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Tags: free speech | joe biden
OPINION

Biden Doesn't Get Free Speech – At All

the words right to speak stamped with censored over them
(Dreamstime)

Michael Dorstewitz By Monday, 11 December 2023 02:03 PM EST Current | Bio | Archive

Three months after a federal appeals court took the Biden administration to the woodshed for silencing the speech of American citizens, they’re at it again.

The State of Texas and two conservative news outlets filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State last week, claiming that it was funding efforts to bankrupt conservative media that oppose the administration.

The Federalist and The Daily Wire are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which alleges that the administration engaged in “one of the most audacious, manipulative, secretive, and gravest abuses of power and infringements of First Amendment rights by the federal government in American history.”

The plaintiffs claim that the State Department, which deals with foreign relations and has no authority over domestic affairs, is working through two organizations that have contracts with or receive funds from the agency’s Global Engagement Center, which is supposed to counter foreign terrorist propaganda.

But the administration is instead using it to counter alleged domestic “disinformation” unfavorable to the Biden administration.

The State Department is said to be using the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British think tank, and NewsGuard, which rates the "misinformation" levels of news outlets, in its effort to attack conservative American media, Reuters reported.

The ratings from these organizations were clearly more political than factual.

The publications on GDI’s “least risky” list were typically those that promoted Democrat talking points, including the Russian collusion hoax and claims that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

Conversely, “GDI rated The Daily Wire’s ‘risk level’ as ‘high’ and The Federalist’s ‘risk level’ as ‘maximum,’” The Federalist reported.

"This agency will not get away with their illegal campaign to silence citizens and publications they disagree with,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Reuters in a statement.

If you can’t counter an unfavorable news story with facts, silence them. That’s how the Biden administration also attempted to bury social media posts that were critical of the White House.

The Texas lawsuit was filed three months after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that multiple officials from the Biden White House, surgeon general, FBI and CDC had engaged in illicit “coercion and significant encouragement” by repeatedly lobbying social-media companies “to remove disfavored content and accounts from their sites,” in a case called Missouri v. Biden.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Newsmax that "what we know is that Joe Biden used the power of the presidency to threaten big tech into censuring truthful speech in an orchestrated campaign of a magnitude never seen before in this country."

He emphasized that "we got to continue to fight to build a wall of separation between tech and state," adding that “this lawsuit is the best method I have to do that."

But this administration doesn’t learn from its mistakes. A month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan “forgiveness” program, he did it again, although on a smaller scale.

Rather than trying to bankrupt conservative media, the State Department may want to focus on assignments that it’s actually commissioned to do. It can work to release U.S. citizens who have been wrongfully imprisoned by foreign governments, including:

  • Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was attacked by another inmate recently in a Russian prison, where he’s serving a 16-year sentence on fabricated espionage charges.
  • American musician Jimmy Wilgus, who is in declining health after serving seven years of a 12-and-a-half-year-sentence in the same Russian prison as is Whelan, also on trumped-up charges.
  • Journalist Gonzalo Lira Jr., who is a dual U.S.-Peruvian citizen, and was jailed by Ukraine, allegedly for publishing reports unfavorable to both its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as U.S. President Biden.

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk announced Sunday he would be “willing to go to prison over free speech …”

Would Biden be willing to send him there, especially if it’ll hinder free speech?

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.

© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


MichaelDorstewitz
Three months after a federal appeals court took the Biden administration to the woodshed for silencing the speech of American citizens, they're at it again.
free speech, joe biden
682
2023-03-11
Monday, 11 December 2023 02:03 PM
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