Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: [Following its first occurrence in 1820, then again in 1830 and 1870,] [t]he next time citizenship was on the form, in a question about naturalization in the 1890 census, it came with the rise of a virulent campaign against immigrants. Curiously, one of the campaign’s principal leaders was the superintendent of the 1870 and 1880 censuses, Gen. Francis Amasa Walker. General Walker, who was also president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became increasingly obsessed…

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ABC News reports: Earlier this month, a chilling missive arrived at the Chicago office of the American Civil Liberties Union: a fake ACLU flier that had surfaced online, calling on immigrants to boycott the 2020 census. “If you get a census form, do not fill it out! ICE will find you and deport you!” it warned. The document went on to advise people to destroy any census form that arrives in the mail and to ignore knocks at the door…

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Michelle Goldberg writes: Your eyes would glaze over if I tried to list every Trump associate implicated in the beating or sexual coercion of women. Still, it’s worth reviewing a few lowlights, because it’s astonishing how quickly the most lurid misdeeds fade from memory, supplanted by new degradations. [Labor secretary, Alexander] Acosta [who resigned today], you’ll remember, got his job because Trump’s previous pick, Andrew Puzder, withdrew following the revelation that his ex-wife, pseudonymous and in disguise, had appeared on…

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Elizabeth Warren writes: Immigrants have always been a vital source of American strength. They grow our economy and make our communities richer and more diverse. They are our neighbors, our colleagues, and our friends — and every bit as much a part of America as those who were born in the United States. President Trump sees things differently. He’s advanced a policy of cruelty and division that demonizes immigrants. He’s axed programs that protect young Dreamers and asylum seekers fleeing…

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The Guardian reports: Boris Johnson has been heavily criticised by fellow Tory MPs over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s decision to resign as the UK ambassador to Washington, with one backbencher saying the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest should come to the Commons to apologise. An urgent question in the Commons about Darroch’s departure, which followed the leak of diplomatic cables critical of the Donald Trump White House, saw repeated condemnation of Johnson, and only one Conservative MP…

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Rick Noack writes: More than 20 nations signed a letter this week forcefully condemning China’s apparent systematic detention of minority Uighurs and other Muslims — a landmark step toward holding Beijing accountable for what human rights groups and the United States have described as a policy of mass incarceration based solely on ethnicity. The letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was also notable for another reason: that it was written at all. The United States has…

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Peter Wehner, who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and as a senior aide to George W. Bush, describes the hypocrisy of a party that has yet to demand the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and that has aligned itself with a president who is a sexual predator.   The Guardian reports: Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated…

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The New York Times reports: It was supposed to be an exclusive party at Mar-a-Lago, Donald J. Trump’s members-only club in Palm Beach, Fla. But other than the two dozen or so women flown in to provide the entertainment, the only guests were Mr. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The year was 1992 and the event was a “calendar girl” competition, something that George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise, had organized at Mr. Trump’s request. “I arranged…

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Jennifer Szalai writes: “American Carnage” isn’t just another drop in the deluge of Trump books; in fact, it isn’t really a Trump book at all. Instead it’s a fascinating look at a Republican Party that initially scoffed at the incursion of a philandering reality-TV star with zero political experience and now readily accommodates him. [Tim] Alberta, a political correspondent for the conservative magazine National Review before moving to Politico, brings more than a decade of reporting and a real understanding…

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Patrick Wintour writes: The resignation of Sir Kim Darroch followed the failure of the probable next prime minister, Boris Johnson, to say he supported him staying in post, despite being given repeated chances to do so during his TV debate on Tuesday night with Jeremy Hunt. As the current Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan put it, by six times refusing to back the ambassador, Johnson had thrown him under a bus. Without the backing of the US president or his…

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