So, how are your 401k’s doing lately? Read that this latest slump is because of China covertly devaluing their currency…and the word is that China plans a bit more of this. Ain’t it grand that we got our economy so tightly wrapped around China? Woohoo! Let’s have more of this – nothing like trading with nations which have no freedom…always works best…
Trump has proposed a 45% tariff on Chinese goods – probably to make him more the Populist Hero. I’ve long advocating abandoning all economic ties with China. Has nothing to do with economics, per se; has everything to do with what I wrote above. Trading with tyrants only makes things bad for everyone.
Biden laments his lost opportunity to run for President – if Bernie wins in New Hampshire, expect a late entrant in the Democrat contest.
Senator McCain acts like Senator McCain – going a bit birther on Ted Cruz. No matter what, no one can take away his heroic effort while imprisoned by communist barbarians…but outside of that, his whole career has been a mistake.
Keep in mind that CNN often allows Democrat plants in town halls. Maybe we should make it that various forms of media count as in-kind donations…sure, it would hurt us a bit, but it would utterly wreck the Democrat’s finances if they had to pay for the reporting of the MSM…
Could well be that Hillary loses the War on Women. Sure, most Millenials have only a hazy notion of what Bill was up to in the 90’s…but they are likely to be unforgiving of it because Bill acted the way Millenials have been told is very wrong.
The Prime Minister of Slovakia has decided to become the next object of leftwing hate…he’s shutting off the flow of “refugees”.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention that the same Obama Administration which doesn’t trust the people with guns managed to accidentally (?) ship a hellfire missile to Cuba in 2014…
Blogs For Victory 
“if Bernie wins in New Hampshire, expect a late entrant in the Democrat contest.”
If Bernie wins in NH, expect to see the seat of Hillary’s pantsuit turn brown…and red. (I know, eww).
Bob,
So I take it you’re not holding out any hope that Hillary will be indicted before the NH primary?
Spook
That is an excellent point I had not taken into account. Hope springs eternal.
Does anyone think being indicted would derail Hillary’s nomination?
The Dems would be ecstatic at the idea of electing her and then having Bill serve while she is in prison—kind of a Best Of The Best Worlds thing 😉
Did you notice that she is doubling down on the sexual-predator-on-my-team theme, naming Lena Dunham as head of her Instagram account? That is, the woman who sexually manipulated her twelve year old sister (if I remember the details right—-I tried not to pay a LOT of attention to the sordid details) to groom her for sex? (And by “sexually manipulated” I mean physically sexually stimulating her younger sister.) Hey, after Bill, a little incestuous sexual preying on a minor might not seem like that big a deal.
The Dems would be ecstatic at the idea of electing her and then having Bill serve while she is in prison
Reminds me of the email going around showing Bill and Hill walking hand in hand, and him saying to her, “so, while you’re in prison, I can date, right?
Bob, I am starting to see why you might not be offended by Trump’s crass sexism
Ummm…thanks?
Oh, I just got your meaning. I don’t mean red like she’s having her period, I meant red like she’s shitting blood.
Thank you for clearing that up. It is always a little embarrassing to mistake crudity for sexism, and I do apologize.
Interesting findings on Bernie Sanders:
Bernie Sanders and his wife have on numerous occasions steered money from organizations under their control to friends and family members, public records show. The payments benefitted the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, his stepdaughter, and the son of a former colleague in city government whom Sanders has described as a close friend. Sanders, a self-described socialist, is now running for the presidency on an anti-corruption platform, decrying public officials’ attempts to use their positions for personal financial gain. Following 16 years as a member of the House, Sanders was elected to the Senate in 2006. His political campaigns were an early vehicle for payments to his family members.
Hard to believe that a “socialist man of the people” would be involved in such ugly crony capitalist behavior.
Hard to believe that a “socialist man of the people” would be involved in such ugly crony capitalist behavior.
I know. After more than a century of socialist/communist leaders who never used their positions of vast power to enrich themselves or their families and/or cronies, to provide lavish lifestyles unavailable to their
subjectscitizens, it is really hard to imagine one of their fellow travelers doing so now.I am stunned, absolutely stunned
However, I am not sure I would consider funneling funds from charities or campaign funds or other “organizations” as “crony capitalist behavior”. I do think Bernie’s unimpeachable record of being against capitalism would prevent him from engaging in such. I suggest that he merely engaged in various forms of fraud/theft, though it is true that the money that was in those “organizations” probably came from profitable capitalist endeavors.
But you see, if there is a little distance between a profitable capitalist endeavor and the money in your pocket, such as that created by a charity or an “organization” of some sort, a socialist can pretend the money was never tainted by capitalism at all and just appeared in said “organization”—-just as it just appears in government handout agencies.
It’s what they do – and they don’t even think there’s anything wrong with it.
OK, back to the “birther” thing. As some of you may remember, for the past few years I have been insisting that at the three rising stars of the GOP—-Rubio, Cruz and Jindal—should take the preemptive move of finding out which body would have the authority to rule on the definition of “natural born citizen” and get it settled, once and for all, before any of them got high enough in the primary race (or beyond) for this to impact Republican chances for winning the presidency.
The response here was mixed, ranging from “I don’t really care” to “yeah, that would be a good idea” with a middle ground that confused “natural born” with “native born”. I always argued the Natural Law, via Vattel, that said a natural born citizen inherited this citizenship from either a citizen father or citizen parents, that it was due to biology and not government action. I argued the sense of having such a law, as it was intended to make sure any president had a primary loyalty to this country and not a divided loyalty or, worse yet, a primary loyalty to the land of his father.
I still hold those positions, with one caveat, that being a disagreement with the restriction to having a FATHER who is already a citizen. I reject the concept that the citizenship of the father is the only thing that matters, that a father will automatically have more effect on the loyalties of a mother. The more I thought about it, the more I came to think that in many instances the mother would probably have more influence than the father, either due to being a single parent (more single parents are women rather than men) or spending more time with the child. I believe that mothers have more influence than fathers in choice of religion, or belief in religion, for example.
There is a Congressional ruling giving equal status to the citizenship of mothers to that of fathers, regarding the passing on of natural born citizenship, and I believe that a demand to cling to a restriction that is based on an archaic concept of the roles of men and women, applicable to that society but not to this one, is unreasonable,
Having said that, I still believe that “natural born” is NOT the same as “native born” and that we have a serious issue we have to address, in this time of ease of travel and shifting of national loyalties for many reasons including political asylum and terrorism. Clearly the 14th Amendment has to be revisited, or at least clearly defined, and the tern “natural born citizen” may have to be defined more clearly.
This is a topic the SCOTUS refused to address when it was seen as applying to a Democratic favorite who is also half black, and it will be interesting to see how it is handled now that a conservative may be in the crosshairs.
Clearly the 14th Amendment has to be revisited, or at least clearly defined, and the tern “natural born citizen” may have to be defined more clearly.
Although the term “natural born citizen” has been referenced in several Supreme Court cases, I don’t believe there has ever been a Supreme Court case brought for the sole purpose of defining the term. I think the time is long past due for such a case, and the timing during (*or prior to) this election cycle with Rubio, Cruz and Jindal in the mix was ready made for such a case. My personal feeling is that Cruz is a natural born citizen due to the citizenship of his mother, while Rubio and Jindal are both native born citizens because neither of their parents were American citizens at the time of their birth. Unfortunately, Amazona, you and I appear to be in a tiny minority who find this to be an important factor.
I see your point but Rubio and Jindal are as American as apple pie…born here, raised as Americans, completely in love with the country. I don’t ask for more than that.
I don’t ask for more than that.….but the Constitution does, at least for the office of President of the United States.
A person either thinks we need to run the nation according to the Constitution, or thinks he or she ought to be able to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution matter. Maybe somebody else doesn’t think due process is a big deal, and a lot of people think the 10th Amendment should just be treated as if it doesn’t exist. It’s like ordering off an a la carte menu—“I like this and this but that just doesn’t seem all that important to me and this over here just gets in the way of what I want.”
A lot of people think the problems we are experiencing in this country can be traced back to the erosion of the Constitution as our rule of law. I am one of them.
I don’t think it does, though. Born here to a foreign diplomat who has no intention of being American…you’re not American. Born here to someone who fully intends to stay and become American; you’re American.
I also think it highly possible that there would be some serious and legitimate questions about the native born citizenship of Rubio and Jindal: When they were born their parents were still citizens of other countries and therefore under the jurisdiction of those countries.
Spook, back when we were in the middle of that extended thread on “natural born citizen” there were several citations of various rulings, some from the Supreme Court, in which the terms “natural born” and “native born” were pretty randomly interchanged. I have also seen that in articles on the subject and references on talk shows, etc., and have always wondered if this is just confusion, a lack of awareness that they are two separate classes of citizenship, or an effort to cloud the issue.
I see Mark’s point, that being brought up in this country and taught to love and respect it can be more influential than the heritage of one’s parent(s), but the basic premise is still sound—we do not want a president whose history is not that of being an American, who has not been brought up as an American. For the past seven years we have had ample opportunity to see the wisdom of that concern, with a president whose technical citizenship has proved to be much less important than his cultural citizenship, which was most definitely not that of an American.
The failure of the test of natural born citizen to ensure a president with a cultural and emotional history of being an American, with loyalty to this nation and love of this nation, and the obvious presence of people like Rubio and Jindal who do not pass the “natural born” citizen test but who are at heart wholly American, do point out the fact that there is no foolproof way to ensure the election of someone who is by nature, culture and citizenship going to put America first, or to prevent the election of someone who believes this nation does not deserve to consider itself exceptional and who sees the presidency as a way to “fundamentally transform” it.
It is the Left which believes in Thought Crimes and promotes the Thought Police, and I can’t think of a way to ensure that a presidential candidate is, at heart, an American. I am more and more convinced that the only way to ensure the election of someone who loves, respects and honors this country is to educate the populace.
Barack Obama told us what he wanted to do, and his statements to Joe the Plumber and about fundamentally transforming this country were quite acceptable to millions who did not see the election as a choice between two basic political philosophies. The Right voted for a man they didn’t necessary like as a person, or even agree with on every point, because he represented a certain attitude of how best to govern this nation. The Left voted for a man because he appealed to them as a cool hipster, because they had been brainwashed into irrational hatred of an invented Other they were told was Conservatism, because they wanted to show how unracist they were, to compensate for White Guilt, and so on. Ask any Obama voter if he or she voted for an infinitely expandable Central Authority, for allowing the president to ignore Congress and simply make laws on his own, if he or she was voting to expand various agencies of the federal government so much they would become a de facto, unelected, branch of government.
You won’t get an agreement that that is what they had in mind. No, they wanted to impress the world with “how far we had come” by electing a man always defined as “black”. They wanted to preen in the smug superiority of doing what they thought was radical, though it was really just following the Leftist herd. They had a lot of reasons for voting for Obama, but I will bet that few of them did it because they understood, agreed with and supported his radical Leftist beliefs in how to govern the United States. Hell, when his beliefs were accurately described anyone who used words like “socialist” was scorned, abused, and denigrated. The term was ridiculed.
As long as we campaign on anything BUT the choice of how best to govern this nation, on anything BUT a choice between a Constitution-oriented restriction on the size, scope and power of the federal government with most of the authority left to the states vs. an unrestricted ability to grow and assume powers not granted by the Constitution and overriding state powers, we are going to be vulnerable to the demagogic antics of the Left, and they are often going to win. And they can win with a candidate whose citizenship status is merely technical, but who grew up in foreign countries with anti-American family influences.
Born here to a foreign diplomat who has no intention of being American…you’re not American. Born here to someone who fully intends to stay and become American; you’re American.
I understand how this FEELS but it is simply not the law, and it can’t BE the law. Any law this flexible is pretty much like no law at all. How about people who have so little respect for our country, and our laws, that they come here illegally just to have their babies? Are those babies supposed to be considered natural born citizens because their parents did a pinkie swear about their motives? What about those whose intent is to “become American” just to get on the welfare gravy train but have no intention of assimilating? How would you, how could you, write a law that would cover all that? You seem to be saying that you can define “American” for purposes of eligibility for the presidency regardless of citizenship, if all that is necessary is a FEELING of being an American.
Kind of like Bruce Jenner FEELING like he should be considered a woman named Caitlin?
We can’t disdain the dependence on moral relativity on the Left and then decide we are all for it when it might apply to something WE think is important.
Just as we keep telling Lefties, there is no perfect government and there is no perfect world. You know what that means? It means there is no perfect government and no perfect world. Not everything can be “fixed”. Every now and then some really wonderful person is going to have to deal with something that happened because of what someone else did. It might be spending a life in a wheelchair because someone else drove while drunk. It might be losing everything in a fire because someone threw a lit cigarette out a car window. And it might be not being allowed one thing, only one single thing, that of being able to be president of the United States, because your parents were not citizens when you were born. You can live here, you can go to school here, you can work here, you can participate in every single level of government but the presidency. Sad, maybe, but not exactly a tragedy.
But I disagree with that – I think the plain meaning of “natural born citizen” means Bobby Jindal. I think what the Founders were trying to prevent was to awarding of American power to a foreign prince or potentate who could have used wealth to corrupt America’s Electors.
The thing at the back of their minds was how a tiny clique of England’s elite booted out the English James II and brought in the Dutch William III because William III proposed to allow that tiny clique to remain in control of England’s destiny.
As an aside, that Elizabeth lady has no business being in Buckingham Palace – that rightfully belongs to Franz, Duke of Bavaria…of course, he’s rather on in years, so Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein would be a better candidate – especially as he’s British-born.
Your concept of the “plain meaning” of the term “natural citizen” means simply defying the very precepts of natural law upon which the Founders made their decisions and based their laws. It means simply dismissing the foundation of law upon which the Founders started their deliberations.
Don’t like it? Ignore it.
If you were to apply this squishy, emotion-based, wishful thinking about what you want the Constitution to say because it fits a personal agenda, you would be claiming that the First Amendment was really written to protect insulting Christians by giving legal cover to desecrating sacred objects, you would be saying only people in a well organized militia should be able to have guns, and so on.
You would actually qualify as a Democrat politician or a Supreme Court justice.
Actually, “The thing at the back of their minds ..” was fear that someone could become president of the United States without a background of allegiance to this country over any other. At the back of their minds, at the front of their minds, in the forefront of their debates, and a central part of their construction of how the nation would be governed.
It had nothing to do with “…how a tiny clique of England’s elite booted out the English James II and brought in the Dutch William III because William III proposed to allow that tiny clique to remain in control of England’s destiny.” They were writing a document about how best to protect this nation from foreign control or influence. It had much more to do with loyalty than with wealth.
Aside from the sometimes convoluted formality of their language, the Founders said what they meant and meant what they said. There were terms they did not define because it never occurred to them that they would have to. No one ever thought the word “marriage” would have to be formally defined, after centuries of it being accepted as the formal union of one man and one woman. And no one thought the term “natural born citizen” would have to be defined, after centuries of it being understood as citizenship passed through parentage, not by the location of birth or any government action and certainly not just because someone wanted it to be so.
But, then again, all persons residing in the United States at the time of adoption of the Constitution were “natural born citizens” as far as that goes…so, you could have lived your first 17 years outside the territory of the United States and only have moved there in 1771, but in 1787 you were, presto!, eligible for the White House (Alexander Hamilton, eg)…given this, I don’t think the Founders believed that having a foreign-born parent(s) was a worry.
How far back do you think England should go to establish someone as a natural born citizen of that nation and legitimate heir to the throne? Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of English kings and queens for several centuries, was born in the nation to citizens of the nation, and it’s probably a little late to say that because someone four or five hundred years ago was not a natural born citizen and therefore not a legitimate king no one from that point on, in that line, born in that country, is legitimate either.
By your standard of not qualifying Elizabeth for the monarchy not even a direct descendant of George Washington would be eligible for the presidency today.
There is Scottish blood in me and I understand it is Highland blood…so, I’ve probably inherited a bit of the Jacobite gene! I don’t have much use for usurpers!
“But, then again, all persons residing in the United States at the time of adoption of the Constitution were “natural born citizens” as far as that goes…”
…not according to Natural Law, as understood at that time. Natural citizenship could only be attained through birth to citizen parents or a citizen father, and as the nation had not existed prior to the Revolution no one other than Native Americans could be considered “natural born”.
“…so, you could have lived your first 17 years outside the territory of the United States and only have moved there in 1771, but in 1787 you were, presto!, eligible for the White House..”
…IF you had declared yourself to be a citizen of the new nation. If you had not renounced your British citizenship, or that of any other nation, to become a citizen of the new United States, and if you had not lived in this country for at least 14 years, you wouldn’t be eligible. You also had to be at least 35.
The Founders quite obviously understood that none of the revolutionaries could qualify as “natural born” citizens of a nation which did not even exist when they were born, and they dealt with this by writing a Constitution that said:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
So, to give the new nation time to breed its own natural born citizens, we allowed anyone who had been a citizen at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, who had attained at least 35 years of age and lived in the country for at least 14 years to be eligible for the presidency. This would, of course, time out as people who were citizens when the Constitution was adopted would die off, and then the other elements of eligibility would kick in—that of being born to citizen parents or at least a citizen father, being at least 35, and living in this country for at least 14 years.
It was either that or not have a president for 35-plus years after someone had been born to parents who were citizens when the Constitution was adopted.