The 2004 article from Kenya’s oldest newspaper – The Standard – featured the headline which stated :

Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

And the blogosphere went into hyper overdrive.  The first line of defense was that it was a fraud, and the second line of defense was to simply ignore the story.  As of today – according to the Google news search engine – not one major newspaper is reporting this story other than blogger Don Surber at The Daily Mail in the UK.  And he has apparently debunked the first line of defense, stating:

I checked.

Apparently that is a true image from the June 24, 2004, Standard, which is Kenya’s oldest newspaper.

Then Surber goes on to argue that just because the report appeared in 2004, that doesn’t mean it’s true.  However, what Surber and most of the blogosphere have failed to comprehend is that President Obama has admitted the headline is true.

It is undisputed that Obama was Kenyan-born by the blood of his father.  That led to his Kenyan citizenship having been automatically granted in 1963 by the Kenya Independence Act.

JUS SANGUINIS

The legal concept by which it is undisputed that President Obama was “Kenyan-born” is “jus sanguinis“, which means “right of blood”.

Furthermore, President Obama admitted that, under the British Nationality Act of 1948 – at the time of his birth – he was a British citizen.  It has also been accurately reported by Factcheck.org that President Obama became a Kenyan citizen in 1963.  (However, a separate key aspect of that report was false and eventually corrected by Factcheck who cited this blog’s report and analysis in their mea culpa.  Please also note their second mea culpa to this blog.)

JUS SOLI

Unfortunately, the undisputed legal fact of Obama’s jus sanguinis foreign birth has been supplanted by the sensational conspiracy theory relating to the place of his birth.  The headline from the 2004 Kenyan news report does not indicate whether “Kenyan-born” relates to Obama’s  Kenyan bloodline or – in the alternative – to his place of birth.  Place of birth citizenship is conferred by a legal concept known as “jus soli“, meaning law of the soil.

Please don’t miss the forest for the trees.  President Obama admits to having been a British citizen at birth by law and a son of Kenyan blood which led to automatic Kenyan citizenship in 1963.  This alone should disqualify him from POTUS eligibility – regardless of where he was born – since he was a dual citizen at birth and at least until 1984.

Article 2 Section 1 Clause 5 of the US Constitution requires the President to be a natural born citizen.

This is an attribute only available at birth.

Whether a person (who admits having been) born subject to the laws of a foreign power can become Commander In Chief of the US armed forces is a genuine and necessary question of law, not a conspiracy theory.

US v. WONG KIM ARK

The leading citizenship case issued by the US Supreme Court – US v. Wong Kim Ark – stated the following:

The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions…Every citizen or subject of another country, while domiciled here… if he hath issue here… his child… ‘If born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural-born child of a citizen…’

Both hypothetical children discussed in the passage above are US citizens and both hold equal rights.  But the majority opinion makes it quite clear that only one child is “natural born” – the child of the citizen.  The court compared the native born child of an alien to the “natural born” child of a citizen, and in doing so made clear that – while both are citizens -  the circumstances of their US citizenship arenot the same.

One child’s citizenship is “natural born” and the other child’s citizenship required the 14th amendment.  And therefore, it’s very important to note that the majority in Wong Kim Ark also stated that the definition of “natural born citizen” is not found in the Constitution.  If 14th amendment citizenship defined the meaning of “natural born citizen”, then the Court could not have made that statement.

POTUS REQUIREMENTS ARE NATIONAL SECURITY MEASURES.

The Constitutional requirements to be POTUS are not rights, they are national security measures.  Even natural born citizens who fail to meet the other requirements cannot be President.  For example, a 33-year-old natural born citizen cannot be President.  But 33-year-old men have no more rights than 35-year-old men.  Understand? Requirements are not rights.

If Obama is eligible to be President than so are the sons of Osama Bin Laden, Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if they impregnate an American woman who gives birth on US soil.  The very notion is obscene.  Such a person might be a US citizen under current policy, but their citizenship is not natural born and they cannot be President and Commander In Chief of the US armed forces.

Leo C. Donofrio, Citizen Attorney