Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA (Post 2461695)

Tell you the same thing I told my dad this morning: I can't say for sure where the SOB was born. Won't tell you it was Hawaii, Honduras, Honolulu or Havana. Can't say he's a citizen, can't say he isn't, I can only tell you that I simply don't know for sure. But a document he's had this long to have "produced" with the resources to do so convincingly doesn't change that. I'd also go to the window & look if he told me it were raining. That said, we're far enough along into his term that even proof of something nefarious wouldn't be resolved until his term was up, so the energy is better spent making sure we put the country out of his misery less than two years from now.

Originally Posted by JediKooter (Post 2461701)

So the FBI had no issues with his citizenship?.

Originally Posted by molson (Post 2461712)

Not to mention Hillary Clinton and John McCain. They were really the only ones with standing to challenging anything, and I'm sure both gave it more than a little peak (as I'm sure McCain's opponents have over the years, with his unusual birth circumstances)

Originally Posted by JediKooter (Post 2461714)

And I think it was Clinton that may have first brought it up. If it was actually true, she would have rode that through the primaries.

EDIT: Granted if it was true, Obama would have been disqualified from running.

Originally Posted by JPhillips (Post 2461728)

There is no legal definition for "natural born" and it's unlikely the Supreme Court would define it any more restrictive than child of a citizen.

Originally Posted by molson (Post 2461712)

Not to mention Hillary Clinton and John McCain. They were really the only ones with standing to challenging anything, and I'm sure both gave it more than a little peak (as I'm sure McCain's opponents have over the years, with his unusual birth circumstances)

Originally Posted by molson (Post 2461722)

I have no idea if there is a government mechanism that "checks" a presidential candidate's qualifications, so prior to Obama running, I don't think the idea of somebody hiding where he was born is so preposterous. People do it all the time, and there's really no legal distinction between a U.S. citizen born domestically or in another country, except when it comes to running for president. Once the scrutiny was there though, through an entire presidential election, and actual political opponents have nothing - it's time for reasonable people to move on.

Originally Posted by molson (Post 2461732)

It would just depend on the political makeup of the court at the time, it would all come down to a 9-person popular vote for president, like Bush v. Gore. There'd be 70 pages of legal fiction, but it would really just be "I vote for X for president". That's a "living constitution" for ya.

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA (Post 2461695)

Tell you the same thing I told my dad this morning: I can't say for sure where the SOB was born.

Originally Posted by sabotai (Post 2461764)

You can't say for sure where anyone was born, except maybe your son (assuming you were there). Does this mean you doubt your own citizenship? ;)

Originally Posted by JediKooter (Post 2461736)

I think this is nothing more than a fringe group of people that have suckered gullible and willfully ignorant people into believing this garbage.

Reasonable being the keyword right there. I mean, in my opinion, people that still argue this point, might as well be arguing that 2+2 = 9.

Originally Posted by molson (Post 2461642)

There was nothing about blame or fault. You continue to try to turn spin this around that way. I'm responding to your sentiment here, "it's his fault for ignoring nutjobs", and I'm just asking if that's really what he was doing - ignoring, or exploiting, and if there's anything wrong with exploiting.

Originally Posted by Ksyrup (Post 2461786)

This is where the connections between birthers and Tea Party and conservatives and the Republican Party make me uneasy (as a conservative myself)...

Here's what I consider to be a fairly typical discussion of this issue between a couple of us and one guy who's not really a birther (I don't believe), but clearly anti-Obama and ready and willing to argue the sky is green if Obama says it's blue:

That's where a lot of this comes from, IMO. The birth certificate thing is just the proxy (and legal argument) against Obama as cover for the fear that he's not "one of us" but "the enemy." As I recall, McCain had birth certificate questions and never released his, and I didn't see people jumping up and down about that during the campaign. But that's probably because as a conservative white old guy who served in the military, his patriotism, motives, and religious background were beyond question. And so no one cared.

Originally Posted by Buccaneer (Post 2461790)

JPhillips is a college professor, you are not going to get a straight answer.

Originally Posted by JPhillips (Post 2461805)

I'z in my ivoree towr indoctrinating yur kidz.

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan (Post 2461608)

Agreed. I guess I'm looking for more than politics out of our leaders. I'm fully aware that this is likely a futile hope on both sides of the aisle as it currently stands. :)

Originally Posted by Ksyrup (Post 2461818)

Originally Posted by JPhillips (Post 2461805)

I'z in my ivoree towr indoctrinating yur kidz.

Originally Posted by Libertarian Party (Post 2461846)

20 issues trump birth certificate circus

WASHINGTON - In the wake of the much-discussed release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate, Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle had this to say:

"Instead of wasting so much ink on this birther story, the press should be giving a lot more attention to the many real disasters of the Obama administration. The Libertarian Party recently released a list of '20 Obama problems, 20 Libertarian solutions.'

"Of course, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are only part of the problem equation. The Republicans deserve an equal share of the blame, for their unwillingness to cut military spending or entitlements, their addiction to government programs like farm subsidies, and their big-spending compromise bills of December 2010 and April 2011.

"I wonder if Obama and the Republicans might just be conspiring to keep this birther stuff alive, to distract everyone from all the real problems they're causing. The president might have been worried that the birther talk was about to die down.

"When you consider that we're involved in three foreign wars, our entitlement state is crumbling, we have record-level spending and deficits, unemployment is high, and inflation is growing, the president's birth certificate seems less significant somehow.

"We need to be more focused on the fact that massive debt is driving our government toward bankruptcy -- something Republican birther Donald Trump would know a lot about.

"Nearly two years ago, one of our junior staffers mocked this very issue:

Socialized healthcare is on the horizon. The DHS, NSA, TSA police state is expanding, the Drug War is still being pursued by an arrogant, ignorant government and Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan! Frankly we have got bigger problems to pursue than blogging endlessly about where the President was born.
"Hopefully Americans will worry less about long-form birth certificates, and more about thousand-page spending bills."

Originally Posted by Galaxy (Post 2461919)

So Trump is now playing up Obama's colleges?

Originally Posted by stevew (Post 2461978)

Ok. Now that we settled this birther mess, let's work on pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan. and maybe cut the defense budget down to a more manageable 400billion/year figure.

Originally Posted by stevew (Post 2462055)

Hopefully we can let Dusty Baker get ahold of Libya and Syria. He'll burn them out quickly.

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud (Post 2463413)

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan (Post 2463430)

Obama and Hollywood really need to avoid picking this fight. It's another error in judgment on Obama's part. Trump has repeatedly showed that he's willing to take a fight to someone in the public media and make it a blood bath. It sometimes ends up hurting Trump and sometimes ends up helping him, but he'll make it an ugly battle of words. Obama will have a tough time remaining above it all if he continues to engage in it. His best option is to stay clear of it until he's possibly forced to engage Trump in a presidential race.

Originally Posted by Dutch (Post 2463432)

Yeah, I wouldn't get upset about it. Being the speaker's target at an event like this just means your relevant to the speaker. That being said, I'm a little dissappointed that Obama finds Trump relevant. The Republicans are struggling to come up with respectable leadership these days.

Originally Posted by panerd (Post 2463433)

I would give Obama political points for that actually. If you frame the message as Trump and the birthers being relevant instead of Romney or Pawlenty or dare I say Paul and their message about the terrible job Obama has done than you have switched the discussion. Just like how Bush somehow turned people's questioning of the Iraq War into a referendum on whether Kerry faked getting shot in Vietnam.

Originally Posted by Dutch (Post 2463432)

Yeah, I wouldn't get upset about it. Being the speaker's target at an event like this just means your relevant to the speaker. That being said, I'm a little dissappointed that Obama finds Trump relevant. The Republicans are struggling to come up with respectable leadership these days.

Originally Posted by panerd (Post 2463431)

That was the White House correspondents dinner. Do a You Tube search and they have been having them for years. Obama and McCain went back and forth in fun Kerry and Bush did and Clinton did with the Gingrich group. I wouldn't read too much into it.

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan (Post 2463436)

All of those people were within the political establishment at that time. Trump has no relevance to politics (yet). It speaks quite a bit to Obama's (misplaced) belief that somehow Trump is relevant as Dutch rightly pointed out.

Originally Posted by SirFozzie (Post 2463438)

Except, you know, Trump is leading the polls for possible Republican nominees. No relevance there. Nope. No sir. Nosirreebob.