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ACLU Statement on Supreme Court’s Decision Related to Whether Public Officials Can Block Social Media Followers
The Supreme Court on Friday clarified when public officials’ social media posts are subject to the First Amendment in response to two challenges, O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed.
“We’re gratified by the court’s ruling today, which underscores that the First Amendment restricts how the government can shape speech that takes place on social media,” said Evelyn Danforth-Scott, ACLU staff attorney specializing in Supreme Court litigation. “It gives everyday Americans a way to hold officials constitutionally accountable when they censor social media content, restrict access to it, or improperly elevate certain viewpoints over others. At the same time, it protects public officeholders’ own free speech rights by giving them guidance on how to make clear when they are speaking as private individuals.”
Both cases involved local officials who had blocked or censored critical constituents from Facebook and X (formerly Twitter); the constituents then sued, saying denying them access violated their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court ruled that social media posts and curation efforts by government officials can be attributed to the state, and, therefore, subject to First Amendment scrutiny, only if the speaker has the authority to speak on the state’s behalf and purports to exercise that authority through their relevant social media presence.
The ruling follows friend-of-the court briefs filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Michigan, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, which acknowledged that the First Amendment guarantees public officials’ right to free speech in their private capacities, but argued that when public officials appear to represent their government offices online, they are acting in their government capacities and so are subject to the First Amendment’s prohibitions on government censorship.
These cases are part of ACLU’s Joan and Irwin Jacobs Supreme Court Docket.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Progressives Rip Morning Joe Corporate Duo for 'Ring-Kissing' at Mar-a-Lago
One veteran journalist called Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough's meeting with Donald Trump "a disgusting show of obeisance in advance."
Nov 18, 2024
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday, hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough assured viewers that their recent meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago was not meant to "normalize" the Republican leader, whose own former chief of staff said recently would govern as a dictator.
But Trump's warning to the media after the gmathering underscored the danger of treating the president-elect as just another politician whose views differ from those of the liberal news network.
Trump toldFox News that the meeting with Brzezinski and Scarborough—who celebrated New Year's Eve with Trump in 2016, only to be called "crazy" and a "psycho" by him months later after their coverage angered him—was "extremely cordial," but then issued a warning.
He told Fox he believes he has "an obligation to the American public, and to our country itself, to be open and available to the press."
"If not treated fairly, however, that will end," Trump said. "The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America."
Trump also immediately used Brzezinski and Scarborough's "ring-kissing," as progressive news outlet The Tennessee Holler called it, "as a trophy and saying they praised him effusively."
The Holler wasn't the only critic to compare the hosts' meeting with Trump to a scene out of The Godfather. Krystal Ball, co-host of the online political news show "Breaking Points," accused Brzezinski and Scarborough of helping to "usher the fascists in" before going to Mar-a-Lago to "kiss the ring."
In addition to drawing Trump's ire by warning ahead of the election that he was a threat to democracy and accusing him of "lying every day and destroying the country" during his first term, the hosts and their network have been hostile and dismissive of progressives who have called on Democrats to try to appeal to working-class voters instead of "Liz Cheney Never Trumpers," said Ball.
On "Morning Joe" on Monday, Brzezinski said, "For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, 'Why wouldn't we?'"
"Joe and I realized it's time to do something different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him," she said.
Scarborough said the trio discussed and expressed their different views on issues such as "abortion, mass deportation, threats of political retribution against political opponents and media outlets." He claimed Trump "seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues."
The hosts suggested Trump has done an about-face in his views on the media since the election, when he called journalists "the enemy camp" and the days leading up to it, when he said he wouldn't "mind" if reporters at a rally he held were shot.
Ryan Grim of Drop Site News joked on social media that the meeting exposed the hosts as "resistance commanders" who had turned out "to have been collaborating double agents from the beginning."
"We've been played," he added.
While the two journalists said they believe it is "time for a new approach" in covering the president-elect, Julianne McShane at Mother Jonespointed out that journalists "have tried" for years to talk with Trump about his perspective on issues.
"Trump repeatedly rebuffed sit-down interview invitations during the campaign from CBS News and NBC News, both of which Harris did do; Instead, Trump gave interviews to a bevy of right-wing male podcasters. If Trump and his team are serious about respecting the press, they will have to engage with them—respectfully, and on the issues—rather than denigrate them," wrote McShane. "It's ultimately unclear if Trump's sudden friendliness toward the media can be attributed to the MSNBC reunion at Mar-a-Lago. But one thing remains certain: You probably can't trust this one, at all."
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote that Brzezinski and Scarborough's "capitulation is another of my worst fears about life under Trump 47."
"Those of us who plan to keep writing against Trump's autocratic ways are going to be marginalized as 'dead enders' who aren't getting with the program, which will make it easier to shut us up," said Bunch.
Veteran journalist Jeff Jarvis denounced the "Morning Joe" hosts' Mar-a-Lago meeting as a "betrayal of their colleagues, democracy, and us all," and "a disgusting show of obeisance in advance."
Bunch quoted Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on authoritarianism, who advised Americans as Trump took office for the first time in 2017: "Do. Not. Obey. In. Advance."
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Big Oil Tax Could Boost Global Loss and Damage Fund by 2000%
"The damages resulting from the industry’s operations are disproportionately borne by people who did not cause the crisis," said one campaigner.
Nov 18, 2024
A modest tax on the world's seven largest oil and gas companies could generate hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the decade to assist poor and vulnerable communities with the impact of the climate crisis, according to a new analysis out Monday from the groups Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty.
The groups found that a tax on fossil fuel extraction, which would increase each year, combined with additional taxes on excess profits would grow the UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage by more than 2,000%.
The loss and damage fund was created two years ago during the COP27 summit in Egypt with the aim of helping vulnerable countries confront the risings costs of climate disasters. Last year, a group of nations that included the United States made their first financial pledges to the fund—though the size of the U.S. pledge was panned as "paltry" by climate justice advocates. As one of the world's largest fossil fuel emitters, the initial pledge of $17.5 million was miniscule relative to the hundreds of billions in fossil fuel subsidies the U.S. government handed out in 2022.
Total commitments to the loss and damage fund currently hover at around $720 million, according toThe New York Times.
This year, at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, boosting the money in the fund is top of mind for a number of UN leaders.
"The $700 million is obviously insufficient," Jorge Moreira da Silva, the executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services, toldthe Times.
"In an era of climate extremes, loss & damage finance is a must. And we must get serious about the level of finance required. At #COP29, I urged governments to deliver. In the name of justice," U.N. Sectary-General António Guterres wrote on X as the summit kicked off last week.
The joint analysis—which focused on world's largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, a group that includes ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor, and Eni—illustrates how major polluters could be tapped to support the fund.
Stamp Out Poverty researchers have "found that home government collection of volume-based [climate damages tax] is feasible, with many countries already collecting volume-based revenue from oil and gas producers," according to the report.
The briefing notes that the Climate Damages Tax "would be a fee on the extraction of each tonne of coal, barrel of oil or cubic metre of gas, calculated at a consistent rate based on how much CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] is embedded within the fossil fuel."
To illustrate the impact of this tax, Greenpeace and Stamp Out Poverty looked at the estimated costs associated with multiple extreme weather events in 2024 alongside the hypothetical tax revenue.
Hurricane Beryl, which impacted multiple Caribbean islands, Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast, caused at least $6.6 billion in estimated damages and losses, according to the report. Meanwhile, imposing a hypothetical Climate Damages Tax on the 2023 carbon emissions from ExxonMobil alone would raise enough money to cover nearly half of that price tag.
ExxonMobil made $38.6 billion in adjusted earnings for 2023, so levying a tax of $5 per tonne of CO2e in 2023 would yield $3.19 billion. Over the first year, the combined revenue from all seven companies would be over $15 billion. As the levy was increased over the two following years, that annual figure would grow to over $37 billion. The analysis, according to its authors "contributes to the growing civil society call for long term tax on fossil fuel extraction."
The report comes on the heels of two weeks of worldwide protests by Greenpeace activists and allies, during which some demonstrators confronted fossil fuel executives about their role in fueling climate disaster and demanded that they "pay for the climate damage they cause."
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GOP Targets Medicaid, SNAP Benefits to 'Pay for Tax Cuts for Their Billionaire Donors'
"The GOP wants to make food and healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible for the most vulnerable people in our country," said Rep. Summer Lee. "Make no mistake on who they're serving."
Nov 18, 2024
Congressional Republicans are reportedly considering new work requirements for recipients of Medicaid and nutrition assistance as well as spending caps for the programs as potential ways to counteract the massive cost of their tax agenda, which would primarily benefit the rich and large corporations.
The Washington Postreported Monday that Republicans, who are poised to take full control of the federal government come January, "have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps, and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending" soon-to-expire elements of the regressive tax law that President-elect Donald Trump signed in year one of his first White House term.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that an extension of the 2017 tax cuts would add $4.6 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next decade. Republicans have made clear that tax legislation is a top priority in the next Congress, and they're preparing to use a fast-track procedure known as reconciliation to ram a new round of tax cuts through.
According to the Post, members of Trump's transition team have discussed with GOP lawmakers and aides the possibility of adding punitive new work requirements and spending caps to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Research and real-world experience have consistently shown that work requirements do virtually nothing to boost employment while making it harder for people in need to receive aid.
"To pay for tax cuts for their billionaire donors, the GOP wants to make food and healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible for the most vulnerable people in our country," Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) wrote in response to the Post's reporting. "Make no mistake on who they're serving."
"We already knew the push to cut taxes for the wealthy next year was going to be costly. Now we're learning that deep cuts to critical programs are on the agenda to help pay for them."
Following an election in which grocery costs were a leading concern of many voters, the Post reported that Republican lawmakers are "discussing stripping presidential authority to recalculate benefits" for SNAP, the nation's highly effective hunger-reducing tool that helps millions afford food each year.
"Republicans argue that if they eliminate that authority and hemmed in SNAP benefits—which increase automatically with inflation—that should count as reducing the deficit by tens of billions of dollars, according to some estimates," the Post noted.
As for Medicaid, the newspaper detailed preliminary GOP discussions to halt Biden administration efforts to help people who lost coverage due to the post-pandemic purge, adding a work requirement similar to SNAP's, and conducting more frequent eligibility checks—which could result in more people losing access to the program.
House Budget Committee Chair Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) openly made the case last week for what he called a "responsible and reasonable work requirement" for Medicaid, the Post observed.
Estimated savings from such changes come nowhere near offsetting the huge projected cost of extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts for individuals and handing additional tax breaks to big corporations. On the campaign trail, Trump proposed reducing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, a change that would give the 100 largest U.S. corporations a combined tax cut of $48 billion a year.
Trump's tax agenda would also disproportionately benefit the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) released an analysis last month showing that the tax proposals Trump floated during his bid for a second White House term would deliver annual tax cuts to the top 5% and tax hikes for the bottom 95%.
"We already knew the push to cut taxes for the wealthy next year was going to be costly," ITEP wrote on social media Monday. "Now we're learning that deep cuts to critical programs are on the agenda to help pay for them."
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