Donald Trump The Birther

[maiforpeace]

Yes, and he was a little stiff too.

Mai Lewinksy?

That's what the cream colored top was for...

[PsychoSerenity]

You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country.

Why though? Does it really matter?

[Coito ergo sum]

Yes. That's why it's the case in just about every country that you have to be from that country to be President. That way, someone from China or Russia can't be President of the US, and vice versa.

[PsychoSerenity]

But why would it matter if someone originally from China or Russia did become the President? They'd still have to be elected. Pretty much anyone can become Britain's PM - they just have to be a British or Commonwealth citizen - it doesn't make any difference where they're originally from.

[Coito ergo sum]

But why would it matter if someone originally from China or Russia did become the President? They'd still have to be elected. Pretty much anyone can become Britain's PM - they just have to be a British or Commonwealth citizen - it doesn't make any difference where they're originally from.

Being PM is not the same as being President. Presidents are directly elected by the vicissitudes and fickleness of the people, and one good PR campaign could see a person with loyalty to a country other than the US get control of the most powerful military on the planet.

A person can be a US Congressman without being natural born citizen - that's equivalent to being a member of parliament. The MP in your system is a member of parliament, and only those folks in his district get to vote for or against him. He's elected MP by the Parliament members (like our Congress).

In Parliament, the PM can be recalled quickly by the Parliament. In the US, the Prez can't be voted out by Congress - he would have to be impeached, which is very difficult. So, there isn't as much of a way to stop a bad situation, if one arises.

[pcCoder]

I don't know if he was or was not born in the US. I bet, though, that it would not matter if he personally mailed copies of his birth certificate to every US citizen. There will always be those that say it is fake even if it is not. It seems that there is hardly any real way to prove that anyone is born somewhere short of actually being there and then being with that person their entire life to make sure it is the same person as that newborn baby. Since it is possible for birth certificate, witnesses, etc, to be forged, those who think one way or the other with ideological zeal will always do so no matter the truth.

[Coito ergo sum]

Apparently, President Obama released his "long firm" birth certificate.

Here is the back: http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/bir ... g-form.pdf (yeah yeah yeah - we know we know - faux news - liars - blah blah blah - it's just a copy of the image of the birth certificate, it's the same .pdf you'll get at MSNBC and every other news site, so relax)

I found an error, though. His mother was born on November 29, 1942, and was 19 in August, 1961 when Obama was born. The birth certificate lists her as 18 years old. His mother's name is Stanley, by the way. LOL.

I'm a little curious about the shading on the left side of the text box in the middle of .pdf image. It looks like something was photocopied out of a book onto the greenish paper. There is, nevertheless, a State of Hawaii certificate of authenticity on it.

It seems the burden now shifts firmly back to the "birthers" to come up with something reasonable, or stop their nonsense. I can't see what else Obama can bring forward. At this point, the birthers would need to allege criminal complicity by the State of Hawaii. They'll need some evidence for that, methinks.

"I'm taking great credit and you have to ask the president, 'why didn't he do this a long time ago? Why didn't he do it a long time ago?' When Hillary Clinton was asking, when everybody was asking, why didn't he do it? It's shocking. It's shocking," Donald Trump said at a press conference this morning on President Obama's birth certificate.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... icate.html

[Ian]

Trump's just reading the polls and responding to the fact that a great number of mouth-breathing variety Republicans (51% last I heard) think Obama's not a citizen or at least think it's a real possibility. It's the sort of crazy story that gets Trump a wave of publicity just as he needs to convince people that he really is a candidate. A few months from now, he'll be babbling about something else, and by then he'll have more people taking note of what he says, just because it'll be something that Candidate Trump is saying.

But Trump won't last into the primaries. Just wait until people find out what a flip-flopper he is. He's on record as saying he's pro-choice, thinks universal health care is a necessity, and considers Obama intelligent and impressive. Apparently, he's had a change of heart about all this stuff in recent months. :eyeroll:
Not to mention what the family-values crowd is going to think about his marital history.
His candidacy is nothing but a spoiler. To hell with what the polls say at the moment - he will not be the GOP nominee.

[Coito ergo sum]

My theory on Trump is that if he runs he guarantees Obama's reelection.

[AshtonBlack]

My theory on Trump is that if he runs he guarantees Obama's reelection.

Yep!

[Warren Dew]

Snopes has this copy:



So, what's the birther beef with this? Do they claim it's not a true copy? Snopes has a good debunking of the birther arguments: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/bi ... ficate.asp

The birthers don't believe the copy because it's not a photocopy, it's a laser printout of an electronic record. Note that "rev 11/01" and "LASER" in the lower left hand corner. Apparently Hawaii has computerized all their birth records and no longer keeps the paper originals around, and the birthers theorize that Obama got someone to modify the electronic records. It's a classic conspiracy theory, because it can't be disproved - unless Hawaii actually does have the paper copies around in some forgotten basement or something.

[Ian]

"I'm taking great credit and you have to ask the president, 'why didn't he do this a long time ago? Why didn't he do it a long time ago?' When Hillary Clinton was asking, when everybody was asking, why didn't he do it? It's shocking. It's shocking," Donald Trump said at a press conference this morning on President Obama's birth certificate.

Heck, why would Obama want to squelch the rumors? None of the people who think they're credible are going to vote for him anyway. And the more noise they make, the dumber they look to everyone else, and by association the more they smear the entire GOP.

Part of me thinks Trump is actually a Democrat who'se just muckraking for the sake of raking muck onto the GOP by being associated with this crap. That sounds like a fun conspiracy theory. Then again, with the likes of Bachmann and quite a few others, the GOP has no shortage of thickasfuckist candidates who turn off moderates and independents.

[Robert_S]

I saw the interview this morning. Let's see what he comes up with in his investigation.

What I don't understand is why doesn't Obama just publish the damn thing for everyone to see with someone from City Hall confirming it's the real thing?

As long as there are birthers, the Republican candidates have the problem of weather or not to pander to them. If they do, they might be more likely to win a primary race but lose in a general race.

Champaign, Illinois (right next to Urbana) had a popular mayor until he came out as a birther. He lost by a landslide last election.

Edit: Ian beat me to it.

[maiforpeace]

My theory on Trump is that if he runs he guarantees Obama's reelection.

Trump for President!!!!

[kiki5711]

My theory on Trump is that if he runs he guarantees Obama's reelection.

Could that be Trump's goal for making a fool of himself? I can't think of any other reason?