In a federal budget measured in trillions of dollars, a spending initiative that consumed a "mere" $267 million isn't likely to get much notice, but when those tax dollars were for empowering censorship, the consequences go way beyond the financial.
The $267 million is the total amount spent by President Joe Biden's administration since taking office in January 2021 on research grants in which the solicitation included the word "misinformation," according to the latest report from Open the Books (OTB).
The spark for this flood of federal tax dollars going to researchers claiming expertise in the sources of disinformation and how best to combat it — that is, censor it — was the COVID-19 pandemic. But what was barely a ripple in 2020 under then-President Donald Trump became a severe storm under Biden.
Federal spending records show at least $127 million tax dollars funding anti-misinformation efforts directly related to COVID-19 for a variety of activities, from on-the-ground advocacy working to dispel vaccine misinformation, to scientific studies on how supposed misinformation is spread online. (emphasis in the original)
The result of all this was a record loss of trust in science and government and compounding economic and social disasters that may never be able to be fully quantified. Learning to think critically and discern truth from lies is an important life skill, but the federal government has proven it is not capable of addressing that need responsibly. It’s the worst possible arbiter of truth, as it were, because it makes the state a gatekeeper of speech.
It's important to remember, as OTB cautions, that the $267 million figure does not cover all such spending by the feds because there are a variety of terms in addition to "misinformation" that can be used to make clear a grant solicitation's focus. Think "malinformation" and "disinformation," terms also heard often in the public square.
The OTB report points to the definition used by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which was responsible for the bulk of the misinformation research spending:
“During the pandemic, health misinformation has led people to decline vaccines, reject public health measures, and use unproven treatments. Health misinformation has also led to harassment and violence against health workers, airline staff, and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures,” HHS decreed.
The most significant word in that HHS definition is "evolving." As OTB points out, the definition was so broad and vague that it provided public health bureaucrats like then-Director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci to declare, among much else, that we all had to wear masks and stay six feet apart:
"In January of 2024 Fauci would admit to Congress that this recommendation had no scientific basis and 'sort of just appeared.' The six feet social distancing rule was used to justify extended school and business closures, wreaking economic havoc and leading to tremendous learning losses for children," OTB reports.
Regardless of how researchers and government grant decision-makers portray this spending, the ultimate use of the research was part and parcel of the unprecedented censorship campaigns by federal public health officials, campaigns that set a sinister precedent for similar efforts on all other issues.
The OTB report points to one grant in particular that illustrates this fact.
One notable research grant awarded to George Washington University (GWU) in Fiscal Year 2022 targeted former president Donald Trump. The study, called 'Pandemic Communication in Time of Populism: Building Resilient Media and Ensuring Effective Pandemic Communication in Divided Societies' received a $199,516 grant from the National Science Foundation.
Researchers on this Biden-era grant examined how so-called 'populist' leaders supposedly prevented society from coming together in “solidarity” during the COVID pandemic. Trump’s presidency was a focus of the research, along with the leaders of three other countries.
As the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government reported earlier this year, that grant to GWU was just one of hundreds ultimately purposed at providing Washington bureaucrats the power and tools to censor any opinions with which they disagreed.
There is a reason the First Amendment in the Constitution's Bill of Rights focuses on the four fundamental liberties required for a functioning republic like the United States of America. Without freedom of speech, religion, petition, and assembly — all of which censors target — there is no individual liberty.
Government is like the tiger chained at dawn who knows by breakfast the full length of the restraint, and against which he will constantly strain, seeking to go further and further until no one is safe from his deadly teeth and claws.
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