{"id":3372,"date":"2013-08-26T13:42:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T13:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=3372"},"modified":"2016-02-22T03:24:57","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T03:24:57","slug":"birther-issue-wont-go-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=3372","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Birther&#8217; issue won&#8217;t go away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Try as they will, my Republican friends cannot seem to shake themselves loose from the &#8220;birther&#8221; nonsense that dogged President Obama during his first term and disappeared the moment he was re-elected in November 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Why do they want to get rid of this issue? Because one of their own is facing some of the same questions that hounded President Obama.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Tribune is reporting that Canada native Ted Cruz, the junior U.S. Republican senator from Texas, is fielding questions about his own eligibility to run for president &#8212; were he to decide to make the race in 2016. Cruz has been staging meetings back home in Texas during the congressional recess.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz says &#8212; and his GOP faithful agree &#8212; that even though he isn&#8217;t a &#8220;natural born&#8221; U.S. citizen, he would qualify because his mother is an American. Thus, he is qualified automatically because of his parentage.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/08\/23\/cruzs-supporters-dont-question-eligibility\/\">http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/08\/23\/cruzs-supporters-dont-question-eligibility\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s good enough for those who want him to run.<\/p>\n<p>But given that political memories at times can be everlasting, it&#8217;s not necessarily good enough for those on the left who remember the torment their guy endured during his first presidential term.<\/p>\n<p>Let me add that there is an important difference between Barack Obama and Ted Cruz: Obama actually was born in the United States of America; Cruz was born north of our border. Obama produced a birth certificate that proved his place of birth, while Cruz also has produced a document that shows he was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father.<\/p>\n<p>Obama&#8217;s birth certificate hasn&#8217;t been accepted fully by every American with an interest in government. Some right-wing nut cases with loud voices (e.g., &#8220;The Donald&#8221; Trump) still question the document&#8217;s authenticity. No sense arguing with them about that.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I accept the notion that Cruz is eligible to run. I welcome his candidacy. I am on the verge of begging him to run for the presidency in &#8217;16. I don&#8217;t want him to become the 45th president of the United States, but he would be bring some serious sizzle to a campaign that&#8217;s already shaping up to be a barn-burner.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz would have to battle the lingering birther baloney. Maybe he can ask the 44th president for some tips on how to survive the onslaught.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Try as they will, my Republican friends cannot seem to shake themselves loose from the &#8220;birther&#8221; nonsense that dogged President Obama during his first term and disappeared the moment he was re-elected in November 2012. Why do they want to get rid of this issue? Because one of their own is facing some of the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=3372\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Birther&#8217; issue won&#8217;t go away<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[540,653,4537,4954],"class_list":["post-3372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-birther-controversy","tag-ted-cruz","tag-u-s-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13091,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions\/13091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}