Democrats are the anti-Constitution Party

Much ink was spilled this weekend on New Mexico's Democrat Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's unconstitutional suspending of open or concealed carry firearms after Gov. Grisham issued a public health emergency relating to gun violence. That isn't the only anti-constitutional mischief that Democrats involved themselves with this weekend.

James Freeman, a member of the WSJ editorial board, published this report about the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling on District Judge Terry Doughty initial ruling that "the Biden administration's policing of social-media content during the pandemic likely violated the First Amendment, a decision that bars White House aides and other officials from pressuring online platforms to suppress protected speech."

After the appellate court ruling, the administration issued this statement, saying "This Administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections." The administration shouldn't be so bashful. They've done lots more than just promoting "responsible actions" regarding COVID.

This is part of the 74-page ruling:

For the last few years—at least since the 2020 presidential transition—a group of federal officials has been in regular contact with nearly every major American social-media company about the spread of "misinformation" on their platforms. In their concern, those officials— hailing from the White House, the CDC, the FBI, and a few other agencies— urged the platforms to remove disfavored content and accounts from their sites. And, the platforms seemingly complied. They gave the officials access to an expedited reporting system, downgraded or removed flagged posts, and deplatformed users. The platforms also changed their internal policies to capture more flagged content and sent steady reports on their moderation activities to the officials. That went on through the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 congressional election, and continues to this day.

This is Rep. Maggie Haberman's questioning of Matt Taibbi during a hearing on the weaponization of government:

Notice that Rep. Haberman's line of questioning frequently focused on the FBI alerting Twitter about potential violations of Twitter's terms-of-service. Why would the FBI police whether an account consistently comply with a private company's terms of service? I don't find it out-of-line for the FBI to monitor Twitter for potential criminal violations like sex or drug trafficking. Monitoring a company's terms-of-service violations is quite different, though. Then there's this:

In a 74-page opinion released late Friday, the New Orleans-based U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said administration officials coerced social-media platforms to censor disfavored views about Covid-19 health policies, the origins of the pandemic and other divisive topics including election security and Hunter Biden...

The decision in many respects affirmed the conclusions of a federal judge who ruled against the government on July 4 and castigated the Biden administration for establishing what he called an "Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth.'"

This is chilling:

When the platforms did not comply, officials followed up by asking why posts were “still up,” stating (1) "how does something like [this] happen," (2) "what good is" flagging if it did not result in content moderation, (3) "I don’t know why you guys can’t figure this out," and (4) "you are hiding the ball," while demanding "assurances" that posts were being taken down. And, more importantly, the officials threatened—both expressly and implicitly—to retaliate against inaction. Officials threw out the prospect of legal reforms and enforcement actions while subtly insinuating it would be in the platforms’ best interests to comply. As one official put it, "removing bad information" is "one of the easy, low-bar things you guys [can] do to make people like me"—that is, White House officials—"think you're taking action."

Talk about heavy-handed. All that's missing is a meat-cleaver-or-else emoji. The point is that it isn't the government's business whether a private company consistently enforces its terms-of-service. Further, a governor doesn't have the authority to suspend parts of the Bill of Rights in situations that she unilaterally declares as an emergency.

I won't trust the government in knowing what's misinformation or disinformation. They've been wrong too often, perhaps because they have an interest in the outcome too often. I won't trust the FBI to be impartial in policing terms-of-service, either.