Dissent Is Not Disloyalty: The Right and Duty to Criticize the Government

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”—Justice William O. Douglas, dissenting in Colten v. Kentucky (1972)

President Trump has no problem criticizing, condemning, insulting, demonizing and threatening those who refuse to fall in line.

He has branded political opponents “communists,” denounced critics as anti-American, lashed out at NATO allies, threatened to cut off trade with Spain, and referred to Iran’s leaders as “scum” amid the ongoing war.

In Trump’s America, the president is free to call other nations bad actors, label his opponents dangerous, and treat disagreement as betrayal.

But dare to criticize Trump, his administration, ICE, the police state, the war machine, the surveillance state, or the government’s steady assault on the Constitution, and you may find yourself treated as the threat.

This is the hypocrisy of the moment: those in power claim an unlimited right to criticize everyone else, while increasingly denying the people the right to criticize them.

Criticize the government, question the police state, object to ICE raids, oppose war, challenge corruption, reject propaganda, refuse to salute the party line, or insist that public officials obey the Constitution, and you may find yourself accused of being anti-American, extremist, subversive, ungrateful, communist, terrorist-adjacent or worse.

This is how free speech dies: not all at once, but by redefining dissent as disloyalty.

Yet the First Amendment was not written to mandate flattery and applause for those in power. It was written to safeguard the right of the people to criticize, condemn, expose, challenge and resist government abuses without fear of being investigated, surveilled, threatened, prosecuted or treated like enemies of the state.

The American Revolution itself began as an act of criticism.

The Declaration of Independence was a bill of complaints against a government that had abused its power, violated the rights of the people, used the military to intimidate civilians, obstructed justice, imposed unjust burdens, and treated resistance as rebellion.

By today’s standards, the Founders would likely be labeled extremists, agitators, radicals, anti-government dissidents and threats to national security.

What was once rebellion against tyranny is now being recast as a warning sign of extremism.

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U.K. Police Offer ‘Unreserved Apology’ and £25,000 to Irish Comedian and Writer Graham Linehan After Armed Arrest at Heathrow Airport for ‘Gender-Critical’ X Posts

In September 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, best known for creating Father Ted and The IT Crowd, was arrested at Heathrow Airport over social media posts criticizing transgender ideology.

Linehan was met by five armed officers on arrival in London and detained in connection with three posts made on X.

The posts under investigation included one in which Linehan wrote that men entering female-only spaces were committing abusive acts and should be challenged, with police called if necessary.

A second post read, “Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

The third post flagged read, “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** ’em.”

Linehan said he was taken into custody, locked in a cell, and later taken to the hospital because of stress.

He added that the condition for his release was that he stop posting on X.

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Jack Smith’s Team Exposed Classified Materials, Senator Finds

Prosecutors with the office of former special counsel Jack Smith left classified materials unsecured and provided materials to at least one person without confirming that person needed to see them, a senator said on July 8.

A set of messages from Smith’s team showed that in 2024, the team left a facility designated for the review of sensitive information open overnight, and potentially longer.

“Who opened the [facility] yesterday?” one member of the team asked in a message.

“No one opened it yesterday because no one closed it the day before,” another member replied.

A second set of messages from 2024 outlined how the team provided classified materials to an unidentified person despite not having confirmation that the person needed to see the materials.

The incidents took place as Smith’s team, which was part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was prosecuting then-presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified materials during his first term as president.

“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Grassley said in a statement.

“According to these messages, Biden DOJ personnel may have committed the very offense for which Jack Smith was prosecuting President Trump. These records expose yet another double standard of justice.”

Grassley also wrote in a post on X that the messages “indicate hypocritical [and] careless behavior” and “merit further investigation.”

He pointed to how some former officials, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, mishandled classified information but were not charged.

Grassley asked Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, for more records, including whether the facility that was left unlocked contained any material that was part of Smith’s prosecution of Trump, and whether the DOJ investigated Smith’s team for giving classified information without the need-to-know confirmation.

“The Department is aware of the concerns raised in Senator Grassley’s letter and takes the safeguarding of classified information very seriously. Every official entrusted with sensitive materials must follow strict security protocols without exception — a standard Jack Smith’s team apparently failed to meet as they pursued a politically weaponized prosecution of President Trump,” a DOJ spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“As with any alleged security lapse, the Department reviews such matters through established internal processes to determine whether protocols were followed, whether classified information was compromised, and whether any corrective steps are warranted. The Department will continue to apply those procedures rigorously, consistent with our longstanding commitment to protecting national security and maintaining the integrity of our operations.”

Smith, who has said his investigation was proper, was appointed in November 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to manage investigations into Trump, who at the time was out of office.

Federal prosecutors later charged Trump with violations of federal law governing the handling of classified information, as well as other charges such as illegally interfering in the 2020 presidential election.

Prosecutors dropped the cases after Trump won the 2024 election, noting that he would soon be president.

Part of Smith’s final report was released to the public prior to the start of Trump’s second term, outlining how Smith believed the evidence against Trump would have resulted in a conviction. A federal judge later ruled that the other part shall never be made public.

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Half of SIDS Cases Occurred Within 48 Hours of Vaccination, Former Police Detective Says

A former police detective involved in the investigations of roughly 250 sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) cases claimed that roughly 50% occurred within 48 hours of a vaccination.

In a video interview today with The Defender, the detective, who gave only her first name, “Jennifer,” said she and her husband were detectives in the police department of a major U.S. city with a population of over 300,000 for a combined seven years, from roughly 2003 to 2010.

Jennifer said she is keeping her last name and city name undisclosed to protect her family. She said:

“The pharmaceutical industry does not want to be threatened by those sorts of secrets coming out. So, I’m a mother of many children, and their safety is my number one priority, my family’s safety. I’m a mama bear before I’m anything else.”

Jennifer said she hadn’t initially questioned the safety of vaccines. But that changed when she noticed a recurrent pattern among the police reports for SIDS cases in her unit.

“I’m like, what is the main thing that is true with all of these, the recurring theme with all of these babies? And that’s that they were recently vaccinated,” she said.

She estimated that around half of the SIDS cases involved babies who had received a vaccination in the 48 hours before their death and a “pretty decent number” of additional cases had received a vaccination in the week before their death.

The pattern was strongest among 6-month-olds, she said.

What particularly concerned Jennifer was that although the police reports noted these babies’ recent vaccinations, that information went unmentioned on the county coroner’s autopsy reports and death certificates.

“It didn’t make sense to me,” she said.

She discovered it wasn’t just her county coroner. Coroners across the U.S. are trained not to record vaccination information on autopsy reports, she said.

Some states are working to change that.

In May, Oklahoma and Louisiana passed legislation that amends existing public health law by directing coroners to document any vaccines administered within 90 days of death on autopsy reports for children under age 15 who died unexpectedly and without explanation.

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Using Marijuana Will Make You ‘A Loser In Life,’ GOP Congressman Says

A Republican congressman claims that using marijuana “hurts your DNA,” will “make you a loser in life” and leads to young women being “taken advantage of.”

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), one of the most outspoken opponents of cannabis legalization in Congress, made the comments in an  appearance on “High Stakes,” a podcast produced by the prohibitionist organization Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM).

“If you want to become a loser in life—if you want, as a young woman, to be around areas where the knowledge that you have of being assaulted, taken advantage of, and harming your life—just go forth and be around marijuana,” he said.

“I became very aware in college about people who used marijuana, who ended up literally dropping out—dropping out of life—who just chose that way of life,” he said. “I saw it from a personal perspective of a danger to someone’s future in their life.”

“There is not one positive effect of this marijuana,” Sessions claimed, despite the fact that nearly every state in the country has legalized cannabis for medical uses and the Trump administration has partially federally rescheduled it, officially recognizing its therapeutic value.

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Planned Parenthood Dropping $47 Million Bomb on Midterms in Attempt to Protect Their Taxpayer Funding

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has announced a massive $47 million political spending spree through its Super PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes, aimed directly at trying to flip vulnerable Republican seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

This near-record investment, second only to the $50 million the group dumped into the 2022 cycle, represents a calculated effort to target lawmakers who supported efforts to cut off federal Medicaid funding to the organization last year.

As detailed in reporting from The Hill, the funds will fuel ads, voter outreach, and mobilization in battleground House districts across Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while also targeting key Senate contests, including Michigan, where Democrats hope to challenge former GOP Representative Mike Rogers, and potentially Maine.

The money bomb announcement came just days after the expiration of a one-year provision in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that had temporarily barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion services.

That measure, signed into law last year, had forced the closure or consolidation of dozens of clinics and cut off hundreds of millions in federal dollars, proving once and for all that the organization heavily relies on taxpayer dollars, despite its primary role being performing hundreds of thousands of abortions annually.

With the ban now lifted as of early July, Planned Parenthood has regained access to those funds and is channeling significant resources into ensuring pro-abortion politicians regain or maintain power to protect and expand that pipeline.

Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Sarah Standiford framed the effort as an “existential moment” where voters must “take back our right to decide, our lives and our future state by state.”

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Net Zero-Obsessed Britain Faces Down Unspoken Energy Crisis Amid Accusations of Coverup

Britain’s electrical system operator has once again pleaded with generators to make extra electricity on Thursday to cover unexpectedly tight margins as it faces extraordinary allegations made in Parliament of covering up the extent of grid vulnerability to blackouts.

The UK’s National Energy Systems Operator (NESO), the 2024-founded energy grid body tasked with balancing the supply and demand of electricity in real time, has issued a margin warning for Thursday. This is the third such margin warning of the summer — and previously unheard of, as in the era before the focus on decarbonisation energy shortfalls were only ever encountered in the deep winter — and NESO stated on Wednesday its forecasts for Thursday evening had identified a shortage of 1.2 gigawatts, the equivalent to the loss of a whole Sizewell B-sized nuclear power plant.

The shortage comes as hot, calm weather across north-western Europe sees energy demand rise, but supply fall as wind turbines stand idle.

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Media Claim: He Fought for the U.S. in Afghanistan, and ICE Killed Him. Here’s What Really Happened

Any man who fought against the Taliban is a hero, but that alone does not mean he qualifies for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV). On November 26, 2025, Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who had served in a CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary unit, shot two West Virginia National Guard members near the White House, killing one and critically wounding the other.

Following the shooting, President Trump ordered a “re-examination” of every Afghan national admitted to the United States under the Biden administration. An estimated 190,000 to 200,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States since the 2021 withdrawal, most under humanitarian parole rather than the SIV program.

On March 14, 2026, Afghan national Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal died in ICE custody in Richardson, Texas. Media coverage described him as a “special forces soldier,” wording that could be interpreted to mean he served in U.S. Special Forces. However, he was not a member of the U.S. military.

AfghanEvac states that he partnered with U.S. Army Special Forces, specifically the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), in Paktika Province beginning in 2005, rather than serving in the U.S. military.

AfghanEvac is an advocacy and volunteer coalition formed after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to help evacuate and resettle Afghans who worked with U.S. forces and to advocate for their immigration cases.

The phrase “worked with U.S. forces,” as used by AfghanEvac and in much of the reporting, is a broad umbrella term. It encompasses the full range of Afghan nationals who supported the U.S. mission, not just those in combat roles. This includes interpreters and translators, logistics and transportation contractors, drivers, base support personnel, including laundry, food service, construction, and maintenance workers, intelligence and cultural advisors, as well as members of partnered Afghan military or police units.

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Secret CIA ‘workbook’ claims simple five-step exercise can supercharge the human body

A ‘workbook’ created by a secret US Army program claimed to have developed a simple five-step method of supercharging the human body. 

Created by the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences in Virginia in 1977, the 21-page document taught advanced mental skills for expanding awareness, remote perception, problem-solving, relieving pain and building energy.

However, on page 14 of the workbook, which was declassified and released by the CIA in 2003, users were taught how to ‘charge the body from great speed and strength’ with five easy steps.

Before tackling an intense activity such as lifting a heavy object or sprinting, the manual instructed users to close their eyes for a moment. Then, take a deep breath in.

While breathing in, the workbook said to mentally focus on two things at once: the exact physical action to be done and the ‘strong energy of red’ filling the body.

As the person breathes out, they open their eyes and immediately do the action – allegedly giving them a noticeable physical boost and better reflexes.

The classified workbook said: ‘You will be able immediately to perform the physical act you have pictured – with far greater strength, much more rapidly and with smooth total coordination of your physical body.’

The meditation training was part of a series of secret programs funded by the CIA from roughly 1972 to 1995, which explored methods of expanding consciousness and human potential for spies and special ops teams.

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Doctor warns of ‘cancer tsunami’ as WHO projects sharp rise in cases by 2050

A new report from the World Health Organization warns that the number of people diagnosed with cancer each year is expected to surge over the next quarter-century.

The report projects annual cancer diagnoses will climb from about 20 million today to nearly 35 million by 2050.

While some cancers are declining thanks to prevention efforts, experts warn aging populations, rising obesity rates and other risk factors will place unprecedented pressure on health-care systems around the world.

“We need to focus attention on what some people are calling the cancer tsunami,” said Dr. Peter Stotland, chief of surgery and a surgical oncologist at North York General Hospital.

Stotland told Global News the findings mirror what doctors are already seeing in Canada.

“We’re seeing just higher numbers of people coming in with cancer,” he said, pointing to an aging population that is expected to drive increases in lung, prostate and colorectal cancers.

“I think it’s shocking because this is something that we’re seeing on a regional, provincial level and a national level,” he said.

At the same time, doctors are also seeing more young people diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

“We can be seeing two spikes… one in older people and another in younger people with cancer,” he said. “That’s going to put a lot of stress on the health-care system.”

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