Free Republic

It started last summer, when it seemed that Mexican President Felipe Calderón had understandably reached the end of his rope. After 52 innocent people were massacred in August by drug gangsters who set fire to a Monterrey casino – 52 added to the almost 50,000 drug-related murders in Mexico since 2006 – an angry Calderón said that if Americans were so “determined and resigned to consume drugs, then they should seek market alternatives in order to cancel the stratospheric profits” fueling the ghastly narco-bloodshed. Everyone agreed that by “market alternatives,” Calderón meant some sort of drug legalization.

Part 1Part 2Part 3

Conservative activists believe Gingrich's views on illegal immigrants has opened up the field for another GOP candidate...

When we usually speak of taxes we tend to personalize it. For all the hyper-morality we tend to wax fancy about on the macro level, taxes are the one thing we always seem to have to do a little philosophic double-take on. Messing with your money is messing with your own self, your own identity. Really, it is.Income tax, of course, effects most of us--but seemingly, unfortunately, never enough of us. Property tax is in the news every time the liberal sadists here throw a school levy up for vote. Usually we're all connected in some way to the guilt-fest,...

One of Britain's best known entrepreneurs – and a man who knows a thing or two about counterculture – Richard Branson is joining calls for an end to the War on Drugs

A young Tauranga man wants "legal weed" banned, claiming an addiction to it drove him to steal and left him riddled with anxiety. Student Robert Moore, 23, (pictured) says he smoked up to $80 of Kronic each day and claims the marijuana alternative has had damaging psychological and physical effects on him. But Kronic has rejected the claims, saying its products are not addictive and are harmless unless used irresponsibly. The R18 synthetic cannabinoid is made from a mixture of dried herbs and is available at about 20 outlets across the Western Bay. The product usually contains the 1,1-dimethyloctyl homologue...

Insider trading is more common than most investors know and regulators admit. Back in 1974, a paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics showed shares of the average takeover target beat the market by 14% over seven months prior to the announcement. Last month, a study published in the Journal of Multinational Financial Management found abnormal returns of nearly 7% during the 50 trading days before deal announcements. At least shares also jumped an average of 13% on announcement day, according to the recent study. That shows some investors were surprised. In the United States, it's a crime to...

AFP - Tunisia's Islamist movement Ennahda, banned under the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled in January, has been legalised 30 years after it was formed, it announced Tuesday. "The Ennahda movement has just been legalised," spokesman Ali El-Aryadh told AFP. The interim government installed after Ben Ali's fall on January 14 after weeks of street protests granted unprecedented freedoms and allowed exiles to return despite the bans from the old regime. Ennahda (Awakening) leader Rached Ghannouchi returned on January 30 after nearly 20 years in exile, mostly in London, to be welcomed by thousands of...

It's been 40 years since President Nixon's "War on Drugs." Is it possible that peace talks are now at hand? On Thursday, President Obama said the question of drug legalization and regulation is an "entirely legitimate topic for debate" — the first sitting president to do so since cocaine, heroin and marijuana were made illegal in the U.S. In a question-and-answer session on YouTube, in which the top 10 questions submitted to the President focused on drug policy, Obama responded thoughtfully to that query from a representative of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of former law enforcement professionals whose...

Posted By Newssleuth I think that this old article from 1997 is important enough to post today. . “I am sort of deus ex machina- I am something unnatural,” George Soros says of himself. . Described by the New York Times as “The world’s single largest donor” (Dec. 17,1996), Soros uses his philanthropy to change – or more accurately deconstruct – the moral values and attitudes of the Western world, and particularly of the American people. While others give to the arts and higher education or to better the quality of the lives of their fellow men, Soros funds campaigns...

A remarkable catch by lefty site Raw Story. “It got to be a big deal in campaigns: ‘He’s tough on crime,’ and ‘lock ‘em up!’” the Christian Coalition founder said. “That’s the way these guys ran and, uh, they got elected. But, that wasn’t the answer.”His co-host added that the success of religious-run dormitories for drug and alcohol cessation therapy present an “opportunity” for faith-based communities to lead the way on drug law reforms.“We’re locking up people that have taken a couple puffs of marijuana and next thing you know they’ve got 10 years with mandatory sentences,” Robertson continued. “These...

Starting in January, getting caught with an ounce or less of marijuana in California will be an infraction on par with jaywalking and littering — and not a misdemeanor that can tie up juries and show up on criminal background checks for job applicants. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law Thursday, but said it doesn’t change his opposition to Proposition 19, the Nov. 2 ballot measure that would legalize possession and personal use of up to an ounce of marijuana. Reaction was predictably divided Friday. Both sides of Proposition 19, which voters will settle on Nov. 2, tried to use...

A Republican rout in November would usher in a class of Senate freshmen who ran on pledges of no amnesty for illegal immigrants — a changing of the guard that could doom President Barack Obama’s already faint chances of passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill in his first term. Immigration reform advocates could see turnover in 17 seats held by Democrats and Republicans who, at one point, voted for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, according to a POLITICO analysis of the Senate campaign field. In all cases, the Republicans running for those seats have vowed to never support...

On Nov. 2, Californians will vote on Proposition 19, deciding whether to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana. If the initiative passes, it won't just be momentous for California; it may, at long last, offer Mexico the promise of an exit from our costly war on drugs...We have believed for some time that Mexico should legalize marijuana and perhaps other drugs. But until now, most discussion of this possibility has foundered because our country's drug problem and the U.S. drug problem are so inextricably linked... Proposition 19 changes this calculation...Our overall trade with the largest state of the...

(snip) Aid to the housing market should have been included with the plan to bail out the banks, McCain said. But several in Congress felt that once the banks were bailed out, the banks would turn around and offer loans and other help to the real estate market. That didn't happen, McCain said. The real problem is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he said. The federal government has dumped $45 billion into the two programs, the same outfits that caused the housing crisis by giving out loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back, he said."I want everyone...

PHOENIX (AP) - Citing the killing of 72 migrants in northern Mexico, Senator John McCain says he's worried that border-region violence will spill into Arizona. The Arizona Republican said the level of violence in Mexico is, in his words, "incredible. It is out of control and it will sooner or later spill to our side of the border unless we get the border secure."

A maverick no more, Ariz. senator fends off challenge from the right What's to become of John McCain? Until Nov. 4, 2008, the Arizona senator could cherish the hope that his future depended more on New Hampshire and Florida voters than on those back home. But with his loss to Barack Obama in the presidential race, McCain's Arizona electorate reclaimed its career-ending power over him.

Amnesty is defined as the action of governments by which persons or groups who have committed a criminal offense of a political nature that threatens the sovereignty of a country, are granted total or partial, conditional or unconditional, immunity from prosecution for that crime. Amnesty law, the core of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”, is not the solution to our illegal alien crisis, despite misguided claims from the Left. Indeed, past amnesty law dramatically increased illegal immigration, and any suggestion of new amnesty law only encourages more of the same, with illegals crowding into the country to get in under the wire...

Several Senators have learned of a possible plan by the Obama Administration that would provide a mass Amnesty for the nation's 11-18 million illegal aliens. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), eight Senators addressed a letter to the President asking for answers to questions about a plan that would allow DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to provide an amnesty if they can't secure enough votes for a bill in the Senate. The letter that was sent to Pres. Obama earlier today asks the President for clarification on the use of deferred action or parole for illegal aliens. The executive actions are...

After two decades of carefully tending his businesses, Dunn is making the most radical leap of his career. He's moving back to America. Going home was once unimaginable. "The thing about America was they still had a very, very negative idea of cannabis," Dunn recalled during an interview this spring. "I was in a sort of dream world over here."