Wednesday’s Morning Joe panel featured a stunning display of support for government censorship and crackdown on anything deemed “disinformation” by Democrat politicians or the media themselves.
In this blistering assault on the First Amendment of the US Constitution, MSNBC journalists Jonathan Lemire and Willie Geist brought on The Washington Post’s Cat Zakrzewski and NBC’s David Rohde to bemoan a federal judge issuing an injunction preventing the Biden administration from pressuring tech companies to censor constitutionally-protected speech.
Zakrzewski described how the ruling would have a “major chilling effect” on communications between government and social media, and lamented how they could now only censor criminal activity, not their political opponents.
Lemire then said he was concerned about “misinformation on things like COVID or the next pandemic, whenever that might happen, but national security concerns as well, with election disinformation and the like”, followed by a sob story by Rohde trying to justify the Biden administration’s campaign of lies and censorship throughout the pandemic:
“And what's happening is that, look, there were mistakes made by public health officials in the beginning of the pandemic, but there wasn't a vast plot to sort of mis-, you know trick the American people into taking a vaccine that would harm them. And so you have a kind of talking point, a political talking point turning into a court ruling. And that's what's so different about this. It's reinforcing, you know, these theories about what the government did and now restricting them.”
This was followed up by Rohde making a ridiculous analogy, wondering, “So, should FEMA not warn people about a hurricane?” “I mean, this was a public health emergency. It's sort of a basic thing about the government try to counter disinformation,” he defended the crackdown on COVID debate.
Hurricanes could not be farther from political issues like vaccines, pandemics, or the Biden family’s corruption.
Rhode presented a vast trove of falsehoods trying to rewrite history. As the Twitter Files exposed, the federal government was involved in trying to cover up true information, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story or the COVID origins in the Wuhan lab. This was done not to protect anyone.
As for the “mistakes” of public health officials, The New York Post reported that “The FDA now admits that the vaccines can cause strokes in senior citizens; many studies have linked the vaccines to myocarditis in young males.” Turns out, all the media shills and public health officials who touted the “safe and effective” vaccine really were tricking Americans into taking a vaccine that could harm them.
And Rohde’s claim that “I'm a reporter, I try to -- as I keep saying on the show, like you know, be fair and stick to the facts. And the courts need to do the same” was purely disgusting. NBC and MSNBC were the ones spreading lies, the courts simply upheld their duty to enforce the Constitution and hopefully will end the liberal media’s insane power trip.
MSNBC’s censorship rant was sponsored by Dove and Sleep Number. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
07/05/23
7:28 AM ET
(…)
WILLIE GEIST: Cat, I’ll start with you. Help us understand exactly what the federal government cannot do that it previously was doing in terms of its communication with social media companies.
CAT ZAKRZEWSKI: This is an extraordinarily broad injunction that could have major effects on a lot of the communications that were occurring between DOJ, various health agencies around the pandemic and election misinformation. Now, the judge's injunction does have some carve outs to allow the government and the companies to continue to talk about criminal activity, about voter suppression, but legal experts I spoke to expect that this will have a major chilling effect on ongoing communications. The order also limits some of the government's communications with academic groups that were studying disinformation on social media, like the Election Integrity Project, which is run by Stanford and the University of Washington.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, David, you know, there are some carve outs here, you know if there’s like if a crime is about to be committed, the government can reach out to these social media companies. But there's real concern with people I talked to the last couple of days about first of all misinformation on things like COVID or the next pandemic, whenever that might happen, but national security concerns as well, with election disinformation and the like, people that you've talked to who study this all the time, what's their level of alarm after this?
DAVID ROHDE: They're very concerned. And what's happening is that, look, there were mistakes made by public health officials in the beginning of the pandemic, but there wasn't a vast plot to sort of mis-, you know trick the American people into taking a vaccine that would harm them. And so you have a kind of talking point, a political talking point turning into a court ruling. And that's what's so different about this. It's reinforcing, you know, these theories about what the government did and now restricting them.
So should FEMA not warn people about a hurricane? I mean, this was a public health emergency. It's sort of a basic thing about the government try to counter disinformation. And the second thing is, I've talked to current government officials who are very concerned about foreign interference or just deep fakes in the 2024 election.
LEMIRE: Mike Barnicle, jump in.
MIKE BARNICLE: David, would it be fair to look from a little bit, you know, 50,000 feet down on this ruling and other rulings like it, to make the claim or posit the theory that in a way, the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo and the former president, with his judicial appointments, have changed the course of the country's legal history, and in fact, has put a big handprint on the administration today, because of these judicial rulings?
ROHDE: I want to say, not yet, and that I think there's a good chance that the Justice Department will appeal this and the Biden administration will push back, and then we'll have to see again where does the Supreme Court come down. And the broader trend is an increasingly political court system that's seen as making liberal or conservative rulings. Conservatives have said that the courts have been too liberal for too long, but the kind of hyper-partisanship that we see in our politics is definitely infecting the court system. The judge who made this ruling you know has made several -- he was a Trump appointee, and he's made several other, you know, conservative rulings like this.
So that's the slow encroachment on the courts and on their credibility, their impartiality. The Supreme Court has record-low approval at this point. So, this worries me. I'm a reporter, I try to -- as I keep saying on the show, like you know, be fair and stick to the facts. And the courts need to do the same. They need to act as umpires, not players on either side of the partisan divide.
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