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The Strasbourg shooter has been identified as Chérif Chekkat, a 29-year-old man born in France who has a long criminal history. Having been convicted 27 times for robbery and other crimes, Chekkat was sent to prison between 2013 and 2015. That’s where he became radicalized and was placed on a watch list by French authorities. From

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that he will bring up a bipartisan criminal justice bill up for a vote, marking a significant win for supporters including President Trump. "At the request of the president and following improvements to the legislation that has been secured by several members, the Senate will take up the recently revised criminal justice bill," McConnell said from the Senate floor. Backers and advocates have been publicly and privately lobbying McConnell for months to bring the bill to the floor, arguing that they have at least 70 votes in support of the legislation....

The liberal media trashed Cliven Bundy back in 2014 for using a word that Dr. Martin Luther King used profusely until his murder: "Negro" And the "conservative media" ala Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin also headed for the exits over the matter. But this week the liberal media decided to "come to Jesus" and give Cliven, Ammon and Ryan Bundy some attention for their views on immigration because it appeared to help their anti-Trump cause. But as pointed out in a previous post Ammon Bundy's call for a "process" to be followed to allow some of the migrants...

For a wispy little fellow like Jared, of all the things life has given him to be embarrassed about, having to visit his father in prison has to rank pretty high. Surely we can come up with a better way for him to deal with the shame and humiliation of his father being a convicted felon than sentencing thousands of Americans to a new and dangerous crime wave. Jared is the kind of moron who believes that the crime listed on a convict’s baseball trading card is the worst crime he committed. Thus, we’re incessantly told that sentences will be...

The package of criminal justice reform proposals endorsed by President Donald Trump is not "soft" on crime. It's tough on injustice. And it's about time. Known as the "First Step Act," the legislation confronts the Titanic failure of the federal government's trillion-dollar war on drugs by reforming mandatory minimum sentences, rectifying unscientifically grounded disparities in criminal penalties for crack vs. powder cocaine users, and tackling recidivism among federal inmates through risk assessment, earned-time credit incentive structures, re-entry programs and transitional housing. There's nothing radical about giving law-breakers who served their time an opportunity to turn their lives around and avoid...

Ivanka tweeted her support for the FirstStepAct which would help criminals who are mothers get out of prison.

The FIRST STEP Act is the beginning of a transformation of America’s federal criminal-justice system into what it should have always been: a system that makes America safer. This legislation unites conservatives, police and civil rights advocates, civil libertarians, business leaders and supporters of social justice. Supporting this legislation means supporting ideas that all Americans want - from police to Democrats to Republicans - an America that is fair, an America that puts Americans first, and that makes America safe. The fact that law enforcement groups like the Fraternal Order of Police and The International Association of Chiefs of...

Criminal justice reform advocates say sentencing reform provisions will be included in legislation unveiled shortly after midterm elections Tuesday, triggering an intense lame-duck struggle over attaching penalty reductions to a White House-backed prison reform bill. The First Step Act passed the House in a 360-59 vote earlier this year, but without sentencing reforms, at the behest of Republican opponents. Reform advocates expect rapid legislative action after a pre-election pause, and believe there will be enough votes to pass the expanded legislative package. Two people close to the process tell the Washington Examiner that a bipartisan group of senators has agreed...

President Donald Trump endorsed prison reform on Thursday, warning Attorney General Jeff Sessions to get on board with the idea. Trump said he is interested in reducing sentences for people like Alice Marie Johnson, a nonviolent drug offender whose life sentence the president commuted in June. “There has to be a reform because it’s very unfair right now,” Trump said. “It’s very unfair to African Americans. It’s unfair to everybody. And it’s also very costly,” the president commented on Thursday morning in a phone interview with Fox & Friends. Trump plans to meet with hip-hop superstar Kanye West at the...

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle called President Trump’s meeting with rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West an “assault on our White House,” after the two met about prison reform on Thursday. “Wow,” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi said, after showing video of West and Trump talking with reporters. Velshi then told people they could turn their volume back up, adding that the meeting was “bonkers.” “If you think you’re going to get a thoughtful play-by-play and political analysis, you’re not, because that was an assault on our White House,” Ruhle said.

President Trump said Thursday that he supports prison reform and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions' opposition doesn't represent his administration's position. "If he doesn't [support reform], then he gets overruled by me. Because I make the decision, he doesn't," Trump said during a phone interview broadcast on "Fox and Friends." Sessions, an opponent of criminal justice reform, argues the pending First Step Act would make the country less safe, threatening one of the top priorities of presidential adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Kim Kardashian West made her second Oval Office visit to speak with President Trump on behalf of a prison inmate Wednesday, joined by former U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp, who personally asked Trump to reverse a life sentence he issued. Kardashian West and Sharp were accompanied by #cut50 co-founder and Democratic pundit Van Jones for a discussion that lasted about 20-30 minutes, Sharp told the Washington Examiner. Trump asked about Chris Young, 30, who was arrested at 22 and received a life sentence for dealing drugs, but also brought up Matthew Charles, who returned to prison this year after a...

Prison reform has normally been an issue embraced by Democrats, not Republicans. But, perhaps, like so many other things in the Trump administration, this, too, is about to change. Last Thursday, President Trump held a roundtable discussion at his Bedminster, New Jersey, property, five governors were in attendance. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 37.8 percent of prison inmates in the U.S. are black, 58.3 percent white, 2.3 percent Native American and 1.6 percent Asian. Yet, blacks are arrested more, charged more, sentenced more harshly and confined to prison longer, even for minor infractions. In Georgia, according to Department...

Trump has swallowed the Criminal Justice Reform Hoax, hook, line, and sinker. Something he never did in the primaries but now is embracing.

The president expressed to us that he is concerned about the incredible challenges our prisoners and former prisoners face under the current system. He said his administration is currently working on prison reform legislation to help. I thanked President Trump for this and for “caring for all people,” meaning I am encouraged and hopeful about his desire for prison reform, his wish to help the formerly incarcerated, and his determination to partner with the faith-based community on important issues affecting the community. On other issues, I am on record as disagreeing with President Trump, including on aspects of his immigration...

Baltimore Rev. Jamal Bryant had strong words for the influential inner-city pastors who met with President Donald Trump on Thursday for a meeting about prison reform, job growth and other issues affecting inner cities. “This is a stain on the body of Christ. This is a stain on our community,” the pastor said in a 25-minute Periscope video Thursday night. “I need to know how all of ya’ll were smiling at that table while the whole world frowns at what this represents and what it looks like. The blood is dripping off your hands.” The pastors have been heavily criticized...

It is rare these days in Washington to see bipartisan support for anything, let alone for a major issue with far reaching implications for the nation. This is why the bipartisan passage in the House, 360-59, of the First Step Act to reform our federal prisons is such big news. The 360 "yes" votes included 134 Democrats. The bill focuses on improving the management of our existing federal prison population and the abysmal statistics regarding recidivism -- the likelihood that an ex-con will wind up back in prison. Data point to 68 percent of those released within three years, and...

Christ came to me emblazoned on the upper arm of my beloved cousin Marc. The blue-black ink danced between the bullet scars and stretch marks that graced my cousin’s upper body. Atop this crown-of-thorns depiction was a tattooed banner with the phrase “Only God Can Judge Me.” Marc—like several men in my family—had been caught in the webbed threads of poverty, geography and lack of opportunity during the fever pitch of 1990s mass incarceration. Baggy-pant boys like him fit the descriptions of “super-predators” and “thugs” that dominated our national discourse at the time. Marc served his time, and has been...

Full title: CNN star Jim Acosta rips Kim Kardashian's prison reform meeting with Trump, but lauded John Legend's activism on same during Obama years. CNN star reporter Jim Acosta slammed Kim Kardashian West’s meeting with President Trump regarding prison reform on Wednesday as “not normal,” but media watchers quickly pointed out his hypocrisy by pointing to Acosta's sitdown with singer John Legend's in 2015 during President Obama’s administration to talk about the exact same subject. “She shouldn’t be here, talking about prison reform, it’s very nice that she is here but that’s not a serious thing to have happened here...

Van Jones like Kanye West and Roseanne Barr are now adding supporting Donald Trump and his White House. Was it expected that success attracts success? Donald Trump has been consistently winning. Trump has stated that people will become tired of winning. With all the winning people might also get tired of something else -- tired of all the insane hatred and rage thrown at them from the left. Now will the left apply pressure on Van Jones like they did with Kanye? Are they going to ostracize Van and have nothing to do with him -- just like they did...