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posted by on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the guilty dept.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that he has directed his federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe penalties possible, including mandatory minimum sentences, in his first step toward a return to the war on drugs of the 1980s and 1990s that resulted in long sentences for many minority defendants and packed U.S. prisons.

[...] In the later years of the Obama administration, a bipartisan consensus emerged on Capitol Hill for sentencing reform legislation, which Sessions opposed and successfully worked to derail.

In a two-page memo to federal prosecutors across the country, Sessions overturned former attorney general Eric H. Holder's sweeping criminal charging policy that instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. In its place, Sessions told his more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys to charge defendants with the most serious crimes, carrying the toughest penalties.

More at Washington Post, Fox News, Huffington Post, The Hill

Memorandum on Department Charging and Sentencing Policy - US Department of Justice PDF


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  • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:44PM (4 children)

    by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:44PM (#510524) Journal

    Well, I hope you're happy.

    All of this shit happening right now, this is the WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR TRUMP WINNING. Even after She Lost!, I started to Get Over It!, especially because I was still so pissed off at myself for throwing away my vote when I could have voted Johnson or Stein. I told myself that it wouldn't be that bad. I told myself that in a lot of ways this administration might do some good.

    Then Sessions became AG after the Republicans even fucking muzzled [businessinsider.com] Elizabeth Warren, for reading this short little note from Coretta Scott King [time.com] directed at Sessions, and you folks know me, I hate feminism, but muzzling Warren WAS PLAIN, SIMPLE, AND OBVIOUS FUCKING GODDAMNED SEXISM!

    I've seen that kind of shit [nydailynews.com] out of Republicans before, so it wasn't surprising as much as it was infuriating.

    Now the real shit begins. Let's hope that The People of the Several States that have now legalized cannabis are ready to FIGHT BACK, AND I MEAN WITH GUNS when Sessions directs the National Guard to descend on Denver or where ever.

    You don't think he's crazy and bigoted enough to do that? Well, I hope you're right.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @02:01PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @02:01PM (#510529)

    Let's hope that The People of the Several States that have now legalized cannabis are ready to FIGHT BACK, AND I MEAN WITH GUNS when Sessions directs the National Guard to descend on Denver or where ever.

    LOL. That'd be a sight to see. Lazy coastal millennial liberal transplants and hippie burnouts who just want to get high, pick up guns and fight for liberty. Man I'd pay to see that!

  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:54PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:54PM (#510629)

    The National Guard of Colorado is directly controlled by the State Governor. The President can "borrow" them but only with the Governor's permission. IIRC. Sessions has zero direct control of any real military. Though there are several militarized civilian organizations he can probably use.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:37PM (#510801)

    I could have voted Johnson or Stein. I told myself that [voting for Trump] wouldn't be that bad

    Just a guess:
    You've never been put in charge of hiring for a company.
    Apparently, you would choose someone who has no applicable experience and an otherwise empty head.
    ...plus an overbearing ego that dominates his personality and an always-go-nuclear approach to any criticism.

    Anything Trump ever "accomplished" has been done by lawyers.
    ...and this is after being gifted millions by his daddy.
    (Had he simply put that dough in an index fund, he'd have -more- money than his own speculative efforts; his SIX bankruptcies speak to this.)

    Trump has zero foreign policy experience and, what's even more impactful, has zero experience in domestic governance.
    The way he flounders around doing stupid things shows how empty his head is.
    (He doesn't read books.)

    Johnson was a governor (and a pretty popular one).
    I don't agree with his politics and think that he would mostly do business-friendly stuff, but I'm sure he wouldn't have been so goddamned ham-fisted as an executive.
    At a minimum, he wouldn't have taken weeks in office to figure out which end is up.

    Stein was a member of her city council and she's a reader, constantly curious about the world.
    Listening to her speak it's obvious that she's smart, articulate, and well-informed.
    Her platform, you would have found had you made an effort to read it, is pro-worker, pro-consumer, and pro-family (and not in the phony Republican way).
    She's anti-dirty energy (Green Party, duh) and has a Green New Deal plan to to move away from fossil fuels while creating jobs.

    ...but you thought that The Orange Clown "wouldn't be that bad".

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]