Drake v. Obama: C-SPAN, LA Times Coverage of 9th Circuit Oral Arguments

On Monday, May 2, 2011, oral arguments were heard on the appeal of Drake v. Obama (some history is also under Barnett v. Obama) at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Los Angeles Times has coverage, and the Ventura County Tea Party has an opinion piece from someone who was in the Court room.

Video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=beld1lkWg0w

I disagree with the opinion of the VC Tea Party individual with respect to the Judges “badgering” anyone. In my opinion, Mr. Kreep needed to stay with the standing question and should have performed sufficient research to know whether or not his (Mr. Kreep’s) perspective was correct. It may not have been, based upon (1) his client’s class of ability to bring the question; and (2) the timing that the case was brought before the Court.

Here’s the problem, per excellent questions by the Ninth District panel: If you’re not a candidate for the election in question, and if you haven’t filed a question with the Court during the actual campaign (e.g.: prior to the presidential candidate becoming a President-elect and, subsequently, President), there may not be a whole lot that anyone can do, short of pressuring Congress to actually do something about the question.

Having said all that, it also appears that the Judges asked the US Attorney a number of very good questions, definitely worth watching.

There are two questions at hand — one factual, and one legal. The factual question is where Mr. Obama was born; it would appear that he was physically born in Honolulu, Hawaii. The legal question that remains, at least in my mind, is whether or not both of his parents have to be US citizens for Mr. Obama to be a natural born citizen with respect to the presidency.

We know that Mr. Obama Sr. never naturalized as an American citizen, and we further know that as Kenyan citizen of a British protectorate, Mr. Obama Sr.’s children — no matter where, geographically, they were physically born — were British subjects until their respective ages of majority whereby they had the opportunity to let such British citizenship lapse, declare British citizenship, and/or take on other citizenship.

My question: can someone be born on US soil and, under any other circumstance become a natural born citizen, while at the same time taking on the citizenship of another country, and this taking on of additional citizenship does not affect their right to be a natural born citizen? If the answer is yes, then Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the US and is therefore constitutionally qualified to be President.

-Phil

twitter.com/trsol

phil [at] therightsideoflife [dot] com

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