Tag: police state

Cop ignored dying man in back of hot police car, watched TikToks and sent ‘intimate’ texts instead: lawsuit

An Oregon cop allegedly left a mentally ill man to die in the back of a hot police car while the officer watched TikToks and texted about “snuggles,” according to a lawsuit.

Nathan Bradford Smith, 33, died of heat stroke aggravated by meth use during a July 2024 arrest when Coos Bay police officers allegedly left him in a parked patrol car to watch TikToks and send intimate texts instead of getting him medical help, according to a lawsuit filed by Smith’s family Wednesday.

The lawsuit blasts the city of Coos Bay, and Officers Benjamin Martin, Tristan Smith, and Wesley O’Connor for ignoring signs of obvious medical distress in Smith, accusing them of negligence and “deliberate interference.”

Smith, who had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was picked up by cops after multiple police encounters where he was found smoking methamphetamine and later speaking “quickly and incomprehensibly,” according to the lawsuit obtained by The Post.

At roughly 5 p.m. July 7, officers found Smith wearing a heavy coat and rain pants on the ground outside a Motel 6, the lawsuit detailed.

“One of the 911 callers indicated they were concerned for Mr. Smith’s safety,” according to the lawsuit. “Another caller indicated that Mr. Smith was on the ground ‘flailing around,’” the lawsuit said.

Smith was struggling to breathe as he was handcuffed by Martin, Smith and O’Connor while still on the ground, according to a state police officer who reviewed the body camera video of the incident.

He was barely able to get in the police cruiser, and his eyes were closed as he gasped for air, the lawsuit said.

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New Mexico Environment Department bans production of synthetic hemp in the state

The New Mexico Environment Department is doing what it can to regulate deceptive hemp products sold in stores by issuing an emergency ruling to ban the manufacturing of synthetic cannabinoids in New Mexico. “They’re putting something in their body without knowing what it is and without understanding what the effects may be. We believe that puts people at a significant health risk,” said John Rhoderick, Deputy Cabinet Secretary of Administration, New Mexico Environment Department.

Synthetic cannabinoids are products chemically altered to give similar effects to THC and are often sold at convenience stores with little regulation. This issue was at the center of a Larry Barker investigation, exposing the problem of cannabis products being identified as hemp, allowing them to be sold anywhere. A bill from last legislative session aimed to make it illegal for synthetic cannabinoids to be made or sold in New Mexico, but that bill failed.

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Who Owns the Unknown? When private hands hold technology not of this Earth, who decides what happens next? The UAPDA has an answer.

Imagine this: A private landowner discovers something buried deep beneath the surface of their property. It’s not oil, gold, or a rare fossil, but something entirely foreign. A piece of machinery, perhaps. Advanced. Intact. Entirely unexplainable. It appears to be manufactured, but not by any known earthly process. It does not match the signatures of Russian, Chinese, or even American technology. It is exotic, inexplicable, and possibly not of human origin at all.

What happens next? Does the landowner get to keep it? Auction it to the highest bidder? Lease it to a defense contractor or a foreign state? Does the government step in, invoke national security, and confiscate the technology of unknown origin, without due process or compensation, never to be seen again?

This scenario is no mere thought experiment. The U.S. Senate has now, for the third time, introduced the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act (UAPDA), legislation designed to pierce through 80 years of secrecy, disinformation, and scientific suppression surrounding the subject of UAP, or UFOs. One of its most vital and controversial provisions is its explicit affirmation of the applicability of the right of eminent domain.

Opponents of the UAPDA have zeroed in on this provision. They argue it threatens property rights and creates a dangerous precedent for federal overreach. But these objections collapse under scrutiny. In truth, the eminent domain clause is the linchpin that makes lawful UAP disclosure possible. Without it, we risk continuing a shadow system of secret seizures, constitutional violations, and scientific stagnation.

Let’s be clear: eminent domain is not a novel or unchecked power of our local, state, and federal governments. Instead, it is a deeply rooted legal principle in American constitutional law. What the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment provides is not the denial of that right, but a granting of that right and its regulation through due process, and which goes on to assert one of the required aspects of due process is the taking of property solely for public use with just compensation. The UAPDA need not define “just compensation.” The legal requirement for fair compensation in any lawful taking under eminent domain is already firmly established in precedent and practice. Importantly, the exercise of eminent domain can be contested in court, providing a clear check on government power, unlike covert seizures under the guise of national security, which offer no such judicial review or recourse. The UAPDA merely renders a specific process already governed by over a century of constitutional law.

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Is Cannabis Really Legal If You Can’t Grow Your Own Weed?

For many, the cannabis policy reform movement is rooted in the quest for personal liberty. Legalization isn’t just about getting high; it’s about being able to live your life the way you want to live it.

In too many places, however, the legalization of cannabis does not include the freedom to grow the plant. Instead, cannabis patients and consumers are forced to participate in an overregulated and overtaxed market that not everyone can afford.

The Freedom To Grow Depends on Where You Live

A total of 25 states with legal weed have also legalized home cultivation, either for medical cannabis patients or all adults aged 21 and older, according to information from cannabis reform advocacy group the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). But 15 states that have legalized pot (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and West Virginia) still forbid home cultivation. Most of these states have only legalized cannabis for medical use. Delaware and New Jersey, however, have legalized recreational use but don’t allow home cultivation.

Additionally, some states that have legalized home cannabis cultivation for some still deny many adults the right to grow. In Illinois and Washington, home cultivation has only been legalized for medical cannabis patients, while in Nevada, only those who live more than 25 miles from a licensed dispensary can grow their own weed.

The fact that so many states that have legalized marijuana still deny the people the right to grow plants at home raises a fundamental question. Is cannabis really legal if you can’t grow your own weed? 

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Government asks New Brunswickers to stay out of the woods across province

The New Brunswick government is asking everyone in the province to stay out of the woods. 

As of 12:01 a.m. Sunday, all Crown land is closed. That means no fishing, camping or hiking, no vehicles in the woods. Trail systems are closed and camping is only allowed in campgrounds. 

There is also a ban on all forestry operations such as harvesting, forwarding, skidding, scarification and chipping. 

“Come out of the woods, stay out of the woods until it’s safe for everyone,” Premier Susan Holt said in a Saturday afternoon news conference. 

The new restrictions come as Environment Canada issued heat warnings that are scheduled to last until Wednesday for much of the province. New Brunswick, like the rest of Atlantic Canada, has been dealing with hot, dry weather for weeks. 

The order applies to all forested Crown land, but private landowners are asked to follow the same rules to keep everyone safe. 

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Decades Later, It’s Time To Seriously Rethink—And Reduce—The TSA 

As a retired international airline captain, my relationship with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been fraught ever since its inception after 9/11. Before that seismic event, I logged countless hours as a Delta Airlines pilot, operating in an environment defined by professionalism and mutual respect among crew, passengers, and airport staff. Today, I view the TSA not as an indispensable pillar of aviation safety, but as an institution whose practices have needlessly burdened travelers and which, after more than two decades, may do more harm than good to the spirit and efficiency of air travel. 

Personal Experience with TSA 

My experiences with TSA have run the gamut: some screeners are cordial and efficient, while others act with indifference—or outright hostility. Despite my decades in aviation, both my wife and I found ourselves subjected to heightened scrutiny and what felt like constant harassment at security checkpoints. This pattern was not isolated to us; colleagues and fellow travelers shared similar frustrations. The inconsistency in treatment reflects deeper problems in TSA’s culture and priorities. 

More troubling is my memory of reporting suspicious activities in airports and on airplanes long before 9/11—concerns that were either ignored or dismissed. In the worst cases, I was treated not as a professional fulfilling a duty of care, but as an alarmist, or, unconscionably, accused of prejudice. These failures of the pre-TSA security apparatus were tragic enough. The answer, however, was not to swing to the other extreme by creating an agency whose methods too often resemble performative security theater rather than effective defense. 

TSA: Record Size, Questionable Effectiveness 

The TSA today is larger, wealthier, and more technologically advanced than at any point in its history: in 2024, it screened over 900 million passengers, processed nearly half a billion checked bags, and employed the largest screening workforce on record.  The agency celebrates its lowered attrition rates, large-scale recruitments, and new technologies, but these metrics only tell part of the story. What goes unaddressed mainly is the pressing question: has all this intrusion, inconvenience, and expense made us significantly safer? 

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Brother of Murdered Inmate Alleges FBI Role in OKC Bombing, Waco, and Decades of Domestic Spying, “Justice Will Come From Exposing PATCON”

A newly released book and an upcoming documentary are reviving attention on one of the FBI’s most secretive and controversial domestic spy programs known as “PATCON,” which was unmasked after a 30-year FOIA fight by Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue to prove his brother was murdered while in custody by federal agents in 1995.

Trentadue has uncovered, and is litigating to uncover, a total 2 million pages of documents so far. Two of his seven federal FOIA suits are still ongoing.

Trentadue is still litigating the release of government records from 1995, where his current case involves a request made in 2015 that the FBI sat on for 8 years and refused to respond to, involving records related to federal sting operations involving Timothy McVeigh from before the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Yet his revealations to date has shown not just government lies about the Oklahoma City bombing, but also a domestic spying and criminal operations that extends into the nation’s newsrooms, courtrooms, centers of power, and more.

Despite new attention on the case and a wave of public interest in PATCON caused by the release of Margaret Roberts’ book “Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing” two weeks ago, Trentadue says he does not expect any federal agent or informant to face prosecution for his brother’s killing or for related crimes.

He’s hopeful, rather, that the documented evidence he has uncovered about FBI spying on the political right can be stopped, and that will be the most justice his family will ever find.

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Palestinian prisoners ‘electrocuted, starved, and beaten’ in Israeli jails: Detainees commission

A Palestinian rights group on Friday accused Israeli prison authorities of systematically torturing detainees with electric shocks and other forms of abuse, warning of a growing pattern of physical and psychological cruelty, Anadolu reports.

The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said conditions in northern Israel’s Gilboa Prison have deteriorated significantly, with special units storming prisoner sections under the pretext of inspections.

During these raids, detainees are handcuffed, forcibly removed from their cells, and reportedly subjected to intense beatings and electric shocks, the commission said, citing testimony from a lawyer who recently visited the prison.

Prisoners are allegedly dragged across the wet floors of shower areas, where their soaked clothes and bodies are then targeted with stun guns to amplify the pain.

“The shocks are not only painful but calculated to break the prisoners,” the commission said. “Some have lost consciousness. Others bled from head wounds after being struck with the metal parts of the stun devices.”

The report also described scenes of humiliation, with Israeli guards allegedly laughing as bloodied detainees lay on the ground.

In addition to physical torture, the commission reported severe food deprivation, noting that prisoners are receiving minimal portions, leading to rapid weight loss.

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The U.S. Intervenes Against EU Digital Surveillance

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched a lobbying campaign against the EU’s Digital Services Act. With this step, Americans have become the last line of defense for the free speech rights of EU citizens.

If, in the past, President Donald Trump often spoke of the European Union as “a tough nut to crack,” he couldn’t have been more accurate. Freedom-loving EU citizens know exactly what he meant. In Brussels, a bizarre mélange of control fetishism, economic dirigisme, and isolation from the outside world has developed — a combination that is no longer tolerable.

Not least, Brussels’s fight against free expression in the digital sphere has revealed the true intentions of the von der Leyen Commission: the recovery of narrative dominance and control over political dissidence — achieved by cold-bloodedly sacrificing citizens’ fundamental freedoms.

U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance already issued multiple warnings in the spring about a European censorship empire. In a speech to the Senate, he denounced European digital legislation as an attack on western liberties. In his address at the Munich Security Conference, he went so far as to suggest cutting ties with the Europeans if they did not reverse their illiberal, dictatorial trajectory.

Criticism Bounces Off

As usual, American criticism fell on deaf ears in Brussels. Although Brussels swallowed the bitter pill of an asymmetrical trade deal with the U.S. two weeks ago, both the hidden protectionism disguised as climate regulation and harmonization standards, as well as the repressive digital laws, remain intact. This is detrimental not only to free speech among Europeans but also for American companies — undoubtedly a key target of the EU censors.

The EU’s discriminatory ambitions through the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the corresponding Digital Markets Act (DMA) primarily target U.S. communication platforms like X, Telegram, and Meta. If these platforms don’t conform to EU rules — granting access to internal communications and aiding Brussels’s surveillance efforts — they face billions in fines.

Much like Britain’s digital ID program, Brussels now masks its shamelessly invasive censorship with claims of youth protection and anti-hate measures. It’s tiresome to hear — but, as always, it’s about “their democracy,” or, to put it more accurately, a massive concrete barrier constructed to shield against the audacious citizen seeking to preserve privacy from an unbounded EU bureaucracy.

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Canada’s prime minister tells Canadians to get their news from state-controlled media

In Canada, free speech is no longer a thing.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney utilized an August 5 press conference in British Columbia to dismiss concerns over Liberal legislation (Bill C-18) that would forbid news outlets from sharing news on social media, particularly during emergencies. The Canadian Commie globalist didn’t just refuse to rescind the aforementioned Bill C-18. No siree, he also urged his fellow Canucks to rely on government-funded CBC News for fair and unbiased information.

In light of the fact that heads of government steadfastly refuse to tell the truth, I have taken the liberty to translate Carney’s statement to more accurately reflect his actual meaning and beliefs. It would go: Comrades, trust me, the CBC is a reliable and highly credible news source that is as honest as our glorious revolution is long. And remember, unfettered free speech is the hallmark of a depraved and chaotic society, and invites input from those that don’t value the revolution above all.

This despite the fact that many objective observers deem the CBC to be a propaganda arm of the Liberal Party, from which it receives the vast majority of its funding, similar to the mainstream media’s relationship to the Democrat party in the United States.

But quashing free speech and association isn’t enough for the Carney government. Perish the thought! The ruling Liberal Party is also encouraging “LGBTQI+” refugees to move to Canada by offering them taxpayer-funded income for up to 12 months in addition to various other programs.

Turns out, the Babylon Bee’s allegedly satiric post referencing President Trump’s desire to annex Canada and label it “Gay North Dakota” was spot-on. (Corollary: it’s shocking how many “conspiracy theories” have turned out to be facts.)

So, once again, you have a Western nation trashing its own citizens and traditions in favor of foreigners, especially those with sexual kinks.

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