The Bundy Family’s Odd Mormon Connection, Explained

The Bundy family claims a Mormon faith as inspiration for their cause…

As John Sepulvado pointed out over at OPD, Cliven Bundy repeatedly cited his Mormonism to justify his standoff with the United States government in 2014, insisting he has a right to graze cattle on federal land because his Mormon ancestors worked it long before the federal Bureau of Land Management was established.

Drug War Statistics

Did you know....
Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: More than $51,000,000,000

Number of arrests in 2014 in the U.S. for drug law violations: 1,561,231
Number of these arrests that were for possession only: 1,297,384 (83 percent)
Number of arrests in 2014 in the U.S. for marijuana law violations: 700,993
Number of these arrests that were for possession only: 619,809 (88 percent)
Number of Americans incarcerated in 2014 in federal, state and local prisons and jails: 2,224,400 or 1 in every 111 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world

Proportion of people incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison who are black or Latino, although these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates as whites: 57 percent

Number of states that allow the medical use of marijuana: 23 + District of Columbia

Number of states that have approved legally taxing and regulating marijuana: 4 (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington)

Rise of the American police state: 9 disgraceful events that paved the way

From the War on Drugs to the militarization of police, these deeply unsettling milestones got us where we are

The August 19 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the protests that followed have focused attention on the militarization of police in the United States. Police overreach, especially in African-American neighborhoods, is nothing new: it was Marquette Frye’s confrontation with California Highway Patrol officers on Aug. 11, 1965, that sparked the Watts Riots in Los Angeles almost half a century ago. But much has changed since the 1960s and 1970s: American police are a lot more militarized than they were back then, and many of the checks and balances that made the U.S. a democratic republic have been eroded by both courts and politicians. Here are 10 events of recent decades that have encouraged the growth of a police state in the U.S. and promoted the type of toxic environment in which unarmed Brown was shot six times.

Stop and seize

Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes

fter the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the government called on police to become the eyes and ears of homeland security on America’s highways.

Local officers, county deputies and state troopers were encouraged to act more aggressively in searching for suspicious people, drugs and other contraband. The departments of Homeland Security and Justice spent millions on police training.

Asset Forfeiture, the Cash Cow of the Drug War

During a July 9 traffic stop in Meridian, Mississippi, police found $360,000 stashed in a secret compartment in the car. Though that’s perhaps an eyebrow-raising amount of money, readers of that linked article might notice something odd—the driver was let go, but the money was kept by the cops. The unnamed individual may or may not get that cash back, but whether they’re charged with a crime is not necessarily the point. If you have a suspicious amount of cash—sometimes much less than 360 grand—the cops can seize it, and it’s on you to prove that the money isn’t connected to a crime. This is the intersection of civil law’s low burden of proof for prosecutors and criminal law’s aggressive reach. And it’s done a lot to fund bad police policies.