Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: Supreme Court Weighs Anchor Babies and Birthright Citizenship

By John Zmirak Published on May 16, 2025

The issue of birthright citizenship is before the U.S. Supreme Court — in an indirect manner. The justices heard oral arguments yesterday on a series of lower-court injunctions stopping the Trump administration from deporting people it claims are not entitled to citizenship. The issue before the Court is not whether birthright citizenship — granted to anyone born on U.S. soil, even to tourists or illegal aliens — is genuinely what the Fourteenth Amendment demands. Instead, the justices are simply deciding whether lower courts have exceeded their jurisdiction with their orders. CNN reports:

The Supreme Court on Thursday seemed open to lifting a series of nationwide orders blocking President Donald Trump from enforcing his birthright citizenship policy, even as several of the justices wrestled with the practical implications of allowing the government to deny citizenship to people born in the US.

After more than two hours of argument, it was uncertain how a majority of the court might deal with those two competing interests….

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has emerged as a key vote in several cases this year involving the Trump administration, pressed [Solicitor General John] Sauer about why the government is avoiding the merits of the birthright citizenship issue. Her line of questioning drew an important concession from Sauer, who acknowledged the legal arguments defending the merits of Trump’s order were “novel” and “sensitive.”

The most interesting wrinkle to emerge in the arguments? A bit of panic on Barrett’s part about the prospect that the Trump administration might finally decide to defy lawless court orders that breach the separation of powers. Mediaite reports:

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed Trump Solicitor General John Sauer on whether or not the Trump Department of Justice believes it needs to follow federal court decisions.

“General Sauer, I want to ask you about a potential tension, well no, not potential tension. An actual tension that I see in answers that you gave to Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Kagan. You resisted Justice Kagan when she asked you whether the government would obey within the Second Circuit a precedent, distinguishing between opinions and judgments here,” began Coney Barrett, adding: “Did I understand you correctly to tell Justice Kagan that the government wanted to reserve its right to maybe not follow a Second Circuit precedent, say in New York, because you might disagree with the opinion?”

“General practice is to respect those precedents, but there are circumstances when it is not a categorical practice, and that is not just a new policy,” Sauer replied.

Stay tuned. The showdown between the executive and the judicial branch is coming. And when it arrives, welcome to the OK Corral.

Fednapping Governor Won’t Say Why She Covered Up Joe Biden’s Mental Decline

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who illegally locked her state’s citizens in their homes during the COVID panic and colluded with the FBI in a fake plot to recruit people to kidnap her, is now claiming that she had absolutely no idea how cognitively impaired Joe Biden was, even as he ran for a second term he was completely unfit to serve out.

Trump Loyalist Stymied by Swamp Senators Talks to Tucker Carlson

Remember Ed Martin? He was the top-notch nominee for U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. who was blocked by establishment GOP senators, especially Thom Tillis (R-NC). Martin is still serving, though, leading Trump’s investigations into the weaponization of government. Martin went on the Tucker Carlson Show to identify some of the worst Swamp creatures Trump needs to take on, and discuss why they were eager to get Martin out of the way.

New York Weighs a Canada-Style Euthanasia Law

We know that life is cheap in the abortion capital of America, New York City. And former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made it even cheaper with his decision to dump COVID patients in nursing homes, killing thousands of helpless Korean War veterans and grandmas while keeping his own mother safe. We’ve discussed that here countless times.

But now the Empire State is looking to go full Darth Vader with a law targeting the handicapped and sick. At the ever-fascinating magazine for dissident liberals Unherd, a writer who lives with chronic illness issues a warning:

Last September, I found myself — confused, groggy, and irritable — staring into the surgical dome light of my local hospital’s emergency room. The doctor and my parents at my bedside informed me that I had been found by a passing police officer, not breathing, and with no pulse, after my ventilator hose had become disconnected and severe hypoxia kicked in. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation brought me back, and I’d been transported to the ER. I was alive — thanks to the determination of law enforcers and local medical personnel to keep me that way.

New York’s proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act threatens to undo this presumption in favour of lifesaving, especially for people with disabilities such as me. This month, the bill passed in a vote of 81 to 67 in the Assembly, the lower chamber of the state legislature. It is now on its way to a vote in the state Senate.

If the Empire State joins the 10 states (and the nation’s capital) that have made assisted suicide legal, it will be adding killing to the options available in doctors’ toolkits. Given my own brushes with death over my 34 years — and those moments of staring into the suicidal abyss as a result of depression associated with my condition — I pray Empire State lawmakers take a step back, and rethink.

Let’s join that prayer.

Tulsi Gabbard Is Hosing Out the Deep State

Fox News reports that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — who was harassed for years by intelligence agencies for her patriotic politics, trailed by federal marshals, and falsely labeled a “Russian asset” — is cleaning out some of the spooks who have been persecuting conservatives:

Gabbard has fired the top officials leading the National Intelligence Council – whom whistleblowers describe as “radically opposed to Trump” — and has moved the agency to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, to ensure she can block any “politicization of intelligence,” Fox News Digital has learned.

Gabbard fired Mike Collins, who was serving as the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and his deputy, Maria Langan-Riekhof, Tuesday, senior intelligence officials told Fox News Digital.

One-time Communist Party voter and former CIA director John Brennan is melting down in public over these personnel reforms:

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

Reporter Jack Maxey, who risked his life preserving and making public the information contained in Hunter Biden’s laptop, was inspired by Brennan’s rant to craft a tribute via AI.

Will Republicans Defund Planned Parenthood?

You’d think this would be a no-brainer, and not just because Planned Parenthood kills tens of thousands of babies each year and now recruits tweens to the transgender cult by referring them for hormones and “therapy” without their parents’ consent. Republicans should vote as a bloc to defund this one-time eugenics organization because it campaigns for Democrats, spending millions to beat Republicans. Just for that selfish reason alone, you’d think they’d try to defund it of the two million dollars a day it receives from taxpayers … but you’d be wrong. The New York Post reports:

Some centrist Republican lawmakers have signaled opposition to including provisions defunding Planned Parenthood in sweeping legislation intended to advance President Trump’s second-term agenda. 

A GOP aide familiar with the House deliberations surrounding Trump’s “one, big beautiful” bill told the Post that moderate members of the caucus are opposed to language directing cuts to the abortion and reproductive healthcare provider that other lawmakers hope to include in the massive reconciliation package. 

Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) were among the lawmakers that voiced opposition to Planned Parenthood cuts during a closed-door meeting Tuesday that included House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), NOTUS reported on Wednesday.  

Putatively pro-life congressmen are talking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue, and hiding behind procedural concerns, the Post documents. Even Speaker Mike Johnson is swaying with every wind. 

Breaking: Good news for now.


Intercessors for America, ever alert to public policy issues with moral implications, offers a prayer we can join even as we burn up our representatives’ phones about this issue:

Father, we pray for lawmakers who are unified around what is best for the American people. Let every man and woman in the House and Senate be sensitive to Your voice.

Along The Stream…

Don’t miss this thoughtful essay on the future of education: “The Humanities Will Survive AI, But Only If Teachers Let It.”

Later this morning, join Eric Metaxas and Andrew Klavan as they talk about the importance of art created by Christians.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.