It was a great article, but this has been pretty obvious for quite a while. We funded dangerous GoF research at a shoddy Chinese lab and then the major players covered it up and blamed bat soup.
Even if we didn't fund THIS PARTICULAR VIRUS, the funding of dangerous GoF research in Wuhan is enough to convict all the major players -- that's why they were so desperate to keep us from learning the truth. Remember Fauci lying to Rand Paul saying "you don't know what you're talking about"? Remember how Fauci suddenly forgot the definition of Gain of Function, even though he talked about it repeatedly before 2020?
This story, more than any other, has been the prime example of the government propaganda apparatus and its allies telling us not to believe our own eyes, ears, and capacity for reason. The lab origin has long been the most obvious explanation, yet all manner of deception, misdirection, and outright lies have been deployed to dupe the populace.
The government health agencies have simply destroyed any basis for our trust in them. I think they still don't really understand that, but (more worryingly) it's possible they just do not care, as they feel untouchable. Perhaps they are.
Folks...I know y'all don't like Donald Trump, but please stop voting for people who won't demand the resignation or fire those who have been gaslighting us for the past seven years.
In the words of that famous newspaper, democracy dies in darkness; and they are right. But it is darkness with which they and those they support try to impose on our politics. They don't want us to know what is going on.
Stop voting for these bozos and bozoettes, It's as simple as that.
I'm 41 and I'm still laughed out of EVERY room, with EVERY friend I have when I try to make this point. I've come to the conclusion that we're the weird sheep who don't like being herded, and we're the problem, to ALL of them. 1 Sheep 2 Sheep Red Sheep Blue Sheep
Actually, Trump pushed back before anyone and they used it against him.
Trump refused to wear a mask. So, they pushed to make masks mandatory as punishment. (Recall: they had to be useless "masks," no neck gaiters for those deplorable hicks.) Trump also said at the start of it that the fatality rate would be below 1%. Completely true in the end, but ridiculed at the time as "not taking the pandemic seriously."
The media, academics, bureaucrats, lefties, et al slaughtered him for both those heresies and blamed every death on him personally. And counted the deaths on live TV! Then, after telling the nation he was the cause of covid and the deaths, campaigned against his "softness" on covid. So, I don't think it's fair to say he "went right along" with it.
On top of all that, Trump wasn't even President when the truly insane policies like vax mandates were pushed.
He did what most of us would have done: listen to his public health advisors (who turned out to be lying), call for sanity (masks/low IFR), and push for a vaccine to be quickly made. I bet 99% of us here would have said getting a vaccine to market quickly was a good thing at the time. He did more to push back than anyone did until DeSantis a year or two later (after attitudes had started to shift).
Yes, I agree with you on all you’ve said. I was just pointing out that he caved & ended up going along with the program. In the end he told people to get vaccinated. People seem to see him as a savior- I see him as a con man that says what his peeps want to hear but then only looks out for himself in the end. I felt like that poster was saying vote for Trump but I may have misunderstood. As far as I’m concerned both Rs & Ds are complicit in the crime & we live in a full blown fascist state.
I don't agree he "caved." Everyone said get the vaccines. Like, everyone. You can't look back in judgement on past events with the knowledge of today. FWIW, I skipped the vaccines. I quit my job to avoid them. But, there is nothing Trump could have said or done to make that easier. The powers-that-be had decided the vaccines were the savior.
I also don't think most people see Trump as a savior (Clintons, yes. Obama, most def.) I hated the guy until all this happened and I saw how he was being treated. I have family who have been supporters since the beginning, and honestly, they think he's funny and see him as someone who's willing to push back against the sacred cows of the political elite. And they know very well his personal issues. They don't think he's a great person. Just the only one willing to speak up for them.
I somewhat agree re: Rs and Ds, but the D party is more completely bought. E.g., support for Ukraine. Zero votes against from Dems. All opposition came from the Reps. That's a legit difference. Trump, IMO, is neither D nor R. Our system forces candidates to choose one or the other. Like it or not, there is no viable third party option. There is a reason the Dems, the Reps, the media, the bureaucracy, academia, etc. all aligned against Trump: it's because he's not one of them and he's not on board with the forever wars. That's the only unforgivable sin in DC.
they ALL lie, as if Trump does not? I will give the Don this, he started 0 new wars..other than that, trump is a disaster of person and as a president.
I couldn't believe it. My neighbor got Covid for the second time and her response was "well, I better go get another booster." I rolled my eyes out of her line of sight.
Sounds anecdotal rather than dispositive. I've known several people who never got vaxxed and had COVID multiple times. Also people who were fully vaxxed (myself included*) and never got it, although I do think we actually had COVID in early 2020 before the vaccinations were out.
*- I was a victim of the paranoia, but I won't be taking any further mRNA shots in the future.
That is such a great honest answer. We don’t know and evidently , neither did the experts. My own personal problem was being lectured by family and friends about the masks, social distancing and my choice to not get boosters after I had some disturbing symptoms after my second Pfizer.
As a primary care doctor practicing throughout the pandemic, I think the truth, on vaccines at least, falls somewhere between the highly polarized narratives put out by the two sides.
I recall when the vaccines were first made available that they were advertised to us physicians not as a means of preventing infection but as a means of preventing severe illness and death. In this regard, I would say they seem to have been highly successful, at least in our clinic. I ended up having about four times as many patients vaccinated as unvaccinated on my panel, but all of the five patients I lost to Covid were in the unvaccinated group as were all of the hospitalizations for severe illness aside from one. Anecdotal, true, but the numbers are so markedly divergent between those two groups - there should after all have been about 20 deaths in the vaccinated group if there was really no vaccine effect - that it’s hard to imagine this occurred by chance. Even more so given that my four colleagues with similar panel sizes had identical outcomes.
The problem, of course, is that it wasn’t very long before the vaccines were advertised in ways that turned out to be misleading. We were told they’d prevent actual infection and hence also transmission, which paved the way for “experts” to insist on universal vaccination, including children and enforced by punitive job-loss mandates, in the quest for that elusive high level of “herd immunity” that would allegedly end the pandemic. We were also assured that they were really no significant vaccine side effects whatsoever, even though I saw a few episodes that, although not lethal, would definitely prompt most MD’s to withhold future vaccination based on the general medical principle of “do no harm”.
Bottom line, we were told so much that was untrue that it’s hard to dissect out the parts that were true. My ultimate take is:
1. Yes, the vaccines do reduce death and serious illness in that group of people prone to more severe respiratory complications.
2. No, they aren’t particularly useful for reducing transmission, possibly in part because (ironically) by reducing symptoms they allow some subclinically ill people to wander around and infect others.
3. Because of this there was never any good rationale for giving them to children, in whom the risks of serious illness are quite low.
4. Like many vaccines, they are NOT entirely safe, and although serious side effect seem to be uncommon, there are certain groups (such as young males) in whom the small but real risk of side effects may actually surpass the small risk of serious illness from Covid infection, which is pretty much definitionally the point when one withholds rather than mandates a vaccine.
You are correct about anecdotal stories; you can find an abundance on both sides of the vax/Covid issue. I have to say your story resonates with me as my views have evolved in conjunction with my cynicism. Will the lab leak story be a case of the coverup is worse than the crime? Or is Gain of Function research the original sin?
Given the high proportion of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, and the fairly high unreliability of rapid tests in asymptomatic cases, unless you have had a blood test you simply can't say that you never had it. In my experience most of the people that claim not to have caught it have never had a blood test confirmation of that, and almost certainly they did get it and were simply asymptomatic.
I was vaxxed and boosted 3 times. Never got COVID. If it stays around in another mutated form, and another booster is recommended by my physician, I may get it. Just like I get flu vaccines.
Did the government lie when they said it would prevent infection or transmission? Yes, but they weren't lying about the lower-chance-of hospitalization or death. Which are pretty good benefits.
But they also lied about natural immunity, which is a pretty BFD. Our young adult son got the original Crud in 2020, got double-vaxxed because you couldn't live your life in NYC without Zee Papers proving you were anointed, and then got the Crud again in late 2021. If you are counting, that's like getting the Crud four times. He was already more protected from serious illness (which he didn't even need to be protected to begin with at zero mortality rate) from first having gotten the original strain, but was forced to get two more jabs and thus at some risk for vax adverse effects. Thank the lord that he was out of college or they would STILL be requiring he get boosted and boosted and boosted against all sanity and morality. It's personal now that our son might have sub-clinical heart damage FOR NOTHING.
Look into non covid related all cause mortality numbers in highly vaxxed nations. Also there is absolutely no way to prove that it reduces illness, hospitalization, or death. In fact the numbers say otherwise. It is called antibody dependent enhancement. If they lied about this, why would you believe the rest??
Yeah, my view was similar to yours until recently. I spent 18 months on FB defending the vaccines, only to see my arguments repeatedly undermined by revelations of the shortcomings of the vaccine. Turns out Fauci wasn’t sold on them from the start so I’m feeling like a dunce for taking government sources at their word. At this point time, with Covid now endemic, it’s clear that it no longer makes sense to vaccinate or boost.
Thanks for the reminder what the topic is about :-) No surprise it has gone in other directions; some see all angles as connected as part of a grandiose big lie. But that seems as unlikely as those who compliantly believe every word governments say, apparently unaware of the use of propaganda to promote fear and guilt.
You need to get to know a few more people. You can still get COVID if you’re vaccinated but you won’t die from it. You said “ multiple times”.I think that should tell you something. Maybe the vax. worked.
You need to skip the opening insult.. I’m not basing my comments strictly on my “ people.” My primary Care doctor has made the same observation in her practice. And she is livid with the CDC, etc. Her reputation has been tarnished by following their “science.” The vax did not stop people from dying. One of her teenage sons developed myocarditis. The average age of COVID death in the US is 84.5. The elderly were vulnerable as they are every year to the flu. I’m not anti vax but I sure as hell am never taking a vaccine with Emergency authorization. They took a gamble with this vaccine, possibly because Fauci knew that it had been engineered.. and we were the Guinea pigs. And now the CDC is putting it on the recommended pediatric schedule.. adding a minimum of 32 more shots before the age of 18. That’s mad scientist madness. People’s immune systems are being weakened by this onslaught.
A separate issue, though--lying about Covid's origins doesn't lessen the need to protect oneself from Covid, in whatever fashion one believes necessary.
-have the undesirables (the poors) deliver your purchases
-lock all the elderly in nursing homes and separate them from their families
-put people with COVID on ventilators so they get a secondary pneumonia infection and die
-film dancing TikToks
-get your hair cut or go on fancy outings of you're part of the elite
-prohibit the sale of seeds - NO GARDENING!
-prohibit the poors from going on vacation
-lose your job if you resist the jab
We did all these things all over the world and it did NOTHING to protect anyone from COVID. All it did was violate our freedom and create a bigger divide between the elite and the rest of us.
Read The War on Ivermectin by ICU doctor Pierre Kory. It contains a list of studies of Covid cures in order of effectiveness found. The book also describes how Ivermectin has tested well as a prophylactic against Covid. I think iodine nasal spray did as well. This book is really fascinating reading.
Hear Hear!!! WTF do people not understand about the bioweapon masking as a oops sorry it is a natural bat thing. BIG difference as this shows intent not oops a mistake.
One big problem, that led to Americans pretty much leading the world in COVID deaths, is that too damn many people did NOT do ANY of the things you listed, or as few of them as they could get away with. Some of them were over the top, yes. Well over one million Americans died, even WITH some restrictions. And many of the restrictions actually helped decrease infections, and therefore hospitalizations and deaths.
It doesn't have to be totally one way or totally the other, No Restrictions versus Total Restrictions. As with most things in life, the truth likely lies somewhere in-between.
Facts not in evidence. I have seen no studies saying that any of those "interventions" saved any lives. Fact is Americans are morbidly obese, and we were told by government officials to stay inside, avoid exercuse, and avoid the sun.
Americans are also super obese and have all many of health problems, especially older ones. We manage to keep a lot of unhealthy 60+ people alive in this country. That population does not exist (or barely exists) in Africa. So it is hardly a surprise that the US also had a higher fatality rate.
Think of what the US death toll might have been if 1) we weren't the third largest population in the world, 2) we hadn't killed so many by lethal Nursing/Care Home policies, 3) we hadn't killed so many in the earlier days by ventilating, 4) we didn't have truly extraordinary rates of obesity and diabetes, and 5) hospitals weren't incentivized to declare deaths to be FROM Covid vs. WITH Covid.
Ivermectin, Zinc, Vit C, Melatonin, D3. All protect against the negative effects of Covid. If you are not vulnerable, overweight, aged, infirm, chronically ill then all is good. Israeli studies showed ZERO deaths from Covid in people aged 50 and under who were not seriously health impaired.
Unfortunately the vaccinations don’t work and if anything, increase your likelihood of infection. It’s hard to wrap our minds around it, but it’s true: both the virus and vaccination are bioweapons.
What about Independents? To separate who got vaxed and who masked by political affiliation is just silly. And I mean SILLY. And anecdotally is not supported by my own little orbit.
IMHO this data is suspect because of the nature in which the data was collected. The Federal Government incentivized hospitals to maximize deaths attributed to COVID. Even when the death was due to a separate incident such as automobile accident, shooting, prior dominant medical condition, drownings, etc. anyone dying that tests positive with COVID then the death was attributed to COVID regardless if they were a carrier or had COVID and recovered.
Anyone citing these statistics needs to understand the basis of the data.
There is no way to protect yourself except through natural immunity. Although it now appears that those jabbed may be shedding the mRNA gene material on others they come in contact with thus ruining the chance to have an uncontaminated blood supply for the future. What are the chances that this was part of the game plan?
Vaccines were politicized with the result the Republican Covid death toll rose far higher than for Democrats. Yale economists did a study and found the Republican death rate, at first about equal to the Democrats, became 10.4% higher after the introduction of the vaccine. Vaccines reduced hospitalization and deaths. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30512/w30512.pdf
Why then did South Korea excess spike in spring 2022 +90%? Why did roughly half the countries fully vaxxed have more excess deaths post vaccine than pre vaccine? Could it be... the vaccines were no more effective than our largely useless flu shots? And that therefore any attempts to find efficacy in populations require data drudging - specifically ignoring any examples where more deaths occurred post vaccine than prior? That might explain why so many
Republicans died of Covid 10% more than democrats because they are on average 10% older. It isn't rocket science.
Why would anyone allow themselves to be injected with a novel substance that had zero long term safety data? They literally took it out of the lab and started jabbing people. Insanity.
Because the fear mongering generated by our government, health officials and the media, all topped off with some serious shaming and blaming scared the crap out of people. The American people were told that not only could they die from the Virus but that they by not getting vaccinated could cause others to die. And it was a lie and they knew it!
The difference between flavors of totalitarianism is akin to the difference between potayto and potahto. Fascist, communist, socialist, dictatorial; the result is the same. Most debate in this arena involves assuring one's own favorite totalitarian ox doesn't get gored.
I don't quite understand the comment. Are you saying all government is totalitarian? What about governments that demand mutual respect for all rheir citizens. I remember Shel Silverstein's Freakin at the freakers ball.
I suspect you are confusing totalitarianism with middle class morality but as I said I don't understand . Societies by definition must have rules of personal conduct.
I think most of us are fascists but Fascist is 20th century and I am ancient and in the dictionary of the English language by Samuel Johnson. Johnson uses conservatism to describe his philosophy. Johnson was a fascist in 1755 or an American in 2023.
The opposite of conservative is evolutionary one hundred years before Darwin.
I guess I'm more of an "evolutionist". We adapt and evolve as warranted by the environment we bask in: political, environmental, economic and most important CLIMITE. We need strong government and corporate input to deal with both the extistental threats of war and global warming
Cheers
No labels or definitions required...just unified action
I just wrote a comment in the Fascist Toronto Star on the strength of Canada's conservatives. My comment awaits moderation that is why I subscribe to Racket News.
Iwrote.
"Since when do conservatives want change? "
They are all in on feudalism and public executions.
OOPS I shouldn't have used fascist; in English Canada we call neoliberals like your Bill Clinton.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering how safe are all these vaccinations I took and got my kids to take. Damn. Of course I don’t trust these agencies. Should have known after WMD.
Obvious is right. And it shouldn't have taken so many people this long to arrive at this conclusion. In May 2021, it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that in autumn 2019 several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough to require hospital care, “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”
David Asher, a fellow at the Hudson Institute and former consultant to the State Department, provided more detail about the incident at a seminar. Knowledge of the incident came from a mix of public information and “some high end information collected by our intelligence community,” he said. This was “the first known cluster that we’re aware of, of victims of what we believe to be COVID-19.”
The MSM is largely the reason why people remain reluctant to even consider the lab leak origin. They created and enforced a taboo against questioning The Narrative™, ensuring that the lab leak theory was relegated to the fringes. Dismissing and denigrating dissidents and doubters, they declared an unsettled question settled.
But the entire narrative hinged around March 2020 as the "arrival" of covid, because anything else would admit that we'd been living for the virus for MONTHS before even noticing it. Yet every single antibody test we did showed FAR FAR more people with antibodies that we assumed. By April 2020, 25% of NYC had antibodies. That's millions and millions of missed cases in NYC alone. That SHOULD HAVE tanked the entire narrative -- but getting Trump out of office was way more important than telling the truth. This is from April 27, 2020 (just before they stopped doing testing because it was showing an inconvenient truth):
Is there a date for patient Zero contracting the virus? My sister was sick with flu from September through December of 2019. I knew of a couple other folks sick at that same time period. It was very nasty.
Does that correspond to the date there were military exercises going on somewhere "over there?"* The reason I ask is that I remember sometime during that period TKNews did some kind of story about the pandemic, and in the comment section, every time someone ventured an opinion about origin theory, there would be a "reply" about US troops conducting military games in the area. From the get-go and everywhere, the discussion being massaged, even at TKNews.
Fears members of the French Army could have been infected with covid-19 back in October after competing at the World Military Games, have been called "completely plausible", by an infectious disease expert.
And weren’t there people in Italy sick by early fall? There’s a region where Chinese work in clothing manufacture and return home periodically...to Wuhan.
I was sick for 2 1/2 weeks Nov 2019. I was extremely tired the whole time. Could hardly make myself something to eat and take care of my four horses. When I finally went to my nurse practitioner and told her how sick I had been, and my throat still hurt, all she would say was it is not strep throat. I think I was helped by the COPD meds I take - steroids for the lungs. I read a couple of months ago that hospitals are having a hard time getting these meds for their COPD patients. They are made in China. That is a good way to eliminate a few million folks.
Same here. And there were also mysterious and deadly viral outbreaks in nursing homes in Italy around that time as well which I don't think have ever been followed up on.
I knew people who were incredibly sick in fall 2019 and rather than believe they'd already had covid they let their fear of "something worse" than that illness drive them into the propaganda narrative.
And you notice that "virus clusters" were discovered everywhere we did testing. Louisiana was an early "hotspot" because they got a lot of early tests because of Mardi Gras, but the virus was already all over the country.
2.1% of blood donations from WA/OR tested positive for antibodies -- and those donations were given in MID-DECEMBER 2019 -- four months before we did anything to slow the curve, and WINTER MONTHS when we were traveling and gathering for the holidays, going to basketball games and bars, etc. All the stuff they said was too dangerous in 2020 and 2021.
the key is teh "gain of function" research. That's why the intel agencies and Fauci were throwing cold water on the story. But why the MSM abetted the cover up is the sinister part.
Eco health just got another grant from Uncle Sam. You can’t make this stuff up. But they are supposedly going to be more careful in the future, new protocols or something.
It was already illegal when Obama shut down the U of NC BSL3. Gain of function research is essentially bio-weapons research, says Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law, University of Illinois College of Law. Boyle wrote the 1996 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, enacted into US law (unanimously) on May 22, 1990. It provided for the implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention as well as criminal penalties for violation of its provisions! After UNC BSL3 closed, the research was moved to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (a BSL 4 lab) along with scientists such as virologist Shi Zhengli, nicknamed "bat queen." Shi was director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. I'm not sure where she is now. Anyway, the rest is history in the making.
The NIH during the Obama administration issued a ban on "federal funding" for gain-of-function research. It was never made "illegal." The NIH later lifted the ban on Federal funding during the Trump administration in 2017.
Gain-of-Function research was never "illegal" in the U.S.---only Federal Funding for it. With the proper permitting and a go-ahead from the government, and a few $billion, a private entity presumably could begin conducting gain-of-function research.
I think there is a disjunct between the MSM and what most people believe. The majority of younger people I've talked to since 2020 believed the wet-market story was b.s. from the get-go. They don't watch TV or read newspapers, in part because they question the narratives put out. You've also got all the recent surveys that show the majority of people don't believe the press anymore. The greater issue is that no one believes anything with any confidence now. Everything is in perpetual doubt.
Very true. The internet has radically fragmented society. Everyone has their own truth now because the internet provides plenty of self-affirming information. There's no shortage of websites or people who'll tell you what you want to hear.
If there is any good that comes out of this it will be that gain of function, which many in this field do not support, comes to it's end. I'm sure many in the scientific community, at least in China, but here too, knew Covid's origin, however, the medical community often goes mute when there is this degree of controversy, that is they stick together and keep their mouths shut.
It's like every other group. They stick together in times like this, and there are so many not only in the medical field, but the political arena all too willing to help.
“🦇Bat Soup 🥣 “ That’s genius; but The real DC Comics Batman genius undoubtedly could estimate how many ministers feed a 3/4 spoonful to Xi every meal?!⁉️ A baker’s dozen; a hundred?
Corporate media in 2023 seems more inclined to find faults with China as they try to build support for another war. Meanwhile they continue running cover for the gain of function culprits at home.
And it definitely didn't help that when the mainstream media framed the origin controversy as Trump vs. the China lab, the China lab received respectful and credulous coverage.
He was only right because some of 'his' people were in positions to uncover the truth early in 2020. There was also a huge contingency of deep staters that kept the data they had from public view.
Just like with the 2020 Census. No, can't put the results out under Trump. So B gets in office and they give multiple congressional seats to blue states and come out after the next election and say oops. Guess it won't get fixed until 2030!
Uhmmm.......several westerners have the same "receipts" as does China. Trouble is there currently seems to be no penalties for lying to Congress as if Congress would do shit all anyway.
I loved all those. One hilarious article that I can't find stated how media consumers were more "knowledgeable" about corona than us idiot conspiracy theorists. Two of the major points were 1) Media consumers 'knew' the virus was natural and 2) They knew there would be no vaccine in 2020.
The 2021 version of the article was about the same:
Anyone mentioned by name on those articles should sue CNN into oblivion for defamation. If Dominion can get a billion from Fox, surely others can bleed CNN dry.
I live in Quebec this is not English speaking North America. Transparency is fundamental to Quebec democracy and we were informed every minute of everyday exactly what was happpening. They just finished studying the long term effects on our school students.
Telling children the truth has no serious long term effects.
In Quebec race, gender and religion are not real. We teach evolution in our schools. Evolution is the opposite of conservative. Liberal means free to adapt.
«Evolution is the opposite of conservative. Liberal means free to adapt.»
"Conservativism" is always and everywhere about the interests of insiders (incumbents), and it adapts without difficulty whenever that is useful to protect and enhance the money and power of insiders. That is why there is a famous phrase "Change everything to change nothing".
Modern "Liberalism" is also about the interests of insiders, but a different type of insiders from those of traditional conservatives.
Orwell's essays explain how to write about political philosophy. Canadian Socratic philosopher and writer John Ralston Saul calls it neoliberalism. He says it is neither new nor liberal. It is the same old hierarchy with God at the top and us at the bottom.
I would suggest you get a copy not of Voltaire's Bastards which is still brilliant but get copy of his Doubter's Companion A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense 1994.
His definition of cynicism is: Cynicism democracy's greatest threat.
American's don't know history John Adams was a Federalists and Federalists say liberal democracy is a pipe dream. Adams never considered the evolutionist Thomas Jefferson presidency legitimate even after Adams lost the 1800 election.
I am just learning how to write. My dream is to write a modern translation of the American Constitution which was designed to stop liberal democracy. Jefferson tried to have a new constitution for every generation.
And I keep asking, where is Rand Paul on this? Has he given up? He seems to rabidly intent at times and then nothing. Do Republicans have to have a majority to put Fauci’s ass under oath? I thank Schellenberger and Racket for putting this together, but for those of us leery from Day One....it’s a big “duh.” “ Probably from a wet market”.... oh those crazy Chinese people and what they eat, it’s disgusting”... yea, no, never bought it. So clearly our own government shared responsibility in COVID... and the conspiracist in me at this point can’t help but think the timing was so perfect for sabotaging Trumps presidency, the thriving economy, etc... we went from being confident to being afraid of our own shadow , well, actually our own breath. How great would it be if this little experiment gone wrong resulted in a global ban of all research and development of biological warfare?
Fauci WAS under oath when he was testifying to Congress.
The problem was that no Democrat in Congress was willing to do the work that Rand Paul put in to understand how deeply involved Anthony Fauci really was in the gain-of-function research issue and in the funding of the Wuhan laboratory for exactly that restricted sort of research.
This has been just another of the big gaslighting efforts that our bureaucracies have been pulling on the voting public.
Hey, when Biden's team gets the 2020 census because the deep state refused to put the results out in 2020 miracles happened. Blue states gained a bunch of congressional seats! Ooops... 'we' found a few error... They will be fixed in 2030.
House Republicans can hold hearings if they choose. Problem is, they run them so ineptly that we can't take them seriously. I'd be all for making Dr. Fauci testify under oath given this new story, but serious representatives, not Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, would need to run it. Otherwise it's a waste of everybody's time.
I think house republicans have been extremely effective with the weaponization of the federal government. The problem is the media refuses to cover it. Consider Joe Bidens bribery claim - on the same day they devoted a ton of time to whether Donald Trump has documents in his house they gave zero minutes to credible proof of bribery and compromise of a sitting President. If the House puts our investigations and the media chooses not to cover them it is hard to get people to know the truth
The "serious" ones are either bought and paid for, are still hoping to be bought and paid for, or aren't willing to stick out their necks for fear of being thought un-serious.
Anthony Fauci should go down in history as one of the great villains of our time. He disgraced his profession by causing concerned citizens to lose trust in public health agencies and officials - he brought shame to the field of virology research through his greed, dissembling, and outright dishonesty - and he destroyed the reputation of the Center for Disease Control through his series of lies and misleading proclamations. This corrupt fraud ought to be stripped of his medical license at the very least and have his tattered reputation serve as a warning to others going forward.
Kind of weird how the same people who funded the virus apparently also funded the jabs (prepared, if not approved, with lightning speed in 2020).
Its almost as if some psychopaths cooked up an idea as close to "lock the entire world, then charge for the use of the only existing key" as was feasible, with the extra spice being the keys not even being designed to work properly. I mean, if you really squint...
Yep. Remember the unrelenting message from 2021: We go back to normal if you get the shot. They dangled that carrot out there and most people gobbled it up and thanked them for the privilege.
This shows human hubris on parade. To go out and collect a deadly pathogen from somewhere in the middle of nowhere and bring it into a city of 12 million to study it. Wow! Talk about asking for it!
Just out of curiosity, I went back and looked at all of my Facebook friends’ posts on Fauci, circa 2020. They run the gamut, but “Fauci for president” pretty well covers it. Of course, no mea culpas will be forthcoming. No, they were onto the next 20 things of which they were embarrassingly certain for the next five minutes. But wait, they’re not embarrassed. No, again, they just continue to blather about whatever they’re told is truth by their Cable News Network this week. What a world. A near total loss of critical thinking skills defines the western world today.
For a “24 hour news cycle”, it’s amazing that it takes years to get it right. We hop from one news story to another, content with innuendos and suggestions, failing to demand old-school journalistic standards. I’m glad I am finding some here on Substack and elsewhere. I work hard on where I get my news.
Exactly. Totally obvious. Evidently we are funding all kinds of shit in developing countries where it would be illegal to do it here. there should be a law that anything that is illegal here should be illegal to do in a foreign country.
''It was a great article, but this has been pretty obvious for quite a while.'
I think the value of this may be not the actual revelation, but the fact that evidence is mounting which might help *convince more people* not only that the lab leak happened, but that it was covered up so strenuously.
I’m sure the legacy media will spin this news (if they even bother acknowledging it) to squeal for a war against China. Or like you said…escalating the war against Russia.
More proof that you can believe the opposite of what the establishment consensus is...and you will be correct every time. Now apply that principle to Ukraine, vaccines, white domestic extremism, Biden family corruption, Trump witch hunt, climate change, election transparency..........
Cannot like this comment enough -- that is where we are now.
Even though I've concluded this for several years now, with each story I still feel such a mix of disbelief, disgust, and grief of what our government has become.
Combined with the utter disappointment that so many of my colleagues simply refuse to see it for what it is.
The next issue, which I'm not so sanguine about, is will anyone be held responsible for this avalanche of lies, will anyone pay any kind of price?
Looking at all the great American disasters of the 21st century—the Iraq and Afghanistan clusterfucks, Guantanamo, the bank collapse, Russiagate, now the mass Covid hysteria—the rule seems to be as long as you maintain lockstep fealty to every Insider Narrative, you will never lose a cent, a night's sleep, or do anything but continue to fail upward.
For instance, Apoorva Mandavilli, award-winning New York Times "science" reporter LOL, most famous for saying that any investigating of a possible lab leak was "Racist", delivered the commencement address this weekend at the Yale School of Public Health. And listen to this:
“At the New York Times, we pledge to deliver the news, ‘without fear or favor,’...I would urge you all to do the same. Tell the public the truth, the whole truth -- even if you worry that some of it will be misused by some people. Because if you don’t tell the whole truth, if you leave some things unsaid, it leaves room for others to swoop in …with misinformation.”
These people live inside gilded bubbles where everyone they know has an identical brain. They are impervious to reality, will never admit their incompetence and malfeasance, and honestly believe that no matter what any evidence says, they are the literal divine incarnation of Truth, while anyone who disagrees are "some people" spreading "misinformation" aka heretics.
Our global elite caste aka Social Justice Inc. will all protect and lie for each other and would rather crash the whole country than admit they were wrong.
Aren't we being told now that the Trump documents case is based on his attempt to resist returning and then covering-up not returning the documents? Isn't the cover-up the "crime"? If so, then surely the massive cover up efforts by Fauci, Collins, and all the rest about the origins of Covid constitutes a crime?
To expose Fauci and company would require a functioning justice system in this country. Does anyone think Merrick Garland’s DOJ would investigate/prosecute any of these people? How do you prosecute a bank robbery if the sheriff is driving the getaway car?
Wuhan Lab and Eco Health Alliance should be sued out of business. The problem is in this fucked up world, there will be yet another and another bunch of idiots taking their place. I am so glad I am old now and won't have to see where this crazy train is headed much longer. Fuck me.
Considering how well our judiciary protects big business, esp those that have close ties to our government, I would bet these M2D will be granted. The fucking black robes.
"USAspending.gov reports that EcoHealth Alliance, despite possibly having caused the pandemic and definitely having repeatedly and gravely violated terms of a US-government grant, currently has 12 active US-government grants and contracts, totaling more than $34 million."
And now this --
"The DOD awarded a grant of $3 million to EcoHealth beginning Dec. 12 for the purpose of combatting pandemic threats emanating from the Philippines, according to USASpending.gov. The grant was awarded as part of a DOD program aimed at countering weapons of mass destruction."
I see so many of these type of reports that NYT appears infected with Lie Plague. Why on Earth would the Times not report like it claims--without fear or favor? The feds cannot shut it down, it's too big and powerful for that. The Times has no real competition anywhere? So why not do the news on the level?
We are living through a mass ideological conversion of our liberal class, which i wd vaguely define as anyone in culture media academia tech plus the NGOocracy, the C-Suite class and various other Deep Staters like the military brass, State Dept, FBI, Dem Party etc—it is akin to an invasion and colonization of a defeated country, except it is not just our country but the entire Anglosphere and the colonization is both digital and internal.
After the Peasants' revolts of 2016 the global corporate class is determined to seize complete power and never risk an existential shock again. Making Social Justice the official state religion provides cohesion, In/Out group, a moral pretext for every move, the co-option of what used to be the Left, and a constant moral panic that goes by the general vibe of: Denounce or Be Denounced!
They are trying to lock in a Church/State ruling coalition based on surveillance and "managed democracy" and up next will be CBDC, which means control of the money supply and the ability to pauperize dissenters. We shall see if they succeed...
The time to revolt has passed. We could have triumphed with a second election of Trump but too many people were drunk on the cabal's stale and rancid koolade and smug in their distain of make America great again. Now it is just too late. The fix is in and the 2020 and 2022 elections proved it.
its the Blob. they are censoring each other, and lying, in order to protect The Narrative. they are being dogmatic in their belief in the new religion which has filled the God shaped gap in their heart. dogma trumps facts,
Shane, happy to clarify this with a fair amount of certainty on the answer. Remember when traditional print media was written off as having an out of date business model? They found a profitable new one - online subscribers. Unfortunately places like NYT and WaPo also found easy analytics like A/B headline testing and quickly learned what kind of content caused people to sign up for a subscription and what caused them to cancel one. Turns out that, after social media outrage stokes their flames, most MSM readers dont want to hear the truth, they want to hear validation of their preconceptions.
Well said, Kelly, and I believe you're right. I was out of the Chicago newsrooms before the industry lost its monopoly-on-ads revenue base, so avoided that disaster. Digital subscriptions are helping immensely, but they can't charge nearly as much as for a print subscription: 40 a year vs. 200. They can't afford to annoy the subscribers because they have little advertising to fall back on ... so clicks, likes, and Rageahol all around. Thanks.
This works both ways, btw. Epoch Times used to be interesting to me to read, with unique viewpoints. Then they went to a subscription model and now produce material I find way too far out there.
The Epoch Times has always been interesting to read and their "unique viewpoints" have always been way too far out there. You do realize it's a mouthpiece for Falun Gong? With a stated mission to "save sentient beings." The Times outta adopt this as their slogan.
NIH and Dr Fauci control a huge pot of grant money that scientists rely on. Follow the approved narrative or no grant money.
Reporters rely on scientists as the sources and “experts” for their stories. They just report what the expert scientists tell them. Scientists rely on NIH and Dr Fauci for money.
Not hard to see how the stories all followed reported the same lies.
Follow the money. Print news has been in decline for over 20 years. They need financial help to stay afloat. Who is going to rescue them? It is big Pharma and Government ads so they new policy at MSM is be friendly to the hand that feeds you!
"Government ads." What do those look like, exactly? Full-pagers in the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram announcing a Pentagon tag sale in Lot 702, featuring old, retired office furniture at 70% off?
And print news is not in decline, it's effectively dead.
Our local paper eliminated current comics and is back to Nancy and Sluggo. They've also hired Pro-Publica trained "journalists," and this is in a red state. It's like they're trying to drive away subscribers.
May seem cliché, but I believe it is money preventing them from rocking the boat. All income & assets are way down, & print demand continues to plummet. They must satisfy interest of shareholders, the numerous media companies they own, PLUS they must capitulate to their Board of Directors composed of senior executives from various corporations; i.e. Ernst & Young, AIG, Pandora, Etsy, Verizon, Roblox, GoDaddy, etc. I doubt NYT is willing to risk making any of these unhappy by diverting from widely promoted & acceptive narratives. Sadly, they lost their integrity 20 or so years ago.
I know this isn't foremost on your and Michael Shellenberger's minds, but you'll be remembered for your fortitude. Others have contributed fantastic work on the Twitter Files (especially Lee Fang) but you two were hauled in front of Congress and belittled and smeared by morally backward and oblivious actors and entities., and remain the functional as well as symbolic face of the Twitter files project -- an endeavor I'm sure you knew from your first glance at an email from a three-letter U.S. agency to a Twitter exec would soon infuse your life with "odd" disruptions from the federal government.
In an era where people who use fake names on Twitter boast about having no fucks to give because they just dunked on an anonymous MAGA or pro-rainbow account, and actual cajónes are a vanishing commodity, people with genuine courage matter.
Glad to hear you had a part in this important story, Matt.
I hope that you, Mr. Shellenberger, and everyone else covering this important story continue to work until all the details are revealed - including the actions of the cowards who hoped to keep us in the dark.
The most significant consequence of the lab leak cover up is that we invested more heavily in gain-of-function research. A lot of us have known about the infection of the scientist (and the wife of a scientis who succumbed to it) at Wuhan for years. It's really strange to see the same story be reported as breaking news repeatedly... and to crickets. Let's hope it takes this time.
I thought when Nicolas Wade covered the story the phony debate was over. If the corporate media finally gives it attention, it's beause the story serves a different purpose to them now.
Do you recall where you first heard about the infection of the scientist? I've followed covid-related stories *fairly* closely, and have long suspected that it leaked from the lab, whether intentionally or not, but this is the first I've heard of a specific person being identified as patient zero. I'm always on the lookout for news sources who do actual journalism.
It might have been on Brett Weinstein's podcast Dark Horse. If not directly from him, almost certainly from the work of one of his guests. Weinstein was so right, so early on.
It was divulged on Tucker Carlson by a guest of his in 2020. He said it was a lab worker in Wuhan Lab that was taken the hospital ill in 2019. Tucker had him back on his program over a year later to congratulate him on being right. I don't know anymore than I knew from Tucker's show, except for the name of the sick guy.
I follow Mandarin language news (both inside and outside China.) This is not new, although there is also a woman I’ve heard a lot of rumors about as patient zero (or potentially the person whose lab accident set this all in motion.)
Keep digging. As more revelations appear daily, my smug mask wearing vaccine nazi enforcer Fauci worshipping leftist neighbors shirk further and further back. Keep up the good work.
I cannot condemn anyone for wearing masks early in the disaster. We could only react and behave according to the information we got at the time, and the information was bogus.
Cops arrested people for not wearing masks while hiking on remote trails. Government shut down places of worship while encouraging liquor store and Home Depot to remain open. An insane time.
Nobody *needs* to go to church. It's a fundamentally frivolous activity. It's also the center of the bullseye in terms of pandemic risk: large groups of people (often hundreds or thousands), disproportionately elderly, all gathered together in an indoor setting, spewing respiratory droplets everywhere as they sing for 15-20 minutes, and then hanging around socializing in close proximity after the fact.
On the other hand, for example, there are severe alcoholics who will die, require hospitalization, or perhaps turn to burglary, if liquor stores are closed down.
Nothing is perfect. The government is not perfect. But, of all the things to criticize about the response to covid, church closures? Give me a break.
Yes, I do, as well as knowing that some people were physically attacked for wearing one in public. (I was one of them.) Assholes are on the left and right.
Don't call me a liar unless you're packing something besides a mouth, Rox. A peckerwood who hated the mask told me at a gas station that I was in a free state now--I was visiting Wisconsin and my car had Illinois plates--and I could remove the mask. I politely declined. He got annoyed and insisted I remove it. I declined again. He scowled and began to move toward me, at which time I put a hand on my concealed weapon and said, Don't. He backed off, said he meant no harm. I drove away but kept on eye on my rearview. No further problems.
I'm sure that was a properly fitted N95 mask you were wearing, right? I just can't believe anyone thought a cloth mask that was probably handled hundreds of times and hung on your rear view mirror was going to stop a virus.
I will never ever forget in April of 2020, a boomer grandmother housewife, called into the Rush Limbaugh show and said "Rush there is no way this didn't come from a lab. The intelligence community has to know it came from a lab other wise they wouldn't lock us down." That is the moment I knew it was from a lab.
It was obvious. They kept talking all that pangolin-bat soup nonsense, but a few miles from that wet market was a virology lab doing research on bat corinaviruses. I mean, duh. I still don't know how all those people fell for that pangolin thing.
Ya for all the millennial bros like myself on the internet it was obvious. But for her to say that, idk it just confirmed it for me. Like this little old lady from Iowa is calling it like she see it. No way anyone agrees to lockdown a country unless their is direct intel that this is a lab leak.
It's time to end gain of function research. I can't think of one instance in which this research actually proved useful (though it's possible I'm wrong, feel free to correct me if I am).
Really, though, this idea that we need to create pathogens before other people do so we can find cures is absurd. Not to mention the ethics that come with certain practices, such as experimenting on animals.
As for the lab leak investigation, it's another poorly handled situation that can be boiled down to certain government bureaucrats freaking out over what might happen if the thing they didn't want to be true, was actually true.
Most of all, it's not that it was a lab leak that will piss people off -- it's that certain individuals denied it when the evidence says otherwise.
Bob, we are now living in the Age of the Absurd. It's more than just our scientists that have gone mad. The entire country is infected with madness. Sad, that it is all on purpose.
People who know how to think for themselves even if they didn't know a pangolin from a fucking penguin have known Covid-19 came from the lab a few hundred feet away and not some food market since early days.
"but there’s reason for optimism this time."
For what? They don't care that we know the truth. TPTB will ignore it. TPTB and their lackeys and useful idiots have eroded the meaning of truth like they've tried to destroy what a woman is. So we know Patient Zero. Yippee fuckin' kay-ay! What does that do for us really? Even if it leads somewhere...TPTB. Do. Not. Care Will anyone go to jail? One of the largest mass murders in history and no one who had a hand in it will suffer any consequence.
I just think back to the Snowden revelations about the massive illegal spying program. The only thing that changed was acceptance of the massive spy program. This will be no different. Nothing changes.
I saw posts on TS that Snowden should be captured for crimes against his home country. It seems they think he was put up to it to get back at the CIA and Military. Their only good guy is Assange.
Offshoring of lethal toys like Covid has been the playbook for the US Govt since St Ronnie Reagan.
And don't forget that Victoria Nuland, the "Cookie Monster" herself admitted to 28 US Military Bioweapons labs in Ukraine. But she said they were for "good military bioweapons". Nothing to see here folks, move along.
I loved that news cycle. We went from "We have no labs in Ukraine" to "If the labs fall into Russian hands there will be a biological attack" real fuckin' quick.
Twenty-eight U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine? What could possibly go wrong?
If bioweapon research is crucial to our national security, then we should be doing it in the United States, in military germ labs, and be able to defend the practice publicly. If we cannot defend it, we should be doing it at all.
I had to look that up, but I'll bet $100 that bioweapons are exactly what are being spawned on Plum Island.
Russia posted information they found when they took over the US military bioweapons labs in Ukraine. It's damning, but I can't vouch for it's veracity. It certainly has the whiff of authenticity to me.
;it’s a fascinating and frighteNing story. Short on time, I’ll post some links. Google Willi Burgdorffer. The Swiss German scientist who discovered the bacteria responsible for Lyme Disease…
Worse than zero - they will be actively trying to discredit any hint of it. Fauci will have to be given the Nobel peace prize or something counterbalancing
Well, Texas Terri. your dream just came true! Just finished watching ABC nightly. What they did cover was the actor Treat Williams' death in a bike crash (I liked him, will miss), Pat Sajak 's retirement next year from Wheel of Fortune (like him too), and Irish author Cormac McCarthy's passing. Yep all the news "you need to know".
Probably because Shellenberger presented no new revelations and no direct evidence pointing to a lab origin or animal origin. Direct evidence = confirmation.
"Memory hole," is such a brilliant, useful concept. These days I have been amusing myself by reading books and articles from before 2020 about virus research and it's pretty clear that, historically, lab leaks have always been pretty common. There is nothing unusual about them. The last human being to die from smallpox was the victim of a lab leak.
But suddenly, in the wake of the manufactured "Pandemic," lab leaks are astronomically unlikely and can't possibly be considered, except, apparently, by white supremacists. The credulous stenographers of the corporate media, besides being credulous, and stenographers, can't remember more than 18 months back.
As for conspiracy theories, the one actual conspiracy that has been documented was that among epidemiologists and other scientists to cover up the possibility that one (or more) of their own fumbled the ball in Wuhan.
Serious question: What 'expert', corporate media narrative about the Covid pandemic has been proven to be true?
Any?
It feels like absolutely everything the 'experts' told us about Covid (its origin, the efficacy of masks and the vax, the need for 6 feet (not 7 or 5!) of social distancing, the need to close schools even though children had close to a zero chance of being harmed by the virus, etc, etc, etc ... has all proven to be a big lie.
Maybe that's why increasing #'s of Americans don't believe a word the 'experts' or the corporate media tell us.
Thanks for the great work to both you and Michael! I will be shocked if MSM ever mentions it. For those of us deplorables who were 99% sure where the virus came from, it is at least a little satifying to hear the the truth!
It was a great article, but this has been pretty obvious for quite a while. We funded dangerous GoF research at a shoddy Chinese lab and then the major players covered it up and blamed bat soup.
Even if we didn't fund THIS PARTICULAR VIRUS, the funding of dangerous GoF research in Wuhan is enough to convict all the major players -- that's why they were so desperate to keep us from learning the truth. Remember Fauci lying to Rand Paul saying "you don't know what you're talking about"? Remember how Fauci suddenly forgot the definition of Gain of Function, even though he talked about it repeatedly before 2020?
This story, more than any other, has been the prime example of the government propaganda apparatus and its allies telling us not to believe our own eyes, ears, and capacity for reason. The lab origin has long been the most obvious explanation, yet all manner of deception, misdirection, and outright lies have been deployed to dupe the populace.
The government health agencies have simply destroyed any basis for our trust in them. I think they still don't really understand that, but (more worryingly) it's possible they just do not care, as they feel untouchable. Perhaps they are.
Folks...I know y'all don't like Donald Trump, but please stop voting for people who won't demand the resignation or fire those who have been gaslighting us for the past seven years.
In the words of that famous newspaper, democracy dies in darkness; and they are right. But it is darkness with which they and those they support try to impose on our politics. They don't want us to know what is going on.
Stop voting for these bozos and bozoettes, It's as simple as that.
The Washington Post appears to be the darkness.
And as I like to say about The New York Times “ The Rubbish They Choose to Publish”
"All The News That Fits Our Narrative"
Along with NYT, CNN, MSNBC..FOX that rachel maddow is EVIL.
Stop voting duopoly
Start voting 3rd party
Cheers comrade
I'm 41 and I'm still laughed out of EVERY room, with EVERY friend I have when I try to make this point. I've come to the conclusion that we're the weird sheep who don't like being herded, and we're the problem, to ALL of them. 1 Sheep 2 Sheep Red Sheep Blue Sheep
Well Trump went right along with this plan so I don’t get your point.
You may have actually missed the bigger overall point. Or you may be purposely missing it. But, either way, you missed it.
What point do you think I missed. I’m open to be educated about this.
Actually, Trump pushed back before anyone and they used it against him.
Trump refused to wear a mask. So, they pushed to make masks mandatory as punishment. (Recall: they had to be useless "masks," no neck gaiters for those deplorable hicks.) Trump also said at the start of it that the fatality rate would be below 1%. Completely true in the end, but ridiculed at the time as "not taking the pandemic seriously."
The media, academics, bureaucrats, lefties, et al slaughtered him for both those heresies and blamed every death on him personally. And counted the deaths on live TV! Then, after telling the nation he was the cause of covid and the deaths, campaigned against his "softness" on covid. So, I don't think it's fair to say he "went right along" with it.
On top of all that, Trump wasn't even President when the truly insane policies like vax mandates were pushed.
He did what most of us would have done: listen to his public health advisors (who turned out to be lying), call for sanity (masks/low IFR), and push for a vaccine to be quickly made. I bet 99% of us here would have said getting a vaccine to market quickly was a good thing at the time. He did more to push back than anyone did until DeSantis a year or two later (after attitudes had started to shift).
Yes, I agree with you on all you’ve said. I was just pointing out that he caved & ended up going along with the program. In the end he told people to get vaccinated. People seem to see him as a savior- I see him as a con man that says what his peeps want to hear but then only looks out for himself in the end. I felt like that poster was saying vote for Trump but I may have misunderstood. As far as I’m concerned both Rs & Ds are complicit in the crime & we live in a full blown fascist state.
I don't agree he "caved." Everyone said get the vaccines. Like, everyone. You can't look back in judgement on past events with the knowledge of today. FWIW, I skipped the vaccines. I quit my job to avoid them. But, there is nothing Trump could have said or done to make that easier. The powers-that-be had decided the vaccines were the savior.
I also don't think most people see Trump as a savior (Clintons, yes. Obama, most def.) I hated the guy until all this happened and I saw how he was being treated. I have family who have been supporters since the beginning, and honestly, they think he's funny and see him as someone who's willing to push back against the sacred cows of the political elite. And they know very well his personal issues. They don't think he's a great person. Just the only one willing to speak up for them.
I somewhat agree re: Rs and Ds, but the D party is more completely bought. E.g., support for Ukraine. Zero votes against from Dems. All opposition came from the Reps. That's a legit difference. Trump, IMO, is neither D nor R. Our system forces candidates to choose one or the other. Like it or not, there is no viable third party option. There is a reason the Dems, the Reps, the media, the bureaucracy, academia, etc. all aligned against Trump: it's because he's not one of them and he's not on board with the forever wars. That's the only unforgivable sin in DC.
they ALL lie, as if Trump does not? I will give the Don this, he started 0 new wars..other than that, trump is a disaster of person and as a president.
I think that was in fact their mission statement.
Doctors are still offering boosters and people are still getting them.......
I couldn't believe it. My neighbor got Covid for the second time and her response was "well, I better go get another booster." I rolled my eyes out of her line of sight.
The only people I know who have had COVID multiple times , as many as four times, are all Vaxxed and 2-3 times boosted.
Sounds anecdotal rather than dispositive. I've known several people who never got vaxxed and had COVID multiple times. Also people who were fully vaxxed (myself included*) and never got it, although I do think we actually had COVID in early 2020 before the vaccinations were out.
*- I was a victim of the paranoia, but I won't be taking any further mRNA shots in the future.
That is such a great honest answer. We don’t know and evidently , neither did the experts. My own personal problem was being lectured by family and friends about the masks, social distancing and my choice to not get boosters after I had some disturbing symptoms after my second Pfizer.
As a primary care doctor practicing throughout the pandemic, I think the truth, on vaccines at least, falls somewhere between the highly polarized narratives put out by the two sides.
I recall when the vaccines were first made available that they were advertised to us physicians not as a means of preventing infection but as a means of preventing severe illness and death. In this regard, I would say they seem to have been highly successful, at least in our clinic. I ended up having about four times as many patients vaccinated as unvaccinated on my panel, but all of the five patients I lost to Covid were in the unvaccinated group as were all of the hospitalizations for severe illness aside from one. Anecdotal, true, but the numbers are so markedly divergent between those two groups - there should after all have been about 20 deaths in the vaccinated group if there was really no vaccine effect - that it’s hard to imagine this occurred by chance. Even more so given that my four colleagues with similar panel sizes had identical outcomes.
The problem, of course, is that it wasn’t very long before the vaccines were advertised in ways that turned out to be misleading. We were told they’d prevent actual infection and hence also transmission, which paved the way for “experts” to insist on universal vaccination, including children and enforced by punitive job-loss mandates, in the quest for that elusive high level of “herd immunity” that would allegedly end the pandemic. We were also assured that they were really no significant vaccine side effects whatsoever, even though I saw a few episodes that, although not lethal, would definitely prompt most MD’s to withhold future vaccination based on the general medical principle of “do no harm”.
Bottom line, we were told so much that was untrue that it’s hard to dissect out the parts that were true. My ultimate take is:
1. Yes, the vaccines do reduce death and serious illness in that group of people prone to more severe respiratory complications.
2. No, they aren’t particularly useful for reducing transmission, possibly in part because (ironically) by reducing symptoms they allow some subclinically ill people to wander around and infect others.
3. Because of this there was never any good rationale for giving them to children, in whom the risks of serious illness are quite low.
4. Like many vaccines, they are NOT entirely safe, and although serious side effect seem to be uncommon, there are certain groups (such as young males) in whom the small but real risk of side effects may actually surpass the small risk of serious illness from Covid infection, which is pretty much definitionally the point when one withholds rather than mandates a vaccine.
You are correct about anecdotal stories; you can find an abundance on both sides of the vax/Covid issue. I have to say your story resonates with me as my views have evolved in conjunction with my cynicism. Will the lab leak story be a case of the coverup is worse than the crime? Or is Gain of Function research the original sin?
Given the high proportion of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, and the fairly high unreliability of rapid tests in asymptomatic cases, unless you have had a blood test you simply can't say that you never had it. In my experience most of the people that claim not to have caught it have never had a blood test confirmation of that, and almost certainly they did get it and were simply asymptomatic.
I was vaxxed and boosted 3 times. Never got COVID. If it stays around in another mutated form, and another booster is recommended by my physician, I may get it. Just like I get flu vaccines.
Did the government lie when they said it would prevent infection or transmission? Yes, but they weren't lying about the lower-chance-of hospitalization or death. Which are pretty good benefits.
The topic is virus origin, not vaccine efficacy.
But they also lied about natural immunity, which is a pretty BFD. Our young adult son got the original Crud in 2020, got double-vaxxed because you couldn't live your life in NYC without Zee Papers proving you were anointed, and then got the Crud again in late 2021. If you are counting, that's like getting the Crud four times. He was already more protected from serious illness (which he didn't even need to be protected to begin with at zero mortality rate) from first having gotten the original strain, but was forced to get two more jabs and thus at some risk for vax adverse effects. Thank the lord that he was out of college or they would STILL be requiring he get boosted and boosted and boosted against all sanity and morality. It's personal now that our son might have sub-clinical heart damage FOR NOTHING.
Okay, I get your point, but...they did lie and insulted and betrayed the American people. Because they believe us to be that stupid. They’ve lost me.
Look into non covid related all cause mortality numbers in highly vaxxed nations. Also there is absolutely no way to prove that it reduces illness, hospitalization, or death. In fact the numbers say otherwise. It is called antibody dependent enhancement. If they lied about this, why would you believe the rest??
Yeah, my view was similar to yours until recently. I spent 18 months on FB defending the vaccines, only to see my arguments repeatedly undermined by revelations of the shortcomings of the vaccine. Turns out Fauci wasn’t sold on them from the start so I’m feeling like a dunce for taking government sources at their word. At this point time, with Covid now endemic, it’s clear that it no longer makes sense to vaccinate or boost.
https://archive.is/2023.02.08-175647/https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/dr-anthony-fauci-now-admits-the-mrna?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=363080&post_id=101474378&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Thanks for the reminder what the topic is about :-) No surprise it has gone in other directions; some see all angles as connected as part of a grandiose big lie. But that seems as unlikely as those who compliantly believe every word governments say, apparently unaware of the use of propaganda to promote fear and guilt.
I am a pureblood and had Covid 3 times. I have small children and they also had it 3 times. No long Covid and IVM every time.
That's usually the case, but I do know a few who weren't vaxxed, but immuno-compromised that have had it a couple times.
You need to get to know a few more people. You can still get COVID if you’re vaccinated but you won’t die from it. You said “ multiple times”.I think that should tell you something. Maybe the vax. worked.
Here ya go, hot off the Cleveland Clinic press....https://open.substack.com/pub/igorchudov/p/being-up-to-date-on-covid-vaccines?r=2n3v7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
You need to skip the opening insult.. I’m not basing my comments strictly on my “ people.” My primary Care doctor has made the same observation in her practice. And she is livid with the CDC, etc. Her reputation has been tarnished by following their “science.” The vax did not stop people from dying. One of her teenage sons developed myocarditis. The average age of COVID death in the US is 84.5. The elderly were vulnerable as they are every year to the flu. I’m not anti vax but I sure as hell am never taking a vaccine with Emergency authorization. They took a gamble with this vaccine, possibly because Fauci knew that it had been engineered.. and we were the Guinea pigs. And now the CDC is putting it on the recommended pediatric schedule.. adding a minimum of 32 more shots before the age of 18. That’s mad scientist madness. People’s immune systems are being weakened by this onslaught.
A separate issue, though--lying about Covid's origins doesn't lessen the need to protect oneself from Covid, in whatever fashion one believes necessary.
How does one protect oneself from COVID?
-six feet apart
-wear masks
-stay home
-get jabbed
-plexiglass barriers
-instrument tents
-no working out
-no skateboarding
-no sports participation
-have the undesirables (the poors) deliver your purchases
-lock all the elderly in nursing homes and separate them from their families
-put people with COVID on ventilators so they get a secondary pneumonia infection and die
-film dancing TikToks
-get your hair cut or go on fancy outings of you're part of the elite
-prohibit the sale of seeds - NO GARDENING!
-prohibit the poors from going on vacation
-lose your job if you resist the jab
We did all these things all over the world and it did NOTHING to protect anyone from COVID. All it did was violate our freedom and create a bigger divide between the elite and the rest of us.
Read The War on Ivermectin by ICU doctor Pierre Kory. It contains a list of studies of Covid cures in order of effectiveness found. The book also describes how Ivermectin has tested well as a prophylactic against Covid. I think iodine nasal spray did as well. This book is really fascinating reading.
There recently was also a study that indicated that CBD could also help prevent infection / lessen its effects. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987002/
Hear Hear!!! WTF do people not understand about the bioweapon masking as a oops sorry it is a natural bat thing. BIG difference as this shows intent not oops a mistake.
This. 👆🏻
I didn't skateboard!
One big problem, that led to Americans pretty much leading the world in COVID deaths, is that too damn many people did NOT do ANY of the things you listed, or as few of them as they could get away with. Some of them were over the top, yes. Well over one million Americans died, even WITH some restrictions. And many of the restrictions actually helped decrease infections, and therefore hospitalizations and deaths.
It doesn't have to be totally one way or totally the other, No Restrictions versus Total Restrictions. As with most things in life, the truth likely lies somewhere in-between.
Facts not in evidence. I have seen no studies saying that any of those "interventions" saved any lives. Fact is Americans are morbidly obese, and we were told by government officials to stay inside, avoid exercuse, and avoid the sun.
Americans are also super obese and have all many of health problems, especially older ones. We manage to keep a lot of unhealthy 60+ people alive in this country. That population does not exist (or barely exists) in Africa. So it is hardly a surprise that the US also had a higher fatality rate.
Think of what the US death toll might have been if 1) we weren't the third largest population in the world, 2) we hadn't killed so many by lethal Nursing/Care Home policies, 3) we hadn't killed so many in the earlier days by ventilating, 4) we didn't have truly extraordinary rates of obesity and diabetes, and 5) hospitals weren't incentivized to declare deaths to be FROM Covid vs. WITH Covid.
So i guess it's Americans' fault? This Jeffrey Becker pseudonym sounds familiar. Is this Dr. Fauci again?
Ivermectin, Zinc, Vit C, Melatonin, D3. All protect against the negative effects of Covid. If you are not vulnerable, overweight, aged, infirm, chronically ill then all is good. Israeli studies showed ZERO deaths from Covid in people aged 50 and under who were not seriously health impaired.
It looks like we might be able to add CBD to that list as well, a recent study found effects on covid infection.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987002/
Exactly
Unfortunately the vaccinations don’t work and if anything, increase your likelihood of infection. It’s hard to wrap our minds around it, but it’s true: both the virus and vaccination are bioweapons.
Vaccines and masks became politicized with the result the Covid death toll for Republicans rose far higher than for Democrats. The evidence is strong, the vaccine reduces hospitalization and death. https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/12/update-on-covid19-mask-and-vaccine.html
What about Independents? To separate who got vaxed and who masked by political affiliation is just silly. And I mean SILLY. And anecdotally is not supported by my own little orbit.
IMHO this data is suspect because of the nature in which the data was collected. The Federal Government incentivized hospitals to maximize deaths attributed to COVID. Even when the death was due to a separate incident such as automobile accident, shooting, prior dominant medical condition, drownings, etc. anyone dying that tests positive with COVID then the death was attributed to COVID regardless if they were a carrier or had COVID and recovered.
Anyone citing these statistics needs to understand the basis of the data.
Is someone's political affiliation listed on their death certificate?
Utter horseshit. Stop believing the propaganda.
It's quite possible that they are both. One application does not obviate the other.
There is no way to protect yourself except through natural immunity. Although it now appears that those jabbed may be shedding the mRNA gene material on others they come in contact with thus ruining the chance to have an uncontaminated blood supply for the future. What are the chances that this was part of the game plan?
Zero. Simply because the scenario you draw above is nonsense. So no chance.
Feddy! Type faster! The nation needs you!
You've been talking to Fauci! You be a believer!
Doctors and the corporations that hire them are still getting bonuses for the number of Covid shots they sell.
Vaccines were politicized with the result the Republican Covid death toll rose far higher than for Democrats. Yale economists did a study and found the Republican death rate, at first about equal to the Democrats, became 10.4% higher after the introduction of the vaccine. Vaccines reduced hospitalization and deaths. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30512/w30512.pdf
and https://politicsofthelastage.blogspot.com/2022/12/update-on-covid19-mask-and-vaccine.html
Shhh you’re raining on everyone’s reflexive contrarianism…
Why then did South Korea excess spike in spring 2022 +90%? Why did roughly half the countries fully vaxxed have more excess deaths post vaccine than pre vaccine? Could it be... the vaccines were no more effective than our largely useless flu shots? And that therefore any attempts to find efficacy in populations require data drudging - specifically ignoring any examples where more deaths occurred post vaccine than prior? That might explain why so many
Republicans died of Covid 10% more than democrats because they are on average 10% older. It isn't rocket science.
"Data drudging?"
Why would anyone allow themselves to be injected with a novel substance that had zero long term safety data? They literally took it out of the lab and started jabbing people. Insanity.
Because the fear mongering generated by our government, health officials and the media, all topped off with some serious shaming and blaming scared the crap out of people. The American people were told that not only could they die from the Virus but that they by not getting vaccinated could cause others to die. And it was a lie and they knew it!
Orwell was never fiction he was an essayist. Nineteen eighty four was biblical allegory. Orwell taught us how to talk about fascism.
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
He said Israel would become fascist but didn't realize how inept we were at committing to fascism.
The difference between flavors of totalitarianism is akin to the difference between potayto and potahto. Fascist, communist, socialist, dictatorial; the result is the same. Most debate in this arena involves assuring one's own favorite totalitarian ox doesn't get gored.
I don't quite understand the comment. Are you saying all government is totalitarian? What about governments that demand mutual respect for all rheir citizens. I remember Shel Silverstein's Freakin at the freakers ball.
I suspect you are confusing totalitarianism with middle class morality but as I said I don't understand . Societies by definition must have rules of personal conduct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEKrHTfrvoo
The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism
Not sure people rfbrazier@gmail.com e fascism with the zeal you state. Most of us don"t want a big daddy dictating our freedoms.
Cheers
Thanks Dennis,
I think most of us are fascists but Fascist is 20th century and I am ancient and in the dictionary of the English language by Samuel Johnson. Johnson uses conservatism to describe his philosophy. Johnson was a fascist in 1755 or an American in 2023.
The opposite of conservative is evolutionary one hundred years before Darwin.
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=evolution
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=conservative
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=liberal
I was born in Montreal
https://www.amazon.com/Let-Compare-Mythologies-Leonard-Cohen/dp/0061173754
I went to the same schools as Leonard and Kamala and like Cohen I am not an English PROTESTANT.
I guess I'm more of an "evolutionist". We adapt and evolve as warranted by the environment we bask in: political, environmental, economic and most important CLIMITE. We need strong government and corporate input to deal with both the extistental threats of war and global warming
Cheers
No labels or definitions required...just unified action
I just wrote a comment in the Fascist Toronto Star on the strength of Canada's conservatives. My comment awaits moderation that is why I subscribe to Racket News.
Iwrote.
"Since when do conservatives want change? "
They are all in on feudalism and public executions.
OOPS I shouldn't have used fascist; in English Canada we call neoliberals like your Bill Clinton.
No do obvious to me comrade
Meanwhile, I’m wondering how safe are all these vaccinations I took and got my kids to take. Damn. Of course I don’t trust these agencies. Should have known after WMD.
“Who you going to believe? Me or your own eyes” ~Groucho Marx~
Obvious is right. And it shouldn't have taken so many people this long to arrive at this conclusion. In May 2021, it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that in autumn 2019 several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough to require hospital care, “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”
David Asher, a fellow at the Hudson Institute and former consultant to the State Department, provided more detail about the incident at a seminar. Knowledge of the incident came from a mix of public information and “some high end information collected by our intelligence community,” he said. This was “the first known cluster that we’re aware of, of victims of what we believe to be COVID-19.”
The MSM is largely the reason why people remain reluctant to even consider the lab leak origin. They created and enforced a taboo against questioning The Narrative™, ensuring that the lab leak theory was relegated to the fringes. Dismissing and denigrating dissidents and doubters, they declared an unsettled question settled.
And if this virus was in China in autumn 2019, it was in America in autumn 2019. Remember all the stories about the 'early flu season'?
Nov 15 - https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/15/health/flu-season-early-start/index.html
Nov 16 - https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/flu-early-start-season-us-center-disease-control-prevention/
Dec 6 - https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/us-flu-season-arrives-early-driven-by-an-unexpected-virus.html "Flu season arrives early, driven by an unexpected virus"
Dec 9 - https://time.com/5746409/early-flu-season-2019-2020/
Dec 10 - https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/this-years-flu-season-is-off-to-an-early-unusual-start-cdc-says/
But the entire narrative hinged around March 2020 as the "arrival" of covid, because anything else would admit that we'd been living for the virus for MONTHS before even noticing it. Yet every single antibody test we did showed FAR FAR more people with antibodies that we assumed. By April 2020, 25% of NYC had antibodies. That's millions and millions of missed cases in NYC alone. That SHOULD HAVE tanked the entire narrative -- but getting Trump out of office was way more important than telling the truth. This is from April 27, 2020 (just before they stopped doing testing because it was showing an inconvenient truth):
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/coronavirus-antibodies-present-in-nearly-25-of-all-nyc-residents/
Regionally, the results suggest:
24.7% positive in New York City
15.1% positive in Westchester/Rockland
14.4% positive on Long Island
3.2% positive in the rest of the state
Agreed. I got murderous sick with "the flu" in late 2019, but everyone insisted it couldn't be Covid, too early for that. Now . . .
Is there a date for patient Zero contracting the virus? My sister was sick with flu from September through December of 2019. I knew of a couple other folks sick at that same time period. It was very nasty.
Even China says it was now mid-November 2019, which means probably 3 months earlier than that.
Does that correspond to the date there were military exercises going on somewhere "over there?"* The reason I ask is that I remember sometime during that period TKNews did some kind of story about the pandemic, and in the comment section, every time someone ventured an opinion about origin theory, there would be a "reply" about US troops conducting military games in the area. From the get-go and everywhere, the discussion being massaged, even at TKNews.
*Not saying there were . . .
Those exercises were done in October 2019.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/french-army-returned-wuhan-military-21988912
Fears members of the French Army could have been infected with covid-19 back in October after competing at the World Military Games, have been called "completely plausible", by an infectious disease expert.
I was one of them. Nasty indeed. Never had a clue it could have been Covid, because of course Covid "didn't exist" then.
And weren’t there people in Italy sick by early fall? There’s a region where Chinese work in clothing manufacture and return home periodically...to Wuhan.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7428442/
They found it in wastewater December 2019
And BBC even reported it in June 2020. Don't know why this didn't get traction
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53106444
I was sick for 2 1/2 weeks Nov 2019. I was extremely tired the whole time. Could hardly make myself something to eat and take care of my four horses. When I finally went to my nurse practitioner and told her how sick I had been, and my throat still hurt, all she would say was it is not strep throat. I think I was helped by the COPD meds I take - steroids for the lungs. I read a couple of months ago that hospitals are having a hard time getting these meds for their COPD patients. They are made in China. That is a good way to eliminate a few million folks.
Same here. And there were also mysterious and deadly viral outbreaks in nursing homes in Italy around that time as well which I don't think have ever been followed up on.
I’m sure when I open all those 2019 stories about the flu they must mention how important masks are!
Youight bite your tongue with it so far I'm your cheek! Excellent point.
Yes!
OMG I was so sick in fall 2019, I probably had it. But back then everyone just guzzled cold medicine and kept working anyway.
I knew people who were incredibly sick in fall 2019 and rather than believe they'd already had covid they let their fear of "something worse" than that illness drive them into the propaganda narrative.
Yeah my state officially supposedly went from 3 guys from China in quarantine had it, to seemingly 5% of the state basically overnight.
hmmm.
And you notice that "virus clusters" were discovered everywhere we did testing. Louisiana was an early "hotspot" because they got a lot of early tests because of Mardi Gras, but the virus was already all over the country.
2.1% of blood donations from WA/OR tested positive for antibodies -- and those donations were given in MID-DECEMBER 2019 -- four months before we did anything to slow the curve, and WINTER MONTHS when we were traveling and gathering for the holidays, going to basketball games and bars, etc. All the stuff they said was too dangerous in 2020 and 2021.
the key is teh "gain of function" research. That's why the intel agencies and Fauci were throwing cold water on the story. But why the MSM abetted the cover up is the sinister part.
Is gain-of-function research legal or illegal under federal law? Do you know? If illegal, maybe that's why we paid China to do the work . . .
It was made illegal during the Obummer administration. That's when Shi (the bat lady) moved her research from UNC-Chapel Hill to Wuhan.
And then Fauci etc. laundered the research money through Ecohealth in NYC to Wuhan. And Fauci lied about that as well.
Eco health just got another grant from Uncle Sam. You can’t make this stuff up. But they are supposedly going to be more careful in the future, new protocols or something.
What could possibly go wrong?
what he said
Thanks, gang. It would appear that Obama made the correct decision about banning GoF research, and Fauci found an end run around that.
It was already illegal when Obama shut down the U of NC BSL3. Gain of function research is essentially bio-weapons research, says Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law, University of Illinois College of Law. Boyle wrote the 1996 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, enacted into US law (unanimously) on May 22, 1990. It provided for the implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention as well as criminal penalties for violation of its provisions! After UNC BSL3 closed, the research was moved to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (a BSL 4 lab) along with scientists such as virologist Shi Zhengli, nicknamed "bat queen." Shi was director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. I'm not sure where she is now. Anyway, the rest is history in the making.
The NIH during the Obama administration issued a ban on "federal funding" for gain-of-function research. It was never made "illegal." The NIH later lifted the ban on Federal funding during the Trump administration in 2017.
Gain-of-Function research was never "illegal" in the U.S.---only Federal Funding for it. With the proper permitting and a go-ahead from the government, and a few $billion, a private entity presumably could begin conducting gain-of-function research.
Where's Elon?
As with climate change, GoF has its science supporters and detractors.
I think there is a disjunct between the MSM and what most people believe. The majority of younger people I've talked to since 2020 believed the wet-market story was b.s. from the get-go. They don't watch TV or read newspapers, in part because they question the narratives put out. You've also got all the recent surveys that show the majority of people don't believe the press anymore. The greater issue is that no one believes anything with any confidence now. Everything is in perpetual doubt.
Very true. The internet has radically fragmented society. Everyone has their own truth now because the internet provides plenty of self-affirming information. There's no shortage of websites or people who'll tell you what you want to hear.
You write almost as if you think it was better back when everyone went with Uncle Walter's Truth because that's all anyone could hear.
I write as if I'm stating the obvious.
So sad and so true, well stated.
If there is any good that comes out of this it will be that gain of function, which many in this field do not support, comes to it's end. I'm sure many in the scientific community, at least in China, but here too, knew Covid's origin, however, the medical community often goes mute when there is this degree of controversy, that is they stick together and keep their mouths shut.
Their complicity (medical professionals) is directly related to their job security.
It's like every other group. They stick together in times like this, and there are so many not only in the medical field, but the political arena all too willing to help.
No, gain of function is still going on with the COVID virus. Boston University announced a study last year.
I din't think it stopped just hoping it will. It's still going on with COVID? They make me sick.
"We funded dangerous GoF research at a shoddy Chinese lab and then the major players covered it up and blamed bat soup."
Bat soup.
This is the best single-sentence summary of this disaster I've read yet. Applause!
the pangolin steak was yummy
Fire up some racoon dog on the barbie, mate!
My appetizer of choice: Bat Tartare.
LOL!
How were they ever going to find the origin if it’d been consumed, anyway?
“🦇Bat Soup 🥣 “ That’s genius; but The real DC Comics Batman genius undoubtedly could estimate how many ministers feed a 3/4 spoonful to Xi every meal?!⁉️ A baker’s dozen; a hundred?
Well said.
Corporate media in 2023 seems more inclined to find faults with China as they try to build support for another war. Meanwhile they continue running cover for the gain of function culprits at home.
The problem is that China has the receipts.
And it definitely didn't help that when the mainstream media framed the origin controversy as Trump vs. the China lab, the China lab received respectful and credulous coverage.
Trump was right again: Kung Flu
If disasters can have great quips, this is the one I'd choose: Kung Flu.
And that journalist brought it up in a news conference hoping to bully him into an apology.
I will laugh my ass off when Trump wins reelection.
He was right about a lot of stuff.....no conspiracy.
Go hug someone in Chinatown right now, you racist!
Will do!
BTW, isn't labeling an area "Chinatown" in a city, racist?
He was only right because some of 'his' people were in positions to uncover the truth early in 2020. There was also a huge contingency of deep staters that kept the data they had from public view.
Just like with the 2020 Census. No, can't put the results out under Trump. So B gets in office and they give multiple congressional seats to blue states and come out after the next election and say oops. Guess it won't get fixed until 2030!
Yes, they would rather be nice to Chinese bio-terrorists (funded by US) than to Trump. That's how effing tribal we are.
Uhmmm.......several westerners have the same "receipts" as does China. Trouble is there currently seems to be no penalties for lying to Congress as if Congress would do shit all anyway.
And Biden in their back pocket.
And their cash in his front pocket.
They gave Ecohealth another grant recently. No joke.
I have a big assed zit on my nose...........and CHINA DID IT!!
Gotta love CNN coverage of this in 2020
"Nearly 30% in the US believe a coronavirus theory that’s almost certainly not true"
4/13/20
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-made-in-lab-poll-trnd/index.html
"Anthony Fauci just crushed Donald Trump’s theory on the origins of the coronavirus"
5/5/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/05/politics/fauci-trump-coronavirus-wuhan-lab/index.html
"Trump contradicts US intel community by claiming he’s seen evidence coronavirus originated in Chinese lab"
5/1/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/trump-intelligence-community-china-coronavirus-origins/index.html
"Weird science: How a ‘shoddy’ Bannon-backed paper on coronavirus origins made its way to an audience of millions"
10/21/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/21/politics/coronavirus-lab-theory-yan-bannon-invs/index.html
"Fact-checking Tom Cotton’s claims about the coronavirus"
2/18/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-fact-check/index.html
"Coronavirus myths and misinformation, debunked"
Myth: Coronavirus is man-made
3/13/2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/health/debunking-coronavirus-myths-trnd/index.html
I loved all those. One hilarious article that I can't find stated how media consumers were more "knowledgeable" about corona than us idiot conspiracy theorists. Two of the major points were 1) Media consumers 'knew' the virus was natural and 2) They knew there would be no vaccine in 2020.
The 2021 version of the article was about the same:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/government-is-a-relentless-freedom
Anyone mentioned by name on those articles should sue CNN into oblivion for defamation. If Dominion can get a billion from Fox, surely others can bleed CNN dry.
I live in Quebec this is not English speaking North America. Transparency is fundamental to Quebec democracy and we were informed every minute of everyday exactly what was happpening. They just finished studying the long term effects on our school students.
Telling children the truth has no serious long term effects.
In Quebec race, gender and religion are not real. We teach evolution in our schools. Evolution is the opposite of conservative. Liberal means free to adapt.
«Evolution is the opposite of conservative. Liberal means free to adapt.»
"Conservativism" is always and everywhere about the interests of insiders (incumbents), and it adapts without difficulty whenever that is useful to protect and enhance the money and power of insiders. That is why there is a famous phrase "Change everything to change nothing".
Modern "Liberalism" is also about the interests of insiders, but a different type of insiders from those of traditional conservatives.
Orwell's essays explain how to write about political philosophy. Canadian Socratic philosopher and writer John Ralston Saul calls it neoliberalism. He says it is neither new nor liberal. It is the same old hierarchy with God at the top and us at the bottom.
I would suggest you get a copy not of Voltaire's Bastards which is still brilliant but get copy of his Doubter's Companion A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense 1994.
His definition of cynicism is: Cynicism democracy's greatest threat.
American's don't know history John Adams was a Federalists and Federalists say liberal democracy is a pipe dream. Adams never considered the evolutionist Thomas Jefferson presidency legitimate even after Adams lost the 1800 election.
I am just learning how to write. My dream is to write a modern translation of the American Constitution which was designed to stop liberal democracy. Jefferson tried to have a new constitution for every generation.
And I keep asking, where is Rand Paul on this? Has he given up? He seems to rabidly intent at times and then nothing. Do Republicans have to have a majority to put Fauci’s ass under oath? I thank Schellenberger and Racket for putting this together, but for those of us leery from Day One....it’s a big “duh.” “ Probably from a wet market”.... oh those crazy Chinese people and what they eat, it’s disgusting”... yea, no, never bought it. So clearly our own government shared responsibility in COVID... and the conspiracist in me at this point can’t help but think the timing was so perfect for sabotaging Trumps presidency, the thriving economy, etc... we went from being confident to being afraid of our own shadow , well, actually our own breath. How great would it be if this little experiment gone wrong resulted in a global ban of all research and development of biological warfare?
Fauci WAS under oath when he was testifying to Congress.
The problem was that no Democrat in Congress was willing to do the work that Rand Paul put in to understand how deeply involved Anthony Fauci really was in the gain-of-function research issue and in the funding of the Wuhan laboratory for exactly that restricted sort of research.
This has been just another of the big gaslighting efforts that our bureaucracies have been pulling on the voting public.
Pollyanna here continues to be shocked by politicians willingness to lie about something like the origin of COVID. Think about that.
The Dems still control the Senate, so they set the rules regarding meetings and such. I'm 75% convinced that's why they "fortified" the 2022 midterms.
Hey, when Biden's team gets the 2020 census because the deep state refused to put the results out in 2020 miracles happened. Blue states gained a bunch of congressional seats! Ooops... 'we' found a few error... They will be fixed in 2030.
https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/30/republicans-question-final-census-count/
TX, FL, TN should have picked up an additional congressional seat.
RI and MN should have lost a seat had they not been overcounted.
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/deep-blue-areas-overcounted-census-heartland-states-handed-noticeable-setback
Covid allowed all sorts of shenanigans that would have normally gotten shot down. Mail in ballots being one of them.......
House Republicans can hold hearings if they choose. Problem is, they run them so ineptly that we can't take them seriously. I'd be all for making Dr. Fauci testify under oath given this new story, but serious representatives, not Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, would need to run it. Otherwise it's a waste of everybody's time.
I think house republicans have been extremely effective with the weaponization of the federal government. The problem is the media refuses to cover it. Consider Joe Bidens bribery claim - on the same day they devoted a ton of time to whether Donald Trump has documents in his house they gave zero minutes to credible proof of bribery and compromise of a sitting President. If the House puts our investigations and the media chooses not to cover them it is hard to get people to know the truth
A fair point: if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears or sees it, how do we know it fell?
Is any online news organization covering this committee evenhandedly and apolitically? Do such news outfits even exist?
The "serious" ones are either bought and paid for, are still hoping to be bought and paid for, or aren't willing to stick out their necks for fear of being thought un-serious.
You know we have biolabs all over the world (lots in Ukraine) to avoid our laws regarding gain-of-function. It government is rotten to the core.
Anthony Fauci should go down in history as one of the great villains of our time. He disgraced his profession by causing concerned citizens to lose trust in public health agencies and officials - he brought shame to the field of virology research through his greed, dissembling, and outright dishonesty - and he destroyed the reputation of the Center for Disease Control through his series of lies and misleading proclamations. This corrupt fraud ought to be stripped of his medical license at the very least and have his tattered reputation serve as a warning to others going forward.
Kind of weird how the same people who funded the virus apparently also funded the jabs (prepared, if not approved, with lightning speed in 2020).
Its almost as if some psychopaths cooked up an idea as close to "lock the entire world, then charge for the use of the only existing key" as was feasible, with the extra spice being the keys not even being designed to work properly. I mean, if you really squint...
Yep. Remember the unrelenting message from 2021: We go back to normal if you get the shot. They dangled that carrot out there and most people gobbled it up and thanked them for the privilege.
convict them if they divulged classified DOD secrets yes. But since when is participating in classified DOD programs a criminal offense?
The people who hid Anne Frank were criminals, the ones trying to ship her to the camps were law abiding patriots.
It’s the perjury and fraud that stands out as actionable offenses
As with Nixon and Trump, it's not the crime, but the coverup, that bites you in the ass.
In the case of everyone else, their crimes and coverups are cleared when they send someone else to prison for ratting on them.
When those programs are banned in the US and thus outsourced to crappy Chinese labs, maybe?
Yes - this should be filed under the headline, "F*CKING DUH: WIV Was Origin of Covid-19 With US Fingerprints ALL THE FVCK OVER IT."
Sub-headline: "Baric, Daszak, UNC, EcoHealth Alliance, Moderna, DARPA, Fauci all guilty as fuck."
This shows human hubris on parade. To go out and collect a deadly pathogen from somewhere in the middle of nowhere and bring it into a city of 12 million to study it. Wow! Talk about asking for it!
Just out of curiosity, I went back and looked at all of my Facebook friends’ posts on Fauci, circa 2020. They run the gamut, but “Fauci for president” pretty well covers it. Of course, no mea culpas will be forthcoming. No, they were onto the next 20 things of which they were embarrassingly certain for the next five minutes. But wait, they’re not embarrassed. No, again, they just continue to blather about whatever they’re told is truth by their Cable News Network this week. What a world. A near total loss of critical thinking skills defines the western world today.
"A near total loss of critical thinking skills defines the western world today."
I don't think that's an accident.
For a “24 hour news cycle”, it’s amazing that it takes years to get it right. We hop from one news story to another, content with innuendos and suggestions, failing to demand old-school journalistic standards. I’m glad I am finding some here on Substack and elsewhere. I work hard on where I get my news.
Exactly. Totally obvious. Evidently we are funding all kinds of shit in developing countries where it would be illegal to do it here. there should be a law that anything that is illegal here should be illegal to do in a foreign country.
''It was a great article, but this has been pretty obvious for quite a while.'
I think the value of this may be not the actual revelation, but the fact that evidence is mounting which might help *convince more people* not only that the lab leak happened, but that it was covered up so strenuously.
Just waiting for the MSM to wheel out Clapper and 50 other retired security/spook types to say this is all Russian disinformation.....
How do the DoD Ukrainian bio-labs fit into this picture?
Is there any interest to investigate why that ghoul Nuland was so concerned about Russians gaining access to them?
Because the Russians found ethnically targeted GOF research.
Ah, yes, “retired.”
I’m sure the legacy media will spin this news (if they even bother acknowledging it) to squeal for a war against China. Or like you said…escalating the war against Russia.
They'll ignore it.
That's a good one!
More proof that you can believe the opposite of what the establishment consensus is...and you will be correct every time. Now apply that principle to Ukraine, vaccines, white domestic extremism, Biden family corruption, Trump witch hunt, climate change, election transparency..........
Cannot like this comment enough -- that is where we are now.
Even though I've concluded this for several years now, with each story I still feel such a mix of disbelief, disgust, and grief of what our government has become.
Combined with the utter disappointment that so many of my colleagues simply refuse to see it for what it is.
It is you last statement that troubles me the most...And, sadly, until just recently, my spouse was a head-in-the-sand voter.
But the good news is, they finally divorced you and got their life back.
That's where you were going with that, right?
So I can get my life back by joining the head-in-the sand crowd?
No, you're pretty much done-for.
yup the only valuable service of the MSM is as an anti-truth purveyor. just listen to their edicts and know the truth is 180-degrees opposite.
The MSM is just our very own Amerikan Pravda.
By that logic, aren't masks both effective *and* ineffective?
Idiot.
"Sooner or later, this story is coming out...."
The next issue, which I'm not so sanguine about, is will anyone be held responsible for this avalanche of lies, will anyone pay any kind of price?
Looking at all the great American disasters of the 21st century—the Iraq and Afghanistan clusterfucks, Guantanamo, the bank collapse, Russiagate, now the mass Covid hysteria—the rule seems to be as long as you maintain lockstep fealty to every Insider Narrative, you will never lose a cent, a night's sleep, or do anything but continue to fail upward.
For instance, Apoorva Mandavilli, award-winning New York Times "science" reporter LOL, most famous for saying that any investigating of a possible lab leak was "Racist", delivered the commencement address this weekend at the Yale School of Public Health. And listen to this:
“At the New York Times, we pledge to deliver the news, ‘without fear or favor,’...I would urge you all to do the same. Tell the public the truth, the whole truth -- even if you worry that some of it will be misused by some people. Because if you don’t tell the whole truth, if you leave some things unsaid, it leaves room for others to swoop in …with misinformation.”
These people live inside gilded bubbles where everyone they know has an identical brain. They are impervious to reality, will never admit their incompetence and malfeasance, and honestly believe that no matter what any evidence says, they are the literal divine incarnation of Truth, while anyone who disagrees are "some people" spreading "misinformation" aka heretics.
Our global elite caste aka Social Justice Inc. will all protect and lie for each other and would rather crash the whole country than admit they were wrong.
Aren't we being told now that the Trump documents case is based on his attempt to resist returning and then covering-up not returning the documents? Isn't the cover-up the "crime"? If so, then surely the massive cover up efforts by Fauci, Collins, and all the rest about the origins of Covid constitutes a crime?
To expose Fauci and company would require a functioning justice system in this country. Does anyone think Merrick Garland’s DOJ would investigate/prosecute any of these people? How do you prosecute a bank robbery if the sheriff is driving the getaway car?
"The next issue, which I'm not so sanguine about, is will anyone be held responsible for this avalanche of lies, will anyone pay any kind of price?"
Child. In 2023?
i know!
Wuhan Lab and Eco Health Alliance should be sued out of business. The problem is in this fucked up world, there will be yet another and another bunch of idiots taking their place. I am so glad I am old now and won't have to see where this crazy train is headed much longer. Fuck me.
I'm aware of two suits in NY state. They are at the Motion to Dismiss stage.
Considering how well our judiciary protects big business, esp those that have close ties to our government, I would bet these M2D will be granted. The fucking black robes.
"USAspending.gov reports that EcoHealth Alliance, despite possibly having caused the pandemic and definitely having repeatedly and gravely violated terms of a US-government grant, currently has 12 active US-government grants and contracts, totaling more than $34 million."
And now this --
"The DOD awarded a grant of $3 million to EcoHealth beginning Dec. 12 for the purpose of combatting pandemic threats emanating from the Philippines, according to USASpending.gov. The grant was awarded as part of a DOD program aimed at countering weapons of mass destruction."
Oh HOLY FUCK!
I hate when investigating more deets, you find out you really don't want to know what more evil lurks within.
But thank you.....I guess?
I see so many of these type of reports that NYT appears infected with Lie Plague. Why on Earth would the Times not report like it claims--without fear or favor? The feds cannot shut it down, it's too big and powerful for that. The Times has no real competition anywhere? So why not do the news on the level?
We are living through a mass ideological conversion of our liberal class, which i wd vaguely define as anyone in culture media academia tech plus the NGOocracy, the C-Suite class and various other Deep Staters like the military brass, State Dept, FBI, Dem Party etc—it is akin to an invasion and colonization of a defeated country, except it is not just our country but the entire Anglosphere and the colonization is both digital and internal.
After the Peasants' revolts of 2016 the global corporate class is determined to seize complete power and never risk an existential shock again. Making Social Justice the official state religion provides cohesion, In/Out group, a moral pretext for every move, the co-option of what used to be the Left, and a constant moral panic that goes by the general vibe of: Denounce or Be Denounced!
They are trying to lock in a Church/State ruling coalition based on surveillance and "managed democracy" and up next will be CBDC, which means control of the money supply and the ability to pauperize dissenters. We shall see if they succeed...
The time to revolt has passed. We could have triumphed with a second election of Trump but too many people were drunk on the cabal's stale and rancid koolade and smug in their distain of make America great again. Now it is just too late. The fix is in and the 2020 and 2022 elections proved it.
Sad but you are probably right. The overwhelmingly fraudulent 2020 election was a watershed
its the Blob. they are censoring each other, and lying, in order to protect The Narrative. they are being dogmatic in their belief in the new religion which has filled the God shaped gap in their heart. dogma trumps facts,
It would also seem they lie to impress each other.
First to release the not true story gets the clicks!
Shane, happy to clarify this with a fair amount of certainty on the answer. Remember when traditional print media was written off as having an out of date business model? They found a profitable new one - online subscribers. Unfortunately places like NYT and WaPo also found easy analytics like A/B headline testing and quickly learned what kind of content caused people to sign up for a subscription and what caused them to cancel one. Turns out that, after social media outrage stokes their flames, most MSM readers dont want to hear the truth, they want to hear validation of their preconceptions.
Well said, Kelly, and I believe you're right. I was out of the Chicago newsrooms before the industry lost its monopoly-on-ads revenue base, so avoided that disaster. Digital subscriptions are helping immensely, but they can't charge nearly as much as for a print subscription: 40 a year vs. 200. They can't afford to annoy the subscribers because they have little advertising to fall back on ... so clicks, likes, and Rageahol all around. Thanks.
This works both ways, btw. Epoch Times used to be interesting to me to read, with unique viewpoints. Then they went to a subscription model and now produce material I find way too far out there.
Fiction is more popular than truth.
Pays better, apparently, though you couldn't tell from my royalty checks :-)
The Epoch Times has always been interesting to read and their "unique viewpoints" have always been way too far out there. You do realize it's a mouthpiece for Falun Gong? With a stated mission to "save sentient beings." The Times outta adopt this as their slogan.
Steve Bannon is a big fan---nuff said.
NIH and Dr Fauci control a huge pot of grant money that scientists rely on. Follow the approved narrative or no grant money.
Reporters rely on scientists as the sources and “experts” for their stories. They just report what the expert scientists tell them. Scientists rely on NIH and Dr Fauci for money.
Not hard to see how the stories all followed reported the same lies.
AP and Wapo are just as bad.
The NYT's customers pay to hear what they want to hear.
The NYT was losing a lot of money until they went to the propaganda model. Profits soared.
I'd say precisely the same thing about Taibbi's subscribers.
Follow the money. Print news has been in decline for over 20 years. They need financial help to stay afloat. Who is going to rescue them? It is big Pharma and Government ads so they new policy at MSM is be friendly to the hand that feeds you!
"Government ads." What do those look like, exactly? Full-pagers in the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram announcing a Pentagon tag sale in Lot 702, featuring old, retired office furniture at 70% off?
And print news is not in decline, it's effectively dead.
Our local paper eliminated current comics and is back to Nancy and Sluggo. They've also hired Pro-Publica trained "journalists," and this is in a red state. It's like they're trying to drive away subscribers.
May seem cliché, but I believe it is money preventing them from rocking the boat. All income & assets are way down, & print demand continues to plummet. They must satisfy interest of shareholders, the numerous media companies they own, PLUS they must capitulate to their Board of Directors composed of senior executives from various corporations; i.e. Ernst & Young, AIG, Pandora, Etsy, Verizon, Roblox, GoDaddy, etc. I doubt NYT is willing to risk making any of these unhappy by diverting from widely promoted & acceptive narratives. Sadly, they lost their integrity 20 or so years ago.
I think you're right. My late wife always said about corporate life, "The answer to all questions is, Money."
failing upward
PREACH!
LOL
I know this isn't foremost on your and Michael Shellenberger's minds, but you'll be remembered for your fortitude. Others have contributed fantastic work on the Twitter Files (especially Lee Fang) but you two were hauled in front of Congress and belittled and smeared by morally backward and oblivious actors and entities., and remain the functional as well as symbolic face of the Twitter files project -- an endeavor I'm sure you knew from your first glance at an email from a three-letter U.S. agency to a Twitter exec would soon infuse your life with "odd" disruptions from the federal government.
In an era where people who use fake names on Twitter boast about having no fucks to give because they just dunked on an anonymous MAGA or pro-rainbow account, and actual cajónes are a vanishing commodity, people with genuine courage matter.
And then Matt received a "love letter of intimidation" from the Federal Agency that starts with I and ends with S. What an abuse of power.
Thanks, Jim! Keep up the yeoman work hectoring your douchey colleagues during congressional hearings. :o)
Just my namesake, which drives my left leaning sister a bit nuts. Which I enjoy of course.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ thank you. Perfectly said.
Glad to hear you had a part in this important story, Matt.
I hope that you, Mr. Shellenberger, and everyone else covering this important story continue to work until all the details are revealed - including the actions of the cowards who hoped to keep us in the dark.
The most significant consequence of the lab leak cover up is that we invested more heavily in gain-of-function research. A lot of us have known about the infection of the scientist (and the wife of a scientis who succumbed to it) at Wuhan for years. It's really strange to see the same story be reported as breaking news repeatedly... and to crickets. Let's hope it takes this time.
I thought when Nicolas Wade covered the story the phony debate was over. If the corporate media finally gives it attention, it's beause the story serves a different purpose to them now.
Agreed, but what would that different purpose be now to make the Bigs so interested?
War with China?? We need more war!!
"MOAR WARRRRRRRR!"
Perhaps it will involve Trump, like he was the one who had a hand in it.
And then the GAE brings him up on charges for that next.
Do you recall where you first heard about the infection of the scientist? I've followed covid-related stories *fairly* closely, and have long suspected that it leaked from the lab, whether intentionally or not, but this is the first I've heard of a specific person being identified as patient zero. I'm always on the lookout for news sources who do actual journalism.
It might have been on Brett Weinstein's podcast Dark Horse. If not directly from him, almost certainly from the work of one of his guests. Weinstein was so right, so early on.
Thank you!
It was divulged on Tucker Carlson by a guest of his in 2020. He said it was a lab worker in Wuhan Lab that was taken the hospital ill in 2019. Tucker had him back on his program over a year later to congratulate him on being right. I don't know anymore than I knew from Tucker's show, except for the name of the sick guy.
I follow Mandarin language news (both inside and outside China.) This is not new, although there is also a woman I’ve heard a lot of rumors about as patient zero (or potentially the person whose lab accident set this all in motion.)
Don’t bet on it...
Keep digging. As more revelations appear daily, my smug mask wearing vaccine nazi enforcer Fauci worshipping leftist neighbors shirk further and further back. Keep up the good work.
I cannot condemn anyone for wearing masks early in the disaster. We could only react and behave according to the information we got at the time, and the information was bogus.
Oh, it wasn't that "they" were wearing masks, it's that they insisted EVERYONE WITHIN A BLOCK OF THEM wear masks, even if sitting on OUR porch.
Cops arrested people for not wearing masks while hiking on remote trails. Government shut down places of worship while encouraging liquor store and Home Depot to remain open. An insane time.
"Government shut down places of worship"
Well at least *something* good came out of this mess...
I had no issue with shutting down churches IF we were shutting down everything else. But we didn't, it was hit and miss. That was stupid.
Nobody *needs* to go to church. It's a fundamentally frivolous activity. It's also the center of the bullseye in terms of pandemic risk: large groups of people (often hundreds or thousands), disproportionately elderly, all gathered together in an indoor setting, spewing respiratory droplets everywhere as they sing for 15-20 minutes, and then hanging around socializing in close proximity after the fact.
On the other hand, for example, there are severe alcoholics who will die, require hospitalization, or perhaps turn to burglary, if liquor stores are closed down.
Nothing is perfect. The government is not perfect. But, of all the things to criticize about the response to covid, church closures? Give me a break.
you do know people were actually KILLED for not donning the face diaper
Yes, I do, as well as knowing that some people were physically attacked for wearing one in public. (I was one of them.) Assholes are on the left and right.
Sounds like fake news. You were attacked for wearing a mask in public?
R-I-G-H-T
Don't call me a liar unless you're packing something besides a mouth, Rox. A peckerwood who hated the mask told me at a gas station that I was in a free state now--I was visiting Wisconsin and my car had Illinois plates--and I could remove the mask. I politely declined. He got annoyed and insisted I remove it. I declined again. He scowled and began to move toward me, at which time I put a hand on my concealed weapon and said, Don't. He backed off, said he meant no harm. I drove away but kept on eye on my rearview. No further problems.
That happened many times in my presence. Anyone who doubts you hasn’t spent enough time in Texas.
I'm sure that was a properly fitted N95 mask you were wearing, right? I just can't believe anyone thought a cloth mask that was probably handled hundreds of times and hung on your rear view mirror was going to stop a virus.
Go Badgers!
I will never ever forget in April of 2020, a boomer grandmother housewife, called into the Rush Limbaugh show and said "Rush there is no way this didn't come from a lab. The intelligence community has to know it came from a lab other wise they wouldn't lock us down." That is the moment I knew it was from a lab.
It was obvious. They kept talking all that pangolin-bat soup nonsense, but a few miles from that wet market was a virology lab doing research on bat corinaviruses. I mean, duh. I still don't know how all those people fell for that pangolin thing.
Ya for all the millennial bros like myself on the internet it was obvious. But for her to say that, idk it just confirmed it for me. Like this little old lady from Iowa is calling it like she see it. No way anyone agrees to lockdown a country unless their is direct intel that this is a lab leak.
Who the fuck is listening to Rush Limbaugh in 2020? Why not just get your info directly from a homeless meth addict?
Or, if a homeless meth addict is not available, any random Racket News commenter.
𝑩𝑹𝑼𝑻𝑨𝑳𝑰𝑻𝒀
It's time to end gain of function research. I can't think of one instance in which this research actually proved useful (though it's possible I'm wrong, feel free to correct me if I am).
Really, though, this idea that we need to create pathogens before other people do so we can find cures is absurd. Not to mention the ethics that come with certain practices, such as experimenting on animals.
As for the lab leak investigation, it's another poorly handled situation that can be boiled down to certain government bureaucrats freaking out over what might happen if the thing they didn't want to be true, was actually true.
Most of all, it's not that it was a lab leak that will piss people off -- it's that certain individuals denied it when the evidence says otherwise.
Bob, we are now living in the Age of the Absurd. It's more than just our scientists that have gone mad. The entire country is infected with madness. Sad, that it is all on purpose.
Just the phrase “mice with human lungs” creeps me out and gives me real pause. What else are we “creating”??
People who know how to think for themselves even if they didn't know a pangolin from a fucking penguin have known Covid-19 came from the lab a few hundred feet away and not some food market since early days.
"but there’s reason for optimism this time."
For what? They don't care that we know the truth. TPTB will ignore it. TPTB and their lackeys and useful idiots have eroded the meaning of truth like they've tried to destroy what a woman is. So we know Patient Zero. Yippee fuckin' kay-ay! What does that do for us really? Even if it leads somewhere...TPTB. Do. Not. Care Will anyone go to jail? One of the largest mass murders in history and no one who had a hand in it will suffer any consequence.
Prove me wrong. I'll eat a hat.
I just think back to the Snowden revelations about the massive illegal spying program. The only thing that changed was acceptance of the massive spy program. This will be no different. Nothing changes.
I saw posts on TS that Snowden should be captured for crimes against his home country. It seems they think he was put up to it to get back at the CIA and Military. Their only good guy is Assange.
Sorry we are busy worrying about some misplaced paper work. No time for mass murder
you are right - there is no cause for optimism. Down the memory hole Matt is clutching at straws.
Water under the bridge flows swiftly out of sight and mind. It's a continuous stream of filthy water.
People who know how to think for themselves don't make blind assumptions based on gut feelings when they lack reliable info on a topic.
You wanted to believe it, so you did. Nothing admirable about that.
You're an idiot.
I think Dwhy and feldspar are the same person -- their only "likes" are from each other LOL.
I'm much less respectful than feldspar. Dumbass.
no u
No, actually, he's spot on.
Offshoring of lethal toys like Covid has been the playbook for the US Govt since St Ronnie Reagan.
And don't forget that Victoria Nuland, the "Cookie Monster" herself admitted to 28 US Military Bioweapons labs in Ukraine. But she said they were for "good military bioweapons". Nothing to see here folks, move along.
I loved that news cycle. We went from "We have no labs in Ukraine" to "If the labs fall into Russian hands there will be a biological attack" real fuckin' quick.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/strap-on-your-clown-shoes
Long before Reagan actually. They were doing it before wwii
Sure, and they had plenty of mustard gas before that.
Not much more disgusting than germ warfare.
Twenty-eight U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine? What could possibly go wrong?
If bioweapon research is crucial to our national security, then we should be doing it in the United States, in military germ labs, and be able to defend the practice publicly. If we cannot defend it, we should be doing it at all.
Newp, Gemini.
"Guileful and idealistic." Um, okay . . .
Plum Island.
I had to look that up, but I'll bet $100 that bioweapons are exactly what are being spawned on Plum Island.
Russia posted information they found when they took over the US military bioweapons labs in Ukraine. It's damning, but I can't vouch for it's veracity. It certainly has the whiff of authenticity to me.
;it’s a fascinating and frighteNing story. Short on time, I’ll post some links. Google Willi Burgdorffer. The Swiss German scientist who discovered the bacteria responsible for Lyme Disease…
I bet this gets zero play on MSM.
Worse than zero - they will be actively trying to discredit any hint of it. Fauci will have to be given the Nobel peace prize or something counterbalancing
Well, Texas Terri. your dream just came true! Just finished watching ABC nightly. What they did cover was the actor Treat Williams' death in a bike crash (I liked him, will miss), Pat Sajak 's retirement next year from Wheel of Fortune (like him too), and Irish author Cormac McCarthy's passing. Yep all the news "you need to know".
Wuhan lab?
Not. One. Word.
Probably because Shellenberger presented no new revelations and no direct evidence pointing to a lab origin or animal origin. Direct evidence = confirmation.
Probably because it's 1. not news, and 2. sourced to anonymous government employees.
The Sunday Times is pretty mainstream.
"Memory hole," is such a brilliant, useful concept. These days I have been amusing myself by reading books and articles from before 2020 about virus research and it's pretty clear that, historically, lab leaks have always been pretty common. There is nothing unusual about them. The last human being to die from smallpox was the victim of a lab leak.
But suddenly, in the wake of the manufactured "Pandemic," lab leaks are astronomically unlikely and can't possibly be considered, except, apparently, by white supremacists. The credulous stenographers of the corporate media, besides being credulous, and stenographers, can't remember more than 18 months back.
As for conspiracy theories, the one actual conspiracy that has been documented was that among epidemiologists and other scientists to cover up the possibility that one (or more) of their own fumbled the ball in Wuhan.
"The credulous stenographers of the corporate media, besides being credulous, and stenographers, can't remember more than 18 months back."
That is a (fucking) brilliantly written line, Mitch.
Can't remember 18 months? They start getting hazy after 3 months.
Christian Nationalists are also notoriously careless with their gain-of-function experiments.
Serious question: What 'expert', corporate media narrative about the Covid pandemic has been proven to be true?
Any?
It feels like absolutely everything the 'experts' told us about Covid (its origin, the efficacy of masks and the vax, the need for 6 feet (not 7 or 5!) of social distancing, the need to close schools even though children had close to a zero chance of being harmed by the virus, etc, etc, etc ... has all proven to be a big lie.
Maybe that's why increasing #'s of Americans don't believe a word the 'experts' or the corporate media tell us.
Thanks for the great work to both you and Michael! I will be shocked if MSM ever mentions it. For those of us deplorables who were 99% sure where the virus came from, it is at least a little satifying to hear the the truth!
You wouldn't recognize the truth if it shit down your neck.