Terry Lakin, 'Birther', To Be Court Martialed By US Army

NBC News reports that the Army will court martial Lt. Col. Terry Lakin because of his refusal to deploy to Afghanistan. Lakin is part of the discredited "birther" movement, and as such believes that orders from President Obama are "illegal."

Read more from NBC News here. Watch Lakin's video below explaining why he believes Obama is not a natural born citizen.

WATCH:

Comments

[PlatoSunTsu]

10:07 AM on 05/10/2010

I hope he's wearing camo stripes soon, traitor ( among other things).

[Lee Seligman]

11:34 PM on 05/09/2010

All "Birthers" ... REPORT TO SICK BAY IMMEDIATELY ... YOU NEED TO GET BACK ON YOUR MEDS ASAP !

[LazloTu]

02:49 PM on 05/09/2010

By the way, where are all the tea-bag "patriots"?? Maybe they're at a rally with Oily T_tz?????

[Lenin Fierro]

04:56 AM on 05/09/2010

wow this guy is an idiot, I applied for a government job and I had to shell out all sorts of document to prove my citizenship and birth place, don't these idiots think that the same and if not more will be applied for a person seeking the presidency of the United States.

[Sowshowleeest]

04:47 AM on 05/09/2010

The long form birth certificate was in Building 7.

[Kenji San]

01:16 AM on 05/09/2010

The Execution of Private Eddie Slovak - time to revive it?

[Kenji San]

01:21 AM on 05/09/2010

correction - Slovik - a true story - last man executed for desertion.

[Kenji San]

01:22 AM on 05/09/2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lENC5BgENoY

[Kenji San]

01:01 AM on 05/09/2010

I applaud you Anderson. It is way past the time this should have been called out - perhaps had you called out all these crackpots months ago - CNN would NOT be so low in the ratings.

Keep it up, you may be able to revive CNN all on your own.

[njborne]

12:22 AM on 05/09/2010

This punk @ss demands the Prez prove to him his citizenship. No! I want this military crackhead to prove that he's a doctor! Hmm! Wait a minute! I think we know the problem here. He's been testing the drugs he administers to patients. Oh no! Leavenworth, get ready for a doctor pretending to be a lawyer, preparing to officially become a teabagger, because he's a birther. This message is bought to you by Palin 1012 and Freedomworks and all the Glenn Becks out there! Holla!

[Cambridge9]

06:41 PM on 05/08/2010

Secretary Gates has just announced that he might cut into the officers club because he needs to cut costs - and there are too many high ranking officers. Well, Secretary Gates, here is your fist cut and he is volunteering to be dishonorably discharged!

[jerryfromcalifornia]

05:09 PM on 05/08/2010

A doctor startes out as a captian, He has only been promoted 2 times in his 17 years of service. That should tell you something.
jerry belairca

[hotbarb2614]

07:00 PM on 05/08/2010

Wow my Daughter was promoted three times in three years, to captain.He's a doctor to boot.There has to be something wrong if he wasn't promoted.his file should be opened.I also hope they take any money he is to get.Total racist.

[swiss6]

01:44 AM on 05/09/2010

No, Col at 17 years sounds about right for Medical Corps (and almost impossibly quick for line officers). You can’t compare medical officers to line officers (e.g. infantry officers). Medical is a non-line career field (legal (JAG) and religious (Chaplain) are the other two examples) . Medical officers are not eligible to command (but can be in charge of medical facilities). Think of their ranks as being for status/pay purposes with very constrained command authority, different prisoner of war status etc . If an infantry Lieutenant and a Medical Corps Colonel were taken prisoner, the Lieutenant would be the senior officer.
More relevant in this case is that there’s no difference in being subject to UCMJ authority (ie same liability for disobeying orders etc).

[swiss6]

01:47 AM on 05/09/2010

Oops, just realized he’s a Lt Col, not Col… my error. (doesn’t significantly change my previous comment)

[iMissMollyIvins]

04:59 PM on 05/08/2010

Hopefully, Lt Col Lakin's next duty station will be Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas at the United States Disciplinary Barracks.

[Robert2Parker]

04:04 PM on 05/08/2010

He and Madoff should be publicly executed for fraud. Two peas in a pod--- liars, and social te®®orists.

[Atticus Gailus Finch]

12:47 PM on 04/24/2010

LTC Lakin's attempts to challenge Obama's orders will fail under the political question doctrine.

"[N]othing gives a soldier "authority for a self-help remedy of disobedience." 55 M.J. at 108 (quoting United States v. Johnson, 45 M.J. 88, 92 (C.A.A.F.1996)). Two of the canonical factors from Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962), "an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made," 369 U.S. at 217, 82 S.Ct. 691, and "the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question," id., are uniquely powerful when the context is a soldier's use of the "self-help remedy of disobedience." Also supporting a broader sweep to the political question doctrine in military trials is the point made by Judge Effron in his concurring opinion — that the doctrine "ensur[es] that courts-martial do not become a vehicle for altering the traditional relationship between the armed forces and the civilian policymaking branches of government" by adjudicating the legality of political decisions. Id. at 110. . . . .... Given the threat to military discipline, we have no difficulty accepting the military courts' reliance on the doctrine. United States v. New, 448 F.3d 403 (D.C. Cir. 2006)

[Ashton Martin]

09:41 AM on 04/23/2010

First, a Army Surgeon and "highly decorated" do not go together. This guy is a "poge.' Do not try to make him look like a "kick-ass" combat action soldier. He is not. Now this is really a look into a bigger issue in the US Army. A great majority of the top leaders are culturally and racially insensitive. For years, this man has been allowed to progress in the military.
He is now on the list to be a Colonel. So, inevitably the foul and twisted military promotion system would allow this bigot to potentially make General.
The Army needs to really conduct some intervention on race relations and disparate promotion standards. So, many people are calling this man a hero! The Generals run the war, not Obama, he is is an overwatch position. So this LTC is saying he doesn't believe in his immediate leadership as well. He has not faith in the system that has continued to blindly promote him.
The military is an extremely racially charged environment with many controls. The LTC is out of control.

[blackbart21]

08:30 PM on 04/18/2010

Since 1795 (with the removal of the Naturalisation Act of 1790), the legal category of “natural born citizen” has not existed, and there has been no basis to assume that anyone who gains citizenship through birth is not a “natural born citizen”.

Minor vs Happersett, Supreme Court, 1874:

The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also.

Perkins vs Elg, Supreme Court, 1939:
The U.S. Supreme Court concluded that Marie Elizabeth Elg, who was born in the United States of Swedish parents naturalized in the United States, had not lost her birthright U.S. citizenship because of her removal during minority to Sweden and was entitled to all the rights and privileges of that U.S. citizenship. In this case, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decree that birthright citizenship and natural born citizenship mean the same thing and declared Elg “to be a natural born citizen of the United States.”

At the time that Chester A. Arthur ascended to the presidency in 1881, his father was a citizen of Ireland, and not of the US. No-one thought that this disqualified him from being a “natural born citizen”.