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California law would create arbitrary and questionable bans for cannabis product labels

In Politics by Michael Rae

California lawmakers have proposed a number of legal changes for the state’s cannabis market this year. Among them is a proposal to ban a wide array of images and terms from product labels. The proposal, Assembly Bill 1207, was passed by both the California Assembly and California State Senate on Sept. 14 and is headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature.

Assembly Bill 1207 would add new definitions to the phrase “attractive to children,” as used in the state’s commercial cannabis laws. The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), passed in 2017 to implement the state’s adult-use

Read more at Reason.org

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Connecticut’s efforts to reform public pensions may add long-term costs for taxpayers

In Politics by Michael Rae

Connecticut House Bill 6930, recently signed by Gov. Ned Lamont as Public Act 23-182, makes numerous changes to the state’s municipal employees’ pension system. While the bill aims to address immediate financial concerns the state and local governments are facing related to the growth in required payments to the Connecticut Municipal Employees Retirement System, (CMERS), the law also carries long-term financial consequences that should be considered. 

One of the most significant aspects of this bill is the extension of the plan’s debt amortization schedule from 17 years to 25 years. While this change may provide short-term cost relief by reducing immediate

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CCLA’s Submission on Bill C-26 Regarding Privacy Concerns in Federal Cybersecurity Legislation

In Rights by poladmin

Daniel Konikoff (Interim Director of the Privacy, Technology & Surveillance program) and Tashi Alford-Duguid (Staff Lawyer) made a written submission to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU) regarding Bill C-26, An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts.  
In this submission, CCLA addresses the concerns Bill C-26 raises for human rights and civil liberties with a particular focus on privacy. Cybersecurity is an essential part of national security, and the digital ecosystem in which we increasingly live our lives needs to be safe, reliable, and

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Biden’s Oil Madness

In Analysis by Michael Rae

The U.S. strategic petroleum reserve is down to forty-six days of consumption, a forty-year low. This is not surprising, given that the Biden administration has used some three hundred million barrels from the reserve to flood the market to keep crude oil prices low, a political imperative with his re-election in sight.
The obsessive pursuit of “energy independence” by U.S. policymakers has gone down the drain, in what seems a total contradiction with the aim of not having to rely—in normal times but, more importantly, in times of strategic peril—on foreign oil usually produced by ugly regimes with which Washington is at odds.

Read more at The Independent Institute

The Canada Revenue Agency reaches a tentative agreement with the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada for the Audit, Financial and Scientific Group

In Finance by poladmin

On September 16, 2023, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada for the Audit, Financial and Scientific Group (PIPSC-AFS Group) reached a tentative agreement for approximately 16,000 CRA employees.

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Pushing Back Against the New Deal in Real Time

In Opinion by Michael Rae

The American Institute of Economic Research has published an anthology of critics of the New Deal, New Deal Rebels,complete with more than 50 brief commentaries and excerpts. The book is edited by contemporary economic historian Amity Shlaes, herself a prominent New Deal critic, whose The Forgotten Man is perhaps the most comprehensive work memorializing the mistakes of that era. Continue Reading…

Read more at The Acton Institute

CCLA’s Submission on Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act

In Rights by poladmin

Daniel Konikoff (Interim Director of the Privacy, Technology & Surveillance program) and Tashi Alford-Duguid (Staff Lawyer) made a written submission to the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology regarding Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act. In this submission, CCLA speaks to the Bill’s three parts: the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), an update to federal privacy legislation; the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPTA), which would create a new tribunal for imposing penalties on organizations who violate key provisions of the CPPA; and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), Canada’s first private

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Legislature Ramps Up Newsom’s Gun Gambit

In Analysis by Michael Rae

Governor Gavin Newsom wants to add a 28th Constitutional Amendment loaded with gun restrictions. The state legislature has the governor’s back. SJR-7 would “call a constitutional convention under Article V of the Constitution of the United States for the purpose of proposing a constitutional amendment relating to firearms,” but there’s more in the pipeline. 
 AB-28 would “impose an excise tax in the amount of 11 percent of the gross receipts from the retail sale in this state of a firearm, firearm precursor part, and ammunition.” AB-92 “would make it a misdemeanor for a person who is prohibited from possessing a firearm under the laws of this state

Read more at The Independent Institute

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Joe Biden’s Email Alias Escorted Phone Numbers of Top U.S. Officials to Hunter

In Research by Michael Rae

By James D. Agresti
September 18, 2023

Credit: Mark Reinstein/Shutterstock.com. “Robert L. Peters” included by Just Facts.

Authenticated documents from Hunter Biden’s laptop reveal that Joe Biden had several email aliases, such as:

The last of those addresses was a government account, as evidenced by the domain “pci.gov”.

On June 7, 2015, Kathy Chung, a government-paid assistant of then-Vice President Biden, sent an email to his government alias and to Hunter with the subject line, “See below. These are all cell numbers.”

The email, sent to Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov and hbiden@rosemontseneca.com, contains the cell phone numbers of these 25 high-level current and former government officials that wielded an enormous amount of power:

President Clinton
Sec. Clinton
Sen. Dodd
Sen. Reid
Sen. Mcconnell
Denis McDonough
Gov. Markell
Sen. Carper
Sen. Durbin
Rep. Pelosi
Sen. Leahy
Sen. Joe Manchin
Sen. Coons
Rep. Chris Van Hollen
Rep. Steny Hoyer
Rep. Dutch Ruppersburger
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Rep. John Carney
AG Loretta Lynch
Sec. Tom Vilsack
Sec. Tom Perez
Sec. Anthony Foxx
Sec. Arnie Duncan
Sec. Gina McCarthy
Fmr Rep. Eric Cantor

Given that Chung was a federal employee who worked directly for VP Biden, there can be little doubt that Joe ordered her to give this information to Hunter. The fact that Chung sent this to Joe’s government alias strongly suggests that she wanted him to know she did what he asked without leaving an obvious record of it.

This goldmine of influential contacts was given to Hunter while he was being paid at least $1 million per year by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The expressed purpose of these payments—as detailed in verified emails from Hunter’s laptop—was to get “high-ranking US officials” to convince “Ukrainian officials” to “close down” all criminal cases against the company’s owner.

The owner—a notoriously corrupt oligarch named Nikolai Zlochevskyi—had his London bank accounts seized by British officials in a 2014 money laundering investigation.

All Ukrainian criminal cases against the oligarch were dropped in 2016 after Joe Biden used the threat of withdrawing U.S. aid to force the president of Ukraine to fire the nation’s chief prosecutor.

Denying the Facts

Many journalists and “fact checkers” deny that the prosecutor who Joe Biden got fired was investigating the oligarch who was enriching Hunter, but this fact is irrefutably proven by validated emails from Hunter’s laptop.

The first email in this exchange was sent by a Burisma executive who dined with Hunter and Joe Biden at a restaurant near the White House in April 2015. This was less than two months before Joe passed the cell phone numbers of high-level U.S. officials to Hunter.

Seven months later on November 2, 2015, the same Burisma executive sent an email to Hunter and his partners in which he made clear that he was tired of waiting for action. In this email, the executive:

  • criticized a proposal they sent to him because it was “lacking concrete tangible results that we set out to achieve in the first place” and did not “offer any names of top US officials” or “Ukrainian officials” to help “Nikolay” (the owner of Burisma) improve “his situation in Ukraine.”
  • told them to “proceed immediately” with getting “high-ranking US officials” to “visit” Ukraine and convince “the highest level of decision makers” to “close down” all “cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine.”
  • identified the “President of Ukraine” and the “Prosecutor General” as two of their “key targets.”
  • reminded them that ending these criminal cases was the “true purpose” and the “ultimate purpose” of their “engagement” and “all our joint efforts.”

Hunter’s partners then discussed the email among themselves while making clear that anonymous U.S. officials would handle the matter, and Hunter needed to “deliver that message” to Burisma. In these smoking gun emails, they wrote:

  • “I would tell” Burisma that we “deliberately” didn’t mention the names of the U.S. officials “to be on the safe and cautious side.”
  • “Hunter, You need to deliver that message.”

Hunter then replied to Burisma, “Looking forward to getting started on this,” and Joe Biden proceeded to do exactly what the emails stated, word-for-word:

  • During that trip, Biden pressured “the highest level of decision makers” in Ukraine to fire the nation’s chief prosecutor by singling out “key targets” in the email. In Biden’s own words, he threatened Ukraine’s president and prime minister that he would withhold a U.S. billion-dollar loan guarantee unless the “state prosecutor” was fired. “If the prosecutor is not fired,” warned Biden, “you’re not getting the money.” Biden then boasted, “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”
  • The replacement prosecutor—who Biden called “solid”—agreed to drop all criminal charges against the oligarch if he paid back taxes and penalties. This led the oligarch to praise the deal, saying that it would allow his company to increase “production” and “attract international companies to Ukraine.”

Given the clear words of those emails, the actions of Joe Biden align with textbook definitions of bribery, extortion, and obstruction of justice.

Some have claimed that Joe Biden was innocent in this affair because Hunter told Burisma that a public relations firm called Blue Star Strategies would “deliver” what Burisma wanted. This was an obvious smokescreen, as proven by the following facts:

  • When Hunter and his partners wrote to each other about how they would fulfill Burisma’s request, they said nothing about Blue Star. Instead, they said that it would be handled by top U.S. officials whose names they “deliberately” didn’t mention, and Hunter needs to “deliver that message.”
  • In May 2017, two of Hunter’s business partners exchanged several WhatsApp messages about the Biden family’s involvement in their dealings, and one of them wrote to the other, “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u are face to face, I know u know that but they are paranoid.”
  • Blue Star didn’t do what the emails specified—Joe Biden did.

Independently confirming those emails in vivid detail, an informant reported to the FBI in June 2020 that he personally spoke with the oligarch several times in 2015–2019, and the oligarch stated that:

  • he had no “worry” about Prosecutor Shokin’s investigation because Hunter Biden “will take care of all of those issues through his dad.”
  • he saved “recordings” and “documents” that prove he was “coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure the Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”
  • “it costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”
  • “he did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’,” and therefore, it will take investigators “10 years to find” the “illicit payments to Joe Biden.”

Adding to the proof of his culpability, VP Biden’s assistant used his email alias to escort the cell phone numbers of 25 high-level government power brokers to Hunter. Again, this occurred while Burisma was paying Hunter at least $1 million per year to convince top U.S. officials to close down all criminal cases against the company’s owner.

First published at JustFacts.com. Please visit for more FACTS!