I wish the mainstream press would ask the following two questions to the GOP presidential candidates in Thursday’s debate:
- Given more than 40 years of death, destruction, and failure in the war on drugs, as president will you seek a repeal of all drug laws and will you immediately pardon all federal drug offenders?
- As president, will you reject any attempt by the CIA, including on grounds of “national security,” to delay the scheduled release by the National Archives in October 2017 of the records relating to the JFK assassination that the CIA has kept secret from the American people for more than 50 years?
Rationale for Question 1:
It is an indisputable fact that the war on drugs has failed to achieve a drug-free society. If failure was all there was to the matter, that would be one thing. But the other indisputable fact is that the drug war has produced horrific adverse consequences.
Drug laws have caused the price of drugs to skyrocket, which has made it more difficult for addicts to purchase the drugs they’re addicted to. So, they have resorted to robberies, thefts, and muggings to get the money to pay for their drugs.
Drug laws have brought soaring profits for drug dealers, which has tempted regular people, including law-enforcement officers, to get into the drug trade.
Drug laws have brought corruption in for the form of bribes of judges, prosecutors, and law-enforcement personnel.
Drug laws have brought asset-forfeiture laws into existence, enabling cops to steal money from innocent people in order to feather their own nests.
Drug laws have brought mandatory-minimum sentences, which have consigned drug users to long prison terms, even life in prison without possibility of parole.
Drug laws have produced massive infringements on civil liberties and personal and financial privacy.
Drug laws have brought into existence drug gangs and drug cartels, along with gang wars, assassinations, and militarization of the police.
Drug laws have worsened addiction by discouraging people from openly seeking treatment, for fear of being busted by a snitch.
Drug laws have brought about the disappearance and deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people.
Drug laws have enabled bigoted cops to abuse, insult, harass, humiliate, and frame racial minorities.
Drug laws have destroyed the core principle of freedom — that is, the fundamental, God-given right of people to live their lives any way they want so long as their conduct is peaceful.
Rationale for Question #2:
In the aftermath of the JFK assassination, officials in the national-security branch of the federal government, including the Pentagon and the CIA, did everything they could to keep matters secret, on grounds of “national security.”
Some of that secrecy was lifted during the 1970s when the House Select Committee on Assassinations, reinvestigating the Kennedy assassination, rejected the official finding of the Warren Commission that Kennedy had been killed by a lone nut. As a result of the lifting of some of the secrecy, people began discovering the shenanigans surrounding Kennedy’s autopsy, shenanigans that are detailed in FFF’s ebook The Kennedy Autopsy by Jacob Hornberger.
It was during the House Select Committee investigation when the CIA intentionally obstructed efforts to investigate the agency, especially with respect to a CIA agent named George Joannides who, unbeknownst to the committee, had been working with and funding a New Orleans group that immediately began advertising the communist bona fides of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin, immediately after the assassination. See “Who Was George Joannides and Why Is His Story Important?” by Jefferson Morley.
After Oliver Stone’s movie JFK was released in 1991, there was an enormous public outcry over the continued secrecy by the national-security branch of the government on matters relating to the Kennedy assassination. As a result of that outcry, Congress enacted a law ordering the release of all Kennedy-assassination related records. The Assassination Records Review Board was formed to ensure that all federal agencies complied with the law.
As a result of ARRB’s work, the massive amount of circumstantial evidence that was disclosed to the public pointed in the direction of a Cold War regime-change operation at the hands of the national-security establishment. See FFF’s ebooks JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas P. Horne, who served on the staff of the ARRB, and Regime Change: The JFK Assassination by Jacob G. Hornberger.
During and after the term of the ARRB, the CIA continued to keep records relating to the assassination secret. Many of the still-secret records are being held by the National Archives, which has publicly announced that it intends to disclose them to the public in October 2017, pursuant to the law that Congress enacted in the aftermath of Stone’s movie. See “Almost 3,600 JFK Records at National Archives Sealed Until 2017” by Jefferson Morley.
But there is one condition: the law permits the CIA to seek another extension of time for continued secrecy by pleading “national security,” the two-word term that has become a license for wrongdoing by the national-security branch of the government. If the remaining records are incriminatory, which is a distinct possibility, it is a virtual certainty that the CIA will seek continued secrecy. See the recent article at Politico “Why the Last of the JFK Files Could Embarrass the CIA” by Bryan Bender.
Who has the authority to grant such an extension? The president of the United States.
Therefore, the American people should know where all the candidates stand on this issue before the election: Will the candidate unconditionally support the release of the remaining records or will he defer to the CIA if it pleads for continued secrecy on grounds of “national security”?