'The death penalty, it seems, is just too embedded in America's DNA to go away'

'The death penalty just won't die'

Robert Gebelhoff in The Washington Post

America's "innovative spirit" is "languishing" in some areas, but not in its execution chambers, says Robert Gebelhoff in The Washington Post. Alabama recently executed Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas, a first that came as executions tick up and states struggle to find drugs for lethal injections. We're making "a mockery of the principle that all life is sacred" by "doubling down" on capital punishment, even though most Western democracies abandoned it decades ago as "barbaric."

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'The Democrats probably don't want a divisive nomination fight right now'

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review

Many Democrats would love to swap out President Joe Biden for a new candidate, writes Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review, but they won't do it. It would be hard to find someone better. "That isn't because Biden is strong — he's not, he's a disaster — but because the Democratic coalition" is shaky. Removing Biden would ignite "a fight over the direction of the party." It would be "foolish" to "deliberately" start infighting in an election year.

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'It's way too easy for a crook like Trump to pervert our legal system'

Michael Tomasky in The New Republic

Another week, another court case that could "destroy Trump," writes Michael Tomasky in The New Republic. The Supreme Court on Thursday hears arguments in the case seeking "to bar Trump from the ballot" under the Fourteenth Amendment's insurrection clause. An appeals court is mulling whether Trump is "immune from prosecution." At issue, really, is "the devastating possibility" that our system has "no way of punishing obviously illegal and immoral behavior" if the person is rich and powerful enough.

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'"Shrinkflation" is in the air, online and everywhere else'

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

The White House insists "happy days are here again," argues The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Stocks and jobs are booming. "Inflation and mortgage rates are falling." So why are so many Americans "unhappy" with the economy and struggling to get by? One reason is that falling headline inflation numbers don't tell the whole story. Thanks to widespread "shrinkflation, paying the same price for noticeably smaller quantities of the same thing," we're often "getting less" for our money. 

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