The Obama eligibility issue is still alive. This coming Monday, a Florida judge will hear evidence on what a natural born citizen is, and whether Barack H. Obama is one. And an Arizona sheriff, a volunteer detective, and a reporter who has worked this story for years, all have sent affidavits to that Florida court.
Background of the Florida Obama eligibility case
The case of Voeltz v. Obama is simple. Mike Voeltz is a registered Democrat and lives in Florida. He says that the Democratic Party cheated him of his vote by having on the ballot the name of a candidate who may not run. Specifically, Voeltz says that Barack Obama may not run for President because he is not a natural born citizen.
Judge Terry Lewis in Leon County, Florida, scheduled a hearing for Monday, June 18, 2012, at 9:00 a.m. Voeltz asked Larry Klayman, of Judicial Watch fame, to plead his case. Klayman sent in a brief saying in detail what a natural born citizen is, and is not. The Constitution (Article II, Section 1, paragraph 5) says that only a natural born citizen may even run for President. Klayman cited a case (Minor v. Happersett, 1875) that is the only case that defines a natural born citizen in any detail. That case describes a natural born citizen as a person born in the country to two citizen parents. That is the only place in the opinion where that phrase “natural born citizen” shows up.
Klayman said further that the Framers used the phrase natural born citizen for a reason:
The framers were not stupid. They understood that a president with divided loyalties could present a security and other risks for our nation.
The White House lawyers say that anyone born in-country is a natural born citizen, wherever the parents were born. But while Klayman cited a case to back him up, the White House legal team did not. So Judge Lewis ordered the White House to back up their idea of what a natural born citizen can be. He also ordered them to show original documents to prove that Obama is a natural born citizen.
Sheriff Joe comes to testify
Alvin T. Onaka, the Hawaii registrar, seems to be whimsical: he turned the capital "A" of his signature into a "smiley face." Note also that he misspells "THE" as "TXE" on what should be a rubber stamp. Now Sheriff Joe Arpaio says that someone pasted this stamp in, and that gives him probable cause to suspect forgery. Photo: CNAV
Early this morning, WNDreported that Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, swore to his role in investigating Obama eligibility in his State. The leader of his Cold Case Posse, former New Jersey detective Mike Zullo, swore to his own role, as didWND reporter Jerome Corsi. Arpaio and Corsi both appeared before their notaries yesterday; Mike Zullo saw a notary the day before.
“Sheriff Joe” says that the Obama long-form birth certificate is not a copy of a paper document. Instead, says the sheriff, someone built it on a computer. Worse, someone copied a picture of the “registrar’s stamp” from somewhere else and pasted it in. (CNAV has already shown that the file is full of mistakes. Among other things, that “registrar’s stamp” spells the word THE as TXE.) That is why Arpaio found “probable cause” that the White House file is a forgery.
Mike Zullo went further. He said that Hawaiian officials have told different stories over the last five years on whether Barack Obama even has a birth certificate.
Klayman also introduced a copy of Jerome Corsi’s book, Where’s the Real Birth Certificate? as evidence. Corsi needed to swear in writing that his book was accurate.
Obama eligibility still spooks Hawaii
Meanwhile, WND‘s Bob Unruh reported that even asking about Obama eligiblity in Hawaii provokes officials to stall or refuse to answer. Unruh described some of the different stories that Mike Zullo described in his affidavit. He also describes the different stories that came out in the press that didn’t even agree on which hospital Obama was born in.
Most boldly of all, Unruh accused Governor Neil Abercrombie of flat-out lying. Abercrombie once said this to The Chicago Tribune:
Maybe I’m the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye and tell you, “I was here when the baby was born.”
The problem: he couldn’t have. Barack Obama, Senior, and Stanley Ann Dunham Obama did not live together as husband and wife when Abercrombie says he saw them.
Nick Purpura, of Wall Township, New Jersey, told CNAV that he would suggest to his own lawyer, Mario Apuzzo, that they cite this Florida case to move his own Obama eligiblity case to the United States Supreme Court.
We’re talking about voter disenfranchisement here!
He and Toms River, NJ resident Ted Moran challenged Obama’s place on the New Jersey Democratic Primary ballot.
Your jumping at shadows. There is no smiley face in Onaka’s signature. Those are two insignificant pen strokes, well within the acceptable margin of error for a signature. His signature on other documents (such as the one that recently enabled Obama to be on a certain states ballot) have virtually the exact same signature.
Given this, and the fact that I found the email in the climategate archive that talks about the same data set later referred to in the “hide the decline” email, but clearly referring to tree ring proxy data, why should I think that anything posted on this site is anything more than unsearchable, heavily biased right ring hype?
Especially with the over reliance on LEFT WING CONSPIRACY! to explain everything?
Same old, same old, and another classless move by Arpaio.
It doesn’t matter what people thing about a PDF that’s been circulated. The State of Hawaii has certified that Obama was born when and where the birth records state, and this certification was accepted by the Arizona Secretary of State.
So as far as Arizona is concerned, it’s a settled matter, and in his official capacity of Sheriff to Maricopa County, there’s no basis for Arpaio to pursue this.
Now as a private citizen, he has every right to act on his birther beliefs and send affidavits anywhere he wants. He’s just focusing on the PDF again, and leaving out the part that his own County and State investigation ended with Obama being declared eligible to be on the ballot in AZ. Deceit by omission is still deceit.
But hey, there are books to be sold and speaking fees to be earned. If any of these people wanted to remove the impression that they’re just in it for the money, they could donate 100% to worthy charities. Instead they just line their pockets, and Arpaio uses this to distract from the misconduct charges filed against his department.
Defining “natural born citizen” is such fun, isn’t it?
Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico and John McCain himself was born in Panama. Andrew Jackson’s parents were both born in County Antrim. James Buchanan’s father was born in Donegal. Chester A. Arthur’s father was an Irish-born Canadian. Woodrow Wilson’s mother was English and Herbert Hoover’s Canadian.
Sherriff Joe’s affidavit contains this
“Upon close examination of the evidence, it is my belief that forgery and fraud was likely committed in key identity documents including President Obama’s long-form birth certificate, his Selective Service Registration card and his Social Security number”
It is just what Sherriff Joe believes may have happened no statement of fact. The affidavit provides no evidence at all it is worthless
He also says why he finds probable cause: because the document is a computer-generated mock-up, not a true copy of anything, and furthermore, someone transferred the “registrar stamp” image from somewhere else. And misspelled the word “THE” besides.
When the matter was in his jurisdiction, Arpaio couldn’t produce any evidence to support charges. Now all he can do is file affidavits in other cases stating what he “believes”.
No court will give that consideration compared to actual evidence, so this is nothing but another publicity stunt.
All I’m doing is asking questions. Raising the issues. Why not publish what I posed and open it up to debate? There was nothing libelous there – that’s an old corny stand-by you use far too often when you want to censor material.
I find it laughable that you accuse Obama and liberals of everything under the sun, and yet worry about libel when it’s your and those like you, whose actions are queried. Take the judges who rule against you – do you think they’d take your claims of corruption, collusion and bribery lightly?
I don’t debate libel or slander. That post was nothing more than argumentum ad hominem. “Don’t believe that guy; he got fired off his job for non-performance of work.” He could sue you for that second part (and sue me, too, if I let you publish that in my comment space). And whether he could or not, it doesn’t prove a thing.
That is not a “TXE” on the registrar’s stamp. Look at the “OF” next to it — there’s obviously some smudging going on there.
Be realistic — do you think this massive conspiracy you envision is so incredibly incompetent as to misspell what is the most common word in the English language?
This is what so many conspiracy theories can never successfully explain — they envision hugely elaborate conspiracies orchestrated by master schemers… that are simultaneously so incompetent that they leave clues all over the place.
The second “THE” looks different because it was a different part of the same stamp!
Which is more plausible:
1) Fifty years or so ago, some clerk in an office in Hawaii was using a cheap stamp and not paying much attention to what he was doing?
2) There’s a massive conspiracy capable of controlling the entire court system and US media (including all the prominent conservative commentators — even Glenn Beck, who sees plots in the spelling of words won’t touch birtherism) but managed to let this slip by? The forger surely knows he’d die for this act, but he was willing to do this? But not come and confess his role to WND or something?
Option 2 of those you named. Option 1 is untenable because a vital-stats office wouldn’t allow that kind of cheap stamp that made that sort of error.
If the “TXE” was really a smudged “THE”, then you wouldn’t get the white space where the crossbar of the “H” ought to be.
My father was once a civil engineer in the employ of the State (technically, Commonwealth) of Virginia. They issued him a rubber stamp with which he could stamp building plans for approval. It didn’t have that kind of smudging. He was responsible for keeping his rubber stamps clean. And he took that responsibility very seriously. I know: I saw that rubber stamp, one of several he kept. And it came from that same era.
Here’s the post again, with reference to Corsi being fired removed:
What you all need to remember is that this whole circus is not about Obama’s eligibility. Not at all.
Sadly, all this does is two things. Firstly, it serves to feed the rabid right’s rampant persecution complex (as we’ve seen here from all the whining about how “corrupt” and “inefficient” the courts who rule against the birthers are.) You have to remember that as a whole, this group is anti-establishment (and probably only a few steps from freemen on the land) and every smackdown they receive from the courts, state officials and the Hawaii authorities only serves to fuel their “look, see what the Man is doing to poor little us. We saw the exactly the same with Roseann’s earlier post – it wasn’t wondering about how they lost, what they did wrong, but rather it was all “Woe is us! We didn’t win! Somebody doesn’t like us!”
The second reason is more insidious, but also typical of the both the right’s and the religious’ tactics – to spread doubt. They aren’t really interested in proving whether or not Obama is Kenyan or whatever – except for when it comes to TV ratings for Trump, or selling books, written by the “impartial” investigators and Jerome Corsi.
No, all they want to do is create that “what if” moment amongst a segment of the population. It’s exactly the same as Andrew Schlafly demanding that Richard Lenski deliver samples of his bacteria to Schlafly’s study (or church basemen classroom) so he can study them himself. The minute Lenski refused, mostly because Schlafly was not qualified, nor did he have the equipment, that gave them grounds to say “See! He won’t share the results! He must be hiding something!”
The one advantage with this, is that people who fall for the “what if” moment are 99% to be on that side of the fence anyway, and it’s also fairly unlikely that we’ll see any of this demographic develop a cure for cancer anytime soon.
If there is one advantage to all this, it’s that it’s made the far right look even more ridiculous and if anything has probably done a great deal to swell the ranks of those who see themselves as moderates, rather than be identified with the birther / tea party movement.
For the record, Andrew L. Schlafly never asked for the physical sample. He asked for the raw numbers that the laboratory got from their study of the sample. All we see are somebody’s conclusion that he had seen evolution in action. Something he asserted but did not prove.
As for the rest: you are conforming to stereotype. I have no doubt that you conclude that absolutely anybody ought to be allowed to run for President just as soon as he gets himself naturalized. You probably see the President of the United States as the de facto President of the Earth. Maybe you think that every adult on earth ought to be allowed to vote in American Presidential elections. Well, it doesn’t work that way.
You also reveal something else: you plump for the “establishment” that my fellow travelers and I are “anti-.”
And you yell, “Oh ye of little faith, how dare ye doubt?” Do you, then, declare, as Herod Agrippa I’s hearers declared, that the voice you hear from those lips (when they are not shaped into that silly grin of his) is the voice of a god and not that of a man?
Have a care. Remember just what happened to Herod Agrippa I, and why.
“You probably see the President of the United States as the de facto President of the Earth”
What?
Really Terry, I think you need to step away from your PC and have a walk around the block. Stroke a puppy or smell some flowers.
Because comments like that make you seem seriously unhinged. Besides, everybody knows it’s Angela Merkel.
Funnily enough, when Bush ignored the rest of the world and invaded Iraq and the back of a pack of lies, one could argue that he thought he was the “de facto President of the Earth.” I didn’t see you protesting then, funnily enough.
And once again you’ve managed to avoid the issue by rambling on about Herod. It makes one question your integrity when you keep dodging the issue.
Well, why else should it matter to you that “no person, except a natural born citizen, shall be eligible to the office of President”? Why else should you resent that and seek to circumvent it? Did you really think I would miss that your allies in Congress tried to amend the Constitution to strike that qualification?
He isn’t a natural born citizen. His father was a British colonial subject. And more information comes out every week to show that a Hawaiian birth certificate is a sick joke, anyway.
“The other two cases you named are debatable at best.”
I don’t see what’s debateable about them. The county where Buchanan’s father was born was part of Britain at the time; that where Jackson’s father was born still is.
“All we see are somebody’s conclusion that he had seen evolution in action. Something he asserted but did not prove.”
I don’t see how you can say that Lenski didn’t demonstrate evolution. I’ve read his paper and it seemed pretty conclusive to me. A new ability arose in the C+ populations after two separate mutations. That’s evolution; there’s no way around it.
“Why does he consistently refuse to show the raw numbers that might establish that?”
He doesn’t. They’re in his paper!
“And in any event, do we have here a taxon that is all that different?”
It’s still E. coli if that’s what you mean. That’s not important though; the Cit+ populations have clearly undergone mutations and those mutations have been selected for fitness.
Exactly: it’s still E. coli. And as I understand it, the paper does not have the raw numbers in it. That was what Andrew L. Schlafly was contending for.
One thing… you rely a lot on Jerome Corsi. Corsi has shown some 9/11 “truther” tendencies. I’ve seen you attack Van Jones for the same thing. Why does “truther” beliefs merit condemnation of Jones, but you still consider Corsi reliable?
(Oh, and for what it’s worth, my opinion of truthers is the same as my opinion of birthers.)
Whatever else Jerome Corsi has said, I have never caught a breath of exoneration of the House of Islam in its war of civilization that it has fought at least since Muhammad fought the Battle of Mecca.
But that’s just the point: that certificate did not have any stamp. Someone ginned that whole thing up on a computer and imported the registrar’s stamp from somewhere else. And in the process, either mangled it or applied the “forger’s signature.”
I give up. God Himself could step out of Heaven and declare “I was present that day, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii”, and you would either
a) declare God was part of the conspiracy
b) state the conspiracy was blackmailing God (“hey, Jehovah, we know about you and that teenage girl from 2,000 years ago?”)
c) demand God’s birth certificate
Which, given the fact that He’s been silent for pretty much the last 3,000 years and certainly hasn’t shown any interest in current events, makes Him a pretty poor source of information.
I also have the feeling you trust Jerome Corsi and Sheriff Joe pretty implicitly. Are they also Gods to you?
“I follow the Logic of His Written Word. That Word never changes.”
Except on Conservapedia, where the Bible had to be “translated” from English to English because parts of it failed to pass the conservative litmus test of Andrew Schlafly and others.
Translations are never “inspired.” We found that many agencies over the years had broken away from the original meaning of the Greek and Hebrew text. Anyone who can read the ancient languages can spot what I’m talking about.
So, it’s only God’s Written Word, until you can improve on what God wanted to say? Isn’t that a bit presumptuous of you? Especially when the project is run by people singularly unqualified for the job.
If I remember correctly, the Book of Revelation mentions a pretty nasty end for those who change God’s word. How does that factor into your belief?
“We found that many agencies over the years had broken away from the original meaning of the Greek and Hebrew text.”
…
“That will be a new translation with better fidelity to the original text.”
Don’t be so disingenuous. The Conservative Bible Project home page clearly states that the goal is to eliminate “liberal distortion”, and yet the base text that the project is working off of is the King James Bible.
The KJV is not the work of “liberal scholars” who were aiming to distort the meaning of the original Latin and Greek text, so unless there’s an admission that the KJV itself is riddled with liberal bias, the would be no reason to change it – you’d just use that instead of later versions.
The very obvious fact that the exercise is called the CONSERVATIVE Bible Project admits the agenda outright – not accuracy, not clarity, not an updating for contemporary vernacular, but to recast the KJV to make it satisfy whatever test of “conservative” the editors decide, with Schlafly being the ultimate editor. (Note that it was Schlafly himself who thought the use of “bimbo” was an improvement until the mocking got to be too much).
If the goal was to solicit public input to render the original Latin and Greek into a better rendition more in line with the original text, then the website should present the original Latin and Greek text, not the KJV text, and anyone qualified to do the translation would be free to do so.
This is about spinning, not translating, plain and simple, and it also implies something else. How can you simultaneously claim that, for you, the words and message of the Bible are an unchanging constant while simultaneously participating in a project that re-interprets this text to be whatever a bunch of people on the internet decide it should be? Reinterpreting the Bible to conform to your socio-political view doesn’t seem appropriate.
Well, let me give you some examples. Matthew, Mark, Revelation, and half of Acts happen to be my work. And so are Genesis and part of Exodus. And I did it by working with Greek and Hebrew text.
So the KJV is inadequate and needed to be improved? And while it’s impressive that your language skills enabled you to work with the original text, you have to acknowledge that the project uses the KJV as the base version that needs fixing. I doubt that Schlafly or 99% of the other contributors used anything but the KJV text provided.
It’s also worth noting that you provided no copies of the Greek/Latin text to allow others to review your work. Guess they can assume you’re perfect in every case, or look up the sources on their own and hope they used what you did.
More to the point, I believe Schafly edited out entire passages like the Adulteress Story that were in the KJV. This leaves only 2 possibilities: that the KJV does not reflect the inspired, inerrant word of God, or that the editors on your project have deliberately redacted parts of what has been accepted for hundreds of years as canon scripture written through God’s guidance.
You know what? The members of King James’ Commission on Translation said, in the preface to the first edition of their Authorised Version, that they welcomed anyone who might be able to improve upon their work. So they did not boast of being divinely inspired. I recognize that a number of people do hold that the KJV is a Divinely inspired translation. That belief is a mistake. You’ve just had a little introduction to “Lower Criticism” of the Bible, as distinct from the “Higher Criticism” that questions whether Christ even existed.
Now then: the Latin text you mentioned is itself a translation. I did not use that. You are probably talking about St. Jerome’s Vulgata.
The Greek text was the Greek New Testament, available from the Union of Bible Societies. Anyone may buy it; it is no deep, dark secret. It’s just that copying or transliterating all that text, in an alphabet that few people really know how to read, would over-tax the server to no good purpose. But you can always find a good interlinear.
I remind you that the Hebrew text would be even more difficult to work with. For one thing, that’s a right-to-left script. For another, the symbols are even harder to recognize.
Funny that you mentioned the Pericopa Adultura. Here’s a challenge for you: get a good study Bible, or get the Nestlé-Aland Greek New Testament, similar to what I used. You’ll find that the entire passage, from John 7:58 through John 8:11, has double brackets to enclose it. Virtually no modern scholar is prepared to say, without qualification or doubt, that that passage is authentic. While it is true to the spirit and history of Jesus Christ and His ministry, not one scintilla of evidence exists to say that He broke off a major sermon (John 7:57), then went to the Mount of Olives (where He “held court”), and then picked up at John 8:12 exactly where He left off.
Eventually we hope to publish our version in hard copy. When we do, I’ll suggest that we include the Pericope as a sidebar text, not in the main body. That story is probably one of those things that John talked about, when he said that if he tried to publish every little thing that Jesus did, not all the book buckets in the world could hold it.
I wasn’t stating that the KJ Commission was working under divine inspiration, although from what I’ve read they took their work very seriously, and prayed for guidance in “getting it right” since they understood that the outcome was meant to be accepted and used as God’s Word.
A far different level of seriousness and reverence for the original Greek and Latin is being held when words like “bimbo” are added, or “union-busting” is inserted into parables.
MY point about your source work was not to infer anything secretive on your part. My point was that if the goal is to create a new rendering that maintains the highest possible fidelity to the original Greek/Latin content, then your project should have put the oldest, most authentic Greek, latin or Hebrew text on the left, rather than using a Medeival translation of them as the starting point. Common sense tells you what happens when you use a translation of a translation to create a new translation, when it comes to fidelity against the original. You wouldn’t rely on your “best of the public” to perform surgery on you, but you have no problem with random strangers on the Internet rewriting your most sacred text?
Regarding the Pericopa Adultura, I find it incredibly ironic that in this instance you’re looking at a lack of hard/historical evidence to justify a simple New Testament passage consistent with Jesus’ philosophy as authentic, while steadfastly defending Old Testament accounts that require you to redefine properties of the physical world rather than accept the ample naturalistic evidence against them.
I did a little reading on this, and found a balanced assessment of the issue at this link:
It notes that St. Augustine theorized that this passage was likely authentic, but suppressed in early renditions out of fear that it would be taken as condoning adultery (which it obviously doesn’t since Jesus says “…and sin no more”.) Augustine’s believed it was later restored by scribes looking to return to the authentic, original text, and the presence of this passage in at least one very early Greek version seems to add validity to Augustine’s theory. More on that can be found here:
So we come full circle to today, where you and your colleagues are sitting as self-appointed guardians over what God’s word is or isn’t supposed to be, with the prime litmus test being whether the output conforms to your worldview properly or not. And who’s the final arbiter of that text? As far as Conservapedia goes, it’s Andrew Schlafly, because if you disagree with him often enough or strongly enough you’re out, expertise in ancient languages or not. Conservapedia and the Conservative Bible Project are not meritocracies – they are “Do what Andrew Shlafly approves of or you’re out because it’s HIS wiki”-ocracies.
All of this is a tangent from the topic of this essay, but please – don’t talk about God’s word and the Bible being your unchanging constant and ultimate source of evidence when you’re an acive member of a project to recast the Bible to your way of thinking, and dropping the parts you don’t feel are authentic for a lack of evidence.
“He isn’t a natural born citizen. His father was a British colonial subject. And more information comes out every week to show that a Hawaiian birth certificate is a sick joke, anyway.”
And yet, even the Supreme Court disagrees with you. Not only that, but nobody is making any direct allegations about the certificate. Even Sheriff Joe couches his “findings” in terms like “I believe” and “it’s possible.”
If he’s so convinced it’s a forgery, let him come out and say it and press charges.
But he won’t. Because of the points I raised earlier.
The Supreme Court has never once held that the phrase natural born citizen legitimately applies to one “born in-country regardless of parentage.” Never once has the Court specifically said that alien parentage does not constitute an alienage that disqualifies a Presidential candidate. Not once.
You and others deliberately misconstrue US v. Wong Kim Ark to achieve that result. All that the Wong court said was that the Chinese Exclusion Laws could not legitimately apply to Mr. Wong, because he was born in-country under perfectly lawful circumstances. (His parents, while not citizens, were lawful, if temporary, residents.) The Wong court did not say that Mr. Wong could be President. (But his son could, if he and his wife were both citizens when the son was born.)
“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal of a lawsuit challenging President Obama’s birthplace and eligibility for office. The high court declined to comment on what it obviously believes to be the case’s lack of merit and just said no. The decision upholds a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out a suit filed by a group of plaintiffs which included failed presidential candidate and conservative commentator Alan Keyes, an African-American, that argued Obama is not a “natural born citizen” because his father is African and therefore ineligible to serve as president.”
Dated June 11th, 2012.
Won Kim Ark doesn’t even enter into the equation. face it, you’ve lost. Give up and focus your energies on real issues.
We can’t lose as long as we’ve got warm bodies to keep filing and filing. Haven’t you ever read what Jesus said about an unrighteous judge and a widow who pesters him for justice?
“The Wong court did not say that Mr. Wong could be President.”
Did anyone ask them?
The fact, as I understand it, is it also didn’t say that he couldn’t be President. The case made quite clear that birth in the USA confers citizenship.
Wong didn’t ask to run for President. He only asked that the authorities not kick him out of the country for being Chinese, because he was American enough to stay.
To be more precise, he was as American as any other US citizen. I don’t believe there’s anything in the Constitution that establishes grades of US citizenship.
There is. Article II, Section 1, paragraph 5 names that very special class of citizen, the only one that cannot possibly be a dual citizen, that qualifies one to be President of the United States.
“the only one that cannot possibly be a dual citizen”
What about jews, Terry? They’re automatically entitled to Israeli citizenship and can take it up any time they like. Does that bar them from becoming President?
Obama, on the other hand, isn’t entitled to either British or Kenyan citizenship. He’s a US citizen because a) He was born there and b) He doesn’t have any alternatives.
The Republic of Israel can do what they like, in deciding to extend the privileges and immunities of citizenship to any adherent of the Jewish faith born abroad. That is still positive law. A natural born citizen is a citizen of one nation-state only, according to natural law. A grant or tender of citizenship by a foreign power does not change natural born citizenship in this country. Not unless and until the person involved accepts that offer. When he so acts, he renounces his citizenship.
Obama would be entitled to British subjecthood because his father was a British colonial subject. (And he might be a natural British subject anyway, if he were actually born elsewhere than in Hawaii.)
“The Republic of Israel can do what they like, in deciding to extend the privileges and immunities of citizenship to any adherent of the Jewish faith born abroad.”
Yes, but it places jews firmly outside your category of people who “cannot possibly be a dual citizen.”
“Not unless and until the person involved accepts that offer. When he so acts, he renounces his citizenship.”
There is no requirement to renounce US citizenship on accepting that of Israel.
“Obama would be entitled to British subjecthood because his father was a British colonial subject.”
Uh, who told you that? As Kenya had already been independent for four years when Obama was born he’d have had no entitlement at all. People born outside the UK to two non-British parents (being a colonial subject doesn’t automatically make you a British one in any case, which is why Hong Kong wasn’t an uninhabited ghost town when Red China took it over) have no entitlement to British citizenship. And yes, Terry, it’s citizenship; one is a subject of the Queen, but a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Terry A. Hurlbut: Re: Your June 16, 2012 at 11:10 am response:
I like what you say, because you use logic and common sense. And, because CNAV has been consistent in aptly covering this whole Obama Birth Identity and lack of Constitutional requirement for US president, scandal.
You said about those who cannot “see the light:”
“……..You and others deliberately misconstrue US v. Wong Kim Ark to achieve that result. All that the Wong court said was that the Chinese Exclusion Laws could not legitimately apply to Mr. Wong, because he was born in-country under perfectly lawful circumstances…..” [Your apt description]
I witness this same type of thing when it comes to reading anti-birther statements. It is as if they can only think in myopic fashion. They seem to always arrive at a mindset of a one way track. They have a difficult time understanding the whole established principle of “natural born citizen.” They think in terms of generalities and cannot reconcile two different concepts.
Added to their illogical thinking, these birther bashers and others continue to accept, hook,line and sinker what the mainstream media keeps telling them. One would think that they would be more circumspect than to listen to the MSNBC’S Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Big Eddy and Rachael Madcow emotional crew types………
“One would think that they would be more circumspect than to listen to the MSNBC’S Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Big Eddy and Rachael Madcow emotional crew types”
Personally I never listen to any US news network, because without exception they’re abysmal. What actual content does get squeezed in between endless adverts for ambulance chasers and solar-powered corkscrews is shallow, opinionated and almost staggeringly inane.
Of course. Nobody was expecting that to change. What’s impressive is that it appears it may change if the experiment continues long enough. Ina ny cae evolution is a change in allele frequency within a population, and teh experiment demonstrated that beyond any doubt.
“as I understand it, the paper does not have the raw numbers in it. That was what Andrew L. Schlafly was contending for.”
That, I’m afraid, is because Schlafly didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He was asking for things like data supporting the % of glucose in DM25 medium or the number of times contamination occurred. For different reasons these are both stupid questions. All the data needed to support Lenski’s conclusions, however, is definitely in the paper.
“I know more about that kind of research than you might imagine.”
I imagine you do. You were a pathologist, weren’t you? Which means…
“Those sound like perfectly reasonable questions to me.”
No, you know better than that. DM25 is a standardised growth medium and its composition is not an appropriate thing to put in a paper, nor is it part of Lenski’s experimental data. As for contamination, contaminated samples were discarded and regrown from the last stored generation; they’re not part of the data either. Why ask for things that aren’t even relevant to the paper or its conclusions? I think we both know the answer.
“why not make such information available upon request?”
The composition of DM25 is widely available, including on Lenski’s own website (link to myxo.css.msu.edu.) The contamination data probably wasn’t even recorded; it would just be a case of “Oops, bugs in this one,” down the sink with it and regrow. Why record data on something that went out with yesterday’s coffee and wasn’t part of the experiment? It was an irrelevant question, designed to make it look as if Lenski was hiding something.
The fact is that even mainstream creationists have no problem with Lenski’s paper; Mike Behe called it “fascinating.” This was just a case of Schlafly latching on to something he failed to understand and – just as he did with the magical doubling earthquakes, for example – refusing to admit he was wrong. It’s one of his less attractive characteristics, and especially depressing because he’s personally rather polite and pleasant.
oh for crying out loud. If the birthers, and their High priest, Jerome Corsi, can’t keep their story straight, how on earth can they be taken seriously?
Now Corsi is hinting that Frank Marshall Davis is Obama’s father.
What happened to him being Kenyan?
Terry, when are you going to realise that these people are duping you? How much money have you personally wasted on the cause? When will you realise that these people aren’t serious?
He’s exploring all angles, that’s all. And you’re a fine one to talk about a scam, when you Progressives have been running the same old scam since Teddy Roosevelt.
Well, if you ask me, it sounds like he’s scuppering their own chances in court. Nothing like the people bringing the suit also creating the reasonable doubt to have their suit thrown out.
Not that the courts need another reason.
And as for the progressives thing, yeah – take that up with your American brethren. Not my problem.
Well, seeing as I’m not the one twisting the Word of God to suit my political ambitions, I think I’m ok on that front.
You and Schlafly, however, might be in for the high jump. I’m sure Jesus would love to know that the fact that he threw his nets out of the right hand side of the boat, makes him a conservative.
I’m always amused by the way Christians seems to be actively looking forward to watching the unbelievers suffering in the lake of fire. Must be the sadistic streak in them.
Actually, those years haven’t started yet. Now I happen to believe (though RoseAnn does not agree with me) that before those seven begin, this site might not have any administrators to keep it up. If you hear of planes, trains, and automobiles going out of control, and it turns out that their pilots, motormen, or drivers have simply vanished from cockpits and cabs or from behind the wheel, you can definitely figure that the SYBL will begin very soon. This is where RoseAnn disagrees; she doesn’t see any such “snatch job” happening until after the SYBL are nearly over. But you can definitely bank on the SYBL beginning soon after the ink dries on a new comprehensive Middle East treaty that:
Sets up a one-world government,
Makes Israel a protectorate of said government, and
Stations one-world federal troops all over the Middle East, and everywhere else besides.
[…] patriot hero Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch just argued this issue in Florida in the case of Obama’s eligibility. Judicial Watch has taken on the FDA, DOJ, EPA, Big […]
And this is different from every other time because…
Your jumping at shadows. There is no smiley face in Onaka’s signature. Those are two insignificant pen strokes, well within the acceptable margin of error for a signature. His signature on other documents (such as the one that recently enabled Obama to be on a certain states ballot) have virtually the exact same signature.
Given this, and the fact that I found the email in the climategate archive that talks about the same data set later referred to in the “hide the decline” email, but clearly referring to tree ring proxy data, why should I think that anything posted on this site is anything more than unsearchable, heavily biased right ring hype?
Especially with the over reliance on LEFT WING CONSPIRACY! to explain everything?
Same old, same old, and another classless move by Arpaio.
It doesn’t matter what people thing about a PDF that’s been circulated. The State of Hawaii has certified that Obama was born when and where the birth records state, and this certification was accepted by the Arizona Secretary of State.
So as far as Arizona is concerned, it’s a settled matter, and in his official capacity of Sheriff to Maricopa County, there’s no basis for Arpaio to pursue this.
Now as a private citizen, he has every right to act on his birther beliefs and send affidavits anywhere he wants. He’s just focusing on the PDF again, and leaving out the part that his own County and State investigation ended with Obama being declared eligible to be on the ballot in AZ. Deceit by omission is still deceit.
But hey, there are books to be sold and speaking fees to be earned. If any of these people wanted to remove the impression that they’re just in it for the money, they could donate 100% to worthy charities. Instead they just line their pockets, and Arpaio uses this to distract from the misconduct charges filed against his department.
How many judges need to rule against you before you start questioning your logic and reasoning?
I look forward to seeing what characteristics you project onto the court. Was the judge bought off? Corrupt? Inept?
Defining “natural born citizen” is such fun, isn’t it?
Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico and John McCain himself was born in Panama. Andrew Jackson’s parents were both born in County Antrim. James Buchanan’s father was born in Donegal. Chester A. Arthur’s father was an Irish-born Canadian. Woodrow Wilson’s mother was English and Herbert Hoover’s Canadian.
Sherriff Joe’s affidavit contains this
“Upon close examination of the evidence, it is my belief that forgery and fraud was likely committed in key identity documents including President Obama’s long-form birth certificate, his Selective Service Registration card and his Social Security number”
It is just what Sherriff Joe believes may have happened no statement of fact. The affidavit provides no evidence at all it is worthless
He also says why he finds probable cause: because the document is a computer-generated mock-up, not a true copy of anything, and furthermore, someone transferred the “registrar stamp” image from somewhere else. And misspelled the word “THE” besides.
Under penalty of perjury Sherriff Joe makes sure his statements are beliefs. Also the numerous misspellings of Obama’s name is very classy.
When the matter was in his jurisdiction, Arpaio couldn’t produce any evidence to support charges. Now all he can do is file affidavits in other cases stating what he “believes”.
No court will give that consideration compared to actual evidence, so this is nothing but another publicity stunt.
I’m guessing the SCOTUS is now also full of corrupt liberals:
link to upi.com
You’ve got to start from the conclusion that Obama is not a natural born citizen, then make ad hoc rationalizations for the court’s decision.
In this case, the court was clearly intimidated/bribed/threatened/incompetent/lazy/etc.
I notice that Terry has twice refused to post my comments on the real reason why the birthers are pushing this agenda.
I guess that means I’m right.
It means that you are attempting to commit libel, and I would be guilty of accessory to libel if I published anything like that.
If you accuse someone of non-performance of his work, you’d better have evidence to back it up. If not, that’s libel.
All I’m doing is asking questions. Raising the issues. Why not publish what I posed and open it up to debate? There was nothing libelous there – that’s an old corny stand-by you use far too often when you want to censor material.
I find it laughable that you accuse Obama and liberals of everything under the sun, and yet worry about libel when it’s your and those like you, whose actions are queried. Take the judges who rule against you – do you think they’d take your claims of corruption, collusion and bribery lightly?
I don’t debate libel or slander. That post was nothing more than argumentum ad hominem. “Don’t believe that guy; he got fired off his job for non-performance of work.” He could sue you for that second part (and sue me, too, if I let you publish that in my comment space). And whether he could or not, it doesn’t prove a thing.
That is not a “TXE” on the registrar’s stamp. Look at the “OF” next to it — there’s obviously some smudging going on there.
Be realistic — do you think this massive conspiracy you envision is so incredibly incompetent as to misspell what is the most common word in the English language?
This is what so many conspiracy theories can never successfully explain — they envision hugely elaborate conspiracies orchestrated by master schemers… that are simultaneously so incompetent that they leave clues all over the place.
Yes, it is a “TXE.” If that were smudged, why did the second “THE” come across correctly?
And that misspelling could be the forger’s “club signature.” Same as turning the letter “A” into a smiley face.
You realise that accusing the doctor of fraud is libel, right? Especially without proof.
Hint: A pdf of a document that you’ve picked up third, or fourth hand does not constitute proof.
Well, then, let the doctor sue Schlafly. Then he will have to answer to a motion for pre-trial discovery, will he not?
What does Schlafly have to do with this? last time I checked YOU’RE the one calling him dishonest and it’s YOU calling the judges inept and corrupt.
Or doesn’t libel apply to you?
The second “THE” looks different because it was a different part of the same stamp!
Which is more plausible:
1) Fifty years or so ago, some clerk in an office in Hawaii was using a cheap stamp and not paying much attention to what he was doing?
2) There’s a massive conspiracy capable of controlling the entire court system and US media (including all the prominent conservative commentators — even Glenn Beck, who sees plots in the spelling of words won’t touch birtherism) but managed to let this slip by? The forger surely knows he’d die for this act, but he was willing to do this? But not come and confess his role to WND or something?
Option 2 of those you named. Option 1 is untenable because a vital-stats office wouldn’t allow that kind of cheap stamp that made that sort of error.
If the “TXE” was really a smudged “THE”, then you wouldn’t get the white space where the crossbar of the “H” ought to be.
My father was once a civil engineer in the employ of the State (technically, Commonwealth) of Virginia. They issued him a rubber stamp with which he could stamp building plans for approval. It didn’t have that kind of smudging. He was responsible for keeping his rubber stamps clean. And he took that responsibility very seriously. I know: I saw that rubber stamp, one of several he kept. And it came from that same era.
So being a great conservative libertarian, you are trusting a government bureaucrat’s work to be 100% perfect. Gotcha.
Sheriff Joe is not a bureaucrat. He is a duly elected Sheriff.
Here’s the post again, with reference to Corsi being fired removed:
What you all need to remember is that this whole circus is not about Obama’s eligibility. Not at all.
Sadly, all this does is two things. Firstly, it serves to feed the rabid right’s rampant persecution complex (as we’ve seen here from all the whining about how “corrupt” and “inefficient” the courts who rule against the birthers are.) You have to remember that as a whole, this group is anti-establishment (and probably only a few steps from freemen on the land) and every smackdown they receive from the courts, state officials and the Hawaii authorities only serves to fuel their “look, see what the Man is doing to poor little us. We saw the exactly the same with Roseann’s earlier post – it wasn’t wondering about how they lost, what they did wrong, but rather it was all “Woe is us! We didn’t win! Somebody doesn’t like us!”
The second reason is more insidious, but also typical of the both the right’s and the religious’ tactics – to spread doubt. They aren’t really interested in proving whether or not Obama is Kenyan or whatever – except for when it comes to TV ratings for Trump, or selling books, written by the “impartial” investigators and Jerome Corsi.
No, all they want to do is create that “what if” moment amongst a segment of the population. It’s exactly the same as Andrew Schlafly demanding that Richard Lenski deliver samples of his bacteria to Schlafly’s study (or church basemen classroom) so he can study them himself. The minute Lenski refused, mostly because Schlafly was not qualified, nor did he have the equipment, that gave them grounds to say “See! He won’t share the results! He must be hiding something!”
The one advantage with this, is that people who fall for the “what if” moment are 99% to be on that side of the fence anyway, and it’s also fairly unlikely that we’ll see any of this demographic develop a cure for cancer anytime soon.
If there is one advantage to all this, it’s that it’s made the far right look even more ridiculous and if anything has probably done a great deal to swell the ranks of those who see themselves as moderates, rather than be identified with the birther / tea party movement.
For the record, Andrew L. Schlafly never asked for the physical sample. He asked for the raw numbers that the laboratory got from their study of the sample. All we see are somebody’s conclusion that he had seen evolution in action. Something he asserted but did not prove.
As for the rest: you are conforming to stereotype. I have no doubt that you conclude that absolutely anybody ought to be allowed to run for President just as soon as he gets himself naturalized. You probably see the President of the United States as the de facto President of the Earth. Maybe you think that every adult on earth ought to be allowed to vote in American Presidential elections. Well, it doesn’t work that way.
You also reveal something else: you plump for the “establishment” that my fellow travelers and I are “anti-.”
And you yell, “Oh ye of little faith, how dare ye doubt?” Do you, then, declare, as Herod Agrippa I’s hearers declared, that the voice you hear from those lips (when they are not shaped into that silly grin of his) is the voice of a god and not that of a man?
Have a care. Remember just what happened to Herod Agrippa I, and why.
“You probably see the President of the United States as the de facto President of the Earth”
What?
Really Terry, I think you need to step away from your PC and have a walk around the block. Stroke a puppy or smell some flowers.
Because comments like that make you seem seriously unhinged. Besides, everybody knows it’s Angela Merkel.
Funnily enough, when Bush ignored the rest of the world and invaded Iraq and the back of a pack of lies, one could argue that he thought he was the “de facto President of the Earth.” I didn’t see you protesting then, funnily enough.
And once again you’ve managed to avoid the issue by rambling on about Herod. It makes one question your integrity when you keep dodging the issue.
Well, why else should it matter to you that “no person, except a natural born citizen, shall be eligible to the office of President”? Why else should you resent that and seek to circumvent it? Did you really think I would miss that your allies in Congress tried to amend the Constitution to strike that qualification?
I care because you’re basically twisting the truth to have a naturally born citizen declared invalid.
And it’s not just me – every judge the birthers have appeared in front, agree.
Face it, you’re wrong. It’s time to admit it and move on to discussing real issues.
He isn’t a natural born citizen. His father was a British colonial subject. And more information comes out every week to show that a Hawaiian birth certificate is a sick joke, anyway.
“His father was a British colonial subject.”
So were James Buchanan’s, Chester A. Arthur’s and Andrew Jackson’s.
Chester A. Arthur “skated.” The other two cases you named are debatable at best.
“The other two cases you named are debatable at best.”
I don’t see what’s debateable about them. The county where Buchanan’s father was born was part of Britain at the time; that where Jackson’s father was born still is.
“All we see are somebody’s conclusion that he had seen evolution in action. Something he asserted but did not prove.”
I don’t see how you can say that Lenski didn’t demonstrate evolution. I’ve read his paper and it seemed pretty conclusive to me. A new ability arose in the C+ populations after two separate mutations. That’s evolution; there’s no way around it.
Why does he consistently refuse to show the raw numbers that might establish that?
And in any event, do we have here a taxon that is all that different?
“Why does he consistently refuse to show the raw numbers that might establish that?”
He doesn’t. They’re in his paper!
“And in any event, do we have here a taxon that is all that different?”
It’s still E. coli if that’s what you mean. That’s not important though; the Cit+ populations have clearly undergone mutations and those mutations have been selected for fitness.
Exactly: it’s still E. coli. And as I understand it, the paper does not have the raw numbers in it. That was what Andrew L. Schlafly was contending for.
One thing… you rely a lot on Jerome Corsi. Corsi has shown some 9/11 “truther” tendencies. I’ve seen you attack Van Jones for the same thing. Why does “truther” beliefs merit condemnation of Jones, but you still consider Corsi reliable?
(Oh, and for what it’s worth, my opinion of truthers is the same as my opinion of birthers.)
Whatever else Jerome Corsi has said, I have never caught a breath of exoneration of the House of Islam in its war of civilization that it has fought at least since Muhammad fought the Battle of Mecca.
Sigh. I wasn’t referring to “Sheriff Joe”; I was referring to whoever stamped the certificate.
But that’s just the point: that certificate did not have any stamp. Someone ginned that whole thing up on a computer and imported the registrar’s stamp from somewhere else. And in the process, either mangled it or applied the “forger’s signature.”
I give up. God Himself could step out of Heaven and declare “I was present that day, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii”, and you would either
a) declare God was part of the conspiracy
b) state the conspiracy was blackmailing God (“hey, Jehovah, we know about you and that teenage girl from 2,000 years ago?”)
c) demand God’s birth certificate
“I give up.”
Is that a promise?
FYI, God is the only Source of information I can trust anymore.
Which, given the fact that He’s been silent for pretty much the last 3,000 years and certainly hasn’t shown any interest in current events, makes Him a pretty poor source of information.
I also have the feeling you trust Jerome Corsi and Sheriff Joe pretty implicitly. Are they also Gods to you?
Biding His time, JT. Biding His time. And it hasn’t been 3000 years; more like 1882 years.
Biding His time? But you just said He’s your only trusted source of information.
So in other words, you’re just making stuff up at the moment?
No. I follow the Logic of His Written Word. That Word never changes.
“I follow the Logic of His Written Word. That Word never changes.”
Except on Conservapedia, where the Bible had to be “translated” from English to English because parts of it failed to pass the conservative litmus test of Andrew Schlafly and others.
Translations are never “inspired.” We found that many agencies over the years had broken away from the original meaning of the Greek and Hebrew text. Anyone who can read the ancient languages can spot what I’m talking about.
Well, apart from those bits that were written by liberals, or for which the correct conservative term didn’t exist at the time.
Then the Written Word is allowed to be changed, right?
That will be a new translation with better fidelity to the original text.
So, it’s only God’s Written Word, until you can improve on what God wanted to say? Isn’t that a bit presumptuous of you? Especially when the project is run by people singularly unqualified for the job.
If I remember correctly, the Book of Revelation mentions a pretty nasty end for those who change God’s word. How does that factor into your belief?
Yes, it does. Something you better remember, bright boy. And FYI, the re-translation of Revelation in the CBP is my work.
“We found that many agencies over the years had broken away from the original meaning of the Greek and Hebrew text.”
…
“That will be a new translation with better fidelity to the original text.”
Don’t be so disingenuous. The Conservative Bible Project home page clearly states that the goal is to eliminate “liberal distortion”, and yet the base text that the project is working off of is the King James Bible.
The KJV is not the work of “liberal scholars” who were aiming to distort the meaning of the original Latin and Greek text, so unless there’s an admission that the KJV itself is riddled with liberal bias, the would be no reason to change it – you’d just use that instead of later versions.
The very obvious fact that the exercise is called the CONSERVATIVE Bible Project admits the agenda outright – not accuracy, not clarity, not an updating for contemporary vernacular, but to recast the KJV to make it satisfy whatever test of “conservative” the editors decide, with Schlafly being the ultimate editor. (Note that it was Schlafly himself who thought the use of “bimbo” was an improvement until the mocking got to be too much).
If the goal was to solicit public input to render the original Latin and Greek into a better rendition more in line with the original text, then the website should present the original Latin and Greek text, not the KJV text, and anyone qualified to do the translation would be free to do so.
This is about spinning, not translating, plain and simple, and it also implies something else. How can you simultaneously claim that, for you, the words and message of the Bible are an unchanging constant while simultaneously participating in a project that re-interprets this text to be whatever a bunch of people on the internet decide it should be? Reinterpreting the Bible to conform to your socio-political view doesn’t seem appropriate.
Well, let me give you some examples. Matthew, Mark, Revelation, and half of Acts happen to be my work. And so are Genesis and part of Exodus. And I did it by working with Greek and Hebrew text.
So the KJV is inadequate and needed to be improved? And while it’s impressive that your language skills enabled you to work with the original text, you have to acknowledge that the project uses the KJV as the base version that needs fixing. I doubt that Schlafly or 99% of the other contributors used anything but the KJV text provided.
It’s also worth noting that you provided no copies of the Greek/Latin text to allow others to review your work. Guess they can assume you’re perfect in every case, or look up the sources on their own and hope they used what you did.
More to the point, I believe Schafly edited out entire passages like the Adulteress Story that were in the KJV. This leaves only 2 possibilities: that the KJV does not reflect the inspired, inerrant word of God, or that the editors on your project have deliberately redacted parts of what has been accepted for hundreds of years as canon scripture written through God’s guidance.
You know what? The members of King James’ Commission on Translation said, in the preface to the first edition of their Authorised Version, that they welcomed anyone who might be able to improve upon their work. So they did not boast of being divinely inspired. I recognize that a number of people do hold that the KJV is a Divinely inspired translation. That belief is a mistake. You’ve just had a little introduction to “Lower Criticism” of the Bible, as distinct from the “Higher Criticism” that questions whether Christ even existed.
Now then: the Latin text you mentioned is itself a translation. I did not use that. You are probably talking about St. Jerome’s Vulgata.
The Greek text was the Greek New Testament, available from the Union of Bible Societies. Anyone may buy it; it is no deep, dark secret. It’s just that copying or transliterating all that text, in an alphabet that few people really know how to read, would over-tax the server to no good purpose. But you can always find a good interlinear.
I remind you that the Hebrew text would be even more difficult to work with. For one thing, that’s a right-to-left script. For another, the symbols are even harder to recognize.
Funny that you mentioned the Pericopa Adultura. Here’s a challenge for you: get a good study Bible, or get the Nestlé-Aland Greek New Testament, similar to what I used. You’ll find that the entire passage, from John 7:58 through John 8:11, has double brackets to enclose it. Virtually no modern scholar is prepared to say, without qualification or doubt, that that passage is authentic. While it is true to the spirit and history of Jesus Christ and His ministry, not one scintilla of evidence exists to say that He broke off a major sermon (John 7:57), then went to the Mount of Olives (where He “held court”), and then picked up at John 8:12 exactly where He left off.
Eventually we hope to publish our version in hard copy. When we do, I’ll suggest that we include the Pericope as a sidebar text, not in the main body. That story is probably one of those things that John talked about, when he said that if he tried to publish every little thing that Jesus did, not all the book buckets in the world could hold it.
I wasn’t stating that the KJ Commission was working under divine inspiration, although from what I’ve read they took their work very seriously, and prayed for guidance in “getting it right” since they understood that the outcome was meant to be accepted and used as God’s Word.
A far different level of seriousness and reverence for the original Greek and Latin is being held when words like “bimbo” are added, or “union-busting” is inserted into parables.
MY point about your source work was not to infer anything secretive on your part. My point was that if the goal is to create a new rendering that maintains the highest possible fidelity to the original Greek/Latin content, then your project should have put the oldest, most authentic Greek, latin or Hebrew text on the left, rather than using a Medeival translation of them as the starting point. Common sense tells you what happens when you use a translation of a translation to create a new translation, when it comes to fidelity against the original. You wouldn’t rely on your “best of the public” to perform surgery on you, but you have no problem with random strangers on the Internet rewriting your most sacred text?
Regarding the Pericopa Adultura, I find it incredibly ironic that in this instance you’re looking at a lack of hard/historical evidence to justify a simple New Testament passage consistent with Jesus’ philosophy as authentic, while steadfastly defending Old Testament accounts that require you to redefine properties of the physical world rather than accept the ample naturalistic evidence against them.
I did a little reading on this, and found a balanced assessment of the issue at this link:
link to theology-today.blogspot.com
It notes that St. Augustine theorized that this passage was likely authentic, but suppressed in early renditions out of fear that it would be taken as condoning adultery (which it obviously doesn’t since Jesus says “…and sin no more”.) Augustine’s believed it was later restored by scribes looking to return to the authentic, original text, and the presence of this passage in at least one very early Greek version seems to add validity to Augustine’s theory. More on that can be found here:
link to bible-researcher.com
So we come full circle to today, where you and your colleagues are sitting as self-appointed guardians over what God’s word is or isn’t supposed to be, with the prime litmus test being whether the output conforms to your worldview properly or not. And who’s the final arbiter of that text? As far as Conservapedia goes, it’s Andrew Schlafly, because if you disagree with him often enough or strongly enough you’re out, expertise in ancient languages or not. Conservapedia and the Conservative Bible Project are not meritocracies – they are “Do what Andrew Shlafly approves of or you’re out because it’s HIS wiki”-ocracies.
All of this is a tangent from the topic of this essay, but please – don’t talk about God’s word and the Bible being your unchanging constant and ultimate source of evidence when you’re an acive member of a project to recast the Bible to your way of thinking, and dropping the parts you don’t feel are authentic for a lack of evidence.
“He isn’t a natural born citizen. His father was a British colonial subject. And more information comes out every week to show that a Hawaiian birth certificate is a sick joke, anyway.”
And yet, even the Supreme Court disagrees with you. Not only that, but nobody is making any direct allegations about the certificate. Even Sheriff Joe couches his “findings” in terms like “I believe” and “it’s possible.”
If he’s so convinced it’s a forgery, let him come out and say it and press charges.
But he won’t. Because of the points I raised earlier.
The Supreme Court has never once held that the phrase natural born citizen legitimately applies to one “born in-country regardless of parentage.” Never once has the Court specifically said that alien parentage does not constitute an alienage that disqualifies a Presidential candidate. Not once.
You and others deliberately misconstrue US v. Wong Kim Ark to achieve that result. All that the Wong court said was that the Chinese Exclusion Laws could not legitimately apply to Mr. Wong, because he was born in-country under perfectly lawful circumstances. (His parents, while not citizens, were lawful, if temporary, residents.) The Wong court did not say that Mr. Wong could be President. (But his son could, if he and his wife were both citizens when the son was born.)
“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal of a lawsuit challenging President Obama’s birthplace and eligibility for office. The high court declined to comment on what it obviously believes to be the case’s lack of merit and just said no. The decision upholds a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out a suit filed by a group of plaintiffs which included failed presidential candidate and conservative commentator Alan Keyes, an African-American, that argued Obama is not a “natural born citizen” because his father is African and therefore ineligible to serve as president.”
Dated June 11th, 2012.
Won Kim Ark doesn’t even enter into the equation. face it, you’ve lost. Give up and focus your energies on real issues.
We can’t lose as long as we’ve got warm bodies to keep filing and filing. Haven’t you ever read what Jesus said about an unrighteous judge and a widow who pesters him for justice?
The phrase you’re looking for there is “lawyers willing to part the gullible from their money”
“The Wong court did not say that Mr. Wong could be President.”
Did anyone ask them?
The fact, as I understand it, is it also didn’t say that he couldn’t be President. The case made quite clear that birth in the USA confers citizenship.
Wong didn’t ask to run for President. He only asked that the authorities not kick him out of the country for being Chinese, because he was American enough to stay.
“because he was American enough to stay.”
To be more precise, he was as American as any other US citizen. I don’t believe there’s anything in the Constitution that establishes grades of US citizenship.
There is. Article II, Section 1, paragraph 5 names that very special class of citizen, the only one that cannot possibly be a dual citizen, that qualifies one to be President of the United States.
“the only one that cannot possibly be a dual citizen”
What about jews, Terry? They’re automatically entitled to Israeli citizenship and can take it up any time they like. Does that bar them from becoming President?
Obama, on the other hand, isn’t entitled to either British or Kenyan citizenship. He’s a US citizen because a) He was born there and b) He doesn’t have any alternatives.
The Republic of Israel can do what they like, in deciding to extend the privileges and immunities of citizenship to any adherent of the Jewish faith born abroad. That is still positive law. A natural born citizen is a citizen of one nation-state only, according to natural law. A grant or tender of citizenship by a foreign power does not change natural born citizenship in this country. Not unless and until the person involved accepts that offer. When he so acts, he renounces his citizenship.
Obama would be entitled to British subjecthood because his father was a British colonial subject. (And he might be a natural British subject anyway, if he were actually born elsewhere than in Hawaii.)
“The Republic of Israel can do what they like, in deciding to extend the privileges and immunities of citizenship to any adherent of the Jewish faith born abroad.”
Yes, but it places jews firmly outside your category of people who “cannot possibly be a dual citizen.”
“Not unless and until the person involved accepts that offer. When he so acts, he renounces his citizenship.”
There is no requirement to renounce US citizenship on accepting that of Israel.
“Obama would be entitled to British subjecthood because his father was a British colonial subject.”
Uh, who told you that? As Kenya had already been independent for four years when Obama was born he’d have had no entitlement at all. People born outside the UK to two non-British parents (being a colonial subject doesn’t automatically make you a British one in any case, which is why Hong Kong wasn’t an uninhabited ghost town when Red China took it over) have no entitlement to British citizenship. And yes, Terry, it’s citizenship; one is a subject of the Queen, but a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Terry A. Hurlbut: Re: Your June 16, 2012 at 11:10 am response:
I like what you say, because you use logic and common sense. And, because CNAV has been consistent in aptly covering this whole Obama Birth Identity and lack of Constitutional requirement for US president, scandal.
You said about those who cannot “see the light:”
“……..You and others deliberately misconstrue US v. Wong Kim Ark to achieve that result. All that the Wong court said was that the Chinese Exclusion Laws could not legitimately apply to Mr. Wong, because he was born in-country under perfectly lawful circumstances…..” [Your apt description]
I witness this same type of thing when it comes to reading anti-birther statements. It is as if they can only think in myopic fashion. They seem to always arrive at a mindset of a one way track. They have a difficult time understanding the whole established principle of “natural born citizen.” They think in terms of generalities and cannot reconcile two different concepts.
Added to their illogical thinking, these birther bashers and others continue to accept, hook,line and sinker what the mainstream media keeps telling them. One would think that they would be more circumspect than to listen to the MSNBC’S Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Big Eddy and Rachael Madcow emotional crew types………
“One would think that they would be more circumspect than to listen to the MSNBC’S Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Big Eddy and Rachael Madcow emotional crew types”
Personally I never listen to any US news network, because without exception they’re abysmal. What actual content does get squeezed in between endless adverts for ambulance chasers and solar-powered corkscrews is shallow, opinionated and almost staggeringly inane.
“it’s still E. coli.”
Of course. Nobody was expecting that to change. What’s impressive is that it appears it may change if the experiment continues long enough. Ina ny cae evolution is a change in allele frequency within a population, and teh experiment demonstrated that beyond any doubt.
“as I understand it, the paper does not have the raw numbers in it. That was what Andrew L. Schlafly was contending for.”
That, I’m afraid, is because Schlafly didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. He was asking for things like data supporting the % of glucose in DM25 medium or the number of times contamination occurred. For different reasons these are both stupid questions. All the data needed to support Lenski’s conclusions, however, is definitely in the paper.
Actually, I know more about that kind of research than you might imagine. Those sound like perfectly reasonable questions to me.
“I know more about that kind of research than you might imagine.”
I imagine you do. You were a pathologist, weren’t you? Which means…
“Those sound like perfectly reasonable questions to me.”
No, you know better than that. DM25 is a standardised growth medium and its composition is not an appropriate thing to put in a paper, nor is it part of Lenski’s experimental data. As for contamination, contaminated samples were discarded and regrown from the last stored generation; they’re not part of the data either. Why ask for things that aren’t even relevant to the paper or its conclusions? I think we both know the answer.
Maybe you don’t need to put that in a paper, but why not make such information available upon request?
“why not make such information available upon request?”
The composition of DM25 is widely available, including on Lenski’s own website (link to myxo.css.msu.edu.) The contamination data probably wasn’t even recorded; it would just be a case of “Oops, bugs in this one,” down the sink with it and regrow. Why record data on something that went out with yesterday’s coffee and wasn’t part of the experiment? It was an irrelevant question, designed to make it look as if Lenski was hiding something.
The fact is that even mainstream creationists have no problem with Lenski’s paper; Mike Behe called it “fascinating.” This was just a case of Schlafly latching on to something he failed to understand and – just as he did with the magical doubling earthquakes, for example – refusing to admit he was wrong. It’s one of his less attractive characteristics, and especially depressing because he’s personally rather polite and pleasant.
oh for crying out loud. If the birthers, and their High priest, Jerome Corsi, can’t keep their story straight, how on earth can they be taken seriously?
link to wnd.com
Now Corsi is hinting that Frank Marshall Davis is Obama’s father.
What happened to him being Kenyan?
Terry, when are you going to realise that these people are duping you? How much money have you personally wasted on the cause? When will you realise that these people aren’t serious?
He’s exploring all angles, that’s all. And you’re a fine one to talk about a scam, when you Progressives have been running the same old scam since Teddy Roosevelt.
Well, if you ask me, it sounds like he’s scuppering their own chances in court. Nothing like the people bringing the suit also creating the reasonable doubt to have their suit thrown out.
Not that the courts need another reason.
And as for the progressives thing, yeah – take that up with your American brethren. Not my problem.
“Something you better remember, bright boy”
ooh, threats! Yummy.
Well, seeing as I’m not the one twisting the Word of God to suit my political ambitions, I think I’m ok on that front.
You and Schlafly, however, might be in for the high jump. I’m sure Jesus would love to know that the fact that he threw his nets out of the right hand side of the boat, makes him a conservative.
Talk to me about it after the Seven Years’ Bad Luck have passed.
I’m always amused by the way Christians seems to be actively looking forward to watching the unbelievers suffering in the lake of fire. Must be the sadistic streak in them.
We’re looking forward to being with God all the time. We have only pity for those who do not realize, until it’s far too late, that God even exists.
“Talk to me about it after the Seven Years’ Bad Luck have passed.”
And what year number out of the seven are we currently in?
Actually, those years haven’t started yet. Now I happen to believe (though RoseAnn does not agree with me) that before those seven begin, this site might not have any administrators to keep it up. If you hear of planes, trains, and automobiles going out of control, and it turns out that their pilots, motormen, or drivers have simply vanished from cockpits and cabs or from behind the wheel, you can definitely figure that the SYBL will begin very soon. This is where RoseAnn disagrees; she doesn’t see any such “snatch job” happening until after the SYBL are nearly over. But you can definitely bank on the SYBL beginning soon after the ink dries on a new comprehensive Middle East treaty that:
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