All posts tagged: public pressure

D.C.’s Crime Problem Is a Democracy Problem

D.C.’s Crime Problem Is a Democracy Problem

Published by skeptic

Matthew Graves is not shy about promoting his success in prosecuting those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. By his count, Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has charged more than 1,358 individuals, spread across nearly all 50 states and Washington, D.C., for assaulting police, destroying federal property, and other crimes. He issues a press release for most cases, and he held a rare news conference this past January to tout his achievements. But Graves’s record of bringing violent criminals to justice on the streets of D.C. has put him on the defensive. Alone among U.S. attorneys nationwide, Graves, appointed by the president and accountable to the U.S. attorney general, is responsible for overseeing both federal and local crime in his city. In 2022, prosecutors under Graves pressed charges on a record-low 33 percent of arrests in the District. Although the rate increased to 44 percent last fiscal year and continues to increase, other cities have achieved much higher rates: Philadelphia had a 96 percent prosecution rate in 2022, …

The Co-opting of Twitter – The Atlantic

The Co-opting of Twitter – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

After Donald Trump was banned from Twitter in 2021, Donald Trump Jr. made a public appeal to Elon Musk for help. “Wanted to come up with something to deal with some of this nonsense and the censorship that’s going on right now, obviously only targeted one way,” he said in a video that was posted to Instagram. “Why doesn’t Elon Musk create a social-media platform?” (The video was titled “Here’s How Elon Musk Could Save Free Speech.”) This was—I think we can say it—prescient. A little more than a year later, Musk was promising not an entirely new site, but a hostile takeover of a familiar one. And he explicitly presented this action as a corrective to right-wing grievances about “shadowbanning” and censorship. He promised to use his new platform to combat the “woke mind virus” sweeping the nation and said he wanted to save free speech. (His supposed devotion to unfettered expression, it’s worth noting, sometimes comes second to his personal feuds.) So here we are. Liberal activists used to be the ones suggesting …

Legacy Admissions Aren’t the Real Problem

Legacy Admissions Aren’t the Real Problem

Published by skeptic

Getting rid of the preference for children of alumni would hardly make a dent in the staggering inequality at elite colleges. David Degner / The New York Times / Redux December 5, 2023, 7:30 AM ET Legacy admissions are in trouble. Applicants from the richest one percent of families are nearly twice as likely to be admitted to elite Ivy Plus colleges than similarly qualified low- or middle-class applicants, and many of these privileged students benefit from being the children of alumni or donors. Left-leaning groups recently filed a lawsuit challenging legacy admissions on civil-rights grounds, the Department of Education has announced an investigation into the practice, and, last month, the Republican Todd Young and the Democrat Tim Kaine introduced a Senate bill that would effectively ban it. The preference for legacy applicants may be the most visible symbol of unearned intergenerational privilege. But that’s mostly what it is—a symbol. The truth is that banning legacy admissions wouldn’t level the college-admissions playing field at selective schools like Harvard, where I teach. My team’s research suggests …

What the Supreme Court’s New Ethics Code Lacks

What the Supreme Court’s New Ethics Code Lacks

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. The Supreme Court’s new ethics code is a nod at the public pressure the court is facing. Beyond that, it will do little to change the justices’ behavior. First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic: An Unstable Structure Don’t worry, the Supreme Court said to America yesterday. Though it may not be enforceable, the Court at least has a formal code of conduct now. The Court has been facing an onslaught of public pressure after reports that justices, particularly Clarence Thomas, had engaged in behavior that an average person could deem improper for representatives of the highest court in the land, such as receiving undisclosed gifts from wealthy conservatives. This code, the first in the Court’s history, is signed by all nine justices, and lays out “rules and principles” for the justices’ behavior. Its publication is an …