The Shift Left of Wikipedia, Gov. Walz’s Controversial Lockdown Measures, and More Discussed
Tech desk: How the Left Took Over Wikipedia
A “massive culture shift at Wikipedia” has been “precipitated by the rise of a new social-justice-minded power structure at Wikimedia Foundation,” reports Ashley Rindsberg at Pirate Wires. The shift, launched in 2017 under controversial exec Katherine Maher (who explicitly “opposed the ‘free and open’ ethos of Wikipedia”), marked a “complete re-imagining” of Wikipedia’s mission” into the “hyper-centralized space of top-down social justice activism and advocacy.” The move was funded by big donors like Google via the ultraleft Tides Foundation. Sadly, there is “no doubt that the future is bright for WMF. It is flush with money and has positioned itself at the very center of global governance” as it fights “to create, spread, own, and even define information.”
COVID journal: Walz’s Lockdown Tyranny
Under Gov. Tim Walz’s leadership, Minnesota “endured the pandemic in a fundamentally anti-libertarian fashion,” thunders Reason’s Robby Soave. His “heavy-handed and restrictive” policies included a “ridiculous hotline for COVID-19 snitches.” This was a way “for people to report their neighbors for failing to abide by social distancing rules,” a Stasi-style measure that makes Walz’s claim that socialism is tantamount to “neighborliness” a bad joke. “Later, Walz issued and extended orders for restaurants, gyms, and other businesses to shut down,” and, taking a page out of Andrew Cuomo’s book, sent COVID-positive seniors back to their nursing homes. “Walz was as vigorous an enforcer” of such policies “as any of his Democratic peers.” “For anyone who considers the COVID-19 restrictions” as infringing on basic liberties, “Walz’s veep candidacy should be a nonstarter.”
Minnesota beat: Our Gov Is No Moderate
“Tim Walz has such a bad record as Minnesota’s governor that I was astonished when he landed on Vice President Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential shortlist,” confesses Scott W. Johnson at The Wall Street Journal. Under Walz, “Minnesota has become a high-crime state,” “student achievement has tumbled as school spending has skyrocketed,” and residents are “fleeing their home state.” His COVID lockdown decrees “destroyed jobs and impeded life routines,” and “the deaths of 14,870 Minnesotans were attributed to the virus.” Since winning a second term, Gov. Walz and his allies “have backed measures establishing Minnesota as a mecca for abortion and a ‘trans refuge.’ ” Walz “has been the most left-wing Minnesota governor since the socialist Floyd B. Olson (1931-36).” “The idea that he can appeal to voters who don’t already support Ms. Harris seems far-fetched.”
Terror watch: Hamas Now Purely a Death Cult
Yahya Sinwar’s rise to head Hamas, “combined with his geographic isolation, turns Hamas from an organization into a literal death cult,” argues Commentary’s Seth Mandel. Indeed, “his communications network — Hamas deputies abroad, Hezbollah officials, Iranian government officials, [the late Ismail] Haniyeh in Qatar — has already been badly disrupted. His isolation means he is even more powerful within Hamas, but that is because now he is Hamas” and “nothing more than an Iranian satrap.” Other “members of the Palestinian old guard” have “left Gaza”; “now the Sinwar fanatics are all Hamas has left.” He’s “planning a fight to the death with Israel, and the odds aren’t on Sinwar’s lonely side.”
Conservative: A Shady Voter-Registration Blitz
Nonprofit Vot-ER “has helped more than 50,000 doctors register their patients to vote,” thereby “leading a movement” that’s “turning health care centers into political battlegrounds,” warns The Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium. “Vot-ER claims to be nonpartisan,” but “is staffed by progressive operatives” and “funded by progressive foundations.” “Doctors have used Vot-ER’s tools to register patients in cancer hospitals, emergency rooms, substance abuse clinics, and palliative care departments” as well as “neonatal intensive care” units and psychiatric facilities. Critics say it’s “turning doctors into political activists and patients into political capital.” Not to mention that “when voting is brought up by a doctor” patients may “worry that their care, or that of their dependents, will be impacted unless they do what the doctor wants.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
