Today in History: July 2, Civil Rights Act signed into law

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Today is Tuesday, July 2, the 184th day of 2024. There are 182 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a sweeping civil rights bill passed by Congress prohibiting discrimination and segregation based on race, color, sex, religion or national origin.

Also on this date:

In 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution saying that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

In 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau (gee-TOH’) at the Washington railroad station; Garfield died the following September. (Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.)

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In 1917, rioting erupted in East St. Louis, Illinois, as white mobs attacked Black residents; at least 50 and as many as 200 people, most of them Black, are believed to have died in the violence.

In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

In 1962, the first Walmart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas.

In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, ruled 7-2 that the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual.

In 1979, the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was released to the public.

In 1986, ruling in a pair of cases, the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action as a remedy for past job discrimination.

In 1990, more than 1,400 Muslim pilgrims were killed in a stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel near Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

In 2002, Steve Fossett became the first person to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world nonstop in a balloon.

In 2018, rescue divers in Thailand found alive 12 boys and their soccer coach, who had been trapped by flooding as they explored a cave more than a week earlier.

In 2020, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire on charges that she had helped lure at least three girls – one as young as 14 – to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. (Maxwell would be convicted on five of six counts.)

In 2022, the police chief for the Uvalde, Texas, school district stepped down from his City Council seat amid criticism of his response to the mass shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Today’s Birthdays:

Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos is 95.
Actor Polly Holliday is 87.
Racing Hall of Famer Richard Petty is 87.
Former White House chief of staff and former New Hampshire governor John H. Sununu is 85.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox is 82.
Writer-director-comedian Larry David is 77.
Rock musician Roy Bittan (Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band) is 75.
Actor Wendy Schaal is 70.
Actor-model Jerry Hall is 68.
Former baseball player Jose Canseco is 60.
Race car driver Sam Hornish Jr. is 45.
Former NHL center Joe Thornton is 45.
Singer Michelle Branch is 41.
Actor Vanessa Lee Chester is 40.
Figure skater Johnny Weir is 40.
Actor-singer Ashley Tisdale is 39.
Actor Lindsay Lohan (LOH’-uhn) is 38.
Soccer player Alex Morgan is 35.
Actor Margot Robbie is 34.
Singer-rapper Saweetie is 31.
U.S. Olympic swimming gold medalist Ryan Murphy is 29.

DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ARE GETTING READY FOR A TRUMP PRESIDENCY

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DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ARE GETTING READY FOR A TRUMP PRESIDENCY

BY: Nathaniel Ballantyne

Washington, DC—As the Biden campaign scrambles to calm nerves about the president’s disastrous debate performance, Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly furious at those around him and despondent about his re-election prospects and their chances of winning the House and Senate majorities. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leader, is raising a lot of money using the prospect of losing the White House.

Conversations about a strategy shift are underway, with some Democratic lawmakers and many deep-pocketed donors plotting how to ensure a congressional check on a second Trump term should Biden continue in the race and lose. 

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)

The House is the last firewall, folks. We have to flip the House,” said one high-ranking Democrat. “Ninety-nine percent of the people I talked to can’t get their credit card out fast enough.”

Those private discussions could eventually morph into an explicit campaign to put a Democratic check on an expected Trump presidency—much as congressional Republicans did back in 1996 when BOB DOLE was on his way to a thumping.

Democrats aren’t there yet.  Top party leaders, we’re told, are prepared to continue stumping for Biden as the party’s best choice for November, as they did on yesterday’s Sunday show circuit. Part of it is a collective action problem; no one wants to be first and potentially the last, and part of it is that many believe that speaking out might only make Biden dig in further.

But make no mistake, the despair and frustration are real, and it is pushing upward inside the party. It has been felt acutely by frontline members. The swing-district Democrats who would be the cornerstone of any majority: Donors blew up their phones over the weekend, with some prodding them to go public with a group letter calling for a new candidate, an idea that some discussed over the weekend.

“The leadership of the party should be going to the White House and knocking down the doors and saying, ‘Time’s up,’” an adviser to top Democratic donors said. “Anybody trying to prolong the inevitable here is just basically putting us on a giant fucking death march towards the end.”

That sense of anger is palpable among rank-and-file congressional Democrats, many of whom blame Biden and his family for hiding the reality of his condition. The House Democrat lamented defending the president on the campaign trail despite getting political advice to run away from him, only to find out how bad things were on Thursday.

“It’s just his egotism and his family’s enabling,” the person said. “JILL [BIDEN] of all people — she sees him every single day. She’s the one person who could end this train wreck. This should have been a one-term president.”

This should have been no president at all. We knew Biden had health issues before he was elected, and those issues have worsened since he became president. His family is enjoying power and prestige, and asking his family to convince him to drop out is an exercise in futility. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are bracing and preparing for a second Trump presidency. 

Who knew a single debate performance could alter the course of history? Should Biden decide to step aside, who should replace him? And what would happen to the delegates pledged to him?

SUPREME COURT UPDATES: “DONALD TRUMP IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION”

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Washington, DC – The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump is entitled to some level of immunity from prosecution. This decision, with a vote of 6 to 3 that divided along partisan lines, may effectively delay the trial of the case against him on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump contended that he was entitled to absolute immunity from the charges, relying on a broad understanding of the separation of powers and a 1982 Supreme Court precedent that recognized such immunity in civil cases for actions taken by presidents within the “outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities. Lower courts rejected Mr. Trump’s claim, but the Supreme Court’s ruling, with its potential to delay the case enough that Mr. Trump could make it go away entirely if he prevails in November, could significantly impact the case’s outcome.

Here’s what to know:

The ruling: The justices said that Mr. Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts taken during his presidency but that there was a crucial distinction between official and private conduct. The case returns to the lower court, which will decide whether Mr. Trump’s actions were in an official or private capacity.

The charges: The former president faces three charges of conspiracy and one count of obstructing an official proceeding, all related to his efforts to cling to the presidency after his 2020 loss. He was indicted last August by the special counsel, Jack Smith, in one of two federal criminal cases against him; the other relates to the F.B.I. raid on his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in August 2022 that recovered missing government documents.

Lower courts ruled against Trump: The trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, denied Mr. Trump’s immunity request in December. “Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” she wrote.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed in February, saying that “any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

The timing: Even before the ruling, the court’s decision to take up the case already helped Mr. Trump’s strategy to delay his prosecution until after the November election. With this ruling, the prospects for a trial before the election seem increasingly remote. If Mr. Trump prevails at the polls, he could order the Justice Department to drop the charges, significantly impacting the timing of the trial.

Other Jan. 6 cases: The court heard two other cases this term concerning the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, both of which relate to Mr. Trump. One — an attempt to bar Mr. Trump from the ballot in Colorado under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which made people who engage in insurrection ineligible to hold office — was unanimously rejected in March. The other limited the use of a federal obstruction law to prosecute members of the mob who stormed the Capitol. Two of the four charges against Mr. Trump are based on that law.

St. Paul: With recent expansion, Hmong Cultural Center Museum now spans more than 2,000 square feet

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The Hmong Cultural Center Museum in St. Paul, one of few public institutions dedicated to displaying Hmong material culture and history, is growing.

The museum, which opened its storefront exhibition space in 2021, has just finished an expansion that increases its footprint by two-thirds, to about 2,000 total square feet.

Visitors can tour the expanded museum for free during an open house, from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday. Regular hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, with a $7 admission fee per person.

Hmong Cultural Center program director Mark Pfeifer and executive director Txongpao Lee pose for a photo next to a display of story cloths and flower cloths at the museum on University and Western Avenues in St. Paul on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The Hmong Cultural Center, founded in 1992, has been headquartered for the past decade or so in second-floor offices near Western and University avenues. The center provides a variety of support services for the Hmong community as well as research and education programs aimed both at Hmong and non-Hmong people.

Even before the street-level museum opened in 2021, a few rooms in the office space were dedicated cultural exhibits. These were technically open to the public, said Hmong Cultural Center program manager Mark Pfeifer, but people didn’t necessarily realize they could go upstairs.

More exhibition space

The storefront museum has been transformative, he said. It’s open seven days a week and staffed full time for walk-in visitors, and the cultural center has designed 12 different curriculum packets for school field trips. So far in 2024 alone, Pfeifer said, about 1,400 people have come through the space, including over 60 school groups from not just the Metro but greater Minnesota and western Wisconsin, too.

Recently, the center took over another storefront next door to the museum, directly below its offices. The space had previously been storage for May’s Market, a neighboring herb and supplement shop, and adds about 800 additional square feet of exhibition space.

As part of the expansion, the center also installed track lighting throughout both levels to better illuminate displays and educational panels.

The expansion also creates space for the third and final phase of the museum project, which involves connecting the downstairs museum with the upstairs cultural center and library — not currently possible without stepping outside. Integrating the museum with the office-level exhibits upstairs — which still exist — would both grow the center’s capacity for more in-depth rotating exhibits and also allow visitors easier access to the center’s research library, Pfeifer said.

The center is also planning a comprehensive security upgrade to the whole facility.

This third expansion phase is probably the last for the foreseeable future, though, Pfeifer said.

A small admission fee helps cover some operating expenses, but this year’s expansions have really only been possible due to public and private grants, Pfeifer said. Money from the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund, part of the state’s Legacy program, has been particularly influential, as have other gifts from funders like the McKnight Foundation and the Freeman Foundation.

“With the museum, the idea was to take our work to another level and to reach a lot more people, particularly so schools can come in and learn about Hmong culture and history,” Pfeifer said. “This work is not new to the Hmong Cultural Center — we’ve been doing it a long time — but the museum allows us to reach a lot more people.”

Currently on view and coming soon:

The museum’s permanent exhibition includes a variety of paj ntaub, or storytelling tapestries, tools and artifacts brought from Laos by Hmong immigrants fleeing the Vietnam War, and traditional instruments like the qeej.

A new exhibit in the expanded space showcases photographs taken by James E. Williams, who served as a U.S. Agency for International Development financial officer in Laos from 1965 to 1968. The black-and-white photos show celebrations, landscapes and various aspects of everyday life before many Hmong people were forced into exile.

Once the downstairs museum and upstairs cultural center are connected, Pfeifer said, the museum will continue upstairs with a new exhibit on the history of the Hmong Cultural Center itself.

The Hmong Cultural Center Museum is located at 375 W. University Ave.; 651-917-9937, ext. 17; hmongculturalcentermuseum.org

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