Stepping Up the War on Drugs — Again
The Worst President Ever has now combined the War on Drugs with the firing of those eight federal prosecutors.
Kevin Ryan was U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California until he was purged in December 2006. Bush’s replacement is Joseph Russoniello, who's been one of the most gung ho drug warriors since the early 1980s.
According to this article, the Senate hasn’t yet voted on Russoniello’s confirmation. But according to this story, Russoniello WAS confirmed by the Senate in mid-December. Left hand meet the right hand…
Russoniello was a cofounder of California’s infamous CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) program: Every harvest season, government helicopters come swooping in on California’s pot farmers (and anyone else who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). Where are all those anti-tax “taxpayers’ rights” groups when shit like this happens? The same people who go ballistic over libraries and every other “waste of tax dollars” suddenly develop mass laryngitis when it comes to Iraqmire and the War on Drugs.
Russoniello has been one of the ringleaders of the Republican approach to crime for the past 25 years: Let’s quit dithering over white collar crime and start going after those small-time drug users instead.
In 1994 he told an interviewer that marijuana growers in California were “like an open wound on our prayer hand.” Oooookay.
With the medical marijuana issue heating up in California — most Californians are in favor of it; Dumbya and his puppetmasters are against it — you can guess what this douchebag’s top priority will be. Let’s crack down on these whiny cancer patients; enough of this “waaaaaaahhh!!! I’m nauseous from chemotherapy.” Stand up and take it like a man!
Russoniello is a perfect example of our government's schizophrenic approach to drugs. He goes for the jugular when it comes to pot growers and small-time drug users, but he's been surprisingly lenient with major cocaine dealers. In the 1980s he was “investigating” the connection between cocaine and Ronald Reagan’s rightwing terrorists (the “Contras”) in Nicaragua. Several Contra-affiliated dealers were arrested with huge amounts of cocaine. Russoniello “declined” to investigate any further; he insisted these dealers couldn’t possibly have any connection with the Contras.
Check out some of the links here on the Nicaraguan Contras/cocaine connection. It's a dark chapter in America's history; one of many.
And so another shitstain joins the Bush Administration; another grain of sand on Jones Beach.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: CAMP, cocaine Contras, Joseph Russoniello, Kevin Ryan, medical marijuana, purged U.S. attorneys, War on Drugs
posted by Tom Harper @ 12:01 AM
16 Comments:
Oh my God. It's all I can say about that fucktard and his big ideas.
Decriminalizing and/or legalizing drugs would provide more money, personel and resources to be put to more useful endeavors while reducing the prison population and putting the drug lords out of business. After all, how cool would it be to sell say, bubble gum on the streets? In the meantime DEA agents could be retrained to work at INS or border patrol and extra monies could fund school programs and food banks.
Anna: Yup, another fucktard. Bush keeps nominating them and our spineless Congress keeps confirming them.
Rockync: Those are all excellent reasons for legalizing/ decriminalizing drugs. Unfortunately they're also the exact reasons that the Powers That Be will never allow it to happen.
Gotta always have a black-hatted villain to fall back on. Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!
And what sucks is that, if not as bad, the Dems are in the same boat. Drugs are one of many things that no one can talk about as an adult, to look for adult solutions like what rockync pointed out. Man, this country is so fucking stupid and childish.
Randal: Ah yes, The Children. How could I forget. We're doing it all for them.
Tom, Russoniello is against pot but lenient on coke because only rich people can afford coke. Pot is for the poor. You can't bust those who support your special interests and help you get elected.
Mile High Pixie: Yup, you've got it dialed. When they bust somebody for cocaine, chances are its one of their bigtime contributors (or a relative). And if a dealer is affiliated with those rightwing terrorists, er, I mean "freedom fighters" in Nicaragua, there's just too much at stake there.
rockync took the words right out of my mouth.
Great post, Tom.
Thanks Lizzy.
Heck, let's just bomb all the pot growers with paraquot or whatever, and if anyone is dumb enough to smoke a joint, they should be put in prison for years.
I am TOTALLY with Rockync on this issue... And Randal is right. When it comes to sex, drugs and rock and roll, this country is pretty effin' dumb. And if what Mile High says is true, Ruisinello ought to also not be all that tough on another drug of the poor... meth.
We can't get the f'tards out of office quickly enough, can we.
Snave: Yeah, we can't get the fucktards out of office soon enough. Trouble is, this whole anti-drug, anti-getting-high mentality is so entrenched in our culture, I don't think it'll be any different when Bush leaves. Clinton's drug czar was just as gung ho as any of the fucktards in Bush's administration.
In 1994 he told an interviewer that marijuana growers in California were “like an open wound on our prayer hand.”
So marijuana growers are like stigmata? Well, that makes everything clear now. And justified, when it comes to spending billions of dollars putting non-violent people in prison for using a harmless weed that grows very well in California.
Urf. I wish to god there were a decent politician out there with the guts to propose some kind of sane legislation to do away with the War on the American People, I mean Drugs.
Generik: Yup, that was a pretty bizarre quote.
I don't know if any politicians or even any group can do anything about the war on drugs. For whatever reasons, the Powers That Be haved to keep drugs illegal with harsh prison sentences for all violators. It's deeply entrenched in our culture and I don't know if anyone can or will change it.
Better for the corporate criminals to go after small backyard growers while the powered filled noses of the corporate elite go unabridged.
An open wound on our prayer hand... What the hell does that even mean?
Larry: Yup, that's about it in a nutshell.
Kip: God only knows what the F#$% he meant by that. He probably doesn't even know.
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