Paul Gauguin The Vision after the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel) 1888
A tour of more mainstream news today. If only because it makes clear we’re wasting so much time talking about whatever the narrative is, but what has already been well debunked. We need our focus. If you need three shots of something, it’s not a vaccine. Doesn’t even matter if in the end it works. Which in this case it doesn’t. We’re getting dragged back into conversations we should have long left behind.
Vanden Bossche
Fleming Delta
Weinstein Long term plan
Take these 10 minutes. Yes, it’s Bannon, but at least he lets Malone speak.
• The Vaccine Causes The Virus To Be More Dangerous – Malone (WR)
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It’s out.
• USA Today Scrubs Passage Suggesting Vaccinated May Spread More Virus (Becker)
“NBC News, citing unnamed officials aware of the decision, reported it comes after new data suggests vaccinated individuals could have higher levels of virus and infect others amid the surge of cases driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus,” the USA Today reported in a passage that was later scrubbed from an article. A screenshot from the article and an online archive of the passage points out the surfacing evidence.The story from the USA Today drops the reference to NBC News, but nonetheless corroborates the news: “CDC says vaccinated people may transmit virus, recommends masks indoors.”
“CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said new data shows the delta variant, which accounts for more than 80% of the new infections in the U.S., behaves ‘uniquely differently’ from its predecessors and could make vaccinated people infectious,” the article notes. “Information on the delta variant from several states and other countries indicates that in rare occasions some vaccinated people infected with the delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others,” Walensky said in announcing new guidance, which reverses a CDC recommendation in May. “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation.”
NBC News reported on the CDC guidance reversal on Monday. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Tuesday that fully vaccinated people begin wearing masks indoors again in places with high Covid-19 transmission rates,” NBC News reported. “The agency is also recommending kids wear masks in schools this fall.” “Federal health officials still believe fully vaccinated individuals represent a very small amount of transmission,” the report continued. “Still, some vaccinated people could be carrying higher levels of the virus than previously understood and potentially transmit it to others.”
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It’s fun to see them all bend themselves into pretzels to “explain” how they were not wrong when they were.
• California COVID Cases Rising In Most Heavily Vaccinated Counties (ZH)
Some might have been surprised to see California on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s map of high-risk areas where the new federal indoor mask mandates must be obeyed. The Golden State was deemed more high risk than Texas. Indeed, scientists are finding that despite its high vaccination rates, California is seeing more COVID cases than it should. California and its big coastal cities have embraced vaccines in their effort to beat back the COVID pandemic. But a Bay Area News Group analysis shows that not only are cases rising fast, they are rising in areas where there are more fully vaccinated people. Some of these counties have both among the highest vaccination rates, and the highest new-case rates.
Notice that five of these counties have both a higher percentage of their eligible residents fully vaccinated and a higher average daily case rate than the statewide average. They include: LA, San Diego, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco. The five counties with falling case rates are Modoc, Glenn, Lassen, Del Norte, San Benito, and they, coincidentally, have below-average vaccination rates. As to what might be causing this, experts point to two things: the extraordinary ease with which the virus’ now-dominant delta strain spreads, and the fact that no vaccine offers complete protection.
“I am not so surprised that transmission rates are not neatly tracking immunization rates,” said Dr. Stephen Luby, a medical professor specializing in infectious diseases at Stanford University. “There are a number of issues that contribute to transmission,” Luby said. “In high density urban settings, for example, even with a higher level of vaccine coverage, there can still be a lot of exposure to unvaccinated folks and potentially to folks who are vaccinated but are asymptomatically shedding the delta variant.” Reports of the vaccines’ effectiveness against the delta variant have been mixed. In Israel, the Ministry of Health suspects the protection afforded by the Pfizer jab might be as low as 64%.
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“Unfortunately the so-called “public health” authorities have destroyed — not just damaged, but destroyed — their own credibility.”
• Ruin Them (Denninger)
If you go into the hospital for any reason they test you. Why? Because if you’re positive they want their magic $13,000 Biden Money (formerly Trump money) if you’re on Medicare and Medicaid for treating a “Covid case.” Biden is still continuing this bull**** no matter why you’re there. Chest pain? Covid! Oh, never mind the heart attack. So are the “hospitalized” actually hospitalized for Covid or is Tennessee counting anyone in the hospital who tested positive irrespective of the reason for their admission? This particular game has been run since March of 2020 and nobody has put a stop to it because they’re making money from it — lots of money. Never mind that these jabs are not behaving like a vaccine. US Code: “The term “vaccine” means any substance designed to be administered to a human being for the prevention of 1 or more diseases.”
The data is that these jabs do not prevent disease. They also do not prevent transmission of disease. In fact they appear to, if you get a breakthrough case, make transmission more likely in that the Ct data from these miners shows equal or lower values on balance in the vaccinated cohort with one sample at Ct22! Reminder: The lower the Ct the more virus you have in your body. Now granted this is a small group — very small. But it is extremely concerning that the lowest Ct recorded among these cases was a fully-vaccinated person. Where is the data from the state labs and CDC on these “breakthroughs” and their Ct numbers generally? It’s not being reported. I bet you can guess why not without needing more than one guess.
This appears to be confirmed as something that does indeed happen by the reported “super-spreading” person who (1) was fully-vaccinated, (2) infected more than 60 other people and (3) most of those whom he gave it to were also vaccinated. He obviously was an extremely-efficient emitter of virus! The only remaining argument for the jabs is that they make a personal severe outcome less likely. Here the data is somewhat more-reassuring but the adverse effect profile of the shots is not reassuring at all, it is being deliberately glossed over, and as a result the question as to whether or not to take them is a deeply personal decision that must be informed by your personal medical status coupled with intentional deception on those advocating for the jabs.
How in the hell do you make an informed decision under those circumstances? Unfortunately the so-called “public health” authorities have destroyed — not just damaged, but destroyed — their own credibility. Tennessee’s Department of Health proved themselves liars with nothing more than public data. So have others. I have multiple reported sets of data from individual practices where the percentage of unvaccinated people presenting with Covid-19 symptoms is lower than the percentage of unvaccinated people in the population of that specific area. In other words the data is that the jabs not only do not prevent you from getting the virus at all but in fact may ENHANCE the risk of infection and this, incidentally, voids the argument that the jabs are a vaccine from a LEGAL standpoint.
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As soon as you talk about a third -or even a second- dose, you’re no longer talking about a vaccine.
• Pfizer Suggests Third Dose Of Vaccine ‘Strongly’ Boosts Protection (CNN)
A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can “strongly” boost protection against the Delta variant — beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, new data released by Pfizer on Wednesday suggests. The data posted online suggest that levels of antibodies that can target the Delta variant grow fivefold in people 18 to 55 who get a third dose of the vaccine.Among people ages 65 to 85, the Pfizer data suggest that antibody levels that should protect against Delta grow 11-fold more than following a second dose.The data, which involved tests of 23 people, have not yet been peer-reviewed or published. It’s not clear if boosted antibody levels actually correlate to better protection, or if that extra protection is even needed.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the current vaccines protect people well against all the common variants. During a company earnings call on Wednesday morning, Dr. Mikael Dolsten, who leads worldwide research, development and medical for Pfizer, called the new data on a third dose of vaccine “encouraging.” “Receiving a third dose more than six months after vaccination, when protection may be beginning to wane, was estimated to potentially boost the neutralizing antibody titers in participants in this study to up to 100 times higher post-dose three compared to pre-dose three,” Dolsten said in prepared remarks. “These preliminary data are very encouraging as Delta continues to spread.” The data also show that antibody levels are much higher against the original coronavirus variant and the Beta variant, first identified in South Africa, after a third dose.
Separately, Pfizer and its partner BioNtech released new safety and efficacy data for their coronavirus vaccine Wednesday, and said it shows protection holds up for at least six months, although it may start to wane slightly towards the end of that time. The pre-print paper, posted Wednesday to the online server medrxiv.org, updates results from Pfizer’s trial involving 44,000 volunteers around the world. It found the overall efficacy was about 91% during the six months. Vaccine efficacy against severe Covid-19 was about 97%, the data show. The paper has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a journal.
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Again, not a vaccine. And do remember RRR vs ARR numbers.
• Latest Data Show Efficacy Of Pfizer Vaccine Falls To 84% After 6 Months (ZH)
As pressure builds for the FDA to simply ‘get on with it’ and issue full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna jabs, it looks like the people responsible for deciding whether vaccines are safe and effective are finally coming around to the reality that those vaccines aren’t as effective against the delta strain as they had once hoped. Despite months of insisting that the opposite was true, the FDA has found that the efficacy of the jabs has fallen to 84% over six months, according to new data released Wednesday. Conveniently, STAT News, which broke the story about the data, reported that the lower efficacy would likely bolster Pfizer’s case for approval of a third dose.
Per the data, which has been released to outside scientists, the ongoing study, which enrolled more than 44K volunteers, found that the vaccine’s efficacy appeared to decline by an average of 6% every two months after administration. Efficacy peaked at more than 96% within two months of vaccination and slipped to 84% after six months. The overall efficacy against severe disease was a still considerable 97% (though that’s still not 100%). Unsurprisingly, STAT lined up a few talking heads to plug the numbers. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told STAT that the results were “very reassuring.” The potential need for booster shots is tied to the number of fully vaccinated people who develop severe disease, Offit said.
That number is just 3% lower after six months, suggesting two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine offers adequate protection. Earlier, Pfizer boosted its fiscal year revenue forecast for its vaccine business. Perhaps these data offer some insight into that decision. Of course, there’s reason to believe that number might be even lower than the 97%. Israel’s Ministry of Health recently found that the Pfizer vaccine is only 39% effective at combating delta, down from 64% according to earlier Israeli data intended to measure the efficacy against the delta variant. Pfizer is already shipping jabs to Israel, which is preparing to start doling out booster shots to residents deemed vulnerable to COVID. For whatever reason, the data released Wednesday doesn’t directly address the delta variant.
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Aka the vaccines don’t work. A spade, a spade.
• New US Mask Guidance Prompted By Evidence Vaccinated Can Spread Delta (G.)
The CDC revised its mask guidance on Tuesday to recommend fully vaccinated Americans wear masks in “public indoor settings” with “substantial and high transmission”, a shift from its earlier guidance issued on 13 May, which said vaccinated individuals did not need to wear masks in most indoor settings. The move came as Joe Biden said requiring all federal workers to get a coronavirus vaccine is “under consideration” as the Delta variant surges in the US. Some local and state leaders, including New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the California governor, Gavin Newsom, have already announced such mandates for their government employees.
Walensky also spoke on Wednesday about the threat of Covid-19 to children. “If you look at the mortality rate of Covid, just this past year for children, it’s more than twice the mortality rate that we see in influenza in a given year,” she said. On Tuesday the CDC changed its advice and now recommends that fully vaccinated people living with vulnerable household members, such as those who are immunocompromised and children, wear masks in indoor public spaces. In addition, the agency recommended everyone in K-12 schools wear masks, “including teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status”, Walensky said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
“In recent days I have seen new scientific data from recent outbreak investigations showing that the Delta variant behaves uniquely differently from past strains of the virus that cause Covid-19,” Walensky said on Tuesday, referring to scientists’ discovery of the Delta strain shedding as actively in breakthrough infections as it does in unvaccinated individuals, despite the rarity of breakthrough cases. For months Covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations were falling steadily, but the highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus has fueled steep rises in case numbers, particularly among unvaccinated Americans and amid struggles with disinformation and resistance, particularly on the political right.
“Nobody wants to go backward but you have to deal with the facts on the ground, and the facts on the ground are that it’s a pretty scary time and there are a lot of vulnerable people,” Robert Wachter, chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Washington Post. “I think the biggest thing we got wrong was not anticipating that 30% of the country would choose not to be vaccinated.”
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Unfortunately, there are still plenty Americans who believe this nonsense.
• CDC Head Says New Mask Guidance Could Help Tame Delta Outbreak In ‘Weeks’ (F.)
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CBS on Wednesday she believes the new mask guidance from her agency along with a rise in vaccinations could halt the current escalation of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. in “a couple of weeks,” though some critics are already expressing doubt that the CDC’s recommendations will be followed in the worst-hit places. Walensky appeared on CBS This Morning a day after her agency announced it was reversing course and recommending that all people wear masks—regardless of vaccination status—in parts of the country with “high” or “substantial” rates of transmission of coronavirus.
She touted the new guidance during her Wednesday interview as a crucial measure that follows new information about so-called breakthrough infections and has the potential to help with quickly mitigating the country’s current virus surge. “If we get people vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated, if we mask in the interim, we can halt this in just a couple of weeks,” said the CDC head. Walensky also said she hopes more stringent mask-wearing guidelines and other measures won’t be necessary in the coming weeks, but her agency “will follow the science.” “We can halt the chain of transmission,” Walensky said. “We can do something if we unify together.”
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What a coincidence. Also in weeks.
Note: Gottlieb is a Pfizer board member. But Delta waning will have nothing to do with their products.
Remember: “India, where Delta Variant began? Deaths down 92% since its May peak, cases down 91% since then, too. One of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, btw.”
• Gottlieb: US Will Be Through Delta Wave In 2 Or 3 Weeks (Hill)
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb predicted early Wednesday that the United States could get through the worst of the delta variant surge of the coronavirus in a few weeks. “The bottom line is, the vaccine does not make you impervious to infection,” Gottlieb said during an appearance on CNBC. “There are some people who are developing mild and asymptomatic infections even after vaccination.” After acknowledging the delta variant of the coronavirus as “much more transmissible” than the first strain, Gottlieb questioned whether that fact should “translate into general guidance” on mask wearing and vaccine requirements in the United States.
“I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get enough bang for our buck by telling vaccinated people they have to wear masks at all times to make it worth our while. I think we’re further into this delta wave than we’re picking up. I think in another two or three weeks we’ll be through this.” Gottlieb added that the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could have a “negligible impact” on public health and that federal officials should instead focus on more targeted messaging on guidance for high-risk areas. The CDC announced new guidance Tuesday recommending that vaccinated Americans wear masks while in crowded indoor environments in certain areas of the country where the delta variant has caused a major increase in cases.
The delta variant is now accounting for the majority of new cases in the United States, almost entirely among the unvaccinated. President Biden’s administration is facing increased pressure to get more people vaccinated and require federal workers, teachers and people who work in health care industries to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment. “If you are vaccinated in a high-prevalence area, in contact with virus, you think you might have the virus because you have mild symptoms of it, be prudent, get tested, maybe wear a mask especially if you are around a vulnerable person,” Gottlieb said on CNBC. “That should be bottom-line guidance we give.”
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On Tuesday. Be gone in weeks. And then they’ll praise the “vaccines” again. Damned if you do, doomed if you don’t.
• US Reports More Than 100,000 New Coronavirus Cases (BNO)
More than 100,000 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the U.S. amid a rapid surge in hospital admissions and new calls from federal officials to wear a mask in public. Data from health departments across the U.S. showed that 106,084 new cases were reported, including a two-day backlog from Florida which occurs every Tuesday. It represents an increase of 73% from last week. The states reporting the most new cases are: Florida (38,321 for a three-day period), Texas (8,642), California (7,731), Louisiana (6,818), Georgia (3,587), Utah (2,882), Alabama (2,667), and Missouri (2,414). The rolling 7-day average for daily cases is 62,411, up from 12,648 a month ago.
The surge is accompanied by a rapid rise in hospital admissions, particularly in Florida, which reported the biggest one-day increase on record. Nearly 40,000 coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized across the U.S., well below the peak in January but an increase of nearly 11% in one day. Earlier on Tuesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky urged all Americans to wear a mask in public in high-risk areas. She said the new advice was based on evidence which shows that the Delta variant can spread among vaccinated people, even though the vast majority of people who become seriously ill are unvaccinated.
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He never gets tired.
• Dr. Pierre Kory’s Medical Lecture for Physicians and Citizens of Malaysia (O.)
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Article’s a little incoherent, bu the idea is clear.
• Omaha Doctor Sees Tremendous Success with Ivermectin as Early Treatment (TSN)
Physicians from around the United States continue to emerge, going public with their declaration of the benefits of ivermectin as an early onset, mild-to-moderate stage COVID-19 treatment. Most recently on KETV 7 Omaha, Dr. Louis Safranek came forth, declaring, “I typically use it in combination with other agents. But I do prescribe it for virtually all the patients who come to be, as part of a treatment regimen, which I think is effective for folks.” The Harvard Medical School graduate has been specializing in infectious diseases for four decades. Having treated nearly 200 COVID-19 patients at home and in the local hospitals here in Omaha, Nebraska, ivermectin is a key medicine tool in the medicine box targeting COVID-19.
TrialSite can assure that the National Institute of Health (NIH) formal policy in fighting the pandemic is to have a comprehensive mix of 1) safe and effective vaccines, 2) branded therapeutics, 3) generic repurposed therapeutics, and 4) sound and locationally relevant public health policy. Of course, industry bias has reared its ugly head in this pandemic as the NIH and the federal government have spent many billions on vaccines and novel investigational therapies while investing probably less than 5% of the portfolio investment in generic repurposed drugs—the NIH happens to be testing ivermectin now as part of the ACTIV-6 program.
In fact, Dr. Safranek shared that not one COVID-19 patient that he has treated with ivermectin and other regimens have ended up on a ventilator or dead. He reports out of about 200 patients, only one ended up hospitalized, making this a very high success. Here in the Midwest plains, Doctor Safranek had an 80-year old Omaha woman who survived two bouts of COVID-19, the second via a breakthrough infection. That is, she got infected even after being fully vaccinated. When she came to the doctor and he treated her with the anti-parasite, FDA-approved drug, she informed, “I was better the next day, not well but better.” She continued that while on the ivermectin regimen, “Each day, I got better, and now I am over it.”
Of course, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, isn’t about to administer its COVID-19 patients with ivermectin. Their position: “Further studies needed to be done to show Ivermectin has utility in the treatment of COVID-19,” reports UNMC Medical Director of Infectious Disease Dr. Mark Rupp. Of course, Dr. Rupp will administer remdesivir to hospitalized patients, even though the drug has some concerning safety signals and the World Health Organization (WHO), on no uncertain terms, declared the drug wasn’t effective based on the results of the Solitary study. UNMC also makes monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) available for the care of COVID-19 patients, and these have shown some promise but they are highly investigational.
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Nothing noble about them. Don’t try to make them that, Slate.
• The Noble Lies of COVID-19 (Slate)
The fourth noble lie from government agencies and/or officials occurred more recently. On June 4, using data from February to March, the agency made the case that hospitalizations were rising in adolescents. It tweeted, “The report shows the importance of #COVID19 vaccination for adolescents.” That tweet spurred a great deal of media attention and concern. It was true that hospitalization rates had risen. However, at the time of the press coverage, hospitalization rates in this age group had already fallen again. Numerous commenters immediately pointed out that the “rise” in hospitalization statistic promoted by the CDC was out of date the moment it was highlighted and raised questions about why the CDC would promote a dated statistic, when the organization had access to up-to-date information.
This obvious error was compounded weeks later during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee met to discuss what we knew and did not know about heart inflammation, or myocarditis, that had been linked to mRNA vaccination, and most notable in young men who received the vaccine. During the course of the meeting, representatives of the CDC showed a model that claimed that vaccination of young adults was preferable to the disease itself. There were, however, several concerns with this model. First, it used rates of community SARS-CoV-2 spread that again were out of date. By the time of the meeting, the rates were lower, meaning the benefits of vaccination would be reduced, but the harms remain the same.
Second, it did not consider the risks separately for boys and girls, who appear to have substantially different risk of myocarditis (much higher in boys). Third, it did not consider any middle ground positions, such as only receiving one dose of the vaccine, which provides much of the benefit with far lower myocarditis risk. Instead, the CDC presented zero or two doses as the only options. Fourth, the modeling did not consider natural immunity—i.e., the vaccine’s risk to kids who already recovered from COVID-19 might be the same, but the benefits far lower (as these children have some natural immunity). Finally, the model did not consider the fact that young adults with preexisting medical conditions and those who are otherwise well might have different risk benefit profiles, as the former account for a disproportionate number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Together, these are all information choices made by government agencies and/or officials about vaccination of young adults. Amplifying out-of-date statistics and building a model to support vaccination that has questionable assumptions work to support rapid deployment of two doses of mRNA to all healthy kids aged 12 to 17. That may be the CDC’s policy pursuit, and one we are sympathetic to. However, distorting evidence to achieve this result is a form of a noble lie. Accurately reporting current risks to adolescents, and exploring other dosing possibilities, is part of the unbiased scientific exploration of data.
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I like Taibbi, but why does he have to vent an opinion about other people’s lives and choices? Does he simply not understand what he says?
I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated
• The Vaccine Aristocrats (Taibbi)
On This Week With George Stephanopoulos this past Sunday, a bafflegab of Washington poo-bahs including Chris Christie, Rahm Emmanuel, Margaret Hoover, and Donna Brazile — Stephanopoulos calls the segment his “Powerhouse Roundtable,” which to my ear sounds like a Denny’s breakfast sampler, but I guess he couldn’t name it Four Hated Windbags — discussed vaccine holdouts. The former George W. Bush and Giuliani aide Hoover said it was time to stop playing nice. If you’re going to get government-provided health care, if you’re getting VA treatment, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, anything — and Social Security obviously isn’t health care — you should be getting the vaccine. Okay? Because we are going to have to take care of you on the back end. Brazile nodded sagely, but Emmanuel all but gushed cartoon hearts.
“You know, I’m having an out of body experience, because I agree with you,” said Obama’s former hatchet man, before adding, over the chyron, FRUSTRATION MOUNTS WITH UNVACCINATED AMERICANS: I would close the space in. Meaning if you want to participate in X or Y activity, you gotta show you’re vaccinated. So it becomes a reward-punishment type system, and you make your own calculation. This bipartisan love-in took place a few days after David Frum, famed Bush speechwriter and creator of the “Axis of Evil” slogan, wrote a column in The Atlantic entitled “Vaccinated America Has Had Enough.” In it, Frum wondered: Does Biden’s America have a breaking point? Biden’s America produces 70 percent of the country’s wealth — and then sees that wealth transferred to support Trump’s America. Which is fine; that’s what citizens of one nation do for one another… [But] the reciprocal part of the bargain is not being upheld…
Will Blue America ever decide it’s had enough of being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself. Have you? I’m vaccinated. I think people should be vaccinated But this latest moral mania — and make no mistake about it, the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” PR campaign is the latest in a ceaseless series of such manias, dating back to late 2016 — lays bare everything that’s abhorrent and nonsensical in modern American politics, beginning with the no-longer-disguised aristocratic mien of the Washington consensus. If you want to convince people to get a vaccine, pretty much the worst way to go about it is a massive blame campaign, delivered by sneering bluenoses who have a richly deserved credibility problem with large chunks of the population, and now insist they’re owed financially besides.
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US banned gain of function, Fauci and Daszak exported it to China. Not a complicated story.
• NIH Dumped Millions Into Chinese Entities To Study Infectious Diseases (DC)
The National Institutes of Health has doled out nearly $46 million in taxpayer funds to 100 Chinese institutions in the form of subgrants since the 2012 fiscal year to conduct research into infectious diseases, drug addiction, mental health and other scientific fields, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of federal spending data. The NIH’s ongoing funding of Chinese research institutions comes amid growing bipartisan concern in Washington D.C. over the fact that U.S. taxpayers support research in a country that has violated international health regulations, stonewalled a proper investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and that may be in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH subagency led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, provided $6.6 million in taxpayer-funded subgrants to 27 of the Chinese entities, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, to conduct research into allergies and infectious diseases, subgrant data pulled from USASpending.gov shows. One of the NIAID-funded subgrants, which involved the transfer of $428,000 to a Chinese government-owned institution in 2020 to conduct research into emerging mosquito and tick-based infections, states unequivocally that the U.S. will only receive the research, funded in part by U.S. taxpayers, upon approval by Chinese government authorities.
“Following testing for common pathogens, and then, after approval by the relevant authorities of the Chinese government, a subset of samples will be sent to Washington University in St. Louis for further analysis,” the subgrant description to the Chinese National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention reads.[..] Another NIAID-funded project provided $600,000 in subgrants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to conduct research that involved the genetic modification of bat-based coronaviruses.
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China 1/3, Bill Gates 1/3, Monsanto 1/3. American farmers: 0.
• Will Washington Stop China From Buying Up Farmland? (JTN)
China’s effort to unseat America as the world’s economic superpower has a new tactic: It has bought up more than 200,000 acres of U.S. farmland. And while there is bipartisan support for legislation to slow down Beijing’s acquisitions, Democrats have added a new wrinkle. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), who is leading the legislative charge, says congressional Democrats have removed all references to the communist government of China in an amendment to an agricultural spending bill that originally prevented the Chinese Communist Party’s purchase of American farmland. “[O]ver the last decade, we’ve seen a huge increase in the acquisition of these kinds of assets — farming in particular — by the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “And that, to me, is just a direction that, while we can, we should do all we can to stop.”
With China purchasing the United States’ agricultural assets and becoming more ingrained in the U.S. economy, America might eventually “become dependent on Communist China for our agricultural production,” Newhouse warned. “We don’t want that to happen. We want to stop that in its tracks.” Only six states have agricultural restrictions on China, Newhouse said, “so this is something that I think is desperately needed in our country to prevent China, Communist China, from taking over our agricultural industry.” Newhouse added that the House Committee on Appropriations adopted the amendment through a unanimous voice vote, which is rare for two reasons: being unanimous and passing an amendment from the minority party.
“I think that that tells us that there’s concern across the board [over] the direction that people see China taking,” he said, adding that neither political party wants to see China taking over America’s critical assets, like it has with other countries. Democrats want to include North Korea, Iran, and Russia in addition to China in the amendment, Newhouse said. But North Korea has no money to buy farmland in the U.S., and the other countries haven’t purchased any land in recent years, unlike China.
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Apparently, revoking his citizenship is not final yet.
• Assange Attorney Accuses Ecuador Of Foul Play (RT)
Ecuador has revoked Julian Assange’s citizenship, citing alleged inconsistencies with his naturalization documents. A lawyer for the imprisoned publisher claims the decision was made without due process. The WikiLeaks co-founder was informed that his citizenship had been nullified in a letter issued by Ecuador’s justice system, following a complaint issued by the South American nation’s Foreign Ministry. Ecuadorian officials claimed that Assange’s application for naturalization contained numerous inconsistencies, including different signatures, as well as possibly forged documents. Assange also failed to pay fees connected with his citizenship in the country, authorities alleged. Carlos Poveda, Assange’s lawyer, responded to the decision by accusing the Ecuadorian government of turning its back on due process.
The Australian was unable to contest the claims made against him because he is currently being “deprived of his liberty” and suffering from a “health crisis” while locked away at London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, Poveda told AP. The lawyer complained a week earlier that it was “impossible” for his client to properly defend himself under the circumstances, and expressed hope that the case would not be “judged by ‘public opinion’” alone. Poveda said he will petition the government to clarify its decision on the matter. “More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality,” he said.
Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry insisted that it had “acted independently and followed due process,” claiming that similar concerns about Assange’s citizenship had been raised by the previous government. Assange was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018, as part of an attempt by then-President Lenin Moreno to help the journalist safely leave the country’s embassy in London, where he had been seeking asylum since June 2012.
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