The fix, it seems, is in — for both Super Bowl LVIII and the 2024 presidential election.

MAGA media are alight with claims (or, in some cases, mere “just asking questions” trolling) about a plot to use a Kansas City Chiefs win in the former to amp up a Joe Biden endorsement from an “artificially culturally propped-up couple” (per Republican presidential also-ran Vivek Ramaswamy) in the latter.

No, I’m not kidding. Real people are really pushing this.

I’m far from personally immune to the allure of “conspiracy theories.” For example, I’m pretty sure US government actors participated in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK, and I doubt that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.

But this one has me finally starting to understand a weird 21st-century youth expression: “I can’t even …”

Consider, for starters, Ramaswamy’s “artificially culturally propped-up couple” musing.

Taylor Swift released her eponymous debut album (about six million copies sold) in 2006. She picked up her first Grammy nomination in 2008. She’s won a total of 12 Grammys, sold more than 200 million albums, and recorded more Number One albums than any woman in history. She’s basically the most popular person in the world, and the Democratic National Committee didn’t engineer that popularity. Nor, for the most part, has she ever been a very “political” celebrity.

Travis Kelce was drafted by the Chiefs in 2013 and has since become the greatest  tight end in NFL history. He’s broken numerous records individually, in cahoots with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and as part of a team that’s  on its way to its fourth Super Bowl in five years.  He’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee when the time comes for that. The only even moderately “political” endorsement I can think of that he’s ever publicly made was for a COVID-19 vaccine also heartily endorsed by … wait for it … Donald Trump, who takes credit for its development at every opportunity.

Politics didn’t make these two popular and well-known. They accomplished that themselves. Even if Joe Biden needs them, they don’t need him. But if they want a reason to endorse Biden, the MAGA weirdos are giving them one in the form of truly next-level wingnuttery.

A better idea:

Swift and Kelce are natural-born American citizens whose 35th birthdays fall before January 20, 2025. Instead of them endorsing Biden, maybe he should endorse THEM as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential ticket. Right after the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. As, assuming it’s not rigged, they shall.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On January 22, a 5-4 US Supreme Court vote allowed US Border Patrol agents to cut razor wire installed along the US-Mexico border (which also happens to be the Texas-Mexico Border) in the vicinity of a local park that the Texas Military Department seized earlier in the month. Eagle Park verges on the Rio Grande river, and the idea of the razor wire is to deter (or injure or kill) migrants crossing from the Mexican side.

The order is a temporary measure, put in effect until the court hears and rules on the entire dispute over state versus federal authority at the border.

While there are a number of factual claims in dispute, it’s worth reviewing what the law — specifically the “supreme law of the land,” the US Constitution — has to say on the matter, and whether or not that law is morally justifiable.

Put simply, Texas actually has a constitutional hook to hang its deter/injure/kill program on.

Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution clearly and unambiguously forbids the federal government to regulate immigration — and strong implies a state power to do so:

“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight …”

Article V of the same Constitution forbade amending that provision before 1808.

The Tenth Amendment requires such a post-1808 constitutional amendment to create any federal power over immigration. No such amendment has ever been proposed or ratified.

And, as Chief Justice John Marshall noted in the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, “an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.”

There are, in other words, no valid federal immigration laws, despite an activist Supreme Court’s decision magically miracling up a federal immigration power out of nothing in Chy Lung v. Freeman (1875).

But that “States now existing shall think proper to admit” verbiage does imply that the ratifiers of the Constitution thought such a state power existed by default. So if Texas wants to deter people from coming across the Rio Grande (or kill or injure them for trying to do so), then as a constitutional matter, if handled honestly, this whole thing boils down to a more mundane question: Whether the Rio Grande is federal property, state property, or some other kind of property.

But, then, there’s the moral side of the question, and both the US and Texas governments are on the wrong side of that one.

Peacefully traveling to, moving to, or working at wherever one darn well pleases is a human right, and none of Greg Abbott’s or Joe Biden’s business. Using force or violence to impede the exercise of that right is a crime.

That’s true whether the criminals involved work for the Texas Military Department, the US Border Patrol, the China Immigration Inspection branch of the People’s Police, or for that matter, the now-defunct East German Stasi.

Immigrants don’t belong in cages. Abbott and Biden do.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Yes, folks, it’s that time again. Each year, the final week of January features a campaign of punditry, analysis, and cheerleading centered around “National School Choice Week.”

What is “school choice?” In theory, it’s a utopian something-for-nothing scenario in which every student gets the education he, she, or other pronoun “chooses.”

In fact, “school choice,” as promoted, robs most stakeholders — most students, most parents, most educators, and all taxpayers — of meaningful choice.

The usual vehicles for “school choice” are vouchers which can be used to pay tuition, or tax credits that can be used to defray tuition at, approved schools, or in some cases to buy approved homeschooling curricula.

The key word there is “approved,” which is where choice gets shut down.

“Public” — that is, government-run — schools, including “charter” schools, are naturally “approved.” Sending a student there is usually characterized as parents taking “their” tax money to the “magnet” school down the road instead of the “troubled” school nearer their homes, but in both cases they just get the government-approved courses of instruction for their children.

“Private” schools and privately sold homeschool curricula are only eligible to enroll students using that voucher or tax credit money if they also teach the government-approved versions of the government-approved subjects.

Educationally, “school choice” turns every school/curriculum into a single McDonald’s combo meal . You can have anything you want to eat as long as it’s a Big Mac. No matter where you go, you get the same burger, cooked and served the same way.  Unless you have a strong preference for one school’s football team or architectural style over another’s, you might as well just flip a coin. Whee! “Choice!”

As for those taxpayers who don’t happen to have children in need of education, they get no “choice” at all in the matter. Their job is to cough up and shut up.

The usual argument from libertarians who’ve fallen for the “school choice” scam is that it’s “at least a step in the right direction.” It isn’t.

Turning every “private” or home educational option into a uniform,  standardized, government-approved educational option, the only real difference being how the books are kept, reduces actual choice.

It also caps educational quality, and therefore potential student achievement, at whatever dismally low level politicians and bureaucrats can agree on.

Real school choice requires separation of education and state. Anything less is just screwing around … and screwing the kids.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY