The government’s request…is ballsy, bonkers, and an egregious overreach. – Elizabeth N. Brown
Your “leaders” want this to happen more often:
80-year-old…John Apelgren…[has been] accused of murdering Eileen Cotter in Highbury in 1974 when he was 31. Advances in DNA profiling led to a breakthrough in the cold case as Apelgren’s DNA was found to match samples from Eileen’s mouth and anus…22-year-old Eileen was a sex worker who was found lying face down half naked in front of some garages…on June 1, 1974. Apelgren is alleged to have had sex with Eileen, then attacked and strangled her…
A…[typical and representative politician named Matthew R. Reilly] in Rhode Island who was arrested earlier this month after a…[cop] found him asleep in his car with a crack pipe and a lighter in his hand is behind bars again…for…sexually assaulting and molesting a child…
The people the government empowers to police your sexuality:
…42 women, including 10 minors, plan to file lawsuits against the West Virginia State Police…[because] hidden…cameras were placed and operated inside the female locker room at the State Police Academy…female [molestation grooming] program attendees accessed and used the…locker room…during the time the…cameras were in use….taping of [women at] the Academy did not end until 2020, the same time the [grooming] Program was discontinued…
Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working out?
Government can always be counted on to use any excuse to expand tyranny:
…censorship during the pandemic…became a popular pastime among functionaries convinced they are the embodiment of science—or, at least, the arbiters of truth…the state and social media companies [conspired] to muzzle voices not just in the U.S., but also…in the U.K. “A secretive government unit worked with social media companies…to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown policies during the pandemic,” The Telegraph reported June 2. “The Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) was set up by ministers to tackle supposed domestic ‘threats’, and was used to target those critical of lockdown…[who] had posts removed from social media…[or] stop[ped from] being promoted, circulated or widely shared after being flagged by the CDU”…Among those [censored]…were prominent epidemiologists and medical researchers who challenged official data and restrictive policies. Activists who opposed lockdowns were also targeted. The Telegraph, a prominent newspaper which has run articles skeptical of pandemic authoritarianism, was itself singled out. Implicated in monitoring content and penalizing dissent at the behest of government officials were companies including Facebook, Google, Twitter (under the old management), and the BBC…
Kansas politicians want to circumvent the will of the voters:
Abortion providers [have] sued Kansas…over a law enacted this year and…a decades-old requirement that patients wait 24 hours after first seeing a provider to terminate their pregnancies…the…[new] law…will require providers to [lie, claiming] a medication abortion can be stopped using a regimen that major medical groups have called unproven and potentially dangerous. The lawsuit…argues that Kansas has created a “Biased Counseling Scheme” designed to discourage patients from getting abortions and to stigmatize patients who [do, pointing out]…that the requirements have become “increasingly absurd and invasive” over time and spread medical misinformation…in August [Kansas voters] decisively affirmed abortion rights, refusing to overturn a state Supreme Court decision three years earlier that declared access to abortion a matter of bodily autonomy and a fundamental right under the state constitution…[thus preventing] Kansas [politicians from] greatly restrict[ing] or ban[ning] abortion…
In a series of motions…the government seeks to prevent the Backpage defendants’ legal team from making basically any reasonable attempt to defend against the charges against them. Most egregiously, prosecutors want to bar them from mentioning the First Amendment…and “free speech” at any time in the presence of the jury…they [also] want to legally prohibit the Backpage team’s lawyers from arguing that the ads [they hosted] were not illegal…[from] referenc[ing] Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act…[from] defend[ing] themselves against accusations that they knew they were breaking the law by pointing out that Backpage lawyers repeatedly assured them they were not breaking the law…[from] point[ing] out that…the [government demanded they]…charge for ads because this would create a financial paper trail…from commenting on the legitimacy of the prosecution and or any tactics employed by prosecutors; from referencing the 2021 trial that was declared a mistrial because of the government’s conduct; or from mentioning previous legal cases where courts ruled in Backpage’s favor…it [also wants to ban] references to…the defendants’ families, to the defendants’ personal lives, [or] to Lacey and Larkin’s extensive history in the journalism industry…in other words, the defendants may not attempt to humanize themselves…
…the agency that runs New York’s prisons is set to block…incarcerated writers, artists, and poets from getting their work outside prison walls. Last month, the agency quietly handed down new rules severely curtailing what incarcerated writers and artists can publish — and forbidding them from getting paid for it. The…directive, which went into effect on May 11, establishes a stringent, months-long approval process for people in its c[ages] to publish creative work, including books, art, music, poetry, film scripts, and other writing. It gives prison superintendents the power to block work from publication if it violates any of a number of [vague] rules — including bans on mentioning the artist or author’s crime and portraying [prisons, screws and bureaucrats honestly]…
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