Starmer Announces Yet More Censorship

Even more censorship is on the way. The Government has announced plans to force AI chatbots to comply with malicious communications laws – and to give itself Orwellian powers to bring in yet more speech restrictions without Parliamentary oversight. Toby writes about the moves in the Telegraph.

The Government intends to bring forward amendments of its own to the schools Bill that will supposedly close a loophole in the Online Safety Act to make sure AI chatbots comply with Britain’s draconian censorship laws. That will mean that if Grok says something in response to a user prompt that breaches, say, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which was designed to protect women from obscene phone calls, Ofcom can fine its parent company £18 million or 10% of its annual global turnover. Whichever is the highest.

This will be the death knell of Britain’s burgeoning AI sector, particularly as chatbots become more autonomous. What tech entrepreneur will risk setting up an AI company in the UK, knowing that if a chatbot shares an anti-immigration meme or misgenders a trans person, it could mean a swingeing fine?

Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if xAI, along with OpenAI and Anthropic, decide to withdraw access to their chatbots from UK residents. At the very least, we’ll be saddled with lobotomised versions that trot out progressive bromides whenever they’re asked a political question.

In addition, the Government has said it will pass a new law to stop children sending or receiving nude images. Needless to say, that’s already a criminal offence under the Protection of Children Act 1978, so what does the Government have in mind?

It has not said, but I fear it means embedding surveillance software in every smartphone to enable the authorities to monitor users’ activity, no doubt accompanied by mandatory digital ID so no one will be able to hide. Not even the People’s Republic of China does that.

The Government unveiled some other Orwellian measures, but rather than bring them in as revisions to the schools Bill, it will put through amendments that will enable it to make further changes to Britain’s censorship regime via secondary legislation, i.e., it will grant itself sweeping Henry VIII powers.

It’s worth bearing in mind that secondary legislation cannot be amended and allows little time for debate. The Government’s excessive reliance on secondary legislation has been criticised by the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

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“You’re Kidding Right?” Karoline Leavitt Shreds CBS Reporter Suggesting Trump has Never Falsely Been Called Racist

A CBS reporter on Wednesday unironically asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt when President Trump had been falsely accused of racism, and she responded with incredulity. 

“You’re kidding, right?” Leavitt fired back in disbelief, adding that she will compile a list of “radical Democrats, throughout the years,” falsely calling Trump a racist.

The Democratic Party’s playbook for years has been to call Trump a racist.

Just this week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed Trump and the GOP were trying to implement “Jim Crow 2.0” by trying to require voter ID and proof of citizenship for registered voters. Days before this, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed that Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro was arrested by the US military solely because Venezuela is “below the equator.”

And don’t forget about other Democrats like Jasmine Crockett, who constantly plays the victim and labels Trump and the GOP as racists.

CBS’s Ed O’Keefe pointed to President Trump’s comments following the death of Reverend Jesse Jackson, where Trump memorialized Jackson as “a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts,’” while noting that he is “falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left” despite working with Jesse Jackson on numerous occasions. O’Keefe then asked, “Where or when does the President believe he’s been falsely called racist?”

Clearly holding back her laugh, Leavitt responded, “I’m going to get my team in that room to start going through the internet of radical Democrats throughout the years, Ed, who have accused this president falsely of being a racist. And I’m sure there’s many people in this room and on network television across the country who have accused him of the same.” She further highlighted the President’s upcoming Black History Month Reception this afternoon at the White House, as well as the accomplishments he made for black Americans in his first term, and what he continues to do today.

“He has, absolutely, been falsely called and smeared as a racist, and I’m happy to provide you those receipts, and we gladly will right after this briefing,” she added. 

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US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, a move Washington views as a way to counter censorship, three sources familiar with the plan said.

The site will be hosted at “freedom.gov,” the sources said. One source said officials had discussed including a virtual private network function to make a user’s traffic appear to originate in the U.S. and added that user activity on the site will not be tracked.

Headed by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, the project was expected to be unveiled at last week’s Munich Security Conference but was delayed, the sources said.

Reuters could not determine why the launch did not happen, but some State Department officials, including lawyers, have raised concerns about the plan, two of the sources said, without detailing the concerns.

The project could further strain ties between the Trump administration and traditional U.S. allies in Europe, already heightened by disputes over trade, Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s push to assert control over Greenland.

The portal could also put Washington in the unfamiliar position of appearing to encourage citizens to flout local laws.

In a statement to Reuters, a State Department spokesperson said the U.S. government does not have a censorship-circumvention program specific to Europe but added: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.”

The spokesperson denied any announcement had been delayed and said it was inaccurate that State Department lawyers had raised concerns.

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Millionaire Philanthropist Found Shot Dead at Assisted Living Facility in Maryland

An investigation is underway after a millionaire philanthropist was found shot dead at his senior assisted living facility in Maryland.

On Valentine’s Day, Robert Fuller, 87, was found dead with a gunshot wound in his apartment at the Cogir Potomac Senior Living facility in Potomac, Maryland.

The Montgomery County Department of Police is investigating his death as a homicide, but gave no information on whether Fuller’s killer was from the inside of the facility or the outside.

Detectives handling the case further added, Fuller was “taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for autopsy to determine cause and manner of death.”

Per People:

Police are investigating after a millionaire philanthropist was shot dead at a senior living facility in Maryland.

On Saturday, Feb. 14 at approximately 7:34 a.m. local time, the Montgomery County Department of Police and Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service officers “responded to the Cogir Potomac Senior Living facility in the 10800 block of Potomac Tennis Lane for a reported code,” per a news release.

First responders then located 87-year-old Robert Fuller, Jr. “unresponsive inside an apartment within the senior living facility,” the release stated.

Police said, “Life-saving measures were attempted, but he was pronounced dead at the scene,” adding that officers at the scene “observed that Fuller had trauma to the head and Major Crimes was notified.”

In a statement, the Cogir Potomac Senior Living Facility sent a memo to residents that reads, “This was an isolated incident, and there is no ongoing threat to residents or staff. ”

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New Epstein docs mention Madeleine McCann – here’s what a witness saw

Buried deep in the newly released Epstein files is a 2009 witness report that describes the sighting of a young girl who “looked like Madeline McCann,” allegedly walking with a woman “looked just like Ghislaine Maxwell.”

Madeleine McCann was just 3 years old when she vanished on May 3, 2007, while on holiday with her family at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann – 40 and 39 respectively at the time – had gone to dinner with friends at a restaurant roughly 100 yards from the apartment where Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings were sleeping. When Kate returned to check on the children, Madeleine was gone.

Police were called immediately, and staff and guests began searching through the night as border authorities and airport personnel were placed on alert.

Portuguese investigators initially said they believed Madeleine had been kidnapped and issued a description of a man reportedly seen carrying a child that evening.

The case quickly became “the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history,” drawing global media attention, extensive police resources, and years of follow-up inquiries. Despite international cooperation and multiple leads, the child has never been found.

Maddie’s name in Epstein Files

Nearly 19 years later, Madeleine’s name emerged unexpectedly in documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s prosecution and the 2021 conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell on child sex trafficking charges.

The reference appears in a single witness statement contained within millions of pages of filings unsealed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The statement, dated July 7, 2020, was written by an unidentified witness in the UK who claimed to have seen the young girl in the fall of 2009, and reported it at the time to local police.

“In September 2009 I was living in [redacted] road. It was a Sunday and very quiet. I turned off from my street on the main road and found myself walking behind a woman and a little girl,” the person explained.

‘Held her hand over her right eye’

“There was also a middle-aged man with them, but he was walking much further ahead.

“When I got up close to the girl I noticed she looked like Madeline McCann. The woman was trying to hurry her along and seemed agitated that I was there. The little girl held her hand over her right eye the whole time we were walking along. She kept on turning round to look at me…”

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Macron Calls Online Free Speech Argument “Pure Bullshit”

European governments framing social media bans for minors as child protection are quiet about what those bans actually require: identity checks for everyone. Every adult who wants to use Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube in France, Spain, or Germany would need to verify their real-world identity to access the platform. Anonymity, one of the oldest protections for dissenting speech, goes with it.

That’s the context Emmanuel Macron left out when he called free speech online “pure bullshit” in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The French president was addressing companies and their American backers as European governments push social media restrictions, as well as curbs on “hate speech,” a move the Trump administration has criticized as censorship.

Macron’s counterargument is based on algorithmic opacity. “Having no clue about how their algorithm is made, how it’s tested, trained, and where it will guide you, the democratic consequences of this bias could be huge,” he said.

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Biden Judge Holds DOJ Lawyer in Civil Contempt Over Immigration Case, Fines Him $500 Per Day

A Minnesota-based federal judge on Wednesday held a Justice Department attorney in civil contempt over an immigration case and fined him $500 per day for violating her order.

US District Judge Laura Provinzino, a Biden appointee, said the DOJ lawyer violated her orders in a habeas case related to the release of an ICE detainee’s papers.

DOJ lawyers in Minnesota are buried in immigration cases as leftist organizations fight to keep illegal aliens from being deported.

A JAG lawyer from the Department of War is assisting in immigration cases in the US Attorney’s Office due to case overload.

The judge held him in contempt after one of the habeas cases ‘fell through the cracks.’

According to Fox 9: Judge Provinzino had ordered a detained immigrant held by ICE in El Paso, Texas, be released in Minnesota with all of his identification papers. ICE released the man in Texas with none of his papers, forcing his attorney to find him a shelter for the night and flight back to Minnesota.

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What the Flock Is This: The Future of Mass Surveillance in the USA

Big Brother’s highway cameras now have AI, and they capture 6 to 12 photos of every car that goes by. Then, they all get uploaded into a huge national database, which out-of-state police and government agencies can access. They are very expensive and keep the information for 30 days.

Cameras are in 49 states.

It’s like being watched by a bunch of prison guards.

Anyone could access it publicly. Then came the lawsuits. What does this mean for mass surveillance in the United States?

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Two U.S. Pilots ILLEGALLY ARRESTED in West Africa During Routine Fuel Stop Beg President Trump for Immediate Help

Two innocent American citizens have been rotting in a brutal, third-world West African prison for nearly two months after being ambushed by a heavily armed military squad during a routine fuel stop.

Now, facing horrific conditions with no end in sight, they are begging President Donald Trump to step in and save them.

Veteran pilot Brad Schlenker, 63, of Illinois, and fellow American pilot Fabio Espinal Nunez, 33, of New Jersey, were operating a Gulfstream IV charter flight transporting a Brazilian family from Suriname to Dubai when they made a scheduled refueling stop in Conakry, Guinea in late December 2025.

They did everything by the book. They communicated with air traffic control.

They requested—and received—clearance to land at Ahmed Sékou Touré International Airport in the Republic of Guinea for a simple refueling stop.

Instead of a fuel truck, they were met by a terrifying military ambush.

As soon as the plane touched the tarmac, nearly 100 heavily armed Guinean military personnel swarmed the aircraft. They pointed AK-47s at the terrified American pilots, screaming at them in French, and dragged them off the runway.

The two American pilots were immediately detained.

Guinean authorities later accused the pilots of:

  • Violating national sovereignty
  • Entering airspace illegally
  • Making an unauthorized landing
  • Endangering national defense

Aerotime reported:

A family source familiar with the trip told AeroTime that the crew believed required permits for the fuel stop had been arranged by a local handler, raising questions about whether the detention stems from a paperwork failure or something more deliberate. The same source alleged that, after initially being held at a police station for roughly 10 days, the pilots were moved into Conakry’s prison system and threatened with a sentence of up to 20 years.

Conditions inside the prison have become a central point of concern for relatives. Stevenson told People.com that the facility is severely overcrowded and detainees rely on outside support for food. She described dirt floors, limited sanitation, and prisoners taking turns sleeping. A US State Department spokesperson said that the department is aware of the detention and that consular officers have visited the pilots multiple times since late December 2025.

The pilots’ families are now publicly urging the Trump administration to intervene. In an interview with CBS News, Schlenker directly appealed to President Trump for help.

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NYT Accidentally Confesses There’s A Left-Wing Judicial Coup Against Trump

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has never been one to show good judgement. When he’s not getting caught conducting “personal business” on a staff Zoom call, he’s accidentally admitting that there’s an ongoing leftist-led judicial coup designed to stymie President Trump’s agenda.

The serial self-pleasurer let the proverbial cat out of the bag in his Monday opinion column for The New York Times. Titled, “The Plan for a Radically Different Supreme Court Is Here,” the article purports to roll out a blueprint for countering conservative appointments of originalist judges to the bench but inadvertently discloses the existence of leftists’ efforts to weaponize the judicial system against Trump.

The admission comes in the piece’s opening paragraphs, in which Toobin discusses the American Constitution Society and its new president, Phil Brest. The ACS has often been described as the less successful and left-wing alternative to the conservative Federalist Society, which has become an influential force in getting originalists appointed to the Supreme Court and other federal judgeships.

Toobin notes how Brest — who worked in the Biden White House’s counsel office — “helped the president nominate and win confirmation of 235 federal judges, which is more than Mr. Trump’s total in his first term.” In the very next sentence, however, the CNN legal analyst let it slip that these judicial appointments have become the left’s primary tool in grinding Trump and his voters’ agenda to a halt.

“Those [Biden] judges — and others appointed by Democratic presidents — have proved that the most effective resistance to Mr. Trump has come not from Democratic politicians but rather from federal judges,” wrote Toobin, who subsequently listed off a series of overreaching orders issued by “these judges, many of them Biden appointees,” against the 47th president.

Toobin goes on to lament how the ACS has not boasted the same level of success as groups like The Federalist Society and has failed to advance an alternative style of judicial interpretation to originalism, which emphasizes the interpretation of the Constitution as written at the time of its adoption. Once again, the CNN legal analyst openly admits that — contrary to the article’s headline — the ACS doesn’t actually have a different philosophy or “plan” in mind, and that the group’s only strategy at the moment is appointing activist judges who will abuse their authority to stonewall Republican presidents.

“For now, under Mr. Brest, the A.C.S. seems headed for an approach that looks like the one that Democratic politicians have so far adopted: aimed more at opposition to Mr. Trump’s record rather than on a specific, alternative vision for the Constitution. In his opening message to the group, Mr. Brest described the A.C.S. as building ‘a bulwark against overreach by the Trump administration and the Roberts court,’” Toobin wrote. “Mr. Brest has pledged that A.C.S. will continue its Biden-era focus on judicial appointments … As for what those judges will stand for — as opposed to what they stand against — Mr. Brest has no clear answer.”

What Toobin’s article encapsulates is the left’s ongoing struggle session about how best to lie to the American people about the kinds of legal minds they want to appoint to the bench and their blatant disregard for proper separation of powers.

The entire reason for the modern originalist movement’s foundation and ultimate success is because of past Supreme Courts’ embrace of living constitutionalism, a style of judicial interpretation in which judges treat the Constitution as a “living” document that magically evolves with the times. It is through this philosophy that judges take it upon themselves to act as legislators and effectively rewrite America’s founding document as they see fit.

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