Pedro Tapir

[Fairfax GOP @FairfaxGOP]

Your gas tax goes up again on July 1. You won't get to vote on it. You never have.

Here's the part Richmond is counting on you to miss: in 2020, Democrats in the General Assembly tied Virginia's gas tax to inflation — so it raises itself, automatically, every single July. No vote. No roll call. No fingerprints.

The result? The state gas tax has DOUBLED in six years — from 16.2 cents a gallon in 2020 to 32.6 cents this week.

Glenn Youngkin tried to give drivers a break with a three-month suspension. Senate Democrats killed it, 21-18.

They built a tax that raises itself so they'd never have to put their names on it. Their names are on something else: every State Senate and House of Delegates seat on your ballot in November 2027.

Read the full breakdown:
https://t.co/SXSzAx1rHr

Share this with every Fairfax driver who never got a vote.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

World Cup
The flop “injuries” have gotten more ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than Duke basketball. The red card for covering your mouth in a verbal confrontation is the most ridiculous and pathetic.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@C_Herring Referring to yourself as Leader is the equivalent of leaving the brand tag on the sleeve of your coat. That’s a party designation for legislative activity.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@TomcatJunkie Don’t want it, but you’re right..if you live in the city. Avg city-dweller has 2-3 days of food. It would be a nightmare.

[Jonathan McPike @JonathanMcPike]

Birthright citizenship predictions that will perhaps turn out to be completely wrong tomorrow:

(1) The Court will strike down the executive order by a vote of 7-2 (Thomas and Alito dissenting).

(2) But the Court will NOT impose constitutionally mandatory birthright citizenship on the country.

Roberts and the moderate wing know that imposing constitutionally mandatory birthright citizenship would be extremely controversial. They read the amicus briefs on the national security implications of birth tourism from countries that hate us, and they get it. And they get that *we* get it, too. Preventing the country from doing something about such an obvious problem that half the country cares a ton about unless it can get a constitutional amendment, which they all know would be impossible, isn’t the hill that they want the Court’s legitimacy to die on. They’ll look for a way to avoid imposing that requirement. Thus:

(3) Roberts will write a plurality opinion joined by Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.

He’ll point out that Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress the power to enforce the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment and conclude that Section 5 therefore gives Congress the power to define “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

But Congress simply parroted the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” from the constitutional text back in the statutory text of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

Roberts will call this a circular reference and include that by using the phrase from the constitutional text without expressly defining it when the constitutional text commits the power to define it to Congress, Congress was basically adopting the broad reading of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” that (wrongly) prevailed for so many years.

Congress could just as easily define that phrase more narrowly if it wanted to—so long as it doesn’t define it *too* narrowly—and if Congress wanted to, then it could certainly define it as narrowly as President Trump has in his executive order. After all, there’s plenty of history to support that view, as the dissent so helpfully points out, he’ll say.

But Congress hasn’t done so yet, and since Chevron is no longer the law of the land, the executive order has to be struck down until Congress acts to adopt President Trump’s position.

(4) But it’ll only be a plurality opinion because the three liberal justices will only concur in the judgment, writing separately in favor of constitutionally mandated birthright citizenship.

Sotomayor or Kagan will write this opinion in an attempt to make this position look more sane than the nonsense that Jackson will write in a lone opinion joined by no one else on the Court.

Sotomayor is perhaps more likely than Kagan to write this opinion because Kagan might be tempted to join the plurality opinion to make it a bare majority opinion with five votes and give it precedential weight even though it doesn’t go as far as she’d like. (This would be a smart move for her if she could live with half a loaf.)

(5) Thomas and Alito will dissent on the grounds that everyone who’s being intellectually honest knows exactly what the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means because the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment actually told us, and common sense and prudence further weigh in favor of the common sense reading that President Trump’s executive order gives it.

(6) President Trump will immediately call on Congress to pass a bill to codify his executive order, setting up a big, beautiful campaign issue for the fall, which is exactly what Roberts thought that he was setting up with his Obamacare decision.

Come back tomorrow to see which Cracker Jack box I got my law license out of.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@TeriChristoph

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@NoVA_Campaigns @vademocrats

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@RepNancyMace Pretty neon-lit tobacco stores

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@BreannaMorello I predict a terrorist attack, mass shooting, well known celebrity death or….ufo live on-air…

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@RepJasmine I can’t wait to see your OnlyFans in a couple of years.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@chriswithans That would be great.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@Sam_Rasoul Weird. Somehow, school was ably taught for a long time with paper, pencil, no lunch service nor air conditioning .

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@SalimForVA I wish someone would calculate the amount of money wasted by your party on illegal and unconstitutional overturned legislation. You should be tarred and feathered, Dam-sad.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@ClayTravis WNBA is a fake league. No one watches. No one cares.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@VASenateGOP The people who vote for Virginia democrats have their power bills paid by tax paying Virginians.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@HelmerVA Hey, is that back screen in your garage?

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@DirtyDemocrat05 His beady eyes

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@19_forty_five That would mean 20 gajillion melted plastic ducks, right?

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@DaniMayakovski In 2026, that statue is racist. It should be removed.

[Pedro Tapir @PedroTapir]

@fire_starter457 “Studies show” that, right?