Tag: police state

Missouri Doctor Faces $500 Billion in FTC Fines for Promoting Vitamin D3 During Pandemic

A St. Louis chiropractor could face more than $500 billion in civil penalties through a federal lawsuit that alleges that he profited from selling Vitamin D and zinc products in violation of the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act.

“The federal government is suing me for half a trillion dollars … for telling people to take vitamins,” said Dr. Eric Nepute.

Nepute said his case goes to trial in Missouri federal court in March.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed the 27-page complaint in April 2021. It alleges, among other things, that Nepute profited from the online sale of Vitamin D and zinc products during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Nepute, 41, is a licensed chiropractor and owner of Nepute Wellness Center in St. Louis. He also owns Quickwork, a limited liability company doing business as Wellness Warrior.

The government’s complaint alleges that Nepute, through social media and internet advertising, promoted and sold “Wellness Warrior Vita D” and other products as drugs capable of treating, or preventing, COVID-19.

“Starting no later than June 2020, [Nepute] began advertising a protocol that customers should follow to protect against, prevent, or treat COVID-19. This protocol, which has varied over time, advises consumers to take [daily] substantial quantities of emulsified Vitamin D3 and zinc,” found in the Wellness Warrior products, the complaint stated.

The complaint also claimed that “no published studies prove Vitamin D protects against, treats, or prevents COVID-19.”

According to the suit, Nepute’s “lack of factual or scientific bases for these claims [are] frequently accompanied by equally unsupported assertions regarding applicable science.

“In short, defendants are selling their products by disseminating information, exploiting fears [amid] a pandemic, and posting a significant risk to public health and safety.”

However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states Vitamin D is “essential for bone health as well as muscle and nerve functions [and] helps the immune system fight off bacteria and viruses.”

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Netherlands to ban laughing gas from January

The Dutch government is banning the use of nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, amid concerns over the health risks for the growing number of young people using it.

The ban, which starts in January, makes it illegal to buy, sell or own the gas.

However, the authorities say it can still be used for medicinal purposes and in the food industry.

The government also hopes the ban will reduce the number of road traffic accidents involving the drug.

According to road safety monitor TeamAlert, laughing gas has played a role in 1,800 accidents across the Netherlands over the past three years.

“Almost two a day, figures that really shocked us,” Maartje Oosterink of TeamAlert told AD newspaper earlier this month.

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Techno-Authoritarianism Is Here to Stay: China and the Deep State Have Joined Forces

“If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”—Senator Frank Church

The votes are in.

No matter who runs for office, no matter who controls the White House, Senate or the House of Representatives now or in the future, “we the people” have already lost.

We have lost because the future of this nation is being forged beyond the reach of our laws, elections and borders by techno-authoritarian powers with no regard for individuality, privacy or freedom.

The fate of America is being made in China, our role model for all things dystopian.

An economic and political powerhouse that owns more of America’s debt than any other country and is buying up American businesses across the spectrum, China is a vicious totalitarian regime that routinely employs censorship, surveillance, and brutal police state tactics to intimidate its populace, maintain its power, and expand the largesse of its corporate elite.

Where China goes, the United States eventually follows. This way lies outright tyranny.

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Cop Found Guilty After Video Showed Him Savagely Torture Handcuffed Man & Cover It Up

 In 2020, a federal grand jury returned a 12-count indictment against three very bad cops – officers Joseph Chase Winkle, Jeremy Gibson, and sergeant Joseph Krejsa of the Muncie Police Department for their roles in using excessive force and attempting to cover up the misconduct. Video from the officers’ body cameras was crucial in securing the charges.

The indictment charges Winkle with nine felonies, Gibson with one felony offense, and Krejsa with two felony offenses. Now, nearly two years later, and Winkle has pleaded guilty to 11 counts while Gibson has pleaded to one. Krejsa remains on paid leave.

“According to the superseding indictment, Winkle’s actions included kicking, punching, knee striking, and using a taser on arrestees without justification, and resulted in bodily injury to the arrestees,” a news release from the US Attorney’s Office read.

The maximum penalty for the deprivation-of-rights offenses is 10 years in prison and the maximum penalty for false report offenses is 20 years of imprisonment, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to the charges, one of the victims suffered serious injuries from Winkle’s attack and another was knocked unconscious.

Body camera video from one of the arrests shows Winkle and another officer handcuffing a compliant man before deploying a taser on him causing him to writhe in pain. As the handcuffed man squirms in agony, the officer viciously attacked him with fists, tasers, and knee strikes.

Gibson was involved in similar attacks and is accused of depriving victims of their right to be free from excessive force by stomping on them and delivering multiple knee strikes.

Krejsa sat back and watched his two subordinates beat their victims and helped them cover it up afterward.

As RTV6 reported at the time, on one occasion, Krejsa minimized the level of force used by Winkle during one arrest, and, on another occasion, falsely represented that a different Muncie Police Department sergeant cleared Winkle of his use of force when it was actually Krejsa who conducted that review.

In other words, they investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.

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Disgraced Detective Arrested for Kidnapping Young Black Girls and Forcing Them into Sex Slave Ring

On Monday, the Department of Justice announced myriad charges against former Kansas City Police Department detective Roger Golubski and three other men – Cecil Brooks, LeMark Roberson and Richard Robinson. The group of men is alleged to have been kidnapping young Black girls and holding them in involuntary sex servitude.

The disturbing crimes are alleged to have taken place from 1996 to 1998 at a location in Kansas City. The four men held multiple young women as sex slaves at several units within Delevan Apartments, according to the DoJ.

“One of those units was a ‘relaxed’ area, where young girls used alcohol and drugs with the defendants, and another was ‘working house,’ where some girls were compelled to perform sexual services for adult men who visited Delevan,” the indictment says.

According to the indictment, Brooks, Roberson, and Robinson “provided drugs to the girls in the ‘working house,’ who were addicts.” They also allegedly “beat and threatened to beat girls who did not agree to provide sexual services in exchange for shelter, drugs, or clothes.”

Golubski used his badge to provide cover for the human trafficking operation and eventually became involved in the operation. Once he fully submersed himself in the criminal operation, Golubski allegedly had an affinity for young Black girls, according to authorities.

“At Delevan, Defendant ROGER GOLUBSKI primarily chose young Black girls, ranging in age from 13 to 17 years old, to submit to sex and to provide sexual services to him,” the indictment says.

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Ireland Considers Enacting A Bill Criminalizing The Possession Of Hateful Material

We recently discussed a troubling conviction in Great Britain of a man for his “toxic ideology.” Now Ireland appears ready to replicate that case a thousand fold. The proposed Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 would criminalize the possession of material deemed hateful.

It is a full frontal assault on speech and associational rights. The law would allow for sweeping authoritarian measures in defining opposing viewpoints hateful. Ireland appears to be picking up the cudgel of speech criminalization from Britain, an abusive power once used against the Irish.

The law is a free speech nightmare.  Even before addressing the crime of possession of harmful material, the law would “provide for an offence of condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.” The crime of condoning, denying or grossly trivailising” criminal conduct would make most autocrats blush. The lack of any meaningful definition invites arbitrary enforcement. The law expressly states the intent to combat “forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.”

What is so striking about the law is how utterly unapologetic it is in the use of criminal law to curtail not just free speech but free thought. It allows for the prosecution of citizens for “preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics.” That could sweep deeply into not just political but literary expression.

The interest of the Irish in assuming such authoritarian measures is chilling given their own history under British rule, including violent crackdowns on nonviolent protests like “Bloody Sunday.”  Free speech is now in a free fall in Great Britain and Ireland appears eager to follow suit.

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Washington Has Been Much More Successful Than California in Displacing the Black Market for Pot

A new report indicates that Washington, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, has been much more successful at displacing the black market than California, where voters approved legalization in 2016. In a 2021 survey by the International Cannabis Policy Study (ICPS), 77 percent of Washington cannabis consumers reported buying “any type of marijuana” from a “store, co-operative, or dispensary” in the previous year, while 17 percent said they had obtained pot from a “dealer.”

The share of Washington consumers who report buying marijuana from a “store, co-operative, or dispensary” is higher than the average for states that have legalized recreational use, which was 57 percent in 2021, according to a nationwide ICPS survey. Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) paid for the ICPS report on cannabis consumption in that state, and the ICPS has not published California-specific survey data. But calculations based on estimated total consumption and legal sales suggest that the black market accounts for somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of marijuana purchased in California.

California’s striking failure to shift consumers from illegal to legal dealers is largely due to a combination of high taxes, onerous regulations, and local retailing bans. While Washington has a relatively high retail marijuana tax (37 percent, plus standard sales taxes), in other respects the state has made it easier for licensed suppliers to compete with illegal sources.

A 2022 study from Reason Foundation (which publishes Reason) notes that local restrictions in California have created “massive cannabis deserts” where “consumers have no access to a legal retailer within a reasonable distance of their home.” Washington has more than three times as many legal dispensaries per capita as California.

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Free Speech Dies Because We Stop Speaking Freely, Not The Other Way Around

Newly elected House Republicans have every political reason to hold investigative hearings into government abuse of power during Covid. While these hearings should have happened long ago, they will no doubt vindicate many Americans who suffered under the capricious reign of public health officials. Central to this investigation will be an inquiry into government attempts to manipulate public opinion.

We already know that officials misrepresented opinion as fact and covertly suppressed contrary information. The pronouncements of bureaucrats, who cared more for their own celebrity and power than the truth, went largely unchallenged. This represents a failure of constitutional guarantees to free speech — a failure Republicans will be happy to broadcast as yet more evidence of an out-of-control bureaucracy.

It’s tempting to think a tyrannical bureaucracy is to blame for our embarrassing foray into censorship. But if we accept this explanation, assign blame, and move on, we ignore a cultural rot that is far more dangerous than any government overreach. It is ordinary Americans, not bureaucrats, who are most to blame for censorship, because citizens are the ultimate defense against the suppression of speech, not the government.  

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