‘Long after that debt is paid, we keep sending the bill’
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
‘Second chances cannot be reserved for the privileged few’
Ken Oliver at Newsweek
Americans “see themselves as believers in second chances,” but for “millions of ordinary people with arrest or conviction records, there is no comparable second chance,” says Ken Oliver. Every “April, Second Chance Month asks Americans to consider a simple question: What should happen after justice has been served?” In “theory, the answer is straightforward: a person is held accountable, pays their debt to society and then has the opportunity to move forward.” In “practice, that’s rarely how it works.”
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‘The embarrassing lesson of Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing’
Mary McCord at MS NOW
Maybe “now that Pam Bondi is gone, she will reflect on where and why she went astray,” says Mary McCord. Having “seen Bondi promote Donald Trump’s fraudulent election claims on Fox TV and elsewhere,” many were “dubious about her ability to uphold the ideals of the Department of Justice.” Some have “wondered whether Bondi’s supporters at that hearing have had regrets as they’ve watched her actions over the past 14 months stray far from their predictions.”
‘Why the next era of growth must be built around humans’
Piyachart (Arm) Isarabhakdee at Time
While “seeds might be healthy and sunlight is abundant, without the conditions for roots to take hold, growth can never happen,” and the “same goes for today’s economy,” says Piyachart (Arm) Isarabhakdee. Capitalism’s “initial objective was productivity expansion,” but “today growth, modeled by GDP, often driven by manufacturing output, does not automatically translate into better living conditions, well-being or happiness.” Too “often, it has, in fact, widened inequality and accelerated environmental degradation.”
‘How the German right sees Iran’
Filip Gaspar at The American Conservative
The Iran war “has become a test for Germany’s strategic independence and economic resilience,” and “Germany, so far, appears to be failing the test,” says Filip Gaspar. As Germans “debate the issue and reconsider past policy choices, no party has seized the moment more deliberately than the Alternative for Germany, now one of the strongest political forces and the clearest nationalist challenge to Berlin’s governing consensus.” This is “yet another sign of deeper disorder within the Western alliance.”
