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Jay Z: 'The War on Drugs Is an Epic Fail'

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Why are white men poised to get rich doing the same thing African-Americans have been going to prison for?

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we need more schools for more kids to get their education and not more prisons.

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Gang violence is a big issue because people don't feel safe in their own community

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school needs to get better one of the first things that should get fix is the teacher's paychecks and that class rooms shouldn't be crowed but if the room is their should be more then one teacher in the class

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I believe there is a way we can change all the police violence, but no one really is deciding to do much. We may like and share posts about violence, but hardly anyone actually physically does anything.

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In our country and in many others LGBTQ+ people get discriminated and abused for how they were born and we need to help people understend that being gay is okay. We are all human and we should all be equal

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This is a 10-part series on LGBT rights in Southeast Asia, which uncovers the challenges facing the LGBT community in the region and highlights the courageous work of activists there. For the next nine days, we'll be telling the stories of each country in the region. There will be a new one each day. Scroll to read them.
SINGAPORE -- "No one cares about Southeast Asia," LGBT activist Jean Chong says, her eyes downcast as she lets out a small mirthless laugh. "The western world -- they find it hard to comprehend how backward we are when it comes to LGBT and human rights. They don't understand the sophistication of oppression here."

Chong is based in Singapore, one of four Southeast Asian nations where it is illegal to be gay. One of the four Asian Tigers, Singapore -- with its towering skyscrapers and affluent, well-educated population -- may be one of the richest countries in the world, but when it comes to LGBT rights, it has an appalling record. Chong says it's become a "leader" in limiting, rather than protecting, the rights of its people.

"Singapore is a case study of what happens when you have economic success without human rights," Chong, who is a co-founder of the LGBT rights organization Sayoni, says. "And what's disturbing is how a lot of countries, like China and Laos and Russia, now want to copy Singapore's model."

Sayoni has been documenting cases of abuse and discrimination against Singapore's LGBT community over the last few years. It's the first time that such a project has been undertaken here, and Chong says she's been "shocked" by what they've uncovered.

"It's been quite emotional," she says.

Dressed in black on a sticky September afternoon, Chong has an easy, open demeanor. Her eyes smile behind her silver-rimmed spectacles. She speaks evenly, and without anger, about the challenging work she does -- lobbying lawmakers and trying to change unwilling hearts. At the end of our meeting at a downtown cafe, she envelops me in a warm embrace.

Yet, when asked to share stories from the people she met during the project, her shoulders stiffen and her voice quavers.

"There's so much abuse that's being underreported, especially within the family," she says. "There are cases of so-called 'corrective' rape, or kids becoming homeless after being kicked out. One girl told me she was raped by her brother's friend but when she told her parents, they said she had 'deserved it' because she was a lesbian. There have been all kinds of horror stories. Violence has just become so normalized."

Chong says she regularly faces discrimination in public.

"I look tomboyish and there's a lot of gender-policing," she says. "I have people who will just walk up to me and tell me I should get beaten up. Non-conformity disturbs people."

Stories like these, Chong says, are unfortunately not unique to Singapore. The rejection of the LGBT community is endemic across Southeast Asia (defined for the purposes of this article as the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN). The countries may be vastly different in their politics, economy, culture and history -- from communist Vietnam to Sharia-ruled Brunei to Myanmar, which is struggling to open itself to the world after years of oppressive rule -- but they all share at least one problematic trait.

"If you look at Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, and also Laos, it's very backward when it comes to LGBT rights ... but even in the other, more 'progressive' countries, there are problems. Butch women are being killed in rural areas in Thailand, trans women are being targeted in the Philippines," Chong says.

At the time of writing, homosexuality remains criminalized in Brunei, which abides by strict Sharia law, and countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar continue to adhere to an antiquated colonial-era law that bans same-sex intercourse. When enforced, the punishment for being gay in these countries can be severe, including: being stoned to death, whipped, or thrown in prison.

Other than Thailand, which just this month announced the enactment of a groundbreaking Gender Equality Law, ASEAN countries currently don't have anti-discrimination laws to guarantee equality of all citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Thailand still does not have legislation protecting persons based on sexual orientation. The new law only protects against discrimination on the grounds of gender expression.

Gay marriage is illegal in all the ASEAN countries, and none of them has offered legal recognition or protection for same-sex partnerships, including civil unions. Same-sex couples across the region aren't entitled to adopt children. And in many countries, it is difficult, if not impossible, for single women to access in vitro fertilization and related fertility treatments and services.

Similarly, access to services such as gender-confirmation surgery or hormone therapy for transgender people is limited. Changing one's gender designationis also a challenge in most of ASEAN.

As a result of these repressive legal and policy frameworks, the abuse and marginalization of LGBT persons is a pervasive problem across the region.

A U.S. Marine is currently on trial for the murder of a trans woman in the Philippines. He has admitted to "choking" her to death in a motel after discovering that she had male genitalia. Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is serving a five-year prison term after he was convicted of sodomy, which is illegal in the country. And last August, a member of parliament in Myanmar said the government was " constantly taking action " to have "the gays" detained by police.

"Discrimination is a common thread, going through LGBTI lives throughout [ASEAN]," Edmund Settle, a policy advisor for the United Nations Development Programme, tells The Huffington Post from his office in Bangkok.

Settle is one of the coordinators of a recent landmark project spearheaded by the UNDP and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which analyzed the state of LGBT rights in parts of Asia. Several Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines, were included in the study.

The findings were alarming.

Social stigma and discrimination were found to be limiting job and education opportunities, as well as access to healthcare for LGBT people in all the ASEAN countries studied. Bullying and other forms of abuse and harassment were also found to be widespread.

"[ASEAN] countries are also really limiting civil society space. This lack of space for civic engagement limits the ability to organize, mobilize and advocate," Settle says. "This is hampering efforts to improve the state of rights."

Activists in the region say their main priorities are pushing for greater visibility for the LGBT community, and also for the enactment of national anti-discrimination legislation in all countries.

Such legislation is critical in the region, Chong says, "because so far ASEAN nations have very poor promotion and protection of human rights."

Chong is one of the leaders of the ASEAN Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression Caucus, an activist collective that's urging regional leaders to include the network in ASEAN Human Rights Mechanisms, including the association's Human Rights Declaration. Except for Brunei and Laos, the caucus includes activist groups from all the ASEAN countries.

Every day we don't protect LGBT people, some of us die, some of us turn to sex work because we don't have the skills or access to better employment, some of us turn to illegal work to live.

Regional LGBT groups are working double-time in an effort to push for these legal protections, according to Ging Cristobal, a Manila-based activist with OutRight Action International and another leader of the Caucus. The need is desperate, she says.

"I always emphasize that every day we don't protect LGBT people, some of us die, some of us turn to sex work because we don't have the skills or access to better employment, some of us turn to illegal work to live," Cristobal says.

The challenges facing the activist community, however, are immense. Across the region, there are major issues of authoritarianism, corruption and political instability, not to mention an entrenched disregard for human rights.

Still, as with fights of equality through history and the world over, regional activists are determined to make a difference.

"Activists are working assiduously across ASEAN," Kyle Knight, an LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells HuffPost. "They're going up against these great obstacles, either explicit ones in the case of colonial-era laws or implicit in the form of discrimination. These are incredibly courageous people."
Scroll down to read each part of this series. We'll be unveiling a new one every day.
Aceh, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, is known for its draconian system of Sharia law. It has a population of 4.7 million and is the only province in Indonesia where homosexuality is illegal. According to a December Reuters report, the LGBT community has been forced " into hiding " there.

Earlier this year, the deputy mayor of Banda Aceh, the province's capital, labeled homosexuality "a social disease that should be eradicated."

The province, however, is hardly the only place in Indonesia where it's unsafe to be LGBT.

Last October, a transgender woman named Jennifer Laude was found dead inside a motel room in Olongapo City, Philippines. Motel staff found her naked body on the floor of the bathroom, her head leaning on the rim of the toilet bowl.

U.S. Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton admitted in August to strangling the woman. The 19-year-old said in court that he was "repulsed" and " feared he would be raped " after discovering that Laude was transgender. That fear, he said, prompted him to "subdue" her in self-defense.

He later allegedly told a fellow Marine: "I think I killed a he/she."

LGBT activist Corky Hope Maranan told the Associated Press last year that the case was one of the worst hate crimes she has seen."This is just so abominable," she said.

Kenneth Chee and Gary Lim have been together for almost two decades, but in the eyes of the law they're criminals.

The couple met by chance at a shopping mall in Singapore in 1997. "I guess my 'gaydar' went off," Chee recalls. "I just went up to him and asked him for his number." They've been inseparable ever since.

"If gay marriage was legal here, we would get married in a heartbeat," Lim says. Chee, by his side, nods in agreement.

But gay marriage is not legal in Singapore. Same-sex civil partnerships are also not recognized, and there are no laws that protect against discrimination on the grounds of gender expression or sexual orientation.

When Meas Sophanuth started to transition in high school, his mother -- afraid that her child would bring shame to the family -- tried to stop what she saw as his "unnatural" behavior.

She took away his phone, kept him at home, and forbade him from seeing his friends. She finally took her son to a traditional healer, known in Cambodia as a Kru Khmer, in the hope that the shaman would be able to "cure" him.

It was a traumatic experience, Sophanuth, who identifies as transgender, told the Phnom Penh Post last year. "After that, I did not feel warm to my parents anymore. They frightened me," he said.

Such attempts at "curing" are not uncommon in Cambodia, where LGBT people are often seen as being mentally ill or as being possessed with "bad spirits."

In Brunei, being gay could soon be punishable by death.

But that hasn't always been the case. Homosexuality has long been a criminal offense in the country, which is located on the island of Borneo. But while the punishment was previously 10 years in prison, the oil-rich sultanate announced last year that it was introducing a three-phased plan to impose Islamic Sharia law at the national level -- becoming the first Southeast Asian country to do so. Under the new law, same-sex intercourse is punishable by death by stoning.

"It's a return to medieval punishment," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch told The Guardian last year. "It's a huge step back for human rights in [the country] and totally out of step with the 21st century."

Walk into any theater in Malaysia screening a movie with a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender character, and you can expect to watch a similar plot unfold: All LGBT characters will " die or repent " by the end of the film.

In a move that was considered to be an improvement, the Malaysian government's Film Censorship Board issued a controversial guideline change in 2010.

"We are now allowed to show these scenes," Malaysian Film Producers' Association president Ahmad Puad Onah told Agence France-Presse. "As long as we portray good triumphing over evil and there is a lesson learned in the film, such as from a gay [character] who turns into a [straight] man. Previously we are not allowed to show these at all."

Malaysia has long been unequivocal in its stance on LGBT issues.

When a group of transgender women was arrested by police officers in the city of Mandalay, Myanmar, in 2013, they were allegedly forced to strip in public, before being taken to a nearby police station where they were " repeatedly punched and kicked."

A police spokesman said at the time that the cops had been performing a "public service" by preventing the group from congregating.

Hla Myat Tun, a human rights activist with the Burmese LGBT group Colors Rainbow, tells The Huffington Post that such "state-sponsored discrimination" is a grave concern for the LGBT community in Myanmar, where homosexuality is criminalized.

"Vietnam: Flawed on Human Rights, but a Leader in Gay Rights" read a 2013 Atlantic headline. "On Gay Rights, Vietnam is Now More Progressive Than America," NBC News reported in January. A few days earlier, Bloomberg had declared: " Gay Weddings Planned as Vietnam Marriage Law Is Repealed."

But the positive headlines only tell part of the story. Activists say while Vietnam is certainly evolving when it comes to LGBT issues, it's not a "leader in gay rights." LGBT people face widespread abuse and discrimination, particularly in their homes. And though the country -- one of two communist nations in Southeast Asia -- abolished a ban on same-sex marriage earlier this year, gay couples are neither recognized nor protected by law.

If there is one word to describe the LGBT community in Laos, the landlocked nation sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, it might just be "invisible."

"'LGBT' is still abstract terminology, yet to be clearly identified to the eyes and ears of the public," Anan Bouapha, who is often referred to as the leader of the country's nascent LGBT movement, tells The Huffington Post.

Still, there has been limited progress in recognizing the LGBT community.

At Wat Kreung Tai Wittaya, a Buddhist temple in Chiang Khong, Thailand, transgender teens are being taught to be "more manly."

"We cannot change all of them but what we can do is to control their behavior to make them understand that they were born as a man ... and cannot act like a woman," Headmaster Phra Pitsanu Witcharato told Agence France Presse in 2011.

About 2.5 percent of LGBT teens in Thailand, a Buddhist-majority country, are forced to enter the monkhood to be "cured," according to the Foundation for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights and Justice. Some are pushed into undergoing psychological treatment by their families, while others are kicked out of the home.

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Being LGBT In Southeast Asia: Stories Of Abuse, Survival And Tremendous Courage

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This is a 10-part series on LGBT rights in Southeast Asia, which uncovers the challenges facing the LGBT community in the region and highlights the courageous work of activists there. For the next nine days, we'll be telling the stories of each country in the region. There will be a new one each day.

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gun violence is an issue that is thrown under the rug and it needs to be solved

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gun violence is an issue that is thrown under the rug and it needs to be solved

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Many students cut the line and maybe because of the amount of students in line or because of the less places were we get are lunch. There are ~2,500 students at Edison High School an only 6 lines and should be at least 2 more lines because of the amount of students

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One's problems can't be solved by suicide. Even if we are told to go kill ourselves, we still have the right to be happy no matter what. So, don't judge a person by what they do or act they are being themselves. And letting them have only two options can take them to the one that leads to not seeing the light once more.

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Nina Simone was outspoken about race relations, she risked her fame and fortune for her cause.

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united states is made of all cultures and how can one man destroy that

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Racial profiling is a huge problem in America , people are being judged and profiled bases on the color of there skin . But in all reality we are all the same no matter our difference.  #NoChallengeNoChange

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In the Fresno community, there are too much violence around multiple neighborhoods.

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The memory of a Fresno woman who stood up to gang violence took center stage in a Fresno courtroom on Friday when the man who wounded her in a drive-by shooting in June 2014 was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Ceclia Hernandez did not get to see Friday's sentencing of Eric Tremel Hughley, 28. She died Aug. 10, 2015, in a traffic crash five days after she testified against Hughley's co-defendant, Tabarri Maurice Townsend. Hernandez was 19 years old.

Because of her testimony, Townsend, 23, was sentenced to 80 years to life in prison, prosecutor Andrew Janz said Friday during Hughley's sentencing hearing.

But not having Hernandez available to testify made it difficult to prosecute Hughley, Janz said, so he told Judge Don Penner that he reluctantly offered Hughley a plea deal.

"Cecilia's death was especially difficult because she was a brave, young woman who was not afraid to speak out against evil by confronting her attackers," Janz said. "At least with this plea deal her memory will be honored and her family will receive some semblance of justice."

Cecilia's death was especially difficult because she was a brave, young woman who was not afraid to speak out against evil by confronting her attackers.

Fresno prosecutor Andrew Janz

Fresno police said Jose Mendoza, 22, and Hernandez were sitting in a Chrysler PT Cruiser in front of Hernandez's home near Fresno Chandler Executive Airport when a small, dark sedan pulled up alongside them just before 3 a.m. on June 29, 2014.

The car was driven by Abdray Lee Valentine, 39. Hughley was in the front passenger seat and Townsend was in the back seat. Townsend was holding a 9mm firearm with a laser sight aimed at Mendoza's head while Hughley was holding a .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun, Janz said.

One of them asked Mendoza if he was was in a gang. When Mendoza said no, Hernandez pleaded with them not to shoot her because she had a daughter. But they cursed her and Mendoza before Townsend and Hughley opened fire, Janz said.

About a dozen bullets were fired. Hernandez was shot three times, including in the abdomen. She spent a week in intensive care and about a month in the hospital, Janz said. Mendoza was shot in the arm. Both victims survived to testify against Townsend in his August 2015 trial.

Prosecutors said Friday that Hernandez got a better look at the shooters because Mendoza was occupied shielding her from the gunfire.

Five days after her testimony, Hernandez and another teen were killed in a car crash on Millerton Road near Friant Road.

Townsend was tried separately because after the shooting he was held on a probation violation. Valentine and Hughley, however, were released pending the results of gunshot residue and ballistic testing, Janz said.

Police said Jose Mendoza and Cecilia Hernandez were shot in front of Hernandez's home near Fresno Chandler Executive Airport on June 29, 2014.

Once the results came back, Valentine and Hughley were arrested, but their cases were filed separately from Townsend's, court record say.

In May this year, Valentine pleaded no contest to attempted murder. Because he wasn't a shooter, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. Hughley pleaded no contest on Aug. 31 also to an attempted murder charge and a gun allegation.

In court Friday, Janz said Mendoza continues to live in fear and Hernandez's family still mourns her loss. Janz said Hughley's sentencing closes a tragic chapter in the victims' lives.

Hughley didn't address the court, but he wrote a letter to Judge Penner. In the letter, Hughley expressed remorse and didn't deny being a shooter, said Fresno defense lawyer Yan Shrayberman, who represented Hughley.

Hughley also told Penner that he had a difficult childhood and had no one to guide him because his father died when he was 4 months old. Hughley said his main goal was to complete his prison term so he could be a positive figure in his young daughter's life.

Penner said he was impressed with Hughley's letter. In announcing the punishment, Penner told him: "You can't change the past, but you certainly can do something positive in the future."

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'Brave woman' helped convict man who shot her, but died before another could be tried

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The memory of a Fresno woman who stood up to gang violence took center stage in a Fresno courtroom on Friday when the man who wounded her in a drive-by shooting in June 2014 was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Ceclia Hernandez did not get to see Friday's sentencing of Eric Tremel Hughley, 28.

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MTV VMAs: Kendrick Lamar dominates as awards show gets political

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MTV VMAs: Kendrick Lamar dominates as awards show gets political

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Artists spoke out against white supremacy and urged suicide awareness during the awards on Sunday night.

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"We the people" are all immigrants.

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Our country is ran by a president who loves doing nothing more then calling people out on Twitter. He sets an example for others who now think cyber bullying is okay.

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The Government is the makes America the most corrupted country in the world because https://www.juancole.com/2013/12/corrupt-country-world.html

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https://www.juancole.com/2013/12/corrupt-country-world.html

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America is going backwards in time with the race situation. many people feel as if their life does not matter.

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Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly "corrupt" always imply that the United States is not corrupt.

VOA reports :

While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.

1. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced into it by the system. House Majority leader John Boehner has actually just handed out cash on the floor of the House from the tobacco industry to other representatives.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter French police actually went into his private residence searching for an alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L'Oreale heiress. I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions from arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police haven't been anywhere near his house.

American politicians don't represent "the people." With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.

2. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like banking (what is called "regulatory capture") means that they will be so bribed. Billions were spent and 3,000 lobbyists employed by bankers to remove cumbersome rules in the zeroes. Thus, political corruption enabled financial corruption (in some cases legalizing it!) Without regulations and government auditing, the finance sector went wild and engaged in corrupt practices that caused the 2008 crash. Too bad the poor Afghans can't just legislate their corruption out of existence by regularizing it, the way Wall street did.

3. That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of Americans have not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of corruption.

4. The US military budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military budgets of the next twelve major states. What isn't usually realized is that perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It is corporate welfare on a cosmic scale. I've seen with my own eyes how officers in the military get out and then form companies to sell things to their former colleagues still on the inside.

5. The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and penitentiary. There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized, and this tendency is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to profit from putting and keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is made all the more troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for minor crimes, to deny parole and to imprison people for life for e,g, three small thefts.

6. The rich are well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the rich. This and other government policies has produced a situation where 400 American billionaires are worth $2 trillion, as much as the bottom 150 million Americans. That kind of wealth inequality hasn't been seen in the US since the age of the robber barons in the nineteenth century. Both eras are marked by extreme corruption.

7. The National Security Agency's domestic spying is a form of corruption in itself, and lends itself to corruption. With some 4 million government employees and private contractors engaged in this surveillance, it is highly unlikely that various forms of insider trading and other corrupt practices are not being committed. If you knew who Warren Buffett and George Soros were calling every day, that alone could make you a killing. The American political class wouldn't be defending this indefensible invasion of citizens' privacy so vigorously if someone somewhere weren't making money on it.

8. As for insider trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it hastily passed forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider trading (buying and selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of future government policy). That this practice only became an issue recently is another sign of how corrupt the system is.

9. Asset forfeiture in the 'drug war' is corrupting police departments and the judiciary.

10. Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that people can with a straight face assert that scientists aren't sure human carbon emissions are causing global warming. Fox Cable News is among the more corrupt institutions in American society, purveying outright lies for the benefit of the billionaire class. The US is so corrupt that it is resisting the obvious urgency to slash carbon production. Even our relatively progressive president talks about exploiting all sources of energy, as though hydrocarbons were just as valuable as green energy and as though hydrocarbons weren't poisoning the earth.

Even Qatar, its economy based on natural gas, freely admits the challenge of human-induced climate change. American politicians like Jim Inhofe are openly ridiculed when they travel to Europe for their know-nothingism on climate.

So don't tell the Philippines or the other victims of American corruption how corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion and you aren't corrupt, you're respectable.

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Top 10 Ways the US is the Most Corrupt Country in the World

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Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly "corrupt" always imply that the United States is not corrupt. VOA reports : While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects.

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Unintentional Stigmatizing of Mental Illness

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Unintentional Stigmatizing of Mental Illness

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We often don't think about how our word affect other. I have heard many people jokingly saying, "kys" or making jokes about self harm. Even joking about flashbacks could be stigmatizing to those, like me, who have PTSD.

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In my opinion guns are to accessible in our country. People have the ability to get all the guns they want for with nothing but a background check.

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Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly "corrupt" always imply that the United States is not corrupt.

VOA reports :

While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.

1. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced into it by the system. House Majority leader John Boehner has actually just handed out cash on the floor of the House from the tobacco industry to other representatives.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter French police actually went into his private residence searching for an alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L'Oreale heiress. I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions from arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police haven't been anywhere near his house.

American politicians don't represent "the people." With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.

2. That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like banking (what is called "regulatory capture") means that they will be so bribed. Billions were spent and 3,000 lobbyists employed by bankers to remove cumbersome rules in the zeroes. Thus, political corruption enabled financial corruption (in some cases legalizing it!) Without regulations and government auditing, the finance sector went wild and engaged in corrupt practices that caused the 2008 crash. Too bad the poor Afghans can't just legislate their corruption out of existence by regularizing it, the way Wall street did.

3. That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of Americans have not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of corruption.

4. The US military budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military budgets of the next twelve major states. What isn't usually realized is that perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It is corporate welfare on a cosmic scale. I've seen with my own eyes how officers in the military get out and then form companies to sell things to their former colleagues still on the inside.

5. The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and penitentiary. There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized, and this tendency is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to profit from putting and keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is made all the more troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for minor crimes, to deny parole and to imprison people for life for e,g, three small thefts.

6. The rich are well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the rich. This and other government policies has produced a situation where 400 American billionaires are worth $2 trillion, as much as the bottom 150 million Americans. That kind of wealth inequality hasn't been seen in the US since the age of the robber barons in the nineteenth century. Both eras are marked by extreme corruption.

7. The National Security Agency's domestic spying is a form of corruption in itself, and lends itself to corruption. With some 4 million government employees and private contractors engaged in this surveillance, it is highly unlikely that various forms of insider trading and other corrupt practices are not being committed. If you knew who Warren Buffett and George Soros were calling every day, that alone could make you a killing. The American political class wouldn't be defending this indefensible invasion of citizens' privacy so vigorously if someone somewhere weren't making money on it.

8. As for insider trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it hastily passed forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider trading (buying and selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of future government policy). That this practice only became an issue recently is another sign of how corrupt the system is.

9. Asset forfeiture in the 'drug war' is corrupting police departments and the judiciary.

10. Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that people can with a straight face assert that scientists aren't sure human carbon emissions are causing global warming. Fox Cable News is among the more corrupt institutions in American society, purveying outright lies for the benefit of the billionaire class. The US is so corrupt that it is resisting the obvious urgency to slash carbon production. Even our relatively progressive president talks about exploiting all sources of energy, as though hydrocarbons were just as valuable as green energy and as though hydrocarbons weren't poisoning the earth.

Even Qatar, its economy based on natural gas, freely admits the challenge of human-induced climate change. American politicians like Jim Inhofe are openly ridiculed when they travel to Europe for their know-nothingism on climate.

So don't tell the Philippines or the other victims of American corruption how corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen as corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion and you aren't corrupt, you're respectable.

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Top 10 Ways the US is the Most Corrupt Country in the World

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Those ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly "corrupt" always imply that the United States is not corrupt. VOA reports : While it is true that you don't typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America's political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects.

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With people and people of color we have had issues with each other and sometimes we all get along but some cant be nice enough to be friends and are racist or talk to much smack we just need to come together and defeat racism and discrimination

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Depression is a huge problem in America teens at the age of 13-16 feel like everyone is against them. Teens getting laughed at, bullied , you may know what they've been through but you won't ever know there pain. Help them understand we are all the same and we DO matter each one of US. Show and speak within positive .

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Some people chose cuts to let go of pain, but many don't cut to get attention. They cut for help, for depression,for anxiety. They shouldn't be told that they are dumb and that they could do better. Let them be and try to help. Don't be the person that leads them to suicide.

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737  people... so farRemove

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Racial Profiling is a huge issue but people try to reason it with stupidity.

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 Gun violence is a major issue in our society. It had harm citizen peoples and it needs to be solved. If you're scare and is carrying a gun gonna make it any better ? Do you feel safe?

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 Gun violence is a major issue in our society. It had harm citizen peoples and it needs to be solved. If you're scare and is carrying a gun gonna make it any better ? Do you feel safe?