Via MSNBC, a slideshow of some scary images from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras following Tropical Storm Agatha and an eruption from Guatemala's Pacaya volcano.
31 May 2010
Sinkhole in Guatemala
Could be worse. You could be living in Guatemala.
Via MSNBC, a slideshow of some scary images from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras following Tropical Storm Agatha and an eruption from Guatemala's Pacaya volcano.
Via MSNBC, a slideshow of some scary images from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras following Tropical Storm Agatha and an eruption from Guatemala's Pacaya volcano.
27 May 2010
Time for vacation planning
Winter's clearly over; hot weather is here; oil is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico at an unstoppable, mind-boggling rate; city Dumpsters are detectable by odor a good half-block before they can be seen; and one's thoughts turn to the so very tempting idea of getting the hell out of Dodge.
It would be easier to plan a vacation if I had more paying work kicking around.
I think a long weekend up in the hills is not out of order, anyway. I'm thinking July in the Laurel Highlands, mostly because I really like saying "Youghiogheny."
It would be easier to plan a vacation if I had more paying work kicking around.
I think a long weekend up in the hills is not out of order, anyway. I'm thinking July in the Laurel Highlands, mostly because I really like saying "Youghiogheny."
26 May 2010
Answers and questions to people who want to eliminate birthright citizenship
The Constitution addresses citizenship in more than one place. For one, if you're born within the borders of the U.S., then you're a citizen of the U.S. (U.S. Const. amend. XIV § 1). It doesn't matter who your parents are, because that would be "work[ing] corruption of blood" (U.S. Const. art. III § 3 cl. 2) and visiting the sins of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation (Exo. 20:5, Ezek. 18:20, etc.) and stuff like that.
For another, the Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate as to citizenship (U.S. Const. art. I § 8 cl.4). It's done so a few times over the past 200 years, most recently with the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act, with big post-9/11 changes in 2003 (8 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq.). The Supreme Court has historically given Congress, INS, Homeland Security, and ICE, the BIA, and Customs and Border Protection -- as opposed to the States, the Executive Branch, or the Supreme Court itself -- huge deference in immigration and citizenship matters for two reasons. First, the Constitution is very clear that Congress has full and sole authority to deal with immigration and citizenship. Second, immigration and citizenship are national security concerns. This second factor has long influenced Supreme Court decisions, even pre-9/11, such as in cases where visitors were denied visas because of their real or perceived connections to Communists; see, e.g., Kleindienst v. Mandel, 208 U.S. 753 (1972).
Changing the details about how immigrants can obtain visas or become citizens happens pretty frequently, but it's always done by act of Congress, or via an Executive Branch agency to which Congress has given the authority to do so. But changing the basic criteria for what makes a person a citizen is a question that's so fundamentally Constitutional that, when Congress wrote the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952:
My point, and I do have one, is that meddling in the matters of re-defining citizenship is not only something that shouldn't be taken lightly, but as a practical matter it's also something that simply cannot be taken lightly. It'll take a Constitutional amendment to change the definition. But wait!
For another -- well, no really, it's all about the easy snark. Passing a state law just to see what the Supreme Court will do with it is a colossal waste of time and grief. States are not allowed to legislate about American citizenship. Don't believe me? Well, do you have a passport? Who issues passports, your state or the State Department? When you return from a trip abroad, do you go through a state customs control or a U.S. customs control?
Dig out your Constitution again, folks: the Supremacy Clause (U.S. Const. Art VI, § 2) is pretty darn clear about it, no matter where you fall on the spectrum of constitutional originalism versus textualism versus strict constructionism versus living constitutionalism. If you want to re-define or eliminate birthright citizenship, you've chosen a hard row to hoe, 'cause it'll take a constitutional amendment to see it done.
I'll wrap up with a few questions about implementation and enforcement. Right now, your state-issued birth certificate is proof of your citizenship. It's a sine qua non for obtaining a passport. While a passport is sorta the international proof of citizenship, you don't need one just for living and working in the U.S. That is, your passport is proof of American citizenship as to the rest of the world; your birth certificate is proof of American citizenship as to the federal government. But we're gonna run into some circular problems if your birth certificate, proving birth in a U.S. state, is no longer proof of citizenship sufficient to include in an application for a passport. In short, which will be enough to prove citizenship? Does this make your birth certificate meaningless, or your passport, or both?
So the deal, if we eliminate birthright citizenship, would be that you can't be an American unless your parents are American. (Straw poll and a quick aside: how many of my readers would not be American under such a rule? Both my parents are naturalized Americans. Would this change retroactively deny my citizenship, or could I apply for amnesty?) To get a citizenship-proving document, will a person have to prove her parents' citizenship? What if only one parent is a citizen? What if they're not married? What if the one citizen parent is dad (yes, it makes a difference)? What if there's only one parent at all, whether mom is a single mother by choice, or dad's not available for any number of reasons? What if the only parent is dad? What if both parents are dead, or cannot be found, or are stateless?
Would you have to get your birth certificate from the federal government now, since a state cannot issue a national identification document? Won't this lead to something like a mandatory ID card issued by the federal government? How does eliminating birthright citizenship make for less government, government that's less intrusive?
You can't propose eliminating birthright citizenship until you address these questions, and I'd like to see some intellectually honest answers to them.
For another, the Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate as to citizenship (U.S. Const. art. I § 8 cl.4). It's done so a few times over the past 200 years, most recently with the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act, with big post-9/11 changes in 2003 (8 U.S.C. § 1401 et seq.). The Supreme Court has historically given Congress, INS, Homeland Security, and ICE, the BIA, and Customs and Border Protection -- as opposed to the States, the Executive Branch, or the Supreme Court itself -- huge deference in immigration and citizenship matters for two reasons. First, the Constitution is very clear that Congress has full and sole authority to deal with immigration and citizenship. Second, immigration and citizenship are national security concerns. This second factor has long influenced Supreme Court decisions, even pre-9/11, such as in cases where visitors were denied visas because of their real or perceived connections to Communists; see, e.g., Kleindienst v. Mandel, 208 U.S. 753 (1972).
Changing the details about how immigrants can obtain visas or become citizens happens pretty frequently, but it's always done by act of Congress, or via an Executive Branch agency to which Congress has given the authority to do so. But changing the basic criteria for what makes a person a citizen is a question that's so fundamentally Constitutional that, when Congress wrote the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952:
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:. . . they totally cribbed their language directly from the 14th Amendment:
(a) a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof
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.To re-iterate, then. By the Constitution and by federal statute (and likely by various agency regulations as well), being born in the U.S., regardless of the status of either of your parents, makes you a U.S. citizen.
My point, and I do have one, is that meddling in the matters of re-defining citizenship is not only something that shouldn't be taken lightly, but as a practical matter it's also something that simply cannot be taken lightly. It'll take a Constitutional amendment to change the definition. But wait!
Bills to challenge the fact that citizenship is granted as a birthright in this country have been perennial nonstarters in Congress, although the current legislation has 91 co-sponsors. As with other issues surrounding immigration, however, some state legislatures still might act, if only in hopes of bringing this issue before the Supreme Court (NPR).Now, to get the easy snark out of the way: Aren't these the same types of people who complain about so-called activist judges legislating from the bench?
For another -- well, no really, it's all about the easy snark. Passing a state law just to see what the Supreme Court will do with it is a colossal waste of time and grief. States are not allowed to legislate about American citizenship. Don't believe me? Well, do you have a passport? Who issues passports, your state or the State Department? When you return from a trip abroad, do you go through a state customs control or a U.S. customs control?
Dig out your Constitution again, folks: the Supremacy Clause (U.S. Const. Art VI, § 2) is pretty darn clear about it, no matter where you fall on the spectrum of constitutional originalism versus textualism versus strict constructionism versus living constitutionalism. If you want to re-define or eliminate birthright citizenship, you've chosen a hard row to hoe, 'cause it'll take a constitutional amendment to see it done.
I'll wrap up with a few questions about implementation and enforcement. Right now, your state-issued birth certificate is proof of your citizenship. It's a sine qua non for obtaining a passport. While a passport is sorta the international proof of citizenship, you don't need one just for living and working in the U.S. That is, your passport is proof of American citizenship as to the rest of the world; your birth certificate is proof of American citizenship as to the federal government. But we're gonna run into some circular problems if your birth certificate, proving birth in a U.S. state, is no longer proof of citizenship sufficient to include in an application for a passport. In short, which will be enough to prove citizenship? Does this make your birth certificate meaningless, or your passport, or both?
So the deal, if we eliminate birthright citizenship, would be that you can't be an American unless your parents are American. (Straw poll and a quick aside: how many of my readers would not be American under such a rule? Both my parents are naturalized Americans. Would this change retroactively deny my citizenship, or could I apply for amnesty?) To get a citizenship-proving document, will a person have to prove her parents' citizenship? What if only one parent is a citizen? What if they're not married? What if the one citizen parent is dad (yes, it makes a difference)? What if there's only one parent at all, whether mom is a single mother by choice, or dad's not available for any number of reasons? What if the only parent is dad? What if both parents are dead, or cannot be found, or are stateless?
Would you have to get your birth certificate from the federal government now, since a state cannot issue a national identification document? Won't this lead to something like a mandatory ID card issued by the federal government? How does eliminating birthright citizenship make for less government, government that's less intrusive?
You can't propose eliminating birthright citizenship until you address these questions, and I'd like to see some intellectually honest answers to them.
25 May 2010
Insert lousy excuse for not posting [HERE]
Have been posting infrequently because there's a lot going on in real life lately.
I hate seeing posts like this one in other blogs, but there you are. With any luck, things will calm down in a little bit and I can get back to my usual rants and links in addition to the robo-posts about Drinking Liberally.
I hate seeing posts like this one in other blogs, but there you are. With any luck, things will calm down in a little bit and I can get back to my usual rants and links in addition to the robo-posts about Drinking Liberally.
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: We just passed the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 space mission, the one where an oxygen tank explosion took out so much of the spacecraft's equipment that the crew ended up using a sextant, an analog wristwatch, and dead reckoning to get themselves around the Moon and back to the Earth. Dig UniverseToday.com's interesting and informative series about the mission: 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13, written by Nancy Atkinson, which explains how NASA and the astronauts pulled off several hundreds of thousands of miles of spaceflight with 16th-century navigation technology.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: We just passed the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 space mission, the one where an oxygen tank explosion took out so much of the spacecraft's equipment that the crew ended up using a sextant, an analog wristwatch, and dead reckoning to get themselves around the Moon and back to the Earth. Dig UniverseToday.com's interesting and informative series about the mission: 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13, written by Nancy Atkinson, which explains how NASA and the astronauts pulled off several hundreds of thousands of miles of spaceflight with 16th-century navigation technology.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
19 May 2010
18 May 2010
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. And the more we tip the bartender, the more frequently he hands out free dishes of chips and dips. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: It's primary day here in Pennsylvania. The polls are open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. Dig the Committee of Seventy's Online Citizen's Guide for information about the candidates and issues, and to find your polling place, or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And when you get to your polling place in Philadelphia, vote HELL YES on Ballot Question #3, "Shall the Board of Revision of Taxes be abolished[?]"
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: It's primary day here in Pennsylvania. The polls are open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. Dig the Committee of Seventy's Online Citizen's Guide for information about the candidates and issues, and to find your polling place, or call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And when you get to your polling place in Philadelphia, vote HELL YES on Ballot Question #3, "Shall the Board of Revision of Taxes be abolished[?]"
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
12 May 2010
11 May 2010
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Media Matters discusses the Kagan nomination.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Media Matters discusses the Kagan nomination.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
05 May 2010
04 May 2010
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at José Pistola's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Alice Miller, 1923-2010.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
José Pistola's is at 263 South 15th Street (15th and Spruce) in Center City, near the Kimmel Center and the Academy of Music. There's a parking garage across the street, but as filthy liberal hippies naturally we suggest public transit; both SEPTA and PATCO will get you there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
This week's topic: Alice Miller, 1923-2010.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
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