As TFTP reported last week, for the last several months, 26-year-old Jean Barreto has been fighting for his life in a Florida hospital after being set on fire by an Osceola County deputy. Barreto was pumping gas when a deputy deployed a taser, ignited the pump, causing it to explode, and cooked this man alive. Since that day, the Osceola County sheriff’s department has refused to cooperate with media and attorney inquiries in regard to releasing body camera footage but over the weekend, all that changed and the footage was quietly released. Now, the officer who started the fire, Deputy...
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How to Build the Biggest ‘Necessary’ Government in History
One of the most significant (and often abused) clauses in the U.S. Constitution is the “Necessary and Proper” Clause. The clause states: “The Congress shall have Power… To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” On the surface, it seems straightforward. Simply put, Congress possesses the means “necessary” to carry out its powers authorized by the Constitution itself. But what constitutes “necessary?”...
News Roundup 5/3/2022
US News A judge grants qualified immunity to police officers who arrested and held a man for operating a parody Facebook account. [Link] The FBI conducted nearly 2 million warrantless searches using Russian cyber threats as an excuse. [Link] Lawmakers will likely increase the INDOPACCOM budget by $3 billion more than the White House requested. [Link] Venezuela Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with self-proclaimed Venezuelan President Juan Guaido and reaffirmed his claim to power. [Link] Russia Biden visits a Lockheed Martin plant producing Javelin missiles. [Link] Putin told French...
Florida Judge Uses Compelled Speech to Perpetuate Pulse Nightclub Myth
In a jaw-dropping example of government imposing woke mythology on an individual citizen, a Florida judge has ordered a man who defaced an LGBT mural to write a 25-page essay centered on a thoroughly false premise—that the 2016 massacre at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando deliberately targeted the LGBT community. Though that baseless narrative is still embraced by opportunistic activists, pandering politicians, lazy journalists and those they’ve misled, it’s been well-established since 2018 that self-described “Islamic soldier” Omar Mateen chose the club at random and that he viewed his...
New SCOTUS Petitions Highlight COVID-19 Abuse of Due Process
(Image: Woman arrested for not wearing mask in NY subway to sue police for $10 million https://abcn.ws/30RetW4) If one were to reflect on the essential elements of society, one would quickly identify the need for peaceful dispute resolution. Indeed, on even the most primitive tribal level, peaceful dispute resolution has been the necessary result of human coexistence. We know this because even the most primitive of existing tribes have developed some peaceful form of dispute resolution. In the Anglo-American legal system, the concept of due process emerged as the state assumed the role of...
Congress as a Seinfeld Episode, But This Won’t Leave You Laughing
Congress. Seinfeld. Both offer amusing forms of entertainment, one being about nothing and the other starring people that know nothing. The entertainment value of watching Congress is that their intentions and the effects of their actions are frequently 180 degrees from each other. Kind of like that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza decides to do the exact opposite of his instincts. For example, he insulted the owner of the New York Yankees during an interview, yet he got the job. Unfortunately, America is not a Seinfeld episode and such legislative failures can cause devastating...
Cop Enters Family’s Backyard, Shoots Innocent Father, ‘Sentenced’ to Firearms Training
As frequent readers of the Free Thought Project understand, police officers mistake innocent individuals for criminals all the time. Often times, their fear gets the best of them and these folks who have committed no crime and harmed no one, are beaten or arrested only to be exonerated down the road. One man in Idaho Falls, however, will not have a chance to be exonerated because the police who mistook him for a suspect—executed him. On February 8, 2021, Elias Aurelio Cerdas, a 26-year-old officer who graduated from training less than a year before the shooting, entered the backyard of...
Cop Avoids Jail Following Sex Abuse Conviction, But Arrested Again for Creating Child Porn
In August of 2020, former New Mexico State Police officer, Ricky Romero, was granted a plea deal after admitting to soliciting and receiving sexually explicit images from an underage girl on social media. Instead of jail time for this child predator, Romero’s badge granted him blue privilege and he was given probation. Because he pleaded guilty before the trial, Romero was given an 18-month probation on each of the two counts he faced: child solicitation by electronic device, child 13-18; and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to court documents. As part of the...
Remembering the Men Who Avoided Nuclear Apocolypse
The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is remembered for its frightful brinkmanship, when the United States and Soviet Union danced close to the furnace of global destruction. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and a war of the worst kind was averted. One such cool head was Soviet naval officer Vasili Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, who was aboard a submarine at the height of the crisis. The nuclear torpedo armed submarine he was a crew member of came under depth charge attack from the U.S. Navy. Soviet doctrine at the time determined that if such a submarine came under attack, three officers needed to...
Texas Prosecutor Worked for Judges in ‘Fundamental Conflict of Interest’
Weldon Ralph Petty Jr. spent decades working in the Midland County District Attorney's Office in Texas as a prosecutor before returning in 2018. Just a year later, a scandal was unearthed, showing Petty had spent much of his career working as a clerk for judges on cases in which he was also a prosecutor. Petty is documented to have worked on both sides of the bench in at least 355 cases, writing decisions and jury instructions. He also gained access to information that aided his cases against defendants. The same corrupt arrangement even occurred in the death-sentence conviction of...