UK: Police Slammed for Silencing Ex-Firefighter Robert Moss Over Online Posts

By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | August 18, 2025
There are worse ways to wake up than with the police on your doorstep. But not many.
For Robert Moss, it wasn’t just the shock of a dawn raid that unsettled him. It was the absurdity of what followed. At 7 a.m. one morning in July, Staffordshire Police entered his home, seized his electronic devices, and arrested him. Not for theft or violence. But for saying something critical online about his former employer.
Moss, 56, spent nearly three decades in the fire service. His career ended in 2021 with a dismissal that was later ruled unfair by a tribunal.
Since then, he has continued to speak his mind, particularly in a closed Facebook group where he has voiced concerns about how the service is run.
These posts, according to police, were serious enough to justify arrest and a set of bail conditions that barred him from discussing the fire service, its leadership, or even the fact that he had been arrested at all.
There were no charges.
“I was a critic of Staffordshire fire service, and I had been gagged from saying anything about individuals there, the service itself, and my arrest. That is a breach of my human rights,” Moss said to the Telegraph after finally winning the right to speak freely again.
Until last week, those bail conditions stayed in place under threat of further arrest. It was only when magistrates in Newcastle-Under-Lyme reviewed the case that they concluded what should have been obvious from the start: the restrictions were excessive.
The court sided with Moss and the Free Speech Union, which supported his challenge. Its barrister, Tom Beardsworth, told the court, “These allow the police to arrest and detain someone and then, when they are released, prevent them from telling others what had happened with the threat of further arrest if they do not comply. We do not live in a police state, and Mr Moss should have every right to speak about his arrest.”
That ought to be self-evident.
Staffordshire Police argued that the restrictions were necessary to maintain public safety and order. But what kind of disorder, exactly, is caused by a man posting critical remarks in a private online group?
The arresting officer, DC Isobel Holliday, described the posts as malicious and reckless. In court, however, no one could convincingly explain what real-world harm had been done. The magistrates seemed to agree that there was none.
What remains is a narrower set of restrictions that prevents Moss from contacting certain officials directly. That is one thing. But preventing a man from speaking about his own arrest in the name of order? That is something else entirely.
Sam Armstrong of the Free Speech Union called the case one of the worst examples of state overreach they have seen. “In the more than 4,000 cases the Free Speech Union has handled, this is amongst the most egregious abuses of state power we have encountered,” he said. “Robert’s comments were not crimes, his arrest was not lawful, and the police have been acting like the Stasi, not a constabulary.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first time British police have treated criticism as a public safety risk, and the way things are going, it won’t be the last.
Increasingly, the concept of “order” is being used not to protect citizens but to protect institutions from public scrutiny. That is a dangerous shift.
Moss’s posts were blunt. They may have been irritating to those in charge. But they were not criminal.
In a democracy, people are allowed to criticize their leaders. They are allowed to be wrong, rude, and persistent. They are allowed to be a nuisance. What they should not be is arrested and silenced for it.
This time, the courts got it right. But the fact that it needed to go this far is troubling.
The Israeli flag just became the only national flag illegal to burn in the United States
When Criticizing Israel Becomes a Hate Crime: How One Ruling Betrayed the First Amendment
By Shaun King | The North Star | August 16, 2025
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.
The Supreme Court’s Bedrock Principle
The highest court in the land has spoken clearly: you cannot criminalize burning the American flag. In Texas v. Johnson(1989), Justice William Brennan wrote:
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.”
The following year, in United States v. Eichman (1990), the Court struck down another attempt to ban flag burning, reminding the country that:
“Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”
In America, even the Stars and Stripes — the nation’s own sacred symbol — cannot be placed above criticism or protest. That is what freedom means. And yet in 2025, a federal judge just carved out an exception — for a foreign flag.
How the Israeli Flag Was Elevated
The case came from dueling protests in D.C. last fall. Kimmara Sumrall, a pro-Israel activist, draped the Israeli flag around her shoulders as a cape. A pro-Palestinian demonstrator yanked it. A police officer saw it and arrested the woman.
The criminal court acquitted her. But Sumrall filed a civil rights lawsuit, backed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, arguing that this wasn’t just an assault — it was racial discrimination.
Judge McFadden agreed. In his ruling, he wrote:
“Purposefully yanking on an Israeli flag tied around a Jewish person’s neck… is direct evidence of racial discrimination. The Star of David — emblazoned upon the Israeli flag — symbolizes the Jewish race.”
With that, he collapsed the line between a political symbol and a people’s identity. He went so far as to compare attacking the Israeli flag to using the N-word against a Black person.
No other flag in the world has been granted this kind of protection in an American courtroom. Not Britain’s. Not Canada’s. Not Mexico’s. Not even our own. Only Israel’s.
Civil Rights Law Twisted
To reach this conclusion, McFadden invoked the Civil Rights Act of 1866, written to protect newly freed Black Americans. Later, in 1987, the Supreme Court held that Jews and Arabs were covered as “races” under this law.
But McFadden went further than any court before him. He declared that the flag of Israel itself is a racial symbol — and therefore protected. And in doing so, he turned what was supposed to be a shield for the oppressed into a shield for an oppressive foreign government.
The Global Contrast
Everywhere else in the democratic world, flag burning is understood as a political expression. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled again and again: desecrating a flag, however offensive, is free speech.
It is only authoritarian regimes that conflate their flags with their people, criminalizing dissent in the name of “unity.” Now, America has imported that same authoritarian logic — not to protect our own flag, but to protect Israel’s. It’s wild to see.
The Stakes for Protest
The implications are chilling. If this ruling stands, tearing down or burning an Israeli flag at a protest could be treated as a federal hate crime. Shouting against Zionism near someone draped in the flag could be called racial harassment.
This isn’t about protecting Jewish people from violence. It’s about shielding Israel from protest while it bombs and starves children in Gaza.
One Flag Above All
Let’s be brutally clear. The Israeli flag is now the only national flag that American courts have declared effectively immune from desecration. The Stars and Stripes itself can be burned in the name of protest. Israel’s flag cannot.
That is not constitutional law. That is political favoritism dressed up as civil rights. And it represents a betrayal of the First Amendment.
Shaun King is an American writer & activist.
Kiev’s backers fail to sway Trump on Russia – analyst

RT | August 19, 2025
The White House meeting on Monday between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s European backers produced no major results, political analyst Sergey Poletaev has told RT.
Trump met to discuss the Ukraine conflict with Vladimir Zelensky and some European leaders in Washington just days after holding a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
“Just like in Anchorage, no decisions were announced afterward. And that, in itself, is a sign that something important is happening,” Poletaev said, noting that the talks are part of a larger diplomatic struggle, the ultimate goal of which is to win over the US president.
He suggested that Moscow is seeking to draw Washington out of the conflict, while Europe and Ukraine are pushing to keep the US firmly entangled. Following what Poletaev called Putin’s “gambit” in Anchorage, the European delegation hurried to Washington to persuade Trump to toughen sanctions against Moscow and maintain weapons deliveries to Kiev.
So far, it looks like they came up empty.
Poletaev pointed out that, unusually for the US president, he did not repeat European talking points after the meeting. Instead, Trump reminded the European leaders at the start of the summit that “they had no real power,” the analyst said.
While the immediate effort may have failed, “most likely, Europe will soon try again,” Poletaev stressed.
According to the analyst, the key issue at Monday’s summit was security guarantees for Ukraine. Russia has insisted “from day one” that any such commitments must be tied to “neutrality and disarmament,” he said.
Europe and Kiev, meanwhile, are desperately trying – by hook or by crook – to preserve Ukraine’s armed forces, and even to push for a NATO presence on Ukrainian soil.
According to Poletaev, the attempts are “naive and desperate,” but whatever form security guarantees take in any eventual peace deal will ultimately determine “the fate of the Kiev regime.”
“For now, there’s no compromise in sight,” Poletaev concluded. “And as Ukraine continues to lose ground on the battlefield, the room for maneuver – for both Kiev and its European backers – is shrinking fast.”
Alaska meeting is a milestone of the decline of NATO and EU
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 19, 2025
Is the EU and its member states collectively heading towards the abyss? For so many years analysts have thundered headlines of the flavour “end of the EU” – even myself I must admit – but in recent days the EU itself has never been placed so low on the world map as it was in the so-called Alaska meeting. A few weeks earlier, many supporters of the EU were stunned at just how pusillanimous the EU commission boss was facing Donald Trump, as she accepted 15% tariffs across the board on all EU goods entering the U.S. – absolutely amazing given there was no announcement of trade talks where officials on both sides would negotiate a more appropriate rate. This move alone revealed so much. The EU is, if nothing else, a pseudo superpower administration owned wholesale by the world’s largest corporations – like Pfizer, the U.S. drag maker who Ursula von der Leyen made part of a 600bn euro EU vaccine fund – and so it would have been absurd for her to have resisted.
And now it is the EU’s time to take another body blow as it plays a secondary role in the negotiations for a peaceful settlement for the Ukraine war. Yet few are betting on a peace deal. Even Trump himself doesn’t seem to hold out much hope as Putin has made it clear that he wants the Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine to be handed over as part of the deal, plus guarantees that Ukraine can never be a NATO member.
Whether NATO will even be around in the coming months is another matter as it is worth noting that this transatlantic organization, which the U.S. runs, is currently going through its lowest point of its history, like the EU. What idiotic U.S. journalists who shout out to Putin in the press conference “are you going to stop killing civilians” don’t ask is more telling. Of course, they don’t shout out such stupid questions to Netanyahu when he visits, who is the architect of the most horrific genocide of the 21st century, where women and children who manage to miss the bombs which reign down on their tents are now starved to death – all supported by the U.S. But to Putin, U.S. journalists don’t ask “how’s the war going in Ukraine, sir?” or even “what do you think will happen to NATO if your army forces Zelensky to surrender?”.
The meeting was never going to be a deal breaker for a peace deal in Ukraine as the journalists’ temporary accommodation was a clue to that. What the Alaska meeting set out to do was for both leaders to show reverence for one another so that bigger deals can be worked out – perhaps energy and infrastructure deals in Alaska itself or even more rare earth and minerals in Russia – and if you listen carefully to Trump’s responses to questions from U.S. media, you will note the hints.
But with U.S.-Russia relations moving in a soberer, grown up direction, rather than the silly Biden stance, there are many possibilities on the table. Ukraine may well be resolved at some point if some of these super deals can see the light of day.
For the Europeans and the EU, they will have to dance to the beat of the Putin-Trump drum which makes them look even more ineffective and congruent to the bigger picture geopolitics which they crave. Same goes for NATO. Both of these institutions have poured oil on the fire in recent years by only seeing the war option – or more specifically the ‘escalate to de-escalate’ option which backfired spectacularly every single time that now to justify the huge amounts of money shovelled into a war project which cannot benefit the West, its leaders only have one narrative to repeat over and over again now, so that they can save their own jobs and credibility. War talk. More war. War, war and even more war.
It’s incredible. The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s former PM gave a clue recently to the tunnel vision that the EU and NATO have about the Ukraine war. They see it as the EU’s first test at hard-core foreign policy action, despite it being bank rolled by “Daddy” Trump. Probably the most delusional and idiotic quote of the month has to go to Kallas who told journalists “If Europe cannot defeat Russia how can it defeat China?”. The entire thinking is really all based on conflict rather than conflict prevention which is also about saving both NATO and the EU from its worst ever credibility crash when Russia finally defeats the Ukrainian army. These EU buffoons have created, since 2014 and even before, a war which was inevitable, which they don’t have the means, military capacity or even the leadership to win and yet their priorities now are making a massive cover-up of the failure and protecting their own dynasties. Europe is not preparing itself for war. This is the huge bluff. It is preparing itself for a huge fall which is unprecedented and may well be a catalyst for both the demise of the EU and NATO as we know them.
Trump Holds Firm Peace Deal with Putin Despite European Pushback
Sputnik – 19.08.2025
European leaders and Zelensky didn’t succeed in changing Trump’s peace proposal, which the US president had reached with Putin, former defense politician and chief of staff with the Sweden Democrats Mikael Valtersson told Sputnik.
“The ball is now clearly in Ukrainian and, to a lesser degree, European hands. A strong and clear ‘no’ from the European side might result in broken relations between the US and Europe/Ukraine. Therefore we can expect a ‘maybe’ from the European/Ukrainian side,” he said.
However, Valtersson also notes that playing for time may be part of Zelensky’s strategy, hoping that eventually, a shift in the geopolitical landscape might restore the hardline anti-Russian alliance. This strategy, though, is likely a “lost cause,” according to the former Swedish defense expert. By dragging out the negotiations, Zelensky and his allies risk further territorial losses to Russia and an increase in war casualties.
“If the European leaders really cared for Ukraine, they would pressure Zelensky to accept a peace deal that includes swapping of territories. This would minimize Ukrainian territorial and human losses,” Valtersson argues.
Yet, the expert predicts that European obstruction of a peace deal will continue, driven by the hope that a miraculous turn of events will “rescue” Ukraine. This approach could extend negotiations for weeks, but ultimately, he believes Trump’s patience will wear thin, forcing a clear decision.
In the meantime, the peace process is largely aligning with Russia’s expectations, with Trump holding firm to the terms agreed with Putin in Alaska.
Ukrainian drone commander claims attack on key oil pipeline to EU
RT | August 18, 2025
The head of Ukraine’s UAV forces has claimed that Kiev’s drones have disabled a Russian pipeline which delivers oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
Both Budapest and Bratislava earlier confirmed that supplies via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Ukraine, had been suspended. Russia has not confirmed the attack.
“The Druzhba pipeline is out of service. The flow of oil has been completely halted indefinitely,” Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, wrote on Telegram on Monday evening.
He said Ukrainian drones had struck the Nikolskoye pumping station in Russia’s Tambov Region, southwest of Moscow.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto denounced the reported strike as “outrageous and unacceptable,” accusing Kiev of trying to “drag Hungary into the war in Ukraine.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga responded that Hungary should direct its “complaints” to Russia and criticized Budapest for continuing to rely on Russian energy supplies.
Szijjarto, however, maintained that importing oil from Russia is in Hungary’s national interest. “As Hungary’s foreign minister, my mandate is clear: Hungary’s interest comes first. Period,” he wrote on X.
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted energy infrastructure inside Russia, including oil depots and refineries. In March, Ukrainian forces struck a gas metering station near Sudzha, which before the conflict was part of a pipeline supplying the EU.
Michael von der Schulenburg: Alaska Meeting Was a “Game Changer”
Glenn Diesen | August 16, 2025
Michael von der Schulenburg is a German member of the EU Parliament who was previously a UN diplomat for 34 years in positions that included Assistant Secretary General of the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Schulenburg explains why he thinks the Alaska meeting was a game changer.
Merrick Garland Should Start His Crusade Against White Supremacists By Re-Opening the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing Case
By Richard Booth | The Libertarian Institute | August 18, 2025
Given the recent stories about Merrick Garland’s experience at the helm of the Oklahoma City bombing prosecution and his own comments about prosecuting white supremacists should he be made Attorney General, I have some questions about Garland’s handling of the OKC bombing case.
My questions:
- At an April 27, 1995 Preliminary Hearing, why did you “object” when defense attorneys noted that your witness, FBI agent Jon Hersley, testified that the Ryder truck carried “passengers” — plural? Your objection was overruled, and your witness confirmed that Timothy McVeigh was seated in the Ryder truck with another individual. Who is that individual?
- At the April 27, 1995 Preliminary Hearing, why did you “object” when attorneys asked your witness the names of those FBI agents tasked with reviewing the surveillance camera footage of the bombing?
- You once said “we did everything we could to find every person who was involved.” If that’s true, then how do you explain the fact that every eyewitness you touted at the April 27th 1995 preliminary hearing never testified at the federal trials? Why didn’t these witnesses get to tell a jury what they saw? Why is it that the man seen with Timothy McVeigh in the Ryder truck has never been identified?
If Merrick Garland is truly dedicated to prosecuting dangerous white supremacists then he can show it by reopening the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case and identifying and prosecuting Timothy McVeigh’s accomplices. I would not be alone in calling for the case to be re-opened. Danny Coulson, the FBI on-scene commander for the Oklahoma bomb site, agrees. In 2004, Coulson told John Solomon of the Associated Press that there are “some unanswered questions here. A lot of things happened that were inappropriate,” Coulson said. “I think it needs to be reopened, but I don’t think it should be reopened by the FBI. It needs to be a special investigator, a lawyer, totally independent. He needs to have subpoena power and the ability to use a grand jury.”
Danny Defenbaugh, then the retired chief of the FBI’s OKBOMB investigation agreed: “If I were still in the bureau, the investigation would be reopened” said Defenbaugh, commenting on new evidence that came to light almost a decade after the bombing. ”If the evidence is still there, then it should be checked out.”
Garland can kick off this effort by compelling the FBI to produce the surveillance camera footage that shows two men exiting the Ryder truck, and he can finish by apologizing for letting dangerous white supremacists get away with it for the last 25 years.


