He's back, Barack Hussein Obama II. The former President chose the University of Chicago in his first public appearance since leaving The White House. As expected, he handled himself like a pro.
President Obama said warned that political gerrymandering is preventing the country from tackling problems like economic inequality, a broken criminal justice system and climate change.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?427383-1/former-president-obama-makes-fir…
President Trump and DOJ Topper Sessions have fired a warning shot about the imminent danger posed by the so-called rising crime rate. Their fear factors will chill bipartisan attempts to reduce incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels. This scare administration tactic calls into question the trans-partisan nature of decades-long efforts.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Customs and Border Patrol personnel at the United States-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona that he has issued the attached memo to United States Attorneys that mandates the prioritization of criminal immigration enforcement. The memo directs federal prosecutors to focus on particular offenses that, if aggressively charged and prosecuted, can help prevent and deter illegal immigration.
We Don't Need No Stinking... Forensic Science Commission. The people require independent research.
Junked by the Justice Department as not necessary. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced the discontinuance of the National Commission on Forensic Science. The group is an independent panel of experts chartered to raise evidentiary standards in criminal cases.
Sessions also announced the suspension of a review of FBI testimony about forensic techniques. An internal Justice Department review now will evaluate those techniques.
The US Department of Justice has ordered a review of federal agreements with law enforcement agencies that reflect President Trump’s emphasis on law and order and the fears are that it could lead to a retreat on consent decrees with troubled police departments nationwide.
A consent decree is an agreement or settlement that resolves a dispute between two parties without admission of guilt in a criminal case or liability in a civil case.
The US Supreme Court has dealt a legal pushback and a big blow to racial bias in criminal cases, making it easier to unwind all convictions of defendants whose jurors show personal prejudices during their deliberations.
Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the court’s four liberal members in limiting the scope of Colorado’s “no impeachment rule,” which is designed to protect the finality of verdicts and the secrecy of deliberations.
It's a Chelsea mourning, as pushback increases after President Obama commuted the 35-year federal sentence of Chelsea Manning. He is the Army analyst convicted of leaking secret intelligence documents.
The high-profile prisoner, who announced he was transgender following his sentencing in 2013, is set to be freed in May.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commutes-bulk-of-c…
The tragedy is what he "succeeds" at. My son and are about to lose our health insurance because of his policies. Many of my students' parents are about to be put on deportation lists due to their countries of origin and religious beliefs. My women students are terrified to be sexually assaulted in a climate led by an admitted sexual predator.
“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it.” US President George Washington's Farewell Address in 1796.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
Friends and Citizens:
Question: Members of the US Supreme Court are too shorthanded to extend the long arm of the law and they begin another term minus one. As the incomplete court works with uncertainty, how will cases be affected when they replace the late Antonin Scalia and the nominee is eventually appointed?
In the meantime, is long-term immigration detention illegal? http://www.theatlantic.com/…/supreme-court-immigrat…/487877/ #NewsEngagementDay
In Colorado case on racial discrimination by a juror is being heard.