from Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe, Healey’s Exxon witch-hunt:

As a citizen and a politician, Healey is fully entitled to condemn fossil fuels, decry global warming, and express scorn for those who don’t agree with her and Gore. As the chief law-enforcement officer of Massachusetts, she is not entitled to deploy subpoenas and other investigative and legal tools in order to harass or demonize businesses and organizations that express opinions she doesn’t share. Not even when the opinion is on a topic that she considers “more important” than anything else.

The scientific and policy debate over climate change is vigorous and ongoing. It is no more settled than the debate over abortion. And just as the First Amendment flatly forbids Massachusetts officials from using their powers to silence free speech about abortion, it forbids them from using those powers to squelch competing arguments and views about fossil fuels and global warming.

HKO

Process matters and the ends do not justify the means.  The left has become far too  comfortable with sidestepping the Bill of Rights for the political purposes of imposing moral supremacy.

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