I wrote previously about Ron Paul’s newsletters, and I still think there’s reason to condemn not only the writings but the worldview they espouse, one which Paul embraces even as he disavows some of the finer points of the newsletters. But I think there’s more to say about this incident and what it means about American politics.

I think it’s fair to say that Ron Paul doesn’t like to take questions about the newsletters that bore his name in the 1990s. He walked out of an interview with Gloria Borger when she peppered him with questions about it.

Neil Haugerud’s main claim to fame nowadays is as the author of Jailhouse Stories, a collection of tales chronicling his eight years as sheriff of Fillmore County, Minnesota. But now he’s got a new book out, a novel called Holiday Forever, which is also his first foray into the e-book world.

As Marcy Wheeler says, this plot has it all – Mexican drug cartels, Iran, assassinations, attacks on the Saudi AND Israeli embassies. You name it, it’s in there.

It could just be coincidence, of course. But just as a huge scandal unfolds in Washington over a seemingly botched guns-drug operation, and a possibly cover-up by Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice has announced a big crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, long the leader in the medical marijuana movement. Something is very wrong here.

The guns-drug operation, run through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), was titled “Fast and Furious.”

The government’s long-running war on drugs is having little impact, according to documents just released. The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) of the Justice Department reports demand for drugs is rising and the demand is being supplied by major transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) or cartels, which adapt to government “counterdrug efforts” modifying interrelationships, altering drug production levels and adjusting trafficking routes and methods.

The Farm Depression was extremely severe. Families that had recently expected to create long-lasting prosperity for themselves were soon faced with starvation. No region of the country was spared. But, because of a quirk of fate, some regions were given a way to ease the pain and to even achieve prosperity for a few years — though at the price of learning a contempt for the law and societal structures. One of these regions was Minnesota’s Stearns County. The quirk of fate: Prohibition.

While the over trillion dollars the United States has already spent on our four decade long war on drugs has totally failed to achieve anything, I’m sure throwing another $40 million of good money after bad will be the tipping point that wins the war.

Just as US Attorney General Eric Holder announces that he will shortly “clarify Department policy” on marijuana dispensaries in states where laws allow them (Rhode Island in particular), United States Attorney Dwight Holton rounded up all but two of the District Attorneys in Oregon to sign a letter about the Feds’ zero tolerance policy.

When facing endless “war,” be it a war on drugs or a war on terror, such niceties as constitutional rights always end up a causality of these nebulous conflicts. After all, when eternally battling with a generalized evil that will never cease to exist, the trampling of a few personal freedoms can be framed as an acceptable price. The latest example of this trend can be seen with this horrible new Supreme Court ruling, which basically shreds our Fourth Amendment rights.