"No" to Civil War 2.0

Look, if California Dems want to secede from the Union, and they are able to convince the citizens (and not to be forgotten: the non-citizen voters) to go along with that suicidal move, it is their right to do so, despite the lie we all were taught in civics class since the falsely-named Civil War.

California Dems like to boast that if California were an independent nation-state, they would have the 5th-largest economy in the world. What they overlook is that California's economy is as large as it *precisely* because California is a State in the USA. As an independent nation-state, their economy would quickly contract.

Also -- and I'd bet you that the Dems haven't thought of this -- IF California were to secede from the US ... which is the state's right to do ... THEN the USA no longer has an obligation to send Colorado River water to California. And, without that water, California's economy would collapse.

California Woman Sent to Prison Over Chinese Birth Tourism Scheme

I have written about "Chinese Birth Tourism" (i.e. Communist Chinese "anchor babies") as it relates to natural born citizenship before, noting that the US federal government prosecutes and imprisons persons who organize or facilitate such "birth tourism".  This post will focus on the absurdity of the leftist pretense that "anchor babies" are indeed US citizens.

The linked article reports that a "California woman" and her husband, who had "helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States to give birth so that their children would have automatic United States citizenship", were "both convicted of conspiracy and money laundering".  

Obviously -- definitionally -- if the US federal government is prosecuting, convicting, and imprisoning the organizers of "birth tourism" schemes on conspiracy charges, then it is the "birth tourism" itself which is the underlying crime at issue.  I mean, really! Literally everyone knows that only Donald Trump can be prosecuted for "conspiracy" to not commit a crime.

Think about this -- the (pregnant) Chinese women who make use of these (illegal) "birth tourism" schemes are in the US legally when they give birth.  Is giving birth in the US illegal?  Is giving birth in the US when one is not a US citizen illegal?  Obviously, the answer to both questions is a resounding "No".  So then, where is the illegality?  It is in trying to steal US citizenship for one's child (and thereby benefit oneself in the future). IF -- as the Democrats and other leftists assert -- the 14th Amendment mandates that *all* persons born in US territory (*) are by that mere fact US citizens, irrespective of the citizenship and legal status of the parent(s), THEN prosecuting the persons who facilitate those births is absurd.

As explained below (*), despite the 14th Amendment, until 1924, and even though born in US territory, and even though born to parents who likewise had been born in US territory, most American Indians were not US citizens because their parents were not citizens/subjects of the US sovereignty, but rather were citizens/subjects of different sovereignties; to wit: their tribal nations.

Now, IF the US Constitution did not extend US citizenship to American Indians or the children of American Indians -- to a class of persons who had for many generations been resident within the territory of the USA -- due to the fact that their parents were not already US citizens, THEN how can the Democrat/leftist assertion that the Constitution automatically confers US citizenship on the child of someone who had crossed the border five minutes ago possibly be true?  It is absurd!

Consider what is more typically meant by the term "anchor baby". There are two classes --

1) Those born to non-citizen parents who are in the US legally. This includes such persons as Barack Obama -- allegedly born in the US, with no real proof given, to a non-citizen father -- and Marco Rubio, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Kamala Harris;

2) Those born to non-citizen parents who are on the US illegally. This is currently the more numerous class, and the more contentious, as the Democrats and other leftists aim to use them to cheapen the value of US citizenship, and hope to use them to cement in permanent leftist control of the US government;

The Democrats and other leftists assert that the US Constitution confers US citizenship on the two classes of persons noted above. And moreover, they assert that the Constitution confers not mere citizenship, but natural born citizenship (which, as Mrs Olson says of Folger's Coffee, is "the richest kind").

But, as the examples of both the prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of those who facilitate "birth tourism", and of the citizenship status of American Indians show, the leftists are wrong. They are, in fact, lying.

If, despite the criminal prosecutions of those who facilitated such "birth tourism" births, the children born in the US to "citizens" of Communist China are indeed US citizens, why does the US government allow their mothers to take them back to China, to a life of slavery in-all-but-name and life-long indoctrination in hatred of America?

Or what? Does the act of trying to steal US citizenship for one's child (and thus to benefit oneself in the future) become a crime only if one has "conspired" with and paid money to a third party, such that those who "free-lance" it to drop an "anchor baby" get a pass (and get the citizenship)?

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(*) I have also mentioned this fact before (though perhaps not in a post on this blog) -- 

After ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, and after the US supreme (**) Court's 1898 Kim Wong Ark ruling (which Democrats and leftists love to misrepresent), most American Indians *still* were not US citizens until passage of the "Indian Citizenship Act of 1924".

This is the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment --

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.

Notice that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not explicitly deny US citizenship to (most) American Indians.  And yet, they were not extended US citizenship either by the 14th Amendment itself nor by the supreme Court's Kim Wong Ark ruling.

Clearly, the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause does not mean what the Democrats and other leftists like to assert that it means.  Here is the Wickedpedia article's introductory paragraph on the Act --

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, (43 Stat. 253, enacted June 2, 1924) was an Act of the United States Congress that declared Indigenous persons born within the United States are US citizens. Although the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that any person born in the United States is a citizen, there is an exception for persons not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the federal government. This language was generally taken to mean members of various tribes that were treated as separate sovereignties: they were citizens of their tribal nations.

Attend to this: (most) American Indians -- even if born in US territory and even 56 years after ratification of the 14th Amendment -- were not US citizens because their parents were not citizens/subjects of the US sovereignty, but rather were citizens/subjects of different sovereignties.

So, since the US Constitution did not extend US citizenship to (most) American Indians, how is it that they became US citizens in 1924 by a mere Act of Congress? By the fact that the Constitution reserves to Congress the power to "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization". That is, the "Indian Citizenship Act of 1924" is a naturalization law: the US Congress enacted a law stating that all non-citizen American Indians were thenceforth naturalized US citizens, and thus that their (US-born) descendants would be natural born US citizens.

Clearly, the right to claim US citizenship is not merely a matter of 'jus soli' ("right of soil"). That is, it isn't merely the fact of being born on US soil which confers US citizenship. 

Similarly, the right to claim US citizenship is not merely a matter of 'jus sanguinis' ("right of blood"). That is, one is not a US citizen merely because one's parents (note the plural) are US citizens -- it is for this reason that children born overseas to US citizen parents are not accorded US citizenship unless their parent(s) with US citizenship submit requisite paperwork as established by US naturalization law before the child's 18th birthday.

(**) "supreme Court" capitalization as per the US Constitution.

California Woman Sent to Prison Over Chinese Birth Tourism Scheme

Yes, The 19th Amendment Was a Mistake

The *reason* that some of the Western frontier States enacted female suffrage years/decades before the (evil) so-called Progressives convinced the country as a whole to enact female suffrage was that those frontier States had a lot of unmarried men ... who sometimes had political interests divergent from the interests of married men. THAT IS, female suffrage was initially enacted to double the political power of married men *as a class* over and against the political power of single man *as a class*.

And, of course, once the (evil) Progressives got their mitts on the levers of political power, the purpose of female suffrage became to convince women *as a class* that their interests diverged from the interests of men, and specifically from the interests of those men who have a vested interest in the *individual* welfare of those women: their fathers and husbands.

EDIT: At the same time, the 17th Amendment -- direct election of US Senators -- was a worse mistake than the 19th. And the 16th Amendment -- i.e. the one which established the principle that the US government *owns* your income (and thus owns you) -- was worse yet. Essentially, *all* the "Progressive Era" amendments had the effect of shrinking the citizen while growing the government.

The 19th Amendment Was A MISTAKE, Timcast Crew DEBATES Women Voting

On "Political Capital" ... and Self-Fulfilling Prophesies

So many political careers become ensnared by the concept -- probably invented by "political consultants" (*) -- of "political capital", often to the point of fecklessness: "I dare not do anything the voters really want, if powerful interests don't want it, lest it cost me 'political capital' and leave me unable to do something the voters really want/"  The zero-sum nature of  "political capital" becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Now, while Trump 1.0 *did* do some of the important things Trump ran on doing, in the end, that administration was stymied by a combination of traitors within and the fear of expending  "political capital".

But, so far at least, Trump 2.0 is showing us that "political capital" doesn't have merely to be expended in a zero-sum exercise, but that it can also be invested, so as to increase one's "political capital".

(*) Political consultant -- an expert at siphoning money from political campaigns into his own bank account.

About that fat, lesbian DEI assistant fire chief in LA

The first part of her now-viral self-celebration is standard-issue leftist "woke" and DEI identity politics bullshit.

The second part -- "[To] which my response is, 'He [i.e. your husband] got himself in the wrong place, if I have to carry him out of a fire.'" -- is what I want to focus on.

While many people on the internet are rightly outraged at her clear admission that she *knows* she cannot even hope to perform the most important part of the job, what everyone seems to be missing is that it goes deeper than that: into the differences between the psychology of women in contrast to that of men. Sure, she's a short, fat "butch" lesbian ... but she's still a woman, and the attitude she expresses -- "It ain't my problem, Jack!" -- is standard-issue female mindset.

Aside from the physical fact that women are smaller and weaker than men, and thus cannot meet the physical requirements to successfully perform the duties of police, firefighter, or military, is the psychological fact that women do not have the mindset necessary for those functions.

TimPool: INSANE Firefighter DEI Video GOES VIRAL Amid LA Wildfire Scandal

Corporate Hypocrisy ... and Cowardice

Background: 

I used to spend a lot of money every year (*) at Menard's, but now I go there *only* as a last resort, when I can't find what I want at Lowe's or Home Depot, despite that I know I can often find better prices at Menard's.  In just December of 2024, I spent at least $3000 between Lowe's and Home Depot ... this is money that at one time would have gone almost exclusively to Menard's.

And the *reason* that Menard's no loner gets my custom is because they went full covid-nazi during the Covid-19[84] plandemic -- at both the store in Mansfield and South Bend, employees followed me around and harassed me because I wasn't wearing a face-diaper, and one threatened to "call security".

Today:

Today, I went to Menard's (in part, because my hatred of that corporation *was* weakening ... but, it's back in full force, now).  Now, it says right on the front door: "No pets allowed / Service Animals Welcome", and yet, there were people inside dragging around dogs that clearly are not service animals.

So, I asked to speak to the manager to express my frustration at the discrepant treatment of actual human beings compared to animals which don't even belong in public spaces.

The manager's rationale was: 

1) "This is private property, so we can require you to wear a [euphemism for 'face-diaper]."

2) "Following the HIPAA law, I can ask if it's a service animal, and if the person says 'Yes', I can't further enquire, lest I get sued."

Dewd! What about my HIPAA right to not be suffocated because you're too cowardly and/or lazy to apply your mind to biological knowledge you ought to have understood by the time you were 12 years old?

Now, one will also see idiots bringing dogs into Lowe's, but Lowe's doesn't pretend to prohibit "non-service animal pets" on the premises.

(*) Based only on what I charged explicitly to the Menard's credit card, in the years 2017-2020, I spent an average of $1733 per year there.  The average would have been higher had not 2020 been the year I stopped shopping there.   Since then, I doubt that I spend an average of $100 per year with that corporation..

A Working 1st-floor Bathroom

My sister, Karen, came over from Indiana for a week to goad me into getting some work done on my house.  One of our projects was getting the downstairs bath operational again.  I still have some detail finish work to do, including re-surfacing the tub. This is what the room looked like as of New Year's Day -- 

This bathroom had been a "junk room" for many years, ever since one winter day when a cold draft coming through gaps in the old dry-stone foundation froze the supply line to the toilet and caused the shut-off valve to disconnect from the line. Fortunately, I was home when it thawed, and so I was able to shut off the water in the basement before too much flooding occurred.

Yes, I used a windowed door for this room -- I wanted more natural light to be able to reach the interior/central hall from which one accesses the foyer, the living room, this bath, the "front room", and the stairway.

You might notice the two rust-stains on the door-jamb to the left (fortunately, they will be hidden under the door-stop trimwork).  That is from a massive water-damage event several years ago when the supply-line to one of the sinks in the second-floor masterbath froze and burst due to raccoons getting into the lower attic and ripping out a lot of insulation.  I was out of town when it thawed (at the time, I worked a 2+ hour drive from home) -- every room in the house, but two, suffered water damage.