Free Republic

President Obama on Thursday commuted the prison sentences for eight people convicted of crack cocaine offenses and pardoned 13 others, surpassing in the fifth year of his presidency all the acts of clemency from his entire first term. “I am commuting the prison terms of eight men and women who were sentenced under an unfair system,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “Commuting the sentences of these eight Americans is an important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.” [Snip] “We are excited for the families of those who were granted commutations today, and we are glad that...

Obama on Thursday granted a rare commutation to the first cousin of Governor Deval Patrick, allowing the release of a man who in 1994 was given a life sentence on charges of dealing crack cocaine. Patrick said that he does not recall ever meeting his first cousin Reynolds Allen Wintersmith Jr., 39 of Rockford, Ill., and had no involvement in his application for clemency, which has been a cause of national advocates for years and has been featured in the national media. “There’s a significant age gap between the two and the governor has no recollection of having met Mr....

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other Republicans told Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) they didn’t want him to resign and would support him, according to Radel’s father. “He had a meeting with John Boehner and some of the Republicans,” Skip Radel told Ohio’s The Cincinnati Enquirer. “They told him they didn’t want him to resign, and they wanted to back him.” According to the report, Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, declined to comment on the father’s remarks. Steel stood by the statement his office issued Wednesday: “Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards, and the alleged crime will be...

(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Trey Radel was sentenced to a year of probation after pleading guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor cocaine possession -- a charge that authorities say came after he bought a small amount of cocaine in a sting in the nation's capital last month. Radel, a 37-year-old first-term Republican from Florida, said at his sentencing in D.C. Superior Court that he plans to enter an inpatient drug treatment program in Naples, Florida. It wasn't immediately clear how long he would be in treatment. A tea party favorite, Radel was elected last year to represent southwest Florida's 19th Congressional District....

Rep. Trey Radel, a Florida Republican elected in 2012, will be in court Wednesday on charges that he possessed cocaine. Radel, 37, was charged with misdemeanor possession of cocaine in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday.

Rep. Trey Radel, a freshman Republican from Florida, was arrested on Oct. 29 for possession of cocaine in the District of Columbia, according to D.C. Superior Court documents. Radel, 37, was charged with misdemeanor possession of cocaine in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday. He is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. Radel faces a maximum of 180 days in jail, as well as a possible fine up to $1,000. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia declined to comment on Radel’s arrest or criminal cases. The Florida Republican is a former journalist, TV anchor and radio talk-show...

Alexander Alvaro, a prominent German liberal MEP and European Parliament vice-president, had cocaine in his blood when he was involved in a car crash that killed a 21-year old passenger last February, an attorney said. Alvaro is expected to resign over the issue, German press reports. The daily Bild quotes attorney Ulrich Bremer as saying that the blood test on Alvaro, who was badly injured in the crash, left no doubt that he was under the influence of drugs. …

As President Obama stumbles and fumbles his way through his second term, his mistakes are impossible to overlook. From his handling of the turmoil in the Middle East to his failed economic policies to the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, it has been a year of train wrecks for the President. Opponents of President Obama have plenty of ammunition to use as they criticize his second term agenda. Almost all of these critics have focused their attention on Obama’s policies, not his race. Despite the facts, the President’s defenders continually use the race card to invalidate criticism from his opponents. The...

<p>SYDNEY, Australia — Former Playboy model Brandi Brandt was extradited from Los Angeles to Sydney on Friday to face cocaine conspiracy charges.</p> <p>The 45-year-old actress and Playmate of the Month for October 1987 appeared in a Sydney court after her arrival Friday morning on a flight from the United States.</p>

Toronto's embattled mayor, Rob Ford, professed a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and gangs on Wednesday, but he also admitted he has bought illegal drugs in the past two years. Speaking after Toronto City Council almost unanimously urged Ford to take a break from his duties, Ford said he could not change the past and would continue his efforts as mayor to save Toronto money.

BOSTON (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton are among those who will be honored during events celebrating the Harvard School of Public Health's centennial.

Oh, oh, oreo. Ever feel like you could eat the whole bag yourself? According to a new study — you’re not a glutton, you’re addicted. A student at Connecticut College found lab rats that ate oreos were just as strongly associated to them as lab rats that were injected with cocaine or morphine. (Via WNCN) And, this sounds even more dangerous — eating Oreos activated even more neurons in the “pleasure centers” of rats’ brains than those addicted drugs did. (Via YouTube / Oreo)

Study: Oreo Cookies As Addictive As Cocaine Research Indicates High Fat, High Sugar Foods Trigger Pleasure Center In Brain October 15, 2013 4:59 PM NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Research out of Connecticut College shows that “America’s Favorite Cookie” may be as addictive as cocaine. Connecticut College psychology professor Joseph Schroeder and four students studied in rats whether high fat, high sugar foods can be as addictive as drugs of abuse. The research looked at the behaviors and the effects the cookies had on the brain. “We found that the behavior they exhibited was equally strong for Oreo cookies as it...

Holy smoke! Police set light to $250 million of cocaine seized from an international organized crime ring. Armed officers stood by as others burned 2,551 lbs of the Class A drug inside a military base in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. According to the attorney general, the 1.2-ton haul was confiscated from a drug smuggling gang in a recent police operation in Peravia Province. …

How did Jay Z develop the business acumen he needed to become a music mogul? By dealing crack, of course. “I know about budgets. I was a drug dealer,” the hip-hop titan boasted to Vanity Fair magazine, referring to his days on Brooklyn’s mean streets. “To be in a drug deal, you need to know what you can spend, what you need to re-up.”

President Obama knows something about being a low-level, nonviolent drug offender, such as the kind the Justice Department today exempted from harsh mandatory prison sentences. In a sense, he was one himself once, although the young Barry Obama was never arrested or charged with a crime. Obama wrote openly in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” about using marijuana and “maybe a little blow” during his high school days in Hawaii in the 1970s. Biographer David Maraniss reported that Obama was even a pot-smoking trend-setter and leader in the “Choom Gang.” But decades later, openly reflecting on the “stupid”...

HBO's resident left-wing comic Bill Maher drew disapproval from late night host David Letterman's audience on Tuesday after he told a pair of jokes mocking George Zimmerman in the wake of his acquittal for the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin. Maher was in New York City to watch the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. When Letterman mentioned that Maher was among the owners of the New York Mets, whose stadium hosted the annual mid-season classic, Maher noted that he was only a 'minority owner.'

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Relatives of a man who was killed after police entered his home and tased him are struggling to come to terms with how he died. “They physically pulled him off the couch because, like I said, he was asleep. They pulled him off the couch and they tried to put him on his stomach. He can’t breathe on his stomach. He don’t even lie on the bed on his stomach,” said Donna Randle, the mother of victim Jarmaine Darden, 34. Zero tolerance officers were executing a search warrant at his southeast Fort Worth house on May...

KABUL -- The U.S. wants to keep nine bases in Afghanistan after American combat troops withdraw in 2014 and the Afghan government will let them as long as it gets "security and economic guarantees," President Hamid Karzai said Thursday in his first public offer in talks about the future relationship between the two uneasy allies. U.S. officials have made no final announcement about how many troops might remain in Afghanistan after 2014, although they have said as many as many as 12,000 U.S. and coalition forces could remain to train and advise Afghans and continue counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida and...

Customs agents thought something didn't seem right with the coconuts that arrived at Port Everglades. When they looked closer, they found 90 of them were hollowed out and stuffed with pounds of cocaine. The routine inspection of a container of produce shipped from the Dominican Republic to Fort Lauderdale turned up bags that were missing labels. Federal agents put tracking devices into some of the fruit and let them be delivered to a produce-importing business in Miami, leading investigators to two men who unloaded and separated out the suspicious bags and a third man who took them to his home.