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President Trump will sign an executive order to allow local police departments to receive or purchase military surplus equipment:
Police departments will now have access to military surplus equipment typically used in warfare, including grenade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Monday, describing it as "lifesaving gear."
The move rescinds limits on the Pentagon handouts that were put in place by President Barack Obama in 2015 amid a national debate over policing touched off by a spate of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of the police, including the shooting death in 2014 of 18-year-old Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., by a white officer. Some local residents viewed police use of military equipment during the ensuing protests as an unnecessary show of force and intimidation.
In a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police in Nashville, Mr. Sessions said Mr. Obama had made it harder for the police to protect themselves and their neighborhoods. "Those restrictions went too far," Mr. Sessions said. "We will not put superficial concerns above public safety."
Mr. Sessions said that President Trump would sign an executive order on Monday fully restoring the military program, called 1033, and that the president was doing "all he can to restore law and order and support our police across the country." [...] The program was started in the 1990s as a way for the military to transfer surplus equipment to federal, state and local police agencies fighting the drug war. More than $5 billion in surplus gear has been funneled to law enforcement agencies.
Organized gangs get to play soldier.
Also at The Hill and USA Today.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:09PM (7 children)
It's OK. We're getting the government we deserve.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:46PM (5 children)
Refinement: We're all getting the government that the majority deserves.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:41PM (4 children)
Majority being (minority who voted for Trump)+(the almost half who didn't vote), ie another case of good people doing nothing.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @02:56AM (3 children)
Nobody with a conscience and half a brain could have lived with themselves after voting for either IMO, so kudos to the half that didn't vote. I didn't suspect we had that many intelligent people in the nation.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday August 30 2017, @04:57AM (2 children)
The news services over here gave the impression that there were more than two candidates.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:45AM
Wish ours had. The other two partties' candidates might have garnered enough votes to automatically be on the ballots and get let in the debates next time around.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:35PM
We didn't really have a choice. By the time I had an opportunity to give my opinion, we had four major candidates: Trump, Hillary, Jill Stein, and Gary Johnson. IMHO, none of them had the proper qualifications to sit in the president's chair.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday August 30 2017, @09:31PM
I can't argue against your comment. In fact, I completely agree with it.
However, the side effect is that the world is also feeling the effects of the government we deserve. By the time this is all said and done, the world is going to find ways to amplify those effects. We won't be just fucking ourselves over. We're convincing others to fuck us too.