Wednesday night, police in Ferguson, MO were lobbing Super-Sock cartridges into the crowds gathered to protest the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown. Brown was shot eight times, witnesses say he had his hands in the air. He was shot several times in the back. At the same time, police were tear gassing reporters with … [Read more…]
In the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf lays out both the reasons why President Obama should fire CIA director John Brennan, and the reasons why it would be dangerous for him to do so. Essentially, they’ve both been doing some really shady stuff, regarding both the US Constitution and international law, which they’ve both been covering up and lying … [Read more…]
Talk about bad timing. This week marked the start of renewed negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the U.S. And mere days before that, the German federal prosecutor’s office confirmed that it is investigating another possible case of U.S. spying in Germany. Imagine being at the TTIP … [Read more…]
Political prisoners, in common parlance, are people imprisoned as a result of their political activity. Places such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and North Korea come to mind when we think about the practice. But more and more, the US is imprisoning people, as well as silencing speech, and telling companies who they can … [Read more…]
On Friday, Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Corey Booker (D-NJ) offered a medical marijuana amendment on the floor of the Senate. The bill is a massive win for states’ rights, as it outlaws the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency from undermining state marijuana laws and prohibits the DEA from interfering with the … [Read more…]
There’s absolutely nothing about this story which makes the government look good. Not this picture: Not the charge: Arielle apparently assaulted a federal officer causing bodily injury by forcefully striking the agent’s rifle with her neck. Not the reason the DEA was there: to raid a legal small retail business. Not the pretense for the raid: the … [Read more…]
A bipartisan panel of criminal justice system experts has released a comprehensive review of the administration of the death penalty in the United States. The report offers 39 recommendations to courts and policymakers from a committee of death penalty supporters and opponents. Among them are suggestions that states should stop using cocktails of untested, easily miscalculated drugs … [Read more…]
How do you justify taking away someone’s agency? The easiest way is to claim they didn’t have it in the first place. For a long time, both popular media and information sources on the subject have depicted drug addicts as zombies incapable of making rational choices. Helpguide.org describes drug addiction as causing “changes in your brain,” which … [Read more…]
Listen up, pot virgins. According to what I’ve read, sometimes when you get too high, you start to think you’re going to die. A combination of a racing heart and acute paranoia sets in and while you realize that no one has ever died from too much Mary Jane, you just might be the first. … [Read more…]
Oklahoma’s botched execution highlights a sort of conservative conundrum. Clayton Lockett received lethal injection drugs at 6:23 p.m. Tuesday night, and fell unconscious after speaking and struggling for 10 full minutes. He finally died of a heart attack 43 minutes after the drugs began flowing. Lockett and another man scheduled to die on the same day had … [Read more…]