Jeff Sessions

As Attorney General, Jeff Sessions Would Be A Threat To Civil Rights

... as a champion of civil rights. He denied calling the NAACP “un-American,” took credit for prosecuting members of the Ku Klux Klan, and called the voter-fraud prosecutions “a voting-rights case.” (That’s like saying Jim Crow was about water-fountain integrity.). But there’s little evidence that Sessions has changed. Despite pledging “aggressive enforcement of our laws to ensure access to the ballot for every eligible American voter,” Sessions stuck by his characterization of the Voting Rights Act as “intrusive” and said “it was a good feeling” when the Supreme Court gutted the law. He said that voter-ID laws were “OK” and don’t “appear to be” discriminatory, even though courts in North Carolina and Texas have found such laws to be intentionally discriminatory against black and Latino voters. When Sessions was pressed about the court decisions, he claimed that he was “not familiar” with them, despite their being among the highest-profile cases filed by the Obama Justice Department. In one of ...

Sen. Baldwin Explains Why She Won't Vote To Confirm Sessions For Attorney General

... how Sessions might investigate and prosecute hate crimes such as the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando last June, which left 49 people dead, most of them queer Latinx. “The aftermath of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub that targeted LGBT Americans, Latinos was a hate crime where we saw at that moment, that tragic, tragic moment, we saw people unwilling to speak of it as a hate crime, and to acknowledge that it was a crime that was perpetrated against the LGBT community, the Latino community,” she said. “It just says to me: we need to be increasing resources for prevention of hate crimes and enforcement of our hate crimes laws.”. Though she is voting against Sessions, Baldwin said, “if he indeed is confirmed by the Senate ― and it is certainly a probability that he will be ― it is up to all of us to do our best to keep him accountable.”. Sessions, whose confirmation vote was delayed by Senate Democrats but is now scheduled for Tuesday , has been opposed to just about every pro-LGBTQ measure during his tenure in the ...

Who's The Favorite Senator Of Followers Of White Nationalists On Twitter

... (R-Ala.), President Donald Trump's nominee to be attorney general, had the most overlap with white nationalist groups and individuals. "He's the closest of all senators to the white nationalist groups," says Tien. Sessions has a controversial track record on matters of race , including allegations of racist comments toward black colleagues and the targeted prosecution of civil rights activists. But Tien was still surprised by the outcome of his research. He and his colleagues wrote a short paper on their findings and titled it "The Curious Case of Jefferson Sessions.". Tien recently joined forces with UCLA mathematician Mason Porter and a third academic who wishes to remain anonymous to launch a new blog under the pseudonym Susan Bourbaki Anthony. (The name is a reference to suffragist Susan B. Anthony and an anonymous group of French mathematicians who published under the pseudonym Nicolas Bourbaki in the 1930 s.) The goal is to use their expertise to provide objective data about issues they believe are important and nonpartisan, such as voting rights and racial equality. They plan to post their code online so people can ...

Coretta Scott King, Who Died 11 Years Ago Today, Would Condemn Current State Of Turmoil

...  In her letter, she condemned Sessions for undertaking a series of vote fraud investigations and prosecutions in Alabama during his time as a prosecutor. His work targeting activists such as Albert Turner, who marched alongside Dr. King, ultimately had the effect of chilling the Black vote.  The prosecutions ultimately proved baseless but the stinging legacy of Sessions’ work carried on throughout rural parts of the state. King condemned Sessions and noted that his federal appointment would "irreparably damage the work" of Martin Luther King, Jr.  In her words, “[t]he irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods.”  King’s words ultimately led a bi-partisan coalition of Senators to oppose Jeff Session’s judgeship nomination then and should lead the Senate to the same to oppose his nomination to serve as Attorney ...

Scandal Complicates Replacing Jeff Sessions

... is reportedly wrapping up an investigation into possible ethics violations by Bentley and a former political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. Complaints were filed against them last year after allegations that Bentley had an affair with Mason. The two have denied the affair and any illegal activity, despite the release of salacious recordings of the governor discussing his relationship with Mason. Still, Bentley apologized for making inappropriate comments to Mason after the recordings of his calls were released. In November, Strange asked Alabama’s House Judiciary Committee to end an investigation into impeaching the governor because of “related work” in his own office. Strange has since clarified that his office never said it was investigating Bentley, instead explaining that he wanted the committee to pause its ...

Delay Sessions Confirmation Vote Until ‘muslim Ban’ Is Stopped

... who I believed was involved in this tonight,” said Booker. That drew applause at the time, but Booker’s use of the word “many” led to criticism online. And the demands for rougher Democratic tactics are not limited to the party’s activist base. Shakir is a veteran of former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s office; Adam Jentleson, who was Reid’s former deputy chief of staff, argued in The Washington Post on Friday that Democrats should deny unanimous consent on Trump nominees, forcing Republicans to spend extra days debating them. “With 48 senators in their caucus, [Democrats] have the votes to block most bills,” Jentleson wrote. “But even when Democrats don’t have the votes, they can force Mc Connell to spend time jumping through procedural hoops. This is the insight Mc Connell deployed against Reid to manufacture the appearance of gridlock, forcing him to use the cloture process more than 600 times.”. Tillerson’s vote, scheduled for Monday evening, ...

Why Jeff Sessions Should Police The Police

... a broad impact, but indications are these will be even more successful in bringing about constitutional policing and repairing police-community fissures. Periodic surveys in Seattle required by its consent decree show increasing public confidence in policing. The latest showed all-time high numbers of African Americans and Latinos approving of treatment by police during stops. The long-troubled New Orleans Police Department has finally, under a consent decree, shown significant improvement. In just one example, that police department’s independent monitor reported a “significantly reformed” response to sexual assault and domestic violence that improved public trust. The result? An 83 percent increase in sexual assault reporting in 2015 alone. That’s quite a shift from the results of the first federal investigation of the New Orleans police department over a decade ago. In that investigation, as in the first ...

Trump’s Hard-line Actions Have An Intellectual Godfather

... Senate. The mastermind behind Trump’s incendiary brand of populism is chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who, as chairman of the Breitbart website, promoted Sessions for years. Then there is Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who considers Sessions a savant and forged a bond with the senator while orchestrating Trump’s trip last summer to Mexico City and during the darkest days of the campaign. [ Trump lays groundwork to change U. S. role in the world ]. In an email in response to a request from The Washington Post, Bannon described Sessions as “the clearinghouse for policy and philosophy” in Trump’s administration, saying he and the senator are at the center of Trump’s “pro-America movement” and the global nationalist phenomenon. “In America and Europe, working people are reasserting their right to control their own destinies,” Bannon wrote. “Jeff Sessions ...

Five Myths About Sen. Jeff Sessions

... their police departments. It may be impossible to increase deportations dramatically, anyway, no matter what Sessions might prefer. The Obama administration already deported a record number of people, earning President Barack Obama the sardonic title of “ deporter in chief ” among immigration advocates. The undocumented population has decreased. And House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated recently that Congress won’t go along with mass deportations of undocumented immigrants who don’t have criminal records. Myth No. 4. Sessions would revive an ’80 s-style war on drugs. “The war on drugs is coming back” under Sessions, Slate predicted in November. Similar warnings have appeared in Politico and Newsweek. As a U. S. attorney, Sessions had a reputation for aggressive prosecution of drug offenses. And in the Senate, he has pushed for tougher enforcement of drug laws. Federal drug enforcement may become a higher priority ...

5 Fast Facts You Need To Know

... S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Prisons, according to The Washington Post. When Sally Yates was confirmed as deputy attorney general, she said one of her goals would be granting clemency to nonviolent drug ­offenders. The Obama administration ultimately granted clemency to more individuals than any administration since Harry Truman. “Those policies were enacted at a time of an exploding violent-crime rate and serious crack problems,” Yates said in 2015, referring to drug sentencing policies from the 1980 s and 1990 s. “They were based on the environment we were in. But things have changed now, and violent crime rates have dropped dramatically.”. 3. She Started Working at the Department of Justice in 1989. Sally Yates testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 8 th, 2015. (Getty). Sally Yates’ career in the United States Department of Justice stretches back nearly three decades. Yates started in 1989 as assistant attorney in the U. S. Attorney’s ...

Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s Nominee For Attorney General, Stands By His Support For Sweeping Anti-lgbt Bill

... if others dislike it. & there is nothing any 1 can do to legally stop us from telling the ugly truths. Gay bashing victims will face the public opinion court as gay bashers do and ugly truths will be told about a homosexual if it’s found though it offends homosexual groups. If homosexuals getting bashed and killed in unprovoked attacks was common, then it would not be in news because it would not be interesting. Going out & attacking people with no provocation is stupid but yes, there are stupid people and when this happens it is reported in news. Most domestic violence & rape/sex abuse cases do not get reported in news in most cases unless it is let’s say a famous person accused of rape or hitting his girlfriend or an unusual or strange case because there are so many of these cases that they would not be interesting. With homosexuals, it is far more common for homosexuals to molest boys but most of these cases do not get ...

Why Democrats Can't Vote For Jeff Sessions

... opponents of all of Trump's nominees, Carson would have had no incentive to give Democrats any commitments at all. Of course (as Warren acknowledges) such promises aren't fully binding. But even if Carson only keeps some of his commitments, Democrats will have gained far more than an automatic symbolic "no" vote. Ben Carson: bureaucratic rebel? Please to be stopping pulling my leg. Related Story. Jeff Sessions' Hearing Was an Ahistorical Farce. Nevertheless, it's a legitimate debate to have, even though it's the kind of debate that happens only among Democrats and liberals. Personally, I'd vote (maybe) for Mattis and (maybe) for Zinke, but I would vote against every other one of these nominees because I still haven't seen a good reason not to do so. I will concede that opinions may differ. Most Popular. There is only one exception at this point. ...