Birthrights and Wrongs

“This is a shocking development that should upend all expectations that this court can be trusted to apply the most basic constitutional guarantees when a Republican president seeks to nullify them. If a theory flatly rejected by all serious legal scholars and historians can come one vote away from success, no rights are safe. Everything is on the table.” The Supreme Court’s 5–4 Vote in the Birthright Citizenship Case Is a Scandal.

+ To really understand how extreme (and extremely nuts) the (slim) minority opinions were in this case, I recommend these two segments from Lawrence O’Donnell’s episode on the case. Here’s Laurence Tribe on the law. And Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian David Blight on the history.