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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: 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.