Despite the fact that it has been proven that red light cameras don’t work, the State of Florida tweaked its rules on traffic signals, reducing the time of a yellow light by a fraction of a second, resulting in millions more in revenue for the state.
Hernando County officials recalibrated the signals after this story aired to make their intersections less dangerous.
Last week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Forces conducted hearings entitled Oversight: The Law of Armed Conflict, the Use of Military Force, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force in which the Pentagon admitted that we are in an endless war against terrorism.
Senator Angus King tells the Pentagon officials that they have essentially rewritten the constitution.
Pentagon officials today claimed President Obama and future presidents have the power to send troops anywhere in the world to fight groups linked to al-Qaeda, based in part on the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Speaking at the first Senate hearing on rewriting the AUMF, Pentagon officials specifically said troops could be sent to Syria, Yemen and the Congo without new congressional authorization. Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, predicted the war against al-Qaeda would last at least 10 to 20 more years. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) challenged the Pentagon’s interpretation of the Constitution and that the entire world is a battlefield. “This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today,” King said. “You guys have invented this term ‘associated forces’ that’s nowhere in this document. … It’s the justification for everything, and it renders the war powers of Congress null and void.”
Read more at Common Dreams and Democracy Now!
From npr:
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a longtime legal resident of the United States was improperly deported for possession of a small amount of marijuana. By a 7-2 vote, the justices said that it defies common sense to treat an offense like this as an “aggravated felony” justifying mandatory deportation.
Adrian Moncrieffe immigrated with his parents to the United States from Jamaica in 1984. He was 3 years old at the time. He and his family were all legal residents. He grew up, became a home health care worker, got married, and started a family in Georgia. In 2007, during a routine traffic stop, police found a small amount of marijuana in the car, about enough to make two or three cigarettes.
Moncrieffe, with no prior record, was charged in state court with possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, a crime that under Georgia law allows for a wide range of sentences. His lawyer did not advise him that if he pled guilty he could be deported. The U.S. Supreme Court has since required that lawyers give such information to defendants.
The federal government, however, jailed and then deported him to Jamaica, contending that under federal law, there was no discretion on the matter because Moncrieffe had been convicted of an aggravated felony.
Not so, said the court on Tuesday, ruling that Moncrieffe’s Georgia conviction was not in fact an aggravated felony, meaning that the government had discretion to forgo deportation. Writing for the seven-member majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that possession of marijuana with intent to distribute is a federal crime, but she said that where the amount is small and there is no sale, the crime does not qualify as an aggravated felony, or even a felony. The government’s attempt to characterize such an offense as an aggravated felony, she said, “defies the commonsense conception of these terms.”
Montcrieffe has a great chance of now returning to the United States and to his family.
North Korean propaganda videos are certainly entertaining. This time, their video targets the United States with KN-08 missiles that are intended on hitting Washington, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, and Honolulu. The only problem is, they have no idea that Colorado Springs is in Colorado, nor do they even know where Colorado is.
You can hear the narrator mention Colorado Springs at about 1 minute, 20 seconds into the video, as a scary-looking line is shown shooting out from North Korea and landing somewhere in the vicinity of Shreveport, La., a 900-mile drive southeast from the intended target.
