Barack Obama has said Donald Trump is unfit to be President in his most resounding criticism yet of the Republican candidate.
Advertisement
Pamela Smith, president of the non-partisan election monitor Verified Voting, said “the trend has been towards more paper, physical ballots” and away from unverifiable types of systems in order to ensure accountability and accuracy. He says those receiving commutations were imprisoned under antiquated, overly harsh sentencing laws. Most were incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes, the White House said. He remains committed to continuing to reduce the prison terms for individuals who would already be free under current guidelines. “We expect that many more men and women will be given a second chance through the clemency initiative”.
“Altogether, I’ve commuted more sentences than the past nine presidents combined, and I am not done yet”, Obama wrote in a Facebook post.
If you only read one thing: President Obama could hardly contain his frustration with Donald Trump’s candidacy Thursday in his final press conference before his summer vacation. The revision reduced the disparity between the amount of powder and crack cocaine needed to activate criminal penalties from a 100:1 weight ratio to an 18:1 weight ratio and thus eliminated the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine.
The Obama administration has also expanded criteria for inmates applying for clemency, prioritizing nonviolent offenders who have behaved well in prison, aren’t closely tied to gangs and would have received shorter sentences if they had been convicted a few years later. He’ll be released December 1.
He boasted about the amount of commutations he has issued as president in an interview with National Public Radio in July. These powder/crack drug laws have managed to destroy not only the lives of those sentenced but also their families and loved ones.
“Our work is far from finished”, said White House counsel Neil Eggleston in a blog post.
But he said laborious clemency process – in which each application is reviewed by at least three levels of lawyers at the Justice Department and the White House before going to the president – is no substitute for congressional action to overhaul sentencing guidelines.
Advertisement
Trump has routinely claimed that Bernie Sanders lost his Democratic primary race against Clinton because of a “rigged system” packed with super delegates who could vote for the candidate of their choice. “Not less, but at long last, not more”.
