Tag: police state

2 Denver deputy sheriffs arrested, accused of assault on at-risk adult

A sheriff deputy and sergeant in Denver were arrested by the Denver Police Department on Thursday and face charges for third-degree assault of an at-risk adult.

The Denver Sheriff Department said in a press release that Sheriff Deputy Jason Gentempo, who was assigned to the Downtown Detention Center, and Deputy Sheriff Sergeant Carla Gentempo, who was assigned to the Administration Division, were placed on investigatory leave on Thursday.

The charge for third-degree assault of an at-risk adult is a class six felony.

The sheriff’s office said the Office of the Independent Monitor was notified, and the Public Integrity Division opened an investigation.

Police told FOX31 on Friday that Carla and Jason Gentempo were both released on a PR bond.

Affidavit: Alleged assault of man in wheelchair

FOX31 obtained the arrest affidavit for Jason Gentempo on Friday.

According to the affidavit, the victim, a paraplegic man, reported that he was assaulted by two off-duty Denver officers, one male and one female, on Oct. 17.

The victim said he put his dog inside before the off-duty law enforcement officers punched him in the head with a closed fist, kicked him in the chest and stomped on his phone.

The hits knocked the victim out of his wheelchair, and he fell back and hit his head. He said the suspects then took off in a white truck they had left running on the street.

The victim gave investigators the surveillance footage from his porch camera, which the affidavit said showed the victim, his dog and another person exit his ground-floor apartment to the porch. The video also showed a woman get out of the driver’s seat and a man get out of the passenger’s seat of a white truck near the victim’s porch.

According to the affidavit, the victim is seen putting his dog back inside the apartment and as he turned back toward the people on the porch, the white female from the truck hit him in the face with a closed fist and kicked him in the chest. The white man from the truck then struck the man as he was falling backward out of his chair, out of the camera view. The man from the truck then kicked the victim’s phone and stomped on it. The suspects then left the scene.

The victim identified both Carla and Jason Gentempo in photos and by name, according to the affidavit, and said they were the suspects who assaulted him.

The Denver Police Department confirmed to FOX31 that this case is related to another case in which a police officer is accused of not filing proper reports and not submitting evidence after responding to an alleged assault.

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Substack expands censorship to Australian users

Last week, we noted that Substack had caved into the UK censorship regime and was restricting the content that UK users can access unless they verified their age with either a selfie or a government-approved ID.

Age verification is not about keeping children “safe,” it is about control: age verification online is increasingly being integrated with digital ID systems, particularly through government-backed digital identity wallets, and is becoming a foundational component of digital ID systems with several countries, including the US, European Union member states, the UK and Australia, advancing digital ID frameworks where age verification is a core function. 

For example, the GOV.UK Wallet is under development and will be used for identity verification, with age verification being a key application. And in Australia, the Digital ID Act 2024 established the Australian Government Digital ID System, allows users to prove identity online.

The example we used in our previous article to demonstrate the type of content being censored for UK users on Substack, unless we comply with the rolling out of the digital ID agenda, was the article ‘UK’s open border policy is not normal; nor is it acceptable’.

Along similar lines, yesterday, a Substack user re-stacked our article ‘London Primary school teacher is banned from working with children for telling a Muslim pupil that Britain is a Christian country’.  Substack has censored the article for non-paying users who have not complied with age verification.

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Bill On Ohio Governor’s Desk Will Put Hemp Companies Out Of Business, Owners Say

Ohioans in the intoxicating hemp industry fear a bill heading to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) desk will put them out of business.

Ohio Senate Bill 56 is on its way to DeWine after Ohio Senate Republicans passed the bill Tuesday. The Ohio House passed the bill last month after it went to conference committee.

Ohio’s bill complies with recent federal changes by banning intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary. If DeWine signs the bill into law before the new year, the ban could take effect as soon as March.

“This bill is going to put businesses like me and families like me out of business,” said Ahmad Khalil, one of the owners of Hippie Hut Smoke Shop, with locations in Ohio and Washington.

“Overnight, we’re going to see tens of thousands of people directly impacted, which will ripple effect into 50,000 of families that are also dependent on this person.”

Khalil has been in the hemp industry for nine years.

“This was my American dream, so to see it get taken away from you, kind of hurts,” he said.

Jason Friedman, owner of Ohio CBD Guy in Cincinnati, said this is extremely frustrating.

“My tentative plan will involve eventually closing my East Walnut Hills location resulting in less hours and likely loss of jobs for some of my employees,” he said.

Instead of a ban, Friedman wants regulations for the hemp industry such as age-gating, packaging restrictions, and testing requirements.

“For the state to say that they are changing their stance to banning from regulating because of what the federal government has done in banning intoxicating hemp in the recent spending bill, makes no sense because marijuana has been illegal federally the whole time,” he said.

Mark Fashian, president of hemp product wholesaler Midwest Analytical Solutions in Delaware, Ohio, said this will put him, and hundreds of others out of business, if this becomes law.

He works with more than 500 stores around Ohio that sell intoxicating hemp products.

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Government Unchained: The Year The Constitution Lost Its Guardrails

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”—Abraham Lincoln

We now live in a nation where constitutional rights exist in theory, not in practice.

Yet what good are rights on paper when every branch of government is allowed to ignore, circumvent, chip away at or hollow them out in practice?

Two hundred and thirty-four years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791, the safeguards meant to shield “We the people” from government abuse are barely recognizable.

In ways the Founders could scarcely have imagined—and would never have tolerated—the safeguards meant to restrain government overreach have become little more than empty platitudes.

America’s founders understood that power corrupts and absolute power—especially when it comes to power-hungry governments fixated on amassing institutional power at the expense of individual freedoms—corrupts absolutely. That’s why they insisted on binding down the government “with the chains of the Constitution.”

In 2025, those chains have been cut link by link.

These links were not severed in secret. They snapped under the weight of executive orders issued without congressional authority, judicial doctrines that shield misconduct from accountability, and a Congress that no longer defends its own constitutional prerogatives.

If Americans are finally learning the true significance of constitutional limits, it is because the government keeps violating them—and daring anyone to stop it. Time and again, the message is being drummed into our heads that constitutional limits no longer apply when they inconvenience those in power.

Any government that treats rights as privileges—contingent on economic status, citizenship, race, orientation, religious beliefs, or political alignment—has already abandoned the Bill of Rights.

And a government that does so with the courts’ blessing is not a constitutional republic.

When rights become privileges, what we are left with is a two-tier system of freedom: those afforded the privilege of enjoying their constitutional rights vs. those targeted for exercising those same rights.

The Bill of Rights was intended as a bulwark. Each amendment was drafted as a barrier against a specific form of tyranny.

In 2025, every one of those barriers buckled under the weight of government corruption, political expediency, partisan politics, and institutional neglect.

The following is what it looked like to live without the protections of the Bill of Rights in the American police state.

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Criminalizing Bible Verses? Canadian Lawmakers Target Religious Expression With Proposed ‘Hate Speech’ Amendment

In a move that should alarm anyone who is pro-free speech, members of Canada’s Liberal Party have capitulated to pressure from Quebec’s ultra-secular separatist party by voting to strip away a longstanding religious exemption from the country’s hate-speech laws as part of the draconian Bill C-9, also known as the so-called Combating Hate Act.

Canada’s Criminal Code has long shielded good-faith religious expression with a clear exemption that speech is not hate propaganda “if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”

On Tuesday evening, that protection was casually deleted at the Bloc Québécois insistence.

CBC has the details on what happened next:

Progress appeared to stall after an initial committee meeting to go over the bill was abruptly cancelled last week. Three sources speaking to CBC News said the bill was held up because Justice Minister Sean Fraser’s office brokered the deal with the Bloc without getting buy-in from the Prime Minister’s Office. Tuesday’s meeting was scheduled last-minute after last week’s cancellation. The Bloc has long sought to remove the religious exemption, saying religion could be used as a cover for promoting hate, such as homophobia and antisemitism. Blanchet said his party would not support the bill without the amendment.

Conservatives immediately sounded the alarm. Canadian Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre warned on X that the amendment would “criminalize sections of the Bible, Qur’an, Torah and other sacred texts.”

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Canada spent nearly $1M killing ostriches, but full cost remains hidden

The federal government has now admitted that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the RCMP spent over $900,000 on the agency’s mission to slaughter more than 300 healthy ostriches at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C.

The numbers were revealed through an order paper question filed by Conservative MP Scott Anderson after months of stonewalling from Ottawa.

Despite Anderson pointedly requesting a complete accounting of all federal dollars spent, the amount the CFIA and RCMP did disclose is merely a glimpse into what was likely millions of tax dollars spent on lengthy court battles to avoid testing the birds to prove their health, and a nearly 50-day occupation of the farm with RCMP deployed at full force.

Nevertheless, for the farmers whose livelihoods and the healthy prehistoric creatures that were wiped out in the kill mission, the totals that have been revealed only add salt to the wounds.

The CFIA alone admits to $444,000, including $9,000 on feed that the farmers would have been happy to provide had they not been barred from caring for their birds weeks before the “cull.”

More than $72,000 was spent on portable toilets and hand-wash stations, and over $32,000 on unspecified “specialized equipment.”

It also paid $100,000 for private security at three of its offices.

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House Lawmakers Unite in Moral Panic, Advancing 18 “Kids’ Online Safety” Bills That Expand Surveillance and Weaken Privacy

The House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade spent its latest markup hearing on Thursday proving that if there’s one bipartisan passion left in Washington, it’s moral panic about the internet.

Eighteen separate bills on “kids’ online safety” were debated, amended, and then promptly advanced to the full committee. Not one was stopped.

Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky (D) set the tone early, describing the bills as “terribly inadequate” and announcing she was “furious.”

She complained that the package “leaves out the big issues that we are fighting for.” If it’s not clear, Schakowsky is complaining that the already-controversial bills don’t go far enough.

Eighteen bills now move forward, eight of which hinge on some form of age verification, which would likely require showing a government ID. Three: App Store Accountability (H.R. 3149), the SCREEN Act (H.R. 1623), and the Parents Over Platforms Act (H.R. 6333), would require it outright.

The other five rely on what lawmakers call the “actual knowledge” or “willful disregard” standards, which sound like legalese but function as a dare to platforms: either know everyone’s age, or risk a lawsuit.

The safest corporate response, of course, would be to treat everyone as a child until they’ve shown ID.

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Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper in Troop G charged with rape

A Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper in Howell County is accused of raping a woman.

Ethan Minge pleaded not guilty to a second-degree rape charge. Minge serves Troop G based in Willow Springs.

Investigators say a woman claimed Minge went to her home in West Plains in July and pushed her on her back and had sex with her even after she told him no. Investigators say the victim claimed Minge apologized the next day. Investigators say she reported it months later.

Lieutenant Eric Brown with the Highway Patrol’s public information division sent KY3 a statement that reads, in part, “We are aware of the arrest of Trooper Minge. Trooper Minge is on administrative leave with no pay.”

Minge is scheduled to be in court later this month.

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Duluth Police Officer Who Previously Shot an Unarmed Man, Accused of Sexually Assaulting Two Women

A Duluth police officer who the city once tried to fire for shooting an unarmed man through a door is now under investigation for sexually assaulting two women, authorities confirmed on Wednesday.

The St. Louis County Attorney’s Office earlier this year declined to file criminal charges against 33-year-old Tyler Leibfried, but the Duluth Police Department is continuing an internal investigation that could potentially result in discipline for any violations of city and department policies.

“We take allegations against our officers very seriously and investigate each complaint thoroughly,” Chief Mike Ceynowa said in a news release.

Redacted investigative documents released by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reveal that a woman first reported an alleged assault by Leibfried to Duluth police on Dec. 20, 2024. The agency then turned the case over to the BCA to investigate. A second woman later reported an incident that allegedly occurred several years earlier.

Leibfried was taken off duty as of Dec. 23, 2024, and remains on paid leave pending a resolution of the internal process.

Leibfried Accused of Sexually Assaulting an Intoxicated Woman Who Claims She ‘Blacked Out’ and Did Not Give Consent

The alleged victim, according to the documents obtained by the Duluth News Tribune, stated that she and Leibfried were among a group that had been drinking at two bars on the night of Nov. 21, 2024. She reported the officer had been buying the majority of the drinks, and a witness indicated he appeared to be trying to engage her in conversation.

Eventually, Leibfried and the woman, who was in a relationship, kissed outside a Lincoln Park bar and ended up in his truck, where they engaged in sexual intercourse.

The alleged victim reportedly told investigators she was “extremely intoxicated” and that she “blacked out” before she “came to” in the truck. She had no recollection of consenting to the act and said she did not believe she would have. Leibfried, however, maintained it was a consensual encounter.

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Vatican Accepts Resignation of Jailed Bishop, Raising Questions About Religious Freedom in China

The Vatican replaced detained underground Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu in the Apostolic Prefecture of Xinxiang with Bishop Francis Li Jianlin in a December 5 ceremony, drawing praise from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but serious concern from China’s underground Catholic community.

Zhang, secretly ordained in 1991 with Vatican approval but never recognized by Beijing, has been detained since May 2021 and his whereabouts remain unknown. He was arrested just after recovering from cancer surgery, along with priests and seminarians, for allegedly violating regulations requiring clergy to register with the state. Chinese authorities barred him from attending his successor’s ordination.

China officially recognizes only five religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism, and Taoism. These groups operate under state-sanctioned patriotic religious associations supervised by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), the CCP’s propaganda and influence arm. In 2018, the State Administration for Religious Affairs was absorbed into the UFWD, bringing all religious affairs under direct Party control.

The constitution protects only “normal religious activities,” without defining what “normal” means, and forbids religion from disrupting public order, impairing citizens’ health, or interfering with education. Clergy must support CCP leadership and adhere to the Sinicization of religion. Religious activity is restricted to approved premises, and the state maintains control over clergy appointments, publications, finances, and seminary enrollment. Minors are forbidden from entering places of worship, and pastors and imams have been instructed to emphasize socialist values in their teachings.

Under the Sinicization campaign, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese Christian Council drafted a five-year plan to retranslate the Old Testament and provide new commentary on the New Testament to align scripture with socialist ideology. A 2020 university textbook even rewrote the Gospel account of the woman caught in adultery, replacing Jesus’ mercy with a fabricated story in which he stones the woman and declares, “I am also a sinner.”

Across Henan province, officials forced Protestant churches to replace the Ten Commandments with Xi Jinping quotes. Authorities have ordered the removal of crosses and replaced images of Christ and the Virgin Mary with portraits of Xi. These campaigns censor religious texts, compel clergy to preach CCP ideology, and mandate the display of political slogans.

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