Amazon Just Locked A Man Out Of His 'Smart' Home Because they Thought He Made a Racist Remark

When the power of big corporations becomes so great that they can control your very own home, it’s a chilling reminder of the dangers of unchecked authority.

Such is the case with a recent incident involving Amazon and a homeowner who found himself locked out of his smart house, as if he were living in the days of the Soviet Union or under the rule of a dictator.

According to reports, an Amazon delivery driver mistakenly believed he heard a racist remark coming from the homeowner’s doorbell while the owner was away.

The driver promptly reported the alleged incident to Amazon, which wasted no time in locking down the homeowner’s account, effectively denying him access to his own residence.

This Kafkaesque situation is both alarming and indicative of a society where individual liberties can be swiftly curtailed based on the whims of an overreaching corporation.

In his account of the ordeal published on Medium, the homeowner expressed his bewilderment and frustration: “When I connected with the executive, they asked if I knew why my account had been locked. When I answered I was unsure, their tone turned somewhat accusatory. I was told that the driver who had delivered my package reported receiving racist remarks from my ‘Ring doorbell.'”

However, upon reviewing the surveillance footage from his property, the homeowner discovered that his innocence was undeniable.

The cameras captured no such racist remarks, but rather an automated response from his doorbell innocently asking, “Excuse me, can I help you?” It appears that the delivery driver, wearing headphones and walking away at the time, misinterpreted the message.

Nevertheless, Amazon had already taken swift action, leaving the homeowner locked out of his own home from May 25 to May 31, 2023.

The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated.

In an era where we pride ourselves on technological advancements and personal freedoms, it is disconcerting to realize that a corporate giant like Amazon possesses the ability to wield such power over an individual’s life.

The homeowner’s account was eventually restored, but the lack of a follow-up email from Amazon, informing him of the resolution, leaves a bitter taste of indifference.

We find ourselves in 2023, where mammoth corporations like Amazon and Google hold an alarming level of control.

The ability to lock someone out of their own home and disrupt their entire life based on unverified accusations raises fundamental questions about the balance of power and the preservation of individual liberties.

Are we unwittingly living in a disguised dictatorship, where faceless entities govern our lives and determine our fates?

As we reflect on this disquieting incident, it is crucial to ponder the implications it carries for our society.

We must ask ourselves whether we are comfortable relinquishing our autonomy to corporations, allowing them to dictate the boundaries of our lives based on subjective judgments.

Our collective future hinges on our willingness to safeguard the principles of limited government, free markets, and individual freedoms that have long defined conservative values.

The time for vigilance and thoughtful consideration is now, as we navigate this brave new world where even our homes are subject to the capricious whims of corporate behemoths.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/amazon-just-locked-man-smart-home-thought-made-racist-remark

***************************************************

Marijuana really is is dangerous for your health

Big Pharma may appear to be the zenith of craven greed and duplicity with their billions made off vaccines they knew were not up to standard, but they are conspicuously matched by their same financial backers who are pushing another product just as hazardous and ineffective.

Massive US-wide and European population studies were published in 2021 and 2022 which demonstrated what research had portended decades before – that cannabis used medicinally or recreationally is causal for cancers and birth defects.

The studies used new computer geo-spatial-temporal software with a methodology described in one of the world’s top scientific journals – Nature Scientific Reports. They found it causal in 33 cancer types, more than double the 14 of tobacco, and causal in 89 of 95 birth defect types tracked by the European Medicines Agency. These birth defects include non-deadly as well as potentially fatal birth defects such as cleft-lip palate and hole in the heart. In a pre-2020 universe, these findings would have led to medicinal cannabis products being immediately withdrawn from the market, but in an environment of cashed-up institutional investors, captured regulators, and media organisations that parrot their talking points and guard their priorities, there is a deafening silence where previously they would have fallen over themselves to sound the alarm.

From in vitro and animal studies, cannabis has been known for decades to severely damage human chromosomes (genotoxic), cause mutations (mutagenic), and cause birth defects (teratogenic), the effects all of which have now been verified in spades at the population level. Yet any cursory glance at medicinal cannabis advertising paints the picture of the substance as God’s herbal gift to mankind, with miracle cures promised for virtually any malady, making it the 21st century snake oil. Front and centre is the non-psychoactive and ostensibly benign Cannabidiol or CBD which the population studies have demonstrated to be more causal for cancer than any of the other cannabinoids, being causal in 12 cancer types. It is not exempt from birth defects where it is fortunately less implicated than some of the other cannabinoids.

This newly confirmed destruction only adds to the doubled chance of psychosis and schizophrenia, the substantially elevated rates of suicide, violence – including domestic violence – and even homicide, which Alex Berenson’s Tell Your Children documents so well. Add to that the cognitive disorders and a motivational syndrome afflicting our young people and there is no redeeming reason to defend cannabis.

62 per cent of Australians have it prescribed for chronic pain yet a sweeping review of 104 journal studies comprising almost 10,000 medical cannabis patients found that it only competently alleviates pain at the 30 per cent level, making it only useful as an adjunct to other forms of pain relief such as opiates with no adequate effect on its own. Those activists pressing politicians to allow drivers to legally drive 6 hours after using medical cannabis don’t wish to concede that cannabis used with opiates works synergistically, multiplying the levels of cannabis intoxication and thus multiplying the dangers to other drivers and pedestrians.

Our media appears to not want the facts to get in the way of a nice little earner. Since a Taskforce of Australian drug prevention organisations disseminated a media release on the newly verified linkages between cannabis and cancer, a media release that fortunately got airplay in over 100 media outlets, the legacy media there has gone dark on any emerging science since that time. Nothing is found in the media about cannabis being causal in 70 per cent of pediatric cancer types, nor that it prematurely ages a 30-year-old user by 30 per cent. Most alarming of all is that the media won’t mention that the mutations deriving from the mechanism of chromothripsis which causes those cancers and birth defects are genetically or epigenetically passed down to a cannabis user’s children and grandchildren. Cannabis, whether used medicinally or recreationally, does not discriminate.

In 2020 the Australian TGA advertised a willingness to downgrade CBD from prescription-only to ready availability on supermarket shelves. In May of that year, the preventionist organisation Drug Free Australia submitted an 87-page document spelling out the decades-long research on cannabis and its genotoxic, mutagenic, and teratogenic nature. The submission described the chromothripsis mechanism, asserting that CBD was not exempt from the deleterious effects of cannabis use. Written communication was also forwarded from the Australian researchers responsible for the then soon-to-be-published population studies indicating that CBD was more causally implicated than THC in autism and another birth defect gastroschisis. All indicated that CBD was not at all benign. It is my belief that before 2020, a once cautious TGA would have urged more study.

Most Australians wrongly believe that medicinal cannabis is somehow different to recreational cannabis. But every damaging cannabinoid in recreational cannabis is present in medical cannabis preparations, often in an even more concentrated form. The upshot is that this substance will wreak health havoc amongst an unwitting population, as well as coming generations. All the result of unbridled greed and the immorality of powerful financial forces.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/21st-century-snake-oil

***************************************************

Once Again, Never Talk to the Cops

The disgraceful frame job against Donald Trump teaches us many lessons – including that the country we used to live in is, if not dead, in a coma – but perhaps the lesson of most practical use to all of us in the crosshairs of political persecution (and even routine prosecution) is that you never talk to the cops.

Never.

Not to help out.

Not to clear up the big misunderstanding you’ve gotten involved in.

Not because you are a good citizen.

Never.

Shut-up, assert your right to remain silent, and demand your attorney.

Repeat after me: “I invoke my rights. Stop talking to me. I want my lawyer.”

Every. Single. Time.

This applies equally if you are guilty or innocent – in fact, more so if you are innocent because nothing has done more to jam up innocent people than those naïve, innocent people trying to explain their innocence. The cops are all Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, except less butch – believe them when they say “I don’t care.”

They don’t care. So shut the hell up.

Now this common sense rule goes for every lawman, lawwoman, or in the case of the pride flag-waving modern FBI, lawnon-binary. But let’s focus on the FBI because this aspiring Stasi is not the sparkly collection of model-attractive and diverse (Look, there’s one of the team in a wheelchair! Hey, that one is a Maori and there’s another wearing a burnoose!) special agents fighting for justice that mindless network TV viewers see on “FBI: Woke Squad.” It’s a cheesy collection of gender studies majors and striving bureaucrats selected for the job because they can be relied upon to hate people like you – Christian, patriotic, not Democrat. Even other cops detest the FBI for its shady antics and unearned self-regard.

The idea that law enforcement is against us normal people is hard to swallow, but swallow it anyway. That’s how it is now. We are honest people. We want to help. We want to believe that law enforcement are the good guys. Once upon a time, they were. But wake up – that time has passed. These are not fighters for freedom but grubby Democrat catspaws. Many of them are essentially DMV clerks with badges and guns who will not hesitate to ruin your life. Look at the FBI’s track record of late. When they are not kneeling in solidarity with BLM, they are launching SWAT raids against people for kneeling in prayer at abortion clinics. They chose a side, and it is not ours. They are not your friends and they will do can do anything to hurt you. No, it was not always this way, but it is now.

So don’t help them. Remember, like all government bureaucrats, these are mostly lazy and unaccomplished people with delusions of competence. The quintessential modern FBI agent is not TV’s Inspector Erskine; it’s Robert Hansen who sold out his country because he did not feel he was getting his props. But they have an endless budget and they do not care if they wreck your life. In fact, they enjoy it.

So, repeat after me: “I invoke my rights. Stop talking to me. I want my lawyer.”

Film it if you can. One of their little tricks is not recording interviews – any interaction with them is an interview – and this frees them to transcribe whatever they want later. Am I saying the FBI will lie? I don’t have to. From the Boston scandal where they framed four guys for murder to the FISA warrant perjury, the FBI has demonstrated its commitment of honesty. And it’s on par with Bill Clinton’s commitment to his marriage.

What’s the big deal anyway? First, anything you say truly can and will be used against you. As a trial lawyer, I understand that your explanation of what happened will almost always change slightly every time you tell it. That’s not necessarily intentional or deceptive – it’s perfectly normal – but it sure as hell will be portrayed as deceptive by the fuzz. This is a reason they ask you the same thing multiple times, to get you to seemingly change or contradict your story. It doesn’t matter that maybe you remembered something new that you inadvertently left out before, or corrected something you were unclear about before – they will use it to argue that you are lying.

Second, there is a specific statute, 18 United States Code § 1001, that provides (in pertinent part) as follows:

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation…

So, what’s that mean? Well, basically that that they can charge you with a crime if they say you lied to them or even “concealed” the truth. And they charge it every chance they get. Both Donald Trump and his aide got hit with it; almost everyone dumb enough to talk to them gets hit with it. Note that it applies even if the victim did not commit the underlying crime. It’s a process charge. The penalty is five years, so it’s a great bludgeon to force guilty pleas on otherwise innocent folks.

Again, this is not to protect liars. This is to protect innocent citizens from being falsely accused of being liars. How do you avoid getting framed for making a false statement? Don’t make any statements.

Trump’s aide did. General Flynn did. The FBI guys came by, all informal, just chatting, and the victims tried to help. They helped themselves to a criminal charge.

Never help.

The Founders put a right to remain silent in the Constitution for a reason. And while the ruling caste the FBI serves is trying to tear down the Constitution, the right against self-incrimination remains (for now). Use it.

So, repeat after me: “I invoke my rights. Stop talking to me. I want my lawyer.”

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2023/06/14/once-again-never-talk-to-the-cops-n2624411

****************************************************

White former Starbucks regional manager awarded $25M after jury determines she was fired because of her race

A white woman who formerly worked as a regional manager for Starbucks has won a civil rights lawsuit in which she claimed that she was fired because of her race.

On Monday, a federal jury awarded Shannon Phillips a whopping $25 million in punitive damages and an additional $600,000 in compensatory damages after members unanimously agreed that Starbucks had fired her on racial grounds. "I was terminated because I am white," Phillips said in court documents filed in 2019. "If I was black, I would not have been terminated. I was terminated because I complained of and objected to race discrimination."

The circumstances surrounding Phillips' termination began five years ago, when two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were infamously arrested at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia after employees told them they could not use the store restrooms unless they first made a purchase. The men refused to leave or purchase anything, insisting that they were still waiting on a third party. Because of their intransigence that day, an employee eventually called the cops, and the two were arrested, though they were never charged with any crime.

Starbucks executives appeared to panic in the immediate fallout over the men's arrest, which made national news. Kevin Johnson, who was CEO at the time, rushed to Philadelphia to apologize to the men. He also ordered 8,000 Starbucks stores to close for an afternoon so that nearly 175,000 company employees could undergo racial sensitivity training.

Phillips, who worked for Starbucks for 13 years, was not the manager on duty when the arrest took place, nor was she involved in the decision to call police on Nelson and Robinson. In fact, she was a regional director responsible for overseeing 100 stores spanning parts of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and had little input in the day-to-day operations of those establishments.

Yet she alleged in the lawsuit that she and other white employees became scapegoats, suspended or let go from their jobs "to convince the community that [Starbucks] had properly responded to the incident." Soon after it happened, Phillips claimed she was ordered to place a white manager, who had been with the company for 15 years, on administrative leave for supposed racial discrimination, even though Phillips did not believe the man had done anything wrong.

Senior officials had received a complaint that non-white employees working at the man's store were paid less than white employees, but Phillips countered that, even if the accusation were true, the manager could not be held responsible since local managers have no say in employee compensation, per company policy. After Phillips refused to suspend the man, she was fired with the explanation that "the situation is not recoverable," the complaint said.

Phillips also noted in court documents that the district manager of the store where the arrests occurred is black but that he had not been reprimanded or otherwise penalized for his connection with the incident.

After she was fired, Phillips said she was replaced with "substantially less qualified employees who had not complained of race discrimination." Starbucks denied the accusations at the time and claimed that Phillips had been terminated for demonstrating poor leadership during the incident, which the company characterized as a "crisis."

After the jury rendered its verdict on Monday, Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson expressed disappointment and told CNN that the company would soon be evaluating its next steps.

By contrast, Phillips is celebrating the decision, claiming she is "very pleased" with the outcome. However, she also indicated that she is still going to seek back pay from Starbucks. According to the Daily Mail, Phillips may have earned up to $200,000 a year during her time with the company.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/white-former-starbucks-regional-manager-awarded-25m-after-jury-determines-she-was-fired-because-of-her-race

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

*****************************************