Tag: hypocrisy

Philly police oversight group hasn’t investigated any complaints since it started

The Citizens Police Oversight Commission hasn’t investigated a single citizen complaint of police misconduct since it was created in 2021, the watchdog agency’s leadership has acknowledged to Axios.

Why it matters: For now, all citizen complaints of police misconduct are still turned over to police internal affairs.

  • The agency’s director of investigations, Jamison Rogers, tells Axios he’s in the process of putting together an investigative unit. He acknowledged that redirecting complaints back to the police isn’t ideal because some residents who turn to the CPOC don’t have faith in internal affairs.
  • The commission’s mission is to improve police officer conduct and accountability and restore community trust in the department.

By the numbers: CPOC received 137 citizen complaints in 2023, including one involving officers who responded to a call about a distressed woman who was later killed in a hit-and-run.

  • About a quarter of the complaints included allegations that police officers had committed physical abuse, civil rights violations, falsification, sexual misconduct, drug use, or some other crime, per city data.
  • The agency has sole discretion over which misconduct complaints it investigates, per city law.

Driving the news: Some commissioners and residents told Axios they’re concerned that CPOC isn’t further along, but commission leaders say they’re confident in the process and hope to hire more than a dozen investigators over the next eight months.

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The Newly Unveiled HHS Rationale for Rescheduling Marijuana Underlines Drug Warriors’ Dishonesty

Last week, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Houston lawyer Matthew Zorn, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed the rationale for its August 2023 recommendation that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. The document not only contradicts the position that the DEA has long taken on this issue; it contradicts the position that HHS itself took in 2016, when the DEA rejected a 2011 rescheduling petition. The reversal shows that marijuana’s classification has always been a political question rather than a legal or scientific matter.

On October 7, 2022, the same day he announced a mass pardon for people convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, President Joe Biden instructed HHS and Attorney General Merrick Garland to “initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.” Biden noted that Schedule I, which includes “heroin and LSD,” is “the classification meant for the most dangerous substances” and is “even higher than the classification of fentanyl and methamphetamine—the drugs that are driving our overdose epidemic.” On Twitter, he reiterated that “we classify marijuana at the same level as heroin” and treat it as “more serious than fentanyl,” which he said “makes no sense.”

In short, it was clear that Biden did not expect HHS to confirm its previous position that marijuana belongs in Schedule I. He expected HHS to recommend that marijuana be moved to a lower schedule, which is what it ultimately did. As the details of the HHS recommendation clarify, that decision was not based on new scientific evidence. It was based on a reinterpretation of the criteria for Schedule I that could have been implemented much sooner if HHS and the DEA had been open to it, or if a previous president had encouraged it.

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Joe Biden Fails to Congratulate Taiwan’s President-Elect: ‘We Don’t Support Independence’

President Joe Biden offered no words of congratulations or support to Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te following his election victory on Saturday, telling reporters simply that America does “not support independence.”

Lai, of the anti-communist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), defeated two leftist rivals on Saturday to hand his party an unprecedented third term in power. Lai is currently the vice president of the country and will succeed current DPP President Tsai Ing-wen.

Taiwan is a sovereign nation with its own government and civil institutions wholly independent of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite this reality, Beijing insists that Taiwan is a province of China and its government is a rogue “separatist” organization. The Chinese government forces countries to choose between recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty or diplomatic ties with China, so most of the world’s nations do not maintain formal ties with Taiwan. At press time, only 12 countries in the world recognize Taiwanese sovereignty, following Nauru’s abandonment of Taipei this weekend in the aftermath of Lai’s election. America is not one of the 12; former President Jimmy Carter abandoned Taiwan to forge ties with the Communist Party in 1979.

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Teacher’s Union Sues to Stop New York Congestion Pricing Plan

When the New York Legislature first approved a plan to toll drivers entering congested lower Manhattan in 2019, interest groups scrambled to get their own special exemptions to the forthcoming tolls.

Now, with all the exemptions handed out, the toll schedules set, and final implementation just around the corner, everyone who didn’t get their requested carve-out is suing to halt the whole congestion pricing scheme.

On Thursday, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents teachers in New York City’s public school system, along with Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella and individual teachers filed a federal lawsuit accusing federal and New York transportation officials of failing to conduct an adequate environmental review of its congestion pricing program. Their lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

“Federal, state and city transportation authorities conducted a rushed and hurried approval process for the congestion pricing plan,” said the union on X (formerly Twitter). “The current plan would not eliminate air and noise pollution or traffic, but would simply shift that pollution and traffic to the surrounding areas.”

The teachers’ lawsuit follows New Jersey’s earlier environmental lawsuit challenging congestion pricing filed last summer. Both argue that federal highway officials greenlit New York’s tolling program without conducting a thorough enough environmental analysis, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

NEPA requires that federal officials study the environmental effects of decisions they make—whether those are big decisions (like funding a new highway) or small ones (like approving a new vape device).

In New York’s case, federal sign-off of congestion pricing was required before the state could impose tolls on federally funded highways entering Manhattan.

Because NEPA allows third parties to sue over allegedly inadequate environmental studies, it’s become a favorite tool of environmentalists, slow growth activists, and garden variety NIMBY (not in my backyard) trying to stop or delay infrastructure projects.

To head off these legal challenges, federal agencies and their state partners will produce voluminous “litigation-proof” documents that attempt to leave no impact unexamined.

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Israel’s Genocide Betrays the Holocaust

Israel’s lebensraum master plan for Gaza, borrowed from the Nazi’s depopulation of Jewish ghettos, is clear.

Destroy infrastructure, medical facilities and sanitation, including access to clean water. Block shipments of food and fuel. Unleash indiscriminate industrial violence to kill and wound hundreds a day. 

Let starvation — the U.N. estimates that more than half a million people are already starving — and epidemics of infectious diseases, along with the daily massacres and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes, turn Gaza into a mortuary.

The Palestinians are being forced to choose between death from bombs, disease, exposure or starvation or being driven from their homeland.

There will soon reach a point where death will be so ubiquitous that deportation — for those who want to live — will be the only option.

Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the U.N. and a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Israel’s Kan Bet radio that he has been contacted by “countries in Latin America and Africa that are willing to absorb refugees from the Gaza Strip.”

“We have to make it easier for Gazans to leave for other countries,” he said. “I’m talking about voluntary migration by Palestinians who want to leave.” 

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Women’s Rights Groups Protest UN Appointment Of Transgender Activist As “Women’s Champion”

The United Nations has appointed a transgender activist as a “women’s champion,” prompting women’s rights groups to express their “dismay and disappointment.”

The Times reports “Seventeen women’s rights groups have signed a letter to the charity UN Women UK expressing concern about its choice of a transgender woman as its “UK champion”.

UN Women bills itself as the “Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women,” that works “for gender equality and the empowerment of women.”

Yet they’ve appointed a biological man as the UK’s representative for women.

It seems like a direct exercise in trolling women at this point.

The person in question is Munroe Bergdorf, a model, broadcaster and transgender activist.

Campaign Group Fair Play For Women issued a statement noting “In December the UN Women’s UK committee appointed a male who presents in a highly sexualised stereotype of womanhood as an ambassador for women.”

It continues, “UN Women has made a point of demonstrating that it considers males can become women. It’s disappointing to see the UK committee go so far as to select a male to represent women. Their credibility is in tatters.”

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Senate Staffer Who Was Fired for Having Anal Sex in the Senate Hearing Room in a G-String Jock Strap Blames Fallout on Homophobia

Democrat staffer Aiden Maese-Czeropski shocked the nation when video was posted of him and his partner having anal sex at the US Capitol in the Senate Hearing Room. Little Aiden was was buck naked except for a g-string jock strap as he straddled the Senator’s desk in the hearing room and smiled for the camera.

Aiden Maese-Czeropski , the Democrat Senate staffer embroiled in a salacious scandal in the Capitol has announced plans to pursue legal action against what he calls defamatory allegations and a politically motivated attack on his character.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Maese-Czeropski works as a legislative aide for Senator Cardin, handling foreign policy, tax, and trade issues. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.S. in Society and Environment in 2020.

Maese-Czeropski has also worked for the Virginia Democratic Party as a field organizer and for the liberal environmental group Friends of the Earth.

Aiden was fired on Saturday after the video made the rounds on the internet on Friday night.

Now he is blaming the fallout on homophobia.

He’s the real victim.

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Ex-FBI Intel Chief Who ‘Investigated’ Trump-Russia Collusion Gets 4 Years In Prison For Colluding With Russia

A former top FBI official who led the agency’s New York counterintelligence division, and played a key role in the Trump-Russia collusion probe, has been sentenced to 4 years in prison for colluding with Russia – and he may face an even longer sentence under a second indictment for hiding $225,000 in payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer.

Charles McGonigal, 55, was arrested in January and slapped with two separate indictments – one in New York and one in Washington, with the New York case related to taking nearly $200,000 in bribes from Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska to investigate a rival oligarch, and the Washington case concerning the Albanian money.

Mr. McGonigal made at least $25,000 as an investigator for the law firm before directly working for Mr. Deripaska. He received an initial payment of $51,000 and then payments of $41,790 each month for three months from August 2021 to November 2021, the indictment said.

Prosecutors said Mr. McGonigal concealed his ties to the Russian oligarch by telling friends he was working for a “rich Russian guy” and stressed that his work was legal. In conversations about Mr. Deripaska, he would try to keep his employer’s identity a secret by referring to him as “the big guy” and “you know whom.” -Washington Times

McGonigal pleaded guilty in August after being hit with four initial corruption charges – including conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions, money laundering, conspiring to commit money laundering and conspiring to violate federal law against doing business with sanctioned individuals. Each count carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

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Florida Medical Marijuana Company Asks Court To Block Legalization Initiative That Would ‘Significantly Impact’ Its Business And Patients

A Florida medical marijuana certification company is seeking to block an adult-use cannabis legalization ballot initiative in the state Supreme Court, arguing that the reform “disproportionately prioritizes” profits from recreational sales and that it would “significantly impact our business operations and the well-being of our clients.”

My Florida Green, a service that connects patients seeking medical cannabis cards to doctors who can certify them, is asking the court to allow it to submit an amicus curiae brief in the case contesting the Smart & Safe Florida legalization measure that was brought by state Attorney General Ashley Moody (R).

The company says that it’s not opposed to adult-use legalization in principle, but it’s arguing that there are “potential consequences” of the 2024 constitutional amendment that could impact “patient care and public health.”

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