Tag: police state

SECRETIVE FEDERAL AGENCY’S DAYS OF KILLING PETS WITH POISON BOMBS MAY FINALLY BE ENDING

PATCHES OF SNOW dotted the ground when Canyon Mansfield stepped outside on March 16, 2017. The hill behind the 14-year-old’s home in Pocatello, Idaho, was not particularly large. At the summit, Mansfield would only be 300 yards from his house, and yet, he treasured the visits.

With its sweeping mountain view, the hill was Canyon’s refuge. His 3-year-old yellow lab, Kasey, was his constant companion there.

The two set off as usual that afternoon. Kasey was thrashing one of his toys when Canyon spotted a sprinkler-like object protruding from the ground. He ran a finger along the device. Suddenly, he heard a pop, and an orange cloud burst forth. Canyon lunged back as the front of his body was doused in chemicals. The burning began immediately.

As Canyon grasped for snow to irrigate his eyes, he heard Kasey grunting near the device. He called to him, but he didn’t come. He stopped what he was doing and ran to him. Dropping to his knees, Canyon watched as Kasey writhed in spasms. Frothing at the mouth, the dog’s eyes turned glossy. The boy didn’t want to leave, but he knew he needed help. He sprinted down the hill for his mother.

Canyon’s father, Mark Mansfield, a family doctor, was at work when the boy called for help. He raced home as fast as he could. Pulling into the property, Mansfield rushed to Kasey and positioned himself above the dog, prepared to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Canyon stopped him. It’s poison, Canyon said.

Kasey was dead, and Canyon’s head was pounding like never before. Toggling between his training as a physician and his horror as a parent, Mansfield struggled to sort out his son’s symptoms from the trauma he’d just experienced. He told Canyon to get into the shower immediately.

While his son cleaned up, Mansfield called the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office. A bomb and hazmat team were dispatched. Longtime Sheriff Lorin Nielsen was at a loss, trying to answer what felt like an absurd question: Who would plant a bomb in Pocatello?

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The US Government’s New ‘Ministry Of Truth’: The Cybersecurity And Infrastructure Security Agency

Mission creep is a serious problem in the federal government, and the ongoing investigations by House Republicans into “weaponization” of government misdeeds have shown how pervasive and deep the problem can be.

The FBI, Justice Department, CIA and even the Internal Revenue Service all look as we have seen, like tempting operatives for use against political opponents or to run interference for allies. But what about an agency that is supposed to protect us against cyber threats? A new interim report from the House Judiciary Committee highlights politically motivated mission creep where we might least have expected it: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

CISA, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, was created in 2018 with a simple, non-political mission statement: “To prepare for, respond to, and mitigate the impact of cyberattacks.” As reported here previously, CISA works to prevent state-sanctioned hackers from attacking and compromising America’s digital infrastructure. The agency exists to warn companies and government entities of pending computer vulnerabilities. It also works to stop ransomware attacks on American companies and their computer networks, and to minimize damage from cyber exploits by foreign and domestic sources. In short, CISA’s mission brief was to watch out for attacks on our digital “boxes and wires.”

Instead, as the House Judiciary Committee report documents, CISA “has facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries.” The agency, under the administration of President Joe Biden and under the leadership of Jen Easterly, ramped up efforts to flag “misinformation and disinformation” on social media. According to documents the committee obtained only through subpoena, CISA considered the creation of an anti-misinformation “rapid response team” capable of physically deploying across the United States to stamp out what it would decide constituted such “misinformation.” The agency went, for example, from ensuring the digital security of American voting systems to censoring criticism of those systems.

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Innocent Woman Facing Life in Prison for Legally Purchasing Kratom & Driving 200 Feet Into Alabama

In a disgusting display of what’s fundamentally wrong with America’s drug war, Shaina Brown, an entirely innocent woman, who harmed no one, finds herself locked up behind bars, slapped with an egregious $1,000,000 bail, later lowered to a still absurdly high $250,000, all for the mere possession of a plant she bought legally, just 200 feet away from where she was arrested. The plant in question? Kratom, a botanical supplement that has been vilified by a select few states and the federal government, despite it being perfectly legal in the majority of the US, including where Brown had initially bought it. It is also extremely safe when consumed properly.

To show just how insidious the state’s war on kratom actually is, we compared some of the recent bail amounts in Escambia County to Shaina’s case. Folks with crimes like strangulation, assault, battery, murder, and sexual abuse all have lower bonds than Shaina.

According to local law enforcement, the arrest happened in the dead of night on April 1, 2023, after Brown crossed over the unmarked state line from Florida, where Kratom is legal, into Alabama, where it is not. For those who may be unaware, kratom is ground-up tea leaves that are consumed by millions worldwide for its therapeutic benefits. Shaina’s mistake? Unknowingly bringing it into a state that has criminalized it.

Now, Brown faces the grim reality of the drug war in America. A plant purchased legally turns into a Schedule 1 substance the moment she crosses that imaginary line drawn on a map, transforming her, in the eyes of Alabama law, from a law-abiding citizen to a felon, with potential charges carrying a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.

The charges are shocking, especially considering Shaina’s history of minor offenses: a solitary speeding ticket and a cold check written in 2014 for under $500. A woman who isn’t a hardened criminal is now facing the prospect of losing years of her life, all for unknowingly “trafficking” tea powder in Alabama.

What’s most chilling about these proceedings is the manner in which they’re carried out. Juries are informed that the defendants are charged with possession or trafficking of a Schedule 1 substance, but they’re not told that this substance is Kratom. This omission paints an unfair picture, aligning defendants like Shaina with the likes of hardened criminals involved in the trade of far more dangerous and illicit substances like fentanyl.

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Florida Supreme Court Gives Attorney General More Time To Argue Why Marijuana Legalization Should Be Blocked From 2024 Ballot

The Florida Supreme Court on Monday granted the state attorney general’s request for more time to file a brief arguing why voters should not get a chance to decide on a marijuana legalization initiative on the 2024 ballot.

On the same day that Attorney General Ashely Moody (R)—whose office is seeking to invalidate the cannabis measure—filed a motion seeking the one-week extension, the court agreed to the delay.

The attorney general—as well as the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Drug Free America Foundation—told the court that they had “numerous other responsibilities during the relevant period.” The official also previously requested a two-week deadline extension for initial briefs that the court granted.

Moody’s latest request noted that her office is tied up with fundamental administrative tasks, as well as filing briefs in two other unrelated court cases. Also, it pointed out that the court allowed ACLU of Florida to file its own brief two days after the last response deadline for supporters of the legalization measure.

“As a result, the current deadline gives the opponents just three business days to respond to the arguments in that brief,” the motion said.

Overall, Moody is arguing that the way the initiative’s ballot summary is written is affirmatively misleading to voters on several grounds, which she says is grounds to invalidate the proposal

The attorney general’s office said that they discussed the deadline extension request with the Smart & Safe Florida campaign, which opposed a one-week extension but would accept a shorter two-day delay. Instead, the court granted the full request, making the deadline for a reply brief August 2.

“Multiple extensions of time for the same filing are discouraged,” the court said on Monday. “Absent extenuating circumstances, subsequent requests may be denied.”

State officials have already affirmed that the campaign collected enough valid signatures to secure ballot placement.

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Idaho Christians Are Compensated $300,000 for Rights Violations

Just how untethered to the rule of law did the United States come during the Covid response?

Before March 2020, most Americans would think that monitoring church attendance, banning Easter services, and arresting hymn singers were practices reserved for Eastern-style totalitarianism. The Soviet Union persecuted Christians and the Chinese have Muslim concentration camps, but Americans’ freedom of worship is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

The free exercise of religion precedes all other liberties in the First Amendment. It was born of a core conviction that the New World could do it better than the Old World of religious wars and persecution. Freedom, the Founders believed, would not diminish religious experience but rather bolster it through toleration and peace. This was a radical conviction at the time, a dramatic departure from centuries and millennia of costly struggle.

Government guaranteed everyone’s religious liberty. And the system worked. Religious conviction did not diminish but rather intensified throughout the 19th century. Most governments in the world followed similar guarantees never to interfere with religious practice. Even in the 21st century, when the country in general had become increasingly secular, few could imagine that political leaders would launch a crusade against organized religion.

Yet that’s exactly what happened. As the Covid creed emerged as the national faith, the American tradition of religious pluralism withered away. Freedom of worship was replaced by widespread demands for conformity.

This wasn’t limited to the devoutly godless shores of Marin County or East Hampton. Christians in Idaho recently reached a $300,000 settlement with a local city after they were arrested for attending outdoor church services in September 2020. Christ Church Pastor Ben Zornes organized the worship. “We were just singing songs,” he explained at the time.

The local police chief had no patience for the violation of corona law. “At some point in time you have to enforce,” he told the press after arresting attendees at the “psalm sing.”

But did they have to enforce the orders? Was arresting Christians legally required, or was it an explicit violation of the First Amendment?

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House Democrat Argues The Government Should Define ‘Truth,’ Americans Need to Be Censored

Democratic Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a non-voting delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, said the quiet part out loud while appearing on MSNBC’s ‘The Inside Interview’ with former White House mouthpiece Jen Psaki on Sunday.

The U.S. government should define for America what the “truth” is and censor those Americans who don’t agree.

“Well, you know, first of all, they wanna talk about censorship,” Plaskett said. “That anytime you point out untruths, you’re censoring, you’re stopping people from speaking. It’s not that we’re not stopping people from speaking [sic], people can speak, but we’re also going to give the American people the truth so that they can have science and facts and history against wild, outlandish claims that the Republicans are trying to get. That’s not only going to keep them from going to the polls or suppressing vote or telling untruths, but is also really very detrimental to the American people.”

In other words, the U.S. government is going to stop people from speaking what Stacey Plaskett and her Democrat colleagues call “the truth.” Numerous times in the past ten years, the Democratic Party and the media have misled the American people on the truth. Whether it was false claims about Covid vaccines to the Russia hoax or racially incendiary police shootings, the American people have been pushed to believe in a damaging political agenda.

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VA And Defense Department Oppose Medical Marijuana For PTSD, But Take Neutral Position On Psychedelics As Research Continues

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DOD) are strongly against the use of marijuana for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—but they’re taking a neutral position on psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD, simply saying that more research should be done.

In an update to their joint clinical practice guidelines, the departments provided recommendations on a variety of therapeutics used to treat PTSD and acute stress disorder that commonly afflict military veterans. And while many veterans use marijuana, often to treat symptoms of the conditions, the VA/DOD Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder Work Group said it is fully against the alternative treatment option.

“The Work Group recommends against the use of cannabis or cannabis derivatives in treating patients with PTSD because of the lack of well-designed [randomized control trials] evaluating the efficacy of cannabis derivatives in large samples of individuals with PTSD and the serious side effects associated with their use,” it says.

“Evidence from the 2017 VA/DoD PTSD [clinical practice guidelines] indicates significant harm associated with cannabis use,” it said, arguing that research suggests that marijuana is linked to issues with attention, memory, IQ and driving.

While medical marijuana came with a “strong against” recommendation from the departments, they said that the work group’s confidence in the existing evidence is “very low” due to a “lack of randomized, controlled, methodologically sound clinical trials; small sample sizes, and selection bias.”

“The benefits of cannabis were outweighed by the potential serious adverse effects,” the document, published last month, says. “Patient values and preferences varied largely because some patients seek new, novel treatments although others might be unwilling to use cannabis or cannabis derivatives. Thus, the Work Group made the following recommendation: We recommend against cannabis or cannabis derivatives for the treatment of PTSD.”

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Japanese Police Test AI-Equipped Cameras To Protect VIPs

Japanese police will begin testing security cameras equipped with AI-based technology to protect high-profile public figures, Nikkei reports.

AI-equipped cameras can have functions such as “behavior detection,” which analyzes a person’s movements, and “facial recognition,” which identifies a person. The agency will consider only the technology’s ability to detect behavior.

In behavior detection, the system learns to detect unusual movements, such as repeatedly looking around, by observing the patterns of suspicious individuals. Detecting suspicious behavior in crowds can be difficult to do with the human eye, and the system could make security forces better able to eliminate security risks.

The camera system can also spot guns and other suspicious items, as well as intrusion into unauthorized areas, which will be tested as part of the trial – along with the accuracy of detection in testing process.

The announcement comes as the country mourned the anniversary of the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday.

The National Police Academy will explore the use of the technology before deciding on a wider deployment.

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Federal Judge Orders Kansas Cops To Stop ‘War’ On Drivers Coming From Legal Marijuana States

The Kansas Highway Patrol has been ordered to stop its infamous “two-step” technique by a federal judge, in what the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas calls a “huge win” for all motorists using state highways.

The U.S. district court ruled KHP’s policies and practices violate the Fourth Amendment, releasing a Friday opinion that the KHP “has waged war on motorists—especially out-of-state residents traveling between Colorado and Missouri on federal highway I-70 in Kansas.”

The trial challenged the constitutionality of the KHP’s policy of targeting out-of-staters and other “suspicious” people for vehicle searches by drug-sniffing dogs, along with the “Kansas two-step” maneuver. The “ two-step” is a technique taught to KHP personnel, in which they end a routine traffic stop and begin a separate effort to dig for information and gain entry to a vehicle to search for contraband.

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