The report's core finding is that the war on drugs has resulted in a spread of the HIV pandemic by driving drug users underground, and away from healthcare, and into high risk environments like prison.
Perhaps most damningly, this has all happened without a noticeable affect on the drug trade itself. Illicit opiate production has grown 380% in recent decades, and in the US, drugs have become more cheaper and more potent since the drug war started — despite the rising expenditure by the US government on the drug war.
Here's how heroin purity and cost has changed during the drugs war (click to expand):
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And how cocaine price has changed during the drugs war (click to expand):
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Taken together, the studies authors conclude that "overall drug supply (as evidenced by various indicators of increasing production, declining prices and increasing potency) has been largely unimpeded by the multibillion dollar investments that have gone into trying to disrupt supply through costly policing, arrests and interdiction efforts."
Scheib, of Bonsall, Calif., appeared Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan and pleaded guilty to a wire fraud charge for what prosecutors claim was his scheme to sell the glove for $200,000 as a genuine Ruth artifact, according to The Times.
Scheib had actually bought the glove for $750 on eBay.
Earlier this month an anonymous buyer from Long Island showed interest in the glove, and exchanged money with Scheib, but asked for notarized letters proving authentication. At the request of the FBI that buyer rescinded his offer and a new prospective buyer from Manhattan showed interest.
The second buyer turned out to be an undercover investigator. Scheib was busted.
"It’s well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures," Savage said, "Therefore, he has been on medication. Therefore, neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts’ writings you can see the cognitive dissociation in what he is saying."
Roberts qualifies as an epileptic after he experienced two seizures, according to the New York Times — one in 1996 and another in 2007.
"This really demonstrates a rotten barrel," he said.
The NYPD's focus on cutting down on major felonies started a "number's game" to downplay serious crimes, according to Silverman and an ex-police captain, John Eterno, who conducted the survey.
One officer said he heard a deputy commissioner tell a commanding officer to "just consolidate burglaries that occurred in an apartment building and count as one," the Times reported.
NYPD Spokesman Paul Browne reportedly called the survey junk science because it involved a very small sample of roughly 2,000 responses from retired officers.
George Zimmerman did not testify at his second bond hearing Friday because his lawyers didn't want the prosecution to ask him follow-up questions.
Judge Kenneth Lester refused the defense's request to let Zimmerman duck out of the prosecution's questions.
"I will submit him to your questioning," defense attorney Mark O'Mara said.
"But not to prosecutors?" Lester asked.
Zimmerman, who is facing second-degree murder charges for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was back in court this morning arguing for a new bond.
Judge Lester previously revoked his bond after prosecutors claimed Zimmerman lied to the court about his finances.
We were able to watch Friday's proceedings via a live feed from NBC Miami.
He sat somberly at the defense table in a grey suit and dark tie as his attorney argued that the prosecution shouldn't be able to question him since Zimmerman allegedly only lied to the judge.
"The real issue is, what he did to you," O'Mara said.
But if Zimmerman wants to claim self-defense, he has to get over his aversion to being cross-examined because he'll have to do so at trial, the state claimed.
Much of the second bond hearing focused on whether the Zimmerman and his wife, Shellie, deliberately hid their financial status from the court.
While he acknowledged his client initially failed to disclose all of the money at his disposal, O'Mara said there was no "grand conspiracy" to hide the couple's financial status.
Zimmerman revealed to the court all the money he had just four days after Shellie allegedly provided wrong information about their financial status to the court, O'Mara said.
While prosecutors commended Zimmerman for eventually coming clean, they also alleged that initially he allowed his wife to lie to the court and then spoke in code in jailhouse calls about their money.
Prosecutors asked that Zimmerman be held without bond.
Consumer advocates in Pennsylvania won a hard-fought delay on Wednesday against a pending bill in the legislature that would once again permit payday lenders to charge predatory rates and victimize the state’s poor and downtrodden residents.
Bill would raise allowable interest rates to 369 percent
Loan companies falsely claim the bill is a “consumer protection law”
Predatory lending banned in 17 states and on military bases
Army of Lobbyists
A bill that passed the Pennsylvania state house earlier this month that would raise the permissible annual percentage rate on small loans to 369 percent will be held in the state senate until the next legislative session in the fall, according to activists fighting against the bill.
Currently, Pennsylvania caps loans at 24 percent APR.
Typically, payday loans work with a consumer borrowing cash in advance of his or her next paycheck. However, the borrower often can’t pay the loan back right away, and has to take out another, then another, accumulating interest that can rapidly rise into the thousands of dollars for a debt that started at a few hundred. It takes a typical borrower 212 days to repay a loan.
So why is the state on the verge of reopening the door to predatory lenders? Lobbyists, that’s why. “There is an army of lobbyists for the payday lenders in Harrisburg,” says Kerry Smith, staff attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, part of a coalition opposing the law.
‘Screw the Poor’
The lobbyists have pushed the cockamamie claim that the payday loans would actually be a consumer protection bill, even though every consumer protection group in the state opposes it.
“Certainly there is a broad-base opposition,” Smith says. “Over 60 organizations are opposed to it. It’s a diverse coalition with veterans advocates, credit counseling groups, housing counseling.”
“If there were a truth-in-politics law, they’d have to say, ‘We’re about to pass a bill that will screw every poor person even more,’” Philadelphia Director of Consumer Affairs Lance Haver told the Philadelphia Daily News.
For years Pennsylvania has managed to keep predatory lenders at bay. The state was even praised by George W. Bush for having one of the strongest payday loan laws in the country when the former president passed a federal bill in 2006 that capped loans at 36 percent APR on military bases. Sixteen other states have laws that sharply limit the interest rates that lenders can charge. Find out more information about your state here.
Long Term War
Lenders have for years looked for ways around the interest rate caps. In 2010 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Nevada-based lender Cash America could not get around the ban by selling its loans over the internet, with APRs up to 1,140 percent. Cash American, along with Axcess Financial Services, another payday lender, is among the main lobbying groups pushing for the current anti-consumer bill.
Even though internet loans are already illegal, the state lawmakers promoting the return of predatory lending claim the bill is necessary to protect residents from risky online loans. The law would also force lenders to be licensed by the state, and give loans of no more than $1,000, or a quarter of the borrower’s months income, whichever is less.
For now, an apocalypse of interest and fees on Pennsylvania’s poor has been averted.
“At least temporarily, good sense has prevailed,” Smith says. “We’ll see what happens in the fall. I’ll take our win on a battle though I think we have long term war in front of us.”
Retailers said they were "dismayed" after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare yesterday.
Even though the law's been in affect for 17 months, retailers haven't made any moves to comply with the new regulations. They say that doing so will break the bank and keep them from earning profits.
Will the Administration thrust dozens of delayed rules onto employers with little regard for the challenges associated with such quick implementation?
Will the Administration be emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision and produce rules that ignore the costs and concerns employers have expressed about rigid employer-mandate rules?
Will the Administration recognize the need to protect the crown-jewel of America’s healthcare system, employer-sponsored coverage, and preserve flexibility in the system that allows employers to design coverage options reflective of the needs of their workforce?
These are big concerns for the retail industry. Pollack says that retailers fear they'll be "overregulated" and unable to provide affordable healthcare at all.
Much of this fear revolves around the "Employer Mandate Tax," which doesn't take effect until January, 2014.
Employer Mandate Tax (Jan 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346
So, retailers will have make a decision. They can either eliminate employee health plans after 2012 if the penalty is actually lower than what they'd have to pay for a health insurance plan, or pay for it themselves.
Either way, there will be costs. But even if retailers thought the Supreme Court would strike it down, many of the big retailers have been planning for the worst since the health care overhaul first came up.
But here's why it might not have much of an effect on the race between Romney and President Barack Obama: America doesn't rank it as an issue of high importance.
Moreover, Health care ranks as the top issue for just 6 percent of respondents — well behind the 31 percent who rank the economy as their top issue.
Here's a look at how importance on the health-care issue has shifted:
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The chart shows that voter concerns about healthcare peaked twice in the last 20 years, around the times that Congress has undertaken a debate on reforming the nation's health care system.
Bottom line: Repealing Obamacare will be a platform for Romney, and praising its win in the Supreme Court will be a platform for Obama. But this election will still be decided by the economy.
The 5-4 ruling leaves behind a trail of winners and losers in politics, media, and even on the Supreme Court itself. Going forward, the survival of Obamacare will have wide-ranging consequences for business, politics, the multibillion-dollar healthcare industry, and for the millions of Americans who will be affected by the law.
WINNER: Barack Obama
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President Obama was definitely the biggest winner of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, the signature legislative achievement of his first term. The President staked a lot of his political capital on healthcare reform, and would have suffered a huge political blow had the Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional.
As Jon Stewart pointed out last night, the President and his campaign have made no effort to tone down their elation over the ruling. The campaign is now selling tee-shirts with the slogan: "Health Reform Still A BFD"
WINNER: U.S. Solicitor General Donal Verrilli
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Verrilli, who took a lot of flak for his oral arguments defending the Affordable Care Act, was finally vindicated by the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the law.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, on the other hand, is eating crow for declaring Obamacare dead after Verrilli's arguments.
WINNER: Mitt Romney
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While the ruling was a political disappointment for many Republicans, there was a silver lining for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who used the decision as a rallying cry for the GOP's conservative base, “What the Court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected President of the United States," the presumptive GOP nominee said. "And that is I will act to repeal Obamacare."
The cattle call worked. By this morning, Romney had raise the Romney campaign had raised $4.5 million from more than 47,000 donors, according to a tweet from Romney's press secretary Andrea Saul.
It is not, however, the only game-changing case he has presided over as chief justice. Here are 10 other important decisions handed down by the Roberts court:
2008- District of Columbia v. Heller: In a gigantic win for the pro-gun lobby, the court ruled by a 5-4 vote that that the Second Amendment allows individuals to keep guns in their homes.
2010- Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission: In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were free to buy ads to influence political elections.
George Zimmerman's father Robert Zimmerman took the stand Friday morning to testify that his son was in peril the night he killed Trayvon Martin.
Screams on a 911 call from that night were definitely his son's, said Robert Zimmerman, who stared blankly in front of him throughout the proceeding.
"It was absolutely George's," Robert Zimmerman said of the voice heard screaming in the background.
George Zimmerman, who is facing second-degree murder charges for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was back in court this morning arguing for a new bond.
Judge Lester previously revoked his bond after prosecutors claimed George Zimmerman lied to the court about his finances. He told both sides today that he will make a decision concerning George Zimmerman's some time bond next week.
Prosecutors questioned how he could know it was actually his son's voice, especially since George Zimmerman claimed Martin covered his nose and mouth.
"From the looks of my son's injuries, Trayvon Martin's hands were not just on his nose and mouth," Robert Zimmerman said.
But prosecutors don't buy George Zimmerman's claims that Martin banged him up and slammed his head to the ground.
"Banging? There's no evidence of that," a prosecutor said.
A Sanford, Fla, firefighter and Seminole County probation officer also took the stand during the roughly three-hour bond hearing.
"For all intents an purposes, he was a model client," probation officer Adam Vincent said about George Zimmerman.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.We all knew it would be close, but we never saw this coming: The Affordable Care Act survives, but only because Justice Roberts chose to characterize the individual mandate as a tax. The 5-4 outcome isn’t a surprise, but the particular reason is a big big surprise – one that virtually no one predicted (law professors included). How could we be so right, yet so wrong?
First, the unsurprising part: The Court’s five conservative justices agreed that mandating insurance exceeds Congress’ power to regulate commerce, because uninsured people are not engaged in commerce. The four liberal justices squarely disagreed. Furthermore, based on this flaw, four of the five conservatives (all but Roberts) would have declared the entire Act unconstitutional, with no apparent qualms.
Now, the unexpected. Even though Congress invoked only its commerce power in writing the law, and President Obama went out of his way to avoid calling the individual mandate a tax, Justice Roberts, along with the Court’s four liberals, gave Congress the benefit of the doubt, ruling that the mandate can be viewed as a tax. Like a generous math teacher who gives full credit to a student who stumbles on the right answer by accident even though she completely botched the formula, the Court upheld the mandate on grounds entirely different from what Congress thought it was relying.
How surprising is that? Enough that, out of the dozen or more lower court judges to consider this argument, only one (Judge Wynn on the Fourth Circuit, in the Virginia cases) previously agreed. But now we have five Supreme Court Justices rallying around the government’s last ditch legal defense – one that it almost didn’t argue because of the potential political flak of changing positions on whether something is a tax. Thank goodness the government’s lawyers overruled its P.R. folks.
But the issue was closer than even this. If the mandate is a tax, then the government also has to deal with its own jurisdictional statute, on the books for well over a century, declaring that no one can challenge taxes until they’re assessed. If this procedural bar applied, then the entire case would be premature, leaving us all hanging in suspense for another three years. To avoid this, Justice Roberts and colleagues had to conclude that the mandate is a tax for constitutional purposes, but not for jurisdictional purposes. THAT took some fancy footwork, but these are SMART guys and gals, and so if anyone can pull off that tightrope act, they can.
Legal scholars will continue to parse the decision for weeks, months, and perhaps years, to discern all the implications for future enactments and constitutional challenges to come. For now, based on first inspection, it strikes this reader that the Affordable Care Act survived only because Justice Roberts worked hard to find the one thin line of common ground on which both he and those on the other side of the Court’s ideological divide could stand.
[Mark Hall is one of the nation's leading legal and health care policy experts, and a law professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.]
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to review a lower court decision that threw out the FCC’s $550,000 fine for CBS over Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the network’s live coverage of the 2004 Super Bowl.
The high court’s rejection of the Obama administration’s appeal means the agency now may have to come up with a refund for the network -- which already paid the record fine.
The court Friday also declined to review a lower court decision that threw out an FCC ruling that would have allowed companies to own both newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market.
A federal appeals court has thrown out the fine twice.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the other justices to deny the review, but said in a separate statement that he was not completely sold on the logic behind the lower court's ruling.
"Any future 'wardrobe malfunctions' will not be protected," Roberts said.
The FCC walloped CBS with the fine after the pop star’s breast was briefly exposed during a live half-time show with actor-singer Justin Timberlake.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia first threw out the fine in 2008, contending that the FCC had not forewarned broadcasters that brief flashes of nudity could be construed as violations of the agency’s prohibitions against indecency.
The same court threw the fine again in 2011, after the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that the FCC had the leeway to hold broadcasters accountable for unscripted off-color language.
"Any future 'wardrobe malfunctions' will not be protected," — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts
In its 2011 ruling, the appeals court held that while the FCC had the authority to crack down on even brief glimpses of broadcast nudity, the agency acted arbitrarily in the CBS case because it hadn’t announced that brief flashes of off-color language or nudity could be subject to sanctions until after the broadcast.
Previously, FCC policy had exempted “fleeting” indecencies from enforcement sanctions.
In a separate case, the Supreme Court on June 21 ruled that FCC indecency sanctions against Fox and ABC were improper, also on grounds that the networks had not received fair notice that fleeting indecencies could be subject to sanctions. The high court did not rule on whether the FCC’s indecency regulations violate the First Amendment.
The FCC v. Fox Television Stations case arose after Cher and Nicole Richie uttered the F-word during the Fox TV network’s broadcasts of the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards shows.
The Supreme Court agreed to combine its review of the Fox TV cases with a separate FCC indecency case stemming from the appearance of actress Charlotte Ross’s bare buttocks on a 2003 episode of ABC’s “NYPD Blue.”
The FCC fined dozens of ABC TV network affiliates a total of more than $1 million for airing the episode.
College grads today are still heading to Wall Street and law school in droves. In an uncertain economy, it seems like a surer path.
But Venture for America — essentially Teach for America for aspiring entrepreneurs — is trying to change that. It's a new organization that recruits college students to work for startups and early-stage companies in low-cost cities like Detroit and New Orleans for two years. The new grads then compete for $100,000 in seed money.
VFA has big-name investors on its board, like David Tisch and Mike Katz, and its founder, Andrew Yang, recently sat down with president Obama.
Earlier this month we attended its big summer celebration in New York City, where Yang gave a presentation on his bold plans for VFA, and how he's trying to change where college students head after graduation.
In turn, a lot of people think this is a big ... deal. For its part, The Daily Caller is currently running it as part of its top story:
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The Drudge Report has sent its conservative-leaning readership to the Obama tweet, which has sparked some fiery reaction. Obama's tweet followed a pair of four-letter-filled tweets from Democratic National Committee staffers when the decision came out, one of whom tweeted — then deleted — one saying "Overheard in the office: ‘TAKE THAT MOTHERF*****S!!’"
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is citing advice that asylum law has priority over extradition law to justify hiding out in an Ecuadorian embassy.
"This should not be considered any sign of disrespect. Under both international and domestic UK law asylum assessments take priority over extradition claims," Susan Benn of the Julian Assange Defence Fund, told The Telegraph.
Assange reportedly remains holed up in a London Ecuadorian embassy, ignoring a police note ordering him to surrender.
He is seeking political asylum in Ecuador itself to avoid extradition to Sweden where he is accused of sex offense, according to The Telegraph.
The other day we put together maps of illegal drug use from the U.N.'s World Drug Report 2012, and now we are going through the data to get a better idea of which countries use which drugs most.
Now here's list of countries with the highest annual prevalence of cocaine use (as a percentage of the population aged 15 to 64):
1) Isle of Man 3.5%
2) Spain 2.7; Scotland*: 2.7%
4) England*; USA; Italy: 2.2%
7) Australia**: 2.1%
8) Monaco 1.9%
9) Ireland; Uruguay; Saint Kitts and Nevis: 1.7%
*aged 16 to 64
**aged 14+
These 11 countries are far ahead of the field as the next closest country was Bermuda* (1.3%).
You'll notice that Spain, USA, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Italy and Australia also made the list for countries with the highest prevalence of marijuana users.
Around the 13-second mark, you can see Bondi saying it was overturned. Scott then called for a five-minute break in the state clemency board meeting. Around the 42-second mark, he appears to say, "Awesome," when discussing the news with Bondi.
The only reason people would refer to $9,900 as $9 is because they wanted to speak in code, a forensic accountant called by George Zimmerman's lawyers testified in court Friday.
The prosecution attacked George and Shellie Zimmerman this morning for doing just that in recorded jailhouse phone calls.
George Zimmerman, who's charged with second-degree murder for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was back in court this morning arguing for a new bond.
The neighborhood watchman's previous bond was revoked after he and his wife were accused of lying about having $150,000 in his bank account to obtain a lower bond.
Judge Kenneth Lester previously revoked his bond after prosecutors claimed George Zimmerman lied to the court about his finances. He said today that he will make a decision concerning George Zimmerman's some time bond next week.
We were able to watch Friday's proceedings via a live feed from NBC Miami.
During his testimony for the defense, forensic accountant Adam MaGill described how money was often transferred out of Zimmerman's PayPal account in increments of less than $10,000 and placed in Zimmerman's personal bank account.
He created the PayPal account to receive donations from supporters.
From there, the money would be transferred to Shellie Zimmerman's accounts, then routed to a trust for attorney Mark O'Mara and finally transferred to George Zimmerman's Legal Defense fund.
"Ultimately everything was accounted for," despite all the transfers, MaGill said.
The prosecution attacked the Zimmermans for reportedly using $11,387.40 of the funds donated to the PayPal account to pay off credit card debts. They allegedly used additional donated funds to pay off other personal loans.
O'Mara justified those expenditures by saying that Zimmerman asked potential donors for money to defray the cost of living expenses, as well as his defense.
Yesterday, the Air Force revealed that 31 female victims have been identified in a sex scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Twelve male training instructors have been accused of seeking improper relationships, adultery and rape with their trainees and six men have been charged.
Allegations were first made last June when a trainee reported sexual misconduct. According to General Edward Rice, commander of the Education and Training Command, the sexual misconduct began in 2009.
The first allegations were made against Staff Sgt. Luis Walker who is scheduled to be court-martialed next month and faces over 28 charges including rape, aggravated sexual misconduct and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault.
All of the airmen report for basic training trained at Lackland, which totals about 35,000 every year. Only one in five trainees are female and 90 percent of the flight instructors are male. Gen. Rice said he will look into whether the base needs to hire more female flight instructors or have only female instructors to oversee female trainees.
Here is video of Gen. Rice's press conference addressing the scandal:
