XPost: alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: alt.politics   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   President Joe Biden has played his cards: all bluff, no aces.   
      
   Biden is the defendant in a lawsuit accused of what Federal District Court   
   Judge Terry Doughty calls "the most massive attack against free speech in   
   United States history." Yet the appeal Biden filed on Monday is devoid of   
   even one winning argument in his own defense.   
      
   Count on it to go nowhere. Biden's been caught red-handed violating the   
   U.S. Constitution.   
      
   On July 4, Judge Doughty announced that the evidence produced so far   
   indicates the president is operating a vast, illegal censorship scheme to   
   muzzle his critics.   
      
   BIDEN LIKELY VIOLATED FIRST AMENDMENT DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, FEDERAL   
   JUDGE SAYS   
      
   Doughty knows tyranny when he sees it. He's got the goods on the Biden   
   administration, and he laid out his evidence in 155 pages, all   
   meticulously footnoted.   
      
   Biden, numerous White House staff and employees of 11 federal agencies are   
   being sued for operating a whole-of-government censorship operation to   
   prevent you -- the public -- from seeing social media posts that challenge   
   Biden policies on a wide range of issues from vaccines to climate change,   
   inflation and more. Not to mention any posts that mock Biden family   
   members. Straight out of Kim Jong Un's playbook.   
      
    The Constitution bars the government from censoring, so Biden is coercing   
   social media to do the dirty work for him.   
      
   Doughty cited ample evidence -- emails, meeting notes, sworn testimony and   
   correspondence -- showing the Biden administration strong-arms media   
   platforms into serving as government censors. The Constitution bars the   
   government from censoring, so Biden is coercing social media to do the   
   dirty work for him. That, reasons Doughty, is just as unconstitutional.   
      
   THESE ARE THE OFFICIALS BLOCKED FROM MEETING WITH SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES   
   IN DRAMATIC FIRST AMENDMENT RULING   
      
   To halt this assault on freedom as an election nears, Doughty issued an   
   order on July 4 barring Biden himself and dozens of White House staff and   
   federal agency employees from any further communications with executives   
   at Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and other   
   platforms "for the purpose of encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any   
   manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content."   
      
   It's damage control for the nation.   
      
   Biden's lawyers appealed Doughty's order, predicting "grave harm to the   
   American people and our democratic processes" if the order goes into   
   effect, but no specifics.   
      
   BIDEN ADMIN APPEALS JUDGE'S ORDER LIMITING ITS CONTACT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA   
   COMPANIES   
      
   Grave harm? Only to Biden's reelection dreams. In a free society, all   
   politicians have to put up with criticism.   
      
   The White House denies coercing social media executives, insisting they   
   make "independent choices."That's risible. Doughty documents the demands   
   made to social media and the coercive language that White House staff and   
   other federal employees used. Biden officials met with tech executives   
   regularly and flagged content they wanted removed.   
      
   Doughty cites numerous times administration spokespeople warned that the   
   Biden administration would consider altering Section 230 of the   
   Communications Decency Act, which protects social media platforms from   
   being held liable for what they post or refuse to post. That threat is   
   tantamount to holding a gun to their heads.   
      
   The purpose of the First Amendment, explained Doughty, is to "preserve an   
   uninhibited marketplace of ideas."   
      
   Tragically, liberal media are no longer champions of a marketplace of   
   ideas. The New York Times blasts Doughty and warns the lawsuit could   
   "alter how government battles disinformation, dangerous falsehoods and   
   harmful content online."   
      
   Tell the gray lady that's not government's job.   
      
   The Washington Post cautions that "after companies and the federal   
   government spent years expanding efforts to combat online falsehoods,"   
   this lawsuit might end that cooperation.   
      
   Collusion is more like it. Government shouldn't be curating what Americans   
   can say or hear. The First Amendment protects all speech, good and bad,   
   true and false.   
      
   Left-wing media are characterizing Doughty as a "Trump-appointed judge" to   
   discredit him. Truth is, Doughty was confirmed by the Senate 98-0 and has   
   become a formidable defender of the Constitution's limits on government.   
   He halted Biden's mandate that all health care workers be vaccinated, and   
   a similar mandate requiring Head Start workers be vaccinated, not because   
   he opposed vaccines but because both mandates exceeded the federal   
   government's authority.   
      
   Doughty has a strong case again.   
      
   He warns that the U.S. government "seems to have assumed a role similar to   
   an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth.'"   
      
   That's a grave danger, but it won't happen on this judge's watch.   
      
   "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation," Doughty   
   writes, quoting an 80-year-old precedent, "it is that no official, high or   
   petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism,   
   religion, or other matters of opinion."   
      
   Listen up, Mr. President.   
      
   https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-caught-red-handed-trashing-   
   constitution   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)