Middle-of-the-night links

The top-10 reasons to vote YES on marijuana legalization.  Read the entire article, all good reasons.  One of my favorites is the return of industrial hemp in the US.  The ban on industrial hemp is utterly ridiculous, and economically damaging.  As Ron Paul said, to get high off of hemp, you’d have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole.

A win for Proposition 64 means that California’s victims of Prohibition could be released from prison very soon.

The US is pretty terrible at fighting the Drug War abroad, too.  Recent evidence: opium production is up 43% in Afghanistan. That’s after throwing $12 billion at a war against poppy fields.  Now, Afghanistan produces 80% of the world’s opium, the majority of which is distilled into heroin.

Prescription drugs are the true “gateway drug”, not marijuana.  Get hooked on expensive painkillers, go broke, pay a visit to the local heroin or fentanyl dealer down the street…

Police arrest more people for marijuana use than for all violent crimes COMBINED.  A month old, but it’s necessary to be reminded of the nature of the Drug War, which is nothing more than a jobs program that artificially provides “work” for a bloated, militarized police force.  Take away Prohibition and cops would have very little to do, and very little power with which to do it.

Podesta emails reveal Clinton camp’s close ties to environmental Left: “Podesta’s emails reveal a collusive, quid-pro-quo relationship between the Clinton campaign and national environmental groups. They show a disturbing and unusual level of access to power for billionaire donors like Steyer and Simons, and that Bernie Sanders never really stood a chance at getting the endorsement of prominent environmental groups. The emails also reveal attempts to silence academics and discourage the production of oil and gas resources. Lastly, the emails show the political calculus behind forming the Clinton campaign’s policy positions.”

Mass surveillance of every citizen, hidden from the public eye, conducted at every level of law enforcement, is universal in the US, Canada, Britain, and other Western countries.  Glenn Greenwald points to three scandals that reveal this horrifying truth.

Sleepwalking into a new Cold War, Pentagon-style.  From the Ron Paul Institute.  The Warfare State has a multi-trillion dollar plan that only a trumped-up war with Russia could justify.

Police have killed 897 people in the United States in 2016 so far, according to The Guardian‘s invaluable database, The Counted.

Amazon has already patented a drone that will work with police.  And of course it will be armed with a nice real-time facial recognition camera, capturing and storing everything the police wish it to.

Law enforcement surveillance of journalists in real-time is just one very good argument against allowing police the ability to surveil anyone they want in real-time.

Cop gives thumbs-up as he poses with overdose victim for picture.