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In the category of: Keep an eye on the stock market…
Trump torpedoes funding bill over border wall funding
In the category of: Time will tell.
First Step Is One of the Biggest Criminal Justice Reforms in Decades. But How Great Will Its Effect Be?
The new legislation has been in the works since Barack Obama was in office and has drawn a wide swath of support from liberals and conservatives. Kim Kardashian and Jared Kushner have publicly supported the bill (with Kushner, in particular, being credited with orchestrating Trump’s support), as have the American Civil Liberties Union and a Koch brothers-backed group, Right on Crime.
Because race and America’s penal system are so deeply intertwined, the First Step bill would theoretically have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. The Times noted that one provision of the bill could decrease the sentences of “several thousand drug offenders serving lengthy sentences for crack-cocaine offenses.” During the “War on Drugs” era, black crack dealers were punished far more heavily than white offenders dealing coke.
Even a senator like Ted “bury me under a queso fountain” Cruz wasn’t afraid to put that at the forefront in his comments last night.
However, the bill does have considerable limits. As Vox and other publications note, the majority of those imprisoned in the U.S. are sitting in state prisons, not federal ones.
In the category of: Rats will jump from a sinking ship every time.
Republican women keep defecting to the Democratic Party
State Sen. Barbara Bollier was the first to announce her exit last week, switching parties after 10 years as a legislator. She was quickly followed by outgoing State Rep. Joy Koesten, who was defeated earlier in the year by a conservative primary challenger. Then, on Wednesday, two more GOP women jumped ship: State Sen. Dinah Sykes and State Rep. Stephanie Clayton.
It’s starting to look like a trend.
On one hand, maybe this isn’t a surprise: A Democratic woman, Laura Kelly, just won the state’s governorship, and last month’s midterm elections turned out to to be the kind of “wave election” for Democrats that often sparks a few elected officials to switch parties to get on the winning side.
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