06/29/25

Good morning! It’s Monday, June 30th.

International Asteroid Day

Hey uh… don’t threaten me a good time, ya know what I mean?

And now, the news.

Shooting in Idaho

-via AP News

Starting with a particularly heinous story out of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where a brushfire in a mountain appears to have been set intentionally as a trap to ambush firefighters who, when they arrived to put out the fire, were ambushed by sniper rifle.

Two firefighters are dead. One was taken to the hospital, but their condition is not yet known.

As soon as the shooting took place, the firefighters had to retreat, leaving the fire to continue to burn.

After a six-hour search, a suspected gunman was found dead.

There are still a lot of unknowns here. For example - who was this shooter (I’m sure we’ll know soon), why did they do this (I’m sure we’re not going to love the answer), but of course the biggest thing we’re all holding our breath for is the number of injuries, and hoping that the number of casualties doesn’t increase.

I’m sure I’ll have more on this tomorrow.

Birthright Citizenship

-via AP News, Supreme Court, NY Times, Politico, The Guardian, and Texas Tribune

Today was actually supposed to be a special episode, believe it or not, because on Friday, the Supreme Court dropped a very confusing decision and I just thought it would be a good idea to clear a few things up.

So first, a little bit of backstory: as I mentioned last week, Stephen Miller is overseeing Trump’s immigration policies and during the 2024 campaign, Miller said that if it were up to him, there would only be 100 million Americans and they would all look like him.

Which is… not something I’m interested in, that’s for sure. Yikes!

I mean, listen, Trump absolutely has his own abhorrent views on race but it’s important to know that there’s a little teamwork going on here.

Trump has been talking about ending birthright citizenship for years. He tried it in 2018, but couldn’t. This was always the threat of a second Trump term, or one of them – he would surround himself with people who would say yes. No one would get in his way. Plus, now he has the Supreme Court he has.

So he tried in 2018, but couldn’t get it done. So he signed the Executive Order ending birthright citizenship this time – on day one.

Just – couldn’t wait.

Here’s the thing. Birthright citizenship is in the Constitution. The 14th 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.”

There is no asterisk. All persons.

It was a direct response to the abhorrent Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling, well-known to be one of the worst Supreme Court rulings in history, which said that Black Americans, whether they were enslaved or not, were not citizens. Couldn’t possibly be citizens. Of America? This America? No no no…

So Dred Scott, a Black man who was enslaved and traveled to two different free states with his enslaver and, when his enslaver died, he tried to buy his freedom. His enslaver’s widow refused to let him do that, so he filed a suit in Missouri to say that, because he lived in free territories, he should be free. He sued for his freedom, as well as the freedom of his wife and daughters.

But in 1857, a 7-2 Supreme Court ruled that it didn’t matter if he lived in a free territory or not; Black people could not be citizens of America, no matter what.

Built the dang country on their backs but sure… okay.

The 14th Amendment was written so that Black Americans, whether enslaved or not, could be citizens. But when the authors of the 14th wrote it, they knew it would apply to the children of immigrants. It was intentional!

I’m getting heated!

The reason we know they were okay with it applying to the children of immigrants is because they use inclusionary, not exclusionary, language.

“All persons”

ANYWAY…

So people, rightfully, were not super into Trump adios-ing the 14th Amendment with an executive order.

Because here’s the thing… famously, we have amendments in the Constitution.

All 27 of them have come from Congress passing a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate, which is then sent to the states, where ¾ of the state legislatures will vote to ratify it.

Alternatively, 2/3 of state legislatures can request a national convention, where delegates meet and propose amendments (and probably, like, tell jokes and talk about me, I assume?). Once that’s done, 3/4 of the states will still have to ratify any proposed amendment.

But knowing would never pass, he decided to circumvent all of that and just went with an executive order. Immediately, lawsuits were filed.

The big thing you need to know is that four federal judges issued nationwide injunctions.

So let’s break this down for a minute.

Every judge, except for the Supreme Court, has a district. But federal judges decide federal issues, so when they issue an injunction, it’s a federal injunction.

That power is given to them in the Constitution.

That’s going to be important.

So… there’s a nationwide injunction on Trump’s executive order, meaning that it can’t go through. That went all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Wildly, the Supremes did not rule on the Constitutionality of this case.

Which is bonkers! So wild!

Instead, they ruled on a different part of the Constitution that no one even asked them about! They love doing this! This is like when they overturned Roe and Historical Badman Justice Thomas was like “and we should look into gay marriage too!”

Get outta here! That’s not what this is about!

So what this ruling did was severely limit the power of federal judges.

Because when the federal judges rule on something, their ruling will now only affect the specific plaintiffs in the case. So if could be a state, if a state sues, or it could be an individual.

Not only does this limit the power of the court, by doing that, it increases the power of the president. Because when he signs those Executive Orders, it’s going to take a whole lot more work to push back.

Hey, fun time to remind us all that the founders designed the executive branch to be the weakest branch of the government. Isn’t that… super cool? Fun times to remember.

So this is a confusing ruling, but super important.

And let’s talk about what this means for birthright citizenship.

Because they punted it! Like… why? Why not just, you know… rule on that? (Although based on this federal judge thing, maybe we don’t want them to.)

The executive order will go into effect on February 19th. 28 states have not challenged the order.

Let’s pull one of those states as an example. How about… Texas. You’ll be shocked to hear Texas isn’t challenging the order.

If a baby is born to undocumented immigrants in Texas, after February 19th, unless another suit is filed, that baby will not be a U.S. citizen. They will be stateless, unless another country claims them.

The United States has never done this before.

Never.

If the baby is born in California, that baby would of course be granted citizenship and then that citizenship would be just a classic citizenship. It wouldn’t, like, suddenly go away if their parents live in Texas, but they had the baby in California to prevent this issue.

If it sounds like chaos… it is!

That’s the point!

Well, no, the point is racism.

But the second point is racism.

It can be both.

So we’ve got the problem of: the federal judges now having their power being severely cut down to like… itty bitty.

The additional problem of birthright citizenship probably going away in 28 states until other cases are filed and it inevitably ends up back in the Supreme Court again and we all just hold our breath but in the meantime it’s chaos and real families are harmed.

But what if I told you, I’m worried about a secret third thing?

Because remember at the top when I was like and this is how we amend the Constitution and then he went around all that

That’s… something I’m thinking about a lot lately.

Let that keep you up at night, ya know?

Uh oh! Welcome to my brain! It’s all Parks and Rec quotes and concerns about the future of our democracy. Hand in hand, if you think about it.

Let’s end on this (I will stop torturing you with my fears now)…

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent’s have gotten so good! I hate that she needs em, bad dang they’re do good. Anyway, I can’t say it any better than her, so here’s what she had to say: “With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a ‘solemn mockery’ of our Constitution. Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.”

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Hey, how’s that asteroid coming? Just… feel free to hurry along here pal.

I’m proud of… the Constitution. It’s doing its best. It’s really trying to hold on as best as it can, ya know? You know who wouldn’t put up with this? Leslie Knope. She’d have a thing or two to say about this.

But more than the Constitution, because you’re doing more than your best! You’re doing the best of the very best… I’m proud of you.