Agencies & Systems
U.S. government agencies and systems
Ex-members of the IRA and the British military have rarely encountered each other since the 1998 Good Friday agreement brought to an end 30 years of violence that had claimed more than 3,700 lives. Four former members of the British army and four former members of the Irish Republican Army commenced a meeting that was intended to start a process of reconciliation among men who had once been the most implacable of enemies.
Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation tracks how many police officers die in the line of duty, it keeps no such record for how many civilians are killed by police each year
Nation’s top teacher, Stacie Starr, resigns amidst environment that fails children who cannot quickly grasp material, study like a robot and navigate standardized testing. Starr spoke of her reasons for leaving teaching, saying: “I can’t do it anymore, not in this ‘drill ‘em and kill ‘em’ atmosphere.”
![Questioning the Charter School Hype [Project Censored #21]](https://i1.wp.com/consciouslifenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/32265559_m-ElementaryTeacherandStudents-680x380.jpg?resize=675%2C240&ssl=1 "Questioning the Charter School Hype [Project Censored #21]")
Charter schools have been heralded as the antidote to “failed” public schools, especially in poor urban communities of African-American and Latino/a students. However, as Salon, AlterNet, and other independent media outlets have reported, charter schools have come under fire for not fulfilling the roles or achieving the results that their proponents have claimed. Instead of providing positive teaching and preparing children for the future, recent news reports have indicated that charter schools are subjecting students to padded cells, public shaming and embarrassment, poor instruction, and the negative consequences of financial corruption.
Nine men were recently accused of growing marijuana illegally on private and federal land. The men are arguing that the charges of a $10 million fine and life in prison should be dropped because marijuana is inaccurately classified by the U.S. government as a Schedule 1 substance.
A report released by the Sentencing Project, a Washington DC–based nonprofit criminal justice advocacy group, revealed that the number of prisoners serving life sentences in the US Prison System (state and federal) reached a new record of close to 160,000 in 2012. Of these, 49,000 are serving life without possibility of parole, an increase of 22.2 percent since 2008. Ashley Nellis, senior research analyst with the Sentencing Project, argued that the rise in prisoners serving life sentences has to do with political posturing over “tough on crime” measures.
A federal judge on Friday struck down Alabama’s gay marriage ban. U.S. District Court Judge Callie Granade wrote in her ruling: “Those children currently being raised by same-sex parents in Alabama are just as worthy of protection and recognition by the State as are the children being raised by opposite-sex parents. Yet Alabama’s Sanctity laws harms the children of same-sex couples for the same reasons that the Supreme Court found that the Defense of Marriage Act harmed the children of same-sex couples.”
On the fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which unleashed a scourge of dark money and unlimited corporate spending in U.S. elections, a coalition of reform-minded organizations gathered on Wednesday to promote several key pieces of legislation aimed at countering the influence of big money in politics.
Quantitative easing is just the latest chapter in the Federal Reserve’s hundred-year history of failure. Despite this poor track record, Fed apologists still claim the American people benefit from the Federal Reserve System. But, if that were the case, why wouldn’t they welcome the opportunity to let the American people know more about monetary policy? Why is the Fed acting like it has something to hide if it has nothing to fear from an audit? The American people have suffered long enough under a monetary policy controlled by an unaccountable, secretive central bank. It is time to finally audit — and then end — the Fed.
Human experimentation was a core feature of the CIA’s torture program. The experimental nature of the interrogation and detention techniques is clearly evident in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s executive summary of its investigative report, despite redactions (insisted upon by the CIA) to obfuscate the locations of these laboratories of cruel science and the identities of perpetrators…because the concept of torture has been so muddled and disputed, [the author] suggest(s) that accountability would be more publicly palatable if we reframed the CIA’s program as one of human experimentation.
‘There is an almost criminal gang in our government’s security agencies which is not subject to democratic accountability of any kind.’
From black sites to #BlackLivesMatter, it’s time to end impunity for criminals with badges
Legal experts and human rights advocates says prosecutions must follow Senate’s report on CIA torture as president says grave violations of domestic and international law should be kept “where they belong—in the past”
Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted on any charges for shooting and killing unarmed African American teenager Michael Brown, a St. Louis grand jury has decided.
The grand jury’s decision was announced Monday evening by Bob McCulloch, the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County. He said that “no probable cause exists” to file any charges against Wilson.
Officer Wilson potentially faced charges of first- or second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter. At least nine of the 12 people on the jury needed to agree to bring charges in order to indict Wilson. It’s unclear exactly how that vote unfolded.
NYC Police Commissioner Bill Bratton announced that possession of 25 grams or less of cannabis would no longer be an arrestable offense. As marijuana arrests become more lenient, and the acceptance of cannabis possession frees up resources for other pursuits for law-enforcement personnel, hopefully the state of New York will follow with its own laws accepting cannabis.
