Daily Links: 12/29/17 – Birthday links

Twenty-six. Twenty-six. Dunno, that number sounds mighty odd to me.

• Roy Moore’s last-ditch voter fraud complaint is ignored as Alabama officials certify Doug Jones’ Senate election victory.

• A Nashville, TN man spends 20 of a 30-year sentence behind bars; then sentencing guidelines are revised and he’s released to begin his rehabilitation, forging connections with his family and community. Now the government decides the new guidelines don’t apply and are set to throw him back in prison.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Botched drug raids, wrongful police shootings and criminalizing poverty: Another round of criminal justice news in the US.

• Speaking of, Radley Balko has a bunch of terrifying, totally unrealistic “predictions” about civil liberties violations we may see in 2018.

• Illinois becomes second state (after California) to ban the “that person was gay/trans so I panicked and murdered them” defense.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Despite Trump’s rhetoric and his unshackling of ICE, he still deported far fewer Mexican immigrants in 2017 than Obama did in 2016. (Not that Obama gets applause for that.)
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• College presidents still say, and are still completely wrong to say, that “hate speech is not free speech”.
  (via @Popehat)

• Here’s an idea: Make all counselors either obtain a license or stop practicing, regardless of whether or not they base their practice on religious doctrine. (It’ll never pass.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.