President Joe Biden is pitching himself as the savior of democracy. “I will always defend, protect, and fight for our democracy,” he said at a campaign event last week in New York City. He’s been saying it for four years. It’s a blatant lie. He’s the king of censorship, silencing his critics like a despot and even trying to defend his censorship regime before the Supreme Court.
At high-dollar fundraising events last week from Manhattan to Silicon Valley, Biden bragged the survival of democracy hinges on his reelection over the MAGA Republicans. He’ll reiterate that theme again in Phoenix on Thursday.
But democracy depends on a free marketplace of ideas. Biden is busy destroying that marketplace. He and his staff have masterminded a vast censorship scheme, coercing media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to take down views that challenge the administration on everything from vaccine safety and gas prices to Biden family mischief.
On Sept. 11, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found the Biden White House guilty of threatening and coercing social media executives to do what the federal government is constitutionally barred from doing on its own — censoring the public. The judges ruled that bullying these companies into doing the administration’s dirty work violates the First Amendment just as much as if government muzzles the public directly.
The Fifth Circuit issued an injunction, barring the Biden White House, surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and FBI from trying to “coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove … content containing protected free speech.”
Undeterred, Team Biden has gone to the Supreme Court to fight this limit on censorship. It’s easier to win reelection if you can silence your critics.
Justice Samuel Alito paused the Fifth Circuit’s order until today, Sept. 27, when the Court is expected to take further action.
Meanwhile, Biden is weaseling around the First Amendment’s prohibition on government censorship by moving his social media attack dog, Rob Flaherty, from the White House to his campaign staff. Flaherty, who largely masterminded the White House’s censorship operation, will now be operating from a new, nongovernmental perch.
Biden’s lawyers argued in court that the tech platforms made their own decisions. That was a lie, and the judges saw right through it.
The evidence shows Biden threatened the social media platforms with punitive regulations, such as repealing liability immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and enforcing antitrust regulations, if the platforms didn’t do his bidding.
In 2020, candidate Biden told a New York Times editorial board that Section 230 immunity should be revoked because media companies like Facebook failed to censure rival Donald Trump’s political ads criticizing him.
After winning, Biden issued arrogant censorship demands, more like a despot than a believer in democracy.
On Feb. 6, 2021, Flaherty emailed Twitter to immediately remove a post that parodied Hunter Biden’s adult daughter Finnegan. Twitter complied.
Over time, the censorship operation evolved into regularly scheduled meetings between Biden officials and tech employees, follow-up reports from the platforms on their compliance with Biden dictates, and special portals through which the Biden administration could request immediate action.
The New York Times depicts the legal battle against Biden’s censorship as a challenge to “the government’s ability to combat false and misleading narratives about the pandemic, voting rights and other issues that spread on social media.”
Wrong. The Gray Lady presumes government can be trusted to decide what is false.
In reality, this is a case about protecting the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans to post their views and freely access the views of others.
It is also a case about the future of democracy. If Biden’s censorship scheme survives Supreme Court review — an unlikely outcome — democracy will be the worse for it.
Expect Biden to continue parroting the claim he’s defending democracy. It’s far easier for him to campaign against a pretend threat than deal with real issues such as the economy and immigration, where his approval ratings don’t break 30%, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Biden’s censorship and the fight he’s waging to continue muzzling the public — the U.S. Constitution be damned — show he’s no champion of democracy. The judges of the Fifth Circuit didn’t believe it. And you shouldn’t either.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM
Most authoritarians claim to be defending and protecting democracy as they go about trying to bury it with both hands. Pay less attention to the empty words that Joe Biden and the rest of the Democrats speak and focus instead on their policies and actions. That is the real truth behind what they stand for and what they want to accomplish. The real threat to our republic (we are NOT a democracy) is the Democrat Party and their allies in the MSM and the public service unions.
No mention that we were established as a Constitutional Republic, and not a Democracy. Of course they want a Democracy so they can violate our Constitution, move away from being a Republic, and steal away our rights. Democrats have been steadily working for this end for a long, long, long, long time. Control is an enticing, and harsh, mistress.
I forgot to mention that the puppet Biden is doing what his master B H O is commanding him to do on an hour by hour day by day basis.Obama of course is even worse than Biden.A thorough evil communist bastard who hates this country and what it has always stood for. His father was a Mau Mau terrorist who’s speciality was raping and slaughtering white settlers in Kenya,East Africa,settlers who were the backbone of Kenyas economy.The ‘dynamic duo’ Obama and Biden are trying to do the same to the economy of the United States and millions of useful idiots(Democrat voters) are so brainwashed they can’t see the wood for the trees.
Jackass Joe Biden IS the GREATEST LIAR to ever inhabit the White House! His Dimentia disguises his Stupidity and even He doesn’t even realize how He is REALLY being viewed! The whole world laughs at his incompetence! “The Great Unifier!” He’s right about that because the majority of the country is NOW UNIFIED AGAINST HIM!
Just know that everything that Biden claims he’s doing to preserve democracy is a lie through and through. He can’t speak without lying. 50 plus years as an elected bureaucrat has reinforced his behavior. Biden is what gives politicians a bad reputation.
Biden has aspired to be a sniveling lying dictatorial bastard since the very first day he took office fifty years ago.With a few exceptions we can blame that on the stupidity of the people who voted for him year after year.
Excellent article telling the truth.
Don’t forget that today Dictator Beijing biden was pushing harder to CENSOR Americans along with SWAMP QUEEN pelosi being caught Red-Handed ‘Accommodating’ Communist China. And of course we can’t forget Communist harris who Bows down to Communist China with her two buddies, Dictator Beijing biden and SWAMP QUEEN pelosi.
The TOP 3 TREASONOUS TRAITORS that have SOLD OUT the UNITED STATES of AMERICA.
And they are still at it.
WHERE IS THE DOJ? The DOJ is PROTECTING their Communist buddies in the White House and Senate.
A threat to Democracy Hell, he is a treat to America’s very Existence, he would be happy to give China the Deed to America, America will lose its A$$ and 2 Star’s if we keep him around, much longer!
God Bless America, Long live our Freedom!
The sooner he is gone…the better. He and his posse continue to erode our Constitutional freedoms.
The Republicans need to pound this censorship issue relentlessly.
It’s not him, its his handlers ie. Obama, Soros, and all the rest of the Dimocratic party. He doesn’t even know what he is doing, let alone the rest of us mindless peons.
Biden is a threat to every thing most of us hold dear !!!!
BIDEN is a traitor! He allows America to Invaded by illegal foreign nationals and there kids! They have no respect for OUR laws! Allowing illegal aliens free access America without properly processed…..is traitors!
Words are meaningless unless backed up by corresponding actions. This is not happening with this administration. They must think we’re stupid, which, granted, many people are.
To think, you’re the 17th in a long line of Democratic idiots!
Look, Biden flat out lies, makes claims about himself that are untrue, takes credit for accomplishments he never made, was friends with a known KKK member and told black people in their face that they “weren’t black if they didn’t vote for him”. What did the media do and what have they done since? Absolutely NOTHING!! Well, if the media is not doing its “job”, they need to lose their rights and protections that they receive. Biden lies constantly and the truth is that Obama is running the country……….. into the ground. We are seeing Obama’s policies to the nth degree. The current administration is loaded with former Obama personnel. Obama discussed his desire to have a “puppet in place” while he ran the country at home in his sweats. He can push things as far as he wants because any backlash is directed at Sleepy Joe and once Joe leaves office, he will stop receiving whatever medication he is being given that keeps him upright and semi lucid. Joe Biden will be in a diaper and shuffling across the bathroom floor while drooling on himself within a year after leaving office. He is a convenient schlub and in the end, due to his mental state, he will NEVER be held accountable for anything. The saddest part is that tackling Kamala is even worse.
If you are unsure or confused by how all this works, please, find a good history book, read and learn. Society today will become very clear with multiple examples.
I thought we were supposed to be a republic, But democracy or republic, Biden and the democrats are the antithesis of freedom.
Fight for democracy he crows proudly. Did he fight in any wars on the behalf of Democracy?
Buttthead Biden is a DISGRACE to our country.
an empty brain of the plantation people is a threat to the free speech of America. Communism is between ears of the anointed of the extreme far-left Democrat party..
Biden is genetically programmed to lie. He’s been doing it ever since he hit the public stage where we have all witnessed it whether we want to admit it or not.
He’s only referring to the democracy of the democratic party to control its people. In line by divisiveness, threats, open boarders, limited security and safety, laws tainted, and justice compromised, hidden under false illusions for our good, while threaten our livelihood to be free. Without our freedom we are locked into slavery of the will of those in power. We are no longer sovereign an so limited already by the system. We as the people must learn to come together with our abilities to navigate this 1% that control us by fear. We have the power each soul to dismantle the false agenda’s they coerce. We are the majority so we have power but fail to understand its true nature.
Joe Biden is also a threat to our Republic and to world peace . He’s setting the stage for our demise . Both He and Camala should be removed . She’s as nutty as him . Maybe more .
biden and his entire administration are a threat to democracy and to the safety of the entire world.
Any tyrant is a threat to Democracies around the world. Biden is a threat to this Republic as are all those who fail to govern with the best interest of the US citizen as their primary policy.
The government has no say over our opinion or our thoughts. But that is what ole Joe and the gang are doing. Democracy doesn’t exist anymore in this country. That is why he has to keep telling this lie over and over again.
Every day more and more restrictions are mandated by ole Joe. And many more to come. My fervent hope is that the Supreme Court will strike him down with his plans to shut up the American people. The Fifth Circuit had it right and our hope is now in the hands of the 5 conservative judges on the Supreme Court and hope Soros did not get to them first.
Biden is not the only Threat, it is the entire DEMOCRT PARTY
He thinks he has helped democracy and all he has done is destroy it.. And he doesn’t give a darn about people or what happens to them. And he is only going to pass what he wants passed or change with an executive order. And that right should be taken away from him and any sitting president and everything should be voted on by the people !!
ALL Dems are a threat to Democracy
Obiden is a threat to the entire world. We could erupt at any time into WWlll.
Please, It’s the democrats that call America a democracy! AMERICA IS A REPUBLIC! Or at least it was.
I believe that even though Biden is doing all these anti democratic actions, that Google and Facebook ensors and will keep on censor
If I dwell on the countless evil ways of this puppet president for very long, it makes me nauseous. It is a combination of anger towards his disdainful treatment of the American citizens and my love for my savior Jesus Christ who instructs me to forgive. So I will continue to pray for his salvation. It will be his choice whether or not he receives Christ or not. “Every man thus holds his future in his hand. He decides which way his soul shall go. He chooses, and destiny waits on the nod of his head. He decides, and Hell enlarges itself, or Heaven prepares another mansion.” A.W. Tozer
Biden and his Marxist/fascist Rat party are intentionally destroying all that was good about the USA. They are slavers of the very worst kind.
Right hand man of China, they helped him cheat to get elected. America is being driven to socialism. Pray Trump 2024, that election fraud can be beaten!
Biden is coming to Arizona today. Will be to go the border at the Tucson sector and explain why the flood gates in the Border Wall are welded open. Short answer NO!
Other than putting his signature on documents shoved in front of him and then being told to sign without reading or pretending to understand, he’s personally no threat. To be a threat, he’d have to apply intelligent planning, something he’s not capable of doing. His handlers or controllers, on the other hand, are a definite threat.
biden is a traitor
All you have to do is employ the Democrat lie detector test. If their lips are moving they are lying!
The very best thing that Creepy Joe could do for America is to retire
If Biden was really interested in saving Democracy he would step down now and admit that Trump won the last election so that we could stop his destruction of this country and Democracy.
When Joe Biden and other Progressives refer to “our democracy”, they are referring to the recently made up democratic Socialism, which is just Socialism. The only thing democratic about the Biden administration is that We the People are being led to believe we still have a say in the election of our government representatives, which we now know is not really true with all of the election corruption that has occurred in recent elections.
In contrast, U.S. democracy is when We the People vote for representatives who will then vote on our behalf on issues. This is not the case with democratic Socialism. If the U.S. is allowed to go Socialist, all democracy will be eliminated as it has been in Communist and dictator nations.
Illegitimate Biden has DESTROYED everything good President Trump established
It has long been a standard operating procedure of the Left to accuse their enemies/opponents of that of which they, themselves, are guilty.
We are NOT a democracy.We are a Republic!
I’m of an age where I can hazily recall my father having to take an old dog of ours that, I guess from some sort of “dog dementia”, had begun biting some family members and family friends, taking the old dog out into the back field, shovel and old .22 rifle in one hand and a leash with the old dog attached in the other. His intent was obvious and necessary.
Just saying.
Already knew that. Some people are just figuring that out?
I take offense with the statement that legacy media and social platforms were coerced. They were willing participants. They had the Constitution and years of precedents to support them, ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS SAY NO.
@RobertEI don’t know when it started but Obama kicked it into high gear.