Can Ted Cruz Serve as President

We all know that Senator Cruz is running for President.  We have now learned that he was born in Canada (not the United States) to an American mother and a Cuban father.  Not all that different from the current President except for one tiny difference, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii (the United States).  Clearly the Tea Party Senator is not a natural born citizen.  However this is not the most serious issue facing the Senator.  You see Canada like the US only requires that you be born in the country for citizenship, so he was sort of an anchor baby in Canada.  Now it starts to get complicated.  By virtue of an American mother he gained US citizenship, again the US is a little rare in this regard.  President Obama did not have dual citizenship after he turned 23 because he failed to renounce US citizenship in favor of Kenyan.  Canada on the other hand doesn't drop you unless you file a form with the government so Senator Cruz is still a Canadian citizen.  Now this brings up several interesting points.  First can someone of dual citizenship serve in the US Senate?  No one is really saying if this is ok, I believe that it create such a big conflict of interest (looking out for another country) that it shouldn't be allowed.  My guess is that the founders would have felt the same way because they didn't allow foreign nationals to vote.   Second, has he ever voted in a US election?  It is a felony to be a citizen of another country and vote in a US election, which then would disqualify the Senator from serving as President.  As a Republican who sees voter fraud around every corner I find it ironic that he would have voted in a US election which would have been fraudulent.  If he had any morals at all he would resign from the Senate immediately and submit to prosecution for voter fraud but being a Republican we know that won't happen. 

The President Caves in Again

The President caves again this time is spectacular fashion. The plan was to address a joint session of congress next Wednesday and the White House already had an agreement from the Speaker. When it was announced that the President would address a joint session, Rush Limbaugh objected because it would interfere with the Republican debate that was being carried on one cable network. This prompted Speaker Boehner to send a letter to the President citing a full schedule and vague security concerns. So, the President rescheduled to the opening night of the NFL (no conflict there) and in so doing he has shown the country that the Republicans are really in charge and he is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The Speaker has become the only speaker to ever deny a Presidential request to address Congress. You can spin this as a compromise but that is simply not true. The President really needs to come out and deliver a speech like FDR or Ike or Teddy Roosevelt to become relevant again.

The President Blows it on the Debt Limit

The President gave a press conference yesterday where he was getting close to being on track but in the end he failed again. As I see there are 2 choices in dealing with these Republicans (keep in mind that these guys voted to raise the debt limit many times but now they are not going raise it), first is he could just agree and let the country go into default and take the country back to 1929 when we had much less of a social safety net than we have today. Just maybe when there are people on the streets because they don't have anything we can finally have an adult discussion about how the economy should work. His other choice is to walk into congress with $300 billion in budget cuts. Where is going to get that? Shut down the wars and bring the troops home. Cut the military force by 50%. Redeploy the navy to US coastal ports. Cut the defense budget by about 50%. Cut funding for all new weapons systems. Force the Republicans to vote on that. The country will not be left defenseless. We can cut our military 50% and still have more military than most countries, especially the ones that we are likely to go to war with.

Tim Pawlenty What Happened?

Tim Pawlenty went from being dull to being crazy overnight. Gov. Pawlenty has introduced his economic plan and it makes the Ryan plan look reasonable. He would change Medicare immediately, he would eliminate capital gains taxes, he would lower the top tax rate to 25%, he would deregulate business more, and he would privatize all functions of government except the military. The theory is that if the wealthy just had more money they would finally create jobs. His plan would cost $7.8 trillion dollars over 10 years. This plan does nothing to increase demand for goods or spending which is what drives this economy. The rich cannot possibly spend enough of their money to keep the economy afloat. Until we get more money into the hands of more people this economy will stagnate.

President in Asia

I heard the other day that there are many concerned about how much this trip through Asia is costing the taxpayers.  My initial comment was that if this were President Bush no one would have said boo.  I was challenged about how the liberal media was always on Bush for spending money.  Really?  This was a President who was on vacation for more than 1 year out of his 8 years in office and many of those trips made use of Air Force 1.  Or how about flying to Iraq for Thanksgiving as a PR stunt.  Do you have any idea how much that cost?  Or how about landing a fighter on an aircraft carrier that had to be turned around?  No it is Obama's trip visiting critical allies in the "war on terror" (India).  India is a nuclear power, India is in a small scale war with Pakistan, and India is a critical trading partner, but yet this is a wasteful trip.  Every President in recent memory has taken such trips but only Obama is criticized for it.  This really shows where the oppenents of the President are at.  If they prefer an isolationist policy I'm all for it, but the critics are largely internationalists.

The President needs a History Lesson

In our dealings with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran I think that the President needs to study the Vietnam war a little bit.  In that conflict the people we were fighting spread to neighboring countries and we dutifully followed.  This is the same situation that we find ourselves in the Middle East.  By failing to establish a credible government in Afghanistan we have let our enemies continue an insurgency in Afghanistan and spread out into neighboring countries destabilizing them and creating bases of operation to attack us.  More troops is not going to do anything except expand the conflict.  What we need to do is create a more stable government and try to reduce the insurgency by making life better for the average person.  If that means abandoning our freind Karzai so be it.