"Natural Born Citizen"Follow

He outlined the rules and regulations that are in place per the constitution, then laid out why the judges' rulings follow those rules and regulations, and then HAPPENED to agree with that ruling.

ITT: Gbaji missing the point in his continued efforts to troll the Asylum

EDIT: The mysterious N

Edited, Aug 27th 2013 10:43pm by stupidmonkey

Hey, he had that tragic, handsome brooding thing going for him, too. And he once crashed a carriage while drunk.

You quoted the requirements for standing step by step. What you failed to do was actually make any sort of argument that those rules precluded standing in any of the cases in question. You simply stated that since all those judges ruled on standing, that none of those people must have standing.

What's funny is that you don't actually agree with their rulings (or at least one) despite your dogmatic need to just accept whatever a judge says:



You are aware that Alan Keyes was the primary plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, which was also dismissed for lack of standing? And that he ran for President in 2008? So your own assumption about who would have standing is incorrect as well. Which raises the point I've been trying to get across all along. The issue isn't about whether you think the questions about Obama's birth had merit, but that we should all be concerned that apparently no one has standing to challenge it in the first place.

So who has standing Joph? And if no one does, then haven't we just effectively eliminated the requirement?

Given that you, personally, bought your way out of a prison sentence, I'd think you'd like judges more than you are showing in this thread.

Er? I've never been charged with a crime in my life. So... huh?

Which was on the general election ballots in three states.

It's impossible to win the presidency with 91 electoral votes. Hence there is no argument that Obama cost him anything. I'll admit that my original statement about the general election assumed a candidate who was actually eligible to win (one of the two major parties or perhaps a nationwide independent or 3rd party candidate). I also only remembered Keyes for his original GOP primary run and paid no attention to his failed third party bid. Since CA was one of the three states he was on the ballot in, I guess you were more aware than I.

Edit: From the looks of it, the 9th Circuit Court dismissed for lack of standing on the grounds that they could not redress Keyes' complaint. They stated in the dismissal that their reasons were "different" than from the previous court but I couldn't find the statement from that court. The US Supreme Court dismissed the case without comment so we don't know exactly why Roberts & Co didn't care for it, only that they didn't.

Edited, Aug 29th 2013 10:24pm by Jophiel

The only reason anyone even knows who Alan Keyes is is because he's a meme.

And he thus had standing to challenge Obama's name appearing on the ballot in those three states, right?



You didn't say "the second place guy" could sue. You said "anyone in the Democratic Primary or the General Election" would have standing to sue.

It's also an irrelevant point. The judge can't engage in speculation. He can't dismiss a case on standing on the grounds of "You'd have lost anyway". That presumes that the judge can know what would have happened had Obama's name not been on the ballot, and also presumes that Keyes only reason for running was to win the office. Many third party candidates run knowing they can't possibly win the race, but to raise awareness and perception of their party's issues. So any difference in potential votes can matter, and the judge can't possibly know to what degree Obama's name being on the ticket might affect those outcomes.



No. Your original statement said "anyone". You are now changing that statement to fit new facts that contradict your original claim.



Sure. That and failing to recall the name of the case Smash had mentioned resulted in a broader google search than I intended and I honestly just stumbled upon the case Keyes was involved in. That it happened to exactly refute what you'd said earlier prompted me to mention it.

I'll repeat that I don't agree with your new and narrow requirement for standing. Both for the reason that we can't assume the only "harm" done to another candidate in the race is lack of taking first place and because we can't know what the absence of a candidate in the race might have changed. For example, by your argument Clinton could sue, but not Edwards. But we can't possibly assume that. With Obama out of the race, perhaps Edwards would have taken his spot and even the nomination (lets set aside the love child thing of course). Point being that we can't possibly assume what would have happened. And more to the point, a judge absolutely can't when assessing simple standing.


Of course since someone like say McCain didn't sue over this issue, we can't really know for sure what would have happened. I have a sneaking suspicion that in addition to it ruining his career, he likely also would have had his case dismissed. At a certain point it became pretty obvious that the judges were really ruling on the presumed merits of the case, but using standing as a cheap way of getting out of having to actually give the plaintiff his "day in court". And to be fair, I get why they did this. Political campaigns are full of bogus suits and legal motions designed to dig up dirt on the other guy. Remember that guy in Chicago? Ryan I think? Who basically got discredited after his divorce proceedings were unsealed and leaked to the public. It's a common dirty trick to have some surrogate drum up some BS lawsuit in order to gain access to documents in the hopes that there might be something embarrassing in them. Happens all the time, and judges tend to be aware of this and stop it when they can. And the common method to prevent that is to dismiss on standing. If you don't, then you have to allow for documents to be accessed in order to dismiss on any other means (or come to a full ruling). Anything other than standing fails to block the other guy from opening up documents, thus allowing the fishing expedition to succeed.


So I get why they did it. I just think that in this particular case it was a poor choice. Birth records don't (or should not) contain anything that would be directly embarrassing to the candidate themselves. And unlike say divorce records, of tax records, or business contracts, there is actually a constitutional requirement involving the birth records involved. I just really think that the judges looked at the whole issue as an assumed fishing expedition (although I'm not sure what they thought anyone could find), and rejected it, but didn't consider that in reality maybe we ought to have a right to know what the vital records of a potential president say, and that maybe that's not something judges should go to those kinds of lengths to protect.

Please, Sergeant Grumpy had no career to ruin at that point.

The bolded three should be required to be made public before the candidate gets on the ballot as well.

Don't blame the horse, he was fahsnickered.