OBAMA: WORSE THAN BUSH

Obama's drawing down wars abroad to save travel costs--while he wages war on us here at home with an increasingly militarized police force. So besides spying on us, here's what Obama's been doing to bolster the police state. I've quoted this article from the Huffingtonpost: 7 Ways The Obama Administration Has Accelerated Police Militarization by Radley Balko While attitudes towards marijuana soften, Obama's stepping up the war on drugs. With racial profiling, I wonder who this practice hurts the most? "Just two years into his presidency, Obama's administration had conducted about 150 such raids. The Bush administration conducted around 200 medical marijuana raids over eight years." Who cares if Fargo, ND doesn't need tanks at all ever? Hey, the war profiteers have to get paid somehow, don't they? Their contributions put him in office. "These grants have been used to purchase military-grade equipment in the name of fighting terrorism. The grants are going to cities and towns all over America, including to unlikely terrorist targets like Fargo, N.D.; Fond du Lac, Wis.; and Canyon County, Idaho. Once they have a new armored personnel carrier, or new high-powered weapons, most of these police agencies then put them to use in more routine police work -- usually drug raids." We're tough and we're mean and we're dumb. "The Obama administration has defended the use of aggressive, militaristic police actions in court. In the case Avina v. U.S., DEA agents pointed their guns at an 11-year-old and a 14-year-old during a drug raid on the wrong house. The agents had apparently mistaken the license plate of a suspected drug trafficker for the plate on a car owned by Thomas Avina. Obama's Justice Department argued in federal court that the lawsuit should be dismissed before being heard by a jury because the agents’ actions were not unreasonable." Just as Obama fought for the right to kill or detain American citizens w/o trial, the gov't can seize your property w/o one. "If the owner doesn't try to get his assets back, or if the court rules against him, asset forfeiture proceeds go to the police department that made the seizure. Critics say the policy creates perverse incentives for police to find drug connections that may not exist. But the policy has been lucrative for police agencies, and has been a huge contributor to the growth and use of SWAT teams to serve drug warrants. SWAT teams can be expensive to maintain. Instead of reserving them only for genuinely dangerous situations, asset forfeiture (along with Byrne grants) creates a strong incentive to send them on drug raids. A number of states have tried to curb forfeiture abuses by requiring that proceeds from seizures go to schools, or to a general fund. But under the Justice Department's equitable sharing program, a local police agency simply needs to ask the DEA for assistance with a raid. The operation then becomes federal, and is governed by federal law. The DOJ takes a cut of the assets, then sends a large percentage back to the local police agency, effectively getting around those state laws. Under Obama, forfeiture has flourished. According to a 2012 report from the General Accounting Office, the Justice Department's forfeiture fund swelled to $1.8 billion in 2011, the largest ever. That same year, equitable sharing payouts to local police agencies topped $445 million, also a record." Don't you love that the crooks in the Department of JUSTICE profits from property seizure and gives a cut to the cops who make the seizures? As we yank funding from police and fire departments nationwide. At what point does this stop being Bush's mess and start being Obama's? "Obama the candidate made some unusually frank and critical statements about the drug war, incarceration, and the criminal justice system. His drug czar then showed some rare insight into the dangers of war rhetoric when discussing domestic policing. Obama the president has been more of the same, and in some cases worse." MORE: HUFFPO