Trump's neither hate-filled nor racist; why do you ask?

Before President Trump picked him to be part of a federal commission that sets policy on how to punish criminals, William Otis spent years staunchly advocating for harsher penalties and a larger prison population.

  WaPo

Is the desire to punish common amongst narcissists, or coincidental? I know it goes along with fundamentalist religion, but Trump's not religious, no matter what he says. Otis, I don't know about.

In several public testimonies and years of published commentary, Otis decried a criminal justice system that he says has favored criminals over victims. He hailed the tough-on-crime approach of the Reagan and Bush administrations — one that Trump, through his attorney general, is resurrecting.

[...]

Last May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe penalties possible, including mandatory minimum sentences — a move that Otis praised.

Trump is creating an administration that any despot or white supremacist would be proud of.

Some of his writings are racially tinged. One example is a 2013 post titled “The PC Attempt to Intimidate Judges.” Otis defended a judge who was criticized for saying that minorities are more violent than white people.

[...]

In some of his posts, Otis also sarcastically referred to offenders as “Mr. Nicey.”

“Mr. Nicey might consider quitting the smack business and getting a normal job like everybody else,” he wrote in a post praising Sessions’s directive to federal prosecutors.

In a May 2014 post about a bill that would have reduced the sentences of some drug and low-level offenders, Otis wrote, “Last I looked, when you needle yourself with too much heroin, you’re still dead; when a thug belts you to grab your purse, you still have a knot on your head and no purse; and when Mr. Nicey rapes your eight year old, you still have a defiled little girl to try to help.”

Oh, great. Another immature name-caller.

Otis is one of four people Trump nominated Thursday. If confirmed by the Senate, he will be a commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission — the same administrative body that, years earlier, he wanted abolished.

A typical Trump appointment, then.

The sentencing commission, Otis said, became a toothless agency after the Supreme Court turned a mandatory sentencing regime into an advisory one.

[...]

In an October 2011 House judiciary testimony, Otis said the ruling allowed judges to tip the scales of justice heavily in favor of criminals.

Justice is in the eye of the beholder. I understand it's a tricky thing to administer evenly - perhaps impossible.

“No normal person would recognize that state of affairs as simply the exercise of supposedly neutral ‘judicial discretion.’ … Instead, it would be recognized for what it is — a partisan result,” Otis said.

Which is no doubt okay with Mr. Otis if the partisan result lines up with his party.

Otis served as a special counsel to President George H.W. Bush. He was also a counselor for the Drug Enforcement Administration under George W. Bush.

I don't know who the other nominees for the position are, and I'm too lazy today to look them up. Have at it yourself.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.