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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Helgoland]

Wait a second - they're black, poorly educated, shunned by society. I see hardly any difference.

[GlyphGryph]

Wait a second - they're black, poorly educated, shunned by society. I see hardly any difference.

No, no, it's okay because it also targets (a few) white people, and it's legal! Also it targets people that deserve it in the minds of the populace at large. Arguably non-racist and only targets unpopular groups means it is totally not slavery.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I feel like a lot of that comes down to the cocaine/crack incarceration dichotomy.

[Lord Shonus]

The War On Drugs in general has much, much harder impact on lower-class inner-city youth, primarily because those are the areas where a cheap high is a welcome escape from an unpleasant reality, along with the flashy fast money from dealing being much, much more appealing to (for example) the eldest son of a single mother of six that works three jobs just to provide essentials and keep their slumlord happy than it does to the only son of a pair of bankers that was raised without the concept of "money is limited". A disproportionately large number of those demographics are black or hispanic, which shows up in the high incarceration rates for drug offences. That sort of environment also breeds gang culture, both due to gangs having a near monopoly on the drug supply and the fact that gangs provide a sense of family and solidarity that is all too often lacking for people that come from broken homes or homes where the parents work so much that the older children raise the younger ones. Again, these demographics are disproportionately black and Hispanic, and thus the gangs that grow out of that demographic are disproportionately black and Hispanic.

The best way to reduce this problem is pumping money, lots of money, into reinvigorating the inner cities and developing decent jobs there. Problem is that that's a very expensive long-term proposition that would be a very hard sell.

[Angle]

Also ending the bloody drug war and legalizing pot. That's at least cut down on the pointless convictions and end the gang's monopoly on drugs.

[Lord Shonus]

Marijuana legalization would help, as would turning the War On Drugs into a primarily educational and rehabilitation (as in addiction treatment programs and such) effort along with continuing to interdict the border. However, that wouldn't address the fundamental economic foundation for the problems.

[SealyStar]

Private prisons being a shitty idea is at once pretty fundamental logic and something I know of chiefly from a Kanye West song [Parental Warning: Explicit, duh].

[Reelya]

A virus wipes out millions of pigs thus spiking the price of bacon. Naturally the headline is "damn you Obama"
http://rare.us/story/obamas-america-the-cost-of-bacon-is-about-to-skyrocket/

[Frumple]

Turkey bacon will still be fine, right?

... right?

_{aww, who am I kidding, the price will up proportionately even if the cost of production slash supply/demand ratio doesn't change, because capitalism}

E: I liked this part, though:

“We’ll take part of the hit, and we’re feeling it,” Meyer said. “There are no winners here.”

"'There are no winners,' says Meyer, while still maintaining vaguely ludicrous markups on cost." I guess being less of a winner is like not being one, right? Sorta'?

[scriver]

Good news for Denmark, I guess.

I wonder if that's a anti-biotic resistant strain too, though.

[scriver]

Ah. Oh well. No complaining about animal keeping antibiotic standards for this one, I guess.

[SalmonGod]

A policeman shot and killed a young black male in St Louis today.  I've read a few stories, and there's varying reports of the details, so I'm not going to provide a link.  Some say the kid was 17.  Some say he was 18.  One that looks consistent is the victim was unarmed and shot 10 times.  The incident may have begun when he stole some candy from a convenience store.

The remarkable thing is that immediately following the gunshots, around 200 people poured out from surrounding buildings and put on an angry display, including death threats against police.  Sounds like the foreshadowing to a riot if the city doesn't take immediate steps to alleviate tensions.

[Owlbread]

A policeman shot and killed a young black male in St Louis today.  I've read a few stories, and there's varying reports of the details, so I'm not going to provide a link.  Some say the kid was 17.  Some say he was 18.  One that looks consistent is the victim was unarmed and shot 10 times.  The incident may have begun when he stole some candy from a convenience store.

The remarkable thing is that immediately following the gunshots, around 200 people poured out from surrounding buildings and put on an angry display, including death threats against police.  Sounds like the foreshadowing to a riot if the city doesn't take immediate steps to alleviate tensions.

This is actually how the London Riots began. Despite the fact that our patrol officers don't carry guns that doesn't stop the ones who are allowed to carry to be unpleasantly trigger happy on the odd occasion. Police in St. Louis had best be aware.

I also worked out today that I don't actually hate Obama. I thought I did, but I just dislike him for his weakness, his lack of authenticity and his attitudes. What I actually hate isn't the man himself but the fact that he is the best the "Free World" can get. I resent that more than I resent him.

[SalmonGod]

It's how several riots have begun in the U.S., but they don't seem to learn from it here.  Almost without exception they just recycle the same sterile lines about unfortunate tragedy to the media, and expect to get away with claiming the officer was justified because of some rarely substantiated claim that the victim made them afraid for a moment.  And most of the time they do get away with.  Police in the U.S. are allowed to jump instantly into lethal force over any split-second thought of "This suspect might be armed and/or might attack me".  Examples include clenching fists or light glinting off a metal object in the victim's hand as they turned around to face the officer.  And considering how fleeting or immaterial those justifications can be, there's rarely much burden of evidence.

But sometimes they don't get away with it, there's a riot, and then they actually take the case seriously and punish the officer for fear of more riots.  I think in every case this has happened, it's been an instance where there were many witnesses or video evidence made available to the public, and it's been in or near a major city where racial tensions or just bad community relations with the police have been building up for a while.  I think St Louis qualifies.

[Loud Whispers]

I particularly like the one where a gunman had just murdered his boss and walked out onto the streets where police opened fire into a crowd shooting everyone but the gunman who shot himself.