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by snewk 3496 days ago
at the risk of opening a can of worms, why is obama ineligible for the presidency?
5 comments

I've spoken to people who seriously believe he's a secret Muslim born in Kenya. The fact that our president-elect spent years pushing this completely fabricated lie to further his own ends didn't help.
Trump was a minor player in that rumor; it was pushed by many in the GOP and in right-wing 'news' organizations.
For that matter, it originated among Hillary supporters in '08.
Once Trump finally dropped the birther lie in September of this year (seriously, he spent 5 years trumpeting that lie) he came up with the new lie: Hillary started it. Neither Clinton nor her campaign ever publicly questioned Obama's citizenship or birthplace.
I agree; I never posted anything to the contrary.
Whatever people's partisan feelings, surely Trump has established a track record that what he says is relatively very unlikely to be true. The above statement comes from Trump.
No, it doesn't. As far as I can tell, Trump claimed HRC (or her campaign) originated the myth. This is different than her supporters, which is my claim. [This article][0] supports my point.

[0]: http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-ori...

... with "born in Kenya" being the relevant part. Muslim has nothing to do with it, secret or not.
I'll give you a neutral answer for a neutral question.

You must be American-born to be eligible for president. With the exception of the "(truly) first generation Americans" which could be citizens since nobody was yet natural born [0].

This is what the birth certificate controversy/conspiracy [2] was about. Obama's father [1] is Kenyan so there was some belief he was born in Kenya, not a "natural born US citizen" and thus illegible for position as the POTUS.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause

[1] It might be his mother, but I remember it being his father. It's one of the parents, but not both.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_consp...

As a matter of constitutional law, natural-born citizen is kind of undefined. If he had been born outside the US, the would have had dual or even triple citizenship at birth which would seemingly also qualify.
Right...undecided in courts, but my (naive) reading of it would mean that you have to be a citizen from the moment you leave the birth canal. It doesn't seem like it should matter where exactly you were born...if your American parents were vacationing in Bermuda for 1 week when you were born prematurely, that means you can't run for president 35+ years later?
Ted Cruz, a Canadian, was almost nominated as the Replubican candidate. Clearly, a large number of people feel that the definition of natural American citizen is a bit more flexible then that.
That's exactly in line with my statement. His mother was an American - it shouldn't matter where he happened to be born.
The short answer was because people did not want him to win. The supposed issue was his nation of birth, thus the 'birther' term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_consp...
People believe he is born outside the country, also that he is a Muslim and has an agenda to destroy America.
I think he meant to say that people think Obama is ineligible (birther claims).
Correct. I better change the post before I get down-voted.