Tag: police state

Maine Court Rules Against Family Of Child Vaccinated Without Parents’ Consent At School

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has upheld a lower court ruling that school medical staff who gave a COVID-19 vaccine to a minor without obtaining parental consent cannot be held liable.

On March 4, the court ruled that school medical staff were protected under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act).

The PREP Act provides a liability shield to “covered persons” — including those who administer COVID-19 or other countermeasures — during a public health emergency. COVID-19 vaccines are covered under the PREP Act because they were rolled out under emergency use authorization (EUA).

In November 2021, J.H., a minor, was given a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Miller School in Waldoboro, Maine.

In May 2023, J.H.’s parents Siara Harrington and Jeremiah Hogan, who said they did not consent to the vaccination, sued Lincoln Medical Partners, MaineHealth and pediatrician Dr. Andrew Russ.

The lawsuit, originally filed in Lincoln County Superior Court, challenged the PREP Act’s liability shield. The complaint alleged battery, negligence, false imprisonment, infliction of emotional distress and tortious interference with parental rights.

Keep reading

Veiled Threat: Possessing Pics of Muslim Women Without Hijabs Should Be Made a Crime, UK Lawmakers Say

Leftist lawmakers in Britain have argued that being in possession of pictures of Muslim women without their hijab headscarves should be a crime akin to child pornography.

Impending legislation originally intended to crack down on revenge porn should include the prohibition against having images of Muslim women’s faces without their hijab if the photos were taken without their express permission.

The Women and Equalities Committee in the House of Commons argued that such pictures should be considered “non-consensual intimate images” and, therefore, come with similar penalties as possessing child pornography, including lengthy prison sentences, the Daily Mail reported.

If government ministers sign off the committee’s proposal, it could become a crime in Britain as early as this year.

At present, the law defines “intimate” images as those in which a person is seen fully or partially nude, is engaging in a sexual act, or is seen using the bathroom.

Responding to the call to criminalise some pictures of Muslim women without hijabs, David Spencer of the Policy Exchange think tank said: “Tackling the problem of ‘revenge porn’ is clearly important – but expanding this to so-called ‘culturally intimate’ images risks extending the criminal law too far.

“The police cannot be expected to wade into so-called ‘cultural’ issues when officers are already struggling to deal with the volume of stabbings, sexual assaults and thefts that occur every day. The Government should be cautious about creating yet more criminal offences.”

Keep reading

Taking Rights Seriously

“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary opinion,
Mankind would be no more justified
In silencing that one person,
Than he, if he had the power,
Would be justified in silencing mankind.”

— John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

The world is filled with self-evident truths — truisms — that philosophers, lawyers and judges know need not be proven. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Two plus two equals four. A cup of boiling hot coffee sitting on a table in a room, the temperature of which is 70 degrees Fahrenheit, will eventually cool down.

These examples, of which there are legion, are not true because we believe they are true. They are true essentially and substantially. They are true whether we accept their truthfulness or not. Of course, recognizing a universal truth acknowledges the existence of an order of things higher than human laws, certainly higher than government.

The generation of Americans that fought the war of secession against England — according to Professor Murray Rothbard, the last moral war Americans waged — understood the existence of truisms and recognized their origin in nature.

The most famous of these recognitions was Thomas Jefferson’s iconic line in the Declaration of Independence that self-evident truths come not from persons but from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Thus, “All Men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is a truism.

Jefferson’s neighbor and colleague, James Madison, understood this as well when he wrote the Bill of Rights so as to reflect that human rights do not come from the government. They come from our individual humanity.

Natural Rights

Thus, your right to be alive, to think as you wish, to say what you think, to publish what you say, to worship or not, to associate or not, to shake your fist in the tyrant’s face by petitioning the government, your right to defend yourself and repel tyrants using and carrying the same weapons as the government does, your right to be left alone, to own property, to travel or to stay put — these natural aspects of human existence are natural rights that come from our humanity and for the exercise of which all rational persons yearn.

This is the natural rights understanding of Jefferson’s Declaration and Madison’s Bill of Rights, to the latter of which all in government have sworn allegiance and deference.

A right is not a privilege. A right is an indefeasible personal claim against the whole world. It does not require a government permission slip. It does not require preconditions except the ability to reason. It does not require the approval of family or neighbors.

Keep reading

Kentucky Senate Panel Votes To Ban Sale Of Hemp-Derived Beverages On A Temporary Basis

Kentucky lawmakers advanced a “shell” bill Wednesday evening to ban the sale of hemp-derived beverages in the state until summer of 2026, a move supporters say will allow time to understand how intoxicating versions of the beverages are impacting consumers.

But those involved in the hemp industry decried the proposed moratorium on the sale of hemp-derived beverages as hampering, or even crippling, small businesses trying to market, distribute or sell the canned beverages that are gaining popularity across the country and popping up in places including convenience stores.

Senate Bill 202 sponsor Sen. Julie Raque Adams (R-Louisville) said the goal of her bill is to better understand and regulate intoxicating hemp-derived beverages similar to how the state regulates other intoxicating beverages such as beer or liquor.

She spoke to lawmakers alongside Rep. Matthew Koch (R- Paris) with a line of cans on a desk featuring various flavors and amounts of infused non-intoxicating cannabidiol, known as CBD, and other cannabinoids, which can include intoxicating tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

“We are simply placing a moratorium on their sale until such time as we can establish robust regulations that protect Kentucky consumers and, most importantly, Kentucky children,” Adams said. “We have a real, I think, consumer protection issue going on right now. We need to make sure that Kentucky gets this right.”

Legislative concerns about regulating hemp-derived beverages sprang into public view on the 22nd day of this year’s 30-day session. The deadline for filing bills in the Senate was February 18.

Keep reading

Biased UN Report on Nicaragua Ignores Victims of US-Backed Opposition Violence

Reynaldo Urbina rides his motorbike around the streets of Masaya, Nicaragua, with agility, despite having only one arm. Nearly seven years ago, at the height of a US- supported coup attempt against Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government, Urbina was one of those guarding the city’s municipal warehouse when it was attacked by around 200 armed protestors. Warned of the impending attack, the guards had been ordered to hide their weapons and not resist capture, to minimize casualties.

But Urbina was suspected of knowing the whereabouts of the city’s mayor, whom the hooligans sought to assassinate, so they threw him to the ground and smashed his left arm with a rifle butt until it was practically destroyed. Urbina escaped, but his arm could not be saved, and was later amputated.

When a team was sent by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Nicaragua to collect evidence on human rights abuses a few weeks later, Urbina was among those offered by the government as a witness. But the team refused to meet him.

The UN’s 40-page report, issued in August 2018, devotes just five paragraphs to violence by anti-government factions; the rest blames the government and its supporters for practically every other violent incident, including many (like an arson attack on a pro-Sandinista radio station) that were clearly part of the coup attempt.

Some time after the coup attempt, Nicaragua’s then vice-minister for foreign affairs, Valdrack Jaentschke, described an exchange with Paulo Abrão, who was the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The IACHR was another of the bodies which had launched investigations of human rights abuses in 2018. Valdrack had asked Abrão why visiting investigators were not collecting evidence of the severe opposition violence which had taken place. Abrão gave two reasons: that human rights abuses can only be carried out by the state, and that violence by civil society groups is just “common criminality” and therefore not within the investigators’ mandate.

Keep reading

AG Pam Bondi: Still-Unreleased Epstein Files to Be Redacted for ‘National Security’

It unfortunately appears increasingly unlikely we’re going to get any of the juiciest bits of the Epstein files.

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi had the Epstein files “on her desk,” she told Fox News, ready to be released to the public at any moment.

Then, according to the official story out of the DOJ, at some point a whistleblower revealed that the 200 pages of requested Epstein documents she was given by the FBI were not, in fact, all of the documents.

(At this point skepticism begins to set in. How could an experienced prosecutor like Bondi, who was a prosecutor in Florida during the Epstein sex crimes cases, have believed that 200 pages of documents were all the FBI had in relation to one of the most significant sex trafficking rings in world history? The claim beggars belief.)

Nonetheless, even after having learned that she had apparently been duped by rogue agents in the Southern District of New York, she still pulled one of the worst PR stunts in recent memory, handing out binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” — which contained virtually no new information not already in the public domain — to a gaggle of handpicked influencers and sending them out in front of the White House press pool to wave them around as if they had a big scoop.

Keep reading

Covid Response at Five Years: The Illegal Vaccine Mandates

Initially, there was professed bipartisan opposition to Covid vaccine mandates. “No, I don’t think [the shot] should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it be mandatory,” President-elect Biden told the press in December 2020. Dr. Fauci agreed. “You don’t want to mandate and try and force anyone to take a vaccine. We’ve never done that,” he explained. “It would be unenforceable and inappropriate.”

A few months later, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi echoed their sentiment. “We cannot require someone to be vaccinated,” she told reporters. “That is just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn’t.” In July 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said mandates were “not the role of the federal government.” She continued, “that is the role that institutions, private-sector entities, and others may take.”

At first, the experimental shots remained voluntary. Despite pressure campaigns, government-sponsored propaganda, and relentless false advertising, many Americans declined the “vaccines” without becoming second-class citizens.

That changed on September 9, 2021, when President Biden announced a dramatic policy shift to compulsory vaccination. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” he told Americans as he announced mandates that applied to nearly 100 million men and women.

He demanded all federal workers and contractors be vaccinated. Additionally, he announced an “emergency rule” that would require private employers with 100 workers or more to require vaccinations or implement weekly testing protocols. Dr. Fauci suddenly announced he supported “many, many more mandates.” He appeared at a conference of LGBT journalists to detail his shift in opinion. Compulsion was necessary, he explained. “You’d like to have [citizens] do it on a totally voluntary basis, but if that doesn’t work, you’ve got to go to the alternatives.” The alternative, of course, was an involuntary basis. The vaccine was optional only if people agreed to take it; then, he would reveal its true nature as a mandate.

The Covid regime got in line with the new messaging, and suddenly, former opponents of mandates like Pelosi described anti-mandate views as “alarming” and “fanning the flames of dangerous disinformation.” Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers, “We’ve got to shake people at this point and say, ‘Come on now.’ We tried voluntary. We could not have more kind and compassionate…No more. Get vaccinated, or you can’t work in New York City.”

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison went on MSNBC to decry Republicans’ “crazy” “meltdown” in response to President Biden’s mandates, insisting his party was “moving forward with protecting the American people.” The Democratic Party unequivocally endorsed vaccine requirements, criticizing “breathless and irresponsible talking points from Republican leaders.” 

In January 2022, a poll showed that 59% of Democrats favored requiring unvaccinated citizens to remain confined to their homes, 55% of Democrats supported fines for the unvaccinated, 47% of Democrats favored a government tracking system for the unvaccinated, and 45% of Democrats supported internment camps for the unvaccinated.

The 180-degree change in opinion created obvious questions. Were Biden and Fauci right when they opposed mandates, or had their concerns been “breathless and irresponsible talking points?” Could states force children to receive Covid vaccines? Were these policies merely inadvisable, or were they overreaches of government authority?

Keep reading

State Department To Use AI To Revoke Visas of Students Who ‘Appear Pro-Hamas’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-driven effort to revoke the visas of foreigners in the US who “appear pro-Hamas” in a crackdown targeting pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Axios reported on Thursday.

The report said the effort will involve AI-assisted reviews of social media accounts of tens of thousands of foreign students in the US on visas that will look for “evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.”

The language in the report suggests that any foreign students who attend pro-Palestine demonstrations or express sympathy for Palestinians online could be swept up in the crackdown since opponents of the Israeli siege on Gaza or US military support for Israel are often labeled “pro-Hamas.”

Civil liberty groups have strongly criticized President Trump’s promises to deport foreign students who attend pro-Palestine protests since the speech of foreigners inside the US is supposed to be protected under the First Amendment.

“If we open the door to expelling foreign students who peacefully express ideas out of step with the current administration about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we should expect it to swing wider to encompass other viewpoints too,” Sarah McLaughlin, senior scholar at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said in an op-ed for MSNBC in January.

“Today it may be alleged ‘Hamas sympathizers’ facing threats of deportation for their political expression. Who could it be in four years? In eight?” McLaughlin added.

Keep reading

Pensioner, 93, who has dementia has been convicted of not insuring her car… despite her living in a care home and no longer having a driving licence

An elderly woman with dementia has been convicted of failing to insure her car – despite her living in a nursing home and no longer having a driving licence. 

The pensioner, 93, from Dudley in the West Midlands, was prosecuted by DVLA in September last year when they found out that the insurance on her Ford had expired.

In a handwritten letter the woman explained that due to her diagnosis she had not driven since November 10, 2023, but the vehicle had been ‘kept on the drive’ during this period, the Evening Standard reports.

She admitted to having ‘overlooked’ making a Statutory Off Road Notification (SORN) for the motor, but said her disease had caused her to hide mail – leaving her family unable to access her letters.

The woman also revealed she had been recovering from a stroke in a care home since November.

As prosecutor DVLA could have decided to withdraw the prosecution on the grounds it wasn’t in the public interest.

But, due to the fast-track design of the Single Justice Procedure, this was not considered.

The pensioner was convicted on a guilty plea at Taunton magistrates court last month. 

She was given a six-month conditional discharge, meaning no financial penalty, but still has a criminal conviction.

Keep reading

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Orders Arrest of US Citizen for Political Speech

Brazil’s pro-censorship Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has issued an arrest warrant for Flavia Cordeiro Magalhaes, a US citizen of Brazilian origin, who has lived in Florida for over 20 years.

According to her legal representative, what Moraes is attempting to do here is lock up a US citizen for political speech expressed on US soil – meaning that the warrant in effect “raises questions about US sovereignty.”

Moraes appears to have first ordered Magalhaes’ X account blocked in Brazil because of a post from 2022, which she made while in the US.

According to Magalhaes, she was unaware of the block at the time, since she was not notified by the Brazilian court. But because she continued posting on X, this eventually led to an order to place her in pre-trial detention, under the pretext that she was allegedly in contempt of court.

That is supposed to have occurred when she traveled to Brazil in December 2023 and was told her Brazilian passport was “under restriction” – but even though she entered and left the country legally, using her US passport, Moraes decided to treat this as the use of “a false document” – and issue the pre-trial detention order in February of last year.

All this, despite Brazil’s federal police documents stating that Magalhaes traveled to and from Brazil legally.

Keep reading