Tag: police state

China Continues to Lock Up Activists in Psychiatric Facilities

The national mental health law—a reportedly much-heralded law in 2013—was supposed to put an end to a barbaric practice in China: the locking up of critics, petitioners, and the unwanted by police in psychiatric facilities better described as prisons from hell.

A new report by NGO Safeguard Defenders shows the problem persists, and there’s no protection for victims.

“Ankang,” meaning peace and good health in Chinese, has been used to describe a system where police can forcibly have people committed to institutions, most often without even an initial psychiatric evaluation performed. It started in the 1980s as special police-run custodial psychiatric facilities outside of the normal mental health system. Once inside, it is nearly impossible to leave. It persists to this day, even if the name has changed.

Some victims languish inside for years without ever having any mental health issues—because the authorities found it a convenient way to make a problematic person go away. Inside, the victims go without even the most basic protections, unlike in detention facilities or prisons.

The new report, mapping 109 institutions that have been used this way across 21 provinces, found that two-thirds of those locked up by police did not receive any initial psychiatric evaluation. Most victims identified were either dissidents or petitioners, a long-standing thorn in the side of local governments.

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It’s now illegal for anyone under 21 to buy canned whipped cream in New York, officials say it’s to stop teens from inhaling nitrous oxide

It is illegal for New Yorkers under age 21 to purchase a can of whipped cream, according to recently-passed state law. 

The law, which went into effect in November 2021, is meant to prevent teenagers from using canned whipped cream to inhale nitrous oxide, otherwise known as “whippets.” 

“Inhalants are invisible, volatile substances found in common household products that produce chemical vapors that are inhaled to induce psychoactive or mind-altering effects,” according to a US Drug Enforcement Administration factsheet.

Approximately 1 in 5 young people have used inhalants like whippits by the time they reach eighth grade, the DEA said. Abusing inhalants can “cause damage to the parts of the brain that control thinking, moving, vision, and hearing.”

New York State Sen. Joseph Addabbo of Queens said he sponsored the New York law after receiving complaints of empty canisters littering the streets. 

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The Problem with Marijuana Legalization

Although the medical use of marijuana has been legalized in 37 states, its recreational use is legal only in 19 states. (South Dakota voters approved a recreational marijuana initiative in the 2020 election, but it was overturned by a state circuit judge and upheld by the state supreme court.)

That is still a lot of states with legal weed considering that it was not until 2012 that the first two states (Colorado and Washington) legalized the recreational use of marijuana. In just the last two years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana use. 

What is even more amazing is that the states have done this while the federal government still classifies marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use,” and “a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.”

But the problem with marijuana legalization on the state level is not that it is still illegal under federal law. The problem is that there are so many government rules and regulations on the state and local level that the marijuana market can hardly be considered free at all.

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The FBI’s Gestapo Tactics are the Hallmarks of an Authoritarian Regime

With every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.

These are not tactics used by constitutional republics, where the rule of law and the rights of the citizenry reign supreme. Rather, they are the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes, where secret police control the populace through intimidation, fear and official lawlessness on the part of government agents.

That authoritarian danger is now posed by the FBI, whose love affair with totalitarianism began long ago. Indeed, according to the New York Times, the U.S. government so admired the Nazi regime that following the second World War, it secretly and aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen as part of Operation Paperclip. American taxpayers have been paying to keep these ex-Nazis on the U.S. government’s payroll ever since.

If the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II weren’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—adopted many of the Third Reich’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them against American citizens.

Indeed, the FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, and that’s just based on what we know.

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Homeland Security officially terminates agency’s Disinformation Governance Board

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has terminated the agency’s Disinformation Governance Board and rescinded its charter.

Mayorkas officially ended the Department Homeland Security board Wednesday after the DHS advisory committee issued an interim recommendation last month that “there is no need” for the board.

The latest advisory report released Wednesday stated: “There is no need for a separate Disinformation Governance Board. But it is our assessment that the underlying work of Department components on this issue is critical.”

Homeland Security does not ” have the authority to silence or sanction anyone’s speech,” but should instead focus on determining whether “publicly disseminated disinformation impedes missions assigned to the agency” and “disseminating correct information,” the advisory council stated.

“With the HSAC recommendations as a guide, the Department will continue to address threat streams that undermine the security of our country consistent with the law, while upholding the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people and promoting transparency in our work,” Homeland Security stated.

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More whistleblowers come forward against ‘out of control’ FBI

Another slew of whistleblowers have come forward with misconduct claims against the FBI following the Bureau’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.

FBI field offices in Miami, Salt Lake City, Buffalo and Newark face accusations that their upper management coerced agents to sign false affidavits, inflated terrorism caseloads to improve their apparent performance, engaged in illicit sexual activities, or concealed those of others, according to the Washington Times.

“The FBI is completely out of control and its culture and structure needs to change. Not only is the political bias completely out of control and disgustingly obvious, the FBI knows they will not be held accountable for their illegal behavior and misconduct,” said one Whistleblower in a letter to Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Tx) of the House Judiciary Committee. This whistleblower alleged that FBI Director Christopher Wray ignored her allegations of sexual misconduct.

Prior to the FBI’s raid on Trump’s estate, a string of whistleblowers had come forward with accusations of political bias against senior FBI officials. The Washington Field Office, which sent the agents to Florida to raid Trump’s estate, was facing its own set of allegations.

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