Liz Smith-Pryor

@lizsp.bsky.social

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Historian, Friend of Sweet Pitbulls, Sometime Cat Companion, and Sewist

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Fascists want you to cede your agency. Don't do it.

Hope and kindness is radical. They win when you despair and turn away from humanity because you give up the power to them. There is always something to fight for, to live for one minute more. Fight for even just one more step forward, even if you are pushed back. Persist.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

If SCOTUS doesn't make you angry enough to overlook Biden's faults I don't know what to tell you.

Breaking news: Federal prosecutors improperly charged hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants with obstruction, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, upending many cases against rioters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Supreme Court says prosecutors improperly charged hundreds of Jan. 6 rioterswww.washingtonpost.com Supreme Court’s decision on obstruction charge will impact trials of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters and, potentially, former president Donald Trump.

As a former lawyer now academic historian the Supreme Court’s understanding and abuse of history drives me absolutely up the wall. They should be ashamed of themselves but I don’t think that’s a feeling known to the majority on the Court. My hot take of the day.

"agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do." ❌ "The Framers anticipated that courts would often confront statutory ambiguities and expected that courts would resolve them by exercising independent legal judgment." ❌ This is a fictional rendering of history.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Biden is too old. But he has surrounded himself with competent people and has had a conventional first term. Trump is authoritarian but inept. He has surrounded himself with people he hopes will make him more effective at authoritarianism. Neither is ideal. But these are not similar problems.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Wondering what Sam Alito's opinions are about travelers who seek shelter for a night in, say, a manger.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

When future historians periodize US history, 2013 will mark the end of the US's first era of officially consensual multiracial democracy. After Shelby County v Holder began a period of acute struggle over democracy in the states and eventually at the federal level. The denouement remains to be seen

Eleven years ago, SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act in #ShelbyCounty, arguing that "things have changed" since the 1960s. Today, we know that things have changed since this ruling: namely, that the turnout gap exploded in formerly-covered places 1/n www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Politicians treat the Supreme Court the way they treat cops which is to say that they fund them, seem afraid of them, demand no accountability and allow them to act with complete impunity. Instead of disempowering them, it's some commissions, reports and shrugs.

I’ve made my calls already to my OH state rep and the OH speaker of the house to ask them to stop this bill which will harm higher ed in OH. If you’re in OH, do contact your rep ASAP!

Action Alert: SB 83, which would "undermine the integrity of education in Ohio’s public universities," is being considered in the Ohio House of Representatives. We encourage Ohio residents to contact your representative and urge they vote against the bill. 🗃️

Action Alert Opposing Ohio SB 83www.historians.org SB 83 is being considered by the Ohio House of Representatives after narrowly passing the Senate. The AHA encourages constituents to reach out to their elected representatives to urge them to vote aga...

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat facing a tough re-election race, said on a campaign call with Gloria Steinem this morning that his Republican opponent, Bernie Moreno, “thinks he knows better” than the majority of Ohioans who voted last year to protect abortion rights in the state.

One part of my profile is my identification as someone who sews. I learned to sew my own clothes because I hate shopping for clothing. Here’s my recent project, the Adams Pant (yes, pant not pants) by Daughter Judy patterns. These are super comfortable twill pants. I love them and my bee button!

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Liz Smith-Pryor

"Interdependency ... is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be, not in order to be used, but in order to be creative. This is a difference between the passive be and the active being." Audre Lorde, The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House

Yet another reason I’m glad I skipped my 40th college reunion this past weekend.

Harvard's approach to its Legacy of Slavery project is vacuous, self-serving, and fundamentally rotten. I was the Head Researcher on this project for 2 years. Harvard does not care about descendants, repair, or academic freedom. It cares about PR. www.thecrimson.com/article/2024...

Co-Chairs of Harvard Legacy of Slavery Memorial Committee Slam University in Resignation Letter | News | The Harvard Crimsonwww.thecrimson.com Co-Chairs of Harvard Legacy of Slavery Memorial Committee Slam University in Resignation Letter | News | The Harvard Crimson

Look who is hiding near my garage? May need to zoom in to see Bambi. Almost makes me less grumpy about Mama Doe assuming my garden is her salad buffet!

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Liz Smith-Pryor

I hope people understand that what we are seeing is the systematic destruction of the civil war amendments by the Supreme Court, which are what made America and actual democracy and upon which all minority rights in the United States rely

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Liz Smith-Pryor

It would be a mistake and oversimplification to apply a Whiggish lens to the Civil War: North=Good, South=Evil. But never be mistaken that the right side won the Civil War. On this day in 1865, 80,000 Union soldiers paraded down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. as part of the Grand Review. 🗃️

Just added another reason to my already large list of why I am not attending my 40th Harvard reunion.

Welp. We have a full blown governing crisis at Harvard now. www.thecrimson.com/article/2024...

Harvard Corporation Rejects FAS Effort to Let 13 Pro-Palestine Student Protesters Graduate | News | The Harvard Crimsonwww.thecrimson.com Harvard Corporation Rejects FAS Effort to Let 13 Pro-Palestine Student Protesters Graduate | News | The Harvard Crimson

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Even by the degraded standards of today’s court, the possibility that one or more of the justices supported an effort to end the constitutional order they’ve sworn to uphold is a outrageous new low www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Why Was Alito Flying the Flag Upside Down After January 6?www.theatlantic.com Justice Alito blamed his wife for the incident, but he did not disavow what the symbol stands for.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

🗃️ Y'all I appreciate the Lincoln quote but we have to stop telling the story this way. Lincoln was not just reacting to a heinous decision, he was telling a vital truth about how people of the era understood constitutionalism. Near universal acceptance of judicial supremacy is a 20th c phenomenon 1/

New in PN: Lincoln warned that if government policy "upon vital questions affecting the whole people… is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of SCOTUS… the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.” It's like Abe was addressing the Roberts Court.

Lincoln's warningwww.publicnotice.co It's like he was talking specifically about the Roberts Court.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

"Vance represents the new breed of Republican charlatan — willing to see the democracy riven and its institutions reduced to rubble if it means he can be TikTok-famous for a while and ride around in armored limousines. For Trump-era evangelists, the only true sin is anonymity."

the rare column where the author is quite clear about how they feel about the subject of the column (gift link).

Opinion | J.D. Vance wasn’t just some hillbilly after allwapo.st His journey from author to Trumpist senator is a fable for the GOP’s devolution into full-on farce.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Take a moment to dance on the grave of the Commission on Presidential Debates with this statement from the League of Women Voters, from when CPD took over the debates from them in 1988. "devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions" "perpetuate a fraud" "self-serving"

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Liz Smith-Pryor

Reply to

Saeed Jones

There are many reasons to vote for Biden over Trump, and I agree with all of them tbh! But the whole “Biden’s version of genocide is better than Trump’s version of genocide” is absolutely repulsive. And again, assumes that there will still be people alive in Gaza in January 2025.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

This academic year has been particularly challenging for those working at universities in the U.S. Over the past few months I've been thinking about how we ended up here, and some paths forward. I wrote down some of those thoughts for the Brookings Institution: www.brookings.edu/articles/uni...

Universities are palaces for the people. Their leaders should remember that. | Brookingswww.brookings.edu When academic institutions ignore and otherwise fail to engage with broader publics, that breeds a sense of resentment toward them.

Sadly, my senator. ☹️ Here’s hoping Sherrod Brown beats Bernie Moreno this fall. Ohio can’t take two awful senators.

jd vance believes in nothing. nothing at all. he is an empty shell of man motivated solely and exclusively by a desire to amass as much power as possible. he'll do and say anything if it means he can exercise his will over other people. a genuinely dangerous man.

J.D. Vance, in the Mix to Be Trump’s Running Mate, Joins Him in Courtwww.nytimes.com Mr. Vance’s appearance in court could signal a new frontier in the auditions to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

I cannot stress enough that you should not worry about how protests are perceived when they are happening. They will be unpopular. That's fine. There are many goals of protests that will be unknown to the general public & especially commentators. Keep pushing.

Grades for the semester have been submitted. Deep sigh. . . Hoping for a good night’s sleep finally!

wapo.st/3WDFb1u I was still a practicing lawyer when the great Thurgood Marshall resigned from the Supreme Court and was replaced by this guy. I recall being horrified that a titan of the Civil Rights Movement would be followed by Thomas who has proven to be much worse than I could imagine.

Justice Clarence Thomas calls criticism of him ‘nastiness’ and ‘lies’wapo.st Justice Thomas offered some of his most extensive comments since news broke last year of travel and real estate deals paid for by businessman Harlan Crow.

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Liz Smith-Pryor

It really is weird to name a school after horrible losers who failed at their awful plans. “Be inspired, kids, and maybe you too can grow up to be shitty people who deserve to rot in hell!”

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Liz Smith-Pryor

My latest. Please read and share https://margaretsullivan.substack.com/p/some-unsolicited-advice-for-joe-kahn?utm_medium=ios

Some unsolicited advice for Joe Kahn of The New York Times and other editorsmargaretsullivan.substack.com As November's hugely consequential election looms, I propose a mindset adjustment

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Liz Smith-Pryor

"We should all focus on the people of Gaza...But we should never forget that when college students and professors decided to strongly oppose the mass killing of civilians, so many of America’s leaders and major institutions decided the problem was the students and professors, not the killings."

wapo.st/4btWrug

Opinion | The crackdown on campus protests has gone way too farwapo.st The backlash to Israel protests has been intense, aggressive and almost entirely wrongheaded.