Tag: Covid 19

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international affairs media and media people

The Man the Media Missed

Wuhan, Covid

Searching for the world’s most compromised scientist? Look past über-​bureaucrat Anthony Fauci. Get a load of Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance. He’s in the thick of it.

The “it” being the lies peddled by China’s totalitarian state, the World Health Organization (WHO), important parts of the government-​funded American science establishment and — last but not least! — the vast majority of U.S. media. 

The Lancet printed and the media reported the infamous open letter from scientists declaring a lab-​leak origin of the virus to be unlikely, either without saying or without knowing that the scientist leading the effort to gather the 27 scientists’ signatures was the bag-​man taking U.S. taxpayer money and re-​gifting it to the actual Wuhan lab in question. 

Yes, Dr. Peter Daszak.

The good doctor also managed to secure a spot on the WHO’s much-​ballyhooed on-​site China probe — as the sole American investigator — to look (fecklessly) for COVID’s origin. Still, Daszak and company enthusiastically declared a lab-​leak “unlikely,” which the media mindlessly echoed … until even the WHO’s director-​general backed away from it.

The problem is not confined merely to one or two rogue papers or cable channels: it’s also endemic to social media. Facebook, which blocked coverage and silenced those of us trying to speak and learn about the origin of COVID-​19, turns out to have actually used — you guessed it! — Daszak as its go-​to expert to advise them on what info to block.

How did our news hounds miss this trifecta?

Even now — after Dr. Fauci and others agree we need an investigation into the origins of the CCP virus, and as several major articles present additional evidence that the virus may have come from Wuhan gain-​of-​function “research” — the news-​media response to its own obvious failures is to continue to blame … Trump.

The idea seems to be that the Sheer Awfulness of Trump somehow provides valid excuse to ignore China’s horrible behavior around the origin of COVID — silencing doctors, destroying important evidence and lying to the world — enabling its subsequent spread to pandemic level. 

Is this really all the result of mere incompetence?

If you believe that, I’ve a wet market to sell you.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability media and media people national politics & policies

The Worshipful and the Incurious

Fauci, Covid, Facebook, ban

Did the recent pandemic begin as a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China?

Who knows?

But in these United States there suddenly appears serious — even bipartisan — interest in finding out.

I’ve been curious for some time, but why wasn’t more of the media interested from the beginning? Why were questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology as well as the questioners often attacked?  

“[T]he newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-​leak theory wasn’t true,” Thomas Frank, the progressive historian and author, explains in The Guardian, “that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-​on-​fire ratings from the fact-​checkers,” adding that he “always trusted the mainstream news media.”

Thank goodness Senator Rand Paul confronted Dr. Fauci, again, leading to Fauci acknowledging the need for further investigation into the Wuhan lab that performed research on bat coronaviruses, arguably including gain-​of-​function research, with indirect U.S. funding. 

“Renewed focus on Wuhan lab scrambles the politics of the pandemic,” was one of several recent explanatory Washington Post articles.

Politics? 

You don’t say!

“The shifting terrain highlights how much of the early debate on the virus’s origins was colored by America’s tribal politics,” the paper reported, “as Trump and his supporters insisted on China’s responsibility and many Democrats dismissed the idea out of hand …”

The Post should include itself when referring to Trump-​blaming “Democrats.” 

Another article The Post dangled before readers captures the moment — “Facebook: Posts saying virus man-​made no longer banned.” 

In addition to the media and social media failure on this lab-​leak story, let’s not forget the “expert fail.” Mr. Frank fears that if Big Science is found to be the cause of the pandemic, it “could obliterate the faith of millions” in “the expert-​worshiping values of modern liberalism.”

We should be so lucky. 

What’s next: a release of Fauci’s emails?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall

Christmas in California?

California, Covid, corruption

“Gray Davis was never in a position to play Santa Claus,” said Steve Maviglio, press flack for the former California governor who was recalled by voters in 2003.

Maviglio was comparing Davis’ relative misfortune, back then — in not having a pandemic and the resulting economic stimulus — to today’s prospects for current Governor Gavin Newsom, who likewise faces a citizen-​initiated recall. Yet, while 18 years ago Davis both cut budgets and raised taxes, Newsom has now discovered an extra $100 billion of spendable funds to let him off that hook. 

California’s whopping budget surplus of $75.7 billion? Just the beginning. Democrats in Congress wanted to help with even more tax dollars, voting to drop-​ship Golden State pols another $26 billion as part of the stimulus bill … which every Republican opposed, calling it at the time a move to “supply the Governor of California with a special slush fund.”

“Newsom wants to hand out cash before California recall election,” Politico headlined its story on Monday, informing that the embattled governor was quick to “tell Californians he wants to give them cash and pay some of their utility bills and back rent,” and noting specifically: “Checks would arrive in voters’ mailboxes not long before ballots do this fall.”

One key part of Newsom’s $100 billion “California Comeback Plan” is to give $600 “to some two-​thirds of state residents in households making up to $75,000, along with $500 to families with dependents.”*

“It’s very significant,” offered former Gov. Davis, arguing “the future looks brighter as evidenced by the checks the public will soon receive.” 

Whose future, precisely? Not Californians, really. Newsom’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “Unlike the federal stimulus aid, undocumented immigrants and their families will be eligible to receive a state tax rebate,” The Sacramento Bee explained. “In fact, undocumented immigrants with dependent children will be eligible for $1,000 for family checks, double what other California families will receive, in order to make up for the lack of support at the federal level, according to Finance Director Keely Bosler.” [Emphasis added.] Must they document that they are undocumented?

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Photo by Rob Growler /​ Photo by Gage Skidmore

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responsibility too much government

Vaccines Without Passports

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott

The coronavirus vaccination passport idea, in place in New York, attempted elsewhere, in development in Britain, and all the rage among policy pushers like Bill Gates, has been nipped in the bud in Florida and Texas. 

On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order prohibiting “government-​issued vaccine ‘passports’ statewide.” The order prevents state agencies from establishing any requirement for vaccination on the populace. “The ban also extends to any organizations that receive public funds,” according to The Daily Signal, “forbidding those organizations from requiring Texans to prove they received the vaccine.”

After giving a pro-​vaccine statement, Abbott went on to reiterate his basic position, that “these vaccines are always [to be] voluntary and never forced. Government should not require any Texan to show proof of vaccination and reveal private health information just to go about their daily lives.”

He also stated that the state will continue to supply vaccines to citizens that want the shot(s).

Abbott followed a similar decree by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by just a few days. At the beginning of the month, Abbott had lifted statewide mask mandates. Florida, as you have no doubt heard, has been a free state (as opposed to a quarantine state) for several months, to a major media pile-​on (and a lot of inaccurate reporting, including from 60 Minutes).

The World Health Organization does not support vaccination passports. Now. But WHO is a feather in the wind, like the Vichy-​blown government in the movie Casablanca, so strong opposition to the practice by public officers in the United States is most welcome.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies responsibility

Lab Rats III: Doubling Down on Danger

Covid, China, Wuhan, virus

Ten months ago, I commented on a Newsweek article informing that “the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the organization led by Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, funded scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other institutions for work on gain-​of-​function research on bat coronaviruses.”

A deadly worldwide pandemic along with possibly explosive implications as to its origin, notwithstanding, the story went nowhere. 

Last week, I highlighted new evidence that aligns with the lab transmission theory pooh-​poohed in the World Health Organization report, which was quickly discredited — including by the WHO Director-General.

Yesterday, I went further into the cover-​up, and how the “conspiracy theorist” charge has been used by the confreres of the Wuhan scientists to dissuade anyone from looking in the direction of the dangerous research that had been conducted there. 

Josh Rogin’s Washington Post column gives greater context to the need to investigate the theory, expressed by Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control under President Trump, that SARS-​CoV‑2 was transmitted to humans accidentally through a Wuhan lab:

“Richard H. Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and biosafety expert … said the entire genre of research Redfield was referring to, known as gain-​of-​function research (in which viruses are captured from the wild and developed in lab settings to make them more dangerous), needs to be thoroughly reexamined.” 

Worse? “The world’s current plan to respond to the pandemic entails a huge expansion of precisely this type of research,” Rogin explains. “The $200 million program meant to ‘predict’ virus outbreaks is set to grow into a $1.2 billion Global Virome Project …”

“The plan is,” Ebright told Rogin, “having failed to predict and preempt and having possibly triggered the current pandemic, to increase the scale six times.”

Emphasis added because, well, can it be emphasized enough?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Earlier in this Series:

12 Monkeys in Charge

June 18, 2020 

Twelve Monkeys in Charge?

Lab Rats

March 31, 2021

Lab Rats

Lab Rats II: The Conspiracy

April 6, 2021

Lab Rats II: The Conspiracy

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Lab Rats II: The Conspiracy

“What if Robert Redfield is right about the Wuhan labs?” inquires Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin.

Redfield is the former director of the Centers for Disease Control under President Trump and a virologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he co-​founded the Institute of Human Virology. He told CNN he thought “the most likely etiology of this pathogen [SARS-​CoV‑2] in Wuhan was from a laboratory.” 

The doctor was clear: this is his educated conjecture, lacking incontrovertible evidence — which all of the other operating theories also lack. 

“Before Redfield,” Rogin writes, “the mere discussion of the still-​unproven theory that the covid-​19 outbreak might have been connected to human error at a research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan was considered taboo.”

Which is not to suggest that Dr. Redfield was not attacked and marginalized for mentioning the quite viable “lab theory” for human transmission of the contagion. “Redfield tosses viral kindling,” The Baltimore Sun’s editorial ridiculously accused, “on anti-​Asian fires.”

Last week, I lamented our incurious media and the Chinese cover-​up. But Rogin takes the charge much further: “The Chinese government and U.S. scientists who are close associates of the Wuhan scientists doing bat coronavirus research have tarred anyone who uttered it as conspiracy theorists, or worse (in their eyes), as pro-Trump.”

Yet, “the Biden administration has confirmed some of the Trump team’s factual claims about suspicious and still-​undisclosed work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” added the columnist.

“Conspiracy theorist” is a handy way to deflect attention from bad acts. Conspirators love the term, as do all cover-​up artists.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies

The Virus Is Power

Covid, China, Democrats

Remember how fast the pandemic scare went partisan? At first Democrats downplayed the contagion … because President Trump was up-playing it. Then they switched sides when they saw that they could out-​over-​play it, it being easy to “out-​empathy” Trump.

Masks went from being officially deprecated to officially required.

The lockdowns and extreme “social distancing” were instituted on the Trump/​Fauci team’s recommendation to “flatten the curve,” but after the allotted time and many hospitals suffering a serious lack of patients, the lockdowns continued in most states.

Despite a complete change of rationale.

The working notion appeared to be: keep deaths down and panic up … and wait for a vaccine.

Which Trump promised, and, well, rushed and pushed past the regulators.

Now, there exist substantial hurdles to fast-​tracking a medicine, even in an emergency. But the Democrats’ early resistance to Trump’s talk of HCQ as a successful COVID counter-​measure turned out to serve as an excuse to push vaccination, for had treatments using HCQ and similar existing medicines been normalized, the emergency authorization would have been ruled out of bounds.

And the goal of universal vaccination scuttled. 

So where are we now? 

In America, there are two basic approaches: mRNA gene “therapy” and a modified adenovirus, both focusing on the spiked protein of the SARS-​CoV‑2 virus with the aim of jump-​starting immune response.

And after the vaccines? The mandates. J.D. Tuccille, at Reason, covers this latest development — which a year ago was called a “conspiracy theory.” The Biden administration and major corporations are now developing “vaccination passports” that would continue the lockdowns for those who have not been vaccinated. 

And China may want in on that action.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Lab Rats

lab rats, rat, lab, Covid

“Given China’s coverup of the outbreak in Wuhan, the WHO’s early praise for the country’s response and the fact that it took a full year to get a joint Chinese-​international team on the ground for a brief visit,” explained The Washington Post, “the critical but challenging search for clues faced skepticism from the start.”

“Skepticism” is a kind reaction to the just-​released World Health Organization report on the origin of COVID-19’s transmission to humans. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed CNN that “the government in Beijing apparently helped to write it.” Though “foreign scientists on the trip took pains to praise their Chinese counterparts,” The Post noted, “They also acknowledged the limits of working with data collected before they arrived that may or may not be complete.”

Reuters reported yesterday that “Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic,” according to a statement from none other than WHO Director-​General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Yet, even acknowledging that the WHO report is based on highly questionable and woefully incomplete data, our major media continue to amplify the message that it is “extremely unlikely” the virus passed to humans through a Wuhan lab. 

So suggested a BBC story when international scientists went to China last month: “after visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they have closed the lid on a controversial theory.”

Why controversial? It would place further blame on China.

The possibility of a lab accident was raised a year ago, including here, but the media has seemed incurious. Now, with the newly released report, the unlikeliness of a lab breach is again a theme. 

But there has been no real investigation. 

The Post points out that the scientists who visited “got a tour of the facility, heard about the lab’s rigorous safety protocols and were told the lab was not working with viruses close to SARS-​CoV‑2.” 

Meanwhile, two new tidbits have emerged: (a) “One member of the team said in a post-​trip television interview that researchers at the [Wuhan Institute for Virology] lab were sick in the fall of 2019,” and (b) the final WHO report disclosed that a different lab, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control, moved on Dec. 2, 2019.

“I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory,” Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist and former CDC director, said over the weekend, “you know, escaped.”

It’s almost as if COVID-19’s origin is the one thing we’re not supposed to uncover.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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No Culture, No Future

Corinne Masiero

Actress Corinne Masiero, on stage at the César Awards — France’s version of the Oscars — shocked the nation by what she wore. And didn’t wear. 

Invited to present an award for best costumes, Masiero started the night in an ultra-​significant yellow vest emblazoned with the motto “No Culture, No Future.” But she came on stage wearing a bloodied donkey costume, then doffed it for a bloodied dress, and then removed that, too. On her naked front she had scribbled: “No Cultur, No Futur.” And on her back, but in French, “Give us back art, Jean.”

“Jean” being French Prime Minister Jean Castex.

While this is in the style of typical artsy antics, this was not just gratuitous. It was a protest. She wants theaters to open.

Unique — in the sense that it was by an artist protesting the anti-​lockdown cause, in a dramatic way usually reserved for more lefty causes. But not at all unique — in being against the lockdowns. All around the world folks are protesting the shuttering of society.

But why go to such lengths on stage?

Well, I might advise against … still, I haven’t seen much previously on the news about those protests?

Major media apparently does not have time, space or desire to cover protests over harsh, extremist “mitigation” efforts that “lock down” commerce and normal human interaction.

LifeSiteNews, a “non-​profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family,” had the best I found. 

“The world demands its freedom back: Anti-​lockdown protests sweep the globe,” runs its March 22 headline. 

“I don’t think I’ll be invited next year,” Masiero said, walking off stage. “We’ll see.”

What we need to see is more coverage … in the news.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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HCQ Blackout

Donald Trump, Covid, pandemic

“The race to find vaccines for COVID-​19 has dominated the headlines,” runs the opening of a CBS News story, “but there’s been less news about how to keep people with COVID out of the hospital.”

Accurate, so far as it goes, but something is missing.

The story that follows is about an anti-​depressant developed decades ago, and “a small but ingenious clinical trial and a series of coincidences [that] have led scientists to look closely at fluvoxamine as a possible tool to keep newly diagnosed COVID-​19 patients from becoming severely ill.”

The drug, the story tells, may do what has been claimed for a number of treatments (vitamins, minerals, and the infamous hydroxychloroquine, or HCQ): that is, prevent patients from developing COVID’s severe, deadly respiratory distress.

Yet, in a time of crisis, discussion of such treatments were regarded as “fake news” by social media; doctors and researchers who discussed them online had their videos removed and their posts suppressed. Neil Cavuto and others raised alarms. But now the American Journal of Medicine recommends HCQ, along with “Azithromycin, and Zinc for the treatment of Covid 19 outpatients.” 

So when CBS tells us that there has “been great caution about recommending repurposed drugs for COVID after the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was promoted as a potential ‘game-​changer’ by former President Trump — before it was tested in a large clinical trial on COVID patients,” let’s not forget what they are still hiding: that major media along with several governors and many “influencers” suppressed information about drugs that saved some lives and could have saved more.

All while seeking to eradicate the disease they feared most, Trump.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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