Wisconsin Supreme Court Ends Democrat AG’s Bid To ‘Defy’ SCOTUS’ Catholic Charity Ruling
'You’d think Wisconsin would take a 9-0 Supreme Court loss as a hint to stop digging,' said Becket Fund attorney Eric Rassbach.'You’d think Wisconsin would take a 9-0 Supreme Court loss as a hint to stop digging,' said Becket Fund attorney Eric Rassbach.Two ‘Free Speech’ Cases Before SCOTUS Are Actually About Protecting All Constitutional Rights
In both of these disputes, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court can uphold a key vehicle for every citizen to protect his freedom.Digital tyrants want your face, your ID … and your freedom
Thomas Sowell’s warning fits the digital age with brutal precision: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. When governments regulate technology, they seize your privacy first. Every “safety” mandate becomes an excuse to collect more personal data, and the result is always the same. Bureaucrats claim to protect you while making you more vulnerable.
Age-verification laws illustrate this perfectly. Discord’s recent breach — more than 70,000 stolen government ID photos taken from a third-party vendor — shows how quickly privacy collapses once platforms are forced to gather sensitive data.
Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks.
To comply with the U.K.’s new Online Safety Act, Discord began collecting users’ documentation. That data became a target, and once breached, attackers reportedly demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom and threatened to publish the stolen IDs. Discord failed to monitor its vendor’s security practices, and thousands paid the price.
Age-verification mandates require digital platforms to confirm a user’s age before granting access to specific content or services. That means uploading government IDs or submitting to facial scans. The stated goal is child safety. The actual effect is compulsory data surrender. These laws normalize the idea that governments can force citizens to hand over sensitive information just to use the internet.
Centralized data collection creates a jackpot for cybercriminals. As the Discord breach proves, one compromise exposes thousands — or millions — of users. Criminals can sell this information, reuse it for identity theft, or weaponize it for blackmail. The problem isn’t a one-off failure. It is structural. Age verification mandates require platforms to create consolidated databases of personally identifying information, which become single points of catastrophic failure.
The libertarian Cato Institute captures the problem: “Requiring age verification creates a trove of attractive data for hackers that could put broader information about users, particularly young users, at risk.”
Governments may insist that the Discord breach was an outlier. It wasn’t. Breaches of sensitive information are predictable in systems designed to aggregate it. Even if the motives behind the U.K.’s age-verification regime were noble, undermining privacy to advance those aims is a trade-off free societies should reject. That is why the Online Safety Act triggered an outcry far beyond the U.K.
And, as usual, legislative mandates fail to achieve their stated goals. Days after the OSA took effect, VPN downloads surged as users — including children — bypassed verification systems. Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Security’s head of public relations, told Wired that “whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools.” Predictably, age-verification laws encourage evasion instead of compliance.
RELATED: The UK wants to enforce its censorship laws in the US. The First Amendment begs to differ.
The pattern is simple: Age-verification laws degrade privacy, heighten the risk of identity theft, and fail to keep minors off restricted platforms. They make the internet less safe for everyone.
Meanwhile, policymakers remain determined to spread these mandates in the name of protecting children. The U.K. pioneered the model. Many other governments followed. Twenty-five U.S. states have adopted similar laws. The list grows each month.
But governments cannot treat data breaches as acceptable collateral damage. Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks. The result of this approach will be more surveillance, more breaches, more stolen personal data, and a steady erosion of civil liberties.
Privacy is the backbone of liberty in a digital world. Thomas Jefferson’s warning deserves repetition: “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”
Age-verification mandates accelerate that progress — and citizens pay the price.
Campaign Finance And The First Amendment Take Center Stage At SCOTUS
In NRSC v. FEC, the court will decide the constitutionality of restrictions on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties.The Supreme Court takes up New Jersey’s baseless assault on pro-life support for moms
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin’s office was recently forced to make a stunning admission before the U.S. Supreme Court. During oral arguments, Platkin’s team conceded that although the state issued a sweeping subpoena against a pregnancy center — First Choice Women’s Resource Centers — the office had no complaints against the organization.
That admission stripped away any pretense that the attorney general was protecting consumers. It revealed the real motive: a fishing expedition into constitutionally protected internal records and private donor information for no reason other than First Choice’s commitment to life-affirming support for women. Now the court must decide whether New Jersey’s top law enforcement officer can bully pro-life charities out of helping women and families.
When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.
What’s at stake is the work of pregnancy centers and charities nationwide that help women sustain their decision for life. These organizations provide the material and emotional resources mothers need to meet their own needs and the needs of their children.
Choosing life for an unborn child is never a one-time decision. It’s a daily commitment made amid financial, professional, emotional, or health-related pressures — and often in the face of serious challenges in securing food, clothing, housing, and other essentials. Women deserve support in every one of those areas so they can pursue their ambitions with their children. Pro-life Americans stand ready to offer that support. Platkin prefers abortion over help for moms.
Research shows that 60% of women who have had abortions would have preferred to choose life if they had more financial security or emotional support. Pregnancy centers and life-affirming organizations across the country confront this reality every day. Last year alone, they provided $452 million in support services, medical care, and material goods — all free of charge.
And the need keeps growing. Over the past two years, pregnancy centers increased their material assistance by 48% to ensure that women have what they need to thrive in pregnancy and early parenting. In 2024 alone, they served 1 million new clients.
When families face challenges beyond diapers and baby supplies, pregnancy centers rise to meet them. At Real Options Pregnancy Center in Texas, staff provided full Thanksgiving meals to local families. In Chicago, a center hosts an annual Christmas celebration so moms can put gifts under the tree. Across the country, community partners working with Her PLAN offer free car maintenance and help women escape trafficking and addiction, secure housing, and receive job training.
Every woman’s story is unique. Pregnancy centers recognize that dignity, which is why they collaborate with trusted community resources to provide comprehensive support tailored to each individual who walks through their doors.
This community network forms the pro-life safety net that Her PLAN strengthens through grassroots engagement and an online directory of vetted service providers across seven categories of care. For women with nowhere else to turn, this wraparound support provides stability, hope, and practical help.
RELATED: Leftist war on pro-life pregnancy centers faces Supreme Court reckoning
Women who receive services from pregnancy centers report a 98% satisfaction rate. The real measure of success, however, is the women who later return to help others.
Courtney, once overwhelmed by two unexpected pregnancies, now works at the very center that supported her.
Jean Marie, who escaped human trafficking with the help of a New Hampshire pregnancy center, now runs a center in Vermont, using her experience to counsel vulnerable women.
In Northern Virginia, a maternity home helped Shawnte when she lost her job and housing. Today she works as a peer-recovery coach and credits the maternity home with giving her the strength not to abort “a child I knew I wanted, just because things got hard.”
These women — and countless others — were empowered by the pro-life safety net and now devote themselves to strengthening it for the next mother in crisis.
This is work that protects lives, stabilizes families, and strengthens communities. It deserves support, not intimidation from pro-abortion politicians. When First Choice made its case before the Supreme Court, it stood up for every American who believes mothers deserve compassion without harassment from the state.
Helping women is not controversial. It is love in action.
Unions, activists, and Bernie Sanders unite to protect their favorite censorship tool
If you want to know how conservatives should think about media ownership policy, a good starting point is to head opposite the people who think that President Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr are “autocratic,” “fascist,” and engaged in “mob-style government.” Those are charges levied in recent comments from Free Press, a left-wing nonprofit opposing the proposed reforms to the FCC’s rules capping ownership of broadcast stations.
A strong conservative consensus exists in favor of reform or outright repeal of the ownership limits. Exhibit A is a letter signed by leaders of 18 conservative organizations, including Heritage Action, the Center for Renewing America, Americans for Prosperity, and Americans for Tax Reform. This represents a broad coalition from MAGA to the Reaganite right.
Reading the list of commentators reveals a 'who’s who' of the irrelevant and Trump-hating.
A few voices now feign uncertainty about where the White House or FCC will land. But conservatives don’t need a crystal ball. When every liberal and left-wing advocacy shop in Washington locks arms on one side of a policy debate, the right answer is almost always the opposite.
The liberal groups are not powerful in themselves — Democrat FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez has already sent strong signals that she opposes repeal, and in all events, her single vote cannot stop commission action as long as Republican appointees remain united. But the position of Gomez and her outside allies on the left on a controversial policy question should give any conservative pause — why would we agree with the other party?
When the commission last invited comment on this topic in August, TVTech reported, “a large number of filings from unions, consumer groups, civil rights groups, church groups, liberal organizations, free speech advocates and others have come out strongly opposed to any change to the current 39% ownership cap.” Indeed, reading the list of commentators reveals a “who’s who” of the irrelevant and Trump-hating.
The unions, for instance, include the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians and the News Guild. The Writers Guild of America, which also opposes the reforms, recently attacked President Trump for a supposed “un-American … unprecedented, authoritarian assault” on the First Amendment, complete with the line: “We don’t have a king, we have a president.” These are the advocates of maintaining the caps on media ownership by Nexstar, Sinclair, and others.
Another joint FCC filing included a laundry list of left-wing groups: United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Hispanic Federation, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network separately weighed in, warning that reform would be contrary to its mission of “economic justice, political empowerment, and fair representation in all aspects of public life.” The horror!
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This isn’t the FCC’s first time down this path. When the first Trump administration floated reforms along these lines, 21 Senate Democrats and one independent (Bernie Sanders) sent a letter opposing any further flexibility under the caps. This has been liberal orthodoxy for decades.
Hollywood labor unions, left-wing pressure groups, Al Sharpton, Bernie Sanders — these are not normally reliable predictors of good policy. Broken clocks may still be right twice a day, but this is not one of those moments. Trump administration leaders should be deeply skeptical when they’re asked to be on the same side as all of these people.
Democrats Would Like To Suppress Free Speech The Way Britain Does
The American left doesn’t look at the United Kingdom and see a cautionary tale, it sees a template to follow.How Texas slammed the gate on Big Tech’s censorship stampede
Texas just sent a blunt message to Silicon Valley: You don’t get to censor Texans and then run home to California.
In a world where Big Tech routinely decides who may speak and who must be silenced, Defense Distributed v. YouTube, Google, and Alphabet has become a defining moment in the national fight over digital free expression. The shock isn’t the censorship at issue; it’s the fact that Big Tech — for once — lost.
In a time when Americans are desperate for leaders willing to stand up to media and tech conglomerates, Texas showed what real resolve looks like.
Defense Distributed, a Texas company, committed the unpardonable offense of promoting the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Our videos and ads — some of them simply announcing court victories — were throttled, suppressed, or removed by YouTube and Google. None of this surprised us. These platforms built vast empires on controlling information and burying viewpoints that fall outside their ideology.
Texas prepared for this fight
The surprise is that Texas saw this coming and armed itself for the conflict. HB 20 — now Chapter 143A of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code — directly prohibits viewpoint-based censorship by major platforms. The law doesn’t hint, suggest, or politely advise. It states outright: Social media companies may not censor Texans for their viewpoints, and lawsuits brought under this chapter stay in Texas courts no matter what boilerplate corporate contracts say.
So when Defense Distributed filed suit, YouTube and Google reached for their favorite escape route: forum-selection clauses that force nearly every challenger into California courts, where Big Tech enjoys home-field advantage. It’s a delay tactic, a cost-inflation tactic, a shield against accountability — and it almost always works.
But Texas slammed that door shut before they reached it.
No escape
HB 20 doesn’t merely frown on these clauses; it voids them. The statute declares that any attempt to waive its protections violates Texas public policy — public policy the law describes as “of the highest importance.” The legislature anticipated Big Tech’s usual playbook and locked the gates years in advance.
The federal court recognized this. Judge Alan Albright ruled that transferring the case to California would directly undermine Texas’ strong public policy. Under federal law, courts cannot enforce a forum-selection clause that contradicts a state’s deeply rooted interests — especially when the legislature spells those interests out with the clarity found in HB 20.
Silicon Valley does not hear the word “no” very often. Big Tech’s money, influence, and political allies usually clear the path. But in a federal courtroom in the Lone Star State, Texas’ commitment to protecting its citizens from ideological censorship outweighed Silicon Valley’s customary dominance. The court refused to let YouTube and Google drag the case back to California.
The fight stayed in Texas — exactly where the legislature intended.
A national shift and a model for states
The timing matters. Americans now understand that Big Tech can shape elections, suppress dissent, and curate truth itself. HB 20 was mocked by the press, attacked by activists, and targeted by corporate lobbyists from the moment it passed. Yet today, it stands as one of the most potent legal tools in the country’s fight against digital censorship.
HB 20 is no longer just a statute; it is proof that a state with conviction can push back and win.
RELATED: Big Tech CEOs should leave policy to the politicians
This victory is more than a procedural ruling. It affirms that Big Tech’s era of unchallenged authority is not inevitable. Defense Distributed didn’t merely keep our lawsuit in Texas; we preserved the principle that powerful corporations cannot hide their censorship behind “terms of service” fine print.
Texas drew a line in the sand, and — for once — Silicon Valley stopped.
In a time when Americans are desperate for leaders willing to stand up to media and tech conglomerates, Texas showed what real resolve looks like. This ruling promises that citizens still have a fighting chance, that speech still matters, and that even the world’s largest corporations remain subject to the laws of a state determined to defend its people.
Top 5 Moments From SCOTUS Arguments In Key Pro-Life Pregnancy Center Case
'Now I don't know how to read that other than it's pretty self-executing to me, counsel,' said Justice Neil Gorsuch.Pro-Life Center Takes Its Fight Against Democrat Lawfare To The Supreme Court
'It's our hope that our efforts will result in protection for pregnancy centers across the nation,' said First Choice Executive Director Aimee Huber.Today's top stories
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