I haven’t put up a Paragraph Of The Day for a while – it’s been too long – but, today, I found one from the New York Times that is too good to resist.
It involves the ruling of (Trump appointed) Judge Terry A. Doughty, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, who has ruled that the FBI (among other government agencies, cannot discuss political issues with social agencies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
Let me stop here and point out that I am very dubious regarding whether Judge Doughty acted within his legal authority and would not at all be surprised if this decision is overturned.
That said, however, here – pulled from Scott Johnson’s article at powerlineblog.com – is the key paragraph of the New York Times article reporting his decision:
A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday restricted the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms about broad swaths of content online, a ruling that could curtail efforts to combat false and misleading narratives about the coronavirus pandemic and other issues.
Fascinating. Do you see anything there about “a ruling that could curtail efforts to suppress creditable and damaging narratives about the administration’s performance on the coronavirus pandemic and other issues”? Me neither.
In other words, the New York Times’ concern is not that the Biden administration, through a compromised Justice Department, is using its political power to suppress negative information about its performance; only that it is being prevented from making sure voters hear the truth.
Uh, yeah. Right.
Further on in the article, this part of Judge Doughty’s decision is also presented:
“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history. The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.”
I’ll give The Times credit for posting this – even if the article takes pains to assure us that it isn’t what happened.
I award The New York Times Paragraph Of The Day “honors” for blatantly taking a two sided story and assuring us that it has just one side; the Biden administration’s side.
