Tuesday, August 13, 2019

It's Freaking Hot Here in Texas

Well, after five or so days, we will be dipping down below 100 degrees tomorrow. With the AC on, we are hitting 86 in the house for most of the day when it's that hot outside. Unfortunately, it's a cheap house with no insulation. I tend to fall asleep at my desk twice a day, just from the heat. And I wake up sort of sweaty and in a mean mood, ready to lash out because I'm so damned uncomfortable. I'm sorry, universe.
On the other hand, I've finished my story on the guys and women who were doing life in prison for first time nonviolent drug offenses, and I hope it gets the attention of some people who will work to get some people out of that hell. The people I wrote about got sentences commuted via clemency from Obama, and are all doing well on the outside.
So many people suffered from the stupid war on drugs. As one of my guys said: "All of the drugs they got in the conspiracy (crack cocaine, 1992) from FBI buys and what we had when they rounded us up, did not come to one kilo of crack cocaine (basically 1 1/2 ounces of cocaine cooked with baking soda to make crack). They charged us as kingpins with 15 kilos. Because crack was sentenced as 100-to-one of powder cocaine, we were all sentenced for 1,500 kilos of cocaine, automatic life in prison. Then they said we were kingpins, which meant life without parole. We weren't kingpins. Kingpins had ships and airplanes to bring in tons of cocaine. We had less than a kilo among all 31 of us. We still got life without parole for ghost cocaine that never existed."
Thank god for Obama's (late but better than nothing) 2014 Clemency Initiative, which released 1,794 people, 500 of whom were serving life without parole for first, nonviolent, drug offenses.

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