Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

Health Canada won’t answer contaminated COVID-19 vaccine questions

This month Ottawa tabled a stack of Order Paper Questions on COVID vaccines: Pfizer payments, residual DNA contamination known as Plasmidgate, approvals, VAERS death reports, and the science (or lack thereof) behind lockdowns.

As then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sold vaccination as a civic duty and implemented sweeping vaccine mandates, families who were never given proper informed consent recently brought their injuries to Ottawa.

“It really affects the whole family when one person’s injured,” said Carrie Sakamoto, a severely vaccine injured Canadian. She told me at the Allison Inquiry at the beginning of September that “it just devastates everybody.”

Veterans, former elite athletes and parents of children who died testified, and Health Canada stayed silent throughout. Then, a week later, the Public Health Agency of Canada posted a portal update and a backlog number. There was no apology.

As OPQ responses begin rolling in, one is from the MP who spearheaded the inquiry, Dean Allison himself. He asked Health Canada what science proves SV40 promoter fragments in Pfizer’s vaccine are inactive, and when officials first noticed the 2021-22 spike in U.S. VAERS death reports.

The department responded not with a study, but the blanket reassurance that the fragment is inactive, has no functional role and sits below limits. For context: SV40 sequences are used in molecular biology to drive gene expression. They can interact with host DNA, but it all begs the question that if the material is inert and irrelevant, why is it there?

Internal Health Canada emails from July 2023 show officials still asking Pfizer for characterization details while authorizing additional boosters – shots that were still contaminated.

Pfizer had not disclosed the sequence to Health Canada, the FDA or the EMA at the time of submissions, and it was only after genomics expert Kevin McKernan and I made the finding public in April, agencies compared notes.

“At Health Canada, we do not view this as an urgent risk topic,” one email said, as fall booster campaigns loomed. If regulators had already concluded the fragment was harmless and below limit, why were they still seeking basic measurement information from Pifzer?

The same pattern appears in questions on residual DNA bound to lipid nanoparticles, the tiny fat bubbles that carry the modified RNA of the vaccine into cells.

Officials once again offered broad safety assurances while leaving levels, fragment size, batch variability and manufacturing controls unanswered. On deaths, they said vital statistics showed no increase linked to mRNA vaccines, cited VAERS when convenient, then treated the same database as a scare tactic.

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Protection Orders, Gun Training, And 3D Printing Laws Among Gun Bills Signed By California Governor

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of 10 gun bills into law that he says will enhance what he considers to be the state’s already exemplary record of firearms safety.

Newsom’s office announced the signing in a press release on Monday. According to the release, the laws are meant to reduce violent crime involving guns and reduce the number of illegal guns on the street, among other things.

They include a training requirement for the purchase of a gun, expanding criteria for the state’s extreme risk protection orders, voluntary firearms storage by law enforcement to prevent violent crime and suicide, and a requirement for firearms blocking technology on 3D printers in the state by July 1, 2029.

“California has been a leader in gun safety. Today’s laws continue that work – using data, prevention, and proven tools to help keep firearms out of dangerous situations and support communities affected by violence,” Newsom stated in the press release.

Senate Bill 948 will make a training requirement necessary for acquiring a state firearms safety certificate for the purchase of a gun. Existing law requires the certificate for the purchase, transfer, or importation of guns within the state within 60 days of the transaction.

The new law adds a requirement for a four-hour training course that must cover firearm handling and safety as well as a live-fire component. The law becomes effective Jan. 1, 2029.

The press release also touted the state’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GVRO), crediting them with preventing 58 mass shootings and reducing violent crime overall.

Assembly Bill 175 expands this by allowing courts to issue extreme risk protection orders even if the subject of the order has not been notified. It also prohibits courts from requiring petitioners to show that exceptional circumstances exist that make the order necessary.

Thousands of GVROs have been issued since the first laws were implemented in 2016, the press release states.

“Between 2021 and 2024, the number of longer-term GVROs issued each year in California more than doubled. In 2024 alone, California courts issued GVROs against 1,727 individuals found to pose a significant danger of firearm violence toward themselves or others,” the release states.

Newsom also signed a law meant to prevent suicides by providing temporary gun storage for those who are in crisis.

Assembly Bill 1974 allows law enforcement agencies to establish programs to take temporary possession of firearms from those who request such. The law requires the agency to provide clear instructions on voluntarily transferring custody of a firearm and instructions on requesting its return.

It also requires the agency to ensure the person is not prohibited from owning a firearm. The agency must also ensure the firearm has not been reported lost or stolen, used in a crime, or part of an active investigation. Guns that are not picked up by their owners will be destroyed.

The law also exempts the agencies and gun owners from certain requirements for concealed carry and transfer of firearms.

Assembly Bill 2047 is meant to hamper the production of homemade guns that do not have serial numbers or other identifying marks. The law sets a deadline of July 1, 2029, for any 3D printer sold in the state to have firearms blocking technology.

This technology would prevent the user from 3D printing so-called “ghost guns.” These guns are most often frames of synthetic materials produced on a 3D printer with metal parts purchased separately. The fact that the homemade guns have no serial numbers makes it difficult to trace them back to their source.

The press release states that the number of unserialized guns has been on the decline in recent years.

“Seventeen percent fewer ghost guns [were] recovered as crime guns in 2025, bringing the decline since 2021 to 37 percent,” the release reads.

Gun rights advocates decried the package of gun laws, saying they are about gun control more than gun safety.

Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), was especially critical of the training requirement, which he considers an obstacle to legal gun ownership.

“It comes after California has already passed an 11 percent excise tax on guns and ammo, and carry permits cost anywhere between $500 and $2,500 in the state, depending on the county. SAF is currently litigating against both of those abuses and will consider a lawsuit against SB 948 as its effective date in 2029 approaches,” Kraut stated in an email to The Epoch Times.

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DOJ Files Charges Against Minnesota Judges Who Launched ‘Unethical Partisan Press Tour’ to Attack Trump’s Immigration Agenda

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has formally filed a misconduct complaint against the Minnesota federal judges who admitted to the New York Times that they are using their power as judges to obstruct the Trump administration’s agenda.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told followers on X that the DOJ is targeting the judges for engaging in an “unethical partisan press tour on immigration cases.”

“Judges who covet publicity undermine public confidence in the rule of law,” McCotter added.

Attorney General Todd Blanche blasted the clearly biased judges, saying that the U.S. government has a right, “just like every litigant in court, to have a judge that will be fair and impartial,” Blanche said. “We have no choice but to act.”

The complaint comes after the New York Times published a story early in September featuring Judge Patrick Schiltz and five of the seven judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit who spoke to the paper to reveal their experiences over the president’s crack down on illegal immigration.

The judicial misconduct complaint names Judge Schiltz, who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton-appointed Judge John Tunheim, both of whom have openly criticized Trump’s immigration policies.

Tunheim, for instance, told the Times that ICE was not arresting the right migrants, and said, “They weren’t arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street.”

The DOJ, though, says the judges’ public conduct “is particularly egregious” and that they “flagrantly violated the Code of Judicial Conduct with their improper and unethical comments.”

The complaint added that Schiltz’s comments were “overly political and concern matters that are pending” before the court, and that Tunheim’s comment was “less verbose” but “equally unethical.”

“If anything is a ‘grave threat to the rule of law,’ it is judges who repeatedly and brazenly exceed their authority then launch a partisan press campaign that includes criticizing the government for filing an emergency appeal when a judge refused to rule on a search warrant application,” McCotter said.

The DOJ is requesting that the court order both judges to recuse themselves from cases involving DHS and its departments, including ICE. The complaint also wants an investigation into “improper conduct” of the Minnesota judges who “‘covet publicity” rather than adhering to the rule of law by adjudicating cases or controversies.

Schiltz has already issued a statement proclaiming his innocence. “As legal-ethics experts have confirmed, I was acting well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to the New York Times,” he said, and citing the Judicial Conference guidelines for what judges can say in public, he added, “that is exactly what I did.”

The 8th Circuit Court also averred that the judges who spoke to the Times acted “well within” the ethics rules.

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Battleground Democrats Are Snubbing Two 2028 Presidential Contenders

Democratic candidates in several of this fall’s most competitive House and Senate races are keeping Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Vice President Kamala Harris off their campaign trails – even though both women rank among the party’s leading prospects for the 2028 presidential nomination.

The Democratic bench for 2028 includes Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Ocasio-Cortez, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. Two of those six are women of color, from the demographic the party has spent a decade calling its moral center and its electoral future. Both now sit on the do-not-call list in the districts that will decide control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections.

According to an Axios report, Democrats in several key battlegrounds are keeping Ocasio-Cortez at arm’s length. Party officials say candidates in other close races have told her team outright to stay away. That is an electability problem for a politician whose whole pitch to primary voters is that bold progressivism, including Medicare for All, wins more votes than cautious centrism does.

Candidates in tight races reject that theory today even though they embraced it only months ago in their primaries. Sam Forstag, a progressive House candidate in Montana, rallied with Ocasio-Cortez in May on his way to the Democratic nomination. He has since scrubbed her endorsement from his campaign website.

“The polling is atrocious for her,” a senior Democratic strategist working in a key swing district told Axios. “She’s a lightning rod.”

Her own team offered no evidence to the contrary. When Axios asked whether she had campaigned in person for any of the party’s top House or Senate candidates this cycle, her office could not point to a single one.

Her travel log shows where she is welcome, and it’s clearly not in races that matter. Ocasio-Cortez made stops in Buffalo and Ithaca this week but skipped New York’s competitive 17th District in the lower Hudson Valley. She also stumped for Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon, a fellow member of the Democratic Socialists of America, in a state that has drifted so far red that no serious Democrat expects Nixon to flip the seat. Buttigieg, Kelly and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, by contrast, have all drawn invitations from Democrats in competitive districts and states over the past month.

Kamala Harris is also getting snubbed despite polling the best of any 2028 contender. Last month, The Hill reported that Democrats in the most competitive midterm contests were shutting her out in public. Iowa supplied the most brutal data point. At the Iowa State Fair in August, a reporter asked gubernatorial nominee Rob Sand whether he wanted Harris to campaign for him.

“No thanks,” Sand said. “Let’s move on. We need some new leadership.”

Josh Turek, the party’s Senate nominee in Iowa, got the same question and answered with a smiling “No.” In Alaska, Senate candidate Mary Peltola distanced herself from Harris after Harris’s political operation sent out a fundraising appeal on Peltola’s behalf without telling her first.

This pattern runs counter to every assumption baked into those primary polls. Harris is a former vice president, the first woman to hold the office, the party’s 2024 nominee and one of its most recognizable faces.

For a party that spent a decade insisting diversity was its destiny, this dynamic carries a certain irony. Democrats built their brand on elevating women of color, and the two women of color on their 2028 bench are getting the cold shoulder.

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Trump Maps Out $200 Billion in Korean Investment, but the Biggest Deals Aren’t Done Yet

President Donald Trump put some yuge numbers on the table Wednesday: up to $200 billion in South Korean investment for American energy projects, including Alaska LNG, eight nuclear power plants, and a massive natural gas power project in Texas.

The announcement finally gives shape to part of the $350 billion investment package South Korea agreed to as part of last year’s trade deal with Washington. Of that total, $150 billion was set aside for shipbuilding and another $200 billion for strategic investments selected in cooperation with the United States.

From Reuters:

“Thanks to the agreements my administration has secured with the Republic of Korea, they will invest up to $200 billion,” Trump said.

He said that the investment would include the construction of eight large-scale nuclear power plants, a liquefied natural gas pipeline in Alaska and a 6-gigawatt power generation facility in Texas.

The announcement is part of a series of economic and investment deals Trump is highlighting ⁠ahead of November’s midterm elections, as he seeks to reinforce his economic record amid voter concerns over the Iran war and high gasoline prices. The Alaska LNG project also comes as Republicans seek to retain incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan who faces Democrat Mary Peltola. Sullivan was in the Oval Office for the Wednesday announcement.

The Alaska LNG project includes an 807-mile (1,299-km) pipeline carrying natural gas from the North Slope to a liquefaction facility on Alaska’s southern coast, allowing the fuel to be shipped to Asian markets. The project is designed to transport about 3.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and produce up to 20 million metric tons of LNG annually, according to the White House.

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Massive Gas Pipeline Blast Rocks Damascus Suburbs – 2nd Suspected Sabotage This Week

A huge explosion has rocked a Damascus suburb area on Wednesday evening (local), in what could be the second act of suspected sabotage against natural gas infrastructure in just a few days.

“A gas pipeline exploded Wednesday near the Tishreen power station in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta area in the Damascus countryside,“ Alikhbariah TV reported.

According to more per regional sources, “It said the loud blast heard in Eastern Ghouta was caused by the pipeline explosion near the power station.”

Unconfirmed images are already widely circulating…

Syria had reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in the prior six weeks.

One of these events happened Monday, and saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion.

For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities – including the capital – have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a prolonged crisis.

Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day – if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout.

This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria’s eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.

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California State University System Weighs Dropping International Student English Test Requirement

The California State University system is considering dropping the English test international applicants must pass before they can enroll.

The 23-campus system may rewrite its admissions rules so that students whose first language is not English can skip the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Vice Chancellor Dilcie Perez brought the idea to the Board of Trustees last week, and the trustees could vote on it in November.

Perez said the change would swap the single test for what she called multiple approved measures of English ability. Cal State could judge proficiency the way the UC system already does, accepting the Duolingo English Test, the SAT, or Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate results. She argued that the current requirement shuts out applicants through its cost and limited availability, and insisted the university would not lower its standards.

International enrollment in California has fallen this year during the Trump administration’s crackdown on student visas. One trade group projected a 15-percent drop for the current school year, a loss of about 7,000 students in the state and roughly one billion dollars in tuition and other spending.

Foreign students typically pay full tuition, well above the in-state rate, and that money helps cover the cost of educating domestic students. International applicants make up about 2.5 percent of Cal State’s 470,000 students and about 12 percent of the University of California system.

The degree a foreign student earns at an American university can also open a path to a job in the United States. Foreign graduates are allowed to stay and work through Optional Practical Training, the post-graduation work permit program that runs from a student visa toward an H-1B and, for many, a green card. In 2024, 640,000 foreign graduates held OPT or related work permits.

Some say the looser rule will not matter much, because the State Department still decides who receives an F-1 student visa, and applicants who cannot read, write, and speak English are unlikely to clear that step.

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Why Didn’t Netanyahu’s Cabinet Preempt October 7 (if it Knew About it in Advance)?

In his fiery speech to the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against accusations of genocide levelled against Israel, as many delegates walked out and hundreds of protesters rallied against him across Manhattan.

After Netanyahu had downplayed Israeli settler violence, rejected Gaza genocide and presented a number of misrepresentations, his speech reached its hallucinatory crescendo: “Israel didn’t commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide.”

Netanyahu’s speech was an effort to shift attention away from a political storm brewing in Israel that won’t go away. It failed.

October 7, 2023 was no surprise

A day after October 7, 2023 Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer said that the “massive attacks by Hamas leadership into Israel … is no less than Israel’s 9/11.” I fully disagreed. In the same interview for CNBC, I said the attack did not come out of the blue: “The Israeli-Hamas War is a logical result of 50 years of failed military policies.”

Half a decade before. I had written of the ticking time bomb in Gaza. And a day or two before October 7, I warned of the coming explosion. It was not a prophetic insight. That date was the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and a high-profile escalation was a no-brainer.

But why wasn’t Hamas’s operation disrupted when Netanyahu cabinet knew about it in advance?

In early 2025, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) investigations into the October 7 attack disclosed severe, deep-rooted intelligence miscalculations and fundamental misconceptions on the nature of Hamas and its intentions by both the Israeli government and military.

Probing the same attack, Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, pointed fingers at Prime Minister Netanyahu. The key mistakes featured the political idea of Hamas as an Israeli asset, the intelligence misjudgment that it couldn’t launch a large-scale attack, and weak defensive deployment.

As we are approaching the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War (October 5, 1973), the Hamas-led attack (October 7, 2023) and the late October election in Israel, new disclosures have been many recently.

Intriguingly, many of these warnings were initially reported a long while ago. Now they have been weaponized in the bitter Israeli election struggle. That’s why most focus on Netanyahu and his cabinet rather than his rivals, several of whom effectively supported the genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

UAE president’s pre-October 7 warning of a major operation

A week and a half before October 7, 2023 UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, called Netanyahu from the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi and spoke with him for 45 minutes.

In that conversation, bin Zayed warned that Hamas’ then-leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation against Israel. He expressed concern that the event in question would not only lead to bloodshed but also destabilize the entire region and undermine the Abraham Accords.

MBZ told Netanyahu that Israel should be ready. He recommended trying to find an economic solution for the Strip and calming the West Bank to prevent escalation.

To bin Zayed’s surprise, the Israeli PM felt there was little reason for concern. Netanyahu reassured him that Israel was prepared for any scenario.

The story was disclosed in early September by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval in their new book, Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment (in Hebrew).

If the story is valid, the inaction of Netanyahu’s cabinet on October 7 was a colossal political failure at the highest level of the Israeli government.

Hamas leader’s pre-October 7 warnings

Just days ago, former senior Fatah official Sufian Abu Zaida, who mediated between Israel and Hamas before the attacks on October 7, 2023, said that the sides had been close to signing an agreement before the massacre.

In an interview with Egypt’s Alghad TV, Abu Zaida said that Hamas’ Yahya Sinwar warned twice in September 2023 he was preparing a major operation.

The disclosures make the pre-October 7 diplomatic environment even more consequential. Abu Zaida says Israel and Hamas were nearing a proposed arrangement, which involved Palestinian prisoners, easing restrictions on Gaza and measures concerning electricity, water and workers.

Reportedly, Sinwar explicitly dictated an ominous message to Abu Zaida, ordering him to deliver it to Israeli officials word-for-word. Sinwar warned that Hamas would put cards on the table and cause an “earthquake” in negotiations, demanding that Israel prepare to “empty its prisons.”

Subsequently, then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar briefed Netanyahu on the meeting with Abu Zaida in mid-September 2023. Two days later, senior Israeli defense figures held an urgent discussion on Sinwar’s threat.

At the end of September, Egypt’s then-intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, came to Israel, reportedly to deliver a warning that Hamas was preparing for something big.

Why were these high-level warnings ignored on October 7?

Oddly enough, many of these disclosures have been known since late fall 2023, when I, too, incorporated them in my The Fall of Israel (2024).

Repeated warnings, repeated inaction

After October 7, the Egyptian intelligence chief Kamel acknowledged that Israel had ignored repeated warnings that “an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big.”

While Netanyahu denied receiving any such advance warning, the Egyptian said that the Israeli PM had received direct notice from Cairo’s intelligence minister. Similarly, Michael McCaul, Chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters of the alleged warning.

The inconvenient fact was that Israeli intelligence authorities had been aware of the threat for months yet ignored it.

Right after October 7, several Israeli media released several reports indicating that intelligence analysts’ warnings were ignored. In November 2023, even the New York Times reported “Israel knew Hamas’s attack plan more than a year ago.”

What was new in the Times piece was the document verifying the story. Code-named Jericho Wall, the 40-page blueprint outlined a lethal invasion.

But it was known to have been circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders. Yet, experts determined an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities.

In effect, based on over 1 year of evidence, Hamas militants had trained for the blitz attacks in at least six sites across Gaza in plain sight and less than 1.5 km from Israel’s heavily fortified and monitored border, as even the mainstream CNN concluded barely a week after October 7.

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Newsom Signs Laws Banning Shock Gloves And Taxing Immigration Detention Centers

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 21 bills on Sept. 29 aimed at limiting federal immigration enforcement in the state, including a ban on officers using shock gloves and a new 25 percent tax on private detention centers.

“California is taking action to strengthen transparency, accountability, and oversight around immigration enforcement in our state,” Newsom said in a statement.

“This is about stepping up where the federal government has failed our communities,” the Democratic governor said. “We will continue protecting our people, upholding the rule of law, and making clear that if the federal government operates in California, we will hold them accountable.“

The shock glove ban applies to all officers in California, including federal immigration agents. It takes effect next year, expires Jan. 1, 2030, and requires the state Department of Justice to complete a safety study on the devices by Jan. 1, 2029.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded a $16.7 million no-bid contract last month for 6,000 pairs of the gloves, which deliver an electric shock at the push of a button. ICE said at the time that the devices would help officers control resisting detainees and protesters.

“Sanctuary politicians attempting to ban our federal law enforcement from any safety equipment is despicable and a deliberate attempt to undermine and endanger our officers,” the agency said in a statement at the time, responding to a group of Democratic lawmakers who urged the agency to abandon the plan.

California law enforcement groups broadly opposed the shock glove ban, including Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper, a Democrat and former state lawmaker.

“When the federal government does something, the state Legislature wants to ban it,” Cooper said at a news conference last month.

“For me, use of force is so important. We talk about it all the time. De-escalating [to] a lower level of force. What they’re doing by trying to ban this glove, and it conducts electricity – a much lower voltage than a taser – they’re making our job harder.”

Newsom also signed a revised ban on officers wearing masks. A federal judge blocked the state’s first mask ban in February, ruling that it unfairly targeted local and federal officers because it exempted state officers. The new law applies to all officers.

Other bills Newsom signed on Tuesday restrict the use of state-owned property for immigration enforcement staging, processing, or detention, and one allows people to sue federal officials accused of violating their constitutional rights.

Another law protects people traveling to and from courthouses from civil arrest, and another bars ICE officers who have committed serious misconduct from becoming police officers or public employees in California.

A fifth law requires rental vehicles that law enforcers use for arrests or transport to display a decal identifying the agency, with limited exceptions.

Detention center taxes will go to state immigration-related services. A separate bill ends a property tax exemption claimed by some detention facilities.

Newsom’s office acknowledged in its announcement that California “cannot dictate federal immigration policy.” It said the state can set requirements for state property, state resources, detention facilities, public records, and law enforcement practices where federal enforcement operates in California.

Courts have mostly sided with the Justice Department in challenges to state limits on federal agents. In April, an appeals court blocked California’s separate law requiring officers to wear identification, ruling that it violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Federal judges have since blocked mask bans in Virginia on June 30, Philadelphia on July 2, and New York on Aug. 3.

States have fared better on other measures. On Sept. 4, a federal judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit challenging an executive order by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, that bars federal immigration officers from using state property for enforcement. California’s package includes a similar ban on state-owned property.

“To be crystal clear: we will not abide by unconstitutional mask bans,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an emailed response to an inquiry from The Epoch Times on Tuesday.

“The Supremacy Clause makes it clear that California’s sanctuary politicians do not control federal law enforcement. No tax will stop ICE from deporting criminal illegal aliens to make California safe again. We need California to cooperate with our officers and stop releasing criminals from their jails into California’s neighborhoods. Seven of the 10 safest cities in America cooperate with ICE.”

The spokesperson said that enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility under the Constitution. Concerning the shock gloves, the spokesperson said that ICE reviews its equipment to make sure it is “consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards,” and that officers are “highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training.”

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Florida Deputy Charged After Using Flock License Plate Reader System to Search Woman 300 Times, Another Deputy Arrested After Looking Up 17-Year-Old Girl in Police Database

The misuse of Flock Safety camera systems continues to grow.

On Wednesday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the arrests of two deputies accused of improperly accessing law enforcement databases, including an automated license plate reader system that uses Flock cameras.

According to Gualtieri, Deputy Karl Gwynn, 57, ran 381 searches on a 35-year-old woman he had arrested years earlier because he reportedly wanted a relationship with her.

Of the 381 searches, 300 queries were made through the Flock ALPR system.

The second deputy arrested was 33-year-old Travis Stanton who allegedly used the police databases to gather information on a 17-year-old girl he was reportedly “romantically interested in.”

Per WTSP:

Two Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies have resigned and face criminal charges after investigators said they improperly accessed sensitive law enforcement databases, including the Flock camera system.

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the arrests Wednesday, describing two unrelated cases involving a former deputy’s interest in a 17-year-old girl and another deputy’s repeated searches of a woman’s information across multiple databases.

The first case involves former Deputy Travis Stanton, 33, who resigned on Sept. 25 after the sheriff’s office began investigating his conduct involving a 17-year-old girl who had filed a complaint with the agency. Gualtieri said Stanton used several databases to gather information about the girl and her vehicle, including running her license plate through Florida’s vehicle registration system using a computer in his patrol car.

In an unrelated case, Deputy Carl Gwynn, 57, allegedly queried a 35-year-old woman’s information 381 times.

Sheriff Gualtieri said Gwynn had arrested the woman years earlier and wanted a relationship with her. Unlike the Stanton case, Gwynn’s alleged misconduct directly involved the sheriff’s office automated license plate reader system (ALPR), commonly associated with Flock Safety cameras.

Gwynn has since resigned and was arrested on four counts of unlawfully accessing secure systems with his bond being set at $25,000.

Stanton was charged with unlawfully accessing secure systems and his bond was set at $10,000.

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