Close the federal loophole that lets cops go treasure hunting

Eh Wah is tour manager for a Christian rock band led by Marvellous that played in 19 U.S. cities, raising money from concerts to support an orphanage in Thailand and a Christian college in Burma. Worthy causes, no doubt. But when law enforcement found the cash during a routine traffic stop, a little-known legal process known as “civil asset forfeiture” allowed police officers to seize it, and whatever other property they wanted, without having to prove that Eh Wah was guilty of a crime.

via Close the federal loophole that lets cops go treasure hunting – LA Times.

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Video shows white cops performing roadside cavity search of black man

Pontoon then again tells the officers that they’re pushing on a hemorrhoid. One officer responds, “If that’s a hemorrhoid, that’s a hemorrhoid, all right? But that don’t feel like no hemorrhoid to me.”

The officers apparently continue to search Pontoon’s rectum for another three minutes.

via Video shows white cops performing roadside cavity search of black man – The Washington Post.

From: Rape and Civility

I don’t care if the Aiken police had twelve eyewitnesses and a video tape showing this man shoving drugs up his ass. If they bent him over on the side of their road and shoved their fingers into him looking for it, they’re rapists. I don’t care if the law says they can do it, it’s wrong. And I don’t care how many rape apologists like the Aiken Standard tut and shush and shrug. A society that says this is okay — a society that says it’s acceptable for armed agents of the government to rape a man on the side of the road in search of a golf-ball sized bag of drugs — deserves scorn.

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I wrote “ISIS Beer Funds!!!” in a Venmo memo and the feds detained my $42

Venmo wasn’t buying it. “Unfortunately,” wrote someone who signed the e-mail as Heather, “due to OFAC regulations, we are not allowed to give the funds back to you or issue a refund.”

via I wrote “ISIS Beer Funds!!!” in a Venmo memo and the feds detained my $42 | Ars Technica.

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Legalize It All

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”    — John Ehrlichman

via [Report] | Legalize It All, by Dan Baum | Harper’s Magazine.

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The gang that gave us Mitt Romney is now banking on Marco Rubio

Then once the convention begins and there’s no winner on the first ballot, they could push a compromise candidate.

Are you ready for Mitt Romney?

via Stopping Donald Trump: The gang that gave us Mitt Romney is now banking on Marco Rubio | NJ.com.

Here are two recent articles in the Chicago Tribune.

Read Mitt Romney’s speech attacking Donald Trump

Romney: Trump a danger for U.S.; Trump: He begged for my endorsement

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