(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a ruling but unanimously vacated the judgments of and remanded a set of cases regarding social media moderation and algorithms back to federal appellate courts. The court also ordered lower courts to more closely examine the laws' application beyond curated feeds and suggested they explore how the laws could still apply to other features, such as direct messaging.

Florida and Texas both passed laws limiting social media content moderation and algorithmic sorting — which the court says was in response to a feeling “feeds [were] skewed against politically conservative voices” — and requiring notification detailing exactly why any posts are in violation of content moderation rules. District courts, following suits by trade association NetChoice, issued injunctions against both, with the Eleventh Circuit Court upholding the injunction against Florida's law, and the Fifth Circuit Court — which ruled social media companies are “common carriers” like mobile phone service providers that can't discriminate — reversing the injunction against Texas' law.

By remanding and vacating both the appellate courts' decisions, the Supreme Court did not definitely rule on the matter, but suggested, especially with regard to the Fifth Circuit, how the lower courts should move forward this time around. 

“This Court has many times held, in many contexts, that it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression—to “un-bias” what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences. That principle works for social-media platforms as it does for others,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in the court's opinion. “Contrary to what the Fifth Circuit thought, the current record indicates that the Texas law does regulate speech.” 

The court then went on to say the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Courts should more broadly consider First Amendment implications of Florida and Texas rules in social media beyond the content feeds, such as in direct messaging or determining the order in which online reviews are shown to consumers. 

“Curating a feed and transmitting direct messages, one might think, involve different levels of editorial choice, so that the one creates an expressive product and the other does not,” wrote Kagan. “If so, regulation of those diverse activities could well fall on different sides of the constitutional line.” 

This means lower courts could expand consumers' speech protections to less-curated products such as direct messages, but free speech legal experts say it's unlikely.

“Having attended the oral argument in the NetChoice cases, I think the court was more really just trying to explore how regulations would apply to different functions,” said Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “Parsing out direct messages where the platform doesn't have any involvement in the message from others could be used as part of that argument, but I don't think you can reach that conclusion just from that one off-hand remark from Kagan.”

The cases now go back to the Fifth and Eleventh District Courts for new rulings under the Supreme Court's instructions.

(The Center Square) – U.S. Rep. Chip Roy R-Texas, filed a resolution Friday calling for the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to be invoked to remove President Joe Biden from office after his performance at the presidential debate on Thursday night. Biden appeared to have mental and physical difficulties, prompting widespread speculation and criticism in the media and among Democrats.

The resolution calls on Vice President Kamala Harris “to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Joseph Biden incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as Acting President.” It also states Biden “has repeatedly and publicly demonstrated his inability to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency, including, among others, the powers and duties of the Commander-In-Chief.”

In a radio interview, Roy made similar arguments to those of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saying he doesn't know who would replace Biden as the Democratic nominee ahead on Novembers election. Cruz says it would be former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Roy said, “Democrats have now known this for a long time,” referring to Biden's mental and physical health. “They've been guilty of trying to hide it from the American people. They've been using him [Biden] as a puppet as a Manchurian candidate to drive their radical agenda. They've done that on purpose … now they saw the gig is up, that Trump could win, they were hoping they could keep the Manchurian candidate in place, they panicked. It was a controlled panic, let's have an early debate, we'll see how he performed. He didn't perform. Now they have what they need to try to push him aside and end-run [Vice President] Kamala [Harris].”

Regardless of the Democrats' problems, Roy said, “we have a constitutional duty to protect the Constitution. He's incapable. We should force Democrats to own it and make a choice. Do you agree, do you believe he's competent? Let's make them choose.”

Congress proposed the 25th Amendment in 1965 after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. All 50 states ratified it in 1967. It establishes procedures for replacing the president or vice president under certain circumstances. The first time it was invoked was in 1973 after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned, according to the Congressional Research Service. It was again used in 1974 after President Richard Nixon resigned and when Vice President Gerald Ford, who became president, nominated Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President. It has not been used since.

Calls to invoke the 25th Amendment were made in February by multiple members of Congress after Special Counsel Robert Hur's report cited examples of Biden's mental lapses, describing him as an “elderly man with poor memory,” The Center Square reported.

Before that, and for three years, former White House physician for presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, repeatedly questioned Biden's mental and physical health and called for him to be removed under the 25th Amendment, The Center Square reported.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, agreed with Roy's resolution, saying, “If the need to invoke the 25th Amendment wasn't made abundantly clear last night, it never will be. This is dire. And exactly the kind of situation for which the 25th Amendment was written.”

U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Florida, said if the Hur tapes were released, Biden's cabinet would vote to remove him from office. She told Fox Business, “If we are able to hear that he is incompetent on those tapes,” she said the cabinet “would have to” vote to remove him. “I say that based on last night's performance and the outcry from Democrats from various news outlets from the American people … calling for a new candidate or for him to step aside.”

At a campaign event in North Carolina on Friday, Biden said he wasn't backing down. “I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to… I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job…I know like millions of Americans know; when you get knocked down you get back up.”

After his campaign blamed his poor performance on a cold, co-host of CBS Mornings Gayle King said, “When you have a cold there's many things you can take for it. We didn't know he had a cold until he stood up. A cold doesn't force you to lose your train of thought. A cold doesn't force you to just throw things out randomly that to many people made no sense.

“So how long do we continue to act like that we didn't see what we just saw last night? I thought for many people, the word I keep hearing was, ‘it was very painful to watch.'”

(The Center Square ) – After the murder of a 12-year-old girl in Houston, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he would prioritize two legislative reforms in the legislative session next year.

He made the announcement after citizens called for the accused to receive the death penalty. On June 17, the body of Jocelyn Nungaray was found in a bayou in north Houston, bound and without clothing from the waist down. She was strangled to death, but not without a fight. According to investigators, one of the alleged assailants had bite marks and scratches on his arms when he was arrested.

The men charged with her murder are Venezuelan nationals who illegally entered the country and instead of being processed for removal were released by Border Patrol agents in El Paso earlier this year. The men were charged with capital murder, held in the county jail on $10 million bonds each.

At one perpetrator's arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Megan Long said, “He was talking to his boss, who works in construction, and asking for money, because of what they did, to get out of town.”

At the second's, Long said the accused told a witness “that he had done something bad, that he'd hurt someone, that the person was dead and that he had to finish what he started,” KHOU 11 News reported.

One also turned on the other, saying he tied up Jocelyn and “suggested they throw her into the bayou to get rid of any DNA,” Long told the judge. “But that's coming from the co-defendant. Once we receive the physical evidence, we hope to have a clearer picture of what exactly happened under the bridge.”

Under current law, neither is eligible for the death penalty.

At a news conference last week, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said that if forensic evidence comes back showing Nungaray was sexually assaulted, they could ask for the death penalty and no bond.

The current charge related to strangulation “does not carry death penalty eligibility,” she said. “However, it is important for the public and the press to know that the investigation is ongoing. Forensics and lab work are required in this case and unlike on television they can't do it in an hour.” If the tests come back with “evidence that would support a charge of sexual assault or should other evidence be brought forward that supports the charge of kidnapping, both underlying offenses would make this capital murder and these individuals death penalty eligible,” she said.

“Make no mistake, this is a horrific crime and when we take charges, we do it based on the evidence we have at the moment.”

Ogg also explained that the legislature has changed the law over time related to the death penalty. “Our laws treat the age of victims differently” and the legislature has “changed where they draw the line.” It changed from age six and under to eventually between ages 10 and 15, “but the death penalty was taken off the table by the legislature. Instead, they suggested that life without parole would be the appropriate charge,” she said.

She emphasized that age “is not the only consideration in this case or any case. The underlying actions of the criminals” are.

She encouraged the media and members of the public to ask state lawmakers why the death penalty was taken off the table. “I don't know why,” she said.

On Thursday, Patrick blamed House Democrats and House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, for not having stronger bail reform legislation passed.

After attending Nungaray's funeral on Thursday, Patrick said, “Jocelyn's family was shocked any bail was given in this case. The Texas Senate has passed strong bail reform by Senator [Joan] Huffman [R-Houston] on several occasions with overwhelming bipartisan support. Each time, a few House Democrats and the Republican Speaker, Dade Phelan, killed the bill in the House. If only the House had passed SJR 44 last session, these two alleged killers could have been denied bail.

“I told Jocelyn's mom that the Texas Senate will pass bail reform once again and will not accept the House killing this legislation. It will be named after her daughter as ‘Jocelyn's Law,' so her daughter's name will never be forgotten and will ensure capital murderers are not eligible for bail ever again.”

He also said the new law will allow Texans to vote to amend the Texas Constitution to automatically deny bail for all accused capital murderers.

Patrick also said the Senate will amend another law to make the murder of any child under age 15 a death penalty eligible offense. Currently, the age specification is 10 years-old and younger.