By Lily Dane
Today, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to be Attorney General of the United States, and liberty moved one step closer to a horrible death.
Many liberty-minded people believed that a Trump presidency would mean less establishment shenanigans and more freedom for individuals.
But so far, the people the President-elect has chosen to align himself with do not support that belief.
Here’s why Trump’s selection of Sessions as AG is particularly concerning.
Sessions has served as a senator from Alabama for two decades, and previously served as US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia and Attorney General of Alabama.
In 1986, he was denied a federal judgeship after former colleagues testified before a Senate committee that he was “too racist for the job.”
That rejection came from a Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee. At that time, Sessions was one of only two judicial nominees whose selections were halted by the panel in nearly 50 years.
One of the most controversial things Sessions has said was about the Ku Klux Klan. He said he thought they were “okay, until he learned that they smoked marijuana.”
That comment was made years ago, but Sessions is still a very vocal opponent of legalizing cannabis – for both recreational and medicinal use.
I guess he’s an opponent of science, too, because to date there are over 22,000 published studies in the scientific literature that reference the medicinal benefits of cannabis.
So far, scientific study of cannabis has identified more than 80 unique, biologically active cannabinoids. A recent meta-analysis of these compounds shows well over a dozen therapeutic properties attributable to cannabinoids, including neuroprotective, anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, and anti-diabetic properties. (source)
Not only is Sessions apparently anti-science and anti-health freedom, he totally digs one of the most dangerous and hated government agencies:
“I’m a big fan of the DEA”, he said during a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
At that hearing, Sessions said of marijuana – and I am not making this up – “Lady Gaga says she’s addicted to it and it is not harmless.”
Right, because Lady Gaga’s opinion is far more credible than, oh, decades of scientific research.
In April of this year, the Senate held a drug hearing.
Sessions attended, and said a few more ridiculous things:
We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it’s in fact a very real danger.
Right, because humans haven’t been using cannabis for, oh – decades – without government permission.
He spoke of the need to foster “knowledge that this drug is dangerous, you cannot play with it, it is not funny, it’s not something to laugh about… and to send that message with clarity that good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
No, Mr. Sessions – you have that wrong. You see, “good people” do not tell other people what to do with their bodies. “Good people” do not deny people of their right to make their own decisions about what to do in the privacy of their own homes. “Good people” do not use the force of government to deprive people of their access to a plant that shows incredible promise in the treatment and management of chronic health problems and devastating diseases.
I think one of [Obama’s] great failures, it’s obvious to me, is his lax treatment in comments on marijuana. It reverses 20 years almost of hostility to drugs that began really when Nancy Reagan started ‘Just Say No.’
Everyone (except Sessions, apparently) knows the War on Drugs has been a tremendous (and very expensive) failure. His invocation of Nancy Reagan makes him look even more ignorant than his other comments do.
Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement:
Jeff Sessions is a drug war dinosaur, which is the last thing the nation needs now. Those who counted on Donald Trump’s reassurance that marijuana reforms ‘should be a state issue’ will be sorely disappointed.
Even though more and more states are legalizing both recreational and medicinal use of cannabis, it is still illegal at the federal level. The DEA continues to refuse to remove the plant from Schedule I, and the agency does not seem to care about states’ rights:
States that have legalized cannabis for recreational use did not even escape the DEA’s greed. Last year, confiscation continued in Washington and Oregon. Full state breakdowns have not been provided, but a DEA spokesman said that just under 36,000 marijuana plants were destroyed in Washington last year at a cost to federal taxpayers of about $950,000, or roughly $26 per plant.
So, it matters – very much – that we may end up with an AG who is anti-cannabis.
In addition, Sessions has criticized President Barack Obama for commuting hundreds of prison sentences for drug offenders, as well as efforts by the Justice Department and U.S. Sentencing Commission to reduce criminal sentencing guidelines for certain drug offenses. Sessions has opposed bipartisan proposals to cut mandatory minimum prison sentences.
And, speaking of the War on Drugs and the deprivation of civil liberties…
Sessions is a strong supporter of civil asset forfeiture, the government thug practice of seizing property when it has allegedly been involved in a crime. In April 2015, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on reforming federal civil asset forfeiture laws, Sessions opposed ANY reform. He claimed police groups across the country told him civil asset forfeiture is an important law enforcement tool. Ending the sharing of seized cash with local departments “would be a huge detriment to law enforcement,” Sessions said.
Sessions has also argued that once forfeiture is accomplished, there is “nothing wrong with . . . [having] the money be given to the officers who helped develop the case.”
I wonder if Sessions realizes that police departments have used stolen assets to purchase things like sports cars, jackets, vacations, fancy dinners, and football tickets. I wonder if he knows that police departments have been caught hiding millions in seized cash and assets. I wonder if he heard about the $53,000 in donations for a children’s charity and orphanage that was seized by thugs in Oklahoma during a roadside shakedown earlier this year (thankfully, the money was returned to the charity a few weeks after it was stolen).
Government thugs are now stealing more property from citizens than non-government criminals are. In 2014, the government stole $4.5 billion via federal civil asset forfeiture. In contrast, all 2014 non-government related property offenses totaled approximately $3.9 billion.
I wonder if Sessions knows about all of this. My guess is that he does, but doesn’t care.
****
Unfortunately, there’s more.
On October 5, 2005, Sessions was one of nine Senators who voted against a Senate amendment to a House bill that prohibited cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment of individuals in the custody or under the physical control of the US government.
Immigration is a controversial topic, but even many conservatives believe that people who have come to the US and are working, paying taxes, and otherwise being productive and law-abiding members of society should have the ability to become legal citizens.
Sessions is not that kind of conservative.
As Shikha Dalmia of Reason explained last week,
Sessions has done more than any human alive to torpedo every sensible immigration reform effort and makes no bones about his wish to basically stop all immigration. He moves the goalposts on reform constantly, recently even calling for the elimination of the H-1B visa program for foreign techies, which sent chills down the IT sector’s spine.
Also from Reason:
It’s not just illegal immigration Sessions opposes, he’s also fond of spreading the canard that all immigrants are a drain on the economy and take the jobs which are the birthright of all native-born Americas, when in fact, the opposite is much closer to the truth.
Conservative Review gave Sessions a “Liberty Score” of C (78%), but I think that was being EXTREMELY generous.
They report that Sessions:
- Voted to expand Federal involvement in education
- Voted for an Internet sales tax
- Voted against reaffirming the Fourth Amendment
Earlier in this article, I mentioned Sessions’s comment about the KKK being “okay”, but that’s not the only thing he has done that has led many to believe he is a racist. Allegations of racism have appeared throughout his career, beginning as early as 1986.
Someone who edits Wikipedia entries doesn’t like him very much…note the first line of this paragraph:
Note: At the time of this article’s publication, that entry had been corrected.
The Attorney General represents the country in legal matters and gives advice to the president and government agencies. The Justice Department’s duties include prosecution of white-collar crime and enforcement of antitrust and civil rights laws.
As AG, Sessions would oversee all the US attorneys’ offices.
So much for draining that swamp, and so much for hopes that Trump would be a pro-liberty president.
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He’s just more of the authoritarian same on many subjects. Especially cannabis freedom, which they don’t have in his home state of Alabama. I’m wondering about their thoughts on what’s been happening with cannabis out on the west coast and what if anything they’re planning on doing about it?? Hopefully, like education, that’s going to also be tossed back to the states to rule and govern on.
There is some legitimacy to federal government involvement in the marijuana issue. It is the responsibility of the federal government to protect the states from threats coming across the border. This not only includes the border of other nations, but the borders between the states. Marijuana is harmful, and children ARE being harmed by it. So trying to prevent marijuana or any other drug from crossing the border is entirely proper. And in order to do that, the federal government has to define what is a criminal offense, so that it can enforce the borders against such things. Marijuana can be grown in many people’s back yards, so some of the enforcement would fall to the states. But not all of it.
“We the People” are completely and totally FRELLED. IF there is a G-D, G-D help us
The Kkk thing was a joke – a bad joke he apologized for.
Plus he’s not the only AG opposed to MJ. Geez the things that get put here as news – working for CNN I see !
A real low life –
Robert Byrd served as a Democratic senator for over 50 years. He recruited for the Ku Klux Klan, filibustered the Civil Rights Act, and voted against the Voter Rights Act. He held great positions of power in the Democratic Party.
I do not recall Democrats, Hollywood, or the media calling him a racist or a white supremacist. He was the respected constitutionalist.
amazing how this site is now part of the “mockingbird” media. What made you guys sell out?
….put some round wire rimmed glasses on his nose & a black SS uniform on instead of a 3-piece suit…presto…. ya got Heinrich Himmler
Yawn.
Sessions is also for arming and training the Soros/IMF backed junta nazis in Kiev is genocide against the Russian speakers of the former east Ukraine.
Why didn’t Trump choose Judge Andrew Napolitano?
……because Napolitano is apparently suffering from a viable & healthy ‘conscience’ fraught with empathy, compassion & morals…tsk tsk…can’t have that in government now…it might become virulent to the NWO & spread …can’t have that now …can we.
Patience: he may yet choose Napolitano — after he’s let Sessions hang himself with his own mouth, and fired him.
The marijuana issue is a touchstone. All the honest scientific and historical evidence shows that MJ is a medically-useful drug, as an intoxicant it’s harmless, and the hemp
Great choice right there! Edward Snowden, NSA Director has a ring to it
How can an objective author write what is essentially a hit piece on Sessions without mentioning the names Michael McDonald, Henry Francis Hays, and Barry Kowalski. Hoping to get noticed by the MSM, or just another victim of the ideology that secured the White House for Trump? I agree with the headline, this article is deplorable. I hope you don’t get paid for writing because your research skills are lacking.
As long as he hates blacks and goes after them, who cares?!?
Stir things Lisa! You’re so obvious of just a stirrer of the crap. Nice try
and loretta lynch has done a great job
Just another biblically unqualified official, thanks to Article 6’s Christian test ban by which mandatory biblical qualifications were also eliminated. This shouldn’t surprise anyone being Trump is also biblically unqualified. Many more to come until Americans (Christians in particular) wake up to the fact that we’ve been had, beginning in 1787.
For more regarding Article 6’s Christian test ban, see online Chapter 9 “Article 6: The Supreme Law of the Land” of “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective.” Click on my picture, then our website. Go to our Online Books page, click on the top entry, and scroll down to Chapter 9.
Then find out how much you REALLY know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey in the right-hand sidebar and receive a complimentary copy of a book that EXAMINES the Constitution by the Bible.
I am very pleased with the choice of Jeff Sessions.
The writer spends a lot of time focused on Marijuana which I have never seen Sessions talk about. I heard about his JOKE about the KKK smoking pot and I thought it was clearly sarcastic since he proceeded to get those KKK murderers the death penalty for their crimes. I don’t believe Sessions has any interest in messing around with California legalizing marijuana.
The conclusion that Sessions is anti-science is ridiculous. Even if it was true that Sessions didn’t think Marijuana was helpful as medicine, it would be his opinion, (which this site knows every American has a right to have) and having one opinion doesn’t make anyone anti-science. He is to be Attorney General, not trying to be a scientist.
Sessions is for treating all people equally as American Citizens and I think this is very refreshing after years of identity politics. He is anti-illegal immigration, pro American worker and for school choice for all.
Sessions has been a leader in the fight to save American jobs and fight globalist corporations and Banks like Goldman Sachs/Citibank and their agenda.
Fighting against globalist bank agenda and all of the other powerful lobbies certainly changed his liberty score.
The whole article smacks of CNN seen through the eyes of an imaginary old pothead.
I typically see more free thinking on this site, lately it presumes to telling people what to think. New ownership?
You’ve given me several reasons why I LIKE the fact that Sessions was chosen. The most prominent is that marijuana SHOULD NOT BE LEGAL FOR RECREATIONAL PURPOSES. There are at least a dozen ways that OTHER PEOPLE’S marijuana use or involvement have HARMED me or my family members without our consent, sometimes very seriously. I have studied marijuana extensively, and it is NASTY STUFF. I do not want to live in a community where recreational marijuana would be legal. The tiniest whiff of marijuana smoke gives me the granddaddy of all splitting headaches. I would be a prisoner in my own home. People don’t have a right to trash my community just because they want to “control their own bodies”. I’m sorry, but when you harm me, you are controlling MY body. I would hardly call opposing legal recreational marijuana making Sessions an enemy of liberty. Whatever happened to REAL LIBERTY, like the right to stay in one’s own home as long as one wants? Have you noticed that the Libertarian Party no longer fights property tax? Property tax is the most INSIDIOUS and UNCONSTITUTIONAL tax, but the LP no longer cares. It’s been co-opted by the drugheads. And never forget: marijuana is supposed to make people mellow. Mellow people don’t fight for liberty. I could go on, but that’s a good opening salvo. Now bring it on. I have an answer for every point of disagreement. I will not travel to any state where marijuana is legal. They lost my tourism. I praise and thank God my state isn’t one of them.
Very good comment and I agree.
You are obviously an advocate for marijuana use and are confused. I had my day with that particular drug in my younger years. I also seen the wonderful benefits of this so called super drug. It kept me in an euphoria where I really didn’t care bout much except pleasure. It helped me get into more fun drugs and it introduced me to a system called incarceration. They really liked the idea of me being under narcotic control, so much easier that way. You say what you will, but I lived it not just read and studied the so called research. It is a stepping stone kiddie drug to start the party! Tell them about the particles in the thc that gets trapped in the fatty cells of your brain and never dissipates just progressively grows when more is consumed. I went to treatment years ago when truth was told. You’re being duped and think your winning something. So help me God
God needs to help you see the truth. I smoked MJ for yrs along with plenty of others who worked everyday, paid our bills and didn’t move on to hard drugs. Don’t lump everybody in with yourself. You did other drugs because you wanted to. Everybody who moved to harder drugs did it because they wanted to. Don’t blame MJ for that. You didn’t need a stepping stone. Take responsibility for your actions.
I did take responsibility for my actions! I went to jail and I quit! Your argument will never fly with me because I know better. You told me to not lump everyone in one category,I say the same to your lumping these stupid studies into one category. The fact of the matter is, that it makes money, period. You have any other argument call on someone other than me. Ps. Mr.sessions is allowed to have his own opinion without interruptions from you me or anyone else. When you get nominated for an office as such you and your opinion will be just that, yours. God help us all
Ooh, hit a nerve. I agree Mr. Sessions has every right to his opinion, never said otherwise. I didn’t cite any studies. Being forced to quit by being put in jail isn’t the same as taking responsibility. Taking responsibility for your actions would be not blaming an inanimate object (MJ) for your choice to party. God bless and keep you.
Quit long before that because of damaging knowledge. Not a nerve really. Thank you for the blessing! Take care. May he bless you as well
I have seen over just a short period of time the switch of this site from conservative to the left, not all the way yet but the way it is going it will not take too long to get there…..Did soros buy you? are you now part of its evil empire? Sure seems so.
As long as the taxpayers are on the hook to pay health care costs and welfare we have a say in whether people use drugs. Marijuana isn’t the harmless plant that its proponents make it out to be. There is nothing government would like better than to get a nation full of pot heads who aren’t able to think rationally and who relies on government to think for them and support them.
William Clinton and Barack Obama are evidence that marijuana causes brain damage.
Oh…you just want to smoke pot. Well thank you for clearing up what the single most important issue in your world is.
So Glad that Trump has Chosen Jeff Sessions as our AG. He will not put up with what happened in the last 8 years. Much More Change is Coming. Duck And Hide Dems.
Bobby ~!~.
What a piece of garbage this article is. Is Lily Dane even a journalist? With the abuses, and lack of enforcement of the laws in the books that for eight years Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch did while in that position, the corruption in that department, the scandals in that department, Lynch meeting privately in a jet with her while his wife was under an FBI investigation. Eric Holder, fast and furious, both him and Lynch committing perjury before Congress, and 8 other Department of Justice scandals, refusing by Obama’s orders to enforce border security and deportations when warranted, and refusing to enforce the DOMA which is still the law of the land and has not been revoked by Congress. And all this idiot has to talk about against Sessions is about marijuana, and jokes about the KKK, really? What kind of total retarded is this woman?
I used to be a follower of this site. I will not be anymore. agree with one of the commenters below – a total sell out. I thought I has been misdirected to an extreme leftwing radical website, and had to look at he url again. obviously a hit job on jeff sessions to sway our opinions. I don’t like jeff sessions, but what I do like, and demand is ACCURATE reporting. This piece was not that. It left out a whole bunch of information about how Jeff Sessions supported civil rights and in some cases was the deciding vote on several civil rights cases that that he decided in favor of African Americans and was that deciding vote. Hardly sounds like someone who is “racist”. I think the liberal nutballs, such as this writer, have tried to redefine that word “racist” to extend the definition to anyone whom they disagree with, for any reason what-so-ever.
Calm down. Trump may be setting up Sessions as a Target-man, a flak-catcher that he can throw to the wolves as soon as he screws up. Remember Trump’s favorite words from his TV show: “You’re fired!”
Unfortunately the person writing this article has not read all of the published effects of cannabis some effects are not good for a human in the long run when heavily smoked for years. Besides it illegal under National law.
Typical media typo, it was supposed to read Trump picks enemy of the liberals !
If the liberals like it I know it’s lousy. ,
Jeff Sessions must be the best pick ever for attorney general !
Marijuana is a gate way drug. It is not good for recreational use. It however is an excellent drug for medicinal use. I believe that Sessions would not touch that aspect of the drug. A good point is made that people should have control of their bodies no matter how stupid it is. The war on drugs is a failure. My solution is for the government to sell all drugs to the people that want them at cost. This does away with the profit incentive of the drug lords. Drugs cost pennies to make so give the people what they want. Along with this education should be started in the 1st grade to teach children the danger of drugs. This will not do away with drug use but it will free the jails of many people, do away with murder that illegal drugs initiate and society would be better off in my opinion.
Thanks for posting this…. THIS is the moment that Jeff Sessions woke up… Look, as a “Truther”, conservative, and talk show host here in Alabama, I know Jeff Sessions… no he doesn’t call me and chat about the state of the nation, but we DO know each other.. and i think he is a GREAT pick. i couldn’t care less about his views on dope, it’s what he is going to do to the embedded pedophiles in DC that makes me have hope. give him a chance…