Koch brothers seek reform. A father of two was sentenced to 55 years in jail for selling pot. The Koch brothers want to help set him free and make him the face of their new campaign for criminal justice reform. Weldon Angelos could have hijacked a plane and spent less time in jail. But due to mandatory sentencing laws, the father of two was ... MORE
from the Antelope Valley Times. A convicted felon, whose body was found after a SWAT team fired in tear gas into a Lancaster home, and a fire broke out, was publicly identified Saturday by the Coroner’s Office. The man was identified as Michael Leroy Soares, 35, of Lancaster, said Coroner’s Lt. David Smith. It was still not clear how he died, ... MORE
Actions speak louder than words. The Obama Administration has officially renewed the War on Drugs. The Fiscal Year 2016 budget plan released earlier this week, shows, despite the illusion of the puppet show in the nation’s capital working to reform failed drug policies, the master is hell bent on spending more money than ever to protect America ... MORE
by Ronnie Polaneczky. Apparently, working as a supervisor for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at Philadelphia International Airport comes with a perk: You get to throw people in jail for no good reason and still keep your job. If that's not the case, why is Charles Kieser still employed by the TSA? Vanderklok, 57, is a Philly architect ... MORE
Policing can be more compatible with liberty. An Associated Press poll conducted last month found that the
police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, which led to
protests in Ferguson, New York City, and around the country, ranked
as the "top
news story of 2014." Nevertheless, the issue of police brutality
is not new and, ... MORE
Legalizing theft. During her
confirmation hearings last week, Loretta Lynch, President
Obama's choice to succeed Eric Holder as attorney general, called
civil forfeiture, a form of legalized theft in which the government
takes people's property without accusing them of a crime, "a
wonderful tool." Lynch, currently the U.S. attorney for the ... MORE
The money grabbers. Politicians and lawyers pretend that they are important people doing important work. But often they're important because they are parasites. They feed off others, while creating no wealth of their own. We all complain about businesses we don't like, but because business is voluntary, every merchant must offer us something ... MORE
by Andrew Taylor. President Barack Obama’s budget is relying on a series of familiar accounting tricks to show $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade, an amount that would shrink by almost half if they were excluded. But so-called “pay-go” rules officially require tax cuts and new spending on the mandatory side of the ledger to be balanced by ... MORE
by Zeba Khan. The militants who are killing civilians, raping and forcing captured women into sexual slavery, and beheading foreigners in Iraq and Syria are known by several names: the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that ... MORE
Does the government own our bodies? New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie unwittingly ignited a firestorm earlier this week when he responded to a reporter's question in Great Britain about forced vaccinations of children in New Jersey by suggesting that the law in the U.S. needs to balance the rights of parents against the ... MORE
Official lies from government. Here's something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don't know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading. Right now, we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall ... MORE
Poor education is not stemming from racism. New York's schools are the most segregated in the nation, and the state needs remedies right away. That was Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch's message to New York's governor and Legislature. She said that minority children are disproportionately trapped in schools that lack teaching talent, ... MORE
The police aren't making too many friends these days. It seems like there isn't a day that goes by where some tragic and outrageous story doesn't come out involving the cops somehow violating someone's rights, or even killing them. But, no matter how much we see this behavior, no matter how frequent it becomes, there seems to be ... MORE
by David McCormack. Colorado has generated so much money from recreational pot taxes that the state is bound by law to pass some of the tax money directly on to residents. Voters legalized marijuana in 2012 on the understanding that revenue raised would go to schools, but a 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment means some of the ... MORE