Free Republic

Cannabis becomes legal in Canada Country becomes second and largest with legal national marketplace. The Canadian government is ready to pardon those with a cannabis possession record of 30 grams or less as the country becomes the world’s second and largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace. Canada legalizes marijuana: here's everything you need to know Read more A federal official said Canada would pardon people with convictions for possessing up to 30 grams of marijuana, the new legal threshold, with a formal announcement due later on Wednesday. The use of medical marijuana has been legal in Canada since...

Dry Leaf Medical Marijuana Available To Pennsylvanians Next Week HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) - Medical marijuana in dry leaf and flower form will be available to registered patients in Pennsylvania for the first time, beginning next week. Gov. Tom Wolf's office said dry leaf cannabis will be available at about a dozen dispensaries starting Aug. 1. More dispensaries will offer the dry leaf and flower form over the coming weeks. The Health Department is expected to announce which dispensaries are carrying it sometime next week. The change was recommended by an advisory panel and accepted by Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine...

Prominent Chief Wahoo protester pleads guilty to stealing federal money meant for Native Americans CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A prominent activist known for his opposition to the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo mascot pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing more than $77,000 in federal grant money meant to benefit Native Americans in Northeast Ohio. Robert Roche, 71, of Cleveland, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of government funds. Federal prosecutors say he embezzled Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant money awarded to the Parma-based American Indian Education Center, where he served as executive director. Federal authorities said he used the...

We Have A Congressman Calling For Civil War Let's not mince words: Eric Swalwell is advocating for Civil War. "Instead, we should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons, we should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons. The ban would not apply to law enforcement agencies or shooting clubs.".... " The Parkland teens have taught us there is no right more important than every student’s right to come home after class. The right to live is supreme over...

Ohio district says it will stop allowing white students to leave district, citing 'racial balance' An Ohio school district with a growing proportion of minority students says it will stop allowing white students to attend a neighboring district through open enrollment and take public funding with them because it wants to avoid becoming segregated. The Liberty Local Schools board just north of Youngstown unanimously backed that resolution this week, stepping into the knotty intersection of education funding and race. It cited a nearly 30-year-old state law that districts can object to students enrolling elsewhere tuition-free "in order to maintain an...

Self-driving car passenger slapped with ticket in San Francisco, police say A ticket was issued to a person traveling in a self-driving car in San Francisco on Monday, police told Fox News. The vehicle allegedly did not stop for a person in the crosswalk. However, Cruise, the car company involved, according to KPIX, maintained that the vehicle was in compliance with California state law. A mottorcycle officer issued the ticket after seeing the car not stop for a woman going through a crosswalk in the South of Market area, San Francisco Police Department spokeswoman Officer Giselle Linnane told Fox News...

Theranos: Ok, It Was A Scam How do you make nearly three quarters of a billion dollars? Lie, cheat and scam. The penalty when you get caught? $500,000, or less than one thousandth of what you stole -- and not one second of prison time. "Theranos Inc. and its founder Elizabeth Holmes agreed to settle U.S. allegations that they raised more than $700 million from investors through an elaborate fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about their technology, business and financial performance. .... Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty to resolve the case, surrender voting control...

Why? Go Look In The Mirror. Why did Parkland happen? Because the law is not enforced; the shooter had been reported multiple times for acts that were plenty to arrest him, have him declared mentally incompetent or both. He could not have shot up anything if in prison or a mental institution. Why does medical care cost ten times what it does in other nations? Because the law is not enforced; it is a felony to attempt to restrain trade, create or maintain monopolies, and price-fix. The health care industry does all three on a daily basis. You would not...

The Insanity Of The Left And Its New Spokesman From The Hill: Stoneman Douglas student David Hogg on deputy who did not enter school during shooting: "Who wants to go down the barrel of an AR-15, even with a glock? And I know that's what these police officers are supposed to do, but they're people too." So, media-annointed Mr. Spokesman, who "magically" got a checkmark on Twitter too all of a sudden, has decided that it's perfectly-acceptable to virtue signal when people fail to do the job they're hired to do. Does anyone want to stare down the barrel of...

Two More Blatant Health Scams: Where Are Indictments? How blatant do you need to be in stealing billions before someone goes to prison? Let's start with this one: A Texas woman took a urine drug test after back surgery and was hit with a $17,850 lab bill, according to a Kaiser Health News report. This was for a set of tests that her health insurer says are worth $100.92 -- but since she was out-of-network she was billed 176 times as much. Did someone do 176 times as much work? Did they do any additional work? Was she told about...

The Smoking Gun In Mass Shootings By The Young Still won't raise the actual issue will you? “The concept that mental illness is a precursor to violent behavior is nonsense,” said Dr. Louis Kraus, forensic psychiatry chief at Chicago’s Rush University Medical College. “The vast majority of gun violence is not attributable to mental illness.” Oh really? The article goes on to claim that ~38,000 people died from firearm violence in 2016. What is being omitted is that the majority were suicides! In fact, of those 38,000 people (37,863 for 2015 according to the CDC) 22,928 were firearm suicides in...

School Shootings: FACTS Trump POLITICAL CRAP Reaction to my article yesterday was swift -- and predictable. So has been the political reaction to the shooting at Parkland -- the hard-left, which includes Nancy "gottapassittoreadit" Pelosuck and many others -- who immediately called for more gun control. There's even Faux Snooz who ran an OpEd talking about conservatives "taking a stand against mass-murder." Of course it's still all about guns in the media -- and on Capitol Hill. Really? Of course there's this lie trotted out when it comes to semi-automatic firearms: Hunters or those who enjoy shooting clay pigeons don’t...

Former cop sues NYPD, claims job made him obese Maybe it was the doughnuts. A morbidly obese city cop got a hefty pension when he retired on disability at age 43, but he’s still hungry for more dough — so he’s suing the NYPD, claiming the job left him corpulent. "The job is like a tyrant,’’ said ex-NYPD Officer Jose Vega, who is 5-foot-10 and tips the scales at 360 pounds. “I went from 250 to 395 pounds in one year — I guarantee you, as small as you are, you eat more than me,” he told a Post reporter...

Is This The Crash? Almost-certainly not. First, it is extremely unlikely for a market to crash from a spike high. China is the only place where it has happened with any sort of regularity; what usually comes first is a distribution pattern. But..... with that said it isn't impossible. However, as of 2/5 the S&P is now back to the 50DMA, which it has not touched for quite some time -- it bounced, and then collapsed. Of note the 200DMA is down around 2530, which would be back to about November 2017 levels and extraordinary in terms of the current...

The Truth About The Nunes Memo Let's boil the Nunes memo down for all of you who are screaming for heads -- but newly, just today. First, there's the fact that the "Steele Dossier" was critical to the granting of a FISA court warrant. The memo makes clear that absent the Dossier there would have been no warrant as the court would have refused to grant it for lack of evidence, no spying on the Trump campaign and no grounds for the current Mueller investigation. Now that wouldn't by itself be enough to toss every single individual involved in the...

Tom Petty's Autopsy: Singer Died From Massive Accidental Drug Overdose Tom Petty's autopsy results are in, and they show the singer died from an accidental drug overdose as a result of taking a variety of medications. The L.A. County Coroner says a number of Tom's organs failed due to "mixed drug toxicity." Tom's autopsy report shows the singer was on several pain meds, including Fentanyl patches, oxycodone (Oxycontin), temazepam (Restoril), alprazolam (Xanax), citalopram (Celexa), acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl. The reason doctors prescribed the meds was because of a number of medical problems, including emphysema, knee problems and a fractured...

There Is Only One Business: SCAM You either steal, rob, lie, launder money and otherwise rip people off or you go out of business. The only exception? If you're small enough not to attract any of the so-called "great businesses" attention. You can run a bar. You can run a small restaurant (as long as it doesn't compete with any of those large firms.) You might be able to run a small consulting outfit. Otherwise, forget it. You can't emulate their game because you will get prosecuted. They will not. Investors will not care and thus the so-called "efficient market"...

Vermont Senate approves recreational marijuana bill Senate lawmakers shortly before 1:30 p.m. took a voice vote in favor of a bill approved by the House last week. It will allow adults 21 and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and to grow two mature plants and four immature plants. The vote make Vermont the first state in the county to authorize the recreational use of marijuana by an act of the Legislature as opposed to a ballot measure. The current bill does not contain language to regulate the production and sale of marijuana, as has been done...

Michigan dairy farmer gets prison time for hiring undocumented immigrants A Michigan dairy farmer is to spend a couple of years in federal prison and owes a six-figure fine for hiring undocumented immigrants. U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington on Thursday, Jan. 4, sentenced Denis Burke to two years in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Ludington did not order Burke taken into custody on Thursday, but gave him time to self-report to the U.S. Marshals Services. The judge also ordered Burke to pay a fine of $187,500 and an assessment fee of $100. Burke in September pleaded...

2018 Forecast: Winter I've been harping on this more-or-less continually since 2011 -- it relates to your personal health and reliance on the health care system in the United States. Specifically, if you look like you're pregnant and you're not (or can't be) -- let's just make it simple folks; if you stand in the shower, look straight down, and you see gut instead of genitals..... You can ignore this (again), if you want. But time's pretty-much up. Trump's "tax cuts" are going to accelerate the deficit spending trend that Obama (and Bush before him) initiated. The Fed's machinations over...