If Justice Thomas truly believed reviving trust in the Court’s impartiality and integrity was important, he’d resign.

Justice Thomas consistently refused to disclose spousal income and conflicts until 2011, stoking public distrust even back then. When he finally amended 13 years of reports, he did so only in a vague and incomplete fashion despite the fact that his wife, lobbyist Ginni Thomas, earns a considerable income from parties with interests before the court. Lest there be any confusion about just how extreme her views are, recall her attempt to persuade former President Donald Trump not to concede the 2020 election amid the January 6 assault on the Capitol .

That’s bad enough. But, as it turns out, there’s more — a lot more. Over the past 20 years Justice Thomas has accepted millions of dollars in gifts, often in the form of private travel, from a far-right billionaire and major political donor, Harlan Crow. Justice Thomas failed to include those gifts and others — like a $19,000 bible — in disclosures mandated by the Ethics in Government Act. Justice Thomas even sold property to Crow, including the home in which his mother lives, and failed to disclose that, too. Then there’s the fact that Crow gave Ginni Thomas $500,000 to found Tea Party group Liberty Central, cementing her status as a far-right political star.  

A poll conducted from April 8 through 11 found that more than two-thirds of Americans had already learned of Justice Thomas’s trips footed by Crow. Even then, before the full details emerged, a strong majority (58 percent) of Americans asked disapproved of his accepting luxury trips without disclosing them — including 42 percent who “strongly disapproved.”

A Supreme Court justice has resigned over less — just 54 years ago. Justice Abe Fortas was criticized for agreeing to let a former law partner pay for a portrait of Fortas intended for Yale Law. He also accepted payment from American University for teaching a seminar, not knowing that the funds came from former clients and partners. In addition, although comparable to commitments his colleagues made, Fortas was taking a retainer to advise a non-profit foundation.  

Portrait of Marie de Medici as Justice, Thomas de Leu, 1600-1609, Harvard Art Museums: Prints

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Jakob Rosenberg Fund Size: plate: 19.8 x 14.4 cm (7 13/16 x 5 11/16 in.)

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/191497

Take a Virtual Tour of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Humboldt Exhibition

https://sciencespies.com/nature/take-a-virtual-tour-of-the-smithsonian-american-art-museums-humboldt-exhibition/

Take a Virtual Tour of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Humboldt Exhibition

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM | May 1, 2020, 9 a.m.

It’s not what you’d expect from an art show. At the end of a long corridor, beyond a pulled-back heavy burgundy brocade curtain, a full-scale mastodon skeleton fills much of the rotunda-like space of the gallery. The fossil is the centerpiece of “Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture,” an exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. The show was poised to open with much fanfare earlier this year just as the COVID-19 crisis shuttered the museum. Today the stately mastodon sits waiting for crowds to return. In the meantime, viewers can go on a virtual tour of the show through a new video put together by the museum’s senior curator, Eleanor Jones Harvey.

For Harvey, the 11-foot tall, 20-foot long elephant ancestor is the uber statement on what polymath Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) meant to the American politicians, scientists, artists and writers who fawned over him during his brief six-week visit to the United States in 1804, and who became a part of his global network of admirers for a huge chunk of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The mastodon was a coup for SAAM—it is the first time the fossil will be back in America since 1847, when it made its way through Europe and ultimately ended up at The Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt in Germany. A video shows the disassembly in Darmstadt and three-day reassembly at the museum.

Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture

A Prussian-born geographer, naturalist, explorer, and illustrator, Alexander von Humboldt was a prolific writer whose books graced the shelves of American artists, scientists, philosophers, and politicians. Humboldt visited the United States for six weeks in 1804, engaging in a lively exchange of ideas with such figures as Thomas Jefferson and the painter Charles Willson Peale.

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The mastodon—exhumed under the guidance of artist Charles Willson Peale and cobbled together with wood by a leading sculptor of the day—represents the intersection of art, culture and science, says Harvey. Similarly, Humboldt studied multiple disciplines and believed that “artists need to have enough scientific background to know what they are painting, and scientists should maintain a sense of aesthetic wonder to appreciate as they are collecting,” Harvey says.

Almost 300 plants and 100 animals are named after the Prussian-born naturalist. Have you heard of the Humboldt penguin? The Humboldt Squid, which swims in the Humboldt Current? How about the Humboldt lily, found in California, which also has a Humboldt County? Forests, rivers, peaks, mountain ranges and even a patch of plains on the moon have been named for him. Humboldt, who published 36 books, including his five-volume masterpiece, Cosmos, was a man of many interests—so many that it’s hard to catalog them all.

He mentored many young scientists and accumulated a vast network of admirers and collaborators through some 25,000 letters, often beseeching others to share findings from their explorations as a means of accumulating data to prove his “unity of nature” theory: that everything on the planet is interconnected, says Harvey. Humboldt may have been one of the first to warn about climate change, noting that the devastation of forests in Venezuela had changed the local climate.

Read more about Alexander von Humboldt in this article by Eleanor Jones Harvey

Exhumation of the Mastodon by Charles Willson Peale, ca. 1806-08

(Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, Gift of Bertha White in memory of her husband, Harry White)

“He’s really one of the last great enlightenment scientists and one of the first great modern scientists,” Harvey says, noting that his work was grounded in meticulously analyzed data.

Humboldt’s holistic perspective—and his desire to make people understand nature’s importance to humanity—is more relevant than ever, notes Hans-Dieter Sues, chair of paleontology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, in the preface to the exhibition catalogue.

Most present-day scientists “tend to focus on specific ecological changes without considering the complex web of interactions between humans and the environment,” writes Sues. Environmentalists also concentrate too much on the preservation of a particular species, “rather than taking a more integrated approach that also considers humans.”

“There is an urgent need for a Humboldtian perspective if we are to understand and address the unparalleled crisis now facing our species,” Sues writes.

Niagra by Frederic Edwin Church, 1957

(National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection, Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund)

It’s hard to overstate Humboldt’s popularity during his heyday—the late 18th and early-to-mid-19th centuries. Widely traveled and broadly known in Europe, he was able to secure backing from the King of Spain to travel throughout South America, Mexico and Cuba between 1799 and 1804, documenting plant life, geology, climates, peoples and discovering the location of the magnetic equator, allowing him to “recalibrate his equipment and take the most accurate readings to that point of longitude and latitude in the Americas,” according to Harvey.

His book, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the Years 1799–1804, and other writings, excerpted in newspapers, gained him fans in the United States. Humboldt arranged a stopping over in America at the end of the southern hemisphere journey, primarily to meet President Thomas Jefferson, who “he suspected was his intellectual equal,” but also to get a close-up look at democracy and to possibly explore the Louisiana Territory, says Harvey.

He was greeted like a rock star by Peale when he disembarked in Philadelphia and feted by other intellectuals during his visit. He arrived in America at an auspicious time, says Harvey. Humboldt believed that the nation should capitalize on its natural wonder—that places like Niagara Falls and Natural Bridge in Virginia (on land owned by Jefferson) were just as monumental as European castles and cathedrals.

The Natural Bridge, Virginia by Frederic Edwin Church, 1852

(The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Gift of Thomas Fortune Ryan)

Cho-Looke, The Yosemite Fall by Albert Bierstadt, 1864

(Timken Museum of Art, Putnam Foundation)

The Peale mastodon—exhumed in upstate New York in 1801—fed into the mythology Jefferson hoped to create: that everything in America was bigger and better. Mammoth mania took over America after Peale displayed the fossil at his Philadelphia museum in late 1801. The unearthing of the bones is magnificently recalled in Peale’s 1806 painting, Exhuming the First American Mastodon.

Humboldt had written to Jefferson hoping to finagle an invite to the White House by mentioning that he’d found some mammoth teeth in the Andes. It worked, and he soon found himself hobnobbing with a network of American politicians, painters, writers and scientists. Among those who became a part of the Humboldt Hive: James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, Frederic Church, Walt Whitman and Samuel F.B. Morse.

The Prussian eventually came to consider himself half-American. Though he never visited the U.S. again after the 1804 trip, American luminaries frequently came to his Paris residence to bask in his presence. By 1847, Humboldt had been made a member of seven American scientific and cultural organizations.

Humboldt inspired a bevy of artists to ground their work in nature, including some of the greatest landscape painters of the time, Albert Bierstadt and Church. Twenty works by Church and two of Yosemite by Bierstadt are featured in the exhibition. Church’s paintings of Niagara Falls, Natural Bridge, and several Andean peaks, which he visited during a trip that recreated, step-by-step, Humboldt’s expedition through the same region, transport the viewer into a towering vision of nature.

Throughout his travels and his life, Humboldt was an advocate for social justice. “He thought the one flaw in American democracy was that it would not abolish slavery,” says Harvey. He urged James Madison to consider ending slavery, telling him that “nature is the domain of liberty.” Humboldt backed the anti-slavery 1856 presidential candidacy of John C. Fremont—who, during earlier explorations of the American west that were inspired by Humboldt, paid tribute to the scientist by naming various features after him, including a river in Nevada.

Valley of the Yosemite by Albert Bierstadt, 1864

(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Martha C. Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings)

The plight of Native Americans also concerned Humboldt, especially in the wake of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. He convinced Prince Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied, a protégé, and artist Karl Bodmer, to replicate part of the Lewis and Clark expedition to document the tribes of the Upper Missouri River. The exhibition features excerpts from the Prince’s journals and finely detailed watercolors of tribe members executed by Bodmer.

Humboldt also became friends with artist George Catlin, who had begun immersing himself in the documentation of America’s vanishing tribes starting in 1830. They meet in Paris, where Catlin has brought his portraits of Native Americans and a group of people from the Iowa tribe to educate the French—and shore up his dwindling finances. “It is the first and only time Humboldt will meet North American Indians,” says Harvey. Humboldt ends up touring the Louvre with some members of the tribe, one of whom kept a diary of the events of that trip.

A number of original Catlin portraits are on display, as is an 1845 painting depicting the visit to France, Karl Girardet’s Danse d’indiens Iowas devant le roi Louis-Philippe aux Tuileries (Dance of the Iowa Indians before the King Louis-Philippe at the Tuileries).

Not surprisingly, Humboldt is even connected with the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. When the Prussian traveled to England in 1790 to connect with a mentor there, he also ended up being introduced to a young chemist, James Smithson—the same Smithson whose bequest eventually created the Smithsonian in 1846.

Bison Dance of the Mandan Indians in front of Their Medicine Lodge in Mih-Tutta-Hankush by Alexandre Damien Manceau, engraver, after Karl Bodmer

(Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha Nebraska; 1986.49.542.18, Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019)

The two reconnected in Paris in 1814, and spent a year in friendship, hanging out with liberal pro-American and pro-Democracy factions—making Smithson a bit of an outlier among his British compatriots. Humboldt and Smithson shared a love of collecting and analyzing, and spreading knowledge.

Well before the Smithsonian was established, Peale had already envisioned a national institution dedicated to the arts, sciences and American ideals and asked Humboldt to convince Jefferson to buy his museum collection as the foundation. Jefferson wasn’t interested in purchasing Peale’s materials. But the idea of a national institution continued to be discussed in Washington and elsewhere for decades. In 1835, Smithson’s last heir died and the estate was then, as directed by Smithson, bequeathed to the U.S. After much debate, Congress decided to accept the money. American attorney Richard Rush was dispatched to London to bring the dollars home, to, as Smithson put it, “found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men.”

Those words “are a Humboldtian credo,” writes the museum’s director Stephanie Stebich in the introduction to the exhibition catalog. Most of the men ultimately involved in setting up the Smithsonian Institution had either known Humboldt, corresponded with him, or admired him, says Harvey.

“The entire Smithsonian is in some ways the bricks and mortar realization of everything that Humboldt cared about,” she says. The Institution’s 19 museums, the National Zoo, and 21 research centers and programs encompass Humboldt’s vast interests.

To make that point, the final gallery in the show features nine ongoing Smithsonian projects “that reflect Humboldtian enterprise,” says Harvey.

Though Humboldt was celebrated throughout the 19th century—with big parties in American cities every decade starting in 1869—the rise of Germany as a hostile power in the early 20th century caused Americans to stop teaching about the great scientist. Essentially, the lights went out on Humboldt, says Harvey.

“I’m trying to turn the lights back on and dust for his fingerprints, and say, ‘hey, he was here, and here and here,’” she says.

Currently, to support the effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, all Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C. and in New York City, as well as the National Zoo are temporarily closed. The exhibition “Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture” goes on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2020.

Listen to Sidedoor: A Smithsonian Podcast

It took a zealous Prussian explorer to show the colonists what they couldn’t see: a global ecosystem, and their own place in nature. Check out this season five episode, “The Last Man Who Knew It All,” about Alexander von Humboldt.

#Nature

An Elusive Peace, Chapter 12

  Read on AO3

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: For Hamilton and Eliza, peace was supposed to mark the end to their separation and the beginning of domestic bliss. But Hamilton's ambition and the challenges facing the new nation quickly interfere. Happily ever after may not be as easy to attain as they once hoped.

Stress and insecurity weigh heavily on Hamilton...

February 1791

“If we were to gift France such a benefit, especially one not called for in the treaty, as we both agree, where would we get the funds to offset the expected income?” Hamilton argued to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, using his fork to emphasis his point. “Retiring the public debt requires income, and exempting one of our largest trading partners from the tonnage tax would put a sizable hole in the nation’s pocket.”1

Jefferson frowned and raised his wine glass to his lips. Where Hamilton expected a rebuttal, only a long silence followed. Hamilton swallowed down the inclination to say more, conscious not to give too much away.

“As trustees of the sinking fund, I do believe we must heed Mr. Hamilton’s advice on this account, Thomas,” Adams responded finally. “Congress has tasked us with reducing the public debt, and an exemption for France would run counter to that duty.”

Jefferson gave a noncommittal nod, which seemed to signal less his acquiescence to their arguments, and more a desire to move on to a new topic. They’d assembled at Mr. Jefferson’s new Philadelphia lodgings to discuss the sinking fund, specifically, however, and the three men had little else about which to converse. Given what a wily opponent Jefferson had proven himself to be over the past year, Hamilton had little desire to share current news or plans.

The sound of cutlery scraping against fine china seemed unusually loud in the awkward silence that followed. Adams turned his attention to his plate, slicing the cut of beef before him with great concentration. Jefferson’s gaze focused straight ahead on the window, unfazed by the tense moment where Hamilton would have been scrambling for a topic of conversation were he the host of this gathering.  

Eliza never would have let such a tense silence endure.

Hamilton wished she were with him.

“I suppose congratulations are in order, Mr. Hamilton,” Adams remarked. “For the passage of your banking bill. President Washington signed it today, did he not?”

Jefferson’s jaw tensed noticeably. When Adams raised a glass to him, Jefferson pointedly set his down upon the table. Hamilton fought a vindictive smile as he replied, “He did. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.”

Not without a hard won fight, however. Jefferson and Jemmy had collaborated against him, filling the President’s mind with doubts over the constitutionality of the National Bank. His mind still felt fuzzy from the sleepless nights he’d spent crafting his defense. Eliza, bless her, had stayed at his side that last night, when he’d despaired of ever finishing. She’d copied the pages he’d scribbled and scratched over, her boundless optimism a beacon in the churning sea of his thoughts. What would he do without her, his darling angel?2

“I did my utmost to keep harmony in the Senate during that debate,” Adams continued. “I trust you know best, Mr. Hamilton, though I confess I do sympathize with the position of our more Southern colleagues. The bank will surely benefit the North far more than the South. Not to mention the money men who shall make out best are, in my estimation, little better than swindlers and thieves.”

Now Hamilton’s jaw tensed.

“What America surely needs is less banks and more farmers,” Jefferson agreed. “Financial speculation will never yield the virtuous citizenry a republic requires to function. Cities and industry provide just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body.3 Our farms are the bastion of a free society.”

One of Jefferson’s servants paused beside him to refill his wine glass as he spoke. Hamilton’s gaze drifted up to the enslaved man, whose face was fixed into a blank expression of placid obedience. Had he choked down a derisive laugh at that statement? Hamilton wondered.  

The South was as much a bastion of free society as Saint Croix, he badly wanted to retort. The plantation systems that flourished in societies arranged around cash crops were the very antithesis of a republic, which was meant to be organized around merit. How well he remembered the violence and cruelty that abounded on the plantations, and the rigid hierarchy that ruined his father and would have condemned him to the groveling state of a clerk for the rest of his days. Was that truly Jefferson’s ideal? Or was he simply blind to the failings of a system that had gifted him so much privilege?    

“I’ve not found that to be so,” Hamilton settled on as the most diplomatic reply. “I think, rather, that a diverse economy is the best way to open the door to all, that each may have the opportunity  to rise above the disadvantages of his birth and command the tribute due to his merit.”4 That’s what he was working towards, the vision he conjured when his eyes blurred in the wee hours of the morning as he reviewed endless contracts, tables, and charts.

Jefferson frowned again. Another noncommittal nod followed, signaling the end of the topic. How maddening it was, to debate with a man who refused to argue his position.

Another tense silence filled the room.

Hunting for a new point of conversation, anything less controversial to carry them through to the end of this interminable meal, Hamilton’s eyes landed on the portraits of three men Jefferson had hanging in his dining room. Bacon, Newton, and Locke, he identified. Surely science and philosophy would be safer ground than their competing political visions?

“Pray tell me, Mr. Jefferson, why you have the portraits of those particular three gentleman displayed?” he inquired, pasting on a smile.

Jefferson cleared his throat and launched into what could only be described as a lecture, and a dry one at that.

Hamilton pushed a green bean through the sauce on his plate idly. The food was delicious—Jefferson’s meals always were, his dinners like pomegranate seeds meant to trap the unwary into perpetually returning to his lair—but he found he had little appetite. All the late hours and opulent dinners had been taking a toll on his waistline, such that he’d had to have his breeches let out last month. Angelica’s latest letter had been proof that his expanding girth had not gone unnoticed.

He’d known something was off when Eliza refused to share Angelica’s latest letter with him. Regardless of to whom the letter was addressed, the first to lay hand on it always read it aloud for the benefit of the other. This time, however, Eliza had stuffed it into her sewing kit and put him off whenever he inquired about it.

“It’s silly, girlish nonsense,” Eliza had argued, patting him on the cheek fondly. “Nothing that would interest you.”

On the contrary, having it hidden away from him interested him greatly in the contents. He’d sneaked it out from under a pair of Pip’s socks when she’d had her back turned and cast his eyes over his dear friend's words. “…[O]ur dear Hamilton writes too much and takes no exercise and grows too fat. I hate both the words and the thing and you will take care of his health and good looks. Why, I shall find him on my return a dull, heavy fellow.”5

“Please don’t give it a moment’s thought. You look wonderful, sweetheart. Very handsome,” Eliza had tried to console him.

He’d taken pains to restrict his diet ever since, nonetheless.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Hamilton?”

He blinked and refocused on Jefferson, who had fixed him with his intense, studying gaze. Apparently the great Professor had come to the end of his lesson. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jefferson,” he apologized, shifting in his seat. “I’m afraid I was miles away.”

“Do you agree that Bacon, Newton, and Locke are the three greatest men who ever lived?” Jefferson repeated for him.

A bold claim. He didn’t disagree, really. But he wanted to, if for no other reason than to throw Jefferson off guard.

A long ago, late night flashed through his memory, a campfire crackling while he, Lafayette, Laurens, and Mac had huddled round. “Why does Alexander get to be great?” Jack had asked to no one in particular.  

“I’m not great; I’m just better than you,” Hamilton had jested. Jack had elbowed him in the ribs.

“I mean it. Why do we call him Alexander the Great? Who determines which men will have fame that lasts through the centuries? His deeds weren’t necessarily noble; he didn’t fight for freedom or justice. Just conquest.”

Jack had worried about that frequently. Fame. Glory. A name that would be remembered throughout history; remembered for the right reasons.

“The same reason Caesar is remembered. They were conquerors. Heroes in their own time,” Lafayette had observed with a careless shrug.

“You think we’ll be the conquering heroes of our time?” Jack had asked, looking at him.

“You two? Of course. Our very own Caesar and Alexander,” Mac had interjected.6

A smile tugged at Hamilton’s lips as the memory washed over him. He longed for the simple camaraderie of the war, when the enemy was clear and the goal unquestioned. Oh, what better answer could he give?

Arranging his features into a serious expression, he replied, “The greatest man who ever lived was Julius Caesar.”7

The utter shock on Jefferson’s face forced Hamilton to cover his mouth with his napkin, feigning a cough to cover the his laughter. He’d pay for making such a comment, of that he had no doubt. Oh, but the expression on the unflappable Virginian’s face made it so very worth it.

**

A moan of relief fell from his lips as he closed the door to the house on Third Street that he and Eliza had picked out last August. He thought he’d never be able to leave that dining room. Any time spent with Jefferson always seemed to leave him with a merciless headache and the desire to sleep for days on end.

“Dinner went well, then?” Eliza queried, watching him from the entryway to the parlor with a teasing smile.

“I can’t stand him,” Hamilton groaned as he shrugged out of his winter coat. “He barely speaks. It’s impossible to win an argument when all he does is listen to my side, then change the subject. What’s the point of even meeting with him?”

“Well, as long as we don’t need to move cities again, I’d consider it a win.”

His face fell. He knew she was angry about having to leave New York, their home and their friends, as part of his concession to pass assumption of the debt, but he hadn’t expected her to raise that now. The comment had clearly come off more barbed than she’d intended, because her expression softened, and she swept over to kiss him softly.

“Do you want some tea?” she offered. Her hands massaged his shoulders gently. “Sarah brought up a fresh pot.”

“I have more work to do. Now that the lighthouse at Cape Henry is authorized—”

“Come sit for a few minutes,” she insisted. Her lips touched his again, soft and light as a butterfly’s wing. “Pip finished his theme a few minutes ago. He’s eager to show you.”

He gave in and followed her into the parlor. Pip was writing at his little desk, his face scrunched up with concentration as he wrote in his composition book. Alex and Jamie appeared to be fighting for control of the rocking horse, while Fanny and Angelica sat on the sofa, little fingers occupied with sewing circles. When he’d settled on the sofa beside the girls, Pip bounded over, thrusting the theme book into his hands.

“I finished, Papa,” Pip announced proudly.

Eliza poured a cup of tea for him as he opened the book to the latest page. Pip’s writing was crooked and just a touch too large, but he could tell his son had put thought into the answer to the question he’d set him this morning. He smiled encouragingly when he glanced up, and saw Pip’s chest puff out with pride.

“Do you want a tart, honey?” Eliza offered. “They’re cherry. Your favorite.”

“No, thank you,” he refused. She kept making him little treats like that, trying to tempt him to indulge himself. She felt unreasonably guilty for Angelica’s letter, he knew, but giving him desserts was hardly going to undo the truth of her sister’s words.  When she frowned in disappointment, he pleaded, “As much as I love your tarts, my angel, I’m quite stuffed from Mr. Jefferson’s dinner.”

“I want a tart, Mama,” Alex piped in, abandoning his wrestling match with his little brother in hopes of a treat. Eliza smiled indulgently, and placed one of the treats on a plate for him.

When Alex was settled, she brought over the teacup for him and sat on his other side, her hand rubbing up along his arm and resting on his shoulder, her fingers tangling unconsciously in his hair. The tension in his shoulders loosened at the affectionate gesture. He loved when she played with his hair.

Time in the loving embrace of his family seemed to fly by with a speed incongruous with the pace it had taken while he’d been at Jefferson’s lodgings. After Eliza finished plying him with tea, he knelt down on the floor to play with the boys. Fanny and Angelica were both quick to abandon their sewing when they saw a chance for a piggy back ride, and soon he was rolling around with his little ones, thoughts of Jefferson and his political intrigue far away.

Eliza had a great knack for knowing when he was about to excuse himself to return to work. The very moment  the thought of the contracts on his desk crossed his mind, she immediately rose. “All right, children, time to go upstairs and start readying for bed. Papa and I are going to take our evening constitutional.”

He sighed. “Betsey, I really must—”

“It’s important for your health that you exercise.”  

He touched a hand to his stomach self-consciously, the statement conjuring Angelica’s words all over again. As Eliza ushered the children towards the stairs, she paused beside him and whispered, “It’s my only time alone with you.” She smiled, and looked perfectly sincere; still, he couldn’t help wondering if that was the only reason she wanted him to take the evening walk.

As they set out into the brisk winter air towards Walnut Street, Eliza tucked her arm around his. “I feel like we never see each other anymore,” she remarked. “It’s even worse than usual, since we moved to Philadelphia.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I’ve only just begun to set the nation on a more solid financial footing. There’s so much left to do. And between Madison and Jefferson, I can hardly keep up with all the plots to undo the work I’ve already done.”

Eliza squeezed his arm comfortingly. “You’ll manage.”

“I hope so.” If he failed, economic collapse and the ruin of the nation were sure to follow. After a beat, he added, “You sleeping in a separate room is hardly helping.”

“I’m not sleeping in a separate room,” she said. “I’ve just been comforting Fanny. I try to give you time to fall asleep before I come back, so I won’t disturb you. You need your rest.”  

“You’re never there when I go to sleep.” His voice carried more bitterness than he’d intended. He wasn’t angry with her, not at all, but he did miss her desperately.

He could actually hear her lips thinning in response, he’d swear to it. “Fanny’s nightmares keep getting worse. What would you have me do? Leave her weeping in her bed so you won’t be lonely?”

Guilt swept over him. Their poor little girl had been suffering acutely from nightmares ever since they’d broken word to her of her father’s death. He doubted she even remembered Edward Antil; although they’d been honest with her from her earliest days about her parentage, she’d never wavered from referring to them as Mama and Papa. As gentle and reassuring as they’d tried to be, though, the concept of a parent dying appeared to have had a profound effect on her.

“Of course not.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” She sighed, and added, “I’m just really tired.”

“Me, too.” They shared a weak smile in the orange glow of the streetlamps. “I love you, Betsey.”

“I love you, too,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder.

They continued strolling along the street in companionable quiet for a time.

“I saw Mrs. Washington today,” Eliza commented suddenly. Her voice had the particular quality it always acquired when she meant something to sound casual and airy, but it in fact had more significance. “She’s encouraging Angelica and Fanny to sign up for dance lessons with Nelly.”

“That sounds nice,” he replied, tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’s rather…expensive.”

Ah. Money. The ever sensitive topic.

“You know our finances better than I do at this point, my dearest,” he said honestly. She’d taken over care of the finances before they’d left New York. He’d hardly even look at their account books recently. “If you think we can afford it.…”

“Pip and the girls all need new clothes,” she added. Her voice began to sound strained. “The rent is higher here in Philadelphia, as is the grocer bill. And you keep talking about sending Pip to boarding school this year. He’ll need clothes, and books, and money for room and board, not to mention the cost of the school itself.”

He frowned.

“I’m…worried, Alexander.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he tried to reassure her.

“I’m doing my best, but I can only juggle so much when the income just isn’t there. The way you spend money….”

Defensiveness flared up within him. “Didn’t you have the dress you’re wearing made at the tailors this month?”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s not just me spending money, is it?”

“Don’t cross examine me, Alexander,” she snapped. After a deep breath, she continued more calmly, “I’m not trying to attack you, honey. I’m just telling you that we need more money. I could talk to my father?”

“No.” His refusal was immediate. “No. I’ll…I’ll figure something out.”

“Like what?”

“I’ll consult on legal cases,” he suggested. Even the thought of it made him want to curl up and weep—he hardly had time to sleep as it was—but if his family required more money, he’d need to do what was necessary to provide it for them. “Reviewing appeal documents, perhaps. Nothing that could cause a conflict of interest with my current position.”

“Honey,” she sounded concerned. “You don’t have the time to take on legal work on top of your Treasury post.”

“If we need money, I’ll make more money. That’s my job.”

“That’s your job for the entire country.” She stretched up to kiss his cheek. “You know Papa would be happy to help if you’d let him.”  

“I promised to provide for you and our family when I married you, and I intend to see that through.”

She shook her head at him. “Never mind. Forget I mentioned it. We can economize. We’ll manage. We always manage.”

“I’ll look into taking on a few cases.” He dropped a kiss onto her head to settled the discussion. He hated that the only time they managed to eke out with each other, they spent arguing about money. He’d do anything, work as much as he needed to, so long as he had her by his side. “Would you try to come to bed tonight?”  

“I’ll do my best,” she promised.

Later, much later, when he’d finally finished reviewing the most pressing documents in his briefcase, he managed to drag himself to bed and was delighted to see Eliza waiting up for him. He slipped into a nightshirt and crawled into bed beside her. “Hello, my darling angel.”

Her brow was furrowed. “Why did you change in the dressing room?”

“Isn’t that what it’s for?”

“You’re still sensitive about what Angelica said.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.

“It’s not what she said. It’s that it’s true. Look at me, I’m growing round as a pumpkin.”

She smiled up at him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I like it. You’re less bony; much more cuddly.”

“What every man wants to hear,” he commented. She nuzzled her nose against his neck and squeezed him tight, though, and he couldn’t help chuckling. He rolled over, partially on top of her, intent on kissing her properly.

“Careful. You might crush me,” she teased, expelling an exaggerated breath around a laugh.

“Too soon. Not funny,” he insisted, crushing their lips together. He was smiling, though, properly smiling.

“Mama!” Fanny’s scream carried all the way across the house.

He groaned.

Her eyes held an apology as she pushed him away. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“It’s fine,” he assured her. “She needs you. Go.”

She pulled on her dressing gown and hurried from the room, while he rolled over in bed and stared up the canopy. Without Eliza beside him, his mind raced with all that needed doing. The comfort and relaxation he'd felt moments before seemed to disappear with her. He drummed his hands on his chest absently, then sat up.

Well, he may as well get some work done.

1. See Hamilton to Jefferson, 11 January 1791 2. Eliza Hamilton interview with Benton J. Lossing, 1848. 3. Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, p. 195 4. Paraphrase from Federalist No. 36. 5. Angelica Church to Eliza Hamilton, April 1792—I adjusted this letter up a year to play up Hamilton's insecurities more. 6. Robbins, “James McHenry, Forgotten Federalist,” p. 67: Embracing Laurens after the battle of Yorktown, McHenry supposedly queried, “Here is Caesar, but where is Alexander,” to which Laurens replied, “He is safe.”  The fact that Laurens was teasingly referred to as here Caesar adds an interesting layer to the comments that follow. 7. The famous dinner party with Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison has been covered so much recently, I thought I’d write about this one instead. Joanne Freeman tells this story in the most entertaining way in her American Revolution course (available on youtube and itunes, if you’re interested). Hamilton's comments about Caesar over a meal they shared were repeated by Jefferson for literally decades, but given that Hamilton never expressed any real admiration for Caesar anywhere else in his papers, it seems highly likely that Hamilton was messing with Jefferson (assuming, of course, Jefferson didn’t just make the whole interaction up).

All Architects Must Be Covid-19 Architects

How the Georgia Senate January 5th election will affect global architects, President Biden Architecture, US Building News

All Architects Today Must Be Covid-19 Architects

Historic US Election Review of Architectural Aspects: Architectural Column by Joel Solkoff, PA, USA Dec 21, 2020

Architecture under President Biden Part III

Joel Solkoff’s Column Vol. VI, Number 6

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“You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln

Representative Marcia Fudge, Democrat, Eighth Congressional District of Ohio. Photo in the public domain

No New Housing: Impact of the Trump 2020 HUD Budget

On March 11, 2019, the Trump Administration released its Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Summary. The White House is proposing more than $9 billion in cuts to critical housing programs. The House of Representatives FY 2020 Spending Bill would increase the funding levels of those programs by more than $3 Billion.

Selected ProgramsFY19 FinalFY20 Trump ($/% Change)House FY20 ($/% Change)Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)$3.365 B$-3.365 B / -100%$0.235 B / 6.98%Public Housing Capital Fund$2.775 B$-2.775 B / -100%$0.08 B / 2.88%Public Housing Operating Fund$4.653 B$-1.79 B / -38.47%$0.1 B / 2.15%HOME Investment Partnerships Program$1.25 B$-1.25 B / -100%$0.5 B / 40%Housing Choice Voucher Renewals$20.313 B$-0.197 B / -0.97%$1.087 B / 5.35%Section 202 Housing for the Elderly$0.678 B$-0.034 B / -5.01%$0.125 B / 18.44%Section 811 Housing For Persons with Disabilities$0.184 B$-0.027 B / -14.67%$0.075 B / 40.76%Project-Based Rental Assistance$11.747 B$0.274 B / 2.33%$0.843 B / 7.18%Total For Select Programs$44.965 B$-9.164 B / -20.38%$3.045 B / 6.77%

Thank you www.affordable housing.com

DATELINE Saturday December 19, 2020. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York. I have moved to New York City, where I was born. to escape the inpending death toll rural Lycoming County will experience within the next few weeks. After the virus is controlled, I will return to beautiful Williamsport Pennsylvania and its architectural treasures on February 14th. I am currently in the hospital to take care of a series of too long neglected health problems anticipating that I will receive the coronavirus vaccine shortly.

I took this self portrait in June 2015 of the less than friendly disability entrance to Trump’s International luxury hotel and apartment condominium complex at Columbus Circle. Following the principles of unversal design would have been preferable if Trump’s de facto instructions were not based on stairs and hoopla.. I waited an unnecesryily long time for the elevator and became soaked as a consequenc. Hell of a way to treat a cancer patient returning to my friend’s place after therapy. This is how The New York Times described the building in April, 1996:  “Fancier than Trump Tower. Glitzier than the Trump Taj Mahal. Pricier than Trump Palace or Trump Parc. Its glossy brochure trumpets Trump International as ‘the most important new address in the world.’

How the outcome of two senate races in Georgia will affect global architecture commisions

Let us start the analysis of the Georgia January 5th election with the big picture.

The big picture: As of yesrerday, 313,797 children, women and men have died from the crnavirus according to the Centers for Disease Control base in Atlanta. On the glass is half filled for architects, take joy from President elect Joe Biden’s selection of Rep. Marcia Fudge to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Here is Rep. Fudge from her official website: “Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge is a committed public servant who brings a hard-working, problem-solving spirit to Congress and to the task of creating jobs, protecting safety net programs, and improving access to quality public education, health care and healthy foods.  First elected in 2008, she represents the people of the 11th Congressional District of Ohio.

Congresswoman Fudge serves on the Committee on House Administration, House Committee on Agriculture and House Committee on Education and Labor.  She is the Chair of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Elections and Chair of the Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight and Department Operations.  She serves on the Subcommittees on Conservation and Forestry (Agriculture), Civil Rights and Human Services (Education & Labor) and Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions (Education & Labor). In the 115th Congress, the Congresswoman served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittees on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education and on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions.  She also served as Ranking Member on the House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry and a member on the Subcommittee on Nutrition.  She is a member of several Congressional Caucuses and past Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. ++++

++++ Congresswoman Fudge consistently fights for voter protection, equitable access to a quality education from preschool through post-secondary programs, child nutrition, food stamp (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients, access to locally grown, healthy foods, fair labor practices, and civil and human rights, among other issues. Additionally, she remains a steadfast advocate to strengthen and preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Congresswoman Fudge has served the people of Ohio for more than three decades, beginning with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.  She was later elected as the first African American and first female mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, where she led the city in shoring up a sagging retail base and providing new residential construction. Congresswoman Fudge earned her bachelor’s degree in business from The Ohio State University and law degree from the Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall School of Law. She is a Past National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and a member of its Greater Cleveland Alumnae Chapter. Congresswoman Fudge’s work ethic, problem-solving approach, and ability to build collaborative relationships have earned her a reputation among her colleagues in Washington and at home as an insightful leader and knowledgeable legislator. As a dedicated public servant, she begins each morning with a firm promise “to do the people’s work.” It is this simple philosophy that defines Congresswoman Fudge as a Member of substance and character who always keeps her promise.” ####

Our Delusional President Trump flew to Georgia this week to campaign for Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler

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Senator David Perdue, Incumbent Republican

Wikipedia – David Alfred Perdue Jr. (/pərˈduː/; born December 10, 1949) is an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he has served as the senior United States Senator for Georgia since 2015.

After 12 years as a management consultant, Perdue became the senior vice president for Reebok. He later joined PillowTex, a North Carolina textile company.[2][3] He subsequently served as CEO of Dollar General.

Perdue ran for U.S. Senate in 2014, defeating Democratic nominee Michelle Nunn. He is running for reelection in 2020 against Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff. As neither candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the November 3 election, they face each other in a January 2021 runoff election. After the November election, Perdue called for the resignation of Georgia’s top elections official and claimed without evidence that there were unspecified “failures” in the election. He later supported a lawsuit by Trump allies seeking to overturn the election results.[5]

Perdue was linked to the 2020 Congressional insider trading scandal for allegations of STOCK Act violations. The allegations arose after he sold stocks before the 2020 stock market crash using knowledge speculated to be from a closed Senate meeting After reviews by the Senate Ethics Committee and the U.S. Department of Justice, Perdue was not charged with any crimes. The Justice Department closed its inquiry in mid-2020.

Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff

N.B. Two years ago I doanted $18 to Jon Ossoff’s campaign for the House of Representatives from Georogia. The election was to fill a vacant seat that happened when Re. Azar left thye House to become a an awful Secretary of Health and Humman Services for President Trump. The number 18 has spritual signifcance because the Herew alphabet applies numbers to lwtters. The Hebrew word for life [chai] is 18. In synagogues, i ndoners add 18 to their conytibutons to their synagogue. Also works for causes. In 1952 and 1956 my mother donated $18 to the Presidential campaigns of Adkai Stervenson.Photo in the public domaine.

Wikipedia: Jon Ossoff: “Thomas Jonathan Ossoff (/ˈɒsɒf/; born February 16, 1987) is an American politician and investigative journalist. He is the Democratic Party nominee for the 2020 U.S. Senate election in Georgia, running against Republican incumbent Senator David Perdue. Neither candidate reached the 50% threshold on the November 3 general election, triggering a runoff election on January 5, 2021.

Ossoff was the Democratic nominee in the historically expensive 2017 special election for Georgia’s 6th congressional district, which had long been considered a Republican stronghold. After finishing first, but without a majority in the all-party primary election, he lost the runoff with 48.2% of the vote to Republican Karen Handel‘s 51.8%. Since 2013, Ossoff has been managing director and chief executive officer of Insight TWI, a London-based investigative television production company that works with reporters to create documentaries about corruption in foreign countries. ####

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e-architect’s Architects for Change Webinar Sereis resumes Valentine’s Day February 14 2021

Stay tuned to our calendar for details

Coming soon to Joel’s problem, further analysis of the Georgia senate race and the impact of its outcome on the country at large.

My editors beckon: “All right, stop writing, Joel.”

Isabelle Lomholt and Adrian Welch, Editors at e-architect Joel Solkhoff, PA, USA: Selfie, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, USA Please feel free to phone me at US 570-772-4909 or send an e-mail [email protected] Copyright © 2020 by Joel Solkoff. All rights reserved.

The firm produced BBC investigations about ISISwar crimes and death squads in East Africa. Ossoff was also involved in producing a documentary about the staging of a play in Sierra Leone.

’Joel’s previous article Nov 12, 2020 Architecture under the Biden Presidency Sen. Kelly Loeffler And Raphael Warnock Face Off In Georgia Senate Runoff Debate – NBC News NOW – YouTube The election is on January 5, 2020.

Architecture Columns

Architecture Columns – chronological list Special Wooden Floors for Renzo Piano’s Whitney in New York New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Queens Library Renzo Piano’s Whitney Neighborhood Detroit Dying Special Report Disability-Access Architecture

US Architecture

American Architecture American Architects Joel Solkoff’s Column Vol. IV, Number 2 Joel Solkoff’s Column Vol. IV, Number 1 Special Wooden Floors for the Whitney Detroit will be a Trendy City Belt and Suspenders Routine – Joel Solkoff’s Column Joel Solkoff’s Column Volume II No. 6 Joel Solkoff’s Column, Vol.II, Number 7 Comments / photos for the Architecture under President Biden – page welcome

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Judges used to stay out of election disputes, but this year lawsuits could well decide the presidency

A ballot employee locations vote-by-mail ballots right into a poll field arrange on the Miami-Dade Election Division headquarters on Oct. 14, 2020 in Doral, Fla. Joe Raedle/Getty Photographs Information through Getty

All through American historical past judges have typically tried to keep away from getting concerned in political questions, together with litigation about elections. They adopted Supreme Court docket Justice Felix Frankfurter’s well-known recommendation to keep away from “embroilment” in “the political thicket” of “get together contests and get together pursuits.”

This custom started to erode within the 1960s, when courts took up instances involving legislative redistricting and gerrymandering. And for the reason that Supreme Court docket’s 2000 Bush v. Gore choice, which successfully determined that yr’s presidential election, political events have more and more turned to the courts searching for electoral benefit.

Courts ought not enter ‘the political thicket,’ Supreme Court docket Justice Felix Frankfurter cautioned. Nationwide Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Establishment

Previous to 2000, a median of 96 election regulation instances had been introduced yearly in state and federal courts. By 2004, that common jumped to 254, most of them filed on the state stage.

This yr, the Stanford-MIT Wholesome Elections Venture experiences that as of Oct. 15, 365 such instances have been filed in 44 states.

Lots of these instances come up from state efforts to answer the difficulties of campaigning and voting through the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats typically have supported efforts to creating voting simpler, resembling in Michigan, the place they had been profitable in getting the courts to increase the interval throughout which late-arriving mail ballots may very well be legally counted. Republicans typically have opposed these efforts.

When the voting occurs

This yr’s election-related litigation started to emerge within the spring as states tried to deal with the pandemic’s first wave through the political major season.

These instances fell into two main classes. Some had been filed to attempt to change the date when individuals voted in presidential primaries. Others centered on how individuals voted in these primaries and the final election.

Sixteen states modified the dates of their primaries, and most did so with out resorting to litigation.

Nonetheless, some states confronted lawsuits over the timing of presidential primaries, filed by political candidates and public officers, together with in New York and Wisconsin.

Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang was concerned in election-related litigation concerning the Democratic presidential major in New York. Justin Sullivan/Getty Photographs Information through Getty Photographs

In April, Andrew Yang, then a Democratic presidential candidate, sued the New York State Board of Elections after it successfully canceled the Democratic presidential major. He argued that doing so was unlawful since he already had met the necessities for having his title to seem on the poll. One month after the swimsuit was filed, a decide agreed with Yang and ordered the state to proceed with its presidential major.

Wisconsin proved to be a very fertile floor for litigation over its April major. In a single case, the Wisconsin legislature prevailed in difficult the governor’s govt order suspending in-person voting.

In one other Wisconsin case, the U.S. Supreme Court docket sided with the Republican Nationwide Committee and the state get together when it blocked a plan to increase the interval to return absentee ballots within the major election.

How the voting occurs

In instances regarding the methods individuals might vote, Democrats in Kansas sued to drive Secretary of State Scott Schwab to implement a regulation allowing voters to forged ballots from any polling station inside their residence county. Schwab argued that the complexity of growing crucial administrative laws prevented him from doing achieve this in time for this yr’s election.

A state courtroom decide dismissed the swimsuit however stated that county officers might, in the event that they wished, implement the Kansas Vote Wherever Act on their very own with out ready for the state to behave.

In Ohio, a federal decide additionally dismissed an American Civil Liberties Union swimsuit in search of to increase the deadline for absentee voting for the state’s presidential major and transfer from in-person to common mail balloting. The plaintiffs claimed that the state’s inefficient absentee-voting system would disenfranchise individuals by no fault of their very own except the deadline was modified and that in-person voting through the pandemic would pose a well being threat.

Give attention to mail-in ballots

Lots of this yr’s election-related instances have centered particularly on mail-in ballots. This isn’t stunning given President Donald Trump’s well-publicized however baseless assaults on voting by mail.

A few of this litigation has been delivered to broaden alternatives to forged that sort of poll or to ease the necessities for doing so. Different instances have been filed by teams opposing such modifications and elevating considerations about voter fraud.

Latest rulings in a few of these instances have made voting by mail harder; others have made it simpler.

Within the first class, the U.S. Supreme Court docket dominated on Oct. 5 that South Carolina might require individuals voting by mail to have one other particular person signal their poll as a witness. Nevertheless, over the objection of Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, the courtroom declined to invalidate the greater than 20,000 ballots that had been forged previous to its ruling.

Three days later, in a victory for Wisconsin’s Republican Get together, a federal appeals courtroom upheld that state’s requirement that with the intention to be counted, mail-in ballots have to be within the palms of election officers by Eight p.m. on Election Day.

However, additionally on October 8, Justice Elena Kagan turned down a request from Montana Republicans to dam some counties from proactively mailing ballots to voters beginning the following day.

In one other victory for supporters of mail balloting, a federal decide in Pennsylvania dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump marketing campaign in search of, amongst different issues, to dam the usage of drop packing containers as receptacles for mail ballots.

Full employment for election attorneys

November three is unlikely to finish litigation to resolve election-related disputes. In reality, each the Biden and Trump campaigns have assembled armies of attorneys who can be able to convey lawsuits within the election’s aftermath.

President Trump already has indicated that he expects the Supreme Court docket to once more resolve a contested presidential election.

For somebody who research the advanced intersections of politics and regulation, the usage of litigation to resolve electoral disputes that we’re seeing this yr is a reminder of what the well-known French aristocrat and creator Alexis de Tocqueville noticed early within the 19th century: particularly, that “Scarcely any political query arises in the USA that’s not resolved, eventually, right into a judicial query.”

Each vote counts – however what does it imply when election outcomes go to courtroom? Roberto Schmidt/AFP through Getty Photographs

Nonetheless, when courts and judges take sides in instances that form the end result of a hotly contested election, they open themselves up, as Frankfurter warned, to expenses that they’re making purely partisan selections relatively than strictly following the regulation. That’s the reason public confidence within the Supreme Court docket took a success within the aftermath of its Bush v. Gore choice.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

No matter selections judges make this yr, the push to the courthouse to form the 2020 election will pose actual challenges for his or her legitimacy, which in the end relies on the general public’s perception that they aren’t merely political actors.

And if the Supreme Court docket once more decides who turns into president, it might additional weaken its already diminished standing with the American public and deepen the divide in an already dangerously polarized nation.

Austin Sarat doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or group that might profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/judges-used-to-stay-out-of-election-disputes-but-this-year-lawsuits-could-well-decide-the-presidency/ via https://growthnews.in

What was Jefferson's reaction to Hamilton's death?

Thomas Jefferson didn’t have an outward reaction to Hamilton’s death. He mentioned it in a letter to his daughter Patsy on July 17th, 1804:

“P.S. I presume mr Randolph’s newspapers will inform him of the death of Colo. Hamilton, which took place on the 12th.”

That is it. That was Jefferson’s reaction to Alexander Hamilton’s death. I spoke more about Jefferson’s more later talks about Hamilton here. 

But do not be Ron Chernow. Chernow spoke about Hamilton’s death and how Jefferson didn’t even care. But in fact, just about a month before Hamilton’s death, another of Jefferson’s children died–Maria “Polly” Jefferson Eppes–this made his fifth child to die and he was still inconsolable with grief. In Art and Power, Jon Meacham states from a primary source that one walked into his room at the President’s Home only to find him crying. Jefferson wasn’t ignorant over Hamilton’s death, he was just already grieving the death of his daughter. 

A day later on July 18th, Jefferson wrote to Philip Mazzei:

“…remarkeable deaths lately are Samuel Adams, Edmund Pendleton, Alexander Hamilton, Stevens Thomson Mason, Mann Page, Bellini, & Parson Andrews. to these I have the inexpressible grief of adding the name of my youngest daughter who had married a son of mr Eppes, and has left two children. my eldest daughter alone remains to me, and has 6. children. this loss has increased my anxiety to retire, while it has dreadfully lessened the comfort of doing it.”

August 28th he mentions to Robert Smith:

“Willing is Presidt. of the bank of the US. you may also observe he was Chairman at a meeting when they agreed to hoist the black cockade on the left arm in honour of Hamilton.”

October 11th, 1805 to Albert Gallatin:

“I imagine Colo. Hamilton had assays made wherein he founded his rates of foreign coins. indeed I think I recollect his having stated in some of his reports the particulars of his assays.”

To William Short, 12 October 1806:

“…you had, in your letters to Hamilton, indulged yourself in the same expressions of disgust towards the revolution of France.”

To Walter Jones, 5 March 1810 and my personal favorite:

“…Washington’s practice for the first two or three years of his administration, till the affairs of France & England threatened to embroil us, and rendered consideration & discussion desirable. in these discussions, Hamilton & myself were daily pitted in the cabinet like two cocks. we were then but 4. in number, and, according to the majority, which of course was of three to one, the President decided. the pain was for Hamilton & myself, but the public experienced no inconvenience. I practised this last method, because the harmony was so cordial among us all, that we never failed, by a contribution of mutual views, of the subject, to form an opinion acceptable to the whole.”

To Benjamin Rush, 16 January 1811

“[telling a story]I invited them to dine with me, and after dinner, sitting at our wine, having settled our question, other conversation came on, in which a collision of opinion arose between mr Adams & ColoHamilton, on the merits of the British constitution, mr Adams giving it as his opinion that, if some of it’s defects & abuses were corrected, it would be the most perfect constitution of government ever devised by man. Hamilton, on the contrary asserted that, with it’s existing vices, it was the most perfect model of government that could be formed; & that the correction of it’s vices would render it an impracticable government. and this you may be assured was the real line of difference between the political principles of these two gentlemen. another incident took place on the same occasion which will further delineate Hamilton’s political principles. the room being hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those of Bacon, Newton & Locke. Hamilton asked me who they were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced, naming them. he paused for some time: ‘the greatest man, said he, that ever lived was Julius Caesar.’ Mr Adams was honest as a politician as well as a man; Hamilton honest as a man, but, as a politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to govern men.”

Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Patrick Henry, [before 12 April 1812]

“…from being the most violent of all anti-federalists however, he was brought over to the new constitution by his Yazoo speculation before mentioned. the Georgia legislature having declared that transaction fraudulent & void, the depreciated paper which he had bought up to pay for the Yazoo purchase was likely to remain on his hands worth nothing. but Hamilton’s funding system came most opportunely to his relief, & suddenly raised his paper from 2/6 to 27/6 the pound. Hamilton became now his idol, and abandoning the republican advocates of the constitution, the federal government, on federalprinciples, became his political creed.”

To John Melish, 13 January 1813

“…others with all it’s corruptions & abuses. this last was Alexander Hamilton’s opinion, which others as well as myself have often heard him declare, and that a correction of what are called it’s vices would render the English an impracticable government…in this they adhere to the known principle of General Hamilton, never under any views to break the union. Anglomany, Monarchy, & Separation then are the principles of the Essex federalists, Anglomany & Monarchy, those of the Hamiltonians, and Anglomany alone that of the portion among the people who call themselves federalists…he did this the more repeatedly, because he knew Genl Hamilton’s political bias, and my apprehensions from it.”

To Josiah Meigs, 18 September 1813

“…mr Hamilton, a son of Alexander Hamilton, of course a federalist and Angloman, and who was with the British army in Spain some time, declares it is their constant practice, and that at the taking Badajoz, he was himself eye-witness to it in the streets, & that the officers did not attempt to restrain it.”

To Walter Jones, 2 January 1814

“…and these declarations he repeated to me the oftener, and the more pointedly, because he knew my suspicions of Colo Hamilton’s views, and probably had heard from him the same declarations5 which I had, to wit, ‘that the British constitution with it’s unequal representation, corruption and other existing abuses, was the most perfect government which had ever been established on earth, and that a reformation of these abuses would make it an impracticable government.’”

To Elijah Griffiths, 15 May 1820

“Genl Washington’s negative to the law, but after a long. struggle in his mind, Hamilton prevailed in the last hour and let in this torrent of swindling institutions which have spread ruin and wretchedness over the face of our country.”

To John Adams, 1 November 1822

“I think Genl. Washington approved of building vessels of war to that extent. Genl. Knox I know did. but what was Colo. Hamilton’s opinion I do not in the least remember.”

To William H. Crawford, 20 June 1816

“…this most heterogeneous principle was transplanted into ours from the British system, by a man whose mind was really powerful [he was talking about Hamilton], but chained by native partialities to every thing English…”

To William Johnson, 4 March 1823

“…the life of Hamilton is in the hands of a man, who, to the bitterness of the priest adds the rancour of the fiercest federalism.”

To William Johnson, 12 June 1823

“…when, at the end of his second term, his Valedictory came out, mr Madison recognised in it several passages of his draught, several others we were both satisfied were from the pen of Hamilton, and others, from that of the President himself. these he probably put into the hands of Hamilton to form into a whole, and hence it may all appear in Hamilton’s handwriting; as if it were all of his composition.”

To James Madison, 13 June 1823

“…mentions a dispute between Genl. Washington’s friends and mrs. Hamilton as to the authorship of the Valedictory…”

To James Madison, 18 October 1823

“The jarrings between the friends of Hamilton and Pickering will be of advantage to the cause of truth. It will denudate the monarchism of the former and justify our opposition to him, and the malignity of the latter which nullifies his testimony in all cases which his passion can discolor.”

To Martin Van Buren, 29 June 1824

“we met at my office, Hamilton and myself agreed at once that there was too much ceremony for the character of our government, and particularly that the parade of the installation at N. York ought not to be copied on the present occasion; that the President should desire the Chief Justice to attend him at his chambers that he should administer the oath of office to him in the presence of the higher officers of the government and that the certificate of the fact should be delivered to the Secretary of State to be recorded, Randolph and Knox differed from us, the latter vehemently, they thought it not advisable to change any of the established forms, and we authorised Randolph to report our opinions to the President…he made these declarations the oftener because he knew my suspicions that Hamilton had other views, and he wished to quiet my jealousies on this subject. for Hamilton frankly avowed that he considered the British constitution, with all the corruptions of it’s administration, as the most perfect model of government which had ever been devised by the wit of man; professing however, at the same time, that the spirit of this country was so fundamentally republican that it would be visionary to think of introducing monarchy here, and that therefore it was the duty of it’s administrators to conduct it on the principles their constituents had elected.”

To William Short, 8 January 1825:

“…he takes great pains to prove, for instance, that Hamilton was no monarchist, by exaggerating his own intimacy with him and the impossibility, if he were so, that he should not, at some time have betrayed it to him. this may pass with uninformed readers, but not with those who have had it from Hamilton’s own mouth. I am one of those, and but one of many. at my own table, as well as elsewhere, I have heard him and mr Adams both avow their preference of monarchy, and especially that of England, over all other governments. both agreed it was the most perfect model of govmt ever devised by the wit of man: mr Adams adding only ‘if it’s corruptions were done away,’ and Hamilton that ‘with these corruptions it was perfect, and without them it would be an impracticable government.’”

Thomas Jefferson also had a bust of Alexander Hamilton. 

If you are interested in more information on the rivalry of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, be sure to read up on what I wrote about their relationship here. 

Textualism refuted! Or Clarence Thomas lays an egg

A few posts back, I groused (loudly) over Justice Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion in FTB v. Hyatt, overturning a previous Supreme Court decision, Nevada v. Hall regarding the immunity of states from suit in other states’ courts. In rejecting Hall, the Court found that the Constitution not only grants states an inherent immunity to suits in their own courts (as “sovereigns”), and, per the 11th amendment, suits brought in federal court, but also a similar immunity from suits in courts of other states.1 My objection, which largely echoed that of many others, was that avowed “textualist” Justice Thomas could not find specific language to justify his conclusion, finding it somehow silently “embedded” though unspoken, a trick he roundly criticized when practiced by “liberals”.

In keeping with standard textualist practice, Thomas extensively quotes from his beloved “Founders”, as he calls them (with commendable correctness), whose entire intellectual and moral universe must be grasped in order to interpret correctly the Constitution they produced. The issue of “state sovereignty” was indeed discussed at length in the runup to the actual enactment of the Constitution and, as one might guess, the good Justice fairly wallows in antiquarian delight at the banquet of riches before him—quoting from (of course) the Federalist Papers, as well as debates from the Constitutional Convention itself, and even various state documents dating from the days of the “Articles of Confederation” (the post-revolutionary, pre-Constitutional agreement that briefly governed the relationships of the 13 newly independent states)—anything and everything erudite and obscure that he and his clerks can lay their learned hands on—except, of course, for texts that contradict his position, texts that he could have found—and you can find—by consulting Nevada v. Hall, specifically footnote 17 of Justice Stevens’ majority opinion.

What an “embarrassment” (my word), then, in the first major decision of the brand new Supreme Court, Georgia v. Chisolm,2 the Court inexplicably decided, by a 4-1 margin, that the brand new Constitution substantially overwrote the sovereign immunities of the 13 states, to the extent that a citizen of one state could use the brand new federal court system to do what could not be done before—sue a state.

For poor Justice Thomas, this is a terrible embarrassment for his carefully constructed—and clearly erroneous—argument as to the near sacred importance of the doctrine of state sovereignty in the minds of the Founders. The Court “blundered”, he “explained”. Excusez-moi, but how, precisely, does a court “blunder”? “Yeah, we thought we were going north but actually we were going south so when we turned left we were turning east instead of west, so we ended up on the docks. Stoopid!”

Is that how it went down? I don’t think so. Consider, this 4-1 decision, the first major Supreme Court decision in our history, was decided by, the Founders! All five members, after all, were appointed by George Fucking Washington, the mother of all founding fathers. The Chief Justice, who voted with the majority, was John Jay, who served as president of the Second Continental Congress in the latter days of the American Revolution and was also one of the three authors of—wait for it—the Federalist Papers! Also voting with the majority was Virginian John Blair, active in Revolutionary politics in his state, helping to write both his state’s constitution and the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which influenced both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Bill of Rights. Next up was James Wilson, who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, which he also helped write. Finally, there was William Cushing, who served as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court during and after the Revolution.3

These are the men who, Justice Thomas says, “blundered”. But how could they? The whole point of the textualists’ approach is to laboriously reconstruct the Founders’ understanding of the Constitution. If Thomas’ understanding of the meaning of the Constitution conflicts with that of the Founders themselves, who is in error? Who could it be other than Thomas? Who is Clarence Thomas to tell John Jay that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about? It is as if an artist should paint a portrait based, not on the living subject but rather on sketches and descriptions provided by others, and then, when confronted by the man himself in the flesh, should exclaim “No, you don’t look like yourself at all!”

In fact, Thomas’ reconstruction of the Founders’ thought is a mere “construct”—something he has manufactured out of his own will and desires, both unconsciously and consciously cherry-picking history to obtain the outcome he wants—this case an instance of the frequent textualist interest in glorifying state “sovereignty” at the expense of federal review.

Afterwords So many afterwords! First of all, if Thomas took the Constitution seriously, he’d realize that the Supreme Court, when interpreting the Constitution, can’t “blunder”, because the Constitution assigns that duty to the Court itself. The Constitution says what the Court says it says. Of course, Justice Thomas only believes that when he does the talking, only he sees the “true Constitution”, a looming presence in the skies that is truly there though visible to his eyes alone.4

Thomas defends the majority’s decision to reject stare decisis (that is to say, following precedent, in this case the precedent set by Nevada v. Hall) on the grounds of, stare decisis! “With the historical record and precedent against him, [says Thomas] Hyatt defends Hall on the basis of stare decisis. But stare decisis is “ ‘not an inexorable command,’ ” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 233 (2009), and we have held that it is “at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment,” Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 235 (1997).”

Of course, if one follows logic “inexorably”, neither Callahan nor Felton are “inexorable commands” either. I also don’t understand why the Hyatt folks don’t have “precedent” on their side, since Nevada was precedent. The whole paragraph has the flavor of the “Cretan Liar” paradox cited by St. Paul: “A man told me ‘All Cretans are liars’, and I know he spoke the truth, because he was a Cretan!” Justice Thomas seems on a verge of inventing his own judicial version of Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which would prove that the law contains truths that cannot be proven and that the law cannot prove itself to be consistent. He would have been better off, I think, if he had merely pointed to the fact that the Court has often overruled itself.

Perhaps even more interesting are the two cases that Thomas cites as precedent for disregarding precedent, Callahan and Felton, which are, surprise, surprise, cases decided by majorities of which he was a member. Particularly interesting is the quotation arguing that the doctrine of stare decisis is “at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment,” which appears in Justice Sarah O’Connor’s majority opinion in Felton, “explaining” why the Court was overturning precedent in order to allow the use of public funds for religious instruction. If you track down O’Connor’s language in Felton, you’ll find that she justifies that argument by citing a number of cases, all decided by, amazingly enough, the Rehnquist Court, in which she joined, and buttressing it with a quotation from a much earlier case, decided in 1936, St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States: "The doctrine of stare decisis ... has only a limited application in the field of constitutional law", taken from a concurring opinion signed by Justices Stone and Cardozo, without mentioning that they were concurring, not with the majority opinion but the result, preferring separate reasoning provided by Justice Brandeis in his concurring opinion and pointing to an earlier dissenting opinion by Brandeis providing additional arguments for deemphasizing stare decisis with regard to Constitutional issues, in Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co.

In that dissent, which of course was not controlling, Brandeis argued that “Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right. This is commonly true even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation. But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this court has often overruled its earlier decisions. The court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error, so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function.” [citations and footnotes omitted]

Of course, Brandeis believed explicitly in “progress”, and believed the Court should overrule itself on constitutional issues whenever “the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning” clearly indicate that a change should be made. In advocating this position, Brandeis takes “judicial notice” (and implicit judicial notice at that) of the “fact” that the Constitution is “practically impossible” to amend and thus the Court has a positive duty to alter its interpretation of the Constitution according to the “lessons of experience”.5 This is the exact opposite of Thomist textualism, which insists that we are bound hand and foot to a supposedly unchallengeable and flawless past—or at least his reconstruction of it—a theory which resolutely ignores the fact that the “Founders”, like anyone else, invariably used imprecise language, often spoke casually, often spoke to persuade, and, in the actual writing of the Constitution, used deliberately imprecise (“compromise”) language to paper over differences and included contradictory passages and provisions, confident that everything would work out because they would be in charge, and furthermore were the prisoners of their times, refusing to admit as rational creatures women, “savages”, and slaves, among others.

While we’re on the topic of slavery, we might end with a quotation on the subject of constitutional interpretation given by William Cushing when he was chief justice of Massachusetts, pronouncing on the legality of slavery under the new, revolutionary constitution of that state. After acknowledging that slavery had been recognized as legal by the British statute and common law of the past, Cushing remarked as follows:

But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses/features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our Constitution of Government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal – and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property – and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract,

Yes, I could do without that last “unless”, but there is no reason for us to be bound by whatever is “slid in upon us by the example of others”, including the “Founders”, without the permission and assent of our reason.

States have the power, of course, to limit their immunity if they wish. ↩︎

Full text of Georgia v. Chisolm is here. Early decisions of the Court lacked the explanatory paraphernalia of today. In addition, there is no majority decision. Instead, each justice wrote his own. The actual text begins with the one “dissenting” opinion—i.e., the one holding that states could not be sued in federal court, written by Justice James Iredell. Wikipedia’s discussion of the case is here. ↩︎

In fairness, it must be said that the original 13 states felt that the Court had “blundered”. They were so infuriated that they rallied together with their representatives in Congress to protect themselves from such indignities via the 11th Amendment, which states that “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” Whether they are protected from the “Judicial power” of another state is another question. In any event, the 11th Amendment did not “correct” the Court, but rather changed the Constitution. ↩︎

Has a single justice, for a single term of the Court, ever agreed with Thomas’ reasoning in every case? If not, why not? The “looming presence” language refers to a gibe by Oliver Wendell Holmes, not the textualists’ favorite, who was criticizing metaphysical theories of law based on German “Idealistic” philosophy based largely on Kant and Hegel. ↩︎

O'Connor "explains" that stare decisis must give way to the "development of constitutional law", said development seen to occur with particular rapidity after O'Connor joined the Court. ↩︎

Think you know this guy?  Well, let’s dig into who he is, what he has said, and what he has done for America.

Race and Ethnicity

Willingly worked with and supported racists (segregationists) in the 60s and 70s.  He named Senator James Eastland of Mississippi and Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia. “I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son,'” Biden told donors at a New York fundraiser, CNN reported.

Biden gave one of the eulogies at the funeral of South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, who had filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and supported segregation for much of his career.

Supported the democrats who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Opposed Busing to desegregate public schools.  Biden argued that the policy would undermine black identity.  He stated, “a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied; and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality.” An identity HE is trying to push and impose on them.

Supported an amendment from Senator Jesse Helms that would bar the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) from collecting any data about the race of students or teachers. In addition, HEW could not “require any school . . . to classify teachers or students by race.” Helms said explicitly, “This is an anti-busing amendment.” Biden surprised many supporters by declaring, “I have become convinced that busing is a bankrupt concept” and later calling it “an asinine policy.”

Biden then introduced his own amendment, which declared that school systems could not use federal funds “to assign teachers or students to schools . . . for reasons of race,” which passed. Ed Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican and the first black senator ever to be popularly elected, called the vote on Biden’s amendment “the greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.”

Believes non-white is synonymous with poverty/dysfunction/uneducated (see full quotes below)

Joe assumes, if you’re non-white, you’re less educated; while meeting with the Asian and Latino Coalition, he stated: “We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor you cannot do it, poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”  The problem is, HE, not WE, had this notion…

In response to a question on the legacy of slavery, Biden said: “We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do.” (see full response below)

Stated this about Obama: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,”

In 2014, in a speech denouncing predatory lenders who focused on military families, Biden denounced “these Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas.” Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman responded, “Shylock represents the medieval stereotype about Jews and remains an offensive characterization to this day. The Vice President should have been more careful.” A few days later, Biden called Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew “the wisest man in the Orient.”

In 2006, Biden commented on the growing population of Indian Americans in Delaware.  “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking,” he told a voter.

Gender

Opposed and voted against the creation of an office to probe sexual harassment claims against Senators in 1991.

Anita Hill about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment in 1994; Joe Biden and Orrin Hatch oversaw a disastrous testimony that they structured. Biden called no independent experts and forced Hill to defend herself alone against an avalanche of immensely powerful white men, and Joe Biden has since apologized and said he wished he would have done more.

Dismissive of sexual assault victims claims.  Biden asked her to describe her most embarrassing encounter with Thomas, alone, with no attorney, no victim advocate—”Can you tell us how you felt at the time? Were you uncomfortable, were you embarrassed, did it not concern you? How did you feel about it?”—and pushed an obviously reluctant Hill to say the name of a pornographic film star whom Thomas had alluded to.

In 2009, Politico reported that Biden was overheard making this comment to the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko: “I cannot believe that a French man visiting Kiev went back home and told his colleagues he discovered something and didn’t say he discovered the most beautiful women in the world. That’s my observation.”

Having offered sincere and conciliatory words about the inappropriate touching controversy, Biden went on to make light of the whole affair in a speech to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, joking that he had permission to hug the organization’s president.  Multiple women had accused Biden of making them feel uncomfortable by touching them and violating their personal space. One of those women was Lucy Flores, a former Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Nevada.  After Biden’s joke, Flores told Fox News he had been “so incredibly disrespectful,” adding: “The basis of the behavior that I talked about was something much more serious than just a hug.”

  Commanding/Military Experience

Avoided the draft for Military Service by receiving 5 draft deferments during the Vietnam War then finally claiming to have severe enough asthma that he suffered as a teenager even though he played for his high-school football team or playing halfback for the University of Delaware Blue Hens.

Criminal Justice System Reform

Biden cosponsored the 1984 Crime Control Act, which abolished federal parole, reestablished the death penalty, expanded civil asset forfeiture, and increased federal penalties for cultivation, possession, or transfer of marijuana.  He stated: ““Under our forfeiture statutes, the government can take everything you own. Everything from your car, to your house, to your bank account, not merely what they confiscate in terms of the dollars of the transaction you’ve been caught engaging in. They can take everything!”

Biden bragged that his legislation would make more crimes eligible for the death penalty than would an alternative offered by the Bush administration and Senator Strom Thurmond: “The Biden crime bill before us calls for the death penalty for 51 offenses. . . . The president’s bill calls for the death penalty on 46 offenses.” He boasted, on final passage of compromise legislation, that it was “the single largest expansion of the federal death penalty in the history of the Congress.”

Foreign Policy and Relations

After the 9/11 attacks, he proposed to his staff, “This would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran.” His staff was not receptive to the idea.

For invasion of Iraq.  Biden wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post that “a policy based on sanctions does not guarantee that Saddam Hussein’s weapons program will be curtailed. Ultimately, as long as Saddam Hussein is at the helm, no inspectors can guarantee that they have rooted out the entirety of Saddam Hussein’s weapons program. And I said the only way to remove Saddam is a massive military effort, led by the United States.”

Biden publicly stated that, at the moment of decision about the raid that would ultimately kill Osama bin Laden, he had believed the mission was not worth the risk and told Obama, “Mr. President, my suggestion is don’t go.”

At a St. Patrick’s Day reception for the then Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen in 2010 he stated: “His mom lived in Long Island for 10 years or so, god rest her soul, and, er, although she’s, wait—your mom’s still alive. It was your dad [who] passed. God bless her soul. I gotta get this straight,”

Domestic Surveillance

Voted for the Patriot Act

The Economy and Big Business

Supported and voted for the passage a banking-reform bill that made it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy protection. This was a longstanding goal of large banks and credit-card companies, many of which have headquarters in Biden’s home state of Delaware.  In addition, during the five preceding years that Biden and other senators had pushed for the changes, Biden’s son Hunter had had a $100,000-per-year consulting agreement with the bank MBNA. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, MBNA executives and employees contributed roughly $200,000 to Biden’s campaigns from 1989 to 2010.

Biden stopped off at a frozen custard shop in Milwaukee back in 2010, the manager offered him a dessert for free if the veep cut taxes, Fox News reported.  Biden replied, “Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time?”

Morals, Ethics, Sensitivity

He got caught plagiarizing in law school at Syracuse, and admitted to it.

Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after reports that he’d copied a speech delivered months earlier by British Labour Party politician Neil Kinnock.

Biden’s campaign manager Pat Caddell took responsibility for mixing up pages of a planned Biden speech for the 1987 California Democratic Convention with papers quoting an inspirational speech by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Joe Biden has been making his 2016 deliberations all about his late son since August.  Aug. 1, to be exact — the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation.  According to multiple sources, it was Biden himself who talked to her, painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau’s face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because “the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.”  But in truth, Biden had effectively placed an ad in The New York Times, asking them to call.

During a 2008 campaign rally in Missouri, Biden asked the audience to applaud State Senator Chuck Graham. “Stand up, Chuck, let ’em see you,” Biden said, gesturing for Graham to stand.  Graham, a paraplegic following a car accident, is confined to a wheelchair.  “Oh, god love ya, what am I talking about,” Biden said, realizing his mistake. “I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up though, pal. Thank you very, very much…You can tell I’m new.”

In an interview with CBS Evening News, Biden criticized the George W. Bush administration’s handling of the financial crisis.  “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed,” Biden said.  But as FactCheck pointed out, Herbert Hoover was president during the 1929 Wall Street Crash and television didn’t exist.

  Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/politics/joe-biden-james-eastland.html

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/06/on-this-day-in-1964-democrats-filibustered-the-civil-rights-act/

https://patriotpulse.net/joe-biden-made-this-racist-comment-that-will-leave-you-speechless/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/us/politics/debate-winners.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/us/politics/biden-record-player.html

“ABC correspondent Linsey Davis, at the Democratic Debate, 2019, asked Biden to reflect on a remark he made in the 1970s: “I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.”  Davis said to Biden, “You said that some 40 years ago, but as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?”  Biden’s response:  “Well, they have to deal with the — look, there’s institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Redlining, banks, making sure we are in a position where — look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take the very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the $60,000 level. Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home. We have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are — I’m married to a teacher, my deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. Make sure that every single child does, does in fact, have 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds go to school. Not day care, school. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone — make sure that kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background — will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/13/joe-biden-democratic-debate-slavery/

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/biden-voted-against-creation-of-senate-office-that-handles-sexual-harassment-complaints/

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/biden-opposed-creation-of-office-to-probe-sex-harassment-by-senators.php

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/joe-biden-integration-school-busing-120968?o=1 [deleted by Politico, attempted access 5/24/2020]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/joe-biden-twenty-things-you-probably-didnt-know/

https://www.c-span.org/video/?18528-1/violent-crime-control-act-1991&start=493

https://newrepublic.com/article/61756/rhetorical-question

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1998/09/19/i-meant-no-disrespect/6acd6366-2058-4a7c-83cd-da4d345c144d/?noredirect=on

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/joe-biden-bin-laden-raid-defense-hillary-clinton-2016-campaign-121779

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/us/politics/25biden.html?_r=1&sq=MBNA%20biden&st=cse&oref=slogin&scp=1&pagewanted=all

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/us/politics/banking-ties-could-hurt-joe-biden-in-race-with-populist-overtone.html

in 2007 when, during a meeting with the editorial board of the Washington Post, he compared schoolchildren in Iowa with those in the District of Columbia: There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with. . . . When you have children coming from dysfunctional homes, when you have children coming from homes where there’s no books, where the mother from the time they’re born doesn’t talk to them — as opposed to the mother in Iowa who’s sitting out there and talks to them, the kid starts out with a 300-word larger vocabulary at age three. Half this education gap exists before the kid steps foot in the classroom. (https://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/25/biden-stumbles-over-education-question/)

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/joe-biden-anita-hill

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/09/18/biden-admits-plagiarizing-in-law-school/53047c90-c16d-4f3a-9317-a106be8f6102/

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-joe-biden-in-2016-what-would-beau-do.html

https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/joe-biden/the-10-worst-things-joe-biden-has-done-in-his-poli/#9-opposed-school-integration-in-the-1970s

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/woman-broadens-claims-against-biden-include-sexual-assault-n1182296

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-gaffes-quotes-2020-election-1323905

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/joe-biden-embraced-segregation-in-1975-claiming-it-was-a-matter-of-black-pride

https://www.factcheck.org/2008/09/biden-fdr-and-the-invention-of-television/

https://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2009/07/vpotus-overheard-many-beautiful-women-020042

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-calls-custard-shop-manager-a-smartass-after-taxes-comment

Get To Know Joe Biden Think you know this guy?  Well, let's dig into who he is, what he has said, and what he has done for America.

The Supreme Court Debates Religious Freedom: A Conversation with Ken Masugi

Professor Ken Masugi has edited a new core document collection, the first in a planned series on the Supreme Court. Religious Liberty: Core Court Cases presents Supreme Court jurisprudence on the first guarantee of the Bill of Rights: freedom of religion, “the key element of republican citizenship,” according to Masugi.

[caption id="attachment_38221" align="alignright" width="389"] Professor Ken Masugi[/caption]

The conviction that human beings are endowed with free minds, and that their innermost beliefs can never be dictated by government, underlies all American freedoms. Nevertheless, this axiom of American liberty has coexisted since the time of the founding with the opinion, as expressed by President Washington in his Farewell Address, that “Religion and Morality are indispensable supports” to republican government. As Masugi explains in the interview below, legal questions arising from the tension between these two ideas did not enter Supreme Court jurisprudence until the latter part of the 19th century.

Before discussing the reasons for this, Masugi explained his purposes in selecting the excerpts collected in the volume.

How does this core document collection differ from other anthologies of Supreme Court cases?

What we have tried to do is not simply collect the most important opinions, as a law school “casebook” might, but to excerpt key cases reflecting important arguments that high school students—young citizens—ought to reflect on. That means developing a skill that is hard to come by for many students of government and politics: namely, seeing that strong arguments exist on both sides of controversial issues. And that there are often more than just two sides.

To keep this book at a reasonable length for its purposes, we sometimes use only excerpts of the majority opinion or, later in the book, only excerpts of the dissent—although an online link to the whole opinion is provided. I am confident that the collection presents the major judicial approaches to interpreting the religion clauses.We recommend starting the book from the most recent cases, since reading them will reveal why the earlier cases are significant.  Our study questions should help guide the teacher and student. I have my own perspective on the jurisprudence on religious liberty, as will become clear as we keep talking. Yet I hope readers of the book will be able to construct arguments for or against the views I hold.

The first Supreme Court ruling excerpted in your collection was written in 1879. The second was written in 1943. You write that the Court did not begin applying the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses “to state and local laws until the mid-twentieth century.” Why did such cases not arise sooner?

We should keep in mind that the Court comes to examine these issues after religious pluralism becomes accepted, at least more so than at the founding. Even so, from the beginning of the republic the founding principles of equality and liberty promoted a generous understanding of religious freedom, as we see in Washington’s notable letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport. Most religious groups, from the Jews of Rhode Island to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut to the Moravians of Salem, North Carolina were able to worship and even organize faith-based communities without interference.

Still, many Americans regarded at least one group, the Mormons, with suspicion and hostility, even directing violence against them. Their practice of plural marriage affronted Judeo-Christian morality and violated State and federal laws prohibiting bigamy. This led to the Court’s earliest ruling on the first amendment guarantee of free exercise. It tested whether Mormon polygamy was permitted under federal regulations on marriage in the territories. In 1879 the Court stood by the centuries-old understanding of marriage, ruling that religious freedom was bounded by basic legal traditions embodied in the common law.

The next cases that arose concerned religious practices that conflicted with the social customs of the larger community in the workplace, in commerce, or in schools—in particular, Sabbath observance on days other than Sunday. In these cases the Court tended to grant minority claims. After 1938, the Court,  citing the 14th amendment, acted to protect what it would identify as “discrete and insular minorities” who allegedly were being oppressed by democratic majorities and unable to defend their rights at the ballot box. Race was one obvious category, but the Court wanted to defend religious minorities as well. This led to a kind of trump card that religious minorities could play against certain employment, Sunday closing, and school attendance laws.

This conceit led the Court to inflict its judgments against common practices such as the pledge of allegiance (1943) and later voluntary prayer and even moments of silence, and not only in the classroom but in commencement exercises, after-school-hours use of classrooms, and even pep rallies before high school football games. These practices were said to be establishments of religion. Thus dissenters on religion and in other aspects of life, (including those often held in private), came to have a veto over community practices. We also see this concerning views of sex, for example. So, in the name of protecting religious freedom, the Court created political controversy over widespread traditions. Of course such prayers continue in many public high schools, as the dissenting justices predicted they would. The Court extended itself beyond its proper place in the polity.

Some opinions of the Supreme Court have maintained that the establishment clause and the free exercise clause are “frequently in tension,” yet with “play in the joints.” Is the first amendment actually incoherent? Does it set the prohibition on establishment of an official church against free exercise of religion?

Here it’s important to recall the language of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  First of all, and this is a point Justice Thomas makes in many of his 14th amendment opinions, the Bill of Rights was originally intended to restrict actions of the federal government only. It was not intended to limit state support of religion, even tax support of particular sects. Such state laws would disappear by the 1830s due to the widespread belief in “equal protection” for all religions. As Federalist #51 argued, political freedom in the new republic would parallel religious freedom. And each would mutually reinforce one another.

[caption id="attachment_38218" align="alignleft" width="290"] Justice Hugo La Fayette Black, 1937. Library of Congress,LC-USZ62-52112.[/caption]

Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the early 2000s, the Court, led by Justices Black, Brennan, Stevens, and Souter, declared that the establishment clause was designed not just to guarantee equal protection of all religions but to prohibit preference for religion in general. Policies or institutions deemed religious could not be supported by taxpayer funds, for that would mean an establishment of religion. So, religious schools could not receive federal aid to supplement salaries—but might receive it to construct buildings or buy textbooks. The Court began making specious distinctions between what could and could not be done with federal or state dollars in our bureaucratic age.

In this bloated view of the establishment clause, free exercise of religion became constricted to freedom to worship—that is, to religion only as practiced within a place of worship. This understanding of religion is far narrower than that of the founders, who acknowledged a public square full of Christians (not to mention Jews) openly professing a range of sectarian beliefs and organizing their lives in accordance with those beliefs.

[caption id="attachment_37095" align="alignright" width="285"] Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.[/caption]

Those who have objected to the currently ascendant constitutional argument, most notably Justice Scalia, base their viewpoint on tradition and practice. Free exercise cannot extend to establishing an official church via the ballot box, but no religion is being imposed on anyone by Christmas decorations in a city hall. Justice Thomas would make non-coercion the standard for both establishment and free exercise. There is no right not to be offended by others’, even the majority’s, religious beliefs. Only if state coercion comes into play is there a constitutional case against a state practice concerning religion.

Justice Kagan has spoken eloquently against this majoritarian view and argued for the importance of opposing official endorsements of religion in civic practices and memorials such as public architecture. Her arguments leave certain questions unanswered. Does a cross commemorating fallen veterans violate the first amendment? Does the constitutionality of such a memorial rest on when it was built, whether just after World War I or just last year? Must justices become psychoanalysts of the legislative process?

These recent rulings bring to mind Washington’s comments in his Farewell Address linking religion and morality and calling them “indispensable supports” of self-government. Judging by their arguments and rhetoric, many influential Americans have shared Washington’s view. How might the precedents on religious liberty differ if justices took Washington’s views into account?

[caption id="attachment_38223" align="alignright" width="359"] Rabbi Gershom Mendes Seixas was one of a select group of clergymen asked to participate in the inaugural ceremonies for the first president, George Washington (National Portrait Gallery).[/caption]

The Justices are generally not great historians, and often they seem to read history backward, in order to justify their views today. Contrast Justices Souter and Rehnquist, for example, on their readings of historical practice. You are correct to single out George Washington, as does constitutional scholar Philip Munoz. I believe Washington’s views were held by the Court until the 1920s, when the Progressive view of American history began denigrating the founders as more concerned with their personal economic interests than with the public good.

Justice Stevens ignored history when he argued that the founders could not imagine Quakers, Jews, or Catholics enjoying the same religious freedom enjoyed by Protestants. We did not need to wait for Vatican II to see religious liberty extended to Catholics. (Chief Justice Taney was Catholic, and there were politically prominent Catholics at the time of the founding, such as the Carroll family.)

More recently, Justice Souter would deny any authority to the founders, for their world is long past. Such an argument ignores recent Presidents’ references to God in their official messages to Congress and the American people. Are these unconstitutional too? Some justices dismiss such rhetoric as “secular Deism” or merely “ceremonial.”

Souter has argued that the real Constitution is the one that has been articulated by the Court through its rulings in recent years—in effect saying that the Constitution has no permanent meaning. This allows him to assert that the Constitution gives no preference for religion over non-religion.

Over the years, justices have attempted to elaborate guidelines for determining violations of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Do you find any particular guideline or approach more workable than others?

The best guideline is for all our government and civic institutions to respect the capacity of American citizens for freedom—our ability, whether in religion, the economy or in other human endeavors, to exercise our rights sensibly. Having a right to religious liberty is not merely having a power; it does not mean one is free to behave like a jerk. The individualistic world that some 20th and 21st century justices (along with the greater culture) have promoted has undermined the sense of shared civic life we need for patriotism and common citizenship. A single eccentric sets the guidelines for all. A merely private notion of religion destroys commonality.

Just as we who live in the bureaucratic age should be more skeptical of governance by executive regulation, so should we be more skeptical of judicial rulings. Reading the justices’ own words, students will see how some justices have presented outrageous understandings of America that became prevailing legal doctrine. This should help them become more thoughtful and more vigilant citizens.

Finally, reflecting more calmly and deeply, cannot we Americans acknowledge that being human entails some kind of spiritual experience? Can we not then find in the holidays of Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day—and yes, in the spirit of Christmas and Hanukkah—the rational basis for community, liberality, charity, and conscience that define the best in common citizenship?

      The post The Supreme Court Debates Religious Freedom: A Conversation with Ken Masugi appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Sugar Hill, Manhattan: The Sweet Life of Old New York

Langston Hughes, the acclaimed writer and prominent Harlem Renaissance figure, described Sugar Hill in a 1944 New Republic article as “that attractive rise of bluff,” where people are likely to live in homes “where the plumbing really works and the ceilings are high and airy. For just a few thousands a year one can live very well on Sugar Hill in a house with a white-tiled hall.”

These days, it takes more than a few thousand dollars to live well in the section of Harlem called Sugar Hill, but it generally costs less than in many other Manhattan neighborhoods. And the area remains attractive.

“It’s a very special neighborhood — there’s a special energy here,” said John Carden, 52, a musical-theater composer and a voice teacher at the N.Y.U. Tisch School of the Arts, who has lived for four years on Edgecombe Avenue, a street Hughes mentioned in the New Republic. Mr. Carden lives at number 409, one of the most distinguished buildings in a community filled with beautiful, old structures, most of them individual landmarks or part of historic districts or both (as is the case with his building). W.E.B. Dubois, Thurgood Marshall and many other luminaries lived there; a portrait of Justice Marshall hangs in the front hallway.

“We all have a real passion for the building,” said Mr. Carden, who has been on the co-op board for two years and has been involved in luring movie productions, like the upcoming “In the Heights,” to film there as a way to bring in money for upkeep.

Mr. Carden and his husband, Thomas J. Coon, 53, a painter of equine and canine portraits, paid $349,000 for their two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom apartment with a separate dining room and a view that stretches to Yankee Stadium. “I have a room to compose in, and he has a room to paint in,” Mr. Carden said. The apartment needed a lot of work, he added, and they had to meet F.D.I.C. (Housing Development Fund Corporation) income restrictions, which is fairly common in the area’s older co-ops.

The street, which runs along Jackie Robinson Park, is generally quiet and friendly. In the summer, there’s an annual block party from West 145th to West 155th Streets, and Mr. Carden’s building has several parties each year in the lobby or in an apartment. Dinner parties are frequent throughout the neighborhood.

Sugar Hill — said to be named for the “sweet life” its residents enjoy — is “one of the last best-kept secrets of New York,” said Deresia Williams, a broker with Bond New York. “Whenever I’m there, people are saying good morning, smiling and nodding,” she said, adding that residents tell her, “Don’t bring anyone from downtown who doesn’t say good morning.”

Apartment seekers are often surprised by “how accessible it is, just two stops from Columbus Circle on the express train,” she continued. The area is “very residential, and the majority of properties are low-rise apartment buildings and beautiful townhomes. It feels like old New York.”

Bryan Reeder, 34, a pianist, composer and teacher of jazz, classical and contemporary music, and his wife, Olga Reeder, 35, an architect, moved from a rental apartment in Inwood, at the top of Manhattan, to a two-bedroom apartment at 409 Edgecombe Avenue. They paid about $500,000 and closed seven months ago, Mr. Reeder said, “on the day our son was born.”

The neighborhood’s history as an incubator for jazz compositions (including Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train”) appealed to him, he said, and the architectural details appealed to his wife: “It’s exactly what we were looking for.”

Mr. Reeder takes his son on walks three times a day in a stroller or a backpack, along the avenue or in the park across the street, using one of the steep staircases (remember that “rise of bluff”) that the city has been refurbishing. “We’re super happy that we’re right on the park,” he said.

Edgecombe Avenue is nice, too, with little traffic, new pavement, benches along the park and sidewalks that are wide on both sides of the street, he said: “They’re enormous. It’s such a luxury.”

What You’ll Find

The rectangle defined by West 145th and West 155th Streets and Edgecombe and Amsterdam Avenues encloses the main historic areas, although people also use Sugar Hill to describe a larger area. Most of the streets are residential, lined with trees, townhouses and the occasional mansion, many of which are being rehabilitated by individuals and small developers as the neighborhood becomes more popular with those priced out of downtown and other parts of Harlem.

As Geoff Bartakovics, a developer, said, “125th Street is already too fancy.”

Mr. Bartakovics, 42, and his business partner, Javier Martinez, 36, the chief executive of their real estate development start-up, Artifact, are responsible for some of the changes in the area. Among their projects are the conversions of two landmark brownstones and a former stable into rental apartments. They own a co-working space at 1867 Amsterdam Avenue called the Harlem Collective, which Mr. Bartakovics said serves many nonprofit groups and creative individuals; soon it will move across the street into a larger building with a public cafe, he said, while on the present site there will be a new apartment building with a grocery store and medical offices.

The area is dotted with small gardens and parks, including the Carmansville Playground and Convent Garden, and a few bodegas and takeout spots, mostly on the avenues. Other small businesses include a Foodtown supermarket on St. Nicholas Avenue and, also on St. Nicholas, Tsion Cafe, which serves Ethiopian and Mediterranean food. The colorful African & Caribbean Market on West 145th Street, a more commercial thoroughfare, sells groceries, hats, scarves and other items.

Notable buildings include the turreted James A. and Ruth M. Bailey House, a large limestone structure at 10 St. Nicholas Place built in the 1880s in the Romanesque Revival style for James Anthony Bailey of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Directly behind it is the Nicholas C. and Agnes Benziger House, at 345 Edgecombe Avenue. Once a private home, a hospital, a nursery school and a hotel, it is now a nonprofit that provides permanent housing for formerly homeless people. In 2014, Sugar Hill Development, a brazenly modern 13-story building designed by the architect David Adjaye, with 124 rental units for low-income and formerly homeless tenants, as well as a children’s museum, was added to the northern edge of the neighborhood.

What You’ll Pay

In early January, there were 22 homes listed for sale in the area, said Constantine Valhouli, the director of research for NeighborhoodX, a real estate data and analytics company.

The most expensive was a two-family house for $5.1 million (if it had been farther south, Mr. Valhouli said, it could have been listed for more than $20 million); the least expensive were two one-bedroom, one-bathroom co-op units with income restrictions, for $225,000 each. The least expensive nonrestricted apartment for sale was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo with private rooftop space listed for $419,000.

More upscale examples were a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment at a newly converted condo, the Leo, listed for $790,000, and a former multifamily Queen Anne house in need of renovation that was asking $1.4 million.

But overall, Mr. Valhouli said, Sugar Hill is “a surprising pocket of affordability,” partly because of its restricted-income apartments.

Zachary Sutton, an agent with Warburg Realty who lives a block from Sugar Hill, said that rental prices are still very reasonable, although they have increased: “In general, landlords are trying to make improvements to entice people, so you get more bang for your buck.”

A gut-renovated studio or one-bedroom could rent for around $2,000 a month, and occasionally for less, he said, and “a great two-bedroom” — usually with one bathroom, if it’s in a prewar building — can be had for $2,000 to $2,500.

The Vibe

The arts are important here. Two major dance companies are based in the neighborhood, in the same building, at 466 West 152nd Street. The space is owned by Dance Theater of Harlem, which is about to open a small storefront studio about a block away. It will probably open in February, said Anna Glass, the company’s executive director, and will provide fitness classes like Pilates and yoga.

“It is our opportunity to contribute to the community that has given to us over the years,” she said.

When Arthur Mitchell founded Dance Theater of Harlem with Karel Shook in 1969, Ms. Glass said, “he wanted children in the neighborhood to learn about perseverance, to stick to it, to keep practicing,” skills that would help them get into college and succeed in life. “He had a long vision.”

There are a little more than 300 students now, she said: “We want them to go off into the world and be great. Some do want to be dancers.”

Occasionally the company has open rehearsals and Sunday matinees that may involve professional and student dancers. The José Limón Dance Foundation rents office and studio space on the second and third floors, said Juan José Escalante, the executive director. There are open rehearsals free to the public, a professional training program and a program that goes to 15 public schools in the city, including two just around the corner. “The neighborhood is blooming,” Mr. Escalante said.

The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, in the Sugar Hill Development building at 898 St. Nicholas Avenue, has also been a draw for families since it opened in 2015, with exhibitions, workshops, performances and other programs.

The Schools

Public schools close to the neighborhood include P.S./I.S. 210 Twenty-First Century Academy for Community Leadership, which has 436 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Fifty percent of students there met standards in English on the 2018-19 state tests, compared with 47 percent citywide; 52 percent met standards in math, compared with 46 percent citywide.

At P.S. 153 Adam Clayton Powell, 490 students are enrolled in prekindergarten through fifth grade. On the 2018-19 state tests, 40 percent met standards in English, compared with 48 percent citywide; 42 percent met standards in math, compared with 50 percent citywide.

The Commute

The ride to or from Columbus Circle can take as little as 11 minutes, if you “take the ‘A’ train/ To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem,” as the Billy Strayhorn song popularized by Duke Ellington — both former Sugar Hill residents — puts it. It takes a little longer on a local. The A, B, C and D trains all stop in Sugar Hill at 145th Street, and the 1 stops nearby.

The History

The musical legacy of Sugar Hill is most connected to the jazz and bebop traditions that emerged and flourished there around the 1930s and 1940s, according to the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum website, which adds that the tradition lives on in groups like the Sugarhill Gang. The trio, which took its name from the neighborhood, became the first hip-hop group to reach the Billboard Top 40 list with the 1979 single, “Rapper’s Delight.”

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Report: ‘Young-Looking Woman’ Visited Epstein at MCC

An anonymous visiting attorney who went to the Metropolitan Correctional Center on business unrelated to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein says he observed the disgraced former financier accompanied by a “young-looking woman” who may—or may not—have been one of his attorneys. The attorney told Forbes magazine: “The optics were startling. Because she was young. And pretty. “If I was him, I would have hired … an old bald guy.” This woman was observed with Epstein on July 30, the day after he was taken off suicide watch. None of Epstein’s other named attorneys were present. They were alone in the room for at least two hours, during which time MCC rules would have allowed his handcuffs to be removed, because the meeting room’s door is locked. The anonymous attorney said the woman did not appear to have any files with her, although he speculated she could have been a first-year associate. But he also noted the woman was dressed “casually.” He added: “It sounded to me like a replay of the Florida thing where he got to go to the office … and sit around rather than sit in the cell.” Forbes reports MCC has 12 attorney visiting rooms, but only two are reserved for the unit in which Epstein was being held. According to the report, he was “monopolizing a scarce resource,” and was creating lengthy waiting times for attorneys who came to see their clients. The magazine also reported that Epstein sometimes paid his attorneys just to sit with him in meeting rooms for hours on end, just so he could avoid going back to his cell. However, if Epstein was resorting to his pedophilic ways, it could be even more problematic for the MCC, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Justice Department. But that’s just one of several new headlines today related to Epstein. Here are some more: ‘DEATH’ DEEMED A SUICIDE BY HANGING Despite reports that Jeffrey Epstein had broken bones in his neck that were more consistent with a death by strangulation than a death by hanging, the New York Medical Examiner’s Office has officially declared the former financier took his own life. The report states he fashioned a noose from sheets tied to a bunk bed, then kneeled toward the floor with sufficient force to break the bones in his neck. $50,000 OF CONCRETE DELIVERED TO ‘PEDO ISLAND’ Epstein reportedly paid extra for the delivery of $50,000 worth of ready-mix concrete and took monetary responsibility for a $100,000 mixing truck to ensure he could quickly use the material at his Little St. James private island. While the material and equipment was reportedly used to repair cisterns around the island, delivery records obtained by the UK’s The Sun newspaper show they arrived just days before the Miami Herald launched its expose series that led to his eventual arrest. BILL CLINTON PORTRAIT ARTIST REACTS The Australian-American art student who created the painting “Parsing Bill” of President Bill Clinton wearing a blue dress and red heels says she has no idea how it wound up in Epstein’s Manhattan living room. Petrina Ryan-Kleid says the painting was part of her final exhibit for her Master of Fine Arts degree from New York Academy of Art, which she said was purchased in 2012 by an anonymous buyer. DONALD TRUMP HIRED VICTIM’S FATHER The Daily Mail has uncovered documents that show President Donald Trump hired the father of Epstein’s sex slave victim, Virginia Roberts, to be a maintenance man at Mar-a-Lago. Sky Roberts received a letter of recommendation for another job in 2003 in which the would-be president personally penned a glowing endorsement. This was roughly three years after Virginia Roberts claims she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell. ELON MUSK’S CRISIS MANAGER? According to a New York Times report, Epstein once claimed to be both a financial adviser and crisis manager for Tesla and its embattled founder, Elon Musk. He made these claims to the Times in an interview last year after a columnist had heard the purported billionaire was “advising Tesla.” This was about the time Musk had gotten into hot water over a tweet in which he claimed to have secured funding to take his electric car company private. BILL GATES DISCUSSED ‘PHILANTHROPY’ Epstein met with Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 2013 in New York, during which they discussed ways the convicted pedophile could increase his philanthropic spending. The meeting was disclosed after recently released flight records showed Gates had flown with Epstein aboard the “Lolita Express” aircraft in March of that year, although it is possible they may have met more than once—or could have had their conversation over the phone. LITTLE ST. JAMES BECOMES TOURISM HOT SPOT Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, has become a new tourism hot spot for the U.S. Virgin Islands as people bring their boats up to the shore to take a look at “Pedophile Island.” A charter boat captain from St. Thomas said “no one used to pay attention to it” until after the FBI raid earlier this week, but now “there’s a ton more tourists.” Locals are more curious about “what really happened” to Epstein and what will now happen to his island. (Photo Credit: Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons) source https://trunews.com/stream/report-young-looking-woman-visited-epstein-at-mcc

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

This is the Trump Docket, where we track some of the most important legal cases of the Trump presidency and how their results could shape presidential power. Questions, comments or thoughts about cases to cover? Email us here.

Every 10 years, the Constitution requires the government to count all the millions of people living in the United States. The decennial census is a massive, painstaking undertaking that results in a national portrait in numbers. It tells us how many people live here, where people have moved and how our country’s racial and ethnic makeup has changed. And today the Supreme Court will weigh whether asking respondents whether they are U.S. citizens would undermine the census’s mandate to count every person.

A lot is determined by the data from each census, which is why adding or subtracting survey questions can be contentious. In addition to determining how many seats in the U.S. House each state has, census data touches almost every corner of American life, including business, education and polling, to name a few. “These numbers are the gold standard body of statistics that make the country run,” said Thomas Wolf, counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Critics of the proposal to add a citizenship question to the census are concerned that if a large number of immigrants don’t respond or respond incorrectly, the results will be inaccurate, and as a result, certain areas of the country will lose funding or political representation. Both parties could be affected, since an undercount of immigrants would likely hurt red states like Texas and blue states like California.

Questions related to a person’s citizenship did once appear on the census, but historians say the phrasing and intent of those earlier questions were different — and, in any case, they were removed from the main head count after 1950 in a bid to improve the census’s accuracy. Meanwhile, social science methods have evolved to the point that high-quality citizenship data can be — and already is — collected via other Census Bureau surveys and administrative records. So the Trump administration is facing an important question: Why add a question to the census that could harm the quality and credibility of the data — and also may not be necessary?

The case before the Supreme Court is about the legality of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census; it has been challenged by an array of states and civil rights organizations. Ross says the question was added in response to a request from the Justice Department for more detailed citizenship data to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, but three lower court judges have all concluded that the evidence shows he had already decided to add the question and used the Justice Department as a pretext. The judges concluded, too, that the administration violated standards of transparency and accountability required of executive agencies by failing to test the question and ignoring expert advice against adding it. Two also ruled that the question would violate the Constitution because it seems likely to result in an undercount.

But the Trump administration maintains that the question isn’t even all that revolutionary. In the government’s telling, the citizenship question is being “reinstated” — a claim that was echoed by Justice Neil Gorsuch in a dissent last fall on the Supreme Court order that allowed a trial in one of the citizenship question cases. “Most censuses in our history have asked about citizenship,” Gorsuch wrote. This argument certainly makes Ross’s decision look more reasonable, both from a procedural perspective and a constitutional perspective. But historians say it overstates the extent to which citizenship-related questions have been a fixture on past censuses.

Margo Anderson, who is a retired professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and studies the demographic history of the U.S., signed onto an amicus brief outlining the history of the census in support of the administration’s challengers. She told me that even though questions about immigration status have previously appeared on the census, a question directly asking every household whether every resident is a citizen has not.1 When questions about citizenship status were included in the past, Anderson said, they were sporadic and asked only of certain groups and were sometimes accompanied by additional questions about whether people were trying to become citizens. The 1890 census, for instance, specified that only “males of foreign birth” who are 21 years or older be asked whether they were naturalized and whether they had “taken out papers” to become naturalized. In 1950, the census asked whether people who were “foreign born” were “naturalized.”

Often the purpose was to determine how immigrants were being assimilated and whether they had started the naturalization process. The difference now, Anderson said, is that “the question that’s being proposed by the Trump administration has an exclusionary function — are you a citizen, yes or no.”

Wolf, who co-authored a recent paper about the history of citizenship questions on the census, said that in the mid-20th century, large numbers of demographic questions, including one related to citizenship, were removed from the full survey received by everyone and added to a longer supplement that only went to a subset of households, because new statistical methods showed researchers that a single, more cumbersome survey was causing an undercount. Anderson echoed Wolf’s findings and said that although it’s hard to say for sure because the question hasn’t been tested, there’s evidence that the addition could cause respondents to skip the citizenship question, decline to fill out the form or leave relatives off the form, or inaccurately claim citizenship. Statisticians and social science researchers have expressed concerns that immigrants and their families, in particular, may be less likely to respond to the census or may respond inaccurately out of fear that the data could be used for immigration enforcement.2

One of the main criticisms of the Trump administration by the states and organizations challenging the question is that it hasn’t made the case for why citizenship data needs to be gathered on the census and doesn’t seem sufficiently concerned about how the addition of the question will affect the accuracy of the count. Kenneth Prewitt, a professor at Columbia University and a former Census Bureau director, told me that high-quality citizenship data is available from other census surveys and administrative records. Indeed, there already is a citizenship question on a separate, longer Census Bureau survey that is sent to a small share of households on a monthly basis. “Adding this question to the decennial census is not necessary,” Prewitt said.

And Justin Levitt, who is a law professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles and worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division in the Obama administration, said there are few situations where the census’s highly granular data is necessary to determine whether a minority group is protected under the Voting Rights Act. Instead, Levitt said, the reverse could be true: Inflated or otherwise inaccurate citizenship numbers in a particular area could result in a minority group not getting protections.

Regardless of how the case turns out, some damage to the census’s credibility as a nonpartisan, scientific tally may already have been done. “It’s like an election — we have to agree that the results are fair,” Anderson said. And by drawing the census into the broader debate about immigration, the Trump administration may have already helped stoke mistrust in the final result — even if the citizenship question never ends up on a census form.

Other cases

President Trump

Trump and his businesses filed a lawsuit against House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, in response to a congressional subpoena for Trump’s personal financial information. The lawsuit argues that the subpoena is invalid and unenforceable because it has no “legitimate legislative purpose.”

The Trump administration

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Trump administration in a case involving California’s sanctuary law. The decision said that the law, which limits cooperation between state law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, doesn’t improperly interfere with the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws in the state. The court did rule in favor of the Trump administration on another point, however, blocking part of another California law that would have required state inspection of how detainees were apprehended and transferred to federal immigration detention facilities and asking the lower court judge to reconsider the economic burden on the federal government.

The U.S. House of Representatives filed a lawsuit that targets members of the Trump administration over Trump’s use of an emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit argues that this move violated the Constitution’s appropriations clause, which gives Congress control over how federal money is spent.

A federal judge in New York ruled that the Trump administration can’t revoke temporary protected status for Haitians, at least for now. In his opinion, the judge said that the decision to take away the special immigration classification, which was granted after a 2010 earthquake in Haiti, was motivated by improper political considerations.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily lifted a lower court’s injunction against a policy that requires migrants who are seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while their cases move forward.

2017 Louisiana Mississippi Associated Press Broadcasters and Media Editors award winners

Winners from the 2017 competition (Louisiana and Mississippi)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Winners of the 2017 Louisiana-Mississippi Associated Press Broadcasters and Media Editors contest were announced Saturday at the World War II Museum. Dozens of AP-member newspapers and TV and radio broadcasters in both states submitted more than 1,400 entries in the contest that honors the best in journalism in 2017. The AP is a not-for-profit news cooperative with 1,400 newspapers and 5,000 broadcasters in the United States. A list of winners can be found at: http://discover.ap.org/contests/louisiana-mississippi. ___ Newspapers Division III (more than 250,000 total weekly circulation): Breaking News:  1, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “New Orleans’ Aug. 5 Flood”; 2, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “In a Controversial Police Shooting, a Prosecutor Declines Charges.” General News:  1, Kevin Litten and Richard Rainey, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “The Election of New Orleans’ First Female Mayor”; 2, Julia O'Donoghue, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “How Long Should Louisiana Keep Old, Ill Criminals in Prison?” Features:  1, Jed Lipinski, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Justice for Danny”; 2, Robert Rhoden, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “She Saved my Life’: DWI Driver and Crash Victim Find Peace and a New Purpose in Life.” Business:  1, Katherine Sayre and Chelsea Brasted, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Is the New Orleans Economy at a Tipping Point?”; 2, Richard Thompson, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “The Collapse of a Storied Bank.” Continuing Coverage:  1, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Louisiana’s Battle to Save its Coast and Protect New Orleans”; 2, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Recovering from the Great Flood of 2016.” Investigative/Public Service:  1, Margaret Baker, (Gulfport) SunHerald, “Rare Brain Cancer is Killing Coast Children”; 2, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Cracking the Code: The Real Cost of Health Care.” Breaking Sports:  1, Luke Johnson, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Poche’s Father and Father of LSU Strength Coach Resuscitate Fan”; 2, Roy Lang, Shreveport Times, “Parkway Relieves David Feaster of Coaching Duties.” Sports Enterprise/Feature:  1, Jeff Duncan, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “UNO’s Ascension Under Mark Slessinger a Story of Pride, Perseverance and Now Wins”; 2, Luke Johnson, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “A Promise Kept.” Editorials:  1, Lanny Keller and Peter Kovacs, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Attacking Louisiana’s Culture of Incarceration”; 2, Sam Hall, (Jackson) Clarion Ledger. Personal Columns:  1, Sam Hall, (Jackson) Clarion Ledger; 2, Ron Higgins, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune. Headlines:  1, James Karst, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune; 2, Christopher Martin, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. Layout & Design:  1, Jay Martin, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate; 2, Christopher Martin, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. Breaking News Photography:  1, Scott Threlkeld, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Endymion Crash”; 2, David Grunfeld, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Robert E. Lee Monument Protester Removed.” General News Photography:  1, Henrietta Wildsmith, Shreveport Times, “Women’s March 2017”; 2, Matthew Hinton, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Monument Protest.” Feature Photography:  1, Chris Granger, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “And a Slap on the Rear”; 2, Chris Granger, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Super Moon Flyby.” Multi-Photo:  1, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Domestic Violence”; 2, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Monument Protest.” Portrait/Personality Photography:  1, Chris Granger, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Plumage at the Door”; 2, Sophia Germer, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Holocaust Survivor.” Sports Action Photography:  1, Hilary Scheinuk, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Airborne”; 2, Brett Duke, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Ripped Off.” Sports Feature Photography:  1, Matthew Hinton, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “State Champs”; 2, Travis Spradling, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, “Victory Howl.” Multimedia Package:  1, Lex Talamo, Shreveport Times, “Sinister Web”; 2, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “300 for 300: Year 1.” Video:  1, Aaron Fisher, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Why is Louisiana Shrinking So Quickly?”; 2, Aaron Fisher, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “Family Sentence: The Long and Costly Journey to Visit Parents in Prison.” ___ Newspapers Division II (total weekly circulation between 75,001 and 250,000): Breaking News:  1, The (Lafayette) Advertiser, “Coverage of Hurricane Harvey”; 2, Dan Copp, The (Houma) Courier, “Man Accused of Killing Neighbor.” General News:  1, Amanda McElfresh, The (Lafayette) Advertiser, “Millionaire’s Charmed Life Implodes in Bizarre Kidnapping Plot”; 2, Haskel Burns, Hattiesburg American, “Camp Shelby: 100 Years of History.” Features:  1, Jan Swoope, The (Columbus) Dispatch, “Bidding Farewell to Super Gabe”; 2, Emily Fontenot, (Lake Charles) American Press, “Homeless in LC.” Business:  1, Dennis Seid, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Dairy’s Decline”; 2, Dan Copp, The (Houma) Courier, “Oil Price Decline’s Local Impact.” Continuing Coverage:  1, Dan Copp, The (Houma) Courier, “Minority Judgeship Case”; 2, Claire Taylor, The (Lafayette) Advertiser, “Smile Head Start Federal Funding Terminated.” Investigative/Public Service:  1, Claire Taylor, The (Lafayette) Advertiser, “Coverage of SMILE”; 2, Haskel Burns, Hattiesburg American, “H2 Oh Gross.” Breaking Sports:  1, Cory Diaz, The (Monroe) News-Star, “Storm the Land, Burn the Ships: Bayou Classic a Playoff Game for Grambling, Southern”; 2, Jason Munz, Hattiesburg American, “Saders Bound for NAIA World Series.” Sports Enterprise/Feature:  1, Jason Munz, Hattiesburg American, “The Bassfield Football Factory”; 2, Jason Munz, Hattiesburg American, “The Allen Fails Story.” Editorials:  1, Michael Gorman, The (Houma) Courier; 2, Erin Kosnac, Hattiesburg American. Personal Columns:  1, Derek Russell, (Tupelo) Daily Journal; 2, Kristin Askelson, The (Lafayette) Advertiser. Headlines:  1, Derek Russell, (Tupelo) Daily Journal; 2, John Pitts, (Tupelo) Daily Journal. Layout & Design:  1, The (Lafayette) Advertiser; 2, Devin Dronett, (Lake Charles) American Press. Breaking News Photography:  1, The (Lafayette) Advertiser, “Coverage of Hurricane Harvey”; 2, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “That’s not a Parking Spot!” General News Photography:  1, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Vietnam Replica Wall Opens”; 2, Susan Broadbridge, Hattiesburg American, “Deen and Tate Memorial.” Feature Photography:  1, Susan Broadbridge, Hattiesburg American, “Night to Shine Prom”; 2, Adam Robison, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Tunnel Vision.” Multi-Photo:  1, Chris Heller, The (Houma) Courier, “Rougarou Fest”; 2, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “The Wall Opens.” Portrait/Personality Photography:  1, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Indian Joe”; 2, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Top Scorer.” Sports Action Photography:  1, Adam Robison, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Hi-Jump”; 2, Chris Heller, The (Houma) Courier, “Taking Off.” Sports Feature Photography:  1, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Heading Out”; 2, Thomas Wells, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Fall Shadows.” Multimedia Package:  1, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Leigh Occhi Coverage”; 2, Holly Duchmann and Ashlee Hill, The (Houma) Courier, “Transgender Teenager Finds Community Support.” Video:  1, David D'Aquin and Scott Clause, The (Lafayette) Advertiser, “How Southside High School Measures Up”; 2, Chris Kieffer, (Tupelo) Daily Journal, “Joyner Students get Cooking with KOK.” ___ Newspapers Division I (total weekly circulation up to 75,000): Breaking News:  1, The Meridian Star, “Tornado Hits Lauderdale County”; 2, Donna Campbell, The (Brookhaven) Daily Leader, “A Senseless Tragedy.” General News:  1, Kathryn Eastburn, The Greenwood Commonwealth, “Man Jailed 4 Years Without Trial”; 2, Kathryn Eastburn, The Greenwood Commonwealth, “Deadly Day.” Features:  1, Whitney Downard, The Meridian Star, “Sealed with a Kiss”; 2, Cheryl Owens, The Meridian Star, “Homeless to Harvard.” Business:  1, Whitney Downard, The Meridian Star, “No Easy RX”; 2, Andy Belt, The Oxford Eagle, “John and Lauren Stokes Introduce Oxford to a Mediterranean-Style Restaurant, Tarasque.” Continuing Coverage:  1, (McComb) Enterprise-Journal, “Building Collapse”; 2, Donna Campbell and Matt Rushing, The (Brookhaven) Daily Leader, “Lincoln County Memorial Day Massacre 2017.” Investigative/Public Service:  1, Ernest Herndon, (McComb) Enterprise-Journal, “Landfill Series”; 2, The Meridian Star, “Lauderdale County Courthouse.” Breaking Sports:  1, Elton Hayes, The Meridian Star, “Neshoba Girls Beat West Point”; 2, Emmalee Molay, The Natchez Democrat, “Alcorn Kicker Breaks Record, Plays for Sister with Cerebral Palsy.” Sports Enterprise/Feature:  1, Elton Hayes, The Meridian Star, “Robert Bell - Trailblazer”; 2, Jordan Arceneaux, (McComb) Enterprise-Journal, “A Lott of Will.” Editorials:  1, Dave Bohrer, The Meridian Star; 2, Michael Gorman, (Thibodaux) Daily Comet. Personal Columns:  1, Luke Horton, The (Brookhaven) Daily Leader; 2, Ernest Bowker, The Vicksburg Post. Headlines:  1, Matt Williamson, (McComb) Enterprise-Journal; 2, Frank Brown, (Jackson) Mississippi Business Journal. Layout & Design:  1, The Vicksburg Post; 2, The Vicksburg Post. Breaking News Photography:  1, (Thibodaux) Daily Comet, “An Early Christmas Miracle”; 2, Bruce Newman, The Oxford Eagle, “Truce Wreck.” General News Photography:  1, Bruce Newman, The Oxford Eagle, “Church Fire”; 2, Courtland Wells, The Vicksburg Post, “Training for the Unthinkable.” Feature Photography:  1, (McComb) Enterprise-Journal, “Womanless Beauty Pageant also Beautyless”; 2, Bruce Newman, The Oxford Eagle, “Graduation.” Multi-Photo:  1, Courtland Wells, The Vicksburg Post, “Family Tradition”; 2, Paula Merritt, The Meridian Star, “Back on Top.” Portrait/Personality Photography:  1, Bruce Newman, The Oxford Eagle, “Pom Pom Man”; 2, Matt Williamson, (McComb) Enterprise-Journal, “LaPorsha Shoots Video.” Sports Action Photography:  1, Ernest Bowker, The Vicksburg Post, “Near Collision”; 2, Paula Merritt, The Meridian Star, “Power Play.” Sports Feature Photography:  1, Bruce Newman, The Oxford Eagle, “For the Win”; 2, Bruce Newman, The Oxford Eagle, “Egg Bowl Win.” Multimedia Package:  1, Alex McDaniel, The Oxford Eagle, “Ole Miss NCAA Investigation Timeline: 2012 to 2017”; 2, Julia Arenstam and Chris Heller, (Thibodaux) Daily Comet, “Eagles Flocking to Bayous.” ___ TV Division I (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Jackson): Franchise Reporting:  1, Rick Rowe, KTBS-TV, Shreveport, “Stories of Faith”; 2, Dave McNamara, WVUE-TV, New Orleans, “Heart of Louisiana.” Short Light Feature-Louisiana:  1, Derek Waldrip, WWL-TV, New Orleans, “Katrina Can’t Stop the Music”; 2, Rick Rowe, KTBS-TV, Shreveport, “Scopena Memoir of Home.” Short Light Feature-Mississippi:  1, Patrice Clark, WLBT-TV, Jackson, “Medgar Wiley Evers’ Home”; 2, Allie Ware and Lanis Leggett, WAPT-TV, Jackson, “Newborn Touch Therapy.” Long Light Feature-Louisiana:  1, Donna Britt and Robert Hollins, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge, “Donna’s Voice”; 2, Rick Rowe, KTBS-TV, Shreveport, “Rob Reeves Navy Seal.” Long Light Feature-Mississippi:  1, Byron Brown and Justin Burks, WJTV-TV, Jackson, “WJTV Smith Robertson Museum & Cultural Center”; 2, Brittany Noble-Jones and Justin Burks, WJTV-TV, Jackson, “Mississippi Marijuana Research Farm.” Sports Story:  1, Ashley Rodrigue and Brian Lukas, WWL-TV, New Orleans, “The Will to Walk”; 2, Tyler Greever, WJTV-TV, Jackson, “The Pastor & The Coach.” Sportscaster:  1, Fletcher Mackel, WDSU-TV, New Orleans; 2, Steve Schneider, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge. Sportscast or Sports Program:  1, Josh Jackson and Ashley Shahahmadi, WAPT-TV, Jackson, “Miracle Shot Team Coverage”; 2, KTBS Sports Team, KTBS-TV, Shreveport, “Friday Football Fever.” Multimedia Story:  1, Katie Moore and Sam Winstrom, WWL-TV, New Orleans, “Searching for Ramona Brown: The Mystery”; 2, WWL-TV, New Orleans, “Down the Drain.” News Videographer:  1, Derek Waldrip, WWL-TV, New Orleans; 2, Mike Evans, WLBT-TV, Jackson. Documentary:  1, WWL-TV, New Orleans, “Down the Drain”; 2, Lee Zurik and Jon Turnipseed, WVUE-TV, New Orleans, “Hooked Up.” Public Affairs:  1, Lee Zurik, WVUE-TV, New Orleans, “Cracking the Code”; 2, Domonique Benn, KSLA-TV, Shreveport, “Taking Back our Streets.” Breaking News:  1, WDSU-TV, New Orleans, “New Orleans Confederate Monument Removal”; 2, WDSU-TV, New Orleans, “Congressman Shot.” Investigative Reporting:  1, Lee Zurik and Jon Turnipseed, WVUE-TV, New Orleans, “State of Unrest”; 2, Stacey Cameron, KSLA-TV, Shreveport, “Crime of Violence Gap.” Breaking Weather:  1, WDSU-TV, New Orleans, “Team Coverage: New Orleans East Tornadoes”; 2, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge, “February Tornadoes.” Weather Anchor:  1, Margaret Orr, WDSU-TV, New Orleans; 2, Steve Caparotta, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge. Weathercast:  1, Bruce Katz, WVUE-TV, New Orleans; 2, Dave Nussbaum, WWL-TV, New Orleans. News Anchor:  1, Greg Meriwether, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge; 2, Shon Gables, KTBS-TV, Shreveport. TV Reporter:  1, Natay Holmes, WJTV-TV, Jackson; 2, Doug Warner, KSLA-TV, Shreveport. Daytime Newscast:  1, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge, “9News This Morning”; 2, WAPT-TV, Jackson, “Flooding.” Evening Newscast:  1, Ian Kramar, WWL-TV, New Orleans; 2, KSLA-TV, Shreveport. ___ TV Division II (All other markets): Franchise Reporting:  1, Mark Klein and Hannah Verzwyvelt, KALB-TV, Alexandria, “Golden Apple Award”; 2, Breanna Molloy and Daniel Phillips, KATC-TV, Lafayette, “What’s your Story.” Short Light Feature-Louisiana:  1, Breanna Molloy, KATC-TV, Lafayette, “Neighborhood Nanny”; 2, Candy Rodriguez, KPLC-TV, Lake Charles, “Brian at Kroger.” Short Light Feature-Mississippi:  1, Hugh Keeton, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport, “Harbor Lights Winter Festival”; 2, Taylor Curet, WDAM-TV, Laurel-Hattiesburg, “USM Athletes Tornado Relief.” Long Light Feature-Louisiana:  1, Aaron Dietrich, KNOE-TV, Monroe, “Two Families, One Heartbeat”; 2, Britney Glaser and Tim Bourgeois, KPLC-TV, Lake Charles, “Coach’s Ultimate Gratitude.” Long Light Feature-Mississippi:  1, Patrick Clay, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport, “A Rebel with a Cause”; 2, Hugh Keeton, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport, “Abigail’s Story.” Sports Story:  1, Aaron Dietrich, KNOE-TV, Monroe, “Two Families, One Heartbeat”; 2, Patrick Clay, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport, “From Styling to Cycling.” Sportscaster:  1, Aaron Dietrich, KNOE-TV, Monroe; 2, Andrew Clay, KATC-TV, Lafayette. Sportscast or Sports Program:  1, Tom Eble and Robby Donoho, WCBI-TV, Columbus-Tupelo, “Endzone”; 2, KPLC-TV, Lake Charles, “Live Quarterfinal Coverage.” Multimedia Story:  1, Max Lindsey, KALB-TV, Alexandria, “Concert Behind Bars”; 2, Quentin Smith, WCBI-TV, Columbus-Tupelo, “Shining Light on Player Safety.” News Videographer:  1, Justin Terro, KATC-TV, Lafayette; 2, Antoine Aaron, KPLC-TV, Lake Charles. Documentary:  1, Daniel Phillips and Justin Terro, KATC-TV, Lafayette, “Louisiana Shrimp Industry Struggling”; 2, Sherman Desselle, KALB-TV, Alexandria, “Remembering the Oakdale Prison Riot.” Public Affairs:  1, WTOK-TV, Meridian, “Dangerous Intersection in Clarke County”; 2, KPLC-TV, Lake Charles, “At Your Service.” Breaking News:  1, Hugh Keeton and Robert Allen, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport, “Missing Child”; 2, Ryan Moore, WDAM-TV, Laurel-Hattiesburg, “Beth Ann Murder Confession.” Investigative Reporting:  1, Nick Picht and Alan Donald, KNOE-TV, Monroe, “8 Investigates: The Enterprise Water Crisis”; 2, Chris Brown, KNOE-TV, Monroe, “8 Investigates: Farrakhan Gets Key to the City.” Breaking Weather:  1, WTVA-TV, Tupelo-Columbus, “Hurricane Harvey Tornadoes”; 2, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport. Weather Anchor:  1, Matt Laubhan, WTVA-TV, Tupelo-Columbus; 2, Daniel Phillips, KATC-TV, Lafayette. Weathercast:  1, Rob Perillo, KATC-TV, Lafayette; 2, Keith Gibson, WCBI-TV, Columbus-Tupelo. News Anchor:  1, Randall Kamm, KPLC-TV, Lake Charles; 2, Aundrea Self, WCBI-TV, Columbus-Tupelo. TV Reporter:  1, Tyler Smith, KNOE-TV, Monroe; 2, Nick Picht, KNOE-TV, Monroe. Daytime Newscast:  1, KNOE-TV, Monroe, “Good Morning Arklamiss”; 2, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport, “Good Morning Mississippi.” Evening Newscast:  1, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport; 2, WTVA-TV, Tupelo-Columbus. ___ Radio (all markets): Short Feature Story:  1, Breck Riley, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko, “Paul Harvey Broadcasts from WKOZ”; 2, Dwain Doty, WJSU-FM, Jackson, “ABC Health Fair.” Long Feature Story:  1, Cory Crowe, KEDM-FM, Monroe, “Ouachita River Could Lose 20+ Feet of Water in Worst Case Scenario”; 2, Desare Frazier, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson, “Controversial Union Election at Nissan-Canton Plant Underway.” Sports Story:  1, Dwain Doty, WJSU-FM, Jackson, “JSU Tennis”; 2, Mina Mooney, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko, “Choctaw Central Special Olympics.” Sportscast or Sports Program:  1, Brandon Comeaux and Ian Auzenne, KPEL-FM, Lafayette, “High School Game of the Week”; 2, Ian Auzenne, KPEL-FM, Lafayette, “The Au-Zone.” Use of Sound:  1, Cory Crowe, KEDM-FM, Monroe, “Zika Lurks Among Us”; 2, Mina Mooney, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko, “Neshoba County Emergency Drill.” Multimedia Story:  1, Breck Riley, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko, “Paul Harvey WKOZ Revisited”; 2, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko, “Cruisin for a Cure.” Documentary or Series of Stories:  1, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson, “Mississippi’s Opioid Crisis”; 2, Cory Crowe, KEDM-FM, Monroe, “Zika Virus Series.” Public Affairs:  1, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson, “Mississippi Edition ”; 2, Jay Curtis and Sarah Hardin, KEDM-FM, Monroe, “ULM Forum.” Breaking News:  1, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson, “Hurricane Nate Barrels Toward Mississippi Gulf Coast”; 2, Cory Crowe, KEDM-FM, Monroe, “Grambling Student Shooting.” Radio Reporter:  1, Breck Riley, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko; 2, Desare Frazier, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson. Newscast:  1, Cory Crowe, KEDM-FM, Monroe; 2, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson. ___ Special Honors: First Amendment Award of Excellence: 1, Kevin Litten and Emily Lane, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, “The Track: How Sex Trafficking has Taken Hold of Bourbon Street.” Achievement-Louisiana - TV Division I:  1, Lee Zurik and Jon Turnipseed, WVUE-TV, New Orleans, “State of Unrest”; 2, John Snell, WVUE-TV, New Orleans, “Coast in Crisis.” Achievement-Mississippi - TV Division I:  1, Kathryn Rodenmeyer and Dr. Rick deShazo, MPB-TV, Jackson, “Southern Remedy”; 2, WJTV-TV, Jackson, “Alex Deaton Coverage.” Achievement-Mississippi - TV Division II:  1, WTVA-TV, Tupelo-Columbus, “The Darkest Hour.” Achievement-Louisiana - TV Division II:  1, KATC-TV, Lafayette; 2, KNOE-TV, Monroe. Achievement - Radio:  1, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson, “State of Obesity”; 2, Mina Mooney and Lindsey Jennings, WCKK-FM/WLIN-FM, Kosciusko. Louisiana Newsperson of the Year:  1, Rebekah Allen, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate. Louisiana Newsperson of the Year:  1, Kiran Chawla, WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge. Mississippi Newsperson of the Year:  1, Whitney Downard, The Meridian Star. Mississippi Broadcasters Hall of Fame inductees:  Teresa Collier, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, Jackson; John Dolusic, WTVA-TV, Tupelo-Columbus; Bill Gamel, WCBI-TV, Columbus-Tupelo; Brad Kessie, WLOX-TV, Biloxi-Gulfport.

Mimeo Photos Produces Athlete Photo Collection to Benefit Laureus USA

World-renowned fashion photographer and Mimeo Photos' newly appointed Creative Director, Nigel Barker, shot a series of iconic portraits of 16 world-class athletes to help raise money and awareness for non-profit Laureus Sport for Good USA. The Spirit of Champions Collection, produced by Mimeo Photos and signed by Barker and the featured athletes is currently up for auction on Charity Buzz.

Laureus USA currently supports the growth of 50 programs using sport to empower youth in more than 100 cities nationwide. This year alone, the non-profit has invested over $2.3 million in youth-serving programs that use sport to tackle social challenges in underserved communities. Laureus works with more than 200 athletes worldwide to promote sport as a tool for social change.

"The Spirit of Champions Collection captures the joy, beauty, and power of sport as embodied by these amazing athletes," commented Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, CEO, Laureus USA. "This project shows the power of collaboration and will lead to opportunities that continue to benefit youth across the nation."

For the first time during New York Fashion Week, Laureus USA brought together sport and fashion to shine a light on Sport for Good. At the Laureus Sport for Good Fashion Show, some of the world's greatest athletes traded their athletic wear for high fashion to walk the runway at Mercedes-Benz Manhattan. The night raised crucial funds and awareness to support Laureus USA and their mission to improve the lives of youth and unite communities through the power of sport.

"What Laureus is doing is truly remarkable. Sport For Good breaks down barriers and brings people together," remarked John Delbridge, CEO, Mimeo. "Working with Laureus, Nigel, and the athletes has been amazing. We look forward to contributing on future fundraising projects and awareness campaigns together."

16 of the athletes that walked the runway in the Fashion Show were photographed for the collection, which celebrates the spirit of champions in sport and captures their athletic movement.

"As Nelson Mandela said, 'Sport has the power to change the world.' Those words inspired the creation of The Laureus Sport For Good Organization. It also set the bar high for the kind of imagery I wanted and truly felt needed to be captured to give the athletes justice and inspire others to get involved." Explained photographer Nigel Barker, who was behind the collection. "We set out to capture dedication, athleticism, and passion in a still photo by asking each athlete to evoke what they love to do in front of the camera."

The Mimeo photobooks are up for auction and include portraits and original signatures of Laureus Academy Members Marcus Allen, Nadia Comaneci, Tony Hawk, and Edwin Moses, as well as Laureus Ambassadors Missy Franklin and Lance Thomas. Other photographed athletes include Miles Chamley Watson, Kristi Castlin, Kimberly Chin, Cristen Chin, Carl Lewis, Ibtihaj Muhammad, David Robinson, Alex Shibutani, Maia Shibutani, and Kerri Walsh Jennings.

Mimeo Photos is available globally as a free download in the macOS App Store.

Move over, Trump. This president’s two lions set off the greatest emoluments debate.

By Erick Trickey, Washington Post, July 21, 2018

Benjamin Franklin sailed home from France in 1785 carrying an awkward goodbye gift from King Louis XVI: an oval-shaped gold box that held a miniature portrait of the king, surrounded by 408 diamonds.

The extravagant box created a dilemma for Franklin. Goodbye presents to diplomats, customary in France, were banned by the United States. Fearful of the corrupting influence of wealthy Europe, the young country had adopted a strict rule: American officials could not accept gifts or second incomes from foreign governments. Careful not to violate the rule, Franklin offered the box to Congress, which let him keep it.

Today, 233 years later, the same rule that bound Franklin threatens to ensnare President Trump. He’s facing three lawsuits alleging that foreign governments’ payments to his businesses are the modern version of Louis XVI’s gold boxes. Last month, a federal judge in Maryland heard arguments on whether the Trump Organization’s business dealings with foreign governments--including diplomats who have stayed at Trump International Hotel in Washington--violate the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution.

Until Trump’s election, few Americans were familiar with the term “emolument.” But the Founding Fathers saw the foreign emoluments clause as a key defense against other nations corrupting their new government. Part of the Constitution’s Article 1, Section 9, it reads, “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” The law, which guards against conflicts of interest and potential bribes, was invoked often in early American history.

The ban dates back to America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation. (Its inspiration was a 1651 Dutch requirement that foreign ministers reject diplomatic gifts.) The delegates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention included the ban in the new Constitution after Charles Pinckney of South Carolina “urged the necessity of preserving foreign ministers and other officers of the U.S. independent of external influence.”

At Virginia’s 1788 convention to ratify the Constitution, framer Edmund Randolph cited foreign temptations and Franklin’s dilemma as reasons for the clause. “A box was presented to our ambassador by the king of our allies,” Randolph told the delegates. “It was thought proper, in order to exclude corruption and foreign influence, to prohibit any one in office from receiving or holding any emoluments from foreign states.”

Because of the foreign emoluments clause, presidents including Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln turned to Congress for instructions when foreign governments sent them gifts. Congress denied Jackson’s 1830 request to keep a gold medal from Colombian President Simon Bolivar. Lincoln alerted Congress after King Mongkut of Siam sent him a sword, two elephant tusks, and pictures of the king and his daughter. In 1862, Congress ordered Lincoln to deposit the gifts with the Interior Department.

Martin Van Buren, the nation’s eighth president, dealt with the 1800s’ largest, liveliest emoluments-clause dilemma.

In summer 1839, at the American consulate in Tangier, trumpets announced the arrival of a procession of soldiers, sent by Abd ar-Rahman, the sultan of Morocco. The soldiers came bearing gifts: an “enormous, magnificent” lion and lioness.

The harried American consul, Thomas N. Carr, tried to refuse the lions, protesting that he--and the president--were barred by law from accepting them. The sultan’s emissary did not take no for an answer. “It will cost my head if I disobey,” the emissary said, according to Carr’s beleaguered letter to the secretary of state. “I shall leave them in the street.” Stuck, Carr put the lions up in a room in the consulate and wrote home, saying he would “anxiously await instructions.”

While the lions paced in the consulate, in spring 1840, the ship Sultanee sailed into New York City, bearing presents for Van Buren from Seyyid Said, the Sultan of Oman: two Arabian horses, a Persian rug, some cashmere shawls, pearls and a sword. Apologetically, Van Buren wrote to the sultan (also known as the Imam of Muscat) that “a fundamental law of the Republic … forbids its servants from accepting presents from foreign States or princes.” The ship’s captain insisted that the gifts should go to the U.S. government instead.

“I deem it my duty to lay the proposition before Congress,” Van Buren wrote to the Senate, “for such disposition as they may think fit to make of it.”

John Quincy Adams, the former president turned congressman, protested that Congress should refuse to consent to the gifts. “The president should receive no presents from any foreign power,” Adams argued on the House floor in June 1840. Despite Adams’ opposition, Congress authorized Van Buren to accept and sell the gifts from both sultans. The lions, shipped from Morocco to Pennsylvania, were auctioned off in Philadelphia’s Navy Yard in August 1840 for $375. The pearls, which weren’t sold, are in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Today, federal law prohibits U.S. government employees, including the president, from accepting gifts worth more than $390 from foreign officials. Justice Department opinions warn that the foreign emoluments clause prohibits most federal employees from earning second incomes from foreign governments.

Before President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he got clearance from Justice Department lawyers who concluded that it wouldn’t violate the emoluments clause. (The Norwegian parliament appoints the nonprofit Nobel Committee, but Justice lawyers found that Norway’s government has “no meaningful role” in funding the prize or choosing its recipients. Obama gave the prize’s $1.4 million award to charity.)

Can federal officials, including the president, do business with foreign governments? Three lawsuits against Trump argue that the emoluments clause prohibits that, too. A case filed by Maryland and the District of Columbia has proceeded the farthest so far. Lawyers in the case debated 18th-century dictionary definitions of “emolument” in court in Greenbelt in June. Trump’s lawyers argued for definitions that refer to profit from employment, while Maryland and D.C.’s lawyers argued that the more prevalent definition in the late 1700s included any profit or advantage. The judge has said he’ll rule this month on whether the case can proceed.

In court, Trump’s lawyers also brought up a 225-year-old land deal struck by George Washington. In 1793, while Washington was president, he bought four plots of land in the District of Columbia from the federal government, in a land sale conducted by the D.C. commissioners, his appointees. “I had no desire … to stand on a different footing from every other purchaser,” Washington wrote to them.

Trump’s lawyers argued that Washington’s land deal is relevant to understanding the constitutional definition of an emolument. There’s also a domestic emoluments clause in the Constitution, which says that the president can’t receive “any other emolument” besides his salary from the U.S. or state governments. No one in 1793 treated Washington’s land deal as an emolument, Trump’s lawyers argue. So, they say, rent from a Chinese state-owned bank at Trump Tower isn’t an emolument either, nor are foreign diplomats’ bookings at the Trump International Hotel. (Still, just in case, the Trump Organization donated $151,000 to the U.S. Treasury in March, for unidentified “profits from foreign government patronage at our hotels and similar business” in 2017.)

But Washington’s example can go both ways. The first president often used the term “private emolument” in his letters, to mean personal profit. In April 1776, as the American commander in the Revolutionary War, Washington issued a proclamation warning that colonial merchants who furnished British warships with “supplies of provision” would be treated as enemies. In doing so, Washington evoked the same fears of divided loyalties and private gain that would soon give rise to the Constitution’s emoluments ban. “Sundry base and wicked persons,” Washington called the merchants, “preferring their own, present private emolument to their country’s weal.”