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By: Elias J. Atienza

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) have teamed once more to reintroduce legislation on criminal justice reform. The bill, which is mostly a rehash of the one introduced in the last Congress by Booker, would restrict the use of solitary confinement for juveniles except in limited cases.

Former President Barrack Obama first initiated widespread changes in federal prisons for solitary confinement after the Justice Department recommended it, affecting some 10,000 prisons. However, it is not permanent, which is why the Paul and Booker are reintroducing the bill in order to ensure that the changes remain.

Both Paul and Obama have referred to the story of Kalief Browder, a young black man who had been sent to Rikkers Island and spent three years in prison after allegedly stealing a backpack. He was charged with second degree robbery and spent most of his time in solitary confinement. He never had a trial.

However, all charges were dropped and he was released. He committed suicide in June of 2015, most likely due to the conditions of his detention. His case has been cited for criminal justice reform, especially solitary confinement.

The bill currently has four other cosponsors, Senators Mike Lee (R-UT), Richard Durbin (D-IL), James Lankford (R-OK), and Robert Casey (D-PA).

It is unknown what President Donald Trumps position is on solitary confinement. However, due to his administrations position on criminal justice reform is not wholly positive towards it, he might overturn Obamas executive orders on solitary confinement within federal prisons. Hence the bill.

AsJean Cassella and James Ridgeway write inSolitary Watch:

Trump has long denounced what he calls criminals rights. And more broadly, since the widespread use of solitary confinement is driven by mass incarceration, Trumps general law-and-order stance, which is inhospitable to such moves as sentencing reform, could add to the federal prison population.Sessions, who has a track record on these issueshevirulentlyopposedrecent bipartisan efforts at sentencing reform and wrongly believes that crime is skyrocketingwill certainly have Trumps back.

Cory BookerCriminal Justice ReformDonald TrumpJeff SessionsKalief Browderrand paulsolitary confinement

Here is the original post:
Rand Paul Teams Up With Cory Booker To Place Restrictions on Solitary Confinement for Juveniles - The Libertarian Republic

By Sen. Rand Paul

I hope against hope that the rumors are wrong and that President Donald Trump will not open the State Department door to the neocons. Crack the door to admit Elliott Abrams and the neocons will scurry in by the hundreds.

Neoconservative interventionists have had us at perpetual war for 25 years. While President Trump has repeatedly stated his belief that the Iraq War was a mistake, the neocons (all of them Never-Trumpers) continue to maintain that the Iraq and Libyan Wars were brilliant ideas. These are the same people who think we must blow up half the Middle East, then rebuild it and police it for decades.

Theyre wrong and they should not be given a voice in this administration.

RELATED:Rand Paul: Repeal all of Obamacare and replace immediately

One of the things I like most about President Trump is his acknowledgement that nation building does not work and actually works against the nation building we need to do here at home. With a $20 trillion debt, we dont have the money to do both.

I urge him to keep that in mind this week when he meets with Elliott Abrams, the rumored pick for second in command to the Secretary of State.

Abrams would be a terrible appointment for countless reasons. He doesnt agree with the president in so many areas of foreign policy and he has said so repeatedly; he is a loud voice for nation building and when asked about the presidentsopposition to nation building, Abrams said that Trump wasabsolutely wrong; and during the election he was unequivocal in his opposition to Donald Trump, going so far as to say, the chair in which Washington and Lincoln sat, he is not fit to sit.

Why then would the president trust him with the second most powerful position in the State Department?

Abrams was equally dismissive throughout Trumps entire candidacy. As a Never-Trumper, he repeatedly said he would neither vote for Clinton nor Trump. He likened the choice to the one the nation faced of McGovern vs. Nixon.

I voted for Rex Tillerson for secretary of state because I believe him to have a balanced approach to foreign policy. My hope is that he will put forward a realist approach. I dont see Abrams as part of any type of foreign policy realism.

Elliott Abrams is a neoconservative too long in the tooth to change his spots, and the president should have no reason to trust that he would carry out a Trump agenda rather than a neocon agenda.

But just as importantly, Congress has good reason not to trust him he was convicted of lying to Congress in his previous job.

His conviction for deceiving Congress over secret arms deals, better known as the Iran-Contra scandal, show that his neocon agenda trumps his fidelity to the rule of law. The Constitution directs Congress to approve or disapprove of war. It would be a mistake to appoint anyone to the State Department who was previously convicted for defying Congressional authority.

Nation building in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen has not and will not work. Mr. President please, please do not open the door to the people who sip lattes while sneering behind your back. They are bold enough to come begging for work while continuing to laugh and deride your every remark concerning foreign policy. Dont let them in!

The neocon trademark is to conduct war in secret to avoid congressional scrutiny. This is exactly what happened during Iran-Contra. Despite legislation that prohibited sending arms to Nicaragua, Abrams and other neocons surreptitiously funneled money from sultans in Brunei to sheiks in Iran, converting the cash into weapons that were then sent to authoritarians in Nicaragua.

RELATED:Rand Paul: Will Donald Trump betray voters by hiring John Bolton?

Abrams also supervised, covered up and defended a policy of arming a Guatemalan government undeniably waging war against an indigenous native population. Thousands of the indigenous people of the Ixil region of Guatemala were exterminated. The Guatemalan President was eventually convicted of war crimes. Abrams was an unabashed supporter and organizer of sending arms into this tragic situation.

In a country of 300 million people, surely there are reasonable foreign policy experts who have not been convicted of deceiving Congress and actually share the presidents foreign policy views. I hope Secretary Rex Tillerson will continue the search for expert assistance from experienced, non-convicted diplomats who understand the mistakes of the past and the challenges ahead.

Originally posted here:
Rand Paul: Do not let Elliott Abrams anywhere near the State ...

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is taking a lot of friendly fire from libertarians.

The big issue is Paul's vote to confirm Jeff Sessions as attorney general. "[H]ow does a drug war and mass incarceration critic vote for the Senate's most strident supporter of both to run the DOJ?" asked The Washington Post's libertarian scribe Radley Balko.

Complicating things: While the Kentucky senator seemed to bend on Sessions, he was gearing up to oppose the hawkish Elliott Abrams if he was nominated for deputy secretary of state, just as Paul promised to do whatever it took to block Bush-era hawk John Bolton from either of the top two State Department jobs. (The Abrams point is now moot, as President Trump has personally nixed his nomination.)

But I must say: I think Paul's priorities here are correct.

The libertarian case against Sessions, characteristically well made by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), is that he is bad on civil asset forfeiture, bad on drug policy, and a throwback to law-and-order Republicanism after several years of conservatives warming to criminal justice reform.

Libertarians believe America is locking too many people up and police power is prone to abuse. While Sessions' views on these subjects have often been caricatured by the left, it is fair to say he is not on the same page as libertarians. And indeed, if Paul had voted against Sessions on the basis of any of this, it certainly would have been defensible.

But no matter who became attorney general, the Trump administration is obviously going to be bad, from a libertarian perspective, on these issues. The president's impulses on dealing with "bad hombres" are not remotely civil libertarian. President Trump was inevitably going to get an attorney general who reflected his views on these issues, and he could have gotten one much less competent and personally decent than Sessions. From a libertarian perspective, Sessions is bad but it could have been much worse. Sen. Paul understood this.

What is still very much up in the air is what kind of foreign policy we are going to get from the Trump administration. Trump's impulses are often sensible. He understands that the wars of the past 16 years have not achieved their desired objectives despite their considerable cost in blood and treasure.

"One of the things I like most about President Trump is his acknowledgement that nation building does not work and actually works against the nation building we need to do here at home," Paul wrote. "With a $20 trillion debt, we don't have the money to do both."

But obviously, our new president represents some danger abroad, too. Trump temperamentally does not like to back down from fights. And a lot of his advisers are hawkish. It's an open question what his foreign policy will look like.

In that sense, the advice Trump gets on foreign policy can make a big difference. And right now, we are counting on a defense secretary nicknamed "Mad Dog" to be a major voice of restraint.

Abrams is a leading neoconservative, a proponent of the foreign policy Trump rejected when he called the Iraq War a disaster on the eve of winning the South Carolina primary and ending Jeb Bush's presidential campaign. Bolton is no neocon, properly understood. He rejects democracy promotion and other more idealistic parts of the neoconservative vision. But he embraces too low a threshold for the use of military force.

Trump is going to be a law-and-order president. (It's also worth noting that conservative support for criminal justice reform is dependent on relatively low crime rates that were not entirely secured by libertarian means.) But Trump doesn't have to be a hawkish president. Paul understands this, and is picking his spots to oppose and prod Trump accordingly.

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Paul has more practical ability to stall or even circumvent nominees who would try to make the Trump foreign policy George W. Bush 2.0. But if Paul had voted against Sessions, the Alabama Republican would still have been confirmed. Paul would just have been the sole Republican on the side of Democrats who tried to assassinate Sessions' character.

Many libertarians don't like Paul's collegiality with more statist Republicans. But if you are going to work within the Republican Party, sometimes you've got to, well, work within the Republican Party.

Immigration and foreign policy realism are two good things we might get out of a Trump administration. On civil liberties, the new president will sadly not be an improvement over other post-9/11 administrations. That's something we all have to accept.

But anything Paul can do to keep the foreign policy voices surrounding Trump from simply being a cacophony of hawks is constructive and the smart way to focus his energy.

Read the original post:
Rand Paul has a plan to influence the Trump administration. And it's working. - The Week Magazine

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a libertarian-leaning Republican who has clashed with newly confirmed Attorney General Jeff Sessions on drug policy and criminal justice reform, said in an interview that Democrats secured his vote for Sessions by attacking the longtime Alabama senators record on race.

In some ways, the Democrats made it much more certain that I would vote for him by trying to destroy his character, Paul said Thursday in an interview with The Washington Post and Roll Call for C-SPANs Newsmakers series. I think its very upsetting that they didnt choose to go after him on particular issues, like civil asset forfeiture, where they might have been able to persuade someone. They chose to go after a mans character.

[Amid deep partisan rancor, Senate confirms Sessions for attorney general]

Paul, who won a second six-year term in November and was one of the 16 candidates Trump defeated in the Republican primaries broke with many Republicans in his support for drug decriminalization and criminal justice reform. In the Obama years, when the Justice Department allowed states such as Colorado to legalize marijuana, Sessions opposed it; Paul supported it.

In the interview, Paul acknowledged that some libertarian goals might be stymied by a Trump administration. There still will have to be a lot of standing up and saying there is a right to privacy, Paul said. This was a vote where I ended up voting for someone who was a colleague, who I knew.

Paul did not know Mike Pompeo, the Kansas congressman who became Trumps CIA director. He didnt vote for Pompeo. He had also pledged to oppose neoconservative nominees such as John Bolton, which, given Pauls perch on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meant that they would likely be voted out without a recommendation.

But for libertarians outside the Senate, Pauls vote for Sessions has been a source of frustration and confusion, despite a Facebook post in which Paul tried to explain the vote.

On Thursday, Matt Welch, the former editor in chief of Reason magazine,* cited Paul strategist Doug Stafford for a possible explanation of the vote. When Paul opposed Loretta E. Lynch for attorney general, there was hope that her views on asset forfeiture and other areas of concern conflicted enough with those of the more reform-friendly Obama that her potential replacement could conceivably be better. With Sessions, there was little hope that a replacement nominee would veer more toward Pauls views.

But in Thursdays conversation, Paul repeatedly emphasized that any discussion of Sessionss views got lost in the Democratic attacks. Sen. Elizabeth Warrens viral, short-circuited speech against Sessions, in which the Democrat from Massachusetts quoted Coretta Scott Kings 1986 letter of opposition to Sessions as a judicial nominee, struck Paul as personal and not based on principle.

The thing is, Ive seen pictures of him marching for voting rights with [congressman] John Lewis, Paul said of Sessions. He is for voting rights. There are things no one wants attached to their character, no person that I know wants to be called racist, or that youre trying to prevent someone to vote.

And Paul hadnt given up hope of influencing the president, as a senator from a state that he won handily. There was a discussion in the White House the other day about civil asset forfeiture, he said. I think civil asset forfeitures a terrible idea. Id like to have that discussion with the president.

That discussion, however, made news of another kind when Trump seemingly with tongue in check promised to go after a Texas state legislator who was campaigning against civil asset forfeiture.

*Disclosure: I worked for Reason from 2006 through 2008.

Continue reading here:
Rand Paul explains vote for Sessions: Democrats alienated him with 'character' attacks - Washington Post

Sen. Rand Paul voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as President Donald Trumps attorney general, but that doesnt mean the Kentucky Republican with libertarian leanings doesnt have real concerns about how Sessions will run the Justice Department.

And he thinks it will be more difficult to make progress on a criminal justice overhaulwith a Trump-Sessions DOJ.

In some ways, the Democrats made it much more certain that I would vote for him, by trying to destroy his character. I think to me its very upsetting that they didnt choose to go after him on particular issues like civil asset forfeiture, where they might have been able to persuade someone like me, Paul said Thursday. They chose to go after him, and try to destroy a mans character.

Speaking during a taping of C-SPANs Newsmakers program set to air on Sunday, Paul expressed concern about privacy issues and efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system under Trump and Sessions.

Its going to be more difficult for criminal justice reform under this president and under this administration, Paul said. But he added that he wished former President Barack Obama had moved to push the ball forward earlier in his White House tenure.

There have been these descriptions of President Obama of being aloof. I think theyre kind of true. This is a sausage-making factory up on the Hill. Youve got to come up and mix it up, the senatorsaid.

President Trump may be more successful because Mike Pence is up here all the time. Hes sort of a creature of Congress, a creature of state government, but he knows the players, Paulsaid.

The Kentucky Republicansaid going forward he has a list of items to discuss with Trump, including government policies toward forfeiture of assets in legal proceedings prior to any sort of conviction.

I think civil asset forfeiture is a terrible idea until youve convicted someone, and Id like to have that discussion with the president. Ive had that discussion with Sen. Sessions, and I think some of the things weve done particularly to poor people poor people in our country deal in cash, Paul said. I think in order to take someones money from them, the government ought to prove it was ill-gotten.

I think there still will be a lot of standing up and saying that there is a right to privacy that he needs to be observing, the senatorsaid duringthe C-SPAN interview with reporters from Roll Call and The Washington Post.

But Paulalso said he agreed with the move to block Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warrenfrom continuing to speak on the Sessions nomination after she read into the record statements from 1986 made against him by Coretta Scott King and former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, taking the view that Warren had impugned Sessions character.

No person that I know wants to be called racist or insensitive or that youre for trying to prevent people to vote. Paul said. We may disagree exactly on what the law should be, but that is attacking someones motives and character to say that he doesnt want, for some reason, African-American voters to vote, and I dont think its true.

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Democratic Attacks on Sessions Influenced Rand Paul's Vote - Roll Call