Last Sunday night, the great film director Rob Reiner and his wife were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home. The main suspect is their son. The horror of it all appears incomprehensible. And yet it’s not. Hollywood has always attracted darkness. A world that can create dreams on a screen and manipulate viewer emotions — joy, fear, lust, awe, mirth, melancholy — while giving the dreamweavers incomparable power over the dreamseekers is a magnet for the unbalanced, like a Charles Manson or a Phil Spector. Throw in vast wealth and popularity, and you can add one major disadvantage — a naivete about true evil that they can’t manipulate Reiner was born and raised in Hollywood success, unlike his father. Carl Reiner had become an industry legend — co-writer with Mel Brooks on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, director of four hit movies starring Steve Martin (The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains, and the hysterical All of Me). But like most men of the Greatest Generation, he served in the military during World War II and learned his craft entertaining fellow soldiers. Rob Reiner had it easier. His huge show-business break came early, at age 23, when cast by his dad’s close friend, Norman Lear, in the landmark sitcom, All in the Family. The role of Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, Michael “Meathead” Stivic, made him rich and famous for the show’s nine-year run (1971-1979). He could have retired right after or kept acting, either way enjoying the pleasures and temptations of Hollywood. Others would have. But this is when Rob proved his worth. His dad was still working, directing Steve Martin crowd pleasers. Rob decided to follow in Carl’s footsteps, only bringing his own new generational talent and ideas as a filmmaker. The first result was the hilarious, innovative “rockumentary” This is Spinal Tap. Though not a theatrical hit, it caught a wave on 80s home video, tapping into the MTV zeitgeist. Reiner followed it with a sweet teen romantic comedy, The Sure Thing, which turned a small profit on a low budget and made the unknown John Cusack a star. The film launched Reiner’s almost unprecedented streak of artistic and commercial triumphs: Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, A Few Good Men, The American President. And then it ended. The Hollywood progressive (pre-woke) mind virus infected Reiner, at its usual cost — the loss of creativity and perspective. The Hollywood progressive (pre-woke) mind virus infected Reiner, at its usual cost — the loss of creativity and perspective. Like most of his Hollywood peers, he began to think his opinion was more influential than his entertainment. He became a radical left activist, co-founding the American Foundation for Equal Rights (gay marriage), and supporting anti-smoking, environmental, and early childhood education measures. Twenty years after the end of All in the Family, Reiner became “Meathead” in real life. And his movie output suffered for it. Projects were now message pictures, not audience-friendly films. There were no more funny, memorable scenes like Meg Ryan faking an orgasm at a restaurant with Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally, or lines like, “You keep using that word [“Inconceivable!”]. I do not think that word means what you think it does,” (Mandy Patinkin reacting to Wallace Shawn as Cary Elwes kept turning up after them) in The Princess Bride. Reiner was through with such frivolity. He had an agenda to push and silly people to educate. Out came Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), the fight by Medgar Evers’ widow (Whoopi Goldberg) to bring a white supremacist to justice, The Story of Us (1999), scenes from a dissolving marriage (Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer), Alex and Emma (2003), something about a novelist (Luke Wilson) with writer’s block, and Shock and Awe (2017), Bush lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to attack Iraq. Yes, the man who made The Princess Bride made an anti-Iraq War film in 2017. Of course, they all flopped. Like too many offspring of Hollywood big shots, he had no purpose, no meaning, no God. Something was off with Reiner at the turn of the century. It wasn’t just his audience he was failing. It was also his son. Nick Reiner started using drugs around 2008 at age 15. Like too many offspring of Hollywood big shots, he had no purpose, no meaning, no God. He turned heroin addict then homeless, then an overdose victim — each a heartbreak for Rob and his wife, Michele. They had the resources to keep saving his life, though not the solution to save him. But as Rob’s son, Nick did have an opportunity that the overwhelming majority of Tinseltown hopefuls lacked. He could call himself a screenwriter and get the screen credit to validate it. In 2015, Rob directed a film Nick co-wrote, Being Charlie, a semi-fictionalized depiction of his struggle with drug addiction. The movie didn’t just bomb, it melted down, earning barely $33,000 on its $3-million budget. Rob Reiner was at a crossroads in 2016, his career and personal life in freefall. He needed something major to fixate on. And in November of that year, he got it. The Devil Incarnate, Donald Trump, became President of the United States. And Reiner’s woke mind virus mutated into TDS. His Trump attacks flew for 10 years, from “He’s a moron,” (Variety, 2016) through “The hush money check he signed to Stormy Daniels is a slam dunk. Time for this crook to go to prison,” (X, 2023) to “America has fallen,” (BlueSky, November 2024). And yet, Reiner’s former grace and perception came through in one of his last interviews (Piers Morgan Uncensored, September 2025), expressing his reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. “Absolute horror,” Reiner said. “And I, unfortunately, saw the video of it, and it’s beyond belief, what happened to him, and that should never happen to anybody. I don’t care what your political beliefs are. That’s not acceptable.” What happened to Reiner should never happen to anybody. His politics died with him. But his movies will entertain us forever. And I’ll pray for the souls of him and his wife. Maybe even his son’s. READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: Trouble on the Right How Are the Mighty Fallen: The End of Europe and Hollywood Carols in a Time of Chaos Here’s a lovely recent review of my popular Yuletide romantic ghost story, The Christmas Spirit, and why it’s the perfect Christmas gift for your significant other. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever fine books are still sold.

Last week, our friends at The Federalist ran a couple of pieces — one by Brianna Lyman and the other by John Daniel Davidson — on the opportunity currently before the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to birthright citizenship and the legal absurdities our current practice encompasses. If you’re familiar at all with the history of this highly unusual practice, you know that it emanates from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which reads… All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. This was written in an effort to guarantee that states wouldn’t write laws abusing the citizenship rights of former slaves in the Southern states after the Civil War. Honestly, we would do ourselves a lot of good if we repealed the 14th Amendment and started over with a fresher and better-written statement of the laudable goals its framers sought to achieve. But that’s a whole other column. Anyway, the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” part in the Citizenship Clause was written in language that was plain at the time but has been badly obfuscated since. Lyman traced the problem to an 1898 case you’ve probably heard of: Wong Kim Ark. That was a case which wasn’t all that badly decided, but the majority opinion was atrociously written and has set a terrible precedent… Wong Kim Ark did more than just misinterpret the 14th Amendment. It effectively rewrote the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment according to English feudal principles that the founders — and framers — rejected. In doing so, the court created a doctrine that the amendment’s authors surely never intended. The Supreme Court now has the chance to correct that mistake. Wong Kim Ark was born in 1873 in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were subjects of the Emperor of China but were “domiciled residents” at the time of his birth. After visiting China as an adult, Ark was denied entry into the United States on the grounds that he was not a citizen. The question before the court was whether a child born to “subjects of the Emperor of China, [who] have a permanent domicile and residence in the United States … becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.” A 6-2 majority, led by Justice Horace Gray, said yes. But the reasoning that got the majority to its decision is indefensible. Gray based his entire opinion on the idea that the 14th Amendment must be understood in terms of English common law. “In this as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution,” Gray reasoned. “The language of the Constitution, as has been well said, could not be understood without reference to the common law.” Gray further argued that “the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens.” The problem is that the “subject to the jurisdiction of” piece is directly contrary to the English common law Gray based the Wong Kim Ark decision on. That’s something the dissent in that case recognized… “[W]hen the sovereignty of the Crown was thrown off and an independent government established, every rule of the common law and every statute of England obtaining in the Colonies in derogation of the principles on which the new government was founded was abrogated.” And the principle at hand in common law was that a serf owed allegiance to his lord and was tied to the land, so the inherent rights and responsibilities that would be somewhat analogous to citizenship would be inferred from that relationship. But the framers of the Constitution and the 14th Amendment were establishing citizenship rather than feudal servitude, and that’s something very, very different. Davidson picks up on Lyman’s argument and expands a little further on the legal question… According to feudal obligation, expatriation is impossible without the consent of the lord to which one owed fealty by birth. This is of course totally incompatible with the American Founding, to say nothing of the American Revolution, both of which rely on a theory of citizenship based on consent, not birth. The Founders themselves were of course born in lands controlled by the British crown, but by breaking with the crown and declaring (and then winning) independence, they put forward a radically different understanding of citizenship and political community — one based on the mutual consent of free men. In framing the 14th Amendment, writes Portteus, the amendment’s authors and sponsors believed that they were expunging a relic of European feudalism. The nature of political obligation under American chattel slavery very closely resembles European feudal obligation. Slaves were bound from birth to a master, and could only be released from their obligation with the master’s assent. They sought to transform subjects, slaves in this case, into citizens. The author of the citizenship clause and its supporters consciously and vocally rejected the doctrine of feudal obligation. Indeed, Congress passed a companion to the 14th Amendment, the Expatriation Act of 1868, which declared expatriation to be “a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This was an explicit rejection of the medieval English doctrine of feudal obligation. As Rep. George Woodward of Pennsylvania said on the floor of the House of Representatives, “It is high time that feudalism were driven from our shores and eliminated from our law, and now is the time to declare it.” With Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court reintroduced to American law the concept of feudal obligation that the framers of the 14th Amendment only thirty years earlier had thought they were stamping out! And as they so often do, Democrats today are apt to defend the political arrangements of the antebellum south; they would impose a conception of citizenship and political obligation that, in the American context, applied to slaves, not free men. Then he adds a bit of practical consideration… But there’s another, more immediate reason to reject birthright citizenship. As a practical matter, under conditions of mass immigration birthright citizenship is simply national suicide. Consider that during the four years of the Biden administration, some 10 million people (probably more) entered the country illegally. Most of them were released or paroled by federal authorities pending the outcome of immigration and asylum cases that will take years to be adjudicated because of the backlog in our immigration courts. The fact is, mass uncontrolled immigration has fundamentally changed the debate over birthright citizenship. Do proponents of birthright citizenship really believe that the children born in America to these 10 million illegal immigrants are and should be U.S. citizens simply because they were born on American soil? Maybe they do, but it’s an insane position to hold. It would mean millions of new citizens whose only connection to this country is that their parents snuck over the border in violation of our laws. Accepting this, and codifying it, amounts to a total rejection of national sovereignty and a repudiation of the American idea of citizenship by mutual consent — consent of the members of the political community and consent of those who wish to join it. Whatever the Supreme Court said in Wong Kim Ark, and whatever our understanding of the 14th Amendment has been in the 127 years since that decision, the situation created by mass immigration has changed the terms of the debate. Biden’s four years of industrial-scale illegal immigration and retroactive “documentation” conferring dubious legal status on millions of illegal aliens represents a total break with the past. He’s certainly not wrong there. And I can show you proof, because this showed up over the weekend… Clerks working for family court Judge Amy Pellman were reviewing routine surrogacy petitions when they spotted an unusual pattern: the same name, again and again. A Chinese billionaire was seeking parental rights to at least four unborn children, and the court’s additional research showed that he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more — all through surrogates. When Pellman called Xu Bo in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, he never entered the courtroom, according to people who attended the hearing. The maker of fantasy videogames lived in China and appeared via video, speaking through an interpreter. He said he hoped to have 20 or so U.S.-born children through surrogacy — boys, because they’re superior to girls — to one day take over his business. Several of his kids were being raised by nannies in nearby Irvine as they awaited paperwork to travel to China. He hadn’t yet met them, he told the judge, because work had been busy. There’s more… Another wealthy Chinese executive, Wang Huiwu, hired U.S. models and others as egg donors to have 10 girls, with the aim of one day marrying them off to powerful men, according to people close to the executive’s education company. Wait, what? Yes. Chinese oligarchs are now creating a master race of offspring, built and equipped with U.S. citizenship, so they can play the long game. (RELATED: Eugenics: The Dark Side of IVF) Remember that line from Braveheart when Longshanks decides how best to handle the unruly Scots? This isn’t exactly that, and it certainly comes off as more dramatic in an English accent than a Chinese one, but both examples are absurdities that lead to dark places. It shocks the conscience to think that Chinese video game execs are flying in American surrogates as breedstock so that he can run his own Wilt Chamberlain multiplication game, and it’s all quite legal and our problem rather than his if he decides not to pick up the tab. But it’s legal. It does make you lose quite a bit of sympathy for Wong Kim Ark now that we know where this leads. After all, back in 1898, it seemed as though justice was done in his case. At the expense of any rationality in immigration policy, though? This has to be fixed. The concept of birthplace tourism is an utter absurdity, and it’s been going on for decades. Now, it’s more like conception tourism for Chinese plutocrats and communist party apparatchiks attempting to Longshanks their way into the long geopolitical game. Does that sound absurd to you? It should. But why is it absurd? Because there’s no way something like this would ever happen, right? Some hostile nation deluges us with babies who are born with U.S. citizenship but owe allegiance to that hostile nation, and we would never tolerate it. Well, sure. Welcome to that world of absurdity, because that’s exactly where we are. And the Supreme Court can fix it. They’d better. READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Not-So Quick Things: The Green Shoots Which Will Only Get Greener Did Jasmine Crockett Take Republicans’ Bait? Are They Illegal? Because If They’re Illegal, That’s Why They’re Getting Arrested

Not since Barack Obama graced American politics has a politician provoked the excited screams of prepubescent girls and Democrats as California Governor Gavin Newsom. Everywhere he goes, crowds greet him with near-idolization, as if he were an A-list celebrity rather than a politician. Perhaps the phenomenon began at the COP30 climate summit last month in Brazil, following Newsom’s successful effort to gerrymander California in Democrats’ favor. According to Reuters, conference attendees “swarmed” the governor wherever he walked, and occasional cheers broke out for him. According to the New York Times, Newsom was “trailed by crowds” to such an extent that his United Nations security detail struggled to get him to his events on time. At one point, the Times added, Newsom “waved to an applauding crowd.” One headline on the climate conference read, “Newsom Is the Star of COP30.” Another said, “Newsom is a rock star at COP.” Reportedly, the same thing happened last week at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meetings in Los Angeles, California. “[A] throng of delegates jockeyed for selfies with the California governor for more than half an hour,” reported Politico. The crowds, which at one point “surrounded” the governor, apparently grew so large that Newsom “resorted to group pictures.” Politico summarized the appearance by saying, “[T]he spectacle of his drop-in appearance injected an aura of celebrity into an otherwise-staid opening day.” (RELATED: The Biggest Winner of This Year’s Elections: Gavin Newsom) Fox News said that, at the DNC meetings, Newsom “landed the red carpet treatment” and “was treated like a VIP.” The news outlet quoted one anonymous Democratic National Committee member who said, “Newsom received a rock star reception as he was mobbed by party leaders and activists alike while he attempted to walk from meeting to meeting.” And Newsom, unlike Kamala Harris, did not even deliver an address during the meetings. This is far from the first time in Newsom’s political career that people have treated him like a celebrity. In fact, I argued in my book, Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power, that the secret to Newsom’s success as mayor of San Francisco was that he was seen as more of a celebrity than a politician, which kept his constituents feeling fascinated by him and positive toward him, no matter what he actually did. Newsom sealed his celebrity status when, at the beginning of his time as mayor, he ordered the city to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The action reverberated across the country. In an interview with 60 Minutes, host Bob Simon told Newsom, “You may have set a record for instant fame in this country.” The Boston Globe reported later that year that Newsom, though he was just a mayor, made “the A-list of just about every party worth going to at this year’s Democratic National Convention.” [A]ll was quickly forgiven because Newsom was already seen as a Hollywood playboy type with national star power. At one point, as mayor, Newsom dated a Hollywood starlet, Sofia Milos, who was starring in CSI: Miami, and visited her at the celebrity-favored Chateau Marmont hotel. That same year, he went on a date with Erin Brodie, who had recently won a reality TV dating show. An article in the New York Times that same year was entirely dedicated to covering the mayor’s dating life and celebrity connections; it was headlined “By Day, the Mayor; By Night, an Item.” Thus, when Newsom was caught having an affair with his best friend and campaign manager’s wife, who had recently given birth to their first child, all was quickly forgiven because Newsom was already seen as a Hollywood playboy type with national star power. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom Plots Memoir to Recast Personal Scandals) When Newsom became California’s lieutenant governor — conventionally a position of little import that no one paid attention to — he was given his own talk show on Current TV, The Gavin Newsom Show. In announcing the show, former Vice President Al Gore pointed to Newsom’s connections in the world of entertainment. It was the first time that a sitting statewide elected official had ever hosted a cable TV show. The lieutenant governor nabbed interviews with the likes of Elon Musk and Lance Armstrong. Newsom has often acted as though he were a celebrity. His wedding to Kimberly Guilfoyle cost the equivalent of over $380,000 today and took place at the opulent Getty estate. Numerous guests to his second wedding flew in on private jets; they included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Sex and the City star Jason Lewis, Google co-founder Larry Page, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Charles Schwab, and former Secretary of State George Shultz. His dinner at the elite French Laundry restaurant during the pandemic encompasses for many Newsom’s sense that he is above average Americans. Rapper Nikki Minaj perhaps caught on to Newsom’s perception of himself as a celebrity Monday when she posted on X that Newsom is “the cute boy who got everything handed to him b/c of how cute & sexy & hot & smoking he was… He thinks he’s Tom Cruise only difference is, his next mission IS impossible. He should get another leading role.” With Newsom’s rise to the top of early polls in the Democratic primary race, and amid growing speculation that he is the candidate to beat, Newsom is perhaps at his peak of fame and celebrity status. But with the start of Democratic primary season just around the corner, opponents are bound to act against Newsom soon if they want to have any prayer of beating him. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom’s Very Good Year*) Axios reported today that his Democratic rivals are increasingly nervous about how quickly Newsom has burst out of the gate and are “plotting how to take [him] down.” The two emerging strategies for how to do so, per Axios, are 1) arguing that Newsom is too liberal and too connected with the coastal elite, and 2) using Newsom’s many scandals against him, including his affair with his subordinate. Another possible avenue of attack is the criminal indictment that has recently entangled Newsom’s former chief of staff. Recently, California Rep. Ro Khanna made waves when he said the indictments are a “toxic stain” on California. Khanna is right: The indictments cast suspicion on all that Newsom’s administration has done, especially given the level of power that the chief of staff had in the administration, as well as her allegations that the FBI (under President Joe Biden) was investigating Gavin Newsom himself. (RELATED: Arrest of Newsom’s Ex-Chief of Staff Prompts Allegations of Misconduct Within the Governor’s Office) Right now, Newsom is riding a wave of adulation normally reserved for celebrities. Unfortunately for Newsom, his rivals have plenty of material on him that they can use against him to take him down. Ellie Gardey Holmes is the author of Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power.

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