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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Missouri v. Biden

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From the Brownstone Institute

BY Aaron KheriatyAARON KHERIATY  

The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over the Fifth Circuit’s grant of a preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden. As I mentioned in previous posts, the injunction would bar officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Surgeon General’s office from coercing or significantly encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech.

My fellow plaintiffs and I welcome this opportunity to defend the First Amendment rights of all Americans in the U.S. Supreme Court. We expect to hear from the Court soon regarding the hearing dates—it could be in February or March.

The Fifth Circuit panel of judges last month upheld the key components of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction order, prohibiting named federal officials from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to suppress legal speech.

That decision vindicated our claims that we—and countless other Americans—were blacklisted, shadow-banned, deboosted, throttled, and suspended on social media as part of the government’s years-long censorship campaign orchestrated by the federal government.

The Biden Administration’s censorship regime has successfully suppressed perspectives contradicting government-approved views on hotly disputed topics such as whether natural immunity to covid exists, the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, the virus’s origins, and mask mandate efficacy.

Beyond covid, the documents we’ve obtained on discovery demonstrate that the government was also censoring critiques of its foreign policy, monetary policy, election infrastructure, and lighting rod social issues from abortion to gender ideology.

The vast, coordinated, and well-documented effort has silenced influential, highly qualified voices including doctors and scientists like my co-plaintiffs Dr. Bhattacharya and Dr. Kulldorff, as well as those like Jill Hines who have tried to raise awareness of issues. Though the US Supreme Court temporarily stayed the Fifth Circuit’s injunction until they make a ruling, I believes the Justices are ultimately unlikely to permit the egregious First Amendment abridgements our case has exposed.

The Fifth Circuit recognized that the Plaintiffs did “not challenge the social-media platforms’ content-moderation policies.” Rather, Plaintiffs challenged the government’s unlawful efforts to influence “enforcement of those policies.” The government gravely harmed the ability of Americans to convey their views to the public, and it deprived Americans of their right to hear opinions that differ from the government’s. Judge Doughty strikingly described the Administration’s conduct as “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history” and “akin to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.” He was right, and the US Supreme Court must not permit it.

Here are some reactions to the news from our lawyers at NCLA:

“NCLA is thrilled to have the opportunity to vindicate the First Amendment rights of our clients, and all Americans, in the nation’s highest court. We are confident that after a thorough review of the disturbing facts in this important case—which involves unprecedented government-imposed, viewpoint-based censorship—the Court will recognize the grievous, unconstitutional nature of the government’s conduct and enjoin it.”
— Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

“We are disappointed Americans’ First Amendment rights will be vulnerable to government infringement until this case is decided. But we are confident this Court, as strong as it is on First Amendment issues, will rule against the government and uphold our clients’ rights and liberties.”
— John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

“If anything, the Fifth Circuit’s decision did not go far enough in enjoining the reprehensible conduct exposed in this case. The facts of this case show government agencies censored speech in a deliberate effort to control the narrative on several controversial topics ahead of the last election. The First Amendment forbids such censorship, and the Supreme Court must never allow such mischief again, if we are to keep our democracy.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

  • Aaron Kheriaty

    Aaron Kheriaty, Senior Brownstone Scholar and 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is a psychiatrist working with the Unity Project. He is a former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, where he was the director of Medical Ethics.

International

Trump declares victory as he closes in on 270

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From The Center Square

Results in the seven battlegrounds – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada – were expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race between Republican nominee Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Trump has won at least three and leads in the other four.

Former President Donald Trump declared victory early Wednesday as he closed in on the 270 Electoral College votes needed to security the presidency.

Trump would be the 47th U.S. president after serving as its 45th.

As votes were counted, it was clear Trump had the momentum as each state reported results. In a stunning comeback, the former president will win after surviving two assassination attempts and as he faces four separate criminal prosecutions that were launched after he left the White House in 2021.

Trump won in the key swing states of North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania and surged to leads in the other key swing states.

With North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, Georgia’s 16 and Pennsylvania’s 19, Trump is at 267, just three shy of securing the White House. Fox News called Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday, but other major outlets have not yet followed suit.

If Wisconsin’s do go to Trump, that would put him at 277, enough to win the race. Alaska and its three electoral votes, where Trump had a 14 percentage point lead with 51% of votes reporting as of 2:15 a.m. Eastern, also would be added.

Trump also leads the national popular vote, 51.2% to 47.4%. In 2016, when Trump won the White House over Hillary Clinton, and in 2020, when he lost his reelection bid to President Joe Biden, Trump lost the national popular vote.

Results in the seven battlegrounds – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada – were expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race between Republican nominee Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Trump has won at least three and leads in the other four.

After North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania fell in Trump’s favor, as of 2:30 a.m. Eastern, the former president holds leads over Harris in Wisconsin, 51.3%-47.3%, with 90% of votes counted; in Michigan, 52.5% to 45.8% with 73% of returns reported; in Arizona, 50.3% to 48.9% with 52% of votes counted; and in Nevada, 51.6% to 46.7% with 80% in.

National media outlets are projecting Trump has already secured 248 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the election. Trump won in Idaho, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Arkansas, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma and Kentucky.

Harris has secured 216 electoral votes by winning in California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Hawaii, Maine, Colorado, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, Vermont, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island.

Cedric Richmond, co-chairman of the Harris campaign, addressed supporters early Wednesday, saying there were still plenty of votes to be counted. He also said Harris would not be making a statement until later Wednesday.

None of the called races are surprises.

As The Center Square reported Monday, Trump and Harris were virtually tied nationally going in to Election Day, according to Real Clear Politics’ polling average. More than 150 million Americans are expected to cast ballots this election.

Among the swing states that will decide the outcome, RCP had Trump leading Arizona by 2.5 points, Georgia by 1.9 points, Nevada by 1 point, North Carolina by 1.5 points, and Pennsylvania by 0.3 points.

In the same averaging of recent polls, Harris led Michigan by 1.2 points and Wisconsin by 0.4 points.

It remains to be seen if voters will know a winner by Wednesday morning.

​Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at [email protected].

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International

DonaTrump projected to win presidential election, defeating Harris: Fox News

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Fox News declared Trump the winner of the 2024 presidential election after he picked up the swing states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Republican former President Donald Trump is projected to win this year’s election to become the 47th president of the United States, defeating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Fox News called the 2024 presidential race for Trump around 1:50 a.m. EST on Wednesday after declaring him the winner of swing states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Republican are also projected to win control of the Senate with at least 51 seats, though control of the House is not known yet.

Trump, the populist celebrity businessman who won one of the most stunning political upsets in 2016 but was ousted in 2020’s intensely disputed election, easily claimed the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, thanks in large part to sympathy generated by Democrat-led prosecution efforts against him in multiple jurisdictions.

While his leftward moves on abortion led some pro-lifers and conservatives to abstain from voting for him, most ultimately remained in his camp due to the left-wing, pro-abortion radicalism of the alternative, first President Joe Biden and then Harris, following her replacement of the 81-year-old incumbent as the party nominee after a disastrous televised debate highlighted his severely diminished physical and mental stamina.

Harris, a former U.S. senator from California who was ranked the most liberal member of the Senate and had a 100% pro-abortion voting record, made abortion the centerpiece of her campaign and pledged to sign a federal law that would legalize virtually unrestricted abortion in all 50 states. She also ran as a militant supporter of all aspects of the LGBT movement, including “gender transitions” for minors, taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries, and LGBT indoctrination of children in schools and vowed to sign the pro-LGBT “Equality Act” if elected.

Despite being Biden’s default successor as his second-in-command, Harris had long been beleaguered by discontent with her own job performance, ability to connect with non-liberal voters, and doubts as to whether she would fare any better against Trump.

Still, she quickly overtook Trump in polls of the national popular vote, although the race remained extremely close up to the end in the swing states that would determine the actual Electoral College outcome. In the campaign’s closing days, the national polls tightened to the point that Trump retook the lead, with many predicting a Trump win due to Trump resonating with voters’ preeminent concerns about the economy and immigration. Harris was largely unsuccessful at distancing herself from Biden’s record on both, in favor of a heavy focus on turning out pro-abortion voters.

Trump opposes underage “gender transitions,” LGBT ideology in schools, and allowing gender-confused males to compete in women’s sports and use female bathrooms. The Republican former president has pledged to criminalize “transitioning” minors without parental consent and ban federally funded healthcare providers from subjecting children to transgender drugs and surgeries, among other actions.

Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted to reverse Roe v. Wade and is expected to have the opportunity to fill more Supreme Court seats, especially now that Republicans will control Senate.

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