Dohiyi Mir

Bud Dwyer

Please, please leave the room...

ntodd 

They Seem To Have Forgot That They Are In Rebellion

Burke, August, 1776:

I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity.

I'm kinda the same way about threats to secede, although I'm specifically torn between perpetual Union and Good Fucking Riddance.

ntodd

PS--Really, you're gonna go to war over the 2nd Amendment, but not, say...the 4th, or the 1st?  Then what good are the fucking guns if they only protect themselves and not the rest of our constitutional rights?

Ha ha ha, bless your soul

You really think you're in control?

ntodd 

Going Out In A Blaze Of Craycray

Fucked up:

INTERVIEWER: The attention-getter is saying that you're going to shoot some people.

YEAGER: Right.

INTERVIEWER: And when I hear you, I'm thinking, if someone comes to confiscate guns at your house, you're going to open fire on them?

YEAGER: Yes, yes.

Look, dude's straight up cray.  Doesn't understand a damned thing about the Constitution or Obama's actual powers, political reality, or anything.  He's just a dangerous whackaloon with lots of bullshit ricocheting around in his dystopian fantasy frenzied brain.  Which might be why his carry permit was suspended by his State (not the Feds).

But it's interesting that he threatens anybody who will come to take his guns.  Because that worked out really well for folks at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Apropos of nothing, the first US Marshall to die in the line of duty lost his life on this date:

On January 11, 1794, Marshal Forsyth, accompanied by two of his deputies, went to the house of a Mrs. Dixon to serve a civil court process on two brothers, Beverly and William Allen. Beverly Allen, a former Methodist minister from South Carolina, saw the Marshal approaching, so he hid in a room on the second floor of the house. When Forsyth knocked on the door of the room, Allen fired his pistol at the direction of the knocking. The ball hit Forsyth in the head, killing him instantly. He was the first of over 200 Marshals arid Deputies killed in the line of duty. Although Forsyth's Deputies arrested the killer, Allen later managed to escape. He was never recaptured.

Forsyth, 40 years old at the time of his murder, left a widow and two sons. One of the boys, John, became governor of Georgia and, later, US. Minister to Spain. While at the latter post, he negotiated the treaty acceding Florida to the United States. John Forsyth also served as Secretary of State under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.  

But, you know, go ahead and claim you're a law-abiding citizen in the same breath as threatening to kill officers enforcing the (completely hypothetical, nahgahhappah) law.

ntodd

Girl acted like she'd never seen a ten befo'

It's all about the Hamiltons, baby:

Slaveholding states wondered how their human property would be counted for congressional-apportionment purposes. Northern states finally agreed that five slaves would be counted as equivalent to three free whites, the infamous “federal ratio” that survived for another eighty years. The formula richly rewarded the southern states, artificially inflating their House seats and electoral votes and helping to explain why four of the first five presidents hailed from Virginia.

This gross inequity was to play no small part in the eventual triumph of lefiersonian Republicans over Hamiltonian Federalists. In exchange, southern states agreed that the importation of slaves might cease after 1808, feeding an illusory hope that slavery might some- day just fade away. Without the federal ratio, Hamilton glumly concluded. “no union could possibly have been formed." lndeed, the whole superstructure erected in Philadelphia rested on that unstable. undemocratic foundation.

Hamilton's upset over this tolerance of slavery may have been deeper than we know. There has always been some mystery as to his whereabouts after his August 13 statement on immigration. In fact. he had returned to New York for a meeting of the Manumission Society. Hamilton may have apprised members of the impending decision on slavery in Philadelphia. because they delivered a petition to the convention to “promote the attainment of the objects of this society?“

After the slavery compromise in Philadelphia, Hamilton stepped up his involvement in the Manumission Society. The following year, even while pouring out fifty-one Federalist essays, serving in Congress. and campaigning to ratify the Constitution, he attended a meeting of the society that again protested the export of slaves from New York State and the “outrages committed in digging up and taking away the dead bodies of Negroes buried in the city." Later in the year. Hamilton was appointed one of four counselors of the Manumission Society.

He may have been a quasi-monarchist, but at least his flaw wasn't a Jeffersonian blindspot regarding slavery.  And people who fetishize America's wealth and power really ought to thank the dude on their sawbucks.

ntodd

Right Proudly High

Strong men came hurrying through...

ntodd 

Too Much Whiskey, Not Enough Perspective

The other day I noted the silly petition to have Sen Feinstein tried for treason because she's re-introducing the Assault Weapons Ban.  The right to petition is as American as believing oneself to be as badassed as Dirty Harry, and that's totally cool, but I do wish people understood basic shit about the rule of law and our Constitution.  

Our Framers were informed by the experience of English kings calling criticism and other actions of a free people 'treason', so they were very explicit about what that crime entails (the only specific crime mentioned):

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

I'm sure there are folks who do really view the AWB as "weakening" the 2nd Amendment and thus is an act of war or adhering to enemies or providing aid and comfort of somesuch nonsense.  But, you know, that's just facially wrong.

Guess what would be treasonous (or at least criminal) if people followed through on their bravado?  2nd Amendment remedies.  Armed rebellion.  Killing people. 

Again, I do see there's an individual right to keep and bear arms.  Yet it has a natural limit, is meant to be regulated, and was not intended to enable revolution.

Consider once more the Whiskey Rebellion (using Wikipedia for expediency):

The Washington administration's suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion met with widespread popular approval.^[99] The episode demonstrated the new national government had the willingness and ability to suppress violent resistance to its laws. It was therefore viewed by the Washington administration as a success, a view that has generally been endorsed by historians.^[100] The Washington administration and its supporters usually did not mention, however, that the whiskey excise remained difficult to collect, and that many westerners continued to refuse to pay the tax.^[28] The events contributed to the formation of political parties in the United States, a process already underway.^[101] The whiskey tax was repealed after Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party, which opposed theFederalist Party of Hamilton and Washington, came to power in 1800.^[102]

The Rebellion raised the question of what kinds of protests were permissible under the new Constitution. Legal historian Christian G. Fritz argued, even after ratification of the Constitution, there was not yet a consensus about sovereignty in the United States. Federalists believed the government was sovereign because it had been established by the people, so radical protest actions, which were permissible during the American Revolution, were no longer legitimate. But the Whiskey Rebels and their defenders believed the Revolution had established the people as a "collective sovereign", and the people had the collective right to change or challenge the government through extraconstitutional means.^[103]

Historian Steven Boyd argued that the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion prompted anti-Federalist westerners to finally accept the Constitution, and to seek change by voting for Republicans rather than resisting the government. Federalists, for their part, came to accept that the people could play a greater role in governance. Although Federalists would attempt to restrict speech critical of the government with the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, after the Whiskey Rebellion, says Boyd, Federalists no longer challenged thefreedom of assembly and the right to petition.^[104]

With one minor exception, violent resistance in the US has failed miserably, while non-violent action has achieved significant victories through various methods of civil disobedience and adept use of the political system.  That's the point: we have a form of popular government in which the People can already exercise their power through our democratic mechanisms and republican structure.  

Calls for rebellion by people who don't like the outcome of elections, the legislative process and/or judicial review come from ignorance, not patriotism.  1776 (or more accurately, 1775) happened because Americans had no voice in their government.  The situtation is quite different today and there is no cause to threaten killing your fellow citizens over policy disagreements.  THAT is pretty fucking treasonous.

ntodd

Common Sense

Thomas Paine:

[W]ere the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
...
Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

BUT DON'T TAKE MY GUNS!

ntodd

Money Money Money

All the things I could do...

ntodd

Why Settle For Gold When Platinum Will Do?

Kevin:

First, who would have standing to sue? I don't know the answer to that, but I think there are plenty of possibilities, John Boehner at the top of the list. Second, a number of people have suggested that judges often don't look at legislative intent, so the fact that this is based on a loophole wouldn't be a problem. I doubt that. It's one thing not to dive deeply into legislative history, but it's quite another to allow the president to take a dramatic action that's plainly, obviously, 180 degrees away from the intent of the law.

1) I'll see your Boehner and raise it with Raines v Byrd (1997).

2) Intent?  Kevin wrote this earlier:

[A]s a lawyer friend emailed to me this morning, "bullion coins are generally understood by other statutes within the US Code to be coins with a value effectively equal to the market value of the precious metal bullion in them. The trillion dollar coin is not that."

This is one of the problems with the argument that the "plain text" of the law allows the Treasury Secretary to mint a platinum coin in any denomination, even a trillion dollars: it's only plain if you rip a single sentence out of the context of the rest of the statute. But I don't think that's how the Supreme Court looks at things. They routinely consider the meaning of individual parts of bills within the context of the entire statute (as well as other relevant statutes). And in this case, the rest of the statute, at the very least, makes that meaning unsettled. 

Except this is the entirety of what the statute says about platinum coins:

The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications [how much platinum?], designs [how big?], varieties [different heads for each debt ceiling crisis?], quantities [one coin or two], denominations [one dollar or a trillion?], and inscriptions [E Pluribus Unum or Take This Debt Ceiling And Shove It?] as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

So first off, the Treasury could issue a proof coin, and proof is just a descriptive quality of coinage that is struck with a special die, usually more than once, and is wicked shiny and such.  Yes, proof coins are generally valued highly because of the special minting process and are intended for investors and coin collectors (as is bullion), but it's odd that in the platinum coin section Congress forgot to include words such as these:

all coins minted under this subsection shall be considered to be numismatic items. [regarding silver coins minted under subsection e]

And:

 all coins minted under this subsection shall be considered to be numismatic items. [regarding gold coins minted under subsection i]

And:

Each bullion coin issued under this subsection shall be sold by the Secretary at a price that is equal to or greater than the sum of—

(A) the face value of the coins; and

(B) the cost of designing and issuing the coins (including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, overhead expenses, marketing, and shipping). [regarding $10 gold First Spouse coins under subsection o] 

What's more:

(h) The coins issued under this title shall be legal tender as provided in section 5103 of this title.

So the platinum coin is not explicitly a collector's item, nor is it required to be sold at any particular price, and it is considered legal tender.  It's not the Treasury's fault that Congress wrote plain language they did not intend and Congress now intends to skullfuck Treasury's ability to pay the bills that Congress has incurred.  Mint the fucking thing.

ntodd

Money's Still Money

Congress shall have the Power To...coin Money, regulate the Value thereof...

 - US Constitution, Article I, Section 8

Matt Y:

The National Republican Campaign Committee...is out there warning that "The amount of platinum needed to mint a coin worth $1 trillion would sink the Titanic."

This is total nonsense. If you wanted to mint a platinum coin worth $1 trillion then you would need to gather up $1 trillion worth of platinum and fabricate a coin out of it. But saying that the government would need a lot of platinum is like saying a $100 bill needs to have 100 times as much cotton in it as a $1 bill. 

Yeah, duh.  

Consider the same section of the US Code that empowers the Treasury to mint platinum coins says it can also issue a "five dollar gold coin that is 16.5 millimeters in diameter, weighs 3.393 grams, and contains one-tenth troy ounce of fine gold."  5 dollars.  While 1/10 troy oz is worth today...165 bucks and change.  Weird that we don't see any of these in circ right now.

In 1997, the 105th Congress passed a law that allowed for dollar coins "golden in color".  Those Sacagawea coins are worth a whole 6.2 cents melted down.

In other words, the value of the metals is completely dissociated from the value of the money.  Money is an artifice, whether it's legal tender by fiat, based on precious substances or made from polished shells.  Either the NRCC doesn't know that and is therefore incredibly ignorant of important things, demonstrating the GOP is not competent to actually govern, or it knows it and the GOP is therefore a bunch of liars who are not competent to actually govern.  You know, the usual dichotomoy (or non-mutually-exclusive characteristics).

ntodd

PS--The Coinage Act of 1792 established the Mint (I've been to the one in Philly with NToddsPa, which is right by the Free Quaker Meeting House we also visited).  The Act specified various coinage denominations and compositions, and essentially established a standard, mathematical value of gold as 1oz = ~20 bucks.

PPS--Tribe says: "It’s also quite clear that the minting of such a coin couldn’t be challenged; I don’t see who would have standing."  Didn't I say that?

He Who Would Pun Would Pick A Pocket

The lesser of two weevils...

ntodd 

He Shall From Time To Time

Washington's first SOTU address, January 8, 1790:

A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
...

Various considerations also render it expedient that the terms on which foreigners may be admitted to the rights of citizens should be speedily ascertained by a uniform rule of naturalization.

Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to.
...

[T]here is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours it is proportionably essential.

To the security of a free constitution it contributes in various ways - by convincing those who are intrusted with the public administration that every valuable end of government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people, and by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness - cherishing the first, avoiding the last - and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.

Trivia:

Although Federalists Washington and Adams had personally addressed the Congress, Jefferson was concerned that the practice of appearing before the representatives of the people was too similar to the British monarch's ritual of addressing the opening of each new Parliament with a list of policy mandates, rather than "recommendations."  This changed in 1913.  Wilson believed the presidency was more than a impersonal institution; that instead the presidency is dynamic, alive, and personal (see Tulis).  In articulating this philosophy, Wilson delivered an oral message to Congress.

I look forward to Obama's threatening to mint a trillion dollar platinum coin to pay for a gun buyback in this year's address...

ntodd

Affected With A Sincere Concern For The Essential Good Of Our Country

Last October I'd noted that some silly Quakers had petitioned the Articles Congress:

We have long beheld with sorrow the complicated evils produced by an unrighteous commerce which subjects many thousands of the human species to the deplorable State of Slavery.

The Restoration of Peace and restraint to the effusion of human Blood we are persuaded excite in the minds of many of all Christian denominations gratitude and thankfulness to the all wise controller of human events; but we have grounds to fear, that some forgetfulness of the days of Distress are prompted from avaricious motives to renew the iniquitous trade for slaves to the African Coasts, contrary to every humane and righteous consideration, and in opposition to the solemn declarations often repeated in favour of universal liberty, thereby increasing the too general torrent of corruption and licentiousness, and laying a foundation for future calamities.

We therefore earnestly solicit your Christian interposition to discourage and prevent so obvious an Evil, in such manner as under the influence of Divine Wisdom you shall see meet.

Took Congress about 3 months to get around to considering the Friends' address:

The Committee, consisting of [Mr. David Howell, Mr. Arthur Lee and Mr. Samuel Osgood] to whom was referred the address of the people called Quakers, presented to Congress on the 8th. day of October, 1783, by a deputation on behalf of the yearly meeting held in Philadelphia, for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the western parts of Maryland and Virginia, submit the following Report.

Resolved, That Congress consider this address from so respectable a part of the people called Quakers as a testimony of their sincere concern for the essential good of their Country the rights of mankind, and of their respect for those with whom the powers of Government are entrusted.

Resolved, That it be recommended to the legislature of the several States to enact such laws as to their wisdom may appear best calculated to compass the object of the second article in the association entered into, and subscribed by the Delegates of the United Colonies in Congress assembled on the 20th. Day of October 1774.

Sadly, even such a bland resolution skirting the actual mention of slavery couldn't carry the day.  Human rights were always trumped by "states' rights" from the beginning.  I'm sure Scalia will make a faux originalist claim based on this when helping strike down the Voting Rights Act...

ntodd

School Of Rock

Is that Yo-Yo rocking out to Zoso at the 4min mark?

ntodd 

That Glorious Luminary Which Was Worshiped By The Heathens

Abigail Adams to her sister in 1785:

I have nothing material to entertain you with: even the common topick of conversation, the Weather, were I to discribe it as I find it, would rather Serve to make you gloomy than Cheerful, yet the present Beautifull Sunshine which invigorates my Heart, almost tempts me to pass over, the last ten days of fog and clouds and rain, and the ten which will probabily succeed according to the custom of the present Winter, this one Days clear Sky.

I think I had rather feel our severe frosts, and see our hills and Feilds glittering and sparkling with Snow; in the clear Sun beams; and the delightfull azure which paints our Sky; than this more temperate climate; which has so much more Shade than light. The parisians have certainly a better excuse for continually seeking amusements; than our Country will be ever able to produce. 

Snowy morning--couldn't even see the ginormous wind turbines on Georgia Mountain.  Then, as Sam observed, "Sun come out!"  Nothing so brilliant as a January day with Helios blasting rays off the white landscape.  And now we have incrementally more sunlight than we had mere weeks ago...

ntodd

No, Thou Proud Dream

I am a king that find thee...

ntodd 

But For Ceremony, Such A Wretch

Regularish readers know I hate how casting and counting of the Electoral Votes for preznit is characterized by the media as a mere formality, a cermonial curiousity of no real import.  Like graduations and weddings have no value to us since, of course, we could just send you a diploma or wedding certificate via FedEx (because Dog knows we wouldn't use the USPS).

But man, I watched on Friday, and while most of Congress was AWOL, the ascertaining of certificates was quick and rote, and Rep Brady kept saying "electorial", it was a cool thing to be a part of the final act that seals an election.  And consider that while it's routine today, Congress had to figure out how to make this happen per the Constitution back in the beginning.

The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority...after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President.

The very first Senate didn't have a quorum until April 6, 1789.  And they got right to work on counting votes:

The Senate proceeded by ballot to the choice of a President, for the sole purpose of opening and counting the votes for President of the United States.

John Langdon, Esquire, was elected.

Ordered, That Mr. Ellsworth inform the House of Representatives, that a quorum of the Senate is formed; that a President is elected for the sole purpose of opening the certificates and counting the votes of the electors of the several states in the choice of a President and Vice President of the United States; and that the Senate is now ready in the Senate Chamber, to proceed, in the presence of the House, to discharge that duty: And that the Senate have appointed one of their members to sit at the Clerk's table to make a list of the votes as they shall be declared; submitting it to the wisdom of the House to appoint one or more of their members for the like purposes--Who reported, that he had delivered the message.

Mr. Boudinot, from the House of Representatives, communicated the following verbal message to the Senate:

"Mr. President: I am directed by the House of Representatives to inform the Senate, that the House is ready forthwith to meet the Senate, to attend the opening and counting of the votes of the Electors of the President and. Vice President of the United States."--And he withdrew.

Ordered, That Mr. Paterson be a teller on the part of the Senate.

The Speaker and the House of Representatives attended in the Senate chamber, for the purpose expressed in the message delivered by by Ellsworth--and after some time withdrew.

The Senate then proceeded by ballot to the choice of a President of their body, pro tempore.

John Langdon, Esq. was duly elected.

The President elected for the purpose of counting the votes, declared to the Senate, that the Senate and House of Representatives had met, and that he, in their presence, had opened and counted the votes of the electors for President and Vice President of the United States, which were as follow:

Recapitulation of the Votes of the Electors.
• His Excellency George Washington ... 69 votes.
• The Honorable John Adams ... 34
• The Honorable John Jay ... 9
• Robert H. Harrison, Esq. ... 6
• John Rutledge, Esq. ... 6
• John Hancock, Esq. ... 4
• George Clinton, Esq. ... 3
• Samuel Huntington, Esq. ... 2
• John Milton, Esq. ... 2
• James Armstrong, Esq. ... 1
• Edward Telfair, Esq. ... 1
• Benjamin Lincoln, Esq. ... 1

Whereby it appears, that

George Washington, Esq. was unanimously elected President, and

John Adams, Esq. was duly elected Vice President, of the United States of America.

Mr. Madison came from the House of Representatives with the following verbal message:

Mr. President: I am directed by the House of Representatives to inform the Senate, that the House have agreed, that the notifications of the election of the President and of the Vice President of the United States, should be made by such persons, and in such manner, as the Senate shall be pleased to direct. And he withdrew.

Whereupon, the Senate appointed Charles Thomson, Esq. to notify George Washington, Esq. of his election to the office of President of the United States of America, and Mr. Sylvanus Bourn to notify John Adams, Esq. of his election to the office of Vice President of the said United States.

The instructions to the messengers are in the following words...

The verbiage of orders--including a note that the bearers of the news to Washington and Adams should apply to be reimbursed by the Treasury for travel expenses--letters and certificates, with much expression of humbleness and hope for safe and speedy arrival to assume Executive duties all followed.  It all was a bit rushed as the Founding Generation felt its way along.  For the next election, Congress formed a joint House/Senate committee to more formally come up with a plan for counting votes, which is more or less how we do things today.

This ceremony grounds us, connects us with our past, our beginning.  I wonder if people considered just how stable our institutions and traditions have been for a couple centuries, would they fear the incremental changes we see in law and society a little less?  Some of the specific details have of course been altered, but in fundamental ways we're still very much the same.

ntodd

SpeechWorshipNoWantNoFear

Great idea!

ntodd 

Speaking Of The Fourteenth Amendment (Again)

Politico:

[T]he White House says the 14th Amendment is off the table, casting doubt on the legal merits of the strategy. Press secretary Jay Carney stated in December that “this administration does not believe that the 14th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling — period.”

If Obama does try to lift the limit on his own, at least one Republican has threatened a constitutional counter of his own: impeachment.

“Maybe we’ll start talking about impeachment on the floor of the House here,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who believes the debt ceiling is among Republicans’ few remaining fiscal constraints. “Really, President Obama should not try this.”

Go ahead.  Who the fuck cares about impeachment?  Obama will gar-on-teed be acquitted by the Senate.  Ya got nuthin.

Obama invoking the 14th Amendment would amount to “a nuclear bomb,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican and chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.

“We certainly wouldn’t let it stand,” Brady said, though he didn’t mention impeachment. “This is America’s debt. It is serious business and not something to play a legal and political game with.”

Yeah, it is serious business and not something to play a game with.  So why is your caucus hellbent on doing just that and not letting the Treasury pay back debts created by your appropriations, motherfucker?

But while conservatives argue that invoking the 14th Amendment is unconstitutional, Democrats say that’s up to the Supreme Court.

I'm betting that'll end up being deemed a political question.  C'mon, let's try it and see what happens!

ntodd

It Takes Some Number To Tango

Brooklynbadboy at dKos:

I may be an idealist, by I suspect that our Founding Fathers did not design our government policies to essentially come down to private negotiations between two men. 

May I introduce you to Messrs Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison?

ntodd

Aw, Prairie Shit!

Apropos of the 14th Amendment...

ntodd 

Our Native Originalism Is The Best

True to form, the House GOP kicks off the 113th Congress with lots of laughable bills, including one sponsored by Steve King that is clearly an unconstitutional redefinition of birthright citizenship.  It's clearly based on the same kind of tortured "logic" and "reading" of "history" and "precedent" as are the usual attacks on Obama's eligibility for the office he just officially was re-elected to.

Besides the plain English of the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, there's also the fascinating Senate debate of May 30, 1866, and clear decisions in Elk v Wilkins and US v Wong Kim Ark.  I won't do my usual TLDR excerpting, but read all that without cherrypicking and you cannot come away with any honest interpretation other than the obvious: born here, you're a US citizen.  Period.  Full stop.  The.  End.

I did want to highlight just one section of the Senate debate delivered by John Conness, an Irishman representing California:

The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States.
...

Now, then, I beg the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania, though it may be very good capital in an electioneering campaign to declaim against the Chinese, not to give himself any trouble about the Chinese, but to confine himself entirely to the injurious effects of this provision upon the encouragement of a Gypsy invasion of Pennsylvania. I had never heard myself of the invasion of Pennsylvania by Gypsies. I do not know, and I do not know that the honorable Senator can tell us, how many Gypsies the census shows to be within the State of Pennsylvania. The only invasion of Pennsylvania within my recollection was an invasion very much worse and more disastrous to the State, and more to be feared and more feared, than that of Gypsies. It was an invasion of rebels, which this amendment, if Iunderstand it aright, is intended to guard against and to prevent the recurrence of.
...
But why all this talk about Gypsies and Chinese? I have lived in the United States for now many a year, and really I have heard more about Gypsies within the last two or three months than I have heard before in my life. It cannot be because they have increased so much of late. It cannot be because they have been felt to be particularly oppressive in this or that locality. It must be that the Gypsy element is to be added to our political agitation, so that hereafter the Negro alone shall not claim our entire attention.

Here is a simple declaration that a score or a few score of human beings born in the United States shall be regarded as citizens of the United States, entitled to civil rights, to the right of equal defense, to the right of equal punishment for crime with other citizens; and that such a provision should be deprecated by any person having or claiming to have a high humanity passes all my understanding and comprehension.

Which nicely leads to legal scholar Garrett Epps:

It is...ahistorical to suggest that the Framers did not foresee the legal and social characteristics of what we today call "illegal" or "undocumented" immigrants. They did; and they rather categorically stated that these characteristics—ineligibility for citizenship, unacceptability as members of the body politic, isolation from American culture and systematic evasion of American law—would not constitute exceptions to the Amendment‘s grant of birthright citizenship.
...
Each generation imagines that its problems are different from those of all who have come before. We have no idea what America will look like in 2110; but we do know that the United States of 1866 survived to become the United States of 2010. It seems, then, that the changes they faced were less wrenching than those we face. They were guaranteed a happy ending; it is right there in the history textbook.

But that is a cast of mind, not a historical conclusion. America in 1866 was a nation as profoundly transformed by immigration as it is in 2010. Issues of language, culture, religion, social mores and other aspects of the American identity were as salient then as they were now. We would be making a profound historical error to imagine that the generation that framed the Clause was unaware that migration was a transformative and often destabilizing force in American society.
...
Further, the ongoing debate about assimilation of new immigrant populations—along with persistent fears that whichever group is entering the U.S. most recently brings with it new and insoluble differences of language, culture and loyalty—is quite literally as old as the Republic. The very first "national security" crisis in the American Republic—the "Quasi War" with France—sparked a panic that French immigrants were subversive, disloyal, and unassimilable. Similar strains of nativism resounded through the national debate from that moment until the end of the Civil War.

Well, no duh.

ntodd

In The Bleak Midwinter

Frosty wind made moan...

ntodd

Going Postal

Harry Reid noted something else today:

Too many good pieces of legislation have died over the last two years because House Republican leaders insist on passing legislation with a majority of the Majority, that is, only Republicans. Democrats were ignored.

For example, postal reform...

Regular readers might recall I'm a fairly big fan of the US Postal Service.  It's interesting to me that in the first coupla weeks of the Third Congress, this was the order of business:

Seems like communication is on par with military preparedness in importance, going back to the beginning of our fair Republic.  Why does House Republicans hate the Founding Generation?

ntodd

Fill This, Buster

Majority Leader Reid today:

[S]triving to be more productive will do little if we do not address the major reason for our inefficiency. The Senate is simply not working as it should. That is why, in the last Congress, I made plain that Democrats would do something to fix these issues.

The beginning of a new Congress is customarily a time that the Senate addresses changes to its rules. In the last Congress, Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Tom Harkin and Sheldon Whitehouse made the majority's case for change. I commend these passionate leaders. They have made compelling arguments for reform.

In recent months, Senators on both sides of the aisle set about trying to broker a compromise.  This group was led by Democratic Senator Levin and Republican Senator McCain. I thank them for their many hours of work and negotiation.

But in the waning weeks of the last Congress, Senators were justifiably occupied with other matters, including a resolution of the fiscal cliff. And I believe this matter warrants additional debate during the 113th Congress. Senators deserve additional notice before voting to change Senate rules.

So today I will follow the precedents set in 2005 and again in 2011. We will reserve the right of all Senators to propose changes to the Senate rules. And we will explicitly not acquiesce in the carrying over of all the rules from the last Congress. It is my intention that the Senate will recess today, rather than adjourn, to continue the same legislative day, and allow this important rules discussion to continue later this month.

I am confident the Republican leader and I can come to an agreement that allows the Senate to work more efficiently.

Levin and McCain are old-school and full of shit.  Merkley and Udall appear to have 51 votes, or damn close to it.  Make the obstructionist motherfuckers stand and talk at least, and do away with motions to proceed.  Time for a new rulebook...

ntodd

In Olden Times

Before the 20th Amendment, the Constitution had said: The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.  

Early on they did appoint different Days, but nowadays it's fixed at January 3rd (though Congress can still change that through legislation).  But why December in the first place?

Tied to an agriculturally based economy, with its cycle of planting, growing and harvesting, these farmer-statesmen considered the dormant month of December as a particularly good time for members of Congress to begin, rather than end, their legislative sessions.
...
In September 1788, after the necessary three-quarters of the states ratified the Constitution, the existing Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, passed...a law, setting March 4, 1789, as the convening date of the First Congress.

March 4 thereby became the starting point for members’ terms of office, while future legislative sessions would begin in early December.

In its closing days, however, the First Congress provided that the Second Congress would convene several weeks early, on October 24, 1791.

Not until the Third Congress met on December 2, 1793, did a first session begin according to the Constitution’s "First Monday in December" timetable.

Today the Senate went through the bootstrapping motions as it has done more or less in the same way 112 times before.  Swear folks in.  Pass some resolutions informing the House and President that they're in session.  

At the start of the Third Congress, Senators then received word that the President would speak to them the following noon.  Sayeth George Washington:

Permit me to bring to your remembrance the magnitude of your task. Without an unprejudiced coolness, the welfare of the Government may be hazarded; without harmony, as far as consists with freedom of sentiment, its dignity may be lost. But, as the Legislative proceedings of the United States will never, I trust, be reproached for the want of temper or of candour; so shall not the public happiness languish, from the want of my strenuous and warmest co-operation.

Soon thereafter, liberal bloggers called him a sellout for showing willingness to work with Congress, despite only having a majority in the Senate, with an anti-administration House.

ntodd

I Agree With Peter King?

Raw:

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Thursday asked Rep. Peter King (R-NY) if he agreed with conservatives who wondered if “we really need assault weapons all across America?”

“Joe, I fully agree with you,” King replied. “I voted for the Assault Weapons Ban back in 1994. My father was a police officer. I really don’t know why people need assault weapons.”

“I’m not a hunter but I understand people who want to hunt. I understand people who live in rough neighborhoods or have a small business and want to maintain a pistol to protect themselves as long as they’re properly vetted and licensed. But an assault weapon?”

The New York Republican added: “Listen, I’m sure 99 percent of people with assault weapons are good Americans. But to give that potential to a mass murderer who would be able to outarm the police who as we saw could carry out the worst devastation?”

“Why the issue of an assault weapon should even be on the table, why we want to identify with that when it’s a vocal minority, but it is a minority who support these weapons.”

“It’s a minority that gets in the way of us arguing important issues,” Scarborough agreed.

Will wonders never cease...

ntodd

There's No Intelligent Life Down Here

Happy Birthday, StarTAC!  A friend of mine slapped down a grand for his soon as they came out in 96.  I waited until May and paid about 400 bucks.  I also convinced our CFO to pay part of my monthly bill (about $90 for 90 minutes talk time, no texting), and soon thereafter it became company-wide policy.  Mind you, this was still the Dark Ages when businessfolk lined up at the payphone banks to make calls.

It was actually a bit embarrassing for me to have a phone at all, even though I thought the damned thing was so cool.  Best feature: small enough I could slip it into my pants pocket, so didn't have to wear a belt clip like the posers with their bigassed phones.

The reason I got it was a really annoying experience teaching a lab for UPS in Mahwah, NJ.  Major communications issues when half of my networking equipment wasn't shipped to the location, and I couldn't get into the facility to do any setup the night before class started.  As a very new instructor, that stressed me out, but it wasn't so nearly stressful as this:

Beam me up...

ntodd

The Poet Is A Little God

Hours:

A small town
A train stopped on the plain

Deaf stars sleep
                              in every puddle
And the water trembles
Curtains to the wind

                   Night hangs in the grove

A lively drizzle
From the flower-covered steeple
                          Bleeds the stars

         Now and then
         Ripe hours

                   Drop on life

By Vicente Huidobro.

ntodd

Tennessee Waltz

Godspeed.

ntodd 

Nefarious Projects Can No Longer Be Supported By A Name

Some people didn't like the President:

If ever a nation has been debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation has been deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington. Let his conduct, then, be an example to future ages. Let it serve to be a warning that no man may be an idol. Let the history of the Federal government instruct mankind that the mark of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest designs against the liberties of the people.

Really, really didn't like him:

[T]he man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was a period of rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to beat high with exultation that the name of Washington from this day ceased to give a currency to political iniquity and to legalized corruption...

When a retrospect is taken of the Washington administration for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment, that a single individual should have cankered the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people, just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts; and with these staring us in the face, this day ought to be a jubilee in the United States.

At least he wasn't a Kenyan Muslim Socialist...

ntodd