Search Results for: reagan

The US prides itself on being a nation built on freedom, justice, and individual rights. And yet the evolution of its system of mass incarceration — a system that cannot be defined without reference to shocking racial disparities — seems to directly contradict these founding principles. The US prison population dwarfs those of nearly every other [...]

The US Department of State imposed arms restrictions Thursday on the import or export of US-origin weapons and services from or to Nicaragua. In a statement to the press, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller cited “brutal repression” and “recent sham elections” as ongoing concerns for the Biden administration, vowing to continue to use “diplomatic and [...]

To date, America’s greatest contribution to the world has been its Constitution. The importance of this document far surpasses such other cultural achievements as the Moon landing, the telephone, GPS, rubber vulcanization, and Henry Ford’s mass production lines. It is more important, even, than Gone With the Wind, and the hamburger — even though this [...]

A lawyer-turned-death penalty abolitionist and a Jewish cantor join forces for JURIST to argue that the Jewish community has a unique obligation to voice resistance to Alabama’s plans to begin using nitrogen gas as a means of executing death row convicts. In Part 1, Stephen Cooper reflects on his great-grandmother’s death in a Nazi death [...]

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court, died Friday. According to an announcement from the court, O’Connor died of “complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and a respiratory illness” at the age of 93. O’Connor was appointed to the court in 1981 by then-president Ronald Reagan. During her [...]

With the stroke of his pen, California Governor Gavin Newsom could have a significant impact on the death penalty across the US. Though Newsom lacks the power to end capital punishment in California, he could take executive action to commute the sentences of the roughly 700 condemned awaiting execution in in the state—a death row figure [...]

President of United Auto Workers (UAW) Shawn Fain filed a complaint Thursday against Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), alleging he threatened workers’ ability to strike in violation of US federal labor law. UAW members have been on strike against three major automakers in the US—including Ford, Stellantis and General Motors—for about a week over pay and [...]

13 presidential centers in the US released a joint statement on Thursday stressing the importance of the rule of law and democratic principles in the United States. Specifically, the group called for peaceful civil discourse about political topics and shared the necessity of democracy: We, the undersigned, represent a wide range of views across a [...]

The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced on Monday that it was charging Gal Luft, the co-director of a US think tank, with acting as an unregistered agent of China, arms trafficking and sanctions violations. Luft was previously arrested in Cyprus in February. “As alleged, the defendant engaged in multiple schemes [...]

Tensions between U.S. presidents and the press date back to George Washington. America’s founding father found himself gnashing his hippopotamus ivory dentures when newspapers accused him of monarchical rule. Few subsequent American leaders have been spared harsh media criticism. Abe Lincoln was lambasted by some of the most influential newspapers of his time for his [...]