Judge Smacks Down Trump’s Ted Cruz Birther Claims, and Hardly Anyone Covers It

With all of the non-stop coverage of the 2016 presidential election, have you noticed as of late that Donald Trump has not said a peep about Ted Cruz not being eligible for the presidency? Earlier this year, Trump questioned whether Cruz was a natural born citizen because he was born in Calgary, Canada (to a U.S. citizen mother). Trump asserted this very question would be caught up in the court system for years. Much editorial space was spent on major newspaper and TV networks discussing this issue. Many legal scholars even agreed that Trump may have a case against Cruz.

This weekend, it occurred to me, this issue has faded from the public eye. The major media outlets stopped talking about it (maybe because Trump has moved on to other things.) But, it remains an important and largely unresolved question. So, I decided to look through some of the filings in the lawsuits filed against Cruz, and discovered an opinion from a Pennsylvania Senior Judge Dan Pellegrini that gives an absolute smack down to all of these Ted Cruz birther claims. Judge Pellegrini in his 22 page memorandum opinion found that Ted Cruz was a natural born citizen thereby ruling that Cruz's name can appear on the Republican primary ballot in Pennsylvania on April 26, 2016. Why this particular opinion piqued my interest is that it is the first I have seen anywhere that actually tackles the Constitutional questions surrounding Cruz's eligibility. For example, cases in Utah and Florida, were recently dismissed on procedural technicalities (like standing). What is even more shocking -- the opinion was issued last week -- and I couldn't find any major network or newspaper covering it. (WSJ had a short blog post, and a few local newspapers covered it in PA). You would think that on the heels of such extensive coverage of the issue earlier this year, that the media would jump all over the first major opinion to address these important Constitutional questions that Trump brought up during the campaign. I guess, that's wishful thinking, but I will go through the opinion, anyway, as I think it is illustrative of what will be found if/when this question is appealed to an even higher court, perhaps even the U.S. Supreme Court.

The heart of the question stems from Article II, Section I, of the U.S. Constitution which requires that a President be a "natural born" citizen. The challenge was filed by Carmon Elliot, a registered Republican in Pennsylvania. Elliot claimed Cruz should not be allowed to appear on the ballot because he is not a "natural born citizen."

Firstly, Cruz's attorneys argued that the Court should not address this issue at all because it is a "political question" that should not be addressed by the Judiciary. The judge found "no Constitutional provision places such power in Congress to determine Presidential eligibility." Bottom line (and this is important), the judge found that the courts can move forward with deciding the case.

So how did Judge Pellegrino of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania arrive at his decision that Cruz was eligible?

The judge relies on several pieces of legal scholarship. First, a memo produced in 1968 by Charles Gordon, then the General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, which says: "The Framers were well aware of the need to assure full citizenship rights to the children born to American citizens in foreign countries." He also points out a 2011 Congressional Research Service Memo entitled the "Qualification for President and the 'Natural Born' Citizenship Eligibility Requirement." The document concludes:

"The weight of legal and historical authority indicated that the term 'natural born' citizen would mean a person, who is entitled to U.S. citizenship 'by birth' or 'at birth' either by being born 'in' the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents."

Then the judge spends four pages quoting from the recent work of Paul Clement & Neal Katyal in the Harvard Law Review, in which the two Constitutional scholars (from different sides of the political aisle) conclude that "as Congress has recognized since the Founding, a person born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent is generally a U.S. citizen from birth with no need for naturalization. And the phrase 'natural born citizen' in the Constitution encompasses all such citizens from birth."

Having extensively reviewed all articles cited in the opinion, as well as many others, this Court holds, consistent with the common law precedent and statutory history, that a "natural born citizen" included any person who is a United States citizen from birth.Accordingly, because he was a citizen of the United States from birth, Ted Cruz is eligible to serve as President of the United States..

The judge's decision is ripe for a higher court review, but it is significant nonetheless. As election law expert Dan Tokaji points out in the Election Law Blog this case could ultimately be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

"A state court ruling would be helpful, but only a Supreme Court ruling could dispel the uncertainty surrounding its meaning. The good news is that review of a state court decision on Cruz's eligibility could be sought in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's jurisdiction to review federal law questions is broader than that of lower federal courts," he wrote.

So perhaps, one thing Trump said is correct that this question could end being caught up in the courts for some time. The petitioner, Mr. Elliot, already said he plans to appeal the Judge's decision.

I think most folks who’ve studied this agree that by current law Ted Cruz will be found eligible to run for the presidency in a fair court.

In our day, the legal system views ‘citizen at birth’ and ‘natural born citizen’ to be one and the same thing. It’s hard to escape that fact.

However, these contests can be held in just about every state, and there is probably some judge or judges before whom this could come who will view it differently for political or other reasons.

But that’s not really the issue to me. To me the issue is that just a year and a half ago, Ted Cruz was a Canadian citizen. He will be our first foreign born president who is a dual citizen, and although he recently dropped the Canadian part, there’s really nothing blocking him from taking up his Canadian citizenship again some day.

There’s something about that that doesn’t ring WISE to me about that.

It is the arc of the decisions that is the problem. The nation that has killed 60 million babies is under judgement from YHWH. He is done with the United States of America.

We have been under judgement ever since the 1962 School Prayer ruling. The first official Muslim Brotherhood front organization founded in the U.S. was the Muslim Students Association (MSA), established on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois in 1964. The Muslim Brotherhood is a type of the Assyrian that YHWH used to bring judgement on the 10 tribes that made up Israel. Al Qaeda is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their 9/11 attack was a perfect fulfillment of Isaiah 9:8-13.

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade things have really gotten worse. Since then we have never won a war, before then we never lost one. With Obama we finally got Isaiah 3:4-5 “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. The people will be oppressed, everyone by another and every one by his neighbor; The child will be insolent toward the elder and the base to the honorable.”

All this moral decay was initiated by Judges, just as the moral decay in Sodom and Gomorrah was, according to the Jewish sages, initiated by Judges. That puts us as “in the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28-37). The “great sign in the heavens” from Revelation 12:1-2 actually occurs on September 23-24, 2017. See the image at: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_1y_hLqVXf4/maxresdefault.jpg

So Ted Cruz is “in this race to show this country the face of the God that we serve”, as his wife has stated, which is part of the Dominion Heresy (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology), that believes that Conservative Christians need to take control of the secular government and rule over the non-Christians, for the good of all, of course.

Now if you believe that anything that we, as humans, can do will change the judgement to come, then you are not paying attention. But you are paying attention, so now you know why it is not a good idea to support Ted Cruz.

As for Donald Trump, I view him as a type of Samson, whom YHWH raised up to bring down the Temple of Dagon on the Philistines. Read Judges 13-16 and then look at the characteristics Donald Trump shares with Samson: Doesn’t drink, ever; has really wild hair; is really harsh if you treat him badly or unfairly; ran around with a lot of foreign women.

Now look at Donald Trump’s slogan: “Make America Great Again”. Alexis de Tocqueville said: “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Donald Trump knows that in a country overrun with Philistines one can not campaign on “Make America Good Again”. However, if you look at what he says he will do, how offended he is by people lying about him, how offended he is with dirty tricks, how he hates the corruption in American government, etc. you know that he is trying to do is make America good again. So Donald Trump is bringing people out of the shadows, so to speak, and giving them hope that things can be better. This puts them out in the world where the Holy Spirit can bring believers into contact with those who are to be saved. So that is the spiritual aspect of the Trump campaign.

On the Bible Prophecy side, how is YHWH going to convince the Iranians that 2017 would be about the last time they, with their allies, can wipe out the United States and attack Israel to wipe it off the map?

How about we elect Donald Trump and he starts to make the American Military so strong that no one will want to mess with us? How about if he starts to root out the Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the Government? In fact, the threat of having Donald Trump in the Whitehouse may well trigger the attack that is described in Ezekiel 38:10-13, which YHWH does not stop, so that the attack in Ezekiel 38:14-23, which YHWH will stop can take place. Then the End will come.

When the world gets to these critical points, there isn’t anything one can do to change the course set by YHWH for the world. It is much easier if you focus on that narrow way YHWH has for you to do as your part in His magnificent Word.

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