Joanna Sanchez

Soc Mov 122

Dr.Kubal

Entry 5

 

This article addresses President Obama pardoning 8 cases of people who were serving unfair time for drug crimes. Six men and two women were sentenced life to prison for charges of crack cocaine. As the article informs there are more than 2000 people in the federal system serving life without parole for nonviolent drug crimes. The fact that Obama pardoned these cases should alert congress that they need to pass bipartisan sentencing reform legislation that would relieve some of the illogical sentencing laws that were passed in the late 80's and 90's. I think a lot of people are in prison for petty crimes that they shouldn’t be in. People fail to realize how much it costs us to keep people incarcerated and where this money could be going instead into the prison system.  Obama introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act which hopefully congress passes with in this upcoming year.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/20/obama_commutes_8_unfair_crack_cocaine

This second article is about 398 students arrested in front of the White House due to a protest they were participating in. Students from more than 80 colleges marched from Georgetown University to the White House  wearing mocking suits and holding banners and signs that protest the issue that Obama is going to decide on the xl pipeline. If Obama passes the issue more than 830,000 barrels of crude oil EVERYDAY would be transported from Alberta's oil which is in Canada to the US Golf coast. It is great to see so many people against the issue because it shows that it's something that our nation does not want or need.  We have a lot of global and climate issue and transporting that much oil on a daily bases is going to cause a lot of harm to many people, not just in the United States but everywhere else as well.  People are doing the right thing by protesting and even risking getting arrested for the safety of our environment.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/3/xl_dissent_398_youth_arrested_at