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Remembering the Notorious RBG

Talk in Washington, D.C. has already turned to the politics of an election year Supreme Court vacancy and confirmation vote. For some, however, not enough time has been spent remembering and celebrating the legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Jurisprudential differences aside, she was loved and admired by her colleagues and touched the lives of countless Americans. She led a noble and inspirational life that should be remembered.

My co-blogger David Post reflected on RBG’s legacy over the weekend. Below are some additional remembrances and tributes I thought might interest our readers.

In addition to the above, SCOTUSBlog is hosting a series of tributes here.

 

 

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1619 Project Author Nikole Hannah-Jones Now Says She Never Implied That Year Was America’s True Founding

NHJ

The 1619 Project is The New York Times‘ Pulitzer-winning effort to put racism and slavery at the center of the conversation about American history. The newspaper published a series of articles in August 2019—the 400th anniversary of slavery’s introduction to the English colonies in the Americas—that reframed the year 1619 rather than 1776 as the true founding of America.

It’s a provocative claim, and it came under serious criticism, along with other aspects of the project. But the project’s lead author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is now asserting that she never made it and that anyone who believes otherwise was fooled by bad-faith right-wing critics.

“One thing in which the right has been tremendously successful is getting media to frame stories in their language and through their lens,” wrote Hannah-Jones in a subsequently deleted tweet. “The #1619Project does not argue that 1619 is our true founding. We know this nation marks its founding at 1776.” She made a similar statement on CNN as well.

But as The Atlantic‘s Conor Friedersdorf exhaustively demonstrated in a series of tweets, this is simply not true. The 1619 Project was absolutely promoted—by the Times, and by Hannah-Jones herself—as an effort to recast 1619 as the year of the country’s founding. On the newspaper’s website, a special interactive version of the project was introduced in the following manner (emphasis mine):

The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Both conservative critics and progressive fans of the 1619 Project described it this way, because that’s how the Times itself described it.

The original description no longer appears at nytimes.com. At some point, it was edited to read:

The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

This may be a more accurate description of the project, and it’s certainly a less controversial claim. But it’s plainly different from the original, which means this is an unacknowledged edit—a major transgression of basic norms of journalism (albeit one that happens in major newspapers with some frequency).

Theoretically, it could be the case that the Times characterized the project using language that clashed with Hannah-Jones’ own vision. But Hannah-Jones repeatedly used the same phrasing:

For further clarification, here is Hannah-Jones’ banner picture:

Writing for Quillette, Phillip Magness, a senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and the author of The 1619 Project: A Critique, argues that this dispute has “come to symbolize the Times‘s blurring of historical analysis with editorial hyperbole.” Magness’s other criticisms of the 1619 Project have been much more consequential: He and other historians have pointed out significant flaws with the lead essay’s thesis that the preservation of slavery was a major reason for the American Revolution—an idea the project’s own fact-checkers disputed prior to publication—and he has also offered withering criticisms of an article’s economic arguments about slavery.

All these arguments matter outside the world of journalism. The 1619 Project is being taught in U.S. schools, and President Donald Trump has waded into the debate in a characteristically clumsy fashion: declaring a federal initiative to “promote patriotic education” as a corrective. (As always, the best course here is to give families more control over kids’ education options: Kids should neither be forced to read the 1619 Project nor forbidden from doing so.)

In any case, that the Times’ major effort to reframe American history was itself reframed to suit the Times’ purposes after mistakes were identified does not inspire tremendous confidence in the work—Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding.

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1619 Project Author Nikole Hannah-Jones Now Says She Never Implied That Year Was America’s True Founding

NHJ

The 1619 Project is The New York Times‘ Pulitzer-winning effort to put racism and slavery at the center of the conversation about American history. The newspaper published a series of articles in August 2019—the 400th anniversary of slavery’s introduction to the English colonies in the Americas—that reframed the year 1619 rather than 1776 as the true founding of America.

It’s a provocative claim, and it came under serious criticism, along with other aspects of the project. But the project’s lead author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is now asserting that she never made it and that anyone who believes otherwise was fooled by bad-faith right-wing critics.

“One thing in which the right has been tremendously successful is getting media to frame stories in their language and through their lens,” wrote Hannah-Jones in a subsequently deleted tweet. “The #1619Project does not argue that 1619 is our true founding. We know this nation marks its founding at 1776.” She made a similar statement on CNN as well.

But as The Atlantic‘s Conor Friedersdorf exhaustively demonstrated in a series of tweets, this is simply not true. The 1619 Project was absolutely promoted—by the Times, and by Hannah-Jones herself—as an effort to recast 1619 as the year of the country’s founding. On the newspaper’s website, a special interactive version of the project was introduced in the following manner (emphasis mine):

The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

Both conservative critics and progressive fans of the 1619 Project described it this way, because that’s how the Times itself described it.

The original description no longer appears at nytimes.com. At some point, it was edited to read:

The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

This may be a more accurate description of the project, and it’s certainly a less controversial claim. But it’s plainly different from the original, which means this is an unacknowledged edit—a major transgression of basic norms of journalism (albeit one that happens in major newspapers with some frequency).

Theoretically, it could be the case that the Times characterized the project using language that clashed with Hannah-Jones’ own vision. But Hannah-Jones repeatedly used the same phrasing:

For further clarification, here is Hannah-Jones’ banner picture:

Writing for Quillette, Phillip Magness, a senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and the author of The 1619 Project: A Critique, argues that this dispute has “come to symbolize the Times‘s blurring of historical analysis with editorial hyperbole.” Magness’s other criticisms of the 1619 Project have been much more consequential: He and other historians have pointed out significant flaws with the lead essay’s thesis that the preservation of slavery was a major reason for the American Revolution—an idea the project’s own fact-checkers disputed prior to publication—and he has also offered withering criticisms of an article’s economic arguments about slavery.

All these arguments matter outside the world of journalism. The 1619 Project is being taught in U.S. schools, and President Donald Trump has waded into the debate in a characteristically clumsy fashion: declaring a federal initiative to “promote patriotic education” as a corrective. (As always, the best course here is to give families more control over kids’ education options: Kids should neither be forced to read the 1619 Project nor forbidden from doing so.)

In any case, that the Times’ major effort to reframe American history was itself reframed to suit the Times’ purposes after mistakes were identified does not inspire tremendous confidence in the work—Pulitzer Prize notwithstanding.

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Classes #10: Executive Power I and Easements I

Class 10: The Executive Power II

  • Hirabayashi v. United States (572-582)
  • Korematsu v. United States (582-592)
  • Ex Part Endo (592-597)

Class 10: Easements I

  • Creation of Easements: Willard v. First Church of Christ, 766-772
  • Licenses: Holbrook v. Taylor, 772-777

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The Justice Department Sees ‘Anarchy’ Overtaking New York City. If Only That Were Remotely True.

NYPDarrests_1161x653

Today, the Department of Justice declared that New York City, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, are “permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction.”

This isn’t just about Attorney General William Barr happily assisting President Donald Trump’s re-election efforts by escalating attacks on urban centers. This is yet another attempt to manipulate federal spending on cities in ways that shift the boundaries between the executive branch and Congress.

The Justice Department has been trying to do something similar with “sanctuary” cities and states, where local law enforcement declines to help the federal government enforce immigration law. Federal courts had been ruling against the administration’s efforts to withhold grants from these jurisdictions, on the grounds that the power to dictate these grants’ terms lies in Congress, not the Department of Justice. But in February the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found in favor of the administration, and that may lead to a possible Supreme Court showdown.

Trump released a memo September 2 ordering Barr to identify “anarchist jurisdictions,” defined as places whose leaders have reduced funding to police departments or forbidden police from “intervening to restore order amid widespread or sustained violence or destruction.” The memo gives Barr the power to declare a jurisdiction to be in anarchy based on whatever guidelines he “deems appropriate.”

Now that Barr has named these three cities, the Office of Management and Budget is supposed to examine all the federal grants these cities receive, to see if the feds can punish the towns by pulling funds.

The idea that New York City resembles an “anarchy”—or that any city has become an anarchy due to this summer’s spike in crimes and riots—is fundamentally absurd. It is true that New York City, like many major American cities, has seen a spike this summer in gun violence and homicide. But by historical standards, the overall violent crime rate remains fairly low. We aren’t exactly in The Purge yet.

Nor is New York anarchist in the ideological sense of the word. The place still has plenty of oppressive policing and regulation. New York state recently banned flavored e-cigarettes, and it still has not managed to hammer out a plan for marijuana legalization. City health officials even banned the use of cannabidiol (CBD) in food and drinks, even though CBD itself is legal to sell and consume in the Big Apple.

Is it anarchy when state liquor inspectors raid a Staten Island pub right after it files suit against the city and state over oppressive lockdown regulations? Is it anarchy when New York City cops beat up a homeless man on a train for taking up more than one seat on a mostly empty subway train? (One positive result of this summer’s angry police protests: They finally pushed New York state to change the laws that concealed records of police misconduct from the public.)

New York City’s school system actually does appear to be in anarchy, if only because its administration, apparently beholden to the teachers unions, abruptly canceled plans to reopen schools this week. The problem here is not, as Barr claims in his release today, that the schools have booted the police out.

New York City’s leadership regularly treats its citizens like subjects. The point of the protests was, in part, to highlight the oppressive impact of overpolicing on New York’s poorest. At times New York Police responded by aggressively assaulting and arresting the peaceful protesters while others rioted unabated.

But the Justice Department thinks New York didn’t bust enough heads, and it doesn’t like that the city said no when the federal government offered to come in and bust even more heads. Barr’s summary today complains that “the Manhattan and Brooklyn District Attorneys have declined to prosecute charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly arising from the protests, and the District Attorneys in Queens and the Bronx have declined to prosecute other protest-related charges.” Note that the complaint doesn’t say prosecutors have refused to charge people who engaged in actual violent or destructive rioting (which is a separate law in New York from disorderly conduct).

The New York Post makes it clear this is all about appeasing the president. Washington, D.C.—where the feds pepper-sprayed protesters so that Trump could get a photo opp. in front of a church—was also reportedly going to be on the list but was removed because Mayor Muriel Bowser “made peace with Trump” in a recent phone call.

If only New York City were an anarchy. The citizens there could use a little less government looming over everything they do.

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Classes #10: Executive Power I and Easements I

Class 10: The Executive Power II

  • Hirabayashi v. United States (572-582)
  • Korematsu v. United States (582-592)
  • Ex Part Endo (592-597)

Class 10: Easements I

  • Creation of Easements: Willard v. First Church of Christ, 766-772
  • Licenses: Holbrook v. Taylor, 772-777

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via IFTTT

The Justice Department Sees ‘Anarchy’ Overtaking New York City. If Only That Were Remotely True.

NYPDarrests_1161x653

Today, the Department of Justice declared that New York City, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, are “permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction.”

This isn’t just about Attorney General William Barr happily assisting President Donald Trump’s re-election efforts by escalating attacks on urban centers. This is yet another attempt to manipulate federal spending on cities in ways that shift the boundaries between the executive branch and Congress.

The Justice Department has been trying to do something similar with “sanctuary” cities and states, where local law enforcement declines to help the federal government enforce immigration law. Federal courts had been ruling against the administration’s efforts to withhold grants from these jurisdictions, on the grounds that the power to dictate these grants’ terms lies in Congress, not the Department of Justice. But in February the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found in favor of the administration, and that may lead to a possible Supreme Court showdown.

Trump released a memo September 2 ordering Barr to identify “anarchist jurisdictions,” defined as places whose leaders have reduced funding to police departments or forbidden police from “intervening to restore order amid widespread or sustained violence or destruction.” The memo gives Barr the power to declare a jurisdiction to be in anarchy based on whatever guidelines he “deems appropriate.”

Now that Barr has named these three cities, the Office of Management and Budget is supposed to examine all the federal grants these cities receive, to see if the feds can punish the towns by pulling funds.

The idea that New York City resembles an “anarchy”—or that any city has become an anarchy due to this summer’s spike in crimes and riots—is fundamentally absurd. It is true that New York City, like many major American cities, has seen a spike this summer in gun violence and homicide. But by historical standards, the overall violent crime rate remains fairly low. We aren’t exactly in The Purge yet.

Nor is New York anarchist in the ideological sense of the word. The place still has plenty of oppressive policing and regulation. New York state recently banned flavored e-cigarettes, and it still has not managed to hammer out a plan for marijuana legalization. City health officials even banned the use of cannabidiol (CBD) in food and drinks, even though CBD itself is legal to sell and consume in the Big Apple.

Is it anarchy when state liquor inspectors raid a Staten Island pub right after it files suit against the city and state over oppressive lockdown regulations? Is it anarchy when New York City cops beat up a homeless man on a train for taking up more than one seat on a mostly empty subway train? (One positive result of this summer’s angry police protests: They finally pushed New York state to change the laws that concealed records of police misconduct from the public.)

New York City’s school system actually does appear to be in anarchy, if only because its administration, apparently beholden to the teachers unions, abruptly canceled plans to reopen schools this week. The problem here is not, as Barr claims in his release today, that the schools have booted the police out.

New York City’s leadership regularly treats its citizens like subjects. The point of the protests was, in part, to highlight the oppressive impact of overpolicing on New York’s poorest. At times New York Police responded by aggressively assaulting and arresting the peaceful protesters while others rioted unabated.

But the Justice Department thinks New York didn’t bust enough heads, and it doesn’t like that the city said no when the federal government offered to come in and bust even more heads. Barr’s summary today complains that “the Manhattan and Brooklyn District Attorneys have declined to prosecute charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly arising from the protests, and the District Attorneys in Queens and the Bronx have declined to prosecute other protest-related charges.” Note that the complaint doesn’t say prosecutors have refused to charge people who engaged in actual violent or destructive rioting (which is a separate law in New York from disorderly conduct).

The New York Post makes it clear this is all about appeasing the president. Washington, D.C.—where the feds pepper-sprayed protesters so that Trump could get a photo opp. in front of a church—was also reportedly going to be on the list but was removed because Mayor Muriel Bowser “made peace with Trump” in a recent phone call.

If only New York City were an anarchy. The citizens there could use a little less government looming over everything they do.

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The Iranian Coup that Led to 67 Years of Reckless Intervention

coup53_thumbnail

If you want to understand the past 70 years of U.S. foreign policy, look to the 1953 CIA- and MI6-backed coup in Iran that removed Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and brought back to power the Shah, an authoritarian dictator friendly to American and British interests.

In the new documentary Coup 53, director Taghi Amirani argues that this covert operation became the template for subsequent American interventionism all over the world, from Guatemala to Vietnam to Iraq. American diplomats and intelligence officers saw the coup as a fast, effective, and low-cost way to effect regime change. They didn’t anticipate that their interference would ultimately set the stage for an Islamic revolution and a repressive theocracy that rules Iran to this day.

In a wide-ranging conversation about filmmaking, foreign policy, and immigration, Amirani tells Nick Gillespie that he doesn’t think relations between the United States and Iran will get better any time soon, regardless of who wins the presidential election in November. Policy, he says, is “the product of the military-industrial complex and that, ultimately, matters more” than whatever a particular president thinks as he enters office.

Edited by John Osterhoudt. Intro graphics by Lex Villena.

Photos: akg-images/Newscom; AlfvanBeem/CC0; Maryam Zandi / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0); Gage Skidmore/Flickr; Pictures From History/Newscom; Pictures From History/Newscom; Arash Khamooshi/Polaris/Newscom; MARTIN FRIED/UPI/Newscom; GARY I ROTHSTEIN/UPI/Newscom; CHRIS KLEPONIS/UPI/Newscom; Yuri Gripas—Pool via CNP/Newscom

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