Customer trapped in vault for 10 hours in Manhattan Diamond District

• October 25, 2023

Thomas Tracy | New York Daily News

A customer was trapped in a vault for nearly 10 hours in Manhattan’s Diamond District before being freed Wednesday morning, FDNY officials said.

The 23-year-old victim was inside the vault at DJA Securities on Fifth Ave. near E. 47th St. about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday when the door closed and locked, leaving him trapped inside.

The vault door was on a timing mechanism and wouldn’t open until early Wednesday, FDNY Battalion Chief John Sarrocco told reporters.

“This vault has very large concrete walls that have steel reinforcing bars and also steel plating,” Sarrocco said. “The process was started to breach the wall, which has about 30 inches of concrete in it.”

Both the FDNY and the NYPD were in communication with the customer inside the vault and able to watch him on a security camera.

After several hours, the FDNY managed to cut through the concrete to the steel plating, when they had to reassess the situation.

In order to cut through the plating, the FDNY “would have to use torches that would affect the environment of the person in the vault,” Sarrocco explained. “After about 10 hours, we decided to wait and see if the door would open automatically.”

At about 6:15 a.m. Wednesday, the lock disengaged on its own and the man was freed, Sarrocco said.

In order to cut through the plating, the FDNY “would have to use torches that would affect the environment of the person in the vault,” Sarrocco explained. “After about 10 hours, we decided to wait and see if the door would open automatically.”

At about 6:15 a.m. Wednesday, the lock disengaged on its own and the man was freed, Sarrocco said.

​ Orange County Register 

Mike Johnson is the latest GOP nominee for House speaker as Republicans move to yet another vote

• October 25, 2023

By LISA MASCARO, STEPHEN GROVES, FARNOUSH AMIRI and KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON — Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson as their latest nominee for House speaker desperate to unite their fractious majority and end the chaos, just hours after an earlier pick abruptly withdrew in the face of opposition from Donald Trump.

Johnson of Louisiana, a lower-ranked member of the House GOP leadership team, becomes the fourth Republican nominee in what has become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockey for power.

When the House convenes at noon Wednesday ahead of a floor vote, Johnson, who won the majority behind closed doors, will need almost all Republicans in the public roll call to win the gavel.

“Mike! Mike! Mike!” lawmakers chanted at a press conference late Tuesday night, surrounding Johnson and posing for selfies in a show of support.

Three weeks on, the Republicans have been frittering away their majority status — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in action to others, but not at all how the House is expected to function.

Refusing to unify, far-right members won’t accept a more traditional speaker and moderate conservatives don’t want a hardliner. While Johnson had no opponents during the private roll call, some two dozen Republicans did not vote, more than enough to sink his nomination.

Anxious and exhausted, Republican lawmakers are desperately trying to move on. “Pretty sad commentary on governance right now,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. “Maybe on the fourth or fifth or sixth or 10th try, we’ll get this thing right.”

After he withdrew Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Tom Emmer briskly left the building where he had been meeting privately with Republicans. He said later at the Capitol that Trump’s opposition did not affect his decision to bow out.

“I made my decision based on my relationship with the conference,” he said, referring to the GOP majority. Emmer said he would support whomever emerges as the new nominee. “We’ll get it done.”

Trump, speaking as he left the courtroom in New York where he faces business fraud charges, said his “un-endorsement” must have had an impact on Emmer’s bid.

“He wasn’t MAGA,” said Trump, the party’s front-runner for the 2024 presidential election, referring to his Make America Great Again campaign slogan.

House Republicans returned behind closed doors, where they spend much of their time, desperately searching for a leader who can unite the factions, reopen the House and get the U.S. Congress working again.

Attention quickly turned to Johnson, 51, who was the second highest vote-getter on Tuesday morning’s internal ballots.

A lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, Johnson had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

Elevating Johnson to speaker would giving Louisianans two high-ranking GOP leaders, putting him above Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was rejected by hardliners in his own bid as speaker.

But hardliners swiftly resisted Johnson’s bid and a new list of candidates emerged. Among them was Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, a Trump ally who ran third on the morning ballot, and a few others.

In the end, Johnson won 128 votes on the evening ballot, more than any other candidate. McCarthy, who was not on the ballot, won a surprising 43 votes.

“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Johnson said afterward, Scalise standing behind him. “We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here.”

One idea circulating, first reported by NBC News, was to reinstall McCarthy as speaker with hardline Rep. Jim Jordan in a new leadership role.

It was being pitched as a way to unite the conference, lawmakers said, but many said it would not fly.

“I think sometimes it’s good to have fresh ideas and fresh people,” said Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind.

While Emmer won a simple majority in a morning roll call behind closed doors — 117 votes — he lost more than two dozen Republicans, leaving him far short of what will be needed during a House floor tally ahead.

With Republicans controlling the House 221-212 over Democrats, any GOP nominee can afford just a few detractors to win the gavel.

Trump allies, including the influential hard-right instigator Steve Bannon, have been critical of Emmer. Some point to his support of a same-sex marriage initiative and perceived criticisms of the former president. Among the far-right groups pressuring lawmakers over the speaker’s vote, some quickly attacked Emmer.

Having rejected the top replacements, Scalise and the Trump-backed Jordan, there is no longer any obvious choice for the job.

“We’re in the same cul-de-sac,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.

Yet Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., one of the hardliners, said, “This is what democracy looks like.”

Republicans have been flailing all month, unable to conduct routine business as they fight amongst themselves with daunting challenges ahead.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

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Many hardliners have been resisting a leader who voted for the budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this year, which set federal spending levels that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now want to undo. They are pursuing steeper cuts to federal programs and services with next month’s funding deadline.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she wanted assurances the candidates would pursue impeachment inquiries into Biden and other top Cabinet officials.

During the turmoil, the House is now led by a nominal interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Financial Services Committee. His main job is to elect a more permanent speaker.

Some Republicans — and Democrats — would like to simply give McHenry more power to get on with the routine business of governing. But McHenry, the first person to be in the position that was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as an emergency measure, has declined to back those overtures.

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Judge eviscerates new heavy-handed California gun laws

• October 25, 2023

For the second time this year, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez struck down heavy-handed California laws regulating the Second Amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms.” In September, he threw out a law limiting magazines to 10 rounds. Last week he dumped a California law banning so-called “assault weapons,” which really are just mean-looking rifles that scare politicians who don’t know anything about guns.

He ruled, “The American tradition is rich and deep in protecting a citizen’s enduring right to keep and bear common arms like rifles, shotguns, and pistols. However, among the American tradition of firearm ownership, there is nothing like California’s prohibition on rifles, shotguns, and handguns based on their looks or attributes.”

As with the earlier decisions, the new one is being appealed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, who said, “Weapons of war have no place on California’s streets. This has been state law in California for decades, and we will continue to fight for our authority to keep our citizens safe from firearms that cause mass casualties.” Gov. Gavin Newsom seconded that: “Californians’ elected representatives decided almost 35 years ago that weapons of war have no place in our communities.”

But as Sam Parades, executive director of Gun Owners of California, told us, Benitez “meticulously and methodically broke down and destroyed” Bonta’s arguments. “We believe that the California Assault Weapons Control Act will go into the dustbin of history.”

Indeed, Benitez thoroughly eviscerated the hollow arguments of Bonta and Newsom.

“Other than their looks,” he wrote, “these prohibited rifles are virtually the same as other lawfully possessed rifles. They have the same minimum overall length, they use the same triggers, they have the same barrels, and they can fire the same ammunition, from the same magazines, at the same rate of fire, and at the same velocities, as other rifles.”

Related: Will Gov. Newsom ever realize California’s gun laws must follow the Second Amendment?

The insistence of Bonta and Newsom to hyperbolically refer to the prohibited weapons as “weapons of war” mainly speaks to their ignorance of what they think they are talking about.

Benitez also directly notes that the sort of weapons Bonta and Newsom want banned are commonly used in acts of self-defense. While Bonta and Newsom are rightly horrified by mass shootings committed with such weapons, they pay no regard to the stories of those who use them lawfully and legitimately to save themselves and their families.

Citing research indicating that there are up to three million defensive uses of guns per year, Benitez presents multiple specific cases of people using AR-15’s to protect themselves against violent criminals. The ability of Californians to protect themselves should matter.

“California’s answer to the criminal misuse of a few is to disarm its many good residents,” Judge Benitez wrote. “That knee-jerk reaction is constitutionally untenable, just as it was 250 years ago. The Second Amendment stands as a shield from government imposition of that policy.”

Both of Benitez’s actions against overreaching gun laws in California could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which last year in its Bruen decision upheld a broad reading of the Second Amendment, among other things permitting carrying guns in public as an individual right. The current makeup of the court bodes well for the protection of the Second Amendment.

But for now, we give kudos to Judge Roger Benitez for standing up to the tyrannical impulses of Newsom and Bonta to disarm the law-abiding.

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​ Orange County Register 

California Gov. Newsom takes an odd trip to China, Israel

• October 25, 2023

For a guy who isn’t running for president, Gov. Gavin Newsom certainly is spending a lot of time doing things that presidential candidates do.

In 2022, he posted billboards in seven conservative states criticizing their anti-abortion policies.

In April, he toured several Southern states as part of his “Campaign for Democracy” to promote progressive values across the country.

This week he headed to China for a week-long trip to tour, where he is visiting electric-car companies and is promoting cultural exchanges, economic-development projects and action against climate change. He also took a detour, stopping in war-torn Israel to meet with survivors of the Hamas attacks.

He even joked about the whole “is he running or isn’t he?” vibe. “I wish I was president of the United States,” he said in response to reporters’ questions about seeking a ceasefire in Gaza.

It’s not entirely unusual for a governor to take international publicity trips. Other California governors have done so.

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, recently visited Israel. And Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is attempting to boost his flagging campaign for president, partnered with a nonprofit to airlift 270 U.S. citizens from Israel to Florida. At least that effort yielded tangible humanitarian goals.

Not only conservatives ripped Newsom’s China trip because he hasn’t made mention of Chinese human-rights violations.

That’s a valid concern, but the bigger question: Why is he gallivanting around the globe as the state struggles with myriad high-profile crises?

For instance, Newsom had vowed to build tiny homes for the homeless across the state. Seven months later, the state hasn’t even awarded any contracts.

That failure is emblematic of California’s approach to homelessness and other major problems — lots of promises and spending, but little follow through.

We have no real problem with Newsom flying to international hotspots, but if he’s serious about running for president, or at least serious about being ready if President Joe Biden bows out of the 2024 race, he ought to get matters in order at home.

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​ Orange County Register 

Veterinarian telehealth bill aims to relieve limited access to vet care

• October 25, 2023

For the last several years, there have been two primary reasons pets are surrendered to animal shelters: lack of affordable pet-inclusive housing options, and lack of access to affordable veterinary care and/or access to timely vet appointments.

The bad news: we haven’t fixed the problem with affordable pet-inclusive housing. Not even close. But let’s talk about that another time.

The good news: California is fixin’ to address limited access to veterinary care by passing Assembly Bill 1399 — which empowers licensed California veterinarians to establish a veterinarian-client/patient relationship through video technology — which basically means now you do not have to first establish care with a vet in-person before you can access telemedicine visits.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law two weeks ago, and it will go into effect on January 1, 2024.

Currently, California regulations restrict veterinarians from effectively using telehealth and even bar them from giving simple advice and direction to pet owners through telemedicine unless the owners bring their animals into the veterinary hospital, according to a press release from the San Francisco SPCA.

For new pet owners in particular, this creates a significant challenge when it comes to establishing care with a practitioner.

Why? When someone adopts a companion animal and needs to establish care with a veterinarian, they are often unable to get a new patient appointment within a few days or weeks, or even months.

The massive shortage of veterinarians across the country has made it hard for folks to get basic care because the number of practicing vets cannot meet the demand of patients in need of care.

Many practices aren’t accepting new patients at all. This is particularly true in more rural areas or “veterinary deserts.”

For animal shelters, the vet shortage has led to more surrenders, more adoption-returns, and a dramatic slow down of adoptions.

When we talk to pet owners in crisis, the reason most often given for surrendering a pet is because they simply cannot access affordable vet care.

Since many animals adopted from shelters have known health issues that require ongoing medical management, the shortage of affordable vet care has meant that those animals sit in kennels longer awaiting a new home, or more tragically, lose their lives because there is no reasonable adoption outcome in sight.

A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Jennifer Scarlett, CEO of the San Francisco SPCA, has been an active supporter of passing AB-1399. She’s thrilled with Governor Newsom’s historic endorsement of the bill.

In a press release on the San Francisco SPCA website, she said, “Telemedicine is accepted in human medicine and proven to be beneficial and effective. AB 1399 will allow veterinary telemedicine practices to help fill a critical service gap and give California pet owners cost-effective, convenient and timely access to licensed veterinarians. It is past time for the veterinary profession to modernize and address the care gap.”

Several other animal welfare organizations across the state have also been enthusiastically supportive, such as San Diego Humane Society, the ASPCA, and the Humane Society of the United States.

Some of Dr. Scarlett’s colleagues in the veterinary industry are not quite so happy about this, though.

“This bill will help the profitability of televet companies while resulting in substandard care for pets and problems for California veterinarians saddled with the consequences of televet veterinary practice gone wrong,” said Dr. Keith Rode in an op-ed in Capitol Weekly.

He went on to say, “Establishing a personal connection between a veterinarian and a pet is an essential component of veterinary care. Unlike human patients, pets cannot speak to tell their doctor what is wrong. In fact, instinctually they often hide symptoms. Veterinarians are trained to use sight, sound, smell and touch during a physical exam to help determine what is wrong with an animal patient.”

I mean, he’s not wrong. In-person care is the gold standard. But what about folks whose circumstances (financially or logistically) make it near impossible for them to access that personal connection?

As a former animal shelter leader in California, I have seen first hand how devastating it can be for low-income families to have to surrender a beloved pet because of the obstacles they face in obtaining veterinary care.

These financial, geographical and logistical obstacles often lead families to postpone or forgo treatment for their pets.

Routine medical issues become huge infections and more expensive medical interventions pet owners cannot afford. Consequently, when these animals end up tragically being surrendered to municipal shelters, it is taxpayers who end up footing the bill.

Listen, there is no substitute for getting health care in-person. When that is a viable and affordable option, I agree that it’s best for people and animals.

But in the post pandemic world where access to services is increasingly challenging, the need for a bit more flexibility is necessary in order to close that patient care gap.

For folks with financial, mobility or transportation issues, access to telemedicine is particularly important.

Fortunately, as of January 1, those folks will finally have a safe and effective option to get the care they need for their pets. I think it’s a good thing.

As a child, Jack Hagerman founded and operated his own make-shift animal rescue — taking in stray cats, injured birds, and the occasional bunny. As an adult, he co-founded a critically endangered livestock conservancy on his farm in the Midwest, where he cared for and rehabilitated more than 400 animals in 17 different critically endangered livestock species. He formerly worked with Pasadena Humane and the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society. When he isn’t working with animals, he’s writing about them — hoping to create a better world for our animal friends, one witty tangent at a time.

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​ Orange County Register 

San Bernardino County’s homebuying slump: Might cheaper mortgages be the cure?

• October 25, 2023

Can falling mortgage rates – whenever that happens – revive homebuying in San Bernardino County?

How slow is it? Consider that in the 12 months ended in August, 28,810 San Bernardino County residences sold, according to CoreLogic. That’s 34% below the homebuying pace of two years earlier.

This drop can be linked to drastically falling affordability in the pandemic era.

August’s median price of $495,000 – the fourth-highest ever – is up 41% since February 2020. Meanwhile, mortgage rates went from 3.5% to 7.1%. A typical San Bernardino buyer saw house payments surge 112% to $2,661 monthly, assuming a 20% downpayment.

My trusty spreadsheet reviewed how homebuying moved with big rate swings dating back to 1988. This 416-month span was sliced into thirds – ranking the results by one-year moves in the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate from Freddie Mac.

We contrasted the periods when rates surged the fasted vs. times when mortgages tumbled the most. Both groupings averaged 1 percentage-point moves over 35 years.

The swings

Ponder how San Bernardino homebuying gyrates during these rate-swing extremes since 1988.

Start with pricing. When mortgages were in their steepest jumps, home values in San Bernardino averaged 9% one-year gains.

Yet when mortgages were in their steepest drops, median home prices in San Bernardino had 1.5% gains.

By the way, the local median price has appreciated 4.6% since 1988. So cheaper financing for house hunters could mean softer pricing, too.

And falling rates modestly boost the San Bernardino sales pace, historically speaking.

The largest rate drops came with 6.9% one-year gains in the number of closed transactions.

When rates increased rapidly, however, the sales pace fell – averaging 4.1% one-year losses.

The secret sauce

There’s a catch to lower rates – housing’s three magic words: “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Rates are usually rising when the overall economy is strong – even too strong – and hiring is plentiful. Remember, you need a solid paycheck to be a successful house hunter.

Yet rates tend to dip when the economy is sour, and that’s not a great backdrop for a major purchase such as a home. So, let’s peek at California’s job market since 1988.

When rates surged over the past 35 years, California employment grew at a 2.7%-a-year pace. But jobs shrank at a 0.7% annual pace when rates tumbled.

Bottom line

This isn’t just some local housing quirk. Falling rates come with pricing weakness in many places.

Across the six-county Southern California region, the sharpest rate jumps were in step with 8% average one-year price gains. The largest rate drops came with 2% average price gains.

And nationally, soaring rates meant an average 7.5% one-year gain in the Case-Shiller US index vs. 2% appreciation when rates were cascading.

History is not a forecast. And maybe it’ll be different this time. But 35 years is a good guide to what’s possible.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

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​ Orange County Register 

Old Dominion comes to the Crypto.Com Arena to celebrate its newest record ‘Memory Lane’

• October 25, 2023

In the wake of Old Dominion, the five-piece country group, releasing its newest record “Memory Lane” on Oct. 6, lead singer Matthew Ramsey reveals that the band has been experiencing a certain sense of alignment, both in their careers and personal lives.

“Right now, it just feels like everything is coming together,” Ramsey said in a recent phone interview. “We’ve been learning so much about who we are as a band and who are fans are. We’ve put a lot of hard work into this career and now it’s like were just watching it in real time come to fruition with the new record and every night on tour in these arenas. It’s honestly the most joyful time.”

As the country quintet preps to grace the stage at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Friday, Oct. 27, Ramsey also expresses that he and the other four members have found a new sense of comfort in their creative process and stage presence. After 16 years as a band, Old Dominion has reached a point where it “all flows naturally, devoid of any sense of effort or strain.” That sense of ease and flow is apparent in the new 18-track LP which includes “I Should Have Married You,” “Easier Said With Rum,” “Ain’t Got A Worry” and taking the No. 1 spot on country radio, “Memory Lane.”

Ironically, the reigning Academy of Country Music Awards Group of the Year never had the intention of making music together. What began as a collective of aspiring songwriters in Nashville, brought together to showcase their individual songs, has since evolved into what Ramsey fondly describes as a close-knit family. Thequintet dedicated considerable time to honing its craft. In the early days of Old Dominion, the focus was on creating songs that would gain radio airplay, rather than delving into the depths of personal stories. It wasn’t until they struck gold with the release of “Break Up with Him” off the sophomore album, “Meat and Candy” in 2015 that everything fell into place. This track became the band’s first Billboard No.1 hit and marked a successful turning point.

Now, with the release of the band’s fifth studio album “Memory Lane,” fans can anticipate a new era. While Old Dominion’s classic sound remains intact, it now features an elevated twist, complete with electric guitar solos in tracks like “Freedom Like You” and a touch of sultry R&B in “Easier Said with Rum.”

“It’s pretty obvious in this record that we feel a lot more confident in our abilities as musicians and as a band,” Ramsey said. “There’s less pressure now when we go into the studio. We just know what we’re there to do and we can enjoy it fully and create what we want to create. And as men, we’ve all evolved and been through it. We work on ourselves with growing. This career can be tumultuous at times so it’s nice to reflect on who we are as people. Whether that’s us reading books and sharing them with each other or going to therapy, we just feel really good about who we are as people and this stage of life.”

While reflecting on the album, Ramsey describes the creative process of its latest record as both lengthy and surprisingly effortless. The group initiated recording at Jimmy Buffett’s studio in Key West, Florida, for a few days in 2021, and then seamlessly transitioned back on the road for tour. This cyclical pattern continued over the next few years, with the band alternating between studio work and touring, gradually building what the world would now know as “Memory Lane.” Lyrically, the group feels comfortable expressing their real-life experiences, offering a level of authenticity that resonates with new and old fans.

“When you boil down songwriting, they tell you to write what you know which is a very simple concept, but it’s also hard when you feel like you need to sort of chase after a hit or what you think people want to hear,” Ramsey said. “But truthfully, if you just turn inward and write what’s in your heart and what’s going on in your life or what you observe in your friends’ lives, that’s what ultimately connects us to fans. That’s what we’ve been able to do here.”

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Now, the band is taking over the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, hosting 20,000 fans for a night filled with fan-favorite hits. And although the Nashville-based group doesn’t necessarily have Southern California roots, it does feel a strong connection to the fan base that has grown immensely on the West Coast. It’s something Ramsey can’t quite put into words, but it’s a city the band looks forward to playing time and time again.

“I can’t really explain how our relationship with Los Angeles grew so much, but it did,” Ramsey said. “I had never been to Southern California before this band started to take off and we started touring and I remember very vividly the moment I stepped off the and took a deep breath and thought ‘My god, I love it here.’ Soon after we started writing about California and it worked its way into our music and songwriting, it’s just a special connection and a beautiful relationship. We’re so excited to get back to Los Angeles and play at the (Crypto.Com Arena), it’s such an iconic venue. We just can’t wait to play for those fans.”

Old Dominion: No Bad Vibes Tour

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 27

Where: Crypto.com Arena, 1111 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles

Tickets: $57-$563 at ticketmaster.com.

​ Orange County Register 

Susan Shelley: Supreme Court sends mixed signals on social media censorship

• October 25, 2023

Without exaggeration, we are heartbeats away from losing freedom in this country, and as President Ronald Reagan said, if we lose it here there is nowhere else to go.

Freedom of speech, the most fundamental of freedoms, has a very simple meaning. It means the government may not infringe your freedom to speak, to express your views and ideas, and to be heard in public.

Laws prohibiting specific types of speech such as libel and incitement to violence must be narrowly tailored. A broad, government-directed censorship of speech to prevent unspecified potential harm is what the First Amendment makes impossible. If it doesn’t, it might as well be in a landfill.

Garbage trucks are standing by. A majority of the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have just granted the government’s request to “stay” (undo) a lower court’s order requiring the government to immediately stop the conduct which prompted the lawsuit previously called Missouri v. Biden and now known as Murthy v. Missouri.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, disagreed with the majority’s decision. They do not think the court should have allowed the government to continue “what two lower courts found to be a ‘coordinated campaign’ by high-level federal officials to suppress the expression of disfavored views on important public issues.”

The Supreme Court majority did this “without undertaking a full review of the record and without any explanation,” Alito wrote.

That record includes 82 pages of “findings of fact” by the U.S. District Court. The injunction ordered by Judge Terry Doughty found that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail and that they would suffer irreparable harm if the government was allowed to continue what the Court of Appeals agreed was “unrelenting pressure” from certain government officials that likely “had the intended result of suppressing mil­lions of protected free speech postings by American citi­zens.”

While the injunction allowed the government to take actions in narrow categories of national security and criminal investigation, it prohibited the White House and multiple government departments and agencies from “any manner” of “urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing” social media companies to engage in the “removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” The judge said that means no flagging, no forwarding, and no pressuring the companies to “change their guidelines.” Further, no meetings, calls, letters, or texts, and no “following up” or “requesting content reports” to document “actions taken to remove, delete, suppress or reduce content containing protected free speech.”

If that sounds like it couldn’t possibly be real in the United States of America and must be some fevered nightmare of paranoid “extremists on the right,” consider this: the Biden administration immediately appealed the injunction, insisting that it must continue all these practices for the good of the nation while the case proceeds to trial.

It is this appeal of the district court’s order that ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court and has now found favor with a majority of justices on the nation’s highest court. This is the branch of the United States government that is ultimately responsible for safeguarding your freedom by telling the rest of the government that the Constitution means there are some things the government simply cannot do to people.

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Without that, you might as well be in California. Courts here routinely ignore the plain language of the state constitution and make up new rules to allow local governments to disregard plain-language constitutional provisions. As one example, Proposition 13 required local taxes to receive a two-thirds vote of the electorate, but courts have carved costly loopholes.

For now, the U.S. Supreme Court will allow the government to continue its coercive censorship-by-proxy. However, the justices agreed to consider the merits of the case and issue a decision, likely by next June.

If the justices rule for the government and against the people who were censored and deplatformed, the loss of freedom of speech will only accelerate in years to come. Governments don’t ever give up their coercive powers voluntarily.

Be alarmed that a majority of the justices presently on the court thought it was okay for these coercive activities to continue, even temporarily. Pray for the health of the ones who didn’t.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @ Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register