I'm Not a Constitutional Scholar

It seems to me that many of the Republican candidates for President of the United States have lost their minds. If you are not familiar with the term "anchor baby" I will do my best to explain what they are. Legal or illegal immigrants or almost all foreign visitors who give birth to a child in the United States have United States citizenship conferred on the child. The status of the parents is almost never relevant. I will explain shortly when it is relevant. Citizenship is conferred based on the following language in the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution. 

" 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."

So, what are the exceptions? The children of diplomats from other countries who are born in the United States. Why? It has to do with diplomatic immunity. Diplomats from other countries are not subject to the "jurisdiction" of the United States. In addition, at the time of the ratification of the amendment, the indigenous peoples of the United States were not all subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. So their children, even though they were born in the United States, were not citizens. 

What does this have to do with Republican presidential candidates? Several have come out stating their objection to citizenship being granted to the children of illegal immigrants or to visitors to United States who happen to be born while their parents are here. They contend the parents and the children should be deported. They seem, from the rhetoric they are using, to be willing to ignore all due process guarantees in the Constitution they claim to love, to boot these individuals out of the United States. Mr. Trump goes to the extent of claiming the children born here to visitors or illegal immigrants are not citizens. While I'm not a constitutional expert or a lawyer (in my thinking someone who obfuscates the obvious) I think I can read. They are citizens and entitled to due process. I find it hard to believe I'm going to write this but I am. I agree with Bill O'Rielly's comment to Mr. Trump a couple of days ago. Mr. Trump alleged he could quickly deport the 11 to 13 million illegal immigrants currently believed to be in the United States. Bill, correctly asserted, that they were entitled to due process and the deportation would take years, perhaps decades to accomplish and cost billions of dollars. That is when Mr. Trump determined that they were not citizens, that their children born here weren't either and he could just load them on buses and send them back to their country of origin. The problem is that even noncitizens are entitled to due process. The current group of Republican candidates are desperate to appeal to the nativist base of their party and are lining up with the Mr. Trump. At the same time many of them are attempting to court the Hispanic vote. Helen Keller could see these two things don't work together to get those votes. 

In closing my favorite line is Mr. Trump allegation that the 14th amendment of the Constitution may be unconstitutional. WTF? 

Ad Men

Days like today make you wonder if a couple of guys at some advertising agency are drinking themselves into a stupor. Who would have imagined that Bill Cosby and Jared Fogle would cause the issues they have for Jello and Subway? Certainly not me. Those two men were the faces we associate with those particular brands. Are Jello and Subway responsible for the actions of those two? Of course not. Will I ever pick up a box of Jello or eat a Subway sandwich without having some thought about them? Maybe, but I'm convinced it will be quite some time. Will it impact my purchases from either brand? I don't think so. 

Well you know how we deal with perversion and criminal activity here. That's right, we make jokes about it. Tasteless, stupid, crude, ignorant jokes. 

Georgia on My Mind

Today it is time to revisit the salvage operation raising the Confederate ironclad CSS Georgia. When we last wrote about the CSS Georgia divers from the United States Navy were working to recover unexploded ordinance. That work has been completed. Divers recovered 132 unexploded shells and four cannons which weighed between 1,000 and 10,000 pounds each. They have also recovered part of the ships boiler, pumps and the propeller with its drive shaft. The work has now moved to the recovery of the ship's casement which was made from railroad iron. The south lacked foundry capacity so Armour was made out of what was available. Since the ship builders were carpenters and not shipwrights all of the boats are constructed differently. The CSS Georgia was scuttled by her crew in December 1864 when General Sherman was approaching Savannah. It never fired a shot in combat and its engines were too weak to move it against the swift current of the Savannah River. It was set near Fort Jackson as a floating battery to protect the fort. Three sections of the armored casement are too heavy to be raised intact. The are being cut into sections about four feet by 24 feet and weighing about 5 tons. The work is slow and only one section is raised each day. The timber that underpinned the railroad iron has been lost due to the century and a half under water. The recovered wreckage is being sent to Texas to be conserved. No decision has been made as to where it will eventually be displayed. 

Time to Learn Something

Today is the day. The first day of a new school year. New teacher, new pencils, pens, notebooks, clothes and shoes. Vannessa is in 8th grade. Audrey is in 3rd grade. Johnnie is in 1st grade. Here they are this morning ready for some learning.  

Impossible Choices

The beauty of the night sky and the Tybee Pier.

The beauty of the night sky in the Midwest. 

How do you choose? 

You want to be in both places at the same time. 

Spamalot

A review of my email spam folder proved to be a big disappointment. Maybe I set my expectations too high. All the usual suspects were there. Some fella from Africa wanting me to provide my banking information so he could send me money from my long lost dead relative, or my lottery winnings, or my oil royalties. Some slut wanting me to go on a sexxy date. Give her a call on some 900 number to set up our meeting. We will get to know each other while we talk for an hour or so at $3.99 per minute. Home improvement loan offers, life insurance, used cars and political bullshit. Where is the creativity people? Have you no pride? Not an original thought in that bowling ball you carry on you shoulders? I want a new creative scam. Something original. Let's be serious jackasses. I will never give you my bank or credit card information. I will not call any internet slut who sends me emails full of misspelled sex offers. I don't want your used car or life insurance. I won't accept you Facebook friend request if I don't know you. I can't be friends with someone I don't know and never heard of or about. 

Pick up your game spammers or get out of my spam folder. You disappoint me. 

Who the Fuck is That Old Guy?

Last Saturday we went to Peoria for the wedding of our niece Kate to Nick. Our daughter in law Mandie was the wedding photographer. On Sunday she posted this picture. 

In the center of the picture is our darling granddaughter Johnnie. On the right is our son John. I looked at the picture for about a minute trying to figure out who in the fuck that old guy on the left was. He's holding my granddaughter and laughing with my son, but I just can't place him. I move on to the next picture. 

Well, now that I see the tattoos I realize it is me. I've tried all the excuses I can think of and none really work. Excuse one, the picture is black and white and I always see myself in color. Excuse two, it's a side view and when I see myself in the mirror it's always straight on and in color. Excuse three, new shirt and it had a collar. They all sound like bullshit because they are. Perhaps the truth is that old age and dementia are nipping at my heels. Passwords and PIN numbers are increasingly difficult to recall. Names have always been a challenge and now with a smart phone and Google I feel there is no need to actually remember anything. It appears, including what I look like. Maybe if the picture had been one of these it would be easier to understand.