#background checks

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"Maryland Gov. Wes Moore issued a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday morning [June 17, 2024], one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use.

The pardons forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people in what the Democratic governor said is a step to heal decades of social and economic injustice that disproportionately harms Black and Brown people. Moore noted criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served.

[Note: If you're wondering how 175,000 convictions were pardoned but only 100,000 people are benefiting, it's because there are often multiple convictions per person.]

A Sweeping Act

“We aren’t nibbling around the edges. We are taking actions that are intentional, that are sweeping and unapologetic,” Moore said at an Annapolis event interrupted three times by standing ovations. “Policymaking is powerful. And if you look at the past, you see how policies have been intentionally deployed to hold back entire communities.”

Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and multiple cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of old marijuana convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Legalized marijuana markets reap billions in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public sentiment on the drug has also turned — with more people both embracing cannabis use and repudiating racial disparities exacerbated by the War on Drugs.

The pardons, timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Juneteenth holiday, a day that has come to symbolize the end of slavery in the United States, come from a rising star in the Democratic Party and the lone Black governor of a U.S. state whose ascent is built on the promise to “leave no one behind.”

The Pardons and Demographics

Derek Liggins, 57, will be among those pardoned Monday, more than 16 years after his last day in prison for possessing and dealing marijuana in the late 1990s. Despite working hard to build a new life after serving time, Liggins said he still loses out on job opportunities and potential income.

“You can’t hold people accountable for possession of marijuana when you’ve got a dispensary on almost every corner,” he said.

Nationwide, according to the ACLU, Black people were more than three times more likely than White people to be arrested for marijuana possession. President Biden in 2022 issued a mass pardon of federal marijuana convictions — a reprieve for roughly 6,500 people — and urged governors to follow suit in states, where the vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place.

Maryland’s pardon action rivals only Massachusetts, where the governor and an executive council together issued a blanket pardon in March expected to affect hundreds of thousands of people.

But Moore’s pardons appear to stand alone in the impact to communities of color in a state known for having one of the nation’s worst records for disproportionately incarcerating Black people for any crimes. More than 70 percent of the state’s male incarcerated population is Black, according to state data, more than double their proportion in society.

In announcing the pardons, he directly addressed how policies in Maryland and nationwide have systematically held back people of color — through incarceration and restricted access to jobs and housing...

Maryland, the most diverse state on the East Coast, has a dramatically higher concentration of Black people compared with other states that have issued broad pardons for marijuana: 33 percent of Maryland’s population is Black, while the next highest is Illinois, with 15 percent...

Reducing the state’s mass incarceration disparity has been a chief goal of Moore, Brown and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, who are all the first Black people to hold their offices in the state. Brown and Dartigue have launched a prosecutor-defender partnership to study the “the entire continuum of the criminal system,” from stops with law enforcement to reentry, trying to detect all junctures where discretion or bias could influence how justice is applied, and ultimately reform it.

How It Will Work

Maryland officials said the pardons, which would also apply to people who are dead, will not result in releasing anyone from incarceration because none are imprisoned. Misdemeanor cannabis charges yield short sentences and prosecutions for misdemeanor criminal possession have stopped, as possessing small amounts of the drug is legal statewide.

Moore’s pardon action will automatically forgive every misdemeanor marijuana possession charge the Maryland judiciary could locate in the state’s electronic court records system, along with every misdemeanor paraphernalia charge tied to use or possession of marijuana. Maryland is the only state to pardon such paraphernalia charges, state officials said...

People who benefit from the mass pardon will see the charges marked in state court records within two weeks, and they will be eliminated from criminal background check databases within 10 months."

-via The Washington Post, June 17, 2024. Headings added by me.

[rejectingrepublicans]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trump advisers propose jeopardizing national security by giving out security clearances without FBI vetting for Donald's appointees if elected again

Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Charlie Savage at NYT:

A memo circulating among at least half a dozen advisers to former President Donald J. Trump recommends that if he is elected, he bypass traditional background checks by law enforcement officials and immediately grant security clearances to a large number of his appointees after being sworn in, according to three people briefed on the matter. The proposal is being promoted by a small group including Boris Epshteyn, a top legal adviser to Mr. Trump who was influential in its development, according to the three people. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has seen the proposal or whether he is inclined to adopt it if he takes office.

But it would allow him to quickly install loyalists in major positions without subjecting them to the risk of long-running and intrusive F.B.I. background checks, potentially increasing the risks of people with problematic histories or ties to other nations being given influential White House roles. Such checks hung up clearances for a number of aides during Mr. Trump’s presidency, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Mr. Epshteyn himself. The proposal suggests using private-sector investigators and researchers to perform background checks on Mr. Trump’s intended appointees during the transition, cutting out the role traditionally played by F.B.I. agents, the three people said. Once Mr. Trump took the oath, he would then summarily approve a large group for access to classified secrets, they said. Asked about the proposal, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, responded with an attack on Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she and Democrats “have weaponized the Department of Justice to attack President Trump and his supporters” and that Mr. Trump would use “the full powers of the presidency” to build his administration starting on Inauguration Day.

A number of Mr. Trump’s advisers — and the former president himself — have long viewed background checks for security clearances with deep suspicion. They believe that the process is designed to make challenges to outcomes difficult, and that personal pieces of information submitted during the vetting can be disseminated later for damaging results. Mr. Trump has long railed about the F.B.I. being part of a “deep state” conspiracy to undermine him. But a change that would allow a president with a record of flouting norms and rules for the handling of classified material to further sidestep existing guardrails would raise new questions about the adequacy of the system protecting national security secrets. It is not clear what positions the altered system would cover, but the people familiar with the proposal said it appeared to apply to a large number of potential Trump appointees in a second administration.

Mr. Epshteyn, who was indicted earlier this year in Arizona in connection with a so-called fake electors scheme to upend Mr. Trump’s 2020 loss and has two prior arrests in that state, speaks with Mr. Trump multiple times a day and is one of his most influential aides. He is a lawyer and consultant who has helped recruit and manage the legal team that has been defending Mr. Trump in the four criminal cases filed against him since he left office. (Mr. Epshteyn reached a plea deal after a 2014 arrest, and in the other case, in 2021, three charges were dismissed and he pleaded guilty to one charge. Both convictions were later set aside.)

[...]

Traditional federal background investigations for security clearances carry risks for potential appointees. Lying on official application materials could lead to a criminal charge for making a false statement. Seeking a clearance also invites scrutiny that could turn up some other cause to open a criminal investigation. Potential Trump appointees would reduce or avoid those risks under the proposal, in which the privately assembled dossiers would apparently be seen only by the White House.

According to certain advisers in Trumpworld, Donald Trump seeks to jeopardize national security by giving security clearances to large chunks of his potential appointees without proper vetting and background checks if he elected again.

[monkeymeghan]

Assuming I pass the background check*, it seems I have a job! :)

*there is nothing in my background that is the least bit concerning, but background checks always make me anxious. Because what if they find something? I know it’s ridiculous, but that’s how my brain works. 😅

[sixbucks]

[geezerwench]

Wow! #BackgroundChecks are optional now? Schools, daycares, and nuclear power plants will LOVE to hear that!

[chaoticsorceressztc]

Today I realized that if we had magic in the real world we would have to have 24/7 grave keepers or shifts and the like walking about the grounds to make sure no one animates the corpse of old Charles Von Eldritch. There'd have to be legal disputes over using someone's reanimated corpse in a movie and whether or not you were allowed to. Just because people would think "Hey! If I 'Employ' a corpse, I DON'T HAVE TO PAY SAID CORPSE!" Grave robbers would be on the rise, and they wouldn't just be robbing graves, half of them would probably be Necromancers trying to work on the black market. You'd have to worry about your dead cousin's corpse appearing on live TV years after their death! Just because some MORON said they had "Totally gotten the rights to do so" when they obviously hadn't.

Grave keepers would definitely need to be pretty powerful just to be able for them to be employed, not to mention how THOROUGH their background checks would have to be to make sure they weren't secretly a necromancer looking for a quick buck.

Now you may be thinking "If this hypothetical place has magic, why wouldn't you just revive everyone who dies through a revival spell or something?" Well not everybody wants to live forever, now do they? There's gonna be graves for the people who decided it was finally their time. Or maybe capitalism made it so being revived costs more than it's worth to be revived in the first place. Imagine being in debt for life after JUST coming BACK to life.

Basically, necromancy is a good reason for not wanting magic in the real world.

[yetisidelblog]

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[infographicjournal]

The Secret World of Background Checks

Having trouble reading infographic here?

Check out the full size infographic at - https://thecovertconsultinggroup.com/the-secret-world-of-background-checks/

[galerymod]

Peace froce is one of my player names and PATS is my one man team. Peace after the storm.

Maybe thier don't like it, but in this game everything has been leveled over time and there's hardly any pay to win.

It's fun to play with a random team of 5 players and fight another team for a bag or as a dead match.

Mod

An individual who engages in gaming for its intrinsic enjoyment. 🤣🙃✌️

The digital death is waiting for you during your lunch break, tactics are key.

Life is a competition if you let it be, the game 🎮 is definitely one because it's fun.

It's just a game and yet, in the moment of playing, it's everything.

[nando161mando]

When a background check service you didn't opt in to leaks 3 billion people's data so you have to create accounts with 3 credit bureaus you don't want anyway just to freeze the credit score you don't believe in and the bureaus themselves start texting you, emailing you, and marketing to you

[shareyourideas]

Understanding California Criminal Background Checks

[michaelpaul7]

☝️

[asshole-rebel-psycho]

Kamala Harris's background check rights for San Francisco.

These people would do anything for criminals over law abiding citizens.