# People who still don't believe Obama is a citizen...Especially elected officials
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [February 16, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105 "2009-02-16T15:50:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/21 "2009-02-16T21:32:17Z")
> [@Telcontar](#):
>
> Apparently 4 Republican members of the Tennessee House (state level) are joining a civil suit to force Obama to hand over his “birth certificate, immigration records, passports and other vital records” to prove his eligibility for the office of President.
What standing do they have to file this suit? If they are alleging election fraud, do they have to be citizens to bring this case in the first place? Can they prove that they are citizens?
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/22 "2009-02-16T21:45:08Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#):
>
> And this is why we need strict penalties for frivolous lawsuits, up to and including a lifetime ban on the filing of any further civil suits (which would make one an “outlaw” in the old-fashioned sense of “outside the protection of the law” – have fun trying to get work done on your house when word gets around among contractors that you can’t do jack if they cut corners and screw up…).
It doesn’t go that far (I doubt it _can_) but certain conspicuous nuisances have been barred from filing any further civil suits without putting down hefty deposits and having their filings examined and approved by various high officials before the suit can proceed.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/23 "2009-02-16T21:46:29Z")
> [@Equpoise from Newspaper](#):
>
> A proposed law asking these four to prove they have a brain?
Hey! I like that guy! 😃 Great minds and all that…
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/24 "2009-02-16T23:05:14Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> Hey! I like that guy! 😃 Great minds and all that…
It was a her, but damn, now the link is getting a 404. I’d had it open in another tab for a couple of days, looking for an opportunity to post it when this thread came along, and I closed it after I posted. Now I can’t find it again at that site and don’t remember what her name was. I wonder if she got tombstoned.
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### Author:  [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/25 "2009-02-16T23:11:06Z")
> [@Equipoise](#):
>
> It was a her, but damn, now the link is getting a 404. I’d had it open in another tab for a couple of days, looking for an opportunity to post it when this thread came along, and I closed it after I posted. Now I can’t find it again at that site and don’t remember what her name was. I wonder if she got tombstoned.
[Here it is.](http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090216/COLUMNIST0101/902150378/1097/COLUMNIST)
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/26 "2009-02-16T23:18:36Z")
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/27 "2009-02-17T02:34:34Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Ah…but the re-swear was done _without_ a Bible. HUSSEIN OSAMA screwed up the first oath on PURPOSE, so he could be secretly sworn in later on a KORAN. He’s the MAHDI, after all.
>
> Scripture has prophesied all of this.
Mom? Is that you? Shouldn’t you be editing you sunday school lesson files?
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### Author:  [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/28 "2009-02-17T03:15:10Z")
I am not an 18 year old pregnant woman, but I know that I would much rather fly halfway around the world and give birth in an African village than stay home and give birth in a Hawaiian hospital. It just seems so obvious!
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/29 "2009-02-17T15:00:47Z")
The only thing I can figure is that, much like getting taken by Nigerian scammers, a person who buys into a stupid conspiracy theory invests enough of his identity o pride in being right that they become virtually bulletproof against regiment after regiment of solidly marching facts, and grasp onto each fleeting, ephemeral point that might sustain them as solid, incontrovertible nuggets of proof.
Obviously this entire claim is idiotic, and equally obviously, these yahoos don’t care.
But it’s not limited to the Tennessee legislature. I mentioned Nigerian scams as another example, and, quite frankly, there are one or two posters here who held on to the “Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy” business quite a long time. So this kind of… blindness, let’s charitably call it… is more prevelant than we all might wish for.
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### Author:  [@butwhat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butwhat)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/30 "2009-02-17T15:23:03Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#):
>
> Glad to see all the serious business of the Tennessee legislature has been dealt with, so that these guys can focus on this issue.
>
> People can file suit over whatever silly shit they want to. The question here is whether this one will actually end up even being heard in court, much less ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor. Given that the US Supreme Court has already declined to address the issue (not to mention, one presumes the Chief Justice would not have agreed to swear Mr. Obama in if he had any doubt of the man’s citizenship), unless the plaintiffs have come up with some really compelling new info to justify the case, the whole thing is a complete waste of time.
I wish the Supreme Court would have addressed the issue. Then there would be no issue. People could debate the courts decision but it would be a done deal, not that it isn’t a done deal now. But we probably would not be hearing anything more on the subject by this point in time.
And I like the idea about making voters meet the same requirements of proof of citizenship. I guess I thought we already did.
It might have even saved tax dollars in the long run by laying to rest future law suits on the issue
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/31 "2009-02-17T15:24:41Z")
They did address it. Dismissal means, “Plaintif is full of shit.”
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### Author:  [@butwhat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butwhat)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/32 "2009-02-17T15:27:23Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> They did address it. Dismissal means, “Plaintif is full of shit.”
I guess I didn’t think not hearing it was the same as accepting the case into the Supreme Court and then dismissing it.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/33 "2009-02-17T15:29:01Z")
Not hearing is even worse. It means, “What the hell is this gnat buzzing around our face?”.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/34 "2009-02-17T15:39:21Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> They did address it. Dismissal means, “Plaintif is full of shit.”
No, it just means that they’re in on the conspiracy.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/35 "2009-02-17T15:44:58Z")
> [@butwhat](#):
>
> I wish the Supreme Court would have addressed the issue. Then there would be no issue.
The Supreme Court doesn’t have time to entertain every crackpot case that comes down the pike.
The state of Hawaii has already confirmed that Barack Obama was born there. He has the documentation to prove it. There is no evidence he was born anywhere else. His mother never went to Kenya. The wingnut claim that his grandmother said he was born in Kenya is made up. There is nothing for the Supreme Court to look at.
Even if he HADN’T been born in the US, it wouldn’t matter because his mother was American, which would make Barack a Natural Born Citizen if he was born on Mars.
You say if the Supreme Court had heard this ridiculous appeal (and what exactly were they going to listen to? What is the evidence that Obama was not born in Hawaii?), that we wouldn’t be hearing anymore on the subject right now. Do you really think it would shut the nutjobs up for a second? All they would do is say the Supreme Court was part of the conspiracy.
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### Author:  [@butwhat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butwhat)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/36 "2009-02-17T15:48:03Z")
I was thinking more along the lines of them getting together for like 5 minutes then saying we’ve reviewed it, it’s BS, see ya.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/37 "2009-02-17T15:49:54Z")
Why should they waste their time dealing with nutjobs? It would only encourage them.
We need to set the Castrol guy on them. You know, they guy with the dipstick.
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### Author:  [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/38 "2009-02-17T15:52:43Z")
So does this mean we can file a civil suit to force politicians to hand over all tax, bank, property, stock, employment and other financial records to prove they’re not crooks?
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### Author:  [@butwhat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butwhat)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/39 "2009-02-17T15:53:29Z")
silenus
Charter Member Join Date: May 2003
Location: SoCal
Posts: 22,053
Why should they waste their time dealing with nutjobs? It would only encourage them.
It would encourage the nutjobs or the justices?
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-still-dont-believe-obama-is-a-citizen-especially-elected-officials/486105/40 "2009-02-17T16:03:30Z")
> [@butwhat](#):
>
> Why should they waste their time dealing with nutjobs? It would only encourage them.
>
> It would encourage the nutjobs or the justices?
The nutjobs. Deciding whether or not to take on cases is done by the justices, so they are unlikely to discourage themselves.
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