Politics

Sinema goes solo “Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” said Kyrsten Sinema when she explained this morning’s surprise announcement that she is changing her party affiliation from Democrat to independent. That assurance poses a question: why leave? “Registering as an independent and showing up to work as an independent is a reflection of who I’ve always been,” she explained in a video clip on Twitter. In an article for the Arizona Republic she went further: “I have joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics by declaring my independence from the broken partisan system in Washington. I registered as an Arizona independent.

The Congressional Black Caucus, which describes itself as the "conscience of the Congress" elected its new chairman last week. Its choice? A man who had a long-running affair with a twenty-one-year-old intern. Representative Steven Horsford of Nevada previously served as the CBC's vice chair under Representative Joyce Beatty. Beatty said she was excited to "pass the baton" to a fresh batch of "capable leaders." Of course, there was no mention of Horsford's extracurricular activities in the announcement of the caucus's new leadership. The Spectator reached out to every member of the Congressional Black Caucus to ask if Horsford's affair with an intern concerned them.

We have all seen a sign, usually in a mom-and-pop business, declaring, “We reserve the right to refuse service to you.” In a free society, it is hard to argue with this assertion. Shouldn’t a business owner, landlord, or proprietor have the right to decide whom to serve to and whom to decline to serve? This is the essence of the freedom of association, which includes the reciprocal right to refrain from association. Or does it? In Colorado, cake artist Jack Phillips was threatened with draconian legal penalties for declining to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to his religious objections to such unions. In 2017, the Supreme Court granted Phillips a reprieve from his ordeal, but the litigation continues.

As 2022 comes to a close, the United States finds itself confronting myriad threats. But there is perhaps no more immediate threat to Americans’ safety and security than illicit drugs. The numbers are staggering. Illicit drugs have killed more than 1 million Americans since the turn of the century, with over 108,000 dying in last 12 months alone. One drug in particular, fentanyl, is now the leading cause of accidental death for adults between the ages of 18 and 45 — more than car accidents, violent crime, and suicide. And the flood of fentanyl into the US shows no signs of abating. In view of this rising ride, the Biden administration has embraced a range of new policies focused on harm reduction and treatment, two historically overlooked areas of American drug control efforts.

The news that Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel is planning on conducting an "autopsy" of the 2022 election brought horrible political flashbacks to a decade ago. That was when the post-2012 election autopsy of Mitt Romney's failure gave the GOP all the wrong lessons about what was making them lose. You might remember that 2012 autopsy. It was the one that prescribed moving left on immigration policy as essential to appealing to Hispanic voters. As a now-infamous three sentences put it: We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.

The search for the origin of Covid-19 has been a story of investigators who suddenly found themselves under investigation. Virus hunters who had spent years successfully tracking the origins of novel pathogens fell under suspicion of having caused the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. An international consortium of scientists, including collaborators in the US, had hunted for novel SARS-like viruses in South China and Southeast Asia, collecting tens of thousands of samples from not only bats but animals and people associated with the wildlife trade or living near bat caves. In the lab, the scientists grew or recreated these viruses and made chimeras to understand how they could infect people.

The most pro-labor president in history? Is Joe Biden the most pro-labor president in history or a ruthless union buster? Last September he declared his intention to be the former, but today brings news that makes him look a bit more like the latter. This morning Biden signed a measure passed by the Senate Thursday that forces an end to the standoff between rail companies and workers that threatened a major freight rail strike. The legislation binds both sides into an agreement that four of the twelve unions involved had opposed because it lacked paid sick leave. Biden sought to ease labor frustration at the measure at this morning’s signing that “we still have more work to do” and expressing his support for paid sick leave.