The “Axis” is, in Ethics Alarms parlance, “the resistance,” or those who believe that the existential threat of Donald Trump justifies suspending laws, traditions, fairness, standards and the Constitution; Democrats, who believe that their path to permanent power must be achieved by any means necessary, and the news media, which has become the propaganda arm of both entities and an active participant in the restriction and control of political speech.

All three groups were horrified yesterday when Judge Terry Doughty, Chief U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, delivered a sweeping ruling in Missouri v. Biden in which he issued an against what he called “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

Doughty declared that “in their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.” He restricted the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms regarding their decisions on which content should appear online, explaining that “Plaintiffs allege that Defendants, through public pressure campaigns, private meetings, and other forms of direct communication, regarding what Defendants described as ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ have colluded with and/or coerced social-media platforms to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social-media platforms.”

The judge’s injunction was in response to a lawsuit led by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana who alleged that the Biden administration fostered a “federal censorship enterprise” censor and keep from the public what framed as “disinformation circulating on social media.” The government, the lawsuit alleged, has pressured social-media platforms to bury or remove disfavored views about pandemic policies and origins, the Hunter Biden laptop story, election security and other politically controversial topics.

In the ruling, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said that parts of the government, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, could not talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

In granting a preliminary injunction, Judge Doughty prohibited the agencies from flagging specific posts to social media platforms or request reports about their efforts to take down content. The government may still notify the platforms about posts detailing crimes, national security threats or foreign attempts to influence elections.

The ruling was much needed and wildly overdue, but—Surprise!—progressives and Democrats declared it ominous, the incompetent and partisan interference of a “Trump appointed judge”—you know, like those fascist SCOTUS justices who want to doom African Americans to permanent underclass status because they can’t compete with whites and Asians on merit and ability. Over at Althouse, where commenters tend to be moderate to conservative, there was widespread mockery of the Wall Street Journal’s statement that “some legal scholars have been skeptical that the government can be held responsible for content-moderation decisions ultimately made by private companies or that courts could intervene without chilling legitimate government speech about controversial matters of public interest….”

“You can get ‘some legal scholars’ to say anything you want. Which is how journalism works–they say whatever they want and then they call the relevant “Dr. Feelgood” so they can portray it as somebody else saying it,” wrote one. “Of course government can be held accountable for acts ultimately taken by private companies. There’s nothing new there. And I’d love to hear about the legitimate government speech chilled by denying them the right to engage in viewpoint discrimination.” Another wrote, “Are there people who are still gullible to the ‘anonymous sources’ scam? If these legal scholars are so confident in their legal analysis why are they never willing to back their analysis with their name and professional reputation? We all know why, right?” One wag added, “Remember when Trump filed a lawsuit asserting that the government was behind his being banned from social media? Oh how we laughed and laughed and said it couldn’t possibly be true. Good times…”

Even though the so-called Twitter Files documented exactly what the judge is attempting to stop, New York Times readers, who are all-in to support a progressive totalitarian state, took a different view, but then they had the Times partisan bias to lead them along. Here’s part of that “news report”:

The issue of the government’s influence over social media has become increasingly partisan. The Republican majority in the House has taken up the cause, smothering universities and think tanks that have studied the issue with onerous requests for information and subpoenas.

Smothering! Onerous! How dare those Republicans try to protect free speech! This generated the desired Pavlovian response from Times readers (with my reactions):

• “Lies and defamatory speech are not protected under the First Amendment.” (Psst! Moron! Lies ARE protected under the First Amendment, and opinions aren’t defamatory.)
• “Just one more step in the right-wing effort to prohibit telling the truth, which is an essential step in advancing authoritarian rule.” (Authoritarian rule is bolstered by the government declaring what the truth is. Jeez…read “1984”!)

• This judge sounds anything but impartial by basically blasting how he’s going to rule on it before even considering the actual merits. Even with strict scrutiny cases like this one, compelling governmental interests can win in these cases. And I think tamping down misinformation on public health, at least, is a compelling governmental interest. It’s why we are losing faith in the judiciary. (Unbelievable, to the point of gaslighting. We now know that much of the “misinformation on public health” came from the government, and that what the “scientists” were calling right-wing disinformation was the truth.)

• “Since Republicans cannot continue to hold power at the federal level without massive amounts of disinformation, enemy creation and conspiracy theories, it makes sense that judges with a political agenda would try their best to insure that the disinformation continues unfettered. It may be tragic, but it’s our brave new world.” (Literally the opposite of what has been happening. The suppression of the Hunter Biden story helped the Democrats gain power. So did the false reporting of “Russian Collusion.”)

95% of the comments are like those. Where are the traditional free speech liberals who recognize the threats to democracy posed by government censorship by proxy? Are there any? Where is the ACLU? This is amazing: a judge tells the government not to use its power and the implicit threat of adverse action to “persuade” social media and Big Tech platforms to censor speech that the Axis considers “misinformation,” and progressives declare it “partisan” and sinister.

I must also say this: those anonymous “legal authorities” who don’t think the government can be barred from employing the Biden Administration’s “Nice little platform you have here…be a shame for something to happen to it if you keep publishing all those lies...” tactic as an unconstitutional restriction of speech are full of..well, mistaken. The judge has facts and law on his side, and the aspiring totalitarian Left is whistling in the dark.