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Think of it this way. Someone from Great Britain visiting the United States is subject to our laws while here, which is to say subject to our partial or territorial jurisdiction. He must drive on the right-hand side of the road rather than the left, for example. But he does not thereby owe allegiance to the United States; he is not subject to being drafted into our army; and he cannot be prosecuted for treason (as opposed to ordinary violations of law) if he takes up arms against the United States, for he has breached no oath of allegiance.
So which understanding of “subject to the jurisdiction” did the drafters of the 14th Amendment have in mind?
Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”
Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”
The Supreme Court confirmed that understanding (albeit in dicta) in the first case addressing the 14th Amendment, noting in The Slaughterhouse Cases in 1872 that “[t]he 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.” It then confirmed that understanding in the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins, holding that the “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase required that one be “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.” John Elk, the Native American claimant in the case, did not meet that requirement because, as a member of an Indian tribe at his birth, he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the United States.
Thomas Cooley, the leading treatise writer of the era, also confirmed that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “meant full and complete jurisdiction to which citizens are generally subject, and not any qualified and partial jurisdiction, such as may consist with allegiance to some other government.” More fundamentally, this understanding of the Citizenship Clause is the only one compatible with the consent of the governed principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
Following Mark Zuckerberg’s putative mea culpa for having made Meta complicit in the largest censorship regime in American history, and his vow to restore free expression on his platforms, the CEO made perhaps his most consequential statement of all in an interview with Joe Rogan.
There, after describing the pressure campaign the Biden administration waged against his company to suppress disfavored speech, primarily regarding Covid-19, Zuckerberg told Rogan: “I don’t think that the pushing for social media companies to censor stuff was legal.”
The Meta CEO’s silence as this very issue was being litigated all the way up to the Supreme Court was as deafening then as it is maddening now. But in making this assertion, he has inadvertently highlighted one of the Roberts Court’s gravest derelictions of duty — one that emphasizes the necessity of vigorous executive and legislative actions in defense of our rights, actions like those promised by the Trump administration and some in Congress.
The dereliction of duty came in the Supreme Court’s punting of the case of Murthy v. Missouri, previously known as Missouri v. Biden.
Plaintiffs in the case obtained and marshaled voluminous evidence demonstrating that senior Biden White House officials and federal agencies coerced, cajoled, and colluded directly and indirectly with social media companies to purge disfavored news and views en masse on matters ranging from the Hunter Biden laptop story to election integrity and Covid-19. The defendants did so on ostensible grounds of combatting dangerous “mis-, dis-, and mal-information.” In deputizing non-governmental actors as its speech police, the plaintiffs argued, the feds engaged in a conspiracy to violate the First Amendment by proxy.
The case, alongside congressional investigations and reportage including the “Twitter Files,” helped expose the size, scope, and nature of the censorship-industrial complex. //
The defendants appealed. But Judge Doughty’s counterparts on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld his ruling.
So the feds took their argument to the Supreme Court. There, shockingly, as I observed while attending oral arguments, far too many of the justices showed they held a perversely narrow view of the First Amendment, and they gave substantial deference to the feds that had so imperiled it. Some also seemed remarkably ignorant of the expansive factual record supporting the plaintiffs’ claims.
Last summer, the high court dismissed the plaintiffs’ concerns and Americans’ free speech rights on a technicality. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supremes held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to seek injunctive relief, refusing to rule on the merits of the case.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, rebuked the court for straining to create “new” and “heightened” standards to find that the plaintiffs lacked standing and warned that the court’s refusal to rule on the merits of the case could result in dire consequences.
“[W]e are obligated to tackle the free speech issue that the case presents,” Alito asserted. “The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.”
The dissent concluded that what transpired in Murthy “was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so.”
By not ruling that the censorship-industrial complex’s acts were unconstitutional — by avoiding the question entirely — the Supremes signaled that it was open season on free speech in America. //
The courts simply cannot be seen as a reliable backstop for protecting our First Amendment rights against the censorship-industrial complex.
What’s more, if Republicans allow the fed-led censorship regime to persist, there will be no deterrent to Democrat efforts to create analogous regimes going forward, targeting rights beyond those enshrined in the First Amendment.
Somali-born Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar decided to lecture Americans on Wednesday about what it means to be “American,” calling an immigration law signed by President John Adams “un-American.” But her comments only prove why some foreigners should never hold office in the United States.
President Donald Trump said during his inaugural address that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to protect Americans from “foreign gangs and criminal networks.” The act allows the president to deport foreigners of an enemy nation. But Omar condemned the act as “un-American.” Yes, a Somali immigrant is telling Americans that one of America’s founders, John Adams, was acting in a way that was “un-American.”
Omar also claimed Trump’s immigration agenda is “a threat to immigrants” and that we must “restore basic humanity to our immigration system.”
Here’s the thing, however: Being “American” isn’t about making foreigners feel comfortable — it’s about protecting our sovereignty, our values, and our people. But Omar’s remarks prove she has no grasp of what it means to be “American” and therefore should be disqualified from holding American office.
But why does Omar not understand what it actually means to be American? Because she’s not an American. She’s a citizen of America, but her complete and total allegiance will never be just to America. It’s why she told supporters in her district that she would use her position of power to help benefit her homeland.
But the survival of our republic depends on national unity, and the admission of foreigners — both legal and illegal — threatens to undermine that. Alexander Hamilton explained as much in 1802 when discussing the “consequences that must result from a too unqualified admission of foreigners, to an equal participation in our civil, and political rights.”
“The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”
Hamilton further noted how it is “extremely unlikely” that foreigners “will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism” and that foreigners will “entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived.” //
Members of the Constitutional Convention debated on Aug. 13, 1787, about how long an immigrant needs to be a citizen before he could become a member of the House of Representatives. Elderbridge Gerry “wished that in future the eligibility might be confined to Natives. Foreign powers will intermeddle in our affairs, and spare no expense to influence them. Persons having foreign attachments will be sent among us and insinuated into our councils, in order to be made instruments for their purpose.”
But beyond the legal arguments there is a pressing moral argument about citizenship and nationhood that lies at the heart of our current debates about the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. The moral argument engages a different and arguably more important set of questions. What is an American? Who is America for? What is the purpose of immigration? What do immigrants or would-be immigrants owe to the native-born population? //
Contrary to what has been drilled into most of us since grade school, not everyone can really become an American. Being an American means more than simply assenting to live by our laws and paying taxes, because America is more than an idea. (As others have noted, if America is just an idea we can write it down and send it overseas, and foreigners need not come here at all.)
Simply put, America is a nation. We have a common language and a shared history. We have a certain way of life and customs. We have a distinctly American identity. Our system of government is founded explicitly on Christian claims about God and man. For most of our history, Christian morality has been the basis of our civic life. We are bound together by family ties, by our connections to the land, by shared experience, by what Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address called the “mystic chords of memory.”
Every foreigner who comes here understands what this means as it applies to their own homeland. It has been a grave error that we have insisted for so long that none of it applies to us. Making a case against birthright citizenship will mean making a case against the pernicious ideology of multiculturalism, which we have been taught makes us strong but in reality makes us weaker and poorer.
It will also mean asserting that it’s not actually the case that someone whose parents emigrated to America from a foreign country, and whose family has only been here a single generation, is “just as American” as someone who traces their ancestry to the American Revolution. It will mean admitting that America would be much better off not only with zero illegal immigration but with only a very low level of legal immigration, which would help preserve our cultural and community cohesion, and encourage the complete assimilation of all newcomers.
We have to get comfortable saying these things and defending them. Yes, the legal and constitutional arguments against birthright citizenship are very strong, and they might in the end win the day. But regardless of the outcome of the legal battle over the 14th Amendment, we have to insist, without apology, on a fuller understanding of the American nation and the American people. An American is not just someone who happens to be born here. For a foreign national to become an American, he has to thoroughly adopt our culture, language, and way of life — and resolve to pass all of those habits and customs onto his posterity, here in his adopted homeland. Nothing less than his complete allegiance and complete assimilation will do.
Why do I say this? Because America itself is first and foremost for native-born Americans. It’s the only homeland we will ever have or ever can have. As such, our immigration policy should exist solely to benefit us, the American people. Indeed, because the only legitimate purpose of immigration is to create new Americans, our immigration regime should be narrowly tailored to serve the interests of our people. Businesses, especially multinational corporations, should have no say in it whatsoever, nor should legal resident noncitizens or family members of immigrants, whether legal or illegal.
All of these arguments are not really about immigration policy, but about what a nation is and how to preserve it.
Trump isn’t rewriting the 14th Amendment; he’s applying the law as it is, based on its plain language and the Supreme Court’s existing precedent. //
The 14th Amendment — ratified after the Civil War and ensuring that former slaves were U.S. citizens — provides that “[a]ll 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.” The plaintiffs focus on the first part, but barely glance at the second, arguing that, with few exceptions (such as the children of foreign diplomats in the United States), anyone born in the United States is “subject to its jurisdiction,” simply by virtue of being within its borders.
They do this by relying almost entirely on United States v. Wong Kim Ark, an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that the plaintiffs get hopelessly wrong. In Wong, the court held that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment. Omitting some key facts, the plaintiffs argue this means that all children born in the United States of all immigrant parents, with the aforementioned very rare exceptions, automatically are U.S. citizens. Even a cursory read of the opinion, however, shows that the Supreme Court ruled nothing of the sort.
Wong was born in California and lived his entire life in the United States, until he took two trips to China to visit family as an adult. The first time he returned to the United States, he was admitted through customs as a U.S. citizen. A few years later, after visiting China a second time, he was denied reentry after a customs official concluded that he was not a citizen, because his parents were not U.S. citizens when he was born here.
SCOTUS sided with Wong, but for a very important reason the plaintiffs fail to mention: Wong’s parents were legal immigrants to the United States. The entire foundation of the plaintiffs’ argument — that SCOTUS has already upheld birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants by this decision — is therefore completely and obviously wrong.
In rendering its opinion, SCOTUS dove deep into the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” What they found, tracing back hundreds of years through English common law, is that the phrase is rooted in a mutual relationship of “allegiance and protection” between the individual and the sovereign (historically a king, but the nation here). Children “born in the allegiance,” and therefore citizens entitled to “protection” at birth, included children born to subjects of the king, as well as children born to “aliens in amity” — that is, aliens lawfully “domiciled” there with the king’s consent. Notably, the court found that this did not extend to the children of aliens in “hostile occupation of part of our territory.”
Consent is the operative word. In ruling for Wong, the Supreme Court made clear that the United States has a say in who is subject to its jurisdiction, noting that noncitizens like Wong’s parents are “entitled to the protection of, and owe allegiance to, the United States so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here” (emphasis added). In Wong’s case, this meant that the 14th Amendment granted him citizenship because he was: (1) born in the United States; and (2) subject to its jurisdiction, due to the fact that his parents were lawful immigrants permitted by the United States to reside here at the time he was born.
SteveAR Mark the CPA
an hour ago
The "subject to the jurisdiction" phrase is more important than people realize. The only question will be if Roberts and Barrett, and perhaps Kavanaugh, understand that.
Jim Stewart Scholar
an hour ago
On May 30, 1866, Republican Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan introduced the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Senate and defined the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” by stating:
"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."
Oops, Mr. Howard underestimated the stupidity of judges.
NightStalker Mark the CPA
11 minutes ago
Question: If the child of non-citizens is not denied citizenship by the phrase ‘under the jurisdiction thereof’’ then what child born in the United States would be denied citizenship by that clause? If no child born in the United States can be denied citizenship then what was the purpose of the phrase?
SteveAR Mark the CPA
an hour ago
The "subject to the jurisdiction" phrase is more important than people realize. The only question will be if Roberts and Barrett, and perhaps Kavanaugh, understand that.
mopani NightStalker
5 minutes ago
It was just a flourish to use up the extra space and get rid rid of useless ink.
Always ask yourself, why would the writer add seemingly pointless details? They are important. Especially so when reading Scripture. //
Scholar
an hour ago edited
So the court shopping has started. What does one expect from a judge in Seattle? He is a moron because an originalist by looking at the historical background could easily infer that the purpose was not to allow any baby born in America become a citizen, automatically. The purpose was to end the controversy of any doubt about blacks born in the United States.
The duo craftily tried to tuck the point in question into the end of the article, but the absurdity of it stands out and obliterates any other points they were trying to make:
- Trump or future presidents could simply run for a de facto third term — as the vice presidential nominee, with the understanding they will take power back once elected. That's but one of the once-unthinkable scenarios that seem more thinkable than ever.
Got that? Trump could run for vice president in 2028, when he will be 82, in order to make sure his monarchy continues after he is constitutionally prevented from being president. //
Rogue Rose Liberal Soup N Crackers®
12 hours ago
Very last line of the 12th Amendment US Constitution:
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
Just more fear porn for the left.
This case will certainly go before the Supreme Court, and however it is decided, the case will carry implications that will affect American immigration policy for many years — and if the court finds for the plaintiffs, we should note that ending birthright citizenship will require a constitutional amendment. A lot is riding on this for both sides.
Birthright citizenship is generally not the rule in most of the world, but in the Americas, it seems to be widely accepted; Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and indeed most of the New World seem to have some form or another of birthright citizenship. We should note, though, that most of these countries aren't beset with millions trying to gain illegal entry to take advantage of these policies. //
WilliamRD
7 hours ago
Indians and their children didn't get citizenship until 1924 when congress passed the Indian citizenship act. . There would have been no need to pass such legislation if the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to every person born in America, no matter what the circumstances of their birth, and no matter who their parents are.
Snowblind WilliamRD
6 hours ago
Except Indians born on a reservation are not born in the US.
Snowblind WilliamRD
2 hours ago
But they were sovereign nations unto themselves at the time the 14th was ratified.
The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended that, but again, at the time of the 14th amendment they were not. //
Mike Ford
5 hours ago edited
"...subject to the jurisdiction thereof,..."
Jurisdiction thereof has TWO components:
- Legal jurisdiction and;
2 Sovereign Jurisdiction or citizen allegiance.
If my buddy Ward goes to Germany and walks into the Hürtgen Forest with his trusty guide gun and attempts to get himself a boar, the Politzi will arrest him.
-
He will be charged under German Law, which has legal jurisdiction over that act in Germany (and he also may be subject to U.S. law (especially if he is a Soldier and outside SOFA boundaries)).
-
He will NOT lose his citizenship...ie, the U.S. retains SOVEREIGN jurisdiction over him.
Now...let's take a Colombian couple who dash across the border and evade ICE. She (not he..."he's" can't do that) drops a baby on U.S. soil. The baby is a Colombian citizen. Period. Full Stop.
Why? Because the couple and the baby are not subject to the full/complete (legal AND sovereign, jurisdiction of these United States.
This issue has been made needlessly complex by leftists and their lawyers.
It's time to end this travesty...by specific legislation or a SCOTUS decision that defines a U.S. citizen as anyone who is born to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen on the date of that birth.
I'm sorry for the bad acts of Democrats that have resulted in children who were born here and know no other country. That ain't our problem.
Send their parents and them back to country of origin. If they want to come here, get in line like the mother of my children, my sisters-in-law (from Central America) and a brother-in-law from Austria...all of whom own businesses,, employ folk and pay way too many taxes.
This isn't hard. We are making it so. //
MN-Gal2022 ConservativeInMinnesota
6 hours ago
Hey!
i think it was you who had posted some context from the authors of the amendment.
If I recall correctly they specifically said this did not apply to those here illegally.
do you still have the text of that explanation?
ConservativeInMinnesota MN-Gal2022
2 hours ago
It was. Here it is for reference:
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.
What it means in the words of Senator Jacob Howard who co-authored the 14th Amendment:
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.
What it means in the words of Senator Trumbull who co-author the 14th Amendment on the “subject to the jurisdiction”:
not owing allegiance to anybody else and being subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States. //
David135
5 hours ago
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens....
If being born on USA soil was sufficient, the line would simply be....
All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens..
Obviously, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means something besides the accepted understanding of birthright citizenship.
John Q. Public David135
4 hours ago
People trying to suggest that they wasted the ink and calligraphy on that line for absolutely no reason are insane.
There is a case to be made for going much further, to return the federal government to what the Founders intended; to pare it once more back to its proper constitutional boundaries. This will go beyond trimming the fat; this will involve cutting the imperial colossus our federal government has become down to the bone, and then paring away some of the bone.
For the first installment of this series, let us discuss the proper role of government.
Some years back, I heard a comment that has stuck in my head ever since: “What government does for anyone, it should do for everyone, or it should do for no one.” This, in a nutshell, sums up the proper relationship of government to the citizens. //
is not the proper role of government to shield people from the consequences of their bad decisions. There will always be a need for a modern, prosperous society to care for the truly helpless, such as people disabled through no fault of their own, children with no adults to care for them, and so forth. But the lazy, the indigent, the irresponsible – they have no moral claim on the fruits of the labor of the industrious. The government, and only the government, has the power to tax – to claim a portion of your resources with the force of law, with the implied threat of armed force if you try to abstain. In our age of ever-increasing welfare entitlements, that government has claimed a portion of every taxpayer’s proceeds toward just such a shield – requiring the industrious to toil longer and harder to support the indigent. //
It is the nature of government to grow, to become ever more intrusive; it is the nature of government that it is inefficient, even wasteful. Examples of this abound. Our republic was founded on the overriding principle that government must be constrained. No less an authority on the founding principles of our nation than George Washington said, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” He was exactly correct; and the American people must remember that however dangerous, government and its various elected and appointed officials and their hirelings are our servants, not our masters. And if necessary, we should call on them to remember, as well. That is why the federal government should — must — be once more returned to its original constitutional limits.
The new order maintains that "the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States" and centers on two specific scenarios:
Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
this is a final moment of shame for what is now inarguably the worst presidency in modern history. He has deeply abused his power to protect people from the repercussions of the law while repeatedly claiming to be "defending democracy." Does handing out pardons like candy for unspecified crimes while claiming the recipients didn't do anything wrong sound like defending democracy to you? This is the move of a third-world dictator, not a President of the United States. //
polyjunkie
an hour ago
Posted elsewhere but germane here:
What FJB has just set precedent for is utterly corrupt and may bring down our Republic.
Consider this: Now a President’s minions can do anything he wants them to do and be pardoned for it. For example, a future president could order the assassination of political rivals, then pardon the assassin. If there are objections by Congress or the Courts, a few more assassinations and pardons will solve that problem. FJB has just set the stage for a future president to end his political opposition because he is effectively untouchable. Now executive branch members are effectively above the law. They can lie to Congress, the Courts, the public, and there are no consequences.
FJB, you despicable a$$hole. //
jester6 polyjunkie
an hour ago edited
This is several orders of magnitude worse than the presidential immunity ruling in Trump v. US that the left freaked out about.
And it's not just that Biden did it, it's that a significant part of the country supports it. Politics is the art of the possible. The scenario you describe above is not only possible, it is more or less likely at this point. //
Ed in North Texas anon-shh5
an hour ago
Not at all a precedent. Been done before, will be done again. Pardoning people who have not been criminally charged goes back to George Washington and on to Ford's Nixon Pardon (Nixon had not been criminally charged, not even with an Article of Impeachment introduced or passing the House).
Random US Citizen bintexas
12 hours ago edited
Well, if you can turn a man into a woman just by saying it's true, certainly you can turn an unratified amendment into a ratified one...
One of the things that makes it clear that our society continues to deteriorate is the almost Medieval level of superstition we're seeing almost every day. Saying something makes it true (this amendment was ratified). Naming a thing allows you to control it (western medicine widely contains this superstition) A magical belief that behavior can effect nature (climate change). The belief that words can cause physical/spiritual harm (conservatives talking is the same a violence). Belief that a person is the incarnation of the devil (Trump)
Western civilization isn't dead yet, but it certainly is ill.
Archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan and Deputy Archivist William J. Bosanko released the following statement today on the Equal Rights Amendment and the constitutional responsibilities for administering the ratification process:
“As Archivist and Deputy Archivist of the United States, it is our responsibility to uphold the integrity of the constitutional amendment process and ensure that changes to the Constitution are carried out in accordance with the law. At this time, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) cannot be certified as part of the Constitution due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions.
“In 2020 and again in 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable. The OLC concluded that extending or removing the deadline requires new action by Congress or the courts. Court decisions at both the District and Circuit levels have affirmed that the ratification deadlines established by Congress for the ERA are valid. Therefore, the Archivist of the United States cannot legally publish the Equal Rights Amendment. As the leaders of the National Archives, we will abide by these legal precedents and support the constitutional framework in which we operate.
“The role of the Archivist of the United States is to follow the law as it stands, ensuring the integrity of our nation’s governing institutions. Personal opinion or beliefs are not relevant; as the leaders of the National Archives, we support established legal processes and decisions.
On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.
It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex. //
Note the date of the Virginia's ratification: January 27, 2020. The original Congressional resolution that sent the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification included a ratification deadline of seven years. The original deadline was March 1979. There was an extension, passed by a simple majority — not the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments — and signed by President Carter.
However, the president has no role in the passage and ratification of constitutional amendments, as the Supreme Court decided back in 1798. //
Even the interns running the White House social media accounts and press releases have to understand that this "affirmation" means less than nothing. The Equal Rights Amendment has not been ratified. It is not the law of the land. It remains as it was: a failed effort to amend the Constitution. Again, the President of the United States has no role in amending the Constitution. It is, as MacBeth said, "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." //
The President of the United States has no authority to make any such decree, and Joe Biden can "affirm" this until his eyes fall out and it means a grand total of nothing. This administration is leaving as it lived: with no knowledge of the Constitution and how this republic is supposed to work, and only a tenuous connection with reality. //
mdavt
2 hours ago
Hasn't the Archivist stated she will not abide by any such order?
RedPanda mdavt
an hour ago
Yep!
Zuckerberg’s admission of a pressure campaign lays bare the truth: the government colluded with Big Tech to violate Americans’ First Amendment right and the Supreme Court squandered an opportunity to right a wrong.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky – Northern Division blocked President Joe Biden’s Title IX rewrite, known as the Final Rule. The ruling applies nationwide.
“Because the Final Rule and its corresponding regulations exceed the Department’s authority under Title IX, violate the Constitution, and are the result of arbitrary and capricious agency action, the plaintiffs’ motions for summary judgment will be granted and the Department’s motion for summary judgment will be denied,” wrote the Court. //
The Final Rule had gender identity, sexual orientation, and sex characteristics.
The Department refused to provide a narrow definition of “sex” “to avoid overbroad application of a prohibition on discrimination based on sex stereotypes.” //
The Court stressed that Title IX’s phrase “on the basis of sex” means exactly what it says when Title IX became law: Sex is female or male. Title IX protects human beings born female. Basic biology! //
The Department of Education also threatened to punish those who refuse to use a person’s preferred name or pronouns.
Well, the Court ruled that violated the First Amendment //
The Final Rule violated the Constitution’s Spending Clause since it threatened to withhold funds from schools that did not abide by the rewrite.
Legislation must satisfy a four-prong test to limit federal funds.
The Court found the Final Rule did not satisfy the fourth prong: “the conditions must not induce unconstitutional action.”. //
Bruce Hayden | January 9, 2025 at 3:34 pm
I find interesting the use of vacatur, which, by necessity, is nationwide. If a regulation violates the APA, and is thus void, it makes no sense for it to be void in just the ED of KY. Void is void, and that is what the APA calls for.
This is in contrast to nationwide injunctions issued by a single district court. How does a single district court, in a single district in a single state have the power to issue a nationwide injunction? It doesn’t typically have jurisdiction over most of the parties involved. The use of nationwide injunctions had grown enormously over the last decade or two, and became increasingly controversial by its overreach, esp in suits pushed by the left. Vacatur of regulations subject to the APA is more defensive in nature, merely preventing the government from imposing non-compliant regulations.
That sounds a bit arcane, and it likely is; the president, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, should take the word of the Constitution first and foremost. But, yes, everything is (tiresomely at times) subject to legal interpretation. What's interesting here is that Durbin is asking the DOJ to rescind opinions that he evidently agreed with while Joe Biden was president.
Did you hear that scraping sound? That's the sound of goalposts being moved. //
anon-gkyt
25 minutes ago
Hey, Durbin. What part of Commander-in-Chief don’t you get?? As for use of the military domestically, General Winfield Scott, the senior army commander, stated in 1861 a self-evident fact. The military is to deal with threats foreign and domestic. Ever heard of Lincoln using the US military domestically? If that was not “domestic”, the invasion of the Confederacy was simply an act of aggression by the US government.
As provided by law, without objection, the 119th Congress formally counted the votes of the Electoral College, and, at 1:35 p.m. Eastern, having received 312 electoral votes, Donald Trump was certified as the 47th President of the United States (and JD Vance was certified as vice president). Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the session — something that places her in a somewhat exclusive (albeit not enviable) club.
The last few years revealed stark differences in philosophy regarding the role of government in our society. When the level of fear was high, people were more inclined to submit to onerous mandates. They believed restricting freedom was necessary for the common good and saw the government as a benevolent savior. It was terrifying to watch.
Some people want the government to control as much as possible.
This led me to an existential question: What is the point of government? //
“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.”
Paine described the purpose of government as providing for freedom and security.
“Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security.”
looking at Judge Mazzant’s order, which stayed implementation of the statute in question provides some insight into what he found objectionable:
Legislative ingenuity, dispatched to meet today’s problems, is not measured by any other standard than our written Constitution. Modern problems may well warrant modern solutions, but modernity does not grant Congress a roving license to legislate outside the boundaries of our timeless, written Constitution. See, e.g., Louisiana v. Biden, 55 F.4th 1017, 1032 (5th Cir. 2022) (“The Constitution is not abrogated[, even] in a pandemic.”). The Constitution must stand firm. //
At its most rudimentary level, the CTA regulates companies that are registered to do business under a State’s laws and requires those companies to report their ownership, including detailed, personal information about their owners, to the Federal Government on pain of severe penalties. Though seemingly benign, this federal mandate marks a drastic two-fold departure from history. First, it represents a Federal attempt to monitor companies created under state law—a matter our federalist system has left almost exclusively to the several States. Second, the CTA ends a feature of corporate formation as designed by various States—anonymity. For good reason, Plaintiffs fear this flanking, quasi Orwellian statute and its implications on our dual system of government. As a result, Plaintiffs contend that the CTA violates the promises our constitution makes to the People and the States. Despite attempting to reconcile the CTA with the Constitution at every turn, the Government is unable to provide the Court with any tenable theory that the CTA falls within Congress’s power. And even in the face of the deference the Court must give Congress, the CTA appears likely unconstitutional. Accordingly, the CTA and its Implementing Regulations must be enjoined. //
the record before the Court contains sufficient facts to indicate the CTA and the Reporting Rule may violate the Constitution…Absent injunctive relief, come January 2, 2025, Plaintiffs would have disclosed the information they seek to keep private under the First and Fourth Amendments and surrendered to a law that they contend exceeds Congress’s powers. That damage “cannot be undone by monetary relief.” That harm is irreparable. //
The court also held that the CTA was not valid under the commerce clause because “[t]he CTA does not regulate channels of, or instrumentalities in, commerce,” only formation of corporations and reporting about them. And, “[t]he CTA does not regulate an activity—it creates one.” //
Christopher B | January 1, 2025 at 10:42 am
As a board member of a non-profit that would be impacted by this, I’m happy to see the injunction back. We have some folks on our board who have to deal with this in a professional capacity, and their opinion is generally that FinCen and other TLAs want a way to get at this information without having to obtain a warrant since it largely exists in various databases but not under their control.