The blowback begins. A number of news stories today say that Trump’s blanket pardon for nearly all J6 convicts caught a lot of Republicans off guard. I don’t know why; it certainly didn’t surprise me. I would have been more surprised if he’d only pardoned a few of them. But apparently a lot of Republicans had been confident the rioters who had assaulted the police would remain in jail. And now they’re flapping around trying to decide what would hurt them more politically — supporting the release of violent criminals who assaulted cops or disagreeing with Trump. Miz Lindsey says he’ll have something to say by the weekend. Police unions that had endorsed Trump criticized the move. Even the Wall Street Journal is miffed about it, I hear. After all this time, they still are trying to see Trump as a better man than he obviously is.

And if any of those freed rioters does any harm whatsoever to anyone else, the Dems had better hang that around Trump’s neck with lead weights.

But I mostly want to talk about birthright citizenship today. I was seeing all kinds of disinfo on social media claiming that “birthright citizenship” is only available to people who can give full allegiance to the U.S. I found out this allegiance talk is coming from the Nazi Heritage Foundation. And I’m having a hard time understanding now a newborn baby has any allegiances at all, other than to Momma. But I’ll come back to this.

Regarding illegal aliens, note that when the 14th Amendment was passed by Congress and ratified — in 1866 and 1868 — there was no such thing as an “illegal alien.” There couldn’t be, because there were no federal immigration laws. Anyone who got off a boat onto these shores from anywhere had a right to be here, as far as federal law was concerned. Newcomers needed no permission, no papers, no clearances of any sort. I believe the first law restricting immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Here’s an article on The Birth of ‘Illegal’ Immigration that’s worth checking out.

The larger point is that the politicians who drafted the 14th couldn’t possibly have been concerned about whether babies were being born to “illegal aliens,” because there was no such thing in 1866.

The Heritage Foundation is claiming that the 14th didn’t cover people who were citizens of other countries who came here and had children. But technically, nearly everyone who showed up here from somewhere else was still a citizen of another country, unless they’d be banished or something. And there was no naturalization process. You just showed up and started living here. If you follow the Heritage logic, no one could be a citizen until they were second generation.

The 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Heritage hangs a lot of their argument on the word “jurisdiction.” They are blowing smoke about different kinds of jurisdiction and which ones require allegiance to a “sovereign.” I didn’t know we had a sovereign.

Heritage does mention the Supreme Court case that settled what “jurisdiction” means in the 14th, which is United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). According to Heritage, the Wong Kim Ark case involved a man born in the U.S. whose parents were “lawful permanent residents.” Unfortunately for Heritage one can find the text of the Wong Kim Ark decision online. It begins,

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,…

So, yeah, they were not here illegally, because there were no immigration laws when they arrived. But they were considered subjects of the Emperor of China, which kind of kills the “allegiance” theory, seems to me.

Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco in 1873 to immigrant parents. His parents returned to China when he was a teenager, but Wong Kim Ark remained in California. In 1895 he visited his family in China, but when he came back to the U.S. he was denied entry because he was obviously of Chinese ethnicity, and the Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect.  Per the National Archives,

His appeal eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court resulting in the 1898 precedent-setting ruling affirming birthright citizenship and protecting U.S.- born descendants of immigrants from being denied this citizenship, regardless of the ethnicity, nationality, or status of their parents.

Notarized paper that affirmed Wong Kim Ark was born in the U.S.

The Wong Kim Ark decision goes on and on about jurisdiction, and it’s clear in context the justices interpreted “jurisdiction” to mean “within the jurisdiction of U.S. law.” For this reason, babies born to diplomats assigned to a foreign embassy within the U.S. don’t get to be U.S. citizens, because the parents are not subject to U.S. law. And originally the decision excluded Native Americans born on reservations, because reservations have a special status apart from U.S. law. An act of Congress corrected that several decades ago, so that Native Americans born on reservations are citizens now..

Otherwise, if you are in the United States, legally or otherwise, you are subject to U.S. law, and if you have a baby here the baby can claim citizenship. This is not really all that complicated. The Nazi Heritage Foundation can blow all the smoke it likes about sovereign allegiances and all the different varieties of “jurisdiction.” Any court that tries to overturn Wong Kim Ark is wrong, and corrupted. End of argument.

In other news: In the spirit of “let’s see what the Creature has been up to while I was writing this,”  — You’ll like this one —

President Trump on Wednesday revoked a 60-year-old executive order banning discrimination in hiring practices in the federal government, his latest action aimed at gutting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

His order, which the White House called “the most important federal civil rights measure in decades,” revokes Executive Order 11246 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. It prohibited discriminatory practices in hiring and employment in government contracting and asserted the government’s commitment to affirmative action.

In other words Only White Men Need Apply.

Trump is also having one of his signature prolonged temper tantrums over remarks made in a prayer service in the National Cathedral by the Right Rev Mariann Budde, Bishop of the District of Columbia and part of Maryland. This was part of a prayer service that was an official inauguration activity, and Trump with Melania and J.D. Vance and his wife were in attendance. Here is the part of the sermon that seems to have set him off —

If you want to watch the entire sermon, here it is. Anyway, Trump has demanded an apology from the Bishop. Further,

Trump hit back in the early hours of Wednesday on his social media platform Truth Social, calling Budde a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” who is “not very good at her job” and demanding an apology.
“She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” he said.

“Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one,” he added.

The Bishop shouldn’t worry. In spite of the National Cathedral’s charter, it’s run by the Episcopal Church, not the government. So Trump can’t fire her for being a DEI hire and replace her with a man.