Patterico's Pontifications

1/20/2025

Inauguration Day

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:51 am



[guest post by Dana]

Well, it’s Inauguration Day. Donald Trump has promised that he will make close to 100 executive orders today:

“Within hours of taking office, I will sign dozens of executive orders — close to 100 to be exact — many of which I will be describing in my address tomorrow,” Trump said to a crowd of donors and allies at a pre-inauguration dinner Sunday.

He added, “With the stroke of my pen I will revoke dozens of destructive and radical executive orders and actions of the Biden administration, and by this time tomorrow, they will all be null and void.”

One thing we can be relatively sure of, is that Trump will not end the war in Ukraine today or tomorrow, as he promised. But didn’t we already know that his Big Talk is just cheap talk, and anyone can blather about anything at anytime. Consider what his incoming team said:

“Let’s set it at 100 days and move all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it’s sustainable, and that this war ends so that we stop the carnage,” retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s pick to serve as special envoy to Ukraine, told Fox News last month.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s choice for secretary of state, told senators. . . that forging a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia will be “very difficult.”

“This will not be easy,” Rubio said. “Conflicts of this nature that have historical underpinnings to it are going to require a lot of hard diplomacy and tough work, but that’s something that needs to happen.”

Anyway, I’m relieved to know that both Donald and Melania Trump are looking out for our nation’s good as they each released their own cryptocurrency just days before the inauguration. Note:

During the campaign, his family launched a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial – which aims to lead “a financial revolution by dismantling the stranglehold of traditional financial institutions”, and is also selling a crypto coin.

The new Trump coin was launched from Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital LLC, which is linked to previous sales of crypto collectable NFTs launched in 2022 that made millions of dollars. . .

“This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn’t back down, no matter the odds,” the website said.
Thousands protest in Washington against Trump.

It included a disclaimer noting the coin is “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity or a security and was “not political and has nothing to do with” any political campaign, political office or government agency.

Yet, a wise man issued a warning not just about the cryptocurrency matter, but what is an apt warning at large, regarding Trump’s tenure:

It’s not mere grifting for cash, but a freeway for corruption. Buy & sell the presidency from anywhere in the world. As I’ve warned, it’s not what’s hidden that destroys the democratic system, but what’s done in the open. Bending norms, exploiting loopholes, & breaking laws that have no working mechanism for punishment (other than impeachment…) degrades the democratic system more than simply being a crook. It’s not cutting through bureaucracy, it’s corruption that destroys accountability & trust.

On this day, I’m thankful for the peaceful transfer of power. And I do hope for the best outcomes for the U.S. in the next four years. Given the world’s tenuous grasp on peace, may we maintain our robust relationships with allies across the globe. But forgive me for not being too optimistic. With all that we experienced and witnessed with our 45th president, it’s difficult to be excited about our 47th president.

—Dana

393 Responses to “Inauguration Day”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (f1a254)

  2. The nightmare of the past 4 years is finally over

    NJRob (039c00)

  3. FOUR MORE YEARS!1!1!!!

    What could go wrong?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  4. That hat!

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  5. In all fairness, Trump has a unique opportunity to have learned both from his first term, but also from defeat and opposition. Truly he needs someone behind him to say “momento mori”, but still I expect this term to be less chaotic than the first.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  6. @3

    FOUR MORE YEARS!1!1!!!

    What could go wrong?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 9:04 am

    Much better than the last 4 and a hypothetical Harris/Walz administration that’s for sure.

    whembly (477db6)

  7. I think that even the “historians” will view Trump’s second term far more effective than his first. They may quibble about the policies.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  8. Trump is now ragging on the J6 committee, giving Biden unintentional cover.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  9. Trump preparing sweeping pardons for Jan. 6 defendants, with commutations for violent offenders
    ………
    The planned commutations for those who attacked police goes well beyond what many of his allies anticipated he would be prepared to extend to the Jan. 6 defendants — and paves the way for potentially hundreds of supporters, some sentenced to years behind bars for vicious assaults on police — to be released in the coming days.
    ………..
    In addition to the commutations, Trump plans to extend full pardons to his supporters who were not charged with engaging in violence on Jan. 6. Sources tell ABC News that some of Trump’s top advisers have been pushing him for days to issue these sweeping pardons.
    ………..
    Sources tell ABC News that hundreds of individuals currently serving prison time for violent offenses they committed on Jan. 6 will be freed as a result — and the commutations will likely extend to two of the most high-profile defendants charged in connection with the attack, Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

    Trump is expected to further direct the incoming attorney general to move to dismiss all pending indictments against Jan. 6 defendants who have not yet had their cases fully adjudicated, which would shutter roughly 470 ongoing cases, according to recently released numbers by the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office.
    …………
    Of the nearly 1,600 individuals have faced charges associated with the Capitol attack, according to figures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 608 individuals have faced charges for assaulting, resisting or interfering with law enforcement trying to protect the complex that day, the office said. Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot, the DOJ has said.
    …………

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  10. The difference between Trump’s coming J6 pardons and Biden’s midnight pardons is that Trump’s will name the crimes or activities for which the pardon is granted. Biden’s were so wide that tax evasion, sale of secrets, conspiracy, foreign agency or influence peddling are all off the table.

    “No one is above the law”
    — Joe Biden (King’s “X”)

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  11. It might be fun to charge Fauci or James Biden with being a foreign agent and let them demur citing the pardon.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  12. The difference between Trump’s coming J6 pardons and Biden’s midnight pardons is that Trump’s will name the crimes or activities for which the pardon is granted. Biden’s were so wide that tax evasion, sale of secrets, conspiracy, foreign agency or influence peddling are all off the table.

    Again, beating a dead horse. Specificity isn’t a requirement.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  13. I hope that we can all agree that the sum total of all this is double plus ungood. I see the prior administration as awful, and this just marginally less awful.

    But that in no way means good.

    I am watching friends of mine on social media—good people (in one case, a married couple with grandchildren)—call each other vile names for being on either side of this pungent garbage.

    Why not hope for better? I don’t know how we can get there, but our current situation is a slide downhill.

    I wish every single commenter the very best wishes for the coming years.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  14. @14

    I wish every single commenter the very best wishes for the coming years.

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/20/2025 @ 2:03 pm

    I echo this.

    You’re good dude Simon.

    whembly (477db6)

  15. whembly, I see so many people broken over politics. I remember Nixon very well. And Reagan. And so much else.

    We are still good people, even when we disagree. Or can be.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  16. #13 Simon, when Obama was sworn in the first time, I wished he would succeed as president, because that would be best for the nation. (I added that I did not expect that he would, because he was unqualified — obviously. He did somewhat worse than I predicted.)

    I don’t recall whether I did the same in 2017, though my thinking on the subject has not changed.

    There was less reason for hope in 2013, and less reason, now, because we have records to look at. Both men appeal to our tribal instincts, and depend for their support on dividing us. (Obama sneakily, Trump blatantly.)

    Our enemies are delighted by these divisions.

    I fear that we are going to have to rely on the skill of Mitch McConnell, among others, and, possibly, the 25th Amendment to protect us.

    One positive sign is that the Supreme Court has restored our Civil Rights laws, which makes some kinds of conflicts less likely.

    I am so sorry about your friends, and I wish you the best in this coming year.

    Jim Miller (12e4fb)

  17. Jim, did you ever read “A Canticle for Leibowitz“? In this SF novel, in the aftermath of a nuclear war, there was a deliberate move away from reason and thought…people called one another simpletons as a compliment:

    “Simpletons! Yes, yes! I’m a simpleton! Are you a simpleton? We’ll build a town and we’ll name it Simple Town, because by then all the smart bastards that caused all this, they’ll be dead! Simpletons! Let’s go! This ought to show ’em! Anybody here not a simpleton? Get the bastard, if there is!”

    I fear we are experiencing not exactly Miller’s nightmare, but an echo.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  18. Musk needs to be a little more careful about his arm movements. People make take it wrong, or take it right.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  19. Simon – Yes, I have read that classic book, and have been thinking about it in recent years. Especially since the reductions in nuclear weapons stopped when the Loser came into office.

    A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic social science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller Jr., first published in 1959. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the book spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz preserve the surviving remnants of man’s scientific knowledge until the world is again ready for it.

    (Links omitted.)

    Jim Miller (12e4fb)

  20. @Simon@13 I can understand that a gay person or a woman in a red state or a person from coal country might be vocally furious at a person who voted for the other side because they feel as though they are in actual danger from one side or the other. I don’t understand it from a person who is not in a position where they feel endangered. Disliking intensely or being inconvenienced by a politician is not, IMO, a reason to alienate your loved ones.

    Nic (120c94)

  21. Nazi smear on Musk

    steveg (626b3a)

  22. Just what was so wonderful about the 46th President? He was what brought Trump back by making Trump, in retrospect, look good.

    DN (ee4b9a)

  23. Again, beating a dead horse. Specificity isn’t a requirement.

    Neither is being honest, nor not taking a bribe for the pardon a requirement. But I would comment on such.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  24. I actually think that this 2nd term will be much more stable than the first. It’s not the end of the Republic. It may be the end of progressivism. It may result in a setback to the administrative state. It may signal a hiatus of favoritism to the upper-middle-class. It may, in short, not be what you want.

    But you’ll get over it.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  25. Nic: you wrote the following

    “…Disliking intensely or being inconvenienced by a politician is not, IMO, a reason to alienate your loved ones…”

    I agree wholeheartedly. My parents and brother (all passed away) were uber conservative. They gave me trouble about my own more lukewarm libertarian beliefs for decades. Mind you, not trying to debate or understand me, but unfairly criticizing and insulting my own values. My brother got past it, as did my father. I finally got past the hurt and would simply reply “I love you” to them. Because I did, and I do, no matter what they believed politically.

    So when I got to graduate school, and was treated like I was a terrible person for my very moderate views, it reminded me of growing up.

    The good part of this is that I have resolutely insisted that every student in my classroom or my research lab is treated politely and kindly, no matter their politics. Period.

    Anyway, when I see people trying to hurt their own loved ones, it makes me so very sad.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  26. Kevin M, I have no crystal ball, but there may be something like a 3rd centrist party rising. Who knows?

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  27. Kevin M, I have no crystal ball, but there may be something like a 3rd centrist party rising. Who knows?

    Simon Jester (c8876d) — 1/20/2025 @ 4:15 pm

    Where? The American “first passed the post, winner takes all” political system naturally supports a two-parties. The rare instances when there have been multiple parties in the past,one of the major parties has been dying. At this time, neither the Democrats nor Republicans are anywhere near political extinction, as evidenced by the narrow margins in the House and Senate.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  28. Nic,

    I don’t really care about how some Pollyannas feel, just because they believe what the scaremongers tell them. Things that won’t happen: They won’t be rounding up gays and putting them in camps, they won’t be telling folks they can’t dress weirdly, they won’t be overturning Obergefell.

    Back in 2016, Trump said he thought that Obergefell was settled law. He hasn’t said otherwise since. People who believe he is somehow going to overturn that are scaring themselves unnecessarily.

    They might refuse to let men pretend they are women to get all the trophies, but complaining about that while using the word “fair” seems hypocritical and overwrought. They might not allow permanent physical changes (by surgery or medicine) to minors’ sexual features. That might be harmful, or it might be good. But policy you don’t like isn’t the end of the world.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  29. I think you’re right, with Congress and the courts backing Trump, there be fewer avenues for dissent.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  30. Geez, Rip. You can’t even let one of the most honest brokers here have some room to speculate?

    You have to play whack-a-mole on everyone. Chill out.

    Simon, good to see you. I hope you are well.

    BuDuh (ac9b17)

  31. Post 29 in context:

    I actually think that this 2nd term will be much more stable than the first. It’s not the end of the Republic………

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 4:13 pm

    I think you’re right, with Congress and the courts backing Trump, there be fewer avenues for dissent, both internally within the Republican Party and externally among voters at large.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  32. steveg (626b3a) — 1/20/2025 @ 3:23 pm

    Nazi smear on Musk

    In the last most recent speech by Donald Trump, at the end of which he signed some executive orders (but none on immigration, though he mentioned it in his speech) and signed no J6 pardons, I saw shots of Ivanka and Jared Kushner and I think somebody else, put their hand over their heart, but they didn’t move their arm away like Elon Musk did. Musk actually thrust it out. I wonder if anyone told him to do that.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e)

  33. I am, BuDuh. Thank you.

    Of course I have no idea what the future holds. Social media is still running the show, and seems to really promote extreme views.

    But…

    Kevin M, I have been struck by the percentages of the overall public that don’t agree with what “the Clerisy” seem to think (that is, what I hear on campus every day, each day).

    I guess it comes down to the future not being as horrible as our nightmares, or as beautiful as our daydreams.

    Or so I hope.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  34. It begins. Henry Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader who sentenced to 22 years behind bars for seditious conspiracy, was just released from prison, the first of Trump’s J6 pardons and one of the worst J6 pardons.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  35. Where? The American “first passed the post, winner takes all” political system naturally supports a two-parties [system].

    This is unfortunately true. What happens is that the two parties become malleable, and there is much gnashing of teeth when that happens. “How can you DO THAT to MY party!?!” But these changes aren’t permanent — Goldwater’s 1964 takeover of the GOP didn’t hold. McGovern’s takeover of the Democrat party also failed. Reagan and Clinton succeeded, and Trump seems to hold sway. The jury is out on MAGA, he may be as unpopular as Biden 4 years from now.

    I would like to see something other than FPtP, at least at the legislative level. One vote-multiple winner districts would at least smear the results (and make all gerrymanders impossible). I don’t think that ranked-choice will have much effect, other than letting 3rd parties pretend to have a chance.

    The only thing that COULD happen in the current system is a one-off independent challenge, like TR’s or Perot’s, but when those fail they usually result in victory for the odd-man-out (e.g. Wilson & Clinton) so it’s a crap shoot at best.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  36. *aren’t necessarily permanent.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  37. I fear that we are going to have to rely on the skill of Mitch McConnell, among others, and, possibly, the 25th Amendment to protect us.

    McConnell is not in the best of health these days (really no different than Biden); one of these days he will permanently freeze up. He’s a backbencher with views out of sync with today’s Republican Party.

    The likelihood of a cabinet who owe their jobs to Trump (including VP Vance) declaring him disabled is just as likely as VP Harris doing the same to Biden. Which is to say not at all.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  38. IF a real third party did arise, threatening a major, it would likely be the MAGA Party splitting off in 2028 because the GOP didn’t chose the MAGA nominee.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  39. Paul

    Jonah Goldberg- no fan of Trump

    “The thing at the 55 second mark, where he grabs his chest and says “my heart goes out to you” is supposed to be a deliberate Nazi salute? Sorry, not buying it.”

    Google the video and add the context and no, Musk doesn’t need to be careful

    steveg (626b3a)

  40. Marco Rubio is confirmed.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  41. Marco Rubio is confirmed.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 4:46 pm

    The easiest one to confirm, though one wonders a) how much authority he will really have; and b) how long will he last in the job.

    My speculation: less than two years.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  42. I will also speculate that all of Trump’s cabinet nominees will be confirmed.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  43. The things that most disturb me are

    1) The normalizing of anti-vax idiocy.
    2) The attack on birthright citizenship
    3) Pardons of violent criminals and seditious conspirators.

    I wonder whether the extent of today’s pardons reflects displeasure with Biden’s shameful self-serving blanket pardons.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  44. I will also speculate that all of Trump’s cabinet nominees will be confirmed.

    Tulsi will not be confirmed. Hegseth will be. RFK Jr will require unanimous GOP support and I don’t think he’ll get it.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  45. trump does appeal to simpletons you can say, Every recent stupid trope was repeated in his inaugural address except for the purchase of Greenland. When he mentioned renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, Hillary Clinton was seen laughing,(I wouldn’t know if that laugh was sincere)

    The worst thing he said, which he kept repeaating many times during the day was hat other countries (he didn’t name any except Venezuela, by citing a putative statistic that crime was down 74% there) were releasing “millions” of people from
    jails and insane asylums (!) and sending the0 t6 them to the United States and that countries from all over the world were. At least he gave the total number of such people he would deport as being in the millions. As if the Mexican drug cartels would transport them for free. I read a column where somebody said that not a one of the Venezuelan asylum seekers he interviewed (last year or in 2023?) were actually coming directly from Venezuela.

    They all had work permits from Colombia and even citizenship in Brazil and they all tore up such documents right before entering the United States.

    They had worked for years in those countries (and presumably were immigrating for the usual reasons – to make more money, advance the education or careers of their children or to go where most of the rest of their family went) Indeed how else could they have saved enough money to pay for their passage?

    And Trump says they are criminals released from jail, and even more absurd, people let out of mental institutions, which can sound scary to people. Now gang members have joined the (secondary) migration.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e)

  46. Kevin M #43: I agree heartily. The hardest part for me is listening to people who have no training in biology carrying on about vaccines. I mean, I guess it is how lawyers feel when I carry on about laws.

    Sigh.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  47. A safe prediction: Rubio will be the only member of Trump’s cabinet that will receive a majority of Democrat votes (he was confirmed unanimously.) It’s possible that John Ratcliffe as DCI might receive a majority of Democrats on the floor (his nomination cleared the Senate Intelligence Committee 14-3), but the CIA isn’t a cabinet department.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  48. The Rubio vote gives me hope, a little bit. 99-0. So Team R cannot claim Team D is uniformly partisan. At least for now.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  49. Not sure why my post 49 is moderated.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  50. At Trump’s inauguration rally, he said:

    So now the work begins. We won. We won. But now the work begins. We have to bring them home. And you know, tonight I’m going to be signing on the J-6 hostages pardons to get them out. And as soon as I leave, I’m going to the Oval Office and will be signing pardons for a lot of people. A lot of people.

    The audience applauded his announcement.

    Dana (77fb05)

  51. I wonder whether the extent of today’s pardons reflects displeasure with Biden’s shameful self-serving blanket pardons.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 4:57 pm

    It was a major theme of Trump’s campaign, so probably not.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  52. Your comment was released, Rip. I don’t know why it was in moderation.

    Dana (77fb05)

  53. This past election showed moderates were more than willing to drift towards MAGA given the alternative, and right now there is a better than even chance the trend continues.

    The MAGA candidate is very likely to be JD Vance even though he is more moderate than Trump. Gavin Newsom will be pushing the CA crazy hard in the primary- which will be a bright red flag for moderates.
    The Democrats can’t avoid having at least some CA crazy permeate their run, no matter who they eventually choose.
    Question is how much CA stink Newsom can put on Shapiro (who could win PA and its 19 EC votes)

    steveg (626b3a)

  54. Your comment was released, Rip. I don’t know why it was in moderation.

    Dana (77fb05) — 1/20/2025 @ 5:12 pm

    It’s weird that when I reworded my comment it sailed through.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  55. This is supposed to be the great Christian president who is promising to attack immigrants, trans people who are already vulnerable. These are some of the executive orders. The cruelty is the point of this coming administration. “So it is very hard for me to look at this spectacle of the takeover of the United States by a base mentality of greed & corruption, and say the institutions will save us because they’ve not done well for us so far.

    Sounds like a more aggressive version of:

    I can understand that a gay person or a woman in a red state or a person from coal country might be vocally furious at a person who voted for the other side because they feel as though they are in actual danger from one side or the other. I don’t understand it from a person who is not in a position where they feel endangered. Disliking intensely or being inconvenienced by a politician is not, IMO, a reason to alienate your loved ones.

    Nic (120c94) — 1/20/2025 @ 3:14 pm

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  56. Here is the pardon order.

    Dana (50af5d)

  57. This means that 500-plus MAGAs who were guilty of violence, either assaulting law enforcement or damaging Capitol property, were given full pardons by Trump, an expected unpatriotic un-American act.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  58. @kevin@28 Roe was settled law as well. I can’t blame gays for thinking that religious conservatives would like to end their marriages, or that they might like the freedom to punch a gay dude for coming on to them (seriously, just say no, that’s what girls do when men they aren’t interested in come on to them). (Pollyanas are people who are hopelessly optimistic, not hopelessly pessimistic. 😛 )

    Nic (120c94)

  59. Tulsi will not be confirmed. Hegseth will be. RFK Jr will require unanimous GOP support and I don’t think he’ll get it.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 4:58 pm

    I think Gabbard has a fighting chance, given her confirmation conversion on Section 702. Most Republicans believe that the President deserves to have the cabinet he wants.

    As to RFKJr., he may get some Senate Democrat votes.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  60. @Rob@55 ??

    Nic (120c94)

  61. All but 6 of the people in jail on charges related to January 6, 2021 (whose cases are being reviewed) are being released from jail tonight. People were waiting outside the jail for hours. The Bureau of Prisons was given a list shortly after noon, which means before Trump signed something in the Oval Office. All those being released got a full and unconditional pardon.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e)

  62. The difference between Trump’s coming J6 pardons and Biden’s midnight pardons is that Trump’s will name the crimes or activities for which the pardon is granted. ………
    ……
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 12:12 pm

    Uhhhh, no.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  63. Paul Montagu, it is a disgrace that Trump has done this. And that he listed Stuart Rhodes first makes his point loud and clear.

    This is a step moving away from the rule of law and toward a new day where people can be relieved of their convictions, because they were on the side of the president.

    Dana (b6d07b)

  64. @kevin@28 Roe was settled law as well

    That is preposterous. Things that are “settled law” aren’t featured in 50 years of political-donation scare letters and every single Supreme Court nomination hearing. How many times do you think they asked prospective justices about, say, Loving. Even the most contentious Warren Court decision (Brown) was old news in 10 years.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  65. https://x.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1881370396970336551

    Biden’s pardon of Fauci covers from 2014 to now. What has Fauci been doing for all these years?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  66. The J-6 trials were all star chamber show trials. They convicted people of attacking police who never touched a police officer. A pox on those trials.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  67. Uhhhh, no.

    Were they pardoned for any crimes they might have committed, or only those related to the events of January 6th?

    “convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021”

    That is not a blanket pardon, it is limited to specific acts.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  68. The first things Trump signed after being sworn in were five folders. One contained a list of some 22 Cabinet appointees. Another, 47 subcabinet appointees. A third said who would be acting in various positions. A fourth was 15 commission chairmen or members. The fifth was one that said that on any Presidential inauguration day, U.S. flags would be flown at full staff.

    Trump signed one time for each folder.

    Rubio was confirmed (without even a committee vote) because Democrats agreed to waive the rules by unanimous consent.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e)

  69. Fauci, otoh, was pardoned for any offense against the United States he might have committed over a 10 year period. Can’t you see the difference? If not, I can’t help you since I can’t draw pictures here.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  70. Here is the pardon order.

    Dana (50af5d) — 1/20/2025 @ 5:18 pm

    From the order:

    The Attorney General shall administer and effectuate the immediate issuance of certificates of pardon…….
    ………..
    further direct the Attorney General to pursue dismissal with prejudice to the government of all pending indictments…….

    Since Trump doesn’t have an Attorney General, everyone will need to wait awhile for the official paperwork. Pam Bondi’s committee vote (let alone the full Senate vote) hasn’t been scheduled yet.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  71. This is a step moving away from the rule of law and toward a new day where people can be relieved of their convictions, because they were on the side of the president.

    What kind of step were Biden’s pardons?

    Note: I am not at all happy with the Proud Boys pardons, but there are lots of bad pardons. The idea of blanket pardons for all the ex-President’s cronies and helpers is far more injurious to the Rule of Law than a bad pardon. How is Stuart Rhodes pardon worse than Marc Rich’s?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  72. I see from Dana’s link that Stuart Rhodes (and others) got a commutation of sentence to time served, not a pardon.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e)

  73. Since Trump doesn’t have an Attorney General

    There is an acting AG: James McHenry

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  74. commutation of sentence to time served, not a pardon.

    So, they are still federal felons and still seditious conspirators, with all the loss of rights that entails.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  75. The J-6 trials were all star chamber show trials.

    Rob, except for the few who were guilty of seditious conspiracy, your fellow MAGA zealots were caught on tape.

    Dana, there were only 14 commutations out of the lot, so even the worst of the worst J6 criminals are out of jail, and the rest were fully pardoned for their crimes. This is actually worse than I expected, because the violent MAGAs caught a break. This is the Trump Morality in all its glory.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  76. @kevin@64 You haven’t noticed people trying to figure out ways to overturn oberfell?

    Nic (120c94)

  77. Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 5:42 pm

    From your original post:

    Trump’s will name the crimes or activities for which the pardon is granted. ………
    ……
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 12:12 pm

    Neither the “crimes or activities” were described in the pardon order, just the “events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

    The order is hardly specific, it’s about as obtuse as one can get. I’m sure it was deliberately written as vague as possible so that Trump wouldn’t be signing a document describing what his supporters really did on his “Day of Love.” For all the “crimes and activities” the pardon order described, it could have been jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk.

    I know you’re focused on Biden’s pardons, but the Biden and Trump pardons are separate issues. Whether one is blanket or not is irrelevant.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  78. https://apnews.com/article/leonard-peltier-biden-pardons-eba525b713f2ec739b84aa4426366775

    Just moments before leaving office, President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted in the 1975 killings of two FBI agents.
    Peltier was denied parole as recently as July and wasn’t eligible for parole again until 2026. He was serving life in prison for the killings during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He will transition to home confinement, Biden said in a statement.

    Biden issued a record number of individual pardons and commutations. He announced Friday that he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and he issued a broad pardon to his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes.

    and

    https://www.governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/news-releases/2025/january/name-1039284-en.html

    Governor Glenn Youngkin today released the following statement after President Joe Biden announced the clemency of violent criminals Ferrone Claiborne and Terence Richardson, two men who admitted to being responsible for the brutal killing of Officer Allen Gibson, a Sussex County police officer.

    “I am beyond outraged and in utter disbelief that President Biden would announce clemency for Ferrone Claiborne and Terence Richardson–two men who admitted for being responsible to brutally killing Officer Allen Gibson, a hero and dedicated servant to our community,” said Governor Glenn Youngkin. “What makes this even more unconscionable is the Biden U.S Attorney advised the White House not to commute these sentences as they are violent offenders. The pain and sorrow this clemency causes the Gibson family is unimaginable. To know that the men who took Officer Gibson’s life will walk free is not just a grave injustice–it is a heartbreaking blow to those who continue to mourn his sacrifice. This is despicable; a grim day for justice and for the families who trust that our system will hold the guilty accountable.”

    Both prisoners admitted to being responsible for the brutal killing of Officer Allen Gibson in Sussex County Circuit Court. The evidence presented and the details surrounding Officer Gibson’s death are deeply disturbing and tragic.

    Anyone complaining about J-6 pardons is ignoring reality. They supported a man who gives aid and comfort to actual evil.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  79. 18, Paul: It was more of a Klingon Salute.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (aa94a8)

  80. Ah, the Nazi’s excusing the Nazi from acting like a Nazi. Full on Nazi salute by Elongated Muskrat too. Pardoning the brown shirts is just another confirmation.

    The level of moron that thinks stupid Hitler is anything other than a stupid Hitler is a deluded Nazi, not just a member of the American Bund party.

    How does it feel to be a Nazi shill?

    Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 for several reasons, including:

    Lebensraum: Hitler wanted to create an ethnically German area in Poland, known as lebensraum or “living space”.
    Staging point: Hitler wanted Poland as a base for his planned invasion of the Soviet Union.
    Regain lost territory: Germany wanted to regain territory it had lost in the past.
    False claims: Nazi propagandists spread false claims that Poland was planning to invade Germany and that Poles were persecuting ethnic Germans.
    Encircle and dismember Germany: Nazi propagandists falsely claimed that Poland was planning to encircle and dismember Germany with its allies, Great Britain and France.
    Superiority: Hitler considered the Polish people inferior and only fit as a work force.
    Brutal plan: Hitler’s plan was to physically destroy Poland, killing men, women, and children of Polish descent or language without mercy

    Huh, Panama, Mexico, Greenland…Canada. Probably Panama is the first invasion, bombing runs in Mexico begin next week.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  81. Going to be a long 4 years for some people.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  82. Neither the “crimes or activities” were described in the pardon order, just the “events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

    You are not this dense, Rip.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  83. > Going to be a long 4 years for some people.

    Including every trans person in the country.

    The federal government has apparently decided that psychologically torturing queer people is the right way forward for all of us.

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  84. I think the J6 pardon may have the effect of being a self-pardon for any criminal activity he may have been engaged in on January 6.

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  85. Clink needs to change his handle to Godwin.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  86. I think the J6 pardon may have the effect of being a self-pardon for any criminal activity he may have been engaged in on January 6.

    He was not charged with such, so what does it matter?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  87. Note that several news organizations are conflating the birthright citizenship thing to mean “children of immigrants” not “children of illegal immigrants.” The first one has no constitutional chance, but then Trump didn’t say it. The second, well, he did, and maybe.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  88. Neither the “crimes or activities” were described in the pardon order, just the “events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

    That is an “activity.” If the constitution barred blanket pardons (as it probably does in reality), then this would be allowed,a s would Carter’s draft-dodger amnesty and Johnson’s Confederate amnesty. What should not be allowed are “any federal crime committed in the last decade” type GOoJF cards.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  89. >The first one has no constitutional chance, but then Trump didn’t say it. The second, well, he did, and maybe.

    The theory under which this is constitutional is rank nonsense because it requires “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to mean two different things at the exact same time. Unless we’re also going to say that we can’t prosecute illegal immigrants for crimes committed within our borders because they aren’t subject to our jurisdiction.

    But that doesn’t matter, because all that matters now is power and rage. and until the rage burns out, nothing can be done and anyone who tries to stand in its waywill be immolated.

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  90. Neither the “crimes or activities” were described in the pardon order, just the “events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

    Not did Trump’s pardon name the other 1,500 persons who were pardoned.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  91. Not did Trump’s pardon name the other 1,500 persons who were pardoned.

    Did I say it did, or should? Carter did not name all the draft dodgers.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  92. Neither the “crimes or activities” were described in the pardon order, just the “events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

    You are not this dense, Rip.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 6:56 pm

    I guess I got hung up on your phrase “Trump’s will name the crimes or activities……” I took you too literally; but then again I shouldn’t have expected Trump to do so. Especially after your desire to amend the Constitution to do so.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  93. aphrael,

    I am of two minds about this. I agree with your reading of 14. It would take a constitutional amendment to carve out illegals. This Supreme Court might find a way to allow an act of Congress to “enforce” the law in that particular way. But it sure as sh1t isn’t subject to an EO.

    Now, should children born to a mother illegally present have birthright citizenship simply as a matter of equity?

    On the one hand, people who are seriously intent on becoming Americans ought to be welcomed if possible. But it’s not possible to welcome everyone, and if we tried we’d double our population in 10 years and living conditions would crater for everyone. We can’t be the world’s lifeboat. And allowing children to become anchors has been shown to be a problem.

    So, my answer is no.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  94. Including every trans person in the country.

    The federal government has apparently decided that psychologically torturing queer people is the right way forward for all of us.

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/20/2025 @ 6:56 pm

    Why do you think indulging mental illness is a good thing? Are you pro-anoxeria or other mental illnesses?

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  95. Not did Trump’s pardon name the other 1,500 persons who were pardoned.

    Did I say it did, or should? Carter did not name all the draft dodgers.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 7:14 pm

    This something we agree on-specificity in pardons is not required- whether it’s the names receiving a pardon or what the pardon is for.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  96. What should not be allowed are “any federal crime committed in the last decade” type GOoJF cards.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 7:05 pm

    Unfortunately no one would have standing to challenge any type pardon.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  97. > Why do you think indulging mental illness is a good thing? Are you pro-anoxeria or other mental illnesses?

    I don’t think that being transgender is a mental illness, and I think that your insistence that trans individuals are mentally ill is nothing more than a schoolyard bully attack against people you don’t like and have no empathy for.

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  98. How long before you go back to calling gay people mentally ill, too, NJRob?

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  99. > Now, should children born to a mother illegally present have birthright citizenship simply as a matter of equity?

    Once the door is open to denying citizenship to *any* person born in the country, there will be no secure place to draw the line, and the line will move with the whims of the day.

    Half a century from now *none* of our citizenships are secure if this barrier is breached.

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  100. Good thing this site has an archives feature. A lot of these comments aren’t going to age well when the hoped for apocalypse doesn’t happen.

    lloyd (3e3bf1)

  101. Maybe Trump has a Sharpie that will tell everyone that Spain is a BRICS nation. Sigh. We elected ignorant.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  102. “We have been pardoned today not for breaking the law, but for upholding it.”

    Joint statement by Liz Cheney and 2016 election denier Bennie Thompson.

    Some time ago, someone here was pretty confident Liz would refuse a pardon. Maybe I’ll search the archives.

    lloyd (54553b)

  103. Liz Cheney said she would refuse a pardon.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  104. Oh, she had a change of heart.

    Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon weren’t afraid of going to prison. Liz, who put them there, is afraid of her own fake bravado.

    lloyd (54553b)

  105. The pardon power is fine. It shouldn’t be changed or curtailed. It should be merely tweaked:

    In a presentational election year, no pardons allowed starting October 1 through the next 111 days. (That takes it through Jan 20.)

    The president should be allowed to pardon whoever for whatever reason. He just shouldn’t be able to hide it from voters. Let the voters decide these things. Even a lame duck president would have to weigh the political cost to his party.

    lloyd (54553b)

  106. I don’t think that being transgender is a mental illness

    I certainly would not want to make a case either way for “ALL.” I guarantee you that some are mentally ill, and some are not.

    What I do think is whack-a-doodle is biological men wanting to compete in women’s sports. It makes a travesty of the idea of competition and ignores the very basis for the division of sports by sex. It’s pathetic and contemptible.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  107. Liz Cheney said she would refuse a pardon.

    One for the strangest things is that there are allegedly rules that prevent her refusal. This, a group blanket pardon, which has ZERO history before yesterday, has rules. Who knew?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  108. From what I’m reading, Trump has ordered the passport service and Social Security to not provide documents to US-born persons whose parents are illegals. If true, this would effectively strip persons, some of whom are adults, of their previous US citizenship. The first district court that hears this will enjoin.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  109. AllahNick

    The other source of unusual inaugural queasiness is the fact that Trump and his movement are grotesque. There’s no other word for it, and there’s no precedent for it in my lifetime, at least among mainstream political coalitions. His operation, especially in its current mature form, is a sick-making carnival of malevolent goblins.

    At the center is Trump himself, a lifelong con artist and recently convicted criminal who plainly feels more kinship with foreign strongmen than with the framers of the American experiment. Around him is a motley coterie of tech oligarchs, boorish yes-men, authoritarian ideologues, and preposterous grifters, all jockeying to assert themselves. Beyond that lies a ring of servile Republican mandarins who dislike him and his politics but are too cowardly to do anything but kowtow. And beyond that extends the great mass of MAGA fanatics, ever eager to validate any impulse he might have.

    Part mafia, part circus, part cult, part scam: I’ve written more than 400 columns for The Dispatch, most of them on this subject, but I’ll never do justice to how comprehensively grotesque Trump and his movement are. At noon today he smarmily swore an oath of office to defend the Constitution in the same building that his goons attacked four years ago, to his delight, in hopes of installing him in power unlawfully. If you watched it and your stomach didn’t lurch then you’re well and truly boiled.

    I hope Catoggio is wrong, but we’ve seen this movie before.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  110. Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon weren’t afraid of going to prison. Liz, who put them there, is afraid of her own fake bravado.

    That’s pretty funny, lloyd, casting a scuzbag like Navarro and criminal like Bannon as heroes.
    Down is up.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  111. More Catoggio…

    First came extreme corruption. On Friday night, days before he took charge of the Treasury and Justice Departments, Donald Trump launched his own cryptocurrency.

    Within 36 hours, the value of each $TRUMP token had soared from $7 to $72. (It stands at $45.45 as I write this on Monday.) Eighty percent of those tokens were owned initially by a subsidiary of the Trump Organization, which means the new president’s net worth rose overnight—literally—by tens of billions of dollars.
    […]
    His conflict of interest is so outlandish that analysts struggled for words to describe it. “It is literally cashing in on the presidency—creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office,” one ethics expert told the New York Times. “It is beyond unprecedented.” Crypto enthusiasts aren’t known for their scruples but even they couldn’t hide their horror. One self-described Trump supporter in the industry described the new currency to Politico as “absolutely preposterous. … They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memecoin launch.”

    After two days of criticism, the first family responded to the controversy by … launching a Melania Trump crypto token.

    I knew his presidency would be corrupt, but I didn’t foresee him devising his very own payment system in TrumpBucks to facilitate bribery from anywhere in the world. A less imaginative kleptocrat would insist on fat envelopes under the table, in secret, but Trump has always had a canny understanding that people are less likely to recoil from corruption when it occurs out in the open.

    Any bad actor who wants to curry favor with Trump just needs to buy into Sh-tcoin. This is graft on a whole new level.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  112. I guess in one sense these pardons are the decent thing to do. Trump pushed his Big Lie, and people got in trouble for believing it.

    Trump should have been punished by the voters for pushing the Big Lie, but he wasn’t.

    norcal (a72384)

  113. Has trump arrested anyone here yet? For NJRob, Lloyd, Budah and the rest of the magas here. You got your chance if trump blows it you know what happens next as the corporate establishment liberal democrats and their donor class masters wont be able to run interference against the left.

    asset (6ecfa7)

  114. How long before you go back to calling gay people mentally ill, too, NJRob?

    aphrael (dbf41f) — 1/20/2025 @ 7:53 pm

    So it’s really all about you. Got it.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  115. Jon Stewart, with a nod to Musk at the mid-7:00 mark. Also noted (at the 9:40 mark) is Trump not placing his hand on the Bible (and I’m guessing it was one of those Trump Bibles at $60 a pop) but it didn’t look like fingers on his left hand were crossed while swearing the Oath.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  116. @85

    Clink needs to change his handle to Godwin.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 6:58 pm

    He can’t… this is all he has left.

    whembly (477db6)

  117. At least Trump didn’t do these pardons the ch!chensh!t way… he did this at the beginning of his term and not 5 minutes before his term ends.

    whembly (477db6)

  118. A brave thing would have been if he had issued the pardons in January 2021. What is he risking now, safely behind the skirts of the electorate and the Presidential immunity decision and Constitutionally limited from another term?

    nk (7ec855)

  119. It is interesting to note the choice of backdrop in the rotunda — Trump was flanked by statues of Grant and Lincoln, two of the most radical Republicans, both of whom used federal troops to enforce their will.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  120. A brave thing would have been if he had issued the pardons in January 2021

    Indeed. It might have got him convicted in that impeachment trial though, being the only one left to punish.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  121. Like aphrael pointed out above, even these pardons are a haystack hiding the needle that is his own self-pardon by virtue of the broad language used.

    Not that there is much likelihood that the next administration will reinstate his case four years from now, but who knows what keeps him awake nights?

    nk (7ec855)

  122. I hope Catoggio is wrong, but we’ve seen this movie before.

    He may be correct, but what of it? The American people could have chosen Harris. They didn’t. The real questions is, with such a grotesque offering by the GOP, the Democrats could not manage a counter.

    The answer of course is that their last four years had been grotesque on stilts, with massive gaslighting of the public to try to hide it, starting with Biden himself and continuing to his opening up the borders and the treasury to predictable, if not orchestrated, gaming.

    Perhaps, for a change, Cattagio could write about how all that Covid-recovery money was paid to fraudsters and how magic words got millions of “refugees” into the country. Because it wasn’t a surprise to all those grotesque Trump supporters. How did Nick miss it?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  123. Like aphrael pointed out above, even these pardons are a haystack hiding the needle that is his own self-pardon by virtue of the broad language used.

    As *I* pointed out, Trump has never been accused of a J6 crime, so why would he NEED a pardon that was limited to that day and those acts? If that was what he wanted, he could have widened it like Biden did, so to cover the entire 2020 election.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  124. @123

    As *I* pointed out, Trump has never been accused of a J6 crime, so why would he NEED a pardon that was limited to that day and those acts? If that was what he wanted, he could have widened it like Biden did, so to cover the entire 2020 election.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 7:28 am

    But Kev!

    You see?!?! It was an insurrection!

    Why can’t you see what I’m seeing?!?!

    –Anti-Trumpers… possibly.

    whembly (477db6)

  125. US withdraws from WHO.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  126. You see?!?! It was an insurrection!

    It was an insurrection, but Trump was never charged.

    The DC case involved a pattern of electoral fraud and any reference there to the J6 activities was only to buttress the overall fraud case.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  127. In other inauguration news, if you move your hand from your chest to fully extend your arm, you are a Nazi. True fact!

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  128. Nonetheless, it’s silly season at the White House. The president seems intent on filling each of his remaining days in office with petulance, grievance, self-interest.

    The president is reportedly asking his staff about whether he can issue pre-emptive pardons for himself, his family members. There’s a simple answer: No. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority.

    Quiz: Who said this? And when?

    lloyd (c952b9)

  129. (iv) The indictment also contains various allegations regarding Trump’s conduct in connection with the events of January 6 itself. The alleged conduct largely consists of Trump’s communications in the form of Tweets and a public address.
    Syllabus, p. 6, Trump v. United States, Slip Opinion.

    nk (7ca270)

  130. (iv) The indictment also contains various allegations regarding Trump’s conduct in connection with the events of January 6 itself. The alleged conduct largely consists of Trump’s communications in the form of Tweets and a public address.

    Syllabus, p. 6, Trump v. United States, Slip Opinion.

    Worth saying twice.

    nk (7ca270)

  131. I cede you your victory but not your history.

    nk (7ca270)

  132. @126

    It was an insurrection, but Trump was never charged.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 7:43 am

    It was a protest that a small segment of the crowd rioted.

    The idea that it was an “insurrection” is farcical and anyone perpetuating it is only do so out of partisan animus without any sense of good-faith interpretation of what constitutes a true insurrection.

    You’d also have to convince yourself that Jack Smith didn’t charge Trump with insurrection because “he didn’t want to”, which flies in the face of how truly overzealous the Special Counsel was.

    whembly (477db6)

  133. yes, nk, but those are not crimes charged, just backup for the fraud charges. As in “SEE! He was still doing it!!!” A pardon for J6 events would not help him. Of course, he doesn’t need help given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  134. You’d also have to convince yourself that Jack Smith didn’t charge Trump with insurrection

    No, because Trump did not participate in the activities, and his comments were arguably ambiguous. Now, I would have been satisfied with an insurrection charge, but I would have been allowed nowhere near the jury.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  135. I cede you your victory but not your history.

    I cede your reference, but not its relevance.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  136. Trump renames America to “Greater America” to honor his MAGA promise.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  137. OK, maybe I’m joking.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  138. Here’s the link to the entire opinion. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
    You want pages 28-30.

    nk (5dba55)

  139. #136 In Robert L. Forward’s Rocheworld, Quebec has broken away from Canada, and the remaining Canadian provinces have joined the US, forming the “Greater United States of America”.

    I enjoyed an earlier version, The Flight of the Dragonfly, enough so I bought the full version, but have not gotten around to reading it. (The publication history is, shall we say, interesting.) But then I like “hard” science fiction more than most readers.

    Jim Miller (5e3734)

  140. No, I get that nk, but I don’t see any allegation that any of his Jan 6th actions were criminal, just that they fit within a pattern of fraud. But you’ve obviously done a lot more work on this than I care to. Was there a specific charge regarding Trump’s actions at the Insurrection? If not, then I don’t see how that would be affected by yesterday’s pardon/amnesty. And, as you’ve pointed out, the Supremes have pretty much immunized him anyway.

    Now, Donald Trump Jr may have benefited.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  141. In Robert L. Forward’s Rocheworld, Quebec has broken away from Canada, and the remaining Canadian provinces have joined the US, forming the “Greater United States of America”.

    There are a number of SF stories with that kind of backdrop. And I think Forward is right that any anschluss of that sort would also have Quebec going its own (or rejoining France).

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  142. Harry Turtledove has an alt history series where the US, after the Confederacy won its independence, eventually annexes Canada by force.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  143. Harry Turtledove has an alt history series where the US, after the Confederacy won its independence, eventually annexes Canada by force.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 9:09 am

    There’s also a 2004 alternate history documentary (complete with faux commercials) C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2017):

    C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America is set in an alternate history where Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation failed. Confederate President Jefferson Davis takes the opportunity to secure British and French aid for the Confederacy, allowing Confederate forces to win the Battle of Gettysburg, besiege Washington, D.C., and capture the White House a few months later. As a result, the Confederacy takes over all of the United States and slavery there survives into the present day and other historical events are affected accordingly.

    The CSA builds the Cotton Curtain to prevent slaves from fleeing into Canada. It’s available on Youtube and other platforms.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  144. The correct date is 2004.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  145. One for the strangest things is that there are allegedly rules that prevent her refusal. This, a group blanket pardon, which has ZERO history before yesterday, has rules. Who knew?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 10:25 pm

    Link?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  146. Note that several news organizations are conflating the birthright citizenship thing to mean “children of immigrants” not “children of illegal immigrants.” The first one has no constitutional chance, but then Trump didn’t say it. The second, well, he did, and maybe.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/20/2025 @ 7:01 pm

    Trump’s redefinition of citizenship also includes children of immigrants who are lawfully, but temporarily, located in the US (Section 2(2).

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  147. Link?

    Yeah, sorry. Too much, too fast and changing a lot.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  148. nk (7ca270) — 1/21/2025 @ 7:49 am

    The electoral interference indictment has been dismissed, so what it says is irrelevant; and it is highly unlikely Trump will be reindicted four years from now. At the end of his term he will be an elderly man (82) with possible memory problems, and would be a more sympathetic figure in front of jury.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  149. Yeah, sorry. Too much, too fast and changing a lot.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 9:49 am

    So what are the rules for a group pardon?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  150. Trump’s redefinition of citizenship also includes children of immigrants who are lawfully, but temporarily, located in the US (Section 2(2).

    Yes. Earlier reports had either said all non-citizens or just illegals. Now they say it included children born to people on guest visas (tourist, student, etc). If the Constitution said “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof owing allegiance thereto” he’d have a point. But it doesn’t.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  151. This misreading of the 14th Amendment is a reaction to a common way to gaming the system that has gutted attempts to enforce immigration laws. Before Biden’s corruption of the system, the “anchor baby” thing, where we were reluctant to expel parents of minor US citizens, was the main exploitation allowing illegals to remain.

    Trump is attempting to defeat this by brute force. It won’t work, although he may raise the issue to the point if figures in the midterms.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  152. So what are the rules for a group pardon?

    The argument I read was that, since it was of a group, individuals could not choose whether to accept or not. It struck me as odd, not only for there being no previous occasion for a rule, but also a self-serving excuse for those who wanted to have it both ways. I guess the Carter-era draft amnesty might have some precedents, but I’d be surprised if someone actually demanded to be prosecuted for something they were actually guilty of.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  153. RIP Garth Hudson, keyboardist and last surviving member of the Band (87):

    ………
    Retiring and seldom interviewed, Hudson was the quiet man in the group that began life as the Hawks, Arkansas-born rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins’ backup band, who in 1966 graduated to supporting Bob Dylan on his tumultuous first tour as a rock ‘n’ roll performer.

    After woodshedding with Dylan in West Saugerties, N.Y. — where Hudson served as recording engineer for Dylan and the group’s legendary “basement tapes” – the musicians stepped out as the Band on a stunning 1968 debut, “Music From Big Pink.” That album and the self-titled 1969 sequel established them as one of the day’s top rock acts.
    ………..
    Every album contained a song that demonstrated Hudson’s great gifts: “Up On Cripple Creek,” with its twanging, wah-wah-infused clavinet, on “The Band”; “Daniel and the Sacred Harp,” boasting an elegant church-organ intro, on “Stage Fright” (1970); the Dylan cover “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” highlighted by his accordion obbligato, on “Cahoots” (1971); the percolating “Third Man Theme,” the old Hawks break song, from the collection of covers “Moondog Matinee” (1973); and “It Makes No Difference,” a lush ballad featuring Hudson’s soprano saxophone work, from “Northern Lights-Southern Cross” (1975). Even a rock and roll classic like the group’s cover of Little Richard’s “Slippin’ and Slidin’” features a wild organ solo from Hudson that evokes a deranged calliope.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  154. @151

    This misreading of the 14th Amendment is a reaction to a common way to gaming the system that has gutted attempts to enforce immigration laws. Before Biden’s corruption of the system, the “anchor baby” thing, where we were reluctant to expel parents of minor US citizens, was the main exploitation allowing illegals to remain.

    Trump is attempting to defeat this by brute force. It won’t work, although he may raise the issue to the point if figures in the midterms.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 10:02 am

    Understand that the intent of the EO *is* to take this up to SCOTUS.

    The “Under the jurisdiction of” is the crux of it all.

    Ordinary understanding at the passage of the 14th Amendment meant what “allegiance” does the alien hold? It’s a wordsmith term of art. Not whether the state/federal government’s laws applies to the alien (ie, definition of jurisdiction today). Similar how the 2nd amendment is commonly misinterpreted.

    IF folks advocating that “jurisdiction” means, “if you’re here, our laws applies”… it’s a redundant rationale because OF COURSE if you’re in another country, that country’s laws applies to you. I seriously doubt it needed to be said in that manner. So, to me, it’s a term of art of the times that, again, ‘Under the jurisdiction of’ really means what loyalties the illegal alien holds (ie, where they come from).

    The whole rationale of the “the jurisdiction of” was born out excluding the native Indians, diplomats and invaders from the 14th. Not an illegal alien in today’s sense. (although, an argument could be made that illegal aliens are ‘invaders’)

    The question wasn’t even considered at the time of the 14th Amendment as to how to handle offspring’s of illegal aliens in the country. So, it’s a situation that isn’t as clear cut as it should, even when there’s multiple court cases *touching* the peripheral question at hand.

    I don’t think it’s clear that the Executive can do this by EO.

    I do think Congress has a much stronger case to pass legislation to explicitly deny birthright citizenships to illegal aliens.

    If all that happens to this EO, is for SCOTUS to strike it down and signaling that’s its a political question for Congress to answer, then this EO exercise is worth it.

    whembly (477db6)

  155. 151, Kevin: whatever the outcome, we’ll get well publicized court decisions.

    And if a present day Justice Brennan like Sotomayor decides–that coming across the border –on land, or by air as a birth tourist, –when one is 9 mos along makes the kid a US citizen, fine: Then we have it out in the open.

    If people w/o any past allegiance to the US can gain citizenship and a niagra of benefits for their kid with no tax payment history, no service, no loyalty, nothing bur a well-times airline ticket, –then we’ll have an issue ripe for adjustment by the appropriate method.

    Trump is at least setting it up for the People to decide, and that’s more than sobbing John Boehner, Clipboard Paul Ryan or the exerable Dennis Hastert ever did.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  156. Paul Montagu (7d07c9) — 1/20/2025 @ 5:56 pm

    Dana, there were only 14 commutations out of the lot, so even the worst of the worst J6 criminals are out of jail,

    There might be an additional 6 who were not released or pardoned, who cases are under review, and those with cases pending are still in jail.

    https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/jan-6-capitol-riot-defendants-dc-jail-pardons/65-9cba026d-ce9a-4c2e-ae0f-fe5a9b92c581

    When he announced the pardons, he said he pardoned all but 14 of the more than 1,500 people charged in relation to the riot — the other 14 had their sentences commuted.

    But the order he really signed only pardoned those who have already been convicted, and there are still more than 300 cases pending.

    For those with pending cases, meaning any defendants still awaiting trial or sentencing, the president ordered that their cases be dismissed.

    Most of the people being held at the D.C. jail fall into that category, which is why the majority of them have yet to be released.

    Sammy Finkelman (baadeb)

  157. As I said, if the 14th read “and owing allegiance thereto”, what Trump is doing would be perfectly OK. But it doesn’t say that. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t, and I don’t see how the Court can make it read that.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  158. Note that all of the violent offenders — all of them — have spent a year or more in prison already. This isn’t “scot-free.” Yeah, probably not enough, but it’s not like it was a surprise.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  159. Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 10:05 am

    If you have a link, I would like to read it-sounds interesting. The Supreme Court has allowed defendants to waive a pardon. There are arguments that blanket pardons are unconstitutional; “to be valid, the pardon must list the specific crimes insulated from criminal liability.” However, there are also arguments that a specificity requirement is not required by the Constitution: “there is no evidence in the record of the Constitutional Convention or subsequent ratifying debates that anyone thought the grant of pardon power was qualified by a specificity limit.”

    Unfortunately, these arguments are confined to academia, as n one would have standing to challenge a presidential pardon.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  160. None of the J6ers pardoned/commuted had this ordeal totally “wiped clean”.

    They still suffered pre-detention, trials, monetary expenses, loss of jobs, etc…

    So, “scott-free” isn’t the appropriate vernacular here. That’s what Biden did to his family when he pre-emptedly pardoned them.

    whembly (477db6)

  161. @157

    As I said, if the 14th read “and owing allegiance thereto”, what Trump is doing would be perfectly OK. But it doesn’t say that. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t, and I don’t see how the Court can make it read that.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 11:06 am

    According to the writers of the 14th, ‘and owing allegiance thereto’ is the same term of art as ‘Under the jurisdiction of’. So there’s no need for the writers to repeat themselves in a different manner.

    whembly (477db6)

  162. Kevin, under your interpretation how were Indians not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof?” Why were Indian citizenship acts necessary?

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  163. nk (7ec855) — 1/21/2025 @ 7:25 am

    Like aphrael pointed out above, even these pardons are a haystack hiding the needle that is his own self-pardon by virtue of the broad language used.

    It would be in his interest to release the Jack Smith report, because nobody who investigated this, assigned any blame to Trump for planning the storming of he Capitol. Indeed they came very close to proving the opposite, especially by the fact that it threatened to uin his real plans for January 6, and he knew it, and by the fact that his real plans included going to the Capitol himself to address the crowd and to lobby members of Congress in person. Testified to by Cassidy Hutchinson who wasn’t pardoned by either president.

    But they (partisan investigators) even though they could not pin any responsibility for the storming of the Capitol on Trump, still wanted to blame Trump for “inciting” it, and so were not interested in determining the truth as to who planned it.

    Some people were convicted of planning it in advance. The trouble is some people in Trump’s circle (still) were probably co-conspirators. Steve Bannon maybe?

    Biden’s pardons involved creating a haystack to surround a needle (his family)

    Sammy Finkelman (baadeb)

  164. * threatened to ruin his real plans for January 6,

    The (doomed to failure) vote in Congress to reject Electoral votes, which the Jan 6 committee alluded to as little as possible.

    Sammy Finkelman (baadeb)

  165. 162. The 14th amendment specifically excluded Indians not taxed.

    Sammy Finkelman (baadeb)

  166. Excluded them from what, Sammy?

    Here is a resource: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  167. BuDuh (2e2fb6) — 1/21/2025 @ 11:53 am

    Excluded them from what, Sammy?

    Automatic citizenship by birth. Well it says from being counted for representation in Congress, but presumably these are most of the people not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, unless it was a mistake not to initially recognize Indians living outside areas governed by the United States as citizens.
    https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14

    Section 1

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    Section 2

    Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed….

    Why are they not to be counted? As for why the language in Section 1 is broader than Indians not taxed that is because you have some other possibilities.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  168. the “anchor baby” thing

    There are not any anchor babies from a legal point of view (hardship exceptions from removal do not include children) but there are anchor spouses.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  169. Will you connect those dots a little more clearly for me, Sammy? It sounds like you are saying they are subject to the laws of the United States, as part of Section 2, but they are not considered citizens in Section 1 because they are not subject to the laws of the United States.

    Would substituting “allegiance” fix this conflict?

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  170. I’m going to wait for Kevin to jump in before I post again.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  171. Native Americans weren’t fully citizens of the United States until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, their tribes were considered “separate sovereigns” and not subject to the “jurisdiction” of the United States:

    Although the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that any person born in the United States is a citizen, there is an exception for persons not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the federal government. This language was generally taken to mean members of various tribes that were treated as separate sovereignties: they were citizens of their tribal nations.
    ………
    At the time of the adoption of the US Constitution under Article One, Native Americans, who were classified as “Indians not taxed”, were not considered to be eligible for US citizenship because they were governed by distinct tribes, which functioned in a political capacity. Native persons who were members of a tribe were specifically excluded from representation and taxation. The case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), according to historian Brad Tennant, established that tribal members “who maintained their tribal ties and resided on tribal land would technically be considered foreigners” living in the United States as wards of the federal government.
    ……….
    The exclusion of Native Americans from US citizenship was further established by Elk v. Wilkins (1884), when the Supreme Court held that a Native person born a citizen of a recognized tribal nation was not born an American citizen and did not become one simply by voluntarily leaving his tribe and settling among whites. The syllabus of the decision explained that a Native person “who has not been naturalized, or taxed, or recognized as a citizen either by the United States or by the state, is not a citizen of the United States within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment of the Constitution”.
    ………..
    The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 declared:

    all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States.

    ……….

    Footnotes omitted.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  172. Thanks for the assist, Rip.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  173. his web page contains an incomplete list of the executive orders President Trump signed on Day 1 of his administration:

    https://nypost.com/2025/01/21/us-news/two-jan-6-prisoners-andrew-and-matthew-valentin-released-from-dc-jail-after-trumps-day-1-pardon

    Page down or search for “wasted no time”

    This was printed on the right side of page 11 of today’s New York Post.

    Some didn’t make any headlines, like withdrawing from the WHO.

    Tik-Tok, interestingly, got only a 75 day extension and it’s apparently not the same thing the law provided for.

    It seems like Biden already had signed several ” immigration orders from the Biden administration, including one that narrows deportation priorities to people who commit serious crimes, are deemed national security threats or were stopped at the border” This was reversed.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  174. BuDuh (2e2fb6) — 1/21/2025 @ 12:28 pm

    It sounds like you are saying they are subject to the laws of the United States, as part of Section 2, but they are not considered citizens in Section 1 because they are not subject to the laws of the United States.

    Their numbers could be estimated or possibly were known or maybe they were counted in the Census. The 14th amendment provided for a reduction in the number of members of Congress a state got

    . But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

    This was never enforced, and was superseded by the 15th amendment which was de facto violated. Till then the franchise could be legally limited in a state to white people or people who had never been slaves..

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  175. News item: 18 states sue the Trump Administration over the “birthright citizenship” Executive Order.

    More:

    ……….
    ……….(T)here’s virtually no way in which, legally, the President could restrict birthright citizenship by executive order—because (1) there’s a federal statute that protects it; (2) even if there wasn’t, the Supreme Court expressly interpreted the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to confer birthright citizenship in its 1898 ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (a ruling that I’m confident a majority of this Court would follow); and (3) the only not-completely-frivolous ground on which to try to distinguish Wong Kim Ark is … effectively frivolous.
    ……….
    Recently, some commentators have seized upon the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language to argue that, in fact, the Citizenship Clause only applies to those who have lawful immigration status—and so excludes children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants. As Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho (appointed by Trump) wrote in a 2006 essay, this argument cannot be reconciled with either the text or the original understanding of the Citizenship Clause, which confirms that it “plainly guarantees birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of all persons subject to U.S. sovereign authority and laws.” As we’ll see below, the Supreme Court has been clear for … a very long time … that only three very specific categories of people “in” the United States are nevertheless not “subject to U.S. sovereign authority and laws,” and undocumented immigrants aren’t one of them. ……..

    Indeed, it turns out that there are three different reasons why it would be virtually impossible for a President to get rid of, or even limit, birthright citizenship solely by executive order. …….

    Obstacle #1: Existing Federal Statutes

    ………(T)here’s a federal statute that guarantees birthright citizenship. In listing those who are “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth,” 8 U.S.C. § 1401’s first example is “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Thus, Congress has provided a statutory right to citizenship that courts have historically interpreted to provide the very birthright citizenship that Trump wants to reinterpret the Constitution to exclude. ……..Congress provided birthright citizenship even before the Fourteenth Amendment required it—in section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. So there is at least an argument that they’re not automatically covering the same cases.
    ………

    Obstacle #2: Wong Kim Ark (and Others…)

    ……….
    ……….(T)he Supreme Court explained that the “real object” of the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language was to exclude from its coverage exactly three classes of individuals: children of Native American tribes born on reservations “standing in a peculiar relation to the National Government;” “children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation” during wartime ……..; and “children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign State.” That was it.
    ………..
    ………..As the Court explained in Plyler v. Doe (1982), “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.” And three years later, the court was even more explicit. Referring to the married, undocumented immigrants at issue in (INS v. Rios-Pineda, (1985)), the court noted that they “had given birth to a child, who, born in the United States, was a citizen of the country.”

    In other words, Wong Kim Ark can’t be pigeonholed as a 126-year-old decision that didn’t speak to the matter at hand; it specifically identified the only exceptions to the Citizenship Clause; and the Supreme Court has since made clear, twice, that children of undocumented immigrants don’t fall within them simply because their parents are out of lawful immigration status……..
    ………..

    Obstacle #3: The Cynical Weakness of the “Invasion” Argument

    ………..(Judge) Ho has “clarified” that he thinks there’s an important exception that his 2006 essay somehow neglected to mention—and that (he insinuates) Wong Kim Ark didn’t consider: The argument is that, just as children born to enemy soldiers while they are invading the United States obviously aren’t covered by the Citizenship Clause, so too, children of undocumented immigrants who have likewise “invaded” the United States:
    ………..

    ……..(I)n reviewing the common law practice in pre-revolutionary (and post-revolutionary) England, (Justice Horace Gray’s) majority opinion (in Wong Kim Ark) referred specifically to children born to “an alien enemy in hostile occupation of the place where the child was born.” That’s not just a claim about “invasion” (as Judge Ho suggested); it’s a specific claim about “hostile occupation”—that a foreign sovereign is an occupying power of the place where (and at the time when) the child at issue is born………

    ………“hostile occupation” means something far more specific—and is, as Wong Kim Ark recognized, a reference to specific conditions that obtained when a foreign army was in control of another sovereign’s territory.
    ………
    The upshot of all of this is that, for President Trump to be able to take any real bite out of birthright citizenship, he’d have to persuade the Supreme Court to read a statute to mean something other than what it’s been understood to mean for 158 years; to ignore what the Court’s predecessors said in Wong Kim Ark about the breadth of birthright citizenship; to overrule the two more-recent cases specifically recognizing children of undocumented immigrants as citizens; to collapse the distinction in Wong Kim Ark (and historical practice) between “hostile occupation” and “invasion”; and, even then, to persuade five justices that undocumented immigrants, regardless of their country of nationality, are “invading” the United States for constitutional purposes—and are somehow not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” while they are here (which would pose its own problems for trying to enforce our immigration laws against them).
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  176. When 77,302,580 voters tell you that bugfukkery works, who cares what 18 State Attorneys General have to say?

    nk (57524b)

  177. Kevin, under your interpretation how were Indians not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof?” Why were Indian citizenship acts necessary?

    The Indian nations were officially autonomous, even on the Rez. The reality may have been different, but both the government and the tribes wanted to maintain the fiction.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  178. I’m going to wait for Kevin to jump in before I post again.

    Note that my reading of the 14th is the traditional one: words matter and the words they used only exclude persons who are not strictly subject to US jurisdiction. Tribal members on the Rez, diplomats, possibly people in international transit lounges. But immigrants, regardless of their status, are subject to US law. If they don’t believe that, they should try driving a 100MPH through a school zone.

    Trump’s (not my) interpretation seems to hinge on whether the parents owe allegiance to the USA. Persons admitted as immigrants have agreed to do so, tourists and people here without leave, not so much.

    If Trump’s version prevailed, and it wasn’t retroactive, I could live with that. But I don’t think that’s what the Constitution says, and if people don’t like that I offer them Article V.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  179. If a non-taxed Indian went off the reservation and had their baby in downtown LA, would that baby have had Birthright citizenship?

    I have no idea but some of the language in the Indian citizenship acts make me believe the answer is no.

    I don’t think the Indian Nations ever had 100% sovereignty when it came to certain laws applicable to the geographical US. Under the notion the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” referenced abiding by US laws, the Indians were always covered under section 1 of the 14th.

    Where they did have clear sovereignty was with their own citizenship within the tribe. That is the real conflict. This is why, to me, the jurisdiction component meant allegiance.

    We will see.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  180. Catoggio often sustains Patterico’s judgment that he is the best writer on the internet.

    Trump isn’t the only president to issue corrupt pardons—look no further than Joe Biden’s sleazy final act this morning—but doing favors for your relatives is less ominous than doing favors for people willing to commit political violence in your name. Freeing the J6ers is Trump declaring that, by showing him enough loyalty, literally any accused criminal might soon find himself beyond the law’s reach.

    And don’t think it’s gone unnoticed.

    Trump as the ultimate arbiter of all federal justice is the logical endpoint of the cult of personality he’s been building for the last decade. There were some lavishly repulsive examples of that on display this weekend too. At his rally on Sunday night, for instance, two speakers who gave the benediction inserted his name in the Lord’s Prayer. His new national security adviser has gone from calling TikTok a “spyware app” last year to a “fantastic app” now, a party-line turnabout that would have made Stalin blush.

    https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/boilingfrogs/american-grotesque/

    norcal (a72384)

  181. If a non-taxed Indian went off the reservation and had their baby in downtown LA, would that baby have had Birthright citizenship?

    Well, things have changed so most of that is obsolete. I think that all Native Americans are now citizens, and taxed, wherever they are. Native Americans vote in federal elections at least. Not sure if they are considered residents of a state if they are on the Rez.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  182. doing favors for your relatives is less ominous than doing favors for people willing to commit political violence in your name.

    You see, I don’t see that as the difference. Biden’s pardons were GOoJF cards for ANY act they MIGHT have committed. These are a first in US history, and lawless in the extreme.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  183. Biden’s pardons were GOoJF cards for ANY act they MIGHT have committed. These are a first in US history, and lawless in the extreme.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/21/2025 @ 3:26 pm

    Trump’s malignancy is also a first in history. Maybe Biden took Trump seriously about putting Cheney and his other enemies in jail.

    norcal (a72384)

  184. doing favors for your relatives is less ominous than doing favors for people willing to commit political violence in your name.

    Also, some of those pardons were for people who directed the actions of government. Considering that the entire MAGA movement is an, um, insurrection against the administrative state, immunizing leading agents of said state is ominous in itself.

    Let’s say that Trump’s DOJ takes actions against people they claim aren’t citizens any more, causing irreparable harm, then Trump gives DOJ officials their own blanket pardons. Do you see it now?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  185. Trump’s malignancy is also a first in history.

    And here we have it. The, um, Trump card. Only bad presidents should be limited by the law, good presidents should have more latitude. And this we call The Rule of Law!

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  186. Well, things have changed so most of that is obsolete.

    So it is possible that the running theory of the breadth of Wonk Kim Ark is also obsolete.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  187. Maybe Biden took Trump seriously about putting Cheney and his other enemies in jail.

    Nothing the J6 committee did was actionable. Even if the entire process was politically corrupt, they are protected by the Constitution already. Even more so than the President is.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  188. So it is possible that the running theory of the breadth of Wonk Kim Ark is also obsolete.

    Mr Ark was not an Indian.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  189. Indian tribes were treated like foreign governments when the US government and the tribes negotiated treaties:

    From 1774 until about 1832, treaties between individual sovereign American Indian nations and the United States were negotiated to establish borders and prescribe conditions of behavior between the parties.

    The form of these agreements was nearly identical to the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Great Britain. The negotiations ended in a mutually signed pact that had to be approved by the U.S. Congress. Non-tribal citizens were required to have a passport to cross sovereign Indian lands.

    From 1832 until 1871, American Indian nations were considered to be domestic, dependent tribes. Negotiated treaties between tribes and the U.S. had to be approved by the U.S. Congress.

    In 1871, the House of Representatives ceased recognition of individual tribes within the U.S. as independent nations with whom the U.S. could contract by treaty. This ended the nearly 100-year-old practice of treaty-making between the U.S. and American Indian tribes.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  190. So what do we about Roman Catholics, regardless of where they or their parents were born, who not only obey but tithe to the Vatican, a foreign sovereign state?

    nk (57524b)

  191. Charles Curtis had something to do with extending citizenship to Indian tribes.

    Born on January 25, 1860, in North Topeka, Kansas Territory,[2] a year before Kansas was admitted as a state, Charles Curtis had three-eighths Native American ancestry and five-eighths European American ancestry.[3][4] His mother, Ellen Papin (also spelled Pappan), was Kaw, Osage, Potawatomi, and French.[5][6] His father, Orren Curtis, was of English, Scots, and Welsh ancestry.[7] On his mother’s side, Curtis was a descendant of chief White Plume of the Kaw Nation and chief Pawhuska of the Osage.

    Jim Miller (771bd3)

  192. Finding something better than Wikipedia is tough and I don’t have the time to dig too deep.

    In 1871, a few years after The 14th was ratified, congress passed one of the Indian Appropriation Acts.

    1871 Act
    edit
    According to the Indian Appropriation Act of March 3, 1871, no longer was any group of Indians in the United States recognized as an independent nation by the federal government.[6] Moreover, Congress directed that all Indians should be treated as individuals and legally designated “wards” of the federal government.[7] Before this bill was enacted, the federal government signed treaties with different Native American tribes, committing the tribes to land cessions, in exchange for specific lands designated to Indians for exclusive indigenous use as well as annual payments in the form of cash, livestock, supplies, and services.[8] These treaties, which took much time and effort to finalize, ceased with the passage of the 1871 Indian Appropriation Act, declaring that “no Indian nation or tribe” would be recognized “as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.”[9] On the other hand, the statute also declared “no obligation of any treaty lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe prior to March 3, 1871, shall be hereby invalidated or impaired.”[10] Thus, it can be argued that this bill made it significantly easier for the federal government to secure lands that were previously owned by Native Americans.

    They were clearly subject to US Law in 1871. Arguably they were subject to US Law earlier, but this 1871 language and its close proximity to the passing of the 14th makes for a tidy argument that simple obedience to US Law was already covered in The Nations at that time.

    They were not automatically given citizenship because of a lack of allegiance. Similar to a visiting pregnant foreigner’s cargo.

    Here is the government’s reference to the code noting that it stems from 1871: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2012-title25/html/USCODE-2012-title25-chap3-subchapI-sec71.htm

    Cheers

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  193. Mr Ark was not an Indian.

    Good grief.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  194. More allegations against Pete Hegseth (which he denies):

    Hegseth Routinely Passed Out From Alcohol Abuse, Witness Says

    Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior that was given to U.S. lawmakers and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

    The sworn statement, submitted in response to a request from Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was signed by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth. It states that she was with Hegseth when he passed out from drunkenness in the bathroom of a bar in Minneapolis in about 2013. It also describes another night, when she said Hegseth drank so much at a restaurant in Minneapolis that the Uber driver had to pull over on Interstate 94 so he could throw up.
    ………..
    Hegseth has told senators he would abstain from consuming alcohol if he were to lead the Pentagon.
    ………..
    In the sworn statement, Hegseth’s former sister-in-law said that Hegseth’s ex-wife, Samantha, told her that she once hid from Hegseth in a closet because she feared for her personal safety, sometime between 2014 and 2016.

    She said that Samantha had a “code word” with her and another person close to her and that Samantha had made a plan in case she needed to get away from Hegseth. Danielle Hegseth said that Samantha texted the code to her in 2015 or 2016. She said the code meant that she should call the other person to fly out to Minnesota to help Samantha, which Danielle said she did.
    ……….
    Danielle said she didn’t personally witness physical or sexual abuse by Hegseth to Samantha, but she said that she herself was a witness and a victim of emotional abuse by Hegseth.
    ………
    Danielle said her sworn statement repeats what she had already told the FBI, and said she chose to come forward publicly “at significant personal sacrifice” because she was concerned about the prospect of his leading the U.S. military.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  195. Ouch!

    President Trump took the oath of office Monday promising to faithfully execute the duties of his office, which include implementing the laws passed by Congress. Yet in one of his first acts as President, Mr. Trump effectively suspended a law requiring TikTok to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance by Jan. 19.
    ………..
    ………..The law lets the President grant a one-time 90-day reprieve from a ban if TikTok demonstrates “a path to executing a qualified divestiture,” “evidence of significant progress,” and “relevant legal agreements to enable” its execution.

    None of these conditions have been met……….

    While challenging the law in court, TikTok rebuffed potential suitors. Beijing effectively blocked a deal by imposing export controls on its algorithms, which it treats as state secrets. After losing at the Supreme Court on Friday, TikTok and Beijing have shown a seeming openness to a deal. And Mr. Trump floated a “joint venture” in which the U.S. would have a 50% stake. It isn’t clear if he meant the U.S. government or private investors would own the American 50%. But it’s illegal either way.
    ………….
    TikTok must sever all ties with ByteDance and China. Mr. Trump can’t suspend laws like an English King before the 1689 Bill of Rights. It’s true that Barack Obama and Joe Biden refused to enforce some laws, but Mr. Trump just told the country he’s different.

    Congress is a co-equal branch of government, not a subsidiary of the President. Members passed the law after finding that TikTok was collecting user data that would let Beijing spy on Americans.

    Yet now he’s canoodling with CEO Shou Zi Chew, who was spotted at the inauguration next to Tulsi Gabbard, the President’s nominee for director of national intelligence, of all people. Talk about a horrible signal. Mr. Trump is relaying that he puts pleasing China’s Xi Jinping above a law passed by Congress

    Mr. Trump also promised not to enforce the law’s penalties on tech firms that carry TikTok, which can reach up to $850 billion. He directed his Attorney General “to issue a letter” granting broad immunity to providers that continue hosting TikTok. But Mr. Trump can’t rewrite the law by decree, and such a letter wouldn’t excuse companies like Apple, Google and Oracle from complying.

    …………State Attorneys General could sue tech companies for putting their citizens’ data at risk. Shareholders could sue the companies for risking ruinous penalties if they fail to comply with law.

    Mr. Trump directed his AG to “defend the Executive’s exclusive authority to enforce the Act.” But the Justice Department can’t stop others from suing. Mr. Trump’s TikTok order shows a Biden-like disdain for limits on his power that doesn’t bode well for the next four years.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  196. May I suggest something that will help clarify the discussion on birthright citizenship?

    The disputants here should answer these two questions:

    1. Is birthright citizenship guaranteed by the US Constitution?

    2. Should it be guaranteed by the US Constitution?

    FWIW, most nations in North and South America have birthright citizenship; most nations in the old world do not.

    (For the record, my answers are yes and yes. If I understand the Loser correctly, his answers are no and no.)

    Jim Miller (771bd3)

  197. 1. Is birthright citizenship guaranteed by the US Constitution?

    2. Should it be guaranteed by the US Constitution?

    1.yes, for some.

    2.yes

    If I understand the Loser correctly

    tribalism and division were in your rear view mirror.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  198. Last line should have started with “I thought…”

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  199. Trump Pardons Creator of Silk Road Drug Marketplace
    ……….
    ……….Mr. Trump fulfilled a promise that he made repeatedly on the campaign trail as he courted political contributions from the crypto industry, which spent more than $100 million to influence the outcome of the election. A Bitcoin pioneer, Mr. Ulbricht, 40, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015, after he was convicted on charges that included distributing narcotics on the internet.
    ………..
    In its nearly three years of existence, Silk Road, which operated in a shady corner of the internet known as the dark web, became an international drug marketplace, facilitating more than 1.5 million transactions, including sales of heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances. (The site generated over $200 million in revenue, according to authorities.) In court, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Ulbricht had also solicited the murders of people whom he considered threats — but acknowledged there was no evidence that the killings took place.
    …………
    In its nearly three years of existence, Silk Road, which operated in a shady corner of the internet known as the dark web, became an international drug marketplace, facilitating more than 1.5 million transactions, including sales of heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances. (The site generated over $200 million in revenue, according to authorities.) In court, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Ulbricht had also solicited the murders of people whom he considered threats — but acknowledged there was no evidence that the killings took place.
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  200. Maybe Biden took Trump seriously about putting Cheney and his other enemies in jail.
    norcal (a72384) — 1/21/2025 @ 3:33 pm

    Maybe. But if he thought Trump had the power to put them in jail, regardless of the law, a pardon isn’t going to help them. What Biden likely took seriously was their legal exposure to a partisan DOJ, something he is intimately familiar with.

    As for Cheney and the J6 committee, having already put their enemies in jail it’s not a question of taking them seriously or not.

    lloyd (76e94d)

  201. LOL!

    The Constitution page on President Trump’s White House website is showing a 404 error.

    Page not found,” the site reads.

    Under former President Biden’s term, the website highlighted the history behind the creation of the Constitution and why the country has the set of guiding rules.

    Trump unveiled the new website Monday after taking office for the second time.
    …………

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  202. If I start at a shorter portion of your LOL link, how do I navigate to the missing page?

    Start here, Rip: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  203. Rip’s on a non-story bender.

    lloyd (e3319a)

  204. Lloyd, would you test this for me?

    Here is the archived Trump 45 page:

    https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/about-the-white-house/the-constitution/

    It opens fine for me. If I go to the address back out “Trump” and type in “Biden” I get the archived Biden page. If I then back out “Biden” and put “Trump” back in, it takes me to a 404 error. Weird.

    Maybe it is my device. I tried it a few times.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  205. Hey, guess what, stupid Hitler is evil. And if you voted for evil, guess what that makes you? That is all.

    bu..bu..bu..whatabout squirrel.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  206. 194: Rip M: Sober people who never got drunk in a strip club, bungled our war in Vietnam, elevated Pronouns over hypersonic missiles, left $8 billion in rifles, helicopters and other equipment in Afghanistan, lost control of the border, and cancelled the F-22.

    But I am supposed to be worried about some guy who someone named Danielle says did pass out in a strip club?

    You remember what Lincoln said about Grant and his drinking? “Find me the brand he drinks and send a case to my other generals.”

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (66ed28)

  207. @HFM@206 I feel like Nixon might’ve gotten drunk in a strip club. Pronouns are free. I have them, you have them, everyone has them at no cost. I’m sorry you disapprove of the way some people use theirs, but they are free and do not require anyone to make a choice over pronouns vs. missiles. The border is the same mess it’s been my entire lifetime, so Nixon again? I really do feel he might’ve gotten drunk at least a couple of times in a strip club. Have you looked into why the F-22 got cancelled?

    Hegseth had an anemic military career. He is no Ulysses S. Grant.

    Nic (120c94)

  208. Coast guards first female commandant Adm. Linda Fagan fired by trump. The purge begins! Democrats should demand birthright citizenship for all trumpsters should be removed starting with republicans in congress and supreme court when they regain power.

    asset (2aacf5)

  209. So what do we about Roman Catholics, regardless of where they or their parents were born, who not only obey but tithe to the Vatican, a foreign sovereign state?

    Yeah, American Catholics are good at obeying the Vatican. No abortions, only 3 shakes at the urinal, etc.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  210. 1. Is birthright citizenship guaranteed by the US Constitution?

    Nearly absolutely. Diplomats are probably the largest exempted group as they are NOT subject to US jurisdiction.

    2. Should it be guaranteed by the US Constitution?

    To the same degree? Not sure. I see no reason why it should cover non-immigrants, for example. Since most countries also have descent-citizenship, it creates dual-citizenship in many cases. People who intend on returning home want their child to be a citizen of the home country. Allowing US citizenship to be acquired this way does the USA no good, and sometimes harm due to gaming.

    The real question is for extralegal immigrants who would normally be returned home when found. The degree that this is a meaningful issue is the degree to which our immigration enforcement doesn’t work. It is unreasonable to uproot child born and raised here later in life. But at the age of two or three it’s not so terrible.

    Trump’s suggested process, which would affect some 40 year-olds, is terrible, no good and awful. Also unconstitution as we see above in 1).

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  211. Hegseth had an anemic military career. He is no Ulysses S. Grant.

    I see no point in Hegseth. My question would be “Why? In a nation of 300 million, can’t you do better?”

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  212. Leonard Peltier sentence commuted. So biden did some good in the end. He was convicted because he refused to testify against the actual killers.

    asset (2aacf5)

  213. My reaction with RFK Jr would be slightly different “In a nation of 300 million, it’s unlikely you could do worse”

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  214. Even the WSJ

    Republicans are busy denouncing President Biden’s pre-emptive pardons for his family and political allies, and deservedly so. But then it’s a shame you don’t hear many, if any, ruing President Trump’s proclamation to pardon unconditionally nearly all of the people who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. This includes those convicted of bludgeoning, chemical spraying, and electroshocking police to try to keep Mr. Trump in power. Now he’s springing them from prison.

    This is a rotten message from a President about political violence done on his behalf, and it’s a bait and switch. Asked about Jan. 6 pardons in late November, Mr. Trump projected caution. “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” he said. “We’re going to look at each individual case.”
    […]
    Out of roughly 1,600 cases filed by the feds, more than a third included accusations of “assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement.” The U.S. Attorney’s office said it declined “hundreds” of prosecutions against people whose only offense was entering restricted grounds near the Capitol. Of the 1,100 sentences handed down by this year, more than a third didn’t involve prison time. The rioters who did get jail often were charged with brutal violence, including:

    • Daniel Joseph “DJ” Rodriguez, sentenced to 151 months, who can be seen on video, federal prosecutors said, deploying an “electroshock weapon” against a policeman who was dragged out of the defensive line, by “plunging it into the officer’s neck.” The night before, he promised in a MAGA chat group: “There will be blood.”

    • William Lewis, given 37 months, “sprayed streams of Wasp and Hornet Killer spray at multiple police officers on four distinct occasions,” forcing several to flee the line and “seek treatment for their eyes.”

    • Isreal James Easterday, 30 months, blasted a cop “in the face with pepper spray at point-blank range,” after which the officer “collapsed and temporarily lost consciousness, which enabled another rioter to steal his baton.”

    • Thomas Andrew Casselman, 40 months, hit multiple officers “near their faces” with pepper spray. His later internet searches included, “The statute of limitations for assault on a police officer.”

    • Curtis Davis, 24 months, punched two police officers in the head. That night he filmed a video of his fist, in which he bragged: “Them knuckles right there, from one of those m— faces at the Capitol.”

    • Ronald Colton McAbee, 70 months, hit a cop while wearing “reinforced brass knuckle gloves,” and he held one down on the ground as “other rioters assailed the officer for over 20 seconds,” causing a concussion.

    • Michael Joseph Foy, 40 months, brought a hockey stick with a TRUMP 2020 flag attached, which he swung “over his head and downward at police officers as if he were chopping wood.”

    There are more like this, which everyone understood on Jan. 6 and shortly afterward.

    These weren’t “all star chamber show trials”. These traitors were caught on tape.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  215. asset, Biden’s pardon of Peltier was in direct contradiction of his FBI Director…

    “Over the last 45 years,” said Director Wray in a letter opposing Peltier’s 2024 parole request, “no fewer than 22 federal judges have evaluated the evidence and considered Peltier’s legal arguments. Each has reached the same conclusion: Peltier’s claims are meritless, and his convictions and sentence must stand.”

    Biden cemented his place in history that, for all their conduct in their final 70 days, the 46th president is 2nd worst.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  216. https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/01/21/exclusive-fbi-whistleblower-who-exposed-j6-weaponization-speaks-out-on-pardons-n4936217

    Steve Friend is an FBI whistleblower and now a podcaster who lost his job and found himself the target of outrageous federal persecution after he respectfully challenged his superiors on the unconstitutional, illegal, biased campaign against Jan. 6 protestors. He and fellow whistleblowers who call themselves “The Suspendables” saw up close and personal just how terrible the corruption in the FBI was, and now Friend is praising Trump for pardoning or commuting the sentences of nearly all Jan. 6 prisoners.

    Friend told me, “Blanket pardons are the correct decision. Regardless of the fact pattern for any particular J6 case, the federal government made a deliberate decision to depart from its obligation to follow due process. When that happens, the justice system in a free country has no alternative but to consider cases irrevocably tainted and every defendant must go free.”

    The weaponization of the DOJ against the American people must be punished.

    NJRob (eb56c3)

  217. Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.

    America is, and must always be, a nation of law and order. The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy.

    To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country.

    And to those who broke the law, you will pay.

    –Donald J. Trump, hypocrite and horrible human being, January 7th, 2021

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  218. Steve Friend is one of those MAGA traitors, putting his allegiance to Trump above his country.

    Friend told his bureau management in Florida he would not work Jan. 6 cases and “refused to participate in the execution of a court authorized, search and arrest,” the letter said. Friend “espoused an alternative narrative about the events at the U.S. Capitol” before he downloaded documents from the FBI system to an unauthorized flash drive, Dunham wrote.

    Friend also “participated in multiple, unapproved media interviews, including an interview with a Russian government news agency,” and made a “surreptitious recording of a meeting with FBI management” that “may have violated Florida state law,” the letter said. (Friend said at the hearing he believed Florida’s two-party consent law had an exception for law enforcement.)

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  219. @217 A standard for violent protesters was set before Jan6, and the punishment of violent Jan6 protesters easily exceeded that standard, even with Trump’s pardons. Just one of many examples:

    Portland Antifa rioter charged with assaulting police has case dismissed after 30 hours community service

    What we’re seeing is just the same partisan, hypocritical outrage we’ve always seen.

    lloyd (e3319a)

  220. Serbia is the next country where Trump will have a financial conflict of interest while president. At least the country is a NATO member, a partly free democracy and not strategically consequential.

    Days before Trump’s inauguration, Kushner partnered with his father-in-law’s company, the Trump Organization, to develop a Trump-branded luxury hotel and apartment complex in Belgrade, Serbia. Affinity Partners is functioning as a vehicle for foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, to enrich the President of the United States.

    In an interview, Kushner insisted that this was all on the up-and-up. “We talked with ​several ​brands ​in ​the past year,” Kushner told Bloomberg in an interview. “I thought the ​tower ​would ​make a tremendous Trump Tower, ​so I spoke to ​Eric ​[Trump] about it, and he was ​very ​excited. So we’ll be bringing them in as ​our hotel partner.”

    The development will be known as Trump Tower Belgrade and will be built on a former military site leased to Affinity Partners by the Serbian government. The complex will have 175 hotel rooms and sell 1,500 residences.

    Kushner’s comment that he “talked with several brands” rings a bit hollow.

    Paul Montagu (7d07c9)

  221. Diplomats are probably the largest exempted group as they are NOT subject to US jurisdiction.

    Then how did Biden expel the Russian diplomats?

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  222. @220 Paul, just change the names to “Biden” and “Hunter” and these magically become baseless allegations without evidence.

    lloyd (95a8a8)

  223. Serbia is not a NATO country. It acknowledges two allies: “God and the Greeks.” No joke.

    nk (57524b)

  224. Diplomats are probably the largest exempted group as they are NOT subject to US jurisdiction.

    Then how did Biden expel the Russian diplomats?

    BuDuh (2e2fb6) — 1/22/2025 @ 7:05 am

    Diplomats aren’t subject to US laws (meaning they cannot be tried in US courts for ordinary crimes), but are subject to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

    Rip Murdock (57fc2b)

  225. So that is the jurisdiction distinction the framers of the 14th meant when they wrote the amendment?

    Wow! So simple.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  226. I wonder if Trump already dumped the MLK bust in the trash. Like last time.

    Good times.

    lloyd (95a8a8)

  227. Justice like the molotov cocktail lawyers who got 18 months and 12 months respectively?

    How much time was served?

    NJRob (61c1ce)

  228. 14th Amendment clearly didn’t mean anchor babies or tourist babies. Those changing the meaning of the words are no different than those lying about the “general welfare” clause or the 2nd Amendment not meaning the people of the United States.

    NJRob (61c1ce)

  229. Historical enemies of the FBI:
    — Bank robbers
    — Sex traffickers (Mann Act)
    — Kidnappers (Lindberg Law)
    — Nazi saboteurs
    — Spies
    — Communists
    — Organized crime
    — KKK (Civil Rights Act)
    — Terrorists

    Not good company, MAGA.

    nk (57524b)

  230. @228

    14th Amendment clearly didn’t mean anchor babies or tourist babies. Those changing the meaning of the words are no different than those lying about the “general welfare” clause or the 2nd Amendment not meaning the people of the United States.

    NJRob (61c1ce) — 1/22/2025 @ 7:43 am

    Correct.

    https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/birthright-citizenship-fundamental-misunderstanding-the-14th-amendment

    Advocates of granting birthright citizenship to anyone born in the United States

    erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has “subjected” himself “to the jurisdiction” of the United States, which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike.

    But that is not what that qualifying phrase means. Its original meaning refers to the political allegiance of an individual and the jurisdiction that a foreign government has over that individual.

    The fact that a tourist or illegal alien is subject to our laws and our courts if they violate our laws does not place them within the political “jurisdiction” of the United States as that phrase was defined by the framers of the 14th Amendment.

    This amendment’s language was derived from the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that “[a]ll persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power” would be considered citizens.

    Sen. Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. included not owing allegiance to any other country.

    In the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872), the court ruled:

    That [the Fourteenth Amendment’s] main purpose was to establish the citizenship of the negro can admit of no doubt. The phrase ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”

    This was further confirmed by the Court in 1884 (in Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94) when the Court stated that the idea of birthright citizenship did not apply to Native American tribes which were nonetheless within the borders of the United States:
    “[The Fourteenth Amendment] contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The evident meaning of these last words is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. And the words relate to the time of birth in the one case, as they do to the time of naturalization in the other. Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterwards, except by being naturalized, either individually, as by proceedings under the naturalization acts; or collectively, as by the force of a treaty by which foreign territory is acquired. Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States, members of, and owing immediate allegiance to, one of the Indian tribes (an alien though dependent power,) although in a geographical sense born in the United States, are no more ‘born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ within the meaning of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, than the children of subjects of any foreign government born within the domain of that government, or the children born within the United States, of ambassadors or other public ministers of foreign nations.”
    In short, the court recognized that the tribal lands were within the legal jurisdiction of the United States, but this did not mean that everyone born within those borders was automatically granted citizenship. Those tribal members believed to be subjects of “foreign” tribal governments were therefore not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States in a way that conferred automatic citizenship.

    Congress further reinforced the court’s interpretation by adopting new legislation granting citizenship to all tribal members in 1924. Had the Fourteenth Amendment really granted automatic citizenship to everyone born within the borders of the United States, no such legislation would have been necessary.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  231. 14th Amendment clearly didn’t mean anchor babies or tourist babies. Those changing the meaning of the words are no different than those lying about the “general welfare” clause or the 2nd Amendment not meaning the people of the United States.

    There’s an interesting thing there, the words are written and the meaning is obvious…like the 2nd amendment.

    But, when your evil, and you lie about everything…

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  232. @231

    There’s an interesting thing there, the words are written and the meaning is obvious

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 1/22/2025 @ 8:23 am

    Apparently not to you.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  233. https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/01/21/exclusive-fbi-whistleblower-who-exposed-j6-weaponization-speaks-out-on-pardons-n4936217


    Steve Friend is an FBI whistleblower and now a podcaster who lost his job and found himself the target of outrageous federal persecution after he respectfully challenged his superiors on the unconstitutional, illegal, biased campaign against Jan. 6 protestors. He and fellow whistleblowers who call themselves “The Suspendables” saw up close and personal just how terrible the corruption in the FBI was, and now Friend is praising Trump for pardoning or commuting the sentences of nearly all Jan. 6 prisoners.

    Friend told me, “Blanket pardons are the correct decision. Regardless of the fact pattern for any particular J6 case, the federal government made a deliberate decision to depart from its obligation to follow due process. When that happens, the justice system in a free country has no alternative but to consider cases irrevocably tainted and every defendant must go free.

    Interesting commentary from a former FBI whistleblower.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  234. whembly (ca6c2a) — 1/22/2025 @ 8:30 am

    You fed him. Now you own him. Good luck.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  235. I’m okay with this change by Trump. The American flag itself should stand for equal treatment.

    Paul Montagu (c49ccf)

  236. Serbia is not a NATO country.

    I stand corrected!

    Paul Montagu (c49ccf)

  237. Of course, this part of Trump’s 1/7/2021 statement is a bald-faced lie:

    “I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.”

    Because Trump didn’t order any deployments the day before, let alone “immediately”.

    Paul Montagu (c49ccf)

  238. Biden cemented his place in history that, for all their conduct in their final 70 days, the 46th president is 2nd worst

    So, where is Buchanan then, who lobbied the Court to decide against Dredd Scott, then slept through the beginning of Civil War?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  239. Then how did Biden expel the Russian diplomats?

    That’s all you can do to diplomats; tell them they are no longer allowed to remain here.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  240. 14th Amendment clearly didn’t mean anchor babies or tourist babies.

    Heck, it probably didn’t even mean the children of slaves, who never correctly applied for admission in the first place!

    /sarc

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  241. @220 Paul, just change the names to “Biden” and “Hunter” and these magically become baseless allegations without evidence.

    Bad faith is alive and well in these comment threads.
    Just like there’s no evidence that foreign income to Hunter and James was illegal, there’s no evidence that foreign income from Serbia and a UAE billionaire to Jared and Eric and Donald is illegal, it’s just all scuzzy and yet another financial conflict of interest for an already financially conflicted president.

    Paul Montagu (c49ccf)

  242. I’m okay with this change by Trump. The American flag itself should stand for equal treatment.

    I’m not as it allows some other message-flags.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  243. Historical recipients of pardons:
    – Nixon
    – Marc Rich
    – Paul Manafort
    – Roger Stone
    – Hunter Biden
    – Biden family and spouses
    – Liz and the J6 Committee

    Not good company, NeverTrump.

    lloyd (76e94d)

  244. BTW, lloyd, regarding that trans freakshow Joshua “Eva” Warner, he got off way too easy by the feds, but the bigger questions are these: Where was the Portland PD? Where was the Multnomah County Prosecutor? It was in their jurisdiction and not on federal property.

    Actually, prosecutor question answers itself, because the office deliberately passed on prosecuting rioters in summer 2020, which only made the problem worse for Portlandia, but soft law enforcement in Area A shouldn’t justify soft law enforcement in Area B.

    Paul Montagu (c49ccf)

  245. @241 Look who you’re talking to….why would you expect anything else from Lloyd?

    Time123 (05b75b)

  246. I’m not as it allows some other message-flags.

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/22/2025 @ 8:48 am

    So it isn’t called a “One Flag Policy,” as Paul’s article notes and quotes?

    You will find that detail in the very first line of the article.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6)

  247. @245 Glad to see Time123 got his ad hominem toys back.

    lloyd (76e94d)

  248. @229 nk, you forgot a couple:

    – parents at school board meetings
    – Catholics

    lloyd (76e94d)

  249. So that is the jurisdiction distinction the framers of the 14th meant when they wrote the amendment?

    Wow! So simple.

    BuDuh (2e2fb6) — 1/22/2025 @ 7:33 am

    It is that simple. As the Supreme Court said in Wong Kim Ark, there are only three classes of children not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States:

    The real object of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution, in qualifying the words ‘all persons born in the United States’ by the addition ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,’ would appear to have been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest words (besides children of members of the Indian tribes, standing in a peculiar relation to the national government, unknown to the common law), the two classes of cases,—children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state,—both of which, as has already been shown, by the law of England and by our own law, from the time of the first settlement of the English colonies in America, had been recognized exceptions to the fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the country. Calvin’s Case, 7 Coke, 1, 18b; Cockb. Nat. 7; Dicey, Confl. Laws, 177; Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 3 Pet. 99, 155; 2 Kent, Comm. 39, 42.

    My emphasis. In addition, federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1401) states who is a citizen of the United States:

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

    (a)a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
    ………

    See also Defining “American” by U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James C. Ho (appointed by President Trump in 2018.)

    ………..
    To be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. is simply to be subject to the authority of the U.S. government. The phrase thus covers the vast majority of persons within our borders who are required to obey U.S. laws. And obedience, of course, does not turn on immigration status, national allegiance, or past compliance. All must obey.

    …….(T)he text of the Citizenship Clause plainly guarantees birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of all persons subject to U.S. sovereign authority and laws. The clause thus covers the vast majority of lawful and unlawful aliens. Of course, the jurisdictional requirement of the Citizenship Clause must do something – and it does. It excludes those persons who, for some reason, are immune from, and thus not required to obey, U.S. law. Most notably, foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers – as agents of a foreign sovereign – are not subject to U.S. law, notwithstanding their presence within U.S. territory. Foreign diplomats enjoy diplomatic immunity, while lawful enemy combatants enjoy combatant immunity. Accordingly, children born to them are not entitled to birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.
    ………..

    Footnotes omitted.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  250. 194: Rip M: Sober people who never got drunk in a strip club, bungled our war in Vietnam, elevated Pronouns over hypersonic missiles, left $8 billion in rifles, helicopters and other equipment in Afghanistan, lost control of the border, and cancelled the F-22.

    But I am supposed to be worried about some guy who someone named Danielle says did pass out in a strip club?
    ………..
    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (66ed28) — 1/21/2025 @ 8:32 pm

    “Sober people who never got drunk….blah blah blah”, all of which is irrelevant to the present. No, you’re not supposed to care. But one or two Republican Senators might and that could doom his nomination. Similar accusations cost Senator John Tower his chance to be SECDEF.

    Never in a million years can anyone compare Pete Hegseth with General Grant (except for their drinking.)

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  251. If I start at a shorter portion of your LOL link, how do I navigate to the missing page?

    Start here, Rip: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/

    BuDuh (2e2fb6) — 1/21/2025 @ 8:06 pm

    If I use your link and search for “constitution”, all I see are Trump’s executive orders. I just found it funny that the White House website deleted a history of the Constitution the same day President Trump 47 was violating his oath and the Take Care clause of the Constitution.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  252. Embarrassing
    :

    President Trump stood alongside prominent tech executives at the White House on Tuesday to unveil what he called a “tremendous” and “monumental” $500 billion artificial-intelligence infrastructure project. Hours later, Elon Musk publicly raised questions about whether the joint venture would ever get off the ground.

    Late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, Musk wrote on X, his social-media platform, that two of the companies behind the project don’t have enough capital to follow through on their pledges.
    ……….
    “They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote at 11:35 p.m. ET on Tuesday, replying to a post from OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker that announced the joint venture with global tech investor SoftBank Group and database company Oracle. At 12:57 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Musk added, “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

    ……..Though they co-founded OpenAI, Musk later left, and people close to Musk have said he now despises Altman, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported…….
    ……….
    Altman later posted that Musk’s comments about SoftBank’s funding were wrong, adding that the first site is already under way. “I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.”
    ………
    Musk’s comments marked the first time he has raised questions about a Trump-led initiative since the president put him in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency. ………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  253. Thing about Trump and his everything everywhere all at once first day is that it causes the criticism to be very scattershot. Whether Trump did or did not have the Constitution linked on the POTUS website isn’t that important. A good Trumper can always look at the back of his Bible for a copy.

    I found this article — on the pardons — interesting. It explains why VP Vance gave a different story about the pardons to the media.

    https://www.axios.com/2025/01/22/trump-pardons-jan6-

    How it happened: Eight days before the inauguration, Vice President-to-be JD Vance — channeling what he believed to be Trump’s thinking — said on “Fox News Sunday” that Jan. 6 convicts who assaulted police ought not get clemency: “If you committed violence that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

    Trump vacillated during an internal debate over targeted clemency vs. a blanket decision according to two insiders.
    But as Trump’s team wrestled with the issue, and planned a shock-and-awe batch of executive orders Day 1, “Trump just said: ‘F -k it: Release ’em all,'” an adviser familiar with the discussions said.

    Appalled (734ded)

  254. THIS can’t be bad:

    Disagreements with Elon Musk prompted Ramaswamy’s ‘DOGE’ exit

    President Donald Trump’s order establishing the “Department of Government Efficiency” aims to give billionaire Elon Musk’s team sweeping access to operations at federal agencies, revamping its structure after competing visions left one of its leaders seeking an exit.

    The new structure — which has DOGE taking over the U.S. Digital Service, part of the Executive Office of the President — emerged after months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between Musk and fellow billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the DOGE co-leader who will depart to run for governor of Ohio. Deep philosophical differences over how the panel should operate helped spur Ramaswamy to leave, according to more than a half-dozen people with knowledge of the situation, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

    Anything involving the words “Ramaswamy” and “exit” is presumed to be good.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  255. Similar accusations cost Senator John Tower his chance to be SECDEF.

    John Tower had more going for him dead drunk than Hesgeth has cold sober.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  256. Historical recipients of pardons:

    Why did you leave out the convicted traitors seditious conspirators? Or people who tried to kill cops?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  257. subject to the jurisdiction thereof

    This is the class of people who can be arrested for not paying a parking ticket, and no others.

    I *might* entertain a question about illegal aliens in a sanctuary city where due process stops when their status might be compromised.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  258. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

    C’mon. In this heady envoronment all you ahve to do is say “A.I.” and they throw billions at you.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  259. “Never in a million years can anyone compare Pete Hegseth with General Grant (except for their drinking.)”

    Of course it was all the smooth, bland, non-drinking types that detested Grant from the outset.

    Rip, the problem with Never Trumpers is their constant agonizing over Trump’s “imperfect people,” stemming from their failure to grasp that there are no perfect people. Not to the Left.

    Nixon was evil, Ford was stupid, Reagan was an “amiable duce” and a warmonger, while Bush and Romney were both Hitler. Paul Ryan was going to push grandma off a cliff, Kavanaugh was an ice cube throwing rapist, and Barret was a– “eewww, a Catholic.”

    Caspar Weinberger was indicted, Don Rumsfeld (a very good SOD, was ridiculed and chased out), and here we are with Hegseth and Never Trumpers are moaning because “he drinks” and someone named “Danielle,” a friend of his ex wife ays he’s a drunk—-“isn’t there someone better?” Better than who? The people who have reduced the military to a T-group?

    No one will be good enough for the left. Why are they are so opposed to Hegseth? Because he might go to a hospital for 3 weeks and not tell anyone?

    Why don’t Never Trumpers suck it up for a change, put Hegseth in there and see how it goes. Stop premptively surrendering to every outburst.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  260. “The people who have reduced the military to a T-group?”

    Have you served, Mudd? I have, and my son is currently in the Navy. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The current state of the military is a direct result of pointless wars of the last 25 years.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  261. @256

    Historical recipients of pardons:

    Why did you leave out the convicted traitors seditious conspirators? Or people who tried to kill cops?

    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/22/2025 @ 10:55 am

    “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” – William Blackstone

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  262. Whembly, I’m enjoying your exchange with RIP about birthright citizenship. It’s informative. thank you both for the discussion.

    Time123 (ae7b06)

  263. @261, This is an argument for due process and enforcement of our rights. The rights of the seditious and violent Trump supporters weren’t violated, Trump and his supporters just don’t like it when the process produces results they dislike and he’s using his power to prevent that.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  264. 260: Davethuhlu: before I gave any weight to your claims, I would obviously have to know if you have ever been drunk in a strip bar, since that is evidently something so rare that its now a Career Disqualification. And if you ever made your wife fearful of violence (not according to you, but to a sister-in-law), since that is evidently also a new standard for competency about military matters.

    As to me, that no, !A but not called up; only my WWII uncles served (all in combat-one did not survive the war), and one in Vietnam–combat – -as an LRRP.

    But given that we do not have operable hypersonics (but the Chinese and Russians do), but do have well developed and well funded pronoun departments, and not enough F-22’s, but do have billion dollar littoral ships that are 100% useless, but a very limited number of 155 MM shells, I am not ready to defer to anyone in or out of uniform, esp the brass who let this happen.

    The issue is whether being drunk in a strip bar is a basis not to make someone SOD: any input on that?

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  265. “but do have well developed and well funded pronoun departments”

    you’re a moron

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  266. Why did you leave out the convicted traitors seditious conspirators? Or people who tried to kill cops?
    Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/22/2025 @ 10:55 am

    Because Biden had no knowledge of any of those pardons when he pardoned the NeverTrumpers.

    But, I’ve jotted down your request to lump Liz & Co with traitors and those who attack cops.

    lloyd (76e94d)

  267. @263

    @261, This is an argument for due process and enforcement of our rights. The rights of the seditious and violent Trump supporters weren’t violated, Trump and his supporters just don’t like it when the process produces results they dislike and he’s using his power to prevent that.

    Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 12:04 pm

    I disagree.

    This is where I and many stands:
    https://x.com/KurtSchlichter/status/1881524660262859239

    The issue is not what they substantively did or did not do. The issue is that there is a two-track justice system where leftist-affiliated potential defendants are either not charged nor prosecuted to a much lesser extent. Moreover, the DOJ has shown bias and malice, it has overcharged and hidden evidence as well as coerced pleas. The judges have shown outrageous bias, and the venue has been demonstrably biased against them. Every single prosecution and conviction, whether through trial or a plea, is utterly and absolutely tainted. None of them can stand. None of them. Donald Trump was absolutely right to pardon almost all of them and the ones he has merely commuted should also be pardoned. Otherwise, to accept the results of these fatally tainted proceedings is to accept injustice. It’s the fruit of the poisonous tree. Let it rot. Every single one of them, including ones who are alleged to have assaulted police, must be pardoned.

    The purpose of the pardons is to aggressively punish the lawfare used against these people. Being actually guilty of something non-trivial doesn’t mean that you can’t have also been egregiously over-prosecuted and had your rights violated in the course of prosecution. That happened to all of these people.

    Also keep in mind that it isn’t like all the J6ers got away with it “scott free” via the pardon.

    They lost time while being jailed.

    They lost income.

    They lost jobs.

    They lost reputation.

    Their conviction is still on the books and public (unless appeals are successful).

    So, there were punishment levied against the J6ers for their actions and that bell cannot be unrung.

    The more pernicious uses of the Pardons are the likes of what Joe Biden did when he pre-emptively pardoned his family and the J6 committee. To me, that’s a far more abuse of the pardon powers, than even Trump’s pardon of the violent J6ers.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  268. So I watched the video of Musk doing a Nazi salut. Seems intentional and not some kind of editing trick.

    Any theories about his intent? Just really high? Wanted to flex on other CEO that he’s so big he can get away with it? Had some other intention such as ‘giving his heart away’ and just didn’t realize how dumb it would look?

    Time123 (ae7b06)

  269. Whemby, Biden should have been impeached as soon as he pardoned Hunter. We’re in agreement on his abuse of the pardon power.

    The claims about the J6 stuff being unfair are garbage. Same request as before that you provide any specific examples of abuse or J6ers being treated differently than similarly situated defendants.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  270. Elongated Muskrat is actively supporting the 2025 Notcies all over the world. Weirdly all places where he has business issues.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  271. The claims about the J6 stuff being unfair are garbage. Same request as before that you provide any specific examples of abuse or J6ers being treated differently than similarly situated defendants.
    Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 12:37 pm

    You’re late to the thread. Look up.

    lloyd (76e94d)

  272. @269

    So I watched the video of Musk doing a Nazi salut. Seems intentional and not some kind of editing trick.

    Yeah, maybe there was something to that Zina Bash conspiracy theory. It all makes sense now.

    lloyd (76e94d)

  273. 265: Davethulhu: Using “you’re a moron,” to dismiss arguments you can’t respond to substantively is definitely helpful, and a class act. I understand your positons much better. Thanks! Hope you’re feeling better!

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  274. “Any theories about his intent? Just really high? Wanted to flex on other CEO that he’s so big he can get away with it? Had some other intention such as ‘giving his heart away’ and just didn’t realize how dumb it would look?”

    He did it because he has the mentality and impulse control of a 2010 era 4-chan poster.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  275. @270

    Whemby, Biden should have been impeached as soon as he pardoned Hunter. We’re in agreement on his abuse of the pardon power.

    The numbers wasn’t there in Congress.

    The claims about the J6 stuff being unfair are garbage. Same request as before that you provide any specific examples of abuse or J6ers being treated differently than similarly situated defendants.

    Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 12:37 pm

    We’ve been over this many times and I’m not about to repeat myself. I don’t know how else I can give you.

    One easy one to point out is the riot at Lafayette Square…you know, when Trump was mocked when SS sent him to a secured area at the Whitehouse?

    Tell me how many officers were hurt there.

    Then tell me how many arrest/prosecutions were made.

    Here’s an exercise I’d recommend – try to steelman my position. Actually do some research in support of my positions and then get back to me.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  276. 269. Time123 (ae7b06) — 1/22/2025 @ 12:33 pm

    So I watched the video of Musk doing a Nazi salut. Seems intentional and not some kind of editing trick.

    It was intentional, but probably not intended as a Nazi salute.

    Most likely: Somebody tricked him into doing it and he did not realize it could be interpreted as a Nazi salute.

    Ivanka and Jared Kushner did half of it (the part about holding your hand over your heart.)

    This was no dog whistle. Dog whistle to whom, and why?

    Any theories about his intent? Just really high? Wanted to flex on other CEO that he’s so big he can get away with it? Had some other intention such as ‘giving his heart away’ and just didn’t realize how dumb it would look?

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  277. @276 Also, tell me if there were any property damage or the likes and if there were any arrest/prosecutions.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  278. Any theories about his intent? Just really high? Wanted to flex on other CEO that he’s so big he can get away with it? Had some other intention such as ‘giving his heart away’ and just didn’t realize how dumb it would look?

    He was tricked into doing it. And somebody involved was ready to go, or it could have passed unnoticed. I don’t think it was apractical joke.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  279. @275

    “Any theories about his intent? Just really high? Wanted to flex on other CEO that he’s so big he can get away with it? Had some other intention such as ‘giving his heart away’ and just didn’t realize how dumb it would look?”

    He did it because he has the mentality and impulse control of a 2010 era 4-chan poster.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 12:55 pm

    Meanwhile, ya’ll ignoring all the Democrat examples of doing the same thing.

    Do we want to apply the same rules to everyone?

    Or, maybe, just maybe… some we should understand the context and not simply godwin every single thing our political opponents does.

    If you had integrity… maybe that is what we’d do.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  280. “Here’s an exercise I’d recommend – try to steelman my position. Actually do some research in support of my positions and then get back to me.”

    why don’t you do the opposite and come up with a reason why there weren’t a lot of arrests

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  281. @281 w

    hy don’t you do the opposite and come up with a reason why there weren’t a lot of arrests

    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:08 pm

    No.

    Because people like ‘you’ always approach these things a bad faith.

    SO, no… you don’t get a cookie.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  282. Whembly, Acccording to the DOJ there were 156 arrests / prosecutions from that riot.

    Seems like a pretty significant LEO response that would stand to invalidate your position of a 2 tier justice system.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  283. Paul Montagu (7d07c9) — 1/21/2025 @ 5:40 am

    . Also noted (at the 9:40 mark) is Trump not placing his hand on the Bible (and I’m guessing it was one of those Trump Bibles at $60 a pop)

    There were two Bibles that Donald Trump had been prepared to swear on.

    https://www.keranews.org/2025-01-20/the-backstories-of-the-bibles-that-trump-and-vance-had-on-hand

    One was a revised standard version that Trump’s mother gave him to mark his Sunday Church Primary School graduation in 1955, embossed with his name on the front cover.

    The other was the Lincoln Bible, which was first used during that president’s March 1861 inauguration.

    It was used twice by Barack Obama and by Trump in 2017.

    But they were running about twenty minutes behind schedule, and it was decided t skip some or postpone certain events (I think playing if some music) Chief Justice John Roberts wanted to have the swearing in as soon as possible after 12 noon, and he plunged ahead, (in case of what?) not giving Melania, who was holding the bibles, any time to get up and give the Bibles to Donald Trump. (And of course Donald Trump didn’t perceive anything essential to be missing)

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  284. @283 Good start. Dig deeper.

    What were the charges, conviction and punishment.

    Do that first. Get all that information, and then set it aside.

    Once you have that, do the same for the J6ers and compare.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  285. “Meanwhile, ya’ll ignoring all the Democrat examples of doing the same thing.”

    Like who? and don’t just pick a still photo of someone with their arm held out

    Here’s some additional context though

    https://x.com/BartoSitek/status/1882081868423860315

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  286. @280, Whembly, I’m not saying his intended message with HH. I doubt that it was. I’m asking what other ppl thought he meant. I think Dave has a good take, he’s an immature Troll…but Sammy’s idea that he was just putting his hand on his heart and then flailing about has merit…dude is known to use recreational drugs….

    Time123 (8b3427)

  287. “Because people like ‘you’ always approach these things a bad faith.”

    lol, always the same

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  288. @285, I’ve looked at charges for the J6ers. They’re consistent with other similarly situated defendants.

    Ppl who push the narrative you like ignore that, and how differences in circumstances may justify different outcomes, such as the J6ers that were planning violent sedition getting harsher sentences.

    Time123 (17ec22)

  289. @286, that’s a pretty compelling argument for HH being the intended message….but still consistent with him trolling.

    Time123 (17ec22)

  290. @288

    “Because people like ‘you’ always approach these things a bad faith.”

    lol, always the same

    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:14 pm

    Yup. I’m good at calling your bs.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  291. “that’s a pretty compelling argument for HH being the intended message….but still consistent with him trolling.”

    I feel that Popehat’s “Rule of Goats” applies.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  292. Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:10 pm

    Time’s link only mentions one person by name, Brennan Sermon. A search of his name yields only this.

    Sermon was charged by information in D.C. Superior Court with one count of assault on a law enforcement officer in violation of D.C. Code § 22-405(b). He was arraigned on that charge and was released on his personal recognizance.

    Can’t find anything else. No prosecution, sentence or conviction. If there was any, I assume it would be easy to find. If this is the most high profile case, it’s a garbage argument.

    (There’s also what I linked @219.)

    lloyd (76e94d)

  293. For observers, certainly, but I’m curious what ppl think his intentions were.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  294. @289

    @285, I’ve looked at charges for the J6ers. They’re consistent with other similarly situated defendants.

    Ppl who push the narrative you like ignore that, and how differences in circumstances may justify different outcomes, such as the J6ers that were planning violent sedition getting harsher sentences.

    Time123 (17ec22) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:18 pm

    I’m not ignoring anything.

    I’m just not willing to take things a face value, especially on a politically charged topic as this.

    Look, even the Supreme Court smacked down the Biden-era’s attempt to use a statutory law that was meant to prevent companies from tampering evidence (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2))when supoena’ed to elevate many of the J6er’s to a felony indictment:
    https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-rule-for-jan-6-defendant/
    This, RIGHT HERE, is indicative that the Biden-era DOJ overcharged/overprosecuted the J6ers.

    Does it not?

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  295. @294

    For observers, certainly, but I’m curious what ppl think his intentions were.

    Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:27 pm

    He’s not an F’n nazi. He was waving at the crowd.

    Please people have some decency.

    He’s on the spectrum (aspergers), and is a very awkward man.

    Fer crying out loud, he went to Auschwitz with Ben Shaprio recently:
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-says-jewish-association-auschwitz-visit-sees-almost-no-antis-rcna135271

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  296. @295, Looks like restraint to me. Rather then charge the vast majority with seditious conspiracy with with with trespassing and interfering with documents. Those are also easier to charge. If you look at the penalties you’ll find modest fines and probation…which is consistent with restraint and not over charging.

    Time123 (17ec22)

  297. For Trump being a Putin stooge, he’s sucking at his role bigly:
    https://nypost.com/2025/01/22/us-news/trump-tells-putin-to-end-ukraine-war-now-or-else-we-can-do-it-the-easy-way-or-the-hard-way/

    “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” he wrote.

    “Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better,” he added. “It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”

    That doesn’t sound like someone who’s a Putin flunky.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  298. He’s not an F’n nazi. He was waving at the crowd.

    Please people have some decency.

    He’s on the spectrum (aspergers), and is a very awkward man.

    I didn’t say he was a nazi. But he repeatedly made a gesture that is indistinguishable from a Nazi salute…it’s not a subtle motion and he hasn’t made it before AFAIK

    Time123 (8b3427)

  299. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 9:32 am

    In short, one Wong makes a right.
    / dad joke

    Paul Montagu (074d4e)

  300. @297

    @295, Looks like restraint to me. Rather then charge the vast majority with seditious conspiracy with with with trespassing and interfering with documents. Those are also easier to charge. If you look at the penalties you’ll find modest fines and probation…which is consistent with restraint and not over charging.

    Time123 (17ec22) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:33 pm

    Did you @ the wrong post, because that doesn’t even make sense.

    The Biden DOJ pursued applying 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), a felony, to nearly every J6er as a way to overcharge the defendent.

    Let me remind you what 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) really means:
    It only applies to cases involving evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding.

    The Biden DOJ fought all the way to SCOTUS to be able to charge the J6er so that they can apply this contorted interpretation of this statute to all J6ers…even the ones who only peacefully walked the halls and left.

    So, no, you are 100% wrong that the Biden DOJ show “restraint” then. In fact, it’s truly laughable to declare there was any “restraint”.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  301. @301 and @Time123
    The overcharging the J6er, ie 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), very obviously strong armed many J6ers to plea out… because they know they won’t get a fair trial and could face an even more severe punishment. Defendant takes the plea not only because they committed the crimes… but in fear of facing a long prison term in such hostile courts.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  302. Most likely: Somebody tricked (Musk) into doing it and he did not realize it could be interpreted as a Nazi salute.

    LOL! I’m sure that scenario was extremely unlikely.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  303. Yes, and it was easier and a ‘lesser’ charge than seditious conspiracy, which in my opinion would have been justified, if harder to prove in court.

    If you investigate you’ll see that my statement about the associated sentences are accurate.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  304. @301 and @Time123
    The overcharging the J6er, ie 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), very obviously strong armed many J6ers to plea out… because they know they won’t get a fair trial and could face an even more severe punishment. Defendant takes the plea not only because they committed the crimes… but in fear of facing a long prison term in such hostile courts.

    whembly (ca6c2a) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:45 pm

    Are you somehow unaware that prosecutors routinely offer defendants the opportunity to plead guilty to lesser charges and that if going to trial carries risk?

    Also, your stuff about a fair triall is more garbage.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  305. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” he wrote.

    “Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better,” he added. “It’s time to “MAKE A DEAL.” NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”

    That doesn’t sound like someone who’s a Putin flunky.

    whembly (ca6c2a) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:35 pm

    The proof will be in the pudding. I’m sure after Trump’s meeting with Putin Trump will find some way to walk back his post, or may be just deny he ever said it. Trump has already missed his deadline of ending the Ukraine war in one day.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  306. @305

    Also, your stuff about a fair triall is more garbage.

    Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:52 pm

    Vehemently disagree.

    When you have District DC judges making political anti-Trump statements and hyperbolically describes the J6ers, they’re not getting a fair trial.

    Miss me with all that bs.

    Furthermore, you’re stubborningly ignoring SCOTUS smacking down the Biden DOJ usages of 8 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) to elevate many indictments to felonies (whereas most would only be misdemeanors).

    Why?

    Why are you ignoring that?

    Is it because it completely undermines your position that the Biden DOJ shown “restraint”?

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  307. There were other felony charges available to charge. They picked that one because it was easy to prove and likely less inflammatory than using seditious conspiracy.

    Time123 (8b3427)

  308. “Are you somehow unaware that prosecutors routinely offer defendants the opportunity to plead guilty to lesser charges and that if going to trial carries risk?”

    It’s an article of faith to these people that the J6 defendants have been uniquely wronged, rather than this being a feature of the criminal justice system.

    Just at random, have this example:

    There are many rules meant to protect people in the United States from unscrupulous actions by prosecutors and law enforcement officers. Some of these rules are in the Bill of Rights, while others are the result of court rulings and precedent.

    For example, there is a rule against double jeopardy or prosecuting an individual multiple times for a single offense. Unfortunately, prosecutors have found a way to bend that rule without overtly breaking it.

    Long gone are the days when prosecutors brought a single charge against a person and then built a case in court. Most prosecutors aim to avoid court or trials as often as possible. They secure high conviction rates by overcharging defendants and making them feel like they have no alternative but to plead guilty. How does overcharging affect defendants facing criminal accusations?

    Overcharging typically comes in one of two forms
    Both prosecutors and police officers can get pretty creative in their approach to criminal justice. Overcharging is commonly an approach employed by prosecutors.

    One way to overcharge an individual accused of a crime is to broadly interpret the law and try to bring severe charges when the offense doesn’t seem that serious. For example, prosecutors might push for a felony drug charge when the case more clearly aligns with a misdemeanor possession offense.

    Other times, they take a single offense and break it into multiple elements so that they can charge someone with multiple crimes for a single arrest. Both of these approaches will typically result in a defendant facing extreme penalties if convicted, making them feel like they have to plead guilty. The consequences in court may seem too severe if they lose.

    Innocent people pleading guilty is not a victory for the justice system
    Guilty pleas have become a mainstay of the modern criminal justice system in the United States. By bringing exaggerated charges or multiple charges against someone, the prosecutor effectively threatens that person into compliance and a guilty plea.

    Those facing serious charges or multiple charges for one offense still have the right to defend themselves. Going to court isn’t necessarily the easiest approach, but it can be a way to prevent one mistake from haunting you in the form of a lifetime criminal record.

    https://www.ljlaw.org/blog/prosecutors-overcharge-defendants-to-scare-them-into-guilty-pleas/

    This just one example, a smallish law firm in Baton Rouge. I could easily find many more.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  309. Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:14 pm

    but Sammy’s idea that he was just putting his hand on his heart and then flailing about has merit…

    My idea was that maybe somebody instructed him to do this, (put your hand over your heart and then reach out embrace the whole audience) and maybe also tried with Ivanka and Jared Kushner, except all they did was put their hands over their hearts..

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  310. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s a Putin flunky.

    whembly (ca6c2a) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:35 pm

    For someone who was a “Putin flunky” during his first term I have no idea where you get your optimism.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  311. 299. Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:36 pm

    and he hasn’t made it before AFAIK

    As I said, somebody who knew what would or could be interpreted as, tricked him into doing this, and had some confederates on the Internet ready to point that out and maybe an influencer or two to help.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  312. My idea was that maybe somebody instructed him to do this, (put your hand over your heart and then reach out embrace the whole audience)……

    Completely lacking in any evidence at all.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  313. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:57 pm

    Trump has already missed his deadline of ending the Ukraine war in one day.

    Trump had to know he was unlikely to do this, but bet that either it would happen (just like it sort of happened with the release of the hostages in Gaza) and if so everyone would remember he had predicted it, or it would not happen and everybody would forget his prediction.

    As time when on he saw he couldn’t do anything to make it happen and stopped mentioning it.

    But he did keep up his vague threat about what would happen if the hostages were not released. His envoy is said to have also pushed Netanyahu to make a deal except this is basically the same incomplete deal that Netanyahu accepted months ago.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  314. 313. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:14 pm

    Completely lacking in any evidence at all.

    Except that that would explain it, and that there were other people close to Trump who made a similar gesture (putting the hand over the heart and taking it away)

    Do you have a better explanation?

    That Elon Musk intended to give a Nazi salute makes no sense.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  315. Also that he had never done it before as far as Time123 knows.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  316. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 1:49 pm

    I’m sure that scenario was extremely unlikely.

    Why? Elon Musk (or Trump) has no enemies?

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  317. I think Elon Musk was told to wave to the crowd. (not embrace like I said earlier.)

    That would account for him using only one hand (or arm)

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  318. Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:23 pm

    Musk’s gesture speaks for itself.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  319. I’m sure that scenario (that Musk was tricked into making the salute) was extremely unlikely.

    Why? Elon Musk (or Trump) has no enemies?

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:26 pm

    Musk (and Trump) aren’t that stupid to be tricked.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  320. “I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.”

    https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/2466077/dod-details-national-guard-response-to-capitol-attack

    But the protests turned into a mob rioting through the halls, chambers and offices of the U.S. Capitol. At around 2 p.m., D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested more assistance. Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller immediately called up 1,100 members of the D.C. National Guard.

    Except that that happened without Trump’s personal involvement or awareness of it. But I suppose you could justify saying that with the theory that all actions by an Administration are actions of a president. And it is very bad habit of many administration PR people to claim credit that doesn’t belong.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  321. Also that he had never done it before as far as Time123 knows.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:24 pm

    I doubt anyone knows how many times Musk does something. Who is keeping count?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  322. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:35 pm

    Musk (and Trump) aren’t that stupid to be tricked.

    You really have that much confidence in Musk?

    Who often rushed ahead with stupid suggestions (counting on reversing himself, in whole or in part if it turns out to be wrong.

    In this case Trump didn’t need to be tricked, except maybe in letting a trickster get involved in the event planning. And Ivanka and Jared were not fully tricked.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  323. This has never been noticed before. Musk would not have done it before because if he had it would have been called to his attention that placing his hand over his heart nd then waving as big as possible to the crowd could look like he was making a Nazi salute.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  324. I think Elon Musk was told to wave to the crowd. (not embrace like I said earlier.)

    That would account for him using only one hand (or arm)

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:31 pm

    A straight armed wave? He needs lessons from beauty queens.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  325. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:32 pm

    Musk’s gesture speaks for itself.

    It cannot mean what it could seem to mean.

    You think Trump would like it?

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  326. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:35 pm

    Musk (and Trump) aren’t that stupid to be tricked.

    You really have that much confidence in Musk?

    He didn’t become the richest man in the world by being stupid, or letting others trick him.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  327. Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:42 pm

    He needs lessons from beauty queens.

    Yes he does, but the crowd was not just in front of him but on all sides.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09)

  328. You think Trump would like it?

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:43 pm

    I have no idea.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  329. He needs lessons from beau

    ty queens.

    Yes he does, but the crowd was not just in front of him but on all sides.

    Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:44 pm

    If that is true, then the appropriate gesture would using both arms in a hugging gesture, not a straight arm gesture.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  330. It cannot mean what it could seem to mean.

    Why not?

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  331. @308

    There were other felony charges available to charge. They picked that one because it was easy to prove and likely less inflammatory than using seditious conspiracy.

    Time123 (8b3427) — 1/22/2025 @ 2:00 pm

    No. You are giving too much deference to the Biden DOJ.

    I would argue that there were NOT “other felony charges” available.

    They had to contort themselves to fit a square peg (18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2)) into the round hole (J6er), because it was the easiest pathway to slap a felony charge that which eventually got smacked down by SCOTUS.

    The mere fact the Biden DOJ tried to force the application of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) is strong evidence of malicious prosecution.

    whembly (ca6c2a)

  332. “He didn’t become the richest man in the world by being stupid, or letting others trick him.”

    He’s the Henry Ford of our generation.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4)

  333. That was quick:

    (Daniel Charles Ball). who was indicted for assaulting police officers and setting off an explosive device during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol had his case dismissed after President Donald Trump issued a sweeping pardon for the rioters — but then got arrested one day later.
    ………..
    Ball was among the Jan. 6 defendants who were denied bail and held pretrial, due to the severity of the charges against him, but the legal authority to hold him dissolved when his case was dismissed.
    ………..
    ……….. Ball was arrested again for federal gun charges Wednesday morning, just one day after his January 6 case was dismissed.

    Online federal court records of Ball’s indictment show he was charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon on Aug. 6, 2024, listing his past convictions as domestic violence battery by strangulation in 2017 and then resisting law enforcement with violence and battery on law enforcement officer, both in 2021. ……..
    ……….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  334. He’s the Henry Ford of our generation.

    Davethulhu (14e9e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 3:13 pm

    Ouch!

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  335. Henry Ford was stupid, with his plans to end World War I, with his anti-semitism, and with his extreme opposition to unions.

    To get rich, you only have to get a few things right.

    Sammy Finkelman (ddfda6)

  336. Another place you can get this is:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20240714080642/https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution

    Sammy Finkelman (ddfda6) — 1/22/2025 @ 5:07 pm

    That’s the old Biden website.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  337. The numbers that count:

    ………..
    Trump’s second swearing-in brought in an average total viewership of 24.59 million viewers across 15 networks from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET, according to early viewing figures from Nielsen. Networks which aired the inauguration and are included in the viewership include ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.

    Viewership for the 2025 inauguration was down 27% from Biden’s 2021 inauguration, which scored an audience of 33.76 million viewers across 17 channels. The 2025 inauguration reverses the viewership growth the event had seen in 2021, which saw a 10.18% increase from the 30.64 million viewers brought in by the 2017 inauguration.

    The 2025 inauguration also saw a 19.75% viewership downtick from Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, which scored 30.64 million viewers across 12 networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, Univision, Telemundo, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Galavision and HLN.
    ……….

    Ouch!

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  338. Despite a viewership decline on linear channels, inauguration-related content on YouTube drew in over 30 million people on Monday, according to the platform’s data. Of the livestreams with the highest number of peak concurrent U.S. viewers on Monday, Fox News accounted for three of the top five.

    Ouch

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  339. Double ouch

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  340. 339: Rip: Its cute that you relied on the figure that watched it on legacy media, versus on X. And omitted the views on X. Kind of like reporting the number of letters a business received while ignoring the emails. Ouch, as someone might say

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (2d275d)

  341. BuDuh (4214e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 6:15 pm

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (2d275d) — 1/22/2025 @ 6:51 pm

    Fair use of copyrighted material without consent of the copyright owner requires selective editing of articles. As far as streaming, there was nothing in article with specific numbers. If either of you can find that data, feel free to post it. I don’t do social media like X, Meta, etc.

    Rip Murdock (8907f7)

  342. “Views on X” is a meaningless stat. It counts a view if you scroll past it in your feed.

    Davethulhu (0a60a6)

  343. Fair use of copyrighted material without consent of the copyright owner requires selective editing of articles.

    Hahahahahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahahahahahajanahahahah!!!!!

    Nothing stopped you from fair reading of the article. And your unfair reading made you clench and say “Ouch!”

    Hahahahaha a!!!

    At least Dave is going for some sort of a technical cop out that he can’t prove.

    +1 Dave.

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  344. As far as streaming, there was nothing in article with specific numbers.

    My 6:15 was from your article. “Over 30 million” isn’t specific enough? Even though 30 million is a guaranteed?

    Ouch again..

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  345. My 6:15 was from your article. “Over 30 million” isn’t specific enough? Even though 30 million is a guaranteed?

    Ouch again..

    BuDuh (4214e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 7:28 pm

    No; I’d like to see that aggregate broken by streamer (including demos), like my posted article did for the nets. In any event, both can be true-declining legacy viewership and high streaming viewership. But since Trump got his celebrity start on TV, I’ll bet he’s disappointed in his ratings.

    Rip Murdock (8907f7)

  346. I’ll bet he’s disappointed in his ratings.

    Pretend Facts not in evidence, Mr Real World.

    LOL

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  347. BuDuh (4214e4) — 1/22/2025 @ 7:39 pm

    I’m not asserting a fact, just stating an opinion.

    Rip Murdock (8907f7)

  348. There’s a big difference.

    Rip Murdock (8907f7)

  349. Ok…

    BuDuh (4214e4)

  350. @215Democrats voted to pardon or commute Leonard Peltier in 2020 as well as to vote trump out. Republicans did the same for their side when they voted for trump. Has the price of eggs gone down yet?

    asset (ab1ff3)

  351. A comment from Catoggio about Bolton…

    The hard stuff takes time, so the new president is doing the easy stuff early.

    Another easy thing he did this week is to make it meaningfully more likely that his former national security adviser, John Bolton, will be murdered.

    Bolton has spent the last five years under threat of death from the Iranian government. Shortly before he left the first Trump White House, he urged the then-president to order the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the immensely powerful head of Iran’s Quds Force. A few months later, Trump followed through. Iran has borne Bolton a lethal grudge ever since.

    The Iranians are serious about it too. In 2022, the Justice Department indicted a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for plotting to have him and, allegedly, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo killed. By that point, due to the gravity of the risk, Joe Biden had already ordered round-the-clock Secret Service protection for Bolton. That protection continued until this week, when Bolton got a call from the agency informing him that the new president intended to end his security detail.

    What makes Trump’s decision to cancel Bolton’s Secret Service protection all the more callous and contemptible is that Mike Pompeo is still protected by our country, at a cost of $2 million a month, and it’s immoral and cruel and dare I say fascist, all because of political differences.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  352. David French has a little more on Trump’s wrongheaded EO on birthright citizenship, linking to Vladeck. Bottom line, it’s not just about Wong v. Ark, because birthright citizenship is also statutory law (8 USC 1401, which Trump can’t cancel with a lower-powered EO), and there are two other Supreme Court cases that affirm Wong v. Ark. And for all the MAGAs and Trump crying “invasion”, no it ain’t, that’s MAGA hyperbole.

    Trump may try to claim in court that undocumented immigrants are an invading, occupying force. Indeed, one of the executive orders he signed after taking office asserted that America is facing an “invasion” at the hands of migrants on its borders. Can he deem them hostile occupiers and deny their children citizenship?

    No. As James Madison said in The Report of 1800, the term “invasion” applies to an “operation of war.” Any other reading of the term reaches an absurd and dangerous result. If economic migrants are “invaders,” can they be targeted with drone strikes? Gunned down at the border by the 82nd Airborne Division? Can we suspend habeas corpus to stop immigrants? Obviously not. Several federal courts of appeal have reached the same, sensible conclusion. Illegal immigration is not an invasion.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  353. Credit where due to Trump, because he’s right to classify the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

    President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Wednesday redesignating the Houthis, an Iranian-backed rebel group controlling parts of Yemen, as a foreign terrorist organization. The designation undid former President Joe Biden’s 2021 decision to remove the militants from the terrorist list and followed more than a year of Houthi attacks on military and commercial vessels traversing the Red Sea—a campaign that has sunk two vessels, killed four seafarers, and forced shipping companies to avoid the strategic waterway in favor of longer routes. Also on Wednesday, the Houthis released the 25 multinational crew members of the Galaxy Leader, a Bahamas-flagged cargo ship, after holding them hostage since November 2023 in ostensible solidarity with Hamas. In addition to its attacks on international shipping, the group has launched more than 350 missiles and drones at Israel since October 2023.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  354. Well, now that the Houthi’s are on that list, we can start raining hell down on them, since it’s obvious that this was definitely keeping the US from striking them on the daily.

    Other than the thousands of strikes over the last few years, 500 in one week, and the last a couple of weeks ago.

    But I’m confused:

    The Biden administration is reimposing one of the designations against the Houthis, declaring them to be a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist group” (SDGT) amid a series of attacks in the Red Sea.

    So we (and NATO and regional allies) have been pounding them for years, Biden removed them in 2021, but added them back too, all while, again, hitting them with airstrikes, sending in SOCOM ground forces, etc.

    stupid Hitler actually had EO’s that do things, and then there are the pardons, not just his brownshirts, but a drug/human/weapons trafficker, money launderer, who paid $750k to have 5 people killed.

    Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a)

  355. The WaPo is discovering the terrible economy, now that Biden is gone:

    In the ‘Great Stay’ economy, Americans feel stuck

    When I ask Nancy Malkin about the current state of the job market, her response makes me pause: “2009 was nothing compared to this. It’s been brutal.” Malkin is a longtime recruiter in California’s tech industry. She co-founded Curphey & Malkin Associates and usually has a flood of clients. But the past two years have been sparse for hiring — for some, even worse than the Great Recession.

    This is a weird time for the U.S. economy. On the surface, it’s humming. Unemployment is a low 4.1 percent, growth is strong, consumers are spending, start-ups are booming, and inflation has cooled. But many Americans are finding it difficult to change jobs. Hiring is anemic, and companies are giving fewer bonuses and promotions. Moving is nearly impossible because so few homes are for sale, and no one wants to trade their 3 percent mortgage rate for 7 percent. Americans are even keeping their cars for record amounts of time. All of this is part of a phenomenon that has been dubbed the “Great Stay,” where people feel cemented in place.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  356. The problem with Wong v Ark and other citizenship cases is that they were decided in VERY different times. The practical changes in travel, where it does not take months (and great expense) to go from Beijing to San Francisco, are meaningful. In 1880, going from Europe to America was onerous, with most immigrants in the barest of berths for just about all the savings. Now? $500 will get you an airplane seat.

    Courts do look at contemporary reality when deciding cases. I don’t think they will side with Trump, but those 19th century cases aren’t the slam dunk you think they are.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  357. Kevin, the two Supreme Court cases that affirmed Wong v. Ark were decided in 1982 (Plyler v. Doe) and 1985 (INS v. Rios-Pineda).

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  358. That didn’t take long. A Reagan-appointed judge shot down Trump’s EO on birthright citizenship, and without reservation…

    “I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” said Judge John C. Coughenour, the chief judge in the Western District of Washington, in an order handed down on Thursday.

    “There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say, where were the judges, where were the lawyers?” Coughenour said from the bench, before adding: “Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the Bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It just boggles my mind.”

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  359. The judge is wrong and his decision should be stayed.

    NJRob (9f04fe)

  360. Kevin, the two Supreme Court cases that affirmed Wong v. Ark were decided in 1982 (Plyler v. Doe) and 1985 (INS v. Rios-Pineda).

    INS vs Rios-Pineda may have mentioned Ark, but it affirmed nothing involved in that holding. What it was, was a case about when the 7-year residency period mattered, and the decision was that you could not count the time following a denial of an expulsion appeal when appeals of the denial were pending.

    Plyler v Doe is also off-point. It held that the children of illegals have an equal protection right to attend public schools. The decision did not depend on the citizenship of the minors, as equal protection applies to “persons” and goes at AT LENGTH to assert that the citizenship status of the minor is immaterial. As such, it does not have a dog in the Ark hunt.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  361. Peggy Noonan looks at Trump’s first few days. She’s in fine form.

    Donald the Wonder Horse

    Mr. Trump successfully turned the page. He established this feeling: The past is sodden, the future electric.

    As he sat at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office Monday night, holding an impromptu news conference—this was after he gave an inaugural address, a long, ad libbed postinaugural speech to the overflow crowd, a Capitol One Arena speech accompanied by the public signing of executive orders, and before the sword dancing at the first of three inaugural balls—as he sat at the Resolute desk simultaneously taking questions and signing more executive orders—this one makes clear the United States owns Saturn—I realized three things:

    I once wrote of him as Chief Crazy Horse but as he signed, I thought of . . . an old nickname for Tom Brokaw. Years ago his producers marveled at his stamina—he could sit in that anchor chair and go live all day and all night, he was indefatigable, never lost focus, he didn’t even have to use the bathroom. They called him “Duncan the Wonder Horse.” That was Mr. Trump this week.

    He is going to utterly dominate our brainspace. He is a neurological imperialist, he storms in and stays. In his public self, Joe Biden asked nothing and gave nothing. Mr. Trump demands and dominates: Attention must be paid. It was said years ago that Fox News viewers were so loyal that they never changed the channel and the Fox logo burned itself into the screens. Donald Trump won’t be happy until he’s burned himself into the nation’s corneas.

    He is at the top of his powers, top of his game. He used to be testy and aggrieved with reporters because he yearned for their admiration. Now he treats them with patience and calm because he doesn’t care about them. He’s got his own thing going. If they don’t like him it’s their problem, with their puny little numbers and shrinking networks.

    He is living in most of our heads, rent-free. And we know what he’d like to do with real estate that he’s got rent-free. He’ll sublet it to all kinds of folks.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  362. The judge is wrong and his decision should be stayed.

    It won’t be. Watch and learn. The weight of 14th Amendment jurisprudence is such that ONLY the US Supreme Court can retcon the precedents.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  363. The judge is wrong and his decision should be stayed.

    Right, that Reagan-appointed judge must be a socialist or something.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  364. Kevin M (a9545f) — 1/23/2025 @ 2:36 pm

    Vladeck in the link above has the appropriate references…

    The Wong Kim Ark case is not a dusty, antiquated relic. In 1982, the Supreme Court not only reaffirmed its holding, but made express what it had held implicitly—that the Citizenship Clause therefore applies to children of undocumented immigrants, specifically. As the Court explained in Plyler v. Doe, “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.” And three years later, the court was even more explicit. Referring to the married, undocumented immigrants at issue in that case, the court noted that they “had given birth to a child, who, born in the United States, was a citizen of the country.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  365. But I have to say that US v Wong Kim Ark isn’t completely the answer here (and how this got called “Wong v Ark” here is a mystery).

    The decision muddies the waters as much as it clears them up. Kim’s citizenship apparently depends on his parent’s long-term lawful residence and upon him not having ever renounced his allegiance. One might argue that some of the facts used to assert his citizenship are immaterial, but they were cited in the decision of the court.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  366. Paul, that’s mere dicta. It has nothing to do with the Plyler case as it did not matter whether the children had been born here, of if they arrived last week from Mexico. Texas could not excluded them from their public school. It is also dicta in the Rios case, having no bearing whatsoever on the decision, which was actually not even about immigration per se. It was about not allowing a residence period to run during repeated and vexatious appeals.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  367. In short, Vladeck is hoping you don’t read the cases he’s citing.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  368. The judge is wrong and his decision should be stayed.

    NJRob (9f04fe) — 1/23/2025 @ 2:16 pm

    Temporary restraining orders aren’t appealable.

    Rip Murdock (c222c5)

  369. What are the odds against the Supreme Court overturning birthright citizenship? I’d say at least 10-1, but would be interested in hearing guesstimates from lawyers on what would be a fair bet.

    Jim Miller (91e356)

  370. > The judge is wrong and his decision should be stayed.

    Didn’t you object when lower court decisions overturned the supreme court precedent on gay marriage from the 70s under the theory that only the supreme court could do that?

    Why is this different? Or do you just pretend to care about process arguments when they align with your outcome preferences?

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  371. Here’s an odd fact: All residents, except for diplomats and people resident under student or tourist visas, must register for the draft. This includes people illegally resident. Illegal residents, however, cannot volunteer for the Army, but may be drafted (if there was a draft).

    So, there may be some argument for excluding children of tourists and non-immigrant students from birthright citizenship, as their parents do not intend long-term residence and they have citizenship in their parent’s country. I don’t think the 14th Amendment countenances this distinction, but it was a category that did not really exist in 1866, so original intent is muddy.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  372. Extra credit, naturally, if you can predict the Supreme Court vote on birthright citizenship.

    Jim Miller (91e356)

  373. In favor of current law: all but Alito.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  374. In favor of current law, except for Alito, Kavanaugh, and Thomas.

    aphrael (dbf41f)

  375. Thomas is unlikely to gut that part of the 14th Amendment. Kavanaugh is unlikely to risk bad press.

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  376. As long as Trump is issuing orders, he ought to empanel a commission to investigate the response to the L.A. Fires. Some of the details are pretty ugly and it’s likely the state is going to whitewash it. Hopefully, the commission would be chaired by someone who isn’t MAGA. Maybe Liz.

    New issues:

    In Altadena, the part of the city east of Lake Avenue was evacuated pretty quickly. No one died there.

    People living west of Lake were not even warned until 3AM, even though some houses there had been burning for hours. 17 people died there.

    Extra credit: What do you suppose the historical significance of Lake Avenue was?

    Kevin M (a9545f)

  377. Paul, that’s mere dicta.

    Dicta gave cover for Judge Cannon to blow up a valid criminal case.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  378. The judge is wrong and his decision should be stayed.

    NJRob (9f04fe) — 1/23/2025 @ 2:16 pm

    What is the legal argument that children of illegal immigrants born in the United States aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”?

    What is the legal theory that allows a President to reinterpret a Supreme Court’s decision by Executive Order?

    Rip Murdock (c222c5)

  379. @371

    What are the odds against the Supreme Court overturning birthright citizenship? I’d say at least 10-1, but would be interested in hearing guesstimates from lawyers on what would be a fair bet.

    Jim Miller (91e356) — 1/23/2025 @ 4:12 pm

    I’d say it’s an easy 6-3 decision that birthright citizenship is not overturn, but doesn’t apply to illegal aliens.

    I feel like I’m repeating myself, the key phrase to consider there when considering who is a “natural-born citizen” is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

    The argument is that illegal immigrants are subject to a foreign sovereignty, are therefore not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and thus the citizenship clause above does not apply.

    The “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause, is either ignored or misinterpreted by birthright citizenship advocates, has to have some meaning or it wouldn’t have been included, and the number of children of foreign diplomats being vanishingly small, we can assume it extended beyond that extremely rare case (so rare as hardly to be worth mentioning). What was meant by the clause was that you had to be subject to no other sovereign.

    Senator Jacob Howard drafted the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Here is what he said it meant: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.” (Emphasis added.) Well, if we value honesty, that right there should settle it. Congressman John Bingham, sometimes called the father of the Fourteenth Amendment itself, held that its meaning was that “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen.” (Emphasis added.)

    Beyond this evidence, two Ivy League professors, Peter Schuck and Rogers Smith, in Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Polity, published by Yale University Press, make a compelling case that the Fourteenth Amendment does not mandate birthright citizenship.

    The two scholars begin a Summer 2018 article in National Affairs this way: If an unauthorized alien gives birth to a child on American soil, is the child automatically a United States citizen? Americans have long assumed that the answer is yes — that the child is a birthright citizen regardless of the parent’s legal status, and that such citizenship is required and guaranteed by the Constitution. But a closer examination of the matter suggests that this answer is actually incorrect, and that birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants here illegally is better understood as a matter for Congress and the American people to resolve. What makes their conclusion especially interesting is that Schuck and Smith describe themselves as scholars who “strongly favor even more legal immigration than the U.S. now accepts, and a generous amnesty for those now here illegally.” So even though their conclusion runs counter to their personal political beliefs, and they are not Trump sympathizers in the least, they contend that the evidence is so strong against birthright citizenship that scholarly honesty compels them to say so: “The fact that many opponents of birthright citizenship for the children of unauthorized parents harbor anti-immigrant views does not mean that their bottom-line position is wrong.” They argue that because the Constitution does not mandate birthright citizenship, the matter may be regulated by congressional statute instead.

    There was no “illegal immigration” problem at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted, so (even though we have the testimony of Jacob Howard, which would seem to settle the matter), Schuck and Smith suggest using the example of Native Americans to shed light on the issue: The framers vested such discretion [regarding the citizenship question] in Congress with respect to Native Americans, whose presence in the country (which of course long predated that of the framers themselves) was manifestly accepted. This was recognized in the 14th Amendment’s own text, a long line of treaties with the tribes, and legislation regulating their citizenship. We doubt the framers would have denied Congress that same policy choice with respect to a group whose very presence in the country — by definition — violates federal law. Basic constitutional protections for this group would certainly have been granted, as in Plyler. But automatic citizenship without public debate and congressional consent would probably not have been. [Emphasis added.] This is one very good reason that history matters. Not so much because we can always draw neat little “lessons” from it, but because if we have a deep knowledge of history we will be better equipped to respond to shysters trying to pull one over on us.

    whembly (5b24be)

  380. @381 crap, the link to x failed. The above blurb was from @ThomasEWoods

    whembly (5b24be)

  381. @379

    Dicta gave cover for Judge Cannon to blow up a valid criminal case.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6) — 1/23/2025 @ 5:21 pm

    Bull CaCa.

    Judge Cannon rightly shut down the case when she found that Jack Smith was improperly tapped as special prosecutor and when the government refused to give Judge Cannon any recourse that the government could “cure” that defect.

    Jack Smith was not a valid special counsel as he wasn’t nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

    And I sure as hell don’t want Trump tapping Mike Davis or Alina Habba or William Shipley as a special counsel either.

    That pathway is madness.

    Dicta my ass.

    whembly (5b24be)

  382. @380

    What is the legal argument that children of illegal immigrants born in the United States aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”?

    See my post @381

    What is the legal theory that allows a President to reinterpret a Supreme Court’s decision by Executive Order?

    Rip Murdock (c222c5) — 1/23/2025 @ 7:17 pm

    1) the question was never tested in front of SCOTUS.

    2) since it’s not tested at SCOTUS, and Congress hasn’t passed a statutory law…President can issue EO to instruct the administration to certain interpretation.

    3) it’s all moot as it was obvious that this is merely a vehicle to get this controversy in front of SCOTUS for final ruling.

    whembly (5b24be)

  383. The argument is that illegal immigrants are subject to a foreign sovereignty, are therefore not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and thus the citizenship clause above does not apply.

    If it is true that the children of illegal immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, then they cannot be prosecuted for any crimes.

    Rip Murdock (c222c5)

  384. I can see a scenario where this doesn’t come before the Supreme Court. If the various Circuit Courts of Appeal all agree that the Trump EO is unconstitutional, then there wouldn’t be a circuit split to resolve.

    Rip Murdock (c222c5)

  385. @385

    If it is true that the children of illegal immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, then they cannot be prosecuted for any crimes.

    Rip Murdock (c222c5) — 1/23/2025 @ 8:02 pm

    You. ARE. Misinterpreting. This. Again.

    “subject to the jurisdiction” is NOT about whether current laws applies to the person.

    “subject to the jurisdiction” is whether that person be subject to another sovereign or owed allegiance to another sovereign.

    See the distinction?

    whembly (5b24be)

  386. Whatever happened to The Living Constitution we were always lectured on?

    lloyd (621625)

  387. @386

    I can see a scenario where this doesn’t come before the Supreme Court. If the various Circuit Courts of Appeal all agree that the Trump EO is unconstitutional, then there wouldn’t be a circuit split to resolve.

    Rip Murdock (c222c5) — 1/23/2025 @ 8:05 pm

    Circuit split isn’t the only way a case can be brought to SCOTUS.

    whembly (5b24be)

  388. since it’s not tested at SCOTUS, and Congress hasn’t passed a statutory law…

    Congress did enact 8 U.S.C. § 1401 which states:

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

    (a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
    ……….

    And the Civil Rights Act of 1866 states

    That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States……..

    Rip Murdock (c222c5)

  389. “subject to the jurisdiction” is whether that person be subject to another sovereign or owed allegiance to another sovereign.

    What is the evidence that children of illegal immigrants owe “allegiance to another sovereign”?

    Rip Murdock (c222c5)

  390. The above blurb was from @ThomasEWoods

    Thomas E. Woods is a racist and Confederate sympathizer. I wrote about him at RedState, back when GW Bush was prez.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

  391. Regarding the 14th Amendment, Jon Adler is a great source on the subject (and for conservative-leaning environmental issues…

    The relevant legal question with regard to the Trump Administration Executive Order is what it means for someone to not be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at birth. The conventional account is that it excludes the children of foreign diplomats and invading armies. The revisionist account maintains that it also excludes the children of those unlawfully present in the country, and perhaps the children of non-citizen parents lacking lawful permanent residence as well.

    There may well be a range of non-originalist arguments for the revisionist position, but as a matter of original public meaning, these arguments do not work. Judge Ho explained why in a 2007 op-ed:

    When a person is “subject to the jurisdiction” of a court of law, that person is required to obey the orders of that court. The meaning of the phrase is simple: One is “subject to the jurisdiction” of another whenever one is obliged to obey the laws of another. The test is obedience, not allegiance.

    The “jurisdiction” requirement excludes only those who are not required to obey U.S. law. This concept, like much of early U.S. law, derives from English common law. Under common law, foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers are not legally obliged to obey our law, and thus their offspring are not entitled to citizenship at birth. The 14th Amendment merely codified this common law doctrine.

    Members of the 39th Congress debated the wisdom of guaranteeing birthright citizenship — but no one disputed the amendment’s meaning. Opponents conceded — indeed, warned — that it would grant citizenship to the children of those who “owe [the U.S.] no allegiance.” Amendment supporters agreed that only members of Indian tribes, ambassadors, foreign ministers and others not “subject to our laws” would fall outside the amendment’s reach.

    Paul Montagu (3bccc6)

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