White House wars on free speech, voters want election integrity

From the left: White House Wars on Free Speech

Subpoenaed documents released by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), gripes Racket’s Matt Taibbi, show how White House pressure got Facebook to expand “its definition of punishable offenses” over COVID posts, “jacking up demotion levels to 85% or giving strikes or repeat offender status to posts that were only ‘partly false’ or missing ‘context’ ” — including obvious jokes. A “form of madness similar to the Russiagate lunacy drove the raw emotion and ‘outrage’ behind the White House’s requests” to suppress speech. So, in “a worst-case scenario for modern digital censorship,” the feds “strong-armed Facebook to remove content” containing “exactly the kind of speech the Constitution was designed to protect”: political satire. And “it’s all laid out for everyone to see. How can anyone still defend this?”

Immigration wonk: Biden Broke Asylum System

Team Biden has increased to nearly 1 million a year the number of illegal migrants admitted on parole pending decisions on their asylum claims, notes Nolan Rappaport at The Hill. But they join a line that’s already grown by 2 million under this president, creating a new “major problem for our already overwhelmed asylum system.” Indeed: “Asylum seekers wait an average of four years for a hearing to be scheduled and even longer for a final decision,” per a new Migration Policy Institute report. The growing backlog “is preventing migrants who can establish asylum eligibility from obtaining relief in a timely manner,” even as those who can’t prove eligibility “are not likely to be returned to their own countries.” Fact is, “the immigration court has reached a breaking point.” All this undermines “the integrity of the asylum and immigration adjudicative systems, and immigration enforcement overall.” And “it’s only going to get worse” if the administration “doesn’t find a better way” to curb illegal crossings.

Conservative: Voters Want Election Integrity

A new poll finds that the vast majority of US voters “support election integrity initiatives such as voter ID requirements and limitations on the use of mail-in voting,” reports The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood. Some 88% back voter-ID rules, including black (82%) and Hispanic voters (83%). The poll also displayed “overwhelming opposition to noncitizens and minors voting in U.S. elections.” Three-fourths of voters think in-person voting is better than mailed-in ballots, and two-thirds “support terminating no-excuse mail voting” as long as two full weeks of early voting are available. On all these issues, “Democrats are out of touch with voters.”

From the right: How Legal Woes Hobble Trump

News that Donald Trump’s PAC “spent more than $40 million on legal fees in the first half of 2023” brings “yet another reason why Republican voters should reject his candidacy if he does not drop out first,” explains The Washington Post’s Henry Olsen. “Running for president requires more than charisma and a few rallies. It requires time and money — and lots of it,” yet the multiple cases against Trump will rob him of both. “This will strike many, if not most, Republicans as unfair,” but “fair doesn’t count in politics. Facts do, and it is a fact that Trump is already hamstrung by his legal charges, which are only going to get worse.” He “might eventually decide to save his own skin rather than press his luck”; if he doesn’t, “Republican primary voters will have to decide whether they want to risk nominating a man who can’t campaign for himself.”

Republican: Prez Years Now Best for GOP

A longtime rule of politics is that “Republicans fare better in midterm elections when voter turnout is traditionally lower, and that Democrats fare better in presidential election years when voter turnout is traditionally higher,” observes Mike Shields at CNN. Yet “a new trend is emerging” where more GOP voters show up only for prez elections, even as more Dems turn out in off-year ones. So “GOP candidates considering a run for political office in 2024 should not fear presidential turnout; they should embrace it.”

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board