Thanks to an extensive report by Open the Books, a government watchdog, the public has learned the one-term Biden administration was furiously trying to counter skepticism and opposition to the controversial vaccine, to forced mask wearing, and even the origin of the virus in China.
During the Trump term, the federal government was distributing approximately $6 million to counter what it called “misinformation” at the time. Then there was an “explosion of cash” when the pandemic hit, and approximately $267 million was spent over three years, from 2021 to 2024, the report states.
Where did those millions of dollars go? The biggest chunk of money ($185 million) went to the Department of Health and Human Services, followed by the National Science Foundation ($65 million), with the Department of State coming in third with a meager $12 million to
According to HHS, the definition of “misinformation” is “information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time.”
For many, that definition summarizes the “trust the science” motto that was often repeated by the government and the media during the pandemic. It also mirrors the apologies that belatedly came afterward, such as masking children and the six-foot rule, which were often blamed on the “best available evidence” that was known at the time.
Three universities researched censoring you
Curtis Houck, of the Media Research Center, read the Open the Books report. What stood out to him, he tells AFN, is that our own taxpayers’ funds were used to censor social media comments our own government decided were inappropriate to share.
The chief co-conspirator behind that censorship was HHS, the recipient of the biggest block of money. It distributed that money to the Health Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania ($2.3 million); the University of Texas ($2.1 million); and Michigan State University, $348,000.
All three public universities used the HHS grant to study “misinformation” online.
At the University of Texas, it researched an algorithm to detect and “mitigate the spread” of COVID-19 “misinformation.”
The research at the University of Pennsylvania was even more specific: It investigated how COVID-19 “misinformation” on social media influences black and rural communities.
“A lot of these smaller government agencies, that may not be as familiar to the American people,” Houck says, “are absolute wastelands, apocalyptic wastelands, cosmic black holes, of taxpayer dollars.”
Democrats not done blaming you
Even though the pandemic is behind us, the report points out the “misinformation” label is still be used against critics.
After Hurricane Helene hit, FEMA has used the “misinformation” label twice to falsely claim disaster victims are not still living in tents, and also to falsely claim its own aid workers did not avoid the homes of Trump-supporting disaster victims.
In another stark example, Open the Book pointed out MSNBC host Jen Psaki recently demanded a government crackdown on social media. Because there is no “accountability” on social media, and many people get their news from it, that is why Donald Trump was able to defeat Kamala Harris, she argued.
“Laws have to change,” Psaki told a podcast. “I don’t even know the entire answer to it but that seems to me to be a core issue.”
Psaki, who was the truth-spinning press secretary for Joe Biden, also defended the federal government’s crackdown on social media during the pandemic.
“We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” she boasted to White House reporters in 2021.
Psaki made her post-election comments on the “Next Question” podcast, hosted by journalist Katie Couric, who herself famously got caught deceptively editing an interview with gun owners that made them appear dumb and uninformed.
Summarizing the Open Book report, Houck says it proves the Biden administration and its left-wing allies have “disgust” for a large portion of the American public.
