One of President Biden’s first acts was to issue an executive order to eliminate the federal government’s use of private prisons. This order actually restored a similar order from President Obama that was subsequently reversed by Trump. A 2016 study conducted by the DOJ “found that in a majority of the categories we examined, contract prisons incurred more safety and security incidents per capita than comparable BOP institutions…the contract prisons confiscated eight times as many contraband cell phones annually on average as the BOP institutions. Contract prisons also had higher rates of assaults, both by inmates on other inmates and…

In prior posts, I talked about how Joe Biden’s presidential campaign resembled George Pataki’s successful challenge to Mario Cuomo in 1994 when Cuomo was seeking his fourth term of governor. Like his son today, Cuomo had become stale and burned more than a few bridges over the course of his three prior terms and the electorate was desperate for something new. In the same way, in just five years, many Americans had become weary of Trump and his constant presence and tweets, with the incompetence, corruption, lies, hate, and salesman’s bluster that came along with it.

In 1994, Pataki knew…

For the second time in just two months, this country’s federal legislature is unable to perform its functions because of the threat of right-wing violence. After a warning from intelligence agencies about yet another attempt to breach the Capitol by pro-Trump right-wing militias who subscribe to the conspiracy theory that Trump will be inaugurated on March 4th, the US House of Representatives cancelled its Thursday session. The reported plot apparently also includes attempts to seize congressional Democrats, apparently in order to kill them, or simply blow up the Capitol in order to kill as many members of Congress as possible…

It’s hard to believe that it is barely over one month ago that Joe Biden finally was sworn in as President. During that time, Biden has barely put a foot wrong, rolling out a roster of excellent appointments at every level. 60 million doses of the various vaccines have already been delivered, with half of Americans over 65 having already received one shot. He has gone big on Covid relief and now has around three-quarters of the country actually supporting it, including 60% of Republicans. He has begun to roll back the worst of Trump’s executive orders and issued some…