A political propaganda organization vs. press lawsuit

Project Veritas: Toxic conspiracy theories, failed fact checks

MBFC: Low Credibility, questionable source

The radical right political group Project Veritas (PV) is suing the New York Times claiming the newspaper misused information it got from PV in discovery documents in a defamation lawsuit.[1] The judge held in favor of PV and the NYT is appealing. The crux of the dispute seems to be whether the NYT misused information from the original lawsuit as PV claims, or whether the information was obtained by standard independent journalistic investigation as the NYT claims. The NYT Editorial Board writes on the serious danger to the press and free reporting this court decision could have if it is upheld. 

If this winds up in the US Supreme Court, it might be a basis to significantly limit press freedom. This dispute relates to the concept of prior restraint, where governments, politicians and special interests try to prevent a news story from being published. One source defines prior restraint like this: judicial suppression of material that would be published or broadcast, on the grounds that it is libelous or harmful. In US law, the First Amendment severely limits the ability of the government to do this.

The Editorial Board writes:

Half a century ago, the Supreme Court settled the matter of when a court can stop a newspaper from publishing. In 1971, the Nixon administration attempted to block The Times and The Washington Post from publishing classified Defense Department documents detailing the history of the Vietnam War — the so-called Pentagon Papers. Faced with an asserted threat to the nation’s security, the Supreme Court sided with the newspapers. “Without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people,” Justice Potter Stewart wrote in a concurring opinion.

That sentiment reflects one of the oldest and most enduring principles in our legal system: The government may not tell the press what it can and cannot publish. This principle long predates the Constitution, but so there would be no mistake, the nation’s founders included a safeguard in the Bill of Rights anyway. The First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

This is why virtually every official attempt to bar speech or news reporting in advance, known as a prior restraint, gets struck down. “Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity,” the Supreme Court said in a 1963 case. Such restraints are “the very prototype of the greatest threat to First Amendment values,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a generation later.

On Friday, however, a New York trial court judge broke from that precedent when he issued an order blocking The Times from publishing or even reporting further on information it had obtained related to Project Veritas, the conservative sting group that traffics in hidden cameras and fake identities to target liberal politicians and interest groups, as well as traditional news outlets.

The group’s lawyers also argue that the memos are protected by attorney-client privilege and that The Times was under an ethical obligation to return them to Project Veritas, rather than publish them. This is not how journalism works. The Times, like any other news organization, makes ethical judgments daily about whether to disclose secret information from governments, corporations and others in the news. But the First Amendment is meant to leave those ethical decisions to journalists, not to courts. The only potential exception is information so sensitive — say, planned troop movements during a war — that its publication could pose a grave threat to American lives or national security.

Project Veritas’s legal memos are not a matter of national security. In fact, but for its ongoing libel suit, the group would have no claim against The Times at all. The memos at issue have nothing to do with that suit and did not come to The Times through the discovery process. Still, Project Veritas is arguing that their publication must be prohibited because the memos contain confidential information that is relevant to the group’s litigation strategy.

It’s an absurd argument and a deeply threatening one to a free press. Consider the consequences: News organizations could be routinely blocked from reporting information about a person or company simply because the subject of that reporting decided the information might one day be used in litigation. More alarming is the prospect that reporters could be barred even from asking questions of sources, lest someone say something that turns out to be privileged. This isn’t a speculative fear; in his earlier order, Justice Wood barred The Times from reporting about anything covered by Project Veritas’s attorney-client privilege. In Friday’s decision, he ordered The Times to destroy any and all copies of the memos that it had obtained, and barred it from reporting on the substance of those memos. The press is free to report on matters of public concern, he wrote, but memos from attorneys to their clients don’t clear that bar.

This is a breathtaking rationale: Justice Wood has taken it upon himself to decide what The Times can and cannot report on. That’s not how the First Amendment is supposed to work.

The order, a highly unusual and astonishingly broad injunction against a news organization, was issued by Justice Charles D. Wood of the State Supreme Court. He wrote that The Times’s decision to publish excerpts from memos written by Project Veritas’s lawyers “cries out for court intervention to protect the integrity of the judicial process.” This ruling follows a similar directive Justice Wood issued last month in response to a story The Times published that quoted from the memos. The Times plans to appeal this latest ruling.

In requesting the order from Justice Wood, Project Veritas’s lawyers acknowledged that prior restraints on publication are rare, but argued that their case fits a narrow exception the law recognizes for documents that may be used in the course of ongoing litigation. This exception recognizes that because parties are forced by the court to disclose materials, courts should have the power to supervise how such forced disclosures are used by the other party. The litigation here is a libel suit Project Veritas filed against The Times in 2020, for its articles on a video the group produced about what it claimed was rampant voter fraud in Minnesota. The video was “probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort,” The Times reported, citing an analysis[2] by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington.

Journalism, like democracy, thrives in an environment of transparency and freedom. No court should be able to tell The New York Times or any other news organization — or, for that matter, Project Veritas — how to conduct its reporting. Otherwise, it would provide an incentive for any reporter’s subjects to file frivolous libel suits as a means of controlling news coverage about them. More to the point, it would subvert the values embodied by the First Amendment and hobble the functioning of the free press on which a self-governing republic depends. (emphasis added)

It is not clear to me how likely the court order blocking the NYT is to stand on appeal. If it does stand, it is not clear what the final outcome will be and how much damage to press freedom there might be. That the NYT has raised the profile of this case like this seems to indicate that the paper is really frightened at how this might turn out.

Footnote: 

1. The article that PV originally sued the NYT over appears to have been this one, which reads in part:

A deceptive video released on Sunday by the conservative activist James O’Keefe, which claimed through unidentified sources and with no verifiable evidence that Representative Ilhan Omar’s campaign had collected ballots illegally, was probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort, according to researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington.

Mr. O’Keefe and his group, Project Veritas, appear to have made an abrupt decision to release the video sooner than planned after The New York Times published a sweeping investigation of President Trump’s taxes, the researchers said. They also noted that the timing and metadata of a Twitter post in which Mr. Trump’s son shared the video suggested that he might have known about it in advance.

2. The analysis the NYT relied on includes this about the 2020 election:

Sept. 29, 2020

Contributors:
Isabella Garcia-Camargo, Alex Stamos and Elena Cryst, Stanford Internet Observatory
Joe Bak-Coleman, Kate Starbird and Joey Schafer University of Washington Center for an Informed Public

On Sunday night, a right-wing activist group, Project Veritas, released a video alleging illegal ballot harvesting in Minnesota. The video made several falsifiable claims that have either been debunked by subsequent reporting or are without any factual support. As the video calls into question the integrity of the election using misleading or inaccurate information, we determined this video to be a form of election disinformation. While we have reported our findings to the relevant online platforms, this video stands as an interesting example of what a domestic, coordinated elite disinformation campaign looks like in the United States. This post will explore the timeline of how the ideas in this video were initially seeded and then aggressively spread.

Economic distress in rural America continues

Food prices have gone up, but income for small and medium farms is stagnant. The New York Times describes more family agriculture operations in dire financial straits. The NYT writes:

SHEPHERD, Montana — Judging from the prices at supermarkets and restaurants, this would appear to be a lucrative moment for cattle ranchers like Steve Charter.

America is consuming more beef than ever, while prices have climbed by one-fifth over the past year — a primary driver for the growing alarm over inflation.

But somewhere between American dinner plates and his 8,000-acre ranch on the high plains of Montana, Mr. Charter’s share of the $66 billion beef cattle industry has gone missing.

A third-generation cattle rancher, Mr. Charter, 69, is accustomed to working seven days a week, 365 days a year — in winter temperatures descending to minus 40, and in summer swelter reaching 110 degrees.

Mr. Charter has long imagined his six grandchildren continuing his way of life. But with no profits in five years, he is pondering the fate that has befallen more than half a million other American ranchers in recent decades: selling off his herd.

“We are contemplating getting out,” Mr. Charter said, his voice catching as he choked back tears. “We are not getting our share of the consumer dollars.”

The distress of American cattle ranchers represents the underside of the staggering winnings harvested by the conglomerates that dominate the meatpacking industry — Tyson Foods and Cargill, plus a pair of companies controlled by Brazilian corporate owners, National Beef Packing Company and JBS.

Since the 1980s, the four largest meatpackers have used a wave of mergers to increase their share of the market from 36 percent to 85 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Their dominance has allowed them to extinguish competition and dictate prices, exploiting how federal authorities have weakened the enforcement of laws enacted a century ago to tame the excesses of the Robber Barons, say antitrust experts and advocates for the ranchers.  

In past decades, when beef prices rose, so would payments to cattle ranchers, who claimed over half of what consumers paid for meat. But that relationship began to break down in 2015. Last year, cattle ranchers received only 37 cents on every dollar spent on beef, according to federal data.

The NYT article goes on to point out that current high beef prices are most directly reflective of scarce stocks, which is part of the supply chain disruption that accompanies the pandemic. Coronavirus spread through slaughterhouses, killing scores of workers and sickening thousands. That stopped some beef production, which caused beef shortages.

But before the pandemic, there were decades of corporate takeovers that closed slaughterhouses. When the packers cut their capacity to process beef, supply was reduced, and consumer prices increased. But maybe counter intuitively, fewer slaughterhouses meant a limited demand for live cattle. That reduced prices paid to ranchers and helped shift economic advantage or power to the the big corporate players.

One expert commented: “Their goal is to control the market so that they can control the price. The pandemic exposed the consequences of the consolidation of the meat industry.”

As usual for American capitalism, the big corporations are now fighting against a push from the Biden administration to revive antitrust enforcement. The rationale this time for deregulation of business by not enforcing existing laws is that, according to the NYT, it is “misguided.” JBS, the largest meatpacker in the US refused to discuss the effect of consolidation. JBS just referred the NYT’s questions to the North American Meat Institute, an industry lobbying firm.[1] A NAMI spokesperson said “Concentration has nothing to do with price. The cattle and beef markets are dynamic.” Tyson claims that slaughterhouses were closed because they were losing money, commenting: “The packers are not masterminds. The packing industry was unprofitable for several years, so they closed plants.” 

Misguided. Dynamic markets. Unprofitable operations shut down. Think about that. On the one hand, concentration is said to have nothing ton do with prices. On the other hand, allegedly unprofitable operations were shut down, which reduce supply and drove up prices. Concentration has something major to do with prices.

Why is it that sooner or later the big guys almost always wind up winning and the little guys usually wind up losing? Power, wealth, deregulated markets and non-existent law enforcement, that’s why. The big guys have the power and wealth because they are deregulated and relevant laws not enforced.

Here making a point about politics and ideology is useful. Conservative politicians and other neoliberal elites claim that deregulation allows markets to run free and wild, which best serves the public interest and society generally. The conservative rank and file mostly believe that because they have been told that thousands of times a year for decades. But what the elites know that the rank that file does not know is that deregulation means (i) deregulation of businesses, and (ii) not enforcing relevant laws. It does not mean reducing limits on individual liberties. In fact, power flows to the businesses, who then use it to control and crush whatever and whoever they can reach if it serves their lust for profit, like family farms and ranches and the land they sit on.

As I've argued here many times and argue again, when Republicans and other conservatives deregulate business, power flows from government to the businesses and their owners, not to average people. Power flows from government to the businesses. Why were there regulations in the first place? To protect the public interest and society generally. Government was protecting people, or at least trying to until it got subverted by business interests. Businesses protect profit, not people.

The NYT article comments that ranchers complain that the game is rigged. Well duh! Of course it is rigged. That is what the businesses want and that is what their campaign contributions, propaganda and lobbying money buys in our pay-to-play political system. It buys deregulated markets running free and wild and ranchers going out of business so other huge agriculture companies can buy the land and push the small guys out.

Jeez, this isn’t rocket science. It almost at the level of common sense, if there was such a thing (but there isn’t).

Anyway, The NYT notes that Congress passed the Packers & Stockyards Act of 1921 to “safeguard farmers and ranchers” — among other market participants — from “unjustly discriminatory and monopolistic practices.” Enforcing that is what the four huge meat packers claim to see as “misguided.” By misguided, the meat packers really mean, but would never admit, they see a threat to profits if existing law were to actually be enforced.

Questions: 

1. Is most of the conservative rank and file mostly deceived about what deregulation means, at least when Republicans do it?

2. Is it true, as the meat packer lobbyists claim, that concentrated means of production and supply have no impact on prices? (If so, most economic theory appears to be just crap)

3. Who is more likely to better protect family cattle ranchers from behemoths, Republican politicians or Democratic politicians?

Footnote:

1. The NYT article points out that a lot of Montana cattle are processed in slaughterhouses run by JBS, the world’s largest meat processor. Two brothers, Wesley and Joesley Batista, control JBS. They are worth about $5.8 billion. They went to prison after pleading guilty to participating in a Brazilian bribery ring a few years ago, but are out of the slammer now. JBS spent $20 billion to buy control of one-fourth of the American beef slaughter capacity. JBS had $18 billion in revenue between July and September of 2021. That was a 32% increase compared with the same quarter in 2020.

Optimism or Pessimism?

 Which is it?

Here are five things to be optimistic about in 2022

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/most-think-2022-will-be-better-year/

• Over 75% of people around the world think 2022 will be a better year than 2021.
• The COVID-19 vaccine roll out is providing hope of better times to come.
• And one in three people think societies will become more tolerant.

How do you feel about the prospects for 2022? Despite the arrival of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, people around the world are feeling surprisingly positive about the new year, according to a global survey.

Ipsos asked over 22,000 adults in 33 countries to give their personal predictions for 2022. Although concerns persist about rising prices and the environment, most people felt things would be better in the New Year.

“Hope springs eternal,” said Antonia Lopez from Ipsos. “As is normal, three quarters (77%) expect a better year in 2022, ranging from 54% of Japanese saying they are optimistic that 2022 will be a better year for them than it was in 2021 to 94% of Chinese.”

Further details in above link, but what happens when we separate the "world" from the views of Americans?

Do Americans really expect 2022 to be a better year?

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/ipsos-global-advisor-2022-predictions

On average, 77% of adults under the age of 75 in the 33 countries surveyed agree with the statement, “I am optimistic that 2022 will be a better year for me than it was in 2021” – the same percentage as a year ago when respondents were asked about 2021 relative to 2020.

While dominant, optimism about the coming year is not as widespread in the U.S. as it is globally. The survey finds that 71% of Americans expect 2022 to be a better year than 2021 for them. That is six percentage points lower than the global average and 11 points lower than the percentage of Americans who, a year ago, expected 2021 to be better than 2020 (82%).

AGAIN, further details can be found in the above link, for those with an inquisitive mind.

Observations on America’s social divisions

Another fascinating New York Times article, First They Fought About Masks. Then Over the Soul of the City., tries to get at the roots of what has torn American society apart and made its politics enraged and toxic. This article argues that considering cognitive and social factors are the best means to try to understand what has broken us so badly. This is one of the best articles I can recall for understanding what has happened to us.

In Enid, Okla., pandemic politics prompted a fundamental question: What does it mean to be an American? Whose version of the country will prevail?

ENID, Okla. — On a hot night in July, the first summer of the pandemic, Jonathan Waddell, a city commissioner in Enid, Okla., sat staring out at a rowdy audience dressed in red. They were in the third hour of public comments on a proposed mask mandate, and Mr. Waddell, a retired Air Force sergeant who supported it, was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

He had noticed something was different when he drove up in his truck. The parking lot was full, and people wearing red were getting out of their cars greeting one another, looking a bit like players on a sports team. As the meeting began, he realized that they opposed the mandate. It was almost everybody in the room.

The meeting was unlike any he had ever attended. One woman cried and said wearing a mask made her feel like she did when she was raped at 17. Another read the Lord’s Prayer and said the word “agenda” at the top of the meeting schedule seemed suspicious. A man quoted Patrick Henry and handed out copies of the Constitution.

“The line is being drawn, folks,” said a man in jeans and a red T-shirt. He said the people in the audience “had been shouted down for the last 20 years, and they’re finally here to draw a line, and I think they’re saying, ‘We’ve had enough.’”

At the end of the night, the mask mandate failed, and the audience erupted in cheers. But for Mr. Waddell, who had spent seven years making Enid his home, it was only the beginning. He remembers driving home and watching his mirrors to make sure no one was following him. He called his father, a former police officer, and told him what had happened. He said that people were talking about masks, but that it felt like something else. What, exactly, he did not know.

“I said, ‘This is honestly just crazy, Dad, and I’m not sure where it goes from here.’”

From lockdowns to masks to vaccines to school curriculums, the conflicts in America keep growing and morphing, even without Donald Trump, the leader who thrived on encouraging them, in the White House. But the fights are not simply about masks or schools or vaccines. They are, in many ways, all connected as part of a deeper rupture — one that is now about the most fundamental questions a society can ask itself: What does it mean to be an American? Who is in charge? And whose version of the country will prevail?

Social scientists who study conflict say the only way to understand it — and to begin to get out of it — is to look at the powerful currents of human emotions that are the real drivers. They include the fear of not belonging, the sting of humiliation, a sense of threat — real or perceived — and the strong pull of group behavior.

Some of these feelings were already coursing through American society, triggered by rapid cultural, technological, demographic and economic change. Then came the pandemic, plunging Americans into uncertainty and loneliness, an emotion that scientists have found causes people to see danger where there is none.

Add to all of that leaders who stoke the conflict, and disagreements over the simplest things can become almost sectarian. 

In Enid, both sides in the mask debate believed they were standing up for what was right. Both cared deeply for their city — and their country — and believed that, in their own way, they were working to save it. And it all started as an argument over a simple piece of cloth.

Eran Halperin, a social psychologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel who studies emotions in conflict, said that people in intractable fights often do not remember how they started but that they are perpetuated by a sense of group threat. One’s group — for example, American or Christian — is an extension of oneself, and people can become very defensive when it — or its status in a hierarchy — changes.

“If my American identity is an important part of who I am, and suddenly there’s a serious threat to that, in some ways that means I don’t know who I am anymore,” he said. “It’s an attack on the very core of how I see myself, of how I understand myself.”  

In the end, both sides could agree on one thing: The fight was not really over masks.

Mr. Waddell thought it had to do with fear. He said America is in a moment when the people who ran things from the beginning — mostly white, mostly Christian, mostly male — are now having to share control. Their story about America is being challenged. New versions are becoming mainstream, and that, he believes, is threatening.  

“You don’t just get to be the sole solitary voice in terms of what we do here, what we teach here, what we show on television here,” he said. “You don’t get to do it anymore. That’s where the fight is.”  

“We’re going to have an explosion,” he said. “Whether it’s literal or figurative. It’s going to be bad.”

The NYT article notes that Halperin sees the emotions in this American conflict about as intense as those between Israelis and Palestinians. He argues that in the US, both sides had high expectations of each other, so it was a shock when “those who were part of us, suddenly do something so counter to our values.”

One of the people in Enid was radicalized by going online and found content that led to to believe that the federal government was misleading the American people about COVID for the benefit of unknown interests. She commented “I don’t like to be played the fool. And I felt like they were counting on us — us being the general population — on being the fool.” It is frustrating that the NYT article did not specify what sources she relied on to become radicalized. One can only assume it was mostly propaganda and lies sources like the Republican Party, Fox News and Qanon or other online sources that deceived and unhinged this woman.

Reasoning like that is essentially impossible to deal with rationally. She hates mask wearing and knows someone or something is playing her for the fool. IMO, the most likely culprits playing her for the fool are the sources that deceived and unhinged her in the first place.

 

In addition to her devout Christian belief, concerns about teaching race history in public schools, increases in non-white residents and social acceptance of homosexuality, another and important part of this woman's emotional responses came from people who criticized those who refused to accept masks. On Facebook, she felt pro-mask people held her in contempt and ridiculed her. She set up an anti-mask account to spread her beliefs that masks are socialist tyranny or whatever bad thing(s) she sees them as. She concluded the pro-mask people felt superior and wanted to humiliate her. One pro-masker said he hoped she would get COVID and die. And right there, the response of the opposition, is a major social-moral factor that polarizing politics has been instrumental in causing. 

Two issues and my personal rants about them

Microaggression warning: I'm going to level some nasty criticisms here

(please usher small children out of the room)

But that raises a point that I have been struggling with all along, but the concern is fading. On the one hand, people who radicalize on the basis of divisive disinformation, irrational emotional manipulation and often crackpot motivated reasoning, e.g., QAnon style crackpottery, are not neutral players. Just look at their flawed rationales, things like “masks don’t work,” “anti-COVID vaccine are socialist tyranny” and other crackpottery. That is flat out wrong and just plain crazy.

Their behaviors have real world impacts on other people. In the case of COVID, their refusal to treat it as a public health issue because cynical propagandists have politicized it and radicalized them, is (1) literally killing or injuring thousands of people, including themselves, and (2) arguably causing significant avoidable economic damage. Their exercise of what they see as their sacred, inviolate liberty to fight COVID “tyranny” has major adverse consequences, whether they like it or believe it or not. The empirical evidence is indisputable.

I and many others have have been criticized for pointing out that people with "anti-COVID belief" mindsets deserve criticism precisely because they undeniably are avoidably hurting and killing others. Such criticism probably does make some or most of the anti-COVID crowd feel put upon, humiliated or ridiculed. But by God, the criticisms of some of us are made in good faith, based on empirical facts and sound reasoning. People who make good faith criticisms cannot be responsible for the feelings of adults with false beliefs that cause them to hurt others. 

I see this as another case where the forces that use divisive disinformation, which I firmly consider to be authoritarian (mostly fascist in the US), is intolerant of criticism and seeks to neutralize the forces of truth and reason, which is mostly inherently democratic and anti-authoritarian. Why the hell should people arguing in good faith on the basis of facts and sound reason be shut up in the name of not wanting to make deceived and manipulated people feel bad about being criticized? 

The rise of political incorrectness: People like me who argue in good faith do not say that unmasked or unvaccinated people deserve or should get COVID and get sick or die. That is bad faith criticism and I criticize it. Yeah, some people level bad faith criticisms like that. But that raises another personal frustration with the limits that bad faith forces have put on good faith forces. Specifically, the deceived and manipulated tend to be among those who bitterly criticized pre-Trump politics as too politically correct. Most or nearly all of the anti-politically correct crowd found it refreshing to hear someone politically incorrect who had the guts to “tell it like it is.” They liked it even if there was some rudeness, crudeness, lies and/or arrogant, contemptuous bullshit in it. Those forces are the ones who destroyed restraining political correctness norms. So political incorrectness with its meanness and insult is acceptable now. 

Therefore, just how bad faith are criticisms like “I hope you get COVID and die”? That’s what used to be called politically incorrect. But now, is it politically acceptable or not? If the shoe was on the other foot, would most of the anti-PC crowd restrain themselves? I very much doubt it. They were the ones who liked the fresh air of crude bluntness. It sure as hell is not my fault, or people like me, that the American radical right, Trump and their divisive propaganda Leviathan obliterated political correctness and did it proudly. 

So, how much of our precious, already stretched-thin sympathy should we have for that poor anti-mask woman in Enid, OK? She felt humiliated, ridiculed and held in contempt on Facebook. She fears things like non-White residents, homosexuals and the tyranny of masks. Who’s fault is this? There arguably is a lot of truth in the saying, what goes around, comes around. 

Where this comes from: What prompted this outburst is personal frustration and the end of my patience and sympathy for adults who should know better. In my opinion, these people insist on acting to the detriment of American democracy and society for insufficient or literally no good reasons. Many of them appear to think and act like children. They need to grow up and accept what comes comes their way, including inconvenient facts and truths, and sometimes even harsh criticism.

Propaganda and disinformation-driven, i.e., irrational, White fear and anger really do seem to be key drivers of what has torn American society apart. The White vision going forward looks to be mostly a toxic mix of Fundamentalist Christian nationalism and harsh, socially unconscious, laissez faire capitalism (~neoliberalism). It does look like we’re probably going to have an explosion, unless someone can figure a way to defuse this.

Or, are my analyses and criticisms over the top, politically incorrect, logically flawed or otherwise wrong? 

The neoliberal attack on responses to the pandemic

The Daily Poster, (rated as high fact accuracy, solid left bias, but not quite extreme left) reports on how the hard core neoliberal Koch-funded propaganda national network has worked diligently against responding to the pandemic. The authors postulate that at least in part the Koch empire was responding to the fall in oil prices that occurred in 2020 when lockdowns were in place. The article, How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID, comments:

As Omicron surges, a shadowy institute filled with fringe doctors appears to be part of big business’ two-year strategy to legitimize attacks on pandemic interventions.

Earlier this month, as the Omicron variant began to spread, a small liberal arts school on a tree-lined campus in Michigan called Hillsdale College announced it was launching an Academy for Science and Freedom to “educate the American people about the free exchange of scientific ideas and the proper relationship between freedom and science in the pursuit of truth.”

The academy was inspired by the pandemic. “As we reflect on the worst public health fiasco in history, our pandemic response has unveiled serious issues with how science is administered,” noted the college president in a press release.

But the venture isn't exactly an effort to apply science to the COVID-19 crisis. The so-called “fiasco” was government pandemic measures like mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing, and lockdowns.

Hillsdale is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures.

The trio also has ties to the Great Barrington Declaration, a widely-rebuked yet influential missive that encouraged governments to adopt a “herd immunity” policy letting COVID-19 spread largely unchecked, even as the virus has killed more than 800,000 Americans.

The academy is the newest initiative designed to provide intellectual cover to a nearly two-year campaign by right-wing and big business interests to force a return to normalcy to boost corporate profits amid a pandemic that is now surging once again thanks to Omicron.

That campaign’s most recent success came earlier this month when Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats joined together to pass a symbolic measure to repeal a Biden administration rule requiring large corporations to mandate vaccines or regular COVID tests for workers.

This is the story of how that corporate-bankrolled campaign originally started, and how it has continued to supplant public health experts and hijack the governmental response to the pandemic.

The article goes on to point out that lockdowns drove down cases in the U.S., arguably saving millions of lives globally. Those pandemic responses disrupted the economy. An economic analysis indicated that hardest-hit industries would take years to recover. The fossil fuel industry was particularly hard hit, but has since significantly recovered. 

Business groups, especially fossil fuel interests, targeted public health measures that threatened their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world.

The radical right propaganda war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020. The right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, Americans For Prosperity, issued a press release calling on states to stay open for business: “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” it read.

A few weeks later, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a business lobbying group partially funded by Koch Industries, published a letter asking Trump to enable states to reopen. The letter was signed by over 200 state legislators and “stakeholders” that included leaders from Koch-funded groups, e.g., the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the James Madison Institute. To fight its propaganda war, the Koch network also relied on the anti-government Tea Party movement's astroturf roadmap. This was funded by dark money to foment and coordinate anti-lockdown protests.

In October of 2020, the Great Barrington Declaration was released. It argued: “The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection.” The authors were three epidemiologists at three major universities. They argued that governments should allow younger, healthier people to become infected with COVID-19 to reach herd immunity, while protecting elderly and other vulnerable people. The declaration’s website claims the letter has since been signed by more than 2,700 “Medical and Public Health Scientists,” and “none of the authors or co-signers received any money, honoraria, stipend, or salary from anyone.” 

The article points out that the Barrington declaration (i) came from right-wing dark money and corporate interests, and (ii) many of the signatories aren’t verified. 

According to one source, in the US alone, there are over 120,000 medical and life scientists. That 2,700 worldwide means a small minority of experts agree with the Barrington declaration. That sounds like the ~2-3% of climate scientists who deny human caused climate change and the radical right cites as proof there's nothing to worry about. The carbon energy sector, and most libertarians, conservatives and Republican elites always love that ~2-3% when it protects their profits. 

We have seen the lies attached to this kind of profit-motivated propaganda ploy many ties with affected industries questioning (i) human carbon pollution not causing climate change, (ii) cigarettes being harmless and not causing cancer, (iii) plastics being recyclable and not any concern, (iv) private sector being better than government for running utilities, (v) car makers questioning seat belts, and (vi) etc. 

Question: Is it a reasonable conclusion from this article that hard core neoliberal ideologues are indifferent to human suffering and death if it threatens profits?

Some recent comments from Dissident Politics: Forgotten recent history

Democracy falling into authoritarian darkness

These comments are mostly between salitcid and PD in the post here a couple of days ago, The Role of Fox News in the Slow Motion Unraveling of The American Polity and Society. There are things worth remembering as we watch the horror of democracy falling to Republican Party authoritarianism. If the authoritarians get full control, they will do their best to erase as much of this as possible from the public record. At present, they downplay, distort and/or deny it.

Comment: The Democratic coalition is that in name only. Schmidt himself is a right wing Democrat, a "Never Trumper" with almost nothing in common with the Progressive Caucus except that both deplore the Trump movement. Blue dogs, moderate dems, old-style liberals and self-described socialist progressives combine in uneasy alliances at best. I worry that most of them (centrists, liberals, progs, whatever) really underestimate the extent of danger to our democracy right now. I'm not sure Schmidt's message will resonate with those on the left who see him and other "Never Trumpers" as marginal in light of their poor performance in "moving the needle," as you put it, in 2020. Maybe a Democrat who is respected by both moderates and those on the left in the Dem Party would make a better messenger. Who? Not sure. Though some on the Left don't like him, I think Obama still has just about the most popularity of any major Democratic figure today. About 60% of Dems still say he was the best President in recent history. I wish he would weigh in more vigorously, since he is aware of the problem and still--I believe-- has the ability to galvanize Democrats.

Response: I'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt that "He Knows Joe" and much of his inner circle are the same as Obama's. I very much doubt that if Obama were prez today that he'd perform any better.

There was no way Pelosi was gonna accept impeaching Trump 1.0 or 2.0 without the groundswell of outcry from the common peeps who then would hold their representatives to account. It was only when Pelosi saw in black and white that she had more political points to lose by not acting that she was moved to act. This was achieved by strong rhetoric and sentiment that first motivated citizens and worked its way up from the bottom. I don't think her strong reluctance to impeach for a long time (for both times) was due to cognitive decline - but rather just out of touch political calculus that is epidemic with the "old guard."

Comment 2: Just to be clear, I wasn't arguing that Obama was a very good president when he was, nor that he would be the right person for the job now. I said among Dems he is (right now) the *most popular* former president. Personally, I have mixed feelings-- at best-- about his legacy. But that's a different topic.

I also said, based on what he wrote on 1/6 he seems to see the wider picture of what is happening to the GOP, and that he has Biden's ear. So he might be a good choice of a "spokesperson" for the kind of awareness campaign you suggest. I would not want to see him as prez either, not only because I did not like many of his policies and constant attempts to "compromise" with Republicans who openly despised him and were never going to budge, but also because his mere presence in the WH would only fan the flames of the authoritarian GOP insurgency which began largely as a backlash against him (largely due to race).

But you mentioned the divisions among Dems, and many of them are preoccupied with fighting each other rather than uniting in an anti Trumpist coalition in earnest. Obama *might* be able to convince some of them, and many of the rank and file Dems out there who still respect him so much, that the top priority right now is to thwart this assault on our political system rather than get drawn into party infighting between progs and mods and so forth. That, I think, should take a back seat to preserving our democracy before it's too late. And I have been convinced of this since 2015-2016 should Trump win. When he did, I worked with Indivisible immediately and through 2017. Originally, Indivisible was created by former Obama staffers who had seen the organizing skills of the Tea Party which they had to deal with in the early 2010s. They wanted to use similar tactics to stop Trump-- didn't work. But none of this is to say Obama was a particularly good president in my view, nor that Pelosi (how did she get into the discussion?) was a strong, principled opponent of Trump.

I could be wrong about Obama appreciating the severity of the situation at this point. I based it on the statement he made, and other statements he has made warning Dems to focus on unity against the GOP over "circular firing squads" and party infighting at this time. On these things I agree.

I've sometimes said that I'm now a single-issue voter, because so much else now depends on the single issue (i.e. preserving our democracy, such as it is, against Trumpism). For the time being this seems, to me, to be the sine qua non for those who want to live in a reasonably open and representative democracy. There may be better suited spokespersons for such a call for party unity in the name of overcoming Trumpism, and I am open to suggestions. Obama might make a reasonable pick based on the factors I emphasized. But I am not a great admirer of his track record.

Edit: Re: Steve Schmidt and others--

Originally we were weighing the pros ad cons of Steve Schmidt serving as spokesperson. I don't know how you see it, but I sometimes remind those who admire him now that he made his career as a cynical Republican (no matter what he says) who gave us Sarah Palin just to make it possible for McCain to win. He put the proto-Trumpian idiot, and faux populist (with her guns and Pentecostalism and "alternative facts" about US history, geography, policy and politics) in a position, along with the equally culpable McCain and Nicole Wallace, of being one heart beat away from the presidency. This cynical calculus was undertaken in a situation where McCain's health was extremely fragile. This was the first time that such a fringe red-meat Republican had been plucked from obscurity and granted instant legitimacy as a GOP candidate at the highest level. It fired the imagination of what was to become the alt-right. It made people like Pat Buchanan wax eloquent on TV praising Palin's greatness. It contributed to the Birther mentality, if not the actual claim about Obama's status as a citizen ( which came from others). Nativism, the uniquely American combo of "guns and Jesus," deadly ignorance in history/policy/ current events, and the ability to swap real facts for "alternative ones" when in a jam-- all this was first put on broad public display at a high level in politics by Palin. She was important as an early supporter of Trump (so were people like David Duke-- who Trump refused to denounce for months-- and Alex Jones among other fringe lunatics). Palin brought the previously unrepresented fringe of right wing loonies into the circus tent we call national politics. As the movie Schmidt (I believe) profited from aptly put it, she was a "gamechanger."

Another pet peeve of mine is MSNBC stalwart, "Morning Joe," who gave Trump inordinate air time during call in sections, and also vouched (along with Mika Brzezinski) for his "generosity and good character." Really! Even after Trump won, he and Mika were visiting Trump Tower on a near-daily basis-- probably in a bid for a job in the incoming administration. When conservative guest, Bill Kristol broke down and reprimanded Scarborough for "helping to give us Trump" on a post-election sequence of Morning Joe, it got so bad that they broke for a commercial and showed Kristol out. When the break was over, "Joe" told his audience, "The center will hold, ladies and gentlemen. The center will hold."

Only when he Joe Scarborough became one of Trump's many victims after criticizing him for something, only when Trump outed Joe and Mika as a couple (both were married) did Scarborough suddenly find his moral compass and leave the GOP as a "conservative Democrat" (something Steve Schmidt also did during the Trump years).

I say this because, before Obama we were discussing the merits of Schmidt qua spokesman for anti-Trumpism. I've supported him, and "Joe" and anyone else who can influence people to get busy doing what they can to fight Trump and his movement. But, after you made understandably critical comments about Obama, I thought it was a good time to mention these less well-remembered facts about people often lauded as the "consciences of conservatism," viz. Schmidt, Nicole Wallace, McCain in memoriam, and Joe and Mika. All were complicit in the rise of what we now call Trumpism, and in some cases (like that of Joe S and Mika B) Trump himself. I'll never forget how my jaw dropped when, with a straight face, "Joe," Mika and alleged all-purpose TV wise-man, Danny Deutsch all went on and on about how "Trump is a true gentleman. This aggressive guy we see on TV is an act. We've known him for years. And his boys turned out so well. People just don't know this. I wish he would run on his genuine personality and not this act he puts on. He's a really nice guy." etc. etc. I wanted to punch the screen. And I rarely watch TV, I just happened to see this, and then decided to track it--follow this breach of ethics in which Morning Joe served the Trump agenda by actually promoting him and giving him far more air time than Clinton, whom they covered negatively-- emails included.

I wondered why the putatively "liberal" MSNBC allowed this nonsense, and allowed "Joe" to all but smear Clinton with the email nonsense while neglecting to say much-- if anything-- about the fact that Trump and his team were already being investigated for their potential ties to Russia and--in the case of Manafort who was forced to leave-- Ukraine. It was when Manafort was arrested in Sept. 2016 that Trump did something unusual to change the subject on a Friday afternoon. He used that day to make front page news that insured the Manafort story would be buried. How? By saying (after years and years) that actually Barak Obama WAS a US citizen after all. This allowed the media (who fell for it) to focus on this as Kellyanne Conway seamlessly moved in to replace the scandalized Manafort, helping to deliver Trump's victory.

OK, enough, sorry. I still get upset and angry about this largely neglected history. I could go on and on about how other media figures were complicit in the "lead-up" to Trump just as was the case in the "lead-up" to Gulf 2. No circus barker had ever gotten the attention and respect that idiot-Trump did in 2015-2016. But already, social and political scientists were warning of autocracy or "neo-fascism" should he win. Trump got billions in free exposure and media time-- a story for another time. Sorry for the length of this screed. (emphasis added)

My response to comment 2: My God, your memory must be prodigious.

Comment 3: I think it's highly selective. These things, at the time, angered me. When events register at a stark, emotional level, they often get etched into long term memory. Many of the people I'm talking about, I think, sold America down the river for fairly trivial perishables like TV ratings, career status, money and other interests that just pale in comparison with the consequences of their actions. I was not just angered, but by 2016 moved to take action, so I remember the early formation of Indivisible to fight back Trumpism. But most people I tried to persuade to join and fight, thought this was all overkill. I still remember being told by "Liberal" friends here on NY's upper west side, that our "system" is strong, and it's designed to ultimately ferret out pests like Trump-- this was a short term hassle, not a long term threat. Others, including family members, said things like, "Well, we didn't want him, but now that he won, let's keep an open mind and maybe he'll grow into the job." Obama, himself, promoted this rosy idea of T "growing into the job, as he comes to appreciate his awesome responsibilities." (paraphrase). It's hard to forget the widespread downplaying of danger after the really frightening preview we all had witnessed during Trump rallies and the like. These interpretations had no basis in reality, and, yeah, it stuck with me.

Immediately, on his arrival at the WH, Trump did everything you'd expect would strip away such Candide-like optimism. Yet despite pursuing unconstitutional "Muslim bans," assaulting the integrity of American judges and members of the army who had ethnic or religious backgrounds that were not lily white, northern European (the "Mexican judge who ruled against him, and the posting of false anti-Muslim videos on Twitter that continued after taking office in 2017)/ Back then, Lindsay Graham joined Jeff Flake and others not yet fealty to Dear Leader in denouncing Trump for these things, as did international leaders including conservative, Theresa May (then Brit PM). I remember that these stories were covered more to sell soap in US media then truly ring the alarm bells that--back then-- were mainly being rung by academics in history and pol. science in various books and journals most Americans never read.

So, yeah, I remember these things like they were yesterday (maybe I get a few fact mixed up now and again if I don't check the record). I'm glad I remember this long and complacent period of (more or less) appeasement or at least accommodation (despite Mueller Report and the 1st Impeachment). Much of the anti-Trump rhetoric in the media struck me as performative, as virtue-signaling to viewers who loved to hate Trump. What we didn't see until as late as 1/6-- after an insurrection and coup attempt-- was a serious effort to fight the Trump movement depriving it of its social media oxygen, taking the conspiracy theories seriously, declaring (metaphorically) war on the domestic terror groups that had been there all the while, as Charleston should have made totally clear.

But now, I'm afraid, the Dems are back to infighting and loss of a sense of the overriding urgency of this threat. They are sleepwalking into what looks to be a thumping in 2022, and very possibly 2024. No game plan to combat the usurpation of democracy here. One can only wonder what it takes. So, I do remember the crazy shit that got us where we are from the immoral McCain campaign with Palin, to Tea Party bullshit and Birtherism, up to the media legitimation of Trump as candidate, even as he encouraged violence and made clear his intentions. Many things from these years I totally forget, but these have away of sticking in a disturbing way.