Category: media and media people

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international affairs media and media people

Gain of Dysfunction

Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland

Early in Putin’s war, rumors and assertions and “memes” about Russian forces attacking U.S. bioweapons labs in Ukraine quickly spread online.

The corporate press’s “official” “fact” “checkers” mocked the idea, of course. 

But then something … inconvenient … happened. Senator Marco Rubio asked Under-​Secretary of State Victoria Nuland point blank: “Does Ukraine have chemical and biological weapons?”

Her response was not, as Glenn Greenwald notes, what he was expecting. “Ukraine has biological research facilities,” she answered,* “which, we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.”

It turns out that the United States has long been working with Ukraine “to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.” And the relationship between defensive biological research and offensive is quite close, Greenwald suggests: “research that is classified as ‘defensive’ can easily be converted, deliberately or otherwise, into extremely destructive biological weapons.”

If this is at all puzzling, note those fact-​checkers, again. These “defensive” warriors in the memetic arena are supposed to serve as antibodies to “misinformation” in the realm of spreadable ideas. By reflexively debunking any new attack on accepted government-​approved opinion, they serve as spreaders of their own misinformation.

As in the war of ideas, so in the war of biological contagions.

The next question is: Does it make sense to place our labs on the border of our enemy?

But then, I thought it was a bad idea to subsidize biological research laboratories in Wuhan, China.

Our leaders think they know better.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Greenwald leaves in Nuland’s uh-stutters and the like. I’ve cut them.

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Internet controversy media and media people

This Is Just Huge

Dr. John Campbell, covid, treatments

“Why isn’t this in the newspapers?” 

That’s what Dr. John Campbell asked on his YouTube channel yesterday, reviewing several studies of ivermectin as an agent in the fight against COVID-​19 — but directly regarding the results of research out of Brazil. It was an impressive large-​number study, in which the researchers invited the whole population of Itajaí to participate, with 159,561 included in the analysis: 113,845 regular users of ivermectin and 45,716 non-users. 

“Seventy percent reduction in mortality in this study” of those who took a very “tiny dosage of ivermectin every fortnight, acting as a prophylaxis” over those did not. “I mean, this is just huge!”

Dr. Campbell, who has been a voice of calm science during the pandemic, goes on to say that “It’s almost as if information has been deliberately suppressed throughout the pandemic, to be quite honest.” With a wry look, he went on to say “No one’s saying that’s true, of course, but it’s almost like that.” 

Droll.

But non-​ironically, he insists the evidence is “powerful, present, and overwhelming.” 

“Seventy percent,” he marvels, “how do you argue with a number like that? It’s a very, very high number.”

And the decrease in hospitalization was 67 percent.

All in all, the study found less infection, fewer hospitalizations, and an astoundingly lower death rate in the ivermectin group.

Earlier in the video, the doctor considered another study, comparing the cheap anti-​parasitic to the far more expensive remdesivir, a Fauci-​pushed Gilead Sciences anti-​viral, with similar results.

It’s “almost as if” the expert class that spurned ivermectin doesn’t care if people die.

No one’s saying that, but.…

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The studies:

Kerr L, Cadegiani F A, Baldi F, et al. (January 15, 2022) “Ivermectin Prophylaxis Used for COVID-​19: A Citywide, Prospective, Observational Study of 223,128 Subjects Using Propensity Score Matching.” Cureus 14(1): e21272. doi:10.7759/cureus.21272.

I. Efimenko, S. Nackeeran, S. Jabori, J.A. Gonzalez Zamora, S. Danker, D.Singh, “Treatment with Ivermectin Is Associated with Decreased Mortality in COVID-​19 Patients: Analysis of a National Federated Database.” International Journal of Infectious Diseases 116 (2022) S1 – S130.

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general freedom ideological culture international affairs media and media people

Changing the Chinazi Channel

China, Uyghurs, Olympics

“Is there a more beautiful phrase,” Jim Geraghty asks his readers at National Review, “than ‘cataclysmic loss of audience’?”

Geraghty shares Dan Wetzel’s term for the good news that viewership of NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Beijing hit “a record low for the Opening Ceremony.” 

“Through the first four nights of competition,” reports the Associated Press, “NBC is on track for the lowest-​rated Winter Games in history.”

What’s going on? Americans are voting with their eyeballs! And TV remotes.

An Axios-Momentive poll shows why: “Seven in 10 survey respondents disapprove of allowing China to host these Olympics.”

“The host country, China,” explains Yahoo columnist Dan Wetzel, “is a serious problem.”

Wetzel called China’s use of a Uyghur athlete to light the Olympic torch “a propaganda prop to cover up a campaign of slavery, torture, forced abortions and internment in reeducation camps.” 

“Some Americans want U.S. corporations to take a stand as well,” informs FightThirtyEight, the polling website. “When asked whether they think ‘companies should withdraw their advertisements for the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in response to human rights violations by the Chinese government,’ 54 percent of U.S. adults said probably or definitely yes.…”

One sponsor, Coca-​Cola, “has dialed back its marketing efforts outside of China.” The Atlanta Journal-​Constitution notes that “soda aisles in grocery stores are bereft of Olympics-​themed displays” and “the main page of Coke’s U.S. consumer website made no mention of the Games.”

“Congratulations to the athletes,” offers a Boston​.com reader, “but the pomp and circumstance can’t hide what’s really happening there.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs media and media people meme

Olympic Sponsors

China, Olympics, genocide games

More on the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity:

All the Tyranny in China — Common Sense
Thriving Totalitarianism — Common Sense
Disney’s Memory Hole — Common Sense
Strait Democracy — Common Sense
The Sound of Sino-​Silence? — Common Sense
Pandemics — and Something Far Worse — Common Sense
The Most Deadly Disease — Common Sense
Friends & Enemies — Common Sense
‘One Child Nation’ Exposes the Tragic Consequences of Chinese Population Control -— Reason TV
Totalitarianized — Common Sense

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general freedom ideological culture international affairs media and media people

Exclusion-​Enforced Inclusion

covid, Canada, Justin Trudeau, authoritarianism, freedom

When the prime minister of Canada told the world that “Building Back Better means” not only helping the “most vulnerable” but also “maintaining our momentum on reaching the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” it might behoove us to look it up.

It’s not a secret.

It’s part of what Davos globalist Klaus Schwab calls “The Great Reset.” And the links between Schwab and Justin Trudeau are not tenuous: “what we’re really proud of now is the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau,” gushed Schwab weeks ago.

Well, Trudeau really had a chance to prove his Klausian globalist mettle last week.

Trudeau had indeed leveraged the coronavirus pandemic to institute tight statist controls on the Canadian population, right out of Schwab’s playbook.* But his vax mandate for truckers led not merely to supply-​chain problems in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the massive convoy protests in Ottawa.

So how did Schwab’s proud privileged prodigy perform?

First, he went into hiding. And then, while the protesters were explicitly directed against the vaccine mandates — notwithstanding the fact that 90 percent “of Canada’s cross-​border truckers … has had two shots” — Justin Trudeau couldn’t help himself, condemning “the antisemitism, Islamophobia,** anti-​Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia that we’ve seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days,” he proclaimed in a tweet. “Together, let’s keep working to make Canada more inclusive.”

Well, mandating vaccines is forced inclusion, the ominous part of the Schwab/​Trudeau agenda, enforced by exclusion. 

No wonder the growing opposition, sporting anti-​Klausian signs such as “Mandate Freedom.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The ’book in question being Schwab’s explicit program in Covid-​19: The Great Reset.

** Some participants are undoubtedly many of those phobic things, but evidence at the rally? Scant. As Tucker Carlson pointed out in his coverage, the protesters even shoveled snow and picked up trash after themselves.

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general freedom media and media people social media

Thank You for Not Stealing

gofundme, funding, truckers, Ottawa

GoFundMe has decided not to rob its users after all.

Canadian truckers have been protesting the requirement that truckers be vaccinated against COVID-​19 in order to cross the Canadian‑U.S. border to deliver stuff. There have been miles-​long convoys and so forth. Ottawa has been clogged with trucks.

The Freedom Convoy incurs expenses like gas, food, and lodging. Many people are glad to help because they’re sick to death of pointless, destructive Draconian measures to pseudo-​combat the virus.

Organizers naively sought to raise funds for the cause through GoFundMe. Alas, this is one of the left-​leaning tech giants that selectively enforce their alleged standards in hopes of thwarting ideological opponents.

After consulting with Concerned Canadian Officials, GoFundMe blocked the donations from reaching the intended beneficiaries.

That’s not all.

Instead of then simply refunding the donations, GoFundMe declared that it would redistribute the cash to GoFundMe-​approved organizations unless donors specifically requested a refund. Busy, inattentive people would be robbed.

Outcry ensued. The Florida attorney general, backed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, proposed to investigate the proposed theft.

GoFundMe caved. We won’t steal the funds after all, they announced (not in quite those words).

So if you tried to support the protest of the Canadian truckers and GoFundMe blocked you from donating, you’ll get your money back without having to make a special appeal for it. And now you can contribute to Freedom Convoy 2022 via GiveSendGo instead. Hurray!

Thank you, GoFundMe. Thank you. So. Much.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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