Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced today that Harriet Tubman will replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, instead of moving Alexander Hamilton off the front of the $10 (as had previously been the plan).
Jackson will remain on the $20 (he's been moved to the back). This is unconscionable. Jackson was not only a gleeful practitioner of ethnic cleansing, but he hated the idea of a central US bank.
Then again, historian Eric Foner argues that it's appropriate to have both Tubman and Jackson on the bill, as an expression of the need to account for American history in its beauty and ugliness.
Keeping Hamilton on the $10, meanwhile, is obviously in part a reflection of the popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical about him. (Jack Lew says that wasn't a factor, but Jack Lew is lying.)
But it's also the product of a seismic shift within the Democratic party, in which the populist tradition of Jackson has fallen out of favor and the (relatively) multiculturalist capitalism of Hamilton has taken its place.
There's an argument to be made that Harriet Tubman doesn't belong to any capitalist tradition. Which raises questions about putting her on the face of money at all.
The Obama administration and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are currently facing off against Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) over a bill that would allow American victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabian government officials over their potential involvement in the attacks.
The bill is reopening a long-festering debate about the role played in the 9/11 attacks by Saudi Arabia, which has traditionally been both a strong ally of the US and a strong promoter of extremism abroad.
In 2002, a congressional investigation into 9/11 delved into the Saudi role. All but three paragraphs of what's now known simply as "the 28 pages" have been classified.
The three paragraphs, declassified last year, say there's "no evidence that the Saudi government knowingly and willingly supported" the attackers. But according to people who've seen the rest of the 28 pages, there is evidence that Saudi officials were involved in financing them.
Families of 9/11 victims have tried to sue Saudi banks (and Saudi royals) for damages stemming from the attacks. They haven't succeeded because US law strictly limits when foreign officials and nations can be sued in the US. The bill currently being debated would allow lawsuits against nations involved in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on US soil.
The Saudi government is lobbying ferociously against the bill. It's threatening to sell off much or all of the $750 billion it holds in US assets — on the logic that if the bill passes, those assets could be frozen as part of a suit.
And the Obama administration is threatening to veto the bill. It says it's concerned about retaliatory laws being passed in other nations, and opening Americans up to lawsuits.
But there's also the fact that Obama is already struggling to repair his relationship with Saudi Arabia, who isn't pleased with the US opening to Iran — and certainly isn't pleased that Obama implied it was a "free rider" on US power in March.
Underneath the tensions, though, the Obama administration has been selling large volumes of weapons to the Saudis. Which might be another reason Obama's reluctant to sign a bill opening them up to suit.
The defendants include two employees of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, as well as the Flint utilities administrator — who warned DEQ officials the city wasn't ready to treat the water safely, but then helped cover up evidence of the lead levels.
No one believes that these three people are the only ones culpable. But the charges against them give teeth to Gov. Rick Snyder's theory of the Flint crisis: that it was the fault of unaccountable bureaucrats.
That's also the implication of Snyder's stunt promise to drink Flint water for 30 days, which implies that this was just a one-off problem that's been solved.
There's a surprisingly cheap fix: Since most lead exposure comes from paint, not water, holding landlords and property owners liable for the lead safety of their buildings can be effective.
Ruth Graham tried to track down the kid whose mom posted a viral Craigslist ad seeking a "feminism tutor" for him. What she found instead was pretty disturbing.
John Elder Robison tried out transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a procedure which fires electromagnetic impulses into the brain, to try to alleviate some symptoms of his autism. It helped him feel things he could never feel before. It also destroyed his marriage.
"Of the existing billion-dollar industries, women are in control of none of them. Could legal cannabis be the first? As women, weed, and control make up three of my top five interests, I had flown to Denver for the annual Women Grow conference to find out."
"The Fed asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. The answer: 47 percent of respondents said that either they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something, or they would not be able to come up with the $400 at all. Four hundred dollars! Who knew? Well, I knew. I knew because I am in that 47 percent."
"In an historic first, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts used sign language from the Supreme Court bench on Tuesday as he welcomed a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers who took part in a ceremony authorizing them to argue cases before the court."
"'I know a million people who if I needed to sell drugs or rob houses or stuff like that, that I could have the job at any time and be making enough money to support myself,' Kareem, 20, says. He wants a job in the legal economy. But employers say they'll call back and they never do."
