[excon]

Hello:

Well, we're certainly NOT cracking down anymore... The Justice Department is making an end run around the mandatory sentencing laws. I think it's great.. I think it portends the END of this silly war. You?

excon

[speechlesstx]

I'm OK with a push to not send Spicolli to prison for smoking a joint. Interesting point made in the article...

Advocates of change point to Texas and New York as leaders in the effort to reduce sentences, particularly for lower-level drug crimes. Although California has modified its strict "three strikes" sentencing laws, the state has made fewer changes than many others. The state's prisons currently are under court order to reduce the number of inmates by nearly 10,000 this year to cope with overcrowding.

[excon]

Hello again, Steve:

Texas didn't come to the table because of sympathy for druggies.. They came because of MONEY. But, that's fine. I don't care WHY the drug war is ending.. Just as long as it ends.

excon

[speechlesstx]

Hello again, Steve:

Texas didn't come to the table because of sympathy for druggies.. They came because of MONEY. But, that's fine. I don't care WHY the drug war is ending.. Just as long as it ends.

excon

Now if the federal government can come to their senses about something over money it doesn't have we might get somewhere.

[talaniman]

Judge rules New York police's 'stop and frisk' tactics unconstitutional | Reuters

Wonder how those law and order tough on crime liberals will get their loot now? Raise taxes on Wall Street cocaine users? They never get stopped, frisked, or go to jail.

[N0help4u]

What war?? EVERY SINGLE addict and drug dealer in my hood is thrown in jail one day out the next. Called the revolving door. Stay a month occasionally called 'on vacation'. Fictitious war on drug because the government is the biggest middle man.

[tomder55]

Judge rules New York police's 'stop and frisk' tactics unconstitutional | Reuters

Wonder how those law and order tough on crime liberals will get their loot now? Raise taxes on Wall Street cocaine users? They never get stopped, frisked, or go to jail.

Been watching too many Michael Douglas movies... There hasn't been a culture of coke use on Wall Street since the 1980s . As for stop and frisk ;the judge put constitutional limits on it. The system will be appropriately modified .

[tomder55]

Good day for the Choom Gang

[tomder55]

My question is this... isn't it true that most drug busts of users comes at the state and local levels and that the Feds mostly bust the pushers and the cartels ? So how will Holder's dicates ;even if he's only picking and choosing which Federal laws he enforces ,make any difference ? I think that the total Federal lock up for any crime represents only about 10% of the total prison population... and most of the Federal lock ups aren't there because they puffed on a magic dragon. So what are we talking about ? A couple hundred prisoners ?

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

So what are we talking about ? A couple hundred prisoners

At this juncture, yes... But, WHAT a juncture. It's a SEA CHANGE juncture. No politician over the last 40 years would dare suggest we get softer on crime, yet Holder did, and Rand Paul agreed. The conversation has SHIFTED from lock 'em up, to let's see here.

It may take several years yet for the drug war to wind down, but it's OVER.

Excon

[talaniman]

been watching too many Michael Douglas movies... There hasn't been a culture of coke use on Wall Street since the 1980s . As for stop and frisk ;the judge put constitutional limits on it. The system will be appropriately modified .

How do you know since NONE of them get stopped and frisked? They may even have evolved into dealing since they have the loot. How do you know, link please.

That's okay I got one,

Wall Street turns a blind eye to drugs | Blanca Torii

The word among current employees, psychologists, and counselors, according to an article by Dealbreaker written in the past year, is that drug usage has not dropped. The numbers from the drug usage are results of the tests being announced before they are conducted, resulting in people cheating the system and causing discrepancy in the data. Cocaine stays in the body for only two or three days, according to Web MD.

“Our drug test is not so much a test of whether you actually take drugs as it is an intelligence test to see if you can figure out how long it takes to get traces of the drug out of your system,” said an anonymous hiring manager at a major New York bank, in a conversation with Reuters in 2007.

Rehab facilities, such as Seabrook House in Pennsylvania, have been crammed with Wall Street coke addicts. According to Seabrook Clinical Director William Heran, the Wall Street investors pay an average of $24,000 for a three month rehabilitation program.

The drug war looks more like class war to me. The poor are in the wrong class.

[tomder55]

Hello again, tom:
At this juncture, yes... But, WHAT a juncture. It's a SEA CHANGE juncture. No politician over the last 40 years would dare suggest we get softer on crime, yet Holder did, and Rand Paul agreed. The conversation has SHIFTED from lock 'em up, to let's see here.

It may take several years yet for the drug war to wind down, but it's OVER.

excon

Too bad that Holder has no authority to make that call. But if the cause it right ;who cares if the there is an imperial Presidency.

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

too bad that Holder has no authority to make that call.

Sure he does. It's called proprietorial discretion. All prosecutors have it, and he's the HEAD prosecutor.

Excon

[tomder55]

Guess it isn't his job to "faithfully execute " the laws of the land .

[talaniman]

Just because you don't like him or how he does his job doesn't mean he isn't faithfully executing the law of the land. Congress sure isn't faithfully executing their job either. To even be functional everybody has to work together and correct the glitches, big and small.

Squeal Repeal Defund Block Obstruct just adds to the dysfunction, and creates a big gridlock. But if I wanted to replace elected government with corporate masters, that's how I would do it too.

[tomder55]

For the record.. the legislative branch doesn't execute the laws and THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH DOESN'T MAKE THE LAW.

[speechlesstx]

Just because you don't like him or how he does his job doesn't mean he isn't faithfully executing the law of the land. Congress sure isn't faithfully executing their job either. To even be functional everybody has to work together and correct the glitches, big and small.

Squeal Repeal Defund Block Obstruct just adds to the dysfunction, and creates a big gridlock. But if I wanted to replace elected government with corporate masters, that's how I would do it too.

Was that the view you lefties took with Alberto Gonzales? I don't remember it that way.

This guy started by dismissing an obvious case of voter intimidation (called it a "made-up controversy" - a pattern for this admin. He then followed up with Fast & Furious for which he got executive privilege so he wouldn't have to answer for it, he's been spying on reporters, the guy doesn't have any respect for the law.

As for Congress, yeah they suck but it wasn't the House that failed to pass a budget for four years and quite frankly, the less they do the better.

[speechlesstx]

for the record .. the legislative branch doesn't execute the laws and THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH DOESN'T MAKE THE LAW.

Details, details...

[speechlesstx]

On the same not, a DC appeals court just gave Obama a smackdown for refusing to follow the law.

In a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was "simply flouting the law" when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository.

"The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections," Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a majority opinion, which was joined Judge A. Raymond Randolph. Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland dissented.

The appeals court said the case has important implications for the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government.

"It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," Kavanaugh wrote. "The commission is simply defying a law enacted by Congress... without any legal basis."

Let's see, where else might that apply?

[excon]

Hello again, tom:

guess it isn't his job to "faithfully execute " the laws of the land

So, you DON'T believe a prosecutor should be given the discretion to decide whether to prosecute in the very first place, decide which charges to bring, determine whether a defendant should be tried as an adult or a juvenile, how the trial is to be conducted, whether a plea bargain should be negotiated, what the TERMS of the plea bargain should be, what sentence to recommend, and what position he should take on parole and probation??

Now, of course, you think a prosecutor should have that discretion. What you object to is the HEAD prosecutor having it.. I have NO idea why.

Excon