Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Today:

Congressman Mark Alford
[July 6, 2026]

Folks, the 14th Amendment was meant to correct Dred Scott and guarantee citizenship to freed slaves—not to create a system that can be exploited today.
It’s on us to fix the law, clarify its intent, & make sure it reflects the reality America is facing now!
[….]

As usual, there was much hilarity in the responses:

Draft an amendment and let’s take a look at it.
Question if the only way to become a citizen is to be born with at least one parent who is a US citizen. How does a parent prove they are a citizen?
They cannot just say I have a birth certificate that, according to you, does not grant them citizenship.

I have wondered the same thing. If a birth certificate is not proof of citizenship and no current method to establish citizenship for anyone exists beyond the birth certificate, then the only people who are citizens are those who have gone through the naturalization process.

Or possess a GOP membership card

Or pay cash to the grifter-in-chief.

I do not think when things start happening even that will save a lot of people. Most of my family came to this country before it was a country. Only those whose family came to this country after 1880 and were naturalized would possibly be able to prove their ancestors were naturalized.

take away citizenship of all Trump kids except Tiffany

By that same logic, 2nd amendment was meant for muskets, not machine guns.

don’t try logic on these people. Only fear and nonsense clears their cerebral cortex.

they’re gonna get bodied in November and they know it. They’re just scared and trying to cheat everything and stir all of the idiots up at this point.

Only muskets, Mark. Is that want you’re saying? So, with that we just need to fix it with legislation? You’re on board for that now?

You’re offering a Constitutional amendment?

Be nice, he doesn’t know what that is.

Congressman Mark Alford, your constituents expect you to work on legislation that is meaningful in their lives, not rebelling against SCOTUS decisions that are not pleasing to Republicans.
How are we doing on the cost of housing and groceries? Where are we on healthcare solutions? What about Congress resuming its role as a check on the executive branch exceeding its authority? You know, some fundamental expectations that line up with your oath.

Bold move, opening with Dred Scott. That is a bit like steering toward the iceberg because you have heard the water is warmer on the far side. The comparison does arrive somewhere, Congressman. It simply does not arrive where you have parked.
The 14th Amendment did correct Dred Scott, and it did so with a sentence so unhelpfully clear that no amount of squinting improves it: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.” Ratified 1868. Available to read at the National Archives for no money whatsoever, which is roughly what it will cost you to make it say something else. It reads the same on every refresh. This is not a bug. Sentences are like that.
The genuinely awkward part, the part that tends to spoil an otherwise promising banner, is that the people who wrote it anticipated you. On the Senate floor, Jacob Howard and Lyman Trumbull went to the trouble of listing precisely who “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” leaves out: foreign diplomats and hostile occupying armies. That was the entire list. Two entries. Both of them fully grown, neither of them a baby. It is the sort of list a person makes when he wishes to be understood and has an unsettling suspicion that someone, someday, will pretend not to.
And should a helpful soul in your comments produce the “allegiance, not mere presence” theory with the triumphant air of a man discovering fire, that particular fire was already put out. It went to the Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 and lost, and it has gone on losing, quietly and continuously, for 128 years. This is an impressive record. Most things do not stay wrong that reliably without funding.
So the document is not, as you suggest, “a system that can be exploited.” It is a system behaving exactly as designed, which is a thing systems are generally praised for and only rarely denounced from behind a microphone. What you are calling an exploit, its authors called the whole idea. “It’s on us to fix the law” is a marvelously roomy phrase, into which one can fit the words “override a Reconstruction amendment because it has become inconvenient in an election year” without anyone noticing the join. There is an honest way to attempt this. It is called Article V. The framers, those originalists of whom you are so publicly fond, made it deliberately, almost theatrically difficult, two thirds of Congress and three quarters of the states, for the express purpose of ensuring that a constitutional birthright could not be quietly deleted by a gentleman in a lapel pin standing in front of a sign reading “Celebrating 250 Years of American Greatness.” The greatness on the sign includes the amendment. You are standing in front of it, on camera, attempting to edit it out of the celebration it is headlining.
There is a fish in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel fish, which by removing every barrier to communication “has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.” Rewriting citizenship by press event runs on the identical engine. The sentence does not become unsettled. Everyone else does. You do not get the tidy country you are picturing. You get several generations shouting at one another over the correct translation of a passage that was never mistranslated, which is a remarkable quantity of effort to pour into a problem you have gone to real trouble to invent.
Somewhere in this there is a man insisting he does not want the plain reading everyone else is holding. To borrow from the Soggy Bottom songbook by way of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you appear to be a Dapper Dan man in a Fop nation, and no amount of hollering at the shelf restocks it with the pomade you would prefer. The 14th is what is on the shelf. It has been in stock since 1868.
And the plan, honestly, could not be simpler. Take the Amendment. Read it to the end. Mean what it says. Leave it alone. Have a nice cold pint, and wait for all this to blow over. It was handed to us in 1868, it is shorter than the average banner, and it asks very little of anyone. People simply keep declining to manage the first part.
Wanting the Constitution to say something else does not change what it says. Go check. We will be right here, not going anywhere, in the reassuring manner of a fact.

Here’s an idea Mark…you took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. You have failed miserably. You don’t have the votes to overturn this Constitutional Amendment 14. Bad mouthing it isn’t preserving, protecting or defending the Constitution. You are a sad excuse for a state representative. Start looking for a new job.

I know Mark and his “ aides” won’t read this but thanks for attempting to get through to him with facts and actual history. Sadly facts are an anathema to the current administration, the GOP congress and their MAGA supporters. Bravo for trying.

It may have been a part of reconstruction after the war, but it doesn’t say it only grants that right to black people.
From the National Archives:
Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.
Another equally important provision was the statement that “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the federal and state governments.

The IDIOT speaks again. NO original thought, just repeating the ramblings of a corrupt felon and pedophile with DEMENTIA.

Apparently the constitution is like the bible. Everyone’s interpretation is different and cherrypick the parts you like

Mark, I’m one of your constituents. Can you focus on anything that will help actual, average Missourians instead of woefully and willfully misreading the constitution?

The language says “ all PERSONS…. “ it did not specify freed slaves or otherwise.

The text is clear. Scotus got it correct. How did this guy get elected?

A sitting congressman is telling you he want to change the constitution without the constitutional process. Believe him. If they can change the 14th, what else will they take away?

Lil Markie Allfraud. Who gave you your talking points? You are incapable of critical thinking as you are nothing more than a run of the mill feckless Muskrumpian shill who supports and embraces the sexual predation of women and children and a 34 times convicted felon. Quit pretending you understand something about American history…you don’t.

Fuck you mark
You are a Fuckin traitor

Damn Mark. I thought the SCOTUS already explained that one to you. You really need better staff. They missed that memo!! Lmfao

Jeeeezzzzzzz get that guy some more koolaid.

Orange?

So you waited 100 years to decide this?
Now review the second amendment, which only covered muzzle-loading muskets.

The 13th Amendment ended slavery and any problem with Dred Scott!

Funny how the 14th amendment wasn’t an issue until trump. Now many Republicans are trying to justify trump’s position.

In other words, “take one more step towards a country that is exactly opposite of the Lady Liberty’s tablet says.”

A little history lesson for anyone claiming that birthright citizenship was only meant for the children of former slaves.
When Congress debated the 14th Amendment in 1866, the authors of the Citizenship Clause didn’t say it applied only to freed slaves. They wrote:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens…”
Senator Jacob Howard (pictured), who introduced the language, specifically listed the exceptions: children of foreign diplomats, children of enemy occupiers, and certain Native Americans who were considered members of sovereign tribes at the time.
Notice who he did not mention: immigrants or undocumented immigrants.
In fact, Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania objected to the amendment precisely because he understood it would make the U.S.-born children of Chinese immigrants and others citizens. He warned that it would grant citizenship to groups he didn’t want becoming Americans.
The amendment’s supporters didn’t respond by saying, “No, you’ve got it wrong. This only applies to former slaves.” They let his objection stand because he understood exactly what the language meant.
If the framers intended to exclude the children of immigrants, that debate was the perfect opportunity to say so. They didn’t.
The historical record is clear: the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to guarantee citizenship for freed slaves, but the language they chose was intentionally broader—citizenship for nearly everyone born on American soil, with only a few narrow exceptions that were openly discussed and specifically identified.
You don’t have to like birthright citizenship as a policy. But claiming it was never intended to apply to the children of immigrants isn’t supported by the actual congressional debates.

The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868 and only 30 years later in 1898 it was addressed in the Supreme Court. There is no doubt of the intent then, as the writers of the amendment were alive at the time to ask. You sit here Mark, 128 years later, making the same arguments that were already proven wrong. You claim to be a conservative while changing actual history and spirit of our laws.

Maybe the Congressman can tell me where in the 14th Amendment the words Slave, Slavery, or involuntary servitude are located. He can’t because the words are no there.

Congressman Mark Alford how did you make out in this weekend stock market manipulation?

Kool-Aid pusher.

Orange!

White christian nationalist at work.

Hey Alford, remember when you whined and cried about TikTok? Your idiot thinks he is number one. You are pathetic

Alford, you are SO WRONG.

If you hate our constitution, then you hate this country for which it stands. I’m tired of these Dixiecrats calling themselves Republicans. You have ruined Lincoln’s party. That’s the only thing you have accomplished.

You just got your arse handed to you in these comments. Why now 126 years later? I wish you would answer some of these questions.

Buying into racism Mark…yep, I already knew that. You’re despicable. Another grimy politician trying desperately to pick his constituents.

Yeah, excuse me if I don’t take the word of a white religious bigot dark money donor dick sucker for my historical take on the “purpose” of actions I wasn’t there to observe. Even if I was, and he was right, this activated hatred isn’t right and cannot stand.

This is why we need to elect people that are smarter than a dog and understand how government works and maybe require them reading the constitution…

Wow, so you flunked American Government in school????

Do any Republicans ever have an original thought? The majority of us came from somewhere else through family members, who was the anchor baby in your family Mark?

JESUS!!!! When can I vote you out?

In addition to Mark being an idiot, he’s also a coward and bootlicker … he should be ashamed

The 14th amendment is clear. You’re just a bigot.

Still butthurt over the scotus ruling sleepy mark? Well keep crying about it with your head up trumps ass but guess what you arent going to repeal the 14th amendment.

So. In writing you cease to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States. You renounce your oath of office.When can we get your replacement in your office?

Alford you’re a disgrace and an embarrassment to Missouri. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Meanwhile, let’s cut Medicaid, let’s defund schools, let’s watch climate change burn and flood our nation. Anchor babies aren’t a threat. Do something that matters while you can.

You are a fucking nazi mark. Learn to read

Mark…where do you in that tiny brain think you can ‘fix the law’. Your party is the most unconstitutional group of people around. I have never seen anyone more willing to change the Constitution of the United States than you. If it doesn’t benefit you then you’ll just change it. For years you have said the Democrats are going to take away your guns and the 2nd A. But I guess that’s totally different isn’t it? How many more days until you are gone. The countdown is on.

God Damn Missouri, can’t you do better than this pile of dogshit?

You are embarrassing

You are a lying little bitch, Mark.
Your allegiance to Trump and MAGA over the US Constitution YOU SWORE AN OATH TO is obvious to anyone who gives a shit about it.

You are an idiot!

Mark how did you get your citizenship?
Mark how did your family get here???
When the pendulum swings the other way Mark, do we need to look into how your family got here?You might all have to go back.

Gee, Mark—Don’t you think they would have explicitly restricted it to slavery in the wording of the amendment, if that was the only interpretation? The application to slavery and the Dred Scott ruling were great examples of how easily non-dominant groups could be discriminated against and denied rights. Nowhere does the amendment say it’s only pertinent to those two restrictions. Keep barking like a seal for your guy.

LIAR!! You couldn’t understand the Why, much less explain the Why to anyone. Doubt you where even aware of What the 14th Amendment was until your decomposing orange pustule was directed to bring it up.
You would have opposed it 1868 you ignorant racist pig.