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Californians Learn That Raising Taxes on Marijuana Fuels Black Markets for Drugs

At the beginning of 2022, tax rates for marijuana cultivated in California are set to increase, even though black market sales completely dominate the retail market in the Golden State.

Experts estimate that about three-quarters of all marijuana sales in California happen not through legal dispensaries, but through unlicensed vendors. California voters legalized the cultivation and sale of marijuana for recreational use in 2016, but extremely high taxes and oppressive regulations have caused the rollout to be a disaster.

The tax increase set to hit on New Year’s Day is a prime example. California taxes the cultivation of marijuana by weight. In the tax regulations that state lawmakers passed for cannabis in 2017, the cultivation tax rate was tied to inflation. When inflation rises, the cultivation tax will also automatically rise.

Inflation rose in 2021, and not by a small amount. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that consumer prices rose nationally 6.8 percent between November 2020 and November 2021. Because of California’s law, cultivation taxes will rise 4.5 percent. For growers of fresh cannabis plants, the cultivation tax will jump from $1.35 an ounce to $1.41 an ounce. On top of the cultivation tax, the state charges a 15 percent excise tax, and the cities that allow dispensaries have their own local sales tax rates. A person attempting to legally buy marijuana in California can expect the price to balloon between 35–50 percent through tax add-ons, depending on the city.

This, obviously, will make it all the more difficult for legal vendors to compete with the black market. That the increase is happening anyway is absurd and should be seen as a warning against automatically tying any tax rate to inflation.

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Ghislaine Maxwell Found Guilty on Nearly All Charges

A jury has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty on five of the six charges in her sex-trafficking trial.

Accused of procuring young girls for her former boyfriend and serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to abuse, Maxwell faced six counts — a conspiracy charge (for agreeing to do the crime) paired with a substantive charge (for committing the crime) for each of the following: enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and sex trafficking a minor. She was found guilty of all, except the second count, enticement of an individual under the age of 17 to travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.

Maxwell will likely face decades in prison. Conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors charges carry a maximum of 40 years, while the other charges she faced carry potential prison terms of five to 10 years.

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Colorado mass shooter identified as author of books describing mass killing revenge fantasy

Police have identified the man responsible for killing six people during a shooting spree in two Colorado cities on Monday night.

Lyndon McLeod, who went by the moniker “Roman McClay” online, 47, was shot by officers after he carried out shootings in at least six locations in Denver and Lakewood, Colorado, according to police.

Speaking to the press, Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said McLeod was already the subject of two police investigations, in 2020 and 2021, but neither case resulted in charges against him.

Police say that three victims were at tattoo art shops when they were slain. Alicia Cardenas and Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado were at Sol Tribe Tattoo and Piercing on Broadway in Denver, Danny Scofield was at Lucky 13 Tattoo on Kipling Street in Lakewood. Another woman, who was not identified by police, was killed by McLeod while working at the Hyatt House hotel in Belmar.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office says that one of the shooting scenes, located at 6th Avenue and Cherokee Street in Denver, was where McLeod once owned a tattoo shop called Flat Black Ink.

Investigators say that they believe McLeod targeted all the victims he shot, but police have yet to release a motive.

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FBI ‘Secret Spy Plane Surveillance Program’ Detailed in Court Records

The FBI’s so-called “secret spy plane surveillance program” is under scrutiny in a Florida terrorism case, where the defendant has asked a U.S. judge to toss evidence from the bureau’s aerial surveillance activities.

The FBI’s aerial surveillance program was first revealed in June 2015 by the Associated Press, which reported that the bureau maintained a civilian air force through private shell companies. The FBI admitted to the program days later, saying in a statement that “it should come as no surprise that the FBI uses planes to follow terrorists, spies, and serious criminals.”

“Contrary to some recent media reporting, the FBI’s aviation program is not classified. Some of our aircraft are registered covertly because overt registration would put our aircraft and operations at risk of compromise,” the FBI said at the time.

Nevertheless, the existence of the FBI’s program sparked outrage among civil libertarians, who celebrated when U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found in June that a similar program operated by the Baltimore Police Department violated the Fourth Amendment.

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CDC Investigates 86 Cruise Ships With COVID-19 Outbreaks

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of cruise ships under investigation with COVID-19 outbreaks has risen to 86 on Tuesday, up from 68 a day earlier.

The CDC is currently investigating 38 ships, with 48 additional vessels having already undergone investigation but remaining “under observation.” Another 22 ships haven’t reported any cases. Three ships reported COVID-19 cases below the investigation threshold.

The most affected cruise ships belong to Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Disney, and Norwegian.

“While cruising will always pose some risk of COVID-19 transmission, CDC is committed to working with cruise ship operators to ensure that cruise ship passenger operations are conducted in a way that reduces the risk of COVID-19 transmission among crew members, passengers, and port personnel,” the CDC stated on its website.

The CDC’s investigation threshold for restricted voyages is 0.10 percent or more of reported COVID-19 cases in passengers or one or more cases reported in the crew. A restricted voyage is a cruise with a CDC-issued Conditional Sailing Certificate and paying passengers.

In late October 2020, after shutting down all cruises for seven months, the CDC issued the Conditional Sail Order, which imposes a series of strict conditions that cruise lines must meet to resume operations.

The order requires 95 percent of passengers and nearly all crew to be vaccinated, in combination with testing, mask-wearing, sanitation, and more.

However, a growing number of cruise ships have reported COVID-19 outbreaks during the past few weeks, despite the extremely high vaccination rate. Some cruises have been denied disembarking passengers and some have been forced to alter stops.

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States Are Hoarding $5.2 Billion in Welfare Funds Even as the Need for Aid Grows

When Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, states were given more autonomy over how they could use federal funding for aid to the poor. They could demand welfare recipients find work before receiving cash assistance. They could also use their federal “block grants” to fund employment and parenting courses or to subsidize childcare.

Twenty-five years later, however, states are using this freedom to do nothing at all with large sums of the money.

According to recently released federal data, states are sitting on $5.2 billion in unspent funds from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF. Nearly $700 million was added to the total during the 2019 and 2020 fiscal years, with Hawaii, Tennessee and Maine hoarding the most cash per person living at or below the federal poverty line.

States have held on to more of this welfare money amid rising poverty. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 16.1% of children under age 18 lived in poverty in 2020, up from 14.4% the year before. The poverty rate also ticked up for people aged 18 to 64, from 9.4% to 10.4%. As unused TANF dollars have accumulated, applications to the cash assistance program have waned, though it’s not for a lack of need, say experts and people who have applied to the program.

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Fauci’s Retirement Pay Largest in Federal Government History

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, is set to receive the largest federal retirement package in U.S. history at $350,000 per year, according to Forbes.

Fauci was the most highly compensated federal employee, according to auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Fauci earned $434,312 in 2020, up from $417,608 in 2019.

Fauci earned a total of $1.252 million from 2018 to 2020 in salary as a federal employee.

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Washington State Democrats Push Bill Reducing Penalties for Drive-By Shootings

Washington state Reps. Tarra Simmons (D) and David Hackney (D) are pushing legislation to remove drive-by shootings from the list of crimes that elevate first degree to murder to a higher degree of murder carrying a mandatory life sentence.

FOX News reports that “drive-by shootings were added to the list of aggravating factors for murder charges in 1995.” At the time, drive-by shootings were one of a number of crimes that would elevate charges and Simmons and Hackney are now working to remove such shootings from the list.

The 1995 language that Simmons and Hackney want to specifically strike from the aggravating factors list says: “The murder was committed during the course of or as a result of a shooting where the discharge of the firearm… is either from a motor vehicle or from the immediate area of a motor vehicle that was used to transport the shooter or the firearm.”

Simmons says she believes the language surrounding drive-by shootings “was targeted at gangs that were predominantly young and Black.”

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