David A. Graham at The Atlantic writes—The Republican Vogue for Stripping Citizenship, written in light of Donald Trump’s suggestion that people who burn the U.S. flag should lose their citizenship and/or be stuffed in a cell for a year:
Depriving someone of their citizenship is one of the harshest sanctions a government can levy—not as lastingly grave as execution or life imprisonment, perhaps, but still very serious, especially for someone who is not a dual citizen and would therefore be left stateless. (It’s a situation that Edward Everett Hale dramatized in his famous short story “The Man Without a Country,” published in The Atlantic in December 1863.)
Yet recent years have seen a vogue among Republicans for proposing to strip citizenship as a punishment for various crimes. In 2014, Senator Ted Cruz, a Trump frenemy-turned-enemy-turned-supporter-turned-rumored-appointee, proposed stripping citizenship from any American, native-born or naturalized, who declared allegiance to a foreign terrorist organization, became a member of such an organization, or provided training or material assistance. Senator Rand Paul floated a similar proposal around the same time. Earlier this year, Newt Gingrich, a close Trump adviser, called for stripping citizenship from and deporting any Muslim who believes in sharia law, a proposal that is impractical, nonsensical, and virtually guaranteed to be unconstitutional. Somewhat more perplexingly, Ben Carson called in a 2014 column for non-citizens who vote fraudulently to be stripped of the citizenship they don’t possess.
A different but related current is the occasional call, usually from Republicans, for an end to birthright citizenship, which grants American citizenship to anyone born in the United States—most notably to the children of immigrants, whether authorized or not. Ending birthright citizenship was one of the earliest policies that Trump rolled out in the summer of 2015, saying, “This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” Several of his rivals for the Republican nomination announced that they agreed with him.
The frequent proposals from conservatives and Republicans to strip citizenship as a punishment for a range of crimes—or in the case of birthright citizenship, for the crimes of one’s parents—illustrates a partisan difference in how citizenship is viewed. Progressives tend to think about citizenship as a right that, if acquired legally, cannot be taken away, even for heinous crimes. It is nearly absolute. Conservatives, however, tend to view it as a privilege, and while it might be the default, it can still be withdrawn, as in the case of Americans who join terrorist groups. The right tends to view the left’s version as insufficiently patriotic, but it’s simply a different view of patriotism, and perhaps one that is more constitutionally grounded.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Federal worker pay freeze is unjustified and ineffective:
Here's a shocker for you: rich people don't create jobs. Demand creates jobs. And demand is created when the vast majority of people, lower and middle class people, feel secure enough in their lives to spend some of their very hard earned cash.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers has stated that extending tax cuts for the wealthy is a bad idea. In fact, there's very good evidence that low tax rates at the top depress the economy. Low tax rates encourage the already wealthy to keep even more funds for themselves by cutting staff and reducing benefits. […]
What does work? Making sure that lower and middle class workers have enough funds on hand to meet their immediate needs. Which is why freezing the pay of federal workers is far, far worse for the economy than allowing the tax cuts to expire for the wealthy. It could be seriously (and convincingly) argued that raising tax rates for corporations and the wealthy would actually be good for the economy. It can't be argued that imposing a $60 billion penalty on middle class workers -- which is exactly what this is -- will do anything but retard economic growth and reduce job production
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Trump saw something on TV & now we all have to talk about it, or talk about how we refuse to talk about it. Greg Dworkin notes how the Price pick for HHS puts Medicare in the crosshairs. KT McFarland’s got issues. Clinton camp thoughts on the recount.
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