The Frankish Reich

Birthright citizenship is not an issue that requires a trial in a lower court. That's for what lawyers call a "contested issue of fact." There is no contested issue of fact. You were born in the USA of two illegal aliens. Are you a citizen under the 15th Amendment, or are you not a citizen under Trump's EO? We call that a "pure issue of law." The Supreme Court could've decided it on the merits right now. Instead they said "no national injunctions," which is fair (to me) but is also an invitation to chaos. Well, yes. But unfortunately this is a case that proves a different political point, namely that Supreme Court Justices live in their academic ivory towers and are oblivious (or intentionally ignore) the practical effects of their decisions. Just decide the damn issue, not the procedural aspects. Are kids born in the USA to illegal aliens after the effective date of the EO citizens or not? Can you get a passport for the kid? What if the kid is born to lawful foreign grad students? The kid gets a passport if he lives in California but not if he lives in Texas? You move to California to magically make the kid a citizen? Justices need to live in the real world. The Supreme Court should seek to bring order and stability, not to encourage chaos.

What's good for the goose ... https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2018/12/18/a-look-at-the-low-key-texas-judge-who-tossed-obamacare-shows-a-history-of-notable-conservative-cases/ Both sides play the "choose a favorable district/get a national injunction" game. Democratic groups invented it; Republicans perfected it. It is a good decision in general, but the missing part is this: if individual judges can't issue nationwide injunctions, the Supreme Court is going to have to get a lot more efficient at reviewing policy changes quickly. Since we don't have that, the immediate outcome will be lawsuits on birthright citizenship in 90+ federal districts, no doubt with conflicting rulings. Born in north Texas to illegal immigrants? Not a citizen. Move west to NM? Bingo! Citizen. Unworkable.

We're in the 2028 positioning period. Booker didn't catch fire at all the last time around. He is viewed as a more centrist, and so he's trying to pick up support from a more left wing black base. Interesting, though, that his "baby bonds" concept is now part of the Republican pro-family plan. It didn't catch on with Dems, but it caught on with Republicans.

In theory, I have no quarrel with the concept. Our forebears allowed/encouraged people to be shackled and transported to the USA to take advantage of free labor. A strong reparations act c. 1870 would have been fair and good. But there's no way to decide who is entitled to what 150 years later. No one has come up with a workable concept, at least not one that doesn't get us involved is some kind of government-sponsored Henry Louis Gates genealogy project (you qualify if at least one of your great-great-great grandparents is proven to have been enslaved for at least 5 years or something like that). The remedy would be worse than the disease.

We need a rule against politicians suing media companies like this, or like the Trump vs. CBS for allegedly deceptive editing of the Kamala interview. We've opened a whole new stupid can of worms. This is not the same as the Dominion lawsuit, in which a private company was defamed.

This story flew under the radar for obvious reasons. But it's a terrible precedent: the U.S. government effectively taking an ownership stake in U.S. Steel. Last week brought us the Golden Share. No, that isn’t a James Bond movie, or a detail from the Steele dossier, although the plot is as sinister. It’s the Trump administration’s first step to nationalize the steel industry. In exchange for approval of Nippon Steel’s merger with U.S. Steel, the government receives a single preferred share, which includes voting rights and all sorts of control over U.S. Steel’s ability to close factories, invest capital and relocate jobs outside the U.S. This “Golden Share” is a bad idea. Nationalization is a fool’s errand, a slippery slope to fascism’s “government controlling the means of production.” Don’t do it.

I have no opinion about why this guy was denied admission and turned around because I don't know the relevant facts. I do know the relevant law and longstanding policy: you will be admitted as a visitor if you "qualify" as a true nonimmigrant (that means you're not planning to stay longer than the authorized period, usually 90 days, you're not planning to work without authorization, etc.) AND you are not "inadmissible" for some reason. Having a political opinion contrary to the USA's political posture at the time is not a ground of inadmissibility. Having various criminal convictions, including those related to a controlled substance, is. Having admitted (or shown, e.g. on social media) may be considered a ground of inadmissibility, but traditionally it would not be invoked - we allow probably hundreds of thousands of admitted marijuana users to come in to go to Phish concerts, etc., every year. So there is a story here which could have to do with what he was carrying or what smartass thing he said (about drug use?) or maybe an overzealous inspector a little too concerned about JD Vance's feelings. Which one, I don't know.

John Thune is on the record for not trying to override the parliamentarian's decisions. This is the way the Senate decided to do things. And, of course, that same parliamentarian also found certain Biden "budget" provisions outside the scope of the reconciliation process.

OK, I watched that Tucker interview your buddy posted below. Not all of it, but definitely all of it that had to do with Vance Boelter. She adds nothing. Actually, reports the facts just as stated in that Mpls Star-Trib mainstream story. Lots of oohing and aahing and Tucker Shock Face from your host, but ... nothing. He was a weirdo who did weird and then extremely violent things. Some questions about how the family had money to buy their house (interesting, but not terribly relevant) and his Idiot's Manifesto, which no one, including Tucker and his guest, find to be more than the rantings of a madman. If he was sent out to kill Klobuchar to benefit Walz, don't you think he would've had her first on the list? Before he became the most wanted man in MN history? Actually, I like the reporter. The part about how she got screwed over in George Floyd mania rings true. But she definitely doesn't feed the conspiratorial hunger here.

Morello's a Harvard grad! Inventive guitarist, but I feel that his talent was wasted in his prime years by Zack de la Rocha getting in the way.

Is NYC all our of Bloombergs now? Where's the business-friendly common sense faction going? It ain't Curtis Sliwa. Draft someone, anyone!

True enough. If you're in that 75-150K group you aren't buying more than a 1 BR co-op in Manhattan, and that's going to be an enormous financial strain. And given the type of job you're in, you're never going to be able to move up unless you move out (h/t Billy Joel). One of the things I find intriguing (although I'm not sure how well it is working in practice): limitations on foreign buyers. A ton of prime real estate in a place like NYC or Vancouver or Miami is empty most of the time. I'm not saying it's the solution (or even "a" solution), but it's better than permanent rent freezes that would have the exact opposite effect.

People are kind of misinterpreting this. If you look at the map, the truly "higher income" areas of Manhattan - the Upper East and Upper Westsides - went for Cuomo. "Middle income" as applied to NYers means struggling to get by in a preposterously expensive city.

My limited experience with Finns agrees. Although my somewhat greater experience with Swedes agrees too!

New Yorkers are an annoying breed. They seem to believe that they cannot live anywhere else even though they constantly complain about the quality of life in New York. They should be able to afford to buy a nice rowhouse in Brooklyn or afford a relatively spacious apartment in Manhattan while working in poorly paid creative fields like "design" or something related to the arts and theater. And so they vote for anyone who sells them the pipe dream that NYC can become, at once, nicer and more affordable for them to pursue the creative lives they choose. And so NYC will become, at once, less nice and less affordable and they will move somewhere else.

Did you read it? What was wrong in it? it certainly explains more than anything else I’ve read since it is based on actual reporting - knocking on doors, talking to people, looking up public records, etc.

Hint: stare at it from a distance of 8 inches for 2 minutes and tell me who jumps out at you.

I still haven't gotten over my "no tax on social security" turning into "somewhat higher standard deduction provided that you are 65 and make less than $75,000."

True. But I'll try. If only to prove your point ...

Cross-posted from another thread: Not optimistic but i'll try.

I'm gonna try something here. You know how Reddit does an Ask Me Anything (AMA)? I'll start one on immigration and court procedure. I pretend to have expertise on a lot of things, but I really do know this field. Do you think we can keep it objective and not insulting? I'll try to note what is my opinion vs. what is the established law.

⬆️ I won't try to invade his safe space on that other site. Perhaps he shouldn't invade this open space. Oh, yeah, a mere 5 years around here. I'm a newbie. (translation: I have a life) I agree with this part. People should learn how to argue though, not to simply insult or gloat.

So ... why did you folks come back? You had your little club. You didn't invite in dissenting voices. You didn't have to use the "ignore" function because it was an ideal echo chamber. So ... why?

RIP guitarist Mick Ralphs. His lost (stolen) six-string razor inspired this classic. (He went on to make worse but more lucrative music in Bad Co.)

As far as actual policy goes, look at the farmworkers. An immigration attorney I knew who was active at the time of Reagan's "amnesty" bill used to joke that the way to eliminate a farmworker was to give him legal status. The Reagan "Special Agricultural Worker" path to legal residence applied to those who could show they were working in the fields; as soon as they got legal status, off to the cities they went for better paying/less back-breaking work. So how do we pick the crops without illegal aliens? Is there some kind of temporary visa that would work? Legalization doesn't. Keeping them illegal just allows them to be abused by their employers. Some say the old "bracero" program, where Mexicans worked seasonally and had money deposited into a Mexican account (to be withdrawn only when they returned) was better, but that program was fraught with abuses too. All I can say is that the current debate/positions is not productive. It ignores reality. It will never result in good policy, whether it is Biden's "let 'em in/let 'em stay" or Trump's "mass deportations." Congress: do your job. Listen to people who know the field. At least try to fashion sensible policy.