Tag: police state

The City of Charlottesville’s new online speech restrictions for employees is likely unconstitutional

The City of Charlottesville passed a new policy for city workers that prohibits them from commenting, offline and online, about a wide range of topics. The policy is a potential violation of employees’ First Amendment free speech rights.

The policy was passed in response to how the city handled Allen Groat, an analyst for the fire and police department, for his involvement in the January 6 2021 riot at the US Capitol. Groat tweeted that he would engage in a “show of force,” and posted a photo of himself and former head of the Proud Boys.

Groat was investigated but was not criminally charged. Mayor Lloyd Snook said that Groat was not going to be fired because he had not been criminally charged. In response to the outrage that followed, Mayor Snook said that the city would review personnel policy.

The new policy, as reported by Fire, which went into effect last week, “requires that employees refrain from conduct, on- and off-duty, that will undermine City government objectives or impair the proper performance of governmental functions.”

That includes conduct that “undermines close working relationships that are essential to the effective performance of an employee’s job duties,” as well as conduct that impairs “discipline or harmony among co-workers.”

The policy heavily restricts city employees from exercising their First Amendment rights. An employee could be punished even for criticizing dangerous working conditions.

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Gov. Hochul’s SUVs are cloaked from traffic cameras

Gov. Kathy Hochul might not be camera shy on the campaign trail, but her state trooper-driven vehicles travel incognito when it comes to being photographed for speeding and running red lights.

Both Hochul and Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado – Democrats pushing campaign platforms aimed at curbing car use — are chauffeured around New York city and state in SUVs equipped with license plates that can’t be flagged by traffic cameras, The Post has learned.

Unlike Mayor Eric Adams’ NYPD security detail and other city officials whose vehicles aren’t cloaked from the camera program’s scrutiny, state-owned vehicles used by State Police’s protective services unit to transport Hochul, her Democratic running mate and their staff come back as “NO-HIT” on the Department of Motor Vehicles database.

A State Police spokesman confirmed the plate numbers are designed to remain anonymous “as a security measure,” adding such protocol has been in place roughly 50 years.

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Police in California conduct home raids with redacted search warrants

Police in San Diego County, California, and FBI agents reportedly coordinated to conduct several early-morning raids on homes with redacted search warrants.

The redactions included the location and the people being searched by the warrants, according to a CBS affiliate in San Diego.

The raids were conducted Thursday morning, with several of the targets being individuals with warrants out for their arrest, but it is unknown how many of those individuals were found in the raids.

Greg Otis, one of the residents affected by the raids, told the local news station more than a dozen officers showed up to his home early in the morning and demanded that he walk out of his home with his hands up. When he asked for a search warrant, they did not present one but said they were looking for his nephew.

“If you’re going to go to somebody’s house, tell the owner what you’re coming for. Don’t just barge on in there, you know, and never tell them what for,” Otis said to the station.

Officers did not find Otis’s nephew at the house.

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Biden’s Marijuana Pardons Did Not Free a Single Federal Prisoner or Deliver the Expungement He Promised

Edwin Rubis has served more than two decades of a 40-year federal prison sentence for participating in a marijuana distribution operation. Taking into account “good time” credit, he is not scheduled to be released until August 2032.

Rubis is one of about 3,000 federal prisoners whose cannabis-related sentences were unaffected by President Joe Biden’s mass pardon for low-level marijuana offenders. A protest at the White House today called attention to their predicament.

Biden’s October 6 proclamation applied only to U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents convicted of simple marijuana possession under the Controlled Substances Act or the District of Columbia Code, none of whom was still incarcerated. Although his pardons could benefit as many as 10,000 or so individuals, that represents a tiny percentage of all simple possession cases, which typically are charged under state law. And Biden’s action will not release a single federal prisoner.

According to a 2021 report from Recidiviz, “more than 3,000 individuals are
currently serving marijuana-related sentences in federal prison.” The report estimated that ending federal marijuana prohibition—a step that Biden has steadfastly resisted—would reduce the federal prison population by more than 2,800 over five years.

“Your recent executive order, while a great first step, did nothing to address the thousands of federal cannabis prisoners currently incarcerated in federal prison,” 16 drug policy reform groups noted in an October 10 letter to Biden. “While your recent executive order will help many, it will not release a single one of the nearly 2,800 federal cannabis prisoners.” Although “eighteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis,” the letter said, “there are thousands of Americans who are serving long-term prison sentences, including some life sentences, in federal facilities for conduct involving amounts of cannabis that are far less than what dispensaries routinely handle on a daily basis.”

The moral logic of Biden’s distinction between simple possession and other marijuana offenses is puzzling. He says marijuana use should not be treated as a crime. Yet he is willing to let individuals like Rubis languish in prison merely for helping people use marijuana, which today is recognized as a legitimate business in most states, 19 of which allow recreational as well as medical use.

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An engineer pretended to be a cop and detained 2 drivers. A court let him get away with it.

Defenders of qualified immunity often use on-duty police officers as the doctrine’s raison d’être. As the Supreme Court itself admitted when it created the doctrine, qualified immunity was intended to give police officers elbow room to make on-the-spot decisions, even at the expense of denying a remedy for constitutional abuses.

But what happens when a cop wannabe violates someone’s rights to settle a personal grudge and wastes police time in the process? Should he also be entitled to the elbow room?

According to a federal circuit court in Minnesota, the answer is yes. Just last year, in the case of Central Specialties Inc. v. Large, the court granted immunity to a county engineer who used his government vehicle to stop two trucks belonging to a company he disliked.

He then made them wait for three hours until one of the three law-enforcement agencies he called finally came and cited one of the vehicles for violating a last-minute weight change the engineer himself imposed.

The citation was dismissed the following day. But when the company sued, their case against the engineer was quickly dismissed because of qualified immunity.

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‘No One Wants These Laws’: Ireland to Jail ‘Hate Speech’ Offenders for Up to Five Years

Those who use so-called “hate speech” will soon be jailed for up to five years under new legislation published on Thursday.

Any individual found guilty of using “hate speech” in Ireland will soon find themselves facing up to five years in jail. The country’s Justice Minister, Helen McEntee, has been at the centre of the country’s push towards implementing effective “hate speech” legislation, with her department announcing on Thursday that the first draft of the new laws would soon enter the country’s parliament.

Under the rules as proposed, those found guilty of “any intentional or reckless communication or behaviour that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic” would face up to five years in jail.

What’s more, any individual convicted of such an offence would be branded a “hate criminal”, a label which the minister says is designed to “follow an offender in court, in garda vetting, and so on”.

“[H]ate speech is not about free speech,” McEntee declared in a statement published by her department.

“Hate speech is designed to shut people down, to shut them up, to make them afraid to say who they are and to exclude and isolate them,” she continued. “There is nothing free about that, and there is, frankly, no place for it in our society.”

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New Project Veritas Drop Suggests DOJ May Go After “Misinformation” as “Election Crimes”

It’s 2022 but it feels a lot like 1984, doesn’t it?  According to Project Veritas on Truth Social, an FBI whistleblower has leaked a document that suggests “Misinformation” and “Disinformation” are “Election Crimes”.

This colorful document titled “2022 Midterm Elections Social Media Analysis Cheat Sheet” that was leaked to Project Veritas is reminiscent of an exposé The Gateway Pundit published back in August.  The basis of the exposé article was the discovery of contracts from the Department of Homeland Security with an organization called the EI-ISAC not only to secure elections at the county level at the behest of the DHS.  That same non-profit was also subject to a report titled “The Long Fuse” that talks about a portal to allow government officials access to social media conglomerates to censor anything they deem “misinformation” or “disinformation”.

The pamphlet defines “misinformation” as “false or misleading information spread mistakenly or unintentionally” and “disinformation” as “false or inaccurate information intended to mislead others.  Disinformation campaigns on social media are used to deliberately confuse, trick, or upset the public.“

The leaked document from Project Veritas does state “For the following to fall under federal jurisdiction, the following must involve one or more federal candidates on the ballot…”  It is unclear if that means the candidate must be involved, or it could be “mis” or “dis” information involving an election with a federal candidate.

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Innocent Grandma Arrested, Brought to Jail for Feeding the Homeless

In a logical and reasonable world, acts of kindness should be spotlighted and celebrated. Those carrying them out should be praised and their actions should set an example for all to follow. Unfortunately, however, we do not live in a reasonable world and acts of kindness are oftentimes met with force, loss of freedom, and sheer tyranny — just ask 78-year-old Norma Thornton.

For much of her life, Norma has been dedicating her time to helping those in need. As she moved from city to city throughout her 78 years on Earth, Norma would befriend the homeless population in each town and feed them. She cooks homemade meals, cleans their laundry, helps them connect with social services, and more.

For decades, Norma has improved the lives of countless individuals who have found themselves down on their luck. But when she got to Bullhead City, Ariz., all that changed. Because Bullhead City officials are not reasonable, Norma was kidnapped by armed agents of the state and threatened with being thrown in a cage — for giving hungry people food.

In Bullhead City, tyrannical officials have deemed it a criminal misdemeanor—punishable by fines and even imprisonment—to share prepared food in a public park “for charitable purposes.”

Highlighting the sheer lack of reason and logic is the “charitable purposes” portion of this ordinance. Norma could invite 150 of her friends and relatives to the park, cook for them, and feed them all and she wouldn’t be in violation of any law. But if those friends are homeless, the act becomes charitable, and therefore illegal.

Luckily, the folks with Institute for Justice have taken up Norma’s case and they are suing the city over this cruel and inhumane law.

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