What it takes to get fired as head of the DEA

So . . . carrying on a non-stop immoral war on drugs that ruins the lives of millions of Americans--a war that is much worse than the medically treatable problem of drug addictions--is not a problem. But a tiny-blip-on-the-radar sex scandal IS enough to get, Michele M. Leonhart, the leader of the DEA, fired. We have such fucked up priorities here in the US. There is a voice in my head keeps saying that we are getting what we deserve for letting viral fear, corrupt money, state-orchestrated violence and fake piety dictate how we handle so many major policy issues. The war on drugs is an especially distressing case in point.

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War on Drugs: An economic analysis

The War on Drugs is terrible for taxpayers and users, because it treats a medical problem as though it were a criminal problem, filling our expensive prisons with millions of non-violent persons, and making violent persons out of non-violent persons. Yet we carry on with this "war." This article by Benjamin Powell focuses on an economic analysis of the "War," discussing the many other counterproductive aspects of the war. Here is an excerpt:

Prohibition also creates more problems for non-users. Because it increases the cost for addicts to support their habit, many resort to stealing in order to get their needed high. In a study of the U.S. drug war on Latin America, economist David R. Henderson estimated that if the same mark-ups applied to cocaine as to coffee, which would be roughly accurate with cocaine legalization, then cocaine’s price in the United States would fall by about 97%.[12] If cocaine and other narcotics lost the price premium caused by the drug war, few, if any, addicts would need to resort to crime to afford their habit. On the supply side of the market, the drug business is violent precisely because it is illegal. Illegal businesses can’t settle disputes in court, so they do so through violence. If drugs were legalized, drug suppliers could settle disputes by turning to courts and arbitrators. One reason that large dealer networks and organized crime outcompete smaller dealers is that they can partially provide their own internal dispute resolution. When alcohol was prohibited in the early twentieth century, violent criminal gangs catered to the nation’s thirst for alcohol. When Prohibition ended, normal businesses returned to the market and violence subsided. Economist Jeffery Miron found that both alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition enforcement efforts have increased the homicide rate in the United States. He estimates that the homicide rate is 25-75 percent higher due to prohibition.[13] In short, the violence associated with drugs, both by users to support their habit and by gangs supplying the drugs, is a product of prohibition rather than a rationale for prohibition. These costs, taken together with the above supply and demand analysis, indicate that the very concerns that animate drug prohibitionists—the harm to users and the violence in society—should cause them to oppose drug prohibition.

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Why copyright laws don’t actually protect many content owners

Sad story here by Alex Wild, nature photographer, who has been a constant victim of infringement despite the existence of copyright laws. How overwhelming is his battle?

For a concise idea of what could go wrong, let me indulge in a list of recent venues where commercial interests have used my work without permission, payment, or even a simple credit: Billboards, YouTube commercials, pesticide spray labels, website banners, exterminator trucks, t-shirts, iPhone cases, stickers, company logos, eBook covers, trading cards, board games, video game graphics, children’s books, novel covers, app graphics, alt-med dietary supplement labels, press releases, pest control advertisements, crowdfunding promo videos, coupons, fliers, newspaper articles, postage stamps, advertisements for pet ants (yes, that’s a thing), canned food packaging, ant bait product labels, stock photography libraries, and greeting cards. Yesterday evening, while Googling insect references in popular culture, I discovered that a small Caribbean island helped itself to a photograph I took in 2008. My photo shows a slave-raiding ant, a fascinating species that survives as a parasite on the labor of other ants. But the image had been imprinted on the back of a commemorative one-cent piece. Perhaps symbolically, this is one cent more than I received for my part in bringing the coin to the public.

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Public Justice: CFPB should ban mandatory arbitration

Arthur Bryant of Public Justice argues that the CFPB should ban mandatory arbitration.

Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court have given banks, credit card companies, and all other lenders a license to steal billions from consumers and small businesses. The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has the power to rescind that license. On Tuesday, at a hearing in Newark, the CFPB is expected to announce whether it will do so. If it does what the facts and law require, it must. In two cases in the past four years, the Supreme Court allowed corporations to charge allegedly illegal fees to millions of consumers and small businesses, net billions, and walk away with the money. The corporations' form "agreements" barred all lawsuits against the companies, required consumers and small businesses to pursue their claims individually in arbitration, and banned class actions. The court enforced these agreements, even though that meant the companies would never be held accountable. Sadly, these two cases weren't anomalies. Far too many lenders cheat and mislead consumers, charging inflated and illegal fees or interest. But the court has given them near-total immunity. Thankfully, that can be changed - and should be soon. When Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, it created the CFPB and required the new agency to study the use of arbitration clauses by lenders. Congress said that the CFPB should prohibit or limit their use if it found that they harm consumers. The evidence proves that forced-arbitration clauses hurt consumers badly. This issue affects everyone in America. Here's the bottom line: The primary effect of mandatory-arbitration clauses is to suppress claims by consumers, allow corporations to break the law, and prevent our civil justice system from providing injunctive relief (like having debts forgiven or credit records cleared) and compensation to millions of consumers; , , , The CFPB should ban mandatory arbitration clauses and rescind the lenders' license to steal. Consumers are entitled to what is engraved on the front of the Supreme Court - "Equal Justice Under Law" - not what the Supreme Court has given them:

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Senator Elizabeth Warren warns us about the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Elizabeth Warren warns us about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as reported by the Public Citizen Consumer Blog:

Sen. Warren's op-ed in the Post this week is a must-read, and a must-share: it explains how our country's consumer, worker, and environmental protection laws could be undermined by a dispute-resolution clause in the TPP, currently being negotiated. More generally, the danger Sen. Warren describes is a potent illustration of how trade deals that may sound benign in terms of their general aims can contain some pretty radical giveaways to corporate interests. Here's a flavor:
[The Investor-State Dispute Settlement clause, or ISDS] would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.

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