In case you were wondering about whether or not being the target of abuse from El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago has made less of an authoritarian yahoo out of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, he spent Wednesday in Waukegan, Illinois, renewing his credentials. He came to town to address a group of local police and community leaders. From The Chicago Tribune:

Sessions did acknowledge the decrease in violent crime, saying, “Police here are doing everything in their power to reverse these trends,” but that “their hands still remain tied” by the ACLU agreement.

“Hundreds of people were gunned down for another year,” Sessions said. “And yet, there’s been recent discussion of even more restrictions on the police. Clearly, that is not the answer. That’s not the way we’re going to make communities safer. We need to get back to community-based policing, not further limit the very tactics that have the best chance to reduce crime and violence.”

“When policing went down, crime went up,” he said. “There’s a clear lesson here that if you want more shootings, more death, listen to the ACLU, Antifa, Black Lives Matter and groups who don’t know the reality of policing. If you want public safety, then listen to the police professionals.”

Just as an outside observer, I'd say Philando Castile, and Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown all knew "the reality of policing" very, very well. Everyone in this administration* is the same. Trump-Sessions is just a long turf squabble within the same mob.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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