Why place any weight on Trump's wiretap claim? He was one of the loudest voices in the "birther" movement.
That he's now president doesn't mean his self-serving crackpot conspiracy theories suddenly deserve credit.
That he's now president doesn't mean his self-serving crackpot conspiracy theories suddenly deserve credit.
Think about it. Your rebuttal is akin to someone asserting that Trump specifically e-mailed Russian political contacts (on no evidence), and me claiming validation of that assertion when it turns out that yes, an e-mail address in Russia was one of 50 million to receive spam mail for Trump's shitty steaks. But it would be ridiculous for me to claim such a walk-back – even though what I just wrote actually happened [1] – because words have meaning.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/th...
Regarding Trump's claim that Trump Tower(?) was tapped, I find it very suspicious that Obama's reaction was a lawyered non-denial-denial relayed by an intermediary. Whenever people are accused of crimes and they do anything other than simply deny it, you should be somewhat suspicious. When they use weasel words or clever phrasing, be suspicious. I predicted Theranos' issues something like 8 months in advance due to this; Elizabeth Holmes never simply said "these reports are wrong because our technology works" (because she knew she would be open to lawsuits after the fact if she said as much). Just my 2 cents; ofcourse nobody knows for sure at this point.
Then you move on to discuss your feeling that Obama wiretapped Trump, based only on the fact that Trump said it and you find the "style" of Obama's denial unconvincing. It doesn't seem to matter one bit that Trump himself offered zero evidence of this claim and is even trying to walk it back.
The short is that you seem to believe whatever fits your personal narrative. Worse, you try to convince others to blindly believe divisive, destructive, nonsensical conspiracy theories without a scintilla of proof.
Saying "we don't know for sure" is dissembling nonsense that can be stated of any claim. It's a transparent device for sowing disinformation without challenge. One could just as easily say, "I think you're a rapist. Of course, I don't know for sure."
Unchecked disinformation wreaks havoc on democracy. This nonsense is literally destroying our country.
This needs to repeated more!
Thank you internet stranger, your words have lifted my spirits today.
It is that at times. At other times, it is simply something people say when they suspect something but do not know it for sure.
As you can see, this covers the corner case you've identified.
Interestingly, the term citizen wasn't defined until the 14th amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside"
No, he wasn't an immigrant of any sort. He was a native born citizen of one of the states that formed the United States, and one of the leaders of the movement by which they became the United States.
It does not where he was born. His mother is a US Citizen, and that makes him a US citizen.
There is a dispute whether citizenship-by-maternityy is "natural born" under the Constitution (there's an argument that that "natural born" is equivalent to the birthright guarantee of the 14th Amendment, and no decisive case law.)
Would there be any dispute if my wife gave birth while we were on vacation in France?
I suspect that those who really hold to that definition are primarily concerned about the amount of melanin in his skin.