NY Times:
In an unusually impassioned speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a pointed assessment of race in America on Wednesday, lamenting the recent deaths of young black men and calling for overhauling the “out-of-balance” criminal justice system on display on the smoke-filled streets of Baltimore.
In her first major policy speech since announcing her presidential run, Mrs. Clinton spoke forcefully about the damage done, ticking off the names of the unarmed African-American men who have died at the hands of white police officers in recent months.
“From Ferguson to Staten Island to Baltimore, the patterns have become unmistakable and undeniable,” she said.
“Not only as a mother and grandmother, but as a citizen, a human being, my heart breaks for these young men and their families,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.”
Reuters:
Independent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist and one of the most outspoken liberals in Congress, will seek the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, he told U.S. media on Wednesday.
"I believe (voters) want a fundamental change so that government works for ordinary Americans and not just billionaires," Sanders told USA Today. He said he would make the announcement official on Thursday.
Sanders also told the Associated Press in an interview he was running for president.
More politics and policy below the fold.
WaPo:
The Supreme Court’s hearing Wednesday about the constitutionality of a lethal injection procedure turned into a tendentious, almost bitter battle between the court’s conservative and liberal justices.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. accused those of trying to prevent the use of the drug midazolam as part of a lethal injection procedure in Oklahoma of waging a “guerrilla war against the death penalty.” Repeated challenges of lethal injection procedures, he said, were meant only to delay the implementation of executions.
Justice Antonin Scalia agreed, saying the “abolitionist movement” had put pressure on drug manufacturers to stop making available to states drugs that would ensure executions were not needlessly painful.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were just as forceful on the other side. Kagan said that without proper sedation, the drug used to cause death was akin to being burned at the stake, except a person is being “burned alive from the inside.” Sotomayor told the Oklahoma solicitor general she would not believe assertions in his brief unless she verified them herself.
Seems clear the Justices will vote 5-4 to let the inmates be killed, and boy, are those 5 annoyed that we keep asking them about it.
Ron Fournier:
A Mother in Baltimore and a Slugger in Detroit Who Tried to Stop the Burning
We can't wait for our leaders to act. We need to be more like Toya Graham and Willie Horton.
Okay, I have a soft spot for this piece because I remember 1967.
Dana Milbank:
The Civil War era’s 14th Amendment, granting automatic citizenship to any baby born on American soil, is a proud achievement of the Party of Lincoln.
But now House Republicans are talking about abolishing birthright citizenship.
Of course they are. And if they could reverse the Civil War, they'd do that, too.
Bangor Daily News:
A Massachusetts student exposed shoppers at the Kittery Outlet Malls to measles last week, prompting the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to urge unvaccinated residents to watch for symptoms of the highly contagious illness.
The student, an unvaccinated individual originally from western Europe, visited the shops on April 20 while infectious with the virus, health officials said. Between noon and 3 p.m., the student stopped at several stores, including the Kittery Trading Post, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and J. Crew.
The Disney measles outbreak is officially over (in the U.S., not in Canada), but vaccination remains an important thing to do.
NY Times:
At the Justice Department, a proposal soon began to take shape among Mr. Holder and senior officials: The administration could declare a formal moratorium on the federal death penalty because medical experts could not guarantee that the lethal drugs used did not cause terrible suffering. Such a declaration would have pressured states to do the same, the officials reasoned, and would bolster the legal argument that the death penalty is unconstitutionally cruel punishment.
But the idea never gained traction, and Mr. Obama has seldom mentioned the death penalty review since. Now, as the Supreme Court considered arguments Wednesday over whether lethal injection, as currently administered, was unconstitutional, the obstacles the Obama administration faced provide vivid examples of just how politically difficult the debate remains.