Tag: police state

South Korean President Courts Chicoms with Official Letter While Visiting US President Trump – This is After Police Raided the Opposition Party’s Headquarters Last Week

On Monday South Korea’s pro-China President Lee Jae-myung will meet with President Trump at the White House.

Last week Lee Jae-myung’s regime carrying out police raids on political opponents who dare raise questions about election fraud under the current pro-Chinese regime.

On August 20, armed police stormed the office of the Free and Innovation Party, led by former Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, under the guise of investigating so-called “election law violations,” according to our contact in South Korea, Kim Yu-jin.

Hwang, along with hundreds of citizens organized under the Committee for Preventing Election Fraud, had officially registered as election monitors.

They followed legal procedures, participated transparently, and documented what they believed were serious irregularities. Instead of being commended for strengthening democracy, they are now being treated as criminals.

While President Lee Jae-myung is engaging in summit diplomacy with the United States and Japan, he has simultaneously dispatched a special envoy to Beijing with a personal letter for Xi Jinping.

This reveals a troubling double-track policy — speaking of alliance with America while at the same time courting the Chinese Communist Party.

Such actions raise serious questions about Seoul’s reliability as a U.S. ally. The message delivered to Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, emphasized “expanding common interests” with Beijing. At the very moment when Washington is working to strengthen trilateral cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo, South Korea’s leader is signaling deference to Beijing.

Keep reading

Christian bookstore in Colorado Springs sues Colorado over new anti-discrimination act

The owners of a Christian bookstore in Colorado Springs are suing the state over a new anti-discrimination law they claim violates First Amendment rights by forcing them to use pronouns that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of Born Again Used Books, a family-owned bookstore operated by Eric and Sara Smith, with the aim of “seeking to uphold religious and commonsense beliefs about biological sex.”

The lawsuit challenges the Kelly Loving Act, a new state law named after a woman who was killed during the 2022 Club Q shooting.

The act, signed into state law in May, amends the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) to expand protections for transgender individuals, recognizing misgendering and deadnaming as forms of discrimination and prohibiting such acts in public spaces.

Under the revised CADA, businesses classified as “public accommodations” – including bookstores – are prohibited from denying services, advertising in a discriminatory way, or making customers feel unwelcome based on gender expression.

In the lawsuit, the bookstore owners argue that this amended policy infringes on their First Amendment rights to free speech and religious freedom by forcing them to express beliefs they don’t hold.

The lawsuit states that the bookstore’s owners believe that “God created everyone in His image, male or female,” and that “sex is immutable.” Born Again Used Books says it welcomes all customers, but cannot affirm “gender choices” that contradict its religious views.

“Although Born Again Used Books happily sells its products to everyone, Colorado now compels the bookstore to speak using pronouns and titles based on a person’s preferred gender expression—thereby requiring the store to prioritize a person’s professed identity over biological reality,” Alliance Defending Freedom said in a release. “That violates the Christian bookstore’s beliefs and the First Amendment.”

In the lawsuit, the store says it wants to be transparent with customers by formalizing this policy into a written pronoun policy and publishing blog posts explaining its reasoning – but the owners believe these actions would now be illegal under the amended Colorado law.

“Because CADA now makes all this illegal, Born Again Used Books must instead profess an ideological view it opposes … and avoid explaining its Christian beliefs about human sexuality in store and online,” the lawsuit reads in part. “In effect, the law requires this Christian bookstore to abandon its core religious beliefs.”

The bookstore is now asking a federal court to block Colorado from enforcing parts of the anti-discrimination law. Specifically, the lawsuit seeks a preliminary and permanent injunction to stop the enforcement of provisions related to gender expression and pronouns.

Keep reading

President Trump Signs Executive Order to Prosecute People Who Burn American Flags – “It Incites Riots… You Burn a Flag, You Get One Year in Jail”

President Trump on Monday signed the “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag” Executive Order into law, prioritizing the prosecution of crimes that involve the burning of the American flag and potentially opening challenges to the interpretation of the First Amendment protections for flag burning. 

It does not appear to make burning the American flag a crime, but crimes that involve burning a flag will be prioritized.

“Our great American Flag is the most sacred and cherished symbol of the United States of America, and of American freedom, identity, and strength,” the order reads.

“Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative. It is a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation — the clearest possible expression of opposition to the political union that preserves our rights, liberty, and security. Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot.”

The order also describes the act as “a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth,” used by foreign nationals, and it directs the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to “deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, pursuant to Federal law, including 8 U.S.C. 1182(a), 8 U.S.C. 1424, 8 U.S.C. 1427, 8 U.S.C. 1451(c), and 8 U.S.C. 1227(a).”

It further argues that flag burning, “conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words,’” is not constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.

The order directs the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to “prioritize the enforcement to the fullest extent possible of our Nation’s criminal and civil laws against acts of American Flag desecration that violate applicable, content-neutral laws, while causing harm unrelated to expression, consistent with the First Amendment,” including “violent crimes; hate crimes, illegal discrimination against American citizens, or other violations of Americans’ civil rights; and crimes against property and the peace, as well as conspiracies and attempts to violate, and aiding and abetting others to violate, such laws.”

The Attorney General is also permitted to “pursue litigation to clarify the scope of the First Amendment exceptions in this area.”

White House Staff Secretary Will Scharff told the President, the order “charges your department of justice with investigating instances of flag burning, and then where there’s evidence of criminal activity, where prosecution wouldn’t fall foul of the First Amendment, it instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute those who are engaged in these instances of flag burning.”

While signing the order into law, President Trump reasoned that the action causes people to go “crazy” and that “what it does is incite to riot.”

“And what the penalty is going to be if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. No early exits, no nothing,” he said. “you will see flag burning stopping immediately, just like when I signed the Statue and Monument Act— 10 years in jail if you hurt any of our beautiful monuments. Everybody left town. They were gone. Never had a problem after that, it’s pretty amazing.”

Keep reading

Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Patient Count Falls to Lowest Level Since June 2020

The new figure marks the eighth consecutive month of decline, down from 326,828 in July and well below the 2022 peak of nearly 387,000 patients.

The downward trend comes as Oklahoma’s once rapidly expanding program stabilizes and tightens. When voters approved medical marijuana in 2018, the program quickly became one of the most accessible in the nation, with low barriers to entry and no cap on business licenses. At its height, nearly 10% of the state’s population held medical marijuana cards, a rate unmatched anywhere else in the country.

Since then, the state has also introduced more stringent oversight, which may be contributing to the shrinking patient base. Several readers have contacted out to us in recent weeks to say that their renewal was denied, but they were given no reason as to why. We reached out to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority for comment, but they have yet to provide a response.

Another factor contributing to the decrease in medical cannabis patients is the proliferation of hemp-derived THC products, which can be found easily in smoke shops and online.

In the meantime, advocates with Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action are working to place a recreational marijuana measure on the November 2026 ballot. The proposal would allow adults 21 and older to possess, purchase, and grow marijuana while creating a taxed retail system. Petitions are now available at more than 400 sites in over 100 cities, giving supporters widespread access as the campaign pushes forward.

Keep reading

Anti-Drug, Law Enforcement And Religious Groups Urge Trump To Oppose Marijuana Rescheduling

A coalition of anti-marijuana, law enforcement and religious groups are imploring President Donald Trump to oppose a cannabis rescheduling proposal that he says his administration will decide on within weeks.

Led by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the coalition sent a letter to the president on Monday, saying the organizations “strongly urge that you reject reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug” under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a move that Trump had endorsed during last year’s campaign.

One signatory of the letter, the Drug Enforcement Association of Federal Narcotics Agents, represents personnel at the Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency that the cannabis reform proposal currently sits before.

“President Trump has an opportunity to make a stand for the safety of children across America by opposing the flawed proposal to reschedule marijuana,” SAM President Kevin Sabet said in a press release. “Marijuana has not been approved for any medical use by the FDA, nor has any raw plant. And it likely never will. It is an addictive drug with a high risk of abuse. That’s why it sat in Schedule I for decades and why it must stay there.”

Cannabis is currently classified as a Schedule I drug, but the Biden administration initiated a scientific review that led it to it to propose moving it to Schedule III. That wouldn’t federally legalize the plant, but it would allow state-licensed marijuana businesses to take federal tax deductions and remove certain barriers to research.

In the letter, the organizations acknowledged that the argument that marijuana shouldn’t be placed in the same schedule as heroin are “politically salient and easy to understand.” However, they said reform advocates “fundamentally misunderstand how drug scheduling works.”

“Contrary to popular belief, drug scheduling is not a harm index,” they said. “Rather, it balances the accepted medical use of a substance with its potential for abuse.”

Keep reading

Israeli military uproots thousands of Palestinian olive trees in West Bank

The Israeli military has destroyed about 3,000 olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the head of the local council says, as Palestinians face a continued wave of violence across the territory in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Israeli military issued an order to uproot olive trees in a 0.27sq-km (0.1sq-mile) area in al-Mughayyir, a village of about 4,000 residents northeast of Ramallah.

The army justified the measure by saying the trees posed a “security threat” to a main Israeli settlement road that runs through the village’s lands.

The destruction was carried out as al-Mughayyir has been under lockdown since Thursday after an Israeli settler said he was shot at in the area.

Keep reading

Sequins, feathers… and a groundbreaking arrest using facial recognition cameras: The Daily Mail sees police deploy slick new technology at Notting Hill Carnival

Even the harshest critics of the Metropolitan Police admit the force has its work cut out with the Notting Hill Carnival.

Describing Europe’s biggest street party as a policing challenge would be a bit like referring to the Second World War as an unfortunate diplomatic incident.

Of course, it is not just the crowds of more than two million that put a strain on police resources every year on the August bank holiday. In recent years, it has also been the criminality – drugs, violence, knife crime, sexual offences, even murder – that all too frequently overshadows the celebrations.

So even with around 7,000 officers on duty, it is perhaps unsurprising that Met chiefs have introduced the use of live facial recognition (LFR) – previously deployed at the King’s coronation as well as Premier League matches – for the 2025 carnival.

Festivities officially began yesterday morning with the Children’s Day Parade. Thousands of revellers – many wearing ornate costumes of sequins and feathers – danced through the west London streets as drummers pounded unrelenting rhythms. Elsewhere, more than 30 sound systems blared out Caribbean and electronic dance music.

Meanwhile, officers were putting in place the final touches to their LFR system, which records images of people via sophisticated cameras. It uses biometric software to assess head size and other facial features, then converts these details into digital data. According to experts, any individual whose image scores 0.64 or higher (on a scale of zero to one) is highly likely to be a match for someone whose photo is on file.

At 6.23am yesterday, several hours before the parade got underway, specialists at the Met finalised a ‘watchlist’ of 16,231 individuals of interest to them. They included people wanted by the courts or being sought for alleged criminal activity that would merit jail time of ‘a year or more’.

Others on the list included those who have been freed under certain restrictions – including former prisoners released on licence from life sentences – to ensure they are sticking to the conditions imposed on them by the authorities.

Keep reading

South Dakota Medical Marijuana Industry Cheers Sting Operations On Hemp Product Sellers

South Dakota’s medical cannabis industry voiced its support for sting operations targeting sellers of hemp products that create a marijuana-like high.

The comments from Jeremiah Murphy, a lobbyist for the Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota, came during Tuesday’s meeting of the state’s Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee.

Murphy’s association represents the state’s 116 licensed medical cannabis cultivators, manufacturers and dispensaries.

The industry “commends the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office” for its sting operation targeting hemp-based THC products at eight Rapid City-area smoke shops and convenience stores, Murphy said.

Law enforcement bought samples of gummies, THC drinks and other products with “hemp-derived” ingredients. Strains of THC is a family of high-inducing molecules found in large concentrations in the cannabis plant.

The hemp plant is a cousin to cannabis that contains tiny quantities of THC. Hemp-derived intoxicants often get their THC from chemically modified or distilled CBD. CBD is a different, nonintoxicating molecule found in cannabis and hemp.

Hemp is legal to cultivate under the 2018 farm bill, and hemp-derived products are legal under federal law. Since mid-2024, however, South Dakota has barred the sale–but not the possession–of products made with chemically synthesized versions of THC.

The Rapid City compliance check followed a July 10 letter from Pennington County State’s Attorney Lara Roetzel to businesses suspected of unlawful hemp sales.

Katy Urban, spokeswoman for Roetzel’s office, says the agencies are waiting for testing results to determine if any laws were broken.

Sioux Falls Police Department spokesman Aaron Benson said the SFPD has performed one compliance check, and is waiting on results from a lab test to determine how to proceed with one case. Benson declined to say how many businesses were visited, citing the open investigation.

Committee hears support for compliance

At Tuesday’s medical marijuana committee meeting, Murphy repeated an assertion he’s used for nearly two years now:  The availability of hemp-derived alternatives to medical cannabis puts the state’s highly regulated medical marijuana industry at a disadvantage.

“Why do I go to a doctor and pay him, and why go pay the state to pay even more money, when I can go to the vape shop, or I can go to the hemp store and they’re selling exactly what I need?” Murphy said.

The number of medical marijuana cards issued in the state stands at around 14,000, but changes slightly every day, Whitney Brunner of the Department of Health told the medical marijuana committee Tuesday.

“Any data point presented on patient cards is representative of a snapshot in time,” Brunner said.

Cards issuance has picked up slightly since voters rejected a ballot measure to legalize recreational cannabis last fall, but remained at about 14,000 as of this week. A little more than 70 percent of the cards have been issued to people for the management of chronic pain, Brunner told the committee.

Medical cannabis purveyors supported the law banning the sale of synthetically altered hemp products, but the law hasn’t led to a crush of cases against sellers. Around 100 charges had been filed as of last month, between juvenile and adult cases, according to the Unified Judicial System. Several of those charges were attached to individual defendants.

Keep reading

The Cost of Disclosure: How Intimidation Keeps UFO Witnesses Quiet

The first thing, Mike Herrera says, is the pressure. 

It arrives as a feeling before it becomes a fact: the sense that people asking the wrong questions are being watched, leaned on, or shut down.

Politicians, congressional staffers, and whistleblowers are facing threats and intimidation from Intelligence Community operatives and government contractors as they investigate covert Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) programs, according to the Marine veteran, who says he has briefed the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and the Senate’s Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.

“Absolutely – it happens quite a bit,” Herrera told Liberation Times.

“Many feel the heat [investigating UAP allegations from whistleblowers and witnesses], and I personally know some, though I won’t name them. It’s a very common trend among staffers and even politicians to be threatened or intimidated in an effort to make them back off.”

The intimidation, he says, is meant to be unmistakable – more than whispers in corridors, closer to a performance of power. 

“They use surveillance to make people feel uncomfortable – helicopters are the big one. They’ll fly over someone’s residence or circle them, just as a reminder: ‘You’re on our radar.’ It’s happened to me personally, and it’s happened to many whistleblowers I know. Even staffers and some politicians have experienced it, over and over again.”

From pressure tactics, Herrera moves to structural allegations: efforts inside Congress that steer inquiries away from sensitive lanes, especially around alleged crash retrievals and reverse engineering. 

Keep reading