The U.S. Justices should hear a major First Amendment case.
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Adding to my post about Bill Penzey, Jr., I read this article from National Review titled:
Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’
I thought I had read all there was to read about Democrat political tactics against Conservatives in Wisconsin.  I was wrong.  What they have done under the umbrella of “law” is closer to what happens in totalitarian countries.
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More and more of these terrible stories are surfacing….

(Via Forbes) […] In late March, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government could take more than $60,000 of Brewer’s cash with civil forfeiture, even though he was never charged with a crime. The decision lets many Midwestern states continue to take property from people who have done nothing wrong.

A former military police officer and weapons specialist, Brewer earned several medals during his service in the Air Force, before he was medically discharged in 2008. Brewer said he developed Posttraumatic Stress Disorder after a deployment in Afghanistan. (more…)

Our suspicions are slowly confirming.   The South Carolina political machine is working diligently now to protect themselves from a volatile situation they have created.

Grande Lum is the head of the Federal DOJ Community Relations Service.  As readers here are familiar, he is an Obama-like ideologue but he is also no dummy.  There is no doubt Lum has already recognized the dangerous position created by the South Carolina political machine who control SLED.

In our estimation the politicians in South Carolina have created an unrealistic public expectation in the Michael Slager case with an arrest for murder and no hope of achieving a conviction of that charge in court.

The primary mission of the State Law Enforcement Division [SLED] is to provide quality manpower and technical assistance to law enforcement agencies and to conduct investigations on behalf of the state as directed by the Governor and Attorney General.  (link)

It became obvious to us when we saw the 4/6/15 Arrest Warrant for “Murder” filed by SLED, a political entity reporting to the attorney General and Governor’s office, the SC political machine was setting expectations incredibly high based on highly dubious information.

In essence they reacted out of fear to the Walter Scott witness video without even interviewing the eye-witness before they filed charges.  Their reaction most likely based on an attempt to stop a Ferguson-like uproar, but they simply went too far. (more…)

Stingray technology is a data tool for capturing cell phone communication and tracking cell phone users. Stingray Systems mimic cell tower signals and capture the content of targeted cell phone users.

The New York ACLU went to court to force Erie County Sheriffs’ to disclose details about the law enforcement use of Stingray Technology. What they uncovered is alarming. In 46 out of 47 examples law enforcement never sought a warrant to use Stingray intercepts, and in 46 out of 47 examples the same law enforcement used Stingray tools to track the movements of “suspects” – again without warrants or court oversight.

(NYCLU April 7, 2015) — The New York Civil Liberties Union released today records it received from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office on its use of ”stingrays,” devices that can track and record New Yorkers’ locations via their cell phones. The records showed that of the 47 times the Sheriff’s Office used stingrays in the past four years, it apparently only once obtained a court order, contradicting the sheriff’s own remarks.

“These records confirm some of the very worst fears about local law enforcement’s use of this expensive and intrusive surveillance equipment,” said NYCLU Staff Attorney Mariko Hirose. “Not only did the Sheriff’s Office promise the FBI breathtaking secrecy to keep information about stingrays as hidden as possible, it implemented almost no privacy protections for the Erie County residents it is sworn to protect and serve.” (more…)

This is one of those stories when we really wish we had been wrong in our 2013, 2014 research.  [Previously outlined HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE]

Over a year ago we brought you the story of Mr. Filippidis and his family, a Florida Driver who was pulled over by law enforcement in Maryland.  The traffic stop would have been typical except for the fact the responding officer demanded, at random, Mr. Filippidis’s firearm.
Mr. Filippidis did not have his legally owned -CCW permitted- hand gun, it was home in Florida.  Nor did Mr. Filippidis ever say he had a firearm – yet the officer was insistent Mr. Filippidis owned one, handcuffed Mr. Filippidis, and strip searched his vehicle on the side of the road.
Numerous Maryland state police arrived to assist in the search.  They found nothing, because Mr. F was telling the truth.   After two hours Mr. Filippidis and his family were allowed to continue their travels, but the entire process was unnerving.
Which prompted Mr. Filippidis to ask “how did a Maryland officer know I was a gun owner”?  Which led to a severely awkward litany of obfuscations and explanations from Maryland that did not make sense. (more…)

Another example of how governmental agencies feel empowered by the Obama administration to weaponize their departments against their adversaries.   The common thread is their collective belief ‘the people’ are the enemy.
The DOJ has been spotlighted as “targeting” domestic enemies to include investigations of the media – and lies to federal courts to gain warrants (ie. James Rosen).   The EPA has been spotlighted as “targeting” domestic enemies such as farmers and natural foods suppliers.   The IRS has been spotlighted as “targeting” domestic enemies to include conservative groups, Tea Party groups and pro-Israel groups.  So why wouldn’t the CIA also take the same approach to “target” their enemy, the oversight from congress?
WASHINGTON DC – CIA Director John Brennan apologized to Senate intelligence committee leaders after his inspector general found that CIA employees acted improperly when the CIA searched Senate computers earlier this year.
Agency spokesman Dean Boyd said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that Brennan has convened an accountability board that will investigate the conduct of the CIA officers and discipline them, if need be.
The Justice Department has so far declined to pursue criminal charges against the employees, who searched the computers for information gathered in the course of a Senate investigation into the CIA’s interrogation techniques. (more…)

A simple couple.  Unsophisticated, ordinary and otherwise comfortably invisible.   Then one morning around 6:00am DHS EXECUTES A NO KNOCK RAID.

Federal DHS agents were caught on camera busting down doors, tearing a South Florida home apart and detaining a couple inside as they looked for evidence of child pornography.   Unfortunately, they raided the wrong house….
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… and of course the media will just, well, cover for him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama defiantly dared congressional Republicans on Tuesday to try to block his efforts to act on his own and bypass a divided Congress that has thwarted his policy initiatives.
“So sue me,” he taunted on a sweltering day, as he pushed lawmakers to pay for road and bridge repairs. “I’m not going to apologize for trying to do something.”
Obama struck an aggressive tone in the face of a lawsuit threat from House Speaker John Boehner and in the wake of two defeats before the Supreme Court, including a unanimous decision from the court that he overreached when he appointed members of the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was in recess. (more…)

Interesting to see a liberally leaning outlet allow this op-ed… 

(New York Observer) As Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski has written, prosecutorial misconduct has become “an epidemic.” And evidence has come to light that our president, the nation’s chief law enforcement official, seeks his counsel from the worst.

If ever a picture was worth a thousand words, it is a recently released White House photo of President Obama and his muses—if one only knew the truth behind those muses whispering in the President’s ear as they strategized in the aftermath of the Benghazi tragedy.

To understand the (politely-put) “lack of transparency” from the White House, the enormous politicization of the Department of Justice, the release of Taliban leaders from Guantanamo, refusal to cooperate with congressional investigations, the IRS’s harassment of political opponents, and the cover-up of Benghazi, read on.

President Obama’s right-hand woman Kathryn Ruemmler, conveniently seated to his right, was his longest serving White House Counsel and remains one of his closest and most trusted advisors. (more…)