2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins

Status
Not open for further replies.
sun_tzu said:
or a tv licence fee and a charter setting out its running in the public interest - so yeah an american bbc
Click to expand...

Would never happen in the States - Government is viewed with more suspicion than as a fair arbiter of what is in the public interest.
 
I despair because it's gone from News to infotainment and from reporters to 'hosts' - Hey, I'm not a reporter, I don't have to be objective.
 
sun_tzu said:
I think pretty much everybody except Donald Trump (the next president and first emperor of the united states of america) seems to think its pretty clear cut
the rules are a natural born citizen... his mommy was a citizen so he qualified for citizenship at birth which seems to satisfy most (sane) people
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...uz-born-canada-eligible-run-president-update/
Click to expand...

Although I despise Cruz my thoughts on this controversy have nothing to do with my loathing of the man.

There are basically two schools of interpreting the US Constitution -- the "originalism" school and the "living Constitution" school. There are serious weaknesses with both schools, but putting that aside the premise of originalism is that justices must interpret the original meaning (or intent) of the Founders when they wrote each provision and the premise of the living Constitution school is that the Constitution must be interpreted to ensure the most just result in light of today's social and economic reality. That's an oversimplification but this is RedCafe, not a law review journal.

The Founders clearly understood the term "natural born citizen" to be a person born on US soil or soil that eventually became a part of the United States. There was no "out" for someone born in the UK because his mom was born in the US. Vattel's Law of Nations was considered by Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton as authoritative and its definition of a natural born citizen leaves no room for doubt. For the honest originalist -- and let's be clear, there are none -- Cruz is not a natural born citizen.

However, for the living Constitution disciple, Cruz is on fairly safe ground (provided he's an actual US citizen, about which there is reasonable doubt). The "original intent" -- which is very different from "original meaning" -- of the clause was to ensure that no agent of a foreign government could take over the American government. In the early days of the republic there was a reasonable fear that an agent of the UK could try to over the US government from within, so to speak. That is no longer a reasonable fear. Love or hate him, Cruz could not conceivably be an agent of the governments of Canada. The natural born citizen clause no longer serves the practical purpose of crippling the ability of other sovereigns from taking over the American government. The "mom was born in the US" route to citizenship, thus no need for naturalization, is good enough for the living constitutionalists and it should be good enough for the rest of us. (His mom never filed a Consular Report of Birth Abroad -- not young Ted's fault -- and a very strong case has been made that Cruz isn't even a citizen of the US -- there is no record of a CRBA being filed in Canada and no record of him having gone through naturalization -- and is thus holding his US Senate seat illegally, but this is a digression.)

What's important to note is Cruz's hypocrisy as a self-proclaimed "originalist". But apart from his dark vision for America, I have no problem with his qualifications to serve as potus. Not only would Cruz never be an agent of the Canadian government, I seriously doubt Cruz could get elected dog catcher in his home town of Calgary.
 
Neutral said:
you know who needs to look in the mirror? The f-ing media. I know, we shouldn't shoot the media and they're simply giving the masses what they want...but, the wall to wall coverage of his every movement and utterance.

There is a reason, he hasn't had to spend $130 mil...the media has allowed him hours and hours of free advertising on a daily basis.

He and his supporters would of course say - what's stopping others from doing the same?
Click to expand...
Question is, though the shock strategy works in terms of getting you press coverage whilst still gaining him votes for these primaries, is it going to work in a general election? I was just having a look at that CNN GOP poll, and in terms of enthusiasm, the highest levels are amongst pro-Tea Partiers, and people located in the South and in rural areas. In other words, areas that are already red in tooth and claw. Is he going to revert to a standard campaign after securing the nomination?
 
Spock said:
Although I despise Cruz my thoughts on this controversy have nothing to do with my loathing of the man.

There are basically two schools of interpreting the US Constitution -- the "originalism" school and the "living Constitution" school. There are serious weaknesses with both schools, but putting that aside the premise of originalism is that justices must interpret the original meaning (or intent) of the Founders when they wrote each provision and the premise of the living Constitution school is that the Constitution must be interpreted to ensure the most just result in light of today's social and economic reality. That's an oversimplification but this is RedCafe, not a law review journal.

The Founders clearly understood the term "natural born citizen" to be a person born on US soil or soil that eventually became a part of the United States. There was no "out" for someone born in the UK because his mom was born in the US. Vattel's Law of Nations was considered by Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton as authoritative and its definition of a natural born citizen leaves no room for doubt. For the honest originalist -- and let's be clear, there are none -- Cruz is not a natural born citizen.
.
Click to expand...

to each their own but I though the article dealt with that fairly clearly

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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

but hey I honestly have no horse in the race... all the candidates seem fairly equally shit / scary in their different ways

I guess we get the leaders we deserve and the collective pile of gash we get served up over here is as much our fault for not questioning and caring enough so its no surprise that its the same over there.

Good luck to whoever wins - it will be a massively divided society with fek loads of guns... at some point Im going to be glad there is a bloody big stretch of water between the Uk and the USA when the shite and the fan collide
 
Ubik said:
No I understand what you mean, apathy can be the greatest ally of nationalists, I just find it very hard to find any evidence to suggest it would be close. Don't worry though, as soon as Trump gets the nomination (assuming he does), my panic reflex will kick in, I'll assume the worst and start constructing an elaborate network of survival caves.
Click to expand...

You can run but you can't hide, Ubik. You're on our List. An extensive dossier has been compiled; even your interest in Astronomy has been recorded. You won't be able to say the words 'Mars'' or 'Venus' in a telephone conversation anywhere in the world without us tracking you down.
 
barros said:
So people would pay for a channel nobody watches? Giving jobs to people who couldn't get a job?
Click to expand...
Unless they you know hired decent people and made decent TV... the BBC seems to manage it alongside commercial channels but I guess the lobby groups of commercial tv and advertisers would put up a hell of a fight.
i am not sure we would get a bbc over here given the commercial opposition if it didnt already exist
 
sun_tzu said:
Unless they you know hired decent people and made decent TV... the BBC seems to manage it alongside commercial channels but I guess the lobby groups of commercial tv and advertisers would put up a hell of a fight.
i am not sure we would get a bbc over here given the commercial opposition if it didnt already exist
Click to expand...

BBC is an exception.
 
barros said:
So people would pay for a channel nobody watches? Giving jobs to people who couldn't get a job?
Click to expand...

Just because you don't like intelligent, informative programming doesn't mean the rest of us don't either. I watch a lot of PBS.

This somewhat explains your positions on issues in here.
 
barros said:
BBC is an exception.
Click to expand...
probably - as I say it mostly pre dates commercial TV and certainly pre-dates it in its current guise so it probably would be difficult if not impossible to introduce a bbc type / scale broadcaster to a market without such disruption that it would probably be unfair to the commercial market.
Still the state of the "news" in america is shocking so it should be no surprise to anybody the politicians who emerge from that environment
 
Spock said:
Although I despise Cruz my thoughts on this controversy have nothing to do with my loathing of the man.

There are basically two schools of interpreting the US Constitution -- the "originalism" school and the "living Constitution" school. There are serious weaknesses with both schools, but putting that aside the premise of originalism is that justices must interpret the original meaning (or intent) of the Founders when they wrote each provision and the premise of the living Constitution school is that the Constitution must be interpreted to ensure the most just result in light of today's social and economic reality. That's an oversimplification but this is RedCafe, not a law review journal.

The Founders clearly understood the term "natural born citizen" to be a person born on US soil or soil that eventually became a part of the United States. There was no "out" for someone born in the UK because his mom was born in the US. Vattel's Law of Nations was considered by Franklin, Jefferson and Hamilton as authoritative and its definition of a natural born citizen leaves no room for doubt. For the honest originalist -- and let's be clear, there are none -- Cruz is not a natural born citizen.

However, for the living Constitution disciple, Cruz is on fairly safe ground (provided he's an actual US citizen, about which there is reasonable doubt). The "original intent" -- which is very different from "original meaning" -- of the clause was to ensure that no agent of a foreign government could take over the American government. In the early days of the republic there was a reasonable fear that an agent of the UK could try to over the US government from within, so to speak. That is no longer a reasonable fear. Love or hate him, Cruz could not conceivably be an agent of the governments of Canada. The natural born citizen clause no longer serves the practical purpose of crippling the ability of other sovereigns from taking over the American government. The "mom was born in the US" route to citizenship, thus no need for naturalization, is good enough for the living constitutionalists and it should be good enough for the rest of us. (His mom never filed a Consular Report of Birth Abroad -- not young Ted's fault -- and a very strong case has been made that Cruz isn't even a citizen of the US -- there is no record of a CRBA being filed in Canada and no record of him having gone through naturalization -- and is thus holding his US Senate seat illegally, but this is a digression.)

What's important to note is Cruz's hypocrisy as a self-proclaimed "originalist". But apart from his dark vision for America, I have no problem with his qualifications to serve as potus. Not only would Cruz never be an agent of the Canadian government, I seriously doubt Cruz could get elected dog catcher in his home town of Calgary.
Click to expand...

Very interesting, and great post. Is this Lawrence Tribe's position on the matter?

In your opinion, is it safe to say therefore that Trump's lawsuit, if he files one, has no chance of success? Particularly with Scalia out of the picture.
 
naturalized said:
Very interesting, and great post. Is this Lawrence Tribe's position on the matter?

In your opinion, is it safe to say therefore that Trump's lawsuit, if he files one, has no chance of success? Particularly with Scalia out of the picture.
Click to expand...

I believe Professor Tribe agrees that Cruz is eligible to serve as potus.

In my opinion, there is no chance that the courts would hold that a person in Cruz's situation is not eligible. There is only one reliable justice in the "originalist" camp, Justice Thomas -- and even then Thomas could adopt the Blackstone theory or the Vattel theory as he wishes to support his view of the "original intent" of the clause. The four liberals are trustworthy "living constitutionalists" and we know that Roberts and Kennedy go wherever exigent circumstances dictate. Alito is a bit of an enigma but in the end I can't see him ruling against Cruz, a fellow conservative.

Trump's lawsuit is no longer necessary, as Trump has all but wrapped up the Rep nomination*, but were he to file one there's no chance the court would remove Cruz from the ballot. That said, I would love to see Cruz's attorneys argue against the clear understanding of the term "natural born citizen" as that term was understood in 1787.



*A horrifying turn of events and on behalf of the Americans I have to apologize to all caftards around the world for this.
 
Spock said:
I believe Professor Tribe agrees that Cruz is eligible to serve as potus.

In my opinion, there is no chance that the courts would hold that a person in Cruz's situation is not eligible. There is only one reliable justice in the "originalist" camp, Justice Thomas -- and even then Thomas could adopt the Blackstone theory or the Vattel theory as he wishes to support his view of the "original intent" of the clause. The four liberals are trustworthy "living constitutionalists" and we know that Roberts and Kennedy go wherever exigent circumstances dictate. Alito is a bit of an enigma but in the end I can't see him ruling against Cruz, a fellow conservative.

Trump's lawsuit is no longer necessary, as Trump has all but wrapped up the Rep nomination*, but were he to file one there's no chance the court would remove Cruz from the ballot. That said, I would love to see Cruz's attorneys argue against the clear understanding of the term "natural born citizen" as that term was understood in 1787.



*A horrifying turn of events and on behalf of the Americans I have to apologize to all caftards around the world for this.
Click to expand...

Cheers.
 
Raoul said:
Well yes, because viewers aren't androids, but it would be relatively neutral in terms of advocacy.
Click to expand...
Maybe in an ideal world. Maybe I'm too much of a cynic but I would always question motives when large amounts of funding are provided by individuals or organizations. Everyone has an agenda it seems.
 
Judging by some of the polls today, Texas is the only state that Trump won't win tomorrow. Oklahoma could be close. The rest should be comfortable.
 
This has been one of my real sore points and will potentially have a huge say in who wins or loses.

Voter suppression in the guise of preventing voter fraud (which is just about non existent) is a very real thing and the Republicans have been working on it actively for years and years. I am flabbergasted at how little work the Democrats have been doing on this issue - on the ground.

A lot of poor minorities simply do not have birth certificates or passports.

More than half a million registered Texans don’t have the right ID to vote on Super Tuesday

Sari Horwitz February 29 at 8:00 AM
Want to vote in this state? You have to have a passport or dig up a birth certificate.]

The state of Texas, where the most delegates are at stake on Tuesday for candidates in both parties, has the most stringent voter-identification law in the nation, according to several election experts, and one that could cut deeply into the turnout of minority voters and young people — an issue for the Democratic contenders, Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who are courting those groups of voters.

Four years ago, the Justice Department blocked the law, signed by then-Gov. Rick Perry (R). Former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. (D) called it a “poll tax,” referring to fees that some Southern states used to try to disenfranchise blacks during the Jim Crow era.

Texas was the largest state that was covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required federal approval of any voting changes, because of Texas’s history of discrimination.

Texas then sued the Justice Department. After a week-long trial, a federal court in Washington also blocked the law, ruling that it would impose “strict, unforgiving burdens” on poor, minority voters. It was the first time that a federal court had blocked a voter-ID law.

The three-judge federal panel unanimously ruled in August 2012 that Texas had failed to show the law wouldn’t harm minority voters and said that the burden of obtaining a state voter ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip.

“A law that forces poorer citizens to choose between their wages and their franchise unquestionably denies or abridges their right to vote,” wrote David S. Tatel, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The next year, the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling on the Voting Rights Act that in essence took away the power of the Justice Department to challenge potentially unfair voting laws before they are enacted.

The court did not strike down the Voting Rights Act or the provision that calls for the special scrutiny of states with a history of discrimination, such as Alabama and Texas. But it said that Congress must come up with a new formula based on current data to determine which states should be subject to the requirements. Congress has not yet acted.

The same day as the Supreme Court decision, then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) said the state would immediately enact its voter-ID law.

The legal wrangling continues. The Justice Department is awaiting a decision about whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, will hear the Texas voter-ID case en banc. In the meantime, a federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the voter IDs that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun license but not their state-issued student university IDs.

After the Supreme Court decision, other states also swiftly moved forward with voting restrictions, including Mississippi, Virginia, Alabama and North Carolina.

[Why 94-year-old Rosanell Eaton had to make 10 trips to the DMV, drive more than 200 miles and spend more than 20 hours to obtain a voter ID]

“Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID, and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote,” North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) said after signing a bill that included a voter-ID requirement.

“They were all very brazen responses to that decision,” Weiser said. “It was, ‘Here we go, now that the yolk of the Voting Rights Act has been removed, we’re going to plow forward with these very controversial voting restrictions.’”

On Super Tuesday, voters in Virginia will be required to show a photo ID. Tennessee also has put in place a strict voter-ID requirement and reduced the time allotted for early voting. In Georgia, a Republican-led legislature also reduced the early-voting period from 45 days to 21 and cut early voting the weekend before Election Day.

While much of the national attention has focused on the eight states that have passed voter-ID laws since 2010, state legislatures have also passed many other voting restrictions.

Among the most controversial are the “proof of citizenship” laws in Alabama, Georgia, Arizona and Kansas that require residents to show documents, such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote.

A new voter-ID study by political scientists at the University of California at San Diego analyzed turnout in elections between 2008 and 2012 and found “substantial drops in turnout for minorities under strict voter ID laws.”

“These results suggest that by instituting strict photo ID laws, states could minimize the influence of voters on the left and could dramatically alter the political leaning of the electorate,” the study concluded.
Click to expand...
 
Terrible national poll for Sanders - having closed to within the margin of error last week, he has just got a -17. Which were his numbers in Dec.
Don't know if it's the aftermath of the SC vote, but he's dead from here.
 
berbatrick said:
Terrible national poll for Sanders - having closed to within the margin of error last week, he has just got a -17. Which were his numbers in Dec.
Don't know if it's the aftermath of the SC vote, but he's dead from here.
Click to expand...

He's toast. He's behind in Massachusetts which should really be an easy win from him if he has any realistic ambitions at all.
 
I said that the American people couldn't possibly be stupid enough to elect Dubya. But they did.

I know it's different, but still. The fact that I now think they couldn't possibly be stupid enough to elect what would be the most grotesque joke ever as "The Leader Of The Free World" puts me on the alert.

God help us all.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
I said that the American people couldn't possibly be stupid enough to elect Dubya. But they did.

I know it's different, but still. The fact that I now think they couldn't possibly be stupid enough to elect what would be the most grotesque joke ever as "The Leader Of The Free World" puts me on the alert.

God help us all.
Click to expand...

I was too young then, but certainly it didn't seem that absurd did it? He was Gov. of Texas at least, and not a clown, just a lightweight. Gore also seems to be kind of a Jeb character to me... uninspiring to the avg. joe.
 
MarceloFalcon said:
I was too young then, but certainly it didn't seem that absurd did it? He was Gov. of Texas at least, and not a clown, just a lightweight. Gore also seems to be kind of a Jeb character to me... uninspiring to the avg. joe.
Click to expand...

Part of the absurdity is that Bill Clinton's tenure is still fondly remembered for economic reasons, and a good economy is usually a good predictor of the election.
Which is why a bad economy (IMO) really increases the chances of Trump.
 
MarceloFalcon said:
I was too young then, but certainly it didn't seem that absurd did it? He was Gov. of Texas at least, and not a clown, just a lightweight. Gore also seems to be kind of a Jeb character to me... uninspiring to the avg. joe.
Click to expand...

Oh, he seemed a clown, alright. The way he came across - not least compared to his father, who wasn't exactly a favourite in my circles, but nevertheless a man to be taken seriously. Dubya wasn't a man to be taken seriously - and he never did anything to counter that impression either.

Reagan, who was also perceiced as a clown - a rodeo clown, one could say - was at least an actor...he at least managed to spit out a one-liner every now and then which - truly - went with the territory. Dubya was the idiot child of a depressing, conservative cnut, and a man who never did a thing to counter the rumour he was actually illiterate, or a bit slow. An absolute disgrace on all possible levels.

Trump would trump even that. He would actually be the American Dream in the shape of the real American Nightmare many of us have been having for years - not actually fulfilled by Dubya, who retained a vestige of respectability for all his barbarism.
 
Neutral said:
He and his supporters would of course say - what's stopping others from doing the same?
Click to expand...

Problem is though they and Media also are moaning when Rubio is doing the same.



Anyway issue here is not the media but the GOP voters legitamising it.
 
Neutral said:
This has been one of my real sore points and will potentially have a huge say in who wins or loses.

Voter suppression in the guise of preventing voter fraud (which is just about non existent) is a very real thing and the Republicans have been working on it actively for years and years. I am flabbergasted at how little work the Democrats have been doing on this issue - on the ground.

A lot of poor minorities simply do not have birth certificates or passports.
Click to expand...
It's the only way they're going to stay competitive in diverse states at the current rate. Are the Dems really not doing much to counter it?
berbatrick said:
Terrible national poll for Sanders - having closed to within the margin of error last week, he has just got a -17. Which were his numbers in Dec.
Don't know if it's the aftermath of the SC vote, but he's dead from here.
Click to expand...
I'm of the view that he never actually got that close and it was at worst +10 in Clinton's favour around the New Hampshire primary. The last result that particular poll gave was at the end of January, close to Bernie's peak level, and it was still at Clinton +14.

Back to GOP-misery:



This is not a party that's reuniting any time soon. (Second time I've seen someone say disqualifying - new attack?)
 
So says the guy who continues to belong to a Church that as recently as 1978, openly discriminated against blacks.
 
Ubik said:
I'm of the view that he never actually got that close and it was at worst +10 in Clinton's favour around the New Hampshire primary. The last result that particular poll gave was at the end of January, close to Bernie's peak level, and it was still at Clinton +14.
Click to expand...


Nah, there was a bunch of polls in late Feb - around the Nevada result- which showed him within the margin, including a +3. There were also polls by some smaller companies at that time (not counted in RCP) saying the same thing. Something definitely shifted. It could be Trump's ascent from possible to nailed-on that drove voters to her. It could be he didn't do enough to win over undecideds. It could siply be the poling companies changing their weighting strategies after seeing the poor youth turnout.

In that context:
the graph here is interesting.
 
Raoul said:
So says the guy who continues to belong to a Church that as recently as 1978, openly discriminated against blacks.
Click to expand...

1978 wasn't recent tbf and that's bit clutching at straws response tbh.

As relevant as Clinton support for Goldwater.
 
FromTheBench said:
1978 wasn't recent tbf and that's bit clutching at straws response tbh.

As relevant as Clinton support for Goldwater.
Click to expand...

Not at all. For starters, Romney is still part of the Mormon Church and has refused to repudiate it, so your analogy is limited at best.
 
berbatrick said:
Nah, there was a bunch of polls in late Feb - around the Nevada result- which showed him within the margin, including a +3. There were also polls by some smaller companies at that time (not counted in RCP) saying the same thing. Something definitely shifted. It could be Trump's ascent from possible to nailed-on that drove voters to her. It could be he didn't do enough to win over undecideds. It could siply be the poling companies changing their weighting strategies after seeing the poor youth turnout.

In that context:
the graph here is interesting.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm saying though, I don't think the ones that showed a tied race were accurate (for as many polls that showed it tied, as many showed a big gap). Polling nationally is tough to get right even in a high awareness general election, and the state polls from around the time suggested a decent Clinton lead rather than a tied race.
 
Raoul said:
Not at all. For starters, Romney is still part of the Mormon Church and has refused to repudiate it, so your analogy is limited at best.
Click to expand...
I'd hate to defend Romney, but it's not like the other churches covered themselves in glory when it comes to civil rights. And they're currently among the main opponents to gay rights and womens rights.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.