Declarations of Truth
Politics • Culture • News
Military, civilian control, and Trump
January 15, 2024
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Ugly rumors began to surface after NBC News released a provocative story yesterday morning. These rumors had the left plotting a military coup against President Trump should he win reelection this fall. In actual fact NBC News reported that people on the left were afraid that Trump would use the military to expand his power. Lay aside that the President couldn’t do that, short of issuing orders that, as likely as not, would be unlawful. In fact, NBC News engaged in a puerile sort of projection – literally, throwing off on the President. Worse yet, the remedies NBC reported that people were considering, would pave the way for a military coup to take over and abolish civilian government. Even Saul Alinsky, Projector Extraordinaire, never thought of this one.

How the left fears Trump’s relationship with the military

Credit Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit for gathering the best “intelligence.” The NBC report spoke of a perfect storm of paranoid ideas from many on the left, and RINO “Never Trumpers.” Storm element number one: the Presidential Immunity theory that Trump is now using to fight Jack Smith’s cases against him. Lately his lawyers argued that before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Apparently, Judge Florence Pan asked a question absurd enough to make one wonder whether she wants a reprimand from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Originalist Bloc. She asked whether a President could order military units to assassinate political rivals. Trump’s lead counsel said that of course the Congress would have to impeach and convict him, presumably of the “high crime” of murder under color of authority, in violation of a U.S. citizen’s privileges and immunities.

CNAV challenges anyone to suggest that Trump could find any officer, or even any enlisted, who would obey such orders. Officers take the same oath of office that Senators and Representatives do:

[to] support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, [to] bear true faith and allegiance to the same, [to] take [that] oath freely, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and … well and faithfully discharge the powers and duties of the office on which [they] … enter.

Enlisted service members swear instead to obey the lawful orders of the President of the United States and of those superior to them in authority. Note that word carefully: lawful orders. Let the President give an unlawful order, and he could not expect any officer to obey or pass it down.

A real-life example of an unlawful military order

At this juncture CNAV must offer a disclaimer. In 1986, Pfc. William Alvarado, USMC, wrote several letters to at least one of his Senators, his Representative, his mother, and several others too numerous to name, that he felt the Marines were treating him poorly. He also alleged that his fellow marines, at the U.S. Naval base in Guantánamo Bay, often fired illegal shots across the fenceline. Ten of his fellow Marines executed a “Code Red” on him, also known as a “blanket party.” In that assault upon him, he nearly died.

The Marine Military Police arrested The Ten. One of them, David Cox, decided to fight the charges. A young Navy JAG officer named Don Marcari defended him on this theory: the Ten had orders to do what they did. Those orders apparently came from Capt. David Robb USMC, Alvarado’s company commander. Alvarado had seriously miffed him by writing directly to the Naval Investigative Service about illegal fenceline shootings without coming to him first. Firing at the enemy without cause is a serious matter – but breaking the chain of command is even more serious. Even more embarrassing, Col. Sam Adams USMC, the Marine commandant, did not immediately transfer Alvarado off base. Instead he hinted that if something untoward happened to him by accident, that would not displease him. Something did, and the matter came to trial by court-martial. (Sources: The New York Times and Collider.)

The dramatizations

If that story sounds familiar, it should. It’s the plot of Aaron Sorkin’s play, A Few Good Men, and the motion picture (dir. Rob Reiner; with Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak, Wolfgang Bodison – and the incomparable Jack Nicholson; Columbia Pictures, 1992). Sorkin, and Reiner after him, sought to show that blind loyalty to an institution might lead members of it even to obey unlawful orders – and, depending on their seniority in rank, to give them.

These lines by Cruise (as Lt. (jg) Daniel A. Kaffee) and Pollak (as Lt. (jg) Sam Weinberg) illustrate the problem:

Kaffee: They were given an order, Sam.
Weinberg: An unlawful order.
K: They’re not allowed to question orders.
W: All right then, what’s the Magic Word? I give orders all the time, and I could never expect to be obeyed…
K: We have baseball diamonds and marching bands! They work in a place where you have to wear camouflage or you might get shot!

In other words, anything that convinces someone that the institution is under threat, might weaken the imperative to distinguish lawful from unlawful orders. So would that apply in the case of a President – any President – who issued an order to kill a rival? That’s extremely doubtful. Then again, some of these same people complaining about Trump issuing such an unlawful order, would probably not object if Biden were to issue an order to kill or threaten large numbers of American civilians. To confiscate firearms or even gasoline-powered automobiles, for example.

Weakening civilian control over the military

The United States has always maintained civilian control over the military – and never allowed the military to escape that control. George Washington set the precedent when he resigned his commission as Commander of the Continental Army before a session of the Congress as it then existed.

But now these leftist organizations are promising (threatening?) to “take steps” if Trump wins this fall. NBC wrote of legal action, and letters to Trump’s appointees to remind them of their Constitutional obligations. They took those steps in his first term. But Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is drafting a bill to clarify further the Insurrection Act, to curtail a President’s powers to order the military into action to quell domestic violence.

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist was apoplectic.

https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1746636048052986007

Tellingly, that post did not receive a Community Note, nor has anyone (so far) disputed her interpretation. Without exception, users replying to the Hemingway post accused the Democrats of plotting a military coup of their own. And that no one objected to it, strongly suggests that the left is so plotting, and is keeping quiet so as not to risk Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud.

Clearly NBC News, and the organizations to which it is clearly sympathetic, have brought this suspicion on themselves. Saul Alinsky – a creature of the left, who dedicated his signature work to Lucifer – wrote their playbook. And that playbook includes projection. They are projecting their own wishes, desires, and power fantasies onto their one principled opponent.

Civilian control defined

The site War on the Rocks carried an open letter on civilian control of the military on September 6, 2022. Eight former Secretaries of Defense and five former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff signed it. In sixteen paragraphs these men laid out the principles for how civilian control works. Hoft (see above) quoted Paragraph 1:

Civilian control of the military is part of the bedrock foundation of American democracy. The democratic project is not threatened by the existence of a powerful standing military so long as civilian and military leaders — and the rank-and-file they lead — embrace and implement effective civilian control.

But Sen. Blumenthal and his allies might do well to read Paragraph 10:

Elected (and appointed) civilians have the right to be wrong, meaning they have the right to insist on a policy or direction that proves, in hindsight, to have been a mistake. This right obtains even if other voices warn in advance that the proposed action is a mistake.

And Paragraph 13:

Mutual trust — trust upward that civilian leaders will rigorously explore alternatives that are best for the country regardless of the implications for partisan politics and trust downward that the military will faithfully implement directives that run counter to their professional military preference — helps overcome the friction built into this process. Civil-military teams build up that reservoir of trust in their day-to-day interactions and draw upon it during times of crisis.

Ms. Hemingway no doubt feels that Sen. Blumenthal and company propose to weaken, or even destroy, that mutual trust.

And not, perhaps, without good reason. Those same people who worry about a return of Trump, support globalism. This afternoon, Yuval Noah Harari, a frequent speaker at the World Economic Forum, expressed fear of a Donald Trump return. Fear, that is, for the ideology he supports.

I think it’s very likely. And if it happens [Trump is elected], it is likely to be the kind of like the death blow to what remains of the global order.

The Vigilant Fox quoted Harari on his site, and on a 15-post thread on X:

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746943625131438468

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746943983564022000

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746944316906279180

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746944520745284016

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746944987801977167

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746945146560635104

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746945379449307243

A “false dichotomy to the world”? This from the same man who believes the Earth doesn’t need as many humans on it as it now has. Is this the sort of regime with which Sen. Blumenthal and company expect a President to ally? How far, indeed, will these people go? Herewith the full interview:

Worth noting is that the War on the Rocks letter came out one week after That Speech Biden made on September 2, 2022.

Analysis

One possible event that would give Trump a legitimate reason to use the military to quell an insurrection, would be a repeat of the Long Hot Summer of 2020. That series of riots almost had a prequel, immediately after the Election of 2016. Riots broke out in a number of places, even on Interstate Highway 95 in Richmond, Virginia. Nothing happened that the State Police couldn’t handle – but still.

So do those leftists intend to support a repeat of the “Summer of Love” after the Election of 2024? Why else would they contemplate a weakening of Presidential authority under the Insurrection Act?

Ironically, a leftist screenwriter (and television producer) once wrote fearfully of a military coup against a President promoting an unpopular treaty aimed at ending the (then-raging) Cold War. This project – and the novel that formed its basis – were direct slams on General Edwin Walker, whom then-President John F. Kennedy had recently fired. Kennedy read the novel (Seven Days in May, by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II) and really believed it could happen. So he offered unprecedented – and never-repeated – access to Pennsylvania Avenuee to the producers of the film version.

Compounding the irony, Gen. Mark Milley USA might actually have attempted such a coup when Donald Trump was President. His communications with Chinese “People’s Liberation Army” staff bordered on the treasonous. His successor, Gen. Charles Brown USAF, has not held the command long enough to signal what he will do when, as, and if Trump wins reelection.

The long game

More to the point, as Contributor MacKenzie Bettle recently observed, Democrats are playing the long game. This certainly looks like part of it. They continue to insist that Donald J. Trump attempted an insurrection against lawful authority on January 6, 2021. Again as Bettle observes, “every rebellion throughout history had weapons.” At least 100,000 people – the strength of ten divisions of infantry – rallied on the National Mall before the Capitol event. Had even half of them been armed, the rubber-bullet ammunition the Capitol Police provocatively fired at them would never have stopped them. Accusing half the country of being insurrectionists and rebels, compounds Democrats’ disrespect for their fellow citizens.

The kind of throwing-off to which the NBC News report admits, further demands that “the Democratic Party [be] destroyed next November,” to quote Bill O’Reilly. He was talking about the bad effects of Democratic Party policies. CNAV is talking about their attempts to subvert the military to their will. In closing, CNAV would like to remind every officer and enlisted that the rule against unlawful orders, cuts both ways.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2024/01/15/foundation/constitution/military-civilian-control-trump/



Video:

placeholder



The NBC report:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-military-fears-rcna129159



Mollie Hemmingway’s post:

https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1746636048052986007



War on the Rocks open letter:

https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/to-support-and-defend-principles-of-civilian-control-and-best-practices-of-civil-military-relations/#:~:text=Ultimately%2C%20civilian%20control%20is%20wielded,defense%20to%20the%20combatant%20commanders.



Vigilant Fox thread:

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746943625131438468

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746943983564022000

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746944316906279180

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746944520745284016

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746944987801977167

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746945146560635104

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1746945379449307243



Full interview with WEF wheel Yuval Noah Harari:



Declarations of Truth X feed:

https://twitter.com/DecTruth



Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/



Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/



The CNAV Store:

https://cnav.store/



Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

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Birthright citizenship is headed to SCOTUS!

CBS News confirmed Friday (December 5) that the Supreme Court of the United States will revisit the birthright citizenship question. Four Justices, at least, have decided that the Court must reexamine an issue many thought the Court had settled. Their vote to grant review is the more remarkable, because panels in two Circuit Courts of Appeals both upheld the status quo on birthright citizenship. When the circuits don’t split, the Institutionalists are reluctant to move against them. Four Justices are ready to do so. The question now becomes, how can the Trump administration find a fifth Justice to agree with these four? And: can they do it without Congressional action?

Review of the birthright citizenship question

Once again, Amendment XIV Section 1 reads in relevant part:

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.

In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) the Supreme Court first broke the ground on this issue. Recall: never once, before this case, did Congress define what subjects a person to the jurisdiction of the United States. So the Supreme Court had to “wing it.” The Court held:

The question presented by the record is whether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who at the time of his birth are subjects of the emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States, by virtue of the first clause of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution.

After citing several features of English common law, the Court states:

For the reasons above stated, this court is of opinion that the question must be answered in the affirmative.

The English common law to which the Court referred, recognized jus soli – the Law of the Soil. By that rule, any child born on lands over which the king held dominion, became a subject of the king. That became the accepted practice in the original British colonies. When America won her independence, she continued the tradition. But she also recognized a tradition deriving from Roman law: jus sanguinis, the Law of the Blood. By that rule – as Emmerich de Vattel would articulate – a child inherits the citizenship of his parents.

Now if jus soli is absolute, a child born in one country to citizens of another, would have a choice. He might even hold dual citizenship by birth. For that reason, Vattel (The Law of Nations) held that only those born in a country, to citizens of that same country, should be considered “natural born citizens.” And for that reason, John Jay prevailed on his fellow Framers to make this kind of natural born citizenship a requirement for Presidential eligibility.

Whom is Trump trying to exclude?

Presidential eligibility is not at issue here. The issue involves children born to a set of parents, both of whom are:

  • Not lawfully present in the United States, or

  • Holders of temporary residence visas or tourist visas.

Accordingly, President Trump put forth his Executive Order Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. His order declares that the following children would no longer enjoy birthright citizenship:

Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.

This order does not apply to the children of lawful permanent residents. Thus the President must now ask the Supreme Court to distinguish the Wong case. Its basic holding can remain intact even if the Executive Order stands.

In addition, Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), on the day after the Inauguration, introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025. This Act (HR 569) would amend Title 8, U.S.C., Section 1401, by adding this definition of “subject to the jurisdiction”:

(b) DEFINITION .—Acknowledging the right of birthright citizenship established by section 1 of the 14th amendment to the Constitution, a person born in the United States shall be considered “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States for purposes of subsection (a)(1) if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is—
(1) a citizen or national of the United States;
(2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or
(3) an alien with lawful status under the immigration laws performing active service in the armed forces (as defined in section 101 of title 10, United States Code).

That bill has languished in the House Judiciary Committee to this day. So at present, that phrase subject to the jurisdiction has no definition. No doubt various District Courts consider that anyone with two feet on American soil is “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” unless he is:

  • An “immune” diplomat, or

  • A foreign military service member under a Status of Forces Agreeement with the United States.

Obviously the Trump administration disputes that.

Birthright citizenship in the courts

The minute Trump signed his Executive Order, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, at first in New Hampshire. Separately, eighteen Democratic State Attorneys General filed their own lawsuit. From their complaint:

The President has no authority to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment or duly enacted statute. Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.

On January 23, Judge John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington State (Seattle Division) issued the first Temporary Restraining Order at issue. Four particular Attorneys General (of Washington, Oregon, Illinois and Arizona) brought this action. State of Washington v. Trump, 2:25-cv-00127. According to NewsNation, the judge became terrifically angry with the Justice Department attorneys for trying to defend the EO.

Trump vowed to appeal. Normally one does not appeal Temporary Restraining Orders, but Trump didn’t have to wait long. On February 6, Judge Coughenour issued a preliminary injunction, which is appealable. Trump did appeal. State of Washington, et al., v. Trump, et al., 25-807, in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Judicial Circuit. Then a three-judge panel (William C. Canby, Milan D. Smith, and Danielle J. Forrest) voted 3-0 not to grant an emergency stay of Judge Coughenour’s injunction. In her concurrence, Judge Forrest agreed that emergency relief was not appropriate. But she encouraged the Court to expedite the hearing and oral argument process. She further observed that she and her colleagues constituted a motions panel, not the merits panel that alone could do the case justice.

Separately, a judge in the New Hampshire case has issued his own injunction. A similar injunction has come down in Massachusetts.

A new case in New Hampshire

Late in June 2025 the Supreme Court curtailed the use of “universal injunctions.” The Court held that, if the plaintiffs in the New Hampshire case wanted a universal injunction, they should file a class action. That ruling virtually destroyed the original New Hampshire case, but left the Washington case standing. (States can ask for universal injunctions, if they have Article III standing.)

So the American Civil Liberties Union filed a new case on behalf of five babies named Barbara, Susan, Sarah, Matthew and Mark. The case alleged harm from the denial of birthright citizenship and also asked for certification as a class. Barbara v. Trump, 1:25-cv-00244. The case came before the same judge (Joseph N. LaPlante) as the original New Hampshire case.

As before, Judge LaPlante issued a preliminary injunction against Trump’s EO. Because he now had a class action before him, the injunction stood. His order came down on July 10.

The Trump administration appealed on September 10 to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Barbara v. Trump, docket 25-1861. But the administration didn’t wait for the Appeals Court to act. Instead they filed a petition for review-before-judgment with the Supreme Court on September 26. Three days later they filed for review in the Washington case.

The latest Supreme Court action

Now the Supreme Court has granted review in the Washington case and the new New Hampshire case. Trump v. Washington, 25-364, and Trump v. Barbara, 25-365.

D. John Sauer, Solicitor General of the United States, filed the petition on September 29, 2025. In his filing he cited 8 USC Section 1401, which states who are “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” Sauer bases his case on paragraph (a):

a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

8 USC 1401 does not define the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” But paragraph (b) gives a clue:

a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo. Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe: Provided, That the granting of citizenship under this subsection shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of such person to tribal or other property.

In modern parlance “Indian” means “Beringian” and “Eskimo” means “Inuit.” Such a person is subject to the regulatory reach of U.S. law. But if any Beringian, Inuit, or Aleut were subject to U.S. jurisdiction, why bother listing them separately?

Sauer goes on to say:

The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children—not to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens.

Sauer cites two cases to back this up: Slaughter-house Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 71-74 (1873), and Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 101 (1884). He acknowledged the Wong finding that children of lawful permanent residents were citizens. But he then said:

[L]ong after the Clause’s adoption, the mistaken view that birth on U.S. territory confers citizenship on anyone subject to the regulatory reach of U.S. law became pervasive, with destructive consequences… [I]n the 20th century, the Executive Branch came to misread the Clause as granting citizenship to nearly everyone born in the United States—even to children of temporarily present aliens or illegal aliens.

Judges Coughenour and LaPlante clearly believe that “subject to the jurisdiction” means “within regulatory reach.”

Scope of opinion on birthright citizenship

Happily, Sauer includes, as appendices to his petition, the full opinions of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and of Judge Coughenour. (Sauer’s filing in the Barbara case contains only Judge LaPlante’s order; the First Circuit has not definitively acted.)

The Ninth Circuit opinion flatly repeats the error judges, and Presidents, have been making since the Sixties. Actually, error might be too charitable a word, especially as regards leftist judges – and the Presidents who appoint them. Lyndon Baines Johnson was certainly a loyal servant of the Deep State – or an opportunistic one. One might say of him, more accurately, that he thought he was the Deep State, the same as King Louis XIV of France thought he was the State itself.

In any event, LBJ is the first President to promote the absolutism of jus soli. Or he is the best candidate for that dubious distinction. Either way, the motives are plain: to replace the hard-working native-born demographics with a class of mendicants. Alexis de Tocqueville warned that our republic would fail when the people discovered they could vote themselves government largesse. But even he never dreamed that corrupt Presidents and Congresses would import a new electorate who would vote that way!

Sauer describes all the harms of birthright citizenship:

  1. Incentive for illegal migration,

  2. National security threat,

  3. Birth tourism, and

  4. Degradation of the meaning of citizenship.

Then he presents the contrary opinions. All he need do in the end is say to the Court: “See what I mean?”

Court alignment

The Barbara docket has a clear indication that the Supreme Court granted review on December 5, 2025. The Washington docket has no such entry. But the CBS Report says the Court did grant review in that case; their source for that assertion remains unclear. Both cases did come before the same administrative conference.

By the Supreme Court’s rules, four Justices can force the rest of the Court to accept a petition for review. Grants of review normally go unsigned, as did this one. CNAV ventures to guess that all three Originalists (Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas JJ) voted to grant review. Likewise, all three Equitarians (Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor JJ) voted not to.

That leaves Roberts CJ and Barrett and Kavanaugh JJ. Which of these voted for the petition? CNAV believes Brett Kanavaugh voted for it. Amy Coney Barrett has a tendency (not absolute) to sympathize with families with small children, in a belief in their inherent innocence. But she’s still the one who publicly chastened Ketanji Brown Jackson for her apparent support of an “imperial judiciary.”

And Roberts? He might be reluctant to upend nearly a century of Court practice. Alito and Thomas JJ almost had to drag him kicking and screaming to acceptance of their reasoning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s.

Sauer clearly knew whom he had to impress. Roberts, Barrett and Kavanaugh run that Court, because they almost always cast deciding votes Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas will take his side; Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor never will.

Next arguments on birthright citizenship

Immediately after Sauer filed his dual petitions, several organizations submitted friend-of-the-court briefs. They include:

  • Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (which always has wanted to slow immigration down),

  • Christian Family Coalition of Florida,

  • The Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Claremont Institute, and

  • America’s Future.

All these briefs support the petition, on the grounds that Solicitor General Sauer stated. Specifically, “subject to the jurisdiction” means more than “subject to the regulatory reach of the law.” It primarily means subject to political, not merely regulatory, jurisdiction. Political jurisdiction requires permission to stay (a paraphrase of language in Wong), and domicile. Domicile means a place of permanent residence, and implies a full intent to stay, with permission.

Every civilization has had some form of banishment as either a punishment or a default relationship between that civilization and any given individual. Ancient city-states banished people all the time. Consider, for example, Athenian ostrakons or Roman orders “forbidding fire and water within x hundred miles.” So no “natural right of immigration” can exist.

The Texas Nationalist Movement will no doubt be watching. They haven’t said a word; it’s too soon. But basic sovereignty lies at the heart of the sentiment for Texas independence. If the Supreme Court actually upholds unrestricted birthright citizenship, they will fuel that fire. But that’s a political question, not a legal one.

This case, even more than the entire 2021 Term, will be an intellectual feast for civics students at all levels.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/12/08/foundation/constitution/birthright-citizenship-headed-scotus-2/

Video:

placeholder



Reportage:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-birthright-citizenship/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=885482793



The Wong case:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/united_states_v._wong_kim_ark



The EO:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/



Dockets:

Washington v. Trump:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69561931/state-of-washington-v-trump/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69621321/state-of-washington-et-al-v-trump-et-al/

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-364.html



Barbara v. Trump:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70651853/barbara-v-trump/

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71319932/barbara-v-trump/

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-365.html



Sauer’s massive petition filing in Washington:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-364/378054/20250926163913772_Trump%20v.%20Washington%20with%20appendix.pdf



Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth



Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/



Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/



Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

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Election 2020 – vindication

We now have a definitive statement that President Donald J. Trump was right the first time about the 2020 election. A foreign actor or actors did steal that election, to install a Democrat in the White House. Of course the close divide of the American people made the cheat possible. But those who deny that the cheat occurred, are either naive or lying. The story comes from an independent conservative journalist who also reveals, or suggests, an unlikely hero of the 2024 election.

Enter Emerald Robinson

Emerald Robinson was chief White House correspondent for Newsmax and the One America News Network during the “Trump One” administration. With the installation of joe Biden, she became a thorn in the side of Biden’s first press secretary, Jen Psaki. In November of 2021, Twitter (now X) suspended her account after she disclosed the secret ingredients in Moderna’s mRNA “vaccine” against coronavirus. With the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, she got her account privileges back.

Today she publishes a newsletter, The Right Way, on Substack.com – but has registered her own personal domain. (Naturally she registered it in Tuvalu, whose domain lists as “.tv”, as in “television.”) She has a regular hour-long program that airs weekdays at 4:00 p.m. ET on Frankspeech.com.

Emerald Robinson covers more than coronavirus. She also covers the bad effects of unchecked migration, especially of Muslims and Hindus, neither of whom wish to assimilate into any uniquely American culture. But she also covered the Election of 2020 – and how Trump’s worst failing is lack of imagination. That, and an appalling naivete when it came to making Presidential appointments. Paul Sperry recently covered how Trump’s own people engineered the Russia Hoax and threw the election to Biden in 2020. Emerald Robinson charges that Trump still might not have learned any lessons from that experience. (Or has he? Rumors have him shaking up his Cabinet next January.)

The Election of 2020 – and of 2024

Less than two weeks before the Election of 2024, X influencer Col. Conrad Reynolds posted this video to X.

🚨⚠️ This is a must-watch before the 2024 presidential election.
My friend Gary is whistleblower with deep connections to DOJ, FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security and he exposes shocking details about foreign involvement in U.S. elections. Allegations suggest foreign regimes, including Venezuela and China, are controlling key election systems.
Learn about the claims surrounding election software and foreign manipulation.

https://x.com/ColonelReynolds/status/1849227043520520274

Reynolds’ subject, Gary Berntsen, accuses Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, of supporting drug cartels in his country. More to the point he accuses Maduro and his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, of engineering the founding of SmartMatic, the key subsidiary of Dominion Voting Systems, and responsible for their scanner-tabulator algorithms. SmartMatic, according to Berntsen, ensured that Chavez would survive his attempted recall. After that, Chavez would aim for bigger game: elections in the United States.

SmartMatic entered the U.S. election market in Cook County, Illinois (seated in Chicago). A corporate shell game followed – with an obscure Toronto, Canada company buying SmartMatic. That company’s name: Dominion Voting Systems.

Dominion Voting Systems manages the elections in almost all the swing States. This determines who wins the [Presidential] election.

Berntsen then asserted that the source code for scanner-tabulators from Smartmatic and Dominion is under Venezuelan control. (He also refers to “other companies” whom he does not name.) The hardware comes from Mainland Chinese factories, with final touches applied in – of all places – Taiwan. Then he dropped this key fact: Dominion Voting Systems moved their cybernetic servers to their offices in Belgrade, Serbia. There, Venezuelan, Cuban, and Communist Chinese intelligence agents stood guard – and had administrative user roles in the “swing States.”

Further evidence

Berntsen maintains a Web site – Stolen Elections Facts – explaining the above. He also maintains that Fox and Newsmax need never have settled with Dominion, because they had truth on their side. Why they chose to pretend that they defamed Dominion, is a different question, to which others have suggested possible answers.

The site does list the “other companies” to which Berntsen alluded:

  • Sequoia Voting Systems

  • Bizta Corporation

  • Software Softer and Bizta R&D

The name Election Systems and Software does not appear at the Stolen Elections Facts website. ES&S are the company to which many Registrars of Election switched after Dominion Voting got such a nasty reputation. In fact that company describes itself as established in 1979, long before the events Berntsen describes. Of note is that ES&S builds a Ballot Marking Device that can accept input from a voter having any of a large number of handicaps. It produces a ballot card with human-readable text. In sharp contrast, Dominion’s BMD produces a Quick-read Code containing what are ostensibly a voter’s choices. But the voter can’t read it, so he cannot know whether the ballot is correct or not.

Nor does the name KnowInk appear. KnowInk specializes in electronic pollbooks. Their product consists of specially equipped tablet devices, connecting to one another (but not to the Internet) in a peer-to-peer network.

Bear the above in mind as you read on.

Why the steal of Election 2020 stood

Emerald Robinson reposted Col. Reynolds’ sixteen-minute video clip shortly after Reynolds posted it.

The Election of 2024 happened – and Donald Trump won. No one – at least no one with good heart and better evidence – disputes that. But according to Ms. Robinson, it almost didn’t work out that way.

On January 22, 2025, she started a thread of more than 100 posts on X.

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1882074856730300718

Space does not permit sharing the entire contents, or even all the links. But a careful roll-through of the thread reveals these key insights:

  • Bill Barr, Trump’s second Attorney General, blocked any effort to investigate whether the Election 2020 returns were false.

  • Several National Security analysts briefed the White House and several key Senators that enough evidence existed to warrant an investigation. Again, no one acted.

  • White House Counsel Paul Cipollone, late in 2020, stopped anyone from telling President Trump about the National Security analyst briefing.

  • Key agencies, among them CISA, declared the election fair. CISA figures prominently in the infamous Intercept story about social media organs as State actors.

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  • Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell had the goods on Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, much as Gary Berntsen described it. Again, nothing happened.

  • The January 6 Event was definitely a false-flag pseudo-operation. FBI “crowd embeds” even had a prearranged visual signal to start inciting.

  • The court handling the defamation case by Dominion and Smartmatic against Fox and Newsmax showed clear bias in pre-trial discovery.

An illegal regime, and unconstitutional acts

Ms. Robinson goes on, detailing how:

  • The Biden administration gave the Chinese access to the American power grid, and

  • The January 6 Committee made several unfriendly legislative recommendations – like a bill to change the Electoral Count Act.

She covers the Steve Bannon indictment, and how the January 6 Committee behaved like a Star Chamber. But she devoted much space to the relationships among Dominion, Smartmatic, Sequoia, and the other firms Gary Berntsen named. Much of what we now know about Smartmatic came when Juan Andres Bautista, chief elections officer in the Philippines, got involved in a nasty divorce. His wife, quite simply, ratted him out. He faced impeachment and arrest for bribery – Smartmatic was bribing him – and fled to the United States.

Robinson goes on to detail the clumsy effort in Colorado to destroy evidence. That’s why Tina Peters, County Clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, made a forensic image of a key computer server.

At the end of that thread (which didn’t end until March!), she revealed another key fact. An anonymous man, of Japanese heritage, tracked the Internet traffic among Dominion and its offices in Serbia and Hong Kong. For a donation of twenty dollars, he gave it all to a still-anonymous group investigating the steal of Election 2020. That information would prove vital to the prevention of another steal in 2024.

Who saved Election 2024?

The exact details have waited until this week for Emerald Robinson to reveal them. Why she delayed, she hasn’t said. She did not make a thread of each post as a reply to another. So to get the full thread, one must copy all the links. Here they are:

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993025276696035356

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993027066900742497

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993028491596759207

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993030403410854309

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993033602066690348

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993037667928621498

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993047630415626669

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993058316566905325

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993061239887741230

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993077307762745491

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993089400230887530

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993101594347684116

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993108774639607835

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993306981839536201

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993310039923458499

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993313727857520977

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993321954510598517

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993350631344816559

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993379671950422210

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993385078987350105

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993388493956170175

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993404845097939280

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993415092319535541

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993421655654437170

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993424636780965924

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993432602653368474

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993444343601152394

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993482523528380844

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993710146523124102

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993721585711386632

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993747397261054290

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993751016005882027

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993821358418190342

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993826465067225302

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993870405988180442

So, to summarize the key points, in case these posts become unreadable:

Emerald Robinson credits the following people with saving the Election of 2024:

  • Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)

  • Fmr. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.)

  • Elon Musk

  • The Three Musketeers, including:

    • Gary Berntsen,

    • Patrick Byrne (then owner of Overstock.com), and

    • The anonymous Japanese man, who shared his data with Musk – and thereby convinced him.

After hearing this man, Musk called a member of his staff:

We have a problem. It’s true.

Then he singled out Dominion Voting Systems at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

Sen. Mullin arranged for this man to brief key staff at Mar-A-Lago. Then he evidently recruited a cybersecurity team to attack the Internet servers at the other end of the IP addresses the anonymous man had furnished. Three days before the election, Dominion’s servers in Belgrade were suddenly useless.

And none of the men responsible have gotten any credit for this.

What next?

First, Donald Trump does know what went on, and whom to blame – on the international front. He has decided to wage a secret war against Nicolás Maduro. That explains the drug boat strikes, and could explain Trump’s curious dissatisfaction with the operation thus far. Furthermore, if Trump does send an amphibious assault force to Venezuela, it’s partly in revenge, and partly in recognition that Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez and now Maduro, have been rigging elections in 72 countries for years.

Second, this could explain why Dominion Voting Systems is no more. Scott Leiendecker, former Election Director in St. Louis, Missouri, bought the company in an apparent fire sale. He renamed it Liberty Vote. Leiendecker also runs KnowInk, the electronic pollbook maker described above.

Leiendecker promises to produce systems with “verifiable paper records.” But convincing aggrieved voters to accept any electronic scanner-tabulator, or even an electronic poll book, could prove impossible.

Realities of the election system landscape

Again, all the attention focuses on Smartmatic, Dominion, Sequoia, and Bizia. No one has said a word about Election Systems and Software (allegedly in existence for decades), or KnowInk, the dedicated pollbook maker. Nevertheless, election-integrity advocates, including some who work today as Officers of Election, are convinced that Smartmatic and ES&S get their software from the same source. They have shared that suspicion directly with CNAV. To date, none has furnished proof positive of that suspicion. But no one has asked ES&S, either, where they get their own source code, or whether they developed it in-house.

With their total, unshakable distrust of any electronic voting system, these activists will accept nothing less than paper pollbooks. That will require separating voters into two lines: the A-Js and the K-Zs, or with some other alphabetical division.

At least one activist wants to forbid absentee voting completely. The only exception he will willingly make is for U.S. service members stationed abroad. Even regular Officers of Election, in his view, must sacrifice their right to vote to accept assignment out-of-precinct. But CNAV reminded him that seven percent of votes cast in the French system, are by proxies for registered voters who could not vote in person. To that, he made no answer – so perhaps the French proxy-voting system can substitute for absentee ballots.

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Which costs more? Storing, securing, and using electronic pollbooks and scanner-tabulators? Or hiring “closing officers” (high-school civics students, perhaps?) to count the ballots after close-of-polls? No one knows – yet.

One more thing

One last item bears mention. Donald Trump has consistently suffered from a lack of imagination, and poor judgment of people. His own people stopped his investigation of the steal of Election 2020, just as they aided and abetted the Russiagate plot.

Whoever replaces Trump as a candidate in 2028, must have the skills to hire the right people. Furthermore, he should share the Three Musketeers/Emerald Robinson findings, as his real reason for going to war with Venezuela. (For that matter, this election interference beats the Zimmerman Note of 1918 as legitimate casus belli.)

Scott Leiendecker should simply conduct the fire sale, turn State’s evidence, and join the effort to replace hard-to-count Australian ballots (that list every race and public question) with secure individual “bulletin” ballots that lend themselves to a manual count. Make election work – especially the ballot count – an extra-credit activity in high-school civics. (Or for cadets in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.) By all means, install the proxy system. That way, anyone who can’t vote in person, can trust another to vote in his stead.

This is how you achieve not only accountability but also deterrence. Make it not only expensive but impossible to steal another election as the Venezuelans did (likely for the Chinese). If one good thing can come out of these revelations, this is it.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/11/27/accountability/executive/election-2020-vindication/

Video:

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Emerald Robinson’s home page and other Internet home:

https://www.emerald.tv/

https://frankspeech.com/



Col. Reynolds’ video:

https://x.com/ColonelReynolds/status/1849227043520520274



Gary Berntsen’s site:

https://stolenelectionsfacts.com/



Emerald Robinson’s long thread (anchor post).

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1882074856730300718



The Intercept piece about CISA, and CNAV’s coverage of it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221102022321/https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/

https://cnav.news/2022/11/02/foundation/constitution/state-actor-real/

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Emerald Robinson’s recent thread, all links:

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993025276696035356

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993027066900742497

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993028491596759207

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993030403410854309

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993033602066690348

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993037667928621498

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993047630415626669

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993058316566905325

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993061239887741230

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993077307762745491

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993089400230887530

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993101594347684116

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993108774639607835

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993306981839536201

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993310039923458499

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993313727857520977

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993321954510598517

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993350631344816559

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993379671950422210

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993385078987350105

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993388493956170175

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993404845097939280

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993415092319535541

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993421655654437170

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993424636780965924

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993432602653368474

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993444343601152394

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993482523528380844

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993710146523124102

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993721585711386632

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993747397261054290

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993751016005882027

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993821358418190342

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993826465067225302

https://x.com/EmeraldRobinson/status/1993870405988180442



Liberty Vote home page and FAQ link:

https://libertyvote.com/

https://libertyvote.com/assets/files/LV-FAQ.pdf



The French system of all-paper voting:

https://cnav.news/2023/06/24/editorial/talk/france-votes-paper/

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Trump’s people aided Russiagate:

https://cnav.news/2025/11/21/accountability/executive/russiagate-trump-own-appointees-aided-plot/



Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth



Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/



Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/



Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

Read full Article
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Redistricting, Republicans’ latest weapon

The Republicans are either following President Donald Trump’s lead, or, like bullied kids suddenly discovering their own power, fighting back. Or perhaps they’re doing both. Either way, Republicans have discovered a new weapon, which forum-shopping Democrats inadvertently taught them how to use. That weapon is mid-decade redistricting. So powerful is it, that Democrats are trying any and all means, legal and illegal, to thwart it. The only certain outcome of this escalated war, is that Democrats have shown the American people their hand. Like the Israelites in Joshua’s day, the American people will now choose, this fall and next, the kind of polity in which they wish to live.

All about redistricting

Technically the word district never appears in the Constitution, except in the context of “the District constituting the seat of government of the United States.” (Article I Section 8 Clause 17a; Amendment XXIII.) But the Constitution does make these two provisions for representation in the House of Representatives:

  1. The Clerk of the House apportions seats in the House among the several States according to population. (Which population, “excepting [Native Americans] not taxed,” is subject to debate.) And:

  2. State legislatures determine the “times, places and manner of holding elections of Senators and Representatives.” But Congress has full authority to “make or alter such regulations.” (Exception: places for electing Senators. Amendment XVII, providing for popular election of Senators, did not change this.)

Such redistricting normally happens every ten years, after the Census, which takes place in every year that starts a decade. To be specific:

The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. (Article I Section 2 Clause 3.)

But sometimes redistricting has occurred mid-decade. The Voting Rights Act is an example of “making and altering regulations” for holding federal elections. It singles out certain southern States that, early in the twentieth century, did everything imaginable to make sure that American blacks could never elect members of their own race. That law is a “regulation” for a time long past. Congress could and should repeal it. But getting to that pass, requires a new Congress dedicated to honor and social integrity, not social revenge. (Justice is scarcely the word for discrimination among the several States in this or any other regard.)

Republicans discover redistricting and are ready to use it

In 2020 the country took its decennial Census, under difficult circumstances that Democrats used to their advantage. The alleged need for “social distancing” during the “Pandemic” of “The Virus That By Moderational Rule Remained Nameless on Social Media” forced the introduction of on-line self-reporting of residency and co-residency for Census purposes. That was bad enough, facilitating as it did the inflation of some population counts – and deflation of others. But then the Democrats, and their allies, sued to force the Census Bureau to count illegal aliens in the Census.

The first Trump administration fought that case – but the Biden administration settled it. That settlement might – or might not – contain a “poison pill” forbidding even a successor administration to exclude illegal aliens in a future Census. President Trump has announced plans to take a Census, before this decade is out, and without counting illegal aliens. Trump’s response to any legal precedent, especially one with dubious authority, is to say, “Oh, yeah? We’ll see about that!” Call it “testing the authority.”

But while we’re waiting for the inevitable court case, Trump has urged Republicans in Republican-controlled States to employ mid-decade redistricting. He hopes enough States will prepare new maps in time for the 2026 Midterms. Texas Republicans have taken up the challenge, and Florida might do the same.

The Texas quorum fight

Texas Republicans revealed new proposed maps last month, that in theory could let Republicans take five seats from Democrats. One of their targets, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-South Dallas), has complained bitterly that the new map draws a line for her present District that excludes her residence. That’s not even a strict Constitutional disability. The Constitution requires only that a Representative “reside in the State from which (s)he shall be chosen.” State, not district – because States could by law award Israeli Knesset-style mandates or “slots” in proportion to a State-wide vote. (No State does that today. But Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has proposed that each State elect multiple Representatives from a handful of mega-districts.) Famously, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) does not reside, and never has resided, in the District she represents.

As may be, the rules of the Texas State House specify that a supermajority constitutes a quorum. (The U.S. Constitution requires only a bare majority. Article I Section 5 Clause 1.) So Democrats have employed a strategy called quorum breaking. On August 3, the Texas State House was to vote on approving a mid-decade redistricting map and sending it to the Texas Senate. Not a single Democrat showed up – therefore, no quorum. Most Democrats have fled the State to avoid the redistricting vote, this after Rep. Dustin Burrows, the House Speaker, threatened them all with arrest. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has echoed that threat.

Precedent – and current moves

Compulsion of attendance is a regular staple of legislatures. The U.S. Constitution provides that “a smaller number” may, as either chamber directs, compel the attendance of absent members. Indeed the United States Senate, in a rule that James Stewart paraphrased in his famous 1939 political movie, specifically states:

Whenever … a quorum is not present, a majority of the Senators present may direct the Sergeant at Arms to request, and, when necessary, to compel the attendance of the absent Senators,…

The Texas House has the same rule, and has acted accordingly. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) has gone further. He vowed to remove absent State House members from office. Already, Attorney General Paxton has gone to the Texas Supreme Court for a writ of quo warranto to remove the apparent “ringleader” of the quorum fight. (That Court has ordered the offending member to answer the lawsuit.) In addition:

Mr. Paxton threatened to move to vacate all Texas House Democratic offices if their holders did not return to duty. Speaker Burrows had set a deadline of Friday afternoon – and the Democrats didn’t show up. So Mr. Paxton carried out his threat. In addition Burrows slapped his Democratic colleagues with more penalties, including:

  1. Suspension of direct deposit of salary and per diem checks,

  2. Requirement that members show up in person to collect travel reimbursement or take any office personnel action,

  3. Fines of $500 per day per members, and

  4. Freezing of 30 percent of members’ monthly budgets.

“Beto’s Bribes”

In an interesting development, thirty Texas Democrats “fled” to Illinois. Gov. J. B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) allegedly is having them put up in expensive hotels his family owns. Whether that’s true or false, we now learn how they got to Illinois – aboard an expensive private jet. Former Senate candidate Robert F. “Beto” O’Rourke paid for that junket, using money from his Political Action Committee, “Powered by People.” He also pledged to pay those Democrats’ hotel, meal, and other bills.

Attorney General Paxton has responded swiftly and decisively. He is suing O’Rourke and his PAC to claw back the money. In a post on X, he said:

BREAKING: I sued Robert Francis O'Rourke for “Beto Bribes” to Democrat runaways to impede the Texas Legislature.
I will not allow failed political has-beens to buy off Texas elected officials. I’ll see you in court, Beto.

https://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/1953913485576003592

On Friday evening, The Gateway Pundit reported that a court granted the Temporary Restraining Order Paxton had sought against O’Rourke. That Order forbids O’Rourke or his PAC to spend, raise, or offer funds to any absent Texas legislator for purposes of quorum breaking. It also sets Tuesday, August 19, for a hearing on a temporary (that is, preliminary) injunction to the same effect.

Perhaps in response to that order, a thoroughly angry O’Rourke addressed a rally in Fort Worth – the same city where Paxton sued him – and vowed that Democrats would “win, whatever it takes.”

“F**k the rules, we are going to win whatever it takes.” – Beto O'Rourke, dude who can’t win an election no matter what it takes.

https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1954319711199760881

Democrats know that deportations and an end to illegal immigration are popular with the public and yet they can’t help but campaign on “we’re gonna let them all in and give them citizenship.”
What a gift to us for the midterms. Thanks Beto!

https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1954309853360410732

Retaliatory redistricting?

The governors of California, New York, and Massachusetts have all threatened to retaliate in kind with their own redistricting. But each State has a problem:

  1. Massachusetts already sends no Republicans to the House of Representatives. So the Massachusetts General Court (their name for their legislature) can do nothing beyond what they’ve done already.

  2. New York would have to amend its Constitution to get rid of the independent districting commission that draws districts in that State. That would take time Democrats don’t have; they’d never get it done by Midterms.

  3. California has an independent redistricting commission of its own, which came about through a voter initiative.

To work around this last problem, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) has announced his intention to place on the ballot for this November’s election, a referendum to bypass that commission. But such bypass would be temporary and contingent on Texas finishing its redistricting law.

In reply, Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) has introduced a federal bill to forbid mid-decade redistricting in any State. That, of course, is a weapon of last resort – but one that Article I Section 4 Clause 1 makes available.

Republican heavyweights like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charles Munger, Jr. have pledged to campaign to defeat the referendum. The sheer brazenness of Newsom’s action might cause enough voters to recoil in horror and vote against it.

Summary

Texas is not the only “red State” to consider mid-decade redistricting. Consider this:

🚨BOOM 🚨
GOP could permanently CRUSH the Democrats… if they grow a spine 💀
Ned Ryun [head of American Majority] says Republicans could pick up to 40 HOUSE SEATS by 2030 if they get rid of all the CORRUPTION.
@NedRyun: Democrats have been gerrymandering Republicans out of existence in these blue states. It is time Republicans stepped up to the plate and did EXACTLY what Democrats have been doing to us for YEARS.

https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1953990856383320126

Gov. Newsom thinks he can take five or six seats from Republicans in his State, if his referendum passes. But that will be of no moment if other States follow suit. And again, Massachusetts can do nothing, for the same reason one cannot obtain blood from a turnip. New York State won’t have time to act by Midterms. By the time they do act, Census time will come again.

We now know that the Biden administration sought to skew the Census to Democrats’ political advantage. They might even have had more nefarious plans: to cast ballots in the names of those illegal aliens. By far the best remedy the Trump administration has used, is to remove as many of these aliens as possible. And that remedy has been effective. Emergency room visits are down. Government “social programs” have shut down for lack of clients. Crime has declined to a manageable level. All this is taking place in “sanctuary cities” and other places to which illegal aliens once flocked.

Mid-decade redistricting shows that Republicans have come out swinging. Democrats, for their part, aren’t even pretending to any even-handedness. So the one fraud Democrats once perpetrated easily – that theirs was the voice of reason and help for the “working stiff” – has lost its effectiveness. Shortly, voters, in California and elsewhere, will have their most stark choice.

Link to:

The article:

https://cnav.news/2025/08/10/foundation/constitution/redistricting-republicans-latest-weapon/

Video:

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Ken Paxton’s “see you in court” post:

https://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/1953913485576003592



Application for TRO – and granted TRO:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/plugins/pdfjs-viewer-shortcode/pdfjs/web/viewer.php?file=https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/beto-bribe-lawsuit-redacted-filed-1.pdf&attachment_id=1434966&dButton=true&pButton=true&oButton=false&sButton=true&pagemode=none&_wpnonce=314f4557e2

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/press/Beto%20Bribes%20TRO.pdf



Two posts covering Beto’s angry speech in Fort Worth:

https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1954319711199760881

https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1954309853360410732



Jesse Watters’ interview with Ned Ryun:

https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1953990856383320126

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/ned-ryun-predicts-huge-gains-republicans-through-redistricting/



Declarations of Truth:

https://x.com/DecTruth



Declarations of Truth Locals Community:

https://declarationsoftruth.locals.com/



Conservative News and Views:

https://cnav.news/



Clixnet Media

https://clixnet.com/

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