SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:32PM (13 children)
I find it hard to believe that there would be a "President Sanders" in power today had he been President Trump's opponent.
Sanders was only taken seriously by a small, fringe, far-left element within the Democratic Party. Pretty much everybody else rejected him.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:05PM (4 children)
That's a load of crap right there. The polling was quite clear that Sanders would have trounced Trump in the general election. Even that terrible candidate HRC barely lost the election and she was specifically promising no change and to do nothing to help the struggling underclass.
Sanders himself wasn't a far left candidate by any reasonable definition of far left. The things that he was promising were things that in any other part of the world would be considered moderate. Most of the developed world has universal health care and policies to ensure that people aren't starving while oligarchs have no shortage of favors from the government. Sanders was far, far more popular with independents and Republicans than HRC was and you think that he wouldn't have won? Those independents were and Democratic defectors were the reason that HRC ultimately lost. Or, more to the point, HRC's inability to connect or offer anything of value to them was the reason she lost.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @10:53PM
Hahahah not even close! Sanders was moderate left at best, it is just that the Democrats have become so authoritarian that you're baseline is outta whack.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @02:44AM (2 children)
The polling also had Hillary winning.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 30 2017, @03:54AM (1 child)
All of the polling was done in such a way as to make HRC seem inevitable - comparing that to Bernie's numbers which were certainly squashed as much as possible (and yet he still looked a winner) is an apples/oranges deal.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:37AM
Eh, it really is apples and oranges when you're comparing a Bernie/Hillary vs a Bernie/Trump poll, yup. The vested interest there is to show your favored candidate winning in any individual comparison. Which is exactly what was done in both cases.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:08PM (7 children)
If you really think Sanders would have lost to Trump, you're an idiot. Sanders was polling significantly higher than both Hillary and Trump when the polls looked at the overall electorate (i.e., not looking at only Dem voters or party-affiliated voters).
This election was lost by the DNC because of 1) swing voters and 2) people either not voting or voting 3rd-party. Sanders would have won a majority of those votes, plus all the people who voted for Hillary (who sure as hell weren't going to vote for Trump). A lot of Trump voters were even disgruntled Sanders voters who switched sides to thumb their noses at the DNC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:42PM (6 children)
LOL! You're actually putting faith in the findings of the same pollsters who repeatedly predicted (wrongly) that Clinton would win! LOL!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:10PM (5 children)
Don't let the fact that she won the popular vote ruin your narrative.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @02:45AM (2 children)
Butthurt much? We don't do popular vote round these parts. Google Tyranny of the Majority if you want to know why.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @04:41PM (1 child)
Instead we get dictatorship, color me unimpressed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @11:01PM
I think you might need to look up that word. You haven't a clue what it means.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 30 2017, @03:55AM (1 child)
Where's the "moron" mod when you need it!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday August 30 2017, @10:41AM
Commented out on the grounds that it'd get used more often than a millennial's cellphone.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.