Is he or isn't he?
Ted Cruz is the junior Senator from Texas, a Republican, Hispanic and his name is being tossed about as a potential candidate for the 2016 presidential race. But is he eligible to serve as President? This is a question that our legal system has never been forced to address before.
Cruz was born in Canada, where his parents were working in the oil industry at the time. His father emigrated from Cuba but didn't become a citizen until 2005. His mother was born in Delaware and since she was a U.S. citizen when Senator Cruz was born, he became a citizen automatically under the federal statute governing such things. But that statute and the Constitution don't fully agree.
This is what the Constitution says on the matter: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
The general consensus is that the courts would rule that someone who is legally a citizen at the time of their birth, no matter where that birth takes place, would qualify. Cruz was born a citizen, he did not go through any naturalization process.
I think he qualifies. I also think he's unelectable in a general election and will only cause problems for whoever the ultimate nominee of the Republican Party is, in 2016. Donald Trump is already making noises questioning the eligibility of Cruz, as well as saying he will fund his own campaign if necessary. Then again Trump says a lot of stuff that's just hot air he is releasing to prevent it from escaping out of his bald spot. Otherwise his toupee might be knocked askew.
* * *
So the HuffPo publishes a piece that claims a study by an undergraduate student shows that McDonald's could cover the cost of doubling ALL salaries at McDonald's, from minimum wage workers to the CEO by raising the price of a Big Mac by 68 cents. That article was quickly and thoroughly debunked by the Columbia Journalism Review and the HuffPo published a retraction.
There's also a letter floating around signed by a bunch of economists that claims half of the cost of raising the minimum salary at McDonald's to $10.50 would be covered by raising the price of a Big Mac from $4.00 to $4.05. I would like to see if their claim can be debunked but I am unable to try. That's because there are no footnotes, no attachments, nothing to support the claims in their letter. They say that businesses that employ a disproportionate share of minimum wage workers will likely see only a 2.7% in overall business costs.
Now I'm not saying it can't be done. Costco pays its employees an average salary of $20 per hour and they're profitable. I just can't accept this letter or the legislation it was written in support of without something proving at least a modicum of validity to the claims it makes.
* * *
I mentioned in an earlier entry that August 8th was the 36th anniversary of the day I went off to Air Force Basic Training. In my mind it is still one of the longest, most difficult days of my life. I showed up seven pounds over the maximum allowable weight (I thought I'd mentioned this in the blog before but I couldn't find it, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself). I was given three choices. Go home and forget about the Air Force. Go home, lose the seven pounds and then come back a few days later; but I'd lose the G.I. Bill (which was my reason for enlisting). Or lose seven pounds that day and once I had weighed in, they'd accept me and put me on the plane. I'd probably be overweight on arrival in Texas when I was processing in, but then they'd just put me into their "fat person" program.
My father was there with me and he said choice three was my only choice (the other two involved returning home and since I lived with him, he removed those two other options by saying he'd kick me out). So I ran. Around the big block the enlistment place was on in those days. He sat there as I passed every ten minutes or so. Sometimes I'd vary and go an extra block in a direction at random.
Eventually I'd sweated out enough weight. I was put on a plane and the rest is history. Am I glad my father insisted I do that? Yes. Was it a major pain in the ass to do? Oh yeah!
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Even if Gwynneth Paltrow hates zucchini, who cares?
Brangelina? Bennifer? No one ever needed a cutesy nickname for Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward or Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. Did the people who used to come up with things like ABSCAM and COINTELPRO need work?
How many guys really had their testicles chomped on by a pacu (the fish that's been found near Sweden with a reputation for clamping down on the balls of naked guys they come across in the water)? Still, if you're male and you were in Sweden, and you normally swam naked, would this make you put on your trunks?
I've heard nothing about a boycott of Jamaica by those who disapprove of the nation's status as the nation most hostile to the LGBT community. A 16 year old boy was beaten to death at a party after the partygoers learned he was a man in a dress, not a woman.
Kevin Federline got married in Las Vegas. In other news that's just as exciting, the sun rose yet again this morning.
Is anyone else as sick of news articles trying to guide people away from college majors that yield little prospect of gainful employment at a decent wage? Every day it seems, there's a new article on this topic.
Will Detroit hold a fire sale to try to raise money to pay its $18 billion in debt? They may sell the entire airport (who would want it)??
You probably knew that Amber Alerts were named for Amber Hagerman, a 9 year old who was kidnapped and murdered in Texas in 1996. But "officially", the word Amber in Amber Alerts is a backronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response? Heck, I didn't know what a backronym was.
Merriam-Webster defines a sandal as "a shoe consisting of a sole strapped to a foot." So why the heck isn't "strappy sandals" considered redundant since all sandals have straps, by definition?
The concept of a rodeo clown performing while wearing a President Obama facemask turned out to be a lot of bull in the eyes of the audience.
Kris Jenner talked about how Kim Kardashian "works so hard at her job." What job? All she does is work at exploiting the fame she obtained by doing a sex video. That's not a job. It requires no real skills. Don't even get me started on how they exploit their sycophantic fan base.
This Date in History:
30 BC – Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
1121 – Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
1480 – Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam; they are later honored in the Church.
1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
1779 – The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1793 – The Rhône and Loire départments are created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attempt to suppress the Belgian Revolution.
1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1877 – Asaph Hall discovers the Mars moon Deimos.
1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1898 – An Armistice ends the Spanish–American War.
1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
1914 – World War I: the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
1914 – World War I: the Battle of Haelen a.k.a. (Battle of the Silver Helmets) last cavalry style attack from the German army on the city of Halen, Belgium.
1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
1948 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is struck from the naval record.
1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre—American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.
1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
1953 – Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
1953 – The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
1958 – Art Kane photographs 57 notable jazz musicians in the black and white group portrait "A Great Day in Harlem" in front of a Brownstone in New York City.
1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
1964 – Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom.
1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1977 – The 1977 riots in Sri Lanka, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
1978 – The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is signed.
1980 – The Montevideo Treaty, establishing the Latin American Integration Association, is signed.
1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1982 – Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, was discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1993 – Pope John Paul II starts his 8th annual World Youth Day in Denver's Mile High Stadium.
1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
George IV of the UK
"Diamond" Jim Brady (the autopsy of his corpse revealed a stomach six times normal size)
Klara Hitler (if only she'd been infertile)
Christy Mathewson (pitched all of his games in the majors for one team, except one game and garnered 373 wins)
Cecil B. DeMille (are you ready for your close-up?)
Alfred Lunt
Jane Wyatt
Cantinflas
Samuel Fuller
Dale Bumpers
Porter Wagoner
Buck Owens
George Soros
Parnelli Jones
Mike Antonovich
Skip Caray
George Hamilton
Mark Knopfler
Willie Horton
Pat Metheny
Anthony Swofford
Rebecca Gayheart
Pete Sampras
Casey Affleck
Leah Pipes
Movie quotes today come from 1974's "Earthquake":
Remy Royce-Graff: [shouting] God damn it!
Stewart Graff: Your last words to me last night; your first words this morning. Ever thought about expanding your vocabulary?
#2
Remy Royce-Graff: If it wasn't 7:30 in the morning, I'd have a drink.
Stewart Graff: I didn't know you were a clock watcher.
Remy Royce-Graff: What did you say?
Stewart Graff: [quietly] I said I didn't know you were a clock watcher.
Remy Royce-Graff: Don't you lower your voice to me!
#3
Denise: I'm not a nympho, I'm not Mary Poppins either but I'm not a nympho.
#4
Mayor Lewis: The governor and I aren't even in the same party. If this turns out to be a false alarm, he'll make me out to be the biggest fool west of the Mississippi.
Dr. Stockle: Second biggest. I'll top the list.
Cruz was born in Canada, where his parents were working in the oil industry at the time. His father emigrated from Cuba but didn't become a citizen until 2005. His mother was born in Delaware and since she was a U.S. citizen when Senator Cruz was born, he became a citizen automatically under the federal statute governing such things. But that statute and the Constitution don't fully agree.
This is what the Constitution says on the matter: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
The general consensus is that the courts would rule that someone who is legally a citizen at the time of their birth, no matter where that birth takes place, would qualify. Cruz was born a citizen, he did not go through any naturalization process.
I think he qualifies. I also think he's unelectable in a general election and will only cause problems for whoever the ultimate nominee of the Republican Party is, in 2016. Donald Trump is already making noises questioning the eligibility of Cruz, as well as saying he will fund his own campaign if necessary. Then again Trump says a lot of stuff that's just hot air he is releasing to prevent it from escaping out of his bald spot. Otherwise his toupee might be knocked askew.
* * *
So the HuffPo publishes a piece that claims a study by an undergraduate student shows that McDonald's could cover the cost of doubling ALL salaries at McDonald's, from minimum wage workers to the CEO by raising the price of a Big Mac by 68 cents. That article was quickly and thoroughly debunked by the Columbia Journalism Review and the HuffPo published a retraction.
There's also a letter floating around signed by a bunch of economists that claims half of the cost of raising the minimum salary at McDonald's to $10.50 would be covered by raising the price of a Big Mac from $4.00 to $4.05. I would like to see if their claim can be debunked but I am unable to try. That's because there are no footnotes, no attachments, nothing to support the claims in their letter. They say that businesses that employ a disproportionate share of minimum wage workers will likely see only a 2.7% in overall business costs.
Now I'm not saying it can't be done. Costco pays its employees an average salary of $20 per hour and they're profitable. I just can't accept this letter or the legislation it was written in support of without something proving at least a modicum of validity to the claims it makes.
* * *
I mentioned in an earlier entry that August 8th was the 36th anniversary of the day I went off to Air Force Basic Training. In my mind it is still one of the longest, most difficult days of my life. I showed up seven pounds over the maximum allowable weight (I thought I'd mentioned this in the blog before but I couldn't find it, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself). I was given three choices. Go home and forget about the Air Force. Go home, lose the seven pounds and then come back a few days later; but I'd lose the G.I. Bill (which was my reason for enlisting). Or lose seven pounds that day and once I had weighed in, they'd accept me and put me on the plane. I'd probably be overweight on arrival in Texas when I was processing in, but then they'd just put me into their "fat person" program.
My father was there with me and he said choice three was my only choice (the other two involved returning home and since I lived with him, he removed those two other options by saying he'd kick me out). So I ran. Around the big block the enlistment place was on in those days. He sat there as I passed every ten minutes or so. Sometimes I'd vary and go an extra block in a direction at random.
Eventually I'd sweated out enough weight. I was put on a plane and the rest is history. Am I glad my father insisted I do that? Yes. Was it a major pain in the ass to do? Oh yeah!
* * *
Random Ponderings:
Even if Gwynneth Paltrow hates zucchini, who cares?
Brangelina? Bennifer? No one ever needed a cutesy nickname for Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward or Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. Did the people who used to come up with things like ABSCAM and COINTELPRO need work?
How many guys really had their testicles chomped on by a pacu (the fish that's been found near Sweden with a reputation for clamping down on the balls of naked guys they come across in the water)? Still, if you're male and you were in Sweden, and you normally swam naked, would this make you put on your trunks?
I've heard nothing about a boycott of Jamaica by those who disapprove of the nation's status as the nation most hostile to the LGBT community. A 16 year old boy was beaten to death at a party after the partygoers learned he was a man in a dress, not a woman.
Kevin Federline got married in Las Vegas. In other news that's just as exciting, the sun rose yet again this morning.
Is anyone else as sick of news articles trying to guide people away from college majors that yield little prospect of gainful employment at a decent wage? Every day it seems, there's a new article on this topic.
Will Detroit hold a fire sale to try to raise money to pay its $18 billion in debt? They may sell the entire airport (who would want it)??
You probably knew that Amber Alerts were named for Amber Hagerman, a 9 year old who was kidnapped and murdered in Texas in 1996. But "officially", the word Amber in Amber Alerts is a backronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response? Heck, I didn't know what a backronym was.
Merriam-Webster defines a sandal as "a shoe consisting of a sole strapped to a foot." So why the heck isn't "strappy sandals" considered redundant since all sandals have straps, by definition?
The concept of a rodeo clown performing while wearing a President Obama facemask turned out to be a lot of bull in the eyes of the audience.
Kris Jenner talked about how Kim Kardashian "works so hard at her job." What job? All she does is work at exploiting the fame she obtained by doing a sex video. That's not a job. It requires no real skills. Don't even get me started on how they exploit their sycophantic fan base.
This Date in History:
30 BC – Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.
1099 – First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeat Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.
1121 – Battle of Didgori: the Georgian army under King David IV wins a decisive victory over the famous Seljuk commander Ilghazi.
1164 – Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeats the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.
1323 – Signature of the Treaty of Nöteborg between Sweden and Novgorod (Russia), that regulates the border between the two countries for the first time.
1480 – Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam; they are later honored in the Church.
1499 – First engagement of the Battle of Zonchio between Venetian and Ottoman fleets.
1624 – The president of Louis XIII of France's royal council is arrested, leaving Cardinal Richelieu in the role of the King's principal minister.
1676 – Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet, the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
1687 – Battle of Mohács: Charles of Lorraine defeats the Ottoman Empire.
1779 – The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1793 – The Rhône and Loire départments are created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire is split into two.
1806 – Santiago de Liniers, 1st Count of Buenos Aires re-takes the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina after the first British invasion.
1831 – French intervention forces William I of the Netherlands to abandon his attempt to suppress the Belgian Revolution.
1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1877 – Asaph Hall discovers the Mars moon Deimos.
1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1898 – An Armistice ends the Spanish–American War.
1898 – The Hawaiian flag is lowered from ʻIolani Palace in an elaborate annexation ceremony and replaced with the flag of the United States to signify the transfer of sovereignty from the Republic of Hawaii to the United States.
1914 – World War I: the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
1914 – World War I: the Battle of Haelen a.k.a. (Battle of the Silver Helmets) last cavalry style attack from the German army on the city of Halen, Belgium.
1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.
1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions.
1944 – Alençon is liberated by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, the first city in France to be liberated from the Nazis by French forces.
1948 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is struck from the naval record.
1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre—American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.
1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
1953 – Nuclear weapons testing: the Soviet atomic bomb project continues with the detonation of Joe 4, the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon.
1953 – The islands of Zakynthos and Kefalonia in Greece are severely damaged by an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale.
1958 – Art Kane photographs 57 notable jazz musicians in the black and white group portrait "A Great Day in Harlem" in front of a Brownstone in New York City.
1960 – Echo 1A, NASA's first successful communications satellite, is launched.
1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.
1964 – Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers, escapes from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom.
1969 – Violence erupts after the Apprentice Boys of Derry march in Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom resulting in a three-day communal riot known as the Battle of the Bogside.
1976 – Between 1,000 and 3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War
1977 – The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise.
1977 – The 1977 riots in Sri Lanka, targeting the minority Sri Lankan Tamil people, begin, less than a month after the United National Party came to power. Over 300 Tamils are killed.
1978 – The Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Japan and the People's Republic of China is signed.
1980 – The Montevideo Treaty, establishing the Latin American Integration Association, is signed.
1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1982 – Mexico announces it is unable to pay its enormous external debt, marking the beginning of a debt crisis that spreads to all of Latin America and the Third World.
1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520, to become the worst single-plane air disaster.
1990 – Sue, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found to date, was discovered by Sue Hendrickson in South Dakota.
1992 – Canada, Mexico and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1993 – Pope John Paul II starts his 8th annual World Youth Day in Denver's Mile High Stadium.
1994 – Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
2000 – The Oscar class submarine K-141 Kursk of the Russian Navy explodes and sinks in the Barents Sea during a military exercise.
Famous Folk Born On This Date:
George IV of the UK
"Diamond" Jim Brady (the autopsy of his corpse revealed a stomach six times normal size)
Klara Hitler (if only she'd been infertile)
Christy Mathewson (pitched all of his games in the majors for one team, except one game and garnered 373 wins)
Cecil B. DeMille (are you ready for your close-up?)
Alfred Lunt
Jane Wyatt
Cantinflas
Samuel Fuller
Dale Bumpers
Porter Wagoner
Buck Owens
George Soros
Parnelli Jones
Mike Antonovich
Skip Caray
George Hamilton
Mark Knopfler
Willie Horton
Pat Metheny
Anthony Swofford
Rebecca Gayheart
Pete Sampras
Casey Affleck
Leah Pipes
Movie quotes today come from 1974's "Earthquake":
Remy Royce-Graff: [shouting] God damn it!
Stewart Graff: Your last words to me last night; your first words this morning. Ever thought about expanding your vocabulary?
#2
Remy Royce-Graff: If it wasn't 7:30 in the morning, I'd have a drink.
Stewart Graff: I didn't know you were a clock watcher.
Remy Royce-Graff: What did you say?
Stewart Graff: [quietly] I said I didn't know you were a clock watcher.
Remy Royce-Graff: Don't you lower your voice to me!
#3
Denise: I'm not a nympho, I'm not Mary Poppins either but I'm not a nympho.
#4
Mayor Lewis: The governor and I aren't even in the same party. If this turns out to be a false alarm, he'll make me out to be the biggest fool west of the Mississippi.
Dr. Stockle: Second biggest. I'll top the list.
posted by me at 7:18 AM
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