MO AG Chronicles Gov't Infringement on Freedom of Speech at House Hearing

On Wednesday morning, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey testified before the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic at hearing entitled, Churches vs. Casinos: The Constitution is not Suspended in Times of Crisis." General Bailey spoke strongly about the “systemic, organized attempt to suppress the speech of tens of missions of Americans.”

The Federal government, led by the Biden Administration, has been suppressing free speech on social media platforms. Federal officials have utilized a three-pronged strategy to implement their regime of thought control.

“First, federal officials attempt to harm Big Tech companies by either threatening to remove their legal protections or by issuing statements deeply harmful to a company’s public image.”

“Second, backed by the previous threats, federal officials communicate behind closed doors with Big Tech companies, flagging specific speech that the federal officials dislike and badgering the companies to suppress the speech.”

“Third, once the federal officials have threatened Big Tech companies and flagged specific content, the implicit promise arrives: If Big Tech companies censor content, federal officials will back down from their public statements to harm the companies.”

As General Bailey explained, the censorship by the federal government is highly political in nature.

“Last month, lawyers for the federal government conceded in open court that nearly all content suppressed by the federal government is conservative. (The only example of suppressed liberal content the lawyers for the federal government could identify was content expressed by the President’s chief political opponent in the Democratic Party.) Remarkably, the lawyers tried to justify this enormous disparity by arguing that conservatives are far more likely than liberals to spread false speech.”

Each of these incredible claims by General Bailey have been substantiated by the evidence—and the government lawyers have even admitted to the claims. They simply argue that nothing is wrong with the censorship, and they plan to continue.

“The question of our time is whether Americans will enjoy the legacy of free speech handed down to us by the founding generation and protected by subsequent generations, or whether federal officials will control what we say, what we hear, and how we debate the veracity of claims and arguments. We are locked in a pitched battle for the very character of our nation. If we do not prevail over government officials who seek to control the speech of millions of Americans, we will be left with, in the words of Justice Gorsuch, ‘a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.’”

Register here to join RNLA this Friday at 2:00 p.m. ET for a special briefing with General Bailey!