Another look at First Step Act

 image credit:rightoncrime.com

Yesterday, this blog linked to some information on the First Step Act, with support coming from Ken Blackwell and Pastor Darrell Scott, among others. On the other hand, Ann Coulter criticized the Act in pretty sharp terms. Then I came across Michelle Malkin’s analysis of the First Step Act; like Coulter, Malkin is tough on crime, immigration, and drug dealing, so I was interested to see that she supports the Act:

The package of criminal justice reform proposals endorsed by President Donald Trump is not “soft” on crime. It’s tough on injustice. And it’s about time.

Known as the “First Step Act,” the legislation confronts the Titanic failure of the federal government’s trillion-dollar war on drugs by reforming mandatory minimum sentences, rectifying unscientifically grounded disparities in criminal penalties for crack vs. powder cocaine users, and tackling recidivism among federal inmates through risk assessment, earned-time credit incentive structures, re-entry programs and transitional housing.

There’s nothing radical about giving law-breakers who served their time an opportunity to turn their lives around and avoid ending up back behind bars. More than 30 red and blue states have enacted measures to reduce incarceration, control costs and improve public safety. Texas — no bleeding-heart liberal mecca — spearheaded alternatives to the endless prison-building boom a decade ago by redirecting tax dollars to rehab, treatment and mental health services. The Lone Star state saved an estimated $3 billion in new public construction costs while stemming the prison population tide.

. . .

Despite staunch support from conservative Republican governors, prosecutors and law enforcement closest to the ground on this issue, the same hyperbolic talking points used by some immovable “law and order” opponents at the state level are now being used against First Step: Cops will be endangered, critics balk. Violent monsters will go free. Child predators and drug kingpins will flood our neighborhoods.

Scary, but deceptive. The plain language of the bill makes clear that its “early release” provisions must be earned. Moreover, as Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee points out: “At all times the Bureau of Prisons retains all authority over who does and does not qualify for early release.” Former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, a veteran of the criminal justice system for 20 years, notes that inmates convicted of crimes of violence (including assaults on police), drug trafficking (including hardcore fentanyl and heroin dealing) and child pornography would not qualify for credits. Period. The list of ineligible prisoners is a mile long.

. . .

Critic Dan Cadman of the Center for Immigration Studies is not satisfied and argues that “the simplest way to make it a clean bill where immigration enforcement is concerned is to say at the beginning of the bill that ‘none of the sections that follow in this bill apply to incarcerated aliens.'” That should be a simple fix and is no reason to prevent First Step from moving to the Senate floor for vigorous debate.

Full article is here.

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Ohio Issue #1 and the "First Step" proposal

On November 6, Ohio voters rejected Issue #1, an amendment that would have reduced the penalties for drug trafficking under Ohio law. Cleveland Tea Party blogs urged a “No” vote here, here, and here. 

The Trump administration is proposing reform to the federal criminal justice system that is running along parallel lines to Issue #1. Ken Blackwell reports:

The FIRST STEP Act is the beginning of a transformation of America’s federal criminal-justice system into what it should have always been: a system that makes America safer. This legislation unites conservatives, police and civil rights advocates, civil libertarians, business leaders and supporters of social justice. Supporting this legislation means supporting ideas that all Americans want - from police to Democrats to Republicans - an America that is fair, an America that puts Americans first, and that makes America safe. 

Blackwell concludes that “This is a law and order President who believes in justice and the First Step Act will get us closer to true justice.” Among those standing with President Trump at his press conference were Sen. Tim Scott and Pastor Darrell Scott.  But Ann Coulter vigorously disagrees, and she is not one to pull her punches:

In the systematic dismantling of common sense in America, Jared Kushner's "sentencing reform" bill is the coup de grace -- a Mack Truck hurtling down the highway about to take out thousands of Americans. The Idiot Army is already in place to fight and win this battle.

Jared and the hip-hop artists currently advising him have decided that too many people are in prison. If you think you've heard this before, you have: Genius insights of this sort have preceded nearly every major crime wave this country has experienced, from Philadelphia to California to a bloody period known as "the Warren Court."

. . .

We're incessantly told that sentences will be cut only for "nonviolent drug offenders."

If you are even passingly familiar with our justice system, you know that virtually everyone in prison is there as the result of a plea bargain -- "97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases," according to The New York Times.

You don't strike a deal with the prosecutor to plea to the worst crime you've committed. You plea to the least serious offense.

Coulter hammers both the facts and stats concerning previous crime waves, and she also directs her outrage at President Trump and his son-in-law. Whether she is correct in attributing a motive to Trump’s support of this initiative, her analysis of past efforts at criminal system reform is worth considering, and some of her arguments will resonate with those against Ohio’s Issue #1. (Full column by Ms. Coulter is here.)

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Richard Cordray and Operation Choke Point

image credit: americaswatchtower.com

Here’s some information about what Ohio gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray was up to at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Ken Blackwell at the Washington Examiner reported yesterday:

Operation Choke Point was a plot by President Obama’s Department of Justice, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other government agencies to cut off banking and financial services for small businesses and industries that they deemed to be political enemies or otherwise undesirable.

Some of these businesses included gun stores, ammunition shops, fireworks stores, small dollar lenders, and home-based charities.

Some government officials tried to deny the existence of the program. That includes former CFPB director, Richard Cordray, who dodged questions from Sen. Mike Crapo in 2014 as to the CFPB’s participation in Operation Choke Point. Yet in that same year, Cordray warned banks against doing business with “… unscrupulous lenders and their payment processors.”

Cordray was not alone in trying to hide the truth about this operation. Officials from the DOJ and FDIC all worked to keep the program’s existence from the public and to bury the truth. Finally, however, the truth is now being unmasked.

Government documents were just unsealed providing evidence of just how far reaching and destructive Operation Choke Point really was to small businesses.

. . .

With this new evidence, it has become even more clear how invested the Obama administration was in Operation Choke Point. If an industry stood against their political agenda, it was only a matter of bringing the full force of the administrative and regulatory state against that industry as a means of coercion and punishment. Operation Choke Point was “Chicago-style politics” brought to Washington, D.C.

Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., and Sean Duffy, R-Wis., have been leaders in exposing Operation Choke Point. And I cannot agree more Luetkemeyer’s reaction to the latest revelations when he said, “I am appalled by the blatant intimidation and bias employed by unelected bureaucrats to play partisan politics with the livelihood of our citizens. No matter your ideological leanings, the American government should not be able to destroy all that you have worked for.”

Read the rest here. Pretty ugly.

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Ken Blackwell: another look at Ohio Issue #1

image credit: sunrisehouse.com

A week or so ago, Cleveland Tea Party posted a blog examining some pros and cons of Issue #1, which will be on the ballot in November.

Today, Ken Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State, leads off his article “Ohio’s ‘Issue 1’: A Dangerous and Deadly Proposition” with:

They are at it again!  Liberal billionaires George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and Nicholas Pritzker are attempting to force their left leaning ideology on Ohioans.

This time it’s by spending millions of dollars to weaken Ohio’s drug laws. Soros, Zuckerberg and Pritzker are the lead funders of state Issue 1, a dangerous state constitutional amendment that gives drug dealers a get out of jail free card.

They want you to believe their proposal is in line with marijuana reforms in other states. It’s not. They will say it’s in the interest of public safety, and will lead to better treatment options for addicted Ohioans. It won’t.

. . .

Drug abuse has had a disproportionate effect on Ohio families, and tragically, our state is ground zero in the fight against overdoses. Law enforcement officials are overwhelmed by the overdose crisis and we cannot afford, in terms of treasure and human suffering, more of these drugs on the streets. But that will be the legacy of Issue 1.

Read the rest here.

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Ohio District 12: “finding” ballots

image credit: headlineoftheday.com

We’ve seen this movie before. Leah Barkoukis reports at Townhall:

Election officials in Ohio found 588 uncounted votes Wednesday in a suburb of Columbus, county officials said.

After counting the ballots, Republican Troy Balderson received 198 votes; Democrat Danny O’Connor got 388 votes; and Joe Manchik, 2 votes. Thus, O’Connor gained 190 on Balderson, who currently leads by 1,564 votes in the close race.

Full report is here. If this follows the usual plot, election officials will keep “finding” ballots until O’Connor wins. At any rate, O'Connor has not conceded.

More on potential Ohio voter fraud is at Breitbart here.  Eric Eggers reports:

Consider that 170 registered voters listed as being over 116 years old still existed on the rolls of Ohio’s 12th Congressional when GAI accessed the data last August. That’s 10 percent of Balderson’s current margin of victory, pending provisional ballots. And 72 voters over the age of 116 who “live” in Balderson’s district cast ballots in the 2016 election.

But the Left hasn’t given up trying to create conditions favorable for voter fraud in Ohio. As former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has pointed out, “hyper-partisan liberals…have their eyes on Ohio.” Electing a Democrat as the state’s top elections official would undoubtedly roll back the hard-won safeguards Ohio has implemented. And as Blackwell points out, as goes Ohio, so goes the Presidency.

I had previously linked to Ken Blackwell’s article in the Cleveland Tea Party blog here.

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Ohio Secretary of State and election integrity

From Ballotpedia:

Heading into the 2018 election, the sitting secretary of state is Jon Husted (R), who was first elected in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014. Husted is prevented by term limits from seeking election to a third term in 2018.

State Senator Frank LaRose is the GOP candidate for Ohio Secretary of State. His website has his bio, and I am not pleased to read that he introduced legislation to make it easier for Ohioans to go online to register to vote. From LaRose’s website:

Senate Bill 318 will simplify absentee voting for all Ohioans by allowing voters to go online and request a vote-by-mail ballot. Currently, voters must mail requests for an absentee ballot to their local board of elections. This bill will make the process more efficient and more secure all while improving speed and convenience for voters. 

More efficient and secure? Or maybe more opportunities for voter fraud. (Remember the Soros-funded Secretary of State Project? To paraphrase Stalin, it’s not who votes; it’s who counts the votes.)

So conservative voters may be looking at another hold-your-nose election.

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell published an article at American Thinker, “The Left Wants to Control Ohio Elections,” that takes a longer view at the race for Ohio Secretary of State:

Hyper-partisan liberals once again have their eyes on Ohio.  This time, they want to take over the office in charge of making sure the state's elections are fair, honest and transparent.  Judging from the money they're spending and false outrage they're spewing, leftists will stop at nothing until they have one of their own in charge of counting votes in Ohio.  We have to stop them. 

. . .

[C]apturing the Ohio secretary of state's office is vital to the left's master plan of electing America's next president.  No Republican has won the presidency without winning Ohio.  A critical swing state, Ohio has voted for the winner in presidential races in twenty-eight out of the last thirty elections.  As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.

They have full access to the Clinton Money Machine and the Obama Operation.  While it may seem strange to witness millions of dollars pouring into a down ballot race in the heartland, there is a method to the Democrats' madness.  Delve below the surface, and you will see that the Democrats have their sights set on 2020, defeating Donald Trump, taking back the presidency.  Winning the [Ohio] secretary of state's race is a means to that end.

In the wrong hands, that office will become a de facto arm of the Ohio Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee.  Eric Holder and a laundry list of presidential wannabes know that.  Realizing what our rivals are capable of, Republicans should be on high alert.  They mean business.  They've got millions.  They don't fight fair.  It's that serious.

Their candidate for this high office is Kathleen Clyde.  She fits the pattern of coming from the far left of the political spectrum and being loud and confrontational in her style.  She is advancing the preposterous and obviously unconstitutional notion that if a presidential candidate does not release his taxes, he is immediately and irrevocably kept off the ballot in Ohio.  You can see how far-fetched and far left her agenda is.

 . . . 

The person the Democrats nominate, whoever it is, will target Ohio as the missing piece to the puzzle they need to claim the Oval Office so they can pick up where Barack Obama left off.  If they seize control of the Ohio secretary of state's office and they control the machinery of government in the Buckeye State, they will set to work pressing their advantage.  That is why Republicans are taking action: because winning the Ohio secretary of state's race is absolutely vital to the integrity of our elections and the future of our country.

You can read Blackwell’s full article here. I plan to re-post this shortly before Election Day.

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