Private Prisons Back in Business…

From The Hill:

The Trump administration is rolling back an Obama-era plan to phase out the federal government’s use of private prisons.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a memo Thursday to the Bureau of Prisons rescinding the Obama administration’s Aug. 16 order advising the bureau not to renew any contracts with private prisons, according to a copy of the letter.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates had instructed officials to either not renew private prison contracts or substantially reduce the scope of such contracts to ultimately end the department’s use of privately operated prisons altogether.

In a brief memo Thursday, Sessions said Yates’s order “changed the long-standing policy and practice, and impaired the Bureau’s ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.”

“Therefore, I direct the Bureau to return to its previous approach,” he wrote.

I just…

It’s too much… all at once.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? Get us so tired we can do nothing…

The next post will be a self-care post, I promise…

From Politico – Spicer: Expect to see ‘greater enforcement’ of federal marijuana law

I knew this would happen. I knew, the moment Sir Tiny Hands was put into office, all the states that have legalized or decriminalized marijuana would be done. I knew it wouldn’t last under him.

And I was right.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that he expects states to see “greater enforcement” of the federal law against marijuana use, a move that would be at odds with a growing number of states’ decisions to legalize it.

Spicer, taking questions from reporters at the daily briefing, differentiated between the administration’s positions on medical marijuana and recreational marijuana.

President Donald Trump “understands the pain and suffering that many people go through who are facing especially terminal diseases, and the comfort that some of these drugs, including medical marijuana, can bring to them,” he said, also noting previous action by Congress not to fund the Justice Department “go[ing] after those folks.”

As for “recreational marijuana, that’s a very, very different subject,” Spicer said.

Spicer suggested that the administration is opposed to encouraging recreational marijuana use and connected it with the crisis with opioid addiction in some areas.

“When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” he said.

The Department of Justice, Spicer said, will be “further looking into” the marijuana enforcement question, he said, punting questions about the specifics to the department.

“I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement of it,” he said.

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Agent Orange Wants More Radioactive Toys

From Reuters:

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has fallen behind in its weapons capacity.

…

In his first comments about the U.S. nuclear arsenal since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump was asked about a December tweet in which he said the United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capacity “until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Trump said in the interview he would like to see a world with no nuclear weapons but expressed concern that the United States has “fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity.”

“I am the first one that would like to see … nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall behind any country even if it’s a friendly country, we’re never going to fall behind on nuclear power.

“It would be wonderful, a dream would be that no country would have nukes, but if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack,” Trump said.

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Agent Orange Likes Polluted Streams and Undrinkable Water

Trump Signs Measure Blocking Obama-Era Rule to Protect Streams

President Donald Trump signed legislation repealing a regulation meant to protect streams from the effects of coal mining.

The congressional resolution killing the so-called Stream Protection Rule, which was issued in the waning days of the Obama administration, follows similar action by Trump overturning an anti-corruption rule that would have required oil companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. Congressional Republicans have plans to send Trump an array of resolutions under the Congressional Review Act, including one to prevent people with serious mental-health problems from buying guns.

“In eliminating this rule I am continuing to keep my promise to the American people to get rid of wasteful regulations,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony.

Oh yeah. Regulations the protecting the environment are so wasteful…

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ICE Is Evil…

I knew that finding joy and happiness, and just letting things go and enjoying myself, would be damn near impossible when Trump got elected.

And yet I was still not prepared…

‘This is really unprecedented’: ICE detains woman seeking domestic abuse protection at Texas courthouse

A hearing in El Paso County in Texas went from ordinary to “unprecedented” last week when half a dozen Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up at a courthouse where an undocumented woman was seeking a protective order against the boyfriend she accused of abusing her.

The woman, a citizen of Mexico who was living in El Paso had been driven to the courthouse by a victim’s advocate from the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse where she had been living.

She left under arrest.

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The US as a Fascist Dictatorship – Part 2: Can Trump Become a Dictator?

This is going to be a long one, so let me apologize in advance. You may want to plan a little time to read it…

There’s a rule about articles or posts that start with a question: the answer is almost always “no”. Whether this post breaks that rule or follows it is ultimately up to you. For me, I think there are enormous roadblocks in Trump’s way, but I absolutely believe that he’s trying, and that he wants to be a dictator. And I also absolutely believe that if we’re not careful, at some point we’re going to see the current administration using the Constitution as toilet paper, and no one will stop them. That’s why I’m writing this…

It’s really a warning… however hard it may be, it is possible, and you better believe that Trump and his administration are already trying to find every possible way to get as close as the can to this outcome as possible.

So… with that said…

I’m going to start this by sourcing mainly from an article written by Eric Posner at Quartz called “The complete guide to how Trump can make himself the first American dictator“, published on March 3, 2016. Obviously, it’s been a long time since then, so I’ll be pulling from much more recent sources, as well…

I’ve said this already, but we are in extremely scary times, and we need to be vigilant. So… without further ado…

If Trump is elected president, will constitutional law and American political institutions protect us from a would-be dictator? Europeans worry about the emergence of Caesarism in the United States, just as the founders did when they invented the presidency. Authoritarianism is making gains around the world; why not here? Of course, Trump may not want to be a dictator. He has repeatedly stated his desire to make “deals,” implying a willingness to cooperate with Congress. But there is no reason to believe anything he says; many of his actions and statements are those of someone with a dictatorial mentality if nothing else, and his popular support derives from his authoritarian image: he appeals to people who yearn for a strongman to protect them. So the question is worth asking. What is the answer?

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The US as a Fascist Dictatorship – Part 1: The Powers Granted to the President

(Note… in this two-part series, I will be referring to Donald Trump by his name, instead of the hilarious nicknames. It’s not out of any semblance of respect, but out of expediency. Outside if these two posts, I won’t be dignifying him with his name. Also… yes, Wikipedia is used here. Bite me. This is not a scholarly paper or a school essay. If you don’t trust Wikipedia, just check the sources they provide at the bottom of the articles, or do some Googling of your own. I’m using Wikipedia sometimes and that’s the end of it.)

We live in some scary times. We have a president many people never thought could actually make it. One of the criticisms President Barack Obama got when he was running in 2008 was that he was inexperienced, and therefore unqualified. This was, of course, untrue. Sure, he was in Congress only a short amount of time before he became our President, but he was definitely far from inexperienced. But Donald Trump? By any comparison, Donald Trump is quite literally inexperienced. He has literally zero experience with politics on any level other than a business level.

And Trump is now doing a wholly hell of a lot things that could suggest he’s not planning to leave the White House any time soon… if ever.

But the question is… is this possible? The answer should be an easy one: of course not! We have the Constitution! Checks and Balances! The Executive Branch isn’t capable of extending such authority!

Well… one would certainly hope. Unfortunately, there are a few small loopholes that can be exploited, and that’s what I want to discuss.

But first, let’s talk about the Constitution, our government, and exactly what powers the Executive Branch, and the President himself, actually have. Keep in mind that this first post goes over basic Constitutional principles, so this is stuff most of you will already know.

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