Tag: republicans

House Republicans demand UFO transparency

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and some of President Trump’s most vocal supporters in the House do not agree on much, but they are in agreement that the government is hiding critical information on UFOs — also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena or UAP — from the American public.

Schumer and key House Republicans say that the government must come clean on what it knows about this decades-long mystery, which has seen 80 years of highly credible, consistent, multi-witness reporting of objects exhibiting extreme performance characteristics.

On Feb. 11, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the establishment of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan UAP Caucus, will lead the effort.

Comer and Luna sent letters to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe requesting a briefing on all UAP-related records in their possession, with the ultimate goal of “deliver[ing] transparency to the American people.”

Notably, Rubio and Ratcliffe, along with National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Trump himself, have made remarkable statements about UAP in recent years.

Ditto for Schumer. Shortly after Trump signed an executive order declassifying all government records on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., Schumer challenged Trump to extend the same transparency to UAP.

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A Tale of Two Parties: Kids Edition

“All progressive social experiments require children to make sacrifices, whether it’s abortion, gender ideology, race-based DEI education, or shutting down schools for COVID-19. The voiceless and most vulnerable are always made to pay the price.” 

That’s a quote from the book “Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion” by Allie Beth Stuckey. While I haven’t read the book, our editor, Chris Queen has and loved it, and he happened to send me that quote last month. I’d planned to write an article about it, but I never got around to it. 

Still, the words have lingered in my mind ever since. Because they’re true. I don’t need to explain to you that the entire Democrat platform, especially over the last four or five years, has largely centered around experimenting on children, whether they’re injecting them with hormones, teaching them racism, or preventing them from even being born at all. 

Here’s one of countless examples: In November, I wrote about how one of the founders of La Leche League International (LLLI), one of the largest and oldest parenting organizations in the world, resigned from the board — along with other members of leadership — because they were “ridiculed and abused” and compared to Nazis when they questioned the desire to allow “breastfeeding men” into women’s meetings. 

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House Republicans launch group for comprehensive data privacy legislation

Republican leaders on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce are forming a working group designed to help write a comprehensive data privacy bill.

John Joyce of Pennsylvania, the committee’s vice chairman and a physician, will lead the group, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. The working group currently includes nine Republicans and no Democrats.

The committee is inviting “stakeholders” to work with members to draft legislation that can “get across the finish line,” the press release said, quoting Joyce and committee Chairman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky.

Congressional leaders have worked on comprehensive data privacy legislation in the past, but have never succeeded in getting a floor vote due to sharp dissent over what protections and consumer rights should be included. In that vacuum, 13 states have enacted their own.

“We strongly believe that a national data privacy standard is necessary to protect Americans’ rights online and maintain our country’s global leadership in digital technologies, including artificial intelligence,” the Republicans’ announcement says. “We are hopeful that we can start building a strong coalition to address this important issue.”

In January, more than three dozen industry groups sent a letter to Republican and Democratic leaders of the Commerce Committee on each side of Congress, imploring them to pass data privacy legislation that would preempt the state laws.

The provisions proposed by the industry groups are similar to laws in states like Texas and Kentucky, which experts say are weaker than those in other states.

Data privacy legislation had been scheduled for a House Energy and Commerce markup last June but it was cancelled due to controversy over its text. 

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Montana GOP Senator’s Bill Would Require People To Register And Pay A $200 Annual Fee To Use Recreational Marijuana

Marijuana reform advocates are sounding the alarm after a Montana GOP senator filed a bill that would require adult-use cannabis consumers to register and pay a $200 annual fee to participate in the legal program that voters approved in 2020.

Sen. Greg Hertz (R) introduced the legislation, SB 255, last week. It would create a registration system similar to what’s in place for medical cannabis in many states—except that this would be for adults in a recreational market, with a significantly higher annual fee.

Adults would need to pay the $200 fee to obtain a cannabis card from the state Cannabis Control Division (CCD). Participants would need to pay that fee each year for renewal under the proposal.

Upon applying for the card, there would be a 60-day period where adults could access marijuana from licensed retailers. But if they don’t pay the fee by the end of that window, the division “shall cancel the temporary marijuana identification card.”

“This is an outrageous attempt to gut the will of the people and re-criminalize cannabis for most Montanans. Voters legalized cannabis for all adults 21 and older,” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment on Thursday.

“No other adult-use state forces cannabis consumers to enroll in a state registry, and the people’s initiative explicitly prohibits this surveillance and government overreach,” she said. “Re-criminalizing cannabis for anyone who does not pay $200 per year to register with the state is an affront to Montana voters who made their voices clear when they passed Initiative I-190.”

The text of the bill states that a “marijuana cardholder shall keep the individual’s marijuana identification card in the individual’s immediate possession at all times. The marijuana identification card and a valid photo identification must be displayed on demand of a law enforcement officer, justice of the peace, or city or municipal judge.”

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GOP Florida Lawmaker Wonders If State’s Medical Marijuana Program Is ‘Causing More Harm Than Good’

With nearly 900,000 registered patients, Florida has the largest medical marijuana program in the country. While campaigning against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) hailed the medical program, boasting that he had legalized smokeable weed in the state in 2019.

But that doesn’t mean the Florida GOP-controlled legislature is all in with medical marijuana, and on Tuesday one House member asked a state doctor charged with analyzing the effectiveness of cannabis as medicine if its use by Floridians poses more of a risk than a benefit.

“You’ve made it very clear that there needs to be more research across the gamut of this area, but you’ve also made it clear that a lot of the research that you do have shows this program to be of questionable medical value,” said Northeast Florida Republican Dean Black to Dr. Almut Winterstein, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida and director of the Consortium for Medical Marijuana Outcomes Research.

“My question is, do you fear that we’re causing more harm than good?”

Winterstein replied that the question illuminated the “conundrum” that exists when it comes to the medical efficacy of cannabis, which because it is listed as a Schedule I controlled substance by the federal government has always had restrictions placed on research. (The Biden administration proposed last year to reclassify the substance as a Schedule III controlled substance).

“That is concerning,” she said in response to Black’s query. “That doesn’t mean that there are not patients who might massively benefit from this, but we haven’t defined the benefit of this.”

In her presentation to the House Professions & Programs Subcommittee, Winterstein reported rapid growth among young adults up to age 25 in Florida in listing anxiety as the medical condition motivating them to seek a medical marijuana prescription. She said that was “fairly strong evidence that marijuana attacks the developing brain negatively—specifically, cognitively.”

But she said that was very different than looking at patients suffering from chronic pain or other medical conditions. 

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Why did Republicans fund ‘transgender dance’ in Bangladesh?

As Trump attacks foreign spending on “woke” initiatives, a GOP-aligned outfit has largely escaped scrutiny, despite using taxpayer funds to sponsor “transgender dance performances” and what it called the “largest published survey of LGBTI people in Bangladesh.” 

According to documents obtained by The Grayzone, the US-funded International Republican Institute sees gay and transgender people as uniquely disruptive actors who can be deployed to manipulate political realities overseas, stating, “LGBTI people tend to participate in social change activities to eventually bring changes to politics.”

Read part one of The Grayzone’s investigation into International Republican Institute’s activities in Bangladesh here.

For years, the Republican Party-aligned International Republican Institute’s (IRI) agenda in Bangladesh has been dominated by ethnic minority and transgender issues, with leaked documents revealing the Institute sponsored “the largest published survey of LGBTI people in Bangladesh” and that a full 24% of the 1,868 Bangladeshis who participated in IRI programs in 2019 and 2020 were transgender.

The IRI’s cultural activities were conducted with explicitly subversive objectives, aiming to recruit socially excluded groups as regime change activists. They mirrored the US government’s machinations in Cuba, where, as The Grayzone reported, USAID funded rappers, artists, and “desocialized and marginalized youth” to undermine the country’s socialist government.

Since its founding in 1983, the congressionally-funded IRI has been run by Republican politicians and operatives dedicated to the cause of “democracy promotion” abroad. IRI’s Chairman, Sen. Dan Sullivan, is a vehement opponent of same sex marriage who signed on to a GOP letter calling to restrict the participation of transgender youth in sports. While many of the institute’s board members are Never Trump Republicans like Sen. Mitt Romney, the board also includes Sen. Tom Cotton, a top Trump ally who strongly opposes transgender medical interventions for youth.

The IRI’s eyebrow-raising statistics on trans participation in regime change activities were included in an internal report on its PAIRS (“Promoting Accountability, Inclusivity, and Resiliency Support”) Program, which was obtained by The Grayzone in 2024. The report boasts that “IRI issued 11 advocacy grants to artists, musicians, performers or organizations that created 225 art products addressing political and social issues that were viewed nearly 400,000 times [and] supported three civil society organizations from LGBTI, Bihari and ethnic communities to train 77 activists and engage 326 citizens to develop 43 specific policy demands, which were proposed before 65 government officials.”

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New GOP Bill Would Block Marijuana Industry Tax Deductions, Even After Federal Rescheduling

Two GOP senators have introduced a bill that would continue to block marijuana businesses from taking federal tax deductions under Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code 280E—even if it’s ultimately rescheduled.

Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) filed the “No Deductions for Marijuana Businesses Act” on Thursday to maintain the tax barrier for the industry, which has been eagerly following the ongoing administrative process of moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in large part because it would address their 280E challenges under current law.

While rescheduling isn’t a guarantee, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearings on the proposal have been delayed, the senators are aiming to preemptively take the wind out of the industry’s sails.

The bill would amend the IRS code to say that, in addition to all Schedule I and Schedule II drugs, businesses that work with marijuana specifically would be barred from taking tax deductions that are available to other industries.

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GOP Congressman Wants To Talk With RFK Jr. About How ‘Marijuana Is Harmful’ As Trump’s Cabinet Pick Heads To Confirmation Vote

A GOP congressman says it’s “definitely” time to have a talk with President Donald Trump’s pick for head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to convince him that “marijuana is harmful” and that the way to make Americans healthy is by “limiting” its use.

After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was cleared in an initial confirmation vote in the Senate Finance Committee, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) told Marijuana Moment that he wanted to have a chat with the potential HHS secretary, who has previously voiced support for cannabis legalization prior to being selected for the top federal health role by Trump.

“Marijuana is harmful,” Harris said in an interview at the Capitol on Wednesday. “We should definitely have a talk with RFK Jr. I mean, the bottom line is: We should keep Americans healthy by limiting the use of marijuana.”

But Harris—a staunchly anti-cannabis lawmaker who has championed legislation to block adult-use marijuana sales in Washington, D.C.—expressed a softer tone when asked about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, which is another issue that Kennedy has pushed.

The congressman said it “might be possible” that psychedelics could be used in the treatment of conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“We may want to do some more research, but we don’t want to do what D.C. did, which is just make them widely available,” he said, referencing a voter-approved initiative to decriminalize certain psychedelics—which would not inherently increase availability given the lack of any regulated sales component of the reform.

Meanwhile, despite Harris’s apparent concerns about Kennedy’s history of advocating for cannabis legalization, the nominee said last week that he will defer to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on marijuana rescheduling if confirmed.

That could complicate rescheduling given the fact that the current acting administrator of DEA, Derek Maltz, has made multiple comments expressing hostility to cannabis reform.

Relatedly, prior to Kennedy’s written responses to the Finance Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) recently pressed Kennedy to reiterate his position on marijuana legalization amid the ongoing effort to federally reschedule cannabis.

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Ohio GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Raise Marijuana Tax, Restrict Home Grow And Eliminate Social Equity Funding

Ohio Republican lawmakers are reviving an effort to significantly alter the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law—in part by raising the tax on cannabis products, halving the number of plants adults could grow and eliminating certain social equity provisions.

While GOP leadership has generally pledged that they will not seek to repeal the marijuana law altogether, a newly filed bill from Sen. Steve Huffman (R)—which the Senate president signaled he supports—would make major changes that substantially depart from the provisions of the initiative that voters strongly approved in 2023.

Among the proposed revisions, the bill would increase the excise tax on marijuana from 10 percent to 15 percent. And rather than have revenue allocated to specific areas supporting social equity and jobs programs, local governments that permit marijuana businesses, education and substance misuse initiatives and more, all revenue would instead go to the state general fund.

Senate President Rob McColley (R) told The Columbus Dispatch that legislators intend to discuss possible disbursements of that revenue this session, but he said he’s aligned with the bill sponsor on the idea of increasing the tax rate for cannabis.

“There’s an awful lot of societal costs that are going to have to be borne by the legalization of marijuana,” he said.

Under Huffman’s bill, adults would only be able to grow up to six plants, rather than 12, for personal use. It would also decrease the THC content cap from 90 percent to 70 percent.

Further, the proposal would limit the number of dispensaries to 350, while requiring all licensed retailers to serve both adult-use consumers and medical cannabis patients. The state Division of Cannabis Control (DCC) would also no longer be required to establish rules allowing for marijuana deliveries and online purchases.

GOP lawmakers considered a variety of potential amendments to the marijuana law in the weeks after voters passed the ballot initiative, and this latest attempt is likely to see similar pushback.

Sen. Bill DeMora (D) said during a committee hearing on Wednesday that the proposal effectively amounts to legislators telling voters: “Screw you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You passed it with an overwhelming majority in the state, but we know better than they did what they were voting on.”

Huffman, the bill sponsor, said the legislation is not meant to “do away with the ballot initiative.”

“It’s to work around the edges to make it better,” he said.

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GOP-Controlled Senate Launches Official Hearing into Panama’s Canal Treaty Breach

The Republican-led Senate has initiated a formal hearing to address concerns over Panama’s alleged violations of the Panama Canal treaties.

The hearing, titled “Fees and Foreign Influence: Examining the Panama Canal and Its Impact on U.S. Trade and National Security,” was convened by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

The Panama Canal, a testament to American engineering prowess, was constructed with immense effort and sacrifice. Over a decade of labor, the United States invested nearly $400 million—equivalent to over $15 billion today—and the project claimed more than 35,000 lives. Completed in 1914, the canal has been an invaluable asset, significantly reducing maritime travel time between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

However, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed treaties that transferred control of the canal to Panama by the end of 1999.

In December, Trump warned that the United States could seize back the Panama Canal unless the country agreed to lower its costs and counter Chinese influence.

In a post on Truth Social, the incoming president urged the Panamanian government to start taking care of the canal or face the consequences.

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