Crime

It won't happen but it should. Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska won't step aside, but he should. Chances are, former Sen. Ted Stevens (R) would clean his clock in a new special election, so don't look for Begich to do the right thing.

Stevens has become the latest symbol of how things worked at the Justice Department in the Bush administration. In fact, it's fair to say that during those eight shameful years it could more accurately be called the Miscarriage of Justice department. Read more...

Barack Obama was asked about legalizing marijuana yesterday at his online town hall meeting and laughed the question off. Which is fine. I agree with John on Americablog, that we should understand what's politically possible. "No president of the United States, today, can come out in favor of such a thing. It's political suicide. I can't even believe some people are upset with Obama over this."

What I am upset at Obama about is his administration's failure to end federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that he'd halt these raids, but on Wednesday DEA Agents raided a San Francisco dispensary. Read more...

Set aflame and burning out of control, the U.S.-Mexico drug trade is devouring everything in its sight, including money that the U.S. doesn’t have. So far in 2009, the U.S. has allocated $700 million to the Mexican government to combat drug cartels. In addition, the U.S. traditionally spends over $17 billion a year on Nixon’s War on Drugs.

These numbers are only going to get more out of control as the U.S. further arms the U.S.-Mexico border with Iraq- and Afghanistan-style military armaments. Read more...

Can we finally start talking about marijuana decriminalization?

Boston voted to do it in November. There was a bill just introduced in California to legalize and tax it; after all, it's their largest cash crop and would bring in $1 billion in taxes per annum. President Obama is certainly open to it. Read more...

Their budgets in crisis, governors, legislators, and prison officials across the nation are making or considering policy changes that will likely remove tens of thousands of offenders from prisons and parole supervision.
— David Crary, Prisons Feeling Budget Crunch. A.P.

So, common cents may accomplish what common sense could not. Alternatives to prison always made sense, fiscally and as a correctional approach; but it took the current budget stress to force public officials to consider other, better ways to deal with many of the people convicted of crimes. Read more...

By now, we know it's hard to dispute the criticism that one of the reasons America is in the current mess we're in is because of a “blind pursuit of profit." The truth hurts.

It's particularly painful when we know that those are the words of Wen Jiabao, the premier of China, for crying out loud! How could we give the leader of a country so rife with human rights abuses the opening to so fundamentally challenge our system? That's exactly what we've done with our hypocrisy and predatory financial practices. Read more...

Americans love a political scoundrel. And God knows we’ve seen a lot of them.

Mayor James Michael Curley ruled Boston from his prison cell. Wilbur Mills had his Ways and Means with stripper Fannie Fox. And James Traficant cried “Beam me up, Mr. Speaker” all the way to his federal prison cell.

But we’ve never seen any scoundrel quite like Rod Blagojevich. Read more...

Viciously attacked from all sides, our great nation is forced to turn its attention to that which is immediately present, while paying little notice to long-term threats with frighteningly powerful, unhinging capabilities. The historic election of President Obama, a sluggish economy and two wars have created a thick fog with low visibility.

Once clearly on the national security radar, Mexico border security has nearly disappeared from our sights. Mexico is facing its own battle within — and they're not winning their internal struggle. Read more...

Last Friday I was flipping through the channels on my television and what do you know, the footage from the Jan. 7 riots in Oakland was running on “The O'Reilly Factor.”

Bill O'Reilly, who has been extremely critical of San Francisco and the Bay Area in general, claimed that the protesters are out of line for coming out against the BART Police. He claims that people have the right to be upset about the execution of Oscar Grant, but should just let the BART Police figure this out in the courts. That the people of Oakland have no morals because they are upset about this obvious police brutality yet haven't protested the higher-than-national-average violent crime, "the gang problem, the downtown blight or any of the 124 murders last year.” Read more...

Tattletales and snitches are objects of opprobrium, in high society and low. People generally dislike folks who tell on others. But whistleblowers have a different image. They are perceived as heroic because they sacrifice themselves for a higher purpose — stopping government misconduct or preventing corporate misdeeds. We don’t treat them as heroes, however. I’ve counseled some in my law practice, and they usually have paid a great price for their sacrificial behavior. Whistleblowers are subjects of glorifying movies, but I share their pain. Few have launched successful careers after their “heroic” acts.

The Dec. 22, 2008 Newsweek cover story about Thomas Tamm’s excruciating experiences deciding to and eventually disclosing the federal government’s warrantless wiretapping practices is a classic example of the whistleblower’s dilemma. Tamm is not a flaming liberal critic of government. He is a product of it — the son of a high-ranking FBI official and member of a family invested in law enforcement and, as Newsweek reported, “a least likely suspect” to be a national security leaker. When he tried to remedy what he saw as illegal activities by law enforcement officers, Tamm was told, “Don’t go there.” Others knew what was going on, but feared to act. Read more...