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‘Insane’: Taxpayers funded $241 million in transgender experiments on ANIMALS!

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

(Pixabay)

(Pixabay)

The transgender issue became a cause celebre for Joe Biden and his administration. He pushed the ideology, unscientific though it is, that men or boys can become women or girls. And vice versa.

His fight extended to the point he was trying to force doctors with ethical and religious objections to do body mutilating surgeries – and he was trying to force taxpayers to pay for it. And not just in the U.S., but around the globe.

President Donald Trump put a block on the agenda when he took office, stating that the government’s official policy is that there are two genders, men and women.

But now a report reveals that over recent years, taxpayers have been billed for some $241 million – for transgender experiments on animals.

It is Fox News that reported Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., described such spending as “insane.”

It was just weeks ago that the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in a hearing called, “Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer Funded Animal Cruelty,” heard from Justin Goodman of the White Coat Waste Project about the spending.

Goodman said, “In a lot of these cases, they involve mice, rats, monkeys, who are being surgically mutilated and subjected to hormone therapies to mimic female to male or male to female gender transitions, gender-affirming hormone therapies, and then looking at the biological, psychological and physiological effects of the gender transitions, looking at the effects of taking vaccines after you’ve transitioned these animals from male to female or female to male, looking at the size of their genitals changing after you’ve put them on estrogen or testosterone therapies to transition them.”

Goodman described one situation where a $1.1 million cash handout was delivered to give female lab rats testosterone, and then observe whether they were likely to overdose on a rape drug.

Crane explained, in a statement to Fox, “Anthony Fauci lied to the American people about masks, vaccines, social distancing, gain-of-function research, and the origins of COVID-19. On top of these egregious actions, he also authorized more than $200 million of taxpayer funds for ‘transgender animal testing’.”

Crane suggested it’s now up to Congress to examine spending bills line by line and remove “these fraudulent programs.”

Goodman cited that Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Joe Biden’s chief operative to impose masks, shots and lockdowns on Americans during COVID, funded 95% of the transgender animal experiments.

The taxpayer funds paid for “painful and deadly transgender experiments that forced lab animals to undergo invasive surgeries and hormone therapies,” explained Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.

What’s really happening with Trump vs. Zelensky

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Senator John Kennedy calls out NPR for their reporting: ‘no person with a brain above a single cell organism would call this fair and balanced’

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Feb. 19, 2025: 5:05 p.m.:

Senator John Kennedy calls out NPR for their reporting: ‘no person with a brain above a single cell organism would call this fair and balanced’

Senator Kennedy also said, “We’re going to have to get some new conspiracy theories in America because all the old ones turned out to be true!”

You would think that receiving nearly $100 MILLION from taxpayers would motivate NPR to play it right down the middle.

But instead, they decided to push the Russiagate lie, say the Covid lab leak theory was debunked, and call everything under the sun “racist.” pic.twitter.com/ZuPqbAztIP

— John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) February 19, 2025

Trump and Musk consider giving $5,000 DOGE dividend back to taxpayers

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Donald Trump and Elon Musk (X)

Donald Trump and Elon Musk (X)
Donald Trump and Elon Musk

The initial goals indeed were lofty: For the Department of Government Efficiency to cut $2 trillion from federal spending by cutting out fraud, waste and corruption.

Even $1 trillion, discussed by many as realistic, was huge.

In just a few weeks, reports say, DOGE, run by Elon Musk, has found $55 billion to eliminate.

And it looks like a bit of that could end up coming back to taxpayers.

The Washington Examiner reports, “The Trump administration could be sending out $5,000 checks to millions of people next summer if Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have their way.”

Musk said on social media he’s checking with the president on the future of what proponents call a DOGE Dividend.

Early plans suggest 20% of what is saved could be sent back to taxpayers.

The report said, “If the idea moves forward, it is sure to face pushback, as have most of Trump and Musk’s moves over the last month. Thousands of people have been laid off or fired throughout the federal government, and Democrats are staging protests almost daily outside various agencies or on the National Mall.”

Musk Mulls Sending All Americans $5,000 Checks Using DOGE Savingshttps://t.co/VF6oIWB5mq pic.twitter.com/A7QNvLsY7B

— Forbes (@Forbes) February 18, 2025

The DOGE Dividend:

Elon Musk just said DOGE is considering sending $5,000 refund checks to US taxpayers.

This plan would send 79 MILLION households a total of ~$400 BILLION, which is 20% of DOGE’s projected savings by 2026.

What does this mean? Let us explain.

(a thread) pic.twitter.com/T8XhunCnpF

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 19, 2025

A report from Forbes said the idea was pitched by James Fishback of investment firm Azoria. He reportedly advises DOGE.

The report explained the plan is to return 20% of DOGE’s targeted $2 trillion in savings to some 79 million tax-paying households.

Musk has confirmed that ultimately the decision would be up to President Trump.

Musk and his DOGE team have been working to cancel grants and contracts, reduce the federal workforce, and more. Multiple lawsuits have been filed, with some of the DOGE actions now on hold, while other judges have affirmed various moves, such as offering federal workers six months of paid leave in return for leaving government employment.

Fishback, in the report, was called “an outspoken supporter of Trump, Musk and DOGE” who considers DOGE “pro-taxpayer and anti-waste.”

‘Unmanned’ flights: Amid rumors of all-female flight crew that crashed in Toronto, Delta CEO won’t reveal identity of pilots

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Amid rumors that an all-female flight crew was at the helm of the Delta Air Lines flight that crashed and flipped upside down in Toronto this week, the company’s chief executive officer is refusing to identify the pilots.

“I can’t provide any details,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said Wednesday morning on CBS. “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

When asked specifically about the pilots, Bastian said: “It was an experienced crew.”

While CEO Ed Bastian tells CBS Mornings he can “understand” why people would be afraid to fly right now, he says that air travel in the U.S. is “safer than the car ride I took this morning to get to my office.”

After a Delta jet skidded and flipped upside down on a Toronto… pic.twitter.com/H2sGr4Dig1

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) February 19, 2025

“There is one level of safety at Delta,” Bastian said. “All these pilots train for these conditions.”

While he called video of the crash “horrifying,” he praised the actions of the crew deducting the evacuation process.

“This is what we train for,” Bastian noted. “We train for this continuously.”

Meanwhile, video has emerged of the pilots of Endeavor Air, which operated the Minneapolis-to-Toronto flight.

One clip is set to the 2004 Disney movie “The Incredibles” and includes the lyrics: “Girls, come on? Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”

A female pilot os shown lip-synching the words as she wags her finger in a negative manner.

LibsofTikTok says it appears Endeavor “is fixated on promoting all-female ‘unmanned’ flights.” The reference to “unmanned” implies male-free.

The Delta plane that crashed in Toronto was operated by Endeavor Air, a regional airline that, according to their TikTok, is fixated on promoting all-female “unmanned” flights. pic.twitter.com/2XxA0mZLXR

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 19, 2025

As WND reported Tuesday, Delta Air Lines is coming under severe criticism for doubling down on its push for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, just days before Monday’s spectacular crash at Toronto Pearson Airport.

On Feb. 6, Peter Carter, chief external affairs officer at Delta, said: “We are steadfast in our commitments because we think that they are actually critical to our business.”

(Note: Some graphic language in this new footage of the crash):

Not flying delta with their dei pilots anytime soon pic.twitter.com/IWIlueoifd

— MAGA Firearms & Tech (@magafirearmstec) February 18, 2025

“Sustainability is about being more efficient in our operations and really DE&I is about talent and that’s been our focus.”

“The key differentiator at Delta is our people,” Carter added, according to Fox5Atlanta.

Among those slamming the airline in harsh terms is comedian Tyler Fischer, a frequent face on the Fox News Channel, who said on X:

“This is from Delta’s DEI website. An airline OBSESSED with the race and sexual preferences of their workers. Think the passengers who almost died in Toronto give a flying F*** about if the pilot [has sex with] dudes or the flight attendant’s great grandma was a non binary Native American?”

“Just land the damn plane right side up. Look at their site it’s insane.”

Another commenter noted: “Delta, the epitome of DEI zealotry, now faces the stark reality of their folly. A crash, not of mechanical failure, but of judgment, where diversity trumped skill. The wreckage serves as a stark reminder: competence, not checkboxes, should dictate roles. The cost? Peoples lives!”

Delta, the epitome of DEI zealotry, now faces the stark reality of their folly. A crash, not of mechanical failure, but of judgment, where diversity trumped skill. The wreckage serves as a stark reminder: competence, not checkboxes, should dictate roles. The cost? Peoples lives! pic.twitter.com/7lrpczVFr5

— Sapiential Sage (@Sapiential_Sage) February 18, 2025

On Tuesday, a day after the crash, Delta’s own website continued to champion DEI, with a variety of company statements and personal testimonials from minorities and homosexuals.

“We actively seek diversity, boldly pursue equity, and consciously promote inclusion to create a sense of belonging for all people,” its diversity page proudly declares.

It quotes Delta CEO Ed Bastian saying: “Thoughtful action combined with a focus on championing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and within our personal lives will play a healing role to help us keep climbing. The Delta family will use whatever means we have to move the world toward a better, more just tomorrow.”

Is the news we hear every day actually broadcasting messages from God? The answer is an absolute yes! Find out how!

Julie T., a Delta customer solution supervisor in Atlanta, is featured in one diversity video, saying:

“A waitress came over and said that we couldn’t hold hands in a restaurant. And I was really just kind of heartbroken that somebody would feel tat way just because I’m holding hands with a woman.”

“I can’t imagine being in other places where I can’t be who I am, and Delta makes it so easy for me.”

Of course, of course, Delta doubled down on DEI
Choose who you fly with carefully or you may end up upside down on a runway…. https://t.co/mCr6rFSNhv

— Real Ben Garrison Cartoons (@GrrrGraphics) February 18, 2025

The site also promotes one of its black female aviators, Monique Grayson.

​”As one of Fortune’s Best Workplaces for Women, promoting diversity and intersectional empowerment of women is key to Delta’s culture and success. To celebrate women’s history and the impact women make on our world every single day, Delta is highlighting women across the business all month long.

“On International Women’s Day, we are thrilled and proud to share the story of Delta First Officer Monique Grayson.

“I knew I had the desire to become a pilot when I was approximately 12 years old,” said Grayson. “I’m just hoping in the future, people will see people such as myself, and believe that whatever goal they have, they can accomplish it.”

Delta Airlines, now powered by DEI. Feel safer yet or is this giving you dancing nurse vibes? pic.twitter.com/rkNnjojLap

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) January 17, 2024

Delta line check pilot Lane Kranz, a gay man, is also featured, and was asked why it is important for the world to see diversity in the flight deck.

“We’re a global airline that flies all over the world – over 300 countries on six continents,” he explained.

“Our company brings people together from different cultures, practices, life experiences and perspectives, and it’s important for our pilot population, and workforce in general, to mirror our customers. When you harness the energy of different people, that creates new perspectives and ideas – innovation. Innovation leads to change and change leads to opportunity. This is why diversity is so important.”

This is your reminder that Delta still has its DEI page up

It actually says “We actively seek diversity”

Including multiple programs aimed at hiring more ‘diverse’ (not White) pilots https://t.co/OrfImr2c2Q pic.twitter.com/5XfdYthDdN

— The Real Brandon (@BluecollarBran) February 17, 2025

When asked to share an experience at Delta that made him feel included, Kranz responded:

“One experience that comes to mind is when I was a first officer. I was flying with a captain, and he asked, ‘What does your wife do?’ I said, ‘I’m actually married to my husband, and he works for T-Mobile in Human Resources.’ He said, ‘Wow, that’s awesome. I’m not gay but my son is, he’s in college.’ It just made my heart melt when he said that. I don’t make a big point about me being gay, but if someone asks, I’m happy to share my experience.”

Wow, Taylor Lorenz posted this 2 days ago.

She circled the DEI and added “This plane is NOT going down.”

Notice the Delta logo at the top left.

This aged like milk. pic.twitter.com/wrauvjjJBV

— Libs of B.S (@Libsofbluesky) February 17, 2025

Follow Joe on X @JoeKovacsNews

‘Diversity trumped skill’: Delta Air Lines under fire for championing DEI amid spectacular crash

Judge may block Trump’s EO on trans troops, says idea of 2 genders isn’t ‘biologically correct’

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Judge Ana Reyes / Wikimedia Commons

A federal judge on Tuesday signaled she would side with a group of transgender soldiers who sued to block President Trump’s executive order on transgender troops.

Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, grilled DOJ lawyers on Tuesday and said that Trump’s executive order asserting there are only two genders is “not biologically correct.”

“With the DOD policy expected to be finalized over the coming week, Reyes said she would hold off on issuing an order but had largely made up her mind about the legality of the order, at one point remarking that “smarter people on the D.C. Circuit would have to tell me I’m wrong” about the policy. She added that the central premise of the executive order — that only two genders exist — is “not biologically correct.”” – ABC News reported.

Last month President Trump signed the “Restoring America’s Fighting Force” executive order and the “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” executive orders, which direct every element of the U.S. military to “operate free from any preference based on race or sex” and root out gender insanity and made up pronoun usage, respectively.

This order directs the Secretary of Defense to ensure that military service is “reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty” and “promptly issue directives for DoD to end invented and identification-based pronoun usage.” The standards for our military troops are deemed “inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”

“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity,” the order states. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

Judge Reyes also grilled lawyers on the use of pronouns and gender ideology.

“If you were in a foxhole, you wouldn’t care about these individuals’ gender ideology, right?” the judge asked DOJ lawyers.

The judge did not issue a ruling on Tuesday.

ABC News reported:

A federal judge appears poised to block the Trump administration if the Department of Defense attempts to place limitations on or ban transgender service members.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes is still hearing arguments Tuesday in the case but signaled deep skepticism with the claim that transgender service members lessen the military’s lethality or readiness.

“You and I both agree that the greatest fighting force that world history has ever seen is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1% of the soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them. Would you agree with that?” Judge Reyes asked during a hearing this morning.

“No, Your Honor, I’m not. I can’t agree with that,” a lawyer for the Department of Justice responded.

At issue is Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order that directed the DOD to update its guidance “regarding trans-identifying medical standards for military service and to rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.” While the Department of Defense has not issued final guidance on transgender service members, the order led to a pause in gender affirming care for service members and is expected to lead to a significant curtailment of transgender service members based on “readiness and lethality.”

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

DOGE Bros: Trump and Musk tell Hannity the ‘bromance’ endures

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk (Video screenshot)

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk (Video screenshot)
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk

What would you say you do here, Sean Hannity asked in so many words, and the world’s richest man replied, “Tech support.” The answer was quite literally on his chest. At the White House, Elon Musk wore a T-shirt beneath a black blazer emblazoned with those words while seated next to President Trump.

It was a Fox News interview like none other, and at one point during the hour-long sit-down Hannity told the pair, “I feel like I am interviewing two brothers.” This was likely the larger point.

Trump now enjoys some of his highest approval ratings while the public increasingly looks at Musk with a mixture of curiosity and occasional trepidation, as his Department of Government Efficiency furiously hacks at some of the lesser-known parts of the federal bureaucracy with the equivalent of a meat cleaver. The president communicated that his deputy does all of this with his blessing.

Time Magazine had put the eccentric billionaire behind the Resolute Desk on the cover of their latest issue. The New York Times later wondered if this would drive a wedge between the two men. Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts began referring to him in committee as “Co-President Musk.” And yet Trump shrugged. The president, the real one, told Hannity that it was Musk who first called him to report that critics “are trying to drive us apart.”

The “bromance” between the multi-billionaire and the billionaire president persists. “The people are smart, they get it,” Trump said of their shared endeavor. Added Musk, who was careful to follow and never interrupt, “They do actually.”

The second Trump administration is more focused than the first. The reality TV-worthy drama of his first four years now seems a distant memory. This is a product of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ management. She has staffed the West Wing with MAGA faithful who are competent, loyal to the president, and dedicated to putting his vision into practice. Chaos comes not from palace rivalries like last time, but from the upheaval of the federal apple cart – the aforementioned tech support.

“One of the biggest functions of the DOGE team is just making sure that the presidential executive orders are actually carried out,” Musk explained. Decrees do not work, he argued. His work suggests he believes that amputations do.

When Trump ordered an end to so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the federal government, Musk and his team took to cutting it out root-and-branch. At the Department of Education, DOGE eliminated $370 million in DEI funding and terminated over 70 DEI training grants. Across the myriad of government agencies, they canceled nearly 100 DEI contracts. Elsewhere the Muskateers deputized by Trump shuttered relatively new agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and older ones, like USAID.

What he is doing here, Musk told Hannity, was nothing short of trying to save representative government: “The president is the elected representative of the people, so it’s representing the will of the people. And if the bureaucracy is fighting the will of the people, and preventing the president from implementing what the people want, then what we live in is a bureaucracy and not a democracy.”

Trump finds the work of his right-hand man pleasing, telling Hannity that when all the cost-cutting is said and done, he expects Musk will likely “get a trillion dollars out of the deficit.”

There has been some confusion over the exact role the business magnate holds in the administration. For instance, in court documents the White House acknowledged that Musk is not an employee of DOGE or its leader, at least technically speaking. Instead, the Office of Administration acknowledged in a declaration filed in response to a lawsuit brought by 14 Democratic state attorney generals that Musk is simply a special government employee who serves as a “senior advisor to the president.”

Wherever Musk fits exactly on the organizational spreadsheet, it was clear at the end of the Fox News interview that he has the blessing of the president despite any controversies.

While Washington bristles from the cuts, the philosophy of the Silicon Valley titan is not new. It is how he built his empire. Musk laid off nearly 80% of the Twitter workforce after acquiring the social media website that he would later rename X, and he once told biographer Walter Isaacson that his “algorithm” includes such a maniacal obsession with efficiency that “if you’re not adding back at least 10% of the things you cut, you haven’t cut enough.”

Applied to government, this seems to include the workforce responsible for the caretaking of the national nuclear arsenal. The Associated Press reported that as many as 350 employees of the National Nuclear Security Administration were summarily fired by DOGE, only to be subsequently offered their jobs back in a hurry. Hannity did not broach this topic, but the sympathetic host did press Trump and Musk on the possibility of conflicts of interest.

Musk and his small army are currently marching through the Defense Department even as the Pentagon contracts with his outside businesses, such as SpaceX and StarLink, for services. The entrepreneur insisted that he hadn’t asked the president “for anything ever.” Insisted the president, “If there’s a conflict, he won’t be involved. He won’t want it.”

The interview lasted an hour in prime time. The answer to the larger question of what Musk does for Trump was answered, in so many words, with “whatever the president wants.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Why the argument for birthright citizenship is not the slam dunk many says it is

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Personnel Specialist Seaman Dana Young, left, and Retail Services Specialist Seaman Eslanie Yutangco, both originally from the Philippines, recite the oath of allegiance March 29, 2021, during a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization ceremony in Yokosuka, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler R. Fraser)

Personnel Specialist Seaman Dana Young, left, and Retail Services Specialist Seaman Eslanie Yutangco, both originally from the Philippines, recite the oath of allegiance March 29, 2021, during a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization ceremony in Yokosuka, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler R. Fraser)
Personnel Specialist Seaman Dana Young, left, and Retail Services Specialist Seaman Eslanie Yutangco, both originally from the Philippines, recite the oath of allegiance March 29, 2021, during a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization ceremony in Yokosuka, Japan. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler R. Fraser)

President Trump often trumpets American exceptionalism, but an executive order scheduled to take effect this week seeks to uproot a longstanding policy not found in much of the developed world: granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil. Under his order, the babies would, instead, inherit the immigration status of their parents.

Attorneys general from 22 states have already sued in two federal district courts and won preliminary rulings to block what they call the president’s “unquestionably unconstitutional” action. A lawsuit filed by four states in the Western District of Washington claims his action “is contrary to the plain terms of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.”

Legal experts on both sides of the debate agree that the issue likely will be resolved by the Supreme Court. It’s a case raising momentous questions about the meaning of citizenship in a nation founded by immigrants, hinging largely on the legal interpretation of a few words in a Civil War-era amendment to the Constitution.

Trump’s order would align U.S. policy with much of the developed world, including the European Union, Japan, and the world’s two most populous countries, China and India. But it would make the U.S. an outlier on this side of the Atlantic: Almost all of the estimated 33 nations that embrace what’s called birthright citizenship are North and South American nations that accepted waves of mostly European settlers and enslaved people.

The United States appeared to codify the policy with the passage of the 14th  Amendment following the Civil War, which was intended to grant citizenship to freed slaves. A subsequent Supreme Court case from 1895, involving the son born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants who were here legally, has long been interpreted as making all babies born on U.S. soil citizens. That son would still be considered a citizen under Trump’s executive order.

Called the “Citizenship Clause,” the key sentence in the 14th Amendment states, “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.”

Opponents of Trump’s order say the amendment’s meaning is clear. “The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment unambiguously and expressly confers citizenship on ‘[a]ll persons born’ in and ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States,” reads a complaint filed in Federal District Court in Massachusetts. Signed by 18 attorneys general and the city attorney for San Francisco, the lawsuit states that birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment is “automatic” and “any attempt to deny citizenship to children based on their parents’ citizenship or immigration status would be ‘unquestionably unconstitutional.’”

Supporters of Trump’s order argue that the inclusion of the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” transforms what would be a straightforward assertion, that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen, into a fraught legal question. Although they appear to be the minority, various scholars have long doubted the validity of birthright citizenship because of that ambiguous phrase – and by applying what they see as basic common sense.

Political moderates such as legal scholar and retired federal judge Richard Posner have long ridiculed the idea of birthright citizenship, pointing out that Congress passed the 14th Amendment to ensure citizen rights and protections for former slaves, not the children of foreigners who gave birth in America.

“What about these foreigners coming here – pregnancy tourists – who want to have their child born in the United States, so he will have refuge if things go bad in his country?” said Posner during a 2015 talk discussing his book, “Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Sovereignty of the People.” “I don’t think it is required by law. I think the Supreme Court would say, what they meant was that the children of the former slaves would be citizens.”

“Under the best reading of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, the citizenship status of the American-born children of illegal immigrants is not mandated by the Constitution,” argue two liberals, Yale Law School’s Peter H. Schuck and Rogers M. Smith, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. The professors, who both favor expanded legal immigration, point to that opaque qualifying phrase of the 14th Amendment as a deal-killer for birthright citizenship.

While rarely cited by the national media, Schuck and Rogers have been making their case against birthright citizenship for almost 30 years, ever since they published their book, “Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Polity.”

“The most important and under-studied question in regard to the Citizenship Clause is the meaning of this phrase – then and now – given the framers’ and ratifiers’ intentions,” Schuck and Rogers write. When Congress debated the 14th Amendment, they argue, members did not discuss nor ever mean to grant citizenship to the children of those present in the U.S. in violation of American law.

“It’s not so much a conservative issue,” said Linda Denno, an associate dean at the University of Arizona. “It’s just that conservatives are getting it operationalized.” Denno studies constitutional law and is affiliated with the Claremont Institute, which is seen as the leading think tank producing research chipping away at the lawfulness of birthright citizenship.

Conservative critics of birthright citizenship cite the Claremont Institute’s Edward Erler as the scholar whose research surfaced the most compelling historical evidence that Congress never intended for children of illegal immigrants to be automatic citizens. Erler’s narrative sprawls across American history, touches on the Declaration of Independence, and even delves into British common law.

But even Erler admitted in a Claremont talk last week that some at his own institute say his argument is “too complicated to be persuasive.”

In condensed form, Erler’s argument starts with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which defined American citizenship. Congress passed the act after the Civil War to protect the rights of newly freed slaves but had to override the veto of President Andrew Johnson, a Southerner who did not support citizenship for former slaves but succeeded Lincoln after his assassination. Concerned that future lawmakers might repeal or alter the Civil Rights Act, Congress ratified the 14th Amendment a few years later.

Supporters of birthright citizenship claim the 14th Amendment’s text is unambiguous and clear that everyone born in America is a citizen. But that was not always the case.

‘Subject to the Jurisdiction’ of Whom?

Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to legal Chinese immigrants in 1873, five years after the passage of the 14th Amendment. Following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, his parents returned to their homeland, as did Wong. In 1895, Wong was denied re-entry to the U.S. when he disembarked from a ship from China.

Borrowing language directly from the 14th Amendment, the 6-2 Supreme Court majority found that Wong was a citizen, born “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States, confirming congressional intent that children born in the country have automatic birthright.

“I think it’s clear with the Wong decision that if someone is born in the United States, then they are a citizen,” said John Yoo, professor of law at UC Berkeley and a former justice department official under George W. Bush. Yoo said the  “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase does not qualify nor limit the scope of the citizenship clause, as Erler argues. In fact, the Supreme Court reiterated the phrase in the Wong decision, Yoo said, to emphasize the original meaning.

“That language has this very settled and long understood meaning,” Yoo said. Excluded from birthright citizenship: those born to foreign diplomats, soldiers of invading armies, and American Indians, who were members of their own tribal nations. American Indians and their children did not become citizens until 1924 when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act.

The same  “subject to the jurisdiction” language appears again five decades later in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. Again, Yoo noted, this means that Congress wanted to further underline birthright citizenship, not qualify it.

“When Congress used this same language in the law, they expressed no desire to adopt some weird, unorthodox meaning to it,” he said. “Usually when Congress uses legal terms, we assume they use those words to say what the courts say they mean.”

But where Yoo sees a legal consistency that underlines and emphasizes birthright citizenship, others see the opposite. The “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase invalidates the foundation for automatic citizenship because it was never originally defined hundreds of years ago in British common law, which served as the basis for the 14th Amendment.

“The immediate problem is that the language used in the amendment ‘subject to the jurisdiction of’ is alien to the common law itself,” Erler said last week. “It does not appear in the common law.” While debating the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment to grant citizenship to former slaves, Congress chose the“subject to the jurisdiction” phrase to exclude all others, not to include them, as Yoo and others contend.

“They want to argue this means ‘anyone else who was in the country for any other reason,’” Denno said. “And, of course, that’s ridiculous.”

Denno noted another problem with the critical Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision when granting citizenship to illegal aliens. While Wong’s parents were not citizens, they were not “illegal immigrants” as they lived in San Francisco’s Chinatown legally as permanent residents. The very idea of an “illegal immigrant” did not even exist until years after the debate and passage of the 14th Amendment – in 1875 when the federal government first began regulating immigration.

“Congress needs to pass a law to define the meaning of ‘subject to the jurisdiction of,’ and that would end all of this,” Denno said. “Trump is pressing the issue because Congress is more or less incapable of doing much of anything.”

Problematic News Coverage

Very little, if any, of the legal history of birthright citizenship has made it into the press. Instead, most reporters cite a simplistic reading of the 14th Amendment to declare Trump’s agenda an assault on the Constitution and the entire debate moot.

“The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, ‘All persons born in the United States are citizens,’ ” NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker said to Trump in an interview two months back. Welker’s reading of the amendment truncated most of the Citizenship Clause. “Can you get around the 14th Amendment with an executive action?”  she asked.

Like Welker, other journalists reporting on her NBC interview failed to note the critical phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” that legal scholars on one side cite as restricting automatic citizenship. “Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution,” Hillary Clinton confidently asserted on X, also omitting the full text of the Citizenship Clause. “Trump may want to read it.”

However, Yoo called the current dispute over birthright citizenship “symbolic,” and while it generates headlines and heated arguments, he said, it doesn’t address the very real problem of illegal immigration. “The number of tourist babies is 150,000 a year,” he told RealClearInvestigations. “This is nothing compared to 3 million coming across the Southern border. If you want to fix illegal immigration, birthright citizenship is not the concern.”

But on the matter of the children of illegal immigrants, Georgetown Law professor Randy E. Barnett and University of Minnesota law professor Ilan Wurman say “the case for Mr. Trump’s order is stronger than his critics realize.” In an opinion essay in the New York Times over the weekend, they wrote that illegal immigrant parents “are not enemies in the sense of an invading army, but they did not come in amity. They gave no obedience or allegiance to the country when they entered – one cannot give allegiance and promise to be bound by the laws through an act of defiance of those laws.”

So, they suggest, illegal immigrants and their children might be out of luck.

As the legal debate heats up, Trump’s focus on birthright citizenship may be shifting opinions in his favor. About 60% of Americans favored birthright citizenship, according to a poll from The Economist and YouGov, released in the summer of 2023. But that support is wavering. More recent polls by the same two groups showed a trend with more Americans in the Trump camp. An Emerson College poll taken last month found that 45% supported Trump’s efforts to roll back birthright citizenship, while only 37% opposed.

Public debate may also be changing the opinions of public officials.

In 2006, prominent conservative Judge James C. Ho published a legal article that defended birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, citing the text and history of both the 14th Amendment and the Wong Kim Ark decision. Ho has sterling conservative credentials as a member of the Federalist Society and former Republican Party staffer on the Senate Judiciary, and Trump has included him on a short list for the Supreme Court.

But in a decision he wrote last summer, Judge Ho agreed with the Governor of Texas that he was facing an “invasion” of illegal immigrants. When questioned about that decision after the recent election, Judge Ho appeared to further align himself with the Trump view on automatic citizenship.

“Birthright citizenship obviously doesn’t apply in case of war or invasion,” Judge Ho told Reason magazine. “No one to my knowledge has ever argued that the children of invading aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship. And I can’t imagine what the legal argument for that would be.”

However, Denno noted that Trump’s path to a Supreme Court decision that reverses decades of executive interpretation of the 14th Amendment is likely long and uncertain, especially since Chief Justice Roberts seems loath to address controversial issues. “The Supreme Court is not taking it up, if they don’t have to,” Denno said.

Yoo said that Trump’s obvious strategy is to deny the child of illegal immigrants a social security card or passport, get sued all the way to the Supreme Court, and hope for a decision that overrules the 1898 Wong Kim Ark verdict.

But Yoo doesn’t predict that the ending will make his fellow conservatives happy, despite all the evidence they have dug up.

“The President is allowed to have a different opinion on the Constitution and then try to persuade the Court to change their mind,” Yoo said. “And then he can lose.”

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

Paralyzed but undeterred: Dennis Prager fights to get back on the air

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Dennis Prager (Video screenshot)

Dennis Prager (Video screenshot)
Dennis Prager

Nationally syndicated radio host Dennis Prager says he hopes to return to the radio soon after sustaining a serious injury in November, according to his family and colleagues. That could also mean his weekly columns might be returning to The Daily Signal, too, as Prager is a longtime favorite of Daily Signal readers.

“When you hear him on the radio, you’ll say he hasn’t skipped a beat, that’s for sure,” the columnist’s son, David Prager, said.

Dennis Prager sustained a spinal cord injury after a fall at his home Nov. 12 and has been in recovery since. He is currently paralyzed from the shoulders down but is showing promising incremental improvements, including eating and talking regularly, according to a video message on Friday from PragerU CEO Marissa Streit and Chief Development Officer David Prager. The elder Prager sustained no brain injuries from the fall, according to Streit.

“Given the fact that it was an incomplete injury, we can only find out really six months and beyond where he will be long-term,” David Prager said. “We know that long-term he will be back on the radio, back doing fireside chats, doing what he does best, and influencing the world.”

The columnist founded the Prager University Foundation in 2010 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization promoting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness through free educational content for all ages, according to PragerU’s website. The organization produces podcasts, videos, and interviews on history, politics, and current events.

Dennis Prager’s gratitude toward his family and friends is driving his recovery, Streit said in the video. He has a vision for his recovery and is looking at options for returning to work in the media and at PragerU and dictating the remainder of his “Dennis Teaches the Torah” book series.

“It’s so amazing to watch Dennis go through this situation and learn so much about how he handles this kind of fight,” Streit said.

David Prager said his father is back to his old self and staying up to date on the world.

“I throw back a lot of his famous lines in his face to make sure he remembers them … reminding him it’s not about being optimistic or pessimistic long-term, it’s about fighting,” David Prager said. “He’ll still correct my grammar, so I know that’s still happening. So, it’s definitely him.”

PragerU is accepting donations to the foundation in honor of Dennis Prager and his fight.

“What you can do is help us keep going,” Streit told supporters. “I would love to be able to continue to show him that none of us are giving up.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Trump’s been in office for a few weeks Biden wrecked our economy for 4 years

February 19, 2025 Ogghy Filed Under: THE NEWS, WND

Feb. 19, 2025: 11:51 a.m.:

Trump’s been in office for a few weeks Biden wrecked our economy for 4 years

It takes a while to turn the economy around. Biden didn’t do it in four years but you want Trump to clean up your mess in one month! What you’re complaining about is the Biden economy! Didn’t the Biden Administration say inflation was transitory?https://t.co/9TrXVcMYye

— Lynn Thomas (@LynnT919) February 19, 2025

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