Category: Uncategorized

Ignorantia juris non excusat – ignorance of the law excuses no one

Traverse City, MI — If the average citizen was caught running a racketeering scam to defraud the citizens of a town out of their hard earned money, they would go to jail. They would be arrested and thrown in a cage; even if they claimed they “didn’t know it was illegal.”
However, if you are the sheriff, the head honcho responsible for enforcing the law, you can and will avoid all accountability when you say, “I didn’t know it was illegal.”
Sheriff Tom Bensley of the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department …read more

Please tell Congress to repeal the Surveillance State. And retweet this.
You may borrow from or copy this letter…

Your “leaders” want surveillance reform to fail…

* Sen. McConnell wants to renew expiring Patriot Act provisions without reform for five more years
* Rep. Boehner is willing to pass the USA Freedom Act, but won’t allow amendments to improve it

IF USA Freedom passes as is, the NSA could still…

* sweep up the records of an entire company, or of innocent people who share a wireless network (http://bit.ly/1Qmu1U2)
* continue “backdoor” searches of our devices (http://bit.ly/1DS9Dks)

The bill ALSO increases punishment …read more

On May 6, the New Hampshire Libertarian Party filed this brief in U.S. District Court in its ballot access case. The lawsuit is challenging the 2014 law that made it illegal to circulate the petition for a newly-qualifying party in an odd year. …read more

On May 6, the Oklahoma House passed HB 2181 by 83-0. It had passed the House on March 10, and had passed the Senate on April 22. But the Senate version was different than the House version, so it had to return to the House to see if the House agreed with the Senate amendments. Now the bill goes to Governor Mary Fallin, who is in her second term.
Assuming she signs it, Oklahoma will require 24,745 signatures for a newly-qualifying party for both 2016 and 2018. Without the bill, the 2016 requirement would have been 41,242. …read more

DownsizeDC.org previously mentioned that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to renew Section 215 of the Patriot Act for five more years.
We’ve part of a diverse coalition of 52 organizations expressing our opposition. You can see our letter to Congressional leaders here. …read more

Garland, Texas – On May 4th Elton Simpson, 30, and his roommate Nadir Soofi, 34, opened fire on an unarmed security guard outside of a controversial Prophet Muhammad drawing the contest. Two days prior to that, a woman living outside of the US, connected to Anonymous, sent a message to the official Garland Police Department Twitter account warning of a potential Islamic State attack.
Apparently the message never raised any red flags or was forwarded on by police.
“That is the first time I’ve heard that,” GPD spokesman Joe Harn said, when informed of the warning, according to The Daily Dot. “We …read more

New York, NY– A video released last week has once again caught the police in a lie. Two NYPD officers were caught assaulting a man for filming an officer who was inappropriately touching his female friend during a stop and frisk.

Jason Disisto and his friends were hanging out on a sidewalk on March 12, 2014, when Officer Jonathan Munoz walked up to Disisto’s female friend, grabbed her wrist, and began to put his hands inside her sweater. Concerned about what he is seeing, Disisto borrows a cellphone and attempts to begin filming the interaction. This is something that we …read more

Minneapolis, MN — A series of YouTube videos was brought to the attention of the Free Thought Project which shows a vigilante citizen pulling over a Minneapolis police officer for driving at excessive speeds.
The citizen, who goes by the name Travis, witnessed the officer drive by him at a high rate of speed. So, he turned on his camera and decided to document the hypocrisy.
In the first video, Travis documents the officer driving 20 mph over the posted speed limit.

Travis then continues to follow the officer and documents his speed as they move through different speed zones.

At this point, Travis …read more

On May 5, Alberta held an election for the provincial legislature. For the first time, the New Democratic Party won a majority in that body. See this story. The Alberta government been controlled by the Social Credit Party 1935-1971 and by the Progressive Conservative Party ever since, until today’s election. Thanks to Rick Kissell for the link. …read more

The New York State Board of Elections’ web page is reporting election returns, as various precincts report their results for the special elections of May 5. Here is the link. As of 9:15 p.m., only fragmentary results are in, but they suggest that the Republican nominee is winning the U.S. House race in the 11th district, and the Working Families Party is winning the Assembly race, 43rd district.
To see the 43rd Assembly results, use the box in the upper left corner that now defaults to the U.S. House race. In the 43rd race, the “LYP” Party stands …read more