Free Republic

"Rand Paul took, I think, a really wrong-headed step on the immigration issue last week. I mean, he’s not completely where Jeb is, but almost!"

Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment as he lent his voice Friday to a debate that is raging from the United States to Uruguay. Francis told delegates attending a Rome drug enforcement conference that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs "are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects." Likewise, Francis said, providing addicts with drugs offered only "a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon." "Let me state this in the clearest terms possible," he said. "The problem of drug use is...

FULL TITLE: CIA Operation “Zero Footprint”, Qatar, Benghazi and The Connection To Ahmed Abu Khattala – The Real Motive For The Obama Administration’s Recent Arrest//// Yesterday, it was announced the Obama administration had moved on Sunday to arrest a Benghazi al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Abu Khattala. Many people, including Fox’s James Rosen pointed particular questions to the State Dept. about “why now”? As unbelievable as this might sound, the most likely answer has little to do with what’s currently being pondered as a motive for this administration, “squirrel”. The reality is within the Bergdahl deal, and the GITMO-5 to Qatar, there...

Ahmed Abu Khattala is directly connected to the covert transfer of U.S. arms from Qatar to Libya in the initial 2011 decision to arm the Benghazi “rebels”. Against the backdrop of recent discoveries about Qatar giving some of the aforementioned arms, specifically stinger missiles, to the Taliban in Afghanistan - Khattala became a risk of exposure to the White House. They needed to throw a bag over him.

When Americans think of the Middle East, they usually think Israel, Palestine, religious wars, terrorism, etc. But few appreciate how permeated the Middle East is with drugs, and how these drugs are related to terrorism and politics in the region. Indeed, in March 2012, the academic journal Terrorism and Political Violence published a special issue dedicated to the relationship between organized crime and terrorism. A series of essays details the overlapping interests of drug cartels and political terrorists. For the quickest explanation what brings these types together, one needs only to identify the common trait between a good terrorist, and...

"When officers pulled Short over it was for a routine traffic stop. Since he's on supervised release for previous meth sales they searched his car. "When the officers searched the car they located four ounces of methamphetamine in the car, which is a lot of methamphetamine, so that's consistent with somebody who's selling," said Fresno police Lt. Joe Gomez. After searching his apartment, they found a half pound of meth, heroin and materials for a meth lab. "Just shocking someone that age would do that, but actually a perfect place to do it, right? Retirement village, who would suspect it...

Besides all those fruits and vegetables, Nicotine gum remains on President Barack Obama’s menu, according to the president’s periodic physical exam. Under medications, Physician to the President Dr. Ronny Jackson noted Obama’s “occasional use” of nicotine gum. The president also uses Ibuprofen to treat plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the thick tissue on his right foot, and vitamin D, for a mild vitamin deficiency.

A drug abuse counselor who drove drunk and struck a pedestrian — then drove around with the dying man on her windshield — bawled her eyes out in court as she was sentenced to 55 years to life in prison on Thursday. A teary-eyed Sherri Lynn Wilkins, 53, was convicted of second-degree murder, drunken driving and a hit-and-run — after killing Phillip Moreno in an LA suburb in 2012. After plowing into him, Wilkins drove for two miles with Moreno on her windshield, until other motorists swarmed her car at a traffic light and called the cops, prosecutors said. Her...

Heroin seized at YVR, two men arrested One of the men worked in the cargo warehouse Sonia Aslam June 11, 2014 1:03 pm RICHMOND (NEWS1130) - It’s one of the largest drug seizures at Vancouver International Airport in recent history. Two men have been arrested and charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking after 35 kilograms of heroin were seized. The drugs were hidden amongst other goods. The investigation was a coordinated effort between the RCMP, Vancouver Police, and the Canada Border Services Agency. One of the men worked in the cargo warehouse at the airport but police won’t...

In a proposal that could have a far-reaching impact on the Black community, Attorney General Eric Holder is urging the U.S. Sentencing Commission to cut the sentences of as many as 20,000 federal prisoners serving time for nonviolent drug offenses. It is Holder’s latest move to reform the sentencing guidelines that he has said disproportionately affect African-American males. The Justice Department appealed Tuesday to the U.S. Sentencing Commission to make some prisoners retroactively eligible for reduced sentences. The commission has already approved a measure to reduce drug sentences for future nonviolent offenders. This would apply to offenders already in federal...

Darcy Olsen, president of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, and Richard Garr, president of Neuralstem, a biotech company, wrote "Right to Try experimental drugs" in USA Today (5/28/2014). They pointed out that "this year, more than 5,000 Americans will lose their battle with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease." Up until recently, there was no medicine on the market that significantly improved the lives of ALS patients. But now there is one in clinical trials that holds considerable promise, but it has not been granted Food and Drug Administration approval. The average amount of time it takes to get a...

SEATTLE — The man charged with killing one student and wounding two others at a small Seattle college last week had stopped taking his medications because he "wanted to feel the hate," and he detailed his plans in a handwritten journal for two weeks before the attack, a prosecutor said Tuesday. "I just want people to die, and I'm gonna die with them!" Aaron Ybarra wrote the day of the shooting, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said. Satterberg released new details of the allegations as he filed charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault against Ybarra, 26. Satterberg is...

An entire first-grade class was bused to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for monitoring Tuesday after a 6-year-old was spotted with packets that police said likely contained heroin. The incident happened when a teacher at John Barry Elementary at 59th and Race Streets in West Philadelphia noticed one of her students playing with small plastic packets she had brought to school.

Drugs and politics Police investigations have uncovered links between political leaders, businessmen and drug smugglers. In December last year, Jagdish Bhola, a suspended deputy superintendent of police accused of drug trafficking, revealed as he was being escorted in handcuffs from a court hearing in Mohali: "I am just a pawn in the hierarchy of drug trade in the state - the real kingpins are politicians." Bhola is accused of masterminding a huge synthetic drug racket and investigating officers claim his entourage had provided significant levels of campaign funding during Punjab's last state assembly elections. Based on Bhola's revelations, police arrested...

Smoking cannabis as a teenager lowers IQ into adulthood and could have a lifelong impact, researchers have warned. U.S. researchers found the damaging effects of the drug remained even if users stopped smoking marijuana as adults. They said teenagers face increased risks from smoking cannabis, because the brain is rapidly developing at this time. The scientists, from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the U.S., added that smoking cannabis affects critical thinking and memory during use, with the effects persisting for days. Reviewing a range of studies on marijuana smoking, they reiterated that cannabis impairs driving and increases...

When 43-year-old Silvester Padilla Romero from Tucson was caught at the U.S.-Mexico border with more than 545 pounds of marijuana in his truck, federal agents were quick to pass on his case. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent said that federal prosecutors would "decline such a case due to a medical condition that the driver of the vehicle containing the contraband was claiming to have." It is unclear, however, what "condition" Padilla has, if any. Nogales International reported that since federal prosecutors declined the case due to "a mental condition," Padilla was convicted in a local court instead....

Maureen Dowd, author of “Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk”, speaks during a panel discussion during a luncheon at the Book Expo America convention, Saturday, June 5, 2004, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey) I never smoked marijuana before, and Maureen Dowd‘s haphazard experience with a weed-laced candy bar in her Denver hotel room certainly isn’t motivating me to book a plane ticket to what is soon to be dubbed the “Mile High State.” The New York Times columnist was in Colorado reporting on the state’s first months of legalized marijuana use when she decided to take what she later learned...

Alexander Shulgin earned his nickname, the Godfather of ecstasy, after honing a way to make the drug - and testing it out on himself to check it had worked. A Facebook post by his wife and research partner, Ann, said he died "surrounded by family and caretakers and Buddhist meditation music". He lived out his final years at his home in Northern California. Shulgin began his study of organic chemistry at Harvard University in his teens and, after a stint in the US Navy during World War Two, returned to Berkeley to get his PhD in biochemistry at the University...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted. Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something...

Five people were killed and at least 15 others have been wounded in separate shootings across the city since Friday evening, including eight shot within the first 30 minutes of June. The most recent fatal shooting happened early Sunday in the Austin neighborhood, when a teenage boy was killed and five others were wounded. The six were standing in a group at the intersection of West Ferdinand Street and North Lavergne Avenue about 12:30 a.m. when several shooters emerged from a nearby alley and opened fire, police said.