Interview with Unqualified People

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to review the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship […]. “The lower court’s decisions […],” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer, […] “confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”—CNN, “Trump asks Supreme Court to decide whether he can end birthright citizenship,” 9/26/25

Garden of Eaton: What does it mean for a baby to be “an unqualified person?” Today I’m speaking to two newborns: Gael, a five-day old from California, and Taylor, a two-weeker from Ohio. Gael’s mother is in the U.S. on a temporary work visa, and Taylor’s parents are regular U.S. citizens. Hello to you both!

Taylor: Goo goo ga ga.

Gael: It’s great to be here.

GoE: Wow, you’re already talking!

Gael: When you’re a poor, first-generation American, you grow up fast. Have to.

Taylor: Blub blub gerg.

GoE: Umm…Gael, let’s start with you. Do you consider yourself an “unqualified person,” to use the solicitor general’s term?

Gael: What do you want, I’m five [redacted] days old! That’s not even enough time to get a realtor’s license!

GoE: Ok, but…

Gael: You want to see my resume? OK, I can poop and pee, wave my arms around, and make old people go all gooey. Oh, and conduct a civil, coherent discussion. That makes me more qualified than old slobber-mouth over there.

Taylor: Waaaah!!

Gael: Or your so-called chief executive.

GoE: But some would say that because your parents are here illegally, you should go back to where you come from….

Gael: Ok, two things. Christ, I could use some slightly fermented formula right now. First, like I told the ugly galoot from ICE, this is where I come from. I was born here. Why don’t you check out Melania Knauss Trump’s immigration papers? Or Ted Cruz’s?

GoE: Wait…you talked to an ICE agent?

Gael: Uh, yeah! And I shouldn’t have said he was ugly, sorry. I really couldn’t tell, with the ski mask and all. And second of all, my mother isn’t here illegally, she’s here on a valid work visa….

GoE: Oh, so you have nothing to worry about!

Taylor: Gugga gobba googa boo?

Gael: Good point, Taylor! Taylor is asking, “did you even read the [redacted] executive order?”

GoE: Uh, heh heh, not really, I just read about it…

Gael: Typical! It says I ain’t a citizen if my mom’s here illegally or, and I quote, if her “presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa).”

GoE: So your mother…

Gael: Watch what you say about my mother…

GoE: …didn’t plan on staying here permanently. So why should you automatically be awarded citizenship?

Taylor: Gagga gogga goo goo bop?

Gael: Taylor says, uh, this little thing called the United States Constitution? In particular the fourteenth amendment, which is quite explicit? And also, he needs to get changed. And beyond that, if I can just add to what Taylor said…

Taylor: Goo gogga!

Gael: You need babies like me. Your population is aging and soon will actually be contracting. You need more workers to keep your economy going and to pay into your social safety nets, not to mention generating more income tax. You need more skilled young people to compete with countries like India and China in fields like technology and medicine. Those are the practical considerations, and we haven’t even started talking about basic human decency….

Taylor: Gubba gogga bogga boo!

Gael: Ha ha, good one, my brother! He says if they don’t like it, Donald Trump, John Sauer, Kristi Noem, and…

Taylor: Gigga bigga!

Gael: …Stephen Miller can eat his dirty diapers!

Highlights of President Donald John Trump’s Speech to the 80th United Nations General Assembly, With Analysis

Opening Remarks

Thank you very much, very much appreciated. And I don’t mind making the speech without a teleprompter, because the teleprompter is not working. I feel very happy to be up here with you nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.

Analysis: The president opens with his customary warmth and diplomacy. Also some poor slob who woke up in New Jersey this morning is sleeping tonight in a nice supermax in El Salvador.

Six years have passed since I last stood in this grand hall and addressed a world that was prosperous and at peace in my first term. Since that day, the guns of war have shattered the peace I forged on two continents.

Analysis:  The statement that Trump “forged peace on two continents” needs context: no he didn’t.

An era of calm and stability gave way to one of the great crises of our time.

Analysis: No argument there, brother!

One year ago, our country was in deep trouble, but today, just eight months into my administration, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world and there is no other country even close.

Analysis: Trump appears to be likening the nation he leads to the winner of a sleazy Ft. Lauderdale wet T-shirt contest.

Economic Record

Under my leadership, energy costs are down, gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.

Analysis: This statement needs context: he just makes shit up.

I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. We had the best economy ever, history of the world, and I’m doing the same thing again, but this time it’s actually much bigger and even better. The numbers far surpass my record-setting first term.

Analysis: The man lives in his own little fantasy world. Unfortunately the rest of us have to live there too.

Immigration

And for the last four months, and that’s four months in a row, the number of illegal aliens admitted and entering our country has been zero.

Analysis: Experts are still trying to determine whether our president is out of touch with reality or just indifferent to it.

Foreign Relations

In May, I traveled to the Middle East to visit my friends and rebuild our partnerships in the Gulf, and those valued relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE and other countries are now, I believe, closer than ever before.

Analysis: Also, it helps if you gift him a custom-made 747.

In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars.

Analysis: The actual number of wars ended by Trump ranges from about zero to zero, depending on which expert you listen to. Also, ‘unendable’ is not a word.

This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, a vicious, violent war that was. Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Analysis: This statement disproves critics who claim that the president cannot count to seven.

All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the First Lady wasn’t in great shape, she would’ve fallen. But she’s in great shape.

Analysis: Recent reports suggest that a photographer walking down the up escalator accidentally triggered a safety feature that caused the escalator to stop. But experts agree that the idea of someone stopping it deliberately just to watch the president drag his fat ass to the top is pretty funny.

Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements, but for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with the mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and un-glorious wars. What I care about is not winning prizes. It’s saving lives.

Analysis: He wants a Nobel so bad!

Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex. I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful. I used to talk about, “I’m going to give you marble floors, they’re going to give you terrazzo.”

Analysis: What Trump appears to be implying here is that the nations of the world can go to hell because in 2008 they had terrazzo floors put in instead of buying his marble. This is generally considered the most rational statement in the entire speech.  

There is no more serious danger to our planet today than the most powerful and destructive weapons ever devised by man of which the United States, as you know, has many. Just as I did in my first term. I’ve made containing these threats a top priority, starting with a nation of Iran. My position is very simple, the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapon[.…] And three months ago in Operation Midnight Hammer seven American B-2 bombers dropped the 14 30,000 pound H-bombs [?!?!] on Iran’s key nuclear facility totally obliterating everything.

Analysis: OK, now we’re very, very frightened.

[The war in Ukraine] shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country. Look what happened to the United States and look where we are right now in just a short period of time.

Analysis: Amen brother!

But for those tariffs [on Russian oil] to be effective, European nations, all of you are gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures. I mean, you’re much closer to the city [?]. We have an ocean in between, you’re right there [….]

Analysis: This is in line with Trump’s long-held belief that European nations, unlike the United States, are all located somewhere in Europe.

To prevent potential disasters I’m announcing today that my administration will lead a international effort to enforce biological weapons convention, which is going to be meeting with the top leaders of the world by pioneering an AI verification system that everyone can trust. Hopefully the UN can play a constructive role and it will also go, be one of the early projects under AI. Let’s see how good it is because a lot of people saying it could be one of the great things ever, but it also can be dangerous, but it could be put to tremendous use and tremendous good, and this would be an example of that.

Analysis: Combines the incoherence of Joe Biden on his worst day with the fright factor of Stephen King on his best.

And I have to say, I look at London where you have a terrible mayor, a terrible, terrible mayor and it’s been so changed, so changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law, but you’re in a different country, you can’t do that. Both the immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe if something is not done immediately.

Analysis: Experts generally agree that our president is just bat-shit crazy.

Now, I think we’re going to have another…. We’re going to find a lot. You’re not going to find all of them. More than 300,000. They’re lost or they’re dead. They’re lost, or they’re dead because of the animals that did this. To protect our citizens, I’ve also designated multiple savage drug cartels as forest.

Analysis: A close examination of the audio at the 33 minute mark confirms that he did in fact say, “forest.” This is in line with the president’s belief that…. OK, look, no one knows what the [redacted] he’s talking about.

Crime+Environment+Energy

Washington D.C. was the crime capital of America. Now, it’s a totally… After 12 days, it’s a totally safe city. Everyone’s going out to dinner, they’re going out to restaurants. Your wife can walk down the middle of the street with or without you. Nothing’s going to happen.

Analysis: Safety experts advise against walking down the middle of the street.

Washington D.C. is now a totally safe city again and I welcome you to come. In fact, we’ll have dinner together at a local restaurant and we’ll be able to walk. We don’t have to go by an armor-plated vehicle. We’ll walk right over there from the White House. They’ve given up their powerful edge. A lot of the countries that we’re talking about and oil and gas, such as essentially closing the Great North Sea oil. Oh, the North Sea.

Analysis: Um, has anyone ever discussed with you the oratorical concept of “transition?”

And what a tremendous asset for the United Kingdom. And I hope the prime minister’s listening because I told it to him three days in a row. That’s all he heard. North Sea oil, North Sea, because I want to see them do well.

Analysis: The human mind simply cannot comprehend the horror of being backed into a corner somewhere in Westminster, feeling droplets of spit on one’s face as Donald Trump repeats the words, “North Sea oil, North Sea” for three days in a row. We hope that Keir Starmer is getting therapy.

All of these predictions [of global warming] made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons were wrong. They were made by stupid people that of course their country’s fortunes and given those same countries, no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. And I’m really good at predicting things. They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat. Trump was right about everything. And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true.

Analysis: Dear Earth, we are so, so sorry!

In the United States, we have still radicalized environmentalists and they want the factories to stop. Everything should stop. No more cows. We don’t want cows anymore. I guess they want to kill all the cows.

Analysis: Alternatively, under the President’s “Only Cow’s Left Behind” program, steaks will be humanely excised from living cattle.

In Asia, they dump much of their garbage right into the ocean. And over about a one-week and two-week journey, it flows right past Los Angeles. You’ve seen it, massive amounts of garbage. Almost too much to do anything about, flowing past Los Angeles, past San Francisco, and then somebody would get in trouble because he dropped a cigarette on the beach.

Analysis: He just crossed the allotted 45 minutes…Jesus H. Christ in a Control Booth, why doesn’t someone kill the mic?

And if you add coal, we have the most of any nation in the world. Clean. I call it clean, beautiful coal. You can do things today with coal that you couldn’t have done 10 years ago, 15 years. So I have a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word coal, only use the words clean, beautiful coal. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?

Analysis: And black lung disease is now “clean, beautiful lung disease.”

Something about Brazil for some reason

Brazil now faces major tariffs in response to its unprecedented efforts to interfere in the rights and freedoms of our American citizens and others with censorship, repression, weaponization, judicial corruption, and targeting of political critics in the United States.

Analysis: What the president means here is that by putting its former wannabe-dictator president in jail where he belongs, Brazil is a shining light unto the world!

Freedom and stuff

Next year the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of our glorious independence, a testament to enduring power and American freedom and spirit. We will also be proudly hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and shortly thereafter, the 2028 Olympics, which is going to be very exciting. I hope you all come.

Analysis: Unless you come from, like, a foreign country, in which case stay home!

Conclusion

In closing, just want to repeat that immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet.

Analysis: Uh, yeah, whatever. We’re so tired.

We’re going to make our countries better, safer, more beautiful. We’re going to take care of our people. Thank you very much. It’s been an honor. God bless the nations of the world. Thank you very much. Bye.

Analysis: This planet is doomed. Is the bar open yet?

An Open Letter to the Lumpenproletariat of the MAGA Movement

In Marxist theory, the Lumpenproletariat (German: [ˈlʊmpn̩pʁoletaʁi̯ˌaːt] ⓘ; /ˌlʌmpənproʊlɪˈtɛəriət/) is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces[….]—from the Wikipedia entry for “Lumpenproletariat”

Dear American Lumpenproletariat,

It has recently come to my attention that the current mess we’re in is all my fault.

That is because I am evidently among the “elite.”

My membership in the “elite” came as a surprise to me. I don’t summer in Martha’s Vineyard and I have a hard time remembering which is Monet and which Manet. But still, I’m flattered. It’s cool to be called elite!

I’m elite, you tell me, because I have a college degree. I’m elite because I read the New York Times and watch the PBS Newshour. I’m Jewish, which gets me halfway to elite all by itself. I don’t live on a coast, but I do live in Austin, which is even worse. I use words like “lumpenproletariat.”

According to your prophets, Donald Trump has been inflicted on this country because of me, and people like me. For too long I ignored your concerns. I gave little kids autism by making them get vaccinated against measles and COVID. I freely let vicious drug terrorists into this country so they could take over your jobs cleaning restrooms and fixing roofs. I have blighted the American landscape with windmills and solar panels where once glorious American smokestacks belched giant plumes of 100% American coal smoke instead of relying on cheap imported sunshine, or wind that comes from God knows where.

Even worse, I allowed men who changed into girls to fight and die for their country, just like regular men. And I wouldn’t shut up about stuff like race and gender discrimination, which makes innocent white men feel guilty, or like they’re supposed to do something about it. And on, and on.

Boy, you really nailed me! I only wonder why you let me get away with it for so long! But you finally won. You must be so relieved!

Actually, I’m kind of relieved, too. I’m no longer responsible for defending the weak, healing the ill, seeking justice for the oppressed, protecting the planet from fire and flood, speaking truth to power. Because you’re in charge now. You won! You have the White House, the Department of Justice and all of the federal law enforcement agencies that go with it, and for the moment, both houses of Congress. And with Republican state legislatures apparently free to custom-make congressional districts every election cycle, you’re likely to be in control of that chamber…forever.  And the Supreme Court? 3 of the 9 justices were appointed by Trump, 3 more by previous conservative presidents. There goes that last annoying check and balance!

And haven’t you been busy! Deporting day-laborers first, asking questions (or not) later. Renaming military bases back to generals who betrayed their country and slaughtered as many American troops as they could in defense of slavery. Firing scholars and scientists and yanking funds for cancer research. Opening investigations on anyone who so much as hinted that maybe Donald Trump is a poopy head. Must I go on?

You won! You should be so happy! But I don’t see a lot of happiness. More like continued anger and anxiety about the Deep State. Why is that, since…you now are the deep state?

You got all three branches of government. Your man is now commander-in-chief of the mighty armed forces of the United States of America. Big business? The grotesquely wealthy tech magnates are almost all on your side. Coca-Cola turned on a dime when Trump mused aloud about corn syrup vs. cane sugar. Mainstream media? They have mostly caved, from The Washington Post to CBS. And anyway, no one reads The Washington Post or watches “60 Minutes” anymore. There’s no deep state left…except for yours.

The intelligentsia? You’ve got them running scared, scrambling to wipe out any trace of “woke” and “diversity” and “critical race theory” at our colleges and universities. And anyway, who cares about them? To paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does the intelligentsia command?

So my question for you is…now what?

I predict you’re going to be sicker than ever before, given cuts to Medicaid, reduced support for vaccines, reduced environmental regulation, less medical research, and an ever-hotter planet. RFK Jr. suggests you walk more. Prayer is also fine.

I predict you’ll be poorer, what with inflation and tariffs. And with the Trump tax cuts made permanent, the federal budget deficit will continue to grow explosively. Who knows when that bubble is going to burst?

I predict you’ll be dumber, particularly with respect to your own history and culture, given the elimination of a scholarly treatment of those subjects in our public schools and museums, and less support for public education, period.

I predict you’ll be less free than before, when you find out the hard way that if you start to complain too loudly, the police forces of our nation can be turned in your direction, too.  

Oh well. You’ll always have duck hunting and golf.

I’m not worried about the future. It’s going to hurt everyone, but it’s going to hurt you a lot worse than me. I’m elite. And I’m not worried, because I can’t do anything about it, except to say what I think, which I already am. Beyond that, this country, and your future in it, are your problems now.

What are you going to do about it?

And if it seems like I’m dripping with condescension, it’s because…I am. I’m elite, baby…Dig it!

Mass Murder on the High Seas

The current presidential administration is impressive. Just when it’s done something that seems unimaginably appalling, like, say, accidentally shipping the wrong person to a brutal prison in a foreign country and then claiming there’s nothing they can do about it, they do something…even more appalling.

Now we see that our president is bragging about “U.S. Military Forces” obliterating a tiny speedboat in the middle of the Caribbean ocean, along with 11 souls on board. (I haven’t seen any mention of survivors, and having seen the video clip, my guess is that there weren’t any.) According to Trump, they were killed for being “Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists” bringing drugs to the United States.

How do you, my fellow Americans, feel about this?

I find it disturbing for so many reasons. From a practical angle, I can see how one might need to pre-emptively blow up a speedboat armed with a nuclear weapon about to reach the shores of Miami. But drugs? And where exactly was this boat? In “international waters,” according to Trump, which means…just about anywhere on the planet…and at worst, still several miles from American shores. If we knew the location of this craft precisely enough to hit it with pinpoint accuracy, why couldn’t we track it and arrest its crew the moment they landed on American shores? Or use the awesome power of our navy, air force, and/or coast guard to interdict the vessel on the open sea? Since we’re Making America Great Again, what’s wrong with the traditional shot across the bow? From an investigatory perspective, wouldn’t it have been useful to have the crew in custody? And then we could have verified that the boat was carrying actual…drugs.  Because it was carrying dangerous drugs…right?

And what about the 11 former…people on the boat? Trump and his secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have repeatedly called them “terrorists,” as if this designation alone is enough to explain their extrajudicial execution. (If you’re a Trump supporter, I should explain that “extrajudicial” means “they didn’t get a trial.”) But what does “terrorist” mean here, exactly? Terrorists, like Al Qaeda 9/11 type terrorists, this time using drugs as part of a scheme to slaughter thousands of Americans and terrify the rest?

I’ll take the administration at its word for the moment, and assume this boat was practically spilling over with something like heroin or fentanyl. My guess is that these 11 souls were at best low-level lieutenants trying to make a quick buck, or following orders they couldn’t refuse.  And there’s a good chance that some of them were juveniles under U.S. law.

Now in my opinion, there’s a warm place in hell reserved for anyone peddling poisons like fentanyl for other than legitimate medical purposes. But we don’t execute people for selling drugs in this country, not even actual bigtime drug lords like the Sacklers. And that is because we, the American people, don’t believe that dealing drugs is a capital offense. And when we do suspect someone of peddling drugs, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt and prove it in court, before we punish them.

So why did our armed forces blast this boat out of the water, along with its occupants?

Because to some sad portion of the American public, it looks cool. Because once you call someone a “terrorist” you can do anything to them. Because it’s a cheap, dramatic substitute for the difficult problem of actually fixing drug abuse in this country. Because state laws don’t apply on the high seas, and U.S. law is murky. Because no power in the Western Hemisphere is going to seriously oppose the U.S. military, and we know it.

This was a P.R. stunt that only cost 1 missile and 11 human lives.

How many more will there be, and who’s next?

Update (9/4/25): A New York Times article yesterday quoted “A former senior federal law enforcement official” as stating that “it was unusual to have 11 people manning a vessel that could easily be crewed by two or three, especially since traffickers are always trying to maximize the amount of cargo space devoted to carrying drugs, not human beings. In the former official’s opinion, it was more likely that the vessel was carrying migrants on a human smuggling run. It would be impossible to know for sure, however, given that any evidence of drug smuggling was destroyed in the attack.”

Oops.