On July 29, 1805, Alexis de Tocqueville was born. His most famous book, Democracy in America (two volumes: 1835, 1840), quickly became a classic of social and political research and analysis, and remains the most important early book about the United States of America. He is often referred to as a founder of sociology as well as a major figure in the development of classical liberalism.
“What we’re alleging is that gain-of-function research was going on in that [Wuhan] lab and NIH funded it,” Sen. Rand Paul told Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the last 37 years and the chief medical advisor to the president, at a Senate hearing last week.
Paul contended that Fauci had lied to Congress by claiming “NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” when NIH did indeed finance such activity in that lab.
But Fauci denied that research met the official definition of “gain of function.”*
“You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans. You’re saying that’s not gain of function?” the senator asked incredulously.
“That is correct,” replied Fauci, before adding, “And Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly.”
“Many scientists,” writes Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, “think Paul actually does know what he’s talking about. One of them is Rutgers University microbiologist and biosafety expert Richard Ebright, whom Paul quoted as saying this research ‘matches, indeed epitomizes the definition of gain of function research.’”
The dispute pits Kentucky’s junior senator, concerned over what actually happened, against the bureaucrat, wiggling out from the bad odor of a terrible policy by, apparently, redefining terms.
Mere logomachy.
“What everyone can now see clearly,” suggests Rogin, “is that NIH was collaborating on risky research with a Chinese lab that has zero transparency and zero accountability during a crisis — and no one in a position of power addressed that risk.”**
“Fauci is arguing the system worked,” the columnist maintains. “It didn’t.”
The senator has officially referred the matter of Fauci’s fibbing to Congress to the Justice Department for possible (but unlikely) prosecution.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* “Any kind of animal virus that occurs in nature, that infects animals only, if you recombine it or mutate it or adapt it in the lab with other viruses so it has characteristics that change it from being an animal-only virus to being a virus that now can infect humans, that you’ve gained in function, you’ve gained pathogenesis or you’ve gained virulence — you’ve made it more dangerous,” Sen. Paul explained to Fox News’s Martha MacCallum. “Without question this is what happened in the Wuhan lab.”
** “According to an intelligence fact sheet released by the Trump administration and partially confirmed by the Biden administration,” Rogin also points out, “the WIV took our help and used it to build another, secret part of the lab, where they worked with the Chinese military.”
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Men cannot be cured of the love of riches; but they may be persuaded to enrich themselves by none but honest means.
July 28, 1868, is the official date for the certification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Is the epidemic of gubernatorial abuse of power ending in Michigan?
During the last year and a half, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been widely criticized for prescribing and proscribing all manner of conduct in the name of combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whitmer claimed that her authority to do so was justified by the Emergency Powers of Governor Act of 1945. On this basis, she promulgated many silly and counterproductive edicts.
These ranged from commandments to stay at home except for certain urgent forms of sallying forth (a lockdown also mandated in other states) to banning the sale of gardening equipment. Among other injunctions, Executive Order 2020-42 prohibited advertising of sundry “unnecessary” goods and ordered stores to shutter sections selling carpets, paint, furniture, and gardening materials.
In October of 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the 1945 Act unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority. Now voters have weighed in with a citizen initiative. The group Unlock Michigan collected enough valid signatures— “more than 500,000 signatures in just 80 days” — to send a measure repealing the Emergency Powers of Governor Act to the legislature.
Had lawmakers failed to approve the petition, its fate would have been decided by voters at the ballot box. But last week, in a 68 to 40 vote, the Michigan House joined the Senate to certify it — saving a lot of time and money.
In Michigan, a law presented to the legislature thanks to a citizen initiative and then enacted cannot be vetoed by the governor. So that’s it. Governor Whitmer’s access to this autocracy-enabling law is gone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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I don’t think they should take my credential into account. I think that people should be able to express their views freely in society whoever they are, and there’s actually a lot of people who are not scientists who have very insightful thoughts about the pandemic. And one of the principles of public health (many of which have been thrown out the window during this year) . . . is that you have to listen to the public. They’re the ones who are living through the consequences of the lockdown. . . .
Martin Kulldorff, Professor of Medicine, Harvard University, in conversation with Oksana Boyko on the RT program “Worlds Apart.” Kulldorff was one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration.
July 27 births include that of Samuel Smith (1752), an American who served as a captain, major, and lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army, and later as a politician in several capacities in the state of Maryland; Hilaire Belloc (1870), author of a classic analysis of modern political governance, The Servile State; and American singer and songwriter Bobbie Gentry (1944).
On July 27, 1694, the Bank of England received a royal charter, beginning a long history of central banking in England. Subsequent inflationary booms and deflationary busts are usually considered “mysterious” by people connected with the bank.
“This will light up the right.”
So Rollcall, the Capitol Hill newspaper, quoted an unnamed Republican aide.
At issue? Last week’s Senate Armed Services Committee vote to force young women to register for the military draft. That provision is contained in the gargantuan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Only five senators voted against mandating draft registration for women — all Republicans.
Two hawks, Senators Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), so opposed the change that they joined the beer-swilling Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in voting against the overall NDAA.
“Our military has welcomed women for decades and are stronger for it,” Cotton explained on Friday. “But America’s daughters shouldn’t be drafted against their will.”
“It’s one thing to allow American women to choose this service, but it’s quite another to force it upon our daughters, sisters, and wives,” said Sen. Hawley, adding “compelling women to fight our wars is wrong.”
As is conscripting men.
This Wednesday, the issue will come before the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). “I actually think if we want equality in this country . . .” Speier has argued, “we should be willing to support a universal conscription.”
Speier’s empty homage to “equality” does nothing for women, of course . . . or national defense.
“It’s time to end military draft registration altogether,” tweeted Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), “not extend it.” He joined a bipartisan group — Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — in a letter calling draft registration “expensive, wasteful, outdated, punitive, and unnecessary” and urging support for their legislation to end it.
Finally, some common sense.
I’m Paul Jacob.
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1 — Draft the Congress and Leave My Kids Alone (December 28, 2003)
2 — Americans Gung-Ho to Draft Congress (January 4, 2004)
3 — Public Comment at the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (April 25, 2019)
Overview — https://thisiscommonsense.org/2019/01/01/paul-jacob-on-the-draft/
There are words like Freedom
Sweet and wonderful to say.
On my heart-strings freedom sings
All day everyday.
There are words like Liberty
That almost make me cry.
If you had known what I knew
You would know why.
Langston Hughes, from The Panther & the Lash (1967).
On July 26, 1533, Francisco Pizarro’s Spanish conquistadors strangled to death Atahualpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, thereby ending 300 years of Inca civilization. The conquistadors were greedy and murderous, but the Inca civilization, arguably, was worse: totalitarian and radically inegalitarian. But they made great high-mountain roads. (Arguments about infrastructure promoted by Big Government continue to this very day. And it is quite possible that an earlier civilization made the roadways, which the Inca merely renovated.)
On this day in 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. military.