Tea at Trianon: Supreme Court Delivers Major Blow to Left-Wing Lawfare

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, May 9, 2026

Supreme Court Delivers Major Blow to Left-Wing Lawfare

From AMAC:

A Supreme Court decision that has largely flown under the radar could nonetheless prove to be a major victory for conservatives in the battle against left-wing lawfare and weaponized government in the years ahead.

On April 29, the Court handed down a unanimous ru l ing in First Choice Women’s Resource Center v. Davenport. At first glance, it appears to be largely technical in nature, but it could have significant downstream effects.

The case began in 2022 when then-New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat, issued a “consumer alert,” warning about pregnancy resource centers. (The current Attorney General of New Jersey is Democrat Jennifer Davenport, hence why her name, not Platkin’s, is listed on the case.)

Sometimes called “crisis pregnancy centers,” these pro-life nonprofits offer free resources for pregnant moms and families, including counseling, medical care, diapers, and clothes. In 2024 alone, such centers provided nearly $500 million in services to one million clients.

Despite the heroic and charitable work of these pro-life organizations, Democrats have long targeted them for giving women the resources and support to choose life instead of abortion.

Accordingly, Platkin’s “Reproductive Rights Strike Force” accused “groups like First Choice of seeking to prevent people from accessing reproductive health care by providing false or misleading abortion information,” as Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the court’s opinion.

Platkin specifically demanded “28 categories of documents, including documents reflecting the names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of all individuals who had made donations to First Choice by any means other than through one specific webpage.”

The case continued for several years as judges considered the technical legal question of whether the subpoenas were themselves injuries that allowed First Choice to sue. Eventually, the question ended up at the Supreme Court, where even left-wing justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson sided with the crisis pregnancy center. (Read more.)