[The Hill] A former employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in a new interview on Sunday that efforts to stem the growing opioid epidemic in the U.S. were derailed by pressure from large pharmaceutical companies and Congress.
Joe Rannazzisi told CBS’s "60 Minutes" that major distributors, including Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen, allowed drugs to be obtained by rogue pharmacies and pain clinics, which then prescribed them to Americans "who had no legitimate need for those drugs."
As the opioid epidemic grew steadily worse, Rannazzisi, who at the time was the head of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, said he helped launch a crackdown on the companies, which included slapping heavy fines on them.
But Rannazzisi said the drug industry used money and influence to pressure lawyers at the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, to go easy on the companies.
The former DEA agent said superiors called him to have him explain his tactics. "And it infuriated me that I was over there, trying to explain what my motives were or why I was going after these corporations?" Rannazzisi said in the interview.
Herewith a perfect example of the logical fallacy of Bulverism, as defined by C.S.Lewis.
[LimaOhio.com] Using statistics and the Constitution as CliffsNotes for your convictions is hardly evidence of high intellect. Anybody with at least a shoe-size I.Q. who views the event in Nevada on October 1 without self-examining his unconditional defense of the 2nd amendment doesn’t have enough substance inside his skull to lobotomize. So, in the author's mind, using insults in a public debate is evidence of an IQ greater than shoe size.
What rationale is crucial to condemning the vilest act of premeditated murder since Wounded Knee, or to respond to criticisms of a stricken nation’s understandably emotional appeals to government to end this senselessness regardless of the cost politically? Statistics are a poor barometer of a nation’s despair. Statistics are the tools of the statist. Very well put. By the way: the nation wasn't stricken. 159 people were hit with bullets fired from an individual who sought to do as much damage as he could before he checked out. You may want to take the Las Vegas shooting personally, and you may want to display your pain/anger for the world to see, but it doesn't take away from the fact that a crime was committed.
Even the NRA reacted to this outrage with a sympathetic (if meager) softening of its rigid code! The board at the NRA will pay for their statements post massacre, with resignations. Very, very few people I know of, in and out of the NRA think the statement recommending the banning of a firearm accessory was a great idea.
Because not a single argument for the proliferation of guns in America will hold water anymore. This, then, may come as a shock. Following the election of a pro gun president, individuals dumped firearms onto the market, on the understanding they no longer had the government to fear. Silly, it is true, but it does point out that in some cases disarmament took place conoletely without government intervention.
Who would liberals enslave? And why? 1) Everyone. 2) They're a buncha control freaks.
Well, maybe one would barter a gagged Rush Limbaugh (or someone of that ilk) for a hamster. And yes, if anybody were to threaten that one’s family with violence, he would defend them with a gun, if one were within reach. Some occasions are not suitable for over-thinking.
Many liberals own firearms; many conservatives don’t. But we’re nothing but bi-partisan among the list of casualties. Because no one is safe anymore, anywhere, at anytime. Freedom is a dangerous concept, fraught with dangers from dangerous people who can only can be stopped by other people with firearms.
But the option of rejecting guns as opposed to owning one calls for a personal decision, not a political one. In that one sentence, this writer has encapsulated the thinking of 90 percent of the population with regard to firearms: the 2nd Amendment only applies to me and to no one else.
Some, tragically, are not able to wait with the survivors ‘til the day that choice is hopefully no longer available.
#1
Not really a personal decision when one has been raised in the ‘shadow’ of WW2. Aside from the colonial traits of filling the winter larder many of US are not necessarily driven by choice as much as haunted by our father’s memories of the horror of no recourse.
[American Thinker] They talk a lot about global warming in Europe and Canada. We do our share of talking here, too.
Where is the talk about the real threat facing Europe, or the West as a whole, for that matter?
Where are the marches calling on Europeans to get married and have at least two little babies? A march for marriage and babies may sound a bit silly but Europe could use one badly.
Like a dead body of water, Europe is drying out in front of our eyes. At current birth rates, there won't be any Europeans around to determine if the global warming predictions were a hoax or real!
Read this:
"Europe needs more babies -- the average continental family has a mere 1.37 children...Germany is similarly concerned -- it could lose the equivalent of the population of the former East Germany within 50 years... Russia’s population is contracting at the rate of three quarters of a million a year: the resourceful Mr Putin is paying mothers to have a second child.... The last thing we should be doing is bullying people to breed less." ("The cry should go up in Europe: more babies, please" by Melanie McDonaghon)
Furthermore, you can not preserve your values, culture and democratic ideas if you do not "seed the future" with your own people.
We inherited progressive values from our parents and ancestors who gave us life. Don't we have a responsibility to bring life into the world and preserve our culture?
Furthermore, at current birth rates, Europe can't finance its massive welfare state! Who is going to care for the old if there are no young people to work, pay taxes and defend a way of life?
They've been trying for a generation to pay their women to have more babies -- it hasn't worked. That's why Frau Merkel welcomed "Syria's" ambitious with open arms. Unfortunately, it was not just the ambitious who swarmed in.
#1
They've been trying for a generation to pay their women to have more babies
And not just their own women. When trailing daughter #2 was born in Germany in 1992, we started getting money from the government every month. It took Mr. Wife a great deal of arguing to persuade them to stop, as we were neither citizens nor had any intention of becoming permanent residents,
#2
Drudge Report has linked to the following Wall Street Journal article since yesterday. Sometime overnight they persuaded the site to unlock the article for their readers. It's at Drudge in the lefthand column near the bottom. A taste:
Earlier influx of foreigners feeds concerns about budget, safety, jobs and the quality of education
Andrea ThomasUpdated Oct. 15, 2017 2:11 p.m. ET
SALZGITTER, Germany—Late this summer, Nadine Langer took her six-year old to her first day at school. The girl was one of two German children in her class, she said, amid 20, mostly Syrian, refugees.
Germany’s 2015 refugee crisis has largely disappeared from the headlines. But in this and other midsize towns, it is continuing to unfold, putting communities under stress, pressuring local coffers and feeding concerns about safety, jobs and the quality of education.
Some 140,000 asylum seekers have entered Germany so far this year—a sharp drop from the 1.2 million who arrived in the past two years. But in places such as Salzgitter there is a sense that the government, having housed and fed the newcomers, is failing in the longer-term effort to integrate them in German society.
This unease, pollsters say, boosted the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany at last month’s election, making it the first far-right party to enter parliament in half a century. This shock means immigration will loom large when Chancellor Angela Merkel kicks off negotiations on Wednesday to form a three-party ruling coalition.
Immigration has also returned to regional politics. In Lower Saxony, where Salzgitter is located and which elected its parliament on Sunday, integration and schools have been central in the campaign. Conservatives for years have said that refugees, a majority of whom settle permanently in the country, must learn German values, a concept known as Leitkultur.
Many here say they are proud of their town’s tradition as a refugee haven. But as their numbers rose sharply last year Salzgitter took the unusual step of requesting a moratorium on new arrivals.
“The established parties lived in a bubble. They said everything was fine, closed their eyes to reality and didn’t see people’s concern,” said Salzgitter’s mayor Frank Klingebiel.
Mr. Klingebiel hails from the conservative Christian Democratic Union. But his concerns transcend political lines. It was Stephan Weil, the left-leaning state premier who sought re-election on Sunday, who greenlighted the ban on further refugees moving to Salzgitter, which took effect this past week.
#3
The reason westerners don't have kids is because increasingly suffocating government makes life a pain anymore. Paperwork, regulations, PC, etc.. Who wants to bring kids into this world anymore? If used to be easy.
[DAWN] PAKISTAN’S military and government have proscribed the bully boyIslamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS, aka ISIS) group and declared it an enemy organization. They have never explained why. Of course, IS’s atrocities ‐ which include beheadings, crucifixions, suicide kabooms, and intimidation of civilians in captured territories ‐ have been condemned by many. It is also a fact that IS has killed many more Moslems than non-Moslems. But is IS to be faulted for bad tactics or is its goal to create an Islamic state in Pakistain itself wrong? Should attempts to make a global caliphate be condemned or, instead, assisted?
Our generals and politicians would rather bomb IS than argue logically against it because they know IS’s stated goal resonates with millions of ordinary Paks. Through its internet machinery, IS declares it will establish God’s principality (mumlikat-e-khudadad) headed by a righteous caliph who would govern by God’s law. For this to happen territory must be seized and secured, idolatry and heresy eliminated, and the immoral mixing of men and women stopped. This is sweet music to many Pak ears.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
It is also futile to claim that IS has nothing to do with Islam because its leadership carefully quotes supportive holy doctrines to justify every major atrocity.
[CETUS] A former deputy director of the CIA has criticised Donald Trump’s decision not to re-certify the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. John McLaughlin said it was one of the President's "worst decisions" and would "shred" America's credibility. "Iran speech - one of Trump's worst decisions: feeds Iran hardliners, splits allies, shreds US credibility, roils congress, gift to Russia," he wrote on Twitter. "Trump could combat Iran's testing of missiles etc without touching nuclear deal," he continued.
A former deputy director of the CIA has criticised Donald Trump’s decision not to re-certify the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers.
John McLaughlin said it was one of the President's "worst decisions" and would "shred" America's credibility.
"Iran speech - one of Trump's worst decisions: feeds Iran hardliners, splits allies, shreds US credibility, roils congress, gift to Russia," he wrote on Twitter.
"Trump could combat Iran's testing of missiles etc without touching nuclear deal," he continued.
"But needs POTUS [President of the United States] discipline, hard work so far lacking."
The Obama-era deal lifted crippling international sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran’s agreement to restrict its nuclear programme for at least 10 years.
In a speech on Friday, Mr Trump said removing sanctions had given the "fanatical regime" in Iran a financial boost, increasing its ability to fund terrorism. He accused Iran of spreading "death, destruction and chaos around the globe".
Iran speech - one of Trump's worst decisions: feeds Iran hardliners, splits allies, shreds US credibility, roils congress, gift to Russia.
#1
Strange isn't it? Nothing president Trump undertakes pleases these people, virtually nothing. They are all appear to be lined up in lock-step opposition.
Posted by: Chris ||
10/16/2017 14:00 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Really. Trump should just dissolve the IC now. They didn't stop 9/11, they won't stop anything now. Get the lawsuits underway and let the sunshine of discovery do what it can (no illusions here) Just. Do. It.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/16/2017 14:19 Comments ||
Top||
#4
And after all we got after 9/11 was more IC...and a bunch of loser thugs employed by TSA.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Hill] A former employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in a new interview on Sunday that efforts to stem the growing opioid epidemic in the U.S. were derailed by pressure from large pharmaceutical companies and Congress.
[DAWN] PAKISTAN’S military and government have proscribed the
[CETUS] A former deputy director of the CIA has criticised Donald Trump’s decision not to re-certify the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. John McLaughlin said it was one of the President's "worst decisions" and would "shred" America's credibility. "Iran speech - one of Trump's worst decisions: feeds Iran hardliners, splits allies, shreds US credibility, roils congress, gift to Russia," he wrote on Twitter. "Trump could combat Iran's testing of missiles etc without touching nuclear deal," he continued.
