Posted on 01/07/2016 11:20:55 AM PST by Kaslin
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Well, we're getting closer to the day that actual votes are going to happen, which is why all of this kerfuffle is effervescing up and boiling over. I mean, the nonsense on whether or not Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen. It's stunning.
Greetings, folks. Great to have you here on the Rush Limbaugh program and the EIB Network. The telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
The latest to join this bandwagon suggesting that Ted Cruz may want to actually go to court and get some confirmation on the fact he's a citizen, it could be a problem out there, John McCain. John McCain is now officially questioning Ted Cruz's eligibility to run for the presidency. It's getting into bizarro territory here. Remember, now, McCain was born in Panama, and his presidential eligibility is the same and based on the same constitutionality as is Ted Cruz's. It's amazing.
Folks, I left the program yesterday, and this was the subject we were laughing about, the way Trump was talking about it and raising the issue but not opining on it. And because the Republican establishment is scared to death of either one of them winning, the gears got into full motion and people started investigating this constitutionally, intellectually. You would not believe, one website probably has 75,000 words written on this. And the 75,000 words include the learned opinions of countless other scholars on whether or not Ted Cruz is actually an American citizen.
Just a couple stories that tell you what's going on. "Fearing Trump and Cruz, Republicans look to Rubio." That's in TheHill.com. Over here Politico: "Trump and Cruz Send Shivers Down GOP Spines." They are turning to Rubio as their last great hope in the establishment.
Anyway, the eligibility question is an interesting political development because it is gonna be explored, it is gonna be a distraction. The Democrats are gonna milk it for all it's worth because of what happened to Obama and the birthers. And despite the fact that there's no similarity or commonality in the two claims, they're still gonna rely on the low-information voters' ignorance of this and act like, "Hey, this is fun. You know, you guys did it to Obama, we got a chance to do it to you," so that's why they're gonna get in on it.
The others are gonna get in on it because Cruz is leading in Iowa, and Cruz is gaining traction in other states. So is Chris Christie in some places, and Trump is holding steady, depending on the poll, 39, 41, and so forth. But all of this is gonna change when there are actual votes, when the Hawkeye Cauci actually happens on February 1st, then all of this goes out the window and brand-new paradigms are created.
Let me give you a couple scenarios, just hypotheticals, just for the fun of it. Hawkeye Cauci. Let's say that the advance polling data is right and Ted Cruz wins. Okay, no surprise there, but this isn't polling data anymore. This is actual results of Iowans who've braved whatever elements there were to go out to their various community centers, get together, chat about it, and caucus. And it was all over, Ted Cruz wins. Even though it's expected, it still is real. And another aspect of the reality is that Trump does not win.
Now, I don't care what people think, that is going to change the entire paradigm, once you go from polling data to reality. Look at Howard Dean. It's not exactly identical, 'cause Howard Dean was leading going into Iowa in, I think it was 2004. Aand Howard Dean was presumed, I mean, he was kicking butt all over the Democrat Party. He loses Iowa, and the shock was so great, not only to him, but everybody else. That was it, one thing out of expectations, one thing that did not happen that was expected to happen, and he's finished. And it was after that that he went nuts on TV and started, "Aaarrrgggh!" as he attempted to fire his troops up for New Hampshire. But it was over for Howard Dean.
Now, it won't be over for whoever loses Iowa, if Cruz wins, because that's the expectation. But it's still gonna be a real defeat, not a polling defeat. So you're gonna have the Republican establishment go into gear with different energy levels and different areas of focus, because they're gonna be inspired, motivated by Cruz winning, which is gonna scare the heck out of 'em, and Trump losing, which is gonna just make 'em happier than they can imagine being. So they're gonna want to head Cruz off at the path in New Hampshire and make sure that Trump does not recover.
So we move on to New Hampshire. Let's say that somebody besides Trump wins New Hampshire in our little hypothetical here. Well, now you've got a paradigm that really is going to switch because here you have Trump, who has been leading in every one of these national polls, and it isn't even close. He's at 39 -- what is it today? He's at 41.7 in the Reuters rolling presidential poll that they're taking, Trump at 41.7%. You got Cruz at 13.7. Carson at 10.6 and Rubio at 8.2 and the rest of them are underneath that and don't even merit mention. Hypothetically, let's say Trump does not win New Hampshire, either, there's two where the de facto favorite, where many people are now writing it's over, that Trump is the nominee. I mean, you have this being written in the Drive-By Media, the Washington Post, you got it written in conservative media, you've got it written in -- well, everywhere. Examples of all kinds of media, there are people who are thinking that it's all over.
Well, what happens if Trump loses both? It's gonna change the dynamic like you can't imagine. Even though there are many more states to go, still have South Carolina and the SEC primary where Trump does well. Guarantee you, when people start winning Iowa and New Hampshire, it boosts them. It does not boost the people that lose. Now, Clinton lost both of them, just to show you, and he ended up winning the nomination later in later states. That's why he's called the comeback kid.
I think Clinton lost New Hampshire back in 1992. I have to double-check that. But Clinton was not taken seriously until April or May of 1992. George H.W. Bush wasn't even paying him any attention. Nobody thought Bill Clinton had a prayer! In fact, Clinton probably didn't think he had a prayer. Clinton entered 1992 setting the stage for later, and he ended up winning the thing. So nobody knows what's gonna happen. But when the actual votes begin to happen and there are actual results, then it changes everything. The winners get boosted. The losers have questions raised about them.
Expectations are reexamined. It just changes everything. That's why all of this right now is nothing more than academic at the time and to the extent that they can tell us what happens. So we have this pursuit of Cruz now on this citizenship, which is folly. It's utter folly. But it's a chance for people to demonstrate their education and their intellectual prowess and their understanding of the Constitution. And it's serious. I don't mean to relegate it to the unserious. But nothing's gonna happen. I mean, Cruz is not gonna end up being proclaimed not a citizen. It could well be that this derails his campaign.
I'm not saying that won't happen, but they're not gonna succeed in going into court and have Ted Cruz told by a court, "Hey, Mr. Cruz, we've just discovered you're not a citizen. Leave the country! Turn in your passport and go back to Canada." It isn't gonna happen. But that doesn't have to happen. All they have to do is start raising doubts and distract Cruz and make him talk about it all the time. He's handling it very well right now about joking about it in terms of how Trump is approaching the issue and so forth. So I don't mean to say it isn't serious, and I'm trying to sound condescending to people taking it seriously.
But it's an opportunity for a lot of people to show their chops, demo their chops on the Constitution. I mean, here's what this really is all about. It's right out of the Constitution. It is very, very simple. It's Article 2, Section 1. "No person except a natural born citizen..." I'm telling you, I went to a blog site, and there's a 75,000-word article on "natural born citizen," what it means. I thought, "You know what? I could print that out, I could read that whole piece, and it'd be my program today. I could take the day off; just read that piece. At the end of that you'd think I'm nuts or brilliant."
But 75,000 words! That's a wild guess. But it printed out to 20 pages. "No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of it United States, at the time of the adoption of the 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 35 years, and been 14 years a resident within the United States." There's nothing else. You can have an IQ of 20. You can be dumb, stupid. You can be poor, you can be uneducated. None of that matters. You just have to be a natural born citizen, gotta be 35 years old, and you have to have lived within the United States for 14 years.
That's it. So when people raise the question, "'Natural born citizen'? What's that mean?" 'Cause it doesn't appear anywhere else in the Constitution. It's not defined. The founders do not define what natural born citizen is, which means that back in the day they wrote it... It's why original intent's so important, folks, when you analyze the Constitution. "What did they mean? What did 'natural born citizen' mean at the time they wrote it?" It's a derivative from British common law which meant natural born subject. And, I'm telling you, this... Andy McCarthy writes about this today, and he's right.
This whole notion of natural born citizen honestly, folks, has been the subject of political controversy for over 100 years. It dates back to Chester Arthur, who the Democrats at the time alleged was born in Canada, not Vermont. McCain, Barack Hussein O, George Romney, have all had their eligibility questioned, as have Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Ted Cruz. They are the subject of this constitutional debate today with the focus now lately on Cruz. But the term "natural born citizen" is not defined in the Constitution.
It is not explained in the writings or the history of those who framed the Constitution, nor is it in a demonstrable common and clear understanding in the former British colonies at the time, and the Supreme Court has never ruled on it and probably never will. "Natural born" is not used anywhere in the Constitution. Its origins are unclear. It is assumed to be derived, as I say, from the British common stature law governing natural born subjects. And therein provides the wide opening for everybody to mad dash into and define it themselves as to their particular benefit.
There are essentially two ends of the spectrum here about which everybody agrees, in terms of the meaning of "natural born citizen." 1. A person born in the United States to parents, both whom are United States citizens. Obviously, you're natural born. You're born here. Your parents are citizens. Bammo, you're a citizen. Nobody questions it, and you're natural born. By the way, if you Planned Parenthood aficionados are listening, it has nothing to do with artificial wombs and all that. That's not what "natural born" means. We can rule that out right now. We're not talking about test tubes here.
Although we might somewhere down the road. You never know. And the other end of the spectrum is a person born outside the United States to parents, neither of who is a United States citizen, is not a natural born citizen. Nobody disagrees with that. Even if citizenship is obtained through naturalization later, that is not natural born citizen. So if you're a naturalized citizen -- born somewhere else, your parents are not Americans -- and if you come here and become a citizen? "Sorry, you're not qualified. Too bad."
Now, Rubio, Jindal, and Cruz, as did Obama, fall between these two points on the spectrum here. Rubio and Jindal born in the US to parents neither of whom was a citizen at the time that he was born here. So, bammo. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to parents, one of whom (his mother) was a US citizen, and as far as the best minds have worked on this, that alone qualifies Cruz. Now, Trump months ago... We had the audio sound bite yesterday. Months ago, Trump said of Cruz, "Ah, it's not about that."
Trump says, "Cruz is perfectly fine. It's not a problem here. I looked into it; we have no problem with Cruz." Now, yesterday Cruz becomes the focus point of Trump. "Weeeeell, I don't know. I might be a little nervous. He might want to get clarification." That's all it took to get the media revved up and create this distraction now that is designed to distract Cruz, raise doubts, weaken support, all of these things. It's 'cause Cruz is the front-runner now in the Hawkeye Cauci.
END TRANSCRIPT
Awaiting the imminent arrival of the usual frantic and panicked anti-Cruz jihadists.
Trump wants the media talking about Cruz’s NBC and not his character and platform. On NBC Trump is has an advantage with two parents both citizens, on character and platform...advantage Cruz.
I would like to see the matter settled once and for all but I don’t think it will be. Either you are a natural-born citizen or you are not.
Would someone explain why the Cruz citizenship issue is so complex. Unlike Obama, where fraudulent birth certificate accusations muddied the waters, all of Cruz’s and our country’s documentation is out in the open.
Guess something’s ambiguous in our Constitution. The explanations out there are all long and there are a lot of them. Why the fog?
Sure. I’ll explain it. Ted Cruz is a statutory citizen-at-birth. He is not a citizen under the 14th Amendment. The courts have never ruled explicitly on whether or not a statutory citizen-at-birth is the legal equivalent of a natural-born citizen under the Constitution, which is required for eligibility to the presidency.
I believe the courts would rule in his favor, but the issue is not “settled law” as some conservative pundits claim.
Is a man who refuses to understand the law on an issue
qualified to be president.
You’d think with all his attorneys and with the case he
tried to make about Obama he would get it by now.
Anyone deemed to be a natural born citizen by Congressional statute is Constitutionally a NBC. The Constitution gave Congress sole authority to define citizenship in the Citizenship Clause.
And its worked. If it was Hillary spurring the media on like this against Cruz, we'd be calling them her lap-dogs...
Redo your research. The SCOTUS has already ruled on this.
We have had numerous candidates who have not been born in the US. e.g. Geo. Romney born in Mexico.
Trump just raising this so we won’t notice he
is in over his head. He cannot best Cruz in any
head to head confrontation because most of the time
Trump is winging it.
It’s been settled which is why Mexican-born Geo. Romney was
about the run for president.
Just because Trump is pretending it’s so does not make it so.
It would seem to benefit Cruz to have it brought out into the open and settled for once and all.
It would certainly be worse if this issue was raised right before the election and it was Cruz vs. Hillary.
Exactly, and why did he have his records sealed if he has nothing to hide? If he’s legible, then get it out there and over and done with. Just because he says so, doesn’t make it so, and we need to see his mother’s birth certificate too - maybe she wasn’t even born in the USA herself - maybe she is also Canadian born and thus, the reason for him sealing his records. See, how people think? This isn’t a distraction - it is something that needs to be settled.
I agree that Congress has such authority. SCOTUS has not, however, issued an opinion on the matter of those born abroad to citizen parents.
Every last DU member is probably canceling their cable/dish subscriptions because these silly threads are all the entertainment they need.
Yeah like the court system would get this done before the election. Not.
The Act also establishes the United States citizenship of certain children of citizens, born abroad, without the need for naturalization: "the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond Sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born Citizens".
Since the Constitution gave Congress the authority to make that ruling, where is the issue?
No need. My research is quite current and correct. SCOTUS has never ruled on it.
According to the Foreign Affairs manual published by the U.S. Department of State, statutory citizenship (i.e. granted by U.S. statute at birth) may or may not be equivalent to natural-born citizenship under the U.S. Constitution.
7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency.
(...)
d. (snip) In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes.
Because the media can use the fog to obscure the issues. The 'fog' is the normal everyday citizen's ignorance of every detail of the Constitution and the Laws of Naturalization and Immigration.
Just go out and ask the average person on the street if Cruz's Dad was born in the US. Or his Mom. Ask another person if the Dad was born in Canada, or the Mom. Ask them where Cruz was born. Ask them if he ever had a Canadian passport.
Ask them if Ted was born in Cuba. (bet you get some yes's). Then ask them if their answers mean that Cruz is, or is not a NBC according to US Law.
It's like that 'survey' where they asked if we should bomb Agrabah. Do you think we should, or shouldn't ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.