stop.

I thought Congress passed a law JUST FOR JOHN MCAIN sometimes either this year or last year, so that he WAS actually 'legal' to run for president...

Either Congress or just one House (I forget which it was) passed a non-binding resolution declaring that McCain was a natural born citizen.

Which means, literally, nothing.

Except that they're not rewriting it, they're supplying a definition of "natural born citizen" since there isn't a definition of what that means in the Constitution.

Which, again, a statute can't do, unless something in the existing meaning of the Constitution empowers Congress to do that by statute.

The usual argument for the poin that Congress can do that is that "natural born citizen" in Article II simply means either "citizen by law at the time of birth" (which might still be a problem for, e.g., McCain particularly, since his citizenship is only clear because of a retroactive law passed after he was born designed to address what was seen as possible undesired effect of existing citizenship law under which people born in the circumstances McCain was born in were not, or at least might not be, citizens) or "citizen by legal right due to condition at birth". The usual argument against that with Amendment XIV, the US has two forms of citizenship, those "born in" the United States and those "naturalized" in the United States, and that only the former are "natural born citizens" within the meaning of Article II, at least since Amendment XIV was adopted, and all Congress can do with citizenship is excercise its Article I power to regulate the later class, that of naturalized citizens.

I suppose someone could argue that the interpretation of "natural born citizen" should be different, but since there isn't a specific definition in the Constitution, it seems a little silly to claim that Congress can't supply that definition.

Congress has no Constitutional authority to define words in the Constitution. Otherwise, it could rewrite the entire Constitution just by redefining the terms that aren't explicitly defined (i.e., most of them, either directly or indirectly, since for those that are themselves defined, Congress could just rewrite the meanings of the terms used to define them) in statute.

If Congress has any authority to change who is a "natural born citizen", its because "natural born citizen" has, in the Constitution, whether explicitly or not, a meaning that is inherently subject to change by statute (such as one of the two described above that meet that description), not because Congress has an implicit power to supply definitions for any term in the Constitution that isn't expressly defined in that document.

If a child born of two U.S. parents is born abroad, it gets dual citizenship, but has to choose one or the other when it turns 18. Which is why John McCain is also a U.S. citizen even though he was born in Panama, because both his parents were U.S. citizens.

It used to be that a foreign-born US citizen would lose their US citizenship if they didn't live in the US for 5 years before their 28th birthday, actually, but the law was changed in 1978 and there is no residency requirement.

However, if you're a US citizen who hasn't lived in the US for five years before your child is born, your child isn't a US citizen. This makes sense, since you don't really want a colony of US citizens somewhere in the world who haven't lived in the US for generations.

There was a supreme court case in 1971 challenging the five-years-before-28 requirement, but the court ruled that the 14th amendment didn't apply to people born outside the US.

Immigration and citizenship law is lotsa fun.

My birth cert from the early 50s looks like shit, but it's legal and honors my birth in one of the states.

These people bringing the lawsuits are brain dead infarcts...

If Congress has any authority to change who is a "natural born citizen", its because "natural born citizen" has, in the Constitution, whether explicitly or not, a meaning that is inherently subject to change by statute (such as one of the two described above that meet that description), not because Congress has an implicit power to supply definitions for any term in the Constitution that isn't expressly defined in that document.

I think we're arguing two separate things here. If "natural born citizen" is not defined in the Constitution, then is it subject to statute or not?

If "natural born citizen" is not defined in the Constitution, then is it subject to statute or not?

If it is used in the Constitution, then it has a meaning there. Whether statute can change the practical application of that meaning depends entirely on what that meaning, independent of any later statute, is. This is not dependent on whether or not it is explicitly defined in the Constitution, though, if it was, that would (one would expect) reduce the amount of wrangling over exactly what the meaning in the Constitution is.

Congress is not empowered to create its own definition for any word or phrase used in the Constitution that is not explicitly defined in the Constitution and have that definition be binding on the interpretation of the Constitutional provisions in which the word or phrase is used; if it did, it would be able to freely amend the Constitution by creating self-serving statutory definitions.

For instance, "ex post facto law" is a phrase used in the Constitution that is nowhere in the Constitution defined. Congress could not pass a statute that defined "ex post facto law" to mean "a law recognizing marriage between two members of the same sex" and thereby allow itself to pass laws that make criminal conduct that occurred before the law was passed.

> My birth cert from the early 50s looks like
> shit, but it's legal and honors my birth in one
> of the states.

The problem isn't that the birth certificates under discussion look bad; just the opposite. I have the impression that around 1990 many US counties entered their birth and death records into a computer system authorized to generate "official" certificates and then destroyed the originals. In fact I bet there is a company out there that sells those system and that most counties now use the same one. So again no matter if your grandfather was born in 1905 and you were born in 2005 at the same hospital if the two of you order an official certificate from your county the two certificates will look the same.

Cranky

> Congress is not empowered to create its own
> definition for any word or phrase used in the
> Constitution that is not explicitly defined in the
> Constitution and have that definition be binding
> on the interpretation of the Constitutional
> provisions in which the word or phrase is used; if
> it did, it would be able to freely amend the
> Constitution by creating self-serving statutory
> definitions.

So tell us cm, what _does_ "natural born citizen" mean, how do you know, and why are you so sure?

Cranky

This never ceases to amaze me.

People voted for Ralph Nader under the independent party - Fact: Ralph Nader is Lebanese. Yes, he is a consumer activist. However, notice how he never runs for any other public office seat - only president, every presidential race.

Darryl Issa - Lebanese. Rep from San Diego California.

Bobby Jindal - both his parents are from India.

Now you have Obama, one American parent and one Kenyan Parent.

What's the problem? Is it because Obama is half black?

I don't understand these nuts out there, you have a highly intelligent person getting ready to take the oval office. Yet, they'd rather have someone they'd rather have a beer with or go shopping with at Walmart. I'd sure like to ask these people how was the beer they shared with Boy George?

You know, I didn't want to say this, but I will, maybe foreigners that say, "dumb American," "Stupid American," does so with go reason. This is what they see and hear, idiots like this.

Issa, Nader, and Jindal were all born in the USA. Neither Jindal [yet] nor Issa has run for President so it is irrelevant really. If Nader won the election you better believe someone would be fronting the Court the next day

Brendan Eales,

Obama was born in the US also.
The point I'm making is they are all minorities. Bobby Jindal is the republicans darling.

Obama was being attacked as soon as he began his campaign. This has never happened to any of the others, regardless whether it's a state/U.S. senate, U.S. Rep., or veep/pres

"Donofrio ... claims... that citizenship is inherited from one's father's citizenship."

No, that approach is called ius sanguinis, law or right of blood. Our American approach is ius solis, law or right of place. If the Framers were at all vague about who a natural-born citizen was, the Fourteenth Amendment is clear:

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside...."

BHO wasn't naturalized but "born... in the United States." Hence he was a native-born citizen at birth: "a natural born citizen...eligible to the office of president," as Article II puts it. His parents could both have been Soviet or North Korean or Albanian citizens, and he would still be a natural born citizen. And that's that.

BTW, I don't think there were any British "citizens" at the time of the Founding, only "subjects" of King George.

Why should it matter if Obama is a citizen or not?

If the Democrats and Republicans can encourage tens of millions of illegal aliens to come here to take our jobs, it is only fair that the voters should be able to elect foreigners to take the jobs of Washington politicians. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

The Constitution is just a piece of paper; we're the voters.