Back when J. Edgar Hoover needed felonies to be rising...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

When J. Edgar Hoover headed the FBI he had a keen interest in maintaining high crime statistics.

RULE OF CONSERVATIVES #1: Conservatives are about crisis, not solutions. They never seek power on the strength of their record having made the world a better place. Their source of power is the public's predictable reaction to threat. It is funny that the head of the FBI had a career-long obsession with inflating crime statistics... "Look what a bad job we doing! Give us more power and funding."

Every year the federal government put out a major felonies report. During a period in the 1950s-mid1960s when violent crimes (including armed robbery) were declining the Feds saw that auto theft was increasing. Teenage "joyriding" was on the way up. (Stealing a car, riding around in it for the night and the abandoning it.)

So grand theft auto was added to the list alongside murder, rape and armed robbery.

Hooray! Major crime was still increasing and the FBI could ask for more power and money.

_________________

WASHINGTON — The rate of illegal drug use rose last year to the highest level in nearly a decade, fueled by a sharp increase in marijuana use and a surge in ecstasy and methamphetamine abuse, the government reported Wednesday.

[frylock]

1. just in time for california's prop 19..

and we all know how good team obama is at marketing product.