The White House needs to "remove the plank from its own eye" when it comes to COVID-19 'MISINFORMATION'

Part 2 of reaction to COVID.gov

I excluded the COVID-19 MISINFORMATION section from my analysis of The White House’s farcical new webpage because it warrants a separate article.

Trump & Co say,

Public health officials often mislead the American people through conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency. Most egregiously, the federal government demonized alternative treatments and disfavored narratives, such as the lab leak theory, in a shameful effort to coerce and control the American people’s health decisions.

When those efforts failed, the Biden Administration resorted to “outright censorship—coercing and colluding with the world’s largest social media companies to censor all COVID-19-related dissent.

There are two kinds of speech/press, broadly speaking: legal and illegal. Types and parameters of illegal speech, whether spoken or written, should be legislated — not proclaimed. Terms like misinformation and disinformation are the language of propaganda, regardless of who is wielding them or why. The concepts are ill-defined and fall outside the bounds of the Constitution.¹

If COVID-19 Misinformation is supposed to mean things that are not verifiably true about COVID-19, then I’m compelled to point out (yet again) that COVID-19 is the name given by the WHO to a disease that was never scientifically or medically proven to be new, unique, or caused by an entity named SARS-CoV-2.

For this and many other reasons, COVID.gov is itself ‘misinformation’ and the Trump administration has a very large plank sticking out of its eye in need of immediate removal.

The Statement

Moving on to the statement itself, I spy an interesting verb tense in the first sentence:

Public health officials often mislead the American people through conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency.

Is this supposed to say misled, referring to the past and with the intention of directing blame away from Donald Trump and other cabinet officials? Or is it a purposeful castigation of American public health writ large, applicable to the past and present?²

Either way, it’s an understatement on several counts because

• it isn’t only public health officials who often mislead Americans using the stated techniques.

• officials do more than just mislead - they lie, cover up their sins and crimes, and cover up the covering up of sins and crimes.

• many more strategies were and are used to hide the truth about the events of 2020+.

Next, we see a positioning of Donald Trump and others as early treatment advocates who were open-minded and did not try to suppress ‘the lab leak theory,’ or coerce Americans into getting the COVID shot.

Most egregiously, the federal government demonized alternative treatments and disfavored narratives, such as the lab leak theory, in a shameful effort to coerce and control the American people’s health decisions.

Such feigned amnesia and hypocrisy is astounding. However, the key observation about the nature of the above claims is that the Official Narrative regarding a novel spreading coronavirus from a point source is being reinforced and protected.

Battles over repurposed drugs such as HCQ and Ivermectin - and even the use/misuse of Remdesivir - were part of a dual-sided operation, which included many medical professionals who were co-opted from the beginning and rewarded for their participation, while pushing a Next Pandemic agenda. (Further explained in the article below.)

What Do I Think About Ivermectin and HCQ?

For many hospital patients and care home residents, there was no alternative to being tested and killed under government-sanctioned protocols green-lighted in spring 2020.

The lab leak theory was reported by alt media early on and was/is one of many false binaries that continue to promulgate lies about a transmitting pathogen.

As for controlling and coercing health decisions, it was Donald Trump, POTUS 45, who declared a national emergency, midwifed life-sucking policies detrimental to everyone’s health, simulated a war, and warp-speeded an mRNA shot without cause.

Naturally, as POTUS 47, he would prefer that everyone forget those past decisions and instead focus on the mandates enacted under the Biden Administration—without having to acknowledge or apologize for the things he did that made such mandates possible. Millions of Americans, including service members in the U.S. Armed Forces—where President Trump serves as Commander-in-Chief—are still required to take the seasonal flu shot. I haven’t heard anyone in the current administration calling for an end to those requirements.

The last sentence regards censorship.

When those efforts failed, the Biden Administration resorted to “outright censorship—coercing and colluding with the world’s largest social media companies to censor all COVID-19-related dissent.

If we ignore when those efforts failed, on the grounds that Operation COVID and its attendant limited hangouts have not failed when it comes to convincing people a pandemic occurred, the gist of the statement rings true.

Comments made by several justices during oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri were disturbing for their apparent acquiescence to—if not outright approval of—government-media relationships characterized by coaching, horse-trading, and directive compliance. So we can applaud one “leaf” on the executive branch affirming that censoring all COVID-19 dissent is a bad thing. Whether the current administration believes censorship of some dissent was warranted - or would be in the future, under similar circumstances involving a perceived “threat” - is unclear.

It’s also worth noting that many figures who are held up as paragons of censored dissenters were disfavored, more than they were censored. By definition, voices that are censored are either a) not heard from, b) not elevated by mainstream or alt media, and/or c) initially are heard from and the disabled or de-platformed such that their audience is greatly reduced and/or their voice silenced or hushed. Being derided or not getting equal time as the Covidians in mainstream media is not censorship, especially when you become a folk hero or household name in other, relatively large circles.

On a Personal Note…

I personally experienced the full range of weirdness on one social media platform (Twitter/X), having been elevated in 2020 via quote-tweets by Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump,³ censored in 2021-22, “responded to” by the Elon Musk account in early 2023, and the object of interest to armies, operatives, and bots of various kinds.

From my perspective, the Muskian regime is more controlling than the Jack Dorsey outfit, and uses a stealthier set of techniques to suppress and redirect dissent. Securing buy-in from many ‘contrarians’ on the utility and necessary of Community Notes (which I oppose) was quite the win for replacing staff with users as speech police.

For me, the most interesting thing about The White House position on COVID-19 Misinformation are the lies of omission, i.e., what they don’t say.

Having spent much time looking back at posts across users from various countries in 2020 and earlier, I’ve become more aware of the ways like-minded people were segregated, legions of “mockingbird” accounts deployed, and information highly controlled in the weeks and months leading up to the pandemic declaration and during the “first wave.”

It’s hard to deny that the U.S. was a global leader, if not chief architect, of an incredible, complex, and highly strategic propaganda campaign that helped convince much of the populace a pandemic involving a spreading deadly pathogen was upon us.

Considering the New York event alone: Who can forget Craig and Helen? The Elmhurst Hospital Show, starring Colleen Smith, Donald Trump, Fred Milgrim, and (later) Nurse Erin? The ventilator ruse? Picking 26,000 people who were going to die? The “young people are dying” script? Cameron’s YouTube, followed by WebMD & NYT interviews? The scenes from Hart Island? The ‘Incalculable Loss’ list?

I could go on, but point is that ‘COVID dissent’ on social media never stood a chance against the machinations activated under the 2020 administration. There is zero recognition on this splashy page of the full-scale assault that was carried out against Americans to maximize compliance.

Am I supposed to believe that the labeling of my posts and 5+ month “permanent suspension” on Twitter was a Joe Biden/Democrat Governor thing and didn’t benefit every person who held federal office in 2020?

I used to be that naive; I’m not anymore.

Don’t Be Fooled

Obi-Wan Kenobi said, “Who’s the more foolish: the fool or the fool who follows him?”

Both are trapped—and Americans shouldn’t kid themselves into thinking the White House doesn’t know exactly what it’s doing with its COVID-19 Misinformation claims and freshly-published site.

Some of the same boys (and girls) who helped kick off the Pretend Pandemic are back in town, and it looks like they won’t be ceding ground to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth anytime soon.

The good news? Those who aren’t fooled are still standing—and they’re not backing down either.

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1. Happy to be corrected by those with greater expertise if I’m wrong.

2. CORRECTION? Post-publication, a reader emailed this page and said mislead is correct

3. These QTs were likely due to my being a part of a DM group which, unbeknownst to me at the time, included influential conservative-leaning political strategists. I can’t locate the DeVos and Trump posts, but can link both if any reader is successful in using X’s terrible search function to locate them.