Search Results: What should I say

https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-tells-police-that-common-protest-activities-are-violent-tactics/

The DHS bulletins warn that officers could face assaults with fireworks and improvised weapons: paint-filled fire extinguishers, smoke grenades, and projectiles like bottles and rocks (obviously all non-lethal & similar to flash bangs, riot control gas/smoke & "soft" projectiles) - aka both sides have similar weapons.

At the same time, the guidance urges officers to consider a range of nonviolent behavior and common protest gear—like masks, flashlights, and cameras—as potential precursors to violence, telling officers to prepare “from the point of view of an adversary.”

Protesters on bicycles, skateboards, or even “on foot” are framed as potential “scouts” conducting reconnaissance or searching for “items to be used as weapons.” Livestreaming is listed alongside “doxxing” as a “tactic” for “threatening” police. Online posters are cast as ideological recruiters—or as participants in “surveillance sharing".

Exercising those rights shouldn't be justification for adverse action or suspicion by the government,” Eidelman says. Labeling something as harmless as skateboarding at a protest as a violent threat is “disturbing and dangerous,” she adds, and could “easily lead to excessive force against people who are simply exercising their First & Fifth Amendment rights.”

“The DHS report repeatedly conflates basic protest, organizing, and journalism with terroristic violence, thereby justifying ever more authoritarian measures by law enforcement,” says Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People. “It should be sobering, if unsurprising, that the Trump regime’s response to mass criticism of its police state tactics is to escalate those tactic.

FILMING PUBLIC SERVANTS IN THE COURSE OF THEIR DUTIES IS IRONCLAD FREEDOM OF THE PRESS (1st)

WEARING MASKS IS AN IRONCLAD RIGHT AGAINST SELF INCRIMINATION & PRIVACY (5th/State law)

THIS SHOULD TERRIFY ALL USA AMERICANS!!

Gift article - no paywall

https://wapo.st/460F7O0

IRS says churches should be allowed to make political endorsements

The IRS said in a new court filing that clergy and houses of worship should be allowed to make political endorsements, a potential move away from a 71-year-old tax policy that curtailed the fusing of religion and politics.

Banning tax-exempt nonprofits — including congregations — from participating in political campaigns violates the First Amendment’s protection of the right to the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech, IRS Commissioner Billy Long said in a court filing Monday in a Texas federal court case.

Nonprofits should be allowed to make political endorsements and not lose their tax exemptions, the IRS said in the court filing. Religious congregations, the filing said, are like families, and their internal communications should not be deemed “participation” in a campaign.

“When a house of worship in good faith speaks to its congregation, through its customary channels of communication on matters of faith in connection with religious services, concerning electoral politics viewed through the lens of religious faith, it neither ‘participate[s]’ nor ‘intervene[s]’ in a ‘political campaign,’” according to the filing.

“First Amendment rights don’t end when a pastor, church member or even a political candidate steps on the platform of a church,”.

Others said changing the policy would further pollute U. S. politics.

“Permitting synagogues and other houses of worship to endorse or oppose candidates undercuts the integrity and unity of these religious institutions, turning them into an extension of political candidates or parties,”

“This decision fails to recognize the realities of modern spiritual life and could expose clergy, including rabbis and cantors, to unjust scrutiny as they fulfill their sacred duty to teach, guide, and inspire,” the statement said.