They’re on the same ticket, but they’re technically a separate election. That’s actually VERY technical because, technically, you’re voting for electors, not directly for candidates, and the electors are pledged to the given collective ticket, but ultra-technically. The VP is still elected independently of the President. You can’t, for instance, vote Obama for Prez and Sarah Palin for veep, because you’re never really voting directly for the candidates anyway, but for electors pledged to a combined ticket. Legally (though this never happens, and it would be considered extremely dishonorable among electors) electors could split their vote between a Dem Prez and a GOP Veep. The elections are, for pedantic, hyper-legal purposes, separate and independent.
Originally, VP candidates didn’t even exist. Whatever POTUS candidate got the second most votes was VP. It was an experiment that didn’t work too well. You ended up wiyth VP’s who hated the President and who were not too concerned about his health, much less his politcal well-being.
ETA it looks like you figured it out while I was typing anyway.
No, it isn’t. Even if the most preposterous Birther fever dreams somehow turn out to be true, that has no bearing on the fact that Biden was elected Vice President of the United States by the Electoral College:
Yeah, I gave Dio the point about the electoral college, too. But you have to admit that that would be awful fucking sticky. There would be hundreds of court cases challenging Biden’s presidency. There is absolutely NO precedent for the courts to go on, so we would see not only a SCOTUS headache, but constitutional amendments being proposed out of every pore of Congress. It would be the clusterfuck beyond all clusterfucks.
Look, morons, you guys sure nake it hard to educate your dumb asses. I don’t know whether I am a NBC (and I was born in the US to a US mother and father, at least AFAIK). If Frank had asked me that same repeated question about any other POTUS, I would give the same answer. I don’t stay up at night worrying about whether Obama is an NBC or not, and I have no reason to doubt that he is.
I’m just trying to illustrate that you can’t just decide what some term means in the constitution (or any other law) and decide that you are right. It doesn’t work that way. You can make a good guess based on textual and contextual evidence, and that’s fine, but it’s still just a good guess until the SC gets involved.
Probably (given that there are hundred of crackpots with nothing better to do), but each of them would result in quick dismissal citing the Twelfth Amendment provision stating that the Vice President is elected separately from the President.
I don’t care about the definition of a NBC and didn’t ask you. My question is far more simple: Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, yes or no?
Meh. There is always a flurry of lawsuits from people accusing the government of shooting mind-control beams at them or planting chips in their heads or making their begonias die or something. It’s not as if Biden would have to personally deal with the nonsense (no doubt some of the lawsuits would attempt to depose him in both senses of the term, but these demands would surely be rejected without further ado).
The suits would be summarily dismissed, and dimissed with prejudice. They wouldn’t harrass Biden because he’d never have to respond to them. At worst, they might be a minor nuisance to some federal courts, but those filing would be reaping negative returns. They’d just be pissing away money on materials and filing fees for complaints that would be disposed of out of hand and never heard. The filers would also be told not to try again. There would be no profit in it. They’d even be risking penalties for filing frivolously. Such attempts would be patently frivolous and with even less prima facie merit than the Birther suits.
No, it won’t – “real lawyers” have too much to lose if they get sanctioned for bringing frivolous lawsuits. It will be the usual (to coin a phrase) clowns seeking to have the government dissolved due to clerical error.
Why are you and Frank so interested in what I think about these Birther-related issues?
I’ve been told that Obama was born in the US, and I have no facts disputing that. If you tell me that you were born in the US and then ask me if I believe that you were born in the US, I’d say the same thing. Also, I’d say the same thing about myself.
Also, you are wrong about the Jones Act. It looks like you were looking at the US flag and ownership requirements, but the tort issues covered by the Jones Act don’t have anything to do with whether a vessel is carrying cargo or passengers–the critical question is just whether something is a vessel.
Why have you been so reluctant to give a straight forward answer?
I guess i’m just curious as to whether you have any intellectual honsety or integrity at all.
Still very couched and qualified (and not entirely ingenuous. We have a lot more evdience than “being told” to corroborate Obama’s birthplace). How about this:
Do you believe there is any reasonable possibility that Obama was born outside the US and that there is a conspiracy to conceal that fact from the American people? Is this a hypothesis which you believe has the slightest legitimate merit or plausibilty I’m not aking about absolute possibilities, because obviously, it’s theoretically “possible” that Barack Obama is one of the lizard people from Neptune. I’m asking about laugh test plausibility.