Buckeye Breakthrough

Both state constitutional amendments on the ballot in Ohio last night passed overwhelmingly as voters in the Buckeye state approved the right to abortion, and legalized marijuana for recreational use.

Ohio voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to enshrine protections for reproductive health services, including abortion, in the state constitution — the latest in a post-Roe streak of ballot box wins for the abortion rights movement.

The Associated Press called the race less than two hours after polls closed, and early counts showed the abortion rights initiative leading by double digits.

The results follow a long, bitter and expensive campaign that shows the continuing resonance of the issue more than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned and the strength of ballot measures as a tool for advancing abortion rights in GOP-dominated states.

The resounding victory comes despite a myriad of advantages for the anti-abortion camp heading into Election Day.

Gov. Mike DeWine cut ads for the “No” campaign calling the ballot measure “extreme,” and suggested he would push the legislature to add rape and incest exemptions to the state’s six-week ban if the referendum were defeated.

The official website for the GOP-controlled state legislature published posts claiming the amendment would “legalize abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy” and allow for “the dismemberment of fully conscious children” — echoing the disputed talking points of the campaign against the amendment.

Secretary of State and Senate hopeful Frank LaRose also crafted a ballot summary that abortion rights supporters decried as biased and misleading — including changing the word “fetus” to “unborn child” and removing references to protections for non-abortion services like contraception and fertility treatments.

LaRose also spearheaded August’s failed special election that would have made it more difficult to amend the state constitution and his office purged tens of thousands of inactive voters from the rolls after early voting for the November election was already underway and the deadline to reregister had passed.

Anti-abortion groups campaigning against the amendment focused on many of the same arguments that failed in six other states’ abortion ballot fights last year — including claims, disputed by their opponents, that the measure’s passage would strip away parental consent laws and all limits on abortions later in pregnancy.

But Ohio conservatives also shaped their strategy in response to those 2022 losses. They invested, for example, in targeted outreach to Black voters, students, and people who identify as “pro-choice” and encouraged early and absentee voting.

They were outraised, however, by abortion rights groups, which raked in triple the donations and purchased significantly more TV time. Most of the money on both sides came from out of state, with a group affiliated with Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America providing more than half of the funding for the anti-abortion campaign and several national groups pouring millions into the abortion rights campaign’s coffers, including the ACLU, the Sixteen Thirty Fund and Open Society Policy Center.

Ahh, but with Republicans controlling all three branches of government in Ohio, the fight is far, far from over.  Expect massive amounts of hoops for women to jump though, if not the existing six week ban to be ruled constitutional somehow.

These are, after all, Ohio Republicans, the most crooked state party in America.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

It's Election Day, and here in Kentucky we're hoping to re-elect Democratic Gov. Andy Behear to a second term.

 

Republicans are hoping to sink Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's reelection bid on Tuesday by tying him to the widely unpopular President Joe Biden.

But in this ruby red state that Biden lost by more than 25 points three years ago, Beshear appears to be offering Democrats hope of local success amid party-wide handwringing: voters supporting both Beshear and his Republican challenger, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, told ABC News that the governor's brand was strong enough to blunt any ties to the White House.

"Andy Beshear is a more liberal Democrat than the average Kentucky Democrat. Kentucky Democrats are pretty conservative. Now, is he the clone of Joe Biden? No," said Steve Megerle, an attorney and lifelong Republican in Fort Thomas, who said he is debating between voting for Beshear and leaving the governor's line blank on Tuesday.

"I probably don't see Beshear as bad as Biden," Carol Taylor told ABC News at a Cameron campaign event in Richmond. "I don't think I can say anything good about [Biden]."

To be sure, Beshear's reelection is no sure thing. A former state attorney general and son of a former governor, he narrowly won his first term in 2019 against an unpopular incumbent Republican and, given how the state usually votes, he'll have to win over a large swath of conservatives to stay in office, with recent polling previewing a neck-and-neck race.

But interviews with more than 20 operatives and voters of both parties revealed a lack of the kind of vitriol about Beshear that is usually evident when a governor is about to be unseated.

The trend could prove notable for other down-ballot Democrats in 2024 as they try to persuade voters to view them separately from Biden while sharing a ticket with him.

The governor's race could also show some signs of how Democrats will fare next year both in House seats the party holds where Donald Trump also won and in Senate races in Montana, Ohio and West Virginia, which like Kentucky often vote for Republicans.

 

And speaking of Ohio, over the river voters will go to the polls there to decide on abortion rights and legalized marijuana. 

Columbus area residents Beth and Kyle Long held hands as they walked into the Franklin County early voting center to cast their ballots for Issue 1, a proposed constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion and other reproductive rights into the state's constitution.

Beth, now 18 weeks pregnant after in vitro fertilization, is at the same point in her pregnancy as she was in January when she got an abortion after learning the fetus she was carrying had a fatal condition.

"The doctors came back and told us, 'all of her organs, except her heart, are growing on the outside of her, enmeshed in the placenta," she told NPR. "'[They said] there is nothing we can do to go through and separate that. No fetus has ever survived this condition, and yours will not be the first.'"

The Longs were featured in an ad for Issue 1, one of many that have dominated the air waves in a contest that many view as a critical precursor to the 2024 elections.

"I think it's important for us to know that no one else here in Ohio has to go through what we went through," Kyle Long said before voting.

If voters approve the measure, which is similar to one passed in Michigan last year, Ohio would become the seventh state to pass abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

 

Ohio Republicans have done everything they can to confuse, befuddle, obfuscate and cheat on Issue 1. Vote Yes, Ohio!

GOP Goes Down Mexico Way

At this point multiple GOP candidates for President are promising to commit acts of outright war in Mexico in order to try to stop the flow of drugs and migrants into the US, and even if somehow Trump isn't the candidate by some miracle, the also-rans are more than willing to run on invading our southern neighbor.

Ron DeSantis wants suspected drug smugglers at the U.S.-Mexico border to be shot dead. Nikki Haley promises to send American special forces into Mexico. Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Mexico's leader of treating drug cartels as his "sugar daddy" and says that if he is elected president, "there will be a new daddy in town."

Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 nomination and long the person who has shaped his party's rhetoric on the border, has often blamed Mexico for problems in the United States and promises new uses of military force and covert action if he returns to the White House.

Many of the GOP presidential candidates say they would carry out potential acts of war against Mexico in response to the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. More than 75,000 people in the U.S. died last year from overdoses of synthetic opioids, an annual figure more than 20 times higher than a decade ago.

The candidates' antagonism toward Mexico is welcomed by some families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl and have argued that Washington has not done enough to address the worst drug crisis in U.S. history. However, analysts and nonpartisan experts warn that military force is not the answer and instead fuels the racism and xenophobia that undermine efforts to stop drug trafficking.

"You've got politicking on this side. And then on the Mexican side of the border, you've got a president who is turning a blind eye to what's going on in Mexico and who has completely gutted bilateral collaboration with the United States," said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the U.S. from 2007 to 2013. "That's a very combustible mixture."

Andrea Thomas' daughter died at age 32 after taking half of a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl that looked like her prescription pills for abdominal pain. Thomas started the foundation Voices for Awareness in Grand Junction, Colorado, to raise the alarm about fentanyl.

Thomas says people she knows are interested in what the candidates are proposing and feel that President Joe Biden's administration has not properly responded to the crisis. In a letter to the presidential candidates, Thomas and an assembly of other groups urge the politicians to do "all that can be done" to stop the manufacturing and smuggling of the drug.

"This drug is like no drug we have ever seen before," she said. "We need some strong measures. We have no more time to waste."

Democrats also face immense political pressure on border issues heading into next year's election. The White House has funded national programs to reduce fentanyl overdoses and sanctioned Chinese companies blamed for importing the chemicals used to make the drug.

Mexico has failed to address its problem with fentanyl production and trafficking. Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador repeatedly denies his country is producing the synthetic opioid despite enormous evidence to the contrary.

Border agents seized nearly 13 tons (12,000 kilograms) of fentanyl at the U.S.-Mexico border between September 2022 and August, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

At the second GOP primary debate late last month, candidates reiterated that they would use military forces to go after drug gangs in Mexico.

"As commander in chief, I'm going to use the U.S. military to go after the Mexican drug cartels," said DeSantis, the Florida governor. He has promised that people suspected of smuggling drugs across the southern border would end up "stone cold dead." That raises the prospect of border agents being authorized to shoot people on sight before any investigation into whether those people were carrying drugs.

Of course if DeSantis, Trump, Haley and the rest really want to stop drugs from Mexico, we need to go after Americans, not Mexicans...

U.S. government data undercuts the claim that people seeking asylum and other border crossers are responsible for drug trafficking. About 90% of fentanyl seizures were made at official land crossings, not between crossings where people entered illegally. At a hearing in July, James Mandryck, a CBP deputy assistant commissioner, said 73% of fentanyl seizures at the border since the previous October were smuggling attempts carried out by U.S. citizens, with the rest being done by Mexican citizens.

Something tells me that the next Republican administration really will shoot first and ignore questions, or at least ignore answers that questions might raise. 

Last Call For Border Line Insanity, Con't

This is, potentially, a real, actual Biden administration scandal involving the Mexico border as DHS has searched the office of the agency's top border intelligence official and carted them off for questioning.

 

THE DEPARTMENT OF Homeland Security intelligence official in charge of tracking cross-border threats was escorted from his office on Monday by federal police and security after an afternoon search that left his office sealed with crime tape, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the events.

The official in question is Brian Sulc, executive director of the Transnational Organized Crime Mission Center at DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis in Washington. Sulc has been placed on administrative leave. He is under investigation for an alleged security violation, bringing a personal electronic device inside the secure office, where phones and electronic devices are prohibited. He has not been arrested nor charged with a crime.

At about 4:15 p.m. on Monday, three squad cars from the Federal Protective Service — a DHS law-enforcement body tasked with protecting the department and federal buildings — drove into DHS’s northwest Washington complex with flashing lights. The FPS officers joined security on the third floor of the secure building to search Sulc’s office. While they were doing the search, Sulc was escorted out of the building flanked by security and FPS and taken to a different location on the DHS campus for questioning, two sources said.

The office has been sealed shut with crime tape, and evidence seals were placed around the door and across the keyhole so no one can enter.

Sulc is in charge of the office that produces intelligence assessments on border security, the opioid epidemic, and other high-stakes policy issues. Those assessments include intelligence on how fentanyl is crossing into the United States, as well as attempts to identify cartel members and human-trafficking operatives on both sides of the border. They’re used to inform policy decisions at the highest levels of DHS and elsewhere in the Biden administration.

“He is a big deal,” one source with direct knowledge of the search of Sulc’s office. “He does the border, all the big issues and crises. This is why this is all so shocking.”

Sulc is a career official who has held the post since March 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has worked for DHS since September 2008.

Sulc did not respond to emails, calls, texts, or voice messages left on his home and cellphone numbers. His work-cellphone voice mailbox was full, and he did not respond to a LinkedIn message.

Asked about Sulc, a DHS official tells Rolling Stone: “DHS is committed to ensuring all operational security protocols are followed and is conducting an inquiry into a reported security incident. DHS will not comment on ongoing internal investigations. DHS conducts its national security mission with adherence to the highest standards.”

 

This of course coming on the heels of San Jose's police union head being arrested on charges of trafficking fentanyl from Mexico's cartels last month.

 

The executive director for a Northern California police union who was charged with attempting to illegally import synthetic opioids from India and other countries has been fired from her job, officials said Friday.

Joanne Marian Segovia, who was the executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association, was arrested last week on charges she attempted to unlawfully import valeryl fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison.

Starting in 2015, Segovia had dozens of drug shipments mailed to her San Jose home from India, Hong Kong, Hungary and Singapore with manifests listing their contents as “wedding party favors,” “gift makeup,” “chocolate and sweets” and “food supplement,” according to a federal criminal complaint.

Segovia, 64, at times used her work computer to make the orders and at least once used the union’s UPS account to ship the drugs within the country, federal prosecutors said.

Her attorney, Will Edelman, did not immediately respond Friday to a voicemail seeking comment.

The police association fired her after completing an initial internal investigation, union officials said in a statement.

An outside investigator will be hired to conduct a comprehensive “no-holds-barred” probe of Segovia’s alleged crimes, determine to what extent she utilized union resources and whether that could have been prevented, they said.

“The abhorrent criminal conduct alleged against Ms. Segovia must be the impetus to ensuring our internal controls at the POA are strong and that we enact any changes that could have identified the alleged conduct sooner,” said Sean Pritchard, president of the union.

Federal officials began investigating Segovia last year after finding her name and home address on the cellphone of a suspected drug dealer who is part of a network that ships controlled substances made in India to the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the complaint. That drug trafficking network has distributed hundreds of thousands of pills in 48 states, federal prosecutors said. 

 

We're going to find that these two stories are almost certainly related, and not in a good way.

 

House Republicans could have a real field day with this if they weren't so completely incompetent themselves.

We'll see how big this gets, but the connecting factor here is the Mexican border and drug cartels, and this could be massive.

South Of The War, Durr!

Republicans, especially Donald Trump, are openly saying that the use of military force against Mexican drug cartels is 100% justified and are vowing to strike with air and ground forces if they get control of the country in 2024.

 

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants.

“We need to start thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia,” Waltz, a former Green Beret, said in a short interview.

Not all Republican leaders are behind this approach. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser who’s weighing his own presidential run, said unilateral military operations “are not going to solve the problem.” And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), for example, is “still evaluating” the AUMF proposal “but has concerns about the immigration implications and the bilateral relationship with Mexico,” per a Republican staff member on the panel.

But the eagerness of some Republicans to openly legislate or embrace the use of the military in Mexico suggests that the idea is taking firmer root inside the party. And it illustrates the ways in which frustration with immigration, drug overdose deaths and antipathy towards China are defining the GOP’s larger foreign policy.

Nearly 71,000 Americans died in 2021 from synthetic-opioid overdoses — namely fentanyl — far higher than the 58,220 U.S. military personnel killed during the Vietnam War. And the Drug Enforcement Agency assessed in December that “most” of the fentanyl distributed by two cartels “is being mass-produced at secret factories in Mexico with chemicals sourced largely from China.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are allergic to the Republican proposals. President Joe Biden doesn’t want to launch an invasion and has rejected the terrorist label for cartels. His team argues that two issued executive orders already expanded law-enforcement authorities to target transnational organizations.

“The administration is not considering military action in Mexico,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “Designating these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would not grant us any additional authorities that we don’t already have.” Instead, Watson said the administration hopes to work with Congress on modernizing the Customs and Border Protection’s technologies and making fentanyl a Schedule I drug, which would impose the strictest regulations on its production and distribution.

Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, told Defense One in an interview last month that invading Mexico was a bad idea. “I wouldn’t recommend anything be done without Mexico’s support,” he said, insisting that tackling the cartel-fueled drug trade is a law enforcement issue.

But should a Republican defeat Biden in 2024, those ideas could become policy, especially if Trump — the GOP frontrunner — reclaims the Oval Office.

 

Of course it's a stupid idea and Trump loves it, which means this will become the de facto position of the GOP by the end of spring. You'll have Republicans at the local and state level running on invading Mexico too. 

You'd better believe AMLO and all of Mexico is watching.

Mexico's popular president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rallied more than 100,000 supporters Saturday in Mexico City, attacking the country's right, its "oligarchs" and the United States, just over a year before elections to choose his successor.

The rally marked the 85th anniversary of the nationalization of the oil industry, a key event in Mexican history.

Denouncing US Republican lawmakers' push to send the US military to battle Mexican drug cartels, Lopez Obrador told the crowd: "Cooperation yes, submission, no!"

"Mexico is an independent and free country and not a colony or a protectorate of the United States," he told his supporters, who gathered in the city's famous Zocalo main square.

Mexico could easily cut off trade with the US. I have no idea why the GOP would actually think they could do this, especially with Latin American countries increasingly joining Brazil in the BRICS nation group. This is geopolitical suicide.

The answer, of course, is to not elect Republicans.

Welcome To Gunmerica, Two Gunmericas Edition

Remember that FOX News being the propaganda arm of the GOP is as much for Republican voters as it is everyone else.

 

So yeah, spend all day screaming about ILLEGALS BRINGING IN DRUGS and that's the main "threat".

Guns? Number one among Democrats, 4% among Republicans. More Republicans consider fat people a threat.

Gunmerica forever.

Weed, Feed, And Need

Turns out that even recreational marijuana is a secondary expense in states where weed is taxed, because unlike murderously addictive nicotine products, when inflation is high and people have to tighten their belts, getting baked takes a back seat to getting baked goods.

Marijuana tax collections dropped in several states this year as the cannabis industry struggles with low prices and a drop in demand.

California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington all collected less marijuana tax money in fiscal 2022 than the year before, according to a report from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a joint venture between two Washington, D.C. think tanks. Most states end their fiscal years on June 30.

That means those states had millions less this past fiscal year to pay for school buildings, drug treatment programs, law enforcement and other services partly funded by taxing pot sales.

Tax revenue may fall even further this fiscal year. Some analysts say the downturn is a reminder that cannabis is an agricultural crop, not a guaranteed moneymaker.

The potential tax revenue “was always oversold as sort of a panacea to state budgets,” said Adam Koh, editorial director of Cannabis Benchmarks, a company that tracks wholesale cannabis prices.

Colorado collected about $370 million in marijuana taxes in fiscal 2022, about 13% less than fiscal 2021.

“We’re anticipating another pretty sizable decline for [fiscal 2023] as well, close to 16%,” said Jeff Stupak, a senior economist with the Legislative Council Staff, a nonpartisan team that advises the Colorado legislature.

 

So like cigs, lotteries, and vaping, vice taxes only work when people have the money to pay for vices.  And when you tie education, library, and other public good funding to vices, well, they get underfunded when the appetite for it goes down.

It's a trap, but here we are.

The Dank Brandon Rises

President Biden will pardon all federal simple marijuana offenses and take a look at rescheduling or even removing weed from the Controlled Substances Act, something that will free thousands. It's a BFD.

 

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he is taking executive action to pardon Americans who've been convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law.

The action will benefit 6,500 people with prior federal convictions and thousands of others charged under the District of Columbia's criminal code, according to senior administration officials.

"No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana," Biden said in a statement outlining the administration's new actions. "Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit."

"Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities," Biden continued. "And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates."

Biden is also urging governors to do the same for individuals with state convictions and is requesting Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to expeditiously review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. 

 

Biden is finally fulfilling this promise, and you don't get much more serious on federal criminal justice reform than pardoning thousands for simple weed possession. 

And yes, states remain way out front on this ahead of Biden and the feds, but this is still massive. It means we're paving the way for decriminalization nationwide, where the vast majority of those arrested on pot charges are people of color.

This is the Joe Biden I voted for, and will vote for again.

Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

Donald Trump is telling us his exact authoritarian GOP plans that will destroy the country piece by piece, and he's outlined them publicly in his hate rallies across the country over the summer.

For the first time since leaving office, former president Donald Trump has started getting specific about what he would do if he wins a second term in the White House.

The pitches he’s made onstage over the past month in speeches from D.C. to Dallas to Las Vegas are a stark contrast from ordinary stump speeches. He promises a break from American history if elected, with a federal government stacked with loyalists and unleashed to harm his perceived enemies.

There has never been a potential candidate like Trump: a defeated former president whose followers attacked the Capitol, who still insists he never lost, and who openly pledges revenge on those he views as having wronged him.

As his 2016 campaign and administration showed time and again, from the border wall to the Muslim ban, he and his aides worked furiously to translate rally slogans into official policy — whether or not there were legal or political barriers to overcome. And if Trump does return to the White House in 2025, this time he will be surrounded by fewer advisers interested in moderating or restraining his impulses.

Instead, his administration would probably be staffed by dedicated loyalists, and would have the advantage of an emboldened conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He and his advisers would also have more experience in how to exert power inside the federal bureaucracy and exploit vulnerabilities in institutions and laws.

Trump has strongly hinted that he wants to run for president again and has been considering an early announcement ahead of the November midterms. Last week’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence and club added urgency for those of his advisers who favor an early launch, a person with direct knowledge told The Washington Post, but Trump hasn’t committed to a timeline.

 

What are his plans?

 

1. Federal death penalty for drug dealers.
2. Round up homeless into massive tent cities and leave them there.
3. Use the DC National Guard or even the US military against political protesters.
4. Fire tens of thousands of federal civil service workers.
5. Eliminate the Department of Education and run all schools from state and local school boards.
6. Eliminate early, mail, and absentee voting.
   

It's nuts across the board, and very, very fascist.

And pay attention, because whoever wins the 2024 GOP nomination will be pushing on all of these plans and more.

Sunday Long Read: The Man Next Door

Another solid true crime story this week from The Atavist, as Greg Donahue takes us through the story of Tim Brown, just another non-descript pilot enthusiast in the plane-crazy town of Love's Landing, Florida in late 2020 whose dark secret was about to come to light.

On the morning of December 2, 2020, Tim Brown got up early to start a fire. The night before, an unseasonable cold front had descended on Love’s Landing, Florida, where Brown lived with his wife, Duc Hanh Thi Vu. By 8 a.m., the mercury in the thermometer had yet to reach 40 degrees. At the bottom of the cul-de-sac where the couple lived, a thin layer of frost glistened on the long grass runways that extended through the quiet neighborhood: Love’s Landing is a private aviation community, home to pilots, plane engineers, and flying enthusiasts.

As heat from the fireplace warmed the house, Brown headed to the small hangar he’d built right outside. Nearly everyone in Love’s Landing owned a plane, and Brown was no exception. He’d just had the engine of his gleaming Tecnam P2008 replaced, and despite the chill in the air, the morning was shaping up to be calm and clear. Perfect weather to take the plane up.

A carpenter by trade, Brown had spent much of his life enjoying the outdoors. In his younger days, he was an expert scuba diver and deep-sea fisherman. But now, at 66, his age had finally caught up with him. His close-cropped hair had gone gray, and health issues had him in and out of the hospital. During the past year alone, he’d suffered two heart attacks. Flying offered the chance, as Brown put it, “to continue the fun.” He’d fallen in love with aviation years earlier, after taking a charter trip with friends in Alaska. Flying sure beat staring at the trees on either side of the road, he said. This was the kind of enthusiastic attitude that made Brown popular in Love’s Landing. Soon after moving there in 2017, he and Vu became, as a neighbor put it, “one of the best-liked couples in the airpark.”

Brown had just raised the hangar door when an unmarked Dodge Durango roared into the driveway, along with a Marion County police cruiser. As Brown turned toward the commotion, a law enforcement agent in a tactical vest leapt out of the SUV. He was pointing an MK18 short-barreled automatic rifle at Brown’s face. “Step back! Raise your hands!” the agent shouted.

Brown did as he was told. Officers from a half-dozen federal agencies were fanning out across the property. “Are you Tim Brown?” the lead officer demanded as he approached the hangar. Brown nodded. “I’ve got a warrant for your arrest,” the officer said. Agents moved in formation to clear the hangar and headed toward the main house to execute a search warrant.

Brown’s neighbors would later recount their confusion at the fleet of official vehicles facing every which way in the street. No one knew what Brown had done. But whatever they imagined, the truth was almost certainly stranger.

For the previous 35 years, Tim Brown had been living a carefully constructed lie. He wasn’t just an aging retiree with a passion for aviation. In fact, he wasn’t Tim Brown at all. His real name was Howard Farley Jr., and law enforcement alleged that he’d been the leader of one of the largest drug-trafficking rings in Nebraska history.

As he was placed under arrest, a wry grin spread across his face. “I had mentally prepared myself for being caught,” he would later say. “When it happened, with men pointing guns at me, the only thing to do was smile.”

 

The note here is that I spent summers with my brother and cousin in Lincoln, Nebraska with my grandparents about the same time Tim Brown, who was actually Robert Farley, was becoming one of the top coke dealers in Lincoln in the 80's, and just the concept of "Lincoln's top coke dealer in the 80's" is wild if you've ever been to Lincoln.

Of course we had no idea what was going on. Lincoln was flat, boring, had a couple of good mini-golf places and Gramps worked in an office building downtown. It's still a hell of a tale.

Sunday Long Read: A Large Problem In Medicine

Here's a simple truth about getting a diagnosis from a doctor if you're overweight like me: the diagnosis is whatever the problem is, it's because you're fat. Our Sunday Long Read comes from Marquisele Mercedes in Pipe Wrench with her own lifetime of dealing with this, and if you're Black like us, that diagnosis of "Lose weight or die" has been beaten into us by docs every visit.

The first time I was penetrated I was thirteen, almost fourteen. The lights were on and bright. My gray sweatpants sat discarded on a chair with my stretched-out underwear. My mom was a few feet away, on the other side of a locked door.

Moments before it happened, I was asked in a few coded but unsubtle ways if I had ever had sex. I said no. I was reminded, in case I’d forgotten, that I was a “developed girl” and “developed girls” often got “certain kinds” of attention that encouraged them to do “certain things.” But I had not forgotten; it is impossible to be a young fat Black girl and forget.

I had come to the Pediatric Emergency Department at Montefiore’s Children’s Hospital with intense cramps. I’d been sitting with my mom in a tiny room for nine hours before I was wheeled away to see a doctor. A nurse told her to stand outside and instructed me to undress from the waist down and wait. When my doctor—a thin blonde woman—entered the room, she said hello with a big smile but didn’t tell me her name. She asked whether I was sexually active but didn’t seem satisfied with my answers. Then she told me to lay back, scoot my bottom toward the end of the table, and spread my legs so she could “take a look.” She didn’t explain what that meant or what she was doing or what she had done after it was over. I screamed for her to stop, shouted “No!” over and over. The speculum had painfully snapped inside of me a second time when she said “Wow, you really weren’t lying!” I could only sob with so much helplessness it made my throat rattle. When she finished, she said she would come back to discuss things with me, but she didn’t. I was sent home with instructions to take Motrin and “stay out of trouble.” The STI tests all came back negative.

A pediatric emergency physician looked at me, a thirteen-year-old fat Black girl, and was so certain I was sexually active that she performed a pelvic exam while I screamed and cried and repeatedly revoked consent—if you can claim I ever gave it in the first place. An adult looked at a child and saw a corrupted vessel, a body as full of overindulgence and promiscuity and unrighteousness as it was “obese.”

Does this seem like an unfortunate aberration? Maybe a doctor who’d had a long night in the ER? A bad apple? You are not the first to cling to the comfort of denial.

This is medical fatphobia.

Medical fatphobia refers to the specific ways that hatred and denigration of fatness manifest within medicine and the fields that medicine influences, like public health. It is the reason many fat people likely didn’t get or know to ask to have their COVID-19 vaccine administered with an appropriate-length needle, and why the American Academy of Pediatrics supports bariatric surgery for fat kids despite the incredible risks.

Mainstream writing on fatphobia usually gives in to the myth that there is something exceptional about fatphobic violence in healthcare. That fat people, in all our corpulent clumsiness, are just more likely to stumble across the assholes.

This is not true. It is a lie that has been actively propagated with the assistance of the many not-fat people who have shaped our collective understanding of how fatphobia operates. The truth is that fatphobia is a scientific invention. Fatphobia did not penetrate science; it is derived from science. Everything you know about “obesity,” about fatness, about fatphobia, about fat people has been — and is still — wrong.

 

I don't go to medical appointments as a rule because I already know what the diagnosis is: lose weight or die. My COVID vaccinations were the only time I've been to a medical facility in years. I know I'm in bad shape, but any doc is going to tell me "If you don't lose X pounds in the next year, you won't make it to the next one."

This article goes over every reason why.

Sunday Long Read: Going Off The Sauce

Author Danielle Tcholakian sobered up in 2021, facing the pandemic and her own mortality, and the choice to seek help and stop drinking saved her life as she recounts in this weeks Sunday Long Read.

2021 was, objectively, not a great year for most people living on this planet. It also happened to be the first full calendar year of my life that I spent sober, having realized in 2020 that I had a problem. It was not a year I would’ve expected to get through rawdogging reality, as it were, or even really to get through at all.

The truth is that most of my drinking and using had one primary purpose: to allow me to feel less. To be less aware. To not have to live in my own brain or settle for the reality of living in the world as myself. To hide from how overwhelmed I was by seemingly everything.

So it’s a little unbelievable that a year in which I was forced to feel things all the time, to be aware of all of it, and to, the whole time, be stuck being me—what seemed like a truly disgusting option—was, in the rearview, better than any of the years in which I’d been able to hide.

It pains me even to write or talk like this now, and that’s a huge part of it. I hated myself—really despised this bitch—for so much of my life, and I don’t anymore. This isn’t a bad brain! It’s a goofy, loving, often uncooperative, mess of a brain in a goofy, loving, messy, still-figuring-a-lot-of-really-elementary-stuff-out person that I mostly don’t mind being anymore. That I often actually enjoy being.

My life before sobriety wasn’t all bad. But most days, for at least five years, I fought with a panicked, angry voice in my head that said I needed to die. The end of 2019 saw me in a Medicaid clinic with a medical resident younger than me patiently going over a list of questions he was required to ask of depressed patients. I explained that yes, I wanted to kill myself, but it was just logical. I was a burden—on people, on systems. I had drained my own resources attempting to resolve a depression that had ultimately been deemed “treatment resistant,” and now here I was, on Medicaid and unable to work. I can’t work so I should die was a deeply American logic I had internalized, and in my frustration at his obtuse refusal to agree that I was simply being practical, I began to cry.

At first, the resident said, “But you know that’s just your depression, right? That’s the only reason you think that.” And I snapped, no—the depression was the physical heaviness, the brain fog, the constant hunger for sleep, the excruciating fucking unending psychological pain. I believed the knowledge that I was better off dead was just that: knowledge; reason.

He looked at me differently, then paused and said something like, “I’m sorry you’re feeling that. I hope you can believe me when I say that it isn’t true. And you shouldn’t feel this way. We will find you resources.” I sobbed then, cracked open by the discovery that the only thing that hurt worse than the pain I’d been in was getting precisely what I didn’t realize I’d been craving: human kindness, and hope. I stopped drinking and using soon after.

 

The times I've been this low, I was lucky and got help that to this day I still don't think I was worthy of, but it saved me nonetheless. I can relate to feeling like a burden and black hole to toss resources down with no hope of escape or redemption.

 

Luckily I know what that voice sounds like now, and not to listen to it.

Clarence And Mary Jane

When even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is admitting that federal criminalization of marijuana no longer makes sense anymore, the time to decriminalize, expunge criminal records for use and sale, and building a fair regulatory field for taxation of marijuana is here.

Clarence Thomas, one of the Supreme Court's most conservative justices, said Monday that because of the hodgepodge of federal policies on marijuana, federal laws against its use or cultivation may no longer make sense.

"A prohibition on interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or proper to support the federal government's piecemeal approach," he wrote.

His views came as the court declined to hear the appeal of a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary that was denied federal tax breaks that other businesses are allowed.

Thomas said the Supreme Court's ruling in 2005 upholding federal laws making marijuana possession illegal may now be out of date.

"Federal policies of the past 16 years have greatly undermined its reasoning," he said. "The federal government's current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”

Thirty-six states now allow medical marijuana, and 18 also allow recreational use. But federal tax law does not allow marijuana businesses to deduct their business expenses.

"Under this rule, a business that is still in the red after it pays its workers and keeps the lights on might nonetheless owe substantial federal income tax," Thomas said.

 

Now, I'm not completely naive here, I know Thomas wants a federal regulatory framework so we can corporatize growing and turn Big Weed into the next Big Tobacco. It'll be worth hundreds of billions a year and will be yet another industry where massive agriculture interests wipe out small farmers and growers.

At the same time, freeing the thousands in jails and prisons for low-level marijuana possession offenses needs to happen at the local, state, and federal level across the board. What Thomas is saying is that creating the corporate weed industry is the price for clearing prisons.

We always knew that was the case, but if even Thomas is saying this, then it's going to happen sooner rather than later.

 

Last Call For Cuomo's Mary Jane Moment, Con't

Regardless of whether you believe Andrew Cuomo cut the most progressive marijuana legalization deal with NY Dems in order to stave off repercussions of his twin massive sexual harassment and COVID-19 nursing home scandals (and I absolutely do believe that), it is a major victory for criminal justice in the state, and the NYPD is already howling, promising that they maybe just won't stop any other "crimes" either in order to own the libs or something.

New York’s move to legalize marijuana will create a “significant shift” in policing and everyday quality of life, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said Wednesday as he voiced concerns over people being allowed to smoke marijuana in public.

“I hope I’m missing something but it appears (the bill) is legalizing the smoking of marijuana outside,” Shea said on PIX11. “That’s not something that most other states did. They legalized marijuana but it was still illegal to smoke outside and in public.”

On Wednesday, Gov. Cuomo signed the legislation legalizing adult use of marijuana.

The bill, passed by both the Democratic-led Senate and Assembly on Tuesday, removes cannabis from the list of controlled substances and will eventually legalize, tax and regulate recreational pot for adults over 21. It also expunges past pot convictions.

A large percentage of tax revenue will be set aside for community reinvestment grants and social equity for minorities who have faced harsh penalties for marijuana possession.

The NYPD fields “10s of 10s of 10s of thousands” of complaints from the public about people smoking marijuana in public, Shea said.

Now it’s not going to be a police matter and that’s troubling,” Shea said. “I don’t know what we’re going to be telling New Yorkers when they call up and say there’s people smoking in front of my house or apartment building or I take my kids to a parade, whether its on Eastern Parkway or on Fifth Ave., and there are people smoking marijuana next to me as I try to enjoy the parade.”

“It’s a significant shift,” Shea added. “You pass new laws and you always worry about what the unintended consequences are. I have no doubt that they think they are doing the right thing but these are some of the things I worry about and New Yorkers are worried about.”

This is prety much "Would sure be a shame if anything happened to your nice city" territory, and Cumo and Mayor Bill de Blasio should tell Commissioner Shea that if he can't get his cops to do the job, he'll be replaced by somebody who goddamn well can. 

And guess what? their job is not to harass weed smokers anymore.

Last Call For Cuomo's Mary Jane Moment

Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard, but it seems to me that embattled NY Dem Go.v Andrew Cuomo, now facing more than a half-dozen sexual assault allegations from current and former staffers, is trying to buy his way out of impeachment through a major new marijuana legalization deal, something he's resisted for years now.

Governor Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers formally announced a final deal on legislation to legalize marijuana in New York State late Saturday night.

The bill—called the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act—would permit adults 21 and over to purchase marijuana, grow the plant in their home, and divert funds to education and drug treatment.

It would also create a cannabis management office and a regulatory framework that would cover adult-use, medical marijuana, and cannabinoid hemp, the latter which includes CBD products. (Existing medical and cannabinoid hemp products programs would be expanded under the legislation.) A social and economic equity aspect of the bill aims to help people harmed by marijuana prohibition enforcement get into the upcoming business.

"For generations, too many New Yorkers have been unfairly penalized for the use and sale of adult-use cannabis, arbitrarily arrested and jailed with harsh mandatory minimum sentences," Cuomo said in a statement. "After years of tireless advocacy and extraordinarily hard work, that time is coming to an end in New York State."

The governor's office says the adult-use program is expected to bring in $350 million in taxes each year as well as create 30,000 to 60,000 jobs statewide. Retail sales of marijuana would include a state sales tax of 9%. Localities' sales tax would be 4%, with counties getting one-quarter of tax revenue and three-quarters would go to the municipality.

Under the bill, 40% of the revenues would go towards education, 40% to community reinvestment grants to communities harmed by criminalization of drugs, and 20% to drug treatment and public education programs.

Lawmakers are expected to pass the bill this coming week, after hammering out an agreement with Cuomo late last week.

One of the legislation's sponsors, Manhattan State Senator Liz Krueger, said in a statement, "My goal in carrying this legislation has always been to end the racially disparate enforcement of marijuana prohibition that has taken such a toll on communities of color across our state, and to use the economic windfall of legalization to help heal and repair those same communities."

She added, "I believe we have achieved that in this bill, as well as addressing the concerns and input of stakeholders across the board. When this bill becomes law, New York will be poised to implement a nation-leading model for what marijuana legalization can look like."

 

I'm not questioning the legislation, in too many states with marijuana legislation, it continues to punish Black and brown folk and freezes them out of yet another business opportunity in favor of white-owned business investors who only see dollar signs. The criminal justice reform elements are definitely here in New York's proposed legislation. Colorado, Ohio, and even California need to take notice.

What I'm questioning is the timing.

If this is part of an unspoken deal to look the other way on the voluminous allegations against Cuomo, it's eventually going to come to light, and it's going to be the end of Democrats in New York. If Republicans in the state were even remotely sentient, they'd make that accusation straight away.

That needs to be investigated by Tish James in the AG's office. This is some dank weed, indeed.

An End-Of-Year Pot Shot From House Dems

House Democrats (and more than a few Republicans) have signed on to a 228-164 lame duck bill that decriminalized marijuana at the federal level, and while the legislation will never get a Senate vote, it does mean that Democrats can go to President-elect Joe Biden's position on recreational pot and tell him that can "evolve", Obama-style.

The Democratic-controlled House on Friday approved a bill to decriminalize and tax marijuana at the federal level. The bill would reverse what supporters called a failed policy of criminalization of pot use and take steps to address racial disparities in enforcement of federal drug laws.

Opponents, mostly Republicans, called the bill a hollow political gesture and mocked Democrats for bringing it up at a time when thousands of Americans are dying from the coronavirus pandemic.

Supporters say it would help reverse adverse effects of the decades-long “war on drugs” by removing marijuana, or cannabis, from the list of federally controlled substances while allowing states to set their own rules on pot. The bill also would use money from an excise tax on marijuana to address the needs of groups and communities harmed by the drug war and provide for the expungement of federal marijuana convictions and arrests.

“For far too long, we have treated marijuana as a criminal justice problem instead of as a matter of personal choice and public health,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a key sponsor of the bill. “Whatever one’s views are on the use of marijuana for recreational or medicinal use, the policy of arrests, prosecution and incarceration at the federal level has proven unwise and unjust.”

The vote comes at a time when most Americans live in states where marijuana is legal in some form, and lawmakers from both parties agreed that national cannabis policy has lagged woefully behind changes at the state level. That divide has created a host of problems — loans and other banking services, for example, are hard to get for many marijuana companies because pot remains illegal at the federal level.

The bill also would open up more opportunities for marijuana businesses, including access to Small Business Administration loans to help ensure that minorities can take part in an industry dominated by white farmers and growers.

 

Now the bill would never pass a Senate GOP filibuster, let alone get a vote in the Senate at all, because McConnell knows there's probably 53-55 votes for it. States keep legalizing recreational pot left, right, and center.  

 

Republicans will never allow a bill like this to pass until they start losing Senate seats over it. They definitely won't allow it to pass unless they can eliminate Black and brown people from being able to legally make money selling pot entirely and turn it into a multi billion dollar legalized drug cartel operation the way pharmaceutical companies, breweries, wineries, and distilleries operate today.

 

This could help in Georgia though if Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are willing to sign off on this, but the state has largely resisted decriminalization efforts, and it could backfire.

The one person that this will put pressure on is Joe Biden, and he's going to get a lot of blowback on this if he does change things at the federal level.

And all these Republicans will suddenly decide that the bill gives the government too much regulatory and taxation power should it come up again next year, which I believe it won't.

Maybe for next Christmas.

The War On Drugs "Captures" A Coporate General

The Justice Department has collared OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma with a plea deal that will pay the government $225 million and put the company through bankruptcy.

 

Purdue Pharma LP has reached an agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges over handling of its addictive prescription opioid OxyContin, in a deal with U.S. prosecutors that effectively sidesteps paying billions of dollars in penalties and stops short of criminally charging its executives or wealthy Sackler family owners, people familiar with the matter said.

In a far-reaching agreement set to be unveiled on Wednesday, Purdue has formally admitted to criminal conduct related to distribution of its painkillers and agreed to pay $225 million to resolve U.S. Justice Department investigations.

Prosecutors are preparing to impose significant penalties exceeding $8 billion against Purdue, though the lion’s share will go largely unpaid, the people said.

Purdue has agreed to pay $225 million toward a $2 billion criminal forfeiture, with the Justice Department foregoing the rest so long as the company completes a bankruptcy reorganization transforming itself into a “public benefit company” or similar entity that steers the unpaid portion to thousands of U.S. communities suing it over the opioid crisis.

A $3.54 billion criminal fine and $2.8 billion civil penalty are likely to receive cents on the dollar as they compete with trillions of dollars of other claims from those communities and other creditors in Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings, the people said.

Members of the billionaire Sackler family who own Purdue have agreed to pay a separate $225 million civil penalty for allegedly causing false claims related to the company’s opioids to be made to government healthcare programs such as Medicare, the people said.

Neither the Sacklers nor any Purdue executives are expected to be criminally charged. The agreement does not release any individuals associated with Purdue from potential criminal liability. A separate Justice Department criminal investigation scrutinizing individuals remains ongoing, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Purdue conspired to engage in criminal conduct over the years that kept medically questionable prescriptions of its opioids flowing, prosecutors are expected to allege. The Stamford, Connecticut-based company has agreed to plead guilty to three felonies, two of them violations of a federal anti-kickback law and another charge under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the people said.

 

At the press conference yesterday we got more details, including, what do you know, federal criminal charges!

Drugmaker Purdue Pharma, the company behind the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin that experts say helped touch off an opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

The deal does not release any of the company’s executives or owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — from criminal liability, and a criminal investigation is ongoing. Family members said they acted “ethically and lawfully,” but some state attorneys general said the agreement fails to hold the Sacklers accountable.

The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws, the officials said, and the agreement will be detailed in a bankruptcy court filing in federal court.

We'll see what happens, but this isn't even close to justice.

Remember that when Trump crows about how he "fixed" the opioid crisis.

The Great Escape (Clause)

A minimum-security prisoner in North Carolina named Richard Cephas escaped from the federal prison camp in Butner, and contacted Raleigh News and Observer reporter Dan Kane to make arrangements to turn himself in if he can serve out his sentence in home confinement, as the Butner prison camp is overrun with COVID-19.

An inmate who fled a federal prison camp in Butner and remains on the loose told The News & Observer on Thursday that he escaped because he feared death from coronavirus. 

“I take ownership of having to serve my time,” said Richard R. Cephas, 54, who had been at the Federal Correctional Complex serving time on a drug conviction. “I signed up for a jail sentence, not a death sentence.” 

Cephas contacted the N&O on Thursday morning, leading to interviews by phone and FaceTime. He didn’t reveal where he was — but he said he wants to turn himself in. He contacted the N&O, he said, to tell the public about the issues he saw at Butner and why he needed to flee. 

Cephas fled Butner two weeks ago after the prison complex reported nine inmates and one employee had tested positive for the virus. Since then, those numbers have surged dramatically. The Federal Bureau of Prisons on Thursday reported 66 inmates and 25 staff had tested positive at Butner, one of the worst outbreaks in the federal system. 

The bureau reported Butner’s first inmate death tied to the virus on Sunday, and has announced three other deaths since then. All had other health issues contributing to their deaths.

Cephas said he has neutropenia, a medical condition that makes him high risk for contracting the virus because his body struggles to make enough white blood cells that combat infections. His attorney, Bill Rhodunda of Wilmington, Del., confirmed in a phone interview that Cephas has the condition. 

Prison officials first reported a positive test at Butner on March 26. Since then, as the numbers grew, Cephas said he grew more fearful for his life. He said he sought early release but said the staff at Butner had not responded to his requests. 

Making matters worse, he said, was the way the prison handled the outbreak. He said he works as an orderly at the prison camp, so he was acutely aware of a lack of soap. A staffer told him there wasn’t enough to go around, he said, and inmates were urged to use soap they had purchased. 

Masks and gloves also hadn’t been issued, he said, and inmates couldn’t socially distance themselves in the confined space. A directive issuing masks for inmates and requiring staff to wear masks didn’t come until five days after he fled the prison, according to an email sent by the facility’s warden and provided to the N&O by an employee. The employee asked not to be identified for fear it could affect their employment.

Families of other inmates have also contacted the N&O in recent days to complain about a lack of soap and other unsanitary conditions. 

Bureau of Prisons officials could not be reached after four phone calls by The N&O on Thursday afternoon. 

Cephas was one of nine people from Delaware arrested as part of an investigation prosecutors called “Operation Bear Trap.” Prosecutors said in a news release at the time that it involved two different drug conspiracies with overlapping participants, one to sell methamphetamine brought in from Mexico and one to traffic cocaine.

This is a man willing to trade additional time as a federal prisoner in order to save his life.  I don't see how prosecutors don't tack on years for the escape, but if he's willing to turn himself in safely and serve home confinement, I think as a federal prosecutor I'd be willing to take the deal.

Of course, this is the Barr "Justice" Department, which means they'll probably pick up the reporter and stick him in a room for a day or two in order to get him to talk, pushing charges of aiding and abetting an escaped federal inmate.

Oh, and I'm sure the cops will kill Cephas on sight, that goes without saying, as he's black and an escaped inmate.

I hope that Cephas's escape will bring attention and help to the inmates still in Butner.  Sadly, with this administration, I don't think anything will change, and a whole lot of people are going to die as a result.

Sunday Long Read: Class Of 2000

The 2000 class of Minford High School in Minford, Ohio was the beginning of the opioid crisis in Ohio's most drug-ridden county, Scioto.  OxyContin had just arrived in town and these folks and many Millennials like them, it was the beginning of the end.

The Minford High School Class of 2000, in rural Minford, Ohio, began its freshman year as a typical class. It had its jocks and its cheerleaders, its slackers and its overachievers. 

But by the time the group entered its final year, its members said, painkillers were nearly ubiquitous, found in classrooms, school bathrooms and at weekend parties. 

Over the next decade, Scioto County, which includes Minford, would become ground zero in the state’s fight against opioids. It would lead Ohio with its rates of fatal drug overdoses, drug-related incarcerations and babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. 

To understand both the scope and the devastating consequences of what is now a public health crisis, we talked to dozens of members of the Class of 2000. Many opened up to us about struggles with addiction, whether their own or their relatives’. They told us about the years lost to getting high and in cycling in and out of jail, prison and rehab. They mourned the three classmates whose addictions killed them. 

In all of the interviews, one thing was clear: Opioids have spared relatively no one in Scioto County; everyone appears to know someone whose life has been affected by addiction.

Purdue Pharma introduced its opioid painkiller, OxyContin, in 1996, when the Class of 2000 entered high school. Some students began experimenting, often combining prescription opiates with alcohol at parties. 

For many, what started as a weekend dalliance morphed swiftly into an all-consuming dependence. They swallowed opiates before school, snorted painkillers in the bathrooms and crushed up pills with a baseball on desks at the back of classrooms.

Ohio was Ground Zero for the opioid crisis, and Minford and Scioto County was the epicenter.  For decades now the area has been fighting addiction and the horrors it caused.

And it wasn't the cities, it wasn't the gangs, it was the pharmaceutical companies.

Corporate America destroyed a generation with painkillers and appetite pills.

Never forget that.

Turkey Week: Section 412

The Trump regime is the first to invoke Section 412 of the PATRIOT Act in order to detain a non-US citizen indefinitely, without charges.

Adham Amin Hassoun, now in his late 50s, has spent nearly the entire war on terrorism in cages. First picked up on an immigration violation in June 2002, he ended up standing trial alongside once-suspected “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla. But Hassoun was never accused of any act or plot of violence. His crime was cutting checks to extremist-tied Muslim charities operating in places like Kosovo and Chechnya that Congress outlawed after the 9/11 attacks. Hassoun wrote all but one of those checks before 9/11.

Sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, Hassoun should have been a free man in 2017. Instead, he found himself in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which locked him up in western New York. It was there that Hassoun’s case turned extraordinary.

ICE wanted to deport Hassoun, but his statelessness as a Palestinian got in the way. No country—not the Lebanon of his birth, not the Israel that occupies the West Bank and Gaza—was willing to take him. Aided by attorneys at the University of Buffalo Law School, Hassoun in January won what should have been his freedom, on the grounds that his deportation was unlikely.

The Trump administration instead declared him a threat to national security. It did so at first using an also-obscure immigration regulation designed to sidestep a 2001 Supreme Court ruling imposing a six-month detention limit. And it was aided by a testimonial, under seal, of Hassoun’s alleged misdeeds behind bars as related by what his attorneys describe as jailhouse snitches who provided second- or third-hand accounts. But as the government fought what had become a habeas corpus case for Hassoun’s release, the Department of Homeland Security invoked, for the first time in U.S. government history, section 412 of the PATRIOT Act.

Section 412 gives the government broad powers to detain non-citizens on American soil whom it can’t deport but deems, on “reasonable grounds,” to be engaged in “activity that endangers the national security of the United States.” It makes that determination for a six-month period that it can renew without limit. To little fanfare, the former acting secretary of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, informed Hassoun on Aug. 9 that “you will therefore remain in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pending your removal from the United States or reconsideration of this decision.”

Attorneys for Hassoun, who were in federal court on Friday to argue for his freedom, are stunned at the invocation of Section 412. They noted that the PATRIOT Act provision is written to “take [a non-citizen] into custody,” not to retroactively designate someone already in detention as a threat.

“If the government were to prevail in its claim of extraordinary and unprecedented executive power, the government would be free to lock up non-citizens indefinitely based solely on executive say-so, even after they completed serving their sentences,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

ICE, citing the ongoing litigation, declined comment. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

McAleen claimed in his August invocation of the PATRIOT Act that he did so because Hassoun “assumed a leadership role in a criminal conspiracy to recruit fighters and provide material support to terrorist groups, and because you pose a continuing threat to recruit, plan, participate in, and provide material support for terrorist activity.”

Yet the federal judge in his criminal case, Marcia G. Cooke, painted a far different picture of Hassoun during his 2008 sentencing. There was “no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, killed or kidnapped anyone in the United States or elsewhere,” and the government could find “no identifiable victims” as the result of their actions, she said.

Cooke, a George W. Bush appointee, specifically rejected the life sentence the Justice Department sought for Hassoun, noting that years of government surveillance on him never resulted in his criminal arrest. “This fact does not support the government’s argument that Mr. Hassoun poses such a danger to the community that he needs to be imprisoned for the rest of his life,” Cooke ruled.

This will not be the last time this happens, either.

The reason why Section 412 was never utilized until now was because of the obvious unconstitutionality of it.  But that was before the Roberts Court with two Trump appointees.  The Trump regime is betting it will pass muster now.

And it will be used again, especially if Trump goes through with his threat to designation multiple Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.

We'll have the Warren Terror on our southern border.

That's the point.