A Republican-In-Robes Strikes Again

 

Days after the end of the most reactionary session in Supreme Court history -- continuing a freedom- crushing march backward that started last year with Dobbs and followed on with decisions on affirmative action and LGTBQ+ rights -- a lower Federal court in Louisiana gave us more evidence that the Federal judiciary is infested with Christofascist Republican Trumpist- in- robes, and that right- wing judge shopping is the tactic of choice for the reactionaries:

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about “protected speech,” in an extraordinary preliminary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment.

The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections.

The Donald Trump-appointed judge’s move could undo years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies. For more than a decade, the federal government has attempted to work with social media companies to address criminal activity, including child sexual abuse images and terrorism.

Over the past five years, coordination and communication between government officials and the companies increased as the federal government responded to rising election interference and voter suppression efforts after revelations that Russian actors had sowed disinformation on U.S. social sites during the 2016 election. Public health officials also frequently communicated with the companies during the coronavirus pandemic, as falsehoods about the virus and vaccines spread on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The judge- shopping here mirrors past efforts ranging from curtailing reproductive health treatments to issues relating to consideration of social issues in pension fund investment decisions.  In this instance, the Republican judge wants to make sure to conflate "free speech" with misinformation that jeopardizes public health and election interference.

The judge, Terry A. Doughty, has yet to make a final ruling in the case, but in issuing the injunction, he signaled he is likely to side with the Republican attorneys general and find that the Biden administration ran afoul of the First Amendment. He wrote that the attorneys general “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The ruling could have critical implications for tech companies, which regularly communicate with government officials, especially during elections and emergencies such as the coronavirus pandemic. [snip]

The judge’s order puts limits on some executive agencies with a variety of responsibilities across the federal government, including the Department of Justice, State Department, Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also names more than a dozen individual officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Jen Easterly, who leads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

In addition to limiting the government’s communications with tech companies, Doughty also prohibited the agencies and officials from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with” key academic groups that focus on social media, including the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of researchers led by the Stanford Internet Observatory and the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public. House Republicans have also been demanding documents from these academics, amid accusations that they have colluded with government officials to suppress conservative speech...

Echoing our thoughts on the clownish bias of this Trumpist- in- robes:

 

What drivel, from the dramatic opening misattributed quote (“Hall”
not “Hill”) to the ignorant breathless hyperbole: “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” 🙄 pic.twitter.com/wncgXDMF1h

— Patterico (@Patterico) July 4, 2023

 

Tell me you need to re-read 1984 without telling me etc. https://t.co/i5F38qQKyv pic.twitter.com/F4t9cI6O2j

— Patterico (@Patterico) July 4, 2023

 

The ruling, once final, will doubtless be appealed to the right- wing 5th Circuit, then possibly again to the right- wing Republican Supreme Court.  See the pattern here?

Federal Judiciary Success For Biden

 

Here's some end-of-year news to be happy about. Yesterday, the Senate confirmed President Biden's 40th Federal judicial nominee, matching a record from St. Ronnie of Hollywood's first year in office in 1981. Before leaving for the holidays yesterday morning, the Senate confirmed 10 Federal District Court judges in a dash to the doorway. It's a remarkable achievement, and one largely uncovered by the Beltway media, given the coverage of the former malignant guy's stuffing the Federal bench with the laser-focused assist by then Senate majority leader "Moscow Mitch" McConnell. They stuffed "only" 18. The judicial picks are far more representative of America's demographics than the overwhelmingly white male appointees in the past 4 years, and drawn from varied legal professions, from civil rights attorneys to state judges.

Nonetheless, Senate Republicans have been able to stall or kill Biden's nominations to Federal Appeals Courts, and there are few vacancies at that level from the departure of Republican-appointed judges, meaning new appointments will be replacing Democratic-appointed judges. Of course, if Dems lose control of the Senate after the 2022 mid-terms, the number of judicial appointments cleared by the Senate will be slim to none, another reason why mid-terms matter.  Just ask Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland.

Monday Reading - Elections Have Consequences (Cont.)

Unfortunately, the 2016 election is one "gift" we can't return:

Donald Trump is set to inherit an uncommon number of vacancies in the federal courts in addition to the open Supreme Court seat, giving the president-elect a monumental opportunity to reshape the judiciary after taking office. 

The estimated 103 judicial vacancies that President Obama is expected to hand over to Trump in the Jan. 20 transition of power is nearly double the 54 openings Obama found eight years ago following George W. Bush’s presidency.  [snip] 

The result is a multitude of openings throughout the federal circuit and district courts that will allow the new Republican president to quickly make a wide array of lifetime appointments. 

State gun control laws, abortion restrictions, voter laws, anti-discrimination measures and immigrant issues are all matters that are increasingly heard by federal judges and will be influenced by the new composition of the courts. Trump has vowed to choose ideologues in the mold of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon — a prospect that has activists on the right giddy.  (our emphasis)

With the Senate in control of far- right Republicans under Machiavellian sleazeball Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell (Testudines- KY), there won't be anything long standing in the way before those "giddy" fascists see their own installed on courts across the nation.  Clearly, Republican obstructionism has paid off:  8 years of delaying, slow- walking and denying the winner (by large margins) of the 2008 and 2012 elections the Constitutional right to appoint Federal judges has paid off handsomely for these party- before- country cynics.  Most egregious was the year- long blocking of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, who instead will be replaced with a Scalia- clone appointee by neo- fascist reactionary Donald "Rump" Trump, making this all particularly difficult to swallow.

This illustrates one of the most important lessons Democrats need to learn and incorporate in their political DNA: we need to act like politics is a zero sum game, just as Republicans do.  No more bringing knives to a gunfight.