Tag: scotus

Federal Ban on Home Whiskey Distilleries Now Heading to Supreme Court

When I was a young man, roaming around the woods and hills of northeast Iowa, two old guys had a still tucked away somewhere in the woods near Highlandville. I know that moonshining is something generally associated with the South, but nobody seems to have told these two old fellows, and from them you could buy a Mason jar of what they called “corn squeezings” for $10. It wasn’t bad, although if you had any left after a night’s revelry, you could always use it to strip paint and blast stumps.

Now, selling homemade hooch is one thing, I admit. But honestly, this is a free country; one should be able to set up a small still and make your own booze for personal use. And now, a case with that as a possible result, is headed to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to legalize home whiskey distilleries in the United States by a conservative-leaning think tank in Ohio.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that the federal ban against home whiskey distilleries is unconstitutional. However, the 6th Circuit upheld the federal ban.

The federal government said the law is constitutional because it was enacted to prevent tax evasion and that it would be easier for a distiller working out of their home to conceal the business and therefore avoid paying taxes.

That last bit seems a bit of a trite argument; it’s certainly possible now for a person to do this, just as it would be if home use were legalized, as it is now for wine and beer. And, if anyone can point out to us in the Constitution where the government is authorized to regulate booze, I’d love to see it. 

As evidence of the ambiguity of all this, we might note that two different courts of appeals issued conflicting rulings in this matter, which is why the case is going to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the Buckeye Institute filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to decide between the two conflicting appeals-court rulings.

“Two courts of appeals considered the same provisions, against the same constitutional challenge, on materially identical facts, within 11 days of each other, and issued opposite judgments,” Buckeye’s Monday petition to the Supreme Court states.

That seems a pretty clear-cut argument for the escalation.

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The Supreme Court’s AI Collision Course

Imagine a tight House race in a swing state. In the final weeks of the campaign, a new super PAC begins spending heavily against the incumbent. It runs ads on local television and reaches individual voters with highly tailored texts. The messaging is hard-hitting and seems to be swaying the electorate. None of it traces back to the opposing campaign.

It also doesn’t trace back to any human operative. The super PAC is funded by a single LLC whose donor cannot be identified, and its spending decisions are being made by an AI agent that has been given a budget and a political objective and is now operating without any meaningful human direction. The “consultants” placing the ads are software. The text messages were crafted by the AI.

This is not a hypothetical we will face in some distant future. The technology already exists. A wealthy person, foreign government, or corporation that wants to influence an election without ever exposing themselves to scrutiny could set up such a campaign operation today. And under the Supreme Court’s current campaign finance doctrine, the states and Congress may have little power to stop it.

The AI industry has emerged as one of the largest forces in American politics. Super PACs funded by AI companies and their investors have raised well over $100 million to shape the 2026 midterms, backing candidates in both parties who share the industry’s preferred approach to regulation, and attacking those who don’t. So far, their ads rarely mention artificial intelligence at all. They talk about issues like immigration, corruption, and cost of living, and it isn’t obvious to the average viewer that these ads were funded by a multi-billion dollar industry with its own unspoken legislative wish list.

But there’s a deeper, less-obvious dynamic operating in the background. The constitutional doctrine that currently protects the right of these companies to spend millions in our elections is the same doctrine that will be asked to protect something even stranger: The “speech” of artificial intelligence itself.

Modern campaign finance doctrine has been established, affirmed, and extended by Supreme Court decisions over the last 50 years. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), it held that raising and spending money in political campaigns is tantamount to speech itself, and, therefore, that most legislative efforts to address the influence of money in elections would be subject to strict judicial oversight. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) extended this framework to corporations, and then, most famously, Citizens United v. FEC (2010) extended it further to independent spending.

The court’s campaign finance jurisprudence was not built with artificial intelligence in mind, but its logic isn’t confined to the campaign finance context. If “speaker identity” does not matter for corporations and unions and super PACs, why should it matter when it comes to AI platforms?

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TERRIFYING: Far-Left Democratic Socialists Unveil Radical Plan to Abolish the Senate, Replace the President and Supreme Court, Grant Mass Amnesty, and Overthrow the U.S. Constitution

The radical left just showed its hand again, and it is even more extreme than most Americans could have imagined.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the far-left organization that has heavily influenced the Democrat Party, has rolled out its updated “Workers Deserve More!” platform.

This document is nothing less than a blueprint to dismantle the American constitutional republic and replace it with a socialist super-state run by an all-powerful Congress.

As The Gateway Pundit reported on June 20, 2026, the DSA’s official platform calls to:

  • Eliminate the U.S. Senate.
  • Replace the President with an executive chosen by Congress.
  • Replace the Supreme Court with a judiciary subordinate to Congress.
  • Grant universal amnesty to all illegal aliens.
  • Defund the Department of Defense (which the platform refers to as the “Department of War”).
  • Close overseas U.S. military bases.
  • End American economic sanctions against foreign adversaries.
  • Abolish what it calls the “carceral forces of the capitalist state,” including sweeping police and prison reforms.

If implemented, these proposals would fundamentally transform the American system of government by eliminating the constitutional separation of powers established by the Founding Fathers.

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Supreme Court rejects Michigan family’s claim that county committed ‘home equity theft’ over $2,200 tax debt

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously sided with Isabella County, Michigan, rejecting a family’s claim that local governments must pay homeowners the full fair market value of property seized and sold in tax foreclosures rather than the lower price obtained at public auction.

In the 9-0 decision, the court ruled that under the Fifth Amendment, “the proper baseline under the Takings Clause is the price obtained in a tax sale, at least when the sale is fairly conducted in light of our country’s history of tax sales.”

Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito explained that “neither the Fifth nor the Eighth Amendment requires the government to compensate former owners based on the hypothetical fair market value of their property.”

The high court noted that creating a fair-market-value baseline would impose “unprecedented burdens” on local governments seeking to collect unpaid taxes, making these sales “impractical.”

“Under Pung’s rule, a tax sale to collect $20,000 in delinquent taxes would net the government a $20,000 loss—a loss paid out to the delinquent taxpayer himself,” Alito continued. “The possibility of such a perverse result would render tax sales infeasible as a debt-collection mechanism.”

The ruling comes amid a decade-long legal battle between Isabella County and the Pung family over what they called “home equity theft.” Isabella County foreclosed on the family’s 3,000-square-foot home over a disputed $2,241.93 tax bill stemming from a revoked Principal Residence Exemption, subsequently selling the $194,400 property at auction for just $76,008. Michael Pung, acting as the personal representative of the estate, disputed the bill and brought the legal challenge on behalf of the family.

While the county eventually returned the surplus auction proceeds, the family argued the Constitution required “just compensation” based on the home’s actual worth, rather than a low-ball auction price that destroyed more than $118,000 in equity.

However, the court said on Tuesday it would not “resolve any of Pung’s newfound contentions that the procedure the County followed in seizing and selling his property was unfair.”

The court ultimately vacated and remanded the case, sending it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to reconsider those procedural claims.

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If Anyone Can Birth An ‘American,’ Citizenship Means Nothing

If you’ve been wondering why America’s 250th feels so hollow, the Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling on birthright citizenship should provide ample clarity. If anyone, from anywhere in the world, can travel to America and give birth to an “American” citizen, then American citizenship is meaningless and based purely on the happenstance of birth.

As Justice Samuel Alito noted in his dissent, this system of “soil and servitude” was emphatically rejected by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, the Court has once again saddled our nation with this ancient understanding, negating everything the Founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to reject, and resurrected a form of medieval English feudal rule.

At the center of this debate is the 14th Amendment, which was drafted to ensure that freed slaves were recognized as full citizens, given that, as Justice Clarence Thomas argues in his dissent, freed slaves “had no other homeland” and were “liable to be called upon to defend [America] in time of war.”

The Constitution’s Citizenship Clause demands that one not only be born in the United States but also be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Legal scholars who reject universal birthright citizenship under consent theory argue that full jurisdiction requires mutual political consent.

Sen. Lyman Trumbull, a principal architect of Reconstruction-era legislation, explained that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” meant “not owing allegiance to anybody else” and “subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.”

To this point, Justice Thomas explained in his dissent that this jurisdictional requirement was historically understood as demanding a legal domicile, meaning a permanent home, rather than a fleeting visit to our shores by tourists, temporary foreign workers, or illegal aliens.

This conclusion stands in direct contrast to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “universalist” vision of citizenship.

The author of the Citizenship Clause, Sen. Jacob Howard, stated during the Senate debates over the 14th Amendment that automatic birthright citizenship would not “include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

The Supreme Court majority’s response to Howard’s assertion is to argue over commas, insisting “foreigners” and “aliens” merely describe diplomat families. But if diplomat families are foreigners by definition, why even list foreigners and aliens separately? Should birthright citizenship truly rest on grammatical semantics?

By ignoring the plain words of the amendment’s own authors, the court’s majority has enshrined a historical lie. For decades, open-borders advocates have repeatedly told the American public that this debate was permanently settled in 1898 by the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark because this understanding benefits the left demographically and electorally.

When the children of illegal aliens and birth tourists turn 18, they are eligible to vote in our elections. When they turn 21, they unlock the power of chain migration, allowing them to sponsor their foreign parents for legal permanent residency. One only needs to look at the wave of Democratic Socialist victories in recent municipal elections, driven by rapidly shifting urban demographics, to see where this leads.

But the current understanding of Wong Kim Ark is wrong, and the dissenting opinions take direct aim at this lie. As Justice Alito thoroughly explained, the holding in Wong Kim Ark was explicitly limited to children whose non-citizen parents had established a “permanent domicil and residence” in the United States.

Because the legal category “lawful permanent resident” did not exist in 1898, Wong’s parents were considered “lawfully domiciled” in the U.S. under common law because there was no statute making their presence unlawful. Additionally, being Chinese, they could not apply for naturalization.

They had done, as Justice Alito stated, “everything within their power to express their desire and intent to become Americans.” As such, they were fully part of the national community to the extent that the law allowed at the time.

The promise of American citizenship remains a massive incentive for illegal immigration, while the subversive “birth tourism” industry will continue to profit openly from the Court’s refusal to defend the nation.

In 2023 alone, mothers who were unauthorized immigrants or held only temporary legal status accounted for an astounding 320,000 births in the United States, representing 9 percent of all U.S. births. If the restrictions of President Trump’s executive order had been properly upheld, roughly 260,000 of those children would not have qualified for automatic citizenship.

Even more alarming is the strategic weaponization of this loophole by adversarial nations such as China. As Peter Schweizer has documented in his book, The Invisible Coup, we are currently facing what he terms “civilizational warfare.”

Wealthy Chinese nationals, sometimes with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, exploit visa loopholes in U.S. territories like Saipan, turning them into tropical maternity wards.

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President Trump Seeks Immediate REHEARING of Birthright Citizenship Case at Supreme Court After Scam Billboards Pop Up Along the Border Advertising “Deliveries Starting at $4000”

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he is immediately demanding a rehearing of the birthright citizenship case at the United States Supreme Court after discovering that scam billboards and signs have exploded along the Southern Border, in Mexico, and across the country, openly advertising “BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP” with “Deliveries starting at $4000.”

The president blasted the growing scheme that exploits America’s birthright citizenship laws, arguing that the Court’s recent decision has created an incentive for criminal enterprises to profit by marketing U.S. citizenship to foreign nationals.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote:

“Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, with “Deliveries starting at $4000.”

Likewise, similar signs going up all over our Country. Billions of Dollars will be illegally made by this SCAM, with Citizenship going to anyone willing to pay.

It will be, by far, the number one way of becoming a citizen, and then the entire family will be allowed to follow. Not sustainable.

NOBODY SAW THIS COMING!!! AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE! In fact, that is a crime, and therefore, the Supreme Court’s ruling is wrong.

I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.”

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Ketanji Brown Jackson Is Neither A Biologist Nor A Qualified Justice

Being a justice on the United States Supreme Court requires legal brilliance, intellectual rigor, strict discernment of and adherence to facts, and logical consistency. Clearly, not every justice on the current court meets these criteria.

This was demonstrated in the courts’ recent “trans” sports decision that now reasonably permits schools, under Title IX, to let biological sex be the determinant of who can and cannot compete on high school and college sports teams. In sum, this was a case about fundamental human reality and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s bold and incoherent dissent from it.

In their landmark 6-3 decision, the majority (Kavanaugh, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett) describe the primary plaintiff — identified as “B.P.J.” in the case — as a biological male who “identifies as female.”

This boy is West Virginia’s Becky Pepper-Jackson, who consistently dominated girls in track and field events. Kristen Waggoner, President of Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that helped argue this case before the court, said Pepper-Jackson took wins from more than 470 girls over 1,400 competitions. He stole two regional and one state championship from deserving female athletes. In addition to beating girls in sports, Pepper-Jackson also threatened them with sexual assault in the locker room, Waggoner explained to a CNN host.

The majority thankfully never referred to this sexually abusive boy as “transgender” nor by female pronouns, but simply as B.P.J. They chose to not play the gender ideology language game. That was certainly not true for the minority justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson.

They confess “B.P.J. is also transgender” while ignoring the fact that no one is transgender. It is a made-up term with no objective scientific backing. Even the American Psychiatric Association (APA), who regularly carries water for trans ideology, confesses “transgender is a non-medical term” which merely refers to one’s subjective gender-atypical belief or physical presentation. The APA explains the term is used interchangeably with other meaningless ideological words such as “gender non-conforming, genderqueer, bigendered and agendered.”

Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson then write these nonsensical words: “Her sex was identified as male at birth, but she has known from the time that she was ‘very little’ that she is a girl.” 

This is the deceptive talk of gender ideology. These three justices reflexively side with and parrot the child’s obvious mental illness, all while sitting on America’s highest court.

This is bad enough already, but certainly not the worst of it.

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Supreme Court won’t block Texas from enforcing a law requiring age verification for app downloads

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to block Texas from enforcing a state law that requires apps stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors seeking to download apps or make in-app purchases on mobile phones.

Justice Samuel Alito, in a pair of one-sentence orders, denied petitions by plaintiffs who claim that the Texas App Store Accountability Act violates users’ constitutional rights to free speech.

Last month, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law can take effect. The panel suspended a district court’s ruling last December that the law is unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs suing to block the law include the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a defendant in both cases.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the law impermissibly seeks to limit access to content protected by the First Amendment, including news and educational material.

“Equity and the public interest support relief because protecting First Amendment rights — and parents’ rights to supervise their children as they see fit, not as the government tells them they should — is always in the public interest,” wrote attorneys for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas.

Attorneys from Paxton’s office argued that the law protects children from “dangerous modern products.”

“A child with access to an app store and a mobile device (such as a tablet or smartphone) can potentially download any number of software applications, potentially agreeing to invasions of the child’s privacy and sale of the child’s data and be exposed to any conceivable content without parental consent or even parental knowledge,” they wrote.

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Essence Magazine Gets ROASTED for Calling Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson ‘The People’s Champion’ in Cover Story

Essence Magazine is a publication that focuses on black women, but their new cover story about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is getting them absolutely dragged on social media.

The main criticism is that they are trying WAY too hard to turn her into some kind of celebrity, much like the liberal media did with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It is apparently not enough that she is a judge who sits on the highest court in the land, she has to be treated like a movie star as well.

Just look this, with the headline: ‘The People’s Champion’

Really?

FOX News reported on the fallout:

Brown Jackson’s latest spotlight moment fuels accusations she’s forgetting her day job: ‘Not celebrities’

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared on the cover of the most recent issue of Essence magazine, spurring critics to argue that she is seeking publicity in ways that are inappropriate for a member of the Supreme Court.

“Supreme Court Justices are not celebrities and should not be treated like celebrities,” Andrew Fleischman, a Georgia trial and appeal lawyer, wrote of the cover.

The magazine’s cover features a picture of Jackson wearing a purple coat and smiling directly at the reader. Underneath Jackson’s photo is a caption that reads “the people’s champion.”…

Jackson’s public appearances outside the court have drawn periodic criticism from some conservatives and legal observers, who argue that events such as the Grammy Awards, Broadway appearances and a Vogue photoshoot risk blurring the line between judicial service and celebrity.

“Ketanji Brown Jackson isn’t supposed to be ‘the people’s champion,’” Billy Binion, a reporter for a libertarian magazine, wrote on X. “She’s not a politician. She’s supposed to interpret the law, not make it. This kind of thing is why so many people misunderstand how our government works at a basic level.”

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Connecticut “Human Rights” Commission Defiantly Vows To Ignore SCOTUS And Keep Biological Males In Girls’ Sports

While women and girls across America are celebrating the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling upholding bans on transgender athletes in West Virginia and Idaho, Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities is doubling down on erasing women’s sports.

In an absolutely tone-deaf statement following the June 30, 2026 B.P.J. decision, the CHRO proudly declared that the ruling “does NOT limit the right of transgender women and girls to participate in sports in CT.”

Let that sink in.

A so-called “Human Rights” commission is openly misappropriating the words “women” and “girls” to describe biological males — and boasting about it.

“In Connecticut, we proudly and loudly protect civil rights,” the CHRO proclaims. Just not the civil rights of actual women and girls who are being displaced, injured, or robbed of scholarships, podiums, and opportunities by biological men in female categories.

The commission vows to continue enforcing its radical “gender identity” antidiscrimination policies (which have been in place since 2011) to ensure “transgender women and girls remain protected and able to participate fully in sports throughout our state.”

Notice the language.

They don’t say “transgender athletes.”

Instead, they specifically say “transgender women and girls.”

Why?

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