With Missouri V. Biden Settled, It’s Time For Censorship Reparations
The resolution to the case in favor of those the government had censored represents a dramatic turnaround of potentially outsize impact.The resolution to the case in favor of those the government had censored represents a dramatic turnaround of potentially outsize impact.Biden’s COVID censorship machine takes a hit: Missouri wins landmark ban on federal threats to Big Tech
A landmark settlement delivered a blow to the censorship industrial complex that silenced Americans during the COVID era.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) announced Tuesday that Missouri had reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. government in its Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which accused the Biden administration of violating Americans' First Amendment rights by directing social media companies to censor speech challenging the government's COVID messaging.
'For every working Missouri family tired of being silenced by their own government: this victory is yours.'
Schmitt filed the lawsuit against the Biden administration while serving as Missouri attorney general, before securing his Senate seat.
The agreement included a 10-year Consent Decree that enforces a narrow permanent injunction on the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The injunction prevents them from threatening social media companies with any form of punishment if those companies fail to remove or suppress content that contains protected speech.
However, this ban applies only to posts made on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube by the specific plaintiffs in the case, including Missouri and Louisiana government officials and agencies acting in their official capacity. It does not extend to other social media networks or content posted by the general public.
"The Parties also agree that government, politicians, media, academics, or anyone else applying labels such as 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' or 'malinformation' to speech does not render it constitutionally unprotected," the agreement reads.
The court must first approve this settlement agreement.
"We just won Missouri v. Biden," Schmitt wrote in a post on X. "As Missouri's Attorney General, I sued the Biden regime for brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missouri families — censoring the truth about COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop, the open border, and the 2020 election. They tried to turn Facebook, X, YouTube, and the rest into their private speech police, labeling dissent 'misinformation' while they pushed their narrative on the American people."
Schmitt called the Consent Decree the "first real, operational restraint on the federal censorship machine."
He explained that it "directly binds the Surgeon General, the CDC, and CISA: no more threats of legal, regulatory, or economic punishment. No more coercion. No more unilateral direction or veto of platform decisions to remove, suppress, deplatform, or algorithmically bury protected speech."
"For every working Missouri family tired of being silenced by their own government: this victory is yours. The heartland fought back, and the heartland delivered," Schmitt concluded.
RELATED: 'Karma is a b***h': Trump taps epidemiologist targeted by Biden admin and censored online to run NIH
Benjamin Weingarten, a senior contributor at the Federalist, addressed the victory's narrow application.
"This decree is limited to the plaintiffs, but as precedent, and practically, its impact may prove orders of magnitude more powerful in protecting disfavored speech," Weingarten wrote, calling it "a momentous blow for the First Amendment."
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, who had to withdraw as a plaintiff in the case after being appointed by the Trump administration, called the settlement "a huge win for all Americans."
"Huzzah! The consent decree in Missouri v. Biden is a historic victory for free speech in the US. Though I had to switch to the government side in the case after I became NIH director, I've never been more pleased by 'losing' in my life," he wrote.
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Settlement Stops Government From Using Social Media As ‘Speech Police’
'Biden officials at the highest levels of government tried to use Facebook, X, and YouTube as their speech police,' Sen. Eric Schmitt said.We’re losing children to diseases we already defeated
Over the past year, the Food and Drug Administration has done important work drawing attention to how food choices affect health. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. deserves credit for shining a light on food additives and America’s dependence on processed foods.
I’m a registered nurse and a mother. I applaud that work. But I also need to ask a hard question: Why aren’t childhood vaccines getting the same attention and urgency?
We don’t force anyone to vaccinate. We shouldn’t. But we do owe families accurate information about the real risks of preventable diseases and the real protection vaccines provide.
I’ve spent years in intensive care watching people of all ages fight respiratory illness. Even with experience, it’s brutal to see a patient cling to life through ventilators, intubation, or ECMO machines.
Last year, I watched in horror as a measles outbreak took the lives of two unvaccinated children in Texas. Whooping cough killed two infants in Louisiana. Closer to home, my own child caught whooping cough. It was frightening and exhausting to see how coughing fits made it almost impossible for him to catch his breath.
He was old enough to have received his vaccines. I believe that reduced the severity of his illness and likely kept him out of the hospital. That experience leaves me with one request to RFK: Give childhood vaccines the same serious focus you’ve given food safety.
Kennedy says he cares about children. I believe him. That’s why I’m urging him to speak clearly about routine childhood immunizations — because I’ve seen what happens when preventable diseases return.
Hospitals are treating illnesses that routine vaccines usually prevent or blunt. Last year, the CDC reported an increase in meningococcal disease, a dangerous illness that immunization can prevent. South Carolina is dealing with a record-breaking measles outbreak. These diseases can bring devastating outcomes: brain swelling from measles; brain damage, limb loss, or deafness from meningococcal infection.
Gaps in routine immunization also open the door to pathogens we once had under control. A paralytic polio case in an unvaccinated person in New York in 2022 underscored what’s at stake: Irreversible paralysis still remains possible when vaccination rates fall.
Childhood vaccines rank among public health’s most effective tools. They prevent outbreaks and protect children from serious infections and lifelong complications. They also fit comfortably inside a conservative framework. They’re voluntary. They’re widely available. They’ve been used for decades. Parents make informed choices for their families.
RELATED: MAHA is sick: RFK’s FDA is drifting the wrong way
High vaccination rates also protect the most vulnerable. They reduce transmission, which helps safeguard infants too young to be vaccinated and children with medical conditions that keep them from receiving certain shots. That means fewer hospitalizations, less strain on health care systems, and healthier schools and communities.
That’s why recent messaging from Washington worries me. Telling Americans to “talk to your doctor” sounds reasonable, until you face the reality on the ground. Roughly one-third of Americans lack access to primary care, and many children don’t have a regular provider. For millions of families, “talk to your doctor” translates to “you’re on your own.”
Parents in small towns and working-class neighborhoods don’t always have easy access to specialists who can walk them through immunization questions. They want to do the right thing. They need clear, trustworthy guidance from national health leaders — not signals that create doubt about vaccines that protect kids.
Vaccine conversations can get sensitive fast. Parents have questions, and they deserve honest answers. But they also deserve clear, consistent leadership that says what decades of evidence has shown: Routine childhood immunization works, and it protects children.
We don’t force anyone to vaccinate. We shouldn’t. But we do owe families accurate information about the real risks of preventable diseases and the real protection vaccines provide.
As a nurse, I work to prevent harm. As a mother, I refuse to accept a return to diseases we already know how to stop. As a conservative, I don’t want to break systems that save lives.
We can make America healthy again by tackling chronic disease and by protecting kids from preventable infections. These goals don’t compete. They reinforce each other.
Leftist Medical Orgs Try To Shut Down Debate On Vaccines
The American Academy of Pediatrics is wasting time fighting small-scale discussions while large-scale accountability looms.Trump administration overhauls childhood vax schedule. Here's the downsized version.
The United States has long been an outlier among first-world nations in terms of how many vaccines it pushes on its children, recommending that kids receive more than twice as many doses as generally given their European counterparts.
In a decision that has some medical establishmentarians fuming, the Trump administration has greatly reduced the number of vaccines recommended for American children, leaving the decision on the remainder up to families and their doctors.
'We are aligning the US childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus.'
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted that "after an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health."
The agency has reduced its list of vaccination recommendations for all children to jabs for the following 11 diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (whooping cough), Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, human papillomavirus, and chickenpox.
Here is the new childhood immunization schedule for all children:
The agency now recommends on an individual basis: RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal B, meningococcal ACWY, and dengue vaccines for "high-risk groups" and rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID-19 vaccines.
The CDC's child and adolescent immunization schedule previously recommended all American children receive one or more vaccine doses for the following diseases:
- Respiratory syncytial virus;
- Influenza;
- Hepatitis A;
- Hepatitis B;
- Rotavirus;
- Measles;
- Mumps;
- Rubella;
- Diphtheria;
- Tetanus;
- Pertussis (whooping cough);
- Polio;
- Haemophilius influenzae type B;
- Pneumococcal disease;
- Human papillomavirus;
- Varicella (chickenpox); and
- Meningococcal disease.
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RFK Jr. Probes Health Dangers Of Offshore Wind Turbines
While offshore wind farms’ effect on marine life has garnered much attention, the human element has been largely neglected.Taking Meds You Don’t Need To Spite Trump While Pregnant Makes You A Horrible Mother
Using your pregnancy to advance political agendas won’t affect Trump, but it could profoundly affect your child's health and future.RFK Jr. did what GOP cowards won’t
What you saw in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s testimony last week before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee wasn’t a debate. It was the uniparty on parade — this time bowing before its favorite idol: the magical power of vaccines.
The spectacle jolted me back to my early days in this business. Years ago, I spoke at an event for a group I liked and respected called TeenPact. They brought Christian high school kids to the Iowa statehouse to watch government in action. By the time I showed up, the students looked checked out — politics as civics theater wasn’t holding their attention.
Are COVID accountability and healthy children worth smashing the idols? Or do we risk slaughtering too many sacred cows in pursuit of what’s good and true?
So I asked them a question: “Did any lobbyists offer you a steak and martini lunch today?” Silence fell over the room, parents included. But the kids snapped to attention. Now they were listening. I laid it out plain: This is how politics really works.
Later, the event organizer scolded me for “cynicism.” I scolded him back for his naivete. Kids don’t need fairy tales. They need to know how deep the rabbit hole goes. And last week, Kennedy showed America again how deep it goes — and how unwilling even the supposed “good guys” are to face it.
That Senate hearing was a prophetic moment. Think John the Baptist telling Herod to stop sleeping with his brother’s wife — except in Washington, it was RFK Jr. telling Elizabeth Warren she took $855,000 from Big Pharma. The only way it could have been sweeter is if he told her to send it back to an Indian reservation.
The shrieking from Democrats when their idols get smashed is sweet music to my ears. The hair on my neck stood up. And here’s the truth: We could force those demons to screech every day if Republicans showed the same conviction.
RELATED: Sudden child deaths after COVID shots? Trump FDA director promises answers.
Instead, too many of our biggest “MAGA influencers” cash checks from foreign governments and then distract us with memes about Greta Thunberg. Too many Republicans act like the kids at that TeenPact event — eager to play politics but unwilling to face the ugly reality.
Tell me: Has anyone in the GOP’s GriftCon Inc. ever sacrificed like RFK Jr. just did? Or has the steak-and-martini circuit always been the bottom line — red state and blue alike? By the time the pharma checks clear, almost no one even asks hard questions anymore. Not about mRNA side effects. Not about why this generation should be the first in American history to normalize transgendering the kids.
Selling out is always a choice. Washington has simply turned it into a career path. Yet if a man with Kennedy’s checkered past can claw his way back from ruin to speak hard truths, maybe the rest of us can do the same.
Are COVID accountability and healthy children worth smashing the idols? Or do we risk slaughtering too many sacred cows in pursuit of what’s good and true?
The answer involves nothing less than the survival of the nation and the state of our souls. No big deal. I’m sure it’ll all work itself out — at least until our children are speaking Chinese or praying to Allah.
RFK Jr. laughs at Democratic senators' vaccine concern-mongering: 'You're just making stuff up'
Several members of the Senate Finance Committee tried desperately during a hearing on Thursday about President Donald Trump's 2026 health care agenda to paint Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as both a "charlatan" and as a danger to public health.
Like the mutineers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who revolted over Susan Monarez's removal last week as their director, Democratic lawmakers — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.) in particular — and a few Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.), quickly discovered that Kennedy wasn't willing to play their games.
'You are lying.'
In addition to highlighting recent victories at the Department of Health and Human Services such as recent reductions to bureaucratic waste and the obliteration of the DEI regime, Kennedy informed the committee at the outset, "We are ending gain-of-function research, child mutilation, and reducing animal testing. We are addressing cellphone use in schools, excessive screen time for youths, the lack of nutrition education in our medical schools, sickle cell anemia, hepatitis C, the East Palestine chemical spill, and many, many others."
— (@)
Rather than dwell on these or other recent positive developments at the HHS, Hassan, like other Democrats on the committee, instead focused her attack on Kennedy's approach to vaccines.
Hassan, whom Open Secrets indicated has received over $1 million in campaign donations from the health professional industry and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry, claimed that Kennedy "acted behind closed doors to overrule scientists and limit the freedom of parents to choose the COVID vaccine for their children" and "unilaterally changed the parameters for giving vaccines."
"This is crazy talk," Kennedy said. "You're just making stuff up."
Hassan appears to have been grossly misrepresenting recent actions taken by the Food and Drug Administration.
RELATED: RFK Jr. makes crystal clear to the CDC mutineers: The restoration of public trust 'won't stop'
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary noted in a recent op-ed that his agency has "approved COVID-19 vaccines for adults over 65 and for people 6 months and older who have one or more risk factors that put them at high risk of severe COVID," thereby bringing "the U.S. in line with peer nations."
Makary underscored that "the FDA can't regulate the practice of medicine. The FDA grants marketing authorizations, but doctors are able to prescribe drugs off label to people at low risk. In a few states, pharmacists may require a prescription."
In other words, parents still enjoy the freedom to choose the COVID vaccine for their children even though Makary indicated his agency is not confident that the benefits outweigh the risks.
"Since the FDA isn't approving a vaccine for the healthy school-age and working population, college and school mandates will be legally impossible," Makary wrote. "Accordingly, the FDA is revoking the emergency-use authorization for COVID vaccines. The emergency is over. The FDA will now return to an evidence-based standard."
Kennedy told Hassan on Thursday that the decisions about the COVID vaccines were not made "behind closed doors. The industry makes the studies, and they could not provide a study that said it is effective for healthy kids."
"You're just making stuff up, Senator," Kennedy said.
RELATED: Florida’s fight for medical freedom targets vaccine mandates
Hassan prompted a laugh from the health secretary by responding with, "Sometimes when you make an accusation, it's kind of a confession, Mr. Kennedy."
Despite the continued ability of Americans to get the COVID vaccines, Hassan suggested again that "people who want to exercise their freedom of choice are being denied that because you are citing data that you won't produce to the public and you are rejecting science."
"You are making things up to scare people, and it's a lie," Kennedy said. "You are lying."
'I know you've taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies, Senator.'
Elizabeth Warren picked up where Hassan left off, willfully conflating FDA approval for COVID vaccines with their general availability.
"Last week, you announced that the COVID-19 vaccine is no longer approved for healthy people under the age of 65," Warren said. "In announcing the change, you said that the vaccine will be available for anyone who wants it. Now obviously, both things cannot be true at the same moment."
"Anybody can get it," Kennedy said. "It's not recommended for healthy people."
When Warren started down another rabbit hole, insinuating that an insurance company's refusal to cover a drug on the basis of pulled FDA approval is the same as a governmental denial of vaccines, Kennedy told her flatly, "I'm not going to recommend a product for which there's no clinical data for that indication. Would you?"
"I know you've taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies, Senator," Kennedy added, possibly answering his own question.
According to Open Secrets, Warren received $818,997 from “pharmaceuticals/health products" sources during the 2020 campaign cycle. Between 2019 and 2024, Warren's Senate campaign committee and leadership PAC have also reportedly received $131,329 from the pharmaceutical industry; $528,320 from the health professional industry; and $109,924 from the hospital/nursing home industry.
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