Tag: police state

It’s Been 10 Years Since the IRS’s Tea Party Scandal. Will Congress Finally Act?

A bombshell revelation came to light 10 years ago this week in 2013, when the IRS apologized for years of deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from right-of-center organizations. Hundreds of groups were improperly subjected to baseless investigations, invasive and improper demands about their donors, and lengthy delays in processing routine paperwork. The IRS’s actions at the time put a severe chill on conservative speech at the height of the Tea Party movement and leading up to the 2012 presidential election.

The revelation set off years of investigations and resignations at the IRS. Yet the agency secretly continued its efforts to silence nonprofits disfavored by the agency’s bureaucrats and political appointees. In November 2013, the IRS proposed new regulations that were nearly as damaging to the First Amendment as the targeting itself.

The agency proposed severe limits on issue speech by certain nonprofits, which would have forced many nonprofits to reclassify as political action committees and publicly expose their donors’ names and home addresses. The IRS also solicited comments on potentially expanding the restrictions to cover trade associations and other groups in the future. After backlash from across the political spectrum, the proposal was withdrawn, but that victory does not change the sad fact that federal law governing nonprofits is no safer today than it was when IRS officials decided they had the authority to discriminate against groups based on their views.

Enter the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act, the subject of a full committee hearing tomorrow in the Committee on House Administration. The legislation addresses a broad range of election, free speech, and privacy-related issues, including remedies for the IRS’s sordid history of policing speech. The bill, first introduced in 2022 and awaiting reintroduction this Congress, would prohibit the IRS from writing new speech-chilling rules for nonprofits and codify Trump-era reforms protecting nonprofit donors against unnecessary disclosures and warehousing of their personal information.

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Cops Handcuff 9yo Boy With Special Needs to a Pole, Forcibly Hospitalize Him for Episode in Class

The Walpole Public School System and the Walpole Police Department in Massachusetts are facing public outrage after handcuffing a 9-year-old student to a pole during a mental health crisis, further exemplifying the systemic issues in our schools and the increasing tendency to rely on the American police state. Lawyers for Civil Rights and Anderson Krieger LLC law firm have written a letter to the involved parties demanding wide-ranging reform in response to this disturbing incident.

On January 12, the third-grade student, diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and delayed intelligence, faced a dysregulated episode in class. The student’s individualized education plan contained specific procedures for positive reinforcement to regulate his behavior. Instead of following those guidelines, school staff called the school resource officer, who then summoned officers from the Walpole Police Department.

Remember, this is a 9-year-old boy… not a hardened armed criminal on the run.

Nevertheless, two officers arrived and forcibly handcuffed the child to a pole, restraining his arms and legs before taking him to a local hospital. He was held in adult custody, unable to reach his mother until his discharge. Erika Richmond, an attorney with Lawyers for Civil Rights, stated, “The actions taken by Walpole Public Schools and the Walpole Police Department against this 9-year-old boy were egregious, age-inappropriate, and directly contradicted the school’s own guidance for regulating his behavior.”

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The Anglo-American Hand Behind The Rise Of Fascism Then And Now

This May 9th, the world will celebrate Victory Day.

For those who have not closed their eyes to the integration of leading unreconstructed Nazis, Italian Fascist, and Japanese fascists into the Anglo-American intelligence complex after World War Two this celebration is bitter sweet to say the least.

In West Germany, the head of Nazi intelligence, Reinhardt Gehlen, was given a new job by Allan Dulles as the head of West German intelligence under CIA control.

As Cynthia Chung demonstrated in her book The Empire on Which the Black Sun Never Set, between 1958-1973, every single head of NATO’s central European command were former Nazi SS officers. And as Swiss historian Daniele Ganser demonstrated in his NATO’s Secret Armies, the Cold War served as the excuse to build a vast paramilitary complex using fascists from Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, and Germany in order to carry out a multi-faceted war on the people of Europe through the organization of terrorist organizations like The Red Brigade and the targeting assassinations of nationalist leaders unwilling to adapt to a new depopulation-oriented world order.

Sadly, this devil’s pact was not something that simply occurred in the wild days of the Cold War, but continues virulently to this day on a number of levels.

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HOW THE PRISON LITIGATION REFORM ACT BLOCKS JUSTICE FOR PRISONERS

In 2014, Abu Huraira, 45, was transferred to Georgia State Prison after 16 years in the custody of the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC). On his arrival, prison officials failed to give him an initial medical screening, violating GDC policy. Because of that, Huraira went weeks without receiving medication for his chronic pain or dental care for a decaying tooth, despite submitting multiple requests to medical staff at the prison. Additionally, prison officials forced Huraira, a Muslim, to shave his beard using unsanitized clippers, exposing him to the risk of bloodborne diseases, and denied him access to Islamic prayer services, according to a lawsuit he later filed in federal court.

When Huraira sued GDC for violating his rights to medical care and religious liberty, GDC attorneys didn’t dispute the substance of his allegations. Instead, they argued that he had no right to sue at all because he had not filed a formal grievance with prison authorities. Even though Huraira told the court that corrections officers had refused to allow him to file a grievance, a federal judge ruled in GDC’s favor and dismissed Huraira’s lawsuit on the grounds that he had “failed to exhaust administrative remedies.”

All of this was possible thanks to a little-known federal law called the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, the PLRA sought to tamp down on “frivolous” lawsuits filed by prisoners by making it easier for courts to dismiss cases before they ever went to trial. The law also capped the amount of damages prisoners could collect from prison officials who violated their constitutional rights, discouraging professional attorneys from taking on prisoners’ cases.

As a result, the PLRA has made it virtually impossible for prisoners to hold corrections officials accountable for civil rights violations like excessive force or inadequate medical care. Without judicial oversight, corrections officials act with impunity because they rarely face consequences for violating prisoners’ rights.

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Punishing Rioters Is Wise. Bogus ‘Seditious Conspiracy’ Charges Are Not.

The problem with convicting members of the “western chauvinist” Proud Boys on seditious conspiracy charges is that it wrongly elevates a violent tantrum by a bunch of thugs to the level of an insurrection, and it lets officials who prosecute them puff themselves up as saviors of the republic. Worse, the case took liberties with a statute that is probably best forgotten to arrive at its conclusion when normal criminal law could have punished rioters without putting the criminal justice system through contortions.

Prosecutors High on Their Own Supply

“A jury in the District of Columbia today returned guilty verdicts on multiple felonies against five members of the Proud Boys, finding four of the defendants guilty of seditious conspiracy for their actions before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” the Department of Justice trumpeted last week. “According to the evidence at trial, in the months leading up to Jan. 6, the defendants plotted to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power, and to prevent the Members of Congress, and the federal law enforcement officers who protect them, from discharging their duties.”

“At my Senate confirmation hearing just over a month after January 6th, I promised that the Justice Department would do everything in its power to hold accountable those responsible for the heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government,” huffed Attorney General Merrick Garland, a man who gives every impression that he tremendously enjoys the smell of his own emissions. “Today’s verdict is another example of our steadfast commitment to keeping those promises.”

And so, we’re told, the republic is safe from those who would rise against it in insurrection. But before we consign former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and codefendants Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl to the history books alongside Mosby and Quantrill, Confederate guerrillas of the sort who inspired the seditious conspiracy statute to begin with, let’s consider an important obstacle: There’s sparse evidence of a meaningful conspiracy “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States” as required by law.

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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Refuses To Acknowledge the Government’s Misrepresentation of Mask Research

In a recent interview with The New York Times, former White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci conceded that face masks had, at best, a modest overall impact on coronavirus transmission during the pandemic. “From a broad public-health standpoint, at the population level, masks work at the margins—maybe 10 percent,” he said. “But for an individual who religiously wears a mask, a well-fitted KN95 or N95, it’s not at the margin. It really does work.”

This week CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about Fauci’s gloss, which she said might be perceived as “an extremely significant statement,” because “we were told it didn’t matter what kind of mask [we wore].” She also noted that children were required to wear masks in schools and day care centers, adding that “none of them wore them the right way.” The contrast between that frequently mandatory advice and what Fauci is saying now, Burnett suggested, is “upsetting to a lot of people.”

Murthy’s response illustrates the persistent difficulty that public health officials have in speaking honestly about this subject. He conceded that shifting government health advice “can be disconcerting” but said “sometimes guidance does evolve over time as you learn more.” He also allowed that the pandemic “has been incredibly hard for a lot of people, especially kids and parents.” And he mentioned “greater loneliness and isolation” as one consequence of the pandemic, saying the Biden administration is working on “a national strategy to address loneliness.”

The one thing Murthy did not address was the substance of Burnett’s question. Fauci’s current summary of the evidence, she noted, contradicts what public health officials told us during the pandemic. “Do you understand,” Burnett asked, why people might view that contradiction as “extremely significant” and “upsetting”? Murthy evidently does not understand that, even though it goes to the heart of the government’s credibility when it purports to tell us what science says about the effectiveness of disease control measures.

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A Home-Based Baker Shouldn’t Have To Choose Between Her Dog and Her Business

Hula is a good girl. She gets overly excited when guests visit, and sometimes she pokes her nose through the backyard fence and barks. But she follows one important rule: She avoids the room between the kitchen and driveway.

No dogs are allowed inside. Hula, a 7-year-old Belgian shepherd mix, learned quickly when her human parents renovated the space in November 2022, adding an oven, freezer, cooktop, and mixers. “She knows not to go in there,” says Hula’s mom, who uses the pet-free zone for a homemade cookie business and asked to remain anonymous for this piece.

The door mostly stays closed anyway, creating clear boundaries between the main kitchen for family meals and the workspace for “cottage food,” which refers to homemade food for sale. The setup eliminates any sanitation concerns about indoor pets.

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Mushrooms Could Offer Improvements to Color Blindness, Study Suggests

The study on color blindness, which comes via researchers with the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Center for Behavioral Health, Neurological Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, was published in Drug Science, Policy and Law.

According to Medical Xpress, the researchers behind the study “highlight some implications surrounding a single reported vision improvement self-study by a colleague and cite other previous reports, illustrating a need to understand better how these psychedelics could be used in therapeutic settings.”

Medical Xpress has more on the findings:

“In the current case, a subject with red-green CVD (mild deuteranomalia) self-administered the Ishihara Test to quantify the degree and duration of color vision improvement after using 5 g of dried psilocybin magic mushrooms. Self-reported Ishihara Test data from the subject revealed partial improvement in CVD, peaking at 8 days and persisting for at least 16 days post-psilocybin administration…Before mushroom ingestion, the subject self-administered the Ishihara Test, a series of graphics composed of a mosaic of dots varying in color, hue and size. The cards of the test are designed to hide test images from someone with color blindness that would be clearly visible to someone with color vision. For example, a graphic of red and green dots might have the number ‘3’ composed of only red dots, clearly apparent to most but invisible to the color-blind individual. During this baseline test, the subject reported scoring 14 on plates 1–21, indicating mild red-green blindness, with an additional set of four cards indicating deuteranomalia, a version of CVD that makes greens look more [like] reds. While the subject reported intensification of colors under the acute effects of psilocybin, the score showed only slight improvement to 15 at 12 hours post-administration. By 24 hours post-mushroom administration, the score reached 18, one above the cut-off of 17 required by the Ishihara Test for the classification of normal color vision. The score peaked at 19 on day eight and was still tuned into the range of normal vision four months later.” 

Findings like that have encouraged medical researchers, and forced lawmakers to reconsider longstanding prohibitions on magic mushrooms. 

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As Folks Rot in Cages for Weed, Cop Gets No Jail for Setting Home on Fire, Killing Two Dogs Inside

In a world where people are rotting in cages for possessing a plant, is it really that surprising to see a former Indiana State Police trooper walk free after admitting to heinous crimes such as arson, animal cruelty, and insurance fraud? Well, that’s exactly what happened, and this glaring discrepancy in the justice system highlights the deep-rooted corruption, double standards, and “blue privilege” that plague our society.

Jeremy Galloway, the ex-ISP trooper, was sentenced to four years on Thursday. However, he won’t be spending a single day behind bars, according to court records. Instead, Galloway will serve the first two years of his sentence on electronic home monitoring, the third year on reporting probation, and the fourth year on non-reporting probation. This lenient punishment comes as a result of Galloway pleading guilty to all charges as part of a plea agreement.

In October 2019, Galloway maliciously set fire to his Tell City home, killing his dogs in the process. Despite the severity of his crimes, Galloway was only placed on administrative leave without pay during the investigation, before ultimately resigning from his position as an ISP trooper. This slap on the wrist is a stark contrast to the draconian penalties faced by individuals who are caught with a mere plant.

The irony of this situation is unmistakable. While Galloway avoids prison for causing destruction and death, countless individuals who have never harmed a soul are languishing in cages for simply possessing or using cannabis. These people are not arsonists, they’re not cruel to animals, and they’re not committing fraud – yet their lives have been upended by a deeply flawed and outdated legal system that seems to protect its own at the expense of justice.

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Police Get a Green Light to Use Force Against Unarmed Individuals Who Have Already Surrendered or Complied

The U.S. Supreme Court has once again refused to hold police accountable for using force on unarmed individuals who have already surrendered or complied with police orders. Despite a series of high-profile incidents involving the use of unnecessary and excessive force by police against unarmed individuals, the Court declined to narrow the scope of qualified immunity granted to officers who assault non-violent suspects who have ceased to resist arrest.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute and Cato Institute had filed a joint amicus brief before the Supreme Court in Salazar v. Molina, challenging a lower court ruling that essentially gives police a green light to punish and harm suspects solely based upon their initial nonviolent resistance or flight. The legal coalition warned that the ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted qualified immunity to a police officer who tased a non-violent suspect in the back after he lay down to surrender, undermines public safety by discouraging suspects from surrendering or complying with police commands.

“The old police motto to ‘protect and serve’ has become ‘comply or die,’” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “This is how we have gone from a nation of laws—where the least among us had just as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as the next person (in principle, at least)—to a nation of law enforcers (revenue collectors with weapons) who treat ‘we the people’ like suspects and criminals.”

In March 2014, around 2:00 a.m., a sheriff’s deputy in Zapata County, Texas, tried to pull over Juan Carlos Salazar for speeding. However, Salazar accelerated and led police on a high-speed chase for approximately five minutes. After two vehicles pulled out in front of Salazar and blocked his way forward, Salazar stopped his car, got out, raised his hands, and then lay face-down on the ground with his arms above his head to surrender. There was no indication that Salazar had any weapon or was violent. But within seconds, a sheriff’s deputy ran up and fired his taser at Salazar’s back while he was still lying prone on the ground.

Salazar subsequently filed a lawsuit claiming that the deputy used excessive force in violation of his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure. The deputy moved to dismiss the lawsuit by claiming that he was entitled to qualified immunity. Although the trial court disagreed with the deputy, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that when a suspect has tried to evade capture, officers can question whether the suspect’s purported surrender is a ploy. Despite there being no reasonable indication of any such ploy by Salazar, the Fifth Circuit found that the deputy was entitled to qualified immunity and therefore dismissed the lawsuit against him.

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