MARCH THOUGHTS

 I write this blog on the ancestral lands of the Lenape, Susquehannock, Shawnee and Iroquois peoples, the traditional caretakers of this water and land and internet.  We honor and pay our respects to indigenous communities here and around the world.

 

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On a t-shirt at Target worn by a 20-year-old guy:

 

 THIS IS THE ONLY SHIRT I COULD FIND

 THAT DOESN’T HAVE CUM ON IT

 

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Since it appears unlikely there will ever be a serious investigation into the attempted totalitarian takeover of America via the COVID pandemic, I will settle for Trump issuing a (very public) Presidential Pardon for treason to Anthony Fauci for the crimes he committed in secretly funding the development of COVID-19 in Wuhan, funding gain-of-function research contrary to U.S. policy, lying to Americans about the nature of mRNA vaccines and vaccine efficacy, masks, social distancing, lock-downs, asymptomatic spread of the virus, the wisdom of lockdowns, etc.  It will be a lengthy declaration.

 

Also named in the Pardon would be Deborah Birx, CDC Director Rochelle Wallensky, US Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and various governors and state officials whose actions killed tens of thousands of vulnerable elderly people by exposing them needlessly to COVID.  This list would include Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.), Phil Murphy (N.J.), Tom Wolf (PA), Rachel Levine (PA), Gretchen Whitmer (Mich.), and many others.

 

This idea is not originally mine.  Hat tip to Capt. Seth Keshel.

 

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The movie Hidden Figures (2016) is about the U.S. space program in the 1950s and 60s when much of the math was still being done by hand.  One scene depicts a meeting of the engineers and mathematicians a few days before John Glenn’s historic orbital flight.  Everybody in the room (especially Glenn himself), is concerned about the data from IBM computers.

 

Katherine Johnson is the only black person in the room, and when the meeting ends, Glenn tells the head of the unit, “Get the girl to do it.  I want the human computer to check the output of the electronic computer, and if she says they’re good, then I’m good to go.”

 

Glenn was not sure he would get in the space capsule.  Only when Katherine Johnson (who had to fight to get in the room), said it was OK did John Glenn finally agree.

 

For those of us old enough to remember that era, the scene rings true.  Then, if your path crossed that of a black professor or lawyer or doctor or some other professional, your first thought was usually, “Wow.  You must be good.  To get where you are you probably had to put up with an enormous load of crap.”

 

And that was Glenn’s conclusion as well.  He didn’t know anything about Katherine Johnson but she was not just the only black person in the meeting, she was a woman as well, so he assumed she had the sharpest math mind in the room and he was willing to put his life in her hands.

 

Today, the situation has flipped.  With affirmative action programs and DEI, you no longer assume that the minority person (unless he’s Asian), is the best of his profession.  Now, when you see a black doctor or a female pilot, you wonder whether they were subject to lower standards or received breaks in their training.  There’s always going to be a nagging doubt regarding their competence, especially if it’s a person to whom you are entrusting your life.

 

And it’s a stigma, meaning the doubt attaches to every professional from a favored minority group, including those who were straight-As, top-of-the-class, 800-SAT students.  If you’re black or female or Hispanic, somebody’s going to wonder whether you’re genuinely a star or whether you got some help along the way.

 

The stigma is one price we pay for a system that is not based on merit.

 

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“I have to have an orgasm a day with my macrobiotic diet, you see.”

--from “The Driver’s Seat,” a 1974 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor

 

Guys will say anything to get women (especially Liz Taylor), to sleep with them, but I suspect this argument does not yield a high percentage of coital success.

 

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I don’t want to overwhelm you with the things I love about the new Trump administration, but I was DONE with affirmative action, DEI, pronouns, critical race theory, quotas, anti-racism and the rest of the “nice” racism twenty years ago.  I just never thought we would have a president with the guts to condemn it all and try to get rid of it.  I thank him for that.

 

I hate nice racism.  In fact, I think I hate nice racism more than I hate mean racism just because mean racism is almost impossible to find but nice racism still shows up everywhere.

 

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Trump has come in for plenty of criticism during his second term, and that is to be expected.  Haters hate---it’s what they do---and they hate him now no matter what he does.  When he shuts down secret government censorship agencies, and tells the EU they should allow free speech, the haters hate him.  When he finds people defrauding the U.S. out of billions of dollars, the haters decide they like the fraud and corruption.  When he makes a 13-year-old cancer victim an honorary Secret Service agent, they mock him for it, and they mock the kid too.  His efforts may lead to an end of the killing in both Gaza and the Ukraine, but even if he succeeds, the haters will never give him credit for it.

 

So be it.

 

I must respond to one aspect of the endless criticism, however, and that is the claim that Trump has “launched an assault upon the rule of law” or ignored court orders or violated the Constitution.  This charge is made by dopes as well as by sophisticated political observers.  It is even made by lawyers (which is unforgiveable).  All that is necessary to level this charge is an irrational hatred of Trump.  It is simply not true, and whenever I demand specific examples of this attack on the law itself, they are never forthcoming.

 

Trump does not defy orders from courts, no matter how ridiculous they are or how far they may go beyond the court’s legitimate jurisdiction.  When Trump issues an Executive Order relating solely to the executive branch of government, of which he is in charge, and the Democrats find a district court judge in the Northwest District of East Wherever who will rule that Trump’s Order can’t be obeyed, Trump does not defy it.  He never does.  There are plenty of us who think he should defy that order, that it is his duty under the Constitution to defy that judge’s illegitimate order, but he never does it.  He appeals it, and when that Trump-hating judge is reversed by a higher court, Trump wins.  But he never steps outside the legal lines.  Biden defied the law repeatedly. (Remember the student loan forgiveness the Supreme Court told him he couldn’t do, but then he did it anyway?). So did Obama.  (Remember when he announced there were laws he would not enforce even though it was his Constitutional duty to do so?)

 

Trump likes litigation.  Don’t ask me why, but he does.  He sues people a lot, and they sue him as well.  I’ll bet there was never a time in the last fifty years he was not on a court docket somewhere.  He uses the courts to get his way, he uses the courts to intimidate people, he uses the courts to exact revenge on people who have screwed him, and now he uses the courts to establish the lines of authority between himself and the other two branches of government.  But he has always acknowledged their authority.

 

Whenever Trump does something the haters don’t like, they say he is abusing his power.  But his power is enormous, and his power over the Executive branch is total.

 

The first sentence of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, states as follows:

 

“The executive Power shall be vested in a

President of the United States of America.”

 

And that’s it.  That’s all there is.  Judges have no executive power.  Bernie Sanders has no executive power.  Nobody else in the executive branch has any executive power unless the president says, “Hey, Elon.  Here’s some of my executive power.  Use it for a while to do some stuff I want you to do but then it comes back to me when I say you’re done.”  Sure, there are some limits, but just a few.  He can’t name the Secretary of State all by himself; he needs the Senate to “advise and consent.”  And he can’t bind the country to a treaty by himself either.  

 

Get it?  Donald Trump is not just some guy you don’t like, he’s also a frickin branch of government.  He is the executive branch.  So if he does something within the executive branch, like re-arranging one of the agencies or declassifying a document, or firing executive employees who are stealing government money and giving it to their friends, he can do it.  And any federal judge who claims he can’t should be removed from office.  Most of the (unelected) federal judges who issue these orders know they have no authority to do so but they do it anyway.  That’s why people like Obama put these partisans on the bench, so they will stop elected Republicans from doing the things they were elected to do.

 

As the Executive Orders, injunctions, and appeals pile up, a showdown or showdowns await at the Supreme Court.  And when the ruling comes down that the president has 100% of the executive power under the Constitution, and federal district judges have none, the dam will break and Trump’s orders will be carried out.  I’ll be doing the Snoopy dance that day.

 

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This piece is being published on the 5^th anniversary of the COVID lockdown going into effect in Pennsylvania and many other places.  I have written about trying to get one last drink at Billy Murphy’s bar on the day before St. Patrick’s in 2020, but finding they had already shut the doors.  Bars and restaurants closed across the state.  All of them.

 

I should have seen at that moment that the thing was a scam designed to induce panic and obedience in the populace.  Any ruling that Billy’s was somehow “nonessential” was obviously part of a massive fraud and an attempt to subjugate the free citizens of the Commonwealth, and I still regret that it took me another two weeks to understand what was happening.

 

What did it was the sudden about-face from all the Faucis and CDCs and WHOs, who simultaneously decided not only that wearing a diaper on your face would stop a respiratory virus, but that the only sensible thing to do was to force EVERYBODY to wear the diaper.  The giveaway was that there was no science to support this madness and there never had been.  They would publish some articles in medical journals a couple months later that sort-of said the masks worked, and nobody bothered to pick them apart and mock them though it was easy enough to do.  By that point, the terror campaign had worked and everyone knew there would be a heavy price to pay for questioning the madness.

 

That day, March 16, 2020, changed everything.  Those of you who know me are aware I am a political conservative, but I had always more-or-less accepted the role of politics and collective life in America.  Government built roads and bridges and collected the trash.  It set up schools to teach children the basic skills for life.  It protected us from criminals, or at least tried to.  If someone fell through the cracks and couldn’t take care of himself, the government would help.  Of course there was corruption and theft, and politicians were often egomaniacs, or immoral, or stupid, but some kind of government was necessary, and the people involved in it mostly wanted to make it work.

 

Then suddenly, on March 16, 2020, it all changed.  It was as if every important player in society suddenly saw this new virus as a way to take over the world and they all jumped at the opportunity to take our rights and our freedom away.  They closed the churches, schools, libraries, movies, and restaurants.  Public gatherings were banned.  People were separated from family members even if they were elderly and dying.  Any business that was based in some human interaction was shut down.  And any resistance to the New Normal was met with jail or fines or job loss or having your life disassembled.  And no discussion was permitted.  Dissent got you censored and silenced.  Conscientious doctors reporting (unwelcome) scientific conclusions lost their licenses to practice medicine.  Even the courts were mostly shut down so there was no place to fight the tyranny.

 

There was nowhere to turn.  Politicians relished their new power, of course, but all the anonymous, unelected elites who run our world also embraced the shutdown of civil society.  Academia jumped on board, and the news media, and social media companies and tech companies and insurance companies and medical societies and all the bureaucrats in all the government agencies.

 

And in addition to fulfilling their dream of ruling the world, most of them got rich in the process.  The fortunes mysteriously acquired by government people like Fauci and Schumer and Bernie Sanders (et tu, Bernie?) and all the media companies, and the ambiguously-named NGOs, shock us because we thought they were fundamentally good people rather than the thieves and grifters we now understand them to be.

 

Some of that has been stopped, and more of it might be.  We’ll never get our money back but maybe we can stop the fake economy they created with the printing-press money we had to pay for with years of inflation.  Worse is the spike-protein still inside the hundreds of millions who took the COVID vaccines.  Their lives will be shortened, their babies will die, and there doesn’t seem to be anything that can be done about it.  Even worse is that the same people are cranking up the machinery for H5N1 bird-flu vaccines---first for chickens, then for cattle, and finally for us.

 

Still, there have always been horrible people in the world and they have always done horrible things.  And while I was naïve to believe that the politics and institutions of our civil society were based in a benevolent impulse rather than greed and an insatiable lust for power, I have learned that lesson and I can live with it.  I will never trust a journalist again, or a politician, or a bureaucrat, or a so-called “scientist” until I obtain substantial proof they are not merely pursuing their own selfish agendas at my expense.  I don’t care how authoritative they may sound or how much I may want to believe what they are saying.

 

But the great sadness I feel on this fifth anniversary of 3-16-20 is not from the realization that doctors are no longer professionals but just functionaries who do what they’re told, or that government agencies have been captured by the industries they are supposed to regulate, or that Bill Gates wants to kill off a third of the world’s population.  What I can’t abide is that friends, neighbors, and family members gave in to the panic without a second thought.  They believed every lie they were told from the beginning.  The information was out there about masks and social distancing and asymptomatic spread and the dangers of the vaccines, and a large majority of the people I know never went looking for it.  Whatever Lester Holt or Jake Tapper or David Muir or Jimmy Kimmel or Joe Biden told them had to be true, and when they were told that people like me were dangerous and should be shunned, they did so.  (Even my doctors dumped me.)  And they still shun me. To most friends and neighbors and to all my extended family, I remain a leper.

 

I’m not expecting apologies.  I know it’s hard for people to admit they were fooled, but I think they are still hanging on to the propaganda because they can only justify their behavior the last five years if the COVID lies were true.  It’s called cognitive dissonance.  People will do any sort of mental gymnastics to avoid admitting to themselves they were duped.  And as long as there’s no official “COVID Commission” and as long as Anthony Fauci and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla are not in prison, nobody will be forced to face the truth.  We can all just pretend “mistakes were made” or it never really happened quite the way it did. 

 

But while I’m not expecting apologies, I don’t see how I can trust the people who crossed the street to avoid saying hello, or who, when they were told I was scum, treated me that way.  When the bird flu is launched, or whatever the next panic is, the people who dumped me will put the masks back on and stand on the stickers in the grocery store and get the new vaccines.  And I will again be the dirty thing who has to be quarantined or forced to get the shot or barred from society.

 

No thanks.

 

Copyright2025MichaelKubacki

MORE ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

         In the last piece I wrote about this issue, I offered my conclusions about the legal arguments that are being made, and about how the Supreme Court will ultimately rule.  I am convinced that birthright citizenship will survive, meaning that a baby born on American soil (with very few exceptions), will continue to be, automatically, an American citizen.  It will not be a close decision.  I would bet money that at least seven justices will reject the arguments from Trump, his MAGA lawyers, and the various pro-Trump media pundits currently howling about the babies of illegal immigrants and how outrageous it is that, under our law, they are Americans.

 

         Following further research, I have found more legal ammo to support the pro-birthright position.  In addition, I will discuss the matter from a policy perspective (something I didn’t do in the last article).  I’m convinced that getting rid of birthright citizenship is not only legally wrong, it’s also a dumb idea.

 

         The major problem facing those who would deny citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to illegals is the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment:

 

                  “All persons born…in the United States,

                     and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,

                     are citizens of the United States….” 

 

         I have seen attempts to construct an argument that the babies are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., but these never seem to get very far.  Ask them why the kid would not be subject to our jurisdiction, and they tend to wander off and start talking about the parents and whose jurisdiction the parents are subject to.  The country of their origin, supposedly—Guatemala or someplace.  But what does that have to do with the kid?  Nothing.

 

         Then, they move on to the original purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, and there is no question the motivation for it was the Civil War and the desire to make it clear once and for all that the black slaves of America were no longer slaves and never would be again.  The opponents of birthright citizenship then argue that it was only about slaves and former slaves, and should never have been used to make the babies of illegal aliens citizens.

 

         This argument cannot be tossed aside completely because there is some legal reasoning behind it.

 

         When courts are trying to interpret the meaning of a law or a regulation or a Constitutional provision that was enacted many years before, one of the things they will look at (sometimes), is what the rule or law was originally intended to cover.   What is most important is the plain meaning of the words at the time they were written into law, and only when there is some uncertainty about that will the court try to look into the minds of the legislators who voted on the law and figure out what they meant.  That sort of analysis can happen.  Here, however, “persons…born in the United States” means persons born in the United States.  It is not at all ambiguous, and it means the same thing in 2025 as it did in 1868.

 

         And there is another nail to be hammered into this coffin.  The argument that the Fourteenth Amendment was only intended to cover America’s black slaves has already been rejected many times when that argument was made about the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery throughout the United States.  It states:

 

         “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…

            shall exist within the United States, or

             any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

 

The Thirteenth Amendment was signed by Lincoln in 1865 and ratified later that year. Lincoln’s intent was to wipe out slavery, and he feared that his Emancipation Proclamation (the equivalent of an Executive Order today) could be reversed by a future president.

 

  There is no question that the sole purpose of the Thirteenth Amendment was to ban the chattel slavery that had given rise to the Civil War. However, it has been repeatedly used to fight other forms of slavery and involuntary servitude that had no relation to the plight of black slaves in the South.

 

As early as 1872, in The Slaughterhouse Cases, the Supreme Court wrote about the reach of the Thirteenth Amendment:

 

“We do not say that no one else but the negro can share in this protection. Both the language and spirit of these articles are to have their fair and just weight in any question of construction. Undoubtedly while negro slavery alone was in the mind of the Congress which proposed the thirteenth article, it forbids any other kind of slavery, now or hereafter. If Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie labor system shall develop slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may safely be trusted to make it void. And so if other rights are assailed by the States which properly and necessarily fall within the protection of these articles, that protection will apply, though the party interested may not be of African descent.”  83 U.S. 36, at 72 (1872).

 

In 1905, the case of Clyatt v. U.S.  ruled that peonage laws (which ban a form of debt-servitude), were allowed under the Constitution because they are outlawed by the slavery provision of the Thirteenth Amendment, even though the practice of peonage had nothing to do with race.

 

More recently, the Thirteenth has been used to ban sex trafficking.

 

In other words, though the motivation for the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery was the ownership of black people in the antebellum South, the law was never going to be limited to black people.  Its plain language (banning all slavery), would prevail.

 

Therefore, there is no good reason why the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment should not prevail as well.

 

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And then there are the policy arguments.  The only ones you hear (or maybe the only ones I hear), are from those who want to end birthright citizenship.  You have heard it too: "They sneak into this country illegally and they have a baby and suddenly the baby is a citizen here!  WTF???”

 

But there is an argument on the other side.

 

There are two major categories of citizenship laws.  Blood citizenship (jus sanguinis) provides legal citizenship to those who can trace their ancestry to existing citizens.  If your parents or grandparents were German citizens, you too are a German citizen.  This system is the basic law throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

 

Birthright citizenship (also called jus soli), is what we have almost everywhere in North and South America, and this “law of the soil” has little to do with your ancestors.  If you are born in Rio, you are Brazilian.  If you are born in Billings, Montana, you are an American.

 

Historically, it’s not surprising.  Europe was composed of hundreds of tiny principalities and duchies and city-states and kingdoms and ethnic/language groups that were constantly invading each other.  If you were French, you might be able to trust other French people, but the Germans?  Well, that was another story.

 

In the New World, none of those old rivalries and hatreds mattered quite as much.  For one thing, there was no such thing as an American until about 300 years ago, or a Guatemalan, or a Chilean, so the ancient conflicts didn’t exist.  Also, the new lands were hungry for people, so if you and your family showed up and started growing crops and hunting deer, nobody was going to question your bona fides.  “You wanna be a ‘citizen?’  OK, you’re a citizen.”

 

The situation in America today is not what it was in 1700, but is it so terribly different?  Unlike “French” or “Greek,” “American” was never an ethnic group or a genetic identity, and it still isn’t.  Being American has never been primarily about who your daddy was, but about accepting a certain collection of ideas about government and liberty and law, and these ideas remain the reason why people from all over the world want to come here.  Also, it is not lost on impoverished people from all over the world that you can actually become an American if you move here, learn some English, get a job, and pick an NFL team.  You can become an American in a matter of weeks.  And yes, maybe you can better yourself in Italy too, but you will never be an Italian.

 

And neither will your kids, or your kids’ kids.  It’s extremely unlikely you or your kids or your kids’ kids will ever get to vote, or run for Mayor, or be a full-fledged member of the community in a country with blood citizenship.  That’s what blood citizenship means.  That’s the system Trump and his supporters want to impose on America.

 

It used to be nearly impossible to become a naturalized citizen in Europe.  It’s possible now, with a combination of time, language classes, employment, income, and passing tests, but it’s still not easy.  And it’s a problem.  There are people living in Germany who are not citizens even though their family has lived there for generations.  As a result, they are never fully integrated into their society, and they are not viewed as “German” by their neighbors.

 

The problem has only gotten worse with the influx of millions of Arabs and Africans.  Almost none are citizens and there is almost no chance they will become citizens.  One result is that most live in enclaves and make little attempt to integrate into the country where they reside.  Many see little reason to abide by the laws or customs, and they often do not recognize the police or local authorities as having any legitimacy over them.  If birthright citizenship is ended in the United States, we would face a similar situation here, with tens of millions of mostly-Latino immigrants having no possible path to connecting with America and seeing no possible path for their children or grandchildren either.

 

And finally, there is one more aspect of blood citizenship I find disturbing and unacceptable.  Countries under a system of blood citizenship must maintain a vast collection of genealogical records on the ethnic backgrounds and race of their people, and that is information that I don’t want any goddam government to have.  In the 1930s, of course, this data was very helpful to the German authorities who wanted to know just who the “real Germans” were.

 

Copyright2025MichaelKubacki            

 

Coming Soon—Seven More Executive Orders From Trump

1.    Rename Canada “North Cuba.”

 

2.    Designate golf as America’s fourth major sport and relegate ice hockey to fifth place.

 

3.    The United States doesn’t have an official language, though 32 states grant “English” that honor.  The hell with that.  Chinese is what they speak in China, German is what they speak in Germany, and English is what they speak in England.  Trump should declare “American” our official language.

 

4.    Amend his previous E.O. about genders and sports and let the trans girls play women’s flag football because, really, who would ever watch it anyway?  

 

5.    Rename the Mediterranean Sea the Gulf of Melania.  With that whole Stormy Daniels thing, it’s the least he can do.

 

6.    Rescind the designated hitter rule.

 

7.     Make Pluto a planet again.

 

Copyright2025MichaelKubacki

 

2025 NFL Playoffs---THE SUPERBOWL

Philadelphia vs. Kansas City (-1.5)

 

         I’m not going to decide suddenly that the Chiefs are one of the better teams in the playoffs.  They are not.  Of the 14 combatants, they were better than Houston and on a par with Denver.  Their luck will run out, and it will happen against the Eagles on February 9, 2025.

 

         Philly dominates in every category that matters.  Their Adjusted Yards per Pass is 6.5 versus K.C.’s 5.3.  Their defensive AYP is 4.3, best in the playoffs, versus K.C.’s 5.4.  Philly outscored its opponents by more points than K.C. did, and registered more blow-out wins as well.

 

         The wrong team is favored.  The game should not be close.  Take the Eagles.

 

Copyright2025MichaelKubacki

 

Trump 2.0---Birthright Citizenship

 

         Trump wants to get things done.  This sometimes means that he proceeds with policy that may be challenged under existing law, or under the US Constitution.  If he thinks his policy is a good one, his attitude often betrays a willingness to fight the legal battles in the hope that his lawyers can beat their lawyers.  Biden and Obama and G.W. Bush all did this as well, and they did not appear to believe they had any responsibility to decide for themselves whether a course of action was legal or constitutional.

        Occasionally, they admitted they didn’t have the constitutional power to pursue an action, but then would try to implement it anyway.  One example: Biden’s “forgiveness” of student debt.  Another: Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill even though he said he thought it was unconstitutional.  At the time, there were commentators who believed this was an impeachable offense.

 

         This is a change.  Presidents used to believe they had an independent duty to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”   It is, after all, a commitment they make in the oath of office they take upon their inauguration.  Thus, they would restrain themselves from taking actions if they felt they were overstepping their legal bounds.  No more. 

 

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         Trump’s first showdown issue, one that is already in the courts, is his attempt to end birthright citizenship, the largely-accepted doctrine that a baby born on U.S. soil is an American citizen regardless of the immigration status of the baby’s parents.  He is trying to do this by means of an executive order.

 

         The relevant provision of the U.S. Constitution is found in Section 1 of the 14^th Amendment, which 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.”

 

         Passed in 1865, the primary purpose of this Amendment was to make clear that former slaves were now citizens of the U.S.  It effectively overruled the Dred Scott decision, which had said they were not.

 

         The key phrase here is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”  Since an Executive Order cannot overrule or ignore a Constitutional Amendment, Trump’s argument is that he is merely interpreting the phrase (in a way that no one has interpreted it before).  He is claiming that a baby of illegal immigrants is “not subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, so that baby is not a citizen.

 

         Since 1865, the phrase has been interpreted to mean that a baby born in the U.S. to a foreign diplomat does not thereby become a U.S. citizen.  Because of diplomatic immunity, the diplomat is mostly not subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. authorities, and his family is also viewed as immune.

 

         Native Americans were the other category of people deemed not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. because they were regarded as citizens of their various tribal nations and subject to the jurisdiction of tribal courts.  They became citizens through an act of Congress passed in 1924, but most were not U.S. citizens prior to that time.

 

         But every other baby became a citizen instantly.  Over the years, various courts have had to interpret the language of the 14^th Amendment and have uniformly viewed children born on U.S. soil to be citizens from birth.  The primary authority on this point is an opinion of the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

 

         Mr. Ark was born in San Francisco of Chinese parents who were living (“legally domiciled”) in California.  Years later, the parents returned to China to live, and some years after that, their son traveled to China to visit them.  Upon returning to San Francisco, Mr. Ark was denied admission to the country.  The case proceeded against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded Chinese immigrants from entering the U.S.

 

         In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that, based upon the plain language of the 14^th Amendment, Mr. Ark was a U.S. citizen and could not be denied entry.  He had been born in the United States and had been “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

 

         There are legal scholars today who distinguish the Ark decision because Mr. Ark’s parents were legally present in the U.S.  The doctrine, they argue, should not apply to children of illegal immigrants.  This distinction was not discussed in the Ark opinion, and the concept of “illegal immigrant” really did not exist in 1898, at least not as the term is used today.

 

         Some confusion arises because the word “jurisdiction” itself has several meanings.  For example, a British tourist traveling through America is subject to most of the same laws I am.  If he kills someone, he can be tried for murder, and if he causes a car accident, he may be liable for damages.  On the other hand, he doesn’t have to register for the draft or sign up for jury duty, and he can’t vote in our elections.  The fact there are different meanings of the word “jurisdiction” opens the door to confusion (or even dishonesty), about the meaning of the 14^th Amendment.

 

         The argument made by those who would define birthright citizenship out of existence is that illegal immigrants who come to the U.S. and birth a baby are not subject to our jurisdiction because they are subject to the jurisdiction of, let’s say, Guatemala, and the U.S. doesn’t even know they’re here.  This may be a fair observation, but it is irrelevant because we are not interested in the citizenship of the parents, we are only interested in the citizenship of the baby.

 

         The question that is never answered by those who want to eliminate birthright citizenship is: why wouldn’t the kid be subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. government?  Guatemala doesn’t even know he exists, but America does.  He will have a birth certificate, a social security number, and he will enroll in a school in a few years.  He will probably be claimed as a dependent on somebody’s 1040.  He will take a driving test and get a license.  He will register for the draft.  While he might be accepted as a citizen of Guatemala if he requests that status or if his parents request it on his behalf, he does not automatically or instantly become a citizen there.

 

         According to the plain meaning of the language in the 14^th Amendment---“persons born…in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof….” ---the baby is a citizen.

 

         And let me tell you something about Clarence Thomas and the other conservative justices of the Supreme Court.  They like plain language.  Giving legal voice to the plain language is what “originalism” is all about.

 

         In searching for the meaning of language in the Constitution, originalists look to the original language and what it meant at the time it was used.  That is why Roe v. Wade had to be overturned, because the words “abortion” and “privacy” do not appear in the Constitution and are not even hinted at by the original language.  For similar reasons, “persons born in the United States” will be interpreted to mean what it meant in 1865, which is the same thing it means today. Its crystal-clear meaning will prevail.  Trump and his legal crew will tell you it meant “black people born in the United States” or “former slaves born in the United States,” but that is not what it says and there is no chance this Supreme Court will interpret it that way.

 

         Birthright citizenship will be upheld 9-0 by the Supreme Court.

 

Copyright2025MichaelKubacki

2025 NFL Playoffs---CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS

 

Washington @ Philadelphia (-6)

 

         Quarterback Jalen Hurts, as the saying goes, is what he is.  He is a fairly accurate passer but can’t find secondary receivers.  He also lacks the clock most QBs have in their heads that tell them when it’s time to get rid of the ball.  With a good team around him, when he is healthy, he is good enough to win a championship.  Not all Super Bowls are won by Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.

 

         Hurts also plays well within his limitations.  He has had trouble at times with fumbling and throwing interceptions, but he studies hard and changes his game and eliminates (for a while) the glaring errors that get quarterbacks benched.

 

         The problem is that his limitations have increased.  There was a concussion three weeks ago, and then a knee injury.  He will play against the Redskins on Sunday, but he will have to play as a pocket passer, and nobody fears Hurts as a pocket passer.  Washington will focus extra attention on Saquon Barkley and they will force Hurts to beat them by passing.  His play has steadily declined, and he will not be able to.

 

         This game is a test of my views on playoff football.  Philly has a half dozen star defensive players and might have the best defense in the NFL.  They also have a great offensive line and the MVP-quality Saquon Barkley.  What they do not have is a quarterback who, when the critical moment arrives, can throw the ball down the field and drive his team to the endzone.  That is the thing Super Bowl winners have, and the Eagles do not.

 

         Looking at the numbers over the course of the season, the Eagles are better.  The edge in Adjusted Yards per Pass is only 6.5 to 6.1, but the Eagles pass defense is significantly better than Washington’s, and they have outscored opponents by more than the Redskins have.  The teams split their two games this year, with Philly winning 26-18 on November 14, and Washington winning 36-33 on December 22, when Hurts left the game early with an injury.

 

         The playoffs tell a different story.

 

         Washington beat Tampa in OT, with Daniels going 24/35 for 268 yards and a 7.7 AYP.  Then there was his dominating performance in Detroit, going 22/31 for 299 yards and a 9.6 AYP.  Daniels, though he is a rookie, is only getting better as the playoffs roll on.

 

         The Eagles beat Green Bay and the Rams, but you can’t attribute any of their success to Hurts.  Against the Packers, he passed for 131 yards.  Against the Rams, he threw for 128 and took 7 sacks, one of which resulted in a safety.  The Philly wins were ALL Saquon and ALL defense.

 

         And that might happen again.   Saquon and the defense are that good.  The Iggles might win the game.

 

         But though it pains me to say it, I’m taking the other side.  The Skins have a real shot at winning outright, so you have to take the 6 points.

 

Buffalo @ Kansas City (-1.5)

 

         Buffalo beat the best team in the AFC last week, so this should be quite a bit easier.

 

         The Bills have a significant advantage over the Chiefs in every number that matters.  The largest is Buffalo’s AYP of 6.9 compared to K.C.’s 5.3.  It’s a huge edge for the Bills, and if you have watched them, you have seen the difference.  Josh Allen completes big pass plays.  Mahomes does not.

 

         Each team has an adequate pass defense, and Buffalo has outscored their opponents by almost 10 points per game while K.C. has beaten theirs by only a field goal per game.

 

         Kansas City, as #1 seed in the AFC, has played only one playoff game, in which they were dominated by the Houston Texans but somehow won 23-14.  Mahomes threw for 177 yards and K.C. had 50 yards rushing---basically a pathetic offensive performance.  Afterwards, the focus of conversation and commentary was the refereeing, which featured several practically supernatural penalty calls, all of which favored the Chiefs at critical moments.

 

         There was so much howling about the penalty calls, most of which seemed designed to protect NFL golden boy Patrick Mahomes, that the result should be yet another advantage for Buffalo.  The referees in this game will certainly be aware of the dreadful officiating last Saturday, and will be careful not to repeat it.  Buffalo can probably expect a fair shake, and might even get the better of “the breaks.”

 

         And that’s all they will need.  The Bills are better.  They should win handily.

 

Copyright2025Michael Kubacki