Talk:Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories/Archive 19

Tangential Question
Since the Obama birth certificate controversy/conspiracy stemmed from questioning his eligibility to be president, because it was inferred that he was not a Natural Born Citizen, per the consitution. What then the silence around the likes of Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada,John McCain (Panama Canal Zone), George Romney (Mexico) and Barry Goldwater (Arizona Territory). OK the Panama Canal Zone and Arizona Territory arguable qualify, but not Romney and Cruz. Also there were eight presidents not born in the U..S. but in a British Colonial possession. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry Harrison were all born prior to 1776, and therefore were born in British colonies. There seems to be an apparent hypocrisy, especially in the case of Cruz and Romney. Has there been any discussion of this in a WP article?Oldperson (talk) 19:21, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Lots. See Natural-born-citizen clause.   Ravensfire  (talk) 19:34, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Thanks a million. Most informative. I see that "legalized" opinions are based on political/ideological proclivities. Exeptions and arguments pro and con are base d,  even in court rulings upon the proclivities and preferences of the deciders, and isn't that always the case? Realization of that does harm to the myth of  an impartial justice.

I was stationed in the Canal Zone, when there was one, and never understood how McCain's eligibility could be questioned. Zonians had to return to the US every five years,to fulfill a requirement to retain their citizenship,and each had to have a "Home of Record" in the continental US, even those born in the Canal Zone and whose parents were also born in the CZ. There was a most excellent hospital on the Pacific side of the CZ, Gorgas, it had some of the best surgeons and doctors found anywhere. I had a cervical hemilaminectomy there.

As a layperson I see no reason why Rubio,Jindal, Harris and Gabbard do not meet constitutional muster. The constitution says nothing at all about both parents being born American citizens. However Romney and Cruz are quite obviously not eligible and arguments to the contrary are purely political hence specious. Their eligibility issue is not moot because it will arise again, probably when Romney throws his hat in the ring for the third time.Oldperson (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Why do you believe Mitt Romney is "quite obviously not eligible" to be President? I don't know any reason at all why anyone (even advocates of the narrowest possible proposed definition of natural-born citizenship) would question Mitt Romney in this regard.  Mitt's father, George Romney, maybe, but not Mitt.  Please enlighten us.  —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:50, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Apologies. Addled age brain fart. You are correct. Mitt was born in Michigan, or maybe this is a Romney birther situation.: )Oldperson (talk) 15:05, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It was a brain fart, at age 80 I am allowed some. I did remember that Romney's eligibility was questioned, but that was in 1968,it very well could be that his birth was backdated and records adjusted by LDS. because '''"When George W. Romney ran for president in 1968, Charles Gordon, a counsel with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown Law Center, addressed the eligibility issue in an article in the Winter 1968 issue of the Maryland Law Review.

In the second paragraph of the article, titled "Who Can Be President of the United States: The Unresolved Enigma," Gordon wrote:

"In the early stages of the 1968 presidential campaign this question became increasingly urgent, because Governor George Romney of Michigan was a leading contender for the Republican nomination. Governor Romney was born to American citizens in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico, and came to the United States with his parents when he was five." source: https://www.wnd.com/2012/01/mitt-romney-not-a-natural-born-citizen/. The publication is the World Net Daily and unabashed right wing propaganda organ, however if Mitt did come to the US at age 5, per then he is not eligible for the presidencyOldperson (talk) 15:35, 9 September 2019 (UTC)


 * George W. Romney (Mitt's father) was indeed born in 1907, to American parents living in Mexico, and came to the US with his family in 1912; these facts are well known and not the subject of any serious dispute.


 * When George Romney was seeking the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, there was indeed some talk at the time over whether or not he qualified as a natural-born citizen. The issue was never investigated in depth because Romney's presidential bid collapsed after he came out in opposition to the Vietnam war, saying he had been "brainwashed" about the war by US military officials.


 * As for whether George Romney and Ted Cruz were/are natural-born citizens qualified to be President, this is a matter of legitimate difference of legal opinion; arguments supporting their eligibility may or may not be correct, but they are neither "purely political" nor specious. —  Rich wales (no relation to Jimbo) 16:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)


 * This article is about theories surrounding Obama's eligibility, not other candidates'. Unless there's a reliable source comparing how Obama was treated differently than other candidates (and a discussion about whether to include such a source in this article), WP:NOTAFORUM still applies. --Weazie (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Comments from a paralegal who contacted Birther #1, Philip J. Berg, suggesting a legal cite correction in his otherwise solid Brief in Support of his Berg vs Obama case (2008) Cited as 08-4083 - BERG v. OBAMA et al I suppose my small correction to Philip Berg's brief makes me Birther #2. However, after much legal research there are serious considerations about Obama's candidacy and eligibility; 1) The birth document Obama discovered during his primary run is a valid Hawaiian certificate. However, it is noted at the bottom that it is only "prima facie" evidence of Hawaiian birth. This means that the original registration from which the database took its information was not from a licensed birthing facility. In fact, there is no proof Obama was born in Hawaii. 2) Further lack of place of birth is the fact that the April 27, 2011 'long form' was forged in Adobe Illustrator. Adobe Photoshop will not reveal the 'art' manipulations, which include pastes, rotations, and changes in bit depth (converting from B&W to Color). This is not only a felony, and a civil violation of intentional interference with contractual relations, but proof of other birth documents being more genuine. 3) Because the courts refused to give standing to Plaintiffs suing Obama, certification of numerous birth docs as exceptions to the Hearsay Rule was not possible. Dr. Jerome Corsi traveled to Kenya to get certification, but was arrested and held at the Kenyan border facility.

There is some mention of the way that Obama was treated differently than John McCain. In fact, John McCain's 'natural born citizen' status was investigated by a joint Senate committee, reported in Senate Report 511. The committee concluded since McCain's father was a citizen, he was a natural born citizen. This was correct.

As for Ted Cruz, it is unfortunate that many pundits concluded he was a 'natural born citizen' under 1940 statutes. Actually, the 1940 INA required a 5-years U.S. residency before Ted Cruz gained U.S. citizenship from his mother (the father was Cuban). In reality, Ted Cruz was a statutory (not natural) citizen-at-birth under 1952 revisions to the INA link

Finally, was Barack Obama a natural born citizen? As his 'citizenship at birth,' under 8 USC §1409 (this was my correction to Philip Berg's brief), was from modern statute, it did not fit the parameters required by Article II, which required a U.S. citizen father (See, again, SR511). Yes, as a dependent, Obama lost U.S. citizenship, but under statute regained 'citizenship at birth' status at age 19, fulfilling an INA requirement of five-years continuous U.S. residency between ages 14 and 22.

This is based on citable INA (Immigration and Nationality) law and Rules of Evidence. . . it is not subject to argument, the only argument being the beginning of 'citizenship at birth' to children of aliens that began, unconstitutionally I argue, from a 1898 Supreme Court decision, Wong Kim Ark.

I think the Birther article could be improved as a public record, including such 'birthers' as Mario Apuzzo, Orly Taitz, Leo Donofrio (all attorneys), and others. Ladagency (talk) 18:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)Leonard A. DanemanLadagency (talk) 18:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Are there any reliable sourced articles quoting court judgements in favor of Appuzo, Taitz, Donofrio that are pertinent to your claim? If not then they are simply opinion pieces, their status as attorney's is immaterial and irrelevant. Oldperson (talk) 19:21, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your decision to hat/hab the above discussion, however you included in the hatting, a good faith question that I asked at the beginning. That I take exception to. I wasn't soap boxing or forum when I asked the question. I was serious as to how one situation differed from another, and the question was answered.Oldperson (talk) 21:24, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Here is a YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROSKprLNqb4 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poopoopeepee100 (talk • contribs) 05:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)


 * There is well over a billion hours of video YouTube, an awful lot of it pure garbage. You will need to provide editors with some very good reason for having any interest in clicking on your suggested link. HiLo48 (talk) 06:06, 1 June 2020 (UTC)


 * It is a 2015 clip from President Obama's visit to Kenya, in which he made the unremarkable statement that he's Kenyan American. The fringe see this as "proof" of President Obama's ineligibility. --Weazie (talk) 18:25, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Here is a YouTube video, too. It is considerably better worth watching than birther conspiracy theorism. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Misleading content about decline in birther views
The lead currently contains content that exclusively covers surveys in 2010 and 2011 about birther attitudes (showing a decline between the years). However, surveys from 2016 show the same level of birther attitudes among Republicans as the one from 2010: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-persistent-partisan-divide-over-birther-question-n627446

Thus, content talking about declines in birther attitudes and some weakly substantiated speculation as to what caused that decline should be removed from the lead. The inclusion of such content also misleadingly implies that all that the conspiracy theorists wanted was the long-form birth certificate and that as soon as they got it, they stopped being birthers. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Long form certificate: Image anomalies potentially caused by Xerox character substitution bug
The discoverer of the Xerox character substitution bug, David Kriesel mentions and shows this in his talk. He proposes that the anomalies in the scan would not be from deliberate editing, but simply from a faulty compression algorithm at the time of document scanning.

I can't edit protected articles, but I thought this might be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kopoldiu (talk) 11:26, 17 November 2020 (UTC)


 * There's an argument that Kriesel can be considered an expert per WP:SPS, but without more coverage than this, I'd say it's out of WP:PROPORTION to include it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:02, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Odd Title?
The title "Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories" seems odd, given that the controversy was mainly about his place of birth rather than his citizenship. WOuldn't "Barack Obama birthplace conspiracy theories" make more sense? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:12:F900:5904:4A32:2F1F:6E13 (talk) 03:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Nobody would have been interested in his place of birth if it could not be used to dispute his status as a natural-born U.S. citizen and thus the legitimacy of his presidency. The citizenship is what this is really about, birth place is just a means to an end. (Vote fraud was another one of the straws the liars grasped at.) In that regard, birtherism is like climate change denial (see Climate change denial: those who propagate them have the goal of making people believe in a false idea, and they use whatever they can as levers. The levers themselves are minor details. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:05, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In addition, as the article explains, there were several beliefs about his citizenship, not all of which were dependent on his place of birth. This title includes those additional beliefs.--Weazie (talk) 18:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Complete obfuscation of Sydney Blumenthal and Asher in Mcclatchy
The birtherism conspiracy theory actually originated from Hilary Clinton having her campaign advisor Sydney Blumenthal spreading a rumor to McClatchy former Bureau Chief James Asher that Obama was born in Kenya. McClatchy then sent investigative reporters to Kenya to try and find out this fact. All of this was done in the face of trying to paint dirt on Obama for his 2008 campaign, who she (as it turns out was correct in her estimation) considered to be a worthy opponent.

Source: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article102828747.html

She denies this fact and so does Sydney Blumenthal, however, both Asher and his bureau chief for Nairobi, Shashank Bengali have come forward and confirmed this to be true.

''“Jim asked me to look into Obama’s ties to Kenya and sent a number of tips to check out and one of the things I looked into was the unfounded rumor that Obama was born in Kenya,” Bengali said, speaking from Afghanistan where he was on assignment for the Los Angeles Times, where he now works. “I don’t have any specific knowledge where that tip would have come from. Jim’s instructions were just to look at everything.” ''

''"In an email in 2008, Asher forwarded to Bengali an email he had received from Blumenthal: “Jim: On Kenya, your person in the field might look into the impact there of Obama’s public comments about his father. I’m told by State Dept officials that Obama publicly derided his father on his visit there and that was regarded as embarrassing and crossing the line by Kenyans for whom respect for elders (especially the father, especially a Muslim father, in a patrilineal society) is considered sacrosanct. Sidney”

In a statement to McClatchy on Monday, Asher said:

“Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy, where he and I met in my office. During that conversation and in subsequent communications, we discussed a number of matters related to Obama. He encouraged McClatchy to do stories related to Obama and his connections to Kenya.”

Asher said that as far as the “birther” issue, he has “nothing in writing,” but that he recalls the conversation. He has tweeted about his contact with Blumenthal twice since April. He also cited an email Monday from Bengali, who wrote: “What I remember is that you told me to look into everything about Obama’s family in Kenya. I can’t recall if we specifically discussed the birther claim, but I’m sure that was part of what I researched.”''

Obviously not including this is problematic as it's been reported by McClatchy a reliable source and does not paint the full picture I will leave it to a more experienced editor to source this into the page but it absolutely warrants inclusion and will only demonstrate Wikipedia's bias if Sydney Blumenthal is not included. In the email quoted, you would have to argue or prove why James Asher would lie/makeup that state officials instructed him to look into Obama's family in Kenya.

Please before you link the Fact Check, please review this article from Observer - https://observer.com/2016/09/media-fact-checkers-erase-sidney-blumenthal-key-role-in-obama-birther-muck/ and make sure to take off your partisan goggles. Pformenti (talk) 04:26, 26 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Skimming through sources on this, it seems everyone is in agreement that Asher claimed Blumenthal talked to McClatchy about the birtherism rumours and got the Kenya reporter to investigate whether the rumours were true, and Blumenthal denies that that took place. While the reporter in question did investigate birtherism rumours (and found them to be false), there's no evidence in any of their written correspondence that Blumenthal ever actually mentioned it. I don't see any reliable sources disagreeing with that retelling of events. I also don't think your source is particularly worthwhile, given they complain that Politico didn't address new information in their fact checking piece that they did subsequently address in a followup published a WEEK before that piece at observer.com. If this story is included in this article it would have to be with extreme skepticism given it's based off the word of a single person, and I'm not at all convinced that including details of a saga reliable sources charactise basically as irrelevant hearsay would be due. Volteer1 (talk) 07:51, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Concur. Ultimately, Asher makes an uncorroborated claim, and it would be undue to give undeserved weight to it. As for Asher's motive to lie, it is easy to infer the intent was to smear Clinton and Blumenthal. "Clinton started the birther lies" was a popular meme in 2016 because Clinton was running for the presidency. --Weazie (talk) 19:07, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Based on this it definitely warrants mention that James Asher recalls Sydney Blumenthal starting the rumor. This is from Politico.

''"McClatchy followed up with a story that quoted a statement from Asher, “During that meeting, Mr. Blumenthal and I met together in my office and he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false.”

Blumenthal swiftly denied pushing any birther rumors. And Asher, when pressed for more detail, was less definitive in an email to POLITICO.

“To the best of my recollection, these are the facts about my interaction with Sidney Blumenthal in late winter of 2008,” Asher said. “Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy, where he and I met in my office. During that conversation and in subsequent communications, we discussed a number of matters related to Obama. He encouraged McClatchy to do stories related to Obama and his connections to Kenya.”

“On the birther issue, I recall my conversation with Blumenthal clearly,” Asher said, but acknowledged having “nothing in writing memorializing that conversation.”''

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article102354777.html

Are you telling me that Wikipedia gives this much scrutiny to first-hand accounts written in 3-4 reliable sources? The numerous articles/sections of controversies based on first-hand accounts regarding Trump would beg to differ. If we are going to set that as the standard then we need to stay consistent. We should just mention Asher and Blumenthal since there is already emails exchanged as highlighted by the LA Times that he asked their Kenya correspondent to find out about his father and cousin, see below:

''“Jim: On Kenya, your person in the field might look into the impact there of Obama’s public comments about his father. I’m told by State Dept officials that Obama publicly derided his father on his visit there and that was regarded as embarrassing and crossing the line by Kenyans for whom respect for elders (especially the father, especially a Muslim father, in a patrilineal society) is considered sacrosanct. Sidney.”

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-blumenthal-birther-20160919-snap-story.html A second email, Asher said, involved possible “connections between Obama and Raila Odinga, who had described himself as Obama’s cousin and would run for president of Kenya” and links between Odinga and “controversial Muslim groups.”

The “person in the field” at the time was McClatchy’s Nairobi-based correspondent, Shashank Bengali, who is now a foreign correspondent for The Times. He looked into Blumenthal’s tips at the time and found they did not check out.

“Asher assigned me to look into everything related to Obama in Kenya,” Bengali said in an email.''

Pformenti (talk) 22:36, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Trump as the "most prominent" advocate
Are we sure that Trump was the "most prominent" advocate? It seems like an opinion given in a book written primarily about Trump rather than primarily about the conspiracy theory. "A prominent" advocate or even "one advocate" would seem more neutral to me. TWM03 (talk) 19:49, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Trump was certainly "a prominent" advocate (he eventually became President of the United States, after all); if "prominent" means "someone the average person would be likely to recognize in the birther realm", there's a good case to be made for him to even be the "most prominent". This is almost WP:BLUE -- who else did Obama actually acknowledge by name on this topic?
 * On the other hand, if "prominent" means something more like "most prominent inside of birther circles", I'd think that title might go to Sheriff Joe, or Orly Taitz, or any of several other people called out in the article. Trump didn't even appear on the birtherism radar until March 2011, halfway through Obama's first term.
 * But having him as "a prominent" rather than "the most prominent" advocate seems like an acceptable edit, and I think in context it makes sense for him to be considered very prominent, even if, all things considered, he didn't really put in the time.--NapoliRoma (talk) 23:34, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying. My interpretation of the statement was the second one you mentioned, I had not really considered that it might mean "the most prominent individual who also happened to be a birther conspiracy theorist". However, even in this interpretation I still think the "most prominent" label is unnecessary as anyone who knows who Trump is understands that few people are more prominent than him and could easily come to the same conclusion themselves. I still think my edits are an improvement, though maybe "notably" or something similar should be added to the statement in the introduction to clarify why Trump would be singled out. TWM03 (talk) 00:26, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 22 February 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure)  NW1223  &lt; Howl at me &bull; My hunts &gt; 05:59, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories → Birther movement – This own article in the first paragraph says this is commonly called the Birther movement by WP:RS. With this fact in mind we should go ahead and change it to Birther movement under WP:COMMONNAME. Also this topic is bit more expansive than purely 'citizenship' as the title put's it. It's also about religion and birth place, which isn't necessarily tied to citizenship, especially in the minds of conspiracy theorist. Overall, this title isn't particularly effective and there is a common name for this situation. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 02:21, 22 February 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose The current title is a model of clarify. The proposed target looks like a spelling mistake. Obama has interest outside the USA. American neologisms are unlikely to be known outside the USA. Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:32, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose Proposed name is vague and unnecessary. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106;&#x1D110;&#x1d107; 15:14, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose Birthplace and citizenship are very much tied together in the United States, and the article is about a former U.S. president and U.S. law. The article title informs the reader it is about beliefs about Obama, and not about citizenship generally. This article's title is also intended as a compliment to the article Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories.  --Weazie (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

The Daily Kos poll
@Nomoskedasticity, @OgamD218, assuming the Research 2000 article gets it right, it seems OgamD218 has a point. If the Daily Kos has said the poll was crap, there's no good reason to keep it here. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, sure. All I had to go on was an assertion in an edit summary... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)


 * A later supplied link showed that Daily Kos had repudiated Research 2000's work. But the assertion -- that at one point around a quarter of Americans didn't believe or "doubted" that Obama was born in the United States -- was made by others; DailyKos/Research 2000 weren't the only ones asking this question. It would helpful to restore the assertion to the article (while not relying on DailyKos and Research 2000). --Weazie (talk) 20:29, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 April 2023
There is repeated text in the first paragraph. Suggestion: change the following --

During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage of Obama's religious preference, birthplace, and of the individuals questioning his religious belief and citizenship – efforts eventually known as the "birther movement",[2] by which name it is widely referred to across media.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The movement falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States as required by Article Two of the Constitution. During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage of Obama's religious preference, birthplace, and of the individuals questioning his religious belief and citizenship – efforts eventually known as the "birther movement",[2] by which name it is widely referred to across media.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The movement falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States as required by Article Two of the Constitution.

to --

During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008, throughout his presidency and afterwards, there was extensive news coverage of Obama's religious preference, birthplace, and of the individuals questioning his religious belief and citizenship – efforts eventually known as the "birther movement",[2] by which name it is widely referred to across media.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] The movement falsely asserted Obama was ineligible to be President of the United States because he was not a natural-born citizen of the United States as required by Article Two of the Constitution. Ericli3690 (talk) 22:26, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ – Muboshgu (talk) 22:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Phrasing edit request 2023-06-21
''Obama's parents were divorced in 1964. He attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School in Honolulu. In 1967, his mother married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was also attending the University of Hawaii (...)''

I know it would be ridiculous to interpret this as such, but the phrasing here sounds like Lolo Soetoro was a student at the kindergarten. Perhaps rephrase to "...his mother married fellow University of Hawaii student, Lolo Soetoro" Bradbradenson (talk) 22:24, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Not done. It says "who was also attending the University of Hawaii" -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 23:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)