Study shows bail reform failed, Trump familys bitcoin reek and other commentary

Crime beat: Study Shows Bail Reform FailedA new analysis of New York’s bail reforms from John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice does the opposite of what the researches claim, explains City Journal’s Rafael A.Mangual: It confirms “what bail-reform critics have been saying all along” — that “it was a bad idea” to “restrict bail while prohibiting judges from detaining dangerous pretrial defendants based on public safety risk.” Notably, when it comes to “high-risk” defendants, the “reduced use of bail” is linked to worse outcomes, including “higher arrest rates in general and for violent felonies in particular.” The findings “point in the same direction” as the researchers’ earlier analyses.

But: “Will the politicians in Albany considering changes to bail policy be guided by evidence — or ideology?”Liberal: Trump Family’s Bitcoin ReekCryptocurrency “has been spectacularly good for the Trumps,” reports The Free Press’ Joe Nocera, but oy, the ethical cloud! “Were [Donald] Trump not president, it is hard to imagine that there would have been much demand for any of Trump’s tokens,” but “meme coin sales generated $320 million in fees for the Trumps, as well as untold millions in the meme coins that the Trumps still hold.” Worse, in at least three cases, “people who helped enrich Trump and his family through the use of cryptocurrencies were looking for something from the administration” — and soon “got what they wanted.” One crypto billionaire who’d fled the country in 2023 after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged him “with manipulating the cryptocurrency market,” saw the SEC pause its case against him — seemingly indefinitely.Another crypto billionaire won a presidential pardon after a terrorism-linked money-laundering conviction.

And the UAE won an OK to buy “advanced semiconductor chips—despite fears among national security experts that the UAE would give access to...