What’s going on with the 14th Amendment?

Yesterday I read an article on the birthright 14^th amendment (which I truly believe Trump is using to get his base in high gear for the election and to keep the CNN opinion/new readers and watchers riled up and jumping off a cliff) which gave some fascinating background. I think it was from 2010—or at least a number of years ago since this pops up from time to time. It was by Ann Coulter, someone I rarely read since she also likes to get people riled up (during the 2016 campaign I think she supported Trump, but then turned against him; don’t recall the details). Anyway it provided historical background that was fascinating. I didn’t know any of it. In 2015 she did a scathing piece on the stupidity of Fox News on the topic of the 14th amendment, but in 2010, her piece was much more reasoned (if she can be called that) and detailed on anchor babies and it involved a footnote. http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2010-08-04.html

“The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to delegitimize the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states [i.e. the Democrat party] from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: "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."
The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers, back in those days, people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
Inasmuch as America was not yet a massive welfare state, attracting malingerers, frauds and cheats, it would be amazing if the drafters even considered the amendment's effect on the children of aliens.
But they did.
The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."

Coulter continues in the 2010 article:

“And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, asserting that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennan's authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes, the Clement L. Bouve.) Bouve was not a senator, not an elected official, certainly not a judge -- just some guy who wrote a book.

So on one hand we have the history, the objective, the author's intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment, which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children of illegal immigrants.  

On the other hand, we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement -- who, I'm guessing, was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper. Any half-wit, including Clement L. Bouve, could conjure up a raft of such "plausible distinction(s)" before breakfast. Among them: Legal immigrants have been checked for subversive ties, contagious diseases, and have some qualification to be here other than "lives within walking distance."

Helping the uninsured children of America

Of the 6.6 million uninsured American children in 2009 (7.2% of all children), about 2/3 were actually already eligible for health coverage through Medicaid or CHIP. About 40% of that 7.2% were children of illegal immigrants, but are American citizens by birth. Now with Obamacare, things will really be screwed up, and it's possible if CHIP funding lapses (which logically shouldn't be needed if we've got this other wonderful plan), there could be more uninsured children than before the ACA.

Now, I'm no math genius, but if 92.8% of all American children were insured either by private insurance or their parents' employer, and 40% of the uninsured were children of illegal immigrants, and 2/3 were eligible for a government plan already in place, were there no geniuses in this administration would could figure out a way to help these children without messing up every other child's plan?

Statistics from JAMA, May 7, 2014.

The eight babies blindfold

Both conservative and liberal talking heads, bloggers and comics are beating this one to death. I'm guessing the "sperm donor" and the "doctor" are one and the same for all her babies. I can't believe the conservatives calling for special laws. Just how often does some dysfunctional woman do this that it needs legislation that isn't already on the books?

But in the few minutes the media spend to update their outrage, twice that many anchor babies will be born in California. Then with Congress's "new" open borders and family values shtick, those babies' grandparents, siblings and aunties will be urged to come and sup at the table of the rich Americans. You know them. The ones who won't do the construction jobs, the restaurant jobs, the retail jobs, the trucking jobs so we've got to import workers. At least these 14 babies' relatives say they are returning to Iraq, or where ever they came from. The Democrats want two things out of this border mess--enough gardners, maids and laborers for their private vineyards and estates, and enough voters to keep them in office.