FourScore
FourScore's JournalFirst-time, non-violent drug offenders serve longer than for rape, child molestation, manslaughter
WBUR Boston's NPR Station
MA Reviews Mandatory Minimums
By Monica Brady-Myerov July 30, 2007
SNIP
...MONICA BRADY-MERYOV: Michaelene Sexton is a 55 year old grandmother of four who wears her strawberry blonde hair in a long braid. In the 1990s she was a bartender in Greenfield with a 10th grade education, three children, no husband and a growing cocaine habit.
MICHAELENE SEXTON: And I met this person who offered it to me at a very cheap price and I started including a friend or two in on it and it eventually got it really cheap or for free and eventually I started making a little money at the same time. It just snowballed. I never intended to be selling drugs.
MONICA BRADY-MERYOV: But she did — for almost 10 years. In 1999 she was arrested for possession of 100-200 grams of cocaine with intent to distribute. That amount could be packaged into as many as 9,000 $10 bags of cocaine. Her conviction fell under state mandatory minimum sentencing laws so the judge was not able to take into consideration the fact that she had never been arrested before, had no weapons and was a single mother of three.
MICHAELENE SEXTON: I never imaged that I would end up in prison for 10 year never imagined that could happen because I didn’t murder anyone. I didn’t rape anyone I’m not a child molester. I was a woman who had a drug problem and was doing illegal activities didn’t expected to get a longer sentence than people who do violent crimes. I never expected that.
MONICA BRADY-MERYOV: But federal research shows that the average sentence for a first time, non-violent drug offender is longer than the average sentence for rape, child molestation, bank robbery or manslaughter...Mandatory sentencing laws require the person serve all of the time in prison, no probation, no work release...
MORE AT: http://www.wbur.org/2007/07/30/ma-reviews-mandatory-minimums
Cleared of charges after explosion, Florida teen gets full scholarship to space academy
(Actually, as I understand it, the popping of the soda bottle's cap did not happen in science class, but rather on the school grounds. Still...great story!!)Thu May 23, 2013 at 07:21 AM PDT
Cleared of charges after explosion, Florida teen gets full scholarship to space academy
by Jen Hayden
By now you've heard about Kiera Wilmot. She's the Florida teen who was arrested for setting off a small explosion in her science class:
The school's resource officer arrested her on two possible felony charges, possessing a weapon on campus and discharging a destructive device. Kiera was suspended for 10 days, sent to an alternative school, which she still attends, and told she faced expulsion.
Her headline-making nightmare hit one NASA veteran hard:
In the late 1950s, Hickam had a brush with law enforcement for allegedly starting a forest fire. State police came to his high school and led him and his friends away in handcuffs, but his high school physics professor and school principal came to the rescue, clearing him of wrongdoing.
Hickman became determined to see Kiera Wilmot succeed:
Great news! But it gets even better:
Both Wilmot sisters are headed to the Space Academy! Sometimes good things really do happen to good people. Three cheers for Homer Hickam!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/23/1211154/-Cleared-of-charges-Florida-teen-gets-full-scholarship-to-space-camp
BREAKING: Breyerwood Elementary has taken a direct hit. Reports of kids trapped.
God help those babies please!
"Breyerwood Elementary School in Moore has taken a direct hit with "extensive damage," and students are trapped. The tornado is moving off beyond Moore now, towards Draper Lake and southeastern Oklahoma County."
TORNADO LIVEBLOG FROM WEATHERDUDE: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/20/1210482/-Tornado-Liveblog-Storms-Starting-To-Fire-Will-Quickly-Turn-Severe
CANTOR PWNED BY WHITE HOUSE!!
Thu May 16, 2013 at 06:55 PM PDT
CANTOR PWNED BY WHITE HOUSE!!
by BrainwrapFollow
This is real.
We're living in strange times indeed, people...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/16/1209690/-CANTOR-PWNED-BY-WHITE-HOUSE
Teen Girl Expelled, Charged With a Felony After Science Experiment Goes Awry
Teen Girl Expelled, Charged With a Felony After Science Experiment Goes AwryTakepart.com – 8 hrs ago
SNIP
...This week, Kiera Wilmot went to school and mixed some household chemicals in a tiny 8-ounce water bottle. It looked like a simple chemistry project but then the top popped off when a small explosion occurred.
Wilmot, who is in good standing as a student, said it was an accident. The Bartow High School principal told a local television station that the teen made a “bad choice” and called her a a good kid who has never previously been in trouble...
SNIP
In another era, Wilmot may have gotten scolded and sent back to class. But in this age of zero-tolerance policies, Wilmot is in deep trouble. She was arrested on Monday morning after the incident and charged with possession and discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device.
In turn, she was expelled and will finish her high school years in an expulsion program...
http://news.yahoo.com/teen-girl-expelled-charged-felony-science-experiment-goes-050006336.html
Bombing Investigation Severely Hampered by NRA! Demand Congress ACT!
Wed Apr 17, 2013 at 06:31 PM PDT
Bombing Investigation Severely Hampered by NRA! Demand Congress ACT!
by SemDem
I have been on hiatus for a month but this has gotten me so angry I have to write....
The NRA has once again stopped the most FUNDAMENTAL background check for owning an assault rifle---no doubt with many fence-sitting GOP senators hoping the front-page publicity of this awful terror attack will shield them from potential fallout.
The same day that the NRA's GOP minions decided that it was okay for a violent criminal to shoot me in the face, I discover that the Boston investigators are blocked from doing a thorough investigation because of the NRA and their allies.
Identification taggants are used to make it possible to trace explosive materials after detonation back to the source of the bomb. It is simple, cheap, and allows tracing to a point of sale. Law enforcement, the ATF, and others have pleaded for it. Clinton tried to make it mandatory after the OK City bombing. Current experts say it would have helped with the current investigation.
WHO would POSSIBLY oppose this technology?
The same idiots who oppose a background check for a killing machine....
MSNBC:
The FBI said Tuesday that gunpowder, along with pieces of metal and ball bearings, were packed into at least one pressure cooker and another device to make the crude bombs that killed three people—including an 8-year-old boy—and wounded more than 170 more during the Boston Marathon Monday.
But a crucial piece of evidence called a taggant that could be used to trace the gunpowder used in the bombs to a buyer at a point of sale is not available to investigators.
“If you had a good taggant this would be a good thing for this kind of crime. It could help identify the point of manufacturer, and chain of custody,” Bob Morhard, an explosives consultant and chief executive officer of Zukovich, Morhard & Wade, LLC., in Pennsylvania, who has traced explosives and detonators in use in the United States and Saudi Arabia, told MSNBC.com. “The problem is nobody wants to know what the material is.”
Explosives manufacturers are required to place tracing elements known as identification taggants only in plastic explosives but not in gunpowder, thanks to lobbying efforts by the NRA and large gun manufacturing groups.
This is nothing new. The ATF has complained that the long-unsolved Unabomber case along with the WTC, Atlanta, and OK City bombing investigations could have been significantly helped with taggant technology. For pete's sake, this was an article back in the LA Times in 1995:
The article was written 18 years ago... so this technology is well over 30 years old. But the NRA blocks it each time. WHY? The NRA actually claims it affects the trajectory of bullets (utter BS), and amounts to a "de facto" form of gun registration (really?). Both wonderful reasons why teams of investigators have to add weeks to their investigation combing through a city street for clues when they could possibly have had a lead already.
OBAMA NEEDS TO GET SERIOUS!
He should call for Harry Reid to introduce legislation TODAY to allow taggants in gun powder.
LET the f*ing NRA fight it! Let the GOP Senators filibuster it!! GO on... I'll wait....
THEN introduce background checks. AGAIN! Then introduce allowing taggants... AGAIN!! Rinse. Repeat.
All the way to 2014!!!
It's time people know whose side the NRA is really on: the side of violent shooters and terrorists. It's the only way things will change.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/17/1202707/-Bombing-Investigation-Severely-Hampered-by-NRA-Demand-Congress-ACT
Carlos Arredondo is the true hero we need today!
Mon Apr 15, 2013 at 08:29 PM PDT
Carlos Arredondo is the true hero we need today!
by elmaji
Carlos was born in Costa Rica. He moved to America as an undocumented worker and had two beautiful sons. But it wasn't long before the ugly face of politics took one of those sons away. His son Marine Lance Corporal Alexander Arrendondo was killed in Iraq in 2004. Carlos responded to the news in absolute grief, dousing himself with gasoline and setting light to himself before being tackled to the ground. Once taken to the hospital he had 20% of his body covered in burn scars.
Since that day Carlos had traveled the country. Protesting against the war, and was even attacked by right wing nutjobs for doing so. In 2006 Edward Kennedy working on his behalf was able to obtain Citizenship for Carlos Arredondo. But that's not where the story ends.
Carlos continued to protest well past 2008 and 2009. Setting up booths at Occupy Boston so that people would not forget what his son gave for this country and what this nations greed had cost him.
But in 2011 another blow would hit the Arredondo family; as his other son, Brian, still unable to reconcile the loss of his brother 7 years later, took his own life. Since that day Carlos has worked at home and throughout the nation to promote law changes and suicide prevention.
Each standing by their own are amazing stories. For any individual just doing one of these things would be enough to make them a hero in the eyes of others. But Carlos is not a ordinary man, and these alone are not the events that make him the Hero this nation needs.
No. Today as bombs went off at the Boston Marathon Carlos was there and he was not just going to sit about while people laid dying around him.
Carlos stood up! Carlos took these people; bodies torn apart by shockwave and shrapnel, some missing legs, some with limbs torn apart!
He lifted them up! He placed one legless man in a wheelchair and clamped his Femoral Artery by HAND. He wheeled him to a ambulance and went back for more! He was not afraid of a second explosion or another attack. He was only concerned with helping others.
He saved that man and many other peoples life.
For those who are reeling as a result of this attack, and seem to lose hope that this world could ever be a better place despite of the violence going on around us here is the evidence, the proof. There is still hope in this world. There is still hope in America.
Carlos Arredondo is that hope. He is that Hero so needed. He is a an amazing man. A man who deserves applause and much more for what he has done today. Despite facing every odd in his life and having everything set against him. He has come out as one of the finest example of the Human Condition and our America and what we stand for.
THANK YOU CARLOS ARREDONDO! MAY YOUR ACTIONS TODAY IN BOSTON NEVER BE FORGOTTEN!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/15/1202093/-Carlos-Arredondo-is-the-true-hero
In Memoriam -- Kurt Cobain
He actually died 19 years ago on April 5th. It was a tragic loss. Thanks for the music, Kurt.
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