LibertyVoter.Org

By Phillip Smith, AlterNet

A bipartisan group of senators including heavyweights like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin rolled out comprehensive legislation Thursday aimed at reducing prison sentences for some drug offenders and seeking to curb recidivism by bolstering re-entry programs for prisoners. The legislation would, however, also expand mandatory minimum sentences in some for some non-drug offenses.

The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 is also cosponsored by Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

It is arguably the most sweeping legislation to roll back drug war excesses yet, and it represents “small government” conservatives cooperating with liberals and civil rights advocates—a remarkable step in this era of poisoned partisan relations in Washington. If passed, it would free some currently serving prisoners, as well as cut sentences for future offenders.

The bill narrows the scope of mandatory minimum prison sentences to focus on the most serious drug offenders and violent criminals, while broadening ways defendants with minimal non-felony criminal histories can avoid triggering mandatory minimum sentences. The bill also reduces certain mandatory minimums, providing judges with greater discretion when determining appropriate sentences, and preserves “cooperation incentives” to aid law enforcement in tracking down kingpins. 

In addition to reducing prison terms for certain offenders through sentencing reform, qualifying inmates can earn reduced sentences through recidivism reduction programs outlined in the CORRECTIONS Act introduced by Cornyn and Whitehouse. The bill also makes retroactive the Fair Sentencing Act and certain statutory reforms that address inequities in drug sentences.

According to a summary provided by Sen. Grassley's office, the bill:

· Reforms and Targets Enhanced Mandatory Minimums for Prior Drug Felons: The bill reduces the enhanced penalties that apply to repeat drug offenders and eliminates the three-strike mandatory life provision, but it allows those enhanced penalties to be applied to offenders with prior convictions for serious violent and serious drug felonies.

· Broadens the Existing …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Reynard Loki, AlterNet

Monsanto has been reeling from a number of setbacks around the globe. Here's a look at some of the main reasons that 2015 has been a giant headache for the biotech giant. But that headache could find some reilef if the U.S. Senate hands them a legislative victory that would keep American consumers in the dark about what's in their food.

Roundup Probably Causes Cancer

In March, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization's cancer arm, said that the controversial herbicide glyphosate — the main ingredient in Monsanto's popular weedkiller Roundup — is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” IARC noted, “Case-control studies of occupational exposure in the USA, Canada, and Sweden reported increased risks for non-Hodgkin lymphoma that persisted after adjustment for other pesticides.” Used by home gardeners, public park gardeners and farmers, and applied to more than 150 food and non-food crops, Roundup is the Monsantot's leading product and the world's most-produced weedkiller.

In June, France banned Roundup. French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal said, “France must be on the offensive with regards to the banning of pesticides.” She added, “I have asked garden centers to stop putting Monsanto's Roundup on sale” in self-service aisles. And earlier this month, California issued a notice of intent to list glyphosate as a carcinogen. “As far as I’m aware, this is the first regulatory agency in the U.S. to determine that glyphosate is a carcinogen,” said Dr. Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “So this is a very big deal.”

Big news! California EPA Moves to Label Monsanto's Roundup 'Carcinogenic' http://t.co/gbIK0XVkhd #BanRoundup pic.twitter.com/6QZqUw9oxm

— Center 4 Food Safety (@TrueFoodNow) September 6, 2015

In April, U.S. citizens filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto, claiming that the company is guilty of false advertising by claiming that glyphosate targets an enzyme only found in plants and not in humans or animals. The plaintiffs argue that the targeted enzyme, EPSP synthase, is found in the microbiota that reside in human …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Heather Digby Parton, Salon

It’s hurricane season and all along the east coast residents are girding themselves for major weather. Every once in a while a major storm makes landfall and property is destroyed and lives are lost. One hopes that doesn’t happen this year. But natural disasters are a fact of life people just learn to live with. Tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, major floods and fires are considered to be acts of God and while we try to mitigate the damage everyone knows that we cannot stop them.  It’s just the way it is.

In America, gun violence is just another natural disaster. Like an earthquake for which you can never really be prepared, most people have come to see a mass killing like that which happened in Oregon yesterday as being unpreventable. We might as well try to stop the sun from coming up in the morning. All we can do is try to comfort the survivors and help people cope with the aftermath. On any given day we could personally be the victims of gun violence or turn on our TVs and computers and witness some kind of mass shooting, horrifying domestic dispute that ends in carnage, accidents or criminal activity. And that’s normal.

To the rest of the world, this is simply insane. Elsewhere they treat gun violence like a public health threat and limit the public’s exposure to it through strict gun regulation. Different cultures have slightly different approaches but there is no other developed country in the world that treats gun violence as if it were a simple fact of life they must live with.

But the fact that Americans accept this, doesn’t mean they want it to be this way. The polling shows that majorities of Americans support common sense gun regulations of the kind which are proven to work in other countries. The problem is that the political system is corrupted by the pro-gun lobbying groups which not only insist that society has no right to regulate …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet

In Washington, Republicans have been threatening to shut down the government over spending they don’t like and the federal debt. But on the 2016 campaign trail, the leading GOP presidential candidates are hawking tax cuts for the wealthy, which would blow up the federal debt.

“You might think there was a defensible economic case for the obsession with cutting taxes on the rich,” writes Paul Krugman in his latest New York Times column. “That is, you might think that if you’d spent the past 20 years in a cave (or a conservative think tank. Otherwise, you’d be aware that tax-cut enthusiasts have a remarkable track record: They’ve been wrong about everything, year after year.”

What’s going on behind the tax cut obsession, Krugman explains, is a mix of voodoo economics, caveman-like ignorance of what tax cuts and tax hikes have wrought, and above all a desire to do anything that will make rich people richer.

Krugman points out that candidates Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are all making absurd claims about what their tax cut plans would do for domestic economic growth. Bush has said that his plan would double it. Trump, not to be outdone, says his cuts would triple it.

“The interesting question is why every Republican candidate feels compelled to go down this path,” Krugman asks, then reciting what happened to the economy in the past 20 years every time federal taxes were raised  or cut.

Under the tax increases (Bill Clinton in 1993, George W. Bush’s tax cuts expiring in 2013, Calfornia under Gov. Jerry Brown) the economy grew. Under the tax cuts (By George W. Bush and more recently by Kansas Republicans), the economy faltered. Those are the facts, Krugman said, despite propaganda from “self-proclaimed economic experts claiming to find overall evidence that low tax rates spur economic growth, but such experts invariably turn out to be on the payroll of right-wing pressure groups (and have an interesting habit of getting their numbers wrong).”

According to the Gallup poll, only 13 percent of Americans believe …read more

Source: ALTERNET

By Andrew Emett, The Free Thought Project

Marshall, MO — Police refuse to investigate an off-duty officer of using excessive force after mistaking an elderly stroke victim for a drunk driver. Immediately after throwing a 70-year-old man out of his truck, the cop restrained him on the ground by pressing his knee into a blocked artery on the side of the elderly man’s neck. Although he repeatedly informed the officer that he was suffering from a stroke, the enraged cop continued to manhandle him until other officers finally arrived.

While driving to Walmart around 6 p.m. on Sunday, 70-year-old James Miller began feeling dizzy and ill before veering off the road and accidentally hitting a house with his pick-up truck. Instead of correctly reading the situation, off-duty Columbia police Sgt. Scott Hedrick ran out of the house and immediately pulled Miller out of the vehicle. After slamming the elderly man to the ground, Hedrick pressed his knee into a blocked artery on the right side of Miller’s neck.

“He had my arm twisted behind my back. I said it was hurting and he said, ‘I’ll break your arm,’” Miller told FOX 4.

Although Miller repeatedly asked Sgt. Hedrick to remove his knee because Miller believed that he was having a stroke, the off-duty cop ignored his pleas and accused him of being drunk without even bothering to smell his breath. A Marshall police officer later arrived at the scene and found Hedrick restraining the compliant elderly man on the ground. After placing the 70-year-old in handcuffs, the officer gave Miller a sobriety test and verified he was sober.

On Monday, Miller’s doctor confirmed that he had suffered a mini-stroke when he lost control of his truck. Due to a pre-existing blocked artery in his neck, Miller suspected that he had been showing signs of a stroke but was unable to pull over in time.

According to a police report, Hedrick’s wife had been standing near the area where Miller’s vehicle hit the house. Instead of rationally assessing the situation, Hedrick lost …read more

Source: ALTERNET