The Senate Commerce Committee this week advanced several bills that would radically restrict free expression, innovation, and privacy online. Most policymakers sincerely believe these bills will keep kids safe online, but the bills are dangerous attacks on online speech. The committee took up measures on both online platforms and AI; this article focuses on the two bills aimed at social media, gaming, and communications platforms: the SCREEN Act and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). 

The SCREEN Act

The SCREEN Act won a 15–13 committee vote but was not reported out because too few senators were physically present to meet the quorum requirement, so we will likely see it again. It aims to keep minors from accessing pornography. But any platform hosting any potentially pornographic content must verify the age of all its users. The bill also targets virtual private network (VPN) users.

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In most areas of life, if something isn’t working, we look for another option. But not in K–12 education. The current system assigns kids to public schools based on where they live, not what they need. When it’s not working, the default is to assume there’s a problem with the child instead of asking if the school is the best fit. Of course, sometimes kids just need to work through challenges. But often, a different environment is what’s needed.

The spread of school choice programs that allow state funds to be used beyond public schools is opening the door to other learning environments—and that’s expanding educational freedom. But many parents and teachers aren’t aware of the diverse array of alternatives available today. Each week, the Cato Friday Feature showcases these options, along with the policies and organizations that make them more accessible, raising awareness for policymakers and parents. Educational freedom can only change lives if the people most affected know about it!

Living in Arizona—a state at the forefront of school choice and education entrepreneurship—Jennie Jones learned about Prenda microschools soon after she began homeschooling her oldest child. She was intrigued. “I thought, wow, that would be so fun to bring a few kids to my house,” she recalls.

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The redistribution of wealth has once again become a central demand of American progressivism. Figures such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren argue that extreme concentrations of wealth should not merely be taxed to finance government programs but actively reduced through policies such as annual wealth taxes. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani have advanced similar arguments in favor of shifting resources from the wealthy toward public services, income supports, and social programs. 

Behind these proposals lies a broader moral claim: the state is justified in redistributing concentrations of private wealth for public purposes.

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The unitary executive theory of the Constitution is, more or less, that the president has absolute authority over the executive branch of the federal government. This understanding of presidential power was once quite controversial; in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions, it has gained wider acceptance. In this post, I want to consider a problem of unitary executive theory that has received little attention. Namely, unitary executive theory may grant the president authority over federal departments, but exercising that power in individual criminal prosecutions constitutes poor public management that destroys, e.g., the Department of Justice’s institutional authority. 

Sometimes it is imprudent and unwise (and even dangerous) for the president to exercise his authority over federal departments. In contrast, the president who respects the moral norm that encourages him to keep his hands off the rest of the federal government is probably making a wise choice.

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In the past few weeks, federal immigration agents have shot and killed two people in Texas and Maine. These cases have received significant media coverage and investigation, as did several cases in January. That’s partly because journalists were able to learn the details about the victims. But another suspicious killing in December 2025 has received less attention. 

On December 11, 2025, a Border Patrol agent killed a Mexican man in Starr County, Texas. On December 17, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a statement, saying a 31-year-old Mexican man with others “attempted to abscond to Mexico” from the Texas side of the border. The agent “engaged in an active struggle with the man for two minutes and ultimately discharged his CBP-issued firearm,” hitting the man three times.

A study of German immigration reform provides evidence for the debate over immigrant assimilation. 

The study looked at the 

Act to Reform Nationality Law … [under which] children born in Germany on or after January 1, 2000, automatically acquired citizenship if at least one parent had legally resided in Germany for at least eight years at the time of birth. 

Researchers found 

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Since March, a Jones Act waiver for energy and fertilizer shipments has acted as a real-time experiment in what the country might look like without the law’s shipping restrictions. The results are noteworthy, including historically significant volumes of crude oil and petroleum products being moved to the West Coast from domestic sources, a surging appetite by Puerto Rico for American fuel, and the opening of new trade routes. It’s compelling evidence for the long-standing critique that the Jones Act functions as a barrier to domestic commerce. 

But beyond its economic insights, the waiver is also producing additional evidence on the role of special interests in preserving the protectionist law. As I pointed out last year, the law’s concentrated benefits have produced an ecosystem that exerts near-constant pressure to maintain the Jones Act and thwart reform efforts, while those who bear its burden remain rationally ignorant and politically inactive. This is now playing out before us, with the waiver showing the machinery of Jones Act advocacy at work.

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