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The Supreme Court Will Decide Whether You Have a Right to a Prompt Hearing After Cops Seize Your Property

Do you have a right to a prompt hearing after the government seizes your property? The U.S. Supreme Court will consider the question in its upcoming term.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Culley v. Attorney General of Alabama, two consolidated cases concerning whether property owners have a due process right to a hearing to determine if police had probable cause to seize their property.

The issue may seem esoteric, but it’s hugely important to people who have their property seized by police under civil asset forfeiture laws. Under civil asset forfeiture laws, police can take property suspected of being connected to criminal activity even if the owner hasn’t been charged with a crime. Property owners then often have the burden of going to court and proving their innocence, a process that can take months and sometimes years.

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UFO, UAP Senate Hearing with AARO’s Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick Testifying

“… AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics.” –Dr. Sean Kirpatrick

     Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the newly established All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, April 19th, 2023. The committee invited Dr. Kirkpatrick to provide an update on the agency’s progress since its inception.

Dr. Kirkpatrick opened his testimony by stating that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has been working tirelessly to identify and mitigate anomalies across all domains. The agency’s primary mission is to detect and resolve potential anomalies in real-time to ensure operational readiness across all branches of the military.

Dr. Kirkpatrick went on to describe the agency’s accomplishments over the past year, including the development of a sophisticated data analytics platform capable of analyzing large volumes of data from various sources. The platform can identify patterns and potential anomalies in real-time and provide actionable insights to military commanders.

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Biden Sending $325 Million In More Military Aid To Ukraine

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine / For Immediate Release:

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced critical new security assistance for Ukraine. This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance with more ammunition for U.S.-provided HIMARS, artillery rounds, and anti-armor capabilities essential to strengthening Ukraine’s defenders on the battlefield valued at up to $325 million.

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Pentagon “Leaks”: 5 ways to tell REAL from FAKE

We promised a longer take on the Pentagon “leaks”, and here it goes. Regular readers will probably be familiar with my view on leaked documents in general, but if you’re not allow me to quote my own 2019 article on the (absurd) “Afghanistan papers”:

An awful lot of modern “leaks” are no such thing. They are Orwellian exercises in controlling the conversation […] carefully making sure the “establishment” and the “alternative” are joined in the middle, controlled from the same source.

That’s not to say ALL “leaks” are automatically and ubiquitously narrative control exercises, clearly some are real…but it’s usually pretty easy to tell them apart. In fact here’s a little checklist.

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30 Years Later, Waco is Still Damning

Thirty years ago, FBI tanks smashed into the ramshackle home of the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas. After the FBI collapsed much of the building atop the residents, a fire erupted and 76 corpses were dug out of the rubble. Unfortunately, the American political system and media have never honestly portrayed the federal abuses and political deceit that led to that carnage.

What lessons can today’s Americans draw from the FBI showdown on the Texas plains 30 years ago?

Purported Good Intentions Absolve Real Deadly Force

Janet Reno, the nation’s first female attorney general, approved the FBI’s assault on the Davidians. Previously, she had zealously prosecuted child abuse cases in Dade County, Florida, though many of her high-profile convictions were later overturned because of gross violations of due process. Reno approved the FBI assault after being told “babies were being beaten.” It is not known who told her about the false claims of child abuse; Reno claimed she couldn’t remember. Her sterling reputation helped the government avoid any apparent culpability for the deaths of 27 children on April 19, 1993. After Reno publicly promised to take responsibility for the outcome at Waco, the media conferred instant sainthood upon her. At a press conference the day after the fire, President Bill Clinton declared, “I was frankly—surprised would be a mild word—to say that anyone that would suggest that the Attorney General should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves.” According to a Federal News Service transcript, the White House press corps applauded Clinton’s comment on Reno.

It Is Not an Atrocity If the U.S. Government Does It

Shortly before the Waco showdown, U.S. government officials signed an international Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty pledging never to use nerve agents, mustard gas, and other compounds (including tear gas) against enemy soldiers. But the treaty contained a loophole permitting governments to gas their own people. On April 19, 1993, the FBI pumped CS gas and methyl chloride, a potentially lethal, flammable combination, into the Davidians’ residence for six hours, disregarding explicit warnings that CS gas should not be used indoors. Benjamin Garrett, executive director the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Alexandria, Virginia, observed that the CS gas “would have panicked the children. Their eyes would have involuntarily shut. Their skin would have been burning. They would have been gasping for air and coughing wildly. Eventually, they would have been overcome with vomiting in a final hell.” A 1975 U.S. Army publication on the effects of CS gas noted, “Generally, persons reacting to CS are incapable of executing organized and concerted actions and excessive exposure to CS may make them incapable of vacating the area.”

Rep. Steven Schiff (R-NM) declared that “the deaths of dozens of men, women and children can be directly and indirectly attributable to the use of this gas in the way it was injected by the FBI.” Chemistry professor George Uhlig testified to Congress in 1995 that the FBI gas attack probably “suffocated the children early on” and may have converted their poorly ventilated bunker into an area “similar to one of the gas chambers used by the Nazis at Auschwitz.” But during those 1995 hearings, congressional Democrats portrayed the CS gas as innocuous as a Flintstone vitamin.

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Biden DOJ Indicts Four Americans For “Weaponized” Free Speech

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says “weaponized” the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.

The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.

Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.

Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.

AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ’s press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Looks like the United States has decided to dispense with those freedoms as well.

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Democrats join Patriotic Millionaires group to call for 90% tax on income above $100 million

Agroup of Democratic lawmakers and the Patriotic Millionaires, an organization of high-income and high net worth individuals favoring higher taxes on the wealthy, are calling on Congress to pass a 90% income tax on incomes above $100 million as fears of a recession are growing. 

Abigail Disney, a documentary filmmaker who is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, cofounder of The Walt Disney Company, joined the lawmakers to call for higher taxes on “extremely high income.”

“My grandfather paid a 90% marginal tax rate on his income, and he amassed plenty of wealth in the process,” she said at a news conference on Tuesday. “That means rates of up to 90% on incomes over $100 million.”

The Patriotic Millionaires are also advocating taxing “all income over $1 million the same regardless of how it is generated, including capital gains income and inheritance income,” according to a press release about the organization’s latest tax proposal. 

California Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez said his tax reform proposal, which Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is sponsoring in the Senate, would raise estate tax or “death tax” rates. The Republicans implemented a phase-out of the estate tax.

“Our bill will help narrow the wealth gap and raise much needed revenue for investment in the benefits that help working families and our constituents who aren’t in line to inherit a fortune,” he said.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Progressive Caucus, is a cosponsor of the Gomez legislation.

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8 Cops Who Shot Fleeing Unarmed Man 46 Times on Video, All Get Off Scot Free

Before he was filled with taxpayer-funded bullets in July 2022, Jayland Walker, 25, was a standout wrestler at Buchtel High School, where he graduated in 2015. According to his family, he worked for Amazon, took a job driving for DoorDash, and was set to get married. All of this is over now, however, after multiple officers decided to dump more than a dozen rounds each into Walker’s body after he fled a traffic stop for a simple violation.

Now, despite the fact that these officers executed — in firing squad fashion — an unarmed man on video, they all will go back to work. This week, a grand jury concluded the officers were legally justified in their use of force against Jayland Walker, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“He reached for his waistband in what several officers described as a cross-draw motion, planted his foot and turned toward the officers while raising his hand,” Yost said. “Only then did the officers fire, believing Mr. Walker was firing again at them.”

“The law allows officers to use deadly force to defend themselves or others against a deadly threat,” he added.

Apparently, ‘belief’ in danger is enough to justify execution by firing squad. One can only hope that police never ‘believe’ you are a danger and treat you in a similar manner.

As we reported at the time, days after he was killed, officials released the body camera footage from Walker’s killing and the chief himself admitted that it was hard to determine what provoked the officers to fire their weapons.

Chief Mylett said in still photos of the footage, it appears Walker was reaching down to his waist but admitted Walker did not have a gun on him when he was killed.

The medical examiner had originally said he had “multiple gunshot wounds,” but Mylett said the medical examiner confirmed more than 60 wounds on Walker’s body.

Laughably, the Fraternal Order of Police in Akron described the shooting as being “consistent with the use of force protocols and officers’ training.”

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Kitchen knives could be seized from homes of suspected criminals under new Home Office plans being considered

Kitchen knives could be seized from the homes of suspected criminals under a proposed Home Office plan.

Police will be consulted by ministers to allow them extra powers to ‘seize, retain and destroy bladed articles’ kept in private, even if the knives are ‘not on the Home Office’s banned list of weapons’.

According to The Telegraph, the move is one of numerous measures created to harden up sentences for selling, importing and possessing knives.

The Ben Kinsella Trust noted an 11 per cent increase in knife crime in England and Wales in the 12 months to September 2022, with police recording 50,434 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument during that period.

A total of 20 knives and similar weapons are banned in the UK, including belt buckle knives, push daggers, spiral knives, butterfly knives, swords and stealth knives.

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Gates funds millions to NGO claiming kids born sexual, 10-year-olds should learn about ‘commercial sex work’

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donates millions annually to a nongovernmental organization which claims that children are born sexual and should learn about “commercial sex work” under 10 years of age.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) – a separate entity from the U.S. nonprofit – wields significant influence on global sex education. The NGO comprises 120 independent organizations in over 146 countries and has received – including its European network – over $80M from Gates. Other significant donors included the World Health Organization. 

A toolkit released in 2017 showed an insight into how the NGO teaches sex education to children around the globe. 

“Sexual activity may be part of different types of relationships, including dating, marriage or commercial sex work, among others,” IPPF said about children under 10 should be taught, which was first flagged by Nicole Solas of the Independent Women’s Forum. 

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