The Muddled Mindset of Progressivism

by J. Peder Zane for American Greatness

It’s time we had a courageous conversation about the left’s incoherent stance on big government and race.

This muddled mindset was on full display last week as two progressive Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, attacked the majority’s decision rejecting affirmative action in higher education by crediting such race-based policies for progress while also claiming that nothing much has changed in our supposedly racist country.

“Today,” Sotomayor declares in the second paragraph of her dissent, “this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress.” Despite that grand advancement, she asserts just one sentence later that the majority was cementing “a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.”

Momentous progress in an endemically segregated nation?

Both Sotomayor and Jackson try to show how race continues to matter by drawing on the pessimistic historical determinism of critical race theory to argue that African Americans are still shackled by the original sin of slavery.

“Three hundred and fifty years ago,” Jackson writes, “the Negro was dragged to this country in chains to be sold into slavery. Uprooted from his homeland and thrust into bondage for forced labor, the slave was deprived of all legal rights.” She continues, “After emancipation, white Americans imposed a series of racist customs and laws, including Jim Crow and redlining, to limit black advancement.”

Jackson asserts that this past shapes the present and future condition of African Americans through the disparities regarding wealth, health, and education that exist between the races. She writes:

Today, as was true 50 years ago, Black home ownership trails White home ownership by approximately 25 percentage points. … Black Americans in their late twenties are about half as likely as their White counterparts to have college degrees. … As for postsecondary professional arenas, despite being about 13% of the population, Black people make up only about 5% of lawyers. Such disparity also appears in the business realm: Of the roughly 1,800 chief executive officers to have appeared on the well-known Fortune 500 list, fewer than 25 have been Black (as of 2022, only six are Black). … Black men are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer as White men and have lower 5-year cancer survival rates. Uterine cancer has spiked in recent years among all women â?? but has spiked highest for Black women, who die of uterine cancer at nearly twice the rate of “any other racial or ethnic group.” Black mothers are up to four times more likely than White mothers to die as a result of childbirth. And COVID killed Black Americans at higher rates than White Americans.

Those numbers are clearly dispiriting. They obviously demand attention. But Jackson’s analysis, which simply asserts a facile causality between past injustice and current disparities, does nothing to explain and address the behaviors that drive them. Her dissent makes no mention of the breakdown of the black family, the rise of obesity and other co-morbidities among African Americans, and the failure of inner-city schools since the civil rights movement. Nor does she address the fact that many of these same problems also plague white people – the vast majority of whom are not CEOs, and most of whom have little wealth.

Mysteriously, she also ignores the reams of economic data showing that the true crisis is among black men. The Brookings Institution, for example, reports:

Black women and white women raised byâ?¯low-incomeâ?¯parents (those in the bottom 20% of the income distribution) have similar rates of upward intergenerational mobility, measured in terms of their individual income as adults. … The data shows that Black men raised by low-income parents face twice the risk of remaining stuck in intergenerational poverty (38%) as Black women (20%) in terms of their individual income.

Jackson ignores such inconvenient facts to ascribe all disparities to racism. Rather than identify the mechanisms and barriers at work today that are at the root of the problem, she invokes a gauzy view of history to issue a moral indictment. This is more guilt trip than serious argument.

More importantly, neither she nor Sotomayor detail how affirmative action and other race-based policies they support have improved the lives of African Americans. Isn’t that the key question? It is hard to believe that they have provided no benefit. But are they worth the cost of racializing and tribalizing our politics, culture, and law?

Returning to Sotomayor’s claim, one wonders: How “momentous” could our progress be if, six decades after the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 that dismantled Jim Crow, America is still “endemically segregated”? If the government policies enforced since then, backed by trillions of dollars in spending, haven’t achieved the desired result, why do we believe they ever will?

Liberals they will not, which explains the rising calls for trillions of dollars of reparations for African Americans – affirmative action on steroids. Instead of addressing the complex root causes of the troubling disparities, they are pushing another big government give-away. More is always their answer. What guarantee do we have that an even larger check will keep black boys and men in school and out of prison? What we can be sure of is that a massive windfall to one small group of Americans will only stoke the fires of racial division.

Progressives continue to double down on failed policies because of ideology. Their key conceit is that they should run the show because of their self-proclaimed expertise: There is no problem they can’t solve through their top-down interventions. “We know what works” is their mantra. As it infantilizes the populace – especially the racial minorities they claim to represent, who are afforded little personal agency to change their lives – this hubristic mindset can never admit defeat because that would strike at the heart of progressive authority.

If their programs fail, it is only because they were not fully implemented or funded – and because of emotional opposition from the ignorant masses and the conniving of monied interests. Reality is not the facts on the ground, but the vision they embrace. Conveniently, that vision depends on giving them ever greater power: Since the people are incapable of improving their own lot, they must be granted ever more authority.

One definition of insanity is expecting a different result from the same action. Both Jackson and Sotomayor argue that we must keep the policies and approaches they say have failed. This illogic is the logic of progressivism.

🙄🙄 Someone is feeling bored: Candace accused by another queer person for something she didn't do

 

Source: https://tvline.com/news/candace-cameron-fuller-house-gay-character-written-out-miss-benny-1235009636/

In a TikTok video posted on Thursday, Glamourous star Miss Benny alleged that Fuller House co-star Candace Cameron Bure tried to have their character Casey — who was gay and served as Ramona’s (Soni Bringas) platonic prom date in Season 4 Episode 12 — written out of the Netflix sitcom.

Bure, who starred in all five seasons of Fuller House as DJ Tanner, however has denied Miss Benny’s accusation.

“One of the Tanner sisters is very publicly not for the girls,” Miss Benny said in the aforementioned TikTok video. “I remember I got sat down by the writers and the studio to basically warn me how this person allegedly was trying to get the character removed and not have a queer character on the show.”

Miss Benny — without ever saying Bure’s name, though she was hashtagged — added that they were “warned and prepared that this person’s fanbase might be encouraged to target me, specifically. The fact that this teenage actor who’s coming in to make jokes about wearing a scarf is suddenly a target from an adult is crazy to me.”

Miss Benny, who appeared in two Season 4 episodes as Cameron, also noted that “to this day, despite working on the show every day for two weeks straight, I have only had a conversation with one of the Tanner sisters.

“The positive is that I had a really fun time actually shooting the show with all the other actors who were willing to talk to me,” they continued, “and the show ultimately led to me being on Glamorous on Netflix. So, everything happens for a reason. [It] continuously blows my mind how queer people, specifically queer young adults and queer children, are being targeted and having to advocate for themselves against adults.”

Bure was quick to refute Miss Benny’s accusation.

“I never asked Miss Benny’s character to be removed from Fuller House and did not ask the writers, producers or studio executives to not have queer characters on the show,” Bure said in a statement to TVLine. “Fuller House has always welcomed a wide range of characters. I thought Miss Benny did a great job as ‘Casey’ on the show.  We didn’t share any scenes together, so we didn’t get a chance to talk much while filming on set. I wish Miss Benny only the best.”

In the Season 4 episode “Driving Mr. Jackson,” Stephanie Tanner (played by Jodie Sweetin) came out as bisexual with the quip, “I had a girlfriend longer than that!” Bure responded to a fan’s question about the improvised line on Twitter, which had garnered laughs from Bure and Sweetin in the final cut. “Jodie changed up the line in the last take and I didn’t know it was coming,” Bure wrote, “so that was our honest and true reactions.”

X22, Red Pill News, and more- July 6

 

Our Right to Self-Government in Jeopardy from Entrenched Managerial Ruling Class

by Christopher Roach for American Greatness 

On the Fourth of July, we celebrate our independence. While we all enjoy fireworks and barbeques, this is supposed to be the commemoration of a revolutionary political act, our separation from Great Britain and, with that separation, the establishment of a new and beneficent political order.

The Declaration of Independence set forth the colonists’ complaints, chief among them the English crown’s disregard for the colonists’ traditional rights, the disregard for the consent of the governed, and, more broadly, a complaint that the government had devolved into rule by an alien and foreign people, who lacked the habits, opinions, and struggles of the nascent American people.

The intensity of Americans’ grievances may seem disproportionate to the offense.  Government spending was a lot less than today’s 40% of the economy, and the colonists were unburdened by a mountain of regulations controlling where one could build a home, whom one could hire and fire, and whether to take an experimental vaccine.

This is to say that the size of the modern federal government, its impositions, and its expense are an order of magnitude worse than what the colonists endured. But size alone does not thwart the principles of American government.  The Declaration of Independence is fundamentally a catalog of complaints about rule by aloof, hostile foreigners.  The cry was “no taxation without representation,” not “no taxation ever.”

Independence Requires Self-Government

For Americans, an important part of liberty was popular control of the government; that is, the principle of respect for the “consent of the governed” and the right of self-government.  A government that did whatever it chose without regard to what the people wanted was deemed to be a problem, regardless of its lack of severity or the benevolence of its intentions.

Nominal representation does not, however, vindicate the current regime.  While on paper we are independent and possess a limited government controlled by the Constitution, the federal government today is quite literally out of control.  This is not a mere partisan gripe because Joe Biden is president.  Under its current structure, it hardly matters who is elected to Congress or to the presidency.

Just as a majority of government spending is non-discretionary and, as a practical matter, outside of political control, much of the government’s activity is also outside of political control.  Regulations and the hiring of regulators is controlled by the army of unelected bureaucrats who make up the administrative state.  Critics have rightly called this the “headless fourth branch.”

Examples of its impositions are legion.  The ATF’s unpopular pistol brace rule originated without any new legislative input.  The CDC’s various COVID rules came from the hunches of the CDC leadership, not a vigorous, politically accountable process.   The FBI and intelligence community brazenly interfered with two presidential elections and lied about it.

When President Trump wanted to exercise his statutorily granted authority to restrict immigration, rebellious DOJ officials refused to enact his lawful orders.  When Obama tried to reduce our footprint in Afghanistan and when Trump ordered our troops out of Syria, in both cases Pentagon officials lied, slow-walked, and otherwise resisted an elected president’s lawful orders because of their idiosyncratic notions of good policy.

In all of these cases, the American people are not deciding important policies, nor are their elected representatives.  Rather, the managerial class administrators choose the policies they think best, their deliberations are hidden from view, and side deals and de facto bribes from regulated industries are common.  When there is a challenge, these bureaucrats resist oversight by the president, the legislature, and the courts.

The Deep State Rejects Electoral Control

This deep state rightly understood the meaning of Trump’s election.  This surprising result was a collective vote of no confidence by the American people in both the federal government and the broad ruling class consensus that emerged after the Cold War.

In the words of Andrew Bacevich, “Globalized neoliberalism, militarized hegemony, individual empowerment, and presidents elevated to the status of royalty might be working for some, but not for [Trump voters]. They also discerned, again not without cause, that establishment elites subscribing to that consensus, including the leaders of both political parties, were deaf to their complaints and oblivious to their plight.”

Being rather certain of themselves, the deep state responded to this no confidence vote by doubling down on all of their items of interest and rigging the 2020 election to install a pliable, senile figurehead. 

Americans should understand the meaning of their own founding documents and history.  The type of government contemplated by the founders prioritized “self-government,” one that obtains the “consent of the governed” by its nature.  The current regime is a progressive-era holdover, an undemocratic managerial state ruled by putative technocrats and experts.

Progressive era managerialism claims legitimacy because it imagines the discovery of verifiably correct public policy.  Having discovered technocratically correct policies, these policies may be advanced without regard to public opinion.  After all, if the policies are correct, any expression of opposition is mere “misinformation” serving no purpose.  Thus, the administrative state’s managerial heads will ignore, deceive, and manage public opinion to pursue policies that they have determined are the fruit of authentic political and managerial science.

There is more than one type of threat to liberty.  Just as foreign occupation is incompatible with independence, rule by homegrown aliens, with whom one does not share the same interests, values, and pieties, can threaten independence as well.  Arguably, the distance between ordinary people and the Washington D.C. government sector is more profound today than that of the American colonists from the English in 1776.

And, like those colonists, we live under a kind of occupation, complete with a new flag. 

A New Government Requires a New History

The new system requires the erasure of the past, because continued veneration of constitutionally limited government would show such a system’s contrast with the undemocratic and essentially unlimited reach of the managerial regime.

This is why the deep state and its allies condemn the American past as the fruit of racism, sexism, slavery, and many other sins.  This line of critique began in earnest at the start of the progressive era through influential historian, Charles Beard.  In his An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, he argued that the founding fathers, rather than being idealistic and ingenious heroes to whom all Americans can look up to and admire, were actually greedy fat cats, whose thoughts on the Constitution and much else were the expression of narrow class interests.

His work gained prominence just before the 1930s, the same time as the New Deal. New and behemoth organizations—the WPA, TVA, SEC, CFPB, and NRA (National Recovery Administration)—were supposed to regulate capitalism without the messy impediments of the ordinary political process.  When the Supreme Court began to push back against the constitutional irregularity of the emerging administrative state, President Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court, which soon backed down under duress.

A similar and more intense critique of the past coincided with the civil rights era during the 1960s.  Today every school kid knows about Martin Luther King and the horrors of slavery and segregation, but they’d be hard pressed to tell you anything about George Washington or John Adams or much else, for that matter. It’s race grievance all the time, a tale of sin without redemption for whites and an exquisite victimhood narrative for everyone else . . . the new civic religion.

The civil rights era is when a whole new army of bureaucrats, social workers, and lawyers began to police state legislative districts, local police departments, private businesses’ hiring practices, and local schools, all the while castigating their foes as evil, recalcitrant racists who deserved no quarter.  Christopher Caldwell observed in his work, the Age of Entitlement, “The changes of the 1960s, with civil rights at their core, were not just a major new element in the Constitution. They were a rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently incompatible—and the incompatibility would worsen as the civil rights regime was built out.”

Our right to self-government is in real jeopardy not from foreign foes—who are deterred by a combination of nuclear weapons and the natural obstacles of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans—but by an entrenched managerial ruling class, a class insulated from elections, immune from criticism due to widespread censorship, and generally unburdened by the consequences of the policies they impose on the rest of the country.

Unless Americans come to recognize their de facto occupation by the administrative state and wrest control of their government from this hostile and alien managerial class, the American people will continue to lack freedom and independence in all the ways that matter.

Karine Jean-Pierre Was Asked If Joe Biden Acknowledges His Granddaughter, and the Answer Chilled Me to the Core

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Because it’s 2023, you expect there to be a lot of really dumb political debates. That’s exacerbated by the fact that the White House is currently inhabited by a man suffering from severe senility. His degenerate son is also constantly around, fresh off receiving a sweetheart deal from the DOJ, and suckling at the taxpayer teat in order to live like a king.

But one argument you’d think wouldn’t need to take place is how many grandchildren the president has. Rather, you’d think that such a question would be easily answered given the quantifiable nature of it. How many children have Joe Biden’s children produced? The answer is seven. There you go. Simple, right?

Nothing is simple when it comes to the current administration, though, and there is no level to which its members won’t stoop in order to grasp some tenuous, perceived political advantage. So when Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, was asked whether the president acknowledges his most recently born, seventh grandchild, the answer didn’t surprise me, but it also chilled me to my core.

There were already reports floating around that White House aides were being briefed that Biden only has six grandchildren. That alone was enough to make one’s stomach turn. What kind of human being orders a concerted messaging effort to disown his own granddaughter for no other reason than to appease a drug-addled retrograde son’s revenge fantasies? Joe Biden, that’s who.

I’m not only struck by how petty the White House’s strategy is but how pointless it is as well. What is gained by not publicly acknowledging one’s own granddaughter? Why would anyone want to continue to humiliate and harm a child in any context, much less this context? Even if the Bidens desire no relationship with their granddaughter, a disgusting revelation in and of itself, why pretend she doesn’t exist at all? Why order your press secretary to pretend it’s some grand mystery how many grandchildren you have?

I don’t get it, and perhaps I’m not meant to get it. Perhaps, though flawed as I may be, I’m simply not capable of understanding the level of evil that takes, and maybe I should be thankful for that. Still, I can’t help but wonder what in the world is going on. I can’t help but wonder, as Jill Biden parades herself around as a caring mother, deeply concerned for America’s children, how someone could be so stone-hearted. Certainly, I can’t listen to Joe Biden rattle on about the well-being of American children while his own press secretary dodges a question on whether he acknowledges his granddaughter.

“Decency” is a world that has been thrown around a lot over the last several years, with the press assuring the American public that the Bidens have it in spades. Does any of this seem “decent” to you, though? Or does it seem like one of the most cynical, disgusting things to ever emanate from a presidency?

Politics has always been a selfish domain. But have things really gotten this bad? And if they have, isn’t that all the reason in the world for a course correction? This isn’t just a story about an internal family matter. It’s a test of the very humanity of the man leading the country. He’s failed that test, and he should be held accountable.

Biden Administration Set to Challenge First Amendment Ruling on Social Media Censorship

Brittany Sheehan reporting for RedState 

The Biden administration is reportedly gearing up to challenge a federal court ruling that found government collusion with social media companies to censor speech likely violated the First Amendment. The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday in the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the administration disagrees with the judge’s decision but would not elaborate further on the scathing ruling against censorship aimed at conservatives.  

On Tuesday, Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Donald Trump appointee, issued a 155-page injunction in response to the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri. The lawsuit alleged that the White House had coerced or “significantly encouraged” tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID pandemic.

The ruling held that “the censorship alleged in this case almost exclusively targeted conservative speech” but emphasized that the issues raised by the case transcend “beyond party lines.” The Biden administration argued that it took “necessary and responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security.”

Judge Doughty wrote:

… 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.’

The lawsuit alleged that the administration exploited the threat of favorable or targeted regulatory actions to strong-arm and coerce social media platforms into suppressing content it deemed as misinformation, particularly regarding masks and vaccines during the COVID pandemic. Other allegations included the censorship of speech about election integrity and that the administration stamped down the circulation of new stories about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.

Astonishingly, the administration attempted to absolve itself of responsibility with the claim that social media companies should determine what qualifies as misinformation and how they should combat it without consideration for its role in pressure campaigns. In an ironic argument, they claimed that the lawsuit was an attempt to “suppress the speech of federal government officials under the guise of protecting the speech rights of others.”

The administration’s May 3 court filing argued that the proposed injunction by the plaintiffs would significantly impede the government’s ability to tackle foreign malign influence campaigns, prosecute crimes, ensure national security, and provide accurate information to the public on matters like healthcare and elections. The injunction includes exemptions that allow the government to contact companies regarding criminal activity, including matters related to elections, national security issues, and threats to public safety or security.

The administration’s arguments demonstrate a willingness to prioritize its own narrative in order to control public discourse and aim at the censorship of protected speech rather than upholding the fundamental rights they are bound to under the Constitution. The judge wrote that the court “is not persuaded by Defendants’ arguments.”

The ruling prohibits specific federal officials and agencies, including members of Biden’s Cabinet like Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and Jean-Pierre herself, from engaging in meetings aimed at suppressing speech with social media companies. The prohibited contact is specifically for government actors engaging in contact with “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech” under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The lawsuit named Google, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Twitter as parties to the suit. 

According to a person familiar with the case, the DOJ is also planning to ask the court to put the judge’s order on hold during the appeal process. If lower courts do not grant a stay on the injunction during the appeal process, there is a possibility that the case could quickly reach the US Supreme Court.

Elon Musk revealed many government communications and requests for censorship in public releases known as the Twitter Files. The government’s backdoor requests for censorship of speech were uncovered after he purchased the Twitter platform in 2022. 

Judge Bars Press Secretary From Flagging Posts For Big Tech To Censor, Two Years After She Bragged About It

Jean-Pierre, along with dozens of other administration officials, is now prohibited from colluding with social media companies to censor speech.

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday specifically barred President Joe Biden’s press secretary from colluding with corporate tech giants to censor Americans’ speech.

In a preliminary injunction handed down on July 4, Judge Terry Doughty, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, implemented restrictions on collusion between the Biden White House and social media companies. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was among the more than three dozen administration officials specifically named who are now prohibited from engaging in collaborative censorship.

Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri filed the lawsuit last year claiming White House efforts to get major online platforms to censor certain speech about Covid-19 vaccines, among other things, were unconstitutional.

Two years ago, Biden’s then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki bragged about the administration’s relationship with major platforms. She told reporters the Biden administration was often “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

“We are in regular touch with these social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team,” Psaki said from the White House podium, and later doubled down on the corporate-government collusion.

Psaki’s immediate successor, Jean-Pierre, added in November that the White House was keeping a “close eye” on “misinformation” on Twitter.

“We have always been very clear that when it comes to social media platforms it is their responsibility to make sure that when it comes to misinformation, when it comes to the hate that we’re seeing, that they take action, that they continue to take action,” Jean-Pierre said. “Again, we’re all keeping a close eye on this.”

In Tuesday’s preliminary ruling, Judge Doughty cited the “substantial evidence” presented to the court of a “far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign” to warrant the injunction.

“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,'” Doughty wrote.

“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the Trump-appointed judge added. “In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”

Jean-Pierre, along with dozens of administration officials, is now explicitly prohibited from colluding with 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.”

With exceptions for posts involving content such as criminal activity or threats, the White House may no longer flag posts for censorship or pressure companies to suppress users’ free speech.

Several executive agencies are also banned from engaging in the same conduct, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census Bureau, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and the FBI.

Jean-Pierre was pressed in February by Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich on previously labeling those who suggested the novel coronavirus came from a Chinese lab as “conspiracy theorists.”

“There was not so long ago a point where anyone asking the question of whether a lab leak was a credible theory that should be looked into — a lot of those people were derided as fringe, you know, conspiracy theorists,” Heinrich said at a White House press briefing. “So are there lessons learned? You know, looking back about how we discuss theories when we don’t have all of the answers.”

“The president is asking his team to do everything that they can to figure out where it originated because of what could potentially happen next because of the potential of having another pandemic,” Jean-Pierre responded, after insisting “there is no consensus” about the virus’ origins.

The question was presented after The Wall Street Journal reported on the Energy Department’s conclusion that the lab-leak theory was the most likely explanation for the novel coronavirus. The department’s findings are corroborated by investigations conducted by the FBI director and Republicans on the Senate Health Committee.

Judge Bars Biden Regime From Colluding With Big Tech To Censor Free Speech

Jordan Boyd reporting for The Federalist 

A federal judge in Lousiana issued a preliminary injunction that bars the Biden regime from colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.

“If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” Judge Terry Doughty, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, noted in the ruling. “In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”

In his 155-page memorandum ruling handed down on July 4, the Trump appointee specified that federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census Bureau, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the FBI, and the Department of Justice may no longer coordinate with or “coerce” platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google to silence their political enemies.

The Biden White House has a history of bragging about leveraging relationships with Big Tech companies to suppress information the administration deems “problematic.” In addition to a plethora of federal agencies, the injunction also applies to defendants such as President Joe Biden himself, his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, his director of digital strategy, and other members of the Executive Office of the President.

“Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario,” Doughty wrote.

Doughty said he expects the case, brought by attorneys general Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Jeff Landry of Louisiana, to succeed “on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition” on topics like Covid-19, masking, lockdowns, vaccines, the 2020 election, Biden policies, and the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop.

“All were suppressed,” Doughty wrote. “It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”

Several corporate media outlets lamented Doughty’s decision.

The Washington Post complained that the “Trump-appointed judge’s move could upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.”

The New York Times, similarly, bemoaned that the judge handed a victory to Republicans “who claim the administration is trying to silence its critics.”

“Courts are increasingly being forced to weigh in on such issues — with the potential to upend decades of legal norms that have governed speech online,” the NYT warned.

“Amazing that legacy media is way more interested in [regime] approved messaging than fighting for the very Amendment that guarantees their reporting/editorials. Maybe this is an inflection point? Even if it isn’t I’ll never stop fighting for Free Speech in America,” Schmitt wrote in a tweet shortly after the decision.