Giuliani Lied...

....but claims it's OK, 1st Amendment allows it

Giuliani: I lied, but it’s OK. Today we learned that Rudy Giuliani “is not contesting” the fact that he lied and spread false accusations against a couple of poll workers in Fulton County, GA in service to Trump’s campaign of lies about a stolen election. But he thinks he should not be punished or held accountable because the First Amendment protects his “free speech.” I am no lawyer, but defamation that caused great peril and dislocation for these ladies is defamation, and punishable, First Amendment or no First Amendment. His rationale echoes that of many right-wingers who claim people on the right are being “cancelled” (my second least-favorite word, after “woke”)  by tech companies who take down their misinformation. Somehow I don’t think Adams and Jefferson and Franklin dreamed up the First Amendment to make the internet safe for liars.

History Matters. My “Reflections on Juneteenth” post from a few weeks back was about more than Juneteenth – it’s theme was a critique of the way we were taught US history, and how so many unflattering events were papered over.

That post also mentioned “the battle of Blair Mountain,” an event in which hired thugs and even the US Army were called in to quell a revolt by West Virginia coal miners who were objecting to horrendous working conditions and lack of pay. I did a double-take the other day when a native of the area wrote this look-back for the NY Times.

DeSantis Board of Education: “Slavery was vocational education.” A more recent – and more obscene – example of distorting history of course in the zeal of right-wingers throughout the country to erase the injustice and cruelty of slavery and Jim Crow because it might “hurt the feelings” of or “stir guilt” in white kids.

That trend perhaps reached its apex – or should I say nadir – this week with the Florida Board of Education setting curriculum standards mandating that its middle school history curriculum teach kids that some slaves benefited from slavery because they learned skills they could apply when they were freed – slavery as vocational education, in other words, according to the DeSantis Board of education. People magazine explains:

Newly approved academic standards from Florida’s Board of Education will require middle schools to teach that enslaved people "developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit" — a line that has ignited significant controversy among teachers' groups.

The timing of this claim is ironic, coming on the heels of a Supreme Court decision invalidating affirmative action, even as data emerges about the preferences awarded to “legacies,” i.e., the children of alumni, usually affluent, and white. Mike Luckovich nails it, as usual, in the Atlanta Journal/Constitution.