Another gem from JC today

Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a terrific story headlined, “U.S. attorney for D.C. accuses Wikipedia of ‘propaganda,’ threatens nonprofit status.” The sub-headline explained, “Trump appointee Ed Martin accuses the online encyclopedia of ‘allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.’”

In an April 24th letter that somehow quickly made its way to the media, US Attorney Ed Martin wrote the Wikimedia Foundation demanding documents to support its apolitical nonprofit status. In the letter, he criticized the website, basically for rampant retconning. “Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform,” Ed wrote, “including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.”

He added, “Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission.”

In other words, Ed was saying that, to us, Wikipedia looks a lot less like a charity and more like an influence operation. It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and so it’s yet another Marxist NGO wearing a Daffy costume.

Is this a signal of how the Trump Administration plans to chop the NGO beast off at the roots? Tightening up the requirements to prove each group’s charitable, non-political purpose would be a great start. Right now, all you have to do is submit some pretty simple paperwork to the IRS. Practically everybody has a nonprofit or two laying around these days.

Here’s how the scam works: The Democrats invent a ridiculous issue, like transgender rights, that they know conservatives will never support. Then, they direct billions of your tax dollars from government coffers, giving generous grants to brand-new, democrat-controlled NGOs that “support transgender rights.” The NGOs enrich themselves and also donate money to politicians who “support transgender rights,” which is another way of saying Democrats.

It explains so much. Principally, we’ve now learned why there is always another “civil rights crusade” coming right behind the last one. Minority rights, women’s rights, gay rights, trans rights. The engine of new crusades is designed to keep the NGO gravy train moving and getting longer all the time.

Everyone gets the “rights” —i.e., the cash— except you. You get neither rights nor cash. Especially not “white, Christian, cisgender males.”

Anyway, the article quoted a bunch of folks who think Wikimedia is the best thing that ever happened, that Trump hates Wikipedia because he can’t control it, and that US Attorney Ed Martin loves Putin. Yawn. But it also included one unintentionally humorous one bon mot, intended to provoke outrage but which actually provoked LOLs: “In October 2023, Elon Musk, the owner of X, offered to donate $1 billion to the Wikimedia Foundation on the condition that it change the site’s name to ‘Dickipedia.’”

You must admit Elon has a way with words.