Biden Loses Again

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Doesn’t matter if the speech is true or half-true or false. Doesn’t matter if it’s anti-mRNA or pro, anti-lockdown or pro-, anti-Russia or anti-Ukraine, pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. Doesn’t matter if it says that Hunter Biden is the world’s worst crackhead or only in the top three, doesn’t matter if it says Uncle Joe pooped himself when he met the Pope (yes, this rumor was around for a while).

If an American says it on a social media site, and it’s legal, IT IS NOT THE BUSINESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE OR FBI OR ANYONE ELSE IN THE GOVERNMENT TO TRY TO SUPPRESS IT.

The government should stay away from telling media outlets what they can and cannot run - whether those media outlets are newspapers, cable companies, or anything else, including social media sites.

The end.

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This genius of this vision it that is simple, clear, easy to understand, and obviously should apply equally whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.

Maybe I’m too hopeful, but I think that within a few months public opinion even on the left will have shifted hard against these unconstitutional efforts. I’m hopeful we will shake our heads over the fact that senior federal and law enforcement officials ever thought they could tell social media companies what opinions to carry.

I’m hopeful we will look at this censorship episode like World War 2 interment camps for Japanese-Americans - as a terrible, unconstitutional, never-to-be-repeated mistake.

And if we do, the power and clarity of Judge Doughty’s opinion will deserve a lot of the credit.

Thou shalt not (censor)

More on the genius of Judge Terry Doughty's decision yesterday in the Missouri v Biden social media censorship case

alexberenson.substack.com

 

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Judge Denies DOJ’s Request for Stay in Social Media Censorship Case​

https://img.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2023/06/02/id5310047-Biden_Oval-office-1200x743.jpg


“Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears,” Mr. Doughty wrote on July 10. “It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do—contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms.”

The judge further wrote that Republican attorneys general who brought the suit are most likely going to prevail in proving that federal agencies and officials “significantly encouraged,” “coerced,” or “jointly participated” in allegedly suppressing social media posts that included information critical of COVID-19 vaccines or questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

In response, lawyers for the Biden administration’s DOJ filed an emergency stay of the injunction at the 5th U.S. District Court of Appeals. They argued that Mr. Doughty’s ruling was too vague and broad.

“The district court identified no evidence suggesting that a threat accompanied any request for the removal of content. Indeed, the order denying the stay—presumably highlighting the ostensibly strongest evidence—referred to ‘a series of public media statements,’” the administration wrote on July 10.

It came as the attorneys general for Missouri and Louisiana have submitted a petition to oppose the Biden administration’s motion to stay an injunction against its efforts allowing it to contact social media firms about a range of online content, including its efforts to flag so-called misinformation.

Over the weekend, the two states filed (pdf) a memorandum of opposition to the administration’s motion, coming days after a federal judge partially granted an injunction that blocks various Biden administration officials and government agencies such as the Justice Department and the FBI from working with big tech firms to censor posts on social media. It came in response to a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general, who accused the White House and various federal agencies of putting pressure on social media firms to take down posts or suspend accounts.

 

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Biden officials lose court fight to reverse ban on Big Tech contact​

A federal judge in Louisiana rejected a request from the government to delay an order he imposed on Independence Day that banned federal agencies from communicating with social media companies.

The Justice Department will likely ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene in the case after U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty on Monday refused to pause his July 4 nationwide injunction that significantly limits how Biden administration officials can communicate with social media companies, according to a single-page filing.

President Joe Biden's DOJ attorneys sought to put the order on hold while they challenge the 155-page opinion finding the government likely infringed on the First Amendment through its efforts to tell Big Tech companies to mitigate the spread of misinformation and fake accounts, primarily during the coronavirus pandemic.

 

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The judge frowned upon the President of the United States using his power to lean on social media to shut down dissent from conservatives. As Ben goes on to report, said President of the United States and those running his pudding brain were not amused:

New reporting indicates that the Brandon entity is refusing to abide by the court’s order, instead requesting an appeals court to block the order.

Bonus points for “the Brandon entity,” by the way.

The creep factor here is through the roof. The Biden administration is so overwhelmed by the desire to censor United States citizens that it immediately ran to court begging to be able to do so again once a judge told them not to. All of this began with the Dems being desperate to shut up anyone who dared question the prevailing COVID narrative. We’ve found out since that the lefty narrative was built on a foundation of lies. They’ve already been found out. One has to wonder what they’re so desperate to hide now.

Welcome to New East Berlin.

Team Biden approaches its disdain for the Constitution with perverse glee. A “Look what we can get away with!” attitude. They’ve gotten away with it for so long that they took great personal affront to having their censorship efforts thwarted by a Trump-appointed judge.

They’re greedy. Democrats are still giving marching orders to the major mainstream media outlets. There aren’t any judges who can change that. Social media has more influence with young people in America though, and the Dems like to make sure that the brainwashing initiative doesn’t have any hiccups.

The Morning Briefing: Team Biden Doubles Down on Its Soviet Censorship Freak Flag

pjmedia.com

 

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Democrat government putting pressure on social media to censor critics. That is such a direct attack on the 1A I just don't even know what to say. Democrats don't even try to hide their fascism anymore.

 

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Yesterday, not surprisingly, the Judge in the Missouri v. Biden case denied the government’s motion to stay the injunction forbidding it from censoring Americans. He’s being careful; he typed up a well-drafted, thirteen-page order. In this new order, in showing that the government was likely to lose, Judge Doughty provided examples of clear censorship from each of the following federal agencies: the White House, the Surgeon General and his staff, the CDC, the NIAID, the FBI, the CISA, and the State Department.

The government’s misconduct was so widespread, one wonders what the federal government was doing during the pandemic apart from censoring Americans.

Sometimes it only takes reading one sentence in an order to tell which way the Court plans to go. Here’s that one sentence from this order:

CISA Director Jen Easterly views the word “infrastructure” [expansively] to include our “cognitive infrastructure,” which deals with the way people acquire knowledge and understanding.

Easterly’s remark was not just a throwaway line. CISA is part of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over the Nation’s “critical infrastructure.” Easterly meant that “cognitive infrastructure” — our collective brains and the thoughts in them — are part of the country’s critical infrastructure and thus subject to HomeSec oversight and control.

Orwell himself would never have believed that a real, unelected, unaccountable government official said something that sinister.


Nothing to worry about with smug Jen Easterly manning the government’s censorship dials

Federal court rules required the government to try to seek a stay from Judge Doughty first. Now that he’s denied the stay, they can try again at the Fifth Circuit. As I’ve noted before, the Plaintiffs picked possibly the very best circuit in the country to bring this once-in-a-lifetime civil rights case, since the Fifth Circuit was reliably pro-freedom during the difficult cases of the pandemic.

Judge Doughty’s new order sort of summarizes his previous 100+-page order, so if you want to get a quick sense of the case, read this one (it’s double spaced).

https://storage.courtlistener.com/r...d.189520/gov.uscourts.lawd.189520.301.0_1.pdf

☕️ NO-SHOW ☙ Wednesday, July 12, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Another terrific order in Missouri v. Biden; Zuckerberg gives away the censorship game; Smugnurse correction and update; Zelenskyy snubbed by NATO; tough Biden skips NATO dinner; and more.

www.coffeeandcovid.com

 

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Biden Administration Scores Victory Against Order Blocking Contact With Social Media Companies​

The Biden administration received a reprieve on Friday from a judge’s order blocking several government agencies and officials from contacting social media companies.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a temporary stay “until further orders” are given and called for expediting oral arguments in the case, which now appear to be set for August 10.

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“We are going to continue to promote responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our election,” Jean-Pierre told reporters last week.

She added that social media companies have a “critical responsibility” to take account of the effects their platforms have on the American people and to “make independent choices about the information they present.”

 

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The Biden administration was dealt a major blow in its efforts to control the ongoing border crisis on Tuesday when a federal judge blocked a rule introduced in May that makes migrants ineligible for asylum if they have entered illegally and failed to take advantage of expanded lawful pathways set up by the federal government.

Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of left-wing immigration groups, which claimed the rule was similar to a Trump-era transit ban that was similarly blocked. He found the rule is "both substantively and procedurally invalid" and has delayed his ruling from taking effect for 14 days to give the administration time to appeal.

The rule formed the centerpiece of the administration's strategy to deal with the expiration of the Title 42 public health order in May. It presumes migrants to be ineligible for asylum if they have entered the U.S. illegally and have failed to claim asylum in a country through which they have already traveled. The administration has said it is designed to discourage irregular migration and encourage migrants to use the expanded legal pathways set up, including the use of the controversial CBP One app – which allows migrants to apply for one of the more than 1,400 appointments at a port of entry each day to be paroled into the U.S.

Federal judge blocks key Biden admin asylum rule at core of post-Title 42 strategy

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a key enforcement tool set in place by the Biden administration to limit crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

www.foxnews.com

 

[stgislander]

The Biden administration was dealt a major blow in its efforts to control the ongoing border crisis on Tuesday when a federal judge blocked a rule introduced in May that makes migrants ineligible for asylum if they have entered illegally and failed to take advantage of expanded lawful pathways set up by the federal government.

Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California blocked the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule in response to a lawsuit from a coalition of left-wing immigration groups, which claimed the rule was similar to a Trump-era transit ban that was similarly blocked. He found the rule is "both substantively and procedurally invalid" and has delayed his ruling from taking effect for 14 days to give the administration time to appeal.

The rule formed the centerpiece of the administration's strategy to deal with the expiration of the Title 42 public health order in May. It presumes migrants to be ineligible for asylum if they have entered the U.S. illegally and have failed to claim asylum in a country through which they have already traveled. The administration has said it is designed to discourage irregular migration and encourage migrants to use the expanded legal pathways set up, including the use of the controversial CBP One app – which allows migrants to apply for one of the more than 1,400 appointments at a port of entry each day to be paroled into the U.S.

Federal judge blocks key Biden admin asylum rule at core of post-Title 42 strategy

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a key enforcement tool set in place by the Biden administration to limit crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.

www.foxnews.com

It wasn't just Biden that lost. We all lost.

 

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Federal judges hammered fresh nails into the coffin of the Biden censorship regime Thursday in New Orleans.

The thrashing the administration received will likely set up an epic Supreme Court battle that could help redefine freedom for our era.

A federal appeals court was hearing the Justice Department’s appeal of a July 4 decision in Missouri v. Biden that ignited pro-freedom rhetorical fireworks across the nation.

In its briefs to the court, the Justice Department declared, “There is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion,” and castigated Judge Doughty for having “equated legitimate efforts at persuasion with illicit efforts to coerce.”

The department denies that federal agencies bullied social-media companies to suppress any information.

Instead, there were simply requests for “content moderation,” especially regarding COVID.

Actually, there were tens of thousands of “requests” that resulted in the suppression of millions of posts and comments by Americans.

Team Biden champions a “no corpse, no delicta” definition of censorship.

Since federal SWAT teams did not assail the headquarters of social-media firms, the feds are blameless.

Or, as Justice Department lawyer Daniel Tenny told the judges, “There was a back and forth. Sometimes it was more friendly, sometimes people got more testy. There were circumstances in which everyone saw eye to eye, there were circumstances in which they disagreed.”

It’s irrelevant that President Joe Biden publicly accused social-media companies of murder for not censoring far more material and that Biden appointees publicly threatened to destroy the companies via legislation or prosecution.

Nope: It was just neighborly discussions between good folks.

At the hearing, Judge Don Willett, one of the most principled and penetrating judges in the nation, had no problem with federal agencies publicly criticizing what they judged false or dangerous ideas.

But that wasn’t how Team Biden compelled submission: “Here you have government in secret, in private, out of the public eye, relying on . . . subtle strong-arming and veiled or not-so-veiled threats.”

Willett vivified how the feds played the game: “That’s a really nice social-media platform you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Judge Jennifer Elrod compared the Biden censorship regime to the Mafia: “We see with the mob . . . they have these ongoing relationships. They never actually say, ‘Go do this or else you’re going to have this consequence.’ But everybody just knows.”

Yet the Biden administration was supposedly innocent because the feds never explicitly spelled out “or else,” according to the Justice Department lawyer.

This is on par with redefining armed robbery as a consensual activity unless the robber specifically points his gun at the victim’s head.

Biden censors battered — expect an epic Supreme Court showdown

Federal judges hammered fresh nails into the coffin of the Biden censorship regime Thursday in New Orleans.

nypost.com

 

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Appeals Court Rules Biden Admin Violated First Amendment, Narrows Prior Ruling From Lower Court​

Free Speech, 1st Amendment, Biden Administration, Joe Biden, Big Tech, Twitter, FBI, Social Media

AllSides Summary​

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in its attempts to pressure social media platforms to take down controversial content, particularly about COVID-19 and election fraud.

The Details: The court, made up of two George W. Bush nominees, and one Trump nominee, ruled Biden, the CDC, the FBI, and the surgeon general cannot “coerce” social media companies to remove content it deems problematic. The ruling is a narrowing in scope of a ruling made by a lower-court federal judge in July that included other agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the prohibition.

Key Quotes: Speaking of the narrowing, the 5th Circuit said the July ruling was "overbroad" because it prohibited the administration from "engaging in legal conduct." It added, "Nine of the preliminary injunction’s ten prohibitions risk doing just that. Moreover, many of the provisions are duplicative of each other and thus unnecessary." A White House official said, “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present.”

How The Media Covered It: The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) said the “decision was likely to be seen as victory for conservatives,” but highlighted a perspective from a former CISA chief that said the ruling “eviscerated” the lower court’s decision.

 

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Judge declares Biden version of DACA illegal​

A federal judge in Texas on Wednesday again ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is illegal, but kept it intact for now for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.

After the Biden administration moved last year to finalize a rule to codify the Obama-era DACA policy into a federal regulation, a group of Republican-led states challenged the effort and asked Texas-based U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to shut down the program in its entirety over two years.

As expected, Hanen on Wednesday ruled the Biden administration’s effort unlawful, but refrained from terminating the program and maintained the status quo for current DACA recipients.

For more than a decade, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy has allowed more than 580,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to receive work permits and deportation relief. Hanen’s latest decision pushes the program one step closer to the Supreme Court, where advocates and legal experts warn that the conservative bench seems likely to rule the program illegal.