07-01-26 victor
kavanaugh passes the ball back to Congress.
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Some media outlets reported on Tuesday that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of birthright citizenship by a 6–3 vote. But that’s not quite right: The court held that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants only by a 5–4 margin. Justice Brett Kavanaugh in fact dissented from that holding, alongside Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. But unlike that trio, Kavanaugh found that Donald Trump’s executive order violated a federal statute that, in his view, grants citizenship to immigrants’ offspring. At the same time, the justice all but invited Congress to “amend” that statute “or otherwise enact new legislation” that strips automatic citizenship from the children of “those unlawfully or temporarily in the country.” Kavanaugh’s position means that the court actually affirmed the traditional understanding of the 14th Amendment by the barest 5–4 margin. If Trump replaces any member of the majority, Tuesday’s core constitutional holding will be extraordinarily vulnerable to reversal. |
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07-01-26 victor
spal, so of the 3 justices appointed by dt, only gorsuch agreed with dt.
a terrible record picking sc justices. |
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07-01-26 victor
spal, kavanaugh, appointed by dt, also voted against dt.. 6-3.
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In the 2026 Supreme Court decision Trump v. CASA, Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted with the 6-3 majority to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, but he did so based on federal statute rather than the U.S. Constitution.
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07-01-26 victor
Trump made more than a billion dollars from cryptocurrency ventures in first year back in office
President Donald Trump collected billions of dollars through an array of cryptocurrency holdings, royalty payments and property investments last year, according to his latest annual financial disclosure released on Tuesday.
The 2025 report, which totals 927 pages, provides the most extensive look so far at the growing fortune that the president has amassed since returning to office, including through his stakes in companies co-founded by family members.
Trump netted more than $526 million from sales of cryptocurrency tokens tied to World Liberty Financial LLC — a firm managed in part by his sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. The president holds several other cryptocurrency investments totaling millions of dollars, according to the disclosures.
That windfall came on top of income that Trump has continued to generate from properties, including his Mar-a-Lago club, which generated $77 million alone in “resort related revenue” – up from about $50 million reported in last year’s disclosure.
The president has also continued to lend his name to a wide swath of products and ventures, collecting hefty royalties and licensing fees. One agreement with “Celebration Coins” paid Trump $635 million, according to the disclosure.
Other, more modest, profit generators included $4.7 million in royalties for “Trump Watches,” $208,000 related to a bible that the president has frequently promoted and $67,634 for “Trump Sneakers & Fragrances.”
The scope and scale of Trump’s holdings continued an unprecedented streak of profit-making for a sitting president that has drawn sharp criticism from opponents and repeated accusations of conflicts of interest.
The White House has denied that the president is conflicted by his financial interest, emphasizing that he is not actively involved in managing his businesses or investments.
But Trump has at times promoted businesses and policies that stand to benefit him and his family members financially, perhaps most notably in his vocal support for the cryptocurrency industry.
The president also reported nearly $440,000 in gifts that he received over his last year in office, as CEOs, foreign leaders and others sought to win his favor. The gifts include $250,000 from a New York businessman and GOP congressional candidate for a statue of Trump raising his fist after the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt during the 2024 campaign, $50,000 for 10 2025 Super Bowl tickets from the New Orleans Saints owner, $6,750 for 30 tickets to two UFC fights from Dana White, and $15,000 for 10 tickets to the upcoming World Cup final in New Jersey from FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Trump’s financial disclosure also includes the various settlements he’s struck with social media companies and news organizations. They include $8 million from Twitter, which is now X, after Elon Musk settled with Trump last February; $16 million each from ABC and CBS that was donated to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation; $24.5 million from Facebook parent Meta that was also donated to the Trump library; and $22 million from YouTube that was given to the Trust for the National Mall.
The profits disclosed on Tuesday follow Trump’s disclosure last month of thousands of stock trades across the first three months of this year, including purchasing shares in companies that had been actively lobbying the administration over key decisions. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, said at the time that he had no ability to direct any of his trades.
In a separate disclosure, Vice President JD Vance reported earning between $1 million and $5 million in royalties from his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” as well as thousands more in advance payments for the “foreign publishing” of the book.
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07-01-26 victor
these people are so dumb that they don't even realize that dt endorses maria elvira. :-))
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07-01-26 victor
some of these maga guys are really upset, venting their frustration on maria elvira. :-))
what she posts is absolutely right: congress must fix the broken immigration system.
and all these frustrated guys attack her.
https://x.com/RepMariaSalazar/status/2071988621205282963
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07-01-26 victor
dt can't even get the congress to pass voter id.
anna paulina is doing all these stunts to try to get it passed. |
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07-01-26 victor
| not revolting. but a long way from expectations, absolutely. |
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07-01-26 spal
The people are revolting Sire.
Yes they are revolting. |
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07-01-26 victor
end of discussion.
//
i think people will be discussing this for a long time.
dt and the gop will be facing voters in november almost empty-handed. |
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07-01-26 spal
Read Thomas if you don't want to take my word for it.
She is a waste of space on the court. |
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07-01-26 spal
She is a dope.
To compare a modern, voluntary foreign national who retains a passport and the full political allegiance of their home country to a freed slave in 1868 is a farce.
Freed slaves didn't have foreign passports, they didn't have foreign consulates, and they didn't choose to cross a border. They were a uniquely American population, rooted in the soil for generations by force, with nowhere else to go.
The 14th Amendment was a domestic cure for a domestic crime.
Full stop - end of discussion.
Barrett's 'clever inversion' is just high-status sophistry.
It treats a geographic accident by an international traveler as equal to the multi-generational, blood-soaked history of American slavery. This is a joke, a travesty and a pretension of massive degree. |
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07-01-26 victor
| and how do you respond to amy? :-) |
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07-01-26 victor
| spal, and it didn't expire because?? |
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07-01-26 spal
If the text of the 14th Amendment was an explicit, all-encompassing rule where "anyone born on the soil gets citizenship," then Native Americans would have automatically been citizens from 1868 onward.
But they weren't.
It took a completely separate, explicit act of Congress—The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 (also known as the Snyder Act)—passed 56 years after the 14th Amendment, to finally grant citizenship to all Native Americans born within the U.S. |
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07-01-26 victor
3 mos ago
//
Credit where it’s due, this is a strong argument. Trump’s lawyers are proposing that the 14th amendment’s purpose was only to grant citizenship to former slaves and their descendants, not to grant citizenship to people who travel to the country illegally, who may intend to leave again, or who have allegiances to another country.
Amy Coney Barrett cleverly inverts this reasoning. Many enslaved people were brought to America illegally; they may have wanted to leave if they could; they may have felt a greater allegiance to their country of origin. So if the purpose of the amendment was to grant citizenship to those people, how can it imply that these same factors are disqualifications from citizenship today?
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07-01-26 victor
if the idea behind the 14th A was just to help slaves, why not have it expire?
i understand it was also used to help american natives, later on.
so it wasn't just to help slaves. |
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07-01-26 victor
"that allows a vacationer or an unlawful border-crosser to anchor a citizenship claim"
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the immigration system in the us has been broken for a long time already.
and congress doesn't fix it. |
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07-01-26 spal
| I am not surprised. I am simply explaining why at core it is wrong. Otherwise I am out of fucks. |
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07-01-26 spal
"The purist legalism is often the greatest enemy of justice."
And so it goes ... |
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07-01-26 victor
april 1st
The Long Odds of Undoing Birthright Citizenship
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-long-odds-of-undoing-birthright-citizenship |
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07-01-26 victor
spal, i fail to understand why you are so surprised.
from the start, the odds were very high that it would happen this way. |
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07-01-26 spal
| The only person who can truly cheat me is myself ... and I try to avoid that. |
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07-01-26 spal
spal, now you feel cheated! :-))
===
Nope - it is just a human system ... at core weak ... normally. |
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07-01-26 spal
spal, it wasn't just roberts..
amy too, and she was picked by dt.
===
Yes I know - both wrong here.
"Primum mihi, deinde aliis."
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07-01-26 victor
| spal, it doesn't affect me one bit. :-)) |
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07-01-26 victor
| spal, now you feel cheated! :-)) |
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07-01-26 victor
| spal, i figured you would say that :-)) |
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07-01-26 spal
| Of course some folks are more suited to tribal life ... I can recommend a couple of good reservations if you are interested. |
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07-01-26 victor
spal, it wasn't just roberts..
amy too, and she was picked by dt. |
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07-01-26 spal
| Vic - they invented the United States - before them there was NO United States Vic ... so WRONG. |
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07-01-26 victor
spal, jus sanguinis
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if this were true in the usa, then usa whites should not be us citizens :-)) |
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07-01-26 spal
Vic - you are conflating America's history of legal, regulated immigration with a geographic glitch. The 350 million people who built America were the result of families choosing to legally immigrate, assimilate, and swear exclusive allegiance to the Republic.
The US did NOT build a superpower via a system that allows a vacationer or an unlawful border-crosser to anchor a citizenship claim by happenstance of biology and geography. |
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07-01-26 spal
Amnesty (Snachez) is statutory, birthright is structural: A European prime minister passing a temporary legislative bill to regularize workers is a policy choice made by a sovereign parliament. It has an expiration date because it is a law passed by men to deal with a specific moment in time.
Birthright citizenship in the U.S. is currently being treated by drooling, craven idiot judges like Roberts as an absolute, eternal, un-regulatable constitutional mandate.
Spain does not have unrestricted jus soli. If a foreign national flies into Madrid, gives birth at an airport, and leaves, that child is not Spanish.
Europe overwhelmingly operates on jus sanguinis (bloodline) principles precisely to avoid the civilizational farce the U.S. has trapped itself in. |
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07-01-26 spal
The concept of an "anchor baby" requires a specific setup:
A highly restrictive legal immigration system combined with an un-monitored physical border, where giving birth instantly triggers a lifetime of structural state benefits.
That reality did not exist in 1868, nor did it exist for most of the 20th century.
Fixing a modern, exploited loophole is not "changing a centuries-old rule"; it is restoring a broken fence.
This is an utter valid requirement. |
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07-01-26 spal
The 350 million people in the United States were not produced by birthright citizenship for illegal tourists ---
These people came by legal, regulated waves of immigration where people applied, were vetted, assimilated, and naturalized.
This is how it happened Vic.
The rest is fantasy and woke BS. |
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07-01-26 spal
spal, the thing is.. canada is a bit larger than the usa, but with far less people.. 40m vs 350m.
===
It is an argument based around the concept - valid regardless of size. |
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06-30-26 victor
spal, the thing is.. canada is a bit larger than the usa, but with far less people.. 40m vs 350m.
the 350m in the usa didn't just happen by accident.
the system has worked differently re immigrants.
now they want to change it after centuries?
if it was meant to slaves, as some argue, then it should have been clear that it was meant for such specifically, and with an expiration date.. and not be left open to interpretation centuries later.
sanchez recently passed a bill to regularize illegal immigrants..
but it has an expiration date: today, june 30th.
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06-30-26 victor
but.. but does the gop actually have the votes to pass some of these ideas before midterms? i doubt it.
the us congress is broken down, since many moons ago.
voter id?
immigration reform? etc
very low odds, i would think. |
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06-30-26 victor
Rick Scott
The Supreme Court has made its decision, now Congress needs to respond.
We need to make sure illegal aliens don’t come into our country and EXPLOIT our immigration system.
That means closing EVERY. SINGLE. LOOPHOLE.
I have a bill, the SAFE KIDS Act, to combat the exploitation of U.S. surrogacy laws for birthright citizenship.
I have been fighting visa-free loopholes in U.S. territories participating in surrogacy schemes.
We also need to codify President Trump’s border actions so a future Democrat administration can’t undo them.
We need to be voting on these EVERY WEEK until we provide the American people with an answer for this question. |
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06-30-26 spal
BTW the 2nd Ammendment comparison fails on its face
The 2nd Amendment protects an inherent, natural right to self-defense that existed before the government was formed.
The 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause is a statutory political rule creating a legal status.
One an apple the other a watermelon ... ;) |
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06-30-26 spal
To treat a document written to integrate traumatized, emancipated American slaves as a permanent, borderless suicide pact that strips a nation of its right to define its own borders is the height of legalism over logic.
End of story. |
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06-30-26 spal
If a Chinese national flies to Canada on a tourist visa, gives birth in a Tim Hortons, and flies home, that child does not magically become a hockey-playing Canadian cultural asset.
The child is Chinese.
Only a system run by 'knaves in robes' could look at a geographic accident—a physical presence inside a restaurant or a hospital room—and declare that it instantly overrides thousands of years of ancestral allegiance, culture, and civic duty." |
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06-30-26 spal
| ... activist judicial gloss dressed up as piety. Am I clear? |
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06-30-26 spal
Roberts’ quote IS NOT a defense of the Constitution's text—it is a fanciful, historical re-writing of it.
The phrase "every free-born person" does not appear anywhere in the text of the 14th Amendment. The word "free-born" was a highly specific legal term used in 1868 to contrast emancipated slaves with those born free.
By using the phrase "every free-born person" in a modern context, Roberts is engaging in historical fan-fiction. He is taking a term meant to define repatriated American slaves and expanding it to include the child of an undocumented tourist who happens to give birth during a layover.
That is not original text; it is activist judicial gloss dressed up as piety. |
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06-30-26 spal
| Now try this in China or in Japan. There is more to citizenship than simple happenstance. Or is there something special about the water here. Give me a break. |
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06-30-26 spal
Carib - the constitution is just a man made document as is what you call the law. I don't buy any further dressing up and play acting here. It is not the word of god, immutable or immortal.
Anyhow I was not commenting on that. I was simply commenting on the bit of nonsense uttered around the recent decision by Roberts namely that citizenshipthat “the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.” The intent was simply directed at unfrachised slaves. It was actually to right a wrong at the time and in that context.
It does not nor should not mean that any child born in an Olive Garden restaurant is Italian. But by virtue of Roberts and his starry eyed "interpretation" of the founders here we are.
It is bad law.
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06-30-26 victor
Speaker Mike Johnson has once again lost a battle against hardline conservatives for control of his own House floor — and he has no clear way out.
A small group of GOP hardliners, led by firebrand Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, effectively seized the floor from Johnson this week, refusing to allow him to move on their own party’s priorities until Republican leaders come up with a plan to pass President Donald Trump’s federal elections overhaul bill.
By Tuesday afternoon, Johnson was forced into one of the most humiliating possible positions for a House speaker: He conceded he could not regain control of the chamber and instructed members to leave Washington early. It’s the second straight week that GOP leaders have had to scrap their plans, this time losing out on nearly an entire week’s agenda.
Many of Johnson’s members are fuming at the impasse. The House is not scheduled to return until mid-July — leaving just two more scheduled weeks of work before the August recess. And it may sink the GOP’s path to passing a tranche of Trump’s agenda this month — including billions in Pentagon funding for the Iran war — as Johnson and his team had planned.
The dispute between Johnson and his hardline members is amounting to an intense summertime clash that’s jamming up the House and spiking tensions in an already fractious GOP conference. Many Republicans now blame the hardliners — the dozen or so who blocked Johnson’s push on the floor to consider the annual Pentagon policy bill — for scuttling what could be their last big legislative effort ahead of the November midterms.
Multiple GOP sources told CNN it’s not clear how to resolve the weekslong standoff with Luna — who they believe has been relishing the media attention.
Even Johnson, the famously even-tempered speaker, was visibly frustrated by his own members derailing the GOP’s agenda on the floor.
“We have the smallest margin in US history. We’re nearing an election. People get very emotional about things, and sometimes they make irrational decisions,” Johnson said, referring to those hardline members. Hours earlier, he called Luna’s antics a “self-inflicted wound” for his party.
But Luna is undeterred by the criticism.
“The fact that I’m being singled out because I know procedure — I’m not stupid. I’m going to fight on behalf of the American people,” Luna said, vowing that she would back down on her floor protest if GOP leaders agreed to tack Trump’s voter ID and proof-of-citizenship measure onto the defense bill. “They’re saying they won’t, so now that you saw what happened on the floor.”
Johnson had previously insisted the House would remain in session for the next day and a half to unstick the floor. But some members were threatening to leave. Instead, within hours, Johnson was forced to cancel the rest of the week’s votes.
The problem for GOP leaders: Congress, in its current makeup, cannot pass the elections overhaul bill in the form Trump wants, lacking the votes even with GOP majorities in both chambers.
Luna and others have demanded that Senate GOP leaders take extreme steps, such as changing the chambers’ rules, to muscle through Trump’s priority. Senate GOP leaders have countered they also lack the votes to change the chamber’s rules.
Trump has publicly encouraged the GOP defectors to back down, without specifically calling out Luna. But those hardliners also know the president remains fixated on that elections bill and do not believe he is genuine in asking them to stand down.
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie — a frequent Johnson critic who recently lost his primary bid to a Trump-backed challenger — said months of mounting frustration are now bursting into the open, in part, because some Republicans have nothing left to lose.
“I think people are past their primaries and are getting restless,” said Massie, one of the members who tanked Johnson’s procedural vote. “There are people who normally wouldn’t vote against the rule and are doing it.”
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06-30-26 carib
| Merlino: if my bank account had an additional couple of zeros (as is the case for a number of people) I would not mind helping MCM with a few millions myself. |
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06-30-26 victor
merlino, that's not a problem.. plenty of people support her, and are more than willing to pay for her expenses. nothing new.
same people who paid for her security back home. |
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06-30-26 Merlino
pidieron a María Corina Machado dar la vuelta cuando sobrevolaba Carolina del Norte en un vuelo privado desde Virginia hacia Curazao
.............................
Who pays this private flight and in general her worldwide traveling? |
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06-30-26 victor
:-))
I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP |
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06-30-26 carib
The US Constitution, by design, is inherently rigid.
It takes more than a whim of a President or a congress majority to amend it.
That is why it survived 250 years with small adaptations.
And that is why the second amendment, clearly adopted when automatic weapons did not exist, still stands, even if it has crazy practical consequences, in my opinion.
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06-30-26 carib
SPAL: the text of the 14th amendment is quite explicit.
It does not matter if you or I agree or disagree with it, but it is the law.. until it is amended or legislation related to its implementation is duly adopted.
The Constitution is there to protect rights, set the rules for taking legal decisions, and protect citizens from abuse of power by the authorities.
There can be several perfectly reasonable and legitimate arguments for restricting citizenship to persons born from citizens or legal permanent residents, but you cannot change the Constitution by executive order, unless you opt for the North Korean governance model. |
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06-30-26 victor
Según el Wall Street Journal, funcionarios de la administración Trump pidieron a María Corina Machado dar la vuelta cuando sobrevolaba Carolina del Norte en un vuelo privado desde Virginia hacia Curazao, y ella obedeció; Marco Rubio le pidió posteriormente paciencia para preservar "la frágil relación de trabajo" con Delcy Rodríguez, mientras funcionarios de Trump expresaban en privado frustración por sus críticas al gobierno interino venezolano. Copa Airlines le negó después el embarque en Panamá por temor a represalias, y el espacio aéreo fue restringido mediante NOTAM oficial.
Por otra parte, de acuerdo a otro artículo de El Debate, la historia tiene más capas: Trump había dado inicialmente luz verde al regreso de Machado tras una llamada directa entre ambos — el presidente le había facilitado su número de móvil personal en un encuentro previo para que lo usara cuando lo considerase necesario — pero revirtió su decisión en cuestión de horas, dejándola varada y advirtiéndole que emitiría un comunicado desmarcándose si continuaba adelante con los planes.
El WSJ revela que la administración Trump ha priorizado la estabilidad, el acceso al petróleo venezolano y la cooperación en seguridad por encima de una transición democrática, y que ni Washington ni Delcy Rodríguez han fijado fecha para elecciones. Machado no menciona a Trump en su video desde Panamá pero tampoco se rinde: "haré lo que haya que hacer para encontrarnos allá." |
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06-30-26 victor
Ron DeSantis
This was not a decision on procedural grounds (ie, POTUS can’t do this through executive order but Congress could legislate it); it is a substantive decision that says the 14th amendment requires citizenship for those born to, among others, birth tourists or those unlawfully present in the country.
Will need either a constitutional amendment or a future court to overrule this.
Anyway you slice it, the decision is a major defeat. |
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06-30-26 victor
| carib, yes.. 95% chance at polymarket. |
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06-30-26 spal
It is sophisticated propaganda because it wraps a modern, radical interpretation of jus soli—one that allows temporary or unlawful presence to automatically trigger the highest prize of the state—in the constitutional robes of 1868.
It pretends to "keep a promise" to the Framers, when in reality, it is enforcing a loophole that the Framers explicitly stated they were avoiding.
We are governed by knaves in robes whose drollings pass for laws ... |
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06-30-26 spal
The 14th Amendment was written for one primary, existential reason: to overturn the infamous Dred Scott decision and guarantee that newly emancipated Black Americans were recognized as full citizens of the United States.
The rest is just sophistry ... albeit high minded and cute. |
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06-30-26 spal
The Romans understood that a civilization crumbles if citizenship is handed out freely without requiring any skin in the game.
;) |
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06-30-26 spal
Well the Pilgrims weren't immigrants - they were colonists (they were British Nationals).
The US did not exist in 1600's.
Jus solis was drafted into the constitution in 1787 ... anchor babies are very much a consequence and an abuse. |
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06-30-26 carib
Victor: SCOTUS just upheld the Constitution.
If one wants to change that rule, he should seek a constitutional amendment with the required majorities.
Without immigrants, the USA would be just have native americans (red indians) as citizens. Nobody asked the mayflower passengers for a passport.. |
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06-30-26 victor
| Birthright citizenship upheld: In a big loss for President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, striking down his executive order. Chief Justice John Roberts, calling citizenship “the right to have rights,” wrote for the court that “the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.” |
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06-30-26 victor
| Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices John Roberts (Bush) and Amy Coney Barrett (Trump) both rule against President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order. |
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06-30-26 panasonic
| Pilly doubled on my gld calls |
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