A candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates was forcibly removed from a public hearing for doing nothing other than listing the "donations" made to the politicians in support of a bill by big oil.
The post WATCH: Security Drags Woman from Hearing for Exposing Big Oil Bribes to Politicians appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
Following Roy Moore"s vehement denial of teen sex abuse allegations on Friday, the weekend saw political furore rising and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may have just sealed the Bannon-backed candidate"s future.
"It never happened... If you abuse a 14-year-old you shouldn"t be a Senate candidate. I agree with that," Moore said. "But I did not do that."
But, as The Hill reports, Mitch McConnel on Monday called for GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore to "step aside," according to the Associated Press...
Here is the video of @SenateMajLdr saying he believes the women accusing Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexually assaulting a 14-year old and pursuing other teens. pic.twitter.com/169YSHlXym
— Nick Storm (@NStorm_Politics) November 13, 2017
McConnell was asked if he believes the allegations are true.
"I believe the women," he said.
McConnell is not the first, as multiple lawmakers have called for Moore to step aside following the reports; however, he is the highest-ranking GOP official yet.
Howeverm, as The Hill notes, even if Moore withdraws from the Senate race - something he has said he will not do - Republicans are stuck with his name remaining on the ballot.
The deadline for the party to remove Moore"s name from the ballot passed in October, though Republicans could mount a write-in challenge. Republicans have also floated trying to move back the December election date.
McConnell said on Monday that the party is exploring a write-in bid, though he declined to say specifically who would be the candidate.
"That"s an option we"re looking at, whether or not there is someone who could mount a write in successfully," he said.
Pressed if Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), who Moore defeated in the GOP primary runoff (and was backed by President Trump), would be the write-in candidate, McConnell added: "We"ll see."
Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com
On the afternoon of Monday, August 21, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, and Kentucky Congressman Brett Guthrie took a visit to the vault of the US Mint’s gold depository in Fort Knox, Kentucky, a vault which, according to the US Treasury, holds gold bars containing 147,341,858 fine troy ounces of gold (4583 tonnes of gold).
The trip was notable in that it is one of the rare occasions in history that a US political/congressional delegation has ever visited the Fort Knox depository, and Mnuchin is now only the 3rd treasury secretary ever to make this visit.
The trip was also notable in that unlike previous political excursions to the vault, the Mnuchin-led visit was very low-key, it was announced to the media and public at extremely short notice, and there is no evidence that any media representatives participated, or at least if they did, they have kept very quiet about it.
US Mint Depository, Fort Knox, Kentucky
In contrast, the previous congressional visit to the Fort Knox depository in September 1974 was heavily publicised in advance, was accompanied by 100 news reporters and photographers, and it even documented the visit via photographs and film which were released to the public.
Mnuchin’s visit to the vault merely appears to have taken the form of a quick peek into one of the cramped vault compartments within the Fort Knox vault, and therefore can only be seen as an odd PR stunt whose real intent remains unclear, which does nothing to improve the transparency of the notoriously secretive gold depository, and which on balance has now re-opened scrutiny on how much gold is, or is not, actually stored in the compartments of the Fort Knox vault.
The trip to the Fort Knox vault was only announced by Mnuchin on Monday morning, August 21 (the morning of the Fort Knox visit) during a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Louisville, Kentucky, which Mnuchin and Mitch McConnell were attending.
As Grace Schneider, a business reporter for the Louisville, Kentucky based Courier-Journal tweeted that morning.
@USTreasury Sec. Mnuchin says going to Fort Knox after lunch speech at Olmsted. pic.twitter.com/KFP74xwpGj
— Grace Schneider (@gesinfk) August 21, 2017
So Mnuchin announced the visit literally a few hours before it took place. Fort Knox is located about 40 miles south-west of Louisville. In his Monday morning speech at the Chamber of Commerce, the Washington Examiner reports that Mnuchin made the bizarre comment that “I assume the gold is still there”. McConnell, at the same time, quipped that “we’re going to find out”. Mnuchin’s comment is bizarre because as US Treasury Secretary, he is top official of the US Treasury.
The US Treasury owns the gold in Fort Knox. The US Mint is just the custodian. The Director of the US Mint and all other senior officials report to Mnuchin. At any time, Mnuchin can get a full and complete high-level briefing on the real status of the US gold reserves. He can also get a full de-briefing on the extent to which the US gold reserves have been audited over the years – or not audited as the case may be. To say that he assumes the gold is still there shows either a flippant view of the expected accountability of a US Treasury Secretary, or else a disregard for the responsibility to which the US public has entrusted him.
It’s not clear whether any journalists actually accompanied the politicians on last Monday’s visit to the Fort Knox depository. An article by an AP journalist from Kentucky named Adam Beam was published on August 22, the day after the visit to the Fort Knox depository.
Beam, based in Frankfort, Kentucky is listed as a Kentucky Statehouse reporter for AP, so would presumably, due to this role, be well-known in Kentucky political circles and would have privileged access to the Mnuchin & Co delegation. AP’s Beam wrote that:
“Inside the famed vaults at Fort Knox, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held a 27-pound gold bar in his hands Monday as part of the first civilian delegation to see most of the country’s bullion reserves in more than 40 years.”
But AP’s Beam also wrote in the same article that:
“in an interview, McConnell said he could not say much about the visit for security reasons”
suggesting that Beam may not have been on the actual visit to the vault, because if he was, he would have no need to interview McConnell and could have recorded the vault details himself. if the AP Kentucky Statehouse reporter wasn’t even on the visit, what hope was there for other reporters?
As far as I can see from related coverage, there are no photos of any of the delegation either inside the depository. This would suggest that there were no media photographers nor camera people present inside the vault. For such a historic trip, this is itself quite bizarre. Until that is, you realize that in 1978, the US Mint made the internal plans and structures of Fort Knox classified, which effectively bans any photography or filming from inside the depository.
The same AP article quoted Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin as saying that [Fort Knox] “officials had to cut a seal to open the vault for them“. What Bevin means is that the seal on the door of one of the compartments in the vault was cut so that they could open the door to the compartment. According to the US Mint, Fort Knox stores US Treasury gold bars in 13 compartments within the Fort Knox vault. See BullionStar article “Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits” for details.
By opening just one of the 13 compartments for Mnuchin & Co to peer into, that leaves 12 of the supposed gold storage compartments that were not opened. Still, this didn’t stop Mnuchin stating on Twitter that “Glad gold is safe“. This is a ridiculous statement from a US Treasury Secretary when you consider what the actual visit consisted of, and it would be remiss of the US public to put any trust in it.
Thanks to @usmint staff for hosting at #FortKnox #USBD. First @USTreasury Secretary to visit since John Snyder in 1948. Glad gold is safe!
— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) August 21, 2017
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin also said something similar in a radio interview following the vault visit, i.e. that the delegation only saw a subset of the supposed gold. Interviewed by Newradio 840 WHAS, and quoted by televison channel WHAS 11, Governor Bevin said:
“I didn’t see every bit of it [the gold], but the amount that I saw was impressive”
See WHAS 11 video segment here.
The US Treasury Secretary takes a quick look into one of 13 compartments in the vault and says “Yep, the gold is safe, it’s there“. Imagine a commercial gold vault operating on the basis of how Fort Knox operates. It couldn’t. I have been in BullionStar’s precious metals vault in Singapore. I have looked around. There are a lot of gold bars, silver bars, gold coins and silver coins. But I couldn’t say based on a quick casual observation that ‘yep, all the gold and silver is there’.
That’s why there is a rigorous inventory system at BullionStar, and that’s why BullionStar employs a transparent multi-layered auditing system comprising 5 different audit schemes that are all accessible to customers. To ensure that at any given time, both BullionStar staff and customers know exactly what is inside the BullionStar vault.
But the US Treasury seems to think its sufficient that a quick unrecorded trip by 4 US political insiders can somehow instill confidence that all the gold that is claimed to be in Fort Knox is actually there. In case readers may think BullionStar is being unfair to the US Treasury, its worth noting that there have been many articles published on the BullionStar website by Koos Jansen that highlight the myriad of inconsistencies about the supposed gold reserves stored at Fort Knox and US government auditing of said gold reserves. See for example:
“A First Glance At US Official Gold Reserves Audits”, March 2014
“Second Thoughts On US Official Gold Reserves Audits”, February 2015
“US Government Lost 7 Fort Knox Gold Audit Reports”, June 2015
“Dear US Mint, We Gave You The FOIA Funds, Now Give Us The Fort Knox Audit Documents!”, November 2016
“US Mint Releases New Fort Knox “Audit Documentation”. The First Critical Observations”, February 2017
As a freebie trip for 4 select political insiders, last Monday’s trip to Fort Knox was undoubtedly a memorable one for them. In the same radio interview Bevin said that:
“This is like the mother of all field trips. This is pretty cool”
But as a validation and verification of over 56% of the supposed US Official Gold Reserves, the visit was a complete farce. Announced the morning it took place. No evidence that any media were allowed to participate. Only peeked into one of the 13 storage compartments. And then to round it off, Mnuchin (an ex Goldmanite) tweets that ‘Glad gold is safe“. You couldn’t make this up. And finally, no mention of the fact that most of the gold bars even supposedly stored in Fort Knox are low purity ‘coin bars’ made from melted down gold coins. In fact, of all the gold bars reported to be held within the US Gold Reserves, only 16% of these bars are of LBMA Good Delivery size and purity range.
This article originally appeared on the BullionStar website under the same title "Mnuchin’s PR Visit to Fort Knox proves nothing about the US Gold Reserves”.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had a busy day today: shortly after warning once again that a US debt ceiling deal has to be done by late September or else the country would run out of cash and suffer a technical default, roughly around the time he hinted that Trump may keep carried interest tax breaks for some firms that create jobs (while eliminating it for hedge fund managers), the former hedge fund manager and Hollywood producer paid a rare official visit to Fort Knox to check out the nation’s gold stash on Monday, while - as Bloomberg put it - keeping an open mind for future film projects.
“I assume the gold is still there,” Mnuchin told an audience in Louisville, Kentucky some 40 miles north of the biggest U.S. Bullion Depository (except of course for the foreign gold stash at the NY Fed). “It would really be quite a movie if we walked in and there was no gold.” It"s unclear if Mnuchin was envisioning a comedy or a drama.
After the visit, Mnuchin who was the first US Treasury Secretary to visit Fort Knox in nearly 70 years, "playfully" reassured Americans the treasure was still secure.
“Glad gold is safe!” he wrote in a post on Twitter.
Thanks to @usmint staff for hosting at #FortKnox #USBD. First @USTreasury Secretary to visit since John Snyder in 1948. Glad gold is safe!
— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) August 21, 2017
Mnuchin, whose action-film credits include ‘‘Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Lego Batman Movie” and “Suicide Squad,” according to Bloomberg, said that he would be only the third secretary of the Treasury to go inside the vault since it was created in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“We have approximately $200 billion of gold at Fort Knox,” said Mnuchin. “The last time anybody went in to see the gold, other than the Fort Knox people, was in 1974 when there was a congressional visit. And the last time it was counted was actually in 1953.”
Which is why the American public is so lucky it can take the word of a former Goldman partner without any trace of doubt...
In just a matter of days we are going to witness the most unusual solar eclipse in U.S. history. Could it be possible that all of the very strange “coincidences” surrounding this event have some sort of special significance? The mainstream media has been buzzing about this upcoming solar eclipse for months, and it will easily be the most watched eclipse in all of U.S. history. Last week, I published an article entitled “12 Critical Events That Are Going To Happen Over A 40 Day Period From August 21st To September 30th” that received an extraordinary amount of attention, and of course the first event on that list was “the Great American Eclipse” on the 21st. As you will see below, so many numbers seem to indicate that this eclipse could have some sort of special significance, and it begins a period of exactly 40 days that many believe could be a turning point for America.
In the Scriptures, we are specifically told that one of the reasons why God created the sun and the moon was so that they could serve as “signs”. The following is what Genesis 1:14 tells us…
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years“
And in Luke 21:25, the Lord Jesus specifically warned us to watch for signs “in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” just prior to His return.
So we should be watching, and we should fully expect to see something happen up there before Christ comes back.
With that in mind, I would like to share some amazing facts about the solar eclipse on August 21st with you. These were originally compiled by The Countdown Report, and when I first read them they definitely got my attention…
-First contact is in the state of Oregon, the 33rd state in the USA. The last contact is in South Carolina on the 33rd parallel. This eclipse happens on day 233 of the year. If the Revelation 12 sign is valid, then the eclipse is also 33 days before September 23, 2017. Jesus is thought to have been 33 when He died.
-Just for fun: It is 99 years (3 x 33) since the last eclipse to go coast-to-coast in the US, in 1918. From September 23, 2017 (Revelation 12 sign) to the end of the year, December 31, 2017 is 99 days (or 3 x 33). The number of days from the 1918 eclipse to the August 21 eclipse are 26,234 days. (2+6+2+3+4 = 17; 2017?). From August 12, 2017, the date of the Charlottesville Virginia “State of Emergency” declared to the August 21, 2017 Great Solar Eclipse is 9 days (3+3+3) and the dates are also mirrored – 12 and 21.
-First big city the eclipse hits in Oregon is Salem – Salem was named after Jerusalem. The eclipse also begins in Oregon exactly at sunset time in Jerusalem. So technically speaking, as the sun sets in America it will be setting in Jerusalem at the same time.
-The center line crosses through 12 primary states to receive total darkness. 12 disciples, 12 months in a year, the meaning of 12, which is considered a perfect number, is that it symbolizes God’s power and authority, as well as serving as a perfect governmental foundation.
-The eclipse path is exactly 70 miles wide. 70 has a sacred meaning in the Bible that has two perfect numbers, 7 that represents perfection and 10 that represents completeness and God’s law. 70 also symbolizes perfect spiritual order and a period of judgment. 70 is also specially connected with Jerusalem with so many references it would take a book to write.
-Another eclipse comes in 2024, 7 years after the August 21, 2017 and marks an X over the United States. The combined time of totality of these eclipses together will be 7 minutes. The day of the eclipse is August 21, 2017 – (7 + 7 + 7 = 21). The exact point where the two eclipses cross is right next to Cedar Lake in Illinois… specifically right next to SALEM Road. (Salem again!)
-The original form of the Hebrew letter Tav is like the English letter X or T – which is in the shape of a cross, or X– like the X that is made by the two solar eclipses on the cross paths over 7 years. The letter Tav means “a sign”.
-The path of the eclipse will be situated in such a way that every single state of the US will experience it, even Hawaii and Alaska.
-The totality will reach Oregon at 10:16 AM Pacific, and will end in South Carolina at 2:49 PM Eastern. That means it will take 1 hour and 33 minutes to cross the country. There is that 33 again.
-The eclipse is also exactly 40 days from Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement” and is a time of repentance. While the eclipse day itself may come and go with everything remaining “normal” afterwards, we need to be focused on what could be coming soon after.
You can read the entire list of 33 facts that were compiled by The Countdown Report right here. I just pulled out the ten that I considered to be the most remarkable.
According to Rachel Baxter, “40 is the number for waiting, preparation, testing or punishment. It is also the number to start a new chapter of the history of salvation”, and we see the number 40 pop up time after time in the Bible.
For instance, in Jonah 3:4 the prophet Jonah gave Ninevah a period of 40 days to repent before judgment would begin…
And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
Could this coming 40 day time period have some sort of special significance for us?
Like I said in my previous article, I don’t know if all of this means anything.
But Jesus did specifically instruct us to watch for signs in the sun and the moon, and the solar eclipse on August 21st involves both the sun and the moon.
On August 21st, I am going to be able to travel into the path of this eclipse. Hopefully it will be a very clear day and I will be able to get some very clear pictures for my readers.
I don’t expect anything world shattering to take place on that particular day, but like millions of other Americans, I will definitely be looking up into the sky to see what happens…
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Lousiville, KY – A Councilman in Louisville is now calling for a third party to investigate rape allegations against one of Louisville’s finest after four women have come forward alleging he raped them.
The man in question is Louisville Metro Police Officer Pablo Cano. The first complaint was made public 12 days ago when it was revealed that a woman filed a report in June claiming she had been raped by Cano twice.
The woman claimed she first met Cano at a city park, and then he showed up at her house weeks later and raped her. After the rape, he came back the next day and did it again. He was allegedly in uniform the first time, and then in plain clothes the next day when he came to rape her again, but had a gun at the time of the crime.
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She filed a lawsuit against Cano and the Police Department. Her lawyer, Shannon Fauver, also represents a second woman, who came forward eight days ago accusing the highly decorated officer of raping and sexually molesting her in December 2016. The LMPD responded by placing Cano on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
A third woman came forward four days ago and said she, too, was raped by Cano. She is not being represented by Fauver, who said she’s not at all surprised, and suggested Cano is a serial rapist. “I will say that I’m not surprised. When someone is a rapist, there will be more victims,” Fauver said.
Then two days ago, a fourth woman came forward. Louisville Councilman David James said he was shocked by the scandal. “I was actually in shock,” James admitted. “It’s another black eye for the police officers.”
As a retired police officer, Councilman James said he believes cases like Cano’s should not be handled internally. As The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous occasions, there is a conflict of interest when police departments investigate one of their own who has been accused of a crime.
READ MORE: Woman Gets $6.7mn After Being Raped by Police in Jail & Shackled as She Gave Birth
While this is an opportunity for the department to stand up for justice and against criminal activity and arrest one of their own, there is also a chance that the department will quietly make the charges go away. Often times, officers are charged with lesser crimes, allowing for a jury to find them not guilty. They then resume their careers as abusive law enforcement officers and are ultimately not held accountable for their actions.
“With the sexual offenses it might be a good idea to have either the attorney general’s office or the Kentucky State Police handle those investigations,” James said. Only then, presumably, will justice have a chance to take place for the now four women accused of being raped.
“Who do you call when a police officer assaults you? Do you trust another officer to take care of it?” Fauver questioned. She said she is also concerned there are more victims out there who have yet to come forward. “If someone has raped someone…they’re going to have done it again,” she said.
While newspapers stop short of calling for victims to come forward, we at TFTP will not. If you or someone you know has been raped by Pablo Cano, call the Public Integrity Office of the Louisville Metro Police Department. Then call the Kentucky State Police. It is time for people to become vigilant in order to rid society of rapists—especially those wearing badges.
August 21st is the date of “the Great American Eclipse”, and the hype around it is already starting to reach a fever pitch. It is being called “the Great American Eclipse” because this will be the first total solar eclipse ever that is only visible in the United States. In other words, since the United States became a nation there has never been a total eclipse that was only visible here and nowhere else. And this will be the first total solar eclipse to cross from the west coast to the east coast in 99 years. So for those that love astronomy, this is bigger than the Super Bowl.
Close to 200 million people live within a day’s drive of “the totality zone”, and many are projecting that this will be the most-viewed eclipse ever. In fact, many hotels and campsites along the path of the eclipse are already completely booked. So if you want to see it live, you better make your arrangements quickly.
Of course the “main event” will not last for very long. Depending on the location, the total eclipse will only last for about two or three minutes.
But if you count from the time that the moon will begin to cover the sun until the time when the sun is completely uncovered again, it will take approximately two and a half hours for the entire process to unfold. The following comes from Newsweek…
If you are in the band of totality, you will see (if you look through special ‘solar filters’ that darken the Sun by a factor of about 100,000) the Moon gradually covering the sun for about 75 min, then the beautiful totality, and then the uncovering for another 75 min.
Of course in the heavens things will be taking place at very high speed. For example, the moon’s shadow will actually be crossing the U.S. at a speed of close to 1,700 miles per hour.
And even if you are not in the “totality zone”, you will still notice what is happening on August 21st. That is because this eclipse will actually cast a “shadow” over the entire nation.
Could it be possible that has some sort of significance?
I don’t know, but without a doubt there will be a whole lot of speculation going on as we get closer to the date.
Many have pointed out that this solar total eclipse in 2017 will be followed by another total solar eclipse nearly seven years later on April 8th, 2024.
And when you plot the projected courses of these two solar eclipses on a map, they form a giant “X” over the center of the United States…
Could this be some sort of extremely bizarre coincidence?
And if it isn’t a coincidence, what could it mean?
I am afraid that I don’t have the answers to those questions right now, but I do find it to be extremely interesting that the heart of this “X” just happens to fall in the middle of the New Madrid fault zone.
Back in 1811 and 1812, the New Madrid Fault zone was hit by a series of absolutely massive earthquakes. At one point the shaking was so bad that it even caused church bells in Boston to start ringing. If similar earthquakes happened in our day and time, the damage would be absolutely unimaginable. The following comes from Smithsonian.com…
The Midwest was sparsely populated, and deaths were few. But 8-year-old Godfrey Lesieur saw the ground “rolling in waves.” Michael Braunm observed the river suddenly rise up “like a great loaf of bread to the height of many feet.” Sections of riverbed below the Mississippi rose so high that part of the river ran backward. Thousands of fissures ripped open fields, and geysers burst from the earth, spewing sand, water, mud and coal high into the air.
Could you imagine “thousands of fissures” suddenly opening up all over the middle of the country?
One insurance company tried to estimate what the economic toll would be if similar quakes happened today, and they came up with a figure of “about 300 billion dollars”…
A series of big shakes — of the sort last seen in 1811 and 1812 — would cause about $300 billion in damage, Swiss Re says. The cost would be double the damage from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005.
Houses — especially brick ones — would collapse. Buildings would sink sideways into liquefying earth. Bridges might tumble into the rivers. The route of the Mississippi River could change — as it did in the last big quake.
People would die, perhaps by the thousands. Being mainly a property reinsurer, Swiss Re didn’t estimate the human toll.
And we should also consider the fact that there are 15 nuclear reactors along the New Madrid fault zone. And so during a major catastrophe we could be looking at Fukushima times 15.
Let us hope that the next major New Madrid earthquake is put off for as long as possible. Nobody should ever want to see that kind of devastation.
But scientists tell us that the Earth’s crust is “mechanically weaker” under the New Madrid fault zone than it is in other areas of the country, and they assure us that given enough time there will be more massive quakes in the region someday.
It is entirely possible that it could just be a complete coincidence that these two eclipses form a giant “X” directly over the heart of the New Madrid fault zone, but I think that it would be a mistake to dismiss this phenomenon altogether without reflecting on what it might mean. Because as Pastor Mark Biltz has pointed out, it appears that God specifically used solar eclipses back in Biblical times…
“An archaeological find of cuneiform tablets was found in the 19th century describing events in Nineveh. A famous eclipse mentioned in the tablets was known as the Bur-Sagale eclipse, which is verified by NASA as occurring on June 15, 763 BC. The path of totality was right over Nineveh. God had declared the sun and the moon were for signs, and now the Ninevites saw the wrath of God coming even before Jonah arrived a couple months later. When Jonah arrived, they were ripe for repentance.”
Our world is a very strange place, and it is getting stranger with each passing day.
And one thing is absolutely certain – the entire nation will be looking up into the sky on August 21st, and what they will see will be truly historic.
Image source: Pixabay.com
Making money by selling your off-grid homemade products apparently can land you in prison.
An Amish farmer in Kentucky discovered this the hard way when he was sentenced in late June to six years in prison for selling homemade herbal products and then impeding an FDA investigation.
A federal court determined Amish farmer Samuel Girod mislabeled his herbal home remedies, which were for sinus infections, skin disorders and cancer.
Even though the local sheriff stood in Girod’s corner, the 57-year-old homesteader was convicted on 13 charges.
Make Powerful Herbal Medicines, Right in Your Kitchen!
A petition supporting Girod garnered about 30,000 signatures. A rally in support of the Amish farmer was held outside the Kentucky federal courthouse.
“I don’t need the FDA to protect me from an Amish farmer,” read a sign held by T.J. Roberts, a college student who supported Girod.
“I feel what happened here is an example of judges making the law,” Roberts told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “What the FDA did here is an example of executive overreach in which they are choosing what Americans can put in or on their own bodies. I struggle to find where the victim is in this and where the crime was committed.”
The Kentucky Amish farmer made his own herbal products, including salves, and sold them to folks in his Bath County community.
Court records maintain Girod defied a federal order to stop selling the salves until his business was inspected.
The Amish farmer “brazenly placed the public at risk, openly hampered law enforcement, and intentionally impeded the judicial process,” according to acting U.S. attorney for Eastern Kentucky, Carlton Shier.
Girod represented himself and claimed the court did not have jurisdiction over him.
Supporter Richard Mack of Arizona told the Herald-Leader, “This is a national disgrace and outrage. … He is being punished for being stubborn.”
Sheriff John Snedegar of Bath County wondered why the FDA is “attacking and victimizing such peaceful and law-abiding Americans.”
When FDA agents tried to inspect the business in 2013, Girod and others blocked them.
What is your reaction? What should the federal government have done? Share your thoughts in the section below:
Jackson, KY – Most people may see nothing wrong with a town councilman becoming a police offer, but what if that councilman cop also owns an ambulance company, and begins pulling over competing ambulances—then does he have too much power?
The answer is still “No” in the city of Jackson, Kentucky, despite the fact that the taxpayer-funded Kentucky Association of Counties is now paying a $26,000 settlement to Emergency Medical Technician Jason Crigger.
Crigger filed a lawsuit against Breathitt County Special Deputy and Councilman Steve McIntosh, claiming that McIntosh had no legitimate reason to pull over the ambulance he was driving in June 2016.
“Never gave me a reason that he pulled me over….Never accused me of any traffic violations or anything of the sort. It appeared to me he just pulled me over to try to threaten and intimidate us,” Crigger said.
This accusation is just the latest in a series of alleged conflicts of interest Crigger claims McIntosh has in his official positions as an officer of the law, a businessman and a town councilman.
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Mountain News WYMT reported that when one of its reporters attempted to talk to the Jackson city councilman, he refused to be recorded on camera. He did reportedly say that he had good reasons for pulling Crigger over—but refused to say what those reasons were.
Jay Arrowood, owner of Arrow-Med Ambulance, Inc. told reporters he believes that the city needs to “jerk this guy’s badge.”
The two competing ambulance companies have been locked in a series of legal battles. McIntosh is suing Arrow-Med in another lawsuit that alleges the company had defrauded Medicare and Medicaid out of more than $1 million.
READ MORE: Cop Involved in Quadruple Murder and Cocaine Conspiracy Kills Himself as Feds Try to Arrest Him
At the time McIntosh pulled Crigger over, there was a patient riding as a passenger who had just undergone dialysis and was being transported back home. Arrowood didn’t appreciate the officer’s actions and remarked:
“Mr. McIntosh needs to work on improving his own service versus trying to put our service out of business,” Arrowood said. “If you’ll pull an ambulance over for no reason, hindering patient care, there’s nothing that you won’t do.”
Crigger is suing for damages related to his “humiliation and suffering, punitive damages against McIntosh and an injunction preventing anyone acting in concert with McIntosh to stop interfering with Arrow-Med,” according to Mountain News.
Predictably, Breathitt County Sheriff Ray Clemons told Mountain News he was not aware of any wrongdoing on behalf of his deputy. However, Arrowood says the harassment has been going on for years.
As The Free Thought Project has reported, altercations between police officers, EMTS, and even fireman are nothing new. In 2009, Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Daniel Martin pulled over ambulance drive Maurice White, choked him, and proceed to arrest him.
White objected to being pulled over while transporting a passenger in need of emergency medical care. But that didn’t stop Martin, and his superiors took his side. Not only was Martin allowed to keep his job with the OKHP, but he was later involved in another scandal where he showed an inappropriate photo to another officer.
Having a police officer who is also a town councilman is a conflict of interest enough for a sheriff who’s worth his weight in salt to deny employment. But having an officer who owns a competing ambulance company, who then pulls over his competition is a blaring display of both police corruption and political corruption. If Sheriff Clemons is truly concerned with maintaining the public’s trust, he may need to revisit his decision to keep such an officer on the force.
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In the case of Jackson, Kentucky, while Crigger will receive a $26,000 settlement, the burden to pay the bill is on the taxpayers—not McIntosh, who still remains in his capacity as a sheriff’s deputy.
Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, have just released "modest" revisions to the "draft" healthcare bill that was dropped last week. The only substantive change appears to be the addition of a "waiting period" on those who allowed their coverage to lapse for a period of 63 days or more during the prior coverage year.
"Starting in 2019, individuals who had a break in continuous insurance coverage for 63 days or more in the prior year will be subject to a six month waiting period before coverage begins. Consumers will not have to pay premiums during the six month period."
Here is a summary of the changes:
Here are the changes in the revised version of the Senate GOP health care bill, just released: pic.twitter.com/hJ0sAQLHkI
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) June 26, 2017
Of course, the real question now becomes whether or not Republican leaders in the Senate will stick to their guns and force a vote this week. While Senator Cornyn seems adamant that a vote this week ahead of the July 4th recess is an absolute necessity, perhaps he would be well served to take a look back at how well the rushed process worked out in the House back in March (see: In Stinging Defeat, House Republicans Abandon Obamacare Repeal Effort).
I am closing the door. We need to do it this week before double digit premium increases are announced for next year. https://t.co/Cxi3qAslg3
— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) June 26, 2017
The full text of the bill can be reviewed here:
PARIS, Ky. – Homeschooling families in one Kentucky school district were surprised to discover recently that school officials were conducting unannounced visits to homes – and if no one was there, leaving door hangers.
The February visits within the Paris Independent School District apparently violate a state-wide agreement, which is designed to protect a family’s constitutional right to privacy, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which reported on the incident.
“I got the impression that district staff could become more difficult if I didn’t cooperate in answering their questions or bring out my child to meet them,” one parent, Jenny Griffith, reported. “I tried to handle the situation as civilly as possible, without adding any threat to them.”
Griffith said the two officials who visited her home said the district has plans to visit every homeschool family three times a year.
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“As part of their plan to help families, the school officials asked about attendance records and curriculum,” HSLDA attorney T.J. Schmidt wrote at the organization’s website. “Before leaving, one official asked Jenny about meeting her child.”
Families who were not at home got a doorhanger, reading, “Home school check. Please give us a call.” It was signed by the principal.
But the visits go against Kentucky state law, Schmidt said.
“Under Kentucky law, a homeschool program operates as a private school,” he wrote. “While private schools are required to keep attendance and scholarship records (i.e. report cards) in the same manner as the local public school, homeschooling parents do not need to open their homes and present these documents simply because a school official comes knocking.”
An agreement was reached more than 20 years ago between the homeschool organizations and the state that “unless school officials receive some report or have some evidence that the parents are not educating their children, no further inquiry should be made,’ Schmidt added.
HSLDA has contacted the school district about the law.
What is your reaction? Do you believe school districts should do “checkups” on homeschoolers? Share your thoughts in the section below:
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The Senate has voted to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as attorney general in a 52-47 vote that went along party lines, following days of rigorous discussion and capping a vicious debate that left Democrats and Republicans seething, and Elizabeth Warren barred from speaking.
Sen. Joe Manchin was the only Democrat to break party rank and vote to back Sessions. Independent Senators Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont voted alongside 45 Democrats in opposition to the nominee.
The fight over Sessions" nomination infamously escalated last night, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren read a letter that Coretta Scott King had written in 1986 that accused Sessions, a U.S. attorney at the time, of using the power of his office to prevent blacks from voting. As we reported last night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell objected to Warren’s speech, saying she had impugned another member of the Senate. Then, in a 49-43 vote, the Senate agreed, blocking Warren from speaking on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
Angry Democrats accused McConnell of silencing a woman on the floor, and Warren went on a media blitz against the Republican senators and Sessions. The tensions were on full display during the debate over Sessions’s nomination. “We all know our colleague from Alabama. He’s honest," McConnell said. “He’s fair. He’s been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle.”
Democrats defended their criticism of Sessions’s record on issues of race and civil rights. “When we make a big issue of the position of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions on the Voting Rights Act, it"s with good cause. It is historically an issue which has haunted the United States since the Civil War,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) — the No. 2 Senate Democrat — said ahead of the vote.
“Senator Sessions is not a man apart from this agenda. He is not independent of [Trump"s] agenda,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Republicans meanwhile decried the Democratic tactics, arguing they were going to new lows to smear Sessions. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — a long-serving Senate traditionalist — said Democrats are treating Sessions like a “terrible person,” urging his colleagues on Tuesday night to think of Sessions’s wife.
As The Hill points out, the fiery words in the last days of the debate over Sessions were somewhat surprising.
While the issue of race had always hung over the debate, Sessions is well-liked personally by many senators. That made the stinging words all the more noteworthy — and raises questions about the ability of lawmakers to work together going forward.
Sessions will now take over the Justice Department’s defense of Trump’s controversial order barring people from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States. A former aide to Sessions was instrumental in the order’s writing, and Democrats argued the Alabama senator would not be a firm defender of an independent Justice Department.
