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White House Drug Czar Could Endorse Marijuana Legalization Under New Bill To Repeal ‘Ludicrous’ Restriction

Democratic congressional lawmakers have announced the filing of a bill that would remove a restriction that’s prevented the White House drug czar from advocating for the legalization of marijuana or other Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

At a Last Prisoner Project (LPP) event outside the Capitol on Tuesday, Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN)—co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus—talked about the group’s legislative priorities for marijuana reform. Beyond the new bill, that will also include bipartisan legislation to end federal prohibition in legal states and free up the industry to access banking services.

The lawmakers’ “Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act” would take aim at a federal statute prohibiting the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) from promoting reform around Schedule I drugs.

The current law states that no funds provided to ONDCP can be used for “any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I,” further requiring the office’s director to “take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form)” that is in Schedule I and has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Under the two-page bill, that statutory language included in section 704(b)(12) of the ONDCP Reauthorization Act would be repealed.

Titus said on Tuesday that the legislation would “remove outdated restrictions, which are just ludicrous.”

“They’re not allowed to sponsor any research on Schedule I drugs. They can’t even talk about it, to show you how ridiculous is,” she said. “And by law, they have to actively oppose the legalization of any substance that is Schedule I and not approved by the FDA. We’re trying to remove that prohibition.”

Marijuana legalization “is not some out-of-nowhere kind of issue. This is something that is truly mainstream,” Titus said. “So if we can get rid of that policy, we can begin to do research on some of the advantages, or how marijuana can be used and what are the medical implications so when they say, ‘Oh, we don’t know—we don’t know what it’ll do, it might be dangerous’—you can counter that with good research.”

Whether the Trump administration’s recently appointed drug czar would exercise the authority to advocate for reform under the bill if enacted is uncertain. However, ONDCP Director Sara Carter has previously called medical marijuana a “fantastic” treatment option for seriously ill patients and said she doesn’t have a “problem” with legalization, even if she might not personally agree with the policy.

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Supreme Court Gives Trump Administration More Time To Consider Challenging Marijuana And Gun Ownership Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court has approved a request from the government’s top lawyer that sought more time to consider a challenge to a February appeals court ruling around the federal prohibition on gun ownership by people who consume marijuana.

An order by Justice Brett Kavanaugh last week granted government lawyers an extension until June 5 to decide whether to appeal a February ruling from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer had previously requested the extension, telling the high court that the government needed more time to consider the case.

“The Solicitor General has not yet determined whether to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in this case,” said Sauer’s three-page filing. “The additional time sought in this application is needed to continue consultation within the government and to assess the legal and practical impact of the court of appeals’ ruling.”

The case concerns a defendant, Keshon Daveon Baxter, who was found in possession of both a firearm and a bag of marijuana. The government charged him under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which prohibits gun ownership by “unlawful” users of controlled substances.

Baxter argued in district court that the prohibition was itself illegal, contending both that “unlawful” use was too vague in the statute to be enforceable and also that the government’s ban on drug users’ possession of firearms was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

The lower court rejected both arguments—a ruling Baxter appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

It a February opinion, an Eighth Circuit panel upheld the portion of the district court’s decision denying Baxter’s vagueness claim but reversed the lower court’s ruling on the constitutionality of the firearms ban. However, judges wrote that there were insufficient factual findings in the record “for this Court to review Baxter’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge.”

Nevertheless, the Eighth Circuit wrote, “We reverse the district court’s ruling on Baxter’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Had the Supreme Court not granted the government’s extension, in the case, U.S. v. Baxter, a decision whether to appeal the Eighth Circuit ruling would have been due May 6.

Sauer, an appointee of President Donald Trump, formally assumed his role as solicitor general earlier this month. He previously helped represented Trump in his landmark case on presidential immunity.

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DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants

Operatives from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are building a master database at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that could track and surveil undocumented immigrants, two sources with direct knowledge tell WIRED.

DOGE is knitting together immigration databases from across DHS and uploading data from outside agencies including the Social Security Administration (SSA), as well as voting records, sources say. This, experts tell WIRED, could create a system that could later be searched to identify and surveil immigrants.

The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations for citizens, certified foreign workers, and undocumented immigrants.

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Michelle Obama Claims Deportation Issue Keeps Her up at Night – After Her Husband Deported 3 Million Illegals

Former First Lady Michelle Obama recently appeared on a liberal podcast and claimed that the issue of the deportation of illegal aliens keeps her up at night. She has apparently forgotten that when her husband was president, he was frequently described as the ‘deporter in chief.’

It’s likely that Ms. Obama simply made these comments in service to the Democrat party, which clearly thinks it has found a winning issue in defending people who are in the country illegally.

It’s just another case of virtue signaling that the left has become known for.

Breitbart News reports:

Michelle Obama Fears Trump Deportation Policy: Not Enough Advocates; ‘It Keeps Me Up at Night’

Former first lady Michelle Obama is frightened by President Donald Trump’s deportation policy, she discussed during an episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.

Obama and her brother, Craig Robinson, discussed fears they had growing up dealing with race issues, when she was asked to identify the “hardest recent test of that fear.”

“In this current climate, for me it’s, you know, what’s happening to immigrants,” the former first lady replied, explaining that she is no longer fearful for herself — due to her celebrity status — but is instead fearful for illegal immigrants.

“I drive around in a four-car motorcade with a police escort. I’m Michelle Obama. I do still worry about my daughters in the world even though they are somewhat recognizable,” Obama said. “So, my fears are for what I know is happening out there in streets all over the city.”…

“And we know that those decisions aren’t being made with courts and with due process,” Obama said, suggesting the Trump administration is making these types of decisions based on looks alone — not actual legal status or criminal history, as is reality.

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Power Restored In Spain, Portugal As Net-Zero Becomes Headache For Brussels

Spanish power distributor Red Eléctrica announced on X early Tuesday that 99% of the country’s power capacity had been restored following a daylong, unprecedented blackout that plunged much of Europe’s Iberian Peninsula into chaos and darkness.

As of 0700 local time, Red Eléctrica stated:

  • 99.95% of the demand recovered (25,794MW).
  • We continue working from the Electrical Control Center for the complete normalization of the system.

The outage paralyzed digital payment systems, disrupted communications, and brought various modes of transportation networks to an apocalyptic standstill. While a Spanish judge has launched an investigation into whether a cyberattack was responsible, early indications suggest the culprit is likely net zero.

Here’s an excerpt from Michael Shellenberger at PUBLIC, who provided an uncomfortable truth about the unhinged liberals in Europe who have been hellbent on retiring fossil fuel power and nuclear generation plants, swapping for unreliable solar and wind:

Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024. 

Coal plants closed. Nuclear units retired. 

On many spring days by 2025, Spain’s midday solar generation exceeded its total afternoon demand, leading to frequent negative electricity prices.

The system was being pushed to the limit.

And today, at 12:35 pm, it broke.

…

Spain’s blackout wasn’t just a technical failure. It was a political and strategic failure.

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Media shows no scrutiny of study claiming oil companies made the world $28 trillion poorer

A new study published in the journal Nature concludes that the world would be $28 trillion richer if we hadn’t used fossil fuels. Were it not for the “extreme heat” fossil fuel companies are causing, the researchers from Dartmouth College explain, we’d have a much wealthier planet. 

With such dramatic conclusions, multiple outlets in the legacy media breathlessly reported the findings. A report in CBS News quotes celebrity climate scientist Michael Mann supporting this type of research. A D.C. court recently sanctioned Mann in his libel suit against two bloggers, saying he “acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court.” CBS News’ report makes no mention of this. 

“Extreme weather events continue disrupt [sic] communities and strain finances,” a report on the study in The New York Times states. The lead paragraph in a report in the Associated Press compares using fossil fuels, which are the basis for over 80% of the globe’s energy and thousands of consumer products, to using tobacco. The study, Associated Press climate reporter Seth Borenstein claims, will “make it easier for people and governments to hold companies financially accountable.” 

These articles fail to mention that the methodology used in the study wasn’t developed by impartial researchers dedicated to following science. The methodology, it turns out, was developed by anti-fossil fuel activists whose aim is to support climate lawsuits against oil companies. The study’s authors also consulted with a lawyer who works at a law firm that stands to profit from climate litigation. 

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The New York Times “investigates” the DC jet crash – and buries the truth it finds

The New York Times cannot stop mangling the truth to serve its political goals.

On Sunday, the paper exhaustively examined the collision between an Army Black Hawk and an American Airlines jet that killed 67 people over the Potomac in January.

The massive 4,000-word article claimed the crash had many causes, including an overworked air traffic controller. “Missteps, Equipment Problems and a Common but Risky Practice Led to a Fatal Crash,” the Times proclaimed.

Except that’s not really what happened. Or what the Times found.

Yes, the controller was busy. Yes, the Black Hawk pilots wore night-vision goggles that can, ironically, complicate seeing in cities with lots of ambient light.

Those choices and problems raised the risks of an accident.

But despite all the words the Times devoted to explaining the crash, its root cause was simple. The Black Hawk was flying too high. It flew directly into the CRJ700 regional jet. The plane’s pilots and passengers had no chance.

That’s the reality. The second reality is that an inexperienced female Army pilot, Capt. Rebecca Lobach, 28, (CORRECTION: original article said 36) was at the controls of the Black Hawk when it hit the CRJ700, on a training and evaluation mission.

What the Times actually found, the news in the article, is that the Lobach’s copilot repeatedly warned her the helicopter needed to descend in the minutes before the accident. Just seconds before the crash, he suggested she tack left, a path that would likely have avoided the jet.

She didn’t respond.

In other words, the story here is that Lobach — who had never deployed overseas but had volunteered in the Biden White House and whose obituary prominently called her a certified advocate for “sexual harassment” victims — flew her helicopter into a passenger jet and killed 67 people, including herself.

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Spain’s blackouts are a disaster made by Net Zero

‘We face a long night’, warned Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez yesterday evening, after much of Spain, Portugal and south-west France were plunged into darkness by the worst power outage in European history. Tens of millions of people were left without electricity. Trains were halted, planes were grounded and the internet was shut down. Modern life ground to a halt across the Iberian Peninsula. Although the exact causes of the blackout have yet to be declared, we can be certain of one thing: the risk of such outages will only get worse as we embark on the path towards Net Zero.

Spain and Portugal are increasingly reliant on solar and wind power. Renewables were supplying 80 per cent of electricity just before the outages. The blackouts were triggered by a rapid loss of power – of around 15GW, the equivalent of 60 per cent of Spain’s national electricity demand. It is not clear what exactly led to this loss, although a cyber attack has been ruled out. What matters is that a renewable-heavy grid is far less able to absorb this kind of shock than one that runs on traditional energy sources.

Coal and gas plants, or hydroelectric dams, have what is called ‘inertia’ built into the system, whereas wind and solar do not. The spinning turbines used in traditional energy generation will not immediately grind to a halt when there is a fault, acting as a buffer against power outages. ‘In a low-inertia environment’, explains energy expert Kathryn Porter, ‘if you have had a significant grid fault in one area, or a cyber attack, or whatever it may be, the grid operators therefore have less time to react. That can lead to cascading failures if you cannot get it under control quickly.’

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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Turns Up the Heat on AG Pam Bondi — Demands Immediate Release of Epstein Client List Amid Deaths of Two Victims and Dwindling Public Trust

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, has intensified her demands for Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the long-awaited Jeffrey Epstein client list, citing the recent deaths of two victims and a growing erosion of public trust in the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The fiery congresswoman took to X on Monday, writing:

“2 Epstein victims are now dead. Every day the DOJ delays releasing the Epstein client list, public trust erodes & more lives are put at risk. I am calling on the DOJ and @AGPamBondi to act immediately — release the files. The American people deserve the truth.”

Her urgent call follows the shocking and suspicious death of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most high-profile accusers.

Luna’s latest push follows months of frustration with the DOJ’s apparent stonewalling on the release of critical documents related to Epstein’s infamous sex trafficking network.

As chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, Luna has been relentless in her pursuit of transparency, demanding not only the Epstein files but also records related to the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Gateway Pundit has previously reported on Luna’s efforts to hold Bondi accountable.

On February 25, 2025, TGP detailed Luna’s public confrontation with the Attorney General, noting that Luna had sent letters to the DOJ on February 11 and 19, requesting updates on the declassification process.

The DOJ’s failure to respond prompted Luna to take her grievances to X, where she wrote, “On Feb 11 & Feb 19, House Oversight sent a letter to the DOJ asking for status on releasing the Epstein files as well as JFK etc. The DOJ has not responded. Reaching out on X because we can’t seem to get a response from the AG. AG Pam Bondi, what is the status of the documents? These documents were ordered to be declassified.”

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Washington Post and Pulitzer Board keep mum on prize-winning but debunked Trump-Russia stories

The Washington Post and the Pulitzer Prize Board are refusing to answer questions about an award-winning 2017-story that relied on the Trump-Russia collusion hoax — an article which a key player in the story told investigators long ago was “wrong.”

Just the News reported earlier this month that former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers told FBI agents that the crux of a Pulitzer Prize award-winning Washington Post story on the Russian collusion hoax was “wrong.” More than two weeks later the release of those documents, neither the outlet — whose branding is “Democracy Dies in Darkness” — nor the board responsible for arguably the most prestigious award in journalism, are answering questions about the refutation by Rogers, which was revealed in newly-declassified Crossfire Hurricane files.

Prize-winning story rebuked only one month after publication

Admiral Rogers, who retired in 2018 after four years as NSA chief and commander of U.S. Cyber Command, spoke with FBI agents and a key member of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in June 2017, where he dismantled a May 2017 story by the Post titled, “Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence.”

The Post story would go on to be among the Russiagate stories published by the outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize for “a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs” in 2018. Trump is currently suing the Pulitzer Board for defamation for continuing to defend the awards it gave to this collusion-related story and others.

After two weeks and multiple requests for comment, the Pulitzer Prize Board and the Washington Post have yet to respond to requests for comment by Just the News about the 2017 story and the 2018 award, about whether they had known about the refutation by Rogers, and what their reaction was to the newly-declassified FBI interview by the ex-NSA chief. The board did not answer whether this made them reconsider the granting of their award, and the outlet still refuses to answer whether they would correct or update the story.

The recently released Rogers interview with the Mueller team shows that the then-NSA director was read a quote from The Washington Post article — that “President Trump urged [Rogers] to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election” — with the FBI notes stating that “Rogers responded that the media characterization was wrong, and the President had asked about the existence of SIGINT [signals intelligence] evidence only.”

The Post claimed that its story “add[ed] to a growing body of evidence that Trump sought to co-opt and then undermine Comey before he fired him” in May 2017. The alleged evidence was refuted by Rogers, and the 2019 Mueller report said the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

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