"First Step" bill: Progressives love it; makes drug dealers and child abusers eligible for early release

When USA Today publishes an opinion piece on anything significant, it sets off my radar.  Thus it was yesterday, when just hours after the senate passed an...interesting...bill called the "First Step Act," USAT published a piece by Inimai Chettiar and Ames Grawert demanding "much more aggressive reform."  Here's their headline:

FIRST STEP Act must be a stepping stone to much more aggressive reform

Years of collaboration and compromise have finally produced some good news on Capitol Hill.  Last night, the Senate passed the broadest criminal justice reform bill in a generation — even in the face of attempted sabotage from Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and John Kennedy, R-La., who tried but failed to push through amendments that would have killed the bipartisan effort. 

Wow!  "Attempted sabotage"??  Wonder what they mean there?   Say, you don't suppose we could use this "Internet" thingy to find out, do ya?  Cuz when a progressive uses the term "sabotage" in a critical context it always turns out some normal person was trying to keep the prog from tearing down a bit more of the intricate machinery that has made the U.S. the place everyone wants to come to.

Funny, that.

But the FIRST STEP Act is just that: a first step that will, among other things, give judges more leeway at sentencing and adjust mandatory minimums for some crack cocaine charges.

This effort, while worth celebrating, will be incomplete without more aggressive (and progressive) reforms.

When I see a piece that uses the word "progressive" with evident approval my alarms really go off.  Because "progressive" is a cunning, soothing synonym for "socialist."  And they say--approvingly--that the act will give judges more leeway to "adjust mandatory minimums," when what rhey actually mean is "reduce" minimum sentences.  They didn't want to actually use the word "reduce" because a few deplorable Americans think the use of illegal and often fatal drugs is somehow...um...bad. 

The authors of the piece were betting that if they used "adjust" instead of "reduce" you wouldn't notice what their real goal was.  But let's hear them out.

Around 40 percent of prisoners are incarcerated today without a valid public safety reason.

That's...astonishing.  Exactly what type of prisoners are they referring to?  Well they certainly approve of early release for drug dealers, so I guess that means they don't see selling illegal drugs as "a valid public safety reason."  That's good to know, cuz we keep seeing all these headline stories from CDC about "72,000 Americans killed by drug overdose in 2018."  It's very reassuring to see that "progressives" don't consider this a "valid public safety reason."  Of course the parents and spouses of those who killed themselves by drug overdose might disagree, but what the hell do they know, eh?

So do the authors consider, oh, say, locking up child predators a "valid public safety reason"?   That is, do the authors advocate early release for those offenders?  The article didn't mention that sort of crime, so let's go ask someone who might know what the proposed law says:

18 U.S.C. § 2422 says it's a felony to "coerce" a child to engage in illicit sexual activity, or to attempt to do so).  The U.S. Sentencing Commission says there are 1,466 people in federal prisons for convictions under that statute.  Senators Tom Cotton and John Kennedy were concerned that as the bill was currently worded, it would allow these offenders to take advantage of the early-release provisions that were the main goal of the bill.  Accordingly the two proposed an amendment to the bill to explicitly exclude sex offenders and "violent criminals" from the early-release provisions of the bill.

Their amendment was rejected.  Combing the extremely dry, bullshit-filled pages of the Congressional Record shows no record of any open debate on this amendment.  Rather, it was simply voted down, seemingly without serious consideration.

It's hard to fathom why any honest, rational senator wouldn't support such a seemingly reasonable amendment.  It's almost as if McConnell and his merry band of RINOs were determined to pass this instantly, without allowing any amendment, cuz...reasons.

Eh, no matter, citizen.  Now let's go back to the ever-so-unbiased spewings of USAT:

With an election year rapidly approaching, Democratic candidates...must compete to improve on the FIRST STEP Act.  Anything less, risks ceding a bipartisan issue that advances key progressive priorities — like racial and economic justice — to Republicans.

And conservatives looking to make a name for themselves, and court centrist voters, should be looking for every opportunity for even more bipartisan victories.

Leaders in the House and Senate, looking to burnish their transpartisan bona fides, should take up the mantle of criminal justice reform to extend the promises of FIRST STEP. It’s the right thing to do, and the public wants it done. 

Really?  No question that liberals, Democrats, drug dealers and their families want early release.  Not sure how they jump from that to "the public wants it done."  I'm pretty sure congress didn't ask you.

Finally there's this claim:

Law enforcement groups like the Fraternal Order of Police, Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, and the National District Attorneys Association  support" [this bill.]

That's interesting for a couple of reasons:  First, the middle group in that list--"Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration"--sounds like a a group of law enforcement officers, but in reality it was formed by Inimai Chettiar--who is one of the authors of the USAT opinion piece.

Second, a group called the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys wrote a letter to the WaPo opposing the bill.  How odd that the assistant DA's would have the opposite opinion from what Chettiar claims is the "National District Attorneys Association"

Inimai Chettiar--looking out for your interests