Dear Patriots,
This week we had several really big wins.
There were a lot of smaller examples of GOOD NEWS too.
1- We thank God for Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt who as the state’s Attorney General, along with the Attorney General of Louisiana, brought this lawsuit against the federal government. The censorship was so shockingly egregious that U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty shut it down with a restraining order before the case was heard. He announced this on Independence Day!
We have ALL been censored. Most of the time we do not know it is happening. It was a massive Biden Administration plot to suppress any and all information that they were trying to hide from Americans.
One of the many aspects of the censorship mentioned in the ruling was related to anything that pointed out that the 2020 election was rife with fraud.
The censorship on election fraud from the Biden Regime continued into the 2022 election.
This means that if you posted something on Facebook with facts on election fraud, the White House and government agencies asked ALL the social media players to shadow-ban you so no one could see your posts.
There are no words for this except: unconstitutional.
And yet, the White House is appealing the ruling.
There will be much more on this topic in the future. It is worth reading the ruling. Ruling PDF
QUOTE Senator Schmitt: “White House officials, CDC & others are stopped cold. We need to continue the fight to take down the Vast Censorship Enterprise,” he said. “Their view of ‘misinformation’ isn’t an excuse to censor. This is the most important free speech case in a generation. Freedom is on the march.”
A victory for free speech in a Louisiana courtroom
QUOTE: Democratic Party efforts to use the power of the federal government to silence conservative ideas suffered a resounding and well-deserved defeat on July 4. A federal judge in Louisiana granted an injunction forbidding an array of federal government law enforcement and health officials from coordinating with social media platforms to suppress conservative content.
Good.
The lawsuit, filed by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri and joined by scientists and activists, alleges that federal government officials coordinated with employees at social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google to identify supposedly harmful content and then either limit its reach or delete it entirely.
Most of the content silenced by the tech companies involved skepticism about the risks and efficacies of coronavirus vaccines, but the censorship did not end there. Items flagged for suppression included: stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, stories suggesting COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, negative stories about the economy, and stories critical or merely unfavorable toward President Joe Biden.
Under the injunction, communications between the federal government and social media companies are still allowed — you would not know this from much dishonest reporting — when they involve criminal activities, national security threats, or posts designed to mislead voters about voting procedures, such as when Election Day is scheduled. These are all examples of imminent lawless action.
But as soon as the federal government starts straying from this narrow list, as soon as it starts policing ideas such as where a virus originated or the efficacy of government policies, it has overstepped its bounds and unnecessarily censored protected speech.
Social media platforms are new and powerful tools that can and do affect human behavior, but the power they possess is all the more reason courts should err on the side of more free speech and not more government censorship.
2- Continue sending a message to Hollywood, if you have not seen “Sound of Freedom” yet, go this weekend. If you have seen it, buy tickets for friends and family.
We are beating back Hollywood, Disney, Anheuser-Busch, and the NBA by refusing to participate in their assault on our country and values.
‘Sound of Freedom’ Dethrones Disney, Beats Out ‘Indiana Jones’ on its Opening Day
QUOTE: “Sound of Freedom” fittingly became the No. 1 movie in America on the Fourth of July, snatching the title from the “Indiana Jones” finale.
While celebrating America’s birthday is a momentous occasion every year, this Fourth of July was particularly notable in terms of the national holiday’s box office competition.
The child-trafficking thriller “Sound of Freedom,” distributed by Angel Studios, opened to a $14.2 million debut in the United States on Tuesday, according to the film industry website The Numbers, effectively beating Disney/Lucasfilm’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” at the domestic box office.
Despite playing in almost double the number of theaters, the “Indiana Jones” sequel, which opened Friday, brought in just under $11.7 million in the U.S. on July 4.
Competition between the two is ironic, considering “Sound of Freedom” was previously signed with Disney until the studio backed out a few years ago, The Christian Post reported. Now the movie is a guaranteed hit, all without Disney’s help.
The holiday’s box office receipts may not have a very wide gap between the two films, but considering the independent movie went toe-to-toe with a Hollywood blockbuster and managed to come out on top, the former’s opening day was a huge win for all those involved in the cinematic project.
“Sound of Freedom” is expected to hit a $20 million total in its first six days in theaters, according to Deadline. For context, the film cost $15 million to produce, not including marketing, meaning it is well on its way to breaking even and possibly turning a profit.
This desirable outcome is far less likely for the lackluster “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which cost nearly $300 million to produce — before marketing costs — and so far has made over $153 million at the worldwide box office, according to The Numbers data as of Thursday morning. To break even, it needs to bring in between $737 million and $885 million — a lofty goal for a massively expensive film.
“Sound of Freedom” played in 2,600 theaters on July 4 and has received resounding reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore.
3- As we have pointed out to you, these boycotts are much more successful than you might know. The media, operating as a Democrat/Woke public relations agency, hides the truth.
Clay Travis shows that long before Bud Light, sensible and fed up Americans boycotted the NBA. That boycott continues today.
This news dovetails with this story from Disney-owned ESPN: Massive Wave of Lay-Offs at ESPN
NBA Is The Original Bud Light, And No One In Mainstream Sports Media Will Tell You That
QUOTE: The Bud Light backlash will be studied in marketing courses for the next 40 or 50 years as a perfect example of what happens when a brand alienates its core audience by embracing values antithetical to its core consumer. But many in the media are already proclaiming Bud Light as a unicorn, the first of its kind conservative boycott that has obliterated decades of goodwill for a company.
But this isn’t true.
The most consequential consumer boycott of the 21st century didn’t come from drinker’s rejection of a beer, it came from sports, in particular the NBA, which has destroyed its brand with a large percentage of the American sporting public by embracing woke, political, far-left-wing messaging in its games. So why haven’t you heard about this despite the overwhelming data I’m about to lay out for you? It’s simple, the American sports media is so far-left wing they have refused to share the data right in front of their eyes. The American sports media overwhelmingly supports far-left-wing political messaging, they love it because it reflects their own ideals. The vast majority of the sports media wants sports to be filled with left-wing politics – they see it as an affirmation of their own personal beliefs and applaud it.
But this same media won’t write or report the truth about the NBA’s viewership declines because to do so would be seen as a repudiation of their own world view.
So they pretend everything I’m about to share with you hasn’t happened.Let’s take a quick trip into the NBA’s history to show you where the NBA used to be and where it is today. And let’s start almost exactly 25 years ago today, when Michael Jordan stepped back for a jumper — subtly pushing off the Utah Jazz’s Bryon Russell in the process — and drained a jumper to win Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals.
In fact, that 1998 game is the single most watched basketball game in the history of America.
In fact, 35.856 million people watched that game, never before and never since have more people watched a basketball game in American history.
That game represented the absolute apex of the NBA’s influence in American sporting life.But it wasn’t just that game alone, that six game Jazz-Bulls series averaged 29.4 million viewers, an all-time high for the NBA Finals in America.
Twenty five years later, this past season’s five-game NBA Finals averaged just 11.64 million viewers, one of the lowest audiences on record and a continuation of the NBA’s collapsing ratings. Indeed, four of the five lowest rated NBA Finals of the past 30 years have occurred in the past four years. (12.4 million viewers in 2022, 9.91 million viewers in 2021, 7.45 million viewers in 2020.)
How did this happen? How in the space of a generation did the NBA, which created tens of millions of monster fans in the Jordan era, lose so many viewers? And why has this story not been told before? Why do so many of you have no idea this has happened at all?
Because the sports media won’t admit what’s clear — many basketball fans stopped watching the NBA over the past several years.
4- Every single time we fight against election fraud it is good news.
Election Integrity for Wisconsin: In a Stunning Move, Wisconsin Republicans Vote to Start the Removal Process of Administrator of Elections
QUOTE: Less than 15 hours after Wisconsin Democrats openly defied state election law on the Wisconsin Election Commission to ignore state election law the Wisconsin Republican-controlled State Senate voted late Wednesday night, June 28th, to start the process of removing the Administrator of Elections Meagan Wolfe with a party line passage of Senate Resolution 3.
The approved resolution will now be sent to the Republican-controlled Wisconsin State Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection for a hearing.
Once the committee hearing is complete, an Executive Session for the committee will be scheduled to vote. Then the bill will be sent to the Senate Floor for a full vote with the probability of an Extraordinary Session of the Senate being called that does not require the approval of the governor’s office.The governor’s office cannot veto the action of the State Senate. Hopefully, this process will be completed before the end of July.
5- More babies saved as dogged citizens in Indiana do not back down from the fight!
Indiana Supreme Court Upholds Abortion Ban Protecting Babies From Abortions
QUOTE: Indiana will become the next state to legally protect babies from abortions.The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the law protecting babies from abortions can be upheld and it will now go back into effect after the state’s highest court reversed a preliminary injunction that put it on hold since September.
The justices ruled that the Planned Parenthood abortion business unsuccessfully brought a “facial” challenge to the entire law, wrongly claiming that the whole law is invalid and should be overturned.
The state Supreme Court said the abortion company “cannot show a reasonable likelihood of success” and therefore it turned back the challenge entirely.
The state’s highest court did say that there is a right to lifesaving medical care and that abortions can be legal in the extremely rare case that it’s necessary to save the life of the mother. Like all state abortion bans, the Indiana law allows for such abortions.
6- It is well worth it to click on the link and read this entire opinion. It is good to be reminded and reinforced that we live an exceptionally good country full of really good people.
Charles Lipson at RealClearPolitics
Yes, Virginia, America Really Is a Good Country
QUOTE: Every year at Christmastime, news sites reprint the touching letter from a little girl, Virginia O’Hanlon, asking about Santa Claus and the columnist’s reassuring, fatherly response. He doesn’t smack her with the hard fact that Santa is a fictional creation. He points toward a deeper truth about our shared celebrations and the web of fond memories that bind together generations of children, parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.
As we celebrate this Independence Day, we desperately need to remember our own shared beliefs and ideals in hopes they will bind together our divided nation. Our shared ideals and common identity as Americans should bind us. Today, alas, they are too frayed to do the job. Some think it is a fraud even to stress those commonalities.
It is not. Our shared aspirations and common identity are our country’s best hope for the future. And our history should be a source of hope, as well as somber reflection.
Those ideals are not “our country, right or wrong.” They are not “our country with an airbrushed past.” Neither are they “our country as a relentless record of evil and oppression, at home and abroad.”
Rather, they are “our country as it strives to become better, to celebrate its accomplishments, to overcome its historical wrongs, to heal its lasting wounds and, ultimately, to achieve the ideals set before us in the Declaration of Independence and made concrete in our Constitution.” Whether our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, a slave ship, or a boat from Europe, escaping the Nazis, those are our shared ideals, but only if we embrace them.
What are those ideals? What are those accomplishments, incomplete as they still are? They are the promise that all men and women should be treated equally, allowed to speak freely and assemble peaceably, worship as they choose, permit others to worship, speak, and assemble as they choose, vote for whichever candidates they prefer, and live in safety, governed by laws made by the representatives they choose in fair elections. Those goals are grounded in tolerance and mutual forbearance, which are essential for a cohesive society where people come from different backgrounds and hold different beliefs.
Familiar as these homilies are, we need to repeat and defend them in troubled times when most Americans have lost faith in their institutions and the officials who lead them.
Ours is a country whose citizens still believe, overwhelmingly, in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, the document that gave birth to the Fourth of July celebration. Our is still a country that, despite efforts to divide us, still strives to achieve its national motto, “Out of many, one.”
Those values are embedded in America’s distinctive kind of patriotism. It is not the “blood and soil” nationalism of 19th-century Europe. It is an inclusive civic patriotism, embracing all its citizens and those on the path to becoming one. The family from Vietnam, now in Louisiana, or from South Asia, now in South Carolina, is as American as the family descended from Puritans in Massachusetts.
You don’t have to turn a blind eye to America’s troubles to celebrate its achievements. Yes, Virginia, America’s heart and soul are great, and so are its achievements.
7- Enjoy this Sidney Powell interview discussing the strong constitutional decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
Viewpoint This Sunday: A Supreme Week for the US Constitution with Sidney Powell
Pray. Know. Share.
Hold Fast,
Defending The Republic
To SHARE with a friend – SEND THEM THIS LINK
Questions – or for a Free Subscription to This Newsletter? Contact: editor@defendingtherepublic.org
