Train law enforcement to end war on drugs

Law enforcement is clearly losing the war on drugs. In allowing this to continue for 45 years, lawmakers have lost the ability to effectively maintain the public’s safety.

On July 3, State Sen. Jay Costa announced that he was drafting legislation that would enhance the training and support for Allegheny County law enforcement at the county’s municipal level. Mr. Costa is a first-rate lawmaker with strong ideals and visionary ideas. So, Mr. Costa, let’s hear you announce that you are drafting legislation to consolidate all of Allegheny County’s municipal law enforcement agencies into one countywide department.

An undertaking of this scale needs to be approached as a whole measure. Implementing this task using the typically but politically digestible half-measures will cost the war on drugs another 45 years of fruitless futility.

President Richard Nixon got the national psyche geared up for the war on drugs in 1972 when he appointed Jerome Jaffe to be the nation’s first drug czar. This was during the same time that our fighting boys were losing the war in Vietnam. I am assured that Lt. William Calley and his boys were very frightened of the residents of My Lai before they massacred them and leveled their village.

Let’s quit making unintentional villains out of unqualified law enforcement individuals and martyrs out of our profiled children. I’m sure that the Fraternal Order of Police would salivate enough at the prospect of a countywide force that some money will fall out of their pockets to help the implementation process.

There are five national offices that represent Allegheny County. There are over 500 local elected officials overseeing the mess that comes with having a county broken into over 130 pieces. If you want the major companies of the world to relocate to our fair county, let’s get cracking. Maybe it can get out of committee before the MonFayette Expressway is completed. JOHN F. KARICHKO Whitaker been regularly abused by powerful men, without real recourse, and how Mr. Trump in his “Access Hollywood” conversation bragged about how “when you’re a star ... you can do anything . ... Grab them by the [expletive].”

Mr. Trump, a chief sexual exploiter of women, can now bash them freely, and Justice Kavanaugh can play the victim. JIM SCOFIELD

Johnstown

If you’ve won the “employment lottery” under President Donald Trump’s administration, I encourage you to vote to keep the money you’re earning. The Democratic Party has been highjacked by communists.

Pennsylvania, historically, is a conservative state. The state had only 14 years of “liberal” leadership from the 1850s to 1950s. Liberalism gathered steam from the 1960s to the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan won in a landslide to save us from economic doom.

Pennsylvanians used to move to other states and be hired quickly because of their hard work ethic.

Unfortunately, in the past 50 to 70 years, many have opted to be taken care of by the liberal left financially: i.e., public housing, food stamps, education or disability benefits. So much so that now hard-working taxpaying Pennsylvanians pay for drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and tattoos.

Pennsylvania has the second-highest-paid legislators in America, at over $87,000 a year. California is tops at over $107,000. Coupled with their “per-diem” expenses, Pennsylvania legislators earn closer to $130,000 annually. We don’t have Hollywood contributing taxes.

Gov. Tom Wolf has increased gas, utility, entertainment and countless other taxes. Working families barely feel the effect of the Trump tax cuts due to Mr. Wolf’s taxation practices. For what?

Legislators and entitlement recipients are the ones getting richer while taxpaying workers are paying for it.

The alt-left exploits the poor and illegal immigrants for their own personal wealth.

Slavery is not abolished, working Pennsylvanians. Remember this when you vote. JANET LORD

Johnstown