Tag: police state

Florida Officials Say Marijuana Legalization Campaign Committed ‘Multiple Election Law Violations’

Florida officials have sent a cease-and-desist letter to the campaign seeking to place a marijuana legalization initiative on the state’s 2026 ballot, alleging that the group has “committed multiple election law violations.”

The Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS)—part of Florida’s Department of State—also fined Smart & Safe Florida more than $120,000 for submitting completed petitions more than 30 days after they were signed.

The issue has been referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for a “potential criminal investigation.”

The campaign was behind last year’s Amendment 3 legalization ballot measure, which failed to win the required 60 percent approval to become law, and is now working to qualify a revised constitutional amendment for next year’s ballot.

Among the claimed violations listed in the letter are that Smart & Safe Florida failed to provide the official text of the proposed constitutional amendment to voters when obtaining signatures as well as that it delivered “forged or fraudulent petitions”—such as one “purportedly signed by a Florida voter in February 2025, when, in fact, that voter has been deceased since November of 2024.”

In a statement to Marijuana Moment, a campaign representative said it has confidence in the process and intends to push back on the state’s assertion it violated election law.

“The claims made appear to be a targeted effort to thwart the ability for the people of Florida to express their support of a citizen-driven amendment,” the statement says. “We stand by the process and had legal counsel vet all forms and communications prior to mailing and look forward to challenging the validity of these claims.”

Other violations claimed by OECS assert that the campaign circulated non-approved petition forms “in a manner that has created the opportunity for fraud and has led to dozens of Florida voters completing and submitting multiple…petitions” and that it submitted completed petitions after a state-mandated deadline.

The letter demands “an immediate accounting of any and all petition forms that were obtained in response to one of your mailed packages that you or your agents have turned in” and further mandates that Smart & Safe Florida “immediately cease the mailing, use, or circulation of non-approved petition forms.”

“Initiative efforts must be undertaken in compliance with the law,” the document says. “The issues raised in this letter are serious and could serve to undermine public confidence in the initiative process.”

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Indiana Lawmakers Weigh Widespread Ban On All Marijuana Advertising, Not Just On Billboards

Indiana lawmakers could ban all marijuana advertising within state lines under an amendment adopted Monday in a transportation-focused committee. It goes beyond the billboard-specific prohibition taken in a Senate panel last week.

Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie) said his community is “inundated” with billboards advertising illegal marijuana. The district is near Michigan, which has legalized it.

But that’s not all.

“My constituents, myself included, receive up to two—what would look like political mailers—a week advertising an illegal substance” at dispensaries in nearby New Buffalo, per Pressel. He chairs the House Roads and Transportation Committee.

He commandeered Senate Bill 73, dealing with utility trailer sales, for an amendment outlawing the advertising of marijuana and other drugs on Indiana’s list of Schedule I controlled substances. Indiana’s attorney general could sue for injunctions, civil penalties of up to $15,000 and “reasonable costs” incurred throughout the investigation and lawsuit.

“I’ve heard about [how] the First Amendment, I’m trampling on it. I don’t believe that to be true,” Pressel told the committee. He cited a federal appeals court decision that, “basically, if it’s a criminal activity, you have no First Amendment right to advertise. That’s my understanding.”

The ban would take effect upon the bill’s passage. Advertising from contracts entered into or renewed before the approval date would be exempt.

The committee accepted the edits by consent.

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Supporters Call on Idaho Lawmakers to Override Governor’s Veto of Bill Prohibiting Medical Mandates

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Saturday vetoed a bill passed by Idaho lawmakers that would have prohibited nearly all medical mandates in the state.

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act was meant to “protect the rights of Idahoans to make their own medical choices free of the fear of losing their jobs or being excluded from normal daily life,” according to the bill’s author, Leslie Manookian, president and founder of the Health Freedom Defense Fund.

The bill, cosponsored by Sen. Daniel Foreman and Rep. Robert Beiswenger, would have prohibited businesses and Idaho local, county and state governments from requiring medical interventions for employment, admission to venues, transportation, or providing products or services.

It also would have blocked schools and colleges in the state from requiring medical interventions for school attendance or entry into campus buildings.

The Idaho House of Representatives passed the bill March 19 in a 47-23 vote, after the Senate voted 19-14 on Feb. 26 in favor of the legislation.

Little vetoed the bill Saturday morning, an hour before the deadline. “Medical freedom is an Idaho value,” Little wrote in a letter explaining his veto, but he said the bill would have jeopardized “the ability of schools to send home sick students with highly contagious conditions.”

Little listed medical freedom measures he had supported in the past but said parents “do not need government imposing more limitations on keeping children safe and healthy from contagious illnesses at school.”

Manookian told The Defender that Little’s claim is “an absolute fabrication” because nothing in the bill changes existing pertinent rules or codes that allow schools to exclude children if they are sick.

“Little is hiding behind a lie,” she added. If a child is sick, “a school has every right to send them home,” she said. They just wouldn’t be able to dictate to the parents how that illness should be treated — they couldn’t force the child to take a test, wear a mask or take a drug.

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New Hampshire Governor Reiterates Opposition To Marijuana Legalization, But May Consider Allowing Medical Homegrow

As bills to legalize marijuana for adults in New Hampshire makes their way through the legislature, Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) is reiterating her opposition to the reform—but is also signaling that she may be open to separate legislation that would allow medical cannabis patients to grow their own medicine at home.

“I’ve been very clear on this,” Ayotte told reporters last Wednesday, the same day House lawmakers passed HB 198, which would legalize the use and possession of marijuana by adults 21 and older. “I ran on this issue, and the people of New Hampshire know where I stand on it. I don’t support it.”

A former U.S. senator and state attorney general, Ayotte said repeatedly on the campaign trail last year that she would oppose efforts at adult-use legalization.

HB 198 would, if enacted, allow adults 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana flower, 10 grams of concentrate and up to 2,000 milligrams of THC in other cannabis products. Retail sales of marijuana products, along with home cultivation, would remain illegal. Consuming marijuana on public land would also be prohibited.

The proposal, from Rep. Jared Sullivan (D), cleared the chamber last week in a 208–125 vote.

Ayotte said there were a number of reasons she’s against the change, according to a report from the outlet InDepthNH.

“I don’t think it is the right direction for the state for a lot of reasons,” she told reporters. “I believe, if you think about our quality of life, if you think about some of the concerns that can flow from that. I know…we talked about safety on our roadways. I think that there are a number of issues that states who have legalized cannabis have experienced in those regards that I just don’t think can be addressed at the moment with the existing technology.”

The governor of the Granite State also added that she’s “mindful of the message we send to younger people when we legalize something versus it being illegal.”

Despite Ayotte’s comments flatly opposing legalization, however, she left the door open to more modest cannabis reform. She told reporters she will review every bill that comes to her desk, including a separate House-passed measure that would legalize home cultivation by state-registered medical marijuana patients.

That bill—HB 53, from Rep. Wendy Thomas (D), would allow cultivation of up to three mature plants and three immature plants, as well as 12 seedlings. Patients could also possess up to eight ounces of usable cannabis from those plants.

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Admitted Child Predator Cop Has Conviction Thrown Out Only to Be Busted AGAIN, Hit with 50 Charges

In a damning revelation that unearths the shocking depths of institutional corruption and an absolute travesty of justice, a former police officer, Alexander Salterio, with a history of heinous crimes against children, finds himself embroiled in fresh legal trouble. Salterio previously admitted to a slew of horrific crimes, pleaded guilty, and was mandated to register as a sex offender in 2019. After receiving an insidious amount of blue privilege — despite his disgusting admissions — he is now facing a fresh wave of 50 new counts, this time for posing as a child online to solicit children and for raping his 10-year-old foster child.

In 2019, Salterio, then aged 33, stood before the Douglas County Circuit Court and confessed to a series of monstrous acts. His charges ranged from deploying a child in the display of explicit sexual content, inciting child sex abuse, sexual abuse, and aggravated identity theft. His nefarious scheme involved adopting the guise of a teenage boy on Facebook to solicit explicit photographs from underage girls, in addition to the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old girl.

His reprehensible acts only came to light after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off the Oregon Justice Department regarding child pornography circulating on Facebook. Once the investigation was initiated, the net of guilt quickly closed around Salterio. He was arrested on February 8, 2019, and subsequently resigned from his position as a Myrtle Creek police officer the next day, a position he had held since August 2017.

This story raises severe questions about the vetting procedures for individuals who are trusted with the responsibility of caring for vulnerable children. A lawsuit of $2.5 million was filed on behalf of the 10-year-old victim, accusing the Department of Human Services and the City of Myrtle Creek of negligence and violation of the child’s constitutional rights. The suit alleged that as a police officer, Salterio was not properly vetted for his eligibility as a foster parent. Worse, even when the child welfare agency discovered Salterio was under criminal investigation, they shockingly continued to let the child remain in his care until his arrest.

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GOP Senator Paints Dire Picture Of Medical Marijuana Legalization In His State, Saying Voters Didn’t Understand ‘Consequences’

U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said at an event on Friday that voters in his home state didn’t understand what they were doing when they legalized medical marijuana in 2018.

Pointing to a new report from the Texoma High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program, which covers north Texas and Oklahoma, Lankford said the state has been overrun by growers and dispensaries and has “seen rising crime, human trafficking [and] illegal migration coming into our state” since the law took effect.

Although citizens voted in favor of medical marijuana legalization, he said, “I don’t think a lot of Oklahomans realized, when that vote actually occurred, what the consequences of that would be.”

The senator’s comments are in keeping with criticisms that Republican politicians in Oklahoma have levied against medical marijuana for years. In 2022, for example, Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) similarly suggested that state residents misunderstood the cannabis initiative they voted to enact.

Stitt said at the time that he was directing law enforcement to “crack down hard on the black market,” adding that “drug cartels, organized crime, foreign bad actors have no place in the state of Oklahoma.”

But in comments on Friday, Lankford—a longtime critic of legalization—painted a dire picture of what’s happening in the state.

“The findings that are coming out are stark,” he said of the new HIDTA report. “We have Chinese criminal organizations and organized crime that has moved in to Oklahoma in just the last six years, in numbers that have skyrocketed.”

That’s led to what he described as “execution-style murders in rural areas of the state” that are connected “directly to marijuana grows and what is happening here on the ground.”

“We, as a state, have to decide what we’re going to do about it,” the federal lawmaker said. “We have hard decisions to be able to make on what we’re going to do to be able to protect our kids in the days ahead… This is a very serious issue that we need to be able to take on and to be able to address.”

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The Danger of Traveling with Gold

Two men were pulled over while driving on I-20 in Texas, carrying $250,000 worth of gold bars. US law permits and encourages law enforcement to confiscate assets. Civil asset forfeiture enables the government to simply seize assets and declare that the owner is guilty of money laundering before any due process occurs.

“We have to be able to prove what that criminal activity was, in other words how they got the money that they laundered. A lot of times that’s hard when your case starts with a traffic stop,” DA Tonda Curry said. Officers and drug sniffing dogs searched the men and their vehicle but found nothing aside from the gold. Curry initially attempted to pin the men with money laundering charges but could not make a case. The DA then determined that the men were involved in some criminal organization “that defrauds the elderly with investment-type scams.”

Since they were instantly charged with a crime, the law permitted the officers to confiscate the gold. “So he can’t give it back to them and let them go on down the road, it’s not theirs,” the DA explained, saying that charging the men with a civil case would be easier to prove than an actual criminal investigation.

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In Latest Blow To European Democracy, Judge Rules Marine Le Pen Ineligible To Run For President In 2027

As Remix News detailed earlier, a judge has ruled Marine Le Pen is ineligible to run for office, along with eight MEPs from her National Rally party, after they were found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds. 

The move is the latest attack on democracy in the EU, with judges increasingly deciding elections in Europe. 

Le Pen has also been sentenced to four years in prison, with two years suspended.

Notably, the news comes right as Le Pen leads the polling for French presidential elections in 2027, as Remix News reported earlier today.

The court estimated that the total losses amounted to €2.9 million, as a result of “paying by the European Parliament people who actually worked for the far-right party.” Le Pen was found to be responsible for €1.8 million in damages herself. The judgment also concerns 12 assistants. The prosecutor’s office initially alleged that €7 million had been used in this way.

Investigators accused Le Pen of managing the illegal use of European subsidies between 2004 and 2016, when she served as an MEP. They stated that instead of working in Strasbourg, assistants were to work for Le Pen’s National Rally party in a domestic capacity.

“It was found that all these people actually worked for the party, that their deputy did not commission them any tasks,” said the judge. Assistants then “passed from one deputy to another.”

“It was not about combining the work of assistants, but about combining the budgets of MPs,” said the judge.

Le Pen said before the trial that the matter is entirely political and that her opponents wished for her “political death.”

Other commentators have expressed surprise at not only the verdict but also the decision to exclude her from elections.

Pierre Lellouche, a lawyer and former Deputy of the French National Assembly, appeared on CNEWS to point out that the current prime minister, François Bayrou, faced the same charge and suffered no consequences.

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Irish Government Freezes Christian Teacher’s Bank Account After He Refused to Use Gender-Neutral Pronouns

The Irish government has frozen the bank account of an Irish teacher after his continued refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns for a student at Wilson’s Hospital School. Enoch Burke, who has spent more than 500 days in jail for refusing to comply with a court order, also had his salary payments halted.

Burke attempted to withdraw funds from his Bank of Ireland account last week but found that he was unable to access his money. The account reportedly holds over €40,000—his personal savings from years of work. The Irish government and courts have frozen these funds and are set to seize them next week.

Burke was previously jailed for contempt of court after refusing to comply with an injunction barring him from entering Wilson’s Hospital School, where he had been suspended following a dispute over the use of transgender pronouns.

The freezing of his bank account marks an unprecedented escalation in the legal battle. Burke maintains that he was upholding the Christian ethos of his school and acting according to his beliefs. The Irish courts have ruled against him at multiple stages, leading to fines, jail time, and now the freezing of his assets.

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