Birther Robert Laity files first action against Kamala Harris questioning eligibility

Robert C . Laity

Case dismissed, see below.

Robert Laity from Tonawanda, NY filed a complaint against Joe Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris in which he claims she is not eligible to serve because she is not a natural born citizen. I have written about Mr. Laity before. He had the last active Birther case in the 2016 election cycle. It was a ballot challenge filed against Ted Cruz in New York.

Laity filed his complaint in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. It was docketed on September 4th and assigned to Judge Emmet Sullivan. You might have read about Judge Sullivan in the news lately. He was the Judge in the Michael Flynn perjury case and is taking on the DoJ’s attempt to drop the case against Flynn even though he pleaded guilty twice.

Laity repeats the same debunked points that “two parent citizen” Birthers have espoused since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. I discussed all of these in my article published on this blog last year when Birthers first noticed Kamala Harris was a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination titled, For the thousandth time: Anyone born on US soil under the jurisdiction of the United States is a natural born citizen, period.

There are other problems with this filing. First, Laity cites no statute in his petition. He claims he is filing whatever this is under his “First Amendment right to petition the government for a redress of grievances”. Does anyone wish to guess how far that will go with this court?

The title of Laity’s complaint is United States, ex rel, Robert C. Laity v US Senator Kamala Devi Harris. This implies Laity is filing a qui tam action under the federal False Claims Act. This is similar to the tactic that Phil Berg tried against Barack Obama. Under the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act was passed during the Civil War to allow whistle-blowers to report fraud being perpetrated on the government and be rewarded with a portion of the damages recovered by the government if fraud is eventually found to have occurred. The term “whistle-blower” was not in use at the time and instead the person reporting the fraud was called a “relator” in the law.

Laity does not seek damages in his action as Phil Berg did. Berg filed his qui tam action to attempt to recover a portion of President Obama’s salary as President. His case was of course dismissed. Instead Laity is asking for the court to issue an injunction prohibiting Kamala Harris from occupying the office of Vice President this election cycle and be permanently enjoined from ever occupying the office.

Federal courts may issue injunctive relief in two forms, a temporary restraining order (TRO), or a preliminary injunction. However, the plaintiff seeking such relief must satisfy a four factor test in either case:

1. that he or she is likely to succeed on the merits of his claims;
2. that he or she is likely to suffer irreparable harm without preliminary relief;
3. the balance of equities between the parties support an injunction; and
4. the injunction is in the public interest.

Laity meets none of the four requirements for an injunction. He must meet all four. Laity’s complaint fails to address any of these requirements.

The bottom line is that Laity’s complaint is either premature as a quo warranto action or is a request for a TRO without justifications and will be dismissed even if he follows the rules for service and other rules to get that far. The case will fail as has every other case Laity and every other Birther has filed.

Updated 10/27/2020:

Yesterday Attorney Benjamin J. Razi of the law firm Covington & Burlington, LLP, filed a motion to dismiss Laity’s lawsuit on behalf of defendant Kamala Harris. Thanks to commenter “tbfreeman” for posting a link to the Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Support of the Motion to Dismiss. Here it is

The memorandum is well written and cites several Obama era Birther cases as precedents including Kerchner v Obama, Berg v Obama, Hollander v McCain, Tisdale v Obama, and Ankeny v. Governor of State of Ind.

Mr. Razi also cites Wong Kim Ark:

The seminal case is Wong Kim Ark. There, the Supreme Court addressed whether the U.S.-born child of Chinese parents was entitled to birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which provides that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States . . . .” United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 653 (1898).3 The Court answered affirmatively, explaining that, subject to exceptions inapplicable to Senator Harris, “[t]he fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens . . . .” Id. at 693 (emphasis added). The Court held that “[e]very person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, becomes at once a citizen of the United States, and needs no naturalization,” regardless of the person’s parents’ citizenship or immigration status. Id. at 704.

The memorandum also addresses Laity’s misreading of Minor v Happersett:

Laity’s citation to Minor v. Happersett is inapposite. That decision, handed down 25 years before Wong Kim Ark, stated in dictum that it was unsettled whether the U.S.-born children of foreign parents are natural born citizens. 88 U.S. 162, 167 (1874). The Court definitively answered that question in Wong Kim Ark; and it reaffirmed its holding in Plyler and Rios-Pineda. Because Laity’s Complaint acknowledges that Senator Harris was born in the United States (of parents who were neither foreign diplomats nor enemy soldiers), and because that is all that is required to be a “natural born citizen,” Laity’s Complaint fails to state a claim on which relief can be granted and should be dismissed.

What a wonderful and appropriate use of the word “inapposite”! Finally Harris’ attorney asks the court to dismiss the case with prejudice:

Dismissal should be with prejudice, which is warranted “when a trial court ‘determines that the allegation of other facts consistent with the challenged pleading could not possibly cure the deficiency.’” Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1209 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting Jarrell v. United States Postal Serv., 753 F.2d 1088, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 1985)). That is the case here. There are no other allegations Laity could add to save his claim. The Complaint acknowledges that Senator Harris was born in the United States and, as discussed above, nothing further is required to be a “natural born citizen.” The Court should not permit this frivolous case to proceed any further. See Tilsdale, 2012 WL 7856823, at *1 (dismissing claim that Barack Obama was ineligible for presidency with prejudice because “allowing leave to refile would yield the same result, given the underlying premise of [plaintiff’s] claim”).

I predict this request will be fulfilled fairly quickly.

Updated 11/6/2020:

Two additional documents were filed this week. Laity filed his own “Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion in Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss”. Laity finally gets around to citing some actual cases, there are citations of Minor v Happersett and the Venus of course. It’s 12 pages. He also tries to pull a fast one and quote from the 1797 translation of de Vattel and then says Vattel was translated to English in 1760. While that’s technically correct the 1760 version never used the term natural born citizen. The translation available in 1760 left the French term indigenes untranslated.

Here is Laity’s motion, which was docketed on 11/2:

The attorney for Senator Harris filed a quick reply only three pages long on 11/5:

Updated 11/11/2020:

Laity’s case was dismissed due to lack of standing:

Post & Email Blog Called Out by Andrea Mitchell on NBC Nightly News for Pushing Racist Birther Theories

Screenshot form NBC Nightly News August 14, 2020

On the August 14th edition of the NBC Nightly News Andrea Mitchell narrated a segment that covered Donald Trump who had raised questions during a press briefing about Kamala Harris’ eligibility to serve as vice president (whether she was a natural born citizen). Trump was apparently referencing a Newsweek op-ed written two days earlier by Chapman University law professor John C. Eastman in which Eastman questioned not only whether Kamala Harris was a natural born citizen but whether she was a citizen at all.

Newsweek was deluged with criticism after the Eastman op-ed was published. Originally Newsweek had failed to disclose that Eastman had run for California Attorney General in 2010, a job Kamala Harris won the same year. His biography in the article now includes that fact. Newsweek issued a half-hearted apology for jumping on the Birther train.

In Andrea Mitchell’s segment she says Harris is being challenged by “a racist birther conspiracy theory, starting with a flurry of memes and fringe websites…” and as she says that a series of blog headlines flash by including Sharon Rondeau’s Post & Email.

After several tries I was able to capture a screenshot (included above) that clearly shows an article written by Rondeau in 2018 questioning whether Harris was eligible to run for president in 2020.

I find it encouraging that the media seemed to recognize that these Birther “questions” about Kamala Harris are just more of the same racist nonsense we saw play out for nearly the entire two terms of President Barack Obama.

What’s odd is that Rondeau who reports excitedly every time someone from a government or media IP address accesses her blog, even to the point of devoting entire articles to a single visit, barely mentioned that the Post & Email was on the NBC Nightly News (albeit for less than a second).

I have previously written about the Post & Email as the last remaining Birther blog:

The Post & Email–Fake news site and Birtherism’s last bastion–Part 1

The Post & Email–Fake news site and Birtherism’s last bastion–Part 2 Sharon Rondeau

The crazy cast of characters at the Post & Email

The Nuts at the Post & Email Blog Are at It Again

I also wrote a comprehensive post on the definition of natural born citizen:

For the thousandth time: Anyone born on US soil under the jurisdiction of the United States is a natural born citizen, period.

Let the Birther fun begin! Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris

Former Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for President Joe Biden named Senator Kamala Harris to be his running mate last Tuesday and within hours the Harris Birthers slithered out of the woodwork from the usual places. Birthers like Sharon Rondeau, Gary Wilmott, Charles Kerchner, and Robert Laity all posted that Harris was ineligible at the Post & Email. Within two days the Birther Boob in Chief himself brought up questions about Harris’s eligibility.

I am sure that within days we we will see the first Harris Birther lawsuit filed somewhere. As we saw in 2008 and 2012 with Barack Obama and in 2016 with Ted Cruz these types of challenges on eligibility grounds are very difficult to press in the courts for various legal reasons. The courts will for the most part not allow claims of injury based on claims like “I don’t think the scary black man is eligible” to proceed past the early stages. This is why the Birthers compiled a perfect 0-226 record against President Obama over two election cycles.

I think there is a small but real possibility that the Trump campaign or Mike Pence could bring some sort of challenge against Senator Harris after she is nominated by the Democrats next week. After all, the Birther Boob in Chief is in the White House and he seems to have no problems with being identified as a racist Birther (although he finally had to admit that President Obama was born in the US and was eligible).

I for one would welcome such a challenge to end the two citizen parent nonsense once and for all. Recall that last year I explained why this legal theory is wrong and how it originated.

So relax, sit back, have the popcorn handy and enjoy the show.

Republicans to Arpaio: Please stay retired you old fart!

Sheriff Arpaio with CCCP investigator Mike Zullo

‘America’s toughest sheriff’ narrowly defeated in bid for old job

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Former lawman Joe Arpaio, the nationally known Arizona sheriff who found common cause with President Donald Trump on a hard-line stance against illegal immigration, narrowly lost his bid to regain his old job, vote tallies showed on Friday.

Arpaio, 88, who billed himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” trailed his former chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, by 6,280 votes out of 443,056 ballots cast in Tuesday’s four-way Republican primary, according to the county elections department.

In the November general election, Sheridan will face incumbent Democrat Paul Penzone, who ousted Arpaio from office in a 2016 landslide victory.

Arpaio, damaged by a series of court judgments that cost local taxpayers more than $178 million to date, went on to lose a race two years later to fill the seat of the late Republican U.S. Senator John McCain.

A federal judge in 2017 found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt of court, ruling that the sheriff had willfully violated a 2011 injunction barring his officers from stopping and detaining Latino motorists solely on suspicion that they were in the country illegally.

The latest results showed Sheridan with 156,396 votes, compared with 150,116 for Arpaio, leaving the former long-time sheriff of Maricopa County no chance of closing the gap with just 2,385 ballots still to be counted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-arpaio/americas-toughest-sheriff-narrowly-defeated-in-bid-for-old-job-idUSKCN25402J

A tip of the cap to reader John Woodman for letting me know that Joe Arpaio had narrowly lost his primary bid to reclaim his old job in November. Former deputy Jerry Sheridan in the Republican primary. Sheridan will take on incumbent Sheriff Paul Penzone in the November general election. Penzone handily defeated Arpaio in 2016.

It’s hard to believe almost half of the Republicans in Maricopa County who voted chose to vote for this racist pig. But on the other hand …

I suppose this means the Cold Case Posse will not be activated any time soon? I am sure all that damning evidence on President Barack Obama that Mike Zullo holds will be released any day now?

Update: I found this comment Arpaio made to the local Fox TV station in Phoenix yesterday:

“I think some people were tired of me, and they wanted somebody else,” Arpaio said. “And that’s the way it went.”

Hey Joe, I think the voters told you they were tired of you in 2016 when Paul Penzone beat you and in 2018 when you lost badly in the Republican primary race for Senate.

File photo from Reuters

Happy Independence Day!

I would like to wish all my readers a happy Independence Day 2020. It’s only a little over 4 months until the election. I urge every one of you to register and vote. There are many good places on the web to find the registration deadlines and where to vote in your state and county. I know it is a cliche to say this is the most important election in US history but this year that may well be the case.

Video documents the facts on COVID-19 and the Trump administration blunders

This doesn’t need much explanation.

Remember this?

Remember this video by Mark Gillar? He posted it on his Tea Party Power Hour YouTube channel in 2013. Folks were going to prison. Yes, people were going to prison over Barack Obama’s birth certificate. I know. It sounds absurd now. It was absurd then.

Yet, even today there are still crazy Birthers like Robert Laity, OPOVV (for One Pissed Off Vietnam Vet) and others at the Post & Email who firmly believe that Obama was never legitimate and worse. Laity believes President Obama committed treason and should be tried under the UCMJ. Here is a typical comment from Laity:

Robert Laity   Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at 2:07 AM

Obama usurped the Presidency by fraud, during a time when the U.S. was at war. He swore a false oath of office to defend the constitution knowing that he is a fraud.
That makes Obama both a Traitor under 18 USC and a spy under 10 USC (UCMJ 906.106)

First, as Laity has been told several times on Twitter and elsewhere, the president is not under the UCMJ. The president is a civilian. Second, President Obama was elected twice, twice the electoral college vote was certified at a joint session of Congress, and he was sworn in twice. He served his two full terms. End of story. The nonsense about his birth certificate and not being eligible is complete bullshit.

Laity also likes to fantasize that he performed a “formal citizens arrest” of Barack Obama in 2012. He has notified every attorney general since then of his “formal citizen’s arrest”. This citizens arrest is probably what earned him a visit from the Secret Service. Laity is probably a harmless nut case but he certainly doesn’t live in the real world so it is good the men in suits from the US Secret Service checked him out.

Meanwhile, we find ourselves in a real crisis. The Birther President gutted our ability to respond to an epidemic by dismantling the pandemic response team at the National Security Council. Why? Ostensibly it was a cost cutting measure but a more likely explanation is that it had been created by President Obama. Trump also failed to listen to what experts where telling him about COVID-19 months ago. Almost at every turn Trump has failed to do the right thing or has done exactly the wrong thing and that is going to make the ultimate outcome much worse.

I have observed, debated, and laughed at Birthers since late 2008. If I have learned one thing it is that their stupidity, hatred and racism has no bounds. No amount of evidence was ever going to convince them that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, none of his documents were forged, and he was rightfully elected and served two terms admirably.

It is no surprise that they worship the Birther in the Oval Office now despite ample evidence that he lies, cheats, and is completely unequipped to handle possibly the greatest crisis to hit the country since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Instead these mental midgets would rather waste their time talking about how Carl Gallups did Mike Zullo wrong or there is something wrong with Barack Obama’s Selective Service registration card.

Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups Are Getting Divorced

Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups

Well here is some Universe Shattering news for you. It appears that the “dream team” couple of Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups is headed towards a nasty divorce. Carl and Mike have been inseparable for the last 7 years since Gallups began having Mike Zullo as a regular guest on his radio show on a peanut whistle station in the Florida panhandle (WEBY in Milton, FL). At some point Carl anointed himself as the semi-official spokesperson for Zullo and the Cold Case Posse investigation of President Obama’s birth certificate.

The origin of the split is apparently a chapter in a book titled Shadowland written by Carl Gallup’s nut job, conspiracy kook friend Tom Horn. Gallups supplied a chapter on the CCP birth certificate investigation without Zullo’s blessing. At least that is Zullo’s side of the story. We know that because of several wonderful and lengthy articles written on the split by the Post & Email’s very own Sharon Rondeau. Rondeau is it seems now the temporary mouthpiece for Zullo. The Post & Email articles can be found here, here, and here.*

According to Rondeau Zullo said he began suspecting problems with Gallups as far back as 2016 when Gallups began making too much of Sheriff Arpaio making him an honorary deputy. Zullo (along with Rondeau and the usual gang of Birthers at the P&E) seemed shocked that Gallups turned out to be such and ego-maniac. Anyone with a brain who had listened to Gallups’ show for more than a few minutes would not have been surprised.

Gallups is into self glorification and blowing up his own importance. He often speaks of his own law enforcement experience yet has never bothered to tell his audience just what that might happen to entail. This is from Carl’s biography that he provided Coast to Coast AM host George Nory before a recent appearance on the show:

Carl Gallups has been a senior pastor since 1987. He spent 10 years in Florida law enforcement prior to his ministry calling. Carl is a well-known author, and an Amazon top-60 bestseller. For many years Carl has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and has hosted two of his own radio programs: Ask the Preacher with Carl Gallups and Freedom Friday with Carl Gallups. Those shows air all over the world on two of the ADX Communications Group radio stations on the Gulf Coast.

I know several folks have searched databases of Florida former law enforcement officials for a listing for Gallups and have been unable to find him. One would think Gallups would be forthcoming about what he did in law enforcement if he was going to use it to pump his resume.

As mentioned earlier the final straw in the Gallups/Zullo relationship seems to be the chapter that Gallups wrote for Horn’s book. Gallups had submitted a draft for Zullo to review sometime last year. However, when Zullo failed to approve the chapter Gallups removed every mention of Zullo’s name from the final publication of the book.

As for Zullo and the CCP investigation he is quoted at the P&E by Sharon Rondeau in a comment:

Zullo made it very clear to me that There are only two kinds of people who want this information right now: those who want to satisfy their own curiosity and know more because they’ve been following this, and he can respect that, but there’s also the opposition that wants all the information out so they can pull the same con game and try to discredit it before it ever makes its way to where it needs to go. “Neither is going to be satisfied because I will not release it,” he said. “It is going to be turned over at an appropriate time to someone who matters.”

That’s an interesting comment if Rondeau is quoting him correctly. Zullo speaks only through Rondeau and never comments directly at the P&E. From the context of the articles and other comments we assume that Zullo is speaking of some “super secret evidence” that he has not yet made public. It is not clear who the “someone who matters” might be.

Recall that in the past the MCSO CCP has had three separate press conferences (although the final one in December 2016 could hardly be called a press conference since no questions we allowed and mostly consisted of playing a fuzzy video produced by Mark Gillar). Zullo and Jerome Corsi published a book, and Birther Mike Volin sent out thousands of DVD’s he called “Sheriffs Kits” to almost every official in government and every sheriff in the United States. The “Sheriffs Kits” contained videos of the press conferences and other reports produced by the CCP. Finally evidence gathered by the CCP made its way to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery.

As Brian Reilly explains in a comment below here is what then transpired: “I sat down with Mr. Montgomery after a public meeting and discussed the investigation being conducted by the CCP for the MCSO. During that informal meeting, Mr. Montgomery informed me, much to my surprise, that he had already informally reviewed the CCP investigation information that Zullo had accumulated. The letter from Mr. Montgomery, to me, posted below, well defines Mr. Montgomery’s position regarding the alleged birth certificate investigation. The May 22, 2012, Obama Verification of Birth, sent from the Hawaii Department of Health, to Arizona Secretary of State, Ken Bennett was the final nail in the coffin for the Obama birth certificate investigation. It amazes me that people are still debating an issue that was resolved by the evidence over 8 years ago. Real investigations are kept quiet until they are completed. Also, real criminal investigations are assigned an incident number or a case number. The CCP birth certificate investigation had neither. Incidentally, I have not written a book or profited from my experience with the CCP.”

Dear Mr. Reilly,

Thank you for taking the time to write and for the concerns you have expressed. There are a couple of points of analysis, though, in determining whether a criminal charge can be filed, regardless of the charge or who the suspect might be. The first is whether I have jurisdiction over the case. That requires that some conduct had to have occurred in Maricopa County for me to have jurisdiction. From the Sheriff’s Office investigation into suspect documents produced by the White House to date, that investigation has not revealed any evidence that conduct occurred in Maricopa County. I have discussed this with the Sheriff. As for any issues regarding qualifications or information provided regarding the Presidential Election itself, that is a statewide election. Under Arizona law, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General have jurisdiction over statewide elections. I do not.

I will share with you, as well, that the criminal statute you cited in your message requires additional evidence that the MCSO investigation to date has not uncovered. Specifically, we would need evidence to affirmatively prove that Mr. Obama is not a US citizen. To date, there has been evidence presented leading to speculation that documents have been forged and other documents do not exist. That alone, though, is not sufficient evidence to present to a grand jury and actually have a reasonable likelihood of conviction. I cannot speak for other prosecutors at the state level around the rest of the country or for prosecutors at the federal level but Arizona’s ethics rules do not permit prosecutors to file a charge they can only hope to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at a later stage.

I stand ready and willing, however, to review any case submitted for charges and, fi (sic) the evidence is there, I will prosecute regardless of who the suspect/defendant may be.

Sincerely,

Bill Montgomery
Maricopa County Attorney

http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2013/05/arpaios-clock-is-ticking/

Zullo has also spoken to multiple members of Congress either in person or by telephone. Most of these meetings were arranged by supporters like Mike Volin.

It’s hard to imagine for what Zullo is waiting. The CCP “investigation” ended in late 2016 after Sheriff Arpaio was voted out of office. As soon as the new Sheriff Paul Penzone was sworn in he fired Zullo, banned him from future posse service and dissolved the Cold Case Posse. Since January 2017 a Birther friendly Obama hating President has been in office. Really, what the hell are you waiting on Mike?

The other part of Zullo’s comment isn’t hard to figure out. Zullo is afraid his “super secret evidence” would be debunked by the press and “Obot” bloggers like me and others, well, just like all his other evidence has been debunked.

Recall how Zullo’s findings have completely evolved and old theories forgotten since his first press conference was held on March 1, 2012. In the first press conference Zullo used anomalies that he and other Birthers had found in the PDF file of the Obama LFBC posted at the whitehouse.gov web site on April 27, 2011 as proof of forgery. By the time of the first press conference most of these anomalies had been explained and there was the irrefutable fact that Hawaii had verified that the copy of the LFBC the White House had released was in fact provided by the Hawaii Department of Health made by copying original records.

Zullo had to admit later that what had been seen as anomalies were probably the result of a compressed PDF being produced from a Xerox multi function office machine similar to one that was known to be used in the Executive Office of the President in the White House. See my article entitled Mike Zullo Admits the Obots Were Correct All Along.

At the same press conference Zullo trotted out an older claim that Barack Obama’s Selective Service registration form had been forged. Copies of Obama’s registration card had been obtained via a FOIA request in 2008. Some questioned the postmark on the SSS Form 1. It contained only “80” for the year and not “1980”. The obvious explanation is that it was an old Bates stamp and the “19”, which never changes, had worn out.

Neither Zullo nor any other Birther can explain how a forged copy of Obama’s SSS Form 1 happened to be in the archives to be found during the George W. Bush administration by a Director of Selective Service appointed by George W. Bush. One could conclude it is another example of Barack Obama using a time machine.

Of course Birthers, who can find a conspiracy about the scary black man under every stone, didn’t buy the obvious explanation. I wrote about this conspiracy after Zullo’s press conference: Helping Kommandante Zullo Once More

At the second press conference on July 17, 2012 Zullo trotted out completely new “evidence”. This time he played a video claiming that there was something wrong with the pencil marked codes on the Obama LFBC. These codes were used on birth certificates to enter information on births into standardized databases for the federal and state governments. Specifically, the video claimed that the number 9 code for Obama’s father’s race did not match the standard codes for race shown in a table in a CDC coding manual.

Within hours bloggers like Dr. Conspiracy and John Woodman had determined that the table of race codes shown in the video were from a 1968 manual and were not from 1961. Here is an article from Dr. Conspiracy’s blog that debunks the race code claims:

Code “9”: the Cold Case Posse’s big lie

Here is John Woodman’s article on the race codes:

Exposed: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Birther Scam — Here’s the Proof that Arpaio’s Posse Fabricated Evidence and Lied to the Nation

Finally after four years of essentially nothing from Zullo Arpaio scheduled a “press conference” during his last month in office in December 2016. At this one Zullo unveiled brand new theory. He showed a fuzzy video produced by Mark Gillar that made the claim that the Obama LFBC was created by copying portions over from another Hawaiian birth certificate belonging to a lady born the some month as Barack Obama (August 1961).

A redacted version of Mrs. Johanna Ah’Nee Randolph’s birth certificate had originally been produced by WND September 2011 following the release of the Obama LFBC in April. Although the name and several other fields were redacted by WND John Woodman and some others were able to use photo editing tools to glean what was under the redactions by looking at the WND unredacted photo of the back of the birth certificate.

Unsurprisingly, WND had redacted fields that either supported the authenticity of the Obama LFBC or blew up Birther theories that there were errors on the Obama certificate. One example were the names of the hospital and the Registrar. The Ah’Nee certificate fields were the same for the names of the hospital and registrar. The birth certificate number also supported the theory that the certificates were sorted alphabetically for the month and then numbered (at least in a given region). So the registration number on the Ah’Nee certificate was lower than the one on Obama’s even though she was born at Kapi’olani Hospital over two weeks later in August.

Again the claim made by Zullo that parts of the Obama LFBC had been copied from the Ah’Nee certificate quickly fell apart under scrutiny. See my article: Overlay of Obama and Ah’Nee Birth Certificates Shows the Latest Cold Case Posse Forgery Theory Is Nonsense

I wrote this rather lengthy dissertation on the history of the Cold Case Posse’s “evidence” to show that Zullo might have a very good motivation for hiding evidence. Every time Zullo has held a press conference and presented new “evidence” it has been quickly debunked, sometimes within hours. Why should he believe it would not happen again?

I suppose the “divorce” means we will never hear another one of those exciting segments of Gallups’ Freedom Friday program with “Detective” Mike Zullo. Maybe Zullo might be finally interested in appearing on RC Radio? I might even bring back the show for that. 😆

Update: If either Carl Gallups or Mike Zullo wishes to present their version of this disagreement I would be perfectly willing to print whatever they would like to send. Unlike Sharon Rondeau who is clearly taking Zullo’s side I have no dog in this fight whatsoever. All they have to do is add something on the contact page on this blog and I will get back to them.

*Rondeau keeps writing more articles on Zullo and Gallups so I suspect by the time I publish this article there will be more.

The Nuts at the Post & Email Blog Are at It Again

Is Mayor Pete a natural born citizen?

 

The latest target is Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg. In this bit of tripe, Is Mayor Pete a Natural Born Citizen, submitted by Joseph DeMaio he writes:

(Feb. 9, 2020) — Well, faithful P&E readers, the “eligibility” issue surfaces again, this time with regard to one of the Democrat presidential candidates vying for the opportunity to be bludgeoned in the November general election by President Trump. That lucky fellow is Pete Buttigieg. Memo to all you other non-P&E readers who have accidentally stumbled onto this offering: you can go back to whatever else you were doing, as you will be unable to follow the rest of this post.

OK, here is the preface: in connection with the intrepid editor’s recent P&E post found here, one of the regular commenters (CDR Kerchner, Ret.) has noted (2/5/20 at 8:07 PM) that he had searched the Wikipedia website entry for Pete Buttigieg’s father, Joseph Buttigieg.

…

There is little doubt that candidate Buttigieg’s mother, Jennifer Anne Buttigieg (née Montgomery), was also, at minimum, a “native-born” U.S. citizen, so the “two citizen parents” requirement of § 212 would seem to be satisfied, provided that Joseph Buttigieg can be proved to have been naturalized before Jan. 19, 1982.  Nor is there any doubt that Joseph Buttigieg was an educated, upstanding member of society.  That acknowledgment, however, does not eliminate the question of whether he was naturalized as a U.S. citizen before Pete Buttigieg was born.

First I have to wonder where this eligibility issue “surfaced” other than in some dark corner of DeMaio’s warped mind. Second this nonsense speculation about Buttigieg’s father is based on more nonsense that Pete’s father’s citizenship status matters. It doesn’t. Pete is a natural born citizen because he was born on US soil, period, end of story. There is no requirement based on de Vattel’s writings or otherwise that a natural born citizen must have parents who are citizens.

This article in itself points out the absurdity of such a theory. It would require that not only documentation of the candidates birth be produced but that every candidate’s parents’ birth certificates or naturalization records be produced to establish if they were citizens at the time of the candidates birth. What about adopted children? What about children born from in vitro fertilization? I doubt de Vattel covered those situations. I could go on…

That got me thinking. What about the current resident of the White House? Well, it turns out that things aren’t completely settled under this nonsense two citizen parent theory. Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MaCleod immigrated from Scotland to the USA in 1929. In 1936 she married a wealthy builder named Fred Trump. (Fred Trump’s father, Donald’s grandfather, had been born in Bavaria as Friedrich Drumpf ^{1 2}; he anglicized his name to Frederic Trump after coming to America).

Now back to Mary Anne. She supposedly became a citizen in 1942 and some documentation of her naturalization card from the Eastern District of NY has been published by Snopes:

However, on the 1940 census Mary Trump reported that she was a naturalized US citizen already:

Notice the “Na” in column 16 of the form. that would denote she was a naturalized US citizen. We know that could not have been the case however. The “(X)” denotes that Mary Trump is the person reporting for the family.

Donald Trump was born in 1946 so in all likelihood Mary was a citizen by that time. This exercise was done merely to illustrate that digging back a generation into every candidates background is not a straightforward exercise and could lead to doubts from those who wish to doubt.

However, this discussion is all ridiculous. The idea that to be a natural born citizen requires more than birth on US soil under the jurisdiction of the Untied States and that both of you parents have to be citizens at the time is just plain wrong. It has lost in every court case that incorporated the argument and no worthy Constitutional scholar agrees with it.

¹ Friedrich Drumpf’s biography is quite interesting in case you have not read it. Trump (Drumpf) emigrated from Bavaria to the USA at age 16 in 1885. After working for a barber in New York City for five years he moved to Seattle, WA. He purchased a restaurant that was also a brothel. Trump moved north to the town of Monte Cristo. Trump wanted to build a hotel (restaurant and brothel) there but could not afford the land. He obtained the mineral rights on a piece of land for nothing and then quickly moved in lumber and began building his hotel before the real owner of the land one Nicholas Rudebeck could do anything about it. Rudebeck tried unsuccessfully to collect rent from Trump. Trump eventually paid Rudebeck for the land.

Trump moved on and operated hotel/brothels in the Yukon and amassed a tidy sum. When the gold rush played out Trump returned to Bavaria in 1901. He married Elizabeth Christ whiled there and returned to New York City in 1902. He worked as a barber and hotel operator. In 1904 after the birth of a daughter the Trump’s returned to Bavaria because of Elizabeth’s homesickness. The Trump’s were deported however because Bavarian authorities had determined Trump’s earlier emigration had been done to avoid the draft. (Sounds like cowardice runs in the family).

²Like several things in Trump’s backgrounds there is confusion as to when the family name was changed from “Drumpf” to “Trump”. Some sources say the name was changed in the 1600’s while some say it was changed later. Immigration records list Donald Trump’s grandfather’s name as Friedr. Trumpf.

Trump claimed in the 1987 book Art of the Deal that his grandfather had come from Sweden. One article I read said that the Swedish ancestry lie was invented by Fred Trump after World War II because when was trying to market apartments to Jewish couples in New York. Fred also got into trouble with the Federal government for discriminating against blacks. Among other things Fred and Donald were accused of telling blacks there buildings had no vacancies to avoid renting to them.

The Department of Justice filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Trumps and their property management company in 1974 but later dropped the lawsuit when they determined the Trumps had stopped the practices that had led to the lawsuit.

RC Radio will be returning soon

RC Radio will be returning next week. The show will be concentrating on the impeachment of Donald John Trump. Stay tuned for more details.

Update: The show will air on Monday, January 21th at 9 PM ET.

Reality Check Radio returns for a few episodes this month. We will discuss the Senate Trial of Donald Trump, which starts Tuesday January 22nd and what’s gone on with the Birthers the last 3 years.

Note: the call in number for the show has changed. It is (516) 453-9197. Dr. Ken will return as guest host and will screen calls.

The link for the show remains unchanged: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/rcr