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Featured LePage Might Bring In National Guard To Deal With Drugs

Discussion in 'News & Current Events' started by poncho, Aug 13, 2015.

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  1. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Maine Gov. Paul LePage says he’d use the Maine National Guard “if necessary” to help fight an epidemic of heroin and other drugs.

    LePage told WVOM-FM in Bangor that he has the authority to use the National Guard if the Legislature refuses to provide the resources he’s sought. His remark was an apparent dig at lawmakers who rejected his requests to hire additional agents at the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.

    LePage announced last week that he will convene a drug summit and told Maine Public Broadcasting Network that he’ll use “everything legally possible” to attack the epidemic.

    He made it clear Tuesday that he believes in a hard line. He said drug traffickers should be put in “Super Max” because traffickers “are murderers and murderers should all be together.”

    http://wabi.tv/2015/08/11/lepage-might-bring-in-national-guard-to-deal-with-drugs/

    The Real Drug Lords: A brief history of CIA involvement in the Drug Trade

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-drug-lords-a-brief-history-of-cia-involvement-in-the-drug-trade/10013
     
  2. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    Has anyone else ever noticed that those who hate cops seem to also be against laws that are against drug use?
     
  3. wpe3bql

    wpe3bql Member

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    Why wouldn't they be against cops?

    After all, those cops just might wish to confiscate some/all their parents' prescription drugs that many parents often fail to secure from their childrens' prying hands--and often OD on these very same drugs that their parents quite often fail to secure their drugs that are still within the drugs' stated expiration date, or possibly (& sometimes even worse) have already gone beyond those drugs' expiration date, hence capable of producing even more deadly consequences that might possibly involve those very same cops to transport their children to the hospital ER.

    I've read many accounts of this scenario happening in almost every region of the US.

    If there are parents who don't believe that this sort of thing just can't happen in your own neighborhood, then I recommend you examine the files of either your local judicial district's drug task force, or your area's DEA or ATF records, or even your local law enforcement's drug interdiction team, and see for yourself how your neighborhood compares with similar ones in your state.
     
  4. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    No, but I have noticed that those who consistently overlook the obvious are the ones most likely to make ridiculous statements in order to defend an authoritarian system that benefits on many levels from the very things it's supposed to be fighting against.

    Your answer is always more police, more control and less freedom.

    You say you want to uphold the law and stem the flow of drugs? Based on past performance I have to wonder if that's really what you want.

    You tried it your way for forty years. What did you manged to accomplish?

    You increased the power of the state and the police over the individual.

    That wasn't enough because the drugs kept flowing.

    So, you increased the power of the state and the police over the individual some more.

    That wasn't enough because the drugs kept flowing.

    So naturally you increased the power of the state and the police over the individual again.

    That wasn't enough because the drugs kept flowing.

    So you increased the power of the state and the police over the individual again.

    For forty years you done this . . . and it hasn't worked. The flow of drugs not only continued it increased. So now you want to bring in the National Guard and when that fails you'll want to bring in the military to supplement the already militarized police force you say we need to curb the flow of drugs and stem the violence that comes with the flow of drugs.

    It's not about hating cops or not wanting to uphold the law.

    That's a lame strawman argument from a guy that won't admit his way has already proven to be a huge costly (both in capital and individual freedoms) failure that hasn't just failed to deliver what it promised but actually contributed to the problems it claims to be trying to fix.

    You've proven this over the course of forty years now but you still want to keep doing the same things that haven't been working.

    No wonder you have to resort to lame strawman arguments to defend a failed authoritarian policy you say we need to do what it has consistently proven it cannot do no matter how much power you keep giving the state and the police over the individual.

    No matter how much you keep overlooking the obvious it's still obvious.

    A more authoritarian government isn't the answer.
     
    #4 poncho, Aug 13, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 13, 2015
  5. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Who Profits from the Drug Trade?

    Wall Street and Big Banks

    Michel Chossudovsky describes the heroin trade as a “hierarchy of prices,” with the drug’s street price, (what it is sold for in largely Western cities around the world), is 80 to 100 times the price paid to the farmers who cultivate it in Afghanistan.[25] The IMF reported that in the late 1990s, money laundering accounted for 2-5% of the world’s GDP, and that a large percentage of the 590 billion to 1.5 trillion dollars in annual money laundering is “directly linked to the trade in narcotics.” This lucrative trade in narcotics produces profits which are “laundered in the numerous offshore banking havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and some 50 other locations around the globe.” These offshore havens “are controlled by major Western banks and financial institutions” which “have a vested interest in maintaining and sustaining the drug trade.”[26]

    http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/afghan-heroin-the-cia-519/

    How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs

    On 10 April 2006, a DC-9 jet landed in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, on the Gulf of Mexico, as the sun was setting. Mexican soldiers, waiting to intercept it, found 128 cases packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100m. But something else – more important and far-reaching – was discovered in the paper trail behind the purchase of the plane by the Sinaloa narco-trafficking cartel.

    During a 22-month investigation by agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and others, it emerged that the cocaine smugglers had bought the plane with money they had laundered through one of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia, now part of the giant Wells Fargo.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs

    Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke

    Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.

    Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213#ixzz3ijA6XDVZ

    Citi, Deutsche Bank, Bank Of America Were Channels For Sending Drug Money To Colombia, Court Filing Shows

    U.S.-based accounts at Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), Deutsche Bank AG and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) were used to channel tens of millions of dollars’ worth of global drug money that was sent to shady Colombian currency brokerages, an affidavit from an undercover Massachusetts detective obtained recently by 100Reporters says. The revelation comes as the U.S. Justice Department has been laying down record penalties against some of the world’s largest financial institutions for trade-sanction and money laundering violations.

    http://www.ibtimes.com/citi-deutsche-bank-bank-america-were-channels-sending-drug-money-colombia-court-filing-1686232
     
    #5 poncho, Aug 13, 2015
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  6. wpe3bql

    wpe3bql Member

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    Poncho--

    I see your point, but, what then are your recommendations to put an end to the ever-increasing presence of dangerous drugs in every one of our neighborhoods?

    Calling out a state's National Guard to deal with this crisis can only work within the boundaries of that particular state--in the OP's case, Maine.

    Since dangerous drug usage is not only a problem within the US, but a world-wide one, do you specifically suggest be done about it, especially when many rogue nations' governments (like Afghanistan) are basically controlled by its own drug lords?

    I'm quite certain you wouldn't recommend sending in the already-proven-to-be-totally-useless UN blue helmeted army, but what exactly DO you recommend the US do?

    I don't want a police state any more than you, but simply condemning one option without any substantive alternative(s) is about as logical as letting the person who only goes around screaming, "The Sky is Falling!"

    I look forward to reading your VERY POSITIVE, TIME-TESTED ideas on this very important crisis our world has faced for too many years than I care to remember. :thumbsup:
     
  7. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    First thing we should do IMHO is listen to the people who've been on the front lines of this war. LEAP . . . "Law Enforcement Against Prohibition".

    LEAP co-founder, Peter Christ, appears on WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, NY and takes on all aspects of our disastrous War on Drugs. Captain Christ is vice-chair of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk

    http://www.leap.cc/

    An eye opening, comprehensive look at drug prohibition

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFr7hfx0mo

    Some historical perspective on the "war on drugs" from a guy who was there.

    http://www.powderburns.org/about.html

    Just have a listen to what they are saying.

    Obviously prohibition doesn't work. It didn't work with alcohol and it isn't working with drugs. To keep doing something that doesn't work is not very rational IMHO and doing even more of what doesn't work borders on insanity.

    Wall Street and the big banks benefit from the flow of drugs. It's time to quit pussy footing around and put these money laundering crooks that enable the drug cartels to stay in business behind bars. It's not helping one iota to put little Johnny Pothead in jail for having a few grams of a weed in his pocket while shielding the biggest crooks that encourage and enable the flow of drugs from prosecution.
     
    #7 poncho, Aug 14, 2015
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  8. righteousdude2

    righteousdude2 Well-Known Member
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    Wow! That is hard line politics. Here in the land of fruits, nuts and flakes we are letting drug offenders out of prison early because of overcrowding. These guys haven't even finished their sentences.

    I like this govenor's stance. Lock them up.
     
  9. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    I see your point. It just makes sense to do even more of what has proven to be a failure after 40 years of trying. And when that doesn't work? What then? Do we do even more of what hasn't worked? Name one positive benefit to society your approach has achieved in the 40 years of implementing it.

    In 1992, Jim Gray, a conservative judge in conservative Orange County, California, held a press conference during which he recommended that we rethink our drug laws. Back then, it took a great deal of courage to suggest that the war on drugs was a failed policy.

    Today, more and more Americans are coming to the realization that prohibition's costs—whether measured in lives and liberties lost or dollars wasted—far exceed any possible or claimed benefits.

    Reason.tv's Paul Feine interviewed Gray about drug policy and the prospects for reform. The interview was shot by Alex Manning and edited by Hawk Jensen.

    Judge Jim Gray is the author of Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs.

    Approximately 8.30 minutes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6t1EM4Onao

    Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America

    This paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken raids, and offers recommendations for reform.

    http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/overkill-rise-paramilitary-police-raids-america

    Rise of the Warrior Cop

    Americans have long been wary of using the military for domestic policing. Concerns about potential abuse date back to the creation of the Constitution, when the founders worried about standing armies and the intimidation of the people at large by an overzealous executive, who might choose to follow the unhappy precedents set by Europe's emperors and monarchs.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904
     
    #9 poncho, Aug 14, 2015
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  10. matt wade

    matt wade Well-Known Member

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    Legalize it, tax it, regulate it. Let's get the crime out of drugs.

    While we are at it, could we let me get some anti-biotics over the counter too?
     
  11. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Matt, why do you hate cops?
     
  12. matt wade

    matt wade Well-Known Member

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    I think the better question is how did the party that supposedly wants government out of our lives become the morality police?
     
  13. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Good question.

    Care to answer that Rev? RD2?
     
  14. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    They don't seem to be in any rush to answer your question Matt.

    Wonder why?

    The Rev has an excuse. He's been busy googling slogans to use in other threads in place of "a valid or compelling argument".

    I don't know what happened to RD2. Maybe he figured it was better to quit while he was still behind. :smilewinkgrin:
     
    #14 poncho, Aug 14, 2015
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  15. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    18 U.S. Code § 1385 - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

    Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1385

    The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, still in effect, was passed to prevent U.S. military personnel from acting as law enforcement agents on U.S. soil.

    http://civilliberty.about.com/od/waronterror/a/posse_act.htm
     
  16. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    The National Guard, unless called to federal service, is under the control of the state authorities.
     
  17. poncho

    poncho Well-Known Member

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    Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
     
  18. Use of Time

    Use of Time Well-Known Member
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    This. All of this needs to happen. Do you know how happy the police would be to not have to spend effort on stupid stuff like marijuana?
     
  19. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    How much did the banks and wall street make off their money laundering?
     
  20. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    That will certainly cost a lot less. All we have to do is bury the dead.

    Of course, the answer to all crime is to make it legal. Then we will be a crime free society. Works for me.
     
    #20 carpro, Aug 15, 2015
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