DEA Judge Shuts Down Cannabis Manufacturing Case Without Hearing, Company Plans Legal Challenge

The company behind the application, MMJ BioPharma Cultivation, is now preparing to challenge the ruling in federal court and call for the judge’s recusal.

The ruling was issued by DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney II, who dismissed the company’s bid for a marijuana bulk manufacturing license after more than six years of delays. MMJ BioPharma said the decision came without warning and without any opportunity to present evidence or respond to agency claims—calling it a “procedural ambush.”

“This isn’t regulation—it’s an illegal ambush,” said MMJ CEO Duane Boise, who said the company had complied with all requirements under the Controlled Substances Act and FDA pathways.

MMJ, which is developing cannabis-based medicines for Huntington’s disease and multiple sclerosis, submitted a legally binding supply agreement in March 2024 with a DEA-licensed Schedule I facility. The agreement included specific sourcing protocols, defined volume, and DEA Form 222 compliance. Despite that, Mulrooney’s June 16 ruling ignored the document entirely and blocked it from being entered into the record.

Boise accused the DEA of demanding the agreement and then refusing to acknowledge it once submitted. “The agency cannot demand a document, receive it, then declare it irrelevant behind closed doors,” he said.

The order also reversed a previous determination by another administrative judge that certain disputed facts warranted a hearing. Instead, Mulrooney cited internal communications from a DEA investigator that MMJ was never allowed to challenge or respond to—raising concerns of ex parte communications and due process violations.

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Military Couple Refuses to Surrender Constitutional Rights to the U.S. Air Force, As an Active-Duty Service Member’s Career Hangs in the Balance … With No Pay

The spouse of an active-duty member of the Air Force stands in the gap for her husband of 11 years. Together, the family is facing an uphill battle against the Department of Defense for exercising the innate rights of all U.S citizens, rights that service members do not relinquish.

Maj. Brennan Schilperoort is a C-130J transport aircraft pilot who has honorably served the nation in the Air Force for over 17 years. Maj. Schilperoort applied for a flu shot medical exemption in November 2023, previously having a severe adverse reaction to it, but the Air Force refused him consideration. Another service member he personally knows was granted a medical exemption that same month for “headaches.”

With evidence mounting about the safety, efficacy, testing, and research surrounding the unlawful COVID-19 shot mandate since 2021, Maj. Schilperoort also discovered significant issues surrounding the flu shots. Medical options exhausted, he asserted his Constitutionally-protected rights in December 2023 to object to the flu vaccine for moral and religious reason, requesting a Religious Accommodation. The request was ignored in violation of the Air Force’s own regulations and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

While those who ignore regulations continue to walk scot-free, Maj. Schilperoort was punished for his decision. While his case is still in appeal, the C-130J pilot has been placed on a no-pay status since mid-March for taking an objection grounded in his faith and the Constitution.

Davis Younts, Maj. Schilperoort’s military defense attorney with 23 years of experience, stresses that removing pay from an officer like this is “in my experience only reserved for violent criminals or those already incarcerated.” Interestingly, it should also be noted that the Air Force pilot has not had a documented case of the flu nor has he had the shot in the last four years. The Air Force allowed him to continue working alongside his coworkers the entire time.

Still considered an active-duty service member (emphasis added), Maj. Brennan Schilperoort is no longer able to provide for his family, having gone without pay for three months while appealing his case. If the pending appeal is denied, he will also face administrative separation from the Air Force he has faithfully served for most of his adult life.

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UK’s Net Zero agenda is right at the top of the tyranny scale

David Turver argues that the UK’s Net Zero agenda is a far-left, tyrannical project that attacks freedom and is comparable to fascist states.

“If we substitute ‘Net Zero’ for ‘the State’ in Mussolini’s famous quote, we get close to describing the totalitarian Net Zero agenda: ‘Everything within Net Zero, nothing outside Net Zero, nothing against Net Zero’,” he says.

He talks us through how he comes to the conclusion that those advocating for Net Zero dystopia are narcissistic, psychopathic Machiavellians.  “We have somehow allowed the very worst people to take charge of most of our lives,” Turver says.

Introduction

Some friends have asked me to write more articles on the political and sociological impact of Net Zero. In addition, another contact put forward the suggestion that Net Zero is an attack on freedom. That idea has been turning over in my mind and I have concluded he was right and, effectively, Net Zero is just a cloak for far-left tyranny.

The Political Compass

The Political Compass is a widely used tool to differentiate between different political ideas, philosophies and ideologies.

It is typically drawn with the x-axis representing left and right opinions along the economic dimension. The left represents a desire for the economy to be run by cooperative collective agency with substantial state intervention and the political right represents a desire for the economy to be left to the devices of competing individuals and organisations, otherwise known as free markets.

The y-axis represents the social dimension, with the top representing authoritarianism and the bottom representing libertarianism. For shorthand, we can shorten this to tyranny versus freedom.

Net Zero Is Far-Left Tyranny

We can characterise Net Zero along both axes of the political compass. Starting with energy policy, we can see that there are government-mandated subsidies for renewables which cost a fortune. Plus, intermittent renewables can bid low into the market and be dispatched onto the grid despite the full cost of renewables being much higher than the market clearing price. Then there are extra subsidies for the Capacity Market to provide backup to intermittent renewables. In addition, there are even more subsidies for industry to compensate them for the resulting high electricity prices. There are extra subsidies for biofuels, green gas, green hydrogen and carbon capture and storage. On top of that, Miliband’s plan for Clean Power by 2030 sounds like a Soviet-era five-year plan for tractor production.

The UK government and the Climate Change Committee are also intent on forcing landlords to install insulation measures, many of which have payback times measured in centuries. We also have subsidies for heat pumps and company EV drivers pay less tax than for petrol cars.

On the supply side, new drilling for both onshore and offshore oil and gas resources is effectively banned and the assets that remain are being taxed to oblivion with 78% marginal tax rates. Using gas to produce electricity attracts carbon taxes through the Emissions Trading Scheme, amounting to about 20% of wholesale prices.

All of this takes energy policy as far away from free markets as it is possible to imagine. Net Zero is a far-left project that would not have been out of place in the USSR.

Turning to the vertical axis, we can see that many of the proposed measures to achieve Net Zero can be described as tyrannical. First, the Climate Change Committee (“CCC”) is effectively beyond the control of Parliament and the people because, as former chair Lord Deben put it, Parliament has to seek the permission of the CCC to change the Carbon Budgets. To achieve the targets, the Government and their advisors want to interfere in our lives to an unprecedented extent. They are interfering in markets to mandate targets for heat pumps and EVs to change how we heat our homes and the type of car we drive. The Energy Act 2023 gives the authority for draconian powers to take control of EV chargers, batteries, home heating, washing machines, fridges and dishwashers. The Act even gives authority for powers of entry to check that our smart appliances are compliant. Now the Government is planning to force pension schemes to merge into mega-funds and force them to invest in clean energy projects.

The CCC has recommended that we cut our meat consumption by a third and cut the number of livestock by almost half. Of course, they also want us to eat “alternative proteins,” which is code for things like insects.

Some of the advisors to the Government are even more tyrannical. We have the Behavioural Insights Team (also known as the Nudge Unit) calling for the regulation of advertising and for TV drama and news to promote upbeat stories about Net Zero. They also want to influence the physical, social, economic and digital environment to alter what is offered to consumers and change perceptions of what is socially acceptable. They recommended that the Government intervene across vast swathes of the economy to align businesses, markets and institutions with Net Zero. These measures include a meat tax, making flights more expensive, defaulting us onto renewable energy tariffs and making heat pumps look cheaper than gas boilers.

The National Energy System Operator (“NESO”) is planning to halve per capita energy consumption. They also want to “optimise” demand by introducing penal charges at peak times through Time of Use Tariffs (“TOUTs”). In other words, consumers need to organise their lives around the grid rather than the grid being designed to meet the needs of its customers.

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Why Is Texas Supporting Psychedelics Research While Criminalizing Cannabis?

Texas just announced it will invest $50 million into studying ibogaine, a powerful psychedelic drug that remains illegal at the federal level. The goal? To develop it into a potential Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for conditions like opioid use disorder, PTSD and depression; especially among veterans.

On the surface, this might sound like a bold and progressive move. But here’s the irony: at the very same time, Texas continues to criminalize cannabis and might soon even outlaw hemp-derived THC products.

Let’s break this down. Cannabis, a plant with centuries of use, decades of medical data and broad public support remains illegal for adult use in Texas. Despite overwhelming national support for legalization—a staggering 88 percent of Americans now back medical or recreational cannabis use)—the state has chosen to double down on prohibition, with lawmakers sending Gov. Greg Abbott (R) a bill that would outlaw consumable hemp products with any traces of THC. He has until Sunday to decide whether to allow that ban to take effect.

Even worse, prohibition isn’t stopping anything. The black market is thriving in Texas. Cartels and illicit operators flood the state with unregulated, untested cannabis. No taxes are collected, no consumer protections exist and legal hemp retailers are now being threatened. It is a misguided public safety argument deluded by a lack of facts and science, political conservatism, contradictory business objectives and outdated stigmas.

Meanwhile, ibogaine, a hallucinogenic alkaloid that can induce intense psychedelic experiences, is now the subject of a $50 million state-funded research push. The same lawmakers who claim cannabis is too dangerous and not well studied are throwing their support behind a compound with far less research and much more uncertainty with the intent of studying it.

This isn’t a critique of psychedelic medicine. Ibogaine may very well hold incredible therapeutic value. But if Texas is willing to support cutting-edge, controversial treatments for serious mental health and addiction issues, why not start with widely available data and access to cannabis? Cannabis has already been shown to help with chronic pain, anxiety, sleep, seizures and opioid dependency.

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Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Blasts EU’s Digital Services Act as Gateway to Censorship and Centralized Control

While European regulators polish their halos and crank out legislation faster than Brussels can subsidize cheese, Pavel Durov is out here playing the role of a digital heretic.

In a French interview, the Telegram founder is sounding alarms over what he sees as a not-so-slow crawl toward speech control disguised as safety. The latest darling of the bureaucratic elite? The Digital Services Act is a piece of legislation that reads like it was written by a committee of risk-averse interns with a fetish for vague language and zero accountability.

Durov isn’t whispering his concerns at think tank luncheons or lobbying dinners. He’s calling it what it is: an institutional greenlight for censorship. “Once you legitimize censorship, it’s difficult to go back,” he says, which probably makes him the least popular dinner guest in Brussels since anyone asked about eurozone debt.

What makes this more than another libertarian tech rant is that Durov isn’t hypothesizing. He’s living it. Right now, he’s effectively stuck in France, being slow-roasted by criminal accusations that, according to him, are so flimsy they wouldn’t hold up in a Bluesky comment section.

“Nothing has ever been proven that shows that I am, even for a second, guilty of anything,” he insists.

One story in particular peels back the clean, professional veneer of Europe’s “rules-based” order.

Durov describes a charming little tête-à-tête with the head of France’s foreign intelligence service, the DGSE.

Over croissants and state-sponsored pressure, he was asked to delete Telegram channels tied to Romanian political activists.

He refused. Not with a polite “I’ll look into it” or some carefully lawyered dodge, but with what may be the most defiant line uttered by a CEO since Steve Jobs told IBM to get lost: “I told them I prefer to die than betray my users.”

Nothing screams “democracy in action” quite like a spy agency demanding censorship in a private meeting. At least they skipped the pretense.

Beneath the PR gloss of the Digital Services Act lies the basic truth of modern governance: power is being centralized and speech, sanitized.

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75,000 pounds of THC products seized in DFW raids as Texas Gov. Abbott weighs statewide ban

Police raided locations across DFW on Tuesday in a year-long investigation into THC sales

The Allen Police Department, with help from the DEA, seized products at three warehouses in Dallas, while other agencies raided the owners’ homes in Carrollton, Colleyville, and Plano.

Allen’s police chief took the CBS News Texas crew inside one of the warehouses as officers pulled products off the shelves. 

According to early estimates from Allen PD, investigators seized over 75,000 pounds of THC products and $7 million worth of cash and assets in Tuesday’s raids.   

Chief Steve Dye said the warehouse raids are the product of an investigation that began more than a year ago with undercover purchases at shops in Allen. The I-Team documented how the Allen Police Department’s narcotics unit bought and tested the items ahead of raids at nine stores last August. Investigators said the illegal products found in Allen are being supplied by the warehouses in Dallas. 

“You don’t have to go to your drug dealer anymore to buy drugs,” said Dye. “You can go to a vape shop on any corner.” 

He believes the products found on store shelves are more dangerous than illegal drugs because, Dye said, the false sense of safety has led to an explosion in use.

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Ohio GOP Lawmakers Can’t Agree On How To Amend Marijuana Law, Causing Planned Vote To Be Canceled

Despite efforts in the Ohio legislature to pass a bill to significantly change the state’s voter-approved marijuana law, last-minute disagreements between the House and Senate Republicans seemed to have derailed that plan for now—with House lawmakers signaling that a deal won’t be struck before the summer recess.

After taking public testimony and adopting certain changes to the Senate-passed legislation, SB 56, in recent weeks, the House Judiciary Committee ultimately declined to advance the proposal as scheduled at a Wednesday hearing, making it so the measure couldn’t advance to a floor vote planned for that day. Evidently, the revisions didn’t sit well with key senators, according to several legislators.

“Apparently the Senate changed their mind,” Rep. Jamie Callender (R), a pro-legalization lawmaker, told News 5 Cleveland.

Changes approved at a hearing late last month, for example, rolled back some of the strict limits included in a version of the measure passed by the Senate in February, including a criminal prohibition on sharing marijuana between adults on private property.

“They wanted to make a mandatory jail sentence for passing a joint between friends,” Callender, who has spent weeks working on additional changes to the legislation, said. He also complained about the Senate’s proposal to put all cannabis tax revenue in the state’s general fund, which would have prevented local municipalities from getting a share of those dollars as is currently the law.

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No Charges for Cops Who Executed Innocent Grandpa on His Own Property—With a Bullet in His Back

Another day, another state-sanctioned killing swept under the rug. This time, it’s the story of Osvaldo Cueli, a 59-year-old grandfather who was shot and killed by two plainclothes Miami-Dade police detectives on his own land. There were no body cams, no warning, and no charges.

According to a closeout memo from the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, detectives Mario Fernandez and Jorge Sanchez won’t face any consequences for killing Cueli. The memo claims there wasn’t enough “competent evidence” to determine whether the shooting was justified. That’s always the excuse, isn’t it?

Despite the nine bullet holes in the windshield of the officers’ unmarked truck, originally spun as proof Cueli had fired on them, it turns out those shots were fired from inside the truck. The cops fired through their own windshield. They were in unmarked vehicles with tinted windows and, according to the family, never announced themselves.

Cueli had walked out to the edge of his property with a firearm holstered at his waist. He thought he saw trespassers. His daughter said he rarely carried a gun but had grown concerned about safety. That day, two black trucks pulled up to the gate. According to his son, they blocked the entrance and opened fire without warning. His father never raised his weapon. They didn’t identify themselves. They didn’t turn on any lights. They just started shooting.

“They both came really close to the trees, and they blocked us in,” Osvaldo, Cueli’s son, told New Times. “They started shooting from inside the car, and they didn’t have any lights on. They didn’t announce themselves. They didn’t put down the windows, and the windows were blacked out.”

Cueli was shot in the back. The autopsy confirmed it. The bullet passed through his aorta and lung before lodging in his arm. The cops say they found a pistol two feet from his body. But the family says there was no gun near him in the video footage. Their attorney is calling out the memo for its omissions and contradictions.

As Cueli lay bleeding on the ground, one of the officers casually stepped over his body and said, “We identified ourselves.” His daughter captured the moment on video.

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Federal Bill Would ‘Effectively’ Ban All Consumable Hemp Products—’Including CBD’—Congressional Researchers Say

A federal spending bill that’s advancing in the House would “effectively” prohibit hemp-derived cannabinoid products, including CBD, congressional researchers say.

In a report published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) last week, legislative analysts looked at the potential impact of hemp-related provisions that advocates and stakeholders say would devastate a core sector of the industry.

While report language attached to the 2026 appropriations bill was recently amended to clarify lawmakers’ intent not to disrupt the non-intoxicating cannabinoid market—signaling that products like CBD shouldn’t be banned—the legislation itself hasn’t changed and could still jeopardize the industry without further amendments to its provisions.

The CRS analysis, which came out after the bill’s report language was revised, seems to validate the industry’s concerns about the legislation, explaining how it would “expand on the existing statutory definition of hemp,” which currently means cannabis containing no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight, “to include industrial hemp products and exclude hemp-derived cannabinoid products.”

“Excluding hemp-derived cannabinoid products from the federal definition of hemp effectively would prohibit production and sale of hemp-derived cannabinoids, derivatives, and extracts thereof, including cannabidiol (CBD),” it says. “Excluded cannabinoids would cover also non-naturally occurring and synthesized or manufactured compounds.”

“The proposed provision would make other broader changes to the hemp definition by changing the allowable limits of THC—the leading psychoactive cannabinoid in the cannabis plant—to be determined on the basis of its total THC, including tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), instead of delta-9 THC. This would codify the regulatory practice established in USDA’s 2021 final hemp regulations. The provision would exclude from hemp ‘any viable seeds from a Cannabis sativa L. plant’ that exceed a total THC (including THCA) of 0.3 percent in the plant on a dry weight basis.”

As it stands, the legislation has cleared a House Appropriations subcommittee—but while it was discussed in the full committee last week, members ultimately did not act on it before recessing for a district work period. The panel is set to take the bill back up next week.

Before breaking, however, the full panel did adopt a manager’s amendment to the attached report from Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), a vocal opponent of cannabis reform. Despite his personal opposition, the revised report clarifies that the panel does not intend to prohibit non-intoxicating cannabinoid products with “trace or insignificant amounts of THC” that were federally legalized during the first Trump administration.

“In determining the quantifiable amounts, the Committee does not intend for industrial or nonintoxicating hemp-derived cannabinoid products with trace or insignificant amounts of THC to be affected,” it says.

Harris said in opening remarks at last week’s hearing that the legislation closes “the hemp loophole from the 2018 Farm Bill.”

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IDF Mandates Pre-Approval for Reporting Missile Strikes, Including on Social Media and Online Platforms

A new set of censorship rules issued by the Israel Defense Forces is raising alarms over media freedom and public transparency.

Brigadier-General Kobi Mandelblit, Israel’s chief censor, declared on Wednesday a mandate requiring prior approval for any reporting on where missiles or drones have struck, no matter the platform or location of publication.

According to the statement, “any person who prints or publishes printed matter or a publication regarding the location of a strike or hit by enemy war materiel, including missiles of any kind and UAVs, in the media or online (including social media, blogs and chats, etc.)” must now submit that material to the military censor for approval before it is released.

This directive applies to both domestic and international reporting, online and offline.

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