Tag: police state

Helicopter pilot threatened with arrest after flying rescue missions in flood-ravaged NC

A South Carolina pilot who flew stranded Hurricane Helene victims in flood-ravaged North Carolina to safety claims he was told he would be arrested if he continued the rescue missions.

Jordan Seidhom was flying victims out of the devastation over the weekend when local leaders told him there was a flight restriction on the area and that they would have to arrest him if he continued making flights.

“There were other victims. As we were flying out leaving the area, we spotted within 300, 400 yards of their location [people] were waving for help as my son and I were leaving,” Seidhom told Queen City News.

After the storm wreaked havoc on the region, leaving hundreds of people stranded as entire roadways washed away, Seidhom read about a family that was stranded without water on a mountain in Banner Elk, a ski town heavily battered by the storm, and knew he had to take action.

“I thought, I have a helicopter, maybe I can help,” he told the outlet.

Seidhom, who once led the Chesterfield County Sheriff’s Office narcotics unit, and his teenage son Landon flew out bottled water and food to the family on Saturday and decided they would set out to find other people in need of help.

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Mayor of California Charter City Defies Newsom’s Ban on Voter ID Laws ‘That Law Does Not Apply to Us’

A California mayor is defiant after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law in direct response to the city’s attempt to secure elections.

The saga began on March 5, when Huntington Beach voters weighed in and passed ballot measure 1, the Voter ID and Election Rules Amendment.

According to Ballotpedia, the charter amendment authorized the city to require voter identification for elections and allowed infrastructure to support the initiative.

In 2023, then-Mayor Tony Strickland supported the measure in the face of pressure from local and state Democrats seeking to torpedo it.

“Our democracy does not work if people do not have faith in the election results,” Strickland told Voice of OC. “Anytime you can put safeguards in I think it’s important to do so people have faith in our election outcomes.”

Huntington Beach voters passed the measure with 53.4 percent approving the measure and 46.6 percent rejecting it. The increased election security was set to begin in 2026.

After the initiative passed, state legislators were quick to react to Huntington Beach voter’s approval of the measure and moved to crush it entirely.

In April, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber sued the city over what it called an “unlawful” voter ID amendment.

The two officials said, without evidence, that the measure would hurt the poor, elderly and “people of color.”

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Non-citizen cop can now arrest you in Walz’s Minnesota

We give our police officers extreme power.  We provide them with the right to arrest us before we are convicted in court or even indicted by a Grand Jury.  We give them guns and qualified immunity to use those firearms.

Now, in Tim Walz’s Minnesota, a non-citizen Muslim from Somalia has all those special rights.

I’ll assume Somali-native Officer Lesly Vera is a good woman.  Now 23, she emigrated legally when she was four.  Although she has been here for 19 years, we wonder how much of America she really understands, and respects.  Rather than moving to a town where she could assimilate into our American culture, her mother took her to the largest Somali community in the U.S.

If a mother wants to adopt good American values, Minneapolis is a bad choice.  The reason the choice is bad extends beyond tampons in boys’ bathrooms. The Somali influx and influence in the North Star State is so strong, according to Wiki, almost 100,000 Minnesotans speak Somali at home.  Many were drawn to Minnesota’s huge welfare benefits, giving them free housing, free food, free medical care, and free education.  If you weren’t born here, you could name anything you need in Minneapolis, and a government program or charity will probably give it to you.  And when it comes to obeying the law… in parts of the city, Muslims have imported Sharia Law as an essential part of their culture.

There is hardly anything “American” in the Somali sections of Minneapolis.

Of course, many Somali immigrants are assimilated into our country and its values.  Many learned to speak English very well.  Many are now proud Americans. But many also learned how to work the system.  Some leaders of the Minneapolis Somali community spoke English well enough to defraud taxpayers out of $40 million in a massive Federal Child Nutrition Program scam.  A fake charity called Feeding Our Future fed those tens of millions of dollars into the Somali crooks’ pockets but did little to feed hungry kids.

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A Florida Judge Blocked a Newspaper from Publishing Video of a Jail Death

A Florida newspaper reports that video of a mentally ill man’s violent death in a county jail contradicts the sheriff office’s narrative of what happened. But the public may never get to see what really happened.

Florida Circuit Judge James R. Baxley ruled last month that the Ocala Gazette could view, but not publish, jailhouse footage of the 2022 death of Scott Whitley, a mentally ill man who died in the Marion County Jail after deputies pepper-sprayed, dogpiled, and tased him. Publishing the footage, Baxley ruled, would raise safety concerns.

The Gazette reported on September 25, after finally being able to view the footage, that Whitley “exhibited no physical violence toward Marion County Jail detention deputies before he was rushed to the floor, restrained and hit with a Taser 27 times over 12 minutes.” Furthermore, “Contrary to initial reports from the sheriff’s office that claimed Whitley refused to comply with guards’ orders, the footage shows the inmate sitting as ordered and, when he sees the guards rush towards him, he raises his hands in defense and pleads ‘no’ and ‘wait’—to no avail.”

The order is the latest development in a two-years-and-running transparency fight over records related to Whitley’s death.

Whitley, 46, was booked into the Marion County Jail on November 16, 2022, on charges of resisting an officer with violence and violating a protective order filed by his elderly parents to remove him from their home because of his deteriorating mental health. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was placed on suicide watch in the jail. According to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), he was combative during his arrest and continued to be uncooperative and aggressive at the jail.

On November 25, Whitley refused to put his hands through his cell to be handcuffed during a routine cell inspection. Guards sprayed him with pepper foam, and after a few minutes they ordered Whitley to sit on the toilet. When he did, deputies rushed his cell and forced him to the ground.

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A Licence for Everything: British Government Creates Mandatory Chicken Register

“Do you keep chickens in your back garden? Register them now or break the law”, Britons are warned by state media as new rules pulling back yard flocks into industrial bureaucracy that takes force today.

As difficult as it is to believe a Western government would use a flu-like virus to crack down on freedoms, the British government is nevertheless at it, and from today anyone harbouring unlicensed chickens on their property will be breaking the law.

People who have chickens in their garden and don’t comply with the mandatory register, the purpose of which is to allow “more effective surveillance”, risks “being fined or even imprisoned”.

Announced in the Spring, the rule change removes the old exemption for back yard flocks and smallholdings, which meant anyone keeping less than 50 birds — including chickens and ducks — would not need to note the government and could continue the ages-old practice of raising their own food unmolested.

But government concern over avian flu, even despite as the state broadcaster the BBC notes “a lack of recent reported cases in captive birds”, has pushed it to reduce the notifiable number of birds down to one.

The deadline to register with the Animal Plant Health Agency in England and Wales is October 1st, and December 1st in Scotland, and chicken keepers had been encouraged to get signed up early. As explained by the NFU, “Bird keepers will need to provide information, including their contact details, the location where birds are kept and details of the birds (species, number and what they are kept for).”

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FBI to pay more than $22 million to 34 women who claimed sexual harassment at training academy

The FBI has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit by paying more than $22 million to 34 female recruits alleging they were sexual harassed and dismissed from the agency’s Quantico, Virginia, training facility, according to news reports Monday.

They women allege having been routinely harassed by instructors with sexually charged comments about their breast size, false allegations of infidelity and the need to take contraception “to control their moods,” according to the Associated Press. 

The settlement is still subject to approval by a federal judge. But if the payout is approved, it would be among the largest lawsuit settlements in the history of the FBI, the wire service also reports.

“These problems are pervasive within the FBI and the attitudes that created them were learned at the academy,” said David J. Shaffer, the lawyer for the women. “This case will make important major changes in these attitudes.”

The suit was filed in 2019 and also contends the female recruits were judged more harshly than their male peers and “excessively targeted for correction and dismissal in tactical situations for perceived lack of judgment” and subjective “suitability” criteria.

The FBI did not immediately comment on the settlement. However, mny of the allegations in the lawsuit were confirmed in a 2022 internal watchdog report. 

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The Babylon Bee Strikes Back: Lawsuit Takes on California’s Anti-Satire Laws

In a world where politicians crave safe spaces from jokes, California’s latest move to suppress satire might just take the cake. California has decided that it’s time to put an end to all that pesky “political humor.” Yes, the state that brought us Hollywood is now terrified of a few biting punchlines, and naturally, satire site The Babylon Bee and outspoken attorney Kelly Chang Rickert are not having it.

The champion of online irreverence has just slapped the State of California with a lawsuit that reads less like legalese and more like a desperate plea for common sense. They’re arguing, quite reasonably, that California’s new laws—AB 2839 and AB 2655—are a massive overreach, a heavy-handed attempt to quash their First Amendment rights and kill the punchline before it even has a chance to land.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

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When Government Becomes The Enemy Of Liberty, Principles Are The Antidote to Politics

Only four percent “of US adults say the political system is working extremely or very well.” Sixty-five percent say we “always or often feel exhausted when thinking about politics.” Yet, we keep doubling down, thinking that more attention on politics will somehow fix what ails society.

In 2020, candidates spent over $14 billion seeking the presidency. This was double the amount spent in 2016. The 2024 presidential campaign is far from over. How much will candidates spend this time to fix our attention on politics?

If you are one of those who find politics dispiriting, C. S. Lewis would understand. In his essay “Membership,” contained in his collection The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis wrote, “A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion: to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other.” Politics, Lewis explained, is not “the natural food of the mind” but a “necessary evil.” However, too much emphasis on politics has become “a new and deadly disease.”

Lewis compared fresh fruit to canned fruit. The latter can be necessary for storage, but Lewis observed he had met people who learned to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh.

Similarly, among us are those who prefer to weigh the promises of candidates as a pathway to societal advancement rather than shore up the foundations of a free society.

If candidates still fix your mind on their empty promises, Ralph Waldo Emerson has an instant mindset cure. In his essay “Experience,” he wrote, “A political orator wittily compared our party promises to western roads, which opened stately enough, with planted trees on either side, to tempt the traveler, but soon became narrow and narrower, and ended in a squirrel-track, and ran up a tree.”

Running ourselves up trees has consequences. Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom warned, “The use of political channels, while inevitable, tends to strain the social cohesion essential for a stable society.”

Friedman continued, “Every extension of the range of issues for which explicit agreement is sought strains further the delicate threads that hold society together.”

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California Governor Vetoes Bill To Let Marijuana Growers Sell Directly To Consumers At State-Run Farmers Markets

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has vetoed a bill to allow small marijuana growers to sell their products directly to consumers at state-organized farmers markets.

Ahead of a Monday deadline to act on legislation, the governor blocked final approval of the measure from Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D), saying that while he appreciates “the author’s intent to support small and equity cannabis cultivators,” he is “concerned that the bill’s broad eligibility, which extends to the vast majority of licensed cultivators, would undermine the existing retail licensing framework and place significant strain on the Department of Cannabis Control’s ability to regulate and enforce compliance.”

“I remain open to considering a more flexible and narrowly focused version of this bill next year that can better respond to market dynamics, without imposing a rigid monitoring and compliance framework,” Newsom wrote in a veto message. “Such policies must be considered within the broader context of efforts that are necessary to address the fundamental issues straining the legal cannabis market, such as competition from unregulated sources and improving access to regulated products.

“It is essential that we prioritize solutions that strengthen, rather than further burden, the existing regulated market,” he said.

While the governor supports cannabis legalization, he’s been notably reserved about various drug policy proposals in recent years, for example vetoing legislation to legalize psychedelics and allow safe consumption sites for illegal drugs.

Newsom has yet to act on a separate bill to legalize cannabis cafes from Assemblymember Matt Haney (D).

Newsom vetoed a prior version of Haney’s cannabis cafe bill, saying that while he appreciated that the intent was to “provide cannabis retailers with increased business opportunities and an avenue to attract new customers,” he felt “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing smoke-free workplace protections.”

To that end, the measure as passed by the legislature contains changes to create separation between public consumption spaces and back rooms of businesses where food is prepared or stored in order to better protection the health of workers in line with the governor’s concerns.

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Hidden Agendas: Beware of the Government’s Push for a Digital Currency

The government wants your money. It will beg, steal or borrow if necessary, but it wants your money any way it can get it.

The government’s schemes to swindle, cheat, scam, and generally defraud taxpayers of their hard-earned dollars have run the gamut from wasteful pork barrel legislation, cronyism and graft to asset forfeiture, costly stimulus packages, and a national security complex that continues to undermine our freedoms while failing to making us any safer.

Americans have also been made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the taxpayers.

This is what comes of those $1.2 trillion spending bills: someone’s got to foot the bill.

Because the government’s voracious appetite for money, power and control has grown out of control, its agents have devised other means of funding its excesses and adding to its largesse through taxes disguised as fines, taxes disguised as fees, and taxes disguised as tolls, tickets and penalties.

No matter how much money the government pulls in, it’s never enough (case in point: the endless stopgap funding deals and constant ratcheting up of the debt ceiling), so the government has to keep introducing new plans to empower its agents to seize Americans’ bank accounts.

Make way for the digital dollar.

Whether it’s the central bank digital currency favored by President Biden, or the cryptocurrency being hawked by former President Trump, the end result will still be a form of digital money that makes it easier to track, control and punish the citizenry.

For instance, weeks before the Biden Administration made headlines with its support for a government-issued digital currency, the FBI and the Justice Department quietly moved ahead with plans for a cryptocurrency enforcement team (translation: digital money cops), a virtual asset exploitation unit tasked with investigating crypto crimes and seizing virtual assets, and a crypto czar to oversee it all.

No surprises here, of course.

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