slavery

Judge rules Trump can’t just 'decide what is true'

Editor's note: This headline has been updated, and the article has been updated to include an additional quote from Judge Rufe's order.

A U.S. District judge invoked anti-totalitarian author George Orwell to deliver a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s removal of items honoring the history of slavery in the United States from a Philadelphia exhibit.

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” declared U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe.

The lawsuit by the City of Philadelphia against U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum concerned the removal of slavery exhibits at The President’s House, which is part of Independence National Historical Park.

Judge Rufe wrote that, “in its argument, the government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984.”

She also quoted from the iconic novel. A portion of that quote reads:

“The largest section of the [government’s] Records Department . . . consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times [a newspaper] which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophesies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it.”

Rufe wrote that the U.S. government “asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power.”

She also blasted the government’s actions, which “impede the separation of powers instituted by the Constitution.”

“Defendants acted in excess of their authority as agencies authorized by Congress within the executive branch,” she added. "An agency ... cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership."

In her 40-page memorandum, posted by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, Judge Rufe found that removal of historical panels and other items would constitute irreparable harm, and ordered that “Defendants reinstall all panels, displays, and video exhibits that were previously in place..”

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

'What a thing': Trump official ripped for knocking Smithsonian's 'overemphasis on slavery'

The top Trump official tasked with reshaping the Smithsonian’s collections into a more conservative presentation argues that, based on her experience and expectations, the institution should place less emphasis on the painful chapters of American history and more on its achievements.

Insurance attorney Lindsey Halligan is now Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, as well as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Staff Secretary.

On Wednesday, Fox News host John Roberts told Halligan that “like just about every other country in the world, the United States has got a checkered past.”

He reminded her that “some of the worst episodes in our history were formative experiences that led us to where we are today, and those typically are reflected in museums.”

Halligan replied that from her point of view, “the fact that we had our country, was involved in slavery is awful. No one thinks otherwise.”

“But what I saw when I was going through the museums personally was an overemphasis on slavery. And I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we’ve come since slavery.”

She insisted that Americans “should be able to take our kids, our students, through the Smithsonian, and feel proud when we leave,” and that “we need to keep moving forward.”

“We can’t just keep focusing on the negative. All it does is divide us, and we really need to unite the country and focus on all the positive as we approach America’s 250th birthday.”

A section of a Trump executive order titled “Saving Our Smithsonian” directs Halligan, by name, to seek “to remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution and its properties, “and shall recommend to the President any additional actions necessary to fully effectuate such policies.”

In April, Halligan told The Washington Post that she believes “improper ideology” means “weaponizing history.”

Halligan has a law degree from the University of Miami School of Law, and does not appear to have any education in museum sciences.

When she first moved to Washington, D.C. she “didn’t like everything she saw,” at the Smithsonian, the Post reported.. “Some exhibits, in her view, did not reflect the America she knows and loves.”

“And so I talked to the president about it,” Halligan said, “and suggested an executive order, and he gave me his blessing, and here we are.”

She told Fox News that “it’s common knowledge that our education system in general has been just indoctrinated with political ideology and various ideological narratives. And the Smithsonian is really a version of education.”

“It could be the foundation of our American education,” she claimed, explaining the as a young child she went to the Smithsonian Museum on a class trip, “and the Smithsonian is really supposed to be a trust instrument.”

“And what’s happened is it’s become more of a platform upon which the curators and leadership at the Smithsonian can push ideological narratives and we really want to help the Smithsonian be the gem,” she said. “Represent our nation, properly and truthfully.”

Critics denounced Halligan’s remarks.

U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) remarked, “400 years of brutal bondage, torture, and murder should be emphasized. The generations of Black Americans who built this nation with their own hands and their own pain should be emphasized. The true history of this country SHOULD BE EMPHASIZED.”

“White American woman who went through the museum said there was an ‘overemphasis on slavery.’ What a thing. To say those words out loud,” wrote former Republican Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh.

Watch the video below or at this link.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

'Makes all of America look bad': Historian slams Trump's efforts to 'whitewash' slavery

Historian and Professor of History at Rice University, Douglas Brinkley, said Wednesday President Donald Trump is trying to "whitewash history" by going after the Smithsonian.

On Tuesday, Trump ordered a sweeping review of the Smithsonian museums, demanding their exhibits align with a more celebratory portrayal of American history. The president complained that they currently focus too much on “how bad slavery was” and lack optimism about the country's achievements.

During an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday, Brinkley said: "I'm afraid what President Trump is trying to do is whitewash history. He's really aiming to undo slavery. He doesn't want us to follow the timeline of our country. And that happened, if you go to Smithsonian and look at Black American history, you'll see things."

He continued: "What President Trump suggesting is some retro, go-back-to-a-kind-of-a-time-of-segregation thinking. And ... we're too advanced for that. And it's not helpful and particularly not doing it like that on Truth Social, instead of having an honest dialogue with the good professional curators and the director of the Smithsonian in a in an honest way."

Asked what the exhibits are like at the Smithsonian, Brinkley said it's a monument that celebrates "Black entrepreneurship and Black greatness."

"I mean, you study and look at Muhammad Ali. He was the greatest, and there he is at the Smithsonian. You take a look at the story of a newspaper like the Chicago Defender that was able to advertise what was going on not just in Chicago, but around America on race relations."

"If you want to upgrade certain aspects of Black history, Tuskegee Airmen or Buffalo soldiers, go for it ... but you don't have to be as demeaning as he is because it makes all of America look bad," he said of Trump.

Watch the video below or at this link.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

GOP Senate candidate says slave owners just wanted to 'protect the rights of the minority'

Royce White, who is the Republican candidate in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, is now attempting to rewrite the history of the Civil War by defending slave owners.

On the most recent episode of his podcast, White – who is Black — was speaking about the importance of protest in a democracy before delving into the defining issue of the Civil War. Journalist Chris Ingraham of the Minnesota Reformer posted to the social media platform Bluesky that around the 1 hour 43 minute mark of White's October 3 podcast, the GOP Senate hopeful defended slave owners after talking about the right of a "minority" in a democratic society to protest the majority voting to do something "self-destructive."

"Actually, the slave owners were the minority. Black people weren't the minority," White said. "They were the racial minority, but the slave owners were the super minority and what they were fighting for in a sense was to protect the rights of the minority to say, 'just because we're the minority doesn't mean that we have to do what everybody else says.'"

White used his point about slave owners as a jump-off point to argue about the importance of state and local government to protect citizens from the "mob rule" of the federal government. He then complained that "you can't even have these conversations with people" because the public school system is "f—ed three ways from Sunday."

Earlier in the podcast, Ingraham also noted that White "uses an Italian slur for gay men" around the 1 hour 35 minute mark of the episode, in which he complained about "finocchio omnisexual egalitarian shills and puppets in the political world and the media world." He specifically referenced Vice President Kamala Harris, Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz and MSNBC hosts Joy-Ann Reid and Rachel Maddow before using the slur.

White — a former NBA player who played just three games with the Sacramento Kings before moving to the G League – has a history of controversial remarks. Before running for Senate, White was a frequent guest on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars program and on former President Donald Trump's chief White House strategist Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. In one Infowars appearance, White suggested that American police could soon forcibly go door-to-door to vaccinate babies.

"You’re awesome, you’re dead-on and we’re going to learn a lot from you," Jones said in response.

While there are numerous high-profile Senate races this year, White's campaign to oust Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) is not considered competitive. FiveThirtyEight's aggregated polling data shows that Klobuchar is currently leading White by anywhere from eight to 14 percentage points in the most recent polls.

White could also soon find himself in the midst of a federal investigation for potential campaign finance violations. In June, the Daily Beast reported that the Minnesota Republican may have spent thousands of dollars in donor funds for personal use, including at a strip club. Citing the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the Beast reported that White allegedly "misappropriated over $157,000 from his 2022 campaign committee, Royce White for Congress, to pay for personal expenses."

The CLC further accused White of "siphoning over $100,000 through checks, wire transfers, and cash withdrawals from the campaign’s account, as well as making dozens of payments for entertainment, clothing, cosmetics, fitness clubs and other expenses of a personal nature, which would have existed irrespective of White’s campaign." Should White be investigated and found guilty, he could face fines or even imprisonment.

Click here to view Ingraham's full thread on Bluesky.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

'Ignorant and stupid': GOP senator dragged on social media for comment about Civil War and slavery

After presidential candidate and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley failed to condemn slavery when answering a question about the cause of the Civil War, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) decided to weigh in with a comment of his own.

"The Civil War started because the American people elected an anti-slavery Republican as president and Democrats revolted rather than accept minor restrictions on the expansion of slavery to the western territories," Cotton posted to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.

Cotton's tweet was met with almost universal scorn on the social media platform, with journalists and pundits pointing out the Arkansas Republican's false equivalency of antebellum-era politics with today's very different political environment.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

"MAGA propagandists like Tom Cotton don't want you to understand that Southern racists used to be Democrats but are Republicans now. This partisan sea change happened through the 1960s, '70s and '80s," former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob tweeted. "It's explained in those history books that Republicans don't want you to read."

Liberal social media personality Ron Filipowski piled on in a similar fashion, calling Cotton's tweet "another ignorant and stupid analogy."

"This Republican Party doesn’t even resemble the one from 2015 much less 1860," Filipowski tweeted. "And the white southern Dixiecrats all switched to Republicans in the 1970-80s, so the Democratic Party today also in no way resembles that of 1860."

Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali went even further, reminding his followers that it isn't Democrats but Republicans that today are defending the preservation of Confederate monuments.

"Democrats today aren't waving or defending the Confederate flag or lamenting about the 'lost cause.' That's Tom Cotton's GOP," Ali tweeted. "If Lincoln was a Republican today, the MAGA extremists would probably try to assassinate him."

And in response to Cotton's follow-up tweet in which he wrote that "Democrats would sooner tear the country apart than treat all citizens equally before the law, regardless of color," Ali fired back.

"Tom Cotton will support Trump for President who cited Hitler and said immigrants poison the blood of this country and incited a failed insurrection, but go on about equality and tearing the country apart," he wrote.

South Carolina-based pediatrician Dr. Michael O'Brien was simple in his criticism, tweeting, "Tom Cotton is a prime example of why we should never ban books."

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Ex-Republican Steve Schmidt Unleashes on 'This Vile Age of Trumpism' in Epic Rant Linking the President's Policies to Slavery

Fear continues to be the force President Donald Trump thinks will be key to maintaining his stranglehold on American political power. In the latest iteration of this tactic, he's trying to whip up concern about a caravan of immigrants making its way from Honduras in an effort to seek asylum in the United States.

Keep reading...Show less