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The Barnes Brief: Week of August 9, 2024
August 09, 2024
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Art of the Day

Appearances & Schedule

Art of the Day: The Bookstore: a vanishing place from the American landscape. Once a place of discovery for the curious knowledge seeker, now the few that exist often a habitue of would-be Marxists from their utopian college days drawing a state paycheck. But it’s present incarnation cannot erase the fondness of the memories I share there: holed up in a corner, a stack of a dozen books next to the chair to sit and soak up little bits of information and imagination off the written page as a day well spent (even better because I often couldn’t afford in my youth to actually buy any of the books). Uncovering and discovering new worlds either in unexplored fields of study or unknown worlds of the author’s imagination, and, in the process, learning the art of language itself as expressed in ink on the page. Bookstores in foreign nations tell their own tales, like the French love of psychology (as their books told the psychology of everything) or the Anglophile home in Paris as Shakespeare’s living library in the bookstore this photo reminds me most of. The Bookstore: a place held fondly in my mind’s eye that is never lost or too far away.

Book Recommendation: The Emerging Populist Majority https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198466907-the-emerging-populist-majority

Closing Argument: Birthright Citizenship Debate – Is Harris Eligible?

Introduction: Top 10 Headlines of the Week

  1. Trouble in the markets
  2. Commercial real estate problems
  3. Harris Walzes to controversy
  4. Smartmatic indictment
  5. Musk Rumble win early against advertising boycott
  6. Ukraine escalation
  7. Ritter raided
  8. Gabbard on watchlist
  9. Trump crypto platform
  10. Rogan likes RFK

*Bonus: Healing power of classical music

Wisdom of the Day: “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.” United States Constitution, Amendment XIV.

The Evidence: Top Ten Articles Curated from The Barnes Library

  1. Election integrity in 2024. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/election_integrity_in_swing_states.html
  2. Harris moderate pitch pitfalls. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-half-hearted-move-to
  3. Walz stolen valor. https://thefederalist.com/2024/08/09/tim-walz-misrepresented-his-military-service-he-needs-to-answer-some-questions/
  4. The Cat Lady campaign. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/08/09/democrats_try_to_make_2024_the_cat_lady_election_151423.html
  5. Jewish doubt of Democrats. https://unherd.com/2024/08/jews-for-kamala-are-living-in-denial/
  6. The real alien conspiracy. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/conspiracy_theories.html
  7. Hollywood troubles. https://www.axios.com/2024/08/09/cable-tv-business-paramount-warner-bros-losses
  8. Google breakup coming. https://www.newsweek.com/what-branding-google-monopoly-really-means-us-opinion-1935380
  9. 4-day school week not working. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/07/16/the_4-day_school_week_its_a_trend_across_america__despite_questionable_results_1044894.html
  10. UBI fails. https://realinvestmentadvice.com/ubi-tried-tested-and-failed-as-expected/

*Bonus: Kids rescued.

Homework: Top Dozen Cases TBD on Sunday Show

I.              Rumble anti-trust suit against advertising boycott.https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.393019/gov.uscourts.txnd.393019.1.0.pdf

II.           Google antitrust win https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/press/Google%20Search%20Engine%20Monopoly%20Ruling.pdf

III.        Ritter raid & Gabbard watchlist

IV.         Walz Stolen Valor https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-alvarez

V.           Trump: DC & NY case

VI.         J6 defendants released

VII.      Ripple win

VIII.   Navy Seals win vaccine lawsuit

IX.        UK Censors Threaten Americans

X.           Amos Miller Hearing

XI.         1stA Campaign finance laws https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/seventh-circuit-indiana-superPAC-financing-ruling.pdf

XII.      Kennedy NY ballot case

*Bonus: Rekieta win

**Bonus: Yale Covid tuition.

*** Jury discrimination.

Closing Argument: Is Harris Eligible?

  • A debate rages over birthright citizenship takes a particular turn when it concerns Kamala Harris, as someone born in the United States to foreign-born parents who were not citizens. The birthright citizenship debate took on greater significance in light of the immigration issues over the last decade. Let’s examine the two sides of the debate. As always, we should start with the text itself.
  • “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.” United States Constitution, Amendment XIV.
  • “No person except a natural born Citizen…shall be eligible to the Office of President.” United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.
  • The debate turns on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” For some, a person born here is subject to the jurisdiction thereof unless exempted or excluded for some unique reason – e.g., the children of diplomats born here while the diplomats are no duty; the children of Indian tribes not subject to separate sovereignty; the children of enemy soldiers present in the land; and the like. For others, a person born here is only subject to the jurisdiction thereof if a parent is also subject to the jurisdiction thereof – e.g., a citizen.
  • Let’s look next at the contemporary legislative history. At the time of the 14thAmendment, Congress also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 using nearly identical language, chose the phrase “not subject to any foreign power” as a substitute for “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Under this analysis, critics urge that a child born here of non-citizen parents is subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign power, and thus “not subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.
  • This requires turning to the broader philosophical issue: power of the state that arises from land and power of the state that arises from people. Critics urge that territorial jurisdiction is not the equal to “political jurisdiction” and thus read the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase to mean exclusively political jurisdiction not territorial jurisdiction. This, in turn, requires some philosophical understanding of principles of jurisdiction.
  • Territorial jurisdiction holds that a state enjoys power over people and activities due to the location of those people and activities. It is useful to remember citizenship is a two-way street: it gives rights to the individual and it also imposes burdens on the individual due the state. Most criminal law still predicates and premises its power on territory: the state who holds power over the land where the crime took place enjoys the power and prerogative to prosecute and punish. In truth, much of this stems from feudal times – a person born in a particular lord’s land joined by birth the feudal contract entitling him to certain obligations from the lord (protection, justice, provisions) and to the lord (military service, judicial service, administrative service, and incomes/tax).
  • Under traditional and ancestral understanding of territorial jurisdiction, a person born in the lord’s land would be a citizen of the land unless the conditions of their birth were unusual – as children of an enemy occupying army, children of diplomats of a foreign nation physically present as representatives of that foreign nation, and the like. If we extend that principle to the question of birthright citizenship, children born in America would be American citizens unless their parents’ physical presence was on the official representation of a foreign nation.
  • A trilogy of Supreme Court cases did little to fully resolve the controversy, though they do provide precedent helpful to Harris. After the Amendment and before the turn of the century, the Supreme Court construed the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to mean those who did not “owe immediate allegiance to” a foreign power, such as the “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States” unless they were legally present in the United States as permanent residents.
  • A note of question for the critics – if owing allegiance to a foreign nation precludes citizenship attaching at birth, this could effectively shift the power of citizenship to foreign nations who could simply declare people citizens at birth of their nation regardless of ancestry or geography. Equally, the children of mixed-birth parents could be stripped of citizenship as well.
  • In any controversy like this – where the textual and contextual debate earn merit on both sides – we come to the policy implications of the decision. We should always ask – who does the decision empower? Consider this: ceding to the state more power over citizenship through legislation on naturalization generally doesn’t work as intended for the benefit of freedoms and liberties – after all, this clause exists in response to the Dred Scott decision that effectively reversed the Amistad decision where we went from “born free, always free” to “once a slave, never a citizen.” The temptation to limit citizenship-by-illegal-immigration and foreigners in the White House could give the state the power to strip us all of citizenship. So think twice about what you might think you might want.
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Closing Argument: Birthright citizenship is deeply American, and wholly Constitutional.

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Questions for Bourbon with Barnes: Thursday, June 19, 2025

Ask in replies & answering Live at 9ish eastern...

LIVE w/ Good Lawgic

Covering Israel Iran war, Diddy trial, Read trial, Schara trial, and your questions...

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The Barnes Brief: Friday, June 20, 2025

Schedule

Past Appearances

  • Barnes & Baris:
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  • Barnes, Viva & Duran on Iran War:
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  • Barnes & GoodLawgic:
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Planned Appearances

  • Friday at 9: Betting w/ Barnes AMA
  • Saturday Movie at 9 pm eastern: TBD
  • Sunday Law for the People w/ Viva at 6 pm eastern

Art of the Day: Bansky, the infamous anonymous muralist, whose famed art appears overnight in hot spots around the globe, eviscerates war propaganda with the brilliant contrasting images of his Bombs with Babies. Gets the point across with elegant efficacy. The only certainty with war is horror awaits someone, somewhere. A bias toward NO tenders out universal humanitarianism.

Book Recommendation: The Achilles Trap: The Iraq War.  Riddled with incompetency, the decisions at each stage backfired in our Mideastern war politics, summed up as we “failed to grasp critical nuances” of the enemy.

Wisdom of the Day: “But America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy…. America well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign Independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of Freedom and Independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.” John Quincy Adams.

 

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Barnes Brief: Special War Edition, Monday, June 16, 2025
  • When swing state voters were asked in 2024, they overwhelmingly opposed joining any war between Israel and Iran.

 

  • This is nothing new, as the same skepticism animated voter response during the Iran nuclear weapons panic of 2009.

 

  • Americans do not want the US to be the dominant player on the world’s stage.

 

  • Americans see us as overinvolved already.

 

  • Americans do not want to risk war with nuclear powers.

 

  • Americans no longer believe intervention solves anything.

 

 

  •  This reflects souring opinion on military interventions in general.

 

  • Americans saw this all the way back to the Korean war that sunk Truman.

 

 

  • They just as quickly turned on the Iraq war that crushed Bush and the Bush coalition forever.

 

 

 

  • Part of this also reflects that Americans increasingly view Netanyahu’s Israeli government skeptically.

 

 

 

  • Skepticism of Israel under Netanyahu is now a global phenomenon.

 

 

 

 

 

  • The only group that a majority supports Israel over the Palestinian cause are now reduced to boomercons.

 

 

 

 

  • Hence, Trump’s temporary Gaza idea was widely rejected right away by voters.

 

  • Indeed, a surge in opposition amongst younger independent voters even has a bare majority supporting even giving military aid at all to Israel.

 

 

  • Americans are even split on helping Israel against Hamas, fueled by young voter skepticism.

 

 

 

  • Every group is trending negative toward Netanyahu’s Israel.

 

Hence, why so few Americans back American direct involvement in a war with Iran. 

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The Barnes Brief: Friday, June 13, 2025

Schedule

  • Friday at 9: Betting w/ Barnes AMA
  • Saturday Movie at 9 pm eastern: TBD
  • Sunday Law for the People w/ Viva at 6 pm eastern

*Note: source linking is not an affirmation or approval of the opinions stated therein.

 

Art of the Day: Rose Window, Notre Dame. The stunning stained glass of the great old church astounds up close as much as it amazes from a distance. A bucket list item of mine checked off a decade ago when I attended the midnight mass at Christmas at Notre Dame, the most literary legendary church in the western world, sitting over an ancient site of religious recognition and spiritual invocation before Catholicism even set its first cornerstone on this little island in the Seine, with its underground waterways eminating up through to its recipients of the comforting waves above. The brilliance of the masons that molded the glass with copper and sapphire, forging this remarkable window into their own artistic minds where God meets man and expresses itself over the centuries for us all to bewilder and bewonder its symmetry of shape, colorful expression, and remaking of a physical glass into a rose resembling petal, whispering at the cycle of life and a quick glimpse into God’s soul as well as that of nature and of our own.  

 

Book Recommendation: Revolt of the Elites by Christopher Lasch. He forecast it all a quarter-century ago -- a new globalist aristocracy distant from national identity, common culture, and worker-led economics that threatened our collective futures. 

 

Wisdom of the Day: “The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” President Eisenhower.

 

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