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Criminal justice reform faces political buzzsaw as GOP hones its midterm message

Criminal justice reform faces political buzzsaw as GOP hones its midterm message

Durbin (D-Ill.), meanwhile, said he’s concerned about the bill’s prospects, particularly given Republican accusations during Jackson’s confirmation hearings that the justice-in-waiting was soft on crime. The Judiciary chair ranked criminal justice as high on his list of priorities, though he said legislation addressing crime and law enforcement “may be just as challenging as immigration” — a famously tough area of bipartisan compromise on Capitol Hill.

Eat Your Spinach — If You Dare

Eat Your Spinach — If You Dare

Contaminated spinach last fall made people sick in 10 states, and sent three people into kidney failure, but the agency reacted too slowly to get to the bottom of it. There was no recall. That was just one of many examples in recent years of foods that sound like the diet of a healthy eater but instead sent hundreds of people to the hospital or the morgue: Romaine lettuce contaminated by E.coli bacteria, cucumbers tainted by salmonella, cantaloupes infected with listeria. And so on, with such regularity that many outbreaks no longer even make much news.

Trumpworld scrambles to contain Oz endorsement fallout

Trumpworld scrambles to contain Oz endorsement fallout

“You know I read a couple articles, I got a lot of reaction to this, 99 percent supportive, ‘MAGA is shocked,’” Hannity said. “When I supported Donald Trump pretty early I got the crap beaten out of me — Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro … and I promised people he’d govern as a conservative and he did. And I’m saying the same thing about you [Oz].”

What could go wrong with Biden's booming economy? Here are the big risks.

What could go wrong with Biden's booming economy? Here are the big risks.

With the U.S. government reporting this week that inflation has hit a four-decade high and the Fed cranking up its efforts to drive down prices, President Joe Biden’s economy faces a dizzying array of risks. Growth was already expected to slow this year after 2021’s blistering 5.7 percent expansion, as both Congress and the central bank pull back support for the economy. But the hits keep coming — higher energy prices, a slowdown in China and the possibility of a Fed-induced recession.

Political brawl looms over nuclear cruise missile Biden plans to scrap

Political brawl looms over nuclear cruise missile Biden plans to scrap

“One way or another, we need to overturn that decision,” Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado told POLITICO. Lamborn is the top Republican on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces panel, which oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Why prosecuting Russian war crimes in Ukraine could be complicated

Why prosecuting Russian war crimes in Ukraine could be complicated

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other leaders have said what the Russians are doing in Ukraine amounts to war crimes. Last month, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv called it a war crime to attack a nuclear plant.

Opinion | The Jan. 6 Committee Can Make a Difference: Simply by Revealing What It’s Found

Opinion | The Jan. 6 Committee Can Make a Difference: Simply by Revealing What It’s Found

But practically, it is hard to envision that a criminal referral would matter much one way or the other.

Opinion | Why Regime Change in Russia Might Not Be a Good Idea

Opinion | Why Regime Change in Russia Might Not Be a Good Idea

Overthrowing a personalist autocrat is not easy. Because individual elites can rarely remove a dictator on their own, they need a party, business organization, tribe, or military to stand behind them and assure that others will follow their lead. Recognizing this threat, personalist autocrats weaken organizations that enable elites to coalesce against them. The lack of organizations also makes it difficult for the masses to mobilize against the regime. Once a ruler is able to create a personalist autocracy by eliminating other centers of power, they are especially hard to dislodge. Research by Milan Svolik at Yale University has shown that the longer personalist autocrats stay in office, the less likely they are to be removed from power by either a coup or an uprising.

Biden’s solution to the politics of rising crime: Focus on guns

Biden’s solution to the politics of rising crime: Focus on guns

“Democrats are on the defensive on violent crime, but they have a built-in trust advantage on gun violence prevention policies,” said Peter Ambler, executive director for the gun safety group Giffords. “If we’re worried about whether or not Democrats just rented the suburbs, or if we’ve made real substantial progress, if those are sort of top political concerns for Democrats, they need to look at gun safety, gun violence prevention, taking on the gun lobby as core parts of the strategy in advance of the midterms.”

Opinion | To Overcome the Republicans’ Culture War, Democrats Need to Punch Up, Not Down

Opinion | To Overcome the Republicans’ Culture War, Democrats Need to Punch Up, Not Down

A study by Way to Win, a network of progressive political donors that I helped start and which has moved over $200 million to grassroots efforts, media, candidates and research since 2018, found that in 2020, congressional Democrats spent three times more than Republicans on television ads touting bipartisanship. By contrast, Republicans went on offense, spending upwards of 10 times more than Democrats on ads with the words “extremist” and “radical.” The result? Democrats lost 12 seats in a cycle where they were projected to gain as many as 15. While Democrats handled the GOP with kid gloves, Republicans told a clear story with a clear villain, and it paid off.

Opinion | It’s Time to Fix FDA by Breaking It Up

Opinion | It’s Time to Fix FDA by Breaking It Up

But this means that, in the competition for commissioner time and support, the food program is a second-class citizen within FDA — a problem compounded in 2009 by Congress giving FDA the politically contentious responsibility to regulate the tobacco industry. Put simply, no commissioner has the bandwidth to provide strategic leadership and management accountability to a set of programs that combined regulate 20 percent of U.S. consumer spending in such large, rapidly changing and technologically complex industries. The result is that food gets lost in the shuffle.

5 crucial decisions as Jan. 6 investigation reaches final stage

5 crucial decisions as Jan. 6 investigation reaches final stage

Here are five endgame scenarios the committee must confront before going public:

The Supreme Court question Republicans won't answer

The Supreme Court question Republicans won't answer

Most liberals think they already know the answer — yes. Yet Republicans say they haven’t discussed the matter as a conference and, judging by their comments this week, they don’t have a unified position.

‘All over Hunter Biden’: Republicans lay plans for their own investigation, despite the DOJ probe

‘All over Hunter Biden’: Republicans lay plans for their own investigation, despite the DOJ probe

But a federal inquiry isn’t deterring Republicans from pursuing broader allegations against Hunter Biden. The House GOP’s eagerness promises to test whether next year’s likely new majority can conduct legitimate oversight without falling down a rabbit hole of politically motivated allegations that have a murky provenance. Russian disinformation touching on Hunter Biden’s business dealings, for example, emerged during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.