Tag: missouri

Missouri Senate Passes Constitutional Money Act

Today, the Missouri Senate passed the Constitutional Money Act, a bill that would treat gold and silver as legal tender and eliminate state capital gains tax on the same.

The proposed law would recognize gold and silver as legal tender and make them receivable in payment of all debts contracted for in the state of Missouri. It would also permit any entity doing business in this state to compensate its employees, in full or in part, in the dollar equivalent of specie legal tender.

Sen. Mike Moon successfully had the Constitutional Money Act language amended to House Bill 754 (HB754), which passed the Senate by a 21-10 vote. On May 1, the full bill cleared the Senate by a 20-11 vote. It will now have to go back to the House for concurrence with the amendments.

The state would be required to accept gold and silver in electronic form for the payment of public debts. Private debts could be settled with gold or silver in physical or electronic form at the parties’ discretion.

The Director of the Department of Revenue would be tasked with “promulgating rules on the methods of acceptance of specie legal tender as payment for any debt, tax, fee, or obligation owed.”

The enactment of the measure would make Missouri the eighth state to recognize gold and silver as legal tender, as they always should have been doing. Utah led the way, reestablishing constitutional money in 2011. Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Idaho, and Alabama have since joined.

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Missouri 13-Year-Old Suspended for Making a Rifle Out of Dr. Pepper Cans

A 13-year-old Missouri middle school student was suspended for sharing a photo of his weekend art project on his private Snapchat account. The student, W.G., and his mother Riley Grunden are now suing the school district, principal, and superintendent for violating W.G.’s constitutionally protected First Amendment right to creative expression and for labeling him a “cyberbully” on his permanent record. 

While at home after school on September 14, 2024, W.G. took a photo on his personal electronic device of Dr. Pepper cans assembled into the shape of a rifle to mimic a social media trend of “can art,” according to the lawsuit filed by Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network. He then posted the photo on his personal Snapchat story to share with his friends. The post was accompanied by a trending audio file, titled “Ak47,” which includes a voiceover saying, “This is the famous AK47, with over 50 million manufactured in ten countries, the AK47 is the most popular assault rifle in the world.” 

The following day, W.G.’s mother received a phone call from W.G.’s school principal, who informed her that another parent had reported the Snapchat post and that W.G. would be subject to a search before entering the school premises the next day. The day after the search, Grunden met with the principal, superintendent, and school resource officer, where she and W.G. were told that, even though the superintendent had found “no credible evidence of any danger,” the Snapchat post had “brought fear to other students” and could be interpreted as a “terrorist threat.” As a result, W.G. would receive three days of out-of-school suspension for cyberbullying. Before this incident, W.G. had no history of bullying or cyberbullying. Now, Grunden is suing on behalf of her son’s free expression rights. 

Although adolescent social media and internet use is one of today’s hot topics, the Supreme Court has made it clear that schools do not have the right to punish students for constitutionally protected speech that has no connection to school safety. 

The Court’s 2021 Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. opinion reiterated schools’ limited ability to regulate off-campus speech only when speech materially disrupts the educational environment, and hedged against the temptation to censor all off-campus speech. Rather, the Court warned that “courts must be more skeptical of a school’s efforts to regulate off-campus speech, for doing so may mean the student cannot engage in that kind of speech at all.” Additionally, in the 2023 Counterman v. Colorado opinion, the Court established that speech could only be punished as a “true threat” if the speaker anticipated that the expression would be perceived as threatening. 

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Missouri moving to seize China-owned farmland, assets to collect landmark $24 billion judgment

Fresh off winning a landmark lawsuit, Missouri is moving quickly to seize Chinese-owned farmland and other assets in a bid to collect its landmark $24 billion civil judgment against Beijing for harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Just the News. 

“Missouri will start to identify and begin going to court to have court orders issued to seize those assets to make good on that judgment,” Bailey said on the “John Solomon Reports“ podcast this week.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr declared that China’s communist government was liable for covering up the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and had engaged in “monopolistic actions” by hoarding protective equipment (PPE). He ruled Beijing should reimburse Missouri $24 billion for harm it inflicted on the state’s residents.

“China was misleading the world about the dangers and scope of the Covid-19 pandemic,” the judge ruled. “Missouri has demonstrated that the State has suffered significant harm in the form of lost net general tax revenue the State of Missouri would have collected but-for Defendants’ hoarding of PPE,” Limbaugh added.

You can read the ruling here.

ChinaCOVID-19Ruling.pdf

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Missouri Lawmakers Reject Bill To Regulate Hemp Drinks And Edibles

A second proposal backed by Missouri’s hemp industry to regulate products like hemp-THC seltzers and edibles was defeated in a House committee Thursday morning, after the hemp-beverage distributor who helped draft the bill emailed committee members that morning asking them to kill it.

The 5-7 vote in the House General Laws committee came after state Rep. Dave Hinman of O’Fallon (R), the bill sponsor, spent hours last week trying to come up with a compromise among the splintered hemp industry leaders on regulations.

The same committee voted down a bill backed by the Missouri Hemp Trade Association last week in a 1-13 vote.

After that defeat, Hinman incorporated a number of the hemp association’s requests into an amended version of his bill, which he presented Thursday. State Rep. Ben Keathley (R) of Chesterfield, the chair of the committee, applauded Hinman’s attempt to bring the hemp leaders together.

“A lot of interests are working against each other in this bill, and it’s very difficult to come up with something that everyone’s going to be happy with,” Keathley said. “I think the bill sponsor put together a good package that allows us to do the most important thing of protecting Missouri children.”

Hinman’s amended bill addressed some of the concerns committee members had about costs of testing and increased the sales tax on these products to be the same as marijuana products, 6 percent. The bill also addressed concerns by hemp companies, he said, by allowing small-scale beverage manufacturers to self distribute and increased the maximum amount of THC per container.

But the fatal flaw that bill drafter Steven Busch, owner of Krey Distributing, could not support was allowing the continued sale of THC-A flower, which looks and acts very similar to marijuana buds.

Busch said he’s had discussions with Hinman previously about his concerns that THC-A is an unstable compound of the cannabis plant that becomes intoxicating when heated. And that process can happen when it sits on the shelf too long, he told committee members in emails and text messages Thursday morning.

Hinman told the committee he spoke with several industry experts who advised him the instability could be addressed by proper packaging requirements, which the bill included.

Earlier this week, Busch had told Hinman, whom he says he still highly respects, that he was pulling his support for the bill.

“It would really jeopardize the whole industry if they keep trying to push THC-A as hemp,” Busch told The Independent in an interview Thursday. “If somebody wants a product like that, they can very easily get it at a dispensary and that’s where it should be obtained.”

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Missouri Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy For Veterans And Sex Trafficking Survivors

Missouri senators have advanced a bill to allow military veterans and survivors of sex trafficking who have certain mental health conditions to legally access psilocybin therapy.

The Senate Families, Seniors and Health Committee approved the legislation from Sen. Stephen Webber (D) on Wednesday. A similar House bill focused on the psychedelic moved through a separate panel earlier this month.

In addition to being 21 or older, a military veteran or sex trafficking survivor and enrolled in a clinical trial, participants in the proposed program would need to have PTSD, major depressive disorder, a substance use disorder or be in end-of-life care.

They would also need to provide documentation to the state Department of Mental Health about the treating physician, facilitator and location and time of use.

Further, use of psilocybin would be limited to 150 mg during a 12-month period.

The bill also authorizes the state Department of Health to provide up to $3 million worth of grants to support research on the therapeutic potential of psilocybin.

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Missouri Lawmakers Consider Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy To Aid Military Veterans With PTSD

In hopes of helping veterans facing mental health issues, Missouri lawmakers are once again pushing legislation that would require the state to conduct a study on using psilocybin—also known as “magic mushrooms”—to treat depression, substance use or as part end-of-life care.

Similar legislation has been filed for the last three years, and in 2023 the House voted overwhelmingly in support of the idea. But it’s never made its way to the Senate.

On Monday, several members of the House Veterans Committee said they were staunchly against the proposal when they first heard about it. However, research the committee has explored over the years has changed their minds.

That includes studies done by psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who were the first in Missouri to give a legal dose of psilocybin in 2019.

They have been using a brain-imaging technique to learn how psilocybin affects certain networks in the brain.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Richard West of Wentzville, said he was skeptical at first, as a former police officer.

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Kansas City Chiefs fans’ mysterious deaths yet to be resolved a year later

A year-to-date after three Kansas City Chiefs fans were last seen alive, it is still unclear why they died in their friend’s snowy backyard — and authorities have not handed down any criminal charges in their deaths.

Clayton McGeeney, 37; Ricky Johnson, 38; and David Harrington, 36, visited their longtime friend Jordan Willis’ home in Kansas City, Missouri, on Jan. 7, 2024 to watch the Chiefs play the Los Angeles Chargers. 

Two days later, the three men were found dead on Willis’ property by McGeeney’s fiancée. Willis could not be reached by phone and did not answer his door in the days afterward, according to family members who searched for the three friends who never returned home.

Although preliminary autopsy results shared with the media by family members indicate that fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana were in their systems, the deceased men’s families have questioned Willis’ involvement in what happened, with some threatening to file lawsuits.

In September, Willis’ attorney John Picerno told Fox News Digital that “charges [will be] forthcoming in the next few weeks,” based on “internal conversations” with prosecutors.

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Missouri May Offer Bounties for Illegal Immigrants

Missouri may offer bounties for reporting illegal immigrants if a new law is passed.

The bill proposed to the Missouri Senate would pay residents $1000 for reporting illegal immigrants who have entered the state.

Senate Bill 72, proposed by Republican Senator-elect David Gregory, would create a web portal to allow residents to make reports to the state’s Highway Patrol.

In addition, the bill would create a “Missouri Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program,” which would allow licensed bail-bond agents to be bounty hunters for illegal immigrants. It would also prevent illegal immigrants from receiving any public benefits, voting in elections, getting a permit or licence to drive or becoming a legal resident of the state.

A number of bills, seven in total, have now been introduced in Missouri that focus on immigration. Among other proposals, businesses would be required to ensure all citizens are documented, cities would be fined for acting as “sanctuaries” for illegals and new immigration offences, complete with fines and jail time, would be created.

Trump has promised the “largest deportation operation in American history,” targeting tens of millions of migrants who are in the country illegally.

A key figure in implementing that policy will be Tom Homan, whom Trump appointed as his “Border Czar” at the beginning of November.

Homan was considered a controversial figure for his no-nonsense approach to immigration and, in particular, for presiding over the so-called “family-separation” policy, which saw illegal immigrant families held apart and removed from the country separately.

In recent days, Homan has promised an investigation into the UN, NGOs and other organizations that have played key roles in the bringing migrants to the US.

“The Trump team is coming to town. We’re going to take control on January 20, and people are going to be held accountable,” Homan told Sean Hannity, on Fox.

Trump made two more important immigration picks on Thursday night.

On Truth Social, Trump announced the nomination of former US Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott to lead Customs and Border Protection, and he also picked long-time Immigration and Customs Enforcement veteran Caleb Vitello to serve as director of that agency.

Both men will play key roles in the new Trump administration’s immigration policies, including his flagship policy of mass deportation.

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Missouri v. Biden UPDATE: Judge Orders ‘Jurisdictional Discovery’ to Settle Govt’s Bad Faith Arguments

Experts have said that the Missouri v. Biden case is “the most important free speech case in a generation.”

The case involves the federal government wholesale deleting and deplatforming millions of Americans from social media based entirely on their truthful political statements.

Just this past week, the trial court has issued a new order in the case, after an appeal to the Supreme Court was successful for the Biden administration, which sought to undo a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the censorship regime.

Now, the trial court is ordering the two sides to conduct “jurisdictional discovery” so that it can prove one issue critical to the case moving forward: whether the Plaintiffs on the side of free speech have enough legal ‘standing’ to move forward. What this means is that the parties are now going to fight about whether the specific Plaintiffs in the case can prove that they were specifically harmed.

You can read the court order here.

Whereas previously the parties could show the massive censorship regime and show that they were deplatformed, now the parties must show the connection and demonstrate that the specific Biden speech suppression complex deplatformed these specific Plaintiffs.

Thus the court is allowing both parties to issue ‘discovery’ to primarily third parties right now, meaning demand evidence, documents, and depositions from people, organizations, and companies, in order to build the record of evidence both parties need to make their arguments.

The claims in the case cannot rest on mere speculation, the parties need to be able to get tangible evidence to back up their claims. Lawyers involved in the case say the critical issue at this juncture is: proving that the federal government targeted a specific Plaintiff, and that the Plaintiff’s speech was harmed as a result.

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Series of Missouri UFO Sightings Continue to Baffle

Missouri resident Justin Johnson captured something extraordinary on his phone– a silver cube spinning like a disco ball. But what was it? Johnson is still waiting for an answer. He reached out to weather balloon enthusiasts and air traffic controllers, but no one could identify the hovering object. He tried to follow it in his pickup truck but lost sight of it. Three years later, the memory still baffles him. At the time, it was hard to find someone to objectively assess the video.

Just a few weeks ago, Johnson recorded a new video that shows enigmatic white light objects moving in the sky at sunrise. But today, he has a new option for analysis– an app called Enigma that allows users to upload videos and information about unexplained objects in the sky. The goal is to create a comprehensive database of these sightings for researchers to analyze.

Alejandro Rojas, a consultant to Enigma Labs, says most cases are simply explained– airplanes, drones, military flares, or satellites. But sometimes, Enigma’s experts encounter something more puzzling, like footage an airline passenger recorded of a thin, white object zooming across the sky over north central Missouri.

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