Political Pinocchios, Anti-Vax Fan Fiction, Social Media Failures, Snake Oil for Sale, Developing Disinformation Narratives
Threats, Fact-Checks, and Reads #4.27.2021
Key Developments
Iran has reported its first 3 cases of the coronavirus variant first discovered in South Africa, state TV said Tuesday; also, cases involving a variant identified in India have cropped up near Iran’s border—all Indian citizens in Iran are being tested for the virus.
Shift workers are more likely to test positive for COVID-19 compared to non-shift-workers, according to a UK study that suggests the increased risk could be mitigated with extra safety precautions or vaccinations.
Alpacas to the rescue? ‘Nanobodies’—tiny immune proteins produced by the animals in response to infection—may be a promising treatment possibility for COVID-19; preclinical trials by Australian researchers found they block SARS-CoV-2 from entering cells.
A trio of real-world studies in the UK (here, here, and here) showed that 1 or 2 doses of Pfizer or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines reduce asymptomatic and symptomatic infections and reduce related hospitalizations—in one study, a single Pfizer dose showed over 90% effectiveness.
CDC Details New Mask Advice for Vaccinated People
Challenging Miscarriage Misconceptions
from Johns Hopkins Global Health Now
A complete rethink of the global approach to miscarriage is long overdue, according to a new Lancet series.
Takeaways based on analysis of 4.6 million pregnancies in 7 countries:
~23 million miscarriages a year, globally (~15% of all pregnancies)
1 in 10 women experience a miscarriage in their lifetime
Problem: There’s a lack of accurate data internationally, especially for low-income countries—which bear the greatest miscarriage burden.
The papers challenge misconceptions such as the belief that miscarriage can be caused by lifting heavy objects. This can lead to women and their partners feeling at fault.
What's Next? They call for a comprehensive overhaul of medical care and advice offered to women who have miscarriages, including:
New clinical trials
Dedicated research centers with expertise in genetics, developmental and reproductive biology, and data science
The Quote: “For too long miscarriage has been minimized and often dismissed. The lack of medical progress should be shocking. Instead, there is a pervasive acceptance … The era of telling women to ‘just try again’ is over,” writes Siobhan Quenby, Arri Coomarasamy, and colleagues in a companion editorial.
CDC advisory panel backs J&J’s Covid-19 vaccine, clearing the way for the pause to be lifted
An expert panel on Friday recommended that the United States resume use of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, likely ending a 10-day “pause” placed on the vaccine after a small number of unusual clotting events were reported among people who had received it.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had jointly issued the pause, were expected to lift it Friday evening, on the advice of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is safe for the vast majority of people and saving lives, the committee stressed, seeking to tamp down concerns triggered when the pause was announced on April 13.
At the same time, members of the panel recommended that the FDA include a warning that in rare cases the vaccine has caused clotting in women under 50. The wording of the warning has already been agreed to between the company and the FDA.
Fresh Evidence: Covid-19 Adds to Risks for Pregnant Women
A new JAMA Pediatrics study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that pregnant women with COVID-19 stand a higher risk of severe illness, death, complications, and preterm birth, Science reports.
The study of ~2100 pregnant women in hospitals across 18 countries bolsters the argument for prioritizing pregnant women for vaccination—and it comes as mounting evidence shows that COVID vaccines appear to be safe for pregnant women.
Pregnant women with COVID-19 compared with those not infected:
Were 5X as likely to be admitted to an ICU
Were 3X as likely to have a severe infection
Had a 60–97% increased rate of preterm birth
Had a 76% greater chance of preeclampsia or eclampsia.
Encouraging Finding: Breastfeeding didn’t appear to transmit the virus.
This study is one of the first large studies of its kind with a “proper control group,” Science noted.
‘Excess Deaths’ in 2020 Surpassed Those of 1918 Flu Pandemic
The U.S. death rate in 2020 was the highest above normal ever recorded in the country — even surpassing the calamity of the 1918 flu pandemic.
Threats
Tobacco giant JTI placing stealth adverts for its brands on Facebook and Instagram
The world’s third-largest multinational tobacco company has been running disguised adverts for its brands on Facebook and Instagram, enabling it to bypass social media site rules and national laws in order to assist the marketing of cigarettes to teenagers and young people, the Bureau can reveal.
Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has set up social media pages that adopt the appearance of lifestyle groups, allowing the company to run adverts on social media platforms in Germany, where directly marketing tobacco to teenagers is illegal.
Michigan’s Covid Wards Are Filling Up With Younger Patients
Even as vaccines roll out, more younger people in Michigan are being hospitalized than at any other point in the pandemic. And they’re coming in sicker.
A counterfeit version of the Pfizer vaccine has been found in Mexico and Poland.
A counterfeit version of the Pfizer vaccine has been found in Mexico and Poland.
Facts have emerged from federal prosecutions, a handful of congressional hearings, the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, and, of course, from journalists. Yet a dangerous rift currently exists in the public perception of Jan. 6 – a rift that may have grave implications for the future of American democracy. The United States needs a definitive account, not just of the reality of that deadly day, but of the alternate reality that produced it.
According to a recent Reuters/IPSOS poll, 60 percent of Republicans continue to believe the false claim made by Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election was stolen due to widespread election fraud.
Just over half of Republicans believe that there were left-wing infiltrators who were responsible for the violence at the Capitol, even though the FBI has said such claims are false. These figures represent a significant number of the electorate who are convinced that the Biden administration is illegitimate.
Why does this matter? An unclassified version of a report on the threat posed by domestic extremism from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) suggests “narratives of fraud in the recent general election” and indeed “the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the US Capitol” may well contribute to an increase in future violence. Put simply, if you’re someone who continues to believe the election was stolen and the current U.S. government is illegitimate, you might take further action to upend it.
How GRU Sabotage and Assassination Operations in Czechia and Bulgaria Sought to Undermine Ukraine
Bellingcat first reported on the presence of members from GRU Unit 29155 in Bulgaria at the time when a Bulgarian arms manufacturer collapsed into a coma following what was identified as poisoning by an unknown substance.
At that same time, the entrepreneur’s son and the production manager of his factory were also poisoned. A possible second poisoning – again with an overlapping trip to Bulgaria by members of GRU Unit 29155 – appeared to have been attempted a month later, days after Gebrev and his son were released from hospital.
We have previously identified and described operations of an elite sabotage unit within GRU Unit 29155. This unit conducts clandestine operations overseas, and we have previously identified its involvement, in addition to the series of poisonings in Bulgaria, in the annexation of Crimea (2014), destabilization attempts in Moldova (2014), a failed coup in Montenegro (2016), WADA-linked surveillance operations in Switzerland (2016-2017), possible destabilization operations in Spain during the Catalonia independence referendum (2017) and the assassination attempt on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK (2018).
In the first part of this investigation, we identified a total of six operatives from this GRU unit who were directly or indirectly linked to the sabotage of ammunition depots in Czechia in October 2014 and, possibly, also in December 2014.
Bellingcat also discovered that Gen. Andrey Averyanov – the commander of Unit 29155 – traveled undercover to Austria and likely on to Czechia during the time the operation took place. This marked the most senior involvement of a GRU officer in a clandestine operation identified thus far.
The posts critique its handling of the pandemic.
Study finds Facebook is failing to remove many scam adverts
The Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report
Chainalysis’s 2021 Crypto Crime Report exposes how ransomware attacks can also carry a risk of violating (United States) sanctions.
Fact Checks
False claims about taxes are on the rise since proposed rates have entered the public discussion. We share this graphic for context. Claims are one thing. Data is another.
The highest marginal tax rate for the highest-earners near the end of the Second World War was 94 percent while and it was still as high as 91 percent in the early 60s. That all changed under Reagan when he slashed taxes, resulting in the marginal rate plummeting to 50 percent in 1982. Since 1987, it has remained low, never rising above 40 percent, according to data from the Tax Policy Center.
It would be offset by nearly doubling the capital gains tax for people earning more than $1 million annually while the top marginal tax rate would be increased from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. This would help address the failure of the minimum wage to rise with inflation and productivity as well as the cost of education rising 8x as fast as wages.
The consequences of that failure have been the concentration of wealth and there is no evidence to suggest that a select few have done more to earn it nor has the middle class grown lazier.
Gov Rick Santorum says, “There isn't much Native American culture in American culture."
He’s incorrect.
We’re working on a forthcoming article that details the contributions of indigenous Americans to modern American culture, but until then, the following graphic should effectively convey that without them, there is no America.
Covid-19 child vaccine trial paused over clot concerns, not cot death
A trial in children aged 6-17 has paused new vaccinations as a precaution, but no child involved died. It’s been paused subject to discussions between researchers at MHRA about the possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and very rare blood clots in adults.
Supreme Court will review the law on the right to carry concealed handguns
The high court will hear a challenge to New York's gun licensing requirements that could expand protections for carrying concealed weapons in public, potentially the first major Second Amendment case to be decided by the court in more than a decade.
Is Joe Biden Trying to Limit Americans to Four Pounds of Red Meat Per Year?
No.
The U.S. has reported 45 mass shootings in March 2021
A report by Gun Violence Archive depicted that in March 2021, the U.S. recorded 45 cases of mass shootings & 150 incidents in 109 days in 2021.
No, officials are not handing out Harris’s picture book to migrant kids
Edited: The writer of the original story has resigned stating she was told to write the story.
The New York Post ran the photo on its front page (headline: “Kam On In”), along with a story falsely claiming, “Unaccompanied migrant kids brought from the U.S.-Mexico border to a new shelter in Long Beach, Calif., will be given a copy of her 2019 children’s book, ‘Superheroes are Everywhere,’ in their welcome kits.”
Elected officials ran with it. The claim is false, however. No effort has been made to correct the misinforming of their followers.
Some asked whether Harris was profiting from the border crisis, which, intentional or not, politically advantages those who speculated.
If any readers have evidence showing that this conclusion is incorrect, we welcome that information.
COVID-19 vaccines cannot cause genital herpes infections, and there is currently also no clear evidence that they increase the risk of developing shingles.
Still, cases of viral reactivation following vaccination have been reported in the past, and this possibility cannot be excluded, particularly in people with weakened immune systems or those who are receiving treatments that weaken their immune systems.
No, you don’t need to avoid getting pregnant after getting a COVID-19 vaccine
• You do not need to stop trying to conceive a child or avoid becoming pregnant because you’ve recently received a COVID-19 vaccine.
• There is no evidence the mRNA vaccines cause infertility.
Fact-Checking Biden’s First 100 Days
In compiling the database of Biden’s claims in his first 100 days, The Fact Checker used the same methodology as the Trump database that counted more than 30,000 claims over the course of Trump’s presidency.
Any statement that would merit at least Two Pinocchios — essentially “half true” — was included. Any claim that was repeated was also included, though, unlike Trump, Biden generally does not repeat his false claims if they have been fact-checked as false. This was not the case with Trump.
All told, through April 19, according to a count by Factba.se, Biden spoke about 40 percent fewer words than Trump and tweeted 70 percent fewer times. He gave only six interviews, compared to 22 for Trump, and held only two news conferences, compared to nine for Trump.
Almost 100 of Trump’s claims came from tweets; only one of Biden’s tweets was deemed false or misleading. Trump made 56 suspect statements at campaign rallies; Biden has held no campaign rallies in his early months as president.
To see all of Biden’s false or misleading claims see the database.
NOTE: The database and clear critique of inaccuracies contradict the oft-repeated claim that the media simply allows Biden to get away with lying where they did not allow Trump. This is demonstrably false. Biden lies far less, and reporters are responsible for delivering accurate information, not attempting to find faults if one existed asymmetrically.
If any readers have evidence to the contrary, we welcome that information.
Did the CDC Say Refusing a Vaccine Is a ‘Form of Racism’?
A picture that looked like a CDC PowerPoint slide was shared on social media.
Did Tucker Carlson Warn Chauvin Verdict Could Set Dangerous Precedent of Believing Facts?
It was satire. Tucker Carlson did not say this.
No evidence that a two-year-old was vaccinated against Covid-19 and died
"After the second dose of Pfizer, a two-year-old girl dies six days later," is the headline of an April 20 article on the Uncut-News blog that, according to the Crowdtangle analysis tool, has already been shared more than 2,600 times on Facebook and is different also distributed there as a screenshot. Evidence of the alleged death is said to be an entry in the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a database of the US government.
Bottom Line:
There is no evidence that a two-year-old child in the US was vaccinated with the Pfizer / Biontech vaccine in late February.
None of the Covid-19 vaccines has been approved for children so far, and clinical studies with children under the age of six did not begin until March 2021. Anyone can make entries in the VAERS database, the content is not checked in advance.
According to its own statements, the VAERS database includes “unverified reports” on adverse events following vaccination with vaccines approved in the USA.
Citizens can submit reports electronically. The data will be published unchecked on the MedAlerts and CDC Wonder websites.
Doctor Harriet Hall criticized the VAERS in 2018 in the blog The SkepDoc. “Opponents love the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System,” she wrote. “You don't understand how VAERS works. It doesn't systematically collect data, nor is it evidence of vaccine harm. ”Anyone could lie and file a false report there.
According to the US health authority CDC, three vaccines are currently approved in the USA: the vaccines from Moderna and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) for people aged 18 and over, and those from Biontech / Pfizer from 16 years of age.
A word about the source of the rumor: Uncut-News
The blog Uncut-News has already spread misleading and false claims several times since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
“President Joe Biden’s climate plan includes cutting 90% of red meat from Americans’ diets by 2030” -Rep Lauren Boebert (R-CO)
False. See article: Does Biden’s Climate Plan Include Cutting 90% of Red Meat From Our Diets?
Reuters rated this as false.
Other claims state that 50 studies “show ivermectin is not just effective, but highly effective.”
This claim is currently unsupported by evidence, although there are people who believe the current studies support the claim. They may be misinterpreting the results.
Current data from clinical trials offer no definitive information on whether ivermectin is effective against COVID-19; better-quality clinical trials are needed to resolve this question. The drug, frequently used to worm livestock, is not a drug without potential risks and should not be taken without clear potential benefits.
Disinformation Narratives
Viral rumor rundown, from the News Literacy Project
NO: There is no evidence that Black Lives Matter activists or anyone identifying as “Antifa” — an unofficial anti-fascism movement — started a fire at a church in Minneapolis on April 19.
YES: The church caught fire the night before the verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial.
YES: A Minneapolis Fire Department official told The Catholic Spirit, a publication of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “There [are] no indications that the fire is associated with any civil unrest.”
NO: The Instagram account that shared this rumor — @republicanparty — is not the official account of the Republican Party.
Note: The Instagram account that shared this false claim also promotes a “patriotic clothing brand.” Promoting disinformation on social media may be a strategy to increase traffic to that brand’s website, which is linked in the account’s bio.
NO: There is no link between messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for COVID-19 and autoimmune diseases or lung damage.
NO: The mRNA vaccines do not alter your DNA.
YES: The underlying science for the vaccines was under development prior to the pandemic.
YES: These false claims were pushed last week in a viral video featuring Sherri Tenpenny, an osteopathic physician and major spreader of vaccine misinformation who believes in an array of baseless conspiracy theories. YES: Extensive medical trial data has proven the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 to be both safe and effective, a conclusion supported by global health authorities.
Note: A recent report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate named Tenpenny a member of the “Disinformation Dozen,” a group of 12 individuals and organizations responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content on social media platforms.
Also note: According to a recent Monmouth University poll, “about 1 in 5 American adults remain unwilling to get the Covid vaccine.”
Related:
“Vaccine-hesitant, vaccine refuses, and anti-vaxxers: There's a spectrum and the differences matter”
NO: These two photos of Palm Beach, a suburban beach town near Sydney, Australia, do not demonstrate that sea levels aren’t rising.
YES: According to experts at NASA, sea levels in Sydney rose by nearly five inches during the 20th century.
NO: This type of photo comparison is not a reliable way to measure changes in sea level.
YES: There is overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity is causing the Earth’s temperature to increase, and sea levels are rising as a result.
Note: You can explore the rate of change in global sea levels since 1880 on this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration webpage.
Related: “As extreme weather increases, climate misinformation adapts” (David Klepper, The Associated Press).
Deliberate use of the term “experimental” to sow vaccine hesitancy continues
Videos are circulating on social media claiming that COVID-19 vaccine promotions (like receiving a free donut for proving vaccination) are part of a marketing scheme to sell an “experimental” vaccine for the pharmaceutical industry and that if the vaccines were truly safe and effective, they would not require such heavy marketing. Leaders of the anti-vaccine movement have been encouraging their followers to use the term “experimental” when referencing COVID-19 vaccines, in order to increase vaccine hesitancy.
Anti-vaccine groups thrive on Facebook – don’t be fooled by the platform’s latest takedown
Media Matters has identified over 110 active anti-vaccine groups still on the platform.
The Suicide Wave That Never Was
The notion that lockdowns increased the rate of death by suicide last year has become common knowledge. It’s not backed up by data.
Russian Outlets Continue to Spread Disinformation on American Vaccines, Playing Up the Success of Sputnik
Playing up Russian vaccines while disparaging the American ones may show the motivation is fiscal but the effort is also likely to further divide and weaken American society, frequent aims of Kremlin disinformation.
Vaccine narratives are among some of the most successful in the disinformation genre. Priming the public to accept these narratives began no later than the 1980s when Operation Denver/Infektion spread disinformation about the US role in the emergence of HIV.
Disinformation tweets from Kremlin-aligned accounts:
A sampling of recent disinformation articles:
Much of the disinformation being published comes from known disinformation spreaders. Some of it is simply recycled from previous efforts in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic and the 2014 ebola crisis.
A graphic from Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University and a Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow, shows the complex disinformation ecosystem:
Research
Listening to what trust in news means to users
Trust and distrust often served as a shorthand for what people liked or disliked about various news sources. Across all four countries, another stylistic concern involving both the substance and presentation of the news was the reliance on sensationalism or clickbait, which was typically associated with lower quality information.
What did people like about a particular news channel?
Many referred not simply to how credible they believed the information was or the stylistic choices made around presenting it, but how consuming such news made them feel.
How concerned were people about journalistic integrity?
Attention to journalistic practices was high while at the same time, people had limited knowledge about what that specifically meant.
What were the main complaints?
Chief among the critiques participants had about the news was that it was often tediously predictable, cyclical, and never changing. This mattered for trust because it also meant that many saw news generally as largely interchangeable from one source to the next.
It’s worth noting that stations reporting accurately about the same subject should sound similar.
One of the concerns many raised about news coverage in their country was that too often it did not seem relevant to their lives.
In many cases, across all four countries, interviewees would often make clear that the way they evaluated news was not always necessarily as a source of information but as entertainment.
This creates incentives other than accurate reporting for keeping readers’ and viewers’ attention.
What’s the big picture?
One reason why actual practices of journalism were less central to how people seemed to think about trust may be because few expressed confidence in their knowledge about what reporting the news actually entails.
Instead, they tended to rely on various heuristics or other cues about what might be decent proxies for professionalism and quality.
These fallback measures for determining trust are notorious for leading us into logical fallacies and biased thinking.
Without understanding what is involved in information gathering, reporting, fact-checking, and other parts of the editorial process, one cannot meaningfully assess an outlet. Still, many people are doing it using alternate methods that aren’t reliable.
Republican Men Are Vaccine-Hesitant, But There's Little Focus on Them
As federal and state government entities ramp up vaccination efforts, polls show increased confidence in vaccines, especially among people of color, who have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and were, at least initially, more skeptical of the vaccines. Vaccine hesitancy persists across all demographics, however.
As CDC, FDA lift pause of J&J vaccine, the poll indicates ‘eroded confidence’ in shot
The CDC and FDA on Friday lifted a recommended pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the United States after a panel of experts encouraged its use despite a small number of clotting events linked to the shot.
Vaccine Attitudes and Uptake in Europe: How’s it going there?
A majority in Central and Eastern Europe want to get vaccinated. Outliers include Bulgaria and Romania.
The willingness to get vaccinated increased by 20-30% in a five-month period across all V4 countries and doubled in Slovakia.
A sizable contingent – around 20% of society – still remains either “rather not” willing or undecided on vaccination.
Central and Eastern Europeans express a clear preference for vaccines developed in Western countries (e.g. Moderna and Pfizer) and EMA-approved vaccines.
Only 5% of respondents, on average, mention Sputnik V as their vaccine of choice. Slovaks are outliers on this matter, with 15% indicating a preference for the Sputnik V vaccine over alternatives.
The age and education levels of respondents influence their interest in vaccination. A total of 60% of university-educated respondents want to get vaccinated, 15 percentage points greater than people with only an elementary-level education. Interest in vaccination increases with age, partially reflecting the vaccination strategies of CEE countries, which have initially prioritized older people for inoculation.
Recommended Reads
Readers often ask what news sources we recommend. What we’d recommend varies based on the topic, but we rounded up a list of sources that all offer reliable reporting with limited to slight/acceptable bias (meaning an author may have an opinion but all relevant facts are still reported and appropriate context is provided).
In no particular order, here are 25 sources with reliable reporting and acceptable bias:
1. Reuters
2. AP
4. USA Today
6. ABC News
8. ProPublica
9. Defense News
10. Foreign Affairs
11. USA Facts
12. The Dispatch
13. FactCheck.org
14. Military Times
15. Financial Times
18. Forbes
19. Bloomberg News
20. Popular Science
21. Polygraph.info
22. Pew Research
Readers seeking an outlet with a religious lens would be well-informed by these:
These sources will not report accurately 100% of the time as no outlet can or will. Critically, when credible outlets make a mistake or present misleading information, they take ownership and issue a correction. That is an essential part of journalism.
Specifically ranked only on reliability the top 15 outlets were:
🟢AP, 79.2%
🟢Reuters, 78.9%
🟢Weather.com, 75.9%
🟢ABC News, 73.9%
🟢The Advocate, 73.9%
🟢Bloomberg, 72.9%
🟢National Public Radio, 72.9%
🟢Wall Street Journal, 72.1%
🟢The Hill, 72.1%
🟢Financial Times, 71.9%
🟢LA Times, 70.8%
🟢PBS, 70.6%
🟢Al Jazeera, 70.5%
🟢CBS, 70.3%
🟢Fortune, 69.8%
Glad to know the weather channel is reporting without bias.
Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions—And Why It’s Hard to Learn From Our Mistakes
With time and use, the brain develops preferential pathways for information processing, decision making, and action. The more we do anything, we alter our brains to become better at it. This includes worry, irritability, impulsiveness, and patterns of thought that contribute to poor decision-making.
The Anti-Vaccine Influencers Who Are Merely Asking Questions
Institutional experts haven’t adapted to today’s media ecosystem. Other commentators are filling the gap.
The conversation about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines has expanded to include influencers with a following many orders of magnitude larger than that of the average anti-vax activist. These influencers can more easily reach Americans who are genuinely hesitant—people who have received other shots and have had their children vaccinated but are wary, even under threat from a deadly coronavirus, of getting new medical intervention that lacks a long track record of safety.
The drivers of hesitancy are varied: deep-seated aversions grounded in religious beliefs, bad prior experiences, or distrust of the pharmaceutical industry; more immediate doubts about the safety of a specific vaccine relative to the risk of the disease it prevents; and the influence of a person’s friends, relatives, and social group. The effect of what one sees or reads, the weight of the prevailing opinion of one’s social group, is both powerful and hard to measure. Researchers can’t say which tweet or YouTube video tipped someone into a decision not to vaccinate. We can see only which posts people are liking and sharing, and which commentators and news outlets are getting the most attention.
We’ve Been Here Before: Learning From the Military’s History with White Nationalism
In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a military-wide “stand down” after civilian and military leaders alike raised concerns about the disturbing link between domestic extremism and the U.S. military, evident in the disproportionately large numbers of service members involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But this is not the first time that the military has had to reckon with extremism in its ranks.
The groups that were involved in the insurrection, including anti-government militias, like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, and militant white supremacist groups, like the Proud Boys, often reject being labeled as extremists or white nationalists by calling themselves “western chauvinists” or wrapping their ideologies in patriotism and “American nationalism.” Yet, experts have warned that this new crop of extremists is just the most recent manifestation of the white nationalist and far-right extremist threat that has been facing the U.S. military for over 40 years. The history of the Department of Defense's responses to domestic extremism needs to inform future policies, strategies, and bureaucratic structures to counter extremism in the military.
This history reveals three key insights.
First, we are not starting from scratch — existing policies already empower commanders to act to curb extremism, though these policies rely too heavily on the individual commander’s discretion.
Second, the Department of Defense’s approach to countering Islamist extremism post-9/11 led military leaders to consistently underestimate the threat of domestic and white nationalist variants.
Third, policy alone is ineffective without continued commitment. This is not a problem that can be solved with isolated policy updates or individual stand-down days.
With public health experts facing harassment, we must embrace science to return to normal [Opinion]
Over a year after the first cases were recorded in our country, we still don’t fully understand how the virus threatens us or how to balance its perils with other pressing social and economic forces.
The New York Times investigates “the slander industry”: websites which allow users to post negative comments about people and businesses sometimes have strong financial ties to websites charging tens of thousands of dollars to remove those posts.
We Are Turning COVID-19 Into a Young Person’s Disease
Even as cases drop among vaccinated Americans, the coronavirus still can spread among unvaccinated people—who will be disproportionately children.