Tag: police state

American Express, Visa, Mastercard move ahead with code to track gun store purchases in California

Major credit card companies are moving to make a merchant code available for firearm and ammunition retailers in order to comply with a new California law that will allow banks to potentially track suspicious gun purchases and report them to law enforcement, CBS News has learned.

Retailers are assigned merchant codes based on the types of goods they sell, and the codes allow banks and credit card companies to detect purchase patterns. Currently gun shops are lumped in with other types of retailers, such as sporting goods stores. 

Mastercard, Visa and American Express initially agreed to implement a standalone code for firearm sellers, but later paused their work on it after receiving blowback from Second Amendment advocates concerned tracking gun purchases would infringe on the rights of legal gun owners.

Gun control activists hope the code, approved by an international organization in 2022, can be used as a tool to help identify suspect purchases and, consequently, stop gun crime, including mass shootings. Proponents say a code for firearms merchants would allow banks and credit unions to alert law enforcement of potentially suspicious purchasing patterns in the same way they already flag other types of transactions, such as those that suggest identity theft or terrorist financing. 

While a merchant code for standalone firearm and ammunition sellers would yield data that shows a transaction was made at a gun store, the credit card companies say the code would not provide details about the customer or insight into individual items that were purchased.

At least seven Republican-controlled state legislatures have banned the code while nine other legislatures are considering similar legislation. However, deep blue California passed a law requiring retailers that primarily sell firearms to adopt it by May 2025.  

Last month, executives from Mastercard, Visa and American Express each wrote to congressional Democrats assuring them the code would be available to retailers in California by that deadline, according to documents obtained by CBS News. 

“The applicable standalone merchants in California primarily engaged in the sale of firearms will be required to utilize the code,” wrote Mastercard executive Tucker Foote.

The letters from credit card executives reflect the tricky political waters the companies find themselves in. 

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Epstein Victims File Lawsuit Against the US Government, Claim FBI Enabled His Sex Trafficking

A dozen victims of dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein have filed a lawsuit against the US government, alleging that the FBI enabled his sex trafficking operation to continue for over two decades.

The victims, whose names are not public, allege the FBI had received tips about Epstein’s behavior as far back as 1996 but did nothing with the information.

The Hill reports, “A probe finally began in 2006, the suit says, but ended once Epstein pleaded guilty to a soliciting prostitution charge in Florida and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. The suit claims the FBI continued to ignore tips until Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in 2019. He killed himself in prison months later.”

“As a direct and proximate cause of the FBI’s negligence, plaintiffs would not have been continued to be sex trafficked, abused, raped, tortured and threatened,” the complaint states, according to the report. “Jane Does 1-12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom — once and for all — of the FBI’s role in Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring.”

The lawsuit additionally claims the FBI had evidence of his continued crimes but refused to investigate further.

“During the FBI investigation, the FBI was complicit in permitting Epstein and co-conspirators to continue to victimize Jane Does 1-12 and other young women,” the lawsuit alleges. “The FBI had photographs, videos and interviews and hard evidence of child prostitution and failed to timely investigate and arrest Epstein in deviation from the FBI protocols.”

“The FBI had a non-discretionary obligation, governed by established policies, procedures, rules, and protocols, to handle and investigate tips concerning potential and ongoing underage child erotica, rape, sex with minors, and sex trafficking in a reasonable manner and to act against Epstein and to prevent him from committing repeated crimes,” the complaint continued.

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Florida Deputy Resigns After Mistaking Acorn for Gunshot and Opening Fire on Own Patrol Car with Suspect Inside: “Shot’s Fired… I’m Hit!”

A deputy from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, identified as Jesse Hernandez, has resigned following an internal investigation into an officer-involved shooting incident that took place on November 12 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

The bizarre incident began when Hernandez and his colleague, Sgt. Beth Roberts, discharged several rounds into a patrol car, mistakenly believing they were under fire after an acorn fell onto the vehicle, simulating the sound of a suppressed gunshot, the Northwest Florida Daily reported.

The incident unfolded when deputies were responding to a disturbance involving a suspect, Marquis Jackson, 22, who was later detained and placed inside the patrol car.

Miraculously, the suspect, secured inside the car, was unharmed despite the barrage of bullets. No weapon found in his possession. The only casualty of this incident? The acorn and the deputy’s career.

Sheriff Eric Aden, in a statement, confirmed Hernandez’s resignation and noted that although he was found to have violated policy, neither deputy faced criminal charges.

Sgt. Roberts, who joined in the impromptu shootout, was cleared of any wrongdoing, as she was acting in defense of her partner.

“The internal investigation by Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Professional Standards ultimately determined his use of force during a call on November 12th was not objectively reasonable. A policy violation regarding excessive use of control to resistance was sustained,” according to Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

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Girlfriend charged with murder of former Texas judge who died of fentanyl overdose

Authorities in Texas have arrested the 35-year-old girlfriend of a former judge for allegedly supplying him with fentanyl that led to his overdose death late last year. Kami Ludwig was taken into custody on Monday and charged with the murder of 47-year-old former Associate Tarrant County Judge William Shane Nolen.

The murder charge is the result of a novel interpretation of a new law that Gov. Greg Abbott signed in June 2023 and went into effect on Sept. 1, 2023, classifying the supplying of fentanyl that results in death as murder. The law was enacted to combat the thousands of Texans who die annually from fentanyl poisoning, but appeared to primarily target drug dealers who distribute the deadly substance.

According to a news release from the Grapevine Police Department, officers at about 4:45 a.m. on Nov. 20, 2023, responded to a call regarding a deceased male — later identified as Nolen — at a residence located in the 4100 block of Mapleridge Drive. Ludwig placed the initial 911 call and identified herself to the dispatcher as Nolen’s girlfriend.

Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said they found Nolen deceased in his bedroom “with signs consistent with an opioid overdose.” Authorities on the scene said they also recovered “several” additional pills from inside the home.

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Missouri Legislation Would Impose Restrictions On Intoxicating Hemp Products, Sparking Clash Over How To Regulate

Missouri lawmakers have heard hours of heated testimony at two hearings in the last week over bills aiming to regulate intoxicating hemp products that get people high the same as marijuana.

Currently there’s no state or federal law saying teenagers or children can’t buy products, such as delta-8 drinks, or that stores can’t sell them to minors—though some stores and vendors have taken it upon themselves to impose age restrictions of 21 and up.

And there’s no requirement to list potential effects on the label or test how much THC is actually in them.

“There’s zero reason why these THC products should not be treated like any other THC product in our state,” said state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, during a Monday Senate committee hearing.

The legislation’s proponents and opponents both agree the state should regulate the existing “Wild West” market for intoxicating hemp products.

The debate, however, is over whether the agency that oversees the state’s marijuana program, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), should regulate these hemp products.

If DHSS is put in charge, the products would have to be sold at DHSS-licensed dispensaries.

That’s what is proposed in legislation sponsored by Schroer and in the House filed by state Rep. Chad Perkins, a Bowling Green Republican.

“Similar to alcohol, one regulatory body covers all intoxicating liquors and alcohol, such as beer, bourbon, wine, moonshine, brandy and even hooch,” said Schroer, who chairs the legislative committee that oversees Missouri’s marijuana rules.

Opponents contend restricting hemp-derived THC products to be sold at the dispensaries would allow the “marijuana monopoly” to take over the market, given the limited number of licenses for dispensaries available.

They argue there should be a separate regulating system in place for intoxicating hemp products that would allow them to continue to be sold in gas stations and liquor stores.

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Land Of Spooks And Shills And Sheeple

Trust is a rare commodity in today’s world. Maybe it always has been. I remember trusting some older males who were relatives or neighbors, as a child. Then later as an adult, I’d hear from my sister and others about how these fine upstanding men had propositioned them, or touched them inappropriately.

Moral trust is one thing. We all fail to some degree on this count, because we are all sinners. My head will probably always be turned by a good-looking female. It’s just instinctive. I remember a great comedy skit with Richard Pryor, where he was sitting in a crowd with his wife/girlfriend, who was glaring at him, upset over him checking out other women. Then his head turns again, and he tells her, “Can’t you see how strong that shit is? I know you’re gonna be mad, but I still can’t stop it!” While it bothers me when I attend a wedding where the divorced bride’s children from her first marriage are ringbearers or flower girls (mumbling to myself, “I can’t stop thinking she said ‘I do’ to someone else just five years ago’), I understand human weakness. Judge not lest ye be judged.

It’s political trust that’s on my mind. If you listen to me Saturdays at 12 noon on “America Unplugged” with Billy Ray Valentine and Tony Arterburn, you may have heard our discussion this past Saturday on Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin. It was obvious by the comments in the chat, and later on YouTube, that most people disagreed with me. I was arguing that, whatever Carlson’s real motivations, I usually agree with what he’s saying over 90 percent of the time. Yes, I’m aware that his father was the head of Voice of America, and that he once tried to get into the CIA. That he scoffed at 9//1 “truthers” and other “conspiracy theorists.” Maybe his bow tie was too tight. Is he just playing the role of mainstream “skeptic?”

I’m not accustomed to being the least skeptical person in the room about anything. I was a born skeptic. A doubter of all official narratives. But if the alt media is just going to attribute all good reporting, and sensible commentary to a hidden agenda, then what is the point of even addressing any issue? Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Rand Paul, RFK, Jr., all compromised. And oddly, they draw the attention (and ire) of many of us trying to provide an alternative to our state controlled media, far more often than the Joy Reids, Sunny Hostins, and Joe Scarboroughs do. Tucker Carlson’s father ran the Voice of America. A pretty, young female intern was found dead in Scarborough’s congressional office in 2001. Isn’t that a bit more incriminating?

Then there is the guy Carlson was interviewing- Vladimir Putin. I don’t have to trust him to agree with his purported comments (and this is assuming they’re being translated accurately) about wanting peace with America. If he really did ban all GMO products, and put out an arrest warrant for any Rothschilds strolling into Russia, isn’t that something we’d all agree with? Maybe he has an agenda, too, but why do we focus so much more on him than say, Angela Merkel or David Cameron? Carlson was blasted from all sides for how he conducted the interview. What was he supposed to ask him? He put Putin on the record. At the very least, we got to see the Russian leader’s impressive knowledge of history. Compare that to our putrid politicians.

In my book Hidden History, I delved into the background of the 1960s counterculture movement. Timothy Leary, the LSD guru who urged the impressionable hippies not to trust anyone over thirty (when he was older than thirty himself), was later outed as working for the CIA. So was Gloria Steinem, the face of “women’s lib” in the sixties and seventies. Her magazine MS was financed by the CIA. Murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton had a bodyguard who was an undercover government operative. So did Malcolm X. The guy cradling Martin Luther King’s head in his hands on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel was an undercover CIA asset. I gave lots of other examples of how undercover plants worked inside the Black Panthers and the Ku Klux Klan.

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Man Arrested For Doing ‘Burnouts’ on LGBTQ Pride Crosswalk

A 19-year-old man in Florida was arrested for doing ‘burnouts’ on an ‘LBGTQ Pride’ crosswalk, an action that police said vandalized a “symbol of unity and inclusivity for the LGBTQ community”.

A video clip shows Dylan Brewer performing burnouts on the Delray Beach mural in his truck, which appears to have a stylized American flag hanging out of the back.

Audio accompanying the video features someone saying “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” repeatedly as Brewer creatively drives over the rainbow-colored intersection.

Oh no! How terrible!

Police said in a statement that the “reckless action caused significant damage to the streetscape painting, which serves as a symbol of unity and inclusivity for the LGBTQ community.”

Law enforcement spent a week investigating the heinous crime after multiple people provided them with reports and cellphone footage of the crime of the century.

“Brewer turned himself in on Monday. Palm Beach County jail records show he was released from custody the next day after posting a $5,250 bond on charges of felony criminal mischief and reckless driving,” reports Local 10.

The intersection was previously ‘damaged’ during a similar incident in 2021 when 20-year-old Alexander Jerich was hit with the same charges and later sentenced to probation and community service.

But it could always be worse.

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AI and the new kind of propaganda

Do you remember how the unconstitutional, pastel-authoritarian and totally batshit insane “Disinformation Governance Board” – with its Mary Poppins-cosplaying, Monty Python level of unintentional self-satirizing department head – was rolled out two years ago like a half-joke, half-beta-test of a version of the 1984 Ministry of Truth?

Well, kids, I wouldn’t really call this 4D chess or anything, but of course this was just bait. This parody and its rapid withdrawal reassures us that nothing of the sort could conceivably take place, while also seeding a visible, red-herring template for how we should expect heavy-handed, overt propaganda efforts to look in this day and age.

Meanwhile, there are currently massive efforts in the background and below the surface, all across the playing field, towards implementing big data and AI technology for not only the purposes of classical, increasingly obsolete propaganda or simple surveillance. No, this time, we’re exploring entirely novel methods of behavioural modification and narrative control intended to GET OUT AHEAD of the crystallization of discourses and even the formation of identities and worldviews.

They want to control the formation and reproduction of “social imaginaries”.

So the idea is to use massive data collection and AI pattern recognition to preemptively disrupt the formation of behaviourally significant narratives, discourses or patterns of information.

With these tools of “early diagnosis” of information that potentially could disrupt the power structure and its objectives, it then becomes possible to nip it in the bud incredibly early on, way before such information has even coalesced into something like coherent narratives or meaningful models for explanation or further (precarious) conclusions.

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Qualified Immunity Is Not Limited to Police Brutality. It Protects a Wide Variety of Abusive Officials.

Conservatives who are leery of government power in other contexts often have a blind spot when it comes to police officers. Tough-on-crime instincts, coupled with anger at left-wing critics of police practices, frequently translate into a reflexive “back the blue” stance that is inconsistent with limited government, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Donald Trump’s promise to “restore law and order” by indemnifying police officers “against any and all liability” appeals to that sentiment, even as it underestimates the difficulty of successfully suing police officers and overlooks the fact that cops already are routinely indemnified against damages when plaintiffs manage to overcome the barrier created by qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity bars federal civil rights claims unless they allege misconduct that violated “clearly established” law. A new Institute for Justice (I.J.) report on the consequences of that doctrine further complicates the conventional conservative narrative by debunking the assumption that qualified immunity mainly applies to allegations of police brutality.

In an analysis of 5,526 appeals involving qualified immunity that federal circuit courts heard from 2010 through 2020, I.J. researchers found that half involved lawsuits against other kinds of government officials, including “mayors and city managers, university and school officials, prosecutors and judges, and child protective services workers.” The report reinforces the complaint that qualified immunity frustrates meritorious claims of constitutional violations and casts doubt on the belief that it mitigates the burden of litigation for defendants.

“While police were the most common defendants, fully half of appeals featured other types of government officials, either alongside or instead of police,” data scientist Jason Tiezzi, I.J. deputy litigation director Robert McNamara, and I.J. attorney Elyse Smith Pohl report. “Prison officials made up the next largest share, but in more than one in five of all appeals, or 21%, defendants were neither police nor prison officials.”

Many of the appeals involved claims of excessive force (27 percent) or false arrest (25 percent). But nearly a fifth (18 percent) “encompassed violations of First Amendment rights, including speech, association, and religious liberty.” In total, “only 23% of appeals fit the popular conception of police accused of excessive force.”

What do the other cases look like? Based on a representative sample of 125 First Amendment cases, Tiezzi et al. found that three-fifths “involved plaintiffs alleging premeditated abuse by government officials in retaliation for protected First Amendment activity.” Nearly half involved government workers who “alleged retaliation from their superiors,” while nearly a third were filed by private citizens who “claimed they were targeted for retaliation by government officials.”

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Georgia $150M class action lawsuit accuses STIIIZY, Cookies, others of selling marijuana as hemp

A federal racketeering lawsuit filed in Georgia last week alleges that California cannabis brand leaders STIIIZY and Cookies – along with 12 co-conspirators – illegally sold marijuana products that had been intentionally mislabeled as federally-legal delta-8 hemp goods, and asks for a minimum of $150 million in damages.

The class action suit, filed Feb. 6 in U.S. District Court in the northern district of Georgia, claims that resident Hannah Ledbetter was misled by the defendants into purchasing the federally illegal marijuana products that had been sold as federally legal hemp goods that included 0.3% delta-8 THC or less, which is the federal threshold for legal hemp products.

“Defendants have conspired to import, manufacture, distribute, and possess illegal (delta-8) THC vape pens that are marijuana” and not hemp under federal law, the suit charges. “This scheme could only be accomplished through a pattern of racketeering activity.”

The suit asserts that Ledbetter carefully inspected the product labels prior to purchase “because she did not want to break the law.”

Rather, the suit claims, the products that Ledbetter ultimately bought – at multiple retail chains that do business in Georgia – were found to have delta-9 THC “far above what is allowed by law,” according to third-party testing results.

STIIIZY IP LLC, Cookies Creative Consulting & Promotions, and their partners “have facilitated the manufacturing, distribution, and/or sale of illegal marijuana to thousands of people over the course of the last four years,” the suit charges

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