Fox News Declares Ted Cruz Ineligible To Be POTUS Due To Birth In Canada [American Mother]

birtherreport.com/You Tube ^ | March 9, 2013 | BirtherReportDotCom

[Cold Case Posse Supporter]

Now we are finally getting somewhere. Just like Obama is ineligible technically because his fathers British Nationality 'governed' his birth status in 1961, Ted Cruz is ineligible too. Fox News has confirmed it and rightly so. Sean Hannity made a huge blunder the other day and declared Ted Cruz a natural born citizen because he was born to a American mother in Canada. He was so wrong. Cruz is a 14th Amendment U.S. 'statutory' (not natural born) citizen which is something completely different than a Article 2 Section 1 Constitutional natural born Citizen which is explicitly designed only for the presidency by the framers.

[GBA]

There's no way you'll win with them, though I agree with your understanding and am grateful for your efforts and information. That was what I was taught in 5th grade and I've not seen much to change that understanding.

Instead, what I've learned is that no matter what, if they can't win on facts, they just change the definition.

Constitution says NBC but you don't like that? Don't bother changing the Constitution, just rewrite the definition!

It's the same play that's being run on defining marriage or making abortion legal and many others. No institution or organization is immune and no standard you cite will ever be enough to satisfy them or convince them that they are wrong.

It's everywhere. Even supposedly christian churches have embraced and are now teaching points of view that are clearly and unequivocally judged as sin in the Bible. Whatever.

Kinda cool how the Bible predicts and talks about that as well.

Anyway, I'm not making that case, just noting that the tendency to simply redefine meanings if they can't force the change in belief is not limited to just politics.

Speaking of...did anyone ever figure out what the meaning of "is" is?

[Jeff Winston]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny as well. Lol.

[HawkHogan]

My dad pointed out to me that one of only times the United States acted imperial was with its acquisition of Hawaii.

I guess karma is a bitch because our acquisition of Hawaii resulted in President Obama.

[HawkHogan]

Ooops! Quite an unfortunate typo, especially considering the birthers are calling me obtuse.

[xzins]

Article XIV

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Article I

Section 8 (Congress shall have the power)...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,

Immigration and Naturalization Act:

INA: ACT 301 - NATIONALS AND CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AT BIRTH

Sec. 301. [8 U.S.C. 1401] The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:

(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;

(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property;

(c) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person;

(d) a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year prior to the birth of such person, and the other of whom is a national, but not a citizen of the United States;

(e) a person born in an outlying possession of the United States of parents one of whom is a citizen of the United States who has been physically present in the United States or one of its outlying possessions for a continuous period of one year at any time prior to the birth of such person;

(f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;

(g) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States, or periods of employment with the United States Government or with an international organization as that term is defined in section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669; 22 U.S.C. 288) by such citizen parent, or any periods during which such citizen parent is physically present abroad as the dependent unmarried son or daughter and a member of the household of a person (A) honorably serving with the Armed Forces of the United States, or (B) employed by the United States Government or an international organization as defined in section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act, may be included in order to satisfy the physical-presence requirement of this paragraph. This proviso shall be applicable to persons born on or after December 24, 1952, to the same extent as if it had become effective in its present form on that date; and

(h) a person born before noon (Eastern Standard Time) May 24, 1934, outside the limits and jurisdiction of the United States of an alien father and a mother who is a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, had resided in the United States. 302 persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899

[autumnraine]

Sorry, I thought that was assumed (not that he *was*, but *IF*)

[Verginius Rufus]

From the time he was 4 years old until the time he was 8 years old, Woodrow Wilson did not consider himself a citizen of the United States and had no intention of being a citizen of the US in the future.

[Political Junkie Too]

One thing about this debate that has always intrigued me is what the common understanding of "natural born citizen" was in the early days of the country. By "common understanding," I do not mean Supreme Court decisions, but what people wrote about it in articles and books.

The earliest citation that I found, as you all know, is Thomas Paine's reference in his 1791 book The Rights Of Man to "foreigner" and "half-foreigner" as not being eligible to be president.

I wanted to find more citations, though, because one is not enough to prove a point. I hadn't found any words for or against the thought that both parents had to be citizens for a child to be a natural born citizen, other than Paine's reference to "half-foreigners" being excluded. However, absence of proof is not proof of absence. So I went looking for more.

I found a fascinating website called 19th Century Schoolbooks, which I had hoped would shed some light on what the school children were taught about American history, the Constitution, and politics and governments in the years after ratification of the Constitution.

After reviewing all the political books at this collection, I drew some generalizations:

1. The earliest reference is to Noah Webster's 1806 book "Elements of Useful Knowledge." In his section on the Constitution, he refers to the president's qualifications as "The executive power of the United States is vested in a president, who holds his office for four years. To qualify a man for president, he must have been a citizen at the adoption of the constitution, or must be a native of the United States; he must have attained to the age of thirty-fire years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States..."

All future books use this same language, "native of the United States." While they all go on to explain that the purpose was to prevent foreign influence and corruption, they never give a fuller definition of "native."

2. This was an interesting take on the qualifications from Analysis of civil government: including a topical and tabular arrangement of the Constitution of the United States : designed as a class-book for the use of grammar, high, and normal schools, academies, and other institutions of learning, Author: Townsend, Calvin, 1869

---

Chapter XII. Executive Department.

[snip]

Art. III Eligibility.

1. The age required was regarded as necessary to give the candidate for this office sufficient time to demonstrate his character, and enable his fellow-citizens to judge of his fitness for the high position of chief executive of a great nation. The mental faculities are usually in full vigor at this age; and opportunities must have been afforded for long public service, and for varied and large experience in the public councils.

2. Fourteen years's residence in the United States is intended not only to give opportunity for an extensive acquaintance on the part of his fellow-citizens with the candidate for this office, but also to furnish him with the requisite knowledge of the wants and institutions of the country. Besides, it may be presumed that a citizen whose residence has been chiefly abroad may not only be deficient in affection for his own country, but he may have become partial to the institutions of other countries with which he has long been familiar.

3. The Constitution requires that the President shall be a natural-born citizen of the United States, or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. This is an important restriction, when we consider the sacredness of the trust committed to the charge of the Executive. It will be useless for ambitious foreigners to intrigue for the office, as this qualification of birth cuts off all those inducements from abroad, to corruption, negotiation, and war, which have frequently and fatally harassed the elective monarchies of other countries.

4. But, through the bloody struggle of the American Revolution, our fathers were greatly assisted by the aid of many citizens who were natives of other countries. They had espoused our cause, faught and bled in our interests, had become naturlaized citizens, and had proved their attachments to our institutions beyond all doubt. It would have been ungenerous and ungrateful to have excluded this class of citizens from all possibility of attaining to any office, however exalted, under a government which they had sacrified so much to establish. Hence this saving clause of the Constitution, that, if a person was a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of that instrument, this clause has become practically obsolete.

---

This book skips over the natural-born part and goes to the grandfather clause instead, which is a shame. I am somewhat humored by the caution against citizens who were raised abroad who return to the United States and become president. Obama is everything this author warns of. Although he lived in the country for the required period of time, his past records have been sealed so that the people cannot gain the acquaintence with him that the author expected to be the case.

3. I was especially intrigued by this book, Introduction to the science of government, and compend of constitutional and civil jurisprudence: comprehending a general view of the government of the United States, and of the government of the state of New York, together with the most important provisions in the constitutions of the several states by Andrew Young, 1825. He, too, skips over the part about natural born, but his chapter on Naturalization of Aliens was interesting. He talks about the citizenship status of minor children of aliens who become citizens, and of widows and children of men who declare intent to become citizens but die before doing so. What he does not discuss is the alien who births a child while in the United States. Perhaps such discussions were not considered proper topics for schoolchildren, and that's why we don't have paper trail?

In the Founders' and Framers' days, I can only assume that travel from afar was rare, the few sailing ships of the time used for commerce or warfare between England and France, and that people assumed that native citizens (people born here) were, by definition, born to parents who were already here, and not some border-crosser who arrived within days of producing a child. Any infidelity that produced a child would still have been between two existing citizens of the country, and not a temporary already-married student visiting for a few years.

I'm still on a quest for early writings, but I have to admit that the absence of proof is starting to become circumstantial proof to me. That said, I still think that the Preamble provides a clue to the Framers' thinking that the Constitution was established to secure liberty for citizens and their posterity, posterity being the citizen children of citizen parents, who are the natural-born of We the People.

-PJ

[butterdezillion]

How would you propose he find out whether he is eligible to be POTUS - before wasting time and money on what could be a futile effort? How is he supposed to get a legally binding interpretation of the Constitution, on which to make his future plans?

And yeah, I realize that the Hawaii state registrar is a “nutjob conspiracy monger”. He’s the one who says he can’t verify Obama’s HI birth facts. Take it up with him. And in the meantime you could explain why all of a sudden we’re NOT supposed to take the State of Hawaii at their word, now that they have been lawfully asked to tell us what legally-valid birth facts they have for Obama, and we’ve got a document in which the state registrar certifies (swears) that he has obeyed the law (which requires him to verify EVERYTHING HE CAN, of what he was requested to verify) - that only verifies that they have a birth record for Obama, and doesn’t verify any claimed birth fact for Obama.

[Lumper20]

My understanding from years ago was based upon my father being in WWII (42 INF), the Korean War (24th INF) , and; he was in Vietnam for two years (MACV x2). Yes, I was there also in high casuality unit, but; three wars is a tip of the beret. The deal I understood was like McCain, in that if both parents were US citizens and serving this nation overseas, every military brat born in Germany, Spain, Taipei. etc. or whatever military overseas US military hospital to two US citizens was a native born citizen. Obama does not fit this.

[butterdezillion]

The voters decide whether fetuses qualify as legal “persons” too. Right? Voters decide EVERYTHING and can never be wrong, right? Voters can never be overturned because their choice violates the Constitution, right?

That’s why the Constitution says that it can be amended by a simple majority of voters in any one national election, right? The principles in the Constitution are no more solid or binding than any one vote by the people - that’s what the Constitution says about amending it, right?

[highball]

I can't even give you a case of an obvious absurdity to get you to see how absurd is your theory!

Sure you could, if your position had any basis in fact whatsoever. But birthers are often in the position of being unable to support their theories except by becoming increasingly strident in their groundless assertions.

We have too much work to do fighting the leftist agenda; don't waste your energy fighting reality.

[xzins]

see #645

[TauntedTiger]

Low calorie/information Tau Food.

[Tau Food]

There are Constitutional procedures for amending the Constitution and there are Constitutional procedures for electing a president. The Supreme Court is not constitutionally authorized to do either.

No one disputes that there are constitutional qualifications to be president. Does anyone seriously claim that the voters and their electors are somehow incapable of applying those standards to candidates? Does anyone seriously claim that, even though the Constitution states that the president shall be selected by the electors, that the Founders secretly meant that the electors could choose only among candidates approved by the Supreme Court?

The voters and their electors are the final judges of the candidates' qualifications. If you want to argue that a candidate is unqualified, make your pitch to the voters and to their electors. In the case of selecting presidents, they are, in the words of one of my favorite recent presidents, the "deciders."

If you don't like that process, it can be changed through constitutional amendment and you can change the constitution so as to require each candidate to be screened by the Supreme Court or by a committee of librarians. But, until its changed, please accept the Constitution's procedural rules.

[Tennessee Nana]

“At the time of the Revolution the common law of England was “thrown off”..
___________________________________________

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Blackstone is still taught in America’s law schools...

[butterdezillion]

If the voters decided that Vladimir Putin should be the US President, would that be a violation of the US Constitution which says that only a natural born US citizen is eligible to be President, and that if a “President elect” (that is, one already chosen by the electors) fails to qualify by the beginning of the term he/she may not “act as President”?

The 20th Amendment makes absolutely clear that what you are saying is unconstitutional, because it directly provides for the situation where the voters have made their choice and the person they chose DOES NOT QUALIFY. The 20th Amendment clearly says that the person they chose - but who fails to QUALIFY - must NOT act as President.

To go with your view would allow a simple majority in a Presidential election to UNDO THE 20TH AMENDMENT - that is, to AMEND what the Constitution means, in contradiction to what the ratified 20th Amendment says. What you are saying is that a simple majority vote of the public can reverse the meaning of a Constitutional amendment.

Can a simple majority in a national vote get rid of the freedom of press, or any of the other Constitutional amendments? Because - after all - the voters are the ones given the task of interpreting the Constitution, right? All the stuff we Americans have been told about the 3 branches of government with their respective roles of making law, implementing law, and interpreting law.... is all a bunch of hooey, right? Really it’s all just the average ordinary illiterate bum on the street who is supposed to do all those things, whenever they vote. Right? ‘Cause that’s what you sure seem to be saying.

[Tennessee Nana]

Rawle was a Loyalist ???

so what ???

the mother of George Washington was a Loyalist...

some other nice folks were Loyalists...

[butterdezillion]

Seems that way.

[Mr Rogers]

English common law did NOT use Vattel’s definition of citizenship. Nor did Vattel write about “natural born subjects”. He didn’t ever use the phrase. Birthers quote him because of a bad translation made 10 years AFTER the US Constitution was written. Vattel used the terms “natives” and “indigenes”, not NBS or NBC.