Stephan: Here is the latest on the rise of the American oligarchical police state. And this is from a Supreme Court Justice.
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Credit: Justin Sullivan
The Supreme Court issued an extraordinarily disappointing 5–3 decision on Monday in Utah v. Strieff, a Fourth Amendment case about police searches. Yet the terrible ruling came with a bright spot: In a powerful and groundbreaking dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor lambasted the majority for its heartless and illogical rejection of Fourth Amendment freedoms, invoking the Justice Department’s Ferguson report, echoing Black Lives Matter, and even citing Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Strieff itself involves a fairly simple question of constitutional law. Typically, when police illegally stop an individual on the street without reasonable suspicion, any fruits of that stop—such as the discovery of illegal drugs—must be suppressed in court, because the stop was “unreasonable seizure” under the Fourth Amendment. Strieff gave the justices an opportunity to affirm this constitutional rule. But instead, Justice Stephen Breyer joined the court’s four conservatives to add a huge loophole to that long-established doctrine. In an opinion by […]
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Wednesday, June 22nd, 2016
Stephan: For the last several days I have been reading stories about how 30 per cent of the fire fighters working the fire lines on the massive fires in California are prisoners, essentially a kind of slave labor. This is just a tiny peek into what I see as a growing problem in the U.S., the New Slavery Trend. How do you feel about corporate run slavery?
Prisoner fire fighters survey a fire before going to work. Today 30% or California’s fire fighters are essentially slave labor
What if I told you there was an army of workers in this country, probably over 2 million strong, that is forced to work for next to nothing? If they’re lucky, these workers get 40 cents an hour. They get no Social Security benefits, no workers’ compensation insurance, and certainly no overtime. They often are threatened with punishment if they refuse these terms.
You’d probably say that this system sounds akin to slavery. And you wouldn’t be wrong.
But this is also the reality of America’s federal, state, and local prison system.
When Congress put inmate work programs in place in place in 1979, the goal was giving people in prison marketable skills to help them reintegrate into society. But as state governments also climbed on board with their own programs, and the private […]
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Wednesday, June 22nd, 2016
Stephan: Yet another Prohibitionist lie about Marijuana is revealed by data to be fraudulent.
Marijuana Shop
Credit: www.tokeofthetown.com
Marijuana consumption by Colorado high school students has dipped slightly since the state first permitted recreational cannabis use by adults, a new survey showed on Monday, contrary to concerns that legalization would increase pot use by teens.
The biannual poll by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also showed the percentage of high school students indulging in marijuana in Colorado was smaller than the national average among teens.
According to the department, 21.2 percent of Colorado high school students surveyed in 2015 had used marijuana during the preceding 30 days, down from 22 percent in 2011, the year before voters statewide approved recreational cannabis use by adults 21 and older. The first state-licensed retail outlets for legalized pot actually opened in 2014.
Nationwide, the rate of pot use by teens is slightly higher at 21.7 percent, the study found.
“The survey shows marijuana use has not increased since legalization, with four of five high school students continuing to say they don’t use marijuana, even occasionally,” the department said in a statement.
The department conducts the voluntary survey every two years […]
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