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December 21, 2025
Solstice sunrise — 7:21, 7:36.
The solstice came at 9:03 a.m., the sunrise a bit earlier. Meade was out there in the bitter cold, walking the very rough and slippery terrain that I, in my weakness, eschewed. His pix:
Write about whatever you like.
Write about whatever you like.
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111 comments:
Cuba is suffering a big time collapse. Starting in 2000. Why is this not more well-known?
From the WSJ:
• Cuba faces its most severe economic crisis since 1959, with a 15% economic contraction since 2018.
• A quarter of Cuba’s population, over 2.7 million people, has fled since 2020 due to widespread hunger, disease and lack of basic services.
• U.S. pressure on Venezuela, including a partial blockade targeting oil tankers, threatens Cuba’s vital oil supply.
No bitter cold in Houston today. We set a new high of 83F.
Althouse, you should take a similar shot at the Summer Solstice to document the change in tilt of the earth. It’s more dramatic than most realize.
The first pic is the best
The special period in the 90s when the soviets cut their aid was worse
@Creola Soul There are 6 years of sunrise pictures, so you can easily find 6 examples of the Summer Solstice shot from the same vantage point. Don't need to wait for next time.
It's hard to wake up, including for a baby: https://www.tiktok.com/@maryshields/video/7569284105360248119?_r=1&_t=ZT-92PsEczaFDy
Baby decides whether she liked that slide: https://www.tiktok.com/@alison8258/video/7585769332932758814?_r=1&_t=ZT-92Puyv7m9ba
Overstimulated by mittens: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsmimishouse/video/7584133721456971021?_r=1&_t=ZT-92Pyl0yoKJp
Clyde's Top 15 Favorite "New" Songs of 2025 - Part 7 of 16
#10 - Silvertwin - "Take Me On" - Ploy (2021)
This one also came from Susan's ELOish playlist. There were two songs by Silvertwin on the playlist and I loved both of them, so picking this one was a tough choice.
Here's a blurb about the band from their website:
"Silvertwin is a London-based band whose sound sits at the intersection of indie-rock, power pop, classic 70s melodies and the British New Wave. Jangly guitar riffs and luscious harmonies provide a backdrop to introspective lyrics that explore love, loss, and self-discovery, creating a sound that is both nostalgic and contemporary.
"Raised on the words and melodies of time-honoured songwriters, Isaac Shalam felt a yearning to bring classic heartfelt pop to the modern day. His self-penned songs are brought to life and to the stage with the help of friends Alicia Barisani, Lauric Mackintosh, Antonio Naccache and Chester Caine.
"Silvertwin joined forces with Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado (The Killers, Whitney, Weyes Blood, The Lemon Twigs) to make their debut album, released summer 2021."
https://youtu.be/zTUDmy_Wkwk?si=QGW0i2Ph3qLhfWsN
Clyde's Top 15 Favorite "New" Songs of 2025
Bonus Song - Silvertwin - "Ploy" - Ploy (2021)
This is the other Silvertwin song from Susan's ELOish playlist. Ploy is a pretty good album.
https://youtu.be/9csNNP3Ni0E?si=3hTaqLOsIujIDmg5
Best day ever: https://www.tiktok.com/@grizz6328/video/7585749849430052126?_r=1&_t=ZT-92Ppo40H08c
Yesterday, we were talking about weird coincidences, so I'll give you one more that happened today. As I mentioned yesterday, we have a letter cancellation guessing contest at work, and Friday was the final day. I was talking with my friend Cole, who is retiring at the end of the month, so this is his last Christmas with USPS, and thus his last chance to play the contest. He had won some in previous years, but had been shut out so far this year. He congratulated me on my Wednesday win, and then we talked about how he needed to win on the last day to go out on a high note.
We didn't get Friday's results on Saturday, but they did appear just before I was getting ready to go home at 2:30 p.m. And who won? You guessed it, Cole did. I was really pleased when I saw that, and since it was his day off, I messaged him to let him know about his win. If someone had written that in a movie script, I wouldn't have believed it.
https://x.com/Chicago1Ray/status/2002183969475801592
3I/ATLAS Ignores Earth. Humans are interesting cosmic… | by Avi Loeb | Dec, 2025 | Medium https://share.google/POpKPUQRU0MSZt3Jy
Musk's net worth is now $750 billion.
https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#38d5f03d788b
Laughing my ass off as one of my best friends - and superfan of that other SEC school in my state - just boarded a flight from Atlanta to NYC and sent me a photo of Cam Newton sitting across the aisle from him. One: why is Cam flying commercial? Two: Cam is wearing a steam punk top hat with what looks to be a bird on top and sunglasses… lol
I almost feel sorry for Cam - this may be the longest flight of his life!! :)
"Gerda Sprinchorn said...
Musk's net worth is now $750 billion."
On th other hand,
"According to a December 2025 report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), approximately 89% of Somali immigrant households with children in Minnesota receive some form of means-tested welfare benefit"
I guess he lost a bet
Prof: "Overstimulated by mittens:"
Whew! I thought it was going to be Romney's hot dog TikTok. CC, JSM
Greg Price on X: "JD Vance perfectly sums up how Christianity produces great men: "Tyler Robinson is everything the far left wants from our young men. He rejected the conservatism, spiritually, and values of a small town family. He moved into a small apartment, he became addicted to porn, he https://t.co/SKOXjMvyad" / X https://share.google/XcejFlzHRRrsKyaIs
Meade is a trooper.
Like the first photo.
lol, narciso!
Just FYI - if you sign up for "Peacock" expecting see all of Saturday Night live - forget about it. NBC has chopped up all the episodes prior to 2002 on a seemingly random basis. If you take all the commericals the episodes run 66 minutes. As expected the musicals numbers are cut. But still, even without the music each episode of comedy sketches should be about 56 minutes.
But do you get 56 minutes? Of course not. Some SNL episodes are 28 minutes. Others are 33 minutes. Or 43 minutes. Very few are over 43 minutes. Almost every episode prior to 2002 is missing 15-20 minutes of sketches.
And there's no rhyme or reason for the cuts. Sometimes its the host monologue. Other times parts of Weekend update are hacked off. Still other times the cold opening is slashed. Lots of the best skits are cut. Crap is kept.
I was wondering how Ann Althouse's post count for the year was going.
"On th other hand,
In a just world, whoever brings useless people into the country (shouldn't be happening at all, but still...) should be held financially responsible for supporting them. There is absolutely no reason American taxpayers should be paying for this.
Did I miss FLC's exposition on tort law in the case of unruly party guests who later commit crimes?
Looks like it.
2821 posts so far.
Even more annoying, NBC keeps the Weekend update and closing. So no matter how few minutes your episode is, it will include 10 minutes of old jokes about old news. And people saying "Goodbye" with the credits.
Like all of Network TV and the Mega-media corporations, NBC has always been known for its contempt for the audience. Squeeze every nickel, and give people as little in return as possible. They care about two things (1) pushing their leftwing politics and (2) making as much $$ as possible. They'd sell you a shit sandwhich for 1000 dollars if they could.
Come on its nbc, hackery is their watch word
Aliens decided there was no little intelligent life here
Lots of the best skits are cut. Crap is kept
That stinks. Several years ago I purchased my favorite episode (Steve Martin, Blondie) on Amazon and the full episode is still there in my library, even the little jokes in the commercial cuts
Maybe its on youtube
NBC kind of destroyed Olympic viewing for the US audience for a generation. Fortunately there’s VPNs now…
So they are pitching the olympics with glen powells running mann bomb (they didnt know it was a bomb, at the time)
The first ncis spinoff that went to streaming was the firsr to be cancelled (it wasnt terrible but it did complete the arc)
Tony and ziva on paramount
From trashing murdered director Rob Reiner to renaming the Kennedy Center for himself, an uninhibited Trump has impacted the arts in notable, yet unorthodox ways.
Speaking off...
Michaels didnt allow the blatant hacker that o'donohue did in 1980-81
Ocean: "Even more annoying, NBC keeps the Weekend update and closing"
Weekend Update helps place the episode firmly in the timeline.
I love the closing. It makes me feel like I have finally been invited to the cool kids' party. Gives you a little glimpse of the real people as they hug each other. And especially for old episodes, where you see much younger versions of the cast, or any version at all of cast members who have died, the closing is so nostalgic. I get so angry when the show runs long and the local NBC affiliate decides they have to cut the closing short so they can get all of NBC First Look on air. Being able to go to Peacock to watch the rest of the closing is well worth the monthly cost.
I would totally watch a half-hour show of nothing but the SNL closing. I need to add to my bucket list "be on stage for an SNL closing." Between "get introduced as part of a rock band" and "see the premiere of my Helvetica - The Musical!" CC, JSM
Preferably Steve Hogarth of Marillion: "...and on the triangle, Mr John Singleton Mosby!" - "ding, ding, dinga-ding...." CC, JSM
Top of my bucket list is "drink and reminisce with Brian Ferry."
"Well, Mosby, we've seen a lot, haven't we?" - "aye, Brian, we have." CC, JSM
Coots.
I have been pondering on this. And this, and also this.
I am moved to reflect, that the Arab slavers crossed the Sahara Desert to buy sub-Saharan slaves, even though Somalia was much, much closer. Huh.
“ Maybe its on youtube”
You tube now makes me log in to “protect the community”, that is, protect their ability to sell me to advertisers.
Kaki.
Does the DNC pay you overtime for working on Sunday?
The Trump supporter who runs CBS news just killed a story about Trump’s favorite torture prison. Here’s why America has a liberal media bias problem.
"CBS News postponed a "60 Minutes" segment Sunday because it lacked a Trump admin interview, per an email we obtained from correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who said the decision by EIC Bari Weiss gave the White House a "kill switch."
CBS News Pulls ‘60 Minutes’ Segment; Correspondent Calls Decision Political ~ WSJ
BTW, there used to tons of SNL episodes on the internet archive and even on Amazon Prime. They were all deleted because NBC wanted people to pay them $$ for "Peacock". Except those old VHS taped episodes had every SNL sketch.
Now, you have sketches from before 2002 that cant be found anywhere. They aren't on "Peacock" or Youtube or anywhere on the net. I don't mean that literally. I'm sure there's some dark corner of the internet that has them. but if you just google or look on the standard places - they're gone. Poof.
Somalia is at the far end of Africa from the trans-Sahara slaving (and gold) route.
West Africa is a different place from East Africa.
The East African slave trade was centered in Zanzibar, south of Somalia, from which "Arab" (culturally anyway) slaving expeditions traveled long distances into Central and even West Africa. One of King Albert of Belgiums positive acts (among lots of negative ones) was to put down these Zanzibar slavers harassing his parts of the Congo.
Youtube will often have 5-10 episodes playlisted for a recurring SNL sketch or an episode but some or most of the sketches will be "Unavailable for people in your country" - I have no idea what that's about except to drive Americans to sign up for "peacock".
Travel through Central Africa, and from there into West Africa, was facilitated by convenient rivers and lakes. Overland travel to and from Somalia (or Ethiopia or what is now Kenya, etc) was not so convenient.
Stop your whining, kak. We get it, you has a sad.
Kak-a Donkey agrees. All news should be anti-Trump.
Today’s Scott Adams podcast is one of his best. First day back from the hospital. He’s a slow talker so easy to listen to at 2X
https://www.youtube.com/live/gMX5D6ExVKo?si=FatxGkrP4jMR45Dw
Also recommended: Dave Smith conversation with Nick Fuentes from a couple of months ago:
https://youtu.be/Ms3ZgvvgiN4?si=oyadiEMxy6KGV6cm
Many don’t know the tribute of this song but love its upbeat message nonetheless. Kodachrome is a high speed color photography medium developed by Kodak in the early 1900’s, and improved upon since. By the early ‘70s, Kodak had developed its 35mm format, and the result was an explosion of SLR camera sales… Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, etc.
As a teenager, saving my money to buy a Minolta XE5, I was aware of the song’s photography association, but I certainly was more aware of the impact of Kodak’s development of a 400 ASA color film. Finally, color photography, F-stop, and shutter speed all came together!
Paul Simon’s song seems prescient now, it was recorded a few years before the advent of Kodachrome 400 ASA technology, but it captured the joy of preserving a moment of our creative observation, and the keeping of a memory forever.
I still have that Minolta, and I feel a little bit guilty taking all of my pictures with my phone now. It just feels too easy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QSLw1yRre3c&t=194s&pp=2AHCAZACAQ%3D%3D
I got my Pentax SLR as a high school graduation gift. Luged that sucker and a couple of heavy lenses on a lot of mountain backpacking trips. What I wouldn't have given for today's technology. Still, I loved that camera. Gave it up a couple of years ago in a closet-cleaning exercise.
"West Africa is a different place from East Africa."
Yeah, that was kind of my point. Somalia is a lot closer to the Arabian Peninsula than Nigeria, but for some reason, the Arab slavers bypassed Somalia altogether. Just said, "Fuck That Shit!".
Similarly, the Europeans who invaded the Americas attempted to enslave the people they found there, who they called "Indians". But they found, universally, that the "Indians" did not make good slaves. Which is why they imported West African Negroes. No one ever thought it would be productive to import Somalians to anywhere, until the Democrats developed a way to use the utter fecklessness natural to Somalis to despoil their fellow white Americans.
What’s this? 2020 Election fraud confirmed! 315,000 ballots in Georgia ILLEGALLY CERTIFIED!
Big, not big?
The Spanish kings very early on (the first decree was issued four days after Columbus got back) banned the enslaving of natives of the Indies, as they considered these their subjects even if they had not yet formally submitted.
The conquistadors/settlers of course begged to differ. And medieval ideas of obedience made enforcement an issue.
The final decree issued by Carlos I (Emperor Charles V) in 1542 was supposed to settle the matter, but there were of course still workarounds, notably forced labor requirements (under which workers were levied for the silver mines of Potosi, etc).
The Indians did indeed make good workers. They were always the vast majority of the Spanish American workforce, running critical assets like the mines of Potosi and Guanajuato.
I speculate that the population of what was then Somalia was too sparse, the populations being migratory, and human transport too difficult in that environment.
My youngest son is now officially unengaged- she gave the ring back, no problem. After a long distance relationship for his 4 year Army tour. She told him {I don't want children!" Which they had already discussed. According to my son, she's been watching a lot of tik-tok videos, which I don't. However, on X, I see fairly often posts that suggest women sh-t test their men by disagreeing with something the woman knows the man wants, with the justification "If he really loves you, he'll stay." Well, if it's non-negotiable- he won't. Not all that hard to fall in love with someone else. Really bad advice if that's what she did. Also- he's a loser still living at home age 26. Hmmm, he gets along with us - she's a few miles from her parents paying rent. Still not sure if he's got the job location he'll stay in. Or the job he'll stay in. My 4 older children all moved out and in as they organized their life, went off to school and back, did their military time and returned, had a travelling job and left for promotions, came back for another, then moved out again for another... etc. When he moves out the next time it will probably be for good. My wife and I aren't worried about it. And neither is he. One of his cousins also got unengaged this week. We're not privy as to why, only that it surprised him also. Next family get-together ought be fun.
FullMoon: The Center for Immigration Studies is an American anti-immigration think tank. a totally inappropriate source for the Samali "statistic". The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham (1935-2017) alongside eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985.
Graham’s most controversial public engagement as a historian—one that brought him much criticism—was in favor of immigration restriction. But eugenicists and white nationalists were fine folks.
Denmark's postal service, PostNord, will cease all letter deliveries by the end of 2025 due to a significant decline in letter volumes, shifting its focus entirely to parcel deliveries. This marks the end of a 400-year tradition of letter mail service in Denmark. About 1500 employees will lose their jobs.
Now, can we count on Trump to blow away USPS letter and ad deliveries as well? So what percentage of our 635,000 postal jobs will go away? UPS, AMEX, and Amazon Prime already employ over 500,000 employees delivering parcels, but USPS continues to be the prominent "last mile" deliverer.
The CIS article cites its source as the ACS (American Community Survey) which is a product of the US Census.
https://cis.org/Report/Somali-Immigrants-Minnesota
ACS - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs.html
Go verify their data.
I see that Hoyt has linked to a blog that makes the argument that if you were born after ‘54, you aren’t really a boomer. I kind of agree, I identify more with Gen X, but that is not exactly true either, the blogger came up with Generation Jones. I think a good divider is was your birth year eligible to be drafted? It just seems like the people, like myself, young enough to have missed it, are different. Many of my older siblings’ friends ended up in combat in Vietnam, not as volunteers, everything was more serious at a younger age. The music that seems cute now was often deadly serious.
Gadfly: "Denmark's postal service, PostNord, will cease all letter deliveries by the end of 2025 due to a significant decline in letter volumes....Now, can we count on Trump to blow away USPS letter and ad deliveries as well?"
So it sounds like more than a Trump thing - like maybe an international cultural phenomenon. And the socialist Scandis are leading the way to a solution.
Don't you want the US to be more like Europe? CC, JSM
Hey, I understand the Minnesota logic: We screwed up the Horn of Africa during the Cold War, then abandoned it, so we owe something to its inhabitants. Bring em here and give em money.
I will accept that, if the left will accept the same logic for the Cape and the Boers. Bring em here and give em money. CC, JSM
Speaking of the Horn of Africa: We also screwed the hell out of Ethiopia and its successor states during the Cold War. Yet there doesn't seem to be the same behavior by Ethiopians, Eritreans, etc, over here. Why is that? CC, JSM
It’s a great day! Today will have more daylight than yesterday. We’ve turned the corner.
We should count our blessings. Too numerous to list. Starting with living in the greatest country on the planet.
35mm film format was old news by the 70s. It originated in the 20s for rangefinder film cameras before SLR cameras were developed in the late 50s early 60s. Early SLRs were rangefinder models with the mirror box and prism added- almost everything else was shared with the rangefinder.
Kak: " Here’s why America has a liberal media bias problem. CBS News postponed a "60 Minutes" segment Sunday because it lacked a Trump admin interview."
Think you have the causal arrow reversed there. Bari put a stop to the classic 60 Mins tricks like "we asked the Administration for a response [five minutes ago] but as of airtime they have not made a statement." CC, HSM
I wouldn't mind if Bari continued the classic 60 Mins camera chases and doorsteppers, but just used them equally on lefties. Many of them you wouldnt have to chase very fast....CC, JSM
Also speaking of African Cold War wreckage: why don't we insist that Russia do its bit for reparations, too?
The ChiComs arguably are doing so by their investment in the continent, even though they get a lot in return. Russia: bupkis. CC, JSM
I bet a big Somali barrio in Volgograd would be much better behaved than the one in Minneapolis....CC, JSM
This marks the end of a 400-year tradition of letter mail service in Denmark. About 1500 employees will lose their jobs.
Oh no! How will people get parcels delivered to their homes, if the government won't do it?
Imagine trying to explain this to someone in the future "There were these people who talked about free speech in prestigious publications all the time and they promoted the career of a woman who turned CBS into state media."
While we stand by the reporting in our 60 Minutes piece about El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison, it was missing crucial information—specifically about how woke campus protestors would benefit from a few weeks there to see how good they have it. ~ Bari Weiss /s
Don't you want the US to be more like Europe
Sure bit instead of Sweeeden they now have a taste for Stalin’s European plan…
I think Bari is scamming the Charlies but if she’s taking flack from the bots she’s fooling someone…
I’m all for Trump’s name not adorning the Kennedy Center. While we are at it please remove Kennedy’s name also. It tires me to read comments from his entitled whiny progeny.
Have the Kennedy offspring contributed anything to our society? Other than Teddy testing the buoyancy of an Oldsmobile Delta 88.
Kak’s first loyalty is to The Party, and so The Party’s total control of media is paramount, so to speak, and he envisions a future where The Party gets its boot on the neck of the entire globe, and its indoctrinated citizens will surely pretend to wonder at how The Party had slipped for a moment, just for a moment its infallibility called into question, like a golf ball that slightly dips into the hole, but then continues on.
Matt Taibbi has an interesting series of articles about the Epstein foo faw. He says it's the worst-reported story ever and there is little evidence of abuse by others than Epstein and Maxwell. (I haven't read the whole series yet, so this may be an overstatement.)
https://www.racket.news/p/the-jeffrey-epstein-saga-is-the-worst
@GoSpace.
Thanks for the update. I especially like the personal, very specific, random stories I see in the comments.
I looked. Couldn’t find a CBS interview of J6’ers in jail awaiting trial. I’m sure CBS is balanced or at least bias against governmental abuse of power that takes away the rights of citizens.
Although Wikipedia has a lefty bent, I read the backgrounds of people in the news. If one reads the Wiki post on Ghislane Maxwell, you come away shaking your head. Good grief this lady has had more things happen in her life than 10 people.
From the Matt Taibbi article about Epstein:
Did he hire women of any age to provide services to his many powerful friends? There’s no official accusation of this anywhere, which is remarkable given how prevalent is the notion of Epstein as a head of a “global sex trafficking ring.” In fact, three of the words used most often and most devastatingly with Epstein — global, trafficking, and ring — depend on one very dicey story about Prince Andrew told by perhaps the world’s most unreliable source, the late Virginia Giuffre.
https://www.racket.news/p/the-jeffrey-epstein-saga-is-the-worst
"Oh no! How will people get parcels delivered to their homes, if the government won't do it?"
Amazon dropped stuff off at our house 3 times yesterday. And they do it to make money, not lose it. (I know, that was the point you were making.)
Well ted volunteered to be traitor
For andropov and chernenko
Branson is in some of those file photos and Necker is the neighbor just down the way. Sir Rick made no secret of encouraging co mingling of the staff with the guests, a fuzzy line between corporate culture and slide deck business plan
Its a short hub and spoke from multi enterprise entrepreneur to McKinsey consultant to Disney Institute imagineer…
Strike "weakness," replace with "wisdom": "I, in my weakness, eschewed."
60 Minutes is still on the air?
Leland said:
I looked. Couldn’t find a CBS interview of J6’ers in jail awaiting trial. I’m sure CBS is balanced or at least bias against governmental abuse of power that takes away the rights of citizens.
worth a big hearty bold. The Soviet left removed their due process.
But the same Soviet left demand due process for all Illegals.
CBS is biased in favor of the international order now. Weiss has always been a neocon democrat.
Denmark stops delivering letters. This means, of course, that Donald Trump is a bad person.
TDS logic.
I have no brief for the Somalis, but "not making good slaves" is not necessarily a negative quality.
I’m watching that bomber pilot show on Apple. The freakin pows in the Stalags got their mail. my watch movement from Australia is stuck in Queens for a month and counting. Ask your UK friends about EVRI….
Somebody feed Phil claims Denmark has it all figured out bit he was there right before it all fell apart. It sounded great and that’s why it’s so attractive to voters without an econ class…
I would love to retire my mailbox. Nothing good comes of it.
Happiness is an empty mailbox.
Gerda, I read part of the Taibbi article yesterday. I think his overall premise is correct. I'm almost tempted to get a subscription to read more, but I don't know if I really care. That's especially true if Taibbi is correct. After all, if Epstein was nothing but a deviant person, who made lots of money, donated to the causes to make him a celeb to celebs, but otherwise didn't use his access to young women to sway others, then the only real story was why didn't anyone care (because he gave them money for their causes). The only thing left is where did he get the money (trading, but perhaps insider trading with regulators looking the other way because of influence, see most of Congress)?
Not bad!
Gospace: the Bible says a man leaves his family and enters the covenant with his wife. The way finances/security works today, too many young ppl are forever hitched to their first families and won't/can't let go. He can't keep putting his parents first, and she likely has no confidence he can break from you.... (Ie/ he got out and came home to live with you again and not her, And that is telling...)
Maybe she would have married him, but doesn't care for the way his parents would run their family? Let him go? After a hitch on the Army, he should be operating independently of you now ... Stay out of it, offering your opinions. Let him grow up and put a woman first? She might love him, but be unwilling to sign on to a man whose parents would influence the finances/raising of the children, etc
You're not helping him. Hth
"We screwed up the Horn of Africa during the Cold War, then abandoned it, so we owe something to its inhabitants. Bring em here and give em money."
Invade the World, invite the World.
"if Epstein was nothing but a deviant person, who made lots of money, donated to the causes to make him a celeb to celebs, but otherwise didn't use his access to young women to sway others, then the only real story was why didn't anyone care."
There were a lot of seats on that plane, and it wasn't called the "Filthy Lucre Express".
"The Indians did indeed make good workers. They were always the vast majority of the Spanish American workforce, running critical assets like the mines of Potosi and Guanajuato."
Those AmerIndians who were already living in cities and raising crops could be enslaved, or enserfed, or whatever. Hunter-gatherers did not do well in captivity.
I would like to blow up mailboxes with m80s like a kid again…or stand by me was making the rounds mailbox baseball looked fun…
The dog that did not bark.
The 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause says: “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 Constitution requires that members of the House of Representatives have been citizens for at least seven years, and senators for at least nine. It adds that each House “shall be the judge” of its members’ qualifications.
Several Democratic senators claimed in 1870 that their new colleague from Mississippi, Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first Black man to serve in Congress, had not been a citizen for the required nine years. They reasoned that the 14th Amendment had overturned Dred Scott (the 1857 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to the descendants of enslaved African Americans) just two years earlier, and that therefore he would not be eligible for another seven.
That argument failed. No one thought to challenge any other members on the ground that they were born to parents who were not citizens and who had not, under the law in place at the time, filed a declaration of intent to be naturalized.
Immigrants were not eligible to be naturalized until three years after that declaration was filed and until five years after they arrived in the United States. The process was not perfectly analogous to lawful permanent residency, but it was not so very different, either.
Consider the case of Representative William Prosser, Republican of Tennessee, who served from 1869 to 1871. The study’s authors could find no record that Mr. Prosser’s parents, who were immigrants from Wales, had filed a declaration of intent to become citizens before his birth in 1834. His father did file such a declaration, but not until 1874, when he was 64.
The consensus on the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause has long been that everyone born in the United States automatically becomes a citizen, with exceptions for those not subject to its jurisdiction, like diplomats and enemy troops.
But on his first day in office at the start of his second term, Mr. Trump issued an executive order saying the original meaning of the citizenship clause required drawing a different line. On one side are the children of citizens and lawful permanent residents, who are entitled to automatic citizenship. On the other side are the children of people in the United States, either unlawfully or temporarily, who are not.
Trump makes up laws as he goes, but the Supremes must honor the Constitution.
The dog that did not bark.
A phrase that reminds me of so many Democrat failure:
Biden’s border protection.
The failure of Minnesota to police its welfare programs.
Failure of Democrat judges to keep violent criminals off the street.
If only Democrats enforced the laws on the books rather than coming up with novel theories of law to prosecute their political foes.
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