Tag: police state

Airport Nightmares Over TSA Lines Have Returned

The Transportation Security Administration is getting affected again by the Democrats, and now those long lines at airports are back. Most of these workers are exempt from the immediate effects of the shutdown in Washington. They have to show up for work, but they aren’t paid. The Democrats believe punishing TSA agents over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation activities will work. It won’t. As we saw in an NBC News poll, ICE is more popular than the Democratic Party. Also, ICE’s operations remain funded and unaffected—paid through the Big, Beautiful Bill.  

So, what are we even doing here? Democrats could sign off on a DHS funding bill after the January Minneapolis drama. Their base wouldn’t allow it, so most of the government was funded through September, with a short-term CR providing DHS funding until a longer-term funding measure could be hashed out. It failed. Republicans wanted another two-week extension, but Democrats rejected it. The agency was shut down over Presidents’ Day weekend, and now the mayhem has returned. In New Orleans, things looked like an Afghan refugee camp.

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Dodgy Fire Stick crackdown: Eight new targeted areas named as police plan to swoop on illegal streamers

Police have launched a fresh crackdown on dodgy Amazon Fire TV sticks, with eight new areas across the UK being targeted.

Illegal Amazon Fire Sticks and ‘dodgy boxes’ are streaming devices that have third-party software installed in them, allowing users to watch premium content from providers such as TNT Sports, Sky Sports and Disney+ for free. 

The use of these devices is deemed a ‘serious crime‘, and police forces across the UK and Ireland, alongside the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), have been targeting individuals who continue to watch unauthorised content. Sky, who pay billions to the Premier League to show matches, also have their own in-house piracy team.

The latest swoop is part of ‘Operation Eider’, a campaign led by FACT, with 14 more cases identified on November 14, 2025.

The eight areas targeted were: London, South West, North West, North East, Scotland, Wales, Yorkshire and Humber, West Midlands.

Of the 14 cases, 12 individuals received cease-and-desist (C&D) notices, while two were served with C&Ds via knock-and-talk enforcement. 

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Rhode Island Bill Could Turn Gun Owners Into Criminals for Keeping the Firearms They Legally Bought

Two new bills introduced in the Rhode Island legislature are taking aim at legal gun owners, and one of them could easily turn lawful gun owners into criminals overnight, simply for maintaining possession of the firearms they legally purchased. 

Each of these bills, by themselves, represent a major infringement on the right to keep and bear arms, but taken together they pose an existential threat to the Second Amendment rights of Rhode Island residents. 

Any gun or magazine ban that allows existing owners to maintain possession of their arms can be amended in the future to remove those protections, and that’s exactly what H8073 does with so-called assault weapons. The state’s ban on the sale and transfer of modern sporting rifles, which was only adopted a year ago, would be expanded to prohibit the possession of those arms beginning July 1 of this year. Simply keeping the gun you lawfully purchased could result in a ten-year prison sentence and/or a fine of up to $10,000.

Then there’s H7755, which would expand the state’s “Responsible Firearm Purchasing Act.” Under the current law, anyone purchasing a handgun must provide the seller with a valid “training certificate” issued by the Rhode Island Attorney General, and after the sale has been approved they’re subjected to a 7-day waiting period before they can take possession of their handgun. 

H7755 would expand that requirement (and waiting period) to all gun sales in the state. In order to simply purchase a gun to keep in the home you’d have to take an 8-hour training course complete with a live-fire requirement, and then pass a written test developed by the Attorney General’s office. 

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Australia’s “eSafety” Commissioner Threatens App Stores Over AI Age Verification Deadline

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is threatening to go after app stores and search engines unless they block AI services that haven’t verified their users’ ages by March 9, 2026.

The ultimatum landed after a Reuters took it upon itself to survey 50 leading text-based AI platforms, and found that 30 of them had taken no visible steps toward compliance with the country’s controversial censorship and surveillance ideas.

“eSafety will use the full range of our powers where there is non-compliance,” a spokesperson said, spelling out that this extends to “action in respect of gatekeeper services such as search engines and app stores that provide key points of access to particular services.”

What’s actually being built here is bigger than age verification. Five industry codes taking effect March 9 under Australia’s Online Safety Act 2021 impose age-gating requirements across a wide range of services: AI platforms, app distribution services, social media, gaming, dating apps, and any website deemed high-risk for pornography, extreme violence, or self-harm content.

Every category gets its own code. Each non-compliance carries fines of up to A$49.5 million (around US$35 million). The system isn’t aimed at one corner of the internet. It covers most of it.

The age verification requirement doesn’t stand alone. Under a separate amendment to the Online Safety Act passed last year, social media platforms must already ban users under 16 entirely.

The March 9 codes extend that logic further, requiring services to verify the identity of users and filter what they can see based on age. The infrastructure being assembled connects age to identity to content access across the internet as Australians currently use it.

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UK Government Brands Union Flag A ‘TOOL OF HATE’ In Leaked ‘Social Cohesion’ Strategy

A leaked draft of the UK Government’s new ‘social cohesion’ strategy has sparked outrage by labeling the flying of English, Scottish, and Union Jack flags as potential “tools of hate.”

The document claims these national symbols were sometimes used last summer to “exclude or intimidate,” adding that the “extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate.”

The 47-page draft, leaked to the Spectator magazine, also highlights how antisemitism has become “normalised in many corners of society” from schools and universities to workplaces and the NHS.

Under the proposals, titled Protecting What Matters, some £800 million over 10 years would be allocated to 40 areas where social cohesion is “under pressure.”

The strategy is set for a cross-Government rollout next week, but critics are already slamming it as divisive.

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice blasted the draft, telling the Sun: “Absurdly, this says our national flag is a tool of hate used to intimidate. The whole paper is a divisive nonsense that should be consigned to the bin.”

The leak ties directly into ongoing controversies over national flags, as detailed in our previous coverage where English councils admitted spending tens of thousands to remove “unauthorised” English and Union Jack flags from lampposts.

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UK Mulls Banning 67 Dog Breeds for ‘Animal Health’ — but Is That Really the Reason?

After all these years, it turns out that your beloved pooch may be “unhealthy,” so much so that his breed has to be banned. This dire news comes from the far-left government of the United Kingdom, where beagles, dachshunds, mastiffs, great danes, boxers, and saint bernards may soon be a thing of the past. All in all, the government is considering banning no fewer than sixty-seven dog breeds, with the stated reason being animal health. This is so implausible, however, that it cries out for another explanation, and there is an obvious one that doesn’t bode well for Britain’s future as a free society.

The UK’s Daily Mail reported Thursday that this initiative comes from the top: “Sixty-seven dog breeds could be banned in Britain if new breeding guidelines set by parliament become mandatory, campaigners have warned.” This is because “the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for animal welfare has launched a new tool to determine if a dog is healthy.”

Why was a new tool to determine if a dog is healthy needed now, to the extent that the British parliament has a group devoted to studying this question? Is Britain suffering a plague of unhealthy dogs? Are these legions of unhealthy dogs infecting their owners with diseases of some kind?

None of that seems to be the case; on the contrary, this sudden parliamentary fascination with canine health seems to be entirely a bolt from the blue, and the parliamentary group’s criteria for what constitutes sufficient dog health look just as arbitrary: “The cross-party committee has developed a 10-point checklist of extreme physical characteristics which can make for a poorly pooch. They include mottled colouration, excessive skin folds, bulging outward-turning eyes, drooping eyelids, under or overbite and a muzzle that interrupts breathing.”

The upshot of this is that numerous breeds of dog that are perfectly healthy but which have a coloration or skin folds or eyes to which parliament objects may end up being banned. And parliament means business: “The assessment – which is currently voluntary but expected to become law within five years – aims to drive out breeds with these sorts of exaggerated attributes.”

The claim is that this is all about caring for the poor dears, just as Canada’s euthanasia program is supposed to be all about alleviating pain and suffering. Britain’s anti-dog push “comes after studies have shown animals of these varieties can sometimes suffer pain, discomfort and frustration from birth.” However, “critics have cautioned the new criteria will see some 67 of the most popular types of dog in the UK automatically dubbed unhealthy.” These include “widely adored breeds like dachshunds, shih tzus and Scottish terriers – and even the late Queen’s beloved Welsh corgis.”

Given that these claims about the health of well-known and beloved dog breeds are so implausible, what else could be going on here? Well, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) recently landed himself in hot water when he posted this on X: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” Could it be that Muslims in Britain are forcing exactly this choice, or that Britain’s far-left Labour government is trying to ensure that the country’s growing and restive Muslim population continues to vote for Labour en masse?

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When 7‑OH Fears Drive Policy by Anecdote

For generations, communities in Southeast Asia have used the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa — kratom — brewed as a drink to relieve pain and steady mood. Its principal alkaloids, mitragynine and the more potent 7‑hydroxymitragynine, act on opioid receptors and produce analgesic effects.

Kratom has since gained a significant presence in the United States, where consumers often use it as an alternative to prescription opioids or as a self-directed aid in managing withdrawal. It is sold in teas, capsules, powders, and concentrated extracts, with purified 7‑OH products increasingly appearing in vape shops, convenience stores, and online markets.

Regulators are now moving toward prohibition. Last July, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to urge the Drug Enforcement Administration to place 7‑OH in Schedule I — the same legal category as heroin.

Supporters of these efforts argue that kratom — especially high-potency 7‑OH — could fuel the next wave of overdose deaths. But the data tell a different story.

Fatal overdoses in which 7‑OH has been implicated are exceedingly rare, and deaths linked to kratom more broadly are rarer still. In the limited cases where coroners listed kratom or 7‑OH as contributing factors, polysubstance use was the norm. Roughly two-thirds of decedents had fentanyl in their systems. About one-third had heroin present, and just under one-fifth had prescription opioids or cocaine. Around 80% had documented histories of substance misuse, and about 90% were not receiving clinical care for pain.

Each of these deaths is tragic, and any loss of life linked to psychoactive substances deserves careful scrutiny.

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This Small-Town Couple Sells Affordable Caskets – the State Wants to Shut Them Down

Todd Collard and his wife, Candi Mentink have owned and operated Caskets of Honor for years, providing high-quality custom designs at an affordable price for grieving families. But their dream of helping people honor their loved ones slammed into a roadblock when Oklahoma’s regulators stepped in.

The business started in 2016 soon after Todd decided to build a casket for fun. It didn’t take long for this project to become a business idea — one that would set them on their journey to manufacture affordable caskets with custom designs for those who lost loved ones. “I just always thought it’d be really neat,” Todd told Townhall. “We’ve all been to funerals and seeing just the same old caskets over and over.”

He continued, saying he “just thought it’d be really cool to be able to create a tribute to somebody or a theme or anything that they like—hunting, fishing, golf, whatever,” and that he wanted to “just create something that is memorable.”

From their shop in Calvin, Oklahoma, Caskets of Honor the couple worked together to create these caskets. Todd handles the building and outside design of the box while Candi uses her sewing skills to create the interior of the casket. “I tell people I’m a perfect example of why they should put Home Economics back in school,” Candi said.

Buying a casket direct from the company benefits consumers because if they were to purchase one at a funeral home, they would be paying exorbitant prices due to markups. Caskets of Honor sells to its customers directly so they don’t have to deal with inflated prices.

At first, the couple sold to funeral homes. But they wished to sell to families, so they took their products to the Tulsa State Fair in 2021. Todd said their caskets were “the hit of the fair,” with many coming by their booth to see their caskets. They gave away over 2,000 business cards at the event.

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Spain JAILS Seven Citizens For Calling Migrants ‘SCUM’ On Facebook

Spain’s Supreme Court has upheld prison sentences for seven individuals over Facebook comments criticizing unaccompanied foreign minors in the border enclave of Melilla, marking a chilling escalation in the far-left government’s war on free speech amid skyrocketing migrant-related crime.

The ruling, which imposes terms ranging from eight months to one year and ten months, stems from posts that prosecutors deemed as promoting hostility toward the group of mostly North African migrants. 

Charges were initially dropped, but an appeal led to convictions under Spain’s hate crime laws.

This case exemplifies the inverted priorities under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist-led government, which has faced mounting criticism for prioritizing mass migration over native safety and free expression.

Just months ago, Alex Soros heaped praise on Sánchez for granting amnesty to up to 500,000 illegal migrants via royal decree, bypassing parliament entirely. Soros called it “real leadership,” urging more nations to follow suit in flooding their borders.

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Britain is Trying to Censor Americans – But America is Fighting Back

Ofcom has confirmed it is referring 4chan to a final enforcement decision under the Online Safety Act. The target is a Delaware company that runs an entirely anonymous imageboard from the United States, with no offices, staff, servers or assets in Britain. The demand: install age-verification systems and content filters so that British children cannot access the site or face daily fines levied from London on an American platform. This case is not an outlier. It is the clearest real-world demonstration of what the new generation of “online safety” laws requires: private companies must build automated filters that decide, in advance, which legal speech is too harmful for minors to see. The question the regulators never quite answer is simple: what exactly does the filter catch?

In the early 2020s, a political consensus formed on both sides of the Atlantic: social media is harming children and something must be done. The result in Washington was the Kids’ Online Safety Act (KOSA); in Westminster, the Online Safety Act (OSA), which received Royal Assent in October 2023 and began enforcement in 2025. The political appeal of both measures is genuine. Adolescent mental health deteriorated in the 2010s, parents are alarmed and platforms have appeared indifferent. But good intentions do not make good law, and the form these interventions took is constitutionally and morally indefensible. Both KOSA and the OSA rest on a duty-of-care model: platforms must take “reasonable measures” or implement “proportionate systems” to prevent minors from encountering content associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm and suicide. This is not a regulation of conduct. It is a mandate to suppress speech based on its topic and its predicted emotional effect on a reader: the very definition of content-based regulation.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated the constitutional problem plainly in its July 2023 letter opposing KOSA: the bill “is a content-based regulation of constitutionally protected speech” that “will silence important conversations, limit minors’ access to potentially vital resources and violate the First Amendment”.  Under Reed v. Town of Gilbert, a law is content-based if it “applies to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed”. Content-based regulations are “presumptively unconstitutional”.

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