Jim had Covid; I did not. We both felt fine but stayed at home. I was bored. So, I decided to do something peculiar which ultimately resulted in me having a “yogurt question” or more specifically a “fauxgurt” question. I would try to make “yogurt” not using real starter, but using probiotic pills. Because the FDA does not recognize this as “yogurt”, I will call it “fauxgurt”.
Anyway, I bought some pills that contained four strains of lactobacillus. To make “fauxgurt” I did something similar to my “normal” yogurt making procedure to make yogurt. My normal procedure is similar to most people’s normal kitchen procedure but happens to include inulin. (This can make the yogurt creamier.) I do hold near boiling for “a while” to denature the proteins in the milk. I normally culture at 40C. (I use a sous vide device to keep at temperature.)
Anyway: instead of adding “a blob” of Fage yogurt to start, I added the contents of two probiotic pills. So: to be clear, my intention was to add zero, Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus or Streptococcus thermophilus or anything from any commercial yogurt of starter. The goal was to see if I would get a yogurt like product using the stuff in the pill.
Because “the intertubes” fauxgurt people making stuff from pro-biotic pills point out some of these grow best at lower temperatures than the standard yogurt bacteria, I googled a bit. Then I hit on culturing at 37C, which I rounded to 98.5F on my sous vide device.) So, initially, my two main differences in technique were culture at a lowish temperature (98.5F) and use the pro-biotic pills. I also only sacrifice a cup and a half of milk to this test.
I watched and waited. The stuff had not set up in the “normal” amount of time. Grow more slowly is all the fauxgurt people on the web suggest will happen. So, I thought “no problem”. I went to bed at midnight. When I got up around 7:30 am. The fauxgurt was set. It took a long time. I hadn’t specifically written down times… but possibly it had been culturing 19 or 20 hours when I woke up? The quality? So, so. Nevertheless, my thought was “success”!
I then used this fauxgurt as a starter. Used as a starter, the second batched gelled in 3 hours. The fauxgurt people on the intertubes also say the fauxgurt takes less time on subsequent batches. For. Reasons. They also say the quality of the fauxgurt will improve. But the quality of the 2nd batch was not as great as real yogurt. Oh well. If it really is mostly the pro-biotic, maybe that’s ok.
But. Naturally. Niggling questions arose.
Are the bacteria in my fauxgurt really completely or even mostly those in the pro-biotic from the pill? I mean supposedly, various lactobacillus loves inulin. The inulin had been in the cupboard a long time. And this fauxgurt took a long time compared to real yogurt. Maybe all that happened was the small amount of lactobacillus on the inulin grew preferentially, and my fauxgurt is dominated by a bunch of bacterial of completely unknown pedigree? That is: it is not AKC quality fauxgurt from the pill. Instead, it is mutt fauxgurt. (It is edible by the way. I tried it. I did not die.)
So… I repeated the same process but leaving out the pill. Guess what? Somewhere between 14 hours and 20 hours, the inulin-milk only fauxgurt gelled. I know has a preferred hypothesis: something on the inulin?
But I had another hypothesis: What if I leave out the pill and also leave out the inulin? This time I also wanted to get the time better. So I started fairly early. I did the same thing– but with milk only. Culture at 98.5F. This time I checked time carefully. I totally left it alone for 5 hours, then checked every hour. Around 13 hours, the milk mixture started to look a little viscous. At 14 hours, it had gelled– so it was a somewhat runny fauxgurt. It was 1:30 in the morning, so I went to bed. By the next morning it had set.
So my fauxgurt question is : Why did this set? (I have two hypotheses. But that is the question. I’d like to hear any and all hypothesis people have– especially those who have more food science, chemistry or bio background than I do. That’s a heck of a lot of people.)
I should also note: The fact that this set in 14 hours has the consequence that I do not believe claims made by fauxgurt people to have multiplied what’s in the pill unless it started to set in quite a bit less than 14 hours. (I’m willing to provisionally believe it might be the target bacteria if, using their process, it set in less than 14 hours, or they sent their stuff out to test using a method that identifies the exact strain of bacteria in their fauxgurt. I would at least think it is not a waste of money to try the recipe and then spend money to verify the species of bacteria. )
But for now, do any of you have hypotheses on why the milk only set? (Note: it’s fine to say my kitchen and process are not entirely sterile. It’s not. I don’t want a process that steralizes to the degree from canning. I don’t want a process involving running HEPA filters. I don’t want to start with Ultra pasturized. I do boil my jars, tops, spoons, exposed parts of thermometers. But I do allow the milk to sit on the counter while it cools.)
Open thread. Discussions of fauxgurt, yogurt, politics all allowed.
The world is full of bacteria that are happy to grow in milk. Even pasteurized milk contains viable bacterial spores from the cow’s utter, which is why milk sours, even in the refrigerator. Unless you subject the milk to sterilization conditions (eg UHT treatment that both kills everything and deactivates any existing bacterial enzymes, which fresh milk always contains), then the milk proteins will eventually coagulate given enough time. Any exposure to the air is going to introduce a grab-bag of different bacteria which will happily grow in the milk, turning it into something that is potentially nasty. Pasturization was adopted to kill off living bacteria (including pathogens) but not all bacterial spores.
Inoculating with an amount (relatively huge!) of the desired bacteria generates the desired product (sour cream or sour milk from acid producing lactobacillus, yogurt from other lactobacillus strains) by out-competing other bacteria which might be present from the cow or from exposure to the air.
I always started with live culture yogurt from the supermarket so I could be sure of what I would get after fermentation. I figured the commercial producers are pretty careful about what strains are added to make their yogurt.
Trump has yanked the security clearances of the Dirty 51 intelligence officials who said Hunter’s laptop was fake.
The is appropriate “vengeance”: Revoking the privileges of people who abused those privileges.
SteveF,
I do like and trust the stuff I start from the store. It takes much less than 14 hours to culture– so I’m pretty dang sure that does out compete everything else.
The commercial makers usually list the strains they intend to be there. The FDA requires Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus or Streptococcus thermophilus. So if no strains are listed I figure it’s those two and those two alone. Fage has some additional strains.
Residual bacteria that survives pasteurization and also survives my ‘boil and hold near 180F to denature’, is my main hypothesis.
So do I. And I figure properties they prefer are good flavor, good quality, out compete other bacteria quickly.
The motivation for the various “fauxgurts” is to multiply a strain that is supposed to have ‘stupendous’ pro-biotic effects of various types. (It’s a similar motivation to buying and taking the various pills that get hawked.) I’m curious about whether it actually works.
I’m pretty darn sure stuff in a pill is unlikely to outcompete the tried- and – true strains. They are preferred precisely because they culture pretty fast. So I think if you hope to multiply what’s in the pill, you need to not have commercial stuff side by side.
But now, at least in my house, I think if it takes 13 hours or more to culture– my fauxgurt isn’t what’s in the pill. It’s just strange mutt bacteria of unknown provenance.
BTW:
If you want to see the sorts of promotion of a particular faux-gurt, go here :
https://www.luvele.com/blogs/recipe-blog/how-to-make-l-reuteri-yogurt?srsltid=AfmBOooeYnpKXGvLdBsjjc9uZI6qNc7bFXVk9Q9FIb3WrD-7ewZmFuux
Whoo hooo!!! Don’t you sort of expect, “And helps you learn to walk on water?”
(Also note: the author at that blog tells you Dr. Davis shows his yougurt multiplies L. reutari. As far as I can tell, that’s false. In his book, he only shows that his fauxgurt has a high bacteria count. He didn’t get anyone to run the more detailed tests to detect what it was. )
Guess how long Dr. Davis tells his followers to culture his fauxgurt? 36 hours. That’s well past the time my “nothing but milk” mixture takes to become faux-gurt.
(I’m still interested in trying to culture some ‘promising’ probiotics. I just don’t trust any claims about having made a pro-biotic yogurt at home unless someone tries their exact method leaving out the pro-biotic and shows it does not turn into fauxgurt! )
SteveF
I am contemplating innoculating 1 C milk with a huge number of pills. (10?) Then see if it “fauxgurtifies” in less than 10 hours. I might believe that’s the stuff in the pill if it does set in 10 hours or less.
Of course, a point at which it’s not worth it. After all: if the pro-biotic pills do contain viable stuff which can “fauxgurtify” milk, but it takes 1,000 to be enough to out compete the stray bacteria, it makes more sense to swallow a pill, and make normal yogurt!
(I am, of course, still curious. But I’m not curious enough to buy 1,000 pro-biotic pills and waste huge amounts of milk.)
Well, I sure hope the courts toss this one
Trump signs executive order ending birthright citizenship
There would need to be an interesting interpretation of “subject to the jurisdiction” for this to hold. Obviously, if someone can be arrested and charged with a crime, they are “subject to the jurisdiction”.
MikeM,
Ya, the dirty 51 have been formally denounced for the political dirty trick that helped elect Biden. I doubt it will make much practical difference to most of them, but a few of the better known ones may suffer rebukes if they are in public…. which seems to me pure justice. Bad people who did bad things deserve rebuke.
Of greater interest is the blizzard of executive orders reversing Biden’s policies. I especially like the bans on government motivated censorship and political weaponization of law enforcement.
I doubt there will be many legal consequences for all those involved, but if I were Merrick Garland I would be a little nervous. He received no pre-emptive pardon, and I think he could be in legal jeopardy, or at least become a target for legal harassment for arguably illegal acts in office. I hope the Trump administration just lets him (and many others) slink off to well deserved obscurity. Trump has much more important fish to fry.
Lucia,
Absent a constitutional amendment, I doubt the Supreme Court will ever reverse ‘birthright citizenship’.
I think an argument can be made that many people do abuse birthright citizenship, and that it was never the intent of the framers for a pregnant foreign national woman to enter the USA (legally or not) just to give birth to a US citizen. But the chance for a constitutional amendment passing is zero.
Truth is: drastically reduce illegal entry, and restrict tourism travel from many countries for women late in pregnancy, and the problem is automatically much reduced in size.
Eliminating birthright citizenship has very low chances of success IMO, probably just grandstanding on this one.
There might be other means of eliminating “anchor babies” but I don’t know what they might be. The intent of the law seems to be that children of citizens are automatically citizens. One would need to look hard to see if the intent was other than that. Might get to the SC, but I think Trump would lose because the verbiage is pretty clear whether or not the intent was matched.
I think most people just want the southern border under control and are not emotionally invested in deporting millions of people. They could take it or leave it. Trump could overplay his cards here but a few high profile deportation efforts may slow traffic to the border quite a bit.
Not even deporting people with criminal histories (beyond traffic tickets) was a bridge too far and has hurt the cause of immigration activists.
From lucia’s link:
“The incoming administration will make the case that a reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment will allow the administration to exclude two categories of infants from the right to U.S. citizenship: Infants born to a mother who is unlawfully in the country and a father who is not a citizen or permanent resident, and infants born to a mother who is authorized to be in the country for a temporary period of time and a father who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.”
The first class will not stand up, at least as regards children who are born and raised here. But the second is on much firmer ground.
Birthright citizenship was obviously never meant to be irrevocable. And it was revocable until the Supreme Court invented dual citizenship out of thin air. The US negotiated many treaties, duly confirmed by the Senate, which committed us to revoking citizenship under certain conditions. A broader list of conditions under which you can lose citizenship are spelled out in your passport.
The requirement “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was left up to Congress. That was accepted for about 80 years.
What Trump should have done is to declare that the law passed by Congress is once again the law of ther land.
Polls show that most Americans are in favor of deporting millions of illegals. I am pretty they didn’t ask if people were “emotionally invested” in that.
SteveF
I agree. I think SCOTUS will keep birth right citizenship.
The intentions of those writing the 14th amendment is more relevant. I also think that wasn’t their intention. Tourist birthing wasn’t a practical possibility back then. But tourists arriving to give birth isn’t the main target in this case. It’s illegal aliens.
I also think you are correct that if one of the two classes lose birth right citizenship it will be mothers here on as tourists. I think they won’t even yank citizenship from kids born to mothers here on student visas even if someone dubs that “temporary”.
I don’t really think those here as tourists or even student visas’ are the target motivating the executive order.
Mike M.
I think a law requiring an American to give up citizenship to other countries could fly. Not withstanding the 14th amendment, you can give up your citizenship.
I supposedly can walk into the El Salvadoran council and get an El Salvador passport. I haven’t done so. Neither has my sister. I think the US government decreeing that if I do so, I give up my US citizenship is fair and SCOTUS might hold it up. And those naturalizing should be required to give up their other citizenship.
I even think it would be fair for the government to insist that I go in and formally reject El Salvadoran citizenship. A reasonable age to insist people eligible for US citizenship is 18. You need to be given a few months to actually trot over to the office– but say between your 18th and 19th birthday? And allow you to do it by mail? Notarized? Something? It’s not currently required.
But doing it passively by just not accepting rights to citizenship from somewhere else strikes me as fine too. That’s pretty much my situation.
Certainly American’s who naturalize to something else should automatically be considered to have given up their other citizenship.
That’s not what this executive order is doing.
MikeM
Not sure what you mean by that.
Also not sure what you mean by that.
lucia,
I seriously doubt that there’s much of anything viable in probiotic pills. The whole concept is marginal. I read an article about restoring intestinal tract cultures and probiotics didn’t do much for a large fraction of those tested. The one thing that did work was using a fecal sample from before whatever wiped out everything. Obviously you don’t do that through the upper GI tract.
There are all sorts of things floating around in the air. You wouldn’t be able to make a sourdough starter from flour, water and some sweetener otherwise. Btw, best to make it acidic as well. That keeps some of the less pleasant bugs from getting started. Some people recommend using a little pineapple juice for both sugar and acid. I prefer a pH 4 citrate buffer and some honey. You can make the buffer from citric acid and baking soda easily. Rye flour may have some wild yeasts already.
Birth right citizenship is not as straightforward an issue as many seem to accept. Looking forward to reading the legal briefs to be submitted as this issue goes through the courts.
A paper addressing the issue goes into some detail
A short excerpt:
“Perhaps the first most important thing to understand about national birthright is that there was no national birthright rule applicable within the States prior to the year 1866. One will look in vain to find any national law on the subject prior to this year, or even any mention of the right to citizenship by birth under the United States Constitution. The reason for this is because the authority remained with each State to make rules that distinguished alien from citizen.”
.
“,The word “jurisdiction” must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment… Aliens, among whom are persons born here and naturalized abroad, dwelling or being in this country, are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States only to a limited extent. Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to them. (14 Op. Atty-Gen. 300.)”
.
“The phrase “transient aliens” was generally used to refer to aliens other than “domiciled aliens” who had taken their oath of allegiance and other requirements who were citizens or subjects of another country who could be in the country for any number of reasons, such as a stopover on an international trip, school, work, etc., who had no intent of becoming citizens or were unable to by law or treaty.”
https://www.federalistblog.us/2007/09/revisiting_subject_to_the_jurisdiction/
DeWitt,
This may very well be the case. But if my “nothing but milk” has not gelled and the stuff in the probiotic had, I’d change my mind– at least with respect to the pills I used. When I first got “fauxgurt” using the pill, I was pretty excited. One of the things I thought was “Well! There might be something in that pill!”
Now, I know the fact I got fauxgurt in 14 hours or longer doesn’t imply anything about what was in the pill. That’s the result I get from milk only.
On the probiotic pills– I have seen papers that explored bacteria to see which could even survive stomach acid and which could not. (example “Wild Lactobacillus casei Group Strains: Potentiality to Ferment Plant Derived Juices”)
The ones that could not are rather unlikely to be useful as ‘probiotics’ ( unless dead stuff happens to be useful for some reason.)
There is obviously a lot of interest in probiotics. But it is certainly true that what you can buy on the shelf at Walgreens (or from Amazon) could easily just be as dead as a door nail.
Of course, in the case of yogurt, that’s counter productive…. right? You are counting on the lactobacillus to do that.
But, for grins, lets suppose I do want to make fauxgurt starter from a pill and I believe there is something in it. Do you think adding acid to the batch might help kick start it? My thought is it might equally well kickstart whatever ‘mutt’ bacillus is in the milk too… right?
Ed Forbes,
“… must be understood…”
It’s not ‘must’ until a court rules and the ruling is upheld.
lucia,
My second paragraph was only about sourdough starter, not yogurt or fauxgurt. Sorry that I didn’t make that clearer.
Back to Biden’s pardons: I was reminded of one of Martin Luther’s pet peeves, indulgences, by Biden’s blanket forgivenesses. At least he wasn’t charging for them, at least not openly.
Ed Forbes
So what? The applicable constitutional law is in the 14th amendment, which introduced in 1866 and ratified in 1868. It exists precisely because there was no rule applicable within the States prior to 1866. It was thought we needed one because southern states might make rules that refused to extend citizenship to freed slaves. Or black in general. Or what have you.
I find it difficult to take a “scholarly work” that includes some a silly passage about how we didn’t have a law prior to the 14th amendment as being worthy of serious consideration.
Why “must” it? The actual ruling in Kim Wong Ark suggests otherwise. That was 1889 — only 23 years after the 14th amendment was ratified.
By your argument, Kin Wong Ark should have lost his case. Kim Wong Ark’s parents were aliens– i.e. not US citizens. So they were only subject to the US jurisdiction to a limited extent. Kim Wong Ark won his case.
These didn’t pertain to Kim Wong Ark’s parents either.
I seriously doubt SCOTUS will go so far as to decree that Kim Wong Ark should not have been given citizenship. Posting a “learned treatiss” with a theory that would require them to over turn birth right citizenship to that extent makes me think the case for over turning it is pretty dang weak!
“At least [Biden] wasn’t charging for [pardons], at least not openly.”
Given Trump’s penchant for trying to monetize everything — e.g., social media, memecoins, merch — it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility in the future.
One of the few court cases on defining birth citizenship.
Note that the parents are not “transient aliens “ and are specifically noted as with “permanent domicil and residence in the United States”.
I think it reasonable to expect the courts to discriminate the issue of birthright citizenship based on the difference between “transient aliens” and “domiciled aliens”.
Prior to State law and the 14th, common law granted citizenship to any born in the State. State laws and the 14th rescinded common law citizenship.
It will be interesting to see how the courts thread the needle on this issue.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/169/649/
“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, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,
.
“All person 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.”..”
lucia wrote:
Those would be examples of Congress defining what it would mean to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
I am pretty sure that all three of those examples have been enacted by Congress and are currently part of the US Code. But none are in force, courtesy of the Warren and Burger courts. That is what I meant by “What Trump should have done is to declare that the law passed by Congress is once again the law of the land”.
MikeM
No. Being subject to the jurisdiction of the US means US laws applied to you.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”
That those three define which persons. So, “All persons … subject to the jurisdiction thereof” . The overwhelming majority of people in the US are “subject to the jurisdicition”.
Congress can’t take away birthright citizenship unless they deem someone is not subject to US laws. In which case, if you murder someone, they can’t charge you. And they can’t tax you and so on. I’m not sure they can even force you to pay a speeding ticket.
That doesn’t mean you can’t give up your other citizenship. Nor does it mean you can’t be forced to give it up. They could make a law that says if I remain an American citizen but refuse to give up my El Salvadoran citizenship, I will go to jail. Or I can’t get a passport. Or suffer any number of other disabilities that would basically make it unpalatable to either not give up my El Salvadoran citizenship or give up my American one.
I think it highly inadvisable for Trump or any president to decree that a SCOTUS ruling flat out does not hold.
Ed Forbes
So are most illegal alien parents of babies born here. If they have jobs they are “carrying out business”. Most have jobs of some sort.
Republicans want to throw babies over the border wall and let the coyotes eat them! I imagine some version of that story is how the media will handle it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_baby
“However, in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982),[b] a case involving educational entitlements for children in the United States unlawfully, Justice Brennan, writing for a five-to-four majority, held that such persons were subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and thus protected by its laws. In a footnote, he observed, “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident immigrants whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident immigrants whose entry was unlawful.
…
with the Plyler decision “any doubt was put to rest” whether the 1898 Wong Kim Ark decision applied to illegal aliens because “all nine justices agreed that the Equal Protection Clause protects legal and illegal aliens alike. And all nine reached that conclusion precisely because illegal aliens are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the U.S., no less than legal aliens and U.S. citizens.”
5-4 doesn’t represent an irreversible case. I think they are saying that if criminal laws apply to illegals then so do criminal protections.
Similar to abortion “rights” this right looks a little more tenuous than I thought at first glance.
FYI: “Citizen children cannot sponsor parents for entry into the country until they are 21 years of age, and if the parent had ever been in the country illegally, they would have to show they had left and not returned for at least ten years;”
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/344/133/
Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 (1952)
Looks like SCOTUS didn’t say Congress couldn’t write a law banning duel citizenship or requiring someone with duel citizenship to formally elect US citizenship, but that Congress had not written one that applied to Mandoli.
The also discuss Elg. She didn’t lose her citizenship either. The reason she didn’t lose it was that her parents decision to repatriate to Sweden while she was a child couldn’t deprive her of her citizenship. She had done nothing to give it up.
But SCOTUS seemed to have no objection to the law that deemed her parents lost theirs when they re-embraced being Swedish citizens.
Trump is not going to get birthright citizenship removed.
He would be wise to focus on things he can accomplish (like drastic reductions in illegal entry) rather than waste time, energy, and political capital on something that is not going to happen. If you want fewer illegal aliens, then close the southern border and tighten up on visa overstays, making the consequences of an overstay draconian… several months of hard labor prison time followed by immediate deportation, and no re-entry again in your lifetime.
From Wong. Note “so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here” it implies the parents must be legal residents
As I said, an interesting case law question on birth right citizenship
“Chinese persons, born out of the United States, remaining subjects of the Emperor of China, and not having become citizens of the United States, are entitled to the protection of, and owe allegiance to, the United States so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here, and are ” subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the same sense as all other aliens residing in the United States. Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), 118 U. S. 356; Law Ow Bew v. United States 144 U. S. 47, 144 U. S. 61, 144 U. S. 62; Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), 149 U. S. 698, 149 U. S. 724; Lem Moon Sing v. United States (1893), 158 U. S. 538, 158 U. S. 547; Wong Wing v. United States (1896), 163 U. S. 228, 163 U. S. 238….”
Lucia,
John Doe is born in the U.S. to U.S. citizens. As an adult, he moves abroad and becomes a naturalized citizen of that country. Does the 14th Amendment, as originally understood, require that he still be regarded as a US citizen? The correct answer is “no”. We know that from the “Bancroft Treaties” that the US Senate ratified.
Now Mr Doe returns to the US on a visit. Does the 14th Amendment, as originally understood, require that he be regarded as a US citizen as long as he is on US soil? No, it does not. Again, the Bancroft Treaties tell us that. But he is subject to US law as long as he is on US soil.
So “subject to the jurisdiction of” meant something other than “answerable to the laws of”.
The waters were muddied by an outrageous supreme court decision that decided a question that was not before the court and did so in contradiction to prior decisions.
—
Addition: That decision would be Afroyim v. Rusk (1967).
Mike M,
If Jane Doe, following your John Doe hypothetical, returns to the USA as a foreign national, and has a baby then that baby will be considered a US citizen, not because the baby’s mother was a citizen but because the baby was born in the USA. I am willing to bet the US Supreme court is not going to overturn birthright citizenship.
Some people may wish the children of illegal aliens could be declared non-citizens and the whole family deported at once, but it ain’t going to happen. What is going to happen is a giant fall-off in illegal entries, and plenty of deportations of people here illegally. That also will further discourage illegal entry.
MikeM,
Consider the millions of people (many now adults) who were born in the USA to illegal aliens. They know nothing first hand of the country their parents came from, and know only their life in the USA. Voters would absolutely revolt if millions of people born and raised in the USA were suddenly going to be declared foreign nationals and deported to a place where they have never lived. It’s so nutty. I hope the Trump administration drops it immediately.
Mike M
Of 1868? Which the US Senate affirmed before the 14th amendment was ratified?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_Act_of_1868
Reads like very close to the theory under which Mandoli was going to have his citizenship taken away. Mandoli won– and kept his citizenship. This SCOTUS ruling post dates 1868.
Mandoli was born on US soil though.
I’m not sure what you think Bancroft Treatiesi has to do with Americans who got their citizenship through birthright citizenship. At least at Wikipedia all the applications are to Naturalized US citizens.
I don’t know the answer to your question. But the Mandoli case would suggest that unless there is a specific law requiring birth right citizen to return (which there was not at the time) then they keep their citizenship unless the return. As this is after 1868, whatever the Senate did in 1868 it did not require Mandoli to return to the US to keep his citizenship.
Which case would that be? You don’t give the name, so I can’t tell if it is before or after Mandoli or Elg.
SteveF,
I also wonder how far back it’s going to go. If someone was born to illegal immigrants in 1960, are they going to yank their citizenship? And what if all four of your grandparents were illegal immigrants in 1960? Do you lose yours? I mean… could happen.
Right now, I assume the only people in danger are babies yet to be born.
lucia wrote: “I’m not sure what you think Mandoli has to do with Americans who got their citizenship through birthright citizenship. ”
Odd question. I don’t think Mandoli has anything to do with anything, although might change once I find out what Mandoli is.
lucia wrote: “Of 1868? Which the US Senate affirmed before the 14th amendment was ratified?”
Yes, and the 60 odd subsequent Bancroft Treaties.
SteveF wrote: “I am willing to bet the US Supreme court is not going to overturn birthright citizenship.”
I either agree or disagree, depending on what you mean by “birthright citizenship”.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2902&context=facpub
I can’t claim I know if this is right. But if it is, the US constitution trumps mere treaties.
Whatever The Bancroft Treaty might say, if the constitution dictates something, it holds at least inside the four corners of the US. Another country might get grumpy at us if they want us to refuse Joe Doe citizenship because Joe has tired of them and wants to resume being an American. Maybe if Mike M’s Joe Doe will mind if he doesn’t want to be a US citizen and for some inexplicable reason we are insisting he must remain a US citizen. (That said, I don’t think anyone is insisting he can’t revoke his citizenship and that we can force Joe to keep it. But that’s a different question of whether or not we can yank it.)
I think whether a birthright or naturalized US citizen can revoke their citizenship is a rather different question than whether we can refuse birth right citizenship.
lucia,
I repeat: The outrageous SCOTUS decision was Afroyim v. Rusk (1967).
I don’t understand your comments about sequence of events.
MikeM
Well, then perhaps you can be a bit more specific? And quote language in the treaty? But generally, within the confines of the US, the US constitution trumps a treaty. If the 14th amendment requires something and the Senate stupidly ratified a treaty that violates it, then the 14th amendment applies.
We could end up in the international court. But it then has to go there. And details are certainly going to matter.
I don’t think anything says the 14th amendment if an adult of sound mind actually revokes their citizenship we have to give it back when they change their mind.
lucia wrote: “the US constitution trumps mere treaties.”
Of course it does. I don’t see your point. Are you suggesting that the Senate that approved the 14th Amendment ratified treaties that they though contradicted the 14th Amendment? Of course they didn’t. The treaties ratified tell us about how the Amendment was understood.
lucia wrote: “I don’t think anything says the 14th amendment if an adult of sound mind actually revokes their citizenship we have to give it back when they change their mind.”
What the heck does that have to do with anything?
MikeM
If you want to read Mandoli, I cited it above.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/344/133/
Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 (1952)
Afroyim
“Under the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a U.S. citizen cannot lose his or her citizenship unless he or she willingly surrenders it. ”
So he would have had to affirmatively revoke his citizenship. Afrohyim didn’t affirmatively revoke it. So he still has it.
Sounds about right to me. Don’t see why you consider it outrageous. But perhaps you can tell us why you think it’s outrageous.
SCOTUS is reluctant to take away citizenship. Whatever you think Bancroft does, US citizens aren’t having their citizenship yanked by the US government when the citizen wants to keep it. I’m not seeing anything outrageous in Afroyim.
MikeM
You are bringing up John Doe hypotheticals.
You haven’t quoted anything in the Bancroft treaty pertaining to citizenship. If you think something in there touches on some interpretation of the 14th amendement birth right citizenship clause, you are going to have to tell us. Neither I nor the rest of us here can read your mind.
At this point in time I think all would agree that the SCOTUS is a political animal.
So what does the politics of US citizenship suggest? I see Robert as looking for a compromise that gives something to both sides to get the court out of the crosshairs of an extremely contentious topic.
I can easily see the court restricting birthright citizenship of those in the country under a temporary visa. The rationale being that these persons are transient and not fully “ subject to the jurisdiction thereof” .
I really don’t see this court giving a wide sweeping ruling against citizenship, but it’s very possible something gives on the edges.
lucia,
Afroyim overturned 100 years of understanding of how to interpret the 14th Amendment. And that issue was not even before the court.
lucia,
Earlier you wrote:
” I think the US government decreeing that if I do so [getting a foreign passport], I give up my US citizenship is fair”
“those naturalizing should be required to give up their other citizenship.”
“Certainly American’s who naturalize to something else should automatically be considered to have given up their other citizenship.”
Are you now saying that although you think that those things would be fine, except that they violated the 14th Amendment?
Before Afroyim, such things were the law. Now they are not.
MikeM
I don’t see how Afroyim did what you claim. Nor do I see how it addressed something before it.
Ed Forbes
If so, he will fail to give anyone what they want. Trump’s executive order is not aimed towards people with temporary visas.
I think what Roberts might do is say that regardless of anything else, birth right citizendship cannot be changed through executive order. Trump is not Congress.
MikeM,
“Fair” is not a constitutional argument. If any of those violate the constitution, then they violate the constitution.
Finding them “fair” means I might seek ways to write a law that, for all intents and purposes, implements those restrictions. It does not mean I have investigated whether any particular law is actually constitutional.
MikeM
The only “such thing” I am aware of ‘before Afroyim’ is Perez. Under the constitutional catastrophe of Perez, merely voting in an election was decreed to lose your citizenship. Other than that, I don’t know what you encompass in “such things”. Certainly, you’ve pointed to nothing that suggest kids born on US soil can be deprived of citizenship merely because their parents are illegal. Not. One. Thing.
And all the other stuff is rather a distraction from Trumps actual order. (Or it is until you say something to link what you think they have to do with one another.)
For those wondering what Perez is and how it relates to Afroyim:
Perez is a case that screams of the single most unsympathetic plaintiff for a constitutional case I have seen to date.
* Knowing he was born in the US, and aware that American men were required to register for the draft in WWII, he did not do so. (He was 20 in 1928.)
* During WWII, he applied for and got a temporary visa, telling the American authorities he was Mexican. He was granted permission to stay temporarily.
* He took a number of jobs in the US during WWII as a temporary worker– stating he was a Mexican citizen.
* After the war was over, he decided to apply to live in the US as an American citizen.
* He admitted his reason for staying out of the US was to avoid military service and he also admitted to having voted.
For some reason, the law only allowed him to be stripped of US citizenship because he voted. (Claiming he was not a US citizen for purposes of getting a temporary visa in the US while evading the compulsery draft? Owing to the slovenly way these things are written, that evidently didn’t make the list of reasons.)
Scotus upheld yanking his citizenship.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/356/44/#tab-opinion-1941928
In Afroyim, Afroyim happened to vote in an Israli election. Now they added that you have to intend to lose your citizenship.
Honestly, I think it’s abundantly clear Perez intended to not be a US citizen during WWII. Afterwards he changed his mind. That intenion is not discussed in his case. But. Come on. Perez did TONS of intentional stuff– including telling immigration authorities he was Mexican when getting temporary workers papers during WWII!!
The way Perez was decided deserved to be overruled. Perez deserved to have his US citizenship yanked.
As an aside, the Perez decision mentions McKenzie v. Hare, in which an American-born woman married a Great Britain citizen living in the U.S., by which action she was deemed to have conceded her American citizenship. (1907 Expatriation Act) The 1922 Cable Act repealed this automatic association of a woman’s citizenship with her husband’s.
In researching my family history, I found the citizenship application for a female cousin in the 1920s. This surprised me, since I had found her birth record, and knew that although her parents were immigrants, she had been born in Massachusetts. It turned out that she had lost her citizenship in this manner when she married an immigrant, and had to apply for US citizenship after 1922.
HaroldW,
That’s as much a woman’s right thing as anything else. To some extent she legally “becomes” her husband (or more likely kinda sorta his chattle.)
And in the context of what Trump is proposing– even under that law, she had to do something. In this case it was to marry a non-citizen. The courts view is that by marrying she chose to give up her citizenship and that that was some sort of ancient principle for wives.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/239/299/
The courts claim that for an American citizen to lose their US citizenship, the citizen has to make that choice. But they then say that she did chose to do so– by getting married.
“It may be conceded that a change of citizenship cannot be arbitrarily imposed — that is, imposed without the concurrence of the citizen. The law in controversy does not have that feature. It deals with a condition voluntarily entered into, with notice of the consequences.”
That case is not at all the same as saying someone born here doesn’t get citizenship at birth because of a choice their parents made.
In fact, not even those who argued for stripping Perez or Afroyim of citizenship were advancing a case that helps Trump . No matter what the courts had ruled in those cases, the case hung on the person to be denied citizenship having done something — and having done it entirely voluntarily.
Removing birthright citizenship from people who have never lived anywhere but the USA, even if born to illegal non-citizens, has about as certain a SC outcome as Democrat controlled states trying to remove Trump from the ballot……. not going to happen.
I think a very reasonable argument can be made that an infant, maybe up to 1 year or 2, who is really not socialized outside his or her family, has no connection to the USA, and could be deported with the illegal resident parents without harm. But older kids are too connected to the USA to be deported with their parents. But I very much doubt even that would be allowed by the SC without a constitutional amendment.
Removing birthright citizenship from people who have never lived anywhere but the USA, even if born to illegal non-citizens, has about as certain a SC outcome as Democrat controlled states trying to remove Trump from the ballot……. not going to happen.
I think a very reasonable argument can be made that an infant, maybe up to 2 years, who is really not socialized outside his or her family, has no meaningful connection to the USA, and could be deported with the illegal resident parents without harm. But older kids are too connected to the USA to be deported with their parents without suffering harm. But I very much doubt even that would be allowed by the SC without a constitutional amendment.
Sorry about the double post. Not sure how that happened.
lucia wrote: “The way Perez was decided deserved to be overruled. Perez deserved to have his US citizenship yanked.”
Huh. Those are contradictory statements. Perez lost his citizenship. The Supreme Court upheld that. Then Afroyim overruled the Perze decision.
I’ve said many times and will say once more: I don’t think Trump cares any more about the Constitution than progressives do. He makes noise about protecting it because it makes his base happy, but it’s not important to him.
I think this particular executive order was a dumb move. But on the balance I hope and expect his executive orders to help.
lucia: “That case is not at all the same as saying someone born here doesn’t get citizenship at birth because of a choice their parents made.”
But the whole point of birthright citizenship is that your citizenship depends on decisions made by your parents. And that can even be the case after you are born. If a family with minor children moves here and the parents get naturalized, then the children become citizens, at least if still minors.
Mark wrote: “I think this particular executive order was a dumb move.”
There’s a discussion to be had. This is how it is started.
DaveJR,
I guess. I don’t really understand why he didn’t start the discussion by calling for a constitutional amendment instead. Maybe I’m just ignorant of the process required.
[It’s almost like something Nancy Pelosi would say. ‘We have to try to break the law to change the law…’]
No, I still think it was dumb. He (Trump) did this I think to setup a court battle so ultimately a court could rule. What’s dumb about it is that no court is going to support his interpretation. He shouldn’t have even bothered.
Just my thoughts. Shrug.
Nobody above except Ed Forbes seems to recognize that the issue is not black/white. There is a big gray area.
So far as I know, nobody is suggesting that someone born and raised here should not be a citizen unless, as an adult, they do something that causes them to lose their citizenship.
The issue is what happens with someone born here to foreign parents and raised elsewhere after the family returns home.
The most obvious case is when the parents are here on a tourist visa. But there is a whole gradation. What if the parents are here on a non-tourist visa of limited duration, such as student visa, H1-B, ot TPS? I don’t see why those should *necessarily* be treated differently from a tourist visa. Please do not over look “necessarily”.
The fact that someone here on a temporary visa has a child while here does not mean that they don’t have to leave when the visa expires. And they have to take the child with them. And then the child grows up elsewhere, as a citizen of a foreign country. So I don’t see why that person, having no memory of the United States, should have to be regarded as a US citizen. And for 99 years, the 14th Amendment was interpreted as not guarnteeing citizenship in such a case..
I don’t see why someone here illegally should be granted higher status than someone here legally. If a child is born a week before the parents’ visa expires, the family has to go home. If the parents overstay their visa and the child is born a week after it expires, they should still have to go home. And the same should apply if they enter the country illegally.
I *think* that is the issue. But I am not sure.
A better rule may be that when you are born you retain the citizenship of your parents, not sure why location matters. This would require cooperation between countries.
I’m not sure what the remedy is here, the baby is deported with their illegal parent(s) to their home country? I’m not saying that is bad, just that it could be difficult.
What happens with people who simply won’t tell you or lie about their origin? As we have seen with asylum any loophole will get massively exploited.
Tom: “A better rule may be that when you are born you retain the citizenship of your parents, not sure why location matters. This would require cooperation between countries.”
This is already how it works in perhaps the entire rest the world. It is not a contentious issue so cooperation is not required. The caveat is that there may be some time limit to registering the birth.
It seems North/South America have birthright citizenship
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-birthright-citizenship
“This is considered by many scholars to have begun in colonial times, in which European countries eager to populate their settlements in the “New World” established more lenient and immigration-friendly citizenship policies.”
I don’t know much about this stuff. I also read this was legalized in order to make sure children of slaves were granted citizenship.
The elimination of work from home for the federal workforce will hit legal barriers due to union contracts. Those will have to be waited out until the contract expires I suspect but the message has been sent. WFH may only be optional in these contracts.
When I called FEMA the phones were obviously being answered by people working out of their houses. This didn’t bother me as accountability is pretty easy to track in this job position.
The more meaningful change may be redefining certain federal workers as appointees under “Schedule F” allowing them to be easily fired.
https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2025/01/21/trump-executive-order-schedule-f
Getting activists out of federal government would be good thing but the line between activist and expertise is pretty gray. Activist may also only mean motivated employee. What we don’t want is a regulatory agency operating as a independent branch of government.
I laugh when people complain “oil executives are heading the EPA”. That’s the same as saying “environmental activists are heading the EPA”. You want both of those groups involved and nether of them should be considered the enemy. The agency cannot be captured by either side if it is to function.
Cooperation on citizenship used to be required, that is why the US negotiated Bancroft treaties with 60-odd countries (pretty much all of them at the time).
I very much like birthright citizenship provided that it is revocable. I have no idea how I would prove my US citizenship except by the fact that I was born here. But it should be (and used to be) revocable under the sort of conditions listed in my passport.
Tom
How is this better? It means you could end up with citizenship for a country where you did not grow up, with a language you do not speak, and to whom you feel no allegiance whatsoever. I don’t see how that is “better”.
In most circumstances, birthright citizenship makes sense. Allowing people to chose one between options when they reach the age of majority the a makes sense. Maybe giving a range of ages (18-21) to make the choice makes sense– and sending them or their parents letters if need be. Or something. But I don’t see how giving birthright citizenship as an option is not the better of the two rules– I think it makes sense. It doesn’t prevent another country from giving you an option too.
My understanding is the main motive for birthright citizenship in the 14th was to prevent former confederate states from making up rules to deprive freed slaves of citizenship. The rule that you get citizenship from you parents could have done that. Or other rules certainly could have.
Tom
Yes. That’s why Icould trot into the El Salvador counsel and claim my El Salvadoran citizenship. I have no intention of doing it.
MikeM
You keep alluding to these. I encourage you to tell us the actual relevant provisions of Bancroft treaties and quote language.
That there was “cooperation” tells us nothing about what was agreed, how that interacts with granting birtright cigtizenship to people born here, or how refusing to grant birthright citizenship might violate any treaty.
I was born with the option for dual citizenship. As far as I am aware, neither El Salvador nor the US have any problems with that.
MikeM
Why do you think it’s not? This says it is
https://www.usa.gov/renounce-lose-citizenship
How you may lose your U.S. citizenship
You may lose your U.S. citizenship in specific cases, including if you:
* Run for public office in a foreign country (under certain conditions)
* Enter military service in a foreign country (under certain conditions)
* Apply for citizenship in a foreign country with the intention of giving up U.S. citizenship
* Commit an act of treason against the United States
* Are a naturalized U.S. citizen who faces denaturalization due to committing certain crimes
Revokable and actually revoked are different things. If there is a SCOTUS decision that says it cannot be revoked or refuse under any circumstance, I’m unaware of that. As much as you hage Afroyim v. Rusk, it doesn’t say that.
I will note: none of those conditions are “being born to parents who are here illegally” nor “being born to parents here under a temporary visa.” So whether it can or can be done at all isn’t remotely close to saying Congress or the President can just over rise the pretty clear wording of 14th amendment for any reason they chose. Revoking birth right citizenship is not the same as refusing to grant it in the first place.
It’s better because it prevents the exploitation of the rule if a country has an influx of undesirable immigrants. The country should have a right to select which people immigrate to their country. This is a “Who gets to decide issue” IMO.
It’s similar to a rule that doesn’t allow people to declare themselves citizens of a country where social benefits are higher when they retire. There is an economic burden associated with this decision so the people who bear that burden should have effective veto power.
“To immigrate to New Zealand in retirement, you would typically need to invest around NZD $750,000 in the country, alongside having an additional NZD $500,000 readily available to live on, and demonstrate an annual income of at least NZD $60,000 through a “Temporary Retirement Visitor Visa” if you are over 66 years old; this essentially means you need to show substantial financial assets to qualify for retirement residency in New Zealand.”
I would say if the intent was slave citizenship and/or colonizing the Americas then those reasons have become obsolete and reconsidering this is OK. It would still require the Amendment to be overturned AFAICT.
The prevailing strategy from the conservative prospective had been fixing the problem in the US of illegal entry into the country of foreign individuals and then dealing with the immigration issues being discussed here. That appears to me to be the most pragmatic and political cogent path to, at least, addressing the immigration issue.
I am not optimistic in government, regardless of party, in coming up with a well thoughout plan because of the very nature of how governments operate.
The Biden administration did show how government can undermine the intended laws controlling immigration. The first step in this process was placing asylum as a major accelerator for foreign individuals to attempt to obtain residence in the US by illegal or legal means. The second step was to avoid efforts to quell the expected flow from the first step. Government in this case has shown it is good at deception.
I would think that the first steps of the Trump administration would be reversing the actions and inaction of the Biden administration with a further push to resolve the use of asylum to gain US residence. It is obvious to me that asylum is being greatly abused in matters of immigration. Even legal asylum that is left to the immigration court judges (who are not judges in the traditional sense) can be arbitrary and politically biased.
Trump should realize that overreach in this matter early in his term could stall remedying the most obvious problems.
lucia,
But that law is largely a dead letter. For instance, with regard to the 7 acts you list:
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-us-citizens-can-lose-us-citizenship.html
And the showing of intent is very restrictive:
Here is an extreme example of how hard it is to lose citizenship:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld#
Note that the government did not argue that Hamdi was not a citizen. Hamdi was born in the U.S., left as an infant, was raised in Saudi Arabia, went to Afghanistan as an adult, and (according to the government) fought with the Taliban against the US. But he could still claim to be a citizen and the government did not challenge that. After the SCOTUS decision, Hamdi renounced his citizenship as part of what amounted to a plea bargain.
lucia,
There were only about half as many Bancroft treaties as I remembered.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancroft_Treaties#Origin
Note that at no point would a person be a dual citizen. The article goes on to describe how the treaties were invalidated by Supreme Court decisions.
But for nearly a century, those treaties were deemed valid. Multiple administrations negotiated such treaties. Multiple Senates ratified them. Multiple court cases upheld them. Nobody suggested that they violated the 14th Amendment. Until the Warren court decided that they did.
The SCOTUS decisions do not represent the understanding of the 14th Amendment at the time it was ratified.
FYI, the actual executive order is here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/
Mike M.,
Yes, the Warren Court made a lot of bad decisions, one-man-one-vote, Madelyn Murray O’Hair being far more egregious examples, IMO. It doesn’t matter what you or I think, they’re still the law of the land and no President can change that by executive order. Trying to do so is virtue signaling and a waste of everyone’s time and patience.
But it seems that the only action resulting from Trump’s order is that the federal government will not issue passports (and maybe some other documents) to those the order says are not citizens. And it seems the President does have the power to deny passports for cause. And nobody directly affected by the order will be an adult until 2042. So it is hard to say what the actual import of the order will be.
It might be that Trump is laying the groundwork for court cases that will reverse the Warren and Burger court decisions. And making sure that those born here in future will not be grandfathered in should those decisions be overturned.
One likely effect of the order, without any court decision, will be to reduce incentives for people to come here illegally.
p.s. – I am not at all sure that the order is the right way to proceed. I am also not at all sure that it is the wrong way to proceed. I don’t know what the plan is. It seems like the order stands in isolation from Trump’s other orders regarding the border, so it won’t endanger them.
MikeM
I read they also won’t issue social security number, which is a bigger nuisance. And you don’t need t be a US citizen to have a social security number which is also not proof of citizenship.
Maybe. But which one specifically here? I doubt he is going to get birth right citizenship overturned. My guess: we’ll likely see a stay by some lower court fairly quickly. Then… who knows?
My best guess: the initial ruling will defer the question about the 14th amendment and will tell us the President isn’t the one who can make the decision about laws regarding citizenship. So whatever powers Congress might have, the presidential order will be set aside. That seems to me to be a very “Robert’s Court” thing to do.
MikeM
That’s not what the case is about. It’s about due process.
Tom Scharf
No one can simply declare they were born in the US. Either they were or they were not.
And if you are worried about somone apllying for NZ benefits because they are so high, a child who was born of two NZ parents who chose to live in Zimbabwe, could grow up in Zimbabwe, have NZ citizenship and decide to go back to NZ for the benefits. I’m not seeing how there is some unique problem vis-a-vis people wanting to move somewhere for the benefits and birthright citizenship.
Seems like just as much of an exploit as someone being born there wanting the benefits. It might perhaps be argued the foreign born to NZ parents is worse because at least the one born on NZ soil likely then grew up in NZ, lived in NZ and paid NZ taxes!
Sure NZ requires non-NZ citizen retirees to have money to move there. I don’t see how that means there is anything wrong with birth right citizenship.
Mike M,
Well, given the provisions which stripped people of their citizenship, I’m glad to hear they were deemed invalid.
And I guess that means you have the answer to your question: if a treaty conflicts with the US contitution, we go with the US constitution.
For centuries, married women’s personhood merged into her husbands. Until courts changed their mind.
This is not very meaningful. Senates and legislatures do things that turn out to be unconstitutional with some frequency. So do execugive orders.
Please cite the SCOTUS cases so we can read them.
This is your claim. It’s not particularly well supported.
The issue is a non-citizen mother can unilaterally decide her child will be a US citizen by simply illegally crossing the border and giving birth. I have no problem with legal immigrants.
This can be an economic burden on the citizens of the US and the US should have the right to deny this citizenship, or allow it. As it sits now only foreigners who enter illegally can unilaterally decide for themselves what their child’s citizenship will be. People who attempt to enter legally can be denied and never get this opportunity. These are strange incentives.
Birthright citizenship should be given to illegal border crossers at the US’s discretion as conditions warrant. For now that is not possible unless a very high legal burden is met.
I don’t really get worked up about it one way or the other unless the numbers get large and the burden is high.
lucia wrote: “That’s not what the case is about. It’s about due process.”
I know that. I never said otherwise. But the due process issue would not have mattered if Hamdi had not been a citizen. My point was that the government did not even try to argue that in spite of the fact that he clearly qualified to have his citizenship revoked under the law you cited above. That law is largely a dead letter.
lucia wrote: “And I guess that means you have the answer to your question: if a treaty conflicts with the US contitution, we go with the US constitution.”
My question? I never had any question about that. The Constitution overrides all other laws.
Tom
In some sense– sure. Obviously, she can only pick one country, not several. And she has to manage to get here.
I’m still not seeing the birthright citizenship as a the problem.
The problem we have is the uncontrolled border.
lucia,
MacKenzie v. Hare (1915)
Savorgnan v. United States (1950)
Nishikawa v. Dulles, (1958)
Perez v. Brownell (1958)
Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez (1963)
Note that in a couple cases the individual retained his citizenship because of a due process or evidentiary issue, but the court had no problem with the law revoking citizenship.
I am strongly in favor of birthright citizenship.
I am strongly opposed to birthright citizenship.
Depends on what you mean by birthright citizenship. Is it revocable or irrevocable?
Mike M.
JANUARY 22, 2025 AT 3:47 PM
lucia wrote: “And I guess that means you have the answer to your question: if a treaty conflicts with the US contitution, we go with the US constitution.”
“The Constitution overrides all other laws.”
–
True, but all laws and constitutions are made by the people and for the people and can be changed by said people via their lawmakers at the whim of the people
Hence the Constitution can be overwritten to get a treaty through if need be.
A constitution is not actually sacrosanct and can itself be overridden if need be.
Called an Amendment.
Not bad for 2 days despite Democrat headwinds.
Loved the decision to strip the 51 (2 deceased?) intelligence ratbags of their birthrights.
Over declaring the Hunter Biden laptop being Russian disinformation.
Something you would only do if you thought Trump was gone.
Hope further action is taken against all if them for taking sides.
Feel the obstructionism will not help wavering Democrats switching to Trump
Tom Scharf,
“One likely effect of the order, without any court decision, will be to reduce incentives for people to come here illegally.”
Say what? That is utterly shocking! 😉 Yes, most people are not so stupid as to try illegal entry now. There will be some, of course, and some visa overstays, of course. But the change from Biden’s policies will be ‘huge’, with a correspondingly ‘huge’ reduction in illegal entry.
Joking aside, everything the Biden administration did invited (begged for!?!) abuse of valid US immigration laws. IMHO, Biden will be remembered as the most corrupt and most unlawful president in the history of the country. Which is really saying something after Obama’s ugly record of unlawful acts WRT immigration!
angech,
“Hope further action is taken against all if them for taking sides.”
Nah, no further actions. They are all partisan democrat hacks, and always have been; it is why they were appointed in the first place. Nobody will take what they say seriously, or at a minimum, will always note their history of dishonesty and their loss of security clearance. They are dishonest people who did very bad things.
MikeM
Let’s look at the first one you give an example of upholding the Bancroft treaties.
Uhmm…
This appear to have to do with (a) the right of Americans to give up their citizenship, which does not spring from the Bancroft treaty and (b) women’s personhood being subsummed to their husbands, and so they are assumed to voluntarily renounce when they marry a foreign spouse.
Before I look at all of them, could you check to see if any you cite have anything to do with the “Bancroft Treaties”?
MikeM
I didn’t ask you to prove that. I asked you to support this series of claims
Cases that have nothing to do with the Bancroft treaty don’t show that the Bancroft treaties were upheld, in what way, or that they are no invalidated and in what way.
The government can still strip US citizenship. It has to do so with due process and allowing judicial oversight. You haven’t shown any court rulings to show otherwise.
Tom, Steve,
I agree that Trumps various actions are going to slow illegal immigration. I honestly don’t think the birthright citizenship action is going to have much of an effect in that direction. Perhaps a few 7 month pregnant women will now delay their trips. But I really don’t think coming here to give birth and get their kids citizenship is a large part of the incentive to come.
Enforcing the border, threatening deportation and so on is what’s going to do it.
angech,
Spoken like a true Australian. 🙂
Trump executive order halts funding for gain of function research.
https://www.wsj.com/health/trump-administration-seeks-to-stop-virus-research-republicans-have-blamed-for-covid-19-pandemic-337cec1b?st=zJ8od6&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Since Fauci since there is none (ha ha) I guess it won’t matter.
Okay. So over at powerline John Hinderaker asks what seems to be a reasonable question to me:
Are there in fact people here who are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’? I don’t know. Does it actually matter? I don’t know that either. But it seems reasonable to wonder why those words are there if they make absolutely no difference whatsoever.
“Are there in fact people here who are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’?”
Only ones I can think of are foreign representatives with diplomatic immunity (e.g. ambassadors).
Apparently diplomats are an exception. I don’t know if that is what they really meant.
Oops, cross post.
Thanks Harold, Tom.
Did foreign ambassadors travel with their wives in the 1860’s? Did any child of an ambassador ever try to claim citizenship of a foreign country.
Why would they say “subject to the jurisdiction” if they meant ambassadors?
There was no concept of dual citizenship is those days. I think the phrase was a way of allowing Congress to exclude people with divided loyalties.
I once worked with someone who had US citizenship as a result of having been born here while his father was a diplomat.
On a different topic, the Dems are once again violating norms by not allowing Trump to put his cabinet in place.
Mark,
Yes. Diplomats from other countries. Occupying troops.
For at least two reasons:
1) If they said “ambassador”, they would then need to define “ambassador”– by saying they were persons not subject to the jurisdiction and etc.
2) ambassadors doesn’t include invading troops, royalty and so on and so on. So they want a somewhat larger group.
They want to encompass amassadors, invading troups, the king of England etc should they visit.
MikeM
I’m not sure about the 1860s. But Abigail Adams joined her husband when he was was embassador to France in 1784. I think it’s been pretty common for ambassadors to bring their families since that time.
…
It would seem this guys– later a French citizen and diplomat was born in the US. His father was a diplomat.
Unsurprisingly, some diplomats sent to on relatively long tours brought their families. Sometimes their wives had kids. Go figure.
Honestly, it doesn’t take much googling to find diplomats who had kids born in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Mercier
His father happened to also be a diplomat. And guess where Heri was born?
I suspect diplomats wives traveling with them for their long stays was likely the rule and not the exception.
Lucia,
I’ll bet Mercier’s English was pretty good. 😉
Mike, which is a more egregious violation of the norms? Hegseth’s behavior or Democrats objecting to it?
Nothing more egregious than pardoning your own family and your own kangaroo court.
The power to pardon is to right wrongs that may have occurred in sentencing.
Not to ever give carte blanch to you own whims .
Biden was like a cheat playing monopoly or with a marked deck in a poker game.
Time for the senate and house to call him out and rescind that decision.
Fuller,
Hegseth is hardly the first married man to have had an affair. I bet that lots of Democrat Senators have done the same. It is not relevant to the job. It is also not relevant to the Democrat objections to Hegseth, except as an excuse.
But I said nothing about Hegseth. It appeats that the Dems are blocking ALL appointments after letting one token appointment through. That is a disgrace.
Thune blew it. He should have given Trump his recess appointments. That would have been a significant violation of norms, but not as bad as what the Dems are doing.
The Dems are trying to overturn the election.
lucia,
Thanks for finding the answer to my question. I do know that is was also somewhat common for diplomats to travel without their wives.
But if that is what they meant, they could have said “agents of foreign governments”.
There ought to be something in the record indicating what was meant by “subject to the jurisdiction”. And it is clear that they did not intend citizenship to be immutable. At the time, the US was engaged in disputes with foreign countries where they were saying that their former citizens were still their citizens and we were saying that they were not.
Mike M.:
From here, excerpted from the SCOTUS opinion in United States v. Wong Kim Ark:
In other words, what lucia wrote above.
Lucia,
It seems strange to me that our laws would explicitly recognize occupying troops. Do you know of other U.S. laws that recognize occupying troops (non US troops) as a category & could you point me to any?
[Edit: Oh, nevermind. I see from Harold’s post above. I should read ‘United States v. Wong Kim Ark’]
Well, no wonder Trump is calling the border situation an ‘invasion’. I don’t think it technically is though. Illegal immigrants aren’t occupying troops, they just aren’t.
HaroldW,
That is definitely relevant. OTOH, the Court was writing 30 years after the fact and said “would appear to”, so it is hardly definitive.
But the Wikipedia article on that case includes something much more to the point. Senator Howard, who proposed introducing those words said that the clause:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark#Citizenship_clause_of_the_Fourteenth_Amendment
So it is clear that the children of diplomats were to be excluded. But there is still an ambiguity since he said nothing about invading troops but did include “foreigners, aliens”. Did he mean all foreigners? Or only those who belong to the families of ambassadors, etc.? We can’t rely too much on punctuation since those were spoken words.
What is clear is that the intent was not to change citizenship laws except as regards freed slaves. So the law prior to the 14th Amendment is relevant.
But in any case, that still does not address the question of whether birthright citizenship is immutable.
I don’t think there should be any doubt that those who were born and raised here are citizens as long as they did nothing as adults to lose that citizenship.
Also, the author of the Wong Kim Ark decision seems to have inserted “children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation” although that does not seem to have been discussed in the Congressional debate. So it is clear that *some* “foreigners, aliens” are excluded, but beyond ambassadors it is not clear *which* “foreigners, aliens” are excluded.
Aren’t families traveling with diplomats “under the jurisdiction”? Perhaps the nations with diplomats also give the families diplomatic status or it is given as a courtesy.
It does seem strange that the exception for this tiny group made it all the way to the Constitution. Certainly occupying forces might have been seen as a real possibility back then.
I think the families of diplomats also have immunity. If not, the purpose of diplomatic immunity would be easily circumvented.
This might be relevant, but I can not follow the logic:
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5701063/lynch-v-clarke/
It is clear that Julia Lynch was a citizen at birth. The judge claims she was still a citizen when she was 14, 10 years after her non-citizen parents returned to the UK. But I can not figure out why he thinks she was still a citizen and it sounds like his reasoning was debatable.
Mike
Maybe. There is often more than one way to say the same thing.
Some agents of a foreign government may be subject to US jurisdiction while here. If they’d picked that wording we’d to debate what an “agent” is and whether or not someone is “an agent”.
The current wording also includes invading troops or anyone shielded from US jurisdiction owing to a region being occupied by troops. Generally speaking we do not consider military troops to be “agents”, though perhaps they are. “Agent” would almost certainly not apply to the wife of military officer overseeing “Occuplied Arkansas”.
And what they wrote was perfectly clear: the condition is not being subject to the jurisdiction of the US. This is not a mysterious phrase. Substituting a wording that would give birth right citizenship to the children of invading troops is probably not a plus.
MikeM
You haven’t told us why you think she wasn’t. What this article shows is that courts upheld birth right citizenship and people retained their citizenship if they moved overseas.
I know you don’t like that outcome, but it was the court ruling. It’s not particularly puzzling.
It also shows that judge accepted the existance of dual citizenship (i.e. double allegience.)
He states the principle of natural born citizenship hold
lucia,
That was one court, not courts. From what I can find, the position of the US at the time of the 14th Amendment was that citizens of the US were not citizens of other countries. The court in Lynch seems to argue that since other countries claimed US citizens as their own, that meant that we recognized dual citizenship, as if US law was somehow dependent on foreign law. And it is not clear if the court thought that Lynch would still be a citizen if she became an adult in the UK and chose to remain there.
Of course one case is on court. It’s the one you decided to post. It’s clear you don’t like the ruling. Unlike the court that “seems” to argue what you would like it to say– but which
Forbidding dual citizenship would make US citizenship law depend on foreign law. The woman in the case you cited was a US citizen despite English law saying she was also a British citizen. So were countless US citizens. British law cannot act to revoke US citizenship. If it did, all sorts of US citizens would have been unable to naturalize and children of peoeple the British considered British citizens would have not been US citizens at the time after the revolution.
Obviously, the US can’t prevent Britain from considering someone a citizen and giving them the rights of British citizenship either. That’s what the court in the case you cite recogizes: The British law granting her citizenship doesn’t revoke her citizenship granted by our law. They can’t cancel our law.
lucia,
The Expatriation Act went into force one day before the 14th Amendment. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_Act_of_1868#
Seems to me that the judge in the Lynch case was out of line by seeming to endorse perpetual allegiance. And for sure Congress did not intend for the 14th Amendment to establish perpetual allegiance.
One of the causes of the War of 1812 was that the British Navy would impress American seamen who were once British subjects. They said the former British subjects were still British subjects; we said they weren’t
This guy argues that to understand “subject to the jurisdiction” one must understand “the distinction between partial, territorial jurisdiction, which subjects all who are present within the territory of a sovereign to the jurisdiction of that sovereign’s laws, and complete political jurisdiction, which requires allegiance to the sovereign as well.”
https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/birthright-citizenship-fundamental-misunderstanding-the-14th-amendment
He argues, too briefly to be really convincing, that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee citizenship to the children of non-citizens, even if they are here legally. So Wong Kim Ark was wrongly decided. And prior to that case, SCOTUS said something very different:
That makes perfect sense. It is universally agreed that the 14th Amendment can be expanded upon by Congress; for example, by granting citizenship to those born abroad to US citizen parents. So it is reasonable that they meant to leave to Congress the question of citizenship for the children of aliens.
The purpose of section 1 of the Amendment was to guarantee citizenship to former slaves and their descendants. I think there is no evidence that they meant to do anything more than that.
They can make those arguments and it might rightly end up before the SC for clarification, but I think it will lose handily trying to do it through an executive order.
The true path is through immigration reform, almost completely eliminating asylum, expanding border enforcement, stopping catch and release, and more aggressive deportation.
Congress just passed a new law which makes committing what were previously “minor” crimes such as theft and shoplifting into ones that make one subject to deportation. This will probably have a side effect of making these immigrants more law abiding.
lucia wrote: ” It’s the one you decided to post.”
It is the one case sometimes cited to claim that the US recognized dual citizenship.
According to US law in the 19th century you could not be a citizen of both the US and another country. Dual citizenship was not possible. When you became a US citizen, you ceased to be a citizen of your former country. When you became a citizen of a different country, you ceased to be a US citizen.
That conflicted with the laws of other countries. As far as the US was concerned, it was only US law that mattered.
Mike M. , the court has ruled on the due process clause of the 14th amendment making it apply to more than slavery issues. Stare decisis on that general ruling upheld over many years is not going, in my view, to allow the court to make an exception for the natural born part of that amendment.
Trump got some bad legal/constitutional advice on this matter. His administration needs to fix the immigration process. I hope his people do not spend time like you have here making a court case – even though the discussion here was informative from several angles.
Here is a more detailed argument along the same lines as the Heritage Foundation article I cited above:
https://americanmind.org/salvo/birthright-citizenship-game-on/
The key point is the distinction between a partial, temporary jurisdiction, that applies to anyone while they are within our borders and a complete jurisdiction that manifests itself as owing allegiance to the United States and not to any foreign power. It is clear that the drafters of the Amendment meant the latter.
Kenneth,
The court has never ruled on the applicability of the citizenship clause to the children of those here temporarily and/or illegally. So there would be no need to overturn Wong Kim Ark, even if it was wrongly decided.
MikeM
How so? He merely ruled that a US citizen who wanted to retain their US citizenship did get to retain it. It doesn’t say she is forced to retain it. That’s was the problem of “perpetual allegiance”.
MikeM
What law? Can you cite it and quote the language of the law?
I’m pretty sure my grandmother had both Cuban and US citizenship at birth. That was before 1900 She didn’t have to naturalize when her father moved the family to the US. Cuba recognized her as a citizen.
Thomas W Fuller,
Well, given the chance, and combined with a bit too much to drink (on both sides of the bed), these things can happen.
They are mainly a subject for discussion with the spouses involved, not with the US Senate. Of course, the left will obviously do ANYTHING, and raise ANY non-substantive, irrelevant issue to defeat an appointee with whom they disagree on substantive policy. Raising substantive policy issues is perfectly reasonable. That is not what is going on here.
Which of course makes those Democrats railing against Hegseth nothing but miserable, dishonest scumbags.
lucia,
Individuals being naturalized have had to renounce their prior citizenship since 1795:
https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test/history-of-the-oath-of-allegiance
From the same source, the actual wording of the oath was not specified until 1906. The specified oath included:
Citizenship certainly involves at least some “allegiance to a foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty”. So dual citizenship was not allowed for naturalized citizens.
The current oath is nearly the same
https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test/naturalization-oath-of-allegiance-to-the-united-states-of-america
That appears to date to 1957, before the Afroyim decision.
How Trump’s Assault on DEI Will Ripple Across Corporate America
https://www.wsj.com/business/how-trumps-assault-on-dei-will-ripple-across-corporate-america-d219ad91?st=qTzgZ3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I’m not sure the word assault is appropriate but it looks like Trump is searching for some people to prosecute for corporate racial / gender violations as it relates to nondiscrimination laws. He wants the government to effectively blacklist companies who have DEI programs.
I imagine this will be rather successful as nobody wants to be the example of what getting prosecuted by the Trump DOJ looks like. A lot of these companies weren’t ever very enthusiastic about this stuff anyway so this gives them an easy out.
Like FL / TX banning these programs previously the response has been pretty tepid. Many Democrats are probably happy to see this weakness removed from the political battlefield.
Looks like DEI finally collapsed under its own weight, the question is whether it will come back from the dead once power changes again. I don’t know.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/judge-halts-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-donald-trump-john-coughenour-ca3b1cc2?st=5hTZXS&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“ Federal Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee, gave this argument short shrift. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” he ruled from the bench, adding “where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?. . . I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar would state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order.” Good point.”
I’m fairly certain that if the DOJ is dumb enough to appeal, the circuit court won’t hear it. Even if previous cases were wrongly decided, the President does not have the authority to change that by executive order.
So far as I can tell, Trump’s citizenship order does not violate any established law. SCOTUS has never ruled on whether the children of those here temporarily and/or illegally are entitled to birthright citizenship. Trump might lose, but he will get a hearing.
My guess is that the Seattle judge’s ruling will get tossed on the grounds of the plaintiffs not having standing. So far, nobody has been harmed by the order.
AI is starting to heat up again.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/01/how-the-chinese-beat-trump-and-openai.html#more
A quote listed in the article
“ Most people probably don’t realize how bad news China’s Deepseek is for OpenAI.
.
They’ve come up with a model that matches and even exceeds OpenAI’s latest model o1 on various benchmarks, and they’re charging just 3% of the price.”
Mike M.,
Biden’s student debt forgiveness didn’t violate any laws either. It was thrown out because he didn’t have the authority to do it.
MikeM
This is clearly insufficient to make dual citizenship illegal. It did in the case of Lynch who got her citizenship by being born here
logic, fail.
So? Other than that means Afroyim had nothing to do with it.
It is also irrelevant to Afroyom because
(a) when he naturalized to US citizenship, he gave up his Polish citizenship,
(b) they wanted to yank his US citizenship for voting in an Israeli election which did not require Israeli citizenship at that time,
(c) (oddly enough) the law and oath is silent on what happens if a US citizen american naturalizes to another country. (Afroyim did take Israeli citizenship after the vote which he cast. For some reason, that wasn’t part of the trial.
You have failed to show that dual citizenship was not allowed. We know the court argued that Lynch was a duel citizen because our law made her a citizen at birt. That, though no action of her own, the British also considered her a subject did not cause her to lose her citizenship. And this dual citizenship applied to tons of people, many natural born American citizens.
We can’t prevent the British from claiming someone as a citizen. We don’t strip Americans of their Americans citizenship merely because the British decree they are British citizens. So: they are dual citizens.
We may be able to strip American’s of their American citizenship if they do something in addition to happening to have another type of citizenship. But we need a law stating the grounds to do so. And there needs to be due process.
Unless the law you cited says rather more than you quoted, that law doesn’t strip any one with American citizenship of their citizenship. It merely requires someone who is naturalizing to give up their past citizenship.
I”m not naturalized. That law would not have required me to give up my El Salvadoran passport. And I’m not even born here– my citizenship is through my parents.
DeWitt,
I think the Robert’s court is likely to kick the “big” constitutional interpretation can out of the way and rule on the question of whether the executive can do this. Saying the President can’t do this also also important though. Stopping ridiculous attempts by Presidents to act like some 17th century all powerful supreme monarch is as important as interpreting the 14th amendment.
If this is how the Roberts court rules, let’s just hope Congress doesn’t waste their time trying to pass new laws of dubious legality trying to limit natural born citizenship to a smaller class of people. There are other more important and more useful things to do. That includes more important things to do vis-a-vis immigration.
If they really want to curb the growing class of natural born citizens, they should address the children born to Americans off American soil. I know some El Salvadorans who have never lived in the US, whose parents did not live in the US and who have inherited US citizenship through their naturalized American great grandmother. That now dead great grandmother is my sisters godmother. She was very nice. Her kids were very nice. I assume her grand kids were very nice. And I have no doubt her great grankids will be too. But… come on!
Thinking a bit more on “subject to the jurisdiction”, the question on the charge of treason comes up.
If a subset of foreign nationals inside the US are not eligible to be charged with treason, are these foreign nationals truly “subject to the jurisdiction”?
Seems to support my contention that, at a minimum, children born in the US to mothers inside the US under a visa are not eligible to be considered a citizen of the US.
Being domiciled in the US is a major issue for this subject. For illegals, I think a definition on what would be considered “domiciled in the US” would need to be addressed. See below
“Treason doesn’t apply to foreign nationals who don’t owe any allegiance to the United States. However, it does apply to American citizens holding dual citizenship. It also applies to aliens domiciled in the United States who owe a temporary allegiance to the country while living there.”
https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/treason.htm
“Establishing Domicile
To prove, establish or reestablish domicile, a sponsor must set up and maintain a principal residence in the United States. An individual must demonstrate ties to a house or apartment in the United States that are consistent with ties that a resident with legal domicile would possess. There is no minimum time required to establish residence, but a credible demonstration of an actual residence in the United States is required.
A convincing combination of the following types of action might be considered evidence of domicile:
* Establishing an address in the United States that corresponds with your place of residence
* Working or seeking employment in the United States
* Voting in local, state or federal elections
* Paying U.S. income taxes
* Enrolling children in schools
* Taking steps to relinquish residency in a foreign country
* Applying for a social security number
* Setting up and maintaining bank accounts in the United States
* Transferring funds to the United States
* Making and maintaining investments in the United States”
https://www.relocation-law.com/domicile-requirement/
Ed Forbes
The vast majority of people Trump’s order targets are domiciled in the US and so can be charged with treason. People with student visas? Check. Illegal aliens? Check. (They almost always seek jobs and establish an address that corresponds to their place of residence. Most pay US taxes. Those who have kids enrol them in school. Some may apply for social security numbers– if not they’ll fake one! 🙂 ) Lots will have a bank account.
The domicile rule would probably not even put a dent in toursist birthing. That’s already wealthy people who will transfer some money here, rent an apartment, live here for a while.
Upholding his order but narrowing it to people not domiciled here would make it nugatory.
People here on student visas (F1 and M1) are not eligible to domicile here. The following document seems to appear on many university web sites:
https://www.alamo.edu/siteassets/sac/admissions-and-aid/residency/visa-list-that-are-eligible-to-domicile-in-the-united-states-us.pdf
And there is this:
https://scrappysays.unt.edu/s/article/Can-international-students-qualify-to-be-classified-as-a-resident-for-tuition-purposes
I don’t think it makes any sense to say that somebody is domiciled in a place that they have no legal right to be.
This argues that there is a difference between de jure domicile and de facto domicile, that the 14th Amendment requires the first and the domicile must therefore be legal. So illegal immigrants are not domiciled in the US.
Mike M,
Not going to happen. Might go 9-0 or as little as 6-3 against Trump at the SC.
The worst part of it all: it is a distraction and a waste of political capital better spent on more important issues.
SteveF,
I think that you are too optimistic as to the extent of the problem and too pessimistic as to the chance of Trump’s order being upheld. It’s not like SCOTUS would have to overturn precedent.
Hegseth squeaks through.
Murkowski Collin’s and Mitch show the Rinos can still block Trump whenever they want to.
Probably why Trump moved Rubio out of the Senate!
–
Kevin Spacey come home and help
I am thinking that all of the arguments on “subject to the jurisdiction” might be barking up the wrong tree.
People are assuming that “subject to the jurisdiction” modifies “born”. But that does not seem to be how it is written. If that were the case, the modifier should immediately follow “born”. And it makes no sense to say it modifies both since anyone “naturalized in the United States” must have been subject to the jurisdiction thereof at the time. Also, there is that first comma, which does not seem to belong there.
I think it makes more sense to read that sentence as establishing TWO requirements for guaranteed citizenship:
(1) You must be born or naturalized in the United States.
AND
(2) You must be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
So if you were born or naturalized in the United States and are no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, then your citizenship is not guaranteed by the Amendment.
That makes sense because they were not trying to broadly rewrite or codify citizenship law. They were guaranteeing citizenship for freed slaves.
MikeM
Making laws is not one of the powers of the president. Making laws about who gets citizenship is no exception. The Robert’s court isn’t going to expand the imperial presidency beyond what is in the constitution.
Lucia,
I agree that the SC would take a law from Congress limiting citizenship to those born to parents who are legal residents (or ‘domiciled in the USA’) more seriously than Trump’s executive order, but 1) such a law will never be passed by Congress and 2) how then to handle all those people (and their descendants!) born to illegal residents. Congress could , I suppose, put an age limit on who is or is not a citizen when born to illegal residents (eg deportable for two years?) but that seems equally unlikely. Sounds a bit too much like how much black blood a person could have and still be considered a slave; if your grandparents were illegal residents, then so were your parents, and you are not a citizen, even thought you never lived anywhere except the USA? It is all preposterous.
Trump is wasting his time on this.
Hegseth squeaked by with a tie-breaking vote cast by VP Vance. Murkowski and Collins were never expected to support Hegseth, RINOs both. McConnell is punishing Trump for dissing him with his vote against Hegseth….. McConnell knew perfectly well that Hegseth was going to be confirmed, and was just thumbing his nose at Trump with his vote against Hegseth.
Seems likely the rest of Trump’s appointees will get confirmed.
Some frightening numbers about the budget deficit, from a Boston Herald editorial:
SteveF,
Oh. I totally agree with everything you said in January 25, 2025 at 5:17 am. But MikeM doesn’t seem to realize that violation of the 14th amendment isn’t the only problem with that executive order. Both Dewitt and I have pointed out the “imperial presidency” issue.
If anyone is going to write laws regarding citizenship, it’s Congress. And no, they aren’t going to get rid of birthright citizenship. And yes, if it were to vanish, “poof!”, there would be an abundance of problems. Those problems would have to be contemplated by Congress– but they are still problems.
The solution to the influx at the border is to get the border under control. Wasting anymore time on something as stupid as trying to get rid of birth right citizenship is just dumb.
lucia: “Making laws is not one of the powers of the president.”
So what law has Trump supposedly made? Or changed? I think he has only changed an administrative policy. He can do that.
Who decided that the children of illegals should be citizens? I think that the answer is somebody in the executive branch. So far as I know there is neither a statute nor a court decision specifying that. Somebody in the executive branch decided that citizenship documents like passports would be issued to such people.
If the current policy was an administrative ruling, then Trump can change it. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
The only import of Trump’s order is the issuance of certain documents. The government can deny you those documents. The President has at least some latitude to set the rules for who can get those documents. Maybe Trump’s order is outside that latititude. If so, show me some evidence.
Josh Blackman at Volokh commenting on whether Trump has the power to stop the issuance of passports to some people:
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/21/the-birthright-citizenship-executive-order/
Blackman says he needs to think about it some more. I hope he does.
I am starting to feel like I am the only one commenting here on this topic who is (a) not sure of the answer and (b) providing much in the way of evidence.
MikeM,
So perhaps the president can deny them passports. But that doesn’t make them “not citizens”.
(Similarly, Lincoln giving black slaves passports didn’t make them citizens. He wasn’t setting aside Dred Scott or overruling SCOTUS. He was just issuing passports.)
If the ruling is he has complete power over passports, that just means we’d have a a subclass of birth right citizens who can’t travel elsewhere. Or at least they can’t travel using American passports. So they will all stay here! And refusing passports doesn’t necessarily mean you can refuse entry.
Somehow that strikes me as not what Trump wants to happen.
MikeM
Are you aware you are giving the impression you are sure of the answer? Because you are.
Mike M,
“I am starting to feel like I am the only one commenting here on this topic who is (a) not sure of the answer and (b) providing much in the way of evidence.”
I have pointed out multiple times that there are horrible problems associated with trying to yank the citizenship of people resident in the USA since birth who happen to have parents who illegally resided in the USA. That is a problem that can cascade over generations, approaching absurdity.
All the hullabaloo about DACA ( “dreamer” children of illegal aliens born outside the USA but raised in the USA) gives some indication of just how difficult a problem this is….. DACA, while claimed by many to be completely illegal, has remained in force since Obama. Allowing DACA people to stay in the USA has clear majority support. I can only imagine the popular uproar over pulling the citizenship of people born in the USA and resident here all their lives.
Like I said above, it is preposterous, it will not happen, and anybody who thinks it will is mistaken.
SteveF,
Nobody is “yanking” anybody’s citizenship. Trump’s order does not apply to any living person.
I have said more than once I think that denying citizenship to people born and raised here is not a good idea. But that is irrelevant to the Constitutional debate.
Congress can extend citizenship to people who are not guaranteed citizenship by the 14th Amendment. They have done that as regards children born abroad to citizens. Perhaps to an excessive degree, as argued by lucia above. They could do the same with others who are not Constitutionally entitled to citizenship. That would be a matter for debate as to what the best policy would be.
lucia wrote: “Are you aware you are giving the impression you are sure of the answer?”
I failed to make it clear as to what I am not sure of. I am sure that:
(1) The question of birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens not cut and dried.
(2) The US did not recognize dual citizenship until recently.
(3) There are valid arguments against the prevailing opinion.
I am not sure as to
(1) The interpretation of “subject to the jurisdiction”.
(2) Whether Trump’s order is within his authority.
(3) How the Supreme Court might rule.
Others here seem have expressed certainty as to the last three and seem pretty sure I am wrong on the first three.
Mike,
I’m not sure. I’ve just said what little I have to say and have been reading the back and forth. I’m not sure, but I doubt that Trump’s executive order regarding birthright citizenship will or even should go anywhere.
lucia wrote: “If the ruling is he has complete power over passports, that just means we’d have a a subclass of birth right citizens who can’t travel elsewhere …”
Yep. That would indeed be a mess. Like you, I don’t think that is what Trump wants to happen. If it did happen, Congress would actually have to pass a law. OK by me.
I doubt that SCOTUS will rule that the President can *arbitrarily* deny passports. He would have to have a sufficent reason. His reason is that those people are not citizens. So I think that when this gets to SCOTUS, they will have to rule on the validity of that reason.
The worst that can happen is the status quo ante. But if Trump wins, Congress will get much more authority as to citizenship. It will be possible to craft citizenship laws that serve the best interests of the nation. That is a very worthwhile objective.
MikeM
Sure. And you are posting extremely tenuous interpretations that nearly everyone things are just wrong. You are even just ‘puzzled’ when you find pre-14th cases that clearly accept the existence of dual citizenship– and make claims that it was not allowed by statute. However you have failed to find any such statue.
And you have posted some text about Bancroft treaties– and made claims that are not supported by the text of Bancroft treaties you posted.
Maybe you need to sit down and find the statues or court rulings that support your musings about how birth right citizenship can be set aside. Because other than saying SCOTUS didn’t specifically rule what would happen if Kim Wong Ark’s parents had been here illegally, you really have nothing.
In Kim Wong Ark, SCOTUS did make a very clear statement about who was excluded. They would have to at least “clarify” that statement in a sense that changed what it meant. SCOTUS has the power to do that. SCOTUS can even set aside past rulings. They’ve done so in the past.
But currently, the idea that
(a) the 14th amendement does not include children of illegal aliens or those with student visas is phenomally weak and
(b) the idea the PRESIDENT can decree who is and is not a US citizen is also very weak.
Denying or granting passports is not what confirms citizenship. If the president does deny passports to US citizens or grants them to non-US citizens, all that i will mean is that in the case of (a) being denies a passport will not mean you are not a US citizen and in the case of (b), having a passport will no longer be proof of US citizenship.
Historically, lots of countries have denied passports to their citizens. In fact we have done so. Among other things we denied passports for being members of the communist aprty. This simply meant that citizens were denied the right to travel freely– of the goal was to prevent them from leaving the country. Denying their passports did not strip them of US citizenship.
If a reasonable case could be made that Obama or Biden had effectively redefined an amendment by executive order, upsetting or defying our longstanding grasp of the meaning of the amendment, I would call that out as executive overreach. I don’t see why this is different.
I think it is important to recognize that even if Trump’s order is fully upheld by SCOTUS it will not be the last word on the matter. It will only mean that our representatives in Congress will get to decide on citizenship for those born to parents who are here temporarily and/or illegally. That is how it is supposed to work.
lucia: “Denying their passports did not strip them of US citizenship.”
Exactly. So Trump’s order will not actually deny anybody citizenship. What it will do is to force SCOTUS to clarify the meaning of the 14th Amendment. Maybe they will rule the way you expect. Maybe they won’t. We shall see.
“ in 2022 there were approximately 255,000 births of citizen children to non-citizen mothers without lawful status (undocumented) and approximately 153,000 births to two undocumented parents.”
Clarification to my last post: Trump’s order merely *claims* that some people are not citizens. It does not actually *deny* them citizenship. It appears to be nothing more than a way to force the issue into the courts.
Mike M,
” But that is irrelevant to the Constitutional debate.”
I completely disagree, terrible legal outcomes from foolish interpretations of the Constitution are anything but irrelevant (see Dred Scott, Korematsu v. United States, and others).
Franklin Roosevelt imprisoned innocent citizens of Japanese descent via a foolish executive order, and he was (foolishly) upheld by a Supreme Court consisting of his dedicated appointees, who clearly had neither a shred of courage nor a speck of good sense among them.
Trump is issuing a very unwise, foolish executive order on citizenship, hoping to be upheld by the SC. He will be disappointed.
I have a question for those who think the conventional interpretation is obvious.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States”
How do you conclude that ” subject to the jurisdiction” refers to a person’s parents? Other than the fact that has been claimed a zillion times. Parents aren’t mentioned. It seems to me that it must apply to the persons who are the subject of the sentence.
Recognized diplomats, and their spouse and children, are clearly NOT subject to the jurisdiction of the USA. Everyone else physically present in the USA is subject to its jurisdiction. Arrest a diplomat for theft, fraud, assault? Nope, nope, nope. Arrest the child of an illegal alien for those things? Sure. I don’t honestly see this as even a hard case.
Those wanting a different rule on birthright citizenship need to change the 14th amendment. Good luck. About as much chance as changing the 2nd.
Diplomatic immunity does not place diplomats above our laws. Diplomats are required to obey the laws of the host country. All diplomatic immunity does is limit what the host country can do if a diplomat breaks the law. The only thing that the host country can do unilaterally is to declare the offending diplomat persona non grata and expel him. But they can also ask the diplomat’s government to wave immunity. If they do, then the diplomat can be tried, convicted, and punished according to the host country’s laws. And that happens, at least if the diplomat’s government wants to stay on good terms with the host country.
The purpose of diplomatic immunity is to protect diplomats from being the treated the way that Russia has recently treated some Americans. Or to protect a diplomat from lawfare. It is not meant to allow diplomats to break the law.
Hmm. I asked a question (10:43 am, yesterday at 9:47 pm) that undermines much of my earlier argument and nobody seems to have noticed.
Trump is “reassigning” a bunch of DOJ officials to prosecuting sanctuary cities. I guess this is the functional toilet cleaning job for progressive lawyers. Basically an invitation to quit,
NBC: “Half a dozen senior career Justice Department officials have been told they are being removed from their jobs and reassigned to a new effort to take legal action against so-called sanctuary cities
…
All of the section chiefs in the environmental and natural resources division, which helps enforce environmental law, have been reassigned to the sanctuary cities task force as well, a source told NBC News.
…
On Friday afternoon, the leader of the Justice Department’s gender equality effort — a career official in the civil rights division — sent an email saying she was resigning.”
What we are seeing is a more experienced Trump pulling levers in a more sophisticated way.
SteveF wrote: “Everyone else physically present in the USA is subject to its jurisdiction.”
That is not the understanding of “subject to the jurisdiction” expressed during the Congressional debate on the Amendment.
Senator Trumbull said it means:
Senator Howard:
Senator Johnson:
Representative Bingham:
My source for the above quotes:
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/birthright-citizenship-a-response-to-my-critics/
I don’t especially recommend the article except as a source of quotes from the debate at the time.
MikeM
You’ve done more than ask a question yesterday. I also don’t see how your asking that question suggest you aren’t very strongly advancing a view.
lucia wrote: ” I also don’t see how your asking that question suggest you aren’t very strongly advancing a view.”
I did not say that I said that what I said in those two posts undermines what I said earlier. But you do have to think through the consequence of my suggestion in those posts to see why.
But now, in light of the quotes from the debate, I am thinking that my original position might be correct.
MikeM
If we go with parents owing el zippo alegiance to a foreign country, that would mean children of legal aliens don’t get birth right citizenship either. And if we need it to be literally zero allegience, Baron Trump doesn’t get birth right citizenship because Melania didn’t naturalize until after he was born.
MikeM
Which is?
Tom: “approximately 153,000 births to two undocumented parents.”
Oooof.
MikeM
Wrong. Because he is doing more than simply not issuing passports.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/
In section 1 he makes a decree about law regarding citizenship.
In section 2, he decrees that no department will even accept documents purporting to recognize citizenship of certain people. And this isn’t limited to new born babies. This includes refusing to accept passports of people who may now be adults whose parent might have not have had the correct status at the tie of the person’s birth.
In section 3 he is ordering Social Security and Homeland security to not accept documents that confer citizenship.
This isn’t merely not giving someone a passport. He is telling departments to refuse to recognize citizenship. That’s different.
Section 2 would, for example, mean my older sisters god mother’s daughter could not present her passport as proof of her american citizenship because she was born here when her Guatemalan father was here on a student Visa studying to be an anesthesiologist, and her mother was here o a similarly temporary visa. Or if she presented it, no agency could interpret that as valid.
There is no grandfathering in that executive order.
Moreover, if she were in the US and wished to vote, no agency could accept her birth certificate as proof of US citizenship either.
How they would figure out that her parents had been here on temporary visas is something of a mystery. But the agency would be in violation of the order if they accepted her early 1960s birth certificate as proof of her American citizenship.
I should note: Perhaps some people might suggest that Maria is precisely the sort of person who should not have gotten citizenship since her parents were merely students, intended to return to Guatemala and did. But the fact is– not granting citizenship is different from merely not issuing a passport.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/23/debating-birthright-citizenship-again/
Jonathan Adler at Volokh on the birthright citizenship question.
DaveJR,
That number was higher than I was expecting but I’m not sure what I should expect.
3.5M births per year in the US so about 4.4% of births per year are from both parents being illegals. I saw another estimate at 7% but that is probably just for mothers.
I read an interesting article by Ryan McMaken on the nations that are tending from citizenship by birth (jus soli) to citizenship by parental line (jus sanguinis) or other restrictions on jus soli.
He makes the point that nations with net positive in-migration have given up jus soli with the notable exceptions of the US and Canada. Nations with a net negative out-migration are more likely to have and retained jus soli.
I judge that it will be more difficult for this to change for the US since here it is a matter of changing the constitution – again in my judgment. I think arguments could be made for the 14th amendment being related strictly to slavery issues, but that is not how the modern day courts have interpreted it. The inferences that the amendment is about the Civil war are there, but the amendment is not specific to the war.
That leaves the phrases “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the citizenship clause and “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” in the due process clause for interpretation. That interpretation has been made by the Supreme court.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-world-giving-birthright-citizenship
This is pretty funny. Chicago school refuses ICE agents entry and then holds a press conference. It’s like a trust and safety euphemism seminar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tss_Szim-B4
Only problem is the people in question weren’t ICE agents, but the secret service on an unrelated matter. Hilarious.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/secret-service-agents-responded-to-chicago-school-not-ice-agency-says/3655654/
lucia,
You have completely misread the order.
First, as regards Baron Trump, the order in section 2(a) says not to issue passport etc.
“(2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
Baron Trump’s father was a citizen.
And the order is not retroactive:
“(b) Subsection (a) of this section shall apply only to persons who are born within the United States after 30 days from the date of this order.”
And it specifically says it only applies to the people described in subsections (a) and (b):
“(c) Nothing in this order shall be construed to affect the entitlement of other individuals, including children of lawful permanent residents, to obtain documentation of their United States citizenship.”
It looks like I might have to read the Wong Kim Ark decision. It seems it may not say what people say it says.
“In ruling for Wong, the Supreme Court made clear that the United States has a say in who is subject to its jurisdiction, noting that noncitizens like Wong’s parents are “entitled to the protection of, and owe allegiance to, the United States so long as they are permitted by the United States to reside here” (emphasis added).”
So illegals are arguably excluded.
Also, the opinion notes that Wong’s parents were domiciled here. So the ruling it does not seem to extend to those here temporarily although it also does not clearly exclude them.
Source for the above:
https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/24/trump-is-right-about-birthright-citizenship/
I don’t know if Raymer is one of the Federalist authors who can be trusted, so I guess I will have to check that out for myself.
Honestly, I think this thread on Trump’s executive order is the biggest waste of time EVER on this blog. YMMV.
I am quite certain: Birthright citizenship is not going to change.
MikeM
No. I have not. The order is for what agencies must do going forward.
And the Baron Trump issue isn’t about the order. It is about the consequences of things you quote.
I am not sure that I am reading this right, but I think this (the first paragraph of the syllabus) is what was actually decided in Wong Kim Ark (emphasis added):
“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, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution,”
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/169/649/#
In other words, the American born children of what we would now call permanent residents are citizens of the United States.
MikeM,
I think we can all just wait to see whether this gets to SCOTUS and what they decide. You can post all your ideas all you want. It’s not going to make a difference.
Trump isn’t going to get his order past the first threshold of who gets citizenship even being something a president can order. That means all these people will be able to stay and, when they reach voting age, vote. He might be able to prevent some from getting passports. We’ll see.
Hi,
More on Egypt later. Now on the East Bank of the Dead Sea in a very nice hotel – Dutch chain. we understand that our bus ride down to Petra will be accompanied by a police escort.
The new Grand Egyptian Museum really is amazing. I liked the design, thought it was very well constructed and had a lot of, interesting objects arranged in a sort of stepped series of displays somewhat following the history of the place. We are a bit templed out- over a range of a thousand years they are surperingly similar – more similar than cathedral design over 400 years.
There are all sorts of “cops’ hanging around in Egypt all armed, but some less convincingly than others – Kalashinikov with no magazine, some early Enfields painted black and white, a bunch of rifles with straight bolt handles – maybe mauser 98’s. and all conspicuously not well care for.
The serious cops have barettas and AK-47’s with the folding stocks or Uzis.
more later.
lucia wrote: “when they reach voting age, vote. ”
I know the courts can move at a glacial pace, but I think that 18 years will be more than enough to get the case decided. 🙂
MikeM
So do I. It seems you are suggesting I think otherwise. Nothing I wrote suggest I think any court case will take that long.
18 years is long enough for lots of things to happen. Those citizens will be voting.
The media drones went up in Gaza last week. It’s been devastated on a Raqqa scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPtGMM6l5QA
A lot of the buildings still standing will need to come down. Any one of these building would probably take a month to clear normally, there are thousands and thousands.
What a foolish war by a foolish government. It will be interesting to see who is governing Gaza a year from now.
MikeM
You know, I get that you really, really, really want Trump to be right on this. And you really want him to succeed in eliminating birth right citizenship. But it’s not going to happen through an executive order. And, like SteveF, I don’t think it’s going to happen at all because way too few people want it to happen.
Posting all your theories about how the 14th amendment should be interpreted differently from how it has been over decades–more than a century worth of decades– is not going to reduce the extremely high hurdle to eliminating birth right citizenship, which has been the SCOTUS rule since US v. Wong Kim Arc, 1898.
Decreeing that birth right citizenship somehow violates the “Bancroft treaties”– and then posting text you can find- none of which is inconsistent with birth right citizenship (because they all discuss naturlized citizens), isn’t going to help your case when it hits SCOTUS. Claiming dual citizenship was not allowed– but finding no statutes or rulings supporting that claim and instead finding one that expressly states it is allowed and lots of people have it doesn’t help you.
And no, it doesn’t help you if you claim the ruling ‘is confusing’– since as far as I can tell your only ‘confusion’ is you seem to think there was some law saying you couldn’t be a dual citizen. But that law you cannot find– and the ruling itself says there is no legislated law to cover the situation. So instead, the judge slogged through figuring out what the common law was. The ruling is not confusing at all: birth right citizenship was also the common law rule prior to the US constitution and the rule in all 13 States at our founding. And dual citizenship was common.
You might not like it, but it just was.
And no– requiring those who naturalize to give up their other citizenship doesn’t mean other people couldn’t have dual citizenship. It just means that if a person who did not have US citizenship wanted US citizenship, they renounced their other citizenship. The naturalization process has nothing to do with birth right citizenship.
Yes. This case will be decided before kids born this year are 18. And many of these kids and their brothers and sisters and cousins will be voting in US elections by that time.
In case anyone has forgotten, tribal reservations were considered sovereign nations at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. So anyone born on a reservation to parents who were members of the tribe were not citizens of the US. Legislation was later passed to change that.
I also don’t see this issue getting to the Supreme Court. Standing isn’t going to be a significant issue. IMO.
DeWitt,
Yes. And I think generally, Tribal Reservations have their own jurisdiction and their own police. I don’t know exact details. Only what I see on TV. 😉
Mike M.,
I think you might be correct in that “subject to the jurisdiction”applies to the child, not the parents, except for situations like diplomatic immunity. That, btw, would make Trump’s EO even more flagrantly unconstitutional, if that’s possible. A birth certificate, then, must be considered proof of citizenship and it will take an amendment to the constitution to change it.
lucia,
I don’t think you can have a Treaty with a group of ordinary citizens, so there is still sovereignty for tribes. That also lets them build casinos on tribal lands. So dual citizenship has been around since the law was passed to make tribe members also citizens of the US.
It’s worth noting the Judges ruling against Trump’s order lists harms to the children deprived of birthright citizenship that go well beyond not getting a passport.
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/lgvdjzgbjvo/01232025tro.pdf
I can’t cut and paste from the scanned pdf. But loss of federal fundng for medical care of social services. Subjecting the babies to deportation. Depriving access to federsl funding for medical care of basic public benefits to prevent child poverty etc.
Now, I think Trump intends to all these consequences.
My point is this ruling isn’t just depriving babies born on US soil of passports. So MikeM bringing up the presidents right to deprive people of passports is rather irrelevant to the legalit of the order because Trump’s order is depriving them of citizenship and non-passport related benefits that come with that citizenship.
DeWitt,
Do you mean dual citizenship was around at lest since 1924 when the Indian Citizenship Act was passed? I agree it’s at least that long.
But I think it pre-existed that by quite some time. The 1844 ruling MikeM found says
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5701063/lynch-v-clarke/
Basically: we can’t prevent the British (or others) from granting them citizenship (even if they don’t want it.) That doesn’t prevent them from being US citizens. So like it or not these people have dual citizenship (i.e. allegiance.)
Mike M has found no law showing that dual citizenship was against the law. More over, in his ruling, the judge stated “It is very clear that there is no act of Congress which applies to the case of Julia Lynch. “ I imagine he looked into this– as the plaintiff and defendants also would have done. So far it seems Congress did not write a law making dual citizenship illegal.
Because Congress has written nothing, the Judge writes “Third. The next inquiry is therefore, what is the national law of the United States on this subject 1”. He embarks on quite a lot of trouble and history on this (and concludes the law at the time was “birth right citizenship”.
The ruling is long. But there is nothing “confusing” about it. It just needed to be long owing to the fact that there had been 13 colonies, multiple periods (colonial, revolutionary, articles of confederation, and constitutional). But that doesn’t make it confusing. It has to discuss what common law elements we accepted and which we rejected. And so on.
Dual citizenship was allowed under common law that held in the US. And no law had been passed to make it illegal. Mike M has not shown any law that made it illegal– and I’m under the impression he is trying to hunt some down.
lucia,
I thought you wanted to drop this (“I think we can all just wait to see whether this gets to SCOTUS and what they decide”). mybe i misunderstood and should take up the debate again.
Mike M.,
Diplomatic Immunity is absolute. A diplomat and family cannot be arrested or tried for anything, at least to a first approximation. See, for example, how cars in NYC with diplomatic plates ignore parking laws. And that’s why children born to diplomats in the US are not citizens. As family members, they also have diplomatic immunity, so are not subject to the jurisdiction of the state or Federal Government. But that doesn’t apply to non-diplomats. Their children are fully subject to the jurisdiction of the law, at least while they reside in the US. Without their or their government’s consent, the only recourse for dealing with a diplomat or their family is expulsion by declaring them persona non grata.
DeWitt Payne: “I think you might be correct in that “subject to the jurisdiction”applies to the child, not the parents, except for situations like diplomatic immunity. That, btw, would make Trump’s EO even more flagrantly unconstitutional, if that’s possible.”
Yep. As I said, that interpretation would undermine my argument. But the Congressional debate seems to indicate that is not the correct interpretation.
Steve has said he thinks this thread is a waste of time. Maybe it is, but the discussion certainly isn’t bothering me, FWIW.
.
I mean, I know you guys lose sleep at night worrying about whether or not I approve of the discussion, so. Just to put that to rest.
Mike M.,
As lucia pointed out above, there was discussion, but the text wasn’t changed to specifically refer to parents as being subject to jurisdiction. And appellate courts are only supposed to rule on what comes before them. So if it wasn’t raised at trial, it can’t be decided. That might change.
Here’s a piece on the Moss Landing battery fire. Rated R for language and there is a commercial part way through. 1.2GWh was the capacity of the section that burned. This fire was the fourth incident in four years at the site.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/pvRJaI2jV-Y?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
On the order of 60 tons of HF may have been released in the fire. But an EPA person claimed not to worry because it was all consumed in the fire. AFAIK, HF isn’t combustible.
MikeM
I didn’t mean drop it. What I meant was your ideas posted here aren’t going to bind SCOTUS. I think they won’t even influence them.
In any case, many of your claims have simply been clearly wrong. Like the idea that dual citizenship was illegal before Afroyim or that dual citizenship violates Blanckenship treaties.
The one benefit of you bringing up these things is that when I hear them from someone somewhere else, I will know both incorrect claims that are ‘circulating around’. Otherwise, I’d just have suspected they are incorrect claims.
That said, I’m not going to hunt down discussion of these things.
DeWitt,
No, the most electronegative atom (F) is not going to give up a hydrogen to oxygen…… no burning of HF.
As someone who manged to avoid college chemistry, I have no idea what happens to HF in a fire. Does it dissociate into something less harmful?
Hi all. My wife Connie has been having a very rough time. In addition to the cancers and chemotherapy she developed shingles. After a week in the hospital, we moved her to a nursing home with hospice care.
Hospice told us on Wednesday that it may be her last day. But her vitals have stabilized. They are keeping her pain and worry free.
I am greatly relieved to no longer be her primary caregiver. I am finally getting some sleep and am clear headed again [well as clear headed as I used to be, anyway].
Russell, Sorry to hear about those problems.
Most important.
Just see her and support her as much as you can at this difficult time.
God bless.
Say strong.
Russell
I hope for the best for you and your wife.
HarroldW,
The HF forms due to pyrolysis of fluorine compounds used in the electrically conductive ‘electrolyte’ in the lithium-ion batteries. It is a very reactive (and toxic) material because it is an extremely strong acid. It also reacts with many organic compounds to form fluorinated daughter compounds. I suppose there are lots of reactions that it could undergo in a fire, but once released to the air it probably leaves the atmosphere mostly by being ‘rained out’ as dilute acidity, because it is very soluble in water. My guess is that HF is the least of the problems a lithium battery fire presents….. just don’t stand directly down-wind of the fire!
Russell,
I am very sorry to hear this. Know she (and you) are in my prayers!
Been reading through the birthright citizenship discussion – and don’t have enough legal background to really comment – which means I’m the ideal one to comment on the internet 🙂
I don’t see the child born here of illegals having citizenship being a problem. And yes, that means the child can stay. But that doesn’t mean the parents get to stay. So the parents have a choice – take the US citizen back with them with the knowledge that the child will be able to go back later, or leave the child here in the “capable” hands of CPS…
Just my slightly informed opinion…
DeanP
That’s my understanding. Non-citizen parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and relatives of any sort can still be deported.
The parents can arrange for the children to stay or take them with them. Most will take them with them, the way Wong Kim Ark’s parents took him back to China. Granted, they weren’t deported. But there is no rule that says the US citizen kids can’t leave the country to live with their parents!
The children can then return when they wish. Sort of like Wong Kim Ark.
Heck, I’ve known US citizen children who come here for college, then return to their parents country to work. Or who come here for college, get a job and stay. When they do, they end up paying social security. 😉
Russel,
Sorry to hear that! And on top of everything, shingles. Shingles are awful!
MikeM
Do you have a link to the full text of the Congressional debate?
Russell,
So sorry to hear that! I know “the best” is hardly good, yet I hope that things go as painlessly as possible, for both of you.
Very sad to hear, Russell :(. I pray that things go as well as can be expected.
SteveF,
Thanks for the chemistry lesson. I was struggling to understand how both official statements could be simultaneously true: that there had been a large quantity of HF present, yet it was apparently minimal in the nearby air.
Russell,
Jan, with whom I share everything that’s important to me, and I wish you both the best possible outcome.
John and Jan
Russell,
I’m very sorry and I appreciate you sharing this. I hope you can stay strong through this very tough time.
What I read was if the parent(s) leaves for ten years then the baby can then sponsor them for US citizenship once they reach 18 years old. Thus the term anchor baby. It’s basically the family plan for immigration after that.
Russell,
I am very sorry to hear your news. I hope that the outcome is as good as possible given the trying circumstances.
Thank you all for your kind wishes.
lucia,
I have not seen the full text of the debate, only the multiple quotes that I partially quoted above. I gave the link for those at the time.
lucia wrote: “Most will take them with them, the way Wong Kim Ark’s parents took him back to China. ”
Wong was about 17 at the time his parents returned to China. The SCOTUS opinion does not say that he departed with his parents, only that he went to China on a visit that same year with the intention of returning, returned after a few months, and was readmitted without incident. Of course, he probably traveled with his parents, but that does not seem to be relevant and could hardly be described as the parents “taking him with them”.
The problem with reentry occurred after a later visit to China.
IMO, not letting Mr. Wong back into the country would have been a gross injustice. But the real injustice was the Chinese Exclusion Act. And of course, whether it was an injustice or not should have little bearing on what the law said.
Russell Klier
January 26, 2025 at 11:26 pm
Sorry to hear the news about your wife, Russell. I went through a similar situation with my wife between 2017 and 2019 , when she passed away. It can be a tough haul at the time but when you look back you will know you did what had to be done. It has been nearly 6 years for me and I still miss my wife very much, but with many good memories.
DeanP
January 27, 2025 at 6:43 am
Those were my thoughts also, and I think an important point to be made.
Steve and DeWitt, would not HF react with Lithium to form LiF? Lithium is more electro positive than hydrogen. There is probably an intermediate reaction to yield LiF.
Russell,
I lost my wife of 55 years late in 2023 so I sympathize. My condolences.
SteveF,
HF is a weak acid, pKa of 3.16 or so, similar to formic acid. But it is extremely toxic. Skin contact can cause severe burns that are difficult to treat. Inhalation would be much worse. If it had been a chemical plant that had released a significant amount of HF, the EPA and plaintiffs attorneys would have been all over them. They’re going nuts over parts per trillion of so-called forever chemicals, perflourinated carboxylic acids, mostly. And that’s not to mention the move to stop putting 1 ppm fluoride ion in drinking water to prevent tooth decay.
I’m betting they didn’t sample the smoke plume when they claimed they didn’t detect any.
Kenneth,
LiF is a salt that dissociates in water to Li+ and F-. Unless the water is buffered at neutral to alkaline pH, at least some of the fluoride will pull a proton off the water and exist as hydrofluoric acid, HF. Lithium hexafluorophosphate is the electrolyte for a lot of lithium batteries. It’s pretty stable and not highly toxic under normal circumstances because the fluorine is reasonably tightly bound to the phosphorus.
Sodium fluoride can be used as rat poison, so fluoride itself is also toxic, but isn’t as bad as HF.
MikeM
I’d be cautious about interpreting select quotes especially if the links aren’t given to the full text.
The article you linked, bu Anton, also doesn’t contain references to the source.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/birthright-citizenship-a-response-to-my-critics/
One might imagine some things are to the Congressional record. If quotes are from the congressional record, we need to be aware that people are speaking in Congress. So context becomes even more important.
Michel Anton may be a scholar. But it might be nice if his scholarship included citations or links to sources. He could presumably upload a copy of a congressional record from the 1860s. It’s not going to be a copyright violation!
DeWitt Payne
January 27, 2025 at 10:45 am
DeWitt, the hydrolysis of HF will create a very small amount of HF and hydroxyl ion yielding a slightly basic solution. I am familiar with HF since I worked for a company that used it to clean glass. It is a very nasty compound. It can react with bone material and HF wounds can take a long time to heal. We neutralized/precipitated it as calcium fluoride.
Someone rebutting Anton did link the Congressional record. The relevant discussion starts in the second column here:
https://archive.md/UMO7
I’m going out to a dance lesson and will be gone a while. I want to read about the debate over American Indians and so on.
A couple quick comments on the Wong Kim Ark decision.
I was not much impressed by the opinion of the court and I did not find it very convincing. Of course, I am biased against it, so YMMV.
I found the dissent very interesting as to the history of the American position on citizenship. But it sounded like the dissenters might have come to a different conclusion were it not for the differential treatment of Chinese immigrants. If so, I did not find that part of their argument very persuasive.
I did not know that the English common law has no place whatever in US federal law, it only forms part of the law of individual states. And I did not realize that the Revolution repudiated all parts of the common law pertaining to the monarchy (such as citizenship), although that seems obvious now that I think about it.
It is often claimed that the Court ruled on the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. I don’t think so. What the opinion says is:
That sounds to me like dicta because of the words “would appear to have been”. But I am not all that clear on the distinction between dicta and ratio.
One of the better statements on Trumps EO on birthright citizenship.
View it more as a political weapon than a legal issue.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley:
“…this hasn’t had a lot of treatment by the Supreme Court, so the Supreme Court could adopt a different interpretation. But the Trump administration may win either way. That is, if they lose in the courts, this is going to be playing out right before the midterm elections,”
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““Most citizens, it seems like in polls, the majority of citizens do not approve of birthright citizenship,” Turley said. “We’re in the minority of countries recognizing birthright citizenship. That may be what the Trump administration is looking for. If they lose in the courts, they could start a constitutional amendment campaign. This is a wedge issue that they might invite.”
https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/26/jonathan-turley-constitutional-issue-help-trump-end-birthright-citizenship/
lucia: “I’d be cautious about interpreting select quotes especially if the links aren’t given to the full text.”
Indeed. But the quotes were from key people in drafting the Amendment and getting it adopted. If there was a serious dispute as to what the words meant, I would think that Congress would have modified them. So I think that looking up the full debate is unlikely to make a difference. That said, I look forward to hearing what you find.
Note that I took a very different attitude to the quotes from the Wong Kim Ark opinion. I went to see for myself on that one. I am unsure as to whether I should report on that to any more detail than I already have.
Ed Forbes,
Turley’s remarks are interesting. So there are three possible good outcomes of Trump’s order: it should reduce the incentive to come here illegally, he might actually win at SCOTUS, and even if he loses he might be able to use it in the midterms.
I think it is all part of a multi-front war on illegal immigration. This sucks up some of the resistance oxygen in the room to Trump’s advantage.
Columbia’s President … talk about misreading the room. I have no idea how he thought that was going to work out. You can make what you want of Trump’s alleged vindictiveness but you shouldn’t volunteer to be a poster child on immigration policy in the USA right now. This is part of the strategy and it works on all levels from the playground on up.
I should add that part of the reason countries chase disproportionate power is so they can use it to their advantage.
Never using it is a waste of resources. That being said it should be used selectively and wisely. Trump’s reaction to Columbia was very Trumpy and unusual. Typically these threats are made behind doors and the buffoons are allowed to save face.
Trump was laying down a marker for others to see. I can’t really judge how wise that is. It might work, it might backfire when the USA needs help later.
Mike
Trump losing with SCOTUS could easily be more of a win ( politically) than if the court was to support Trump’s EO.
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A win in the courts and the issue quickly drops off to the back page.
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A loss will generate an issue that could mobilize the majority of US voters who polls show they oppose birthright citizenship.
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The political eyes of both parties are starring with laser intensity on the midterms coming in 2 years. Everything either of these 2 parties makes a stand on needs to be viewed in the context of the upcoming midterms.
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If the Republicans continue to hold both legislative branches in the midterms, the Democrats are truly screwed for the next several election cycles.
Ed Forbes: “A win in the courts and the issue quickly drops off to the back page.”
Maybe not. Trump could then start to deport families, including children born after the order went into effect. And he could threaten to issue a new, retroactive order. That could provide tremendous leverage to get real immigration reform through Congress.
Also, Trump would be able to trumpet that he got rid of birthright citizenship. There would be a lot of political advantage in that. And it sure won’t get overlooked since his opponents will be screaming that Trump got rid of birthright citizenship.
As far as I’m concerned, given a choice between “good for the country” and “gaining political advantage”, I will opt for “good for the country” ten times out of ten.
Ed Forbes wrote: “If the Republicans continue to hold both legislative branches in the midterms, the Democrats are truly screwed for the next several election cycles.”
Or until the Republicans figure out how to screw it up. They are good at that.
Andrew McCarthy of the national Review has a good article on birthright citizenship with cites many sources. This issue is not particularly interesting to me because language can be twisted anyway you want to. As a practical matter, I don’t think something that has been in existence for this long should be dealt with by an executive order. On the other hand, the cat is already out of the bag on many overreaches by Biden.
Also, Russell, very sorry to hear about about the very sad situation concerning your wife.
I still don’t see this even getting to the SC. Also, if you can’t use a birth certificate to prove your citizenship, how do you prove it?
AFAICT, everything eventually traces back to birth certificates.
Also, how other countries determine citizenship is completely irrelevant. There are a lot of things we do here differently. That’s a good thing.
DeWitt Payne wrote: ” if you can’t use a birth certificate to prove your citizenship, how do you prove it?”
The same as we do it now. A birth certificate does not prove your citizenship. A child born to diplomats in the US will have a US birth certificate but has no claim to citizenship. You still have a US birth certificate if you have renounced your citizenship.
If you have a US birth certificate, that creates a presumption of citizenship. It is rebuttable, but the burden of proof would then be on the government to show that you are not a citizen. Seems totally reasonable to me.
I’m sort of upset by the idea that I might show my birth certificate but the government might ‘rebut’ that. How on earth would I counter whatever rebuttal the government brings? This is meant to be a rhetorical question, to which my answer is ‘I wouldn’t be able to’.
I was an infant at the time, I have no recollection of the event. I doubt the doctors and nurses present could be tracked down by me assuming any are even still alive. The government has essentially unlimited resources with which to investigate and bullshit.
Like photographs birth certificates are rarely reviewed.
Must come as a shock to some adopted kids when they actually get one and their name is different or they cannot find one.
Mine floats around in some mythical important storage box in the house a bit like Joe Biden’s Top Secret documents.
My wife, who knows everything important, might find it at a pinch.
Never actually bothered to read and retain it as a memory.
My dad found out his real name at 65 when he went to get a passport at 65 years of age.
Reminds me,
Must check where that Will is and the deeds to the house.
Will ask the wife.
From the EO:
“ Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
That’s an assertion with no case law to back it. It’s Trump writing the law. Even if Congress passed such a law and Trump signed it, it’s still not clear that it would pass muster with the courts.
DeWitt Payne: “That’s an assertion with no case law to back it.”
Not so. There is the dictum in the Slaughterhouse cases. There is the holding in Elk v. Wilkins. The only case law against it is the dictum in Wong Kim Ark.
Trump’s position is just the law as it now exists. No act of Congress is needed since there is no law that extends citizenship to the children of illegals and temporary visitors. An act of Congress would be needed to so extend citizenship. But Congress has never done that. Trump is simply upholding the law.
WSJ: Northern Gaza aerial photo, Jabalia. OMG. 75% of all buildings in the north damaged or destroyed.
https://images.wsj.net/im-13025715
The long streams of people returning to the north is rather dramatic. They aren’t going to like what they find.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/returning-gazans-take-stock-of-destruction-after-cease-fire-4b2d97bf?st=jvJR8f&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Nobody sane intentionally invites this to their country.
Mike M.
Isn’t the constitutional article silent on the actions or situation of the parents beyond mother being present at birth within US? Doe’t snt this silence exclude (preclude?) imposition or application or addition of other requirements?
“Nobody sane intentionally invites this to their country.”
Supporting Hamas and celebrating their murders, rapes, mutilations, and taking of hostages precludes the possibility of sanity. We will see if this changes in Gaza. Unfortunately, I see little hope for change in support for Hamas among progressives, in academia, or in European capitals.
Thank you all again for your comforting messages.
Comical story. On Sunday I stayed after hours at the hospice facility because Connie was semi-awake.
As I was leaving, the night phone operator at the front desk asked me if she could help me. I just said I needed to go home and said goodnight. She replied “This is your home now and it’s dark out there”. It took some discussion to convince her I wasn’t a patient trying to escape.
Russell,
I am glad that you are able to keep your sense of humor at such a trying time.
john ferguson,
You asked me a couple questions above. I’d answer if I understood what you are asking.
My Mom was a hospice nurse for quite a while. When it was her turn as a patient they treated her like royalty. She decided she only wanted one round of chemo. I thought she was “giving up” at the time (I never let her know that) but I look at it a lot differently now. She had seen it all up close and personal and knew exactly what she wanted.
They told me she was wondering down the hall in the middle of the night a bit delusional, they just talked to her kindly and got her to turn around.
Unfortunately combing super frailty with delusion results in people getting out of bed and falling and breaking bones. A lot of places then restrain the patients to avoid liability issues. Combining delusion and restraint makes for some unhappy patients. Healthcare is a tough job.
Good luck Russell.
Tom Sharf
I thought it was often illegal?
Unfortunately, it can sometimes be the best course. My husband’s grandfather would try to run away. He tried hard enough that he would get out.
One of his problems even before he was in the old folks home was he would leave his house of 60 or so years and try to “go home”– meaning to the house he grew up in. Then he’d get lost Jim’s Uncle got used to the Police calling and saying “We have Andy again.”
His desire to “go home” never ebbed.
lucia,
It may be, looks like it is emergency only for a nurse or on a physicians order.
https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/use-restraints
I’m going back to my youth when I spent some time working at a mental health facility and restraints were used. Patients not happy, patient’s family not happy, etc. 80 year olds can be incredibly strong when they are resisting restraints. Ugh.
People who got violent and couldn’t be trusted were placed in a special room, it wasn’t literally a padded cell but basically the same kind of setup. One guy destroyed the bed and started using the frame to beat his way out througha 6 inch thick wooden door. Yikes.
Delusion and restraints and a broken hip are even worse for everybody.
My guess is bed rails and sedatives are often enough.
I admit it, I checked Google Maps to see if they had changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s on the way …
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/bowing-to-trump-google-maps-plans-to-quickly-rename-the-gulf-of-mexico/
“Google Maps, the most popular mapping software in the world, said on Monday evening that it will begin using new names for two prominent geographical features in North America, the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. As soon as “they have been updated in official government sources””
Russell Klier
January 28, 2025 at 7:20 am
Russell, I had to laugh out loud. It reminded me of some humorous events that occurred when my wife was rehabbing after a hospital stay and the effects of Alzheimer’s were really starting to kick in. She was a very attractive lady and there was a male patient who was always hanging around her even when I was visiting. He appeared to be mentally alert but was in a wheel chair for some unknown reason. He pulled his wheel chair up to the table where I was conversing with my wife and when I asked him to leave he refused. That angered me a bit so I told him my next move was to put him and his wheel chair on the elevator and push the down button and let him figure out how to get back up. He did then leave the table. That probably was not the best reaction for me, but I found an a$$hole in a wheel chair is still an a$$hole.
I oft times wince when Trump is winging it and making pronouncements, but his statements about clearing out Gaza were in line with my thoughts about how can people live in such a decimated area. Those who were in aghast should be obliged to reveal their recovery plans.
On a related item, I am truly puzzled why people who may be opposed to the actions of one party of a military conflict attempt to justify the actions of the other side and particularly when the other side initiated the conflict. Unfortunately it is not a rare occurrence.
What amazes me is how quickly some countries with weak militaries decide to initiate a conflict after seeing these types of outcomes over and over. The people who make these decisions rarely offer up explanations that make any sense at all. The simple answer is it is human bravado gone crazily wrong and it isn’t a one off condition.
To sum it up, it is FAFO when dealing with superior opponents. People have agency. Actions lead to consequences.
The recovery plan is “don’t send a horde of barbarians across the border to start with”. Once the scale of the massacre was known this was almost inevitable. Hamas could have surrendered at any time. They actually seem to want this, literally. It is very hard to gauge if the people are as nihilistic as their leaders.
The Arab nations will likely fund a slow rolling recovery effort but it will be really slow if Hamas is still in charge. Hamas needs to rename itself at a minimum and hold a sham election which NotHamasButReallyHamas wins if it expects UNRWA funding to start again. A decade plus of pointless suffering ahead.
NotHamasButReallyHamas is not going to work, at least not with Trump in office; the USA is not going to let UNRWA funding start if there is even a faint smell of Hamas running Gaza. Of course, Trump (and maybe Vance) will only be in office for a limited time, and the Gazans could choose to live in poverty and misery waiting for the next “progressive” administration in the USA.
The Gazans have to decide if this catastrophe was worth the (very satisfying) rape, murder, and mutilation of 1,300 Israelis. I hope they decide wisely, but if they continue choosing governments dedicated to the concept that “Israel must not exist”, then the destruction in Gaza will resume in short order. I give that terrible outcome at least a 50:50 chance.
Tom Scharf wrote: “They actually seem to want this”.
I’d bet on it. Extensive destruction in Gaza was the plan. The idea is to get the Israelis to destroy stuff in Gaza an then use that to stoke hatred against the Israelis.
If Hamas has any regrets is that the plan worked TOO well, especially as regards the number of Hamas terrorists turned into “martyrs”. But it might also be that the destruction is so great as to finally turn the people against Hamas.
If not, there will have to be more destruction. Very sad.
Out of the WHO, out of the Paris climate accords, The Southern border is soon to be very difficult to pass illegally, and Colombia’s socialist president is now accepting flights of deported Colombian nationals. Ice arrested about 1,200 illegals yesterday. Good steps all.
Democrats blocked with a filibuster a law permanently sanctioning the International Criminal Court; only one Democrat voted for the bill. I am betting the senators from Georgia and Virginia will regret this vote come 2026, as will whoever is the Dem candidate in Michigan. The Court and those associated with it will remain under sanction while Trump is in office; I expect Trump will warn other governments, and especially our European allies, that they will not like what happens if they ever arrest Israeli officials at the ICC’s request.
There will be more shoes dropping in the next few weeks . I expect Ice deportations to reach 2,000 a day within several weeks, but only extra funding will boost that to the 5,000+ a day needed to deter illegal entry. I also expect military enlistments will ramp up as all the crazy woke stuff in the military is eliminated.
Interesting article on covid I never saw 5 years ago:
“The divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 might be overestimated due to the extensive RNA modification”
(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7346715/)
The authors suggest that infected human (or humanized?) host cells could be responsible for up to ~87% of the observed RNA sequence differences between Covid and RaTG13, meaning that RaTG13 could be far more closely related to Covid than the RNA sequences alone indicate…. as little as 2% different outside the changes made by host cells.
Take RaTG13, add the infamous “non-natural furin cleavage site”, infect humanized mice, then follow for some generations (no doubt killing a lot of mice!), sicken some careless lab worker, and, presto: covid 19… and 20 million dead. With three US ‘intelligence agencies’ now agreeing a lab leak is the most likely source for Covid, maybe the walls are finally starting to close in on gain-of-function research. I sure hope so.
Jim Acosta leaves CNN. Trump must be getting tired of all this winning! Trump, as usual, handled it with his usual grace:
“Wow, really good news! Jim Acosta, one of the worst and most dishonest reporters in journalistic history, a major sleazebag, has been relegated by CNN Fake News to the Midnight hour,. Word is that he wants to QUIT, and that would be even better. Jim is a major loser who will fail no matter where he ends up. Good luck Jim!”
The WH briefing room is also opening up press passes to anyone resembling a journalist now.
The Pulitzer for trolling is all locked up.
I saw that Trump quote. Grace is not something he has in abundance.
I am not at all tired of the winning. Keep it coming!
SteveF
“Out of the WHO, out of the Paris climate accords, The Southern border is soon to be very difficult to pass illegally, and Colombia’s socialist president is now accepting flights of deported Colombian nationals. Ice arrested about 1,200 illegals yesterday. Good steps all. ”
-Still 6000 a day coming in but falling rapidly I hope.
angech,
Prior to covid, Trump’s policies had reduced the rate of illegal entries to about 5,000 -8,000 per month. I expect that is roughly where it will be in short order. That doesn’t fix visa overstays, but is a start. Reducing visa overstays….. about 25-30% of the total by some estimates….. (“going to Disney” becomes living in Chicago) will require better visa policies for those countries with a history of significant visa overstays. Hard problem, but needs to be addressed. Rapid deportation of visa overstays will help discourage it.
From Amman, Jordan,
Gotta hand it to Trump for thinking out of the box. Jordan has a population of 11 million +/-. Two million are Palestinians. Egypt will not accept Palestinians (Gazans) in any serious number much above none.
Jordan may take some, but not another 2 million. Syrians here as refugees are already beginning to go home. There are still some Iraqui’s and others. I suppose Trump could give the Gazans legitimate legal visas so long as they settle in some leftie state like California. Who knows? They might offset all of the Californians emigrating to Texas.
But then there are the donkeys. And the clapped out Mercedes.
Thank God we have Trump to solve the world’s problems.
I should add that the Palestinians now in Jordan who.ve been here for decades are not held in high esteem, to put it mildly.
John,
Might want to leave the MAGA hat in the suitcase while you are in that area!
The Palestinians don’t have anywhere to go. If people wouldn’t let them leave during this latest war I wouldn’t have much hope they will do it now. It is a bit odd that the Syrians just got up and left en masse for the EU during their civil war but the Palestinians didn’t. I’m not sure how it is different or maybe they just don’t want to leave Gaza?
OOB thinking might be useful for this intractable conflict but it isn’t likely to have any breakthroughs. Realistically Israel could relocate as well to some island somewhere but that isn’t in the cards either. Here in the US we could also make so much more progress if only the opposing party would concede their errant ways and adopt the ideology of the rightful and just.
I’m not very concerned about leaving the WHO or pretty much any UN based organization at this point. All the WHO funding could just get spent in the US.
What I have been listening to is how leaving the WHO would have negative impacts and I must say the defenders of the WHO are doing a terrible job explaining these impacts. Yesterday they said we would no longer be notified of viral outbreaks. What? The WHO will no longer publicly announce them?
I can take or leave the WHO but the defenders of the “rules base international order” need to do a better job justifying their existence. They are losing the messaging war by a large margin because they refuse to seriously engage. It is a perception of entitlement, but I’m sure the faculty lounge is very upset.
Tom Scharf,
From what I can get from the questions I’m asked byu locals, and yes, we’ve been sought out by locals at the museums and restaurants, they are mostly perplexed by Trump. But then those were the guys who wanted to ask us what we thought. Particularly in Egypt, there are well educated (judging from their English) who want to hear our opinons on Gaza particularly. I have no idea whether mine is shared by anyone here, but it’s very hard for me to own up to being from a contry involved in so many deaths. It seems universally believed here and in Egypt that without US supplies, Netanyahu would not have been able to cause such an extensive disaster.
Doubtless a lot of them hate us, but the men andn women I talked to think that Americans as a group are not necessarily supportive of everything their government does and more (they told me) than the Gazans as a people regardless of what they might think are for what Hamas did.
Personally, I think 60-70% of us didn’t support Biden and Netnayahu. Do you think that’s at all accurate? I have no idea.
Amman is an interesting place, beautiful in some areas, reasonable traffic. unlike Cairo, I think I could drive here.
We’re flying out of here in the morning, home TPA thrusday night
We’re flying out of here in the morning, home Thursday e
John Ferguson,
I hope your return to Florida is safe and without incident.
WRT to what people in the Middle East think: I have not been in the region for more than a decade, but when I was there (off-and-on over~5 years), my impression was that most Muslims (not governments, individuals speaking their own opinion) were adamantly opposed to the continued existence of Israel as a state, with the most ‘liberal’ among them suggesting that jews could be relocated to other countries rather than simply killed. Most just said “kill them all”. I hope that has changed, but I will be very surprised if it has. There was zero interest among the Muslims I spoke with a decade+ ago for compromise or a “two state solution”. Please tell us if your impression is different.
JF
“ Personally, I think 60-70% of us didn’t support Biden and Netnayahu. Do you think that’s at all accurate?
I have no idea.”
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English is a funny language full of contradictions.
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“? I have no idea.”
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Meaning do you think my idea (60-70%) is correct?
Obviously you believe it to be correct (personally).
Yet for some unexplained reason you ask for confirmation or refutation.
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You must have researched it, the concept, quite well to come up with that confidence range and belief yet your statement implies that you have done no such research.
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The only reason for asking I can logically think of (I’m not always good on logic) is that you are expressing an assumption based on how you perceive Americans must think if they are all good insightful and compassionate people like yourself.
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Sorry to disappoint you but must people have human weaknesses, they are deplorables as Hilary once said and their views cross party and woke lines.
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There is and has been a large antisemetic movement in the world ever since, I guess there have been Semites.
It is ugly but understandable because exclusivity of any type always breeds hostility towards itself.
Many people also have anti Mauslim, , anti Christian and anti Bhuddist and any other religion views.
Not to mention the twin evils of racism and nationality.
And hatred of the rich and those with more money or wealth than “us”.
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If I could offer my own personal view, of which I have a good idea,
BIden ended up with 38% Real Clear Politics.
Netanyahu support in America probably slightly better than Schumer and a lot better than MItch M.
BIden and Netanyahu, funny combination, but assuming you mean American support for Netanyahu after Gaza incidents I would rate as 75% of people supporting his efforts to both retaliate against Hamas and free the hostages after the horrific surprise slaughter and massacre of innocent people (sort of) going about their daily lives by deranged maniacal people.
I would think that most people felt Biden was not supportive enough of Israel so your lumping the two together is not correct neither.
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Steve is on the money regarding the views of Muslims around the world. Blasphemy punishable by death for any Muslim supporting the Jewish state.
There are probably two edges to the discussion:
1. Remove Hamas from power (support)
2. Drop bombs on Palestinian civilians (not support)
Where most everyone in the US falls between those points is variable. I’m a hawk that says if Hamas chooses human shield tactics then the level of their atrocity justifies Israel to use less restrained rules of engagement.
The other extreme side I think wishcasts magic Hamas seeking bombs that don’t exist.
Israel can sacrifice more of its soldiers in order to reduce civilian casualties and they have clearly chosen not to, I believe the kill ratio is approx. 100:1 between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.
One can debate the specifics but Israel IMO is making it clear to the population that a steep price will be paid for supporting that Gaza government. Do not cross the border, do not fire missiles.
Hamas had this coming, perhaps the Palestinians did not depending on how much one believes they support the Oct 7th operation. Israel didn’t make many friends with their operation but I doubt there were many in Gaza on that list to start with.
I would add that the USA as a major arms supplier typically doesn’t get involved in the micromanagement of war efforts with allies. We put restrictions on Ukraine long range missiles and the situation with Israel is unique.
I assume Biden throttled Israel in order to avoid getting dragged into a larger Middle East war it would be forced to engage in if things blew up.
Alternately Netanyahu being super aggressive with Hezbollah knocked them out of the war which likely aided bringing Hamas to a cease fire agreement.
These are all judgment calls. With the collapse of Syria things currently are in the US’s and Israel’s favor. Iran’s influence is way down and Russia is leaving Syria. This outcome was not preordained and the strategy had risks of much worse outcomes.
Our long journey with cancer has ended. Connie passed away yesterday. My strongest emotion right now is relief that she no longer is suffering.
A life well lived should always be celebrated.
Russell,
Offering my sincere condolences! I agree wholeheartedly with SteveF – reminisce about the good times and celebrate those!
A midair collision between a regional jet (CRJ-700) on final approach and a Blackhawk helicopter by Reagan Airport. No reports of survivors.
Reports are saying the Blackhawk was warned of the CRJ and confirmed seeing it.
So sorry Russell. Hugs.
Russell,
I offer my condolences for your loss.
Sorry to hear, Russell. I think I might know how you feel in this moment. Family was of prime importance for helping me through.
Russell,
My condolences. Relief is exactly how I felt when my Mom died after a months long battle with cancer. I think it was a relief for everyone involved, including her.
You should never have two aircraft that close to each other. The systems are more robust than telling a pilot to try not to hit another aircraft in its flightpath. My speculation is an air traffic control mistake but it’s too early to know.
Russell,
Condolences to you and your family. I hope your happy memories of her offer a measure of solace to you at this time.
The weird thing about mid-air collisions is that modern radar systems ought to be able to instantly alarm and tell pilots to avoid collisions. I mean, avoiding a collision only requires a change in altitude of a hundred meters or so. Sounds like there is a need for updating of aircraft control systems to avoid relying on a human to make a determination of an aircraft’s need to need to change course/altitude to avoid a collision.
Steve,
I don’t think most commercial aircraft have that sort of radar. They have weather radar. Maybe they have CARA or radar altimeters. There IS something called TCAS I’m reading about that I didn’t know of. I think it works with transponders? Dunno.
[Edit: And online AI warns me that military helicopters usually don’t have TCAS. I’m not sure if that’s true or not.]
[Edit2: Here:
https://www.twz.com/news-features/heres-what-air-traffic-collision-avoidance-systems-can-and-cant-do
]
Crud, I think only military aircraft have CARA? Don’t know that either.
angech,
when I write an opinion, it’s mine, and saying I have no idea is a lame way to say I have not reliable source. I suppose it’s my reaction to confronting a raft of sources which disagree.
SteveF,
Yes, the folks I talked to in Aman think that no-one wants a two state “solution” except Biden, and it will never happen. And they do hate Israel but in a couple of cases, not necessarily Jews nor all Israelis – only one guy on this last one.
Other than the one guy who was impressed by the volume of anti-netanyahu demostrations a few months ago, which he took to mean that a lot of israeli’s weren’t comfortable with the coninuing Gaza operation without any plan for the post-war resolution and not comfortable with the Settlers in the West Bank.
I still think Oct 7 was inspired and paid for by Iran and was intended to provoke the sort of reaction it actually did, which could then be used as a basis for massive and possibly completely devestating attacks byt Iran and Hezbollah. but it turned out that Iran and company wasn’t up to taking on US supported Isreal and maybe support from Suadi and other neighbors.
TSA inspection departing Amman included energetic detection swabs on all of my photo equipment, and proof that each of my 3 cameras actually works and that the spare lenses could be looked through. It was friendly and good humored but very thorough. And I thought intelligent.
I’m thinking having the helicopter flight path directly intersect a passenger jet flight landing path is a poorly thought out plan. The jet pilot is pretty busy trying to land a plane. Apparently jets land there every two minutes at that time. What I saw of the landing also shows it making a fairly steep turn right before landing.
I’m sure a lot of this is just due to it being so close to important DC places.
It seems easily avoidable and I imagine there were multiple failures here but we shall see.
The helicopter confirmed twice it had the plane in sight and it was their responsibility to avoid the plane. The second confirmation was probably because the ATC saw things not heading to a good place. This pilot thinks the helicopter was looking at the wrong plane.
The ATC conversation is here:
https://youtu.be/hfgllf1L9_4
I thought that all airliners these days had collision avoidance systems that actually take control of the planes to avoid a collision. The systems are turned off during landing, apparently because they might case the airplane to veer into something.
I also heard the theory that the chopper pilots were looking at the wrong plane. It seems the controller was not specific about where to look for th other plane, which was coming in on an unusual approach for some reason.
The helicopter was also flying too high. It had a max altitude of 200 feet and was at 300 feet during the collision. 100 feet of clearance isn’t very much.
I think the helicopter was clearly at fault, they were formally told to yield via visual rules (i.e. the jet owned the flight space around it).
The helicopter flight path was also a standard route. It still seems to me that having these helicopters dash between plane landings right in front of the landing runway (at night! with the helicopter pilot wearing night vision goggles!) is … ummmm … an accident waiting to happen.
Maybe they do this all the time or more likely it’s because of a crazy flight space in DC,
NYT: Paramount in Settlement Talks With Trump Over ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/business/media/paramount-trump-cbs-news-settlement.html
Sounds like CBS is not interested in having a defamation trial in rural Texas. The pendulum has probably swung too far here chilling speech but I’m not shedding tears for 60 minutes.
” I’m not shedding tears for 60 minutes.”
100% propaganda, 100% of the time. I stopped watching 20+ years ago when it became clear that the goal of the program was always to advance a ‘progressive’ POV on every issue. They had no qualms about twisting/distorting/ignoring facts to support that POV, nor any desire to allow someone with another POV to fairly make a counter argument. IOW, propaganda…. and not at all informative.
It has been reported the helicopter was too high, but we don’t know if the airline was out of the landing profile. Or was it at the low end of the landing profile. The timeline on CNN shows the tower requesting the airliner use runway 33 – seems to be wind related as winds were out of 320 at 17 kts, gusts of 25 kts. That’s a pretty strong crosswind if using Runway 1, especially for a small jet. Switching to 33 makes sense.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30/us/maps-plane-helicopter-crash-dca-dg/index.html
The helicopter was supposed to be below 200 feet, but I read somewhere it was supposed to hug the east bank. It did neither.
The tower being understaffed seems to be not an issue (2 instead of 4 controllers). Communications were clear and there didn’t seem to be any confusion. Now if one of the jobs of the 3rd or 4th controller is specifically to control helicopter traffic – and Reagan has a LOT of helicopter traffic – then that may be a secondary factor, but it sure seems the radio communications were fine.
The lack of TCAS on military helicopters may be something that is changed – altho given the way those work, it may warn of a collision every time a helicopter flies by the airport. The wiki page on it says it starts giving a warning at 30 seconds. That would quickly become an irritant at Reagan National given the helicopter traffic.
That said, I suspect the helicopter identified the wrong plane when it said it had visual on it.
That said, ATC staffing has been an issue for a long time. And the number of near-misses seems to have grown lately. While I don’t believe staffing to be a primary cause in this case, I am sure it will be listed as a secondary/contributing factor.
They considered closing Raegan National after 9/11 but ended up keeping it after political pressure.
Normally that plane would have been coming in to runway1 rather than runway 33. It seems the chopper pilots were not told that. Runway 33 is rather short; does that mean that the plane would have been coming in lower than for runway 33? And the chopper pilots don’t seem to have been told whether they were looking for a plane that was landing or one that was taking off.
So the chopper pilots may have had eyes on the wrong plane and the plane they should have been watching was not where it would have been expected to be. That would seem to be on the controller.
Mike,
In answer to your question of are you lower, yes. From what I am finding, an A/C is supposed to be at 50′ altitude when crossing the threshold of the runway. A standard 3° glide slope for approach would put you at 145′ at around 1825′.
In looking at that runway, the distance from the threshold of the runway to the middle of the river is about 2100′. The recommended 3° altitude is 160 feet. The far side of the river is approximately 0.76mi, or 4000′. That is an altitude of 260 feet. That is not a lot of clearance for a helicopter altitude corridor of 200′ max.
I have seen a map that shows “corridor 4” hugging the east bank, and having a max altitude of 200′. Using the 3° slope, the 200′ point is roughly 2900′ (0.55mi) from the threshold. This corridor (if accurate) has to hug the east bank tightly if it wants to fly under a landing a/c.
And that is if the helicopter is under 200′. With the helicopter at over 300′ there is no safe location along the river. The flight paths I have seen of the accident show the helicopter in the middle of the river. That is well outside the corridor.
In all honesty, I wouldn’t trust a 60′ clearance at that point. I am not sure I would want to be in a helicopter with an airplane only 60′ away. That raises the question – should the ATC have ordered the helicopter to hold rather than give it authorization to pass behind the CRJ?
Some caveats: I have no idea what the recommended glide path angle is for runway 33. I have no idea if the corridor map I have seen is real or AI.
Helicopters are flown fron the right seat so there is some possibility that pilot didn’t see the landing plane, although it might be interesting to determine what other plane he might have seeen.
Crosswind component is figured at 90 degrees to flighpath. This pklane was better setup for slipping (leaning into the wind) not having any engines hanginng under the upwind wing which can be limiting on some planes.
If I haven’t screwed up my trig, the wind angle on runway 1 would have been (360-320 + 10 = 50) on to Sin(50 degrees )*24=18 knots which is easy peasy for that class of transport.
So would have been 24 knots although maybe a bit less comfortable for the passengers.
The second callback from ATC to the helicopter to make sure it saw the plane may have been non-standard and the ATC noting a possible problem, can’t say for sure.
From the videos it’s obvious he should have seen the plane but there is some question of how much of the plane’s lights he could see at an angle starting dead on and quickly transitioning to 90 degrees. His night vision goggles may have been reducing the light levels of the plane’s landing lights so it wasn’t so obvious as it would have been with naked eye.
The eye has tremendous dynamic range compared to what he probably got from his NVG. If the helicopter had cockpit audio that may be very enlightening.
Although the helicopter pilot is likely at fault there is further question of if/when the jet pilot saw the helicopter.
john ferguson
“, when I write an opinion, it’s mine”
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As it should be.
Sorry to be so narky.
Not your problem, mine.
Keep commenting and ignore my diatribes.
I will try harder to not be upsetting or contradictory.
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Still enjoying the soap opera of American politics.
Feel sorry for some of the subordinate FBI guys who were ordered into actions they did not want to do
My sincere condolences Russell.
angech,
“Feel sorry for some of the subordinate FBI guys who were ordered into actions they did not want to do.”
I don’t. Anybody who is sworn to “uphold the Constitution”, as they all are, should be willing to resign over many of the horse-shit actions the FBI was involved with over the past 8 years.
They didn’t. That is as damning a factual measure of their sincerity as there can be. No job is worth whoring yourself to keep it. IMHO: all agreeing to carry out these terrible actions should just be fired, because they betrayed their oath.
“WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are releasing legally protected whistleblower disclosures that prove the genesis of the federal election interference case brought against President Trump began at the hands of a prolific anti-Trump FBI agent who acted outside of established protocol for opening cases.”
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/grassley-johnson-make-public-whistleblower-records-revealing-doj-and-fbi-plot-to-pin-trump-in-jack-smith-elector-case
“Whistleblower records released this week show that “prolific anti-Trump FBI agent” Timothy Thibault allegedly broke protocol to push for the agency’s initial investigations into President Donald Trump and the 2020 election.”
“Thibault, a former FBI assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) was fired on charges of violating the Hatch Act .”
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/fbi-trump-investigation/2025/01/31/id/1197346/
“Thus far, 97 Percent of ICE Deportees Had Removal Order Under the previous administration, but were not deported” – Caroline Lovett
https://x.com/RuthlessPodcast/status/1885394107155034602
Do I understand this correctly? FBI needs some form of evidence as a “predicate” to launch an investigattion, and Thibault made it up?
The need for a predicate is to prevent persecectution for some other reason than that crime has actually been discovered. I suspect that som pre predicate sniffing is ok, but at some point compelling evidence is required and Thibault couldn’t find it. Because there wasn’t any?
Hopefully
It’s the “I was just doing my job” Nazi prison camp guard narrative vs. the “I was just doing my job” and lots of investigations don’t pan out, that’s why they are called investigations narrative.
I’m not very enthusiastic about sweeping effective loyalty purges of the FBI ranks. These should be done on a case by case basis. Realistically some of these people should be fired just for making the FBI/DOJ look bad with their questionable judgment.
The mere fact they were assigned to a case isn’t enough. If they suppressed evidence or otherwise went off the reservation then perhaps they can be purged.
The people who decided to throw the book at the Jan 6th non-violent protesters and supported using novel prosecution techniques should be fired. Exceptions could be made for those who argued for restraint internally.
OTOH I don’t think there is credible argument that a lot of this wasn’t political targeting at Trump and everyone in his orbit. Political actors in the FBI and DOJ are bad for everyone and there should be a price to be paid for acting on those instincts.
Tom Scharf,
There was a lot of behind-the-scenes pushback from the local FBI office over the early dawn armed raid on Mar a Largo, just as there should have been. That raid was wildly out of proportion to the issues involved and obviously politically motivated to hurt Trump. (See, he really is just a criminal, we even had to raid his house!)
Those within the FBI who objected, and there were some, should have had the courage to resign, loudly and publicly, with press coverage, rather than carry out a politically motivated armed raid. Not one did. That tells me these are people more dedicated to their paycheck than their oath of office. Or worse, themselves politically motivated lefties. IMHO, unforgivable. YMMV.
Tom, your comment:
‘It’s the “I was just doing my job” Nazi prison camp guard narrative ‘
Some Nazi prison officers did defy the regime; one of them was named Klier:
“Unique among the SS officers, Unterscharführer Johann Klier was known to be relatively humane, and several survivors testified on his behalf at his trial.[155][156] In an interview with Richard Rashke, Esther Terner commented “I don’t even know why he was in Sobibor … even the other Nazis picked on him.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobibor_extermination_camp
And:
“Klier was regarded as relatively humane by the prisoners and they testified to that effect at his trial in Frankfurt am Main, and on 25 August 1950 he was found not guilty.”
https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/contents/sobibor/sssonderkommandosobibor.html
And:
“In May 1945…. Johann Klier was arrested, but as a person who felt compassion for the Jews and secretly tried to help them, he was soon released.”
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-sobibor-trial-war-crimes-trials
I found this information while doing my Klier family genealogy research. I have not been able to establish a direct connection between this sargent Klier and my Kliers.
This camp was 500 miles from our part of Bavaria, but he was a master baker and ran the bakery. There were a number of my Kliers who were bakers.
The Dumbest Trade War in History
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-25-percent-mexico-canada-trade-economy-84476fb2?st=QhoT8p&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“President Trump will fire his first tariff salvo on Saturday against those notorious American adversaries . . . Mexico and Canada. They’ll get hit with a 25% border tax, while China, a real adversary, will endure 10%. This reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend.”
Typically you let the other side know what you want but I’m not so sure what the point is here. It may work out to the US’s favor somehow, we shall see.
Wow, Tom Scharf, Bernard Lewis!!
I read his books on Islam and the middle east, hoping to better be able to separate BS from the occaisional outbreaks of truth in the media. Karen Armstrong, too. And even twice through the Quran. Even in English, it’s not easy.
Our guide in Jordan was sharp on Arabic original (of course), but also one of the english translations.
I decided to have another go at it. It’s helpful to know that parts of it are hard to understand even for those with fluent Arabic, and not necessarily because of archaic construction – this is God speaking, after all.
So far, I’m at about 40% by Kindle’s reckoning. I don’t recommend it unless you really are serious, It’s frequently very hard. It helps to move your lips, but then I can’t read any other way.
One thing I’ve realized after stuggling with this since 2001, is that serious muslims are uncomfortable discussing the Quran with what they apparently take for idle curiiousity.
I am more than a little puzzled by Trump hitting Canada with such a large tariff so quickly.
OTOH, Mexico is, at best, a frenemy.
I Canada tariff is, I think, meant mainly to pressure Canada on border control issues. Most of the US deficit with Canada (which is north of $150 billion per year) is due to importing Canadian crude. Tariffs (if applied to crude oil) will cause disruptions, but petroleum is mostly fungible.
The US has a larger deficit with Mexico (over $250 billion per year) from a wide range of products, but including petroleum. I suspect the Mexico tariff is mainly designed to pressure the Mexicans to help with illegal immigration, but also to discourage manufacturing in Mexico instead of the USA.
It doesn’t help that both Canadian and Mexican governments are way left of the Trump administration.
Mike
“I am more than a little puzzled by Trump hitting Canada with such a large tariff so quickly.”
Australia Europe America are full of foreign nationals entering their countries legally and illegally in a giant immigration racket worth billions Russia India Japan Korea , not a one.
Countries should be pulling their weight to stop this and they are not.
Trump is making an effort against serious big money .
Canada and Mexico could do a Columbia and tighten their borders but they won’t and can’t.
Money and corruption is too big
angech,
Doesn’t Japan accept legal immigrants? There have been a number of recent articles suggesting that Americans are moving there to harvest abandoned houses. Probably not all that many.
As to Russia, the attraction is very hard to see just now?
I suspect China doesn’t have an immigration problem.
Foreign nationals in Japan = 2.8% of population
Foreign nationals in US = 14.3% of population
The US number likely has more uncertainty. When I was in Japan it didn’t seem very diverse.
8% in Thailand,
.61% in Brazil, 1% in Mexico, 8-14% in Costa Rica
3% in Uruguay 16% in UK.
How people are characterized as “Foreign Nationals” may vary.
WRT Japan: My understanding (from discussions with Japanese) is than many of the foreign nationals are brides from other Asian countries. Based on my travels in Japan I’d guess the number on non-East Asians in the country is very, very small.
Not at all surprised by the low numbers in Brazil; you need to show ID for everything, and a national ID or a special work visa is required for any kind of work. Unlike the USA, Brazil simply does not give foreign nationals any practical way to live in the country.
angech,
I thought that Australia was supposed to have a pretty good immigration system that is meant to make sure that immigrants are people that Australia wants. Are there a lot of people circumventing that system? I’d be surprised if there were, since it rather hard to walk across the Australian border.
This site: https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00137/
breaks down were the foreign nationals living in Japan come from…… they are almost all East Asian. The surprising number from Brazil are nearly all Brazilian nationals who are second or third generation (usually full-blood) Japanese, not people of European or African heritage.
Tariffs by the Trump administration could well be the death knell for the Republican majorities in the mid terms. Trump has no concept of the damage tariffs can do both economically and politically. Historically Republican instituted tariffs have been followed by some very negative election results.
Reducing regulations could have been a winner for the Republicans, but tariffs could easily overwhelm the good with the bad. Statist leaders care little about the negative effects of a trade war and so we shall have a trade war and much beating of the chests by the leaders – and cheerleaders.
Japan and China were extremely homogenous when I visited those countries. I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed some foreign nationals of similar Asian descent though.
Japan’s population has been declining each year for the past 5, in spite of the influx of some (mostly East Asians) from other countries. The lifetime fertility for Japanese women stands at ~1.2 births. As someone noted: if something can’t go on for ever it will stop. All of Europe, the States, China, Korea, and most other moderately developed countries have far below replacement birth rates. Only in Africa is the population growing….. and at an astronomical rate (over 4 births per woman on average).
Tom Scharf,
Outside tourist areas of Japan, I saw almost no non-East Asians. In China, outside of Shanghai I almost never encountered anyone but a Chinese national, and even in Shanghai non-Chinese were very, very few. (1 in 5,000? 10,000? 20,000? donno)
These kind of pointless untargeted tariffs are closer to a sales tax, people are going to notice.
Mike M.
angech,
I thought that Australia was supposed to have a pretty good immigration system that is meant to make sure that immigrants are people that Australia wants. Are there a lot of people circumventing that system? I’d be surprised if there were, since it rather hard to walk across the Australian border.”
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You must be joking.
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People fly in.
Usual fudge of the system .
Fruit pickers, nurses, taxi drivers . ( needed)
Students (so called) who never leave.
Small cafe and business owners and restaurants staffed by “family”.
All allowed by the bureaucrats in Canberra.
I believe the same system in USA operates.
A massive flood at the moment.
Money changes hands 60,000 dollars let’s a desperate South African in , 40,000 for an Indian national.
No questions asked or allowed.
The curries are good though!
Another win for Trump and loss for China: Panama will be withdrawing from Belt and Road.
angech,
“Money changes hands 60,000 dollars let’s a desperate South African in , 40,000 for an Indian national.”
Well, there are lots of desperate Democrats who might want to move to Australia. 😉 How much does it cost for US nationals to get residency?
Mike M,
Which might have been the objective of Trump’s talk of ‘taking back’ the canal. I can imagine the conversation between the Panamanians and Rubio. Rubio: ¿Realmente crees que EE.UU. dejaría que China tomara el control del canal? No seas estúpido. Echa a los chinos.
Old cars soldiering on in Egypt.
We were astonsihed to see how many Peugeot 504s (1968-1983+/-) continue in service, not so much in Cairo, but everywhere else, particularly Luxor. And absolutley no 404’s.
I asked and was told tha they are indestructable, may last forever, and parts continue to be manufactured in Egypt.
There are a lot of Fiat 124’s (Ladas?) around but it’s harder to date them because they were made up to 2007, at least in Egypt.
I’m reminded of a trip to Monterrey Mexico in 1959 where Ford model A’s – usually the open ones – were still in use as Taxicabs.
Parts for Model A’s were available from Brazil untel recently and may still be.
Almost all cars we saw in Cairo were japanese of chinese and mostly recent.
SteveF wrote: “Which might have been the objective of Trump’s talk of ‘taking back’ the canal.”
I was sure of that all along. Although there is also a second objective: Getting Panama to reduce the rates paid by US ships. That appears to be under discussion.
I have long said that I like Trump’s policies but I dislike his style. I have to admit that his style is starting to grow on me.
People have to be open to the possibility of Trump’s nonstandard way of doing things actually working. Trump has to be open to when they don’t and be willing to change course.
It won’t be boring.
What is often overlooked is Trump’s confrontational techniques keeps opponents (and allies…) constantly on the defensive. I can’t say I’m a fan but I also can’t say it isn’t effective in many cases. Outcomes matter.
MikeM,
I believe US Navy vessels do not have to pay to use the Panama Canal. The USA has very few merchant marine vessels, so I am not sure for whom Trump would want tolls through the canal lowered. It is mainly a passage for freighters (up to 1,200 Ft) and among those freighters, most are container ships, neither US owned nor US flagged. Kicking the Chinese out I understand, but lowering tolls? That I don’t understand.
Here is the breakdown of container shipping companies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_shipping_companies
The biggest US company controls 0.2% of the world market, and I imagine that may be mostly Jones Act required shipping.
SteveF,
No doubt you are correct that few US cargo ships use the canal.
A quick search found multiple stories saying that US warships will no longer pay fees. Like this one:
https://www.latintimes.com/us-says-its-navy-ships-will-have-free-passage-through-panama-canal-after-marco-rubios-visit-574420
And recent fact checks say that we were paying fees. Like this one:
https://thedispatch.com/article/no-the-panama-canal-did-not-double-its-transit-fees-for-u-s-warships/
Mike M.,
Back to birthright citizenship: You ignore the ruling that blows your argument and Trump’s EO out of the water, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the child, born in the US, to non-citizens on temporary work visas was, in fact, a US citizen under the 14th Amendment. You might want to read JC Ho’s brief as well:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2742&context=lawreview
The idea that only citizens or possibly permanent residents are fully subject to the jurisdiction of the US is also bogus. Citizens have rights, privileges and obligations different from non-citizens because they owe allegiance to the US and non-citizens don’t. “I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the Republic for which it stands…..” That has precisely nothing to do with jurisdiction.
And then Plyler v. Doe can easily be read to extend most legal protection under the law, i.e. jurisdiction among other things, to those who have entered the country without permission. QED.
And speaking of red herrings, your raising of the Bancroft Treaties certainly qualifies. Those have to do with how we and other countries deal with naturalization and has zero to do with birthright citizenship. That is, a foreign national who becomes a naturalized citizen in the US no longer owes allegiance to the foreign nation and the same goes for US citizens who become naturalized citizens of a foreign country. Except that crimes committed before naturalization are not erased.
And in other news, the Motion Picture Academy has nominated a biological male for Best Actress. And the movie in question, which had a Tomatometer rating of 22% at one point, has been nominated for twelve other Oscars. Woke is alive and well in Hollywood.
DeWitt,
Don’t watch what they make.
DeWitt,
It is the same kind of slam-dunk case as Trump v. Anderson, should it ever actually get to the Supreme Court.
Which I doubt, since the SC is likely not going to even accept the case if Trump loses in every circuit where the question is heard. Which IMHO, approaches 100% certainty. Really, I think Trump is wasting his time.
DeWitt,
I admit that duel citizenship and the Bancroft treaties are irrelevant to Trump’s order. I was chasing a red herring. The Congressional debate makes it clear that “subject to the jurisdiction” refers to the parents at the time of birth.
You are ignoring the fact that there are different types of jurisdiction. The jurisdiction of the nation is different as to citizens, permanent residents, and visitors. From Senator Howard, who introduced those words: “the word ‘jurisdiction,’ as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.”
The Equal Protection Clause refers to “any person within its jurisdiction”. That is different from “subject to the jurisdiction”.
I resent your use of the word “bogus”. I have a number of now-dead Supreme Court justices on my side.
I have never before seen the claim that Hamdi v. Rumsfeld ruled that the child, born in the US, to non-citizens on temporary work visas was, in fact, a US citizen under the 14th Amendment. I hae seen discussions of the case that made no mention of that. I will look into it.
Speak loudly and carry a big stick
“ President Trump has agreed to pause the Mexico tariffs for a month. In exchange, Mexico will reinforce their border with 10,000 members of the National Guard to help with drug trafficking, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said. Import taxes are still in place for Canada”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlSokTb3B-E
DeWitt,
Your link makes no mention of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. What is the source for your claim.
CNBC this afternoon:
“President Donald Trump paused for a month new 25% tariffs on goods entering the United States from Mexico.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to her country’s border to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs.
Trump said there will be Mexican officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick will negotiate on tariffs.”
Shocking, shocking I say! Will it stop the flow of Chinese fentenyl? No, but probably will slow it.
Next shoe to drop: Canada will find a reason to better control the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into the USA.
In fairness to Canada, illegal entries across the US-Canada border by non-Canadian nationals was ‘only’ about 200,000 last year….. so a small faction of the problem on the Mexican border. But, a couple hundred thousand here, a couple hundred thousand there, and pretty soon you are talking about a lot of illegal aliens in the country. 😉
Dewitt “ Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the child, born in the US, to non-citizens on temporary work visas was, in fact, a US citizen under the 14th Amendment. ”
.
Nothing to due with the 14th. Did you mean to note a different case?
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004)
“ U.S. citizens may be designated as enemy combatants, but due process rights still apply to any U.S. citizens in detention. They also have the right to a hearing on enemy combatant status before a neutral tribunal.”
Wow Stevef,
200,000 illegals across the Canadian border? how did they do it?
John Ferguson,
I expect it is usually: arrive in Canada legally, cross the US-Canada border illegally. I know several Brazilians (educated, productive) who decided to work in Canada as a second choice once they understood US residency was out of reach. I am sure there are lots of people who see travel to Canada as a way to enter the USA illegally.
DeWitt,
Hamdi decision is here: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/542/507/
The holding says: “U.S. citizens may be designated as enemy combatants, but due process rights still apply to any U.S. citizens in detention. ”
Under “Facts” it says: “He was a U.S. citizen “.
Nothing in the summary says that citizenship was an issue. I don’t see anything in O’Connor’s opinion about the Citizenship Clause. It appears that the Court did not address the question of Hamdi’s citizenship. Everybody seems to have assumed he was a citizen.
Assumptions are not holdings.
Looks like every leadership position at USAID will be eliminated, along with a host of other positions. Apparently USAID has been structured mostly with “contract employees” (~10,000 including overseas employees) and a smaller number of government employees (3,500?). Contracts are said to be for one year periods. Rubio in a press interview said USAID has refused to give Congress information about it’s spending, contractors, funded programs (apparently involving many NGOs). Snippets from the USAID (now defunct) webside sound pretty much like the Democrat party platform.
In his usually charming fashion, Musk described USAID this way: “It is not an apple with a worm, it is a ball of worms”. He also said it is “a criminal organization” that needs to be shut down.
In yet anohter shocker:
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on social media Monday afternoon that Canada would be spending $1.3 billion on a plan to reinforce its border with new helicopters, technology and personnel, as well as additional resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Canada had announced its $1.3 billion border and immigration investment at the end of last year.”
And 25% tariffs on Canada will be delayed “at least 30 days”.
As a UK reader of US news I wondered what Trump meant by the drug problem involving China until I read this – “https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/what-to-know-about-china-s-role-in-the-fentanyl-crisis/ar-AA1yjx5T?ocid=BingNewsSerp
With this partial quote –
““Fentanyl is an issue for the U.S.,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement Sunday. “The U.S. needs to view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way instead of threatening other countries with arbitrary tariff hikes.” Wang Yiwei, an international affairs expert at Beijing’s Renmin University, agreed that the root cause lies in American demand for the drugs, rather than Chinese companies’ supply.
“As long as there is a strong consumer market in the U.S., it is unfair to blame China for producing these substances,” he said. “If these substances are not produced in China, they will be produced or synthesized in Mexico or other places.”
The illegal drug problem in the US is driven mostly by supply rather than demand. We can tell because prices have been going down as consumption goes up. The cheaper and more plentiful drugs are, the easier it is for a non-user to become an occasional user then a habitual user, then an abuser, and then an addict. Higher prices create barriers to that progression.
Just to add – I initially thought thought “Musk” & Electric cars.
One can attack both supply and demand at the same time.
China ships the precursors for fentanyl to Mexico where the final manufacturing is performed. I think this is a legal gray area for international trade, dual use chemicals or something.
https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2024/10/24/china-based-chemical-manufacturing-companies-and-employees-indicted
Yes, we should try to ameliorate the conditions that lead to illicit drug use. But human nature being what it is, that is not likely to make a huge difference. Cutting off supply is both more doable and more likely to make a difference.
MikeM
All the judges accepted he was a citizen because he was born here. (His parents were not US citizens.)
Eastman wrote an amicus brief arguing Hamdi was not a US citizen. So it’s not as if this issue was not brought to the attention of the judges. The judges appear to have decided that legal theory was not even worth discussing. That appearance is created by them not even mentioning the legal theory when crafting their opinions.
You can find the legal theory none of the justices felt any need to even discuss here:
https://www.claremont.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CCJ-Amicus_Hamdi-v_-Rumsfeld.pdf
When has combating the supply of any illegal substance ever worked?
The only successes in fighting the abuse of any substance have been in demand reduction.
Bootleggers and black marketers will always exist. OTOH, smoking went from half the population to 11%, because of demand reduction.
Sheesh.
Thomas Fuller,
What if we already are at the fetanyl equivalent of 11%?
not intended facetiously.
Thomas Fuller,
Yes, demand for cigarettes fell…. but a big part of it was that rules were put in place to make smoking a true PITA for those addicted to nicotine. What was once acceptable public behavior became in most circumstances completely prohibited. Another factor was the dramatic increases in sin taxes on cigarettes….. making smoking both a PITA and an expensive habit. A better example for lowering demand would be the drop in demand for opium as its terrible effects became better known among the populace. I think the dangers of drugs like fentanyl need to be more consistently explained to give people the kind of information which might convince them to not try fentanyl. Interdiction of supply will make the drug more costly, another reason not to use it. And finally, criminal prosecution for selling needs to pretty extreme to convince dealers it is not a business they want to be in, no matter the profit. “Joseph just got 20 years with no chance for parole!” gets people’s attention.
There is no simple “only this” solution; multiple prongs are needed.
…. all this winning is getting monotonous:
“SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Monday that El Salvador’s president has offered to accept deportees from the U.S. of any nationality, including violent American criminals now imprisoned in the United States.”
“Bukele confirmed the offer in a post on X, saying El Salvador has “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.” He said his country would accept only “convicted criminals” and would charge a fee that “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
https://apnews.com/article/migration-rubio-panama-colombia-venezuela-237f06b7d4bdd9ff1396baf9c45a2c0b#
Russell,
This is an interesting development – take our most violent offenders and outsource their captivity to another country. A country where the prisons are most assuredly not comfortable.
I am sure the policy will be held up in court as they navigate the ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ aspect of it.
If allowed to stand, it could be one helluva deterrent.
Dean P,
Another case of “not ever going to happen”.
Effectively deporting citizens for crimes is never going to be allowed by the SC. People need to get a grip on reality. “Banishing” went out of style a long time ago…. it is not coming back. Next will it be public beheadings? That won’t happen either.
Whether it happens or not, this sort of thing acts like gish gallop, running interference, or the “big ask”.
Johnathan Turley:
Could not agree more. Trump and the people around him need to get a grip on reality. Imitating the very worst behaviors of the Biden and Obama administrations is not a prudent choice; it will lead to electoral losses in 2 years.
I don’t think the ”Americans to San Salvador jails” is a serious proposal. But, to a Mexican drug gang in the US, the thoughts of being locked up in a foreign hell hole should be an excellent incentive for self deportation back home.
Great commercial…
https://x.com/xx_xyathletics/status/1875945829393117325?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Thomas W Fuller: “When has combating the supply of any illegal substance ever worked?”
Every time it has been tried, so far as I know. Prohibition, for example was a great success at reducing alcohol consumption and reducing problems due to excessive drinking. Of course, it did cause other problems.
So far as I know, efforts at demand reduction only work with legal vices, like alcohol and tobacco.
lucia,
The Court assuming something that was not challenged by either party is not a ruling. It is a fact that pre-Trump executive policy on birthright citizen was generally accepted. It is arguable that anybody who the State Department said was a citizen was indeed a citizen on the basis of good faith reliance on what they were officially told. But Trump’s order is not retroactive, so that argument does not apply.
DeanP,
El Salvador will not be taking “our” criminals. They will be taking THEIR criminals back, after they committed crimes in our country. It is an excellent idea. I don’t see why a sensible court should have a problem with it.
Addition: Oh. Bukele is offering to also take our criminals as well. That ain’t gonna happen. But maybe they could take criminals who are here illegally from other countries.
Mike,
I agree – the likelihood of sending US prisoners to El Salvador is low to nonexistent. But it is a shot across the bow on sentencing prisoners!
I have never read ‘the art of the deal’, but is there a negotiating tactic that says “ask for something ridiculous just to keep them off-balance’?
“When has combating the supply of any illegal substance ever worked?”
Quaaludes.
IIRC these were made with a specific chemical unique to this drug. When it became clinically obsolete the DEA convinced the main manufacturer to stop manufacturing the chemical and the supply evaporated.
The reality is people will likely just move on to another drug. Recreational drugs are always going to be around but it’s worth determining if the supply can be contracted. Fixing demand is also very hard. Lots of experimental programs have been tried and failed, such as Oregon’s, which was recently reversed by the voters. I completely support trying all the experimental programs.
I’m not an expert but my understanding is fentanyl is so concentrated that proper dosing is difficult so accidental OD’ing is a big problem.
Haven’t read the book, but I think this is what’s termed the “big ask”. You ask for something ridiculous, and then offer a compromise somewhere below.
It’s the negociating equivalent of shifting the overton window by platforming the extreme to make a less extreme position appear moderate. Given that a compromise is seen as the most equitable outcome, and a failure to compromise is indicative of “bad character”, promoting the extremity is putting a thumb on the scales in the direction you want to go.
My Mom was on fentanyl patches during the last stages of her cancer. They definitely check your ID when filling those prescriptions.
Risk for severe cases of flu and covid now about the same. Covid still killing more people overall.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/study-covid-omicron-deaths-3-times-higher-flu-risks-severe-cases-similar
“The absolute number of COVID-19 deaths was three times higher than those from flu, but the case-fatality ratio was comparable for COVID-19 (6.2%) and flu (6.1%); after adjustment, patients had a comparable subdistribution hazard ratio (HR) for 30-day in-hospital death (0.91). Similar percentages were admitted to the ICU (2.4% COVID-19 vs 2.6% flu).”
From 2023. Flu and covid are converging (because covid is declining and flu increasing to historical norms) but who knows where it will be long term. When your immunity system is compromised you don’t want either of these.
The covid precautions almost completed eliminated the flu for a while so you have to examine the ratios a bit carefully.
I had a rather surprising experience today with AI actually doing something useful for me (Chat GPT). I had a 120 page manual in need of 1) a technical terms glossary with definitions, 2) a page number index for key terms, and 3) a summary of software descriptions with associated page ranges.
These tasks would take me at least a day (probably 2) to complete. I uploaded the manual and the 3 tasks were completed in about 2 minutes. Not perfect, but damned good for zero effort on my part. 30 minutes to fix the mistakes was all my effort. Quite amazing. AI is going to eliminate a lot of jobs.
One of the top searches for AI: “How to hide that text was generated by AI”.
My youngest daughter (almost 17) already figured that out: get the text from AI, then re-write the information in your own words. She runs her words through a “check-for-AI” website, and it always announces “not AI generated.”
My daughter may know nothing about olive production in the Mediterranean region, but she can come off like an expert on the subject (or most ANY subject!) as fast as she can re-write AI generated text. I am not sure if that is a good thing.
Tom,
“ My Mom was on fentanyl patches during the last stages of her cancer. They definitely check your ID when filling those prescriptions.”
Same with Connie’s oxycodone, Fl. drivers license , every time, and they have known me for years… and they wouldn’t fill it one day early.
People used to have to know math to work at a fast food register in 1960’s / 1970’s. This ended with technology. AI may have a similar effect.
Tom Scharf,
“I’m not an expert but my understanding is fentanyl is so concentrated that proper dosing is difficult so accidental OD’ing is a big problem.”
It is a huge problem, but not because the stuff is concentrated. It is just 100 times more potent (per unit weight) than morphine. It is always diluted many-fold, but if someone messes up the dilution, you could be dead. When I broke some ribs, I think they gave me 25 micrograms.
Russell,
Your wife must have been a soldier is she was forgoing fentanyl and liquid morphine!
TomScharf,
Driving the cash register.
Friend worked summers at the local A&P. The gals driving the cash registers were very fast and were told to add $.10 into each $10 sale. This was 1959 and I think a $10 grocery pruchase might have been a big one. They did it wan were never ever caught. This had the effect of doubling the store profit. Not A&P’s just the store.
The guy that sold produce reported the correct weight on a bythepound sale, the correct price and multiplies so there was an extra $.05 in each sale. He wasn’t ever caught either.
I think the margin for the local store hasn’t changed much in all this time; still around 2-3%.
What a tought business.
SteveF, I think if she is rewrting it, she may be getting most of the benefit, especially if her re-writes are better than the original.
The US has not been successful in combating drug use and deaths. A few years back it was prescription opioid drugs and the effort to combat it was to sue the pants off any money making organization that had anything to do with those drugs. That has not worked and in the meantime fentynal has come to the fore as the main killer – with the former drugs continuing to kill. The simplistic view is the control of our borders is going to be the fix this time.
Politically, academically and socially the problem at its roots, that individuals look too much at instant gratification over long term consequences, is ignored. Similarly caused addictions like obesity are not viewed as problems with instant gratification that the individual must resolve. There is obviously a national culture connection in comparing the US to other wealthy nations and within the US when comparing racial groups.
We do the victims and potential victims no good by pointing fingers in the wrong directions.
Kenneth,
You are absolutely correct. If only we can change human nature, than all sorts of problems will go away or be greatly reduced.
Unfortunately, we are not going to turn humans into Vulcans anytime soon. So I don’t think your comments point to any solution.
Kenneth,
OK, if everyone were responsible, thoughtful, and could appreciate the need to avoid instant gratification and focus on longer term consequences, we would all be thin, exercise regularly, heart disease would be almost non-existent, nobody would drink too much, and certainly drugs like fentanyl would not be a problem.
But how do we go from the reality of today to that panacea? Those who are not up to the task of controlling their short term gratification: should we just let them use what ever drugs they want and accept even much higher overdose deaths (way more than the 100,000 per year today)? These are NOT rhetorical questions; I really want to understand the pure libertarian approach to drug use (and obesity, alcohol, and all other failings of we imperfect humans).
Mike M,
Same idea. Cross posted.
It is not ‘human nature’ to become drug addicts, given the opportunity. Kenneth is on target in my view looking at cultural influences and other influences that drive cultural.
Take rats for example. Rats living in communities, occupied with proper rat activities, given the opportunity to take drugs do not elect to. It’s much the same for humans.
I might add, the underlying cultural assumption that it’s only natural for people to become drug addicts given the opportunity may be a symptom of our philosophical decay as a people as well.
I did not say that “it’s only natural for people to become drug addicts given the opportunity”. I started to write a post disputing that, but realized that although I did not say it, I agree with it except that it is an oversimplification. I doubt that people get up in the morning and say “I think I will set out to become a drug addict”.
It is only natural that some people will be curious about mind altering substances and decide to experiment. Some of them will like it and start to use drugs from time to time for recreation. Some of them will develop a habit and some of those will develop a problem. And finally, some will become full blown addicts.
There are no doubt many factors that make that progression more likely. That could include aspects of one’s personality and the circumstances of one’s life. But cost and availability of drugs makes it much easier to take each step on the way to the Lost Highway.
It would be great if we could create a society where everybody is strong and nobody feels hopeless. I won’t live to see it. In the meantime, we should try to control the things that we have some control over.
I don’t think it has been demonstrated that Kenneth’s observation,
entails something we have no control over. I’ll admit I don’t have a handy three point plan to get it done, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
I’ll say this – the DEI neo-marxists will be right back in a few years rebranded in a new manifestation that has equivalent toxicity if we truly have no control over our culture.
Looks like Kennedy and Gabbard have a good chance for confirmation…. my guess: both 50, 50 with Vance breaking the ties. The two Rinos plus an angry old man from KY will likely vote against them. Should another Republican vote against them, it will mean they will be primaried (and probably lose that primary) in their next election, so unless they plan on retiring from the Senate, they will support both.
The rest of Trump’s appointments: easy, by comparison.
mark bofill
“…the DEI neo-marxists will be right back in a few years rebranded in a new manifestation that has equivalent toxicity…”
Sure, Marxism, in its endless permutations, always returns in a different toxic form. Count on it.
The guiding thesis of Maxism: “all people, regardless of ability, effort, or simple luck, deserve identical outcomes” is never going to disappear. Yes, it is nonsensical. Yes, it has been shown to be utterly destructive to human prosperity, and yes, it has been used to justify almost unimaginable atrocities against innocents over the past 120 years. But it is not going away.
All we can do is commit to resist it.
Steve, I doubt we are so imperfect that we do not or cannot see that the attempts to even mitigate the drug problem have failed. Admitting failure is a starting point in avoiding continuance of measures that feel good politically and socially and do not, at least, see the root cause.
That does not mean that there is any quick or seemingly magical fix to the problem. Individuals are complicated beings and no two have the same inherent weaknesses and tendencies that have to be dealt with in order to avoid bad health outcomes. Some of us have to make a bigger effort. If we are told that there is some outside force of which we have no control over that is causing our problem and we are led to believe it, then there will be no bigger effort and probably little or none.
Some cultures and ethnic groups as a whole do show measurable differences in succumbing to instant gratification. That is not to say that within those cultures and groups there are not individual differences over a wide range. However, recognizing those cultural and ethnic differences should tell us about the human condition and what it is capable of doing better on a large scale.
This is my personal take on this issue – if it sounds libertarian so be it.
I should add that if one is aware of the risks involved in over indulgence in instant gratification and choses that path that should be their freedom to do so.
Some people are saved from drug addiction by a variety of influences. Just because everyone is not saved doesn’t mean the effort is not worthwhile. How much the government should spend is quite debatable and the most effective way to use those dollars is also debatable.
I imagine we have all known drug addicts / alcoholics. They mostly do it willingly and with some enthusiasm. Lectures from authorities don’t work. Many people just outgrow addiction. There are also responsible tax paying drug users although nobody will ever admit to this for the most part.
A very hard problem.
Well, I didn’t have this on my bingo card for Gaza:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/level-it-trump-says-us-take-over-gaza-strip-rebuild
It must be difficult for Trump to walk given the apparent epic weight of his stones. I don’t know if I think this is a good idea or a horrible idea yet.
I wonder where the Gazans will go.
Trump says this regarding the Gazans:
And
It would be amazing if Trump can pull that off.
Tom,
She had liquid morphine at the end, she was in hospice care by then.
It will likely take well over $100 billion to rebuild Gaza. Nobody is going to fund that if in the end it becomes a haven for terrorists. Political change in Gaza has to come first.
I would be shocked if the surrounding Arab countries ever agreed to take a significant fraction of the population in Gaza. I don’t think Trump can pull that off. Who wants to take in a million people who celebrate atrocities?
I wonder how many Gazans are willing to sacrifice their lives toward the goal of “Death to Israel”. Too many, for sure. But possibly just a very small fraction of those who are willing to shout slogans in accord with social pressure.
So it might be that if Egypt were to take in 100K Gazans who want to leave Gaza, they might not be any more likely to be atrocity celebrating terrorists than the average Egyptian.
So maybe it is not hopeless. Maybe.
Tom Scharf
February 4, 2025 at 7:52 pm
Tom, I agree with what you wrote in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.
The 1st paragraph involves the counter factual argument that is too often used to sustain government programs that have failed to even live up to the promised results that were used to obtain approval. Those arguments often ignore unintended consequences of the programs.
AFAICT nobody wants the Palestinians because they are seen as a security threat. Recent events kind of reinforces that. Ultimately it is Iran driving this. Funny how Iran never volunteers to take in refugees. With friends like Iran …
Trump is thinking out of the box here and his solution is quite unlikely but I imagine everyone involved has had that thought in some form, he just said it out loud. It’s useful to the extent that the current theater of long term peace negotiations is a waste of everyone’s time.
I think people are crazy to invest in rebuilding Gaza with militants running the show. Let them fight over the rubble. The Palestinians need new representation and I don’t know what it is going to take.
From WaPo:
“Trump 2.0: The most damaging first two weeks in presidential history
Trump’s second term is all about curtailing government’s power and reach.”
The second statement is clearly accurate, but I completely disagree with the first.
I would call Trump’s first two weeks the most positive in my adult lifetime, with many very destructive policies already reversed, officially sanctioned racism (DEI) being eliminated in the Federal government, the crazy electric-car mandate soon to follow, government funded trans-madness being defunded, and illegal border crossings already drastically reduced. Glorious!
It has also been the most amusing first two weeks: I find the hair-on-fire hysteria among the most extreme on the left very funny. It is like they never understood the long term consequences of Obama’s “elections have consequences” comment when Congressional Republicans objected to his refusal to even consider substantive compromise on major policy. What goes around…. You reap what you sow…. etc, etc.
While Republicans will for sure use reconciliation to force major budget changes, unlike ‘progressives’, Republicans are not interested in eliminating the Senate filibuster to enact major (non-budget) policy changes with a slim majority. Will progressives consider this restraint should Democrats gain control of the Senate? Hell no, that would require levels of humility and self-awareness which they simply do not have.
Tom Scharf,
” Let them fight over the rubble. The Palestinians need new representation and I don’t know what it is going to take.”
I fear that there is no chance Gazans will elect a government not dedicated to destruction of Israel as official policy. Unfortunately, I expect the Europeans will spend enough money to let the Gazans avoid having to change that insane policy.
I read an interesting article in the WSJ this morning that points to the limitations of AI in some of its forms and with its lack of creativity induced by its makers.
The author of the article, James Taranto, queries the recently acclaimed AI DeepSeek with questions that are of a sensitive nature to the Chinese communist party and receives answers of a deflective nature as shown in this example: “Tell me about Tiananmen Square,” I queried. The reply: “I am sorry, I cannot answer that question, I am an AI assistant designed to provide helpful and harmless responses.” I did get a straight answer when I asked where Tiananmen Square is. Did anything important ever happen there? DeepSeek started generating a reply but got only as far as 1949, when Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. Then it erased the answer and replaced it with: “Sorry, that’s beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else.”
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/xi-who-must-not-be-named-why-does-deepseek-deep-six-the-chinese-presidents-name-534fc7a0?mod=opinion_lead_pos11
While the answers are probably not unexpected given where DeepSeek was developed, it does show more generally that these versions of AI tend to go with the status quo inputs and ignore or avoid any out-of-the-box thinking and arguments. I have found that to be the case when I am doing online research and asking questions of AI. The answers reinforce my view of some scientific pursuits that can directly influence policy issues like climate change and Covid 19 mitigation measures where it becomes obvious in any extended search that important aspects of research and analyses are ignored or at best hardly broached at all. An AI search is going to likewise come up mainly empty, but it probably is not going to realize what is missing.
On the other hand, AI can perform admirably where one needs assistance in a process that depends on generally accepted ways of doing things – like writing a paper, collecting uncontroversial data and, so I am told, writing code.
Kenneth,
.
Some of the behavior of AI is built into the training data (like biases), but a lot of it arises from the (sometimes hidden) prompting instructions. If one wants to override the timid / risk avoidant responses you describe, it can be done, at least to some extent.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that AI today happens to be the way you describe, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
“AFAICT nobody wants the Palestinians because they are seen as a security threat.”
Tom, I wonder if those nobodys actually like or at least have little problem with the idea of the Palestinians remaining where they will cause the most trouble and turbulence for Israel.
Migration out of troubled situations these days appears to be quite common and at least until more recent times there being nations willing to take those people in.
It appears to me that keeping a group of people very dependent on government aid is always a bad idea.
Mark, I agree, but I do not know how limited the “creativity” will be or what our current expectations should be. I am aware of some breakthroughs being made in organic chemistry with AI, but I wonder if that effort is more like the cookbook organic chemistry I knew going back to my initial exposure many, many years age. It might just have a much bigger cookbook.
Kenneth,
I agree about AI helping with tasks which have generally accepted ways of doing things…. like extracting glossary terms from a document, which it does quite well.
AI appears able to help optimize complicated code, suggesting structural changes to make it more readable, computationally more efficient, and easier to maintain. I had an AI program evaluate a block of my code (a calculation routine for light scattering , several hundred lines long), and it did in fact identify the changes that I would make myself if I was willing to spend a lot of time (many hours!) reviewing/improving the code.
I expect that for some “standard/common” coding tasks AI may do a reasonable job, but I very much doubt it can help with coding of anything very complicated or novel. At least for me, knowledge/understanding of a physical process drives the generation of code….. and understanding is what AI seems to lack most.
Kenneth,
AI certainly still has a ways to go. I’m not afraid of Skynet just yet.
[Edit: I agree with Steve too. It’s not brilliant just yet, but it can be useful. Sort of ‘lab tech’ level useful.]
1.3 million Syrians just packed their bags in the last decade and went to the EU. This stands in stark contrast to the Palestinians being “trapped” in Gaza.
I really can’t figure out if the people of Gaza can’t leave or don’t want to leave.
Trump is nuts, but maybe good nuts.
He at least see’s the devastation that is Gaza. How can people just come “home” to rubble. where do they start to rebuild.
As a UK news viewer, the MSM pics of Gaza seem almost like Hiroshima, which makes me wonder if we are shown the worst not the true overall damage.
The media photos and videos are always “maximum viewer impact” for disasters so you do have to look in the background of images to get a better assessment. It’s believable half the building in Gaza are heavily damaged / destroyed. Many buildings are untouched and some entire neighborhoods have been flattened. It’s hard to trust any reporting at the moment.
Everyone talks about the damaged buildings in Gaza, but they ignore the need to reconstruct all the tunnels!
Seriously, nobody, except maybe Europeans, is going to pay to reconstruct a terrorist state.
I saw a very clear/complete video of the actual collision between the Army helicopter and the passenger jet, taken from the airport. I can’t say for sure, but it looks in the video like the helicopter was following its prescribed “helicopter route 4” along the east side of the Potomac river (which crosses under the landing approach airliners take), but looks to be much higher than the 200 foot allowed maximum altitude for that helicopter route. It shouldn’t take long for the NTSB report to come out.
It is becoming pretty clear that the US State Department and organizations like USAID funnel billions of dollars to many leftist NGO’s to promote leftist policies all around the world, including efforts to overthrow governments and promote crazy things like transgenderism. Since the NGO’s are not government agencies, and always operate as non-profits, they are difficult to investigate. The NGOs are effectively “cut-outs” that are given vast funds to carry out policies of the permanent bureaucracy…. which are inevitably leftist…. and almost completely beyond the power of the Congress to investigate or control. Trump and Rubio are going to change this.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that under the Buren standard, machine gun bans are unconstitutional. A federal court in Mississippi dismissed the case against a man found to be owning a machine gun. A court in Kansas recently similarly ruled that the government failed to satisfy the requirements of the standards imposed by Buren.
.
The federal bans against machine guns have not been overturned yet, but the day may yet come.
My experience goes back to early ’80s when I was flying regularly. I watched the gauges like a hawk, particularly altitude in controlled airspace expecially Chicago mostly a matter of pride. We flew out of MDW and PWK. A 100 foot deviation there would provoke a question every time. Planes I flew had transponders (required) with encoders which reported altittude but depended on being set to local barometric pressure for accuracy (below 18,000 ft IIRC)
Helicopter could have been flying dark in which case ATC would have no idea what their altitude was but could follow their track as a primary -( no data) target. Again, this is based on how things worked in the ’80s. It’s possible that current radar systems can generate some data on their own – don’t know.
So if they still work this way, if the helicopter folks forgot to reset barometric pressure to current – and it should have been the one broadcast as part of Reagan’s ATIS broadcast, they could have thought they were flying at 200 feet or below and been above. Assigned altitudes are based on MSL so there’s that variation too. Since Reagan’s airport elevation is 16 feet MSL, it seems possible they were using MSL altitudes for the Helicopter restriction. Terrain does climb though on both sides of Potomic.
My guess is that assumed elevation of accident is based on altitude report from the airliner’s transponder.
Not that it has anything to do with this directly, but the behavior required on the railroads for everyone occupying the cab of a locomotive under way is that they all are required to call out loudly the aspect of the signals they enounter. In other words everyone has to pay attention. I had what was called a head-end pass from AMTRAK while I worked there which via reciprocity gave me a “right” to ride in any railroad’s locomotive, but subject to the above. I never did it, mostly out of apprehension that I might be present at an accident.
When we were flying two up, I required that both of us see any traffic called out and point to it before we responded. I doubt if the Army was doning this. The pilot in the left seat apparently was relatively high-time in that aircraft and should have been paying attention.
The last report I saw was the helicopter was at 325 ft +- 25 ft and had a ceiling of 200 ft. Once the helicopter’s black box gets read out (it had some water in it) then it will be definitive.
Regardless of the helicopter pilot’s error there were a lot of contributing issues beyond that which put these aircraft in a situation where it was dependent on a helicopter trainee to avoid a collision.
The ATC could have been specific about where the plane in question was … 7 o-clock, etc.
The ATC could have put the helicopter on hold when things looked dicey.
The jet could have taken earlier evasive action, they did pullup one second before impact.
Apparently there have been multiple recent aborted landings there due to other traffic. Nobody took action.
There could have been more than 100 ft clearance for intersecting air routes.
Helicopter trainee missions of this sort could have been done during daytime.
The other two crew members of the helicopter, and the jet copilot also missed the other aircraft (voice recordings may prove different).
Etc.
With most aircraft crashes now there are a lot of things that went wrong and this appears no different.
This sounds troubling to me and partly due to the time taken to confirm the details. What is the latest information on this matter?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/05/us/dc-plane-helicopter-collision-investigation/index.html
The initial report for Azerbaijan Airlines E-190 came out. Looks like that plane was hit by two Russian missiles at different times. The pilots had no idea what was happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLoiS6s-DKc
The Democrats being so reactionary to everything Trump has forced them into defending USAID which is probably an error. Foreign aid isn’t very popular. Almost nobody has even heard of this place. Team Trump trotted out a bunch of questionable expenditures …
“$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 on a “transgender opera in Colombia, and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.”
It’s a $50B budget and 10,000 employees. It’s the wrong time to become habitual knee jerk defenders of all government institutions without really knowing what is going on. I also read this is possibly a front for CIA activity similar to the peace core.
John, I flew, always as a passenger, out of Midway in the 1960s on propellor planes like, as I recall, the DC-3. I later flew out of Palwaukee in business jets. If a work colleague, who was a pilot, was sitting near me I would get a rendition of all flight and plane details. He was more ethusiastic, I think, about planes and flying than work.
What planes did you fly out of Palwaukee?
mark bofill,
Buren standard? Maybe Bruen? But that was about carrying handguns for self-defense. How does it apply to machine guns?
John,
The Azerbaijan Airlines E-190 crash transcripts of the cockpit voice reporter showed multiple false terrain warnings apparently due to having the destination airport altitude set incorrectly. The pilots just ignored them and it seemed like they considered it a nuisance alarm.
They did mention multiple times they lost their GPS due to being in a war zone and I suspect they were overly dependent on that. It didn’t cause this crash.
It sounds more an more like the ATC was mainly at fault for the DC crash. Probably because he was overloaded due to short staffing and could not pay adequate attention to everything on his plate. He did not make clear what plane the chopper needed to have eyes on or what approach was being used. And should he not have noticed if one aircraft or the other was not at the correct altitude? Also, the airplane pilots don’t seem to have been made aware of the chopper. Add to that someone’s altimeter being off and disaster results.
The publicly available tracking data only has 100 ft resolution. Here you can see the helicopter altitude changes from 200 to 300 ft right before the collision. Perhaps it was going around 250.
https://youtu.be/n9mAUks0krI?t=556
He also talks about the altimeter setting at 13:20
The FBI wide dragnet of everyone who worked on the Jan 6th cases was performed because the acting director refused to give up the names of the core DC FBI team.
WSJ: “Bove called Driscoll insubordinate on Wednesday, saying the acting FBI director had refused to turn over names of the “core team” in Washington who had worked on the Jan. 6 probe. Driscoll’s refusal prompted Bove to demand the bureau-wide list, he said. The only agents who should worry, Bove said, “are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent.“
…
The agents association followed up with another message Sunday, telling members to answer the Jan. 6 survey with a response that included the sentence, “I have not been advised of my rights in this matter.” ”
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-fbi-firings-immigration-crime-ad7d6b44?st=FEU1sS&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Investigators don’t like to be investigated. Impeding this investigation is not a good look.
“Unofficial estimates” put the helicopter and airliner at 325 ft at the time of the collision, while the helicopter’s maximum allowed altitude at that location was 200 ft.
Four questions come to my mind:
1) Was the helicopter for sure at 325 ft?
2) Helicopters can slow or stop at will; how could the helicopter pilots not see the approaching aircraft on radar and either slow or stop to allow the airline to safely pass (above!) before proceeding?
3) How could the airline pilots not see the helicopter on radar?
$) How can commercial aircraft radar systems NOT have automatic collision avoidance alarms?
The video recording of the collision shows clearly there was danger of a collision many seconds before it happened.
WSJ:
“The following week, Martin opened an internal review of prosecutors’ use of a felony obstruction charge in the Jan. 6 cases, calling it a “great failure” in an officewide email. He followed it with a warning that anyone who didn’t cooperate with the inquiry would be viewed as “insubordinate.”
This has been my pet peeve. Everyone associated with this decision should be fired. It’s political targeting when compared against all other recent protest law enforcement activity.
How short sighted and arrogant these people must be to not consider what might happen if the voters rendered a different political judgment. It was high stakes poker and they had a pair of sevens.
I don’t consider myself especially prescient but it doesn’t take a genius to see this from the beginning as counterproductive to the goals of those involved and destructive to the institutions. Here we are.
The last things said between the tower and the helicopter 6 seconds before the crash):
Tower “Pass behind the CRJ”
Helicopter: “Request visual separation”
Tower: “Visual separation”
Apparently, the tower received an automatic collision warning, prompting them to request the helicopter pass behind the CRJ. The helicopter pilots said they could see the CJR, but obviously they could not.
The airliner should have been given an audio “traffic warning” before the collision. The voice recorder will confirm that. Unfortunately that might be a common event near an airport.
“Investigators don’t like to be investigated. Impeding this investigation is not a good look.”
It is worse than that; resisting means they likely will get fired.
SteveF,
I don’t think that airliners have radar, other than low resolution, forward facing weather radar. I have never seen a rotating radar dish on an airplane.
I have read that TCAS is turned off below a certain altitude during landing. Otherwise, pilots get overloaded with false alarms.
Keeping the aircraft apart was the job of the tower. The pilot’s responsibility is to follow instructions from the tower.
Tom Scharf,
“I don’t consider myself especially prescient but it doesn’t take a genius to see this from the beginning as counterproductive to the goals of those involved and destructive to the institutions. ”
They took a politically motivated gamble that Trump would not win in November… specifically because of their efforts; they lost that bet.
What I don’t understand is why they all didn’t just resign after Trump won in November. I mean, you need to be pretty stupid to imagine that going along with politically motivated prosecutions (both Trump and J6 rioters) risked negative career consequences. Of course, if they honestly believed the prosecutions were not politically motivated, then they are OBVIOUSLY far too stupid to hold a job at the DOJ.
High profile political prosecutions are pretty rare unless you are caught with … errr … gold bars in your closet Senator Menendez. There has been a high bar historically and that isn’t because our leaders are particularly law abiding moral leaders.
For anyone wondering why that is, now we know. They were wiser then. A high bar means what it means, clear and convincing evidence for a conviction and the much more murky and controversial backing of the electorate.
Mike M,
I think you are right; the radar they have is not designed to avoid other aircraft. It will be interesting to see the recommendations from the NTSB.
Mike,
LOL, thanks. Bruen of course.
What Bruen did was get rid of the ‘balancing’ test (government public safety interests against individual second amendment rights) and instead introduced this standard:
What this seems to amount to (what I think other federal circuit courts have decided) is that the government needs to show that machine guns are both ‘dangerous’ and ‘unusual’. All firearms are obviously dangerous. The thing is, from a historical perspective, machine guns are far from unusual. There used to be hundreds of thousands of these weapons in citizens hands. Up until 1934 (National firearms act), they were unregulated. After 1934, one essentially just had to pay a steep fee, up until 1993 (Brady). Even after 1993, one could still own them, provided they were manufactured prior to 1986.
Critics complain that the new standard amounts to an insurmountable obstacle, and honestly, I think they are correct. The reason the obstacle is insurmountable is that the restriction is in fact unconstitutional.
No, I’m sorry. Bruen built on Heller, that’s how it worked apparently. Dangerous and unusual came from Heller I think, and then in Bruen they introduced the requirement of regulation being consistent with regulatory historical tradition.
Ugh. It was the ‘Firearm Owners’ Protection Act’ of 1986 that banned new machine guns, not Brady. Somehow ‘Brady’ is easier to remember than ‘firearm owners protection act’ and comes more readily to mind.
‘Firearm Owners’ Protection Act’
A name that immediately reminds me of Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act”. Who says politicians don’t have a sense of humor.
Looks like Patel and Kennedy will likely get at least 51 votes, next week or the week after.
Pam Bondi has already explained to the DOJ that there is a new Sheriff in town, and her name is Pam.
Steve,
Right? What it is with the mockery built into the names of these laws. The ‘Patriot Act’ is another memorable example in my opinion.
Mike,
Thanks for asking, because you forced me to organize my speech and thus my thoughts regarding this. It comes down to ‘bearable arms’. ‘Dangerous and unusual’ weapons are the exception to bearable arms under the plain reading of the second amendment. But unless they are ‘dangerous and unusual’, machine guns are simply ‘bearable arms’ and thus are protected.
It’s mostly a perception thing. People who are uniquely afraid of machine guns probably haven’t heard how fast semiautomatic rifles can actually be fired.
I think soldiers are trained to only use full auto in rare situations. A waste of ammo, but it is an option for a reason. These don’t come up very often in civilian life.
Any self respecting gamer knows this.
AI:
“Soldiers use full automatic fire infrequently and strategically, typically in situations demanding immediate suppression of fire or to overwhelm a target quickly, such as breaking through an ambush or establishing fire superiority.”
Kenneth, First C120, then C210, (both mine) and the Company’s C421 which was a pressurized turbo supercharged twin which on a short haul could carry 6 including crew. Typical 421 run was MDW to Shreveport to Cleveland TX where we were building a plant,. Return would be Cleveland to St Louis to MDW. We flew in the middle altitudes between 20k and 24k feet and in the 80s mostly had this airspace to ourselves, above the unpressurized folks and beneath the airliners. the 421 had radar which was good for locating weather – radar could see water.
The C210 could do this trip without a stop but took longer 150k vs 200k.
Selling the 210 in 1987 was one of the hardest things I ever did. I knew that when it was gone, there would never be another airplane. Now, I don’t miss any of that era, nor do I miss the boating.
I guess eventually we grow up.
Apparently some judges are refusing to accept the Jan 6 cases be dismissed with prejudice. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman (Clinton appointee) issued an order dismissing a case but refusing to allow it to be dismissed with prejudice…. expecting, of course, that some future Democrat will prosecute the case again. Trump will slap him down with a pardon for the defendant. Why can these judges not recognize they lost the argument about selective political prosecution of Jan 6 rioters last November? It is very strange.
john ferguson,
“Now, I don’t miss any of that era, nor do I miss the boating.”
I may never grow up: I miss my 40′ cruiser, the Branch Office, a lot. OTOH, my wife doesn’t miss her at all.
I keep telling myself it’s not too late to have a happy childhood. But I’m in my mid 50’s now and I don’t have time to mess with it yet; it might indeed prove to be too late for me to have a boat unless I get on it pretty darn soon.
I could still get some sort of riverboat I guess. The Tennessee river isn’t all that far.
john ferguson,
So your plane was pressurized? Pretty impressive. I read that version had 78 gals of fuel and a range of about 1,000 miles. Is that the right version?
mark bofill,
The folks who bought my boat were from not far from you (Alabama-Miss. border). They cruised across Florida (through the Okeechobee canals), then up the coast and crossed to Alabama. Had I known… I could have offered her to you.
It’s OK Steve. It’s extremely unlikely my wife would have been agreeable to the notion in the past. She’s seemingly only starting to warm to the idea.
Somehow I suspect the cost would have been sufficient to meet the threshold for spousal approval. 😉
Thanks for the information on the Cessna aircraft you flew, John. I never flew in the C120 or the C210, but I think I might have once in the C421. It looks familiar with the long nose and low cabin ceilings. My coworker pilot hired a friend to take 5 of us on a business trip to Columbus, Ohio from Chicago. Your post brought back memories.
You are right about growing up and changing what is important to us.
I was reading about the gas consumption of the Cessna 120 and how cruising speed difference of 10 miles an hour could make a big difference in mpg.
Thanks mark, for the Bruen info.
FWIW, I think the Second Amendment was meant to reserve ALL regulation of weaponry to the states. Because if the feds can regulate weapons, then they can disarm the states. SCOTUS disagrees, and their opinion is the one that matters.
I think that firearms for purposes like self defense are protected by the Ninth Amendment.
Mike,
It wouldn’t surprise me if you were right about that.
Kenneth,
Drag increases almost parabolically with increasing speed (well below the speed of sound) so a 10% increase in speed makes a big difference in fuel usage.
Commercial passenger jets in Brazil often operate significantly below the ‘normal cruise speed’ to reduce fuel consumption. I was surprised the first time I noticed this; no more.
mark bofill,
If you are considering a boat large enough to sleep on board, I hope you have some experience with smaller boats. If not, could be a steep learning curve to navigate in close quarters. Though she tried, my wife just could not control the boat anywhere but in open water.
SteveF,
But higher speed means that you can fly higher where the air density is lower. So the drag will be the same as at lower altitude and slower speed. Both lift and drag are proportional to dynamic pressure although the ratio does vary some with speed.
I think that flying below the design cruising speed only makes sense if the flight is too short to spend most of it at the design altitude.
Mike M,
Yes, flying higher (all else equal) reduces fuel burn. However most planes are not operated at their maximum altitude, and lift is adjusted as needed with an increased angle of attack to compensate for slower speeds. The most economical speed is always considerably below the normal cruise speed, but of course passenger travel time and craft utilization enter into the overall economics. In any case flying a bit below normal cruise most definitely does reduce fuel consumption per mile. See for example: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/101072/does-flying-slower-actually-save-fuel
About 10 years ago I flew from Miami to London. After we took off I looked at the flight map, and we were on a course to arrive somewhere near Algeria, not London! A while later the pilot announced that we were heading ‘further East than normal’ to pick up very favorable tail winds….. which would reduce total travel time to Heathrow. Two hours later the pilot informed the passengers we were flying (relative to the ocean surface) at mach 1.05!
We arrived in London 45 minutes early, then sat in the plane for an hour+ waiting for an available gate!
Steve,
Thanks for that. I have very little experience with boats of any sort. Things to watch out for I guess.
SteveF,
I suspect that engine efficiency might be a bigger factor than drag. Even so, It seems that the effects are small. I found this at Wikipedia: “Most long-range cruise operations are conducted at the flight condition that provides 99 percent of the absolute maximum specific range. The advantage of such operation is that one percent of the range is traded for three to five percent higher cruise speed.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_(aeronautics)#Practice
Covid update.
Covid vaccine (non) efficacy:
“A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that the 2023–2024 mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were 52 percent effective at preventing infection after four weeks, with effectiveness falling to 20 percent at 20 weeks (a little over four and half months).”
That wouldn’t even get FDA approval now.
Natural immunity:
“According to the data, an infection with omicron provided an initial protection of nearly 80 percent between the first three to six months after infection, but that protection rapidly declined. Between nine months and a year, protection fell to around 27.5 percent, then dropped to a negligible 5 percent after a year.”
In other words the vaccines are currently terrible, natural immunity is about 4X better but only lasts 6 to 9 months.
“The only bright spot in the new data was that regardless of what a person was infected with—pre-omicron or omicron—protection from severe, critical, or fatal COVID-19 during reinfection was nearly 100 percent, and that level of protection was sustained for over a year.”
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/protection-from-covid-reinfections-plummeted-from-80-to-5-with-omicron/
So, vaccines with long term effectiveness against rapidly evolving RNA viruses don’t exist. Who could have guessed? OK, most anyone could have guessed, based only on the known effectiveness of influenza vaccines.
SteveF, the boss’s 421 was pressurized. My 1962 C-210 wasn’t .
Somehow I remember usable fuel was 81 gallons, but not sure. prudent flight was get there and have enough fuel to go to an alternate field and still have 45 minutes left. the 1000 mile flight mdw to cleveland texas left off the 45 minute safety because it was a nice day and we had a tailwind. also flew at 8500 at 50%.
Kenneth the C-120 was a 2 seater with 85 hp engine which did 100mph, no more, burned 4.5 gph at that speed and I never flew it any slower. It was IFR equipped (two venturiis) but because of limited range it only made sense to fly out of IMC into VFR.
Typical trip in that plane was PWK to St louis. We used to joke about MTBSB mean trips between something breaking. on the 120 it might have been 20, but the 210 is more like 5 same with the 421. most of this was metal fatigue related.
friend bought a Turbo-Commander which was a high wing turbine twin. After 6 months he reported that after 150 hours on it he was perplexed, nothing broke. The altimeters on turbine planes have vibrators so the needles will keep up with altitude changes. Recips don’t need them.
In a made for tv bio, Howard Hughes walked into a dinner party wearing dirty overalls and said “I continue to be amazed at the number of things that can be wrong with an airplane.”
There must have been someone connected with the film who owned a plane. But if probably didn’t work on it himself. Hughes overalls were really dirty. Generally you don’t get dirty working on planes which is the difference between cars, boats, and planes.
don’t ask how i know this.
“Keeping the aircraft apart was the job of the tower. The pilot’s responsibility is to follow instructions from the tower.”
The concern is what happens when the tower and aircraft both think they’re complying with each other, but aren’t. The helicopter states it has the aircraft in sight, and requests visual separation and the tower granted it. I expect that is normal for cases like this, where a helicopter wants the freedom to move on after the aircraft passes by.
I expect the primary cause is helicopter pilot error. Contributing causes are tower/aircraft communications and could result in changes to comm – i.e., calling out directions for the two aircraft, ensuring positive correct identification – “Blackhawk – you have an aircraft at 330° relative – call back visual”, “Roger, aircraft sighted at 330° relative. request visual separation”. I doubt the comms with the aircraft will change, as they’re busy landing the plane and shouldn’t be bothered with comm 30 seconds before touchdown.
Another contributing cause could be ATC staffing issues. I heard a controller left early with the approval of the supervisor. Assuming it is true, that will no longer be allowed. And in areas that have a lot of helicopter and commercial aircraft the FAA may require a dedicated controller for helicopters at all time.
DeanP,
If the tower gave the helicopter permission to go visual, as I think they did, the helicopter became responsible for separation.
It doesn’t look like it happened here, but it is not at all unusual to cancel IFR at some point during an approach when the environment is clearly visible and doing so saves some approach gyrations. It may be that the airliners don’t do this as company policy but otherwise they could. and when I was flying this happened frequently because it reduced spacing between planes increasing landing capacity.
Sometimes tower would ask for it.
Indicated vs true airspeed
Airspeed Indicators and wings are molecule counters. If you are flying at 500 feet the molecules will be much closer to each other than at 50,000 feet. This means that a reading of 100 molecules per second can be the same at 50k as at 500 but the true airspeed will be much higher.
The wing sees things the same way, such that everything else being more or less equal, the most efficient speed for a wing will be best angle of glide speed in indicated airspeed at the highest altitude that this speed can be maintained. Steve’s mention of angle of attack points to at 38,000 feet, the nose will be a bit up on a sweptwing aircraft. The angle of attack is a result of choice of indicated airspeed, but could also be the choice at a given power setting, but this seems backward to my way of thinking, and since flying the assigned altitude is usually required, harder to do.
john ferguson: “If the tower gave the helicopter permission to go visual, as I think they did, the helicopter became responsible for separation.”
But that would be meaningless if the helicopter pilot did not know the location of the other aircraft.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html/chap7_section_2.html
So (2) and (3) were done. But was (1) done? If it was, then it is hard to believe that the chopper pilot blundered into the path of an airplane he had in sight. That and the chopper’s altitude would seem to be the two big issues.
Oh. There is more (plus stuff not applicable):
Neither seems to have been done.
Mike M.
Item 1 is the tower which must maintain communications wiht both planes as they apparently did.
I haven’t read it but heard that this morning, it was revealed that the helicopter had it’s transponder turned off which meant no altitude information at tower rader nor much else than a paint of it’s present horizontal location.
and please remember, that what I write is based om experience from 40 years ago, although I don’t think much has changed in the meantime.
john ferguson,
It is not my intent to criticize or pontificate, I am just trying to understand. I realize that when I am thinking out loud, I tend to sound way more sure of myself than I actually am.
I wonder why the chopper would have had its transponder off. My understanding is that the mission for which they were training is the transportation of government bigwigs in a hurry. That explains why they were flying in crowded airspace at night, but I get having the transponder off.
Mike,
I didn’t take your earlier comments as challenging my efforts here. I could always have this screwed up.
My undertsanding of the mission was that it was a practice flight to re-qualify the person who was flying for this type of mission which was the rapid removal from the District (probably white house) of important people so that they could be relocated at some place safer. These missions would be very secret and so possibly would be the planning, practice flights, and their routing. And this would be why the transponder which would make the flight trackable was turned off. Which is why the tower had no idea what the altitude of the helicopter was.
A more senior pilot was in the left seat and was conducting the re-qualification of the actual pilot who was flying from the right seat. Helicopter probably had dual controls but the command seat is always the right seat. It is unlikely that the left seat person ever touched the controls.
As to getting bearing to traffic from atc, I can’t remember anything better than clock bearings, “at your 11:00” for example, and sometimes “squawking 6,500” which (indirectly) means traffic was not under ATC control but had it’s encoder on. I can’t remember ever getting a degree bearing to traffic, mostly I suppose because they really have no way of knowing your compass heading, only your track, which because of crosswind component could be different) and maybe not that either – just your present position and altitude.
So my guess is that this thing is going to turn out to be a scandal based on a training protocol of flying a dark (no transponder) aircraft through busy airspace.
It’s also important to underdstand that although an airliner on short final can go to full throttle if a “go-around” is needed, it does take some time to spin up the turbines and get all that mass moving, not to mention dealing with the drag of full flaps and gear-out at that time. Essentially, it looks to me that the airliner would have been helpless to do anything in the ten seconds preceding the crash.
And then there’s the question of why this mission didn’t got to Andrews which wuld have avoided this route altogether. Maybe they were going to Quantico, or maybe this was thought to be an evasive routing assuming there wwas good reason to extract senior official from the district in a hurry.
I used to go into Dulles from time to time, but never Reagan. We could have, but the place scared me.
and finally, if I’ve made the above sound authoritative, it doesn’t mean it’s correct; just my view.
I rather suspect that at a minimum the NTSB will recommend no “dark” military helicopter traffic in crowded air spaces…. along with other recommendations…. like refusing most “visual separation” requests.
The tower at least twice requested the helicopter slow down to let the CRJ pass before proceeding. The helicopter pilots immediately asked for “visual separation”, which was immediately granted. How about a response of “Visual separation denied”? Would that have avoided the crash? Maybe it would have. Surely a delay of 30 seconds would not have hurt the helicopter’s training mission.
Data bank of the crash details from the flight information system I belong to:
https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/psa-airlines-crj-700-collides-with-us-military-helicopter-in-washington-dc/?utm_campaign=website&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sendgrid.com
It’s way to technical for me, but some of you might get it.
According to this, the helicopter did not have its ADS-B system turned on.
“The Blackhawk had a transponder, so it would have appeared on radar and was providing flight data, though the ADS-B is much more accurate.”
I interpret this to mean that the helicopter would respond to secondary surveillance radar (SSR) interrogation signals, although (according to my not-to-be-relied-upon memory), the reported altitude is quantized to 100 feet in the SSR response.
SteveF,
There’s something wrong with the reporting. If the had their transponder off, they already were on visual separation. Maybe the tower was able to work witha primary paint well enough to see where they were horizontally. 40 years ago, it wasn’t easy to work with a simultaneous combination of transponder based data SSR and primary paints. Probalby systems are much better now.
No way is visual separation going away. It very frequently allows significant compression of traffic flow, particularly at places like Ohare where the physical separation of aircraft can be reduced if they can see each other, which can mena landing more planes in a given period.
HaroldW,
What you write makes sense. Which goes back to possibility that the current altimeter setting from the ATIS hadn’t been entered.
john ferguson
I suspect the discrepancies will be resolved in the NTSB report.
Sure, there are conflicting reports. In any case, the audio recording shows the air traffic controllers twice asked for the helicopter to wait for the CRJ to pass before proceeding (the second time, apparently after they received an automatic warning of possible collision) and both times the army pilots immediately requested “visual separation”, which was granted. My guess is the NTSB is unlikely to ignore this sequence of events.
john ferguson,
“don’t ask how i know this.”
I never worked on planes. But I can say for certain: cars are much dirtier than boats. Working on the Branch Office engines (7.4 liter fuel injected), I never got very dirty. Working on my 1964 Ford Galaxy was pure black dirt.
If the dem’s continue to reflexively oppose Trump on all of his policies, they will continue digging their own graves politically.
“This is like Trump’s superpower. Finding a bunch of 80-20 issues and getting on the 80 and everybody who is reflexively against him gets on the 20. Now the Democrat Party has a 31% approval rating. This is why!”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/02/06/jennings_trumps_superpower_is_getting_democrats_to_oppose_him_on_80-20_issues.html
I am wondering how well the Trump mission to reduce government will hold up to resistance of the Democrats, media and weak kneed Republicans.
Really puzzling is the mantra I often hear from the media that a given reduction in the governmnt will only reduce total spending by a small portion – although sometimes as large as a percent- and implying it is too small to go after. It would not take many incremental reductions to sum to a big one. Are these people stupid or merely trying to avoid any reduction in the size and reach of government?
The emotional and personal replies of the Democrats should indicate to those listening that they really do not have any substantive arguments against the proposed reductions. They have in my view become the obvious dumber party which well could be the result of the media for a long time making the arguments for them and the dumber trend in the media.
Republicans that might want to return to the days when they were in minority and would bow to the Democrats to show how bipartisan they could be should be carefully watched. On this topic I think Bret Baier’s Fox News nightly broadcast where he has a Democrat and Republican on talking about some insignificant legislation they might sponsor together is mainly a farce and virtue signaling by Baier.
The judicial system could play a giant role in keeping government huge with injunctions galore.
kenneth,,
Dems are the party of no-stress, influential, publicly funded sinecures, with a generous salary and zero required production.
THAT is what the loudest screaming (USAID, Justice, and soon more) is all about.
You have a huge number of politically motivated activists holding “upper-level non-policy positions” in the federal government or “influential non-political” NGO positions, when in fact they mostly set policy 100% in lock-step, arm-in-arm, with progressive Democrats, and drag their feet (or worse!) to resist Republican administrations. As it should, that is changing. Hence all the loud screams. Fire them all.
Kenneth,
They are far from stupid, they are desperate to avoid any reduction in the size and reach of government. That and they have an almost pavlovian response to anything and everything Trump does at this point that would probably be difficult to overcome even if they made a genuine effort.
I think Democrats hoped that Trump would come to power and do nothing in particular, but alas. Not to be.
[Edit: Cross posted with Steve]
Addendum: They aren’t stupid, but I believe some are suffering from a certain degree of critical thinking atrophy. I think this is probably a consequence of dispensing with traditional notions of objectivity and embracing modern subjective ideas about right and wrong. By definition, the Dems are good, right, and true. By definition, those who oppose them are not — to the extent some of these people still believe in good and evil at all, and I’m sure some of them do not. Decades of rationalizing this must take a toll.
I’ve got to say I didn’t expect much of the DOGE cost cutting apparatus but I may have to adjust my thinking.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/02/white-house-budget-proposal-could-shatter-the-national-science-foundation/
“During an emotional all-hands meeting on Tuesday, the (NSF) agency’s assistant director for engineering, Susan Margulies, told agency employees to expect between a quarter and a half of its staff to be laid off within the coming months, E&E News reported.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts/
“On Friday, with less than an hour’s notice, David Dutcher, Boeing’s vice president and program manager for the SLS rocket, scheduled an all-hands meeting for the approximately 800 employees working on the program. The apparently scripted meeting lasted just six minutes, and Dutcher didn’t take questions.
During his remarks, Dutcher said Boeing’s contracts for the rocket could end in March and that the company was preparing for layoffs in case the contracts with the space agency were not renewed.”
Science and space may not be my personal favorite targets but I can’t say they aren’t every bit as deserving of scrutiny. Artemis launch costs are literally 10x higher than SpaceX and this turkey should be cancelled, although my personal bias would say no.
The government does excel at keeping its bloat going so I expect some of this to be retained as special favors all called in.
I agree with Kenneth that the spectacle of the media and Democrats defending this stuff is enlightening. They have already trotted out the killing of children theme. I see this as them falling into a trap with a big sign, BEWARE: TRAP AHEAD!
Ultimately some of the lawsuits will be successful as it is Congress that controls the budget, but everyone can see who is for government bloat and who isn’t.
I think the Democrats / media expect there to be public backlash against government programs being cut. USAID, Artemis, NSF, DEI? Nope.
Estimates of fraud, generated from within federal departments, run to $500-600 billion per year. That is just for fraud; it does not include waste and inefficiency. So I think there is a lot of room for substantial budget cutting.
I have no idea how the fraud numbers are arrived at.
I can’t be the only one here who has ever worked in government or government like organization; can I ? FWIW, my impression of staff at Chicago Department of Development and Planning (1969)was that most of them were competent, some highly, but almost all convinced that it was impossible to get a job on the outside, and maybe most working on what amounted to make-work – no real benefit to the greater society. And it was damn near impossible to fire anyone who had connections, and we all did in order to get there.
Amtrak similar quality of staff, similar difficulty in shedding the useless ones, but a range of activity from somewhat useful to really good, assuming that you bought into the Amtrak premise. But no fraud, which is not the same as no waste.
At the same time my experience with regulatory agencies which I think I’ve spun out at length here is almost entirely bad due to overzealous environmental advocates over-interpretting what the regs actually required. they weren’t incompetent, but….
I’m sure you guys know what I’m talking about.
The only thing the Trump administration needs to be careful about is too long a delay in funding of perfectly legitimate aid programs via USAID. Hard to say what fraction of the programs fall into the legitimate category, but I would be surprised if it were less than 75%. Yes, eliminate all the funding for leftie policy advancement, but don’t de-fund vaccination programs for poor kids in Haiti. Too long a delay (more than a few weeks) will invite public back-lash. I hope Rubio understands this.
If the SLS is canceled it will save the taxpayer a fortune. But Congress will get involved, so in may live on, as Ronald Reagan noted, for eternity. There are enough Republicans from districts that benefit from this boondoggle that canceling it outright may not be possible, even though it is the poster child for what is wrong with government funded programs.
If the SLS is canceled it will save the taxpayer a fortune. But Congress will get involved, so in may live on, as Ronald Reagan noted, for eternity. There are enough Republicans from districts that benefit from this boondoggle that canceling it outright may not be possible, even though it is the poster child for what is wrong with government funded programs.
Where DOGE could make an enormous difference is in changing the operating philosophy at the EPA. Many environmental rules are insanely expensive relative to their benefits; as John Ferguson correctly notes, people at the EPA always adopt the most extreme and costly interpretation of environmental laws, leading to excessive cost for doing business, or, heaven forbid, building something new. The direct (funding) cost of the EPA is a tiny fraction of its real economic impact. Changing just the philosophy of implementing environmental regulations would save far more that any cut to staffing.
John,
I usually work at a distance of two removed from the government; we’re subcontractors, serving prime contractors serving aerospace and defense. I DID briefly contract with NASA. The civil servants indeed had a noticeably entitled attitude and did next to no work. The contractors seemed to do all the heavy lifting. The internal politics contaminated technology to some extent – I specifically remember there was a vendor supplying a clearly defective implementation of something (I forget exactly what the heck it was, but I remember working with the library to access it and it was obvious crap that plainly didn’t work at all) who was protected by the higher ups. When I pointed out to my team that this implementation and library didn’t work they told me the story of the last contractor who was fired for trying to escalate the exact issue I was raising.
It was something. It does not surprise me at all that NASA can’t keep up with SpaceX.
I should have mentioned, my stint with NASA was something like eight or nine years ago I think. I wasn’t there all that long, maybe six months.
I think that Rubio is already granting waivers so that the actually useful stuff at USAID can continue even while the broader evaluation is going on.
I would mostly use the word “inefficient” when talking about government. There aren’t enough incentives to reduce spending and streamline operations so it just picks up bad habits in the long term.
It is seemingly impossible to reform government work from the inside. My view is the only way that works is the starve the beast model. I don’t expect there to be no pain or no mistakes. Minimize the pain and fix the mistakes, but get spending under control.
Things can be similar in a large corporation with a generous department budget but eventually large externalities force change in the private sector with some rare exceptions such as monopolies, I doubt Google has fired a lot of people lately.
My work experiences were mainly with manufacturing and a few years in my later career consultating with a regulated public utility. I found there to be some very notable differences that I suspect could be extrapolated to apply generally to private less regulated firms (Privs) and highly regulated utility ones (HR).
HR was less creative and problems were not handled with any immediacy. Teamwork suffered at HR due primarily to personality clashes. The workers at HR were intelligent and for the most part very articulate and great at making presentations. They were very aware of office politics and had what I viewed as a lawyerly approach to justify their work efforts. There were a number working from home when that was far from the norm and were mainly younger moms. Social interactions for the most part were friendly and open.
The work at Priv was much more challenging and successes more satistify. The work at Priv was doing the hard sciences and keeping technical people interested and challenged. Dealing successfully with vendors and customers at Priv was often times as much social and psychological efforts as it was technical. At HR dealing with the workers was like dealing with vendors and customers at Priv.
Tom Scharf
There are multiple things that can go wrong. I’m sure they can also go wrong in big companies- but there is a lot of “Seems like a good idea” things that happen when someone in “management” is spending other people’s money or time and there is no true “deliverable”.
As an example: At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory there was an employee news letter stuffed into our employee mailbox. Almost no one read it. The people whose job was to pick stories, write them etc knew almost no one read it and felt somewhat demoralized.
Was the problem that articles were objectively “bad”? No. Was the problem the articles were poorly written? Nope. Might reading some of the stories “help” us be ‘better’ in some way? Sure. One regular feature pertained to safety and discussed some safety aspects we might want to consider in our day day activities. But, of course, they were rarely safety issues that were relavent to everyone and often they were remote.
Reading the entire thing back to back would probably take 15 minutes. Not too long… but… still…
The problem is that if you did read the item back to back, most of the time, none of the artiles related to the average employees current tasks. Also, while management thought it was a good idea to have this thing written, they did not think it was a sufficiently good idea to cover people’s time to read it. Zero overhead money was devoted to cover people’s time to read it.
So what? you might ask. But each of us was required to bill 8 hours of project time each day– so either we billed an individual ‘customer’ for our time reading the thing or we read it on our own free time. The former was… well…maybe kinda-sorta- not legal. (Not that it couldn’t be argued that doing something that made us better employees was still ok. But which of your 5 project’s time should you use up?) And we periodically had deadlines and milestones etc.
Plus, like the sort of magazines you used to encounter at the doctor or dentists office, these just weren’t that interesting to most people. Yeah…. “People” and “US” magazine sells in the grocery store. So did “Car and Driver”. So did lots of things. But no magazine is interesting to everyone. So the things weren’t read.
From time to time, management came of with “sounds like good idea” things. They tended to persist. No one cuts these programs. The honcho in charge though it was a good idea and hired people who really wanted to do a good job. And they did do a “good job”.
The problem is that the entire project needed to ‘do less’ or not be done at all.
A newsletter that merely summarized important announcements about HR and benefits or rules changes etc. would probably have been useful. That ‘newsletter’ would probably have required at most 1/2 FTE to organize, get printed distributed. Instead, there were, I think at least a dozen people brainstorming to find “the best” safety article, yada, yada. And they were somewhat frustrated that after all their hard work, the target readers mostly just threw the newsletter in the trash.
Of course, I’m sure the people working on it equally tossed all sorts of “junk mail” that arrived at their homes. They even tossed the ones that accompanied the ads for home services with interesting special interest stories about…. whatever.
There were other problems– but this sort of bloat was endemic.
In 1985-86 I worked on JointStars as a consultant to Westinghouse Defence. The competition was Grumman, who ultimately won the contract.
I was immesnely impressed by the Air Force’s project manager, a Major with a Doctor of Science from MIT who had an equally impressive team. They seemed to be especially good at detecting soft areas on our submissions. But they were fun to work with.
As an aside, I was told to buy two B-707’s which could be furnished with hush-kits and the hush-kits. If you haven’t been there, you could have no idea the sorts of things the proespective vendors will do to encourage their selection.
I was still flying at the time, and was offered a sort of check ride in one. I didn’t have an air transport rating, and the 421 hadn’t needed a type rating so this would really have been a reach. But boy was I tempted.
Wow. I have had much different and worse experiences interfacing with Air Force managers and officers. I won’t tell tales, since I’m still working in the field. Needless to say, I have encountered no PhDs among them. My experience here is within the last 5 years.
mark,
At PNNL, most the “managers” were not Ph.Ds.
I think the real difference is that the military does have a mission. Department of energy labs? They are “multipurpose”.
Well Mark,
He was a Doctor of Science which is what you get from the engine side of MIT, not a PhD.
JointStars was a program to develop sidelooking radar to be added to C-135’s for battlefield managment and asset coordination.
It was funny that Westinghouse didn’t get the pass on noise that the Air Force does. They can run their 135’s loud but we needed hush-kits at least for the development phase which would likely have been done at BWI.
The Westinghouse guys were wonderful too.
John, Lucia,
Thanks. Maybe the guys in charge of the old missile trucks are less credentialed. Probably, I’d think, and those were the types I was working with. [Edit: F-15’s are what I’m referring to. I googled ‘missile truck’ and I realized that what I typed was ambiguous.]
The government does get some stuff done. Apollo. A nuclear bomb. They build roads. In the US at least they try a little harder to stay out of the way of the private sector even though it is universal for governments to seek more control of everything. They let contractors do much of the work for the defense department.
However somehow it starts to cost $1B a mile to build a subway after a while. This is what needs fixed. If the private sector could force their customers to pay whatever it takes to build a widget then it would be a big problem for the private sector too.
The Musk Eye of Sauron is now gazing at academia:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/02/new-nih-policy-will-slash-support-money-to-research-universities/
“These indirect costs are negotiated with each research institution and average close to 30 percent of the amount awarded for the research. Some institutions see indirect rates as high as half the value of the grant.
On Friday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that negotiated rates were ending. Every existing grant, and all those funded in the future, will see the indirect cost rate set to just 15 percent. With no warning and no time to adjust to the change in policy, this will prove catastrophic for the budget of nearly every biomedical research institution.”
In other breaking news all the people receiving federal funding say their work is super important and it is an existential crisis to humanity if it is reduced. They say it is too complicated to explain to everyday morons why that is but they simply demand to be trusted on this.
In my manufacturing career I wrote a weekly email – when email was just starting to be used by most of management but never written by most of top management – that condensed the important happenings in development engineering, quality assurance and production. I learned early from my boss, who was the president of our division, to keep the report brief, i.e. like an executive summary, which I did with references to details that were available in other reports.
My idea was to get workers interested in parts of the company that they might not interact with on a weekly basis. The report helped me expand my view of operations and particularly when I got feedback from the readers.
A good outcome was to get technical and production people more involved with customers and vendors. That was successful beyond my expectations, as particularly, customers were very happy to see those people instead of a couple of marketing or sales people. Those people initially were quite timid about visting a customer but were much more willing after a couple of visits. Customers actually treated them better than our marketing/sales people.
Wow, Kenneth, what a great result.
“They build roads.”
Tom, I do not believe they directly or totally build roads or do so with other big projects outside of doing most of the fighting of wars. They do collect the taxes and borrow the money for these projects. Farming out the work is not necessarily the most efficient process when the end result is good enough for government work.
Thanks, John. The end of that story for me was when a large Korean company bought my company out and they asked how we handled our vendors. When I told them we had very good relationships and communications, they quickly let me know that they preferred the old adversarial vendor relationships. Shortly after that I took a healthy buyout and left the company.
Tom
I think the government, like private companies, can get things done when they have a clear mission. Problems arise when people think of extra “good things to do”. Problems also arise if they have some theoretical structure that isn’t aligned with “how things are work”.
One problem at multi-program department of energy labs is that for many, many project the “real way” projects get done is
(a) project manager — (this is distinct from ‘line manager’) writes a proposal.
(b) When proposal is successful, a project exists. The project manager then staffs up using staff at the lab. People then work on the project. (Many people work on more than one project.)
(c) Project manager’s “customer” is someone at the funding agency who oversees the project. This manager sends deliverables to the funding agency.
SOMETIMES with big important projects (e.g. “Manhattan Project”) the project is BIG , many people work on that project and many work on exactly one project. These do exist, but I never worked on anything remotely like that when I was at a national lab.
Meanwhile, there is also “line management” which does a variety of things like deciding raises, promotions. They are funded out of overhead– so are other things like janitorial staff. And for course there are all the things like HR etc.
Of course, some individuals are project managers AND also work at the lower end of line manager.
Line management is necessary. But over time, individuals in line management get “sounds like good ideas”. These ideas can really be good, but inevitable expand the role of the person who dreamed them up. (Like- “Let’s write a newsletter” will inevitably mean someone is in charge of that. They get a budget– funded out of overhead. They then hire staff who are paid out of overhead. )
This raises overhead rates. Even when the person who had the “seems like a good idea” moves on, the project likely stays. Why do they stay? Cutting the project is never in the interest of any individual line management person. No one really wants to fire the people who were working on the project.
Also: Few want to admit the project doesn’t really achieve the theoretical benefits they intended. In the above, no one really sits down and says, “Does anyone read this newsletter? If not, why don’t they read it? And if they should read it, how might we get them to do so? And also, if not why are we spending a dozen FTE’s of staff time writing it?”
With the news letter, the might have gotten people to read it by giving non-overhead staff 15 minutes a week of overhead time to read it. Now… even that might have failed. But if management had even considered the idea of funding staff to read it, they probably would have realized that they don’t want to pay staff to read it. And they’d have realized the reason they didn’t want to cover staff members time to read the thing is reading it wasn’t sufficiently beneficial to running the lab. And that would have lead to the obvious question: “Why write it?”
I have heard that in working in the private sector. The difference is that in that sector there is no media or judge helping to make the end of the world case.
The contractor I worked for in the late ’70s felt that the quality of his proejcts depended on having the best subs. He got them and kept them by paying twice a month and reliably. He also did things like this:
We’d won the contract to do a junior college building somewhere west of chicago. having award in hand we then went through all of the subs to make sure they understood what would be required so they could be sub-contracted.
Carpet supplier was asked about his bid. He responded wiht “two floors? OMG” Paul let him sizzle a litle then asked if he could do it for the amount we’d budgeted. He could and I think was vastly relieved. He named a general, one of our competitors who would have made him die with his price.
I agree with you Kenneth, that having an adversarial relationship with your vendors costs in somtime not too subtle ways in the end.
Lucia, you use the term deliverables with which I was not familiar until I did consulting. In manufacturing we had Gantt and Pert charts to track project progress with the deliverable being the new product coming off the line with possibly new processes and equipment. We did not call it a deliverable. Deliverables can in the common meaning occur at several points in the project.
What tracking tools where used in getting from one deliverable point to the next?
Since we didn’t make “things”, deliverables were often final printed report on the relevant investigation. A deliverable could be a code, etc. But it’s somewhat tangible — not verbal advice.
It could be a device if that’s what you were doing.
Presumably varied– or none. If it’s a report, you send a cover letter with the report. How the government then “tracked” receipts… dunno.
We get SDRL lists and due dates get negotiated early on after kick off, that defines deliverables for us anyway, as far as I know. I’m more of an Indian than a Chief, to use a politically incorrect metaphor.
You guys use a lot of acronyms. From my AI helper once again:
“SDRL stands for Subcontract Data Requirements List, which is a document that outlines the data deliverables for a defense industry contract. It’s a list of contract data requirements that are passed down from a prime contractor to a subcontractor.”
Kenneth,
.
I’m sorry, yes. It has always seemed to me that acronyms are used excessively and needless in my industry. It used to annoy me actually, but I’ve become somewhat inured to it.
.
My colleagues and uppers talk enough about SDRLs that they become a thing; another word for the document deliverables. Nobody says ‘Supplier Delivery Requirements List’ unless they are explaining to somebody who doesn’t already know what SDRL means. Shrug.
Even though my organization made “things” — devices which perform a specified function — most deliverables were “paper”, such as preliminary and more detailed design review documents, test plans and procedures, reliability analysis (estimate of failure rate), operating manuals, etc
These were typically evaluated not by the contracting agency, but by technical staff from a company like MITRE or BoozAllen, who had specific knowledge about the subject matter.
If the SLS is canceled it will save the taxpayer a fortune. But Congress will get involved, so in may live on, as Ronald Reagan noted, for eternity.
When Obama cancelled Constellation this is exactly what happened. Sen Shelby (R-AL) kept parts alive so Hunstville would still have NASA work. Ares V morphed into SLS. Orion was cancelled, but the TX contingent kept money flowing for years until Artemis came around.
The Orion program started in 2005 and has had 2 flights.
I shudder to think of where our national space program would be without SpaceX.
Yes, the government can do things when properly motivated. But NASA is proving over and over again that such motivation is lacking
I would mostly use the word “inefficient” when talking about government. There aren’t enough incentives to reduce spending and streamline operations so it just picks up bad habits in the long term.
THIS!!!
One such example is the cost of Continuing Resolutions. When a CR is passed, agencies can only dole out 80% of last year’s budget for the time period of the CR. So if it is a month long CR and the budget last year was $1B, the agency only gets $83M. The loudest programs get what they absolutely need for the month, but no more. the quieter ones get next to nothing. This causes all the work to fall behind.
Then when a budget is finally passed, everyone has to scramble to get the year’s work done. And usually by July, DC is looking to see what programs aren ‘t meeting their yearly spending plans and start targeting money to pull back.
And no, you don’t ‘t typically get that money back next year – you lose it. But you haven’t lost your program’s objective, you just have to do it with less.
That is until you get so far behind you have to replan. And replan. And replan again. That is how JWST can start as a $700M program and end up as an $11B program.
DeanP,
On Hanford associated projects, the mere change over of the fiscal year could be inefficient. Because of rules, projects “ended” and had to “restart”. There were some ongoing projects that has smooth continuuation. (I mean… you can’t stop sending techs to monitor the tanks etc.) But many projects were researchy, developmenty or just “interruptable”. The people on those projects couldn’t charge projects because they weren’t set up yet. They couldn’t be set up the week before– because… welll… rules. There was no “general slush” work package we could all charge for that week. At least for people in my role, you could not work on a project that you knew was being renewed and charge retroactively.
(Oddly, the two weeks before you could predict what you were going to work on, charge a project and file your predicted hours! Did they want you to file a change to fix your wrong predictions afterwards. Techincally you could. But NOOOOO!!! The whole point was to charge the work done by the ‘accounting’ side to the projects from the ending year! Fixing later would be… work for LAST year… and who do you charge? Last year is done!!!!)
This wasn’t ALL projects. If you had a 3 year project from straight from DOE, (i.e. DOE->PNNL) you could work. The change of the fiscal year was invisible. But if the flow was “DOE->Hanford site -> PNNL ‘support work’ there was almost always ‘project funding interruptus’. There was sometimes real ending and interrupting of projects at this time. But there was also a lot of ‘fictional’ interruption because a “new” one that more or less continued old stuff was created.
Lots of things were year to year. Tons and Tons of report-deliverables were due precisely at the end of the fiscal year. Lots and lots of “planning” was officially done at the beginning of the fiscal year. This involved some level of paperwork.
So, depending on what your role was, the week or two after the transition was… a kinda sorta good time to take a vacation! 🙂 Or it could be a really horrible one– since it was also the time to find a new project if your past project really ended.
Continuuing resolutions were… not actually worse in terms of interruption because projects didn’t all “end” and need to be “restarted”.
There was also lots of ordering of “stuff” near the end of the fiscal year to spend down budgets. There was also putting off of buying similar “stuff” during the fiscal year. Lots of this “stuff” was at least somewhat useful– but that didn’t make things optimum.
One could say “that’s just the way it is”. But it’s definitely did not contribute to the efficient allocation people and resources.
Oh.. and there were other weird inefficiencies. Like… you know I mentioned overhead? On our projects, PNNL could increaswe overhead create mid fiscal year and charge those retroactively! The did it frequently. But when you were proposing a project, you weren’t “allowed” to include any “slush” in your cost estimate to deal with the fact that you were pretty sure that overhead rates were going to increase next year. Your proposal had to assume your overhead would be the same next year. . . So “that jobs takes 40 hours”. Then accounting figures out how much 40 hours takes with this years proposal. Then overheard goes up 15%. Then the project is funded.
This does not contribute to “efficiency”.
Speculation only…
At 10:30 AM a Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left McDill AFB in Tampa and headed out over the Gulf of America. I speculate it will part of the USAF air armada escorting Air Force One and protecting the air space around New Orleans today. Should be a fun day to watch air traffic.
10:45 AM screenshot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1888615681576386772
Live track:
https://www.flightradar24.com/39111aca
Besides all the military traffic, there is a steady stream of incoming commercial and private jets to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY).
Screenshot, 11:00 AM:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1888618452060918129
I was attempting to recollect all that went into project work when I was involved.
Pert charts were used more for planning a project while Gantt charts more for doing it. Deliverables, not necessarily by that name, where denoted as milestones in these charts.
The planning part was most critical when marketing was making promises to customers. Marketing would often go to the highest levels of corporate administration to get a finish date. Getting that date would filter down through the ranks of management with the implied message that an early finish made more money for the corporation and pessimistic finish dates were unacceptable. Critical to the entire operation was obtaining realistic finish dates from those in the corporation who were technically and project wise able and in positions to do so. When those dates did not align with the dates their bosses wanted to give to their bosses a dilemma was created. What was too often ignored was what are the losses of promising early and delivering late compared to the gains in delivering early. In manufacturing an additional problem with delivering early was putting a new product/process into production that was not thoroughly tested to ensure high yields and good quality.
Most project work with which I was involved did not suffer from the tools used or the expertise of the people involved but rather from human frailties and getting the responsible people to acknowledge it. In some cases, they eventually did and particularly when the project was mostly internal and involved product and process improvements.
Lucia, your rule based annualized project work sounds to be, as you indicate, frustrating. Did most people involved merely accept it or were their efforts to make changes?
I should have added that it appears most of what you are recalling is more on the accounting side of projects, Lucia. Did it or how did it affect the technical side of the project work?
Kenneth,
Well… if you could you tried to get a project that wasn’t DOE-> Hanford contractor-> PNNL subcontractor but instead DOE->PNNL. But for certain kinds of projects that didn’t exist.
Also, to get that you had to write a proposal. That means you wanted some funding to cover your time to write the proposal. . .
Meanwhile, PNNL manage was supposed to encourage supporting the Hanford contractor.
And even if you changed it for you, it wouldn’t change the problem for “the system”.
The dirty tanks, things to be cleaned up and so on were on the Hanford site. So lots of projects that supported things on the site were going to go from DOE RL-> Hanford . Then the contractor running the Hanford site picks other contractors to support them. Often, PNNL which was right next door, and which naturally had lots of people who were already familiar with Hanford issues.
It was an inefficiency, but not one that “workers” could really fix. Heck, the Hanford people who were the main contractor didn’t necessarily like it any better. I doubt the DOE RL guys actually liked it.
Kenneth,
Well…. technical schedules were naturally organized to fit the fiscal year. As I wrote: lots of reports were due on the last day of the fiscal year.
There were other things that happened when priorities actually changed in Congress. Then projects would really be shut down. If congress first thinks we are going to put waste in the Yucca mountain waste repository and then changes its collective mind, lots of specific technical work is wasted. It doesn’t matter if it was good work or bad work. Of course a similar thing can happen in a private company. But these interruptions weren’t coincident with either the change of the fiscal year or with continuuing resolutions.
What I’m describing is above just weird sort of scheduling interruptions that happen even though everything is really continuuing. And what weird thing happened to whom varied. There are weird inefficiencies associated with continuuing resolutions. There are different weird inefficiencies with what amount to accounting changes at the beginning and end of fiscal years. There are weird inefficiencies that happen because congress changes its political will. And so on.
Thanks, Lucia, for the information about your work experience on the Hanford project. It is good to hear about people’s experiences. None seem to be the same.
I was very fortunate in my career in way of limits and restrictions even when consulting. There are a lot of work experiences and descriptions that I hear where I would not have lasted for any length of time. Even under more ideal conditions I faced getting fired a couple of times.
Working R&D for a defense department contractor meant the chances of all your work being abandoned was rather high. This was a bit demoralizing.
OTOH if you were a designer you wanted to get on and off a “real” project during the design phase, otherwise you will be writing endless test procedures and not doing much designing. I really felt sorry for people who devoted a decade+ to a project that never got launched or used.
Some Federal district judges have placed nation-wide injunctions on several of Trumps executive orders and other actions. The SC has already made clear that rulings by district judges should almost always be limited to their respective districts. I don’t think these nation-wide injunctions will hold up for very long, since the DOJ will move quickly to appeal. The injunctions are in circuits where Democrat appointees outnumber Republicans, so it is likely to take at least a month or two for the cases to reach the SC. Of course, in egregious cases, the SC could short-circuit the normal appeals process by blocking nationwide injunctions.
I am shocked (shocked!):
“U.S. Army announced last week that recruitment had reached its highest levels in 15 years during January. This showing built on a strong December, which saw its highest numbers in 12 years.”
Could all the woke DEI messaging in the military over the past 4 years have reduced recruitment? I am guessing maybe so.
I would expect a number of these executive orders to be overturned or limited in scope. It’s kind of the MO now for presidents to test the limits of authority and let the courts hash it out. Biden doing vaccine mandates through OSHA, etc.
It’s still good politics to set the tone even though it may not be effective long term policy by getting the legislature to do it instead. I’d rather Congress eliminated these government departments, it’s harder to undo.
DOGE politics have been pretty good. We now have the usual suspects screaming “You aren’t even allowed to look at the federal budget!” ha ha. The legacy media can’t even write a story about how cutting the budget might be good thing.
Tom Scharf,
Eliminating all the nonsense via stand-alone legislation is essentially impossible….. only within the confines of ‘reconciliation’ can monstrosities like the Department of Education be eliminated. Of course, that requires Republicans to stick together and accept some compromises within the caucus to advance the big items, just as Dems always do. I don’t know if they can. Their majorities are slim, and there remain a few RINOs in both the House and Senate. It will be interesting to see how much influence Trump has with the RINOs; reconciliation will be the big test.
I also have low confidence we can cut the budget via Congress with the slim majority. The Dems will vote on a partly line against it, although forcing them to do that is good politics IMO.
I kept wondering what the fans were booing about at the Superbowl occasionally, it turns it out they were showing Taylor Swift on the jumbotron and PHI fans (the most brutal fans in the NFL) were having none of it.
The KC blowout loss thankfully allowed us no performative cheering from the luxury booth full of A-list celebrities.
The blowout loss allowed me to go to bed 30 mins earlier than I otherwise would have.
I noted one interesting thing during the game: Buffalo lost to KC two weeks ago for one reason: They could not consistently advance a yard or two to get into the end zone. Philadelphia’s much bigger offensive line had no such problem…. they could get a couple of yards every time. I expect Buffalo will take note.
On government efficiency … the Biden $5B EV charger program has installed 58 stations in the last 4 years. The WashPost tries hard to explain it away rather unconvincingly.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/10/ev-chargers-government-infrastructure/
“Government, in essence, is slow not by incompetence but by design.”
Tesla installed over 1,000 stations in 2024.
The government could have just paid Tesla to do it all at double their usual price and the taxpayer would have been way better off.
On rereading my recent post, I should note I was never fired just close to being fired. I won’t bore you with the details but those incidents had positive impacts on my work career.
I like Patrick Mahomes, but I had my doubts about the KC offensive line’s ability to protect him or make the run game work. After the first quarter with the score not yet out of hand, I predicted the Eagles would win in a route and watched only intermittently from thereon.
To me most of the presentation of the Super Bowl, from the game itself to the ads and entertainment, are way overdone. It’s like there is a critical need to keep reminding the audience what a tremendous experience this is for fear they may think it is something less than that.
The last NFL game I attended live was may more theatrical in nature than 10 years ago. Constant booming stadium wide bass, more forced ads, stadium announcers trying too hard, etc.
This is not a good thing IMO.
A lot of the commentary about the abilities of NFL quarterbacks misses the importance of the abilities of their offensive lines. A lapse in those lines due to skill sets and/or injuries or just having a bad day can make a great QB look ordinary.
Tom Scharf,
The article you link to seems to completely miss the big picture issue: They mandate the EV charges be installed in places that make no economic sense…. very rural areas with long stretches of highway and little EV traffic. They have the cart before the horse. If EV chargers in those areas make economic sense, then private companies will build them, efficiently and for minimum investment. Of COURSE there is little demand for EV charging stations in those places, because EVs make zero economic sense in those places (they make no economic sense anywhere, but even less in rural areas!) Get the range for EVs to 400 miles and the cost (both purchase price and operating cost) competitive with IC engine cars, and the need to have charging stations in more rural places will obviously grow.
The whole cascade of wasted money…. crazy EV purchase subsidies, subsidies for charging stations where they are not needed, EPA “milage rules” which make it impossible to manufacture many IC engine cars….. flows from the desire to force most everyone to buy EVs by 2035…. in the name of ‘climate change’.
That is 1) not going to happen, and 2) has already cost the taxpayer hundreds of billions. The fundamental position of progressives is always the same: “People won’t do what we think they should do , so we will coerce them into doing what we want, and use the taxes they pay to do it.” In other cases it is: allow doctors to cut off teenagers breasts or genitals, erase borders/allow unlimited immigration and ‘world government’, accept officially sponsored racial discrimination, insist men are actually women, that the USA is nothing but a group of “settlers” who have stolen native land, etc, etc. Or in other words: “You WILL do what we say, because we are smart and right, and you are stupid and wrong.”
The screaming you hear in Washington (and at WaPo) is progressives realizing voters are not going to let them do all those crazy things. The screaming won’t stop any time soon.
With the NFL salary cap per team it becomes an economics problem of where to spend money. QB is the most important player but over spending on them and leaving them vulnerable because of a weak o-line is also not a good plan.
Most people yawn when an o-line player is dragged of the field but a few injuries there with little depth can be a huge problem.
Oh yeah, you need defense too. And receivers. And running backs.
Florida Power and Light (FPL) has installed a 400 KW charging station not far from my house. It has 4 charging stations…. which I have neve seen used so far. There is a 45 KV three-phase line and a 140KV 3-phase line almost directly above the charging station, so I guess the installation wasn’t terribly expensive. The cost is $0.30 per KWHr…. versus $0.13 that I pay at home. So a “fill -up” of 68 KWHr (80% of an 85 KWHr battery) would cost $20.40 and give you about 175 miles range on a typical EV, or $0.117 per mile. A similar size IC engine car would get about 28 MPG, and gasoline today is $3.10 per gallon, so $0.111 per mile. So much for saving on gasoline. Of course, if charging at home the cost would be ~ $0.05 per mile, saving about $0.061 per mile compared to gasoline…. if used 10,000 miles per year…. $610 per year saved versus gasoline. But the EV costs at least $10,000 more….. a 16+ year payout sucks.
Toys for the rich to show off their goodness.
I think there is something north of 99.999% chance that the government will tax EV power use directly / indirectly in order to recover the fuel taxes they are currently not collecting.
The most likely place will be a surcharge for registering your EV vehicle and/or a mileage tax. Once that is in place it will be ratcheted up over time until all of sudden as SteveF points out the cost for EV’s will exceed ICE use even for people who charge at home.
I got a chuckle out of this…
One of my sons recently moved to a rural part of Sarasota county. His hose bib is padlocked because the raccoons learned to turn on the faucet when they are thirsty.
watching the Gabbard vote .
Struck by the number of politicians whose surnames start with first 4 letterrs of the alphabet or are a Mc or Mac something..
angech,
Gabbard, Kennedy, and Kash Patel are almost sure things. Many senators who would like to oppose them understand the consequences would be a very well funded primary election challenger; surprisingly enough, what most politicians want more than anything else is remaining in office.
Did everyone else already know the term ‘eco-socialism‘ exists and is an official thing? [I did not. I just bumped into the term today. I gather that it is at least a couple years old.]
It’s good that they finally come out into the open, IMO. Not as if everyone didn’t already understand the ideological association.
Virginia is already placing higher registration taxes on EVs and any high mileage cars.
MikeN,
Makes perfect sense to apportion auto taxes to miles driven….. and some measure of vehicle weight, to the extent the weight damages/wears roads. That is likely going to face opposition from those who use roadways a lot more than others.
Ohio is also charging more for both hybrids and EVs. The hybrid charge is $100, plug-in hybrid $150, and EV is $200.
Ran a quick calc and those are pretty equal for making up for the tax lost due to less fuel bought at 10,000 miles per year.
Eco-socialism sounds like a pejorative to me, I haven’t seen anybody call themselves eco-socialists but I imagine some do. Environmentalists do tend to have way more than their fair share of anti-capitalists.
EV’s total cost of ownership should now include the increased taxes. That’s $2K over ten years.
It will be interesting to see how this holds up. Incremental gas taxes are somewhat hidden as the cost of gas, Yearly fees directly to the government for the privilege of owning a vehicle will be noticed.
A mileage tax is fairer IMO.
According to Wikipedia, the federal tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon (unchanged since 1993!) and my county in FL adds about 42.5 cents per gallon, for a total of about 60 cents, or about a 25% tax. [Estimating retail price is $3.00 per gallon, so untaxed price would be $2.40, and 60 cents is 25% of $2.40.]
I’m wondering if EV charging stations are charged higher rates for electricity, with any surcharge going to the state/federal highway funds. [This would be one way of apportioning a user fee to EVs, although it wouldn’t cover home charging.] Does anyone know if this is done currently?
DeanP,
One interesting thing: While hybrids (not plug-ins) are actually much better in fuel economy around town, their claimed (EPA) highway fuel economy seems, based on “real-word” tests by auto magazines, very much overstated. 38 MPG EPA often becomes 30 – 31 MPG in “real world” tests. I suspect that is because the EPA figures are based on unrealistically low highways speeds. So those higher state excise taxes on hybrids may be a bit unfair if you are doing mostly highway driving, since you will actually buy more fuel than the EPA estimated milage would say. A straight miles-driven tax would be more fair (while eliminating the fuel taxes)…. but I doubt that will happen. Paraphrasing Reagan: taxes are as close to eternal life as exists on Earth.
NPR: A deep dive on U.S. reading and math scores
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5291451/us-reading-math-scores-solutions
“In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress poured $190 billion into the nation’s schools.”
“U.S. students were still nearly half a grade level behind in both math and reading in the spring of 2024, compared with achievement levels before the pandemic.”
“”It’s not just that students are failing to catch up, but that students are continuing to fall behind,” says one of the report’s authors, Harvard’s Tom Kane.”
They dumped a huge amount of money into education and things actually got worse post pandemic. The worst part of all this is that exactly nobody is surprised by this result.
HaroldW,
There are variable state, county, and city taxes on gasoline depending on where you get it. Driving a 100 yards to another station may sometimes get you a significant tax discount.
I think it is the wild west for collecting EV fees. They are transitioning from subsidizing these vehicles to taxing them.
Currently there is no way to tax just the energy for EV charging at a home.
People can learn to read, write and math to a higher standard in mud huts with a blackboard. Money has become a scapegoat for the problems education faces because politicians can pretend to fix the issues by just promising more.
The real issue is cultural. The “soft on crime because every criminal has a tragic backstory” started in the classroom a couple of decades ago. Disruptive kids need to be kicked out of classrooms. “Poor dears have personal problems” is noone elses fault and they shouldn’t be punished for it.
Light at the end of the tunnel
“ Kristi Noem Terminates Four FEMA Employees Who Circumvented Leadership to Make Payments for Migrant Housing in New York Hotel”
“ The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants. Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order,”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/02/11/kristi-noem-terminates-four-fema-employees-who-circumvented-leadership-to-make-payments-for-migrant-housing-in-new-york-hotel/
Not forgetting that Karine JP expressly stated that these payments were absolutely not happening and how very dare anyone make any suggestion otherwise…
Hummmm… “Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order”
If true, then perhaps very long prison sentences for these folks would get the attention of the many other miscreants.
It was only $59M
Not like we’re talking about real money. 🙂
Ed Forbes,
“It was only $59M”
Perhaps they could send to me 5% of that value.
But seriously,
The issue is that insiders never think anything about giving many $millions of taxpayers money to utterly horseshit causes and utterly horseshit organizations. That is going to change. Move away from the feeding though, pigs
Even here in my beloved Alabama. My younger stepson (still a high school senior) just showed me this:
I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about this yet. My kid’s school needs to get with the times; there is a king in Gondor again and DEI is DEAD.
Googling, I see that this is widespread. This has been the standard promulgated by various colleges and scummy leftists for over a decade now. I’m sure my kid’s school will hide behind that should I raise issue.
Mark, do they have the non-sexist language bit backwards?
John,
My impression is that that bit was an oversight? Avoid non-sexist language, not avoid sexist language. This appears contrary to the intent of the examples, it’s why I added the [sic].
Honestly though, I reject the notion that saying ‘policeman’ or ‘mankind’ is sexist language. For a few hours I was irritated enough to be seriously considering going to war with my kid’s school.
Speaking about “real money”…
From they NYT article about the halt in minting pennies,
“For years, experts and government officials have called for eliminating the penny”, and the article cites Canada’s halt to penny production in 2012 and Australia’s in 1992. An insight into government’s concern with such piddling numbers as $80M per year.
Also,
so the problem isn’t entirely fixed; in 2024 a little over 100 million nickels were minted which, at a loss of 8.78 cents per coin, accounts for about a $10M loss. It should be noted that in 2023, the production was over 1400 million nickels, which (assuming a similar cost), represents a loss of about $125M.
So it’s been obvious for a while that this is a significant problem. [Assuming that one considers $100M a significant sum.] Is addressing it due to “new eyes”? Or just a willingness to change? I didn’t come across any articles about the impetus for 2024’s reduced nickel coinage, but somebody must have taken notice.
The Babylon Bee will never be able to keep up with the Federal government. From Musk and Co: “Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months.”
If that is true, then the Bee couldn’t make up so crazy a story. Let’s see: 700 workers process 10,000 retirements per month. So 21 days makes 14,700 worker days per month, to process 10,000 retirements…. 0.68 retirements processed per worker per day. What?!?
SteveF (245326),
The sticker on my 2020 Accord Hybrid claimed 48 highway/47 city (or maybe the other way around). Either way, having driven the car for 4.5 years now, there are clear caveats to these numbers:
Caveat #1: These are summer numbers – winter numbers in Ohio are significantly lower. maybe battery performance suffers in winter… whodathunk that??? yea, everyone who understands batteries. Typical highway MPG in February is about 38. During very cold snaps I have seen it as low as 32 MPG. City mileage can drop as low as 40 MPG.
Caveat #2: The highway number is probably at 70 MPH. Above 75 MPH, ever mile per hour increase costs about 2 MPG.
That said, I once drove the “Tail of the Dragon” near Fontana Dam in North Carolina. My wife can attest that I was not driving it in a conservative manner – regen braking (using the paddles my Accord has to increase braking without touching the brakes) and powering out of the corners. About halfway through the drive, the battery was fully charged. Averaged 54 MPG. What a dang fun drive!
As for changing to a per mile tax, my concern is that the government has never met a fee/tax it didn’t like. Most likely a state would implement a per mile tax (initially very low) but not repeal the gas tax or the EV fee at licensing. Then slowly increase the per mile tax. This is also the concern i have with going to some sort of national sales tax.
Mark,
I was recently forced to provide pronouns in order to complete a form for something I couldn’t get out of. “Other” was a choice so I took it, but it was not accepted. I tried “It” and that did work.
I, too, wish this nonsense would go away.
The establishment have turned “too crazy to believe” into an effective propaganda weapon.
What? The government would see a great big dial that all they need to do is twist a little bit and it will solve their “temporary” funding issues? They would never touch that! These people are public servants.
The UK’s VAT tax over 50 years, as expected.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/value-added-tax-vat-at-50/
Newer EV’s have added a bunch of work arounds. Battery “preconditioning” scheduling so the battery will warm itself up in the morning before you leave while connected to the grid. It will also do this on the road in anticipation of public charging but you have to manual engage it.
Carter implemented the 55 mph speed limit for the same reason. Air resistance is a huge deal even for bicycles over 15 mph. EV’s have tried much harder to reduce air resistance all the way down to wheel covers. EV owners know to drive around 60 or lower if the next recharge stop range is a bit sketchy. Google maps will route you on lower speed / longer routes automatically now if it saves energy, you have to disable it.
Towing also massively affected range in EV’s.
Police “officer” was a good compromise. It does get crazy though. Neil Armstrong will always be the first man on the moon, period.
These are the bottom of the barrel for first world problems. People with too much time on their hands looking to make their jobs meaningful in some way. I actually have sympathy for the poor regular souls working in a DEI job, what a drag. It’s like answering the phone for medical billing questions, not a lot of pleasant interactions.
Tom,
Nope. The use of the terms in question is not any sort of problem.
I may be wrong, but in my limited experience I find few to none ‘poor regular souls’ working DEI jobs. I mostly find activists. I have no sympathy whatsoever. One might as well have sympathy for termites gnawing on one’s house, after all; the poor bugs are just trying to eat!
Thanks though.
mark bofill,
I agree, the DEI regime is mostly run by race hustlers who contribute nothing to society and deserve no sympathy.
DEI is plainly illegal under federal law, and probably unconstitutional as well. Progressives are so far out over their skis on this that they are headed for a serious crash if they don’t change course and let DEI disappear……. super-majorities of voters across the country consistently reject the racist principles upon which DEI stands.
Elon Musk on bureaucrats getting rich and how the Treasury enables fraud:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/02/11/elon_musk_many_bureaucrats_like_samantha_powers_are_getting_wealthy_at_taxpayers_expense.html
Gabbard was confirmed 52:48. Kennedy vote tomorrow?
Now that’s something I would have loved to see!
“Terrified staff left hysterical as ‘well drilled’ DOGE nerds storm hyper ‘woke’ Department of Education”
Department of Education: “The task force helmed by Musk, a tech billionaire, said it terminated 89 contracts worth $881 million. In another X post, DOGE said it had canceled 29 “DEI training grants” totaling $101 million. ”
A billion here and a billion there gradually adds up to real money. 😉
Those contact cancellations came after terminating all of the DEI employees in the department, apparently totaling “scores” of people. So the taxpayers have been funding “DEI training” at local schools…… it’s almost like the Education bureaucrats don’t know DEI is opposed by ~70% of voters.
It’s hard not to see a bad case of entitlement with the screeching about possible federal cost cutting. It’s not a good look IMO, I suspect Ordinary Joe taxpayer who has been through many “workforce reductions” in their career is bewildered at this response.
It is sort of amusing to hear Dems screaming about too much power in the hands of unelected appointees, while defending the power of unelected bureaucrats.
Good that Tulsi was confirmed. Good that McConnell is no longer majority leader. Good that in a little under two years, McConnell will no longer be a Senator.
I am curious as to whether some Dems will vote to confirm RFK.
I support strong R&D with government funding but find the recent proclamations that all sorts of gigantic inventions and discoveries will now cease to be overwrought.
Examining science literature shows that almost all of it is inconsequential and mundane. Global trade and the standardization of container ships has had much more impact on people’s lives than 99.999% of anything that has happened in a government R&D lab recently. Get a grip people.
I read a persuasive argument that science breakthroughs have become exponentially difficult and expensive as all the low hanging fruit have been picked. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue but the expectation of breakthroughs should be tempered.
The biggest breakthrough recently might be the mRNA vaccine but even that proved to be fleeting. Has the Large Hadron Collider done anything useful really? A counter example is all the tech for microchips has certainly paid off.
I guess my point is that the defenders of SCIENCE probably don’t want to invite a thorough audit of their books and productivity. A little humility, less vague arm waving, and volunteering a more sensible cost reduction in place of the Musk Hammer would be better tactics.
A government funded R&D lab in Wuhan certainly seems to have had a huge impact on people’s lives, all around the world.
I don’t think comfortably funded, job secure researchers are going to develop anything like, say, a reusable rocket that can put 150 tons into orbit at a few % of the cost per ton of 20 years ago. Boondoggles are mainly the province of government…… or companies funded by government. When you are free to spend someone else’s money, costs balloon.
“Has the Large Hadron Collider done anything useful really?”
No. Nor has the endless billions spent on grand-scale fusion research. Skin in the game makes a difference in productivity, even in research.
MikeM,
If McConnell had a lick of sense, he would have retired long ago. He doesn’t. Based on his rapid decline over the past few years, I will not be surprised if McConnell dies before his promised retirement in 2 years. Why is it that most politicians don’t know when to move on? I have never understood it. Good that the Constitution limits presidential terms to two. Bad that limits are not placed on Reps and Senators.
Trump and Putin agree to talks on Ukraine.
I have zero predictions on how this turns out but it is Trump being more effective than anybody gives him credit for.
Biden’s Bane:
Final vote totals for 2024 vs 2020: The drop in nationwide total votes cast in the 2024 presidential election was just over 3 million (158+ million versus 155 million), all of which was due to a drop in voting in non-competitive states. California’s total was almost 1.7 million lower in 2024. Add the drops in a handful of other states where the outcome was not in doubt, (including Florida), and they add up to much more than a 3 million vote reduction. Nearly all competitive states had an increase in turnout, off-setting some of the drop in non-competitive states.
Musk said the limiting factor for the rate of federal worker retirements is how fast the elevator works in the Iron Mountain Mine.
Hilarious.
mark bofill,
I’ll bet that Iron Mountain Corp is not very happy with Musk.
They do records storage under contracts, and I am sure their customers control what is stored and how it is retrieved. Their turnover is about $4.5 billion per year (many countries), with after-tax profit of $350 million. I would sure like to know the size of their contract with the US government.
I found an on-line summary of Iron Mountain prices…. the prices for several hundreds of different services are listed under the “Federal Records” section if the price list. The “Commercial records section” is tiny by comparison. My guess: a big fraction of their business is Federal records.
“US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the war between Ukraine and Russia “must end,” that Kyiv joining NATO is unrealistic and that the US will no longer prioritize European and Ukrainian security as the Trump administration shifts its attention to securing the US’ own borders and deterring war with China.
…
Hegseth also said that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders, before Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine, “is an unrealistic objective.””
The legacy media is acting like that last part is a scandal. The first part isn’t a scandal either.
Battle lines clearly drawn.
Trumps picks almost all in place and when KP gets in with Gabbard the FBI can be cleared out legally from the the top resistance holdouts down.
–
Democrats have as they promised upped the ante with every executive action of Trumps being opposed on specious (usually) grounds.
Will turn into a mountain of cases.
Is there a legal way to undo this?
Ie Supreme Court saying do it and then consider the questioned legality ?
–
Now the hard part. The Democrats will shut the Government down. No question about it.
By refusing to extend the debt limit.
–
What avenue exists to overcome this impasse ?
The Democrats will absolutely refuse.
A new election invalidates Trump as President (term limited)
The Democrats can’t shutdown the government without Republican help but herding all the Republican cats on budget is pretty hard. Shutting down the government to protest cutting the government is an oxymoron but I say please do it!
The President can overstep his authority and the courts are there to prevent it. Just as important is that the courts can also overstep their authority. Which one is which has to be determined on a case by case basis.
I’d prefer not to see Trump ignoring Supreme Court edicts.
Raising the debt ceiling can be filibustered in the Senate. That can be avoided via reconciliation, but I don’t know if the Republicans will be willing to use reconciliation for that.
Refusing to raise the debt limit might not shut down the government. It means that money will be spent on some things and not on others. I don’t know how much latitude Trump would have to decide which is which.
Angech,
This isn’t impossible, but I don’t think there’s ‘no question about it’. Gods know the Democrats can take incoherent and contradictory positions fluidly, we’ve all seen this many times. But they are screaming murder right now because Trump is putting the brakes on various government payouts while DOGE looks for fraud. It might be difficult to rally the troops to prevent the government from being funded while railing against the bad orange man who is preventing government stuff from being funded. But maybe they will manage this.
mark bofill,
If the Dems choose to “shut down” the government (not really, just the less critical things stopped), Trump will have won. They will raise the debt ceiling… kicking ad screaming all the way..
The Boston based judge who stopped the incentives-to-quit program nationwide, lifted the injunction once he realized those who brought the suit (mostly government labor unions) couldn’t show they were being harmed, so lacked standing.
Steve,
It would have been more sensible for the judge to consider standing in the first place. But better late than never I guess.
Peace in our lifetime?
There were many legitimate reasons for you Republicans to oppose us Democrats over the past few years. Over-reach on subjects like DEI and immigration made us fat targets.
But the man you elected president is giving away a free and sovereign nation to a Russia led by an autocratic thug. I will never forgive and never forget those who enabled this.
BS,
He has just saved countless lives if it works.
You know this.
Or do you , like the Palestinian zealots, favor principle over life at any cost.
Just ask yourself that question every day for the rest of your life.
Thomas,
Ukraine was (and is) no paragon of freedom and liberty. Putin is a thug who murders his political opponents. Ukraine is terribly corrupt (as Hunter can explain). None of those things are mutually exclusive. The political and social history of the region is very complicated; many if not most in the Eastern provinces speak Russian as their first language, and consider themselves Russian. Realpolitik is called for here to stop all the senseless killing and destruction. The war is going to end via negotiation and some painful compromises. I hope that doesn’t bother you for the rest of your life.
angech,
“Peace in our lifetime?”
No, but maybe fewer senseless wars.
When I first read the stories about Iron Mountain I thought it was a joke. I was wrong…
I guess there is some justification as to why you hold records in a mountain. But in this digital age, I am surprised places like this are still taking new documents.
The Balrog reference reminds me of the 1973 fire at the Military Personnel Records Facility in St Louis, where according to wiki, some 16-18 million personnel records were destroyed. While that was well before my time in the Air Force, enough people were still around to joke about the replacement building had asbestos walls so that every few years they could burn more off – this time in a controlled environment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Personnel_Records_Center_fire
That’s a bunch of feeble and scummy attempts at justifying Trump’s weak and despicable behavior. You are tarred with the same brush.
As John Bolton writes today, “It is unconscionable to allow Russia to assault Ukraine’s sovereignty, recruit enemies like North Korea to aid in their fight, and then sell out the Ukrainians by conceding the loss of their territory and NATO security guarantees or membership. By making these and others concessions before negotiations even started, Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin on Ukraine.
I warned many times that Trump will favor Russia in negotiations between Zelensky and Putin. Russia’s military performance has been miserable, but Trump is vindicating Putin’s decision to invade. The harm to US security interests will extend well beyond Central Europe, as our adversaries in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific can plainly see.
It is incumbent on U.S. leaders to stand unequivocally with Ukraine and whatever NATO allies stick with Kyiv. It is not in our national interest to let the Kremlin’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine prevail. Shame on the Trump administration.”
Thomas,
Bolton is a war mongering idiot. Don’t tar yourself with the same brush.
Progressives can’t seem to ever accept policy defeat. It drives them to hysteria; reminds me a bit or religious zealots who are willing to do crazy things in the name of “what is moral”. I find it weird.
Re Ukraine: meh.
Somebody seems a bit angry this morning. Everything isn’t about US domestic politics.
The only thing that has happened is opening of negotiations, where it will lead is unknown. Russia has the advantage on the battlefield and looks willing to continue a war of attrition against Ukraine. This cannot be wished away.
I guess the question is:
“What are you willing to accept to end the war?”
If it’s remove Russia from Ukraine completely then you better get busy finding an army willing to do that. It’s not Republicans, nobody is willing to do that, including the EU, except for a beleaguered Ukraine.
BTW Ukraine will let volunteers join the effort. Those on the high horses should consider it. I’d watch out for the drones though.
Most likely outcome IMO:
Freeze the front lines.
Ukraine leaves Russian territory.
NATO promises to not allow Ukraine to join
Russia promise to leave the rest of Ukraine as is.
The EU gives Ukraine “smells like NATO” security guarantees.
The armies go home.
Both sides declare victory.
Tom Scharf,
Sure, the settlement will be along those lines….. exactly where the frontier will be drawn will be contentious, of course, but I doubt it will be far from where it is when fighting stops.
But here is the crazy thing: those conditions could have been accepted a month or two after the fighting started…. saving hundreds of thousands of casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars… not even considering the disruption to world trade, massive destruction of infrastructure in Ukraine, and the emigration of a large fraction of the population of Ukraine, likely never to return.
Not only are those conditions going to be close to the final ones in a negotiated settlement, lots of people have been saying those will be the final conditions, FOR YEARS!
The leadership in Europe and the USA was so profoundly arrogant, so convinced of their moral superiority, and so profoundly stupid that they could not bring themselves to accept reality. These leaders are so dim that when they get voted out of office and are replaced by more rational “populists/nationalists”, they STILL won’t understand why.
Thomas W Fuller wrote: “But the man you elected president is giving away a free and sovereign nation to a Russia led by an autocratic thug.”
What on earth are you talking about? Did I miss some major piece of breaking news this morning? If so, can you give me a link? Or are you just imagining things? All real questions.
The only recent news I have heard re Ukraine is that (1) Trump is bringing the two sides to the table and (2) he has acknowledged the reality that it is unrealistic to expect Ukraine to get back the territory lost in 2014. (1) is surely a good thing and (2) is just reality. So I have no idea what Fuller is ranting about.
Dean P,
Iron Mountain Corp. has hundreds of facilities, nearly all above ground.
My guess is that the “underground” storage idea was mostly in response to the threat of a nuclear holocaust…. you simply MUST preserve government records for use after the holocaust!
I still would like to know how much the Federal government spends for record storage with Iron Mountain. Their website says their entire organization is focused on DEI…. something that for sure pleased the Biden Administration. Their CEO pockets north of $20 million per year…. which seems maybe a little high for a company that generates $370 million after tax.
MikeM,
I suspect Thomas is ranting because progressives can’t tolerate ever losing a policy argument; it dives them mad.
But you are right, Hegseth just said to NATO members what most people have recognized for a while; AKA reality.
Efforts to modernize record keeping for the federal government haven’t been very successful. IRS still uses Cobol and assembly language.
Tom Scharf,
My younger brother (now 67) has been writing code in Cobol for 40+ years…. mostly order entry, warehousing, inventory control, accounting functions, and the like. There is always an effort to shift to newer (and more efficient) languages, but the cost and complexity of the switch often keeps it from happening. When you have a million lines of existing code, upon which a multi-billion dollar business completely depends, it is a non-trivial task to switch to a different language.
Feeling poetic
–
Putin
“Those north east Ukrainian areas seem like friendly Russians.Lets welcome them back to USSR.”
–
Biden “Fine by me if Europe agrees. You can have them back”
Goes to sleep.
–
Germany, (oh that is the EU) “ Fine by us as long as you send us the cheap gas”
France, “Long live the Republic, Vive le Russia”
–
Looks the other way.
–
Putin “Can I have it all then”
Big grin.
–
Biden “Why not? We can’t stop you.”
–
Zelenski “We will”
Typical Russian/Ukrainian attitude.
–
Bolton “Great, Now we have another big war, sell lots of guns and pretend to be on the right side and sell lots of guns and kill lots of people. Gee I like staging Coup d’Etats , but wars are the best. Get those Commies shooting each other and sell lots of guns. Did I mention I like wars?”
–
Trump “Stop”
–
Bolton and Fuller “Stop killing people. Stop making money selling guns. Who is this madman?
He must be a Hitler bringing peace to the world.
An Appeaser like Jesus saying turn the other cheek.
Crucify him.
That worked well last time”
–
As the Lawyer at my families mediation wisely said.
“If everyone comes out feeling equally hurt, and poor, nobody is happy, it’s a good mediation. Boy was he right!”
“A billion here and a billion there gradually adds up to real money.”
I’m very happy to see the savings from reducing government spending. The problem is that the FY2024 deficit was $1.83T (revenue $4.92T, expenses $6.75T), and this was a year without unexpected expenses (compare 2020’s pandemic free-spending exercises). So saving $100M here, $100M there is good, but $1.83T is 1,830,000M.
What’s needed is a huge cut in defense & other “discretionary” spending, plus further changes to Social Security akin to those made in the 1980s, e.g. raising retirement age, increasing contributions.
HaroldW,
Agree on every point. Although now when we’re discussing spending isn’t it more a trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soom were taling real money?
Trump claims he can cut a trillion dollars. Not sure how, but I am not ready to dismiss the possibility.
Estimate of fraud in government payments run to some $500 billion a year. Given some of what Musk is reporting, that is believable. A lot of that fraud is in Medicare and Medicaid. Also things like Social Security payments going out to dead people.
Washington is spending some $500 billion a year on over 500 programs whose authorization is expired. Some of those programs might deserve to be continued, but I suspect that cutting most of them would not be noticed except by the people riding high on the gravy train.
HaroldW,
I agree there is not a trillion in waste fraud and foolish spending. But there will be a lot ($200 billion? $300 billion? donno).
The only way to return to fiscal sanity is to also reform the biggest items. Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, Social Security, and Defense. Those are politically more difficult… that herd of sacred cows will have to be gored, and some increase in taxes likely needed as well. Baby steps first.
Waste fraud and abuse has been a giant budgeting loophole. IIRC the ACA was passed on assumptions that they would find like 15% of the budget through these mechanisms. The CBO had to believe them when scoring the bill. It was smoke and mirrors.
The problem is finding and eliminating fraud costs money, real money. There is a point of diminishing returns. Some of the current waste is sclerotic bureaucratic obstacles intended to stop fraud which was previously found.
We saw what happened with pandemic relief. They made it easy to get money and the fraud was enormous.
The first step is eliminating the non-fraud on-purpose crazy spending.
AI reportedly made a great leap in the protein folding problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_fHJIYENdI
Same team that made the major advance in the game Go, DeepMind.
Thomas,
I have been the most consistent supporter of Ukraine’s war effort on these pages, but even I have come to the conclusion that Ukraine cannot win this war. Russia has been on a very slow but relentless offensive for over a year. These gains are despite almost unrestricted flow of arms to Ukraine from the US and Europe.
I am personally relieved to see the near depletion of Russia’s war material reserves that this has caused. I am also happy to see the mess Russia’s economy has become.
But I think it’s time to end this.
Since the start of the war I have relied on the accounting of territory gained and lost as provided by “@War_Mapper”. Their report through January of this year can be found at:
https://x.com/War_Mapper/status/1886874441306558549
A study of all of these current charts and presentations will support my view of the futility of continuing.
Ukraine is winning this war. They are taking more territory in Kursk, they are pushing the Russians back from the Pokrovsk region, they are killing more Russians and North Koreans than are conscripted to replace them. Russian tank storage is dwindling rapidly towards zero, same for armored personnel carriers and air defense systems (or have you neglected the 66 air strikes on Russian targets in the past month?) and the list goes on. Who besides Russia and its useful idiots say they are winning this war? You might look at a recent post by Andrew Perpetua for some guidance here.
And while Ukraine is busy killing Russians and destroying their oil exports, the Russian economy is imploding. They have set up executive committees to be ‘czars’ of five industry sectors to see if they can be saved. Where the hell is John Galt when Vlad needs him? Russia is falling apart. Their planes don’t fly, their trains don’t run, their heating systems fall apart.
But because defeatists give them encouragement, they continue with coups de theatre like bombing the Chernobyl sarcophagus, as they did today,
It is because Russia is losing that Vlad the Trump Whisperer is working so hard to undermine American support.
Let’s be clear. In 2024 Russian advanced to take 1% of Ukraine, bringing their ten-year total to 19%. Ukraine took more Russian territory than the Russians did in Ukraine, although Russia got some of it back late in the year.
Ukraine sank a third of the Black Sea Fleet and chased the rest out of the Black Sea. What will they call it now?
Ukraine destroyed 370 Russian combat planes and 360 combat helicopters. Russians have been unable to achieve air superiority in three years.
Russia has lost 850,000 men to death or dismemberment–but half of that total came in the past year.
That’s land, sea and air. Where is Russia winning?
Russia is losing the war and is falling apart. And Trump is going to give him Ukraine on a platter.
You all should just shut the hell up and quit supporting a policy that betrays American ideals and puts us in a much worse position across the globe.
Those noises you hear aren’t gunfire–yet. They’re champagne corks popping in Beijing. ‘On to Taiwan!’
Tom,
Sorry to be so in your face before.
I know you do a good job at ATTP trying to educating the denizens there and get some debris there as well.
Apart from his bad points which we all know and recognize here there may be some good points that you might be able to think of.
Is there waste in Government and particularly defense?
Yes.
In the past it has been tried to resolve it by Committee.
Now we have the untouchables back in vogue.
Surely if you are going to do it properly you need to do it with speed efficiency and determination to prevent the records being lost.
Are you happy to some degree with the Gaza refugee exchange? Give it a small tick please.
Are you happy to see the law enforced with borders by the two countries profiteering from flying [Canada] or flying and walking , Mexico having to clean up their own mess?
Are you happy, as a lukewarmer to see sensible fuel policies used while we develop true and proper renewables?
You see it is like this.
You elect a government both of whom say they aim to make America better. You put them in and if you do not like them you kick them out after 4 years but you let them do their job.
Presidential edicts are legal. Biden used a lot no complaints back then.
–
Good to see Mitch McConnell showing some signs of his true, nasty nature. That is the old Republican Party you were right to despise.
Thomas, your post:
“ Ukraine is winning this war. ”
You make a lot of assertions but you produce not a single shred of evidence. My post has a link to quantify my claim of Russian territorial advances. Without verifiable evidence your claims are just hollow words.
Thomas Fuller,
I see you are true to your progressive ideals still, but no. The era when you and your fellow ‘liberals’ could silence those who disagree with you has ended. It gives me considerable satisfaction to say this: you’ve lost.
Have a wonderful day!
Pathetic, Mark
You should shut up for two reasons. One is important. You are giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies. Not as much as Donald Trump, but that’s what you’re doing.
The other reason is simpler. You have no idea of what you’re talking about.
Russell, what sources would you accept as reliable?
Thomas,
I can only conclude you are delusional: https://understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Pokrovsk%20Direction%20February%2013%2C%202025.png
Thomas,
Keep it coming buddy, your remarks are sweet music to my ears. As Conan said, this is best in life. The lamentations of my enemies women.
Wise words from Secretary of State Marco Rubio:
“The truth of the matter is that in this conflict there’s no way Russia takes all of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are too brave, and fight too hard, and the country is too big, that’s not gonna happen,” Rubio said. “It’s also unrealistic to believe that somehow a nation the size of Ukraine, no matter how incompetent and no matter how much damage the Russian Federation has suffered as a result of this invasion, there’s no way Ukraine is also going to push these people all the way back to where they were on the eve of the invasion.”
“The other reason is simpler. You have no idea of what you’re talking about.”
Like most progressives, Thomas suffers a bad case of projection of his own weaknesses and failings onto those who disagree with him. Meh.
The fighting will end and negotiation will start, probably in the next few months. Lots of people will end up alive who would otherwise die. Terrible as some people find that, negotiation is inevitable.
Thomas, Your post:
“Russell, what sources would you accept as reliable?”
The claims you are making about the state of the Russian economy and Russian armor reserves are, in my opinion, unverifiable.
Thomas I have on several occasions researched both those topics. The Russians are masters of deception. No one outside of the Kremlin knows the facts about those two subjects and that is by design.
SteveF,
https://x.com/PeterClifford1/status/1890167114016911420
“On #Pokrovsk front, UA counterattacks have pushed RU troops SE of #Kutyre. Fighting at #Hirodivka.”
“According to preliminary estimates, the AFRF???????? lost 229 servicemen in killed and wounded in the #Pokrovsk sector today. Troops of the AFU????????destroyed an armored combat vehicle, three artillery systems, four UAVs, four motorcycles, 15 vehicles, three communications equipment and an electronic warfare vehicle, and damaged four vehicles, five artillery systems and a tank.”
https://x.com/coxoxoffoxoffic/status/1890134711894437972
Steve,
The funny part IMO is that Thomas prides himself on being a hippie, or ex-hippie / past hippie. One of the defining characteristics of hippies was opposition to war. And yet here he is, accusing us all of treason apparently along with the President of the United States because we support starting peace talks.
I’m not sure if it’s the TDS or if it’s the progressivism that twists Fuller into such conceptual knots, but no matter how many times I witness it I still think it’s remarkable to see.
[Edit: If Zelensky wanted peace, would that make Zelensky a traitor too? I wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes.]
I think the word propaganda was invented for war reporting, nothing can be trusted here. AFAICT Russia is making continuous incremental gains and paying a steep price.
Alternately the chances of Ukraine making gains against heavily defended Russian lines at this point is almost zero. Perhaps they can bite another chunk out of Russia with a surprise attack, but less likely now.
Wars can end when one side effectively wins or both sides are exhausted. It’s only because Ukraine has been so effective that there is a chance of a settlement here. I think they should take it.
Ukraine can reject any peace proposal but the US may be doing Zelensky a favor allowing him to save face in a settlement, “The US made me do it”. If Ukraine wants to fight to the last Ukrainian that is fine by me.
Russia is not going to run out of armor. AFAICT they have recently shifted to a sustaining rate of losses with their factories churning out new stuff.
Russian Equipment Reserves (2024) – Production, Losses & Storage Depletion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzR8BacYS6U
This war has done no favors for the Russian economy, arms export market, global standing, and casualties.
Take the win if you can get it. If this continues for another year I don’t foresee Ukraine making any gains without huge help from NATO and that is risky.
Russell, here are my assertions. (The first is not an assertion, rather it is a conclusion given at the beginning.)
Ukraine is winning this war.
*They are taking more territory in Kursk
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/video-ukraine-troops-seize-new-land-with-unexpected-maneuver/ar-AA1yP2QE?cvid=9B56D458F31D46A2BD801533063B3D82&ocid=ansgossipcop11&apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1
* they are pushing the Russians back from the Pokrovsk region,
https://x.com/PeterClifford1/status/1890167114016911420
“On #Pokrovsk front, UA counterattacks have pushed RU troops SE of #Kutyre. Fighting at #Hirodivka.”
they are killing more Russians and North Koreans (48500 in January 2025) than are conscripted to replace them (25-30,000).
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-3-2025
https://jamestown.org/program/russian-army-recruitment-hangs-between-coercion-and-deception/#:~:text=Russia%20was%20able%20to%20recruit,org%2C%20March%2019%3B%20Istories.
Russian tank storage is dwindling rapidly towards zero,
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/02/11/the-insider-as-russia-depletes-soviet-tanks-and-artillery-putins-ukraine-war-drive-to-end-by-2026/
same for armored personnel carriers (Ibid)
and air defense systems (or have you neglected the 66 air strikes on Russian targets in the past month?) and the list goes on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dcqudb/attrition_rate_of_russian_ground_based_air_defense/?rdt=41245
the Russian economy is imploding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWCMHaBPgt8
They have set up executive committees to be ‘czars’ of five industry sectors to see if they can be saved. Where the hell is John Galt when Vlad needs him? (Source not found as yet.)
Russia is falling apart. Their planes don’t fly,
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/12/06/winging-it-en
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/n-nearly-30-russian-airlines-on-verge/
their trains don’t run,
https://www.railfreight.com/specials/2024/12/11/russian-railways-in-its-deepest-crisis-of-the-last-16-years/
https://www.uawire.org/sanctions-grind-russia-s-railways-to-a-halt-freight-speeds-and-volumes-plummet-to-record-lows
their heating systems fall apart.
https://jamestown.org/program/russias-deteriorating-infrastructure-on-verge-of-collapse-threatening-tough-winter-ahead/
In 2024 Russian advanced to take 1% of Ukraine, bringing their ten-year total to 19%.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#:~:text=As%20of%202025%2C%20Russian%20troops,crisis%20since%20World%20War%20II.
Ukraine took more Russian territory than the Russians did in Ukraine, although Russia got some of it back late in the year.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/83a2f24901c941d581c0c523ecd2619b
Ukraine sank a third of the Black Sea Fleet and chased the rest out of the Black Sea. What will they call it now?
https://news.usni.org/2024/06/13/battles-in-the-black-sea-changing-the-character-of-naval-warfare-experts-say
Ukraine destroyed 370 Russian combat planes and 360 combat helicopters. Russians have been unable to achieve air superiority in three years.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/03/the-russian-air-force-is-hollowing-itself-out-air-defenses.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Russia has lost 850,000 men to death or dismemberment–but half of that total came in the past year.
https://war.ukraine.ua/faq/what-are-the-russian-death-toll-and-other-losses-in-ukraine/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/8/russia-gained-4000sq-km-of-ukraine-in-2024-how-many-soldiers-did-it-lose#:~:text=As%20of%20December%2030%2C%202024,last%20year%20at%20430%2C790%20soldiers.
Tom, I love Perun. Doesn’t he say in that episode that Russia’s new build on tanks (mostly T72s) is about 30 a month? Ukraine is killing that many tanks every week.
They’re refurbishing a lot more–but Covert Cabal, which Perun sources, says they’re running low on candidates for refurb.
Perun has to read tea leaves like everyone else, but he does try harder.
There is little doubt that this war has depleted Russia’s armor reserves and it is a big win. I doubt Russian soldiers are using ATV’s now because that is their personal choice. Tanks are not leading the assaults so it appears they had to change tactics.
Russia also has strengths that cannot be ignored. Stand off glide bombs and missiles are a big problem for Ukraine. Russians don’t look at large casualties like the west does. It’s how they beat Germany on the eastern front and they take pride in that.
It’s one thing to fight Russia to a standstill and another to eject them completely. Realistically with a significantly weakened Russian army NATO could line up its forces now and push Russia out. The chances of that scenario going WMD is pretty high IMO.
Ending it now is a clear win for NATO, deterrence has been established, but it is a meh for Ukraine for sure.
I think it silly to claim that either Ukraine or Russia is winning. They are like two bare-knuckle fighters in the 47th round, both beat to a bloody pulp, but somehow both still standing. The question is not which one is “winning”, it is which one will collapse first. And there is really no way to predict that. Both would be better off if the fight were called.
mark bofill,
“I wonder how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Those with religious or (near religious) ideological conviction that what they believe is absolutely right, often do terrible things like strap on a suicide vest. It is why the left in the USA celebrates the murder, rape, and mutilation of Israelis.
The rabbit hole where the irrationally righteous live is very deep indeed.
Yeah, I think there’s another animal going down your rabbit holes, Mike and Steve.
“Yes, data on extremist-related shootings in the United States is compiled by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). According to the ADL’s “Murder and Extremism in the United States” report, between 2012 and 2021, right-wing extremists were responsible for 75% of extremist-related murders, while left-wing extremists accounted for 4%. The remaining incidents were attributed to other forms of extremism. It’s important to note that these figures can vary depending on the specific time frame and definitions used. For the most current and detailed information, consulting the latest reports from reputable organizations like the ADL or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is recommended.”
Cue the whining about biased and fake media. And listen to my laughter.
Thomas,
The irrationally righteous can be crazy-religious, on the crazy-left, or on the crazy-right. The hysteria about negotiation to end the war in Ukraine is almost universally on the left (some exceptions among warmongers like Bolton on the right, of course).
The fighting in Ukraine should end, and it will…. just not on the terms you would like to dictate. Get over it.
It happened!
Gulf of America is now live on Google maps.
Would you look at that.
https://www.google.com/maps?sca_esv=1efd172859308584&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS885US885&output=search&q=gulf+of+america&source=lnms&fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpIgVFCTcbZI9VMGzNoV0iOZkckJJygdiLH6_g992ly-OD2z_k-QHeX8QvY7OLOe9m-OON0sqjsbXr81eglZTz3FYaf5Y5nOrPRn0dh8PnqtpqCdvZ1aRWHwGs203oLZoeNGwHL7eZQfj5x9DRIbwTlRz4OY5UMQUPU_CnaXi_8ipD2rWrx2Im2S7wAk4N5mC6dRUGcw&entry=mc&ved=1t:200715&ictx=111
They still haven’t fixed ‘Red White and Blueland’ though.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenland/@67.4224719,-70.8941779,3z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x4ea20dbbe3c07715:0x34cf9d830114e218!8m2!3d71.706936!4d-42.604303!16zL20vMDM1djM?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Russia bombs the confinement sarcophagus at Cernobyl and you natter and nutter about giggly maps.
“Gulf of America is now live on Google maps.”
At least it has a lot of humor value.
CNN: “Ukraine says Russia drone attack hits Chernobyl nuclear plant, radiation levels normal”
Almost sounds like a line from a funny scifi-movie.
I think we need a demarcation line drawn showing which part of the Gulf is “of America” and which part is “of Mexico”. The standard method in this kind of dispute is to define a line where the closest land in Mexico and the closest land in the USA are exactly the same distance….
No, I’m joking. It is the Gulf of Mexico.
Of course, the Cubans probably want a piece of the Gulf as well… but in that case Cuba’s part wouldn’t be a gulf at all… more like “The Bulge of Cuba in the Gulf”.
Trump is nothing if not entertaining with all the silly stuff he says.
Thomas Fuller,
Would you explain how perpetuating the war between Ukraine and Russia makes whatever containment [that] exists at Chernobyl more safe?
I don’t think attacking 400,000 cubic meters of cement with a drone will do much.
Tom Scharf,
The building has 10 meter thick concrete, re-enforced throughout with steel. No, a drone is not going to compromise it. And whatever hit it, it is very unlikely that was the target. But it does provide useful fuel for hysteria.
It’s just common sense that with the continent being America, Gulf of America is a far more equitable and inclusive name than Gulf of Mexico. Would Gulf of North America be more accurate? Sure, but that wouldn’t be as inclusive…
How about “The Gulf of North America, Central America, and Cuba”? “Gulf of the New World”? “The People’s Gulf of the New World”? “The Gulf Stolen From Rightful Owners”? The possibilities are endless.
SteveF,
I vote for “The Gulf of the Tropic of Cancer” or “The Gulf of Cancer” for short.
Lucia,
Not inclusive enough. 😉
Besides, cancer scares people.
Us FL west coasters just call it “The Gulf”.
FL East Coasters also call it “The Gulf”, as do the people I know in Southern Louisiana.
The full speech of JD Vance smacking down the EU. I don’t think the audience enjoyed the lecture. The audience shots were pretty funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCOsgfINdKg
I mostly agree with everything he said. I didn’t know about Romania’s cancelled election result due to “Russian interference”. This might sound familiar.
https://www.politico.eu/article/romania-election-2025-hungary-national-liberals-social-democrats-law-court/
“His continued, and possibly even growing, popularity is partly due to deep suspicion of the cronyism and nepotism of the traditional old parties, who are viewed by many Romanians as pulling strings to annul the first vote.”
I listed to the whole speech (19+ minutes). The audience wasn’t very happy… they all believe free speech is a danger that must be controlled to protect “the truth”. They will continue to lose support in elections until that changes.
I make a prediction: Vance is going to be president in January 2029. He is smart, principled, passionate, and graceful. There is no Democrat I have heard of who can come close to matching Vance.
SteveF
I thought that was a point in its favor.
SteveF wrote: “There is no Democrat I have heard of who can come close to matching Vance.”
No other Republican either.
Maybe there really is a trillion dollars in waste and fraud to be found. Last August, Biden hurriedly handed out $20 billion from an EPA slush fund.
https://nypost.com/2025/02/13/us-news/epa-head-lee-zeldin-reveals-no-real-oversight-of-shocking-20-billion-waste-biden-administration-funneled-through-citibank/
Not millions, but BILLIONS going to those shady groups. And the money was distributed from an outside bank account rather than the Treasury, apparently to avoid oversight.
From the Babylon Bee:
Democrats Vow To Fight DOGE By Wasting More Money Than Ever
I love the Bee.
So lemme see, in the last days of the Biden administration, the EPA hands out $20 billion to a bunch of NGOs that are not accountable to anyone? That is about the craziest thing I ever heard of. I looked at a couple of these organization’s websites; they are hotbeds of DEI, “climate equity”, and “climate justice”. 😮
If this money is not clawed back it will be a travesty.
SteveF: “Vance is going to be president in January 2029. He is smart, principled, passionate, and graceful. There is no Democrat I have heard of who can come close to matching Vance.”
Vance is the Swiss Army Knife of American politics. He will engage anyone (even CNN repeatedly) and no one can touch him. Has a little bit of Reagan in him in that he can make serious points in a non-confrontational and somewhat lighthearted manner.
Thomas W Fuller, your post:
“right-wing extremists were responsible for 75% of extremist-related murders,”
What is the purpose of this post? Am I supposed to feel guilty because I am Conservative? I don’t.
The vast majority of the world’s terrorists are muslim extremists. Do you therefore paint all muslims with the terrorist brush? I think you probably do not.
No, Russell. It was a response to some idiocy that Steve wrote.
Well, Thomas certainly demonstrates his expertise in idiocy here repeatedly, I don’t think anyone can refute that.
Russell
I think muslims extremest are usually classified as right wing since they want women to be uneducated and stay at home. Right?
Why anyone thinks they can come here, effectively call us traitors by suggesting we (and the President) are giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies and state that we need to shut up because we don’t know what we are talking about, and then expect to receive courteous and respectful treatment is beyond me.
Is it the entitlement of your ideology Thomas that gives you this idea? It’s wrong, whatever the cause.
Lucia, I get thoroughly mixed up about what is Left Wing Extremism and what is Right Wing Extremism. (And that is just with our own extremism.)
Since Trump was elected by and is currently supported by more than half of the country, that makes him a “moderate “ by definition, right?
Your far left talking points and conspiracies are running on empty, Thomas. They’re compiled and propagated by propagandists who’ve become so comfortable telling lies and doubling down on insanity, they’re pushing an ever growing number moderates away with their transparent lack of ethics and morality. We’re all “far right” now…
Russell,
I googled and found the ADL report
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2023
Evidently, muslim extremism is a different category. White supremicists and “sovereign citizen” extremism is considered right wing. (I get why white supremicist is. But I”m not sure “sovereign citizen” stuff is right or left per se. They are anti government and consider themselves outside the jurisdiction of the government. I don’t see how that’s left of right. Black Sovereign citizen groups exist. )
Extremist murder is down to a relative low– there were 17 identified extremist murders in 2023.
Left wing extremist evidently prefer to target property. So they stick to firebombing and arson — which doesn’t necessarily kill anyone the way shooting them up in a mall does.
The sovereign citizen criminals and murderers tend to be very identifiable as sovereign citizens because they happily spew their legal theories. Evidently, left wing extremists are harder to identify. (Fewer tattoos? No spouting their legal theories?)
Also– non-ideological murders count in the 17. So evidently, you you kill someone while wearing extremist tattoes, that’s an extremist killing. Killing of one inmate by another also counts. The report admits that they may be undercounting left wing extremist killings because of the lack of tattoos and lack of spouting their ideology.
In the end, who knows. It may well be that right wing extremist do commit a higher proportion of murders relative to left wing extremists. Given that death’s by homocide is supposedly near 24,849 ( https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm ) I’m not going to worry too much about which fraction of the 17 by extremists was by left vs right wing extremists.
Lucia, I found the ADL report also. I was not impressed. It seems more like a political document than a factual report.
That being said I would not be surprised if right extremists are more violent than left extremists. The Left has been overtaken by pussies.
Lucia,
“Given that death’s by homocide is supposedly near 24,849 ( https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm ) I’m not going to worry too much about which fraction of the 17 by extremists was by left vs right wing extremists.”
Of course. Most murders are perpetrated using handguns against someone known by the killer, for very non-political reasons. Gang related murders make up a big portion of it. Collateral damage murders resulting from targeted killings are a far bigger problem than the 17 killings by “extremists”. Claiming that extremist killings on the right are even a significant issue in the USA is the kind of dishonest argument consistently used by mush-heads like Thomas to take attention away from much bigger issues, like a big % of those on the left supporting and celebrating murder, rape, and mutilation, and persecuting anybody who disagrees with their politics.
I have seen a debunking of the claim about murders by right wing extremists, but I don’t have a link. As lucia says, they include murders that are not based on ideology. They are also very liberal in what they consider to be right-wing extremism and very stingy about classifying murderer’s as left wing. It is little more than a made up stat.
I suspect that “undercounted” is an understatement. People have gone through some of the examples on these “lists” before. They turn out to be very liberal in their definitions in one direction, and very conservative in the other. I remember one example of “right wing violence” turned out to be a domestic altercation.
It’s the “97% of scientists agree” type of “research”.
Yesterday Rasmussen poll had Trump approval rating at PLUS 10! The RCP average was PLUS 2.5. Now that Trump is mainstream, we need to rename the Mainstream Media to Leftwing Media.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating#
Trump is presently gathering the low hanging fruit of outrageous featherbedding and outrageous government expenditures/waste on things the voting public does not support. So his support is now high. Trump can take a much bigger bite from the deficit apple with a reconciliation bill that eliminates the worst of the Biden administration’s green energy agenda. But all that won’t reduce the deficit enough to bring fiscal sanity; even half a $trillion in savings each year won’t be nearly enough.
When/if Trump tries to address the bigger factors that generate large deficits, his support may drop rapidly: Medicaid, Medicare, Military, the many types of welfare programs, and the most sacred cow of all: Social Security. The alternative to reducing expenditures for those programs is substantially raising taxes; also not popular.
We will see what priorities Trump sets after the obvious and easy stuff is done.
Just before the inauguration, right/wrong track was 34 points under water. Now it is just 13 points under. It was mostly more than 40 points under water during the Biden administration.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/direction-of-country
The talking point game is for the partisan credentialed elite to reclassify extremist violence to narrow left wing violence and expand right wing violence. Guilt by association is then used to imply being a member of a tribe automatically condones violence.
It’s rather boring and pointless, it’s yet another reason academia is losing trust.
The fraction of men who live to 67 (SS retirement age) is 71.75%, and half of those die by age 83, so about 16 years benefits for half of men. For women, 82.4% reach age 67, and half of those die a little before age 86, so 19 years of benefits for half of women; overall ~17.75 years. Gradually moving the retirement age to 70 would reduce the number of men who reach retirement to 66.7% (women to 78.8%) and the length of benefits for half of men to 13.5 years (women 16.5 years).
So a rough estimate for such a change: ~6%+ higher social security contributions (working longer), ~6% fewer total beneficiaries, and ~14% lower lifetime benefits per retiree. 0.94 * 0.94 * 0.86 = 0.76. This would eliminate the SS deficit, but I am not expecting anybody in Washington DC to actually advocate for this kind of change…. nor any other plan that makes the program sustainable.
Of course, if medical advances push life expectancy significantly higher, SS will remain in deep financial trouble, even with significant changes.
SteveF
Clearly, to fix SSN we need to stop work on vaccines for respiratory diseases and let them rip through the country.
/sarc.
(I’ve had a bad respiratory something since Monday. Down 5 lbs! Not intentional.)
The WSJ will stick with Gulf of Mexico for now, but will go with Mt. McKinley immediately for reasons.
Google shows Gulf of America to the US, Gulf of Mexico to Mexico and both names to everyone else based on a policy for disputed names.
SS can also be viewed as a baby Ponzi scheme. If we allow lots of immigration then that also helps the social security situation. More domestic babies as well but that doesn’t look likely.
S. Korea / Japan are having big problems with declining birth rates affecting their long term social welfare systems.
SteveF,
I was a bit surprised to learn, assuming that this is correct, that our assumption of some of the cost of defense in Europe supports retirement at 59 and four day weeks, I think in France and maybe Germany. Something’s wrong here.
I also heard uyesterday that the French do not view Putin’s possible territorial interests as having anything to do with them.
Probably because they have Germany that he would need to get though before he got to them.
Further information on the mid air collision:
The Blackhawk was at 278 feet altitude during the collision.
They believe the crew was wearing NVG.
The investigators said some strange and vague things about the Blackhawk possibly not having reliable altitude information and they weren’t releasing that information (even though they have it) because they didn’t want people to blame the Blackhawk crew.
Unless they’ve changed a whole lot, the altimeter needs to be reset to local altimeter setting which is conveyed in a broadcast in this case from Reagan called the ATIS, air terminal information system, IIRC.
Dollars to doughnuts they never reset, and maybe didn’t set it before they took off. wouldn’t it be amazing if the MSL of their takeoff location could be compared to the ATIS altimeter setting and the extra 78 feet discovere?
Lucia: “I think muslims extremest are usually classified as right wing since they want women to be uneducated and stay at home. Right?”
I don’t think the left-right dichotomy works at all with Muslims. Muslims believe in overwhelming government power (a position aligned with Left — They don’t believe in the separation of church and state). You are right with their position regarding male/female relationships though.
Islam is just a separate malevolent ideology that is a plague on humanity. For example, I can’t think of one scientific or economic breakthrough in the last 200– maybe 300 years that can be attributed to Muslims. Yet notwithstanding consistent Muslim failures they come to the West and desire to replicate what they have failed at in their own countries.
The Social Security retirement age should depend on the number of years that one pays into the fund. A retirement age of 70 might be fine for white collar workers, especially if they did not enter the workforce until their mid to late 20’s. But it is not fair to a blue collar worker who entered the workforce as a teenager and worked steadily year after year.
Lucia,
“I’ve had a bad respiratory something since Monday. Down 5 lbs! Not intentional”
Sure, but imagine how good you will look in your dance outfit! Glass half full.
The CRJ was given an automated “traffic” warning 20 seconds before the collision and made a clear last second emergency maneuver to avoid the crash according to the flight data recorder.
The Blackhawk made no attempt to avoid the collision.
At one point the pilot and copilot of the Blackhawk reported altitudes 100 feet apart in the cockpit voice recorder but there was no further attempt to resolve the error.
The Blackhawk missed some pieces of the ATC communications because aircraft and the ATC can still not transmit to each other simultaneously.
The 278 foot altitude number came from the Blackhawk’s radio altimeter, not the pressure altimeter. The pressure altimeter may have had bad numbers / setup but that may never be resolved.
Lucia,
More seriously.
No, we should try to improve health of everyone, including people who are above retirement age. That said, the disconnect between retirement age, retirement benefits, and life expectancy needs to be addressed as a matter of policy: we can’t afford to have people retiring at 67 and living to 113… unless they can pay for themselves.
MikeM,
“The Social Security retirement age should depend on the number of years that one pays into the fund.”
Sure. Only reasonable and fair. At 74, I continue to contribute to SS, as I likely will until either severe (mental) debilitation or death. Of course, Thomas will say I am already mentally debilitated. But as with all progressives, that is pure projection on his part.
The offset for the altimeter might have been set for their ultimate landing location? I don’t know if they would normally change those when “just passing through”.
You do get accumulating credits for every year you hit a minimum payment to the SS system and you need a certain number to qualify.
So you can retire without max credits and you get reduced benefits.
These credits aren’t a whole lot, just $7,240 of earnings for 4 credits per year and then 40 total credits to qualify for any SS. You max out after 35 years of full credits.
Tom Scharf,
I believe I get a small ‘plus’ because I continue to contribute, long after starting to receive benefits.
Tom Scharf,
one used to be required to reset altimeter to ATIS baromteric setting when passing through. Otheriwse you’d have airport traffic and passing through traffic not operating on same vertical reference system.
Radio altimieter – ground reference? The plane was likely 9as in almost certainly) flying MSL reference. Again, different altitude references.
John ferguson,
Wouldn’t a downward looking radar give perfect altitude accuracy (to a few feet)? No need for barometric pressure adjustments or altitude relative to sea level.
Thomas W Fuller
FEBRUARY 14, 2025 AT 10:06 AM
“ data on extremist-related shootings in the United States is compiled by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League.
According to the ADL’s “Murder and Extremism in the United States” report, between 2012 and 2021, right-wing extremists were responsible for 75% of extremist-related murders, while left-wing extremists accounted for 4%.”
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I make things up Thomas.
A process called thinking.
I take a bunch of recent statements, put them through the brain and come out with conclusions.
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One of the difficult things with all arguments and propositions is the unknown unknowns, not to mention the unknowns.
It helps to look at the actors in your comment above.
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Yourself giving a motivated rebuttal of another’s obviously motivated argument ( to you).
The agency whose data you invoke.
The criteria they use for determining extremism and why they are doing this data in the first place ( their motivation).
This might explain the conclusion that they reach and you, finding it comforting, espouse, or not.
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The ADL is an anti something organisation. By definition it already has an inbuilt bias that your moral compass finds itself in alignment with.
A tiny bit of introspection is possibly called for.
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Perhaps one could start with the time range you quote.
Did anything special occur in that time frame that upset the normal, in America, expectation that left wing extremistsi ina right wing country are obviously the most cause of extremist shootings?
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Second what are the actual numbers? Again I presume, deduct, deduce by your not mentioning these either that they are very low hence susceptible to one incident either way in that period skewing the figures to give that result that is so desperately sought after by yourself.
Would one day in Chicago of known , documented. Non extremist deaths by shootings out weigh the whole 10 years for the whole country of extremist shootings, or just 1 month?
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Thirdly, if you bothered or dared to include 25 years the enormous death toll caused by the extremists in theTwin Towers make all your observations so, so, redundant.
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Now those are only my thoughts in a short, motivated assessment of your argument.
You may be right.
But if you were assessing probabilities correctly your source and interpretation thereof are missing a few cogs in your cognition.
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Question, did they include police shootings as right wing terror is and was That Babbet women killed by the policeman Jan 6th counted as a right or a left wing extremist murder?
There’s a new thread. I moved some of the more recent comments. I’ll be closing this thread.