The dregs of birther remainders.

[bob]

So a person who has apparently graduated with a J.D., has not passed the bar anywhere, apparently working as a law clerk at a law firm, is a (as he puts it) constitutional expert and "legal analyst" for ... someone.

Not exactly the background and credentials one would typically seek out.

:

1. For birthers, he has the important qualification: He says what they want to hear; and
2. Ingrassia got (allegedly; I can't be bothered to look) a thumbs-up from the quadfectee, who also is known for picking people who tell him what he wants to hear.

* *

According to his LinkedIn, as of January he is no longer a clerk at the large and prestigious The McBride Law Firm, PLLC

I doubt he got booted for hogging too much of the spotlight; I'm guessing Ingrassia has decided to go full-time into grifting. That, and, be a hanger-on-er and try to get a campaign gig, with an eye toward a job in the next administration.

whose large list of attoneys consist of, um, Joseph McBride, who appears to be a RWNJ himself.

Yeah, McBride represents some J6ers, among others.

[realist]

1. For birthers, he has the important qualification: He says what they want to hear; and
2. Ingrassia got (allegedly; I can't be bothered to look) a thumbs-up from the quadfectee, who also is known for picking people who tell him what he wants to hear.

I can't believe I forget that is really the only qualification.

Yes, you are correct re the quadfectee. I'm not going to look it up either but I do remember seeing it.

[pipistrelle]

I may have mentioned McBride Law elsewhere.
viewtopic.php?p=240973&hilit=McBride#p240973

viewtopic.php?p=240973&hilit=McBride#p240974

[DrConspiracy]

Remember Leonard Daneman, the Paralegal NM guy? His blog is still around, and for some insane reason I made a reply on one of his 2016 posts, Dr. Orly Taitz Vindicated, and he came out swinging with a birther firehose.

[keith]

Ahh, nostalgia! Better than deja vu all over again, innit?

[realist]

Remember Leonard Daneman, the Paralegal NM guy? His blog is still around, and for some insane reason I made a reply on one of his 2016 posts, Dr. Orly Taitz Vindicated, and he came out swinging with a birther firehose.

Went to his photo studio downtown Albuquerque back in his "birther" days. Good photographer, legal nutcase, and, well, just a general nutcase.

[Luke]

Wow Doc C, that's epic! It's incredible how dense and deluded that guy still is. Fogbow Star for you.

Of all of it, this is one thing I didn't remember. I know about He, Lucas Smith (what's he up to), but was Corsi arrested/detained?

paraleaglenm Says:
The two Kenyan official copies were issued to a U.S. citizen who forwarded them to members of congress. Attempts to authenticate them were blocked by a judge, and later Dr. Jerome Corsi was arrested/detained at Kenya’s port of entry.

[bob]

Attempts to authenticate them were blocked by a judge, and later Dr. Jerome Corsi was arrested/detained at Kenya’s port of entry.

A bit of birther telephone:

1. No judge "blocked" anything. I think this is a reference to Judge Carter's essentially saying the rules of evidence apply in his court. When Smith realized he'd have to testify (under oath), he backed down.

2. I recall some WND article claiming Corsi was detained in Kenya. I don't recall it saying Corsi was arrested. (The articles, in fact, repeatedly say Corsi wasn't arrested.) Border agents are power hungry (even in other countries); film at 11!

"For completeness": WND (in 2008): Bribes paid for Corsi to escape from Kenya:

"Don't ever come back. See you in hell," Corsi reported an unidentified official told him as the author of the No. 1 best-selling book "The Obama Nation" was delivered to a flight departing from Nairobi.

[Luke]

Thank you, Bob! And Doc C, you're awesome.

I still keep this on my Protopage to remember and laugh... strikeout is because I clicked it recently. 2,575 days and they are still at it!

OCT.JPG (136.11 KiB) Viewed 975 times

[northland10]

Thank you, Bob! And Doc C, you're awesome.

I still keep this on my Protopage to remember and laugh... strikeout is because I clicked it recently. 2,575 days and they are still at it!

OCT.JPG

Every so often, the Doc gets some drive-by's in the comments.

[Reality Check]

Every so often, the Doc gets some drive-by's in the comments.

I still monitor the RSS feed on comments at Doc's blog and every few months a Birther pops up on an old article. Doc and I have answered a few of them there. I had forgotten about Leonard. That is a real blast from the past.

[DrConspiracy]

Corsi was arrested and subsequently deported because, IIRC, he was doing work there (plugging his book, The Obama Nation), without a work permit. That was in October, 2008.

Wow Doc C, that's epic! It's incredible how dense and deluded that guy still is. Fogbow Star for you.

Of all of it, this is one thing I didn't remember. I know about He, Lucas Smith (what's he up to), but was Corsi arrested/detained?

paraleaglenm Says:
The two Kenyan official copies were issued to a U.S. citizen who forwarded them to members of congress. Attempts to authenticate them were blocked by a judge, and later Dr. Jerome Corsi was arrested/detained at Kenya’s port of entry.

[bob]

P&E: Trump Hearing Discusses Presidential Eligibility:

"CITIZEN" SUBSTITUTED FOR "NATURAL BORN CITIZEN"

At approximately 10:30 a.m. EST, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan enumerated the U.S. Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the president to Atty. Jonathan Mitchell, who was arguing in favor of maintaining 2024 leading Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s name on the Colorado primary ballot.

Referring to Article II, Section 1, clause 5, Kagan said there is a “citizenship” eligibility criterion, later saying a presidential candidate must be “a citizen.” She did not invoke the actual Article II term, “natural born Citizen.”

A candidate could conceivably be removed at the state level if he or she were found not to be “a citizen,” Kagan said.

Based on the age requirement of 35, a discussion then ensued as to whether a candidate 34 years of age at the time of the campaign and election could run if he or she would be 35 upon or before inauguration.

Kagan opined that in that scenario, if the candidate were challenged at the state level, the case would likely end up before the high court.

The moment that birthers have been dreaming about for over a decade now, and it didn't go as they anticipated.

[realist]

P&E: Trump Hearing Discusses Presidential Eligibility:

"CITIZEN" SUBSTITUTED FOR "NATURAL BORN CITIZEN"

At approximately 10:30 a.m. EST, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan enumerated the U.S. Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the president to Atty. Jonathan Mitchell, who was arguing in favor of maintaining 2024 leading Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s name on the Colorado primary ballot.

Referring to Article II, Section 1, clause 5, Kagan said there is a “citizenship” eligibility criterion, later saying a presidential candidate must be “a citizen.” She did not invoke the actual Article II term, “natural born Citizen.”

A candidate could conceivably be removed at the state level if he or she were found not to be “a citizen,” Kagan said.

Based on the age requirement of 35, a discussion then ensued as to whether a candidate 34 years of age at the time of the campaign and election could run if he or she would be 35 upon or before inauguration.

Kagan opined that in that scenario, if the candidate were challenged at the state level, the case would likely end up before the high court.

The moment that birthers have been dreaming about for over a decade now, and it didn't go as they anticipated.

[noblepa]

P&E: Trump Hearing Discusses Presidential Eligibility:

The moment that birthers have been dreaming about for over a decade now, and it didn't go as they anticipated.

I think, based on that snippet of the proceedings, that it is too early to make any prognostications about how the Justices will rule.

First of all, Justice Kagan is in the liberal minority on the court. The conservative members may look at the issue entirely differently.

Again, based on that snippet, it sounds to me as if she is just trying to clarify the exact boundaries of the argument before the court. She may have been trying to get them to admit that, under certain circumstances, a candidate may be denied a place on the ballot, and possibly admit that it is within the pervue of a state to do so. Then the question becomes a little narrower; can a state adjudicate that a candidate is ineligible because they participated in an insurrection and thus, invoke section 3 of the 14th?

As for her using the term "citizen" rather than "natural born citizen", again, she may have been trying to clarify that someone who is not a citizen at all could be banned from the ballot, getting the lawyer to admit that the state could keep a non-citizen off the ballot.

[bob]

Again, based on that snippet, it sounds to me as if she is just trying to clarify the exact boundaries of the argument before the court. She may have been trying to get them to admit that, under certain circumstances, a candidate may be denied a place on the ballot, and possibly admit that it is within the pervue of a state to do so. Then the question becomes a little narrower; can a state adjudicate that a candidate is ineligible because they participated in an insurrection and thus, invoke section 3 of the 14th?

As for her using the term "citizen" rather than "natural born citizen", again, she may have been trying to clarify that someone who is not a citizen at all could be banned from the ballot, getting the lawyer to admit that the state could keep a non-citizen off the ballot.

Too also: The justice is trying to suss out whether Section 5 applies to elections or just actually holding office.

Because states can, and have, removed ineligible candidates from ballots. States don't have to wait for ineligible candidates to win elections (or assume the offices) before initiating removal procedures.

I also think this was a nod to Hassan. Hassan was an ineligible naturalized citizen who in 2012 was excluded from ballots. Then-10th-Cir. Judge Gorsuch wrote an opinion affirming his exclusion. (And SCOTUS denied cert.) SCoCO cited Hassan in support of the notion that states can regulate their ballots by excluding ineligible candidates.

[bob]

P&E: Trump Hearing Discusses Presidential Eligibility

P&E: The USSC Oral Arguments in “Trump v. Anderson”:

[P]erhaps one of the more significant and relevant issues that came up at the oral arguments were the discussions by the attorneys and questions from the Justices regarding – faithful P&E readers knew this was coming – the natural born Citizen (“nbC”) issue. For those interested, the transcript of the oral arguments can be found here and will hereafter be referenced as “O/A transcript, p. __.”

None of the exchanges between the Justices and the attorneys resulted in a “universe shattering” or “aha!” revelation that, in fact, the nbC argument that your humble servant, along with many others here at The P&E have been offering for years, is either correct or incorrect.

Yet that didn't stop "DeMaio."

On the other hand, there were certain anecdotal “hints” about where certain of the Justices might presently sit on the nbC issue. Candidly, they are not in your humble servant’s view particularly encouraging…, but if he is wrong in that evaluation, it would not be the first time.

* * *

And yet in the Anderson oral argument, Justice Sotomayor references (O/A transcript, p. 23) “other qualifications” in the Constitution bearing upon one’s presidential eligibility, including age and “citizenship.” Again, while her words may be imprecisely chosen, it is clear that she was referring to Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 and the “nbC” eligibility definitional restriction.

[Usual "DeMaio" snipped.]

But Justice Sotomayor was not the only jurist utilizing less-than-precise language to describe the nbC personage. Justice Gorsuch, in addressing whether a state could remove or ignore certain requirements from those listed in the Eligibility Clause, Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5, referred (O/A transcript, p. 82) to “age and citizenship.”

Justice Gorsuch, in questioning the attorney for the Colorado parties, stated (id.): “Nobody’s talking about whether he’s [i.e., Trump] 35 years old or a natural born, whatever, right, not at issue, okay.” (Emphasis added). Again, clearly when Justice Gorsuch was referencing a “whatever,” he was referring to a “natural born Citizen” as set out in the Eligibility Clause. As with Justice Sotomayor, Justice Gorsuch was plainly referring to the Eligibility Clause and the “nbC” restriction, again, there being no “natural born citizenship” neologism in that clause or, for that matter, anywhere else in the Constitution.

Justice Gorsuch also refers (O/A Transcript, p. 79) to the requirements set out in Art. 2, § 1, Cl. 5 as elements of the “Qualifications Clause.” Again, the preferred nomenclature would be the “Eligibility Clause,” because that is what it is . . . .

* * *

As with Justice Sotomayor, Justice Gorsuch’s use of the term “citizenship” might also be interpreted as “hinting” that he too believes that all that is needed to satisfy the Constitution’s nbC restriction is that one be possessed of U.S. “citizenship” under the 14th Amendment consistent with the Court’s flawed decision in the WKA case. Again, with due respect, if that is his belief, your servant posits that he is wrong as well.

ALERT THE MEDIA! PSEUDONYMOUS BIRTHER BELIEVES A SCOTUS JUSTICE IS WRONG!

Accordingly, the oral arguments in the Anderson case reveal several anecdotal “hints” or “suggestions” that at least Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch may already think that the nbC issue is controlled by WKA and that the “citizen at/by birth” standard narrative is “close enough for government work.”

Just like every other person, except for the three remaining birthers.

That said, it should be noted that in responding to a question from Justice Alito, one of the attorneys for the Colorado parties commented on the differing criteria used by different states in determining ballot access to candidates. The lawyer stated (O/A transcript, p. 134): “Just this election, there’s a candidate who Colorado excluded from the primary ballot, who is on the ballot in other states even though he is not a natural-born citizen.* And that’s just – that’s a feature of our process. It’s not a bug.” (Emphasis added)

* Assumably a reference to Uygur.

[bob]

P&E: Is this Congressional Candidate a U.S. Citizen?:

Earlier on Friday, law clerk,* legal analyst and commentator Paul Ingrassia expressed on his Substack concern that congressional candidate Mazi Melesa Pilip, who is seeking to replace the expelled George Santos (R) in New York State’s third district in a special election Tuesday, may not be a U.S. citizen or a registered Republican voter.

* * *

Mazi Melesa Pilip, a current Nassau County legislature [sic], was handpicked by Joe Cairo, Nassau County’s anti-Trump GOP Chairman, to fill the seat vacated by Santos. There are serious questions about Pilip’s background, who previously served in the Israeli Defense Force, before emigrating to the United States and presumably becoming a naturalized citizen.

* * *

According to the biography on her campaign website, Pilip was born in Ethiopia and transported to Israel “at the age of 12” during Operation Solomon as one of thousands of persecuted Jews in the African nation.

* * *

If Pilip — a migrant from Israel? Africa? somewhere else? — is too uncomfortable to reveal even the year she was born to her constituents, how on earth can we know that she is an American citizen, which is a constitutional requirement under Article I to serve in Congress? . .. The burden of proof is squarely on her – it is difficult to find another congressional candidate whose birth year, let alone birth date, is unknown. The patent lack of transparency raises all sorts of doubts about her background, not just her party affiliation and voting record, but citizenship status and overall loyalties to the United States. How can a candidate pledge to faithfully support and defend the Constitution of the United States and satisfy her oath when she may not even be a citizen?

The great irony being, of course, no one saw Santos' birth certificate.

Of course:

After reading Ingrassia’s post, this writer contacted Pilip through her website with the following:

There are some concerns that Mazi Pilip is not a naturalized U.S. citizen or registered Republican voter. As a journalist, I am seeking the truth. Would Ms. Pilip be willing to release her naturalization documents, date of birth and proof that she is a registered Republican voter if in fact that is the case?

The Post & Email will report if and when a response is received.

Ignoring Rondeau continues to be newsworthy!

In case it isn't obvious why birthers "doubt" Pilip's citizenship:

► Show Spoiler

* Scoop Rondeau hasn't figured out that Ingrassia no longer claims to be working at a law firm.

[Reality Check]

Remember Leonard Daneman, the Paralegal NM guy? His blog is still around, and for some insane reason I made a reply on one of his 2016 posts, Dr. Orly Taitz Vindicated, and he came out swinging with a birther firehose.

He followed the links you left over to the RCRadio blog and has been commenting up a storm. Thanks Doc. John Woodman left a comment that Leonard is an example of Dunning - Kruger in all its glory.

[bob]

P&E: Ramaswamy Emphasizes “Legal”:

FOLLOWING HALEY TWO DAYS EARLIER

* * *

In a Substack article dated January 1, 2024, law-school graduate, political commentator and Trump supporter Paul Ingrassia posited that Haley is “absolutely prohibited” from serving as president or vice president, the latter due to the passage of the 12th Amendment.

* * *

At a townhall event with Laura Ingraham Tuesday, Trump confirmed Ramaswamy to be on his “short list” of vice-presidential candidates should he win the Republican nomination, which appears increasingly likely.

Rut-roh! It is as if he doesn't really believe the birtherisms he peddles.

[Reality Check]

Remember Leonard Daneman, the Paralegal NM guy? His blog is still around, and for some insane reason I made a reply on one of his 2016 posts, Dr. Orly Taitz Vindicated, and he came out swinging with a birther firehose.

He followed the links you left over to the RCRadio blog and has been commenting up a storm. Thanks Doc. John Woodman left a comment that Leonard is an example of Dunning - Kruger in all its glory.

Here is the article he commented on if you are up for a good laugh. The Dunning Kruger is strong with this one:
https://rcradioblog.wordpress.com/2013/ ... finpart-i/

[realist]

Remember Leonard Daneman, the Paralegal NM guy? His blog is still around, and for some insane reason I made a reply on one of his 2016 posts, Dr. Orly Taitz Vindicated, and he came out swinging with a birther firehose.

He followed the links you left over to the RCRadio blog and has been commenting up a storm. Thanks Doc. John Woodman left a comment that Leonard is an example of Dunning - Kruger in all its glory.

Here is the article he commented on if you are up for a good laugh. The Dunning Kruger is strong with this one:
https://rcradioblog.wordpress.com/2013/ ... finpart-i/

Wow. Still after all these years.

[noblepa]

FOLLOWING HALEY TWO DAYS EARLIER

* * *

In a Substack article dated January 1, 2024, law-school graduate, political commentator and Trump supporter Paul Ingrassia posited that Haley is “absolutely prohibited” from serving as president or vice president, the latter due to the passage of the 12th Amendment.

* * *

Exactly what provision of the 12th Amendment does he believes renders her "absolutely prohibited" from serving?

I've read the 12th, and all I see is that it changes the way POTUS and VPOTUS are elected from, "highest vote getter is POTUS, second highest is VP", to POTUS and VPOTUS run together and are elected as a team, as we have today. It also describes the process for breaking an impasse if no candidate gets an electoral college majority.

I see nothing in the 12th that says anything about the qualifications for either office.

Or is he talking about a different amendment? I can't think of any amendment that would prohibit her. The only way she can be prohibited, IMHO, is if you accept the two-parent rule so beloved of the birthers (which I don't).

[realist]

I see nothing in the 12th that says anything about the qualifications for either office.

It changes nothing as to eligibility and simply states that a person ineligible for president is also ineligible to vice president.

[bob]

P&E comments:

An honest court, seeking a decision based on the intent of the Framers, would have to rule Gabbard ineligible.

* *

Moreover, Vivek Ramaswamy could do the Republic a great service if, now that he is no longer a presidential aspirant, he acknowledged that he was not an nbC; that he agrees that Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris are also constitutionally ineligible; and that for that reason, Harris should resign.

Do not hold your breath on that option, despite the fact that it quickly would solve a lot of problems.

This kind of talk shows birthers know they'll never win in the real world. They're content to in Rondeau's comment section.