Let us now consider Federal Judge Terry Doughty, one of the former president*’s gifts to the federal judiciary, currently sitting on his brains on the bench of the Federal District Court in Monroe, Louisiana. Since the change in administrations, Doughty has blocked vaccine requirements and overturned a pause on new oil and gas leases on federal lands. On Wednesday, Doughty opened the door to a conservative wonderland of spurious legal flora. From CNN:
The FBI deposition is one of several sought by the state Republican officials in a lawsuit accusing Biden officials of effectively enforcing government censorship by pushing social media companies to, among other things, police speech about the origins of the virus that causes Covid-19, the efficacy of face masks and health care measures intended to curb the spread of the virus, as well as claims about election integrity and the security of voting by mail.
Judge Terry Doughty, a Donald Trump appointee overseeing the lawsuit brought by attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, has ordered eight depositions of government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, and other officials involved in administration’s public health response.
This lawsuit gives us an extended trailer for what the Republican House will be all about starting in January. Every weird enthusiasm of the Republican base will get taken out for a walk. If you accept the premise of the Republican attorneys general seeking to launch this fishing expedition, then the administration knuckled Facebook et al. to bury all the phantom skeletons that populate the conservative mind.
Doughty hasn’t ruled on the merits of the two states’ censorship claims, but has ordered the administration to produce documents identifying government officials and the nature of their communications with social media platforms.
Which, of course, will be leaked all over the conservative media ecosystem and, very likely, into a certain tiny pair of hands in West Palm Beach, giving the owner of the tiny hands a bunch of new untruths that he can gild with lies on the stump. It’s a whole new world.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has his three children.
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