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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSessions fights for racist outcomes. Who cares what's in his heart?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/jeff_sessions_fights_for_racist_outcomes_who_care_what_s_in_his_heart.htmlIn just a moment, Graham and Sessions had turned a conversation about the Alabama senators actions into a referendum on his character, one in which his discomfort with the language of racism matters more than the weight of his choices as a prosecutor and policymaker. Sessions is a controversial nominee for a reason. As the NAACP Legal Defense Fund details in its report on the Alabama lawmaker, An unrelenting hostility toward civil rights and racial justice has been the defining feature of Jeff Sessions professional life.
As a prosecutor in the 1980s, Sessions pursued a voter fraud case against three activistsAlbert Turner, Evelyn Turner, and Spencer Hoguewho spearheaded voter registration efforts on behalf of black voters in Alabama. They gave assistance to those needing help casting a ballot, from elderly voters to those who were illiterate or who could not get to the polls on Election Day. Sessions indicted the three on the charge that this assistance was a crime, despite its protection under the Voting Rights Act. Moreover, Sessions declined to investigate similar activity among groups working with white candidates. The double standard was so egregious that a court agreed with the defendants that Sessions office was activated by constitutionally impermissible motives such as racial discrimination.
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At every turn, when met with efforts to increase diverse representation or reverse the vast racial disparities in the criminal justice system, Jeff Sessions has stood in opposition. He has disparaged groups working to reform the death penalty, publicly supported chain gangs for prisoners in Alabama, and worked against bipartisan efforts to reform federal sentencing, including severe mandatory minimums that fall hardest on black and Latino offenders. In one exchange on Tuesday with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, Sessions confirmed that he still opposes an effort to make sentencing reform retroactive for drug offenders imprisoned under the now-defunct 100-to-1 crack-cocaine disparity. And while Sessions says its not the attorney generals decision about when and where a mandatory minimum is imposed and whether it can be retroactively altered, it is true that the attorney general can influence the guidance provided to federal prosecutors, as evidenced by Eric Holders decision to move prosecutors away from harsh punishments of minor drug offenders.
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Sessions is frustrated by what he calls a caricature of his views that cost him a federal judgeship in 1986. He believes accusations of racism are very painful. We shouldnt doubt his feelings. But we should evaluate his actions. If the question is a commitment to civil rights, Jeff Sessions falls far short. That conservatives such as Graham insist, against this background, that accusations of racism are unfair is deeply revealing of the right-wing attitude toward racism: that its OK to devote your career to racial reaction so long as you have a black friend or two, that its entirely about the individual and what is or isnt in his heart. In the Republican imagination, racism itself has been privatized.
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Sessions fights for racist outcomes. Who cares what's in his heart? (Original Post)
pnwmom
Jan 2017
OP
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)1. Same as this BS with DT deciding how he personally feels about Putin- who gives a fuck?! How is
This completely unprofessional and besides the point. He should have opinions about Russian governance already based on actions. It's all a cover, just like all this Jesus crap he started with the past week.