Judge Rules Kansas City’s Attempt to ‘Defund the Police’ Is Illegal

An attempt by Kansas City’s political leadership to strip its police department of millions of dollars in funding has been quashed by a judge who said the attempt to hobble the police broke the law.

Jackson County Judge Patrick Campbell said that under the law, the city cannot alter police funding without approval from the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, according to WDAF-TV.

The lawsuit came about after Mayor Quinton Lucas pushed to cut $42.2 million from the police budget, and the City Council agreed. The mayor’s plan meant that about 18 percent of the department’s budget would then be reallocated to a Community Services and Prevention Fund, according to the Kansas City Star.

During the hearing, Kristine Reiter, budget manager for the police said the cuts would have meant the department ran out of money by December unless changes were made.

She said the department would need to lay off 1,000 officers and staff members to stay within budgetary limits. Lucas disagreed with that contention.

Campbell said his ruling is not a determination on the wisdom of defunding police.

“This judgment does not resolve whether citizens of Kansas City should exert direct political control over their law enforcement agency,” he wrote.

“It is not a referendum on the Chief of Police, the Mayor, or any other appointed or elected official. These are subjects of vigorous social debate and should be finally resolved by a healthy democracy. However, they are not legal issues pending before this Court,” he wrote.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who had sided with the police against the city, released a statement, according to KMBC-TV.

“Today, a Jackson County Judge sided with the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and the Attorney General’s Office and struck down Kansas City’s illegal attempt to defund the police. This is a huge win for the people of Kansas City and law enforcement officers who work every single day to keep their communities safe. I will always stand up for Missouri’s law enforcement and fight back against craven attempts to defund the police,” he said.

Lucas indicated that he and the council will not let the matter drop.

“I imagine the Council will set the expectation that any dollar received by the Department over statutory requirements must be negotiated and focused squarely on preventing violent crime in our community. Discussions about next year’s budget have already started,” he said.

“The City will weigh all options going forward, including appeal,” he continued.

Brad Lemon, president of the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police, said the decision was a victory, but it “does little to repair the damage the City’s misguided decision has had on KCPD and our members’ morale,” according to WDAF-TV.

“KCPD has seen a record number of resignations and retirements in This year more than 100 officers have resigned or retired and 35 more will leave this year, numbers that represent nearly double the total number of resignations and retirements than any other year in KCPD history,” he said.

He said the city should not keep pushing to cut police funding.

“It is the FOP’s sincere hope the City and the BOPC can put this unfortunate situation behind them and focus their efforts, instead, on finding ways to recruit and retain officers. If we revisit this terrible situation again next year, the Department will not be able to withstand its effects and the results will be catastrophic for public safety in Kansas City,” he concluded.

https://flagandcross.com/judge-rules-kansas-citys-attempt-to-defund-the-police-is-illegal/

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No Jen Psaki, Trump NEVER Told People To Inject Bleach

Team Biden always finds a way to distract the news away from their screw-ups with lies. Making things easy, they like to find ways to reuse lies about former president Trump that the MSM promoted when Trump was in office. Biden’s team reuses MSM lies even though they were already proven false. A popular one during the campaign was the disproven Charlottesville lie. That lie claimed the former President said the neo-Nazis were “fine people.” Most recently, team Biden switched to a new piece of media propaganda. The lie that President Trump told people to fight COVID by injecting bleach.

In August, Peter Doocy asked if Biden’s criticism of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed created some of the vaccine residency we are facing today:

As public approval of Joe Biden’s handling of the pandemic continues to sink, October 1st saw Jen Psaki repeat the lie again, claiming the current Biden fight against COVID would be further along if Trump hadn’t told people to inject bleach. “Title 42 is a public health requirement because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, which by the way, we would’ve made progress on had the former President addressed the pandemic and not suggest people inject bleach.”

The truth is that Trump did not say we should inject ourselves with bleach or a disinfectant. He said the opposite. But the MSM lied about what was said, and Lyin Biden’s team is using it as a weapon today.

During an April 2020 CoronaVirus Task Force press conference, Bill Bryan, who leads the DHS Science and Technology Group, revealed the findings of a scientific study they conducted. The study indicating that the virus is killed by solar light and disinfectants. The President asked if there were ways for that information to help humans, and many in the media went crazy, saying Trump suggested we inject ourselves with disinfectant. Actually, the President did not say we should inject ourselves with disinfectant. Per the transcript, after Bryan made his presentation Trump said:

TRUMP: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.

BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could.

TRUMP: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me.

Notice he didn’t say we should start injecting ourselves with disinfectant. He asked Bryan to check, “is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning.” But later on, he says it even more clearly. When Trump was done, Jonathan Karl asked if there was any scenario where cleaners could be injected. After Mr. Bryan answered, President Trump, added that it wouldn’t be via injection but by cleaning an area.

KARL: Can I ask about — the President mentioned the idea of cleaners, like bleach and isopropyl alcohol you mentioned. There’s no scenario that could be injected into a person, is there? I mean —

BRYAN: No, I’m here to talk about the findings that we had in the study. We won’t do that within that lab and our lab. So —

TRUMP: It wouldn’t be through injection. We’re talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work. But it certainly has a big effect if it’s on a stationary object.

But the media didn’t care about the truth in April 2020, nor do they fact-check Jen Psaki when she lies today. This is just another way the media displays its bias for leftist Joe Biden and that former president Trump is living rent-free in their heads.

After a week where three different generals told us that Biden lied to America about Afghanistan, team Joe is unearthing old lies to distract Americans from his failing administration.

https://flagandcross.com/no-jen-psaki-trump-never-told-people-to-inject-bleach/

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PIERS MORGAN: President Biden's attempt to criminalize complaining parents is a shameful attempt to silence dissent that's more worthy of North Korea than the supposed land of the free

'Children are the world's most valuable resource,' said President John F. Kennedy, 'and its best hope for the future.'

He was absolutely right. A society is only as good as the children it nurtures, educates and prepares for adulthood. A society is also only as good as the protection it affords children.

And the most important people at the heart of all this childcare are parents.

I've got no time for mothers and fathers who don't care about their kids. For me, they're the lowest of the low. If you don't want to care for your children, then don't have them.

But conversely, I have all the time in the world for parents who DO care about their kids – passionately, ferociously, unconditionally.

Above all, I will defend to the last drop of my blood the right of any parent to want to protect their child. In the end, isn't that the overriding job of a parent – to keep their children from harm's way until they'd old enough to look after themselves?

That doesn't mean I will always agree with what a parent wants for their child. In fact, many times I may vehemently disagree.

But I will always support their right to have an opinion on what is best for their child because nobody knows their own child better than a caring parent.

And the First Amendment of the US Constitution permits parents to express those opinions as vigorously as they want.

Yet in a stunning, and very sinister move, President Biden has apparently decided that they don't.

The Department of Justice has issued a directive that the FBI will now investigate parents after a 'disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence' against school staff and administrators.

This comes in response to a letter to President Biden last week from the National Association of School Boards (NASB) asserting that 'America's public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat' due to 'attacks...for approving policies for masks'. The letter likened parents' objections to 'a form of domestic terrorism' and fuelled instant outrage.

Asra Nomani, a mom and the vice president of investigations and strategy at Parents Defending Education (PDE), tweeted: 'This is what a domestic terrorist looks like? You are criminalizing parenting, and you owe the people of America a swift apology.'

It was a view shared by many.

Now, let me be clear: I would never defend any violence or threat of violence against a teacher or school administrator, and there have undeniably been some ugly scenes at schools in recent weeks between angry parents and school boards over issues like covid masks, the teaching of critical race theory, and issues relating to transgenderism like access to bathrooms.

But there is a massive difference between violence and a parent expressing robust, even furious concern about a school policy.

And there are many US public school policies right now which demand parental attention and concern. Let's take covid.

My nine-year-old daughter caught the virus a few weeks ago and had what she described as a 'bad cold' for two days before bouncing back to normal. That, thankfully, appears to be the experience that most young kids have with covid and the death toll for children is incredibly low.

Does that justify masking them all day in their classrooms with all the possible side effects that might have on their physical and mental health?

I think the jury is very definitely out on that, and it's certainly something that all parents should be allowed to debate and have a view about, not least because so much is still unknown about covid, and even the country's top infectious disease scientist Dr Anthony Fauci has gone from saying masks are ineffective against covid to insisting they're very effective.

I am more forgiving of Fauci's change of mind than others, believing that new viruses can catch even the most brilliant medical minds by surprise. But given Fauci's U-turn on masks, why shouldn't parents of young children be concerned about whether their kids should now use them?

Similarly, when the DoJ insists there is no critical race theory being taught at US schools, that is palpable nonsense.

Back in June, an English teacher named Dana Sangel-Plowe resigned from a top New Jersey prep school because she said CRT was being used to create a 'hostile culture of conformity and fear' and was causing white and male students to believe they are 'oppressors.' Similar stories have been reported all over the country.

Just as there has been widespread incidence of transgender policies being forced on parents without proper debate.

Will it now be deemed domestic terrorism to express concern that trans women athletes should not be allowed to compete against women born to female biological bodies? Even when that is quite demonstrably a grotesque infringement of women's rights to equality?

Of course, there are limits to how far protest should go, and violence is never acceptable. But there are numerous current laws available to the police if they wish to deal with any actual incidents of violence or threats of violence against school staff.

And there seems to have been a very different approach to the civil unrest we saw last summer in the wake of George Floyd's horrific killing, which led to appalling arson, looting and destruction of property.

I don't remember the DoJ issuing directives then that such behaviour was 'domestic terrorism.'

So, Attorney-General Merrick Garland's announcement strikes me as massive overreach by a Biden administration determined to stamp down on dissent.

As Ian Prior, former Principal Deputy Director of Public Affairs at DOJ, told DailyMail.com: 'While legitimate threats of violence are of course unacceptable and should be handled by local law enforcement, the Department of Justice has engaged in a frightening escalation with this shot across the bow of passionate moms and dads in a blatant effort to chill their freedom of speech.'

There are many countries whose governments shut down such dissent. I'm thinking of brutal totalitarian regimes like China and North Korea.

But America is supposed to the land of the free, the very epicentre of free speech protected by a First Amendment that is the envy of the world.

This decision to weaponize parental concern is thus both deeply un-American and deeply worrying.

It's also deeply hypocritical. Where was the DoJ when a bunch of far-left woke activists followed female Democrat Senator Krysten Sinema into a bathroom at Arizona State University where she teaches and howled at her even while she was inside a private stall?

Senator Sinema was illegally filmed by people who had illegally broken onto campus, and she was clearly illegally harassed, yet the perpetrators haven't been described as domestic terrorists, nor has any edict been issued to target others who may consider doing the same.

The double standard is absurd.

If you pay taxes in America, you are paying for your child's education, and you're fully entitled to have your say in how your child is educated.

If parents are no longer allowed a say in how their children are educated, and indeed are to be categorised as domestic terrorists for doing so, then why should they continue paying taxes to pay for that education?

President Biden has declared war on America's parents and their right to free speech, and it's a shameful abuse of his power.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10065159/PIERS-MORGAN-Bidens-attempt-criminalize-parents-shameful-attempt-silence-dissent.html

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To Comply, or Not to Comply with mandate: Virginia State Employee Chooses Termination Over Obedience

For Nancy Orr, the decision to make her own medical decisions came with a high price.

Getting fired in September from her executive assistant position at Richmond’s Library of Virginia wasn’t exactly a surprise, however, because, as she told The Epoch Times, she saw it coming.

“Like many people at the beginning of this, I wore a mask, and tried to honor what they were recommending,” Orr said.

In December 2020, she had contracted the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

Her physician, Leland Stillman, who has now moved his practice (Leland Stillman, MD) from Virginia to Orlando, Florida, had prescribed her ivermectin, which she said reduced her symptoms within hours.

Stillman told The Epoch Times that Orr was one of many patients he had prescribed ivermectin beginning last year, “with great results.”

“I still prescribe it to patients because I don’t see any downsides, and there are tremendous upsides,” Stillman said. “What kind of doctor doesn’t prescribe a therapy that he knows is effective, with documented efficacy in the literature, and is safer than Tylenol?”

Orr said she now has lab-verified immunity.

“But that’s not recognized under this executive order,” Orr said.

In August, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam enacted an executive order that requires state employees to show proof of vaccination or be tested weekly.

Orr said she stopped wearing the mask months prior because she said, in addition to having natural immunity, wearing the mask causes her respiratory distress, raising her heart rate, which leads to high blood pressure.

To Comply, Or Not To Comply

After having COVID-19, she considered the testing, mask, and vaccine unnecessary for her, but as government guidelines turned into mandates, the ominous choice loomed: to comply, or not to comply.

“I could not in good conscience participate in the process because I see it explicitly as a vaccine passport,” Orr said. “They don’t have the right to that information. They don’t have the right to segregate people based on their medical status, and it’s not based on anything scientific because we now know that the fully vaccinated can be infected and transmit the virus.”

Privileging people based on their medical status is discriminatory, Orr added.

“It’s immoral, unethical, illegal, and unconstitutional,” Orr said.

She considered the religious and medical exemption that was available due to her COVID-19-recovered status, but decided against it.

“I just realized that if I chose a medical exemption, I would be validating or even declaring participation by declaring my vaccine status, and it’s simply none of their damn business,” Orr said. “It’s private medical information, and just because someone issues an executive order, that doesn’t make it legal, and it certainly doesn’t make it moral or ethical.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/to-comply-or-not-to-comply-virginia-state-employee-chooses-termination-over-obedience_4028360.html

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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)

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