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October 2018

Can Trump End Birthright Citizenship by Executive Order? By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-end-birthright-citizenship-by-executive-order/

On substance, I believe President Trump is right on birthright citizenship — the 14th Amendment does not require it. I do not believe, however, that the president may change the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which has been in effect for decades, by executive order, as he is reportedly contemplating.

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.

I won’t rehash the arguments on both sides. With due respect to our friend Dan McLaughlin (see here), I think Professor Eastman has the better of the argument. As I have observed before, and as we editorialized when Donald Trump was a candidate (here), this is a very charged issue, and it is entirely foreseeable that the Supreme Court (to say nothing of the lower federal courts teeming with Obama appointees) would construe the term jurisdiction differently from what it meant when the 14th Amendment was ratified.

For today, the more narrow question is: Assuming arguendo that the 14th Amendment does not require birthright citizenship, is our practice of conferring it merely an executive policy that the president has the power to change by executive order?

I don’t think so.

The Electronic Committee of Public Safety By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/megyn-kelly-halloween-costumes-social-media-controversy/

Modern-day Robespierres send counterrevolutionaries to the virtual chopping block. They should recall his fate.

Celebrities, politicians, and almost anyone of influence and wealth are always an incorrect or insensitive word away from the contemporary electronic guillotine. Regardless of the circumstances of their dilemmas, the beheaded rarely win sympathy from the mob. Coliseum-like roars of approval greet their abrupt change of fortune from their past exalted status.

So, for example, perhaps few feel sorry for anchor Megyn Kelly, recently all but fired by NBC and now walking away with most of her $69 million salary package as a severance payout.

Kelly was let go ostensibly for making a sloppy but not malicious morally equivalent comparison between whites at Halloween dressing up in costumes as blacks, and blacks likewise appearing as whites. But she sealed her fate by uttering the historically disparaging word “black face” as some sort of neutral bookend to her use of “white face.” Her fatal crime, then, was insensitive thought and speech and historical ignorance.

For someone so familiar with the rules of our electronic French Revolution and the felonies of speech and thought, Kelly proved surprisingly naïve in a variety of ways.

First, she should have known that there are revolutionary canons surrounding victimization indemnities. And for all her success, she is actually protected by few of them, given that she is fabulously well paid, attractive, still young, white — and at one time conservative and a former Fox News anchor person.

So when Kelly said something historically dense and insensitive, she should have grasped that she, despite being an emancipated coastal female, was immediately (and ratings-wise) expendable, even if expensively expendable.

Had Kelly been unapologetically progressive (especially one deemed vital to the cause), like Elizabeth Warren, who fabricated and profited from an entire minority identity, then she might well have survived the incident. Perhaps had she been a minority, such as Sarah Jeong, and written (rather than spoken off the cuff) far more racially offensive things about whites, she would have kept her job — as did Jeong on the New York Times editorial board after her racist tweets surfaced, such as this, from 2014: “Dumbass f****** white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants.”

Anti-Semitism fight begins on campus Nolan Finley,

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2018/10/29/finley-anti-semitism-fight-begins-campus/1806326002/

If you’re hunting for the places where anti-semitism thrives in America, you’d be better off looking on its college campuses than in the White House.

Just two days after the slaughter of Jewish worshippers inside a temple in Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan staged a teach-in dedicated to the nationwide drive to prod universities to shun Israel.

The Boycott, Disinvest and Sanction (BDS) Movement condemns the Jewish state as an apartheid government for its treatment of Palestinians, and pressures colleges to break ties with Israel.

It has a vigorous presence at UM, and that’s caused discomfort for Jewish students who have traditionally found a welcoming environment on the Ann Arbor campus. It’s a thin line between demonizing Israel and dehumanizing Jews.

Former student Molly Rosen, writing in The Tower magazine in 2014, said when she arrived at UM, “I was not prepared to be told that, if I cared about human rights, I could not support Israel. I was not prepared to be told that my community was racist.

“I was not prepared to see my fellow students attacked with anti-Semitic slurs.”

The audacity of Obama’s lying Brazenness is key. If you’re going to lie, don’t be shy Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/audacity-obamas-lying/

What makes a good liar? It’s a harder question to answer than you might think, partly because it’s a harder and more complex thing to accomplish than you might think.

Let me begin by acknowledging that I do not have a satisfactory answer to the question. Nevertheless, as an aficionado of the sport, I admire from afar expert practitioners. And I was reminded just a few days ago that we have in our midst a grand master of mendacity. In his speech in Milwaukee on Friday, Barack Obama demonstrated once again his effortless, masterly deployment of deceit.

Again, I do not say that we groundlings have been vouchsafed all the inner workings of the mechanism. But one thing is clear from Obama’s performance: brazenness is key. If you are going to lie, don’t be shy. Capitalise on the public’s inherent goodwill — and its poor memory.

Another useful gambit: accuse others, preferably in violent terms, of precisely that of which you are yourself guilty.

Watch this: ‘What we have not seen before in our public life is politicians just blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly, lying. Just making stuff up.’ Nice!

As in, ‘if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor’?

‘Nobody In My Administration Got Indicted,’ said the Big O, but consider Eric ‘kick ’em when they’re down’ Holder, the only Attorney General in history to have been held in contempt of Congress. Consider also Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official whose shameless ‘I take the Fifth’ performance before Congress was its own humiliating indictment. Or consider Hillary Clinton herself, whose list of possible felonies would have kept the the DOJ busy for years were it not for her best buddy, the disgraced James Comey, another Obama apparatchik who should be lawyering up.

‘MAGA Bomber’ Worked at West Palm Nightclub Where Stormy Daniels Stripped in Anti-Trump Tour By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/maga-bomber-worked-at-west-palm-nightclub-where-stormy-daniels-stripped-in-anti-trump-tour/

Cesar Sayoc, the alleged attempted bomber behind the suspicious packages sent to former president Barack Obama, former first lady Hillary Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and others, worked at a strip club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on the day before he was arrested. Stormy Daniels, the porn star who allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump, stripped at the same club in April — in her “Make America Horny Again” anti-Trump tour.

Ultra Gentlemen’s Club manager Stacey Saccal confirmed to WPTV that Sayoc worked there as recently as Thursday afternoon. He had worked there for two months as a DJ and doorman. Saccal said there had been no complaints about Sayoc from other employees before Sayoc’s arrest Friday.

The other employees were in “shock and disbelief” after learning about the arrest, the manager said. “I never knew that his van was covered in political stickers. I thought it was an ice cream truck,” Saccal said.

In April, porn star Stephanie Clifford — better known by her stage name “Stormy Daniels” — performed at Ultra, inspiring a protest. She stripped days before the president arrived at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, less than five miles west of the club.

Clifford’s performance was part of her “Make America Horny Again” tour, drawing attention to her alleged affair with President Trump.Stormy Daniels drew two types of crowds to Ultra. “They want to see what the big guy put his hands on,” Fabian Uribe, a limousine driver who drove a group to the club and stayed for the show, told the Palm Beach Post in April. “I’ll pay $35 just to see what she looks like. I guess the president didn’t want to come.”

MY SAY:A GOVERNMENT WHICH TO BIGOTRY GIVES NO SANCTION, TO PERSECUTION NO ASSISTANCE

America is the sunniest corner of the Jewish Diaspora, and every single President, including previous ones who did not esteem Jews has adhered to this principle set forth by our magnificent first President George Washington. It is assiduously upheld by President Trump and arguments to the contrary are pure partisan rot….rsk

Thanks to e-pal Laz for reminding me of this.

On August 17th, 1790, Moses Seixas warden of the Hebrew Congregation of Rhode Island wrote a letter to our magnificent first President George Washington welcoming him to Newport: Excerpt:

Sir:

Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits — and to join with our fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport……..Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People — a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance — but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine……”

On the very next day, President Washington responded, quoting Seixas…..Excerpt.

Gentlemen:

“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support…”…..“May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

The ‘Hodgkinson Standard’ and the Political Blame Game By Thomas Farnan

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/30/the-hodgkinson

On June 14, 2017, James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer during the presidential primaries, opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball practice in northern Virginia. Four people were shot, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

President Trump addressed the shooting saying, “We may have our differences . . . We are strongest when we are unified and when we work for the common good.”

The New York Times noted favorably that “Mr. Trump steered clear of the possible political motivations of the gunman,” and instead issued a “dignified” call for unity.

There was general agreement that when a sociopath with a peripheral involvement in politics commits a violent act, it is unfair to attribute broad political blame.

Last week, someone sent devices that were meant to look like pipe bombs to two former presidents, their first ladies, congressional leaders, and an ex-CIA chief.

Another was sent to actor Robert De Niro, whose movie “Taxi Driver”was cited by a nut as the reason he shot President Reagan in 1981. Nobody ever blamed De Niro for John Hinckley, Jr.

Nevertheless, this time the media, prominent Democrats, De Niro, and some NeverTrump Republicans jumped at the chance to blame Trump. The story was sensationalized beyond the boundaries of readily ascertainable facts.

These were the rare explosive devices displayed at CNN like a party favor, photographed for Twitter, and shipped on America’s crowded highways (or worse, in airplanes) to Quantico, Virginia for further testing.

Which is how bombs are always handled. No, really.

Is Trump’s GOP Attracting Young Conservative Blacks? By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/30/is-trumps-gop

The fundamental restructuring of both major political parties—which began more than a decade ago when Barack Obama first ran for president—is ramping up during the Trump era. The Republican Party is attracting more working-class, non-college educated whites in the Midwest and Rust Belt; Democrats are picking up more college-educated white women, particularly in the suburbs of major cities.

While the gains of both parties are probably cancelled out by this electoral shift, there is one group that Democrats simply cannot win without: black voters.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Trump continues to court blacks by citing rising economic prospects, record low unemployment among African-Americans, and the need for federal prison reform. Democrats are fearful low voter turnout among blacks on November 6 will dash their hopes of reclaiming control of Congress; Obama campaigned in Wisconsin and Michigan on Friday in an effort to rally black voters in states where must-win Senate seats are at stake.

But the Democrats also may have a more long-term problem with black voters. A small but growing number of young blacks are aligning themselves with the GOP, rejecting their parents’ and grandparents’ hand-me-down political fealty to the Democratic Party.

This past weekend, hundreds of black conservatives ages 15 to 35 gathered in Washington, D.C., for the Young Black Leadership Summit. The three-day event—sponsored by the conservative campus outreach group Turning Point USA—hosted sessions in grassroots political organizing and leadership training. Featured speakers included prominent black leaders such as Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Heritage Foundation President Kay James, talk show host Larry Elder, and actress Stacey Dash.

Bolsonaro’s Hope and Change Brazilians wanted new leadership after years of recession and graft.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bolsonaros-hope-and-change-1540853512

‘Bolsonaro threatens the world, not just Brazil’s fledgling democracy,” declared a headline last week in the Guardian, referring to presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro. And that was one of the milder warnings in the international press. Yet Brazilians elected him anyway on Sunday with 55% of the vote. Maybe the world should show a decent respect for Brazilian democracy and try to understand what happened.

Start with the fact that this was a transparent, competitive and fair contest. Mr. Bolsonaro didn’t steal the election. He won it by persuading voters. A 27-year member of the legislature, Mr. Bolsonaro was also fortunate to be running against Fernando Haddad, the hand-picked candidate of the Worker’s Party (PT) that has ruled Brazil for most of the last 15 years. Mr. Bolsonaro was able to run as the reformer against a legacy of economic and political failure.

Brazil has yet to recover from the leftwing populism of PT President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and successor Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016). Deficits, public debt and inflation soared, as the PT expanded the number of state-owned enterprises. It also squandered the opportunity to boost capital flows, most notably by failing to create attractive auction rules in the huge deepwater oil reserves discovered in 2007. By the time the Workers’ Party was done, Brazil was in a recession that lasted nearly three years.

The PT also built a legacy of graft. Construction companies padded bids and paid kickbacks to politicians, executives and the PT. The national development bank extended loans to facilitate the transactions, including to Cuba and Venezuela. The head of the bank said in September that the dictatorships in Havana and Caracas have outstanding loans of $1 billion and both are in arrears.

Time to flee Democratic Party Adriana Cohen

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/adriana_cohen/2018/10/time_to_flee_democratic_party

Kanye West is calling for a #Blexit, a black exit from the Democratic Party, because the Trump administration has done more to empower the black community than his liberal predecessor.

What a great idea.

What American women need here in the U.S. is a #Wexit — women exiting the Democratic Party. Why? Because the single best way to empower women is financial independence. With the female unemployment rate at 3.6 percent — the lowest in 65 years — women should be burning their pink hats not knitting new ones.

A well-paying job allows women to live life on their own terms, make their own choices and pursue their dreams — unbeholden to anyone. Isn’t that the bedrock of feminism?

Hence it’s high time women stop thinking with their ovaries and start thinking with their pocketbooks. The former may give you “free” birth control, the latter a future.

With the GDP over 4 percent, median income up more than 4 percent and wages on the upswing, Trump’s economy has given women freedom and power. That’s the power to carve their own path and for many the freedom to leave unhappy marriages or abusive relationships because a good-paying job gives women the means to survive, if not thrive, on their own.