Headline, money graf

Why do we throw prostitutes in prison?

Texas, not exactly known for its leniency to offenders, also came close to  eliminating its felony penalty this year. (A bill made it out of committee but wasn’t voted on, and there is still felony prostitution in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan and Missouri.) ”It’s nuts that we’ve got this many prostitutes in prison, people that we’re not afraid of, but we’re just mad at,” the state’s Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire  told the Austin American Statesman last year. “By locking them up, we’re not fixing the problem — we’re just spending a lot of money incarcerating them, warehousing them, when we could be spending a lot less getting them treatment so they can get out and stay out of this business.”  

Why we don't need the Keystone XL pipeline:

Here are some interesting facts you might not be aware of:

• The United States now exports gasoline: Some 15 million barrels of gasoline a month. That's about 500,000 barrels a day. We're selling so much that exports have quadrupled in just seven years.
  

• Americans are using a lot less gasoline. Demand peaked back in September 2007 at almost 9.3 million barrels a day. Today, we consume about 8.7 million barrels a day — a drop of 600,000 barrels a day.

We're producing way more gasoline than we need. The gap between supply and demand is so great, in fact, that the only market oil refiners can find for their product is overseas, where demand is growing (and prices are often much higher).

And this is happening even before booming U.S. shale oil and natural gas production really kick into high gear over the next few years, which brings me to two more observations:

• The United States is on track, says the International Energy Agency, to become the world's top oil producer in just seven years — bigger than Saudi Arabia by 2020.
  

• The U.S. will become a net exporter of oil around 2030 and nearly self-sufficient in energy by 2035.

That means that we'll have so much oil in just a few years that we'll be able to export it — like the Saudis do now — and won't need a drop from anyone.

So with all of that in mind, tell me: Why do we need the Keystone pipeline?

Zimmerman and Martin: Some facts so simple that even Fox 'News' should be able to understand ...

1) George Zimmerman had been arrested and charged for an act of violence. Trayvon Martin hadn't.

2) George Zimmerman had had a restraining order granted against him for alleged domestic abuse. Trayvon Martin hadn't.

3) George Zimmerman had a history of racial conflict. Trayvon Martin didn't.

George Zimmerman's attorney seems to think the personal history of the shot dead unarmed black teenager is relevant. And he's right. It is. Because the shot dead unarmed black teenager had no history of legal problems arising from acts of violence. George Zimmerman, on the other hand, did.

Frank Lautenberg, the last of the New Deal liberals

One of the few members of Congress who could remember listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the radio and going to college on the initial GI Bill, Lautenberg served five terms in the US Senate as a champion of great big infrastructure investments—especially for Amtrak and urban public transportation—great big environmental regulations, great big consumer protections and great big investigations of wrongdoing by Wall Street.

Lautenberg was the only remaining US senator who served in WWII.