Normal Everyday Lies From Normal Everyday Liars

Three separate examples illustrate what is normal for politics and political discourse among some in the US and elsewhere. This has been going on for at least decades, but for some reason, personally it feels different and worse than before. Maybe it feels that way because it is that way. Or, maybe it feels that way because knowledge of it is so clear and discouraging.

Stephanie Mohr - presidentially pardoned thug

Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite? -- He only needed 10 stitches

An opinion piece in the Washington Post discusses the president’s pardon of a police officer, Stephanie Mohr, who was ordered to let her police dog attack a homeless person surrounded by police. The homeless person posed no threat and was in full compliance will all orders the police had given to him. The dog attack was just a test for a new dog to see how it would work out: “A police sergeant later testified that he was approached by Mohr’s supervising officer who said, ‘Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite?’” In court Mohr downplayed the incident, commenting that the victim needed “only 10 stitches.”

This incident occurred in 2001. The opinion piece was written by Alex Busansky, the former lawyer in the Justice Department’s civil rights division who prosecuted Mohr. Busansky described the incident, the lies by Mohr that led to the pardon, and the lies in the president’s pardon like this:

This was no accident or split-second mistake. It was a willful and deliberate act of police brutality. It was also not Mohr’s first — and there was a pattern to the violence. Evidence at trial showed that Mohr had previously released her dog on a Black teenager sleeping in a hammock in his own backyard. She had threatened the relatives of a fugitive that she would let her dog attack their “black ass” if they did not tell her where he was.

In early December, Mohr made a direct appeal to the president for a pardon by going on Newsmax. She spewed falsehoods about the case, claiming she had been made a scapegoat. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The White House statement announcing her pardon noted that it reflected her “service and the lengthy term that Ms. Mohr served in prison,” adding, “Officer Mohr was a highly commended member of the police force prior to her prosecution.” Actually, she had been sued at least four times for brutality, was twice found to have made false statements to a superior and was flagged as a potential problem officer by the department’s early warning system.

Russia & COVID

Lying about pandemic deaths - fire the statistician

The New York Times reports that COVID-19 deaths in Russia are much higher than officially reported. This comes as no surprise. Experts have been saying for months that the official death toll has been too low in view of the number of reported infections. Like the US president, Russian dictator Putin has not treated the pandemic seriously because, also like the US president, he does not care about the well-being of Russian citizens. Statistical data triples Russia’s Covid-19 death toll. Despite the newly released data, the Russian government still refuses to release the actual death toll. The NYT writes:

The statistics agency said 230,000 more people died through November of this year than did in 2019, a hike attributable to the virus.

After months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from Covid-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported.

From the start of the pandemic early this year, the health crisis has been enveloped and, say critics, distorted by political calculations as President Vladimir V. Putin and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have repeatedly boasted of Russian successes in combating the virus and keeping the fatality rate relatively low.

But the release of the data received little coverage on state media and the news was crowded out by upbeat reports ahead of a lengthy national holiday to celebrate the new year. State television focused on what it said was the eagerness of foreign countries, especially Belarus, to roll out a vaccine developed in Russia.  

Russia has reported more than 3 million cases of infection, making it the world’s fourth-hardest-hit country, but only 55,827 deaths, fewer than in seven other countries. A demographer at a government agency who questioned the official fatality figures, dismissing them as far too low, was fired over the summer.

China & COVID: We are not gonna tell you what we know

Like the US president and Russian dictator Putin, the Chinese government does not care much about the well-being of people, at least ones outside China. The AP reports that the Chinese government has shut down access to research information on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is an example of government lying by withholding information. The AP writes: 

Deep in the lush mountain valleys of southern China lies the entrance to a mine shaft that once harbored bats with the closest known relative of the COVID-19 virus.

The area is of intense scientific interest because it may hold clues to the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide. Yet for scientists and journalists, it has become a black hole of no information because of political sensitivity and secrecy.

A bat research team visiting recently managed to take samples but had them confiscated, two people familiar with the matter said. Specialists in coronaviruses have been ordered not to speak to the press. And a team of Associated Press journalists was tailed by plainclothes police in multiple cars who blocked access to roads and sites in late November.

More than a year since the first known person was infected with the coronavirus, an AP investigation shows the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins, clamping down on some while actively promoting fringe theories that it could have come from outside China.  

The government is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists researching the virus’ origins in southern China and affiliated with the military, the AP has found. But it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents obtained by The AP. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: The clampdown comes from the top.