Washington watch: Weaponization Exposed
“Congress is set to expose what may be the largest censorship system in U.S. history,” cheers Jonathan Turley at The Hill. This week, “a new House select subcommittee will hold its first hearing on the FBI and the possible ‘weaponization’ of government agencies.” “The ‘Twitter files’ revealed an FBI operation to monitor and censor social media content — an effort so overwhelming and intrusive that Twitter staff at one point complained internally that ‘they are probing and pushing everywhere.’” And not just the FBI: “Emails reveal FBI figures” asked Twitter execs to invite the CIA — “an agency under strict limits regarding domestic activities” — to a meeting. “For years, many politicians and pundits have dismissed free-speech concerns by noting that the First Amendment only applies to the government.” But “this is a First Amendment violation”: “censorship by surrogate.” “Just as a police officer cannot direct a security guard to break into an apartment and conduct a search, the FBI cannot use Twitter to censor Americans.”
COVID desk: ‘Experts’ Must Admit They Were Wrong
“I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities,” recalls Kevin Bass at Newsweek, “when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.” But “I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.” We repeatedly “overstated the evidence and misled the public” on “natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young.” And “amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.” For “public trust to be restored in science, scientists should publicly discuss what went right and what went wrong during the pandemic.”
Higher-ed beat: Another Way To Cut Student Debt
“American colleges inherited the four-year model of undergraduate education from their medieval forerunners,” note Scott L. Wyatt and Allen C. Guelzo in The Wall Street Journal, “largely because there was no practical way the range of classical education could be completed in less time.” In recent decades, colleges added vocational-training programs whose mastery often doesn’t “require a uniform four-year program.” Meanwhile, “the costs of the mandated four-year degree continue to soar.” Amid declining enrollment and a tight labor market, “a three-year degree would be a recruitment attraction for students concerned about the costs of tuition.” Schools must embrace “new ways of thinking about the four-year straitjacket.” While they should offer the “classical mode,” they must also “meet the diversifying needs of a rapidly changing nation.”
Neocon: What’s Your Plan, Don?
“We must end this ridiculous war and demand peace in Ukraine now before it gets worse,” ex-President Donald Trump claimed in a video to his followers. “And believe it or not, it would be easy to do. It would be very easy to do.” Asks Commentary’s Noah Rothman: “How, precisely, are we to ‘end this ridiculous war’?” Trump-loving nationalists seem to want “the cessation of American support for Ukraine,” but that “would not force Russians to retreat back across the border or even to dig into the positions they occupy now.” Nor would it sap Ukrainians’ “will to resist occupation, abuse, and murder.” But Trump won’t share his “secret plan” even with his followers — to whom Rothman poses the question: “How are you not insulted?”
Libertarian: How the Media Shed Credibility
“To retain journalistic credibility, getting a story right is more important than pursuing a crusade”: Reason’s J.D. Tuccille cites that as one clear takeaway of Jeff Gerth’s detailed Columbia Journalism Review analysis of the Russiagate debacle, where much of the press “shed credibility by committing to a narrative that didn’t pan out,” leaving a strong “public perception that the media is not only biased, but out to push an agenda without regard for honesty.” And now comes “Beyond Objectivity: Producing Trustworthy News in Today’s Newsrooms,” in which journalism’s elite “suggest that newsroom leaders should ‘move beyond accuracy to truth.’” Huh? “It’s really hard to get to any sort of truth if you bypass accuracy.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board