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Morning Links

Thursday, July 31st, 2008
  • Is it me, or do drug warriors really seem to be getting dumber as the years go by?
  • Mexico’s drug war (which is really our drug war by proxy) takes collateral damage.
  • TSA boasts about confiscating items that aren’t dangerous but might be perceived by other people to be dangerous.
  • Government website instructs judges on how to help prosecutors win DWI cases.
  • Steve Chapman on “consent searches.”
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    This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 8:40 am by Radley Balko and is filed under General Criminal Justice, General Drug War, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    • 13 Responses to “Morning Links”

    1. #1 |  chris horton |  July 31st, 2008 at 8:49 am

      What a clueless maroon. I can’t wait to see who the “Lightworker” installs in these positions when he gets Pennsylvania Ave.

    2. #2 |  HtownGuy |  July 31st, 2008 at 8:50 am

      Maybe the dumb ones just feel more emboldened lately. We have put up with this horrific nonsense for 30ish years now.

    3. #3 |  Michael Leatherwood |  July 31st, 2008 at 8:53 am

      Dollar to donuts he takes speed.

    4. #4 |  Dave Krueger |  July 31st, 2008 at 9:04 am

      Burns: Well, in some instances we just say your, quote, “constitutional rights” and your freedom to do certain things gets trumped by the rest of us who say, “You know that’s just not a good idea.”

      Yeah, we don’t need no stinkin’ rights.

    5. #5 |  Ben |  July 31st, 2008 at 9:07 am

      He loves talking about 11-14 year olds smoking pot. Doesn’t he realize it’s significantly easier to get pot at 14 than it is alcohol. Much easier.

      Most 21 year olds won’t buy a kid alcohol. Most kids don’t need somebody to buy pot for them, cause the dealers don’t care.

    6. #6 |  Frank N Stein |  July 31st, 2008 at 9:16 am

      Reading that first item on the drug czar, all I could think of was “the banality of evil”.
      As one of my favorite bloggers would say, there was a time when such nonsense would get one tarred and feathered and removed from polite society. Maybe we’ve all become dumber, since we let these people commit atrocities in our name…

    7. #7 |  Wayne |  July 31st, 2008 at 9:58 am

      I love the part where he says, “Anybody can say something makes me feel better … This is not about making people feel better.” Then I re-read the whole thing and substituted the words “cold medicine” in all the applicable places. This douche bag and the “logic” he relies on is the reason I now have to sign a register to purchase certain types of cold medicine at the pharmacies in my state.

    8. #8 |  VaBear |  July 31st, 2008 at 10:04 am

      WOW!
      I thought that kind of reasoning died when the Civil Rights Act was passed.
      It’s amazing that sheer stupidity like that still exists. I certainly hope that this waste of Oxygen and CO2 gets tossed on his ass when whomever inhabits 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

    9. #9 |  ChrisK. |  July 31st, 2008 at 7:43 pm

      he doesn’t need to get tossed on his ass. He needs to be put in GITMO without charges and have no way out, then he can complain about “constitutional rights”

    10. #10 |  supercat |  July 31st, 2008 at 11:17 pm

      re: Consent searches

      There should be a law stating that all interactions with police are to be presumed coercive; if police wish to claim that some action was voluntary, they must persuade both a judge and a jury of that fact.

    11. #11 |  Nick T |  August 1st, 2008 at 10:14 am

      So that Drug Czar guy is arguing that a drug should be banned because it makes you …………………………… lazy. Lazy?

      Of course everything he says there can be applied to just about everything. Can we start a mock campaign to make all bad ideas illegal? Buying a hummer, seeing movies made by Michael Bay, rooting for the Detroit Lions etc.

    12. #12 |  Elliot |  August 1st, 2008 at 2:54 pm

      Don’t consent to a search, and don’t even talk to the police.

    13. #13 |  Andrew Williams |  August 1st, 2008 at 9:32 pm

      “Don’t consent to a search, and don’t even talk to the police.”

      Quoted for truth. I let myself get talked into a search because the cop threatened to take away my car and I didn’t have my license with me. Lesson learned. Trust me.

      On the other hand, watching two cops trying to search a car full of clutter was fitfully amusing.

      Chapman’s Op-Ed was fantastic.

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