Tag: police state

Beware the SEC’s Creation of ‘Natural Asset’ Companies

To anyone who tracks the efforts of environmentalists, their policies often have an ulterior motive. They neither result in a better society nor do they produce better habitats. Their policy preferences also do not consider how using the land improves the land for man and wildlife. Instead, many environmentalists advocate for policies at the expense of farmers, miners, and others who create usable, tangible, societal benefits from the land. This often leaves observers to wonder: what are environmentalists really after?

The answer is power and money. It turns out, that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are quietly working on a rule that may prove this ulterior motive.

On September 29, the SEC, at the request of the NYSE, proposed a rule that would create an entirely new type of company called a Natural Asset Company (NAC). NACs, according to the Proposed Rule, “hold the rights to ecological performance.” These companies would be given license to control lands, both public and private, and would be required not to conduct any “unsustainable activities, such as mining, that lead to the degradation of the ecosystems.”  In effect, this means that these companies would somehow seek to profit off the lands without using the lands. Whatever they do, it must be “sustainable.”

How might a company make control of land profitable while also not using the land? The method is admittedly confusing, perhaps intentionally. They profit from “ecological performance” such as “conservation, restoration, or sustainable management.” These NACs would quantify and monetize these natural outputs (such as air or water). The best comparison would be using the air we breathe as a cryptocurrency of sorts. And, these natural assets that collectively belong to all of us would now belong to corporations run by what many would call environmental special interests.

Another feature of these new companies is that the land belonging to sovereign nations and private landowners alike can be subject to the control of NACs. Sovereign nations, such as the United States Government, can provide their lands to private investors, including those outside the United States. China, for example, may be able to invest in an NAC and effectively be a stakeholder in our national parks. Russia could assume control of lands currently leased to produce oil and place them off limits for future natural resource development.

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‘I’m sorry dude… I had to do that’: Horrifying moment cop shoots dead family’s beloved dog before grabbing it by the collar and tossing it on lawn

A New Mexico woman and her family have reached a settlement with the City of Texico after their beloved family dog Pepper was shot dead by the city’s police chief.

Beverly Bentley was at work on November 10, 2021, when Police Chief Douglas Bowman, a 16-year veteran of the force, paid her a visit to tell her that he shot her dog.

‘He said something about shooting my dog, and it took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about because he said he was being aggressive,’ Bentley said. ‘That dog is the least aggressive dog I have ever owned!’

The grim execution was caught on Ring video, where Bowman stood some distance away on the lawn, staring at the dog as it barked from the porch.

The officer glanced over his shoulder in both directions before pulling out his pistol and firing. Afterwards, he walked onto the porch and stood over Pepper’s body.

‘I’m sorry dude, but I had to do that,’ Bowman said.

Grabbing Pepper by the collar, he dragged the dog onto the lawn before retrieving a hose from the property and washing away its blood.

After seeing the footage of the incident, Bowman filed an incident report, writing that a man called the station saying ‘there is a damn dog that almost bit me.’

He arrived on the scene and saw Pepper, who matched the victim’s description, and said the dog began ‘barking and snarling.’

‘The victim then came up to me and told me that was the dog and that it had almost bit him and he was afraid the dog might bite someone else if something wasn’t done about him,’ Bowman wrote.

Pepper took off and Bowman trailed the dog to the home.

As Pepper allegedly continued to bark and snarl, Bowman wrote: ‘At this point, I did not want the dog to run away again and bite or harm someone. I made the decision to shoot the dog for my safety and the safety of anyone else in the community.’

Bentley insists that her beloved dog was not aggressive. 

‘That dog got me through a lot of hard times, and then all of a sudden, he was taken away,’ she said. ‘My mother was bedridden, and she would put her hand down, and he would let her pet him.’

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Just Admit You Were Wrong!

The answer to the question “Will they ever admit to being wrong?” is of course: no. I’m speaking in particular of the architects of the lockdown and mandate policies that wrecked the rights and liberties of billions worldwide.

Now they want to pretend like it never happened or that someone else is responsible. And they do this even as they hammer out policies and treaties that normalize that exact response – OK, some tweaks here and there – in the future, while forging institutions that crush dissent.

Those people we know about. They are rather hopeless.

Let’s address a different case, the run-of-the-mill pundit who got it wrong and just cannot admit it. These are the people who should trouble us more because saying sorry in this case is completely cost-free. In fact, the opposite is true.

Readers would cheer their humility and congratulate them for honesty. The only cost would be psychological in some measure. They are supposed to be these great opinion leaders and cannot bring themselves to admit that they were so bloody wrong on such a huge topic.

This comes to mind because of an effusive and even absurdist article by Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal. It was about how and why Taylor Swift is the greatest thing America has to offer.

The language here is intentionally over the top and she knows it. It’s a fun way to write. I know this because I used to write this way all the time, celebrating the glories of vending machine chicken salad or the McDonald’s cheese stick or what have you.

My argument here is not with the hyperbole as such. The problem comes deep into the article where she says the following:

“Downtowns across the country — uniquely battered by the pandemic and the riots and demonstrations of 2020 — are, while she is there, brought to life, with an influx of visitors and a local small business boom. Wherever she went it was like the past three years didn’t happen.”

Battered by the pandemic? Seriously? The pathetic pathogen never closed a single business, school, church, country club, arts theater, mall, stadium or public park. Governments did that, on the advice of crazed experts who pushed for this nonsense with no concern for public well-being.

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Ahead Of Oral Arguments, Safe Drug Consumption Site Lawyers Call Out DOJ’s ‘Irreconcilable’ Legal Positions

With oral arguments set for Monday in a federal court case over a proposed Philadelphia safe drug consumption site, counsel for the would-be facility sent a letter to the judge in the case on Thursday calling out the Department of Justice (DOJ) for taking apparently contradictory legal positions.

In the Philadelphia safe consumption site case itself, the letter says, DOJ has argued that the harm reduction aims of Safehouse, the nonprofit attempting to open facility where people can use illicit substances in a medically supervised environment, are “socio-political” rather than religious.

In a separate case involving an Episcopal church in Oregon, however, DOJ recently filed a statement of interest arguing that “distribution of free meals to persons in need is ‘religious exercise’” that would be infringed by a local zoning ordinance.

Writing to Judge Gerald McHugh of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, DLA Piper attorney Ilana Eisenstein said the government can’t have it both ways.

DOJ’s arguments in the Oregon case, Eisenstein wrote, “demonstrate that Safehouse has adequately pled a substantial burden on its religious exercise.”

In other words, the letter asserts that if the government views handing out free meals to people in need as protected on religious grounds, it can’t simultaneously deny that harm reduction services could deserve similar protections.

“DOJ’s positions in that case are irreconcilable with its arguments here,” the letter says, “and confirm that this Court should deny the DOJ’s pending motion to dismiss.”

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The Grim Reality of Israel’s Corpse Politics

After Israeli forces shot and killed thirty-nine-year-old Fadi Samara in May of 2020, his mourning family dug him a grave in his village of Abu Qash, located in the occupied West Bank district of Ramallah.

But nearly four years later, his grave remains empty.

“I take the children to their father’s grave a few times a month even though we still have not received his body,” says Saja Muhammad, Samara’s thirty-one-year-old widow and mother to his five children, ages nine to three.

“It gives the children some comfort,” she continues, sitting on the couch at her family’s home in the city of Biddya in the northern Salfit district, where she returned following Samara’s killing. “We live with the hope that one day his body will be returned to us. And when that day comes his grave is ready to receive him.”

Samara’s body is one of hundreds currently held by Israel, part of a decades-long policy that researchers and rights groups describe as an attempt to control and punish Palestinian families by withholding the corpses of their slain loved ones. Some are buried in nameless graves and others are frozen in refrigerators.

Israeli officials claim this controversial practice is necessary to avoid incitement during funerals of Palestinians killed by Israelis. Israel also withholds the remains of slain Palestinians who are suspected of having carried out attacks against Israelis, using their corpses as bargaining chips for future negotiations with Palestinian leaders.

However, Palestinians, some of whom have waited for months, years, and in some cases decades for the return of their slain loved ones’ bodies, argue that this policy aims to punish them, condemning their lives to perpetual mourning.

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Philadelphia lawmakers vote to ban ski masks in some public places, a move praised by police but panned by rights advocates

The Philadelphia City Council passed a bill Thursday that bans the use of ski masks in parks, schools, public transit or other city-owned buildings, a move they say will help law enforcement solve crimes but that civil rights advocates believe will criminalize people of color.

The bill, passed by a 13-2 vote, will fine offenders $250 for each offense, and up to $2,000 if a mask is worn during the commission of a crime.

Mayor Jim Kenney will sign it into law early next week, according to council member Anthony Phillips, who drafted the ordinance.

“The City of Philadelphia has been under siege with individuals who use ski masks to commit crimes. It’s caught onto not just young people, but young adults who have made this a particular thing to do,” Phillips told CNN. “The Philadelphia Police Department can’t tell who’s a criminal and not a criminal, which makes it difficult for crimes to be solved in Philadelphia.”

Sarah Peterson, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told CNN, “The administration will review the legislation, and in the meantime looks forward to our ongoing work with City Council on the urgent matter of ensuring public safety.”

The Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in people wearing various face coverings including ski masks, “complicated policing” because mask mandates made it easier for criminals to conceal their identities, Philadelphia Police Department Deputy Commissioner Francis Healy said during a committee hearing in November.

“There was a time not so long ago when any average police officer would see a person donning a mask before entering a convenience store or a bank and they would believe a robbery was about to occur,” Healy said. “However, the pandemic changed that mindset where people were actually more fearful of people without masks than with masks.”

Although mask mandates are no longer required, some people continue to wear ski masks with the intention of concealing their identities when committing crimes, Healy says.

“Criminals have continued using masks to avoid capture and it remains problematic, so the department fully supports the intent and rationale behind this ordinance,” Healy said.

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Judge Halts Montana’s First Amendment-Violating TikTok Ban

A TikTok ban in Montana is likely unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

Judge Donald Molloy, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, issued a temporary halt to enforcing the ban. It was scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2024, and would have meant $10,000 penalties per day for app stores or TikTok “each time that a user accesses TikTok, is offered the ability to access TikTok, or is offered the ability to download TikTok.”

The ruling “is a welcome victory in the face of a relentless and illiberal campaign against the First Amendment and the Internet,” said Ari Cohn, free speech counsel with TechFreedom. “Wholesale bans on speech-enabling platforms are an affront to the First Amendment, and it is deeply troubling that so many have cheered them on based on panic, fear, or a general disdain for the platform.”

Montana’s TikTok ban (SB 419) was signed into law by Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte last May, calling it a measure “to protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.” The move came amidst a flurry of official paranoia—and propaganda—about how the app, with its Chinese parent company, could be a threat to national security, personal privacy, and America’s youth.

TikTok creators and TikTok itself sued, arguing that the ban was unconstitutional. The two suits were since consolidated.

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NYPD ACCUSED OF FABRICATING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR’S MURDER CONFESSION

A WOMAN WHO was charged with murdering her husband in 2020 sued the New York City Police Department, alleging that police officers fabricated the confession that was the basis of the case against her. The federal civil rights lawsuit also alleges that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained a search warrant for an email account she created to draw attention to her case — and never disclosed it, as required by law. 

Prosecutors dropped their case against Tracy McCarter last December, citing insufficient evidence. In the lawsuit, which was filed on November 2 in the Southern District of New York, McCarter said she had “sustained serious physical and psychological harm as a result of being wrongfully arrested, charged, imprisoned, searched, and prosecuted.” 

The lawsuit names four NYPD officers who were involved with the arrest and one investigator from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who worked on the case. All four of the police officers have previously faced civilian complaints of misconduct, though such allegations are famously hard to prove. A spokesperson for the NYPD declined to comment on whether any of the officers are being investigated in relation to McCarter’s case, citing the pending litigation. The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the allegation involving the undisclosed search warrant. 

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Wrongfully convicted Philadelphia man released from prison after 27 years, prosecutors say

A Philadelphia man who has been incarcerated for nearly three decades was released from prison Thursday after prosecutors now say he was wrongfully convicted.

Eddie Ramirez, 47, has spent the last 27 years behind bars after he was convicted of killing Joyce Dennis, a laundromat employee who was found brutally beaten to death at work after a robbery in 1995.

The district attorney’s office says Ramirez was convicted of a crime despite no physical evidence tying him to the case. After reviewing the case, prosecutors argued for all charges against Ramirez to be vacated, which a judge granted Thursday morning in front of a packed courtroom that broke out in cheers following the announcement.

“Oh my God, I feel my heart’s going to come out and I feel I got my baby coming back home,” said Maria Ramirez, Eddie’s mom.

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