ordinary Americans are waking up to that reality and rather than looking to the alleged conscience-in-chief to beat back the rising tide of racism and bigotry, they are taking matters in their own hands. This may well prove to be a healthy development that will strengthen national morality by decentralizing it.
.. The two fixed lodestars in America’s moral map were set by its great struggles against slavery and Nazism. One can question the means that the nation deployed against these two evils but not that they were worth fighting. After all, they represent an affront to every sacred principle this country stands for — equality, liberty, and justice. America sacrificed over 750,000 soldiers (not counting the Confederate casualties), more than all its other conflicts combined, in the service of these two causes.
.. Moreover, he implied that there was no big moral divide between Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, on the one hand, and Robert E. Lee, on the other — never mind that Jefferson and Washington despised slavery whereas Lee, the confederate general, fought to preserve this cruel institution nearly a century later. Nor was Trump simply making a slippery slope argument when he warned that tearing down Lee’s statue would inevitably visit the same fate on America’s slave-owning founders. Indeed, since his original comments, he has gone even further, lamenting on Twitter the removal of “our beautiful statutes and monuments.”
.. Stunningly, he is no longer even claiming — as some Southerners have the decency to do — that Lee’s statues are warts that need to be preserved to remind us of our ugly history. No, they need to be maintained because they are “beautiful.”
.. PayPal has invoked a clause in its contract that reserves the right to deny access to anyone who promotes “hate, violence, and racial intolerance” to cut off outfits like Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, a white separatist think tank. Meanwhile, the Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs cancelled a conference that VDARE, a nativist outfit, was planning to hold there next April.
.. But precisely because there is a cost to businesses themselves when they shun someone, they have an inherent incentive in not going too overboard in quashing dissenters, unlike ideologically motivated Social Justice Warriors.
Refighting the Civil War
Once was enough, as Robert E. Lee understood.
The practical political lesson is that there are good reasons why U.S. Presidents and the people who work for them try to choose their words carefully when commenting on public events... In our view cities can properly decide whether they wish to take down Confederate symbols, many of which arose in the Jim Crow years of white supremacy in the early 20th Century. But erasing a nation’s history is a bad idea.. We’re glad to have the clarifications on the false equivalence between Confederate generals and the Founding Fathers.. “Racist” is a powerful accusation to make against anyone, but it is heard today in an ever-widening set of circumstances, not just against Confederate generals.. It might begin with Jefferson and Washington, who wrote the language and built the institutions of the bedrock American belief that “all men are created equal” and possess inalienable rights. Those words planted the seeds of freedom for the slaves, an idea that advanced through the awful Civil War and, not without setbacks, for a century after, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1965... Robert E. Lee spent the rest of his life after the Civil War, notably as president of what became Washington and Lee University, trying to heal the wounds between north and south.
Yes, Trump can legally pardon himself or his family. No, he shouldn’t.
If he really did pardon his aides, his family or himself to head off Robert Mueller’s inquiry, the move probably would be constitutional but ultimately self-defeating for the president.
In using his power to pardon potential witnesses against him, Trump probably would convert a weak criminal investigation into a full-fledged impeachment effort. In 1833, Chief Justice John Marshall upheld a presidential pardon by Andrew Jackson by saying that a pardon is “an act of grace” by a president. A pardon in these circumstances would not be viewed as an act of grace, but a gratuity from an isolated president.
.. Even Nixon did not stoop to a self-pardon, although he did research it.
.. Pardoning his associates at this stage would clearly have a tactical benefit, but the historical and political costs of that would be immense. The most obvious reason for issuing pardons now would not be to protect any of the key people from jail but to limit Mueller’s leverage over witnesses. Mueller has selected a team of prosecutorial heavies, some of whom are known for flipping witnesses and using pressure to secure their cooperation. A pardon removes that option and reinforces the ability of close associates to take a hard line with investigators.
.. the use of the pardon power to protect the president’s political allies and family members would be legitimately decried as an abuse. It would not, however, be unprecedented.
.. Jefferson wanted Bollman to testify against Burr for alleged treason in plotting with the British to create a new country out of territory in the Southwest and Mexico.
.. The most recent abuse of pardon power was by Clinton. He waited until his last day in office to pardon billionaire Marc Rich, generally considered one of the least worthy recipients of a pardon in history. Jimmy Carter denounced the abuse of the pardon power for Rich as “disgraceful” and attributed Clinton’s decision to “his large gifts.” Worse yet, on the same day, Clinton pardoned his half-brother, Roger Clinton, in an open abuse of pardon power to benefit his family.
.. Indeed, with pardons, witnesses could lose protections against self-incrimination and could more easily be forced to testify. New crimes such as perjury could fall outside of the pardon, and such a pardon would not protect against state charges.
.. The existing claims of criminal conduct on Trump’s part are relatively weak and speculative. To move from the legal to the political forum is to leave strategic high ground for a quagmire.
.. Tactical pardons are like burning bridges to slow an investigation. That has rarely stopped a determined foe. Indeed, it tends to encourage and swell the ranks of opponents.
The Supreme Court jumps into a playground fight over a phony war on religion
It was a manufactured controversy, cooked up by conservative interest groups that are hoping to chip away at constitutional provisions in 39 states restricting taxpayer money from going to churches.
.. The complaint became irrelevant last week when the state’s new governor, Eric Greitens, reversed Missouri’s position and said he would allow religious organizations to compete for such grants.
.. Sonia Sotomayor asked Layton: If representatives of the state “are not willing to fight this case, are they manufacturing adversity by appointing you?”
.. It was about interest groups whose business model depends on perpetuating the culture wars trying to frighten people into thinking Christianity is under siege. It was a springtime version of the annual “war on Christmas.”
.. Michael Farris, CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Trinity in the case, was fairly straightforward about his motives, telling reporters in the plaza that “there’s a broad concern among religious people in this country that we’re becoming second-class citizens.”
.. Layton told the justices that Missouri in 1820 adopted language based on Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which said that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.”
.. What has changed now? Nothing — except the rise of interest groups (on both sides) that justify their existence and boost their fundraising with such controversies.
.. The goal this time: to roll back restrictions on public money going to churches. An article in the conservative National Review argued that “a victory for Trinity Lutheran would fundamentally alter the landscape of school choice.”
.. Eventually, though, he admitted that “why we’re here in the first place is the Missouri state constitutional provision” — the one saying no public money may be used “in aid of any church.”
.. So that’s what it’s about: Invalidating dozens of state constitutional provisions keeping public money out of churches. “There are 39 states with constitutional amendments like the one Missouri has.