Attention to the Unseen

Masha Gessen writes: Last year, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services dropped the phrase “nation of immigrants” from its mission statement. That phrase, like most foundational myths and more than some, obscures much of the country’s history: the first immigrants would more accurately be described as settler colonialists, who brought Africans here as slaves. But this was not why the Trump Administration deleted the phrase. Trump has retired the myth of America as a nation of immigrants because he…

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Yascha Mounk writes: Until the late 1970s, Italian television was an earnest affair. The only national channels were run by RAI, the state broadcaster. On average, RAI only broadcast for about 10 hours a day. Nearly two-thirds of its content consisted of serious news or educational programming. Even advertising had to meet high moral standards; ads for pet food, for example, were not allowed to show moving images of cats or dogs. Apparently the bosses at RAI thought it was…

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Peter Wehner writes: The enthusiastic, uncritical embrace of President Trump by white evangelicals is among the most mind-blowing developments of the Trump era. How can a group that for decades—and especially during the Bill Clinton presidency—insisted that character counts and that personal integrity is an essential component of presidential leadership not only turn a blind eye to the ethical and moral transgressions of Donald Trump, but also constantly defend him? Why are those who have been on the vanguard of…

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The New York Times reports: Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge on Friday that they would press ahead in their efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but indicated they did not know yet what kind of rationale they would put forward. The assertion capped a chaotic week in which administration officials first promised to abide by a Supreme Court order that effectively blocked the question from next year’s head count, then reversed themselves after President…

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Elizabeth Warren writes: Our society and our economy demand so much of women — but they place a particular burden on Black, Latina, Native American, Asian, and other women of color. More than 70% of Black mothers and more than 40% of Latina mothers are their families’ sole breadwinners — compared to less than a quarter of white mothers. Black women participate in the labor force at higher rates than white women, and Latinas’ share of the labor force has…

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Gary Younge writes: Last week Boris Johnson delivered a speech to a Royal Horticultural Society audience in Wisley, Surrey, before heading to the affluent village of Oxshott to buy some fennel and tarragon sausages and have a cup of tea in the Munch and Wiggles cafe. In a series of interviews later that day, he was unwilling to reveal the provenance of the staged photograph of him and his partner, Carrie Symonds. He was, however, able to insist that Britain…

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The New York Times reports: Venezuelan special forces have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings in the past 18 months and then manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest, the United Nations said on Thursday in a report detailing wide-ranging government abuses targeting political opponents. Special Action Forces described by witnesses as “death squads” killed 5,287 people in 2018 and another 1,569 by mid-May of this year, in what are officially termed…

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Philip Kennicott writes: The Mall is a place of public reconciliation. Although originally conceived as a wide avenue in Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for the city, the Mall and its surrounding parks were configured in the early 20th century as a grand symbol of national reunification, centered on a monument to Abraham Lincoln, the man who led the country through civil war. From the Lincoln Memorial, one looks down the long expanse of the Mall to the Capitol, at the…

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Rep. Justin Amash writes: When my dad was 16, America welcomed him as a Palestinian refugee. It wasn’t easy moving to a new country, but it was the greatest blessing of his life. Throughout my childhood, my dad would remind my brothers and me of the challenges he faced before coming here and how fortunate we were to be Americans. In this country, he told us, everyone has an opportunity to succeed regardless of background. Growing up, I thought a…

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Jay Michaelson writes: This is what it’s like working for a madman: Suppose you’re a lawyer at the Department of Justice. You’ve worked there for 16 years, serving Democrats and Republicans alike. And, in a contentious lawsuit about the census, you tell the judge that, following last week’s landmark Supreme Court decision, the government has abandoned its plans to change the census to ask about citizenship and is printing the forms without the question now. Everyone verifies this is true:…

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Politico reports: The National Rifle Association aired an avalanche of TV ads and pushed its 5 million-plus members to the polls for Donald Trump in 2016, propelling him in the Rust Belt states that delivered him the presidency. Now, the gun rights group is in total meltdown — and senior Republicans and Trump 2020 officials are alarmed. In recent weeks, the NRA has seen everything from a failed coup attempt to the departure of its longtime political architect to embarrassing…

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The Associated Press reports: A series of Facebook video ads for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign shows what appears to be a young woman strolling on a beach in Florida, a Hispanic man on a city street in Texas and a bearded hipster in a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., all making glowing, voice-over endorsements of the president. “I could not ask for a better president,” intones the voice during slow-motion footage of the smiling blonde called “Tracey from Florida.”…

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Bloomberg reports: There’s a new whisper on Wall Street — maybe Elizabeth Warren isn’t so bad. The Democratic senator, who rose to national prominence by calling for tough regulation after the financial crisis, is winning respect from a small but growing circle of senior bankers and hedge fund managers. As the presidential candidate from Massachusetts takes aim at the “rich and powerful” with a slew of tax-raising policy proposals, some financial types who fit that description say she’s proven capable…

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