Oy! It rained last night and then froze to the point that the streets and sidewalks in Hyde Park became like an ice rink. It’s was nearly impossible to walk on the sidewalks without falling, and I fell four times on the first four blocks’ walk to work. I thought I wouldn’t make it! I was trapped! Fortunately, 57th Street was relatively free from slippery ice, so I go to that street made it here. (I have cleats, but didn’t know how slippery it was until I got on the streets.) The point is that I need sympathy, as my shoulders and both hands (which I used to break my falls) are aching. Oy, give me Tylenol! Oh, and don’t tell me I was stupid–I already know that. Poor Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus)!
The first week in February is rushing to its end: today is Thursday February 6, 2025, and National Frozen Yogurt Day. The stuff is okay if you can’t get ice cream, and of course people eat it because it’s healthier. Eat Well Guru says your mileage may vary (yogurt has less fat but more sugar and more calories:
Frozen yogurt and ice cream are both dairy products. Frozen yogurt is introduced as an alternative to ice cream. Whether it is a healthier option is the question I get from some of my clients. When you compare the food labels, it is obvious that ice cream has more fat content but less sugar and frozen yogurt has less fat content but more sugar. Average all brand of a cup of frozen yogurt contains 10% fat, 37.3 g of sugar, and 221 calories whereas average all brand of a cup of vanilla ice-cream contains 22% fat, 28 g of sugar, and 273 calories. Toppings or the type of ice cream or frozen yogurt may actually determine the healthier choice. Be cautious though! Sometimes low-fat and low-sugar options may add more calories in. For example, a cup of low-fat frozen yogurt may contain up to 42 g sugar and 340 calories.
It’s also International Day to Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, National Sweater Day (in Canada), Lame Duck Day, and National Chopsticks Day.
There’s also a Google Doodle today; click on the screenshot below to see what it’s celebrating:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 6 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*When a friend told me that Trump said he wants the U.S. to take over Gaza, I responded that this couldn’t possibly be true. Do we really want to get the U.S. involved in this war beyond helping Israel with weapons or intelligence? I don’t think so, not if it involves U.S. boots in the ground in that sliver of land. But yes, my friend’s report was true.
Trump generated global shock waves Tuesday when he said the U.S. should take long-term control of Gaza, suggesting that Palestinians should be relocated while the enclave is rebuilt into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media that Trump would “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”
Taking control of the hotly contested territory would put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most complicated diplomatic and national-security conflicts, raising the prospect that Trump is signing the country up for exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid. Trump didn’t rule out sending American troops to Gaza to accomplish his goals.
Tuesday’s announcement marked a striking shift for Trump, who described the Middle East as “blood and sand” in his first term, according to a longtime adviser. Trump is now proposing to rebuild Gaza, which his own aides say could take 10 to 15 years.
Trump’s proposal stunned even some of his most ardent and influential supporters in the Jewish community. A longtime pro-Israel Trump fundraiser who has raised money for the president for years called the idea “insane” and questioned how it could be executed, noting this type of policy would likely take well over a year to complete with too many unknown variables for it to be done smoothly.
Netanyahu said during the press conference that one of his key goals was to ensure Gaza wouldn’t host terrorists again. Trump, he continued, took that concept “to a much higher level.”
“It is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”
Trump also floated the idea that other countries, notably Egypt and Jordan, could take the Palestinians. That won’t work as no country in the Middle East wants them: they are trouble on stilts, And imagine the world’s reaction if the U.S. somehow cleared out Gaza to take it over, even to rebuild it. On the other hand, and I’m not defending the proposal, the Gaza situation seems intractable. Hamas leadership of that country poses an existential threat to Israel, and Israel recognizes that they can’t continue to rule Gaza. Blinken used to suggest that the Palestinian authority take it over, but Gazans would never stand for that, as it would start a bloodbath. Do I have a solution? Nope, except that Israel should eliminate Hamas. That, of course, would mean doing so after the ceasefire expires, or in response to Hamas breaking the ceasefire. But my only consolation about Trump’s blustering here is that, as in other cases, it may just be bluster. (Remember that he said he’d end the Ukraine/Russia war on Day 1 of his administration?)
*Trump is also coming down hard on Iran. First he signed an executive order (we all know what “EO” means now) putting pressure on Iran, though the details are not clear (it presumably involves the futile attempt to prevent Iran from getting nukes). Then he promised to obliterate Iran if they somehow killed him. Postmortem revenge! (It’s illegal, by the way.):
The issue came up as Mr. Trump, who has said he is willing to revive negotiations with Iran, signed an executive order whose details were not immediately released by the White House. As a result, it is not clear what form the pressure campaign might take. But Mr. Trump professed to be hesitant to sign it.
“So this is one I’m torn about,” he told reporters. “Everyone wants me to sign it. I’ll do that.” But he said he was “unhappy to do it.”
Then the threat to obliterate Iran:
President Trump said on Tuesday that he had “left instructions” for Iran to be “obliterated” if its assassins killed him, on the day that he signed an executive order restoring his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
Mr. Trump’s comments came in response to a reporter’s question, but the issue was more than hypothetical: Just after Mr. Trump was elected, the Justice Department indicted several men who it said had been heard plotting to kill Mr. Trump in September. One of the plotters said that he was assigned in September to carry out the plan by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s elite military unit, prosecutors said in court papers.
“If they did that, they would be obliterated,’’ Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “That would be the end. I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left.”
He added, “Biden should have said that, but he never did.”
In fact, experts say, a president cannot leave instructions for military action after his death. That decision would have to be made by his successor, who would then be commander in chief.
It has become too late to prevent Iran from getting the bomb: they are too far along and have too much invested, both in terms of money and psychology, to stop their journey to nukes. I’m glad Trump realizes the danger Iran poses to the entire Middle East, but it’ll take a statesman who is not demented to stop them–if they can be stopped in their drive to use proxies to eliminated their enemies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
I am not concentrating on Trump just because some misguided readers (who really belong at Phryngl) think I need to spend all my time telling people what a maniac he is. It’s just that there’s a lot going on that he started. When he tried via an EO to end birthright citizenship, I thought immediately that this would be overturned by the courts, as it’s a blatant violation of the Constitution. And, sure enough, a federal judge issued a non-time-limited injunction of that order.
The injunction applies nationally and will remain in place as the case is adjudicated. The Maryland lawsuit is one of at least six federal cases brought against Trump’s order by a total of 22 Democratic-led states and more than a half-dozen civil rights groups. A federal judge in Seattle previously issued a 14-day restraining order.
In issuing the injunction, Boardman said the plaintiffs would “very likely” succeed on the merits in their case against Trump’s order, which she said “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment.”
Boardman said Supreme Court precedent protects birthright citizenship.
“No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation,” she said. “This court will not be the first.”
The Trump administration is expected to appeal Broadman’s injunction, according to legal experts.
The Trump administration will not succeed. Even if this one makes wends its way up to the Supreme Court, the justices will overrule Trump. Even that pack of conservatives cannot cancel what is set out so clearly in the Constitution. This is what Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment says:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
*Reader Jez sent me an archived link to this NYT article called “‘We have no coherent message.’ Democrats struggle to oppose Trump.” (archived here)
As Democrats face the reality of President Trump’s second term, they share a fundamental belief: This moment calls for an inspirational message from their party.
They just cannot decide what, exactly, that should be.
In private meetings and at public events, elected Democrats appear leaderless, rudderless and divided. They disagree over how often and how stridently to oppose Mr. Trump. They have no shared understanding of why they lost the election, never mind how they can win in the future.
And in a first step toward elevating new leaders, an election this weekend for chair of the Democratic National Committee, the party chose a candidate, Ken Martin of Minnesota, who said he planned to conduct a post-election review largely focused on tactics and messaging. Mr. Martin said he had not determined the parameters of the review, other than that he was not interested in discussing whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have sought re-election.
More than 50 interviews with Democratic leaders revealed a party that is struggling to define what it stands for, what issues to prioritize and how to confront a Trump administration that is carrying out a right-wing agenda with head-spinning speed. Governors, members of the Senate and the House, state attorneys general, grass-roots leaders and D.N.C. members offered a wide range of views about the direction of their party.
. . . . Democrats broadly agree that they need to do more to address the issues that powered Mr. Trump’s campaign, like grocery costs, inflation and immigration. But there is little consensus on how — or even whether — to prioritize the party’s traditional concerns like abortion rights, L.G.B.T.Q. equality and climate change. Some Democrats fear that even as those issues continued to animate the party’s base, they failed to resonate among a broader swath of voters in the last presidential election.
“We have no coherent message,” said Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas. “This guy is psychotic, and there’s so much, but everything that underlines it is white supremacy and hate. There needs to be a message that is clear on at least the underlying thing that comes with all of this.”
*According to Nature, the CDC has proposed to regulate the language in papers produced by its researchers.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has mandated that all scientific manuscripts produced by its researchers that are under review at a journal be withdrawn so that certain language relating to gender can be stripped from them.
What Trump’s flurry of executive orders means for science
The directive, sent by the agency’s chief science officer to some staff members on 31 January, is meant to bring the CDC into compliance with an executive order issued that month by US President Donald Trump seeking to restore “biological truth” to the federal government by recognizing only two sexes: male and female. Executive orders can direct agencies inside the federal government but cannot change existing laws.
According to a copy of the e-mail, shared in the newsletter Inside Medicine, manuscripts must not include any mention of terms including ‘gender’, ‘transgender’, ‘pregnant person’, ‘transsexual’ or ‘non-binary’. CDC scientists who co-author papers originating from outside the agency that include these terms are also expected to rescind their authorship.
It’s unclear how many scientific reports will be affected by the mandate, which applies to all manuscripts written or co-authored by CDC researchers and includes papers that are being prepared for submission, in revisions with journal editors or have been accepted for publication but not yet posted online. It is also uncertain whether journals, which have their own rules for discussing gender and sex, will comply with the directive. Fields such as public health, which have embraced gender identity as an aspect of research in topics including health disparities, are likely to be affected the most by the rules.
. . . . The CDC mandate, however, will erase mention of queer, intersex and transgender individuals from future literature and seems to legitimize “scientific sexism”, says James Mungin, a biomedical scientist at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, who identifies as transgender. Under the new rules, CDC researchers would be unable to share basic demographic data, such as gender identity or sexual orientation, about study participants — omissions that could lead to inaccuracies or ethical breaches if scientists are barred from disclosing why certain participants were removed from a study, Mungin says. Furthermore, gender identity and sexual orientation are nearly impossible to exclude when it comes to the study and treatment of conditions such as HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.
I don’t think this is a good idea, as it amounts to censorship of language or even research. I don’t like “pregnant people” better than anyone else, but people do have notions of a more spectrum-ish “gender” that could itself be the subject of research, and research on transgender people, whether it be psychological or medical, could also be useful. Now if language is being used to buttress and ideology and is not germane to the research itself, the editors can propose changes, but a blanket ban doesn’t appeal to me.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is trying to fix the world:
Hili: What are you doing?
A: I’m putting together a broken reality.
In Polish:
Hili: Co ty robisz?
A: Sklejam połamaną rzeczywistość.
*******************
From Meow:
From Things With Faces:
From The Dodo Pet:
From Masih; another Iranian woman taking a chance:
To @AOC , @IlhanMN, and other feminist politicians in the U.S.—imagine if Israel had jailed this woman for singing, showing her hair and dancing. You would launch global campaigns to condemn it. But here’s the bad news for you: this isn’t Israel. This is the Islamic Republic of… pic.twitter.com/KKZ2iA1Xk6
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 4, 2025
From Bryan:
(Via Nancy Tang.) pic.twitter.com/T7J2vBMgI7
— Stephen R. C. Hicks (@SRCHicks) February 5, 2025
Two cat tweets from Malcolm:
Cats can be real problem makers around PCs and TVs … pic.twitter.com/DA5M8Tgz20
— Helotian (@darter666) January 9, 2025
From Luana; a bad decision:
A judge has blocked Trump’s Executive Order about getting men out of women’s prisons, because he says it would likely be “cruel and unusual punishment” to put these men in men’s prisons.
The ACLU made this same 8th Amendment argument of “cruel and unusual punishment” for why… https://t.co/SXQQIR4S6Y
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) February 5, 2025
From my feed. Well, he sort of nailed it:
Nailed it.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/geifE6BuES
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) February 4, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted. It shows the structure built in front of the “Death Gate”—where trains brought people to Auschwitz, most of them killed within hours—with survivors gathering to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. There’s a video of the construction and of the survivors below the post:
On January 27, 2025, 56 Auschwitz Survivors gathered in front of the Gate of Death at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T08:00:02.060Z
Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. He said this first one would cheer me up and make me “feel good about humanity. . . and birds.”
The YouTube video adds this:
The Northern Royal Albatross chick has been returned to the Signal Station Trig nest site on January 30 after successfully hatching in the incubator. This keeps the chick safe from being infested with fly larvae during the long hatching process. Watch rangers from the New Zealand Department of Conservation arrive with the hatchling. They spray some bird-safe repellent in the nest to help reduce fly activity, and gently place the chick under the male, RLK, for the first time. Now begins a 7.5-month nestling period in new Zealand with RLK, GLG, and their fluffy chick.
ALBATROSS CHICK FLOOFY GOODNESS KLAXON youtu.be/0uZs1z5msug?…
— Lev Parikian (@levparikian.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T16:10:50.976Z
This cannot be possible! If he suceeded, he wouldn’t be here to go back in time!
It was fine while we stayed in the water.
You surely have my sympathy as these treks and falls are difficult for a twenty year old let alone one of emeritus age. But now you are there, in your warm office, safe and almost sound. So yes, tylenol, maybe a hot shower when you get home (i just checked chicago weather and temps above freezing today should melt ice for trip home) and a heating pad if you have one.
And thanks for making it in to the office today!
Several years ago, I fell on ice and hurt my arm. When it was still sore a couple of days later, my doctor told me to have it x-rayed. It turned out that my elbow was broken. If you are still in pain tomorrow, definitely get it checked.
PCC(E), glad to hear you made it in one piece – albeit one black-and-blue piece.
IDK, wondering if I had to do that, maybe if I could bring a small bag of sand to toss a bit in front as I walk … it’d be interesting…
Then physics says to lower the center of mass – I always end up flailing somehow…
Different topic : yesterday it occurred to me what if Tiktaalik was actually “our Creator”? I think because that dippy song lyric What if God was one of us? popped in my head and I thought “Oh yeah? What if it’s Tiktaalik? Or is she too yucky for ya to be God?”
Was not expecting a Neil Shubin/Joan Osborne mashup this morning.
+1. Agreed. The ice in Hyde Park is really dangerous.
Working against lowering the centre of mass is that the structure then tips faster when it unbalances, requiring faster reaction to keep the support point under the centre of mass. Low centre of mass helps inherently stable structures like two-tracked vehicles and tripod stools resist overturning forces but it doesn’t help “live” structures that require dynamic balance. It is easier to balance a long broomstick vertically on your fingertip than a short stubby pencil. And as you attach weights to the top of the broomstick, even highly eccentric ones, it becomes easier still. All single-tracked vehicles and people who walk erect stay upright by steering into the fall, as your hand does in balancing the broomstick. Recumbent bicycles are tippier than regular bikes, and high wheelers said to be less. (But scary! The real balance danger is a forward header over the handlebars, not falling sideways.)
This assumes you have steering control (“footing” when walking) so you that can indeed steer the support under the C of M as the body moves with “micro-tips” and keep it there dynamically. Once poor Jerry’s feet slip out from underneath him he will start to fall no matter where his C of M is. But the higher it is, the more time he will have to find sticky ground and verticalize himself over his stuck feet before it’s too late. Jerry appears to be tall, so good. But that is a long way for his head to fall on concrete. Ouch. Safer to walk tall wif ‘is ‘ead tucked underneath ‘is arm, as an old song about Anne Boleyn goes.
One thing I’d advise is to avoid forceful falling on the outstretched hand. This is such a common mechanism of sprains, dislocations and fractures of the upper limb from thumb to clavicle and scapula that we shorten it FOOSH in medical charts. You’re nearly always better to tuck your arms and take the fall obliquely through one shoulder and roll through it onto your back. This bleeds the kinetic energy into the rest of your heavy body more slowly than the sudden impact directed through one or two locked elbows. A short guy like me who trips and falls while running will convert enough angular momentum that my legs will go flying in a circle. It takes some practice. Having played any sports as a kid, even badly, seems to help. Imagine you’re trying to hang on to a football. Passers-by will think you are mortally wounded.
People who are getting frail or even slowing down, which of course doesn’t apply to Jerry but it does to many people who get injured falling on ice, may not be lithe enough to do a paratrooper roll and end up FOOSHing to prevent a face plant. A Colle’s fracture is better than a broken jaw. Falls onto a flexed knee or over onto a hip are very dangerous for older women and contribute to house-boundedness in winter.
So cleats/crampons are good. I have them too but I rarely think to use them. Hope Jerry’s better soon. He’ll probably hurt more tomorrow. Why would anyone say it was “stupid” to be trying to get to work, though?
Sooo… I need a third leg, is what you’re sayin’
😁
A third leg….and don’t walk. Just stand there.
Very interesting Leslie. Last January (also in FL) I tripped over my dog in the night (sober and all, just going for a pee!) and broke my humorous near the top in 2 places. It was hell.
But, as you suggest above, I was able to twist a bit to dilute the shock which I learned from “break falls” in judo decades earlier. I was amazed I remembered – it was sort of instinctual. I fear my FOOSH injuries would have been worse with extended hands and/or a lock. (The dog, of course, was fine! Later the x-ray lady told me I wouldn’t believe the number of patients she sees who have tripped over pets!).
D.A.
NYC/FL
I am also baffled by Trump’s assertion to take over the Gaza Strip until one of my favorite comedians cleared it up for me. I got a laugh.
https://youtube.com/shorts/gXrByxsf3SE?si=WYEkKoDji7-Nyh6I
This guy is teriffic, Amy. Thanks!
Made me chuckle. Thanks.
JAC, we all wish you well, particularly those of us who are of a particular age 😊
Eh?? Speak up, sonny.
😄
OMFG – hilarious! Though hard to listen to that whiney voice, even from an impersonator.
I agree. He’s a good impersonator though.
+1
Great bit! Thank you for sharing it.
I was expecting to hear the announcement about the new Trump golf course and casino complex, Gaza.
Speedy recovery PCC!
Suggested casino names:
The Trump Mirage
The Trump Pyramid (Scheme)
The Trump Tower (-ing) Inferno
Make America Gamble Again
(Having run out of Muse after these I asked my local AI to “list some snarky names for Trump casinos to be built in the Gaza Strip”, and it sucked. It’s not at all ready to take a stand-up routine on the road.)
Needed the laugh, thanks Barbara!
Too funny! Pitiful how accurate it is.
my last comment for the morning: every two years, since 1991, the cdc has published its Youth Risk Behaviors Survey (YRBS) which tracks attitudes and behaviors of high school students throughout the US on things such as tobacco use, sexual activity, fighting, bullying, school attendance, family stability, and sexual & gender orientation. While some questions change from edition to edition as the times warrant, there are nominally 85-115 questions each year with transgender questions being added in the past several editions. These data are critical to developing k12 policy and counseling programs if schools are serious about taking care of all of their students. My attention was brought to the recent publication of the 2023 YRBS peer reviewed papers in an edition of the MMWR – itself no longer available as a result of the trumpian takeover of the cdc.
“These data are critical to developing k12 policy and counseling programs [..]”
Meaning Social-Emotional Learning, or unlicensed, outsourced psychiatric therapy in uncontrolled non therapeutic environments – i.e. through a video call or on school property.
I do not understand the justification of applying these dubious and expensive practices to all students. It is a mystery how some schools never required such “Social-Emotional Meddling” (as Abigail Shrier expressed it).
Fortunately some of it is “opt-out”.
Reference:
Psychodata: Disassembling the Psychological, Economic, and Statistical Infrastructure of ‘Social-Emotional Learning
Ben Williamson
Journal of Education Policy
v36 n1 p129-154 2021
No! Not all students. This is not curriculum. But trying to work with and understand the couple of hundred out of 30,000 who do not fit the 1950’s Leave It to Beaver family model. Our counselors and school psychologists are a well educated and licensed group…a far cry from the football coach/guidance counselors of yore.
Surveys are given regularly to all students.
SEL is implemented through the WSCC model – Whole School-Whole Child-Whole Community. It is regularly emphasized to be integrated into academics. A license is not required for SEL as far as I know. Given the WSCC model it seems impossible.
Further, the Multi Tiered System of Support (MTSS) model in SEL is designed to apply to all students and direct any of them into mental therapy as needed.
The numerous outsourced therapy apps that are promoted in this MTSS model can be licensed, but one has to check. And I do not know how a video call is a therapeutic environment.
Lastly : clearly there is some disagreement perhaps – this is a serious topic and we find it extremely important but also complex – like, how the CDC connects to this! – but I emphasize I have great respect for you Jim – as well as abiding by PCC(E)’s principles as best I can. So I think I’ll “cool it” now.
“Lastly”: thank you, Bryan…Agree…complex and respect goes both ways. I was going to leave you with the link to the YRBSS cdc site which is (was) nicely complete but it is off-line with a note that it is being modded to fit with the presidents eo. Luckily i have the material down loaded locally and in some cases memorialized in good old fashioned paper copies.
Bryan: just received today’s MMWR, back after two-week hiatus that started week of inauguration. The YRBS article is from last oct mmwr and is at
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/su/pdfs/su7304a6-H.pdf
Still on cdc website with trans/cis in title. Interesting.
Thanks for the link update below, Jim.
I have to wonder if the surveys give references to e.g. Judith Butler or Robert Stoller so they can learn where the notions of “gender” or “gender identity” originated and what they mean in order to answer the questions.
Jerry,
Please get some traction devices! It is better than getting hurt. I didn’t have any for years and when I finally got some it made a huge difference. There are many different options:
https://www.rei.com/c/winter-traction-devices
And carry them with you. Just in case it gets icy. A neighbor slipped on ice walking out of her house and broke her hip in two places, I was told. I myself use hiking poles and cleats.
The key phrase in the 14th Amendment, which seems to be elided frequently in these discussions, seems to be “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. The Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Wong Kim Ark found the fact that his parents were legal residents to be central to the question of whether Wong was a U.S. citizen. They were and the Court ruled that he, therefore, was. The central fact for the court was that Wong’s parents (and he, ultimately) were not just resident in the U.S., but, through the process of legal residence, had submitted to the authority of the United States.
It seems that Trump is interested in ended birth-right citizenship for illegals, as well as ending birth tourism. The Wong opinion would seem to support him on this.
If illegal immigration is to be controlled, it seems wise to try and make progress on multiple fronts. Strengthening the border to allow fewer people to cross is important. But also deporting those who’ve successfully entered the country illegally is also a useful project. I think it’s important to debate the issue of birthright citizenship in the framework you suggest, DrBrydon.
I think that the most important single measure is cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants, but I don’t hold my breath that this will happen.
+1. The SC has never ruled on whether “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” applies to illegals or not. The outcome is unknown at this point.
The opinion seems to say that they did, since an illegal has not, by definition, submitted to the authority of the US by proclaiming allegiance.
I have no problem with abolishing birthright citizenship by the proper procedures. But to claim that one is only under the jursidiction of the USA if one has submitted to it “by proclaiming allegiance” (as opposed to when one is on US territory), is very strange to me.
So as a foreigner on US soil, legally or not, I don’t have to follow US laws because I did not proclaim allegiance to US authority/jurisdiction?
If your interpretation was the one intended by the original authors, then the phrase “… and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” would be redundant, so why would they have added it?
They must have considered that it was possible to be born on US soil but not be “subject to [its] jurisdiction”. It’s not a wild stretch to suppose that this includes children of people who have walked across the border but have no legal right to be there.
The only way I can see that you can be on US soil and not subject to its jurisdiction (to US laws) is diplomatic immunity.
Assume a family from another country is touring the U.S….the Grand Canyon…legitimately under a tourist visa. The wife goes into premature labor and delivers a healthy baby boy in Arizona. They then go back to their home country, never to return. While here, were they…are they, or the baby, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S.?
Well, yes and no. They are subject to the criminal laws…can be arrested for DUI, for example. But they at all times remain citizens of their native land, just as the baby is automatically a citizen of that country. They don’t have to pay taxes on their foreign income while here; their older 18 year old son, when entering the U.S. , does not have to register for Selective Service and cannot be drafted;once the baby leaves, he never needs to get a SSN or file a U.S. tax return and, if he joins the military of his country back home, is not in jeopardy of committing treason against the U.S.
All this is to say that Trump’s side has consequential non-trivial arguments to put forward. The Supreme Court has never ruled directly on point. We’ll have to see.
In reply to Mike’s reply to Peter about the baby visiting the Grand Canyon.
After some checking, it seems to me that if the child does not reject his US citizenship he must pay US taxes and is eligible to be drafted.
I’m interested in sources that contradict that.
Hi Jackie,
You are correct. All U.S. citizens no matter where they live must file income tax returns declaring all income earned everywhere in the world. It is quite common for Canadians to discover they are U.S. citizens by dint of having been born in the U.S. while their Canadian or other foreign parents were grad students. They might know they are citizens but many think it just means they can get a U.S. passport and move there any time they like. (Which is the case for the hundreds of thousands of Canadian birth citizens living abroad, 300,000 in Hong Kong alone. Not all were tourists. Many actually lived here for a spell.)
The shock comes when they find that if they have not filed U.S. tax returns they can have trouble getting loans or mortgages or even opening accounts with Canadian financial institutions. The arm of U.S. law in tracking down tax evaders and money launderers is long and vigorous. Until they rectify their delinquency with the IRS they are shut out of the financial system in Canada. Nor can they renounce their U.S. citizenship (“to protest against Trump!”) until they have paid all back taxes owing to Uncle Sam.
This is a very real thing for dual Canadian-U.S. citizens. Even TurboTax knows about it.
There was also the jurisdiction case (1924?) of an American Indian born on U.S. soil who was deemed not to be an American citizen because his primary duty of allegiance was to his tribe, not to the United States. This anomaly was repaired when American Indians were later made U.S. citizens by law.
These and other cases were discussed in an article you linked here when the EO was first signed, so thank you.
Canada endows birth citizenship, too, but merely through an ordinary Act of Parliament (The Citizenship Act of 1947) which can be amended by a simple bill that passes with a majority. It is a much longer document than the simple words of the 14th Amendment and says more clearly what it means. Perhaps with an eye to those pre-1947 U.S. cases our law doesn’t use the word “jurisdiction”. It simply defines explicitly the exceptions to birth citizenship and these are named as children of diplomats and others with diplomatic immunity and their foreign employees. Parliament can add whatever other exceptions it chooses to….or it could if the Prime Minister hadn’t prorogued it.
As to Trump’s plan for Gaza, who knows? I think, though, that if he is successful, and turns Gaza into another Riviera (or Dubai), that his residence there should be called Mar-a-Rio.
Nice.
And if he builds a hotel, it can be called the Trump Philistine.
Nice!
Without discussing any merits of Trump’s plan to “Make Gaza Great Again”, I’d like any of the naysayers to tell me a plan that actually would work. More specifically, one that would be even remotely acceptable to the Palestinians that doesn’t involve wiping Israel off the map.
One thing I do like about the Trump plan is it underscores the hypocrisy of the regimes in the likes of Egypt and Jordan. They couldn’t dismiss the idea fast enough. Indeed Douglas Murray suggests countries like Ireland, Canada, and South Africa should be more than happy to offer their services in re-homing Palestinians temporarily. What are the chances?
I think global policy over the last decades has failed the Palestinians.
I would suggest that if the Palestinians want to stay where they are any plan needs to involve the following:
Any serious claim to want a Palestinian state in Gaza will require the following:
1. Reject the Nakba narrative and give up any claims to the land that is never coming back. Acknowledge that Israel exists and that a unified geographically contiguous Palestinian state is not going to happen (maybe someday but not any day soon enough to plan for).
2. No self governance for the short term:
— The institutions and institutional knowledge for a corruption free government do not exist at this time.
— Long term self governance will require a long term investment in institutions that reject hate and corruption
3. International police on the ground to prevent rebuilding of any terrorist infrastructure on the ground and harsh and swift imprisonment for anyone creating weapons
— Stamp out funding and organizations that preach further hate
4. Deradicalization programs at all levels
— UNRWA funded schools have taught hate to Palestinians for decades and need to be defunded and rejected
— Schools, mosques, the public square, all need deradicalization programs
— Oversight of this must be international and Israel must have a veto if they can show that any program is preaching hate
This isn’t a comprehensive plan, but these are 4 principles I believe are key to any plan succeeding. It’s not paternalistic to reject self-governance at the moment. The idea that a nation which has been radicalized over the 40 years will somehow be able to govern itself in a way that preserves Israels security and doesn’t just lead to more terror is fantasy.
Any plan that doesn’t have a large number of international boots on the ground will fail. Any plan that doesn’t prioritize deradicalization without cultural destruction will fail.
I don’t believe anyone (France, Canada, UK etc…) will commit to this plan because it requires them to actually do some work. It would require acknowledging and confronting Islamism (political islam) and it would also mean ending the practice of treating Palestinians as perpetual refugees.
I have no hope in what I outlined above and I would, like you, love to hear other ideas.
I think your plan has merit. You correctly say that Canada wouldn’t seize the opportunity because, to paraphrase Edison, it knocks at the door wearing military fatigues and looks like hard work. Canada would be afraid to get behind the plan because it is, as a nation, worried about a violent Muslim reaction here at home to the “Islamophobia” of oppressing the Palestinians in Gaza.
More cynically, many ridings currently held by MPs of the two Leftist parties contain enough Muslim voters that in our politics of three-way races, disaffected Muslims, though a minority, could “queer” the vote in unpredictable directions to the cost of the currently governing Leftist Party. Our politicians are seriously afraid of this. Canada will contrive to get an urgent text from her children’s daycare centre when she sees the waiter coming with the bill.
I think all of us are not taking into account a few framing fundamental facts:
The Pal issue and its attendant antisemitism is about the ONLY thing uniting the Arab world and uniting the Islamosphere.
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Opinions there are largely based on Islam which is quite clear on its opinion regards The Joos. Muslim persecution of Jews dates back 1300 years. We have trouble imagining a society based on religion, we western secularists, and it is even harder to imagine one based on the precepts of Islam.
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We assume “they (the Pals) just want what everybody wants” which is untrue. Sure they do but they want other things also – sharia, the death of the west and particularly the destruction of the state of Israel. They’re not secretive about this in Arabic or English if you listen. The Pals had a conference in September 2022 called the Conference of the Hereafter at the Commodore Hotel in Gaza to explain their plan. It is astounding.
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There will never, but never ever be a “2 state” solution. It would be Israeli suicide and they realize that now.
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Some problems – particularly when religion is involved – are unsolvable peacefully. We have trouble getting that.
D.A.
NYC
more in my column variously syndicated:
https://democracychronicles.org/author/david-anderson/
Please! Not everyone in Canada supports Trudeau or his nonsense and I do not want a bunch of hate-filled, Jew-hating Palestinians moving here.
Things have gotten bad enough with all the Muslims Trudeau has imported.
With all due respect, I can’t think of any good reason for other countries to “take care” of the Palestinians… Israel gets more territory, ethnic purity and the like, all solely for its own benefit. Extreme ethno-nationalism tends to have that problem: there is nothing in for anyone else.
I think Craig McLaughlin was being satirical in suggesting other countries would re-home the Palestinians. For sure Douglas Murray was! Just as the Right loves babies until they’re born and soldiers until they come home, the Left loves Pals until they’re here.
One good reason that the Pals might find to their own benefit to up sticks and move is that if they stay where they are they are going to be made to keep doing things that will cause the Israelis to have to kill them in lots of 30,000 or so and wreck all their houses every few years. At some point the Israelis might just push them into the sea (in boats, of course, marshalled for the purpose) and they can take their chances that MSF will rescue them.
Jesus. Be careful up there ice skating about. Last year you spilled the milk and injured your arm slipping. Chicago isn’t a city for pedestrians.
NYC is better I think though I’m in FL this month and it is excellent. I’ll take the alligators and Florida Man over the chill of NYC for a little while.
Take care! We all need out daily WEIT.
D.A.
NYC
Completely agree! Take care, PCC(e).
OMG. Falls are dangerous! I’m glad that you’re still vertical after your ordeal getting to work.
Trump (of course). It’s perfectly fine to focus on President Trump right now. He has indeed put many things in motion that need analysis. His first few weeks have been a whirlwind of questionable acts that may change the country and even the world. How can we not talk about him?
Taking over Gaza, eliminating birthright citizenship, scouring the government to eliminate all remnants of DEI, DOGE snooping into government operations and (supposedly) having access to classified or at least private information, maximum pressure on Iran, tariff threats (and, in the case of China, actions). What’s next?
Some of these will stick, some not. But Trump is certainly in charge of the conversation. Some of what he’s doing will end up being bluster. Some will be scaled back or quietly forgotten. Some of the seemingly crazy ideas might actually lead somewhere, simply because they change the rules of engagement. (He seems to be “unburdened by what came before,” to quote a forgotten political figure.)
Trump reminds me a great deal of Theodore Roosevelt in terms of his activism. (I finished Edmund Morris’s excellent biography of Roosevelt a few weeks ago.) I’m not saying one way or another whether Trump will be a force for good, only that he will be a force. What he ends up doing, good and bad, will nonetheless be historic.
Penultimately, Israel still needs to eliminate Hamas as the governing authority in Gaza.
And ultimately, I like frozen yogurt, but our frozen yogurt stores are closing around here, so I think its star is setting.
About the CDC control of language used in scientific papers : the CDC before Trump already had guidelines about words to use forsex/gender, and they were severely enforced by the editors. So i don’t see the problem : it’s clearly paternalist and controling, but if it’s to counteract another tentative to control langauge, i think it’s okay. We don’t live in a perfect world and some strong reactions are necessary. Doctors should taste their own medecine, as a wise man said.
But don’t you see that when “we” do it language policing is okay and when they do it is wrong? (Sarcasm)
If the issue really does come down to the CDC regulating language then I don’t think the concerns about the threat to scientific integrity are justified.
Gender = Mental Sex Identification
Transgender = Cross-Sex Identification/Cross-Sex Identifier
Pregnant Person: Pregnant Woman/Female
Transsexual: Medical Sex-Trait Modifier
Non-Binary: Self Sex-denying/Self Sex-denier
Most of them are a bit cumbersome, but they’re usable and it ought to be possible to come up with better terms. Even basic demographic data shouldn’t be affected, once there’s a translation key between older and newer results.
The real issue I think isn’t that new terms to replace old ones couldn’t be found, but that vocabulary relating to cross-sex identification has done a lot of heavy lifting. Discussions about transgender women and girls sound different when you call them trans-identified males.
I despise “pregnant people” (the iPhone text assistant suggested “people” to follow “pregnant.” Yuck.)
I’m on team Trump for this one.
Same thing with “chest feeding”.
I hate that one too!
La Leche League (for nursing mothers) has now been captured by gender ideology.
https://millihill.substack.com/p/founder-of-la-leche-league-resigns
If USA can just take possession of Gaza, then one would think it could build a military airbase in Judea/Samaria. (I believe it already has a small ammo dump in Israel).
US military bases have security perimeters that can vary greatly from 1 to 100 miles; at least one US military base in a foreign country has a perimeter of 50 km. I imagine Trump could declare whatever distance he wanted.
Acts of terrorism performed with the aegis of the Palestinian Authority in Judea/Samaria would then be acts of terror against the United States itself, not just Israel. I would love to see the officers of the PA arrested and tried for terrorism. We might just see the rise of civilized Arab political parties.
A question from the other side of the pond. Trump has issued a lot of Executive Orders in a very short time. What happens if they cost money? Does Congress have to approve funding before they can be implemented? If so, will a simple majority in both Houses do? Can his wilder ideas be stymied by either House refusing to fund them? Thanks in advance!
One thing he did in the past was to declare a national emergency, thus bypassing Congress. That’s how he got a lot of money to build his wall first time around, though he didn’t build much. Or if Mexico paid as he promised, he wouldn’t need Congress.
Though in general, yes, his wilder ideas can be stymied if Congress refuses to fund them. The House speaker Johnson has pretty much abdicated the House’s Constitutional role as a check and balance, though I don’t think the Senate is there yet. Though the House “Freedom caucus” is against spending any money so they might be a problem. And he would need more than 52 Senators in the Senate unless they do away with the filibuster. Democrats almost did it, but they had 2 holdouts (Sinema and Manchin). Who knows if the GOP have enough Senators to stop the filibuster, but they probably have a better chance than the Dems since they’re in Dictator-mode at the moment. Lastly, the Senate can get around the filibuster by reconciliation, but I don’t know how that works in the grand scheme of money for crazy things like buying Greenland or taking over the Gaza strip…
A lot of the insidious things Trump is doing, he no doubt might argue, is saving the government money – downsizing, eliminating people, entire Departments, and programs, etc.
I don’t think he has said a single word about how these savings could/should result in lowered taxes for middle-class Americans. Shocking, I know.
Thanks Mark.
The EO on gendered language also caused the CDC to remove their treatment guidelines such as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP, still gone as of now) and opioid prescribing (seems to have returned). While people can archive and share them, this loss can be dangerous because swift access to standard treatment recommendations and resources is crucial for healthcare providers to do their responsibilities. In this, I don’t think the muddling of sex and gender warrented this level of action. It’s censorious and revising past scientific work. What’s published is published, and instead future publications should be clear with their terms.
The CDC can republish those documents after making very small changes (substituing a few words). And they should do it, for obvious reasons. It’s quite concerning that they don’t and i hope it’s not because of stupid political reasons of for ulterior political motives.
Is that giant greenhouse over Auschwitz intended to be permanent? Seems weird on many levels.
And as far as Ukraine, Boss Tweet may be keeping silent because Ukraine seems to be doing quite well right now (altho not 100%), as as per this report, and if this continues he’ll then naturally try to take credit for it. (Pls comment if this link does/does not work for you.)
In December of 2021 the CDC published their guidelines to woke language–I mean, their “Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication.” That document has now been purged from their website, but the following overview is still there that “encourages” all federal, state, and local public health officials to incorporate appropriately woke language into all publications. Of course, as with other CDC “recommendations,” both the public and the private sector jumped on board. Now we hear the media ranting about Trump trying to control the language use of government scientists. Where were they when researchers were being not-so-subtly coerced to use language with which they disagree and which is, in many cases, inaccurate? It is the same tired story across an array of social situations: woke activists dictate terms, practices, and conditions, and then when someone rolls these back to what existed before the activists arrived on the scene, it is an intolerable intrusion on liberty and free speech.
Should someone in the State Department be free to write Kiev (vs Kyiv) in a government-sponsored paper? Should they be free to speak of an apartheid society in Israel and a genocide of the Palestinians? It is free speech, after all. No, they shouldn’t when acting in an official capacity, because each would conflict with official US policy. Likewise, it is now the direction of our executive branch that men (meaning males) cannot get pregnant. Official documents and products produced by salaried employees of that executive branch need to comply. That we are even having this discussion simply highlights what heights of insanity the Left has driven us to over the last decade. We can now expect the well-deserved backlash to overreach.
https://stacks.cdc.gov › view › cdc › 112847 › cdc_112847_DS1.pdf
You seem to have been blessed with good health, Jerry. Take it easy on the icy sidewalks, will ya!