The Honest Courtesan

People applauding this policy should also specify what prison term they favor for people who sell full-strength cigarettes.  –  Jacob Grier

Not for Any Reason Whatsoever

No, your reason is not an exception:

A new investigation by The [Washington] Post reveals at least 178 cases from 2019 to 2021 in which calls for help resulted in [cops murdering]…the very people they were [foolishly] called on to assist.  We used The Post’s nationwide database of fatal police shootings along with public reporting to identify cases in which the callers were concerned primarily for the individuals’ well-being and no imminent harm to others was reported.  Many of the calls [referr]ed…to people in mental health crises, [ignorantly] requested wellness checks or reported suicide threats.  The calls came from the distressed individuals themselves or were made by worried [but foolish] family members, friends or neighbors…

License to Rape (#957)

The police state’s insulting idea of compensation for a mass public gang rape:

In July 2020, when I had been out of prison for about 18 months, IDOC offered us money and asked us to sign an agreement absolving them of any wrongdoing.  I asked my attorney what would happen if I didn’t sign the papers, and he told me that the judge might throw the lawsuit out…I was still not going to sign.  But my attorney…convinced me.  “You know there are women inside that need that money,” he said.  I knew…it was a manipulative statement.  But…I [also] knew…that this money could mean the difference between deprivation and a pair of shoes, a pack of T-shirts or the chance to shop for food…The shame of those days stayed with me for years.  But…there is not enough space in one piece to detail the atrocities.  For the Halloween strip search, IDOC mailed me a check for $325.  Although the agency continues to assert that their staff did nothing wrong, this check that I may never cash is proof that they are guilty…in the eyes of IDOC, my pain — and that of my sisters — is only worth $325…

Robocops (#1044)

SCOTUS expands one of the greatest legal abominations ever conceived:

…anyone who has their rights violated by federal government agents…ha[s] no recourse against those rogue actors.  A federal badge will now serve as an impenetrable shield against civil liability…The justices announced…that they would decline to consider two major petitions. In the first, St. Paul [sow] Heather Weyker, who was serving on a federal task force, conjured a fake sex-trafficking ring and [cag]ed a teenage girl for two years on trumped-up charges.  In the second, [spook]…Ray Lamb a[ttempted]…to [murder] a man…though [the voctim was spared when his gun] jammed…[neither] Weyker [nor] Lamb…are…protected by qualified immunity…but because they were working for the federal government, they are protected by absolute immunity…and their victims—Hamdi Mohamud and Kevin Byrd, respectively—[are shit out of luck]…

Lack of Evidence (#1203) 

Contrast the speed with which legislatures manage to pass laws increasing cops’ powers:

California [politician]s are finally sending to Gov. Gavin Newsom a hot potato of a bill that would bar police from…arrest[ing women for standing in a public place after a cop points at them and belches out the magic word “]prostitution[“, a delay of] nine months after the measure passed the Legislature…[copsuckers] see it as a further erosion of criminal penalties that tie the hands of police on [consensual] issues…Greg Burt, a spokesman for the California Family Council, and other opponents fear it’s part of an eventual effort to decriminalize [thoughtcrime.  In support of his authoritarian agenda, he vomited out the words]…”sex trafficking”…[all over open-mouthed reporters]…

Welcome to the Future (#1227)

Conditioning kids to accept constant, intrusive surveillance:

Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns…long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses…Americans face an unprecedented, record-breaking wave of legislation targeting transgender youth…and…[the overturn of] Roe v. Wade…That means that students who use their devices to research trans healthcare or abortion related material could find those devices weaponized against them, potentially resulting in criminal charges…

The Vultures Descend

22 vultures coming in for the kill:

[Jacob Sullum of Reason has published] a state-by-state rundown of what we can expect now that the Supreme Court has decided the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion after all.  Red indicates the 22 states that are certain or likely to soon impose or start enforcing new restrictions on abortion, ranging from moderate to severe.  Green indicates the 23 states where abortion will remain broadly legal.  Blue indicates the five states where new restrictions are unlikely in the short term but are possible in the longer term, depending on electoral outcomes or judicial decisions…

A Moral Cancer (#1227)

Because obviously prohibition doesn’t ruin enough lives yet:

…the…FDA…[has arbitrarily banned] Juul’s…tobacco- and menthol-flavored vaping products…[despite the fact that Juul’s] application…was…detailed and data-heavy, showing just how effective it was at transitioning smokers away from cigarettes, toward a safer alternative …The company…became a victim of an intensely ideological war on nicotine…[when prohibitionists decided to blame] Juul…for the rise of youth vaping…[using the venerable puritan lie] that flavors like mango and cucumber [only]…appeal…to the younger demographic…The claim that Juul’s flavors were the underlying cause for the rise in youth vaping is highly dubious, considering there were thousands of different flavors for other e-cigarettes on the market years before Juul took off…

And just in case you think the government isn’t intentionally trying to create a black market so as to start a horrific new front in the drug war:

The Biden administration continues its misguided war on nicotine….[with] plans to require cigarette makers to severely cut the amount of nicotine in their products…nicotine itself isn’t what makes cigarettes so dangerous…it’s the other ingredients…and the byproducts of combustion, that make smoking cigarettes so bad for you.  This is one reason why the war on vaping is so stupid, and also speaks to the half-baked premises of the Biden administration’s latest anti-smoking plan…people already addicted to nicotine will still be addicted—they’ll just have to smoke more cigarettes to get their nicotine fix…low-nicotine cigarettes could actually make smoking riskier by requiring smokers to smoke more and consume more of the other substances in cigarettes in order to get the same level of nicotine they’re used to…[also,] other countries will still be producing full-nicotine cigarettes.  And this opens up a great opportunity for smuggling and black market sales of higher nicotine cigarettes…

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