SCOTUS and whatnot

[buddha]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

You're a good guy and everything, but for the purposes of this debate, I don't care how much you like this ruling any more than I care about what kinds of hats you imagine I wear. 

The court may have cited Wong Kim Ark in its decision, but they did so to explicitly reject the Trump administration's argument that birthright citizenship was a right only reserved to those domiciled in the United States, and Roberts affirmed that while the parents in Wong Kim Ark happened to be domiciled in California, the actual legal rule established by the case was not dependent on that fact.

As for the dissents you noted, both the Devereuax and the de Bourry cases constituted executive or administrative decisions that were accepted at face value by the parties in question at the time and were not subsequently litigated, and the majority opinion today emphasized that isolated administrative actions or passport denials from the 1880s do not hold the same weight as constitutional text or Supreme Court precedent.

Such rejected dissents notwithstanding, the only exclusions to the birthright citizenship rule are for children of accredited foreign diplomats; children of hostile invaders or occupying forces; births aboard foreign sovereign vessels; and, weirdly, children born only in American Samoa and Swains Island. I don't know for sure whether the Trump lawyers attempted to characterize undocumented immigrants as hostile invaders or occupying forces—it would be very on-brand for them to do so—but I'm guessing they probably didn't because we'd be reading that very thing in the news stories about this today. I guess even Trump lawyers have their limits. At the moment, anyway.

ok.

i dont think it is "crystal clear" for many of the reasons stated before. gorsuch's opinion is probably the right one, but i like the outcome of the chief's better because it fits in better with my own idea of america.

Edited June 30 by buddha
re-reading gorsuch's opinion, i dont agree with it. i like the chief's better.

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, buddha said:

citizens united is the poisonous tree from which all of this bad fruit has grown.

A you being facetious? I believe in previous discussion once you dismissed CU as not very important.

[buddha]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

A you being facetious? I believe in previous discussion once you dismissed CU as not very important.

no, i dismissed your opinion that it was designed to only help republicans and that it succeeded in only helping republicans.  democrats benefit greatly as well.

i dont think money is speech and i think the government should be able to regulate who contributes to election campaigns, including how much they can contribute.

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, buddha said:

you're assuming "subject to the jurisdiction thereof's" only possible meaning could be the US can arrest you under its laws.  there are other interpretations of that clause's meaning.

1) wong kim ark, on which the majority relies holds:

"[A] child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.” 

so it says you have to be permanently domiciled in the united states.  kind of rules out the whole "birth tourism" thing, no?

moreover, the decision on which wong kim ark relies, elk v wilkins, held that an american indian born in the united states was not a citizen by birth because he was not completely subject to the united states' political jurisdiction, because he was a member of a native american tribe and thus a member of another country.

2) you asked for examples.  here are some from the dissent:

The child of a woman named Mary Deveraux was denied citizenship after being born in the United States in 1889. Deveraux was an Irish woman who arrived in New York and promptly went to the hospital to give birth the next day. She was not yet, however, lawfully admitted to the country. Although the baby was undoubtedly “born on American soil,” it was not an American citizen because Deveraux had not yet been lawfully admitted.

Freiderich de Bourry was denied citizenship after being born in the United States to parents domiciled in
Austria. When de Bourry sought protection as an American citizen in 1886 after returning to Europe, 
Secretary Bayard denied his claim to citizenship. Although de Bourry was “born in the city of New York,”
Secretary Bayard explained, his parents were “temporarily resident” and returned to Europe a few years
later.

there are more, but for brevity's sake i wont include them all.

3) the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" has been interpreted to mean "only subject to the jurisdiction of the united states" and not subject to any other country's jurisdiction in other court cases.  

this decision ignores that precedent.

finally, I LIKE THE DECISION, but i take issue with the idea that its so cut and dried that no one could possible come up with another interpretation.  that's not true.  the law can be hard to parse out sometimes.

i just pulled a couple examples from the dissents.  there are more if you want to look.

The native American case is the one where I can see a genuine complexity, but that was addressed by statute 100 yrs ago. I could be wrong but I don't imagine support for Birth Tourism is all that wide spread, but there has to be a clear way to separate that from long time residents, even if undocumented. Clearly the admin bringing the case isn't really interested in making that distinction, though I think it may be possible to be reasonably made. But in overall impact, birth tourism doesn't really move any needles. Base law needs to address the primary situation, there will always be corner cases.

Edited June 30 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, buddha said:

no, i dismissed your opinion that it was designed to only help republicans and that it succeeded in only helping republicans.  democrats benefit greatly as well.

well it certainly has helped the Democratic Party prostitute itself, but I'll still hold that is not really 'helping' them! 😉

[buddha]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

The native American case is the one where I can see a genuine complexity, but that was addressed by statute 100 yrs ago. I could be wrong but I don't imagine support for Birth Tourism is all that wide spread, but there has to be a clear way to separate that from long time residents, even if undocumented. Clearly the admin bringing the case isn't really interested in making that distinction, though I think it may be possible to be reasonably made. But in overall impact, birth tourism doesn't really move any needles. Base law needs to address the primary situation, there will always be corner cases.

people coming here just to have babies exists, but its such a tiny number it doesnt really matter.

immigration is a problem that can be fixed by statute, re-doing outdated asylum laws, and putting enough resources into handling immigration cases.  outlawing birthright citizenship is just trump's stupid way of doing it because congress refuses to do its job (and because trump is a petty, mean, ass hole guided by psychopaths like stephen miller).

[gehringer_2]

53 minutes ago, buddha said:

there are many reasons for sports to be divided according to sex that have nothing to do with bible verses.  its about boys being biologically bigger than girls and thus giving girls a chance to compete against others like them.

i agree with everyone who says this is nothing more than a distraction, but it makes for an interesting legal argument.

The difficulty happens if you can get the Bible thumpers' noses out of their scrolls is that the creation they so fervently believe is being violated is anything but clear cut when it comes to sex. Real people are born with real biologies that don't necessarily fit into the check boxes, so even if you take away the trans-gender piece, things are not cut and dried. It does make practical sense to have men's and women's because in many/most sports the average women and the average man are not fairly matched even it there are outliers in all directions; and while that is practical - now you you have all the corner cases to deal with. I think it was one of the golf sanctioning orgs that uses a rule that athletes must play as the sex they went through puberty. That's an attempt to hold to the size/strength distinction that underlies the basic idea of male/female sport, but even that will break down enough in enough cases to have people in court.

Of course the other way to look at it is that if there weren't so much money in sports at all levels today, a lot of people would care a lot less about these issues. 

"Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas."

[pfife]

Trump 86'd immigration reform.    Id put way more on him that congress recently.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, pfife said:

Trump 86'd immigration reform.    Id put way more on him that congress recently.

It was Trump this time, it was the GOP Congress under Bush. May they both rot where the weather has experienced a more severe climate change.

[pfife]

KBJ is a national treasure

[CMRivdogs]

https://bsky.app/profile/historleans.bsky.social/post/3mpllro6tqc2i

[CMRivdogs]

 

[chasfh]

Lest we forget with the dawning of a new news cycle: 

1 big thing: The court reigns supreme

Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios The Supreme Court spent its latest term sidelining Congress and amassing power for itself and the presidency, Axios' Andrew Pantazi writes. After the term that ended this week, Congress can no longer insulate regulators from the president, limit political parties' spending, or require race-conscious voting districts. The justices overturned precedents, second-guessed Congress and brushed aside facts found by lower courts. Georgetown Law professor Steve Vladeck tells Axios: "The real headline of the current term is, 'Supreme Court rules for itself, 6–3.'" ⚖️ Some of the court's most notable recent decisions: Choosing which parts of the FTC to keep (the powers Congress gave it) and which to shed (the independence Congress designed). Making it nearly impossible to use the Voting Rights Act to challenge maps diluting Black and Latino voting power. Striking down limits on coordinated political party spending (which it had upheld in 2001). Curbing Congress' power to make state officials pay damages for violating federal funding laws. Letting President Trump keep withholding $4 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid, at least for now. Reality check: The president didn't win everything this term. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote all three major rulings against Trump: blocking emergency tariffs, sparing Fed governor Lisa Cook (for now), and rejecting the executive order ending birthright citizenship. What's next: Trump's biggest defeat doubled as the term's loudest warning. Four justices were willing to say that Trump's birthright citizenship order didn't violate the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all those born in the country. Georgetown's Vladeck says the fact that a position deemed "outlandish as recently as a decade ago" got four votes will "embolden" the next wave of once-fringe constitutional arguments. Go deeper.

[buddha]

🤔

oh my.