February 15, 2025
"Trump Might Have a Case on Birthright Citizenship."
So say lawprofs Randy E. Barnett and Ilan Wurman (in the NYT).
That's a free-access link so you can read the whole thing, which is very tightly written and hard to excerpt. A lot depends on the idea, expressed by Lincoln’s first attorney general, that "The Constitution uses the word ‘citizen’ only to express the political quality of the individual in his relations to the nation; to declare that he is a member of the body politic, and bound to it by the reciprocal obligation of allegiance on the one side and protection on the other."
ADDED: Ilya Somin responds with "Birthright Citizenship - A Response to Barnett and Wurman/Their argument for denying birthright citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born in the US has multiple weaknesses, including that it would also have denied it to former slaves" (Reason).
That's a free-access link so you can read the whole thing, which is very tightly written and hard to excerpt. A lot depends on the idea, expressed by Lincoln’s first attorney general, that "The Constitution uses the word ‘citizen’ only to express the political quality of the individual in his relations to the nation; to declare that he is a member of the body politic, and bound to it by the reciprocal obligation of allegiance on the one side and protection on the other."
Then Barnett and Wurman ask: "Has a citizen of another country who violated the laws of this country to gain entry and unlawfully remain here pledged obedience to the laws in exchange for the protection and benefit of those laws?"
Do the American people feel outraged when federal workers lose their job?
Or are we happy to see all this vigorous economizing?
I keep seeing articles that seem to assume that it's a good issue for Democrats: How terrible that humble workers are getting fired!
Is that the public opinion, or do people think the federal government is over-inflated and not terribly beneficial? Trump got elected for a reason. What's the evidence that people want to see a preservation of the status quo?
The latest article I'm reading is "Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next/A DOGE team plans to fire federal workers who are not in DEI roles and employees in offices that protect equal rights, internal documents show" (WaPo)(free-access link).
Here's a pretty obtuse New Republic article: "It’s Time for Democrats to Woo the Man Vote."
That's by Susan Milligan. Subheadline: "The post-Dobbs emphasis on the women’s vote didn’t help the party among women—and it may have affirmatively alienated millions of men. It's time to treat men as an interest group."
Sample obtuseness:
Trump ridiculed trans rights, feeding a young male fear that young women were not just surpassing them, but perhaps trying to become them (a strategy that had the ancillary effect of appealing to mothers and fathers worried about their daughters’ bathrooms and locker rooms being invaded by trans women).
I don’t believe young men are worried that female-bodied persons are going to horn in on maleness and outdo them. No one's been talking about trans men. The focus — as the parenthetical concedes — has always been on trans women and how they might infringe on the interests of non-trans women.
"Across the country, there is no clear guidance for young people on how to have healthy relationships and hookups..."
"... no collective understanding of what consent means. They need this desperately, especially now, with a president who was found liable for sexually abusing one woman and who has bragged about assaulting others. This essential education cannot come just from squeamish gym teachers. One idea would be to put more of this work into the hands of teenagers themselves. This is not without precedent. In 1973 a group called the Student Committee for Rational Sex Education conducted workshops in a dozen New York City public schools. Peer educators ran learning centers that they called 'rap rooms,' where students could stop by during free periods. Unlike their adult counterparts, the teenage educators made sex ed fun and playful, motivating their peers to voluntarily seek answers to their questions or to watch a demonstration of a contraceptive device."
Writes Hillary Frank, in "Our Kids Cannot Learn About Sex Just From Squeamish Gym Teachers" (NYT).
Writes Hillary Frank, in "Our Kids Cannot Learn About Sex Just From Squeamish Gym Teachers" (NYT).
I don't like "how to have healthy relationships and hookups." Does "healthy" modify "hookups" as well as "relationships"? "Healthy hookups"? I'm sorry, I have no "collective understanding" of what that might be.
I enjoyed seeing the old term "rap rooms." There was a time when "rapping" just meant talking.
As for "squeamish" teachers... I can think of worse problems. Just do your job and teach the material. It's a science topic. Skip the dogma.
10 things I've asked Grok in the last 2 or 3 days.
1. Is it honest for me to say: I have no idea whether Trump has any idea whether Mitch McConnell had polio?
2. What poet had a beard, round glasses and wore a "poet’s hat"?
2. What poet had a beard, round glasses and wore a "poet’s hat"?
3. What is the origin of the phrase "take up the mantle"?
4. What have smart people had to say about the tendency to see images in words, including things that are not really relevant to the etymology of the word? For example, one might imagine that "ostracize" is connected to "ostrich" or "marginalize" relates to "margarine."
5. What is the argument that the crows in "Dumbo" are not a racist stereotype?
6. Does RFK Jr. speak of himself in terms of "Camelot"?
7. What is that famous saying about remaining silent because I was not X, Y, etc.?
8. Why do some people say you shouldn't use "impact" as a verb?
9. What is the episode of "Leave it to Beaver" where June and Ward Cleaver are turning over a mattress and Ward asks if it's mattress-turning day?
5. What is the argument that the crows in "Dumbo" are not a racist stereotype?
6. Does RFK Jr. speak of himself in terms of "Camelot"?
7. What is that famous saying about remaining silent because I was not X, Y, etc.?
8. Why do some people say you shouldn't use "impact" as a verb?
9. What is the episode of "Leave it to Beaver" where June and Ward Cleaver are turning over a mattress and Ward asks if it's mattress-turning day?
10. What if you had to argue that "The fog comes /on little cat feet" is actually very depressing and pessimistic?
"The vice president singled out his German hosts, telling them to drop their objections to working with a party that has often reveled in banned Nazi slogans...."
"He did not mention the party, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, by name, but directly referred to the longstanding agreement by mainstream German politicians to freeze out the group, parts of which have been formally classified as extremist by German intelligence. 'There is no room for firewalls,' Mr. Vance said, bringing some gasps in the hall.... The billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser to Mr. Trump, endorsed the AfD late last year... [and] publicly interviewed [Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in this month’s election].... Mr. Vance’s remarks drew a furious response from German leaders across most party lines. They immediately rejected Mr. Vance’s suggestion that they should drop their firewall against the AfD, pointing to past comments by the party’s members in support of the National Socialists, or Nazis.... The AfD and its members have a history of use of Nazi language and antisemitic and racist comments, along with plots to overthrow the federal government. The party has surged to second in the polls with its call to crack down on immigration. Mr. Vance did not note that baggage...."
From "Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme/His comments shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference and seemed to target efforts to sideline the hard-right party the Alternative for Germany" (NYT).
From "Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme/His comments shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference and seemed to target efforts to sideline the hard-right party the Alternative for Germany" (NYT).
What is that "history of use of Nazi language"? The link on that phrase goes to another NYT article, from last May, "German Court Fines Far-Right Leader for Using Nazi Phrase/Björn Höcke, a state leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, used the phrase 'Everything for Germany,' a slogan of the Nazi paramilitary wing, during a campaign stop." Excerpt:
"Alongside Romania, Germany and Sweden, Vance singled out the UK for some of the most scathing passages of his tirade."
"He complained that the British authorities had been jailing journalists.... Vance also railed against the 'crazy' conviction last year of Adam Smith-Connor, a physiotherapist and army reserve veteran, who was fined £9,000 for conducting a brief 'silent prayer' protest in the legal 'buffer zone' around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth. He then turned to the Scottish government, which he said had been distributing letters to households near abortion clinics that warned residents they would be committing a crime if they prayed against abortion in the privacy of their own homes. 'Actually, the government urged the readers to report any fellow citizens suspected to be guilty of thoughtcrime,' Vance told the Munich Security Conference. 'In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.'"
From "JD Vance attacks UK and EU over 'retreat of free speech'/Addressing the Munich Security Conference, the US vice-president avoided mentioning Ukraine but said censorship was more dangerous to the West than Russia" (London Times).
From "JD Vance attacks UK and EU over 'retreat of free speech'/Addressing the Munich Security Conference, the US vice-president avoided mentioning Ukraine but said censorship was more dangerous to the West than Russia" (London Times).
The full speech:
They weren't really saying babies are racist, but they made it easy to say that's what they're saying, and they were taking taxpayer money to propagate something the people don't want.
Funding for racist baby training is canceled https://t.co/M7H1ks4Vbr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2025
When Bill Clinton was King.
Sounds familiar https://t.co/umL0MKczTa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2025
"Musk and his goofily-named, wow-that-really-exists Department of Government Efficiency have been intent on the government budget slash-and-burn mission..."
"... since Donald Trump took office. They say that evil never sleeps, but apparently tech kajillionaires who have pretty bananapants power over federal infrastructure do, hence Musk’s alleged lil DOGE naps in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Stripping vulnerable and minority groups of their protections and advocates can really take it out of a guy, not to mention flipping science the fiscal bird! The EEOB is right across from the West Wing, and Musk is said to get comfy at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago when he’s down in Florida, so maybe it’s a matter of proximity and comfort. Ssshhh, he’s right there, he might whisper to himself, gazing out at the windows of Casa Trump, the TV’s soft blue light flickering in the night, his palm pressed to the glass of his own office. It’s okay."
Here's a history of the word "goon." In 1934, we get Alice the Goon, the character in E.C. Segar's "Thimble Theatre" comic strip:
I'm reading "Goodnight, Goon. Elon Musk Is Whispering 'Cuts,' Sleeping on the Floor Near the White House/He really is in the DOGEhouse, huh?" That's Kase Wickman, writing in Vanity Fair.
Does she hate Musk? Is she just in the company of people who can't openly love him? I don't know, but — whatever her condition — she's having fun with it.
She's only calling him a "goon" to make a play on the going-to-sleep children's book "Goodnight, Moon."
February 14, 2025
What should Democrats do? Defend "the system — of checks and balances, democratic norms, and institutions — and defend the virtues of foreign aid, federal spending, and the bureaucracy?..."
"A focus on saving democracy and protecting institutions might be more conducive to those who already believe in the system — an audience that overlaps significantly with their college-educated, liberal base. But a personal appeal — making the case that taxpayers’ personal information, money, and benefits are at risk — could attract less tuned-in, less educated, or less partisan Americans. It’s a fork in the road for Democrats, and they need to make a choice soon. For the last month, the Democrats’ resistance has appeared sporadic, slow, and splintered, enraging the party base.... A focus on Trump’s threats to democracy and anti-establishment tendencies does not appear to have been successful.... [P]erhaps Democrats will be more inclined toward a new strategy: an individualistic, populist appeal...."
From "The key question for Democrats hoping to take down Trump" (Vox).
From "The key question for Democrats hoping to take down Trump" (Vox).
Sad!
"[John F.] Kennedy concluded that, if outright confrontation failed, then circumvention of the process must be relied on..."
"... executive orders instead of legislation, extensions of authority for the team players, isolation of the less responsive parts of government. Let the uncooperative agencies atrophy, while a few vigorous men took on more and more general tasks…. More important is the extent to which he viewed his own administration as a raid of mobile 'outsiders' on the settled government of America. He had assembled a hit-and-run team to cut through enemy resistance, go outside channels, forgo meetings, subvert committees, dismantle structures. Democracies need such strong (and often secret) leadership by an enlightened few pitted against the many dullards of the bureaucracy."
So wrote the historian Garry Wills, in his 1982 book "The Kennedy Imprisonment," quoted at The Nation by Jeet Heer in "Donald Trump Is Stealing the Kennedy Brand."
So wrote the historian Garry Wills, in his 1982 book "The Kennedy Imprisonment," quoted at The Nation by Jeet Heer in "Donald Trump Is Stealing the Kennedy Brand."
Heer says Wills "rightly emphasizes that JFK’s brand of politics was deeply personal, based not on ideology but on charisma, with policies executed by a band of loyalists (including family members).... [T]he commonality with Trump is inescapable."
"What immediately stood out... just the fact of [Elon Musk] holding court next to a sitting President Trump for 30 minutes in [the Oval Office]."
"That is the very definition of American presidential power. It was the stature that it conferred on Musk, and you all know this, but there's been this running motif that Musk is a kind of co-president and Time Magazine went so far over the past couple days as to put Musk on the cover of its latest issue, sitting behind the resolute desk with a coffee mug in his hand.... So to see this scene of the richest man in the world standing in front of cameras. And this scene didn't seem to combat that, or did it?"
Asks Michael Barbaro, quite hilariously, at the beginning of today's episode of the NYT podcast, "The Daily," "Trump 2.0: Musk in the Oval..." (audio and transcript at Podscribe).
I say hilariously, because there has been all this effort to portray Trump as a huge narcissist who must be losing his mind over the ascension of Musk into a "co-President."
Trump has his framed mug-shot on the wall next to the door to the Oval Office.
Everyone who walks into the Oval office has to see Trump’s epic mugshot.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 14, 2025
It’s a reminder of what they did to him and why he won. pic.twitter.com/22qJKDSgqC
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