The US Army is preparing to enforce mandatory coronavirus vaccinations for service members from the beginning of September, according to an Army Times report.
The report published Saturday notes “The Army has directed commands to prepare to administer mandatory COVID-19 vaccines as early as Sept. 1, pending full Food and Drug Administration licensure.”
“The directive came from an execute order sent to the force by Department of the Army Headquarters,” the report adds.
An update to a purported leaked military directive says that “Commands will be prepared to provide a backbrief on servicemember vaccination status and way ahead for completion once the vaccine is mandated.”
Both the Army and the DoD have denied that there are plans for mandatory vaccinations.
Army spokesperson Maj. Jackie Wren staled that “As a matter of policy we do not comment on leaked documents. The vaccine continues to be voluntary.”
“If we are directed by DoD to change our posture, we are prepared to do so,” Wren added.
The latest study, published in JAMA’s Cardiology Journal on Tuesday, showed that 23 male soldiers (including 22 who were deemed “previously health”) between the ages of 20 and 51 presented “acute onset of marked chest pain” within four days of receiving their second dose. Patients who sought care for chest pain in the military health-care system following COVID-19 vaccination and were subsequently diagnosed with clinical myocarditis were included in the case study.
In the UK, soldiers have been warned that if they decline the vaccine they will face ‘punishment and re-education’.
In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.
Staggering Numbers Of Shootings, Deaths In Chicago & NYC Over Bloody July 4th Weekend
Every July 4th weekend police in Chicago brace for an uptick in violence – even more than is usual when typical weekends average about 40 shootings – and this holiday weekend was no different, easily registering as the deadliest and most violent this year given the total death count. New York City has also been witnessing a steady uptick in seemingly random shootings and violence, including brazen acts committed in broad daylight in heavily trafficked areas, such as the recent Times Square wounding of a US Marine.
On Monday the Chicago Sun-Times has tallied 92 people shot over the long July 4th weekend, with 16 killed. The Sun-Times database shows the numbers killed to be a weekend high for all of 2021 so far.
Among the 92 shooting incidents, 76 were considered serious enough to receive hospital treatment, including six children and teenagers, according to Chicago police.
It was a particularly devastating weekend in terms of horrific headlines involving child deaths and woundings – with the Sun-Times listing the following:
That happened around the same time that a 6-year-old girl and a woman were shot in West Pullman and about four hours after an 11-year-old boy and a man were shot in Brainerd on the South Side.
Late Sunday afternoon, a 5-year-old girl was shot in a leg, also in West Pullman.
Like with other weekend spikes in violence, local media and even woefully understaffed police often struggle to gain an accurate tally of shooting incidents amid the rapidly incoming emergency notifications.
Fox News wrote earlier that “Reports on the total number of incidents ranged wildly from 37 to 88, but the fact remains that dozens of people were shot, with at least five children among the victims.”
The youngest victim in Chicago was a 6-year old girl who survived what likely was a random act targeting someone else in a group which had been standing on a sidewalk:
The youngest victim was a 6-year-old girl who was shot while standing in a group on a sidewalk at around 1 a.m. Monday, WGN 9 reported.
A gray SUV pulled up and someone opened fire on the group, hitting a 43-year-old woman twice in the back as well as the little girl. Both are expected to recover.
New York City also saw a noticeable spike in violence over the holiday weekend, with by Monday morning NYPD data showing 26 total shot since Friday midnight. Later in the day that total rose to at least 30 as more detailed reports came in on the prior two days.
SO FAR THIS JULY 4TH WEEKEND: Nearly 30 people were shot as a result of gunfire across New York City during the holiday weekend.
A 23-year old woman was slashed in the chest and hand in Times Square early Friday morning when a stranger lashed out after she ignored his catcalls, police said.
The woman, whose name was not released, was visiting Manhattan from Michigan and leaving ‘Restaurant Row’ in Midtown, around West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue, around 4.30am with a friend when the man began shouting crude remarks, according to the New York Daily News.
Her friend told the stranger to leave her alone, but he grew enraged and followed them before approaching the woman from behind a slicing her across the chest and hand with an unknown sharp object, police said.
Police were not able to apprehend the man described in public alerts as a “dark-skinned man in black clothing” after he fled the scene. Surveillance footage was subsequently released as NYPD continue seeking the public’s help.
Police appear to have few answers or done little in terms of practical solutions or prevention…
“We’ve gone from that to now needing to bring in metal detectors because they can’t curb the violence in New York City … What a sad state of affairs” https://t.co/x9MVxsGHet
All the latest incidents which at times sent tourists running for their lives in central places like Times Square “mark the latest in a bloody summer as violent crime continues to spike in the Big Apple, jumping by a quarter over the past year, according to police data,” The Daily Mail wrote of recent incidents. “Shootings in New York City have surged by 43 percent in the past year, while murders are up 12 percent.”
“All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia,” declares a policy page, “must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV).” This is essential policy, believe it or not. Maybe that will be hard to believe, if you have read many Wikipedia articles on controversial topics lately. But it is true: neutrality is the second of the “Five Pillars” policies that define Wikipedia’s approach to the craft of encyclopedia-writing. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales made a statement that Wikipedia now regards as definitive. “Doing The Right Thing takes many forms,” he wrote, “but perhaps most central is the preservation of our shared vision for the NPOV and for a culture of thoughtful diplomatic honesty.”
Yes, Wikipedia is very earnest about its neutrality.
But what does “neutral” mean? This is easy to misunderstand; many people think it means the same as “objective.” But neutrality is not the same as objectivity. If an encyclopedia is neutral about political, scientific, and religious controversies—the issues that define the ongoing culture war—then you will find competing sides represented carefully and respectfully, even if one side is “objectively” wrong. From a truly neutral article, you would learn why, on a whole variety of issues, conservatives believe one thing, while progressives believe another thing. And then you would be able to make up your own mind.
Is that what Wikipedia offers? As we will see, the answer is No.
“Now wait a second,” I can already hear some people saying. “I reject this distinction between objectivity and neutrality. Neutrality does not mean giving equal weight to all opinions. Neutrality means approaching issues without emotion, following standards of logic and science. The neutral approach seeks hard facts and assembles hard-won truths for a critical audience.”
That might be a fine thing, but I am afraid that is not what “neutrality” means, certainly not according to Wikipedia. Logic, science, and factuality are admirable, but the words summing up those ideals are “objectivity” and “rationality.” Neutrality is something else. Wikipedia is supposed to be like Switzerland, proverbially speaking: not casting any side as the enemy, and certainly not taking pot-shots at one side. And this is roughly how Wikipedia still officially characterizes neutrality: “Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them.”
Jimmy Wales is right. We did originally adopt the neutrality policy to foster “a culture of thoughtful diplomatic honesty.” In other words, the way to keep the peace among a radically diverse set of contributors is not to declare winners and losers. But that is only one reason we adopted the policy. There was another key reason: as I have explained, no one has a right to make up your mind for you, especially in an open, global project. That does violence to our basic autonomy and, if the project ever became very large and important, it would place an enormous amount of power in the hands of a ideological cabal. And on Wikipedia, There is no cabal (ask them; they’ll tell you). Such ideological control would turn Wikipedia into an engine of propaganda. The neutrality policy was supposed to prevent that.
There is a crucial difference between propaganda and information that supports individual deliberation. The difference is neutrality.
So does Wikipedia meet its own ideals of neutrality? Let’s find out. I already explored this question by looking for (and easily finding) bias in articles on important topics. In the present article, I take another approach: we can list a few big political issues, briefly summarize the warring views on them, and then look and see whether these views are presented neutrally, in a way that allows the reader to make up his own mind. Does that sound fair? I think it does. And does Wikipedia take such an approach?
I propose to look and see. Which issues in the last year or so have caused the most acrimonious dispute? We can look at the main battlefronts of the culture war: politics, science, and religion. I will spend most of my time on politics.
In U.S. politics, four of the biggest political issues would include:
Democrats and (most) Republicans were sharply divided on the question of whether Trump’s impeachments had any merit. The Democratic view was that Trump abused his office by encouraging the president of Ukraine to investigate his opponent, Biden. Later, he egged on the January 6 invasion of the Capitol building. The Republican view was that Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president was wholly innocent, that he had committed no “high crime or misdemeanor,” and that Biden was in fact guilty of dirty shenanigans in Ukraine. As to the January 6 invasion, his remarks did not cause it. Of course, there is much, much more to be said on all sides. Now, a neutral Wikipedia would not come down clearly on either side, and would fully lay out the Democratic and the Republican cases fairly and fully. Is that what we see on Wikipedia?
No. As of this writing (and this caveat goes for all of the following), there was a section of the Donald Trump article about the first impeachment (2019-20). That section had absolutely no information about the Republican side in the House impeachment proceedings; only the Democratic side is presented. As to the Senate trial, here is the total extent of Wikipedia’s remarks about the Trump (i.e., majority Republican) position: “Trump’s lawyers did not deny the facts as presented in the charges but said Trump had not broken any laws or obstructed Congress. They argued that the impeachment was ‘constitutionally and legally invalid’ because Trump was not charged with a crime and that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense.” That is all; two transparently biased sentences. Among other things, the article omits the essential point that Trump’s lawyers also denied that there was any abuse of power in the first place.
There is, of course, much more information to be found about the Republican case in the (very long) article, “First impeachment trial of Donald Trump“; but, and I suppose you will just have to take my word for this, the relevant section is extremely biased, for example, dismissing various what it calls “conspiracy theories.”
As to the second impeachment trial (that of January, 2021), in the Donald Trump article, no information is offered on either side about the arguments for impeachment, either in the House or the Senate proceedings. Certainly there is nothing remotely representing the perspective of Trump and his defenders. Again, there is a much longer article, “Second impeachment of Donald Trump,” with a “Background” section that essentially lays out the Democratic case against Trump. No Trump rebuttal is given at all. The rest of the article is also extremely biased; there is a long section of opinions whether Trump should have been impeached. The “Opposition” section (i.e., listing people opposed to impeachment) skips entirely over all House Republican opposition, and presents only Senate opposition.
This is hardly fair, neutral treatment on events that deeply divided the American people. Wikipedia took the Democrats’ side against Trump, period. The articles are so biased, in fact, that it is fair to call them “propaganda.”
President Biden faced, and has so far easily escaped, two potentially devastating scandals that were unleashed in the 2020 election. One concerned Ukraine and the other concerned the shady business dealings Hunter and his father allegedly had with a company controlled by the Chinese government. The issue dividing Republicans and Democrats here, obviously, was: Was there any evidence of wrongdoing? Not all national-level Republicans thought the scandals were worth talking about, but some certainly did; and a lot of the rank-and-file did. The Democrats, meanwhile, essentially circled the wagons and refused to report on or discuss the issues involved. When they did, they typically issued blanket denials and dismissals.
A neutral handling of the many confusing accusations would not imply that Biden was guilty of anything. But it also would not clear him of all charges. Rather, it would present enough detail about the accusations and the purported evidence for them, leaving nothing important out; then it would explain in some detail how Biden was defended by Democrats and his allies. That much is the least that one would expect to find in a neutral treatment of the scandals. Is that what we see in Wikipedia?
Not at all. We can look at some relevant articles, first about the Ukraine scandal. In the “Campaign” section of the Wikipedia article on Biden, there are two paragraphs explaining the allegations (footnotes and links have been removed from this quotation):
In September 2019, it was reported that Trump had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate alleged wrongdoing by Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Despite the allegations, as of September 2019, no evidence has been produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. The media widely interpreted this pressure to investigate the Bidens as trying to hurt Biden’s chances of winning the presidency, resulting in a political scandal and Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives.
Beginning in 2019, Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden. Biden was accused of withholding $1 billion in aid from Ukraine in this effort. In 2015, Biden pressured the Ukrainian parliament to remove Shokin because the United States, the European Union and other international organizations considered Shokin corrupt and ineffective, and in particular because Shokin was not assertively investigating Burisma. The withholding of the $1 billion in aid was part of this official policy.
This is, of course, an obviously one-sided whitewash which takes Biden’s side throughout. In these dismissive paragraphs, one cannot fully make sense of what the case against Biden was even supposed to be; Biden’s withholding of aid is mentioned, but the context and explanation essential to the case are omitted.
Anyone passingly familiar with the story knows there is much more to it. There is nothing here about the fact that Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma paid Joe Biden’s son Hunter approximately $600,000 per annum from 2014 to 2019 to serve on the Board of Directors, never mind that he had no industry experience but only a connection to his father, the Vice President of the United States. Wikipedia even has the temerity to make the claim that “Trump and his allies falsely accused Biden of getting the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin fired, because he was supposedly pursuing an investigation into Burisma Holdings, which employed Hunter Biden.” While it was in dispute why Biden sought Shokin’s ouster, it is perfectly true that he did so. The statement, in fact, was one Joe Biden specifically made himself—with braggadocio and to laughter—in an infamous video of an interview before the Council on Foreign Relations. The video, of course, is not so much as mentioned by Wikipedia. Nor is there any discussion of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and the damning evidence it contained.
Wikipedia does have a whole article titled—indeed, its bias showing right in the title—”Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory.” It begins, “The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory [bold in original] is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.” There are, of course, a great many people who believe the claims are not “false” and no mere “conspiracy theory.” Their point of view is not presented but dismissed out of hand. The article goes downhill from there, serving essentially as a hit piece on Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and the New York Post, with very few actual details about what the allegations even were. More details can be found in a section of the Hunter Biden article—which is something—but even this reads as a blatantly biased brief written by the Biden family’s own lawyers.
At this point, Wikipedia’s defenders might well fall back on their notion that only “reliable sources” are permitted, and, gee, no reliable sources thought much of the above-mentioned video or laptop. “But,” you might well observe, “it was big news for a time. And Wikipedia thought there were no reliable sources at all? Why not?” The reason is that the sources that provide mainstream coverage of conservative points of view, including Fox News, TheNew York Post, and the (U.K.) Daily Mail—as well as pretty much all of newer conservative news media sources, which are the only outlets doing any reporting on many important stories—have all been added to a list of sources “deprecated” for their coverage of political news. This is not a joke and not an exaggeration. Republican-favoring sources, even quite mainstream ones, simply may not be used on Wikipedia, not even to explain a Republican viewpoint. (I will discuss this more in the last section below.)
The Biden China scandal is similar and is treated similarly in Wikipedia. Here, Hunter was a director of a joint venture between an American company, Rosemont Seneca, where Hunter was a partner, and Bohai Capital, a Chinese government-controlled investment firm. The joint venture was called BHR. According to the explosive testimony of Tony Bobulinski, the Bidens’ top executive for handling certain deals in China, Hunter arranged for Jonathan Li, CEO of Bohai Capital, to “shake hands” with his father, and Joe Biden was, according to Bobulinski, directly involved in the deals.
In addition to the Bobulinksi interview, a great deal of supporting evidence comes from the same Hunter Biden laptop mentioned above, such as an email indicating that brothers Hunter and Jim Biden, along with “the big guy”—Bobulinski identified him as Joe Biden—would each be assigned equity shares in a business venture with Chinese energy giant CEFC.
Can any of this information on the China Biden scandal be found—even in a twisted, biased form—in the Wikipedia article on Joe Biden? Nope. As of this writing, that article contains not a single word about the China deals, Rosemont Seneca, Tony Bobulinksi, the laptop, or the CEFC. But surely information can be found elsewhere on Wikipedia about these matters? Well, yes, there is a little. Most of it is again in the article on Hunter Biden, written in a way to make Hunter look as good as possible, the hapless victim of Trump’s “false charges” (those precise, dismissive words are actually used).
Again, there is much more to the story, but the point is that the Biden scandals deeply divide the American people. An ideologically neutral resource would explain both sides fully and fairly, leaving the reader to make up his own mind. Is that what Wikipedia does? No. Wikipedia is clearly aligned with one side. You might maintain that it is the only legitimate side; but then, that is what many ideologues say of their own side. What you cannot seriously maintain is that Wikipedia’s treatment of the Biden scandals is neutral. It is grossly biased.
Next I propose to look at some articles on the 2020 Antifa and BLM riots. There could not be a starker cultural divide in the American body politic than in the reaction to these riots. The rioting was sparked particularly following the May 26, 2020 death (or, as most people think, killing) of George Floyd. National Democrats generally supported the rioters; portrayed them as “mostly peaceful” activists against fascism and racism, even contributing money to their defense; took seriously the notion that we should “defund the police” or backed similar police “reform” proposals; and stubbornly minimized the months of bloodshed, danger, and destruction the riots caused. Republicans made no secret of their hatred of the riots, if they had no objection to peaceful protests; their contempt for the violent rioters; their sympathy for the afflicted neighborhoods; and their wonder and disbelief at the very suggestion that we should “defund the police.” They also pushed back, somewhat, against the notion that the United States was so woefully racist that the country must make dramatic changes to, e.g., policing practices or anti-white indoctrination at schools. Both sides generally agreed that real examples of police brutality needed to be dealt with more severely and that society, more than ever, had no place for real racism.
A neutral treatment would, of course, give broad factual coverage of such things as where the rioting took place, how many people were arrested, and numbers of injuries and deaths attributable to the rioting. The main Wikipedia article actually seems to do a good job there, as far as I can tell. But in addition, the reaction to the riots on both sides would be fully and fairly canvassed. Varying theories of the causes of the riots would be offered; Democratic theories would dwell, of course, on police brutality and racist attitudes and groups, while Republican theories, acknowledging that to some degree, would also discuss deliberate left-wing organization and dispute the extent of the problems exemplified by the George Floyd case.
Wikipedia’s coverage is, unsurprisingly, very extensive. There is a long summary article, “George Floyd protests,” as well as a “List of George Floyd protests in the United States,” and a long article titled, “2020-2021 United States racial unrest.” The concern that conservatives have is not with any protest, but with political violence in the form of rioting. So let us focus on the last article. The article does helpfully have useful statistics. While labeled “unrest,” there is a “Casualties” section in the article’s infobox, saying there were “At least 25” deaths, injuries to 2000+ law enforcement offers and to “an unknown number of civilians,” and $1–2 billion in property damage. Indeed, after pointing out that 93% of the protests were “peaceful and nondestructive,” the bottom line was that, owing to that pesky remaining 7%, the riots were “the civil disorder event with the highest recorded damage in United States history.” So far, so good: the article in those respects states facts that all sides would want presented.
As one gets farther into the article, however, the bias becomes much more pronounced. “A wave of monument removals”—an odd way to describe the deliberate, illegal destruction of public sculpture—”and name changes has taken place throughout the world, especially in the United States.” But what about the reaction to the riots? It was a “cultural reckoning,” we are told. “Public opinion of racism and discrimination quickly shifted in the wake of the protests, with significantly increased support of the Black Lives Matter movement and acknowledgement of institutional racism.” It is true that there was an increased of support for BLM early on. But support quickly dropped as the organization became associated with destructive violence in black neighborhoods, agitation against police funding, and radical communist views. Even by September of 2020, support had dropped 12% from 67% to 55%, in a Pew poll. The latter point can be found further down in the article, but is not mentioned in the more important article introduction, which says simply that BLM enjoyed “significantly increased support.” Also, BLM support later continued to drop to pre-riot levels. Even the New York Times, hardly a conservative mouthpiece, puzzlingly observes, “The data…contradicts the idea that the country underwent a racial reckoning.”
The rest of the article—which, I confess, I did not read entirely, as it is very long—looks like a lovingly detailed Establishment brief about the causes and events of the 2020 riots. As to the causes, one key claim is: “Black people, who account for less than 13% of the American population, are killed by police at a disproportionate rate, being killed at more than twice the rate of white people.” While this is no doubt true, a relevant fact, often cited by Republicans, is omitted: black men are much more likely to commit crimes that might bring a call to the police. Hence, as one study put it, “We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.” Such information, which appears inconsistent with Democratic viewpoints on racial injustice of police, does not seem to be found in the article.
Finally, there is a “Social impact” section. This is focused entirely on broader social and political changes that were supposedly caused by a reaction to the riots (and protests). In this section, and indeed all throughout the article, there is complete silence about the Republican criticism of the riots and of Democratic politicians who supported the violence or pretended that it was not happening; of the conservative backlash against Antifa and BLM; and of resistance to the social fallout such as the “Defund the Police” campaigns and some police “reform” proposals that would make policing much more difficult. There is absolutely no mention of conservative and Republican claims that the riots were deliberately and even centrally organized by left-wing organizations. Criticism of Black Lives Matter cannot be found in the article in any form, despite looming large in the Republican reaction to the riots.
Then of course there is the disputed 2020 U.S. presidential election. This was controversial not only across party lines, it was a wrenching fight within the Republican Party, with Establishment Republicans and centrists—who never liked Trump much in the first place—facing down Trump and his noisy rank-and-file supporters. Irregularities with massive amounts of mail-in ballots, failure to permit observers, and much more, caused massive uproar from Republicans. It came down to January 6, when Congress was going to vote on whether to accept the Electoral College vote count. As the Wikipedia article on the “Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election” has it, some 140 House Republicans and 11 Senate Republicans were prepared to lodge objections. Then, of course, the infamous invasion of the Capitol building happened—just in time to make such objections even more politically costly for representatives holding shaky seats.
The above-linked article was bound to be another propaganda piece. And so it is—shot through and through with egregious bias. Here is how it begins:
After the 2020 United States presidential election in which Joe Biden prevailed, then-incumbent Donald Trump, as well as his campaign and his proxies, pursued an aggressive and unprecedented effort to deny and overturn the election. The attempts to overturn the election were described as an attempted coup d’état and an implementation of “the big lie.” Trump and his allies promoted numerous false claims that the election was stolen from Trump through an international communist conspiracy, rigged voting machines, and electoral fraud.
Further down, we have another gem:
Stop the Steal [bold in original] is a far-right and conservative campaign and protest movement in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that falsely posits that widespread electoral fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election to deny incumbent President Donald Trump victory over former vice president Joe Biden.
I will not go into more details; you can imagine. There are actually several articles related to irregularities in the 2020 election and its aftermath. In addition to the one discussed above, there is also Republican reactions to Donald Trump’s claims of 2020 election fraud, which states, “Trump falsely claimed to have won the election, and made many false and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.” Of course, the very title here is a good example of Saul Alinsky’s Rule 11: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.” In other words, the backlash against the 2020 election was not a broad Republican movement, but only one hated and discredited man’s outrageous and illegal attempt to overturn the election.
Obviously, I could go on and talk about the January 6 Capitol invasion: what really happened? In “2021 United States Capitol Attack,” you will learn that the Capitol “was stormed during a riot and violent attack against the U.S. Congress,” by “a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump” who “attempted to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.” Never mind that several details here are in dispute. Many Republicans believe a number of leftists and FBI agents were among those who invaded the Capitol building. In any event, precisely what happened is not clear to those of us who have watched hours of video footage of the invasion. I watched with increasing horror and had questions even as it happened.
Republicans are naturally of differing views on Trump’s speech on the day of January 6—some think it was justified, others concede it was irresponsible—but they generally agree that he cannot be blamed for the attack. Such nuanced points of view so unpopular with Wikipedia are, unsurprisingly, not presented in the article at all. Instead, it tells a story that, by omitting key details, makes it sound as if the invasion was a spontaneous uprising of crazy MAGA people that Trump deliberately whipped up into a treasonous rage. Perhaps that is precisely what happened; but a neutral article on the topic would sketch alternate narratives as well, present all the relevant information from which various people build their cases, and leave the reader to make up his own mind about what actually happened.
I hardly need add that Wikipedia is firmly aligned with one political party, and its articles on the 2020 election read like party propaganda.
This article is already long enough and I have made my point, but it will be interesting to dip briefly into other culture war topics, drawn from science and religion, that were in the news in the last year.
In science, even more than global warming (or climate change), there has been significant controversy over Covid-19 and the official measures to combat it. You will not be surprised to learn that Wikipedia debunks everything the Establishment debunks, all conveniently collected into a single article on “COVID-19 misinformation.” Alongside silly things almost no one would take seriously, you can learn that it is “misinformation” to suggest a “Wuhan lab origin” of the virus. You will also be relieved to know that “masks do actually work.”
Another article assures us, “Several researchers, from modelling and demonstrated examples, have concluded that lockdowns are effective at reducing the spread of, and deaths caused by, COVID-19.” Of course, there is no mention of any other research. What about the Covid-19 vaccines: are they effective? Safe? In the COVID-19 vaccine article, the introductory section mentions “demonstrated efficacy as high as 95%,” but nothing about side effects; further down in the article, a very short paragraph in a “Misinformation” section informs us that claims about such side effects are “overblown.” And that is it. You read that right: in an article about the experimental Covid-19 vaccines, the only thing Wikipedia has to say about their side-effects is that concern about them is overblown. Needless to say, you will not find anything in the way of information from the many skeptical physicians and medical researchers, who must not exist.
Let us be clear on something here. You might support Wikipedia’s approach to Covid-19; but you cannot maintain that it is neutral. A neutral approach would acknowledge and fairly represent alternative views on the origin of the virus, the efficacy of masks, the effectiveness and defensibility of lockdowns, and the effectiveness and safety of the Covid-19 vaccines. You might maintain that the articles are better without such an approach; but then what you are saying is that you prefer the articles’ Establishment bias to a neutral approach that would let the reader decide.
In religion, recently, a few different issues have divided conservatives from the more liberal Establishment, represented by mainline denominations and most (but not all) seminaries. One is this: Is Christianity in decline in the West—or just liberal denominations and churches? Wikipedia’s “Decline of Christianity in the Western world” article begins, “The decline of Christianity in the Western world is an ongoing trend. Developed countries with modern, secular educational facilities in the post-World War II era have shifted towards post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural and multifaith societies.” But, the article correctly notes, a similar decline is not happening in Latin America and Africa, and even recently, “71% of Western Europeans identified themselves as Christian, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center.”
In the section about the United States, the focus is (unsurprisingly) on mainline denominations, despite the fact that they are now among the smaller denominations; even as of ten years ago, taken together, the mainline Protestant denominations had fewer than half the adherents of evangelical and conservative Protestant denominations.” Only at the very end of the article do we learn that “‘intense religion’ including evangelicalism has persisted.” You will not learn, in this article, the name of the single largest Protestant denomination: the Southern Baptist Convention, with 16.2 million members. (The information can be found in the “Southern Baptist Convention” article.) You will also not learn that in an important segment, conservative church membership is actually growing: among others, nondenominational churches were booming as of 2014, and actually outnumbered even the Southern Baptists.
Basically, to hear Wikipedia tell it, Christianity is in decline, because mainline denominations are in decline, and the conservative denominations and churches are barely worth caring about. And I can just hear the response: “Well, yeah. Sounds about right.” But if you agree with the Wikipedia article’s approach, that does not mean it is neutral; the point is that it is clearly biased.
Among the hot-button topics in church politics is one that appears to be causing a schism in the United Methodist Church: same-sex marriage. The relevant article is “Blessing of same-sex unions in Christian churches.” The article has a section with five bullet points offering “Theological views of those who support same-sex unions and/or marriages,” but there is no parallel section—or any information at all, believe it or not—about the theology of those who believe same-sex marriage is unbiblical. Some major denominations that strictly forbid same-sex marriage, like the Southern Baptists, are simply not mentioned in the article.
These contentious issues are exactly where we should expect to see fair treatment of “alternative” views on Wikipedia. But we do not.
This is hardly news, but it bears repeating. Wikipedia openly repudiates neutrality, and therefore it is shamelessly hypocritical in how it continues to pay lip service to its “neutral point of view” policy. Wikipedia’s editors embrace their biases sometimes so fervently that their articles emerge more as propaganda than as reference material.
“But wait,” you say. “Come on. Fine, they’re hypocritical, but dodgy claims to neutrality are just marketing. Why should we care about actual neutrality? For journalists, it is totally passé. Sure, most of them don’t actually want you to make up your own mind on important issues. So? Of course they want experts to declare what is known, and then you should learn that—a lot of times that’s the whole point of ‘journalism.’ And here’s another thing. Wikipedia strongly prefers mainstream secondary sources. When it comes to the culture war, the educated classes, the readers of those mainstream sources, naturally skew liberal. Wikipedia just represents that mainstream view. And that’s reasonable; it is not a fault with Wikipedia. Live with it. It’s the new reality. How do you respond?”
First, I refuse to accept such excuses for the bully tactics of propagandists. Second, it’s also false that Wikipedia just represents the mainstream. Wikipedia does not just mirror the biases found in the mainstream news media, because some of it is conservative or contrarian. A lot of mainstream news stories are broken only in Fox News, the Daily Mail, and the New York Post—all of which are banned from use as sources by Wikipedia. Beyond that, many mainstream sources of conservative, libertarian, or contrarian opinion are banned from Wikipedia as well, including Quillette, The Federalist, and the Daily Caller. Those might be contrarian or conservative, but they are hardly “radical”; they are still mainstream. So, how on earth can such viewpoints ever be given an airing on Wikipedia? Answer: often, they cannot, not if there are no “reliable sources” available to report about them.
In short, and with few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources—and sources friendly to globalist progressivism—are permitted.
It is true that Wikipedia permits a few sources, such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Times,Daily Telegraph, and Weekly Standard, which are more often tolerant of conservative viewpoints, but these are (or have become) as often centrist as conservative, and they are generally careful never to leave the current Overton Window of progressive thought. They are the “loyal opposition” of the progressive media hegemony.
Why has Wikipedia systematically purged conservative mainstream media sources? Is it because such sources have become intolerably irresponsible and partisan? That’s what Wikipedians will tell you. As they put it, it is because they do not want what they dismiss as “misinformation,” “conspiracy theories,” etc., to get any hearing. In saying so, they (and similarly biased institutions) are plainly claiming exclusive control over what is thinkable. They want to set the boundaries of the debate, and they want to tell you how to think about it. A good illustration of just how radical Wikipedia’s source-banning policies have become can be seen in their treatment of Newsweek magazine, which is now marked as “no consensus” (i.e., avoid and use with caution), because ownership passed in 2013 to IBT Media, the publisher of the centrist, sometimes conservative-leaning, International Business Times,which is itself deemed “unreliable.”
For these reasons, it is not too far to say that Wikipedia, like many other deeply biased institutions of our brave new digital world, has made itself into a kind of thought police that has de facto shackled conservative viewpoints with which they disagree. Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions: I maintain that Wikipedia has become an opponent of vigorous democracy. Democracy requires that voters be given the full range of views on controversial issues, so that they can make up their minds for themselves. If society’s main information sources march in ideological lockstep, they make a mockery of democracy. Then the wealthy and powerful need only gain control of the few approved organs of acceptable thought; then they will be able to manipulate and ultimately control all important political dialogue.
“The Alternative Sucks” – Matthew McConaughey Explains Why America Is Awesome
Superstar actor and recent additional to the plethora of podcasters, Matthew McConaughey released his “Happy Birthday America” and they are anything but the usual virtue-signaling Kow-towing we have come to expect from the celebrati.
His thoughts were summarized will in the following sentence…
“We’re all in this together… as the UNITED states of America… If you don’t purchase that, move on, go somewhere else!”
Morgan Stanley: Here’s Why The Market Rally Is About To Take A Break
By Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley
It’s Getting Hot
When the COVID lockdowns first hit, the primary risk facing companies centered on how to survive the sharpest economic downturn in 90 years. On reflection, what companies were able to accomplish over the past year with most of the labor force working from home is an economic miracle. In aggregate, the US economy surpassed its pre-COVID peak last quarter, just nine months after the trough of the recession. Profits returned to peak levels even faster, with many companies feeling no effects of the recession at all. In fact, essential businesses and technology enablers achieved an acceleration in pre-COVID sales trends, accompanied by record profitability as labor and other costs fell precipitously.
Now, with the economic recovery from COVID in full bloom, companies and investors are facing different questions:
First, how will consumers spend their money? Will their purchases of the items they bought last year remain elevated or will we see a wallet share shift toward the experiences they were unable to enjoy? Perhaps there’s enough pent-up savings to support both? In our view, as the stimulus checks and supplemental unemployment benefits run out later this summer, consumers will be forced to make choices. That likely means a rotation toward services and away from goods, which have been over-consumed.
Second, higher costs are returning as businesses deal with supply chain shortages. Most investors are aware of the spike in certain materials like lumber, copper and semiconductors. However, they also view such increases as temporary, or transitory, as the Fed calls them. They believe materials prices will eventually simmer down as supply adjusts, the normal pattern for commodity markets historically.
We’re not quite as confident in that view, but we do believe some commodity prices will subside where supply can adjust in a timely fashion.
On the other hand, we think the risk is growing that rising labor costs are more structural. First, the pandemic lockdown has curtailed the labor supply in ways that may not be easily fixed. Many workers have moved on to new occupations, which means that labor shortages may be more persistent than normal. This is especially true of the hospitality, travel and leisure industries, where demand is now surging the most. Second, generous supplemental unemployment benefits and stimulus checks have given many the means to delay their return to the labor force or enroll in higher education or training to pursue a more attractive career. Third, thanks to the extraordinary rise in asset prices, including homes, some older workers are choosing to retire earlier than planned. All these factors suggest that there is less slack in the labor force than usual at this stage of the recovery. In fact, aggregate payrolls are already well above pre-COVID levels even though total payrolls are still well below (Exhibit 1). That suggests higher labor costs for businesses as we fully reopen and lower profitability.
A powerful political shift toward fostering social equality is also under way, increasing pressure on companies to pay higher wages. This trend began in 2015 with the push for an increase in the minimum wage. Since then, minimum wages in many states are up as much as 50% or more. At the federal level, ever greater increases have been proposed. Nevertheless, when adjusted for inflation, real minimum wages are still down almost 40% from their highs in the late 1960s. This suggests there’s a long way to go before policy-makers are satisfied.
Finally, globalization and the outsourcing of manufacturing and labor costs have been on a one-way track for the past 25 years. In addition to increasing political pressure to reverse course, the pandemic has exposed the outsourcing model as vulnerable when supply is less than fluid, leading many companies to rethink and reshore, which could mean higher costs.
The bottom line is that the US economy is booming, but this is now a known known and asset markets reflect it. What isn’t so clear anymore is at what price this growth will accrue. Higher costs mean lower profits, another reason why the overall equity market has been narrowing. It also supports our view that equity markets are likely to take a break this summer as things heat up.
Our founding document, The Declaration of Independence, changed the world by establishing that human rights come from God, not courtesy of a ruler, and that justice requires governments operate with the consent of the governed. That the nation built upon the principles flourished and became the leader of the free world changed the rest of the world. Without the Declaration, there would be no such thing as the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and no social democracies in former kingdoms of Europe, much less the expectation even in dictatorships that sham elections must take place.
But because some of the states that declared their independence permitted slavery, and because eighteenth century society had different customs and linguistic conventions than now, a growing chorus of progressives condemns the document on its anniversary day.
Three Black Democrats serving in the House of Representatives ignored the free Blacks in the North when they spoke out against the Declaration yesterday:
Further, the Dec. of Ind. says we hold these truths to be “self-evident”… yet:
– 17 states have enacted voter suppression laws
– Supreme Court gutted Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act
– George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice
They also ignore the fact that the language of the Declaration served as justification for the abolitionist movement that ended up electing a Republican president and Congress that ended slavery during a bloody civil war fought to end slavery, that was defended by Democrats.
Even worse than these radical politicians whose political careers are founded on hatred and resentment is National Public Radio, the taxpayer-funded entity that has become a propaganda organ of the left. Penny Starr reports for Breitbart:
Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) reluctantly repeated its tradition of staff reading the Declaration of Independence, this year framing its report to point out the “flaws” and racist elements of one of the most cherished U.S. documents. (snip)
NPR included remarks from author David Treuer, who is Ojibwe from Leech Lake Reservation.
“But a deeper look at history also shows that one of the reasons why the colonists wanted to rise up against the British — and wage the Revolutionary War — was over the question of who would try to colonize Native lands west of the colonies,” Treuer told Morning Edition.
It boiled down to power and money, Treuer argued.
“The crown wanted that money for themselves,” he said. “The colonists, understandably, would have preferred to have it for themselves. So the whole revolution was in large part fought over who got to take our stuff.”
“One of the reasons”? Maybe a few people thought about control of the rest of North America, but the Declaration makes no such mention, nor was the question of colonizing other lands much of an issue in the discontent leading up to the American Revolution. Besides, Spain and France controlled a lot of the land that eventually became the United States. The most charitable description I can make of Treuer’s argument is to describe it as thinly-justified.
Then there is the question of the “stolen” land, a continuing libel of the United States. The universal condition of the globe is that land is ruled by sovereigns that gained control of it by conquest. That is as true of the native tribes that controlled land in North America in 1776 as it is of Alsace-Lorraine, whose sovereign authority has changed and then changed back, in the last couple of centuries.
The Ojibwe Tribe from which Mr. Treuer alleges land was “stolen”:
…migrated from the east along the Great Lakes, pushed by newly arrived Europeans and other tribes.
With the help of guns acquired in the fur trade, they pushed the Dakota south and west in the 18th century and replaced them in the north woods.
Mr. Treuer’s tribe owns the Leech Lake Reservation because they “stole” the land from the Dakotas. Using guns!
Had American settlers not “stolen” the land from Native Americans, they would be living in the Neolithic conditions that predated the arrival of the Americans, complete with life spans of roughly four decades, partly fueled by starvation, curable diseases, and of course, strife with other tribes not constrained by notions of just war or human rights that also arrived with settlers that followed the Declaration as their founding document.
Multiple Rockets Hit Iraq’s Largest US Base In Apparent Revenge Attack
A fresh rocket attack was unleased Monday on the largest military base where US troops are hosted in Iraq. Ain Al Assad airbase in western Iraq’s Anbar province was hit by at least three rockets, the American coalition has confirmed.
An official US coalition statement said that “At approx. 2:45 PM local time, Ain Al-Assad Air Base was attacked by three rockets. The rockets landed on the base perimeter.” It indicated no injuries and that damage is being assessed.
Though the perpetrators of this new attack are as yet unknown, it will likely be seen as part of broader revenge attacks for the June 27 series of US airstrikes on Iran-backed militia groups along the Iraq-Syria border, which killed and wounded multiple fighters as well as reports of civilians.
Immediately after the US military action, which was the second of Biden’s presidency, a coalition of pro-Iranian Iraqi militias vowed revenge in a statement issued immediately afterward, which said “We will avenge the blood of our righteous martyrs against the perpetrators of this heinous crime and with God’s help we will make the enemy taste the bitterness of revenge,” they said.
The Iraqi Army issued a blistering statement condemning the “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and national security.”
Such airstrikes began growing commonplace during the last year of the Trump administration amid growing tit-for-tat attacks between Iranian-backed Iraqi militias.
Now it looks to continue under Biden, creating greater pressure in terms of the growing Iraqi demands for foreign troops to finally exit the country.
At least three rockets landed today on an air base in #Iraq, which hosts US and other international forces. https://t.co/bYarxwf21e
During 2020 the series of attacks nearly sucked Iran and the US into direct war, especially following the January assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
These tweets are stupidities because while the boiling gas fire at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is spectacular, it hasn’t a single thing to do with either capitalism or global warming.
It’s the result of an accident from a poorly maintained pipeline owned by Pemex, the state oil company of Mexico.
That’s a 100% government-owned entity that was created in 1938 based on uncompensated expropriation from private-sector energy companies.
State energy enterprises are never capitalist, they are socialist state entities.
Mexico’s is worse than most of them – even Venezuela’s state oil company has some private ownership. Mexico’s, though is a full socialist state creature with zero accountability to shareholders.
It calls to mind that it’s not capitalism, nor global warming that’s causing these accidents, but the hard fact that socialist state energy enterprises have an amazing environmental record.
While the collapse of Venezuela’s oil industry and what was once the richest economy in South America are well documented, there is little coverage of the immense environmental damage being caused by the decay of its energy infrastructure.
The autocratic Maduro regime is determined to squeeze whatever oil and gasoline production it can generate from Venezuela’s crumbling oilfields, corroded refineries and rusting pipelines. The situation is so dire that oil spills are a regular event in the near-failed state, especially since Washington ratcheted up sanctions, preventing Caracas from obtaining the capital required to conduct critical maintenance and overhauls. Under Maduro’s leadership Venezuela’s government, including national oil company PDVSA, has ceased collecting and releasing data, making it near-impossible for international observers to ascertain what is occurring in the country. PDVSA data (Spanish) from 2016, before the national oil company stopped releasing operational information, showed that oil spills had multiplied fourfold since 1999. This was a worrying portent of what was to come because the worst of the decline for Venezuela’s oil industry did not start until 2018 as progressively stricter U.S. sanctions were imposed.
Aside from PDVSA ceasing to publicly report operational data, Caracas regularly attempts to ignore or even cover up oil spills. That makes it extremely difficult for neighboring countries and the international community to discern just how much environmental damage is occurring.
Notice the cover-ups, easy to do in a socialist state when the state controls the press.
In Ecuador, we’ve got another state oil company situation that’s just about as bad:
Chevron has never conducted oil production operations in Ecuador. Its subsidiary Texaco Petroleum Co. (TexPet) did operate in Ecuador, mostly in minority partnership with Ecuador’s state oil company, Petroecuador, which owned 62.5 percent. TexPet left Ecuador in 1992, and at that time it fully remediated its share of environmental impacts arising from oil production. The $40 million remediation operation was certified by all agencies of the Ecuadorian government responsible for oversight, and TexPet received a complete release from Ecuador’s national, provincial and municipal governments. Chevron acquired TexPet in 2001.
For more than two decades, Petroecuador has been the sole owner of the operations TexPet left behind, and the state oil company has greatly expanded them. Petroecuador has been slow to remediate its majority share of pre-1992 impacts and has amassed a poor environmental record since that time. All remaining environmental conditions in the region are the sole legal responsibility of Petroecuador, and in December 2011, Petroecuador announced a $70 million remediation program that would address the balance of the necessary clean-up.
A phony lawsuit pinning Chevron for blame for the Ecuadorean state oil company’s oil pollution in the Amazon fell apart after Chevron spent hundreds of millions to get the truth out. That has not just left Ecuador with state environmental pollution, it’s poisoned the environment for future foreign investment. Lucky Ecuador, and since that happened, the ChiComs have rolled in. In December 2018, I wrote:
If there was ever an example for nations worldwide of What Not To Do, take a look at what socialist Ecuador has done to itself in dumping the U.S. and turning to align its interests to China. The New York Times has a superb (albeit stomach-churning) report about how Ecuador sold itself out as a vassal of China, getting for itself a junk dam that is already collapsing, and turning over 80% of its oil production to the communist behemoth in order to pay its massive, massive debts from it. That, in exchange for scrapping its military ties to the U.S. and skipping out on its tab with western banks.
All that state capitalism, and pollution, too, yet somehow the West with its capitalism and rule of law, plus existing environmental standards that don’t exist in the socialist state-owned third world, is now to blame.
Similar cases of socialist state oil company mismanagement and the horrible consequences of it abound in Russia, China, Nigeria, Iran, the list is pretty amazing.
If anything, this fire amounts to an argument against state oil companies and the inevitable results of their activity, where profit is not the foremost concern, profit is not a thing, and making shareholders happy is not an issue. These state enterprises just serve as a cash cow for socialist governments that have so impoverished their people they’ve lost their tax base.
Now, if there’s any argument at all about global warming in this, it’s that countries like Mexico and China need to be held to the same standards as every other nation signed on to the Paris accord. That of course, is not happening, so this garbage goes on, useful to the left for pointing fingers at capitalism and global warming and, in reality, the West
That brings us back to these leftists with their dishonest narratives about capitalism and global warming.
Two of the idiots who posted those statements are leftist politicians who have a big thirst for attaining more power, for the state, and for themselves.
And now before any facts are in, they’re assuming the voters are idiots, too, and will buy hook, line, and sinker the notion that capitalism and global warming are to blame for the Gulf fire.
According to these tweets, it doesn’t seem to be working. Voters seem to be onto them and their ignorant, cynical game. Twitchy has curated some choice tweets educating these charlatans about the nature of the beast, too.
It just goes to show that they’ll use a condemnation of capitalism, or a claim to global warming, to blame anything, no matter what disaster went down, on the West. It’s like a knee reflex.
Evacuations Ordered After Thai Plastic Factory Explodes
A massive explosion has rocked a chemical plant in the suburbs of Bangkok early Monday. Authorities have evacuated the surrounding area for fear the thick column of black smoke is highly toxic and secondary explosions may occur.
In the early hours of Monday, an unexplained explosion occurred at the Ming Dih Chemical factory located on the capital’s outskirts. The factory produces expanded polystyrene plastic material consisting of small hollow spherical balls that are expanded when molded. The lightweight cellular plastic material is then molded into packaging and storage products to ship goods worldwide.
According to the company’s website, its products are mainly used to safely pack televisions, computers, electric tools, household and kitchen appliances, automobile accessories, among other things, in boxes for transport overseas.
AP News reports the fire broke out around 0300 local time, with an explosion so large that it blew out windows of surrounding homes and sent debris flying across the area. The blast was reportedly heard miles away. The fire was brought under control by mid-morning, but it ravaged the factory in a stunning inferno for hours.
The explosion was captured on a nearby security camera.
#BREAKING : At least 30 people were injured and 300 homes damaged in an overnight explosion at the Ming Dih Chemical Co plant in Samut Prakan, Thailand, south of Bangkok. pic.twitter.com/jHuNCvK7Bc
Thick black plumes of smoke were seen from miles away.
hey hey please rt!! /srs
a factory exploded in thailand over night, and the chemical explosion affected many people and destroyed many houses already. a firefighter has also already lost his life on duty.
The blast injured 62 people, including 12 firefighters, and at least one person has been confirmed dead.
Compound the loss of this factory in the already stretched global supply chains as exporters in the country who use this company to export their products overseas may have to source styrofoam packing material elsewhere.
In the last few days, we should remind readers that an oil refinery in Romania caught fire, a Mexican state-owned PEMEX offshore rig experienced a massive underwater pipeline fire, and a powerful explosion was observed in the Azerbaijani region of the Caspian Sea, known for offshore gas production.
Below is my column in the Hill on a series of cases that appear propelled by political rather than legal considerations.
The costs to the legal system, the public, or victims in such cases are often overlooked but they are considerable.
Here is the column:
“It’s not about politics.” New York prosecutor Carey Dunne’s words were repeated like a mantra after this week’s indictment of the Trump Organization and its financial chief, Allen Weisselberg. The problem is that it is manifestly untrue.
In fairness to Dunne, he is prosecuting a case given to him by his superiors. Nor is he alone in pursuing a case driven more by political than legal considerations. From the prosecution of Bill Cosby to a federal lawsuit against Georgia, courts are dealing with cases where government lawyers repeat the same implausible claims with the same unconvincing results. The political gains from these cases ignore the real costs borne by others.
The Weisselberg indictment
Dunne’s statement was made after Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and New York Attorney General Letitia James paraded triumphantly in front of hundreds of cameras with a handcuffed Weisselberg in their wake. The excitement — if not euphoria — expressed by many in the media was barely containable.
Weisselberg is charged with failing to pay taxes on executive perks, including cars, apartments and holiday gift accounts; prosecutors added up every possible perk and came up with roughly $1.7 million in taxable benefits. There is no question that such tax violations can be charged criminally; however, if they prosecuted all untaxed executive perks, half of Manhattan would be frog-marched to the hoosegow. That does not make Weisselberg a Mother Teresa figure, but neither does it make him John Gotti.
More importantly, it does not make him Donald Trump.
The piling-on of charges clearly is intended to coerce Weisselberg to flip on Trump. However, prosecutors are not investigating anything involving Trump’s election or presidency. Instead, they are investigating another common practice in business — whether Trump undervalued assets for taxes while overvaluing assets for securing loans.
It simply does not matter what the eventual charges are, however. James pledged to get Trump or his associates on any charge, and she found someone to charge. It is the name on the caption — not the name of the crime — that matters in a prosecutorial trophy kill. (James previously targeted the National Rifle Association.) Politicians like James who run for office by promising to bag political opponents, or their associates, do so at great cost to our legal system and to the concept of blind justice.
The Cosby ruling
In Pennsylvania, another prosecutor insisted that politics had nothing to do with a case. Kevin Steele, the Montgomery County district attorney who convicted comedian Bill Cosby in 2018, remained defiant after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Cosby’s sexual assault conviction on Wednesday.
In Cosby v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the court found that Cosby was trapped by a “bait-and-switch” after a prior prosecutor assured that he would not be prosecuted if he testified in four civil depositions. Cosby proceeded to incriminate himself and admitted giving drugs to women who alleged sexual assaults. Steele later dismissed that agreement, introduced the incriminating statements, and then called five women to testify about their own uncharged alleged rapes. Those gross errors were allowed by Judge Steven T. O’Neill (who the defense sought to force off the case for bias). O’Neill refused to accept the prior agreement and mocked the notion that “The rabbit is in the hat and you want me at this point to assume: ‘Hey, the promise was made, judge. Accept that.’”
The state’s justices had no problem “seeing the rabbit in the hat,” nor did many of us who criticized the trial. However, it was hugely popular to disregard Cosby’s legal rights in the first major trial of the #MeToo period, given the magnitude of the accusations against him.
DA Steele is unapologetic and insists he was trying to show that “no one is above the law — including those who are rich, famous and powerful.” What he missed is that the rule of law should particularly apply to prosecutors who enforce it — and the costs of violating it are borne not just by Cosby but by his alleged victims, who lost any chance for a fair trial and a formal adjudication. The public will pay, too, not just the millions spent on the case but possible damages if Cosby sues for malicious prosecution based on the prosecutor’s public aggrandizing.
The Georgia lawsuit
Last week, the Biden administration surprised many observers by filing a civil rights action against the state of Georgia over its recent election reforms. The lawsuit was less surprising than its timing: It was filed just days before the release of Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, an Arizona case in which the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the very statutory provision (Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act) being used as the basis in the Georgia challenge.
The Biden administration has made opposition to Georgia’s law into a rallying cry for its stalled legislative efforts to federalize state election laws. The problem is that President Biden has been long on rhetoric and short on facts in denouncing the law as “Jim Crow on steroids.” The Washington Post awarded him four “Pinocchios” for his characterization of the law, including the false claim that it reduces the hours for voting; the law actually does the opposite. Likewise, Biden falsely claimed Georgia’s law prevents voters in line at polling places from getting water. Georgia was responding to complaints that campaigns circumvent rules barring politicking around polling places by giving food and drinks to voters in line; the law allows “self-service water from an unattended receptacle.” On these and other provisions, Georgia’s law has considerable overlap with provisions in other states.
In its 6-3 decision upholding Arizona’s election rules, including a bar on vote “harvesting,” the Supreme Court rejected presumptions of racial discrimination due to partisan objectives. Justice Samuel Alito declared “partisan motives are not the same as racial motives.” The ruling builds on earlier cases limiting the reach and meaning of the Voting Rights Act. The new Georgia challenge takes a considerable risk of magnifying these losses in court.
The legal cost of this ill-considered move could be immense. Important questions are being raised about the impact of some laws on minority votes. Yet the attack on Georgia’s law is a poor choice, despite Biden going “all in” on the narrative, because it locks the administration into proving a weak case. While the court declined to issue a sweeping new standard for all Section 2 voting rights cases, this case could open the door for precisely that type of ruling. The Biden administration — which has lost a remarkably high number of legal cases in its first year — is likely to lose this one, too, before the next presidential election.
Politically motivated cases like these impose costs that are rarely paid by those who bring them. The more a prosecutor feels it necessary to repeat that “It’s not about politics,” the more likely a case is entirely political.
