Talk:Josh Hawley/Archive 1

Place of birth
I recommend that this article be locked and protected because of repeat vandalism about the place of birth, my source is an official biography. 2001:5B0:4BD3:43F8:FD0F:BDA6:44B8:A6A9 (talk) 16:45, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Look folks, I agree with that the secondary source saying that Hawley was born in Springdale and raised in Lexington is more reliable than the primary source that says he was a "native" of Lexington., I agree with your definition of "native", but I think Hawley is simply using it incorrectly. It's better for him if he's a native of the state in which he is a politician; thus, his use of "native" is self-serving and therefore unreliable. He could have just as easily said he was born and raised in Lexington but he chose language that was ambiguous.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:25, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

For the record "Native" means born, "Being the place or environment in which a person was born or a thing came into being" https://www.dictionary.com/browse/native 2001:5B0:4BD3:43F8:FD0F:BDA6:44B8:A6A9 (talk) 19:41, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Came here from the RS noticeboard. St. Louis Today and the Springfield News Leader both say the same thing. I think Hawley maybe pulling a reverse "man from Hope" [[User:Nblund |Nblund ]]talk 23:38, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

NPOV issue
"NPOV dispute [-Residence] Changes repeatedly made to the section on Josh Hawley's legal residence are not biographical facts. They are clear statements of opinion made by Hawley's political opponents" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam1857 (talk • contribs) 15:14, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Eric Greitens' troubled tenure
Allegations against Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, a Republican, first arose in 2017. Scrutiny initially included a focus on his pre-election personal, possibly criminal sexual behavior, blackmail of a victim, then pre-election campaign financing irregularities, including illegal fund raising, violations of prohibited non-profit organization donor and other contact data for partisan political purposes, violations of Missouri's Open Records Act "Sunshine" laws, and other concerns. Hawley initially contended he lacked jurisdiction to prosecute, but eventually initiated an investigation announced in mid-December 2017. He shared case information with St. Louis Circuit Court Attorney Kimberly Gardner, who had taken office on January 1, 2017 after serving in the legislature. Gardner took the initiative to bring a case against Greitens, including investigation and taking critical witness and victim testimony, which she shared. As pressure on the governor mounted over the next five months, the Republican-majority legislature, and eventually Hawley began to more aggressively pursue the matters in question. Gardner noted that the Greitens defense team had attacked her, Hawley and the House committee involved in the investigation, as well as the victim and her family. On May 29, 2018, Greitens announced his resignation, to become effective on June 1st, at 5:00 p.m. Gardner announced that she had been involved in the negotiations with the governor's legal team, to resolve the matter in the public interest. While Hawley approved of the resignation, he had clearly been reactive, rather than proactive, with respect to the multitude of improprieties. Whitewashing his page to remove Gardner's core role does not neutrally describe the situation. Hawley was consistently dilatory and languid, following first Gardner's actions, then the legislature's. Any analysis of the timeline of the process that ended in the resignation will clearly demonstrate his ongoing reticence to intervene. Activist (talk) 06:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that support your opinions stated above? It looks like original analysis. You might have strong personal views on the matter, but it’s my understanding that Wikipedia should report what sources directly say rather than what individual editors believe. It also seems like this situation should be getting more play at the Greitens page than here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:C900:3159:3553:F7EF:A53F:1817 (talk) 13:53, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

/*Litigation*/ Although the source, National Review, states Hawley "litigated" this case, he is not listed on the briefs, did not make an appearance on the case. Though he was volunteering for the Becket fund at the time, they were not a party in the case, though they may have filed an amicus brief. The NR reporter was simply wrong, perhaps not being conversant in "lawyer speak," and this should not be restored in absence of more definitive information to the contrary. Activist (talk) 22:25, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality concerns
This article reads essentially as a campaign brochure than an objective biography. It details every minor accomplishment (or attempted accomplishment) that this fellow has made, rather than using summary form as appropriate for an encyclopedia. It also presents these accomplishments without context such as opposing arguments. I'm going to start pruning back the undergrowth in a few days. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:50, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
 * On NPOV, compare to Phil Weiser Wiki page, who is also running for office.Bjhillis (talk) 14:07, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Shock Brigade Harvester Boris, I respectfully disagree with your comment above and with the tags you placed on the article. Could you be more specific as to which language you believe is POV and which language you believe is "written like an advertisement?" I also don't see the article as lacking in context. To me, it seems quite in-depth given that the subject of the article is a politician who has held public office for less than two years. At this point in Hawley's career, I doubt there's a whole lot to say beyond a list of his accomplishments; actually, I'd lean toward trimming the article rather than adding context. If you believe that the article is unbalanced (which it seems that you do), may I suggest that the "unbalanced" tag might be more precise than the tags you have used? One area where some balance might be needed is on the Greitens scandal. I will try to add something there. Thanks. SunCrow (talk) 05:42, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * We agree more than we disagree; in particular, I fully endorse your I'd lean toward trimming the article rather than adding context. There's waaaaay too much detail on every little thing this fellow has done. Apologies if my comments were unclear. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:49, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * No prob, Shock Brigade Harvester Boris. Thanks.
 * I tried to trim some material that I thought was extraneous, but User:Jytdog accused me of POV editing. Not sure what that was about. SunCrow (talk) 23:48, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This section is about promotional content. Please clarify what promotional content you removed. Jytdog (talk) 23:53, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Take another look, Jytdog. The heading on this section is "neutrality concerns." SunCrow (talk) 03:28, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Read the OP. Jytdog (talk) 03:40, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Concur with ; some trimming and/or editing may need to be done to reflect a more centrist tone, but removing the needlessly contentious and pointless hatnote. - JGabbard (talk) 20:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Disagreement over one sentence
User:Snooganssnoogans and I disagree about the brief section entitled "Trump's tax returns." The section reads as follows:


 * During his 2018 campaign, Hawley called on his opponent to release her husband's tax returns. When asked if Hawley thought that President Trump should release his tax returns, Hawley refused to directly answer.

I don't think content like this is significant enough to be on the Wikipedia page (especially about Hawley not answering a reporter's question; if a politician not answering a question is encyclopedia-worthy, wouldn't every Wikipedia article about a politician run hundreds of pages?), so I reverted it. User:Snooganssnoogans restored the material, stating, "this is a political position, and it would be within his power as senator to compel the release of the tax returns." I moved the first sentence of the paragraph to the section on Hawley's 2018 Senate campaign and deleted the second, which does not state a political position at all. User:Jytdog reverted this and other edits made by me, describing them as "absurdly POV" (which is not so) and warning me of discretionary sanctions. I attempted to discuss the matter with User:Jytdog without success. SunCrow (talk) 23:47, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * the source's headline is "Hawley wants McCaskill to release full tax returns, dodges on if Trump should, too"; it is mentioned in the lead of source, and given substantial discussion in the body. How is your edit a neutral summary of that source? Jytdog (talk) 23:57, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, I don't think content like this is significant enough to be on the Wikipedia page in the first place. I also don't think a candidate for office dodging a question is encyclopedic. My question is: What is this information doing here? Who cares about it? SunCrow (talk) 03:33, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * If we are going to mention him bringing up his opponent's tax returns it is fair game. Jytdog (talk) 03:41, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The content is reliably sourced. Furthermore, Hawley himself made hay of this, opting to emphasize tax returns as a campaign issue. RS subsequently of course covered it. Obviously DUE. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 12:28, 26 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I continue to object. Connecting Hawley's stance on his opponent's tax returns to his non-response to a question about Trump's tax returns is quite a reach and is likely WP:SYNTH. SunCrow (talk) 23:49, 26 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't have a problem with the two sentences in the article about this. This seems to me to be well-sourced and given weight in proportion to its prominence. Neutralitytalk 23:51, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 October 2018
The source for josh Hawley's photo needs to be added. This photo is from "Drew Morris, Staffer, Team Hawley" Lonecowboy96 (talk) 02:07, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: The info on the file page is not added to the infobox, only a caption is proper, but in this instance a caption is not needed. - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 02:10, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Objections
User:Odomjm please discuss your objections per your edits:
 * diff 17:24, 18 October 2018 (edit note corrected perception that data was conclusive by adding reference to only "some sources")
 * diff 17:36, 18 October 2018 (edit note added language to remove obvious leftist political bias. Neither of these statements are possible of proof from these or any sources, but are rather speculation as)
 * diff 17:39, 18 October 2018 edit note hese are his opinions, and without the qualifier, appear as if conclusively wrong facts.

Please do see your talk page here and especially here. Jytdog (talk) 17:45, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Without these qualifiers, the assertions are logically unverifiable. The assertions about the potential effects of Hawley's stands depend upon many factors (e.g., if there is verified evidence that he opposes other legislation to protect pre-existing conditions) and should either be omitted entirely, or qualified by language explaining the necessary logical limitations of the sources, as my edits properly did.  There is clear bias towards Hawley's opponents as it currently stands.  I am not yet experienced enough to defend my edits beyond this, and would appreciate help from those of you who are truly savvy to the use of subtle biased language in journalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Odomjm (talk • contribs) 18:13, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Initial reply.... That is a very strangely formatted remark. It was partially fixed in this diff. I am fixing it the rest of the way, in this diff. Please see your talk page, about using article talk pages. Jytdog (talk) 18:43, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * The relevant policy here is WP:NPOV. What we do in Wikipedia, is summarize reliable sources.  There are times when we do attribute things - "According to X, blah blah blah", but we only do that with opinions (see WP:RSOPINION).  In the cases of the two sentences you wanted to attribute, these are facts, not opinions.  It is a fact that overturning AHA would allow insurance companies to exclude people with pre-existing conditions. It is a fact that Hawley asserted that 1960's culture and Hollywood cause human trafficking, without any evidence for that claim.  The reliable sources say this. That is how WP works. Jytdog (talk) 19:17, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not a fact that overturning AHA would allow insurance companies to exclude people with pre-existing conditions. If you watched the debate now, it is obvious that Hawley proposes keeping those restrictions.  To say it is a fact that the pre-existing condition coverage will be lost, presuming against his proposal to the contrary, is biased.  Some sources, would not jump to the conclusion that is proposed as a fact here, but would indicate that a bill would be necessary to replace that portion, and that Hawley would support such a bill.  This statement, without a qualification such as I provided, takes Senator McCaskill's and her party's rhetoric, line, and position.  These are opinions of the news sources, that repealing the AHA WILL result in losing that coverage.  Other sources would say that it won't because those who would repeal AHA also support continuing to force coverage of pre-existing conditions (of course insurance companies, who don't want such a restriction, claim that would be unaffordable, but this is still a matter of opinion also, and from a biased source).  So as an opinion, these two statements do need the qualifying attribution to be unbiased reporting of the verifiable facts, as WP does.  It is a fact that Hawley asserted that 1960's culture and Hollywood cause human trafficking, and it is true that he didn't provide the evidence, but the statement in the article is an opinion that there isn't evidence, which rather than being a fact, is used to impeach his credibility, inappropriately, and perhaps inaccurately. Odomjm (talk) 12:59, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Everything here is based on sources. Please bring RS (that stands for 'reliable sources' and they are described in WP:RS) for what you are saying. The current content is supported by RS and I suggest that you read them, carefully, before you continue arguing about this. Jytdog (talk) 01:09, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
 * There is no RS for logic (obviously these days - this is a joke, but has some truth). The problem is that, as you've already acknowledged, opinions freqently need qualifying attributions.  It isn't necessary to read the articles in detail (and shouldn't be presumed that readers of the encyclopedia should have to read every citation in detail to have an unbiased view of the piece).  The reference in the article logically implies that it is fact (as even you incorrectly assert), and therefore needs an attribution such at that which I suggest.  The current writing only serves to criticize Hawley's stance by suggesting the inference that it is a fact that an undesired result must occur, when he doesn't want that result and offers an alternative (which means the assertion is an opinion, unless his alternative is that Martians will fix it) to it. Odomjm (talk) 16:01, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Josh Hawley
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Josh Hawley's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Primary Election": From Jon Tester:  From Mazie Hirono:  From 2018 United States Senate election in Missouri:  From Ben Cardin:  From Deb Fischer:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:14, 6 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The orphaned reference has been resolved, using the middle of these five sources. —ADavidB 12:08, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2021
184.63.157.216 (talk) 01:18, 8 January 2021 (UTC) On January 6th. Mr Hawley stood to defend election Integrity. As millions of Americans watched live on CNN when votes were stolen from President Trump to give to spy Biden. During Mr Hawley contesting the election on behalf of Missourians who call for a objection so their votes are not silenced.
 * ❌ Wikipedia is not a soapbox. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 01:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed, closing this request. TimSmit (talk) 01:53, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Covid relief section, "teamed up with"
I've reverted "joined" back to my original "teamed up with." I think the latter sounds better, and is also more clear. With "Hawley joined Sanders," one could interpret that to mean that Bernie was already engaged in this effort, and then Hawley joined him. If anything, it was actually Hawley who initiated the latest push for direct payments, but "teamed up with" is a good neutral description, and one that a number of media outlets have used. -2003:CA:871E:36DF:832:D7B4:A3C1:611D (talk) 15:06, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theorist"
Just making this section in regard to the edit in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Josh_Hawley&oldid=997269082 that added "conspiracy theorist" to the lead. I undid the revision for now, but it might be good to discuss here whether it should be added before making a final determination.

I don't think Wikipedia has explicit guidelines for when to label someone a "conspiracy theorist". However, looking at examples:
 * Marjorie Taylor Greene is referred to as a "conspiracy theorist", but that's because she's an active proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory
 * Mo Brooks, however, is not referred to as a "conspiracy theorist", though he is doing the same thing as what Hawley did (i.e. planning to object to the Electoral College results)

On the basis of these examples, perhaps a good guideline would be that whenever someone explicitly supports / has a history of supporting something that Wikipedia labels as a conspiracy theory, for example, QAnon. I'm not sure if Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election necessarily meets that bar. Challenging the electoral college results doesn't seem in itself sufficient to label someone a "conspiracy theorist" on these grounds.

These are just my thoughts on this issue, but let me know if you think otherwise. Llightex (talk) 19:39, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Are there any reliable sources that refer to Hawley as a conspiracy theorist? Schazjmd   (talk)  19:41, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see any -- the closest I see is that Hawley supports an "objection that will provide a platform for Trump's baseless conspiracy theories claiming the election was stolen from him" (https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/politics/josh-hawley-force-votes-electoral-college-results/index.html). Llightex (talk) 19:48, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , do you want to make an argument for why "conspiracy theorist" should be added to the lead? (Since you made the edit.) Schazjmd   (talk)  19:58, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 December 2020
"facist" is referred to in the bio opening... 204.235.76.222 (talk) 19:57, 30 December 2020 (UTC) He is objectively not a fascist*. Right-wing or Republican is a far more apt descriptor. He does not meet the criteria of enforcing "dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy." He simply doesn't... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cdevit (talk • contribs) 01:31, 31 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Red_question_icon_with_gradient_background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. MadGuy7023 (talk) 23:28, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Far Right Description
The page's first paragraph cites that subject Is a "far-right" politician, although Hawley himself does not meet Wikipedia's definition of 'far-right'. Furthermore, the "source" for the "far-right" statement is merely a blog/opinion post from a reputable news outlet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cdevit (talk • contribs)


 * That was added just an hour ago. The source doesn't really support it. I'm going to remove it for now, pending further discussion to get consensus on that label. Schazjmd   (talk)  01:27, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Adding my comments from my edit summary: ref is opinion and never specifically states Hawley is far-right; one grandstanding effort isn't sufficient when the source itself says he is viewed as a populist Republican. Schazjmd   (talk)  01:30, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 December 2020
The following should be placed in the section on questioning the 2020 election results: In questioning the results of a free and fair election where there has been no *credible* evidence of *widespread* voter fraud, Senator Hawley is disenfranchising the votes of over 80 million American citizens in order to accept the votes of 74 million other American citizens. This act is, by definition, setting out to destroy democracy in America. These steps are not just anti-democratic or anti-Constitutional, they are an act of treason against the United States of America. Mr. Trump walked into court 60 times and thoroughly *failed* to prove his voter fraud claims. The only place Mr. Trump and Senator Hawley are willing to make wild claims about election fraud are outside a courtroom (at a microphone or in the U.S. Senate), because they know that if they repeated these things inside of a courtroom, they would be guilty of perjury. These treasonous acts by Hawley and any other Republicans that seek to throw out the votes of 80 million Americans in a presidential election will be remembered for generations. 72.93.222.159 (talk) 16:44, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: This is not sourced and is editorializing. Schazjmd   (talk)  17:10, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Hawley opposition
I've suggested that a reverting editor take differences of opinion about the stated Electoral College intent to Talk. Instead, he or she simply reverted. My edits are thoroughly sourced and I'd like the opportunity to finish them. Hawley has stirred up a huge, bipartisan hornet's nest with Republican members of the House and Senate questioning his motivation. Wikipedia readers ought to have access to that information. Activist (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * First, when bringing a new topic to the attention of the talk page you need to make a new subsection, so I've done so for you. Second, that is what is known as WP:BRD, I see you've have trouble in the past not following that from your talk page. Please be aware action like that in the future may result in a block.


 * The information you added badly cluttered the article, apart from the lack of spacing leading to a wall of text, it contained many inconsequential additions such as the opinion of Ben Sasse and a U.S. Senator from 2005 who did something similar to Hawley. While that may be useful when a vote occurs, until then, such additions constitute WP:NOTNEWS and don't add anything beyond banter between two clashing parties. When/if the opposition occurs, you may further develop the subsection or even create a new article if it becomes big enough to warrant one. MyPreferredUsernameWasTaken (talk) 19:50, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with 's revert. Quoting every person who has an opinion on Hawley's stated intention is excessive; the article should summarize the current event, not report on it in detail like a newspaper article would. Schazjmd   (talk)  20:30, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, , , , (To "Taken") You have had the option of taking this to Talk, which I urged you to do, and only now have you done so, after your 3R violation. When I went to your Talk page to respond to you, I saw you have engaged in such behavior previously and recently, been topic banned for 90 days (partway through January 2021), though it was lifted. The administrator noted: "As the above sections are not your first incident in this topic area, but continue a pattern of aggressive editing, pursuant to the arbitration enforcement provisions for post-1932 American politics, you are now topic-banned from editing in the area of post-1932 American politics, broadly construed for a period of 90 days." Another editor urged: "Please respect the guideline." The negative opinions held by Mitch McConnell and Ben Sasse, of neighboring Nebraska, are hardly inconsequential, though you've been dismissive of the latter. (To Schazjmd) I'm hardly "quoting every person," or I'd be writing a book. Broadcast radio and TV, and cable, are afire with the controversy Hawley has initiated. The "event" next week doesn't and won't exist in a vacuum. The anticipated consequences, rather, are a substantial part of Hawley's action. It is not just the bomb, but also the expected collateral damage, hours of fractious debate, and having those colleagues from his side of the aisle enmeshed in a dilemma not by any stretch of their choosing, a roll-call vote which could have major repercussions on their tenures. None, perhaps, are without major concerns devolving from this act by a single colleague. Activist (talk) 21:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , as I said, I disagree with the excessive number of quotes you're adding to the article. It's sufficient (if necessary) to summarize that his statement of intent has been criticized by members of both parties. I'm sure there'll be more to add when he actually does something. Schazjmd   (talk)  21:46, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * A WP:3RR violation occurs when you revert more than 3 times in the span of 24 hours. I did so thrice but not more than such, additionally, what you're doing right now constitutes a personal attack. My reference to your history of disregarding WP:BRD was to reinforce my theory you're being intentionally disruptive, for a user that has had their account since 2012 you should know what WP:BRD is but you act like you don't. MyPreferredUsernameWasTaken (talk) 05:40, 1 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I prefer my version which was short and concise, and covered what Hawley did and what the significance of it is:
 * "After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Hawley announced his intention to object to the certification of the Electoral College count in Congress.President Donald Trump who lost to Biden in the 2020 election had refused to concede and made frequent baseless claims of fraud in the election. Hawley stated that he was objecting on behalf of those "concerned about election integrity."The New York Times wrote that Hawley was elevating false claims of a stolen election."
 * I agree that endless quotes by various politicians do not belong in the article because of UNDUE and readability issues. It is better to keep things short and to the point. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Hawley photo
Is there a way that we can add this photo of Hawley greeting anti-democracy protestors? It seems apt to depict the trajectory of his career. The photographer is Francis Chung. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:41, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The photo is copyrighted to the photographer, so if it were to be included, it would need to be a low-quality version under fair use. At the moment, I'm not sure if the image itself is notable enough to deserve going past the "minimize" doctrine at WP:FAIRUSE. However, if in a few days the photo itself is the subject of a lot of press coverage, or even becomes a subject of scandal for Hawley, then I would support including a low-quality version in the article. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 06:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I have added a fair use version of the photo to the article in the appropriate section. Let me know what you think. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 23:08, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Neutrality concerns
[RogerB] i feel the words baseless and false that are used so regularly are unfair. I would like to see (i need to search) a wiki page that clearly lists the issues and concerns and how they have been addressed. Please consider editing baseless to alleged or unproven. It is neutral. Further reviews requested.[RB] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.9.144.41 (talk) 06:29, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌ I believe you may have meant to page, but I can answer this just as well: there is no evidence to the claim of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. As such, the claim is baseless and false, and calling that is inherently neutral. Wikipedia only publishes claims made by reliable sources, and all reliable sources have called allegations of voter fraud "baseless" or "false." To consider waiting for possible alleged fraud to come to light (even after it has been widely debunked) is in fact against Wikipedia rules. You can find more relevant information on the facts of the election on the relevant page, as well as on the pages Joe Biden and Donald Trump. If Sen. Hawley wants to deny the facts, then he can do so, and his article will reflect that, but it doesn't change the fact that there was no voter fraud in the election. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 06:53, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Hawley's role in the January 6th Mob Assault on the US Capitol
In an opinion piece in the Washington Post published on January 7, 2021, conservative columnist George Will stated that Hawley will wear the "Scarlet S" of a seditionist after his baseless objections to the 2020 Election results. The evening prior to the terrorist occupation of the US Capitol, which Hawley is credited with helping to incite, Hawley called the police and asked them to disburse peaceful protesters from his home, but referred to them publicly as "ANTIFA scumbags", despite police observations to the contrary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-hawley-and-cruz-will-each-wear-the-scarlet-s-of-a-seditionist/2021/01/06/65b0ad1a-506c-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.183.151.201 (talk) 14:35, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Why is Hawley's role in the Jan 6 riot/insurrection not in the lead paragraph of his bio? It is without any question the single most significant fact about his time as a public figure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎174.21.30.101 (talk) 02:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The last paragraph of the lead seems to cover this fully. If you believe more info is warranted, please specify it (and provide reliable sources for verification, if not already included later in the article). —ADavidB 16:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 January 2021
Addition of section on Hawley's role in the January 6 domestic terror attack on the US Capitol and misrepresentation of protesters at his home on the evening of January 5. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on January 7, columnist George WIll said that Hawley will wear the "Scarlet S" of a Seditionist for the rest of his career.

On the evening of January 5, Hawley called the police on peaceful protesters at his home but called them "Antifa Scumbags" 108.183.151.201 (talk) 14:41, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 22:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Lead image
I'd prefer if were replaced with  as the current lead image. It's of a technically much higher quality (7.04 MB as opposed to 2.79 MB) and portrays the subject less awkwardly, which in a politically contentious article like this one is a step toward neutrality. The current photo can be used elsewhere in the article. I made this edit earlier but it got edited out, so I'm leaving a message here per WP:BRD. Regardless, the page should absolutely not have the same photo twice, or a photo and the cropped version of the same photo, which it now does. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:23, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * For the time being, I've replaced the lead image again to fix the immediate problem of both the photo and its crop illustrating the page. If you'd like to revert this, please leave a message here explaining your thoughts before reverting. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Normally, we go with most recent picture for the lead. However, the replaced photo does portray him less awkwardly, so we can use that for now. Sorry for the edit conflicts! Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 21:54, 7 January 2021 (UTC
 * I think the most recent, and official, photo should be used. It is not our place for aesthetic judgements.Eccekevin (talk) 22:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I think more importantly than that, the image is of a much higher file size (over 2.5x so). As such, per the "Image quality" guidance at MOS:IMAGES, I feel it is the "best quality image available" and is what should be used to "best illustrate the subject matter." AllegedlyHuman (talk) 23:10, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article248354085.html The "fist pump" photo is quite unique. It was taken by a photojournalist working for Energy and Environment News and he apparently was the only one who captured the brief affirmation to the Capitol rioters. The KC Star ran it on their front page, courtesy of E&E News and Politico. The URL for the photo and article and commentary on the shot itself is at https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article248354085.html It caused Cori Bush and others to call for Hawley's resignation. The Wikipedia policy on "Fair Use"/[] is found in sections 8 & 9. I think it qualifies for WP use, but that's not my field of expertise. It's clearly an "iconic image," much like the Viet Nam-era photos of  Kim Phuc, the nine-year-old girl burned with napalm, that of General Loan executing Nguyễn Văn Lém on the street in Saigon, the distraught girl Mary Ann Vecchio, sobbing over the corpse of her fellow student at Kent State and, Thích Quảng Đức, the monk immolating himself in protest of the policies of the Diệm government. Those photos all won Pulitzers. Activist (talk) 00:38, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, and I previously added that image to the article after comment (see section titled "Hawley photo"). However, that image was deleted for reasons currently unclear to me. I left a message in response to the warning on my personal talk page by, but have not heard back from that user (or anyone else, for that matter). However, since the image is unique and now historic, like the images you mentioned and like similar political images (i.e. "Dukakis in the Tank" or "Mission Accomplished"), I would support if you or anyone else would readd that image with a fair use tag. However, I do believe this discussion should be carried on in another section—either the existing section "Hawley photo" or a new section altogether. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 01:13, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The image was via AP images, a commercial press agency. See WP:NFCC, and WP:F7.  The photo itself needs to be subject of the commentary rather than illustrating the fist pump. -- Whpq (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The image was via AP images, a commercial press agency. See WP:NFCC, and WP:F7.  The photo itself needs to be subject of the commentary rather than illustrating the fist pump. -- Whpq (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Per Kansas City Star, it's a "famous photo" and the KCS asks Hawley to discuss it. Isn't that sufficient in terms of demonstrating that the photo itself is a subject of commentary? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:17, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That wasn't in the article, but yes, if this type of sourcing with text in the article discussing the image itself, it would likely be okay. -- Whpq (talk) 19:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've readded the photo along with some discussion of the photo itself. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 00:29, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 January 2021 (2)
Many typos in section on Capitol riot 174.109.86.194 (talk) 22:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)


 * ❌ Please specify exactly what you want to be replaced and what you would like it to be replaced with. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Role before and during the riot
Several editors have been engaged in downplaying the reactions to Hawley's actions before and after the riots. For example, several sources that argue that Hawley has been responsible for inciting the violence |have been outright removed. As long as opinion articles are framed as what they are, they can be included. The sentence "Other journalists and officials made similar claims, suggesting that Hawley and other elected officials were responsible for inciting the riots" does not use unattributed opinion articles for statements of fact. Additionally, the lede has been rearranged as to suggest he has only been condemned for his actions after the riots, while indeed this is not true: condemnations for this actions are both for what he did ahead of the riot (several sources talk about his role in inciting the violence).Eccekevin (talk) 09:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , I'm not sure why these sources can't remain per WP:RSOPINION for this claim, especially the Joy Reid source (documenting a notable individual's view of the incident) and the Fox 4 source (documenting several notable individuals' view of the incidents). I'm really failing to see how the edit linked to doesn't adhere to the following: "Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact." It also seems the sources in the lead follow this guideline as well, verifying the condemnation of Hawley's actions. Would like further discussion on this. (Also,, I'm not saying you've done this so far, but please keep in mind that comments asserting edits were made for ulterior political motives does qualify as a WP:PERSONALATTACK.) AllegedlyHuman (talk) 10:02, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Regarding the lead, we can not state in WP:WIKIVOICE that a BLP "incited a riot." The only RS in the lead is the Kansas City Star, which states: "..with critics charging that he helped create the climate for Wednesday’s Capitol riot by being the first to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College certification." This is what his critics are saying--not the source. As for the opinion articles, WP:RSOPINION dictates that it "is best to clearly attribute the opinions in the text to the author and make it clear to the reader that they are reading an opinion." The text I removed did not adhere to this, and, instead, relied on vague weasel words like "journalist" and "official." Additionally, the opinion article has to be published in a RS in the first place. Per this current RfC (and many others), the reliability of Business Insider is very dubious. As for the Fox 4 source, it hardly even about Hawley. The only critique of Hawley comes from Rep. Cori Bush. Are we seriously going to include every instance a Democrat criticizes a Republican, and vice-versa? That would be wholly undue. We already have the scathing editorial from the Kansas City Star in the article, which seems to already summarize the opinions of Hawley's critics quite well. What other opinions could we possibly need? BTW,, good job on fixing up the article so far. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for explaining your thoughts so clearly, as well as for the unsolicited compliment. I particularly agree with you on the point that adding every criticism would violate WP:NPOV as it would seem like dog-piling; we should instead strive to include only the broadest and most important views that will give readers a general sense of the entire situation, whether they're reading it as the news is unfolding or several years from now. I personally feel the KC Star editorial (demonstrating home state disapproval) and the George Will column (demonstrating GOP disapproval) are among the most important of these, and as such the lead as it stands is in a good shape. Certainly as the situation progresses if any elected officials were to pursue action against Hawley, that criticism would also warrant coverage. It also should go without saying that under no instance save perhaps a criminal conviction can we say definitively that someone incited a riot. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 11:07, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Great points, I agree. I would also like to remind everyone that we should try to avoid any recentism bias. These events are unfolding very quickly, and people are expressing a lot of opinions about Hawley at the moment. There is absolutely no rush in writing this article. In contentious BLPs, such as this one, we should always go the extra mile to insure WP:NPOV & WP:RS compliance. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 11:25, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You make a good point about recentism. I've added to the lead to try to include more about Hawley's attorney general tenure and previous Senate tenure (before, say, last week). I'd like to know what you think. Thanks. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 03:55, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Looks great! He definitely is known for his criticism of Big Tech and China. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 04:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Quick note:sorry, removing the Israel section was totally a typing mistake. I agree with what has been said so far, but I'd like to point out that a few things said by are misleading. The accusations that Josh Hawley's behavior contributed to the riot have come from various sources, both Democrats and Republicans, and from many outlets.           Even his former mentor, Republican Senator John Danforth, accused Hawley of contributing to incite the riot stating that "Yesterday was the physical culmination of the long attempt (by Hawley and others) to foment a lack of public confidence in our democratic system." It is not simply Cory Bush.  argues that  the criticism by Cori Bush is isolated, but then proceeds to remove all other ones saying that they are redundant ("What other opinions could we possibly need?"). Pick one: either it is more than one critique and its redundant, or its more than Cori Bush. All these sources must be included; opinions are valid, if contextualized, per MOS:WEASEL. I agree with  that citing every one is not helpful, so we should have one summary of them all. But that is | precisely what Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d removed  Eccekevin (talk) 22:52, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * You're misrepresenting what I am saying. I never said the Cori Bush criticism was isolated. I agree that Hawley has received a good deal of criticism from his critics (mostly from Democrats, but a few Reps as well). He's received so much criticism that we have this sentence in the lead: "Hawley was widely condemned for his conduct leading up to and following the riot, and has faced multiple calls for his removal or resignation from across the political spectrum." Doesn't that already accurately summarize all the criticism he has received? However, your edits, especially your edit in the lead, violates WP:BLP because you attempted to present the criticism of Hawley as a statement of fact. It is not a statement of fact that Hawley's comments incited a riot--that is a POV statement (and a criminal offense) alleged by Hawley's critics. You can keep citing all the opinion articles you want, but opinions do not equal objective facts. And as I previously said, we already have a decent subset of his critics listed in the article: specifically, we have the criticism from the Kansas City Star editorial board, criticism from a  WaPo opinion article from two political scientists, criticism from John Danforth, and criticism from David Humphreys. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 23:40, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed, I agree that sentence is fine now. But the part referring to the criticism for his actions before the riots was added by me, as you had removed it (albeit with different wording). That's why I'm writing here. When this discussion started, you had removed such sentence. I *never* stated anything as a fact; I had written that he was "criticized for X", not that "X occurred". And sorry, but yes, you did say that Cory Bush's critique was isolated. You said, and I quote: "The only critique of Hawley comes from Rep. Cori Bush". That said, I agree with you that the lede is fine as is. The only thing necessary I believe is re-adding the general sentence, as, summarizing that he received criticism from many sources (basically the one in the lede, but added in the body as well) other than the three expressly pointed out. Eccekevin (talk) 00:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Once again, you are misinterpreting what I was saying. I said: "As for the Fox 4 source, it hardly even about Hawley. The only critique of Hawley comes from Rep. Cori Bush"--I was specifically referring to the Fox 4 article. The only criticism of Hawley from the Fox 4 article is from Cori Bush. I brought up the Fox 4 article because AllegedlyHuman brought it up first. You say--I *never* stated anything as a fact--but that is incorrect.:
 * : As a result of his role in objecting to the results of the election and inciting the riot...
 * :As a result of his role in objecting to the results of the election and inciting the riot...
 * :As a result of his role in objecting to the results of the election and creating the climate for the riot...
 * : ...The fact that his objections to the Pennsylvania electors and his baseless claims of voter fraud and irregularities directly incited the Capitol riots have been affirmed by many additional sources


 * These are all unattributed POV statements masquerading as objective facts. You were also warned of your conduct by : . Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 00:50, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2021 (2)
On January 6, Josh Hawley, with other Republican Senators, supported an attempted coup and the destruction of American Democracy. 68.184.206.6 (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Photo in "tenure" subsection
I've notice the photo accompanying the subsection "tenure" in the Senate section shows up very oddly on a mobile device. In it, Hawley and the background are much darker, and he looks almost zombie-like. However, the resolution is fine on a computer. It's very hard to describe what I mean, so I recommend you try it and see for yourself. If anyone with more tech knowledge than I have knows how to diagnose the problem, it would be very much appreciated. Thanks. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 02:51, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Another note: clicking to expand the image on mobile causes the full resolution to be restored. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 02:51, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Using the Wikipedia app on an iPhone, I do not encounter any odd darkness of this image. Double-clicking the image shows full resolution, and double-clicking again restores the initial size. What mobile app or web browser are you using? (I would say the lead/infobox photo appears dark and zombie-like, but that's persistently so.) —ADavidB 08:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I was viewing the website in Safari on an iPhone. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 22:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I do not get the same results with Safari on an iPhone X running iOS 14.3. Perhaps it varies by phone and OS version. —ADavidB 13:17, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Clarifying Hawley's role in the riots
Right now, it is not clear from the lead why Hawley is connected to/blamed for the riots. We need to explain the reasoning for this, namely, that Hawley popularize and lend legitimacy to the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen, a conspiracy theory that provided the motive for the riots. LongtimeLurkerNewEditor08 (talk) 03:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 03:44, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

twitter thread about his public lies
I never heard from him before, I have not much English knowledge. And no idea how reputable e.g. theMissouriTimes.com or KansasCity.com is. It just seem to shed a condensed light onto his lies on any of his campaigns. And doing so, he collects attention and money from wealthy supporters. This is the link which contains lots of screenshots and links for further reading: https://twitter.com/LynzforCongress/status/1345464374593519617 in 50 statements. (and I have no connection to this twitter account. And feel to incompetent to include the useful parts into this article) 2A01:598:A0F2:DEFE:3DBA:6C12:65E0:F2F8 (talk) 21:49, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Early life and education section
In the early life and education section, it incorrectly states that Josh Hawley was a teacher at St Paul's School in London. Josh Hawley did attend St Paul's School for 10 months but as a post-graduate intern during the 2002-2003 academic year. We would be grateful if this could be amended as soon as possible. SPS JMS (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The present National Review source says Hawley taught there. Please identify a reliable source that supports his non-teaching, for verification purposes. —ADavidB 16:00, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Disbarment requests
I request that after "Hawley was widely condemned for his conduct leading up to and following the riot, and has faced multiple calls for his removal or resignation from across the political spectrum." The sentence "Thousands of Yale and Harvard law school alumni have also petitioned for Hawley's immediate disbarment." be added. There are a number of sources : — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymous Pangolin (talk • contribs) 00:08, 11 January 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅ I've added information on the disbarment calls to the lead and more information in the relevant section. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 00:59, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

"Legitimize"
I am somewhat concerned about the use of the word "legitimize" in the lead in reference to the Stop the Steal conspiracy theory, which is stated as baseless in the article, and which we know to be WP:FRINGE. My concern comes from the double connotation of "legitimize": in one sense, to popularize, as Hawley did, but in another sense, to verify or confirm, which he most certainly did not. As it stands, I would recommend removing legitimize, leaving the sentence like this: "Because Hawley helped popularize the conspiracy theory that motivated the mob, figures from across the political spectrum argued that he was morally responsible for the riot and called for Hawley to resign his office or be expelled from the Senate." However, I am willing to discuss this further. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 20:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * To begin with, the word itself is misleading seeing as how the conspiracy while not proven in a court of law, was based on evidence (see affidavits) and a host of other things. A theory as is just that, something that is not proven. In the end it does not need to hold water, but claiming that it did not have anything that it was based on is fraudulent.Thronedrei (talk) 01:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with this, and have left a comment at your post in another section. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 02:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: I've left a similar comment at Talk:Ted Cruz. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:24, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

factual error
The intro should say Hawley was the second senator to object. Ted Cruz was the first (Arizona electors), Hawley was the second (Pennsylvania electors) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.229.6 (talk) 15:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've edited the lead to reflect the fact that Hawley was the first senator to announce he would object (announced on Dec. 30), the more interesting point and I believe what the lead may have been intending to say. Thank you very much for the comment. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 21:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 February 2021
Ekarp24 (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC) In high school when he was fifteen, Hawley wrote an article defending the Oklahoma City bombers. 
 * ❌: The column you're referencing is already included in the article, and the citation you've added does not say that Hawley defended the bombers (McVeigh and Nichols), but rather the militia movement. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 23:06, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

"Baseless" Conspiracy Theory
Dear people that edit this wiki. I removed the "baseless" part, not the conspiracy theory. The conspiracy was based on affidavits that were never even disprove in a court of law since the courts decided to not look at them. While you could argue that the evidence(affidavits) were false, lies or whatever else... you can't argue that they were not submitted and did not exist. The conspiracy theory as such was based on on these affidavits as well as other odd things that happened. This is why it was not "baseless". Using the word baseless here serves no purpose and is wrong. As such it should be removed.Thronedrei (talk) 01:17, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * ❌ Allegations of voter fraud have been routinely described as baseless by reliable sources, and as such we can and will call them baseless. See Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election if you're actually interested in learning more about this. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 02:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * To be honest, it doesn't matter if there are sources for the baselessness or not. It's inherently loaded language, and doesn't meet Wikipedia standards for a neutral point of view. If you must have a reference to this in his article, say something like "[the theory] which many outlets have called baseless", and then put citations to the sources that did so.


 * As a side note, that entire last sentence of the opening description really needs to be rewritten; it also talks about "figures from across the political spectrum" doing things, without stating who those figures are or placing citations for them doing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.250.183.56 (talk) 17:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The lead does not need citations; see MOS:CITELEAD. And I am of the opinion that a short summary, rather than some examples of the (many) people who criticized Hawley (like what exists later in the article) is more helpful for readers. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 18:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Point to add: Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump
Another point I think might be noteworthy to add under either the Tenure section or Donald Trump subsection is his votes on the second impeachment trial. Each time, Hawley voted in favor of declaring the trial unconstitutional, voted against the rules and procedures for the impeachment trial, and has been an obstructionist to the trial (you probably should use more neutral language than that in the article, though). The following Roll Call votes are the sources you can use to confirm how he voted each time: Vote 8, Vote 9, Vote 56, and Vote 57. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks a bunch! --Negrong502 (talk) 15:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This is good, but personally, seeing as the event is ongoing, I think we should wait until it concludes – not because I think Hawley will change course, but just out of an abundance of caution. The impeachment, however, is certainly a notable event. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 16:06, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * - Completely understandable. Thanks a bunch! --Negrong502 (talk) 17:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Reorganization: Donald Trump and Impeachment
Considering how high profile Hawley was in the first Trump impeachment and how high profile he is again now in the second impeachment, I suggest that we take out the impeachment inputs from the Donald Trump subsection and create a new subsection, First Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump, and then another subsection underneath, the Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump for Hawley's actions and votes now. I'm now autoconfirmed and could switch things around, but I want to see if more people agree with changing it. Thanks a bunch! --Negrong502 (talk) 18:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Congrat's on autoconfirmation. There are only three sentences in the current Donald Trump section. Wikipedia is a summary encyclopedia, as opposed to a high-detail recent news source. I question the value of (what appears to be) a lot of (reliably sourced?) detail planned regarding the two impeachment trials. If you're not planning to add much content, then keeping it in the current section should be sufficient. —ADavidB 03:53, 12 February 2021 (UTC)


 * You know what, I've changed my mind, you have a good point with that. I'll leave it be. Thanks a bunch! --Negrong502 (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Vigil for Democracy
Hello,

In the section "Role in the 2020 presidential election," a candlelight vigil held at Hawley's home is mentioned. Specifically, the article notes a video posted by the group ShutDownDC. I believe I have found that video, and not only that, it's been uploaded to YouTube with a Creative Commons license, meaning we could include it or a clip of it in this article. However, I don't currently know how to upload a video to Commons, and besides, I'm not sure if my computer could do it anyway (the video is 51 minutes in length, and my computer's kind of old). I'm leaving this here if anyone wants to take this on or has any other comments. I haven't watched the video yet (other than skimming through to confirm its legitimacy), but if there's a particularly interesting segment that could be clipped rather than embed the entire file I would be open to that as well. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 05:52, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Another thing I forgot to mention: someone has helpfully added timestamps for when different events in the video begin. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 05:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Edit War
I removed sections of this article about a biological person which were not cited with references. So, to ensure that Wikipedia Policies would be violated, and heavily biased, un-referenced potential slander about a living person would be posted, User AllegedlyHuman initiated an edit war to re-post the un-referenced information. 75% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats believe it is highly likely or somewhat likes "that Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win", so obviously, this is neither a "far-right" conspiracy, nor a fringe point of view. It is an opinion. Therefore, both sides of the mainstream views on the matter must be included in the article. If you want to argue it is a matter of fact, well, clearly there are differences of opinion about that, and it turns out that the majority agree that there was real fraud conducted in an effort to alter the election results. There was undeniably voter intimidation against Republicans, which is well documented on media and in criminal cases. It is undeniable that state legislatures have sole jurisdiction over election rules, and Governors violated those rules and made their own rules, which means the election were illegally conducted in those states. There was ample witness testimony of observers being sent home, before the key ballots in the swing states which determine the results were counted. There was also testimony of mail in ballot that were not folded, so they could not have been mailed in, of poll workers changing names on ballots, for ballots that were for a person not eligible to vote. There was testimony of poll workers preventing observers from effectively observing. And most damning, just enough ballots were found within a matter of 3-10 minutes, in multiple states, at different times between 3am and 6am, after observers were sent home, with just enough being found to change the results of the election, and far, far higher percentages of those ballots were for Biden than other mail in ballots were, 99.6% to be exact, and that is statistically impossible, as ballots are never sorted by party before they are counted, and cannot be.

Therefore, it is not a fact that these claims are baseless. it is a act that there is substantial basis to call the results into doubt. It is also a fact that most people doubt the authenticity of the election. There are clearly two mainstream opinions on this, and they both must be presented, and neutral point of view must be maintained. References must be cited, and biased news agencies cannot be considered neutral. Even Fox was highly biased against Trump, as all records of comment by the owner of Fox (Rupert Murdoch) regarding Trump clearly show. So if you want to cite new articles, you also have to cite Republican biased news articles other than Fox News. Ideally though, you would cite facts, experts, and the leaders of both parties on the matter, such as Hawley himself, McCarthy, Cruz, and Trump himself, but of course, Wikipedia editors won't cite any of them in a favorable way, because Wikipedia is extremely biased against all of them, isn't that right?184.155.110.238 (talk) 18:03, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Sometimes counties release votes in batches usually 100% for one candidate and the 100% for the other candidate, Trump claimed mail-in ballots were fraudulent, so it wasn't a surprise that Biden absolutely crushed Trump in mail-in ballots. GameEnd (talk) 18:06, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yet Biden did not win anywhere remotely close to 99.6% of mail in ballots, and a cursory review of the data will show that those were the only batches of ballots that had that high of a percentage of ballots for Biden, or even more than 90% of ballots for Biden, and it is far too convenient that this would happen just in the swing states, be just enough to push Biden to victory, which took quite a lot of votes in several of the swing states, that it would not happen until whoever may or may not have been behind the fraud would know exactly how many ballots they would need to win, after most had been counted, and that it would happen while observers had been sent home, and had been told that no more ballots would be counted until they return. Any reasonable person would be highly suspicious of such an event, with all those factors coming together at just the right time, when so much is at stake, and for it to only happen in the states where it had to happen to alter the results. I would argue the burden of proof is always on the state to prove election results are accurate, not on the voters to prove they were not accurate. But that's not the issue here. The issue here is that A. it is quite reasonable to suspect fraud, and to demand an investigation, and even to conclude that there was fraud based on what was known at that time, B. there are no references to support the idea that Hawley himself popularized this idea of a fraudulent election, C. that the suspicions of fraud were baseless is simply false, and D. 75% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats believed it was likely that fraud did take place, and that Democrats "stole" votes to "ensure Biden would win", according to a highly reputable polling agency, and therefore, this is a mainstream view on a matter of opinion, and both sides of the opinion must be shown, in order to maintain a neutral point of view.184.155.110.238 (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * There has been multiple recounts in the states where Biden flipped, multiple lawsuit thrown out and loss. Voter fraud is astronomically rare to happen. GameEnd (talk) 18:19, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * The sort of "balance" you are calling for is actually against Wikipedia's neutral point of view guidelines -- see False balance. We don't have to counteract the facts with whatever people believe. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:21, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You're referring to this content which is part of the lead. We do not require citations in the lead if the content being summarized is cited in the body of the article. In this case, that material is clearly cited here. Please note that this is not the place to argue about the election itself. Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources say about something. Please use social media to discuss ballot releases, fraud, etc.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 18:27, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

So you argument is that you may include patently false, un-certified, heavily biased, and slanderous material in the lead of an article about a living person? The lead states that Hawley popularized the notion argument that the election was stolen. The fact is, he was never accused of this by the media until he voted not to certify the election, which happened on January 6th, 2021, yet the Rasmussen poll I referenced was dated November 20th, 2020, 14 days after the election. So Hawley could not have popularized a notion which was already held by 75% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats a month and a half before he was accused of popularizing that same idea. He was targeted because of how he voted, and he was free to vote any way he wished, and indeed, was required by law to not vote to certify the election if he doubted its results, but that is not what popularized the idea. What popularized the idea was the way in which the election was conducted, and the facts surrounding the manner of the election. Therefore, you must remove this statement about Hawley, because he did not popularize the idea. The idea was already very popular long before he ever commented on it publicly.184.155.110.238 (talk) 18:40, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Hawley is in a position of power, he has the power to popularize and mainstream an idea, he popularized the conspiracy theory that the 2020 Election was stolen. GameEnd (talk) 18:43, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

It is not a fact. You cannot declare the absence of evidence of an event to be a fact that it did not happen, especially when a great deal of evidence indicates that it did indeed happen, and no formal investigation ever took place. You are not a court. You do not decide what is a fact and what is not. You must rely on the references, and the fact is, this matter is very much in doubt, still, with nothing remotely resembling proof that the election results were accurate. Therefore, it is a matter of opinion, and again, 75% of Republicans, including most Republican experts on the matter, and 30% of Democrats, believe the election was stole, and Hawley had nothing to do with their formation of that belief, a belief which existed long before January 6th. That is a fact. 184.155.110.238 (talk) 18:45, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That 30% of Dems probably believe that there was election fraud from the disenfranchisement of voters, wikipedia is not suppose to be a balance of ideas, it's supposed to give the information is corroborated, false balance is not allowed on this website GameEnd (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, that is not what the question asked. It was specifically worded to ask if they believed that pro-Trump votes were "stolen" or destroyed, in order to help Biden win. Those are Rasmussen's exact word regarding the exact poll question, to remove any doubts like the ones you just had.


 * You cannot be blamed for "popularizing" an idea which was already held by the majority long before you said a word about it. The fact is, the only reason that claim was made against him was because he did not certify the election results, because he too held that belief, for good reason, based on evidence he saw that called the results into question. Show me one news article, or one reference, that attributes that popular belief to Hawley before November 20th, 2020, when 75% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats already held that belief. There aren't any. It was political bias and a news hit piece motivated by the way he voted on the certification. Everyone know this is the reality. Wikipedia is therefore openly lying in the lead of this article, and it is violating its own policies, and is being overtly politically biased, because this is not at all a settles matter of fact, but is clearly a point of widespread debate, with no consensus.184.155.110.238 (talk) 18:52, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe the burden of proof is on you. GameEnd (talk) 18:54, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
 * But I do have a article from Vox, https://www.vox.com/2021/1/3/22211315/electoral-college-vote-gop-senators-debate GameEnd (talk) 18:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

That article is dated January 3rd. The idea was already popular on November 20th, 43 days prior, as the Rasmussen poll proves. It was popular as a result of the facts surrounding the conduct of the election, which were published in mainstream news, in official polling data, and from sworn testimony and video evidence.

To your previous argument on the burden of proof being on me, that is not how it works on Wikipedia, or in real life. On Wikipedia, you have to demonstrate that your contributions are either factual, beyond mainstream dispute, or you have to show both points of view. That is the policy. Otherwise, your contributions get removed, and the person who removes them has every right to do so, until you demonstrate that what you state as a fact, is indeed a fact. A news agency, which is demonstrably heavily biased, is not an arbiter of fact, and does not pretend to be.

In the real world, I think you know exactly what happens when the "losing" side comes to believe that the results are invalid. That is why the burden of proof is on the government. That's what is meant by governing by the consent of the governed. You win consent by making both parties believe the results are accurate. If the results are not proven to be accurate, then legitimacy is lost, and instability results. This is a basic fact of representative democracy, a fact the US government has been eager to exploit in other governments around the world where the election results were in doubt among a large portion of the population, or in this case, a supermajority of one of the parties, and 40% of independent. That's enough to start a civil war. That's why the burden of proof is on the state, because the point of an election is to gain the consent of the losing party as well, and to convince them that the process is not rigged against them, forever, giving them no political recourse except outside of legal processes. Biden is well aware of all this. He exploited that same concept among the minority party in Ukraine to back a coup there in 2014, and then decided who the new ruler of the country would be, in consultation with Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland, according to Deputy Secretary of State Nuland herself.

So, yes, in both cases, whichever you were referring to, the burden of proof is not on me. When someone posts something in a Wikipedia article, it has to be backed by references. This isn't. I am not required to post references showing that the contributions are not backed by evidence. How exactly would I do that? What the person who wants to include the content must do, in this case, is provide not just some news article making a baseless claim, but some objective evidence that Hawley, in particular, moreso than the average person, "popularized" this idea, before it became an idea held by 75% of Republicans, i.e. before November 20th, 2020. I have looked diligently for any evidence indicating that he "popularized" this idea before it was already popular, and I provided a date which proves that it was already a very popular idea long before January 6th, and frankly, I can't find any article from the news, much less any actual evidence, that he popularized this idea, or even advocated it, prior to January 6th, which leads me to conclude that the accusation that he popularized it was tied to his vote on January 6th. You cannot compel Senators to vote one way or another on a Constitutional process, then blame them for "storming the capitol", because they voted a certain way, when it is entirely their right to vote either way they wish.184.155.110.238 (talk) 19:22, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I'll agree the word choice is poor. I WP:BOLDly made this edit to better reflect what Hawley's role was.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) 19:41, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Great way to log on after a few hours – to see someone has launched a verifiably false screed against me for reverting one politically motivated content removal, without even having the courtesy to tag me in it. Well, I instructed this user to use the talk page, so very well, here goes. I'm going to be addressing just a few of the claims made in these several paragraphs above.
 * "User AllegedlyHuman initiated an edit war". This is not true. An edit war is when multiple reversions are made on a page. I made exactly one. . This user reverted it,, meaning if any editor here can be interpreted as edit-warring, it is this user. See WP:BOOMERANG.
 * "There was undeniably voter intimidation against Republicans, which is well documented on media and in criminal cases." Great – cite it. (And then preferably suggest an addition to 2020 United States presidential election or another page more germane than here.)
 * "References must be cited, and biased news agencies cannot be considered neutral." Wikipedia has determined the exact opposite as per the sources you claim are "biased". See WP:RSP.
 * "So, yes, in both cases, whichever you were referring to, the burden of proof is not on me." In fact, it is. As the information you removed from the article was sourced later in the article (note that it does not have to be in the lead per MOS:CITELEAD), the burden for establishing that the sourced information is in fact false falls on you. See WP:BURDEN.
 * "This is a basic fact of representative democracy, a fact the US government has been eager to exploit in other governments around the world where the election results were in doubt among a large portion of the population, or in this case, a supermajority of one of the parties, and 40% of independent. That's enough to start a civil war." Keep your bloodlust to yourself.

Final comments: Read WP:SOAPBOX, and thanks to all of the sensible editors doing damage control here before I got to it. Cheers and enjoy the weekend. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 19:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

break
Perhaps you should read my arguments, AllegedlyHuman, and the references, which were not at all biased, but entirely fact based. You have to cite your sources for the contributions. The person who removes un-cited contributions is not obligated to provide sources when they remove un-cited contributions. You are aware of that, correct? Since you made the allegation, why don't you cite my allegedly biased sources? I suspect you would discover that they are not biased, if you bothered looking into what sources I did cite.

So, since you made a list of points, I will respond in kind, line by line.

1. You reverted my removal of a false claim on an article about a US Senator. I again removed the material, then proceeded to explain why it should be removed. I should not need to explain that. There should be editors and hundreds of other users on Wikipedia who would have caught the false claims about a currently serving US Senator, stated as if they were fact, long ago. Looking at the talk page, it appears that many of them did, and were reverted, and if they then tried to correct the article again, they were in many cases accused of edit warring. So your argument is, if a person seeks to make an article comply with Wikipedia policies, or to simply make the article factual, and then a cabal of editors and admins takes turns restoring the false material and violating the policies, then that's not edit warring, but if one person insists that the article must be made to comply with policies, and must be factual, than that person initiated the edit war. I think not. I made an appropriate removal of false, non-neutral, heavily biased content, which was an opinion stated as fact. I should not have to do that. If I have to do that, I should only have to do it once. If you are going to try to force that material into the article, you need to prove that it is factual, un-biased, and not a non-neutral opinion. The person who says you can't put that in the article unless it is a verifiably cited fact. It was not a fact. I proved that. I disproved your "source". Your source was another Wikipedia article. That article's sources were The New York Times, Buzzfeed and USA Today, which are all heavily biased news agencies. You cannot base an encyclopedic article about a living person and a representative of millions of citizens on news articles written by people and organizations whose publications are primarily voices of opinion, and which unabashedly seek to shape public opinion based on a pre-determined political agenda, rather than to report the facts as they are. An appropriate source for an article like that would be evidence submitted in a court case, un-edited, non-commentary raw video or audio evidence, official statistics, police reports backed by evidence, sworn testimony, election results an statistics, etc. Even expert testimony is merely opinion, not fact. If you cannot discern fact from opinion, and a reputable source of fact from a heavily biased, muck-racking, ulterior-motive driven partisan news agency, then you should be editing this article about this man whose opinions represent half of this nation, and therefore must, by Wikipedia policies, be presented alongside the opinions of the other party. 2. This is what is known as voter intimidation. 77 year old man attacked for wearing Trump MAGA hat. . Houses targeted by vandals of Trump yard sign. . Antifa affiliates threaten to shut down the city of D.C. and wreak havoc if their preferred candidate does not win the election. Clearly, you would consider it voter intimidation if thousands of Trump supporters physically assaulted anyone who publicly supported Biden, or would not allow a Biden yard sign to be posted in your own yard, and would steal the sign, or break your windows, or spray paint your house if you had one, or if Trump voters openly planned paralyze Los Angeles, San Francisco and D.C. and vandalize all the black owned business and burn down the planned parenthood facilities, if their candidate did not win. There is a reason why I mentioned this. It's because elections are generally not considered valid when widespread voter intimidation is employed, just as contracts and witness testimony is not considered valid when it is made under duress. I would refer you to the article on the sturmabteilung, if you are unfamiliar with how such voter intimidation has been used historically, and by whom, to what effect, and what ultimately became of those who employed such tactics (it did not turn out as they had planned). In other words, if widespread intimidation was employed, which it was, then it was not baseless to argue that the election had been stolen by underhanded means, since one of the oldest and most underhanded ways of stealing an election is voter intimidation. Riots and looting, conducted on a partisan basis, with the openly stated threat that such violence and destruction of property will continue unless a certain party wins an election, is an overt and relatively extreme and widespread form of voter intimidation, for example. If voter intimidation occurred on a broad scale, as it did, then you cannot claim that Hawley "popularized a baseless conspiracy theory". One of the proponents of including that material in the lead of the Haley article cited a Vox article, which quoted Hawley as saying that, "millions of voters concerned about election integrity deserve to be heard. I will object on January 6 on their behalf". If you want to say in the article that Hawley expressed concern about the integrity of the election and voted on January 6th not to certify the election, for that reason, noting that millions of those who elected him shared those concerns, then I would be fine would that, and so would any reasonable, unbiased person. But being reasonable and un-biased is not the goal here, is it? So there are your citations, and clearly the question is entirely germane. 3. No, you are again incorrect. Wikipedia did not determine that you can use highly biased news articles' opinions as a reliable source for what you claim is a matter of fact. What the policy specifically says, in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on the policy, is "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view)." - WP:RS. You failed to include any of the minority news article views on the subject, and you states this as if it were a fact, on the lead of an article about a US Senator who represents 6 million people, and whose views are agreed with by roughly 150 million Americans. You don't see the problem with that? Much of what those articles said about this issue was a matter of being either true or false, but the problem with that is, they provided no evidence for their claims, and the evidence indicates that they were outright lying, as many news agencies have done in the past and have been caught doing so, especially when doing so is consistent with their strong political bias and helps them achieve an ulterior motive which they consider to be of great importance to achieve, by any means necessary. This is how newspapers and the media gained a reputation for dishonesty. 4. The burden of proof is not on me, when it is very clear that the material removed was in violation of existing policies against bias, NPOV, and verifiability, which it was. In that case, the burden of proof was on the person who contributed the material to show that A. what they stated as a fact, again about a living person and a representative of millions, was indeed a fact, that it was not clearly biased and deeply misleading, and that their source could be verified, i.e. that there was evidence to back their source. As far as I can tell, as is typical of deeply biased partisan journalist opinions, all of your "sources" for those portions of the article consist of a journalist making claims that Hawley led an attempted coup, followed by their quoting Halwey expressing doubts about the fairness of the election, the legality of its processes, and the accuracy of the results. That is not the same as leading a coup. You all understand that, right? I'm sure the proponents of this kind of editing on Wikipedia do understand that just as well as the journalists who wrote your "sources" do, and you just don't care, because a factual and unbiased is not even remotely your actual goal here. There is a reason why they have a vote to certify the election or not. You can't threaten them with prison unless they vote they way you want them to. That would not be much of a vote, would it? Nor can you accuse a man of sedition if he doubts the accuracy of the election results. Sedition would be where he says that he's going to lead the military to hunt down everyone in the other party and put them in Guantanamo then declare himself dictator for life, because he doesn't care how the election turned out, not that he suspects that the other party is making itself dictatorial party for life with a rigged electoral process, since a rigged electoral process would disenfranchise the voters, not an investigation and a Congressional inquiry into where the election was rigged or not, and a refusal to certify the election until such an investigation and inquiry were held, as well as a new election if the inquiry found that results were not accurate, the process was illegal, or the conduct around the election was unfair and involved widespread voter intimidation or even fraud, which would effectively invalidate the election, because an election held under duress is not a freely given vote for either of the candidates. 5. "Keep your bloodlust to yourself"? You clearly confuse a statement of fact, that lack of faith in election results invariable leads to civil war, with a call for civil war, much as you conflate a call for verifying that the election results were accurate, that the process was lawfully conducted, and that conduct prior to the election was fair, with leading a coup and promoting sedition. As I said earlier, there were very violent and blood riots all over this country for a year prior to the election, not waged by Trump supporters, but by Biden supporters, and the violence and destruction of property was typically directed against Trump supporters, which is voter intimidation, and when you combine that behavior, with widespread belief among 75% of Republicans, 40% of independents, and 30% of Democrats that the elections was indeed stolen, and you consider the historical record of what has happened in the past, in similar circumstances, and the involvement of Biden, Hillary Clinton and members of their cabinet in the civil wars of other nations, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, etc., where they deliberately weaponized half of those nations against the other half, on the grounds that the elections in those nations were not legitimate, and the results and the process had been rigged against those whom they encouraged to engage in civil war, the reality is, not only is civil war highly likely when you fail to prove to the "losing" side that the results of the election were accurate, with objective evidence of the fact, and that no unfair or illegal practices were employed prior to and during the election, but it is a provable fact that Biden and the Democratic party knew that civil war would be a likely outcome if legitimacy were not present in the eyes of the losing party, as it surely would not be if the conduct was unfair, if there was widespread voter intimidation, if the visceral accusations against the Republican party was base on invective rather than fact, with an overt bloodlust in the undertones, if there were actual attacks on Republicans for the prior year or two, if fraud seemed likely, and most of the safeguard against fraud had been lifted, illegally in many states, and if the statistical official data on the elections seemed highly improbably to the point of near impossibility, as was the case on all counts. I'm not calling for a civil war. I'm telling you that one is nearly inevitable in current circumstances, and that those circumstances seemed to have been deliberately and knowingly created by the party currently in power. Furthermore, if you want to cite articles calling Hawley a coup leader, or attempted coup leader, I would also note that, if the election was stolen, which the actual facts indicate that it was, then that would make those who stole the election the actual coup leaders, and if the election was stolen, it would not be a coup to remove them, but the actual legal duty of the military, the police and the citizenry. Given that 75% of Republican and 40% of Independents believe that is what happened, and therefore that that is their duty, it is a wonder that a civil war has not yet occurred, but these things do move slowly, and they rarely move in the other direction once they gather as much momentum as they currently have. Therefore, what happened at the capitol was incredibly mild, given what Republicans believe, i.e. that they were the victims of a coup, not the perpetrators, and given that their belief in that respect was indeed reasonable, considering A. the voter intimidation, B. the statistical improbabilities, C. the removal of signature requirements, D. the unconstitutional changing of election rules by Governors, in violation of the rules made by the Legislatures, the rightful constitutional authority, E. the exploitation of a disease outbreak to change election rules, in a way that clearly favored one party, F. the abundant sworn testimony and video evidence of ballots names being changed, unfolded mail in ballots, vote buying, ballot harvesting, voters being told they already voted when they arrived at polling locations, more mail in ballots being counted than were received by voters, etc., G. The extreme media bias, H. The censorship and bias on all social media, I. The censorship, bias, and violation of the platforms own policies on Wikipedia, etc. But all that aside, the fact is, what happened at the capitol was a one day event, several of the leaders were actually anti-Trump people masquerading as Trump supporters, who had conspired with many others online in the days prior to the event, several of whom were arrested and identified, including the founder of an organization known as Insurgence USA, and it took place in the context of literally years of far more violent riots, including in D.C., and of those who died, none were killed by Trump supporters, but rather, they all seemed to have died by non-violent un-explained causes, including the police officer, with the exception of Ashli Babbet who was shot for the crime of trespassing on public property, which is rather suspicious, but is highly under-reported. That does, however, indicated, that the Trump supporters were actually not violent, and their actions constituted little more than the typical sit-ins which have taken place on the Capitol many times in the past, especially when you subtract the actions of Trump opponents pretending to be supporters, such as the man who broke the window just before Ashley Babbet was shot and killed. So, in other words, what we have are very real political grievances, and an extremely large population who believe they have been the victims of a coup, and have reason to believe they will not be allowed to win any elections going forward, whether they should have legally won them or not, who know that the Constitution is being violated to allow Governors of the other party to change election rules to suit their party's interests, who are being physically attacked, who feel their economy is needlessly being sabotaged, who believe their freedom is being illegally stripped from them, who consider most of their Bill of Rights to have been illegally nullified, and who know that all of their media, all social media and Wikipedia are rigged against them, describe lies as if they were fact, and do not allow anyone who might tell the truth to ever do so, when it is politically inconvenient for the opposing party. Well, the fact is, that kind of behavior has typically, nearly universally led to civil war, unless the party it was done to was completely over-matched militarily and economically, and had no recourse but complete submission. The complaints in the Declaration of Independence are not really all that much more harmful to the American Colonists than these complaints are to Republicans, if they are accurate, but I would remind you, it matter more what they believe than what is, at least in terms of whether or not conflict is likely. The same was true of what provoked the Romans when they overthrew their King, of what provoked all the civil wars of England, and Spain, and France, of the complaints of Israel against the Romans, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, of the complaints of the Germans and the Gauls against the Roman Empire, and of the Roman Plebeians against the Patricians, of the peasants of Russia against the Tzars, or of the peasants of the rest of Medieval Europe against the Nobility prior to and during the enlightenment, of the Athenians lower class against the money lenders and landholders when the democracy was formed, of the Greek peoples against the Athenians prior to the Peloponnesian wars, and the list goes on and on. One would have to be nearly wholly ignorant of the histories of civil wars to think that such circumstances would not be likely to end in that result, and therefore, anyone who wished to avoid such an outcome rightly ought to have done their utmost to convince the "losing" party, based on facts and evidence, that the election results were accurate, and to have prevented any illegalities in the electoral processes, or any unfairness in the manner in which the election was conducted, by not allowing any voter intimidation, by prosecuting all the other rioters from the two years of riots leading up to the election, and by not allowing political bias in news agencies, or censorship and bias on social media, if one wished to avoid civil war. Doing the opposite creates the impression that civil war is the desired outcome, especially since those who had the power to control those matters are indeed well educate people who presumably are well aware of the history of civil wars, and even more so since many of the party leaders on the Democratic side have been actively involved in and arguably initiated civil wars in many other countries around the world.

Any reasonable, unbiased and historically well-informed person would agree that,

A. Warning you that a certain course of action will end in disaster is not equivalent to advocating the forewarned disaster, B. Freely choosing to vote one way or another, as a Senator, as the Constitution requires you to, on a matter which Senators are required to vote on, but are free to vote one way or antoher, is not sedition (but threatening to arrest an elected representative for voting on an electoral certification, or against it, arguably actually is sedition, as that would be threatening to overthrow our government by force, and all the more so if the election really was rigged, or there was widespread voter intimidation, or the people doing so supported "autonomous zones" and insurrection for years, which is the definition of actual sedition), C. It is extremely unwise to create conditions which have almost always led to civil war in the pa unless you wished to cause civil war, and... D. The suspicion that the election may have stolen, or at least unfair and in some cases undeniably unlawfully conducted was not baseless, and there was indeed considerably reason to believe that, while any one complaint could have been written off just a mistake, but all of it together very much appeared to be a concerted plan to alter the results, including the media and internet bias, which is far too complete and consistent to be an accident, and, it is equally true that, had Democrats been the victims of all the same occurrences, not only would they have complained that the election was rigged, but the riots would likely still be ongoing, as they threatened they would be even if they had lost the election fair and square, and many would be openly calling for secession, as many had been for months prior to the election. E. If you want to arrest the people who did whatever you call what they did at the capitol for sedition, then clearly you must also arrest everyone who did far for years prior to the election, even if they were in your own political party, because otherwise, people will get the impression that your attack on those at the capitol is wholly politically motivated, deeply biased, and that you may be far more guilty of supporting sedition then those whom you accuse, especially if it turns our that 30% of your party thinks you stole the election, but just doesn't care so long as you got what you wanted, the damage and violence was orders of magnitude worse in the BLM and Antifa riots, Democrats actively defunded police and in some cases even turned over police stations to the rioters, many of the leaders of whatever you call what happened at the capitol turned out to be Antifa affiliated Democrats, according to police records, but the very biased media opted not to report on that, just as they opted not to report on autopsy results of the on police officer who died, or the fact that all the others who died were Trump supporters, who died very mysteriously, seemingly from natural causes, but all at the same time, which is so statistically anomalous as to seem absurd.

This is why the article, and you the editor, are both so obviously biased. You may be biased, but the article may not be. Remove the biased portions of the article immediately. If you want to "protect" an article, please first be sure to comply with your own policies and encyclopedic standards, because otherwise, it will appear that you are using article protection to permanently enshrine your overt political bias, your non-neutral points of view, your un-verifiable claims, your not reliable sources, and your vindictive hatred for half of the American population in what is supposed to be an encyclopedia article on a living and currently serving representative of 6 million people, on matters which half the country agrees with Josh Hawley on, and in doing so, blood will be on your hands as a result of the riots and sedition you will surely provoke. 184.155.110.238 (talk) 21:15, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Nor are the recent "wording" changes remotely sufficient. This is the new wording:

"Because Hawley led Senate efforts to obstruct the Electoral College vote count and rallied supporters of the baseless conspiracy theory that motivated the storming of the U.S. Capitol, figures from across the political spectrum argued that he was morally responsible for the riot and the five deaths it caused, and called on him to resign or be expelled from the Senate."

This is what is wrong with this wording, and why it does not comply with Wikipedia policies.

1. Hawley did not lead "Senate efforts to obstruct the Electoral College vote count". He voted not to certify the election because he, and more importantly, 75% or more of the people who voted for him, had serious doubts about the validity of the election and the legality of the way it was conducted. There is a clear and obvious differences between what he did and "obstructing" the vote count. 2. Hawley did not "rally supporters of the baseless conspiracy theory that motivated the storming of the U.S. Capitol". Again, he felt the election was being stolen, or may have been stolen, and these concerns were and still are supported by a great deal of evidence, such as the unlawful actions by certain governors to change election rules, changes which made it easier to commit fraud and harder to detect and prove fraud. That this was illegal is not in dispute, and it is a matter of fact that it did happen, and that the law forbids it. That alone is sufficient basis for calling for an investigation and possibly for a new election. So, the theory that the election was stolen was not baseless. There was the Governors over-riding the legislatures, there were the tens of thousands of mail in ballots all counted in the wee hours of the morning, without observers (which itself is illegal), with just enough ballots to change the results, and that this only happened in swing states, and that 99.6% of those ballots was for Biden, which is statistically a virtual impossibility. There is the extreme media bias and censorship, which by itself arguably negates the election results, as the public must have unbiased access to all negative and positive information about the candidates, and be granted uncensored rights to discuss the candidates, not only by phone, mail and email, but also on social media, for them to be able to make a rational choice, there is the voter intimidation, there were all the witness statements that seem to indicate that poll workers were actively rigging the election, and there was the most serious problem, that all these actions fit together, and are exactly what one would expect in a plot to rig and election. One could be a coincidence, but all together indicate an actual coup attempt. Therefore, the belief that the election was being stolen was not baseless, but had quite a lot of basis, and if it had been Trump doing all the things which Republicans observed done to them, Democrats surely would have concluded that the election was being rigged against them. 3. As for the part about "Hawley... motivated the "storming" of the capitol", we already went over that. All Hawley did was vote not to certify, which clearly does not provoke anything, in and of itself, and state that, "millions of voters concerned about election integrity deserve to be heard" and that there should be "a debate on the Senate floor" on election integrity, and that does not motivate a riot, or a coup, or sedition either. These accusations against Hawley are a whole lot more baseless than the belief that the election was rigged. 4. "firgues from across the political spectrum argued" that Hawley was "morally responsible" for the "riot" and the "five deaths it caused". The first problem with this is that, as the sentence itself states, it is an argument, and an argument is an opinion, and opinions cannot be one sided and biased on Wikipedia. If you want to list this argument, you have to show the argument from the other side as well, according to NPOV. 5. Second, the notion that Hawley was personally "morally responsible", whatever that actually means in this context, for the "riot" is ludicrous. If Hawley is "morally responsible", just by voting a certain way in a legally mandated process, where is free to vote either way, and for echoing his constituents concerns about whether the election results were valid or not, when there really was good reason to think they were not valid, when the other sided would have considered the results invalid had the shoe been on the other foot, and merely calling for an investigation and a debate, before the election was made official, which is perfectly reasonable, then how much more "morally responsible" are those in the other party for the far more severe riots for the year leading up to the election, when many of those on the Democrat side actually specifically called for "unrest in the streets", not just investigation and debate? Clearly, this is bias in its most extreme form. 6. And last, "the five deaths it caused"? Why is this in the article about Hawley? Isn't the implication that the deaths were his fault? But did the "riot" even cause those deaths, much less did Hawley cause them? Hawley didn't shoot Ashli Babbet in the throat for tresspassing, and she was a Trump supporter, who was shot illegally, when rules of engagement did not allow use of lethal force. As for the others, none of them died to anything related to the actions of any Trump supporters or Hawley supporters. This is a medical fact. The police officer's autopsy revealed no blunt trauma, and was suspected to have died due to a reaction to the teargas. The other three supposedly died from natural causes, but oddly, they all died at once, but no one bothered to investigate that either, and they were all Trump supporters and Halwey supporters too, like Babbet. So it is utterly absurd to insinuate that Hawley had anything to do with their deaths, or that any Trump supporters did either. This is, again, an example of extreme bias, and statement of intentionally misleading opinion as if it were fact, while refusing to include the opinion of the other half of the country, in violation of Wikipedia policies.

So, none of that should be in the lead, or anywhere else in the article. Take it out. Stop violating your own policies. Stop protecting articles to prevent people from editing them in a way that will make them neutral, non-biased, representative of both sides of the argument, and verifiable. When someone fixes an article that is clearly in violation of your policies, stop threatening, banning, or accusing the person who fixed the article of "edit warring". This is a widespread occurrence on Wikipedia today, everyone knows it is happening, just like they know it is happening on the news, and on Facebook, it is well recorded, is statistically proven, it is apparent from the Talk section of this page, and the edits history, and of tens of thousands of other pages. It is your behavior, and those like you, who are pushing this country apart to the level of provoking conflict. Any decent historian, or even those who just paid a little attention in history class, know exactly where this leads. It's not my fault because I told you what your actions would bring about, and I'm not the person who will be leading the conflict just because I told you why it was increasingly likely to occur. That's a logical fallacy, another example of bias, and further proof of the nature and the intent of those who are making edits like these, and mandating the violation of this platforms original policies, in pursuit of a very real ulterior motive, which makes conflict and disaster inevitable, when combined with all the other similar actions in all the other segments of society and national institutions and communication forums. But I suspect that those making these edits, much like the 30% of Democrats who also believe the election results were rigged by Democrats in Biden's favor, already know all of that, and they just don't care, and are going to do it anyway, because they are prepared to break all the rules, ruin once strong institutions, and initiate any level of conflict necessary, if they think it might bring them to power, at any cost.184.155.110.238 (talk) 21:57, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * That is quite a wall of text. I'm not going to read all of it, I doubt that anyone is. But I will note that while you claim to be trying to hold up Wikipedia standards, that goes against this li'l bit of it that leapt out at me "" Those fall into the categories of what we'd call "primary sources", which are things that our standards discourage us from using. We are encouraged to use reliable secondary sources, which are things like the New York Times and USA Today. (Also, before you go touting Rasmussen Reports as the great unbiased source for polling data, you may want to read our article on that organization.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC) Oh, and before you pull out some questionable mid-November poll again as a measure of what Democrats currently believe: a February Quinnipiac poll finds that only 4% of Democrats believe there was widespread voter fraud. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:42, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2021
Please add “Senator Hawley is a member of the Sedition Caucus.”

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Caucus 173.28.213.150 (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:46, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That information is already in the article: "Some political commentators and Democratic lawmakers dubbed Hawley and other senators who sought to overturn the election the Sedition Caucus". AllegedlyHuman (talk) 19:03, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

"deaths"?
The article currently says "deaths it caused" referring to the Capitol riot on January 6th. It is my understanding that there was only a single death from this event and it was a woman shot by D.C. police, not caused by the rioters. --2605:A601:AE8F:7600:692C:CBDF:B30F:D8E2 (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * So the police are responsible?? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 14:10, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It would be fun to argue with you but no one who disagrees with you is allowed to argue back without facing a topic ban. I know you don't have to worry about this because your opinions are orthodox for now but it explains why you won't get any arguments. --2605:A601:AE8F:7600:692C:CBDF:B30F:D8E2 (talk) 18:42, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Statements about masculinity
Hawley recently stated that attacks on "traditional masculinity" had causes men to turn to pornography and video games: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-hawley-declining-masculinity-porn-video-games_n_61802ad8e4b0bf8728db79af. Worthy of a mention? --Nordostsüdwest (talk) 23:10, 1 November 2021 (UTC)