Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[gondrin]

So, in the first ruling in the Birthright Citizenship lawsuit, the judge basically calls the DoJ and by extension Trump pretty much a bunch of idiots.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/re...79876.46.0.pdf

In opposing the requests for injunctions, the defendants assert an array of arguments, which the Court addresses briefly here and in detail below. For starters, each plaintiff has standing to sue, because the uncontested facts establish each would suffer direct injury from the EO’s implementation. The plaintiffs are also likely to succeed on the merits of their claims. In a lengthy 1898 decision, the Supreme Court examined the Citizenship Clause, adopting the interpretation the plaintiffs advance and rejecting the interpretation expressed in the EO. The rule and reasoning from that decision were reiterated and applied in later decisions, adopted by Congress as a matter of federal statutory law in 1940, and followed consistently by the Executive Branch for the past 100 years, at least. A single district judge would be bound to apply that settled interpretation, even if a party were to present persuasive arguments that the long established understanding is erroneous.

The defendants, however, have offered no such arguments here. Their three main contentions are flawed. First, allegiance in the United States arises from the fact of birth. It does not depend on the status of a child’s parents, nor must it be exclusive, as the defendants contend. Applying the defendants’ view of allegiance would mean children of dual citizens and lawful permanent residents would not be birthright citizens—a result even the defendants do not support. Next, the defendants argue birthright citizenship requires the mutual consent of the person and the Nation. This theory disregards the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment: to recognize as birthright citizens the children of enslaved persons who did not enter the country consensually, but were brought to our shores in chains. There is no basis to think the drafters imposed a requirement excluding the very people the Amendment aimed to make citizens. Simply put, the Amendment is the Nation’s consent to accept and protect as citizens those born here, subject to the few narrow exceptions recognized at the time of enactment, none of which are at issue here. Finally, the Amendment requires states to recognize
birthright citizens as citizens of their state of residence. The text includes no domicile requirement at all.

Beyond sidestepping Wong Kim Ark, the defendants urge the Court to read three specific requirements into the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The defendants contend these requirements are necessary to ensure adherence to the phrase’s original meaning. None of these requirements, however, find support in the text itself or the cases construing and applying it. And, more importantly, each of them, if applied as argued, would prevent the Citizenship Clause from reaching groups of persons to whom even the defendants concede it must apply.

First, the defendants suggest the “jurisdiction” phrase is satisfied only by persons who owe the United States “allegiance” that is “direct,” “immediate,” “complete,” and “unqualified by allegiance to any alien power.” New Jersey, Doc. No. 92 at 27-28 (cleaned up). Certainly, allegiance matters. Various sources link the “jurisdiction” phrase and concepts of allegiance, including Wong Kim Ark. See, e.g., 169 U.S. at 654 (noting English common law provided citizenship to those “born within the king’s allegiance, and subject to his protection”). The defendants veer off course, however, by suggesting allegiance must be exclusive, and that it derives from the status of a child’s parents. If that were so, then the children of dual citizens or LPRs could not receive birthright citizenship via the Fourteenth Amendment. A dual citizen necessarily bears some allegiance to both the United States and the second nation of which they are a citizen. LPRs, unless and until naturalized, remain foreign nationals who are citizens of other countries bearing some allegiance to their places of origin. This principle would also rule out the petitioner in Wong Kim Ark, whose parents resided for years in the United States but remained “subjects of the emperor of China” (and, indeed, returned to China when their U.S. born son was a teenager). 169 U.S. at 652-53. The defendants, however, agree that children of dual citizens and LPRs are entitled to birthright citizenship, and that the petitioner in Wong Kim Ark was as well.

These anomalies are avoided by focusing on the allegiance of the child, not the parents. As noted earlier, the Citizenship Clause itself speaks only of the child. A child born in the United States necessarily acquires at birth the sort of allegiance that justified birthright citizenship at the common law. That is, they are born “locally within the dominions of” the United States and immediately “derive protection from” the United States. Id. at 659. A child born here is both entitled to the government’s protection and bound to adhere to its laws. This is true regardless of the characteristics of the child’s parents, subject only to the narrow exceptions identified in Wong Kim Ark. Allegiance, in this context, means nothing more than that. See id. at 662 (“Birth and allegiance go together.”).

As James Madison explained:

It is an established maxim that birth is a criterion of allegiance. Birth however derives its force sometimes from place and sometimes from parentage, but in
general place is the most certain criterion; it is what applies in the United States; it will be therefore unnecessary to investigate any other.

So, “allegiance” does not mean what the defendants think it means, and their first proposed rule founders.

Next, the defendants seek to graft concepts of social-contract theory onto the “jurisdiction” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by arguing birthright citizenship requires
“mutual consent between person and polity.” New Jersey, Doc. No. 92 at 45. The defendants again center their argument on the parents at the expense of the child whose birthright is at stake—perhaps, in part, because infants are incapable of consent in the legal sense. In the defendants’ view, mutual consent is lacking where a person (the parent) has entered the United States without permission to do so, or without permission to remain here permanently. The absence of “mutual consent” in those circumstances means, according to the defendants, that the children of such parents fall beyond the “jurisdiction” of the United States for Fourteenth Amendment purposes.

This argument fares even worse than the first. The Fourteenth Amendment enshrined in the Constitution language ensuring “the fundamental principle of citizenship by birth” in the United States applied regardless of race—including, and especially, to formerly enslaved persons. 169 U.S. at 675; see Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253, 262-63 (1967). The defendants do not (and could not) deny this. Enslaved persons, of course, did not “consent” to come to the United States or to remain here. They were brought here violently, in chains, without their consent. These conditions persisted after their arrival. Against this backdrop, it verges on frivolous to suggest that Congress drafted, debated, and passed a constitutional amendment, thereafter enacted by the states, that imposed a consent requirement necessarily excluding the one group of people the legislators and enactors most specifically intended to protect.

Finally, the defendants seek to transform the use of the term “reside” at the end of the Citizenship Clause into a basis for finding that the “jurisdiction” phrase eliminates any person without a lawful “domicile” in the United States. The defendants contend that persons here with temporary visas retain “domiciles” in their native countries, and persons here without lawful status cannot establish a true “domicile.” And so, the argument goes, they cannot “reside” in any state, and they remain outside the “jurisdiction” of the United States for Fourteenth Amendment purposes. This, once again, shifts the focus away from the child and the location of birth to the parents and the status and duration of their presence in this country.

The word “reside” appears in the Citizenship Clause only in the phrase specifying that a person entitled to birthright citizenship becomes a citizen not only of the United States, but also of the state where they live. For example, a state within the former Confederacy (or any other state) could not constitutionally deny state citizenship to the child of a formerly enslaved person who lived and gave birth there. The word “reside” does not inject a “domicile” requirement limiting the reach of the Citizenship Clause as a whole and justifying examination of the immigration status of a child’s parents. See New Jersey, Doc. No. 123 at 11-12 (articulating the flaws in this theory). In any event, it is not so clear that “illegal entry into the country would . . . , under traditional criteria, bar a person from obtaining domicile within a State.” Plyler, 457 U.S. at 227 n.22.

In sum, the defendants invite the Court to adopt a set of rules that work (except when they don’t). None of the principles the defendants advance are sturdy enough to overcome the settled interpretation and longstanding application of the Citizenship Clause described above. Each principle, applied uniformly, would lead to unintended results at odds with the text, meaning, and intent of the Fourteenth Amendment—and, in some instances, with the parameters set out in the EO itself.

For all these reasons, the Court finds the plaintiffs are exceedingly likely to prevail on the merits of their constitutional and statutory claims. This conclusion would allow the plaintiffs to “show somewhat less in the way of irreparable harm.” Astra U.S.A., 94 F.3d at 743. That relaxed burden, however, is not essential, as the second factor also favors the plaintiffs strongly.

Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof literally means to be subject to the laws of the land where you are at. If I go by what Trump and his administration are trying to define it as, that means that since undocumented immigrants would not be subject to the laws of the land here and therefore cannot be charged with any crime seeing as to be charged with a crime, you also must be subject to the jurisdiction of the land where you are at. That means they cannot be held against their will and are free to commit whatever crimes they want as the courts would have no standing to render a judgement seeing as they would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the land where they are at.

[PhaelixWW]

Eh lets be clear on one thing, while the north was the "good guys" by slightly having more human rights than the south it was still full of racist assholes who practiced segregation well into the 50s. The main goal of the civil war from the north was putting the south in their place, they didn't really care about the black people that much.

You will never, ever convince me the US wouldn't have transitioned through the Civil Rights Era more gracefully without the festering wound that is the South and its self-identity rooted in bigotry.

The point wasn't that it would have been all sunshine and rainbows, but that it would have been better.

Low bar is low, and all that.

[Tech614]

You will never, ever convince me the US wouldn't have transitioned through the Civil Rights Era more gracefully without the festering wound that is the South and its self-identity rooted in bigotry.

The point wasn't that it would have been all sunshine and rainbows, but that it would have been better.

Low bar is low, and all that.

The south was the entire reason the civil rights movement was a huge thing. The north was happy to act like they where civilized while practicing lower key segregation and throwing their POC under the bus whenever it was convenient. Like how northern universities would sit their black athletes at the request of playing a southern university with 0 pushback.

I don't think it would be better at all, in fact I think without the civil rights movement gaining steam in the south the north is far worse off and has a far slower transition to normalcy than they did. Because the type of racism in the north was the type we have resurging today, the type that's far harder to get away from while racists try to feign ignorance. The south was more of the out of control bullshit that will always spur a revolution and it did with the civil rights movement.

[PhaelixWW]

I don't think it would be better at all, in fact I think without the civil rights movement gaining steam in the south the north is far worse off and has a far slower transition to normalcy than they did. Because the type of racism in the north was the type we have resurging today, the type that's far harder to get away from while racists try to feign ignorance. The south was more of the out of control bullshit that will always spur a revolution and it did with the civil rights movement.

Then I guess you're thrilled with the Trump presidency.

[Tech614]

Then I guess you're thrilled with the Trump presidency.

Oh yes, pointing out your incorrect take about the north being some fairy tale land that would be peaches and cream without the south surely means I'm thrilled with Trump.

Trump himself is a northeastern elite ivy league nepo baby. How could this happen?!?!

You don't have to take my words for it- the north was full of white moderates who MLK himself thought where the biggest threat to the progression of the country. https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Article...irmingham.html

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

[PhaelixWW]

Oh yes, pointing out your incorrect take about the north being some fairy tale land that would be peaches and cream without the south...

Seriously? Tell me you didn't bother to read...

The point wasn't that it would have been all sunshine and rainbows, but that it would have been better.

...without telling me you didn't both to read it.

FFS. Go home, kid, you're drunk.

[Tech614]

Seriously? Tell me you didn't bother to read...

Clearly you didn't read the part where I told you it wouldn't be better.

MLK straight up didn't think the north was better than the south on these issues.

Even if you where just trying a shallow ass debate that "Trump doesn't win without southern EC votes" This is completely ignoring the massive population growth the South got in the later half of the 1900s while the north stagnated. That doesn't happen if they where separate countries, the racist assholes like Trump that moved to florida would of still been in the north putting Reaganites like Trump into office.

Your entire point was hogwash and now you're throwing a temper tantrum like Trump and trying to say someone else is drunk? Amazing. America's problems are because of America not because of the south.

[Poopymonster]

But trump first time price lower than Biden price! Must mean Trump good at economy! Me pay less for egg under first Trump than Biden!

But now... me pay... MORE for egg under Trump than Biden?!

Must all be part of 5-Dimensional economic chess. No way Trump take advantage of stupids to line own pockets while lying about prices. Sure, he done nothing but line pockets since taking office, and prices not go any lower, but...

but...

That's why they need conspiracy theories. Otherwise they can't justify why their lives aren't better under Republican leadership.

[Breccia]

He means it, but it's never gonna happen.

Oh, no, not at all. That's settled.

I just want every single Trump supporter here fully aware that, unless they specifically and personally say otherwise, they are also serious and this is important to them. And I will quote them as such if they don't say something.

- - - Updated - - -

So, in the first ruling in the Birthright Citizenship lawsuit, the judge basically calls the DoJ and by extension Trump pretty much a bunch of idiots.

Well, yeah, he's under oath, he has to tell the truth.

[Flarelaine]

Ohh have you guys herd of the Pedocon Theory. It's a real and very serious thing.

I've tried to start a thread about it. But for some reason the mods didnt like it. I think it's because they have a lot of conservative *friends* in their raid chat or discord. And they get yelled at when we post threads that accurately post and measure how Conservatives just lie more, and abuse children more.

Mods did not like it because blanket insults never contribute to a healthy debate. It is always better to point to specific trespasses of specific actors. If there is a pattern, point it out but keep a distinction between the rank-and-file and elected officials.

[Shadowferal]

JD Vance issues stunning threat of military action against Russia

I think someone may have missed the memo about being slavishly endearing to Russian interests.

[Pannonian]

JD Vance issues stunning threat of military action against Russia

I think someone may have missed the memo about being slavishly endearing to Russian interests.

I can remember when "flip flop" was a mortal disaster for John Kerry 2004 - 20 years later its official national policy!

[postman1782]

I thought the Democrats were the warmongers.

[Pannonian]

Can someone pick up little JD in munich? He is humiliating himself...

"If the EU survives 10 years of Greta, US will survive 4 years of Trump"

And he seems to think that christians arent allowed to pray in europe?

What a pathetic little man...

[Breccia]

I think someone may have missed the memo about being slavishly endearing to Russian interests.

Common mistake. "All options are on the table" is just politispeak that can be used for anything. He wasn't threatening Russia, he was telling America he had no idea what was going on and no say in the matter.

[KrayZ33]

Man...

I came across this randomly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayr1gShzRqU

And I said to myself "Man... how unnecessary, even if they don't really have the greatest benefit (at least not until you use renewables), but at least it brings to mind that people can do something for the environment and if they litter, at least it's not around for a 100 years".

Then I expected the comment section to be full of people getting angry, since it's an animal/environment channel, and you have the same fucking trumpietards arguing about how he is the greatest president ever with this decision - every other comment is about whataboutism and how paper straws ruined their lives.

How is this even possible?
Are these all paid actors? Are they just *that* dumb?
Why is it that these people continue to exist.

One argument I read:
" It excessive consumerism, laziness and waste is to blame. It’s disgusting how much plastic is In Everything we buy . I work In Surgery & you wouldn’t believe the amount of plastic tubing / supplies/ packaging we throw away . "

Fuck me, I insulted that person and every other nurse on the planet by proxy, because there is no way a person with any meaningful education could've said that when they measure up medical equipment with plastic straws.

"We're going back to plastic straws. These things don't work. I've had them many times. On occasion, they break, they explode," Trump said Monday as he signed the executive order.

By no means is this anything of great importance... but just why...and why do people even cheer for idiotic nonsense like that.

[Belize]

By no means is this anything of great importance... but just why...and why do people even cheer for idiotic nonsense like that.

Mossad provided straws

[KrayZ33]

Mossad provided straws

The joke goes over my head, what does it mean?

[Draco-Onis]

Can someone pick up little JD in munich? He is humiliating himself...

"If the EU survives 10 years of Greta, US will survive 4 years of Trump"

And he seems to think that christians arent allowed to pray in europe?

What a pathetic little man...

He is kind of lost between President Musk and VP Trump there's really no space for him. His lord and master Peter Thiel is waiting in the wings for his turn at the presidency and he needs to remind people that he exist.

[Belize]

The joke goes over my head, what does it mean?

Mossad distributed a bunch of pagers that had small bombs implanted in them that blew up all over the middle east, so the joke is the paper straws that explode are the same.