Paul Blest at Splinter writes—Bill Barr Has Always Been Terrible: “”
Attorney General William Barr gave a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police conference in New Orleans today, during which he lambasted criminal justice reform efforts as “dangerous to public safety.” It’s worth a reminder that these reforms aren’t just a rebuke to Barr’s worldview, but his entire career as well.
At the conference, Barr singled out “progressive prosecutors,” such as Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who are taking a decidedly less punitive approach to nonviolent crimes such as drug possession. To Barr—who recently announced that the DOJ is ready to get back in the murder business—letting people avoid jail for crimes that don’t actually hurt anyone just won’t do. From the Associated Press:
Barr took a hard swing at prosecutors who don’t embrace the same tough-on-crime stance. He said appointing such progressive district attorneys is “demoralizing to law enforcement and dangerous to public safety” because they “spend their time undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook, and refusing to enforce the law.”
[...]
“So these cities are headed back to the days of revolving door justice,” Barr said. “The results will be predictable. More crime; more victims.”
[...]
While much of the attention on Barr’s tenure as attorney general so far has focused on the Mueller report, there’s a good reason why President Donald Trump appointed him in the first place: when it comes to criminal justice, Barr is a portrait of the kind of “tough-on-crime” prosecutor that, until very recently, has been wildly popular. Near the end of his first stint as Attorney General in 1992, Barr authored “The Case for More Incarceration,” a DOJ report which argued—among other incredibly dumb and wrong things—that “benefits of increased incarceration would be enjoyed disproportionately by black Americans living in inner cities.” [...]
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2012—Romney reviewed 'several years' of tax returns of VP potentials:
While Mitt Romney refuses to release his tax returns to the American people so they can have the information necessary to evaluate him as a presidential candidate, nonetheless, he did demand years of tax returns from the persons he considered for the Republican vice presidential nomination. From Buzzfeed:
Mitt Romney's presidential campaign requested "several" years of tax returns from potential vice presidential picks, senior adviser Beth Myers, who ran the search, told reporters Saturday. Myers said vetting documents were stored in safes in a secure room at campaign headquarters for review by attorneys. Asked what was inside the safes, Myers replied "tax documents, everything we used.” And how many years? "Several" she said, declining to provide a more specific number.
Apparently, Romney, like Leona Helmsley, not only thinks that only the "little people" pay taxes, but that only "our betters" are permitted to review the tax returns of political candidates.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Greg Dworkin is back! Jeffrey Epstein is not! Gun culture, wellness culture share more than you think. Dems hit the Iowa State Fair. No big deal, just another Russian nuclear accident. Were those Mississippi ICE raids retaliation for workers’ complaints?