The marijuana black market has continued to thrive to the point where legitimate growers and sellers are struggling to stay afloat in areas of the country awash in illegal weed. In California, for example, the illegal weed market is “indisputably many times larger than the licensed community,” according to an analysis from the Los Angeles Times. That same report found that unlicensed farms outnumbered legal operations by as much as 10 to 1 in the state’s biggest cultivation areas.
Other states that have legalized recreational pot use, including Oregon and Colorado, have faced similar challenges. New York has grappled with a booming “gray market” of unlicensed weed sellers that emerged as the state worked to set up its new system for legal retailers. Other nations that have legalized pot like Canada and Thailand have faced similar challenges.
The thriving marijuana black market isn’t just harming legitimate sellers trying to compete. The proliferation of illegal pot farms has also brought with it a surge in violent crime, human trafficking and severe environmental damage in the areas where unlicensed growing is concentrated. States are also missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue when weed sales happen outside the legitimate market.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams late last month announced a new push to remove people with mental illness from the city’s streets, an effort he said would include hospitalizing some homeless people against their will.
Under the new city policy, law enforcement will have the power to detain any person who “appears to be mentally ill” and is deemed to pose a threat to themselves or others into custody and force them to undergo psychiatric evaluation at a local hospital.
Like many major cities in the United States, New York has dealt with a persistently high rate of homelessness in recent decades. Although the image of a person with schizophrenia talking to themselves on a street corner might sum up homelessness in the eyes of many members of the public, the relationship between homelessness and mental health is complex. Research shows that most homeless people do not have a severe mental illness, but the mentally ill are often the focus of debates around the issue because they are more visible and often raise concerns about public safety. There is also a lot of debate among experts about how many become homeless because they have psychiatric disorders versus how much the trauma of living on the streets causes or exacerbates mental illness.
I’m always wary about police power to make these kinds of determinations. It could easily be abused. But we also need to at least have a way to initiate a process to both (a) get the mentally ill off of the streets, and (b) get them the help they need. Once we do that, the majority of the remaining homeless are drug addicts, homeless by choice, or both.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, was arrested Monday in the Bahamas after federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges contained in a sealed indictment, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
The specific charges are expected to be unsealed Tuesday, according to Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
In a statement, Williams said: “Earlier this evening, Bahamian authorities arrested Samuel Bankman-Fried at the request of the U.S. government, based on a sealed indictment filed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”
We performed a detailed review of 87 program grants totaling $805,000, including 61 small business grants and 26 restaurant grants. Our detailed review found that DOR did not follow the written eligibility requirements for 25 program grants totaling $375,000,
This was a limited scope review of just a couple of the COVID slush funds. Notice that in this case, they were just checking to see if the DOR actually enforced the eligibility requirements before awarding grants. Almost half the time, they didn’t. In other words, some DOR bureaucrat waived through the application and sent cash to people who weren’t even eligible.
This audit doesn’t even look into how many of those recipients lied on their applications or committed other fraud in order to get the money. For example, this is suspicious:
Our detailed review found that DOR awarded a total of $15,000 in three program grants to three small businesses that began operating in 2020 and had annual revenue that ranged from $1,200 to $4,200, which was less than the $10,000 minimum specified in the agreement. DOR indicated it:
Begun in 2020, eh? Could it be that these folks founded a fake company, threw a little cash into it, and applied to get the free COVID money? How many of these businesses continued operating after getting the money?
I know that we already knew it, but every audit of the COVID handouts confirms again that the entire operation was riddled with fraud, corruption, and incompetence. It’s possible that the COVID relief funds will prove to be the greatest transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to global criminals in the history of mankind. And politicians patted themselves on the backs with every dollar spent.
He denied having moved any personal money out of FTX himself – saying he now has “close to nothing.”
Speaking from The Bahamas, he said he had one credit card left which had around $100,000 on it.
In the interview he said he had not deliberately misled investors.
“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,” he said.
However, asked several times about details of money movements between FTX and other entities, including the trading firm he owned, Alameda Research, he at times seemed sketchy in detail.
He also said the company had indulged in “greenwashing” where firms engage in environmental projects for publicity.
Wow. Check out the details of the charge. This is an immoral person who should not be trusted. As a federal civil servant, will he keep his new job? Probably.
Law enforcement at the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport were alerted to a missing suitcase in the baggage claim area on Sept. 16. The adult female victim said she flew into MSP on a Delta flight from New Orleans and went to retrieve her checked bag at carousel seven.
Airport records confirmed the navy blue Vera Bradley roller bag arrived at 4:40 p.m. but was missing from the carousel. So law enforcement reviewed video surveillance footage from the baggage claim area and observed Brinton removing a navy blue roller bag from carousel seven, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint says Brinton removed a luggage tag from the bag, placed it into a handbag he was carrying, and “then left the area at a quick pace.” Brinton arrived at MSP Airport around 4:27 p.m. on an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., but did not check a bag, meaning he had no reason to visit baggage claim, according to the complaint.
Sam Brinton/Department of Energy
Police showed the surveillance video to the victim and she confirmed it was her bag.
Brinton left the airport in an Uber for a stay at the InterContinental St. Paul Riverfront hotel, where he checked in with the blue bag, the complaint says.
He returned to MSP on Sept. 18 with the bag in hand for a departing flight back to Washington, D.C., authorities allege.
Surveillance video from Dulles International Airport shows Brinton traveling with the bag on an Oct. 9 return trip from Europe, the complaint notes.
The victim said the estimated value of the bag and its contents was around $2,325.
Police questioned Brinton about the missing bag in an Oct. 9 phone call and asked him directly if he “took anything that did not belong” to him.
“Not that I know of,” Brinton allegedly responded. He later admitted to taking the bag but said the clothes inside were his, according to the complaint.
“If I had taken the wrong bag, I am happy to return it, but I don’t have any clothes for another individual. That was my clothes when I opened the bag,” he told police, according to the complaint.
Brinton allegedly called the investigating officer two hours later and apologized for not being “completely honest.” This time Brinton said he took the bag because he was tired and thought it was his, the complaint says.
He allegedly told police that he realized the bag didn’t belong to him when he opened it up at the hotel but “got nervous” and didn’t “know what to do.” Worried that people would think he “stole the bag,” Brinton told police he left the victim’s clothes in the drawers in the hotel room, according to the complaint.
Brinton said he brought the bag back to D.C. with him because it would have been “weirder” to leave a bag in the hotel room, according to police.
Police told Brinton how to return the bag to Delta, but as of Oct. 27 the victim still had not received her bag back.
Police also learned that no clothing was recovered from the hotel room.
Analysis of a California database of sex offenders shows thousands of child molesters are being let out after just a few months, despite sentencing guidelines.
Current and former sex crime prosecutors said the figures are ‘terrifying’ and ‘shameful’.
I watched way more of this trial than I care to admit, but it was truly a view into an evil criminal mind. May we never hear his voice again.
“This community can only be safe if you are behind bars for the rest of your life,” Judge Jennifer Dorow said in announcing her sentencing for the six counts of first-degree intentional homicide, which she said will be served consecutively.
On 60 counts of recklessly endangering safety, Brooks was sentenced to 17.5 years for each count — amounting to 762.5 years of initial confinement, plus 305 years of extended supervision, on top of the six life sentences, Dorow said.
The judge acknowledged that the sentencing was “largely symbolic,” but that “it needs to hold you accountable in a very real and tangible way.”
A noose was discovered at the site of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Thursday morning, according to the group overseeing the center’s construction.
“This morning, we were informed that an act of hate was discovered at the project site,” Lakeside Alliance said in a statement, adding that operations on the site have been suspended. “We reported the incident to the police and will provide any assistance required to identify those responsible.”
The circumstances of the discovery weren’t clear. Chicago police didn’t immediately respond to a request for details.
[…]
Lakeside Alliance said it was offering a $100,000 reward for help in finding those responsible for “this shameful act.” It is also holding anti-bias training for staff and workers.
First, there’s a 96% chance that this is a hoax. The last 20 years has shown us that this kind of stuff is almost always a hoax.
Second, isn’t the reaction waaaaaaay out of proportion? Let’s say that a worker found a noose and it isn’t a hoax. What is a reasonable response? Maybe call the cops to report it and then go on with your day? Or perhaps just throw it away and get on with your day? But is it really a reasonable response to halt construction, offer a $100k reward, force all employees into sensitivity training, and have the mayor and governor weigh in? How many LEO resources will be committed to this investigation compared to the murders and assaults happening nightly down the street?
Have you noticed how (1) rare that this kind of hate is real, and (2) how often it is a hoax perpetrated by a lefty?
WEST BEND — Michael J. Miecielica, a 38-year-old West Bend man, has been charged for allegedly posting in downtown West Bend notes containing hate speech and threats to Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, as well as sending notes via email to Senator Ron Johnson’s campaign, on Monday.
Miecielica was charged with three counts of disorderly conduct and two counts of computer message- threaten/obscenity by the Washington County District Attorney’s office on Thursday. Each charge is a Class B misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty upon conviction of a $1,000 fine, 90 days’ imprisonment or both.
[…]
According to the criminal complaint, Miecielica’s alleged notes contained slurs about the African American, Latin American, Jewish and LGBTQ+ communities and women, as well as referencing hanging Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes from a tree.
The notes allegedly contained “88,” which is meant to represent “HH” for “Heil Hitler,” and “14 Words,” which represents a white nationalist slogan about securing a future for white children.
According to the criminal complaint, Miecielica claimed that “he was exercising his 1st Amendment Right and said the messages were not what he personally believed in. The defendant said he was a ‘flaming liberal’ and identified as LGBT. The defendant said his intention was to cause a ‘dust up’ to hurt Republicans.”
According to the complaint, Miecielica also stated he had a “Master’s Degree in philosophy, so he knew he did not cross the line with his messages.”
For hours, parents, wives, siblings, children and some of the 17 Cruz also wounded stood 20ft from him. They looked the shackled killer in the eye and gave vehement, angry and sometimes tearful statements.
Most decried that his jury voted 9-3 for death but did not reach the unanimity required under state law for that sentence to be imposed.
Cruz, 24, stared back, dressed in a bright red jail jumpsuit, showing no emotion behind a face mask. The two-day hearing will conclude on Wednesday when the judge, Elizabeth Scherer, formally sentences Cruz to life without parole.
“This creature has no redeemable value,” said Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died when he was shot through a classroom window.
Speaking at Cruz but refusing to say his name, Schachter said he hoped “other prisoners you will encounter in your new life will inflict that pain upon you, hopefully 17 times over again, until you are screaming for mercy, just like your victims”.
Schachter said it was his birthday and that when he blew out his candles he would wish Cruz a painful death – and would every year until it happens.
For all of the finger wagging about people who have ties to Russia or China, it is glaringly clear that the Biden family has been engaging in crooked deals with the two totalitarian regimes for years. It is foolish to not at least consider that our President may have been involved even if he isn’t today. For all of Joe Biden’s faults, he has a long history of loving and supporting his kids. Is it too much of a stretch to think that he might have thrown his influence around on their behalf for foreigners?
Newly unearthed photos show the Biden family’s Chinese business partner meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Zang Jianjun was executive director of Chinese oil giant CEFC, which partnered with Joe Biden‘s brother Jim and son Hunter on a deal that earned the First Family millions of dollars.
Text messages obtained by DailyMail.com reveal Zang was in close contact with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and that the Chinese leader gave the green light for his partnership with the Bidens.
Zang even traveled to Moscow with Xi and met with Putin while brokering a massive $9.1billion deal to buy a share of the Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft in 2017.
At least 16 paroled killers and attempted killers have either committed new crimes or violated terms of parole and ended up on Corrections holds.
Evers’ appointee released more than 300 killers and more than 47 child rapists in discretionary paroles. More killers and attempted killers were freed on parole in 3.5 years under Evers than in 8 years under Scott Walker.
Here is my full column from the Washington County Daily News this week. I watched a lot more of the trial later in the week and it only got worse.
Thanks to the live stream from Court TV, I have watched dozens and dozens of hours of the trial of Darrell Brooks. It continues this week. I highly encourage readers to tune in for a few hours to watch Brooks in long form instead of in snippets of news story. The man is a monster.
Brooks has been charged with 76 crimes including 6 murders after he drove his car through the Waukesha Christmas Parade last year running down at least 67 people. He has chosen to represent himself which puts him in the position of questioning his victims, witnesses, and law enforcement personnel who had to clean up his carnage. Throughout the trial, Brooks’ utter lack of remorse, callous revictimization of people whose lives he has devastated, and mockery of the rule of law is infuriating.
I take comfort knowing that when Brooks is convicted and sentenced that Wisconsin now has truth in sentencing. Brooks will never be paroled by the likes of Governor Tony Evers and released back into our midst.
When Tony Evers ran for office with Mandela Barnes, he promised to cut Wisconsin’s prison population in half.
He has been working hard to keep that promise through his appointed chair of the Wisconsin Parole Commission. Wisconsin ended its parole system about twenty-two years ago in the waning days of Governor Tommy Thompson’s administration, but criminals convicted before that time are still eligible for parole.
According to data released by the Wisconsin Parole Commission to conservative news site Wisconsin Right Now, the Wisconsin Parole Commission under Evers’ appointee has been releasing an average of two felons per week with discretionary paroles from January to May of this year. They are on pace to release over 100 of the most vicious murders, rapists, and child molesters this state has ever seen by the end of the year. These monsters will be roaming the streets of Wisconsin.
In the gubernatorial debate hosted by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association between Governor Tony Evers and challenger Tim Michels last week, Evers prevaricated and evaded a question about his liberal support of discretionary paroles. First, Evers said that the governor does not control the Parole Board. Then he took credit for reversing the discretionary early parole of murderer Douglas Balsewicz and firing the Chair of the Parole Board.
Then he pivoted to talk about his support for more government spending on shared revenue. At no point did Evers commit to slow or stop the emptying of our prisons of murderers and rapists with discretionary paroles even though he bragged about his ability to do so.
Tony Evers is choosing to release violent criminals. He could stop it, but he is not doing so because he wants it to happen. He wants violent felons to be released into our communities because social justice politics is more important to him than victims and their families. Evers’ choices will surely lead to even more victims and families. Wisconsin Right Now has been reminding us of some of the crimes that these criminals committed. Joseph Michalkiewicz was sentenced to life for killing a gas station attendant with a screwdriver, pipe wrench, and hatchet. He was released in January of this year after serving less than twenty years. He is 62 years old.
Dennis Steele brutalized and murdered a 3-year-old toddler by breaking his ribs and crushing his skull. He was sentenced to a life sentence. He was released in February after serving just 32 years. He is only 54 years old with many years ahead of him.
David Alliet grabbed a UW-Eau Claire student off the street and violently raped her. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison but was released in July after serving only 23 years. He is 53 years old.
The list is agonizingly long with hundreds of victims who were killed or forever traumatized by these crooks.
One case looks eerily familiar. Shannon Bailey raced his car down a crowded street and onto the sidewalk running down 30 people and killing one. 22 years later, he is back on the street thanks to Evers’ Parole Commission. This is a full 35 years before he would have otherwise been released. If this is the kind of monster that Evers’ Parole Commission released, would they release Darrell Brooks in 22 years if they could?
While the passage of time may diminish the memory, it does not diminish the savagery committed by these felons. For every criminal released by Evers’ Parole Commission, there are victims and families whose lives have been forever altered. In many cases, there are victims who never got to see another sunrise. While their lives have been shattered, the monsters who committed the crimes are now enjoying their freedom thanks to the policy decisions of Governor Tony Evers.
He could have stopped these felons from being released like he took credit for doing during the debate, but Evers chose to let them all out.
A Queens man whom officers spent nearly two weeks tracking down has been released just one day after his arrest for setting a local Asian restaurant on fire.
Choephel Norbu, 49, admitted to setting Ittadi Garden and Grill in Jackson Heights ablaze on the morning of Oct. 2 after the Bangladeshi restaurant’s staff allegedly botched his order the night before.
“I was very drunk. I bought chicken biryani. They didn’t give me chicken biryani. I was mad, and I threw it out,” Norbu told police following his arrest, according to the New York Post.
Norbu reportedly returned to the restaurant at around 6 a.m. Surveillance footage shows him dousing its front with gasoline, setting it on fire and then catching some of the flames himself.
[…]
Norbu was arrested on Friday for arson, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment, according to the New York City Fire Department. But because those charges do not require bail under New York’s criminal justice reform, Norbu was released for free.
Thanks to the live stream from Court TV, I have watched dozens and dozens of hours of the trial of Darrell Brooks. It continues this week. I highly encourage readers to tune in for a few hours to watch Brooks in long form instead of in snippets of news story. The man is a monster.
Brooks has been charged with 76 crimes including 6 murders after he drove his car through the Waukesha Christmas Parade last year running down at least 67 people. He has chosen to represent himself which puts him in the position of questioning his victims, witnesses, and law enforcement personnel who had to clean up his carnage. Throughout the trial, Brooks’ utter lack of remorse, callous revictimization of people whose lives he has devastated, and mockery of the rule of law is infuriating.
I take comfort knowing that when Brooks is convicted and sentenced that Wisconsin now has truth in sentencing. Brooks will never be paroled by the likes of Governor Tony Evers and released back into our midst.
When Tony Evers ran for office with Mandela Barnes, he promised to cut Wisconsin’s prison population in half.
He has been working hard to keep that promise through his appointed chair of the Wisconsin Parole Commission.
[…]
In the gubernatorial debate hosted by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association between Governor Tony Evers and challenger Tim Michels last week, Evers prevaricated and evaded a question about his liberal support of discretionary paroles. First, Evers said that the governor does not control the Parole Board. Then he took credit for reversing the discretionary early parole of murderer Douglas Balsewicz and firing the Chair of the Parole Board.
Then he pivoted to talk about his support for more government spending on shared revenue. At no point did Evers commit to slow or stop the emptying of our prisons of murderers and rapists with discretionary paroles even though he bragged about his ability to do so.
Tony Evers is choosing to release violent criminals. He could stop it, but he is not doing so because he wants it to happen. He wants violent felons to be released into our communities because social justice politics is more important to him than victims and their families.
While the figures include a few officers killed by accidental gunfire, the number of ambushes in which police were injured or killed in surprise attacks with little chance to defend themselves has soared since 2020 and accounts for nearly half the officers killed this year.
Such an attack apparently struck Wednesday in Bristol, Connecticut, where the state police said Bristol Police Sgt. Dustin Demonte and Officer Alex Hamzy were killed and Officer Alec Iurato was wounded when they responded to a 911 call that appears to have been “a deliberate act to lure law enforcement to the scene.”
At least 11 police officers were shot around the country this week, including one fatally in Greenville, Mississippi, and another in Las Vegas.
In the first five months of 2022, Gov. Tony Evers’ two-time appointee to the Wisconsin Parole Commission was quietly releasing convicted murderers and rapists at a fast clip – an average of more than 2 per week, Wisconsin Right Now has documented.
These were discretionary paroles. In fact, the 2022 list shows, some of the killers and rapists were freed AFTER Evers, acting under great pressure from a victim’s family and the media, belatedly intervened to stop the release of wife killer Douglas Balsewicz on May 13, 2022, pressuring his Parole Commission Chairman John Tate to resign, which Tate did June 10. Yet the governor stayed silent as the other killers and rapists walked out the prison door, even as he was publicly posturing over Balsewicz around the same time.
[…]
Paroles can be reversed before an inmate is released with a change of circumstance. On the same exact day that Evers intervened in the Balsewicz case, writing his letter expressing outrage to Tate and asking Tate to reverse the decision, another convicted murderer, Frank Penigar, was walking out a prison door on parole, according to the state Department of Corrections. Penigar beat and stabbed his 65-year-old aunt Doris Watkins to death in Milwaukee in 1996.
Another horrific example: Four days after Evers asked Tate to rescind the Balsewicz parole, Tate quietly granted parole to Eau Claire rapist David Alliet on a 1st degree sexual assault with a weapon conviction from 1999. Alliet snatched a University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student off the street and raped her in a horrific stranger attack that left the victim scarred for life. He is a registered sex offender. Evers said nothing.
I did what the vast majority of Wisconsinites did not do… I watched the debate between Johnson and Barnes. No, I didn’t watch it live. I have a life at 7 pm on a Friday evening. Thankfully, it can be found in full on Youtube. Here is a preview of my column from the Washington County Daily News today.
Incumbent U.S. Senator Ron Johnson and challenger Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes met last week for their one and only debate before the election to see who should represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate for the next six years. The debate was hosted by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association which lined up the usual panel of Leftist questioners to ask questions from the Left’s perspective while actively avoiding issues that favor the Right.
How, for instance, one could ask questions for an hour of candidates for the U.S. Senate without mentioning inflation, Ukraine, our $31 trillion national debt, or the nation’s open border policy — all issues that will be discussed in the Senate — is journalistic malpractice. As the only debate held, it was a poor showing.
[…]
When asked about Milwaukee’s horrific rise in violent crime under Democratic leadership, Barnes’ answer was to spend more tax money on schools and somehow create jobs (he did not say how this would happen). He has long been a champion of defunding the police and rooted for anti-police rioters from the safety of his Twitter account.
Barnes has this relationship exactly backward. It is the violent crime that drives families and jobs out of communities. They will not come back until the crime is under control and the only way a civilized society has ever accomplished that is with a professional and effective police force. Barnes’ policies would lead to more crime, fewer jobs and another generation lost to crime and poverty.
While Barnes is advocating for cutting police funding, eliminating cash bail, and emptying our prisons of violent criminals, he is also pushing for the suppression of citizens to keep and bear arms. During the debate, Barnes lamented that, “the ATF doesn’t even have searchable databases right now because of the law,” supported universal background checks, and pushed for red flag laws.
Let us put those policy positions together. Barnes is advocating for a federal government that tracks every single gun purchase, keeps a database of who owns what guns, and has the power to strip someone of their 2nd Amendment rights without due process if a government official thinks someone might be a threat someday. While violent crooks run free in Barnes’ America, law-abiding citizens might be stripped of their civil rights if they displease a government official.
When asked about President Biden’s unconstitutional effort to forgive student loans, Barnes said, “absolutely it’s fair.”
