Free Republic

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday threatened to throw out the guilty plea of a veteran U.S. narcotics agent who conspired with a Colombian cartel money launderer — an unexpected twist that could derail one of the most egregious misconduct cases in the history of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell was expected to sentence the disgraced agent, Jose I. Irizarry, but refused to do so over what she called a “totally unacceptable” legal dispute. “I have never seen anything like this,” Honeywell said, postponing the sentencing indefinitely. “I’m not even sure at...

Good news for Democrats! President Biden is continuing Senator Biden’s racist war on drugs!As a member of the U.S. Senate, Joe Biden made is so that blacks who used cocaine got longer prison sentences than whites who used cocaine.In June 2019, the New York Times reported:Joe Biden on Crime and Mass Incarceration During the ’80s and ’90s, Mr. Biden helped shepherd a string of bills that transformed the criminal justice system – and, experts say, hurt America’s black communities. As Joseph R. Biden Jr. makes his third run for the White House, he is being pressed to answer for his...

In the 1990s, it was our collective national will to do what was necessary, however distasteful to some, to rescue our society from catastrophe.As the nation prepares for the incoming Biden-Harris administration the new president promises will be “the most progressive in history,” many drug policy practitioners wonder with trepidation what this will mean for the country’s drug crisis. Record levels of methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl, not to mention surging tonnage of cocaine and black market marijuana, are pouring across our borders at the hands of ruthless Mexican drug cartels, directly fueling ever-increasing overdose deaths and crime. So leftists’ stated...

Donald Trump is talking about labeling the Mexican drug cartels that own our failed state neighbor as “terrorist groups,” and this is yet another step toward what is increasingly looking to be an inevitable confrontation. They just butchered several American citizens, including kids, which cannot go unanswered. They murder thousands of Americans a year here with their poison, which cannot go unanswered. But are we Americans even able to answer a bunch of pipsqueak thugs anymore? Let’s put aside the question of if we should use our military against Mexico (I discussed it here in 2018, to the consternation of liberals...

Has the United States ever fought a war that was justified? Apparently not, according to many students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., who were asked about that by Campus Reform. "I cannot think of a single war that America has been a part of that has been justified," one student told reporter Eduardo Neret. When asked specifically if World War II was a just war, the student said it was not. "I don't believe America fought that war for the just reasons,” the student answered. One young lady responded: "The only one that I can, like, reasonably, like, justify...

Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is controversial within her party. She says the U.S. should talk to its enemies. She was criticized for meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. But Democrats were supposed to be the anti-war party, I say to her in my newest video. "They're heavily influenced by a foreign policy establishment ... whose whole power base is built around continuing this status quo," Gabbard tells me. "So much so, to the point where when I'm calling for an end to these wasteful wars, they're saying, 'Well, gosh, Tulsi, why are you such an isolationist?' As though...

When the alarm went off at Jennifer Hrobuchak's work, the 22-year-old district manager didn't think twice. She got in her car in the early morning hours and headed off to the store to investigate. The new college graduate, who had hoped to have a career saving people from drugs, never saw the man run through the red light straight at her. At 82 miles per hour, he slammed Jennifer's car across the road into a building that crushed and killed her. After seven years of telling the story, her mom, Corinne, still gets emotional. And it's no wonder. The man...

Oregon voters may get the chance to decide whether or not to become the first state to legalize psychedelic mushrooms next year. The ballot title for the Psilocybin Service Initiative, or Initiative Petition #34, was certified Friday and now supporters of a measure to legalize psilocybin in controlled settings can gather signatures to get the issue on the ballot in 2020.

The frightening pages were revealed by a former friend who paints a confounding picture of Betts as a frequent methamphetamine smoker who played violent video games - but was never a racist or interested in weapons...Himes can testify, however, to the fact that Betts was a frequent drug user, taking methamphetamine, cocaine - or 'whatever upper he could get his hands on' in days-long binges...'But he was very consistent with the methamphetamine. I don't know if he got into slamming with needles, but he was pretty much smoking it every day when we were hanging out. 'Coke was also a...

FILO DE CABALLOS, Mexico—The assault force rolls through this small mountain town not long after dark. Traveling in a fleet of pick-ups with about 15 men in each truck, they are dressed in pixelated camouflage uniforms and ballistic vests and at first glance they look like official army units, but their weapons give them away. Many of these commandos carry AK-47 model assault rifles, which aren’t used by the Mexican armed forces. The logo stamped on the doors of the trucks shows a figure from the Mexican Revolution wearing a sombrero and brandishing a rifle astride a charging horse. Below...

Harris County prosecutors are threatening to issue grand jury subpoenas to the Houston Police Department for details about confidential informants used by narcotics officers at the center of the botched Harding Street drug raid in January that ended with two residents dead and five officers injured. After police failed to fulfill a previous request for the information in May, Harris County Assistant District Attorney Natasha Sinclair sent a one-page letter Thursday demanding HPD turn over a trove of information relating to the bust, including the identities of informants used by Squad 15 since 2014, the names of those who signed...

A man traveling from Colombia to Japan died aboard an AeroMexico flight after he swallowed hundreds of cocaine packets, Mexican prosecutors announced in a statement Sunday. An autopsy revealed the 46-year-old Japanese passenger's death was caused by a drug overdose. The prosecutor's office in Sonora said the AeroMexico flight was heading to Tokyo after a Mexico City stopover on Friday when a Japanese man identified as "Udo N." began to suffer convulsions mid-flight, at around 2 a.m. local time. The airliner sought an emergency landing in Hermosillo, Sonora. Less than a half hour later, upon arriving, medics declared the passenger...

HOUSTON, Texas — The Drug Enforcement Administration in Houston is looking for a contractor to burn 1,000 pounds of marijuana per hour through September. The DEA’s posting says the contractor would need to have enough space and resources to burn the marijuana for eight consecutive hours per day. The burns are needed to reduce unneeded evidence from the DEA’s inventory. The incinerator must burn 1,000 pounds of marijuana per hour, which would be delivered in “bales” or “bricks,” each weighing up to 200 pounds. DEA agents would accompany the contractor during the burns, and all employees would receive drug tests...

The Harris County District Attorney's Office announced Wednesday it has launched a review of more than 1,400 criminal cases that narcotics officer Gerald Goines worked on during his 34-year career at the Houston Police Department. The review includes 27 cases that are currently pending in court. The undercover narcotics officer's work has come under intense scrutiny after a drug raid last month in south Houston in which two people were killed and five police officers were injured. After the raid, Houston police announced they were investigating whether Goines had lied on an affidavit used to secure the search warrant used...

You may remember the tag line of a popular ad campaign: “This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile.” The company was trying to reinvent its image, to shake the automaker’s reputation as a stodgy businessman’s car company, and recast it as a home of sleek design for hip young people. Whether it was successful or not, it was useful as a reminder that nothing is static anymore; some aspects of an issue remain the same, while others are constantly changing. A famous 1970s book and film, Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock,” hammered this home for my generation, stressing not only that some...

Terrorism, illegal drugs, and the flow of illegal immigrants are all weapons in the hybrid war being waged against America by those with common cause to destabilize and collapse America from within. It has been over 17 years since George Bush announced the war on terrorism and 47 years since Richard Nixon announced the war on drugs. Does anyone wonder why the most powerful nation on earth has not won either? I do. The current border war and heated debate over the building of a security wall on our southern border sounds disturbingly familiar.

The Houston Police officers who conducted a deadly raid in an East Houston home on January 28, expecting to find heroin, only seized 18 grams of marijuana and 1.5 grams of an unknown white powder. The Houston Chronicle obtained the results of the search warrant Friday, which also showed officers found two shotguns and two rifles inside the house. The house had been under investigation for about two weeks after HPD received information about a suspect that was allegedly selling narcotics. A confidential informant was sent to purchase heroin from the suspect on January 27. The informant told officers the...

A veteran Houston police narcotics officer has been relieved of duty due to "ongoing questions" that have emerged over his role in a raid last week that ended in a deadly mid-afternoon shootout, police said Thursday. "We have confirmed that at least one narcotics officer has been relieved of duty due to ongoing questions that cannot be answered until the case agent is interviewed," HPOU President Joe Gamaldi said in a written statement. "The department made the decision to relieve the officer of duty while a thorough investigation continues. Nearly all officers relieved of duty return to work quickly after...

California marijuana dispensaries reported record-high holiday sales this Christmas as pot products became popular stocking stuffers this holiday season. Pot sales in the state soared in the first holiday season where recreational marijuana is legal in California, as many stores reported seeing five times the amount of customers they normally see. One Sacramento-area store, All About Wellness, reported seeing more than 150 customers per day during the 2018 holiday shopping season. On average, the store sees 20 to 25 customers per day. The increase in pot-hungry customers has also led to lines going out the door at stores. Kysa Butler,...

An Ecstasy pill found in a child’s hamburger wrapper lead to the arrest of three Sonic Drive-In employees. On Friday, a manager of the SONIC in Taylor is facing charges of Possession of a Controlled Substance, Delivery of a Controlled Substance, and Endangering a Child.According to the Taylor Police Department, the pill was discovered during a family outing to pick up dinner at the SONIC Drive-In located at 1700 N. Main. “The 11-year-old daughter was opening the hamburger for her 4-year-old brother. It was a kid’s meal,” said Henry Fluck, Chief of Police in Taylor. But within seconds, the girl...