I've been thinking all evening about just how crazy this latest court order from Louisiana is. You really have to read it to believe it. The whole 155-page opinion is an insane, rambling stew of right-wing paranoia about "mass censorship" and "unrelenting pressure" from an Orwellian White House that you'd sooner expect to see at Gateway Pundit than in an opinion from a US judge.
As recently as a few years ago this case would have been dismissed with extreme prejudice and the lawyers told they'd be held in contempt if they ever wasted the court's time again with stuff like this. Today it produces a bizarre injunction against half a dozen agencies—the entire Census Bureau! all of the CDC! the Surgeon General!—along with several dozen named Biden officials prohibiting them from entirely voluntary interactions with a specific set of 21 social media platforms plus "like companies." Has there ever been a court order like this before? Maybe. I've never heard of one, though.
It's nuts. The whole thing is just lunacy. I barely even know what to think of this stuff anymore.
it would be paranoia if the trial record did not support the claims.
And what exactly is the standing for the AG’s to bring suit? What’s their dog in this fight?
Is this another case of no standing needed if you are a Republican seeking an ideologically correct ruling?
Discouraging irrational doubt in the electoral process and fighting against anti-scientific disinformation are existential threats to these men and the entire GOP.
From what I have read of the case, the judge opined "If this is true, then..." issued his massive government restraint order. IF.
So the "facts" in the case have not even been verified, much less subject to scrutiny. It's all just conspiracy allegations and the usual woo-woo stuff. But I guess that's the trumplican judge MO these days, and the "Librul Media" fully supports it.
What trial record?
We can't call it "lunacy" if it's becoming the norm.
Sure you can. Read Isaac Asimov's story "Nightfall."
Auditioning for the Supreme Court or a post-retirement position at a right wing media/propaganda org does take some time and effort. These positions arent just handed out to anybody.
The good news is that the application process for both of these roles is the same.
Ummm....so the judge is concerned about the free speech of right-wingers and his solution is to prohibit free speech by other people??? Way to go Judgey!!!
We need to stop calling them "conservative" judges and start calling them what they are: Republican judges.
And don't act shocked, Kevin. This state of affairs - a thoroughly politicized judiciary - has been the Federalist Society's goal from their founding, and they have had considerable success.
1+
The word "conservative" shoudl be retired, because by now it is used to mean various other things.
Well, I would say that the SCOTUS, for their part, currently have three liberals, one conservative, and five Republicans. The one conservative is Roberts: his only real goal, like all true conservatives, is to make sure the rich and powerful can always get what they want. He doesn't care about culture war issues, and when required to rule on them he just reads the polls and rules accordingly. This is why he is so frequently out of step with the five Republican justices. Remember that in Dobbs he didn't sign on to the majority ruling - he issued a concurrence that would have upheld the TN law in question *without* overturning Roe.
Just as we've been hearing from the right for a few years that America is a "republic" and not a "democracy", I fully expect the next "intellectual" wave on the right to be a series of arguments about how the Founding Fathers really intended the judiciary to make all the decisions because democracy sucks. What's that you say? You can't win elections because your ideas are unpopular and don't work, and thus you're placing your bets on the one branch of government you can control specifically because it's undemocratic and can be taken control of if you get really lucky in the electoral college? Makes sense.
I fully expect all of them to held in contempt. I mean, that person has a Meta account! That agency tweeted! Lock them all up!!!
It's all homoeroticism and conspiracy theories.
It does seem weird for a political party, but it's not weird for a cult.
".... I barely even know what to think of this stuff anymore."
Devolution, that's what to think of it.
'De-Evolution is Real'. Devo's music has aged very well. Way ahead of their time but they also did covers and Jagger is on record as saying their version of Satisfaction was his favorite.
Mark Mothersbaugh was interviewed for the VH1 Behind the Music episode on "Weird" Al Yankovic. He says that "Dare to Be Stupid" wasn't funny, and that he doesn't get the whole thing. He comes off as a humorless scold.
And he delivers it so well, that you almost believe it's sincere for an instant.
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Good post, well said. I'd like to tie this conversation to the other recent posts on the Supreme Court's recent decisions, and say that this case is an example of why it's not helpful to think of the end-of-term rulings as "not bad, all things considered".
There's a decent chance that *this* case ends up on the Supreme Court's docket next year or the year after. Assuming the Court overrules Judge Doughty, it won't be (primarily) an example of the Court making a correct decision. It will be (again, primarily) an example of how much time and energy is wasted in our body politic by the "insane, rambling stew of right-wing paranoia" institutionalized in judges like Doughty and Alito.