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Tag: Public Trust

The cost of asking Americans to simply “Trust us”
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American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

The cost of asking Americans to simply “Trust us”

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Public confidence collapsed not because Americans asked too many questions, but because too many went unanswered. Science has never required blind faith. Quite the opposite. Science advances by asking difficult questions, testing uncomfortable hypotheses, challenging accepted wisdom, and enabling independent investigators to examine the evidence. Authority alone has never been enough. That is why every scientific paper includes a Materials and Methods section. The goal isn’t merely to announce conclusions. It is to provide enough information for others to reproduce the work, validate the findings, or identify errors. That’s how science earns trust. COVID changed that. Too often, Americans were simply tol...
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The Tina Peters trial became a fight over whether the system could withstand public inspection.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

The Tina Peters trial became a fight over whether the system could withstand public inspection.

By Joe Oltmann | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The American people have been told, over and over, to trust institutions that have not earned that trust. Not Republican institutions. Not Democratic institutions. Not federal agencies. Not state bureaucracies. Not corporate vendors. Not partisan prosecutors. Not judges who hide behind procedure while the public asks basic questions. Not media outlets that decide in advance who the villain is and then write every story backward from that conclusion. That is the frame through which the Tina Peters case should be understood. The establishment version says Tina Peters is an “election denier” who let an unauthorized person access Mesa County, Colorado election equipment. That is the sanitized institutional story. The people’s...
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How government fueled a nation of conspiracy theorists
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American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

How government fueled a nation of conspiracy theorists

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker They didn’t just lose the narrative. They lost the country. Five years ago, suggesting that COVID-19 may have originated in a laboratory rather than a wet market could earn someone the label “conspiracy theorist.”  Discussing vaccine injuries could result in a post being removed from social media. Questioning prolonged school closures, forced masking, or vaccine mandates often led to accusations of being “anti-science.” Today, many of those once-forbidden discussions have become part of public debate. That doesn’t mean every alternative theory is correct. But it raises an important question. What happens when institutions repeatedly assure the public that they are unquestionably right, only to revise, retreat,...
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When government defrauds the citizen, it forfeits its moral claim to tax him
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, National, Top Stories

When government defrauds the citizen, it forfeits its moral claim to tax him

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice There comes a point at which taxation ceases to be civic contribution and becomes state extraction. That point is reached when citizen taxpayers are defrauded by their own government, when public money is lost, stolen, concealed, misdirected, or protected through official corruption, and when the same government that demands payment from the citizen refuses justice to the citizen. A government that takes from the people under color of law, then shields the corrupt from consequence, has not merely mismanaged funds. It has broken a covenant with the governed. The issue is deeper than waste. Waste is incompetence. Fraud is betrayal. Waste says the government failed. Fraud says the government used the public trust as a pri...
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Federal Crackdown Expands as Decades-Long Voter Fraud Scheme Surfaces
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Just The News, Approved, National

Federal Crackdown Expands as Decades-Long Voter Fraud Scheme Surfaces

By John Solomon | Just the News FBI Director Kash Patel says prior administrations looked the other way on election cheating but "those days are over." Despite evidence to the contrary, liberal voting activists have spent years minimizing cheating concerns and portraying those who want to investigate such problems as “election deniers.”  But the FBI and the departments of Justice and Homeland Security are now systematically exposing electoral fraud – from non-citizen voting to ballot-box-stuffing schemes that are turning the table in epic fashion. The latest strike came Monday when a longtime voting activist in California reached a deal with federal prosecutors to admit to illegally paying homeless people to sign election petitions and paying people to re...
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When everything is a crisis, nothing is
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

When everything is a crisis, nothing is

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project How many crises does Colorado have? I don’t know that I can count them all for you, but to give you a sense, I did a Google site search for four major Colorado media outlets: The Denver Gazette, Colorado Politics, CPR, and Colorado Sun. If you’re curious to tool around in there, you’ll find the searches linked below in that same order. We apparently are beset by crises. A quick survey through the first four links below shows a climate crisis, a budget crisis, a Colorado River crisis, a mental health crisis, a healthcare crisis, a childcare crisis — the list goes on. I am not surprised by advocates and politicians using the word crisis. The fifth link below is to Senator Hickenlooper’s Twitter feed and, sure e...
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Where money meets power: Inside the rise of the environmental industry
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, National

Where money meets power: Inside the rise of the environmental industry

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com I follow the ups and downs of the environmental industry almost like a part-time hobby, for several reasons. For one, many environmental groups pretend to be local, grassroots activists, when in fact many are nationally organized and funded as part of a larger network. But also, their growth, influence, finances, and occasional declines offer fascinating insights into Americans’ interest in the environment, and their perceptions of groups who presume to speak for them. I use the term “environmental industry” to illustrate the unparalleled growth of these organizations, both in money and power – often the primary objectives. U.S. environmental organizations reported to the IRS assets of well over $200 billion by 2022 (most recent available...
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Is Election Integrity Possible in the Digital Age?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Is Election Integrity Possible in the Digital Age?

By Maria Orms | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice It often feels like people in the United States fall into three broad perspectives when it comes to election integrity: Those who believe election tampering is happening Those who suspect there may be issues but are too scared to speak up Those who trust that elections are secure, as presented by mainstream narratives Regardless of where someone stands, there is a growing concern shared across these groups: a sense that individual liberty is eroding, that government accountability is weakening, and that large institutions—both political and corporate—are exerting increasing influence over the direction of the country. When people ask me which of these perspectives I align with, my answer is consistent: I come from a c...
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When systems fail: A contested Colorado convention raises broader questions about your digital life
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

When systems fail: A contested Colorado convention raises broader questions about your digital life

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice A hospital cancels surgeries. Not because of a storm. Not because of a staffing shortage. Because a cyberattack forced it to. “They had to block Stryker from coming into their network and cancel all of the surgeries that required that robotic device,” said Maria Orms, a cybersecurity professional who was a gubernatorial candidate at the April 11 assembly.  “That could cause someone to die.” This wasn’t just a what-if. In March, there was a cyberattack tied to an Iran-linked hacking group that hit companies in the medical technology space, including Stryker and Intuitive Surgical. What that meant in practice wasn’t always clear in the moment. But hospitals rely on those systems every day—robotic platforms, connected net...
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El Paso Co. clerk resigns leadership role and pulls county from clerks association over transparency concerns
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Ashe in America, Approved, Commentary, State

El Paso Co. clerk resigns leadership role and pulls county from clerks association over transparency concerns

By Ashe in America | Commentary, Ashe in America The CCCA is a Non-Governmental Organization that Generally Serves as the Authority on Colorado Elections El Paso County Clerk & Recorder Steve Schleiker has quietly resigned as Vice President of the Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA), and he has withdrawn El Paso County from active membership in the non-governmental organization. Schleiker was candid about his decision in an email with a Colorado voter who reached out after noticing his name had been removed from the CCCA leadership list. “After careful consideration, I made the decision several weeks ago to resign as Vice President of the Colorado County Clerks Association and to withdraw El Paso County from active membership. This was not a decision I made li...
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