Tag: police state

Lori Lightfoot ripped by Chicago media for ignoring concerns about police scanner suppression

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, D., is facing criticism for ignoring local media members who are critical of her administration transitioning away from the traditional police scanner toward the use of an encrypted radio frequency.

A coalition of news organizations claims the new system will be inaccessible to the public and will hamper journalists’ ability to listen in real-time to warn the public about ongoing threats to safety. 

Traditional police scanner transmissions have always been accessible to the public, as well as media personnel, but the new encryption method is only accessible to the police and those offered a decryption key.

“Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration has refused to meet with members of the Chicago media who have voiced concern this will impact journalists’ ability to cover events as they unfold and warn the public about ongoing threats to safety,” Chicago outlet WGN9 reported.

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Police “Protect” Town by Arresting Elderly Women for Feeding Stray Cats, Neutering Them, and Getting Them Adopted

Domestic cats in the United States are beloved pets but they can also be a major threat to birds and other wildlife. After the domestic cat was introduced to the United States by European colonists, the number of domestic cats has skyrocketed in the past 40 years.

Today, more than 100 million feral and outdoor cats are loose in neighborhoods and wildlife habitats nationwide. There are so many of them that they are classified as an invasive species with extinction-level impacts. According to several studies, cats kill between 1.3–4 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals in the U.S. per year; making them the largest human-influenced source of mortality for birds and mammals in the country.

Globally, domestic cats have caused the extinction of several mammals, reptiles, and at least 33 bird species.

One would think that people helping to reduce the population — humanely — by feeding, trapping, spaying and neutering as many cats as they can, that this would be a service to society and nature as a whole. Unfortunately for Beverly Roberts, 85, and Mary Alston, 61, one would be wrong.

Roberts and Alston were both found guilty of multiple criminal charges this week, fined, and sentenced to jail and probation, for carrying out this very service.

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Cop Fired But Never Charged for Feeding Homeless Man a Literal ‘Sh*t Sandwich’ — Is a Cop Again

In November of 2016, the Free Thought Project brought you the disgusting story of a San Antonio cop putting feces on a piece of bread and giving it to a homeless man as food. For making a literal sh*t sandwich, San Antonio police officer Matthew Luckhurst was fired. Months later, the Free Thought Project learned that Luckhurst was involved in yet another feces-related ‘prank’ — after the sh*t sandwich.

After both of these incidents, Luckhurst was quietly rehired in 2019, only to be fired again in 2020. As the SA Express points out, Luckhurst appealed again when he was re-canned for the second feces-related incident. In June 2020 an arbitrator agreed the police department was justified in the dismissal. “This individual clearly has no business wearing an SAPD uniform,” City Manager Erik Walsh said.

But that did not mean this shitty cop was barred from all police uniforms.

Because the system is terrible at holding bad cops accountable, however, Luckhurst became a gypsy cop and was rehired at the Floresville Police Department, 30 miles outside of San Antonio.

This rehiring of Luckhurst shows just how broken the system is. When we can’t keep out repeat offenders because of silly loopholes, something is seriously wrong.

“It was a disgusting, vile act — that, there is no excuse; there is no explaining it; there is no justification,” San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told KOMO News after the termination of an officer for, quite literally, giving a homeless man a sh*t sandwich.

“It’s a disgrace to the department, it’s a disgrace to the badge,” McManus continued.

As we reported at the time, Luckhurst inexplicably thought it would be humorous to place feces in between two slices of bread and offer it to a likely-starving homeless person in a styrofoam takeout box, and then boast of this ‘prank’ to his partner.

His partner, however, didn’t share the sentiment — and the pair of cops returned to the scene, where Luckhurst ostensibly disposed of the sickening, cruel offering.

Only a month after being caught in this sick and twisted ‘prank’ on an innocent homeless man — before he was fired — Lockhurst pulled another sh*t prank. This time, his sh*tty shenanigans would be on his fellow cops.

Luckhurst and a second officer, Steve Albart, carried out the incident together in June 2015 after a female officer asked that the women’s restroom at a bike-patrol office remain clean, KSAT-TV reports.

To get back at the officer for asking that the women’s bathroom remain clean, Albart and Lockhurst then defecated in the toilet and then Lockhurst smeared a feces-like substance all over the seat.

For not flushing the toilet, Albart was suspended for 30 days, which he’s already served.

You cannot make this up.

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NYPD Warehouse for DNA, Troves of Criminal Evidence Destroyed in Brooklyn Inferno

An untold amount of “biological evidence” linked to New York City crimes dating back decades was destroyed or damaged in a raging inferno that devoured an NYPD warehouse off the Brooklyn waterfront Tuesday, authorities say.

The fire, which broke out around 10:40 a.m. at the Erie Basin Auto Pound in Red Hook, a sprawling warehouse on Columbia Street, left a half-dozen first responders and two civilians hurt — and sent up towering black smoke plumes so thick some confused New Yorkers thought the blaze had started in Manhattan.

It escalated to three alarms within about 30 minutes, and roughly 150 fire department members were at the scene through early afternoon. Twenty people, a mix of NYPD staffers and contractors, were said to be inside the warehouse when the inferno started.

It wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the blaze, and the investigation could take some time, though investigators said they know it started on a shelf that stored evidence. Firefighters were forced to withdraw from the interior early because of the intense flames and combustible material, as well as the threat of collapse. One section of the warehouse, which may have had hundreds of e-bikes in it, did fall, officials said.

A total of eight people — three firefighters, three EMS members and two civilians — were hurt in the fire, but all are expected to be OK, FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said.

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New Zealand Imposes World’s First Ban on Smoking for Next Generation

New Zealand on Tuesday passed into law a unique plan to phase out tobacco smoking by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes.

The law states that tobacco can’t ever be sold to anybody born on or after Jan. 1, 2009.

It means the minimum age for buying cigarettes will keep going up and up. In theory, somebody trying to buy a pack of cigarettes 50 years from now would need ID to show they were at least 63 years old.

But health authorities hope smoking will fade away well before then. They have a stated goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025.

The new law also reduces the number of retailers allowed to sell tobacco from about 6,000 to 600 and decreases the amount of nicotine allowed in tobacco that is smoked.

“There is no good reason to allow a product to be sold that kills half the people that use it,” Associate Minister of Health Dr. Ayesha Verrall told lawmakers in Parliament. “And I can tell you that we will end this in the future, as we pass this legislation.”

She said the health system would save billions of dollars from not needing to treat illnesses caused by smoking, such as cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and amputations. She said the bill would create generational change and leave a legacy of better health for youth.

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If They Get The Opportunity, They Will Transform Our Society Into A Dystopian Hellscape

If the elite get their way, our world will eventually look far more bizarre than any science fiction author ever imagined.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, the elite are control freaks, and they are envisioning a future in which they are in control of all of our lives from birth to death.  Instead of being born and raised the traditional way, humans will be mass produced in “birthing pods”.  Those that are genetically superior will be permitted to live, while those that are genetically inferior will be “harvested” and any spare parts that are not of value for scientific research will be discarded.  As children grow, education will be a top priority, but only material specifically approved by the elite will be permitted.  In fact, “free thought” and “free speech” will be a thing of the past if the elite get total control.  Everyone will think the same way, because no other alternative will be allowed.  And anyone that shows signs of rebellion will quickly have their digital currency privileges revoked.  I know that all of this may sound quite strange to many of you, but this is what our society will look like if the wildest hopes and dreams of the elite actually come to fruition.

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14 Signs of Totalitarianism

We all know the cons of Twitter, but one of the pros is discovering new and interesting people.

One of my favorite new follows is Benjamin Carlson, a public relations guru and former editor at The Atlantic. Carlson’s tweets are among the best you’ll find on Twitter, and he clearly has a keen understanding of the intersections between media and government, power and propaganda (both current and historically).

One of his recent tweets caught my eye, and I share an adaptation of it below.

1. Dissent is equated to violence

2. Media is controlled

3. The legal system is co-opted by the state

4. Power is exerted to quash dissent

5. State police protect the regime, not the people

6. Rights—financial, legal, and civil—are contingent on compliance

7. Mass conformity of beliefs and behaviors is demanded

8. Power is concentrated in inner ring of elite institutions and people

9. Semi-organized violence is permitted (in some cases)

10. Propaganda targets enemies of the state regime

11. Entire classes singled out for persecution

12. Extra-legal actions are condoned against internal regime opponents

13. Harsh legal enforcement against unfavored classes

14. Private and public levers of power are used to enforce adherence to state dogmas

The list is a bit troubling. At the very least, some of these techniques are playing out before our eyes. This is certainly not to say that the US is a totalitarian state, however.

There are many definitions of totalitarianism, and I don’t believe one can seriously argue that the United States has arrived there. But authoritarianism is certainly in the air, and it emanates most strongly from our nation’s capital.

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Killer Cop Executes Innocent Man for Standing in the Woods With with a Hatchet

On the day he was executed with a bullet to the head, Kevin Mahan had committed no crime. He was merely standing in the woods holding a hatchet — an act that millions of folks partake in every weekend while camping. Unfortunately for Mahan, a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Deputy was called to his location that day, and instead of being left alone, that JSO deputy executed him.

Mahan’s execution took place back on April 21, however, body camera was kept from the public until this week.

The deputy who executed Mahan has not been named as it is the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office policy to no longer identify officers involved in a shooting. A court ruling granted officers confidentiality under Marsy’s Law.

Marsy’s Law was started to protect the identity of victims of crimes by recognizing their right to privacy. Recently, however, unscrupulous police departments have been using it as a shield to protect the identity of killer cops. Cops, like the murderer in the video below, use Marsy’s Law to claim victim status in use-of-force cases where they claim the suspect was the aggressor.

While many suspects are the aggressor, Mahan was aggressing against no one and the only aggressive actions taken in his death were by the JSO deputy who put a bullet between his eyes.

According to police, their deputy confronted Mahan that morning after receiving a call about a “mentally ill man.” There was no report of a crime and though the sheriff’s office released Mahan’s previous record to smear him, on the day he was killed, Mahan had committed no crime at all.

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In Alaska, The First Amendment Is On Trial As The Left Tries To Punish Speech

The case of Alaska State Rep. David Eastman is bizarre and unprecedented, but it isn’t complicated. Put simply, left-wing activists are trying to trample the First Amendment and disenfranchise voters in Eastman’s district by asking a judge to rule him ineligible to hold office in the state.

Why? Because Eastman, 41, is a conservative. So are his constituents in Wasilla who recently elected him to a fourth term. If freedom of speech and association mean anything, Eastman should win his case easily. But the fact that he has to fight in court for the right to represent the people who elected him, and to clear his good name, is a testament to the relentless efforts of the left to criminalize the views of their political opponents and slander them as insurrectionists.

The details of Eastman’s ordeal almost defy belief. This week, a trial began in Anchorage to determine whether the Alaska lawmaker’s association with the Oath Keepers disqualifies him from holding office on the grounds that his alleged membership in the organization runs afoul of the Alaska constitution’s loyalty oath, which bars individuals from holding office if they belong to a group that “advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the United States or of a State,” or if they themselves advocate the same. A second part of the suit demands that the Alaska Division of Elections conduct assessments of every candidate’s loyalty to the Constitution so that voters will only be able to vote for candidates whose views have been officially approved by the state’s election bureaucracy.

Setting aside the outrageousness of allowing a state agency to vet the opinions of political candidates before their names can appear on the ballot, consider the gravity of what’s at stake in Eastman’s case: guilt by association. By his own admission, Eastman’s connection to Oath Keepers, a loosely organized group with some 38,000 members, is a “slight one.” He made a donation to the organization more than a dozen years ago and received a “lifetime membership” but says he has never attended a meeting.

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UK government asked Twitter and Facebook to “tweak” algorithms during Covid

Former United Kingdom Health Secretary Matt Hancock, self-styled as an official who was at the forefront of Britain’s battle against Covid, didn’t seem to feel like he had done enough in 2020 and 2021, so he felt compelled to milk the pandemic cow by writing a book about that “battle.”

But he wasn’t laboring alone, since he had a co-author, Isabel Oakeshott, who reports say is actually opposed to Hancock’s policies and is a lockdown skeptic.

And now, Oakeshott, who had access to official records and Hancock’s notes exchanged with “all the key players in Britain’s Covid-19 story” – as the book’s blurb states – has penned her own “story,” an article based on the collaboration published by the Spectator, whose content draws from the material used for the book.

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