Rochester woman fights to get back $8K seized in raid; she was not charged, no drugs found

In October 2020, Rochester police raided the West Main Street apartment of Cristal Starling and her then-boyfriend, who was suspected of dealing drugs.

No drugs were found, but police seized $8,040 in currency that Starling says was hers. Her boyfriend was arrested based on drugs found at another home, but he was later acquitted of the charges.

Starling has been trying to get her money back since the acquittal. She’s still trying.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, plans an appeal to a federal court, seeking to reverse a judge’s decision that federal and local police can keep Starling’s money. Starling’s case, Institute attorneys say, is typical of many forfeiture cases in the country: The money is not an overwhelming amount and the administrative process so convoluted that people who lose their money simply give up.

“This is very common where it’s a small amount of money,” said Institute attorney Seth Young.  “You don’t hire a lawyer and the maze of forfeiture procedures trips up a person who represents themselves and the person ends up losing their money.”

Starling tried, without the aid of a lawyer, to chase down her seized money. She also lost use of two cars, which were also taken then later returned. She had to pay for a rental car during those weeks, she said.

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6 Dystopian Things Biden’s ‘Disinformation Board’ Pick Nina Jankowicz Has Done

Mere days after eccentric billionaire Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter sent the political censors into a tizzy, the Biden administration debuted a “Disinformation Governance Board” to crack down on online speech the White House doesn’t like. The proposed agency, which would fall under the Department of Homeland Security, already merits the comparisons many have drawn to George Orwell’s “ministry of truth,” but Joe Biden’s appointment of Nina Jankowicz to be the board’s executive director makes the hackery even more obvious.

Here are six of the most dystopian things Jankowicz — whom DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ridiculously called “absolutely” politically neutral — has ever said or done.

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Oregon forces all schools — elementary and up — to put ‘menstrual products’ in boys’ bathrooms with ‘instructions on how to use’ them

Every public school in Oregon — including elementary institutions — will soon be required to provide tampons and other feminine products in boys’ bathrooms with “instructions on how to use” them.

The controversial requirement is in accordance with the state’s new Menstrual Dignity Act, signed into law by Democratic Gov. Kate Brown last year, which mandates that menstrual products be made available in “every student bathroom.”

Following the bill’s passage, the Oregon Department of Education developed and distributed a “Medical Dignity for Students” toolkit to aid local districts and set forth a phased plan for districts to meet the law’s standards and requirements.

Effective immediately, each school is required to have menstrual product dispensers in at least two bathrooms. But by June 2023, dispensers are required in every student bathroom, KGW-TV reported. The department emphasized that schools must “consider all-gender access to the products.”

Sasha Grenier, a sexual health specialist with the department, said, “This new program will help students participate actively in classes and school activities by alleviating some of the economic strain and experiences of shame that are often barriers for menstruating people accessing their education.”

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As America Implodes Over Roe V. Wade, Latest Pfizer Dump Reveals 100s of Pages of Severe Vaccine Reactions

If you have turned on your television, opened a web browser, or scrolled social media on your mobile device, you have likely seen the news about the leaked draft report from the Supreme Court about potentially overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Despite the leaked opinion being a draft — meaning it is not a decision yet — Politico ran with the headline, “EXCLUSIVE: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights.” In the last 48 hours, this report has set off a tailspin of uproar, protests, political rage, and even riots, yet inside the article, Politico admits that this decision is not final:

Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.

Nevertheless, America’s outrage has shifted from Ukraine and Elon Musk…. to abortion. The fact that abortion is an issue of the state at all, no matter which ‘side you are on,’ is Orwellian. Government has no more business paying for or advocating for abortions than they do stopping them.

Unfortunately, many people allow emotion to rule their logic and end up holding beliefs which are entirely contradictory. For example, since the covid vaccine has been approved by the FDA, many of the same folks who support a woman’s right to choose were completely resolute with taking away that right to choose when it came to taking the jab. The cognitive dissonance is rife.

Unfortunately, abortion is a reality, and society is slowly figuring out how to deal with it. But, the more the state attempts to interject their bias into this reality, the more skewed the situation becomes. Case in point: asking your rapist for permission to not have his baby or people singing about and celebrating the fact that they have had multiple abortions.

The fact of the matter is a society that treats the potential for life as disposable is a society in a crisis of conscience, and in need of self-reflection. However, the state’s involvement in the matter has only served to complicate the issue, prolong suffering, and, as the following example illustrates, serve as a massive distraction by keeping the masses fighting amongst each other.

While the left and the right devolve into hate-filled calls for death over their stance on abortion, the powers that be are likely laughing all the way to the bank, especially Pfizer.

As many may recall, Pfizer originally asked that the trial data for their coivd vaccine not be released for 75 years. Thankfully, sounder minds prevailed, and in January, after the FDA and Pfizer received massive backlash for delaying the release of that data, U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman ordered the agency to turn over 55,000 pages of vaccine trial data every month. On March 1, that first release came and not a single mainstream outlet reported on it.

We did.

Since then, there have been two more dumps, the most recent of which came out on the same day as the leaked SCOTUS documents. Coincidence?

This latest release can be found via the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency Documents database here or at the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) site here.

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Now Russia accuses Ukraine of using Black Magic: State media says ‘Satanic seal of the dark forces’ was found at deserted military HQ in propaganda claim

Russian state media have claimed there are signs that Ukrainian troops were practising black magic at a military headquarters in Ukraine.

A ‘satanic seal’ – a symbol believed to hold connections to a greater supernatural power – was apparently found on the wall of a deserted Ukrainian military base on the outskirts of the village of Trekhizbenka in the Luhansk region.

The Russian news agency RIA Novosti claimed the symbol, as well as other markings apparently made with blood, showed there were signs Ukrainian soldiers were ‘practicing black magic’.

The news agency claims ‘disciples of otherworldly forces tried to consecrate their weapons and made marks with blood’ so as to give their armoury extra energy to deal extra damage when it hits a target.

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Bill Gates says “real invention” is needed to stop online election and medical “misinformation”

In an appearance on NBC’s Today show, Bill Gates was asked about online “misinformation” and what he thought about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in relation to that.

The discussion about misinformation started with host Savannah Guthrie saying: “When you look at how the US and the world responded to COVID-19, whether it’s masks or vaccines or shutdowns, closures, it’s become so political…It’s been so politicized.”

Gates responded: “Yeah, it’s unfortunate that we didn’t get trusted voices in both parties talking about the benefit of masks and vaccines so that it wasn’t a political issue.”

Guthrie then asked about misinformation, noting that it has “been a hallmark” of the pandemic.

“President Biden rather famously said last July that misinformation on social media is killing people. Do you agree?” she asked.
Gates said: “Absolutely…It’s terrible.”

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STATEN ISLAND DA BOUGHT CLEARVIEW FACE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE WITH CIVIL FORFEITURE CASH

THE STATEN ISLAND district attorney’s use of the highly controversial Clearview face recognition system included attempts to dig up the social media accounts of homicide victims and was paid for with equally controversial asset forfeiture cash, according to city records provided to The Intercept.

Clearview has garnered international attention and intense criticism for its simple premise: What if you could instantly identify anyone in the world with only their picture? Using billions of images scraped from social media sites, Clearview sells police and other governmental agencies the ability to match a photo to a name using face recognition, no search warrant required — a power civil libertarians and privacy advocates say simply places too much unsupervised power in the hands of police.

The use of Clearview by the Staten Island district attorney’s office was first reported by Gothamist, citing city records obtained by the Legal Aid Society. Subsequent records procured via New York State Freedom of Information Law request and provided to The Intercept now confirm the initial concerns about the tool’s largely unsupervised use by prosecutors. According to spokesperson Ryan Lavis, the DA’s office “completely stopped utilizing Clearview as an investigative tool last year.”

Yet the documents provide new information about how Staten Island prosecutors used the notorious face recognition tool and show that the software was paid for with funds furnished by the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program. The program lets state and local police hand seized cash and property over to a federal law enforcement agency, whereupon up to 80 percent of the proceeds are then sent back the original state or local department to pocket.

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