Politico Drops Race Card on Donald Trump

AspenValley wrote: Just wondering, do you happen to have an original copy of the Ten Commandments handy? If you refuse to produce them, how do you expect anyone to believe in them?

Thank you for providing a very good example of why the belief that Obama was born at a hospital in Hawaii is precisely that - a belief. Absent personal knowledge of the event, one must choose either to believe or to question. There are no hospital records that have been released which show that Ann Dunham-Obama was admitted to either of the hospitals that Obama II has been said to have been born in. There is no indication of who the physician was that delivered him, or whose name appears as a witness to the event. Thus the belief that he was born at either Queens or Kapi'olani, but no documents released which support that belief. The document released is devoid of this information as well. The released document isn't even a copy of the original, it is a computer generated printout. There are no images of the signatures that would have been affixed to the original document, no images of the stamps that would have been affixed to the original document when it was filed with the state. It is a computer generated document printed on readily available safety paper and affixed with an embossed seal, a copy of which sits on numerous desks throughout the state offices. Have any of you seen the receipt from the office which generated the document which would have been kept to support the expenditure by the campaign or by Obama himself?

A couple of Hawaii officials have stated information the document is purported to contain, but one is still either choosing to believe what they say, or to question what they have said. It is not a point of fact, it is a matter of belief. There were people at Fatima who said they saw the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1917. You either believe what they said or you don't, but whether the 3 children did or did not see what they claim to have seen remains a statement of faith, not fact - as does whether or not one believes what the governor of Hawaii has said relevant to seeing the original Obama document in the Hawaii state archives.

PrintSmith wrote:

AspenValley wrote: Just wondering, do you happen to have an original copy of the Ten Commandments handy? If you refuse to produce them, how do you expect anyone to believe in them?

Thank you for providing a very good example of why the belief that Obama was born at a hospital in Hawaii is precisely that - a belief. Absent personal knowledge of the event, one must choose either to believe or to question. .

I don't argue in the least that it is a belief. But I simply haven't seen sufficient cause to seriously question his birth. We all have to decide what we are going to waste our mind space on, and this just doesn't rise to the level of the national emergency you seem to think it is. Why not just get "rid" of this President you don't like in the standard way, by coming up with, and working for the election of a viable alternative candidate?

For what it's worth, a lot of people believed and still do believe there were serious legal problems with the way G.W. Bush got "elected". Yet all but a very few refused to rabidly cling to the notion, discarding all common sense and rationality in trying to "prove" he wasn't the legitimate President.

They just bided their time and eventually, G.W. and his bankrupt policies ended up costing McCain and the Republican party the next election. If you're so certain Obama is the worst thing to happen to America since Communism, why not bide your time and trust in the legitimate electoral process?

I agree. Why even talk about it. The man has a track record. Besides, would you really want slow Joe in the job.

neptunechimney wrote: Besides, would you really want slow Joe in the job.

Yeah, there's that, isn't there?

I do sometimes wonder if the reason people didn't go more fervently after certain election regularities concerning GW was the thought of Dick Cheney with his finger on the nuclear trigger. Not that it wasn't anyway....

Kate wrote: Fact - Obama's birth certificate has been released, authenticated with a seal.

Fact - It is not his birth certificate that has been released, it is a computer generated printout with the imprint of a seal which multiple copies exist and copies can be ordered.

Kate wrote: Fact - Obama was a student at Occidental College in California from 1979-1981.

Fact - His status while attending remains unknown due to the suppression of his application to that institution. Was he accepted as an in-state student, an out of state student or an exchange student?

Kate wrote: Fact - Obama transferred from Occidental to Cloumbia in 1981 and graduated in 1983.

See above.

Kate wrote: Fact - Obama graduated from Harvard Law school in 1991.

See above.

Kate wrote: Fact - Most Presidential candidates do not release their school records.

True if most includes all 44 presidents, False if talking about recent ones. Clinton and Bush 43 college records have been released.

Kate wrote: Fact - Most Presidential candidates do not release their medical records.

McCain released over 1500 pages of medical records in 1999. Bush 43, Gore, Kerry - all have released medical records. While perhaps true that most in the past have not released medical records, most since Reagan have done so.

Kate wrote: Your insinuations that he is hiding something are baseless. You have obviously made up your mind on this issues, like Outdoor338, and are unwilling to evaluate the evidence that is presented to you.

That something is being hidden is not an insinuation Kate, it is a matter of fact. Whether that something is relevant or irrelevant is a matter of speculation, or perhaps more properly, belief, at this point, but it is a very hard premise to defend that these records are not being hidden. When you hide something you are putting it out of sight, obscuring it, concealing it. That exactly describes what Obama is doing with his records.

poubelle wrote: His mother after all was a US citizen, no?

Indeed she was, but his father was not. No one has yet commented on this post of mine from earlier in the thread, perhaps you would like to discuss it?

PrintSmith wrote: What did those who penned the words mean by that language and does the child of a non-citizen, even if born here, rise to the level that those words encompass?

In his 1758 book entitled "The Laws of Nations" (recognize that phrase from somewhere?) Vattel, whose influence upon the authors of the Constitution is widely known (it was the book that Washington had borrowed from a library in 1789 and never returned), had this to say on the subject:

I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.

Is this what was meant by "natural born citizen", and does the 14th Amendment change that in any way?

PrintSmith wrote: When you hide something you are putting it out of sight, obscuring it, concealing it. That exactly describes what Obama is doing with his records.

Kind of like G.W. did with large parts of his history, including incidents associated with substance abuse and more seriously, questions about his military service?

Understand, I am not trying to dredge up a "well he did it" kind of circular argument here. My point is that there is very little unique in a President whose past history can't be 100% documented to everyone's satisifaction.

And I'll also point out that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. How nutty and partisan and over-the-top did those that refused to let go of questions about G.W.s past start to sound after a while? They had their chance to convince the majority there was something there that rose to the level of questioning his fitness to serve as President. They had their chance and they failed at it.

So have the Birthers, whether you want to admit it or not. Only a minority of people think there is anything to this, even within the Republican party itself. You're a smart guy, PS, surely you can see that all you have to gain by continuing on this course is to look increasingly nutty and obsessed?

In some ways, I admit, I almost enjoy watching it because I think it is causing serious credibility issues to far-right activists and candidates. On the other, I'm concerned because if it gets much crazier and more intense, it may threaten to destroy the GOP altogether. And I don't think that would be a good thing for our country. I may think the Republican party has gotten way off the tracks in recent years, but that doesn't mean I think it is totally hopeless.

What I will admit AV is that every person who decides against voting for Obama, for whatever reason they choose, reduces the likelihood of his being the executive of the nation for another 4 years.

My personal opinion is that Obama was likely born in Hawaii but chose to identify himself as a citizen of another nation as an adult and obtained a passport as a citizen of another nation that he traveled under as an adult. He did so in an effort to game the system, never thinking that he might one day decide that he wanted to be the executive of the United States.

It is also my personal opinion that only someone who was born to parents who are both citizens of this nation qualify as "natural born" within the meaning contained within the Constitution. My opinion is that the anchor children of illegal aliens don't meet that standard. My opinion is that the child of a non-citizen fails to meet that standard as well. I might grant that under the current, though flawed, and common, though not established, interpretation of the 14th Amendment that these may be viewed as citizens, but that they fall short of the intention expressed in the Constitution to qualify for the office of President of the United States.

Thamk you Aspenvalley. Those of us who are true conservatives resent the hijacking of our party by the fringe. Instead of fiscal sanity this group decided that "Deficits don't matter" and proceeded to whip out the national credit card and spend like there was no tomorrow. They decided that wRs should be fought for ideology instead of national defense and that playing Santa Claus was great fun. In short they started acting like Democrats. Where are those of us that believe in fiscal responsibility supposed to go? There is no party for us. Just the clean up afterwards. Meanwhile they destroy our party with this kind of inane argument that taints all of us on the right.

OT

PrintSmith wrote: What I will admit AV is that every person who decides against voting for Obama, for whatever reason they choose, reduces the likelihood of his being the executive of the nation for another 4 years.

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" If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you're not a racist, you'll have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you're not an idiot. "
~ unknown.