You Can't Possibly Meme That! (IV)

Is it a campaign, or a fundraiser, or a book tour.  Does it know?

And no, I don't think Cruz needed to apologize for liberating a few Carson supporters.  If you are dumb enough to believe your guy dropped out without official word from his campaign then you probably shouldn't be voting anyway.  And if you think your guy would drop out without giving official word to his supporters then you clearly picked the wrong guy. 

You Can't Possibly Meme That! (III) ... more Bern

Some more Bern... 

You Can't Possibly Meme That! (II)

Feel the Bern?

Join the 80 to 100 million people who have.

Natural Born Citizen

There has been some minor controversy regarding whether or not Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen.  Objections to his natural born status center around his father being Cuban and Cruz himself being born in Canada.  That Cruz's mother was a U.S. citizen is thought insufficient to overcome these objections.  At first consideration these objections seem to carry significant weight.  First, Cruz was not born on U.S. soil and thus does not meet the traditional common law definition of natural born.  Second, his connection to the U.S. is matrilineal rather than patrilineal which again fails to meet the requirements of traditional common law citizenship.  Lastly, while Cruz did not need to be naturalized, his citizenship was obtained by statutory law rather than common law.

Fortunately for Cruz and his supporters the last part is actually not significant.  The statutory law versus common law distinction is no bar to natural born status.  A simple reading of Blackstone clears this up [see here].  Blackstone mentions a statute that included those born abroad as natural born.

To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband's consent, might inherit as if born in England.  (William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357, 358, 361, 362)

 An additional statute later amended that rule from both parents to only the father.  Here one might object:  Well, none of this helps Cruz's case; he only had one citizen parent and it wasn't his father.  This is true; however, it has been established that statutory law can confer the rights of being a natural born citizen.  U.S. statutory law also allows citizenship based on one parent, but does not require it to be patrilineal.

The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: 

 ...  

a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years. 

(8 U.S. Code § 1401 - Nationals and citizens of United States at birth)

 Thus Cruz obtains natural born status by the same means which England expanded the traditional common law requirement for citizenship: statute. 

New "Conservatives"

I'm not sure what National Review hopes to accomplish by attacking Donald Trump.  Sure, Trump is not a conservative and probably isn't serious about half of what he puts out as policy positions, but people still view him as anti-establishment.  National Review, on the other hand, has been an establishment publication ever since Buckley turned it into a neocon rag.  An establishment publication attacking Trump just boosts his anti-establishment reputation.  I suppose it will get people reading NR again, and that is probably the main point.

 National Review used to be a conservative publication, until it became a neocon one.  This attempt to stave off Trump-mania carries with it a dose of irony given NR's role in the struggle between the neocons and the Old Right.  Consider the following quotes.  

"But we should not put a new conservative in charge of conservatism"
-- Erick Erickson, regarding Trump becoming a Republican [full article here]

 

"It has always struck me as odd, even perverse, that former Marxists have been permitted, yes invited, to play such a leading role in the Conservative movement of the twentieth century. It is splendid when the town whore gets religion and joins the church. Now and then she makes a good choir director, but when she begins to tell the minister what he ought to say in his Sunday sermons, matters have been carried too far."

-- Stephen J. Tonsor, regarding the entry of neoconservatives into the conservative movement 

Do not allow others to do unto you what you have done unto others may be a good motto, but it makes for a rather pathetic whine.

 

One would think a former Leftist turned rightward would be right up National Review's alley.  Buckley seemed to like Norman Podhoretz well enough.  Not so, in Trump's case.  In their main editorial National Review declared that Trump would "trash the broad conservative ideological consensus" which NR supposedly upholds.  However broad that consensus may be, it does not extend too far to the Right.  That consensus wasn't broad enough to keep William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, from attacking Pat Buchanan or firing Joe Sobran.  Nor was it broad enough to keep David Frum from writing every actual conservative out of the movement in his despicable "Unpatriotic Conservatives" article.  More recently NR parted ways with John Derbyshire over a silly controversy that only Leftists would have been offended over.  It is National Review that has trashed the "broad" and "conservative" in favor of their "ideological consensus."  So spare us the angst and histrionics, you aren't on our side either.

You Can't Possibly Meme That!

Here is my collection of political cartoons.  Some are quite dated.

Joe Biden

This one was inspired by Joe Biden's "they're gonna put you back in chains" remark.  The cartoon spoofs the movie cover of Charlie Wilson's War with the implication that any ensuing race war might be known as Joe Biden's War.  It never came to that of course.


John Boehner

Here John Boehner attempts to rally some disheartened Scots to stick around until he has negotiated with the enemy.  The Scots do not seem particularly disposed to follow this mastermind of the orderly retreat.  The specific inspiration for this cartoon was Boehner suggestion it was time to have a discussion on guns after one of the mass shootings; however, it pretty much sums up his career as Speaker of the House.


Jeb Bush

Poor Jeb.  The chosen one that no one chose.  This was a facebook announcement making his formal entry into the race.  The caption under the video originally read "So many people could do so much better - if we fixed a few things."  As you can see, I did fix a few things.



Rachel Dolezal

This was a bizarre case of a white woman pretending to be black and actually heading a branch of the NAACP.  I really couldn't think of a better source for the advice in the cartoon.



Bruce Jenner (or what is left of him)

No, it isn't a woman at all.


Nelson Mandela

Easy to make, but it can be hard to find someone to wear it. 


Barack Obama

I made this one after Obama said that he thought he was "a pretty good president."  The cartoon imagines Obama in another career achieving equivalent results to his presidency.

This one is of Obama getting weepy at his gun control press conference.  Well Obama, you can have your binky, but not our guns.



Planned Parenthood

Fetus parts here! Get yer ice-cold fetus parts!

Seriously, the day these people are making little kicking motions about two or three feet off the ground will be the day justice is served.

Theater Shootings

Now this one is clearly in bad taste.