Lucy Parsons on government…
Tag: police state
Congress set to tackle crack, powder cocaine sentencing disparity before year’s end
Lawmakers are making a last-ditch push to pass legislation that seeks to reduce — but not entirely erase — sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine offenses before the year is finished.
Senate Democrats are expressing optimism about chances to pass legislation aimed at significantly reducing the gap in federal sentencing disparities for the offenses as part of a larger omnibus funding package leaders are hopeful will pass next week.
“We’re making good progress on the EQUAL Act,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told The Hill on late Thursday, referring to the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law act, a bill the Democratic-led House passed last year that sought to erase the disparity.
He also said lawmakers are “feeling quite good about” chances of using the omnibus, which is set to be unveiled in the coming days, as a vehicle. But the push could have a long road ahead next week amid resistance from Republicans.
Over the years, the nation has seen glaring racial disparities in how Americans convicted of crack and powder cocaine offenses are treated under the law.
Currently, an individual can be sentenced under federal law to at least five years behind bars for possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine, and 10 years for possessing 5 kilograms. By contrast, individuals found to have possessed 28 grams of crack cocaine can be subjected to five-year sentences as a mandatory minimum under the same rulebook, and 10 years for 280 grams.
“So, the quantity of powder cocaine that you need to trigger a mandatory minimum is 18 times higher than the amount of crack cocaine needed to trigger the same mandatory minimum,” Liz Komar, sentencing reform counsel for The Sentencing Project, told The Hill.
Iranian Regime Arrests Actress From Oscar Winning Movie “The Salesman” For Allegedly Spreading “Falsehoods” Associated with Protests
The brutal Iranian regime has arrested one of the country’s best known actresses, Taraneh Alidoosti, in connection with the anti-regime protests that have gripped the nation since the murder of murder of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini from injuries sustained at the hands of regime thugs. Amini was arrested for the “improper” wearing of a hijab.
Since her murder, Iran has been engulfed in massive protests against the government.
Iranian News Wire shared the details last week of 28 Iranians who have been sentenced to death for participating in the protests.
Alidoosti was allegedly detained on charges of “spreading falsehoods” about the protests. Specifically, Alidoosti shared a post on social media, without the required hijab, brining attention to the execution of activist Mohsen Shekari by the regime.
“His name was Mohsen Shekari. Every international organization who is watching this bloodshed and not taking action, is a disgrace to humanity.”
FBI Whistleblower Slams Ted Lieu, Says He Was Moved Off Child Porn Cases To Focus On J6
Following the latest ‘TWITTER FILES‘ drop, which revealed that “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” journalist Matt Taibbi commented that “Instead of chasing child sex predators or terrorists, the FBI has agents — lots of them — analyzing and mass-flagging social media posts.”
In response, California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu lashed out – telling Taibbi: “I’m on the House Judiciary Committee that has oversight over the @FBI and you are lying,” adding “The FBI has lots of agents chasing child sex predators and terrorists. Please stop undermining and lying about federal law enforcement.”
To which researcher Tracy Beanz asked FBI whistleblower Steve Friend to chime in.
Friend was suspended and stripped of his gun and badge in September for refusing to participate in SWAT raids against January 6th subjects accused of misdemeanor offenses, according to the NY Post.
FBI flagged jokes and satirical accounts to Twitter for censorship
The sixth batch of Twitter Files, published on Twitter by journalist Matt Taibbi, has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were regularly flagging content to Twitter for censorship between January 2020 and November 2022 and that some of the flagged content contained jokes and satirical comments.
According to Taibbi, there were more than 150 emails between the FBI and former Head of Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth and a “surprisingly high number” of these emails were FBI requests for Twitter to “take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.”
Taibi noted that the the FBI’s social media-focused task force is known as FTIF and was created in the wake of the 2016 election. Since its inception, this task force has grown to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to “identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”
Taibbi shared several examples of the FBI’s censorship requests and said Twitter employees would often look for reasons to suspend accounts after receiving these requests.
These censorship request emails reveal that the FBI would target both large and small accounts and sometimes issue preservation letters and request location information for the flagged accounts. Some of the large accounts that were flagged include those of Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) (which has over 873,000 followers) and actor Billy Baldwin (which has over 204,000 followers). However, accounts with as few as 15 followers were also flagged to Twitter by the FBI.
Twittergate deepens: FBI REFUSES to reveal how many social media firms it is secretly influencing – amid accusations it broke the law by pushing Twitter to remove accounts and hand over user location details, new trove reveals
The FBI has refused to say how many social media companies it works with, defending their actions after it emerged that agents from the bureau regularly met with Twitter executives and handed over lists of accounts they found questionable.
Officials from the bureau even asked for Twitter to hand over the locations from where the Twitter accounts were being operated, in a disturbing move that many saw as an attack on the First Amendment.
One user targeted by the FBI, who goes by @Lexitollah, said: ‘Seems like prima facie 1A violation.’
Charlie Hurt, the opinion editor of The Washington Examiner, said it was ‘a clear violation of the First Amendment.’
He told Tucker Carlson: ‘They were actually opening up new back channels on platforms I’ve not heard of before, in order to keep in touch with one another.
‘If this was happening during the Pentagon Papers, and we were seeing this level of collusion between the federal government and news, there would rightly be an outcry.’
5 Cops Charged for Torturing Handcuffed Man to Death then Claiming He Died in Car Crash
The family of Ronald Greene as well as the public at large were all told a tragic but utterly false story about this 49-year-old Louisiana man’s last moments alive. According to officials, Greene died after his car crashed into a “tree/shrub” just outside Monroe on May 10, 2019. However, we have since learned everything they were told was a lie after body camera video surfaced and painted an entirely different picture. Greene’s death was not a result of the crash and the department engaged in a coverup.
Now, more than three years after his death, five cops were charged in connection to the horrifying torture they doled out on the side of a dark Louisiana highway.
“They need to be held accountable,” Mona Hardin, Greene’s mother, told reporters on Thursday after the charges were announced. “Because if not, you’re condoning the killing of Ronald Greene. You’re OK with my son being murdered if you just give a slap on the wrist.”
Up until now, all the officers have remained on the job and, even now, they are still collecting their paychecks. As the NY Times reports:
The state police said on Thursday that two troopers had been placed on administrative leave because of the indictment. One of them, Master Trooper Kory York, was charged with the most serious offenses, including negligent homicide and 10 counts of malfeasance in office. (Trooper York had previously received a 50-hour suspension and returned to active duty.) The other, Lt. John Clary, who was charged with malfeasance in office and obstruction of justice, was the highest-ranking trooper at the scene.
Two others with the state police, Trooper Dakota DeMoss and Capt. John Peters, were both charged with obstruction of justice. Christopher Harpin, a Union Parish sheriff’s deputy, was also named in the indictment, charged with three counts of malfeasance in office.
“Today’s indictments followed a thorough and extensive investigation by state and federal agencies,” Col. Lamar A. Davis, the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said in a statement on Thursday. “Any instance of excessive force jeopardizes public safety and is a danger to our communities. These actions are inexcusable and have no place in professional public safety services.”
Don’t Let Police, Media Mislead You About Fentanyl Exposure Overdoses
Once again, media outlets are rushing to sow panic by blindly accepting a police department’s claims that an officer may have accidentally overdosed by being in close physical proximity to fentanyl, reinforcing the false message that you can potentially overdose on the drug even if you don’t intentionally consume it.
This time we head to Tavares, Florida, where the Tavares Police Department distributed to the local press body camera footage of Officer Courtney Bannick appearing to collapse and pass out after encountering what turned out to be fentanyl and meth in a rolled-up dollar bill she found in a routine traffic stop.
Local news outlets lapped it up (the story, not the fentanyl) and the video footage ran on WESH (the local NBC affiliate), FOX 35, and elsewhere. In none of the initial stories does anybody so much as question whether what they’re seeing is actually being caused by exposure to fentanyl. The officer was wearing gloves, but it was windy, and police argue that it’s possible she breathed the fentanyl in. Officers on the scene say they gave her three doses of Narcan. They brought her to the hospital, where she fully recovered. She is now fine.
The Tavares Police Department is very clear that it’s releasing the body camera footage for the purpose of scaring people about fentanyl.
“Officer Bannick really wants others to take away that this drug is dangerous,” Tavares Detective Courtney Sullivan told WESH. “It’s dangerous for not only yourself but others around you. Something as simple as the wind could expose you and just like that, your life could end.”
This just isn’t true. Add it to the pile of many, many examples of police attempting to convince the public that any possible exposure to fentanyl may be deadly. It does not simply pass through the skin when you touch it. As for the claim that the officer might have inhaled it, a study from the American College of Medical Toxicology and American Academy of Clinical Toxicology calculated that a person would have to stand next to a massive amount of fentanyl for two and a half hours to feel its effects.
Israel to introduce sweeping online censorship law
The Israeli government has announced that it will adopt recommendations to regulate social media platforms to create a “safer” online environment. The recommendations are similar to the social media rules in the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which will take effect next year.
Outgoing Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel announced that Israel would adopt recommendations made by the committee for examining legislation on online social media platforms, which was formed in October 2021. The committee, which was led by the Communications Ministry director-general Liran Avisar Ben-Horin, was created to find solutions to tackle the regulatory and ethical questions related to social media.
“This is an unregulated space where negative and harmful social phenomena have emerged,” said Hendel, as reported by the Times of Israel. “Legal responsibility needs to be applied to digital platforms in relation to the distribution of illegal sexual content, incitement to violence and terrorism, and more.”
“The step we are taking today brings us closer to a more protected and safer online space while preserving freedom of expression.”
The committee recommended that social media companies should be obligated to immediately remove illegal and offensive content, create an online hotline for reporting offensive and illegal content, create a system where users can appeal censorship and suspension decisions, and be more transparent.
Courts will be given the power to issue content removal orders, and a social media regulator will be created. Platforms operating in Israel will be required to set up offices in Israel.
Canadian school threatens students with ‘suspension’ if they photograph trans teacher, parents say
A Canadian school has allegedly threatened its students with the possibility of suspension if they are caught taking pictures of a now-infamous transgender teacher who wears giant prosthetic breasts in class.
The transgender teacher, now known as Kayla Lemieux, at Oakville Trafalgar High School in Oakville, Ontario made headlines back in September when photos and videos of her first started going viral.
The local school board defended her at the time. Halton District School Board Chair Margo Shuttleworth told the Toronto Sun in September that protecting their employees’ “gender rights” is “the stance the school board is taking and they are standing behind the teacher.”
Hellbound and Down 
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