It's early October and the national presidential election is just around the corner, but today's edition of  "Wingin’ It Wednesday” focused on the Libyan controversy and America's drug policy. Panelists Carol Ross, Warren Caudle, and Mike Stagg  joined "Mornings With Ken and Bernie” to discuss this week's hottest political topics.

Here’s what the panel had to say:

1. Yesterday Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee and Rep. Jason Chaffetz sent a letter to Sec. Of State Hillary Clinton asking why requests for more protection at the Benghazi embassy were denied.  In that letter they state the attack that claimed the lives of Amb. Stephens and others was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats in Libya.  Do you think any of the following questions will be answered truthfully?

Warren led off:

I think they're all going to be answered, whether they're answered truthfully or not is a different question. There's always going to be some kind of spin. Let's look at the important side of this which is diplomatic protection. We've heard many times before that intelligence organizations get word of disasters before they happen. We heard about it with 9/11; people say they CIA knew this, the FBI knew this, the defense intelligence knew this, but nobody was sharing information. The big problem we have today is who knows what and when? It's a serious problem that's on going, and they're all going to spin it in a way that's least damaging to them.

Mike Stagg countered:

I read where the terrorist group announced their intent to attack on their Facebook page so maybe the CIA should be friending these terrorists on Facebook.

The roll of this committee in the house when Republicans have control of the house is to be a political nuisance and that's what he's doing.

One of the great quotes about terrorism is that you have to be right every time in order to be able stop it. Obviously something went wrong in Libya, but to make a political case about it which Issa is doing, there's no place for that.

Carol Ross added:

I would suggest that the political case was made early on by the administration when they kept claiming it was a video and not a terrorist attack that led up to this.  On and on the ambassador asked for help on a number of occasions and the timeline even as the attacks started was really troubling.

Let's just say that president Obama got that 3 am call at 5 pm Washington time and he absolutely ignored it, then again Hillary who made that claim that he was not qualified to answer that call, it turns out she didn't answer it either.

Warren Caudle, Carol Ross, Mike Stagg
Warren Caudle, Carol Ross, Mike Stagg
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2. Another border patrol agent was killed yesterday and another wounded.  Both of them worked out of the recently renamed Brian Terry station in honor of the agent killed as a result of “Fast and Furious”.  What do you think can be done to better protect our agents and our border?

Mike began:

You have to do something about the drug consumption in the United States to really make a difference here. Separate from the immigration problem, the problem with the weapons along the border is all drug related – drug cartel, drug trafficking. The problem is the United States remains the largest market, it's where everyone's coming to sell their stuff, and it's where everything is getting consumed.

I think if the objective is to actually do something about violence on the border we need to deal with the decriminalization of drugs so that just like alcohol was during prohibition – it's literally a war over the control markets, so that's where we need to go.

 

Carol countered:

If the sovereignty of this country is not secure I don't know how you're going to solve this problem, because it's far more than just drugs. You have weapons, you have what they call OTMs (other than Mexicans), you've got terrorists coming in by actual account of the border control. We've got to do something. There are a number of ways to do it including physical fences and drones.

Finally some reporters ask some hard questions with Univision and the word is getting out. This is more than about drugs. It's a war zone along the border.

Warren commented:

Mike has just pretty much quoted the most conservative Justice Antonin Scalia who says that virtually all of these problems are because federal law made drugs illegal. He said that was the worst law that was ever passed in this country back in the early 70s. It has trivialized the federal courts, they're full of drug cases, the prisons are full of drug users. The United States of America has the biggest appetite for drugs and it is basically the root cause for all these problems.

Let's take the crime out of the drugs.

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