September 24, 2009

When American Narcs (and British Bloggers) Just Say Yes to Drugs

Photo courtesy of Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/torbenh/2298921212/">Torbenh</a> under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">Creative Commons</a> license.

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If you’re associated with drug enforcement and moonlight as a drug dealer, this month has not been easy on your kind. Last week authorities in Maryland busted up a $1.5 million cocaine ring. Among the 12 arrested, a former DC cop.

Earlier this month, the DEA arrested Richard Padilla, a high-ranking US official in the war on drugs, for serving “as a secret ally” to the drug lords of Mexican cartels. This from the LA Times:

“The charges underscore the corruptive might of the cartels, which have bought off Mexican politicians, police chiefs and military commandos. Drug lords have corrupted U.S. border inspectors and agents to help smuggle cocaine north. In 2006, the FBI chief in El Paso was convicted of charges related to concealing his friendship with an alleged kingpin.”

Ah, the corruptive influence of Mexican drug cartels. That’s the same point we made in our July/August cover story. And it doesn’t stop in Mexico—but really now, who’s surprised?

And finally, in other drug news, two amazing tidbits:

  • It must be hard out there for a narc, because after executing a drug raid, some cops in Tampa got a Wii bit distracted by the suspect’s video games.
  • And… We so badly want to claim British blogger Andrew Sullivan as a fellow American that we don’t care what he’s smoking; he didn’t even have to pay his $125 fine after getting caught with pot on National Park Service property. It just goes to show we DO like immigrants, and let them be naughty—or shill for the party, in the case of former GOP operative Michael Kamburowski—as long as they speak English well enough to write for The Atlantic.

Correction: Oops! In the original post, I misidentified Sullivan as Canadian. What was I smoking? Fixed.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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