Tag: police state

Would-Be Censors Peddle Yet Another Election Meddle

In early September, the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against two employees of RT (formerly Russia Today), alleging that the state media outlet “orchestrated a massive scheme to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on U.S. soil.”

Separately, DOJ announced its theft (“seizure”) of 32 Internet domains supposedly used to “covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election. ”

The victims, per US Attorney Damian Williams? “[T]he American people, who received Russian messaging without knowing it.”

US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland weighed in as well: “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts.”

Oh, really?

Garland, once nominated to serve on the US Supreme Court, surely knows better. There is no “unless the ideas originate with parties I happen to dislike, or include content I disagree with” exception to the First Amendment’s free speech and free press guarantees.

DOJ doesn’t even enjoy the fig leaf of an “in extremis” excuse, such as a state of war existing between the US and Russia or an imminent threat of attack which the indictments and domain thefts might have thwarted.

Does the Russian regime “meddle” in US elections? Of course it does. All powerful regimes meddle in other countries’ elections.

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State Department’s Smear Tactics: Discrediting Reporters Over Media Blacklist

The State Department has pulled off yet another PR stunt that’s sure to land it in the annals of “How Not to Handle Scandal.” Faced with the inconvenient truth that they had their fingers in the cookie jar – namely, funding a “blacklist” that included mainstream media outlets like The New York Post, Fox News, The Daily Wire, and Breitbart News – the geniuses over at Foggy Bottom decided the best course of action was to discredit the very journalists exposing their little operation.

Matt Taibbi, one of the masterminds behind the “Twitter Files” revelations, and Gabe Kaminsky, an investigative reporter at the Washington Examiner, have been painting a very uncomfortable picture for the team at the State Department.

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California Governor Unveils Emergency Ban On Hemp Products With THC

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week proposed an emergency ban on intoxicating hemp products, saying the new regulations are needed to protect the safety of children. The governor issued the proposed emergency regulations, which prohibit sales of consumable hemp products that contain intoxicating cannabinoids including THC after they were drafted by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

“We will not sit on our hands as drug peddlers target our children with dangerous and unregulated hemp products containing THC at our retail stores,” Newsom said in a September 6 statement. “We’re taking action to close loopholes and increase enforcement to prevent children from accessing these dangerous hemp and cannabis products.”

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New Jersey Governor Signs Controversial Bill Restricting Sales Of Hemp Cannabinoid Products

New Jersey businesses are temporarily banned from selling hemp products without a cannabis license under a controversial bill Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed into law Thursday, a response to years of complaints about legal loopholes that allow minors to buy sketchy hemp products.

The measure will put hemp products, which are federally legal, under the purview of the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees New Jersey’s recreational and medicinal marijuana markets.

In a signing statement, Murphy called the bill flawed, but said in the two-and-a-half months since the bill landed on his desk, he’s held discussions with supporters and critics that convinced him it’s “very unlikely that revisions to the bill would have the broad support necessary to move through the Legislature quickly.”

“Unlike many issues, the status quo poses an immediate risk to health and safety, as these unregulated intoxicating hemp products are widely available to minors. Because the bill would address this present danger, I have concluded that the wiser course is to sign the bill now and commit to working with the Legislature to address the technical issues and other challenges in separate legislation,” he said in the statement.

Congress legalized hemp in 2018, but with little regulation, testing or enforcement, intoxicating products have been spotted on shelves of corner stores and gas stations. Lawmakers moved to pass the bill amid concerns that children are buying products advertised with thousands of milligrams of THC.

Hemp products have a lower form of THC than cannabis, and they do not get users high in the same way marijuana products with delta-9 THC (the kind someone would buy at a cannabis dispensary).

Under the new law, it’s illegal to sell products with any detectable amount of THC to a person under 21 years of age. And within 30 days, businesses will have to pull any hemp products off their shelves until the cannabis commission establishes new rules regarding sales.

The bill—amended with last-minute changes—elicited “significant concerns” from the cannabis and hemp industries, Murphy noted. Wording in the bill has created confusion, specifically the definition of hemp product as “any product cultivated, derived, or manufactured in this state from hemp,” Murphy said.

That language could either allow businesses to sell hemp products made outside of New Jersey without violating the law, or limit sales to those products made exclusively in New Jersey, Murphy said, noting the former would largely defeat the purpose of the bill by creating “an enormous loophole,” while the latter could violate the Constitution’s dormant commerce clause.

The bill’s supporters applauded the long-awaited signing.

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Kamala Says Quiet Part Out Loud: Government ‘Oversight’ Needed to Police the Internet and Rein in Thought Crimes

The global crackdown on free speech continues unabated, and if you think it’s relegated to countries like China, Cuba, and North Korea, think again.

A Brazilian Supreme Court panel on Monday upheld a decision to suspend Elon Musk’s social media platform X in the country.

Last Friday, Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the platform blocked.

Since the decision, Musk and his supporters have tried to paint de Moraes as a renegade and an authoritarian censor of political speech. But Brazil is no outlier. The European Union is also cracking down on free speech with its Online Service Act, and we have our own free-speech haters here in the United States.

In fact, one of them is a candidate for president.

Kamala Harris came out in 2019 and admitted in the wide open that she wants to see the same type of state-sponsored censorship implemented in the United States as what we now see taking shape in Brazil.

The government, Harris believes, should have ultimate control over what you and I are allowed to post on the internet, as well as more control over what we are allowed to see and hear. She doesn’t trust us to decide for ourselves as to the truth or accuracy of what we see or read online.

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Summit of the Future: A push to get nations to submit to a global government with the UN at the helm

In the draft Pact for the Future, the UN describes global crises that call for global governance. But can we trust the scriptwriter who is the only contestant for that governor’s seat?

The trust in the UN was seriously undermined in 2020, as the UN’s World Health Organisation’s policies led to mass impoverishment, loss of education, child marriage, and rising rates of preventable diseases. The response has been to blame the virus, not the unscientific approach.

Although the covid-19 response was ordered by national leaders, the UN actively pushed the disastrous one-size-fits-all measures including border closures, society shutdown, mass vaccination and removal of access to formal education, while simultaneously promoting censorship of dissenting voices. 

While covering up these crimes against humanity and avoiding accountability, the UN and world leaders intend to approve a set of 3 political, non-binding documents:

  1. a Pact for the Future,
  2. a Declaration on Future Generations, and
  3. a Global Digital Compact.

All were placed under “silence procedure” and were planned to be approved with little discussion.

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Proposed Australian plans for “energy efficient” homes will destroy private home ownership

The ClimateWorks Centre has devised a “renovation wave” plan for household upgrades and preparing occupants for more frequent extreme temperatures, heatwaves and climate-related events.

It is claimed that upgrading homes built before 2003 to be more energy efficient with better insulation, electrifying appliances and heating, and adopting rooftop solar can save Australian households up to $2,200 annually on energy bills. The majority of existing residences across Australia (11 million homes) can benefit from thermal efficiency upgrades, making a renovation wave a feasible and impactful initiative, so it is claimed.

It is also claimed that by designing or renovating homes to account for expected climate impacts, such as increasing temperatures and extreme heat events, can mitigate the effects of climate change.

ClimateWorks Centre’s report identifies 16 archetypes of homes that cover approximately 80% of single-storey detached homes and townhouses, and over 50% of apartments. These archetypes provide a framework for homeowners, policymakers, and industry stakeholders to prioritize renovation efforts.

By investing in climate-ready homes, Australia can create a more resilient and sustainable built environment, while also addressing the cost-of-living crisis and mitigating the impacts of climate change, so they say.

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Behind Closed Doors: The UK and US Plot Global Speech Crackdown

America First Legal (AFL) has pulled back the curtain on yet another government meeting that makes “free speech” sound like some quaint idea from the past. AFL has released documents from a 2021 interagency get-together where the UK’s top experts on “disinformation” offered a master class in censorship, all under the guise of “protecting democracy.” And because nothing screams transparency quite like a secret strategy session on silencing opposing voices, the revelations come with just a hint of irony.

On August 10, 2021, the Biden-Harris National Security Council (NSC) hosted a cozy little chat with the United Kingdom’s “Counter Disinformation Unit” (CDU). The occasion? An instructional session on how to manage—read: censor—COVID-related speech in the US. But why stop at the pandemic when there’s so much more to control? This wasn’t just about virus talk; it was a step-by-step guide on how to choke off the flow of any inconvenient truth that might muddy the government’s preferred narrative.

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Hemp And CBD Groups Threaten To Sue California Over Governor’s New Rules Restricting Cannabinoid Products

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) plan to crack down on hemp-derived cannabinoids in the state is rankling some in hemp industry, who now say they’re exploring lawsuits to challenge the governor’s proposed emergency rules unveiled last week.

On Friday, the advocacy group One Hemp said it’s considering a court challenge “with the intent to hold Newsom accountable to the normal democratic process.”

The organization, which has ties to the hemp CBD industry, notes the governor’s proposal was never approved by the state legislature and would severely restrict access to hemp products already legal under federal law.

“These are products that the disabled, chronically ill and veteran communities cannot live without to help support seizures, pain and mobility management, sleep and more,” One Hemp said in a press release about the possible lawsuit.

Jared Stanley, a founding member of One Hemp and a co-founder of the CBD company Charlotte’s Web, said Newsom’s plan to target hemp-derived cannabinoids is overbroad and would severely harm families who rely on CBD products.

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California Attorney General Bonta Pressures Top Social Media and AI Executives to Address “Misinformation”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has penned a letter to major social media and “AI” companies. And Bonta’s not urging them to “do better” on innovation, competition, and the like.

No – the letter is all about “election misinformation.”

It’s becoming almost pathological at this point, but the entire ruling apparatus in the US (and that includes not only officials but also politically and ideologically affiliated media outlets) is hammering in the message of that being an actual “threat to democracy.”

As if the largest companies in the said industries didn’t hear all this already dozens of times, Bonta goes out of his way to repeat the message to Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Open AI, Reddit, TikTok, X, and YouTube – (wouldn’t that one fall under the Alphabet category? But Bonta lists the video platform separately).

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

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