Steven @Centimest

I am by birth and by right an American. I do not wish to change this fact, and I will not surrender to those who would change it for me. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, a place I invariably think back to on those rare occasions when someone says, “Go back to your country.” Cleveland? You want me to go back to Cleveland? And, yes, I was born as the thing now being argued over nationwide: a birthright citizen. Which is to say, my parents were not yet American citizens when they had me. Had they given up everything they knew to come here? Yes. Had they strained family bank accounts back in India for so much as a plane ticket? Yes. Had they committed every morsel of their energy and perseverance and ingenuity to making a life here? Yes, yes, and yes. Had my father, quoting the folk singer Tom Paxton, written to my mother of their departure from India’s comfortable certainties that the two of them were now venturing “Outward bound upon a ship that sails no ocean / Outward bound, it has no crew but me and you / All alone when just a minute ago the shore was filled with people / With people that we knew”? Yes. And he still quotes it to her. But they were not yet American citizens. Nevertheless, they dared to cast the biggest vote of confidence a human being can cast in another country: creating a child who will belong first to it, and not to the country of their own certainties. To have a child is to begin to lose control from the moment of physical separation. They never go back in; eventually, they acquire minds of their own. But the loss of control is greater, the faith deeper, when you are one thing, and you engender a child who is another. My father used to introduce my sister and me as “the original Cleveland Indians.” The joke killed before the team’s name change. But really we were just Americans. Americans with masala, maybe, but Americans. Baseball and Hot Wheels and hot dogs and a big Oldsmobile and a yard and, more than anything else, a sense that history didn’t have to be some big drag, that here, eyes to the horizon, standing atop the old, not under it, you become, become, become. President Trump wants to end birthright citizenship. Because he is inelegant, his way of going about it would inevitably imperil much of the legal infrastructure that pulled America out of slavery, brought down segregation, and laid the foundation for women’s rights and equality and the freedoms of many other populations. Legal writers more knowledgeable than I have explained why Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship is both perilous and, legally speaking, hogwash. I want to make a different point, borne of my experiences in America and outside of it. Birthright citizenship is not only a profound legal foundation of the United States. It is a cultural idea that does as much to make America feel like America as any other thing. My family learned this lesson the difficile way. A dozen years after my father first touched down in America as a graduate student, a decade after my mother joined him, they decided to take their now-family of four on an adventure. We were moving to France! Now, France is a very captivating country. Don’t get me wrong. But even though I was merely seven years old when we moved there, I remember watching my parents daily confront a reality that they would have had no way of understanding from the other side of the Atlantic: in France, there is something called Frenchness, and the only way to access it or participate in it fully is to have the luck of already being French. This poses a challenge to outsiders. If the only way to become French is to have already been French, then how do you become French? The short answer is you don’t. You can live there; there are ways to finagle citizenship. But at the heart of French law and culture is the idea that Frenchness is a specific culture, French people have a specific blood, and the barriers to entry are high. You can be there. But you can never be of there. You can enjoy the place. But the place will never truly belong to you. That is changing slightly even in France, as I have seen on recent trips. But those who would open up the definition of Frenchness are, and always will be, playing defense. Many countries around the world function in this same way, with a cultural and legal idea of citizenship rooted in blood and soil and lineage. Basically, in one form or another, to be a citizen requires your parents or even grandparents to have been citizens. What this means at a philosophical level is that a citizen is something you are because they were, not something you become as you, because you were born here. I always think of something my friend Eric Liu, a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, said (and I paraphrase). His family came from China to the U.S. They became American, like so many before. And, Liu notes, having been rooted in China’s soil for thousands of years and uprooted into America’s for only a few decades, Eric could never “become Chinese” by moving back. One severed link: the chain ends. This is why, for all of the dangerous things President Trump has proposed in his first days, the assault on birthright citizenship strikes me as so fundamental. Because it’s an attack not just on a policy question of how and when passports are given out. It’s an attack on the idea that anyone can be part of this, that this is a nation of becoming. So fundamental is this culture of becoming that even Trump cannot escape it. He can slap 10 percent tariffs on foreign goods, but nothing will change the fact that 67 percent of his own wives were imports. And I want to say for the record that I will never use the fact that Melania Trump was not born in the United States against her. I believe she is every bit as American as I am. I used to live in the Boston area. One day, several friends and I went down to the river and laid out contiguous picnic blankets and waited hours for the Fourth of July fireworks. The bank grew more crowded by the hour. There were minor arguments about space and the obstruction of views. Most of it was totally peaceful. But at some point, our group, a large and diverse crew, came into the focus of a man who did not like how many blankets we had laid out. “Go back to your country!” the man barked at me. I remember being taken aback. Cleveland? “Why did you even come to this country?” the man persisted. His tone suggested he wasn’t thinking of Cleveland. As the situation escalated, another man came forward. He was white, in a sleeveless shirt, with a bald head, full of tattoos, and with a generous belly. He looked like he might be a Hell’s Angel or some type of biker dude. Given the argument we were in about whether we belonged, he didn’t necessarily look like he would fall on our side. But he turned to the man barking at us and said five words I will never forget — five words so simple and profound that Trump will live and die without grasping them: The man said, “These are my people, too.” It was a big idea; it is a big idea. But to him, it was also no big deal. He didn’t want to make a big fuss about it. It was just what he knew to be true. Whether or not he had ever spent much time ruminating about “birthright citizenship,” he had internalized the culture of it. These are my people. Anyone can become my people. We become. And where that story leaves me is this: I don’t think of Trump as being in a contest with me over my citizenship, or in a contest with legal scholars and the courts over the proper reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. Fundamentally, I think of Trump as being in a contest with that biker dude. With the deep and abiding culture he spoke for. With the lifeblood of a nation of becoming. I believe the biker dude will prevail.

I find this quite stunning. It seems that he (Trump) will be liable, personally, to pay the 5 million. But yes, there is such a thing as the Westfall act, and if lawyers for Trump can convince a court that he made the defamatory comments about E. Jean Carroll as part of his presidential duties, then yes,the US government could ultimately pay the defamation liability. The formal name of the act is the Federal Employees liability reform and tort compensation act. It was passed back in 1988. It allows for federal employees to limit personal liability when they are performing their official duties. And it allows for the federal government to be substituted as the defendant in place of the individual in this particular circumstance.

Brad @BraddrofliT

2 days ago

Donald Trump wants taxpayers to cover the $83.3 million judgment owed to E. Jean Carroll. The self-proclaimed billionaire who says America is “winning” now wants you to pay for his personal misconduct. Your tax dollars are not his legal defense fund.

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Donald Trump wants taxpayers to cover the $83.3 million judgment owed to E. Jean Carroll. The self-proclaimed billionaire who says America is “winning” now wants you to pay for his personal misconduct. Your tax dollars are not his legal defense fund.

📬 Return to Sender: David Steiner. The postmaster general said USPS would refuse to deliver mail ballots in any state that won't hand over its voter lists to the Trump administration. But, as Senator Gary Peters points out, the Constitution is clear: states run elections — not the feds.

I had to forward the story to my wife because….. well you’ll probably get the picture

marqix ☆ @fwmarqix

5 days ago

My wife has a strict rule: I am not allowed to be left unsupervised in public for more than twenty minutes. This weekend reminded me why. I’m standing in a long line at a garden center with a massive 50lb bag of specialized bird seed. This woman behind me taps me on the

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Not exactly high school for me; found this during my time at university

NicoleTheCat random retweeter of interesting stuff @NicoleTheCat4

a week ago

@ThatEricAlper Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Oh my!!!!

maf @therealmaf_

a week ago

I got into an Uber today, and the driver didn't say a single word. No "hello," no confirmation of my name, nothing. He just stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel. I was honestly getting annoyed and ready to leave a 1-star review for bad customer service. Then, I noticed his

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Sometimes, you come across someone else's words - and whilst these might be from a different era they fit so appropriately.... Now take a look at all them leaders Desperation in their eyes The tight faces smiles that cannot hide it They know no more than you or I So I'm gonna buy a hat 'cause here they come again And when the start to blah-blah It's you and me that gets the rain music.youtube.com/watch?v=j8XJiD…

@KikuNamita @theskindoctor13 Mmmmmm. Who do you think? The problem, as I see it, is finding someone who has influence over DT!

@KikuNamita @theskindoctor13 I agree. But to be honest, I cannot visualise or think of a single individual that could fill that role. The person would need to be recognised and respected. By Israel, by Iran, and ultimately by Donald Trump!

Good morning. I 100% support Ko’s comment. I have a double pack of traditional Tim Tams in my refrigerator at the moment. The Tim Tam is in no way shape or fashion a cookie. It is a biscuit. A truly delectable biscuit. I am happy to be educated in the ways of American culture, and for Charlotte to show me a cookie that she believes represents the fine art of a Tim Tam. Raised my entire life here in Australia, and also raised on Sesame Street, I can tell you that the Cookie Monster does eat cookies. But I cannot recall him ever devouring anything that resembles a Tim Tam. Oh, as a sidenote, congratulations Charlotte to a well-deserved victory by the US side this morning against the Socceroos.

The scariest thing about this is that there's no way to know whether he's even aware that he spent the last 4 months saying exactly the opposite

Aaron Rupar @atrupar

2 weeks ago

Trump endorses Iran having ballistic missiles: "I'm saying that if other countries have them, it's a little unfair for them not to have some"

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I'd be interested to know when this speech was actually delivered. If it's recent, then yes, it's reasonable to infer some commentary on Trump. But my sense is that it's more timeless than that. It speaks to principles rather than personalities. It reflects what I believe—and what I suspect most Americans believe—about the values and aspirations that should underpin their society.

Addiction is never an excuse, but it can be an explanation. Seeking genuine forgiveness from those we have harmed is one of the hardest things to do in recovery. It’s one of the hardest things for any of us to do in life. I’ve found that, before you begin that journey, you have to first forgive yourself. I would love to hear about your experience, strength and hope today.

Boy. It is just sooooo telling!

ryan @ZvZ

2 weeks ago

@atrupar We all deserve to see actual text of the deal now and it’s very telling that they don’t want it out

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My office is demanding the Trump Administration release any and all records on the Trump DOJ’s politically motivated, baseless fishing expedition. The American people deserve to know who ordered this abuse of power and how far it goes.

The fact WH is fretting about this is incriminating in and of itself. Also… Let me be clear: if the reporters actually got incriminating recordings and they sat on them to publish a book instead of breaking news, that is a complete dereliction of duty.

Axios @axios

3 weeks ago

SCOOP: Top White House officials believe NYT reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan obtained audio recordings of Situation Room meetings for their new book. Such a taped leak would be a shocking breach of one of the most secure settings on Earth. axios.com/2026/06/14/tru…

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Manly Beach on a glorious Queensland day.

@ifudontlike2bad @HunterBiden 😊 (such a lovely response).

@JamesTate121 This is in fact a first rate social experiment. Larry writes that it was a quiet experiment, but his observations of both the left and the right were rather powerful. Thank you. The Republican volunteer, and her admission says an awful lot.