Tag: police state

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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Parents ARRESTED For Complaining About Their Kid’s School In WhatsApp Group

The parents of a nine year old British girl were arrested by police who came to their home after they complained about their child’s school in a WhatsApp chat group.

Yes, really.

The Times reports that Police arrested Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levin in front of their daughter on suspicion of malicious communications, harassment, and causing a nuisance on school property.

The pair were thrown in a jail cell over comments they made about the Cowley Hill Primary School in Borehamwood,

The report notes that the parents had taken issue with the school’s process of hiring a new head teacher, with school governors stepping in and issuing them with a warning for causing “disharmony”.

The school later completely banned the parents from the premises and were told they could only communicate via email.

The parents were then allegedly accused by the school of making “disparaging” remarks about the institution and “casting aspersions” in a  parents’ group on WhatsApp, prompting the school to contact police. 

The police then ordered the parents to remove their child’s from the school, which they did, yet they were still arrested a week later on their own doorstep and kept in jail for 11 hours.

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Britain Is Lost: White Men in UK to Face Tougher Sentencing

Starting Tuesday, white men in the United Kingdom will face tougher sentencing than ethnic, cultural, or faith minorities, as well as young people under 25, women, and pregnant women.

They used to call this racism.

So now, if you are a white man, you can expect more time in prison than a minority person.

This is the same country that arrests you for smart-a$$ comments on social media.

Britain truly is lost.

What a humiliating end to a once-great empire.

Via Caldron Pool:

From Tuesday, new judicial guidelines in the United Kingdom will introduce sentencing policies that apply differential treatment based on ethnicity, gender, and age—leading to harsher punishments for white men compared to other groups in society. The move has been met with criticism from Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, both of whom have expressed concerns about the fairness of the policy and signalled potential legislative action.

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Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House

Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.

Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.

They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.

Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.

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