Jay Bhattacharya: the First Amendment is unenforceable

Director of the National Institutes of Health Jay Bhattacharya yesterday claimed that the First Amendment is a “dead letter”. Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, the former Stanford professor warned that America’s constitutional protections for free expression dissolved during the Covid pandemic and remain unenforceable even today. “The First Amendment still doesn’t apply in practice,” he said. “Free speech rights exist right now only because the administration has chosen to allow them, not because the First Amendment is protecting us.” Bhattacharya, best known for co-authoring the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, said his own experience during the pandemic...