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Matt Lavine

@mattplavine.bsky.social
156 followers 141 following 806 posts

Civil Rights atty. Const'l historian. Social media NOVICE - please be nice.

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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
To those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. The time has arrived to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. People are looking to America for precept and example. 7/14/48 HHH
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
In 1783, Gen. George Washington delivered his final address to the Continental Army. He praised his men for their sacrifice, which had resulted in “rescuing Millions from the hand of oppression and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations [and] religions.”
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
"The act of turning the military loose on civilians ... raise[s] serious and profound constitutional questions [and] must be repudiated as a usurpation dangerous to [Americans'] civil liberties." -- Wm O Douglas, dissent in Laird v. Tatum (1972).
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Whether caused by depravity or despair, the American public discourse has descended into a uninspired contest over which personal grievances deserve the most attention, and neither a viral social media post nor a well-attended street parade is likely to awaken the citizenry from this stupor. -->
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Until Americans have a firm grasp on the ideas that moved rebelling colonists to revolution, we cannot distinguish between a reasonable public policy dispute and an attack on the defining principles of the American Republic. Viva Historical Scholarship!
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
I just watched a clip of a Georgetown Law Professor testifying before the Senate about "States' Rights" and "State sovereignty." She teaches Const'l Law, evidently based on the twisted teachings of Jefferson Davis. Others decry rising socialism or fascism. Beware the neo-Confederates.
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 02/09/2025
rabbi360.com/2024/04/03/a...
rabbi360.com
An Urgent Prayer for the Protection of Human Life
With hearts broken over the ongoing violence in Gaza, especially with the news this week of the most recent killing of humanitarian aid workers, my friend and hevruta Rabbi Andy Vogel and I used ou…
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
In the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967, an unlicensed Detroit nightclub was hosting a party for two black soldiers recently returned from Vietnam. Police raided the club. As police loaded the vets and their friends into paddy wagons, citizens of Detroit reacted violently. -->
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
ICE today is Amer. blasphemy. -> In his Farewell to the Cont'l Army, GW thanked the men for "rescuing Millions from the hand of oppression, protecting the rights of human nature, and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations [and] religions." youtu.be/SMbaVScNrcc?...
youtu.be
The Third American Commandment
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
Trump assembled men on Jan 6 for the "treasonous purpose" of blocking Congress from its Const'l duty. He directed his men to attack the Congress. Raskin charged the dubious "incitement to insurrect" but not treason. Trump's assoc'n w/Epstein is not of Nat'l importance. Now, the Dems care?
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Does any American today (or any Amer on BlueSky) believe that our politics and policies should follow the ideals that prior generations claimed as the basis of our nationhood? Or has the distance between the claimed ideals and actual implementation created an irredeemable cynicism?
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
The first, and most profound, failure to uphold the foundational precepts of American nationhood resulted not from a violent confrontation but from a comforting - and horribly false - prediction. youtu.be/Srkn-s8d3cE?...
youtu.be
The Fifth American Commandment
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
At the Const'l Convention in 1787, a conspiracy theory - and not slavery - produced the Senate and the Presidential Electoral System. NJ's Paterson undermined Madison's design. youtu.be/rT3_21ix-9M?...
youtu.be
The Fourth American Commandment
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Commanders to retire Hall of Fame receiver Art Monk’s No. 81 www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/...
washingtonpost.com
Commanders to retire Hall of Fame receiver Art Monk’s No. 81
The three-time Super Bowl champion and leader of “the Posse” will be honored during Washington’s Nov. 2 game against the Seahawks.
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
calendar.eji.org/racial-injus...
calendar.eji.org
Jul. 15, 1954 | U.S. Government Stages Mass Deportations in the American Southwest
Learn more about our history of racial injustice.
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
The continuing obsession with the ethnic and religious composition of the American population reveals a suicidal misconception of the American national identity. How did American Revolutionaries replace the inherited ethnic and religious conflicts? D.E.I. youtu.be/SMbaVScNrcc?...
youtu.be
The Third American Commandment
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
For colonial merchants, a tea tax was nothing compared to a British naval blockade. The British dominated the African slave trade, and no colonial slaveowner wanted to cut ties with his most dependable supplier. Why the move from rebellion to revolution? youtu.be/eHlA_UR04RM?...
youtu.be
The Second American Commandment
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Only the purveyor of a bogus history claims to defend our nationhood and then defies the US Constitution. Only the purveyor of a bogus history claims to defend our Constitution and then moves to a place with no constitution. youtu.be/jpzz8j6QP-g?...
youtu.be
The First American Commandment
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Pew Research: (1) Muslim pop. is 2.0 billion. (2) Jews are nearly 15 million. (3) "That’s fewer than the estimated 16.6 million Jews who were alive in 1939, prior to the Holocaust." www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...
pewresearch.org
8. Jewish population change
Jewish people make up 0.2% of the world population. Jews rose in number by 6% from 2010 to 2020, mostly due to growth in Israel, according to Pew Research Center.
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
I do not doubt the sincerity of those transfixed by Marx or Trump or even Moses and the Ten Commandments. Because none formed our American national bond, I created the Ten American Commandments to explain our organizing national principles and mission. youtu.be/SMo4zcs7HOo?...
youtu.be
Introduction: The Ten American Commandments
YouTube video by Matt Lavine
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. It was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a child of America to cross certain university campuses. To think of man in terms of white, black, or yellow is a cancer of the soul.
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Responding to the Senate's passage of the Trump Bill, Elon Musk tweeted: "Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE.” How many Democrats in the Senate - I mean the "Dem-Repub uniparty" - voted for the bill?
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
1787 Const'l Convention: delegates from all but SC stated their opposition to slavery, but they agreed to allow slavery in the proposed American Republic. The sad truth is not that they needed slavery for their plantations or businesses but because SC, NC, and Ga. delegates explained -->
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
8 USC 1424 allows for the revocation of naturalized citizenship of anyone "affiliated with any organization that advocates ... the overthrow by force or violence or other unconstitutional means." An organization that advocated for a violent overthrow of the US Gov?
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
1. I love this site. 2. It would be cool if the text went on to show how Ohio's great nat'l leaders often were leading Ohioans to advance equal rights. 3. The Great Dissenter by Peter Canellos is great on Ohio vs. Ky (and the great Justice John Harlan). calendar.eji.org/racial-injus...
calendar.eji.org
Jun. 30, 1829 | Cincinnati, Ohio, Forces Hundreds of Black People to Leave
Learn more about our history of racial injustice.
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
theatlantic.com
My Super-Special 79th Was Not Super Special
A diary entry by a disappointed president
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Gov. Tim Walz is saving the Amer. Repub. "While you've convened this hearing to explore the issue of so-called 'sanctuary states,' the Minn. legislature has passed no bill making Minn. a sanctuary state. . . Enforcing immigration law is not the role of local and state governments."
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
I'm attending No Kings's event, “NO KINGS - Howard County Maryland” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/nokings/even...
mobilize.us
NO KINGS - Howard County Maryland · No Kings
Join IndivisibleHoCoMD, Columbia Democratic Club, and others in downtown Columbia as we join together for this important day of action! **In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings.** NO KINGS i...
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
On 12/11/1862, Ohio Rep. J. Hutchins said the Civil War was a fight over democracy. “Slavery requires a Government where the aristocratic element can have supreme control, beyond the reach of popular clamor, beyond the influence of popular elections. It is the democratic masses slaveholders fear.”
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Matt Lavine @mattplavine.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
In the 39th Congress, House Republicans declared “that treason is a crime [that] demands public justice against some, at least, of the rebel leaders” and proposed “the protection of the colored people of the South through civil rights bills [and for] the right of every colored citizen” to vote.
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