This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
***
States are cracking down on illegal demonstrations, and radicals are panicking. Earlier this year, Utah enacted HB 331, which took several steps to enhance criminal penalties for crimes currently classified as misdemeanors. Arizona is close to sending a similar bill to the governor’s desk. These bills draw on a concept called “civil terrorism,” which I coined in early 2025 and have fleshed out since then, including in <a href="https://manhattan.institute/article/model-legislation-an-act-to-combat-civil-terrorism?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=mi">model legislation</a> developed alongside my colleagues at the Manhattan Institute.
Civil terrorism refers to the weaponization of “minor” crimes to intimidate or coerce law-abiding citizens into taking a political position. The best way to understand it is to consider its most common manifestation. Radical groups block a road en masse, chanting about their environmentalist, economic, or geopolitical views. They communicate to trapped drivers that no trip to the airport, their jobs, or their families will be spared from the threat of future disruption until some policy changes are made. Rather than persuading their fellow citizens to support the change, they threaten to make life miserable until enough people cry uncle and acquiesce.
That is not how we communicate or settle political questions in our democratic system. We have robust First Amendment rights that allow us to channel strong, offensive, or controversial opinions into peaceable arguments — including in public spaces. But the First Amendment has never allowed people to shut down all other elements of American life so that some group can express itself with maximal ruthless effectiveness. We have laws that prohibit disorderly conduct, vandalism, trespassing, and more. And if those laws fail to deter repeat offenders or treat the minor crime of road-blocking by one person — a nuisance, not a menace — the same as road-blocking by 15 people, they should be updated. That is what civil terrorism laws do.
Most Americans grasp this intuitively and recognize that civil terrorism laws present no First Amendment problem. Yet some organizations and media outlets seem invested in pretending otherwise. A recent attempted hit piece against me and the Manhattan Institute in <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-manhattan-institute-helped-kill-dei-now-its-coming-for-protests/">WIRED</a> made some classic moves in trying to argue that civil terrorism laws are somehow violations of the First Amendment’s speech protections. It made some classic errors and employed some recurring misdirection, which is worth addressing.
The piece&#8217;s subheader is self-refuting. It says that civil terrorism laws would “increase[e] penalties for minor crimes committed while people engage in constitutionally protected free speech.” If people are committing minor crimes, however, the fact that they are engaged in some expressive behavior is constitutionally irrelevant. There is no get-out-of-jail-free card for yelling about a political issue while you do something illegal.
What is a “minor” crime, anyway? Just because something is classified as a misdemeanor now does not make it inherently unimportant — certainly not deserving of First Amendment protection, as if it were almost legal. Civil terrorists exploit the fact that some crimes are treated with kid gloves and hardly prosecuted. They violate precisely those laws in creatively destructive ways, knowing that they will face minimal consequences and can return to breaking the law repeatedly.
Their sympathizers, like the author of the WIRED article, often emphasize that such lawbreaking is “nonviolent.” That’s a red herring. Many laws prohibit nonviolent actions because “violent” and “illegal” are not synonyms. Our laws protect against behaviors that erode the social fabric, such as subjecting thousands of people to needless traffic to make a political point. Americans have an interest in clean, functional, orderly public spaces, which is why vandalism can be prohibited — and treated as a serious crime when its message threatens further disruption or even violence.
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Another common criticism is that civil terrorism stigmatizes protest by labeling some demonstrators as terrorists. But these laws don’t label individuals “terrorists” as a pejorative or put them on a list. Civil terrorism simply describes the application of terrorist logic through less-violent means: We will continue to make your life miserable until you adopt our political position. Doing that with guns and bombs is violent terrorism. Doing it with other unlawful actions is still dangerous. More importantly, highlighting the logic of terrorism at play alerts lawmakers and our fellow citizens that the disruptions won’t stop if we ignore them. To the contrary, civil terrorists regularly vow to “escalate.” Our policy response has to be a crackdown, rather than a backdown.
Fretting about the invocation of terrorism or emphasizing the irrelevant (and arguable) element of nonviolence is a good sign that these critics don’t have much to go on. Frivolous First Amendment arguments attempting to extend constitutional protection to obviously illegal behavior shows that beyond all doubt. States have every right to ensure that their streets aren’t surrendered to radicals who only care about the Constitution when they can wield it in bad faith against law-abiding Americans. The movement to put civil terrorists in prison, investigate their organizers, and ensure that public spaces belong to the public again is gaining steam — and it is taking flak because it is over the target.
***
Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

TOPSHOT-US-IMMIGRATION-ICE-SHOOTING

Stop Tolerating Civil Terrorists Masquerading As First Amendment Warriors

Civil Terrorism

First Amendment

MI x DW

Political Violence

Protests

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
***
Over the past decade, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment prohibits <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-victory-for-religious-liberty-and-educational-pluralism">excluding religious institutions</a> from public benefit programs. Yet some states have resisted this clear constitutional mandate. The Court has agreed to hear <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/supreme-court-church-state-st-mary-catholic-parish-v-roy">yet another case</a> involving rules that allegedly discriminate against religious schools seeking to participate in Colorado’s universal pre-K program.
Other states, fortunately, are embracing the First Amendment, revising their laws and regulations to put religious institutions on equal footing with other private entities. In recent months, Oklahoma, Florida, and Iowa have taken meaningful legislative or administrative steps to dismantle unconstitutional laws and regulations. These states should be applauded for recognizing that they cannot treat religious Americans as second-class participants in public life.
For years, courts misinterpreted the Constitution’s Establishment Clause as requiring the exclusion of religious institutions from government funding programs, even when those programs extended funding to virtually every other private organization. As a result, federal and state laws became littered with “sectarian” provisions expressly excluding religious individuals and institutions from otherwise generally available public benefits.
But since the turn of the century, the Supreme Court has steadily corrected course. It first made clear that government may include religious institutions in public programs on equal footing with other private entities, then ultimately <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-victory-for-religious-liberty-and-educational-pluralism">held</a> that the government may not exclude religious institutions and religious conduct from public programs open to everyone else.
As the Court explained in its 2022 <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbfi.pdf">decision</a> in Carson v. Makin, “a State violates the Free Exercise Clause when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits.” The Court further emphasized that “[a] State need not subsidize private education &#8230; but once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”
The problem is that the Court’s new doctrine did not, by itself, force governments to revisit the statutes and regulations that entrenched these exclusions. As we have <a href="https://religiousequality.net/">catalogued</a>, hundreds of laws across the country continue to keep religious institutions out of otherwise generally available public programs. Moreover, when plaintiffs affected by these laws have sued, government officials often have attempted to evade their constitutional obligations. In some instances, states have <a href="https://www.mainepublic.org/courts-and-crime/2023-03-28/bangor-church-sues-over-law-requiring-its-school-to-accept-lgbtq-students-staff-to-get-public-funds">imposed new conditions</a> on public funding programs designed to create fresh obstacles for religious institutions seeking to participate on equal terms.
By contrast, some states have taken major steps to conform their laws to the First Amendment. Oklahoma has emerged as a leader in this effort. In 2023, the state enacted <a href="https://oksenate.gov/press-releases/religious-freedom-legislation-signed-law-0">legislation</a> that treated the sectarian exclusion of religious institutions from government benefits as a substantial burden on religious liberty. Then, in 2025, Governor Kevin Stitt issued an <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/OKGOV/2025/03/31/file_attachments/3215158/2142%20%282%29.pdf">executive order</a> directing state agencies to identify and eliminate laws, regulations, and policies that exclude religious individuals and institutions from public programs, funds, and benefits. The order specifically instructed agencies to review state rules in light of the Supreme Court’s modern Free Exercise decisions. Most recently, Oklahoma <a href="https://www.oklegislature.gov/cf_pdf/2025-26%20ENR/SB/SB1307%20ENR.PDF">repealed</a> several “sectarian” funding restrictions embedded in its law, including provisions barring religious organizations from participating in programs administered by the Oklahoma Historical Society and Arts Council.
Oklahoma is not alone. Last month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a <a href="https://www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/default/files/From%20the%20desk%20documents/opinion-4.2.26.pdf">formal opinion</a> concluding that state laws excluding religious institutions from public benefits violate the First Amendment. He announced that his office would no longer enforce such provisions.
Most recently, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed <a href="https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ba=SF2231&amp;ga=91">legislation</a> repealing multiple sectarian statutory provisions. Among other things, the law removed longstanding anti-religious restrictions embedded throughout Iowa’s education code, which barred religious institutions from participating in programs or required them to refrain from religious conduct in order to participate.
These recent developments may signal the beginning of a far healthier constitutional trend — one that does not require wave after wave of costly litigation simply to secure religious liberty for Americans. As Judge Daniel Traynor <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/31%20-%20PI%20Order_508FINAL.pdf">observed</a> in 2024, “Time and again the First Amendment rights of American citizens have been the subject of litigation. &#8230; Organizations must continually sue to keep the &#8230; government from infringing on basic and well-settled rights to freedom of religion.”
Rather than forcing religious individuals and institutions to spend years vindicating rights that the Supreme Court has already recognized, states should take seriously their independent obligation to bring their own laws into compliance with the Constitution. Thankfully, Oklahoma, Florida, and Iowa have begun to do exactly that.
***
This is republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The original can be found <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/supreme-court-religious-freedom-first-amendment-oklahoma-florida-iowa">here</a>.
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/person/michael-a-helfand" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Michael A. Helfand</a> is the Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, Visiting Professor at Yale Law School, senior legal advisor to the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition, and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/person/nicole-stelle-garnett" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nicole Stelle Garnett</a> is the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and a faculty fellow of the Religious Liberty Initiative.

Separation Of Church And State

These States Are Leading The Way To Restore Religious Freedom

Religious Freedom

A financial giant blocked a Maryland gun shop from using its financial services after identifying it as participating in a “prohibited industry,” a debanking lawsuit claims. 
The lawsuit, filed by the Rockville-based United Gun Shop, accuses Capital One and Melio Payments of arbitrarily preventing it from using their payment services. The gun shop received messages in 2025 and 2026 suggesting the financial entities could not work with the firearms industry, emails viewed by The Daily Wire show.
The apparent debanking comes after the gun shop had previously used Capital One’s payment platform, administered by Melio Payments, for multiple business-related transactions and bill payments, according to the suit.
“As an American-owned small business operating legally, we were shocked when Capital One abruptly stopped processing our payments without any clear explanation and instead cited vague reasons tied to a third-party payment provider we never agreed to work with,&#8221; United Gun Shop owner Jonathan Bennett told The Daily Wire. &#8220;We filed this lawsuit to hold Capital One and its third-party partner accountable for what we believe is unfair discrimination against our company.”
The <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/1036217722/Filed-Melio-CapitalOne-COMPLAINT">lawsuit</a> accuses Capital One and Melio of blocking the gun shop from &#8220;making future payments&#8221; before later disabling them from completing payment transactions. 
“Defendants invoked generalized ‘prohibited industry’ and ‘restricted industry’ classifications after Plaintiff had already been onboarded into the Capital One-branded workflow and after some payments had already been processed,&#8221; the lawsuit said. 
The incidents caused the gun shop around $75,000 in damages and disrupted its business services, according to the suit.
Reached for comment, Melio said it did nothing wrong. “The claims have no merit, and we intend to vigorously defend them,&#8221; the company told The Daily Wire. It did not respond to follow up questions about specific communications to United Gun Shop. Capital One did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Capital One previously <a href="https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/content/how-gun-companies-and-stores-are-pushing-back/">faced accusations</a> of politicized banking from the owner of a silencer company who testified that he was unable to use Capital One to sell federally regulated suppressors. Capital One says it does not make banking decisions based on politics. 
On April 11, 2025, a representative for United Gun Shop met with Capital One after “defendants canceled services without notice,” after the store had started to make bill payments with the banking giant&#8217;s platform, according to the lawsuit. A representative from Capital One informed United Gun Shop that it was not prohibited from banking and it had not violated any terms, the suit claims.
Yet three days later on April 14 the gun shop received a message from Melio Payments telling the company it belonged to a prohibited industry even though several payments had already been processed, according to a message viewed by The Daily Wire. 
“I understand that you are upset, and I know that some of your payments have processed, while others have not. There are times when we don’t catch it in time, but it appears that your account has been blocked from making future payments, as it appears to belong to one of our prohibited industries,” a message from Capital One Pay Business Bills said. 
“Per our agreement with our processing partners, we are unable to process payments in certain industries,” the message added. 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1091127" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-07-at-12.25.56-PM.png" alt="" width="1356" height="675" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-07-at-12.25.56-PM.png 1356w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-07-at-12.25.56-PM-300x149.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-07-at-12.25.56-PM-1024x510.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-07-at-12.25.56-PM-768x382.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1356px) 100vw, 1356px" /></div>
United Gun Shop said it never agreed to Melio&#8217;s terms and only registered to use Capital One&#8217;s platform.
Exhibits attached to the suit showed successful payments being made with the platform starting in December 2024 before starting to fail in March 2025. 
A second written confirmation came on March 2026 when the gun shop received a message from Capital One Business saying that “our team wasn&#8217;t able to verify that your account and activity meet our eligibility criteria” and that “your account could not be approved and has been disabled from completing any transactions.”
One of the potential reasons suggested in the email why it was listed as ineligible was because &#8220;your business is considered a restricted industry.&#8221;
The suit said that message was the first “formal notice of non-approval for banking with Capital One” after “an informal deplatforming” and the meeting with Capital One in April 2025. 

Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, said the messages appeared to show political discrimination. 
&#8220;Capital One got caught red-handed debanking a law-abiding American business and hiding behind a middleman to dodge responsibility,” he told The Daily Wire. “The lawsuit suggests a clear pattern. A legal firearms retailer was cut off for no reason, even after bank officials admitted no rules were broken.”
The suit accuses Capital One and Melio Payments of violating numerous Maryland business laws including the Maryland Consumer Protection Act, causing commercial disparagement, and breach of contract. 
The gun shop has faced legal challenges from the Democrat attorneys general of Maryland and District of Columbia over accusations that it knowingly allowed a gun trafficker to purchase handguns from its store. That case was later dismissed. 
Across the state and federal level, Republican officials have moved to implement protections from debanking following allegations that major banks worked with the Biden administration to snoop on Americans who purchased hunting gear or Bibles.
The Trump administration directed federal banking regulators in August 2025 to ensure policies are in place to prohibit politically motivated debanking and stipulate that banking decision are only made based on individual, objective, and risk-based objectives.

US-WEAPONS-STORE

READ IT: The Message A Financial Giant Sent To A Gun Shop After Blocking Payment Access

Banking

debanking

Gun Sales

Maryland

Last year, Texas passed a <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/pdf/SB00010I.pdf__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pKrBBLuO$">law</a> requiring all public schools to conspicuously display the Ten Commandments — just the text with no commentary.
Of course, challengers immediately ran to court, crying foul and claiming that this requirement violated both the <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pLOTmYYH$">First Amendment’s</a> Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.
But after careful consideration, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a masterful <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/25/25-50695-CV0.pdf__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pMb3-xOm$">opinion</a> by Judge Kyle Duncan, said that’s just not so.
Importantly, Judge Duncan’s opinion reaffirmed a fundamental principle we should already recognize. If a practice was not understood at the time of the Founding — by those who ratified the First Amendment — as a violation, then it should not be considered a violation today. Judges are not tasked with updating the Constitution to suit modern times — or they shouldn&#8217;t.
While this commonsense proposition seems straightforward, it hasn’t been for many years. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its infamous <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/403/602/__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pEifbWuB$">Lemon v. Kurtzman</a> opinion where it set forth a confusing three-part test to help courts determine whether the government had violated the Establishment Clause: Did the statute or action have a secular purpose? Did it primarily advance or inhibit religion? And did it result in “excessive government entanglement” with religion — whatever that means? Rather than providing clarity, this test quickly proved unworkable as lower federal courts struggled to consistently apply its prongs across cases.
And while the Supreme Court for far too long declined to overrule it explicitly, the Lemon test did lose favor among many justices. But because it continued to lurk among the Supreme Court’s case law, rearing its ugly head from time to time, Justice Scalia once <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-2024.ZC.html__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pDGoBbZl$">described</a> it as being like “some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried &#8230;”
And it remained that way for almost 30 more years after Justice Scalia penned that line until the Court officially overruled Lemon and its progeny in <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pETCTrS6$">Kennedy v. Bremerton School District</a>.
So, with a stake through its heart, what comes after the dead-and-buried Lemon test?
The Fifth Circuit joined some of its sister circuits by agreeing that the Supreme Court now requires lower federal courts to ask whether those challenging a certain practice have “prov[en] a set of facts that would have historically been understood as an establishment of religion.”
Drawing heavily from the work of former federal judge and leading First Amendment scholar Michael McConnell, the Fifth Circuit said that for such an establishment to exist, approximately six “hallmarks” of “founding-era establishments” must be consulted. These include:
<blockquote>
(1) government control over religious doctrine, governance, and church personnel; (2) compulsory church attendance; (3) compelled financial support, especially in the form of land grants and religious taxes; (4) prohibitions on worship in dissenting churches; (5) use of church institutions for civil functions; and (6) restriction of political participation to members of the established church.
</blockquote>
As the court noted, none of those hallmarks are present here (even though some — <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fedsoc.org/events/what-was-an-establishment-of-religion-at-the-founding__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pB4Lv64G$">including</a> Professor McConnell — argue they could be, especially if circumstances shifted slightly). This historical analysis permits a more straightforward analytical pathway than previously available under Lemon. The malleability of that test and its flexible factors help explain why courts previously issued seemingly contradictory rulings, or held that Ten Commandments displays or Christmas crèches didn’t violate the First Amendment, only when surrounded by other secular displays too. That’s why some cities were forced to adopt the absurd and sacrilegious practice of flanking Baby Jesus with Frosty the Snowman or Snoopy, as though the latter are on equal footing with the former. Those types of requirements — which never should have existed — are no more.
Still, the challengers to this case argued that some <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/449/39/__;!!F0Stn7g!CImtl3K4Z88KMhgOYxEgdmtoJl0WxJjjmW8dFAsrNxm3qZHNHJmiBfKfghp6EOtlMVfYBUfirq5Ll9TyRu07pDMslZS0$">post-Lemon cases</a> that applied the Lemon test to various situations remained good law. But the Fifth Circuit correctly said that if “Plaintiffs’ view prevailed, [courts] would be applying Lemon’s dead letter far into the future.”
The Fifth Circuit also applied a similar framework to find that these passive displays did not violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment Free Exercise rights either.
What’s clear from this case and others is that lower federal courts are starting to take seriously the requirement that courts should not impose their own policy preferences under the guise of interpreting the Constitution. Instead, they must interpret and apply the Constitution as it would have been understood at the time “We the People” adopted it. To accomplish that task, courts should — as the Fifth Circuit did here — look to history and tradition to guide their textual interpretations.
Courts have adopted that approach for Second Amendment cases — and now First Amendment ones too. And they should continue until they have adopted that correct approach for all constitutional cases.
***
Zack Smith is a senior legal fellow and manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program at The Heritage Foundation.

US-NEWS-TEXAS-SCHOOLS-TEN-COMMANDMENTS-LAWSUIT-LX

Court Rules That The Ten Commandments Aren’t Unconstitutional — Who Knew?!

DW Opinion

Ten Commandments

On Tuesday, at the UCLA School of Law, history repeated itself — this time without even the courtesy of waiting for a federal judge. James Percival, the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, had been <a href="https://dailybruin.com/2026/04/21/demonstrators-protest-ucla-event-hosting-dhs-general-counsel-james-percival">invited</a> by the UCLA Federalist Society for a conversation about immigration law. More than 150 demonstrators protested the event. Many heckled Percival throughout, yelling, playing doorbell sounds and ringtones, and tapping on desks after being asked to silence their phones. The open Q&amp;A never occurred. The Federalist Society had put it plainly in its invitation: &#8220;Come, ask your hardest questions, and make your case.&#8221; The students answered with noise.
This should sound familiar. In 2023, the UCLA script played out at my alma mater, Stanford Law, now ranked first in the nation. Judge Kyle Duncan — a Fifth Circuit judge nominated by President Donald Trump during his first term — had been <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/struggle-session-at-stanford-law-school-federalist-society-kyle-duncan-circuit-court-judge-steinbach-4f8da19e">invited</a> by Stanford&#8217;s Federalist Society to speak. Students greeted him with shouted insults, sustained disruption, and signs. Stanford&#8217;s own associate dean joined the heckling from the podium. Duncan was ultimately escorted out by federal marshals. Stanford&#8217;s president and dean later apologized.
Duncan, life-tenured and apparently unbothered, returned to his chambers and kept writing opinions.
This week, he may have written his finest.
On Tuesday — the same day UCLA students were busy shouting down the DHS&#8217;s top lawyer — the full Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld a Texas law requiring public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments. Judge Duncan wrote the opinion in <a href="https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/25/25-50695-CV0.pdf">Rabbi Mara Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District</a>. It is a serious, carefully constructed piece of constitutional reasoning, and it deserves more attention than the protest theater unfolding across the law school quad. (Full disclosure: Rabbi Nathan is a college friend whom I respect but disagree with.)
The legal question before the court was straightforward: Does a classroom display of the Ten Commandments resemble any of the historic hallmarks of an established religion? Duncan shows, methodically, that it does not. No student is compelled to recite the Commandments, profess belief in them, or even glance at them. They are present as part of the moral and legal inheritance that shaped Western civilization and, with it, the country those students live in.
Critics reach reflexively for Jefferson&#8217;s &#8220;wall of separation between church and state,” a phrase that appears nowhere in the First Amendment. It comes from a 1802 <a href="https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html">letter</a> Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists as a promise of non-interference, not a mandate to scrub faith from civic life. George Washington was blunter in his <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/Washingtons_Farewell_Address.pdf?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">Farewell Address</a>: A republican government depends on a moral people, and religion and morality are its indispensable supports.
And then there are claims that the display text is somehow sectarian. In First Things, a Protestant scholar, Mark David Hall, and a rabbi, Stuart Halpern of Yeshiva University, joined me, a Catholic, to <a href="https://firstthings.com/a-nonsectarian-version-of-the-ten-commandments/">show</a> that the text these states require was crafted through deliberate interfaith collaboration and recognized by multiple courts as nonsectarian. Judge Duncan wisely observes that it is not the province of federal courts to opine on such theological matters.
It’s worth noting that the generation least likely to have encountered the Ten Commandments in any formal setting is also the one now turning to faith in quietly remarkable numbers. Gen Z, raised on curated content and institutional skepticism, is discovering that ancient things sometimes endure for good reason. Washington feared that a republic without religion and morality could not long endure. A generation quietly proving him right is a development worth more than a classroom wall. But the wall is a good place to start.
The Texas case will likely reach the Supreme Court. When it does, the justices will have the opportunity to confirm what most people outside law schools already sense: that a civilization that acknowledges its moral inheritance is not establishing a religion. A classroom wall is not an established church. It is a reminder.
Meanwhile, Judge Kyle Duncan — the man they tried to silence at Stanford Law — just handed down the opinion of his career. He didn&#8217;t need a microphone; he had a pen.
Back at UCLA, the noise has likely faded. James Percival returned to Washington.
Stanford Law students shouted down a federal judge; now their counterparts at UCLA have done the same to the government’s top immigration lawyer. The targets were different. The impulse was identical. And the man they couldn’t silence at Stanford has just written an opinion that will serve as the roadmap for the Supreme Court when a key religious freedom issue arrives there — and it will.
***
Andrea Picciotti Bayer is director of the Conscience Project and recipient of the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2025 Religious Freedom Impact Award.

Heckled Judge Just Handed The Left Its Worst Ruling In Years

Public Schools

The U.S. Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-hands-down-major-conservative-win-in-near-unanimous-decision">ruled</a> on March 31 in <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/chiles-v-salazar/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Chiles v. Salazar</a> that voluntary conversations between a counselor and her young clients are protected under the First Amendment’s free speech clause. This monumental decision condemned the state’s unlawful and, according to the court, “egregious” attempt to censor discussions about biological reality in the counseling room.
In my role with Alliance Defending Freedom, I had the privilege of standing before the high court last fall and advocating on behalf of licensed Colorado counselor Kaley Chiles, who challenged the state’s counseling censorship law.
Kaley wants to provide what so many children and families are desperate for: A listening ear and compassionate advice as kids talk through what it feels like to wrestle with their identity and body. As more and more young people across the country are becoming distressed about their gender or sexuality, they want a professional to talk to about their feelings and struggles. The young clients who seek out Kaley for advice do so because they want to grow comfortable with their bodies and avoid harmful drugs and procedures.
<div id="attachment_1073215" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1073215" class="size-large wp-image-1073215" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-864x576.jpg" alt="Source: Alliance Defending Freedom" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles14-scaled-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Source: Alliance Defending Freedom</div>
Colorado’s law forbids Kaley from having those voluntary conversations with her clients under age 18. Indeed, the law violates her freedom of speech by prohibiting licensed counselors like her from engaging in voluntary counseling conversations with minor clients who want to change some expression, behavior, identity, or feeling associated with their “sexual orientation or gender identity.”
On the issue of gender identity, the law only censors counseling conversations in one direction. It allows conversations that push young people toward a gender identity different from their sex but forbids conversations that help them grow comfortable with their body and realign their identity with their sex when they desire to do that. The law also threatens severe penalties, including thousands of dollars in fines, suspension from practice, and even revocation of the counselor’s license.
This one-sided censorship comes amidst a growing national mental-health crisis and prevents many Colorado children from obtaining the counseling that they desire and that could help them. Roughly 90% of children who experience gender dysphoria before puberty will regain comfort with their sex if not pushed toward harmful drugs and procedures.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court explained, “We do not doubt that the question ‘how best to help minors’ struggling with issues of gender identity or sexual orientation is presently a subject of ‘fierce public debate.’ But Colorado’s law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions. In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint.”
“Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety,” the court continued. “Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth. However well-intentioned, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.”
<div id="attachment_1073217" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1073217" class="size-large wp-image-1073217" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-864x576.jpg" alt="Source: Alliance Defending Freedom" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/chiles17-scaled-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Source: Alliance Defending Freedom</div>
This is a massive win for free speech, common sense, and families desperate to help their children. The decision will help end the authoritarian days of Colorado inserting itself into the counseling room and silencing good counselors from speaking body-affirming messages their clients want to hear. It also takes us a long way down the road to ensuring that kids in Colorado, and around the country, who desire to embrace and live consistent with their sex are free to seek help by talking to licensed counselors like Kaley.
Significantly, the Supreme Court’s ruling will help protect counselors from similar laws in more than 20 states and over 100 localities across the country, giving them a path forward to help struggling youth seeking professional guidance.
From professional groups to medical malpractice verdicts, the tide is turning on how we as a society help young people struggling with gender issues. Those kids need quality counseling, not a one-way path to dangerous body-altering drugs and surgeries. All children deserve real help affirming that their bodies are not a mistake and that they are wonderfully made. The Supreme Court affirms that the First Amendment protects those messages in the counseling room.
* * *
Jim Campbell is chief legal counsel with <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>) and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Kaley Chiles in Chiles v. Salazar.

Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Policy Gets Supreme Court Hearing

The Court Just Said The Government Can’t Control What Your Child’s Counselor Says

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Colorado

Conversion Therapy

Counseling

Free Speech

Gender

LGBTQ

Opinion

SCOTUS

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court issued one of its most clarifying rulings in years on Tuesday, directly challenging the cancellation efforts of modern progressivism, and the reaction from the progressive Left revealed everything you need to know about who actually believes in freedom and who doesn’t.
In <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/supreme-court-sides-with-therapist-in-challenge-to-colorados-ban-on-conversion-therapy/">Chiles v. Salazar</a>, the Court ruled 8-1 that Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy” — specifically, talk therapy that helps minors explore whether their gender dysphoria might resolve in alignment with their biological sex — violates the First Amendment rights of licensed counselor Kaley Chiles. Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, put it <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539_fd9g.pdf">poetically</a>: laws that “suppress speech based on viewpoint represent an egregious assault” on First Amendment commitments. The ruling wasn’t close. It was a near-unanimous recognition that the government cannot dictate which therapeutic conversations are permissible and which are forbidden based on the ideological conclusion it prefers. Tuesday’s ruling should send a chill down the spine of other states that have taken similar action.
Enter Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY).
<a href="https://x.com/AndyBeshearKY/status/2039018698451677322?s=20">Beshear</a> decried the ruling, saying that “conversion therapy is torture,” and invoked his progressive Christian faith to say that “my faith teaches me that all children are children of God and practices that endanger or harm them are wrong.”
Beshear is welcome to espouse his convictions of faith in public life, including as a sitting governor (even if they depart from biblical teaching). He is not welcome to abuse it in the service of a philosophical position that he and other progressives fail to reason through with consistency.
Here is the question he, along with all other leftists, cannot or refuse to answer: If you affirm a minor’s right to pursue medical intervention — puberty blockers, hormones, surgeries — to align their body with their perceived gender identity, on what principled basis do you deny another minor the right to pursue talk therapy exploring whether their dysphoria might resolve without drastic intervention? Both involve a young person, a clinical professional, and a question about identity. The only difference is the direction of the therapeutic goal. And those goals are set against what progressivism thinks sufficiently aligned with its own aims. Beshear supports state-sponsored medical intervention when the conclusion is sufficiently progressive and lines up with what he bills as compassionate; he abandons the language of compassion when it runs contrary to leftist goals for using the government to advance transgender ideology.
The compassionate appeal to “children of God” is theologically sound as far as it goes — every Christian affirms it. But it proves too much and too little simultaneously. It proves too much because it could be deployed to ban any therapy a state deems harmful. It proves too little because it says nothing about which therapeutic goals are legitimate, which is the actual question before us. That’s an anthropological question, one that liberals do not like to answer because modern progressive anthropology lies on flimsy, irrational grounds, unable to determine what a man or woman even is. What Beshear wants is for his theological sentiments to do the intellectual work that his empty platitudes cannot. But a magistrate charged with upholding the common good owes citizens more than sentiment (Rom. 13:1-7). He owes them a coherent account of what a man and woman are, and which identity claims warrant medical affirmation and which warrant further reflection — and why. He has not given one. He cannot give one, because the moment he tries, the internal contradictions of progressive gender ideology become impossible to ignore.
Consider the logical structure on display in the leftist outcries to Tuesday’s decision:
Progressives opposed the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-skrmetti/">Skrmetti</a> decision, the Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, on the grounds that the state should not prevent individuals from pursuing medical interventions aligned with their gender identity. The watchword was choice. Bodily autonomy. Access to care.
Now those same leftists cheer when states ban a licensed counselor from having a conversation with a minor who voluntarily seeks to explore whether their dysphoria might be addressed without medical transition. The watchword is now “protection.” Safety. Science.
The contradiction is absurd. When a teenager wants hormones, progressivism demands the state get out of the way. When a teenager wants to talk to a therapist about living in accordance with biological reality, progressivism demands the state intervene. This is the enforcement of ideological conformity through the selective and weaponized deployment of the language of compassion.
Progressivism is not, at root, about expanding choices. It is about ratifying the correct choices — the ones that affirm the progressive account of identity, selfhood, and liberation. Every other choice, including the choice to embrace one’s given sex, is categorized as harm, trauma, or abuse.
Kaley Chiles was not torturing anyone. She was a Christian counselor who believed — correctly, as it happens — that talk therapy aimed at helping a young person live at peace with biological reality is a legitimate therapeutic goal. Eight justices agreed that Colorado (which now has a long track record of punishing people of faith and losing, thanks to Alliance Defending Freedom) had no business shutting her up.
All children are indeed children of God. That is precisely why they deserve honest counsel and the opportunity to hear the truth about their design.
***
Andrew T. Walker is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Managing Editor of WORLD Opinions. He is a Fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center.

US-NEWS-KYGOV-TRANSGENDER-HEALTHCARE-LX

Someone Ask Andy Beshear A Hard Question

Courts

gender ideology

A pro-life group challenged a Detroit ordinance creating a speech buffer zone around abortion facilities, arguing that the city’s policy violates the First Amendment.
The group Sidewalk Advocates for Life sued Detroit in federal court on Wednesday over an ordinance it passed instituting a 15 foot buffer zone around all abortion facilities where pro-life advocates cannot enter. The ordinance also creates an eight foot floating buffer within 100 feet of an abortion facility for any client.
“The Ordinance, which is enforceable through criminal penalties, violates the Free Speech, Free Exercise, and Freedom of Assembly Clauses of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as the Michigan Constitution,” said the <a href="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/63d954d4e4ad424df7819d46/69bb229374c5d96c3dd7e4c6_DE%201-Complaint_SAFL%20v%20City%20of%20Detroit.pdf">lawsuit</a>, which was filed by the Thomas More Society.
Kevin Hammer, a member of Sidewalk Advocates, said that the ordinance bans him from handing out pro-life literature while holding a sign reading “Ask Me About Free Ultrasounds and Pregnancy Tests” outside of the Scotsdale Women’s Center in Detroit, Michigan.
“Our Sidewalk Advocates stand on public sidewalks offering a gentle word and information to women who are willing to receive it—that is what this ordinance criminalizes,” said Lauren Muzyka, the president and CEO of Sidewalk Advocates for Life.
The suit points out that a recent <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/brown-v-city-pittsburgh/">decision</a> from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a similar ordinance implemented by Pittsburgh. The court said that the buffer zone ordinance was overly burdensome on free speech.
Detroit’s ordinance was passed in 2024 and <a href="https://mcclibraryfunctions.azurewebsites.us/api/ordinanceDownload/10649/1365639/pdf">says</a> that “no person, within a 100-foot radius of any entrance door to a healthcare facility, shall knowingly approach within eight feet of another person for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education or counseling with such other person in the public right-of-way unless such other person consents.”
The suit says that this stipulation substantially burdens speech and does not serve a compelling government interest.
“This ordinance does not protect anyone,” said Thomas More Society head of litigation Peter Breen. “It makes it a crime to stand on a public sidewalk and offer a woman a choice. The government cannot wall off the public square so that women never hear they have alternatives to abortion.”

Supreme Court Issues Last Rulings Of Its Term

The Fight Over Free Speech Heats Up. Women In Crisis Could Pay The Price.

Abortion

Detroit

Michigan

Pro-Life Movement

U.S.

Republican lawmakers will consider legislation that would allow American citizens to sue foreign entities that censor and violate their First Amendment rights.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) said Thursday that lawmakers were looking into proposals that would protect Americans from foreign censorship. The legislation would mirror proposals introduced in states like Wyoming that would protect Americans from being penalized for their opinions. 
“We are definitely looking at that,” Jordan responded when asked by journalist Michael Shellenberger if Congress would consider proposals similar to the Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion (GRANITE) Act <a href="https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2026/HB0070">introduced</a> on February 5 in Wyoming. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
BREAKING: Congress is considering stripping sovereign immunity of EU censorship officials, prohibiting social media from enforcing censorship orders, and enabling private lawsuits against foreign entities, says <a href="https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Jim_Jordan</a> echoing remarks made by <a href="https://twitter.com/UnderSecPD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UnderSecPD</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrellIssa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DarrellIssa</a> <a href="https://t.co/AKjfbBJql9">pic.twitter.com/AKjfbBJql9</a>
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) <a href="https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/2019456842997338152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Jordan added that lawmakers were trying to find a “remedy” for foreign censorship, saying that “we&#8217;re taking a good look at that and seeing if there&#8217;s something we can do” regarding the GRANITE Act. 
The GRANITE Act would create a cause of action against foreign states and international organizations that implement censorship laws that violate the free speech rights of Americans, according to a summary of the bill. It would also prevent the state from working with entities that implement foreign censorship. 
Both Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) have already suggested that the United States should take action to protect Americans from being prosecuted under foreign censorship laws. 
Jordan’s comments come after the House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://x.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/2018683758006665352">released</a> documents showing that tech companies were restricting the speech of Americans under Europe’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/for-thursday-exclusive-free-speech-advocates-challenge-eu-over-pan-european-censorship-regime">Digital Services Act</a> and other measures. 
The act empowers the European Commission to impose significant financial penalties on tech companies, which it says are not doing enough to combat so-called disinformation. In certain circumstances, American tech companies may be fined up to 6% of their global revenue if they violate specific conditions of the act.
According to the House Judiciary Committee, the European Union pressured tech companies to create guidelines on what was acceptable speech on topics from mass migration to men participating in women’s sports on the basis of their transgender identity. 
Americans&#8217; speech online has not just been censored by foreign bureaucrats, but also by the State Department. 
In February 2024, The Daily Wire, along with The Federalist and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-texas-ag-ask-court-to-block-state-departments-domestic-misinformation-efforts">sued the State Department</a> over its Global Engagement Center’s relationship with anti-“misinformation” outfits like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The suit alleges that those outfits were focused on suppressing American conservative media, and the Global Engagement Center’s support of these groups violated the First Amendment.

Former US Special Counsel Jack Smith Testifies Before House Judiciary Committee

Bill Would Give American Victims Of Foreign Censorship Power To Sue

House May Empower Americans To Sue Foreign Entities That Censor Them

Censorship

European Union

House Judiciary Committee

Jim Jordan

Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is refusing to comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she helped organize that urged U.S. service members to resist what she described as “illegal orders,” escalating a standoff with federal prosecutors.
Slotkin said this week she will not sit for a voluntary interview with investigators, saying in a <a href="https://x.com/SenatorSlotkin/status/2019474013307715592">statement</a> on X Thursday, “I’m not gonna be sitting for this inquiry. I’m not gonna legitimize their actions,” even as her legal team prepares for what it says could become litigation against the Justice Department.
Slotkin’s attorney informed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro that the senator would decline a voluntary interview and requested that the office preserve documents for “anticipated litigation,” in letters first obtained by the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/slotkin-illegal-orders-video-justice-department-interview-06b6c041b158b2ed5911c52a16868764">Associated Press</a>. A separate letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urged her to immediately terminate the inquiry and reject an FBI interview request.
The investigation stems from a video Slotkin released last year alongside five other Democratic lawmakers, all with prior military or intelligence experience, urging active-duty service members to refuse orders they believe to be unlawful. Republicans criticized the video as reckless and potentially encouraging insubordination, while President Donald Trump publicly accused the lawmakers of sedition.
Slotkin has sought to reframe the video as a civics lesson rather than a call to disobedience, insisting it was meant only to remind troops of their duty to reject illegal commands. But she has simultaneously accused federal authorities of attempting to silence her through intimidation.
“They are purposely using physical and legal intimidation to get me to shut up,” Slotkin said. “But more importantly, they’re using that intimidation to deter others from speaking out against their administration.”
Slotkin further warned officials at the Justice Department that while recent Supreme Court rulings have expanded presidential immunity, those protections do not extend to officials enforcing the law on the president’s behalf.
 “The Supreme Court may have given the president near-immunity on most matters,” she said, “but they’ve given no such immunity to those doing his bidding.”
The Justice Department’s requests have so far been voluntary, placing the burden on prosecutors to decide whether to escalate the inquiry by issuing subpoenas to sitting members of Congress. Asked whether she would comply if subpoenaed, Slotkin paused before responding, saying only that she would “take a hard look at it.”
Slotkin has portrayed the investigation as part of a broader campaign of intimidation, citing threats against her family and property following renewed attention to the video. “If they can do this to a sitting senator,” she said, “just imagine what they could do to a community leader, a business leader, or a mom who goes viral on the internet.”
The dispute has also raised questions about accountability for lawmakers who invoke military authority in partisan messaging, even as Slotkin positions herself as a victim of political overreach. The Pentagon has separately investigated Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), another participant in the video, while Kelly has sued over efforts to discipline him.
Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and three-term House member before winning her Senate seat in 2024, has increasingly leaned into confrontation with the Trump administration. She has publicly urged Democrats to abandon restraint, “I&#8216;m from the Midwest and for us, leaders like our coaches are just — they have got some alpha energy to them,” Slotkin said when asked how she’d fix Democratic messaging in 2025. 
Her push to bring “alpha energy” back to the party has coincided with a divisive start to her Senate tenure. “I did this to go on offense,” Slotkin said of her refusal to cooperate. “To put them in a position where they have to own their choices.”
Whether that strategy forces the Justice Department to retreat now rests with federal prosecutors weighing how far to press an investigation into members of Congress who are openly daring them to act.

Elissa Slotkin

Dem Senator Thumbs Her Nose At DOJ, Rejects Call To Answer For ‘Illegal Orders’ Video

Dem Senator Refuses To Comply With DOJ Investigation On 'Illegal Orders' Video

Jeanine Pirro

Mark Kelly

Ousted CNN anchor Don Lemon embarked on a post-arrest press tour of sorts, joining late night host Jimmy Kimmel to complain about President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration and the arrest he claimed was proof of a campaign of &#8220;intimidation.&#8221;
Lemon joined Kimmel on Monday evening, and the ABC host outdid himself in his efforts to help Lemon paint himself as the victim in a grand scheme — orchestrated by President Trump&#8217;s Justice Department, of course — designed to &#8220;intimidate&#8221; Lemon and others like him into silence.
Kimmel opened the segment by first skipping over the video that appears to show Lemon discussing plans with protest organizers prior to entering the church and then repeatedly referring to Lemon as a &#8220;journalist&#8221; who just happened to be there to record whatever transpired.
Lemon repeated the same as if to reassure the audience that he was, in fact, acting solely as a journalist. &#8220;I&#8217;m not a protester,&#8221; he insisted.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Jimmy Kimmel tries justifying Don Lemon storming a church because he&#8217;s a &#8220;journalist&#8221; and not a protester.
Barging into a church and disrupting service isn&#8217;t journalism, Jimmy. It&#8217;s a blatant violation of federal law.<a href="https://t.co/uUKkUKXGNJ">pic.twitter.com/uUKkUKXGNJ</a>
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) <a href="https://twitter.com/newsbusters/status/2018557195189702734?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The pair followed that by suggesting that the Justice Department had essentially crowd-sourced the decision to arrest Lemon, taking their cues from right-leaning social media accounts rather than the evidence — and complained that Lemon had been arrested without being offered the chance to quietly surrender himself to law enforcement.
They immediately shifted focus to the judges who&#8217;d <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/appeals-court-finds-probable-cause-to-charge-don-lemon-but-rejects-dojs-bid-to-force-arrest-warrant">declined to sign off</a> on a warrant to arrest Lemon, but ignored the fact that a grand jury had found probable cause to indict him, and at least one of the judges had agreed with their assessment.
Lemon went on to muddy the waters around the grand jury indictment by suggesting that prosecutors could write &#8220;whatever they want&#8221; in an indictment and would never face repercussions if it was not true.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
WATCH: Jimmy Kimmel and Don Lemon mischaracterize both the appellate process and the grand jury. Not once do you hear an acknowledgement that the grand jury found probable cause. <a href="https://t.co/z5uvDEiCWN">pic.twitter.com/z5uvDEiCWN</a>
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) <a href="https://twitter.com/BonillaJL/status/2018554887399788839?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/don-lemon-claims-trump-will-go-around-a-judge-to-prosecute-him">Lemon said</a> in the days leading up to his arrest, he believed the Trump administration would &#8220;go around&#8221; a judge or possibly even &#8220;retrofit&#8221; laws in an effort to get him, declaring afterward that he was not concerned with the possibility that he could land behind bars, and saying that he planned to be even more outspoken in the days to come.
President Donald Trump, who was asked about the situation while aboard Air Force One over the weekend, made it clear that he did not like Lemon, but said that he was unaware of plans to have him arrested before they were carried out.

DON LEMON, JIMMY KIMMEL

Don Lemon Kicks Off Post-Arrest Press Tour With Jimmy Kimmel Interview

Don Lemon

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Jimmy Kimmel

Media

Politics

A Christian evangelist&#8217;s battle with a Mississippi city over street preaching took center stage at the Supreme Court on Wednesday as the justices heard arguments that could have far-reaching consequences for Americans who want to defend their constitutional rights in federal court. 
The case <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/24-00993qp.pdf">revolves</a> around whether 33-year-old Gabriel Olivier can challenge an ordinance from Brandon, Mississippi, that restricted street preaching in a public park outside of a local amphitheater. Olivier, who was convicted in 2021 of street preaching outside of the designated area, is now attempting to overturn the ordinance on First Amendment grounds. 
“This is a really important case,  for Christians specifically, because I noticed that all around the country, there&#8217;s always an exercise of free speech [that] does not seem to be cracked down on the way that Christians&#8217; free speech is nowadays,” Olivier told The Daily Wire in an interview. 
The city of Brandon argues that Olivier cannot challenge the ordinance in federal court because he has previously been convicted of violating it. Olivier says that he doesn’t want to revisit the 2021 conviction, for which he paid a fine, but wants to protect his right to share his faith in the future. 
During oral arguments on Wednesday, the justices seemed sympathetic to Olivier’s arguments that he should be able to seek relief in federal court despite his previous conviction. Nate Kellum, a lawyer with First Liberty Institute representing Olivier, told The Daily Wire that he was encouraged by the questions he heard from the justices. 
Kellum said that all he wants is for Olivier to have his day in court to argue against the ordinance and make an appeal for his First Amendment rights. 
“Everybody, regardless of their ideology and their belief, deserves their day in court,” Olivier said. “We&#8217;re just asking that people would continue to pray for us.”
The Trump administration is <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1414041/dl">supporting</a> Olivier’s petition, as are a number of other conservative organizations. 
The ordinance implemented by Brandon, a suburb east of Jackson, restricts protest activity in the park surrounding the city&#8217;s amphitheater to a designated area when events are being held. 
“What the ordinance does is it puts him in a place where no one can hear him,” Kellum told The Daily Wire. “You can&#8217;t have a conversation.  You can&#8217;t hand out literature. If he preaches, he cannot be heard, and if he held up a sign, no one could read it. And so that seemed to be the whole idea, is that the city wanted to pass a law that separated him from his would-be audience.”
50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at <a href="http://dailywire.com/cyberweek" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire.com/cyberweek</a>.
The city and some legacy outlets have attempted to suggest that Olivier shouted rude or inappropriate things during his previous outings at the park. 
“It&#8217;s patently false. And it seems to be an attempt to try to malign Gabe, malign his character,” Kellum said. “But if Gabe or really anyone else would say anything that would amount to fighting words or could be something that could lead to an altercation, there&#8217;s disorderly conduct ordinances.”
Olivier first went to the park in 2019, where he had productive conversations about his faith with others. But when he returned in 2021, the city had passed an ordinance against such evangelism. His passion for street evangelism comes from his own conversion ten years ago when he encountered a street preacher. 
“I see it very clearly as a command in scripture,” he said. “And so I choose to do that and exercise the rights that we have enjoyed here in America. And we would like for an opportunity to continue to fight for those rights to be upheld.”
Todd Butler, the attorney representing Brandon, said in a statement to The Daily Wire: &#8220;The City of Brandon was excited to present its position to the Court. The case before the Supreme Court is not about the constitutionality of the ordinance or religious expression. It is about whether a person who has been found guilty in criminal court may undermine his conviction through a civil tort lawsuit. The importance of this case cannot be overstated as it will impact cities across the country.&#8221;

MixCollage-04-Dec-2025-02-39-PM-4809

Supreme Court To Weigh In On Christian Evangelist’s Street Preaching Battle With City

Street Preaching Heads To Court: Evangelist’s Battle With City Heard By Supreme Court

Christianity

Mississippi

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