Unlimited money to promote unlimited stupidity.
The Minuteman organization, a loose collection of civilians who both advocate for greater border security and watch the boarder themselves, has formed a Political Action Committee. In addition to promoting immigration reform and socially conservative policies, the PAC has added another large plank to their organization; they are birthers.
Their argument, according to WND, is that because President Obama’s father was not American in accordance with the 1875 SCOTUS Minor v. Happersett he can’t be president, which is a chic way to avoid the issue of Obama’s Hawaiian birth indeed.
There exists a conspiracy theory that references the Minor v. Happersett have been scrubbed by illegally altering SCOTUS records and that theory has gained some steam in conservative circles ever since the tactic of arguing Obama’s alleged foreign birth was not well received in courts. The basic argument is that Obama is a naturalized citizen rather than natural born and thus is ineligible for the office. However, not one of the birthers attached to the Minor v. Happersett theory has ever brought up United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), in which the court ruled that persons born in the U.S. no matter their parentage are Natural Born and could assume the role of the Presidency. There was only one Judge who offered a dissenting opinion, which was based on the idea of foreigners who are citizens of an allied nation and have children inside the U.S. cannot become U.S. citizens if the allied nation has a policy preventing that action. It was the consensus of the majority that the dissenting opinion violated the constitution’s 14th amendment and thus was invalid.
No doubt birthers continue the trend of selective history and cherry picked their cases to validate their pre conceived conspiracy theory. Yet, this appeal to the birther movement should pull a tidy sum of money to the PAC, extensively to support the PAC’s stated goal of informing the citizens of America of Minor v. Happersett despite its irrelevance. At the end of the day the only real change will be that the PAC will have more money regardless and I think that might have been the real goal all along, for who could resist the collection of unlimited money from ignorant but hopeful supporters.
27 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
Randomfactor
January 25, 2012 at 19:36 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So…under Minor, they’re arguing that President Obama is really a woman and therefore can’t run for president?
Does he weigh the same as a duck?
shouldbeworking
January 25, 2012 at 19:39 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No, he weighs the same as a female Canada goose.
Assassin Actual
January 25, 2012 at 20:05 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The bithers feels that because both parents are not natural born citizens, he cannot be.
Reguardless, Obama turned me into a newt and no matter that I got better, he is a witch.
had3
January 25, 2012 at 20:51 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And if the grandparents aren’t natural born, then the parents aren’t natural born….mounting goalposts on wheels makes it easier to move them.
aarrgghh
January 25, 2012 at 21:24 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
let’s not forget birther steve ankeny, whose march 2009 suit dropped into the birther memory hole after his appeal was denied in november 2009 by the indiana court of appeals, which concluded:
and
kinda blows out of the water the current birther argument that obama can’t be prez cause his daddy or mommy ain’t a red-blooded american citizen, which is why they don’t talk about it much.
ankeny has yet to take his appeal to the supreme court.
Jaketoadie
January 25, 2012 at 21:27 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@had3 #4
I think I kinda like this idea. That means that no president of this country was actually eligible for the office, meaning (according to the birthers) that any law passed under any president can now be ignored as illegitimate should we decide we don’t want to follow them.
Nomen Nescio
January 25, 2012 at 21:28 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
oy, conspiracy theorists. stare too long at their arguments, and their arguments stare also into you.
citizenship law isn’t particularly obscure — as you’d expect, i guess, since it’s relatively often relied on. the Wong Kim Ark decision is over a century old; if you have to dig back further than that to find any specious grounds for your conspiracy theory, you’re better off just giving it all up.
the closest we’ve come to having a presidential candidate whose citizenship could genuinely be questioned, in living memory anyway, would’ve been McCain. and even then you would’ve had to be loony, he too was natural born thanks to his parents’ citizenship.
eoraptor013
February 3, 2012 at 22:54 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As I recollect, Mitten’s father, George Romney, was born in Mexico, to parents who had been living in Mexico since childhood. His grandparents fled to Mexico when the Mormons banned polygamy (grandpa just couldn’t see giving up the life). They could not, however, become Mexican citizens because Mexican law prevented it. In the early 1900′s the Romneys, with little George in tow, moved back to the US because of some unpleasantness with that Villa fellow.
I’m waiting for the birthers to howl in protest when Mitt becomes the nominee because his great-grandparents intentionally abandoned the US and only Mexican law prevented George from being a Mexican citizen.
danielmchugh
January 25, 2012 at 23:50 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not overly fond of the President- like just about every other political critter, he’s done a few things I agree with and a lot of things I don’t.
This Birther crap is just ridiculous. IMO, the natural born citizen requirement is ridiculous as well- if we are to proclaim ourselves a nation of equals under law, then that equality cannot come with conditions. A citizenship requirement makes perfect sense, and so does a duration of residency requirement- those ensure that candidates understand the place they are running for office in, be it city, state, or nation. Where a person was born, however, has no bearing on a person’s ability to carry out the duties of their office. I would be not at all opposed to an amendment lifting the birth restriction.
We pride ourselves on being a nation of immigrants… and I would proudly vote for an immigrant President if the law permitted it, so long as they were qualified to perform the duties of the office.
otrame
January 25, 2012 at 23:55 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Goldwater was born in Arizona before it became a state, and I remember there was some talk during his bid for the Presidency that he was ineligible because he was not born in a state.
Aliasalpha
January 26, 2012 at 01:10 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Are these pac thingies actually required to talk about the candidates? If not, couldn’t sane people form their own & run an ad that essentially says “Yes, a black man was elected president now shut the fuck up and deal with it you petty minded bigoted fucks”?
Assassin Actual
January 26, 2012 at 01:43 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They can practice any “political speech” or use the money for costs associated with conducting their speech. They don’t have to report their expenses for several years, either.
It is completely legit to make a PAC, turn it over to your spouse or a friend, and then have them pay you an exorbitant speakers fee to talk about your issue of choice to a crowd.
Some countries call it money laundering, we call it free speech.
Art
January 26, 2012 at 04:52 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sounds like these guys, hard to get women to debase themselves to deeply, are practicing a thoroughly perverse combination of gang rape, bestiality and necrophilia. The horse they hump away on is dead, has been for years, and yet they line up to take a turn at what has become a sacrament and proof of ideological purity for the far right wing. All the time claiming they are “patriots” doing us a grand public service.
It is an embarrassment to law, the legal profession, and intelligent life everywhere.
arakasi
January 26, 2012 at 14:14 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Does anyone else remember the halcyon days when the Republicans were demanding an immediate Constitutional ammendment to delete the “natural-born citizen” clause so Ah-nuld could run for president?
Whatever happened to those days? They seemed comparatively sane
Nomen Nescio
January 26, 2012 at 15:54 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
what happened there was Jennifer Granholm served two quite successful terms as governor of Michigan. remove the natural-born requirement and she could be a real contender for first female president of the union.
MikeMa
January 26, 2012 at 15:38 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
When Orly Taitz was driving this particular clown car, there was a lot of talk online about the Ark decision by her supportive and quite delusional commenters. It boiled down to the idea that the founders were unspecific on what natural born meant so maybe we can use it to oust that black usurper. What all the kenyan, muslim, amurika hating, communist, fascist trash talk boiled down to was, “I am a bigot”, or “I hate liberals”, or both.
Birtherism was, at first, a seemingly (to fools) viable way to have the president removed from power, arrested and, taken to extremes, hanged. The next step was a little fuzzy. By law, Biden would be sworn in when many hoped McCain/Palin to be declared winners of the election somehow. Lots of calls for treason, etc. Little has changed in 3 years.
Congress had the opportunity to question Obama’s eligibility and they did not. Bigots go home.
StevoR
January 27, 2012 at 12:21 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ ^ MikeMa : Bigots go home?
Unfortunately they are home already.
This birther nonsense .. still being preached!? Yeesh.
Like Creationism and Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating Denialism, Birtherism has long ago and repeatedly been shown to be not merely fals ebut ridiculous but still seems to handg aoound some scenes liek a really bad stench.
StevoR
January 27, 2012 at 12:22 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
D’oh! Sorry that’s :
Birtherism has long ago and repeatedly been shown to be not merely false but ridiculous but still seems to hang around some scenes like a really bad stench.
For clarity.
SAWells
January 27, 2012 at 13:43 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You’d think the birthers would have a bigger issue to worry about: apparently the Secret Service can vet someone for security clearance as a US Senator and then as POTUS without noticing whether they’re a citizen.
Nilda Filburn
July 11, 2012 at 02:04 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’ll appear forward to reading via significantly much more of your projects.
Domenic Grossmann
July 27, 2012 at 03:04 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We’re amazingly happy that we stumbled across this certain inside my search for a quite essential factor relating to this.
Emily Lacasse
July 30, 2012 at 08:32 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
THANK YOU for this outstanding weblog! I am hooked and beginning to make adjustments
training management software systems
September 12, 2012 at 02:35 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I can carry on with our investigation by just experiencing your weblog post.
townhouses to rent
November 4, 2012 at 05:20 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This web site can be a concern you require on-line, an person having a small individuality.
gutters fl
December 14, 2012 at 11:29 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Great post! This will save us a lot of difficulty along with ache!
looking for business partner in usa
March 23, 2013 at 23:09 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wonderful. Very good luck, tell me the way will go. Wonderful subject at the same time, My spouse and i retain hearing in which title everywhere.
physical therapists
May 13, 2013 at 12:37 (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hello webmaster! I came across your site utilizing Google, and also this is excellent data.