Opinion
By Deb Boelkes
03-23-23
To We the People – Don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not tired of winning yet. BUT…some things are finally looking up and we can use your help to get more wins under our belts!
Yesterday I sent you the detailed text ruling of the judge in the Missouri v. Biden case. As I had not yet had time to read the hefty document when I sent it out for your review, I made no comment other than to provide the judge’s Order. Bottom line: Missouri won. Virtually every substantive thing that Missouri wanted was granted.
Thanks to member Ken Timmerman for providing the following analysis, which he agreed I could share with you:
The Missouri v. Biden ruling is tremendously significant. The Court found that the plaintiffs (the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with a host of private plaints such as Jim Hoft and the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration) HAD standing to sue, because they had established an “injury-in-fact” by the government’s collusion with social media companies to censure them. This means that the case will continue to be tried.
The court also found that the plaintiffs claims were “redressable by the Court.” (p44). This is huge. In plainspeak, that means that the courts can indeed prevent the government from continuing to collude with social media giants.
The Court rejected the government’s claim that an injunction would impinge on “the implementation of foreign policy and the protection of national security.” (45), essentially declaring it another bogus argument.
The Court embraces the plaintiffs argument that the federal government has “effectively subsidized, authorized, and encouraged the practices of online censorship by granting them legal immunity in Section 230 of the CDA.” (p55) This also is HUGE, and reinforces the plaintiffs claims of 1st amendment violations, which the Court also accepts. (p50)
And just to make sure there is no ambiguity, there’s this: “the Court finds that Plaintiffs have stated plausible claims on the merits in all counts of the Complaint.” (p56).
The Court goes on to assert that “prior restraints [ie censorship] and viewpoint discrimination,” which occurred here, are “clear violations of the First Amendment”… While “viewpoint discrimination is an egregious form of content discrimination.” [p69] These clear First Amendment violations include “placing bans, shadow-bans, and other forms of restrictions on Plaintiffs’ social-media accounts…” [p70.
The only element of the Plaintiff’s complaint the Court does not follow is their demand for injunctive relief against President Biden. [p75]. That is not unusual nor does it detract from the future of this court case. And the Court specifically declines to dismiss the claims for declaratory relief against Biden [76]. What form that declaratory relief could take — a policy statement, or a statement by the Court that the president has acted unconstitutionally – is unclear.
Overall, this is a HUGE HUGE win for free speech. My guess is there will be additional hearings and decisions involving the repercussions of this decision on the social media companies and on Section 230.
My husband, Chris, further commented: There were 66 other defendants that lost the entire case. Even the Biden part of the lawsuit was only a partial victory for the Administration. The injunctive relief was denied with prejudice, meaning it could not be brought up again in this specific situation. However, the court denied declarative relief without prejudice meaning it could be sought again in a similar case where there were no other defendants that could have provided the desired injunctive relief. In other words, if Biden had personally and solely colluded with the social media companies, he could have been enjoined from doing so. However, since others in the administration had actually done the deed, they were enjoined from doing so. All in all, a great win.
Next: Another great win for patriots! In case you have heard yet, Newsmax will be back on DirectTV starting tomorrow 3/23! Good job and thanks to all of you who sent cards and letters and emails…and/or shut off your AT&T service!
Now I urge you to take action to show your support of legislation aimed at protecting Florida’s children, now underway in the Florida House and Senate. The following requests come from our friends at Florida Citizens Alliance / FLCAction:
- Support the Ban of Treatments for Sex Reassignment:
The Florida House and Florida Senate are actively considering HB 1421 and SB 254 that would ban treatments for sex reassignment for minors. Florida Citizens Alliance and many of their strategic partners whole-heartedly support these bills. FLCA believes that each child in Florida should be protected from highly experimental treatments. Many of these treatments come with life-long side effects.
Please send this petition to your legislators urging them to support HB 1421 and SB 254: https://flcactioncenter.org/petition/stand-with-flca-in-support-the-ban-of-treatments-for-sex-reassignment
- Support the Public Union Reform Bill:
The Florida House is actively considering the HB 1445 and SB 256 (Public Union Reform bill) this week. This bill by Representative Black and Senator Ingoglia would prohibit school boards from collecting union dues for teachers directly from paychecks. The Florida Citizens Alliance whole-heartedly supports these bills. FLCA believes that this bill will foster an environment where teacher unions will have less influence in government schools. They also believe that unions should be responsible for collecting their own dues.
Please send this petition to your legislators urging them to support HB 1445 and SB 256: https://flcactioncenter.org/petition/stand-with-flca-in-supporting-the-public-union-reform-bill
- Stand with FLCA in Supporting the Heartbeat Bill:
The Florida House is actively considering the HB 7 and SB 300 (Heartbeat bill) this week. This bill by Representative Persons-Mulicka and Senator Grall prohibits physicians from knowingly performing or inducing termination of pregnancy after 6 weeks. This bill also addresses chemical abortions and provides funds to support mothers/parents that choose life. Florida Citizens Alliance and many of their strategic partners wholeheartedly support these bills. They believe that this is the much-needed next step in the goal of protecting every child in Florida.
BTW, The Senate version of the Heartbeat bill passed the Senate Health Policy Committee on Monday and moved to Fiscal Policy on Tuesday, the only committee stop in the Senate. Senator Grall did an amazing job articulating the need for this law in Florida to change the “culture of Death” that has enveloped our culture to embracing “the culture of Life”.
The House HB7 related bill has already passed its first committee stop in the House.
Please send this petition to your legislators urging them to support HB 7 and SB 300: https://flcactioncenter.org/petition/stand-with-flca-in-supporting-the-heartbeat-bill
Next: Thanks to our friend, David Hoyt at the Heartland Institute (and husband of Cornerstone Classical Academy’s founder, Lindsay Hoyt) for helping lead the battle against woke environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores…. and for sharing the great news that nearly a dozen states have proposed new bills to restrict government ESG score implementation, including:
· Florida
· Georgia
· Indiana
· Iowa
· Kansas
· Missouri
· Montana
· Ohio
· Oklahoma
· Texas
David says he expects more ESG bills to be introduced before state legislative sessions conclude, so stay tuned!
Next: Update on special We the People event on Saturday, April 15! In addition to Professor David Clements speaking to us while in town on The Greater Magistrates Tour, Conservative podcaster Joe Oltmann will be joining him! AND….a nice large venue has now been confirmed (the gymnasium of the Christian Academy at First Baptist Church of Fernandina Beach), so be sure to invite your friends and loved ones to come with you. We’ll have plenty of room for lots of you, so let’s fill up the hall and learn how we can help Restore Trust in our Elections! Official invitations will go out soon. In the meantime, be sure to put this event on your calendar and stay tuned!
Finally, show your support for 45 and our country: Put your flags out…Fly the American Flag and your Trump Flags…Put flags on cars, overpasses, homes, by the side of the road, everywhere—for our President and for our Country!
God Bless America and all our patriots,
Deb Boelkes
Your digital soldier
Founder, Business World Rising, LLC
Keynote Speaker and award-winning Author of:
Strong Suit: Leadership Success Secrets from Women on Top
Women on Top: What’s Keeping You From Executive Leadership?
The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture
Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring
Office: 904-310-9602
Mobile: 949-394-3590
Email: [email protected]
DebBoelkes.com || BusinessWorldRising.com || HeartfeltLeadership.com
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida.
