I may or may not want this t-shirt. 

“The war on drugs has helped make the U.S. the world’s largest incarcerator.

America’s criminal justice system should keep communities safe, treat people fairly, and use fiscal resources wisely. But more Americans are deprived of their liberty than ever before - unfairly and unnecessarily, with no benefit to public safety. Especially in the face of economic crisis, our government should invest in alternatives to incarceration and make prisons options of last – not first – resort.”

“Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.” James Carville

Except that’d be insulting Alabama. 

(Source: motherjones)

Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will →

“They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.””

Why kill people when you can kill ideas? One is quicker to do, but the results are also quicker to fade; the other is harder to do, but the results last longer. 

I think the photo speaks for itself.

Edit: It seems that the photo doesn’t speak for itself. All the women pictured are porn stars, apparently.

barackobama:

Sorry if this put a cramp in your scrolling hand.

Or, how to re-energize your base with some very savvy, calculated political moves.

Don’t Freak out about the White Babies, as news reports that for the first time in American history, more than half of the babies born in the US are minorities.

"

While jury makeup varies widely by jurisdiction, the organization, which studied eight Southern states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — found areas in all of them where significant problems persist. In Alabama, courts have found racially discriminatory jury selection in 25 death penalty cases since 1987, and there are counties where more than 75 percent of black jury pool members have been struck in death penalty cases.

An analysis of Jefferson Parish, La., by the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center found that from 1999 to 2007, blacks were struck from juries at more than three times the rate of whites.

In North Carolina, at least 26 current death row defendants were sentenced by all-white juries. In South Carolina, a prosecutor said he struck a black potential juror because he “shucked and jived” when he walked.

Studies have shown that racially diverse juries deliberate longer, consider a wider variety of perspectives and make fewer factual errors than all-white juries, and that predominantly black juries are less likely to impose the death penalty.

"

THE ALL BLACK JURY IS NOT A THING, NOT EVEN IN THE NORTH 

(Source: cosmopolitan-fascist)

Louisiana’s Slave-Trading 2.0

Via the Times-Picayune

Note: This data is stunning!

“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”

(Source: owsposters, via arielnietzsche)

thepeoplesrecord:

George W. Bush: Now a convicted war criminal

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Full Article

But, but…but what about American exceptionalism?!?!

(via thepeoplesrecord)