In a federal budget measured in trillions of dollars, a spending initiative that consumed a “mere”$ 267 million is n’t likely to get much notice, but when those tax dollars were for empowering censorship, the consequences go way beyond the financial.
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According to the most recent report from Open the Books ( OTB), President Joe Biden’s administration has spent the total amount spent on research grants worth$ 267 million since taking office in January 2021, including the use of the word “misinformation.”
The COVID-19 crisis was the catalyst for the flood of federal taxes dollars going to researchers who claimed to have knowledge of the sources of propaganda and how to judge it. However, under the leadership of then-President Donald Trump, what was merely a wave quickly turned into a serious storm.
Federal spending data show at least$ 127 million tax money funding anti-misinformation efforts directly related to COVID-19 for a variety of activities, from on-the-ground campaigning working to remove vaccine propaganda, to scientific research on how supposed propaganda is spread electronically.  , (emphasis in the classic )
The end result was a significant decline in confidence in government and knowledge, which only made the situation worse, with unfavorable economic and social disasters. The federal government has demonstrated that it is ineffective at teaching people to think thoroughly and distinguish between lies and truth. It’s the worst possible arbitrator of facts, as it were, because it makes the condition a guardian of speech.
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It’s important to remember, as OTB warning, that the$ 267 million number does not include all such spending by the government because there are a variety of conditions in addition to “misinformation” that can be used to create distinct a grant solicitation’s target. Consider “malinformation” and “disinformation”, words likewise heard often in the open square.
The Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS), which was in charge of the majority of the misconceptions research funding, uses a concept in the OTB statement:
” During the pandemic, health propaganda has led people to drop vaccines, reject public health measures, and apply unproven treatments. HHS declared that health propaganda has also caused harassment and assault against frontline employees tasked with communicating evolving public health measures.
The phrase “evolving” is the most important in the HHS definition. As OTB points out, the definition was so broad and ambiguous that it made it mandatory for public health officials like Anthony Fauci, the then director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases ( NIAID), to declare, among other things, that we all had to wear masks and stay six feet apart.
Fauci admitted to Congress that this proposal had no scientific foundation and “kind of only appeared.” In January 2024. According to OTB, the six-foot social distancing concept was used to support prolonged school and business closures, which caused enormous economic devastation and caused significant learning losses for children.
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Regardless of how scientists and government give decision-makers interpret this funding, national public health officials ‘ extraordinary censorship campaigns, which set a frightening precedent for comparable efforts on all other issues.
One grant, specifically, is cited in the OTB report as an example of this.
Former US president Donald Trump was the subject of a notable research grant that George Washington University ( GWU) was awarded in the fiscal year 2022. The National Science Foundation gave the study,” Patient Communication in a Time of Populism: Building Resilient Media and Ensuring Effective Pandemic Communication in Divided Societies,” a grant worth$ 99,516.
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.
That grant to GWU was just one of hundreds that was ultimately intended to give Washington bureaucrats the authority and tools to censor any opinions they disagreed with, according to the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government report earlier this year.
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The four fundamental liberties that a functioning republic like the United States of America require are the subject of the First Amendment to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Without freedom of speech, religion, petition, and assembly — all of which censors target — there is no individual liberty.
Government is like the tiger that is chained at dawn and has the restraint’s full length before he will work his way up, trying to get further and further until no one is safe from his deadly teeth and claws.
