Biden's running mate

[Mountain Man]

...consider the source.

We consider the source every time you post, Jimmy.

[Whateverman]

We consider the source every time you post, Jimmy.

Personal attacks in lieu of responding to the topic being discussed?

ChrINO.

[JimL]

And his argument is BS. The law says no such thing. It simply says a natural born citizen which is exactly what being born in the US makes one. He has no argument in law to the contrary other than in his own imagination. Eastman is a far right wing homophobic lawyer, so consider the source. if you actually read Article 2, you'd recognize that one didn't even need to be a natural born citizen, or be born in the US at the time, you only had to be a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

Come to think of it, not one of the founding fathers themselves were natural born citizens, because they were born before the country even existed.

[seanD]

And his argument is BS. The law says no such thing. It simply says a natural born citizen which is exactly what being born in the US makes one. He has no argument in law to the contrary other than in his own imagination. Eastman is a far right wing homophobic lawyer, so consider the source. if you actually read Article 2, you'd recognize that one didn't even need to be a natural born citizen, or be born in the US at the time, you only had to be a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

And there it is. How to win a political argument when you can't dispute the facts of the argument 101:

Rule 1) Dismiss the argument as a nutty conspiracy theory.
Rule 2) Accuse the arguer of being a far right sexist, racist, homophobe... etc.

[Whateverman]

And his argument is BS. The law says no such thing. It simply says a natural born citizen which is exactly what being born in the US makes one. He has no argument in law to the contrary other than in his own imagination. Eastman is a far right wing homophobic lawyer, so consider the source. if you actually read Article 2, you'd recognize that one didn't even need to be a natural born citizen, or be born in the US at the time, you only had to be a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

And there it is. How to win a political argument when you can't dispute the facts of the argument 101

And there it is: the complete unwillingness to read a political post and respond to what it actually said.

Jim did address the "facts of the argument". He noted that a natural born citizen [which] is exactly what being born in the US makes one - which directly addresses and refutes the claim that Harris wasn't subject to the jurisdiction of the US court/government systems.

Look, you don't have to agree with Jim or his interpretation, but you literally ignored and misrepresented what he wrote. He directly addressed your post and the article you linked/quoted. Any claim to the contrary is willful deception.

[seanD]

And there it is: the complete unwillingness to read a political post and respond to what it actually said.

Jim did address the "facts of the argument". He noted that a natural born citizen [which] is exactly what being born in the US makes one - which directly addresses and refutes the claim that Harris wasn't subject to the jurisdiction of the US court/government systems.

Look, you don't have to agree with Jim or his interpretation, but you literally ignored and misrepresented what he wrote. He directly addressed your post and the article you linked/quoted. Any claim to the contrary is willful deception.

Eastman's interpretation of Article 2 is different, and that's why 'ol Jimmy boy went right to jugular and attacked his character. How to win a political argument when you can't dispute the facts of the argument 101.

[Whateverman]

Eastman's interpretation of Article 2 is different, and that's why 'ol Jimmy boy went right to jugular and attacked his character. How to win a political argument when you can't dispute the facts of the argument 101.

Except that HE DID dispute the facts of the argument.

[JimL]

Eastman's interpretation of Article 2 is different, and that's why 'ol Jimmy boy went right to jugular and attacked his character. How to win a political argument when you can't dispute the facts of the argument 101.

Ask yourself the question that Eastman attempts to dispute sean. Was Harris born in the US? Was she subject to the juristiction of the country and the state? The obvious answer to both questions is yes. Eastman is and has been a political hack of the republican party which is the only reason you fall for the ridiculous crap they feed you. Btw, Harris is more of a natural born citizen than George Washington was.

[Terraceth]

I'm going to push the issue further just because the resident TDS crowd here brought it up and to just irk them even more for the fun of it.

According to law professor John C. Eastman (and a pretty credible one at that), Kamala's eligibility is not a rightwing fringe conspiracy theory, but an issue that raises some legit legal issues, at least according to Eastman...

The problem is that the "legit legal issues", while perhaps not a conspiracy theory, are nevertheless quite fringe as far as I can tell.

To be fair to John Eastman, I believe for years and prior to anything notable with Harris he's been banging this drum about the 14th Amendment being more restrictive in birthright citizenship than people think. But that doesn't change the errors in his analysis, or the fact that it is, as far as I can tell, a fringe rightwing view (even if it isn't necessarily a "conspiracy theory").

Now, as a TDS resident, the worst way you can counter this is to just handwave it off as "conspiracy nuttery," because, personally, that just convinces me even more the argument is legit and you have no legit counter argument. So let's how the TDS legal experts can respond to it.

I mean, literally, the article you point to has a link to Eugene Volokh offering the opposite argument. Maybe Volokh doesn't count because he's not to my knowledge a ""TDS" legal expert" but he is a legal expert.

But let's take a look at the meat of Eastman's claims specifically. His argument rests on the claim that, contrary to popular belief, the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not give automatic citizenship to essentially everyone born in the United States, regardless of the citizenship of nationality of their parents.

Unfortunately, both Volokh and Eastman are a bit limited in that these are brief editorials that cannot go into more detail on their claims. So I'm going to take a look at Eastman's in a little more depth, because I've read up on some of these things and know what he's referring to. Note that the following quotes in this message are not from seanD, but are rather from the article being cited:

It is true that birth alone is not sufficient. There are well-recognized exceptions, namely for Native Americans born on tribal land (though a later law did give them birthright citizenship) and children of foreign sovereigns or ambassadors, as these groups are not seen as not subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Occupying armies are another apparent exception. However, none of these apply here.

The person must also be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, and that meant subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States (whether lawfully or unlawfully). Such was the view of those who authored the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause;

Eastman doesn't offer evidence for this claim that it was their view. Granted, this is a brief newspaper editorial, and thus there may not have been room for it, though it would have been appreciated had he perhaps linked to a more in-depth treatment of the subject. Still, I've seen enough people make this argument that I am fairly confident he'll offer the same underlying reasoning as them, so I'll respond to the arguments I've seen offered in this regard.

This argument rests primarily on a statement made by Senator Howard (the author of the citizenship clause) during the debates on it on May 30, 1866 (also available in pure, though imperfectly scanned, text here). He says:

"This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."

People point to this, saying that "aliens" and "foreigners" are in the list of those not included, and use it to try to argue it doesn't include children of foreigners. However, as we can see, if that's what he's saying, the grammar is odd; there is no usage of the word "or" there. It is possible something was missed in the transcription, but a plausible rendering that would not require adding any words would be "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners--aliens--who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons." In other words, the statement of "aliens" is him simply clarifying what he means by "foreigners" ("aliens" was a far more common term for a foreigner back then) and thus his exception was simply "foreigners who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States."

But there is no need to try to guess as to how to parse the statement, as we have the testimony of those who were present and heard how he said it. Basically right after this speech, two other Senators, Cowan and Conness, get into an argument about whether it's a smart idea to allow all children of foreigners to become citizens. They're lengthy speeches, but it's obvious that they believe it to apply to basically all children of foreigners born in the United States (they more or less explicitly state this, in fact). If this was in error, all Howard had to do was step in to correct them--but he doesn't. One can't even say he lacked opportunity because he makes a brief comment during one of their speeches and also speaks immediately after them. Perfect times to correct them if they were misinterpreting it, but he doesn't do it. The conclusion is quite obvious: It did confer citizenship to basically all children born within the United States, and this was what was intended by Howard.

The other argument used to try to advance this line of argument is that congress, in their debates, clearly had no intention to apply this to Indians on tribal lands (usually referred to as "Indians not taxed"). This in fact started up a lengthy argument, as seen in the congressional record, as to whether children of Indians on tribal lands would qualify under the Fourteenth Amendment as it was written, or whether they should add "excluding Indians not taxed" to clarify the point (they ultimately did not). Quotes from those who declared that Indians did not qualify as being under the jurisdiction of the United States under the regular text are then used to try to argue that foreigners don't qualify either. But when you look through the debates, it's obvious that the reasons given for why Indians do not qualify does not apply to foreigners. For example, Senator Trumbull, as part of a larger speech, states on (page 2893 in the congressional record):

"If they are there and within the jurisdiction of Colorado, and subject to the laws of Colorado, they ought to be citizens; and that is all that is proposed."

Indians living on tribal land/reservation were not regarded as falling within the jurisdiction of Colorado or the laws of Colorado, and thus the Citizenship Clause was not applicable to them. But foreigners/immigrants do fall within the jurisdiction of the United States and its laws (as well as whatever state they happen to be in) so according to this, they would qualify. The "Indian exemption" simply does not apply to foreigners.

This brings us back to Eastman's contention "and that meant subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States (whether lawfully or unlawfully)." But despite his statement this was the view of the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment, I do not see anywhere that temporary visits are discussed at all. The distinction between complete jurisdiction and partial jurisdiction, as applied to the Indians, is whether the laws of the United States fully apply to them. Trumbull, giving an example of how Indians don't fall under the complete jurisdiction, says that the United States did not take jurisdiction of crimes committed by one Indian towards another, such as robbery or murder; this is obviously not the case for immigrants, where the US would absolutely do so if one immigrant did it to another. (the US nowadays does take jurisdiction over laws committed by one Indian against another on a reservation as seen in the Major Crimes Act, though--however, that required a specific law to implement) Eastman has essentially created a distinction that, as far as I can tell, is not supported at all by the legislative debates and in fact appears to be contradicted by them!

He then goes on:

of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1872 Slaughter-House Cases

This is a brief remark in dicta in a case that had basically nothing to do with the Citizenship Clause. Furthermore, given that according to my understanding the Slaughter-House Cases decision, while technically not formally overruled, has gotten a lot of criticism from both liberal and conservative legal experts, is it really what someone wants to cite as precedent?

and the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins;

This considered the issue of Indians born on tribal land. As noted above, this is an exception that does not apply to foreigners in general.

of Thomas Cooley, the leading constitutional treatise writer of the day; and of the State Department, which, in the 1880s, issued directives to U.S. embassies to that effect.

I don't know what he's specifically referring to here, unfortunately, as he doesn't provide a citation--but given that prior to this he was batting 0-for-3 I don't have much confidence that he suddenly stumbled onto valid points.

However, in the case of embassies, what I assume would be referred to is the special status of the embassy itself. As noted, children of visiting sovereigns or ambassadors are not regarded as falling under the Citizenship Clause. Why? Because they are not fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States due to "diplomatic immunity." This applies to embassies in general, where the laws of the country they are technically in are not in "full force" so to speak. The exception here would not be because of the transient nature of those in the embassies, but because of special circumstances of the embassy itself. This would not apply in the case of regular foreigners who have nothing to do with the embassy. Again, I'm speculating a bit on what Eastman is referring to, but I would expect the exception he is referring to is due to the special nature of the embassy itself that does not apply to a "regular" foreigner.

That thus covers his points against the Citizenship Clause; unfortunately, they fall short or are so vaguely stated they're hard to evaluate. But I'd be remiss to not point out a major inconsistency in this portion of his article:

Note that just a few sentences earlier, he invoked a brief bit of dicta from the Slaughterhouse Cases as support for his point. But here he rejects part of Wong Kim Ark as being just dicta. So, according to Eastman, it's acceptable to cite brief dicta on a case whose substance matter was largely unrelated to the dicta... but using more in-depth dicta in a case whose substance matter was explicitly related to the dicta is somehow a no-no.

If someone wants a more in-depth analysis on this issue, there's a very good article by James C. Ho about birthright citizenship and the Citizenship Clause, where he argues--convincingly, in my view--that it does apply to children of essentially all foreigners, save for narrow exceptions like ambassadors or occupiers:
https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-conten...ngAmerican.pdf

Though I suppose he wouldn't really fulfill the "TDS" in "TDS legal expert" that you requested, given that he was later appointed by Donald Trump to the federal judiciary.

[Whateverman]

[...] Though I suppose he wouldn't really fulfill the "TDS" in "TDS legal expert" that you requested, given that he was later appointed by Donald Trump to the federal judiciary.

Kudos for a well-considered and referenced argument on the subject!

[seanD]

The problem is that the "legit legal issues", while perhaps not a conspiracy theory, are nevertheless quite fringe as far as I can tell.

To be fair to John Eastman, I believe for years and prior to anything notable with Harris he's been banging this drum about the 14th Amendment being more restrictive in birthright citizenship than people think. But that doesn't change the errors in his analysis, or the fact that it is, as far as I can tell, a fringe rightwing view (even if it isn't necessarily a "conspiracy theory").


I mean, literally, the article you point to has a link to Eugene Volokh offering the opposite argument. Maybe Volokh doesn't count because he's not to my knowledge a ""TDS" legal expert" but he is a legal expert.

But let's take a look at the meat of Eastman's claims specifically. His argument rests on the claim that, contrary to popular belief, the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not give automatic citizenship to essentially everyone born in the United States, regardless of the citizenship of nationality of their parents.

Unfortunately, both Volokh and Eastman are a bit limited in that these are brief editorials that cannot go into more detail on their claims. So I'm going to take a look at Eastman's in a little more depth, because I've read up on some of these things and know what he's referring to. Note that the following quotes in this message are not from seanD, but are rather from the article being cited:


It is true that birth alone is not sufficient. There are well-recognized exceptions, namely for Native Americans born on tribal land (though a later law did give them birthright citizenship) and children of foreign sovereigns or ambassadors, as these groups are not seen as not subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Occupying armies are another apparent exception. However, none of these apply here.


Eastman doesn't offer evidence for this claim that it was their view. Granted, this is a brief newspaper editorial, and thus there may not have been room for it, though it would have been appreciated had he perhaps linked to a more in-depth treatment of the subject. Still, I've seen enough people make this argument that I am fairly confident he'll offer the same underlying reasoning as them, so I'll respond to the arguments I've seen offered in this regard.

This argument rests primarily on a statement made by Senator Howard (the author of the citizenship clause) during the debates on it on May 30, 1866 (also available in pure, though imperfectly scanned, text here). He says:

"This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."

People point to this, saying that "aliens" and "foreigners" are in the list of those not included, and use it to try to argue it doesn't include children of foreigners. However, as we can see, if that's what he's saying, the grammar is odd; there is no usage of the word "or" there. It is possible something was missed in the transcription, but a plausible rendering that would not require adding any words would be "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners--aliens--who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons." In other words, the statement of "aliens" is him simply clarifying what he means by "foreigners" ("aliens" was a far more common term for a foreigner back then) and thus his exception was simply "foreigners who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States."

But there is no need to try to guess as to how to parse the statement, as we have the testimony of those who were present and heard how he said it. Basically right after this speech, two other Senators, Cowan and Conness, get into an argument about whether it's a smart idea to allow all children of foreigners to become citizens. They're lengthy speeches, but it's obvious that they believe it to apply to basically all children of foreigners born in the United States (they more or less explicitly state this, in fact). If this was in error, all Howard had to do was step in to correct them--but he doesn't. One can't even say he lacked opportunity because he makes a brief comment during one of their speeches and also speaks immediately after them. Perfect times to correct them if they were misinterpreting it, but he doesn't do it. The conclusion is quite obvious: It did confer citizenship to basically all children born within the United States, and this was what was intended by Howard.

The other argument used to try to advance this line of argument is that congress, in their debates, clearly had no intention to apply this to Indians on tribal lands (usually referred to as "Indians not taxed"). This in fact started up a lengthy argument, as seen in the congressional record, as to whether children of Indians on tribal lands would qualify under the Fourteenth Amendment as it was written, or whether they should add "excluding Indians not taxed" to clarify the point (they ultimately did not). Quotes from those who declared that Indians did not qualify as being under the jurisdiction of the United States under the regular text are then used to try to argue that foreigners don't qualify either. But when you look through the debates, it's obvious that the reasons given for why Indians do not qualify does not apply to foreigners. For example, Senator Trumbull, as part of a larger speech, states on (page 2893 in the congressional record):

"If they are there and within the jurisdiction of Colorado, and subject to the laws of Colorado, they ought to be citizens; and that is all that is proposed."

Indians living on tribal land/reservation were not regarded as falling within the jurisdiction of Colorado or the laws of Colorado, and thus the Citizenship Clause was not applicable to them. But foreigners/immigrants do fall within the jurisdiction of the United States and its laws (as well as whatever state they happen to be in) so according to this, they would qualify. The "Indian exemption" simply does not apply to foreigners.

This brings us back to Eastman's contention "and that meant subject to the complete jurisdiction, not merely a partial jurisdiction such as that which applies to anyone temporarily sojourning in the United States (whether lawfully or unlawfully)." But despite his statement this was the view of the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment, I do not see anywhere that temporary visits are discussed at all. The distinction between complete jurisdiction and partial jurisdiction, as applied to the Indians, is whether the laws of the United States fully apply to them. Trumbull, giving an example of how Indians don't fall under the complete jurisdiction, says that the United States did not take jurisdiction of crimes committed by one Indian towards another, such as robbery or murder; this is obviously not the case for immigrants, where the US would absolutely do so if one immigrant did it to another. (the US nowadays does take jurisdiction over laws committed by one Indian against another on a reservation as seen in the Major Crimes Act, though--however, that required a specific law to implement) Eastman has essentially created a distinction that, as far as I can tell, is not supported at all by the legislative debates and in fact appears to be contradicted by them!

He then goes on:


This is a brief remark in dicta in a case that had basically nothing to do with the Citizenship Clause. Furthermore, given that according to my understanding the Slaughter-House Cases decision, while technically not formally overruled, has gotten a lot of criticism from both liberal and conservative legal experts, is it really what someone wants to cite as precedent?


This considered the issue of Indians born on tribal land. As noted above, this is an exception that does not apply to foreigners in general.


I don't know what he's specifically referring to here, unfortunately, as he doesn't provide a citation--but given that prior to this he was batting 0-for-3 I don't have much confidence that he suddenly stumbled onto valid points.

However, in the case of embassies, what I assume would be referred to is the special status of the embassy itself. As noted, children of visiting sovereigns or ambassadors are not regarded as falling under the Citizenship Clause. Why? Because they are not fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States due to "diplomatic immunity." This applies to embassies in general, where the laws of the country they are technically in are not in "full force" so to speak. The exception here would not be because of the transient nature of those in the embassies, but because of special circumstances of the embassy itself. This would not apply in the case of regular foreigners who have nothing to do with the embassy. Again, I'm speculating a bit on what Eastman is referring to, but I would expect the exception he is referring to is due to the special nature of the embassy itself that does not apply to a "regular" foreigner.

That thus covers his points against the Citizenship Clause; unfortunately, they fall short or are so vaguely stated they're hard to evaluate. But I'd be remiss to not point out a major inconsistency in this portion of his article:


Note that just a few sentences earlier, he invoked a brief bit of dicta from the Slaughterhouse Cases as support for his point. But here he rejects part of Wong Kim Ark as being just dicta. So, according to Eastman, it's acceptable to cite brief dicta on a case whose substance matter was largely unrelated to the dicta... but using more in-depth dicta in a case whose substance matter was explicitly related to the dicta is somehow a no-no.

If someone wants a more in-depth analysis on this issue, there's a very good article by James C. Ho about birthright citizenship and the Citizenship Clause, where he argues--convincingly, in my view--that it does apply to children of essentially all foreigners, save for narrow exceptions like ambassadors or occupiers:
https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-conten...ngAmerican.pdf

Though I suppose he wouldn't really fulfill the "TDS" in "TDS legal expert" that you requested, given that he was later appointed by Donald Trump to the federal judiciary.

And from a guy that doesn't have TDS. Wouldn't have expected it any other way.

[Cow Poke]

No, actually you do not care about facts

You're full of crap. I'd call you a liar, but you're so freakin stupid you actually believe this nonsense,

[Mountain Man]

Stephen Colbert, liberal hack that he is, actually dared to ask Harris some relevant questions about how she can support Biden now after calling him out for his racism during the primary, and Harris seemed wholly unable to give a coherent answer:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...g-him-n2574427

Almost sounds like she was channeling Joe Biden, because we've seen him do the same thing in response to tough questions: laugh awkwardly like it's all a big joke without ever giving a direct answer. If she had added a "Come on, man!" it would have been a perfect impersonation.

[rogue06]

Stephen Colbert, liberal hack that he is, actually dared to ask Harris some relevant questions about how she can support Biden now after calling him out for his racism during the primary, and Harris seemed wholly unable to give a coherent answer:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...g-him-n2574427

Almost sounds like she was channeling Joe Biden, because we've seen him do the same thing in response to tough questions: laugh awkwardly like it's all a big joke without ever giving a direct answer. If she had added a "Come on, man!" it would have been a perfect impersonation.

One would expect that she would be better prepared to respond to this inevitable line of questioning.

[Ronson]

Stephen Colbert, liberal hack that he is, actually dared to ask Harris some relevant questions about how she can support Biden now after calling him out for his racism during the primary, and Harris seemed wholly unable to give a coherent answer:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...g-him-n2574427

Almost sounds like she was channeling Joe Biden, because we've seen him do the same thing in response to tough questions: laugh awkwardly like it's all a big joke without ever giving a direct answer. If she had added a "Come on, man!" it would have been a perfect impersonation.

What I see Biden doing now is backtracking even when he doesn't need to. Like in an interview with MSNBC, he first said Trump should "act presidential." When there was no an immediate response, he quickly said "I shouldn't have said that" and acted apologetic. Then later he said Trump is acting "like a yo-yo" (because he wasn't being consistent). Again, no immediate response, and again Biden said "I shouldn't have said that" and acted apologetic.

The way I read this, it's a form of defense happening with his dementia/Alzheimers. He says something and there is silence, so he assumes he misspoke somehow and just apologizes without explaining why. He's not sure what he just said or how it was taken - and maybe can't even remember what he said exactly, but the silence is now his cue to backtrack. In actuality, the silence is just the sycophantic interviewer allowing him time to speak without interruptions.

IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcD9ghZVuyc