{"id":18567,"date":"2023-08-13T18:59:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T22:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=18567"},"modified":"2023-08-14T08:35:13","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T12:35:13","slug":"n-y-post-biden-censors-battered-expect-an-epic-supreme-court-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/13\/n-y-post-biden-censors-battered-expect-an-epic-supreme-court-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"N.Y. Post: Biden censors battered \u2014 expect an epic Supreme Court showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Post, August 13, 2023<\/h3>\n

Biden censors battered \u2014 expect an epic Supreme Court showdown<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n
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By James Bovard<\/a><\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n

A federal appeals court was hearing the Justice Department\u2019s appeal of a July 4 decision in Missouri v. Biden that ignited pro-freedom rhetorical fireworks across the nation. Federal Judge Terry Doughty\u2019s opinion condemned the Biden administration for potentially \u201cthe most massive attack against free speech<\/a> in United States\u2019 history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doughty delivered 155 pages of damning details of federal browbeating, jawboning and coercion of social-media companies. He issued an injunction blocking the feds from \u201cencouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Biden administration rushed to sway the appeals court to postpone enforcement of the injunction and then sought to redefine all its closed-door shenanigans as public service.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In its briefs to the court, the Justice Department declared, \u201cThere is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion,\u201d and castigated Judge Doughty for having \u201cequated legitimate efforts at persuasion with illicit efforts to coerce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department denies that federal agencies bullied social-media companies to suppress any information. Instead, there were simply requests for \u201ccontent moderation,\u201d especially regarding COVID. Actually, there were tens of thousands of \u201crequests\u201d that resulted in the suppression of millions of posts and comments by Americans.<\/p>\n

Team Biden champions a \u201cno corpse, no delicta\u201d definition of censorship<\/strong>. Since federal SWAT teams did not assail the headquarters of social-media firms, the feds are blameless. <\/strong>Or, as Justice Department lawyer Daniel Tenny told the judges, \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t how Team Biden compelled submission: \u201cHere you have government in secret, in private, out of the public eye, relying on . . . subtle strong-arming and veiled or not-so-veiled threats.\u201d\u00a0 Willett vivified how the feds played the game: \u201cThat\u2019s a really nice social-media platform you\u2019ve got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Jennifer Elrod compared the Biden censorship regime to the Mafia: \u201cWe see with the mob . . . they have these ongoing relationships. They never actually say, \u2018Go do this or else you\u2019re going to have this consequence.\u2019 But everybody just knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the Biden administration was supposedly innocent because the feds never explicitly spelled out \u201cor else,\u201d 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\u2019s head.<\/strong> As economist Joseph Schumpeter aptly observed, \u201cPower wins, not by being used, but by being there.\u201d<\/p>\n