Where would we be without the FDA and the rest of the overfunded, overpaid federal bureaucracy?!?
Now, owing to the fact our golf game was postponed and we don’t watch outdoor sporting events during thunderstorms, here’s an unexpected edition of The Gouge!
First up, since we’re on subject of the unexpected, overfunded and overpaid, can we assume, the book’s title notwithstanding…
…neither Faux Chi nor his publisher expected the good doctor’s “ten lessons on truth, service and the way forward” to be accompanied by what Jim Geraghty, in an absolutely MUST-READ installment of his Morning Jolt, accurately describes as a rain incoming ordnance:
A months long Vanity Fair investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents, including internal memos, meeting minutes, and email correspondence, found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step. In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.
In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that staff from two bureaus, his own and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, “warned” leaders within his bureau “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.”
Are you kidding me?Whose side are they on?
As officials at the meeting discussed what they could share with the public, they were advised by Christopher Park, the director of the State Department’s Biological Policy Staff in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, not to say anything that would point to the U.S. government’s own role in gain-of-function research, according to documentation of the meeting obtained by Vanity Fair.
Some of the attendees were “absolutely floored,” said an official familiar with the proceedings. That someone in the U.S. government could “make an argument that is so nakedly against transparency, in light of the unfolding catastrophe, was…shocking and disturbing.”
Park, who in 2017 had been involved in lifting a U.S. government moratorium on funding for gain-of-function research, was not the only official to warn the State Department investigators against digging in sensitive places. As the group probed the lab-leak scenario, among other possibilities, its members were repeatedly advised not to open a “Pandora’s box,” said four former State Department officials interviewed by Vanity Fair. The admonitions “smelled like a cover-up,” said Thomas DiNanno, “and I wasn’t going to be part of it.”
This…is evidence that the seemingly hyperbolic conspiracy theories are true.High-level U.S. government officials recognized that gain-of-function research — which was controversial even among virologists — that they had indirectly funded, may well have been the cause of the worst global pandemic since 1918, killing millions. U.S. government laboratories hadn’t been doing the research of going into caves and mines in remote corners of China, collecting virus samples from bats, and figuring out how to make those viruses more dangerous and contagious, but the U.S. government had partially paid for it.And they feared the consequences of that disclosure so immensely, they concluded the public could not be informed about this.
The story gets even more shocking:
For most of the past year, the lab-leak scenario was treated not simply as unlikely or even inaccurate but as morally out-of-bounds. In late March, former Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab. “I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis,” Redfield told Vanity Fair. “I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.”
Hypothesis: If someone is so upset about a theory you’ve offered that they threaten to kill you over it, your theory is probably right. Nobody makes death threats over contentions that the moon is made of green cheese.
Then there’s this simple, clear, illuminating point from a professor who’s been ahead of the curve on this from the start:
Dr. Richard Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said that from the very first reports of a novel bat-related coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, it took him “a nanosecond or a picosecond” to consider a link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Only two other labs in the world, in Galveston, Texas, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were doing similar research. “It’s not a dozen cities,” he said. “It’s three places.”
Three places in the world are doing this kind of research on coronaviruses in bats, and a novel coronavirus most similar to those found in bats causes a global pandemic that started in one of those three places.What are the odds?
Think about it. This all comes back to the highest-paid federal bureaucrat, a guy who:
You’ll note he said, “totally consistent“; not “indicative of”, “suggesting” or any other term or phraseology allowing for an alternative. He deliberately and with malice aforethought said “totally consistent“. In other words…
Here’s the juice in meme form courtesy of Balls Cotton:
Next, we offer seven more items specially selected for inquiring Conservative minds:
(6). The WSJ‘s Kim Strassel recounts how 46*’s agenda has hit a wall in the Senate in the form of parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who has, at least for now, killed Chucky’s plan to evade the filibuster via “reconciliation”.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s three from Balls Cotton…
…along with these from Brenda Berry…
…Speed…
…and Breeze:
Finally, we’ll call it a week with another sordid story involving gross stupidity and a complete lack of judgment straight from the pages of The Crime Blotter, as FOX recounts some more of that sh*t you just can’t make up:
Maimi boy expected to recover after being shot, run over
“A 10-year-old Miami boy was shot after his father took him on a faux drive-by shooting with a paintball gun — and a frightened homeowner returned fire with real bullets, according to authorities. Michael Williams, 26, allegedly gave in to his son’s pleas late Sunday to take him on a paintball “drive-by shooting,” where police said the boy fired off the unlethal (“unlethal”: sorta like “nonlethal”) rounds into a crowd gathered in the front yard of an Opa-locka home, the Miami Herald reported.
But the homeowner, identified as Gregory Barns, thought the gunfire was real and that “he and his family were under attack” — leading him to return fire with a real round, striking the boy, police said. The youngster, who was not publicly identified, was then run over by his father’s van after being shot and losing his balance…”
Reports Mr. Williams, who, if our math is correct, fathered his son at age 16, has been removed from consideration for Father of the Year to make room for George Floyd remain unconfirmed.
Magoo
Video of the Day
Ben Domenech provides a profile of Dr. Faux Chi which differs slightly from the MSM’s glowing assessment.
Tales of The Darkside
Listen as Dr. Faux Chi refuses to recognize the reality NOTHING in the People’s Republic of China is not COMPLETELY CONTROLLED BY THE CHICOMS!!! The man is either hiding something or utterly naive. Either way, he should be fired, lose his pension AND face criminal charges.
On the Lighter Side
Phil Mickelson shows why he’s always been a fan favorite.
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