News India Times

www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know News India Times (August 8, 2026 - August 14, 2026) August 14, 2026 4 Opinion Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. Neither set of arguments ought to prevail. Start with the political one. It might have some force if Republicans were trying to enact a transformative legislative agenda but kept getting blocked by filibusters. They aren’t. Johnson brought up replacing Obamacare as a goal Republicans could achieve if not for the filibus- ter. But what’s stalling that legislation is not the Senate’s supermajority requirement. It’s that a bill does not exist. What Trump wants is to kill filibusters and then pass mandatory voter ID and restrictions on mail-in ballot- ing. It’s not clear that this package has majority support in either the House, which has passed only the voter ID component, or the Senate. Toss the filibuster, and voter ID could pass. But that would not be the election game changer some Republicans have convinced themselves it would be. Voter fraud and noncitizen voting just are not very large-scale. And while Democrats may win in 2028 and then try to gut the filibuster, it’s not inevitable that they will succeed. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) has already said he will defend the filibuster from now on. If the party were to succeed, however, it would surely move quickly to repeal the voter ID law and thus render the Republicans’ first strike pointless. It’s unlikely, too, that freedom from filibusters would revive congressional power. The notion that Congress always stalemates and so presidents have to act on their own is not really true. President Joe Biden didn’t even try to get Congress to pass his student loan forgiveness plan before moving to implement it unilaterally. Trump didn’t ask Congress for tariffs last year, either. Instead, he want- ed to be able to set them at will. Note, also, that Congress has not tried to wrest back its power over loan forgiveness or tariffs and then failed because of the filibuster. To focus solely on the legislation that the filibuster blocks is, however, to miss part of its function, which is not only to stop rash action by bare majorities but to push lawmakers to broker deals that most people in a diverse American society can live with. Such bipartisan deals have become much rarer in our day, but they still happen - as on criminal justice reform in Trump’s first term or semiconductor subsidies under Biden. The need for bipartisan support for appropriations bills has also led to their frequently including limits on how the executive branch can use funding. Yet Johnson’s comment that the filibuster does not suit these times was right, in a way. For decades, the United States has been moving away from the version of Congress in which the filibuster makes sense. National politics have become more and more a contest to build partisan majorities that can force through policy changes - such as Trump’s tax cuts or Biden’s stimulus package - on their own. The leaders of each party in Congress have centralized power to make the institution better at this task. That centralization and heightened partisanship have come at the cost of the ability of Congress to make cross- factional bargains and to defend itself in interbranch struggles for power. The attempt to strengthen Congress has thus made it weaker. Is this approach to national politics, along with the results it is getting, making the public happier about the state of the country, its politics or its government? Are the partisan majorities working, even for the base of each party? In a June column, I cast doubt on the durability of many of Trump’s apparent accomplishments in the last two years. But one might equally wonder how much of what Biden achieved via par- tisan majorities and executive orders is going to survive. Ending the filibuster is a beguiling idea because it is the next logical step in the partisan escalation of recent decades. The filibuster is an artifact of an earlier era. That is what makes it valuable. Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. - TheWashington Post Killing The FilibusterWon’t Fix ABroken Congress U S President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) signed two executive orders targeting birthright citizenship and birth tourism, saying his administration was “cracking down very big” on what he described as abuses of the American immigration system following a recent Supreme Court ruling. Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office, Trump ex- pressed disappointment over the SC ruling, adding “We had a very unfortunate decision in the Supreme Court concerning birthright [citizenship]… so we’re making adjustments.” He added, “We’re cracking down very big… this will give us the right to do it in a much more forceful manner. They’ve taken birthright citizenship, and they’ve made a joke out of it.” According to theWhite House, the first executive order identifies certain categories of children of foreign nation- als who, consistent with historical exceptions recognized by the Supreme Court, would not be entitled to birthright citizenship. The administration said the categories are non-exhaustive and are based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Barbara. The second executive order delegates presidential authorities to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security and directs both departments to halt the practice of birth tourism, under which foreign nation- als travel to the United States primarily to give birth so that their child acquires US citizenship. White House adviser Stephen Miller said the executive actions were rooted in the original intent of the Four- teenth Amendment. “The 14th Amendment was passed exclusively in the aftermath of the Civil War to ensure that the children of slaves would be citizens. It had no other meaning and purpose outside of that,” Miller said. He said the President was using his authority as Commander-in-Chief to expand the categories of people ineligible for birthright citizenship following the Supreme Court’s latest ruling. “That includes, for example, alien enemies in the United States, members of foreign terrorist organisa- tions, and large categories of people who lobby and act on behalf of foreign governments. By taking this action, it ensures that large numbers of people who wrongly would be getting birthright citizenship will no longer be eligible for those benefits,” Miller said. Highlighting the second order, Miller called it a his- toric step. “For the first time ever in American history, birth tourism is banned. No one in the world is allowed to obtain a visa for this fraudulent purpose. This ends one of the gravest abuses of the American system and keeps American citizenship sacred,” he said. White House Staff SecretaryWill Scharf defended the legality of the measures, saying, “What we’re doing is taking legally validated means that are clearly within our disposal and targeting them squarely onto this birth tourism industry. There’s absolutely nothing in here that runs afoul of any of the Supreme Court’s opinions on the subject.” The executive actions come weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled in June that children born in the United States to parents who are unlawfully or temporar- ily present in the country are entitled to automatic US citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the Four- teenth Amendment. The court also relied on its earlier ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, reaffirming that children born in the United States to foreign parents are entitled to birthright citizenship. - ANI Trump Signs Two Executive Orders Targeting Birthright Citizenship, Birth Tourism; Says US “Cracking Down Very Big” PHOTO:YOUTUBE,THEWHITE HOUSE,VIA ANI President Donald Trump. - Continued From Page 3 PHOTO:TheWashington Post US Affairs