-Caveat Lector-
Hi Bill & CTRL,
Is it just me, or does anyone else have problems with Bill's posts? In
this case, some of what Bill posted is too tiny for me to read, in other
cases the font is so large that three words take up the whole width of
the screen - I find that I have to delete a lot of what you send Bill.
I simply can't read it.
Kelly
William Shannon wrote:
>
> http://www.sunspot.net/content/cover/story?section=news-maryland&;
> pagename=story&storyid=1150540208371
>
> Forget race -- Ashcroft's drug position is terrifying
>
> Gregory Kane
>
> Originally published Jan 21 2000 [Image]
>
> WE'RE ONLY 21 DAYS into the year 2001, and already Americans have
> gotten off
> to a robust start in our favorite game: the Knee-Jerk Follies. One
> John
> Ashcroft, opponent of abortion, affirmative action and gratuitous
> gun-banning, among other things, has been nominated by President
> George W.
> Bush to the influential post of U.S. attorney general.
>
> Liberals reacted in knee-jerk fashion, swearing that this
> anti-abortion,
> anti-affirmative action gun nut will be attorney general over their
> dead
> bodies. Liberal, black, civil rights leaders got in on the act.
>
> Ashcroft accepted an honorary degree from Bob Jones University, a
> college
> which at the time had a ban on interracial dating and which regularly
> lambasted Catholics.
>
> He also did an interview with a magazine called Southern Partisan, in
> which
> he called Confederate leaders "patriots." Liberal black leadership
> accused
> Ashcroft of lacking the fawning sensitivity on racial matters some of
> us
> colored folks have come to feel is our due.
>
> Conservatives were equally knee-jerkish. They didn't exactly compare
> Ashcroft's elevation to attorney general with the second coming of
> Christ,
> but the suspicion is that, deep down, they had a hankering to.
>
> They countered liberal objections by claiming that Ashcroft would
> enforce
> the law as is; that he's well-qualified; that the nominee's torpedoing
> of the
> confirmation of Missouri Judge Ron White, an African-American, to the
> federal
> bench was not racially motivated but highly principled, and that
> Ashcroft is
> not a racist.
>
> The Senate Judiciary Committee went over all these charges. But
> neither
> Republicans nor Democrats, the liberal media or the conservative media
> paid
> much attention to the press releases of an organization that is
> nonpartisan
> and has two board chairmen, one Democrat and one Republican.
>
> The group is called Common Sense for Drug Policy. Its Legislative
> Group
> issued several statements in the past week that paint a different
> picture of
> Ashcroft than the one presented by Democrats or Republicans on the
> Senate
> Judiciary Committee.
>
> That no one brought these up proves that both Democrats and
> Republicans on
> the committee and in the Senate know the fix is in for Ashcroft to be
> confirmed and that both parties were engaged in a dog-and-pony show to
>
> hoodwink American conservatives and liberals alike. Here, according to
> the
> Common Sense for Drug Policy Legislative Group, are the facts on
> Ashcroft:
>
> 1) He favors cutting funds for drug treatment and prevention and
> putting
> them into yet more law enforcement efforts. In other words, Ashcroft
> favors
> the "lock 'em up" approach to the drug war - an approach whose
> adherents
> figure that if we simply jail enough inner-city, street-level, black
> drug
> dealers, we'll win the war on drugs.
>
> Democrats couldn't nail Ashcroft on this, of course, since their
> attorney
> general of the past eight years, Janet Reno, pursues precisely the
> same
> policy. Had they brought it up, Republicans might well have countered
> that
> Democrats couldn't honestly deny Ashcroft confirmation because the
> country
> now has an attorney general who is Ashcroft in a skirt.
>
> Kevin Zeese, executive director of Common Sense's Legislative Group,
> said
> it's important that legislators scrutinize Ashcroft more closely on
> drug
> policy.
>
> "The attorney general is really the most powerful person when it comes
> to
> drug policy. He generally prosecutes all the cases. The Drug
> Enforcement
> Administration is under him."
>
> 2) When he was U.S. senator from Missouri, Ashcroft sponsored Senate
> Bill
> 486, the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. The Legislative Group
> claims
> Ashcroft's proposal "would have empowered federal, state and local law
>
> enforcement agencies to enter your house, your office, your computer
> or your
> car without a warrant and without any obligation to inform you that a
> search
> or seizure had been conducted."
>
> Had the law passed, Zeese said, "it would have been
> counter-revolutionary to
> what Jefferson and Madison meant for Fourth Amendment rights."
> Regrettable,
> but not surprising since the "war on drugs" is turning more into a war
> on
> privacy and civil liberties every day. Most conservatives are too
> rigid to
> admit that, but the four or five conservatives remaining in the
> country who
> still value privacy and individual liberty had better give Ashcroft a
> second
> look.
>
> 3) As governor of Missouri, Ashcroft flagrantly violated the state
> constitution by refusing to pass money from forfeited drug assets on
> to
> public schools. Instead, he let his state police keep the dollars,
> even after
> the Missouri Supreme Court ruled it was a violation of that state's
> constitution. That was in 1990. In 1998, the U.S. Court of Appeals
> ruled that
> - because Missouri state police passed on drug asset dollars to the
> Drug
> Enforcement Administration, which would then return some of the money
> to
> state police - the cops and the DEA had "successfully conspired to
> violate
> the Missouri Constitution."
>
> That's the Ashcroft whose supporters claim he will "enforce the law as
> it
> is." It seems like Ashcroft, who used the word "integrity" no fewer
> than
> three times when he spoke publicly after Bush announced his nomination
> for
> attorney general, may have all the integrity of a true Missourian.
>
> Of the Frank and Jesse James mold.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
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