Tag: police state

House passes bills giving president power to choose D.C. judges, loosen police pursuit rules

The Republican-led House approved legislation on Wednesday that would give the president greater authority in choosing D.C. Superior Court judges and would relax pursuit restrictions for the Metropolitan Police Department, further overriding the District’s control over its criminal justice system.

The bills’ passage followed the House’s approval on Tuesday of legislation that seeks to lower the age at which juveniles can be charged as adults in the District and revoke the sentencing leniency that young adult convicts can receive in court.

The four proposals are part of a package of more than a dozen bills aiming to curtail public safety laws enacted in the District. House Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of being too eager to trample on the District’s autonomy, but the GOP members were unfazed.

Keep reading

Liberals admit to pushing emissions cap without studying impact on Canadian families

The Liberals are pushing ahead with their oil and gas emissions cap, a production ban in everything but name, while failing to study how it will impact Canadian families.

Conservative MP Arnold Viersen asked the Liberals to spell out the real-world consequences:

  • What will it mean for the price of groceries, gas, and home heating over the next eight years?
  • How many jobs will be lost in the oil and gas sector?
  • What impact will it have on imports from countries with lower environmental and human-rights standards?
  • How will it affect other sectors like construction, manufacturing, finance, and hospitality?
  • And how does Canada compete if global rivals like Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, or the U.S. face no such restrictions?

Instead of answering, Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin pointed to modelling in the Canada Gazette. That “analysis” claimed the cost to families would be “minimal” because energy prices are set internationally, but it gave no breakdowns for household bills. Instead, the government focused on industry stats: oil and gas production is projected to rise 16% with the cap versus 17% without, and labour spending to grow 53% instead of 55% — a 1.6% difference Ottawa is holding up as proof Canadians won’t feel a thing.

The government never studied the effect on families’ wallets. By refusing to account for higher energy costs, job losses, or the knock-on impact on food and housing, Ottawa is leaving Canadians in the dark about how much this policy will cost them.

The emissions cap, announced in November 2024, is supposed to cut oil and gas emissions by one-third starting in 2030.

Keep reading

Trump Has a Habit of Asserting Broad, Unreviewable Authority

In separate attacks this month, the U.S. military blew up two speedboats in the Caribbean Sea, killing 14 alleged drug smugglers. Although those men could have been intercepted and arrested, President Donald Trump said he decided summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking.

To justify this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects, Trump invoked his “constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive” to protect “national security and foreign policy interests.” That assertion of sweeping presidential power fits an alarming pattern that is also apparent in Trump’s tariffs, his attempt to summarily deport suspected gang members as “alien enemies,” and his planned use of National Guard troops to fight crime in cities across the country.

Although Trump described the boat attacks as acts of “self-defense,” he did not claim the people whose deaths he ordered were engaged in literal attacks on the United States. His framing instead relied on the dubious proposition that drug smuggling is tantamount to violent aggression.

While that assumption is consistent with Trump’s often expressed desire to kill drug dealers, it is not consistent with the way drug laws are ordinarily enforced. In the absence of violent resistance, a police officer who decided to shoot a drug suspect dead rather than take him into custody would be guilty of murder.

That seems like an accurate description of the attacks that Trump ordered. Yet he maintains that his constitutional license to kill, which apparently extends to civilians he views as threats to U.S. “national security and foreign policy interests,” transforms murder into self-defense.

Trump has asserted similarly broad authority to impose stiff, ever-changing tariffs on goods imported from scores of countries. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected that audacious power grab, saying it was inconsistent with the 1977 statute on which Trump relied.

The Federal Circuit said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which does not mention import taxes at all and had never before been used to impose them, does not give the president “unlimited authority” to “revise the tariff schedule” approved by Congress. The appeals court added that “the Government’s understanding of the scope of authority granted by IEEPA would render it an unconstitutional delegation.”

Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) against alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has also run into legal trouble. This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit concluded that Trump had erroneously relied on a nonexistent “invasion or predatory incursion” to justify his use of that 1798 statute.

Trump argued that the courts had no business deciding whether he had complied with the law. “The president’s determination that the factual prerequisites of the AEA have been met is not subject to judicial review,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign told the 5th Circuit.

Trump took a similar position in the tariff case. As an opposing lawyer noted, it amounted to the claim that “the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants, so long as he declares an emergency.”

Keep reading

Pam Bondi Says Government Will “Go After” Hate Speech, Drawing First Amendment Criticism

US Attorney General Pam Bondi has stirred controversy with recent comments seeming to suggest that certain forms of speech could fall outside First Amendment protections, a stance that is fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution.

During an appearance on The Katie Miller Podcast following last week’s assassination of conservative activist and commentator Charlie Kirk, Bondi stated, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society…” She added, “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

Her remarks immediately drew sharp responses from across the political spectrum, with many warning that her approach opens the door to dangerous government overreach.

Bondi later attempted to narrow the scope of her original statements in a post on X, writing, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime.”

She continued, “For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights (FIRE), a civil liberties group focused on free speech, fired back, stating, “There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment.”

The Supreme Court has long protected even offensive or unpopular speech, with the Court’s view being that the “proudest boast” of America’s free speech legacy is “freedom for the thought that we hate.”

Conservatives who typically align with Bondi’s broader political positions also voiced concern.

Keep reading

How The Drug War Benefits Donald Trump And The State

From the standpoint of many U.S. officials, one can easily see why they find the drug war advantageous. Like the drug lords and drug cartels, there is a huge drug-war federal bureaucracy that has grown dependent on the drug war. There are, for example, generous salaries for federal judges (plus lifetime appointments), federal prosecutors, DEA agents, court clerks and secretaries, law clerks, and others, all of which would dry up if the drug war were ended and drugs were legalized. Just like the drug lords and drug dealers, the last thing these federal bureaucrats want to do is let go of the source of their largess.

But there is another benefit to the drug war, one that President Trump is now using to expand his militarized police state across America. That’s the violence that necessarily comes with the drug war. Trump is using that violence as a way to complete the destruction of freedom in America.

Here is how the drug-war racket works.

The U.S. government enacts drug laws that make it illegal to possess, ingest, or distribute drugs that have not been approved by the U.S. government. It would be difficult to find a better example of the destruction of a free society than drug laws. With the enactment of such laws, the federal government is declaring to the citizenry: “You are the serfs and we are your masters. We, not you, will decide what you possess, ingest, and distribute. If you disobey our edicts, we will punish you with incarceration and fines.”

But that’s not the end of it. The drug war not only destroys individual liberty and sovereignty, it also produces a black market — that is, an illegal market. Notwithstanding the government’s drug laws, there are still a large number of Americans, for whatever reason, who wish to continue consuming drugs and who are willing to pay large amounts of money for them.

Thus, black-market sellers of drugs enter the illegal market to meet this demand. Angry and chagrined over this phenomenon, federal officials crack down by targeting both distributors and consumers with things like mandatory-minimum jail sentences, asset-forfeiture laws, no-knock raids, racist enforcement, killing of drug lords, burning of drug crops, and more.

But all that this crackdown accomplishes is higher black-market prices and profits arising from the sale of illegal drugs. The ever-soaring profits attract more people into the drug-supply business. Competition for consumers inevitably turns violent — extremely violent, especially given the unsavory nature of black-market distributors. There are, for example, turf wars where drug suppliers do their best to kill their competitors.

Keep reading

Burning the Flag or Torching the Constitution: Only One Destroys Freedom

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”Ray Bradbury

Cancel culture—political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance—has shifted us into an Age of Intolerance.

Nothing illustrates this more clearly than President Trump’s latest executive order calling for criminal charges for anyone who burns the American flag—a symbolic act long upheld by the Supreme Court as protected political expression.

This push is not about patriotism—it is political theater.

For an administration under fire—from the Epstein cover-up to tanking approval ratings and mounting constitutional crises—flag burning serves as symbolic outrage staged as political cover, a culture-war diversion to distract from more serious abuses of power.

Consider the timing: on the very same day Trump announced penalties for flag burning, he also signed an executive order establishing “specialized” National Guard units to patrol American cities under the guise of addressing crime.

This is the real bait-and-switch: cloak military policing in patriotic theater and hope no one notices the deeper constitutional violations taking root.

In other words, Trump’s flag fight is a decoy.

Yet in today’s climate, where mobs on the left and censors on the right compete to silence speech they dislike, even this form of protest is under fire.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Texas v. Johnson that burning the flag of the United States in protest is an act of protected free speech under the First Amendment.

Keep reading

Montreal church fights back after city issues $2,500 prayer service fine

A Montreal church is refusing to quietly pay a $2,500 ticket for holding a prayer service. Instead, Ministerios Restauración Church is fighting back, filing a legal defence and a Charter challenge in Quebec Superior Court that accuses the City of Montreal of abusing its power and violating fundamental rights.

The fine was issued after a July 25, 2025, worship service featuring American musician Sean Feucht.

Roughly 150 people attended the free event, which was disrupted when anti-Christian protesters tossed a smoke bomb into the sanctuary.

Police and inspectors were on site, but rather than punishing the vandals, city officials targeted the congregation issuing a bylaw ticket claiming the prayer service wasn’t.

Lawyers funded by The Democracy Fund (TDF) have filed a not-guilty plea in municipal court while also launching a Superior Court appeal. That judicial review asks the court to:

  • Quash the fine and halt proceedings,
  • Declare that prayer and musical worship are legitimate uses of a church building, and
  • Award $10,000 in damages for what the filing calls intentional violations of Charter rights.

The appeal argues that the City of Montreal trampled on rights protected by both the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, and equality without discrimination on the basis of faith or belief.

TDF lawyers also say city officials crossed the line into outright hostility toward religion. Inspectors threatened enforcement before the service, and the mayor’s office publicly condemned the event as being “against values of inclusion, solidarity, and respect.”

Keep reading

How Tyranny Becomes Entrenched: 9/11 and the Police State’s Endless Power Grabs

hey said it was for safety. They said it was for order. They said it was for the good of the nation.

They always say it’s for something good… until it isn’t.

Nearly a quarter-century after 9/11, we are still living with the consequences of fear-driven government power grabs. What began as “temporary” measures for our security have hardened into a permanent architecture of control.

The bipartisan police-state architecture that began with 9/11 has been passed from president to president and party to party, each recycling the same justifications—safety, security, patriotism—to expand its powers at the expense of the citizenry.

So they locked down the country “for our safety.”
They expanded surveillance “for our security.”
They rounded up anyone who challenged the narrative “for the common good.”
They erased names, ideas, and histories “to prevent offense.”
They forced schools to teach only what was politically correct “for the children.”
They censored speech “for our protection.”
They targeted dissenters “to preserve peace.”
They militarized the streets and called it “law and order.”

These very abuses—once denounced when carried out by the Left—are now cheered, defended, and excused when carried out by the Right.

People who once spoke passionately about truth, freedom, and faith have now fallen silent in the face of injustice, or worse, convinced themselves that nothing is wrong. The very voices that should be warning against tyranny are instead excusing it or looking away.

This is the danger of double standards in politics: every tyranny is rationalized in the moment by its chorus of defenders.

But history teaches that what goes around comes around. If you justify it now, you’ll have no defense when the tables turn.

And yet, time and again, the lies we tell ourselves make it possible. The cult of personality. The blind loyalty to party. The belief that “our side” can’t be the villain.

It never ceases to amaze how far people will go to excuse the actions of their favorite tyrant, even when those actions are the very things they once swore to oppose.

The pattern of justifying tyranny is as old as power itself. Every abuse comes wrapped in the same excuse: we had to do it.

Keep reading

Australia enforces world’s harshest social media age crackdown

Australia is introducing the world’s toughest rules to keep children off social media, with platforms facing fines of up to $49.5 million if they fail to detect and remove underage users.

From December 10, social media companies must actively identify and deactivate accounts belonging to users under 16, block re-registration attempts, and provide proper appeals processes. Communications Minister Anika Wells has unveiled a list of “reasonable steps” platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube must follow.

The measures demand that age assurance technology not be a “set-and-forget” system and cannot rely solely on self-declaration. Platforms are encouraged to adopt a layered or “waterfall approach” using multiple checks across the user experience to detect underage accounts. They must also remove existing accounts “with care and clear communication” and provide accessible review options for those who believe they were wrongly flagged.

Wells and controversial eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant will present the guidance directly to tech companies during a visit to the United States later this month. After trials proved the technology exists to meet the requirements, Wells said there is no excuse for companies to fall short.

Keep reading

Speaker Johnson Blocks Massie’s Attempt To Repeal The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act

Since ascending to the seat of Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson has had a tumultuous tenure that has raised serious questions about how committed Republican leadership is to disrupting the political establishment in Washington, DC, which it promised to vanquish. Ironically, the controversies that have marred his leadership the most have not been initiated by partisan opposition from the left. Instead, the most formidable challenges to Johnson have come from within the Republican Party itself. Representative Thomas Massie, who in stark juxtaposition has earned a reputation as one of the few members of Congress with any integrity, has proven to be Johnson’s greatest adversary in that struggle.From his crusade to prevent Johnson’s re-election to the seat at the head of the House of Representatives to his mission to bring transparency to the debacle over the release of the Epstein Files™, Massie’s efforts have painted the Speaker in the light of someone who has used the promise of putting America first as a vehicle for political expediency rather than as a testament to his commitment to the American people.

By actually fighting against the corrupt Washington establishment, Massie’s efforts have shown just how much Congress is still at odds with the American people under Johnson’s leadership. The congressman’s recent effort to repeal legislation that legalizes the use of state-sanctioned propaganda against the American citizens by their own government is the latest episode in the saga between Massie and Johnson. Massie’s revelation that his attempt to repeal the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act was blocked by Speaker Johnson amplifies concerns about whose interests are being fought for by Congress and how committed Republican leadership is to delivering on its promises to provide the public with greater transparency and integrity of the rule of law.

Keep reading