U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty of Louisiana is the gift that keeps on giving.
Doughty rejected the Biden administration’s request to stay an order banning the federal government from colluding with Big Tech platforms to censor free speech online. The judgment came with Judge Doughty’s preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.
Echoing authoritarian regimes, the Biden administration unsuccessfully sought to keep influencing social media platforms to violate Americans’ free speech until the case was appealed.
“Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears,” Doughty wrote in his denial of the stay on Monday. “It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do — contacting 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.”
MRC President Brent Bozell took to Twitter to celebrate the court’s rejection of Biden’s stay. “Joe Biden and the Democrats are desperate to censor dissenting voices,” Bozell said on Monday. “This is not the Soviet Union or Nazism Germany. Let’s pray the courts keep up their good work.”
MRC Vice President Dan Schneider echoed Bozell’s remarks, stating, “Biden's DOJ tried to use the levers of democracy while it worked to destroy the Constitution. Judge Doughty is a hero. Freedom hangs in the balance and the left finally fears that America is winning again.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey also rejoiced the court’s decision. In a Twitter post on Monday, Bailey said, “The judge has DENIED Joe Biden’s ask for a stay. The First Amendment remains intact.” In a subsequent tweet, Bailey added, “The judge said it perfectly: ‘Violation of a First Amendment Constitutional right, even for a short period of time, is always irreparable injury.’”
Doughty, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, championed the evidence cited in the case, which include cases of censorship documented by the exclusive MRC Free Speech America’s CensorTrack.
Pro-censorship hawks in the legacy media, including MSNBC guests, lamented the court’s injunction, claiming that it somehow violated the freedom of speech of the federal government. In a similar fashion, The New York Times got smoked for claiming the injunction could deter the Biden administration’s full-fledged war against so-called misinformation, which, of course, means any speech that does not fit the narrative of the federal government. CNN even attempted to discredit Doughty, dubiously calling his decision “one of the most aggressive, far-reaching rulings you’ll ever see.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representative and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
