Tag: police state

No Charges in ATF Killing Over Paperwork Firearms Violation

Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) suspected that Bryan Malinowski, executive director of the airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, and an avid firearms collector, was reselling enough firearms at gun shows to make him more of a commercial dealer than a hobbyist. That meant he should, in the ATF’s view, get a Federal Firearms License. So on March 19, agents did what law enforcers do when they suspect people of paperwork violations: They raided his home before dawn, taped over the doorbell camera, and shot Malinowski dead less than a minute later when he opened fire on intruders who had just busted in his front door.

Unsurprisingly, the ATF agents are on their way to evading consequences for causing a man’s death over a paperwork violation.

Self-Defense, But for Who?

“A law enforcement officer is justified in using deadly physical force if the officer reasonably believes that the use of force is necessary to defend himself or a third person from the use of deadly force,” Sixth Judicial District Prosecutor Will Jones writes in his letter to ATF Special Agent Joshua Jackson absolving the agent who killed Malinowski of legal liability. “Given the totality of the circumstances, Agent 2 had a reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary to defend himself and Agent 1. Therefore, the use of deadly force by Agent 2 was in accordance with Arkansas law and was justified.”

Of course, Malinowski himself might have felt justified in using deadly force given that the front door to his family’s home had been battered down just seconds after strangers began banging on the door.

“Had he survived he was almost certainly entitled to claim self-defense in the wounding of the agent based on the reckless manner in which the government planned and executed the search,” Bud Cummins, a former U.S. Attorney who represents the Malinowski family, told me.

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Arizona’s Democratic Governor Vetoes Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Service Centers

The Democratic governor of Arizona has vetoed a bill to legalize psilocybin service centers where people could receive the psychedelic in a medically supervised setting.

Less than a week after lawmakers gave final approval to the legislation, Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) rejected it on Tuesday, arguing that while the psychedelic may hold therapeutic potential, “we do not yet have the evidence needed to support widespread clinical expansion.”

“Arizonans with depression and PTSD deserve access to treatments that may be seen as outside the mainstream, but they should not be the subject of experiments for unproven therapies with a lack of appropriate guardrails,” the governor said in a veto message.

She also said that the bill’s estimated cost is $400,000 per year, which wasn’t accounted for in the budget.

Under the now-vetoed legislation, the Department of Human Services (DHS) would have been authorized to license psilocybin-assisted therapy centers in the state, where trained facilitators could have administered the psychedelic.

The measure would have significantly expanded on Arizona’s existing research-focused psychedelics law that provides $5 million in annual funding to support studies into psilocybin therapy.

Hobbs cited that research funding in her statement, saying the goal is to “ensure that those who seek psilocybin treatment are doing so confidently and safely under proper supervision of qualified professionals with documented and verified research to support the treatment.”

She said that money “will be allowed to continue with this year’s budget,” with a separate funding bill she signed into law on Tuesday protecting those dollars, which are exempt from lapsing appropriations provisions.

The vetoed proposal, meanwhile, would have established an Arizona Psilocybin Advisory Board, comprised of members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders. Representatives of the attorney general’s office and DHS, as well as military veterans, first responders, scientists with experience with psilocybin and physicians would have been among the members.

The board would have been responsible for establishing training criteria for psilocybin service center staff, making recommendations on the implementation of the law, and studying the science and policy developments related to psychedelics.

Sen. T. J. Shope (R), the bill’s sponsor, told The Center Square that the veto is a “disappointing result after months of hard work and the overwhelming bipartisan support this received in both houses of the Legislature this year.”

The senator added that if lawmakers were still in session, he’d be pushing for a vote to override the veto, but he’ll have to “settle for trying again next year.”

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A Florida Man Was Arrested for Filming Marion County Sheriff’s Deputies. Now He’s Suing.

A Florida man has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit three years after a Marion County sheriff’s deputy arrested him for filming officers from a public sidewalk.

In 2021, Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Neil Rosaci arrested George Nathansen and charged him with obstruction of justice for refusing to follow his orders to leave the scene of an investigation. However, body camera footage showed Nathansen standing at least 30 feet away on a public sidewalk before Rosaci walked over and handcuffed him.

In Nathansen’s lawsuit, filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, he alleges that Rosaci and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) violated his Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights by falsely arresting and incarcerating him.

Numerous federal appeals courts have ruled that filming the police is protected under the First Amendment, but police around the country continue to illegally arrest people for it. The Justice Department released a report this month on pervasive civil rights violations by the Phoenix Police Department, including retaliating against citizens who were trying to record them. Earlier this year, Texas prosecutors dropped charges against a citizen journalist who was arrested, strip-searched, and jailed for filming police.

Nathansen’s case is yet another example of police retaliation against someone for core First Amendment activities.

The incident began on July 24, 2021, when Rosaci arrived at the scene of a car crash. While deputies were talking to the two parties involved in the accident, Nathansen arrived and began filming with his cell phone. There are a growing number of self-styled “First Amendment auditors” around the country who record police interactions and post them online. (In response to alleged harassment, several states have passed dubious “buffer-zone” laws that criminalize being too close to a first responder.) 

Rosaci’s body camera footage, obtained by the Ocala Post, showed that Nathansen was filming near the deputies’ cars when Rosaci first shooed him away and told him, “You can stand on the sidewalk over there.”

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Waste Not, Want Not: The Costly Aftermath of Michigan’s Raid on Nourish Cooperative

This is a follow-up report from the government raid at Nourish Cooperative (which is a farm cooperative that provides farm-fresh food) on May 28, 2024. Link to full story posted last week, here.

Briefly, on May 28, 2024 (the beginning of the nationwide fearmongering around avian influenza in raw milk), Nourish Cooperative was raided, and over $90,000 worth of raw dairy products were put under “cease and desist” order by the state of Michigan.

Meaning, all of that nutrient-dense food was “under seizure,” just sitting in our fridge and freezers. For over two weeks.

It is pretty expensive to just pay energy bills to keep products in fridges and freezers that we can’t sell. Plus, we do not have endless fridge and freezer space to put new product in (that we are able to sell like raw aged cheese and meat).

So, on June 8, after it was pretty clear the government was not going to let us sell this product, we emailed MDARD (Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) asking if we can please remove this product from the fridge. We needed the space, and well, product was starting to sour, and kefir glass bottles were starting to explode. (That is to be expected as kefir continues to ferment, more and more gas is created). The fridge needed to be cleaned out ASAP!

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Congressman Seeks To Block Feds From Seizing Marijuana From State-Legal Businesses Amid New Mexico Border Patrol Controversy

U.S. border patrol agents would be prevented from using its funds to seize marijuana from state-licensed businesses under a newly filed amendment to a large-scale spending bill.

Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) submitted the amendment for consideration as part of 2025 Fiscal Year appropriations legislation covering the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The move appears to be responsive to recent reporting about Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cannabis from state-legal businesses in New Mexico over recent months.

The amendment, which would need to be made in order for floor consideration by the House Rules Committee, reads:

SEC_. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to seize cannabis or products containing cannabis that are possessed, sold, or transferred by a cannabis distributor, licensed by a State, or a business in a State where cannabis has been legalized for recreational or medicinal use.

This is the latest in a series of drug policy-related amendments to be filed from lawmakers across the aisle that they’ve sought to attach to spending bills. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) has also filed an amendment to the DHS measure—as well as to separate appropriations legislation covering State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs—that would prevent the relevant agencies from testing job applicants for cannabis in states where it’s legal.

While Garcia has repeatedly attempted to enact that reform as part of numerous legislative packages, this is the first time that the language of the Vasquez amendment has been introduced.

The Rules committee is expected to meet next week to decide which amendments to the bills can receive floor votes.

The controversy over CBP seizures of marijuana from state-licensed businesses has prompted responses from multiple levels of government.

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Surgeon General Murthy Advocates for Digital ID to Combat Online “Misinformation” and Protect Youth

These days, as the saying goes – you can’t swing a cat without hitting a “paper of record” giving prominent op-ed space to some current US administration official – and this is happening very close to the presidential election.

This time, the New York Times and US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy got together, with Murthy’s own slant on what opponents might see as another push to muzzle social media ahead of the November vote, under any pretext.

A pretext is, as per Murthy: new legislation that would “shield young people from online harassment, abuse and exploitation,” and there’s disinformation and such, of course.

Coming from Murthy, this is inevitably branded as “health disinformation.” But the way digital rights group EFF sees it – requiring “a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents” – is just unconstitutional.

Whenever minors are mentioned in this context, the obvious question is – how do platforms know somebody’s a minor? And that’s where the privacy and security nightmare known as age verification, or “assurance” comes in.

Critics think this is no more than a thinly veiled campaign to unmask internet users under what the authorities believe is the platitude that cannot be argued against – “thinking of the children.”

Yet in reality, while it can harm children, the overall target is everybody else. Basically – in a just and open internet, every adult who might think using this digital town square, and expressing an opinion, would not have to come with them producing a government-issued photo ID.

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40 Percent of Police Officers Convicted of Child Sex Abuse Don’t Get Prison Time, Investigation Finds

A new investigation from The Washington Post has revealed that over the past two decades, almost 1,800 police officers were charged with crimes related to child sexual abuse. Even worse, of those convicted, nearly 40 percent managed to avoid prison time. 

The investigation revealed a staggering lack of accountability for officers who sexually abuse minors—finding not only that convicted officers often received paltry sentences, but that police departments sometimes rehired officers with child sex abuse convictions.

The Post‘s analysis looked at thousands of court filings, as well as The Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database, the county’s most comprehensive database of police arrests. The authors found that, between 2005 and 2022, around 17,700 police officers were charged with crimes—and 1 in 10 of those were charged with a crime involving the sexual abuse of minors.

The crimes officers were charged with varied, though most charges were for a few specific offenses. According to the Post‘s analysis, 39 percent of officers charged with child sexual abuse crimes were charged with rape. Twenty percent were charged with crimes related to child sexual abuse material (another term for child pornography) and 19 percent were charged with forcible fondling.

Eighty-three percent of charged officers were convicted. However, only 61 percent of convicted officers received prison time. Fifteen percent received local jail sentences, and a striking 24 percent received sentences as light as probation, fines, and community service. 

But even those imprisoned received relatively light sentences. Half were sentenced to less than five years in jail. 

Why did so many officers seem to get off easy for heinous sex crimes? According to the Post, it comes down to how prosecutors and judges treat police officers.

“Prosecutors have broad discretion in the types of charges they bring, the plea bargains they offer and the cases they are willing to take to trial,” the Post‘s analysis reads. “Judges play a critical role at sentencing hearings in determining what punishment officers deserve.”

Police departments also shoulder much of the blame.

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Feds Building Massive Detention Facilities IN ALL 50 STATES to Imprison Political Dissidents, Documentary Claims

The US federal government is in the process of building a massive network of internment camps spanning all 50 states intended not to house illegal aliens, but political dissidents, a shocking documentary claims.

Speaking to Redacted’s Clayton Morris, former Customs and Border Protection agent J.J. Carrell revealed a whistleblower in his upcoming documentary, “Treason,” exposes the scheme to build massive facilities that can house tens of thousands of people in every state.

“It’s not for these illegals,” says former federal contractor Kristi Hutcherson in an excerpt from the documentary.

“I believe it’s…kind of like what Nazis did with the Jews, concentration camps, processing facilities. They’re going to need somewhere to process the dissidents,” she says.

The 24-year CBP veteran went on to tell Morris that Hutcherson has access to federal databases where bids are placed for a variety of contracts.

“But… she says to me there’s bids for detention facilities being built in all 50 states in America,” he said.

Carrell notes despite hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants entering the US, he’s been informed by sources that the facilities, many of which are on the southern border, contain as many as 40,000 empty beds.

According to Carrell, Hutcherson explains in the interview the facilities are for dissidents who disobey the federal government, which may include people who refuse to take mandated jabs, defiant MAGA supporters, or members of militias.

Asked what the facilities look like, Carrell described, “I think they’re going to look like just the facilities that we’re seeing where the children are being held in, those FEMA camps.”

“That’s what they’re building. They’re building FEMA camps,” Carrell said, describing soft-sided large white tents surrounded by barbed-wire like those seen in New York City to house the migrant influx.

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Connecticut Bar Association Warns Lawyers that Dissenting Opinions on the Trump Bragg Lawfare Suit Will Not Be Tolerated

Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren reported on Monday that the Connecticut Bar warned state lawyers that dissenting opinions in the Alvin Bragg lawfare suit against President Donald Trump will not be tolerated.

This is the latest move by Democrats to silence and control the American people. Unapproved thoughts will not be tolerated.

Of course, Democrats can do this when they control all of the levers of power in the country.

God help us.

Below is the transcript from the interview:

Greta Van Susteren:  A warning from a lawyers group the Connecticut Bar Association the warning is directed at lawyers who dare to speak out and express disdain for fairness of former President Donald Trump’s trial in New York on Friday.

The Connecticut Bar Association released this message it reads in part quote “Public officials have issued statements claiming that the trial was a sham a hoax and rigged our justice system is corrupt and rigged the judge was corrupt and highly unethical and at the jury was partisan and precooked.”

It goes on to quote these claims, “These claims are unsubstantiated and reckless. Such statements can provoke acts of violence against those serving the public as employees of the judicial branch.”

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The Hunger Games: A simulation exercise that reveals their strategy for the war on food

In 2015 a two day simulation game was held dubbed by some as the “hunger games” 65 people played out a food crisis simulation set in the years 2020 to 2030.

Do you recall a pandemic simulation held in 2019 called Event 201 that served as a dress rehearsal for the response to the covid “pandemic” in 2020?

Well, it seems such simulations have been used for the war on food as well.  As pointed out by Tracey Thurman, the food crisis simulation, officially called the Food Reaction Game, reveals their strategy for the war on food.

What is the Food Chain Reaction Game?

On 9 and 10 November 2015, Thomson Reuters and other media organisations joined event organisers Cargill, CNA, Mars, World Wildlife Fund (“WWF”) and the Centre for American Progress for a simulation of a real-world food-crisis scenario called the ‘Food Chain Reaction Game: A Global Food Security Game’.

The simulation exercise was held at WWF’s headquarters in Washington DC where 65 international policymakers, academics, business and thought leaders gathered to game out how the world would respond to a future food crisis.

Over two days, the players – divided into teams for Africa, Brazil, China, the EU, India, the US, international business and investors and multilateral institutions – crafted their policy responses as delegations engaged in intensive negotiations.

The game was set between 2020 and 2030 and was based on a scenario of a global food crisis caused by population growth, rapid urbanisation, extreme weather events and political crises.

Each team was tasked with responding to the global food crisis by making decisions on food production, trade and policy. The game was played over several rounds, with each round representing a year from 2020 to 2030.

Cargill, of course, has a vested interest in understanding the future of food – where it will be grown, how it will be grown, and how it can be traded efficiently and sustainably. It’s their business.  “Cargill, the world’s largest agribusiness, has been a strong supporter both of this initiative and of WWF’s mission. As one of the organisers of Food Chain Reaction, Cargill provided a critical private-sector voice to the dialogue,” World Wildlife Fund noted.

“The most eye-catching result [ ] was a deal between the US, the EU, India and China, standing in for the top 20 greenhouse gas emitters, to institute a global carbon tax and cap CO2 emissions in 2030,” Cargill noted.

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