By Steven Lubet/The Conversation

President Donald Trump has exercised the pardon power more aggressively and creatively than most of his predecessors, granting pardons to political supporters such as Joe Arpaio and Dinesh D’Souza, and a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, who was convicted on a racially fraught charge of violating the Mann Act.
Trump has mused about pardoning Rod Blagojevich, as well as Robert Mueller probe targets Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. He’s even suggested he may pardon himself. And it is unlikely that he is done. The president has asked NFL players to suggest other possible pardon recipients who have been “unfairly treated by the justice system.”
I may not be a member of the NFL, but I do have a recommendation of my own.

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Posted on July 31, 2018

‘An exposé of the grim reality of children coming of age in prison’

“Terrence was 16 when he and three other teens attempted to rob a barbeque restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. Though they left with no money and no one was injured, Terrence was sentenced to die in prison for his involvement in that crime.” – Cara H. Drinan, The War on Kids
– via the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
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“Last [October], Texas executed Robert Pruett, who was already serving a 99-year sentence for murder when he was convicted of stabbing a correctional officer with a makeshift weapon,” Drinan wrote then for USA Today.
“Pruett maintained to his death that he had not killed the officer, and there was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. The state relied on inmate witnesses who allegedly received favorable deals in exchange for their testimony implicating Pruett. As irrational as it may seem, it is very difficult to mount a claim of actual innocence in the American appellate process, and we will likely never know whether Texas executed Pruett for a crime he did not commit.
“But we do know this: Robert Pruett did not belong in adult prison in the first place.”

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Posted on July 23, 2018

By Cotton Seiler/The Conversation

In the summer of 2017, the NAACP issued a travel advisory for the state of Missouri.
Modeled after the international advisories issued by the U.S. State Department, the NAACP statement cautioned travelers of color about the “looming danger” of discrimination, harassment and violence at the hands of Missouri law enforcement, businesses and citizens.
The civil rights organization’s action had been partly prompted by the state legislature’s passage of what the NAACP called a “Jim Crow bill,” which increased the burden of proof on those bringing lawsuits alleging racial or other forms of discrimination.
But they were also startled by a 2017 report from the Missouri attorney general’s office showing that black drivers were stopped by police at a rate 85 percent higher than their white counterparts. The report also found that they were more likely to be searched and arrested.
When I first read about this news, I thought of the motoring guidebooks published for African-American travelers from the 1930s to the 1960s – a story I explore in my book from the University of Chicago Press, Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America.
Although they ceased publication some 50 years ago, the guidebooks are worth reflecting on in light of the fact that, for drivers of color, the road remains anything but open.

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Posted on July 20, 2018

By The Electronic Freedom Foundation

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that industry groups cannot control publication of binding laws and standards.
This decision protects the work of Public.Resource.org, a nonprofit organization that works to improve access to government documents. PRO is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation; the law firm of Fenwick & West; and attorney David Halperin.
Six large industry groups that work on building and product safety, energy efficiency, and educational testing filed suit against PRO in 2013.
These groups publish thousands of standards that are developed by industry and government employees.

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Posted on July 18, 2018

By Jon Tennant/Aeon

The world of scholarly communication is broken. Giant, corporate publishers with racketeering business practices and profit margins that exceed Apple’s treat life-saving research as a private commodity to be sold at exorbitant profits. Only around 25 percent of the global corpus of research knowledge is “open access,” or accessible to the public for free and without subscription, which is a real impediment to resolving major problems, such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Recently, Springer Nature, one of the largest academic publishers in the world, had to withdraw its European stock market flotation due to a lack of interest. This announcement came just days after Couperin, a French consortium, cancelled its subscriptions to Springer Nature journals, after Swedish and German universities cancelled their Elsevier subscriptions to no ill effect, besides replenished library budgets. At the same time, Elsevier has sued Sci-Hub, a website that provides free, easy access to 67 million research articles. All evidence of a broken system.

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Posted on July 15, 2018

By Darail Drake

Man Up is a novel based on the true story of a young man who learns the hard lessons of fathering children without being equipped to care for them.
Throughout this coming-of-age story, the main character remains nameless (because He could be any man in the same situation).
After conflicts arise with the mothers of his first three children, he leaves without remorse, forcing them to fend for themselves.
As the story progresses and He matures, He meets Britney and falls in love for the first time in his life. They work hard to build a life together, and along the way have two daughters. He couldn’t be happier. He finally has the life and family he has always dreamed of. However that happiness is fleeting. Suddenly Britney flips the script and leaves. Now he’s the one left with the kids!

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Posted on July 9, 2018

By Sway In The Morning

“Comedian, D.L. Hughley stopped by Sway In The Morning to talk about his satirical book on social injustice and police brutality called How Not to Get Shot: And Other Advice from White People.

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Posted on July 3, 2018