Tag: police state

Feds Call Marijuana A ‘Deadly’ Drug And Say Even Medical Cannabis Has ‘Serious Consequences’

Federal officials are calling marijuana a “deadly” drug—touting their efforts to seize it and other illegal substances—while also warning that possessing cannabis, even for medical use, carries “serious consequences.”

As President Donald Trump considers a cannabis rescheduling proposal—and after he posted a video on the health benefits of CBD—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are sending a conflicting message about cannabis.

In a press release about an August “surge” in drug seizures that was sent out on Tuesday, DHS said that CBP, as part of its “mission to stop harmful drugs from entering the United States,” was announcing that “seizures of deadly drugs—including fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana—increased substantially from July to August.”

That rhetoric as it concerns marijuana departs from how most people view and compare the plant with the other listed substances that can be associated with overdose deaths. By the federal government’s own admission in the past, cannabis has not on its own caused a fatal overdose.

“Cartels are increasingly desperate to keep doing business, but the Trump Administration is stopping their deadly operations,” CBP said.

While looping together marijuana and drugs like fentanyl might raise eyebrows, cartel-related crime associated with cannabis has been a consistent talking point in Congress. In fact, it was the subject of a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, & Accountability hearing last month that focused on a so-called “invasion” of Chinese and Mexican cartels via illicit cannabis operations.

“Secretary Noem and the Department of Homeland Security are fulfilling President Trump’s promise to make America safe again by dismantling drug cartels and stopping the flow of deadly drugs into American communities,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “Thanks to President Trump, fewer American families will be torn apart by addiction, fewer lives will be lost to overdoses, and fewer profits will go to violent cartels.”

Separately, CBP posted a reminder on social media on Tuesday that cautioned travelers against bringing cannabis across the border.

“Attention, travelers! Did you know that marijuana is still a controlled substance under U.S. federal law?” it said. “This means that selling, possessing, producing, or distributing both medical and recreational cannabis is illegal!”

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Michigan Marijuana Industry Rallies Against Tax Hike Proposal That’s Advancing In The Legislature

The proposed new wholesale tax on marijuana products to fund road repairs in the next state budget and years down the road is much too high and would result in job losses for a booming Michigan cannabis industry, advocates and lawmakers said Tuesday as they rallied for a lower tax rate.

At least two Democratic lawmakers who attended the rally—state Reps. Donavan McKinney of Detroit and Mike McFall of Hazel Park—also signaled that they were working behind the scenes to get that rate much lower before a final vote is taken.

At present, both McFall and McKinney said they would vote no on the final budget if the rate remained.

Michigan lawmakers reached a loose framework to fund the government last week, but it included a new 24 percent wholesale tax on products sold at dispensaries across the state. That sent the cannabis industry and their allies into a frenzy as they warned that such a tax would hamstring the industry’s growth and result in fewer jobs.

On Tuesday afternoon, lawmakers were still in the throes of hammering out a final budget plan, with no clear end in sight despite signals that the government would stay open and not shut down on Wednesday when the new fiscal year begins (though by the end of the day lawmakers passed a temporary budget extension through October 8).

Still, the money for the Legislature’s road funding plan had to come from somewhere, whether that was from schools—which advocates rallied against Tuesday—or from the new proposed tax on pot for potholes.

Those working for or on behalf of the cannabis industry gathered for a rally on the Capitol steps in Lansing to send lawmakers and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who had earlier in the year proposed a more than 30 percent tax, a clear message: Keep off their grass.

“Our industry is not their piggy bank. Our wallets are not their budget overruns,” said Mike DiLaura, CCO and general counsel for House of Dank, one of many cannabis companies operating in Michigan. “It is our time, not just as an industry, but as citizens of this great state, to put our feet down and say, ‘enough is enough.’”

DiLaura continued by saying that the industry has, since recreational cannabis was legalized in 2020, raised nearly $2 billion in taxes for Michigan over the last five years.

“But they say it’s not enough,” DiLaura said. “When will it ever be enough?”

Several other advocates and industry leaders spoke at the rally, all mentioning that even if they lost the battle to either stop the tax hike or reduce it, they would continue the fight in court or seek a full repeal of the law down the pike.

The rally also featured two allies in McKinney and McFall.

Both said they voted against the proposal in House Bill 4951 when it passed the House last week, noting that their communities have greatly benefited from recreational cannabis shops and associated businesses like grow operations.

“Hazel Park was all in on marijuana from the very beginning. As some of you might know, we even gave Tommy Chong the key to the city at one point,” McFall said. “But what a lot of people don’t realize is how this is going to impact local municipalities. They’re talking about cutting revenue sharing, which is the money that goes back from the state. This is also going to impact that.”

McFall said Hazel Park got half a million in tax dollars last year, and that money helped pay for emergency services and other amenities.

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‘Be still’: State trooper punched disabled man he knew was suffering a seizure, dragged him across concrete, lawsuit says

A man has sued a North Carolina state trooper for allegedly punching and dragging him across concrete after suffering an epileptic seizure that apparently caused him to crash his car.

Thomas Simmons, who says he suffers from epilepsy, is accusing Sgt. Ashley Smith with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol of disability-based discrimination, using excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and even falsely indicating he was driving impaired.

Simmons was 44 years old when, on May 25, 2024, he was driving a car on Highway 33 in Greenville as part of his job delivering items to customers for Walmart. According to the lawsuit, he began having an epileptic seizure, lost consciousness and control, sideswiped another car and crashed into a utility pole.

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A witness called 911, and Smith responded to the scene. When he got there, a witness told the officer that the driver, Simmons, “appeared to be having a seizure,” per the lawsuit. Greenville police officers also responded to the crash site.

Smith is said to have made statements “indicating he understood” Simmons was suffering from a seizure, such as, “Notify Greenville PD, I believe somebody advised that the subject’s possibly having a seizure.” When a bystander told Smith, “He’s seizing,” after Smith stepped out of his vehicle, the trooper replied with the same words, “He’s seizing,” per the lawsuit.

Furthermore, according to Simmons, Smith requested the man’s hospital records the next month. In his report, Smith wrote that when he found Simmons, he “was slumped over and appeared to be suffering from what I originally thought was a seizure or medical condition based on what witnesses on scene were telling me and what I was observing from him.”

Smith approached Simmons’ car and saw him “convulsing inside his vehicle,” leading him to break the front passenger-side window and attempt to make contact with the man. “Hey brother, you alright? S—t. Hey man, be still, brother. Be still,” he reportedly said.

However, when Smith backed away — despite not noticing any drugs in the vehicle — he told onlookers, “Looks like a drug problem. Y’all step on back,” per the lawsuit, which stated Simmons was incapacitated, moaning and crying unintelligibly.

“Hey man, what’s your name, brother?” Smith reportedly asked, again attempting to communicate with Simmons. He managed to get the door open, prompting Simmons to “woozily” rise to his feet. Smith apparently did not like that.

“Don’t get out,” he allegedly said. “Hey, I’m gonna hurt you, man.” The trooper is said to have repeated this threat as Simmons “did not respond” to his commands, and after the second time, Smith “delivered a forceful, closed fist strike directly to Plaintiff’s face,” the lawsuit states.

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Ron Paul On ‘The Real’ Jan. 6th Coup

In my first column after the events of Jan. 6th, 2021, I criticized those who called the protest a “coup,” pointing out that, “Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous farce at the Capitol as if it were the equivalent of 9/11 have been involved for decades in planning and executing real coups overseas. In their real coups, many thousands of civilians have died.”

The media at the time played up the violence committed by a relative few at the protest to stoke a national outcry and demands for “justice.” More than 1,500 Americans were charged over the incident and nearly 500 were imprisoned, including outrageous prison sentences for relatively minor crimes like entering the Capitol building through doors opened by the police, and filming the event.

While most Democrats and Republicans in Congress harshly denounced the January 6th “insurrectionists,” a few Members displayed the appropriate skepticism over accepted government narratives. Rep. Thomas Massie, for example, was relentless in his search for answers to a simple but critically important question: How many of the “insurrectionists” were actually undercover FBI agents and other law enforcement officers and what role might they have played in inciting the violence.

Massie grilled then-Attorney General Merrick Garland several times, but Garland would not budge. He refused to say whether there had been any undercover federal agents in the crowd, though of course he must have known.

Last week we learned a little more of the truth. With the release of the FBI’s long lost “after action” report, we now know that more than 250 undercover agents were in the crowd. According to the report, they were given roles including crowd control that they were not suited for. Some agents cited in the report complained of political biases in the Bureau against conservatives. What other tasks might have been given to a “politicized” FBI undercover team?

In addition to the undercover agents, there were more than two dozen paid informants in the Jan. 6th crowd. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who chairs the subcommittee investigating the matter, asks an important question: “With that many paid informants being in the crowd, we want to know how many were in the crowd, how many were in the building, but I also want to know, were they paid to inform or instigate?”

Were they paid to inform, or to instigate? That is a good question. We do know that the event was used by the incoming Biden Administration to demonize and persecute the political opposition. There is no telling how many Americans would have liked to use their First Amendment guarantee of free speech to criticize the Biden Administration but were silenced by fear of persecution, or worse. It’s easy to conclude, seeing so many arrested and handed long sentences for non-violent “crimes,” that it’s better to keep quiet. At the time, the US was still in the grip of Covid tyranny, where speaking out against “the Science” could get you “cancelled” or worse. This was another way to silence people who were not “going along with the program.”

In the end, January 6th, 2021, was a coup of sorts. It was a coup against the First Amendment. The lesson for all of us is that if we do not regularly but peacefully exercise our First Amendment guarantees we will definitely lose them, regardless of who is in power.

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Britain’s policing minister punts facial recog nationwide

The government is to encourage police forces across England and Wales to adopt live facial recognition (LFR) technology, with a minister praising its use by the London’s Metropolitan Police in a suburb in the south of the city.

Policing minister Sarah Jones confirmed the UK government is consulting on guidance on where, when, and how police forces can use LFR with publication due later this year. “What we’ve seen in Croydon is that it has worked,” she told a fringe event at the Labour party conference on September 29, referring to the Met’s installation of permanent LFR cameras in the town.

“We just need to make sure it’s clear what the technology is going to be useful for going forward. If we are going to use it more, if we do want to roll it out across the country, what are the parameters?” she added. “Live facial recognition is a really good tool that has led to arrests that wouldn’t have come otherwise and it’s very, very valuable.”

In August, the Home Office said that seven more police forces will start using ten new vans kitted out with LFR technology, in addition to existing use by the Metropolitan Police in London and South Wales Police. At the time it said the two forces have used LFR to make 580 arrests over the previous 12 months.

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UK Pub Transformed Into 1984 Theme Park In Protest Of Starmer’s Digital ID Dystopia

A landlord in the UK has renamed his pub ‘The George Orwell’ and made it entirely 1984 themed, complete with projections of the dystopian novel’s most memorable themes and phrases along with images of Prime Minister Kier Starmer as the evil Big Brother.

As we have highlighted, Starmer recently announced Chinese communist-style digital tracking is coming to the UK with a new mandatory “right to work” scheme in the form of a universal ID called the “Brit Card”.

It’s all predicated on the back of out of control mass illegal immigration, with the leftists using the crisis created by the previous Conservative government and amplified by Starmer’s cabal in an attempt to rollout Orwellian style surveillance and control.

While they claim the scheme will help to stop “illegal” immigrants from crossing the channel by denying them access to work, the possibilities for control via biometric tracking are endless.

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Swiss Man Chooses Jail Over Fine After Conviction for LGBT Comments Online

A Swiss man is choosing prison over paying a fine after courts punished him for comments on social media about biological sex.

Emanuel Brünisholz, who repairs wind instruments in Burgdorf, announced that he will serve 10 days behind bars beginning in December rather than hand over hundreds of francs to the state.

The case began nearly three years ago when Brünisholz replied to a Facebook post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner.

In his response, he wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”

That remark was quickly flagged by activists, who reported it to police as incitement to hatred under Article 261bis, the country’s anti-discrimination law.

What was once a narrowly tailored rule to stop racist propaganda has, since 2020, been extended to cover “sexual identities.”

According to local media, this expansion opened the door for Brünisholz’s prosecution. On August 15, 2023, local police interrogated him, demanding to know his intent.

When asked what he meant by his post, he answered: “Well, that those who think there’s not just man and woman, I want to tell them that there’s only man and woman.”

As reported by Reduxx, asked about his opinion of the “LGBTQI” community, he said: “Nothing, absolutely nothing. It’s an extremist bunch. They want to silence me.”

Authorities concluded his statement demeaned LGBT individuals and thus violated human dignity.

He was fined 500 Swiss francs, with the penalty convertible into jail time if unpaid. After he contested the order, the Regional Court of Emmental Oberaargau reaffirmed the guilty verdict in December 2023 and added another 600 francs in court fees.

Instead of complying, Brünisholz declared he would not pay. On September 19, 2025, he posted an image of his summons from the Bernese Office of Justice Execution alongside the words: “It’s happening. On December 2, I’m going to prison for 10 days!”

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Trump administration confirms another federal agency involved in weaponization: the TSA

Move over FBI and IRS,  a new federal agency is garnering attention for alleged weaponization against Americans.

The Homeland Security Department announced Tuesday that an internal investigation uncovered “widespread abuses” carried out by the Biden administration’s Transportation Security Administration to make air travel “weaponized” against certain Americans.

The revelation that U.S. citizens were kept from flying over their political views drew immediate condemnation from Congress.

“It’s not American …. It’s another example of weaponization of our government that took place under the Biden administration,” Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., said. “It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

In a joint announcement with the TSA, Homeland Security said its investigative findings are being referred to the Justice Department.

In the announcement, acting agency TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill, said the Biden-era officials “under the direction and leadership” of previous TSA Administrator David Pekoske had “systematically watch-listed and denied boarding to those who exercised their individual rights and resisted mask mandates on airplanes nearly six months after the CDC relaxed its indoor mask mandate.”

The TSA also said the Biden TSA used the Capitol riot of January 2021 “as an excuse to target several dozen U.S. citizens” and that “these Americans were watch-listed and harassed despite there being no evidence of wrongdoing or illegal behavior.” 

The TSA said that “this targeted campaign of harassment continued through June 2021, six months after the events in question, despite no clear or immediate threat to aviation security.”

“These Biden-era officials continued to target Americans even after career intelligence officials and even Biden’s TSA Chief Privacy Officer sounded the alarm over these abusive actions,” the TSA said. “The Biden-era TSA’s actions demonstrate clear political bias. For example, these officials chose NOT to flag individuals who attacked law enforcement, burned down cities, and destroyed property during the widespread and violent George Floyd protests in 2020. During this abuse of power, some TSA officials raised serious concerns about these privacy violations and political targeting. They were ignored.”

“Biden’s TSA Administrator Pekoske and his cronies abused their authority and weaponized the federal government against the very people they were charged with protecting,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said on X on Tuesday. “Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority, targeting Americans who posed no aviation security risk under the banner of political differences. President Trump promised to end the weaponization of government against the American people, and we are making good on that promise. I am referring this case to the Department of Justice and for Congressional investigation.”

Noem has directed TSA and DHS to refer the findings to DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and to Congress for further investigation, to remove “five senior leaders” who had “betrayed the trust of the American people” from their leadership positions, and to reorganize TSA’s Intelligence & Analysis office to hold senior officials accountable and to provide more extensive oversight on TSA’s watch-listing powers. TSA on Tuesday said that the removals included the executive assistant administrator for operations support and the deputy assistant administrator for intelligence and analysis.

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Scottish Police Arrest Serial Speaker: Elderly Woman Charged After Holding Sign Offering to Discuss Abortion

Rose Docherty is what they call a criminal recidivist in the United Kingdom. The 75-year-old woman has been arrested for a second time for the same fiendish act: offering to speak to women considering an abortion. She was arrested  outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow for carrying a placard which stated “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” Fortunately, she and her sign were quickly seized by the local police to protect the public.

Free speech literally does not have a prayer in the United Kingdom. We previously discussed the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was arrested for standing near an abortion clinic while silently praying. Police asked what she was doing standing at the location and when she said that she was praying in her head, they arrested her.

How Docherty ended up in the hoosegow in Glasgow is a chilling tale of how censorship can consume a nation.

The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act came into force last September. The architect of the law, Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay, denounced protests of abortions as “totally unacceptable abuse and obstruction” outside hospitals. So it is now a crime to behave in ways that could influence the decisions of women and staff to access services within the buffer zones.

In other words, it is a crime to exercise free speech. In this case, the “unacceptable abuse” was offering to speak with other women about abortion.

The United Kingdom shows how limiting speech can create an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech controls. I discuss the UK as a cautionary tale for the United States in my book, The Indispensable Right.

A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”

British censorship now extends to not just silent prayers but toxic thoughts.

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Not Only Tulsi: Three Members Of Congress Also Spied On In Quiet Skies Program

Ahead of Tuesday hearings on the subject, the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) obtained documents showing three members of Congress, all Republicans, were followed under the TSA’s just-discontinued Quiet Skies program, which became infamous last summer when whistleblowers revealed bomb-sniffing dogs and Air Marshals were assigned to follow former Hawaii Congresswoman and future National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.

The members’ names have not yet been publicly released, but they were turned over to the Committee by the Department of Homeland Security, along with “TSA” notes explaining how they ended up on the list. Two of the three members made it onto the list before being elected, but as the Committee notes, “a cursory review would have revealed them to be a member of Congress, or a decorated U.S. veteran or service member.” The list below looks like four entries, but the second and third are the same member.

A wealth of other information — not just about Quiet Skies but other questionable TSA practices — has been produced to the Committee chaired by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Among the revelations:

  • Documentation showing the TSA approved “enhanced screening” and watchlisting for individuals merely “suspected of traveling to the National Capital Region” in conjunction with January 6th, and who are “believed to pose an elevated risk” but for whom “there is a current lack of specific information relating to unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol”;

At least 24 people were put into the program for being associated with a group the protested mask mandates, and 12 were placed on a watch list for removing their masks in-flight. The latter act was described in one memo as being “an act of extreme recklessness in carrying out an act that represents a threat to the life of passengers and crew”;

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