Tag: 1st amendment

Appeals Court Sides With Texas on 10 Commandments in Classroom, Overruling Lower Court

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state of Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, marking a victory for upholding the nation’s Christian foundation of the law.

The 9-8 decision overrules a preliminary injunction put in place by a federal district court judge in November, who concluded that “displaying the Ten Commandments on the wall of a public-school classroom as set forth in S.B. 10 [Senate Bill 10] violates the [First Amendment’s] Establishment Clause.”

The First Amendment says in part that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But the Supreme Court has ruled that the Amendment’s protections apply to state law.

In the 5th Circuit’s majority opinion, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote, “To Plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination. We disagree.”

“S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’). No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.”

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Federal Judge Blocks Arkansas Social Media Law on First Amendment Grounds

A federal judge blocked Arkansas Act 900 today, one day before the law was set to take effect, handing the state its second courtroom defeat in the same fight over who gets to decide what people can see and say online.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

US District Judge Timothy L. Brooks granted NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction, freezing enforcement of a statute that would have imposed strict liability on social media platforms for a growing list of “addictive practices,” forced default settings on anyone in Arkansas the platform couldn’t verify as an adult, and required platforms to build parental dashboards tracking minors who don’t even have accounts. The ruling came in the Western District of Arkansas, Fayetteville Division.

The First Amendment problem is obvious. The government wrote a law that restricts what platforms can say, who they can say it to, and when. It restricts what minors can see and post. Then it backed those restrictions with $10,000-per-day fines and rules so vague that platforms cannot tell in advance what will trigger liability. Each of those features is a constitutional problem on its own. Act 900 combined all of them.

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‘HELL NO!’ Public high-school remodel features Muslim prayer room and foot-washing station

A Minnesota school district has confirmed that part of a remodeled section of its high school will include a Muslim prayer room and foot-washing station, calling into question adherence to “separation of church and state” in the use of public funds.

According to AlphaNews reporter Liz Collin, the school district affirmed the development for Park Center Senior High in Osseo, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, saying the Muslim-centered facility was “included in updated plans after hearing from user groups on student needs.”

Collin reports a tipster told her: “This is undoubtedly for Muslim students only. I cannot understand how this can be happening in this era of no religion in schools.”

One commenter on X noted: “Ten Commandments in schools, includes command not to kill.”

Liberals: “HELL NO!! Separation of church and state!”

“The Quran that calls for jihad and killing, foot washing, no more pork at lunch, 5 calls to prayer, and prayer room with carpets!”

Liberals: “Duuuuuuh… okay?!?!?”

The perceived “need” for students relates to the surge in the number of Muslim Somali migrants settling in Minnesota in recent years, including some who have bilked taxpayers out of billions of dollars in government payments meant to support day care centers and other facilities.

Referencing the infamous “Learing Center” sign uncovered in Minnesota as part of Nick Shirley’s investigative reporting, one commenter remarked: “They should change their name to OSSEO SENIOR LEARIN CENTER HIGH SCHOOL….. at this pace we will become Somalia before 2040. The state flag is Somali already.”

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Keith Self Pushes FAITH Act to Block ‘Sharia Tax’ on Non-Muslims

Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, introduced legislation Monday that would prohibit the imposition of religiously based financial penalties, a measure he says is aimed at preventing Sharia-inspired practices such as taxing non-Muslims.

The Freedom Against Imposed Theology Harms (FAITH) Act would establish a nationwide ban on fees, fines, penalties, or other financial burdens imposed on individuals because of their religious beliefs—or their refusal to participate in another religion’s practices.

“This legislation sends an unmistakable message,” Self said in a press release. “Religious freedom means freedom from religious coercion—financial or otherwise.”

“The FAITH Act draws a firm constitutional line: No American should ever pay a de facto religious tax or face financial penalties for their beliefs,” he added. “We must make America Sharia-free and protect the First Amendment for everyone.”

The bill would classify such conduct as a predicate offense under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, expanding prosecutors’ authority to pursue organized efforts to impose religiously based financial demands.

Self said the legislation is intended to address concerns about attempts to enforce Sharia-influenced financial practices in the United States. The bill would apply to both governmental and non-governmental actors, while preserving the right of religious and educational institutions to seek voluntary contributions from their own members for internal purposes.

Self cited the Islamic concept of jizya, a historical tax imposed on non-Muslims under Sharia-based governance, as an example of a practice he views as incompatible with U.S. constitutional principles. Although jizya is not imposed under American law, supporters of the FAITH Act argue that informal financial pressures modeled on Sharia principles pose a growing concern.

“While formal jizya is not imposed by U.S. law, we are seeing growing attempts to establish Sharia-adherent enclaves, parallel financial systems, and community coercion in parts of America—including right here in Texas,” Self said.

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DOJ Refuses Cooperation, Warns France to Back Off Censorship Probe Targeting X Platform

The U.S. Justice Department has flatly refused to help French authorities investigate Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

In a letter sent Friday obtained by The Wall Street Journal , the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs said the French probe is an attempt to regulate a U.S. company through criminal law.

“This investigation seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the letter states.

The department added that France’s requests “constitute an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding aimed at wrongfully regulating through prosecution the business activities of a social media platform.”

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California’s “Stop Nick Shirley Act” Would Penalize Journalism

California’s Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee voted 11-2 on April 7 to advance a bill that would let employees and volunteers at immigration service organizations demand the deletion of their images and personal information from the internet, backed by civil penalties starting at $4,000 and the threat of criminal charges.

AB 2624, authored by Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, is already being called the “Stop Nick Shirley Act.”

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill arrives just weeks after investigative video creator Nick Shirley published a 40-minute video on alleged hospice fraud in California that racked up 42 million views on X.

Other investigations have found that a single program is causing the state to lose an alleged $6 billion in fraud annually. Shirley had already reported on over $110 million in Somali daycare fraud in Minnesota in December 2025, with empty facilities billing taxpayers while kids were nowhere to be found.

His California reporting uncovered an alleged $170 million in similar fraud in daycares and hospices, with ghost operations registered to empty lots and strip malls. Sacramento’s response to this flood of documented waste and abuse was not an audit, not an investigation into the programs themselves, but a bill to make it harder to film the people running them.

Under AB 2624, anyone affiliated with an organization providing “designated immigration support services” can send a written demand prohibiting the publication of their personal information or image online.

That demand remains effective for four years, even after the person leaves the organization. If the demand is ignored, the person can go to court for an injunction or declaratory relief.

Fines run up to three times the actual damages, with a floor of $4,000, meaning the minimum penalty triples to $12,000 in cases where a takedown demand is defied. If a journalist or anyone else is accused of posting information with the intent to incite harm, they face criminal charges and fines of $10,000.

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Letitia James’ Crusade Against Abortion Pill Reversal Is Also Killing Free Speech

State attorneys general are duty-bound to seek justice for the weak and powerless, not to use their immense power to harass them. But New York Attorney General Letitia James’ policing of private conversations about the abortion pill reversal (APR) protocol amounts to a cynical abuse of state power.

Two years ago, James launched a legal assault on Heartbeat International and 11 affiliated pregnancy centers in New York. She claimed the centers and Heartbeat — the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the world — had engaged in false advertising, supposedly deceiving women by sharing scientific findings supporting the safety and effectiveness of APR.

APR is a safe and effective way for a woman to improve her odds of continuing her pregnancy to term after she has ingested mifepristone — the first pill in an abortion drug regimen designed to block progesterone from the growing baby. A worldwide network of more than 1,500 health care professionals is available to prescribe bioidentical progesterone to counteract the mifepristone in order to reverse its effects. Most notably, statistics suggest that more than 8,000 babies have been saved through the abortion pill reversal protocol.

Thousands of smiling — living — babies and emotional testimonies of grateful moms illustrate the success of a chosen medical treatment. And James “has no business butting into the intimate medical decision of [a] … mother.” It’s why Heartbeat and its New York affiliates filed their own lawsuit, arguing that defendant James has provided “no evidence of fraud, misrepresentation, material omission, or harm to anyone” in providing free services or speaking about the safety and efficacy of APR.

This week, Heartbeat and its affiliates have their day in court. On Wednesday, April 15, their attorneys argued that James’ hostile lawsuit should be dismissed because it targets free speech and participation in public debate. James’ lawsuit is a classic Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). Or, more bluntly, James’ efforts amount to a bully’s legal slap in the face to keep small pro-life nonprofits from sharing a life-saving message she doesn’t like.

Her friends have called her a “voice for the voiceless.” She claims to “speak truth to power, and challenge the status quo.” And she frequently talks of “using [her] position to address the needs of those who are locked out of the sunshine of opportunity.”

But the attorney general ought not ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent defense of free speech rights, even when offering medical services. At the end of March, the court delivered an 8-1 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, noting that counseling conversations are speech and Colorado cannot silence viewpoints in the counseling room. The majority warned that “[t]oday, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from ‘current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments’ could be silenced with relative ease.”

Sensitive to the danger of stifling innovation in medicine, they continued, “Medical consensus, too, is not static; it evolves and always has. A prevailing standard of care may reflect what most practitioners believe today, but it cannot mark the outer boundary of what they may say tomorrow.”

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What are They Hiding? — Radical California Democrats Pass ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ to Criminalize Investigative Journalism and Shield Massive Immigrant Services Fraud from Scrutiny

The radical Left in Sacramento has finally done it.

In a move straight out of a totalitarian playbook, the California Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 11-2 on Monday to advance AB 2624, the so-called “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” a disgusting Democrat power grab designed to make it illegal for brave citizen journalists like Nick Shirley to expose the rampant fraud bleeding American taxpayers dry in immigrant service centers.

This is nothing less than an all-out assault on the First Amendment by the radical left in the People’s Republic of California.

The bill, authored by far-left Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (wife of Attorney General Rob Bonta), would slap investigative reporters with massive civil sanctions starting at $4,000 minimum if a fraudster from one of these “immigrant service centers” decides they don’t want to be caught on camera committing their scams.

The crook can then run to court for an injunction banning the journalist from filming or exposing them on camera for up to four years.

And if the journalist refuses to take down the original video? Triple the damages, $12,000, just for telling the truth!

In the worst cases, if the journalist is accused of “doxxing” or creating an “imminent threat” by simply reporting the facts, they could face criminal charges and $10,000 fines.

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How UK Regulator Ofcom Quietly Bypassed International Law to Police American Speech

A Freedom of Information response has confirmed what the UK’s speech regulator would probably have preferred to keep quiet. Ofcom fired off 197 information demands to American tech companies under the Online Safety Act, and not a single one went through the US-UK Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, the formal diplomatic process that exists for exactly this kind of cross-border legal enforcement. Every one of those 197 notices was sent directly, by email or post, to companies operating entirely on American soil.

The number comes from a FOI request filed by Daniel Lü, who asked Ofcom a series of pointed questions about how it enforces the Online Safety Act against non-UK targets.

Ofcom confirmed that as of February 26, 2026, it had issued 197 Section 100 notices to US businesses. Zero through MLAT. The treaty between the US and UK that governs how one country’s legal process gets enforced in the other’s jurisdiction was treated as optional. Ofcom decided it didn’t apply.

That admission drew an immediate response from Preston Byrne, the American lawyer who represents 4chan and other US companies targeted by Ofcom.

Byrne called the 197 notices a “breathtaking” “attack on the First Amendment” and pointed out the uncomfortable math.

Only two US companies, 4chan and Kiwi Farms, have publicly refused to comply with Ofcom’s demands. If Byrne’s assessment is right, that leaves Ofcom enjoying “a 98% compliance rate with foreign censorship orders that violate the First Amendment.”

A British regulator sent nearly 200 demands to American companies, bypassed every established legal channel, and almost all of them appear to have simply done what they were told. The chilling effect is already here.

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Clinton Judge Rips Hegseth, Orders Pentagon to Restore Press Access

US District Judge Paul Friedman, a Clinton appointee on Thursday once again sided with The New York Times and ordered the Pentagon to restore press access.

Last month Judge Friedman ruled that the Pentagon’s new press policy restricting press credential of reporters is unconstitutional.

In October, Pentagon reporters turned in their badges after they refused to sign Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s new security rule.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that reporters agree by 5 p.m. Tuesday to a new policy, under which they would need to pledge to not obtain or use any unauthorized material, even if the information is unclassified — or hand over their press badges in the next 24 hours,” The Hill previously reported.

By that afternoon, Pentagon reporters turned in their badges.

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