I’m having a quiet day, just a couple of people over for dinner. I plan to make hot dogs – something I don’t eat all that often but that I love – barbecued chicken, potato salad, and plum cake with blueberries and whipped cream (red, white, and blue – get it?).
I’m thinking that the country feels like it’s under internal siege. But you know, I’ve felt that way before. I write about the dangers often, and so I’m not going to write about them today. It’s a holiday, a big one.
Today I’m just going to note that I really do believe this is the greatest country on earth. Although threatened at times, our commitment to liberty is unmatched by that of any other country. The World Cup visitors from afar are surprised at our friendliness, our energy, our huge portions, our generosity.
I remember hearing from my son, when he lived in South America for quite a while, that although in some ways he could pass for a native, people always knew he was an American even before he opened up his mouth and demonstrated that he had an accent. Why? It was because of the way he walked. And I’ve heard other people say that Americans stride in a different way, a more open and free gait that identifies them.
America may just be the most beautiful country in the world in the sense of natural wonders, too. It’s certainly one of them, anyway. That’s partly because it’s so large and the terrain and climate and flora and fauna so varied. I recall learning in art history class that many of the early paintings of the American West – such as, for example, by Bierstadt – were designed to show Easterners and denizens of the Old World the wonders of the New. They could scarcely believe what they saw. And granted, it was a somewhat idealized version – but not that far off from reality:
I remember the 1976 Bicentennial vividly. But that was a long time ago. I was young, and now – well, let’s just say I’m not young anymore. But that star-spangled banner still waves o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post from many many years ago. It was written in the springtime during a visit to New York City. Reading it now, it seems almost archaic in certain ways – but not in others.]
I’ve been visiting New York City, the place where I grew up. I decide to take a walk to the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, never having been there before.
When you approach the Promenade you can’t really see what’s in store. You walk down a normal-looking street, spot a bit of blue at the end of the block, make a right turn–and, then, suddenly, there is the city.
And so it is for me. I take a turn, and catch my breath: downtown Manhattan rises to my left, seemingly close enough to touch, across the narrow East River. I see skyscrapers, piers, the orange-gold Staten Island ferry. In front of me, there are the graceful gothic arches of the Brooklyn Bridge. To my right, the back of some brownstones, and a well-tended and charming garden that goes on for a third of a mile.
I walk down the promenade looking first left and then right, not knowing which vista I prefer, but liking them both, especially in combination, because they complement each other so well.
All around me are people, relaxing. Lovers walking hand in hand, mothers pushing babies in strollers, fathers pushing babies in strollers, nannies pushing babies in strollers. People walking their dogs (a preponderance of pugs, for some reason), pigeons strutting and courting, tourists taking photos of themselves with the skyline as background, every other person speaking a foreign language.
The garden is more advanced in time than gardens where I live, reminding me that New York is really a southern city compared to New England. Daffodils, the startling blue of grape hyacinths, tulips in a rainbow of soft colors, those light-purple azaleas that are always the first of their kind, flowering pink magnolia and airy white dogwood and other blooming trees whose names I don’t know.
In the view to my left, of course, there’s something missing. Something very large. Two things, actually: the World Trade Center towers. Just the day before, we had driven past that sprawling wound, with its mostly-unfilled acreage where the WTC had once stood, now surrounded by fencing. Driving by it is like passing a war memorial and graveyard combined; the urge is to bow one’s head.
As I look at the skyline from the Promenade, I know that those towers are missing, but I don’t really register the loss visually. I left New York in the Sixties, never to live there again, returning thereafter only as occasional visitor. The World Trade Center was built in the early Seventies, so I never managed to incorporate it into that personal New York skyline of memory that I hold in my mind’s eye, even though I saw the towers on subsequent visits. So what I now see resembles nothing more than the skyline of my youth restored, a fact which seems paradoxical to me. But I feel the loss, even though I don’t see it. Viewing the skyline always has a tinge of sadness now, which it never had before 9/11.
I come to the end of the walkway and turn myself around to set off on the return trip. And, suddenly, the view changes. Now, of course, the garden is to my left and the city to my right; and the Brooklyn Bridge, which was ahead of me, is now behind me and out of sight. But now I can see for the first time, ahead of me and to the right, something that was behind me before. In the middle of the harbor, the pale-green Statue of Liberty stands firmly on its concrete foundation, arm raised high, torch in hand.
The sight is intensely familiar to me – I used to see it frequently when I was growing up. But I’ve never seen it from this angle before. She seems both small and gigantic at the same time: dwarfed by the skyscrapers near me that threaten to overwhelm her, but towering over the water that surrounds her on all sides. The eye is drawn to her distant, heroic figure. She’s been holding that torch up for so long, she must be tired. But still she stands, resolute, her arm extended.
NOTE: I was going to add a photo of the Statue of Liberty here. But instead I was very taken with a video about how the statue was constructed. I’d never previously thought about the challenges involved and how they were surmounted, but I learned about them here. And the video also caused me to reflect, and not for the first time, on how the forces arrayed against the US right now are good at destroying but not at building. Destroying is so much easier:
“This is a historic victory for New York City tenants. After reviewing the data and hearing from New Yorkers across the city, the independent RGB has delivered a freeze on one-year leases, and the first-ever freeze on two- year leases in our city’s history. This is the relief that working people across our city deserve.”
And what of the kulaks landlords? Well, they’ll just have to make do somehow, because the laws of economics are suspended as far as the left is concerned:
In plain English, he’s warning that private-sector owners must realize they have no rights to cover their costs, let alone to make a profit.
And oh, by the way, developers shouldn’t even think of building rental units here. The free housing market in New York is dead.
New Yorkers living in the city’s 1.1 million market-rate apartments are about to get stuck with the bill for the city’s rent freeze, according to the only member of New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board who is an economist and voted “no” on the freeze.
Arpit Gupta, who was appointed to the board by former Mayor Eric Adams, said landlords will likely jack up rents on market-rate units, as the rent-stabilized market stalls with tenants incentivized to stay put and owners forced to pull vacant units off the market.
“I think of this as trying to breathe with one lung,” said Gupta, an economist and associated professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Ah, but Mamdani has his own lived experience:
What’s worse is as many as 30% of rent-stabilized tenants earn six figures, according to the income data in NYC’s Housing and Vacancy Survey.
Until recently that included Mamdani himself, who lived in a $2,300 Astoria pad despite making $142,000 as a state assemblyman and his family wealth, before he moved into Gracie Mansion in January.
Gupta goes on to point out two things. The first is that the inhabitants of rent-stabilized apartments are not means-tested in any way and that many people in what’s called “market-rate housing” are poor. The second is that the vacancy rate in rent-stabilized housing is already high because it costs money to rehab the units and when landlords can’t recoup those costs by raising rent to cover them, they just take them off the market.
As DSA candidates spread, these sorts of brilliant policies will become more frequent in places other than NYC. Will enough voters catch on in time?
Israel’s ban on Palestinian workers has left families hungry and parents unable to pay for their children’s school fees. Still, the ban is being justified in the name of security, and shows no signs of abating.
It reminds me of the old joke about the man who murdered his parents and threw himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.
Israel is a sovereign country and Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank have zero right to work in that country – especially after Israelis who lived on the border with Gaza invited Palestinians into their homes to work and break bread. Gaza Palestinians returned the favor by taking notes about where safe rooms were, layouts of the homes, if there were dogs, etc. in plans for their ultimate slaughter, pillaging and rape on October 7. Dozens of Americans were murdered at the NOVA peace festival down the road.
So yeah, they’re not allowed to work in Israel anymore. Maybe you should be asking the governments of Gaza and the West Bank to foster economies that benefit their people so they don’t have to go work in the country next door.
However, it’s actually more complicated than that. There were indeed early reports that many Gazan workers spied on the kibbutz residents and helped Hamas with gathering information for the slaughter. But this spying was apparently not as widespread as initially reported – or was it? I’m referring to this report:
According to a Channel 12 report on Wednesday, the Shin Bet has investigated some 3,000 Gazans who had permits to work in Israel to assess if they had provided the terror group with information about the communities it was planning on attacking and has concluded that no such concerted effort was made.
The report noted that the Shin Bet did not completely rule out the possibility that some individual laborers had cooperated with the terror group.
“There’s no concern that the people who were investigated passed information to Hamas as a result of their work in Israel,” Channel 12 quoted the Shin Bet as saying. There was no immediate confirmation of the report from the agency, which rarely responds to inquiries.
What is the political bent of Israel’s Channel 12? I’ve read in that past that it’s on the left, and Google AI seems to think it’s center or center-left. At any rate, the issue is that this is (a) a report about a report, with no confirmation (b) a report based on interviews with 16% of the workforce; but who comprised this 16% and how were they made available for interrogation? (c) a report that there was no “concerted” effort.
What does “concerted” mean in this context – does it mean sheer numbers or does it mean coordination? Were the 16% typical of the group as a whole? How did Shin Bet determine whether they were telling the truth or not? Does the report even exist? If it does, is it being fairly represented? Not only is it not available for reading, but Shin Bet hasn’t even confirmed the story.
I don’t know the answers. What I do know is that Hamas is the government of Gaza and at the time of the attack had the support of the vast majority of the people of Gaza. It’s harder to tell how people in Gaza feel now, but I think it’s safe to say that many continue to harbor an intense hatred of Israel. Hamas itself is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Israel is under no obligation to employ any of the people of Gaza.
Another response to the New Yorker tweet asks the question: why can’t Egypt employ the unemployed Gazans? After all, they’re next door and many are of Egyptian descent. But we all know why: Palestinians have been a destabilizing element wherever they go.
In other news of Israel and Hamas, it appears that Israel continues to make inroads in Gaza, if this report is true:
(1) This move by Tucker Carlson is no surprise whatsoever: he wants to start a third party. It’s been evident for quite some time that he’d like to be a spoiler.
(2) I had never heard of Neville Roy Singham until today. But I probably should have. Here’s who he is and what’s happening to him:
The Department of Justice, authorized by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, launched a federal grand jury probe into the tech tycoon to investigate alleged wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering within his financial network.
Prosecutors are examining the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars that Mr. Singham allegedly funneled from Shanghai into the U.S. through defunct shell corporations and a Goldman Sachs philanthropy fund. …
The funds were allegedly distributed to a constellation of nonprofits, media operations and activist groups, such as CodePink, co-founded by Mr. Singham’s wife, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, that lawmakers and critics accuse of pushing Chinese Communist Party propaganda and sectarian division.
“Neville Singham is a traitor to our country. He has ties to the CCP,” Sen. Jim Banks, Indiana Republican, told Fox News Digital. “He is an American citizen, but all of his loyalties lie with the Chinese Communist Party. And when you begin to untangle the web of his massive fortune and his philanthropic activities, the money that he sends to left-wing groups in America, and not just groups that espouse ideologies, but espouse violence.”
How nice.
Singham was born here, of Sri Lankan ethnicity on his father’s side. Both parents were academics, and Singham made his own fortune in the software biz.
(3) Speaking of China – there are allegations that it may be funding the anti-data-center push. There’s an investigation going on.
If you’re worried about the influence of special interest money, you should probably give a thought to repeal. Beyond that, State legislatures choosing senators would make senators more accountable to state interests, acting as a check against federal expansion, unfunded mandates, and overreach. This aligns with the Founders’ intent for vertical separation of powers. And the need to be asking for money 24/7 demonstrably discourages otherwise qualified people from seeking office.
What’s more, Senators chosen by legislatures would be less likely to support expansive federal programs (e.g., certain aspects of Obamacare or No Child Left Behind) that impose burdens on states, as they would prioritize state budgets and sovereignty.
I’ve thought for quite some time that it would be a good idea. But there’s no way it could pass – just like most amendments. I’ve become convinced that it is nearly impossible to get 3/4 of the states to agree on anything, and this certainly wouldn’t be something that would even come close.
The survey found that 32 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they like political leaders who identify as democratic socialists, while 56 percent said they neither like nor dislike such leaders. Just 11 percent said they dislike those leaders.
Support was stronger among exactly the group you’d think:
The survey also found support was strongest among white, younger, college-educated, and upper-income Democrats. White Democrats were the most likely to express favorable views of democratic socialist leaders, with 40 percent saying they like them — nearly double the share of black Democrats (21 percent) and Hispanic Democrats (20 percent). Thirty percent of Asian Democrats also expressed favorable views.
There’s also this unsurprising statistic:
An Economist/YouGov survey released earlier this week found that only eight percent of Democrats considered the United States the “greatest” country in the world ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration, while nearly four in ten Democrats said they were ashamed to be American.
I had major Wifi connectivity problems today and had to finish and publish the previous post on my cellphone. That’s a far-from-ideal situation and quite frustrating. But all seems well now.
Usually the connection here is pretty strong and pretty reliable, but every now and then – well, you know. We’re not having storms today, either. No, this is what we’re having:
And I’ll throw in this:
Hey, why not some Ann Miller?
ADDENDUM: At least I don’t live in a town or country where they tell me I can’t use my AC.
I’ve noticed something recently, and it’s not a phenomenon limited to the left. I see it on the right, too. A great many people seem to think that Trump’s EO was an attempt to end birthright citizenship as a whole. It was not.
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.
DOJ senior official Colin McDonald issued a department-wide memo directing federal prosecutors to prioritize investigations and criminal charges against people who travel to the United States under false pretenses to give birth. The potential charges include visa fraud, money laundering, identity theft, and wire fraud.
“The Department of Justice will zealously protect the sanctity of United States citizenship by investigating and prosecuting those who fraudulently exploit our immigration system,” McDonald wrote in the memo, which he posted publicly on social media.
That’s all very well and good when Republicans are in charge. But if Democrats win, faggetaboutit. Of course, that’s true of a lot of things.
In the past, the fraud has worked in this way:
Back in 2019, Chinese national Dongyuan Li ran a company called You Win USA Vacation Services, which helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States to give birth. Li claimed to have served more than 500 customers, charging each between $40,000 and $80,000, and she received $3 million in wire transfers from China over two years. Li coached clients to lie on visa applications and at U.S. consulate interviews in China, claiming a two-week stay while planning to stay up to three months, and trained them to conceal their pregnancies from customs officials. …
You Win USA marketed the service by promising children “13 years of free education,” “less pollution,” “an easier way for the whole family to immigrate to the United States,” and “priority for jobs in U.S. government, public companies, and large corporations.” Citizenship as a premium package, complete with step-by-step coaching on how to fool the U.S. government.
Li pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2019.
In the future, though, they might become more subtle about it.
During the present administration, the flow of illegal aliens into this country has been much reduced. This helps deal with one aspect of the problem – although again, that will change if Democrats get back in charge.
And then there’s Congress. I don’t think the amendment effort can possibly end up getting 3/4 of the states to support it. but it needs to be tried.
But really, if birth tourism is reduced greatly and if illegal immigration is much reduced as well, that would take care of the bulk of the problem. Thing is, it’s only a temporary fix.
