The Daily Signal - Squad Member Ousted, ISIS Interference at the Border, DNC Donating Millions to Trump Prosecution | June 26

Starting point is 00:00:01 The Supreme Court's latest ruling did not strike down big tech censorship. I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Wednesday, June 26. The Supreme Court issued its ruling on the free speech case, Murthy v. Missouri this morning. The court struck down a lower court's injunction, preventing the federal government from pressuring big tech companies to suppress free speech. The court ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case. The court did not rule on the question of whether the government may pressure social media companies to suppress speech in a way that would be illegal for the government to do itself. Justice Amy Coney-Barratt wrote the majority opinion. She said, we begin and end with standing.

Starting point is 00:00:56 At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merit. of the dispute. Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Alito wrote that if the lower court's evidence is correct, this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this court in years. Tyler O'Neill has been covering this case for the Daily Signal. He joins us now. Tyler, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. So let's start off with this Article III standing issue. What exactly does this mean when the court said that the plaintiffs failed to establish Article 3 standing? Yes. So standing is a very important aspect of any

Starting point is 00:01:45 court case because it shows that the particular plaintiffs are harmed and actually have a specific claim that they themselves must have adjudicated by the court. And so this is a very important bar that every lawsuit has to clear where the plaintiffs have to prove that they're not just Joe blow saying, hey, I don't like what the government is doing. I'm filing a lawsuit to stop it. I mean, we have a good court system that says you have to be particularly harmed. The interesting point here, though, is that that standing issue is, I mean, in the dissenting opinion, Justice Alito made the case that they do have standing to bring this lawsuit. and he zeroed in on one of the plaintiffs and said she was very concretely and clearly harmed by the government's pressure here.

Starting point is 00:02:47 So the government pressured Facebook to crack down on certain things. Facebook cracked down specifically on this plaintiff, and the court is saying this plaintiff doesn't have standing, which is a real head scratcher. Now, I have to go through the entire opinion to see exactly where, because I'm sure Amy Coney-Barritt has. has a good argument here somewhere. And standing is a very important issue. So as much as I wish that they had decided this case on the merits, there is a chance that the standing issue for some of the plaintiffs was a bridge too far. But certainly Justice Alito very strongly disagrees that, and he said that they shirked

Starting point is 00:03:34 their duty by not resolving this case on the merits. Who were these plaintiffs that brought the case? And what did they argue was the wrong done against them? Yeah. So there were a lot of plaintiffs in this case. Two states in particular, the states of Missouri and Louisiana, their attorneys general represented the states. And then we had doctors who spoke out against COVID mandates such as Martin Koldorf, Jay Batacharya, and Aaron Kariotti, a Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hofft, and Jill Heinz, who is an anti-lockdown advocate

Starting point is 00:04:08 and co-director of Health Freedom, Louisiana. So these people were, the basic claim of the case is that the federal government used its power to pressure big tech to censor certain views, and then these people had their content either de-platform,

Starting point is 00:04:29 deprioritized, or in some cases, actively removed, from the platforms in a way that would be impermissible if the federal government directly said, hey, you can't say this, but because the federal government used big tech as a weapon, as a cudgel, they thought they could do this. And so this is a very important case dealing with whether or not the federal government can essentially outsource its censorship desires to big tech companies. and that did not get resolved. Well, and I think because it didn't get resolved, chances are we're going to see this case

Starting point is 00:05:09 come back up, maybe eventually does the Supreme Court, but certainly we're going to see lower courts continue to debate this issue, no doubt. Tyler, thanks for your time on this. We appreciate it. My pleasure. New York voters ousted far-left squad member Jamal Bowman on Tuesday. The socialist New York representative lost in double digits in a Democrat primary in New York 16th Congressional District on Tuesday to County Executive George Latimer. The Democratic Socialist of America and fellow squad member, Representative Alexandria Ocasio

Starting point is 00:05:42 Cortez, endorsed Bowman. Bowman's challenger, George Latimer, entered the primary, in part, due to Bowman's opposition to Israel and his controversial statements that he made about Israel's war in Gaza. Boman has accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, despite Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel. At a political rally last November, Bowman questioned whether Hamas terrorists actually raped women or killed babies on October 7th. Bowman said on November 17th at a pro-Palestine rally,

Starting point is 00:06:15 there was propaganda used in the beginning of the siege. There's still no evidence of beheaded babies or raped women, but they still keep using that lie for propaganda. He said this, according to a TikTok video reported on by Politico. Bowman's term began in January of 2021. Transgender Biden administration official Rachel Levine pressured a health organization to remove age limits for transgender surgeries on minors. The New York Times reported that the Assistant Secretary for Health of the Department of Health and Human Services, Rachel Levine's staff, urged the World Professional Association for Transgender Health to drop age requirements for minors to get irreversible gender transgender.

Starting point is 00:06:59 transition surgeries. Psychologist and critic of transgender procedures for minors James Cantor submitted the emails as evidence in the Alabama case, Bo versus Marshall. World Professional Association for Transgender Health Guidance recommended age minimums of 14 for hormone treatment, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation, and 17 for genital surgeries. A member of the transgender organization wrote in one of the emails, we sent the document to Admiral Levine. She likes the SOC aid very much, but she was very concerned that having ages mainly for surgeries will affect access to health care for trans youth and maybe adults too. The member continued, apparently the situation in the U.S. is terrible, and Levine and the Biden

Starting point is 00:07:49 administration worried that having ages in the document will make matters worse. We'll keep you all posted on this. as this story continues to unfold. The terrorist organization ISIS, or the Islamic State, is helping illegal immigrants enter the United States. The Department of Homeland Security identified more than 400 illegal aliens brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network. That's according to reporting from NBC News. More than 150 of them have been arrested, but the location of more than 50 of them still remains unknown.

Starting point is 00:08:26 When they are located, immigration and customs enforcement, also referred to as ICE, will seek to arrest them on immigration charges. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn said in a tweet that he hopes President Trump confronts President Biden with this dangerous result of his open border policies at Thursday's debate. A senior Biden administration official told NBC, in this case, it was the information that suggested a potential tie to ISIS because of some of the individuals involved in smuggling migrants to the border that led us to want to take extra care and out of an abundance of of caution make sure that we exercise our authority in the most expansive and appropriate way to

Starting point is 00:09:06 mitigate risk because of this potential connection being made. Earlier this month, federal agents apprehended eight men from Tajikistan, a Central Asian nation that borders Afghanistan. The eight men resided in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, and were charged with violating civil U.S. immigration law. ICE was concerned that they were plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, according to sources that spoke with CBS News. The Democratic National Committee has sent millions to law firms involved in the legal campaign against former President Donald Trump.

Starting point is 00:09:43 That's according to reporting from the Daily Caller. Federal Elections Commission records show that the DNC has paid close to $2 million since August of 2021 to Kaplan Hecker and. Fink LLP for legal services. That's the law firm that represented E. Jean Carroll and her sexual assault and defamation suit against Trump. The firm's website says that partner Joshua Mott's served as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment trial. He was invited back to serve on the second impeachment trial.

Starting point is 00:10:17 Wilmore Cutler Pickering Hale and Door LLP has also received several million dollars from the DNC for, again, legal services since 2021, according to the FEC filing. Wilmer Hale attorneys filed an amicus brief in the case against Trump for alleged election interference, arguing the former president's quest for immunity is inconsistent with our Constitution. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, previously worked for Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Door. Mike Davis, a legal advisor to Trump and.

Starting point is 00:10:54 and the founder and president of the Article III project told the Daily Caller that there is now clear and explosive evidence that the Biden-DNC is paying Democrat law firms to engage in this unprecedented lawfare and election interference against President Trump. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here for The Daily Signal's top news. Make sure to catch the conversation tomorrow morning. Elizabeth Troutman is sitting down with the executive. director of the American Parents Coalition, Ali Murray.

Starting point is 00:11:28 And if you would, be sure to hit that subscribe button and leave the Daily Signal podcast a five-star rating and review. We love hearing your feedback. Have a great rest of your day. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning for our interview edition with Elizabeth Troutman and Ali Moray. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Bluey and Kate Trinko.

Starting point is 00:11:54 Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Mary Margaret Olahan. and Tyler O'Neill. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Squad Member Ousted, ISIS Interference at the Border, DNC Donating Millions to Trump Prosecution | June 26

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