Yup, He Commuted Another 111 Sentences

Posted on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Obama Commutes Sentences Of 111 Federal Inmates Convicted Of Non-Violent Drug Charges

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has cut short the sentences of 111 federal inmates in another round of commutations for those convicted of nonviolent drug offenses

Obama has long called for phasing out strict sentences for drug offenses, arguing they lead to excessive punishment and incarceration rates unseen in other developed countries.

White House Counsel Neil Eggleston says the commutations underscore the president’s commitment to using his clemency authority to give deserving individuals a second chance.

He says that Obama has granted a total of 673 commutations, more than the previous 10 presidents combined. More than a third of the recipients were serving life sentences.

Eggleston says he expects Obama to continue granting commutations through the end of his administration, but only legislation can ensure the federal sentencing system operates more fairly.

Prisoner applications are being reviewed by more than 1,000 attorneys at 323 law firms and organizations nationwide, pro bono. In the meantime, more than 35,000 inmates — about 16 percent of the federal prison population — have applied to have their sentences shortened under the Justice Department-led initiative. More her from the WashingtonPost.

This the program began under Eric Holder.

Obama has enacted his own SAFE Act, legislation that has not advanced, so he is using his pen and phone instead. Note the title ‘SAFE’….safe for who exactly?

The Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and Rep. Bobby Scott

States Lead the Way in Corrections Reform

Since 1980, Congress has steadily increased the size and scope of the federal criminal code and with it the federal prison population. In that period, the federal government has added an estimated 2,000 new crimes to the books, while the federal imprisonment rate has grown by an astounding 518 percent. During the same period, annual spending on the federal prison system rose 595 percent, from $970 million to more than $6.7 billion, after adjusting for inflation.

Like the federal government, states also recorded sharp increases in imprisonment and associated costs over the past 30 years. During the past decade, however, the states have responded by reducing their imprisonment rate by 4 percent while the federal imprisonment rate jumped 15 percent. The state drop was driven in large part by comprehensive reform efforts in more than two dozen states designed to protect public safety while containing costs and preventing further growth in government programs.

These state reforms have returned dividends to taxpayers many times over: from Texas and Wisconsin to Rhode Island, from Georgia and South Carolina to New York, 32 states have reduced both their crime and imprisonment rates over the past five years. Cumulative cost savings in a subset of these states exceed $4.6 billion, and millions have been reinvested in prison alternatives better at breaking the cycle of recidivism.

The Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act

The SAFE Justice Act is bipartisan legislation that puts lessons learned in the states to work at the federal level. The legislation protects public safety and reins in escalating corrections costs by –

 Curtailing overcriminalization – requires public disclosure of regulatory criminal offenses; allows victims of regulatory over-criminalization to contact the inspector general; restores discretion to judges to determine to what extent manipulated conduct that results from fictitious law enforcement “stings” may be considered in court; protects against wrongful convictions; creates procedures to simplify charging and safely reduce pre-trial detention; and eliminates federal criminal penalties for simple drug possession in state jurisdictions.

 Increasing use of evidence-based sentencing alternatives – expands eligibility for pre-judgment probation; promotes greater use of probation for lower-level offenders; and encourages judicial districts to open drug, veteran, mental health and other problem solving courts.

 Concentrating prison space on violent and career criminals – clarifies original Congressional intent by examining the role an offender plays in a drug offense and targeting higher-level traffickers for mandatory minimums and recidivist enhancements; applies life sentences for drug trafficking only in the most egregious cases; allows eligible offenders to petition for resentencing under new trafficking laws; modestly expands the drug trafficking safety valve; clarifies that mandatory minimum gun sentences can only run consecutively when the offender is a true recidivist; and expands compassionate release for lower-risk geriatric and terminally-ill offenders.

 Reducing recidivism – expands earned time to encourage more inmates to participate in individualized case plans designed to reduce their likelihood of reoffending; seeks to boost success rates of offenders on probation and post-prison supervision by mandating swift, certain and graduated sanctions for violations and offering credits for those who are compliant; creates a performance-incentive funding program; creates mental health and de-escalation training programs for prison personnel; and mandates the use of performance-based contracting for half-way houses.

 Increasing government transparency and accountability – requires fiscal impact statements for sentencing and corrections bills; requires sentencing cost analyses to be disclosed in pre-sentencing reports; adds a non-voting federal defender rep. on the U.S. Sentencing Commission; requires the calculation of good time as Congress intended; requires federal agencies to report on corrections populations and recidivism rates, among other indicators; reauthorizes the Innocence Protection Act and directs the Attorney General to develop best practices to reduce wrongful convictions; and encourages prison savings to be invested in strengthening safety measures for law enforcement.

The Research Foundation for the SAFE Justice Act

The SAFE Justice Act, like the comprehensive corrections reforms enacted in many states, draws from the large and growing body of research about what works to reduce recidivism, including the following principles:

 To deter offending, use swift and certain responses – Research demonstrates that delayed, unpredictable, and severe responses are less effective than swift, certain, and fair sanctions. Swift and certain responses—both punishments and rewards—are more effective because they help offenders see the response as a direct consequence of their behavior and because offenders heavily discount uncertain and distant responses.

States that have implemented swift and certain responses include Washington, Georgia, and West Virginia.

 Earned time policies can reduce recidivism – Research demonstrates that rewards and incentives can work to change offending behavior and reduce recidivism. The benefits of earned time policies for inmates and earned compliance credits for offenders under probation or post-release supervision include lower costs (through accelerated release) and lower recidivism (by shifting correctional resources to those offenders who continue to violate rules and break laws).

States that have built earned time into their prison systems include Kentucky, Maryland, and Louisiana. States that have built earned time into their supervision systems include South Dakota, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

 For drug offenders, sentence strategically – The most vicious, predatory and high-level drug offenders warrant prison cells to avert the harm they cause to individuals and communities, but research shows that long terms of incarceration for the vast majority of mid-level couriers, distributors and dealers has little impact on public safety. While imprisonment may temporarily disrupt a drug market, the “replacement effect”—whereby new recruits quickly replace those imprisoned for mid-level roles—negates the impact of incarceration on drug price, availability, or related crime. Instead, prison time should be focused on violent or kingpin drug traffickers who are controlling the marketplace.

States that have recalibrated their drug sentencing systems to differentiate higher-level from lower-level offenders include South Dakota, Georgia, and South Carolina.

 Focus on high-risk offenders – For many lower-level offenders, especially those whose criminal conduct is driven largely by substance abuse, alternatives like drug and mental health courts, treatment programs, and intensive supervision both hold offenders accountable and work better to reduce recidivism. In fact, research suggests that for many lower-risk and less serious offenders a prison sentence may actually be responsible for an increase in recidivism by encouraging anti-social ties and breaking bonds at home.

States that have encouraged diversion of lower-level offenders to prison alternatives include Mississippi, California, and Illinois.

 Age matters – Research has long shown that age is one of the most significant predictors of criminality, with criminal or delinquent activity peaking in late adolescence and decreasing significantly with time. As a result, imprisonment of offenders into their 50s, 60s and 70s provides diminishing and often negligible public safety returns. Implementing smart, targeted geriatric release programs can ensure heinous offenders remain behind bars while cutting down on costs and maintaining public safety.

States that have implemented geriatric or compassionate release programs include Alabama, Colorado, and Montana.

London Police on Islamic Payroll?

Posted on August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Brian: Given the events in recent years where militant and radical Islamists in the UK are a protected class over Brits, a very chilling condition is real. Islam has won the battles-space in England. What you say?

The host of this website has interviewed several times Tommy Robinson and the leaders of Britain First. Both are fighting a cultural war to preserve the history and dignity of Britain and sadly appear to be losing the war due to some kind of mandate of the police. Arrest the Englishmen and ban them from moving about the country freely.

Perhaps it is time that Americans standup for keeping Britain …British and beware of the same at home in America.

Cant make this up.

Related reading: Germany/Britain Banning Free Speech

Tommy Robinson Thrown Out Of Cambridge And Why You Should Worry

Europe’s struggle with belligerent parts of their Muslim populations is exactly the same as Israel’s. In this we are tied together even if very few people see it yet.

Over the weekend I put up a video which has gone viral. It’s about Tommy Robinson in the UK. If you want a full background on who he is, my review of his book goes into a lot of detail.

What happened this Saturday is another chapter. The short story is Tommy, along with two adult male friends, his three children (all under 10) and four other kids travelled from Luton to Cambridge in the UK to watch Luton FC play Cambridge Untied. The whole party spent a fun day in Cambridge, peacefully went to the match in the afternoon and enjoyed Luton beating Cambridge 3-0. After the match they went into a couple of pubs (family friendly ones) and ended up watching Manchester United on TV.

At this point a large squad of policemen came into the pub and told Tommy and his party to leave threatening him with a “Section 35” dispersal notice and (if he failed to comply) arrest and criminal charges. Tommy broadcast most of this live including the walk to the train station with his kids crying and being followed by at least four threatening policemen. Breitbart has a more detailed write-up of the story. The security staff of the pub even pleaded with the Police to let them stay saying they’d been no trouble at all.

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There is a bigger picture to this harassment. On September 19th Tommy is scheduled to appear in court related to a “Football Banning Order”. The Police and the Crown Prosecution Services are trying to get Tommy banned from Luton FC and all football matches for five years. If they succeed, however, they will also prevent him from walking in large parts of his home town of Luton. They’ve essentially decided, for Tommy, there are no-go areas of Luton. It probably won’t shock you to learn those no-go areas correspond to areas where large numbers of Muslims live.

The pretext for this latest arrest and trial stems from the summer. Tommy Robinson travelled to France to watch a few Euro 2016 matches and was pictured holding a flag saying “F**k ISIS”. This statement by his lawyer was put out in June:

The mainstay of the application by Bedfordshire Police is that Tommy Robinson, while in France was pictured wearing an Anti ISIS T Shirt, and holding up an English Saint George Cross flag with ‘Fuck ISIS’ written across it, and that this was aimed at inciting racial hatred against muslims. Both I and my client are very concerned that the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police and the UK Football Policing Unit have equated Tommy Robinson’s demonstration against a banned extremist terrorist organisation as being the same as showing hatred towards people of the muslim faith. The Prime Minister David Cameron in his House of Commons speech on 2nd December 2015 refered to the ‘Evil’ of ISIS, and that British Muslims were appalled by ISIS. He further said that the attacks in Syria by the British Military were “far from an attack on Islam, we are engaging in the defence of Islam…failing to act would betray British Muslims”. It now appears that both Bedfordshire Police and the UK Football Policing Unit are linking ISIS to the general muslim people and population, because it suits their purpose of the campaign of harassment against Tommy Robinson.

It’s hard to see how saying “F**k ISIS” constitutes an insult to those Muslims who claim to be as horrified by ISIS as non-Muslims are. ISIS are a “banned extremist terrorist organisation”, they’re not representative of mainstream British Islam.

Tommy recorded this explanatory video before the incident in Cambridge:

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When I put all this together I get the inescapable feeling that the Police in Cambridge this weekend wanted to provoke Tommy Robinson into lashing out. They made his kids cry! They know Tommy’s history, they know he has (or at least had) a short temper. Hat’s off to him for keeping it down to a bit of shouting (which of course the Cambridge newspaper managed to focus on). My personal option: the goal was to get him to hit a policeman: that would send him back to prison for a long time and, judging by what happened to him last time, have a good chance of getting him killed.

As he mentions in that video, all this follows the banning of a group called “Britain First” from Luton. As Tommy explains in the video, Britain First felt forced to accept these terms because of the sheer expense of fighting against them.

What is going on in the UK is something I’ve referred to as “Proleptic Dhimmitude”:

Submission to the rules of Islam by non-Muslims before one is actually living under a Muslim ruler. For instance judging that insulting the prophet of Islam or desecrating one of Islam’s holy texts should be illegal so as to avoid “unpleasant consequences”. That is “proleptic dhimmitude”.

Tommy holds and expresses opinions about Sharia which are blasphemous when judged ONLY by Islamic Sharia law. That is undeniable. Many people do. I do. It doesn’t mean we are bigoted against individual Muslims, many of whom live good and peaceful lives. It just means we hope fervently Muslims themselves can discuss what it is about Islam that seems to lead to such high numbers of violent acts today.

It is hard to believe a majority of the Muslim population in Luton is really demanding Tommy be physically banned from entering parts of a town he grew up in. Whether they are demanding it or not, that is what the UK government seems to want to give them. Protection from any challenge to the ideas of their religion: ideas which are hard to separate from the actions of violent Jihadis all over the world including ISIS.

We have the same here in Israel. The hate filled minor “journalist” Abby Martin has recently visited the ancient Jewish city of Hebron to see how evil “settler Jews” are. Ironically she took a picture of the very sign, at the entrance to his ancient city which includes the site of the burial of the patriarchs of Judaism. Read more here if you dare.

Cyber Intrusions on U.S. Voter Databases Point to Russia

Posted on August 29, 2016August 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Read the 4 page report here: Russia hacks Voter Databases

NextGov: The FBI warned election officials to enhance the security of systems after it found evidence foreign hackers penetrated databases in two state systems, Yahoo reports.

An Aug. 18 bulletin from the FBI’s Cyber Division stated hackers were able to exploit a Structured Query Language injection vulnerability to exfiltrate data from one state’s Board of Election website in July and attempted intrusions on another’s in August. The FBI alert lists eight IP addresses for the perpetrators and one used in both incidents, indicating the attacks could be linked.

The methods, tools and a previously flagged IP address resemble other suspect Russian state-sponsored attacks, an expert told Yahoo News.

Election security has been a hot-button issue a series of suspected Russian-sponsored attacks compromised the Democratic Party and media organizations allegedly to sway voter opinion. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson suggested the federal government label elections systems as critical infrastructure.

The FBI issued the bulletin three days after Johnson had a call with representatives from National Association of Secretaries of State and U.S. Election Assistance Commission to offer DHS assistance addressing cybersecurity risks within each state’s election systems.

At the time of the call, per Johnson, DHS was not aware of any credible cyberthreats related to 2016 general election systems. Some swing states declined DHS’ assistance, including Georgia and Pennsylvania, stating they will rely on in-house security crews.

The FBI bulletin asks states and election boards to review activity logs for similar tools and techniques, and report them to local FBI field offices.

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has promised state election officials his department’s assistance addressing cybersecurity risks within each state’s election systems.

Johnson made the remarks in a conference call with representatives from National Association of Secretaries of State, U.S. Election Assistance Commission and representatives from various federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In an Aug. 15 readout of the call published by DHS, Johnson encouraged state election officials to implement recommendations from NIST and other bodies, such as ensuring electronic voting machines are disconnected from the internet during voting. Johnson said DHS has been exploring whether to designate electoral systems as critical infrastructure—and thus elevating its priority for protecting—in its discussions.

DoJ: Enforcing the Law is Discrimination

Posted on August 29, 2016August 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Justice Dept.: Firing migrant workers with expired papers is discrimination

WashingtonExaminer: The Justice Department released a video this week encouraging companies not to terminate immigrants after their employment authorization expires, and indicated that doing so is a form of discrimination.

The video is shot in a dimly lit office, where two actors discuss whether their fictional company should let go of some Salvadoran employees who have failed to provide updated paperwork on their immigration status.

After a discussion about whether retaining the workers would violate the law, a woman says, “I think this is an exception to that rule,” and recommends that they contact the the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices before making any decisions.

“We want to follow the rules but we don’t want to lose these workers or discriminate against them,” she concludes. “They are too valuable.”

The video then tells viewers that the federal government has extended employment authorization by six months for people from El Salvador with Temporary Protected Status, a benefit designed to help foreign nationals who are considered unable to safely return to their home.

The Justice Department claims requesting additional work-authorization documents from these workers may violate a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) designed to protect individuals from excessive employer demands based on their nationality.

“The Justice Department is firmly committed to protecting the rights of all work-authorized immigrants and ensuring that employers do not engage in unlawful discrimination,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement upon the video’s release on Thursday.

Related reading: Read the report on Obama Executive Action Removals Executive Action-Removals-SCOMM

MigrationPolicy: While much of the attention to the Obama administration’s announcement of executive actions on immigration in November 2014 has focused on key deferred action programs, two changes that have not faced legal challenge are in the process of being implemented and may substantially affect the U.S. immigration enforcement system. These changes include the adoption by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of new policy guidance on which categories of unauthorized immigrants and other potentially removable noncitizens are priorities for enforcement, and the replacement of the controversial Secure Communities information-sharing program with a new, more tailored Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).

The new policy guidance, which builds on previous memoranda published by the Obama administration in 2010 and 2011, further targets enforcement to noncitizens who have been convicted of serious crimes, are threats to public safety, are recent illegal entrants, or have violated recent deportation orders. MPI estimates that about 13 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the United States would be considered enforcement priorities under these policies, compared to 27 percent under the 2010-11 enforcement guidelines. The net effect of this new guidance will likely be a reduction in deportations from within the interior of the United States as DHS detention and deportation resources are increasingly allocated to more explicitly defined priorities.

By comparing the new enforcement priorities to earlier DHS removal data, this report estimates that the 2014 policy guidance, if strictly adhered to, is likely to reduce deportations from within the United States by about 25,000 cases annually—bringing interior removals below the 100,000 mark. Removals at the U.S.-Mexico border remain a top priority under the 2014 guidelines, so falling interior removals may be offset to some extent by increases at the border.

Taking the enforcement focus off settled unauthorized immigrants who do not meet the November 2014 enforcement priorities would effectively offer a degree of protection to the vast majority—87 percent—of unauthorized immigrants now residing in the United States, thus affecting a substantially larger share of this population than the announced deferred action programs (9.6 million compared to as many as 5.2 million unauthorized immigrants).

This report analyzes how many unauthorized immigrants fall within each of the new priority categories and how implementation of these priorities could affect the number of deportations from the United States, as well as what the termination of Secure Communities and launch of PEP could mean for federal cooperation with state and local authorities on immigration.

Social Security Insolvency Estimates

Posted on August 29, 2016August 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Social Security’s looming $32 trillion shortfall

CNBC: You can look at the financial health of Social Security in many ways.

The official version, found in the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees’ annual report, is this:

Social Security’s total income is projected to exceed its total cost through 2019, as it has since 1982. After 2019, interest income and money taken out of reserves will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual deficits until 2034.

By then, if Congress does nothing, the federal government will collect enough in payroll taxes to pay about 75 percent of scheduled retirement benefits until 2090.

The Social Security Administration projects that unfunded obligations will reach $11.4 trillion by 2090. That’s up $700 billion from the $10.7 trillion the administration projected for its 2089 shortfall.

Infinite horizon

Despite the huge numbers, there’s even a less generous way of looking at the fiscal shortfall.

A projection, known as the “infinite horizon,” takes into account all the program’s future liabilities, even those beyond the 75-year period that Social Security actuaries typically use in their calculations.

Under the infinite horizon, Social Security will have $32.1 trillion in unfunded liabilities by 2090, $6.3 trillion more than last year’s projection. (See the chart below.)

The full chart is here. The infinite horizon calculation is the most important part of the trustees’ annual report, said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor and co-author of “Get What’s Yours,” a best-seller about how to maximize claiming Social Security retirement benefits.

“We’re not broke in 20 years to 30 years, we’re broke now,” Kotlikoff said. “All the bills have been kept off the books by Congress and presidential administrations for six decades.”

The $6.3 trillion increase in the infinite horizon projection shows that Social Security Administration actuaries are more pessimistic about economic and wage growth, Kotlikoff said.

A reduction in the interest rate used to make calculations under the infinite horizon projection from 2.9 percent to 2.7 percent was the main contributor to the rise in the unfunded obligations forecast from last year, according to the trustees’ report.

“You can’t hide the numbers under a bunch of malarkey,” said Kotlikoff, who is running for president as a write-in candidate.

Kotlikoff had an influential ally in his quest for better accounting for Social Security and other federal programs. In 2013, Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, co-sponsored bipartisan legislation that would require the federal government to use infinite horizon calculations and so-called fiscal gap accounting, which considers the difference between the government’s projected financial obligations and the present value of all projected future tax and other revenue. The bill, which Kotlikoff championed, did not pass.

Presidential proposals

Presidential candidates from the two major political parties have yet to present detailed plans for how they will address Social Security’s shortfall.

Hillary Clinton said she won’t cut Social Security benefits and will expand the program, especially for widows and people who have left the workforce to take care of children, spouses or relatives.

She plans to ask “the highest-income Americans to pay more, including options to tax some of their income above the current Social Security cap and taxing some of their income not currently taken into account by the Social Security system,” according to her campaign website.

Currently, earnings up to $118,500 are taxed for Social Security benefits. Eliminating the cap this year would mean the trust fund reserves would be depleted in 2055 instead of 2034, according to estimates from Karen Smith, a senior fellow in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute.

Clinton opposes “any attempts to gamble seniors’ retirement security on the stock market through privatization.” However, investing a portion of Social Security’s trust fund assets in stocks would likely reduce the need for higher payroll taxes without disrupting the capital markets, according to a recent analysis by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Donald Trump has said he wants to preserve Social Security, saying the key to do so is to have “an economy that is robust and growing.”

Stronger economic growth may delay Social Security’s insolvency, but it would not fix its underlying fiscal problems, according to Smith’s research.

So what would have a big impact on Social Security’s fiscal standing if you don’t cut benefits? Raising payroll taxes. Smith found that increasing payroll taxes by 3 percentage points from 12.4 percent — half paid by employers and half paid by employees — to 15.4 percent would make Social Security reserves last at least 53 years longer, or until 2087.

Few politicians are proposing that fix for future generations.