Biden trashes the US Constitution to muzzle critics | News, Sports, Jobs

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President Joe Biden has played his cards: all bluff, no ace.

Biden is the defendant in a lawsuit accused of what Federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty calls “the most massive attack on free speech in US history.” Yet the appeal Biden filed on Monday lacks a single winning argument in his own defense. Count on it to get anywhere. Biden was caught in the act of violating the US Constitution.

On July 4, Judge Doughty announced that the evidence produced so far indicates that the president is operating an extensive illegal censorship program to muzzle his critics.

Doughty recognizes tyranny when he sees it. He has the goods on the Biden administration, and he presented his evidence in 155 pages, all meticulously footnoted.

Biden, numerous White House staffers and employees of 11 federal agencies are being sued for carrying out a government-wide censorship operation to prevent you – the public – from seeing social media posts that question the policies of Biden on a wide range of issues from vaccines to climate change, inflation and more. Not to mention posts that poke fun at members of the Biden family. Straight out of Kim Jong Un’s playbook.

Doughty cited extensive evidence — emails, meeting notes, sworn testimony and correspondence — showing that the Biden administration is forcing media platforms to serve as government censors. The Constitution prohibits the government from censoring, so Biden coerces social media to do the dirty work for him. That, Doughty reasons, is equally unconstitutional.

To end this assault on freedom in the run-up to an election, Doughty issued an order on July 4 barring Biden himself and dozens of White House and federal agency employees from any further communication with executives of Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and other platforms “for the purpose of encouraging, pressuring or in any way inducing the removal, deletion, removal or reduction of content”.

It’s damage control for the nation.

Biden’s lawyers appealed Doughty’s order, predicting “serious harm to the American people and our democratic processes” if the order goes into effect, but without specifics.

Serious damage? Only to Biden’s re-election dreams. In a free society, all politicians must endure criticism. The White House denies coercing social media executives, insisting they make “independent choices”.

It’s laughable. Doughty documents the demands made on social media and the coercive language used by White House staff and other federal employees. Biden officials regularly met with tech officials and flagged content they wanted removed.

Doughty repeatedly cites that administration spokespersons have warned that the Biden administration would consider amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects social media platforms from liability for what they post. or refuse to publish. This threat is like pointing a gun to their head.

The purpose of the First Amendment, Doughty explained, is to “preserve an unfettered marketplace of ideas.”

Tragically, the liberal media are no longer champions of a marketplace of ideas. The New York Times slams Doughty and warns the lawsuit could “change the way the government combats misinformation, dangerous lies and harmful content online.”

Tell the gray lady it’s not the government’s job.

The Washington Post warns that “after companies and the federal government spent years expanding their efforts to combat online lies,” this lawsuit could end that cooperation.

Collusion is more like that. The government should not control what Americans can say or hear. The First Amendment protects all speech, good and bad, true and false.

Left-leaning media are characterizing Doughty as a “Trump-appointed judge” to discredit him. The truth is, Doughty was confirmed by the Senate 98-0 and has become a formidable advocate for the Constitution’s limits on government. He interrupted Biden’s mandate that all healthcare workers be vaccinated, and a similar mandate requiring Head Start workers to be vaccinated, not because he opposed vaccines, but because both warrants were beyond the authority of the federal government.

Doughty again has a strong case.

He warns that the US government “seems to have taken on a role similar to an Orwellian ‘ministry of truth’.”

It’s a grave danger, but it won’t happen under the watch of this judge.

“If there is a fixed star in our constitutional constellation,” writes Doughty, citing 80-year-old precedent, “it is that no official, high or low, can prescribe what must be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.

Listen, Mr. Chairman.

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