Has Breitbart Gone Full ‘Birther’ On Ted Cruz?

The Daily Caller ^ | January 14, 2016 | Rachel Stoltzfoos

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Breitbart News published at least 30 stories in the past week about Donald Trump's theory that Sen. Ted Cruz is ineligible to run for president because he's not a natural born citizen, moving into birther territory despite a previous categorical statement from a lead editor that Breitbart is "not a birther site."

"I think pretty categorically, I think I can talk for our editorial team and I can certainly talk for Andrew [Breitbart]," Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro said in 2013, responding to criticism over the site's coverage of President Barack Obama's birth certificate. "We're not a birther site."

A spokesman for Breitbart did not dispute Shapiro's statement, and defended the site's prolific coverage of Cruz's birth by saying it's a mainstream story. Kurt Bardella told The Daily Caller News Foundation it's "unfair and unusual" to single out Breitbart's coverage of what he called "one of the most dominant storylines of this year" that is of "tremendous interest to the Breitbart audience."

"Under this logic, every media outlet in America would be a 'birther site,'" he told TheDCNF.

Shapiro is an outspoken critic of the mainstream media and Republican willingness to play along with its power structure. "For years, I have been begging Republicans to stand up to the mainstream media," he said in a November Townhall post. "The left has dominated the media for as long as I've been alive."

A quick examination of a few mainstream media outlets' coverage of the story reveals Breitbart's devotion to Cruz's eligibility for the White House is equaled by The Washington Post, but far surpasses the appetite of outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Politico.

"According to four sources with knowledge of the situation," Buzzfeed's McKay Coppins reported over the summer, "editors and writers at the outlet have privately complained since at least last year that the company's top management was allowing [Donald] Trump to turn Breitbart into his own fan website - using it to hype his political prospects and attack his enemies."

Trump, who is closely trailing Cruz in the Republican caucuses in Iowa, has been the lead spokesman for Cruz eligibility accusations. Following in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton, Trump also served as a prominent person questioning Obama's eligibility in 2011.

WaPo and Breitbart have been writing twice the number of stories on the subject of whether Cruz is natural born as those three outlets. Each of the two wrote at least 30 stories on it in the past week, compared to less than 15 stories each from TheNYT, WSJ and Politico.

WaPo's obsession with Cruz recently attracted public scrutiny when one of its cartoonists depicted his children as monkeys, but a comparison of Breitbart and WaPo's homepage's Tuesday shows Breitbart may be a bit more devoted to Trump's birther theory.

Here's Breitbart:

[SNIP]

And WaPo:

[SNIP]

Scroll down for screen shots.

[ifinnegan]

Ben Shapiro does not back Ted Cruz.

He has a visceral distaste for Cruz.

[ifinnegan]

Puny Human is simply making stuff up.

[Jarhead9297]

I never thought I’d see the day FReepers parroting liberal alphabet news feeds in an effort to take the conservative out of the race. Obama and the media haven’t only done their jobs but are doing it superbly. Not only fooling the low info voters but have now infiltrated some of the most conservative of forums.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Please address the rest of the post

No reason to. I don't accept your premise nor have the energy to deal with your nonsense. Your candidate is a confirmed liar with regards to immigration, and has shady and deep ties to cult-like religious groups. And that's all before we get into Cruz's ineligibility! When you can address that stuff, maybe then, just then, I'll take the time to refute your ravings about Trump's impurities.

[ifinnegan]

Notice how Hillary’s defense is that he was a Democrat, as if she would not even attend a wedding of a non-liberal.

That’s called bigotry.

[WildHighlander57]

“You’re assuming that Obama’s US birth certificate isn’t valid, and that being born outside the country would’ve made him ineligible. If being born outside the US would’ve made Obama ineligible, logically doesn’t it make Cruz ineligible?”

0’s birth cert is a fake; it has been put together from layers & pieces and then scanned in, plus the info is wrong for that time period (race of father African instead of Negro, for example)

Per the INS rules of 1952, 0’s mom was too young to convey us citizenship.

I don’t understand the expression “knocking the door off the hinges”

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Your links go to long, rambling vanity threads, written by you.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I call it, “Birds of a feather flock together.”

: )

[fivecatsandadog]

Correct. To be ELIGIBLE FOR POTUS, BOTH parents of the NATURAL BORN CITIZEN CANDIDATE MUST BE U.S. CITIZENS. Obama is, has been, was INELIGIBLE and NO ONE with authority challenged it. That DOES NOT make it right. If a potential candidate was born in Iran to a U.S. citizen mother and Iranian father, would he/she be eligible? DON’T YOU PEOPLE GET IT? It’s not BIRTHER, it’s CONSTITUTION! And because of people who want to disregard the written law, and Christian ethics, this country has gone straight to HELL. I’m beginning to believe that we have collectively brought about or own downfall.

[Jarhead9297]

Sorry a valid there is not refuting Trumps “impurities” I do like your attempt to soften the blow though by calling them impurities instead of truly what they are; positions that he has held near and dear to his heart for decades including authoring books holding those positions. These are impurities they are out and out stances and positions. I guess tomm Obama can apphend an “R” to the end of his name and that would satisfy the Trump contingent that he is a republican.

I guess PT Barnum was right there is a fool born every minute

[Jarhead9297]

Can you please point to the congressional law or court decision that cites in precise and exact language the word both? Or the case prescedence that establishes NBC?

Don’t bother it isn’t there, this has been hashed out on these boards for quite some time

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Sorry a valid there is not refuting Trumps “impurities”

Your writing is incomprehensible, but, to reply to what I think it is saying: if the candidate you support is lying to you and is a creepy weirdo, then your candidate is not a principled conservative, and, thus, you are a hypocrite to bash Trump for positions he no longer holds.

[Jarhead9297]

He changed his party affiliation as recent as a year or two ago!!! As to writing I’m on my iPhone and it’s butchering my posts

[grania]

By "knocking the door off the hinges" I'm talking about the future potential for whom would be eligible to be a US citizen. It would be anyone with one US citizen parent, born anywhere in the world, as long as they had at some point applied for their US citizenship and met residency requirements. Hypothetically, you could get a President elected here, and then elected in another country too.

Constitutional Conservatives want to preserve the Constitution of the US. Isn't it contradictory for them to want to do anything that cuts into its principles?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Donald-Trump-Ronald-Kessler/2012/11/26/id/465363/

Nov 26, 2012:

“....”The Democrats didn’t have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren’t mean-spirited about it,” Trump says. “They didn’t know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind.”

Romney’s solution of “self deportation” for illegal aliens made no sense and suggested that Republicans do not care about Hispanics in general, Trump says.

“He had a crazy policy of self deportation which was maniacal,” Trump says. “It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote,” Trump notes. “He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.”

The GOP has to develop a comprehensive policy “to take care of this incredible problem that we have with respect to immigration, with respect to people wanting to be wonderful productive citizens of this country,” Trump says.”.......

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

He changed his party affiliation as recent as a year or two ago!!!

Actually it was 3 years ago, and, before that, he refused to sign up for a party at all. I don't blame him.

[Godebert]

Note the reference to Natural Law in the first sentence of our Declaration of Independence.

It is crystal clear that the Founding Fathers used the Natural Law definition of 'natural born Citizen' when they wrote Article II. By invoking "The Laws of Nature and Nature's God" the 56 signers of the Declaration incorporated a legal standard of freedom into the forms of government that would follow.

President John Quincy Adams, writing in 1839, looked back at the founding period and recognized the true meaning of the Declaration's reliance on the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He observed that the American people's "charter was the Declaration of Independence. Their rights, the natural rights of mankind. Their government, such as should be instituted by the people, under the solemn mutual pledges of perpetual union, founded on the self-evident truth's proclaimed in the Declaration."

The Constitution, Vattel, and “Natural Born Citizen”: What Our Framers Knew

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

MINOR V. HAPPERSETT IS BINDING PRECEDENT AS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFINITION OF A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN.

The Harvard Law Review Article Taken Apart Piece by Piece and Utterly Destroyed

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

The Biggest Cover-up in American History

Supreme Court cases that cite “natural born Citizen” as one born on U.S. soil to citizen parents:

The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814)

Vattel, who, though not very full to this point, is more explicit and more satisfactory on it than any other whose work has fallen into my hands, says: “The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights.

Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)

Ann Scott was born in South Carolina before the American revolution, and her father adhered to the American cause and remained and was at his death a citizen of South Carolina. There is no dispute that his daughter Ann, at the time of the Revolution and afterwards, remained in South Carolina until December, 1782. Whether she was of age during this time does not appear. If she was, then her birth and residence might be deemed to constitute her by election a citizen of South Carolina. If she was not of age, then she might well be deemed under the circumstances of this case to hold the citizenship of her father, for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country. Her citizenship, then, being prima facie established, and indeed this is admitted in the pleadings, has it ever been lost, or was it lost before the death of her father, so that the estate in question was, upon the descent cast, incapable of vesting in her? Upon the facts stated, it appears to us that it was not lost and that she was capable of taking it at the time of the descent cast.

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)

The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As society cannot perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their parents, and succeed to all their rights.' Again: 'I say, to be of the country, it is necessary to be born of a person who is a citizen; for if he be born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country. . . .

Minor v. Happersett , 88 U.S. 162 (1875)

The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)

At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children, born in a country of parents who were its citizens, became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.

Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939),

Was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that a child born in the United States to naturalized parents on U.S. soil is a natural born citizen and that the child's natural born citizenship is not lost if the child is taken to and raised in the country of the parents' origin, provided that upon attaining the age of majority, the child elects to retain U.S. citizenship "and to return to the United States to assume its duties." Not only did the court rule that she did not lose her native born Citizenship but it upheld the lower courts decision that she is a "natural born Citizen of the United States" because she was born in the USA to two naturalized U.S. Citizens.

But the Secretary of State, according to the allegation of the bill of complaint, had refused to issue a passport to Miss Elg 'solely on the ground that she had lost her native born American citizenship.' The court below, properly recognizing the existence of an actual controversy with the defendants [307 U.S. 325, 350] (Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U.S. 227 , 57 S.Ct. 461, 108 A.L.R. 1000), declared Miss Elg 'to be a natural born citizen of the United States' (99 F.2d 414) and we think that the decree should include the Secretary of State as well as the other defendants. The decree in that sense would in no way interfere with the exercise of the Secretary's discretion with respect to the issue of a passport but would simply preclude the denial of a passport on the sole ground that Miss Elg had lost her American citizenship."

The Supreme Court of the United States has never applied the term “natural born citizen” to any other category than “those born in the country of parents who are citizens thereof”.

Citizenship Terms Used in the U.S. Constitution - The 5 Terms Defined & Some Legal Reference to Same

"The citizenship of no man could be previous to the declaration of independence, and, as a natural right, belongs to none but those who have been born of citizens since the 4th of July, 1776."....David Ramsay, 1789.

A Dissertation on Manner of Acquiring Character & Privileges of Citizen of U.S.-by David Ramsay-1789

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law

Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 20 - Use of The Law of Nations by the Constitutional Convention

The Biggest Cover-up in American History

If there is extensive law written that covers election fraud, but it is impossible to enforce, or if a sufficient number of people agree that So-and-So is the President or Pope despite the law, how does that not utterly, completely destroy the entire notion of the Rule of Law itself? As I have said for years with regards to Obama, if you can’t enforce Article II Section 1 Clause 5 of the Constitution, what can you enforce? Can you enforce the border? Can you enforce citizenship? Equal protection? Search and seizure? Right to bear arms? Can you enforce the law against treason? Theft? Murder? Trafficking in body parts? Religious persecution?

Mark Levin Attacks Birthers: Admits He Hasn't Studied Issue; Declares Canadian-Born Cruz Eligible

Not much information exists on why the Third Congress (under the lead of James Madison and the approval of George Washington) deleted "natural born" from the Naturalization Act of 1790 when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1795. There is virtually no information on the subject because they probably realized that the First Congress committed errors when it passed the Naturalization Act of 1790 and did not want to create a record of the errors.

It can be reasonably argued that Congress realized that under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress is given the power to make uniform laws on naturalization and that this power did not include the power to decide who is included or excluded from being a presidential Article II "natural born Citizen." While Congress has passed throughout United States history many statutes declaring who shall be considered nationals and citizens of the United States at birth and thereby exempting such persons from having to be naturalized under naturalization laws, at no time except by way of the short-lived "natural born" phrase in Naturalization Act of 1790 did it ever declare these persons to be "natural born Citizens."

The uniform definition of "natural born Citizen" was already provided by the law of nations and was already settled. The Framers therefore saw no need nor did they give Congress the power to tinker with that definition. Believing that Congress was highly vulnerable to foreign influence and intrigue, the Framers, who wanted to keep such influence out of the presidency, did not trust Congress when it came to who would be President, and would not have given Congress the power to decide who shall be President by allowing it to define what an Article II "natural born Citizen" is.

Additionally, the 1790 act was a naturalization act. How could a naturalization act make anyone an Article II "natural born Citizen?" After all, a "natural born Citizen" was made by nature at the time of birth and could not be so made by any law of man.

Natural Born Citizen Through the Eyes of Early Congresses

Harvard Law Review Article FAILS to Establish Ted Cruz as Natural Born Citizen

Watch: Mark Levin declares Ted Cruz a "Naturalized Citizen"

Mark Levin Attacks Birthers: Admits He Hasn't Studied Issue; Declares Canadian-Born Cruz Eligible

[mongrel]

Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question about Trump: ‘Do we want a candidate who could be in a mental hospital in two years?’ That’d be a big problem. It’d be a very precarious one for Republicans because he’d be running and then he would break down at some point. You don’t want to be running and have that kind of thing over your head.

I’d hate to see something like that get in his way. But a lot of people are talking about it and I know that even some mental health professionals have concerns, the fact that he shows clear signs of mental instability and could break down at any point.

Here’s what I think I’d do: I’d go and seek a full psychiatric screening if I was Donald. You go see a psychiatrist. You go to a doctor to ask for what’s called a psychological screening. You go in seeking a clean bill of psychiatric health from the doctor, even if you think you’re doing just great. That’s part of the problem with mental illness, it’s hard to detect in yourself. Donald could go right in, do it quickly. It can go quickly. Clean bill of health, very good.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Donald Trump Tells Bill OReilly The US Has to Take Syrian Migrants

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Do you just make it up as you go along?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

Donald Trump

2015

Born Donald John Trump
June 14, 1946 (age 69)
Queens, New York City

Political party:

Republican (2012-present; 2009-11; 1987-99)

Previous affiliations:

Independent (2011-12)

Democratic (2001-09; before 1987)

Reform (1999-2001)