President Obama confused the nation this morning when he announced at a prayer breakfast that he was going to dedicate his first three or four months out of office to a good, long nap. After all, to many he’s been asleep at the wheel for a good seven years and only recently woke up and realized he’s barely touched his to-do list.
His signing of an order to close Guantanamo Bay within one year, literally one of his very first acts as president in January 2009, is a great example. In 2016, the administration is scrambling to find host countries that will take captured terrorists off our hands (and likely release them back into the wild), and searching for a facility in the United States to play host to the rest.
Speaking of releasing prisoners, the president has made it clear that “criminal justice reform” is one of about 50 “number one priorities” currently commanding his attention. Today President Obama not only announced that he’d commuted the sentences of 61 more drug offenders doing time “under outdated and unduly harsh sentencing laws”; he proudly noted that he’d given out more “get out of jail free” cards than the last six presidents combined.
.@POTUS has now commuted the sentences of more people than the last six presidents combined: https://t.co/ydpR3va6QD pic.twitter.com/h4zMDyrByl
— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) March 30, 2016
Um, hooray?
Last December, the president quietly commuted the sentences of nearly 100 prisoners, which he deemed “another step forward in upholding our fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.” And in July, President Obama met personally with six inmates at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma, just days after writing letters to 46 nonviolent drug offenders whose sentences he commuted earlier in the week.
If you’re like us, you likely have a mental list of citizens to whom the president has reached out personally, and a second list of those who have been ignored (a list comprising a disturbing number of grieving family members). President Obama didn’t simply write letters to these former inmates — he dropped in on a lunch in their honor, shook hands, gave hugs … all recorded on video and posted to Facebook for all to enjoy.
"I believe America is a nation of second chances" —@POTUS on granting clemency to 61 people: https://t.co/D1UxnXiAPx pic.twitter.com/mkEF6AqbX6
— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) March 30, 2016
The president wrote on Facebook, in part:
I’m about to drop by a meeting with a few folks whose prison sentences were commuted either by President Bush, President Clinton, or me. They don’t know this yet, but I’m going to invite them to join me for lunch so I can hear their stories firsthand.
They’re Americans who’d been serving time on the kind of outdated sentences that are clogging up our jails and burning through our tax dollars. Simply put, their punishments didn’t fit the crime.
Today, I issued 61 more commutations to folks a lot like these – most of them are low-level drug offenders whose sentences would have been shorter if they were convicted under today’s laws. I believe America is a nation of second chances, and with hard work, responsibility, and better choices, people can change their lives and contribute to our society.
Most are low-level drug offenders? May we ask what the others were in for, or would that be prying?
If the president’s proud to have commuted 248 sentences, how many more inmates will be freed before he leaves office? And what will they do with those second chances?
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