Federalist editor Mollie Hemingway was recently quoted in someone's tweet as saying:

"The Biden administration collectively spent $267 million to combat misinformation. Look at the increase in spending from 2017, when just $316,000 was spent on it."

"We have federal agencies engaged in the suppression of speech and debate that the federal government disagrees with. That is in no way the job of the federal government to weigh in on what Americans are saying."

Based on the chart accompanying the tweet, it appears that the feds spent a staggering $126.1 million to combat free speech in the high COVID year of 2021 alone.

Much of what the government labeled 'misinformation' has, of course, been proven true.

But no one was supposed to question 'science' ... or Dr. Anthony Fauci, who told us he was science.

But 'science' is not executive order or governmental coercion. Science is supposed to foster inquiry ... and debate.

Both hypotheses and findings are meant to be questioned every step of the way. Science is not supposed to lead to censorship, suppression, and repression. Nor is it supposed to have an ideological agenda. Quite the opposite.

Yet some with an ideological agenda are ironically effectively attempting to take science back to the days before the Age of Enlightenment.

Not willing to let a (manufactured) crisis go to waste, the Biden administration first blinded us with science (in the guise of Dr. Fauci), and then it bludgeoned us with it.

And now it wants to stuff it full of DEI.

Recent reports indicate that the Biden administration has essentially ordered the federal government to consider 'indigenous knowledge' when implementing various rules and regulations.

To wit, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Rick Spinrad had this to say via a media release:

"NOAA is excited to team up with the American Indian Higher Education Consortium to accelerate information-sharing aimed at building climate resilience, adaptation and co-production of knowledge in communities across the United States and tribal nations. Indigenous Knowledge has made it possible for Indigenous Nations to persist and thrive for millennia. These knowledge systems are needed more than ever to inform NOAA and our nation's approach to environmental stewardship."

I have great respect for Native Americans and their history, but assorted non-indigenous nations have persisted and thrived for long periods of time, as well.

Europeans, in fact, built castles more often than, say, tepees or wickiups, and invented many things that greatly benefited mankind, including Capitalism.

Nonetheless, Biden issued a memo in November of 2022 that directed more than two dozen federal agencies to apply 'indigenous knowledge' to decision-making, research, and policies, according to a post by Joseph Simonson in the Washington Free Beacon. Simonson said that same memo called on agencies to speak with 'spiritual leaders' and reject 'methodological dogma.'

So, the NOAA is now expected to rely in part on 'indigenous knowledge.'

Ever notice how Native Americans never get caught out in the rain? And that their crops are always bountiful no matter the weather? What other agencies are to consider indigenous knowledge in their "decision-making, research, and policies"?

NASA, perhaps? I mean, it was only a fluke that Native Americans didn't get to the moon first ... even though they, too, have opposable thumbs.

Right?

Common sense is not rocket science. But we may not have either soon.

All that said, I will take indigenous knowledge -- and integrity -- over 'progressive' science and the likes of Dr. Fauci. Any day.

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