“There was no enemies list, unless you consider half the country to be your enemies”

written

Before the November 2010 tsunami mid-term election Barack Obama told Latino voters in a radio interview to “Punish your enemies”. After the crap hit the fan over the remark (which was one of a few violence-oriented and divisive remarks Obama used during that election cycle) he tried to tamp down the fallout by playing word games in a follow-up Univision Radio interview.

Now remember, this man is supposed to be the leader of the free world where civility and tolerance of differing ideologies and political views are paramount. Yet, he and his administration, on several levels from the DOJ, to the DHS, to the EPA (etc.) have been used against his political opposition. The IRS scandal should not be discounted or overlooked in any way, according to Peggy Noonan

But this scandal is different and distinctive. The abuse was systemic—from the sheer number of targets and the extent of each targeting we know many workers had to be involved, many higher-ups, multiple offices. It was ideological and partisan—only those presumed to be of one political view were targeted. It has a single unifying pattern: The most vivid abuses took place in the years leading up to the president’s 2012 re-election effort. And in the end several were trying to cover it all up, including the head of the IRS, who lied to Congress about it, and the head of the tax-exempt unit, Lois Lerner, who managed to lie even in her public acknowledgment of impropriety.

It wasn’t a one-off. It wasn’t a president losing his temper with some steel executives. There was no enemies list, unless you consider half the country to be your enemies.

It is considered a bit of a faux pas to point this out, but what we are talking about in part is a Democratic president, a largely Democratic professional administrative class in Washington, and an IRS whose workers belong to a union whose political action committee gave roughly 95% of its political contributions last year to Democrats.

17 thoughts on ““There was no enemies list, unless you consider half the country to be your enemies””

  1. “The history books should record Obama’s re-election with an asterisk to indicate that it was achieved with the help of illicit means” (WSJ Columnist Labels Obama ‘President Asterisk’)

    All men are created equal but (now) some are more equal than others… as George Orwell paraphrased the Declaration of Independence.

  2. It’s easy to get angry over Holder, but he’s only a symptom and example of how screwed up our society and system have become. It’s as pointless to blame him as it is to blame an infection for killing an AIDS patient because there’s no immune system to control it. Holder has simply done what he has been enabled to do and allowed to get away with, starting years before Obama was elected. Everyone knew he was a bad actor when he was nominated for AG, but he was enabled anyway, even though he was bound to behave worse and do more harm in a position of greater power. No Republican should have voted to confirm him, and the ones who did deserve no respect whatsoever–they did it out of expediency and fear of the race card.

    As for the Elián business, Holder was absolutely a major player, doing much if not most of the dirty work for that grotesque hag, Janet Reno, and of course her boss, Vil Clinton, but he was simply being a good apparatchik–knowing his back was covered and that he’d score points for doing a “good job.” So yes, he’s a slimeball, but the real problem is the way he’s been enabled and protected, and that’s not his fault; he’s simply taken advantage of it.

  3. George, no one is going to stretch the constitution in such a way. Obama is actually the seventh president with a foreign born parent. Herbert Hoover had a Canadian-born mother. Woodrow Wilson’s mother was English. Chester Arthur and James Buchanan both had Irish fathers. Thomas Jefferson’s mother was born in England, and Andrew Jackson’s parents were both born in Ireland.

    Along with McCain, Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico, and Bill Richardson’s parents were both foreign-born, his father from Nicaragua and his mother from Mexico.

    And why are all of these people eligible for the presidency of the United States? Because the Supreme Court, after citing many, many precedents, ultimately decided in US v. WONG KIM ARK (1898) that the 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all persons born in the United States, regardless of their ethnic heritage.

    Even in Germany where citizenship is based primarily on the principle of jus sanguinis, as long as one parent is German the rest is insignificant. That’s the case in most places, look at Winston Churchill, his mother was American. Now, the stupid gifting of citizenships that is seen here to illegals and sons of illegals is another story seen in very few places.

    Rev. Wright alone is what should have made Obama ineligible to be president if this nation had any favorable opinion of itself, self-respect, and self-worth. That’s the real problem to which Obama is just the reflection. Obama could be 12th generation American like all his communist friends for all I care.

    As Asombra said, these are not renegade employees that go astray. They are operating too congruently and comfortably for that to be the case. This is all coming from Obama himself and the very top. Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division when the office began targeting conservatives, is now running the IRS office in charge with administering Obamacare. It all can not be more blatant and they do not even care.

    Stupid is the nation that believes it to be disconnected and swallows the repeated lies. That’s if most of this country even cares because little of importance seems to matter to them.

    Sadly the constitution is, and will be, worthless in the hands of such a dumb and complacent population. Is it even in their hands anymore? Every day they are passing more shamelessness left and right, state and federal, without vote. What can be more unconstitutional than the gun ban that was seen in DC and that was done years ago.

    Nixon’s unorthodox espionage tactics, the ones that caused impending impeachment, were nothing next to what we are seeing here consecutively.

    • Herbert Hoover
      The Thirty-First President, 1929 – 1933
      Natural Born Citizen, Eligible
      Birth: West Branch, Iowa, August 10, 1874
      Father: Jesse Clark Hoover. Birth: Miami County, Ohio, September 2, 1846
      Mother: Hulda Randall Minthorn Hoover, Birth: Norwich, Oxford County, Canada, May 4, 1849
      Married to Jesse Hoover 1870.
      Derivative citizenship enabled her to automatically become a U.S. citizen after her marriage to Jesse Hoover. Therefore Herbert Hoover was a natural born citizen, born in the U.S. of two U.S. citizen parents.

      Woodrow Wilson
      The Twenty-Eighth President, 1913 – 1921
      Natural Born Citizen, Eligible
      Birth: Staunton, Virginia, December 28, 1856
      Father: Joseph Ruggles Wilson, Birth: Steubenville, Ohio, February 28, 1822
      Mother: Jessie Woodrow Wilson, Birth: Carlisle, England, 1830
      Emigrated 1834, Married 1849.
      Derivative citizenship enabled her to automatically become a U.S. citizen after her marriage to Joseph Wilson.
      Therefore Woodrow Wilson was a natural born citizen, born in the U.S. of two U.S. citizen parents.

      Chester Alan Arthur
      The Twenty-First President, 1881 – 1885
      Not a Natural Born Citizen, Not Eligible, Usurper
      Birth: Fairfield, Vermont, October 5, 1829
      Father: William Arthur, Birth: County Antrim, Ireland, 1796, Naturalized August 1843
      Mother: Malvina Stone Arthur, Birth: Berkshire, Vermont, April 24, 1802

      Well ahead of eventually realizing his greatest political ambition by assuming the presidency on September 19, 1881, Arthur purposefully perpetrated an elaborate fraud to hide the fact that his emigrated Irish father had not become a naturalized US citizen until August 1843, fourteen years after our 21st president was born in 1829 at Fairfield, Vermont. [1]

      James Buchanan Jr.
      The Fifteenth President, 1857 – 1861
      Natural Born Citizen, Eligible
      Born: April 23, 1791 Mercersburg, PA
      (He just missed grandfather clause cut off date of September 17, 1787)
      Father: James Buchanan Sr., Born: 1761 in Deroran, Tyrone, Donegal, Ireland
      Emigrated 1783, U.S. Citizenship June 21, 1788
      Mother: Elizabeth Speer Buchanan, Birth: March 17, 1767 in South Mountain, Franklin Co., Pennsylvania

      The Buchanans were Pennsylvania citizens. James Buchanan Sr. became a citizen of the United States when the Constitution was ratified on June 21, 1788. President James Buchanan Jr. was born April 23, 1791 in Pennsylvania. Therefore James Buchanan Jr. was a natural born citizen, born in the U.S. of two U.S. citizen parents.

      “Thomas Jefferson’s mother was born in England.”

      Really?

      “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution…”

      Do you need me to explain this to you?

      Thomas Jefferson
      The Third President, 1801 – 1809
      U.S. citizen at the time of the adoption, September 17, 1787, Eligible
      Birth: Goochland (Albemarle) County, Va., April 13, 1743
      Father: Peter Jefferson, Birth: Chesterfield County, Va., February 29, 1708
      Mother: Jane Randolph Jefferson, Birth: London, England, February 9, 1720

      Andrew Jackson
      The Seventh President, 1829 – 1837
      U.S. citizen at the time of the adoption, September 17, 1787, Eligible
      Birth: The Waxhaws, South Carolina , March 15, 1767
      Father: Andrew Jackson, Birth: Carrickfergus, Antrim, Ireland
      Mother: Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, Birth: Carrickfergus, Antrim, Ireland

      The 1940 census lists George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father as “US Citizen born abroad”, and his mother was born in Utah.

      Mitt Romney is the son of two American citizens, an as such a natural born citizen.

      • Luis, anybody who ignores this particular article of the Constitution is just shitting on it. There is no discussing the facts, there is no discussing case law, there is no discussing anything. They just take the Constitution and dump a nice big load right on top of it.

    • So yes, Chester Arthur was ineligible, but the fact that he got away with it does not negate the clause, any more than O.J. Wilson getting away with killing his wife gives me the ability to kill mine with impunity.

    • “Sadly the constitution is, and will be, worthless in the hands of such a dumb and complacent population.”

      Including members of the population who don’t understand Article 2?

  4. “And why are all of these people eligible for the presidency of the United States?”

    To answer your question, because they all (with the exception of Chester Arthur) were either natural born citizens, as required by the Constitution, or made eligible by the carve out.

    Obama was neither a child of two US citizens, nor alive at the time the Constitution was adopted.

  5. Sorry George, and Luis, but the constitution does not define “natural born” in such a way nor has “natural born” ever required two “natural born” or “naturalized” parents. I was born in this nation to a naturalized mother and a foreign father and nothing defines me legally as anything other than a natural born American. From what I have searched Section 1 of Article 2 of the United States Constitution simply says this regarding the matter:

    “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

    That said, the legal system has always indicated that the term “natural born” citizen means a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth”, either by being born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those BORN TO ALIEN PARENTS; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth”.

    Such term, however, would not include a person born to foreign diplomats, occupying military forces, or one not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an “alien” required to go through the legal process of “naturalization” to become a U.S. citizen. There is no provision in the Constitution and no controlling American case law to support a contention that the citizenship of one’s parents governs the eligibility of a native born U.S. citizen to be President.

    That aside, like I said, how American Obama is was clearly seen in the 20 years he attended Rev. Wright’s church and in the many communist friends the ghetto agitator had all his life. What really matters here, and what is indeed very clear, is that we have enough of a self-loathing and moronic population that is willing to elect and re-elect such shameless trash with fan fare and be totally complacent and apologetic to its dishonesty and agenda.

    After that, who gives a crap about how you or I may want to interpret Section 1 or Article 2 after being legally interpreted a particular way since day one. That will not save us. You think Obama is the only communist in USA? You think they all come from abroad? The moment Obama is done they (with the help of the Mexicans) will pick another one, another one of the many, and they will continue applauding their own demise.

    • You’ve obviously walked away from the “six Presidents before Obama” strawman without much of a fight, so now let’s address this one.

      “That said, the legal system has always indicated that the term “natural born” citizen means a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth”, either by being born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those BORN TO ALIEN PARENTS; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth”.

      Patently false.

      The rule on how citizenship is transferred from parent to child have changed many times since the foundation of the country.

      Further to that, if jus solis citizenship fulfills the natural born Constitutional requirement, then according to the XIV Amendment to the Constitution, naturalized citizens can not be denied the privilege of holding that office, since under the letter of that Amendment, naturalized citizens have all the exact same rights and privileges as people who acquire citizenship at birth.

      All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

  6. Gallardo, if “natural born citizen” is not defined then why on Earth would the old INS have three distinct classes of citizenship — “natural born,” “native born” and “naturalized” — defined in its manuals?

    You look it up if you’re curious enough. I’m done doing legwork for the willfully blind and deaf.

  7. Gentlemen, no jodan mas, even Superman and Captain America had foreign parents.

    Luis, I walked away from nothing. It was I who brought up the SEVEN former presidents with foreign parents as factual examples that actually prove my point. What are you telling me? That President Chester A. Arther, whose parents were not even naturalized, was also ineligible because he broke this amendment or law of yours that does not exist anywhere? I showed how the constitution actually defines “natural-born”, it does not. I repeat, IT DOES NOT. As a result I then showed how the U.S. Supreme Court has FOR CENTURIES interpreted “natural-born” through their own statements and such historical facts. It has always been Jus Soli.

    False? Then show me where in the constitution it says that in order to be natural-born, and thus be eligible to be president, one’s parents need to be naturalized. Show me what US born candidate has ever been denied the presidency because of the lack of such. Show me when the supreme court defined it as such. And show me in what legal book such law resides.

    ” …if jus solis citizenship fulfills the natural born Constitutional requirement, then according to the XIV Amendment to the Constitution, naturalized citizens can not be denied the privilege of holding that office, since under the letter of that Amendment, naturalized citizens have all the exact same rights and privileges as people who acquire citizenship at birth.”

    Naturalized citizens may own the same rights but there is still a distinction among citizenships (basically natural or obtained). Again, there is naturalized, natural, and the constitution specifically demands that those running for president/vice president be natural-born. It is not that difficult.

    That said, George, “natural-born” is defined but not by the constitution instead by the supreme court. “Native-born” is no more than a synonym for “natural-born” for there is nothing that legally distinguishes “native” from “natural”. “Native” obviously refers to being born in the nation’s land and natural (as stated before) covers that too plus being born abroad to American parents (like George Romney and McCain) for those are the two ways one could be “natural born”.

    Natural born:

    type 1: “jus soli” (‘law of soil’) = born on American soil (U.S. of America or its territories).

    type 2: “jus sanguinis” (‘law of blood’) = born to an American parent or parents, married or not, ANYWHERE in the world. This covers parents traveling abroad, stationed abroad, etc (as long as they have not gained foreign residency, denied their U.S. citizenship, etc)

    Either way, “Native” is also “Natural”. Legally speaking there are only two types of citizenships in USA, natural and naturalized. From what I see, the crap of Obama could have very well been born in Kenya and still be eligible as “natural-born” given his American mother.

    Many nations have modified their Jus Soil where automatic citizenship by jus soli has been withdrawn or restricted by imposing additional requirements, such as requiring that at least one parent be a legal permanent resident or that a parent has resided in the country for a specific period of time but that is not the case of USA or most of the Americas for that matter.

    Don’t blame me for the fact that the constitution, nor the supreme court, has never defined/enforced it in such a way.

    • Superman, a/k/a Kal-El, a/k/a Clark Kent, despite fighting for truth, justice, and the American way, is Constitutionally ineligible to be President of the United States.

  8. Ted Cruz is my hero. He has balls and he has principles. He is a living, breathing embodiment of Reagan conservatism. But he is not eligible under Article II.

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