Does the Constitution Mandate Universal Birthright Citizenship? Here’s the Answer

Who is a United States citizen by birth? This question has
increasingly received national attention, in large part because of President
Donald Trump’s promise to “end birthright citizenship.”

As I explain, however, in my recent Heritage Foundation legal memo titled “The Citizenship Clause’s Original Meaning and What It Means Today,” Congress definitively settled that question in 1866 when it passed the 14th Amendment. The problem is that Congress’ answer was far different from what Americans today often assume.

Even though the U.S. government has long abided by a policy of universal birthright citizenship—that is, of treating all persons born in the United States as citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents—the reality is that the Constitution doesn’t mandate this policy.

In fact, while the Citizenship Clause eliminated race-based
barriers to birthright citizenship, Congress expressly intended to limit
birthright citizenship based on the strength of a person’s relationship to the
United States.

More importantly, the government today needn’t amend the
Constitution in order to restrict citizenship for the U.S.-born children of
illegal or non-immigrant aliens. It could simply stop abiding by a broad policy
never required by the Constitution in the first place.

Context and
Legislative History:

In the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court held that the U.S.-born descendants of African slaves were not and could never become citizens. In short, black people were simply Africans, not African-Americans, and relegated to the status of perpetual aliens in the nation where they were forced to live and die.

This holding created a previously nonexistent permanent barrier to citizenship based on a person’s race or national origin. It also left the freed slaves essentially stateless—they logically owed allegiance to no sovereign except the United States government, but were nonetheless permanent aliens.

After the Civil War, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 as a direct attempt to override the Dred Scott decision and statutorily expand citizenship to the freed slaves.

That act defined the parameters of birthright citizenship for the first time in U.S. history—“[A]ll persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”

Congress drafted and passed the 14th Amendment primarily to strengthen the protections of the Civil Rights Act by writing them into the Constitution itself. Under the 14th Amendment, citizenship belongs to “all persons born … in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Some advocates of universal birthright citizenship argue that because the 14th Amendment’s definition of citizenship differs from that of the Civil Rights Act, Congress meant to override the Civil Rights Act and adopt the English common law’s jus soli—that is, the principle of citizenship by virtue of birth within a country’s geographical boundaries alone.

The legislative history strongly undercuts this argument. The 14th Amendment did not override or counteract the Civil Rights Act. On the contrary, the two definitions existed side by side for the next 70 years, and both courts and legal scholars roundly understood them as complementary.

The change in language was exclusively the result of
disagreements over how best to exclude tribally-affiliated Native Americans
from birthright citizenship, and in no way reflected a desire by Congress to
fundamentally change the principles of citizenship initially laid out in the
Civil Rights Act.

This is important because it means that the two definitions
of birthright citizenship logically work together and inform each other. In
other words, a person who is “subject to a foreign power” is also not “subject
to the jurisdiction of the United States,” and vice versa.

The legislative history of both the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment shows quite clearly that, while Congress sought to expand birthright citizenship to include the freed slaves, it also sought to exclude broad categories of individuals who maintained only a qualified or limited allegiance to the nation.

As several congressmen put it, birthright citizenship was reserved for those who, like the freed slaves, were subject to “the complete jurisdiction of the United States.”

To be “subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States” simultaneously meant that a person was not meaningfully subject to a foreign power such that his or her allegiance to the United States was divided or qualified.

Notably, even modern advocates of universal birthright
citizenship agree that at least some individuals were excluded from citizenship
because they owed only a qualified allegiance, despite having been born “in the
United States.”

For example, few people seriously argue that the Citizenship
Clause applied to Native Americans who were born subject to their tribal
governments. Even though they were born “in the United States,” their
allegiance was divided between the United States and their tribal governments, which
were considered “quasi-foreign nations.”

The same legislative history that so clearly excludes tribal
Indians from birthright citizenship also makes clear that the Citizenship
Clause does not cover the U.S.-born children of other individuals who owe only
a minimal, qualified, or temporary allegiance to the United States.

This explicitly meant the exclusion of “temporary
sojourners,” who owe the United States a “sort of allegiance,” but who remain
meaningfully subject to a foreign power.

While the concept of “illegal immigration” did not exist at the time of the 14th Amendment’s passage, the same principles would disqualify individuals who are illegally present in the United States.

What About Wong Kim
Ark?

Despite claims by advocates of universal birthright
citizenship that the Supreme Court has already held universal birthright
citizenship to be “the law of the land,” the reality is far different.

It is true that, in 1898, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that the U.S.-born child of lawfully present and permanently domiciled Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment.

At its core, Wong Kim Ark was about the government’s attempt to circumvent the 14th Amendment and keep Chinese immigrants and their children from ever becoming citizens, by any means, just because they were Chinese.

At the time, federal law barred Chinese immigrants from becoming
naturalized citizens, and they were, according to treaty obligations with
China, perpetual Chinese subjects.

Much like the freed slaves, Chinese immigrants were
prohibited from subjecting themselves to the complete jurisdiction of the
United States because of their race, and were relegated to permanent alienage
in a country where they would live and die.

This type of race-based discrimination in citizenship was precisely what the 14th Amendment was intended to prohibit, and the Supreme Court rightly recognized the system for the unconstitutional travesty it truly was.

While the opinion can also be read as affirmatively adopting
jus soli as the “law of the land,” it can just as easily be read as adopting
only a flexible, “Americanized” jus soli limited to the factors of lawful
presence and permanent domicile.

This second interpretation renders the holding consistent with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment. It is also precisely what many legal commentators at the time thought the Supreme Court meant, too.

In short, Wong Kim Ark only deviates from the original meaning of the 14th Amendment if one chooses to read it acting under the assumption that the Supreme Court intended to upend decades of precedent and judicially supersede the clear intent of Congress. That assumption is unnecessary, illogical, and dangerous.

What This Means Today

What this means in practice is that the original meaning of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause has not necessarily been rendered moot by the Supreme Court. The United States government may today treat all U.S.-born children as citizens, but not because the Constitution requires it—or even because the Supreme Court judicially mandated it.

Ultimately, the government may cease to treat the U.S.-born children of illegal and non-immigrant aliens as citizens without first amending the Constitution.

They are not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States because they do not meet the requirements of lawful permanent residency envisioned by Congress or laid out by the Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark. Moreover, their failure to meet these requirements is not the result of race-based prohibitions. 

The U.S.-born children of immigrant aliens (also known as lawful permanent residents) are, however, citizens by birth, and rightfully so—their parents are subject to many of the same rights and duties as American citizens, and have taken meaningful preliminary steps toward U.S. citizenship.

These are precisely the “lawfully present and permanently domiciled” individuals whose citizenship has never been questioned under the 14th Amendment.

Embracing the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause is
not about racial prejudice or disdain for immigrants in general.

On the contrary, such a move recognizes that American citizenship is reserved for all those who, regardless of race or former allegiances, have taken meaningful steps toward solidifying permanent bonds with the American people, and have taken up the duties and responsibilities inherent to those bonds.

This is something both citizens and would-be citizens alike should celebrate. 

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ICE Rips Washington for Passing Sweeping ‘Sanctuary’ Policies Protecting Illegal Immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement ripped Washington for becoming the latest state to enact policies that protect illegal immigrants from local law enforcement and federal authorities.

“ICE maintains that cooperation by local law enforcement is an indispensable component of promoting public safety. It’s unfortunate that current local and state laws and policies tie the hands of local law enforcement agencies that want and need to work with ICE to promote public safety by holding criminals accountable and providing justice and closure for their victims,” the agency said Thursday in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Washington became the latest state to offer safe haven to illegal immigrants after Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee signed a “sanctuary” bill into law on Tuesday.

“Sanctuary policies not only provide a refuge for illegal aliens, but they also shield criminal aliens who prey on people in their own and other communities,” ICE stated. “When ICE officers and agents have to go out into the community to proactively locate these aliens, it puts personnel and potentially innocent bystanders at risk.”

The newly-enacted legislation largely prohibits local law enforcement from asking about an individual’s immigration status or place of birth, with an exception if it pertains to a criminal investigation. State prisons and jails are also barred from honoring voluntary “immigration holds” requested by federal authorities such as ICE, or from alerting them when a migrant is soon to be released from jail.

The rules, signed into law Tuesday, are considered some of the most restrictive in the country.

“Our state agencies are not immigration enforcement agencies,” said Inslee, who is also a Democratic presidential candidate. “We will not be complicit in the Trump administration’s depraved efforts to break up hard-working immigrant and refugee families.”

The legislation is a mandate for all local law enforcement, expanding on a 2017 executive order by Inslee that imposed similar measures that only pertained to state agencies.

Inslee’s signature puts Washington on par with a growing number of deep blue states that have enacted sanctuary policies. A list compiled by the Center for Immigration Studies names at least eight states that enacted laws protecting illegal immigrants from local law enforcement and ICE.

The sanctuary policies brought on by state governments put them in direct conflict with the White House. President Donald Trump has continued to prioritize immigration reform, and the administration is considering a slate of measures that would ratchet up deportation of legal and illegal immigrants.

The sanctuary bill wasn’t the only legislation Inslee, known nationally for his environmental agenda, signed into law in recent days.

The Democratic governor legalized human composting Tuesday, which creates an environmentally friendly alternative to being buried or cremated. Licensed facilities in the state can offer “natural organic reduction,” a process that mixes a dead body’s remains with substances such as straw and wood chips, making it healthier for the soil.

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Please Don’t Forget Memorial Day’s Meaning

America has undergone a lot of maturing between the Vietnam War and the conflicts of the 21st century. I know, I wore a uniform during both periods.

On Memorial Day, let’s not regress in that maturity.

When I was still a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, I watched our instructors (all multitour Vietnam veterans) deal with the
end of the war. 

In that cathartic period, these brave warriors related the stories of coming home, not to the cheering parades held for their predecessors, but to horrible vilification. This included name-calling and spitting on service members in airports.

All of it was infantile blaming of the young men and women who
fought because of the policy decisions of the elected government that sent
them.

It was a shameful response, one that showed an unfortunate dark
side.

After 9/11, nearly everyone wanted action, but there was a great deal of debate as to what it should be. The Bush administration was set in its intent, but others disagreed. When the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ground on, the disagreement grew stronger. 

As a member of the Army, I wondered how American citizens in the
street would respond to our troops as they rotated back and forth to the combat
zones.

There were numerous wonderful displays of support: White-haired
ladies meeting troops in Bangor, Maine’s airport at 2:30 a.m. with hugs, candy,
and cheers. Teams of “welcome home” groups in Texas airports 24/7. 

This all blessed our young people. More importantly, I watched time after time in other airports as Americans stopped and thanked small groups or individuals walking in uniforms still dusty from the desert or the mountains. 

Some clearly disagreed strongly with the decisions Washington had
made. But they were able to separate that disagreement to say a quiet thank you
to the ones who were tasked with executing those decisions.

This was an enormous step forward, and showed a great deal of
national maturity. 

We are going to celebrate Memorial Day on May 27 this year. To many, it is a joyous time to end winter and begin the fun of late spring and summer. Few will remember the real reason for what is meant to be a very solemn day.

In the fall, on Veterans Day, we stop to thank those who have fought for, and are fighting for, America. That day thanks those still living, and acknowledges their sacrifice. 

Memorial Day is different. This day remembers those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. 

We do thank the vets who attend the ceremonies across the land, who march in parades and lay wreaths at thousands of small town memorials. We do it because they are there, standing with us. 

In truth, though, we are not honoring them. We are honoring those who are not there, who did not come home. Veterans know this, and you will notice even more humility in their quiet “thank you” answers to the kind words of their fellow citizens.

Many people today could not tell you what we are celebrating. That is sad, and shows not the maturity discussed above, but an intellectual and emotional atrophy. A nation that does not honor its dead is a nation in trouble. 

This is not an indictment of all Americans; many will know exactly what they are doing on Monday, May 27. They will pause, perhaps pray, and remember those who gave all for America. 

When we see others who are not doing that, I hope that we can
gently remind them.

When children ask, “Why is today a holiday?”, parents can explain. They can point to the names on those small town monuments, and say: “We are remembering them. They died for our freedom.”

Have a blessed Memorial Day. But take a few moments to remember that this is not about sales, or barbecues, or days off. 

This is a day to remember sacrifice and authentic heroism.  

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How the Left can win with words alone

Politicians can solve all our problems.  At least, that’s what they tell us when they are trolling for our votes.

To be sure, they could solve a lot of them.

Take poverty, for example.

Back in the 1960s, when the New Deal was about to morph into the Great Society and the left needed a lot of poor people to hand out cash to, it set the poverty level.

A bureaucrat named Mollie Orshansky decided what a typical family needed to eat, then decided what that amount of food cost and set a percentage of that amount as what the poor could afford.

 After all, poverty is not a state; it is just a term to be defined.

If the government wanted fewer poor people, all it would have to do is lower the amount that defines “poverty.”

To most truly poor people in the world, America’s poor are filthy rich.

As the Heritage Foundation has reported, more than 80 percent of the poor have air conditioning, three quarters have a car, nearly two thirds have cable or satellite TV, half have a computer, and 40 percent have a wide-screen HDTV.  The biggest health problem they face is obesity.

Ask a beggar on the streets of Calcutta if he thinks any Americans are “poor.”

Another example, from Florida.  The state keeps data on school safety problems, including fights.

Turns out, a few years ago, there were thousands of fights in public schools.  It sounded unsafe.  Public school officials grumbled.

So the state changed the definition of “fighting.”  As the Miami Herald found, the number of fights in Dade County schools dropped by about 90 percent.  There were not fewer fights; it is just that many of them no longer met the definition.

These examples show why language is important and why it is dangerous to let the Left tell us what language we may use or what it means.

Cutting babies to pieces is just “late-term abortions” (“health care”) that “remove tissue from the patient.”

Tax relief that allows people to keep more of what they earn is termed “tax expenditures” by the budget wizards in Washington who have driven the nation $22 trillion into debt.  Soon, no doubt, they will have a new term for “debt,” which sounds so…costly.

Therefore, whenever a politician is using deceptive language — such as calling illegal aliens “undocumented immigrants” — there usually is a reason.

Although he is no longer deemed suitable in academia, the incomparable William Shakespeare had Juliet say, “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

The same is true of a skunk.  It won’t smell any better if you call it a rose.

Politicians can solve all our problems.  At least, that’s what they tell us when they are trolling for our votes.

To be sure, they could solve a lot of them.

Take poverty, for example.

Back in the 1960s, when the New Deal was about to morph into the Great Society and the left needed a lot of poor people to hand out cash to, it set the poverty level.

A bureaucrat named Mollie Orshansky decided what a typical family needed to eat, then decided what that amount of food cost and set a percentage of that amount as what the poor could afford.

 After all, poverty is not a state; it is just a term to be defined.

If the government wanted fewer poor people, all it would have to do is lower the amount that defines “poverty.”

To most truly poor people in the world, America’s poor are filthy rich.

As the Heritage Foundation has reported, more than 80 percent of the poor have air conditioning, three quarters have a car, nearly two thirds have cable or satellite TV, half have a computer, and 40 percent have a wide-screen HDTV.  The biggest health problem they face is obesity.

Ask a beggar on the streets of Calcutta if he thinks any Americans are “poor.”

Another example, from Florida.  The state keeps data on school safety problems, including fights.

Turns out, a few years ago, there were thousands of fights in public schools.  It sounded unsafe.  Public school officials grumbled.

So the state changed the definition of “fighting.”  As the Miami Herald found, the number of fights in Dade County schools dropped by about 90 percent.  There were not fewer fights; it is just that many of them no longer met the definition.

These examples show why language is important and why it is dangerous to let the Left tell us what language we may use or what it means.

Cutting babies to pieces is just “late-term abortions” (“health care”) that “remove tissue from the patient.”

Tax relief that allows people to keep more of what they earn is termed “tax expenditures” by the budget wizards in Washington who have driven the nation $22 trillion into debt.  Soon, no doubt, they will have a new term for “debt,” which sounds so…costly.

Therefore, whenever a politician is using deceptive language — such as calling illegal aliens “undocumented immigrants” — there usually is a reason.

Although he is no longer deemed suitable in academia, the incomparable William Shakespeare had Juliet say, “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

The same is true of a skunk.  It won’t smell any better if you call it a rose.

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Green Berets Make Sure Brothers Buried at Arlington Are Not Forgotten

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY — Most have deployed in the double-digit figures — all over the world, and to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times.

But one thing remains the same — their yearly trek to Arlington National Cemetery to pay respects to their fallen Green Beret brothers.

The Special Forces Brotherhood Motorcycle Club and its various chapters from all over the country gather every year at the Arlington National Cemetery to honor and remember friends who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

During a visit to the cemetery on Saturday, they began at the grave of President John F. Kennedy, and headed over to Section 60 — where veterans of the wars against terror are buried.

They visited Army Warrant Officer 1 Shawn Thomas, 35, of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, who died February 2, 2017, from injuries suffered in a vehicle accident in Niger. He was on his eighth deployment.

A Green Beret pauses to remember Thomas. (Kristina Wong/Breitbart News)

They visited Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, 34, of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, who died June 4, 2017, after he was killed in Bamako, Mali, by a Navy SEAL during an alleged “hazing” incident. It was his third deployment.

A Green Beret pours a drink for Melgar. (Kristina Wong/Breitbart News)

They also remembered Army Sgt. 1st Class Jamie Otts, 41, of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, who died February 11, 2018 while on a motorcycle ride with his wife Crystal. Standing around his grave, several Green Berets and family members fondly remembered him as someone a Green Beret would want on their team.

“You don’t want everyone to be like Jamie — but you definitely want a Jamie,” one said fondly.

A Green Beret pours a drink for Otts. (Kristina Wong/Breitbart News)

And just as last year, they spent awhile with Army Sgt. 1st Class Alfonso Molinar, or “Mo,” as he was known to his best friends and family. He served in 3rd Special Forces Group and passed away on Sunday, March 30, 2014. He joined the Army in 2003 at 17-years-old.

Every year, his friends and fiancée Lee Blackwell gather at his grave and remember the person he was.

“He died before his time. The good die young. He was kind-hearted and gentle. He was loved by so many people,” said Blackwell. “He loved flaming hot Cheetos with Cholula, and animals. The only reason I have animals is because they were our first babies together.”

The two met in Raleigh, North Carolina. He tried to be secretive about what he did for a living, at first telling her that he worked at the French consulate in Ghana. Blackwell, excited, began speaking to him in fluent French and his cover was blown.

“Anyone else — I might have been, ‘You’re a frickin’ liar,’” she laughed. “But it was just endearing because he just had this face that was so innocent and childlike.”

Blackwell is surrounded by friends who knew and loved Mo. (Kristina Wong/Breitbart News)

Retired Green Beret Jaraan Little, vice president of the club’s Fort Bragg chapter, credits Mo with saving his life in Afghanistan.

He was pinned down until Mo, his weapons sergeant, came along and took out the enemy forces.

Just like last year, Little will make sure that Mo is never forgotten.

Little (center) poses with two friends of Mo. (Kristina Wong/Breitbart News)

 

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Donald Trump: Jussie Smollett Hoax a ‘Hate Crime’ Against My Supporters

President Donald Trump ripped television actor Jussie Smollett on Saturday, after the actor’s embarrassing hoax accusing Trump supporters of attacking him.

“In addition to great incompetence and corruption, The Smollett case in Chicago is also about a Hate Crime,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump commented during his trip to Japan, at about 5:43 a.m. where he was staying.

He referred to Smollett’s phony story that he was attacked by two Trump supporters who shouted, “This is MAGA Country!” before they accosted him in the city of Chicago.

“That turned out to be a total lie, had nothing to do with ‘MAGA COUNTRY,’” Trump wrote. “Serious stuff, and not even an apology to millions of people!”

Although Chicago prosecutors dropped the 16 felony charges against Smollett for staging the fake attack, an Illinois judge ordered Thursday that his criminal case file be unsealed for the public to see.

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MAGA: Make America Grown-Up Again

The Pentagon recently released data stating that 24 of the 34 million Americans aged 17–24 — 71% — are ineligible to serve in the military, due to obesity, a criminal record, or lacking a high school diploma.  The 24 million are also ineligible for most careers.

I’d be willing to bet the 71% is actually too low, if you add drug use into the mix.

Why are approximately three out of four young American adults fat or uneducated or criminals?  Kids aren’t born that way; they’re made that way.  Where are their parents?

The College Board, which administers the SAT college entry exam, recently announced that the test will assign an “adversity score” for each student, to determine social and economic backgrounds.  Students will not be told their scores, so they won’t know their “
We don’t need no stinkin’ SATs, adversity scores, LSATs, GREs, or any other BS standardized test.  What America’s future educators; lawyers; lawmakers; and, most importantly, parents, need is a GUT: a Grown Up Test.  Hell, I say test some adults!

Village Idiots All Around

The results of the GUT will confirm whether the child was raised by present, loving but tough parents or by the Democrats’ “it takes a village,” “fundamental transformation” “democratic socialism” useful idiocy.  I’ve long said these ideologies, while mostly the same at their cores, are political terrorism.  The Pentagon’s data confirm that our future holds some real and alarming national security concerns.

The questions of the GUT are inspired by my upcoming first book, 10 Warning Signs Your Child is Becoming a Democrat.  I avoid policy and hone in on parenting.  I believe that if my playbook is followed, we can ensure that future generations of our youths grow up to be, well, grown-ups.  Here’s a sampling of the questions:

  • Is one’s race, sex, ethnicity, or country of origin equal in value to his skills, achievements, qualifications, or accomplishments?
  • Does one deserve a trophy or medal just for showing up?
  • Does “inequality is the new equality” pass constitutional muster?
  • Should one who thinks at age 40 the same way one thought at age four be considered a grown-up?

The vast majority of these troubled youths and young adults live in cities run by Democrats for tens of thousands of consecutive days.  These cities are rife with single or no-parent homes, the highest rates of gun violence and death, failing schools, inter-generational familial poverty, rampant drug abuse, and little to no economic mobility.  Any dumb-dumb can procreate; it takes actual work to raise children to be law-abiding, productive adults.

To answer the “why?,” there’s a two-pronged approach: cause and intent.

The cause is the Democrat culture of zero accountability; little to no law and order; and myriad conspiracies about imagined racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination and victimization.  Having said all this, adults are responsible for their own decisions.  There’s the rub, however: tens of millions of Americans adult in age aren’t adult in thought, which dictates behavior.  Reality is like gravity: it’s the same for everyone.  Gravity doesn’t care about your race, sex, ethnicity, or bathroom of choice.  How one interprets reality is derived from whether one is grown up or not.  Politics is downstream from culture, and nowhere is that truer than in Democrat-run municipalities.

If there’s concurrence on the cause, then that brings us to the uncomfortable intent question: is the cause coincidental, incompetence, or intentional?  The evidence, in no way, supports coincidental or incompetent.  Both are statistically — dare I say, scientifically — impossible. 

Politics is never coincidental.  Incompetent?  Sure.  But even a broken clock is correct twice daily.  So what explains the same ills all across America, in Democrat city after city, for generation upon generation?  The only logical explanation is that the destruction of cities, the nuclear family, and communities is deliberate.  If this is true, then the Democratic Party is the most dangerous group in the history of our republic, foreign or domestic.

The Parents-Kids “Best Friends” Myth 

Kids should not be political pawns, but I often joke that someone is going to indoctrinate your children.  If it’s not you, the parents, then the Democrats will exploit and engineer your kids into Vladimir Lenin idol-worshiping societal burdens, who will seek to impose their anti-American idiocy unto our lives, our children’s schools, our rights, and our businesses. 

I sometimes hear parents say they and their children are “best friends.”  When uttered, I need a defibrillator for my shortness of breath and cardiac arrest.  Parents who believe they’re best buds with their children may as well just scream “Allahu akbar,” because the vast majority of those kids will grow up to vote for Democrats who apologize for, and are petrified of, Islamic supremacists who strap suicide bombs to their bodies.

I may not be able to prove it, but I guarantee you some of the 24 million young adults the Pentagon reported on were “best friends” with their parents — if they had parents at all. Senator Kuckoo Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a declared Democrat 2020 presidential nominee, believes that parents and teachers are responsible for raising children.  Nah, Kuckoo, wrong; teachers teach, and parents parent.  Yes, teachers, coaches and other community leaders complement parents, but parents are responsible for raising their children.  Period.  If Kuckoo wants “it takes a village,” she should move to the Islamic Republic of Iran or to Venezuela.  Her statement disqualifies her from being president.  Get Kuckoo a GUT, and fast!

Good and decent people can sometimes be bad parents.  I’m a relatively new father, so I’m still learning and, I hope, keeping the screw-ups to a minimum.  Let him who has not fatherly or motherly sinned cast the first stone.  Somewhere along the way, though, parents abdicated their responsibilities to the devoutly secular god known as the State.  I don’t believe it’s too late to right the ship, but we’re never more than a generation away from loss of liberties.

Democrat policies are guaranteed to fail our nation and our children.  Grown-ups of America, unite!  More than ever, our children need us.

Rich Logis is host of The Rich Logis Show, at TheRichLogisShow.com, and author of the upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child Is Becoming a Democrat.  He can be found on Twitter at @RichLogis.

The Pentagon recently released data stating that 24 of the 34 million Americans aged 17–24 — 71% — are ineligible to serve in the military, due to obesity, a criminal record, or lacking a high school diploma.  The 24 million are also ineligible for most careers.

I’d be willing to bet the 71% is actually too low, if you add drug use into the mix.

Why are approximately three out of four young American adults fat or uneducated or criminals?  Kids aren’t born that way; they’re made that way.  Where are their parents?

The College Board, which administers the SAT college entry exam, recently announced that the test will assign an “adversity score” for each student, to determine social and economic backgrounds.  Students will not be told their scores, so they won’t know their “
We don’t need no stinkin’ SATs, adversity scores, LSATs, GREs, or any other BS standardized test.  What America’s future educators; lawyers; lawmakers; and, most importantly, parents, need is a GUT: a Grown Up Test.  Hell, I say test some adults!

Village Idiots All Around

The results of the GUT will confirm whether the child was raised by present, loving but tough parents or by the Democrats’ “it takes a village,” “fundamental transformation” “democratic socialism” useful idiocy.  I’ve long said these ideologies, while mostly the same at their cores, are political terrorism.  The Pentagon’s data confirm that our future holds some real and alarming national security concerns.

The questions of the GUT are inspired by my upcoming first book, 10 Warning Signs Your Child is Becoming a Democrat.  I avoid policy and hone in on parenting.  I believe that if my playbook is followed, we can ensure that future generations of our youths grow up to be, well, grown-ups.  Here’s a sampling of the questions:

  • Is one’s race, sex, ethnicity, or country of origin equal in value to his skills, achievements, qualifications, or accomplishments?
  • Does one deserve a trophy or medal just for showing up?
  • Does “inequality is the new equality” pass constitutional muster?
  • Should one who thinks at age 40 the same way one thought at age four be considered a grown-up?

The vast majority of these troubled youths and young adults live in cities run by Democrats for tens of thousands of consecutive days.  These cities are rife with single or no-parent homes, the highest rates of gun violence and death, failing schools, inter-generational familial poverty, rampant drug abuse, and little to no economic mobility.  Any dumb-dumb can procreate; it takes actual work to raise children to be law-abiding, productive adults.

To answer the “why?,” there’s a two-pronged approach: cause and intent.

The cause is the Democrat culture of zero accountability; little to no law and order; and myriad conspiracies about imagined racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination and victimization.  Having said all this, adults are responsible for their own decisions.  There’s the rub, however: tens of millions of Americans adult in age aren’t adult in thought, which dictates behavior.  Reality is like gravity: it’s the same for everyone.  Gravity doesn’t care about your race, sex, ethnicity, or bathroom of choice.  How one interprets reality is derived from whether one is grown up or not.  Politics is downstream from culture, and nowhere is that truer than in Democrat-run municipalities.

If there’s concurrence on the cause, then that brings us to the uncomfortable intent question: is the cause coincidental, incompetence, or intentional?  The evidence, in no way, supports coincidental or incompetent.  Both are statistically — dare I say, scientifically — impossible. 

Politics is never coincidental.  Incompetent?  Sure.  But even a broken clock is correct twice daily.  So what explains the same ills all across America, in Democrat city after city, for generation upon generation?  The only logical explanation is that the destruction of cities, the nuclear family, and communities is deliberate.  If this is true, then the Democratic Party is the most dangerous group in the history of our republic, foreign or domestic.

The Parents-Kids “Best Friends” Myth 

Kids should not be political pawns, but I often joke that someone is going to indoctrinate your children.  If it’s not you, the parents, then the Democrats will exploit and engineer your kids into Vladimir Lenin idol-worshiping societal burdens, who will seek to impose their anti-American idiocy unto our lives, our children’s schools, our rights, and our businesses. 

I sometimes hear parents say they and their children are “best friends.”  When uttered, I need a defibrillator for my shortness of breath and cardiac arrest.  Parents who believe they’re best buds with their children may as well just scream “Allahu akbar,” because the vast majority of those kids will grow up to vote for Democrats who apologize for, and are petrified of, Islamic supremacists who strap suicide bombs to their bodies.

I may not be able to prove it, but I guarantee you some of the 24 million young adults the Pentagon reported on were “best friends” with their parents — if they had parents at all. Senator Kuckoo Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), a declared Democrat 2020 presidential nominee, believes that parents and teachers are responsible for raising children.  Nah, Kuckoo, wrong; teachers teach, and parents parent.  Yes, teachers, coaches and other community leaders complement parents, but parents are responsible for raising their children.  Period.  If Kuckoo wants “it takes a village,” she should move to the Islamic Republic of Iran or to Venezuela.  Her statement disqualifies her from being president.  Get Kuckoo a GUT, and fast!

Good and decent people can sometimes be bad parents.  I’m a relatively new father, so I’m still learning and, I hope, keeping the screw-ups to a minimum.  Let him who has not fatherly or motherly sinned cast the first stone.  Somewhere along the way, though, parents abdicated their responsibilities to the devoutly secular god known as the State.  I don’t believe it’s too late to right the ship, but we’re never more than a generation away from loss of liberties.

Democrat policies are guaranteed to fail our nation and our children.  Grown-ups of America, unite!  More than ever, our children need us.

Rich Logis is host of The Rich Logis Show, at TheRichLogisShow.com, and author of the upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child Is Becoming a Democrat.  He can be found on Twitter at @RichLogis.

via American Thinker

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Nolte: Democrat Politicians in Los Angeles Can’t Even Pick Up the Trash

Rat-infested piles of garbage sat uncollected in Los Angeles just one mile from City Hall, NBC 4 reported this week.

You have to see this video to believe it.

“You’re getting a bird’s eye view of L.A.’s most notorious trash pile,” the report tells us. “It’s in downtown on Ceres Avenue, right between the Fashion and Produce District. Day and night, this spot and countless others are magnets for rats that could carry fleas infected with typhus and other diseases.”

Watch the video again… This breathtaking trash pile is not in some faraway place — it’s right in downtown. It’s between the Fashion and Produce District — and that’s “produce” as in food — and there are “countless other” spots like this … downtown.

And this comes just weeks after an NBC 4 report about an “infestation in Los Angeles City Hall of rats and fleas linked to typhus disease.” Good news, though, because “the city’s personnel department announced an increase  in cleaning and removal of trash from the Civic Center.”

The Civic Center was so filthy, Los Angeles City Hall was infested with rats and disease. Welcome to the Middle Ages!

When NBC 4 called the city’s services hotline, the network was told it could take up to 90 days for the Ceres Avenue trash to be hauled away.

Ninety days.

Ninety.

To pick up trash.

After the report aired, though, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti got the street cleaned up.

Now get this…

“Between 2013 and 2017, county residents reported a yearly average of nearly 60 cases [of typhus]. That’s twice as many the number reported in the previous five years.”

“Last year, a record 124 cases were reported in Los Angeles County.”

So what we have here is what NBC 4 describes as a “typhus epidemic” … in a  modern American city, in the modern American city.

Here, in the United States of America, in one of the richest cities in the world, in the 21st century,  we have an outbreak of a disease spread by rats attracted by piles of uncollected garbage.

Hey, guess which political party runs Los Angeles!

Since 1961, going back 58 years, Los Angeles has had one Republican mayor, who served only two terms between 1993 and 2001.

What’s more, there are 15 seats on the Los Angeles City Council. Democrats hold 14 of them — fourteen —  and they are each paid $184,610 a year, and still… The garbage is not getting picked up … in downtown … just a mile from City Hall.

I don’t mean to sound redundant, but…

The garbage is not being picked up, y’all.

Picking up garbage is one of the basic basics.

Picking up garbage is something the government is supposed to do.

The government picking up garbage is akin to a parent feeding her child, a doctor healing the sick, a teacher teaching, grass being green, water being wet… It’s just supposed to happen.

There’s no garbage strike in Los Angeles. There is no employee strike at all, and…

The garbage is not being picked up.

For those of you wondering what the City Council is doing, what this crack team of political leaders has found time to focus on, a simple DuckDuckGo search came up with a virtue-signaling plan to ban political contributions from real estate developers (which sounds like a massive First Amendment violation); a declaration of Tuesday as “John Singleton Day,” which sounds like a great idea after the goddamned garbage is picked up; the renaming of a street after the late rapper Nipsey Hussle, which sounds like a great idea after the goddamned garbage is picked up.

Here’s the Twitter feed for the president of the Los Angeles City Council, which looks like a combination of E! The Entertainment Network and an Oberlin College newspaper.

Folks … the garbage in downtown Los Angeles is not being picked up to the point that there’s a typhus epidemic…

But the Council did name a street after Obama.

How hard is it to pick up garbage?

Someone calls and says there’s a pile of garbage on the street, so the city sends a crew out with a truck to clean it up.

What’s the problem? Why is this complicated?

If required, the city hires more guys, buys more trucks, pays more overtime, or works out a deal with the company contracted to pick up trash… This shouldn’t be difficult or controversial because we are talking about picking up garbage.

My wife and I lived in Los Angeles for more than eight years, until the middle of 2011. The city is awful, the people are great, but are these good people now so robotically inclined to vote Democrat that something as basic as garbage pick-up can be botched to this extent without consequence?

We left L.A. because things kept getting worse, not better, and my guess is that a lot of other people did and are doing the same, which leaves behind only those who don’t care enough about garbage and rats and typhus to vote for some common sense, decency, and clean streets.

By the way, here in my current neighborhood in rural North Carolina, we are responsible for hauling away our own trash, and after having lived here 15 years I have never seen so much as one garbage pile, much less a rat.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

via Breitbart News

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Carlson Rips Left for Calling Trump’s Declassifying Order a ‘Cover-Up,’ ‘Un-American’

Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson criticized those on the left, including James Clapper and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, for questioning President Donald Trump’s decision to declassify information regarding the origins of the Mueller probe.

Partial transcript as follows:

The FBI has a lot more power than any single government agency. Its agents can legally break down your front door and shoot you. Its investigations can destroy your life even if you are innocent. It has happened to a lot of people recently. So the FBI absolutely must be above suspicion. If you sincerely cared about preserving our democracy as they claim they do, then you would immediately disinfect the FBI with sunlight. But James Clapper has no interest in doing that, neither does the rest of official Washington.

The only principle they care about is self-preservation, and they will say anything in its service. Congressman Adam Schiff of California responded to the declassification order this way, quote, “While Trump stonewalls the public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice, Trump and Barr conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies. The cover-up has entered a new and dangerous phase. This is un-American.” End quote. Got that? Declassifying information is now a cover-up. It’s un-American. Keep in mind, this guy is the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Adam Schiff is a complete nut case.

His allies in the media though are certainly more subtle than that. They know that cover-up isn’t a plausible way to describe declassification. It’s laughable. So instead, they are going with the term “distraction.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

via Breitbart News

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