“Armed with riot gear and brandishing rubber-bullet guns, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) mobilized rapidly in response to pro-abortion protests near the city’s federal courthouse from June 24–27. Activists and journalists claim excessive use of physical force was rampant, with officers using batons against peaceful protesters.
The LAPD has maintained that it did not use force against peaceful protesters. “The vast majority of those involved [in pro-abortion protests] were peaceful and law abiding, however, a much smaller group of individuals took to the streets with the intention of creating chaos and destruction,” the LAPD said in a June 27 statement. “The Los Angeles Police Department has the distinction of facilitating First Amendment Rights for all Angelinos. Equally the Department will enforce the law when individuals engage in violence,” the statement continued.
While there were violent actors present at the protests, including one man who attacked police with a torch, videos shared online appear to show police using force against nonviolent protesters, including those trying to deescalate the situation. In one clip that received particular attention on social media, LAPD officers seemingly shoved Full House actress Jodie Sweetin to the pavement as she tried to defuse a confrontation between police and protesters on a Los Angeles freeway.”
“Foreign peacekeepers credited with helping ease years of bloody fighting between government forces and Muslim rebels have left the southern Philippines after officials decided to end their presence, but talks are underway to allow their possible return”
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“Deployed in 2004, the IMT initially consisted of armed peacekeeping forces from Malaysia, Brunei and Libya to help monitor the enforcement of a cease-fire agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group in the south, which signed a Malaysian-brokered peace deal with the government in 2014.”
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“The rebels, however, objected to the government panel’s decision and said that based on signed agreements, IMT forces should stay to safeguard the ceasefire agreement in the southern Philippines until “the full decommissioning” — a euphemism for the disarming and return to normal life — of all the 40,000 combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the two officials said.
More than 12,000 Muslim rebels have been “decommissioned” and laid down about 2,000 firearms and other weapons so far. A new group of 14,000 rebels was undergoing the process when Duterte’s term ended on June 30 and Marcos Jr. took office. The rest have not been disarmed.”
https://www.starvoting.us/
“One of California’s many oppressive taxes on the cannabis industry has been laid to rest. Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law A.B. 195, which eliminates the state’s cultivation tax.
California’s cultivation tax, unique among the states that have legalized marijuana sales, forced growers to pay the state for each ounce of cannabis grown. This tax was separate from the state’s 15 percent excise tax and state and local sales taxes.
Because the cultivation tax rate was automatically indexed to inflation, it had actually been increasing thanks to the state of the economy. Anybody attempting to legally grow marijuana shouldered a heavy tax burden, which then flowed downstream to consumers, many of whom realized it was cheaper to continue purchasing marijuana on the black market. The end result: two-thirds of marijuana purchases in the Golden State take place through unlicensed vendors. Because it’s so expensive to grow legally, illegal grow operations abound within the state, leading to more police raids, arrests, and prosecutions, not to mention corrupt practices among local governments who have the power to pick and choose which businesses can open up shop legally.”
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“A.B. 195 also bends the knee to the state’s labor unions by reducing the threshold from 20 to 10 employees to require that aspiring licensees enter into a labor peace agreement with a qualifying labor organization. A labor peace agreement is a deal between a business and a labor union that the business will not oppose a unionization effort and the union will not encourage strikes or work stoppages. Making it a mandatory requirement in order to get a license essentially gives labor unions a type of veto power over who can and can’t operate a marijuana business. These agreements also, by their nature, require both sides to waive certain rights under the federal National Labor Relations Act.”