President Barack Obama signs commutation letters in the Oval Office, March 31, 2015.
Sarah Lazare at Common Dreams writes—
Obama Grants Clemency to 46 Drug Offenders, But Thousands Turned Away:
The president's statement brings the total number of commutations under his watch to 89—more pardons than any other president since Lyndon B. Johnson, who commuted 226 sentences.
However, the commutations fall well short of the thousands the administration estimated when the president last year unrolled an effort to release people locked up on nonviolent drug charges, citing lack of fairness in sentencing. Since the announcement, 35,000 people have applied for early release, Reuters reports.
But the president has has denied thousands of applications.
"He's been unusually stingy—he's a clemency Grinch," said Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor who has studied presidential pardons, in an interview with Yahoo News published Monday. [...]
The commuted sentences represent a small fraction of the over 95,000 people are incarcerated in federal prisons for drug offenses and an even tinier percentage of the total number of people locked up. With 2.23 million people currently locked in U.S. prisons and jails, America is by far the biggest jailer in the world, accounting for only 5 percent of the global population but 25 percent of the number of people incarcerated
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—Sotomayor hearings set to begin:
All Congress-watching eyes are expected to turn today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, as they begin their consideration of the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. And the Committee, aware of the intense interest, will be live streaming video of the hearing, which they're wisely making available in blog-embeddable format. So that's exciting in itself. They know where the interest lies.
Thinking of popping some popcorn and watching the proceedings? If it's Sotomayor you want to hear from, make sure you get lunch first. And maybe a nap. Because although the hearings are expected to be gaveled into session at 10 a.m., the first order of business is opening statements. From the Senators. Nineteen of them. For up to ten minutes apiece. Plus statements of introduction from home state Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand.
That's Washington for you. Three to four hours of opening statements—plus a lunch break—before the person you're supposed to be talking about even gets to say anything. And then, once she makes her own opening statement, they'll adjourn for the day. It will take an entire day to "open" things with statements. You want to see someone ask a question? Come back tomorrow.
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