Experts in the News

Topic
Bay State Banner

Massachusetts: A leader in the abolition of slavery

Even more perniciously, wealthy whites found ways to circumvent the end of slavery. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery “… except as a punishment for crime.” In his book “Slavery by Another Name,” Douglas A. Blackmon provides accounts of devious ways slavery continued for decades after the Civil War.
Douglas Blackmon
Washington Post

By ending ‘temporary protected status’ for half a million people, Trump has probably increased illegal migration

Since taking office, President Trump has shown a firm commitment to reducing the number of immigrants in the United States, in keeping with his campaign promises. Some of his attempts toward this end have run into difficulties, as with the border wall and the family separation policy. But others have been successful. In particular, by refusing to extend a federal program known as temporary protected status (TPS), the Trump administration has terminated legal protection for nearly half a million immigrants from Sudan and Central America.
David Leblang
TIME

President Trump Told Congress Something Untrue. Here's Why That's a Big Deal

Mary Kate Cary, who worked as a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to early 1992, said that speeches to Congress are typically given the highest-level of fact-checking within the White House. “It was one researcher one speechwriter for every speech,” she recalled. “Then, once you wrote it, the researchers would fact check literally every word and, in those days, they had to put a check mark over every word.”
Mary Kate Cary
TIME

President Trump Told Congress Something Untrue. Here's Why That's a Big Deal

Barbara Perry, the director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, pointed to a categorization system created by James Pfiffner that ranks different types of political deception by severity. “To base a policy on a, quote, fact or statistic that I presume he knows is false, or someone who wrote that statement for him knows is false — to me that’s the worst of all,” she said.
Barbara Perry