Tag: freedom of expression

President Trump Signs Executive Order to Prosecute People Who Burn American Flags – “It Incites Riots… You Burn a Flag, You Get One Year in Jail”

President Trump on Monday signed the “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag” Executive Order into law, prioritizing the prosecution of crimes that involve the burning of the American flag and potentially opening challenges to the interpretation of the First Amendment protections for flag burning. 

It does not appear to make burning the American flag a crime, but crimes that involve burning a flag will be prioritized.

“Our great American Flag is the most sacred and cherished symbol of the United States of America, and of American freedom, identity, and strength,” the order reads.

“Desecrating it is uniquely offensive and provocative. It is a statement of contempt, hostility, and violence against our Nation — the clearest possible expression of opposition to the political union that preserves our rights, liberty, and security. Burning this representation of America may incite violence and riot.”

The order also describes the act as “a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth,” used by foreign nationals, and it directs the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to “deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, pursuant to Federal law, including 8 U.S.C. 1182(a), 8 U.S.C. 1424, 8 U.S.C. 1427, 8 U.S.C. 1451(c), and 8 U.S.C. 1227(a).”

It further argues that flag burning, “conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words,’” is not constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.

The order directs the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to “prioritize the enforcement to the fullest extent possible of our Nation’s criminal and civil laws against acts of American Flag desecration that violate applicable, content-neutral laws, while causing harm unrelated to expression, consistent with the First Amendment,” including “violent crimes; hate crimes, illegal discrimination against American citizens, or other violations of Americans’ civil rights; and crimes against property and the peace, as well as conspiracies and attempts to violate, and aiding and abetting others to violate, such laws.”

The Attorney General is also permitted to “pursue litigation to clarify the scope of the First Amendment exceptions in this area.”

White House Staff Secretary Will Scharff told the President, the order “charges your department of justice with investigating instances of flag burning, and then where there’s evidence of criminal activity, where prosecution wouldn’t fall foul of the First Amendment, it instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute those who are engaged in these instances of flag burning.”

While signing the order into law, President Trump reasoned that the action causes people to go “crazy” and that “what it does is incite to riot.”

“And what the penalty is going to be if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail. No early exits, no nothing,” he said. “you will see flag burning stopping immediately, just like when I signed the Statue and Monument Act— 10 years in jail if you hurt any of our beautiful monuments. Everybody left town. They were gone. Never had a problem after that, it’s pretty amazing.”

Keep reading

Senator Amy Klobuchar Can’t Take A Joke, Demands Censorship Law

Senator Amy Klobuchar has acknowledged what opponents of her legislation have been warning all along.

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, she confirmed that her proposed NO FAKES Act would be used to censor AI-generated parody.

Her target is a meme video that pokes fun at her reaction to an American Eagle jeans advertisement featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.

Rather than brush off the obvious satire, Klobuchar doubled down on the need to suppress it. “As anyone would, I wanted the video taken down or at least labeled ‘digitally altered content,’” she wrote.

She applauded TikTok for removing the clip, praised Meta for tagging it, and expressed frustration that X would not help her attach a Community Note.

This public complaint confirms that the NO FAKES Act, Senate Bill 1367, is not just about preventing identity theft or stopping fraud. Klobuchar is one of the bill’s lead authors, and she is openly calling for legal tools to remove content that ridicules her.

The bill gives individuals the right to sue over the creation or distribution of “unauthorized digital replicas.”

It also places heavy compliance burdens on platforms, which would face steep fines for failing to remove flagged content quickly or for not implementing policies to suspend repeat offenders.

While the bill claims to allow space for parody, satire, and documentaries, Klobuchar’s statements make it clear that those exemptions offer little practical protection.

The parody video in question shows an AI-generated version of Klobuchar speaking at a fake Senate hearing, ranting about Democrats needing more visibility in advertising. The fictional version of the senator says, “If Republicans are going to have beautiful girls with perfect titties…we want ugly, fat bitches wearing pink wigs and long-ass fake nails being loud and twerking on top of a cop car at a Waffle House ‘cause they didn’t get extra ketchup.”

Keep reading

Democrats Can’t Take A Joke, So They’re Trying To Outlaw Free Speech

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., wants to make one thing perfectly clear: She has never said Sydney Sweeney has “perfect [breasts].” Nor has she accused her fellow Democrats of being “too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside.”

The Minnesota leftist attempted to clear the air earlier this week in a New York Times opinion piece headlined, “Amy Klobuchar: What I Didn’t Say About Sydney Sweeney.” 

Klobuchar wrote that she is the victim of a hoax, a “realistic deepfake.” Some trickster apparently put together and pushed out an AI-generated video in which Klobuchar appears to make (hilariously) outrageous comments about Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans ad — after liberals charged that the commercial is racist and an endorsement of eugenics. 

‘Party of Ugly People’

The doctored Klobuchar appears to be speaking at a Senate committee hearing, She demands Democrats receive “representation.” Of course, the satirical video has gone viral. 

“If Republicans are going to have beautiful girls with perfect ti**ies” in their ads, we want ads for Democrats, too, you know?” the fake Klobuchar asserts in the vid. “We want ugly, fat bitches wearing pink wigs and long-ass fake nails being loud and twerking on top of a cop car at a Waffle House ‘cause they didn’t get extra ketchup.”

“Just because we’re the party of ugly people doesn’t mean we can’t be featured in ads, okay?” the AI Amy implores. “And I know most of us are too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside, but we want representation.” 

She appears — and sounds — so sincere.  But Klobuchar wants you to know it certainly was not her saying such “vulgar and absurd” things. That’s why she’s urging Congress to pass laws to ban such AI videos, which would be as absurd as social justice warriors calling American Eagle white supremacists for paying a blue jeans-clad, beautiful actress to say she has great jeans. 

Any such law would certainly and rightly be challenged in court. 

Keep reading

Millions of immigrants could now be scrutinized for ‘anti-Americanism’ and ‘antisemitism’

The Trump administration is making a drastic change to how it decides which immigrants can receive certain benefits.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, is changing its policies so its employees are required to consider “circumstances where an alien has endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused the views of an anti-American or terrorist organization or group,” according to the document.

The document said those circumstances could include “antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, and antisemitic ideologies,” with no further specifics.

The change could impact millions of immigrants who are not citizens and deal with the agency, for issues including changing their immigration status or applying for a change of status. Consequences for expressing anti-Americanism or antisemitism could include a denial of whatever benefit the individual applied for, like a change of status, or a visa renewal.

“They’re saying that they can broadly use their discretion to deny people who have been involved in any kind of anti-American activity,” said Matt Cameron, a local immigration attorney.

“There’s no definition of antisemitism in the law,” he added. “We’ve seen with Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, that the definition of ‘antisemitic’ has been expanded to really anyone who opposes what Israel is doing in Gaza.”

Attorney Mahsa Khanbabai represents Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts doctoral student who was detained by ICE agents for co-authoring an op-ed urging her university to stop funding Israeli companies supporting the war in Gaza. She has since been released as she continues deportation proceedings.

“We’re waiting to see what further guidance the administration is going to be providing to its immigration officers as they try to decide what is anti-American or antisemitic in terms of adjudicating a person’s benefits application,” said Khanbabai, who is based in Massachusetts.

The limitations the Trump administration is imposing on immigrants’ First Amendment rights is playing out in court, but attorneys say this policy change is a new way to limit immigrants’ freedom of expression.

Keep reading

The Israeli flag just became the only national flag illegal to burn in the United States. Yeah. I’m dead serious.

The Flag America Protects

This week in Washington, D.C., a federal judge made a ruling so shocking, so unprecedented, that it flips the First Amendment on its head. Judge Trevor N. McFadden declared that the Israeli flag — with the Star of David at its center — is not a political symbol at all, but a racial one.

He ruled that tearing it, grabbing it, desecrating it, even in the heat of protest, is not free expression but racial discrimination.

Think about that. In the United States, you can burn the American flag — the Supreme Court has said so for decades. But now, according to this ruling, burning or tearing the Israeli flag could make you guilty of racial hatred. The one national flag protected in American law today isn’t our own. It’s Israel’s.

You can burn the flags of all 50 states. You can torch the American flag all you want. You can burn the flags of the UK or France or Brazil or China.

But not Israel.

Keep reading

Man Kicked Out Of Major League Soccer Game For Wearing Trump MAGA Hat

In a video going viral online, a Trump supporter filmed the moment he was kicked out of a St. Louis City Soccer Club match this week for wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

One of the security guards kicking the man out of the stadium even said he was also a Trump supporter but that the team didn’t allow “political” paraphernalia.

The MAGA hat-wearing individual pointed out there were several fans waving gay pride and trans flags, which he argued were political statements.

Security threatened to take the Trump supporter out “in handcuffs” if he did not voluntarily exit the facility as police officers arrived on the scene.

“Trump is no welcome in St. Louis City SC Club,” the man said as he was escorted from the premises.

Keep reading

Welcome To The Land Of The Free… Until You Express An Opinion

Britain’s cancel culture is a purposely designed social credit system.

Say the wrong thing, and you’re done for. One ‘offensive’ tweet? Straight to prison.

Say a silent prayer? You’re nicked.

Point out that men don’t have wombs, or that climate change hysteria is exaggerated? You’re sacked and shunned.

Post a meme that contradicts a government orthodoxy or expresses concerns about illegal immigration? Congrats, you’re now persona non grata and at risk of being given a holiday at His Majesty’s pleasure.

Welcome to the land of the free… until you express an opinion…

Great Britain, 2025, where the air is thick with sanctimonious twaddle, and our inalienable rights are under attack from the self-proclaimed elite. Those pompous, hypocritical overlords of ‘correct’ thinking have decided our words, thoughts, and even our chickens need their approval. Free speech? In the U.K., members of the public are in prison for sending a single tweet. And just wait until they roll out digital ID (the so called BritCard) and the Stasi levels of censorship which will follow.

The Establishment has closed its grip harder than Keir Starmer on free Arsenal tickets. Wielding censorship like a sledgehammer and telling us what constitutes ‘approved truth’ as though we’re living in Orwell’s 1984.

But fear not, because there’s a growing rebellion. Increasing numbers of Brits simply aren’t having it anymore. They see through this dystopian farce, preferring instead to give it the middle finger. Our great nation isn’t China or North Korea (though they’d like it to be). Britain is the crucible of free speech and has long championed open expression across literature, the arts and politics.

Amidst the madness, we salute a titan of liberty: John Milton, whose Areopagitica in 1644 stands as a blazing beacon for free speech. With a poet’s fire and a rebel’s heart, Milton faced down Parliament’s suffocating book licensing laws, daring to proclaim that truth thrives only when it wrestles openly with falsehood. “Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” he thundered, crafting a vision of Britain as a place for ideas, where no censor’s pen could silence the quest for truth. His words, a clarion call against tyranny, sowed the seeds for our nation’s proud claim as a bastion of free expression.

Keep reading

Sweden Cracks Down On OnlyFans – Will U.S. Follow Suit?

The X-rated social media platform OnlyFans is experiencing real growth, with revenue, content, and user numbers all on the rise. The site’s over 4 million “creators” sell content – including images, videos, and personalized chats – to more than 300 million subscribers, or “fans.” It’s primarily a sex site, and claims that the platform isn’t powered by porn are usually accompanied by winks and nods to the contrary.

OnlyFans keeps a 20% cut of what users pay, boasting $1.3 billion of revenue in 2023. It’s a lucrative approach to monetizing porn consumption, but the platform just hit a legal roadblock in a seemingly unlikely country.

Sweden, which in 1971 became the second country in the world to formally legalize all forms of pornography, has not been as soft on prostitution. In 1999, the country criminalized the purchase of sex, but not the sale, in efforts to protect vulnerable women from facing stiff legal consequences.

That policy will now apply to the virtual world. As of July 1, Swedes could face up to a year in prison for paying someone for personalized online sexual services, including sexting and video content. The new law also criminalizes promoting or profiting from others who perform sex acts for payment on demand, forcing OnlyFans to pull out of Sweden.

In a country known for libertines more than prudes, the law passed with broad, cross-party support. “The idea is that anyone who buys sexual acts performed remotely should be penalized in the same way as those who buy sexual acts involving physical contact,” said Gunnar Strommer, Sweden’s Justice Minister and a member of the Moderate party.

Keep reading

Zelensky considers legalizing porn production

A petition demanding the legalization of pornography production in Ukraine has been forwarded to the country’s parliament for review, Vladimir Zelensky announced on Tuesday. The statement was published on his website after the initiative got more than 25,000 signatures, meeting the legal threshold that requires formal consideration.

The petition, authored by Ukrainian OnlyFans model Svetlana Dvornikova, calls for the decriminalization of adult content production, arguing that law enforcement resources should be directed toward investigating serious crimes rather than conducting “controlled purchases of intimate photos.” It requests legislative changes which would stop police from pursuing the individuals involved.

Pornography was banned in Ukraine in 2009, when then-President Viktor Yushchenko signed legislation that outlawed the possession, distribution, sale, and manufacture of such materials. 

Dvornikova’s petition, submitted on June 27, 2025, has quickly gained support. By early July, it had reached the required number of signatures, prompting Zelensky’s response.

In June, Dvornikova publicly urged Zelensky to support legalization. She claimed that her content had generated significant tax revenue for the state, yet she had faced two criminal cases — one for alleged tax evasion and another for the production of pornography. 

Keep reading

South Dakota Follows Texas with Broader Online Digital ID Law

The Supreme Court’s endorsement of Texas’ age verification law for adult websites has paved the way for a surge of similar online digital ID measures across the country.

South Dakota is the first to follow, as its new statute requiring age verification or estimation for sites distributing adult content takes effect today.

However the South Dakota law is much broader and applies to a wider range of websites, not just those that have a large percentage of adult content.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The law applies broadly to any platform that regularly deals in explicit material, without setting a specific threshold for how much of the site’s content qualifies.

This contrasts with Texas’ approach, where the rule kicks in if at least one-third of a site’s material is deemed pornographic.

Keep reading