Scratch a liberal, find a censor
California tried to pass a law squelching dissident speech. Again. People are finally noticing.
Governor Gavin Newsom last week signed Assembly Bill 2624, aptly dubbed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.” The law establishes special privacy protections for qualifying “immigration-service workers” who claim threats or harassment. It also creates a formal process letting those workers demand restrictions on publication of their “personal information” and images — including names, employment, photographs, and video.
The First Amendment was written for precisely this sort of piggish government.
Shirley says this creates an obvious problem for investigative journalism. He’s right.
Suppose he investigates a taxpayer-funded hospice or nonprofit, films the people running it, and asks uncomfortable questions about where the money went. Under his reading of the law, one of those people could hand him a written demand not to publish his name or image. If Shirley publishes anyway and the subject claims fear or receives threats, Shirley says he could face legal consequences simply for reporting what he found.
That would be an outrageous law.
But the final law isn’t as broad as Shirley says it is. Not that it doesn’t deserve to be nuked. We need to be clear.
Somebody cannot simply hand him a piece of paper and prevent him from publishing a video. The enacted version requires “specific intent” to incite imminent great bodily harm or to threaten someone in a manner creating “objectively reasonable fear” for personal safety.
That distinction will matter when the courts take up the inevitable First Amendment challenge.
You know what else matters? What California Democrats originally tried to pass.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, the designated “victim” in Shirley’s investigations, was not merely a supporter of A.B. 2624. California’s own legislative analysis identifies the taxpayer-funded immigration organization as one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
So an organization receiving millions of dollars in taxpayer money helped sponsor a law creating a special legal regime under which the organization may demand restrictions on the publication of their names, workplace, photographs, and video.
That should raise an eyebrow.
When the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression looked at A.B. 2624 in April, the bill was substantially worse. The original version allowed a “protected person” to send someone a written demand and bar that person for four years from publishing “personal information” or an image — without the specific-intent requirement now written into law.
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FIRE warned that the bill could suppress criticism, newsworthy reporting, photographs, and ordinary social media posts. The original even contained a special exemption for journalists covered by California’s shield law.
Why would lawmakers need a press exemption if the bill merely prohibited “threats” and “doxxing”?
Then people complained. FIRE complained. UCLA First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh complained. Republicans like Assemblyman Carl DeMaio of San Diego complained loudly.
And Democrats retreated — a little.
The legislature added the specific-intent language, narrowed the publication restriction, and removed the journalist carve-out. FIRE now says the amendments prevent the law from being unconstitutional on its face, although the group still warns that the written-demand system could chill lawful speech.
Could?
At a raucous Capitol rally Wednesday, Shirley insisted that it absolutely will. Newsom’s office responded that critics were either “lying to create up fake conspiracy theories” or did not “know how to read.”
That is awfully cocky coming from an administration defending a law that had to be substantially rewritten to have a prayer of surviving First Amendment scrutiny.
And A.B. 2624 is hardly an aberration.
In 2024, Christopher Kohls, who posts online as “MrReagan USA,” created an obviously satirical AI-generated Kamala Harris campaign ad. Elon Musk shared it. Newsom saw it and declared that manipulating a voice in an ad “should be illegal.”
When Newsom signed A.B. 2839, he reposted Kohls’ parody and bragged: “I just signed a bill to make this illegal in the state of California.”
A federal judge almost immediately blocked the law on First Amendment grounds and later permanently enjoined its enforcement against Kohls and the other plaintiffs.
Newsom’s appalling candor was refreshing in a way. He saw political speech he disliked, announced it should be outlawed, then used the power of the state to try to make it so.
He would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling First Amendment.
RELATED: No, the founders did not ‘tell you so’
Then there is Mirabelli v. Bonta, involving a preposterous law that allowed public schools to hide students’ “gender transitions” from their parents. California defended the law to the hilt. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the parent plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their constitutional claims.
Different subject. Same censorious reflex.
Who gets to say what? Democrats think they decide.
So never confuse retreat with innocence.
California Democrats did not begin with a carefully limited A.B. 2624 and painstakingly protect innocent victims while respecting the First Amendment. They reached much farther into protected speech and backed off only after people caught them.
If the problem was doxxing and threats, why did the original bill reach names, employment information, photographs, and video? Why did lawmakers think they needed a special exception for journalists? And why does the final law retain a formal four-year “do not publish me” demand if the only publication California may punish is a threat or incitement?
Patrick Henry had the proper American disposition toward government power: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.”
Especially in California.
Kohls was no accident. Neither was Mirabelli. Nor did A.B. 2624 accidentally offend the First Amendment. Scratch a “liberal,” find a censor.
Again and again, California Democrats reach for state power to control what people may say, publish, parody, disclose, or hear — then retreat only when courts, civil libertarians, or public outrage force them to.
The First Amendment was written for precisely this sort of piggish government.
Swatting Incident At Justice Barrett’s Home Is Another ‘Hit’ From Schumer’s ‘Whirlwind’
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The Seattle Times 'reporter' spent thousands of words examining the dissenter while refusing to examine the dissent.Lawmaker blows whistle on 'Stop Nick Shirley Act': A Democrat effort to halt 'exposing fraud' in California
Investigative journalist Nick Shirley, made famous after his viral Minnesota day care fraud video that exposed the "Quality Learing Center" and millions of dollars of alleged fraud, appears to have ruffled the feathers of Democrats in California.
A Republican lawmaker raised the alarm on a bill in California that would drastically clamp down on investigations like those conducted by Shirley.
'The enemy truly is within.'
On Monday, Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio issued a press release warning about AB 2624, a bill he dubbed the "Stop Nick Shirley Act."
"California Democrats are trying to intimidate citizen watchdog journalists and protect waste and fraud happening in far-left-wing NGOs. AB 2624 can only be described as the 'Stop Nick Shirley Act' — a bill designed to silence citizen journalists exposing fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars," DeMaio said in the press release.
"AB 2624 would allow activists and taxpayer-funded organizations to demand the removal of video evidence — even if it captures misconduct in plain view — and threatens journalists with massive financial penalties," DeMaio added. "That's not about public safety — it's about protecting powerful interests."
AB 2624 was proposed by Democrat Assemblymember Mia Bonta earlier this year. Bonta's husband, Rob Bonta, is the Democrat attorney general of California.
Attorney General Bonta has been targeting hospices and other facilities for possible fraud, overlapping with Shirley's investigations in many respects. On Monday, Bonta wrote on social media that "in California, we've been cracking down on fraud for years."
AB 2624 is framed as a privacy and anti-doxxing measure specifically for immigration service providers, their associates, and their clients. The bill is written with the following context in mind, directly calling out President Trump and his "anti-immigration" policies:
Persons working in the organizations that provide immigration support services have faced doxxing, courthouse targeting, online harassment, anti-immigrant vigilante threats, and coordinated campaigns and death threats. These acts have risen to alarming levels in 2025 and will continue due to the current federal administration’s anti-immigration attitude and policies.
The bill prohibits the posting of the "personal information or image" of a "designated immigration support services provider, employee, or volunteer, or other individuals residing at the same home address" "with the intent that another person imminently use that information to commit a crime involving violence or a threat of violence."
Those found in violation of this section of the bill would face a fine of up to $10,000, one year of imprisonment, or both.
Additionally, if bodily injury were to come to anyone protected by the bill as a result of an investigation, the person responsible for the post would have committed a felony punishable by up to $50,000, imprisonment, or both.
The other key provision of the bill is more obscure:
A program participant may request that state and local agencies use the address designated by the Secretary of State as the participant’s address. When creating a public record, state and local agencies shall accept the address designated by the Secretary of State as a program participant’s substitute address.
In other words, the addresses of program participants and immigration service providers, which are presumably public, would be obscured with another address, thereby possibly blocking investigations into these programs.
Interested journalists and opponents of the bill view the potential obscuring of addresses and the steep punishments for disseminating information about these services, even without the intent to cause harm, as impediments to investigation and accountability.
Elon Musk weighed in on the news, and DeMaio reposted his comment: "California legislators are trying to make investigating fraud illegal."
Nick Shirley, responding to DeMaio's press release, said in part, "The enemy truly is within. When our politicians would rather protect fraudsters and illegal migrants, it's time for us to stand up or face mass oppression from the traitors who 'rule' over us."
Shirley added in a subsequent post that he was thinking of moving on to exposing fraud in another state, but the news of this bill changed his mind: "I've helped save America millions and billions of dollars by exposing fraud across the country. I was thinking about exposing another state but I think I will now go back to California[. N]ew exposé coming soon."
Blaze News contacted California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and Assemblymember Mia Bonta for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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Every sidewalk a surveillance grid: How Meta’s glasses will kill anonymity
When I find myself agreeing with Democrats more than Republicans on a core liberty issue, I know something has gone badly wrong on the right.
That is where we are.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has shown more urgency about protecting privacy from Big Tech than most Republicans. Republicans, meanwhile, keep covering for companies like Meta in the name of innovation or “anti-regulation.”
Privacy is not a boutique concern for cranks. It protects freedom of movement, assembly, association, and speech. A country that abandons privacy invites tyranny.
If the biomedical security state pushed during COVID looked sinister, wait until Big Tech deploys smart glasses with AI facial recognition.
In February, the New York Times reported, based on internal Meta documents, that the company had revived a 2021 plan to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses. The feature, internally code-named “Name Tag,” would let wearers identify people in real time without their knowledge and pull up information through Meta’s built-in AI assistant. “Dystopian” hardly covers it.
The privacy threat gets worse. According to the Times, an internal Reality Labs memo from May 2025 discussed launching the feature during a “dynamic political environment” to reduce scrutiny from privacy groups. In other words, Meta appears to know exactly how toxic this is and hopes to slip it into public life while the country is distracted by a war.
A new boundary breached
Meta already has access to billions of personal profiles and a long record of treating privacy as a nuisance. Facial recognition in covert wearable cameras would not be a harmless upgrade. It would breach a boundary that should never be breached.
For most of modern life, stepping into public did not mean surrendering your identity to every stranger around you. A person outside his home still retained some anonymity. He could walk, speak, assemble, worship, or attend an event without assuming that every passerby could identify him and connect him to a digital dossier.
Meta’s glasses would end that.
This is how the surveillance state grows: one device, one platform, one “convenience” at a time. The goal is obvious enough — surveil Americans continuously, gather every available scrap of data, and make it available for private exploitation or government abuse.
Republicans should lead the fight against that future. Instead, Democrats have taken the lead. Markey, joined by Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, sent Mark Zuckerberg a letter laying out the civil-liberties threat.
“Embedding facial recognition into consumer wearables would vastly expand this surveillance infrastructure, enabling continuous, decentralized identification of members of the public without their knowledge or consent,” the senators wrote. “The deployment of facial recognition technology in smart glasses risks entrenching a system in which Americans are routinely scanned, catalogued, and analyzed as they move through daily life — an outcome fundamentally incompatible with a democracy.”
For once, the Democrats are right.
A doxxing machine
A wearer could blend into a crowd and scan thousands of faces in a single afternoon. The people being scanned would never know. No practical mechanism for consent exists. No opt-out exists. Your privacy would depend on strangers’ self-restraint and Meta’s internal rules.
That is no protection at all.
Now add politics. America is already divided along political, social, cultural, and religious lines. These glasses would function as a doxxing machine — a gift to activists, harassers, and anyone who wants to expose, blacklist, or intimidate another person.
Imagine someone wearing them at a protest, church, synagogue, school-board meeting, rally, or conference. A passing glance could tie a face to a name, employer, relationship status, online history, and web of personal associations. The line between public presence and forced disclosure would disappear.
Markey asked whether Meta had evaluated “the potential for stalking, harassment, doxxing, or government misuse.”
That question answers itself. Those are not side effects. They are among the most obvious uses.
‘We see everything’
The data pipeline should alarm people just as much. Anyone who wants to use the AI functions on these glasses will likely have to run them through Meta’s app. That means Meta and its contractors will receive the footage and other user data and can use the data to train models and refine the system.
A Swedish newspaper already found that workers for Meta contractors had access to shockingly intimate moments from users’ lives. One Kenyan subcontractor put it this way: “We see everything — from living rooms to naked bodies. Meta has that type of content in its databases. People can record themselves in the wrong way and not even know what they are recording. They are real people like you and me.”
Defenders will say smartphones already allow people to spy on one another. That misses the point. Phones are conspicuous. They require effort. Smart glasses make surveillance ambient, easy, and nearly invisible.
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Political malpractice
Republicans should grasp the politics as well as the principle. Getting outflanked by Democrats on privacy, Big Tech, and the surveillance state is malpractice. Young voters already distrust AI. Fighting biometric surveillance and warrantless data abuse should be easy territory for a party that claims to care about liberty.
Instead, Trump has called on House Republicans to pass a clean reauthorization of FISA Section 702 without requiring warrants when federal agencies query Americans’ communications swept up in foreign surveillance. He has also pushed legislation to preempt many state regulations on data centers and AI deployment.
That is the wrong instinct at the wrong moment.
Privacy is not a boutique concern for cranks. It protects freedom of movement, assembly, association, and speech. A country that abandons privacy invites tyranny.
Americans do not want data centers imposed on their communities, fentanyl zombies defecating in the street, chemicals in their food, and camera networks tracking their movements. They certainly do not want strangers stripping away their anonymity with a glance through AI-powered glasses.
If Republicans cannot draw the line here, on a bedrock question of liberty and human dignity, they deserve to lose.
Leftist radicals doxx ICE agents with ‘WANTED’ flyers in Pennsylvania
A Pennsylvania resident returned from grocery shopping to discover a “WANTED” flyer affixed to the resident's vehicle.
The flyer, provided to Blaze News, features photographs of four Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and reads, “WANTED: ICE AGENTS TERRORIZING WORKING PEOPLE.”
'ICE is focusing on the worst first through targeted enforcement. However, it is also a crime to live in this country illegally.'
It urged State College residents to share information about the federal officials, directing them to send details to a Proton Mail email address “if you see these ICE agents or have information about them.”
The flyer claimed that federal immigration officials “kidnapped 24 immigrant workers in State College [on] August 19.”
“THEY ARE ENEMIES OF WORKING PEOPLE AND ARE NOT WELCOME ANYWHERE IN OUR COMMUNITY,” it read. “SHARE WIDELY TO DEFEND IMMIGRANT WORKERS! DRIVE ICE OUT OF CENTRE COUNTY!”
It was unclear who created the flyer.
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The Department of Homeland Security has reported a drastic uptick in assaults against ICE agents amid the rise of far-left activists attempting to doxx federal authorities.
The flyer’s mention of the August arrests appeared to refer to Enforcement and Removal Operations' “targeted enforcement operation in Bellefonte,” according to a press release from ICE.
The agency noted that a suspected MS-13 gang member was among the 24 arrested as well as another individual with several criminal convictions, including for assault. Another seven individuals had final orders of removal, the agency reported.
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“ICE is focusing on the worst first through targeted enforcement. However, it is also a crime to live in this country illegally,” ERO Philadelphia Field Office Director Brian McShane stated about the arrests. “Knowing this, ICE has been empowered to vigorously search out, arrest, and remove anyone violating federal immigration law.”
During a press conference following news of the arrests, several immigrant rights groups claimed that many of those arrested were traveling to work at a construction site when they were detained.
The DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
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I experienced Jimmy Kimmel’s lies firsthand. His suspension is justice.
ABC announced last week that it was indefinitely pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” The network cited his dishonest remarks about MAGA and the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk. Then on Monday, the network reversed itself. Kimmel is expected to return to the air on Tuesday night.
The original decision outraged the left. Activists immediately claimed it was a violation of free speech, pretending Kimmel was a victim of “cancel culture.” The network’s change of heart likely won’t please anyone, except for Kimmel and his staff. The irony? Kimmel himself cheered when others lost their platforms.
I still live with the fallout of his lies. Many others do too. For once, at least, Kimmel faces consequences.
This isn’t a man who deserves sympathy. I know from experience.
How Kimmel targeted me
Five years ago, while working for the California Republican Party, I promoted the party’s legal ballot collection efforts online. That one tweet turned into a smear campaign. Politicians and left-leaning groups smeared and defamed me. My own employers abandoned me.
Media figures amplified the false narrative. None did more damage than Jimmy Kimmel. Days after the controversy began, he ran a segment featuring my full name and photo. He falsely claimed my work was illegal and added a grotesque line suggesting that someone should stuff me into a ballot collection box. The box was too small to fit a person. The implication was obvious.
He wasn’t joking. The segment was a televised incitement that smeared my reputation and put my safety at even greater risk.
Living with the fallout
The consequences came fast. Threats filled my inbox. Law enforcement advised me to leave my apartment and lay low. Police guarded my parents’ home after they were harassed.
When my short-term contract with the California Republican Party ended, I couldn’t find work. Despite my clean record, military service, and two master’s degrees, doors kept closing. They still do. Kimmel wasn’t the only one who defamed me, but his national broadcast magnified the lies and hardened the damage.
Unlike Kimmel, I didn’t have millions in the bank or a network behind me. I was a junior staffer, recently out of the military, scraping by on less than $60,000 a year. His words carried a weight mine never could.
Kimmel’s hypocrisy
In 2023, NFL star Aaron Rodgers joked that Kimmel didn’t want the Epstein client list released. Kimmel threatened to sue him. Yet when Kimmel broadcast falsehoods about me — and encouraged violence against me — no apology ever came.
Kimmel even lectured Rodgers from his monologue: “When I do get something wrong, which happens on rare occasions, you know what I do? I apologize.” That’s an obvious lie. He certainly never apologized to me.
And I’m not the only one. He has encouraged vandalism against Tesla owners and, most recently, pushed the outrageous lie that Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin was a MAGA Republican — a smear made after evidence proved otherwise.
RELATED: The market fired Jimmy Kimmel
Why ABC pulled the plug
Contrary to the left-liberal narrative, ABC’s move was not political interference. It was business. Kimmel’s audience had been shrinking for years. Just this month, his ratings fell another 11%. His rant about Kirk’s assassination would only have accelerated the collapse.
Networks have every right to act when a host becomes a liability. The First Amendment does not entitle Jimmy Kimmel to ABC’s airwaves.
Consequences at last
So, in reality, Kimmel’s return to late night may be short-lived. His career decline is his own making. But unlike his targets, he’ll be fine. He will walk away with a $50 million net worth. He’ll find plenty of work again.
I, on the other hand, still live with the fallout of his lies. Many others do too. But for a moment, at least, Kimmel faced consequences. And to borrow a favorite line from his liberal supporters: Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
Free speech is more than a slogan. It’s a duty.
Leftists insist that “words are violence.” They also claim that “silence is violence.” Curious. They wield the term “hate speech” as a weapon, though it has no legal definition. It’s a political tool designed for abuse, much like the tactics of China’s Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution.
Recent debates over free speech have shown how few Americans — left, right, powerful, or powerless — actually understand what the First Amendment protects. That ignorance is unnerving.
Every silence either defends or betrays liberty. Kirk lived and taught that truth. Now, in his absence, we carry that responsibility.
To honor Charlie’s legacy, we must defend free speech boldly, graciously, and without compromise.
Free speech flows from God’s gift of free will, enshrined by the founders in our nation’s founding documents. As Charlie Kirk once said, “Without free speech, there is no such thing as truth. The moment you silence opposing voices, you destroy the foundation of democracy.”
Scripture underscores the responsibility that comes with this freedom. Colossians 4:6 reminds us to speak graciously, with words “seasoned with salt.” Matthew 12:36 warns that we will give an account “for every careless word.” Proverbs 18:21 drives the point home: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
We are free to speak, but we will be held accountable.
Bondi’s blunder
That accountability is central to the recent firestorm over Attorney General Pam Bondi. Appearing on Katie Miller’s podcast last week, Bondi said, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is not protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime.”
Bondi later cited federal statutes criminalizing threats, doxxing, and swatting, promising full prosecution. She framed her argument as a defense of families, freedoms, and Charlie Kirk’s legacy.
But Bondi blurred a crucial line. Threats of violence have been crimes for centuries. “Hate speech” doesn’t legally exist. By conflating the two, Bondi gives more ammunition to those who want to criminalize speech they dislike.
Kirk himself once wrote: “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And all of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.” He warned that once “hate speech” becomes a category, it will be used against conservatives first.
Consequences, not censorship
Free speech carries consequences, both spiritual and legal. It also carries social consequences, often borne disproportionately by conservatives. Kirk frequently noted that conservatives are branded “bigots” and accused of “hate speech” simply for defending traditional values.
The media’s distortion of his words proves the point. Misquotations, half-truths, and selective edits continue to shape his legacy. Not long ago, speaking ill of the dead — especially the innocent — was taboo. Today, it is routine.
Government-sanctioned propaganda
The erosion of free speech didn’t happen overnight. In 2012, Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, allowing government propaganda once restricted to foreign audiences to target Americans directly.
Since then, administrations — especially Joe Biden’s — have funneled taxpayer-funded messaging into “news” outlets indistinguishable from government press releases. That’s what Trump meant when he labeled the media “fake news.” It’s not just bias. It’s legalized propaganda.
The results are obvious: riots over George Floyd but prayer vigils after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Manufactured outrage for causes the left elevates, silence for causes it despises.
The algorithmic censor
Corporate media is only half the machine. Social media algorithms do the rest. Conservatives (myself included) face shadow bans and throttling for speaking truth. Posts about Iryna Zarutska’s stabbing death get sanitized into euphemisms like “poked” or “unalived” to avoid suppression. Kirk’s assassination was reduced online to being “pew pewed.”
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Language itself has been contorted. Political correctness has turned serious matters into absurdist code words. Kirk once warned: “Political correctness is the most deadly of political weaponry.” He was right. If this continues, truth itself will become unspeakable.
Cancel culture vs. accountability
The left wants to erase the difference between cancel culture and accountability. Cancel culture punishes thought, speech, or belief without moral or legal justification. Accountability punishes advocacy of violence. When employees cheer assassination or call for murder, employers have every right to fire them. That is not tyranny. That is justice.
Failing to distinguish between the two plays into the left’s hands. It allows them to conflate legitimate accountability with censorship, further eroding free speech.
The duty to speak
To honor Charlie’s legacy, we must defend free speech boldly, graciously, and without compromise. Free speech is not merely a constitutional right; it is a moral duty.
Every silence either defends or betrays liberty. Kirk lived and taught that truth. Now, in his absence, we carry that responsibility. Speak now — bravely, responsibly, and without fear — so that the freedoms Charlie cherished endure for generations.
Arizona Leftist Senator Doubles Down On Her ‘Right’ To Tip Off Illegals To ICE Operations
Liberals, including the state's Dem attorney general, have jumped to Analise Ortiz's defense, but the dangers of her actions are very real.
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