Tag: nanny state

Texas Ban On Social Media For Under 18s Fails To Pass Senate

Legislation that would have banned anyone under the age of 18 from using or creating social media accounts in Texas stalled in the Senate this week after lawmakers failed to vote on it.

House Bill 186, filed by state Rep. Jared Patterson (R-Frisco), would have prohibited minors from creating accounts on social media sites such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, and others by requiring the platforms to verify users’ age.

The measure previously passed the GOP-controlled state House with broad bipartisan support in April, but momentum behind the bill slowed at the eleventh hour in the state Senate this week as lawmakers face a weekend deadline to send bills to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

The legislative session ends on Monday.

In a statement on the social media platform X late Thursday, Patterson said the bill’s failure to pass in the Senate was “the biggest disappointment of my career,” adding that no other bill filed this session “would have protected more kids in more ways than this one.”

The Republican lawmaker said he believed its failure to pass meant “I’ve failed these kids and their families.”

“I felt the weight of an entire generation of kids who’ve had their mental health severely handicapped as a result of the harms of social media,”  the lawmaker said. “And then there’s the others – the parents of Texas kids who’ve died as a result of a stupid social media ‘challenge’ or by suicide after being pulled down the dangerous rabbit holes social media uses to hook their users, addict them on their products, and drive them to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.”

“Finally, there’s the perfectly happy and healthy teens in Texas today, who will find themselves slowly falling off the edge before the legislature meets again in 2027,” he stated.

Patterson suggested he would try and pass the measure again when the Texas Legislature meets in 2027.

House Bill 186 would have prohibited a child from entering into a contract with a social media platform to become an account holder and required platforms to verify that a person seeking to become an account holder is 18 years of age or older before allowing them to create an account.

The legislation would have also required social media platforms to delete accounts belonging to individuals under the age of 18 at a parent or guardian’s request.

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France BANS smoking in nearly all outdoor spaces

France will ban smoking in all outdoor places that can be frequented by children, like beaches, parks and bus stops, the health and family minister said on Thursday.

‘Where there are children, tobacco must disappear,’ Catherine Vautrin said in an interview published by regional outlet Ouest-France.

The restrictions will come into force on July 1, and failure to comply with the draconian ban could result in a £114 fine, the minister said, adding that children have the ‘right to breathe clean air.’

Cigarettes will also be banned in areas close to schools to prevent students from ‘smoking in front of their establishments.’ 

The ban does not apply to cafe terraces – or include electronic cigarettes. 

The government’s National Anti-Tobacco Programme for 2023 to 2027 proposed a smoking ban similar to the one announced by Vautrin, calling for France to ‘rise to the challenge of a tobacco-free generation from 2032.’ 

But anti-tobacco organisations had voiced concern the authorities were dragging their feet on implementing the measures. 

Vautrin said there were no plans to place additional taxes on cigarettes ‘at the moment’. 

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Minnesota’s Latest Law May Effectively Ban Keys

Standard household keys may soon be illegal in Minnesota.

Starting in July, keys for cars, houses, and boats will be illegal under Minnesota’s new statute, 325E.3892 LEAD AND CADMIUM IN CONSUMER PRODUCTS; PROHIBITION.

The new statute aims to ban everyday items containing a tiny percentage of lead and cadmium, which keys contain.

Many locksmiths have warned lawmakers that the new law will ban nearly all of their products because they contain more lead and cadmium than the state’s new 0.09% limit.

Rob Justen of Doyle Security Products stated, “Approximately 75 percent of all products that we stock have become prohibited for sale.”

Other locksmiths have warned that replacing the now-banned materials with aluminum or steel will make them too brittle and prone to rusting.

Per Reason:

Come July, common keys for houses, cars, boats, and motorcycles will be illegal in Minnesota, save for uncertain intervention from the state Legislature.

That’s when the state’s ban on the manufacture, sale, or import of keys, toys, dishes, and other common items containing more than a tiny percentage of lead or cadmium goes into effect.

The purpose of that law was to remove dangerous heavy metals from products that come into contact with children. The trouble is that almost all keys sold today have more lead than the new law’s 0.09 percent limit on lead content.

Locksmiths have been warning that the state’s lead ban will outlaw most of the products they sell. Alternative metals would require lengthy and expensive transition to using less functional materials, they say.

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USDA Approves Nebraska’s Banning Soda and Energy Drinks From Food Stamps

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued a waiver on May 19 restricting the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds to buy soda or energy drinks in Nebraska, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a May 19 statement.

This is the first-ever state waiver banning soda and energy drinks from SNAP, popularly known as food stamps.

“Prior to this waiver, SNAP recipients could buy anything except alcohol, tobacco, hot foods, and personal care products,” said the statement.

The waiver, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2026, is part of the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, the USDA said, adding that this “historic action seeks to reverse alarming disease trends across the country.”

One in three children between the ages of 12 and 19 is affected by prediabetes, it said. Forty percent of school-aged children and adolescents suffer from at least one chronic condition, while 15 percent of students in high school drink a minimum of one soda per day.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February establishing the President’s Commission to Make America Healthy Again. The agency is tasked with investigating the “root causes of America’s escalating health crisis,” including chronic disease among children, according to a White House fact sheet.

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Virginia’s new social media law targets teen access via parental consent, age checks

Virginia is preparing to enforce one of the nation’s most sweeping new restrictions on social media access for teens, requiring parental consent, time limits and age checks for users under 16.

The law, signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in May, takes effect Jan. 1, 2026, and applies to any platform that allows public profiles, messaging and shared content feeds.

Senate Bill 854 requires users to use a neutral age screen to determine if a user is under 16 and then secure verifiable parental consent before allowing more than one hour of daily use per service.

It also bars platforms from treating a minor’s data as if it belongs to an adult, even when shared through browser plug-ins or common devices.

Virginia joins more than a dozen states that have passed or proposed laws since 2023 to regulate children’s access to social media, including Utah, Texas, Florida, Maryland and California. While the details vary, most require age verification and parental consent for minors to create accounts or use apps beyond a time limit.

Privacy advocates say the law could have unintended consequences. Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the measure may increase data collection rather than limit it.

“Any time a company is required by law to collect more information, there are data privacy risks,” Kelley said, noting that platforms may turn to tools like geolocation, facial scans or ID verification to meet the law’s requirements.

He also raised legal concerns, pointing out that similar laws in other states have been paused or overturned in court.

“Like similar laws in other states, it’s unlikely Virginia’s law will survive judicial scrutiny,” Kelley said.

He also raised concerns that verification systems may not work for all families.

“These systems don’t necessarily take into account a large number of non-traditional families,” Kelley said. “Regardless, such restrictions are not enforcing parental authority. They are imposing governmental authority, subject only to a parental veto.”

Supporters of the law say it gives parents a stronger role in managing their children’s online habits. In a written response, Sen. Schuyler Van Valkenburg’s office said the law is enforced under the existing Consumer Protection Act and handled by the Virginia Attorney General’s Office.

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Drastic new cigarette rules that will change the way Aussies smoke forever

Aussie smokers will see some types of cigarettes banned under tough new rules designed to make smoking as unappealing as possible. 

The new measures, which are set to come into force from July 1, will outlaw certain ingredients, flavours and accessories. 

For example, menthol, rum and clove-favoured cigarettes and those with crush balls in the filter will be banned. 

‘These mask the harshness of tobacco, make it more addictive, easier to smoke and harder to quit,’ a Department of Health spokesman said.

Cigarette manufacturers will also be banned from using words like ‘smooth’ and ‘gold’ because they can create the false impression that some products are less harmful.

The new rules will also force all cigarettes to be consistent in their size and shape, with unique filters banned. 

Each packet will come with health warnings and contain information cards offering support to quit.

It comes after manufacturers were forced to print grim warning messages, such as ‘poison in every puff’ and ‘toxic addiction’, on the filter of each cigarette from April.

Health Minister Mark Butler said Australia was ‘one of the first countries in the world to include this new public health measure’.

He said the aim was to ‘educate but also dissuade smokers from using this deadly product’.

Cigarette prices in Australia are among the highest in the world due chiefly to heavy taxation. A standard 20-pack costs more than $50, depending on the brand, with 70 per cent of the retail price ($35) going to the government in excise tax.

Cigarette excise taxes increase twice a year in line with average wages. On March 1, the tax per cigarette rose by 2.8 per cent to $1.27816, up from $1.24335.

The regular tax hikes and resultant high prices have created a booming black market, with millions of Australians now buying illegal, counterfeit cigarettes sold in convenience stores.

The lucrative black-market trade has seen tobacco stores taken over by criminal gangs, with violent turf wars and arson attacks. 

And despite the tax increases, government revenue from tobacco has plummeted due to fewer people buying the expensive product – dropping 39 per cent in just four years, from a peak of $16 billion in 2019/20 to $9.8 billion in 2023/24.

The ATO now estimates that nearly one in five cigarettes smoked in Australia comes from criminal syndicates that evade taxes and sell at deep discounts.

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Virginia passes law to limit time teens spend on social media to one hour a day

Virginia teens under 16 will soon face limits on their social media usage after Governor Glenn Youngkin signed new legislation into law.

The law requires social media companies to set default time limits of one hour per day for users under 16 years old, with parents having the ability to adjust that time up or down.

“It’s a good first start, and it’s a good way for parents to be able to have better control over how much social media their kids are on,” said Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg (D – Henrico), who co-sponsored the legislation.

VanValkenburg, who teaches in Henrico County schools, has witnessed the impact of excessive social media use firsthand.

“You see how much it hinders their ability to do well in school, and you see how much it hinders their socialization with their friends,” VanValkenburg said.

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Religion Is Not The Only Thing That Should Be Separated From The State

The Act of Supremacy of 1534 declared that King Henry VIII (and his successors) was “the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England” and not the pope of Rome. The Treason Act of 1534 made it an act of treason, under punishment of death, to deny the Act of Supremacy. During the reign of Queen Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII, the Act of Supremacy was repealed, but was enacted by the English Parliament again in 1559 after Henry’s other daughter Elizabeth became the queen. The British monarch is to this very day still the head of the Church of England or Anglican Church, which is the established church in England. This is one of the main differences between the United States and Great Britain. Although the United States has a National Cathedral where some state funerals are held (most recently for Jimmy Carter), it is actually an Episcopal church (part of the worldwide Anglican Communion), not owned or controlled by the federal government. The “separation of church and state” is a hallmark of the American system of government.

The First Amendment

The Constitution was drafted in 1787, ratified in 1788, and took effect in 1789. It established the United States as a federal system of government where the states, through the Constitution, granted a limited number of powers to a central government. The Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution) was ratified by the states in 1791 in response to criticisms of the Constitution by the Anti-Federalists that the Constitution contained no explicit protection of speech, assembly, religion, or the right to bear arms.

The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” It was President Thomas Jefferson who, in an 1802 letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, equated the religion clauses in the First Amendment with the “separation of church and state”:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

That the “separation of church and state” applied to just the federal government is evident by the fact that some of the states still maintained established churches at the time the Constitution was adopted. The phrase was resurrected by Justice Hugo Black in the case of Everson v. Board of Education (1947). But as Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center has observed: “The federal government’s use of the First Amendment to prohibit religious displays in local parks, to force the removal of the Ten Commandments from public schools, or to ban prayers in public assemblies would horrify the founding generation.” Massachusetts was the last of the original states to fully disestablish its churches in 1833. The idea of the “separation of church and state” is now enshrined in all state constitutions.

But religion is not the only thing that should be separated from the state. Unfortunately, the very people who talk the loudest about the separation of church and state never call for the separation of anything else from the state.

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New York City Considers ‘Accelerator Restrictors’For Habitual Speeders

For those of you who’ve had your share of speeding tickets, just imagine putting your pedal to the metal, only to have your car’s accelerator top out at — or below! — the speed limit.

A new measure under consideration in New York City could really clamp down on repeat speeders with accelerator-restrictor technology … particularly focusing on speeders cited on surface streets and in school zones. The city could end up mandating the accelerator restrictors to force chronic speeders to involuntarily slow down.

The devices are part of a pilot program known as Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA). Some use GPS data and maps to determine the correct speed depending on your car’s location. Some makes and models already have this technology installed as of a year ago. Vehicles that do not currently have ISA would have to be modified to add the technology.

If approved, New York would join Virginia, Georgia and Washington, D.C., in enacting new state laws requiring convicted speeders be forced to install ISA devices to curb their ability to accelerate beyond legal limits.

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They Really Do Want Us To Be Weak Physically, Mentally, Emotionally, Financially, & Spiritually So That We Will Become Dependent On Them

It takes strength to be free.  That is why they want us to be weak.

When we are weak, we are much more likely to become dependent upon the system to survive, and that makes us much easier to control.  So they give us junk to eat, they put poisons into our air and water, they “dumb us down” from a very early age, they feed us a steady stream of “programming” that makes us depressed and afraid, they get us hooked on legal and illegal drugs, and they constantly try to get us into as much debt as possible.

Something that a rapper known as Zuby posted on Twitter sums this up perfectly…

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