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Laurie Schlegel’s son came home one day from his private Louisiana secondary school and told his mom that an eighth-grade peer tried to show him internet pornography during the school day.
The story is hardly remarkable considering its presumed frequency, but the response was noteworthy. Schlegel is a certified sex-addiction therapist and a newly elected legislator in the Louisiana House of Representatives. This past February, Schlegel introduced House Bill 142 to her colleagues. The representative told The American Conservative that the act would create a “civil cause of action against commercial entities that publish and distribute material for minors on the internet that don’t verify the age of their users first.” In other words, Louisiana parents would be able to sue entities that distribute sexually explicit material for damages if the entity failed to take legitimate steps to verify the age of its users.
Detractors will say, “Imagine the scandal! The state cannot (or at least should not ) get involved in something as private as pornography.” Not hardly: Schlegel’s age-verification legislation passed unanimously in both chambers of her state’s legislature, was signed into law by Governor John Bel Edwards in June, and will take effect in 2023.
This is the sort of thing that scholars at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) have been waiting for. Last month, those think tanks published a joint report titled “Protecting Teens from Big Tech: Five Policy Ideas for States.” The legislative brief draws a connection between social-media and pornography consumption among teens and concerning sociological trends, including increases in teen depression, self-harm, sleep deprivation, suicide attempts, and suicide.
The authors of the report evidence a simultaneous frustration with Congressional inaction and anticipation for creative state-level solutions. Both Clare Morell, a policy analyst at the EPPC and the […]
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Will America-First News Outlets Make it to 2023?
Things are looking grim for conservative and populist news sites.
There’s something happening behind the scenes at several popular conservative news outlets. 2021 was bad, but 2022 is proving to be disastrous for news sites that aren’t “playing ball” with the corporate media narrative. It’s being said that advertisers are cracking down, forcing some of the biggest ad networks like Google and Yahoo to pull their inventory from conservative outlets. This has had two major effects. First, it has cooled most conservative outlets from discussing “taboo” topics like Pandemic Panic Theater, voter fraud, or The Great Reset. Second, it has isolated those ad networks that aren’t playing ball.
Certain topics are anathema for most ad networks. Speaking out against vaccines or vaccine mandates is a certain path to being demonetized. Highlighting voter fraud in the 2020 and future elections is another instant advertising death penalty. Throw in truthful stories about climate change hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and the border crisis and it’s easy to understand how difficult it is for America-First news outlets to spread the facts, share conservative opinions, and still pay the bills.
Without naming names, I have been told of several news outlets who have been forced to either consolidate with larger organizations or who have backed down on covering certain topics out of fear of being “canceled” by the ad networks. I get it. This is a business for many of us and it’s not very profitable. Those of us who do this for a living are often barely squeaking by, so loss of additional revenue can often mean being forced to make cuts. That means not being able to cover the topics properly. Its a Catch-22: Tell the truth and lose the money necessary to keep telling the truth, or avoid the truth and make enough money to survive. Those who have chosen survival simply aren’t able to spread the truth properly.
We will never avoid the truth. The Lord will provide if it is His will. Our job is simply to share the facts, spread the Gospel, and educate as many Americans as possible while exposing the forces of evil.
To those who have the means, we ask that you please donate. We have options available now, but there is no telling when those options will cancel us. We have our GivingFuel page. There have been many who have been canceled by PayPal, but for now it’s still an option. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Thank you, and God Bless!
JD Rucker