Tag: republicans

The cannabis industry’s arch nemesis reemerged this week

Cannabis investors have been waiting for movement on the SAFE Banking Act, which would free up large banking institutions to provide industry players with much-needed loans and other banking services, for years. 

Next week was supposed to be a big milestone in the political process as September 27 was seen as a strong tentative date for a Senate vote on the bill. 

The SAFE Banking Act could save the fledgling U.S. cannabis industry from being crushed by the hard ceiling of lack of banking access as it grows larger. 

In the past, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has pushed to include the SAFE Banking Act into a larger funding packages in order to get it passed, to no avail. 

And while the bill has garnered bipartisan support — especially in the House of Representatives — Senate Republicans seem hellbent on slowing up the industry’s progress. 

Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) have filed new legislation that would prevent federal agencies from rescheduling cannabis without congressional approval. 

The Deferring Executive Authority Act was introduced on Thursday by Lummis and Daines, who opposed marijuana being legalized in her own state. 

“Congress makes the laws in this country, not D.C. bureaucrats,” said Lummis. “The American people through their elected representatives in the Senate and House should have the final say on such a momentous change as the legalization of marijuana.

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14 GOP Congressional Lawmakers Tell DEA To Keep Marijuana In Schedule I And ‘Reject’ Top Health Agency’s Recommendation

A coalition of 14 Republican congressional lawmakers is urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to “reject” the top federal health agency’s recommendation to reschedule marijuana and instead keep it in the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

In a letter sent to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram on Monday, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) led a dozen other colleagues in both chambers in arguing that any decision to reschedule cannabis “should be based on proven facts and science—not popular opinion, changes in state laws, or the preferred policy of an administration.”

Of course, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has repeatedly emphasized that its review into marijuana scheduling, directed by President Joe Biden late last year, was science-based. And after 11 months of investigation, it has recommended that marijuana be placed in Schedule III. Milgram has also made clear that DEA’s review will follow the science.

The eight GOP senators and six House members evidently distrust the motives behind the HHS recommendation, however, and they argued in the letter, first reported by The Washington Stand, that the current “research, science, and trends support the case that marijuana should remain a Schedule I drug.”

They pointed to National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) data on rates of cannabis use disorder and raised concerns about increased THC potency of marijuana products, stating that these “facts indicate that marijuana has a high potential for abuse and that the risk is only increasing.”  For what it’s worth, NIDA also reportedly signed off the HHS rescheduling recommendation before it was sent to DEA.

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GOP Guv Spent Millions in Tax Dollars on Governor’s Mansion Upgrades

After Republican Tate Reeves was elected governor of Mississippi in 2019, he sold his home and moved his family, naturally, into the governor’s mansion.

But that new home, a national historic landmark, was far from perfect for Reeves. And over the last three and a half years, while not having to pay personal property taxes on his new state-owned mansion, Reeves plowed more than $2.4 million in taxpayer dollars into renovations and upkeep for his temporary home, according to public records obtained by The Daily Beast.

During Reeves’ brief stay, the governor’s mansion has also seen what appears to be an additional $900,000 in renovations, restoration, and refurbishments. Those investments, however, came courtesy of anonymous donors, and appear in federal tax records filed by the Governors Mansion Foundation—a nonprofit whose board features Reeves’ campaign treasurer and a top campaign donor who runs a controversial installment loan business.

That would mean that, in the years since he stopped paying property taxes on his old home, Reeves has put a total of $3.3 million into updating the mansion. His former home, which Reeves sold in July 2020, was last listed for $629,000, according to several real estate websites. In the time since Reeves was first elected lieutenant governor—2012—Mississippi property taxes have increased by about 7.2 percent, according to state data.

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GOP Congressman’s Bill Would Cut Federal Funding For States And Tribes That Legalize Marijuana

Legislation introduced on Friday by a North Carolina congressman seeks to slash a portion of federal funding to individual U.S. states as well as Native tribes that legalize marijuana.

The so-called Stop Pot Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC), would withhold 10 percent of federal highway funding to jurisdictions “in which the purchase or public possession of marijuana for recreational purposes is lawful.” Introduction of the bill comes less than a week before a tribe in Edwards’s home state votes on an adult-use marijuana legalization referendum.

Edwards argues that state and tribal laws allowing cannabis use by adults are an affront to U.S. law.

“The laws of any government should not infringe on the overall laws of our nation, and federal funds should not be awarded to jurisdictions that willfully ignore federal law,” he said in a press release. “During a time when our communities are seeing unprecedented crime, drug addiction, and mental illness, the Stop Pot Act will help prevent even greater access to drugs and ease the strain placed on our local law enforcement and mental health professionals who are already stretched thin.”

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Vivek Ramaswamy partnered with the Chinese government to advance ‘Chinese biopharmaceutical research abroad,’ but changed tune when much-hyped endeavors went belly up

Since announcing his candidacy for President of the United States, Vivek Ramaswamy has branded himself as a fierce China hawk, going as far as to declare that he would ban American companies from doing business with the Chinese government.

But not so long ago, Mr Ramaswamy was singing a very different tune.

The career biopharma boss has made a hasty 180 degree turn away from his pro-China advocacy and corporate fundraising in recent years.

The Dossier reviewed Vivek Ramaswamy’s business ties in China and found that he aggressively sought to partner with the Chinese government on multiple endeavors throughout the country.

It began in 2017. As the CEO and founder of the biotech company Roivant, Ramaswamy partnered with the CIVIC Group, the state-run investment company of the Chinese government, to form a corporation called Sinovant, which would serve as Roivant’s Chinese (Sino means Chinese or relating to China) “vant” arm.

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GOP legal activist, Alexander Talcott, 41, is stabbed to death at his New Hampshire home

A Republican legal activist was stabbed to death inside his home in New Hampshire as cops investigate whether the killer acted in self-defense. 

Alexander Talcott, 41, was found dead inside his house in Durham on Saturday morning with a stab wound to his neck, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said.

Police have launched an investigation into his death, which they ruled as homicide, and the attorney general has identified all parties involved in the incident. 

Investigators are now trying to determine whether the person who stabbed Talcott was acting in self-defence, reports NBC 10 Boston. Their name has not been released and police said there was no danger to the public. 

No arrests have yet been made, police said, after naming Talcott as the deceased on Sunday.  

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Ramaswamy Paid Wikipedia Editor to Delete Reference to Harvard Vaccine Scientist ‘Mentor’ Days before Announcing Campaign

Days before announcing his presidential bid, Vivek Ramaswamy paid a Wikipedia editor to remove information about his close relationship with a scientist who helped pioneer mRNA vaccines, suggesting Ramaswamy believed the association with technology that was ultimately used to create the Covid-19 vaccines could be a detriment to his campaign. 

Mediaite first revealed in May that Ramaswamy had paid an editor with the screen name “Jhofferman” to make edits to his biographical details on Wikipedia. Those edits included the removal of lines about Ramaswamy’s receipt of a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2011 and his position on Ohio’s Covid-19 Response Team. The report revealed that the Covid work was removed by Ramaswamy’s request, while the editor deleted the fellowship information after finding it was “extraneous material.”

Now, a National Review analysis reveals the paid editor also removed references to Ramaswamy’s religion and his relationship with professor Douglas Melton.

Melton, a stem-cell chemist who was one of the pioneers of the mRNA vaccine, was previously mentioned as a “mentor” to Ramaswamy on his wikipedia page. The biotech entrepreneur-turned-presidential candidate had worked for Melton in his lab while studying biology at Harvard. 

On February 9, 2023, 12 days before Ramaswamy formally announced his entrance to the race, Jhofferman also deleted a sentence in the Wikipedia bio that indicated “Ramaswamy identifies as a Hindu.” The edit reveals the line was removed at the subject’s request.

While the Wikipedia bio currently does not contain any reference to Melton’s mentorship of Ramaswamy, shortly after Jhofferman deleted the reference to Ramaswamy’s Hindu faith, a different editor added a line noting that Ramaswamy “is a Hindu, and has stressed his belief in one God.”

A section about Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign reads: “During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he sought to appeal to evangelical Christian right and Christian nationalist voters, an important part of the Republican base, some of whom were unwilling to support a non-Christian presidential candidate such as Ramaswamy (who is Hindu). In campaign stops and interviews, Ramaswamy has criticized secularism. He said that the U.S. was founded on ‘Christian values’ or ‘Judeo-Christian values’; that he shares those values; and that he believes in one God.”

National Review’s analysis of the Wikipedia edits to Ramaswamy’s page also reveal a pair of edits made in November 2022 and July 2022 were made from an IP address in Ohio, where Ramaswamy lives. 

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GOP Congressman Threatens Indian Tribe With Loss Of Federal Funding Over Marijuana Legalization

A Republican congressman from North Carolina is urging members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) to reject a referendum next month that would legalize marijuana on tribal land, warning that the move would mean a loss of federal funding under a bill he plans to introduce.

In an op-ed published last week in The Cherokee One Feather, Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC) acknowledged that Congress cannot stop the EBCI referendum, set for September 7, from going forward. But he appealed to the tribe’s members to vote against it.

“I proudly consider the tribe my friends, and I respect their tribal sovereignty,” the freshman House member wrote. “But there are times when friends disagree, and I must do so regarding this question of legalizing recreational marijuana. The tribe’s rights should not infringe on the overall laws of our nation.”

Passage of the legalization referendum would bring legal cannabis sales within a short drive of many people in North Carolina, where both medical and adult-use marijuana remain illegal under state law. Sales on EBCI land under the proposal would be open to all adults 21 and older, regardless of tribal membership. And as Edwards noted, the tribe has land holdings “all over western North Carolina.”

“To allow our citizens to travel only a few miles to buy and use this common gateway drug,” wrote Edwards, who opposed cannabis reform in North Carolina during his time as a state senator, “would be irresponsible, and I intend to stop it.”

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Republican Senators Admit Marijuana Legalization Disrupts Cartels As They Urge FDA To Reconsider Menthol Cigarette Ban

A group of four Republican senators who do not support marijuana legalization has admitted that the policy change disrupts illegal sales by cartels. The acknowledgement comes in a letter urging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reconsider plans to ban menthol cigarettes and set nicotine content limits, arguing that the prohibition and strict regulations could benefit illicit trafficking operations.

Writing to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf on Monday, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Budd (R-NC) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) unwittingly made the case for the legalization and regulation of controlled substances.

The main point of the letter is to express concern FDA’s proposed menthol cigarette ban, which the senators said could “empower” transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) to “exploit black market opportunities that such policies could create.”

The senators aren’t in favor of cannabis legalization, but they did also—apparently inadvertently—make the case for that reform.

“While the primary threat from Mexican TCOs come from trafficking in illicit drugs, these organizations have diversified their activities in response to changing conditions,” they said. “As it has become easier to sell marijuana products in the U.S., Mexican TCOs have prioritized trafficking fentanyl and other synthetic drugs that are cheaper to manufacture, easier to transport, and generate more profit.”

In other words, the GOP senators are acknowledging that as Americans in more states have the opportunity to buy legal cannabis from licensed retailers, the market share for unregulated marijuana trafficked by cartels is shrinking—and as a result they are having to scramble to sell other substances to make up their losses.

That’s also the conclusion of a federal law enforcement agencies, as well as the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which released a report on the trafficking trend last year.

The head of the labor union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents also acknowledged in 2020 that states that legalize marijuana are disrupting cartel activity.

In light of what’s been observed with marijuana, the senators are cautioning against opening up a new illicit market for menthol cigarettes by enacting a federal ban, tacitly acknowledging the failures and consequences of prohibition.

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Tough on crime Republican busted for having fraudulent license plate on sports car

New York City Council member Vickie Paladino has been outspoken against unregistered vehicles, the need for bicycle license plates and other city requirements, making her knows as a stickler for “law and order.” But according to a report from StreetsBlog NYC, a luxury sports car parked in the Republican’s driveway bears an Arizona temporary license plate that the Arizona Department of Transportation has deemed a fraud.

“The 90-day paper tag — the kind that drivers get when buying a car — lists the same plate number as a real temporary tag that was issued in September 2022, according to Arizona DOT spokesman Bill Lamoreaux. But that real tag expired in December, meaning the one in Paladino’s driveway, which lists an August expiration date, is ‘fraudulent,’ Lamoreaux said,” StreetsBlog reported.

“Paladino said the car belongs to her son, Thomas Paladino Jr., but did not otherwise respond to a request to comment.”

Paladino Jr. denied knowledge of the fraudulent tag.

“I don’t know anything about a fraudulent temporary license plate,” he told StreetsBlog. “I have more than one car, all of which are properly licensed.”

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