Free Republic

In an unprecedented move Thursday night, the House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that prevents the Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries. Just after midnight, the vote won with 219 ayes, including an unexpected 49 Republicans and 170 Democrats. It’s the first time Congress has approved a major marijuana law reform, which shows the changing tide of marijuana policy in the United States—and suggests a new day is rising in the war on drugs. A similar measure failed in Congress six previous times, receiving the most votes (165) in 2007. But with data showing three...

In a historic vote, Congress voted to support states on legalized medicinal marijuana. The measure will not allow the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to spend federal funds to interfere with states that have legalized medicinal marijuana. "The states have spoken, the American people have spoken and now for the first time the U.S. House of Representatives have spoken on allowing medical marijuana," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the sponsor of the measure, in a press conference on Friday.

An alleged associate of a Mexican drug cartel has been charged in a conspiracy that distributed more than 100 kilograms of cocaine in the Philadelphia region, federal prosecutors said today. Prosecutors say it was Jorge Bautista-Banda’s job to launder the illegal drug proceeds, depositing the money in $8,000 increments at Center City banks. By depositing amounts less than $10,000, prosecutors said Bautista could avoid having to file currency transaction reports.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson was openly irritated both with Attorney General Eric Holder and with the U.S. House of Representatives over whether executive privilege allows Holder to withhold documents on Operation Fast and Furious. But she also signaled she would rule against Holder in part, making it likely that Congress—and the public—could learn the truth about a gun-running scandal that ended with a murdered federal agent. Berman began today’s hearing in Washington, D.C.’s federal district court with an opening statement about this case “concerning the suspected illegal flow of firearms from the United States to Mexican drug cartels.”...

May 06, 2014 05:12 PM EDT by Peter Black The director of the Drug Enforcement Administration is furious about a bill that would lower the mandatory minimum prison sentences for federal drug offenses, arguing that harsh prison terms are "very important to our investigations." DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart slammed the Obama administration's Smarter Sentencing Act at a hearing last week, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that her experience suggests that reducing minimum sentences would have severe consequences—although she wasn't particularly specific about what those consequences would be. Like Us on Facebook "Having been in law enforcement as an agent for...

DEA raids woman`s Shorewood home after she shops at garden center Posted: Apr 12, 2014 CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - A woman in the southwest suburbs says she woke up to find armed DEA agents pointing guns at her -- all because she shopped at a hydroponic garden center. Angela Kirkling was driven out of her bed in Shorewood at gunpoint. The DEA had started investigating her because she had made a purchase at a hydroponics shop. Agents say they thought she was growing pot indoors. Police had also been digging through her garbage and tracking her electrical bill.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s decades-long battle against the federal government over grazing rights has heated to the point where militia groups have joined in and taken up spots against the feds who’ve circled his land — and talk is, they’re not afraid to open fire. A spokesman for the one of the militia groups said as much to local 8 News Now: I’m not “afraid to shoot,” he said. Margaret Houston, Mr. Bundy’s sister and a cancer survivor, said at a town hall gathering this week that the situation “was like a war zone” and that she felt “like I...

Earlier this week the Arizona Republic editorial board published an opinion piece titled, “Dennis Burke should've been celebrated, not sanctioned.” The board portrays the former U.S. Attorney and Operation Fast and Furious ring-leader as a whistleblower and victim rather than holding him accountable for his extensive and reckless actions during his time in office. Consider the following a direct response. Between 2009 and 2011 when Operation Fast and Furious was active, Dennis Burke and his Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley refused to prosecute nearly every straw purchaser case handed to them citing “no probable cause.” One of those straw purchasers...

ATF Meets Congress' Deadline for Fast & Furious Info  Some materials "highly redacted" by Sharyl Attkisson April 1, 2013 Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Director Todd Jones today met a 5 p.m. deadline to provide Congress with some information related to disciplinary action, or lack thereof, against key players involved in ATF’s Fast and Furious gunwalking case. That’s according to an official with the House Oversight Committee who says committee members haven't yet thoroughly reviewed the materials but that they are often “highly redacted.”  Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) set the deadline in a letter...

A federal anti-drug task force obstructed an internal investigation and retaliated against agents who cooperated with investigators, the Justice Department Inspector General said in a report issued Wednesday. The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Program (OCDETF), a multi-agency task force within the Department of Justice, put in place protocols to limit what the department’s inspector general could learn. Agents were told to answer investigators’ questions but not elaborate. They were also told by superiors that information given to the Inspector General could be tracked back to agents, and all documents released to the IG were required to be reviewed...

SEATTLE — More drivers tested positive for marijuana in Washington in 2013 -- the first full year after the state legalized pot -- but officials so far say there's been no obvious, corresponding jump in car accidents. The Washington State Patrol says 1,362 drivers tested positive for having active marijuana in their system -- a jump of just under 25 percent from the year before, even though the patrol had fewer troopers on the road and there was no overall rise in intoxicated driving arrests.

DES MOINES, Iowa — On Jan. 5, 2012, Paul Valin called the police to report he’d found a backpack containing what he believed to be meth-making equipment. That simple act of good citizenship landed his and wife Cindy’s house on the National Clandestine Laboratory Register, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of meth labs. The NCLR “contains addresses of some locations where law enforcement agencies reported they found chemicals or other items that indicated the presence of either clandestine drug laboratories or dumpsites.” The fact that Valin found the backpack more than 15 miles from his house isn’t the sort...

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - It's a partnership meant to keep drugs and the people who deal them off the streets. But now, the Lubbock County Sheriff says he doesn't want his office working with these federal agents. Our investigation has uncovered a letter written by Sheriff Kelly Rowe, terminating the county's relationship with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The issue stems from a massive drug bust which was executed on February 4th, 2013. The month-long investigation took law enforcement from Lubbock down to Odessa and up to Borger. "All in all, we ended up seizing two homes, obviously all of the...

In the second installation of a three-part series on "gun violence in Mexico," the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) continues to blame the U.S. for gun violence in Mexico, while viewing Fast & Furious as a legitimate attempt at law enforcement which just happened to go wrong. According to NCR, Obama tried to reinstitute an "assault weapons" ban in the U.S. as a way to keep Mexico safer. He also pledged to "keep increasing the pressure on the gun traffickers." NCR claims part of the pressure on traffickers included Operation Fast & Furious, which turned out to be a "botched 2009...

A man convicted in the shooting death of a federal Border Patrol agent during a firefight that revealed the government's botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, who is from El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, is the only person to be convicted in the Dec. 14, 2010, shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near the Arizona-Mexico border. U.S. District Court judge David C. Bury handed down the sentence, 360 months with credit for time served.

PHOENIX (AP) — A Mexican man has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in the 2010 killing of a U.S Border Patrol agent that revealed the botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. #Manuel Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in Flat Rock native Brian Terry’s shooting death.

Kent Terry, the brother of slain border agent Brian Terry, sent a scathing letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding to know why the United States has let years pass without holding anyone accountable for Operation Fast and Furious. In his letter, Mr. Terry wrote, Breitbart.com reported: “Mr. Holder, I am going to get right to the point of this letter. I am not pleased with your behavior as America’s Attorney General. Simply denying that you had no knowledge about Operation Fast and Furious is troubling in itself, but for you to not comply with Congress is even more troubling....

On December 14, 2010, Border Agent Brian Terry was shot and killed by drug smugglers north of the Arizona/Mexico border. He was hit once and pronounced dead at the scene. Two rifles from Operation Fast & Furious, an ATF gun walking operation, were recovered from the crime scene.

Within days after each season premiere and season finale of the Discovery Channel's reality show "Moonshiners," they come — a small but perceptible wave of people — to purchase suspiciously large amounts of corn, sugar and hardy strains of fermenting yeast at Austin Homebrew Supply. "We know what they're up to," says Chris Ellison, the manager of the Texas store.That is, it's obvious they're planning to ferment the sugars from grain or fruit juice into alcohol, then distill the resulting mid-strength beverage into high-alcohol hooch.Making spirits at home with plans to drink it is against federal law. Only with the...

DEA agent goes to pot, leaves fed agency to join marijuana industry Former DEA Agent Patrick Moen — whose career with the Drug Enforcement Administration went up in smoke when he joined the lucrative legal marijuana industry — isn't likely to spark an exodus from the agency, former colleagues say. Moen, 36, quit his post in Portland late last year and is now working for Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm specializing in acquiring businesses in the burgeoning marijuana industry. The attorney who once spent long days dismantling drug rings throughout the Pacific Northwest will now help the company...