Tyranny can happen here

So You Think Tyranny Can’t Happen Here?

Miguel A. Faria, M.D. | May 21, 2020 | Commentary | 20 

When discussing government overreach, which incidentally continues unimpeded, or the danger of the monopoly of force concentrated in the hands of government in the way of law enforcement, especially from federal police, particularly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF),  I’m frequently told that if one has done nothing wrong there is nothing to fear from government. And when I describe my first-hand experience in Cuba, or relate events from my studies of communism in the former USSR, China, Cambodia, Venezuela, and the Eastern European Satellite states, I’m told: “But Dr. Faria such cruelty and tyranny can happen in third-world countries, but it cannot happen here. This is America.” I respond somehow nonplussed, “Really? Have you heard, or rather read, of the story of David Koresh and the Waco, Texas, massacre of innocents by the ATF and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team on April 19, 1993. And I say read, because the victims — men, women and children, and Koresh himself— are all dead by the hands of the federal police. One only has to look at this issue a bit more closely to ascertain the deadly implications of just such a naive attitude. 

Unfortunately, there are many more cases that have been swept under the rug by the media through insufficient or biased coverage. Of course, there was the well-known 1992 case of Vicky and Samuel Weaver (her 14-year-old son) killed at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, but there were also the many incidents of lesser known Americans, such as Carl Drega, who was driven to criminal insanity and murder by government and bureaucratic injustice; the totally innocent, John Gerald Quinn, whose home was subjected to a “no-knock” raid (once referred to as “dynamic entries”); and other lawful American gun owners, who over the years have been victimized by the errors or excesses of the ATF or for firearm misdemeanors or technicalities, such as Bruce Abramski, who was prosecuted for an alleged straw purchase and has filed a lawsuit against the State. I will not go into the war on drugs for that is another area that needs closer inspection. Suffice to say, many Americans have been apprehended, shot and killed for violating drug laws, even in the supposed safety of their own homes.

I have written about the dangerous trend toward the militarization of the police.  In 2015 in a little known case, two Idaho deputies killed Jack Yantis, when the cattle rancher rushed to the scene where his bull had been injured in a car crash. No matter the particulars of this incident, it need not have happened. 

On December 9, 2019, Frank Ordonez, a 27-year-old UPS driver was needlessly killed in a gun battle after his truck was hijacked and he was taken hostage by two armed robbers. The responding SWAT team appeared in full force and without beginning any type of negotiation and without a sniper in place, engaged the robbers in a shootout that left four people dead, including Ordonez, another innocent bystander, and the two robbers. Why was the life of Ordonez and the other innocent person killed not taken into account in such a rash confrontation? Were they only unfortunate “collateral damage?” 

A more recent incident— this time a case of government overreach and police state tactics— is that of Duncan Lemp, a 21-year-old young tech engineer who was shot and killed in the early morning hours of March 12, 2020 in Montgomery County, Maryland. He was shot and killed in his own home in a “no-knock” raid by a SWAT team serving a “high-risk warrant” for alleged “firearms offenses.” If one reads the account in Wikipedia, it is an incendiary, one-sided narrative, painting this young man as a right-wing paramilitary troublemaker. Not until we read the brief response by his own family at the end of the Wikipedia account do we finally get a more balanced view. There is no evidence that there was any imminent threat to law enforcement or to anyone else. The police have refused to release video footage of the shooting. Why? And even if this young man had possessed illegal weapons as the police claimed, there was no need for this horrific event to take place in America. Incidentally all of these accounts on Wikipedia and in the mainstream media reports are heavily biased against the victims and quite sympathetic to the almighty State. As the saying goes, to the victors go the spoils — and they also get to write the history!

And then, when we thought we have heard it all, in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13, 2020, three police officers in unmarked vehicles dismounted and conducted a botched “no-knock” raid at the wrong address! They woke up EMT Breonna Taylor and her CCW-licensed boyfriend, who thinking they were subject to a home invasion, fired his gun, wounding one of the cops in the leg. An unequal gun battle ensued in which Taylor was hit eight times by police fire and killed. The boyfriend was apprehended and charged with the attempted murder of police officers. The police raid was supposed to have happened at a “trap-house” more than 10 miles from Taylor’s apartment. Taylor’s family has filed a lawsuit

No wonder there have been record numbers of firearms sold during this coronavirus “pandemic,” as well as record numbers of new gun owners. It is not only fear of the many thugs and shysters trying to take advantage of the population but also fear of government overreach and growing authoritarianism, including civil liberties, during this “pandemic.”

So my naive friends, tell the victims who were killed by law enforcement enforcing unjust laws or totally innocent ones shot in crossfire, that they have nothing to fear because they have supposedly done nothing wrong! The judicious adages of the great English jurists — Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) that a man’s home is his castle that not even a king can violate and that of Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) that a man has a right to self-defense — have been thrown out the window, so that the government has arrogated to itself the right to burst into a citizen’s home based solely on the suspicion or a tip from an informer working with the police (usually ruffians looking for reduced sentences for their own crimes) that there are illegal firearms in the house. Yes, as you have read in this brief survey, when the government is given a monopoly of force and not held accountable, you do have a lot to fear, even if you done nothing wrong. 

Miguel A. Faria, M.D., is Associate Editor in Chief in socioeconomics, politics, medicine, and world affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). This article is excerpted, updated, and edited from his newly release book, America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019)Rating: 5.0/5. From 43 votes. You voted 5, 1 second ago. Thanks for your vote! ltuser on 4:05 pm May 21, 2020 at 4:05 pmMost of those LEO’s were probably BULLIES in school, so went into law enforcement, as a way to CONTINUE THEIR BULLYING lifestyle.Rate this item:1.002.003.004.005.00SUBMIT RATINGRating: 5.0/5. From 5 votes. Log in to Reply

Michigan is following New York City?

National Media Drops The Ball On Michigan Gov’s Nursing Home Edict

Spencer Irvine, Accuracy in Media | May 18, 2020 | Fresh Ink | 9 

Elderly woman in nursing home.

The mainstream media repeated the same playbook and failed to cover news that Michigan issued an order for its nursing homes to house coronavirus-positive patients. Michigan’s policy mirrored New York’s nursing home order, which was reversed this week by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

None of the mainstream media outlets covered Michigan’s policy on nursing homes. ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN and NBC News have not reported on the policy.

Detroit-based newspaper Detroit News headlined the controversy, “Republican lawmakers press Whitmer on nursing home order.” Detroit News reported that the “month-old executive order” may have contributed to nursing home deaths due to the coronavirus. So far, 687 deaths from the virus have been nursing home residents, which Michigan officials said was inaccurate data and that the death toll could be higher.

Michigan officials defended the policy, saying that it enabled the state to provide adequate care for infected patients. Also, they said that patients can be transferred to hospitals if nursing homes did not have a special coronavirus unit or lacked adequate personal protective equipment for its staff.

It took over a month for the mainstream media to report on the New York nursing homes order, despite Cuomo admitting that nursing homes were a hot spot for the coronavirus’s spread. In the case of Michigan’s nursing home policy, the local media also took a month’s time to review the potential fallout from the enacted policy. The national media has yet to report on the controversy.

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The swamp is deeper the we think.

Emmet Sullivan: Mob Rule From The Bench

Chris Adamo | May 18, 2020 | Fresh Ink | 4 

Judge Emmet Sullivan

Leftist activist judges have been undermining the Constitution and the rule of law for decades. This week, “Judge” Emmet Sullivan engaged in the latest and dirtiest of judicial abuse and overreach when he solicited “Amicus Brief” interference in a case that the Department of Justice had declared null.

Rather than abiding by the decision of the DOJ to drop the case against General Michael Flynn, which amounted to entrapment on phony premises by a corrupted FBI under Obama, Sullivan seeks opinions from outsiders as a means of giving the deceitful actions of the FBI a mantle of faux “legitimacy.”

From The Gateway Pundit

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan disregarded two controlling precedents from higher courts with his decision to appoint John Gleeson as amicus curiae in the U.S. v. Michael Flynn case this week. Judicial conduct similar to J. Sullivan’s in these prior, far less politically charged cases was roundly and unanimously condemned by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, D.C. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, and their colleagues across the ideological spectrum.–Mike Chenoweth, Forbes Magazine

Sullivan’s behavior represents a collaboration and escalation of criminal over-reaches by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as he waged his so-called “investigation” of bogus “Russian collusion” over the course of two years. Mueller’s team was a handpicked gaggle of the most partisan and unscrupulous pro-Hillary lawyers to be found in the D.C. cesspool.

These efforts to get Flynn are not, in any way, a reflection of honorable jurisprudence, but an extension of leftist mob rule that has made its way into the courtroom. Clearly, the Beltway swamp is much larger and deeper than previously recognized. And Emmet Sullivan has placed himself at the very bottom of it.

Christopher G. Adamo is a lifelong conservative from the American Heartland. He has been involved in grassroots and state-level politics for years. His recently released book Rules for Defeating Radicals, subtitled Countering the Alinsky Strategy in Politics and Culture, is the “Go To” guide for effectively overcoming the dirty tricks of the political left. It is available at Amazon.

Even liberal judges say he’s wrong.

Liberal Justice ‘Warned’ Flynn-Hating Judge About Partisanship

Chad Groening, Billy Davis, One News Now | May 15, 2020 | Fresh Ink | 31 

Judge Emmet Sullivan

A former prosecutor, watching the U.S. Department of Justice run from its controversial prosecution of Michael Flynn, says the presiding judge must honor the prosecution’s wish to drop the case.

Ordered by Attorney General Bill Barr to cease its prosecution, the DOJ announced May 7 it was doing so, drawing praise or howls of protest depending on how one views President Trump’s former national security advisor, who was unknowingly set up by FBI officials. 

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan is drawing scrutiny after inviting amicus briefs about the case then, just hours later, appointing a former prosecutor to argue the case against Flynn before him.

In an op-ed published at Forbes.com, civil liberty attorney Michael Chenoweth warns that Judge Sullivan is ignoring a U.S. Supreme Court decision from just last week that denounced judges for court-solicited amicus briefs that demonstrate partiality.

The high court’s decision, a unanimous 9-0 ruling, was authored by liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She faulted the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for selectively seeking pro-immigration groups to comment on the case before it. Such a decision, the justice wrote, suggests an effort in “redirection” and “takeover” by the court when the court is restricted to decide the case by what is presented by the parties before them. 

Former assistant district attorney Abraham Hamilton III, now general counsel at the American Family Association, says the judge’s invitation for amicus briefs gives “official cover” for groups that oppose Donald Trump to “smear” Flynn and “malign” Barr as a law breaker.

“There is no legal significance of this third party,” Hamilton told American Family Radio. “I’ve never in my life seen a court where a judge says, Okay, non-parties of the case, you are now free to give your legal opinion.”

Hamilton points out that Judge Sullivan already inserted himself in the trial by accusing Flynn of “treason” from the bench, which leaves no doubt how the judge views the defendant and his case.

And the federal judge isn’t done, either. With the prosecution dropping its case, and Flynn set to walk free, Judge Sullivan has appointed John Gleeson to argue the prosecution’s case and more specifically to pursue a perjury charge, too.

In the legal op-ed, Chenoweth writes that if Judge Sullivan does not dismiss the charges against Flynn, “he will duplicate the Ninth Circuit’s violation of the party presentation principle. Hence, he is coming perilously close to completing the very trifecta that drew the Supreme Court’s wrath against the Ninth Circuit.”

According to Hamilton, Judge Sullivan’s actions are putting him in potential violation of the Judicial Canon of Ethics.

Editor’s Note: The American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates OneNewsNow.com.

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Copyright OneNewsNow.com. Reprinted with permission.

It reminds me of the desuetude Clinton’s. So sad.

Michelle Obama, Saintly Buckraker?

Tim Graham | May 5, 2020 | Commentary | 17 

Former US first lady Michelle Obama talks on stage, at the Royal Arena in connection with her book tour for her biography “Becoming” in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday, April 9, 2019. (Martin Sylvest/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

The Hollywood Reporter recently broke a scoop about the latest Netflix documentary from the Obamas, designed to offer us an oasis of joy as we suffer through the coronavirus pandemic. It’s called “Becoming,” and it will be available worldwide on May 6. As the title suggests, it promotes Michelle Obama’s memoir of the same name, which has sold more than 10 million copies. So let’s get this straight. The Obamas were awarded a book deal worth an estimated $65 million for their memoirs, hers and then his. They also struck an estimated $50 million production deal with Netflix. (We don’t have actual numbers. Could someone in the media ask for a tax return?)

With this self-aggrandizing documentary, their second deal is being used to accentuate the profits of their first. The buckraking here is intense. President Donald Trump surely admires their self-promotional moxie. The Obamas quickly became superrich. Vanity Fair celebrated these “Obamoguls” and hailed Michelle Obama for her “saintly popularity.” This so-called saint doesn’t spurn the finer things. Last August, TMZ reported the Obamas were buying a $15 million mansion on the coast of Martha’s Vineyard to match their $8 million Washington, D.C., mansion. Non-Fox network coverage? Zero. In December, they actually bought said Martha’s Vineyard mansion for $11.75 million. Non-Fox network coverage? Again, zero. There would be no denting haloes by asking how much they’re giving to charity. The documentary celebrates Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” book tour events at stadium that charged Obama superfans $300 or more a ticket, often with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey along for the ride.

Media outlets repeated Obama’s self-puffery without rebuttal. “Those months I spent traveling — meeting and connecting with people in cities across the globe — drove home the idea that what we have in common is deep and real and can’t be messed with,” she said in a statement. She augmented her new status as a self-help guru with a workbook of sorts: “Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice,” complete with “an intimate and inspiring introduction by the former First Lady and more than 150 inspiring questions and quotes to help you discover — and rediscover — your story.”

Not everyone famous is praised for self-help books for women. The current president’s daughter Ivanka Trump wrote one in 2017, and The New York Times was brutal. “It reads more like the scrambled Tumblr feed of a demented 12-year-old who just checked out a copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations from the library,” it wrote.

There are never Republican critics of Obama in the “news” these days. In a Washington Post story on the documentary, writer Sonia Rao quoted Anita McBride, chief of staff to former first lady Laura Bush, who said Obama was “a reluctant first lady” but then formed lasting public connections through her “extraordinary use of media and pop culture and television.”

Is that Michelle’s gift to the media? No, it’s the media’s gift to Michelle. The infatuated titans of “news” and entertainment media appear to have granted her every “extraordinary” wish in building this “billion-dollar brand.”

The cheers are always presumed to be unanimous. Dissent from this party line is ignored. And no one asks about the profits. For the Obamas, greed is cast as just another inspiring voyage of self-discovery.

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at http://www.creators.com.Rate this item:1.002.003.004.005.00SUBMIT RATING

Will the Governor Be re-elected? I don’t think so

Americans witnessing what real, raw power looks like

Tuesday, May 12, 2020 | OneNewsNow.com Staff (OneNewsNow.com)FacebookTwitterEmailMore10                                 English                                 Spanish                             Donald Trump is supposedly a wannabe dictator according to many far-left activists and their protest signs, but governors, mayors, and little-known bureaucrats are making headlines over their real-life orders, warnings, and threats.  

A federal judge in Kentucky last week ruled the state government could not keep churches from meeting in person any longer. Gov. Andy Beshear said he will comply with the ruling but he issued a bizarrely authoritarian guideline for those churchgoers: There will be no singing in the sanctuary.

The governor reasons that singing is more likely to send infected particles into the air.

Elsewhere in the country, New York’s governor vowed in April to seize ventilators from across the state to use them in hard-hit New York City, and Florida’s governor announced that travelers to his state must be quarantined for 14 days if they arrive from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Beshear

Meanwhile, President Trump, aware of the economic despair that has put 30 million people out of work, is lashing out at governors for continuing their lockdown measures that are keeping millions of businesses from reopening.

“The great people of Pennyslvania want their freedom now,” Trump tweeted on Monday, “and they are fully aware of what that entails.”

J. Christian Adams, an attorney who leads the Public Interest Legal Foundation, says the nation’s governors are entitled to incredible authority via the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“We saw this during the Civil War,” he tells OneNewsNow.”The Constitution gave these ancient powers of the king only to the governors, not to the federal government.”  

A ‘misinterpreted’ announcement

Gov. Beshear’s odd restriction in Kentucky pales with Ventura County, California, where the county health director has been accused of planning to remove virus-positive people from their homes by force.

“When we find someone who has a covid infection, those people are immediately isolated,” Director Robert Levin announced at a May 5 press conference. “We’ll isolate every one of them and we will find every one of their contacts, and we will make sure that they stay quarantined.”

Levin apologized the very next day for his “misinterpreted” comments after they went viral on social media, and a fact-checking website sided with Levin’s version of what he called a botched announcement over contact tracing in Ventura County.

Yet the director stated directly that an infected person must be removed, for example, from a home with numerous family members using the same bathroom.

“Every person who we are isolating, for instance,” he said, “needs to have their own bathroom.”

‘Operation Gridlock’ ignored

Of all the actions making the news in recent weeks, Michigan’s governor Gretchen Whitmer (pictured below) may have generated the most headlines for an executive order that roped off garden centers and paint counters at big-box stores; banned any gatherings of any kind beyond a family’s own household; barred motorboats and jet skis; and banned Michiganders who own vacation homes from travelling to them.

The draconian order led to a massive protest in Lansing called “Operation Gridlock,” but Gov. Whitmer followed the public outcry by extending the stay-at-home order beyond May 15. It is now set to expire May 28.

Protesters later stormed the State Capitol with signs that read “No work no freedom” and “Tyrants get the rope,” The Associated Press reported.

The state’s GOP-led legislature sued the governor over the extension, arguing that it did not approve it, and the AP story suggested Whitmer agreed with the legislative authority because she asked legislators to extend the order. 

“But at the same time,” the AP story stated, “she believes she has other powers to respond to the crisis and does not need a legislatively-approved extension — which Republicans dispute and appeared poised to challenge in court.”

 “We can no longer allow one person to make decisions for 10 million people,” Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey told the media. 

I will never go to NYC! Too many taxes.

NY Taxing Samaritan’s Purse For Setting Up Free Field Hospital

Michael Haverluck, One News Now | May 12, 2020 | Fresh Ink | 28 

Hospital set up free of charge in Central Park to help during coronavirus crisis. It was staffed by Samaritan’s Purse volunteers. 

After setting up a free emergency field hospital in New York City’s Central Park to help fight the coronavirus and being pressured to leave because of its biblical stance on homosexual behavior, Samaritan’s Purse is now being ordered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) to pay taxes.

Despite assisting the Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) by treating all COVID-19 patients in its temporary facility with the same care and love – regardless of their beliefs or affiliations – Samaritan’s Purse was attacked by LGBTQ advocates and those claiming bigotry against Muslims. these leftist activists demanded the Christian charity leave the city, arguing the state is supporting discrimination of certain groups by allowing it to treat patients, which led to the volunteers being ordered to pack up and leave.

Punishing for helping?

Samaritan’s Purse President Rev. Franklin Graham maintains Mount Sinai requested his organization’s help, and that he and his volunteers just responded to a need – free of charge – by setting up a 68-bed field hospital after being called by MSHS.

“They’re the ones who called us originally – we didn’t call them; they called us – and we agreed to go … and we have not charged them one penny,” Graham told Faithwire. “All of our services have been paid by God’s people.”

The cost of service

Now, Cuomo is holding the humanitarian aid group financially liable for offering their free services. “[I am] not in a position to provide any subsidies right now,” Cuomo insisted, according to a CBN News report.

WPIX-TV now reports that Samaritan’s Purse has to pay state taxes – including paying taxes on income they might have earned while temporarily living in New York while volunteering – despite the fact that New York lawmakers and hospital executives asked the charity for coronavirus aid.

Cuomo attempted to justify asking the North Carolina-based Samaritan’s Purse to pay taxes.

“{We] have a $13 billion deficit,” Cuomo announced at a press conference Tuesday, according to Fox News. “So there’s a lot of good things I’d like to do, and if we get federal funding, we can do, but it would be irresponsible for me to sit here looking at a $13 billion deficit and say I’m gonna spend more money when I can’t even pay the essential services.”

The reasoning why Samaritan’s Purse is being singled out is reportedly laid bare by a statement made last month by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-New York City), who called out Graham for his Christian beliefs about his devotion to the God of the Bible and his biblical stance on homosexuality and the LGBTQ agenda.

“When I heard more about the organization – and in particular some of the things that Rev. Graham has said – it was very troubling to me,” de Blasio expressed, as reported by OneNewsNow at the time. “Was there going to be an approach that was truly consistent with the values and the laws of New York City that everyone was going to be served, and served equally?”

No regrets

Graham said that despite all the backlash, Samaritan’s Purse is receiving, one thing is clear about his ministry and its work in Central Park. “[Our ministry was there] to save lives – [not to] argue with people,” Graham impressed to Faithwire.

Regardless of the financial and legal issues being used to argue that Samaritan’s Purse must pay taxes, it is argued that it really comes down to politics – and the biblical values the charity holds that are not in sync with  the agenda of leftists and many Democratic leaders.

“It’s difficult to separate this matter from the backlash Samaritan’s Purse faced from a loud minority of progressive politicians in New York City who were angered by the group’s Christian bonafides — particularly regarding the mainstream biblical perspective that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” CBN News reported.

According to at least one New York senator, those adhering to Christian beliefs regarding morality are a venomous brood that should have no partnership or affiliation with the state government.

“Despite having provided free medical care to more than 300 patients fighting coronavirus infections, state Sen. Brad Hoylman (D) described the faith-based group’s relationship with Mount Sinai as ‘poisonous,’ and New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson found it ‘extremely troubling’ Samaritan’s Purse was ever in New York to help,” the report continued.

In the midst of all the controversy regarding Samaritan’s Purse serving the people of the Big Apple in the height of the pandemic, Graham has no regrets and feels blessed by the opportunity to share God’s love and provisions.

“Everybody in the city of New York knows about the tent hospital,” the world-renowned evangelist stressed. “We are there in Jesus’ name. It’s just something God has done, and it’s given us the opportunity to magnify His name in the middle of a crisis.”