Since I don’t regularly update this blog anymore, I figure it’s a good place to put up a post of my speaking schedule and various items related to my book. It’ll stay at the top of the page. So check back here often. We’re also still adding dates on the book talk/signing tour.

Year-End Lists

•The Nieman Foundation’s Top 10 Investigative Journalism books of 2013.

• The Kansas City Star’s top books of the year.

• Gizmodo’s best books of the year.

Public Events:

• January 29th, 2013, noon, Southern Illinois School of Law, Carbondale, Illinois.

• February 11, 2014, noon, University of Hawaii School of Law, Honolulu, Hawaii.

• February 21, time TBA, debate with Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Phoenix, Arizona. (Exact location TBA.)

• March 4, 2014, noon, University of Kansas School of Law, Lawrence, Kansas.

• March 5, 2014, noon, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, Kansas City, Missouri.

• March 25, 2014, noon, University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, Maryland.

• April 8, 2014, noon, Penn State University School of Law, University Park, Pennsylvania.

(Previous Events)

• September 26, Time, Woodburn Hall, Room 120, 7:30pm, Bloomington, Indiana: Speech and book signing.

• July 9 — Book signing. Parnassus Books, Nashville, Tennessee, 6:30pm.

• July 10 — Book release party. Mercy Lounge, Nashville, Tennessee, 7pm. With music from the Cold Stares and Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden.

• July 22 — Book release party. HR-57, Washington, D.C., 6:30 pm. With music from the Cold Stares.

• July 23 — Talk, panel, and book signing. Busboys & Poets, Washington, D.C., 6:30pm. Co-sponsored by the ACLU, the Cato Institute, the Huffington Post, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.

• July 24 — Capitol Hill Book Forum, with Mark Lomax of the National Tactical Officers Association. Rayburn Office Building, Washington, D.C., 12pm. Sponsored by the Cato Institute. (Watch video of this event here.)

• July 27, 3pm: Talk, book signing at Big Blue Marble Book Store, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• August 17, 2:20pm, Austin, Texas, Police Accountability Summit, sponsored by Peaceful Streets Project: Speech and book signing.

• August 24, 1pm, Libertas Found,  5430 West Chester Rd., West Chester, Ohio: Book signing. Sponsored by the Ohio Libertarian Party.

• August 29, 7pm Salt Lake City Public Library, Salt Lake City, Utah: Speech and book signing, sponsored by Libertas, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy at the University of Utah.

• September 3, noon, University of Memphis Law School, Memphis, Tennessee:

• September 5, Time TBA, Indy Reads Books, Indianapolis, Indiana: Book signing, sponsored by the Marion County Libertarian Party.

•September 18, noon, University of Illinois College of Law, Champaign, Illinois.

• September 18, 6:15pm, Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Avenue, Angel Reading Room, Chicago, Illinois: Speech, panel discussion, and book signing. Co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union Illinois, Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, Illinois Campaign to End the New Jim Crow, Mansfield Institute for Social Justice & Transformation (Roosevelt University), National Lawyers Guild (Chicago), People’s Law Office, Project NIA, TruthOut, Women’s All Points Bulletin

• October 14, Woody’s Roadside, 3008 Bienville Blvd, Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Sponsored by the Jackson County, Mississippi Libertarian Party.

• October 15, Mobile, Alabama: Speech and book signing. Sponsored by the Mobile Federalist Society.

• October 17, 5:30pm, Independence Institute, Denver, Colorado: Book forum. Sponsored by the Independence Institute.

• October 21, University of Colorado Law School, Boulder, Colorado.

• October 22, noon, University of Denver College of Law, Denver, Colorado.

• October 26, Students for Liberty Regional Conference, Nashville, Tennessee.

• October 30, noon, University of New Hampshire Law School, Concord, New Hampshire.

• October 31, noon, Boston University Law School, Boston, Massachusetts.

• November 2, Students for Liberty Regional Conference, Boston, Massachusetts.

• November 12, noon, Loyola University College of Law, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Book Reviews:

• A review from Kirkus Reviews.

• A review from Publishers Weekly.

• A review from the New York Journal of Books.

• A review from the Economist.

• Bruce Schneier’s review in the Wall Street Journal.

• Former Baltimore police officer and Cop in the Hood author Peter Moskos’ review in the Pacific Standard.

• New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield’s review at his Simple Justice blog.

• Former NYPD Det. John J. Baeza’s review at the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition blog.

• Former Redondo Beach, California Lt. Diane Goldstein’s review at Huffington Post.

• L.A.P.D. officer and pseudonymous writer Jack Dunphy’s review for National Review. (Behind a 25 cent paywall.)

• Gene Healy in the Washington Examiner.

• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy.

• John Payne in the American Conservative.

• Hal from the Right Thinking From the Left Coast blog.

• “Mad Rocket Scientist” at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen blog.

• Phillip Smith’s review at the Drug War Chronicle.

• Nate Carlisle review in the Salt Lake Tribune.

• Mike Riggs’ review at the Weekly Standard.

• Chase Madar in the Washington Spectator.

• Damian J. Penny in Canadian Lawyer.

• Paul J. Wyden in the Charleston Gazette.

• Mark Draughn: (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5).

• Amazon reviews.

My Articles:

• “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” in the Wall Street Journal.

• “A Gallery of Notable Police Raids,” in the ABA Journal.

• My “Raid of the Day” series at Huffington Post.

• “7 Ways the Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization,” at Huffington Post.

• “Former Cops Speak Out on Police Militarization,” at Huffington Post.

• “Welcome to the Police-Industrial Complex,” at Huffington Post.

• “The Marketing of Police Militarism,” at Huffington Post.

• “Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?” at the ACLU blog.

• “Senator Sam Ervin, “No-Knock” Warrants, and the Fight to Stop Cops from Smashing into Homes the Way Burglars Do,” at the ACLU blog.

• “ACLU Launches Nationwide Investigation Into Police Militarization,” at Huffington Post.

• My response to PoliceOne: “SWAT Cop Says American Neighborhoods Are ‘Battlefields,’ Claims Cops Face Same Dangers As Soldiers In Afghanistan”

Excerpts:

• Salon: Part One. Part Two. Part Three. Part Four.

• ABA Journal.

• Alternet.

• The Nashville Scene.

• Business Insider.

• TruthOut.

Other Coverage:

• BBC video on police militarization. (This is one is a favorite. They did a great job.)

• “Uphold the Third Amendment,” by Glenn Reynolds at USA Today.

• “SWAT-Team Nation,” by Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker.

• “In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko tackles the dangers of militarized police units run amok on U.S. soil,” the Nashville Scene.

• “Family pets get it as Swat warrior cops go in all guns blazing,” in the  Sunday Mail U.K. (Paywalled.)

• “Overkill: Police SWAT teams sent to fight poker games, liquor violations,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (reporter blog).

• “SWAT Teams Save Lives,” Alfred Regnery at Breitbart.com. (Negative.)

• “Editorial: Does city need a BearCat? Think carefully, please,” Concord Monitor.

• “From Tom Paine to Glenn Greenwald, we need partisan journalism,” Jack Shafer at Reuters.

• John Stossel’s column on warrior cops.

• The Heritage Foundation on police militarization.

• Coverage in the Greenfield, Indiana Daily Reporter.

• Editorial in the Washington Times.

• Blog post at the San Francisco Chronicle.

• A series of (mostly negative) responses on the website PoliceOne.

• Coverage in the Deseret Review.

• Coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune.

• Blog post at the Washington Monthly.

• Op-ed by Rick Holmes at the Metro West Daily.

• Coverage of a Chicago book event from Huffington Post.

• First Things.

• Editorial in the Idaho State Journal.

• Discussion of the book and related issues in the Harvard Policy Review.

• Kansas City Star list of the top books of 2013.

Interviews:

Text:

• Interview with Tennessee’s Chapter 16.

• Interview with Vice.

• Interview with Antiwar.com.

• Interview with Salon.

• Interview with the Washington Times: Part One. Part Two.

• Forum at Crooks & Liars.

• Book Salon at Firedoglake.

• My Reddit AMA.

• Truthout.

Audio:

• ABA Journal podcast.

• Op-Ed News podcast with Rob Kall.

• City Journal podcast with Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis.

• The Sex, Politics, and Religion Show with Jamila Bey (and Ed Brayton).

• think, with Krys Boyd on KERA in Dallas, Texas.

• Free Talk Live.

• The Peter Schiff Show (requires subscription).

• Cultural Baggage, with Dean Becker.

• Majority report with Sam Seder.

• Hour-long interview with KUER public radio in Salt Lake City.

• Interview with Stansbury radio.

• Podcast interview with Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller.

• Occupy Radio interview.

Video:

• BBC narrative. (This one is really great.)

• “All-In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC:

• Reason.tv:

• “The Real News,” on The Blaze TV:

• RT America:

• HuffPost Live:

• The Thom Hartmann Show, on RT.

• “Happening Now” on Fox News.

• “Morning Joe” on MSNBC:

• Debate with an Ohio sheriff on Fox Business News’ “Stossel.”

• “The Majority Report” radio show:

• Interview with Ron Paul for The Ron Paul Channel.

• Real Time with Bill Maher (Overtime segment — book interview itself not available online.)

Still a few kinks to work out, but as promised, your daily agitation is moving to the Huffington Post. Future posts will go up over there, starting now.

The web address will redirect in a bit. But until then, here’s where you need to go.

MORE: Yeah, comments is one of the kinks we’re working out. They’ll be up soon. Some of you have asked about an RSS feed. I’ve asked about that. I’ll post here when I hear back.

MORE: To get to comments, you need to click on the headline of the post. They’re fixing this to make the comments more accessible. You can subscribe to an RSS feed for the blog here, and here.

• This changes everything.
• Captain Dick “Riverat” Stevenson not only organized the Yukon’s only all-nude beauty pageant, he also invented a cocktail that includes a human toe. A life well-lived, sir. A life well-lived.
• “In an unusual twist, Homeland Security provided the partially redacted report (PDF) to the EFF under open government laws — but then turned around and demanded the document’s return, which the EFF refused to do.”
• “The Obama campaign was not amused.”
• On Election Day, another reminder that H.L. Mencken was right.
• The integrity of New Jersey’s email voting experiment rests with public officials who still use Hotmail.
• Late entry for the most vomitously partisan column of Election 2012.
• Finally, I give you nearly five minutes of pure, politics-free joy:

I’m not really going out on a limb, here. I do think Romney will win the popular vote by slim margin—I’d say less than half a percentage point. But Obama will win the Electoral College, somewhat comfortably.

One lesson for Republicans: Stop hating on immigrants. Bush won about 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004. McCain took about 30 percent in 2008. Romney could well drop below 20 percent this year.

Thing is, Latinos tend to be culturally conservative. From the polls I’ve seen, the GOP doesn’t even really need to actively reach out to them. Just stop hating them. Stop with the “my border fence will be bigger than yours,” the English only stuff, “self-deportation,” and the laws that let cops harass anyone with brown skin. Do that, and the GOP  could probably lure back enough of the Latino vote to be competitive again, at least in the short term. As it stands, they’re likely going to lose New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado because of this. Even in Arizona, Romney’s lead is down to five points. Within a few election cycles, they might even need to start spending money in Texas.

MORE: I see Shikha Dalmia has already made this point more eloquently that I just did.

Barack Obama supporters denounce Mitt Romney for holding positions . . . held by Barack Obama.

A possible Gary Johnson voter . . .

• False idols and loaded weapons.
• Members of Pussy Riot sent to hard labor camps.
• Cool British exhibit lets you walk through rain without getting wet.
• George McGovern, libertarian hero.
• At least they kept the gays out.
• An alarming crackdown on the free press in Turkey.
• Next time you’re depressed about the American criminal justice system, just think about Italy.

• Tim Carney takes on the myth, reported again recently in Politico,  that Obama has barred lobbyists from his administration. It’s a thorough, unrelenting thumping of lazy journalism. And quite a beautiful thing to behold.
• Attempted puppycide: Cop responds to the wrong house, shoots dog.
• Yes, this is very clever.
• Gene Healy on how the cult of Obama has just become kinda’ sad.
• Woman leader of influential political organization doesn’t think women are capable of  leading influential political organizations.
• Don’t ever change, America.
• War-weary military dog may suffer from PTSD.

Over at The Nation, there’s a video interview with Patricia Williams titled Paul Ryan’s Libertarian America, in which the columnist explains how “Mitt Romney’s choice of running mate, the Ayn Rand-inspired Paul Ryan, reveals the GOP candidate’s ‘slow march to the right.’”

A few minor points:  Paul Ryan is not a Randian, nor would Ayn Rand have approved of Paul Ryan. Ayn Rand was not a libertarian, and libertarianism is quite different from Randianism. Most importantly, Paul Ryan is not a libertarian.

Also, Ayn Rand did not consider herself part of “the right,” and “the right” did not and still doesn’t claim Ayn Rand.

Finally, I would argue that libertarians aren’t really part of the right (and I can say for certain that this libertarian isn’t), though some on the right seem to disagree.

Otherwise, the description is perfectly accurate.

I have a piece up at HuffPost looking at why criminal justice issues are rarely discussed during presidential campaigns.

(I sneaked some Robert Higgs into the article. Don’t tell!)

• “A Year of Blasphemy.” Typically great stuff from Ken at Popehat. Also, “monkey crotch.”
• You know what isn’t typically great? Investigative political reporting. Here’s an exception from Buzzfeed. Fascinating look into the origins of a pervasive myth about George Romney.
• “For years before his 1991 retirement, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall slipped away from deliberations each day to watch Days of Our Lives.”
• John McCain thinks the day the Supreme Court decided that incorporated groups of people who criticize politicians are protected by the First Amendment was worse than the day the Supreme Court declared that black people are non-citizens.
• Headline of the day.
• 22-year-old with severe food allergies arrested on a misdemeanor pot charge. The next day, he’s found dead in his jail cell.

This is my favorite one of these yet.

Just awing.

This apparently was an ABC pilot that was never picked up.

Still looks better than Two and a Half Men.

• The Washington Times makes the mistake of asking John Stossel to introduce Donald Rumsfeld at one of those self-congratulatory D.C. events. The night then goes delightfully off-script.
• Admit it. You want a president who isn’t afraid to do a little crowd surfing.
• On the other hand, Kerry Howley makes the strongest argument for a Marxist candidate you’re ever going to read. The outrage from the earnest Slate commenters is especially precious.
• Debate questions for Obama about Libya. (That will almost certainly never actually be asked of him.)
• Congressional report finds that anti-terrorism “fusion centers” trespass on civil liberties, produce very little counter-terrorism intelligence.
• Headline of the day: Mr. Wu edition.
• This takes an unexpectedly dark turn.
• Regulation in action: Food truck shut down for lacking a permit that doesn’t exist.

• In Camden, the police union has negotiated bonus pay for cops who work night shifts. They’ve also negotiated bonus pay for cops who work day shifts. And thanks to sick and vacation day benefits, about a third of the force doesn’t show up for work each day. Mysteriously, the city is plagued by crime and debt.
• Happy first anniversary of the death of free checking! Thanks Dodd-Frank, for making banking more expensive for poor people!
• Always know where the camera is.
• TSA agent convicted of stealing from passengers says stealing from passengers is common.
• Consensus on the coming pension crisis: Basically, we’re all screwed.
• Headline of the day.
• Of possible interest to my fellow napping aficionados.
• The Pentagon is working to make killer drones “sentient.” I don’t see any possible downside, here.
• Fellow libertarians: You’ve been doing it wrong. There are two possible explanations, here. Either the government deliberately spread the false rumor that tin foil hats block mind-control rays in order to make it easier to manipulate us, or the government is behind this bogus study, because it fears that tin foil hats are an obstacle to taking over our minds. I happen to know which of these scenarios is correct. But you’ll have to subscribe to my mimeographed newsletter to find out.

So last night’s season premiere of The Good Wife was almost a word-for-word adaptation of my piece on the Terrance Huff traffic stop for Huffington Post from earlier this year. Everything from the setting (Madison County, Illinois) to the falsely alerting drug dog, the bad cop, the illegal traffic stop, the illegal search, the forfeiture corridor, it was all in there. They even threw in a little twist about recording cops in Illinois. They also mentioned Huff’s video, “Breakfast in Collinsville.”

You can watch the entire episode here.  But here’s a clip of the scene with the stop:

Many thanks to all the folks who guest blogged these last six weeks or so: Eapen Thampy, Lenore Skenazy, Jason Kuznicki, William Anderson, and the folks at LEAP.

• “A full 53% of participants argued unequivocally for the opposite of their original attitude in at least one of the manipulated statements . . . “
• Under federal hate crimes law,  Amish men face decades in prison for forcibly cutting the beards of other Amish men.
• Update from Rome: The three wealthiest counties in the country are now in the D.C. suburbs. And seven of the top 10.
• In Alabama: A guns-drawn raid over home brewing equipment.
• Step one: Capitulate to the teachers’ union in the largest city in your state. Step two: Ask the rest of America to guarantee your state’s $200 billion pension gap.
• Headline of the day.
• Runner-up.
• Puppycide: Illinois cop investigates a stolen ladder. Goes to the wrong house. Shoots, kills the family dog. Which was fenced in its own yard. And chained.
• All over three Adderall pills.
• Stop quoting Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr. in defense of your censorious bullshit. In fact, stop quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes for anything. He was a racist, eugenicist, authoritarian asshole. I’ve never understood why progressives have thought so highly of him, back then, or now.

Via Mason Tvert, who is one of the organizers of the Colorado initiative “Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol”, and apparently is tired of all the marijuana-related SWAT dog shootings that are second nature to American law enforcement:

-More asset forfeiture posts later today. -Eapen Thampy

Pretty sure this one is a shoe-in for next year’s “Best Short Film Shot by a Seagull” Oscar.

Story here.

WNEM TV 5
-Eapen Thampy

Scott Meiner, Americans for Forfeiture Reform

San Antonio Express News reports on the attempted forfeitures of two houses owned by Dr. Sindy Chapa, Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Latinos Media and Markets at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University.

“Chapa hasn’t been charged with a crime, and an affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service agent explaining why the feds think they should have the house has been sealed. But in the public court filings, prosecutors allege the property was bought with proceeds of criminal activity….

“It’s not unusual for San Antonio prosecutors to seal affidavits outlining why they want property forfeited, but in recent high-profile cases, the owners have been out of the country. This is a rare situation in which the property owner is in the U.S. and could potentially contest the forfeiture.” Jason Buch and Guillermo Contreras, “Texas State professor’s property targeted by feds,” San Antonio Express News, 5 Sept. 2012.

Any speculation on the strength of the government’s case or the relative innocence of Dr. Chapa is premature. We simply don’t know much (beyond a rumored romantic relationwith Tomás Jesús Yarrington Ruvalcaba) because the DOJ was successful in keeping the supporting reasons secret. Still, it is unsettling to hear that San Antonio prosecutors regularly use sealed affidavits in civil asset forfeitures (and even more so if prosecutors are employing a concerted strategy to capture property while potential claimants are away).

Scott Meiner, Americans for Forfeiture Reform

Recent tales of asset forfeiture abuse in Tennessee sparked my curiosity as to how Tennessee law enforcement departments are handling (or mishandling) seized property. I am looking for credible accounts (relevant to asset forfeiture) of misappropriation of funds, stolen drugs, improper accounting, et cetera… I’ve concentrated my search on smaller departments with the thought that a couple of bad apples in Memphis do not (statistically) imply a great deal. However, I welcome any articles or reports contributors suggest. Blatant malfeasance in small departments strikes us as more descriptive of the problem and more supportive of the argument that permitting law enforcement to self-appropriate the fruits of seizures abrogates the power of the purse (castrating the electorate’s power to compel responsive government).

Contact @ scott[at]forfeiturereform.com

Initial findings:

3rd Judicial District Drug Task Force: Pervasive accounting deficiencies.

I have always enjoyed the old Soviet humor, and I thought I’d share this one that I found in my notes:

A flock of sheep were stopped by frontier guards at the Russo-Finnish border.

“Why do you wish to leave Russia?” asked the guards?

“It’s the NKVD!”, replied the terrified sheep. “Comrade Beria has ordered them to arrest all elephants!”

“But you aren’t elephants!” the guards pointed out.

“Try telling that to the NVKD!” replied the sheep.

 

-Eapen Thampy

This is causing some consternation in Georgian newspapers. (Or at least the English-language papers.)

Russia needs a “leap forward” to rejuvenate its sprawling defense industry, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, harkening back to the ambitious industrialization carried out by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the run-up to World War Two.

“We should carry out the same powerful, all-embracing leap forward in modernization of the defense industry as the one carried out in the 1930s,” Putin told his Security Council, without mentioning Stalin by name.

Stalin, who ruled the Soviet empire with an iron fist for 27 years, is blamed for the death of about six million people but also is praised by many Russians for winning the war and industrializing the country.

The but in that sentence is doing some seriously heavy lifting.

In the 1930s Soviet leaders transformed a rural country devastated by civil war into an industrial superpower, using terror and executions to impose strict discipline at new plants built across the vast country.

Putin’s top defense industry official Dmitry Rogozin posted on his Facebook page a copy of a 1940 letter from Stalin to gun factory managers and accompanied it with a sarcastic warning: “Such methods of improving discipline also exist”.

Stalin’s letter to the managers said: “I give you two or three days to launch mass production of machinegun cartridges… If production does not start on time, the government will take over control of the plant and shoot all the rascals there.”

“Of course, it was a joke,” Rozogin told reporters regarding his posting but added that failures would not be tolerated.

How positively mafioso of him. “Like Stalin, should you fail to produce weapons to our satisfaction, we will take your business, kill you, kill your workers, and kill your families.”

Pause.

“Ha, ha! I am just kidding!”

Pause.

“But seriously. We will not tolerate failure.”