Attorney General Jeff Sessions quoted Kanye West Tuesday and inspired conservative high school students to chant “Lock her up!” during an appearance before a summit of conservative high school students Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
Sessions was speaking at the High School Leadership Conference organized by Turning Point USA. He thanked Candace Owens, a conservative activist who serves as the group’s director of urban engagement, New York Post reported:
“I know a lot of people love the way Candace thinks,” Sessions said. “Kanye West once said — she’s got the same kind of ‘Dragon Energy’ that he said the president had.”
Turning Point USA is a nonprofit youth movement on a mission to build the most powerful conservative grassroots activist network on college campuses across the country. It claims to be the largest and fastest growing youth organization in America, and says it’s training students to promote the principles of limited government, according to its website.
Owens is a far-right vlogger, conspiracy theorist, conservative commentator and Fox News regular, the Daily Beast reported. And Kanye West has her back
Kanye once tweeted, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks.”
“Owens elaborated on her beliefs during (a) TMZ appearance. She defended neo-Nazis, regurgitated the debunked myth of the ‘Ferguson effect,’ and insisted that Donald Trump has neither proposed harmful policies nor made offensive remarks toward the black community … she deplored the “war on cops” while dismissing the cop killings of black men and women as a ‘tiny issue.’
‘I believe that right now black people are enslaving themselves to emotion,’ Owens declared at one point, ‘and it’s actually not helping us. We seem to be going backwards.'” — Daily Beast
Sessions was addressing the young conservatives when a “lock her up!” chant broke out — a reference to the alleged crimes of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, CNN reported:
“‘Lock her up,’ Sessions said, laughing. ‘I heard that a long time over the last campaign.’ … This is the top law enforcement officer of the United States joking about imprisoning a former secretary of state (and first lady), despite the fact that no actual charges have been filed against Clinton.”
If locking up the opposition sounds like the opposite of “limited government,” you’re not alone.
More than 600 members of Sessions’ own United Methodist Church community filed a formal complaint against the attorney general in June for harmful actions, the New York Times reported.
Sessions often cites the Bible when trying to govern. When opposition was building against arresting and jailing children and infants at the border, Sessions used a Bible passage to defend the “zero tolerance” policy.
The (church members’) complaint says the Trump administration’s practice of separating families at the border would be considered ‘child abuse’ under church law .. the complaint seeks a ‘a reconciling process’ that would prompt Mr. Sessions to “step back from his harmful actions and work to repair the damage he is currently causing to immigrants, particularly children and families.’
Most of Sessions’ speech to the conservative students focused on the idea that “freedom of thought and speech on the American campus are under attack,” New York Post reported
He complained how Black Lives Matter tried to shut down an American Civil Liberties Union event at William & Mary in September 2017.
