• Your morning worry.
• Headline of the day.
• Smart kids do drugs.
• Georgia cop admits to falsifying breath test results in DUI cases.
• New York’s highest court ordered the state’s family courts opened to the public in 1997. They’ve mostly stayed closed, anyway. 
• Yale law professors propose paying students to quit law school.

In Jefferson, Iowa.

Matthew Spaulding says he and his family were terrorized at their own home by police who slammed his grandmother to the ground and shot his dogs– missing his head by less than an inch. “Told us to get on the ground. I got on the ground they put me in handcuffs,” Spaulding recalls, “Then they threw my dad to the ground and my dog Sadie was right here sniffing my head. She was next to me. They shot her. The blood got on my face and then she took off running behind me and they shot her like three more times.”

Tuesday morning, Greene County Sheriffs Deputies and Perry Police officers arrived at Spaulding’s Jefferson farmhouse to deliver a search warrant. The Spauldings say they were immediately ordered to the ground.. even Matthew Spauldings’ disabled father, Chris. “My son hit the ground I hit the ground but I didn’t make it too fast so (the officer) jumped on the middle of my back, shoved his knee in and held a gun to the back of my head and handcuffed me. After they shot my first dog my mom come out”…

The Spauldings say after the first dog was killed, a second dog running away from the shots — and away from police— was also shot. “They weren’t barking. They weren’t attacking nobody.” Matthew Spaulding says, “They didn’t even give us a chance to put them in the kennel. We have a big kennel outside our house we could have put them in but they wouldn’t give us a chance.”

Perry Police are not commenting. And they’re refusing to turn over any paperwork or reports about the incident saying it’s part of an ongoing investigation. But we were able to get copies of the search warrants. One warrant shows police were looking for any kind of legal or illegal drugs. The other shows police were looking for a stolen X-Box video game system. No drugs and no stolen games were found–and no one was arrested.

While drug war realist Gary Johnson can’t get invited to the debates, and fellow realist Ron Paul got all of 90 seconds to say his piece last time around, Newt Gingrich has  inexplicably risen to the top of the polls in the GOP primary. It’s worth reviewing again just how God-awful Gingrich has been on the drug war over the years.

Over at TalkLeft, Jeralyn Merritt notes that Gingrich once introduced a bill mandating the death penalty for drug smugglers. Gingrich’s bill would have required execution for anyone attempting to bring 2 ounces or more of pot into the country. Merritt also reminds us of this shameless, astonishingly stupid attempt to justify his policies with his own drug use:

“See, when I smoked pot it was illegal, but not immoral. Now, it is illegal AND immoral. The law didn’t change, only the morality… That’s why you get to go to jail and I don’t.”*

There’s much more. In 2009, Gingrich agreed with Bill O’Reilly’s call for Singapore-style drug laws in America. In Singapore, the police can force anyone to submit to a urinalysis without a warrant. They’re permitted to search you without a warrant. And if you’re seen in a building or in the company of drug users, you’re assumed to have been using drugs as well, unless you can prove otherwise. They also have Gingrich’s favored mandatory execution of anyone possessing over a specified amount of illicit drugs. (And there’s little evidence that the policies are working.)

A few other choice moments from Gingrich’s drug war files:

• “…I met with General McCaffrey two months ago and said, ‘I want a World War Two style victory plan-a decisive, all out cataclysmic effort to break the back of the drug culture’.” (Source)

• The announcement of the Republican drug strategy last week came with set of sound bites produced by the “Speaker’s Task Force for a Drug Free America.” A memorandum to participants in the kick-off urged them to incorporate and emphasize war-sounding “communication ideas.” Some of the specific phrases the Speaker urged were: epidemic, crisis, scourge, poison, mobilize, modern-day plague, front lines, call to arms, deployment, battle plan, attack, fight, engage, conquer and declare victory. The theme was to have “A real War on Drugs; Not a war of words but a war of action.” Their goal is a drug free America by 2002. These militaristic slogans were justified by a backdrop of children. (Source)

• President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparred over drug policy in separate radio addresses Saturday, the president laying out plans to reduce illegal drug use by 50 percent in the next decade, the speaker ridiculing the proposal as a “hodgepodge of half-steps and half- truths.” Gingrich said he will press a resolution in the House urging Clinton and White House drug policy chief Barry McCaffrey to withdraw the plan, which he described as “the definition of failure.””In the Civil War it took just four years to save the Union and abolish slavery,” Gingrich scoffed.  He said World War II was won four years after the United States joined the Allied cause, and yet Clinton’s new drug-fighting schedule prescribes more than twice that long.”This president would have us believe that with all of the resources, ingenuity, dedication and passion of the American people, we can’t even get halfway to victory in the war on drugs until the year 2007 – nine full years from now,” the speaker said. “That is not success. That is the definition of failure. … We cannot accept this administration’s proposed timetable for defeat.” (Source)

• Speaking before the National Religious Broadcasters in Washington, Gingrich said he hopes to eradicate the drug problem by Jan. 1, 2001. The end result would mean “such an amazingly healthier society,” he said. “That would be a vastly greater achievement than the balanced budget.”Talking specifics, Gingrich is proposing a mandatory life prison term for those who cross borders with or produce commercial quantities of illegal drugs. He would also like to see the death sentence imposed for repeat offenders. “If you sell it, we’re going to kill you,” he warned.  (Source)

• House Republicans, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich and his newly-created “Speakers’ Task Force for a Drug-Free America” chaired by J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), unveiled a “comprehensive, World War II-style” drug war legislative package on Thursday. Details of the package will be presented to the public over an eight-week period at a series of orchestrated media events complete with blue ribbon-wearing participants….The package, which will include at least a dozen separate pieces of legislation, is being compared by House Republican staffers to the 1994 “Contract With America,” both in its scope and its intended centrality to the election-year message of the party.  While much of the legislation is still being written, the bills will range from largely symbolic . . . to overtly war-like, such as the reinstitution and expansion of military deployments on the US side of our national borders. The stated goal of the Republican package is to “win” the drug war by creating a “drug-free” America in four years. Longer sentences, the death penalty, technological upgrades in interdiction and federal law enforcement, a doubling of the border patrol and incentives for expanded work-place drug testing will also be addressed. (Source)

• “The first time we execute 27 or 30 or 35 people at one time, and they go around Colombia and France and Thailand and Mexico, and they say, `Hi, would you like to carry some drugs into the U.S.?’ the price of carrying drugs will have gone up dramatically,” says Gingrich, who has admitted to smoking pot.  (Source)

Of course, if Gingrich somehow miraculously gets the nomination, his opponents will be Obama, who is every bit the hypocrite Gingrich is, and Biden, who may be one of just a few career politicians at the federal level whose legislative record is worse than Gingrich’s.

*MORE/UPDATE/CORRECTION: I somehow missed this Jacob Sullum post from last year suggesting that this Gingrich quote may be apocryphal, though Gingrich has definitely admitted to smoking pot in graduate school.

• Write your own joke about faking it.
• TSA staff has grown by 400 percent over the last 10 years. Air passenger travel has grown by 12.
• Headline of the day.
• Government protects NFL player from his codeine addiction by putting him in prison for six years.
• Very cool interactive map of migration patterns.
• Romney staff wiped all emails before leaving governor’s office.
• Solyndra isn’t a partisan problem. It’s a “this is the way Washington works” problem.
• Something bacon doesn’t make better.

• Whole Foods CEO John Mackey: “To Increase Jobs, Increase Economic Freedom”
• Dept. of Energy pressured Solyndra to postpone layoffs until after the 2010 elections.
• Veteran starts petition asking feds to allow medical marijuana for PTSD.
• Senators push bill requiring indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, citizens or not, with or without sufficient evidence.
• Gary Johnson files FEC complaint over his exclusion from the GOP primary debates.
• Headline of the day.
• Interesting story on triathletes who may be dying after having panic attacks while swimming.

In this hysterical USA Today piece about infants born addicted to prescription painkillers, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi says, “I’m scared to death this will become the crack-baby epidemic.”

I agree. I hope this doesn’t turn into an excuse to pass a bunch of dumb laws that will restrict personal freedom and impose draconian sentences on people who commit nonviolent offenses, all in response to a hyped-up, non-existent problem drummed up by the media and drug warriors. The “Oxy baby” narrative has the added potential to further chill the treatment of chronic pain.

It may well be that this is a huge and growing problem. But I don’t find the USA Today piece all that convincing. In 2009, the New York Times looked at recent studies of what has happened to “crack babies.” Turns out, the consensus seems to be that the biggest hurdle they’ve had to overcome is the fact that they’ve been called “crack babies” all their lives.

• Your Penn State reading: An interesting post from Joe Paterno’s biographer. And the New Yorker lays out four important and unanswered questions.
• Economic advice from Gene Simmons.
• Interesting (and troubling) emails from Tennessee state police monitoring the Occupy Nashville protests.
• Blogger Aunt B. gives the vodka-soaked tampon story the Mythbusters treatment.
• Congressman wants to enlist national intelligence agencies to fight marijuana.
• Overcriminalization watch: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  Also, the Wall Street Journal interviews Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.
• Some analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming case on sentencing juveniles to life without parole.
• Ted Allen cooks up some pretentious foodie bullshit.

• Study suggests low income obesity and fast food are unrelated.
• Ethan Nadelmann on Obama’s medical marijuana crackdown.
• Lessons in capitalism from Occupy Wall Street.
• Washington State breaks up state liquor monopoly. Includes a beautiful quote from public service union rep.
• Alaska hit by a “snowicane.”
• Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper on ending the drug war.

• The second part of the drug war essay I wrote for the Future of Freedom Foundation is now online.
• More evidence Cash for Clunkers was a bust.
• D.E.A. now sending military-trained units in to fight on foreign soil.
• Citing Glik, a New Hampshire judge upholds the First Amendment right to record police in public.
• Interesting article on megacities.
• Cartoonist draws the New York City Marathon as he’s running it.
• The New York Times ed board blames escalating drug war violence on allowing the assault weapons ban to expire. Because back when the ban was in effect, the drug cartels were apparently arming themselves with slingshots and crossbows.

Defense attorney uses surveillance video to catch a Philadelphia police officer flat-out lying on the witness stand.

The video also shows a supervisor observing the illegal search.

Via Scott Greenfield, who has more.

• Disturbing video depicts Texas family court judge violently beating his daughter.
• Study: Medical marijuana doesn’t lead kids to try pot.
• The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the reliability of eyewitness testimony yesterday. It doesn’t sound like it went well.  More from Dahlia Lithwick here. You have to wonder if the justices’ cluelessness in some of these cases has to do with the fact that none of them has any experience in criminal defense.
• Obama administration’s deportation policy has left more than 5,000 children in foster homes.
• More than 100 criminal investigations into stimulus spending at the Department of Energy alone.

Earlier this year, I wrote a long, two-part anti-drug war polemic or the Future of Freedom Foundation.

The first part is now online.

Someone just sent me this beauty from the New York Times archive. Published in 1927.

• Ken Jennings, 99 percenter.
• I can’t see how this could possibly be abused.
• Seattle cops administer the full-SWAT treatment to medical marijuana patient with two pot plants.
• Man describes life under a seven-year PATRIOT Act gag order.
• Gene Healy on boomtown D.C.
• Ron Paul, walking the walk: Takes no federal money for his medical practice, instead treats Medicare/Medicaid patients for free.

• Classic songs that were intended as jokes.
• You can’t tell by the pixels.
• Very little about the police version of this story makes sense.
• This is almost certainly illegal under Indianapolis v. Edmond.
• Two Illinois teachers union lobbyists teach for one day, get fat pensions for the rest of their lives. Bonus: One of them helped write the law that made them eligible.
• Attempted puppycide . . . by defenestration.
• Kanye’d by the Bell.

• Defense attorney ordered to pay damages for creating fake child porn to show jury how it easy it is to create fake child porn.
• The problem with private prisons, put in pretty frank terms by a private prison company.
• Chicago cop kills unarmed man who was lying prone. It’s the cop’s third shooting since January.
• A photo that’s both heartbreaking and inspiring.
• The dumbest thing you’ll read today. (The original Pajamas Media post, not the critique of it.)
• Awesome company turns child drawings into stuffed animals.
• Democrats gay-bait Republican congressional state senate candidate.
• Today’s assault on the Fourth Amendment brought to you by my state of Tennessee.
• High school officials scare the hell out of kids to clear the hallways . . . so they can then search the kids’ lockers for drugs.

• Headline of the day.
• French court tells ISPs to block sites that post videos of police misconduct.
• Fun video: What the world would look like as you approach the speed of light.
• Gene Healy on Obama’s venture into Uganda.
• The conservative Rutherford Institute: “The War on Drugs Has Become the War on the American People”
• Innocent Atlanta woman arrested, jailed for 53 days. TV station finds the actual suspect.
• Depressing lede of the day.
• Baltimore radio host, libertarian, and all-around decent guy Ron Smith has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I’ve done Ron’s show many, many times. He’s smart, incisive, principled, and clearly cares about the sorts of stories we cover on this site. This is crappy news. Best wishes to him and his family.

Half of America now supports legalizing pot. That number exceeds the approval ratings of President Obama, the Congress, the Supreme Court, and every GOP candidate running for president.

Legalization is also at the top of the White House’s “We the People” petition site, and it isn’t even close. Next time Obama laughs off the question—and he will—I’d love to hear a White House reporter ask him if he’s aware that a higher percentage of Americans now support legalizing marijuana than think he’s doing a good job as president.

• Headline of the day.
• Another isolated incident.
• What the hell, here are two more.
• California Medical Association calls for legalization of pot.
• A catalog of strange sex injuries.
• Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street? A quiz.

• More federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.
• Now the subject of lawsuits in two separate states as a result of his attempts to play cop, Steven Seagal signs up to be a border cop in Texas.
• Obama sending U.S. combat troops to yet another part of the world.
• ….and objectionable as I may find that, Rush Limbaugh is still an idiot.
• Zuccotti Park owners got $700,000 in government handouts after September 11.
• The Stone Roses are reuniting.
• Fun foreign words with no English equivalent.
• I want one of these.

The Obama administration is now threatening to prosecute media outlets that publish ads for medical marijuana. Stunning. I expected Obama to be a disappointment on these issues, but not to this degree. (Thanks to Libby for the link.)

Meanwhile, law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have pressured the RAND Corporation to remove from its website a study showing no link between medical marijuana dispensaries and crime.

• “‘We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas,’ former detective testifies.”
• A libertarian camps out with the Wall Street protesters.
• Small ISP stands up to the federal government. 
• When caption writers attack.
• Puppycide.
• Headline of the day.
• Government takes aim at friends trying to help cancer patient find a marrow donor.

• Headline (and likeliest name) of the day.
• Headline of the day, runner-up.
• Mind-blowingest outrage of the day.
• Second mind-blowingest outrage of the day.
• When cops kill the family of other cops.
• “Shut that fucking thing off before I slap you.”
• Prosecutor, FBI agent take stolen Ferrari out on a joyride, total it. Federal judge says the car’s lawful owner is out of luck.
• The economics of hot flight attendants.

• Photos of Nevada’s otherworldly-looking Fly Geyser.
• Florida Innocence Commission recommends videotaping police interrogations. A similar commission in California made the same recommendation a few years ago, a long with corroborating jailhouse informant testimony and double-blind police lineups. Under pressure from the state’s prosecutors, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed all three.
• West Virginia man arrested for recording police.
• DHS refuses to release the phone numbers of its public information officers, calling such a FOIA request a “clearly unwarranted invasion” of their privacy. Bask in the irony.
• For Breaking Bad fans.
• Drug policy vs. homicide rates.
• This isn’t too far removed from how a lot of policies are actually made.
• The bear is expected to hold a press conference today, in which he will publicly apologize and resign from office.

I have a new piece at Huffington Post with the details.

Also, I can now say I once got up to write and file a story by 10am . . . all from a bar.