Reality Check: Okay, now, what are the specific requirements in the [TN Ballot Access] bill?
TN State Senator Mae Beavers: That they have to have the long-form birth certificate.
RC: What is the long-form birth certificate?
Beavers: Now, you’re asking me to get into a lot of things that I haven’t really looked into yet.
RC: […] Are you aware that a lot of states now only give the short-form birth certificate?
Beavers: No, I only know about Tennessee, and I was born in Alabama. So I only know what I have seen.
RC: What if someone was not born in a hospital? It wouldn’t have an attending physician signature, so they wouldn’t be eligible to run in Tennessee if this bill passes. Is that correct?
Beavers: But they would have a birth certificate.
RC: Sure, but your bill doesn’t say birth certificate. It says “an original long-form birth certificate that includes date and place of birth, name of the hospital, the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses.”
Beavers: And that’s normally what’s on a long-form birth certificate.
RC: It used to be, but as a matter of fact, the state of Hawaii, where President Obama was born, for people born since, I believe, around 2001, only gives the time of birth, the name of the parents, and the place of birth. Are you aware of the section of the Constitution called the full faith and credit clause? It’s in Article 4, Section 1.
Beavers: Yes.
RC: Well, do you know what it says about state documents?
Beavers: You tell me.
RC: It says that any state is required to accept the documents from another state. So that basically means that Tennessee has to accept a valid birth certificate from Hawaii or any other state.
Beavers: I have no knowledge of short-form birth certificates in Hawaii.
RC: […] Mitt Romney may not be eligible under this bill. Are you aware of that?
Beavers: No, I wasn’t.
RC: Well, George Romney, his father, was born in Mexico. Mexico confers citizenship by jus soli, which is place of birth. So he was born with dual citizenship, and it also passes down. Unless George Romney somehow gave up his Mexican citizenship, Mitt Romney has dual citizenship.
Beavers: Obviously you’ve studied this whole thing.
Day: April 18, 2011
The people most affected by [the drug war] are black and brown and poor. It’s the abandoned inner cores of our urban areas. As we said before, economically, we don’t need those people; the American economy doesn’t need them. So as long as they stay in their ghettos and they only kill each other, we’re willing to pay for a police presence to keep them out of our America. And to let them fight over scraps, which is what the drug war, effectively, is. Since we basically have become a market-based culture, that’s what we know, and it’s what’s led us to this sad dénouement. I think we’re going to follow market-based logic right to the bitter end.
Lemkin 