What a strange combination of junk science (eugenics 2.0) and “I got mine, screw you” and the brown paper bag test. This is the wisdom of the master race?
Indeed. What was the dissent thinking, or was it concentrated on doing Trump’s will? You can be sure he will try to lean on Congress and the Senate, but he can’t even get the SAVE Act (toxic, discriminatory and unconstitutional) passed.
It’s also like Albert Speer’s ideas for rebuilding Berlin on the Nazi model. His structures thankfully remained on the drawing board. The Arc du Trump is a particularly narcissistic concept and an architectural excrescence, especially with the drawing of Trump’s fist on top.
Lawyers who believe in the actual law should form a law firm now and begin the process of striking down all of this junk these guys have enacted since Trump put them on the Court. I know it sounds daunting and will take probably 25-30 years but might as well get started. Just need a non-right wing President first who who gets in office at the right time who will replace Thomas and Alito specifically when they check out of the hotel.
Sometimes the constitution is a living document, sometimes it's etched in stone and strict originalism is the only lens.These views come from the same justice in different opinions. Depends on which view supports his politics.
Does it really matter that much what the legitimate or illegitimate reasons are for conferring citizenship on all persons born here? What are those percentages and are they significant in relation to the overall population of the country? What really matters is humanitarian. Why render a newborn stateless through no fault of their own simply because the mother is an immigrant seeking citizenship or an alien immigrant who knowingly wanted US citizenship for her child and came to the US for that purpose? Being stateless is no small matter in having no identity to claim basic rights. Newborns should not have to pay the price.
For the so-called textualists among the dissenters, I would have thought that the absence of limiting language in the text of the 14th A would be a signpost to them of the broad sweep of the Amendment.
It doesn't limit the availability of birthright citizenship to the descendants of, for example, "freedmen" or "former slaves." Instead, it begins with "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..."
"All..." A specific, purposeful choice by the drafters.
Last time I looked, "All" means, y'know, ALL, not "most," or "many," or "some." It admits of no exceptions, other than absence of jurisdiction.
The dissenters wasted their breath on irrelevance when they disingenuously sought to distract us with arguments about how that the Congress that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment did not have to consider some of the exigencies of our time such as widespread illegal immigration, anchor babies, and birth tourism.
Our Constitution clearly and explicitly specified who could craft remedies (and how) to new exigencies as they arise. In Article I, the People vested in Congress the power "To make all Laws" that turn out to "be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" all the "Powers" of Congress "and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." If laws are necessary and proper to deal with the problems of "widespread illegal immigration," "anchor babies," and "birth tourism," the People in our Constitution already established how such problems must be addressed--in laws enacted by Congress (either with the President's approval or with the approval of 2/3 of each house).
To support the foregoing process, the People in Article II commanded that the President "shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." In Article I the People commanded that if the President doesn't approve of a law as written by Congress, "he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it."
I don’t know of Justice Jackson included in her concurrence, the history and evolution of the wording of the 14th Amendment. It’s not mentioned here, that I saw, so I’ll include an excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson’s post from yesterday. The intent with the wording was very clear to include all persons—it was not limited to former slaves. (I don’t know how to toggle back and forth in Substack, so I’ll post this link and return with the actual quote. It’s one of those instances where you just gotta love people who are determined to make right against hatred. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-30-2026?selection=8e8d8b57-7d5e-44ee-ac8a-3e79024910cb&r=5k9s3t&utm_medium=ios
“When Republicans tried to enshrine civil rights into federal law in 1866, Johnson objected that the proposed law ‘comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called Gipsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks’ as citizens, and he noted that if ‘all persons who are native-born already are, by virtue of the Constitution, citizens of the United States, the passage of the pending bill cannot be necessary to make them such.’ And if they weren’t already citizens, he wrote, Congress should not pass a law ‘to make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes citizens of the United States’ when eleven southern states were not represented in Congress.
“When Congress wrote the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, it took Johnson’s admonition to heart. It did not confer citizenship on the groups Johnson outlined; it simply acknowledged that the Constitution had already established their citizenship. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment reads: ‘All persons 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.’”
I enthusiastically second your recommendation of Justice Jackson's concurrence as an outstanding lesson/sermon for the 250th birthday.
She’s something else, eh? I’m glad she’s young and healthy—and intelligent and witty, of course.
What a strange combination of junk science (eugenics 2.0) and “I got mine, screw you” and the brown paper bag test. This is the wisdom of the master race?
Indeed. What was the dissent thinking, or was it concentrated on doing Trump’s will? You can be sure he will try to lean on Congress and the Senate, but he can’t even get the SAVE Act (toxic, discriminatory and unconstitutional) passed.
Uh-oh, like before the 2024 election. Trump has to fret about that orange jumpsuit … as well as his Il Duce-ish plan to rebuild Washington D.C.
It’s also like Albert Speer’s ideas for rebuilding Berlin on the Nazi model. His structures thankfully remained on the drawing board. The Arc du Trump is a particularly narcissistic concept and an architectural excrescence, especially with the drawing of Trump’s fist on top.
I am a gentleman. I shall refrain from jokes about fisting.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣!
This should have been a 9-0 decision, but it wasn’t. Alito and Thomas just don’t understand their history, neither does Gorsuch.
Lawyers who believe in the actual law should form a law firm now and begin the process of striking down all of this junk these guys have enacted since Trump put them on the Court. I know it sounds daunting and will take probably 25-30 years but might as well get started. Just need a non-right wing President first who who gets in office at the right time who will replace Thomas and Alito specifically when they check out of the hotel.
Gorsuch is actually 3 contradictions in a trenchcoat pretending to be a guy.
Sometimes the constitution is a living document, sometimes it's etched in stone and strict originalism is the only lens.These views come from the same justice in different opinions. Depends on which view supports his politics.
Yeah, that was.... striking
Does it really matter that much what the legitimate or illegitimate reasons are for conferring citizenship on all persons born here? What are those percentages and are they significant in relation to the overall population of the country? What really matters is humanitarian. Why render a newborn stateless through no fault of their own simply because the mother is an immigrant seeking citizenship or an alien immigrant who knowingly wanted US citizenship for her child and came to the US for that purpose? Being stateless is no small matter in having no identity to claim basic rights. Newborns should not have to pay the price.
For the so-called textualists among the dissenters, I would have thought that the absence of limiting language in the text of the 14th A would be a signpost to them of the broad sweep of the Amendment.
It doesn't limit the availability of birthright citizenship to the descendants of, for example, "freedmen" or "former slaves." Instead, it begins with "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..."
"All..." A specific, purposeful choice by the drafters.
Last time I looked, "All" means, y'know, ALL, not "most," or "many," or "some." It admits of no exceptions, other than absence of jurisdiction.
Anyway, keep up the great work, CG.
The dissenters wasted their breath on irrelevance when they disingenuously sought to distract us with arguments about how that the Congress that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment did not have to consider some of the exigencies of our time such as widespread illegal immigration, anchor babies, and birth tourism.
Our Constitution clearly and explicitly specified who could craft remedies (and how) to new exigencies as they arise. In Article I, the People vested in Congress the power "To make all Laws" that turn out to "be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" all the "Powers" of Congress "and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." If laws are necessary and proper to deal with the problems of "widespread illegal immigration," "anchor babies," and "birth tourism," the People in our Constitution already established how such problems must be addressed--in laws enacted by Congress (either with the President's approval or with the approval of 2/3 of each house).
To support the foregoing process, the People in Article II commanded that the President "shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." In Article I the People commanded that if the President doesn't approve of a law as written by Congress, "he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it."
I don’t know of Justice Jackson included in her concurrence, the history and evolution of the wording of the 14th Amendment. It’s not mentioned here, that I saw, so I’ll include an excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson’s post from yesterday. The intent with the wording was very clear to include all persons—it was not limited to former slaves. (I don’t know how to toggle back and forth in Substack, so I’ll post this link and return with the actual quote. It’s one of those instances where you just gotta love people who are determined to make right against hatred. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-30-2026?selection=8e8d8b57-7d5e-44ee-ac8a-3e79024910cb&r=5k9s3t&utm_medium=ios
Here’s the quote:
“When Republicans tried to enshrine civil rights into federal law in 1866, Johnson objected that the proposed law ‘comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called Gipsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks’ as citizens, and he noted that if ‘all persons who are native-born already are, by virtue of the Constitution, citizens of the United States, the passage of the pending bill cannot be necessary to make them such.’ And if they weren’t already citizens, he wrote, Congress should not pass a law ‘to make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes citizens of the United States’ when eleven southern states were not represented in Congress.
“When Congress wrote the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, it took Johnson’s admonition to heart. It did not confer citizenship on the groups Johnson outlined; it simply acknowledged that the Constitution had already established their citizenship. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment reads: ‘All persons 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.’”
(So, Justice Thomas is wrong.)
Donald Trump's father was born in New York to a non-citizen mother who arrived six months pregnant.!