SMALL BUT HONEST COLUMNIST AGAIN FORCED TO CORRECT HIGHEST-RATED SHOW ON CABLE TV by Ann Coulter

To support his insane interpretation of the post-Civil War amendments as granting citizenship to the kids of illegal aliens, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly is now taking job applications for the nonexistent -- but dearly hoped-for -- Jeb! administration, live, during his show. 

(Apparently my debate with O'Reilly will be conducted in my column, Twitter feed and current bestselling book, Adios, America, against the highest-rated show on cable news.) 

Republicans have been out of the White House for seven long years, and GOP lawyers are getting impatient. So now they're popping up on Fox News' airwaves, competing to see who can denounce Donald Trump with greater vitriol. 

Last Thursday's job applicants were longtime government lawyers John Yoo and David Rivkin. 

In response to O'Reilly's statement that "there is no question the Supreme Court decisions have upheld that portion of the 14th Amendment that says any person, any person born in the U.S.A. is entitled to citizenship ... for 150 years" -- Yoo concurred, claiming: "This has been the rule in American history since the founding of the republic." 

Yes, Americans fought at Valley Forge to ensure that any illegal alien who breaks into our country and drops a baby would have full citizenship for that child! Why, when Washington crossed the Delaware, he actually was taking Lupe, a Mexican illegal, to a birthing center in Trenton, N.J. 

If one were being a stickler, one might recall the two centuries during which the children of slaves were not deemed citizens despite being born here -- in fact, despite their parents, their grandparents and their great-grandparents being born here.

Wouldn't anyone who wasn't applying for a job in the nonexistent, never-to-exist Jeb! administration remember slavery? 

Incongruously, Yoo also said, "The text of the 14th Amendment is clear" about kids born to illegals being citizens. 

Wait a minute! Why did we need an amendment if that was already the law -- since "the founding of the republic"! 

An impartial observer might contest whether the amendment is "clear" on that. "Clear" would be: All persons born in the United States are citizens. 

What the amendment actually says is: "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 framers of the 14th Amendment weren't putting a secret trap door in the Constitution for fun. The "jurisdiction thereof" and "state wherein they reside" language means something. (Ironically, Yoo -- author of the Gitmo torture memo -- was demonstrating that if you torture the words of the Constitution, you can get them to say anything.) 

At least Rivkin didn't go back to "the founding of the republic." But he, too, claimed that the "original public meaning (of the 14th Amendment] which matters for those of us who are conservatives is clear": to grant citizenship to any kid whose illegal alien mother managed to evade Border Patrol agents. 

Whomever that was the “original public meaning” for, it sure wasn’t the Supreme Court. 

To the contrary, the cases in the first few decades following the adoption of the 14th Amendment leave the strong impression that it had something to do with freed slaves, and freed slaves alone: 

-- Supreme Court opinion in the Slaughterhouse cases (1873): 

"(N)o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in (the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments), lying at the foundation of each, and without which none of them would have been even suggested; we mean the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly-made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him." 

-- Supreme Court opinion in Ex Parte Virginia (1879): 

"[The 14th Amendment was] primarily designed to give freedom to persons of the African race, prevent their future enslavement, make them citizens, prevent discriminating State legislation against their rights as freemen, and secure to them the ballot." 

-- Supreme Court opinion in Strauder v. West Virginia (1880): 

"The 14th Amendment was framed and adopted ... to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that, under the law, are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government in that enjoyment whenever it should be denied by the States." 

-- Supreme Court opinion in Neal v. Delaware (1880) (majority opinion written by Justice John Marshall Harlan, who was the only dissenting vote in Plessy v. Ferguson): 

"The right secured to the colored man under the 14th Amendment and the civil rights laws is that he shall not be discriminated against solely on account of his race or color." 

-- Supreme Court opinion in Elk v. Wilkins (1884): 

"The main object of the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment was ... to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United States ... The evident meaning of (the words, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof") is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance. ... Persons not thus subject to the jurisdiction of the United States at the time of birth cannot become so afterward, except by being naturalized ..." 

One has to leap forward 200 years from "the founding of the republic" to find the first claim that kids born to illegal immigrants are citizens: To wit, in dicta (irrelevant chitchat) by Justice William Brennan, slipped into the footnote of a 5-4 decision in 1982. 

So to be precise, what Yoo means by the "founding of the republic," and Rivkin means by "the original public meaning" of the 14th Amendment, is: "Brennan dicta from a 1982 opinion." 

Perhaps, if asked, the Supreme Court would discover a "constitutional" right for illegal aliens to sneak into the country, drop a baby, and win citizenship for the kid and welfare benefits for the whole family. (Seventy-one percent of illegal immigrant households with children are on government assistance.

But it is a fact that the citizenship of illegal alien kids has never been argued, briefed or ruled on by the Supreme Court. 

Yoo and Rivkin aren't stupid. It appears that the most significant part of their analysis was Yoo's legal opinion: "I don't think Trump is a Republican. I think actually he is ruining the Republican Party." Please hire me, Jeb!! (or Rubio)! 

O'Reilly could get more reliable constitutional analyses from Columba Bush than political lawyers dying to get back into government. 

COPYRIGHT 2015 ANN COULTER 

Via: Ann Coulter

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The Constitution Still Doesn’t Grant Birthright Citizenship

To support his insane interpretation of the post-Civil War amendments as granting citizenship to the kids of illegal aliens, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly is now taking job applications for the nonexistent — but dearly hoped-for — Jeb! administration, live, during his show.

(Apparently my debate with O’Reilly will be conducted in my column, Twitter feed and current bestselling book, Adios, America, against the highest-rated show on cable news.)

Republicans have been out of the White House for seven long years, and GOP lawyers are getting impatient. So now they’re popping up on Fox News’ airwaves, competing to see who can denounce Donald Trump with greater vitriol.

Last Thursday’s job applicants were longtime government lawyers John Yoo and David Rivkin.

In response to O’Reilly’s statement that “there is no question the Supreme Court decisions have upheld that portion of the 14th Amendment that says any person, any person born in the U.S.A. is entitled to citizenship … for 150 years” — Yoo concurred, claiming: “This has been the rule in American history since the founding of the republic.”

Yes, Americans fought at Valley Forge to ensure that any illegal alien who breaks into our country and drops a baby would have full citizenship for that child! Why, when Washington crossed the Delaware, he actually was taking Lupe, a Mexican illegal, to a birthing center in Trenton, N.J.

If one were being a stickler, one might recall the two centuries during which the children of slaves were not deemed citizens despite being born here — in fact, despite their parents, their grandparents and their great-grandparents being born here.

Via: Daily Caller

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[COMMENTARY] Contentions Trump Takes GOP Down the 14th Amendment Rabbit Hole

Last month the debate about illegal immigration shifted sharply against those who believed indifference or even resistance to attempts to enforce the rule of law. The murder of a San Francisco woman by an illegal immigrant who had been released by authorities acting on the authority of a sanctuary city law highlighted a serious problem. Liberals, including Hillary Clinton, found themselves on the defensive with no way to explain why Democrats had backed such clearly dangerous proposals. But today Americans woke up to a new immigration debate and the 14^th Amendment that has given the left back the moral high ground and put Republicans in the soup. Donald Trump has wrongly claimed credit for putting illegal immigration back on the nation’s front burner. But it must be acknowledged that he deserves all the blame for this one. By proposing an end to birthright citizenship and wrongly claiming that the courts have never ruled on whether it applies even to the children of foreigners born in the United States, he has led the GOP down a rabbit hole from which there may be no escape. Thanks to the Donald, Americans have stopped worrying about sanctuary cities or even how best to secure the border and instead are the astonished onlookers to a sterile debate about stripping native-born Americans of their citizenship and fantasies about deporting 11 million illegals.

The element of Trump’s plan to deal with illegal immigration that has gotten the most attention is his proposal to strip the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States of their citizenship. Doing so involves overturning an interpretation of the law that goes back virtually to the beginning of the republic. Moreover, contrary to the assertions of Trump and his backers, the Supreme Court has ruled on the issue when it decided in 1898 that the 14^th Amendment gave citizenship to all those born in this country even if their parents were foreigners.

Nevertheless, Trump’s idea has now spawned a growing debate principally on the right about whether that concept is firmly rooted in constitutional law. Some saw it can be ended by presidential fiat in the manner of President Obama’s extralegal executive orders. Others believe the Supreme Court can, if given a case on which a ruling might be based, overturn the precedent. Still others, more sensibly, point out that the best way to end birthright citizenship would be to pass a new constitutional amendment.

For those who like arcane legal arguments, this is great entertainment. But what those conservatives who have eagerly tumbled down the rabbit hole with Trump on the issue are forgetting is that we are in the middle of a presidential election, not a law school bull session.

It must be acknowledged that although Trump’s proposal about citizenship has as little chance of being put into effect as the deportation of all 11 million illegals, it is nevertheless quite popular in some precincts. Trump’s popularity rests in his willingness to articulate the anger that many Americans feel about injustices or the failure of government to deal with problems. If there are 11 million illegals in the country, they want them all to be chucked out. If they have children here, who are, by law, U.S. citizens, they say, so what? Chuck them out too.

The question of what to do with illegals already here is a problem that vexes anyone that isn’t inclined, as President Obama and the Democrats are, to grant them amnesty and forget about it. Reasonable people can differ about possible solutions to the problem but there’s nothing reasonable or practical about a proposal that assumes the U.S. government is capable of capturing and deporting 11 million people plus the untold number of U.S. citizens to which they have given birth.

The notion that the American people will stomach such an exercise or pay what Politicoestimates (probably conservatively) the $166 billion it would cost to pull off such a horrifying spectacle is a pure fantasy.

What needs to be emphasized here is that wherever you stand on birthright citizenship or mass deportations, so long as it is these ideas that Republicans are discussing (as Trump did last night with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News), then they are losing the debate about immigration and very likely the next presidential election. No one is going to be elected president on a platform of depriving people born in this country of citizenship no matter who their parents might be. Nor, despite the cheers Trump gets from his fans, will the American people ever countenance the kinds of intrusive measures and the huge expansion of the federal immigration bureaucracy and police powers that would be needed to pull off a mass deportation.

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a matter of appeasing a Hispanic vote that is probably locked up for the Democrats even if the GOP nominates a pro-amnesty Hispanic. It’s about derailing a productive discussion about real-world solutions to problems into an ideological trap that will only convince moderates and independents, and probably some conservatives as well, that the Republicans are not ready for prime time.

These are the same voters who are likely to agree with Republicans when they say any immigration reform must only come after the border is secured by reasonable measures rather than by reconstructing the Great Wall of China or perhaps the epic ice wall from “Game of Thrones” on the Rio Grande that will be paid for by Mexico in Trump’s dreams. These voters were horrified by the murder of Kate Steinle and support efforts by the Republicans to pass a “Kate’s Law” that would penalize Democrat-run cities that flout federal authority to the detriment of the rule of law and the safety of citizens. They want the border to be secured and are disturbed by Obama’s efforts to circumvent the constitution to grant amnesty. But they aren’t likely to applaud Trump’s effort to ignore settled law or throw out American-born kids.

The point is, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the liberal mainstream media, a conservative stance on illegal immigration is a political winner for Republicans so long as they stick to points on which they have a clear advantage. But when they follow Trump into circular debates about birthright citizenship or fantasize about throwing all illegals out, including citizens or children raised here, they are losing the voters they need to win back the presidency.

Via: Commentary Magazine

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Bill O'Reilly: Gov't Killing People Over Traffic Stops, But Ignoring Federal Laws

Recently two Americans wound up dead after traffic stops.

In Texas, 28-year-old Sandra Bland was stopped when she failed to signal while changing lanes. She was taken into custody where she allegedly committed suicide.

In Ohio, 43-year-old Samuel DuBose was shot dead by a police officer after being stopped for not having a license plate on the front end of his car.

The Ohio cop has been charged with murder. The Texas woman's case is being investigated by state authorities.

Talking Points does not know what precisely happened, so further comment will wait until the hard evidence is presented.

But the point is that laws -- no matter how trivial -- matter. 

And we the people, including law enforcement, are expected to obey them … all of them.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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[VIDEO] Fox’s Jesse Watters Confronted San Fran Board of Supervisors over Kate Steinle’s Death

Bill O’Reilly‘s roving reporter Jesse Watters dropped his usual shtick to get serious and confront San Francisco’s board of supervisors over Kate Steinle‘s death.

Since Monday, O’Reilly has made it clear he’s very outraged about Steinle being shot dead by an illegal immigrant who had already been deported. He said the Obama administration is “complicit”and her death is “collateral damage” of San Francisco’s “insane left-wing politics.”

Tonight he kept the focus on San Francisco, showing video of Watters there yesterday confronting the city board of supervisors over their “dangerous sanctuary city policies.”

He held up a picture of Steinle, said the city let her killer out, and called them out for their silence and for not looking at the photo.

Later on in the segment, Watters attempted to confront other city officials in their offices about her death, but did not exactly get direct responses.

Via: Mediaite

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[VIDEO] KRAUTHAMMER: HILLARY ‘HAS TO COME OUT OF HER BUNKER SOMETIME’

On Monday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer sounded off on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s absence from media scrutiny, particularly as Republican presidential candidates are getting quizzed about the Iraq war and Clinton has avoided having to take on those answers.

“[T]he question for Hillary is, when you were in the Senate, you opposed the surge. You said it wasn’t working, and you implied in your questioning of David Petraeus during the surge that he was lying. Do you think that was a mistake? How about asking that.”

“And the second question is, when we decided to withdraw entirely from Iraq in 2011, as you indicated Bill, against the advice of the military, it was obvious what would be the result,” he continued. “You Secretary Clinton were the secretary of state in charge of our diplomacy. Did you oppose that? Was it a mistake, and would you now say so? She’s got to answer those. The press has to ask those questions and not just hector Republicans with questions about Iraq as if it is owned by Republicans.”

Krauthammer noted the scrutiny of “Clinton Cash” author of Peter Schweizer, whereas Hillary Clinton the political candidate has avoided direct scrutiny.

“She needs to be embarrassed and the Stephanopouloses of the world ought to be embarrassed into asking those questions and not just of people like Peter Schweizer,” Krauthammer added. “She has to come out of her bunker some time.”

Via: Breitbart

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Fox News Topped All of Cable TV Primetime Again Last Week

Because Hillary Clinton officially joined the presidential race last Sunday afternoon, many consider the 2016 primaries to officially be underway. For the first full week of that early “primary season,” Fox News topped all of cable television in primetime viewers, according to Nielsen ratings data.

Throughout last week, Fox averaged 1.7 million total viewers during primetime hours (8-11 p.m. ET), outperforming the big cable names like USA Network (1.6M), TBS (1.5M), Discovery (1.45M), and TNT (1.4M). This marks the third time in 2015 that Fox achieved such a feat — the last time beingthe week of controversy surrounding the network’s primetime star Bill O’Reilly.

Fox’s primary cable news competitors, CNN and MSNBC ranked 27th and 30th, respectively, among all cable networks. The Turner-owned channel averaged 523k primetime viewers for the week; while the NBC-owned news channel had 516k.

On top of that, Fox also ranked third place overall for total day cable viewers. The network’s 1.1M viewers placed them behind Adult Swim’s 1.14M and Nickelodeon’s 1.13M viewers. CNN’s 385k placed them 23rd overall, while MSNBC’s 311k was enough for 27th place.

Via: Mediaite

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O’Reilly, Stossel Pile On ‘Astronomical’ Cost of Obama Trips: ‘This Is the Royal Presidency’

John Stossel and Bill O’Reilly went off Thursday night on exactly how much money is being spent on vacations for the First Family, with Stossel remarking, “This is the royal presidency.” Both men were astounded by the “astronomical” cost of travel alone for presidential trips, though Stossel mockingly suggested the plane cost is so high because “they have to be in constant communication if they want to declare nuclear war.”

Stossel did not that it’s “no worse than Bush or Clinton,” but he and O’Reilly still found the high cost outrageous, and Stossel detected some hypocrisy in how the government spends money.

“What upsets me more is when they were stopping White House tours ‘cause they said sequester was so awful, Sasha and Malia did spring break on Paradise Island in the Bahamas with Secret Service.”

O’Reilly also noted how taxpayers are, in essence, paying for trips President Obama takes when he goes to do fundraisers.

Via: Mediaite.com

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Obama: 'Not Even a Smidgen of Corruption' in IRS Targeting of Conservatives

In a pregame Super Bowl interview, President Barack Obama told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly that there was "not even a smidgen of corruption" involved in the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups.

Obama's bold statement stands in contrast to established facts. Even the left-leaning journalism group ProPublica has admitted that the IRS office that harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave ProPublica nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt statuses were pending. Moreover, ProPublica noted that the documents it received were "not supposed to be made public" but that "no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica."

Still, Obama chalked up the IRS scandal to mere mistakes.

"There were some bone-headed decisions," said Obama.

The president then blamed O'Reilly and Fox News for the IRS scandal.

"These kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them," said Obama.

Via: Breitbart

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Thursday Cable Ratings: Fox’s The Five #1 in Demo for All Cable News

On Thursday evening, Fox News’ The Five was the highest-rated show in the 25-54 demo for all of cable news with 365K viewers. The O’Reilly Factoron Fox was a close second with 359K, followed by On The Record with Greta Van Susteren, which had 304K.

In total viewers, Bill O’Reilly was #1 with 2.768M, followed by Special Report with Bret Baier with 2.238M and The Kelly File with 2.152M.

Here are the rest of your Thursday ratings:

TV NEWS RATINGS: 25-54 DEMOGRAPHIC (L +SD)
6 – 9 am	Fox & Friends  284	New Day  50	Morning Joe  135	Express  96
5 pm	The Five  365	Blitzer  105	Schultz  163	WWYD  33
6 pm	Baier  273	Blitzer/Crossfire  112/68	Sharpton  157	WWYD  44
7 pm	Van Susteren  304	Burnett  66	Matthews  221	Velez-Mitchell  50
8 pm	O’Reilly  359	Cooper  101	Hayes  248	Grace  88
9 pm	Kelly  273	Morgan  130	Maddow  273	Dr. Drew  106
10 pm	Hannity  277	Cooper  133	O’Donnell  234	WWYD  115
11 pm	O’Reilly  212	Cooper  112	Hayes  137	Showbiz  54
PRIME TIME	303	121	255	103
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

TV NEWS RATINGS: TOTAL VIEWERS (L +SD)
6 – 9 am	Fox & Friends  1.130	New Day  179	Morning Joe  400	Express  208
5 pm	The Five  2.151	Blitzer  369	Schultz  624	WWYD  76
6 pm	Baier  2.238	Blitzer/Crossfire  322/223	Sharpton  599	WWYD  98
7 pm	Van Susteren  1.914	Burnett  231	Matthews  843	Velez-Mitchell  246
8 pm	O’Reilly  2.768	Cooper  531	Hayes  807	Grace  405
9 pm	Kelly  2.152	Morgan  511	Maddow  1.083	Dr. Drew  353
10 pm	Hannity  1.474	Cooper  404	O’Donnell  796	WWYD  249
11 pm	O’Reilly  1.095	Cooper  279	Hayes  437	Showbiz  122
PRIME TIME	2.133	482	899	336
Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data

Via: Mediaite.com

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O’Reilly, Krauthammer Blame CNN, MSNBC’s ‘Falling’ Ratings on Obamacare ‘Apologies’

During a segment about this week’s elections and the rest of President Obama’s term in office, Bill O’Reilly put forward a theory as to why Fox News’ cable competitors have struggled to keep up in the ratings, especially during this past month’s rocky rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Without naming names, O’Reilly said anyone who’s “apologizing for President Obama and Obamacare, their ratings are falling at an astounding rate.”

The segment began with O’Reilly’s guest Charles Krauthammer predicting that because the president doesn’t need to run again, he’s unlikely to change his approach to governing over the next few years. “He will stay there. He will hang in there. He will pretend it’s all going well,” Krauthammer said, warning against an “uprising” from Democrats who may decide to break away from a “lame duck” like Obama.

O’Reilly tied to idea of Democrats abandoning Obama to something “very fascinating” happening in the media. “Those media people on television who are apologizing for President Obama and Obamacare, their ratings are falling at an astounding rate,” O’Reilly said. “Nobody’s buying the apology and the BS and the spin anymore.”

Krauthammer pointed out that “it’s not only their ratings, it’s their reputation,” to which O’Reilly said some of them “never had a reputation and you know who I’m talking about.”

“Some of them started out with one,” Krauthammer replied, before adding a not-so-subtle reference to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “But then you know they got a lot of thrills up a lot of legs and it’s been a problem ever since.”

VIa; Mediaite.com

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