Where the Right-Wing Campaign Against Birthright Citizenship Comes From...
...and Why It’s Wrong
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BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: Dems Don’t Have to Inspire, They Have to Oppose
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PHILIP JAFFA: Where the Right-Wing Campaign Against Birthright Citizenship Comes From—and Why It’s Wrong
DONALD TRUMP ON HIS FIRST DAY BACK in office issued an executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship, the principle, grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment, that anyone born in the United States, regardless of parentage, is an American citizen. Back in 2023, when he announced his plans to do this on Day One, Trump claimed that “many scholars” have shown that birthright citizenship is based on a “historical myth” and a “willful misinterpretation” of the Fourteenth Amendment, and he declared that he could undo it simply through a “correct interpretation” of the amendment.
And so the executive order he issued hours after being sworn instructs that “no department or agency . . . shall issue documents recognizing United States citizenship” for babies born in the United States without at least one parent who is a citizen.
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Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Stephanie Ruhle: Unlimited Money and No Rules [YouTube]
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THOMAS JOSCELYN AND NORMAN EISEN: What Kash Patel Doesn’t Want the Senate to Know About the ‘J6 Prison Choir’
LAST WEEK, SENATOR THOM TILLIS (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, became agitated over Democrats’ questioning of Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as attorney general. The Democrats on the committee wanted to know if Bondi would approve of Trump’s pardons for January 6th rioters if they were granted to those who assaulted cops.
“I was the last member out of the Senate on January the 6th. I walked past a lot of law enforcement officers, excuse me, who were injured,” Tillis said. “I find it hard to believe that the president of the United States, or you, would look at facts that were used to convict the violent people on January the 6th and say it was just an intemperate moment.” Tillis described the basis for the Democrats’ questioning as an “absurd and unfair hypothetical.”
ZANDY HARTIG: David Lynch’s Twisted Love Letter to Los Angeles
THE FIRST TIME I SAW Mulholland Drive was in 2002 while I was visiting Los Angeles for pilot season. My friend’s aunt, whom I didn’t know until that night, had invited me to join her at the Vista Theatre on Sunset. The movie left me utterly discombobulated. It perplexed and disturbed me in equal measure, so much so that I actually felt dizzy. Everything outside looked sinister or compromised. The man smoking a cigarette by the lamppost, what did he know about me? Was that terrifying, filthy bum in the movie lurking in the alleyway behind the theater dumpster? Why did everything around me seem so dark and yet vivid all of a sudden?
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Wednesday! While I enjoyed my first trip back to the DC area (despite the circumstances), it is good to be back in Ohio. The coldsnap continues, with the “Feels Like®” temperature each morning in the negative.
🎵On the Jukebox…🎵 Coldplay - ONE WORLD (A Film For The Future)
Good for Pam… Pam Hemphill, a convicted participant in January 6, is refusing Donald Trump’s pardon (BBC). "Accepting a pardon would only insult the Capitol police officers, rule of law and, of course, our nation” said Pam. Amen.
Who is in charge of the CDC right now? Nobody knows for sure. (CBS)
I’m with Officer Fanone… When asked for comment by CNN what he’d say to freed seditionist and leader of the Oathkeepers Stewart Rhodes? "Go fuck yourself." Rhodes was apparently spotted in the Longworth House cafeteria today, and has no regrets.
“DEIAtruth…” The Trumpian OPM is asking feds to rat out their colleagues, providing emails in all-agency messages. Would be a shame if people flooded those inboxes. As Jill Lawrence observes, perhaps Project 2025 is moving at warp speed.
There will be no adverse consequences for ratting them out, unless you don’t do it within 10 days.
An update from Bishop Budde… Whom Trump demanded an apology from over her perfectly reasonable sermon. No apology is forthcoming. (NPR)
Donald Trump’s Biggest Fans Waited In The Cold… William Turton of Defector photographs the Inauguration.
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