‘No More Anchor Babies’ yells Prez!

Birthright citizenship ain’t in the Constitution!  I’m issuing an EO ending it!  Well, of course it’s in the Constitution: The 14th Amendment Section One reads (the Wiki):

‘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.

But of course a cadré of legal beagles of similar stripe say, as with this Oct. 31 Amerikan Thinker op-ed by Daniel John Sobieski: ‘Ending Birthright Citizenship’ (a few outtakes, and I ♥ the ad about medical hemp oil being legal now):

“History, as the saying goes, is a lie agreed upon, and there has perhaps been no bigger lie detrimental to the future national security and economic well-being of the United States that the 14th Amendment, clearly written to protect the rights of African-American slaves liberated by the first Republican President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, somehow confers citizenship on the offspring of anybody whose (sic) pregnant and can sneak past the U.S. Border Patrol.

[Actually, Daniel John Sobieski, they say that ‘history belongs to the victor’.]

“U.S. citizenship is rendered meaningless if it is defined as an accident of geography and it is the clear that this was not the intention authors of those who wrote the 14th Amendment and shepherded it into the Constitution. President Trump has rightly targeted birthright citizenship as an historical error that needs to be corrected.”

This is the leg they’re standing on as to buttress their arguments:

“Michael Anton, a former national security adviser for Trump, pointed out in July that “there’s a clause in the middle of the amendment that people ignore or they misinterpret – subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

“What they are saying is, if you are born on U.S. soil subject to the jurisdiction of the United States – meaning you’re the child of citizens or the child of legal immigrants, then you are entitled to citizenship,” Anton told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson in July. “If you are here illegally, if you owe allegiance to a foreign nation, if you’re the citizen of a foreign country, that clause does not apply to you.”

“Anton is stunningly correct and clearly echoes the sentiments and legislative intent of the authors of the 14th Amendment. The only question is whether this historical error is better corrected though a clarifying amendment, legislation, or through a Trump executive order. GOP Rep. Steve King, R-IA, has proposed legislation:

In January of this year, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) proposed the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2015 (HR 140) that seeks to amend current law by making requirements for citizenship more narrow, and, in King’s opinion, more constitutional…”, including:

‘And subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ So once the practice began, it grew out of proportion and today between 340,000 and 750,000 babies are born in America each year that get automatic citizenship even though both parents are illegal immigrants. That has got to stop.”

He quotes other Constitutional Scholars, including some who’d testified before the House Judiciary Committee in October, 2008, Herr Trump himself in an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” what magnets Anchor Babies are for other illegals to enter (they didn’t say ‘this shithole country of ours’) etc.  Their conclusions are that it may not in fact take a Constitutional Amendment to nullify it, just the courts interpreting it correctly, as the ‘framers’ had obviously intended it, or with ‘corrective legislation’.  He winds up with this dilly:

The current interpretation of birthright citizenship may in fact have been a huge mistake and given the burden illegal aliens have imposed on our welfare, educational, and health care systems as well as through increased crime on our legal system, a very costly one.”

In his Nov. 1, 2018 ‘The American oligarchy’s attack on birthright citizenship; All men are not created equal’, Eric London, wsws.org writes in part:

“With this move, the American oligarchy is repudiating the basic democratic principle upon which the American republic was founded, embodied in the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all men are created equal.” If the American president can, by executive fiat, strike out the 14th Amendment, what is to stop him from overturning the entire Bill of Rights, which guarantees free speech, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, due process, and the right to counsel, among other fundamental protections?”

[Well, he has, other Presidents already have, but…moving on…]

“Trump’s proposal, which comes in the final days of the midterm election campaign, is a provocation by the administration and its fascist staffers aimed at whipping up xenophobic sentiments and creating a constituency for a right-wing extra-constitutional movement. Such a movement is deemed necessary to implement Trump’s pro-corporate, pro-war, anti-immigrant agenda.”

It would produce an underclass of immigrant families afraid to send their children to school, give birth in hospitals, or send their sick children to the doctor’s office. Millions of children would become stateless, lacking citizenship in any country. Slum districts and even walled ghettos with third world, apartheid conditions would become commonplace.

If applied retroactively, the rescission of birthright citizenship would reportedly place over 10 million people at immediate risk of deportation. Either way, the government will respond to the growth of the undocumented population with further moves toward martial law, including the construction of more detention camps and the deployment of more immigration agents and soldiers, not only to the border but to major metropolitan areas.

As the American Immigration Council wrote yesterday, the decision “would also impose hardship on all Americans, who could no longer point to a birth certificate as proof of citizenship. If place of birth no longer guaranteed citizenship, then all Americans—not just those whose parents were undocumented—would be forced to prove their parents’ nationality to the government in order to be recognized as a US citizen.”

London then notes that since the stolen election in 2000 and the endless ‘war on terror’, both parties have shredded the Bill of Rights.  He writes that Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Sen. Claire McKaskill (D-M) support Trump on the issue.

Some write that both Bill Clinton and Harry Reid were of a similar opinion, but London wasn’t the only one to note that at a campaign stop for Ben Jealous, Bernie Sanders avoided the issue, even though he’s called the Prez a racist, xenophobe, so and so in the past.  Jeb Bush had also campaigned on the issue.

The Washington Post (including videos) on Oct. 30 quoted even some Republicans (Rep Mike Coffman, as saying ‘whoa, Nellie; ya can’t do that’, and:

‘Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said Trump was engaged in “a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms.”

Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that birthright citizenship IS enshrined in the Constitution, and he can’t change it with an EO, plus:

“Ryan also said that Republicans did not like it when President Barack Obama changed immigration policy by executive action and that altering the Constitution would be a lengthy process.”

I assume he’s referencing O’s quasi-con ‘Dream Act’.  And yes, Obomba’s been shouting from the rooftops against this evil ploy, but to me it all rings hollow in the face of his massive anti-immigrant moves, including deporting millions, caging many (including families) on concrete floors with space blankets as bedding, and so on.

The Wapo piece had also included that Boss Tweet was wrong about Amerika being the only nation to have Birthright Citizen language:

“NumbersUSA, a group that favors reduced immigration, has compiled a list that shows 33 nations grant citizenship to anyone born within their borders.  The list includes Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and most other countries in Central and South America. The United States and Canada are the only two “developed” countries, as defined by the International Monetary Fund, that have unrestricted birthright citizenship laws.”

This isn’t NumbersUSA, but has similar information.

From Kevin Alexander Gray’s (author of Killing Trayvons) November 2, 2018, counterpunch.org:  ‘14th Amendment Nullification Threatens the Core of Citizenship’ (a few outtakes):

When I was in the military in the 1970s, I heard two white soldiers talking on the rifle range. One soldier asked the other how he learned to shoot so well.

“I like shooting cans right off the fence,” the other soldier responded, adding: “Af-ri-cans, Puer-to-Ri-cans and Mex-i-cans.”

The comment came to mind when I heard Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., saying, “Birthright citizenship is a mistake,” and when he and his GOP cohorts started talking about immigrants having “anchor babies.”

“People come here to have babies,” said Graham. “They come here to drop a child. It’s called, ‘Drop and leave.’”

“Drop a child.” It’s as if he were talking about animals.

Graham says he’s considering introducing a bill to rescind Section 1 of the 14th Amendment.

Section 1 does confer citizenship on anyone born in the United States. But that’s not all it does.

The second sentence of that section says: “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 Also called the “due process” clause or the “equal protection” clause, this part of the 14th Amendment is the very foundation of U.S. civil rights law. The new nullifiers who talk of getting rid of Section 1 are signaling their larger purpose and are targeting all those they hold in contempt, like so many cans on the fence.

The Reconstruction-era amendment, finally adopted as part of the Constitution in 1868, ensured that former enslaved Africans and their children were U.S. citizens. Together with the 13th Amendment, which bans slavery, and the 15th, which prohibits the government from denying any citizen the right to vote on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude, the 14th Amendment is fundamental to the whole country’s long walk toward human rights and equality under the law.”

Gray reminds readers that the 1954 SCOTUS Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was based on the discriminatory nature of segregation in which white supremacy loomed large in the debates, as it does today.  He further contends that opponents of the decision claimed that black children would be ‘threatening morality’ by people ‘unfit for the responsibilities of American citizenship’ is quite similar to Lindsay Graham’s slurs against immigrants ‘coming to drop a child’. And further, that tampering with the 14th Amendment would bring Amerika back to the 1857 days of Dred Scott, at its core ‘once a slave, always a slave; once undocumented, forever undocumented, down to one’s children and children’s children’.

Amen.

Bonus: speaking of due process: ‘Due Process; Lamenting the death of the rule of law in a country where it might have always been missing, Lewis H. Lapham  (a teaser)

Trump didn’t need briefing papers to refine the message. He embodied it live and in person, an unscripted and overweight canary flown from its gilded cage, telling it like it is when seen from the perch of the haves looking down on the birdseed of the have-nots. Had he time or patience for looking into books instead of mirrors, he could have sourced his wisdom to Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, who presented the case for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal: “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Not that it would have occurred to Trump to want both, but he might have been glad to know the Supreme Court had excused him from any further study under the heading of politics. In the world according to Trump—as it was in the worlds according to Ronald Reagan, George Bush elder and younger, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama—the concentration of wealth is the good, the true, and the beautiful. Democracy is for losers.

The framers of the Constitution were of the same opinion. The prosperous and well-educated gentlemen assembled in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 shared with John Adams the suspicion that “democracy will infallibly destroy all civilization,” agreed with James Madison that the turbulent passions of the common man lead to reckless agitation for the abolition of debts and “other wicked projects.” With Plato the framers shared the assumption that the best government, under no matter what name or flag, incorporates the means by which a privileged few arrange the distribution of property and law for the less fortunate many. They envisioned a wise and just oligarchy—to which they gave the name of a republic—managed by men like themselves, to whom Madison attributed “most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society.” Adams thought the great functions of state should be reserved for “the rich, the wellborn, and the able”; John Jay, chief justice for the Supreme Court, observed that “those who own the country ought to govern it.”

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Losing the GWOT?
Mass incarceration?
Huge budget deficits?
Political corruption?

Nope, it's immigrant babies.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@gjohnsit

sanctions on: cuba, VZ, iran, russia, choking their economies to death to aid in regime change... but yeah, so now this is a biggie. done been a biggie for uber-righties since the advent of the tea party, at least.

bingle images of 'anchor babies' and get queasy w/ rage and disgust. this 'un in a large field of racist ugliness...woof.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

Either way, the government will respond to the growth of the undocumented population with further moves toward martial law, including the construction of more detention camps and the deployment of more immigration agents and soldiers, not only to the border but to major metropolitan areas.

If people are okay with the military being deployed on US soil because of illegal immigration then would there be other issues that they want them to be deployed for? Same thing with him rescinding the 14th amendment. As you pointed out it's not only about citizenship. And look at how people reacted when their 4th amendment right was trampled on. Are people even aware that their 1st, 4th, 5th amendments have already been tampered with by Bush and Obama and other presidents. Why people are okay with the government doing things that go against the constitution is beyond comprehension.

Will Lindsay Graham crack down on rich, white people coming here and having children so that they can have dual citizenship too or does he just want to restrict poor and colored people from doing it?

Birth tourism brings Russian baby boom to Miami

Lured by the charm of little Havana or the glamour of South Beach, some 15 million tourists visit Miami every year.

But for a growing number of Russian women, the draw isn't sunny beaches or pulsing nightclubs. It's U.S. citizenship for their newborn children.

In Moscow, it's a status symbol to have a Miami-born baby, and social media is full of Russian women boasting of their little americantsy.

IMG_2782.JPG

Will people who hire undocumented immigrants start being fined or charged for hiring them? Will this also effect people who come here to work with their H1 visas?

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Big Al's picture

@snoopydawg Well. Perhaps this is a discussion that needs to be had, again.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@Big Al

Did I get something wrong?

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Big Al's picture

@snoopydawg coming here to have babies was new to me. I wonder about that.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

he/they want to moot section one of the 14th amendment, but oh my, yes to Mission Creep. what infuriates me as well is that among their ilk, it's okay if amerika turns into maricopa county under joe arpaio, essentially. and it gives license to civilian assholes to engage in any sort of animosity toward rabble class brown people, whether undocumented or not.

and of course rich white people's anchor babies would be welcome (MAGA!), esp if they're
rich enuff to stay in trump towers. dunno how often the bidnesses are fined, censured, etc. for hiring undocumented aliens, but the numbers are quite the political football from the poking around i did this a.m. the Center for Immigration Studies is essentially ALL about ending birthright citizenship (jus soli).

but good gawd all-friday:

1,000s of troops & ‘beautiful’ razor wire: US border reinforced against ‘migrant invasion’ (VIDEOS)’, RT nov. 4

how very bibi/IDF against palestinians it all is. he's learned their well, as did the nypd with their own office in tel aviv, yes? aparthied amerika, not neccessariy just color, but caste as well.

Trump calls for “massive cities of tents” and indefinite detention of immigrants’, Eric London, 2 November 2018

and this that divine order may have covered. yeah, pretty dicey, cuz even talking to others in one's unit might be considered seditious.

‘Your Commander-in-Chief Is Lying to You: Veterans Issue Open Letter to Active Duty US Soldiers; By every moral or ethical standard it is your duty to refuse orders to "defend" the U.S. from these migrants’, Rory Fanning Spenser Rapone, common dreams, nov. 1, 2018

'The Rule of Law' may never have been meant for The Rabble.

up
0 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

I've never put a lot of energy and attention into the 14th, although it seems to come up with some frequency. Obama's unnecessary defense of his status as an American citizen was one of those. In any event, the Amendment has some surprising dimensions and complexities that you have brought to light.

I have contemplated how differently immigration was regarded across the very brief time that the US has been in existence. In the early years of nation-forming, the US had a need for more humans and fewer restrictions. There were no particular immigration systems in place, at least not for white immigrants. Up to the mid 1800s. Americans themselves were essentially a tribe of immigrants — strangers in a strange land — who were welcoming (or adapting to) a steady stream of immigrants from other far flung nations who found their way to America. Even in the early 1900s, immigrants who arrived on ships via the Atlantic, might disembark at any port up and down the East Coast. Their names were generally on the ship's manifest, which is often the only record of their arrival and de facto immigration. On the 1910 US census, a ubiquitous question asked whether or not the head of the household has been naturalized yet. It was left up to the individual to do so if they wanted to.

By then, they had produced children, lots of them. The immigrant parents rarely bothered to formalize their own citizenship. Their offspring — anchor babies all — had birth certificates. They would grow up to became the Greatest Generation.

Now, here's the curious thing about all that: I'd venture to guess that a goodly number of white (= European) Americans — if they traced back to their paternal ancestral arrival in the United States — would discover that they are the descendants of an anchor baby — one born to non-citizen immigrants. Their non-legal pedigree is not an issue for them in the US. On the other hand, because their migrating ancestor was never naturalized, the European country that he departed from may consider him (and his direct descendants) to still be legal citizens of their country. Such countries offer Americans (with an illegal pedigree) a "right to return" and claim an EU passport.

Pretty OT stuff, but thought I'd share. Thanks for a most timely essay.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

amigo, and a lot of it's new to me. but yes: cheap labor from ireland, china, italy...who'd quibble about naturalization? but with your 'Such countries offer Americans (with an illegal pedigree) a "right to return" and claim an EU passport', i reckon you must mean dual citizenship if desired?

when was it made necceesary to disembark at ellis island, then, not just at any port on the atlantic seaboard? i'd tried to offer this as an alternative to the ugly images of anchor babies, but for some reason it wouldn't download: first americans calling pilgrims w/ chirren 'anchor babies'. as bruce cockburn instructs us: amerika's a stolen land'.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5V1lKncrsY]

glad you found what i'd pasted together worthy; kevin gray rawks, doesn't he?

up
0 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

but it was never the sole immigration point - merely, by far, the busiest (because the most convenient - by 1890 almost all Atlantic shipping to the USA docked at New York City).

Boston, Philadelphia, and other East Coast port cities continued to get a trickle of immigrants.

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

for the information, amiga. good to know.

up
0 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

@wendy davis

Your style reads as fact-rich and emotionally-dispassionate — and for me that's the perfect tone. I tend to filter this topic through the "American genocide" filter, which I feel keenly. I mean, it is continuing in real time, no?, so its reality is always in one's face. The native Americans picked up on predatory capitalism long before we immigrants did. But not soon enough to save them from extermination.

...with your 'Such countries offer Americans (with an illegal pedigree) a "right to return" and claim an EU passport', i reckon you must mean dual citizenship if desired?

Yes. dual citizens. It turns out the Israelis don't have a total corner on that action. Some of us are also among the chosen.

glad you found what i'd pasted together worthy; kevin gray rawks, doesn't he?

He may, but I've been preoccupied with the spiritual gravity of john trudell, whom you mentioned in your last essay.

up
0 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
wendy davis's picture

@Pluto's Republic

i'd hit the right tone. i reckon i did want to state the facts as to why those who believe section 1, amendment 14 isn't what the 'framers' had intended, even though i think their reasoning is biased beyond belief. and i concur with your seeing it thru the lens of amerikan genocide of 'the other', and that may have been why gray was so clear as to his position, as well.

mr. wd had turned me on to john trudell first, as a public radio station he could get while he worked played him a lot. he finally bought a tape or two, and my stars. his visions of what could have been, should have been in ninety directions bowled me over! many of his talking poetry set to music songs twist me into the stratosphere with both his intuitive and incisive historical knowledge. when i think of his post-aim endeavors after his family as burned alive following his having burned an amerikan flag on the steps of the fbi building in deecee (iirc, and at the link i'd provided down thread)...turning poison to some of the most truthful indictments of capitalism, genocide, ecocide, sociocide, the Xian worldview...and so often laced with love songs and humor, i genuflect before him.

the world was a better place with him in it. i'm thinking of a photo that was on buffy saint marie's twitter thing of john and buffy facing one another as he was dying of cancer, bald, ancient-looking, just before 'his ride came for him', as he'd said so eloquently. mr. wd hadn't even recognized him. i know it's not quite closing time, but this is the last song he ever recorded, and the beloved quiltman was with him as well as the pines. it's quite disorienting for me, and i know i've used it before. best heart and solidarity to you, amigo.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTMe_EPgSM]

up
0 users have voted.
hecate's picture

is his wont, the Grand Dragon has blatted a load of pure nonsense, which his kleagles have amplified from every orifice of the racistosphere, seeking to melt everyone's minds.

Anyone who knows the law from a leachfield, which unfortunately describes but a minute number of the Americans, can read Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886) 118 US 356, and US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) 169 US 649, and discover therein that this question is closed, and has been for well over a century.

This is typical of this irredeemable fuck's ability to send people gabbling off on the wildest of goose chases. Next he'll announce he's signing an executive order to repeal the law of gravity. And hundreds of thousands of words will be spilled on whether that law is actually Real, and if he has the power to So Order.

up
0 users have voted.
janis b's picture

@hecate

to the situation. I especially enjoyed this part ...

"This is typical of this irredeemable fuck's ability to send people gabbling off on the wildest of goose chases. Next he'll announce he's signing an executive order to repeal the law of gravity."

I think he is the master of all drama queens and kings, and has a great capacity for sending people on wild trips.

up
0 users have voted.

@hecate
Yick Wo was a case about selective enforcement of permit law. Was there something I missed? It's possible, I only read about 3/4 of it.
Wong Kim Ark however, was exactly on target. Except that his parents were legal immigrants. No law was broken to establish his citizenship. Since when does someone benefit from having committed a crime? (Well, if he's rich enough, but you know what I mean)In real life (as opposed to blog life) I have a 30+ year record of demanding that people treat immigrants fairly and morally, but that does not mean that citizenship is nothing but a propaganda point.

This may be a non sequitur, but the originalist argument is on even shakier ground. The America of the 19th century was a different country. Its ruling class wanted an unlimited supply of cheap, disposable labor to exploit - because they were developing land as fast as they could kill the native Americans that were living there. Today our ruling class desires an unlimited supply of cheap, disposable people to undermine American wages and deflect us from organizing to protect ourselves. Different time, different society, different issue.

up
0 users have voted.

On to Biden since 1973

wendy davis's picture

@hecate

but it's not settled if it's overturned. like Miranda warnings being based on the 5th and 6th amendments, was gutted by obomba's scotus pick elena kagan's thumb being on the scales of the police. now if a prisoner asked for an attorney knowing of miranda...then...it was different, she'd reasoned.

roe v. wade was considered 'settled law'...until it wasn't.

now if King's Jan. 1 law (with 45 cosigners, all R's) were ever to be enacted, it might take years to reach the Supremes. how would they decide? as the activist court they claim not to be? might they buy into the 'what the framers' really intended' specious argument?

but the larger point immediately is the damage being done in their name and boss Tweet's. and no, i don't think getting the vote out for Rs in the midterms was the sole impetus for this now. jeb campaigned on it, DT did, clinton approved, etc.

up
0 users have voted.
hecate's picture

@wendy davis
rule that persons born on the dirt-patch that is "the United States" do not thereby achieve American citizenship would require redefining the legal concept of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in a way that would ripple across vast fields of case law, many of them in no way connected to immigration. They're not going to go there. Not even these clowns.

Your reference to Kagan is peculiar. Fields was a 6-3 decision, and so the result would have been the same even if she had never been born. And Miranda was not thereby "gutted." I am working on a Miranda brief as we speak, and I can tell you that is simply not so. Fields is a shit decision, but it built on forty years of case law treating, for Miranda purposes, persons already confined to prison, differently from those out on the street. It did not come out of nowhere. And it does not govern Miranda if, say, you or I, were to find ourself in a Miranda situation, outside prison walls.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@hecate

i'll yield to your greater knowledge.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@hecate

perhaps. i was speaking of Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010), but i'll forgo cherry-picking descriptions of the decision akin to mine.

but john yoo and barack obomba heartily concurred of the decision, so...there's that.

up
0 users have voted.
hecate's picture

@wendy davis
your Kagan reference is really a puzzlement, because she wasn't even on the court yet.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@hecate

correct, and my apologies for my crap memory. this is what i was remembering from the time, especially as the site administrator where i was blogging at the time was BFFs with kagan. she wasn't sworn in until aug. 7, 2010.

"“On June 1, the U.S. Supreme Court finally dealt Miranda a death blow. Elena Kagan, Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, was complicit in Miranda’s demise. Her participation may give some insight into her views on the rights of criminal defendants, and her understanding of how the law affects ordinary people.”

So what was Kagan’s role? As Solicitor General, she filed a brief in Berghuis v. Thompkins for the United States as amicus curiae (friend of the Court). The U.S. was not a party in the case since Thompkins had been convicted in state court and it was the State of Michigan that challenged the lower court’s ruling. Kagan did not have to enter the fray and take a position, but she decided to do so.

Kagan’s brief was even more aggressive than Michigan’s. In a 1994 case, Davis v. United States, the justices ruled that if a suspect first waives his rights and then later wants a lawyer, the person has to invoke that right clearly in order to require officers to stop questioning. Kagan’s position — accepted by the majority in Thompkins — was that Davis should be extended to the right to remain silent and to cases where a person has not already waived his or her rights. By contrast, the State of Michigan sought to win on a narrower ground. We cannot know whether Kagan’s arguments convinced the majority to issue such a broad decision. But the Solicitor General, often called the “Tenth Justice,” is a very influential player." huffpo, june 1, 2010

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

anchor baby son, now 35, is in distress, and all our energies are texting (mr. wd, not i) and trying to figure out why he's in such psychological dire straits, as per: a text from his wife.

as i pasted this diary together, i was so mindful of his azteca birth mother's giving birth to him in a midwifery clinic in el paso so that he might me adopted by amerikans who'd be able to provide him with a better life than she could afford.

she'd already had a daughter, (dear, sweet, cherubic) delisia of the smiles and bright eyes), by the same black soldier stationed there. tragically, she was deported just ahead of the general amnesty in what? 1983? sorry, i'm in tears now, but i would like to offer this as a lullaby. it will serve for the red people, the black people, the brown people so despised as 'the other' over how many years, decades? the late great AIM leader john trudell who turned poison into medicine like no other. if no one else does, i'll post on the new threat to julian assange tomorrow, even as consortium news pissed me purple. oh, guess that was a hint, a clue. ; )

hope it resonates, and makes sense to you. love and solidarity to you all, and good night.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE-NGGP_dOo&list=PLu4t88dP4AFxJU6qg6fMFC...

up
0 users have voted.

The cease fire and terms of surrender of the Confederate States. I think we should militarily occupy all former CSA states. Deny them thier voting rights till we have rooted out and executed by military tribunal all known racist adherents and of course execute Trump and his administration for treason.

up
0 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

(figuratively, of course.) smile.

up
0 users have voted.

Perhaps I am in the minority here. I don't have a problem with ending birthright citizenship. My understanding is virtually no other country has this. I am not commenting on how you would have to go about doing it (constitutional amendment or not), but I don't have a problem with this being changed.

up
0 users have voted.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

wendy davis's picture

@Crazytimes

the minority, just among those who've commented. from the OP:

"33 nations grant citizenship to anyone born within their borders.
The list includes Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and most other countries in Central and South America. The United States and Canada are the only two “developed” countries, as defined by the International Monetary Fund, that have unrestricted birthright citizenship laws.”

(the rest are shitholes) the list i'd linked to wasn't numbers, but has the same into, both w/ a negative spin by NGOs that dislike birthright citizenship.

but i'd actually expected more dissenters on the thread, so good on ya for voicing your opinion, crazytimes.

up
0 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

Saying "From now on, no more" is bad enough. But if he tries to make it retroactive there will be hell to pay. SOME of us have immigrants/"anchor baby" ancestors not more than two generations back.

For that matter wasn't Shithead himself an "anchor baby"? Or was that his father?

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

it was niggling my mind that there was a comment i hadn't answered; my apologies. i do admire A-hole-in-chief. ; ) now retroactive may even be a bridge too far for him, King, and the co-sponsors, but when i'd clicked in, i'd kinda just scanned the bill's text. but i'm pretty darned sure 'retroactive' wasn't there.

one might guess that he's an anchor baby as well, but i confess i haven't really read much about him (as a defense from him?). i can't even keep his wife's and daughter's names straight, lol.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

i should address these links to Snoopy to write up if, or as she pleases. i'm still vexed with consortium news, but even so i'd write it up were it not for our anchor baby son being in dire straits...while living 400 miles away.

those communications have to take precedence. anyhoo:

New Threats to Julian Assange; Consortium News to Broadcast Emergency Meeting Live on SaturdayNovember 2, 2018

LIVE: Assange Emergency Meeting’, November 3, 2018

later on nov. 3: ‘Break-in Attempted at Assange’s Residence in Ecuador Embassy’, Fears Raised of Abduction’, November 3, 2018
An attempt was made on Oct. 29 to break into the Ecuadorian embassy, where security has been removed and new surveillance devices installed, reports Joe Lauria.

which is scary biscuits as all giddy-up.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

I posted it yesterday evening so feel free to add to it

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

whew.

Democratic candidates praise Trump’s attacks on immigrants as troops arrive at the border’, Eric London, wsws.org, 5 November 2018 (and fake opposition Ds in office as well) grisly read.

up
0 users have voted.