ER Re Audits, Fauci, Wuhan

Emerald Robinson is on a toot, er, tweet today. We all know the weaknesses of Twitter and related social media platforms, but when used well a single tweet can be a game changer for many people--it can give them just enough information in a convenient package to make their mind up. 

Robinson demonstrates this in a series of tweets this morning ranging over the only really important stories out there. For example, few of us any longer have the energy or time to really immerse ourselves in the details of the election fraud. We know it happened, but ...

What's important--as the Left knows so well--is the narrative. A few tweets can paint the big picture that's all most people really need or want:

Vaccines And Covid Origins

Many of you will be aware of reporting that has come out during the past week regarding a recently "discovered" book that was written by 18 prominent officials associated with the higher reaches of China's public health and military establishments. The book was actually published by a military university. The link that I'm providing here under the book's title is actually to an article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP): The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bio-Weapons. The article provides some useful background on the book.

Earlier today I watched an Ivor Cummins video that has, embedded within it, a news report from Sky News - Australia: Wow - Sky News AU just broadcast a fascinating piece on the Viral Origins! I'll embed the video below--it's only about 13 minutes long--but I've done a transcript of what I think are the most relevant portions for our purposes.

First, some background. The original "SARS crisis" occurred in 2003. SARS is a coronavirus that is endemic to the palm civet, much as the common cold coronaviruses are endemic to human beings and many other coronaviruses are endemic to other mammals. According to the official narrative--which you can find, for example, at Wikipedia, in 2003 SARS "jumped" from the palm civet to humans--it crossed the Great Divide, the xenographic barrier. This supposedly happened at a Chinese "wet market". If you're wondering why there have not been many, many examples of these sorts of "jumps"--given the prevalence of wet markets in China, full of exotic, coronavirus carrying animals in unsanitary close contact with humans--join the club. Common household pets in the Western world live cheek by jowl with humans, and yet we don't contract their coronaviruses, but something like that is what we're supposed to believe happened in China in 2003. And again in 2019 with Covid or SARS2, something like lightning striking twice in the same spot--except in the Covid case nobody except our MSM bought into that story.

Now, notice that the title of the Chinese book refers to "the unnatural origin of SARS." They're talking about that supposed "jump" that occurred in 2003, and the authors don't believe the jump was natural:

GOOD NEWS UPDATE: The Enemy Within

I didn't bother commenting when the story was leaked about Peter Navarro pretty much getting in Tony Fauci's face at a pandemic conference chaired by Vice President Pence. I guess the point of the story was that Navarro, being a Trump adviser, was bound to be a churlish know nothing and that Fauci was the voice of science and reason. The reality, of course, was that Fauci had documentably resisted taking effective action sooner than might have been done. Which could be forgotten in the circumstances if not for some of Fauci's antics since then.

Don Surber puts this into nice perspective, while quoting a NYT article that, from the excerpts, appears remarkably fair:

The New York Times reported, "A top White House adviser starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January that the corona virus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death. 

"The warning, written in a memo by Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, is the highest-level alert known to have circulated inside the West Wing as the administration was taking its first substantive steps to confront a crisis that had already consumed China’s leaders and would go on to upend life in Europe and the United States." 

The story also said, "Mr. Navarro was at odds with medical experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who had argued that such travel bans only delay the eventual spread. 

"Mr. Navarro alluded to that debate on Saturday during a separate argument with Dr. Fauci in the Situation Room about whether the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating or preventing the virus, according to two people familiar with the events." 

So it was a political appointee -- not a health expert -- who got President Trump to restrict travel to Red China. Fauci opposed the restriction. Now Doctor Doom wants us to stay in quarantine for a year or more. And he casts shade on the cure. He is the enemy within.

UPDATE: Commenter titanbabe noted that the link above no longer works and that Surber appeared to have taken down the post that I quote from. That post was part of one of his generic "Highlights of the News" posts. The good news is that, far from backing down--which would have been very surprising--Surber has devoted an entire post to the Fauci - Navarro story: Not listening to experts saved lives. And it's just as pithy as you might expect. Surber begins by noting, as I did, the remarkably fair coverage of this story by the NYT:

The New York Times had an intriguing report that if true totally vindicates President Donald John Trump while implicating Dr. Anthony Fauci as the man who shrugged COVID-19 off as just the flu.

Here's how it ends:

Had President Trump listened only to experts, we would all be dead by now. 

It was a political supporter and appointee -- not a health expert -- who got President Trump to restrict travel to Red China. Fauci opposed the restriction. Now Doctor Doom wants us to stay in quarantine for a year or more. And he casts shade on the cure. 

I keep hearing from readers who believe he is the enemy within. Never discount the probability of incompetence. 

Navarro, 70, has no medical training. He has a PhD and was a professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine as a professor of economics and public policy, and is now a professor emeritus. He also wrote, "The Coming China Wars," which likely drew Donald Trump's attention. Navarro's title is Director of Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, but obviously he is there because of his expertise on Red China. 

In his January 29 memo on COVID-19, Navarro wrote, "If the probability of a pandemic is greater than roughly 1%, a game-theoretic analysis of the corona virus indicates the clear dominant strategy is an immediate travel ban on China."

Two days later, the president restricted travel from Red China. 

And Navarro wrote in that memo, "Regardless of whether the corona virus proves to be a pandemic-level outbreak, there are certain costs associated with engaging in policies to contain and mitigate the spread of the disease. The most readily available option to contain the spread of the outbreak is to issue a travel ban to and from the source of the outbreak, namely, mainland China."

For anyone worried that Trump is being led around by Fauci, don't believe that. The fact that Fauci gave such glaringly bad advice militates strongly against that. Trump will be talking with clear thinkers like Navarro and Barr and others. They will help him make the call on ending the shutdown--not Fauci. Trump will of course accept advice from medical experts, but will certainly from experience how much weight to place on that advice.