The Intercept: The U.S. is building a drone base in Niger that will cost more than $280 million by 2024
FEE: Pediatricians are now writing ‘prescriptions for play’ during well-child visits
Washington Times: A.I.-equipped police: They’re watching, they’re listening, they’ve become the Big Brother we always feared
New York Times: The Memphis police spied on activists
Gray Zone Project: Inside America’s meddling machine: The U.S.-funded group that intervenes in elections around the globe
Stay away from my kids, parasite: Army Times: Assisant army secretary sees young teens, college dropouts as next recruiting targets
TAC: Stop comparing Iran to the USSR
DAN McADAMS: My daughter molested by the TSA, me nearly arrested for objecting
JAMES BOVARD: In Washington, the truth has refugee status: “Trump could face a “perjury trap” from Special Counsel Robert Muellerbecause of the unique way that the FBI defines reality — and the truth. The FBI rarely records interviews and instead relies on written summaries (known as Form 302s) which “are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations,” the New York Times noted last year. Though defense attorneys routinely debunk the accuracy and credibility of 302s, prosecutors continue touting FBI interview summaries as the voice of God. Even if Trump made factually correct comments to Mueller, he could still face legal peril if his statements failed to harmonize with FBI “trust me on what I heard” memos containing contrary assertions.”
BONNIE KRISTIAN: The drug war is a moral monstrosity. End it. Now.: “There are many reasons to want to end the drug war. We should end it because it has cost more than $1.5 trillion over half a century and yetaddiction rates have not budged. By both historical and internationalstandards, American drug use is persistently high while taxpayers are being bilked for ineffective drug law enforcement.
We should end it because it wastes limited law enforcement resources, with more than 1.2 million arrests made annually for simple drug possession. One in three new prison admissions are drug offenders, making the drug war a major contributor to our national crisis of mass incarceration.
We should end it because its enforcement is demonstrably a tool of institutionalized racism. Though white Americans and racial minorities use illegal drugs at basically the same rate, minorities are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, charged, convicted, sentenced to prison instead of non-detention punishments, and given longer sentences for the same crime.
We should end it because decriminalizing drugs in places like Portugal and the Netherlands has proven far more effective at lowering abuse rates and making users feel it is safe to seek help. The opioid epidemic has made harm reduction ever more important.
We should end it because it is inhumane. It leads to broken families and tortuous detention practices. It deprives the desperately ill of treatment options. It makes our cities more violent, just like Prohibition before it. It is literally killing people.”
