Mark Levin Addresses Ted Cruz Eligibility Issue posed by Ridgewood, NJ Man at Book Signing

Mark Levin: Before we jump in, all I can say is, Wow! You guys, open your microphones a second. Thousands of people at both booksignings. Wasn’t that unbelievable?

Mark Levin: And the people were just spectacular, weren’t they? Except for one guy in New Jersey which I’ll talk about later.

Mark Levin: This… this birther stuff is way, way out of contr…”Now Ted Cruz” … I swear I almost hit this guy… “Ted Cruz is not a citizen!” No, he’s born to an American mother, no he’s born in Canada to an American mother. So all you pregnant ladies travelling overseas: According to certain birther, uh, groups, if you have a child while you are on vacation, they’re not Americans. They’re not natural-born Americans. I just thought you’d wanna know, if you were thinking of your kid as a potential presidential candidate, uh, because they say so. They have no historical background whatsoever… None! But it’s, it’s just amazing! Absolutely stunning! But we had so many wonderful people, and let me add, all races, both genders… I don’t know the sexual preferences, that wasn’t a requirement to say hello…young people, elderly, middle age people. A particularly young crowd, yeah, we had dogs come too, everybody so well behaved, and uh, it was a pleasure. In New York, we were there about four-and-a-half hours, in New Jersey about five, five-and-a-half hours, and I wanted to be respectful to everybody, so… I just want to thank you all, and this Saturday, Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, at Barnes and Noble. I should add, if you want to see the crowd that was at New York, Mr. Producer went down the line, and this was early on, this, this line kept growing and growing throughout the day…you can go look at uh MarkLevinShow.com on our website, as well as the social sites MarkLevinShow Facebook, MarkLevinShow Twitter. Um, Christians, Coptic Christians are being wiped out in Egypt. Their churches are being burned to the ground….

Steve: Oh, I got a great story for you, I loved your uh, Hannity special, I enjoyed it very much, I listened to it three times over the weekend…

Steve: …I got my wife, I got my wife to tape for me, or TIVO it, and she watched it. And she really enjoyed it. She’s not big on politics or anything, and she gets sick of hearing me talk about it, but it was funny ‘cause she said “He is so calm, Steve.” He was, she was trying to do a little wifey/husband training? And…

Steve: she said “He is so calm, and he gets his point across. He didn’t raise his voice, or get upset…

Steve: …and I laughed so hard. I said “How do you, uh, where do you think I learned how to yell?” [laughs] “I just listen to Mark.” And she knows you’re my hero, I go around quotin’ ya, and tellin’ everybody to listen to ya, and…

Steve: she just … to get me to calm down a little, and I said you just need to listen to Mark. [laughs]

Mark Levin: Well, thank you, uh…well listen, you know what, this is called passion, just remind her it’s passion, you know, and um…what was truly exceptional about the Hannity program, number one, the man has enormous class and decency, and number two, he was asking me questions because he wanted me to inform the public about what I’d written, and to engage the studio audience. And notice we didn’t have a bunch of left-wing bomb throwers just yelling and talking over people. There were conversations actually occurring, did you notice that?

Steve: Yes, there was no crazy, I mean a lot of times he’s got the left wingers on there, and it’s just, kind, it’s almost funny to watch, but that was so interesting and…and it didn’t get me upset, and it just, I just wanted to listen to it over and over and absorb every second of it, and every bit of information, it…it’s just brilliant, Mark, I, you know I hope when um…we’ve got President Cruz, he has the wisdom to make you his chief of staff or vice-president.

Mark Levin: No, no no no no no. And he’s got a great chief of staff, by the way. No, I…I do what I do, and uh, and he will do a great job should he be president. Thank you for your call my friend. And uh, I’m so sick of these birthers. I was going to tell you about this, uh, incident. Just a wonderful group of people, uh, we were in Bookends, Ridgewood, New Jersey, and everyone was respectful until…and it was hot outside, it got hot, hotter than uh originally forecast and it was a very long line, and you know we try to go through it quickly out of respect for everybody in line, but I also try to be respectful to everybody in line. Um…but this fella [breathes out] gets in my face and first of all he points to some obscure note on page I don’t know whatever and he said [cough] excuse me folks, and he says “You were wrong about this, you were wrong about”, and honestly I, I, I didn’t have time to read it, and I’ll go back and check it, if I’m wrong about it I’ll fix it, and that happens sometimes in these books when you’re going into the notes, you might put a word when you mean another word, or a state when you mean another state, so I’m going to check it out, I just haven’t had time. And then he goes, he says uh “And Ted Cruz is not eligible to be president. He’s not a natural-born Citizen.” And I thought to myself, you know I, this is not a subject that I have studied so thoroughly, but he’s born of a mother who is an American citizen. Doesn’t that make him a natural-born Ci… “No, but he was in Canada when he was born!” Okay, but she wasn’t Canadian, she was an American citizen! She was an American citizen. And so, the issue isn’t what the Constitution says in that regard, the issue is how do we interpret that. And the way I interpret it is, his mother’s an American citizen, so he’s an American citizen! That’s not a constitutional issue, that’s an interpretive issue… or, a statutory issue if Congress has passed some law subsequent to that to enforce that provision of the Constitution. So, the face of the Constitution isn’t terribly helpful. If he was born of non-citizens in a foreign country that would be easy, and there’s a lot of easy cases. So the guy gets in my face, and he starts pointing and pointing, and I looked at him and I pointed back, and I cursed, unfortunately, but the, because, uh you know, he was…he was a nutjob. And I thought to myself: Why do you come here and do that? Is this, is this sort of the way you…you excite yourself or something? No. So, I just want you folks to know who like Ted Cruz. I…I assume they’re going to do this to Rubio, or some of these other people too, whether you like ‘em or not for president I’m just making a point, but now this has become an entire industry. And of course [chuckles] Ted Cruz [laughs], he immediately issued today or yesterday his long form birth certificate. Now, some of this is probably coming from the left. So now they’re the birthers. But some of it’s coming from others, too. People just get obsessed, or conspiratorial, and there’s no end to it, on a matter like this, and there’s nothing I can say or point to that’s going to change their mind. But in my view there’s no doubt about it that he’s eligible for president, should he choose to run, just as I believe McCain was eligible for president, when he ran. So…that’s my opinion! You may not like it… But what particularly bothered me about this guy…he was disrespectful in his conduct to everybody else standing there. They were pleasant, talking to each other, you know…listening, watching and so forth. I’m a big boy; I’ve seen this and a thousand times worse. But he was quite obnoxious. He’s the only one…oh no there was another guy, had a prob, wha wha, he what…he had a problem, he was screaming upstairs, I don’t know what he was screamin’ about. It was kind of eventful there in New Jersey. No, there wasn’t anything like that in New York, was there boys? [Staff: No. Peaceful in ji…you know in Long Island] It was peaceful on Long Island! [chuckles] But is was peaceful in New Jersey, too. It really, really was. It was just terrific. If you could have seen that line, well, actually you can. We have the uh video, and this is just the start of the day with the line. It got longer and longer at uh… at Book Review in Long Island if you want to take a look on MarkLevinShow.com or MarkLevi…oh there is now? The…the New Jersey line? Okay. Both lines. On MarkLevinShow.com, are they both on the social sites too? Or…just the Long Island. But we’ll put the other one up later so some of you can see yourselves, too. Alright. GoldLine!

(further information and videos at: http://queenofliberty.com/2013/08/14/mark-levin-rolls-out-his-new-book/)

So, are we to understand you do indeed intend to maintain the falsehood and lie that Thomas Jefferson was an actual citizen of France with all of the rights and obligations which entail from such citizenship similarly incumbent upon another person who was born in Metropolitan France with French parents and had never left France?

I never said that Jefferson had the exact same French citizenship status as a person who was born a French citizen. As far as him being an "actual citizen of France," Nathan Dane said he was. Nathan Dane said that Jefferson had been "naturalized in France and there made a French citizen." He further emphasized the bona-fine nature of Jefferson's French citizenship by saying that "had he gone there [he] would have been entitled to all the rights there of an adopted citizen."

Now you can of course say (like the idiot DiogenesLamp says) that Nathan Dane, the distinguished Father of American Jurisprudence, was wrong. It takes a hell of a lot of ignorance and arrogance to do it, but you can do so if you like.

Oh, yeah. Well, Nathan Dane is wrong. William Rawle is wrong. James Bayard is wrong. All those who agreed with James Bayard (including the Great Chief Justice John Marshall) are wrong.

Well, the list of the most brilliant legal experts of the early United States, and the list of historical legal experts, and conservative legal foundations, and present-day judges, and Supreme Court Justices, who are outshined by the stunning brilliance of a bunch of birthers on the internet (who never attended their first law class) just gets longer and longer and longer, doesn't it?

At what point does it start to occur to you imbeciles... Hey, maybe it's not all the great legal luminaries of American history who are wrong? Maybe it's my own damn stupid theory.

Hmmm? Might that idea ever occur to you guys? Just a thought.

And that you keep asserting his opinion is correct even though it has been PROVEN WRONG is what makes of you a liar.

Dane is WRONG. Get it through your F****** head! Stop repeating the LIE that Dane is correct.

Proven wrong? You're an imbecile.

Just because you say something has been "proven wrong" doesn't make it so, pinhead.

It's been idiotically claimed that Dane didn't say Thomas Jefferson had been made a citizen of France. This is what birthers do. They will claim black is white and white is black in their headlong rush to promote their idiotic false claims.

I simply repeated Dane's words. Dane was clearly of the opinion that Thomas Jefferson had indeed been made a naturalized citizen of France, and that that naturalized citizenship was real.

Gosh, that shoots a hole in one of the main birther tenets, doesn't it?

Ah. So that doesn't mean the birthers are wrong. It means NATHAN DANE, KNOWN TO HISTORY AS THE FATHER OF AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE, is wrong.

Along with William Rawle, James Bayard, and other top experts of law from the early United States, of course.

You couldn't announce you were an idiot any more effectively if you donned this shirt:

And you have been SHOWN that NATHAN DANE IS WRONG. What part of NATHAN DANE IS WRONG are you not comprehending? I am completely freakin astonished that once more you claim that "Nathan Dane said so" is some sort of defense. It is not a defense at all, because NATHAN DANE IS WRONG.

It doesn't take arrogance, it takes a single fact which proves it. Here you go again.

For some reason Jeffery is just not comprehending that his Nathan Dane theory *IS* DEFUNCT. The FACTS do not support NATHAN DANE. THE FACTS ARE AGAINST NATHAN DANE. NATHAN DANE IS INCORRECT.

Oh, yeah. Well, Nathan Dane is wrong.

Yes he is. Proven wrong above. Not the only source of this information either. Several other sources are available which proves Nathan Dane wrong about Jefferson having even Honorary French citizenship. Jefferson had NO KIND of French citizenship at all.

William Rawle is wrong.

Yes he is. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court told him so in 1804. They Unanimously voted AGAINST his argument that Slaves became citizens merely by being born in the United States.

James Bayard is wrong.

No, James Bayard is exactly correct. You just misrepresent what he means when he says "born a citizen". James Bayard only recognized one means of being "born a citizen" and it required having a FATHER who was a citizen. His son clarifies his position perfectly.

All those who agreed with James Bayard (including the Great Chief Justice John Marshall) are wrong.

No, John Marshall and Bayard are both correct. They don't agree with you though. You have simply LIED and MISLED people by asserting that they DO Agree with you when they absolutely do not.

Well, the list of the most brilliant legal experts of the early United States,

And here is that F***** lie again. No, the ones who agree with you WEREN'T Brilliant, they were second class ex post facto hearsay lawyers who had no idea what was the truth because they weren't there. Those who were there do not agree with you.

and the list of historical legal experts, and conservative legal foundations, and present-day judges, and Supreme Court Justices,

All mislead by an incorrect interpretation of the Wong Kim Ark ruling.

who are outshined by the stunning brilliance of a bunch of birthers on the internet (who never attended their first law class) just gets longer and longer and longer, doesn't it?

Brilliance isn't the issue. It's KNOWLEDGE. Those who research something know more about it than those who don't. At this point, law School only serves the purpose of misleading people because it directs them to the rut of Precedent rather than independent thought.

Anyone attending Law School will be pushed into following the Herd by misinterpreting Wong Kim Ark as meaning something beyond what it says.

At what point does it start to occur to you imbeciles... Hey, maybe it's not all the great legal luminaries of American history who are wrong?

When Jeff quotes them. This is because he never accurately conveys their understanding. He simply reads it as though it agrees with him even when it doesn't. This is because Jeff is Deluded and tends to LIE to cover up the fact that his theories don't conform to the evidence.

Hmmm? Might that idea ever occur to you guys? Just a thought.

You don't have thoughts worthy of consideration. You are simply a propaganda bullshit artist who has long since gone past the time where someone should have whipped your @$$.

Proven wrong? You're an imbecile.

Just because you say something has been "proven wrong" doesn't make it so, pinhead.

No it doesn't. But because it has been PROVEN WRONG, I say so because unlike you, I tell the truth when I see it.

Three other people have told you that Nathan Dane has been proven wrong. Your allies, Nero Germanicus and Tau Food have chosen NOT to defend you on this. I dare say MOST of your allies will not defend you on this because it is indefensible. But you know what? I think i'll ask them.

You are a little pansy @$$ that seems to think NUMBERS = TRUTH, so If we get commentary from sufficient people, perhaps the NUMBERS of people will convince Jeffery that NATHAN DANE HAS BEEN PROVEN WRONG.

I simply repeated Dane's words. Dane was clearly of the opinion that Thomas Jefferson had indeed been made a naturalized citizen of France, and that that naturalized citizenship was real.

You are a deluded little Pr***. The most reasonable thing anyone can do for you is to ridicule you to tears.

Jeff Winston wrote:
I simply repeated Dane's words. Dane was clearly of the opinion that Thomas Jefferson had indeed been made a naturalized citizen of France, and that that naturalized citizenship was real.

Jeff Winston has repeatedly claimed that Thomas Jefferson is a Naturalized Citizen of France based on what Nathan Dane wrote.

It is my position that Nathan Dane is incorrect about this, and that he was very likely duped by a false Claim made by the Albany Register during the Presidential election of 1808.

One of the pieces of evidential support for my position is below. (I have found other sources which claim this as well.) Here is another. And Another. And Another. And Another.

And from "Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms":

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The question I have for you is this:

Do you regard the above as sufficient evidence to disprove Nathan Dane's claim?

Jeff Winston has repeatedly claimed that Thomas Jefferson is a Naturalized Citizen of France based on his reading of Nathan Dane.

It is my position that Nathan Dane is incorrect about this, and that he was very likely duped by a false Claim made by the Albany Register during the Presidential election of 1808.

One of the pieces of evidential support for my position is below. (I have found other sources which claim this as well.) Here is another. And Another. And Another. And Another.

And from "Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms":

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The question I have for you is this:

Do you regard the above as sufficient evidence to disprove Nathan Dane's claim?

My view has always been that the NBC focus needs to be on the candidate's relationship to the United States. As I've said, I don't think a candidate's NBC status is altered by any choices made by a foreign government to view the candidate as a citizen of the foreign country or to not view the candidate as a citizen of the foreign country. In my view, only Americans can make choices that are relevant to the selection of an American president. We cannot grant foreign governments the power to manipulate our choices or our future.

So, I haven't really studied anything concerning how France might have viewed Jefferson or what honors the French government may have bestowed upon him. There existed a Constitutional exception covering Jefferson's NBC status, but even had there not been such an exception, my focus would be on Jefferson's relationship to the United States, citizenship choices that Jefferson may have made, etc. How the government of France viewed Jefferson or what honors it may have showered upon him would hold no relevance to me in terms of his eligibility to be selected as our president.

For those who are interested in this kind of thing, I think the tiny Republic of San Marino once conferred some sort of citizenship on Lincoln. Maybe I'm wrong. Actually, maybe it was that the City of San Marino made him "Mayor for the Day" or something. ;-)

In any event, I think that these "dual citizenship" concerns will become relevant when we have a candidate who can be shown to have applied for foreign citizenship or in some way affirmatively accepted that status. Jefferson, Lincoln, Cruz - they all seem to me Americans without any conflicting loyalties.

Once again, I consider all of you to be my allies. I sincerely think that each of you has uncovered a great deal that is of historical and analytical value. If nothing else, it's interesting and when the waitress brings that third round of drinks, we will now be armed with the kind of informational ammunition that might impress and amaze our real world friends and associates.

Or, maybe not. Don't forget to leave a tip! ;-)

I pinged you because I found your name in this thread as either a sender or recipient. If you find this objectionable I apologize. I am soliciting your opinion on the following.

Jeff Winston has repeatedly claimed that Thomas Jefferson is a Naturalized Citizen of France based on his reading of Nathan Dane.

It is my position that Nathan Dane is incorrect about this, and that he was very likely duped by a false Claim made by the Albany Register during the Presidential election of 1808.

One of the pieces of evidential support for my position is below. (I have found other sources which claim this as well.) Here is another. And Another. And Another. And Another.

And from "Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms":

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is the above sufficient to prove that Thomas Jefferson was NOT a citizen of France?

All I ask is a fair hearing of the evidence. A Yes or no answer would be appreciated.

I gave a very cogent reason for why people like DiogenesLamp (and you) indicate that you're idiots: Your major claims are completely and absolutely contradicted by an entire Who's Who of our top early US legal experts.

And still you cling to them, instead of clinging to what our Founders actually said and did. That's idiocy, and it's idiocy to a strong degree, my friend.

We have:

William Rawle, who was pretty much a member of the core Founders' inner circle (because that's basically what Benjamin Franklin's Society for Political Enquiries was). Rawle was absolutely clear that you don't have to have citizen parents in order to be a natural born citizen.
The First Congress, together with President George Washington. Together these included almost half of the Signers of the Constitution. And they were quite clear that they wanted children born overseas to US parents to be "natural born citizens" and eligible to the Presidency, too.
James Bayard. Bayard wasn't considered one of our top early legal experts, but his Brief Exposition of the Constitution of the United States was read and approved by those who were. No one seems to have ever said Bayard was wrong about the meaning of natural born citizen. And Bayard was absolutely clear that you didn't have to be born on US soil to be a natural born citizen, you only had to be born a citizen. His Exposition was read and applauded by the Great Chief Justice John Marshall, by the acclaimed Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, by the famous Chancellor James Kent, and other distinguished jurists. Bayard himself was the grandson of Richard Bassett, one of the 39 Signers of the Constitution and our official US Senator #1, the most senior Senator of the First Congress. He was also the son of James Bayard, Sr., who was known to his colleagues in Congress as "the High Priest of the Constitution." So Bayard was certainly in an ideal position to understand what "natural born citizen" meant.
Vice Chancellor Lewis Sandford, who made a thorough investigation of what citizenship meant in 1844, and concluded that there could be no reasonable doubt that a US-born person without citizen parents would be eligible if elected President.

And although this is some of the clearest and starkest evidence that birthers are wrong, it's really only the beginning. There's plenty more, which has been discussed and presented ad nauseum already.

So this is the difference between you and me, pinhead. The actual evidence very clearly supports what I've said. So clearly, in fact, that it's not at all a stretch to say that DiogenesLamp is broadcasting his idiocy.

You, on the other hand, have no such clear evidence, but feel free to call someone else an idiot just because he disagrees with your own delusional opinion.

So, we have two individuals from the founding generation that we know were "intimately familiar with Vattel's work and that Vattel defined natural born citizen as born in the country to citizen parents." I recognize that only a very small percentage of that generation had probably heard of Vattel, but can't we find more than two? Remember, we're searching for an "original understanding" here, an understanding that was shared by the "ordinary citizens in the founding generation." And, the evidence is that we can only find two people who were familiar with Vattel's definition? Please, there must be more than that. Isn't there?

Justice Bushrod Washington:

1. The writers upon the law of nations distinguish between a temporary residence in a foreign country for a special purpose and a residence accompanied with an intention to make it a permanent place of abode. The latter is styled by Vattel "domicile," which he defines to be, "a habitation fixed in any place, with an intention of always staying there." Such a person, says this author, becomes a member of the new society, at least as a permanent inhabitant, and is a kind of citizen of an inferior order from the native citizens, but is nevertheless united and subject to the society without participating in all its advantages. This right of domicile, he continues, is not established unless the person makes sufficiently known his intention of fixing there, either tacitly or by an express declaration. Vatt. 92-93. Grotius nowhere uses the word "domicile," but he also distinguishes between those who stay in a foreign country by the necessity of their affairs or from any other temporary cause and those who reside there from a permanent cause. The former he denominates "strangers" and the latter "subjects," and it will presently be seen by a reference to the same author what different consequences these two characters draw after them.

You are simply a propaganda bullshit artist who has long since gone past the time where someone should have whipped your @$$.

For the past 2 years, DiogenesLamp has subjected others (particularly myself) here to his bullying, ridicule, personal attacks, and outright physical threats.

I have asked for help, again and again, from Jim and the moderators here, and every time they have simply turned a deaf ear.

Once again, DiogenesLamp has stated that I should have my "ass whipped."

Jim, I need to know some things.

1. Are you actually committed to our Constitution and the truth?

Because numerous, numerous false postings by this poster which contradict and twist the words of our early legal experts, our Founders, our history and our law have been patiently and meticulously documented over the past two years. Still he is allowed to freely spin documented BS at this site with absolute impunity. It is certainly not an overstatement to say that almost every word he writes is false propaganda. And I can absolutely 100% document and explain why to you or anyone else who wants to know why.

2. Are you actually committed to the rules you have set out for FreeRepublic?

The debate on this issue has long exceeded the bounds of civility and good taste. Yes, I myself have called others "idiots." When doing so, however, I have generally given a factual reason as to why they are acting in such a way that they deserve such an appellation. And I learned long ago that the management here was not going to stick up for me against the constant insults and slander of the birthers, and that if anyone was going to do so, I would have to do so myself. About the only way to effectively do that, ultimately, has been to fight the fire with fire.

From the very beginning, anyone who disagreed with the birther mob has been falsely labeled an "idiot," a "troll," an "Obot," a "traitor," and worse. We have been slandered and insulted at every turn. This is in spite of the fact that not one Founder or Framer, not one major Constitutional scholar of any note from any point in history, and not one major conservative commentator or legal foundation has ever stated that a person has to be born on US soil of two citizen parents in order to be natural born citizen or eligible to the Presidency, and many of our most authoritative voices in history have directly and absolutely contradicted the birther claim.

This ugliness goes beyond mere name-called and false accusations that those with the historic understanding of the Constitutional term are "liars." DiogenesLamp, early on (about 2 years ago) remarked that if I could be taken out and shot, he would cheer. He has followed this up on multiple occasions with statements that I deserve an "ass beating," or that he would "whip my ass" if he got the chance.

If this is not a blatant abuse of FreeRepublic's posting policies, I don't know what is. And yet my appeals to Jim and the moderators for help have so far been met with nothing but silence.

I cannot help but think that if I had made such physical threats against others, I would have been banned long ago. It seems to me that there is a fondness for birthers here that allows them to get away with things that would not be tolerated for a moment in those of us who actually prefer a sound and honest interpretation of history and law. Perhaps that is a misperception, but based on my long experience that is my perception at this point.

Jim, I am requesting that you enforce your own policies. Why would a poster who repeatedly makes threats to "beat someone else's ass" be tolerated? Why is a poster who has previously said if another member of FreeRepublic could be taken out and shot, that he would cheer, tolerated? Why would such a poster not be banned?

Jim, I am requesting that this poster be removed so that FreeRepublic may return to sanity. I really see no alternative to this, since he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is completely incapable of any civility at all.

This is about my last resort. If DiogenesLamp is allowed to continue his rampage here, then I suppose I will simply be forced, for my part, to leave this place to the crazy people.

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