PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH TO ADDRESS NATION
He's expected to counter Sen. Tom Daschle's remarks.
I applaud Bush.
He's thanking the LEOS and the director of homeland defense. Thats got to upset some here.
You pinged me VA Advogado. I believe 95% of LEO's are honorable. It's the 5% -- the JBT's that I don't trust. Is this why you pinged me, because you're one of the 5% and wanted me to post your admittance that you're a JBT...
Funny how the ones that hate the war on drugs the most end up saying some of the most violent and confrontational things.
161 by VA Advogado
I have no problem with Jack booted thugs when they're used against the right people. In this case, law breaking druggies are the right people. No mercy, no peas.
8 by VA Advogado
American twaddle. You're either with us or against us. You are clearly against us.
10 by VA Advogado
Ha, never. Its a lot easier to just crank up what we're doing now and keep you in the cross hairs. Give the BATF more effective tools, more money, more men and bigger bounties and we're there.
87 by VA Advogado
96 by VA Advogado
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Reason: You claim to have witnessed numerous constitutional abuses. Can you give me some examples?
Levine: The Carlson case is the best. The man was a Fortune 500 executive and had no reputation whatsoever. He didn’t know coke from garden mulch. A criminal informant pointed out his house and two other houses. Agents, without any investigation whatsoever, just crashed into his house and shot the man down. That is now typical. 60 Minutes did a wonderful piece on it in 1993 called "The Informers." There is no U.S. Constitution any more when it comes to the drug war.
In that case, a multi-agency task force, outfitted in high-tech guerrilla gear, crashed into the home of a Fortune 500 executive and shot him down in his own living room on the basis of the word of an uncorroborated informant. Nobody was penalized for it. In fact, the people who did it were eventually promoted.
As the expert witness, I had access to all the reports and I recommended that these people be prosecuted. They paid no attention to the man’s civil rights. He had no record or reputation for drugs. They did nothing but crash through his door on the basis of an informant’s say-so. The drug war has succeeded in militarizing police against their own people.
Judge James P. Gray: Anyone who talks about it [WOD] with me in the elevator or in the judges’ lunchroom agrees that what we’re doing is not working. Publicly, judges are pretty conservative people. A lot of them don’t see themselves as social workers. A lot of them are concerned about their effectiveness and getting reelected, so they are just not going to say publicly what they believe privately.
That was really brought home to me when I gave four forums sponsored by the American Bar Association. After doing so, I received a letter from the present chief justice of the Supreme Court of a Southern state. He wrote, "Dear Jim: You’re right. The War on Drugs isn’t working. You’re also right that it’s fully appropriate for a sitting judge to discuss it because of what our position is in society. And I see these cases all the time coming across my desk. What we are doing simply isn’t working. But I gave up a lucrative law practice for this present job. I love my job and if I were to speak publicly, I would have to spend all my time justifying myself. I just don’t think I could do it."
