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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: 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.