Trump: January 6 Committee Should Be in Jail, January 6 Rioters Should Be Freed
It's going to be a long four years.
BBC (“Trump vows to end birthright citizenship and pardon US Capitol rioters“):
President-elect Donald Trump has said he will look at pardons for those involved in the 2021 US Capitol riot on his first day back in office next month.
“These people are living in hell,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in his first broadcast network interview since winning November’s election.
The Republican also vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the country, but offered to work with Democrats to help some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children.
In the wide-ranging sit-down, which was recorded on Friday, Trump promised to issue “a lot” of executive orders, including on immigration, energy and the economy, after he is inaugurated on 20 January.
While he suggested he would not seek a justice department investigation into Joe Biden, he said that some of his political adversaries, including lawmakers who investigated the Capitol riot, should be jailed.
Trump was asked whether he would seek to pardon the hundreds of people convicted of involvement in that riot, when supporters of his stormed Congress three months after his defeat in the 2020 election.
“We’re going to look at independent cases,” he said. “Yeah, but I’m going to be acting very quickly.”
“First day,” he added.
Trump continued: “You know, by the way, they’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
If the focus here weren’t on those who took part in the pro-Trump Capitol riots, I would actually applaud his instincts here. While I have little insight as to where the people convicted of related crimes are incarcerated—although I suspect most of them are in minimum security facilities—our prison system writ large is a national disgrace. Alas, I strongly suspect his sympathies are limited to his cronies.
The rest of the interview was not a lot better:
The president-elect made other news in the NBC interview aired on Sunday:
- He offered a caveat on whether he would keep the US in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato): “If they’re paying their bills, and if I think they’re doing a fair – they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely, I’d stay with Nato”
- Trump said he would not seek to impose restrictions on abortion pills, though when asked to make a guarantee, he added: “Well, I commit. I mean… things change”
- The Republican said Ukraine should “probably” expect less aid when he returns to the White House
- Trump said he thinks “somebody has to find out” if there is a link between autism and childhood vaccines – an idea that has been ruled out by multiple studies around the world. Trump suggested his nominee for health secretary, vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr, would look into the matter
- The president-elect repeated his promise that he will not seek to cut Social Security, nor raise its eligibility age, though he said he would make it “more efficient”, without offering further details
- Pressed on whether his plan to impose tariffs on imports from major US trading partners would raise consumer prices for Americans, he said: “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow”
On the subject of immigration, Trump told NBC he would seek through executive action to end so-called birthright citizenship, which entitles anyone born in the US to an American passport, even if their parents were born elsewhere.
Birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that “all persons born” in the United States “are citizens of the United States”.
“We’re going to have to get it changed,” Trump said. “We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.”
Trump also said he would follow through on his campaign pledge to deport undocumented immigrants, including those with family members who are US citizens.
“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” he said, “so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”
In fairness, most of this is consistent with both his most recent re-election campaign and his previous statements as both candidate and President.
Still, he rather clearly still doesn’t understand how NATO functions. It’s an alliance of countries provide for their own defense and agree to come to the aid of the others if attacked, not a dues-paying club. It’s true that they have pledged to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense and that some have consistently fallen short of that target. As of this year, though, almost all of them meet or exceed that goal.
Similarly, while I’m persuadable that we’re spending too much on Ukraine’s defense, I get the strong sense that Trump’s view on the matter isn’t based on concern over interest payments on our national debt overwhelming our national budget or that it’s taking away resources from the competition with China that has ostensibly been our top security priority since 2011. Rather, it seems to reflect his comfort with authoritarian leaders in general and Vladimir Putin in particular.
As to birthright citizenship, I’m amenable to reforms. It was part of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment and was mostly aimed at overturning the Dred Scott decision and the 3/5 Compromise and making it crystal clear that the former slaves were full citizens of the country. We had an entirely different conception of immigration in 1868 and there was no such thing as an “illegal” immigrant. (That would change by the end of the century.)
But the text of Section 1 and the Supreme Court has consistently ruled against Congress’ power to take away citizenship. (They did, however, allow extending birthright citizenship to American Indians.) While I suppose this court, which has recently become willing to revisit long-settled precedents, would allow Trump to do this by Executive Order, it would almost surely require a Constitutional Amendment. They are nearly impossible pass absent overwhelming national consensus. It does not exist on this issue.
Further, there’s no way an Amendment would be retroactive. And the notion that we would deport children born as American citizens as part of a package to deport their parents just boggles the mind.
The vaccination-autism link has long since been debunked and it’s frustrating to have a President stoking the nonsense. Childhood vaccinations have virtually eradicated scores of once deadly or debilitating diseases. It would be insane to reverse course on that.
NBC News (“Trump will ‘most likely’ pardon Capitol rioters on day one and says Jan. 6 committee members should be jailed“) highlights other alarming statements.
With regard to pardoning the rioters:
Trump said there “may be some exceptions” to his pardons “if somebody was radical, crazy,” and pointed to some debunked claims that anti-Trump elements and law enforcement operatives infiltrated the crowd.
[…]
Trump didn’t rule out pardoning people who had pleaded guilty, even when Welker asked him about those who had admitted assaulting police officers.
“Because they had no choice,” Trump said.
Asked about the more than 900 other people who had pleaded guilty in connection to the attack but weren’t accused of assaulting officers, Trump suggested that they had been pressured unfairly into taking guilty pleas.
“I know the system. The system’s a very corrupt system,” Trump said. “They say to a guy, ‘You’re going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.’ And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed. For two years, they’ve been destroyed. But the system is a very nasty system.”
Like many Republicans at the time, I was quite critical of Maxine Waters and other fringe Democrats for excusing the violence surrounding the Los Angeles riots in the wake of the exoneration of the officers charged in the Rodney King beating. That a former and future Republican President is saying that people had “no choice” but to assault sworn officers protecting Members of Congress from an angry mob boggles the mind.
[UPDATE: @Charley in Cleveland suggested that I might have misinterpreted Trump’s remarks here. Looking at the interview transcript, he’s right. While he’s a bit rambly, in context, it’s clear that is saying “they had no choice” but plead guilty because prosecutors we offering an option between risking a very long prison term or pleading out to a modest one, not that they had no choice but to assault the officers.]
Trump said he wouldn’t direct Pam Bondi, whom he has said he will nominate for attorney general, to investigate special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two separate federal cases against Trump that were ultimately dropped after the election. Trump called Smith “deranged” and said he thinks he is “very corrupt.” Ultimately, he said, he’d leave those decisions to Bondi, and he said he wouldn’t direct her to prosecute Smith.
“I want her to do what she wants to do,” Trump said. “I’m not going to instruct her to do it.”
Trump claimed that members of the House Jan. 6 committee had “lied” and “destroyed a whole year and a half worth of testimony.”
He singled out Republican Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, a vocal Trump critic who left Congress, and Democrat Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, who chaired the committee, saying that they had destroyed the evidence collected in their investigation and that “those people committed a major crime.”
[…]
“Honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said about the committee members, insisting he wouldn’t direct his appointees to arrest them.
This is, frankly, deranged.
He offered a caveat on whether he would keep the US in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato): “If they’re paying their bills, and if I think they’re doing a fair – they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely, I’d stay with Nato”
He still thinks NATO allies are paying annual fees to us – somehow – as opposed to living up to the pledge of spending up to 2% of their government budgets on defense and military costs. Americans are so isolated from the world that we can believe this nonsense with no cost to ourselves. We are so screwed.
Hey, James, what’s with all the “in fairness” caveats? I don’t see any reason to be fair to Trump’s messed up views of reality. Maybe I just have higher standards for the president of my country.
“Trump will ‘most likely’ pardon Capitol rioters on day one and says Jan. 6 committee members should be jailed“
And this is why President Biden will be issuing a massive of amount of pardons, and I would imagine fairly soon.
The folks he pardons will not care if the cloud of guilt envelops them due to the pardon, it will prevent them from being constantly harassed by the GOP and dragged into situation after situation that will slowly bankrupt them.
Trump is pretty much daring President Biden to go forward with his mass pardon declaration, and if I were President Biden I would happily take the bait.
Ha. But innocent people don’t need pardons, lest they be perceived as guilty lol. Trump-induced naiveté springs eternal.
Hopefully, Biden’s people are already in communication with Cheney, Kinzinger, Schiff, Thompson et al.
Did the interviewer even ask on what charges could Cheney et al be charged?
On birthright citizenship, this is common practice in countries that don’t base citizenship in blood ties or ethnicity. For instance, Mexico’s constitution grants citizenship to anyone born in the country, or even in a Mexican flagged vessel or aircraft. Also to anyone born of at least one Mexican parent, regardless of place of birth.
@Not the IT Dept.:
First, context matters. That the President-Elect is saying that he’s going to follow through on radical promises he made in the campaign is different from him offering radical suggestions out of nowhere. He was arguably elected to try to enact some of these policies.
Second, if we’re going to spend the next four years saying “Trump is a lunatic” or “Trump is a fascist,” we might as well just shut down. There’s zero analytic value in that. I’ve been doing this since the first George W. Bush term and agree with Presidents of both parties when I agree with them, disagree when I disagree, and split the difference where there are kernels of good ideas but room for disagreement.
@Kathy: But most countries don’t share a massive, essentially unsecurable, land border with a country with a wildly lower standard of living. No other country gets tens of thousands of illegal crossings in an average month, let alone hundreds of thousands in surge months, on a sustained basis.
Trump’s “they had no choice” could mean the J6 defendants had no good choice when it came time to plead, not that they had no choice but to assault cops. It’s never easy to get inside Trump’s disordered mind, and there’s already reporting that NBC edited out some of his incoherence.
@Charley in Cleveland: That’s a plausible interpretation!
UPDATE: After reading the transcript of the interview, it’s almost certainly the correct interpretation. I’ve updated the post accordingly.
@JKGirl:
Are you washing your meds down with alcohol again? You know your doctor warned you about that. Better lie down until the effects wear off.
@James Joyner:
Where are those nations bordering on North Korea- Russia, China, but mostly South Korea. The economic differences between any of those three countries and the DPRK is huge. The border with the ROK and China are secure- I don’t know about the small Russia-DPRK border. Land mines and armed border guards are a large disincentive for border crossing hopefuls.
@inhumans99:
Right. Trump always expressed his interest in pardoning his Jan 6th crew, and he has continually expressed a desire for retribution, egged on by his mob.
So there should be no outrage over Biden’s response to Trump’s threats, either in Biden’s mass pardon or his pardon of his son.
These are far from normal times, and this incoming President is constantly stomping all over norms. His sense of “fairness” and justice are only contained within the egotistical shell of his own interest.
The trajectory of political conflict in this country will not be de-escalated
by unilateral martyrdom on the part of the Democrats. It never has.
@JKGirl:
Since it wasn’t a “trial” at all, Goebbles couldn’t top MAGA cultist defenses of the Jan. 6 terrorists — replete with erecting a gallows, screaming “Hang Mike Pence!, smearing feces on the on the walls, and succeeding where Jefferson Davis and Hitler failed: getting Confederate and Nazi insignia in the US Capitol.
But fascist, rapist Trump hates the rules of law, so it tracks his anti-American MAGA cultists defend the J6 criminals. So much all their Back the Blue bs.
The phony hypocrites in Trump’s “Lock Her Up!” are desperate to memory-hole their attempts to jail their opponents.
Trump should be thankful liberals aren’t reacting to his 1.5% win with the sore loser violence showed by MAGA thugs when Biden won by 4.5% in 2020.
If Republicans want to investigate Pelosi, they should. If she committed crimes, she should pay. Doubt they’d have any more luck getting Pelosi to join Trump in the convicted felon column than with Hillary.
But the right would do well do drop the “landslide” pretense and recognize Dems will not be out of power forever. We could use a little scrutiny of Republicans’ stock trades, of Elon Musk’s business empire, and of Musk’s and Melania’s past immigration status (spoiler alert: illegal).
@inhumans99:
Will it prevent harassment? I asked on Saturday whether honor pre-emptive pardons Biden issues. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are either challenged/ignored/or attempted end runs are made around them. Trump is too sick in the head to feel he can’t do any of them.
Cool, do we get to vote on your citizenship too?
@James Joyner:
Does any other country need the labor that comes in through illegal crossings?
IMO, that’s the crux of the problem. Republicans have been whining about immigration for over 40 years, and pretty much done little to nothing to address the issue.
@Kathy:
Back on Saturday I commented on what charges would be made and what would happen if a judge asked to see evidence.
@JKGirl:
Putin’s anti-American MAGA slaves love to parrot his propaganda.
NATO has never bombed Russia, invaded Russia, or threatened nuclear war against Russia. By contrast, Russia has invaded its neighbors 50+ times in the last three hundred years, repeatedly bombed its neighbors, and repeatedly threatened nuclear war against its neighbors.
NATO would not exist if Russia weren’t a bloodthirsty, imperialist, expansionist, warmongering nation constantly attacking neighbors — to distract from its domestic failures and blame its economic and cultural deterioration on anybody but Russia’s crappy leaders and cultural ideas. (Not unlike Nazi Germany’s scapegoating of out groups and imaginary enemies.)
Sadly, Putin can count on the lazy and gullible — Musk, Greenwald, Sacks, Carlson, Rogan, Taibbi and the manchild who love them — to be manipulated by these transparent distraction tactics.
All of this is the same end-stage syphilitic dictator BS he’s been saying for the last year. Did anyone expect him to moderate his tone?
@Hal_10000:
No.
@Bill Jempty: The border between ROK and China is called “The West Sea” in ROK. I should hope it would be pretty secure. 🙁
I say no pardons. If the Trump administration want to go after Liz Cheney or Adam Schiff with the legal system let them try. They have nothing. I would be happy to contribute to their defense fund. If they try, it will draw more attention to what the 1/6 committee did, and why, and what they found. This is not good for Trump.
But Trump will bleat about it a hyperbolic way and then “leave the decision up to” people who have already told him there’s nothing there to prosecute. Because it makes him look strong.
And interestingly, I think his remarks about birthright citizenship are meant to pick a fight that puts Democrats on the other side. Democrats are way to willing to make a deal on border defense funding, which would take away a big issue that he does politics on. I expect tons of bleating from Trump and lots of stuff that courts put a stop to, and nothing that actually helps the problem.
I think we should mock him for his ineffectiveness. He can’t even figure out how to ask a lawyer if something is legal or not.
Careful what you wish for regarding illegal/undocumented immigration.
Florida is already in the FO stage.
Whodathunkit – the people with no power and no money aren’t, in fact, the cause of someone else’s problems.
@Not the IT Dept.: thw caveats stem from the R after the name.
FWIW, @JKGirl has been officially banned. Not only is this a case where a previously banned person is reposting under a new name, but they’ve taken the extra shitty step of spoofing another (unknowing) person’s email to do it.
Unfortunately, that email spoofing seems to be a pattern with this particular agenda troll–which tells you a lot about their character FWIW.
Note to everyone: sock puppeting in general has always been a no-no here. Claiming someone else’s email address as your own is a ban on the first offense.
@Not the IT Dept.:
Honest Naive Question:
Do you think he knows …
… that our NATO allies are providing us with invaluable strategic assets?
Such as many bases that effectively serve to extend the reach of our armed forces ability to defend should any number of imaginable (i.e, after Trump lets Russia takes the Ukraine, they decide they want Romania again) scenarios arise. These bases are often jumping off points for providing logistical support, supplies and services to our military personnel all over the globe.
Trump is just warming up now.
Now I don’t know how defamation laws work but Trump is accusing the Jan 6 committee of committing specific crimes. Trump is not yet President. The SC immunity nonsense does not yet apply. Bury him in lawsuits.
@Charley in Cleveland:
I agree with that, as too does @James Joyner.
I hope this might kick off a conversation about how overly reliant our criminal legal system is on coercive plea bargaining. Not only are their concerns about the trial tax (i.e. if you go to trial you risk both being convicted on the most aggressive issues AND getting additional punitive time added to your sentence for making the state do it’s job), but things like pre-trial detention or release conditions can be an incredibly coercive tool.
To be sure, there is ample evidence that the majority of people who take a plea are guilty of some component of the alleged crimes. But we don’t have a good handle on the percentages of people taking pleas out of coercion.
For the record, this is a problem at both the state and federal levels.
@Stormy Dragon: Immigration law isn’t a significant area of interest that I’ve developed a strong set of preferences. But there are clear absurdities in granting blanket citizenship to anyone who happens to be born here, regardless of the status of their parents. Rather obviously, those born here to citizens and permanent residents should have birthright citizenship. But the children of, for example, foreign military officers who are here on assignment from their government? That’s just weird.
Ditto those whose parents are here illegally. There, though, policy is just incredibly complicated owing to timing. Illegal immigrants whose one-week-old baby was born here shouldn’t be anchored because said baby is a citizen. That makes no sense. Ten years in, it would obviously be awful to deport the kid.
@Kathy: I support a far more generous policy of legal immigration, especially in the form of work visas, than current law. But that’s really a completely different question than birthright citizenship.
@James Joyner:
Perhaps the reporting on this inaccurate, but Trump is threatening Canada with tariff sanctions if they fail to secure the US border* (and stop the flow of Fentanyl).
When did this become such a divisive issue?
* simply typing out the notion that Canada has an obligation to secure the US border seems bizarre.
ETA: BTW, is the standard of living in Canada “wildly lower”?
@James Joyner:..Ten years in, it would obviously be awful to deport the kid.
Where are you going to draw that line?
At 9 years and 364 days send them back to the shit hole country they came from?
@al Ameda: Do you think he knows …
… that our NATO allies are providing us with invaluable strategic assets?
No, of course he doesn’t know. In his universe, it’s always the Americans who are protecting those effete Europeans and those ingrates don’t appreciate it. He definitely doesn’t know about NATO Article 5:
“Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.”
In the 70 year history of the alliance, only once has Article 5 been invoked: after 9/11, when we invoked the article. All 18 allies (at the time) supported us.
Something we might want to remember.
@James Joyner:
Can you legally document a chain of descent back to whichever of your ancestors was first naturalized here? How do we know you’re not the anchor baby of an entire line of Joyners who have been illegally living in this country for generations?
@DK:
Why would Trump fail to demand the harassment (by the DOJ or IRS) of the judges who have not ruled in his favor, or the jurors who sat on his trials?
Meanwhile I expect Trump to nominate Judge Aileen Cannon to the Supreme court, after all she did a spectacular job of protecting Trump.
@James Joyner:
How is that any stupider than what I’m doing with the UK? I get UK citizenship with a couple of bucks and some paperwork even though 1. I’ve never lived there, 2. the only reason I’m a UK citizen is because my idiot dad was born in Peterborough and I was born before 1983. I’ve spent about 2 months total in the UK in my life, which is two months longer than idiot father post 1976.
Also, I’m an anchor baby for him, but no one calls me that because I’m white and he’s English. Guy was stone cold illegal. Family lore is he walked across the Ambassador Bridge and used his accent and charm to talk his way into the US.
I think it was a bad idea, for instance, to discuss the issue of trans people in sports on the merits during the last election cycle. The argument was not offered in good faith. It was bait. It was a distraction. For those of us supporting trans people, it offered a no-win situation. It wasn’t what I cared about the most.
Trump’s remarks on immigration are the same. It is bait. It is meant to distract. It is meant to force you to take a side that alienates you from people.
I can respect James’ dedication to being analytical. But perhaps he shouldn’t be so reactive to Trump, but instead jump into looking at options that are feasible legally and analytically. Do your homework, and use it within your own framing. It’s ok to accept the agenda set by Trump, but don’t engage with his framing. Point-by-point rebuttals of what he said doesn’t seem to accomplish much.
If Trump issues an Exec Order restricting birthright citizenship it will be immediately challenged in court. Most judges would laugh the EO out of court. The appropriately named Judge Ho or someone like him might uphold the EO. It eventually goes to SCOTUS. They will either rule for or against the EO. If for, their abandonment of originalism, at least their reasoning in overturning the black letter Amendment and 150 years of precedent will be entertaining. After all, practice at the Founding was basically – if you’re here, you’re us.
Rejection by SCOTUS would leave Trump the option of dropping it or trying for an amendment. That means either congress or a convention of the states. Some on the right have long wanted a convention I fear they might use this issue to get one. The Kochbro and the tech bros would drive a truck through a constitutional convention. Any amendment still requires ratification by 3/4 of the states, so they’d have to bribe and manipulate a few blue state legislatures or state conventions. They’ve got the money for it.
@DK:
Strange that the same people who condemn the rickety J6 gallows cheer about the “extra judicial” killing of a Healthcare CEO.
Who put the rickety J6 gallows up?
Where is the proof of the J6 rioters smearing feces on the on the walls?
J6 insurectionists smearing feces on the on the walls?
The J6 committee would have shown that video on a loop at their hearings.
…same people…
Please produce evidence and names to support such a claim.
@Bobert:
To my knowledge, no. I live in a Canadian border town and we seem to have a similar living standard.
But I also think that we have less income inequality in Canada. So our superrich may not be quite as well off as American superrich. From a Trumpian perspective that is all that really matters.
Following up my comment above, @gVOR10: , a history question I’ve never seen addressed. When we stole half of Mexico, complete with Mexican citizens, how did they attain U. S. citizenship? Were they declared U.S. citizens? Did they have to wait for the 14th Amendment for their children to get birthright citizenship? Did it matter that where they were born wasn’t the United States, but ll of a sudden it was? I expect we were reluctant to let them vote. Or did the question not really come up because, as I noted above, except for slaves it was pretty much if you were here, you were us? What happened?
Also, too, the Louisiana Purchase? I seem to recall that to do business in New Orleans, Andrew Jackson had to swear allegiance to the King of France, an act that now might cost your citizenship, but then no one cared.
Reminder. Don’t say fascism.
Free and pardon my illegally rioting supporters that were attempting a coup in my name – yes. Jail my political opponents without legal cause or justification because they are against me – yes.
I’m seeing troublesome and very worrying proclivities from our President Elect. But I can’t say the word because protocol.
@Paul L.:
What people are those? You’re not referring to me, to OTB’s hosts, or to those who prosecuted the violent J6 terrorists Trump wants released back onto America’s streets, so to whom do you refer?
The lawless thugs who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, trying to overturn an election Biden won by 8 million votes — defeating Trump, a wannabe fascist and adjudicated rapist who praised his bestie Jeff Epstein for liking “younger” women.
Google.com.
So what? It would have zero effect on you bootlicking MAGA slaves who blindly defend Trump, his terrorists, and his cabal of billionaire oligarchs, frog-voiced heroin addicts like RFK Jr., and crackhead statutory rapists like Matt Gaetz.
@Jay L Gischer:
And it worked. Enough Americans were sufficiently distracted even though Democrats were not. Harris and Democratic candidates did not offer rebuttals to arguments against trans people in sports. Harris/Dems were busy talking housing, healthcare, and protecting liberty and democracy from rightwing extremism.
The one-sided trans “discussion” worked just well enough — even though Democratic campaigns did not take the bait. So expect more of same, until more Americans realize scapegoating trans people and smearing migrants won’t lower the cost of eggs or real estate.
Many of us want to believe there’s some magic alternate winning strategy Democrats could have deployed, but sometimes the political and cultural winds just don’t blow your way. Democrats were fairly successful in 2018, 2020, and 2022 but you cannot win every election.
Sometimes your best friend is determined to go back to their toxic ex, so you just prepare to help console after the inevitable ugly breakup. Sometimes your kids are in a mood to not listen no matter what you say, so you just wait for them to touch the stove, band-aid at the ready.
@Mister Bluster: Republicans must held responsible for their QAnon and the J6 insurrectionist allies rhetoric.
Democrats are not responsible for their BlueAnon and breadtube allies rhetoric.
@Paul L.:…
So you are conceding that Republicans and QAnon are allies and that Republicans are allies of the J6 insurrectionists.
Nothing in your 14:53 post is evidence to support your claim:
@Paul L.:
Today I learned about breadtube and BlueAnon. Never heard about any of this stuff before today.
I had to Google it.
Thanks, Paul L.! Now I know.
This must be huge thing in MAGA and alt-right discourse, but I’d never heard of either before you brought it up.
What’s your point? Look at that not this.
J6 Insurrectionists were actual insurrectionists which is illegal and criminal.
@Paul L.:
So basically, ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue, bounces off me and sticks to you.’
@James Joyner:
On the contrary, I would argue is the cleanest, easiest way to make sure that immigrant populations integrate into broader society over time. I think, too, it undercuts ethnonationalists’ claims to who is a “real” American and therefore sends a powerful signal to who we are.
That there can be odd edge cases may well be true, but I would stridently argue (and probably will write more on this) that the good of it far, far, far outweighs the bad.
@Paul L.: When the Republicans embrace their loonies, and the Democrats shy away of anyone more than a half-step to the left… there’s a difference.
Is Biden promising to pardon everyone in PETA?
@Jay L Gischer:
Indeed. Trump and his GOP partners have a very poor track record when it comes to using the legal system to do things they only claim they will do on the campaign trail. James Comer found out that impeaching Biden just because Trump wanted him to wasn’t really feasible when they needed to provide evidence of actual “high crimes and misdemeanors” in a hearing with witnesses and evidence required.
I’m also hoping that Trump and whichever rubber stamp ends up as AG do go after Cheney, Bennie Thompson, and Adam Schiff. Then, they’ll have to officially name charges and not leave it at nebulously termed corruption. And discovery will be a bitch for Trump, because those people on the impeachment team and J6 committees have the receipts.
But, I don’t think it will come to that. Trump wants to try and convict his enemies in the Court of Public Opinion and he’ll stay away from the Court of Law like the plague.
@Steven L. Taylor:
When I think about countries that don’t allow this, two of the most racist countries I’ve ever been aware of come to mind. China doesn’t allow any naturalization (OK, a few “foreign heroes of the Revolution excepted), and takes it a step farther, considering anyone with “Chinese Blood” to be citizens living abroad and under their jurisdiction, even 10 generations on. Japan was this was way until the last couple of decades when their aging population and lack of people to man the nursing homes scared the hell out of them.
I’m not proposing this is a general rule, but it is worth thinking about.
@James Joyner: “First, context matters. That the President-Elect is saying that he’s going to follow through on radical promises he made in the campaign is different from him offering radical suggestions out of nowhere. He was arguably elected to try to enact some of these policies.”
And the job of decent people is to oppose him.
@MarkedMan:
Please clarify. I am unclear on what you think is worth thinking about.
@Gustopher:
MeidasTouch: Some snitch MAGA Twat ratted out the “heroic” CEO shooter.
@Kathy: Most countries in the Western Hemisphere have birthright citizenship.
@Steven L. Taylor: What I thought was worth thinking about was, “are restrictive citizenship rules associated with racist societies?”
@MarkedMan: Thanks for the clarification. And yes, I think that you are correct that there is often such a correlation.
@James Joyner: 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof..” This is the crux of the argument against birthright citizenship. Naturalized implies those here on immigrant visas, which would seem to exclude those here on non-immigrant visas or here illegally (ie. those who chose not to subject themselves to our immigration law, visa process). Your example of foreign military officers or foreign diplomats (especially those who are not “subject to the laws” by dint of diplomatic immunity) is sp0t on…clearly not the intent of the Founders! Also, even if we extended citizenship to a baby born in the U.S. to foreign parents, why would the parents or family be granted U.S. citizenship by extension? U.S. citizens are not required to live within the U.S. When the U.S. citizen baby turned 18 they could travel to the U.S., no need to extend U.S. citizenship to extended family.
@Mike: That’s not an “and” it’s an “or”. “All persons born or naturalized”. Either branch of that compound can be used to meet the qualification. One branch does not modify the other.
Of course, who can say what a partisan court might rule. They’ve already made more ridiculous rulings.
@Jay L Gischer: Agreed. Was referring to the follow on “subject to the laws thereof” and contrasting those present on IVs with those present on NIVs.
@Jay L Gischer: Agreed. Was referring to the follow on “subject to the laws thereof” and contrasting those present on IVs with those present on NIVs.
@Paul L.:
Well, except for the fact that they don’t. Cite?