Newsweek 10/9-10/16/2020

1962 Newsweek wrote that federal marshals arrived at the University of Mississippi to maintain order as the school integrated in “an almost unbelievable turnback of history;” U.S. troops had occupied the same town in 1862. Just hours after James Meredith, the school’s first Black student, arrived on campus, “students fired the opening barrage of the battle of Ole Miss—spit first, then lighted cigarettes, then pebbles, then rocks.” This year, federal troops have also been deployed to quell racial unrest, though the troops have been sent to protect federal buildings from demonstrators for equality, not the reverse. 1977 “Women are the subject of a batch of new movies,” said Newsweek, highlighting a supposed “new deal for women in films, in which they’ll no longer be satellites to men but suns and stars in their…

@Carrasquillo THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE RIDES DISCONTENT with Donald Trump to lead in national polls, drawing support from two-thirds of Latino voters. That’s the story of Hillary Clinton, who looked set to win four years ago—until she didn’t. To the mounting terror of Democrats, it’s also the situation Joe Biden finds himself in as polls tighten in the sprint to November 3. The Biden campaign—looking to upend the electoral map by winning states like Arizona, Georgia or Texas—publicly waved away concern about the state of the Latino vote for months. But on September 13th, senior advisor Symone Sanders acknowledged the campaign “has work to do” with the community. That work accelerated at the end of August and into September, with efforts that are now partially fueled by its $365 million August fundraising windfall, Newsweek has…

THE REPUBLICAN HIJACKING OF the Supreme Court may actually turn out to be a good thing, but not for the reason you think. First there will have to be a war over packing the Court that will leave the institution bloodied and diminished—and that’s not altogether bad, either. The battlefield will be not constitutional law but game theory. The salvation for the Court—for both conservatives and liberals in the long run—will not be this or that justice, or even the chief justice who at least for a few more weeks will be the ideologically swing justice. Instead, look to Anatol Rapoport and Robert Axelrod. Forty years ago, Axelrod, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, organized a computer tournament involving the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Rapoport, a University of Toronto professor, signed…

If President Donald Trump succeeds in appointing a successor to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the election—or, if he loses, in a lame-duck session—how might Democrats try to overcome the resulting clear conservative majority on the high court? Much of the focus so far has centered on the possibility of expanding the bench to add liberal justices—an option dependent on Democrats winning not just the presidency in November but also control of Congress. Packing the court, though, is just one strategy that Democrats might try to counter a judicial imbalance that works against them. Here are four other methods party leaders might employ. The 15 Justices Plan Similar to packing the bench in some respects, this proposal would expand the number of justices with an even split in terms of partisan…

“My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent.—FROM HER 2012 BOOK, MY OWN WORDS“WHEN I’M SOMETIMES ASKED, ‘WHEN WILL THERE BE ENOUGH [WOMEN ON THE SUPREME COURT]?’ I SAY, ‘WHEN THERE ARE NINE.’—Speech at the 10th Circuit Bench & Bar Conference in 2012“Dissents speak to a future age.”—2002 interview with NPR’s Nina Totenberg“I WASN’T 100% SOBER.”—ON “NODDING OFF” DURING PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION A DDRESS IN 2015“THE GREATEST MENACE TO FREEDOM IS AN INERT PEOPLE. PUBLIC DISCUSSION IS A POLITICAL DUTY AND THIS SHOULD BE A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.”—From her 2012 book, My Own Words“WHAT GREATER DEFEAT COULD WE SUFFER THAN TO COME TO RESEMBLE THE FORCES WE OPPOSE IN THEIR DISRESPECT…

With the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we have lost one of our nation’s greatest legal minds. While she obviously was much beloved on the political left, we should not forget key aspects of her legacy that also resonated powerfully on the other side of the aisle, including her commitment to meritocracy, family, incremental change and the rule of law. I speak from personal experience, as a conservative who served as her law clerk during the October 1994 term—and stayed in close touch with her ever since. RBG’s friendship with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away in 2016, was perplexing to some commentators but made perfect sense to both justices. In part, their friendship sprang from the admiration each felt for the other’s considerable talents, as well as from their…