| Apr 12, 2017 | Rights / DemocracyOne of President Trump’s favorite themes is what he calls “American carnage” — typified by “the violence” and “the gangs.” To that end, he’s repeatedly highlighted the violence in Chicago. A few days after he was inaugurated,...
| Jan 20, 2016 | Rights / DemocracyYou may have heard there’s a growing political movement against mass incarceration. Someone should clue in the judges. In the past 30 years, federal judges have turned to imprisonment — as opposed to probation — as the punishment of choice for even minor crimes,...
| Dec 30, 2015 | Peace / SecurityRight around Thanksgiving, the city of Chicago released a dash-cam video showing the cold-blooded murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald at the hands of a Chicago Police Department officer. The very next day, the Chicago Urban League — supported by my organization, the...
| Jun 17, 2015 | Peace / SecurityI’ve gotten a lot of unwelcome mail from the feds these last few years, like a copy of my indictment for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. But this latest delivery was something altogether new. My jaw dropped as I scanned the form letter from the...
| May 20, 2015 | Rights / DemocracyJeffrey Sterling recently stood before a judge as his sentence was read. The former CIA officer, the judge declared, would spend 42 months — that’s three and half years — behind bars. The feds had convicted Sterling on nine felony charges, including seven counts...
