Tag: police state

Children’s Health Defense Wins Settlement in Landmark Censorship Case

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a settlement in CHD’s landmark class action censorship lawsuit against key Biden administration officials accused of colluding with tech companies to censor social media content.

In a press release, the DOJ cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, Executive Order “acknowledging that ‘the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.’ 90 Fed. Reg. 8243 (Jan. 28, 2025).”

CHD, along with its then-Chairman Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sued the Biden administration in March 2023.

The lawsuit, Kennedy v. Biden, became CHD v. Trump after Trump became president of the U.S., and Kennedy, who first left CHD to run his own presidential campaign, was later named secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration.

The class action lawsuit against then-President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top administration officials and federal agencies alleged they “waged a systematic, concerted campaign” to compel the nation’s three largest social media companies to censor constitutionally protected speech.

Jed Rubenfeld, attorney for CHD, called the settlement a “tremendous win” against government censorship.

“We brought this case years ago to challenge the Biden administration’s assault on free speech,” Rubenfeld said. “Today, the government, under a new administration, acknowledged that assault. And via a previously issued Executive Order, the president prohibited government officials from pressuring social media companies in the future to trample on Americans’ First Amendment rights.”

As part of the settlement with CHD, the government agreed to pay attorneys’ fees.

The DOJ also settled a similar lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, and issued a consent decree in the case.

Keep reading

US Immigration’s Expanding Gulag

The March 4, 2026, edition of the Arizona Daily Star put the facts succinctly:

“A Haitian asylum seeker held for four months at Florence Correctional Center died Monday at a Scottsdale hospital due to complications from an infected tooth.” It seems the infection spread from his tooth to his lungs, and he developed the pneumonia that killed him.

In other words, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) allowed a prisoner to die of a toothache. His name was Emmanuel Damas. He was 56 years old and the father of two.

And we can only expect medical treatment at ICE centers to deteriorate further. As Judd Legum at Popular Information reported in January 2026:

“ICE… has not paid any third-party providers for medical care for detainees since October 3, 2025. Last week, ICE posted a notice on an obscure government website announcing it will not begin processing such claims until at least April 30, 2026. Until then, medical providers are instructed ‘to hold all claims submissions.’”

Emmanuel Damas’s unnecessary death would be outrageous enough, were it the only one of its kind. In fact, 32 people died in ICE custody during 2025, the most in two decades. Another six died in January 2026 alone, among them Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban father aged 55, at Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso, Texas.

Although ICE initially claimed Lunas Campos had attempted suicide, the American Immigration Council reports that “the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide arising from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”

Of course, it’s pretty hard to strangle yourself to death.

Keep reading

Female Napa Valley winery owner slapped with $4M in fines for putting on wine tasting and yoga classes on 8-acre land

A California winery owner has been slapped with nearly $4 million in fines after losing a court battle over hosting wine tastings and events on her eight-acre property.

Lindsay Hoopes, owner of Hoopes Vineyard in the rolling hills of Napa Valley, has been embroiled in a years-long court battle with Napa County.

The county filed suit in 2022, accusing Hoopes of creating a ‘public nuisance’ by hosting yoga classes and wine tastings, and selling items like greeting cards and hand sanitizer while failing to obtain a permit for a 120-sq-ft chicken coop. 

The legal fight hinges on whether small wineries established before 1990 – prior to new regulations – can host tastings without a permit. Central to the dispute is the ‘Small Winery Exemption,’ which the county argues does not allow such events. 

Hoopes has repeatedly challenged the county’s stance, continuing to allow the public onto her property despite what officials describe as ongoing ‘illegal activities,’ including farm animals on-site and unpermitted string lights. 

In the latest blow to Hoopes, a judge ruled against her, ordering an end to all on-site tastings, public events and sales on her vineyard, according to CBS News.

‘This is the most inhumane thing I’ve ever seen,’ Hoopes told the outlet in response to the ruling.

‘Drinking wine at a winery should never, ever, ever force a business owner/mother to essentially defend her livelihood or protect her children,’ she added. ‘I mean, the whole thing has been so grossly abusive and punitive.’

Keep reading

AOC Slams Federal Drug Laws That Restrict Marijuana And Psychedelics Despite Their Medical Value

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tore into the current U.S. drug scheduling system on Thursday—making the case that placing substances like marijuana and LSD in the most restrictive category runs counter to evidence showing their medical potential, hinders research and is associated with criminal penalties that haven’t effectively prevented harms from substance misuse.

In some cases, the congresswoman said during a hearing before the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee, classifying drugs as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) can exacerbate the overdose crisis, leading to the introduction of new, sometimes more dangerous drugs into the illicit marketplace.

The panel on Thursday took testimony on a variety of bills aimed at curbing overdose deaths and responding to emerging public health threats posed by illegal drugs such as xylazine and other opioid-like synthetics that are often more potent than the analogues that came before them.

Ocasio-Cortez said it was time to “take a step back” and “really explore and examine the scheduling system in the United States as a whole and really how we think about this,” directing her questions to Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina who served as an expert witness for the hearing.

Keep reading

New York Democrats Introduce Bills to Preserve Mandatory Vaccines

Democrats in New York have introduced legislation that would preserve requirements for certain vaccines for children recommended by state health officials and major scientific organizations, even if federal authorities rescind approval of the shots.

State Rep. Amy Paulin, a Democrat, on March 26 unveiled one of the bills, which would alter the state public health law in New York that sets out required vaccines for children, including vaccines against polio, measles, and hepatitis B.

The bill, Assembly Bill 10711, would remove language stating that the vaccines need to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Instead, the law would say that parents are required to have their children receive the vaccines “in accordance with regulations issued by the [state’s health] commissioner, utilizing generally accepted medical standards and taking into consideration recommendations of” nationally or internationally recognized scientific organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics.

A second piece of legislation would require insurance companies to cover vaccines even if they are not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provided they are recommended by the commissioner based on recommendations from the same organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, or national or international groups.

New York has historically mandated only vaccines that are approved and recommended by federal health agencies.

Keep reading

FCC Bans Nearly All Wireless Routers Sold in the U.S.

This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effectively banned the sale of nearly all wireless routers in the U.S., in yet another example of the government making Americans’ consumer decisions for them.

Ninety-six percent of American adults use the internet, and 80 percent of them use wireless routers—devices that transmit a signal throughout your home via radio waves and allow you to get online without plugging into the wall.

In a Monday announcement, the FCC deemed “all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries” potentially unsafe. This followed a national security determination last week, in which members of executive branch agencies concluded that “routers produced in a foreign country, regardless of the nationality of the producer, pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons.”

The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 empowered the government “to prevent communications equipment or services that pose a national security risk from entering U.S. networks.” The law directed the FCC to “publish and maintain a list of such equipment or services,” and according to that agency, inclusion on the list “will prevent the marketing, sale, or operation of any such new ‘covered’ equipment within the United States.”

Since wireless routers transmit over radio frequencies, they must be authorized by the FCC to be sold in the U.S.; adding all new foreign-made routers to the “Covered List” means the FCC will not authorize those devices’ transmitters, effectively banning their sale or use.

The announcement specifies that this only applies to new consumer-grade devices and “does not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized.” It also notes that manufacturers who apply for exemptions on new models can be “granted ‘Conditional Approval’ after finding that such device or devices do not pose such unacceptable risks.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ban will likely make it more difficult for Americans to get wireless routers.

The problem is that banning all foreign-made routers means banning practically all routers. Most manufacturers, including the three largest, make their products overseas.

Keep reading

He Compared a Black Child to a Dog and Withheld Evidence in Death Row Cases. Now He’s Running for Judge.

Hugo Holland’s aggressive legal tactics made him one of Louisiana’s most renowned prosecutors and helped turn Caddo Parish, a majority Black community in the northwest corner of the state, into one of the nation’s leaders in death penalty convictions.

His nearly 40-year career, though, has been marked by controversies.

In at least two death penalty cases, Louisiana judges found that Holland withheld evidence. In a third, he secured the conviction of a Black 16-year-old, comparing the boy to a dog and telling the jury to “get rid of it”; prosecutors later admitted that Holland and his team had failed to turn over evidence.

Defense attorneys have also accused him of racism, pointing, for example, to a capital murder case several years ago in which Holland emailed one of them to say he was going to spend Veterans Day in his pickup truck looking for “a Black guy or a Mex-can.” Holland called it a joke.

Holland, 62, is now running for judge in the First Judicial District Court in Caddo Parish, and his nascent campaign appears to have substantial backing. He has raised more than $61,000 in less than two months, according to the first campaign finance report released in February — twice the amount many candidates running for the 1st Judicial Court spend in an entire campaign, said Jeffrey Sadow, an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Holland’s donors include an assistant district attorney with the Caddo Parish DA’s office, the district attorney of neighboring Bossier and Webster parishes, a former state judge, and members of major law firms throughout the area.

Holland’s funding haul might prove to be so daunting that it scares off potential challengers, Sadow said, though candidates have until the end of July to enter the race. “It shows he’s got an awful lot of support and that he’s considered a quality candidate,” he said.

In addition to his robust campaign fundraising, Holland has been able to bring on the head of the local Republican Party, Matthew Kay, as his campaign chair. (Kay also served as an elector for Donald Trump in 2024.)

Holland declined multiple requests for comment about his candidacy and record as a prosecutor. Neither Kay nor nine of the 10 donors Verite News and ProPublica reached out to would respond or agree to speak about their support for Holland.

Keep reading

OneTaste Founder Nicole Daedone Gets 9-Year Prison Sentence

Nine years in prison for preaching unpopular ideas about sexuality? That’s the sentence that a judge imposed today on Nicole Daedone of OneTaste, a company built on orgasmic meditation (OM) and other unconventional wellness practices. Daedone has also been ordered to forfeit $12 million—which is how much she got for selling the company in 2017—and to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution.

The government will say that this is about human trafficking. But that’s just a sign of how “human trafficking” has become a catchall term for sex-tinged antics that prosecutors want to punish.

In this case, no one has accused Daedone and her colleague/co-defendant Rachel Cherwitz of violence. No one has accused them of confining victims, or of withholding identity documents or other items that employees might have needed to get away.

The alleged victims in this case could come and go as they pleased. They were adult women. They had college degrees, outside professional opportunities, and sometimes even independent wealth. They testified in court that they remained affiliated with OneTaste—some as employees, some as volunteers, some simply as people who took classes from the company or lived in group houses that it maintained—because they believed in its mission, believed in Daedone and Cherwitz, or wanted to maintain social status within the OneTaste community.

The government’s assertions about how Daedone and Cherwitz employed “coercion” in this case are a huge affront to freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Prosecutors suggested that the ideas Daedone and Cherwitz spread served as a form of brainwashing. These supposedly dangerous ideas include such things as being open to new sexual experiences and the notion that engaging in daily OM—a 15-minute, partnered, clitoral stroking session—could focus the mind and help empower practitioners, especially women. Daedone and Cherwitz appear to sincerely believe these ideas, which they saw as rooted in both Buddhism and feminism.

The government’s case was also a huge affront to the idea that women are fully agentic people capable of consent, sexual and otherwise. Prosecutors suggested that anxiety about being shunned by the OneTaste community was a harm so powerful that grown women were effectively “trafficked” by it. They argued that these women’s consent—to OM, to participate in sexual fantasy scenes, to enter into and out of relationships, to engage in sex acts with OneTaste members or donors, or to pay for OneTaste classes—was rendered null by the force of fear of social exclusion and/or fear that stopping OM and other OneTaste practices would have a negative impact on their lives.

Ultimately, the case portends a dangerous new standard for what counts as forced labor and what counts as harm under federal trafficking statutes.

Sentencing for Daedone started this morning, following a June 2025 conviction on one count of conspiracy to commit human trafficking. Cherwitz, convicted of the same, is scheduled to be sentenced this afternoon.

The government sought 20 years in prison for Daedone and more than 15 for Cherwitz—basing calculations in part on alleged conduct for which they were not even charged, let alone convicted. Judge Diane Gujarati denied the government’s request for a sexual abuse enhancement based on untried conduct.

The government’s star witness was to be a woman named Ayries Blanck, whose journals were a big part of the prosecutors’ case (and, also, of a Netflix documentary). Prosecutors would eventually disclose that Blanck had fabricated evidence, producing journals she said she had handwritten in 2015 but had actually composed much later. After heavily featuring Blanck and her journals in their arguments leading up to the trial, prosecutors declined to call Blanck as a trial witness and said they no longer believed in the authenticity of portions of her journals. The case nevertheless proceeded, and now a woman is heading to prison for nearly a decade.

Keep reading

Beloved highschooler Lily Bova gunned down outside Chicago — and cops won’t say who did it

A 16-year-old girl was gunned down in a quiet Chicago suburb Saturday morning — and authorities have neither caught nor identified her suspected killer.

The victim, identified as high school sophomore Lilly Bova, was killed in the Cook County neighborhood of Glenview around 11 a.m., authorities said.

Sheriff’s deputies are searching for a person of interest but have revealed few details about who may have killed the well-liked teen.

“While we cannot share further details at this time, this was an isolated incident and does not appear to pose a risk to the general public,” the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement — without revealing further details about the murder that has shocked her loved ones in the peaceful, affluent village.

Bova was “bright, positive and mature beyond her years,” her school principal said in a message to students and parents viewed by Fox 32.

Keep reading

Denver Imposes Water Restrictions, Orders Restaurants To Serve Only On Request

Restaurants in Colorado’s capital are only allowed to serve water to guests if they ask, according to new restrictions by the Denver Board of Water Commissioners.

“Restaurants and catering businesses shall serve water only upon request,” the mandatory irrigation restrictions read.

The rules were issued in the Mile High City after the commissioners declared a Stage 1 Drought and made plans to seek a 20 percent reduction in water use. City officials expect drought conditions to last until April 30, 2027.

The update will affect many businesses, including the hospitality industry.

“Lodging establishments shall not change sheets more often than every four days for guests staying more than one night, except for health or safety reasons or upon express request of guests,” the Denver Board of Water Commissioners stated.

Drivers who attempt to wash their car are told to use a bucket or a hand-held hose equipped with an automatic shut-off nozzle if they don’t use a commercial car wash.

Residents can water their grass only two days per week, according to the schedule provided by city officials, but it is prohibited between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., when the sun is up.

“Current conditions indicate that this is going to be an exceptionally challenging year for our water supply,” Nathan Elder, manager of water supply for Denver, said at a Denver Board of Water Commissioners meeting.

“Snow pack levels are at historic lows and are melting earlier and more rapidly than normal.”

Keep reading