“Before the Ping May, a rusty cargo vessel, could disembark from the port of Santa Marta en route to the Netherlands in late August, Colombian inspectors boarded the boat and made a discovery. Hidden in the ship’s chain locker, amidst its load of coal bound for Europe, were approximately 40 kilograms, or about ninety pounds, of cocaine. A Colombian Coast Guard official told The Nation that there is an ongoing investigation.
The seizure of the narcotics shipment in the Caribbean port occurred far away from Kentucky, the state in which Senator Mitch McConnell is now facing a career-defining election. But the Republican Senate minority leader has the closest of ties to the owner of the Ping May, the vessel containing the illicit materials: the Foremost Maritime Corporation, a firm founded and owned by McConnell’s in-laws, the Chao family.
Though Foremost has played a pivotal role in McConnell’s life, bestowing the senator with most of his personal wealth and generating thousands in donations to his campaign committees, the drug bust went unnoticed in Kentucky, where every bit of McConnell-related news has generated fodder for the campaign trail.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here:
http://www.thenation.com/article/186689/mitch-mcconnells-freighted-ties-shadowy-shipping-company
Comments
Whether or not this is true isn’t my point, it makes sense why someone tough on drugs stands to profit off it trade. Drug dealers and street gangs don’t want to see Marijauna or anything else made legal. Why? That’s their profit. It’s so elementary it’s not even neccesary to elaborate but I will anyway.
Let’s just say a drug kingpin doesn’t care about these laws. Any crime of just possession thereof would be the least of their concerns. Furthermore, rich people don’t go to jail for drugs. They make a public apology then sign into a “rehab” for a week or two.
That plays down from the top to the bottom. A small time drug dealer want’s to pay rent, a streetgang want’s to compete for turf, and a kingpin doesn’t give a fuck either way as long as it stays illegal. They factor in loss to ICE or whomever; even if supply dries up it only drives price up.
Let the poor go to jail and profit from the private prison system and now you’re making money on both sides. That’s how American politicians roll and how they have been rolling for decades. It’s obvious and the exact reason the war on drugs will never see much political movement and is so hard for Americans to end.
This is not conspiracy, it’s basic Qui Bono. There are noble people that look at this from both sides of the American aisle. Again, this is not conspiracy, nor is it partisan. White market drugs are the kryptonite to black market drugs, plain and simple.