Court to Consider Birthright Citizenship Today. President Trump to Address Nation Tonight. The Ms. Must Challenge: Can Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Sentences Be Paraphrased? Poor Mr. Noem. More
All eyes are on SCOTUS today.
The Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the fraught matter of birthright citizenship today after handing down a major free speech ruling yesterday.
The Court will address the constitutionality of President Trump’s Executive Order to exclude from automatic citizenship the children of illegal aliens. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that the Trump EO would “change the settled meaning” of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On the same page, Georgetown University’s renowned constitutional lawyer, Randy E. Barnett, argues that “Trump is right on birthright citizenship”:
President Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of nonresident aliens goes before the Supreme Court Wednesday, and conventional wisdom has it that the president will lose in Trump v. Barbara. If the court stays true to the original meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, however, the conventional wisdom will prove wrong.
The constitutional debate is about the original concept embodied in the text that explains these exclusions and whether that concept embraces or excludes children born on U.S. soil to parents who are unlawfully or temporarily in the U.S. The court has never squarely addressed this question.
Dan McLaughlin of National Review argues that the “constitutional case against birthright citizenship is strongest when dealing with the children of transients through the country.” The respected Civil War historian Allen C. Guelzo raises the specter of “larger questions about blood, soil,” in the Washington Monthly. Fox Digital has an exhaustive and highly recommended report on “the issues at stake.” President Trump is threatening to attend oral arguments, which would be a first for a sitting president.
In yesterday’s landmark ruling, the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado ban on therapists even discussing conversion therapy with patients. An editorial in the Washington Post hails the ruling for repelling “an egregious assault’ on the First Amendment.” “Conversion Therapy Is Controversial. It’s Also Free Speech” is a headline at The Free Press. Jed Rubenfeld led off TFP story this way:
Can a state permit therapists to assist in “transitioning” the gender of minors but bar them from assisting kids who want to “detransition”? Can therapists be stopped from encouraging kids who feel unsure about their gender to become more comfortable with their biological sex? In an 8-1 decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court answered those questions with a resounding no. It’s a victory for free speech—and, to be perfectly honest, for sanity.
Some news outlets described the ruling as “almost unanimous.” It was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who produced a lone dissent. Fox Digital:
Jackson’s fiery 35-page dissent, which she read from the bench when the high court announced the opinion, was longer than the majority opinion and Kagan’s concurrence combined.
“Professional medical speech does not intersect with the marketplace of ideas: ‘In the context of medical practice we insist upon competence, not debate,’” Jackson, a Biden appointee wrote, later adding, “Treatment standards exist in America.”
Gentle Reader, can you paraphrase Justice Jackson’s highlighted sentence above? I know I can’t. I wonder if Jackson can. More from the linked Fox Digital story:
Fellow liberal Justice Elena Kagan criticized Jackson for failing to acknowledge case law that governs when speech can be regulated in the medical field, marking a rare public break between two justicestypically aligned in cases centered on high-profile cultural issues.
Justice Sotomayor agreed with Justice Kagan. Perhaps the Babylon Bee has the final word:
KBJ: ‘How Can a Law Be Unconstitutional If I Like It?’
President Trump is set to address the nation tonight on the Iran War. The president told reporters yesterday in the Oval Office that the U.S. will leave Iran “very soon.” He mentioned a timeline of two weeks. What the president says to our allies tonight will be interesting. From NBC:
President Donald Trump has urged allies who didn’t join the war but are facing fuel shortages to “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.” The United States “won’t be there to help you anymore,” he said, adding that “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
Meanwhile, the U.A.E. wants the Strait of Hormuz open and is prepared to join the U.S. in the fight. Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino advanced the shocking notion yesterday that President Trump may not care that much about the midterms:
“He’s not running for president again. If it’s the midterms, I don’t know if he cares that much. He is going to do what he can, but he understands history and knows that it’s probably likely that the Republicans won’t be able to hold it even if they try,” she added, noting that the “political price” is not weighing in on some of Trump’s “tough decisions.”
The stock market appears to be happy with an end (perhaps) in sight. In other news, Secretary of State Marco Rubio asks why the U.S. is in NATO if NATO allies did not permit the U.S. to use their air bases for the Iran war, and President Trump issues an Executive Order aimed at tightening rules for mail-in voting.
“Will the Insane Shutdown Ever End?” is the headline on Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York’s latest offering. York’s lead is a humdinger:
It seems weird to say, but Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., appears to believe Democrats have honored the memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by withholding the pay of Transportation Security Administration workers at the nation’s airports for more than six weeks. …
The short version is that Schumer and his colleagues took aim at ICE and hit TSA. Some 50,000 TSA airport officials across the country found their paychecks stopped because Schumer was unhappy with another agency’s enforcement of federal immigration law.
“Is ‘White Supremacy’ Causing an ‘Epidemic’ of Transgender Murders?” is the headline on a City Journal story. Huh? City Journal notes:
The problem is that many of these claims just don’t add up. Transgender people are less likely to be murdered than the rest of the population, most transgender people are murdered by members of their own race, and intimate partner violence—not hate—is the leading identified motive for most such murders….
While every death is doubtless a tragedy, we think the evidence is clear: the “epidemic” narrative has no basis in reality. Continuing to point the finger of blame at white supremacy and hatred will do nothing to serve the transgender people whose lives are taken every year for different—and preventable—reasons.
Hot Air has a nice post by John Sexton headlined “LA Times: Leaving California is Golden”:
It’s a pretty simple idea. You’re doing well enough to have a decent life in California but you’re always going to struggle to cross that line from renter to homeowner. The mortgage on that first house is just a bit more than you can comfortably afford. However, if you move to a nearby state like Arizona or Texas, your same salary will go a lot farther and you’ll be able to buy a nice house for the price of renting in California. So why stay?
Meanwhile, Jason Riley weighs in on what he considers “The Tragic Tale of Tiger Woods.” Unlike the rest of us, sports celebrities have to deal with their demons in public. But would it be too much to ask Tiger to hire a driver to keep the rest of us safe?
Unherd’s promo email this morning features a picture with the caution: “Warning: the below image is not an April Fool’s joke.” It is a grotesque, busty picture of poor Byron Noem, whom the U.K. Daily Mail has ousted as a crossdresser. The New York Post put Mr. Noem on the cover and has an extensive story:
Noem addressed shocking photos in a statement to The Post, saying she is “devastated.”
“The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for privacy and prayers at the time.”
A simple “no comment” would have been sufficient, Ms. Noem. Poor man.
