Tag: republicans

Trump Is Using the ‘Misinformation’ Censorship Playbook Republicans Attacked Biden For

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson recently complained about alleged “lies, smears and AI deepfakes that are designed to deceive Americans” about President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Pressed on whether the government was talking with social media platforms to stem this purported misinformation, the spokesperson said, “Yes and we are also putting resources forward to ensure DHS combats this.”

It wasn’t so long ago that candidate Trump and his Republican allies were decrying the Joe Biden administration for pressuring platforms to police misinformation. The Trump administration seems to have warmed to the idea. 

Many on the left, who previously supported giving the government greater power to combat so-called misinformation, are and should rightly be fearful of a Trump administration empowered to censor speech it disagrees with.

The DHS announcement signals a deeper shift toward government-driven moderation of online speech—a shift that threatens to turn every administration into a speech arbiter. The power to dictate what can be said on the internet is inherently prone to abuse, no matter who holds it. The stakes are high.

Jawboning for Me but Not for Thee

Under the First Amendment, federal and state governments cannot censor speech they dislike, so instead of blatantly shutting down a news organization or online platform, government actors often try to force a company to do their bidding through more subtle means. These demands often happen behind closed doors, backed by an implicit—or sometimes explicit—threat that refusal will bring government retaliation. Because the government wields so much power over businesses, these companies understand they are in a weak position to resist. This practice is called “jawboning.”

When the Biden administration made public and private demands that social media companies remove “misinformation” and “disinformation” related to the COVID-19 pandemic, it ended up at the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri. The Court ultimately punted by ruling that individual social media users who claimed their speech was suppressed lacked standing to sue. 

This was disappointing. Internal emails from various social media companies showed that senior leaders felt they had no choice but to comply with the administration. Meta’s leaders internally said that they needed to change policy because they had “bigger fish to fry with the Administration.” YouTube claimed it needed to keep Biden officials happy since they wanted to “work closely with the administration on multiple policy fronts.” Amazon moved to “accelerate” its policy changes ahead of a call with Biden officials. Thankfully, the Supreme Court did at least uphold the principle that jawboning is wrong and unconstitutional in another case, NRA v. Vullo. 

Today, the Trump administration appears to be invoking Murthy as cover for its own pressure campaigns against online platforms. Apple removed an app that allowed users to report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in real time. After complaints from Attorney General Pam Bondi, Meta removed a Facebook group that shared information about ICE agents. Now, the DHS says it is communicating with social media companies about supposed immigration misinformation. It would be naive to suppose it hasn’t applied any pressure during those talks.

It is entirely possible that the government can point to specific acts of illegality. It’s also possible that some of this content violates platform policies. For example, Meta claimed it removed the Facebook page with information on ICE agents for violating its “policies against coordinated harm.” It is possible this group was persistently violating this policy. But as long as these companies remain vulnerable to government pressure, we cannot simply trust officials who insist their demands are legitimate.

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Crockett’s Senate Run Was Engineered By Republicans

Rep. Jasmine Crockett. (D-Texas) officially launched her campaign for the U.S. Senate on Monday, and Republicans appear to have played a major role in that happening. 

According to a report from NOTUS, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) was “actively worked behind the scenes to encourage Rep. Jasmine Crockett to jump into the Senate Democratic primary in Texas, believing she will be the easiest opponent to beat.”

With Sen. John Cornyn facing a tough three-way primary and Democrats fielding two strong candidates, Republican strategists reportedly were concerned the race would be tougher than expected. They feared a draining fight could leave the nominee wounded before the real battle against the Democrats even began.

Back in July, the NRSC commissioned a private poll that “by design” included Crockett’s name among the Democratic contenders. Her numbers surprised everyone: she topped the field. Instead of treating it as an internal curiosity, GOP operatives moved fast. 

“When we saw the results, we were like, ‘OK, we got to disseminate this far and wide,’” a source told NOTUS.

In June news broke that Texas Democrats Colin Allred, James Talarico, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Joaquin Castro met to discuss the 2026 election.

Operatives at the NRSC realized that Crockett — whose political stock had been rising — wasn’t included in that meeting and also hadn’t been included in any credible poll. So they decided to change that.

Following the NRSC’s polls, other surveys began to include Crockett and showed similar results: She was surging in the primary.

The NRSC then worked to amplify those polls and is taking credit for helping “orchestrate the pile on of these polling numbers to really drive that news cycle and that narrative that Jasmine Crockett was surging in Texas,” the source said.

And Crockett took the bait.

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Rep Massie Introduces Bill For US To Dump ‘Cold War Relic’ NATO

Conservative and outspoken libertarian-leaning Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced legislation Tuesday for the United States for formally withdraw from NATO. Sen. Mike Lee is also helping lead the charge, introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

The bill argues that the US military cannot be seen as the police force of the world, and that given NATO was created to counter the long-gone Soviet Union, which no longer exists, American taxpayers’ money would be better spent elsewhere.

“We should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our own country, not socialist countries… US participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk US involvement in foreign wars… America should not be the world’s security blanket – especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense,” Massie said.

That latter part is likely designed to gain Trump’s attention and sympathy, given the president has been emphasizing this point all the way back to his first term.

The bill if passed would require the US government to formally notify NATO that it intends to end its membership and halt the use of American funds for shared budgets. Republican Senator Lee actually introduced similar legislation earlier this year, but it stalled in committee.

Of course, most Congress members have viewpoints which merely reflect the ‘pro-NATO’ established position of the vast majority of Western politicians generally, so it’s very unlikely to ever be passed.

Massie wrote on X, “NATO is a Cold War relic. The United States should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our country, not socialist countries. Today, I introduced HR 6508 to end our NATO membership.” 

“Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against,” he said additionally. 

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Ohio Lawmakers Pass Bill To Roll Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Law And Impose Hemp Restrictions, Sending It To Governor

The Ohio Senate has voted to concur with a House-amended bill to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of hemp products that fall outside of a recently revised federal definition for the crop unless they’re sold at licensed cannabis dispensaries.

The measure from Sen. Stephen Huffman (R) was substantively revised in the House last month, but the originating chamber voted 22-7 on Tuesday to accept those changes and send the legislation to Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) desk.

The legislation now pending the governor’s signature would recriminalize certain marijuana activity that was legalized under a ballot initiative that passed in 2023  as well as remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

After the House revised the initial Senate-passed legislation, removing certain controversial provisions, the Senate quickly rejected those changes in October. That led to the appointment of a bicameral conference committee to resolve outstanding differences between the chambers. That panel then approved a negotiated form of the bill, which passed the House last month and has now cleared the Senate.

To advocates’ disappointment, the final version of the measure now heading to the governor’s desk would eliminate language in current statute providing anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. That includes protections meant to prevent adverse actions in the context of child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants and professional licensing.

It would also recriminalize possessing marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed dispensary in Ohio or from a legal homegrow. As such, people could be charged with a crime for carrying cannabis they bought at a legal retailer in neighboring Michigan.

Additionally, it would ban smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations such as bar patios—and it would allow landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rented homes. Violating that latter policy, even if it involves vaping in a person’s own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense.

The legislation would also replace what had been a proposed regulatory framework for intoxicating hemp that the House had approved with a broad prohibition on sales outside marijuana dispensaries following a recent federal move to recriminalize such products.

“In short, this bill leaves the crux of Issue 2 and marijuana access intact, while providing for several important public safety concerns and also regulations that protect Ohio children,” Huffman argued on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Sen. Bill DeMora (D), however, said the legislation undermines the will of voters.

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Ohio Senate Expected To Vote On Bill Recriminalizing Some Marijuana Activity That Voters Legalized

A new law that’s likely to pass at the Statehouse next week would establish a series of minor criminal penalties for people who improperly transport or possess marijuana in Ohio, while rolling back legal protections for users in venues like child custody or professional licensing disputes.

For that reason, NORML, the oldest marijuana advocacy organization in the U.S., is leading a quixotic effort to ask the Ohio Senate to reject Senate Bill 56 before a final vote next week.

With the Senate’s approval, the bill would go to Gov. Mike DeWine (R) for a signature or veto.

The marijuana changes come within a larger package that also imposes a comprehensive, new regulatory system on intoxicating hemp, a product that’s functionally similar to legal marijuana but sold without the age restrictions, taxes or quality controls. DeWine, a Republican who opposed relaxing Ohio’s marijuana laws, has made a public cause of the intoxicating hemp issue for more than a year now.

But perhaps out of a political compromise, marijuana users have found themselves caught in the crosshairs within the hemp crackdown, according to Morgan Fox, NORML’s political director.

“A lot of these things are completely nonsensical,” he said in an interview. “This is recriminalizing a lot of behavior that is relatively innocuous and has been legal for some time.”

House and Senate lawmakers negotiated a final version of the legislation in a conference committee, which means the bill can no longer be changed. The House passed it last month, with a late-night 52-34 vote, where a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in opposition.

Committee members described the final version as a compromise between a list of scrambled voting blocs: Democrats who don’t want new criminal penalties for run-of-the-mill users, libertarian-minded Republicans protective of the right to grow one’s own marijuana, religious conservatives who disapprove expanding the legal use of intoxicants, local governments who want their tax money, a governor seeking a crackdown on the gas station hemp retailers, and both the hemp and marijuana industries seeking market advantage. (All told, 153 lobbyists registered to work on the bill as of August, state records show.)

In 2023, Ohio voters passed Issue 2 by a 57 percent to 43 percent vote, allowing for adults to lawfully use, buy, sell and possess cannabis. Those rights remain broadly intact under the bill.

However, SB 56 imposes legal penalties for things like possessing marijuana in anything but its original container or buying legal marijuana in Michigan where it tends to be much cheaper.

What follows is a closer look at some of those rules.

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Governor candidate James Fishback faces allegations over relationship, began when partner was a minor

Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback is facing allegations from a former partner regarding a relationship that began when she was a minor, according to documents filed in a 2025 Leon County court case. The woman, now an adult, made the claims while recounting events that took place years earlier.

The allegations were outlined in a Petition for Injunction for Protection Against Stalking filed by Keniah Fort in January 2025. Fort stated that she joined Fishback’s organization in 2021 at age 16, while Fishback was 26, and that he initiated a romantic relationship with her while she was still a minor. She said he explicitly instructed her to keep the relationship secret, a tactic some experts might describe as grooming.

Documents show Fort alleged her relationship with Fishback escalated over time. In Spring of 2023, she said she and Fishback began to live together, during which she was financially dependent on him due to irregular pay from her work in his organization.

The petition describes repeated conflicts and aggressive behavior, including Fishback throwing objects, screaming, and on one occasion grabbing Fort’s arm, leaving visible marks. Fort alleged Fishback tried to gaslight her and threatened self-harm to manipulate her.

By March of 2024, the couple became engaged, but the engagement ended in September of that year. Fort said that after the breakup, Fishback’s behavior worsened. She made claims of cyberbullying and stalking, including threatening to turn off utilities in their shared home and posting about the breakup on social media,

The petition also included references to text messages and other communications, alleging that Fishback sent hundreds of messages over several days, repeatedly contacting her after she asked him not to, and contacted her family. According to documents, Fishback acknowledged in some messages that he had been “tough” on her but denied threatening her.

The court ultimately denied Fort’s petition for protection in June 2025, noting that Fishback may have been “a little obsessive-compulsive” but did not initiate contact “directly or indirectly with no legitimate purpose.”

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Congress Pushes for Nationwide Internet Age Verification Plan.

Republican lawmakers are proposing a new way to enforce accountability on tech companies to comply with age verification laws, despite resistance from websites like Pornhub. The App Store Accountability Act (ASA), introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative John James (R-MI), proposes a different model: requiring app stores themselves to verify users’ ages and pass that information to apps when they are downloaded.

The bill is part of a broader push in Congress to tighten safeguards for minors online and has earned support from major tech companies, including Facebook parent company Meta, Pinterest, and Snap. Pinterest CEO Bill Ready argues that one standard would simplify the process and reduce the confusion created by a patchwork of state requirements. “The need for a federal standard is urgent,” he said.

“I think most people at most of these companies probably do want to protect kids,” Sen. Lee said, adding that support from tech companies like Pinterest “makes a big difference.”

However, the proposal faces resistance from civil liberties groups and digital rights advocates. Critics warn that compulsory age verification could limit access to lawful online content, raising First Amendment concerns. They also cite significant privacy risks, arguing that systems requiring users to submit sensitive personal information could expose them to data breaches or misuse.

Some major websites have rejected attempts to enforce online age verification. Pornhub has withdrawn its services from states that require government-issued ID or similar credentials for access to adult material. The company argued that these laws push users toward unregulated platforms while forcing supposedly legitimate sites to collect data they would prefer not to hold.

In 2025, the Supreme Court upheld a state age-verification law for explicit content in Texas, with the majority concluding that states may require age checks to prevent minors from viewing harmful material.

Supporters of federal action contend that the ASA would avoid the growing compliance difficulties posed by differing state regulations. Sen. Lee has stated, “I don’t believe that there’s anything unlawful, unconstitutional, or otherwise problematic about this legislation,” arguing that an app-store-centered approach would reduce repeated verification across multiple platforms.

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Feds Launch New Marijuana-Focused Ad Campaign To ‘Challenge The Dangerous Belief’ That People Drive Better While High

The Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Ad Council are rolling out a new campaign to “challenge the dangerous belief that it’s safe to drive after consuming marijuana,” with a disturbing ad that they say depicts a real-life story of a child killed by a driver who was under the influence of cannabis.

In an announcement on Tuesday, the Ad Council promoted the “Tell That to Them” initiative, which includes a 60-second ad showing a person claiming they “focus” better when driving while high and then causing a fatal car accident.

“I actually drive better when I’m high,” the man says. “If anything, I’m more careful, more chill, more relaxed.”

He is then shown driving head-on into an incoming car.

DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) partnered with the Ad Council for the campaign.

“Too many young men think marijuana doesn’t affect their driving ability or even makes them safer drivers,” NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said in a press release. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Marijuana slows down a driver’s reaction time and impairs their coordination and judgement,” he said. “This new PSA reminds motorists that driving high puts us all at risk and can have deadly consequences.”

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Federal Judges Allow North Carolina to Use New GOP-Drawn Congressional Map

Federal judges in North Carolina allowed the state to use the newly drawn congressional map, which gives Republicans one extra seat in the House.

Two lawsuits were filed to block the North Carolina legislature from enacting the newly drawn map.

A three-judge panel of the US District Court of the Middle District of North Carolina denied requests for a preliminary injunction.

NBC News reported:

A federal court in North Carolina is allowing the state to use a new Republican-drawn congressional map that would help the GOP pick up another seat in the House during next year’s midterm elections.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina unanimously denied preliminary injunction requests brought by a pair of lawsuits that said in part that the new map was aimed at diluting the voting strength of Black voters, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The judges found that the challengers “presented no direct evidence” that the North Carola Legislature enacted the map for racially discriminatory purposes.

“Instead, the direct evidence shows that the 2025 redistricting was motivated by partisan purposes,” the panel wrote Wednesday in a 57-page opinion.

Wednesday’s ruling comes after the Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature last month approved a map aimed at expanding the number of Republican seats in the House. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, does not have the power to veto the map.

The challengers, in a pair of consolidated lawsuits, asked the court to block the state from using the new borders of two congressional districts for next year’s midterms.

Texas is also battling its newly redrawn congressional map in court and has asked the Supreme Court to halt the lower court’s ruling that blocked the new redraw.

Last Friday, Justice Alito paused the lower court’s ruling and temporarily restored Texas’s new congressional map.

In response to Texas’s redraw, California eliminated 5 House GOP seats.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against California and argued that its new congressional map is a result of unconstitutional race-based gerrymandering.

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Rep. Maria Salazar Says US Needs To Invade Venezuela So US Oil Companies Can Have a ‘Field Day’

Amid the US push toward a war to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) has made the argument that the US must “go in” to Venezuela so American oil companies can have a “field day” since the country sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

“Venezuela, for those Americans who do not understand why we need to go in … Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day, because it will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity,” Salazar, a Miami-born daughter of Cuban exiles, told Fox Business.

Salazar also said that the US must go to war with Venezuela because it has become the “launching pad” for people who “hate” the US, claiming Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are active in the country. In one of the more absurd claims she made in the interview, Salazar said Maduro was “giving uranium to Hamas, and to Iran, and to North Korea, and Nicaragua.”

Salazar’s third reason for going to war with Venezuela is the claim that Maduro is the leader of the so-called Cartel of the Suns, or Cartel de los Soles, a group that doesn’t actually exist. The term was first used in the early 1990s to describe Venezuelan generals with sun insignias on their uniforms who were involved in cocaine trafficking and were actually working with the CIA at the time.

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