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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
(Score: 0, Interesting) by idiot_king on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:26AM (19 children)
With now finally proof of treason by Der Trumpenfurher (see links below) we can finally and truly drain the swamp which was overflowing with racist, sexist trash.
Most of you will think there's a reason to be worried about the sham that is known as the "War on Drugs."
The good news is that the swamp will finally be drained when this f*ckwit is relieved if his so-called "duty" of President.
It'll just be a domino effect from there and finally we can install some sane Democrats into power, as it should be (and should have been), and finally drain the swamp of this Rethuglican mess that's been amassing for these past few tumultuous years.
I'm glad we can kiss goodbye to Unser Trumpenfurher and say hello to a line of quickly-falling dominoes leading directly to Vladimir Putin himself.
Garbage day is here, folks!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/trump-russia-classified-information-isis.html?_r=0/ [nytimes.com]
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39931012/ [bbc.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/politics/trump-russia-classified-information/ [cnn.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:30AM
Garbage day is here, folks!
Not even close. Turmp is golden as long as the republicans think he will sign off on their agenda.
Ryan and McConnell will continue to downplay every crazy-ass thing that motherfucker does because all they care about is cutting taxes on the rich.
They relish the chance to the fuck the poor, why should they give a damn about a well-governed country? If you can't afford good governance you have no business expecting it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Some call me Tim on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:55AM (9 children)
And every last bit of that shit is from "Sources say". Give me a name for that source so I can determine the validity of their information. If you don't have that you don't have anything. The media have been beating that dead horse for 6 months and there isn't a shred of actual evidence of any wrongdoing. The fact that John Podesta got his email spearfished and all of the DNC corruption was outed, reveals only that he and or his staff is totally incompetent.
And as to your hyperventilating 'Sources say' propaganda links, the president has wide latitude as to the things he can declassify, in this case he didn't reveal anything that wasn't already public information.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/15/white-house-denies-report-trump-revealed-classified-info-about-isis-to-russians.html/ [foxnews.com] Don't like my source? Too bad. Enjoy your bubble of willful ignorance.
If you want to jump on someone for allowing classified info to fall into enemy hands, talk to Hillary about her private server.
Don't care about a karma hit at this point, the dead horse and I have had enough of this bullshit of unnamed, pulled out of someones ass sources that have no basis in fact.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:50AM
And every last bit of that shit is from "Sources say". Give me a name for that source so I can determine the validity of their information.
It's the same sources that have been accusing Hillary of every crime under the sun for the last twenty years.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @09:24AM
Give me a name for that source so I can determine the validity of their information. If you don't have that you don't have anything
Deep Throat disagrees.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:41AM (5 children)
> And every last bit of that shit is from "Sources say".
Except for the non-denial denials from McMaster and Tillerson.
That's your official confirmation.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/05/15/reporters-see-red-herring-in-nsa-mcmasters-denial-of-explosive-russian-story/ [theblaze.com]
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333542-state-dept-surprised-by-tillerson-defending-trump-report [thehill.com]
Also Turmp, with his typical idiotic bravado just confirmed he did it by claiming it was legal for him to do it:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/333550-trump-i-had-absolute-right-to-share-facts-with-russia [thehill.com]
> the president has wide latitude as to the things he can declassify
Just because it is legal does not make it legitimate. It would also be legal for Mitch McConnell to walk onto the floor of the Senate, shoot every democratic senator from a state with a republican governor, have those governors appoint republican senators as replacements and then have Turmp pardon him. That would not make it legitimate. As another example, two of the three articles of impeachment against Nixon alleged no direct violation of the law. Instead, they concerned Nixon’s abuse of his power as President.
> in this case he didn't reveal anything that wasn't already public information.
Wait, what? Didn't you just get finished telling us its legal for the president to do everything he's been accused of doing? And now he didn't even do it? What is, the throw as much shit as possible at the wall and hope something sticks defense?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:15PM (4 children)
It would also be legal for Mitch McConnell to walk onto the floor of the Senate, shoot every democratic senator from a state with a republican governor, have those governors appoint republican senators as replacements and then have Turmp pardon him.
No. No, it would not.
A pardon does not make what you did legal; a pardon is an admission it was illegal but they won't prosecute you. That's why some people refuse to accept a pardon, because it's basically admitting they were guilty.
Just because it is legal does not make it legitimate.
le·git·i·mate
adjective
ləˈjidəmət/Submit
1.
conforming to the law or to rules.
"Legal" and "legitimate" are synonyms. I think the word you're looking for is "ethical."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:33PM
A pardon does not make what you did legal
Correct.
a pardon is an admission it was illegal but they won't prosecute you. That's why some people refuse to accept a pardon, because it's basically admitting they were guilty.
That's actually unclear under U.S. law. The general citation for this is Burdick vs. U.S. [wikipedia.org] (1915), but most legal scholars seem to regard the statement in McKenna's opinion about a pardon implying an "imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it" to be obiter dicta and thus non-binding. The opinion here also didn't explicitly overrule the previous dicta in Ex Parte Garland [wikipedia.org] (1866), which said:
A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offense and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out the existence of the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense... It makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.
Garland was about Civil War pardons for lawyers who had previously served in the Confederacy. While Burdick's dicta really was just speculation about the rationale for rejecting a pardon, Garland's dicta was more on-point, asserting that a pardoned person was effectively beyond the reach of the law for the offense supposedly committed.
Anyhow, in the century since Burdick, no other definitive rulings have addressed the issue. Courts cite both (and a few other cases); generally the trend seems to come down in favor of the Burdick perspective, but since both are viewed as dicta, some court rulings still hold to the Garland standard. This issue came up recently in discussion over Hillary Clinton, and it was a hot topic a decade ago with Scooter Libby. You can find legal scholars arguing on both sides of the issue when it has come up.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:25PM (2 children)
No. No, it would not.
A pardon does not make what you did legal;
Hey! Are you confused? Do you think Mitch McConnell is president? We are talking about what it would be legal for the president to do.
It would be legal for Turmp to pardon McConnell for the murders.
> "conforming to the law or to rules"
> "Legal" and "legitimate" are synonyms.
By your own damn citation you are wrong. It doesn't just say law it also says "rules." The entire government runs on rules of behavior. The law is just a backstop.
But JFC, did you really think it was informative to go full pedant? What larger point did you hope to communicate?
PS, as is always the case with dictionary pedants you failed to actually read the full definition in the dictionary:
legitimate [oxforddictionaries.com]
adjective
Pronunciation /lɪˈdʒɪtɪmət/
1 Conforming to the law or to rules.
‘his claims to legitimate authority’
1.1 (of a child) born of parents lawfully married to each other.
‘a legitimate male heir’
1.2 (of a sovereign) having a title based on strict hereditary right.
‘the last legitimate Anglo-Saxon king’
2 Able to be defended with logic or justification; valid.
‘a legitimate excuse for being late’
Goddamn fucking pedants. You will never learn.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
Hey! Are you confused? Do you think Mitch McConnell is president? We are talking about what it would be legal for the president to do.
Oh, you meant
It would also be legal for [a bunch of long, rambling blather] and then have Turmp pardon him.
not
It would also be legal for Mitch McConnell to walk onto the floor of the Senate, shoot every democratic senator [a bunch of long, rambling blather]
Well yeah, as long as it's not impeachment proceedings, the president can pardon anyone he wants. I read what you were saying as it being retroactively legal to shoot up the assembly. What was the point of this whole hypothetical?
2 Able to be defended with logic or justification; valid.
Appealing to the laws is usually a pretty safe way to defend something logically (especially if they explain their logic in the law itself). I still think you chose a poor word.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @09:01PM
> What was the point of this whole hypothetical?
Oh please do not play stupid.
The point was that legality is not a defense.
> Appealing to the laws is usually a pretty safe way to defend something logically
Which is why there is an entirely separate definition that mentions laws. Because its the same thing.
Goddamn pedants never fucking learn.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:04PM
Give me a name for that source so I can determine the validity of their information.
Donald Trump
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:11AM (5 children)
What sort of crack are you smoking? The Democrats and the Republicans both are responsible for the current mess, as indicated by their former party name: The Democratic Republicans.
In the leadup to the Civil War they split into the Democrats and Republicans (who originally stood for the 'opposite' they do today, the Republicans being the filthy liberals (and ALSO the religious right) and the Democrats being the pro-slavery racists (and also the hedonistic left).
If we want to drain this swamp, it is time to clear out Congress of the disease that is BOTH the Republicans and Democrats, and then work on finding the least whackjob third party candidates who could actually make a different.
Said as a left leaning individual. Left and Right, clean up your act, otherwise I hope the world nukes your collective asses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:14AM (4 children)
These days I'm out in Oyster Bay in Long Island, where Teddy Roosevelt's home Sagamore Hill is. He's my favorite president, too, so I've been contemplating the mess we're in today against the situation when he was president. Then the Trusts had thoroughly corrupted the system as they have now. The government was as broken as it is now. T.R. was a reformer from a reformer faction of the Republican Party (analogous to the Tea Party insurgency, though the comparisons stop there) that was waxing, and the RNC put him on the presidential ticket as the VP to shut him and his faction up, while rendering him and them totally powerless as the VP job was then. It was an accident that the president was assassinated and TR was sworn in.
But the Trust-busting and reform policies that he pushed through from the bully pulpit set the stage for America's global ascendency over the last 100 years, and also bought the Republic that time to even continue to exist.
We need another TR now, but I doubt we'll get one. The other shoe will drop first. TR was not able to correct the system enough to prevent corporate take-over of the country, and unless we can things will never get better again.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:20PM (3 children)
But the Trust-busting and reform policies that he pushed through from the bully pulpit set the stage for America's global ascendency over the last 100 years, and also bought the Republic that time to even continue to exist.
The US was already a world power by the time that Roosevelt became president and those trusts were a huge part of the reason why. Further, where does present day US spy agencies fit into your narrative? They've fucked over business as well with impunity. Why are we whining about corporate takeovers while ignoring the real threats? Businesses tend to do real well in the current situation because they're far more useful to the powers-that-be than normal citizens. That doesn't make businesses in charge.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:09PM
The US was already a world power by the time that Roosevelt became president and those trusts were a huge part of the reason why.
Economic superpower, maybe, but the U.S. didn't even have a standing army until WWII.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:52PM (1 child)
Not in charge... but everything just happens to go their way. Huh! How about that coincidence?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:03PM
Not in charge... but everything just happens to go their way.
Yes, if you call getting screwed by the NSA or the EPA "getting their way". If you don't, well those corps might not have as much power as you think they have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:47PM
Actually I think president Trump has been pretty smart, by postponing the "Rich People Don't Need To Pay Tax" law a bit.
As long as that law hasn't been passed yet, the Republicans in Congress need him (to blame), and his life is secure. Afterwards, well maybe Bannon needs a popular and outspoken politician as target for his "Reichstag Fire" moment.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:05PM
Der Trumpenfurher
It's spelled Führer. Or if you don't want to figure out how to umlaut it, Fuehrer. H before R.