Over the years, I’ve seen some real atrocities in the news regarding the damage done by law enforcement in the course of a raid — a flashbang thrown into a crib with a baby in it, doors ripped off and furniture destroyed, dogs killed, and even entire houses burned down.
But none of that prepared me for this latest outrage…
They didn’t even remove their shoes!
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants his state to control the quantities of medicinal marijuana sold to individual consumers.
With the high cost of cannabis, patients usually titrate their dosages to adjust for the various potencies of the product and their own health requirements. However, a new emergency rule implements Florida’s statute section 381.986(4)(f) and sets a 35-day, 2.5-ounce possession limit on smokable marijuana, while a 70-day limit of 24,500 milligrams (0.864212 ounce) of THC was set on vapor or edible products. Patients must find a doctor to apply for an exemption if they need more than the legal maximums.
Delays in processing the applications are inevitable. The rule also poses many problems for elderly retirees who will not be covered for medicinal marijuana by Medicare or their health insurance and who might wish to save money on healthcare costs by growing their own. No actual, arbitrary or capricious explanation appears to have been offered for how or why the stipulated quantities of cannabis were chosen. Floridians should know by now that what’s easy for their state doesn’t always make it convenient for the individual. Why not just round up the 70-day limit on processed THC from 0.864212 ounce to 1.0 ounce to make it easier to remember?
Unfortunately, Governor DeSantis is known for treading heavily in medical fields where he doesn’t belong. Like in 2021 when he resisted imposing face mask mandates or vaccination requirements such as providing proof of vaccinations to businesses, restaurants, schools, colleges, cruise ships, government and healthcare facilities. His professional career began as a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) in the Navy (2004 – 2010), where as a commissioned officer, he conducted prosecutions at Guantanamo. It will be interesting to see how Ron DeSantis’s Guantanamo-style doctoring plays out should he end up running for president in 2024 or beyond.
This made me laugh…
Donald Trump posted:
A major motion pertaining to the Fourth Amendment will soon be filed concerning the illegal Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago, right before the ever important Mid-Term Elections. My rights, together with the rights of all Americans, have been violated at a level rarely seen before in our Country. Remember, they even spied on my campaign. The greatest Witch Hunt in USA history has been going on for six years, with no consequences to the scammers. It should not be allowed to continue!
I’m sorry, did the FBI break down your door in the middle of the night, shoot you and your dog in bed, and burn down your house with flashbangs, all based on a falsely-procured warrant that was for a house two blocks away?
Of course, no such motion will be filed. It’s just another attention-getter.
Charges Include Federal Civil Rights Offenses, Unlawful Conspiracies, Obstruction Offenses, and Use of Excessive Force […]
A federal grand jury in Louisville, Kentucky, returned two indictments that were unsealed today, and the Department of Justice filed a third charging document today, in connection with an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old woman who was shot and killed in her Louisville home on March 13, 2020, by police officers executing a search warrant.
“The Justice Department has charged four current and former Louisville Metro Police Department officers with federal crimes related to Breonna Taylor’s death,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Among other things, the federal charges announced today allege that members of LMPD’s Place-Based Investigations Unit falsified the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant of Ms. Taylor’s home, that this act violated federal civil rights laws, and that those violations resulted in Ms. Taylor’s death.
Good article by the wonderful Maia Szalavitz in the New York Times: The War on Drugs Has a Warning for Post-Roe America
Under Roe, most obstetricians and gynecologists didn’t face this level of legal peril. But this isn’t the first time America has criminalized aspects of medicine. Physicians who prescribe controlled substances like opioids carry a similar burden. They can face decades in prison if prosecutors target them for overprescribing. Although there are cases of bad actors who prescribed opioids for profit, even legitimate physicians may fear being targeted by law enforcement, and research shows that the threat of legal action has a broad chilling effect on the way doctors provide care. The war on drugs shows that when medicine is criminalized and politicized, harm to patients and doctors increases, while the activities that the laws are intended to curb continue or even increase.[…]
Terrified of legal action, some physicians are already taking extreme measures to protect themselves from abortion prosecutions, such as ending women’s prescriptions for an immune disorder treatment, methotrexate, because if they get pregnant, it can cause miscarriage.
I am excited to announce that my book — Improbable Anecdotes: Surprisingly true nuggets from the life and adventures of Pete Guither — has been published.
This is a book of brief stories – some funny, some odd, some enlightening. The kind of stories I would tell to friends over scotch and cheese about my days as a lounge lizard, or in my theatre management classes about the wrong way to do things. 234 pages containing 160 stories (including color pictures). There is a full chapter devoted to my drug policy work, but the stories are from every part of my life. Each story (or chapter) can be simply read on its own, or, taken together, they form a sort of uncensored no-holds-barred autobiography.
“A life well lived and stories well told. I should know… I’m in a few of them.” –Roger Reitzel
“Pete encouraged the most risk, creativity, and fun from me during a pivotal moment in my growth as an artist. It was wonderful to read about his life and all the people who encouraged risk, creativity and fun from him.” –Keith Habersberger
“The Redbeard fan base has been itching for an origin story. This one absolutely demolishes what we thought was canon!” –L. Adams
“A fast read… unless you’re a slow reader.” –Rogina
“Where’s that damned piano player?” –Henny Youngman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1545585383483785222
“Mexican cartels gearing up for new payday: abortion pills”
Iowa Senator Charles Ernest Grassley, a fierce and longtime advocate of the war against cannabis, who introduced anti-marijuana bills into Congress often in a bipartisan alliance with prohibitionist California Senator Dianne Feinstein, is accused of participating in the January 6 insurrection. As a pivotal figure no less. The evidence comes from a tweet:
NEW: Iowa’s Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the Senate president pro tempore, says he and not Vice President Pence will preside over the certification of Electoral College votes, since “we don’t expect him to be there.” […] 7:06 AM—JAN 5, 2021.
The insurrection didn’t go as planned:
“Pence was supposed to step aside willingly. Adam Schiff said the most chilling words he had heard in the entire investigation were Mike Pence’s words to the Secret Service that he wasn’t getting in the SUV to be whisked away. Pence knew they were trying to get rid of him, get him away from the Capitol so that Grassley would count the electors and reject those from the contested states.”
The 88-year-old Senator is running for the Senate in November. He may be forced to testify before Congress first. Deemed a conspirator and insurrectionist, Chuck Grassley would not be allowed to hold public office again, civil or military, according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
When SWAT was created in the 1960s, the idea was to have a specially trained unit to deal with bank robberies and hostage situations – where the immediate violent breach was necessary to save innocent lives.
By 2015, there were roughly 80,000 SWAT deployments a year, mostly for serving drug warrants.
Has it gotten so bad that the original concept of SWAT has been forgotten completely?
Here is the Uvalde, Texas SWAT team.
darkcycle on Devastating raids: “GIGO. What happens when the stupid is surrounded by the blind and greedy. “Admiral “ Gigiot is an idiot, but…” Sep 30, 13:14
on Devastating raids: “Trump discussed bombing Mexico to target its drug labs: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-pondered-targeting-mexican-drug-labs-with-bombs-book/ar-AA12lzzB” Sep 30, 11:09 on Devastating raids: “It’s not “mass psychosis”, it’s the Manufacture of Consent, see Noam Chomsky. As for Desmet, I often walk away from…” Sep 29, 00:01
on Devastating raids: “RE Dr Desmet, “his” mass formation story line and his “teachings”… The official framing of the mass formation (or mass…” Sep 28, 17:59 on Devastating raids: “Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin will treat himself (aka his legacy) in the same manner he treats Russian citizens and his political…” Sep 26, 00:31
on Devastating raids: “And in so using Trump to protect American homes from really stupid, expensive on the GDP, and hypocritical raids–why Trump…” Sep 25, 08:04 on Devastating raids: “In one of the newer Star Wars movies, a good-guy hero maneuvered a Giant spaceship so she could slam it…” Sep 25, 07:18 on The war on drugs expands into new territories: “New use is discovered for leftover hemp products normally disposed of after extraction of CBD: CORVALLIS, Ore. – An Oregon…” Sep 22, 14:29