Democrat Party Must Be Beaten by Allied Forces

Ben Shahn’s
The Passion of Sacco and Vansetti
"Sacco and Vanzetti lie in coffins; in
foreground in front of a colonnaded
neoclassical courthouse (image left).
On the porch behind them hangs a
portrait of the infamous trial judge,
Webster Thayer. Towering over
Sacco and Vanzetti are members of
 the committee that reviewed
convictions: Samuel Stratton, MIT
pres; Lawrence Lowell, Harvard
pres and Robert Grant, retired
judge," (Kuykendall)

Madison, Wisconsin — Neo-liberal cultists, corporate media and academia brandish national-security nostrums, wokism taboo-talk, and therapeutic-complex-speak in the name of science, equality and all that is rational and good. 

This is the Democrat Party 2023, and it is fetid, nonsensical and corrupt.

Democrats want censorship across the media, for our own good of course, and any argument or airing of facts must be shut down. (See Cleveland. Washburne. Leon. Hibbett and Grim. Taibbi. Greenwald.)

As Covid 19 lab-leak case approaches beyond a reasonable doubt, corporate media and the Democrat Party only grudgingly acknowledge why agnosticism and provisional conclusions on Covid 19 origins are consonant with science. 

This agnosticism didn't last long as liberal media are now hyping a ridiculous new story about racoon dogs being the long-sought origin point in among the wet-market delivering SARS-CoV-2.

Laughs Alex Washburne:

This [media] episode is the most desperate, farcical episode in a series of increasingly outrageous, farcical episodes. These unjustified scientific media blitzes feel, to any reasoned skeptic, especially a seasoned skeptic with knowledge of what serious scientific discoveries look like, more like propaganda campaigns than diligent truth-digging efforts. These farces have turned The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Guardian into the Three Stooges of SARS-CoV-2 origins reporting.

Even liberals are asking, can media and Democrat stooges be this dumb?

For some three years, Americans raising questions about Covid 19 origins and asserting need for objective probes were branded racists, conspiracy mongers or allied with Russia.

For liberal-Democrat domestic forces, dishonesty is the best communications policy.

Time to ditch the Democrats. Democrats are protecting lies and are getting more ludicrous by the moment.

This is something media outlets should be aware of when reporting on the origins of COVID-19. https://t.co/HdeY7fkuPA

— Justin B. Kinney (@jbkinney) March 21, 2023

For a compelling knockdown of liberal response to reality, see Bio Safety press release below.

MEDIA OUTLETS SHOULD CORRECT MISLEADING ARTICLES ABOUT RACCOON DOGS STARTING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

 

On Thursday, March 16, The Atlantic published an article titled “The strongest evidence yet that an animal started the pandemic” [1]. Similar stories in other influential publications soon followed:

• New York Times: “New data links pandemic’s origins to racoon dogs at Wuhan market” [2],
• Washington Post: “New covid origin data links raccoon dogs to the pandemic” [3],
• Associated Press: “New COVID origins data point to raccoon dogs in China market” [4],
• Scientific American: “New evidence supports animal origin of COVID virus through raccoon dogs” [5].
• Science: “Unearthed genetic sequences from China market may point to animal origin of COVID-19” [6].

This is just a small sample of the barrage of news reports strongly hinting that the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic had been solved.

 

We believe these news reports are deeply misleading and should be corrected. We also believe the reports reflect yet another example of a small group of researchers exaggerating their findings and misleading the public with false certainty about the origins of COVID-19.

 

First, the data on which these claims are based have not been made available for other researchers to confirm and independently interpret. Rather, they were only presented in a private meeting between the researchers and the WHO [7]. The media therefore have no independent confirmation that the data are sound or that the researchers’ conclusions are valid.

 

Second, the data provide no substantive new information about the origins of COVID-19, even if taken at face value. According to reports, the central piece of data is a single SARS-CoV-2-positive environmental sample which contains DNA from a raccoon dog. There is no evidence that this raccoon dog started the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, there is no evidence that this raccoon dog was even infected with SARS-CoV-2, as there was also human DNA in the sample, and the viral material could just as easily have come from an infected human. The researchers appear to have cherry-picked this one sample, out of 73 total SARS-CoV-2-positive samples collected at the Wuhan market [7], because this one sample furthers the specific narrative they have advocated in previous publications [8,9].

 

Third, the researchers who reported the data have a documented track record of exaggerating their findings, concealing doubts about their findings, and hiding major conflicts of interest. In 2022, many of the same researchers claimed that they had “dispositive evidence” and “incontrovertible evidence” that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from the wildlife trade [10]. They later withdrew this claim [8,9]. In 2020, some of the same researchers co-authored the paper “Proximal Origins of SARS-CoV-2”, which expressed scientific certainty that SARS-CoV-2 had not been altered in a laboratory [11]. Those authors, however, failed to report a major conflict of interest: that the heads of their funding agencies played an active role in preparing this paper [12]. The researchers also failed to openly acknowledge doubts that they had privately expressed about their conclusions before the funding agency heads became involved (doubts that have only since become public thanks to Freedom of Information Act requests [12]). 

 

We believe that this latest episode represents an unfortunate example of influential media outlets spreading a speculative narrative under the guise of a scientific finding. We also believe that the meagerness of the data being sold to the public underscores the need for an urgent, comprehensive, and forensic investigation into the origins of COVID-19, an investigation that uses not only scientific data, but all the tools of intelligence gathering and law enforcement. 

 

The public deserves real answers, not false certainty.

 

 

Signed,

Amir Attaran

Colin D. Butler

Richard H. Ebright

David N. Fisman

Andre M. Goffinet

Elisa D. Harris

Laura H. Kahn

Justin B. Kinney

Yanna Lambrinidou

Milton Leitenberg

Helen E. Mundler

Bryce E. Nickels

Sabrina Packman

Dana Parish

Steven E. Phillips

Eric S. Starbuck

Tyler Stepke

Susan Wright

 

 

About Biosafety Now

Biosafety Now is an organization of experts in biomedicine, mathematics, public health, public policy, law, social science, and public advocacy, all of whom agree that research that creates potential pandemic pathogens more dangerous than those in nature poses existential risks to the public and provides few, if any, benefits for science, medicine, public health, or national security. 

 

References

[1] The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic (The Atlantic; March 16, 2023)

[2] New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market (The New York Times; March 16, 2023)

[3] Genetic data links raccoon dogs to covid origin; WHO seeks China cooperation (Washington Post; March 17, 2023)

[4] New COVID origins data point to raccoon dogs in China market (AP News; March 17, 2023)

[5] New Evidence Supports Animal Origin of COVID Virus through Raccoon Dogs (Scientific American; March 17, 2023)

[6] Unearthed genetic sequences from China market may point to animal origin of COVID-19 (Science; March 16, 2023)

[7] SAGO statement on newly released SARS-CoV-2 metagenomics data from China CDC on GISAID (March 18, 2023)

[8] Worobey, M. et al. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Science 377, abp8715 (2022).

[9] Pekar, J. E. et al. The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2. Science 377, eabp8337 (2022).

[10] Worobey et al.. The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence. [preprint] Zenodo (2022).

[11] Andersen, K. G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W. I., Holmes, E. C. & Garry, R. F. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med 26, 450–452 (2020).

[12] Timeline: The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 (US Right to Know; November 29, 2022)

###

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Magazine Shatters Thought Control on COVID 19 Lab Leak Hypothesis

Update: See also The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins, and Origins of SARS-CoV-2, (Jaime Metzl).

In 2020 to suggest that Wuhan Lab Leak hypothesis should be investigated and interrogated was considered heresy in elite circles. This was non-permissible thought, a forbidden topic, hence a media blackout.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists  — the venerable journal that has long criticized government duplicity on major safety concerns  — has published major features in 2020-2021 that, in sum, reveal research scientists and U.S. and Chinese public health officials conducting themselves akin to dishonest politicians on the topic of the origin of COVID 19.

The COIVD 19 origin conversation has appeared often an exercise in thought control and propaganda, a situation made worse by the presence of a lunatic in the White House throughout 2019- Jan 2021. 

On the one hand, there was a prominent research community promoting disingenuous statements on the lab leak hypothesis that were marked by misleading characterizations, deceptions, omissions and a failure to declare conflicts of interest by statement authors and organizers; on the other hand — the lunatic.

To disagree with the consensus is to engage in "conspiracy" talk, an elite research community assures us in well-publicized statements in The Lancet (Feb 2020) and Nature (March 2020).

A May 5, 2021 Bulletin feature, The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? by Nicholas Wade, suggests looking closer and considering the evidence, without apology to the moment's consensus. Wade's piece has reignited journalism on the origin topic.

Writes Wade:

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: The political agendas of governments and scientists have generated thick clouds of obfuscation, which the mainstream press seems helpless to dispel.

In what follows I will sort through the available scientific facts, which hold many clues as to what happened, and provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments. I will then try to assess the complex issue of blame, which starts with, but extends far beyond, the government of China.

Wade has written a brilliant analysis and it is crucial reading for those demanding transparency and candor from their governments during this unprecedented crisis.

Gov Tony Evers Can Issue New Emergency COVID-19 Order Now: Here's How

B.1.1.7 Mutation Should Be "Treated as a Separate Epidemic," Say Experts as Wisc Court Says All COVID-19 Viruses Are the Same

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — Gov Tony Evers needs to declare a new state of emergency; use the academic resources our state has cultivated to draft justification for the new threat in the specific form of the B.1.1.7 variant [aka U.K. variant, British variant or Kent variant].

This should be done soon in such a formulation that to disagree with the executive action is to disagree with evolution and the scientific community, and the Wisconsin University System in which the population retains pride and support.

On March 31, four rightist Supreme Court of Wisconsin justices issued a sweeping decision, blocking Gov Evers' executive orders declaring an emergency and mandating masks in many circumstances (Jeré Fabick v. Tony Evers 2020AP001718-OA Case History); (Opinions, Decision text); (Executive Order #105, February 4, 2021).

The case is Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Jeré Fabick v.Tony Evers (Case No.:2020AP001718). 

 

The four-to-three decision was issued with a biting dissent authored by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.

Evers can still declare a new state of emergency, but such a new executive order must be predicated on what the justices regard as new enabling conditions, the four Republican justices held, inventing a new reading of the power of the Wisconsin governor.

 

Jeré Fabick v.Tony Evers is what happens when rightest judges crawl under ideology; deny implications of evolution and declare uninformed views on virology and epidemiology to be judicial policy, in corrupt service to the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

Still, the COVID-19 variants' genetics have changed so radically and rapidly, and behave so differently (and destructively) that these mutated biological agents incontrovertibly constitute a new underlying cause and enabling condition for a new executive order declaring a state of emergency.

Jeré Fabick v.Tony Evers

People will die because of the Jeré Fabick v.Tony Evers holding that is, essentially, just another Republican power grab. Outside of Republicans, few believe the majority's opinion is anything beyond what the dissenting opinion describes as:

"[J]udicial immodesty, [that] goes beyond the relief requested and declares Executive Order #105 [Relating to Declaring a State of Emergency and Public Health Emergency​​​​​​] unlawful with scant analysis and without candid justification," (p. 2. Dissent, Walsh Bradley)

The seven justices agree on the authority of the governor to declare a public health emergency and issue emergency orders. 

 

Further, the Court agrees that COVID-19 as a new Coronavirus meets the statutory criteria as a public health emergency.

Beyond a profound disagreement on standing, a primary disagreement concerns the governor's power to declare subsequent multiple states of emergency for what the Republican-supported majority assert is the same "basis," the same "enabling condition," and underlying cause.

The dissent notes two relevant state statutes — Wis. Stat. §323.02(16) and 323.10 — relate to occurrences or imminent threat of public health emergencies, an argument the Republican refuse to engage, beyond a dismissive paragraph.

Gov Evers had declared four separate states of emergencies after the State Health department reported the threat of the Coronavirus and new data indicating spikes in cases and the imminent threat of increased community spread.

The state's case was briefed and argued by the Wisconsin Dept of Justice, brief filed by Hannah S. Jurss, assistant attorney general, and Joshua L. Kaul, Wisconsin attorney general. There was an oral argument by Hannah S. Jurss.

"[Plaintiff] Fabick, a single Wisconsin resident, filed suit as a taxpayer [after the third declaration of a State of Emergency and Public Health Emergency]. He brought his suit as an original action before this court, arguing that the Governor lacks the statutory authority to declare successive states of emergency 'arising from the same public health emergency,'" notes Justice Walsh Bradley (p. 4, dissent).

Gov Evers Can Declare New COVID State of Emergency

The most recent declaration of emergency is Executive Order #105 (Feb), struck down by the Court for relying on the same enabling conditions as past COVID-related declared emergencies.

Though Executive Order #105 mentions the B.1.1.7 variant — [aka U.K. variant, British variant or Kent variant], a COVID-19 virus with many gene mutations — as part of the reasoning for the Feb 2021 declared state of emergency, micro-biologists and epidemiologists note the B.1.1.7-U.K.variant is now dominant in the United States, and in Wisconsin, as noted by the Wisconsin Dept of Health Services, after first appearing here in Jan 2021.

The CDC director on April 12 called for Michigan to "to enact shutdown measures in response to its worst-in-the-nation surge of coronavirus infections," reports the NYT.

Writes Sanjay Mishra: "The coronavirus variant known as B.1.1.7, which studies show is both more deadly and more transmissible than the original version of SARS-CoV-2, is now the most common strain circulating in United States, and its growing prevalence has alarmed prominent epidemiologists (National Geographic).

Mishra continues:

Earlier in the pandemic, not many children were becoming infected with the coronavirus, and they did not appear to be major sources of virus transmission to other age groups. 'That changed with B.1.1.7' says epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. 'We're now seeing substantial numbers of outbreaks in schools and in school-related activities.'

Further, Mishra writes, outbreaks among children in Wisconsin and Minnesota now have experts convinced that this mutated form of the virus presents a new threat in its capacity to infect children, and its capacity to successfully bind to human cells.

A rapidly growing outbreak of COVID-19 in Carver County, Minnesota, has been linked to school-sponsored and club sports activities. In a study done by the Minnesota Department of Health, researchers produced a detailed map of COVID-19 transmission showing that the B.1.1.7 variant caused about a quarter of these cases.

A similar outbreak was reported in Wisconsin, where all the children at a Dane County childcare center who tested positive were 6 years or younger.Now, a growing number of experts want the B.1.1.7 variant treated as a new virus because of its genetically enhanced tendency to attach to human proteins.

Researchers believe the variant spreads so rapidly because B.1.1.7 accumulated a large number of genetic changes—17 in total—including eight in the virus’s hallmark spike protein. The spike protein attaches to the ACE2 receptor protein, which is found on the outer wall of 72 types of human cells. After the virus latches onto the ACE2 receptor, it can enter the host cell, make more copies of itself, and trigger infection.

By binding more tightly to the ACE2 receptors, 'these mutations provide selective advantage to B.1.1.7, so that's why now it is spreading everywhere' says Olivier Schwartz, head of the Virus and Immunity Unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. 'It's a kind of a Darwinian selection process.' ...

Some researchers believe that B.1.1.7 behaves so differently from the original strain that it can even be 'treated as a separate epidemic,' says Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge.

B.1.1.7 also been causing problems in other ways. It carries a couple of genetic mutations in the spike protein called deletions, because they eliminate part of the genetic code, that help this variant escape antibodies during the body’s immune response after an infection.

So, why do Wisconsin Republican judicial policymakers and legislators want the COVID-19 virus treated the same as the radically different mutated strains?

Wisconsin Republicans need to recognize the fact of evolution and help the citizens of the state do everything in their power to slow this progression of the virus, its mutated strains and ensure the governor is not blocked by a corrupt Supreme Court and a corrupt state legislature.

Tony Evers and the Dept of Justice should be using Wisconsin's prominent research and academic resources, cultivated for over a century.  

Wisconsin has the great public research institution, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, home of pioneering public health and Zoonotic disease research. 

UW-Madison has 100s of research scientists and academics, evolutionary biologists, the Dept of Geoscience, the Genetics dept, the J.F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution; you get the picture.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice needs to be prepared to argue the consensus of the scientific community at the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Yes, this new strain should be treated as a new basis for a public health emergency and here's why.

What Gov Evers and Attorney General Kaul need to do is make the legal fight against COVID-19 variants a community fight, a citizen fight enlisting young Genetics and Geoscience students and academics, for example, and make outrageous decisions against our citizenry by corrupt justices come with unacceptable political costs.

In other words, if Republicans want to be on the side of the viruses, and kill our families, they pay the costs.

Starving children is fine with Republicans, as we know by Fabick which would have killed $50 million in funding to help provide food security, without desperate U.S. and Wisconsin negotiations to save the funds.

Basing more opposition to a new state of emergency on the proposition that evolution-in-action does not make genetically mutated strains a new virus, and a threat constituting a new emergency is crazy, and is jurisprudence that can be easily overturned.

Evolution is a fact. The scientific community knows more COVID-19 variants are coming. So does the Biden administration.

Biden's American Rescue Plan signed into law in March provides critical funding "to dramatically increase our country’s sequencing, surveillance, and outbreak analytics capacity at the levels demanded by the crisis," in a nod to virus mutations and evolution, both processes as real and predictable as the misery and devastation already inflicted (White House).

Following a call from Gov Evers and Attorney General Kaul, Wisconsin needs a brilliant project manager with vast interdisciplinary knowledge who can establish that genetically altered viruses are the emergency threat this Pandemic has wrought.

Guess what? In Wisconsin there are 1,000s of such people.