SCOTUS is ok with government censorship via social media
On yesterday’s SCOTUS decision in Murthy v. Minnesota:
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to vacate a historic preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Murthy v. Missouri, finding that the Respondents protected by the injunction lacked standing to support injunctive (that is, future) relief. The injunction had barred officials from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Surgeon General’s office from encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech.
… The Court today protected the government’s ability to censor truthful speech that opposed the government’s false and manipulative narratives on multiple aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, including our clients’ true statements challenging government falsehoods about natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, masking, the origins of the Wuhan virus, and many other topics.
I think it’s not that hard to figure out what happened. I noticed long ago that Chief Justice Roberts’ general judicial philosophy can be summed up as “find some reason to not rock the boat” – if the boat is the way the government is operating. Kavanaugh and Barrett sometimes follow suit, as they did here. I believe it was a cowardly decision to avoid an outright fight with the Biden administration. Here was the reasoning in the opinion:
“To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek,” Barrett wrote. “Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”
This tendency towards non-interference with the status quo is why I was surprised that the Court overruled Roe.
alito showed this was just a dodge,
https://x.com/FBillMcMorris/status/1805971454845923587
the query in greenwood’s song is no longer rhetorical, if the Highest Court is not Horatio at the Gates, against Leviathan, where are we,
Miguel cervantes:
Yes, and they can say it was just a standing problem.
There were some individuals on the lawsuit whose free speech rights were damaged, so the Court’s refusing the injunction means the Court majority thought this sort of thing would not happen again in the near future. They also said no direct evidence of government suppression was presented. I beg to disagree. There’s an upcoming election and you’d better believe Facebook and other social media are getting lots of government pressure to restrict conservative speech.
I’m going to break down and become a paying subscriber to Alex Berenson’s Substack in support of his lawsuit. He has standing and tons of evidence that the government intervened directly to get him kicked off of Twitter.
Is this a case of these Justices picking their battles? If the SC rules Presidents have immunity– which will be cast as the Justices currying favor with Trump, the SC will again “reap the whirlwind”.
It would be nice if the conservatives on the court had the courage to rule based on fidelity to the constitution– and in this case it seems obvious which way the decision should have gone, but since the left seems emboldened to act in extra/non-constitutional ways, the SC is going to increasingly be asked to defend the constitution.
Is this a downside to nominating such young judges, with young families? Their lives are going to be increasingly put at risk.
And SCOTUS errs again, ruling that federal law overrules Idaho on abortion. Plaintiffs want Idaho hospitals to be forced to provide “emergency abortions” despite state law. Since Idaho law already permits surgery for a genuine emergency, ectopic pregnancy, it is not clear what “emergency abortions” are. The question is when the SC said that states could now legislate on abortion, will the SC allow them to do so?
It may be time to have some statutory law on allowing standing in cases like these. I’m pretty sure Article III Section 2 of the Constitution allows Congress to do that:
But you’d have to have a Congress interested in making the effort, of course.
On Idaho: This is a ruling which once again punts the issue back to the Appeals Court. The SC merely reinstated the injunction which prevents Idaho from enforcing its law. The result for the time being is that Idaho hospitals are at risk if they decline to perform abortions which the mothers consider “emergencies” when they may or may not be actual medical emergencies.
Roberts’ Rules lead to disorder, more concerned he is with the SCOTUS as an “institution” than doing the hard things that come with his job. So he destroys the institution bit by bit since The Affordable Care Act. And the crocodile is never satiated no matter how many times The Roberts’ Rules gives in to them.
if there wasn’t standing to hear the case, why did they accept it, now one might argue about the relief in the matter at hand, but that really is passing the buck,
and it’s not merely an academic interest, the government viewed ascientific protocols and practices that prevented practical inexpensive treatments, that proferred ridiculous praxis like social distancing that has long term impact on
countless millions of persons, specially school age youth, to enable any dissenting view dezinforma which was the point of the exercise,
Did the Adminstration start it, no but they exponentially increased the interference with these platforms starting in ’21, on a whole variety of subjects
in addition the decision shows how uniformed the Justices were on the matter at hand, this was clear in the questioning in the Spring, where they were out of their depths in large part, Justice Barrett was among the worst,
about Dread Pirate Roberts, an attribution an atty who is a correspondent on various platforms, coined abou a decade ago
How long will this postpone the issue actually getting back to the court? As I understand it, the case will continue in lower courts of appeal.
If that is so, Roberts et al may just have wanted to put it off until after the election.
so in the meantime the administration will ‘nudge’ the platforms in as many ways as it sees fit, the consequences be damned,
standing seems to be flexible, what the pressing need that obergefell had to be addressed, was their legislation not that I recall
but because Obama threatened the court, they ruled his way, at least on Obamacare and this issue ‘love beats hate’ which became ‘bake the cake’
Brian E:
There are only 2 conservatives, really, on the Court. Alito and Thomas.
On the positive side, according to Power Line, the Court delivered a win against the administrative state by ruling that defendants accused of regulatory violations by the SEC are entitled to a jury trial, not merely an administrative ruling.
This Court is trying to find ways to avoid sweeping rulings. One wishes the court had done so in several instances in the past.
In the cases of Kavanaugh and Barrett, their votes are disappointing, but keep in mind the threat SCOTUS is under as an institution. If Biden is reelected (which I think is probable, regardless of the polls — and I suspect the justices, who presumably are well aware of the “GOTV” shenanigans the Dems are up to, agree) and the Dems get control of both houses (also a real possibility), there would be nothing to stop the Democrats from enacting a court packing bill that would turn SCOTUS into a rubber stamp. I’m sure Roberts would have voted the way he did regardless, but Kavanaugh and Barrett may reasonably believe that, after overruling Roe, the Court as an institution could not afford another ruling that would inflame the Left. And beyond the court packing scheme, there is a serious talk among the Dems of impeaching Kavanaugh and Alito, to say nothing of the threats the conservative justices receive.
I would have preferred keeping Roe (perhaps after limiting it in some way, say to the first trimester) and ruling for the plaintiffs in this case to save the First Amendment from the leftist vultures. But the justices chose to overrule Roe in Dobbs, perhaps underestimating the irrational and inflamed response it would elicit from the Left (and overestimating the extent to which Dobbs would energize the Right — in fact, it looks like the opposite has happened, at least on the abortion issue). But what’s done is done.
We are in very dark times. As others have said, in the long run, SCOTUS is not going to save us. Unfortunately, I doubt that Trump (who cannot even negotiate a somewhat fair debate forum), the dysfunctional Republican Party and conservative movement, or even serous conservative politicians like De Santis can save us, either.
Kate, I agree — re: Jury trials now entitled by SEC defendents.
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Also: Good idea about subscribing to Alex Berenson’s substack.
We really need a win for citizens’ 1st amendment rights.
It was truly upsetting to hear, in the oral arguments, the newest Justice Ms. Brown say she was concerned about the government being hindered if they couldn’t continue to shut us up.
she doesn’t know what a woman is either, per her part of the moloch merry goround, its like justice lani guinier for those with long memories about who the clintons tried to put in key judicial positions, bill lan lee was only slightly less terrible,
SCOTUS can avoid issues all they want on standing, as they did with election fraud in 2020. They can narrowly parse rulings to avoid upsetting the left. It won’t matter. Issue one ruling that doesn’t kowtow to the leftist agenda, and the usual bots will come screaming for the court to be packed, that this “conservative court” is illegitimate, whatever pushes the propaganda forward. Roberts needs to wake up and smell the napalm.
“To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek,”
The near future apparently only extends a few days at a time, or perhaps a few minutes. Yes, the risk is substantial – multiply it by the millions of parents who might have seen a year’s progress by their kids instead of lost educational opportunities due to ignorance of Great Barrington – but apparently the august Justices felt that a tort tomorrow is preferable to one this afternoon.
dfj– the SC conservatives/whatever Kavanaugh and Barrett turn out to be had no option but to overturn Roe. Had they just tinkered with the decision, they would have been guilty of the same charge conservatives had been making for 45 years, that the court was legislating from the bench.
During an interview with President Trump recently– he almost seem confused that conservatives, having had the victory they all said they wanted– overturning Roe, were now some of the same people now suggesting Congress should pass a federal law restricting abortions.
He made it clear he wouldn’t sign a law that did that.
They “will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Standing just keeps preventing them from doing their job.
But as noted above, what have they done for the left lately (5 minutes ago) is the metric. Otherwise, they are illegitimate.
But it could be worse; Judge Metrick Garland
Kate: “… the mothers consider “emergencies” when they may or may not be actual medical emergencies.”
Which is why I keep suggesting those states with pro-life legislation should be specifying two or three doctors involved in the abortion related decision to reduce or avoid second guessing a single doctor’s bias. Some states probably also need to clean up the language around allowed special cases risking the mother’s life or health, so doctors don’t fear liability when providing (valid) services within their specialty and knowledge.
I second Brian E’s response to dfj on overturning Roe, as it was inapplicable as a federal level constitutional issue, that really belongs with the police powers of the states.
@ Kate > “… the mothers consider “emergencies” when they may or may not be actual medical emergencies.”
The “safe, legal, and rare” bill of goods was foisted on us fifty years ago by declaring (pinky swear!) that abortions would only be allowed for rape, incest, and the health of the mother, which the common sense interpretation of standard English (as well as relying on their propaganda) meant some dire medical condition such that continuing the pregnancy would endanger the mother’s life or have a severe debilitating affect on her health.
That was quickly reduced to “anything the mother felt would make her uncomfortable” IOW what most mothers experience during pregnancy and generally survive just fine (ask me how I know..), and then morphed immediately into “mental health,” meaning any kind of “stress” that interfered with the mother’s desired life-style or economic situation.
The Democrats’ celebration of Roe v. Wade and subsequent foray into becoming the party of all-abortion all-the-time, and utter rejection of any baby-saving changes in culture or law, such as supporting pre-marital abstinence or widening adoption opportunities, has been a matter of jaw-dropping incredulity to me over the years, which I cannot explain with any rational hypotheses, so have been reduced to calling it the work of Satan.
@ Kate > “I’m going to break down and become a paying subscriber to Alex Berenson’s Substack in support of his lawsuit. He has standing and tons of evidence that the government intervened directly to get him kicked off of Twitter.”
Ditto. I have been following his Substack, and Taibbi’s on this case, and wish him well.
Some speculations I have seen is that the Roberts Junta are “keeping their powder dry” on Murthy in re standing so they can blow the Left out of the water on the merits of Berenson.
Maybe.
As Neo pointed out, the only two real conservatives are Alito and Thomas.
I have started wondering if the other four just roll D&D dice to decide their positions.
Good essay on the decision by John Hinderaker.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/06/anticlimax.php
As long as Americans continue to take the abortion situation as somehow politically divisive your nation will continue to fail. SC in Dodds did the right thing. The majority of States will shift to abortion on demand up to 18 weeks over 20 years. RBG said it too. Get over it. Remember “right wing” is small government capitalism, drop the religious nonsense.
It’s become amazing how often key critical decisions seem to be “found” to be lacking in standing to prevent a legitimate decision from coming from the courts.
We seem to be finding that our “Republican” SCotUS is about as brave as our Republican “Congress” when it comes to challenging the opposing side.
I propose they ALL be granted honorary French citizenship. They’ve all certainly displayed that kind of innate character sufficiently to have earned it.
}}} djf: If Biden is reelected (which I think is probable, regardless of the polls
Well, obviously, you didn’t have that datum as of your post, but I have this suspicion that Biden may not even get the nom, given his performance in the “debate”. He might not be able to even finish the term, or shouldn’t be allowed to. Harris may become the truest lame duck of a PotUS ever. We do, indeed, clearly have a true shadow government at this point, and no one who isn’t a total partisan hack can claim otherwise.
Who WILL get the nom, and what their chances of winning are, will be an interesting question.
}}} A+C: Roberts needs to wake up and smell the napalm.
Not very likely. Roberts is the poster boy for Churchill’s “one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
}}} R2L: Which is why I keep suggesting those states with pro-life legislation should be specifying two or three doctors involved in the abortion related decision to reduce or avoid second guessing a single doctor’s bias.
Good point. FAR, far too sensible for anyone in a legislature to manage to come up with, though… Three would be about right, or perhaps a “standard review board” of five, for ANY “hot button” issue, such as euthanasia
}}} I have started wondering if the other four just roll D&D dice to decide their positions.
Nah. Too geek. They have a dart board. 😀