Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Can He Really Do This?
I just saw the latest Trump stunt: He says he wants to end birthright citizenship by an executive order. That would surely initiate a constitutional crisis...wouldn't it? That he is saying this before the election means that he thinks it will get votes, or keep them, for his "side". But if there are any minority and immigrant citizens still on the fence, surely this rhetoric would lose them. Not to mention it would cause Republican moderates who respect constitutional due process a severe amount of discomfort. I can't imagine that the Supreme Court, even with its present makeup, would let an executive order such as this stand. He has said that he has no timeline, which tells me he is mainly throwing it out there for effect. But we would be fools not to take it seriously.
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Wiki: "Since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution on July 9, 1868, citizenship of persons born in the United States has been controlled by its Citizenship Clause, which states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United ...
ReplyDeleteIf this goes to Court, hard to see how it could be over-turned. So....either this is an election gimmick, or someone in this ill-begotten Administration, is pressing for a constitutional convention. There is votes for one wending its way through the states (rules for how many must vote yea). If we have a constitutional convention under present political circumstances, look for a civil war.
Correction: "There ARE votes for...."
ReplyDeleteAnd here from common cause is an account of the numbers:
"A well-funded, highly coordinated national effort is underway to call a constitutional convention, under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, for the first time in history. The result of such a convention could be a complete overhaul of the Constitution and supporters of the convention are dangerously close to succeeding. With special interest groups gaining more momentum, conservative advocates are just six states short of reaching the constitutionally-required 34-state goal. They are targeting Republican-controlled legislatures in 2018 and are within striking distance."
https://www.commoncause.org/resource/u-s-constitution-threatened-as-article-v-convention-movement-nears-success/
This is the first I have heard about it. Scary to think something like this is flying under the radar. Or maybe it's just my slow-moving radar.
DeleteThe Constitution is the only thorn in the side of the fascists. These people are termites. Yes, in this present climate, a new constitution would be a disaster and only Satan has any idea what the outcome would be. Civil war, for sure. States could separate from what's left of the Union and I'd move to one if I wasn't in one and fight for the New Confederacy of the Non-fascist States of America. Hell. Join Canada while we're at it. Go back to being a subject of the damn queen.
DeleteThis was among his campaign promises. He hasn't really mentioned it much since being elected, probably because someone told him he can't just get rid of it.
ReplyDeleteIronically, for all of his attempts to make Obama ineligible to run for President, he never considered that even if he had been born in Kenya, he was born to an American mother, which gave him automatic citizenship - as was true of John McCain (born in Panama) and Ted Cruz (born in Canada).
However, when he mentioned it in the campaign, I did a little research and discovered that most countries in the developed world no longer have birthright citizenship - the US is among the exceptions, as is Canada. One of my grandchildren was born in Australia - since neither of his parents are Australian citizens, he did not get citizenship but has the citizenship of his parents. If he lives there until he is at least 10 years old, he can get citizenship then.
From Wiki
As an unconditional (or near-unconditional) basis for citizenship, jus soli is the predominant rule in the Americas, but it is rare elsewhere.[6][7] Since the Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland was enacted in 2004, no European country grants citizenship based on unconditional or near-unconditional jus soli.[8][9]
Almost all states in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania grant citizenship at birth based upon the principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood), in which citizenship is inherited through parents not by birthplace, or a restricted version of jus soli in which citizenship by birthplace is automatic only for the children of certain immigrants
I don't know what the law is in Germany right now, but one of my cousins was born there when her father was stationed there in the 50s. Both parents were US citizens. She could have claimed German citizenship, But as I understood it, she had to do it by her 18th birthday, since the family no longer resided there.
DeleteI have U.S. friends who have EU passports because they lived in England for several years and applied for citizenship there (while remaining U.S. citizens). Not sure what happens if England Brexits....
DeleteKatherine, friends of ours were living in Germany when their youngest was born. She would have had to choose German citizenship at 18 also since her parents were not German. If she did not, she would only have US citizenship. The law apparently has changed a bit. Now a child born to permanent residents who are not citizens may have birthright citizenship if the parents had been permanent residents for at certain number of years.
DeleteOur grandchild born in Australia has dual citizenship, but not Australian - US because of his father (our son) and French because of his mother. My daughter-in-law was born and raised in France. Her father is French but her mother is Polish and she has dual French/Polish citizenship. Her son can also get Polish citizenship. Other friends - husband from Chile, wife from Wisconsin. The husband's mother was French. His children have Chilean, American and French citizenship - three passports, as our grandson may have at some point.
A good friend of ours is French. After living in the US for 17 years she became a US citizen and, as with dual citizenship, has two passports. She is now regretting her decision - she says Trump's America is not the country she CHOSE to be a citizen of.
Every country's rules are complicated it seems.
I have Jewish friends, native-born American citizens, who have relatives in Israel and have lived in Israel for a time as teens - it's not unusual. They were inducted, and served, in the Israeli military. Perhaps an aspect of dual citizenship that isn't always thought about.
DeleteI'm not a fan of dual citizenship. Ben-Ami Kadish was a dual citizen of the US and Israel who worked as a supervisor in my former place of employment, Picatinny Arsenal. He was an Israeli spy who funneled loads of secret military technology info to Israel, nuclear-related, too. Arrested at age 84,he got off with a wrist slap. Dual citizenship means divided loyalty to me.
DeleteI lived on the Canadian border for awhile. Americans had their kids in Canada. Bigger/better hospital. Plus dual citizenship until age 18. My Vietnam era friends wanted to make sure their kids had an out if the draft was reinstated and some idiot got us in a war. You had to declare at age 18 that you wanted Canadian citizenship. Otherwise, you were American.
DeleteHe has also promised a tax cut by Nov. 1. Impossible unless he calls Congress into emergency session, like yesterday.
ReplyDeleteNo, he can't change a provision of the Constitution by executive order. He is talking to Jews today. He may promise an executive order for the Second Coming before the first Tuesday. He can't do that, either.
As we said a long time ago: Deranged.
It'd be funny if he wasn't the god emperor of the biggest cult this country's ever seen. One deranged president I can handle. His hordes of zombie followers scare me to death.
DeleteFirst of all, let's agree this is an election stunt. When I heard about it, I also thought of what Tom referenced: the tax cut which Congress isn't actually working on (nor had previously heard of).
ReplyDeleteAll that said: it seems that the President didn't just dream this up on his own - or if he did, by coincidence, there has been discussion about this topic in some conservative legal circles. Here is Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, at National Review:
"My friend John Eastman explained why the 14th Amendment does not mandate birthright citizenship in this 2015 New York Times op-ed. In a nutshell, the Amendment states: “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.” The highlighted term, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was understood at the time of adoption to mean not owing allegiance to any other sovereign. To take the obvious example, if a child is born in France to a married couple who are both American citizens, the child is an American citizen."
Unfortunately, all of the hot links and formatting disappear when I paste it into a comment box, so if you're interested in pursuing the topic, you'll need to go to McCarthy's post at NRO.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-end-birthright-citizenship-by-executive-order/
McCarthy's views aren't always legal-mainstream or legal-conservative (using "conservative" here, not to signify his political outlook - which also is conservative - but to signify legal interpretation that provides great deference to tradition and mainstream views). So I wouldn't assume that all conservatives subscribe to his interpretation here.
And if Trump actually went forward with it, McCarthy notes, "if the president actually issues an executive order changing the birthright-citizenship policy, I doubt the sun will set before an injunction is issued."
Now - I would say that such an act by Trump doesn't trigger a constitutional *crisis*. I would say that it would trigger a constitutional *dispute*. Even the contested 2000 election wasn't a constitutional crisis; the courts ruled, and both sides abided by the ruling. The same thing happened with regard to Trump's travel bans, and I'd expect the same thing to happen here.
Given that Trump campaigned on this, I do think it's more likely than not that he will try it at some point. Whether he'd actually do it before the election - who knows? But the rule of thumb with him is, Think of the more sensible and less sensible alternatives, and expect him to choose the latter every time.
Jim, I think you are right that the president didn't just dream this up on his own. I would be surprised if, for instance, Stephen Miller's fingerprints weren't all over it.
DeleteAnd the McCarthy post you linked stated, "The president has extremely good lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office and the Justice Department, and maybe they have told him that the president gets to interpret the term jurisdiction and enforce his understanding of it unless and until Congress or the courts say otherwise." It appears that he has all manner of dark angels advising him, and is all too ready to listen to them.
McCarthy states, "I am in favor of changing the current understanding of birthright citizenship, but I believe such a change must be done by statute to have any hope of surviving court-scrutiny . . ." In other words he wants the same thing Trump wants, only slow and legal.
I do not believe that birthright citizenship has done America harm, and I feel that reversing it would harm who we understand ourselves to be as a nation.
Katherine - I guess Trump's action, if he pursues it, would "undream" the Dreamers?
DeleteHere is an alternative review from another National Review attorney/pundit, David French, whom my conservative lawyer friends find more reliable than McCarthy in general:
Delete"I not only have confidence that Trump’s Supreme Court picks would block his order, I don’t believe the order would survive even a Trump district-court pick’s review. Originalism and the plain meaning of federal statutes stand in the way of the Trump trial balloon. Let’s hope it pops before the president can put his unconstitutional pen to paper."
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trumps-judges-would-block-birthright-citizenship-executive-order/
Jim, I believe French is correct that the Supreme Court, including Trump's picks, would block such an order. Anyway I sincerely hope that is the case.
DeleteDavid French has been right before. The reason Trump loses so often in court is because he believes stare decisis is for losers. We have a governor, Red Tide Rick, who has run up huge legal bills for the state by thinking like that. He's running for the Senate now.
DeleteOne time when I was a city reporter, the city commission decided that property taxes were too high and passed a resolution to freeze them. The city didn't have the power to do it, and were so advised by the city attorney. The idiots who voted for the resolution defended it by saying that, well, at least the folks will know we want to keep their taxes low.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened was that they were voted out in the next cycle because people realized they were idiots.
They then blamed me for making them look stupid in my newspaper article about the tax debacle.
It's one of the many reasons the Trump presidency fills me with such a tiring sense of deja vu; Trump knows no more about civics than the idiots on a U.P. board of local yokels.
You shouda got a Pulitzer.
DeleteTrump chutzpah.
ReplyDeleteIs the tide slowly, slowly turning?
Congressional leaders, McConnell, Ryan, Schumer and Pelosi say no to Trump on going to Pittsburgh with him. At last, some line they will not cross. The mayor of Pittsburgh said, don't come; the families said, don't come. Now Congress has said, no.
Pittsburgh mayor complained that providing security for the funerals was hard enough without Trump showing up. Lots of people in the city asked him to stay away, but he went anyway.
Deletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/10/30/despite-calls-stay-away-trump-heads-pittsburgh-after-synagogue-massacre
I expect that the media coverage will now turn away from the victims, growing problem with white nationalism, and gun violence, and turn, instead, to Trump. I wish the focus would stay more on the issues surrounding the shooting instead of endlessly parsing how much Trump's rhetoric may or may not have encouraged the incident. The president makes such a spectacle of himself that it dwarfs everything else.
And that's the way he likes it.
Here are some snippets from CNN's report of Trump's visit today. He seems to have been presidential:
Delete"Trump was greeted at the scene by the congregation's rabbi, Jeffrey Myers, and Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer. He lit candles in the synagogue's entryway, but did not venture into the sanctuary, which is still considered a crime scene.
"Trump spent around three hours on the ground, and made no public remarks. He appeared reverent while in public view, quietly placing small stones taken from the White House grounds on the white stars, while his wife placed single white rosebuds. Others in his entourage, including Ms. Trump, grew tearful, though the President remained stoic.
"Inside the University Pittsburgh Medical Center, the President spent roughly 80 minutes meeting with law enforcement officials wounded while responding to Saturday's attack. He also spoke with the hospital's care team, according to Dr. Donald Yealy, the hospital's chair of emergency medicine.
"Yealy said the President also spoke with another patient in their hospital room and a family member of someone who had died at the shooting scene, though Yealy did not specify who. He added that the patients seemed grateful for the President's interest and visit."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/politics/donald-trump-pittsburgh-visit-shooting/index.html
"the President remained stoic." Can an Epicurean wannabe be Stoic? Doubtful. Maybe, even more likely, "the President remained bored, thinking about what he would tweet when this was over." But CNN couldn't say that. It shouldn't have said he was stoic when all he was was silent.
DeleteSilent...I'll take silent.
DeleteI agree with Katherine :-). Tom, FWIW, Trump as stoic is Trump trying to be something he is not. He is play-acting. Bush II always struck me as playing a role for eight years. Obama, Clinton and Bush I seemed more comfortable in his own skins.
DeleteThe antithesis of Stoic!! Marcus Aurelius would be gob-smocked...even if he was personally a stoic.
Delete"Is the tide slowly, slowly turning?"
DeleteSome possible evidence here, from David Leonhardt in the NY Times:
"Steve King, the Republican congressman who represents the northwestern part of Iowa, is a white nationalist.
"King has said he doesn’t want Muslims working in Iowa meatpacking plants. He has lied about how much crime undocumented immigrants commit. He has said that Dreamers — undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as young children — have calves the size of cantaloupes.
"He has cultivated ties with European white supremacists. He has decried “cultural suicide by demographic transformation.” He said that “Leftists” consider “everyone who lacks melanin” to be racist. He has approvingly retweeted a woman who called interracial marriage worse than murder and who said the TV show “Seinfeld” taught her to dislike Jews.
"Despite of all of this, congressional Republicans have stood by King. They occasionally criticize his words, but they do not meaningfully punish him, as Christopher Mathias of HuffPost has noted. Instead, King’s fellow Republicans regularly seek his endorsement. Corporate donors have also supported King, including Intel, Land O’Lakes and Purina, and the editorial board of the Sioux City Journal has endorsed him. Most alarmingly, the citizens of northwest Iowa continue to send King to Congress.
"But now the support for him may finally be slipping — in response to the frequency of his racist statements and the attention they are receiving.
"Judd Legum, who writes the newsletter Popular Information, called attention to King’s corporate sponsors in recent days, and Intel, Land O’Lakes and Purina have all broken with King. So has the Sioux City Journal editorial board, citing his “intolerant ugliness” and endorsing his Democratic opponent, J.D. Scholten. Representative Steve Stivers, head of the G.O.P. group that works to elect House Republicans, has criticized King: “We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.”
"The most encouraging news is that King’s chances of re-election no longer look rock solid. President Trump won the district by 27 points, and King remains favored. But a recent poll by a Democratic firm found the race virtually tied, and The Cook Political Report cited that poll in moving the race from “likely Republican” to the more uncertain “lean Republican.”
"“The sudden, unexpected competition for King’s seat suggests that support for far-right politics has its limits — and provides further evidence that voters’ queasiness with Trumpian politics is benefiting his opponents,” writes Vanity Fair’s Tina Nguyen."
More on the tide turning: this news alert just hit my inbox:
Delete"In a tweet, President Trump said that Ryan (R-Wis.), the House speaker, “should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about!”
"Ryan had pushed back Tuesday on Trump's remarks on the issue, saying that “you cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order.”"
https://s2.washingtonpost.com/caa7c2/5bd9df4ae6e81b2ef35632f4/amFtZXNfcGF1d2Vsc0BkZWxsLmNvbQ%3D%3D/1/10/d95a569ae4111a89e557c99cef3d0af1
Jean: The president makes such a spectacle of himself that it dwarfs everything else.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the way he likes it.
Exactly.
He went because he's a narcissist and he wanted the spotlight on him - showing how wonderful he is to go to Pittsburgh to help people 'heal". He wanted the spotlight on his wonderfulness and not on the results of the fear and hatred that he has helped stir up.
The Kushners likely had some influence. It was also politically expedient--deflects criticism that he is comfy with white nationalists. I don't pretend to know what his inner feelings are. God keeps telling me it's a sin to assume he has none.
DeleteI guess I mean that, generally, he prefers to be on camera talking loudly and inaccurately about how great he is in hair and make-up that are increasingly outlandish.
He's a walking talking sideshow, and he turns even a low key appearance into a circus.
You wouldn't have a balloon artist wandering around at a funeral, and you oughtn't to have Trump at the site of a national catastrophe.
You should get another Pulitzer for the balloon artist comparison.
DeleteTrump is walking a bit of a tightrope. He refuses to explicitly condemn white supremacy and neo-nazism, while showcasing his Jewish family members and his Jewish friends and the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem to prove that he is not anti-Semitic. He does have a group of very wealthy Jewish fans, such as Sheldon Adelson (another casino fortune), and is supported by other Jews , some of whom are part of the Zionist movement. The Jewish zionists work with the evangelical zionists to promote their agenda in Israel and the middle east - including the move of the embassy.
DeleteSo for Trump, it's....complicated. He needs to keep stoking fear and hatred and bigotry towards "the other" and is spending millions and millions of tax dollars by sending 5200 military to the border in a grand show meant entirely to bring his "base" to the polls. He does all this while claiming to be open and tolerant and so, so surprised at all this horrible violence that has been kicked up by CNN and the rest of the mainstream media.
He is a human, and he does seem genuinely fond of his own family members, at least he seems very fond of Ivanka. I suppose even he might be able to imagine feeling horror in being told that his daughter and grandchildren were in the synagogue when someone broke in and started shooting and feel some genuine empathy. He wasn't welcome in Pittsburgh because his rhetoric is so often inflammatory and bigoted and he still won't condemn the neo-nazis. Has he said anything about the neo-nazi movement this time? Or has he stuck to generalities? I haven't been reading the details.
The recent elections in Brazil and Germany just add to my depression. If Merkel has lost, can the few moderates in Europe like Macron hold on? Will a new leader of Merkel's party be able to turn things around? Hos tragic that she has been defeated because she tried to do the right thing by the refugees - the CHRISTian thing.
Anne, I think you're right about the tightrope.
DeleteBut by courting the white nationalism and supremacy he's like someone holding on to a tiger's tale. He can't let go without being devoured.
Katherine, I think you are dead right about Merkel. I am depressed about the whole Europe situation, except for Nicola Sturgeon whose needling of Mrs. May's attempt to deliver a square circle to a Parliament that demands one tickles my funny bone.
DeleteBut I think you are wrong in the implication here: "Sheldon Adelson (another casino fortune)" If you mean Trump's casino fortune, it ended in the bankruptcy of the Taj Mahal and of countless small contractors who never got paid. The money Trump effectively kept from the contractors doesn't amount to a fortune, much less a "casino fortune." He claimed it. He never showed it. And the Taj got shuttered.
Tom, I think you mean Anne.
DeleteKatherine, you are absolutely right about him holding the tiger's tail. But, will it devour him if he lets go? Not so sure.
DeleteTom, I wasn't referring to Trump's fortune or his casinos, which did indeed go bankrupt, just like another two dozen or so of his businesses. Sheldon Adelson is a big money backer of Trump. Adelson made his big money in casinos. Apparently his didn't go bankrupt.
Merkel: Too many obits being written. She can step down as head of CDU and remain Chancellor until the next election, 2021. If there's an election before that, maybe not. She was very smart to announce her end date as head of the party and promise to serve out her term. If the Germans and the EU professionals are smarter than our own pols, they'll have many thoughts about her leaving too soon.
DeleteWhile we're on women saints...how about canonizing Merkel, we could use a few more Lutheran saints.
Anne, Katherine, sorry to mix you up. Margaret, I waver about whether Merkel is one of the great ones or just a grown-up in a time when there are too few. I suppose it doesn't really matter. I do love to hear her speak German (until the voice-over translator takes over)-- sounds much purer than Kohl ever did. I could pray to a St. Angela, but maybe Germany needs her more at the moment than the communion of saints does.
DeleteYes, Merkel speaks beautiful German! I think Mutti must be exhausted trying to hold.factions.together. I haven't heard much about the Bavarian Nationalist Movement lately. They were agitating for a Bayxit vote awhile back.
DeleteThe Bayxit foks are probably with Alternative for Bannon, whoops!, I mean Alternative for Germany (AfD), at the moment because it looks like a quicker payoff.
DeleteNot seeing more info about the exec order to reverse Amendment 14. Another "watch me say something inflammatory!" moment?
ReplyDeleteGeorge Conway, spouse of Kelly Anne, says it can't be done...at least by executive order. Do you think they talk over breakfast to see how they can disagree with one another?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteGeorge Conway:
Deletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-proposal-to-end-birthright-citizenship-is-unconstitutional/2018/10/30/4615ab5c-dc85-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?utm_term=.b1e1a2b85d09
George and Kellyanne might be one of those couples where work stuff stays at work. I'm not sure she even believes the b.s. that she spins. I tnink she says whatever she thinks she needs to. It must work to some extent, she's still employed by Trump and has outlasted a lot of others.
Delete