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July 2020

Dr Waqar Rashid- The Oxford Vaccine Surpassed Expectations

https://spectator.us/oxford-vaccine-surpassed-expectations/

It has been yet another busy medical day in our ‘new-normal’ coronavirus world. Today, the Phase One results of the University of Oxford vaccine were published, confirming positive reports tantalizingly leaked last week. Also making the news is a press release from the pharmaceutical company Synairgen, touting very positive initial results from its inhaled protein, interferon-beta, in treating hospitalized patients with coronavirus.

In days gone by the publishing of results of a Phase One vaccine study would barely generate a ripple, even in the relevant medical speciality. But of course, this is no ordinary trial and we are truly in extraordinary times.

All medical products undergo a trial process, starting with studies which look purely at safety (not efficacy). Many trials fail at this stage. You may recall the disastrous Northwick Park study in 2006 which saw six healthy young people develop multiple organ failure from exposure. Once this hurdle is passed then a larger scale trial to look at efficacy is undertaken and if successful, a license is applied for and distribution follows.

Today, the preliminary findings for ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (the COVID-19 vaccine) appear to show that it has surpassed expectations. Firstly, the safety hurdle seems to have been met, although 70 percent of the 1,077 volunteers apparently did report fever or headache. Secondly, and in line with the bullish press releases last week, the vaccine garners both an autobody and T-cell response which it is hoped may provide lasting immunity to the disease. This is vital as studies have shown that patient antibody levels may fall after just three months.

There are the usual caveats: the study was over a very small timeframe and was not intended to show if it is a working vaccine, so we know little of its long-term safety or effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is now full steam ahead for the larger Phase Three study and the likely riches of being first on the market.

China Uses Forced Uighur Labor in Global Medical Supply Chain By Zachary Evans •

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-uses-forced-uighur-labor-in-global-medical-supply-chain/

Workers labor in a production line manufacturing protective suits and masks at a factory of a medical equipment maker in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, January 27, 2020. (cnsphoto/Reuters)

China is using Uighur labor as part of the global supply chain for personal protective equipment in an effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The workers are assigned as part of a Chinese program to turn Muslim minorities in Xinjiang Province, mostly Uighurs and Kazakhs, into factory workers and indoctrinate them to become more obedient and loyal to the state. The program is considered by observers to employ forced labor, in an attempt to eradicate the workers’ ethnic and religious identity.

Out of 51 companies in Xinjiang that currently produce medical equipment, primarily for domestic use, 17 participate in the labor program. Several other companies outside of Xinjiang that produce supplies for export also make use of Uighur labor.

The Times traced one shipment of face masks that ended up in Georgia in the U.S. to a factory in Hubei Province. That factory uses a contingent of Uighur laborers who are required to learn Mandarin and pledge loyalty to the Chinese state.

We Can’t Stop Coronavirus, But We Can Limit the Damage We’re Doing to Ourselves Scott Morefield

https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2020/07/20/we-cant-stop-coronavirus-but-we-can-limit-the-damage-were-doing-to-ourselves-n2572737

I know it seems like a lifetime ago, but if you’ll think back to the beginning of this pandemic you might recall that we were originally told we needed to “flatten the curve” so that hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed. Ah, the good old days. Remember? The understanding was that this was a highly-contagious, fast-spreading virus that would have to run its course, but if it ran its course at current speeds hospitals would crash, thus causing anyone in need of their services to suffer as well. It seemed like most people understood that. Unless they isolated completely, most anyone who was susceptible to getting the virus was going to get it eventually. Since it was here and already spreading, there was no actual stopping it, not forever, so let’s just manage it and protect those most vulnerable to the best of our ability.

While I’ve never been for the lockdowns and in fact spoke out against them at the time, part of me could at least understand the logic of some measures to slow things down, especially given the fear of the unknown that existed at the beginning. There was some common sense in measures intended to “slow the spread,” even though in reality they didn’t actually work all that well. We had “15 days to slow the spread,” then 30 more. Then, seemingly overnight, the narrative changed. The expectation went from “slow the spread” and “flatten the curve” to, oddly enough, “no cases at all.”

As we began to find out just how large the infection denominator was, as death rates plummeted infinitely lower than the two to five percent many were fearing at first, as actual deaths declined and flattened to less than 1,000 a day (even using their cooked-up numbers where someone who dies of a car accident or heart disease and had COVID is lumped in as a COVID death), the media-induced panic was only getting started. California is shut down again with calls for other states to do the same, and leftists seemingly won’t be happy until masks are legally required at all times on every man, woman, and child from the wilderness of Alaska to the streets of New York City from now until the end of time.

Charles Barkley On Antisemitism: ‘We Can’t Allow Black People To Be Prejudiced Also’ By Allison Schuster

https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/19/charles-barkley-on-antisemitism-we-cant-allow-black-people-to-be-prejudiced-also/

On the most recent episode of the news and pop culture podcast, “The Steam Room,” co-host and former NBA player Charles Barkley condemned recent expressions of antisemitism from prominent black entertainers and athletes.

Barkley used the beginning of his show, which comes out twice a month, to point out the hypocrisy of those who claim other groups are racist while promoting hatred toward both Jewish and white people.

“I want allies. I don’t want to alienate anybody,” Barkley said. “And to take shots at the Jewish race, or white race — I just don’t like it because it’s not right. And I had to call him on it because it’s really, it’s really been on my heart.”

He cited the most notable examples of recent antisemitic and anti-white comments from prominent black Americans, including Eagles wide receiver Desean Jackson, former NFL running back Steven Jackson, former host of “Masked Singer” and “America’s Got Talent” Nick Cannon, and rapper Ice Cube.

“Desean Jackson, Steven Jackson, Nick Cannon, Ice Cube. Man, what the h-ll are y’all doing? Like, y’all want racial equality. We all do,” Barkley said. “I don’t understand how insulting another group helps our cause… We can’t allow black people to be prejudiced also… I’m so disappointed in these men.”

Former NBA player and columnist for “The Hollywood Reporter” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also expressed outrage at the lack of appropriate responses at these racist incidents. His column called out some of the same cultural elites.

How Have Our Scientific Experts Gotten So Much Wrong?

Masks don’t make a difference. Remember that? It was about two months ago. The consensus of scientific experts who must be obeyed unless one is a Trump-loving troglodyte assured us that there was no need to don a silly mask. Today, masks are the Holy Grail of stopping the virus. How did that happen? What do we know in July that we didn’t know in May? Why did other countries seem to know the supposed value of masks while we didn’t?

I’ll give you another one. On February 29, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Lord High Guru Of All Science, went on the “Today Show” and told Americans the virus was “low risk” and that we should not modify our behavior. Two weeks later we shut down the country and invited the most devastating economic collapse in generations. Again, how did that happen?

But of all the blunders by our elite intellects that must not be questioned, perhaps the most significant is one that President Trump pointed out in March only to be jeered and mocked. On March 4, the president told Sean Hannity that he had a hunch that the World Health Organization’s assertion that 3.4 percent of people who contracted the Chinese Virus would die was wrong. He said he believed the actual number was closer to .5 percent.

“Trump’s Gut Collides With Science,” mocked NPR. Even I threw shade at POTUS, not because I thought he was wrong but for using the term “hunch.” But guess what, folks? We now know that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s “best estimate” for the mortality rate of the virus is .4 percent. Huh. Months after the mockery of him, it turns out Trump was right. It also turns out, and I know this is impossible so I can’t explain it, the scientific experts who must be obeyed were, how should I put this…um, (leans into microphone) “wrong.”

It’s Time to Shame the COVID-19 Liars Kevin McCullough

https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2020/07/19/its-time-to-shame-the-covid19-liars-n2572727

They are everywhere! From Dr. Anthony Fauci slyly working yet another media opportunity to the nursing assistants in my friend’s doctor’s office to the members of the newly formed Hysterical Church of Karen on social media. 

They seek to manipulate or have been manipulated everywhere they turn, and in every direction that they look.

They are the ones who need to stop. They need to read more, dig deeper, and attempt to do some critical comparison in their thinking process.

If after doing those things they still have reasons to keep their kids out of school, stay at home out of circulation, and demand that all in their households wear masks indoors and outdoors then they can choose to do so. 

But they don’t get to make that a way of life enforced upon everyone else.

Kids have suffered, anxiety has deepened, executive powers are being abused, and enough is ENOUGH!

Here’s just some of the outrageous tidbits from just the last three days of this week:

“These New Outbreaks Doom Us.” – It is one of the more prevailing messaging points currently. “These spikes are as bad as the original wave.” This is the rationale that they use to reverse the restarts. Gavin Newsom is literally toying with his own residents in California as though they are game pieces. Shutting down most other eateries while specifically allowing his personal favorite to stay open. Allowing counties to already declare that they need to return to at-home learning for the entire 2020-2021 school year. Yet if these outbreaks are evidence of a mass problem why do our numbers not even qualify as technically “epidemic” status any longer? And for those who are being diagnosed doesn’t the fact that we have Hydroxychloroquine, Remdesvir, blood plasma and anti-cholesterols being prescribed with great effectiveness mean something?

The ‘Primary Subsource’s’ Guide to Russiagate, as Told to the FBI: Eric Felten

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/07/20/the_primary_subsources_guide_to_russiagate_as_told_to_the_fbi_124516.html

“If there was any denial going on it was the FBI’s, an agency in denial that its extraordinary investigation was crumbling.”

Much of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Donald Trump was built on the premise that Christopher Steele and his dossier were to be believed. This even though, early on, Steele’s claims failed to bear scrutiny. Just how far off the claims were became clear when the FBI interviewed Steele’s “Primary Subsource” over three days beginning on Feb. 9, 2017. Notes taken by FBI agents of those interviews were released by the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday afternoon.

The Primary Subsource was in reality Steele’s sole source, a long-time Russian-speaking contractor for the former British spy’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence. In turn, the Primary Subsource had a group of friends in Russia. All of their names remain redacted. From the FBI interviews it becomes clear that the Primary Subsource and his friends peddled warmed-over rumors and laughable gossip that Steele dressed up as formal intelligence memos.

Paul Manafort: The Steele dossier’s “Primary Subsource” admitted to the FBI “that he was ‘clueless’ about who Manafort was, and that this was a ‘strange task’ to have been given.”

Steele’s operation didn’t rely on great expertise, to judge from the Primary Subsource’s account. He described to the FBI the instructions Steele had given him sometime in the spring of 2016 regarding Paul Manafort: “Do you know [about] Manafort? Find out about Manafort’s dealings with Ukraine, his dealings with other countries, and any corrupt schemes.” The Primary Subsource admitted to the FBI “that he was ‘clueless’ about who Manafort was, and that this was a ‘strange task’ to have been given.”

The weaponization of whining A crack in The Narrative? A glimmer of sanity? Maybe. Well, not really Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/weaponization-whining-harpers-cancel-culture/

Bill Buckley used to observe that liberals always say they are in favor of entertaining opinions opposed to their own but are then surprised to discover that there are opinions opposed to their own.

Bill died early in 2008 when the species homo liberalis was already under siege, his little squeaks for tolerance, at least in principle, drowned out by an inbred horde of professional victims, drunk on the cloying nectar of their own quivering sense of virtue.

These days students arrive for their bright college years with plump mental bottoms swaddled in moist moral nappies, their mouths puckering for the grateful nipple of energizing pabulum about the horrors of racism and prejudice, their tiny minds soothed by reassuring nostrums caressing their unshakeable sense of election. ‘Safe spaces’, ‘trigger warnings’, incessant bleatings about feeling offended and threatened because someone somewhere uttered a word they dislike, someone they disapprove of was invited to campus, someone wore an unacceptable hat or shirt or cooked ethnic food without permission.

At first it seemed partly risible, partly pathetic. But then one noticed the sharpened nails on those chubby digits, the spike-like teeth growing in those suckling mouths.

Welcome to the weaponization of whining, aka ‘cancel culture’. President Trump, speaking on July 3 at Mount Rushmore, connected the dots. ‘Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities,’ he noted. ‘One of their political weapons is “cancel culture” — driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has no place in the United States of America.’

MY SAY-WHEN BLACK LIVES MATTERED IN 1965

In 1964 then Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan , launched  a major study :The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, Begun in 1964 under President Kennedy it was completed the subsequent year under President Johnson and presented by the Office of Policy Planning and Research United States Department of Labor as a recommendation to implement The Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Chapters were:

The Negro American Revolution

The Negro American Family

The Roots of the Problem

The Tangle of Pathology

The Case for National Action

On the “Revolution” Moynihan wrote:

The Negro American revolution is rightly regarded as the most important domestic event of the postwar period in the United States. Nothing like it has occurred since the upheavals of the 1930’s which led to the organization of the great industrial trade unions, and which in turn profoundly altered both the economy and the political scene.

The Negro American revolution holds forth the prospect that the American Republic, which at birth was flawed by the institution of Negro slavery, and which throughout its history has been marred by the unequal treatment of Negro citizens, will at last redeem the full promise of the Declaration of Independence.

“…. the Negro leadership has conducted itself with the strictest propriety, acting always and only as American citizens asserting their rights within the framework of the American political system.”

Moynihan underestimated the breakout of violent and seditious groups like Black Muslims, The Student non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)- founded as a pacifist organization, it became radical and Maoist and the Black Panthers a socialist political organization founded by Marxist college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton who publicly proclaimed themselves as Maoists and anti-capitalism, anti-racism and anti-Zionism.

The principal challenge of the next phase of the Negro revolution is to make certain that equality of results will now follow.

To guarantee equality of results was both Utopian and detrimental.

The rest of the report focuses on the need to shore up the crumbling Negro family.

The emphasis on the family led to false accusations that Moynihan “blamed the victim” with the result that the problems the report addressed never received the serious attention they deserved.

Nonetheless the report along with The Civil Rights Act led to major reparation policies, the best known being affirmative action.

In many respects, the outcome was impressive. There are now many more black college graduates, many more blacks in high level jobs in the media, in the academies, in the professions, in business and in the corridors of power. It would be patronizing to list the number of highly qualified and well-placed Black Americans.

In the greatest act of moral reparation of all, Americans elected a Black president for two terms- something no Jew, or Hispanic-or Asian American has achieved.

Which brings us to Black Lives Matter and the present so called “revolution.”

The George Floyd killing should have elicited fair, and honest, and data-based debate on police tactics. Instead Black Lives Matter has become an occasionally violent movement, taken over by screeching “progressives” (many of them white) who tear down statues, burn our flag, bash and libel our democracy, yell anti-Semitic tropes and achieve nothing-nada- zilch. Instead of leaders of the caliber of Martin Luther King and Bayard Rustin and James Farmer we have scammers like Al Sharpton.

Can one honestly name one unjustly treated or drug and crime affected family whose lives have been ameliorated by Black Lives Matter?

The honest answer is no and the fault lies with the void in genuine leadership and the groveling (literally) acquiescence of both politicians and the general public.

The worst example of pandering is the Democrat’s $350 billion reparations measure to address a mythical “systemic racism” at a time when Americans of all races are severely impacted by a pandemic.

Will 2021 Be 1984? It’s all about the power, not the equality. Victor Davis Hanson *****

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/19/will-2021-be-1984/

Cultural revolutions are insidious and not just because they seek to change the way people think, write, speak, and act. They are also dangerous because they are fueled by self-righteous sanctimoniousness, expressed in seemingly innocuous terms such as “social activism,” “equality,” and “fairness.”

The ultimate aim of the Jacobin, Bolshevik, or Maoist is raw power—force of the sort sought by Hugo Chavez or the Castro dynasty to get rich, inflict payback on their perceived enemies, reward friends, and pose as saviors.

Cubans and Venezuelans got poor and killed; woke Chavezes and Castros got rich and murderous.

Leftist agendas are harder to thwart than those of right-wing dictators such as Spain’s Francisco Franco because they mask their ruthlessness with talk of sacrifice for the “poor” and concern about the “weak.” 

Strong-man Baathists, Iranian Khomeinists, and the German National Socialists claimed they hated capitalism. So beware when the Marxist racialists who run Black Lives Matter, the wannabe Maoists of Antifa, the George Soros-paid activists, “the Squad” and hundreds of state and local officials like them in cities such as Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis, and Big Tech billionaires take power. These are “caring” people who couldn’t care less about the working classes or the hundreds of African-Americans murdered in America’s inner cities.

Vice President as President

If Joe Biden is elected, the effort to remove him by those now supporting him will begin the day after the election and it will not be as crude as rounding up a Yale psychiatrist to testify to his dementia in Congress or shaming the White House physician to give him the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test in the manner that the Left went after Donald Trump.

It will be far more insidious and successful: leaked stories to the New York Times and Washington Post from empathetic White House insiders will speak of how “heroically” Biden is fighting his inevitable decline—and how gamely he tries to marshal his progressive forces even as his faculties desert him. We would read about why Biden is a national treasure by sacrificing his health to get elected and then nobly bowing out as he realized the cost of his sacrifice on his person and family.