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How ‘equity’ ruined cannabis legalization in New York

New York’s legal weed experiment is going about as poorly as possible.

Earlier this week, the state finally signed off on a handful of new dispensary licenses, a full two years after legalization.

Illegal pot shops, meanwhile, have gotten so common — and so attractive to criminals — that Gov. Hochul has asked Albany to approve five-figure fines and tough enforcement powers to help shut them down.

It remains to be seen whether any state can legalize marijuana without serious downsides.

But New York’s attempt has been particularly disastrous.

This is in large part because rather than prioritizing tax revenue or public health in the legalization process, Albany put progressive-tinged “social justice” strategies front and center in its policy design.

They admit as much.

Hochul has emphasized that New York State’s marijuana industry will benefit those who committed crimes under prohibition.

The state’s Office of Cannabis Management has said that “social and economic equity” is a “major focus” of legalization.

And the New York City Mayor’s Office promised to put equity “at the center” of the budding industry. You get the idea.

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A Series of Strange and Eerily Similar Unsolved Deaths in Minnesota

Jelani Dante Brinson had a lot going for him. The 24-year-old Jelani had a new, 9-month old baby daughter with his girlfriend Dena Anderson and they were trying to plan a life together, and he had just been promoted at his place of work at a cell phone shop. The devoted Christian was planning on becoming a minister and moving in with his girlfriend and child, but his life was about to lead down a dark path towards a tragic and perplexing unsolved mystery, that may or may not link to another mystery. 

On the evening of April 17, 2009, Jelani met up with some friends and went to a co-worker’s house in Anoka, Minnesota, in the United States. They then went to another friend’s house and Jelani was described as being in good spirits and his usual cheerful self. They then went to yet another acquaintance’s house, and after about 5 minutes there Jelani received a call on his cell phone. It isn’t known what he talked about on this call, but shortly after this he abruptly left the home and went off on his own without explanation and without saying goodbye. It was fairly strange and out of character for him, but they just assumed that he had been called away for something important and he would be back. He never did come back, but at the time they still did not realize that they would never see him alive again.

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What one tweet can teach us about “Fake News”

At the time I just laughed it off. It’s an absurd little piece of propaganda, but hardly the most egregious.

But, for some reason, it stuck in my head and started bothering me. After 48 hours or so I realized what about it was bothering me, and that it is actually an interesting microcosmic case study on what the era of “fake news” really means.

Everything about this tweet is fake. Everything.

The letter itself is obviously fake. The absurd zenith of the “children being precociously political” meme that became a running joke years ago.

Even if “Charlotte” exists, those aren’t her words, just a rough regurgitation of her parents’ brainwashing. And Charlotte almost certainly doesn’t exist.

There’s no reason to even suppose any physical letter exists at all and it isn’t just a photoshopped CG image. It easily could be.

The tweet itself is also fake – or at least pretend – because there’s no way President Biden operates his own social media accounts. I honestly doubt he’s even mentally capable of doing so. Rather, as Five Times August points out in another tweet, the Whitehouse employs a few “platform managers” and “social media directors”.

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California cops joked about shooting Black mayor and celebrated beating suspects: text messages

Newly revealed text messages sent by police in Antioch, California show that officers for years engaged in racist conduct and celebrated their own brutality while facing no pushback at all from superiors.

Among other things, the Mercury News reports, officers in Antioch made racist jokes about offering a “prime rib dinner” to anyone who shot Mayor Lamar Thorpe with projectiles often used on protesters.

Other messages show officers boasting about violence they inflicted on others while at times lamenting they didn’t go further in making alleged perpetrators suffer.

One particularly egregious text sent by Antioch Officer Eric Rombough lamented that the injuries he inflicted on a suspect wouldn’t be as readily visible as he had hoped.

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WHY THE MEDIA DON’T WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NORD STREAM BLASTS 

No one but the terminally naïve should be surprised that security services lie – and that they are all but certain to cover their tracks when they carry out operations that either violate domestic or international law or that would be near-universally rejected by their own populations.

Which is reason enough why anyone following the fallout from explosions last September that ripped holes in three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea supplying Russian gas to Europe should be wary of accepting anything Western agencies have to say on the matter.

In fact, the only thing that Western publics should trust is the consensus among “investigators” that the three simultaneous blasts deep underwater on the pipelines – a fourth charge apparently failed to detonate – were sabotage, not some freak coincidental accident.

Someone blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, creating an untold environmental catastrophe as the pipes leaked huge quantities of methane, a supremely active global-warming gas. It was an act of unrivaled industrial and environmental terrorism.

If Washington had been able to pin the explosions on Russia, as it initially hoped, it would have done so with full vigor. There is nothing Western states would like more than to intensify world fury against Moscow, especially in the context of NATO’s express efforts to “weaken” Russia through a proxy war waged in Ukraine.

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Misleadership in the Bronx: AOC, the Fraud Squad, Military Recruiters and U.S. Imperialism

On Monday March 20th 2023, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat co-hosted a “Student Services Fair” at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx. As the official flier indicates, there was a large military presence . Alarmed that the two U.S. politicians, especially one who is a self-described “democratic socialist” and affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), were hosting this career fair, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized a counter-recruitment protest.

‘The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today’

The official flier for the event listed seven representatives that would headline the fair. Six of them represented branches of the military. Protestors observed dozens of uniformed military personnel walk into the fair through the main entrance, while AOC snuck in and out through back doors. She refused to address her constituents’ questions and instead sent a U.S. Marine colonel outside to address us. The military officer bragged about his time training Saudi troops and the countries he and his government have invaded.

The “duck test” is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be. This same reasoning can be applied here to deduce that this “student services fair” was in fact a military recruitment fair. Yet somehow, AOC continues to deny that the military played a major role at this event.

Dr. Martin Luther King was crystal clear on this question in 1967 , exactly a year before the U.S government assassinated him: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” AOC herself has been on record speaking out against predatory military recruitment tactics targeting our youth. Why then did she decide to host a fair giving these predators access to disenfranchised high school students? The Bronx Anti-War Coalition understands that anytime and anywhere we see military enlistment officers or representatives of the U.S. service academies near our youth, we must confront them and chase them out of our communities.

After her security detail briskly whisked her through a backdoor clear of our protest, she decided to respond to us via instagram . Like other U.S. politicians who practice duplicity, she has a true gift for evasion. She smeared and lied about us in a nine minutes and thirty second video while doubling down on why she has a “responsibility” to inform Bronx youth about U.S. military enlistment “opportunities.” Did it not occur to AOC and her inner-circle to denounce the genocidaires in her monologue? Too busy victimizing herself, at no point did the Congresswoman address the reasons we were outside protesting: 1) to defend the multinational, working-class youth being used as cannon fodder to fight imperialist wars, 2) to stand for the Black, Indigenous and Latinx soldiers murdered on U.S. military bases, such as Abdul Latifu, Vanessa Guillén, Elder Fernandes, and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz, among hundreds of others, and 3) to give voice to the millions of victims in the Global South targeted and murdered by U.S. sanctions, drone attacks and unprovoked invasions.

This article explores why the anti-war movement has a responsibility to continue to confront AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders and any faux leftist professional politician and sheepdog who go along with the bipartisan pro-imperialist and pro-war status quo.

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Kentucky governor who forced churches to close and used taxpayer dollars to defend his shutdowns ordered to pay more than a quarter million in legal fees

Andy Beshear, one of the absolute worst governors in America, just got handed a major and embarrassing defeat stemming back to his illegal and immoral shutdown of churches during Covid.

Beshear abused his power by shuttering houses of worship during Covid and was sued for his trouble.

Now an appeals court has ruled that the governor is on the hook for $270,000 in attorney’s fees to be paid to the plaintiffs who rightfully sued the tyrant wannabe.

Three individuals sued Beshear for violating their civil rights and preventing them from gathering for worship during the Covid shutdowns, and now they have been vindicated and the governor has been punished, at least somewhat, for his actions.

The appeals court upheld a lower circuit court ruling against the governor.

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Tennessee Democrat’s Transformation From College to Now Sparks Mockery on Social Media

Former Tennessee state Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson is facing criticism from conservatives for altering his voice and mannerisms while speaking publicly, which was made evident in unearthed footage from an election he took part in nearly a decade ago at Maine’s Bowdoin College.

A college campaign ad for Pearson’s successful bid for president of Bowdoin Student Government in 2016 showed a more casual Pearson who pushed for unity and understanding among his peers.

“I’m Justin J. Pearson, and I’m running for president of BSG,” Pearson said in the school campaign ad. “There are a few reasons why we’re running this campaign this year. One has to do with representation … How can we represent all voices in a conversation?”

Pearson said his efforts were meant to garner responses from both Democrats and Republicans on campus at the time.

“I wanna bring together different voices — dissenting voices, voices that may be more liberal or more conservative — in order that we can reach a point of, sort of, the radical middle,” he said in the campaign video.

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The Espionage Act & the 4th Year of Assange’s Arrest

From its earliest years the United States has found ways to deny the rights of a free press when it was politically expedient to do so.

One of the latest ways was to arrest WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange four years ago today and to indict him — the first time a publisher and journalist has ever been charged under the 1917 Espionage Act for possessing and publishing state secrets.

Though two U.S. administrations came close to punishing journalists for revealing defense information, they both failed, until Assange.

A major hurdle for the government is overcoming the conflict between the Espionage Act and the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from passing any law, including the Act, that abridges press freedom.

Until that legal conflict is resolved in court, resulting in parts of the Espionage Act being found unconstitutional, the language of the Act threatening press freedom remains.

Bolstered by 1950 amendments to the Act, the Donald Trump administration crossed a redline to arrest a journalist. A 1961 amendment made it possible to indict a non-U.S. citizen, acting outside U.S. territory.

The Trump administration’s first indictment of a publisher opened an alarming precedent for the future of journalism.

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Democrats call for Garland to drop charges against Assange

A group of Democrats sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday urging him to drop the charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over his publishing of classified materials.

Assange faces 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

The Democrats pressing Garland on the issue are led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Mich. and also include Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Greg Casar (Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.).

They wrote that Assange’s charges “pose a grave and unprecedented threat” to journalism practices and the First Amendment.

“Press freedom, civil liberty, and human rights groups have been emphatic that the charges against Mr. Assange pose a grave and unprecedented threat to everyday, constitutionally protected journalistic activity, and that a conviction would represent a landmark setback for the First Amendment,” they wrote in the letter.

The group pointed to a joint statement issued by major news organizations from around the world, including The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde and Der Spiegel, that called on the United States to drop the charges against Assange.

At the time, the media outlets said Assange’s leaks exposed “corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale.” 

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” the outlets said.

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