Monthly Archives: April 2017

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZLEZ: We turn now to look at how Attorney General Jeff Sessions is attempting to shake up policing in the country by limiting federal oversight of police departments with a history of civil rights violations, while calling for an escalation of the war on drugs. Last week, Sessions ordered a wide-ranging review of the federal governmentof the federal consent decrees with local law enforcement agencies that have been accused of brutality and violating civil rights laws. The review signals the Justice Department intends to shift away from monitoring and forcing changes within police departments, such as the police department of Ferguson, Missouri, where systematic racial discrimination by the police and the police killing of unarmed 18-year-old African American Michael Brown sparked an uprising in 2014.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes after Attorney General Jeff Sessions openly expressed concerns about efforts at police reform in a recent speech.

ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS: Unfortunately, in recent years, law enforcement, as a whole, I think, has been unfairly maligned and blamed for unacceptable deeds of a few bad actors. Youve got some 800,000 state and local law officers and federal officers in America. Imagine a city of 800,000. Are you not going to have people make mistakes, people who commit crimes out of that group? And so, were not perfect. We all know that. Department of Justice is going to fulfill its role to ensure that law enforcement officers are not out of control. And if they violate the law, they will be punished. But weve got to be careful about what were doing. We cannot malign entire departments. Too many of our officers, deputies and troopers believe the political leadership in this country has abandoned them. ...

I like that line from Pirates of Penzance, I think, Gilbert and Stewart [sic] old line, says, "When constabulary duties are to be done, to be done, the policemans lot is not a happy one." You know? Its no fun to go out and hammer somebody and see him go to jail. Nobody likes to do that. But its our duty. Its our lot.

AMY GOODMAN: During the same speech in Richmond, Virginia, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for what many see as a new war on drugs.

ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS: We need to say, as Nancy Reagan said, "Just say no." Dont do it. ... And our nation needs to say clearly, once again, that using drugs is bad. It will destroy your life. In the 80s and 90s, we saw campaigns stressing prevention. ... We can do this again. Educating people and telling them the terrible truth about drugs and addiction will result in better choices by more people. We can reduce the use of drugs, save lives and turn back the surge in crime that inevitably follows in the wake of increased drug use.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, were joined by two guests: Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police Department and the author of the book To Protect and Serve: How to Fix Americas Police.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Sherrilyn, lets begin with you. Is this a new war on drugs? And can you talk about the judges decision?

SHERRILYN IFILL: Well, what we see with Attorney General Jeff Sessions is an effort to basically take us back in time. And you heard, you know, in the clip that you just posted, I mean, he talks about Nancy Reagan. I mean, this is a person whos stuck in the '80s, and in some instances, stuck in the 50s. And so, it's not just about the war on drugs. Its a kind of a retro view of law enforcement and policing in which hes attempting to wipe out the last 30 years of progress in this country, to the extent that its been madethe last four years, in particular, where weve really been focused on the issue of policing reform. And you talked about Ferguson and the uprising and whats happened. This intense look at unconstitutional policing, this is what Jeff Sessions doesnt want to deal with. He talks about a few bad apples. Hes not interested in looking at issues of systemic problems in the police department.

But, you know, the statute that governs these investigations and consent decrees, like in Baltimore, is called the Law Enforcement Misconduct Statute, 42 U.S.C. 14141. It was enacted actually as part of the 1994 crime bill as a result of the Rodney King assault and the acquittal of those officers in the first trial. Thats a statute that authorizes the attorney general to investigate unconstitutional policing, to engage in these consent decrees. So, to the extent that hes a law-and-order attorney general, this is a law hes willing to completely ignore.

In Baltimore, what hes attempted to do is essentially to undermine a consent decree that had been entered in January, had been negotiated over the course of six months by the city of Baltimore and by the Department of Justice. As soon as he came into office, Jeff Sessions immediately tried to begin slow walking approval of the consent decree. Even up to last week, the day before there was to be a public hearing, when the community was to come before the federal judge and explain to him what they wanted to see in the consent decree, Jeff Sessions filed a motion asking for a 90-day extension for the judge to review the decree. The judge approved the decree. And even then, Jeff Sessions released a statement essentially criticizing the decree, saying he thinks it will make people in Baltimore less safe.

We tried to intervene in the case, because we believe the Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions has no intention of fully enforcing the decree. The judge did not allow us to intervene, basically said its too early, that he assumes that the Department of Justice will enforce the decree. I hope hes right. I think we have enough reason to believe that Jeff Sessions has no intention of actually enforcing the consent decree that really will bring about transformative policing in Baltimore City. People in Baltimore have been waiting for this for years.

JUAN GONZLEZ: I dont think Ive ever seen, certainly not in my memory and in the memory of most people, such a complete about-face of a federal

SHERRILYN IFILL: Yes.

JUAN GONZLEZ: of a federal institution versus what the policy was in December and November of last year to what it is now, and the impact on so many of these cities, that already have these decrees, in terms of the fact that the Justice Department has a responsibility to enforce them. Im wondering what youre thinking whats going to happen?

SHERRILYN IFILL: Its actually quite astonishing. I mean, he ordered this review of 14 consent decrees. So were talking about Ferguson. Were talking about Cleveland. Were talking about places all over the country, in which police departments themselves have gotten on board with the idea of transformation. You know, when I met with Jeff Sessionsand I met with himI said to him, "Do you actually talk to local police? Because the chief of police in Baltimore will tell you out of his mouth he wants the consent decree." Even the head of the FOP said at their most recent labor summit in Las Vegas

AMY GOODMAN: The Fraternal Order of Police.

SHERRILYN IFILL: The Fraternal Order of Policesaid consent decrees bring resources to police departments. If you talk to police chiefswe work with the International Association of Chiefs of Policethey know that this is a moment when reform has to happen, that there does have to be 21st century policing. And so, I questioned Jeff Sessions, "I understand you have your own views, but do you talk to police?" The man who was just confirmed as Jeff Sessions deputy, Rod Rosensteinhes the former U.S. attorney from Baltimorejust a week before I met with Attorney General Sessions, had indicted seven Baltimore police officers for racketeering from the elite gun unitpolice officers who were shaking down residents of the community. I told this to Jeff Sessions. Hes got his own worldview. And he came in with that worldview, and no fact is going to shake that view.

AMY GOODMAN: What did Sessions say to you? What did he respond?

SHERRILYN IFILL: Well, so, besides calling me articulate, he essentially said, "Well, maybe Baltimore has some problems." But as you can see, it had no effect on him, because hes come forward with an effort to try to scuttle the decree.

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Jeff Sessions Pushes New War on Drugs While Killing Obama-Era ... - Democracy Now!

Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pennsylvania, will be President Trumps drug czar, according to a report from CBS News. Marinos congressional voting record is that of a hard-liner on marijuana issues, and he recently said hed like to put nonviolent drug offenders in some sort of hospital-slash-prison.

As drug czar, Marino would oversee the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a branch of the White House that advises the president on drug policy issues. More than anything else, the office sets the tone of an administrations drug policy. Under President Barack Obama, for instance, the office quite publicly retired the phrase war on drugs, preferring rhetoric centered more on public health than criminal justice.

Whether that approach continues is something of an open question. Former drug czars from a more militant drug policy era have been publicly agitating to bring back the war on drugs. Trumps attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is moving to put criminal justice back at the forefront of drug policy.

Marino appears to be in that camp as well, but his views are unlikely to influence the administrations policy in the same ways Sessions views do. Thats because the drug czars office has traditionally played a limited role in setting policy instead, it coordinates drug control strategy and funding across the federal government.

Still, with the selection of Marino, another piece of Trumps drug control strategy falls into place. In Congress, Marino voted multiple times against a bipartisan measure to prevent the Justice Department from going after state-legal medical marijuana businesses. (The measure ultimately passed.)

Similarly, he voted against a measure to allow Veterans Affairs doctors to recommend medical marijuana to their patients, as well as against a separate measure to loosen federal restrictions on hemp, a non-psychoactive variant of the cannabis plant with potential industrial applications.

Those votes place Marino well to the right of dozens of his Republican House colleagues who supported the measures. He also voted against a measure that would loosen some restrictions on CBD oil, a non-psychoactive derivative of the cannabis plant that holds promise for treating severe forms of childhood epilepsy.

Asked about marijuana legalization last fall, Marino told a reporter that the only way I would agree to consider legalizing marijuana is if we had a really in depth-medical scientific study. If it does help people one way or another, then produce it in pill form. But, he added, I think its a states rights issue.

As a congressman, Marino called for a national program of mandatory inpatient substance abuse treatment for nonviolent drug offenders. One treatment option I have advocated for years would be placing non-dealer, nonviolent drug abusers in a secured hospital-type setting under the constant care of health professionals, he said at a hearing last year.

Once the person agrees to plead guilty to possession, he or she will be placed in an intensive treatment program until experts determine that they should be released under intense supervision, Marino explained. If this is accomplished, then the charges are dropped against that person. The charges are only filed to have an incentive for that person to enter the hospital-slash-prison, if you want to call it.

Forced inpatient treatment in a hospital-slash-prison would presumably include drug users who are not necessarily drug abusers. Only about 21 percent of current marijuana users meet diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence, for instance. The other 79 percent do not need treatment for their drug use.

Marino acknowledged that implementing such a policy nationwide would take a lot of money.

Whether hell push for such a strategy as drug czar remains an open question. Beyond that, the offices track record on meeting its drug policy goals is not the greatest. In 2010, the office set a series of ambitious goals to reduce overall drug use, overdoses and drugged-driving incidents. A 2015 Government Accountability Office report concluded that it failed to meet any of them.

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Reported new White House drug czar aligned with 'war on drugs' backers - Bangor Daily News

Published: Apr 11, 2017, 8:59 am Updated: Apr 11, 2017, 9:47 am

By Sadie Gurman, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON For three decades, America got tough on crime.

Police used aggressive tactics and arrest rates soared. Small-time drug cases clogged the courts. Vigorous gun prosecutions sent young men away from their communities and to faraway prisons for long terms.

But as crime rates dropped since 2000, enforcement policies changed. Even conservative lawmakers sought to reduce mandatory minimum sentences and to lower prison populations, and law enforcement shifted to new models that emphasized community partnerships over mass arrests.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions often reflects fondly on the tough enforcement strategies of decades ago and sees todays comparatively low crime rates as a sign they worked. He is preparing to revive some of those practices even as some involved in criminal justice during that period have come to believe those approaches went too far, for too long.

In many ways with this administration we are rolling back, said David Baugh, who worked as a federal prosecutor in the 1970s and 1980s before becoming a defense lawyer in Richmond, Virginia. We are implementing plans that have been proven not to work.

Sessions, who cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the height of the drug war, favors strict enforcement of drug laws and mandatory minimum sentences. He says a recent spike in violence in some cities shows the need for more aggressive work. The Justice Department said there wont be a repeat of past problems.

The field of criminal justice has advanced leaps and bounds in the past several decades, spokesman Ian Prior said. It is not our intention to simply jettison every lesson learned from previous administrations.

Sessions took another step back from recent practices when the Justice Department announced last week that it might back away from federal agreements that force cities to agree to major policing overhauls. His concern is that such deals might conflict with his crime-fighting agenda.

Consent decrees were a staple of the Obama administrations efforts to change troubled departments, but Sessions has said those agreements can unfairly malign an entire police force. He has advanced the unproven theory that heavy scrutiny of police in recent years has made officers less aggressive, leading to a rise in crime in Chicago and other cities.

Its the latest worry for civil rights activists fretting about a return to the kind of aggressive policing that grew out of the drug war, when officers were encouraged to make large numbers of stops, searches and arrests, including for minor offenses. That technique is increasingly seen as more of a strain on police-community relationships than an effective way to deter crime, said Ronal Serpas, former police chief in New Orleans. He was a young officer in the 1980s when crack cocaine ravaged some communities.

Officers orders were simple, Serpas said: Go arrest everybody. We had no idea what the answers were, he said. Those of us who were on the front line of that era of policing have learned there are far more effective ways to arrest repeat, violent offenders, versus arresting a lot of people. Thats what we have learned over the last 30 years.

In a recent memo calling for aggressive prosecution of violent crime, Sessions told the nations federal prosecutors that he soon would provide more guidance on how they should prosecute all criminal cases.

Sessions approach is embodied in his encouraging cities to send certain gun cases to tougher federal courts, where the penalties are more severe than in state courts, and defendants are often sent out of state to serve their terms.

He credits one such program, Project Exile, with slowing murders in Richmond, Virginia, in the late 1990s. Its pioneer was FBI Director James Comey, who was then the lead federal prosecutor in the area.

In the community, billboards and ads warned anyone caught with an illegal gun faced harsh punishment. Homicides fell more than 30 percent in the first year in Richmond, and other cities adopted similar approaches.

But studies reached mixed conclusions about its long-term success. Defense lawyers such as Baugh said the program disproportionately hurt the black community by putting gun suspects in front of mostly white federal juries, as opposed to state juries drawn from predominantly black Richmond jury pools that might be more sympathetic to black defendants.

They took a lot of young African-American men and took them off the streets and out of their communities and homes and placed them in federal prison, said Robert Wagner, a federal public defender in Richmond.

Baugh argued the program was unconstitutional after a client was arrested for gun and marijuana possession during a traffic stop. He lost the argument, but a judge who revealed 90 percent of Project Exile defendants were black also shared concerns about the initiative.

Sessions has acknowledged the need to be sensitive to racial disparities, but has also said, When you fight crime, you have to fight it where it is if its focused fairly and objectively on dangerous criminals, then youre doing the right thing.

During the drug war, sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine crimes were seen as unfairly punishing black defendants. Sessions in 2010 co-sponsored legislation that reduced that disparity. But he later opposed bipartisan criminal justice overhaul efforts, warning that eliminating mandatory minimum sentences weakens the ability of law enforcement to protect the public.

My vision of a smart way to do this is, lets take that arrest, lets hammer that criminal whos distributing drugs that have been imported in our country, Sessions said in a recent speech to law enforcement officials.

The rhetoric sounds familiar to Mark Osler, who worked as a federal prosecutor in Detroit in the late 1990s, when possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine brought an automatic five-year prison sentence. Osler said he came onto the job expecting to go after international drug trafficking rings but instead we were locking up 18-year-old kids selling a small amount of crack, and pretending it was an international trafficker.

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Sessions' ambition to revive old-school war on drugs dismays veterans of that war - The Cannabist

CARSON CITY Nevadas war on drugs may be getting a makeover.

Assembly Bill 438 would put in place reduced penalties for offenses tied to controlled substances. Conflict over the measure is centered on the question of whether Americas decades-long war on drugs is working, and if Nevada should rethink its approach.

The war on drugs has been long and exhausting, and were not seeing any changes, Assemblyman Edgar Flores, D-Las Vegas, the bills sponsor, told the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Flores said Nevada has tougher drug penalties than the feds and stressed the need for low-level offenders to get treatment instead of prison time.

The bill has drawn support from public defenders and opposition from the Metropolitan Police Department. Supporters say a new approach is needed to provide treatment for addicts, pointing to Nevadas high incarceration rates.

The intent of this discussion and why were here today is me asking the state of Nevada to look at non-violent offenders who have flooded our prisons and we ask ourselves: Is that working? Flores said.

A spokesman for Metro, however, said sellers, not addicts have large amounts of drugs and called the bill a drug dealers dream come true.

The bill has a provision that provides a defense for someone who has been forced to engage in drug trafficking. Under the bill, possessing less than one gram of a drug would be a misdemeanor, with the exception of date rape drugs.

Penalties change

Lawmakers heard about the states drug laws from John Piro of the Clark County Public Defenders office. The existing structure, Piro said, is unfair, unworkable and does not give the judge any discretion.

Piro said the bill would put discretion back where it belongs with a judge.

State law does not require proof that the drugs were manufactured or intended to be trafficked for a trafficking conviction. The law also does not make a distinction regarding the type of drugs involved.

Currently, low-level drug trafficking is a felony with one to six years in prison for the possession of four to 14 grams of drugs. Mid-level trafficking, for possession of 14 to 28 grams of drugs, is a category B felony punishable by two to 15 years in prison. High-level trafficking involves 28 grams of drugs and is punishable by mandatory prison sentences of 10 years to life or 10 to 25 years.

Opposition and concerns

Chuck Callaway, representing Metro, urged lawmakers to reconsider. He said the department wants addicts to get help, but it has concerns about the rising violence tied to drug trafficking. About 20 percent of the murders this year in Clark County are drug-related, he said.

Callaway called the bill a drug dealers dream come true and noted that rather than saying the war on drugs has failed, its important to look for solutions.

Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-0661. Follow @BenBotkin1 on Twitter.

CHANGING PENALTIES

Assembly Bill 438 would create a framework for Nevada that would change the penalty for drug possession charge. The penalties would be:

A gram is about the same amount as whats in a packet of sugar.

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Measure aims for makeover of Nevada's war on drugs - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Middle East Eye

How the 'War on Drugs' sabotages the 'War on Terror' Middle East Eye Ultimately, all of this only further confirms the self-defeating nature of the war on drugs. One doesn't need an advanced degree in economics to understand how the principle of supply-demand dictates market forces. The criminalisation of drugs ...

Continued here:

How the 'War on Drugs' sabotages the 'War on Terror' - Middle East Eye

For all the foolishness that's come out of Camp Runamuck since it opened its D.C. satellite camp in January, the appointment of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as the nation's top cop may well go down in history as the worst of it. (Although Scott Pruitt at EPA may give JeffBo a run for his money.) It is now conventional wisdom that one of the worst mistakes the country ever made was launching its idiotic, wasteful "war"on drugs. In the three decades in which this "war" has been waged, we have lost two generations of African-Americans to the prison system, shaved the Bill of Rights down to a nub, tied the hands of the judiciary, and, finally, made not an appreciable dent in the problem of drug use and drug addiction. We have blessed ourselves with private prisons and militarized police forces, so there is that.

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Prior to the ascension of President* Trump, there was a strong, evolving, and bipartisan consensus that it was time to call a truce on the "war" we were making on our own citizens. The country was getting sensible about marijuana and mandatory minimum sentences at the same time; conservatives abandoned simplistic law 'n order coding and hopped on the bandwagon of criminal justice reform; in many cases, they took the wheel on it. And, at least rhetorically, the response to the opioid crisis was more reasoned and measured than the response to the crisis of crack cocaine wasand the reasons for that are worth exploring. But nobody wants to, least of all JeffBo. Over the weekend, we learned that this brief, fragile truce had ended.

From The Washington Post:

Law enforcement officials say that Sessions and Cook are preparing a plan to prosecute more drug and gun cases and pursue mandatory minimum sentences. The two men are eager to bring back the national crime strategy of the 1980s and '90s from the peak of the drug war, an approach that had fallen out of favor in recent years as minority communities grappled with the effects of mass incarceration. Crime is near historic lows in the United States, but Sessions says that the spike in homicides in several cities, including Chicago, is a harbinger of a "dangerous new trend" in America that requires a tough response.

This Cook fellow seems to have a real hangman's view of the human conditionor, at least, the condition of humans who don't look like him. He also has a real gift for unintentional irony.

"The federal criminal justice system simply is not broken. In fact, it's working exactly as designed," Cook said at a criminal justice panel at The Washington Post last year.

I'll bet it is.

(To his credit, a federal judge in Baltimore has already kicked ol' JeffBo where the sun don't shine.)

What We Saw This Week Was Truly Unprecedented

Of course, the great body of the Republican Party is scared chicken of the issue, which makes those few sincere Republicans pushing criminal justice reform all the more remarkable. One of the latter is decidedly not Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

After GOP lawmakers became nervous about passing legislation that might seem soft on crime, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. "Sessions was the main reason that bill didn't pass," said Inimai M. Chettiar, the director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. "He came in at the last minute and really torpedoed the bipartisan effort."

That's OK, because JeffBo has a couple of old standbys standing by.

Still, Sessions's remarks on the road reveal his continued fascination with an earlier era of crime fighting. In the speech in Richmond, he said, "Psychologically, politically, morally, we need to say as Nancy Reagan said 'Just say no.'"

And, of course, from a speech he gave in Richmond not long ago.

"When you fight crime you have to fight it where it is, and you may have at some point an impact of a racial nature that we hate to see. But if it's done properly it's the right thing."

Of course, what can possibly go wrong?

Why Jeff Sessions Is So Uniquely Dangerous

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Jeff Sessions Suggests You Just Say Yes to the War on Drugs - Esquire.com

The Philippine ambassador to the United Kingdom, Antonio Lagdameo, has a unique perspective on the murderous war on drugs launched by President Rodrigo Duterte in mid-2016.

Members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operatives search the area during their anti-drug operaitons in Quezon city, metro Manila, Philippines March 16, 2017.

2017 Reuters

In a letter published on Monday in the Guardian newspaper, Lagdameo asserted that Dutertes relentless campaign against illegal drugs is being waged with firm adherence to the rule of law, due process, and human rights.

If only.

In fact, since Duterte took office on June 30, 2016, police and unidentified gunmen have killed more than 7,000 suspected drug users and drug dealers. That death toll doesnt include the drug war victims Duterte calls collateral damage children killed by stray police bullets. Human Rights Watch research has turned the official narrative on its head: the 3,603 killings the police attribute to vigilantes and drug gangs are nothing more than a strategy to shield police and police agents from culpability in death squad-style extrajudicial killings.

Lagdameos statement doesnt just underscore his willful disregard of the brutality of Dutertes drug war. It also suggests he is unaware or unwilling to publicly acknowledge how Duterte has maderepeated calls for killings as part of his anti-drug campaign, which could constitute acts instigating law enforcement to commit murder. His statements encouraging the general population to commit vigilante violence could be criminal incitement.

The fact that Dutertes killing campaign has largely targeted urban slum dwellers could amount to crimes against humanity, as defined by the International Criminal Court, of which the Philippines is a member. On March 26, Duterte admitted that impoverished Filipinos constituted a large percentage of drug war victims and sought to justify those killings on the basis that he needed to clean up the Philippines.

But Lagdameo isnt the only Philippine official publicly soft-pedalling the appalling human toll of Dutertes drug campaign. On Monday, Philippine National Police Director-General Ronald dela Rosa declared that the 107 suspected drug users and drug dealers shot dead by police between March 6 and April 10 were proof the drug war was becoming less bloody. But dela Rosa has consistently resisted calls for an independent inquiry into the total 2,662 killings attributed to the police since July 1, 2016 by declaring it would harm police morale.

Filipinos deserve accountability for the human rights calamity that Duterte has unleashed on their country in the guise of a war on drugs, not cynical spin by diplomats and senior government officials.

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The Philippines' Cynical Apologists for Duterte's Brutal 'Drug War' - Human Rights Watch

WNYC

A Return to the War on Drugs; What's in the New York State Budget?; Pulitzer-Winning Reporting; John Waters Says ... WNYC The Obama administration may have launched criminal justice reforms to reduce long prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders, but the new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has plans to return to the crime fighting strategy of the so-called "war on ...

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A Return to the War on Drugs; What's in the New York State Budget?; Pulitzer-Winning Reporting; John Waters Says ... - WNYC