Tag Archives: Gag order

A Gag Order That Allows The Other Side To Lie

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President Trump has been placed under a gag order to limit his comments about one of the lawfare cases against him. However, the Special Counsel continues to leak lies to the media. There is a glaring recent example of that dynamic reported by various news sources.

On Tuesday, The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Remember, on August 21st, in another ridiculous Lawfare operation, Special Counsel Jack Smith told ABC that Mark Meadows testified that President Trump never attempted to declassify any information {Go Deep}.   That report was transparently false, yet the media ran with it and multiple alternative media promoted it.  Pure nonsense.

In this latest Lawfare effort, again from Special Counsel Jack Smith, again to ABC news, again about former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the claim is the Special Counsel granted Meadows immunity (that’s the hook), and that Meadows told President Trump the 2020 election was not rigged or stolen.

Now remember, Mark Meadows wrote about the rigged and stolen 2020 election in his book, so why would he undermine his own story by saying something completely the opposite to Jack Smith that is only coming out now?   The Occam’s razor answer is, he didn’t.  This lawfare story is all made up, fictitious, anonymous sources, manufactured to create a public impression.

Bolstering the likelihood that Meadows gave no such testimony, Meadows lawyers, when contacted by media, said the story is fake news.   Yet again, everyone falls for it.  This is how Lawfare succeeds, and this is how Trayvon Martin’s fake and fabricated ear-witness girlfriend becomes the key witness and embarrasses the prosecution on the stand.

The article includes the following Tweet:

The mainstream media isn’t even trying to hide its lies anymore. Thank goodness for journalists like Catherine Herridge who are willing to tell the truth.

 

This Will Be A First (And Not A Good First)

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On Sunday, Julie Kelly posted an article at Substack about the potential gagging of President Trump during the election season (a season that I think began in November of last year).

The article reports:

Another precedent-setting event related to the criminal prosecution of a former president is scheduled for Monday morning in the federal courtroom of Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington.

Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking Chutkan—an Obama appointee with a record of biased and often inaccurate statements about Donald Trump and the events of January 6 in general—to silence the leading GOP presidential contender on a key campaign issue through the heart of the 2024 primary season.

Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s defense attorneys will square off during what is expected to be a fiery hearing to debate the special counsel’s proposed gag order ostensibly needed to prevent Trump from unduly influencing the D.C. jury pool with his criticism of the prosecution and those involved. A jury pool, by the way, almost exclusively populated by Democrats with deep contempt for Trump.

Chutkan set a March 2024 trial date for Smith’s four-count indictment against Trump for attempting to “overturn” the 2020 election; the indictment and trial, anticipated to last four to six weeks, represent a history-making case of election interference—a sitting Democratic president using his Department of Justice to ruin his presumptive Republican rival.

But forcing Trump to endure not one but two federal criminal trials isn’t enough to quench the Biden regime’s insatiable appetite for destruction. Smith, citing social media posts and interviews, wants Trump, his lawyers, and even his campaign associates banned from making any comments about the case.

“In service of his criminal conspiracies, through false public statements, the defendant sought to erode public faith in the administration of the election and intimidate individuals who refuted his lies,” Smith wrote in his September motion for a wide-ranging gag order. “The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case—to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this District, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses. [The] Court can and should take steps to restrict such harmful extrajudicial statements.”

The article concludes:

Trump’s lawyers responded in pointed fashion, calling the gag order “an extraordinary step of stripping President Trump of his First Amendment freedoms during the most important months of his campaign against President Biden.”

Which obviously is Smith’s motivation. A top DOJ official during the Obama-Biden administration, Smith has his marching orders. In a follow-up motion, Smith wrote that Trump’s candidacy shouldn’t be used as a “cover for making prejudicial statements about this case.”

After Monday’s hearing, it is Chutkan’s next move.

And Team Trump should be worried.

Not only does Chutkan have a history of making outlandish remarks in January 6 cases, she wrote the opinion that pierced presidential privilege and forced Trump to produce his records to the January 6 Select Committee. She also ruled against the Trump administration in cases involving illegal immigrants seeking abortions. Given her brazen partisanship from the bench, it is safe to assume her gag order is already a work in progress.

What has happened to the judicial process in America is a disgrace. I am convinced that the majority of our judges have never read the U.S. Constitution.

UPDATE:  The gag order has been put in place. It will be interesting to see what happens next. This will probably find its way to the Supreme Court. What the Supreme Court will do with it is anyone’s guess.

Good News For Covid Patients In California

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On Thursday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about a recent ruling by US District Court Judge William Shubb on enforcement of AB 2098.

The article reports:

Can the state of California enforce its own idea of “scientific consensus” on doctors who treat patients for COVID-19? Not after last night, when US District Court Judge William Shubb slapped an injunction on enforcement of AB 2098. This undoubtedly sets up a showdown at the Ninth Circuit, but for the moment the gag rule on doctors has been shut down.

After reading Shubb’s opinion about how badly the state legislature crafted the law, however, Gavin Newsom might want to think twice about further exposure. In the first place, the law forces doctors to only convey the “scientific consensus” on COVID-19 rather than their own judgment, when no one — not the legislature or its attorneys — can provide a definition of that term in relation to COVID-19:

…Shubb agrees with the plaintiffs in this action, noting that the “scientific consensus” regarding a novel virus only under study for three years is at best an aspirational concept. In practice, as Shubb notes, the “consensus” — as defined by California’s reliance on public-health officials — has changed repeatedly in that time. That puts every doctor at risk for prosecution in California no matter what they might say in any given moment, a standard so unreliable as to practically embody the terms “arbitrary” and “capricious”:

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. Physicians know their patients better than the government. A physician is much more able to look at a patient, understand the degree of risk that person will have in dealing with Covid. There doesn’t seem to be logic in the way different people react to Covid, and doctors should be allowed to do what they think is best for their patients. For example, the doctors at Frontline Doctors had a very high success rate in treating Covid patients, yet the government did everything possible to silence them and to prevent them from successfully treating patients.

Hopefully this case is the beginning of patients and doctors reclaiming the rights of Americans to good medical care.

Score One For Consumers

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On Wednesday The Western Journal posted an article with the following heading, “Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists.”

The article reports:

Currently, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers use the gag clauses to “forbid pharmacists from proactively telling consumers if their prescription would cost less if they paid for it out-of-pocket rather than using their insurance plan,” according to a press release from Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the bill’s sponsor.

Trump also signed Democratic Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s Know the Lowest Price Act, which “prohibits Medicare drug plans from putting a gag clause on a pharmacy in their contracts,” according to CNN.

The Patients’ Right To Know Drug Prices Act would lead to “a slight decrease in federal revenues,” according to the Congressional Budget Office.

That decrease could be offset by another provision in the bill, reported Politico.

Collins’s bill also targets “pay-for-delay,” a tactic where a brand drug company pays a generic manufacturer to withhold a product that would compete with the brand drug for market share.

Closing this loophole could save consumers and taxpayers money, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

“Who would think that using your debit card to buy your [prescription] drugs could be less expensive than using your insurance card? It’s counterintuitive. Americans have the right to know which payment method provides the most savings when purchasing their prescription drugs,” Collins tweeted Wednesday after Trump signed the bill.

If consumers pay for drugs out of their pockets because it is cheaper rather than relying on the insurance companies to pay for these drugs, eventually the insurance companies will be able to charge less for their drug policies, saving consumers money.

I can give you a personal example of this. When living in another state, I was prescribed a maintenance drug that my husband’s medical insurance covered at the time. My co-pay was $50 a month. When I moved to North Carolina, my health insurance did not cover the drug. My out-of-pocket cost was $50. Hmmm.

We need across-the-board reform in the area of medical insurance. The first thing to do might be to get the government as far away from that area of the economy as possible. There are fairly simple ways to make sure that everyone has access to healthcare (everyone has access by law to emergency rooms regardless of their ability to pay). It is time to tell the government to find something else to do.

Justice Turned Upside Down

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In June of last year, I reported on a rape case in Idaho (here). I don’t usually write about such things, but this was an unusual case (I hope). A five-year-old special needs girl was sexually assaulted after being lured to the laundry room of the apartment complex where she lived. Three young men assaulted her–two from Iraq ages 7 and 10, and one from Sudan aged 14. The attack was filmed by the oldest boy, so there is little doubt as to what happened.

However, it seems as if our justice system is not particularly interested in protecting little girls. World Net Daily recently posted an article about the trial of the young thugs.

Some highlights from the article:

A judge sentenced three Muslim refugee boys in the sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl in Idaho, but nobody knows the length or terms of the sentence because the judge has barred everyone in the courtroom, including the victim’s own parents, from speaking about the case.

The three boys — two from Iraq ages 7 and 10, and one from Sudan aged 14 — pleaded guilty in juvenile court in April to multiple counts of sex crimes in an incident that occurred last June in Twin Falls. The assault occurred at Fawnbrook Apartments, when 5-year-old Jayla, who is developmentally disabled, was lured into a laundry room, stripped of her clothing and sexually assaulted while the oldest boy filmed the entire incident.

Now, following a sentencing hearing Monday at the Snake River Juvenile Detention Center in Twin Falls, Judge Thomas Borresen of Idaho’s 5th Judicial District issued a gag order preventing everyone in the courtroom from saying anything about the sentence received by the boys.

Borresen did allow the family to say they were unhappy with the sentencing, but threatened to jail them for contempt of court if they say why they are unhappy.

“We can’t talk about it since it’s a sealed case,” said Lacy Peterson, the girl’s mother, when contacted by WND Tuesday.

Mathew Staver, chairman and co-founder of the nonprofit legal assistance agency Liberty Counsel, has stated that the judge does not have the right to place a gag order after the trail has taken place. This is a violation of the Constitution.

Why would the judge seal the records after the trial? I understand that our legal system does not usually release the names of juvenile defendants, but are these thugs a threat to other women in the community? Shouldn’t parents be aware of who these thugs are?

If you had a young daughter and lived in this community, would you want these young men on the sexual predators list? The gag order is totally insane. I for one would like to know exactly what the sentence was for this crime.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. The young girl’s parents were treated very badly, and the court seemed very concerned about any trauma her attackers might have suffered because they were arrested and not concerned about the trauma the little girl suffered. The entire story is upside down, and the judge is an example of a judge who is obviously not interested in making sure the lives and rights of Americans are protected.

 

The Double Standard At Work

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On Friday I posted an article about Aaron and Melissa Klein, who ran a bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa. They were fined $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding. They were also ordered “to cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of a place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of sexual orientation.” This occurred in the State of Oregon. I guess Michigan doesn’t do things that way.

This was posted on YouTube on April 2nd of this year:

Now that same-sex marriage is legal, will Muslim bakeries still be able to refuse to bake cakes for those weddings without any consequences?

Losing Our Rights

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The Weekly Standard posted an article today about Aaron and Melissa Klein, who previously ran a bakery called Sweet Cakes by Melissa. The bakery is now closed and shuttered after the State of Oregon fined them  $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding. To add insult to injury, Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian added a gag order to the fine, ordering the Kleins “to cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published, circulated, issued or displayed, any communication, notice, advertisement or sign of any kind to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, services or privileges of a place of public accommodation will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination will be made against, any person on account of sexual orientation.”

I am hoping that the gag order will be repealed. The fine should also be repealed, but I don’t see much chance of that happening in Oregon. This is another example of what is happening to our First Amendment–the concept of the ‘free exercise of religion‘ has been replaced with the idea of ‘freedom of religion.’ The concept of ‘free exercise’ allows people to practice their religion in the public square. The concept of ‘freedom of religion’ confines religion to the interior of the church. It is hard to be ‘salt and light’ in a society (as mentioned by Jesus) when you are not allowed to express your views in that society.