This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.

The Donofrio Case

2»

Comments

  • edited December 2008
    I'm not grasping at straws.
    Steve, seriously, you're grasping. Obama won. He won in a landslide. He will be the President. None of these cases are going to change that.

    The people behind these cases and the people who believe in these cases are all insane. You're seriously embarassing yourself (like that time you couldn't understand that we can't divide by zero or that time that you wouldn't believe that the Constitution is a living document) by continuing this argument. People are going to begin to think of you as a crazy conspiracy theorist, if they haven't already by now.

    Please, for your own sake, stop.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • I also feel that the premise of Obama not being eligible because of his dual-citizenship at birth to be the least wonky of all the cases.
    How so? What law states that possessing dual citizenship exempts a person from maintaining "natural born citizen" status? As US law stands, a person born within the US is a citizen at birth.
  • I think the point is HMTKsteve, while the question of whether someone has the requirements to be president is a important question. These questions were brought up mainly as political smears to try and show that Obama is not "one of us". It was the theme of the RNC's attacks on Obama from the beginning, "Do you know who Obama is?" "Do you know who his friends and associations are?" "Do you know anything about this man, he could be a terrorist sleeper agent" "Do you want him in control of our military?" (not to mention all those crazy political E-mails). These cases were brought up by political enemies to try and undermine his credibility, as much as you are curious about how the law treats these issues, unfortunately to get reviewed by the supreme court they have to have some actually relevant case, the fact that all the evidence shows that Obama was born in Hawaii, sorta destroys any reasonable case. Any assumptions on your part like "Oh he could have been registered in Hawaii but born else where" is so thin that that supreme court would not look into it.

    You need to have an actual case, where the law is in question to bring it to the supreme court, if there is not actually a "real" question presented in the case. The supreme court will not look at it. So when we actually get Arnold to run maybe we can reexamine the whole darn part of the constitution.

    These questions about Obama are nothing more the low political attacks we are used to, but then again when I go to the inauguration in January and Obama reveals himself to be the anti-Christ Muslim sleeper agent gay communist, I guess I'll be told I should have known :-p

    Just a note: Of course there would be a riot, your talking the disfranchisement of millions of people who would believe it was a political trick. I'd probably be in the streets on that one.
  • Just a note: Of course there would be a riot, your talking the disfranchisement of millions of people who would believe it was a political trick. I'd probably be in the streets on that one.
    I know I certainly wouldn't have stood for such an outrage.

    In general, I'd argue that the whole "natural-born" relic from our early days is a ludicrous requirement. Current US citizenship should be the only factor.
  • If there were a real case to be had here, people with a lot more clout than Donofrio would already have pushed this case a lot harder.
  • edited December 2008
    I might buy into the "this is all angry Republicans" meme if not for the fact that similar cases were also filed against McCain.

    Yes, there would be riots but who would be blamed?

    Divide by zero???
    Post edited by HMTKSteve on
  • The man is clearly a "conspiracy freakazoid of nature."
  • No, he's a concerned citizen.
  • No, he's a concerned citizen.
    So was Oswald.
  • No, he's a concerned citizen.
    So was Oswald.
    I fail to see the moral equivalence.
  • Here’s what it says at Obama’s web portal, Fight The Smears:

    When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children. (Emphasis added.)

    There it is. Obama is telling you his status was “governed” by a foreign jurisdiction. This is no theory. This is a fact.
    Yet later on, on the website from where this quote was taken from, it says:
    Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.”
  • Here’s what it says at Obama’s web portal, Fight The Smears:

    When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children. (Emphasis added.)

    There it is. Obama is telling you his status was “governed” by a foreign jurisdiction. This is no theory. This is a fact.
    Yet later on, on the website from where this quote was taken from, it says:
    Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4,1982.”
    Which leads to the nub of Donofrio's argument: If Obama was under the jurisdiction of US and the UK at birth he can not be a Natural Born Citizen. To be an NBC a person must only be under the jurisdiction of the US at birth.

    Read through the articles he has written on his site and the court documents. His case is very clear and does not use anything moon-bat-ish nor does it require any documents from Obama or rely on hearsay. It is a very simple Constitutional question.

    What bothers me is when I read a news article that is supposed to be about this case (and its sister case that was filed in CT) and they confuse it with the Berg case. The Berg case is the one that is full of conspiracy theories.
  • edited December 2008
    Steve, as I've said before, you're really embarassing yourself. Please stop it now.

    At first, this was just another sign that you are merely stupid, which can be at least partly forgiven, but it's rapidly devolving into creepy conspiracy territory. SCOTUS considered this case and then denied cert, which means they don't think it's important enough for further consideration. That's it. It's the end. There's no reason to discuss it further. It's time for this argument to die.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Steve, as I've said before, you're really embarassing yourself. Please stop it now.

    At first, this was just another sign that you are merely stupid, which can be at least partly forgiven, but it's rapidly devolving into creepy conspiracy territory. SCOTUS considered this case and then denied cert, which means they don't think it's important enough for further consideration. That's it. It's the end. There's no reason to discuss it further. It's time for this argument to die.
    The sister case (Wrotnowski v. Connecticut Secretary of State) is currently being reviewed by the court and due to receive an answer on Monday. If the issue were truly dead why even bother reviewing the second case? Why not deny it cert at the same time as the Donofrio case was denied?

    The Constitutional question has still not been answered.

    As a lawyer you should care about the issues being raised. You should care about the Constitutional question being asked. There is nothing of a conspiracy nature in this case. It simply asks for a clarification from the court as to whether someone can be considered a natural born citizen if they are born with dual loyalties.

    So please tell me where the "creepy conspiracy territory" exists in this case and its sister case Wrotnowski v. Connecticut Secretary of State.
  • Why has it taken so long for this case to get where it is? Barack Obama announce his candidacy for president in February last year. He was announced as the Democratic nominee in late August, and presumably officially registered in all the states a short while after that.

    Surely any case should have been brought forward as soon as possible, so as to prevent an invalid election. so why did they wait? I'll admit I'm not sure when the initial case was brought forward, as all I can find on Google is for the supreme court case. Even if it was brought forward before the election, why was it allowed to take this long to get to the Supreme Court?
  • Why has it taken so long for this case to get where it is?
    On October 27, 2008, plaintiff-appellant, Leo Donofrio, a retired attorney acting Pro Se, sued Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey, in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, demanding the Secretary execute her statutory and Constitutional duties to police the security of ballots in New Jersey from fraudulent candidates ineligible to hold the office of President of the United States due to their not being “natural born citizens” as enumerated in Article 1, Section 2, of the US Constitution.
  • So the case started one week before the election? It's better than starting post election, but it still seems late in the game. Obama had to nominate for the primary by December 10 2007, the convention where Obama was declared the Democrat nominee was held at the end of August, and the official ballot New Jersey was was ready for the printer on September 22. Independents like Roger Calero had to have registered by July 28.

    If Donofrio was so keen on ensuring the right thing was done, why did he wait until the week before the election when he had so much time before then?
  • edited December 2008
    The sister case (Wrotnowski v. Connecticut Secretary of State) is currently being reviewed by the court and due to receive an answer on Monday.
    Sorry to break it to you, but that case is hardly being "reviewed". They're going to decide whether to grant cert. The odds that they won't grant cert are roughly the same as the odds of sunrise occurring as normal.
    If the issue were truly dead why even bother reviewing the second case? Why not deny it cert at the same time as the Donofrio case was denied?
    These were not jointly filed. They are going to have individual denials. The mere fact that one comes through the pipe after another one does not somehow mean that they are considering it any more seriously than any of the others.
    The Constitutional question has still not been answered.
    There is no constitutional question. No one who has filed these cases has standing. No standing = no question.
    As a lawyer you should care about the issues being raised. You should care about the Constitutional question being asked.
    You had best unfuck yourself and consider what will happen if you ever dare tell me again what I should care about as a lawyer. When was the last time you took a class in legal ethics and professional responsibility? Oh, I know - NEVER. You have less basis to form an opinion as to what a lawyer "should care about" than my dog. Never, Never tell me what I should care about. You have neither the education nor the sense to have a clue as to what a lawyer "should care about".
    So please tell me where the "creepy conspiracy territory" exists in this case and its sister case Wrotnowski v. Connecticut Secretary of State.
    It is crazy to keep trying the same tactic when it fails over and over again. It is clear that these people don't have standing. They lack standing because they can't show how they are aggrieved, they lack standing because they cannot demonstrate a specific, personal, and legal interest in the "issue", and they lack standing because they cannot show that their alleged injury would be redressed by a favorable decision. It is clear that the Supreme Court will never actually hear any of these cases. Continuing to struggle using this tactic is crazy.

    For that matter, it's also clear that there is no "issue" about the citizenship. A sane person would say, "Oh. Okay. I guess I was wrong. I'll move on." It is a prime indicator of craziness for that person to just go on and on and on, ignoring all evidence that he's wrong.

    This isn't the first time you've done this. The two instances that immediately come to mind are the time you argued until you were blue that the Constitution is not a living document despite desperate pleas from people to stop and the time you refused to understand the reason you were wrong in the thread in which people were talking about relativity. I'm sure that if I looked in the history of the board I could come up with other instances, but this recent craziness is really taking the cake. If you want to forever associate yourself with these crazy cases, I guess I can't stop you. However, I will tell you, out of pity more than anything else, that you are destroying the last bits of credibility you have. If anyone has doubted that you were insanely stupid before, they only have to read this thread to assure themselves.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Neither Donofrio nor Wrotnowski have issues with standing.
  • edited December 2008
    Neither Donofrio nor Wrotnowski have issues with standing.
    WRONG! (again!)
    As a predicate for seeking relief under § 9-323, the
    plaintiff was required to make a colorable claim that
    he was aggrieved by a ruling of an election official.
    See General Statutes § 9-323 (‘‘[a]ny elector or candidate
    who claims that he is aggrieved by any ruling of
    any election official in connection with any election for
    presidential electors . . . may bring his complaint to
    any judge of the Supreme Court’’); cf. Bortner v. Woodbridge,
    250 Conn. 241, 259, 736 A.2d 104 (1999) (‘‘as
    a predicate for the ordering of a new election under
    [General Statutes] § 9-328, there must be either [1] an
    error or errors ‘in the rulings of’ an election official, or
    [2] a ‘mistake in the count of the votes’ ’’). Because he
    has not done so, this court concludes that the plaintiff
    lacked standing to bring his complaint.

    . . .

    The plaintiff has not alleged any ‘‘act or conduct
    by the [defendant] that . . . interprets some statute,
    regulation or other authoritative legal requirement,
    applicable to the election process’’; Bortner v. Woodbridge,
    supra, 250 Conn. 268; or identified any mandatory
    statute that the defendant has failed to apply or
    follow. See Caruso v. Bridgeport, supra, 285 Conn. 647.
    Indeed, he concedes that the election statutes neither
    require nor authorize the defendant to verify the constitutional
    qualifications of a candidate for the office of
    president of the United States. He claims only that the
    existing election laws governing presidential elections
    are not adequate to ensure compliance with article two,
    § 1, of the federal constitution. Accordingly, this court
    concludes that, under Scheyd, Bortner and Caruso, the
    plaintiff has not made a colorable claim under § 9-323
    that he is ‘‘aggrieved by any ruling of any election official
    in connection with any election for presidential electors
    . . . .’’ Therefore, the plaintiff lacked statutory standing
    to bring his complaint . . .
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • Standing under § 9-323 was erroneously applied in this case because Wrotnowski is neither an elector nor a candidate.
  • edited December 2008
    Standing under § 9-323 was erroneously applied in this case because Wrotnowski is neither an elector nor a candidate.
    Steve, read the case. Wrotnowski BROUGHT THE CASE under General Statutes § 9-323 because that was the closest he could come to actually having standing. He wanted the court to consider his case UNDER THAT STATUTE. Consideration of his case under that statute was a concession to him.
    The plaintiff, Cort Wrotnowski,
    brought a complaint pursuant to General Statutes § 9-
    3231 against the defendant, Susan Bysiewicz, the secretary
    of the state . . .
    The case, again.

    Wrotnowski says that this statute should apply to him in his own Motion for Writ of Mandamus. So they pretended that the statute applied to his case, but they still found that he didn't have standing.

    Your argument that "standing under § 9-323 was erroneously applied in this case because Wrotnowski is neither an elector nor a candidate" thus fails miserably.
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
  • edited December 2008
    The sister case (Wrotnowski v. Connecticut Secretary of State) is currently being reviewed by the court and due to receive an answer on Monday.
    Another one bites the dust. /thread
    Post edited by HungryJoe on
Sign In or Register to comment.