OPINION: We should try protecting all First Amendment rights

The Lewiston Tribune’s guest editorial of Aug. 22 from the Yakima Herald-Republic rightly expresses concern about abridgement of First Amendment rights.

It reports that all five city police officers of Marion, Kan., raided the family-owned, local, weekly newspaper, the Marion County Record. They searched everything, and took papers, computers and cellphones. The police had a magistrate’s order. But so far, no explanation has been given of what they were looking for or what legal grounds justified the seizures. The police also took property not listed but necessary to continue publishing.

They also raided the home of the Record’s editor and publisher, probably causing the stress-induced death of his 98-year-old mother the next day. She had referred to the raid as “Hitler tactics.”

The county’s prosecutor said there was insufficient evidence to justify the search.

Although the details of the raid are not established as of this writing, it seems the newspaper was investigating a local restaurant owner’s driving record. The Herald-Republic’s statement that it is the newspaper’s duty to “advocate for the community’s interests and being a watchdog on government power” is not now in evidence in most media for unapproved topics. That includes instances of state and local government also suppressing free speech.

For instance, New York state wants to build Guantanamo-like detention centers.

In 2019, the Trusted News Initiative was started by the British Broadcasting Corp. and major media — The Washington Post, Reuters and others — to ensure “disinformation” (misinformation) was not allowed for public consumption. Since “disinformation” didn’t appear until 2020, how did TNI know about it in 2019?

Now a company called News Guard is planning to block independent media outlets. It is a fabrication imposed by the very people seeking to control others’ words even through emails.

Days after assuming office, the current administration instituted the use of routine directives to social media of what it wanted to be censored and blocked, using “disinformation” and other excuses. This private-public partnership (traditionally labeled fascism) of government departments and agencies using these and other proxies, violate the First Amendment. It has been exposed by Freedom of Information Act releases, and statements by social media themselves, such as the Twitter files. See, also, Kennedy et al. v. Biden et al. and state of Missouri et al. v. Biden et al.

How does this administration pick its targets?

For some of its censorship decisions, it uses information from the U.K.-based group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate. It’s known from the Facebook files that CCHD is working with the White House to censor free speech.

The House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is investigating who funds the CCHD and why this obscure foreign group is allowed to block the First Amendment free speech rights of Americans. It comes from a covert political agenda designed to push America to the far left with a system of power versus a system of law.

Weaponization of the federal government includes the FBI in full riot gear arresting parents at home for speaking at school board meetings and simply stating opinions.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security may be using CCDH fabrications to identify domestic terrorists. Remember, so-called domestic terrorists include former military personnel, gun owners and writers. The FBI field offices in Richmond, Va., Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles composed a memo targeting “radical-traditionalist Catholics” and recruiting parishioners to inform on others.

The CCDH published “The Disinformation Dozen” of supposed spreaders of disinformation and it was labeled wrong by Facebook. The CCHD’s inaccurate statements are typical of woke and Marxist behavior to accuse others of what they themselves continually do. They talk of diversity and tolerance, but not for those who disagree with them. They see themselves as the compassionate elite, forcing us to follow.

The Gospel of Matthew 23:27-32 describes the Pharisees as whitewashed tombs, outwardly beautiful. But within, they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanliness, a fitting description of the woke and Marxists.

Perhaps they should listen to the hugely popular “Rich Men North of Richmond,” about the worldwide problem of the poor struggling under the yokes of wealthy elites. The public knows we cannot count on “equal justice under the law.”

There is the complete canceling by the TNI media of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a classic liberal Democrat like his father, the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, the late President John F. Kennedy.

RFK Jr. should be the Democratic Party’s top candidate if only for his extremely strong record on environmental protection, name recognition and position on constitutionally orientated government, free of entanglements such as with Big Pharma.

He and his freedom fighter group, The Children’s Health Defense, have opinions independent of the “swamp” controlling the Democratic Party and some of the Republican Party. Every attempt will be made to silence him, but probably not to the extent of his father and uncle. But why won’t they provide him Secret Service protection?

There is incredible media silence in the case of Dr. Renata Moon.

Moon is a pediatrician who for many years taught at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in Spokane and others. She testified at U.S. Sen. Ronald Johnson’s hearing last December in Washington, D.C. She was there at her own expense during personal time off from her teaching at the medical school.

As part of her response to questions, she showed a package insert that is required by federal law to be with every medication, listing all known complications of the contents. The insert was shown at the hearing to demonstrate how a large part of white paper is blank on both sides, apart from wording “intentionally blank” printed on each side. How could a patient determine if they want to be exposed to the complications?

Why can a highly competent pediatrician, with an unblemished career record, lose her WSU medical school faculty teaching position because of her testimony before our Congress?

WSU made clear that they did not approve of her statements at the Senate hearing and noted that it was their “ethical obligation” to report her testimony to the Washington State Medical Commission.

WSU reported that Moon “may have” been spreading “misinformation.” WSU seems well on its way to its apparent intention of being completely woke.

That fact is that her First Amendment rights were cast aside by her employer, the federally funded WSU medical school, while some number of pharmaceutical companies broke the law with impunity. Any physician speaking against the single-party narrative, asking appropriate safety questions and honoring their oath to “do no harm” is exposed to loss of job and medical license.

Tragically, the media has also cast aside its obligation to, as the Herald-Republic stated, “be a watchdog on government power.”

Eggleston, M.D., is a retired ophthalmologist. His email address is rjeggleston@gmail.com.