Getting to the Bottom of Birthright Citizenship | After today's oral arguments, on a scale of one to 10 — one being "no shot" and 10 being "absolutely" — how likely is it that the Supreme Court will strike down President Donald Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship? You're free to make your own judgement by listening to this bonkers exchange between Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Solicitor General John Sauer, but judging from this dispatch, it sounds like Noah Feldman is at a solid nine. "Ultimately, it's extremely likely they will strike it down as violating the Fourteenth Amendment, probably sometime next year," he writes in his column. In fact, he — and others — are pretty surprised that the Department of Justice even took it to court. This case is "obvious as a matter of law," Noah argues. "The Fourteenth Amendment grants birthright citizenship. It says so right in the text and precedent going back to 1898." But then what to make of this Truth Social post — more like essay — from Trump this morning? Are we a STUPID Country full of SUCKERS getting SCAMMED? Perhaps our resident historian Justin Fox — who is deeply familiar with the 14th Amendment's origin story, having recently pored over the congressional debates on the citizenship clause — can shed some light on the matter. After the Civil War, he says, Republicans were in fact worried that the 13th Amendment — which banned slavery — wouldn't be enough to protect Black Southerners from being treated like slaves. Senator Lyman Trumbull proposed adding a new line to the Civil Rights Act: "All persons of African descent born in the United States are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States."
That does sound like it has to do with "the babies of slaves," as Trump notes. But a day later, Trumbull offered a new version: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign Power, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, without distinction of color."
This language sparked "concerns about granting citizenship to the children of Chinese immigrants," writes Justin. That alone proves that even back then, lawmakers were acutely aware that the clause wasn't merely about the descendants of former slaves. And most of them came around to the idea, save for President Andrew Johnson, whose veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was overridden by Congress. More than 150 years later, there is another dissenter in the White House. But birthright citizenship has endured for a reason: It makes America a vibrant melting pot, fueling the economy and the culture and everything in between. "A mere executive order shouldn't be enough to end that," Justin concludes. Read the whole thing. Bonus Immigration Reading: What would motivate you to self-deport? A thousand bucks and a free flight? The threat of jail in, say, Libya? These kinds of tactics reveal a desperate White House. — Patricia Lopez "I'm sort of hungry." "I'm sort of tired." "I'm sort of cold." These are ordinary phrases you might hear often from friends or colleagues. But it's not every day that you hear the president of the United States say he "sort of" made a nuclear deal with Iran. What does that even mean? Did the pen run out of ink? Did someone lose their connection on Zoom?? Trump has been gallivanting around the Middle East saying how "very happy" he'd be if he could make a deal with Iran, but a deal this is not. "They're not going to make — I call it, in a friendly way, nuclear dust. We're not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran. And we've been strong. I want them to succeed. I want them to end up being a great country, frankly. But they can't have a nuclear weapon. That's the only thing," Trump told reporters today at a business roundtable in Qatar. If you're lost on the whole "nuclear dust" thing, let me direct you to Andreas Kluth's latest column on uranium. Apparently, Iran has cooked up a crazy plan to avoid being bombed by Israel and sanctioned by the UN: "They want to work with their enemies, not against them, to build Iran's nuclear program," Andreas explains. "At first blush, the idea seems outlandish. How could mortal enemies (Tehran's theocracy is based in large part on wishing death to America as well as Israel) collaborate around the very material that has brought them to the brink of war? At second glance, though, the notion's sheer audacity — let's call it chutzpah — may be exactly what these nuclear negotiations need to get unstuck." Although Trump appears to have written off the idea, maybe it's worth revisiting before his "sort of" deal is set in stone. Bonus Defense Reading: Investors are reassessing China's military capacity and potential as an arms exporter. — Shuli Ren | 
Mashadipati Location Hotel Clove is located in the heart of Bandung, in a ...
No comments