Nice of Donald Trump, yesterday, to refuse to say Harris is a natural born American citizen. Nothing like the President of the United States being willing to undermines the very foundations of the country just to hang on to power.
Newsweek Editorial Note: It seems our “We Are *NOT* Birthers, We Are Respected Lawyers, But She’s Very Brown So The Eligibility Issue Must Be Looked Into” T-shirt has a lot of people asking questions that are already answered by the shirt.
What is this, a race between the Times and Newsweek to find the most disgusting Republican op ed to divert us from Trump’s admission he wants to defund the Post Office and Social Security? Besides, from what I can tell, the average New Zealander would be a better choice for President than any Republican, so let’s open up our choices.
The original piece was too intellectually defective to stick in my memory. I think it was something of a what if being born on US territory, including Oakland, CA, wasn't enough to make one a naturally born citizen if one's parents weren't at the time citizens.
Personally, I found it less racist birtherism, Obama 2.0 than the tragedy of our time: So many outlets so desperate for eyeballs that being available for clickbait is the only criterion for running a piece. Then again, in an era of decadent private sector leadership, why should the effects intellectual class be any different, why can't they be decadent as well? Only fair. Besides, it would be wrong to cancel them or refuse to publish their patent bullshit.
What I find interesting is the clickbait articles is that they only swing one way. It is far more likely to see clickbait articles with the titles, "In Defense of Gilead" and "The Liberal Case for Ethnic Cleansing" than "In Order to Stop Climate Change We Must Nationalize the Energy Sector" or "Wall Street Hates America."
Maybe it is because the right has been feed a steady diet of phony outrage and grievance for so long they are more likely to react to such obvious clickbait.
Well, true mostly -- but remember in 2016 when there were suddenly a whole crop of poorly-sourced, clickbait-y "Resistance" websites, that seems went nowhere.
I remember reading a piece a while back that interviewed one of the slimes that did a fake news site for the right, and he said they tried to do it on the left too, but it didn’t work. Lefties would fact check their bs. Conservatives “fall” for fake news because they want to, they want to be outraged, it’s what gives then their jollies. But I’m sure I’m not telling you or anyone else here anything they don’t already know.
Oh, I’ve had leftie friends refer me to the reliably dodgy “Palmer Report.” As to the credulity of the right, a former friend has gone full QAnon. I ordinarily do not engage her on social media, but the other day she posted a particularly deranged screed that began with Bill Gates parenting RFID technology while he and Doc Fauci were roommates at Cornell. She went on to work IG Farben, Soros the Nazi and a biotech firm (founded ten years ago, but actually Farben in drag) supposedly owned by international pedophile of mystery Jeffrey Epstein…it was complicated.
I began by pointing out the absurdity of medical student Fauci sharing quarters with ten year-old William Henry Gates III (who knows?—maybe that’s where the pedophilia enters into it), and observed that if she had taken so casual approach to research and due diligence in the course of her career she would have found herself disbarred years ago, and her response was, in effect, “so that part might be wrong, but that doesn’t address the other points I raised.” When I pointed out that actually I had, my citations were met with a “Sez you.”
The exchange shortly degenerated into invective and abuse hurled from both sides. I really mustn’t get sucked into these things.
I don't facebook, tweet, instagram, tik-tok, or use any other social media because social media isn't... social, you know? If some asshole wants to talk idiotic conspiracy theory to me they have to do it to my face. And people just don't do that. It's the social media that leads to anti-social shit.
This is definitely true -- I was commiserating with a colleague about the days (like 2005-ish) when all the medievalists had blogspot pages and we just went back and forth talking like grownups with advanced degrees. (kind of like here and at alicu-- hey tanks Roy!)
Discourse is like a koi -- it grows to fit whatever pool you put it in. The progression from MySpace to Twitter can reduce conversation to a size where you can drown it in a bathtub, which I'm sure Jack and Zuckerberg would be happy to do for a new regime.
Mere conversation with any right winger immediately descends into madness. My FIL believes that both sides must sit down and talk to each other a lack of honest communication is the problem. My MIL fears that armed antifa will be evicting them from their large million dollar house.
Well, technically, a lack of honest communication is the problem. But only one side lies nigh continuously. Trump wouldn't answer the question "Do you regret all of the lying that you have done to the American people?"
Your MIL is being needlessly alarmist. The historical model suggests that at worst (well, no—at worst, she and her husband will go up against the wall) they’ll be assigned a bedroom in the house, maybe not the master suite, and will have kitchen and bathroom privileges shared with the other six or ten families.
Word -- yah, I think the obvious grift of many of them turned fact-checkers and those with reading comprehension off pretty quick. I still see tweets from that dork Scott Dworkin, but...
Establishment media are supportive of the GOP. So no criticism of national security, BS coverage of the economy, normalizing Trump, no problem with anything the GOP does such as, I dunno, the Senate shutting down for a couple of weeks in mid-crises., and so on and so forth.
The Yale University campus in New Haven, Conn. Yale is the second Ivy League school the Drumpf administration has confronted over its admissions policies.
Did a copy editor miss this NYT caption? Wonder how long it will stay up.
I knew you would take this on, and I knew I would not be disappointed. Brilliant.
Honestly, I didn't spend much time analyzing the original, um, specimen, but I went straight to the comments, which were gratifyingly nearly all some form of "WTF?"
You know who else was born in Oakland to an immigrant parent? Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, that's who? How do we know that Harris wasn't part of his evil plan to conquer the world from his Wakandan base by supplying its so-called "oppressed people" with Vibranium superweapons? Wake up, sheeple!
Birthright citizenship never felt like more than an obvious "duh" amendment to me, until this decade. How naive. Now I see how farsighted its proponents were in forcing it down the Confederacy's throat in ~1869. Those Reconstruction cats knew the shit we were up against and would be up against forever.
Effing brilliant. I appreciate that you understand that, as Newsweek's note attested, this is merely a robust -scholarly- debate. It's no different than when -scholars- like James Hammond and John Calhoun and Stephen Miller (governor of South Carolina in 1829, no relation to the white supremacist joyboy in the White House) merely argued the -scholarly- point that slavery was a natural positive benefit to both the United States and to the slaves themselves. There was nothing racist about it. Just scholars being scholarly arguing the scholarliness of issues.
Interesting that Professor Eastman had a different take when he defended Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president in the National Review back in 2016. I wonder what the difference between Cruz and Harris is? Must be something very scholarly.
Well, see the Cruz situation was different. Cruz was born to citizen parents not in the US, while Harris was born to non-citizen parents in the US. They are reverses of each other, so Eastman's reversal makes perfect sense. The discussion in the Senate about the 14th amendment and their decision to not add in language backing up Eastman's position must have never happened
And what's worse for these little whiners is that she looks like she's pleased to have gotten the job and that she's having fun, a characteristic she shares with Obama.
The 'jurisdiction' argument is a zombie argument; unfortunately that means both that is is invalid and repeatedly has been held to be so, but also that it cannot be killed save by a bullet or sharp blow to the brain and it _has_ none.
Nice of Donald Trump, yesterday, to refuse to say Harris is a natural born American citizen. Nothing like the President of the United States being willing to undermines the very foundations of the country just to hang on to power.
Bravo.
Newsweek Editorial Note: It seems our “We Are *NOT* Birthers, We Are Respected Lawyers, But She’s Very Brown So The Eligibility Issue Must Be Looked Into” T-shirt has a lot of people asking questions that are already answered by the shirt.
Or the shorter: We are not nuts.
What is this, a race between the Times and Newsweek to find the most disgusting Republican op ed to divert us from Trump’s admission he wants to defund the Post Office and Social Security? Besides, from what I can tell, the average New Zealander would be a better choice for President than any Republican, so let’s open up our choices.
The original piece was too intellectually defective to stick in my memory. I think it was something of a what if being born on US territory, including Oakland, CA, wasn't enough to make one a naturally born citizen if one's parents weren't at the time citizens.
Personally, I found it less racist birtherism, Obama 2.0 than the tragedy of our time: So many outlets so desperate for eyeballs that being available for clickbait is the only criterion for running a piece. Then again, in an era of decadent private sector leadership, why should the effects intellectual class be any different, why can't they be decadent as well? Only fair. Besides, it would be wrong to cancel them or refuse to publish their patent bullshit.
Should've added: For the record, Harris' step kids call her Momala and I approve mightily.
What I find interesting is the clickbait articles is that they only swing one way. It is far more likely to see clickbait articles with the titles, "In Defense of Gilead" and "The Liberal Case for Ethnic Cleansing" than "In Order to Stop Climate Change We Must Nationalize the Energy Sector" or "Wall Street Hates America."
Maybe it is because the right has been feed a steady diet of phony outrage and grievance for so long they are more likely to react to such obvious clickbait.
Well, true mostly -- but remember in 2016 when there were suddenly a whole crop of poorly-sourced, clickbait-y "Resistance" websites, that seems went nowhere.
I remember reading a piece a while back that interviewed one of the slimes that did a fake news site for the right, and he said they tried to do it on the left too, but it didn’t work. Lefties would fact check their bs. Conservatives “fall” for fake news because they want to, they want to be outraged, it’s what gives then their jollies. But I’m sure I’m not telling you or anyone else here anything they don’t already know.
Oh, I’ve had leftie friends refer me to the reliably dodgy “Palmer Report.” As to the credulity of the right, a former friend has gone full QAnon. I ordinarily do not engage her on social media, but the other day she posted a particularly deranged screed that began with Bill Gates parenting RFID technology while he and Doc Fauci were roommates at Cornell. She went on to work IG Farben, Soros the Nazi and a biotech firm (founded ten years ago, but actually Farben in drag) supposedly owned by international pedophile of mystery Jeffrey Epstein…it was complicated.
I began by pointing out the absurdity of medical student Fauci sharing quarters with ten year-old William Henry Gates III (who knows?—maybe that’s where the pedophilia enters into it), and observed that if she had taken so casual approach to research and due diligence in the course of her career she would have found herself disbarred years ago, and her response was, in effect, “so that part might be wrong, but that doesn’t address the other points I raised.” When I pointed out that actually I had, my citations were met with a “Sez you.”
The exchange shortly degenerated into invective and abuse hurled from both sides. I really mustn’t get sucked into these things.
I don't facebook, tweet, instagram, tik-tok, or use any other social media because social media isn't... social, you know? If some asshole wants to talk idiotic conspiracy theory to me they have to do it to my face. And people just don't do that. It's the social media that leads to anti-social shit.
This is definitely true -- I was commiserating with a colleague about the days (like 2005-ish) when all the medievalists had blogspot pages and we just went back and forth talking like grownups with advanced degrees. (kind of like here and at alicu-- hey tanks Roy!)
Discourse is like a koi -- it grows to fit whatever pool you put it in. The progression from MySpace to Twitter can reduce conversation to a size where you can drown it in a bathtub, which I'm sure Jack and Zuckerberg would be happy to do for a new regime.
Mere conversation with any right winger immediately descends into madness. My FIL believes that both sides must sit down and talk to each other a lack of honest communication is the problem. My MIL fears that armed antifa will be evicting them from their large million dollar house.
For peace with my wife, I don't engage.
Well, technically, a lack of honest communication is the problem. But only one side lies nigh continuously. Trump wouldn't answer the question "Do you regret all of the lying that you have done to the American people?"
Your MIL is being needlessly alarmist. The historical model suggests that at worst (well, no—at worst, she and her husband will go up against the wall) they’ll be assigned a bedroom in the house, maybe not the master suite, and will have kitchen and bathroom privileges shared with the other six or ten families.
Word -- yah, I think the obvious grift of many of them turned fact-checkers and those with reading comprehension off pretty quick. I still see tweets from that dork Scott Dworkin, but...
Establishment media are supportive of the GOP. So no criticism of national security, BS coverage of the economy, normalizing Trump, no problem with anything the GOP does such as, I dunno, the Senate shutting down for a couple of weeks in mid-crises., and so on and so forth.
The Yale University campus in New Haven, Conn. Yale is the second Ivy League school the Drumpf administration has confronted over its admissions policies.
Did a copy editor miss this NYT caption? Wonder how long it will stay up.
Ugh, this all just reminded us that Newsweek was bought out some years ago by RWers
The publication changed hands, as I recall, for less than the price of that week’s issue.
Lol, for a handy-j and a fruit rollup
I knew you would take this on, and I knew I would not be disappointed. Brilliant.
Honestly, I didn't spend much time analyzing the original, um, specimen, but I went straight to the comments, which were gratifyingly nearly all some form of "WTF?"
You know who else was born in Oakland to an immigrant parent? Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, that's who? How do we know that Harris wasn't part of his evil plan to conquer the world from his Wakandan base by supplying its so-called "oppressed people" with Vibranium superweapons? Wake up, sheeple!
They hate birthright citizenship, and the inconvenient fact that Trump can't repeal the 14th Amendment with an executive order.
Birthright citizenship never felt like more than an obvious "duh" amendment to me, until this decade. How naive. Now I see how farsighted its proponents were in forcing it down the Confederacy's throat in ~1869. Those Reconstruction cats knew the shit we were up against and would be up against forever.
Effing brilliant. I appreciate that you understand that, as Newsweek's note attested, this is merely a robust -scholarly- debate. It's no different than when -scholars- like James Hammond and John Calhoun and Stephen Miller (governor of South Carolina in 1829, no relation to the white supremacist joyboy in the White House) merely argued the -scholarly- point that slavery was a natural positive benefit to both the United States and to the slaves themselves. There was nothing racist about it. Just scholars being scholarly arguing the scholarliness of issues.
Interesting that Professor Eastman had a different take when he defended Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president in the National Review back in 2016. I wonder what the difference between Cruz and Harris is? Must be something very scholarly.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/ted-cruz-natural-born-citizenship-eligibility-president/
Great link. Eastman is a partisan hack.
See also Josh Hammer
I'm so old I remember none other than Orrin Hatch proposing that the Constitution be amended to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for President: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Opportunity_to_Govern_Amendment
Well, see the Cruz situation was different. Cruz was born to citizen parents not in the US, while Harris was born to non-citizen parents in the US. They are reverses of each other, so Eastman's reversal makes perfect sense. The discussion in the Senate about the 14th amendment and their decision to not add in language backing up Eastman's position must have never happened
Rust never sleeps, the media never stops propagandizing, Drumpf never stops lying....rules of nature
US vs. Wong Kim Ark settled the issue of birth right citizenship. I assume there are at least 4 votes to re-examine this at SCOTUS
With Justice Kegstand likely playing the Roger Taney role.
And what's worse for these little whiners is that she looks like she's pleased to have gotten the job and that she's having fun, a characteristic she shares with Obama.
The 'jurisdiction' argument is a zombie argument; unfortunately that means both that is is invalid and repeatedly has been held to be so, but also that it cannot be killed save by a bullet or sharp blow to the brain and it _has_ none.