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In The Trenches

Your Favorite Prison Artists and Performers on YouTube

[Courtesy of Prisons Foundation] 

There's a treat in store for you when you click the below YouTube links. One will take you to a video montage of our recent Kennedy Center show "From Prison to the Stage." The other features the best artwork at our Prison Art Gallery. Each beautiful and inspiring video, produced by ex-prisoner Kevin Horrocks, is less than two minutes and is accompanied by the music of ex-prisoner jazz guitarist Dennis Sobin.

Video of Kennedy Center ex-prisoner show produced by Prisons Foundation

Video of outstanding art at the Prison Art Gallery, Washington, DC

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SWAT Raids Often Target Innocent People

In addition to killing an unarmed mother of six and shooting a baby, it turns out that the SWAT team in Lima, OH has been raiding innocent people quite regularly:

LIMA - More than a quarter of the 198 raids by the Lima Police Department SWAT team in the last seven years came up empty-handed without finding drugs, weapons, paraphernalia or money.

And nearly a third of the time, police do not find drugs or a weapon. Drugs alone were found in nearly two-thirds of the raids and a weapon, by itself, was found one-third of the time. [LimaOhio.com]

That’s a lot of innocent doors getting kicked in and a lot of innocent people having guns held to their head. Yet, the Lima PD actually thinks it’s something to be proud of:

"That means 68 percent of the time, we're getting guns or drugs off the street," said Maj. Kevin Martin, who called the numbers a success.

Nothing could more perfectly illustrate the complete detachment that underscores a policy of routinely terrorizing innocent citizens. Think about this: the Lima officer who shot Tarika Wilson claimed that he killed her because he was startled by the sound of gunfire caused by his fellow officers shooting dogs elsewhere in the house. That is sort of thing that can happen during these raids, and they know it.

Thus, Maj. Martin’s statement reveals that Lima PD has learned nothing after killing Wilson and shooting her baby’s finger off. They are proud that some of the people whose lives they endanger in these raids turn out to be actual criminals. The rest just don’t factor into the equation. Not even little babies.
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Nasal Congestion Sufferer Arrested for Buying Too Much Cold Medicine

The drug war’s mindless persecution of sick people goes beyond medical marijuana:

MASON CITY — Gary Schinagel has suffered from chronic nasal congestion from the time he was a youngster.

When he was a child growing up in Sheffield his family doctor told him, “Gary, this is something you’ll be dealing with all your life.”

Little did he know.

Last Wednesday, Schinagel, 47, a senior investment associate at Principal Financial Group in Mason City, was arrested for the illegal purchase of pseudoephedrine. [Globe Gazette]

Arrested for buying cold medicine. It’s happened before, too. Can you even imagine how many cold sufferers have declined to purchase cold medicine for fear of having their door kicked in by the cops?

If you don’t know about things like this, you don’t fully understand what the drug war does. The real drug war consists of the accumulation of every mindblowingly absurd outcome our policies have produced. It’s not just a game of cops and robbers. It’s a philosophy that corrupts our consciousness, permeates our policymaking, and eventually results in completely normal and innocent people being arrested all the time for some of the stupidest reasons one could possibly imagine.

Also: On a very related note, this weekend CVS wouldn't sell Radley Balko the medicine he needed.
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Stop illegal immigration: End the war on drugs

DrugWar Image by WRDLWordle

Mexico is exporting poverty and importing dollars. The US is exporting dollars and our borders are being scammed on a massive scale.

This situation will continue as long as Mexico cannot provide opportunities to its people. What needs to happen so that Mexicans want to stay in Mexico?