Tag: civil rights

Taranaki Maunga becomes a legal person as treaty settlement passes into law

The Treaty of Waitangi settlement for Taranaki Maunga passed its second and third reading in Parliament on Thursday.

Around 400 people from the eight iwi of Taranaki – Ngaa Rauru Kiitahi, Ngāruahine, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Tama, Taranaki iwi and Te Ātiawa – were at Parliament to see the settlement become law.

The Crown profoundly apologised for its confiscation of Taranaki Maunga and almost half a million hectares (1.2 million acres) of Taranaki lands in 1865.

As part of the settlement Mt Egmont will cease to be an official geographic name. The name of the national park, currently called Egmont National Park, will become Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki (meaning the highly regarded and treasured lands of Taranaki), while the highest peak will be Taranaki Maunga.

The park and its contents will be vested as a legal person, its peaks will be named Te Kāhui Tupua – so the park will effectively own itself. But Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi, a collective of both iwi and Crown representatives, will manage the park and develop plans which will be approved by the Conservation Minister.

Keep reading

Dismantling the Bill of Rights Is No Solution

After the recent school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, the usual suspects immediately called for more “gun control.”  Joe Biden’s White House released a statement demanding these additional infringements upon Americans’ Second Amendment rights: “Universal background checks.  A national red flag law.  A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”  (The president conveniently ignored reports that the teenaged attacker used a 9mm pistol.)  Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan insists that gun manufacturers be held responsible for the school shooter’s violence.  Disgraced former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe (who was rewarded for leaking classified information and lying to federal agents) wants “legislation that changes the context of gun ownership” in the United States and new requirements that “eliminate the ability” of Americans “to purchase guns without a background check.”

So the departing president wants executive authority to determine which Americans enjoy Second Amendment protections.  The congressman from Wisconsin wants to hold manufacturers criminally and civilly liable for the misdeeds of others.  And the former acting director of the FBI wants to fundamentally transform the “context of gun ownership.”  What part of “shall not be infringed” do they not understand?  

If we were still a country that took loyalty oaths seriously, it would be worth noting that all three of these men raised their hands and solemnly swore to protect and defend the Bill of Rights.  As retired FBI supervisory special agent Arthur P. Meister once wrote, “all public office oaths require true faith and allegiance to principles of lawful authority derived from the Constitution.”  An official’s “deference” to the Bill of Rights “must trump all other promises and commitments” precisely because “the public elects, empowers, and allows a select few to govern many.”  The U.S. government cannot expect public trust if its officers regularly violate their oaths to the U.S. Constitution.  Accordingly, if faith in the U.S. government is historically weak, then government officials should consider their disregard for the Bill of Rights the proximate cause.

Unconstitutional attempts to confiscate Americans’ firearms have become such a regular reaction to mass shootings that lawmakers act as if erasing the Second Amendment were no big deal.  “Oh, what’s the harm?” they dismissively suggest on cable television.  “It’s just an annoying little right.  It was written, like, three centuries ago…by white supremacists!  And if it saves even one child, it’s worth it!”  

It does not take much mental acuity to recognize how dangerous the “Let’s do it for the children” exception to the Constitution is in practice.  To save the children from “misinformation,” we must embrace censorship!  To save the children from “hate,” we must snoop on their private text messages and their parents’ bank accounts!  To save the children from inequality and State-sponsored religion, we must discriminate by race and ban school prayer!  To save the children from “global warming,” we must redistribute wealth and ration life-saving energies!  “Doing it for the children” makes it super-easy to dispense with the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments!  

Keep reading

Smith urges Poilievre to amend Canadian Bill of Rights for broader civil liberties 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called on federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to promise further free speech and other rights protections at the national level as her government prepares to amend the Alberta Bill of Rights.

Smith encouraged Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to amend the Canadian Bill of Rights to strengthen protections that may be missing in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“I think that we should stop looking at the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the full, comprehensive expression of all rights and freedoms we are endowed with,” said Smith.

The premier said she believed Poilievre could make these amendments if he’s elected prime minister without having a huge constitutional discussion. 

“I think we’re entering an era now where people are demanding that their governments respect them and not treat them the way they were treated during that terrible Covid era,” said Smith. 

Smith made the comments at True North Nation in Calgary on Saturday.

Keep reading

Joe Biden Falls Apart at NAACP Dinner: “I Got Involved in Civil Rights When I Was 15!”

Joe Biden on Sunday evening pandered to black voters at the annual NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Detroit, Michigan.

Joe “you ain’t black” Biden is losing support among black voters so he spent the last several days traveling to key swing states lying to blacks.

Meanwhile, President Trump has more than doubled his support among black voters.

As usual, Biden’s speech was full of lies and gaffes.

“Because of your vote, it’s the only reason I’m standing here as President of the United States of America,” Biden said.

Biden told the crowd of blacks one of his favorite lies: “I got involved in civil rights when I was 15!”

Keep reading

The Government Wants to Play God. What Does That Mean for Our Freedoms?

The government wants to play god.

It wants the power to decide who lives or dies and whose rights are worthy of protection.

Abortion may still be front and center in the power struggle between the Left and the Right over who has the right to decide—the government or the individual—when it comes to bodily autonomy, the right to privacy, sexual freedom, the rights of the unborn, and property interests in one’s body, but there’s so much more at play.

In the 50-plus years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, the government has come to believe that it not only has the power to determine who is deserving of constitutional rights in the eyes of the law but it also has the authority to deny those rights to an American citizen.

This is how the abortion debate has played into the police state’s hands: by laying the groundwork for discussions about who else may or may not be deserving of rights.

Despite the Supreme Court having overturned its earlier rulings recognizing abortion as a constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment, the government continues to play fast and loose with the lives of the citizenry all along the spectrum of life.

Take a good, hard look at the many ways in which Americans are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

American families killed by errant SWAT team raids in the middle of the night are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Disabled individuals who are being strip searched, handcuffed, arrested and “diagnosed” by police as dangerous or mentally unstable merely because they stutter and walk unevenly are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Unarmed citizens who are tasered or shot by police for daring to hesitate, stutter, move a muscle, flee or disagree in any way with a police order are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

American citizens subjected to government surveillance whereby their phone calls are being listened in on, their mail and text messages read, their movements tracked and their transactions monitored are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Individuals whose DNA has been forcibly collected and entered into federal and state law enforcement databases whether or not they have been convicted of any crime are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Drivers whose license plates are being scanned, uploaded to a police database and used to map their movements, whether or not they are suspected of any crime, are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Protesters and activists who are being labeled domestic terrorists and extremists and accused of hate crimes for speaking freely are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Hard-working Americans whose bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash are seized by police (operating according to asset forfeiture schemes that provide profit incentives for highway robbery) are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

So, what is the common denominator here?

Keep reading

ATF Agent Stops Gun Sale Over Marijuana Odor And DOJ Argues Cannabis Consumers Don’t Have 2nd Amendment Rights 

Second Amendment advocates are criticizing a pair of recent developments around marijuana and firearms—issues they say underscore the need for further reform.

Last month during a routine audit of a gun dealer, a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigator reportedly ordered the store to stop the sale of a pistol because the investigator claimed the would-be buyer smelled of marijuana.

“I wasn’t high,” the prospective buyer told the Second Amendment Foundation, according to the outlet Ammoland, which referred to the individual only as Daniel. “None of this makes any sense to me.”

Daniel had already filed federal paperwork saying he was eligible to own a firearm and had passed a background check for the handgun, according to the report. When he went to pick it up at a Plant City, Florida store, however, the ATF industry operations investigator reportedly halted the sale.

ATF spokesman Jason Medina acknowledged that the smell of marijuana could have been from exposure to second-hand smoke and not an indication that the gun buyer himself had consumed cannabis.

“That’s true,” Medina told Ammoland.

Meanwhile in a federal appeals court case, the Department of Justice argued in a filing earlier this month that marijuana users “are more likely than ordinary citizens to misuse firearms,” likening them to “the mentally ill” as well as “infants, idiots, lunatics, and felons.”

Keep reading

Hospital Pays Job Applicant Who Refused Mandated Flu Shot

A hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., has agreed to pay a settlement to a job applicant who had been offered a position, but then was arbitrarily rejected because he declined to take a flu shot hospital officials demanded.

News of the settlement comes from Liberty Counsel.

The fight involved Trinity Health Grand Rapids, which previously was known as Mercy Health St. Mary’s. The resolution includes a consent decree that allows paying of some $50,000 to the worker who was rejected.

The case originally was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and charged the hospital improperly denied a job applicant’s request for a religious exemption to the flu shot.

The requirement for such shots later was dropped by the hospital, which agreed to train leaders on religious rights in addition to paying the settlement.

“According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, even though the hospital’s former flu shot policy allowed for a religious exemption, the hospital determined the applicant’s articulated religious beliefs were ‘insufficient’ to grant the exemption and denied it without an explanation. Trinity Health, which had made a conditional job offer to the applicant, then rescinded that job offer and did not give the applicant an opportunity to address the concerns with his request.”

The EEOC accused the corporation of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The report explained federal law insists that employers make reasonable accommodations for religious employees – unless those accommodations create an “undue hardship” on the company.

Keep reading

Ohio prosecutors broke rules to win convictions and got away with it

Ernie Haynes never imagined that taking care of his three grandsons after his daughter’s drug overdose death would turn him into a felon at the hands of a longtime Ohio prosecutor known to sidestep the rules intended to protect a defendant’s rights in criminal trials.

A week after his daughter died in December 2017, the court granted temporary custody of the children to their biological father, a man Haynes said also struggled with drug addiction. When Haynes refused to give up his grandchildren, Wood County authorities arrested him and charged him with six counts of abduction. The action sparked a five-year legal battle to clear his name.

“We never got to grieve … because immediately we were plunged into this hell,” said Haynes’ wife, Marcella Haynes.

Ernie Haynes, 59, didn’t know it, but the assistant prosecutor who would try his case, Thomas Matuszak, had a track record of repeatedly violating legal standards to sway juries at trials and win convictions, according to court findings. He would do the same in Haynes’ case.

And it wouldn’t be the last.

Matuszak is one of about 100 prosecutors across Ohio who the courts found had violated standards meant to preserve a defendant’s civil rights in criminal trials, an investigation by Columbia Journalism Investigations, NPR and member station WVXU in Cincinnati, and The Ohio Newsroom found. He is one of 13 who did so more than once. Together, these 13 prosecutors accounted for nearly one-third of the 104 cases in the state where courts found that prosecutors acted improperly.

Keep reading

Journalist Files “Cease and Desist” Letter with the CIA

A journalist has sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to the Central Intelligence Agency, citing violations of her 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment rights.

Janet Phelan, who has authored an intelligence exposé, “EXILE,” as well as a book on the pandemic, “At the Breaking Point of History,” levels accusations that agents and assets of the CIA have repeatedly attacked her with unconventional chemical weapons, resulting in a health crisis and hospitalization.

Phelan states that she chose to send this letter to the CIA as this is the agency that is involved in overseas surveillance and operations. Phelan fled the U.S. in 2008 and currently resides in Mexico. She states that the Cease and Desist letter was sent prior to filing a formal legal request for an injunction against the Agency. She has also filed a Form 95, preparatory to suing under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Phelan is best known for her investigations into U.S. biological weapons violations and her research into mortgages as a vehicle for judicial bribes and payoffs. Her articles appeared in the Moscow-based publication, New Eastern Outlook, for a number of years. She currently writes for Activist Post.

Upon learning of her intent to file for a formal injunction, a lawyer who is conversant with her work on judicial corruption, sputtered, “But this will have to go in front of a judge!”

Indeed, recent legal efforts in a similar vein were all dismissed by a judge, including CAIR’s lawsuit challenging targeting of Muslim-Americans and a lawsuit by a former CNN journalist covering Syria, which alleged that the US tried to blow him up in a number of drone strikes.  Federal judge Rosemary Collyer dismissed this lawsuit on reasons of “state secrets” thereby striking a blow against legal protections for both First Amendment violations as well as any constitutional protections against government abuse.

Keep reading

Taxpayer-Subsidized Seminars Train Cops To Violate the Constitution

If a driver looks away while passing a police car, cops learn from a checklist promoted at an October 2021 conference in Atlantic City, that is suspicious. But if a driver stares at the police car, that is also suspicious. Hats work both ways too: Wearing one “low to cover [your] face” is suspicious, but so is removing a hat when you are stopped by the police. Other telltale signs of criminal activity, according to Street Cop Training’s list of “reasonable suspicion factors,” include texting, smoking, lip licking, yawning, stretching, talking to a passenger while keeping your eyes on the road, signaling a turn early or late, maintaining “awkward closeness” or “awkward distance” during a stop, standing parallel or perpendicular to the car, saying you are heading to work or heading home, questioning the reason for the stop, and refusing permission for a search.

That Street Cop Training checklist, which offers handy excuses for officers keen to conduct searches for drugs or seizable cash, figures prominently in a recent report from Kevin Walsh, New Jersey’s acting comptroller. The report criticizes the New Jersey company for encouraging officers to make or extend stops without reasonable suspicion and for promoting a “warrior” mentality that fosters the excessive use of force. “We found so many examples of so many instructors promoting views and tactics that were wildly inappropriate, offensive, discriminatory, harassing, and, in some cases, likely illegal,” Walsh said when he released the report this week. “The fact that the training undermined nearly a decade of police reforms—and New Jersey dollars paid for it—is outrageous.”

Street Cop Training was founded in 2012 by Dennis Benigno, who was a Woodbridge, New Jersey, police officer until 2015. Each year the company, which Benigno describes as “one of the largest, if not the largest, police training providers in the United States,” trains about 25,000 officers from agencies across the country. The six-day Atlantic City seminar that Walsh describes in his report attracted nearly 1,000 officers, including 240 from New Jersey. Their employers covered the expenses, which included a $499 fee for each officer, travel and lodging, and paid time off.

What did taxpayers get for their money? Potentially, Walsh argues, greater exposure to more expenses down the road, including millions of dollars spent to litigate and settle civil rights lawsuits. “This kind of training comes at too high a price for New Jersey residents,” Walsh’s report says. “The costs of attendance for training like this is small in comparison to the potential liability for lawsuits involving excessive force, unlawful searches and seizures, and harassment and discrimination.”

While “some of the observations and reasoning” described in Street Cop’s checklist “find support in case law,” Walsh says, “others appear to be arbitrary and contradictory.” Officers who follow Benigno’s advice therefore may end up violating the Fourth Amendment by making or prolonging stops based on factors that fall short of reasonable suspicion. If so, any resulting searches also would be unconstitutional, making any evidence they discover inadmissible.

Keep reading