Prison Reform is moving front and center. Senator Jim Webb is moving a comprehensive plan forward:
Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more.
"After two [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and my symposium at George Mason Law Center, people from across the political and philosophical spectrum began to contact my staff," Webb told the Huffington Post. "I heard from Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court, from prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, people in prison, and police on the street. All of them have told me that our system needs to be fixed, and that we need a holistic plan of how to solve it."
Nat Hentoff, whose years of writing in the Village Voice brought Jazz and the First Ammendment firmly into my orbit, is not happy with our new president. He dings Obama pretty good:
The "education president" remained silent when his congressional Democrats essentially killed the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) in the city where he now lives and works.
Of the 1,700 students, starting in kindergarten, in this private-school voucher program, 90 percent are black and 9 percent are Hispanic.
Worth reading, definitely. Especially for Obama-fans. I read this in the Intelligencer yesterday, but the link is to the Cato Institute, the main think-tank for Libertarianism. Vouchers have interesting implications for TAS. I support them, but I don't think they would help us all that much.
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