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Illinois Will Revisit Hemp Regulation Debate Amid New Federal Ban On THC Products, Governor Says

Tucked into the spending legislation approved by Congress this week was a provision banning the sale of intoxicating hemp products—a move that could upend an industry with annual sales now into the billions.

Hemp was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, which defined it as a plant with less than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC. But the law didn’t account for total THC or other cannabinoids, creating a loophole that allowed companies to use compounds like delta-8 to make products with marijuana-like intoxicating effects. As a result, hemp-derived intoxicants have proliferated in gas stations, corner stores and other places with little to no regulation.

An amendment seeking to remove the language from the larger bill, proposed by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, was rejected in a 76-24 vote. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) voted with the majority.

Durbin said the hemp language was proposed by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

“Throughout my career, I’ve tried my best to protect children,” Durbin said. “He asked for further regulation of the industry to make sure their products being sold at service stations and such weren’t dangerous to kids. That’s not too much to ask. I supported his position.”

Though he opposed the bill on the whole, the hemp provision hands Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) an indirect political win. The governor earlier this year pushed in vain for legislation that would have limited the sale of delta-8 and other hemp-derived intoxicants to state-licensed cannabis dispensaries. But House Speaker Chris Welch, D-Hillside, did not call it for a vote, claiming it did not have the support of 60 House Democrats.

“In the absence of action in Springfield, Governor Pritzker supports policies to protect people, including children, from being misinformed or harmed by these products,” a Pritzker spokesperson said.

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Kentucky Governor Says Hemp Is An ‘Important Industry’ That Should Be Regulated At The State Level, Not Federally Banned

The Democratic governor of Kentucky says the hemp industry is an “important” part of the economy that deserves to be regulated at the state level—rather than federally prohibited, as Congress has moved to do under a spending bill President Donald Trump signed on Wednesday.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) was asked whether he agrees with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that the hemp language that advanced through the appropriations legislation poses an existential threat to the cannabis market that’s emerged since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill.

“I haven’t had a chance to review the language on hemp, but hemp is an important industry in Kentucky,” Beshear said. “We should have appropriate safety regulations around it, but we should make those regulations here in Kentucky—talking to the industry and making sure that we get that balance right.”

“I think that we can protect our kids. I think that we can do the right thing to protect all of our people while not handicapping an industry that supports a lot of people,” the governor said.

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Neanderthals’ Disappearance May Not Have Been from Extinction, Controversial New Study Argues

The disappearance of the Neanderthals—our archaic hominin cousins—remains one of the great unresolved riddles of ancient human history. Now, new research puts forward an intriguing theory: they may not have truly gone extinct.

At least not in the conventional sense of extinction, according to a paper published in Scientific Reports that argues the Neanderthals may have instead simply interbred with humans until they were essentially “absorbed” over long periods, as evidenced by new mathematical modeling.

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Neanderthals

“The disappearance of Neanderthals remains a subject of intense debate, with competing hypotheses attributing their demise to demographic decline, environmental change, competition with Homo sapiens, or genetic assimilation,” write authors Andrea Amadei, Giulia Lin, and Simone Fattorini in a new paper.

The team relied on a unique mathematical model that allowed them to show how small waves of ancient modern human immigration into populations of Neanderthals led to recurrent interbreeding. The resulting gene-mixing, they argue, “could have led to almost complete genetic substitution over 10,000–30,000 years.”

Computing Ancient Hominin Extinction

The team’s model, which is based primarily on the theory of neutral species drift, holds that most evolutionary changes within a species are due to the random genetic “drift” of mutational alleles—forms of genes that arise due to mutations—and are essentially neutral.

Employing a computational model on this basis allowed the research team to overstep considerations involving selective advantage or unexpected catastrophes that, throughout Earth’s ancient history, have also helped account for the sudden demise of species.

Instead, the team’s model “shows that sustained gene flow from a demographically larger species could account for Neanderthals’ genetic absorption into modern humans,” while also providing a good match for what archaeological data has yielded.

“This scenario aligns with growing evidence of interbreeding and genetic introgression through recurrent H. sapiens immigration waves,” the researchers write, adding that their findings offer an explanation that aligns with researchers’ past perspectives on the abundance of Neanderthal ancestry observed in modern European and Asian populations.

Lingering Questions

Given the abundance of evidence from genetic analysis in recent years that points to mixing between Neanderthals and modern humans, researchers have increasingly moved toward the idea that this ancient human species’ extinction was something more akin to an absorption, which occurred very gradually over time.

In their new study, Amadei, Lin, and Fattorini concede that while their mathematical models lend support to this theory, there are still a few remaining questions about precisely what circumstances may have led to the decline of the Neanderthals.

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Meet Michigan’s DEAD Voters: Several Voted “In-Person,” Others Voted “Absentee” — One Voted 41 Years After He Died

Michigan’s defiant Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has been in the news after she refused the DOJ’s demands to turn over unredacted voter rolls. The term-limited secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, whose 2026 campaign for governor is being funded in large part by members of George Soros’s family, cites the need to protect voters’ US Social Security numbers from the federal government that literally issues the Social Security numbers.

Jocelyn Benson doesn’t think Michigan voters are smart enough to understand her motives.  Benson claims she’s denying the DOJ access to Michigan’s voter rolls because she doesn’t want them to see MI driver’s license numbers. It’s more likely she is protecting the State Department from exposure when the DOJ discovers the number of non-citizens registered to vote once they obtain a Michigan driver’s license.

And finally, another reason Jocelyn Benson doesn’t want the DOJ to investigate Michigan’s voter rolls is that, given the many ways elections are stolen, the DOJ is likely to discover that Michigan’s voter rolls are among the most corrupt in the nation.

A good place to start is with some of Michigan’s OLDEST “ACTIVE” voters…

At 115 years old, Naomi Whitehead is America’s oldest living citizen.

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Brussels Aims at WhatsApp in the Next Round of Speech Control

Meta’s WhatsApp platform is set to come under tighter European oversight as regulators prepare to bring its “channels” feature under the European Union’s far-reaching censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), the same framework that already pressures Facebook and Instagram.

According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter say the European Commission has informed Meta that WhatsApp’s channels are being prepared for designation as a “Very Large Online Platform.”

That classification carries extensive responsibilities for content censorship. Although no public date has been announced, the Commission’s notice indicates that WhatsApp will soon face some of the most demanding digital rules in the world.

Channels, which allow public updates from news outlets, public figures, and organizations, function more like social media feeds than private chats.

WhatsApp reported earlier this year that these channels reached around 46.8 million users in Europe by late 2024, slightly above the DSA’s 45 million-user threshold for stricter oversight.

Once a service crosses that line, it must perform regular assessments of how illegal or “harmful” content circulates and develop strategies to limit its spread. Platforms are also required to publish user figures twice a year and risk fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue for failing to comply.

The DSA does not apply to private, encrypted communication, so WhatsApp’s core messaging service will remain unaffected.

Still, the EU’s decision to expand its regulatory reach into new areas of online conversation has caused concern that these rules could burden companies and discourage open dialogue in the name of safety.

The European Commission has remained cautious about providing details, saying only that it “cannot confirm the timeline for a potential future designation.”

For Meta, the move adds another chapter to its ongoing disputes with European regulators.

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Grassley: DOJ Partisans Killed Probe Into Clinton, DNC Steele Dossier Cash

The same Department of Justice partisans who played key roles in the launch and cover of the FBI’s politically driven Arctic Frost investigation killed a criminal probe into the driver of the Russia collusion hoax, according to new emails released Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The emails, dating back to 2019 at the height of the hoax, expose DOJ players freezing investigative efforts to look into campaign finance violations committed by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. As became clear over time (no thanks to the accomplice media), the failed 2016 Democrat presidential candidate’s campaign and the DNC pushed opposition research to fuel a deep state soft coup aimed at toppling President Donald Trump’s first term in office. 

In 2022, the Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign and the DNC for “misreporting” (disguising) campaign funds paid to Fusion GPS to deliver the infamous Steele dossier that falsely and maliciously accused the Trump campaign of colluding with the Kremlin. 

“Courageous whistleblowers came to my office years ago to sound the alarm that the Justice Department inappropriately interfered in efforts to investigate potential criminal activity committed by Hillary Clinton and her campaign,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a press release.

“These records show the same partisans who rushed to cover for Clinton rabidly pursued Arctic Frost, which was a runaway train aimed directly at President Trump and the Republican political apparatus,” Grassley added.

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EU’s “Democracy Shield” Centralizes Control Over Online Speech

European authorities have finally unveiled the “European Democracy Shield,” we’ve been warning about for some time, a major initiative that consolidates and broadens existing programs of the European Commission to monitor and restrict digital information flows.

Though branded as a safeguard against “foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI)” and “disinformation,” the initiative effectively gives EU institutions unprecedented authority over the online public sphere.

At its core, the framework fuses a variety of mechanisms into a single structure, from AI-driven content detection and regulation of social media influencers to a state-endorsed web of “fact-checkers.”

The presentation speaks of defending democracy, yet the design reveals a machinery oriented toward centralized control of speech, identity, and data.

One of the more alarming integrations links the EU’s Digital Identity program with content filtering and labelling systems.

The Commission has announced plans to “explore possible further measures with the Code’s signatories,” including “detection and labelling of AI-generated and manipulated content circulating on social media services” and “voluntary user-verification tools.”

Officials describe the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet as a means for “secure identification and authentication.”

In real terms, tying verified identity to online activity risks normalizing surveillance and making anonymity in expression a thing of the past.

The Democracy Shield also includes the creation of a “European Centre for Democratic Resilience,” led by Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath.

Framed as a voluntary coordination hub, its mission is “building capacities to withstand foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) and disinformation,” involving EU institutions, Member States, and “neighboring countries and like-minded partners.”

The Centre’s “Stakeholder Platform” is to unite “trusted stakeholders such as civil society organisations, researchers and academia, fact-checkers and media providers.”

In practice, this structure ties policymaking, activism, and media oversight into one cooperative network, eroding the boundaries between government power and public discourse.

Financial incentives reinforce the system. A “European Network of Fact-Checkers” will be funded through EU channels, positioned as independent yet operating within the same institutional framework that sets the rules.

The network will coordinate “fact-checking” in every EU language, maintain a central database of verdicts, and introduce “a protection scheme for fact-checkers in the EU against threats and harassment.”

Such an arrangement destroys the line between independent verification and state-aligned narrative enforcement.

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MN: Half of Islamic immigrants found to have committed Ilhan-style immigration fraud…

ABC 5 in Minnesota just aired a story that should be front-page news across the country, but of course, it’s barely making a ripple. Nearly half of all Islamic immigrants reviewed during a Department of Homeland Security sweep in Minnesota were found to have committed some form of fraud: immigration fraud, marriage fraud, tax fraud, loan fraud, bribery, forgery, perjury, bigamy, and even incest.

And yes, if this all sounds a little familiar, it’s because a certain Minnesota congresswoman has faced her own allegations of immigration fraud, too.

The rumors have been swirling for years now.

But Ilhan doesn’t seem the least bit bothered. She’s brushed all of it off, saying she doesn’t care; deport her if they want, she can live anywhere.

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DNC Staffers Outraged After Being Told They Have to Return to Working in the Office – In February

Ken Martin, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), has told staffers that they need to come back to working in person in the office and they are not happy about it.

The order isn’t even immediate. Martin wants people to come back to the workplace in February of 2026, so people have plenty of time to prepare for this change.

The work from home policy was put in place during Covid but these folks don’t want to let go of it.

Townhall reports:

DNC Staffers in Uproar Over Return-to-Office Order With 60-Day Notice

Staffers for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are in uproar, as the new chair, Ken Martin, announced in an all-staff meeting on Wednesday that employees are expected to return to in-person work at the DNC headquarters in February, more than two years after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Complaints began immediately, according to the New York Times, with the DNC’s union representatives describing the move, which granted a 60-day notice, as “callous” by the end of the day.

Martin addressed the complaints, telling staffers that if they didn’t like his policy, they should begin seeking new employment. According to people familiar with the meeting, the DNC chair said the return to work policy had been a “Band-Aid” that was long overdue in being ripped off.

Staffers argued that the Democrats had won the 2020 election working remotely, and that they could do the same in 2028.

“It was shocking to see the D.N.C. chair disregard staff’s valid concerns on today’s team call,” the union’s leadership wrote in a statement to the New York Times. “D.N.C. staff worked extremely hard to support historic wins for Democrats up and down the ballot last Tuesday, and this change feels especially callous considering the current economic conditions created by the Trump administration.”

They obviously let this policy drag on for way too long. Now people feel entitled to it.

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New foreclosures jump 20% in October, a sign of more distress in the housing market

Foreclosure filings climbed again in October, after sitting at historic lows in recent years, according to new data released Thursday.

While the numbers are still small, the persistent rise in foreclosures may be a sign of cracks in the housing market.

There were 36,766 U.S. properties with some type of foreclosure filing in October — such as default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions, according to Attom, a property data and analytics firm. That was 3% higher than September and a 19% jump from October 2024, and marked the eighth straight month of annual increases, Attom said.

Foreclosure starts, which are the initial phase of the process, rose 6% for the month and were 20% higher than the year before. Completed foreclosures, the final phase, jumped 32% year over year.

“Even with these increases, activity remains well below historic highs. The current trend appears to reflect a gradual normalization in foreclosure volumes as market conditions adjust and some homeowners continue to navigate higher housing and borrowing costs,” said Attom CEO Rob Barber in a release.

Florida, South Carolina and Illinois led the nation in state foreclosure filings. On a metropolitan area level, Florida’s Tampa, Jacksonville and Orlando had the most filings, with Riverside, California, and Cleveland rounding out the top five.

Looking specifically at completed foreclosures, Texas, California and Florida had the most, suggesting those states will see more inventory coming on the market at distressed prices. There is still very strong demand for homes, especially in lower price ranges, so it is likely those foreclosed properties will find buyers quickly.

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