Tag: police state

Kansas Republicans Reject Amendment To Grant Terminally Ill Patients The Right To Try Medical Marijuana

A Senate Democrat unsuccessfully attempted to insert “medicinal cannabis” among treatments allowed under a bill meant to broaden Kansans’ access to experimental drugs.

Democratic Sen. Cindy Holscher, who introduced Wednesday the amendment that would have legalized medicinal cannabis for terminally ill patients, later emphasized her intention was not to create a public medical marijuana program.

“I think most of you realize I would not bring something of that magnitude to an important bill like SB 250,” said Holscher, of Overland Park, Wednesday evening. “That amendment, rather, was to mirror what was approved by President Trump in the Right to Try Act, which is a very defined, narrow scope only for terminally ill patients.”

Senate Bill 250, introduced and carried on the Senate floor by Eudora Republican Sen. Beverly Gossage, would create the Right to Try for Individualized Investigative Treatments Act. Investigational treatments can also be referred to as experimental drugs, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The bill would permit people who are unable to find relief from rare, life-threatening or debilitating conditions to access individualized, genetics-based medical treatment. The drug trial evaluation system in the U.S. is designed to evaluate medications meant to help larger populations, leaving behind drugs that can be individually tailored to a patient’s unique genetic makeup, Gossage said.

“Individualized treatments are being pioneered in the U.S. and abroad, but often patients in the U.S. travel thousands of miles,” she said.

The bill passed the Senate and is awaiting approval in the House.

Holscher supported the bill as a whole but voiced concerns.

“I don’t want to give people false hope,” she said, “yet I certainly would not stand in the way of a parent or individual trying to get medical help for a family member.”

Her amendment added medicinal cannabis to the list of treatments allowed under the definition of individualized investigative treatment.

Cannabis “has been found to have proven benefits for those with life-threatening or debilitating diseases,” Holscher said.

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FEMA Allocated $2.6M for “War on Misinformation” Contract in 2023

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – an incorporated agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – earmarked $2.6 million to fund a “war on misinformation” contract in 2023, according to data on the usaspending.gov website.

The blanket purchase agreement note lists “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation analysis” as the subjects of the order, with $1.2 million spent, and as much currently listed as the obligated amount.

As noticed by Foundation For Freedom Online, the recipient is the consultancy firm Guildehouse, a government contractor owned by Bain Capital. A post on the company’s website that has since been deleted spoke about Guildehouse engaging with social media platforms to report misinformation (including flagging posts for removal).

Guildehouse also “maintained a proprietary internal database” to track content designated as “misinformation,” and a list of “higher risks” sites that might have published such content.

The case looks like another piece in the puzzle that has been the Big Government-Big Tech collusion to suppress speech in the US, unfolding over the last four years.

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VP Vance Vindicated, Scottish Police Arrest Woman For Silent Vigil Outside Abortion Clinic

Vice President J.D. Vance drew criticism from European leaders and press following his speech last week at the Munich Security Conference in Germany where he openly chastised  European authorities over their suppression of free speech.

Now, just days after Vance’s warning to European official about censorship, a woman has been confronted by police and arrested for holding a sign that read “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want” outside of a Scottish abortion clinic.

In his remarks in Munich, Vance gave examples of Germany arresting people criticizing feminism, Sweden arresting individuals for criticizing religion and Scottish police arresting a man for silently praying for his aborted son outside of an abortion clinic.

European leaders were called to task by Vance for abandoning what he called their “most fundamental values” while insisting that the U.S. should continue helping defend Europe.

Vance told the assembled leaders, “If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people … If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people.”

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Yves Engler: I’m Being Charged for Responding to Anti-Palestinian Hate on X (Twitter)

UPDATE:  After writing the report below, the Montreal police claimed that Engler was victimizing the police by writing the report below.   Engler wrote this update before being taken into custody.  Engler says that a new investigator has told him that the Montreal police will be charging me with intimidation, harassment, harassing communication and “entrave” (interference) towards the original police investigator.

Canadian activist Yves Engler was arrested in Montreal on Thursday for pro-Palestinian posts on Twitter (X).  He was charged with harassment and indecent communication on the social media platform.  He will be arraigned on Friday.  Thousands of people have already written to the Montreal police urging them to drop the charges.   We urge our readers to do the same.

Engler has written 65 articles that have appeared on Antiwar.com here and here.  He is the author of 12 books.  Engler was notified in advance and wrote this on his website the day before his arrest.

Tomorrow the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Today I received a phone call from a Montreal police officer by the last name of Crivello. She asked me to come to a downtown police station where I will be charged for harassment and indecent communication. Crivello said a complaint was submitted against me months ago by a legal firm on behalf of racist media personality Dahlia Kurtz. Crivello said I had described Kurtz as a “genocide” supporter and “fascist” on Twitter. Guilty as charged.

On dozens of occasions I’ve responded to Kurtz’ racist, violent anti-Palestinian posts on X. Six weeks ago I wrote an article noting:

Amidst this ever-worsening holocaust in Gaza, the media and politicians want us to believe Canadian Jews are the real victims. In an egregious example, the Winnipeg Sun just published “Dahlia Kurtz mobilizing pushback on Canada’s Jew-hate problem.” Palestinian suffering is omitted from the long profile of an unhinged Jewish supremacist. The article describes Kurtz combating “‘Free Palestine’ hatefests” and selecting Justin Trudeau “winner of my 2024 Jew-Hater of the Year Award.”

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Did Facebook Conspire With the Government to Censor Speech in Violation of the First Amendment? Case Could Redefine Social Media Censorship

The Rutherford Institute is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hold Facebook accountable for conspiring with the government to censor and suppress speech and address Facebook censorship issues.

Weighing in before the U.S. Supreme Court with an amicus brief in Children’s Health Defense v. Meta, The Rutherford Institute argues that Meta Platforms should be held accountable as a government actor for violating the First Amendment by partnering with the government in order to restrict the Facebook posts, fundraising, and advertising of Children’s Health Defense (“CHD”). Although the Trump Administration has ordered federal officials to cease the government’s censorship efforts, The Rutherford Institute warned that political stances can change quickly and social media companies are likely to censor speech again at the government’s direction unless they are held accountable as government actors for violating the First Amendment rights of the people. Facebook censorship leads to the suppression of diverse ideas.

“We should all be alarmed when prominent social media voices are censored, silenced, and made to disappear from Facebook, X, YouTube, and Instagram for voicing ideas that are deemed politically incorrect, hateful, extremist, or conspiratorial,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “At some point, depending on how the government and its corporate allies define what constitutes ‘extremism,’ we might all be considered guilty of some thought-crime and subjected to technocensorship like Facebook censorship.”

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Colorado bill seeks to jail those who ‘misgender’ dead people

A Colorado bill that would make “misgendering” a person on their death certificate a crime punishable by up to 120 days in jail will be heard on Wednesday.

HB25-1109, titled “Gender Identity Certificate of Death,” would, if passed, require those complete death certificates to record the deceased’s sex “to reflect” their “gender identity.” The death certificate would need to be conformed to any document presented that “memorializ(es)” the “gender identity” of the deceased.

If not presented with such a document, the individual completing the death certificate would have to record the deceased’s sex “as reported by the individual with the right to control the disposition of” the deceased’s remains.

“Misgendering” the deceased would, as a Class 2 misdemeanor, be punished by up to 120 days in jail or up to $750 in fines. The bill would affect doctors and government employees as well as morticians, the Daily Caller noted. 

Dr. Travis Morrell, a senior fellow with the anti-woke, anti-trans medical group Do No Harm, denounced the legislation as outrageous. 

“It’s dangerous and absolutely nuts to threaten doctors with a misdemeanor if they won’t forge a death certificate. But it’s what I’d expect in Colorado,” Dr. Morrell told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“The first thing you learn in middle school science is to write in your lab book with a pen; honest data recording is science 101,” Morrell added.

He stressed that adhering to biological reality when recording death certificates is far from an arbitrary matter.

“Death certificates aren’t buried when you die,” he said. “They’re evidence in court. They’re data for medical and public health research. Death certificates help doctors predict cancer survival or the deadliness of infectious or environmental agents.”

“The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and scientists around the world use death certificate data,” Morrell noted.

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Doctors Supporting Marijuana Rescheduling File Lawsuit Calling For DEA Witness Selection Redo Over Alleged Unlawful Conspiracy With Reform Opponents

A non-profit organization of pro-marijuana reform doctors has filed a brief in a federal appeals court arguing that new evidence has surfaced demonstrating that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) carried out an “arbitrary and capricious review” of witnesses for hearings on the ongoing cannabis rescheduling process that should now be redone.

The group is alleging that there’s “substantial evidence” of procedural violations committed by DEA leadership during the witness selection process—including previously unreported unlawful ex parte communications with certain parties, most of whom oppose the rescheduling proposal.

The suit from Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (D4DPR)—filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Monday—comes amid an indefinite delay of the DEA administrative hearings on the Biden administration-initiated proposal to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

At issue in the legal challenge is the fact that then-DEA Administrator Anne Milgram selected just 25 of more than 160 applicants that sought to provide input on the rescheduling proposal.

According to attorneys represented by D4DPR, which was among the groups denied designated participant status for the hearings, there’s substantial evidence that DEA’s ex parte communications were “motivated by the impermissible goal of creating an evidentiary record that would allow it to reject the proposed rule to reschedule marijuana.”

“The Agency gave no reasons for selecting only 25 participants or why it selected particular applicants,” the lawsuit says. “The Agency’s failure to explain the reasons for its selections warrants vacatur and remand with instructions to redo the selections.”

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Grand jury recommends Alabama police department be ‘immediately abolished’

An Alabama grand jury has recommended that a city’s police department be “immediately abolished,” finding there is a “rampant culture of corruption,” officials said Wednesday while announcing the indictment of five of the agency’s officers, including its police chief.

Five Hanceville police officers were arrested and charged amid a probe into the department, Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said. The spouse of one of the officers was also charged, he said.

“This is a sad day for law enforcement, but at the same time, it is a good day for the rule of law,” Crocker said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Crocker provided limited details on the case. Though the investigation encompassed the department’s evidence room and the death of a Hanceville dispatcher, 49-year-old Christopher Michael Willingham, who was found dead from a toxic drug combination at work, officials said.

The Cullman County grand jury found that the Hanceville Police Department has “failed to account for, preserve and maintain evidence and in doing so has failed crime victims and the public at large,” making the evidence “unusable,” Crocker said.

The grand jury further found that Willingham’s death was “the direct result of the Hanceville Police Department’s negligence, lack of procedure, general incompetence and disregard for human life,” Crocker said.

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AfD-Supporting Lawyer Fined €3,000 For Criticizing German Govt, Has Gun License Revoked, Faces Disbarment

The debate over free speech in Germany has taken a new turn following the case of Markus Roscher, a 61-year-old lawyer from Braunschweig, who was fined €3,000 for criticizing the government’s heating law.

Roscher described Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as “malicious failures” in a post on X back in 2021. He was subsequently issued a penalty notice under the controversial Paragraph 188 of the German Criminal Code, which criminalized defamation against individuals engaged in public political life.

Roscher, who has been active on X for over 14 years and is well accustomed to the legal boundaries surrounding political debate, insists that his post was within the bounds of political criticism.

“I actually know myself to be quite well within the red lines,” he told Bild. 

“You have to formulate things pointedly to be heard. The lines of freedom of opinion have slipped with the red-green government (ed. the coalition of Social Democrats and Greens).” 

He further described his hefty fine as a “scandal for freedom of expression.”

Paragraph 188, introduced in April 2021, criminalizes insults against politicians if they significantly hinder their public work. It was initially passed under a coalition government of the CDU and SPD but has been increasingly enforced under the current administration. The law has led to numerous prosecutions against individuals who have criticized government officials online.

In Roscher’s case, the penalty order claimed that his statements portrayed politicians as “corrupt, stupid, and arrogant,” constituting “abusive criticism” that allegedly impeded their political activity. 

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Idaho Lawmakers Send Bill Creating A Mandatory Minimum Fine For Marijuana Possession To Governor’s Desk

The Idaho Senate voted 27-8 on Tuesday to pass a bill creating a mandatory minimum fine of $300 for simple marijuana possession.

Passing the Senate was the final legislative hurdle for the bill. The Idaho House of Representatives already voted 54-14 to pass the bill January 21.

House Bill 7 next heads to Gov. Brad Little’s (R) desk for final consideration. Once it reaches his desk, Little will have three options. He can sign it into law, he can allow it to become law without his signature or he can veto it.

If the bill becomes law it would take effect July 1.

House Bill 7 was co-sponsored by Sen. Brandon Shippy, R-New Plymouth. If passed into law, it would create a mandatory minimum fine of $300 for anybody 18 and over convicted of possessing less than 3 ounces of marijuana—in addition to any other penalties allowed by law.

Supporters of the bill said it is a way to be tough on marijuana and differentiate Idaho from its neighboring states.

Most of Idaho’s neighboring states allow for the recreational or medical use of cannabis. Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Montana allow the recreational sale and possession of cannabis, while Utah offers medical cannabis.

“Not long ago, marijuana was illegal in all 50 states,” Shippy said. “In not one state where marijuana is legalized has that state become a better, safer or more wealthy place to live and raise a family.”

Some opponents of the bill argued against creating a mandatory minimum fine, saying it removes discretion that judges and prosecutors exercise on a case-by-case basis.

The bill is similar to a failed bill from last year, House Bill 606, which would have created a mandatory minimum fine of $420 for marijuana possession.

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