Call it a judicial man bites dog story. A 6-3 decision actually went the right way. Even though it should have been 9-0, we’ll take what we can get from this Court. The Fourteenth Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” And this time around, six judges agreed that the Constitution means what the Constitution says. “The ACLU’s Cecillia Wang, herself a birthright citizen born to Chinese parents, argued the birthright case in April before the Supreme Court. As she put it, the men who wrote the Fourteenth Amendment deliberately chose to confer automatic citizenship on the child, not the parent, the idea being that ‘in America we do not punish children for the sins of their fathers, but instead we wipe the slate clean. When you’re born in this country, we’re all American, all the same.’” NPR: Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship on constitutional grounds. It’s nice to know some of those grounds are still above ground. 2Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder“During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised again and again that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Of course he didn’t. We are now more than 1,580 days into this war and it still rages. But here is the irony. Trump’s own actions, none of them meant to help Ukraine, may have brought the end of this war closer than anything that came before ... One of his first moves was to choke off American money and weapons. He demanded that Ukraine pay America back for Biden’s aid through a one-sided minerals deal. And he humiliated Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the world in that Oval Office meeting, telling him, ‘You don’t have any cards.’” It looked like a disaster at the time. But it turns out that not having Trump on his side may have been just the card Zelensky needed. Bill Browder: Despite his best efforts, Trump may just have won the war for Kyiv. “Once Washington no longer bankrolled Ukraine, Washington could no longer give Ukraine orders. The leash was off. The United States could no longer demand that Ukraine spare targets inside Russia. That single change has altered the course of the war.” 3Antisocial Climbers“Two climbers—an experienced mountaineer and his girlfriend, a novice—set out to take on Austria’s tallest peak in the dead of winter. After the woman was found frozen to death near the summit, a court in Innsbruck had to decide whether the hike was merely a tragedy, or a case of homicide by neglect.” The always excellent William Finnegan in The New Yorker: No Return: “Did an experienced alpinist leave his girlfriend to die at the top of a mountain?” (Alt link.) 4The Best Things Since (and Before) Sliced BreadLet’s focus on something about America we can all celebrate. Our food history. “When Thomas Jefferson travels to Paris in 1784, he brings along James Hemings, an enslaved man who has worked at Monticello since childhood. Hemings studies French cooking, and when they return, he cooks at formal events hosted by Jefferson.” What came out of that trip? Mac and Cheese. (Yup, thank you, France!) In the 1810s, we got canned food. In the 1840s, the gold rush brought us something even more valuable: Chinese restaurants. 1880s: Coca-Cola. The 1920s brought us a great invention and equally great “American linguistic yardstick for innovation:” Sliced Bread. Then came Cheetos and McDonald’s. All that said, our winning streak may be over. In 2026, we’re all about suppressing appetites and looksmaxxing. But before you go from hungry to hangry, let’s celebrate. NYT (Gift Article): The Pursuit of Hungriness: 250 Years of American Food Innovation. 5Extra, ExtraSliding Into Your DMs: Early on, one of my biggest worries about AI was that evil politicians would use it to identify what people wanted to hear, tweak the truth to match those desires, and then deliver targeted, personal messages to manipulate the public. I was a little off the mark. It’s not just the evil ones who are doing it. NYT (Gift Article): How A.I. Is Changing the Way Politicians Run for Office. “Behind the scenes, campaigns are using the technology to analyze voter data, craft campaign materials and write custom messages.” 6Bottom of the NewsPenalty kicks are stressful, stupid, genius, luck, skill, joyous, painful, ridiculous, and ridiculously awesome. They are the human condition. And we’ve already had some crazy ones in the World Cup knockout rounds. So you may be wondering how goalkeepers win penalty shootouts. “It’s not like you’re going, ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.’” (It actually looks like they’re going eeny meeny at most...)
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