Most everyone knows all about Cindy McCain's drug problem. Well, maybe not everything. For example, I never knew that the only reason we ever found out about it at all was so that John McCain could save his own ass.
To hear Cindy tell the tale, she bravely confessed so she could inspire others to turn their lives around. Follow below to find out why that couldn't be further from the truth.
There is something very, very wrong with a society that thinks it is acceptable for police to violently kick down the door to a private family's home, shoot the family dogs and physically restrain the family while they conduct a search for drug dealer materials or other incriminating evidence, all because a large package of cannabis sativa was discovered in the postal system with their address on it.
The AP just picked up a week-old story in which Prince George's Country police raided the home of a local mayor in a bizarre case of identity theft, and shot his dogs dead:
Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table. Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple's two dogs and seizing the unopened package.
Last week, in the investigation of a major drug distribution network, police staged a no-knock entry into a private residence. They seized over 30 pounds of marijuana. Two guard dogs who were a threat to the police had to be killed in the execution of the raid. Two people in the residence at the time were handcuffed at the scene and questioned as to their involvement in the crime.
Sound pretty straight forward? More or less standard procedure when police are investigating a large quantity of narcotics?
UPDATE: Dr. Zombie covered this before I did. Please recommend his diary rather than mine. We'll take the conversation over there. http://www.dailykos.com/...
Mediocre journalism and journalists love to do "trends" pieces, which amount to what "what my friends' friend and the taxi driver said."
Teenage Sex and Drug behavior is always a favorite topic.
Happily for the reality based community many actual surveys exist.
One that is important in my profession is the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS) that the CDC does in collaboration with State health departments.
Its not often that Madame Tussaud's builds a wax portrait that evokes the soul of Oscar Wilde.
...Or reverses a fiction and a life.
So, now, with Amy Winehouse, a great blues singer, and Dorian Gray.
The living reality is that addiction, neurological damage, and bad care opened the door for Staphylococcus aureus.
The bacterium did this to her.
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Then there's the new wax in London -- Amy above matches Dorian's portrait while the wax Amy remains perfect -- reversing Dorian Gray .
Amy, pure of poisons.
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Tussaud's big miracle is Amy's face, clean and healthy.
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Lose these looks for crack binges ?
Anybody's kids, here, still wanna do hard drugs ???
Usefully, these Amy/Amy Dorian/Dorian images can go on the doors of many a family refrigerator.
The Drug Enforcement Administration was created by President Richard Nixon through an Executive Order [on] July [1,] 1973 in order to establish a single unified command to combat "an all-out global war on the drug menace." At its outset, the DEA had 1,470 Special Agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Furthermore, in 1974, the DEA had 43 foreign offices in 31 countries. Today, the DEA has 5,235 Special Agents, a budget of more than $2.3 billion and 86 foreign offices in 62 countries.
So the DEA turns thirty-five this week. That deserves a special celebration. Let's bust out our handy-dandy calculator and the official government stats. Time to play Rate the DEA!
Today the DEA has twice the offices in twice the countries with four times the manpower than when it started thirty-five years ago. In 1973, the DEA had $0.075 billion to work with; today you have $2.3 billion. That's an increase of 3,067%, or a dramatic thirty-fold increase. Just what have the American People received for this $31.4 billion dollar, thirty-five year investment?
Here in the Midwest there is a real and significant problem with meth - to the point of paranoia on the part of both the population and government. This has led to laws restricting access to certain precursor drugs and chemicals, reports of environmental damage (meth labs tend to produce some really nasty chemical contamination), and the development of special task forces of local, state and federal police agencies to target meth production and distribution. It is the War on (Some) Drugs on steroids.
Thanks American taxpayers! You have just spent 400 million dollars more on the Great War on Drugs. Not even a drop in the bucket on what Plan Colombia has cost, but a good start, right? While some think it is a cash transfer to corrupt Mexican politicians well they would be wrong.
Exxon Ed Whitfield has had this seat for a long time and made a lot of votes. During his tenure, he has been a constant rubber-stamp for the failed policies of the Bush Administration. Despite his election year "Renaisance" Exxon Eddie can't hide from his real record. He has consistenty gotten it wrong time and time again.
Back in January, a Border patrol agent, Luis Aguilar, was run over and killed while in the line of duty, when a presumptive drug runner hit him and fled to Mexico. He left behind a wife an two kids.
Another less known war, that has killed more innocents than Iraq, the Drug Wars.
(Cross posted at Hillbilly Report)
Video transcript:
Mrs. McCain I'm proud of this country to and that's why I respect and obey the law.
But with all due respect Mrs. McCain when regular folks get caught obtaining drugs illegally, they get prosecuted and go to jail.
But folks like you Mrs. McCain, with your bus load of lawyers and a Senator husband, can get away with anything even if it’s illegal.
You see Mrs. McCain there’s one set of rules for folks like you and a real crummy set of rules for folks like me.
Mrs. McCain your husband didn’t know you were getting drugs illegally and you were addicted to those drugs, so how can your husband, John McCain, even consider being President of the United States of America when he doesn’t even know what’s going on in his own home??
As if the "soldier suicide" problem wasn't bad enough already, word has just emerged from ABC News and (the unlikely) Washington Times that our government is testing drugs with severe side effects, including promoting suicidal behavior, on hundreds of vets.
In one case, the V.A. took three months to alert the veterans to the severe mental effects caused by one of the drugs, the controversial Chantix, used to halt smoking.
They are even using cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments "that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan," the newspaper puts it today.
