Author Archives: Denise Simon

Codename Shader, Joint US/UK Operation Against ISIS

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The Special Air Service (SAS), one of the special forces units of the British Army, reportedly is coordinating with the US Specs Ops team to neutralise the Islamic State (Isis) militants in Raqqa.

The elite SAS team from UK operates under the US command.  300 personnel from the British special forces are working with the US to carry out joint operations codenamed Operation Shader.

The elite units are assisted by AC 130 Hercules planes, A10 Warthog gunships and even F-16 jets.

Operation Shader is the code name given to the British participation in the ongoing military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[2][1] The operation began on 26 September 2014 following a formal request for assistance by the Iraqi government.[1] Prior to this, the Royal Air Force had been engaged in a humanitarian relief effort over Mount Sinjar, which involved multiple humanitarian aid airdrops by transport aircraft and the airlifting of displaced refugees in Northern Iraq. By 21 October 2014, the intervention had extended onto Syria with the Royal Air Force conducting surveillance flights over the country.[7] On 7 September 2015, a Royal Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone conducted an airstrike in Syria which killed two British-born ISIL fighters.[8]

On 17 September 2015, it was reported that around 330 ISIL fighters had been killed by British airstrikes, with zero civilian casualties.[9][10][1] By 26 September 2015, ISIL had lost a quarter of its territory.[1]

 

Main articles: Timeline of the Iraqi insurgency (2014), Persecution of Yazidis by ISIL and Sinjar massacre

Two Royal Air Force C-130J Hercules aircraft in Iraq, after being unloaded of vital humanitarian supplies on 9 September 2014.

On 9 August 2014, following the genocidal persecution of minorities in Northern Iraq, the British Government deployed the Royal Air Force over Iraq to conduct humanitarian aid airdrops. The first airdrop was conducted on 9 August, with two C-130 Hercules aircraft flying from RAF Akrotiri airdropping bundles of aid into Mount Sinjar.[11][12] A second airdrop commenced on 12 August but had to be aborted due to the risk of injury to civilians.[13] The airdrops were able to resume over Mount Sinjar within 24 hours and two large consignments of aid were delivered.[14] During the same day, the Ministry of Defence announced the deployment of Tornado GR4 strike aircraft. These aircraft, also flying from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, were to help coordinate British airdrops using their LITENING III reconnaissance pods; they were not authorized to conduct any airstrikes prior to Parliamentary approval.[15] Four Chinook transport helicopters were also deployed alongside them to participate in any required refugee rescue missions.[16] On 13 August, two Hercules aircraft dropped a third round of humanitarian aid into Mount Sinjar.[17] This was followed by a fourth and final round on 14 August, bringing the total number of humanitarian aid airdrops conducted by the RAF to seven.[18] The UK suspended its humanitarian aid airdrops on 14 August, citing the improved humanitarian situation in Mount Sinjar.[19]

On 18 August 2014, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon disclosed during an interview that members of the 2nd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment (2 YORKS) had been deployed on the ground in Irbil to help secure the area for a possible helicopter rescue mission. The battalion, which, at the time, was the Cyprus-based Theatre Reserve Battalion (TRB) for Operation Herrick in Afghanistan, had left Irbil within 24 hours.[20]

On 16 August 2014, following the suspension of humanitarian aid airdrops, the Royal Air Force began shifting its focus from humanitarian relief to reconnaissance. The Tornado GR4’s, which were previously used to help coordinate humanitarian aid airdrops, were re-tasked to gather vital intelligence for anti-ISIL forces. The Ministry of Defence also confirmed that an RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft had been deployed over the country on what was its first operational deployment since entering service.[21] The aircraft was based at RAF Al Udeid in Qatar alongside U.S. Rivet Joint and KC-135 tanker aircraft.[22][23] In addition to Tornado and Rivet Joint, the Royal Air Force also deployed Reaper, Sentinel, Shadow and Sentry aircraft to fly surveillance missions over Iraq and Syria.[24][25][26]

As of 26 September 2015, the United Kingdom had flown a third of all coalition surveillance flights over Iraq and Syria.[1]

Airstrikes[edit]

Tornado returns to Akrotiri after first airstrikes, 30 September 2014

RAF Tornado Destroys ISIS Armored Vehicle in Al Qaim, 2 November 2014.

On 2 September 2014, ISIL released a video threatening to behead British citizen David Haines. Prime Minister David Cameron reacted by saying that ISIL will be “be squeezed out of existence”.[27] On 10 September 2014, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond stated in Berlin that “Britain will not be taking part in any strikes in Syria”. This remark was quickly contradicted by a spokesman of Prime Minister David Cameron who said that the Prime Minister had “not ruled anything out” as far as airstrikes against ISIL were concerned.[28]

On 13 September 2014, following the release of a video showing the beheading of British citizen David Haines by Jihadi John of ISIL, David Cameron reacted by saying “We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes.”[29] Parliament was recalled on 26 September to debate the authorization of British airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq. David Cameron told MPs that intervention, at the request of the Iraqi government, to combat a “brutal terrorist organisation”, was “morally justified”. He went on to state that ISIL was a direct threat to the United Kingdom and that British inaction would lead to “more killing” in Iraq. Following a seven-hour debate, Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of airstrikes, with 524 votes in favour and 43 against.[30] The 43 ‘No’ votes came from 23 Labour MPs, six Conservative MPs, five Scottish National Party MPs, three Social Democratic and Labour Party MPs, two Plaid Cymru MPs, one Liberal Democrat MP, one Green Party MP, and one Respect Party MP.[30] Following the vote, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told the BBC that the priority would be to stop the slaughter of civilians in Iraq, and that the UK and its allies would be guided by Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence in identifying targets.[30]

The Royal Air Force began conducting armed sorties over Iraq immediately after the vote, using six Tornado GR4s stationed at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.[31] The first airstrike occurred on 30 September when a patrol of two Tornado GR4s attacked an ISIL heavy weapons position using a Paveway IV laser-guided bomb and an armed pickup truck using a Brimstone missile. On 3 October 2014, the six Tornado GR4s were bolstered by an additional two aircraft, bringing the total number of combat aircraft deployed on Operation Shader to eight.[32] During the same day, it was reported that the Royal Navy had tasked Type 45 destroyer HMS Defender to escort the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) while she launched aircraft into Iraq and Syria.[33]

On 16 October 2014, the Ministry of Defence announced the deployment of an undisclosed number of MQ-9 Reaper unmanned combat aerial vehicles to assist with surveillance.[34] However, Michael Fallon stated that the Reapers could also conduct airstrikes alongside the Tornado GR4s.[34] The first airstrike conducted by a Reaper occurred on 10 November 2014.[35] By 26 September 2015 – a full year after the operation first began – Tornado and Reaper aircraft had flown over 1,300 missions against ISIL and had conducted more than 300 airstrikes, killing more than 330 ISIL fighters.[10][9][1]

According to Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, the UK had conducted a “huge number of missions” over Iraq by 13 December 2014, second only to the United States and five times as many as France.[36] By 5 February 2015, the UK had contributed 6% of all coalition airstrikes in Iraq – a contribution second only to the United States[37] – which the Defence Select Committee described as “modest”.[38]

Ted Cruz Putting DC and IRS Scandal on Notice

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Sen. Cruz Asks DOJ to Preserve All IRS-Related Documents

The IRS targeting scandal is a serious breach of the public trust

November 2, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch requesting that the Department of Justice (DOJ) preserve all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents and information for investigation under the next administration. Sen. Cruz’s letter comes after the DOJ recently closed its investigation into improper targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.

“Make no mistake: the IRS’s targeting of ordinary citizens for their political viewpoints under this Administration is not a minor issue, and represents a significant breach of the public trust.  Even a casual observer of the IRS targeting scandal could not help but come to the conclusion that there is a strong appearance that the IRS, under this Administration’s political leadership, used the coercive tools available to the tax collection agency to harass people with conservative viewpoints,” Sen. Cruz wrote. “It is important for you and other officials in this Administration to understand that this Administration’s decisions to neither continue this investigation nor appoint a special prosecutor do not represent the conclusion of this matter.”

Sen. Cruz’s letter can be read in its entirety below and here.

November 2, 2015

The Honorable Loretta E. Lynch
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Attorney General Lynch:

I write today to strongly urge you, as head of the Department of Justice, to take specific steps to ensure that the Department preserves all of its Internal Revenue Service-related documents and information indefinitely.  This Administration’s recent announcement that it does not intend to conduct or allow an appropriate criminal investigation of the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party and other conservative organizations has finally made it abundantly clear that the responsibility of ensuring a thorough, fair, and impartial investigation of IRS employees and their potential criminal conduct will fall to the next presidential administration, and relevant materials must be protected accordingly.

On Friday, October 23, the Department stated that it would end its investigation of the IRS and the personnel who were part of the agency’s well-documented targeting efforts, including the former director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Unit, Lois Lerner, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate herself during a 2013 congressional oversight hearing.   Presumably, this latest decision to abandon the investigation required your approval.  This decision also comes in the wake of at least two formal rejections by President Obama’s former Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., of requests for the appointment of a special prosecutor to handle the investigation.

Bluntly stated, your decision is disappointing but also not surprising, and only confirms suspicions that the current Department is equipped to neither handle an appropriate investigation nor make appropriate judgments regarding existing conflicts of interest,  based on its failure to appoint a special prosecutor.  Despite numerous requests for a fair and impartial process, you, your predecessor, and this Administration generally have been dismissive of congressional and other calls for an appropriate accounting of the IRS’s abusive behavior.

Make no mistake: the IRS’s targeting of ordinary citizens for their political viewpoints under this Administration is not a minor issue, and represents a significant breach of the public trust.  Even a casual observer of the IRS targeting scandal could not help but come to the conclusion that there is a strong appearance that the IRS, under this Administration’s political leadership, used the coercive tools available to the tax collection agency to harass people with conservative viewpoints.  The little information that is available in the public domain about what happened at the IRS also makes it appear that laws, including criminal laws, may have been broken.

That said, as an attorney and former state law enforcement official, I am keenly aware that the facts of a case require objective, non-political review.  That is why I and others have been adamant about the need for the appointment of a special prosecutor, who would be appointed by the Administration in accordance with federal law and afforded the freedom and resources to conduct a thorough, fair, and impartial investigation and, if necessary, prosecution.

It is important for you and other officials in this Administration to understand that this Administration’s decisions to neither continue this investigation nor appoint a special prosecutor do not represent the conclusion of this matter.  Given this Administration’s refusal to conduct itself appropriately, or take the issue of the potential illegal conduct of IRS employees seriously, any subsequent administration should reserve the right to reopen the matter, conduct its own investigation, or appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation.

With that in mind, it is imperative that you, as Attorney General, take extraordinary steps to see to it that the Department preserves all the documents and materials in its possession in relation to its evaluation of the IRS’s targeting efforts, as well as everything in its possession used to evaluate the potential criminal activity of IRS employees.  This request for extraordinary preservation steps is unfortunately necessary, given this Administration’s poor track record for recordkeeping.

I will also take this moment to remind you, your fellow political appointees within the Department, and any other Department employees, advisors, or contractors that destruction of any of the requested documents or information could subject those responsible for such destruction to criminal prosecution in the future.   I have previously warned Treasury and IRS officials that such consequences could also result for any such destruction of records within their control, and those warnings stand.  One’s position as a past or present federal employee does not afford immunity from the federal criminal justice system.  It is my hope that a future administration would pursue justified prosecutions with all due energy.

In accordance with the above, I would request that the Department engage in the following preservation efforts, effective immediately:

1.Preserve all paper-based documents, e-mail-based communications, e-mail-based calendar appointments, electronic documents, electronic communications (including voicemails, SMS (i.e., text) messages, and instant messages), and all other electronic data regardless of format, created since January 1, 2010, that:

a. Are records, regardless of content, that were originally produced or possessed by the IRS or any of its employees, contractors, subcontractors, grantees, subgrantees, or consultants;

b. Are communications, regardless of author, source, or content, that in any way address the IRS or any of its past or current employees; and

c. Include or reference the names Douglas Shulman, John Koskinen, Lois Lerner, William Wilkins, Holly Paz, Judy Kindell, and/or Carter Hull, or any versions of these names, including initials or nicknames.

For the purposes of this request, “preserve” means taking any and all reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, overwriting, formatting, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, revision, or mutation of electronic and non-electronic documents, records, and logs, as well as negligent or intentional handling that would make such records incomplete or inaccessible.

2. Exercise any and all reasonable efforts to identify and notify former Department employees, contractors, subcontractors, grantees, subgrantees, and consultants who may have access to such electronic or non-electronic records that these records are also to be preserved.

3. If it is a practice of the Department, any Department component, any federal employee, any contract employee, any grantee or subgrantee, or any consultant to destroy or otherwise alter such electronic or non-electronic records, either halt such practices immediately, or arrange for the preservation of complete and accurate duplicates or copies of such records, suitable for production if requested.

I am also requesting that the Department make additional arrangements with both the Department’s Inspector General and the Archivist of the United States for them to receive copies of all such records.

Please provide a detailed update regarding your efforts to coordinate with the Inspector General and the Archivist no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 9, 2015.

I look forward to your cooperation.  Please contact Committee staff at (202) 224-5225 if you have any additional questions about these requirements.

Sincerely,

Ted Cruz
Chairman
Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action,
Federal Rights and Federal Courts

Cc:
The Honorable Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
Senate Committee on the Judiciary

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on the Judiciary

The Honorable Christopher A. Coons
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action,
Federal Rights and Federal Courts

The Honorable James Comey
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
U.S. Department of Justice

The Honorable Michael E. Horowitz
Inspector General
Office of the Inspector General
U.S. Department of Justice

The Honorable David S. Ferriero
Archivist of the United States
National Archives and Records Administration

Gary M. Stern
General Counsel
National Archives and Records Administration

The Honorable Jack Lew<
Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury

The Honorable John Koskinen
Commissioner
Internal Revenue Service

ISIS Rewriting History in the Middle East

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ISG = Islamic State Group

In part from: CSIS

Middle East Notes and Comment: The Islamic State (Re)Writes History

Did the Prophet Muhammad lash his followers for smoking cigarettes? He couldn’t have, as cigarettes were invented more than 1,200 years after his death, and tobacco itself did not come to the Middle East until 950 years afterwards. Bans on television, recorded music, soccer games and the like all reflect innovations.

What the ISG is, in fact, is a wholly modern movement that seeks to look ancient. Like the photo booths in tourist towns that produce sepia-toned photographs of contemporary subjects in period clothing, its wink toward the present is part of its appeal. Its followers are not recreating a holy seventh-century society of pious believers. They are gathering the dispossessed and disaffected to an invented homeland that strives to provide certainty, intimacy, and empowerment to a population that feels too little of any of them.

There is little use quibbling with their distortions of history, which are too numerous to mention. Instead, what is risible is their solemn use of history at all. This group is wholly modern and wholly innovative. It is wholly disruptive, as it seeks to be. Its followers should not be ennobled by their purported connection to history.

Western governments and their allies in the Middle East should not fall into the trap of seeing the ISG and its ilk as groups hostile to modernity. Instead, they should highlight how truly modern these groups are, and how selective they are in their readings of history. They do not guide their followers back to the well-worn path of tradition, but instead blaze a new trail of confrontation with the rest of the world.

Stripped of their historical costumes, we can see them as they are: the angry and the weak, preying on those even weaker than themselves. There is glory to be found in Islam. It is not to be found in them.

Islam is the Middle East noted by Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan is in of itself in turmoil, while same fighters have known nothing but war all their lives and from this video below, war is being taught to the next generations, some as young as 8 years old. This also holds true for regions in the West Bank and Gaza. Children attend camps and training with weapons, vocabulary and to learn a twisted history.

Published on Nov 1, 2015

Raising its black flag over the rugged mountainous regions of Afghanistan, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has emerged as a new threat to the war-ravaged country as it battles the Taliban for supremacy. Employing violence and brutality used by the group in Syria and Iraq, Wilayat Khorasan, (the ancient name ISIL has chosen for the region made up of Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighbouring countries), has emerged in seven different areas and vowed to step up operations, where the veteran fighters, the Taliban, once held sway.Fighting to reconstitute the historical Khorasan into the so-called ‘Caliphate’ of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group says it has grand plans for the region, starting with uprooting the Taliban and the government of President Ashraf Ghani.Causing friction with the regional and overall leadership of the Taliban, armed battles have increased over the past few months with dozens of Taliban fighters killed in the clashes, most notably in the Taliban stronghold of Nangarhar province.ISIL’s local chapter has also managed to attract dozens of fighters from the Taliban’s ranks into its fold, while foreign fighters unable to make it to Syria and Iraq have thronged to the group’s territory.In ISIL and the Taliban we look at the group’s growing popularity, how it made steady inroads into the country and the threat it poses for the future of Afghanistan.We gain exclusive access to ISIL’s central leadership, and meet children as young as 5-years-old being trained to fight and dedicate their lives to the ‘Caliphate’.

 

2 Items: Clinton Corruption Continues

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Clinton Foundation Organization Will Not Refile Tax Returns Despite Mistakes

Organization did not comply with conflict-of-interest pledge

FreeBeacon: An organization created by the Clinton Foundation is not going to refile its tax returns after failing to comply with a conflict-of-interest pledge despite reportedly promising to do so when the mistakes were revealed earlier this year.

The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which was spun off from the foundation in 2010, did not solicit a State Department ethics review of multiple contributions from foreign governments as mandated by a conflict-of-interest pledge established before Hillary Clinton assumed the role of secretary of state in 2009. A CHAI representative told Reuters in April that the organization was planning to refile its 2012 and 2013 tax returns.

However, Politico reported Monday that the same representative insists that the organization never promised to refile the forms and will not do so.

“Contrary to what was reported, CHAI has consistently stated that they would conduct a review process to determine whether the transposition errors required a refiling,” CHAI spokeswoman Maura Daley stated. “After conducting the review, the transpositional errors made had no material impact and we do not believe a refiling is required.”

The organization, which provides cheaper drugs for individuals with HIV worldwide, has previously refiled its returns for 2010 and 2011, having initially over-reported grants from governments by upwards of $100 million. CHAI received about $45 million in government grants in 2012 and $56 million in 2013, according to tax returns for those years.

The broader Clinton Foundation was also found in April to have made errors related to the conflict-of-interest pledge by failing to report funds it received from foreign and U.S. governments. The foundation said in April that it would have an external review conducted of its tax returns from 2010, 2011, and 2012 and “likely” refile forms.

“We have said that after a voluntary external review is completed we will likely refile forms for some years,”then-acting CEO and senior Vice President Maura Pally said in an April statement shortly after Clinton announced her presidential bid.

“We made mistakes, as many organizations of our size do, but we are acting quickly to remedy them, and have taken steps to ensure they don’t happen in the future. We are committed to operating the foundation responsibly and effectively to continue the life-changing work that this philanthropy is doing every day.”

Pally also reiterated the foundation’s “commitment to transparency.”

Bill Clinton On Leadership Board Of Presidential Debate Commission

DailyCaller: A conflict of interest could be afoot at the Commission on Presidential Debates if Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic presidential nomination. Her husband, former president Bill Clinton, is an honorary chairman on the commission leadership board.

Republican primary campaigns just finished a confab in Alexandria, Va. discussing how to better improve the debates among themselves, but the bipartisan commission handles details of general election debates between the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees.

The other Democrat who is an honorary chair is former president Jimmy Carter. The only two former Republican presidents who served as honorary chairmen of the commission, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, are deceased. It is unclear, however, how Carter and Clinton function in these roles.

Additionally, considering Jeb Bush’s run for the presidency, if it is an issue of simply lending one’s name to a board and not participating in any process, it is unknown why both former presidents George W. Bush and his father George H.W. Bush are not included as honorary chairs.

“The general is a completely different issue. It’s not part of [the primary debate discussion] at all. My guess is there will be change in the general election debates too. I think the commission has highlighted that too,” Ben Ginsburg, GOP lawyer and current liaison between the Republican primary campaigns and network sponsors told The Daily Caller Sunday night. “I think the Annenberg working group talked about a lot of different options in the general election debates and it will ultimately be left up to the candidates and the nominees to decide.”

The commission is no stranger to controversy. Groups have complained about how moderators are chosen and how much time networks spend lobbying campaigns to get their stars chosen as moderators, Politico points out.

In 2012, Republicans were angry when CNN’s Candy Crowley attempted to fact check GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in the middle of the debate over his calling out President Obama’s description of the Benghazi attack.

Additionally, conservatives are distrustful over the Republicans who served on the commission during the last election cycle. The Commission added six new members last year including: former Senator Olympia Snowe, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Leon Panetta, a former Clinton and later Obama administration official.

 

 

Obama’s New Executive Action: Ban the Box

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In part from Officer.com: The federal Bureau of Prisons plans to release 6,000 prisoners at the end of October, implementing a decision last year to slash the number of incarcerated drug offenders by nearly half.

Officials said the nationwide releases over four days starting Oct. 30 will be the largest in U.S. history.

Last year, in line with a concerted effort by the Obama administration to reduce the number of drug offenders in U.S. prisons, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to cut drug sentences by an average of two years, potentially affecting as many as 46,000 of 100,000 cases.

In the coming year, an additional 8,550 prisoners will be eligible for release, according to Sentencing Commission spokesman Matt Osterrieder, though he said that not all of them will be approved.

What are employers supposed to do to vet applicants especially in positions where a clean background is required, something like banking, retail or any position for that matter where integrity and morality is centric to employment? Well…there is always Facebook, where employers are presently using social media platforms to determine history, friends, associates and even political bias.

Further, presidential executive orders are designed for exclusive use of operating government, yet with Barack Obama and this mission of his, he is injecting his policies into private enterprise. There must be legal challenges to this new ‘protected class’ operation which is common in the Obama administration, as we clearly know foreign illegals are a proven protected class.

HuffPo:WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday will announce a series of measures designed to reduce obstacles facing former prisoners reintegrating into society, including an executive action directing federal employers to delay asking questions about a job applicant’s criminal history until later in the application process.

Many states, cities and private employers have already taken steps to “ban the box,” which refers to the checkbox on employment applications asking if the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime. However, some federal employers and contractors still ask the question. Obama’s executive action will apply to federal employers, but not to contractors.

Hillary joins Barack Obama on this same objective calling it ‘racial profiling’. This is all yet another misguided social engineering plan to reform the criminal justice system, where law enforcement, district attorneys and judges don’t seem to get any opportunity to voice their respective positions.

Obama to announce executive actions to help prisoners rejoin society

Plans for current and former inmates include education and housing efforts and a push to remove criminal-background questions from job applications

Barack Obama will announce a series of executive actions to help current and former prisoners re-enter society on Monday, as the president continues his campaign to wind down the war on drugs and reform a “broken” system.

Obama’s plans include millions of dollars in education grants for current prisoners, new policies to help former inmates find housing, a “clean slate clearing house” to help former prisoners clear their records where possible, and a call to Congress to “ban the box” – the space on a job application that asks about criminal backgrounds.

Obama is expected to unveil the plans at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, the hometown of Democratic senator Cory Booker, one of the leaders of a bipartisan push for criminal justice reform.

The president has for months toured the nation in a loose campaign for reform, visiting police in Chicago, the NAACP in Philadelphia, and inmates in Oklahoma. On Saturday, he again raised the issue in his weekly address, saying: “We know that having millions of people in the criminal justice system, without any ability to find a job after release, is unsustainable.”

There are 2.2m people incarcerated in federal and state prisons around the US, roughly 20% of the world’s total number of imprisoned people. The number ballooned in the decades of the “war on drugs”, in particular due to “tough on crime” laws enacted during the 1990s.

Obama’s latest push for reform coincides with the early release of several thousand federal prisoners this past weekend. About 6,000 drug offenders were granted early releases thanks to policy changes by the US Sentencing Commission, which made the revisions retroactive last year. Judges then reviewed tens of thousands of applications, with the 6,000 federal prisoners the first to receive early release.

But despite the push for reducing mandatory minimum sentences – often seen as a major cause of mass incarceration over minor crimes – reform advocates around the country have called for more attention for former prisoners. About 650,000 inmates are released every year, and many return to an alien, hostile America facing bars to housing and employment and with little to their names. More here.