Free Speech Battle: “The Plot to Seize the Truth”

“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.” – Jay Leno ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ March 19, 2024 Free Speech, Innovation, and The Plot to Seize the Truth “First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.” – Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy [Special Reminder: In case you missed our late-day announcement yesterday, [The Real October Surprise]( The Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investment Fraternity. If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge [here](. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, please keep an eye out for your new benefits.] Dear [Reader], March 19, 2024 – In one very short scene in the Hulu series “Dopesick,” the founding father of the Sackler family is testifying before Congress. For background, the Sacklers founded the modern incarnation of Purdue Pharma in 1991. Calling the company a "pioneer in developing medications for reducing pain, a principal cause of human suffering,” they decided to focus the company’s marketing strategy on a new drug. As you might already know, this led to what the rest of us refer to as “the opioid epidemic.” Purdue’s production of the pain medication OxyContin has been linked, lawsuits claim, to 841,000 overdose deaths. By 2019, over 1,000 lawsuits had been initiated against Purdue by state and local governments. States across the U.S. have filed claims for more than $2 trillion in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case. “Dopesick” tells the story of how the Sackler family used the company to build a $13 billion family fortune. It’s a fictional account, with some characters based on real life. By the end of the series, you are prepared to believe the Sacklers are “the most evil family in America.” One doctor friend of ours claims the “lawsuit industry” surrounding Purdue was built up with the help of ambitious, greedy litigators and a willing set of elected legislators. You can watch the series and decide for yourself. Innovation Outpaces Legislation, Always We bring up the Sacklers for a reason. In one very short scene, the original founder of Purdue testifies before Congress that he, and his team of lawyers, would always, always be ahead of the law. Innovation, in biopharma specifically, is way ahead of the government’s understanding of science, so they’d never be able to pass laws fast enough to regulate the industry. At least, that’s what the fictitious character tells the Congressional committee he’s being hauled in front of. Ultimately, in real life, Purdue pharmaceuticals declared bankruptcy in 2019, but not before the Sackler family had pocketed some $18 billion and exempted themselves from direct action in the lawsuits. It was their right to profit, they claim, from their innovation in pain management… which at the time was legal. Or so the story goes. Part fiction. Part truth. We find the question of innovation, rights, the law, and regulation endlessly fascinating. And so it is with another case that just made its way before the Supreme Court yesterday. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) began hearing arguments in a case called Murthy v. Missouri. We were first made aware of the case last year when it was called Missouri v. Biden. Why the change in title? Who knows. It’s probably political. But back in July of 2023, a federal judge hearing Missouri v. Biden passed an injunction forbidding the White House or its operatives from reaching out to social media platforms regarding what they believed was “disinformation” being propagated by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, to name a few.  The injunction was challenged by lawyers for the White House. Now the case has made its way to the Supreme court. CONTINUED BELOW... >>ADVERTISEMENT<< 2024 – The Real Election Year Surprise In 2016, the October Election Surprise was Hillary Clinton’s email scandal… In 2020, the October Election Surprise was the suppression of all the dirty material on Hunter Biden’s “forgotten” laptop… Now, in 2024, we’re forecasting an October Election Surprise that almost no one sees coming — and this time it’ll be way more devastating than anything you’ve seen before. [Click here to learn about 2024’s real October Election Surprise »]( It’s not at all what you think. CONTINUED... Scott J. Street, writing in The Federalist, says [“Missouri v. Biden, or Murthy v. Missouri, is one of the most interesting cases in Supreme Court]( history and will hinge on three critical questions.” First, “Can the Murthy plaintiffs cobble together a ‘free speech’ majority that upholds the liberal values underlying the state-action doctrine?” Second, “Can somebody rebut the argument that tech companies are simply exercising editorial judgment when they censor certain viewpoints on their platforms, even when they rely on government standards to do so?” And last, since the internet is widely perceived as the Town Square, “where people meet, shop, and work. It is [also] where they discuss politics and the other issues of the day.” Can the government restrict what information is considered misinformation or disinformation about issues that may or may not influence an election? The government – currently under the Biden administration’s thumb – has been keen to control information available on social media sites regarding such things as alternatives to the Covid 19 vaccines, discussion of their government “mandates,” and the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop (and how it relates to the Biden family’s business dealings in Ukraine before the Russian invasion). “Nobody believes social media companies exercise editorial control — and assume editorial responsibility,” Street observes, “for their content.” They did not do that before. They do not do it now. And that is not why these cases were filed. They were filed because tech companies took the federal government’s cue and removed speech on matters of public concern that had caused people to distrust the government. Essentially, they removed dissent” [emphasis added]. We provide the link to Street’s Federalist piece, [here]( because he goes into some detail regarding how he expects each of the Justices to rule in the case eventually. I find it interesting, but the writing has a tinge of the language, foreign to all of us, called legalese. So read it with that caveat in mind. Trump May Even Support Cybercensorship You may be surprised to hear his argument for why Justice’s Roberts and Kavanaugh, universally considered Trump supporters, are likely to vote in favor of allowing the government to assert its right to censor content on the internet. Whatever the Supreme Court rules will, by virtue of precedent, become the law of the land. Which is why we’ve been watching the case with the intensity of a cat batting a dead mouse. In a phrase, “Tech censorship matters.” Street has some experience with the argument in favor of banning the government from influencing content on social media platforms. He is representing Robert F Kennedy, Jr.  in a similar free-speech case in California and notes Justice Alito “was the only one [of nine] who believed my client, RFK Jr., should be allowed to intervene in Murthy.” Sitting in the courtroom, Street observes, will be prominent dissidents like Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford professor of medicine who helped draft the Great Barrington Declaration. We interviewed our friend Jeffrey Tucker for the Wiggin Sessions, after he penned the article [The Declaration That Wasn’t Supposedto Happen]( for the Brownstone Institute. In short, the Declaration is the end result of Bhattacharya’s opposition to draconian Covid policies — which was widely censored during the early stages of the coronavirus panic. You may also remember that our efforts to post an interview regarding the making of a documentary about RFK Jr.’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci, were also blocked by Google’s algorithm. Ultimately, Street argues the Court should rule for preservation of First Amendment rights in the digital age. For example, “we don’t know what will happen in an election, unless people know everything they can about the candidates.” He continues: We can’t make policy decisions about the issues of the day — whether crime, homelessness, Covid-19, [war, the border] or anything else — without an informed populace. And since cyberspace is the place where people get their information, it should have the broadest protection for free speech. That may be uncomfortable for private market conservatives like Roberts and Kavanaugh, but it is consistent with prior Supreme Court law and the liberal philosophy on which America was built. After all, no government deemed the town square to be the place for people to gather and discuss political issues, just as no government deemed free speech to be a fundamental human right. They simply evolved that way. “It is time for the Supreme Court to recognize that” evolution, Street argues. “It can start [today.]” Like most cases before the courts, it’ll likely be several months before they rule. One assumes the court will speak before the early days of November. But, then, when one assumes… we all know what happens. So it goes, Addison Wiggin, The Wiggin Sessions P.S. “Addison,” Richard writes in response to yesterday’s question, “The elites have a plan to rape, pillage and exert maximum control over the people. They have achieved their goals, so who is stupid? Them or us?” Richard’s response is one of the short ones. [Keep ‘em coming!](mailto:addison@greyswanfraternity.com) I read all of them. And I intend to use as many as I can while crafting these missives. Thank you! In a recent report, Bankrate revealed some statistics it had gathered: - As of the second quarter 2023, the average American household had wealth of $1.09 million. - The average wealth of households in the top 1 percent was about $33.4 million. - In the top 0.1 percent, the average household had wealth of more than $1.52 billion. Which begs another question: is how much wealth you control in $$$s also an expression of your secret plan to “exert maximum control over the people”? P.P.S. We have some new thoughts on Biden’s plan to tax “undeclared gains” to fund his $7.3 trillion budget (that will never reach a full vote). We’ll share those tomorrow. Readers have also helped shape our thinking on that subject. Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com. The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to The Wiggn Sessions delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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