Obama's long parade of commutations

President Obama recently commuted the sentences of 111 federal prisoners. If you are keeping score, Obama has now commuted more sentences during his tenure than all the last 10 presidents combined. The count is 673 to date and he still has four months to go.

An overwhelming number of the prisoners are and were from minorities, serving sentences on drug related charges. Of those convicted and sentenced, nearly all were "dealers," and more than one-third of them were serving life sentences.

Obama's reasoning for these commuted sentences was that drug dealing is a non-violent crime and he claims that the sentences passed down by our courts were "unduly harsh."

So if one was to agree to that unapprised logic, would one ever consider the crimes that were more than likely committed after the purchase of these drugs? Burglaries, robberies, rape, murder, assault not to mention how many others were "hooked" on the drugs after the buy. After all, that is their vocation as a dealer.

Consider, if you will, the vast quantities of drugs that these "dealers" passed through our many communities and to the families of the users, the cost of the damage that was done by further acts of drug-induced crimes and certainly the cost to law enforcement and to the courts that followed so many of these other crimes initiated and caused by the drugs dealt by these very same and now free "dealers."

Lastly, how many would you guess of the 673 commutations will or have already returned to their previous criminal ways, or might they all been rehabilitated and now doing community work for the good of many?

What a sad eight years this has been. And the beat goes on.

Jerry Marchese

Wayne