The White House and the First Amendment

Remember that time in July of 2021 when President Joe Biden accused Facebook of killing people because it wasn’t censoring discussion of Covid vaccines as aggressively as he wanted—and then took days to retract his allegation? Now the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee reports new documents from Facebook parent Meta showing a pattern of White House pressure on the social-media firm in the months leading up to the President’s outburst.

Today Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) writes on the platform formerly known as Twitter and now called X:

In April 2021, a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House” to remove posts...

In another April 2021 email, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president for global affairs, informed his team at Facebook that Andy Slavitt, a Senior Advisor to President Biden, was “outraged . . . that [Facebook] did not remove” a particular post...”

Rep. Jordan also quotes Mr. Clegg reporting that he “countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US” but it didn’t end the pressure from the administration.

Brian Bushard at Forbes reports:

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed to Forbes the platform has provided the House Judiciary Committee, which Jordan chairs, with additional documents this week, saying: “For many months, Meta has operated in good faith with this committee’s sweeping requests for information,” adding the company “will continue to comply, as we have thus far, with good faith requests from the committee.”

... When asked about the investigation in a press conference Thursday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden Administration has “promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety and security” and “consistently made clear that we believe social media companies have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects of their platforms that they have on American people.”

Does the White House understand the federal government’s responsibility to avoid infringing the freedom of speech?

As for the July 2021 Biden outburst that followed the spring pressure campaign, this column noted at the time:

What an ingrate. Facebook limited the spread of accurate and disturbing stories about Biden family business in the heat of the 2020 election campaign. And how does President Joe Biden return the favor? Now safely ensconced in the White House, Mr. Biden accused the company of mass homicide on Friday—and didn’t retract his statement until Monday.

What was also disturbing was that some prominent media folk actually embraced the president’s outrageous smear before he retracted it.

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Parental Vibes and the New York Times

Opponents of school choice clearly don’t want to allow competition against union-dominated government monopolies. But they seem to be having a hard time explaining why.

Sarah Mervosh reports for the New York Times on Arizona’s new statewide program to help parents choose which school they want educating their children:

In a plan approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year, Arizona became the first state to make every student, even those from wealthy families, eligible for a school voucher — on average worth about $7,200 per student annually.

Ms. Mervosh writes:

The program has been highly contentious — and hugely popular.

It’s easy to understand why parents like to have choices. It’s harder to understand why this idea should be in any way contentious, except perhaps among people who run teachers unions. The Times account continues:

Voucher supporters say Arizona is giving options to families; critics say it is sucking money from public education in a state with middling academic outcomes and low public school funding.

“The mentality is this wild, wild west, maverick-y vibe,” said Beth Lewis, director of Save Our Schools Arizona, which fought the expansion. With universal vouchers, she added, “we are at the end point of this long game.”

So far, Arizona’s program is still small — 90 percent of students attend public schools — and it has not significantly shifted public school budgets. That is in part because many students in the program were already in private schools or home schools.

But if the academic outcomes are middling, why wouldn’t parents want to shift funding to schools that might deliver better results? Also, Arizona has long been known as a place that welcomes a “maverick-y vibe,” to the frustration of leadership in both political parties in Washington. Arguing that school choice is bad because it reflects a parental desire for independence is probably not going to persuade many Arizonans.

This bring us to another criticism. Ms. Mervosh of the Times writes:

The vouchers come with little accountability.

Unlike public schools, including charters, private schools and home-school parents are generally not required to administer state tests or report student outcomes.

Many consumers understand that market competition is the most powerful form of accountability. What good is a report detailing the failures of your local public school if you can’t take your business elsewhere?

Even though the Arizona program is available to everybody, critics also claim that so far the affluent are benefiting disproportionately, though their math is suspect. The Times reports on the program’s roll-out:

Since launching last September, it has grown from about 12,000 students to more than 59,000, outpacing projections. State education officials estimate enrollment could grow to 100,000 by next summer...

Statewide, families who use vouchers tend to be relatively well off. Nearly 15,000 voucher recipients resided in ZIP codes with a median household income over $100,000, according to state data from May.

This suggests that most recipients are in households making less than $100,000. Regardless of income level, what’s wrong with giving parents new options?

It seems that opponents of school choice will need to keep searching for an argument.

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Just Another Story of Covid Fraud
Jeremy Gorner reports for the Chicago Tribune

The state agency that distributes unemployment benefits paid out more than $5 billion in fraudulent or excessive claims over two years when the COVID-19 pandemic forced businesses to cut back their operations or shut down, leaving many Illinoisans out of work, according to a report from the Illinois auditor general.

Among the missteps by the Illinois Department of Employment Security were millions of dollars sent to people who were either in prison or dead, according to the report, which is the auditor general’s fullest accounting yet of massive fraud and overpayments that occurred as the state was flooded with jobless claims.

Mr. Gorner adds that auditors are warning the numbers could be understated as they are still trying to account for all the fraud.

Add this to the very long list of societal harms that were never accounted for when alleged experts in public health issued their lockdown advice.

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival” and also the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi.”

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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web. Thanks to Wes Van Fleet.)

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