Obama Reducing Prison Sentences For Non-Violent Offenders With Penstroke

591 prisoners have been helped by Obama, and the White House says all cases that prisoners bring before Obama will be reviewed before he leaves office.

I remember that Ronald Reagan's war on drugs, of the 1980's, led to an -increase- in people getting long sentences for non-violent drug crimes.

Such differences are why I have decided not to listen to radicals who tell me elections don't matter and that there is no difference between the parties. Anyway, enjoy the article; it's good news.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/06/politics/obama-reducing-prison-sentences-announcement/index.html

 

There shouldn't even be a prison sentence for any non violent offense.
Yes there are slight differences in who gets elected. For the most part, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference in who is president. For every good thing a president gives though he does something shitty. Like forcing me to get expensive or/and useless insurance.

 

There has been a culture shift in how society thinks about drug use, and Obama is part of that culture.

 

We are long overdue for a national conversation regarding America's justice system. It's too bad this isn't a campaign issue. The US houses 2,220,000 prisoners in federal and state prisons and county jails, or 693 for every 100,000 people. This is the second highest incarceration rate in the world. Almost half of those in federal prisons are there because of drug offenses. Many of those are poor and/or have mental health issues.

Then there's the billions of dollars we have spent on the failed war on drugs. All that money and all we have to show for it are lives destroyed, the emergence of violent gangs and addicts going untreated. At least some of that money could have been used to establish local rehab facilities and the creation of 'drug courts' to handle non-violent drug arrests. We are not any better off putting these people in prisons and making career criminals out of them.

 

Aside from getting caught sleeping on Waikiki beach, I've only heard the metal door close behind me because I had drugs, a roommate had drugs and a girlfriend was dealing drugs. Each time I was able to get out within hours, but I still had court to deal with. There's a couple of ways you can receive time served, one is to get into rehab, the full lockdown kind. I guarantee you being in a nut house is SO much better than prison or even county jail. And wouldn't YOU rather make cheap leather wallets and do paint by numbers? Or would you prefer to be surrounded by REAL crooks who want to trade you around for smokes?

For me it was no choice at all, I was a speed freak, so I was always skinny, jail-honey looking. I'd have probably been a pack a day! Fuck that, rehab here I come!

The other reality for me though is that I have lost friends and seen others go to prison for drugs. They're never the same when they do time. While I think Obama is doing what has been needed for a long time, what about the laws? It could be a long time before we have a president who does this again. It sure as fook won't be Clinton, her husband used pot to lure the youth vote, then he shit on us once in office and turned pot into a Cop/DEA cash cow. GW was kinder to pot than Clinton.

But it has been clear to me since I started to care about politics way back in the 70s that both parties are keeping the drug war alive. I can only wonder what effect Trump will have. Maybe he'll be too busy dropping bombs to care about dispensaries. Just like GW!!!!

 

Here's an over the top example of government waste involved in our 'drug war'. In Massachusetts the National Guard and State Police were deployed to destroy an 81 year old woman's single pot plant. They even had a helicopter to help them accomplish this feat. She is said to have had the plant to help with her arthritis. I sincerely hope everyone involved with this raid felt foolish as hell.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/5/13172898/massachusetts-marijuana-raid?yptr=yahoo

 

With all due respect, I say, in response to penguinsfan13 who wrote there are only minor differences between the parties:

if Obama is reducing your sentence, it's a big diff
same if you're a coal miner whose mine gets inspectd properly because the Republicans don't hold the White House

I understand where penguin is coming from. Yes, the parties should differ more. However, let us not be so focused on the perfect that we don't see the good.

The Republicans will win, and we will have to work twice as hard for half as much progress. I hate to see our side be self-defeating, because we cannot get all we want.

Go vote for Hillary, and then plan to do activism in some other way. If you live in America, not voting or voting third party is NOT smart activism.

OK, I'm done with this rant, at least until I can't stand not ranting anymore.

 

I said most. 500 out of over 300 million makes my statement stand.

How about Hillery takes trumps idea of raising tariffs that way it would make more financial sense for manufacturers to operate out of the states. instead of China or mexico. That actually would make a difference to most people. But I stand by my statement because that won't happen as long as we continue to have politicians bought into signing bad trade agreements.

 

The thing is though that for some of the most important issues we face, both parties are nearly the same. So there is no progress on many specific issues. While others are turned into wedges to turn the conversation away from stuff that really affects everyone.

I've been hearing about the Mexican border for my entire life. From Kennedy (ok really Johnson) to now. Democrat or republican, the issue is never solved. Only danced around to pander for votes. They play good cop/bad cop on us, and we eat it up and ask for more.

The war on drugs is enforced almost exactly the same way no matter what party is in control. States are making more progress than the federal government. Both parties have sat on their asses while millions of Americans have been warehoused. For politicians it's the perfect way to get rid of a problem without crossing the line. Some have no problems crossing the line and leave a trail of bodies, most are victims of weird accidents, car in the garage suicides or just plain vanishing.

The US infrastructure is fucked. Remember the push to get everyone off of incandescent light bulbs? Why WAS that really? Simple, the grid was tapped. There were already brownouts and rolling blackouts, especially in the northeast. All of it concealed by the government and press. Light bulbs are just one of those things that uses way more current than is needed for it's primary purpose. They emit 80% of their energy as heat, not light. "If only we could swap every light bulb in America for bulbs that use 20% of the power, we could delay grid failures by a decade or more". The government then made many classes of incandescent bulbs illegal to manufacture. Instead, they are replaced by a lower powered fluorescent environmental nightmare. That caused backlash from the EPA, (yes, WE pay for interdepartmental squabbles) and now we have LED bulbs that use even less power and last much longer than fluorescent (mercury vapor) bulbs. That's only 1 example of how fucked we are going forward as our infrastructure erodes. Bridges should scare the crap out of many who use them daily. The high bridge in St. Paul fell because of both an engineering and inspection failure. Most of the sewer systems in the US are over a century old, cracked and leaking shit into the water table. Thankfully the methane gas from fracking is pushing it back up (ok, not really, the shit is still getting to the water). Katrina, the hurricane, didn't cause nearly as much actual damage as the failing levees which were and still are, way too small and badly conceived. They need a whole redo.

The economy is made up of numbers that seem to be manipulated by every middleman in the process. Politically it's all flower petals and prosperity from one point of view and a dearth slide into financial ruin from another. The only truth I get about the economy is the size of my tax bill. It's been enough to feed a half dozen families for the last couple of years. But I don't make enough to take advantage of loopholes, so I slog it out. They audit me anyway. A friend of mine makes half as much as me managing a restaurant for the last 12 years. His tax hit is lower and he doesn't seem to have as much trouble with the IRS. He also doesn't have employees overseas he pays through Western Union. Who can trust the employment numbers when the US has dismantled and shipped over 40,000 factories out of the country, most to China. Sure, some of them were 50s heavy technology, like steel plants, but plenty of high technology CNC manufacturing has been flown out of the US. Unemployment compensation is not an accurate way to look at employment numbers. Plenty of working people don't qualify for unemployment when they lose a job. It was designed for a specific kind of employment (9-5/M-F). Unemployment pays so poorly that eventually you realize the side hustles are making you so much money that even going TO the unemployment office is a waste of time. I'm fairly certain that Social Security will fuck me just as I hit "retirement age", whatever the fuck that means anymore. And really, does anyone here think I'd be much of a Wal-Mart greeter?

Politics in general is a cesspool thanks equally to both parties of the "ruling class". They know they own us and it shows. But look how they incite, as if they were kids poking ants with a stick. They keep us at each other's throats over the wedge issues, religion, abortion, racism, sexism and gay cakes. I'm going to have to vote with a stick in November. I don't want to actually touch the thing. The only way to vote against is to vote for. Unfortunately for, may not be a good choice either. That has been US politics for decades.

The prison system is another fuckup from both parties. The fact we have heroin in US prisons, on top of everything else, is certain proof that it's one of the most neglected corners of the American experience. US prisons keep our schools from being our worst problem.

 

Obama is capable of doing good deeds. He just does it so rarely.

 

^
We would almost think he doesn't gets to decide everything on his own!

 

That's less than .05% of the population of nonviolent offenders. A mere token for liberals who are still outraged that a quarter of the prison population consists of potheads even the cops agree should not be there.