This 'self-pitying' Trump judge’s 'crackpot ruling' shows he 'clearly swallowed' a conspiracy whole: report

06 July 2023

It isn't hard to understand why the U.S. Senate is a high priority on the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) 2024 agenda. Senators not only confirm Supreme Court justices and members of presidential administrations — they also confirm lower federal court judges.

If President Joe Biden is reelected in 2024, he will have a much easier time getting his nominees confirmed if Democrats keep their effective U.S. Senate majority.

In an article published by the American Prospect on July 6, journalist Ryan Cooper is highly critical of far-right judges that former President Donald Trump appointed to the lower federal courts — especially Louisiana District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty. According to Cooper, a recent "self-pitying" ruling by Doughty in a case involving pre-Elon Musk Twitter and posts attacking COVID-19 vaccines shows that he has completely bought into a MAGA "conspiracy theory."

"Back in April," Cooper explains, "District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a go-to option because he's the only judge in the Amarillo division of the Northern District of Texas and conservatives filing cases there know that he will hear them, attempted to ban abortion pills throughout the country, with a completely crackpot ruling in violation of all law and precedent. And this week, Louisiana District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a temporary injunction prohibiting federal agencies — including the FBI, Department of Health and Human Services, the Census Bureau, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and many others — from even talking to social media companies with 'the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.'"

The "premise" in the case that Trump appointee Doughty has been assigned to, according to Cooper, is a "conspiracy theory" claiming that Twitter conspired against conservatives before Elon Musk purchased the company and took over as CEO. The plaintiffs claim they were silenced when pre-Musk Twitter deleted posts expressing opposition to COVID-19 vaccines.

"Judge Doughty clearly swallowed the conspiracy theory whole," Cooper laments. "'The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition,' he wrote. The social media censorship story fit with preexisting right-wing dogma. Conservatives from cable news anchors on down to Facebook grandpas long ago convinced themselves that every media institution is biased against them, so as to make their demands to be given special treatment more convincing."

Doughty wrote, "If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history" — a claim Cooper slams as "self-pitying" and ludicrous.

A frustrated Cooper, in response, argues, "That's right, folks. The FBI requesting that posts that lie about vaccines during the worst pandemic in a century be deleted was worse than the Palmer Raids, COINTELPRO, the McCarthy hearings, and the Pinckney gag rule."

The American Prosect's full article is available at this link.

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