Never forget…
Tag: police state
ATF Broke the Law by Paying Agents Millions in Wrongful Benefits, Watchdog Tells Biden
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for years illegally overpaid up to $20 million to agents and investigators who worked in non-law enforcement positions by misclassifying them as law enforcement posts, a government investigator said Tuesday.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which disclosed the mismanagement, said it had alerted President Joe Biden and Congress of “substantial waste, mismanagement and unlawful employment practices” involving high-level jobs at ATF.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel said that during a five-year period that officials investigated, 108 ATF employees who worked in non-law enforcement jobs “were improperly provided Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP) and enhanced retirement benefits.”
‘Reprehensible and Plainly Unconstitutional’: Child Welfare Agents Took Their Kids. Now They’re Suing.
Last July, Josh Sabey’s and Sarah Perkins’ two young children were seized by child welfare officials in the middle of the night without a warrant. Because of a minor injury to their youngest child, the Massachusetts Department of Families officials attempted to keep custody of the children for nearly four months. The couple has now filed a lawsuit, arguing that the state’s seizure of their children was “reprehensible and plainly unconstitutional.”
“The officials had no warrant to enter the Sabeys’ home or seize the young Sabey children,” the 33-page complaint states. “And there was no plausible imminent threat that could justify entering the home and seizing the sleeping toddler and infant from their loving parents.”
On July 12th, 2022, the Sabeys’ youngest child, 3-month-old Cal—named in the lawsuit as C.S. 2—developed a high fever, leading Sarah to take him to the emergency room at the advice of the family’s pediatrician. At the hospital, Cal was diagnosed with a respiratory infection. During an X-ray to search for pneumonia, doctors found a small, almost-healed fracture on Cal’s rib—an injury many doctors view as a sign of child abuse.
New York becomes first US state to ban gas in new buildings
New York has become the first US state to pass a law banning gas stoves and other fossil fuels in most new buildings, in a victory for environmental activists.
The legislation adopted by lawmakers in the Democratic-run state legislature late Tuesday will require newly built homes to be all-electric in three years’ time.
The move aims to tackle climate change by reducing New York’s dependence on natural gas.
“Changing the ways we make and use energy to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels will help ensure a healthier environment for us and our children,” said state assembly speaker Carl Heastie.
The law, which could face legal challenges from the gas industry, will require solely electric heating and cooking in new buildings under seven stories from 2026.
For taller skyscrapers, the deadline is 2029.
State troopers capture criminal but shoot his hostage
A federal appeals court has ruled police can shoot hostages — even intentionally — if they fear for their lives or to stop a fleeing felon.
The case is more than just a legal footnote to Don Davis. The Georgia truck driver was shot nine times by troopers and deputies who were trying to stop a murder suspect holding Davis hostage in his truck.
While the shooting occurred in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court just this week let stand a federal court ruling that police owe the hostage nothing for his medical bills or the lasting effects of the officer-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The roadblock
Oglethorpe County Sheriff’s deputies and Georgia State Patrol troopers were waiting on a dirt road outside a logging camp in August 2015.
Murder suspect Ryan Arnold was terrorizing the loggers and was planning his escape. Arnold had already shot his pregnant girlfriend and left her for dead before leading police on a chase. A trooper exchanged gunfire with the murder suspect before his getaway car ran out of gas at the logging camp.
Don Davis was getting ready to pull out with a full load of lumber when Arnold jumped in his truck with a rifle. “He fired a shot, and blew my side mirror out. I thought that was my head. But look, you know, I got lucky,” Davis said.
Davis picked up his phone and called 911. The kidnapper knew he was calling.
“He’s in my truck and we coming out of the woods now,” Davis calmly told the 911 operator. “He says that I won’t survive if I don’t get him out,” he added.
Dispatch records confirm police were told that the hostage was driving the logging truck with the killer threatening his life. “The subject you all are looking for is in the vehicle with him advising if he does not go where he tells him to he will kill him,” a dispatcher said over the radio minutes before the shooting.
Some officers testified they didn’t hear that message, while others confirmed they knew there was a hostage in the truck.
The 18-wheeler rolled toward the police cars that were blocking the road and started pushing them out of the way. Officers had taken cover behind the cars. The driver’s window of the logging truck was completely missing because the murder suspect had already shot it out while taking Davis hostage.
Two Georgia State Patrol troopers and a pair of Oglethorpe County deputies opened fire on the cab of the truck using shotguns, a pistol and a fully automatic tactical rifle.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined the gunfire was concentrated on the driver’s side of the cab, where Davis was driving.
“Shooting the driver, shooting who is driving that truck, will stop that truck,” GBI Special Agent in Charge Jesse Maddox told lawyers in a deposition.
The truck was riddled with more than 35 bullet holes.
Davis stopped the truck and jumped out after he was already hit eight times. “I said, ‘I got to get out of here,’ bailed out and had my hands up, and I still got shot,” Davis recalled.
A police officer shot the hostage again as he jumped out of the truck to get away from the kidnapper. The officer testified he didn’t realize the man jumping out was the hostage until he had already opened fire.
Davis was shot in his shoulder, hip and leg. His right hand was nearly blown off. Doctors were able to reconstruct Davis’ hand, but he lost two fingers.
Arnold had been hiding on the floorboards with a rifle trained at Davis’ head. The kidnapper suffered far-less-serious injuries. “I was placed into an ambulance on the scene and Mr. Davis was lifeflighted,” Arnold testified in a deposition from prison.
Arnold pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping and other felonies.
A ‘tragic story’
Davis and wife Kathy sued the officers in federal court. Oglethorpe County and two sheriff’s deputies settled with the couple for $195,000 as part of a court-ordered mediation, according to a document obtained through a records request.
The rest of the case was thrown out by the U.S. District Court.
PRISON LABOR: WHERE ‘DEAD-END’ JOBS MEET 21ST CENTURY SLAVERY
For more than 150 years, the U.S. Constitution has relegated prisoners to a distinct underclass that allows us to be exploited for our cheap, and in many cases unpaid, labor. Although the 13th Amendment was intended to protect citizens from being abused through slavery, it included a carveout stating that this right to protection did not apply to those convicted of crimes. Inside the towering walls and razor wire fences of U.S. prisons, slavery remains legal—and it is carried out with little oversight, often under horrific conditions.
As a society, we’re constantly told that people behind bars belong there and that they owe us a debt. It’s true that those of us who are incarcerated have a responsibility to do everything in our power to repair the harm we’ve caused. But forcing us to submit to exploitation and abuse for the benefit of corporations does not help victims of crime or make society safer.
A 2022 ACLU and Global Human Rights Clinic report found that people incarcerated in state and federal prisons produce approximately $11 billion in goods and services for the U.S. economy while being paid pennies for their labor. Often, this leaves prisoners unable to afford basic hygiene items or even phone calls or stationery to help us remain in contact with the outside world.
Unlike workers in the outside world, incarcerated workers “are under the complete control of their employers … stripped of even the most minimal protections against labor exploitation and abuse,” the report concluded.
Incarcerated workers in every state earn far less than minimum wage. The average minimum hourly wage for prisoners in non-industry jobs across the U.S. is 13 cents an hour, the ACLU and GHRC found. The average maximum hourly wage is 52 cents an hour. In seven states, incarcerated workers receive no compensation for most work assignments. Industry jobs, in which prisoners produce goods and services for private companies, pay only slightly better, but still ensure that the employer nets a huge profit.
Some states allow for the garnishing of these meager prison wages to pay for child support, court fees, restitution, institutional debt—incurred when prisoners cannot afford hygiene items or medical copays—and even room and board costs.
And while our wages are just a fraction of even the lowest-paying jobs on the outside, we are forced to pay highly inflated prices for basic necessities. At the prison in Washington State where I am incarcerated, many jobs pay only 42 cents an hour. A local 20-minute phone call costs $1.43, meaning a prisoner must work 3.5 hours to cover the cost of that call. A 3-ounce bag of freeze-dried coffee is $3.34, or 8 hours of work. A tube of Colgate Sensitive toothpaste is $6.10—more than 14.5 hours of work. The list goes on.
It would be funny if it weren’t real…
New York Legalized Marijuana, but a Legal Typo Is Hindering Implementation
The cannabis legalization bill that New York enacted in 2021 included a provision that was supposed to help people convicted of marijuana felonies by downgrading their records in line with current law. But a typographical error made that relief harder to obtain than legislators promised.
The section of the law dealing with prior marijuana convictions describes two situations. Paragraph 2(a)(i) refers to a person convicted of a marijuana offense that “would not have been a crime” had the 2021 changes been in effect. Paragraph 2(a)(ii) refers to a person who “would have been guilty of a lesser or potentially less onerous offense” under current law.
Paragraph 2(b) says a court that receives a petition from someone convicted of a marijuana offense that no longer exists “shall….grant the motion to vacate such conviction.” It adds that a court “may substitute, unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so, a conviction for an appropriate lesser offense” when “the petition meets the criteria in subparagraph (i) of paragraph (a).”
Whoops. That clearly should have been “the criteria in subparagraph (ii) of paragraph (a),” since it makes no sense to substitute “a conviction for an appropriate lesser offense” when no such offense exists. Because of that mistake, people with marijuana felony convictions cannot use the streamlined relief process the law was supposed to provide.
Under prior law, someone caught with eight ounces to a pound of marijuana was guilty of a felony. Under current law, possessing that amount in public is a violation punishable by a maximum fine of $250, while possessing five pounds or less at home is legal. Public possession of one to five pounds, which used to be a felony, is now a misdemeanor.
The War on Free Speech Is Really a War on the Right to Criticize the Government
“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”— Justice William O. Douglas
Absolutely, there is a war on free speech.
To be more accurate, however, the war on free speech is really a war on the right to criticize the government.
Although the right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom, every day in this country, those who dare to speak their truth to the powers-that-be find themselves censored, silenced or fired.
Indeed, those who run the government don’t take kindly to individuals who speak truth to power.
In fact, the government has become increasingly intolerant of speech that challenges its power, reveals its corruption, exposes its lies, and encourages the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
This is nothing new, nor is it unique to any particular presidential administration.
For instance, as part of its campaign to eradicate so-called “disinformation,” the Biden Administration likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists. This government salvo against consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the net to potentially include anyone who is exposed to ideas that run counter to the official government narrative.
In his first few years in office, President Trump declared the media to be “the enemy of the people,” suggested that protesting should be illegal, and that NFL players who kneel in protest during the national anthem “shouldn’t be in the country.”
Then again, Trump was not alone in his presidential disregard for the rights of the citizenry, especially as it pertains to the right of the people to criticize those in power.
President Obama signed into law anti-protest legislation that makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest activities (10 years in prison for protesting anywhere in the vicinity of a Secret Service agent). The Obama Administration also waged a war on whistleblowers, which The Washington Post described as “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” and “spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records.”
Part of the Patriot Act signed into law by President George W. Bush made it a crime for an American citizen to engage in peaceful, lawful activity on behalf of any group designated by the government as a terrorist organization. Under this provision, even filing an amicus brief on behalf of an organization the government has labeled as terrorist would constitute breaking the law.
Bernie Sanders: Government Should Confiscate All Wealth Over $999 Million
No billionaires at all!
Not American ones, at least.
That’s the newly proclaimed policy of Bernie Sanders, who most definitely is not challenging the Democrats to nominate him for president in 2024, as he did in 2020. Nope, Bernie is perfectly comfortable with the policies being followed by President Biden’s handlers.
Presumably, in exchange for not rocking the boat as he did in 2020, forcing the party’s controllers to pick an already senescent Joe Biden just because he was easy to control with all these bribes that could be exposed when needed (cough! Stay tuned as Biden’s desire for re-election now appears to be a kamikaze mission), Bernie has assurances that the hard left vector will continue no matter who is leading the party as presidential nominee in 2024.
Bernie Sanders’s choice of $999 million as the permissible level of wealth and no more brings to mind Barack Obama’s words: “I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
Of course, once such a wealth confiscation is announced, billionaires will depart for friendlier shores, there will be very little left to confiscate, and entrepreneurs will be creating jobs and wealth elsewhere.
That’s what happened when France tried a wealth tax, and that’s why it was repealed.
Hellbound and Down 
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