Tag: police state

Federal court sides with Oregon Christian mom after she was prevented from adopting children based on religious beliefs

A federal court of appeals has sided with an Oregon woman who sued the state over an adoption rule by the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) that went against her Christian beliefs. The woman was seeking to adopt children and prevented from doing so by LGBTQ laws.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction barring the ODHS from applying Oregon Administrative Rule Section 413- 200-0308(2)(k) to Jessica Bates while the lawsuit plays out in lower courts.

The rule states that those seeking to foster or adopt children in the state must “Respect, accept and support the race, ethnicity, cultural identities, national origin, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disabilities, spiritual beliefs, and socioeconomic status, of a child or young adult in the care or custody of the Department, and provide opportunities to enhance the positive self-concept and understanding of the child or young adult’s heritage.”

The appeals court stated that “The state denied Bates’s adoption application under this policy after Bates, based on her sincerely held religious beliefs, objected to using adopted children’s preferred pronouns or taking them to medical appointments for gender transitions.” Bates sued the state for violating her rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.

Circuit Judge Daniel A. Bress wrote in the court’s opinion that materials from an instructor-led course called the Resource and Adoptive Families Training (RAFT) from the ODHS state, “whether or not a youth in your care openly identifies as LGBTQ+,” parents should consider “displaying ‘hate-free zone’ signs or other symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment (e.g., pink triangle, rainbow, or ally flag.)'”

“Again without regard to whether a child in their care identifies as LGBTQ, parents should consider ‘providing acces to a variety of books, movies, and materials, including those that positively represent same-gender relationships’ while ‘pointing out LGBTQ+ celebrities, role models who stand up for the LGBTQ+ community, and people who demonstrate bravery in the face of social stigma,” Bress wrote.

He later added, “Of particular importance to this case, the RAFT materials specifically reference religion in several places. Among other things, the materials state that for LGBTQ youth, ‘prejudice and rejection can occur’ in certain settings, listing among them ‘faith-based communities.’”

Bates, a widowed mother of five, applied in May of 2022 to adopt two children under the age of nine and took the RAFT course. Bates viewed the requirements laid out by the course as “incompatible with her religious beliefs.” The opinion later stated, “Bates represents that she will love and support any adopted child, but she will want to share her beliefs with them.”

Bates’ application was denied in November of 2022 because she could not “meet the adoption home standards.” The letter she received explained, “On July 28, 2022, you completed RAFT Training. After the training you emailed your certifier that the training emphasized SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression) as it related to the requirements that Applicants comply with OAR 413-200- 0308(2)(K). You wrote that you ‘cannot support this behavior in a child,’ and that you ‘would not encourage them in this behavior.’”

The letter later added, “You indicated that if a child became aware of their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression and that it was inconsistent with your expected sexual orientation or gender identity or expression for that child while in your home, you would love and treat them as your own but would not support their lifestyle or encourage any behavior related to their sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. When asked what it would look [like] if the agency requested you to take the child or youth to medical appointments regarding hormone shot appointments as an example, you indicated you would not take them to the appointment and further indicated you think it ‘would be considered child abuse.’”

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GOP Senator Threatens To Block Spending Bill If Hemp THC Product Ban Stays In, Sources Say

A GOP senator is threatening to hold up a major spending bill unless changes are made to provisions that would currently ban most consumable hemp products, which stakeholders say would decimate the industry.

Multiple sources familiar with discussions around the legislation tell Marijuana Moment that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is intent on preventing the outright ban that was included in the Senate’s agriculture appropriations bill that advanced out of committee and now awaits floor action.

The prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Action sent out an alert to its supporters on Friday, urging them to contact their representatives to push back against Paul’s efforts.

“The United States Senate is poised to overwhelmingly pass legislation banning hemp intoxicants, but Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is holding the bill hostage until he kills the hemp language,” it said. “Senator Paul wants to create a carve out for THC products like hemp beverages, in effect legalizing marijuana federally.”

While one source indicated that the senator was primarily focused on creating a carveout for hemp-derived THC beverages, two others who are aware of the conversations told Marijuana Moment that wasn’t the case. The exact scope of what Paul is aiming to achieve is unclear, but they say the senator is seeking a more holistic change to the controversial hemp language in the bill.

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State of Maryland is Quietly Modifying COMAR with Emergency Regulations to Usurp Local School Boards

Imagine being a pro basketball player that follows every rule of the game and makes a clean shot destined to go in with a swish. While the ball is midair, the referee immediately conspires to change the rules with the NBA and extends the court and the basket to be 3X further than where it was at the time of the shot. Impossible right? It’s not impossible in Maryland.

Did you know that the State of Maryland has a system to bypass the legislature in order to create and change COMAR regulations on the fly, and without the entire General Assembly or a legislative bill?

This is done through a committee of the General Assembly called the JOINT COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE, EXECUTIVE, AND LEGISLATIVE REVIEW (AELR).

Establishment

The Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review (AELR Committee) was originally created in 1964 as a joint standing committee known as the Committee on Legislative Review. It was reconstituted as a statutory committee and renamed in Chapters 400 and 699 of 1972.

Membership

The AELR Committee is composed of 20 members – 10 senators appointed by the President of the Senate and 10 delegates appointed by the Speaker of the House. Each political party is represented in approximately the same proportion as its membership in each house, and each major standing committee of the General Assembly is represented on the committee. There is a Senate chair and a House chair of the committee who alternate each calendar year as the presiding chair.

Principal Function – Generally

The AELR Committee functions as the watchdog of the General Assembly in overseeing the activities of State agencies as they relate to regulations. The committee’s primary function is to review any regulations that are proposed for adoption by a unit of the Executive Branch of State government to determine whether the regulations conform both with the statutory authority of the unit and the legislative intent of the statute under which the regulations are proposed.

You can read more about the AELR here:

Click to access 2016-AELR-Committee-booklet.pdf

Although a governor can execute regulation without the AELR, their existence is an illusion of formality. The abuse comes when a proposed regulation is declared as an EMERGENCY when there is no emergency.

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Will An Iran Cyber Attack Panic Usher In A New Patriot Act?

In a 2007 interview, retired General Wesley Clark revealed that the Pentagon had a plan to “take out seven countries in five years”—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Over the following two decades, the first six were bombed, destabilized, or collapsed into civil war. Only Iran remains standing—resistant to Western central banking, culturally hostile to global usury, and guarding some of the world’s most ancient archeological sites.

Now, major media outlets such as Fox News and the Independent warn of a looming cyberwar, and we’re told to brace for a potential Iranian cyberattack on the US or its allies, aimed at critical infrastructure such as power and water systems. But rather than ask how to defend against it, we should ask something more: Is Iran really the culprit? Or is it the designated scapegoat for an event designed to advance elite control both abroad and at home?

Recent history provides a clear pattern: When crises erupt, state and corporate power rapidly consolidate. After 9/11, the US government ushered in the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance, and indefinite detention, all in the name of security. The 2008 financial collapse delivered historic bank bailouts and accelerated economic consolidation. In 2020, the covid pandemic normalized lockdowns, QR-code health passes, and calls for digital identity systems tied to medical records. In the wake of the Capitol riot, proposals exploded for increased censorship, AI-powered surveillance, and policing of online speech. As the author Naomi Klein outlined in her seminal work, The Shock Doctrine, elites routinely exploit crises to fast-track policies that populations would otherwise reject.

The current cyber panic fits the mold. If a catastrophic digital event were to hit—disabling hospitals, banks, or energy systems—the solution being quietly preloaded into public discourse is the rollout of global “Digital ID” infrastructure. The World Economic Forum has explicitly highlighted how global digital IDs for people and objects are essential for trade digitization and establishing a global digital economy. In its Digital Identity Blueprint, the WEF outlines a framework linking online activity, financial services, travel permissions, and even behavioral data to a single identity. But what’s sold as “security” is, in fact, the foundation of a technocratic control grid.

If implemented, Digital ID would function as a master key to everything: your money, health records, online access, and even your ability to travel. In time, it could merge with carbon quotas and social credit scoring systems like those piloted in China. An algorithm, not a constitution, would govern your rights. One wrong opinion, and you risk being shut out of society, not by police, but by code. In a world where social media mobs enforce ideological purity, public humiliation becomes the new policing mechanism. You self-censor, you self-surveil, and eventually, you self-govern—on someone else’s terms.

But there’s a core problem with the “Iran did it” cyberattack narrative: Iran lacks the capability. Iran’s cyber warfare infrastructure is far less sophisticated than that of the US, Israel, Russia, or China. The Harvard Belfer Center’s National Cyber Power Index places Iran low in its global rankings. While Iran may be able to execute nuisance-level hacks, it is not in a position to disable critical US infrastructure. So if a major cyberattack does occur, blaming Iran may serve a political purpose—not reflect reality.

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Federal surveillance of Jews, Trudeau critics was part of larger plot to censor the internet

Federal surveillance of pro-Israel social media accounts was part of a larger Canadian Heritage project to find “promising regulatory avenues to curb online content,” according to Access To Information records. The specific accounts monitored were not disclosed, as reported by Blacklock’s.

In 2023, the Liberal government, led by Justin Trudeau, explored international internet censorship practices, backed by groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the NCCM.

“We’ve seen great progress,” said former Justice Minister Arif Virani in December 2023, who provided no examples of legal content they would censor when asked by reporters.

Since 2021, Cabinet has introduced two bills, C-36 and C-63, to censor legal internet content. Both failed due to opposition from Conservative MPs, academia, and free speech advocates.

Despite professing support for free speech, Trudeau repeatedly stated that legal internet content requires regulation, as he testified at the Emergencies Act inquiry in September 2022.

The now-former prime minister believes social media, a “petri dish” for “anger” and “hate,” is “destabilizing our democracy” in an unprecedented and challenging way.

On April 10, Prime Minister Mark Carney publicly stated his intent to address “online pollution” through censorship. As of now, no new legislation has been introduced.

However, a federal consultant’s memo detailed a project to engage policymakers and law enforcement on digital regulation, drawing from European models, to curb online content threatening Canadian communities.

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Amazon Ring Cashes In On Techno-Authoritarianism And Mass Surveillance

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-stream access to people’s home security devices.

This is a bad, bad step for Ring and the broader public.

Ring is rolling back many of the reforms it’s made in the last few years by easing police access to footage from millions of homes in the United States. This is a grave threat to civil liberties in the United States. After all, police have used Ring footage to spy on protestors, and obtained footage without a warrant or consent of the user. It is easy to imagine that law enforcement officials will use their renewed access to Ring information to find people who have had abortions or track down people for immigration enforcement.

Siminoff has announced in a memo seen by Business Insider that the company will now be reimagined from the ground up to be “AI first”—whatever that means for a home security camera that lets you see who is ringing your doorbell. We fear that this may signal the introduction of video analytics or face recognition to an already problematic surveillance device.

It was also reported that employees at Ring will have to show proof that they use AI in order to get promoted.

Not to be undone with new bad features, they are also planning on rolling back some of the necessary reforms Ring has made: namely partnering with Axon to build a new tool that would allow police to request Ring footage directly from users, and also allow users to consent to letting police livestream directly from their device.

After years of serving as the eyes and ears of police, the company was compelled by public pressure to make a number of necessary changes. They introduced end-to-end encryption, they ended their formal partnerships with police which were an ethical minefield, and they ended their tool that facilitated police requests for footage directly to customers. Now they are pivoting back to being a tool of mass surveillance.

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‘It’s Mind-Boggling’: State Trooper Called In K-9 Units, Helicopters, Officers with Rifles Just Because He Thought a Teenager Played ‘Ding-Dong Ditch’ at His Home, Families’ Lawsuit Says

A Delaware state trooper who was fired and jailed for violently assaulting two teenagers after learning one of them played a game of “ding-dong ditch” at his house is now facing a lawsuit from the boys’ families.

The lawsuit comes one year after Dempsey Walters pleaded guilty to assault and deprivation of civil rights, both felony charges. He also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of assault in the third degree and two misdemeanor counts of official misconduct in connection with the incident in August 2023.

According to a grand jury indictment, Walters spotted one teenage boy in his neighborhood on Aug. 17, 2023, and launched a verbal altercation after believing the boy was engaging in misconduct. He and local police took the boy home. The teen was not arrested or charged.

After that incident, officials say that Walters searched the teen’s background in a law enforcement database.

Three days after the altercation, a different teenage boy was walking in Walters’ neighborhood with three of his friends and decided to play “ding-dong ditch.” Ring doorbell footage shows the 15-year-old boy running up to the front door of Walters’ home, kicking it, and running away.

Walters’ girlfriend, who was at home at the time, called Walters and told him about the prank.

Walters, who was on duty, immediately headed home and called state troopers and officers from other law enforcement agencies for help.

Believing that the first teen he encountered in his neighborhood on Aug. 17 may have been involved, he looked up the boy’s address and went to his home, according to the indictment.

When the teen came to the front door, Walters “forcibly pulled” him out of the home and “forced him to the ground, causing injuries,” the indictment states. Walters cuffed the teen and detained him in the back of a police vehicle. The teen was later released without charges.

After detaining the first teen, Walters was contacted by a state trooper who located and detained the 15-year-old who kicked Walters’ door. Walters immediately headed to the scene.

Dashcam video shows the moments a trooper caught up with the teen and his friends. He’s seen ordering the boys to the ground, then pushing the 15-year-old to the ground as the boy screams, and swearing at him repeatedly.

When Walters arrived at the scene, he saw the teen “face-down on the ground” and the trooper struggling to cuff his hands behind his back, the indictment states.

Almost immediately after arriving, Walters is seen running over and placing his knee on the back of the teen’s head and neck, causing him to cry out in distress.

After the boy was cuffed and placed in the back of a trooper’s cruiser, Walters “turned off his body-worn camera and walked to the police vehicle,” the indictment states.

While the teen was seated in the vehicle with his hands cuffed behind his back, Walters struck the boy “in the right side of his face, causing an orbital fracture,” which broke his eye socket.

However, the punch had been recorded since Delaware law enforcement body-worn cameras capture 30 seconds of buffer video, without audio, when they are deactivated.

After reviewing the bodycam footage, state police contacted the state attorney general’s office.

Walters was immediately suspended from his job. A month later, he was indicted. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to one year in jail and four years of probation.

“The Defendant’s rampage against two kids, and his subsequent attempt to conceal his misconduct, was brutal, dishonest, and unacceptable. It was a flagrant and felonious violation of his oath and an insult to his fellow officers,” Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings said in a statement.

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Marijuana Prohibition Is And Always Has Been A Sham

Since its inception, efforts to criminalize the marijuana plant and stigmatize those who consume it have been predicated almost entirely upon gross exaggerations, racial stereotypes, and outright lies.

The initial push for cannabis criminalization, which began in earnest more than a century ago, had little to do with promoting public health or safety. Instead, the decision to target and prosecute cannabis users was fueled by xenophobia and media sensationalism.

For instance, a July 6, 1927 story in the New York Times, headlined “Mexican Family Goes Insane,” farcically claimed: “A widow and her four children have been driven insane by eating the marihuana plant, according to doctors, who say there is no hope of saving the children’s lives and that the mother will be insane for the rest of her life.”

An academic paper titled “Marijuana,” published in 1933 in The Journal of Law and Criminology, similarly made over-the-top allegations about the plant’s supposed dangers. The authors wrote, “The inevitable result [of consuming cannabis] is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception, ending in death.”

In 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — America’s first ‘Drug Czar’ — successfully lobbied Congress to ban cannabis nationwide. He did so through the continuous use of racist rhetoric. “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use,” he asserted. “This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

Fast-forward to 1971. That’s when the Nixon administration declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one.” The lynchpin of this campaign was stamping out the use of marijuana, which Congress had just classified as a Schedule I controlled substance — the strictest federal category available. Yet, privately, Nixon acknowledged that he did not think cannabis was “particularly dangerous,” and he lamented the “ridiculous” penalties faced by those arrested for possessing it.

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THE DAY AFTER: Zelensky Arrests Anti-corruption Officials, Signs Law Stripping Agencies of Power – Protesters Flood the Streets, and Ukraine Will Never Be the Same

The ‘defender of democracy’ is now openly challenged by his own citizens.

Many were caught by surprise by yesterday’s protests in Kiev, Lvov, Odessa, and other parts of Ukraine – after all, these are the absolute first since the war began three and a half years ago.

But here at TGP we have been closely following the escalating tensions inside the war-torn country.

Four days ago (19), we reported that Amid Collapsing Morale, Ukrainians ‘Lost Faith’ in Zelensky, With 70% Convinced That Kiev Regime Leaders Are Using the War to Enrich Themselves: REPORT.

The following day (20), there was this thought-provoking development: Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh Reports That US May Move to Oust Zelensky, Even by Force – General Zaluzhny Would Be Tasked for Succession.

On Monday (21), we showed Zelensky’s efforts to change the image of his regime: CHARM OFFENSIVE: Zelensky Reshuffles His Government, Aiming to Show a Different Side of Ukraine for the US and the World.

Meanwhile, on the same Monday, Ukraine’s domestic security agency detained two NABU (Anti-corruption agency) officials on ‘suspicion of links to Russia’.

Finally, yesterday, after the Parliament voted to strip the Anti-Corruption agencies of any real power, it was the final straw, and Massive Protests Erupt Against Zelensky in Ukraine.

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Ireland’s Dangerous War on Encryption

The Irish government’s proposed Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill would significantly expand the state’s ability to monitor digital communications, thereby striking at the very foundation of end-to-end encryption. 

This form of encryption, used by services like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal, ensures that only the sender and the recipient can access the content of a message. Under the new bill, Gardaí, the Defence Forces, and the Garda Ombudsman would be allowed to intercept private messages in real time. Achieving this would require altering or bypassing encryption entirely.

Such a measure would introduce a permanent vulnerability into digital infrastructure. Once a system is designed to allow access for one party, others can and will exploit it. 

Backdoors do not stay private. They create a single point of failure that can be used by cybercriminals, hostile foreign governments, or commercial spyware operations. 

The government claims that oversight and warrant requirements will ensure the powers are used responsibly. However, no legal safeguard can address the underlying technical risk created by breaking encryption. 

The presence of a backdoor makes every message on a platform more exposed, whether or not it is the target of surveillance. Encryption cannot be selectively weakened. Any interference compromises the security of the system for all users.

Major technology companies have already taken strong positions against laws that would force them to degrade encryption. 

Apple recently removed some of its data protection features from the UK rather than comply with legislation that would have weakened user privacy. 

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