Posted on 05/04/2016 12:43:43 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
He stood by yesterday’s comments not just in his interview with Stephanopoulos, as you’ll see below, but in the Today show interview that Ed blogged earlier. (Skip to 2:50 of the first clip here.) I don’t know if there’s anything more to say than what Kevin Williamson said to Republican voters last night about the race to come: “Remember, you asked for this.”
I’ll say something. First, Cruz did deny Trump’s insinuation about his dad and Oswald. He called it “nuts.” Second, Trump probably cares less about alienating Cruz and his fan base than about preserving the Enquirer’s reputation as a trash tabloid that nonetheless publishes newsworthy stories from time to time and therefore deserves the benefit of the doubt even on seemingly outlandish claims. No doubt he’s going to use the paper as a pipeline for hit pieces on Hillary. (Team Hillary, if they’re smart, will woo a rival checkout-counter tabloid and use that as a conduit for hit pieces on Trump in order to reach the same audience.)
He could have done that here, though, by praising the Enquirer but also saying that perhaps everyone had been too credulous about the old photo with Oswald and that he’d only mentioned it because he was wounded by what Rafael Cruz had said about him. He complimented Cruz last night in his victory speech as a smart, tough competitor; it’s weird and goofy to go on antagonizing him this morning as the presumptive nominee, knowing that Cruz is one of the few people in the party whose support might make some embittered conservatives reconsider their opposition to him. But we needn’t grasp for strategic explanations. Trump probably refused to apologize because he’s (a) too much of a narcissist to admit wrong, even when he stands to gain by doing so, and (b) a conspiracy theorist by disposition. He might actually believe the Enquirer story. Why would he walk it back?
And in fairness to him, his instinct that he won’t pay any political price for pushing stuff like this may well be right. I already confessed my grievous error this morning in ever believing righties were too smart and principled to buy what Trump is selling. The Lyle Lanley of the GOP knew better. Now he’s doubling down, betting that there’s a deep, hungry market for the Trump monorail among the general electorate too. You’d be a fool to bet against him at this point. Three clips for you then, one of his chat with Stephanopoulos, another from his chat with Hannity yesterday in which he insisted that the Enquirer wouldn’t have published the Oswald photo if they had reason to think they might be sued (which went unchallenged by Hannity, of course), and a third of Jake Tapper deluding himself into believing that Americans would prefer facts when they could have sensational lies instead.
Bflr.
It’s provided him anonymous cover for several years now.
I would advise any candidate not to answer every crazy allegation.
Good thing they aren’t advised by nickcarraway.
You didn’t answer my question....
Will you vote for Trump, for President of the USA, in November?
But why?
RE: But I don’t know, it does look like him, so I am not sure what to believe on this.
The whole “it looks like it does not look like” is VERY SUBJECTIVE.
No such firm conclusion is possible given the quality of the photograph.
Several historians of the period have said they’ve never seen Cruz’s name come up in connection with Oswald.
Politifact tried their best to contact the so called photo “experts”.
See here:
Here’s what they said:
Two photo experts the tabloid hired — Mitch Goldstone of ScanMyPhotos, a digitizing photo service, and Carole Lieberman, a forensic expert witness — said another man in the image appears to be young Rafael Cruz, according to McClatchy.
We could not independently verify these experts’ validation, as neither Goldstone nor Lieberman got back to us.
When we reached out to Kairos, a Miami-based facial recognition software company, Chief Technology Officer Cole Calistra was skeptical about claims of a positive identification. Calistra told PolitiFact that the photos are too grainy “to perform a proper match one way or the other.”
James Wayman, the former director of U.S. National Biometric Test Center in the Clinton administration, said proper analysis requires two full-frontal facial images.
“Without such images, no professional face examiner will be willing to render an opinion,” he said.
That being said, we had freelance programmer Lucien Gendrot test it out using Kairos’ face recognition API. The software could not verify a match between photos of the unidentified man next to Oswald and young Rafael Cruz, even at a low threshold of a 25 percent match.
[FULL STOP]
I’m really disappointed that Trump would stoop so low as to give any credence PUBLICLY to this story. I really tried very hard to like him.... but it’s getting more and more difficult by the day.
Actually, all we have is hearsay on the status of citizenship out of the Cruz campaign.
As of the time of the Canadian voter roll lists, they both were Canadian citizens and certified by the Provincial Election Supervisor. What exact date they became Canadians is unknown.
The Canadian election process can be viewed throughout the years at their website. They explain exactly how the Cruz’s were added to the voting rolls as Canadian citizens. And how voting was only for Canadian citizens.
During the 1950’s Canadians began challenging the authorities over disenfranchisement. Canada actively renewed a pledge for all ethnicities, races, religions, parties, and those over 18 to be registered to vote. They expanded their office to include enumerators to canvass both city and rural areas.
In urban areas, a pair of Election Officials- Enumerators, canvassed door-to-door over an entire precinct.
“Knock-knock”
1. Is this your primary address?
2. Are you a Canadian citizen?
3. Are you over 18 years old?
4. What is your occupation?
5. Do any others reside here ?
The information was transcribed and reviewed by the supervisor at the Election s Bureau. All those that were certified were placed on the voting list. The list was then posted throughout the precinct in designated public places. It was your civic duty to check these lists. If you had been left off the list in error, you were to contact and petition the supervisor of the election board with proof of address and ID.
This was an official job of the enumerator and intentionally omitting or adding people would have resulted in termination, at the very least. This system of canvassing for voters was in place throughout the 1990’s. If the Cruz’s were Cuban & American aliens residing in Calgary, why would they deliberately lie to government officials and claim Canadian citizenship?
Until 1984, they announced voter eligibility by a list notification system. This was used for voter verification at the ballot box. Voters were given thirty days to check the list prior to the deadline to make a correction. Those omitted were to show proof of address and identification and petition the election supervisor to be included by a pre-established deadline. If you failed to notice, you would not be allowed to vote. Due to privacy concerns, they switched back to a post-card notification system for the voters in 1984.
-——_______————________———_______——
The Cruz campaign denies Eleanor’s Canadian citizenship by virtue of her not being in Canada long enough. No one really knows how long either parent was there. Note that Rafael could have obtained expedited Canadian citizenship using his Cuban refugee status, he was there in 1964 and again in 1968. Eleanor may have left Britain with a British passport or residency status since she lived in England for 6-8 years. That status shortens the Canadian timeline down to only one year.
The evasion by the Cruz’s is the answer to the question. They were questioned about this two years ago and a campaign manger answered with vague denials on Cruz’s behalf.
Ted would have always known he was born in Canada and would have considered any perks. He would have known that it was a haven for draft-dodgers of the Vietnam War. He would have known it was an alternative to his American citizenship when he obtained his Drivers. License and Passport. Note that he did not clear the citizenship issue quickly when the Dallas News reported his Canadian status. It took him 15 months.
If Cruz’s ultimate goal was to be the President of North America, his status would be ideal.
The article is an incoherent mess. As for the Enquirer crap, I’ve put that out of my mind (for the most part) weeks ago and dismissed it as crap like I dismiss most NE stuff.
So that left me musing about the author’s silly name.
I don’t know if it’s him or not.
Just looking at the picture, there are facial similarities with the jaw, nose, forehead, hairline and shape of skull.
But I am not able to come to a concrete conclusion either.
I do think it is a fair question to ask of a person running for president whose dad was so actively helping him in that effort.
If it was him, I’d like to know.
But yeah I can see where the question would anger Cruz, but I also do not think that Trump was implying that Cruz’s dad was involved in the assassination of JFK. There’s no evidence of that.
And like I said I am personally not even sure I believe the official recounting of what happened. Too many people play fast and loose with the truth here in AMerica.
If I was trump, I would just let it go, because it just doesn’t matter, and it does not serve to unify people.
“au contraire
The light beginning to shine on Rafael Cruz may have made “ someone” uneasy about re opening the past, and hastened the exit of Ted”
silverleaf is correct, Ted was planning to stay in the race ALL THE WAY. He was going to steal or DQ as many delegates as possible at the convention with the team of lawyers. CRUZ delegates on the rules committee were already scheming with his team on ways to unseat entire delegations, including Florida’s 99. The rules committee is dominated with CRUZ delegates.
RE: Actually, all we have is hearsay on the status of citizenship out of the Cruz campaign.
Cruz — full name: Rafael Edward Cruz — was born in Calgary, Canada, in 1970. His family was living there because his father was working for the oil industry at the time. They moved when he was four. Cruz grew up in Texas and graduated from high school there, later attending Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
In 2013, Cruz released his birth certificate, which shows his mother was born in Delaware and his father was born in Cuba. (A situation similar to Obama, whose mother was born in Kansas and father was African.)
Most legal scholars maintain that Cruz is in the clear despite his Canadian birthplace.
But is the issue 100 percent settled?
As a Cruz supporter, I concede Not exactly.
We must first looked into this issue in 2013 but decided to look again now that Cruz has formally announced. The constitutional requirements for a presidential candidate created by the Founding Fathers are concise but not readily clear.
Two provisions are obvious: The candidate must be 35 years of age and a resident of the United States for 14 years. The third qualification: He or she must be a “natural born citizen.”
What does it mean to be a “natural born citizen”?
Most legal experts contend it means someone is a citizen from birth and doesn’t have to go through a naturalization process to become a citizen.
If that’s the definition, then Cruz is a natural born citizen by being born to an American mother and having her citizenship at birth. The Congressional Research Service, the agency tasked with providing authoritative research to all members of Congress, published a report after the 2008 election supporting the thinking that “natural born” citizenship means citizenship held “at birth.”
There are many legal and historical precedents to strongly back up this argument, experts have said.
Those precedents were the subject of a recent op-ed in the Harvard Law Review by two former solicitor generals of opposing parties, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who worked for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively. They wrote that “natural born” had a longstanding definition dating back to colonial times.
British common law recognized that children born outside of the British Empire remained subjects, and were described by law as “natural born,” Katyal and Clement wrote.
“The framers, of course, would have been intimately familiar with these statutes and the way they used terms like ‘natural born,’ since the (British) statutes were binding law in the colonies before the Revolutionary War,’” they said.
Additionally, the first Congress of the United States passed the Naturalization Act of 1790, just three years after the Constitution was written, which stated that children born abroad to U.S. citizens were, too, natural born citizens. Many members of the inaugural Congress were also authors of the Constitution.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time the qualifications of a candidate have come into question. George Romney, the father of Mitt Romney who ran for president as a Republican in 1968, was born in Mexico. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP presidential nominee, was born in Arizona before it was a state. Neither candidate’s campaign was derailed by citizenship challenges.
More recently, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faced questions about his eligibility because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was stationed there.
Interestingly, McCain’s potential Democratic opponents — Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton — co-sponsored a Senate measure to settle McCain’s eligibility. The April 2008 resolution said, “John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States.” It passed unanimously.
The reason a question still remains even after Romney, Goldwater and McCain is because the Supreme Court — the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions — has never directly ruled on the citizenship provision for presidential office holders. And that means a note of uncertainty remains.
Some have unsuccessfully challenged the qualifications of presidential contenders, but courts have been reluctant to address the issue. Several citizens filed lawsuits asking the court to rule on whether McCain was a natural born citizen early in 2008, but the legal challenges didn’t go anywhere.
But courts may be forced to weigh in if one of two things occur: A state, citing Cruz’s Canadian birthplace, tries to exclude him from the ballot; or another presidential candidate challenges Cruz’s eligibility.
But such challenges have already been made and ALL of them have been dismissed by at least 7 states if I remember correctly. New Jersey was the latest. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court also took it up and deemed Cruz ELIGIBLE.
The Federal or Supreme could still punt on the question. They could consider this a political question, in which case it would be out of bounds for the courts to interject.
But until it happens, or until a constitutional amendment clarifies matters, we won’t know for sure.
RE: silverleaf is correct, Ted was planning to stay in the race ALL THE WAY. He was going to steal or DQ as many delegates as possible at the convention with the team of lawyers. CRUZ delegates on the rules committee were already scheming with his team on ways to unseat entire delegations, including Florida’s 99. The rules committee is dominated with CRUZ delegates.
DISAGREE.
The Rules have been in place and have not changed. Had Cruz won Indiana, he would have had a pathway to a contested convention.
Since he lost, he did not see any conceivable pathway to it. Trump was well on his way to 1,237 delegates.
For you and silverleaf’s theory to be right ( i.e. a conspiracy to deny Trump the nomination by foul means ), I would like to see them CHANGE THE RULES MIDWAY at the convention after Trump wins 1,237. Then we’ll have ample evidence of that but not until.
By the way, where were you on Nov. 22, 1963?
RE: I also do not think that Trump was implying that Cruz’s dad was involved in the assassination of JFK. There’s no evidence of that.
Then why bother bringing it up?
The country is starved for solutions to the issues that face us. If Trump is to attack Cruz, I want him to attack Cruz’s POLICIES. I want to know how Trump’s policies differ and are BETTER than Cruz’s.
In other words, it would have been great to see a one on one debate with Cruz ON THE ISSUES. Trump of course refused to do so.
Instead, we get garbage like this.
So I disagree, Trump WAS IMPLYING that it was Cruz’s father. Otherwise, it would not have been brought up.
RE: By the way, where were you on Nov. 22, 1963?
I did not exist.
Fr. Collopy’s second year Latin class. (he was a Catholic chaplain under Patton in WW2).
He couldn’t make it through the whole class without a cigarette, so he gave assignments and ducked out for the last 10 mins of the period.
Came running into the room and said “hey you guys, President Kennedy’s been shot by a sniper” I remember it almost photographically.
Maybe he wants to know why Cruz’s dad was hanging out with Oswald.
If Trump wanted to say that he though rafael cruz was involved in the assassination of Kennedy, I’m sure he would have said exactly that. Trump pretty much says whatever he wants.
I would have also refused a one on one debate with Cruz.
There is no point at all in legitimizing an opponent who can no longer win by recognizing him in a debate.
That is a situation where Trump has everything to lose, and Cruz has everything to gain, so I am sure Cruz wanted that very badly, but he was never going to get it.
When you win the super bowl 42-7, you don’t give the losing team a 5th quarter.
But we can disagree, man, it’s alright. I gots no ill will.
With what money? We broke that phony bitchazz.
And isn’t it interesting that Trump seemed to send this little message to Ted the day of the election that the jig was up because the old man’s mask of his past was starting to slip?
The Donald seems to “ know” stuff
Kinda like the Bushes dropped off the radar when Trump started raising questions about 9-11 and the 28 missing pages of the final report
Now - on to LZ Hillary
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