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Latin American Countries Align With US as Navy Ships Arrive in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan Coast

The board is set, the pieces are moving.

As Latin American countries start taking sides, the US’ largest military contingent in 25 years has been sent to Latin America.

Over 4,000 Marines and sailors have been deployed to the waters of the Caribbean as part of a ‘counter-cartel mission’.

This deployment includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (comprising the USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, and USS San Antonio), a nuclear-powered attack submarine, three destroyers (USS Gravely, USS Jason Duhan, and USS Sampson) a guided-missile cruiser, and additional P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft.

In the meantime, many Latin American countries are starting to position themselves regarding the upcoming operations.

  • Argentina declares the Cartel de los Soles an international terrorist organization, joining the diplomatic offensive against the criminal network linked to Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
  • Paraguay President Santiago Peña signed a decree classifying the Cartel of the Suns, allegedly led by Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, as an international terrorist organization, and urged their citizens to leave the country immediately.
  • The Republic of Guyana expressed ‘support for a collaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organized crime’.
  • Even unprompted, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar formally backed the deployment of US Navy Vessels against drug cartels, and even in the event of a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana over the Essequibo Region, allowing USN access.

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Media Hides Gender Identity and Skews Data in Cases Involving Trans Perpetrators

After a transgender individual killed two people and injured 17 others in a shooting at a Minnesota Catholic school on August 27, it took several hours before social media users uncovered the perpetrator’s identity using Department of Justice and other public law enforcement records. Mainstream outlets suppressed this fact.

Conservative commentator Andy Ngo tweeted: “Today’s killing of Christian children at a church in Minneapolis occurred in the context of a surge in far-left trans propaganda encouraging Trantifa and other leftists to take up arms to kill transphobes and ‘fascists.’ Their targets: Christians and conservatives. I have been warning and reporting on this phenomenon for years and am called a liar by liberal media, and targeted with death threats by the far-left.”

This reflects a broader trend: transgender identity is often omitted when individuals are perpetrators, while their victimization receives extensive coverage. Numerous websites track violence against LGBTQ people, but almost none record violence committed by them. In cases involving gender, the media will frequently refer to a man dressed as a woman simply as a woman, or vice versa, omitting the fact that the person is transgender.

The Washington Examiner highlighted this double standard, noting that “The media have bent over backward to downplay, or even refuse to report entirely, the fact that the shooter had been ‘identifying’ as a gender not actually her own” and that “The message is clear: The media will bend over backward to kowtow to transgender ideology when it benefits the gender bender yet will also do backflips to hide a transgender status if somebody might draw negative inferences.”

This bias is reinforced by the way data is collected. There are extensive official and NGO databases tracking violence against transgender people, such as Human Rights Campaign reports, FBI hate crime statistics, and other NGO monitoring systems, but there is no comparable official system tracking cases where transgender individuals are perpetrators. Instead, information relies on “networked agencies and journalists to correctly identify victims’ gender identities,” leaving systematic gaps whenever the offender is transgender.

Ironically, while there is also comprehensive data on transgender suicides, these reports consistently suppress the fact that many occur after individuals have undergone surgical transition, undermining the narrative that surgery reliably improves mental health and stability. This asymmetry in reporting and data collection creates a skewed picture that amplifies victimhood while obscuring cases that challenge prevailing narratives.

One of the most common talking points is the “Do you want more dead kids?” narrative, used to argue that children must transition and that schools should not be required to inform parents. The claim is that if kids who want to transition are denied the opportunity, they will inevitably commit suicide.

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First Amendment Claim Rejected in Case Over Tennessee Lawmaker’s Facebook Page

Tennessee lawmaker Jeremy Faison, a prominent Republican figure and chairman of the state House GOP Caucus, has emerged at the center of a court case with broader implications for how public officials use social media and what rights their constituents have when they engage online.

Faison operates a Facebook page that blends political messaging with personal content.

That blend became a legal flashpoint when a man named Fox, who doesn’t live in Faison’s district, posted comments that were subsequently deleted.

After being blocked from the page, Fox filed a lawsuit, arguing that Faison had violated his constitutional rights.

The court didn’t see it that way.

Citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lindke v. Freed, the judge determined that Faison was not acting in an official state capacity even when using the page to perform functions associated with his role as a legislator.

We obtained the opinion for you here.

Because individual lawmakers cannot, by law, speak on behalf of the state, the court said Faison’s moderation of comments wasn’t subject to First Amendment constraints.

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Mass Killers May Be Telling Us Something — But Are We Listening?

In the wake of yet another mass killing—the tragic event at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on August 27, 2025, where two children were murdered and 17 others injured—the public discourse often zeroes in on guns, manifestos, and societal failures.

But amid the clamor, a critical question seems to have faded from view: What role might legal and illegal drugs, and toxic exposures play in the volatile mix that drives some individuals to violence?

For years, reporters routinely probed the medical histories of perpetrators, revealing patterns of psychiatric drug use. Today, that line of inquiry has largely vanished, even as evidence mounts that certain medications carry warnings for suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior, and environmental toxins disrupt brain function. Ignoring these factors not only overlooks potential triggers but also misses opportunities to prevent future tragedies through better data collection and analysis.

When Medications Were Front and Center

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, mass killings prompted immediate questions about the perpetrators’ mental health treatments, including any prescribed drugs. This was partly because many suspects exhibited clear signs of mental illness, and their medications often came under the microscope.

For instance, in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people, Harris had been prescribed the antidepressant Luvox (fluvoxamine), an SSRI known for potential side effects like agitation.

Similarly, in the 2005 Red Lake Senior High School shooting, 16-year-old Jeff Weise, who killed nine others before taking his own life, was on Prozac (fluoxetine), another SSRI.

Kip Kinkel, the 15-year-old behind the 1998 Thurston High School shooting in Oregon that left two dead and 25 injured, had also been prescribed Prozac.

These cases weren’t anomalies.

A compilation by advocacy groups like AbleChild lists over a dozen similar incidents, including the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, where Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people, had a history of mental health treatment and was prescribed antidepressants, though details on his actual compliance history was spotty.

In the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, James Holmes, who murdered 12 and injured 70, was under psychiatric care and had been prescribed sertraline (Zoloft), an antidepressant linked to manic episodes in some users.

Reporting at the time often highlighted these details, fueling debates about whether the drugs—intended to alleviate depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder—could instead exacerbate violent impulses in vulnerable individuals.

This scrutiny aligned with emerging FDA warnings. In 2004, the agency mandated black-box labels on antidepressants, alerting users to increased risks of suicidal thoughts and behavior, particularly in young people. Some experts, like psychiatrist Peter Breggin, have long argued that SSRIs can induce violence and mania in a subset of patients, citing akathisia—a state of severe restlessness—as a potential trigger. A 2015 Swedish study of over 850,000 people found that antidepressants were associated with violent crime in 11,225 cases, though causality remains debated.

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Cannabis Use Linked to Lower Inflammation Among People With HIV or Methamphetamine Disorder

The research, published in the journal Viruses, involved 234 participants, including 86 people with HIV (PWH) and 148 without HIV (PWoH). Participants provided blood and urine samples and completed assessments covering medical, psychiatric, and substance use history. Researchers analyzed markers of immune activity and inflammation, focusing on CXCL10/IP-10, CCL2/MCP-1, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1.

Results showed that participants with HIV had higher levels of CXCL10/IP-10 compared to those without HIV, confirming heightened inflammation in this group. However, cannabis use was independently linked to lower CXCL10/IP-10 levels overall. Among people with lifetime MUD, cannabis use was also tied to reduced levels of CCL2/MCP-1, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1, suggesting cannabis may mitigate immune overactivation in this population. Interestingly, only participants without HIV displayed cannabis-associated reductions in VCAM-1.

The authors conclude that cannabis use is associated with lower concentrations of key immune and inflammatory molecules in individuals with HIV or MUD. They suggest that cannabinoid pathways could offer a promising target for treating complications tied to chronic inflammation.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that cannabinoids may hold therapeutic value in managing immune dysfunction and inflammation, particularly among populations facing elevated risks due to substance use or chronic conditions.

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US Announces Plan To Arm Ukraine With Thousands of Long-Range Cruise Missiles

The Trump administration has announced that it approved an $825 million weapons deal that will arm Ukraine with thousands of Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) air-launched missiles, which can hit targets up to 280 miles away, a significantly further range than other missiles that the US has sent into the proxy war.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said the deal will provide Ukraine with 3,350 ERAM missiles, 3,350 Embedded Global Positioning System (GPS)/Inertial Navigation Systems, and other related equipment.

The arms sale will be funded in part by Foreign Military Financing (FMF), a State Department program that provides foreign governments with money to buy US-made weapons. Other funding for the deal will come from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Saturday that the Trump administration had approved the deal and that the missiles would start arriving in Ukraine within six weeks. The report also said that the administration had been quietly blocking Ukraine from using US-provided missiles in attacks on Russian territory, but the provision of the ERAMs suggests that might change.

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Military To Start Testing Service Members For The Psychedelic Psilocin, Memo Shows

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is expanding the list of drugs that military service members will be tested for to include the psychedelic compound psilocin, one of the two main components of psilocybin mushrooms.

In a memo obtained by Marijuana Moment, a DOD employee performing the duties of the deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness advised military leadership that psilocin will be added to the department’s Drug Demand Reduction Program drug testing panel effective October 1.

The memo, dated August 18, states that the policy change being made due to “the risk of impairment and subsequent deterioration of security, military fitness, readiness, good order and discipline.”

“Drug abuse by Service members is a safety and readiness issue, and the Department must adapt our detection and deterrence program to address new and emerging drug threats,” Dr. Merlynn Carson wrote.

The DOD official said that attachments to the memo lay out “cutoff concentrations” for a positive psilocin test and other drugs in the testing panel.

Marijuana Moment reached out to DOD for copies of those attachments, but representatives were not able to immediately provide the documents.

“The Department of Defense maintains a zero-tolerance policy prohibiting drug use, and we remain committed to continually expanding drug testing capabilities and enhancing our education and prevention efforts by providing effective information on drug misuse, including the use of Psilocin,” an official told Marijuana Moment in an email.

The memo says that the “first priority” for psilocin testing under the revised drug panel “will be given to specimens collected under the auspices of probable cause, consent, or command.”

“In proportion to laboratory capabilities and capacity, second priority will be given to special testing requests for other collection modes, such as routine inspection-based collections, and specimens may also be randomly tested for psilocin,” it says.

At the same time that DOD has moved to test for psilocin, it’s also carrying out a congressional mandated psychedelic therapy pilot program for active duty service members and veterans. A more recent spending bill covering DOD would require a “progress report” on that initiative.

This latest memo also comes about two months after a DOD contractor sued the federal government, alleging that questions about his past marijuana use during a security clearance process violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

While the latest DOD policy update concerned a psychedelic compound, questions about federal workers testing positive for marijuana have also ballooned in recent years, as more individual states have legalized the drug.

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Federal Appeals Court Says Government Must Prove Marijuana Users ‘Pose A Risk’ Of Danger To Justify Gun Ban

A federal appeals court has ruled that the government must prove that people who use marijuana “pose a risk of future danger” if it wants to justify applying a law banning cannabis consumers from owning firearms.

In its opinion on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms, known as 922(g)(3), violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

The Justice Department appealed that ruling in 2023, sending it to the Tenth Circuit. That three-judge panel said they “agree with much of the district court’s analysis” of the legal considerations, including its challenge to the federal government’s claims that there is historically analogous precedent substantiating the firearm ban for cannabis consumers.

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Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Spy Industry Connections

After his first arrest for sex crimes, Jeffrey Epstein tried to get into a new line of work: surveillance. In 2015, he partnered with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to invest in a security tech startup called Reporty Homeland Security, now known as Carbyne. Leaked emails show that Epstein was using Barak to seek out opportunities in the surveillance industry and build connections with powerful figures around the globe, including American businessman Peter Thiel, the former director of Israeli signals intelligence, and two people in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s circle.

After he was first caught sexually exploiting teenage girls, Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution in 2008; he served a little over a year in detention. Meanwhile, he invested his wealth in bizarre projects, including a ranch to breed women with his DNA and “efforts to identify a mysterious particle that might trigger the feeling that someone is watching you,” according to The New York Times.

The leaked emails show that Epstein was also interested in more mundane means of spying on and manipulating people, which overlapped with the technologies governments often pursue. This interest crossed borders.

Barak’s email inbox was quietly posted by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a website widely considered to be a successor to WikiLeaks, on a file-sharing platform for verified journalists and researchers in May 2025. The contents came from Handala, a hacker group named for a Palestinian cartoon character that has been leaking files taken from senior Israeli officials for several months.

Although the emails were posted without technical metadata or cryptographic signatures that would allow their authenticity to be verified, they include dozens of images, videos, voice recordings, and scanned documents from Barak and his friends and family that have never been published elsewhere. And they include information that was not publicly known at the time of the email leaks, including a reference to Epstein’s birthday book.

The emails below, which have not been published elsewhere, paint a picture of Epstein as a man very eager to be at the nexus between private money and public surveillance. While they were hammering out the Reporty investment, Epstein invited Barak to come to a meeting with Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and the surveillance contractor Palantir, in May 2014. Although Barak couldn’t make that meeting, Epstein insisted that Barak “spend real time with peter thiel [sic]” and offered to set up a dinner the following month.

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Cognitive Neuroscientist Claims ‘Gut Feeling’ Could Be a Memory From the Future

Precognition can have a scientific basis, according to some researchers. The assertion is shocking, as the practice is typically not associated with logic. The practice is essentially “gut feelings” that a human has about an incident that could happen in the future, according to Popular Mechanics. Across decades, many people have come forward with their claims of being able to predict the future. Many have believed, but several have responded with scepticism. Cognitive neuroscientist Julia Mossbridge herself claims to have this capability. Now, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has entered this debate by declassifying its extensive research on the topic, and the results support the believers. 

Examples of Precognition

Fatih Ozcan claimed in 2012 that he and his boss won a lottery due to his precognition dream, according to The Guardian. Other remarkable stories include Daz Smith using his psychic skills to predict cryptocurrency trends, and Michael D Austin hiring several “remote viewers” for his company, Soul Rider, to offer financial advice. Mossbridge has been recording her psychic dreams since the age of seven. These skills also have roots in ancient times, with several cultures, like the Tibetans, using precognition from shamans for various purposes.

CIA’s Take

CIA’s documents detailed several psychics who were using “remote viewing” to search for certain targets to help authorities, in both the past and present. These documents came to light in 1995 and were related to a project called “Stargate,” which spent around $20 million on this methodology for around two decades, since the 1970s. One of the major successes of this method was noted in 1976, when a psychic called Rosemary Smith found the location of a lost Soviet plane. The files concluded with a glowing review of the process and stated, “remote viewers can be used as collectors in conjunction with other intelligence sources.”

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