Free Republic

Dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man — who was killed by the FBI on Wednesday — murdered three people in Massachusetts after a drug deal went wrong in 2011, law enforcement sources tell NBC News. Sources say that what began as a drug ripoff ended in a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them. Todashev was killed by a federal agent while giving a statement on his role on Wednesday in Orlando, Fla. The man who was shot, Todashev, 27, allegedly attacked an agent with a...

Kerry Kennedy must stand trial for drugged driving, a Westchester judge said yesterday in rejecting a bid by the former wife of Gov. Cuomo to dismiss the misdemeanor charge. North Castle Town Court Judge Elyse Lazansky set Oct. 8 for the next court date in the case of Kennedy, 53, who was allegedly under the influence of a sleeping pill when she swerved her Lexus into a tractor-trailer on I-684 near her home last July 13. The judge conceded that Kennedy, a human-rights activist who is the 10th of 11 children of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, “is...

While he was being detained, another man (possibly an undercover) attempted to plant drugs on Adam Kokesh as seen in the video. Multiple angles reveal the operation in action. What do you think?

DEVELOPING: New Orleans police are searching for three suspects Sunday after at least 12 people were shot during a Mother’s Day parade. Chief Serpas announced in a press conference that the youngest victim is believed to be a 10-year-old girl. Police say she suffered a graze wound, WVUE Fox 8 reported. Police say about 300 were attending the traditional jazz band parade when shots were fired. Serpas said that the procession had been accompanied by officers, who saw two or three suspects run from the scene in the city's 7th Ward. Nobody has been arrested. It's unclear what sparked the...

It's never comforting to have one's longstanding fears confirmed. Yet, that's exactly what's happened over the last week as Americans have been presented with a stunning array of facts that diminish faith in our government. Whether it's on foreign policy, taxes, or the health-care system our lives depend on, members of the Obama Administration are making it harder to trust them to perform the most very basic functions of public service. *snip* Next, the Department of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has found that conservative and Tea Party groups, after complaining for years of being unfairly targeted by...

Toxicology tests show that Adam Lanza had no alcohol or drugs in his system when he shot and killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Dec. 14. The toxicology tests were conducted as part of the autopsy by state Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver II. Sources said his final report has been turned over to state prosecutors and investigators.

Tiger Woods had the last word against Sergio Garcia by winning The Players Championship on Sunday.

The past 2 decades have witnessed an alarming increase in the number of Americans diagnosed with mental illness. Is modern psychiatry reaping an immense profit by impulsively—perhaps even deliberately–conflating mental illness with a growing, public aversion to the demands of personal responsibility? In the summer of 2011, The New York Review of Books published two lengthy articles by Marcia Angell, MD—Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. In these articles, Angell reviewed three books which take a critical look at psychiatry and its relationship with the...

MIAMI, FL – Drugs, weapons, illegal aliens all are welcome under a new directive. There is an ongoing, emergency situation with the U.S. Coast Guard, which is now an agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “By directive, starting last Monday, 29 April 2013 (barring emergency calls) Coast Guard District 7, which stretches from the Carolinas to Alabama to Florida, has been restricted from activity. There will be no enforcement patrols of large or small craft allowed in U.S. territorial seas, district-wide,” according to a WDW confidential source.

The Texas fertilizer plant that exploded two weeks ago, killing 14 people and injuring about 200, was a repeat target of theft by intruders who tampered with tanks and caused the release of toxic chemicals, police records reviewed by Reuters show. Police responded to at least 11 reports of burglaries and five separate ammonia leaks at West Fertilizer Co over the past 12 years, according to 911 dispatch logs and criminal offense reports Reuters obtained from the McLennan County Sheriff's office in Waco, Texas through an Open Records Request. Some of the leaks, including one reported in October 2012, were...

Here’s a new edition of my “you be the judge� series. These are posts designed to explore some of the more challenging aspects of a pro-libertarian philosophy. Today’s example comes from Colorado, which had displayed a libertarian streak on issues ranging from school choice to drug legalization. But the latter issue is the source of today’s quandary. Should marijuana be legal if it means more tax revenue that will be used by the political elite to expand the burden of government spending? Here are the details from the Denver CBS station.A draft bill floating around the Capitol late this week...

Yesterday Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper signed a bill that gives illegal aliens in-state college tuition as long as they can prove that they are residents of Colorado. You don’t have to prove you’re a resident of the United States now, just a resident of Colorado, and you get an education subsidized by taxpayers on the federal, state and local level. This follows a bunch of recent “reform� legislation, passed by the circus that they call the Colorado legislature, such as the legalization of marijuana, the restriction of the right to bear arms and proposals to get rid of the death...

John "Big Man" Venizelos wears horn-rimmed glasses and fancies Ralph Lauren Polo but the prepster is just a doper, and the reputed Bonanno associate will plead guilty for his role in an alleged $1 billion drug ring which brought hydroponic bud into New York and sent powder cocaine into Canada as reported by Mitchel Maddux for the New York Post: "prosecutors also say they seized letters written by an unnamed colleague of Venizelos that discussed the Bonanno associate's ties to organized crime - including references to sit-downs with captains in various New York La Cosa Nostra families." Drug trafficking always...

DENVER (AP/CBS4) — Marijuana legalization could be going back to the ballot in Colorado — a prospect that infuriated pot legalization activists Friday. The proposal for a marijuana ballot measure came as the House started debate Friday evening on bills to regulate and tax pot. One bill would state how pot should be grown and sold, and the other would tax recreational marijuana more than 30 percent. A draft bill floating around the Capitol late this week suggests that a new ballot question on pot taxes should repeal recreational pot in the state constitution if voters don’t approve 15 percent...

My thought is certain recreational drugs, such as marijuana, should remain off legal limits for the under 18 year olds, but become legally available when used in the proper environment. In many ways, pot is quite similar to alcohol, in that they should be used responsibly. My thought is to make the sale of marijuana less profitable by making it legal for home use. Personally, I don't smoke anything now, and do not want the smell of tobacco or pot on my clothes should I visit a public place, such as a shopping mall or bus stop. I know this...

<p>Police in Tacoma could soon be in real trouble over pot.</p> <p>The department could be found in contempt if they continue to refuse to return a small amount of marijuana seized from a man after a traffic stop. Municipal Court Judge Jack Emery repeated an order to police Thursday to return the drug to Joseph L. Robertson within seven days or they could be found in contempt.</p>

CBS News reported last night that investigators believe that the unemployed Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have financed his terrorist plot through the sale of marijuana — an interesting occupation for a fanatical Muslim.  The composition of the bomb has come into clearer focus as well.  The triggering device came from a remote-control car, and the fed still think the gunpowder may have come from fireworks. Most interesting, though, is the acknowledgment that the Tsarnaevs only had one firearm on them during their gunfight with police: The search through landfills should remind us that bombers need quite a bit of practice in...

New York's proposal to ban purchases by those under 21 is off-base.As thoroughly awful as everyone knows cigarettes to be — still the No. 1 cause of premature death in this country — public officials walk a blurry line when they try to reduce smoking's terrible toll. As long as they lack the will to ban tobacco altogether, they face all sorts of ethical, legal and political problems in regulating a product that is, after all, perfectly legal. High tobacco taxes, critics say, unfairly punish smokers, who are disproportionately low income. Banning advertising of a legal product raises free-speech issues....

Peter Sagal, host of NPR's highly entertaining "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," is planning a new PBS special on the US Constitution. In an interview with Politico, Sagal explains that he will be using the show to "educate" Americans about our government's framing document . The tax-payer funded show, "Constitution USA with Peter Sagal," sounds harmless enough: … We talked to people who were basically living the Constitution whether they wanted to or not, as opposed to the usual array of pundits or activists who have opinions about it. But as Sagal reveals his personal views of the constitution, a...

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door. The two officers, 25-year-old Kyle Shedran and 24-year-old Greg Day, were placed on administrative leave with pay. “They need to get rid of those men, boys with toys,” said Adams’ 70-year-old widow, Loraine. John Adams was watching television when his wife heard pounding on the door. Police...

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers and suspects in last week's Boston Marathon bombing attack, may have financed their plot through drug sales, investigators believe.

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1908.aspx Treasury Identifies Kassem Rmeiti & Co. for Exchange and Halawi Exchange Co. as Financial Institutions of “Primary Money Laundering Concern” 4/23/2013 In First Use of Section 311 Against a Non-Bank Financial Institution, Treasury Acts to Protect the U.S. Financial System from Foreign Exchange Houses Tied to Global Narcotics and Money Laundering Networks and Hizballah WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today named two Lebanese exchange houses, Kassem Rmeiti & Co. For Exchange (Rmeiti Exchange) and Halawi Exchange Co. (Halawi Exchange), as foreign financial institutions of primary money laundering concern under...

MCDONALD, Pa., - Police in Pennsylvania said they responded to a report of two men burning something in a shed and discovered an alleged moonshine making operation. McDonald police said Midway residents called officers to their neighborhood April 11 with a report of neighbors burning something in a shed and one witness told police he suspected they were making moonshine because he had seen a man loading Mason jars into a vehicle, The (Washington, Pa.) Observer reported Tuesday. Police said they entered the shed to discover Matthew Zirwas III, 33, and Matthew Kirks, 29, operating what appeared to be an...

Katrina Tisdale had second thoughts after giving her last $50 to a drug dealer Monday night. So she did what many people do when in trouble: called 911. Tisdale took this step before. In July 2011, when a similar thing happened, she called 911. That got her a trip to jail. The same thing happened this time. After she called 911 twice about a theft, officers met with the 47-year-old about 9:30 p.m. Monday in the 600 block of Fourth Street N. Tisdale demanded police get her money back, authorities said. Tisdale was upset, police said, because she was broke...

MANCHESTER, IL (KMOX) – KMOX News has confirmed earlier reports of a shooting in the small village of Manchester, Illinois that has left five people dead. Citing a source with the Illinois State Police, WLDS reports five people were killed and one suspect is in custody after a police chase. The mayor of Manchester has since confirmed that report to KMOX.

More than a dozen Maryland state prison guards helped a dangerous national gang operate a drug-trafficking and money-laundering scheme from behind bars that involved cash payments, sex and access to fancy cars, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Thirteen female corrections officers essentially handed over control of a Baltimore jail to gang leaders, prosecutors said. The officers were charged Tuesday in a federal racketeering indictment. The indictment described a jailhouse seemingly out of control. Four corrections officers became pregnant by one inmate. Two of them got tattoos of the inmate’s first name, Tavon — one on her neck, the other on a...

ST. LOUIS - Marijuana, the most prevalent illicit drug in America, seems to be getting less illicit by the day. Among recent developments that would have been unfathomable during the “War on Drugs” begun under President Ronald Reagan: • The states of Colorado and Washington voted last fall to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the first states ever to do so. Though technically still a violation of federal law, the administration of President Barack Obama has responded with a shrug. • The Illinois House voted last week to join the 18 states that have already legalized marijuana for medical use....

Susan Sarandon: ‘War on Drugs’ Is ‘Completely Racist’ April 22, 2013 By Melanie Hunter (CNSNews.com) – Actress Susan Sarandon on Wednesday called the war on drugs “completely racist,” arguing that only lower level drug defendants get locked up – “mostly people of color.” “The war on drugs is ridiculous, because you’re only getting—you’re spending a huge amount of money. It’s completely racist. You’re picking up everybody at the lower level because mandatory minimum drug laws let you trade in to get off, so if you don’t have anyone to trade in, if you’re at the bottom, you’re going to jail,"...

San Francisco park workers and volunteers spent much of Sunday picking up and hauling away 10,000 pounds of garbage strewn all over the eastern part of Golden Gate Park known as Hippie Hill, the remnants of Saturday's annual yet unofficial pot-smoking bacchanalia. But this year's annual celebration - which falls each year on April 20 and is known as "420" - drew a larger-than-average crowd of between 10,000 and 15,000 revelers on the warm weekend day. They proceeded to smoke, drink, eat and rack up more than $10,000 in costs for city crews to clean up the mess, ironically just...

..gunfire scattered thousands attending Saturday's 4/20 counterculture holiday, the first since Colorado legalized marijuana.

Shots were fired in the area of the 4/20 marijuana rally being held at Civic Center Park in Denver, KDVR.com reports. Denver police say one person has been shot in the leg and another is down with unknown injuries. Witnesses say they heard three or more shots about 20 minutes after 4:20 p.m. Police swarmed the scene, and crime tape was around the pavilion where the celebration was being held. Aerial footage showed the massive crowd frantically running from the park. The pot celebration Saturday was the first since Colorado and Washington made marijuana legal for recreational use. Read more:...

In 1962, at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, a man “peeled off his clothing and began prancing around his hotel suite.” His bodyguards were cautiously amused, until the man “left the suite and began roaming through the corridor of the Carlyle.” The man in question was delusional, paranoid and suffering a “psychotic break” from the effects of an overdose of methamphetamine. He was also the president of the United States. The reason for John F. Kennedy’s bizarre behavior was that, according to an explosive new book, the president was — unbeknownst to him, at first — a meth addict....

Lax marijuana laws may soon become a reality in the United States. ... National support is rising for this cause.[5] Cohen’s proposal comes as a bipartisan coalition of House representatives have sponsored the Respect Marijuana Laws Act.[6] It would exempt businesses that comply with state marijuana laws from federal prosecution.[7] Moreover, Kentucky senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul recently supported the passage of a regulatory framework allowing industrial hemp in their state.[8][9] McConnell is a figurehead for the GOP establishment. Paul represents the rising libertarian caucus. Ergo, the Republican Party may soon change its position on pot.

According to Chris Barry, a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, said that Tsarnaev “didn’t seem like a dangerous person at all … He was a pothead, a normal pothead. I couldn’t even imagine him being mad at someone, let alone hurting someone.”

Boston bombing suspect and fugitive Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a “normal pot head” who supported President Obama for re-election last November, according to friends and his Twitter account.

President Barack Obama's drug czar toed a strict line on marijuana Wednesday, saying federal laws will prevail regardless of state-level efforts to legalize pot. Gil Kerlikowske said enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 -- which ranks marijuana as a Schedule One drug alongside heroin, LSD and ecstasy -- remains in the hands of the US Department of Justice. "No state, no executive can nullify a statute that has been passed by Congress," the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy told a National Press Club luncheon. "Let's be clear: law enforcement officers take an...

Today the new print quarterly Modern Farmer published a lengthy piece on the crop of marijuana farmers’ markets popping up in states where marijuana is legal for medical or recreational purposes. Penned by your humble editor, the feature focuses on the Organicann Harvest Market in Sonoma County – an elite member of the new crop of legal marijuana markets that are similar to the trendy, open-air vegetable markets of our time. “Still federally illegal, of course, such markets are legal under California state law, provided vendors and customers join a collective with a valid doctor’s recommendation for pot and a...

There's a new congressional push to end the federal War on Pot in the states – and it's being spearheaded by some of the most conservative members of the Republican conference. The "Respect State Marijuana Laws Act" introduced in the House last week would immunize anyone acting legally under state marijuana laws from federal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act. Depending on the state, the legislation would cover both medical marijuana and recreational pot, and would protect not only the users of state-legal cannabis, but also the businesses that cultivate, process, distribute and sell marijuana in these states. The legislation...

The Illinois House of Representatives voted narrowly on Wednesday to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes, bringing the state a step closer to becoming the 21st in the United States to allow some form of pot use to treat illness. [...]

All full of his normal bombast and bluster, on 4/11/13, Bill O’Reilly once again proved he hadn’t a grasp on the subject at hand, whether or not to legalize marijuana. His plan is to put responsible adults or children who smoke into the legal system, destroying them and their families. He wants to keep feeding the corrupt legal system that thrives off of these “offenses/freedoms” (depending on your point of view). He wants these draconian punishments because he feels that pot will destroy anyone trying it, a view responsible for turning more people into...

Last year, the University of Colorado-Boulder made national headlines for its efforts to stamp out what has historically been one of the most popular days on campus — the 4/20 marijuana smokeout, which in the past has drawn up to 11,000 pot smokers who toke up on the university’s quad at 4:20 p.m. on April 20. Determined to see an end to the tradition, university officials took the unusual step of closing the campus to nonstudents and hosing down the lawn with a fish-based fertilizer that made the quad smell as appealing as an Alaskan pier. Activists were outraged, but...

A suspected hitman from the Camorra or Neapolitan Mafia has been arrested after police obtained a security video which seemingly shows him gunning down a rival mobster last December in a cheese factory as reported by ANSA: "the 20-second security-camera footage allegedly shows Gianluca Troise pursuing a member of a rival Naples mafia clan, Luigi Felaco, bringing him down with a shot, racing after him after he gets up, and finishing him off with four shots to the head." [Video] A turf war for control over drug markets in Naples, Italy between the rival Scissionisti and Di Lauro clans has...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Wednesday he has introduced a bill to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing for drug use and told the story of two young men—Barack Obama and George W. Bush—who were said to use drugs but did not go to jail. “In this story, both young men were extraordinarily lucky. Both young men were not caught using illegal drugs, and they weren’t imprisoned. Instead, they went on to become presidents of the United States. Barack Obama and George Bush were lucky,” Paul said in a speech at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, DC. “The law...

I’m a huge Tiger Woods fan. That’s why it pains me that he continues to do damage to his once-nearly-pristine image. Having recently reclaimed his sport’s ranking as World No. 1 – as the Euros put it – Tiger flew this week to Augusta, Georgia as the favorite to win the Masters. He acquitted himself rather well the tourney’s first two days, save for a mishap yesterday on the 15th hole. He hit an approach shot to the green that, as bad luck would have it, ricocheted off the flag pole and careened into the creek. After taking a “drop”...

Tiger Woods was three strokes off the lead in the Masters when he completed the second round at Augusta National Golf Club on Friday. But he began his third round five strokes behind the leader Jason Day after being assessed a two-stroke penalty on Saturday for an illegal drop on the 15th hole of the second round.

Michigan Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema, who caused a stir last month when he posted an article to his Facebook page that labeled the homosexual lifestyle as “filthy,” is now comparing homosexuality to alcoholism and says it leads to drug abuse.

I was tuning around channels the other morning and tuned into "Imus In the Morning". He had some inane/insane comments and suddenly he went on a rant. He was defending that commie bit*h who said kids should be brought up by the "collective". He also defended the word 'collective' stating it was NOT a communist word. He called Sarah Palin a number of names, he called Rush a fat, pill popping pig plus few other nasty names. His 'sidekick' Colin McShane just sat there and agreed half heartedly (he strikes me as being terminally stupid). He ranted like a village...

In a case that’s rocked the beleaguered Department of Homeland Security (DHS), two officials assigned to crackdown on corruption at the agency have been indicted for ordering the falsification of records—including active criminal probes—to obstruct an investigation into crooked federal agents. The case comes out of Texas and it is quite serious. A special agent in charge of DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Eugenio Pedraza, directed agents to engage in a scheme to falsify documents in open criminal investigative case files, including numerous probes in which DHS employees were suspected of participating in the illegal smuggling of undocumented aliens...

COSTA MESA [California] (CBSLA.com) — Several students at an Orange County middle school were sickened Wednesday after eating pot brownies. Firefighters were sent to TeWinkle Intermediate School on California Avenue in Costa Mesa around 12:45 p.m. Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials said five seventh-graders went to the school’s nurse and complained of stomach aches. Other classmates confessed those students ingested brownies laced with marijuana, according to Sky9’s Gil Leyvas. Three children were transported to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach as a precaution. Their conditions are unknown. Two other kids went home with their parents. Costa Mesa police later...

Afghanistan produces 90% of all opiate drugs in the world, but until recently was not a major consumer. Now, out of a population of 35 million, more than a million are addicted to drugs - proportionately the highest figure in the world. Right in the heart of Kabul, on the stony banks of the Kabul River, drug addicts gather to buy and use heroin. It's a place of misery and degradation. In broad daylight about a dozen men and teenage boys sit huddled in pairs smoking and injecting. Among them are some educated people - a doctor, an engineer and...