Carpenter: The Really Precarious Thing About Trump’s Birther Claims

Conservative Review ^ | January 6th, 2016 | Amanda Carpenter

[Isara]

The only thing funnier than Donald Trump’s birther claims about Ted Cruz is the media’s demand that Cruz take them seriously.

Trump’s suggestion that Cruz’s birth potentially presents a “precarious” situation for the GOP should Cruz become the nominee is silly. And a silly attack deserves a silly response, which Cruz delivered in the form of a tweet of the Fonz from “Happy Days” jumping the shark.

However, Trump has every reason to have the word “precarious” on the brain

“Precarious” means “dangerously likely to fall or collapse.” That doesn’t describe the circumstances of Cruz’s birth; it describes Trump’s inflated position that is “dangerously likely to fall or collapse” as soon as the primaries begin next month.

Trump, who doesn’t hesitate to attack anyone, hasn’t figured out how to successfully attack Cruz who is his biggest threat, according to the polls that Trump depends on as the lifeblood of his campaign. 

Last month, Trump attempted hitting Cruz from the left by criticizing him for opposing ethanol subsidies and calling him a “maniac” for failing to make enough friends in Washington. That backfired as the conservative base of the party defended Cruz on both counts. So now Trump is toying with the idea of going full birther against Cruz; a ploy Trump used to great media effect against Barack Obama in the 2008 election.

Trump, after all, was the biggest, most-well known Obama birther in the world. He takes credit for forcing Obama to finally produce a birth certificate. (Something Cruz has already done, by the way. Cruz gave it to the Dallas Morning News in 2013.)

Crazy birther claims got a crazy amount of media attention in the 2008 election, and Trump, the unabashed maestro of media controversies, is all too happy for a repeat.

Why let the truth get in the way of a tried and tested conspiracy theory?

Although, to his credit, this time around Trump isn’t going all in. (Yet.)

Trump is suggesting, very loudly, that this is something other people may be concerned about. Those other people, however, aren’t putting their names in public. Except for known kook Alan Grayson and Trump-defender Ann Coulter, who in 2013 said Cruz WAS eligible to be President.

If anyone is interested in the legal merits of Cruz’s citizenship, President Obama’s Acting Solicitor General Neil Katyal and President Bush’s Solicitor General Paul Clement co-authored a piece in March 2015 for the Harvard Law Review titled “The Meaning of Natural Born Citizen.”

In it, they wrote:

Senator Ted Cruz, was born in a Canadian hospital to a U.S. citizen mother. Despite the happenstance of a birth across the border, there is no question that Senator Cruz has been a citizen from birth and is thus a “natural born Citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution. Indeed, because his father had also been resident in the United States, Senator Cruz would have been a “natural born Citizen” even under the Naturalization Act of 1790.

There you have it. Top lawyers for both the Obama and Bush administrations say there is “no question” about it.

In fact, Trump seemed to agree with these top lawyers when he was asked about Cruz’s citizenship at a rally Trump and Cruz appeared at together last September. “I hear it was checked out by every attorney and every which way and I understand Ted is in fine shape,” Trump said.

Odd, huh? Both Trump and Trump-supporter Coulter once believed Cruz was eligible and now they don’t think he is.

What changed? Is Trump getting different legal advice today? From Ann Coulter, perhaps?

No. The only thing that’s changed is Cruz’s position in the polls as the calendar approaches the GOP primaries.

Trump is still searching for a way to knock Cruz off his game. Unfortunately for Trump, and all the campaign reporters hanging on his every word, Cruz is too smart to take the bait.

There are much more important things going on in the world besides Trump’s latest outburst. How about North Korea’s newfound nuclear capabilities? ISIS? The growing Saudi-Iranian hostilities? The stock market declining? President Obama’s latest gun grab? The frightening list goes on and on.

It’s refreshing to see that someone running for president has higher priorities than taking out Donald Trump.

[DMZFrank]

My comment was in regard to what the FRAMERS or Article II considered as a natural born citizen. THAT understanding has NOT been modified by an Article V amendment, which is the ONLY way that it can constitutionally be done, and NEVER by a statute. Even then, the Cable Act only made him a STATUTE citizen, and the nations of Canada and Cuba still had a internationally recognized claim on his allegiance, which can never be true of an NBC from birth.

[Mariner]

The thing is, if Trump were to say no more on the subject, Cruz would still be forced to talk about it for the next 3 months, at least.

[TBP]

The relevant law, as Mark Levin was explaining this evening, is the Nationalities Act of 1940. It says that if you’re born to a mother who is an American citizen and lived 10 years in the United States, at least 5 of them over the age of 14, you’re a natural-born citizen, no matter where you’re born.

Cruz’s mother meets that criterion, even though they were in Calgary at the time of Ted’s birth.

The reason that the place of 0bama’s birth mattes is that his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was only 18 when he was born, and therefore could not have lived in the US for 5 years over the age of 14. Thus, he’s a natural-born citizen if born in Hawaii, but not if he was born in Kenya.

[Yosemitest]

You ARE WRONG !
Do you NOT BELIEVE that SECTION 5 of the Constitution of the United States is NOT PART OF the United States CONSTITUTION ?
How STUPID can you get ?

FACT: Cruz’s father’s Cuban nationality at the time of Cruz’s birth, is irrelevant, according to the law at that time,
just so long as he was a LEGAL Immigrant at the time of Ted Cruz's birth,
AND both of Ted Cruz's parents were legally married to each other.

What are the rules for people born between December 23, 1952 and November 13, 1986?

The 14th Amendment IS a part of the U.S. Constitution and states in SECTION 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
So, under that power to legislate, Congress legislated and the President signed into law:
When ONE parent was a US citizen and the other a foreign national,
the US citizen parent must have resided in the US for a total of 10 years prior to the birth of the child,
with five of the years after the age of 14.

... While there were initially rules regarding what the child must do to retain citizenship,
amendments since 1952 HAVE ELIMINATED THESE REQUIREMENTS.

When Ted Cruz was born, his parents were "IN WEDLOCK".

They married, moved to Calgary, Alberta, and in late 1970 had their first and only child, Rafael Edward Cruz.
Cruz was born on December 22, 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where his parents, Eleanor Elizabeth Darragh Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.

Cruz's mother was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, in a family of three quarters Irish and one quarter Italian descent.
Eleanor Darragh, mother of Ted Cruz, was raised in Delaware, graduated from a Catholic High School (1952) in the U.S., as well as Rice University (1956),
so clearly she meets the residency requirements.

Source

In 1957, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz (Ted Cruz's father) decided to get out of Cuba by applying to the University of Texas.
Upon being admitted, he adds, he got a four-year student visa at the U.S. Consulate in Havana.

"Since he liked to eat seven days a week, he worked seven days a week, and he paid his way through the University of Texas," Ted Cruz says of his father, "and then ended up getting a job and eventually going on to start a small business and to work towards the American dream."

Only he did that in Canada, where Ted was born.
His father went there after having earlier obtained political asylum in the U.S. when his student visa ran out.
He then got a green card, he says, and married Ted's mother, an American citizen.
The two of them moved to Canada to work in the oil industry.

"I worked in Canada for eight years," Rafael Cruz says. "And while I was in Canada, I became a Canadian citizen."

The elder Cruz says he renounced his Canadian citizenship when he finally became a U.S. citizen in 2005 —
48 years after leaving Cuba.
Why did he take so long to do it?
"I don't know. I guess laziness, or — I don't know," he says.

So there is the law for the time Ted Cruz was born,
AND HOW Ted Cruz's PARENTS fulfilled ALL those requirements of the law that time, for Ted Cruz to be a "Natural Born Citizen".
Ted Cruz did NOT NEED a Court and a Judge to "Nationalize" him.

“Senator Cruz became a U.S. citizen at birth, and he never had to go through a naturalization process after birth to become a U.S. citizen,” said spokeswoman Catherine Frazier.
... The U.S. Constitution allows only a “natural born” American citizen to serve as president.
Most legal scholars who have studied the question agree that includes an American born overseas to an American parent, such as Cruz.

[TBP]

Based on the law, he’s wrong.

[TBP]

With Trump, what you see is what you get.

No, that would be Cruz, the most consistent candidate in this field.

Trump flip-flops like a garden variety politician.

[Mariner]

"BUT IN THIS CASE, The LAW IS the LAW, and it is VERY CLEAR."

I'm not certain that it is. Certainly the NBC Clause has never been adjudicated, nor has Congress passed any statute indicating the meaning in Article II.

[MinuteGal]

What the enemedia is leaving out in EVERY segment attacking Trump on this Cruz birther issue is that TRUMP DIDN'T BRING THE SUBJECT UP, IT WAS BROUGHT UP BY A REPORTER IN AN INTERVIEW and Trump answered, in short, that the subject should be discussed and looked into.....and it is!

Period!

(With all the fake and selective reportage, sometimes I feel like those guys in the white suits with the little shovels and dustpans at the very end of the horse-laden Rose Bowl Parade).

Leni

[Yosemitest]

Do you NOT BELIEVE that SECTION 5 of the Constitution of the United States is NOT PART OF the United States CONSTITUTION ?
How STUPID can you get ?

FACT: Cruz’s father’s Cuban nationality at the time of Cruz’s birth, is irrelevant, according to the law at that time,
just so long as he was a LEGAL Immigrant at the time of Ted Cruz's birth,
AND both of Ted Cruz's parents were legally married to each other.

What are the rules for people born between December 23, 1952 and November 13, 1986?

The 14th Amendment IS a part of the U.S. Constitution and states in SECTION 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
So, under that power to legislate, Congress legislated and the President signed into law:
When ONE parent was a US citizen and the other a foreign national,
the US citizen parent must have resided in the US for a total of 10 years prior to the birth of the child,
with five of the years after the age of 14.

... While there were initially rules regarding what the child must do to retain citizenship,
amendments since 1952 HAVE ELIMINATED THESE REQUIREMENTS.

Or, a better question:

Do you NOT BELIEVE that the AMENDMENTS of the Constitution of the United States ARE NOT PART OF the United States CONSTITUTION

It really does NOT MATTER WHAT you believe.
THE LAW IS ... THE LAW !

[jonrick46]

The media would love to have two Republicans get into a verbal tug of war. They have been wringing their hands on how they can do it. If they can get something started, that makes the Republicans look like fools. They want the Republicans to do it to each other. That way they don’t have to get their hands dirty.

[kvanbrunt2]

I am a Cruz first guy.

Does anyone here think if he gets the nomination that the media and the dems will let this issue stand and just go away nicey nice?>>>> and i think that is what d is saying. the dem layers will litigate this to the end of the earth.

[Flick Lives]

LOL!

[erkelly]

Eventually this is going to be litigated, either by Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton (or her replacement.) We shall see what the judge has to say. Until that point, all of us, from all walks of life, are just expressing our opinions. My personal opinion is based on the Article II, Section I, Clause 5, and there is a reasonable chance that a sympathetic judge, or a strict constructionist, will base his/her opinion based on what the constitution says as well. I think the smart thing to do is not to take the chance of giving the nomination to Jeb Bush, and vote for a candidate who meets the constitutional requirements for the office. Basically, that means do not vote for Rubio or Cruz.

[Mariner]

Why would you call me stupid? It doesn't seem appropriate to the circumstances.

While I recognize the provisions of the 14th you cite, I don't see where Congress has the authority to supersede the Constitution.

Certainly it's possible to use Section 5 of Amendment 14 to make the case Cruz is NBC.

It's also possible to make a case based on original intent that he is not.

I am not educated enough of the matter to know, with certainty, either way.

And, the nation has never adjudicated the meaning of NBC in Article II.

It's almost certain to go to the Federal courts without regard to what any of us say here on FR.

And it's likely to be the principal subject Cruz deals with until he gets some sort of declarative judgement.

[sitetest]

trump is a concern troll.

[erkelly]

No, it is your ignorance showing. Cruz’ father and mother were living in CANADA not the USA; Cruz was born in Canada. Cruz’ family moved to the US when Cruz was four years old. At that time, Mr. Cruz senior became a legal immigrant to the USA.

[Yosemitest]

READ THE LAW and honor THE LAW.
No matter how loud or how long you keep typing your LIE, TED CRUZ IS A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN OF THE UNTIED STATES, ACCORDING TO THE LAW AT THE TIME OF HIS BIRTH.

How much are the "ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS" PAYING YOU to keep typing your LIES ?

[Yosemitest]

It does NOT NEED TO BE "adjudicated"!
The LAW is VERY CLEAR !

[Vision Thing]

I didn’t think mkjessup could top his earlier mock graphic of that tired polka dot chart. It was the one with Trump’s checklist filled with nothing but American flags.

But this one with Jim Robinson was just perfect!

[Mollypitcher1]

Why are Ted Cruz’s records sealed against Freedom of information Act inquiries? What is he hiding?

is it perhaps that his mother renounced her American citizenship to become a Canadian citizen like her husband? A renounced American citizenship can never be reclaimed. Let Ted open his records and disprove the allegations that he is hiding something.