Tag: police state

California Ends Kamala Harris’s Truancy Law Punishing Parents

California parents will no longer face arrest if their children miss school following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Oct. 1 decision to approve legislation repealing Kamala Harris’s truancy law.

The 2011 law that the former vice president sponsored when she served as the state’s attorney general made it a misdemeanor for parents if their children were chronically truant by missing 10 percent or more of school days, starting in kindergarten.

The law punished parents with a fine of up to $2,000 or one year in county jail. At the time, she said the bill was an “effective strategy” to reduce chronic elementary school truancy and a smart approach to crime prevention.

This week, Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 461 to end the criminalization of truancy for parents and remove the 2011 law from the state’s penal code. Newsom did not explain why he signed AB 461 in his press release about legislation decisions on Oct. 1. The bill, one of 105 bills signed into law that day, takes effect on Jan. 1.

The bill’s author, Assemblyman Patrick Ahrens, a Silicon Valley Democrat, called the truancy law a “failed policy.”

“Thank you to Gov. Newsom for signing my bill to repeal this failed policy of criminalizing struggling California families for their children missing school,” Ahrens said in a statement. “Fining or imprisoning parents did nothing to get kids the education and support they need.”

While California’s truancy law remained on the books for more than a decade, school districts were becoming less likely to enforce the punitive measures against parents, according to EdSource, a nonprofit educational resource focused on the state’s school systems.

The first arrests under the law were of five parents in Orange County in 2011. The parents were handcuffed and taken to Orange County Jail before being released on their own recognizance for ignoring repeated requests to get their children to school.

While parents have been arrested in California under the truancy law, it was unclear how many cases resulted in criminal charges. Most school districts instead went beyond the law to reach out to parents with emails, letters, and phone calls to resolve truancy problems, according to the California District Attorney’s Association.

The new law was sponsored by End Child Poverty California, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Several justice and parent organizations, including the California State Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), also supported it.

Keep reading

Economic Freedom Begins Recovery From COVID-Era Government Meddling

The good news is that the first 20 years of the millennium saw overall increases in economic freedom around the world—with continuous improvement through the second decade. The bad news is that not just the United States but most of the world lost ground during the massive government interventions of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s unfortunate for individual liberty, but also for prosperity since the economic freedom of a country strongly correlates with higher incomes and lower poverty. The world appears to be recovering freedom and wealth, but it lost years of progress to government meddling.

The latest edition of the Economic Freedom of the World report, published by Canada’s Fraser Institute, the Cato Institute, “and more than 70 think tanks around the world” is out, and it finds the world digging itself out of a hole that started in 2020.

“Overall, the index shows that economic freedom has increased since 2000, but fell precipitously following the coronavirus pandemic, erasing nearly a decade of progress,” the authors note. “We take no position on the efficacy of the various public-health policies designed to deal with the coronavirus pandemic; they very well may have saved millions of lives, or they may have been completely ineffectual….Our concern is economic freedom, and on that margin, there is no question that government policies responding to the coronavirus pandemic have reduced economic freedom.”

While global economic freedom has started to improve again as the pandemic and its interventions fade into memory, the average across nations is back to where it was in 2012. Weighted for population, which accounts for large countries with statist governments including China, the world’s economic freedom is just a hair better than it was in 2013 and has yet to start recovery from the COVID-era dip.

The index shows North America experiencing the largest decline over the measured period, with Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and North Africa following. “The latter region’s decline is especially tragic given its low starting point,” comment the authors.

“In 2023—the latest year for which data are available—the 10 highest scoring nations were Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United States, Ireland, Australia and Taiwan (tied for 7th), Denmark, and the Netherlands.”

Keep reading

Portland Police Arrest Conservative Journalist Nick Sortor

Portland Police arrested conservative journalist Nick Sortor on Thursday night.

According to X user, C.K. Bouferrache aka Honeybadgermom:

“Looked like @nicksortor got jumped. We are on the lower roof at ICE but difficult to tell exactly what happened at this distance. Portland liaison officers stand nearby and watch.”

She added in the following post:

“I cannot believe they arrested this guy for defending himself. The woman that went after him has taken part in a few assaults this last week.”

X user Mark Wilson posted video footage of the arrest, writing:

“Portland PD arrested @nicksortor tonight. Unclear why, as he wasn’t doing anything criminal. This comes after Portland police refused to arrest the lady who assaulted @KatieDaviscourt.”

Keep reading

Rogan Rages At Media Silence On UK’s “Orwellian Nightmare” Free Speech Crackdown

Podcaster Joe Rogan has blasted the media and leftists for ignoring a massive crackdown on free speech and a move toward total dystopian surveillance in the UK, while focusing instead on Jimmy Kimmel being suspended for a few days.

“The fact that our mainstream media is relatively silent on this is insane,” Rogan stated during a recent episode of his show.

“This is an Orwell nightmare coming to life right in front of our face,” he further warned.

“You’re seeing a complete, total attack on one of the most fundamental principles of the Western world, which is your ability to express yourself,” Rogan continued, adding “And your ability to call out that you think that the policies that are being implemented in your country are destructive.”

Referring to people who have been arrested and even imprisoned for social media posts, Rogan noted “These people are not calling for violence. They’re not. They’re being arrested for wild things. People are being arrested for liking posts. Some people were investigated for viewing posts.”

He further cautioned that “12,000 people arrested by the police in the UK, the same place that just implemented digital ID.”

“No one’s flinching, no one in America is freaking out about what’s happening in the UK at all,” Rogan urged.

“I mean, you get people online that are kind of freaked out by it, but they’re way more freaked out by nonsensical things like whether or not what Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue was offensive. They’ll go to the ends of the earth to fight that,” he asserted.

As we have highlighted, Prime Minister Kier Starmer recently announced Chinese communist-style digital tracking is coming to the UK with a new mandatory “right to work” scheme in the form of a universal ID called the “Brit Card”.

It’s all predicated on the back of out of control mass illegal immigration, with the leftists using the crisis created by the previous Conservative government and amplified by Starmer’s cabal in an attempt to rollout Orwellian style surveillance and control.

Keep reading

Local Tyrants: How Property Rights of Farmers in Battleground States are Victimized by Zoning Boards

A new report spearheaded by the Private Property Rights Institute (PPRI) has profiled different farmers in the battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, highlighting the stories of how zoning boards have prevented them from properly utilizing their land to stay afloat.

In an age of Biden-driven inflation, domination of the farming industry by ruthless Big Ag and a myriad of other economic challenges, these farmers have also had to deal with the mandates of zoning boards restricting their ability to develop their land as they see fit.

Bob Wackernagel, a third-generation farmer in Michigan, has watched community-based farming slowly die off in Michigan. At the age of 60, he reports being the youngest farmer in his area. To make ends meet and preserve his family’s way of life, Wackernagel leased approximately 100 acres for solar development upon the most arid portion of his farmland. As a result, he has received attacks from township officials.

“I use the ground that returns me the least investment back on my crops … I’ve replanted two or three times a season on that land, because of poor soil quality… They act like it’s their land … They don’t have to pay the property taxes; they don’t have to farm it,” Wackernagel said.

Dwight Ely, a seventh-generation farmer from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, can trace his roots on his family’s land back to the 1800s. He raises livestock and operates a meat-processing business with massive and growing energy costs. Ely invested in solar panels years ago to help bring down his energy bill to manageable levels.

“Sure, it helped this generation for sure … big savings… absolutely, it helped to continue the generational thing for sure,” he said. “We pay that thing off, and it’s been nothing but awesome … It’s just been a gift that keeps giving,” Ely said.

Ely worked with neighbors to add fencing, plant trees and make sure his solar panels did not cause blight within his rural area. However, his hopes to expand his solar fleet as part of a business expansion plan that would have provided value to the community were stymied by the local zoning board.

“Some little guy sitting up at a little office at the township building says… he wants to make it hard. That’s the ridiculous part,” he said.

Two local officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan – Leoni Township Supervisor Howard Linnabary and Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko – believe that misinformation and a poor understanding of property rights are causing barriers that result in bureaucratic pushback against solar panels.

Keep reading

Who Will Protect Us From the Protectors?

In the same week in which President Donald Trump announced that he was federalizing 200 Oregon National Guard soldiers and dispatching them to the streets of Portland, he quietly signed a Presidential National Security Memorandum that purports to federalize policing. The Memorandum, just like the federalization of troops in Oregon, completely disregards constitutional safeguards against such practices.

Here is the backstory.

When James Madison and his colleagues crafted the Constitution and shortly thereafter the Bill of Rights, they intentionally created a limited federal government. They confined the federal government to the 16 discrete powers granted to Congress. Those powers identify areas of governance uniquely federal. Conspicuously and intentionally absent is public safety. To clarify this, the 10th Amendment articulates the reservation by the states of powers not granted to the feds. This relationship is called federalism.

Constitutional scholars often refer to the powers retained by the states as the police power. The use of the word “police” here doesn’t mean police officers on the streets. It means the inherent and never-delegated-away powers of the states to govern for the health, safety, welfare and morality of all persons in those states.

In his famous Bank Speech, in which Madison argued brilliantly but unsuccessfully for a textualist understanding of the Constitution — he was opposing the creation of the First National Bank of the United States essentially because it was not authorized by the Constitution — he laid out the principles of limited government. He reminded those in Congress who had just sent the proposed Bill of Rights to the states for ratification that they did not constitute a general legislature that can right any wrong or regulate any behavior or intrude upon any relationship. Rather, their powers were limited to federal matters.

Merely because an area of governance is reflected nationally does not make the area federal. Chief among these is the police power.

Keep reading

Swiss Voters Adopt Digital-ID Scheme

In a nationwide referendum on Sunday, Swiss voters narrowly adopted a digital-ID proposal put forth by the nation’s federal government.

The proposal, formally titled the “Federal Act on Electronic Proof of Identity and Other Electronic Evidence (E-ID Act, BGEID),” passed with 50.39 percent of the popular vote. Notably, a majority of cantons (the Swiss equivalent to states in the United States) voted against the proposal (15.5 against, versus 7.5 in favor, including half cantons). Since the referendum did not involve a constitutional amendment, however, the proposal did not require a majority of cantons to pass.

The now-approved measure creates a government-managed digital-identification system. Under its provisions, users’ data will be stored on their smartphones and used only for identity verification (as opposed to broader purposes), and requires only the minimum information to be revealed to a third party (e.g., when purchasing alcohol at a store). The digital ID is optional; Swiss citizens may continue to use the county’s existing national ID card.

Second Attempt

Sunday’s referendum was the federal government’s second attempt at implementing a digital-ID system. Voters rejected a previous proposal in March 2021, with 64.4 percent voting against it, mainly due to concerns about users’ data falling in the hands of private companies, which would have managed the originally proposed program.

Although the Swiss Federal Assembly (parliament) modified its second proposal to address those concerns, any digital ID poses a fundamental threat to individual freedom and privacy, and would massively increase government’s ability to track citizens’ every movement. Furthermore, digital IDs are part of the United Nations’ totalitarian Agenda 2030 plan to impose central planning on a global scale, and the UN and Bill Gates are working to implement a “digital public infrastructure.”

Additionally, conservative groups opposed to the measure argued that a digital ID would eventually become mandatory, and that any system still risked handing over citizens’ data to large companies and being used for purposes beyond simple identity verification.

Unexpected Opposition

Despite the measure passing, Sunday’s referendum result was significantly narrower than expected. The proposal passed the Federal Assembly by wide margins — 170-25 in the National Council (lower house) and 43-1 in the Council of States (upper house) — with only members of the conservative Swiss People’s Party and two minor affiliated parties objecting.

Although opponents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on the legislation, polling suggested that nearly three-fifths of voters would support it. Ultimately, the measure barely passed, and was rejected by majorities in most cantons.

Swiss media and analysts saw the narrow passage as resulting from high turnout by conservative opponents of the measure. Swiss public broadcaster Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen analyzed that the result “should give the Federal Council and the parliamentary majority pause for thought,” and “is not a good sign for other digitization projects in Switzerland.”

Dangers of Democracy

Sunday’s referendum illustrates the dangers of democracy, specifically of the majority imposing its will on the minority, even if it infringes on the latter’s individual freedom. Although opposition to a digital ID was widespread — voters in a majority of cantons opposed the concept — this potentially far-reaching policy became law with only a 50.4-percent popular majority.

Switzerland, whose current system incorporates direct democracy, holds nationwide referendums up to four times a year. Despite now being accepted as foundational to the Swiss political system, nationwide referendums were virtually nonexistent before the 1870s, more than 20 years after Switzerland became a federal state. Notably, once Switzerland adopted federal direct democracy, it quickly inspired multiple U.S. states to do the same in the form of “citizens’ initiatives.”

The U.S. Founding Fathers recognized the dangers of democracy, and instead created the U.S. federal government as a constitutional republic. For example, James Madison wrote in The Federalist, No. 10, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

The word “democracy” is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence or Constitution — and this is intentional. In contrast, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution requires each state to have “a Republican Form of Government.”

Keep reading

DHS Probe Uncovers Biden’s TSA Put Mask Refusers on Terror-Linked No-Fly List

An internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation has revealed that during the Biden administration, some American citizens who refused to comply with COVID-19 mask mandates were placed on federal no-fly lists.

The investigation documented that 19 Americans were flagged between September 30, 2021, and October 25, 2021. 

More than half of those individuals received no-fly designations, barring them from boarding domestic flights during that period.

The no-fly list is traditionally reserved for individuals suspected of terrorism or posing threats to national security. 

Its use against citizens resisting mask mandates raised questions inside and outside the agency.

The probe found that at least 11 of the individuals remained on federal watchlists until April 2022. 

That same month, a federal court struck down the federal mask mandate, effectively requiring the Biden administration to stop enforcing mask requirements on airplanes.

The revelations were first reported by Fox News, which obtained details of the DHS investigation. 

The disclosures triggered swift responses from agency officials and members of Congress.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a statement sharply criticizing the actions taken by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

“Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority,” Noem said.

Keep reading

Oregon Officials Ask Federal Court To Reverse Ruling That Blocked Marijuana Industry Labor Law Approved By Voters

Oregon officials are asking a federal appeals court to reverse a judge’s ruling that struck down a voter-approved law to require licensed marijuana businesses to enter into labor peace agreements with workers and mandate that employers remain neutral in discussions around unionization.

In a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week, attorneys for Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D), Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) and Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s (OLCC) Dennis Doherty and Craig Prins urged a review of the “constitutional challenge” to the state law.

The officials previously provided notice that they’d be contesting the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon decision back in June.

After two marijuana businesses—Bubble’s Hash and Ascend Dispensary—initially filed a lawsuit in the district court challenging the implementation of Measure 119, a federal judge sided with the plaintiffs, finding that the law unconstitutionally restricts free speech and violates the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Under the currently paused law, a marijuana businesses that was unable to provide proof of a labor peace agreement could have been subject a denial or revocation of their license.

Keep reading

Nebraska Officials Miss Medical Marijuana Licensing Deadline As Regulators Resign

Supporters have questioned for months whether the voter-authorized Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission would meet its October 1 deadline to grant its first licenses.

The answer is no: The commission will miss that deadline by at least one week, in the wake of two resignations sought and received by Gov. Jim Pillen (R) of liquor regulators who jointly served on the medical cannabis board.

The Medical Cannabis Commission confirmed the new timeline Tuesday at a meeting originally meant to approve the first cultivator licenses and move toward the first steps of a medical cannabis supply chain in the state. However, two of the five cannabis commissioners resigned Monday, both of whom served on a three-member team evaluating and scoring cultivator applications received by September 23.

Now, the remaining commissioners will independently review applications by next Tuesday, when commissioners will meet to decide whether to award up to four cultivator licenses.

“We would just ask for your understanding that this is a situation that none of us created in this, where we’re at right here,” Commissioner Lorelle Mueting of Gretna said Tuesday. “We would just hope you understand that we’re working through this the best that we can to make sure that we get the licenses issued in a timely manner and evaluated and issued in time.”

Keep reading