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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: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:32PM (5 children)
How Dems spent the last 8 years:
Single-Payer was included in the ACA until the Republicans filibustered it out.
Wall Street Hates the Volcker Rule (Dodd Frank). Will Finally Trump Kill It? [realclearpolitics.com]
Phasing Out Our Use of Private Prisons [justice.gov]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:42PM (2 children)
Person mainly responsible for killing Single Payer: Max Bacus, Democrat (AKA, Republican in Sheep's Clothing)
He went so far as to have doctors and nurses who supported single payer arrested: https://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/13/baucus_raucus_caucus_doctors_nurses_and [democracynow.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:58PM (1 child)
> Person mainly responsible for killing Single Payer: Max Bacus, Democrat (AKA, Republican in Sheep's Clothing)
You are right. Her was one asshole who happened to be at a point where his influence was outsized.
That does not make him representative of the party. Your attempt to paint the entire party with his ideology is the path of false equivalence that leads people to vote for the greater evil because they've been convinced all evils are equal and the greater evil always has better PR. Stop enabling the greater evil.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday May 16 2017, @10:44PM
Funny how there are so many Democrats at crucial moments ready make sure only Republican policy is passed.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:43PM
Wall St. hates anything, but Dodd-Frank is weak tea out of the gate: https://www.thenation.com/article/how-wall-street-defanged-dodd-frank/ [thenation.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:46PM
Prisons: Is that phasing out private prisons to save money and open more publicly financed prisons? Kind of like how Democrats' plan to "close" Gitmo was to move the operation to Illinois which would close Gitmo but not change the practices of due process free detention, just the place where it happens.
https://www.aclu.org/news/creating-gitmo-north-alarming-step-says-aclu [aclu.org]