President Trump is signing two Executive Orders to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship after Trump v. Barbara:

The executive orders,Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship and Ending Birth Tourism, limit the scope, targeting future births in four categories:

– Either parent of that person is an alien enemy, defined to include any member of a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
– Either parent is a foreign government employee working on behalf of a foreign government.
– Person is born in a territory or territorial waters of the United States where citizenship is not conferred by Federal statute.
– The entry of any foreign national into the United States via a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on American soil or any effort by any foreign national to facilitate the entry of any foreign national into the United States via a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on American soil.

I haven’t a clue how this would fare in a Court challenge. Legislation would do better, I think, but is probably impossible to pass at this point. Jonathan Turley gives his opinion here:

I will add that I believe that part of the goal is to simply discourage birth tourism, to maker it an iffier, more difficult, and more costly process. This might make the numbers go down significantly.

The post Trump gives limiting birthright citizenship another try appeared first on The New Neo.

The FBI opened a criminal probe specifically targeting Donald Trump in May 2017, alleging the newly elected president may have been acting as a Russian asset when he fired then-Director James Comey even though the bureau’s own evidence overwhelmingly showed at the time there was no collusion with the Kremlin.

Internal memos newly declassified by the White House show the investigation – codenamed “Oxferd Comma” – was launched in the immediate aftermath of Comey’s May 9, 2017, firing and was predicated on an allegation that previously released memos show the bureau’s own agents had mostly dismissed. …

… [T]hat decision proved anything but nonintrusive: it prompted the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller by Rosenstein and a nearly two-year probe that hampered the start of the Trump presidency even though Mueller’s team, like the FBI before it, was unable to substantiate any collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. …

The memos are being released as federal prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Fla., reportedly investigate whether the FBI, DOJ and intelligence agencies engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Trump and his supporters through repeated criminal investigations that lacked evidence of wrongdoing.

So this is about possible charges against the investigators. That raises the question we often ask: will anything come of it? It would be a very difficult thing to prove, although note that this investigation is currently not in Washington DC but in Florida. That may give it at least a fighting chance.

I have little doubt that such a conspiracy existed and that it did much damage. But I also think that many Americans don’t think that happened; in a sense, the conspiracy was rather successful in the court of public opinion. And some of those who do think it happened are happy that it happened. They belief it’s necessary to “cut down every law” in order to get the nefarious Trump.

[NOTE: What is this “Oxferd comma” thing? I know what the Oxford comma is, although I don’t use it. But Oxferd? Here’s an explanation:

Former acting Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark alleged the code name was deliberately altered to make records of the investigation harder to find.

“The FBI under James Comey and Christopher Wray was hopelessly corrupt. To penalize President Trump’s firing of Comey, they created a ridiculous investigation into Trump on the theory he was a witting or unwitting Russian agent,” Clark, who serves as vice president of litigation at the Oversight Project, told Fox News Digital.

“They called it OXFERD C0MMA (note the zero for the second ‘o’ and the misspelling of the University). The FBI managers thought this was clever. They imagined themselves as Blofeld in a James Bond movie deviously defeating the Freedom of Information Act,” Clark added, referring to the James Bond supervillain.

I hadn’t even noticed that zero for the O in “comma.” It appears only as “comma” in the first article I linked.]

The post You may be tired of Russiagate, but Russiagate isn’t tired of you appeared first on The New Neo.

We have become used to these things, and that’s not good.

What will be the effect of what Trump revealed, and the documents that have been put on the White House website? I obviously don’t know, but if previous experience is any guide, not all that much. It’s incredibly difficult to prosecute these things and in particular to get convictions in DC courts, if DC ends up being the venue for any trials.

For people already inclined to hate Trump – and that’s about half of the country – none of this will convince them in the least. Trump could say that two plus two equals four, and they would say he’s wrong and/or lying. Already the MSM is proclaiming that this is all the same old stuff that Trump’s been peddling since November of 2020, and in a way they’re correct (except for some of the details). But just because he’s been saying it all that time doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

And what have I been saying for those years? Pretty much the following:

– Whatever really happened in 2020 or any other election, it is exceptionally difficult to prove fraud once it has occurred. Therefore election security must be tighter than it has been, in order to prevent fraud or the perception of the strong possibility of fraud. Trust in elections must be restored. That is extremely basic, and yet difficult to do. Not only is the SAVE Act meeting significant opposition in the Senate from a few Republicans in addition to all Democrats, but even if the SAVE Act were to pass and be successfully implemented, half of America would say it excluded many Democrat voters who are qualified to vote but couldn’t prove it by the new rules. Whether or not that is the case, it would be the argument.

– Universal automatic mail-in voting has to end, because it’s too susceptible to fraud. We need to go back to the old system in which absentee voting is only available for good reason, and require that a voter wanting an absentee ballot make a special request ahead of time. Filled-in ballots must arrive back by Election Day, because late-arriving ballots are the reason for long drawn-out vote-counting.

– Voting should all occur on the same day, or at the most a very short number of days such as a week.

– To register to vote, a person must prove citizenship. There are many ways to do that, and there needs to be special consideration for people who lack birth certificates for bona fide reasons. After that initial proof of citizenship, regular ID would do.

– Computer voting needs to end. Paper ballots are preferable although not perfect.

– Ballot harvesting needs to be more limited as well.

Over the next few weeks, I’m fairly certain that much will be written about the evidence on the White House website. For now, I’ll just add that Trump looked understandably tired during his speech. It’s astounding to me how much work he does at the age of eighty, and how much stress he carries.

The post Trump’s speech on securing elections appeared first on The New Neo.

The post Trump’s speech this evening appeared first on The New Neo.

In a way it’s old news, but Trump promises something new. You can see some of the rumors at Ace’s (see this), but what Trump has actually said so far is this:

Speaking in the Oval Office two days ahead of the planned address, Trump affirmed the speech would focus on elections and a “couple of other things.” …

… Trump framed the elections portion of his Thursday speech as the centerpiece. Two sources said he is expected to focus on voting machine security and alleged efforts by foreign nations to influence elections.

“It’s really, really big news, and our country has to shape up,” Trump said during a meeting with Iraq’s prime minister.

“It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country,” the president added. “We’ll be discussing other things too, but it’s going to be a very big announcement.”

It could be about the SAVE Act. It could be about nearly anything related to elections. But I am convinced that, whatever he says – for example, if he produced what ordinarily would be considered ironclad evidence of fraud in previous elections – at least half the nation would not believe it. They don’t believe anything he says or anything his confederates say. They believe that everything and anything that comes from the GOP is fabricated, fake, false.

NOTE: Speaking of which, Chuck Grassley writes on X that he has evidence about prosecutor Jack Smith:

I received records frm DOJ confirming Jack Smith’s investigative team reviewed the contents of text msgs sent by 44 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS Im 1 of the 44

Im alerting my colleagues who were impacted and will release the records w Sen Johnson so American ppl can see the evidence.

Most of the responses on X are from angry people saying they’re tired of this sort of thing without any prosecutions of high-up perpetrators such as Smith.

The post Rumors about Trump’s talk tomorrow night appeared first on The New Neo.

Another conundrum trying to understand the mind of leftists. I know…an impossible task. But someone explain to me why the ones I know enthusiastically cheer every drone strike the Ukrainians make on Russia? Why is that such a just war? I’m not saying it isn’t, but their hypocrisy in not supporting the US getting rid of the 50 year threat of Iran having a nuke. Ukraine good, US bad.

The answer has several elements to it. The first is that the Ukraine War, and our position of helping Ukraine, began during the Biden administration. Had Trump been president and done the exact same thing as the Biden crew in taking Ukraine’s side, the reaction from the left probably would have been much less supportive of Ukraine. In fact, the left might have been against it. On the other hand, Trump’s war against Iran obviously must be condemned by the left, much like everything Trump does.

That’s not all, though. Another factor is that Putin is still connected in their minds to Trump, either by a continuing belief in Russiagate, or just by the idea that they’re both dictators and birds of a feather. Therefore of course the left will support Ukraine rather than Putin in the war (and by the way, I also support Ukraine, but for reasons which I’ve aired before).

Then there’s Israel. The left has come to uniformly hate and demonize Israel, and Israel is a major beneficiary of and military partner in the current war against Iran. Therefore the majority of the left must be on Iran’s side, just as it is mostly on Hamas’ side and on the Palestinians’ side.

So the whole thing is not hypocrisy or even inconsistency if you understand that the left’s guiding principles go like this: Trump bad, Israel bad.

The post Leftists, Ukraine, and Iran appeared first on The New Neo.

I happened to see this relevant clip yesterday. I’ve cued up a one-minute excerpt:

However, I don’t think Trump is necessarily finished with negotiating, no matter what he says.

The post Trump and Rubio on Iran appeared first on The New Neo.

But note the qualifiers such as “I think”:

There may be somewhat of a distinction between the people they’ve been talking to and the people in charge of decisions to attack, although Trump doesn’t say that in those remarks. But many of us have speculated that those two groups are not quite the same.

Trump also leaves some wiggle room for negotiations to continue. In other words, we still don’t know where this will go. Trump is highly motivated to keep oil prices down before the midterms, and the Iranians know it. That’s a huge factor in all of this. Note, also, that he’s not threatening to bomb them into the Stone Age (or even the Bronze Age).

The post Trump says talks with Iran are off … appeared first on The New Neo.

I first noticed this while listening to a podcast in which people were pointing out that America was built on immigration, that they themselves got their citizenship as the children of immigrants, and so forth, and therefore they’re against Trump’s proposals on birthright citizenship. But of course, that basic process is not in dispute – for legal immigrants. Nor, as far as I know, was the idea to make Trump’s EO on this retroactive and apply to people already born here.

It’s a separate issue whether Trump had the power to do this by executive order. I don’t think he does have that power, as I’ve written before. But the issue I’m writing about in this post is what he actually was trying to do with the order, not whether an executive order would be sufficient to actually accomplish it.

Here’s Trump’s executive order; you can take a look yourself. The order relies on the 14th Amendment requirement that, in order to gain birthright citizenship, a person born here must also be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US:

Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

In other words, the order sought exclude babies born to pregnant illegal aliens, and babies born to tourists. The next paragraph goes on to say that documents conferring citizenship should not be issued to those two classes of persons. It adds that it is not retroactive; it only applies to children born after 30 days of the order (I’ve noticed that some people had also wrongly assumed it would be retroactive).

And then it adds this:

Nothing in this order shall be construed to affect the entitlement of other individuals, including children of lawful permanent residents, to obtain documentation of their United States citizenship.

In other words, birthright citizenship would have remained intact for other classes of people.

Now, perhaps you all already knew all this. I had pretty much assumed that everyone already knew it. But then I kept hearing otherwise, some of it from people who are clearly intelligent, some of them also on the right. Was the misunderstanding a failure of the MSM to cover it properly? Or was it just a kneejerk assumption about Trump being an intolerant, marauding person who supposedly wants no immigrants? I don’t know. But I thought I’d clear it up, just in case.

What’s more, I’ve read little recently about a fact I wrote about years ago when discussing this birthright issue, which is that the US is almost alone among first-world nations in conferring it in the first place to the babies of illegal aliens and of tourists. Only Canada has a similar policy (excluding children of diplomats, however, much as we do) along with a host of third-world countries such as Cuba, Chad, and Guyana that ordinarily don’t have to fend off birth tourism anyway. I think a great many people assume that countries such as England and France have birthright citizenship much as we do, but they do not. The general rule for Europe and even for some third-world countries is that the parents must either be born there for some countries, or be legal residents for others.

When I look at recent headlines on the subject, I see a great many like this one from the BBC: “Trump loses Supreme Court battle to end birthright citizenship.” If a person reads only the headline and not the article – which people often do – that person would get the wrong idea. The body of the article itself uses the word “limit” rather than “end,” but doesn’t explain the details, and I think many or most readers would get the impression that Trump wanted to ban much more than was actually the case.

[NOTE: I’m having major WiFi connectivity problems today and had to use my cellphone to publish this. I had originally meant to add a few other articles at the end to illustrate, but have given up at the moment because it’s just too hard to do from a phone. GRRRR!]

[ADDENDUM: Here’s the part I was trying to add earlier, when my Wifi connection dropped out:

Then there’s this headline from something called the American Immigration Council. It reads: “SCOTUS Rules Trump’s Attempt to End Birthright Citizenship Is Unconstitutional.” At least, this article explains the restrictions in paragraph three, but there’s no question in my mind that for the many who don’t read that far, the impression received would be that Trump tried to ban the practice altogether.

On the other hand, this NBC News article uses the word “limit” rather than “end” in the headline. However, it doesn’t explain in the body of the article what those “limits” would be until quite a ways down – that is, paragraph ten. By that point many or even most readers probably would have given up.

The post Trump wasn’t trying to <i>eliminate</i> birthright citizenship appeared first on The New Neo.

Report on my leftist friends: they are obsessed with the Reflecting pool and algae growth there. They see it as evidence of what an idiot Trump is and how it’s all his fault.

For many, the fact that Trump still draws breath is an affront, and evidence of what an idiot he is. However, as far as the Reflecting Pool renovations go, there have been arrests of five people for sabotage – although the NBC article I just linked says the arrests are “with no evidence so far.” There’s more information on that at this article:

As of June 21, the identity of one person who was arrested has emerged.

David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, was arrested by U.S. Park Police on June 19 and charged with misdemeanor destruction of government property, the Washington Post first reported. Hearn did not immediately return USA TODAY’s request to speak on June 21.

Hearn told the Post he reached into the Reflecting Pool and was able to “grab” the end of a “flapping piece,” but didn’t remove it.

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” the 67-year-old told the outlet. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

U.S. Park Police did not return USA TODAY’s request for comment. When asked what they know about the arrests, D.C. Metro Police told USA TODAY to contact U.S. Park Police.

Aside from Hearn, it’s unclear who else has been arrested or what charges they might be facing. Trump said law enforcement is currently investigating.

The office of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment on the alleged arrests.

Speaking to Peter Doocy on Fox News’ “Sunday Briefing,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said that “anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the Reflecting Pool will face the criminal justice system in DC.”

Pirro stopped short of commenting on arrests, or saying anyone had been arrested, but did say several citations have been issued related to the Reflecting Pool, and that those citations will be prosecuted to the full extent.

I, for one, can manage without a whole lot more detail at this point.

I find the following quite interesting, though, and could serve as something to let Facebook friends know:

Algae has resurfaced in the reflecting pool periodically over the years — including immediately after it reopened from its last major renovation in 2012, forcing the National Park Service to drain it, refill it and recalibrate its ozone level. And in 2019, crews had to drain four million gallons from the pool to fix a broken water line that had algae growing in it.

An Interior Department spokesperson told NPR over email that algae and other contaminants have “long plagued the Reflecting Pool since 1922,” pointing to the Obama-era renovation as an example.

You might want to highlight the words “Obama-era renovation.” It turns out that there was a more expensive renovation during the Obama administration and it didn’t go very well. You might suggest they take a trip back in time and look at this from August of 2012:

The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall reopened Friday after a two-year, $34 million reconstruction, completing the largest National Park Service project funded by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package. …

Now the pool has been reengineered with a circulation and filtration system. Instead of using city drinking water, it draws river water from the nearby Tidal Basin, which will save 20 million gallons of drinking water each year.

The pool is shallower — only 3 feet at its deepest point — to save water, and its bottom is tinted grey to make the water darker and more reflective of the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument. …

For two years, the massive reconstruction project shut down a large swath of the National Mall as the old pool was removed.

Sounds familiar, except it took two years and was far more expensive than Trump’s renovations (reported to have been about 14 million) – although it sounds as though what Obama did was more extensive in terms of landscaping. And what was the result of the Obama changes? Why, algae, naturally. From October of 2012, about a month after the pool was first opened after the renovation:

The newly-renovated reflecting pool was drained of water this week after ABC7 reported that unsightly algae and scum was creeping into it.

It comes less than two weeks after the algae was discovered growing on the water, something that isn’t supposed to happen after the multimillion dollar renovation.

The algae was noticed at one end of the reflecting pool in late September. It almost completely covered the surface of the water.

The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall reopened at the end of August after a two-year, $34 million reconstruction. It was the largest National Park Service project funded by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Here’s the explanation for the algae at that time:

The Park Service says the Tidal Basin water isn’t chemically treated. Instead, it’s treated with ozone. The level of ozone, however, needs to be adjusted to prevent the algae from forming, but tweaking the levels post-bloom and trying to skim it off wasn’t working fast enough.

“Because we didn’t have it right at the beginning, the algae established itself,” says Carol Johnson, spokesperson for the National Park Service. “Algae doubles in size every four hours so it is a formidable foe.”

I have little doubt that Trump’s Obama-admiring critics will have the creativity to come up a reason why that is so different, and why Obama is brilliant while Trump is still an idiot. But to me, the whole thing indicates that the Reflecting Pool seems to want to grow algae.

More on the present situation, including some scientific background:

The Trump administration is using a mix of mitigation strategies, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae.

The Interior Department says hydrogen peroxide is a “milder treatment than chlorine and is used in spas and specialty pools like natural swimming pools,” adding “there are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment.”

Workers are also deploying what the department calls “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to neutralize algae and other pathogens in the pool.

I wish them good luck:

Rosalina Stancheva Christova, a professor of aquatic ecology at George Mason University in Virginia, took water samples from the pool on Tuesday. She confirmed the algae belongs to the genus Desmodesmus, which she said is “growing in excessive amounts” but is not toxic or harmful.

Christova says this kind of common green algae is found all over the region, especially this time of year. The reflecting pool in particular provides “excellent conditions” for algae growth, she said: shallow, stagnant water, strong sunlight and no shade.

“It could happen every single summer,” she added. “But it seems that the disturbance of the pond during the renovations [is] accelerating this process.”

It’s happened before, it will happen again – but it’s all Trump’s fault.

ADDENDUM:

Whoopi Goldberg says that the Reflecting Pool never had algae before.

And that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

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