In what many believe is the beginning of a Constitutional crisis, the Seattle Police Department confiscated a firearm from an individual.

The new “red flag” law, which has taken hold in other states already, allows the courts and police to take away guns from individuals they deem are dangerous.

A man living in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle, Washington became the first individual in the state to have his firearm confiscated without any formal arrest or charges.

The Washington man has not been identified, but he was the first victim of the new protection orders allowing police to confiscate his firearm amid mental health concerns.

Neighbors complained that the man had been “staring” at people through storefront windows while wearing a holstered firearm.

Open carrying is legal in the area, so he was allowed to carry a firearm.

Other residents also complained that the man’s open carrying made them feel “uncomfortable” and “unsafe.”

“He was roaming the hallways with a .25 caliber automatic,” said Tony Montana, a man who lives in the same apartment complex as the alleged suspect.

“And it created a lot of fear obviously because I didn’t know if he was coming after me or gonna just start shooting the place up,” he added.

These lousy complaints from neighbors allowed police to use the newly passed state law to confiscate the man’s firearm because the man apparently stared at others.

Under the extreme risk protection orders — also referred to as “erpos” or “red flag laws” — police and courts are allowed to infringe on a person’s Second Amendment rights and take their firearm if they are deemed dangerous.

That means state government officials can now take guns away from an individual without even making an arrest.

This overreaching new law allows for dictatorial actions to confiscate weapons from citizens that are arbitrarily deemed guilty and/or dangerous without due process.

This scathing attempt by Democrats to infringe on citizens right to bear arms should concern all Americans.

Source: Conservative Institute

(conservativedailypost.com)

If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Certainly not the Vatican—the Holy See's switchboard is jammed with people wanting exorcisms.

But fear not: you can now order an exorcism online from independent service providers.

There has been a three-fold increase in the number of people resorting to exorcism because of demon problems, reported Italy’s Vatican News. The church is trying to train up more of its priests in the dark arts.

In Italy alone there are 500,000 requests for exorcisms every single year, claims one Vatican-sanctioned trainer of exorcist-priests called Friar Benigno Palilla, whose job it is to tool up the clergy in their fight against demonic possession.

"A self-taught exorcist certainly meets errors,” the friar told Vatican News. “I will say more: it also requires a period of apprenticeship, as happens for many professionals.”

It follows a call from one Irish priest and exorcist for more help from the Vatican in his fight against demons amid a sharp rise in demand for his ghoulish services.

“It’s only in recent years that the demand [for exorcisms] has risen exponentially,”Father Pat Collins said, adding that anyone who doesn’t see the need for more exorcists is “out of touch with reality.”

Collins wrote an open letter to Irish bishops asking them to begin training more priests to deal with exorcisms, and he cited the International Association of Exorcists’ belief that demonic activity has increased substantially in recent years.

But for those who don’t have a Vatican-sanctioned exorcist nearby, there’s a sort of black market for ghostbusters. One of those offering services is “The Sacred Order of Saint Michael the Archangel-Order of Exorcists”—and you can even order an exorcism online via a simple contact form, which they encourage the “family or person needing help” to use, reported PJ Media.

Set up by a man calling himself “Archbishop Ron Feyl” in the early 1980s, The Order claims on its website to be “affiliated with 21 jurisdictions, 22 parishes, and 61 paranormal exorcist investigators in many states and countries.” It’s based in Ontario, Canada.

“Members are from many religious orders; priests, seminarians, paranormal investigators, and bishops of many jurisdictions, from around the world,” it says. “They make up the membership of the Order of Exorcists at The Sacred Order of Saint Michael the Archangel.

“Our priests are available, after the medical and psychological reports are reviewed, with the approval of their bishops, to perform the rite of exorcism. Our Investigation & Assessment Team are paranormal exorcist investigators.

“They make the initial first contact with the clients that are requesting a demonic investigation and/or exorcism. In staying within the biblical teaching ‘That which is freely obtained should be freely given’, the exorcism will be done without charge.”

However, it makes clear that Feyl—who says on his Facebook page that he is retired though The Order continues its work without him—and the organization are “NOT under the Vatican. It is an autonomous and independent branch of the Catholic faith which derives from the ancient Old Roman Catholic Church of the 12th Century.”

Feyl’s LinkedIn page says he he was awarded a PhD in Psychology from the Saint Michael Catholic Seminary South Bay in 1981. While there, Feyl says he was an "apprentice in the ministry of exorcism. Sacred traditional rituals for exorcism. Demonic research/investigation. Demonic assessment."

He adds that he was “trained by many exorcists over the years who were his mentors and former bishops”.

Back in 1999, the Catholic church revisited its centuries-old guidelines on exorcism. The first set was issued in 1614. The Vatican’s updated version is 90 pages long, written in Latin, and bound in leather.

"The Devil goes around like a roaring lion looking for souls to devour,” The Guardianreported at the time the new rules were unveiled.

And Catholics believe he likes to cause troubled by possessing people, whose symptoms include "speaking in unknown languages, discerning distant or hidden things, and displaying a physical strength that is at odds with the possessed person's age or state of health".

However, the updated rules do what those written in the 17th century didn’t: acknowledge that some, if not most, people claiming to be possessed are just mentally ill.

So it says an exorcism can only be performed "after diligent inquiry and after having consulted experts in spiritual matters and, if felt appropriate, experts in medical and psychiatric science who have a sense of spiritual reality".

What’s more, the rules say exorcists should avoid the ritual “becoming a spectacle" so conduct it behind closed doors and with absolutely nobody from the media present.

(newsweek)

A Russian official has claimed Moscow has evidence that the U.S. attempted to interfere in its upcoming presidential election.

Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA news agency that the U.S. was looking to create chaos in Russia to undermine the March election, CNBC reported.

Ryabkov also claimed that U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia were designed to destabilize the country and impact the election. He did not provide evidence for either of his claims.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to comfortably win the March 18 election to secure another term in office. Putin served as president from 2000-2008 before constitutional term limits forced him to step aside and allow Dmitry Medvedevto take on the role from 2008-2012, during which time Putin was prime minister. He returned to the presidency for his current stint in 2012.

In February, the head of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said Moscow is anticipating hacking attempts in Russia's election, and is preparing for “political, economic and informational operations” in the run up to the vote.

On Monday, a Russian lawmaker proposed that any foreigners found guilty of interfering in Russian elections should face the death penalty, which was placed under a moratorium in 1996. Leonid Kalashnikov told the RIA news agency that election tampering is “the worst crime that there is, other than rape and murder.”

Election tampering: The new normal?

U.S. intelligence services unanimously agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Special counsel Robert Mueller has been assigned to investigate accusations that U.S. President Donald Trump and his team colluded with Russian actors to undermine Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

In February, Mueller charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian groups with interference in the election. In response, Putin said that he will never extradite any Russians.

“Never. Never. Russia does not extradite its citizens to anyone, just like the United States,” Putin said. “Does the United States extradite its citizens to anyone?”

While the U.S. investigates Russian meddling in its 2016 presidential election, and Russia accuses the U.S. of meddling in its upcoming 2018 election, U.S. intelligence services have been warning that Russia will likely target the midterm elections in November.

Dan Coates, the director of national intelligence, said, “There should be no doubt that Russia perceives that its past efforts have been successful and views the 2018 midterm U.S. elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”

Russia has been accused of interfering in elections in 27 countries since 2004, beginning in former Soviet nations and eventually spreading westwards. Russia is alleged to have interfered in the U.K.'s Brexit referendum in 2016 and unsuccessfully targeted Emmanuel Macron in France's 2017 presidential election.

(newsweek)