Stora tråden om amerikansk inrikespolitik

Sessions orders Justice Dept. to end forensic science commission, suspend review policy
Attorney General Jeff Sessions will end a Justice Department partnership with independent scientists to raise forensic science standards and has suspended an expanded review of FBI testimony across several techniques that have come under question

Several commission members who have worked in criminal courts and supported the input of independent scientists said the department risks retreating into insularity and repeating past mistakes, saying that no matter how well-intentioned, prosecutors lack scientists’ objectivity and training.

U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York, the only federal judge on the commission, said, “It is unrealistic to expect that truly objective, scientifically sound standards for the use of forensic science . . . can be arrived at by entities centered solely within the Department of Justice.”

In suspending reviews of past testimony and the development of standards for future reporting, “the department has literally decided to suspend the search for the truth,”

Trump's "Comms Dir" told staff prez needs "rebranding" and "there's no Trump doctrine." Yikes.

/.../More than 30 Trump staffers piled into a conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjoining the White House on Tuesday, according to a half-dozen attendees who described the meeting.
Mike Dubke, Trump’s communications director, and his deputy, Jessica Ditto, kicked off the discussion of how to package Trump’s tumultuous first 100 days by pitching the need for a “rebranding” to get Trump back on track.
“I think the president’s head would explode if he heard that,” one of the White House officials present said.
Staffers, including counselor Kellyanne Conway, were broken into three groups, complete with whiteboards, markers and giant butcher-block-type paper to brainstorm lists of early successes. One group worked in the hallway.
“It made me feel like I was back in fifth grade,” complained another White House aide who was there. “That’s the best way I could describe it.”

Dubke, who did not work on the campaign, told the assembled aides that international affairs would present a messaging challenge because the president lacks a coherent foreign policy. Three days later, Trump would order missile strikes in Syria in a reversal after years of opposition to such intervention.

“There is no Trump doctrine,” Dubke declared.
Some in the room were stunned by the remark.