Father of 8 Sentenced to Jail for Distributing Jury Nullification Pamphlets

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A former pastor from Michigan discovered the hard way that informing people of their rights under the law as jurors doesn’t sit well with the U.S. government when a judge sentenced him Friday to eight weekends in jail, six months of probation, and fines — all for passing out pamphlets discussing jury nullification.

Keith Wood contends passing out the information is well within his constitutional rights to inform potential and selected jurors that, enshrined in the Bill of Rights lies the potent ability to find a defendant not guilty if the law in question is unjust, flawed, or otherwise untenable — even if the accused indeed technically violated.

Jury nullification thus arguably acts as citizens’ access to checks and balances: When legislators craft worthless, harmful, inequitable, or just plain ‘bad’ laws, jurors can, in essence, refuse to enforce any punitive measures — refusing to find a person guilty of breaking a law that never should have been inked into the books.

This tool shines most prominently when used consistently to thwart oppressive policy. Illustrative of this principle is continued federal prohibition of cannabis and transformed public sentiment, as anti-marijuana propaganda falls apart at its politicized roots for the incarceration nightmare it created — among many others. Jurors faced with a choice in guilt of sending a nonviolent drug offender to prison might instead find the concept of incarcerating this petty ‘criminal’ who had done no harm to another unethical and ill-conceived — and choose instead a finding of not guilty to compensate for the unjust law.

But most judges refuse to or have strict rules against informing jurors about the little-known nullification right; so, Wood’s education activism, handing out pamphlets from the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA), entitled “Your Jury Rights: True or False?” in front of the court in Big Rapids, led to a verdict of guilty for attempting to influence a jury in Mecosta County.

Initially, Wood had been charged with a felony — which was dropped last March — for obstructing justice, and a misdemeanor jury tampering, carrying potential sentences of five years and one year, respectively; but prosecutors ultimately sought a sentence of 45 consecutive days with fines.

District Judge Kimberly Booher concurred the father of eight, husband, and sole family breadwinner should serve time, but felt the requested sentence too harsh in light of the circumstances and for his lack of prior offenses, ruling instead he will spend eight consecutive weekends in jail and work 120 hours of community service — suspended — provided he completes six months of probation without issue.

But the judge wasted no time having Wood begin his sentence, stating, after delivering the verdict,

“He’s going straight to jail today.”

According to RT,

Prosecutors argued that Wood was trying to influence potential jurors before they heard a case against Andy Yoder, an Amish man who was accused of draining a wetland that was on his property.

Yoder took a plea deal that day and the case never went to trial. Wood said he did not know Yoder, and he only wanted to inform potential jurors that they had the right to vote their conscience over the law.

In June, a jury found Wood guilty of ‘attempting to influence a jury,’ which Michigan defines as “[willful] attempts to influence the decision of a juror in any case by argument or persuasion, other than as part of the proceedings in open court in the trial of the case” — despite his lack of knowledge or interest in specific cases ongoing at the time, as well as his presence on a public sidewalk abutting the courthouse in question.

“This is not a person who made a one-time mistake, he hasn’t demonstrated that he has kind of shown that he realizes now the significance of what he’s done, in fact the testimony shows the contrary,” prosecuting attorney, Nathan Hull, told WMXI, of Wood’s pamphleting outside the courthouse.

Wood’s attorneys contended the father had not discussed specific cases, and had merely been exercising First Amendment-protected free speech in distributing pamphlets to willing takers in a public area.

That prosecutors, judges, and now, a jury, found the distribution of educational material not only an (albeit murky) violation of the law, but worthy of locking a father of eight in a cage for any amount of time at all, vivifies the sharp shift toward authoritarian thinking over subjective analysis, morality, and ethics — and, perhaps, further emphasizes the reasoning behind Wood’s attempt to educate the public, in the first place.

“He exercised what he believes are his free speech rights, did it out on the sidewalk before this court, and that because of that, that deserves 45 days in jail, let alone one day in jail?” David Kallman, an attorney representing Wood, told a local FOX News affiliate. “I totally disagree with that.”

Indeed, while the rights, freedoms, and their protections traditionally afforded every American seemingly vanish by the hour, this case — a father sentenced to jail for even informing juries they have rights indelibly inked into the Constitution — proves we’re losing the battle with a control-freak State.

If educating our neighbors of their rights thus entails a possible stint in the slammer, it may behoove all of us to hit the books — as what happened to Keith Wood could prognosticate a coming tourniquet on the free flow of information. (For more from the author of “Father of 8 Sentenced to Jail for Distributing Jury Nullification Pamphlets” please click HERE)

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Largest Sex Trafficking Ring in Western US Busted — Children Openly Sold ‘in Plain Sight”

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A report of a missing teenager in Tulare County, California, in late 2016 culminated into the uncovering of one of the largest sex trafficking rings in the Western United States, according to an announcement by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Thursday. Thirteen young women and girls, including the missing teen, were freed from captivity as a result of the extensive investigation.

The missing teenager’s disappearance, and subsequent discovery in a West Hollywood apartment in January, led investigators in the LA Sheriff’s Department to discover an extensive human sex trafficking network that extended from Nevada to California. During the course of the investigation, detectives discovered that the ring used apartments as brothels in dozens of communities, including Burbank, West Hollywood, and Las Vegas.

“Years ago, a human trafficking case of this magnitude was not likely,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said in a news conference in downtown. “We knew the more we looked, the more we would find.”

According to a report by the Los Angeles Daily News:

The six-month investigation by the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, and the California Department of Justice, has led to two arrests so far. Quinton Brown, 30, of Highland, and Gerald Turner, 32, of Fresno, were arrested on suspicion of 54 charges relating to sex trafficking, pimping, pandering, grand theft and identity theft.

The complaint, filed Wednesday by the California Attorney General’s office, alleges that Brown lured victims from the Central Valley as far back as in October and trafficked them throughout the state. Investigators also said:

• The 13 victims include eight minors who were sold for commercial sex.

• A 2017 Maserati Ghibli, a 2017 Maserati Levante, and a 2016 Porsche Panamera, all confiscated by investigators, were used in the ring and obtained through fraudulent means.

• Eight people were victims of identity theft.

• 16 sites across California and in Nevada were used as brothels as part of the ring.

Mia McNeil, 32, who police believe rented the apartments/brothels remains at large, according to McDonnell. Additionally, law enforcement believes she also leased high-end luxury vehicles to transport the ring’s sex slaves without raising suspicion.

McDonnell said that detectives uncovered that Brown and Turner “would traffic the victims in plain sight,” using the Internet to advertise the women they were attempting to sell.

“They are as young as 15 years old, bought and sold for commercial sex,” according to McDonnell.

Surprisingly, most of the victims of sex trafficking are born and raised in the U.S. At the news conference, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said 72 percent of the victims found in California say they are American.

“Human trafficking, which includes sex and labor trafficking, is one of the fasting growing crimes in the world. Its reach is not limited to foreign countries,” Becerra said. “In California, human trafficking is reported here in our state more than in any other.”

Law enforcement said the investigation is ongoing, as they attempt to uncover and arrest the individuals who solicited the young women and teenage sex slaves.

“The predators online that are looking for an 11 year old … these people are not the traditional johns that most people think of,” McDonnell said. “These are predators. These are child molesters that are out there taking advantage of some of the most vulnerable in society.”

The Los Angeles Daily News reports that:

Since the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force was established in 2015, there have been 697 arrests, and of those, about 30 percent were male buyers. In addition, there have been 185 victims rescued, a majority of them youths who were sex trafficked.

Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said he has since met with one of the victims rescued, and she has received help and is back in school. But he implored parents to watch their children carefully, especially while they are on their mobile phones.

“To the parents, be vigilant,” Boudreaux said during the press conference. “Pay attention to what your children are doing online. Social networking is an environment for predators to prey on and exploit the innocence of our children.”

Of course, when even those tasked with protecting children — such as Raymond Liddy, 53, a California deputy attorney general — are arrested on charges of possessing child pornography; who is left to actually look out for the welfare and safety of the children?

In addition to being a California state prosecutor, Liddy is the son of a prominent Watergate figure—G. Gordon Liddy—who was an operative in President Richard Nixon‘s campaign attempt to burglarize the Democratic National Committee.

Raymond Liddy was arrested at his home and was charged in federal court with possessing images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, according to federal court documents obtained by Heavy. He was subsequently released from custody and placed on home detention with GPS monitoring after posting a $100,000 bond during his arraignment.

Even after taking down “one of the largest human trafficking rings on the West Coast,” there is a virtual certainty that this bust only barely scratches the surface. When high-level officials, tasked with prosecuting those that break the law, are accused of being the ones preying upon the innocent and weakest in society it makes one seriously question who is actually looking out for the victims.

Please share this story in an effort to raise awareness about the extreme scope of this constant and pervasive societal problem of the sexual trafficking of children! (For more from the author of “Largest Sex Trafficking Ring in Western US Busted — Children Openly Sold in ‘Plain Sight'” please click HERE)

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Disturbing Pelosi Tie to GOP Congressman Shooting

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When a Bernie Sanders-loving, leftist gunman shot Rep. Steve Scalise and three others during a GOP baseball practice June 14, the U.S. Capitol Police elite tactical team mistakenly headed to Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s house several miles away, according to an internal investigation by the department.

The scene of the shooting was at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia.

But the Capitol Police team instead headed for Pelosi’s waterfront home on 30th Street in Georgetown, which is 7.2 miles, or a 20-minute drive, north of the baseball stadium.

Now Capitol Police have opened an internal investigation to determine why the officers were directed to Pelosi’s house, reported Bloomberg, which cited “two people familiar with the matter” who requested anonymity “to speak about the sensitive incident.”

“The Alexandria incident continues to be an ongoing investigation. We do not comment on ongoing investigations,” Eva Malecki, a Capitol Police spokesperson, told Bloomberg Monday. (Read more from “Disturbing Pelosi Tie to GOP Congressman Shooting” HERE)

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CAIR Condemns Trump’s ‘Islamophobic’ New Chief of Staff Gen Kelly

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and its Hamas terrorist organization, has condemned President Trump’s selection of Gen. John Kelly as his chief of staff.

Kelly, who was sworn in Monday, is a decorated four-star general who served in various military roles protecting and forwarding American national interests over the past several decades. Gen. Kelly has lived a very apolitical life, dedicating his entire career (from 1970 to 2016) to the American military.

Before assuming his roles as chief of staff and DHS secretary, Kelly was the commander of U.S. Southern Command. He also led major roles in both the Persian Gulf War and the more recent Iraq War.

But CAIR, the fringe Islamist advocacy group, ignored Kelly’s bipartisan reputation, labeling the newly minted chief of staff an Islamophobe.

The New York chapter of CAIR declares itself a “leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding,” but rarely practices what it preaches. Several CAIR-NY officials have in the past expressed support for the Hamas terrorist organization or refused to condemn it when given the chance.

In 2012, former CAIR-NY board member Lamis Deek expressed her support for the Arab Spring revolts against the “imperialist” United States. Deek has also urged Muslims not to comply with federal counter-terrorism investigations, the Clarion Project reports.

Zead Ramadan, the current CAIR-NY board president, has appeared on Iranian state television, describing anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. as comparable to Nazi rhetoric against the Jews. In 2011, Ramadan was asked several times whether he would condemn Hamas, and the CAIR official refused to do so.

Additionally, Cyrus McGoldrick, the former civil rights director of CAIR-NY, time and time again expressed explicit support for Hamas. McGoldrick has also taken to Twitter, threatening “snitches” who comply with federal investigations.

In January, CAIR-NY sponsored an event with radical Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an extremist linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

On July 4, instead of joining the nation’s celebration of Independence Day, the CAIR-NY chapter organized an event outside Trump Tower purposed with rabble-rousing against the president’s immigration moratorium from terror-linked countries. (For more from the author of “CAIR Condemns Trump’s ‘Islamophobic’ New Chief of Staff Gen Kelly” please click HERE)

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Secret Islamic Networks in U.S. Doing the Unspeakable to Young Girls

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Female genital mutilation is a form of human trafficking that Maine legislators are currently choosing to allow in their state, say child advocates . . .

That lack of interest in a form of torture on young girls persisted even though the evidence is now breaking open, thanks to a federal investigation in Detroit launched by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

What Sessions’ staff is discovering is that it’s not just Minnesota and Michigan that are at risk. There’s a secret underground of at least eight states involved.

Maine has been identified as one of the eight “high risk” states, largely because of its large population of Somali refugees. More than 97 percent of women in Somalia have had their genitals mutilated by the time they reach adulthood. The numbers are similar in Egypt, Sudan and Indonesia.

Yore said FGM bears similarities to human trafficking. (Read more from “Secret Islamic Networks in U.S. Doing the Unspeakable to Young Girls” HERE)

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Court Rules Against Lawless Obama … and in Favor of Ethanol Mafia

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Imagine the look on the face of James Madison were he to be informed that a private industry now has the power to convince a federal court to force the American people to purchase its expensive, ineffective product. The founders knew monarchism and they knew republicanism, but could they have imagined venture socialism – whereby private companies can force the citizenry to patronize their businesses?

This is exactly what happened Friday when the ethanol mafia won another victory in court. Several weeks ago, I criticized the administration for not trying to reduce the target fuel blend for ethanol under the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), but now it appears that the courts will just mandate whatever level of blending is desired by the industry, which is incapable of marketing its product without the boot of government. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the Obama administration misused its waiver authority to set the target biofuels levels below the mandate prescribed by the Renewable Fuels Standard.

Yes, the courts have finally found religion against Obama’s lawless use of executive authority.

I don’t begrudge the court for interpreting statute this way, but this is just another demonstration of why the courts are a one-way street and a dead end for conservatives on policy. The Renewable Fuels Standard shouldn’t be regarded as constitutional in the first place.

What last week’s decision demonstrates is that even if we successfully weaned the president off his affinity for the price-hiking ethanol mandate, the courts will block any administrative action. That is why Congress must repeal the ethanol mandate once and for all. After accomplishing nothing for the first half of the year, this is an opportunity for the GOP Congress to strike out against the Obamacare of energy and lower the cost of the fuel and food. It’s another opportunity to show the voters how government intervention on behalf of cronies has raised the cost of the most vital consumer goods and services – all to enrich the well-connected through the use of unconstitutional mandates.

Another lesson related to health care is that any effort to limit the regulatory burden of Obamacare will fail. Many Republican apologists have suggested that Congress doesn’t need to repeal the insurance regulations because HHS Secretary Tom Price could alleviate the burden through waiver authority. However, it’s very clear that when it comes to conservatives pushing the envelope on executive authority, the courts, unlike during the past administration, will serve as a bulwark against any loose interpretations. For when it comes to interpreting unconstitutional laws, suddenly the courts are scrupulous in following the strict dictates of the written statute. (For more from the author of “Court Rules Against Lawless Obama … and in Favor of Ethanol Mafia” please click HERE)

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Hackers Took Over Electronic Voting Machines in Two Hours at DEF CON

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Hackers at the Las Vegas’ annual DEF CON event took over electronic voting machines in a display of a simulation run for the White House proving that rigging an election is indeed possible, something that many researchers have warned about for several years.

It took under 90 minutes for hackers to physically break down the 30 voting machines and discover weaknesses in their defenses, The Register UK reported.

Of the 30 voting booths, the hardware and software were manufactured by Diebold, Sequoia and Winvote.

Hackers proved the low level of security that voting machines have had which has been known for years; even a former Diebold contractor whistleblower, Chris Hood, told of the weakness of security and how easily voting machines can be exploited.

One of the voting booths was wirelessly hacked by a hacker proving that you only need to be near it and in range, not physically next to it, to exploit the system’s software like how Princeton University demonstrated 10 years ago.

“Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community today, we’ve uncovered even more about exactly how,” Jake Braun, a hacker said.

The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries — including Russia, North Korea, Iran — possess the capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining the principles of democracy and threatening our national security.

The other main issue isn’t physical voting but rather allowing voters to vote online. It’s convenience vs. security. A whopping 30 states offered voters the option of online voting despite the fact that it was known by security researchers to be vulnerable during the 2016 election last year. That’s enough states to flip the vote and nullify democracy.

Online voting is not secure and can be heavily tampered with finding various vulnerabilities in outdated software and hardware alike.

Finally, the last issue is bribing programmers or the poll workers who are supposed to oversee the election as Diebold programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis alleged when he testified that Tom Feeney (Speaker of the House of Florida at the time) told him to rig election counts for a paycheck.

Numbers don’t match up, time and time again in the exit polls; as investigator Richard Charin found, the polls don’t match up some by a whopping 10% or more.

Everything is working according to plan and the sheepish American public, as a congressman known only as Congressman X inferred in his book, are following right along with no objection; therefore, we are consenting to all this mistreatment and perversion of democracy.

SCREW THE NEXT GENERATION’ AND ‘HARRY REID’S A POMPOUS A**’: DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN X WRITES ANONYMOUS TELL-ALL BOOK SLAMMING ‘NATION OF NAIVE, SELF-ABSORBED SHEEP’ AS HE ADMITS HE NEVER READS BILLS HE VOTES ON. ~ CONGRESSMAN X

Although the machines the hackers breached were not fully secured, according to The Register UK, it reveals the potential for damage that is possible.

The good news is that we have three years to fix our current voting problems and structure, but that’s only if voting for a new establishment head even matters. (For more from the author of “Hackers Took Over Electronic Voting Machines in Two Hours at DEF CON” please click HERE)

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Murkowski Refuses to Explain Why She Campaigned on Obamacare Repeal but Voted Against It

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Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski refused to explain why she voted against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act when she previously supported similar proposals in her campaigns.

Following the failed “skinny repeal late Thursday night, Murkowski, one of the three Republican senators who voted against it, told The Daily Caller she was not ready to respond to why she campaigned on repealing Obamacare in her last election but reversed her position on the matter recently.

“I am really very tired and so you’re asking for a really thoughtful response and I actually appreciate your question but rather than respond to each and individual request with all of these cameras around me, I’m gonna take a pass,” she said . . .

Murkowski, who was first appointed to the Senate by her father Frank Murkowski, who previously occupied the seat and ran for governor, to finish out his term in 2002 later ran for to complete a full term and won in 2004.

However, when she ran for a second term, she lost the Republican nomination to tea party favorite Joe Miller in 2010. Murkowski managed to defeat Miller as running as a write-in candidate. Although she has won three terms in office, Murkowski has never won a majority of voters in her state. (Read more from “Murkowski Refuses to Explain Why She Campaigned on Obamacare Repeal but Voted Against It” HERE)

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Many Americans Are Too Drugged-Out to Work

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A slew of reports finds a fresh reason for the chronic inability of American companies to fill skilled jobs: not a lack of skills, and hence a training-and-education crisis, but a surfeit of drug abuse, per the NYT’s Nelson Schwartz. Simply put, prime-working age Americans without a college diploma are often too drugged-out to get the best jobs. Opioids remain at high levels, but the surge in drug use is now heroin and the powerful contaminant fentanyl.

The reports suggest a circularity to the crisis in America’s rust and manufacturing belts: the loss of jobs and wage stagnation has led to widespread disaffection, alienation and drug abuse; and drug abuse has led to joblessness, hopelessness and disaffection . . .

What was evident, Kolko told Axios: A “clear, steady upward trend in illness/disability as reason for not working among prime-age adults. And even more striking, the level and trend are very similar for men and women, even though most of the attention on this issue is going to men.” (Read more from “Many Americans Are Too Drugged-Out to Work” HERE)

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Bible Studies at the White House: Who’s Inside This Spiritual Awakening?

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. . .Some of the most powerful people in America have been gathering weekly to learn more about God’s Word, and this Trump Cabinet Bible study is making history . . .

Ralph Drollinger of Capitol Ministries told CBN News, “These are godly individuals that God has risen to a position of prominence in our culture” . . .

Drollinger is a former NBA-playing giant of a man with an even bigger calling. He founded Capitol Ministries with the idea that if you change the hearts of lawmakers, then their Christian world view will guide them to make good policies.

He’s started Bible studies in 40 state capitols, a number of foreign capitols, teaches weekly studies in the U.S. House and Senate and now leads about a dozen members of President Trump’s Cabinet in weekly studies of the scriptures.

Health Secretary Tom Price, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Agriculture Secretary Sunny Perdue, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo are just a few of the regulars. (Read more from “Bible Studies at the White House: Who’s Inside This Spiritual Awakening?” HERE)

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