Free Republic

Immigration: When California Gov. Jerry Brown hung out the "all welcome" sign for illegals, Mexico's drug cartels heard him loud and clear. Raids on Thursday left lawmen declaring Los Angeles a cash-laundering mecca. Roping off 100 blocks of downtown Los Angeles this week, federal agents from the U.S. attorney's office raided roughly 70 garment district businesses along with a few houses in tony Westwood and Beverly Hills. The suspected crime was laundering money for Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. Agents hauled out $65 million in cash stuffed in duffel bags, suitcases and boxes, some of it blood-spattered. The cash came from hostage...

Photo: Stefano Giovannini MORE ON:NYPD NYPD watchdogs confused about chokeholds NYPD cop in serious condition after responding to fire Rally on Staten Island to support police on Sept. 27 Gangsta cop says his past made him a better officer A retired police commander kept a stunning secret for more than two decades: Before joining the NYPD, he peddled crack, tried to murder a fellow drug dealer and was close pals with a notorious cop killer. Corey Pegues — who collects a $135,000 tax-free line-of-duty disability ...

The Nuclear Option: A Foreign Policy Conducted in a Drug-Addled Haze See, kids, this is why you don’t do drugs. And this is why you will always eventually regret voting for somebody who boasted of all the coke and dope he did while smoldering about his absentee father. President Choom Gang has demilitarized our military. He sends the Department of Health and Human Services to the Mexican border to welcome and take care of tens of thousands of illegal children streaming across. And now he wants to deploy American troops into West Africa to combat the Ebola virus. Boy, is...

<p>Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell told the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee that the federal government does not have the power to stop states from allowing people to use welfare benefits to buy marijuana.</p> <p>In a letter addressed to Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who asked Health and Human Services about the policy earlier this year, Burwell said the law simply excludes any mention of marijuana dispensaries in the list of places where people are prohibited from using welfare, formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF.</p>

Obama administration moved Thursday to restrict prescriptions of the most commonly used narcotic painkillers in the U.S. in an attempt to curb widespread abuse.

<p>That’s what the Berkeley City Council in California has unanimously approved, ordering medical marijuana dispensaries to donate 2 percent of their stash to patients making less than $32,000 a year.</p> <p>The new welfare program in the liberal-leaning city is set to launch in August 2015.</p>

Appearing on FOX News’ Hannity on Tuesday, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters said what millions of Americans have no doubt been wondering for quite some time. Commenting on Obama’s latest non-response (unless you can call jubilantly golfing a response) to the second barbaric beheading of an American journalist by the evil Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Peters contends that the reason Obama refused to receive personal briefings on ISIS is because he would rather be left in the dark, rather than have to deal with reality. “My personal analysis on this is that the reason he didn’t want in-person...

DALLAS, Ore. — The young homeless man who accompanied Miley Cyrus to the MTV Video Music Awards and who had been sought on an Oregon arrest warrant has turned himself in and posted bail. The director of Polk County Community Corrections in the Willamette Valley community of Dallas, Ore., says 22-year-old Jesse Helt turned himself in Thursday, was booked on a probation violation warrant and then posted $2,500 bail. Corrections Director Martin Silbernagel says Helt will be expected to appear before a judge in about two weeks. Court records show that Helt pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and criminal...

Why have the protests and riots lasted so long in Ferguson? Why have out-of-town agitators and opportunists like the Communist Revolutionary Party and the New Black Panthers flocked to a St. Louis suburb? Why, 12 days after Michael Brown was shot to death by a policeman, do the good people of Ferguson who want to see a fair and just investigation into the facts surrounding Brown's death still have no peace? It's the national news media, stupid. It's the ratings-hungry, pot-stirring, sensationalizing TV media that never misses a chance to milk - and perpetuate -- a white-on-black news story. Ferguson...

SNIP As I reported a few weeks ago, some professors published a peer-reviewed article on the negative social costs to outright legalization. I noted that although overall traffic fatalities in Colorado have gone down since 2007, they went up by 100 percent for operators testing positive for marijuana—from 39 in 2007 to 78 in 2012. (Colorado legalized marijuana for medical usage in 2009, before legalizing marijuana for other uses in 2012.) Furthermore, in 2007, those pot-positive drivers represented only 7 percent of total fatalities in Colorado, but in 2012 they represented 16 percent of total Colorado fatalities. This new report...

UN says criminal activities threaten Yangon’s stability August 19, 2014 - 12:14:20 am YANGON: The UN yesterday warned that widespread criminal activity in Myanmar was undermining stability and development, as it hailed a new partnership with the government to tackle “significant” crime and drug problems in the impoverished country. Myanmar -- the world’s second largest opium producer after Afghanistan and Southeast Asia’s biggest synthetic drug maker -- has signed a “landmark” agreement to work with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) at it grapples with narcotics and illicit trafficking. “Criminal activity in Myanmar is undermining development efforts,...

Drug dealers are peddling a new marijuana product called Wax that looks and feels like lip balm and packs a kick equivalent to smoking 15-20 joints of weed. Police in Roswell, Ga., discovered 80 grams of Wax during a recent drug bust. Roswell Police Officer Zachary Frommer told Fox 5 in Atlanta last week that the drug ring was selling the substance to high school students. “It’s just an extra kick,” he said. “It gets ’em higher and it gets ’em higher faster. The 15-20 joints you smoke can equal a dose of the Wax.” The marijuana concentrate, also known...

Drug dealers are peddling a new marijuana product called Wax that looks and feels like lip balm and packs a kick equivalent to smoking 15-20 joints of weed. Police in Roswell, Ga., discovered 80 grams of Wax during a recent drug bust. Roswell Police Officer Zachary Frommer told Fox 5 in Atlanta last week that the drug ring was selling the substance to high school students. “It’s just an extra kick,” he said. “It gets ’em higher and it gets ’em higher faster. The 15-20 joints you smoke can equal a dose of the Wax.” The marijuana concentrate, also known...

Racial disparities tend to exist where one doesn't expect them. Situations provoke them to appear, and — if we're willing — we take notice and act. For decades, social justice advocates have referenced the racial disparity in citations and arrests for marijuana. liberal blah, blah . . Ending the war on marijuana won't end racial disparity in Oregon, but it would diminish it. Criminalizing marijuana allows racial inequality to fester. We can't reduce racial disparity where we don't know it exists, nor when we lack practical solutions. In the case of marijuana arrests, we have both. Isn't it responsible and...

Saudi authorities beheaded a Pakistani Thursday after sentencing him to death for drug trafficking, the Interior Ministry said, taking to 25 the number of executions announced this year.

Police arrest 33-year-old man after $50 million drug bust 50 kilograms of ice was hidden in a container full of imported toilets The container was shipped to Melbourne from China $130 million worth of ice was also seized in Melbourne on Tuesday Customs officials have seized 50 kilograms of ice, smuggled into Melbourne in a container full of toilets. The haul, worth around $50 million at street value, was discovered amongst 70 boxes of porcelain toilets. Police have arrested a 33-year-old man from Kings Park, who potentially faces life in prison. The shipment from China led police to the man's...

Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams has died at age 63, according to police in Marin County, Calif. The full statement is below. On August 11, 2014, at approximately 11:55 a.m, Marin County Communications received a 9-1-1 telephone call reporting a male adult had been located unconscious and not breathing inside his residence in unincorporated Tiburon, CA. The Sheriff’s Office, as well as the Tiburon Fire Department and Southern Marin Fire Protection District were dispatched to the incident with emergency personnel arriving on scene at 12:00 pm. The male subject, pronounced deceased at 12:02 pm has been identified as Robin...

No, this post is not about that kind of fantasy. Instead, we’re dealing strictly with public policy and specifically addressing whether the libertarian agenda is unrealistic. This is because when I talk to people about libertarianism, they often will say something mildly supportive such as: “I like the idea of getting government out of my wallet and out of my bedroom.” But then the other shoe drops and they say something skeptical such as: “But you folks are too idealistic in thinking the private sector can do everything.” If you ask them to elaborate why libertarian ideas are fantasies, you’ll...

“Too often our department spends weeks or months developing a case, make(s) a great arrest of a drug dealer, and (the defendant is) back out on the street within 24 hours.” Ron Tischer, police chief “If people believe that everyone can be locked up without bond because they’re arrested, before they’re convicted, that’s not a realistic expectation.” Circuit Judge Scott Horne A dispute over the setting of bonds and sentences in La Crosse County Circuit Court isn’t over. While both La Crosse Police Chief Ron Tischer and the county’s judges agree they need to meet, they won’t do so until...

Some people confuse being libertarian with being libertine. I’m sometimes asked, for instance, if I’m a libertarian because I want to smoke pot or do other drugs. I respond that I’ve never done drugs and have no desire to use drugs. Then I’m asked if I’m a libertarian because I want to gamble. I respond by saying that I don’t gamble, even when I’m in Las Vegas or some other place where it’s legal. Sometimes I’m asked if I’m libertarian because I want to use prostitutes. I respond by explaining that I’d never patronize a prostitute because I want to...