A Major Blow for Free Speech
This ruling has been noted and forgotten by the mainstream media.
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty, Chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, ruled on Independence Day, 2023, that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by censoring conservative views on social media during the pandemic. He ordered a slew of federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected free speech” that’s posted on the platforms.
The ruling stems from a case brought by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt in May 2022.
Named federal agencies included the Dept of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Justice Dept and the FBI. It blocks any number of top Biden administration officials — among them Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — from engaging in a range of communications with social media companies.
The administration officials are temporarily prohibited from working with the companies in ways that are aimed at “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
As you would expect, this DOJ has appealed – stating the ruling is too vague for implementation.
The bottom line is the government had and has no business censuring or trying to censure free speech. Proponents of the activities cited to influence or even threaten social media companies to delete certain posts because they’ve decided what they say constitutes dis- or misinformation are way out of line, unconstitutional and illegal.
The pandemic did not give the government the right to disregard the Constitution. As it turns out, the government was not following any scientifically accepted path in its rulings and activities either.
For some reason we got along and made progress on many fronts over the first 200+ years of the country with unfettered opinions on all subjects.
It’s the height of elitism to all of a sudden think an administration and/or a bevy of bureaucrats have the justification to decide what the general public can decide for themselves – and always has.
Indefinitely closing all businesses with some notable exceptions and our schools was not within the purview of government to start with. That goes double for family get-togethers and children seeing and looking after senior parents. Add churches. Throw in gyms and fitness centers.
Early and numerous studies showed the flimsy masks and distance requirements were not effective.
Experience quickly indicated the at-risk populations did not include everybody.
One of the later edicts was the requirements for vaccinations to travel, to work, to go out to eat, etc. was in fact dis-misinformation itself spread by those supposedly attempting to quell the same.
This administration’s initial decree was that government employees, airline employees and other companies with employees who had contracts with the government had to be vaccinated or be fired. Later all employers with 100 or more employees faced the requirement. On numerous occasions our president stated only the unvaccinated posed a threat to the spread of COVID-19. That was before he had contracted the virus himself.
In the 155-page memo supporting his order, Judge Doughty said the plaintiffs in the case “are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.”
“Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election … is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech,” he wrote. “American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”
And in an extraordinary comparison to George Orwell’s novel “1984,” Doughty invoked the book when he said, “the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.”
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,’” he wrote, adding in a footnote that the fictional agency is “responsible for altering historical records and disseminating propaganda to manipulate and control public perception.”
Expect this ruling to ultimately come to arguments before SCOTUS.
This ruling is most important to future episodes of any and all government attempts to exert information control over its citizens.
Let’s never forget the lessons learned from the pandemic. That the government is not smarter than anyone or everyone else.
And that the basic Constitutional freedom of free speech should never be compromised again without consequence.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/louisiana/article_c8bf74f2-1b41-11ee-8e73-8b4e982b1bff.html
SPIDER Bites
This week’s trivia question: What color is an airplane’s black box? The answer to last week’s first American woman in space: Sally Ride – 1983. Some guessed Mae Jemison. She was the first African American woman in space – 1992. The first two women in space were Russian – Valentina Tereshkov – 1963, and Svetlana Savitskaya – 1982.
Knowing my affinity for ‘new’ words, a reader shared this one: “lethologica.” It describes the time-to-time inability to remember a word or name for something while in conversation. The next time that word is on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t remember or say it, just remember it’s called lethologica. It happens to all of us.
CNBC ranked Florida’s economy the best in the nation last week. At the same time, it ranked the state #4 among the worst states to live and work, citing inclusiveness and reproductive rights as the drawbacks. The criteria for “worst” was woke things.
“Try That in a Small Town” shot to the top of the country music charts last week amid the social media mob’s enraged attempts to cancel Jason Aldean.
Here’s the latest list of US military resources headed for Ukraine: 4 National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems and munitions, 152mm artillery rounds, mine-clearing equipment, Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided missiles, Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), precision aerial munitions, counter-UAS and electronic warfare detection equipment, 150 fuel trucks, 115 tactical vehicles to tow and haul equipment, 50 tactical vehicles to recover equipment, port and harbor security equipment, tactical secure communications systems, with support for training and maintenance. It’s just another $1.3B to add to the already provided $135B in stuff we have just sitting around so we might as well give it to Ukraine. Right?
The Illinois “no cash bail” law takes effect in September. It’s the first state to set up a ‘fairer’ system of non-incarceration of criminals. It also removes the incentive for police to arrest criminals in the first place as crime abounds. Brilliant!
IRS whistleblowers testified before Congress last week, indicating some $17M was provided to Biden family members by companies in Ukraine, China and Romania between the years 2014 and 2019. They also recounted the income and commensurate tax liability was for years downplayed/ignored by supervisors/leaders in the DOJ, FBI and IRS.
Chicago based Citadel Securities and the city’s richest person is leaving for Florida. In making the move Ken Griffin stated over the last few years, there have been multiple incidents involving Citadel employees. He himself experienced an attempted carjacking, a Citadel employee was stabbed while walking to work, and there have been numerous reports of shootings, riots, and looting near some employees’ homes. He said ‘enough’ – tata!
The administration has proposed a new rule for gas-fired backup generators. It would require a 50% reduction in emissions for small units, and a 95% reduction for larger ones. It would put the same requirement on portable welders. Hospitals and other essential services will be raising prices once again to comply.
In addition to the House Oversight Committee testimony by IRS whistleblowers, it held hearings last week on this administration’s activities to censor what is/was expressed on social media and what was covered by the mainstream media.
