https://youtu.be/UiiFaw8nLLI This book argues that there’s nothing wrong with ignoring politics. To the contrary: you should disengage from politics to pursue more effective forms of altruism. Instead of watching presidential debates, attending city council meetings, and writing letters to your representative, you should spend your time on charitable activities that are more likely to change people’s lives for the better. - Christopher Freiman, Ph.D., Why It's OK to Ignore Politics, p. 3 Dr. Chris Freiman is a philosophy professor at William & Mary and author of Why It’s OK to Ignore...
justice
Released FBI Document Asserts Saudi Embassy Employee Connected to 9/11
Over the past several months, the FBI released thousands of pages of material relating to its investigation of Saudi government links to the 9/11 attacks. This wave of declassifications was pursuant to Executive Order 14040, which President Biden issued on Sept. 3 under pressure from more than 1,800 survivors, family members and first responders who threatened to protest his presence at memorial events if he didn’t make good on a 2020 campaign promise to boost 9/11 transparency. The published documents are riddled with redactions, but a Stark Realities review of the trove has uncovered...
The Biggest Lie of American Foreign Policy
https://youtu.be/gPItOqn8apA Then the fighters realized that the gang in the White House could not see things clearly, and that their leader (that idiot they obey) was claiming that we envied their lifestyle — when the truth, which this Pharaoh would like to hide — is that we are attacking them because of their injustice toward the Muslim world, and especially Palestine and Iraq, as well as their occupation of the land of the two sanctuaries. When the fighters saw this, they decided to come out of the shadows and take the fight into their territory, into their homes. – Al Qaeda in Its...
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...
500 Criminal Cases Could Be Dropped After NYPD Officer Caught Framing People for Drug Crimes
Charges against the now-disgraced NYPD detective Joseph Franco are being welcomed by the families of more than 130 more New Yorkers as it is leading to the dismissal of their family members’ charges. Franco was reportedly caught framing innocent individuals last year and this is the second wave of case dismissals tied to his corruption.. Last April, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s Conviction Review Unit asked for the dismissal of 27 felony convictions and 63 misdemeanor convictions based on Franco’s corrupt policing. Now, that number has grown as Bronx Supreme Court...
COI #217: Breaking Down SCOTUS’s Vax Mandate Ruling guest Patrick MacFarlane
On COI #217, Patrick MacFarlane joins Kyle Anzalone to break down SCOTUS’s ruling on Biden’s OSHA-enforced vaccine mandate and the federally-funded healthcare worker vaccine mandate. Pat explains why the court came to the decision on each case and gives a libertarian legal perspective. Pat discusses the Virginia Beach police generating confessions with fabricated DNA evidence. The practice can easily create false confessions. Pat and Kyle talk about the possibility of cops being held accountable for lying to suspects. Kyle and Pat discuss the creation of a new Department of Justice...
Two LA Cops Fired After Video Proves They Ignored Robbery to Play Pokémon Go
Over the years, TFTP has reported on multiple instances of cops ignoring calls for various reasons. But LAPD officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell become the first cops on which we’ve reported who ignored calls because they chose to play video games instead of responding to a robbery call in progress. As innocent citizens waited for their security force to show up—who they are forced to pay for—Lozano and Mitchell were catching Snorlax in Pokemon Go. The cops were never charged for betraying the community’s trust, but they were actually fired. For the last three years, they have been...
War of the Worlds: COVID Edition
In the H.G. Wells classic movie War of the Worlds (the 1953 original, not the trash Spielberg 2005 version) Martians invade Earth and vaporize an unprepared humanity. We're introduced to our protagonists, who are post-war atomic scientists living in Southern California and working for the nearby Pacific Institute of Technology (Cal Tech?). Like in the book, the most advanced weaponry is thrown at the Martians (including the atomic bomb) to no avail. The ending of the movie is almost apocalyptic as Los Angles is being systematically obliterated and its citizens turns against the...
Lawsuit Update: Woman, Given Speeding Ticket on Way to Work, Shot By Cop
In June of 2020, family and friends of Hannah Fizer, 25, were shocked to learn that their beloved daughter and friend had been killed during a stop over an alleged speeding violation. Then, four months later, they learned there would be no justice and the officer who killed the unarmed woman as she sat in her vehicle—was back on the job. Since then, Fizer’s father, John Fizer, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Pettis County seeking damages against Pettis County Deputy Jordan Schutte. The lawsuit argues the shooting was an unjustified, an excessive use of force and that Schutte did not...
Vaccines, Autonomy, and Mandates: A Libertarian Analysis
Prefatory Note Given the subject matter discussed below, I believe it prudent to state at the outset that I am not at all opposed to vaccinations themselves: indeed, I have received a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as all other normal-course vaccinations recommended for someone my age. Yet there are, it seems to me, interesting, difficult questions surrounding the state’s role in promoting or mandating vaccines. The goal here is to start a conversation not about the effectiveness of vaccines, but about the individual’s sphere of autonomy and what kinds of medical decisions are within it, and...