We know the citizenship question will hurt the census. Alabama already tried it.

  Common sense tells you that adding a question to the 2020 Census asking about citizenship status will depress response rates from an immigrant community already traumatized by President Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and deportation machinery. But common sense was not enough for the Trump administration.

  Certainly, it was not enough for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department is responsible for administering the census and who has bowed to pressure from the Justice Department to include a citizenship question. Refusing to acknowledge the question’s predictable impact, Ross has instead insisted that “no one [has] provided evidence that reinstating a citizenship question on the decennial census would materially decrease response rates.”

Jacob G. Hornberger: Pardon Martha Stewart and Joseph Nacchio

  The Get Out of Jail Free card that the Justice Department has given to national-security state official James R. Clapper can’t help to bring to mind what the feds did to Martha Stewart.

  Clapper commits perjury before Congress and nothing happens to him.

  Stewart lies to some federal agent when she’s not even under oath and she’s indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to five months in prison and fined.

Andy Worthington: Obama releases names of cleared Guantánamo prisoners; now it’s time to set them free

  On September 21, as part of a court case, the Justice Department released the names of 55 of the 86 prisoners cleared for release from Guantánamo in 2009 by Barack Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force, which consisted of officials from key government departments and the intelligence agencies. The Task Force’s final report was issued in January 2010.

  Until now, the government has refused to release the names, hindering efforts by the prisoners’ lawyers — and other interested parties — to publicize their plight.